RENAISSANCE
‘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.’
W. Shakespeare, Sonnet 116
‘How many are you then,’ said I,
‘If they two are in Heaven?’
The little Maiden did reply,
‘O Master! we are seven.’
William Wordsworth, We are Seven
‘If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger.’
Catherine speaking to Nelly; Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene’er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together.
Robert Browning, My Last Duchess
If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee.
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.
Anne Bradstreet, To My Dear and Loving Husband
‘Things base and vile, holding no quantity,
Love can transpose to form and dignity.
Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind.
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.’
Helena on Demetrius being in love with beautiful Hermia; A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 1, Scene 1
A fig for those by law protected!
Liberty’s a glorious feast!
Courts for cowards were erected
Churches built to please the priest
Jolly Beggars, Robert Burns
‘Having begun to love you, I love you for ever – in all changes, in all disgraces, because you are yourself. Then how can you, O my own husband, stop loving me?’
Tess after her confession; Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D’Urbervilles
There she weaves by night and day
A magic web with colours gay.
She has heard a whisper say,
A curse is on her if she stay
To look down to Camelot.
Lord Alfred Tennyson, The Lady of Shallot
And you'll always love me won't you?
Yes
And the rain won't make any difference?
No.
Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
‘Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love.’
Hamlet in a letter to Ophelia; Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2
The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e’er gave,
Awaits alike the inevitable hour: –
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, Thomas Grey
‘What a miserable thing a woman’s love is to a man’s! I could commit crimes for you, – and you can balance and choose in that way. But you don’t love me; if you had a tithe of the feeling for me that I have for you, it would be impossible to you to think for a moment of sacrificing me. But it weighs nothing with you that you are robbing me of my life’s happiness.’
Stephen after the boat incident; George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss
Why are we weigh’d upon with heaviness,
And utterly consumed with sharp distress,
While all things else have rest from weariness?
All things have rest: why should we toil alone,
We only toil, who are the first of things
Lord Alfred Tennyson, The Lotos Eaters
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost
‘She loved me for the dangers I had passed,
And I loved her that she did pity them.
This only is the witchcraft I have used.’
Othello explaining his love to Brabantio and the Duke; Othello, Act 1, Scene 3
‘Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!’
John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn
‘What I am you have made me with the labour of your hands and the love of your heart. You are my wife, my mother, my sisters: you are the sum of all loving care to me.’
Morell admitting Candida’s superiority; G. B. Shaw, Candida, Act 3
I caught this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn
Falcon, in his riding
Gerard Manley Hopkins, Windhover
“Her voice is full of money,” he said suddenly.
That was it. I’d never understood before. It was full of money—that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals’ song of it.
F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby
‘My verse your vertues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name:
Where whenas death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew.’
Edmund Spenser, Amoretti, Sonnet 75
VI
But O! what art can teach,
What human voice can reach,
The sacred organ’s praise?
Notes inspiring holy love,
Notes that wing their heavenly ways
To mend the choirs above.
A Song for St. Cecilia’s Day, John Dryden
Once for all; I knew to my sorrow, often and often, if not always, that I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be. Once for all; I loved her none the less because I knew it, and it had no more influence in restraining me, than if I had devoutly believed her to be human perfection.
Pip thinking about his love for Estella; Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
Call her once before you go –
Call once yet!
In a voice that she will know:
‘Margaret! Margaret!’
Children’s voices should be dear
(Call once more) to a mother’s ear;
Matthew Arnold, The Forsaken Merman
I would give up the unessential; I would give my money, I would give my life for my children, but I wouldn’t give myself. I can’t make it more clear; it’s only something which I am beginning to comprehend, which is revealing itself to me.
Kate Chopin, The Awakening