Ben Jonson (1572 - 1637): "Song: To Celia"

Drink to me only with thine eyes,

   And I will pledge with mine;

Or leave a kiss but in the cup,

   And I will not look for wine.

The thirst that from the soul doth rise

  Doth ask a drink divine:

But might I of Jove's nectar sup,

   I would not change for thine.

I sent thee, late, a rosy wreath,

   Not so much honouring thee,

As giving it a hope that there

   It could not withered be.

But thou thereon didst only breathe

   And sent'st back to me,

Since when it grows, and smells, I swear

   Not of itself, but thee.





From "Love Poetry Out Loud"
Edited by Robert Alden Rubin
Published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2007
Love Poetry Out Loud

Robert Bridges (1844 - 1930) : From "The Testament of Beauty"

Mortal Prudence, handmaid of Divine Providence,

hath inscrutable reckoning with Fate and Fortune:

We sail a changeful sea through halcyon days and storm,

and when the ship laboureth, our steadfast purpose

trembles like as the compass in a binnacle.

Our stability is but balance, and wisdom lies

in masterful administration of the unforeseen.



. . .




From "The Testament of Beauty"
A Poem in Four Books
Oxford University Press, New York, 1930

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 - 1882) : "Giotto's Tower"

How many lives, made beautiful and sweet 

    By self-devotion and by self-restraint,

    Whose pleasure is to run without complaint

    On unknown errands of the Paraclete,

Wanting the reverence of unshodden feet,

    Fail of the nimbus which the artists paint

   Around the shining forehead of the saint,

   And are in their completeness incomplete!

In the old Tuscan town stands Giotto's tower,

   The lily of Florence blossoming in stone, -

   A vision, a delight, and a desire, -

The builder's perfect and centennial flower,

    That in the night of ages bloomed alone,

    But wanting still the glory of the spire.

From "Flower - De - Luce"

Ticknor and Fields,  1867

Flower De Luce

Love

<> Photography

Zi Ye (6th - 3rd c. B.C.E.)

All night I could  not sleep

because of the moonlight on my  bed.

I kept on hearing a voice calling:

Out of Nowhere, Nothing answered "yes".

From "Women in Praise of the Sacred"

Edited by Jane Hirshfield

Harper Perennial (Harper Collins Publishers) 1995

Women in Praise of the Sacred

Translation by Arthur Waley

Thomas Traherne ( 1636 - 1674 ) : From "Christian Ethicks"

For man to act as if his soul did see

The very brightness of eternity;

For man to act as if his love did burn

Above the spheres, even while it's in its urn;

For man to act even in the wilderness

As if he did those sovereign joys possess

Which do at once confirm, stir up, inflame

And perfect angels - having not the same!

It doth increase the value of his deeds;

In this a man a Seraphim exceeds.

. . .

From "Flowers of Heaven" - One Thousand Years of Christian Verse

Compiled by Joseph Pearce

Ignatius Press, 1999

Flowers of Heaven

Omar Khayyám (1048-1131) : "Rubáiyát"

                            IV


Now the New Year reviving all Desires,

The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires,

   Where the WHITE HAND OF MOSES on the Bough

Puts out , and Jesus from the Ground suspires.

Omar Khayyám, "Rubáiyát"

Translation Edward Fitzgerald (First Version)

Drawings by Edmund J. Sullivan

Avon pocket-size Books, New York