WILFRED OWEN (1893-1918)

Greater Love.

Red lips are not so red As the stained stones kissed by the English dead.

Kindness of wooed and wooer Seems shame to their love pure.

O love, your eyes lose lure When I behold eyes blinded in my stead!

Your slender attitude Trembles not exquisite like limbs knife-skewed, Rolling and rolling there Where God seems not to care; Till the fierce Love they bear Cramps tham in death's extreme decrepitude.

Your voice sings not so soft,- Though even as wind murmuring through raftered loft,- Your dear voice is not dear, Gentle, and evening clear, As theirs whom none now hear, Now earth has stopped their piteous mouths that coughed.

Heart, you were never hot, Nor large, nor full like hearts made great with shot; And though your hand be pale, Paler are all which trail Your cross through flame and hail: Weep, you may weep, for you may touch them not.

CHRISTINA ROSSETTI (1830 - 1894)

The First Day

I wish I could remeber the first day, First hour, first moment of your meeting me; If bright or dim the season, it might be Summer or winter for aught I can say.

So unrecorded did it slip away, So blind was I to see and to forsee, So dull to mark the budding of my tree That would not blossom yet for many a May If only I could recollect it!

Such A day of days!

I let it come and go As traceless as a thaw of bygone snow.

It seemed to mean so little, meant so much I If only now I could recall that touch, First touch of hand in hand! - Did one but know!

JOHN KEATS (1795-1821)

A Thing Of Beauty Is A Joy For Ever

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever: Its loveliness increases; it will never Pass into nothingness; but still will keep A bower quiet for us, and a sleep Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing A flowery band to bind us to the earth, Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth Of noble natures, of the gloomy days, Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darken'd ways Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all, Some shape of beauty moves away the pall From our dark spirits.

Such the sun, the moon, Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon For simple sheep; and such are daffodils With the green world they live in; and clear rills That for themseles a cooling covert make 'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake, Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms: And such too is the grandeur of the dooms We have imagined for the mighty dead; All lovely tales that we have heard or read: An endless fountain of immortal drink, Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (1564 - 1616)

Let me not to the marriage of true mindes

Let me not to the marriage of true mindes Admit impediments, love is not love Which alters when it alteration findes, Or bends with the remover to remove.

O no, it is an ever fixed marke That lookes on temptests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering barke, Whose worth's unknowne, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's foole, though rosie lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compasse come, Love alters not with his breefe houres and weekes, But beares it out even to edge of doome: If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved.