love poetry

What is love? Ask him who lives, what is life? ask him who adores,
what is God?

I know not the internal constitution of other men, nor even thine,
whom I now address. I see that in some external attributes they
resemble me, but when, misled by that appearance, I have thought
to appeal to something in common, and unburthen my inmost soul to
them, I have found my language misunderstood, like one in a distant
and savage land. The more opportunities they have afforded me for
experience, the wider has appeared the interval between us, and

Thou sent'st to me a true love-knot, but I
Returned a ring of jimmals to imply
Thy love had one knot, mine a triple tie.

Jimmal or gimmal, double or triple ring.

How long, Perenna, wilt thou see
Me languish for the love of thee?
Consent, and play a friendly part
To save, when thou may'st kill a heart.

Love scorch'd my finger, but did spare
The burning of my heart;
To signify in love my share
Should be a little part.

Little I love; but if that he
Would but that heat recall;
That joint to ashes burnt should be,
Ere I would love at all.

I'll do my best to win whene'er I woo:
That man loves not who is not zealous too.

Ah, my Anthea! Must my heart still break?
(Love makes me write, what shame forbids to speak.)
Give me a kiss, and to that kiss a score;
Then to that twenty add a hundred more:
A thousand to that hundred: so kiss on,
To make that thousand up a million.
Treble that million, and when that is done
Let's kiss afresh, as when we first begun.
But yet, though love likes well such scenes as these,
There is an act that will more fully please:
Kissing and glancing, soothing, all make way
But to the acting of this private play:

How love came in I do not know,
Whether by the eye, or ear, or no;
Or whether with the soul it came
(At first) infused with the same;
Whether in part 'tis here or there,
Or, like the soul, whole everywhere,
This troubles me: but I as well
As any other this can tell:
That when from hence she does depart
The outlet then is from the heart.

First, for effusions due unto the dead,
My solemn vows have here accomplished:
Next, how I love thee, that my grief must tell,
Wherein thou liv'st for ever. Dear, farewell.

Effusions, drink-offerings.

When I did go from thee I felt that smart
Which bodies do when souls from them depart.
Thou did'st not mind it; though thou then might'st see
Me turn'd to tears; yet did'st not weep for me.
'Tis true, I kiss'd thee; but I could not hear
Thee spend a sigh t'accompany my tear.
Methought 'twas strange that thou so hard should'st prove,
Whose heart, whose hand, whose every part spake love.
Prithee, lest maids should censure thee, but say
Thou shed'st one tear, whenas I went away;
And that will please me somewhat: though I know,

As shows the air when with a rainbow grac'd,
So smiles that riband 'bout my Julia's waist:
Or like--nay 'tis that zonulet of love,
Wherein all pleasures of the world are wove.