The Bargain by Sir Philip Sidney
My true love hath my heart and I have his,
By just exchange, one for the other given,
I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss;
There never was a better bargain driven;
My true love hath my heart and I his.
His heart in me keeps him and me in one,
My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides;
He loves my heart; for once it was his own,
I cherish his because in me it bides;
My true love hath my heart, and I have his.
The First Day by Christina Rossetti
I wish I could remember the first day.
First hour, first moment of your meeting me;
If bright or dim the season, it might be
Summer or winter for aught I can say.
So unrecorded did it slip away,
So blind was I to see and to forsee,
So dull to mark the budding of my tree.
That would not blossom for many a May.
If only I could recollect it!
Such a day of days! I let it come and go
As traceless as a thaw of bygone snow.
It seemed to mean so little, meant so much!
If only now I could recall that touch,
First touch of hand in hand! -Did one but know!
If I can make you cry by Paul Williams
If I can make you cry
If I can make you fill with pleasure
Just by holding you
In the early hours of the morning
When the day that lies ahead’s
Not quite begun.
If I can make you smile
If I can move you close
To laughter with a word or two
When your day’s been filled with strangers
And the castles that you build
All tumble down.
Oh well, that’s enough for me
That’s all the hero I need to be
I smile to think of you and me
You and I
And how our pleasures make you cry
Love by Guy De Maupassant
It is a short word, but it contains all:
It means the body, the soul, the life, the entire being.
We feel it as we feel the warmth of the blood,
We carry it in ourselves as we carry our thoughts.
Nothing more exists for us.
It is not a word; it is an inexpressible state indicated
by four letters
Feeling Safe
Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort, of
Feeling safe with a person;
Having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words,
But pour them all out, just as they are, chaff and
Grain together.
Knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift
Them,
Keep what is worth keeping an then – with the
Breath of kindness –
Blow the rest away.
The key to Love
The key to love is understanding…
The ability to comprehend
Not only the spoken word,
But those unspoken gestures,
The little things that say
So much by themselves.
The key to love is forgiveness…
To accept each other’s faults
And pardon mistakes,
Without forgetting –
But with remembering
What you learn from them.
The key to love is trust…
Though dark doubts
Lie in hollowed thoughts,
It must shine brightly on
With reassuring radiance
That suppresses fear with faith.
The to key to love is sharing…
Facing your good fortunes
As well as the bad, together,
Both conquering problems
Forever searching for ways
To intensify your happiness.
The key to love is giving….
Without thought of return,
But with hope of just a simple smile
And giving-in, but never up.
The key to love is respect….
Realising that you are two separate people
With different ideas;
That doesn’t belong to each other,
But belong with each other
And share a mutual bond.
The key to love is inside us all…
It takes time and patience
To unlock all the ingredients
That will take you to its threshold;
It is a continual learning process
That demands lots of work…
But the rewards are more than
Worth the effort…and you is the key to me.
From the I Ching
When two people are at one in their
Inmost hearts, they shatter even the
Strength of iron or bronze. And when
Two people understand each other in
Their inmost hearts, their words are
Sweet and strong like the fragrance
of orchids.
Keres Indian song
I add my breath to your breath
That our days may be long in the earth
That the days of our people may be long
That we may be one person
That we may finish our roads together.
Love by Roy Croft
I love you
Not only for what you are
But for what I am with you.
I love you,
Not only what you have made of yourself,
But for what you are making of me.
I love you
For putting your hand into my heaped-up
Heart
And passing over all the foolish, weak things
That you can’t help dimly seeing there,
And for drawing out into the light
All the beautiful belongings
That no one else had looked
Quite far enough to find
I love you because you
Are helping me to make
Of the lumber of my life
Not a tavern, but a temple;
Out of the works
Of my every day
Not a reproach
But a song.
I love you
Because you have done
More than any creed
Could have done
To make me good,
And moore than any fate
Could have done
To make me happy.
You have done it
Without a touch,
Without a word,
Without a sign.
You have done it by being yourself
Perhaps that is what
Being a friend means, after all
Unhurried Days
While unhurried
Days come and go,
Let us turn to each other in
Quiet affection, walk in peace to the
Edge of old age
Long Marriages
Oh, the head that lies on the pillow-
Twenty, thirty, forty years.
The hair that was brown goes grey,
Then white.
But all the time the love increases.
To see the head they’re all those years
Is itself a charm against the things?
Of night!
Together
We have lived and loved together
Through many changing years,
We have shared each other’s gladness
And wept each other’s tears.
And let us hope the future,
As the past has been will be:
I will share with thee my sorrows,
And thou thy joys with me.
Sonnet 116
Let me not to the marriage if true minds admit impediments.
Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds,
Or beds with the remover to remove:
O, no! It is an ever-fixed mark.
That looks on tempest and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me prov’d,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.
Marriage- Mark Twain
A marriage…. makes of two fractional lives
A whole, it gives to two purposeless lives
A work, and doubles the strength
Of each to perform it,
It gives to two questioning natures
A reason for living, and something to live for;
A new fragrance to the flowers,
A new beauty to the earth,
And a new mystery to life.
Thy Love by Anne Bradstreet
If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were lov’d by wife, then thee:
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me ye woman if you can,
I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,
Or all the riches that the east doth hold.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee, give recompense.
Thy love is such I can no way repay,
The heavens reward thee manifold I pray.
Then while we live, in love lets so preserve,
That when we live no more, we may live ever.
Margaret Lawrence to Benedict Greene
I think that never in a thousand letters could I ever begin to tell you what it means to be able to some home to you.
I never realised how starved I was for this deep wonderful sweetness, a small place where my love lives which he gives to me as my own and tells me is mine.
It’s a symbol of the sweetness and the peace I know with you.
It’s made up of all our hours together – the hours of the days and nights we have had together.
It means music to me, and the blessing of good food, preparing it for you and me to eat together.
It means the talking one can only do with one’s dearest, closest, oldest friend and the silences one falls onto only with this friend.
It means all the happy things done together, and work that suddenly become play because it has been shared with a friend and lover.
Let Them by George Bruce
Let the young make up their love songs,
On which subject they are securely ignorant.
Let them look into eyes that mirror themselves.
Let them groan and ululate their desire into a microphone.
Let them shout into their proclamations over the tannoy
-A whisper is enough for us.
Quiet Thoughts by Hugh Prather
The quiet thoughts
Of people a long time in love
Touch lightly
Likes birds nesting in each other’s warmth
You will know them by their laughter
But to each other they speak mostly through their solitude
If they find themselves apart
They may dream of sitting undisturbed
In each other’s presence
Of wrapping themselves warmly
In each other’s easy
A Union
There is nothing more lovely in life than the union of two people whose love for one another has grown through the years from the small acorn of passion to a great rooted tree.
Surviving all vicissitudes, and rich with its many difficulties branches,
Every leaf holding its own significance.
Marriage Is
Someone to believe in
And to put their trust in you
Someone who appreciates
The special things you do,
Someone to be close to,
In your heart and mind,
Someone who’s the love
You might have thought you’d never fing,
Someone who stands by you
And who’s faith can make you strong,
Someone you will cherish
Every day, your whole life long.
By Emily Matthews
The Meaning of True Love
It is sharing and caring, giving and forgiving,
Loving and being loved, walking hand in hand,
Talking heart to heart, seeing through each other’s eyes,
Laughing together, weeping together,
Being together, always trusting
And believing in each other….
For love that is shared is a beautiful thing-
It enriches the soul and makes the heart sing !
(Helen Steiner Rice)
As A True Heart
Accept my love, as a true heart
As ever lover gave:
‘tis free, it vows, from any art,
and proud to be your slave.
Then take it kindly, as was meant,
And let the giver live,
Who, with it, would be world have sent,
Had it been his to give.
(Matthew Prior)
From Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres
Love is temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes
and then subsides. And when it subsides
you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part.
Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of eternal passion…..
That is just being “in love”, which any fool can do.
Love itself is what is left over
when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art
and a fortunate accident.
Those that truly love have roots that grow towards each other,
Underground, and when all the pretty blossoms have fallen from their branches, they find that they are one tree and not two.
WHAT IS A SOULMATE?
If you have found a smile
That is the sweetest one you’ve known
If you have heard within a voice
The echoes of your own
If you have felt a touch
That stirs the longing of your heart
And still can feel that closeness
In the moments you’re apart.
If you have filled with wonder
At the way two loves can blend
To weave a perfect pattern
That is seamless end to end
If you believe some things in life
Are simply meant to be,
Then you have found your soul-mate,
Your heart’s own destiny.
Wherever I am, there’s always Pooh,
There’s always Pooh and me,
Whatever I do, he wants to do,
“Where are you going today”? Says Pooh,
“Well that’s very odd ‘cos I was too.
“Let’s go together” says Pooh says he
“Lets go together” says Pooh……
So wherever I am, there’s always Pooh.
There’s always POOH AND ME.
“What would I do”? I said to Pooh
“If it wasn’t for you.” And pooh said
“True, it isn’t much fun for one,
But two can stick together”, sys Pooh, says he.
“That’s how it is”, says Pooh
WHAT IS LOVE
Sooner or later we begin to understand that love is more than verses on valentines and romance in the movies. We begin to know that love is here and now, real and true, the most important thing in our lives. For love is the creator of our favourite memories and the foundation of our fondest dreams. Love is a promise that is always kept, a fortune that can never be spent, a seed that can flourish in the most unlikely of places. And this radiance that never fades, this mysterious and magical joy is the greatest treasure of all – one known only by those who love.