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A DREAM WITHIN A DREAM Edgar Allan Poe
A Dream within a Dream Take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you now, Thus much let me avow- You are not wrong, who deem That my days have been a dream; Yet if hope has flown away In a night, or in a day, In a vision, or in none, Is it therefore the less gone? All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream. I stand amid the roar Of a surf-tormented shore, And I hold within my hand Grains of the golden sand- How few! Yet how they creep Through my fingers to the deep, While I weep-wile I weep! O God! Can I not grasp Them with a tighter clasp? O God! Can I not save One from the pitiless wave? Is all that we see or seem But a dream within a dream?
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TAKE EASE
take ease my beautiful friend, rest as you will and take your ease ... and I shall sit with you in quiet contemplation an arm around you, fingers to lightly brush your hair or wipe away a tear ...
take ease my beautiful friend, and let any pain of it flow from your mind and your body breathe of air perfumed with my love and my peace breathe clear and let your thoughts drift until they find places to rest ...
take ease my beautiful friend, and allow your heart to open and heal breathe deeply and gently of tranquil friendship and care let your wounds heal and let your doubts fall aside until nothing remains but your dream ...
Cran Herlihy © 2008 |
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SELF LOVE
He that cannot choose but love, And strives against it still, Never shall my fancy move, For he loves ‘gainst his will; Nor he which is all his own, And can at pleasure choose, When I am caught he can be gone, And when he list refuse. Nor he that loves none but fair, For such by all are sought; Nor he that can for foul ones care, For his judgment then is nought; Nor he that hath wit, for he Will make me his jest or slave’ Nor a fool, for when others…, He can neither….: Nor he that still his Mistress pays, For she is thrilled therefore; Nor he that pays not, for he says Within She’s worth no more. Is there then no kind of men Whom I may freely prove? I will vent that humour then In mine own self-love.
John Donne (1572-1631) English metaphysical poet |
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First Love by John Clare
I ne’er was struck before that hour With love so sudden and so sweet, Her face it bloomed like a sweet flower And stole my heart away complete. My face turned pale as deadly pale. My legs refused to walk away, And when she looked, what could I ail? My life and all seemed turned to clay.
And then my blood rushed to my face And took my eyesight quite away, The trees and bushes round the place Seemed midnight at noonday. I could not see a single ting, Words from my eyes did start-They spoke as chords do from the string, And blood burnt round my heart.
Are flowers the winter’s choice? Is love’s bed always snow? She seemed to hear my silent voice, Not love’s appeals to know. I never saw so sweet a face As that I stood before. My heart has left its dwelling-place And can return no more.
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BRIGHT STAR (This verse was found on a separate page between a collection of Shakespeare’s Poems)
Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art- Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite, The moving waters at their priest-like task Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores, Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask Of snow upon the mountains and the moors- No– yet still stedfast, still unchangeable, Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast, To feel for ever its soft fall and swell, Awake for ever in a sweet unrest, Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, And so live ever-or else swoon to death. |
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Photograph by S.D. © 2008 |
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“I own a pitbull that I had rescued from a local shelter. His name is Angus...he is black and sweet, though, since we have owned him, we have had such a hard time of things. Finding a home is one thing. No-one wants to rent to anyone owning a pitbull claiming they can't get insurance to cover for the dog or they don't want the dog there because he is considered vicious. Our loving dogs can't speak for themselves to tell us how much they just want to be accepted and loved and wouldn't harm a flea. We need to be a loud voice for our loved ones, our pets. I would rather live on the streets with my boy, then be in a home without him.” —Rhonda Paul |
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“The more I think about it, the more I realize there is nothing more artistic that to love others.”
"I will be walking in the middle of your soul." - Oklahoma Cherokee love incantation
“The greatest things in life are unseen that's why we close our eyes to... kiss and dream.” - Author Unknown
"If you love something... set it free. - Author Unknown
"The real marriage of true minds is for any two people to possess a sense of humour or irony pitched in exactly the same key." - Edith Wharton “We've got this gift of love, but love is like a precious plant. You can't just leave it in the cupboard and think it's going to get on by itself. You've got to keep watering it, to really look after it and nurture it." - John Lennon
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From “The Prophet” by Kahlil Gibran
Let the winds of the heavens dance between you, Love one another, but make not a bond of love Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls And stand together yet not too near together, For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow. |
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WITH WARMED HEART
with warmed heart greet the new day ... with warmed heart wear a fresh smile ... with warmed heart imagine what you would like to do and are able to today ...
with warmed heart leave your solitude and enjoy some time where you would like to be ... with warmed heart imagine being there with someone you might desire ...
with warmed heart and wearing your new smile, say hello to every face that might interest you ... with warmed heart find some simple way to treat yourself in public ... and later in private ... and, as you drift into sleep ...
with warmed heart promise yourself to do it again ...
that's how dreams come true ...
Cran Herlihy © 2008 |
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The Poetic Heart Love & Friendship |
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From Song to Celia by Ben Jonson
Drink to me only With thine eyes, And I will pledge With mine; Or leave a kiss but In the cup And I’ll not look For wine.
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From Revolutionary Petunias and Other Poems by Alice Walker
I have learned not to worry about love; but to honour its coming with all my heart. To examine the dark mysteries of the blood with headless heed and swirl, to know the rush of feelings swift and flowing as water. The source appears to be some inexhaustible spring within our twin and triple selves: the new face I turn up to you no one else on earth has ever seen. |
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Under the magnetism of friendship the modest man becomes bold, the shy, confident. William M. Thackerary
A happy marriage has in it all the pleasures of friendship, all the enjoyments of sense and reason, and, indeed, all the sweets of life. - Joseph Addison |
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"We say we love flowers, yet we pluck them. - Anonymous |
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"The supreme state of human love is the unity of one soul within two bodies" |
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The Good Morrow by John Donne
“My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears, And true plain hearts do the faces rest, Where can we find two better hemispheres Without sharp North, without descending West? Whatever dies, was not mixed equally; If our two loves be one, or, thou and I Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.” |
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Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side by side can grow up, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see each other whole against the sky. - Rainer Maria Rilke
You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments when you have really lived are the moments when you have done things in the spirit of love. - Henry Drummond
All who joy would win Must share it, - Happiness was born a Twin - Lord Byron: Don Juan
Love, you know, seeks to make happy rather than to be happy. -Ralph Connor
I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. - William Butler Yeats
Love is the master key which opens the gates of happiness. —Oliver Wendell Holmes
Two such as you with such a master speed Cannot be parted nor swept away From one another once you are agreed That life is only life forevermore Together wing to wing and oar to oar. - Robert Frost
“It is easy to love the people far away. It is not always easy to love those close to us. It is easier to give a cup of rice to relieve hunger than to relieve the loneliness and pain of someone unloved in our own home. Bring love into your home for this is where our love for each other must start.”
"And when one of them meets with his other half, the actual half of himself, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy and one will not be out of the other's sight even for a moment." - Plato
“This day I will marry my friend, the one I laugh with, live for, dream with, love.” - Author Unknown
"We love only that which we do not own entirely." - M. Proust
"Love just doesn't sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread, re-made all the time, made new." - Ursula Le Guin
The warmth of another's eyes, the fresh scent of rain on a hot summer's eve ? Moments like these renew in us a heartfelt appreciation for life.
This done, he took the bride about the neck, And kiss’d her lips with such a clamorous smack, That, at the parting, all the church did echo.
- Shakespeare
How did the party go in Portman Square? I cannot tell you; Juliet was not there.
And how did Lady Gaster’s party go? Juliet was next me and I do not know. - Hilaire Belloc
“Love is that splendid triggering of human vitality... the supreme activity which nature affords anyone for going out of himself toward someone else. “ - Jose Ortega y Gasset (1883 - 1955)
"Love feels no burden, thinks nothing of trouble, attempts what is above its strength, pleads no excuse of impossibility; for it thinks all things lawful for itself, and all things possible." - Thomas à Kempis
“Love is a great beautifier.” - Louise May Alcott
“Love involves a peculiar unfathomable combination of understanding and misunderstanding.” - Diane Arbus
“To fall in love is to create a religion that has a fallible god.” - Jorge Louis Bourges
“When you love someone all your saved-up wishes start coming out.” - Elizabeth Bowen
“The richest love is that which submits to the arbitration of time.” - Lawrence Durrell
“Two persons love in one another the future good which they aid one another to unfold.” - Margaret Fuller
“Even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.” - Kahlil Gibran
“Love, I find, is like singing. Everybody can do enough to satisfy themselves, though it may not impress the neighbours as being very much.” - Zola Neale Hurston
“You can wish you were in love, but you have to wait until the object of your affection knocks on your door.” - Angelica Huston
“True love is like ghosts, which everybody talks about and few have seen.” - Francois De La Rochefoucauld
“Love just doesn’t sit there, like a stone, it has to made, like bread; re-made all the time, made new.” - Ursula K. Le Guin
“How alike are the groans of love to those of the dying.” - Malcolm Lowry
“How do you know Love has gone? If you said you would be there at seven and you get there by nine, and he or she has not called the police yet—it’s gone.” - Marlene Dietrich
“If only one could tell true love from false love as one can tell mushrooms from toadstools.” - Katherine Mansfield
“Love is not love until love’s vulnerable.” - Theodore Roethke
“Those who have the courage to love should have the courage to suffer.” - Anthony Trollope
“ The great tragedy of life is not that men perish, but that they cease to love.” - W. Somerset Maugham
“I have learned not to worry about love, but to honor its coming with all my heart.” - Alice Walker
“Hatred paralyses life; love releases it. Hate confuses life; love harmonizes it. Hated darkens life; love illumines it.” - Martin Luther King, JR.
A true conception of relation of the sexes will not admit of conqueror and conquered; it knows of but one great thing; to give of one’s self boundlessly, in order to find one’s richer, deeper, better.” - Emma Goldman
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The bottom line is that (a) people are never perfect, but love can be, (b) that is the one and only way that the mediocre and vile can be transformed, and ( c) doing that makes it that. We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love. - Tom Robbins
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We're the bridge across forever, arching above the sea, - Richard Bach (from "The Bridge Across Forever") |
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This is my beloved and this is my friend. - Song of Solomon |
