Great Throughts Treasury

"Oh Earth, you gave me all I have, I love you, I love you, ? oh what have I that I can give you in return ? except my body after I die?"

"Of my own spirit let me be in sole though feeble mastery."

"Oh who can tell the range of joy or set the bounds of beauty?"

"Oh, beauty, are you not enough? Why am I crying after love?"

"Oh, I have sown my love so wide that he will find it everywhere; it will awake him in the night, it will enfold him in the air. I set my shadow in his sight and I have winged it with desire, that it may be a cloud by day,"

"Oh I must pass nothing by without loving it much, the raindrop try with my lips, the grass with my touch; for how can I be sure I shall see again the world on the first of May shining after the rain?"

"Oh, because you never tried to bow my will or break my pride, and nothing of the cave-man made you want to keep me half afraid, nor ever with a conquering air you thought to draw me unaware -- take me, for I love you more than I ever loved before. And since the body's maidenhood alone were neither rare nor good unless with it I gave to you a spirit still untrammeled, too, take my dreams and take my mind that were masterless as wind; And "Master!" I shall say to you since you never asked me to."

"Oh, is it not enough to be here with this beauty over me? My throat should ache with praise, and I should kneel in joy beneath the sky. oh, beauty are you not enough?"

"Oh in the deep blue night the fountain sang alone; it sang to the drowsy heart of a satyr carved in stone. The fountain sang and sang but the satyr never stirred-- only the great white moon in the empty heaven heard. The fountain sang and sang and on the marble rim the milk-white peacocks slept, their dreams were strange and dim. Bright dew was on the grass, and on the ilex dew, the dreamy milk-white birds were all a-glisten too. The fountain sang and sang the things one cannot tell, the dreaming peacocks stirred and the gleaming dew-drops fell."

"Oh, there are eyes that he can see, and hands to make his hands rejoice, but to my lover I must be only a voice. Oh, there are breasts to bear his head, and lips whereon his lips can lie, but I must be till I am dead only a cry."

"Out of the noise of tired people working, harried with thoughts of war and lists of dead, his beauty met me like a fresh wind blowing, clean boyish beauty and high-held head. Eyes that told secrets, lips that would not tell them, fearless and shy the young unwearied eyes--men die by millions now, because God blunders, yet to have made this boy he must be wise."

"Perhaps if Death is kind, and there can be returning, we will come back to earth some fragrant night, and take these lanes to find the sea, and bending breathe the same honeysuckle, low and white. We will come down at night to these resounding beaches and the long gentle thunder of the sea, here for a single hour in the wide starlight we shall be happy, for the dead are free."

"Only in sleep I see their faces, children I played with when I was a child, Louise comes back with her brown hair braided, Annie with ringlets warm and wild. Only in sleep Time is forgotten --what may have come to them, who can know? Yet we played last night as long ago, and the doll-house stood at the turn of the stair. The years had not sharpened their smooth round faces, I met their eyes and found them mild --do they, too, dream of me, I wonder, and for them am I too a child?"

"Perhaps when all the world is bare and cruel winter holds the land, the Love that finds no place to hide will run and catch my hand. I shall not care to have him then, I shall be bitter and a-cold"

"Spend all you have for loveliness, buy it and never count the cost; for one white singing hour of peace count many a year of strife well lost, and for a breath of ecstasy give all you have been, or could be."

"Shall we, too, rise forgetful from our sleep, and shall my soul that lies within your hand remember nothing, as the blowing sand forgets the palm where long blue shadows creep when winds along the darkened desert sweep? Or would it still remember, tho' it spanned a thousand heavens, while the planets fanned the vacant ether with their voices deep? Soul of my soul, no word shall be forgot, nor yet alone, beloved, shall we see the desolation of extinguished suns, nor fear the void where thro' our planet runs, for still together shall we go and not fare forth alone to front eternity."

"Sun-swept beaches with a light wind blowing from the immense blue circle of the sea, and the soft thunder where long waves whiten ? these were the same for Sappho as for me. Two thousand years ? much has gone by forever, change takes the gods and ships and speech of men ? but here on the beaches that time passes over the heart aches now as then."

"The ache of empty arms was an old tale to you."

"Stephen kissed me in the spring, Robin in the fall, but Colin only looked at me and never kissed at all. Stephen?s kiss was lost in jest, Robin?s lost in play, but the kiss in Colin?s eyes haunts me night and day."

"There is no sign of leaf or bud, a hush is over everything ? silent as women wait for love, the world is waiting for the spring."

"There never was a mood of mine, gay or heart-broken, luminous or dull, but you could ease me of its fever and give it back to me more beautiful. In many another soul I broke the bread, and drank the wine and played the happy guest, But I was lonely, I remembered you; the heart belong to him who knew it best."

"There will be stars over the place forever; though the house we loved and the street we loved are lost, every time the earth circles her orbit on the night the autumn equinox is crossed, two stars we knew, poised on the peak of midnight will reach their zenith; stillness will be deep; there will be stars over the place forever, there will be stars forever, while we sleep."

"There's nothing half so real in life as the things you've done... inexorably, unalterably done."

"They came to tell your faults to me, They named them over one by one; I laughed aloud when they were done, I knew them all so well before,-- Oh, they were blind, too blind to see Your faults had made me love you more."

"This is the funeral pyre and Troy is dead that sparkled so the day I saw it first, and darkened slowly after. I am she who loves all beauty ? yet I wither it."

"The window-lights, myriads and myriads, bloom from the walls like climbing flowers."

"The greenish sky glows up in misty reds, the purple shadows turn to brick and stone, the dreams wear thin, men turn upon their beds, and hear the milk-cart jangle by alone."

"There is no magic any more, we meet as other people do, you work no miracle for me nor I for you. You were the wind and I the sea -- there is no splendor any more, I have grown listless as the pool beside the shore. But though the pool is safe from storm and from the tide has found surcease, it grows more bitter than the sea, for all its peace."

"Then, like an old-time orator impressively he rose; I make the most of all that comes and the least of all that goes."

"Though I know he loves me, tonight my heart is sad; his kiss was not so wonderful as all the dreams I had."

"Waves are the sea's white daughters, and raindrops the children of rain, but why for my shimmering body have I a mother like Pain? Night is the mother of stars, and wind the mother of foam?the world is brimming with beauty, but I must stay at home."

"Wisdom is not acquired save as the result of investigation."

"When I went to look at what had long been hidden, a jewel laid long ago in a secret place, I trembled, for I thought to see its dark deep fire?but only a pinch of dust blew up in my face. I almost gave my life long ago for a thing that has gone to dust now, stinging my eyes?It is strange how often a heart must be broken before the years can make it wise."

"With the man I love who loves me not I walked in the street-lamps' flare ? but oh, the girls who can ask for love in the lights of Union Square."

"We weep before the Blessed Mother's shrine, to think upon her sorrows, but her joys what nun could ever know a tithing of? The precious hours she watched above His sleep were worth the fearful anguish of the end. Yea, lack of love is bitterest of all."

"You will recognize your own path when you come upon it because you will suddenly have all the energy and imagination you will ever need."

"When I can look life in the eyes, grown calm and very coldly wise, life will have given me the truth, and taken in exchange - my youth."

"You bound strong sandals on my feet, You gave me bread and wine, And sent me under sun and stars, For all the world was mine. Oh, take the sandals off my feet, You know not what you do, For all my world is in your arms, My sun and stars are you."

"You took my empty dreams and filled them every one with tenderness and nobleness, April and the sun. The old empty dreams where my thoughts would throng are far too full of happiness to even hold a song. Oh, the empty dreams were dim and the empty dreams were wide, they were sweet and shadowy houses where my thoughts could hide. But you took my dreams away and you made them all come true -- my thoughts have no place now to play, and nothing now to do."