Come live with me and be my love,
And I will make thee beds of roses
A gown made of the finest wool
A belt of straw and ivy buds,
The shepherds's swains shall dance and sing
How Do I Love Thee? - Elizabeth Barrett Browning
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
Old Couple - Charles Simic
They're waiting to be murdered,
A vicious pain's coming, they think.
In the meantime, they watch the street
I see him get up to lower the shades.
Talking In Bed - Philip Larkin
Talking in bed ought to be easiest,
Yet more and more time passes silently.
And dark towns heap up on the horizon.
It becomes still more difficult to find
Because I Could Not Stop For Death - Emily Dickinson
Because I could not stop for Death,
We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
We passed the school where children played,
We paused before a house that seemed
Since then 'tis centuries; but each
Death, Be Not Proud - John Donne
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
The Passionate Shepherd to His Love - Christopher Marlowe
And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.
And we will sit upon rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.
And a thousand fragrant poises,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;
With coral clasps and amber studs;
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.
For thy delight each May morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love.
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 but love thee better after death.
Or evicted. Soon
They expect to have nothing to eat.
As far as I know, they never go out.
It will start in the head
And spread down to the bowels.
They'll be carried off on strechers, howling.
From their fifth floor window.
It has rained, and now it looks
Like it's going to snow a little.
If their window stays dark,
I know that his hand has reached hers
Just as she was about to turn on the lights.
Lying together there goes back so far,
An emblem of two people being honest.
Outside, the wind's incomplete unrest
Builds and disperses clouds about the sky,
None of this cares for us. Nothing shows why
At this unique distance from isolation
Words at once true and kind,
Or not untrue and not unkind.
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.
Their lessons scarcely done;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible.
The cornice but a mound.
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity.
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.