A red, red rose - Robert Burns

O My Luve's like a red, red rose,That's newly sprung in June;
O My Luve's like the melodieThat's sweetly played in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass, So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,And the rocks melt wi' the sun:O I will love thee still, my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.And fare thee well, my only luve
And fare thee well awhile!
And I will come again, my luve,
Though it were ten thousand mile.

Sound of Silence - Raymond J. Baughan

Here in the space between us and the world
lies human meaning.
Into the vast uncertainty we call.
The echoes make our music,
sharp equations which can hold the stars,
and marvelous mythologies we trust.
This may be all we need
to lift our love against indifference and pain.
Here in the space between us and each other
lies all the future
of the fragment of the universe
which is our own.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 23

O, learn to read what silent love had writ:
To hear with eyes is love's fine wit.

William Shakespeare - Sonnet 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed.But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of the fair thou ow'st;Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

How do I love thee? - Elizabeth Barrett Browning

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints,--I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!--and, If God choose,
I shall love thee better after death.

If thou must love me, let it be for naught
Except for love's sake only. Do not say"I love her for her smile--her look--her way
Of speaking gently,--for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day"--

For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee--and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry:A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and love thy love thereby!

But love me for love's sake, that evermoreThough mayst love on, through love's eternity.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, from Sonnets from the Portuguese, Sonnet 21

Say over again, and yet once over again,
That thou dost love me. Though the word repeated
Should seem "a Cuckoo song," as thou dost treat it,
Remember, never to the hill or plain,
Valley and wood, without her cuckoo strain
Beloved, I, amid the darkness greeted
By a doubtful spirit voice, in that doubt's painCry, "Speak once more-thou lovest!" Who can fear
Too many stars, though each in heaven shall roll,
Too many flowers, though each shall crown the year?
Say thou dost love me, love me , love me- toll
The silver iterance! -only minding, Dear,
To love me also in silence with thy soul

George Gordon, Lord Byron, Stanzas for Music

There be none of Beauty's daughtersWith a magic like thee;
And like music on the waters
Is thy sweet voice to me:
When as if its sound were causing
The charmed ocean's pausing,the waves lie still and gleaming,
and the lulled winds seem dreaming.

And the midnight moon is weaving
Her bright chain o'er the deep;Whose breast is gently heaving,
As an infant's asleep.So the spirit bows before thee,
To listen and adore thee;
With a full but soft emotion,
Like the swell of Summer's ocean.

Love's Philosophy - Percy Bysshe Shelley

The Fountains mingle with the River
And the Rivers with the Ocean,
The winds of Heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one spirit meet and mingle.
Why not I with thine?-
See the mountains kiss high Heaven
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdained its brother,
And the sunlight clasps the earth
And the moonbeams kiss the sea:
What is all this sweet work worth
If thou kiss not me?

Percy Bysshe Shelley, To -

Music, when soft voices die
Vibrates in the memory. -
Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.-

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the beloved's bed-And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.

She Walks in Beauty - Lord Byron

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies:
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face:
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling place.
And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

 A Birthday - Christina Rossetti

My heart is like a singing bird
Whose nest is in a watered shoot;
My heart is like an apple tree
Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit;
My heart is like a rainbow shell
That paddles in a halcyon sea;
My heart is gladder than all these
Because my love is come to me.
Raise me a dais of silk and down;
Hang it with vair and purple dyes;
Carve it in doves and pomegranates,
And peacocks with a hundred eyes;
Work it in gold and silver grapes,
In leaves and silver fleur-de-lys;
Because the birthday of my life
Is come, my love is come to me.

Saigyo Japanese Poet

You left impressions unforgettable
and when I view our moon
your image surfaces
and that love seems forever.

I Love Thee - Thomas Hood