"When I approach Her loveliness, so absolute she seems, As one intended first, not after made About her, as a guard angelic placed." BONNIE JEAN. "It is na, Jean, thy bonnie face, Nor shape that I admire, Might well awake desire. Something, in ilka part o' thee, To praise, to love, I find; But dear as is thy form to me, Still dearer is thy mind. MILTON. Nae mair ungen'rous wish I ha'e, Nor stronger in my breast, Than if I canna mak' thee sae, At least to see thee blest. Content am I, if Heaven shall give But happiness to thee; And as wi thee I'd wish to live, For thee I'd bear to die." AWAKE, MY LOVE. "Awake, my love! ere morning's ray Throws off night's meed of pilgrim grey; ; Ere yet the hare, cowered close from view, Till green Arbigland's woodlands shake! BURNS. She combed her curling ringlets down, Came forth the rival light of morn. The lark's song dropt, now loud, now hush ;- Called from the misty mountain top. D 'Tis sweet, she said, while thus the day To hearken Heaven, and bush and brake, To see the smoke, in many a wreath, Where yon blithe mower hastes along With glittering scythe and rustic song. Yes, lovely one! and dost thou mark The moral of yon caroling lark? Tak'st thou from Nature's counsellor tongue Each bird that shakes the dewy grove Warns its wild note with nuptial love— The bird, the bee, with various sound, Proclaim the sweets of wedlock 'round." ALLAN CUNNINGHAM. LOVE. "Oh Love, no habitant of earth thou art- A faith whose martyrs are the broken heart- The naked eye, thy form, as it should be; The mind hath made thee, as it peopled Heaven, Even with its own desiring phantasy, And to a thought such shape and image given As haunts the unquench'd soul-parched-wearied— wrung-and riven." LOVE. BYRON. "The joys of Love, if they should ever last That worldly chances do amongst them cast, A thousand sours has temper'd with one sweet SPENCER. TRUE LOVE. "True Love's the gift which God has given To man alone beneath the Heaven; It is not fantasy's hot fire, It liveth not in fierce desire, With dead desire it doth not die; It is the secret sympathy, The silver link, the silken tie, Which heart to heart, and mind to mind, In body and in soul combined." PERFECT BEAUTY. "A shape alone let others prize, I look for spirit in her eyes, A damask cheek, an ivory arm Give me an animated form, A soul where awful honour shines, Where sense and sweetness move, And angel innocence refines The tenderness of love. With power to heighten every joy, And raptures through the soul SCOTT. |