- Oh love is the wondrous magician
- That changes dull lead into gold;
- If it wounds it can play the physician,
- And cure both the young and the old!
- Then hail to the glorious passion
- That makes what is earthly, sublime!
- That cares not for custom or fashion,
- But dwells like an angel with time!
- Oh! I know this truth, if I know no other,
- That passionate Love is Pain's own mother.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX, "The Way Of It"
- Nothing is true but Love, nor aught of worth;
- Love is the incense which doth sweeten earth.
RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH, "Love"
- Love is the crown that glorifies; the curse
- That brands and burdens; it is life and death.
- It is the great law of the universe;
- And nothing can exist without its breath.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX, "What Love Is"
- True love is like a coin, changeless and pure,
- Bright from the mint of virtuous affection,
- Whose solid worth lies in its gold secure
- Stamped with the soul's reflection;
- Through Time may mar with rude and hasty hands
- Its brilliancy and beauty,
- Its gold unspoiled beneath the surface stands
- Alloyed with common duty.
MARTHA LAVINIA HOFFMAN, "Love's Counterfeits"
Love lights more fires than hate extinguishes.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX, "Optimism"
- The wine of Love can be obtained by none,
- Save Him who trod the winepress all alone.
RICHARD CHENEVIX TRENCH, "Love"
- Love is the impulse which directs the world,
- And all things know it and obey its power.
- Man, in the maelstrom of his passions whirled;
- The bee that takes the pollen to the flower;
- The earth, uplifting her bare, pulsing breast
- To fervent kisses of the amorous sun;--
- Each but obeys creative Love's behest,
- Which everywhere instinctively is done.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX, "What Love Is"
- Need we say it was not love,
- Now that love is perished?
EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY, "Passer Mortuus Est"
- All love that has not friendship for its base,
- Is like a mansion built upon the sand.
- Though brave its walls as any in the land,
- And its tall turrets lift their heads in grace;
- Though skilful and accomplished artists trace
- Most beautiful designs on every hand,
- And gleaming statues in dim niches stand,
- And fountains play in some flow'r-hidden place:
- Yet, when from the frowning east a sudden gust
- Of adverst fate is blown, or sad rains fall
- Day in, day out, against its yielding wall,
- Lo! the fair structure crumbles to the dust.
- Love, to endure life's sorrow and earth's woe,
- Needs friendship's solid masonwork below.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX, "Upon the Sand"
- False love is like the counterfeiter's coin,
- A criminal deception.
MARTHA LAVINIA HOFFMAN, "Love's Counterfeits"
- Love, unconquerable,
- Waster of rich men, keeper
- Of warm lights and all-night vigil
- In the soft face of a girl:
- Sea-wanderer, forest-visitor!
- Even the pure immortals cannot escape you,
- And mortal man, in his one day's dusk,
- Trembles before your glory.
SOPHOCLES, Antigone
Life is like a pipe, and love is the fuse.
THEOPHILUS MARZIALS, "Chelsea"
- Love is as bitter as the dregs of sin,
- As sweet as clover-honey in its cell;
- Love is the password whereboy souls get in
- To Heaven--the gate that leads, sometimes, to Hell.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX, "What Love Is"
- But now I know that there is no killing
- A thing like Love, for it laughs at Death.
- There is no hushing, there is no stilling
- That which is part of your life and breath.
- You may bury it deep, and leave behind you
- The land, the people that knew your slain;
- It will push the sods from its grave, and find you
- On wastes of water or desert plain.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX, "From the Grave"
- One of the nice things about having a lover, it makes you think about everything anew. The rest of your life becomes a kind of movie, flat and even rather funny.
JOHN UPDIKE, Rabbit Redux
- How does Love speak?
- In the faint flush upon the telltale cheek,
- And in the pallor that succeeds it; by
- The quivering lid of an averted eye--
- The smile that proves the parent to a sigh
- Thus doth Love speak.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX, "Love's Language"
- Love is the centre and circumference;
- The cause and aim of all things--'tis the key
- To joy and sorrow, and the recompense
- For all the ills that have been, or may be.
ELLA WHEELER WILCOX, "What Love Is"
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