Sonnet 18 – I never gave a lock of hair away

Related poetry:

1. To a Lock of Hair Thy hue, dear pledge, is pure and bright As in that well – remember’d night When first thy mystic braid was wove, And first my Agnes whisper’d love. Since then how often hast thou prest The torrid zone of this wild breast, Whose wrath and hate have sworn to dwell With the first sin that […]...
2. To Robert Batty, M. D., on His Giving Me a Lock of Milton's Hair It lies before me there, and my own breath Stirs its thin outer threads, as though beside The living head I stood in honoured pride, Talking of lovely things that conquer death. Perhaps he pressed it once, or underneath Ran his fine fingers when he leant, blank-eyed, And saw in fancy Adam and his bride […]...
3. Apology To Delia: For Desiring A Lock Of Her Hair Delia, the unkindest girl on earth, When I besought the fair, That favour of intrinsic worth A ringlet of her hair, Refused that instant to comply With my absurd request, For reasons she could specify, Some twenty score at least. Trust me, my dear, however odd It may appear to say, I sought it merely […]...
4. Lolotte, Who Attires My Hair Lolotte, who attires my hair, Lost her lover. Lolotte weeps; Trails her hand before her eyes; Hangs her head and mopes and sighs, Mutters of the pangs of hell. Fills the circumambient air With her plaints and her despair. Looks at me: ‘May you never know, Mam’selle Love’s harsh cruelty.’...
5. To Amarantha, That She Would Dishevel Her Hair Amarantha, sweet and fair, Ah, braid no more that shining hair! As my curious hand or eye Hovering round thee, let it fly! Let it fly as unconfined As its calm ravisher the wind, Who hath left his darling th’ East, To wanton o’er that spicy nest. Every tress must be confessed But neatly tangled […]...
6. The Rape of the Lock: Canto 4 But anxious cares the pensive nymph oppress’d, And secret passions labour’d in her breast. Not youthful kings in battle seiz’d alive, Not scornful virgins who their charms survive, Not ardent lovers robb’d of all their bliss, Not ancient ladies when refus’d a kiss, Not tyrants fierce that unrepenting die, Not Cynthia when her manteau’s pinn’d […]...
7. Sonnet 14 – If thou must love me, let it be for nought If thou must love me, let it be for nought Except for love’s sake only. Do not say ‘I love her for her smile-her look-her way Of speaking gently,-for a trick of thought That falls in well with mine, and certes brought A sense of pleasant ease on such a day’- For these things in […]...
8. Sonnet 01 – I thought once how Theocritus had sung I thought once how Theocritus had sung Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years, Who each one in a gracious hand appears To bear a gift for mortals, old or young: And, as I mused it in his antique tongue, I saw, in gradual vision through my tears, The sweet, sad years, the […]...
9. Dream Song 176: All that hair flashing over All that hair flashing over the Atlantic, Henry’s girl’s gone. She’ll find Paris a sweet place As many times he did. She’s there now, having left yesterday. I held Her cousin’s hand, all innocence, on the climb to the tower. Her cousin is if possible more beautiful than she is. All over the world grades […]...
10. Little Sleep's-Head Sprouting Hair In The Moonlight 1 You scream, waking from a nightmare. When I sleepwalk Into your room, and pick you up, And hold you up in the moonlight, you cling to me Hard, As if clinging could save us. I think You think I will never die, I think I exude To you the permanence of smoke or stars, […]...
11. Big Hair Ithaca, October 1993: Jorie went on a lingerie Tear, wanting to look like a moll In a Chandler novel. Dinner, consisting of three parts gin And one part lime juice cordial, was a prelude to her hair. There are, she said, poems that can be written Only when the poet is clad in black underwear. […]...
12. Risk is the Hair that holds the Tun Risk is the Hair that holds the Tun Seductive in the Air That Tun is hollow but the Tun With Hundred Weights to spare Too ponderous to suspect the snare Espies that fickle chair And seats itself to be let go By that perfidious Hair The “foolish Tun” the Critics say While that delusive Hair […]...
13. The Black Lace Fan My Mother Gave Me It was the first gift he ever gave her, Buying it for five five francs in the Galeries In pre-war Paris. It was stifling. A starless drought made the nights stormy. They stayed in the city for the summer. The met in cafes. She was always early. He was late. That evening he was later. […]...
14. A Baby Asleep after Pain As a drenched, drowned bee Hangs numb and heavy from a bending flower, So clings to me My baby, her brown hair brushed with wet tears And laid against her cheek; Her soft white legs hanging heavily over my arm Swinging heavily to my movements as I walk. My sleeping baby hangs upon my life, […]...
15. God Gave To Me A Child In Part GOD gave to me a child in part, Yet wholly gave the father’s heart: Child of my soul, O whither now, Unborn, unmothered, goest thou? You came, you went, and no man wist; Hapless, my child, no breast you kist; On no dear knees, a privileged babbler, clomb, Nor knew the kindly feel of home. […]...
16. The Rape of the Lock: Canto 3 Close by those meads, for ever crown’d with flow’rs, Where Thames with pride surveys his rising tow’rs, There stands a structure of majestic frame, Which from the neighb’ring Hampton takes its name. Here Britain’s statesmen oft the fall foredoom Of foreign tyrants and of nymphs at home; Here thou, great Anna! whom three realms obey, […]...
17. The Princess: A Medley: As thro' the land As thro’ the land at eve we went, And pluck’d the ripen’d ears, We fell out, my wife and I, O we fell out I know not why, And kiss’d again with tears. And blessings on the falling out That all the more endears, When we fall out with those we love And kiss again […]...
18. Crisis is a Hair Crisis is a Hair Toward which the forces creep Past which forces retrograde If it come in sleep To suspend the Breath Is the most we can Ignorant is it Life or Death Nicely balancing. Let an instant push Or an Atom press Or a Circle hesitate In Circumference It may jolt the Hand That […]...
19. Coquette et Froide What is thy thought of me? What is thy feeling? Lov’st thou the veil of sense, Or its revealing? Leav’st thou the maiden rose Drooping and blushing, Or rend’st its bosom with Kissing and crushing? I would be beautiful That thou should’st woo me, Gentle, delightsome, but To draw thee to me. Yet should thy […]...
20. Night Funeral In Harlem Night funeral In Harlem: Where did they get Them two fine cars? Insurance man, he did not pay His insurance lapsed the other day Yet they got a satin box For his head to lay. Night funeral In Harlem: Who was it sent That wreath of flowers? Them flowers came From that poor boy’s friends […]...
21. Sonnet XVI: In Nature Apt In nature apt to like when I did see Beauties, which were of many carats fine, My boiling sprites did thither soon incline, And, Love, I thought that I was full of thee: But finding not those restless flames in me, Which others said did make their souls to pine, I thought those babes of […]...
22. The Rape of the Lock: Canto 5 She said: the pitying audience melt in tears, But Fate and Jove had stopp’d the Baron’s ears. In vain Thalestris with reproach assails, For who can move when fair Belinda fails? Not half so fix’d the Trojan could remain, While Anna begg’d and Dido rag’d in vain. Then grave Clarissa graceful wav’d her fan; Silence […]...
23. Women Washing Their Hair THEY have painted and sung The women washing their hair, And the plaits and strands in the sun, And the golden combs And the combs of elephant tusks And the combs of buffalo horn and hoof. The sun has been good to women, Drying their heads of hair As they stooped and shook their shoulders […]...
24. Sonnet CXLVIII O me, what eyes hath Love put in my head, Which have no correspondence with true sight! Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled, That censures falsely what they see aright? If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote, What means the world to say it is not so? If it be […]...
25. The Rape of the Lock Part 1 WHAT dire Offence from am’rous Causes springs, What mighty Contests rise from trivial Things, I sing This Verse to C -, Muse! is due; This, ev’n Belinda may vouchfafe to view: Slight is the Subject, but not so the Praise, If She inspire, and He approve my Lays. Say what strange Motive, Goddess! […]...
26. Sonnet 30 – I see thine image through my tears to-night I see thine image through my tears to-night, And yet to-day I saw thee smiling. How Refer the cause?-Beloved, is it thou Or I, who makes me sad? The acolyte Amid the chanted joy and thankful rite May so fall flat, with pale insensate brow, On the altar-stair. I hear thy voice and vow, Perplexed, […]...
27. Sonnet 148: O me! what eyes hath love put in my head O me! what eyes hath love put in my head, Which have no correspondence with true sight! Or, if they have, where is my judgment fled, That censures falsely what they see aright? If that be fair whereon my false eyes dote, What means the world to say it is not so? If it be […]...
28. Sonnet 44: If the dull substance of my flesh were thought If the dull substance of my flesh were thought, Injurious distance should not stop my way; For then despite of space I would be brought, From limits far remote, where thou dost stay. No matter then although my foot did stand Upon the farthest earth removed from thee; For nimble thought can jump both sea […]...
29. Sonnet 35 – If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange And be all to me? Shall I never miss Home-talk and blessing and the common kiss That comes to each in turn, nor count it strange, When I look up, to drop on a new range Of walls and floors, another home than this? Nay, wilt […]...
30. Sonnet 13 – And wilt thou have me fashion into speech And wilt thou have me fashion into speech The love I bear thee, finding words enough, And hold the torch out, while the winds are rough, Between our faces, to cast light on each?- I drop it at thy feet. I cannot teach My hand to hold my spirit so far off From myself-me-that I […]...
31. Sonnet 41 – I thank all who have loved me in their hearts XLI I thank all who have loved me in their hearts, With thanks and love from mine. Deep thanks to all Who paused a little near the prison-wall To hear my music in its louder parts Ere they went onward, each one to the mart’s Or temple’s occupation, beyond call. But thou, who, in my […]...
32. The Rape of the Lock: Canto 1 Nolueram, Belinda, tuos violare capillos; Sedjuvat, hoc precibus me tribuisse tuis. (Martial, Epigrams 12.84) What dire offence from am’rous causes springs, What mighty contests rise from trivial things, I sing This verse to Caryl, Muse! is due: This, ev’n Belinda may vouchsafe to view: Slight is the subject, but not so the praise, If she […]...
33. Sonnet III Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest Now is the time that face should form another; Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest, Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother. For where is she so fair whose unear’d womb Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry? Or who is he so […]...
34. The Paradox I am the mother of sorrows, I am the ender of grief; I am the bud and the blossom, I am the late-falling leaf. I am thy priest and thy poet, I am thy serf and thy king; I cure the tears of the heartsick, When I come near they shall sing. White are my […]...
35. Sonnet 3: Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest Look in thy glass, and tell the face thou viewest Now is the time that face should form another, Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest, Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother. For where is she so fair whose uneared womb Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry? Or who is he so […]...
36. The Rape of the Lock: Canto 2 Not with more glories, in th’ etherial plain, The sun first rises o’er the purpled main, Than, issuing forth, the rival of his beams Launch’d on the bosom of the silver Thames. Fair nymphs, and well-dress’d youths around her shone, But ev’ry eye was fix’d on her alone. On her white breast a sparkling cross […]...
37. Art And Love For many long uninterrupted years She was the friend and confidant of Art; They walked together, heart communed with heart In that sweet comradeship that so endears. Her fondest hope, her sorrows and her fears She told her mate; who would in turn impart Important truths and secrets. But a dart, Shot by that unskilled, […]...
38. Child of a Day Child of a day, thou knowest not The tears that overflow thy urn, The gushing eyes that read thy lot, Nor, if thou knewest, couldst return! And why the wish! the pure and blest Watch like thy mother o’er thy sleep. O peaceful night! O envied rest! Thou wilt not ever see her weep....
39. Sonnet XXXVI: Thou Purblind Boy Cupid Conjured Thou purblind boy, since thou hast been so slack To wound her heart, whose eyes have wounded me, And suffer’d her to glory in my wrack, Thus to my aid I lastly conjure thee: By hellish Styx, by which the Thund’rer swears, By thy fair mother’s unavoided power, By Hecate’s names, by Proserpine’s […]...
40. Her face was in a bed of hair Her face was in a bed of hair, Like flowers in a plot Her hand was whiter than the sperm That feeds the sacred light. Her tongue more tender than the tune That totters in the leaves Who hears may be incredulous, Who witnesses, believes....