1 Liebeslyrik als Importschlager: Der Petrarkismus im England des 16. Jahrhunderts *

Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503–1542) *

"They Flee from Me That Sometime Did Me Seek" *

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517–1547) *

"A Complaint by Night of the Lover not Beloved" *

Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586) *

"Loving in Truth, and Fain in Verse My Love to Show" (Astrophel and Stella 1) *

"Woe, having made me with many fights his own" (Astrophel and Stella 57) *

Edmund Spenser (ca. 1552–1599) *

"Ye tradefull merchants" (Amoretti XV) *

"One Day I Wrote Her Name Upon the Strand" Amoretti LXXV *

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) *

Sonnet 18 *

Sonnet 29 *

Sonnet 130 *

Sonnet 138 *

Sonnet 144 *

John Donne (1572–1631) *

"The Canonization" *

"The Sun Rising" *

"The Good-Morrow" *

Andrew Marvell (1621–1678) *

"To His Coy Mistress" *

John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (1647–1980) *

"The Imperfect Enjoyment" *

Aphra Behn (1640–1689) *

"The Disappointment" *

"Song: A Thousand Martyrs I Have Made" *

Robert Burns (1759–1796) *

"A Red Red Rose" *

William Blake (1757–1827) *

"The Sick Rose" *

"My Pretty Rose Tree" *

"The Prince of Love" *

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) *

"Love" *

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) *

"Love’s Philosophy" *

"To —" *

John Keats (1795–1821) *

"And what is love?" *

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861) *

Sonnets From the Portuguese XIV *

Sonnets From the Portuguese XLIII *

Robert Browning (1812–1889) *

"Life in a Love" *

"Love in a Life" *

Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909) *

"A Match" *

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1884) *

"Lovesight" *

Christina Rossetti (1830–1894) *

"Monna innominata: A Sonnet of Sonnets" *

Oscar WIlde (1854–1900) *

"Flower of Love" *

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) *

"A Thunderstorm in Town" *

"In the Vaulted Way" *

T. S. Eliot (1888–1965) *

"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" *

Philip Larkin (1922–1985) *

"Talking in Bed" *

Elizabeth Jennings (1926–) *

"Winter Love" *

Thom Gunn (1929–) *

"Carnal Knowledge" *

Gavin Ewart (1916–1996) *

"They flee from me that sometime did me seek" *

"The Lover Writes a One-word Poem" *

Rosemary Norman (1946–) *

"Love Poem" *

Carol Ann Duffy (1955–) *

"Hard to Say" *

Timothy Emlyn Jones *

"Disco Luv" *

2. Liebeslyrik als Importschlager:
   Der Petrarkismus im England des 16. Jahrhunderts

Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503–1542)

"They Flee from Me That Sometime Did Me Seek"

They flee from me that sometime did me seek

With naked foot stalking in my chamber.

I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek,

That now are wild, and do not remember

That sometime they have put themselves in danger

To take bread at my hand; and now they range,

Busily seeking with a continual change.

Thanked be to Fortune, it hath been otherwise

Twenty times better; but once in special:

In thin array, after a pleasant guise,

When her loose gown did from her shoulders fall,

And she me caught in her arms long and small,

Therewith all sweetly did me kiss

And softly said, "Dear heart, how like you this?"

It was no dream, – I lay broad waking.

But all is turned, thorough my gentleness,

Into a strange fashion of forsaking:

And I have leave to go of her goodness,

And she also to use new-fangledness.

But since that I unkindly so am served,

I would fain know what hath she now deserved.

Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517–1547)

"A Complaint by Night of the Lover not Beloved"

ALAS ! so all things now do hold their peace !

Heaven and earth disturbed in no thing ;

The beasts, the air, the birds their song do cease,

The nightès car the stars about doth bring.

Calm is the sea ; the waves work less and less :

So am not I, whom love, alas !doth wring,

Bringing before my face the great increase

Of my desires, whereat I weep and sing,

In joy and woe, as in a doubtful case.

For my sweet thoughts sometime do pleasure bring ;

But by and by, the cause of my disease

Gives me a pang, that inwardly doth sting,

When that I think what grief it is again,

To live and lack the thing should rid my pain.

Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586)

"Loving in Truth, and Fain in Verse My Love to Show" (Astrophel and Stella 1)

Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show,

That She, dear She, might take some pleasure of my pain,

– Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know,

Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain –

I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe,

Studying inventions fine, her wits to entertain,

Oft turning others’ leaves, to see if thence would flow

Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sunburnt brain.

But words came halting forth, wanting Invention’s stay;

Invention, Nature’s child, fled step-dame Study’s blows;

And others’ feet still seemed but strangers in my way.

Thus, great with child to speak, and helpless in my throes,

Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite –

"Fool!" said my Muse to me "look in thy heart, and write."

"Woe, having made me with many fights his own" (Astrophel and Stella 57)

Woe, having made with many fights his own

Each sense of mine; each gift, each power of mind

Grown now his slaves, he forc’d them out to find

The thoroughest words, fit for Woe’s self to groan,

Hoping that when they might find Stella alone,

Before she could prepare to be unkind,

Her soul, arm’d but with such a dainty rind,

Should soon be pierc’d with sharpness of the moan.

She heard my plaints, and did not only hear,

But them (so sweet is she) most sweetly sing,

With that fair breast making woe’s darkness clear:

A pretty case! I hoped her to bring

To feel my griefs, and she with face and voice

So sweets my pains, that my pains me rejoice.

Edmund Spenser (ca. 1552–1599)

"Ye tradefull merchants" (Amoretti XV)

Ye tradefull merchants, that with weary toyle

Do seeke most pretious things to make your gain,

And both the Indias of their treasures spoile,

What needeth you to seeke so farre in vaine?

For loe my love doth in her selfe containe

All this wold’s riches that may farre be found.

If saphyres, loe her eyes be saphyres plaine;

If rubies, loe her lips be rubies sound;

If pearls, her teeth be pearls both pure and round;

If yvorie, her forhead yvory weene;

If gold, her locks are finest gold on ground;

If silver, her faire hands are silver sheene.

But that which fairest is, but few behold:

Her mind, adorned with vertues manifold.

"One Day I Wrote Her Name Upon the Strand" Amoretti LXXV

One day I wrote her name upon the strand,

But came the waves and washed it away;

Again I wrote it with a second hand,

But came the tide and made my pains his prey.

"Vain man," said she "thou dost in vain assay

A mortal thing so to immortalize,

For I myself shall like to this decay,

And eke my name be wiped out likewise."

"Not so," quoth I "let baser things devise

To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:

My verse your virtues 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."

3. The Bard: Shakespeare und seine Antwort auf den Petrarkismus

William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

Sonnet 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimmed;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature’s changing course untrimmed;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;

Nor shall Death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st.

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Sonnet 29

When in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes

I all alone beweep my outcast state,

And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,

And look upon myself and curse my fate,

Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,

Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,

Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope,

With what I most enjoy contented least;

Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,

Haply I think on thee, and then my state,

Like to the lark at break of day arising

From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate;

For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings

That then I scorn to change my state with kings.

Sonnet 130

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips red;

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damasked, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound.

I grant I never saw a goddess go –

My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare

As any she belied with false compare.

Sonnet 138

When my love swears that she is made of truth

I do believe her, though I know she lies,

That she might think me some untutored youth

Unlearned in the world’s false subtleties.

Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,

Although she knows my days are past the best,

Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue;

On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed.

But wherefore says she not she is unjust?

And wherefore say not I that I am old?.

O, love’s best habit is in seeming trust,

And age in love loves not to have years told.

Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,

And in our faults by lies we flattered be.

Sonnet 144

Two loves I have, of comfort and despair,

Which like two spirits do suggest me still;

The better angel is a man right fair,

The worser spirit a woman coloured ill.

To win me soon to hell my female evil

Tempteth my better angel from my side,

And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,

Wooing his purity with her foul pride.

And whether that my angel be turned fiend,

Suspect I may, yet not directly tell;

But being both from me, both to each friend,

I guess one angel in another’s hell.

Yet this shall I ne’er know, but live in doubt,

Till my bad angel fire my good one out.

4. Die kühne Metaphorik der Metaphysical Poets

John Donne (1572–1631)

"The Canonization"

For Godsake hold your tongue! and let me love,

Or chide my palsy, or my gout,

My five grey haires, or ruined fortune flout;

With wealth your state, your minde with arts, improve;

Take you a course, get you a place,

Observe his honour, or his grace,

Or the King’s real, or his stamped face

Contemplate: what you will, approve,

So you will let me love.

Alas, alas, who’s injured by my love?

What merchant’s ships have my sighs drowned?

Who says my tears have overflowed his ground?

When did my colds a forward spring remove?

When did the heats which my veins fill

Add one more to the plaguy bill?

Soldiers find wars, and lawyers find out still

Litigious men, which quarrels move,

Though she and I do love.

Call us what you will, we are made such by love;

Call her one, me another fly;

We’re tapers too, and at our own cost die;

And we in us find th’ eagle and the dove.

The phoenix riddle hath more wit

By us, we two being one, are it.

So to one neutral thing both sexes fit:

We die and rise the same, and prove

Mysterious by his love.

We can die by it, if not live by love,

And if unfit for tombs and hearse

Our legend be, it will be fit for verse;

And if no piece of chronicle we prove,

We’ll build in sonnets pretty rooms;

As well a well-wrought urne becomes

The greatest ashes, as half-acre tombes;

And by these hymns all shall approve

Us canonized for Love.

"The Sun Rising"

Busy old fool, unruly sun,

Why dost thou thus,

Through windows and through curtains, call on us?

Must to thy motions lovers’ seasons run?

Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide

Late schoolboys and sour ’prentices,

Go tell court-huntsmen that the King will ride,

Call country ants to harvest offices;

Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime,

Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

Thy beams so reverend and strong

Why shouldst thou think?

I could eclipse and cloud them with a wink

But that I would not lose her sight so long:

If her eyes have not blinded thine,

Look, and, tomorrow late, tell me

Whether both th’ Indias of spice and mine

Be where thou left’st them, or lie here with me.

Ask for those kings whom thou saw’st yesterday,

And thou shalt hear, All here in one bed lay.

She’s all states, and all princes I;

Nothing else is.

Princes do but play us; compared to this,

All honour’s mimic, all wealth alchemy.

Thou, sun, art half as happy as we,

In that the world’s contracted thus;

Thine age asks ease, and since thy duties be

To warm the world, that’s done in warming us.

Shine here to us, and thou art everywhere;

This bed thy centre is, these walls thy sphere.

"The Good-Morrow"

I wonder, by my troth, what thou and I

Did, till we loved? Were we not weaned till then?

But sucked on country pleasures, childishly?

Or snorted we in the seven sleepers’ den?

’Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.

If ever any beauty I did see,

Which I desired, and got, ’twas but a dream of thee.

And now good-morrow to our waking souls,

Which watch not one another out of fear;

For love, all love of other sights controls,

And makes one little room an everywhere.

Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,

Let maps to others, worlds on worlds have shown,

Let us possess our world, each hath one, and is one.

My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,

And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;

Where can we find two better hemispheres

Without sharp North, without declining 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.

Andrew Marvell (1621–1678)

"To His Coy Mistress"

Had we but world enough and time,

This coyness, lady, were no crime.

We would sit down and think which way

To walk, and pass our long love’s day.

Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side

Shouldst rubies find: I by the tide

Of Humber would complain. I would

Love you ten years before the Flood;

And you should, if you please, refuse

Till the conversion of the Jews.

My vegetable love should grow

Vaster than empires, and more slow.

An hundred years should go to praise

Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;

Two hundred to adore each breast,

But thirty thousand to the rest;

An age at least to every part,

And the last age should show your heart.

For, lady, you deserve this state;

Nor would I love at lower rate.

But at my back I always hear

Time’s winged chariot hurrying near;

And yonder all before us lie

Deserts of vast eternity.

Thy beauty shall no more be found,

Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound

My echoing song; then worms shall try

That long-preserved virginity;

And your quaint honour turn to dust,

And into ashes all my lust.

The grave’s a fine and private place,

But none, I think, do there embrace.

Now, therefore, while the youthful hue

Sits on thy skin like morning dew,

And while thy willing soul transpires

At every pore with instant fires,

Now let us sport us while we may,

And now, like am’rous birds of prey,

Rather at once our time devour

Than languish in his slow-chapped pow’r.

Let us roll all our strength and all

Our sweetness up into one ball,

And tear our pleasures with rough strife

Thorough the iron gates of life.

Thus, though we cannot make our sun

Stand still, yet we will make him run.

5. Lyrik der Restaurationszeit

John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (1647–1980)

"The Imperfect Enjoyment"

Naked she lay; clasped in my longing arms,

I filled with love, and she all over charms;

Both equally inspired with eager fire,

Melting through kindness, flaming in desire.

With arms, legs, lips close clinging to embrace,

She clips me to her breast, and sucks me to her face.

Her nimble tongue, Love’s lesser lightning, played

Within my mouth, and to my thoughts conveyed

Swift orders that I should prepare to throw

The all-dissolving thunderbolt below.

My fluttering soul, sprung with the pointed kiss,

Hangs hovering o’er her balmy brinks of bliss.

But whilst her busy hand would guide that part

Which should convey my soul up to her heart,

In liquid raptures I dissolve all o’er,

Melt into sperm, and spend at every pore.

A touch from any part of her had done’t:

Her hand, her foot, her very look’s a cunt.

Smiling, she chides in a kind of murmuring noise,

And from her body wipes the clammy joys,

When, with a thousand kisses wandering o’er

My panting bosom, ‘Is there then no more!’

She cries. ‘All this to love and rapture’s due;

Must we not pay a debt to pleasure too?’

But I, the most forlorn, lost man alive,

To show my wished obedience vainly strive

I sigh, alas! and kiss, but cannot swive.

Eager desires confound my first intent,

Succeeding shame does more success prevent,

And rage at last confirms me impotent.

Ev’n her fair hand, which might bid heat return

To frozen age, and make cold hermits burn,

Applied to my dead cinder, warms no more

Than fire to ashes could past flames restore.

Trembling, confused, despairing, limber, dry,

A wishing, weak, unmoving lump I lie.

This dart of love, whose piercing point, oft tried,

With virgin blood ten thousand maids have dyed;

Which nature still directed with such art

That it through every cunt reached every heart –

Stiffly resolved, ’twould carelessly invade

Woman or man, nor ought its fury stayed:

Where’er it pierced, a cunt it found or made –

Now languid lies in this unhappy hour,

Shrunk up and sapless like a withered flower.

Thou treacherous, base deserter of my flame,

False to my passion, fatal to my fame,

Through what mistaken magic dost thou prove

So true to lewdness, so untrue to love?

What oyster-cinder-beggar-common whore

Did’st thou e’er fail in all thy life before?

When vice, disease, and scandal lead the way,

With what officious haste dost thou obey!

Like a rude, roaring hector in the streets

Who scuffles, cuffs, and justles all he meets,

But if his King or country claim his aid,

The rakehell villain shrinks and hides his head;

Ev’n so thy brutal valour is displayed,

Breaks every stew, does each small whore invade,

But when great Love the onset does command,

Base recreant to thy prince, thou dar’st not stand.

Worst part of me, and henceforth hated most,

Through all the town a common fucking post,

On whom each whore relieves her tingling cunt

As hogs on gates do rub themselves and grunt,

Mayst thou to ravenous chancres be a prey,

Or in consuming weepings waste away;

May strangury and stone thy days attend;

May’st thou ne’er piss, who didst refuse to spend

When all my joys did on false thee depend.

And may ten thousand abler pricks agree

To do the wronged Corinna right for thee.

Aphra Behn (1640–1689)

"The Disappointment"

I

One day the Amoruos Lysander,

By an impatient Passion sway’d,

Surpriz’d fair Cloris, that lov’d Maid,

Who could defend her self no longer.

All things did with his love conspire;

That gilded Planet of the Day,

In his gay Chariot drawn by Fire,

Was now descending to the Sea,

And left no Light to guide the World,

But what from Cloris Brighter Eyes was hurl’d.

II

In a lone Thicket, made for Love,

Silent as yielding Maids Consent,

She with a charming Languishment,

Permits his force, yet gently strove;

Her Hands his Bosom softly meet,

But not to put him back design’d,

Rather to draw ’em on inclin’d:

Whilst he lay trembling at her Feet,

Resistance ’tis in vain to show;

She wants the pow’r to say – Ah! What d’ye do?

III

Her Bright Eyes sweet, and yet Severe,

Where Love and Shame confus’dly strive,

Fresh Vigor to Lysander give;

And breathing faintly in his Ear,

She cry’d—Cease, Cease—your vain Desire,

Or I’ll call out—What would you do ?

My Dearer Honour ev’n to You

I cannot, must not give—Retire,

Or take this Life, whose chiefest part

I gave you with the Conquest of my Heart.

IV

But he as much unus’d to fear,

As he was capable of Love,

The blessed minutes to improve,

Kisses her Mouth, her Neck, her Hair;

Each Touch her new Desire Alarms,

His burning trembling Hand he prest

Upon her swelling Snowy Breast,

While she lay panting in his Arms.

All her Unguarded Beauties lie

The Spoils and Trophies of the Enemy.

V

And now, without Respect or Fear,

He seeks the Objects of his Vows,

(His Love no Modesty allows)

By swift degrees advancing—where

His daring Hand that Alter seiz’d,

Where Gods of Love do sacrifice.

That Awful Throne, that Paradice

Where Rage is calm’d, and Anger pleas’d,

That Fountain where Delight still flows,

And gives the Universal World Repose.

VI

Her Balmy Lips incountring his,

Their Bodies, as their Souls, are joyn’d;

Where both in Transports Unconfin’d

Extend themselves upon the Moss.

Cloris half dead and breathless lay;

Her soft Eyes cast a Humid Light,

Such as divides the Day and Night;

Or falling Stars, whose Fires decay:

And now no signs of Life she shows,

But what in short-breath’d Sighs returns & goes.

VII

He saw how at her Length she lay,

He saw her rising Bosom bare;

Her loose thin Robes, through which appear

A Shape design’d for Love and Play;

Abandon’d by her Pride and Shame,

She does her softest Joys dispence,

Off’ring her Virgin-Innocence

A Victim to Loves Sacred Flame;

While the o’er-Ravish’d Shepherd lies,

Unable to perform the Sacrifice.

VIII

Ready to taste a thousand Joys,

The too transported hapless Swain

Found the vast Pleasure turn’d to Pain;

Pleasure which too much Love destroys:

The willing Garments by he laid,

And Heaven all open’d to his view,

Mad to possess, himself he threw

On the Defenceless Lovely Maid.

But Oh what envying God[s conspire]

To snatch his Power, yet leave him the Desire!

IX

Nature’s Support, (without whose Aid

She can no Humane Being give)

It self now wants the Art to live,

Faintness its slack’ned Nerves invade:

In vain th’inraged Youth essay’d

To call its fleeting Vigor back,

No motion ’twill from Motion take;

Excess of Love his Love betray’d:

In vain he Toils, in vain Commands;

The Insensible fell weeping in his Hand.

X

In this so Amorous Cruel Strife,

Where Love and Fate were too severe,

The poor Lysander in despair

Renounc’d his Reason with his Life:

Now all the brisk and active Fire

That should the Nobler Part inflame,

Serv’d to increase his Rage and Shame,

And left no Spark for new Desire:

Not all her Naked Charms cou’d move

Or calm that Rage that had debauch’d his Love.

XI

Cloris returning from the Trance

Which Love and soft Desire had bred,

Her timerous Hand she gently laid

(Or guided by Design or Chance)

Upon that Fabulous Priapas,

That Potent God, as Poets feign,

But never did young Shepherdess,

Gath’ring of Fern upon the Plain,

More nimbly draw her Fingers back,

Finding beneath the verdant Leaves a snake:

XII

Then Cloris her fair Hand withdrew,

Finding that God of her Desires

Disarm’d of all his Aweful Fires,

And Cold as Flow’rs bath’d in the Morning-Dew.

Who can the Nymph’s Confusion guess?

The Blood forsook the hinder Place,

And strew’d with Blushes all her Face,

Which both Disdain and Shame exprest:

And from Lysander’s Arms she fled,

Leaving him fainting on the Gloomy Bed.

XIII

Like Lightning through the Grove she hies,

Or Daphne from the Delphick God,

No Print upon the grassey Road

She leaves, t’instruct pursuing Eyes.

The Wind that wanton’d in her Hair,

And with her Ruffled Garments plaid,

Discover’d in the Flying Maid

All that the Gods e’er made, [o]f Fair.

So Venus, when her Love was slain,

With fear and haste flew o’er the Fatal Plain.

XIV

The Nymph’s Resentments, none but I

Can well Imagine and Condole:

But none can guess Lisander’s Soul,

But those who sway’d his Destiny.

His silent Griefs swell up to Storms,

And not one God his Fury spares,

He curs’d his Birth, his Fate, his Stars;

But more the Shepherdess’s Charms,

Whose soft bewitching Influence

Had Damn’d him to the Hell of Impotence.

"Song: A Thousand Martyrs I Have Made"

A thousand martyrs I have made,

All sacrific’d to my desire;

A thousand beauties have betray’d,

That languish in resistless fire.

The untam’d heart to hand I brought,

And fixed the wild and wandering thought.

I never vow’d nor sigh’d in vain

But both, tho’ false, were well receiv’d.

The fair are pleas’d to give us pain,

And what they wish is soon believ’d.

And tho’ I talk’d of wounds and smart,

Love’s pleasures only touched my heart.

Alone the glory and the spoil

I always laughing bore away;

The triumphs, without pain or toil,

Without the hell, the heav’n of joy.

And while I thus at random rove

Despis’d the fools that whine for love.

6. Vor- und Frühromantik

Robert Burns (1759–1796)

"A Red Red Rose"

O my Luve’s like a red, red rose

That’s newly sprung in June;

O my Luve’s like the melodie

That’s sweetly played in tune. –

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,

So deep in luve am I;

And I will luve thee still, my dear,

Till a’ the seas gang dry. –

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,

And the rocks melt wi’ the sun:

I will luve thee still, my Dear,

While the sands o’ life shall run. –

And fare thee weel, my only Luve,

And fare thee weel awhile!

And I will come again, my Luve,

Tho’ it were ten thousand mile! –

William Blake (1757–1827)

"The Sick Rose"

O Rose, thou art sick!

The invisible worm,

That flies in the night,

In the howling storm,

Has found out thy bed

Of crimson joy;

And his dark secret love

Does thy life destroy.

"My Pretty Rose Tree"

A flower was offered to me,

Such a flower as May never bore;

But I said, "I’ve a pretty rose-tree",

And I passed the sweet flower o’er.

Then I went to my pretty rose-tree,

To tend her by day and by night;

But my rose turned away with jealousy,

And her thorns were my only delight.

"The Prince of Love"

How sweet I roamed from field to field,

And tasted all the summer’s pride,

’Till I the prince of love beheld,

Who in the sunny beams did glide!

He showed me lilies for my hair,

And blushing roses for my brow;

He led me through his gardens fair,

Where all his golden pleasures grow.

With sweet May dews my wings were wet,

And Phoebus fired my vocal rage;

He caught me in his silken net,

And shut me in his golden cage.

He loves to sit and hear me sing,

Then, laughing, sports and plays with me;

Then stretches out my golden wing,

And mocks my loss of liberty.

7. Die Lyrik der Romantik: "spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings"?

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834)

"Love"

All thoughts, all passions, all delights,

Whatever stirs this mortal frame,

Are all but ministers of Love,

And feed his sacred flame.

Oft in my waking dreams do I

Live o’er again that happy hour,

When midway on the mount I lay

Beside the ruined tower.

The moonshine stealing o’er the scene

Had blended with the lights of eve;

And she was there, my hope, my joy,

My own dear Genevieve!

She leant against the armed man,

The statue of the armed knight;

She stood and listened to my lay,

Amid the lingering light.

Few sorrows hath she of her own,

My hope! my joy! my Genevieve!

She loves me best, whene’er I sing

The songs that make her grieve.

I played a soft and doleful air,

I sang an old and moving story –

An old rude song, that suited well

That ruin wild and hoary.

She listened with a flitting blush,

With downcast eyes and modest grace;

For well she knew I could not choose

But gaze upon her face.

I told her of the Knight that wore

Upon his shield a burning brand;

And that for ten long years he wooed

The Lady of the Land.

I told her how he pined: and ah!

The deep, the low, the pleading tone

With which I sang another’s love

Interpreted my own.

She listened with a flitting blush,

With downcast eyes and modest grace;

And she forgave me, that I gazed

Too fondly on her face!

But when I told the cruel scorn

That crazed that bold and lovely Knight,

And that he crossed the mountain-woods,

Nor rested day nor night;

That sometimes from the savage den,

And sometimes from the darksome shade,

And sometimes starting up at once

In green and sunny glade, –

There came and looked him in the face

An angel beautiful and bright;

And that he knew it was a Fiend,

This miserable Knight!

And that, unknowing what he did,

He leaped amid a murderous band,

And saved from outrage worse than death

The Lady of the Land;

And how she wept, and clasped his knees;

And how she tended him in vain;

And ever strove to expiate

The scorn that crazed his brain; –

And that she nursed him in a cave;

And how his madness went away,

When on the yellow forest-leaves

A dying man he lay; –

His dying words – but when I reached

That tenderest strain of all the ditty,

My faltering voice and pausing harp

Disturbed her soul with pity!

All impulses of soul and sense

Had thrilled my guileless Genevieve;

The music and the doleful tale,

The rich and balmy eve;

And hopes, and fears that kindle hope,

An undistinguishable throng,

And gentle wishes long subdued,

Subdued and cherished long!

She wept with pity and delight,

She blushed with love, and virgin shame;

And like the murmur of a dream,

I heard her breathe my name.

Her bosom heaved – she stepped aside,

As conscious of my look she stepped –

Then suddenly, with timorous eye,

She fled to me and wept.

She half enclosed me with her arms,

She pressed me with a meek embrace;

And bending back her head, looked up,

And gazed upon my face.

’Twas partly love, and partly fear,

And partly ’twas a bashful art,

That I might rather feel, than see,

The swelling of her heart.

I calmed her fears, and she was calm,

And told her love with virgin pride;

And so I won my Genevieve,

My bright and beauteous Bride.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822)

"Love’s Philosophy"

The fountains mingle with the river

And the rivers with the ocean,

The winds of Heaven mix for ever

With a sweet emotion;

Nothing in the world is single,

All things by a law divine

In one spirit meet and mingle –

Why not I with thine?

See the mountains kiss high Heaven

And the waves clasp one another;

No sister-flower would be forgiven

If it disdained its brother;

And the sunlight clasps the earth,

And the moonbeams kiss the sea –

What are all these kissings worth

If thou kiss not me?

"To —"

Music, when soft voices die,

Vibrates in the memory –

Odours, when sweet violets sicken,

Live within the sense they quicken.

Rose leaves, when the rose is dead,

Are heaped for the beloved’s bed;

And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,

Love itself shall slumber on.

John Keats (1795–1821)

"And what is love?"

And what is love? It is a doll dressed up

For idleness to cosset, nurse, and dandle.

A thing of soft misnomers, so divine

That silly youth doth think to make itself

Divine by loving, and so goes on

Till Miss’s comb is made a pearl tiara,

And common Wellingtons turn Romeo boots;

Then Cleopatra lives in Number Seven,

And Antony resides in Brunswick Square.

Fools! If some passions high have warmed the world,

If queens and soldiers have played high for hearts,

It is no reason why such agonies

Should be more common than the growth of weeds.

Fools! Make me whole again that weighty pearl

The Queen of Egypt melted, and I’ll say

That ye may love in spite of beaver hats.

8. Der Viktorianismus

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)

Sonnets From the Portuguese XIV

If thou must love me, let it be for naught

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 themselves, Beloved, may

Be changed, or change for thee, – and love, so wrought,

May be unwrought so. Neither love me for

Thine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry –

A creature might forget to weep, who bore

Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!

But love me for love’s sake, that evermore

Thou may’st love on, through love’s eternity.

Sonnets From the Portuguese XLIII

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of every day’s

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.

I love thee freely, as men strive for right;

I love thee purely, as they turn from praise,

I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints – I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life! – and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.

Robert Browning (1812–1889)

"Life in a Love"

Escape me?

Never –

Beloved!

While I am I, and you are you,

So long as the world contains us both,

Me the loving and you the loth,

While the one eludes, must the other pursue.

My life is a fault at last, I fear –

It seems too much like a fate, indeed!

Though I do my best I shall scarce succeed –

But what if I fail of my purpose here?

It is but to keep the nerves at strain,

To dry one’s eyes and laugh at a fall,

And baffled, get up to begin again, –

So the chase takes up one’s life, that’s all.

While, look but once from your farthest bound,

At me so deep in the dust and dark,

No sooner the old hope drops to ground

Than a new one, straight to the selfsame mark,

I shape me –

Ever

Removed!

"Love in a Life"

I

Room after room,

I hunt the house through

We inhabit together.

Heart, fear nothing, for, heart, thou shalt find her,

Next time, herself! – not the trouble behind her

Left in the curtain, the couch’s perfume!

As she brushed it, the cornice-wreath blossomed anew, –

Yon looking-glass gleamed at the wave of her feather.

II

Yet the day wears,

And door succeeds door;

I try the fresh fortune –

Range the wide house from the wing to the centre.

Still the same chance! she goes out as I enter.

Spend my whole day in the quest, – who cares?

But ’tis twilight, you see, – with such suites to explore,

Such closets to search, such alcoves to importune!

Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909)

"A Match"

If love were what the rose is,

And I were like the leaf,

Our lives would grow together

In sad or singing weather,

Blown fields or flowerful closes,

Green pleasure or grey grief;

If love were what the rose is,

And I were like the leaf

If I were what the words are,

And love were like the tune,

With double sound and single

Delight our lips would mingle,

With kisses glad as birds are

That get sweet rain at noon;

If I were what the words are,

And love were like the tune.

If you were life, my darling,

And I your love were death,

We’d shine and snow together

Ere March made sweet the weather

With daffodil and starling

And hours of fruitful breath;

If you were life, my darling,

And I your love were death.

If you were thrall to sorrow,

And I were page to joy,

We’d play for lives and seasons

With loving looks and treasons

And tears of night and morrow

And laughs of maid and boy;

If you were thrall to sorrow,

And I were page to joy.

If you were April’s lady,

And I were lord in May,

We’d throw with leaves for hours

And draw for days with flowers,

Till day like night were shady

And night were bright like day;

If you were April’s lady,

And I were lord in May.

If you were queen of pleasure,

And I were king of pain,

We’d hunt down love together,

Pluck out his flying-feather,

And teach his feet a measure,

And find his mouth a rein;

If you were queen of pleasure,

And I were king of pain.

9. Die Präraphaeliten

Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828–1884)

"Lovesight"

When do I see thee most, beloved one?

When in the light the spirits of mine eyes

Before thy face, their altar solemnize

The worship of that Love through thee made known?

Or when in the dusk hours, (we two alone,)

Close-kissed and eloquent of still replies

Thy twilight-hidden glimmering visage lies,

And my soul only sees thy soul its own?

O love, my love! if I no more should see

Thyself, nor on the earth the shadow of thee,

Nor image of thine eyes in any spring, –

How the should sound upon Life’s darkening slope

The ground-whirl of the perished leaves of Hope,

The wind of Death’s imperishable wing?

Christina Rossetti (1830–1894)

"Monna innominata: A Sonnet of Sonnets"

1

Lo dì che han detto a’ dolci amici addio. (Dante)

Amor, con quanto sforzo oggi mi vinci! (Petrarca)

Come back to me, who wait and watch for you: –

Or come not yet, for it is over then,

And long it is before you come again,

So far between my pleasures are and few.

While, when you come not, what I do I do

Thinking "Now when he comes," my sweetest when:"

For one man is my world of all the men

This wide world holds; O love, my world is you.

Howbeit, to meet you grows almost a pang

Because the pang of parting comes so soon;

My hope hangs waning, waxing, like a moon

Between the heavenly days on which we meet:

Ah me, but where are now the songs I sang

When life was sweet because you call’d them sweet?

2

Era già 1’ora che volge il desio. (Dante)

Ricorro al tempo ch’ io vi vidi prima. (Petrarca)

I wish I could remember that 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 foresee,

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 seem’d to mean so little, meant so much;

If only now I could recall that touch,

First touch of hand in hand – Did one but know!

3

O ombre vane, fuor che ne l’aspetto! (Dante)

Immaginata guida la conduce. (Petrarca)

I dream of you to wake: would that I might

Dream of you and not wake but slumber on;

Nor find with dreams the dear companion gone,

As summer ended summer birds take flight.

In happy dreams I hold you full in sight,

I blush again who waking look so wan;

Brighter than sunniest day that ever shone,

In happy dreams your smile makes day of night.

Thus only in a dream we are at one,

Thus only in a dream we give and take

The faith that maketh rich who take or give;

If thus to sleep is sweeter than to wake,

To die were surely sweeter than to live,

Though there be nothing new beneath the sun.

4

Poca favilla gran fliamma seconda. (Dante)

Ogni altra cosa, ogni pensier va fore,

E sol ivi con voi rimansi amore. (Petrarca)

I lov’d you first: but afterwards your love

Outsoaring mine, sang such a loftier song

As drown’d the friendly cooings of my dove.

Which owes the other most? my love was long,

And yours one moment seem’d to wax more strong;

I lov’d and guess’d at you, you construed me –

And lov’d me for what might or might not be

Nay, weights and measures do us both a wrong.

For verily love knows not "mine" or "thine;"

With separate "I" and "thou" free love has done,

For one is both and both are one in love:

Rich love knows nought of "thine that is not mine;"

Both have the strength and both the length thereof,

Both of us, of the love which makes us one.

5

Amor che a nullo amato amar perdona. (Dante)

Amor m’addusse in sì gioiosa spene. (Petrarca)

O my heart’s heart, and you who are to me

More than myself myself, God be with you,

Keep you in strong obedience leal and true

To Him whose noble service setteth free,

Give you all good we see or can foresee,

Make your joys many and your sorrows few,

Bless you in what you bear and what you do,

Yea, perfect you as He would have you be.

So much for you; but what for me, dear friend?

To love you without stint and all I can

Today, tomorrow, world without an end;

To love you much and yet to love you more,

As Jordan at his flood sweeps either shore;

Since woman is the helpmeet made for man.

6

Or puoi la quantitate

Comprender de l’amor che a te mi scalda. (Dante)

Non vo’ che da tal nodo mi scioglia. (Petrarca)

Trust me, I have not earn’d your dear rebuke,

I love, as you would have me, God the most;

Would lose not Him, but you, must one be lost,

Nor with Lot’s wife cast back a faithless look

Unready to forego what I forsook;

This say I, having counted up the cost,

This, though I be the feeblest of God’s host,

The sorriest sheep Christ shepherds with His crook.

Yet while I love my God the most, I deem

That I can never love you overmuch;

I love Him more, so let me love you too;

Yea, as I apprehend it, love is such

I cannot love you if I love not Him,

I cannot love Him if I love not you.

7

Qui primavera sempre ed ogni frutto. (Dante)

Ragionando con meco ed io con lui. (Petrarca)

"Love me, for I love you" – and answer me,

"Love me, for I love you" – so shall we stand

As happy equals in the flowering land

Of love, that knows not a dividing sea.

Love builds the house on rock and not on sand,

Love laughs what while the winds rave desperately;

And who hath found love’s citadel unmann’d?

And who hath held in bonds love’s liberty?

My heart’s a coward though my words are brave

We meet so seldom, yet we surely part

So often; there’s a problem for your art!

Still I find comfort in his Book, who saith,

Though jealousy be cruel as the grave,

And death be strong, yet love is strong as death.

8

Come dicesse a Dio: D’altro non calme. (Dante)

Spero trovar pietà non che perdono. (Petrarca)

"I, if I perish, perish" – Esther spake:

And bride of life or death she made her fair

In all the lustre of her perfum’d hair

And smiles that kindle longing but to slake.

She put on pomp of loveliness, to take

Her husband through his eyes at unaware;

She spread abroad her beauty for a snare,

Harmless as doves and subtle as a snake.

She trapp’d him with one mesh of silken hair,

She vanquish’d him by wisdom of her wit,

And built her people’s house that it should stand: –

If I might take my life so in my hand,

And for my love to Love put up my prayer,

And for love’s sake by Love be granted it!

9

O dignitosa coscienza e netta! (Dante)

Spirto più acceso di virtuti ardenti. (Petrarca)

Thinking of you, and all that was, and all

That might have been and now can never be,

I feel your honour’d excellence, and see

Myself unworthy of the happier call:

For woe is me who walk so apt to fall,

So apt to shrink afraid, so apt to flee,

Apt to lie down and die (ah, woe is me!)

Faithless and hopeless turning to the wall.

And yet not hopeless quite nor faithless quite,

Because not loveless; love may toil all night,

But take at morning; wrestle till the break

Of day, but then wield power with God and man: –

So take I heart of grace as best I can,

Ready to spend and be spent for your sake.

10

Con miglior corso e con migliore stella. (Dante)

La vita fugge e non s’arresta un’ ora. (Petrarca)

Time flies, hope flags, life plies a wearied wing;

Death following hard on life gains ground apace;

Faith runs with each and rears an eager face,

Outruns the rest, makes light of everything,

Spurns earth, and still finds breath to pray and sing;

While love ahead of all uplifts his praise,

Still asks for grace and still gives thanks for grace,

Content with all day brings and night will bring.

Life wanes; and when love folds his wings above

Tired hope, and less we feel his conscious pulse,

Let us go fall asleep, dear friend, in peace:

A little while, and age and sorrow cease;

A little while, and life reborn annuls

Loss and decay and death, and all is love.

11

Vien dietro a me e lascia dir le genti. (Dante)

Contando i casi della vita nostra. (Petrarca)

Many in aftertimes will say of you

"He lov’d her" – while of me what will they say?

Not that I lov’d you more than just in play,

For fashion’s sake as idle women do.

Even let them prate; who know not what we knew

Of love and parting in exceeding pain,

Of parting hopeless here to meet again,

Hopeless on earth, and heaven is out of view.

But by my heart of love laid bare to you,

My love that you can make not void nor vain,

Love that foregoes you but to claim anew

Beyond this passage of the gate of death,

I charge you at the Judgment make it plain

My love of you was life and not a breath.

12

Amor, che ne la mente mi ragiona. (Dante)

Amor vien nel bel viso di costei. (Petrarca)

If there be any one can take my place

And make you happy whom I grieve to grieve,

Think not that I can grudge it, but believe

I do commend you to that nobler grace,

That readier wit than mine, that sweeter face;

Yea, since your riches make me rich, conceive

I too am crown’d, while bridal crowns I weave,

And thread the bridal dance with jocund pace.

For if I did not love you, it might be

That I should grudge you some one dear delight;

But since the heart is yours that was mine own,

Your pleasure is my pleasure, right my right,

Your honourable freedom makes me free,

And you companion’d I am not alone.

13

E drizzeremo gli occhi al Primo Amore. (Dante)

Ma trovo peso non da le mie braccia. (Petrarca)

If I could trust mine own self with your fate,

Shall I not rather trust it in God’s hand?

Without Whose Will one lily doth not stand,

Nor sparrow fall at his appointed date;

Who numbereth the innumerable sand,

Who weighs the wind and water with a weight,

To Whom the world is neither small nor great,

Whose knowledge foreknew every plan we plann’d.

Searching my heart for all that touches you,

I find there only love and love’s goodwill

Helpless to help and impotent to do,

Of understanding dull, of sight most dim;

And therefore I commend you back to Him

Whose love your love’s capacity can fill.

14

E la Sua Volontade è nostra pace. (Dante)

Sol con questi pensier, con altre chiome. (Petrarca)

Youth gone, and beauty gone if ever there

Dwelt beauty in so poor a face as this;

Youth gone and beauty, what remains of bliss?

I will not bind fresh roses in my hair,

To shame a cheek at best but little fair, –

Leave youth his roses, who can bear a thorn, –

I will not seek for blossoms anywhere,

Except such common flowers as blow with corn.

Youth gone and beauty gone, what doth remain?

The longing of a heart pent up forlorn,

A silent heart whose silence loves and longs;

The silence of a heart which sang its songs

While youth and beauty made a summer morn,

Silence of love that cannot sing again.

10. Die ’Nineties und die Jahrhundertwende: Naturalismus und Ästhetizismus

Oscar WIlde (1854–1900)

"Flower of Love"

Sweet, I blame you not, for mine the fault was, had I not been made of common clay

I had climbed the higher heights unclimbed yet, seen the fuller air, the larger day.

From the wildness of my wasted passion I had struck a better, clearer song,

Lit some lighter light of freer freedom, battled with some Hydra-headed wrong.

Had my lips been smitten into music by the kisses that but made them bleed,

You had walked with Bice and the angels on that verdant and enamelled meed.

I had trod the road which Dante treading saw the suns of seven circles shine,

Ay! perchance had seen the heavens opening, as they opened to the Florentine.

And the mighty nations would have crowned me, who am crownless now and without name,

And some orient dawn had found me kneeling on the threshold of the House of Fame.

I had sat within that marble circle where the oldest bard is as the young,

And the pipe is ever dropping honey, and the lyre’s strings are ever strung.

Keats had lifted up his hymeneal curls from out the poppy-seeded wine,

With ambrosial mouth had kissed my forehead, clasped the hand of noble love in mine.

And at springtide, when the apple-blossoms brush the burnished bosom of the dove,

Two young lovers lying in an orchard would have read the story of our love;

Would have read the legend of my passion, known the bitter secret of my heart,

Kissed as we have kissed, but never parted as we two are fated now to part.

For the crimson flower of our life is eaten by the cankerworm of truth,

And no hand can gather up the fallen withered petals of the rose of youth.

Yet I am not sorry that I loved you – ah! what else had I a boy to do? –

For the hungry teeth of time devour, and the silent-footed years pursue.

Rudderless, we drift athwart a tempest, and when once the storm of youth is past,

Without lyre, without lute or chorus, Death the silent pilot comes at last.

And within the grave there is no pleasure, for the blindworm battens on the root,

And Desire shudders into ashes, and the tree of Passion bears no fruit.

Ah! what else had I to do but love you? God’s own mother was less dear to me,

And less dear the Cytheraean rising like an argent lily from the sea.

I have made my choice, have lived my poems, and, though youth is gone in wasted days,

I have found the lover’s crown of myrtle better than the poet’s crown of bays.

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)

"A Thunderstorm in Town"

(A Reminiscence: 1893)

She wore a new ‘terra-cotta’ dress,

And we stayed, because of the pelting storm,

Within the hansom’s dry recess,

Though the horse had stopped; yea, motionless

We sat on, snug and warm.

Then the downpour ceased, to my sharp sad pain

And the glass that had screened our forms before

Flew up, and out she sprang to her door:

I should have kissed her if the rain

Had lasted a minute more.

"In the Vaulted Way"

In the vaulted way, where the passage turned

To the shadowy corner that none could see,

You paused for our parting, – plaintively:

Though overnight had come words that burned

My frond frail happiness out of me.

And then I kissed you, – despite my thought

That our spell must end when reflection came

On what you had deemed me, whose one long aim

Had been to serve you; that what I sought

Lay not in a heart that could breathe such blame.

But yet I kissed you: whereon you again

As of old kissed me. Why, why was it so?

Do you cleave to me after that light-tongued blow?

If you scorned me at eventide, how love then?

The thing is dark, Dear. I do not know.

11. Modernismus

T. S. Eliot (1888–1965)

"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

S’io credessi che mia risposta fosse

A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,

Questa fiamma staria senza più scosse.

Ma per ciò che giammai di questo fondo

Non tornò viva alcun, s’i’odo il vero,

Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.

Let us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherised upon a table;

Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,

The muttering retreats

Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels

And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:

Streets that follow like a tedious argument

Of insidious intent

To lead you to an overwhelming question …

Oh, do not ask, ‘What is it?’

Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the woman come and go

Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,

The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,

Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,

Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,

Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,

Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,

And seeing that it was a soft October night,

Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

In the room the woman come and go

Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time

To wonder, ‘Do I dare?’ and, ‘Do I dare?’

Time to turn back and descend the stair,

With a bald spot in the middle of my hair –

(They will say: ‘How his hair is growing thin!’)

My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,

My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin –

(They will say: ‘But how his arms and legs are thin!’)

Do I dare

Disturb the universe?

In a minute there is time

For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them already, known then all –

Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;

I know the voices dying with a dying fall

Beneath the music from a farther room.

So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all –

The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,

And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,

When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,

Then how should I begin

To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?

And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all –

Arms that are braceleted and white and bare

[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]

Is it perfume from a dress

That makes me so digress?

Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.

And should I then presume?

And how should I begin?

..............................

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets

And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes

Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? …

I should have been a pair of ragged claws

Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

..............................

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!

Smoothed by long fingers,

Asleep … tired … or it malingers,

Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.

Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,

Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?

But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,

Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,

I am no prophet – and here’s no great matter;

I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,

And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,

And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,

After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,

Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,

Would it have been worth while,

To have bitten off the matter with a smile,

To have squeezed the universe into a ball

To roll toward some overwhelming question,

To say: ‘I am Lazarus, come back from the dead,

Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all’ –

If one settling a pillow by her head,

Should say: ‘That is not what I meant at all.

That is not it, at all.’

And would it have been worth it, after all,

Would it have been worth while,

After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,

After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor –

And this, and so much more? –

It is impossible to say just what I mean!

But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:

Would it have been worth while

If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,

And turning toward the window, should say:

‘That is not it at all, That is not what I meant, at all.’

..............................

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;

Am an attendant lord, one that will do

To swell a progress, start a scene or two,

Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,

Deferential, glad to be of use,

Politic, cautious, and meticulous;

Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;

At times, indeed, almost ridiculous –

Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old … I grow old…

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?

I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen then riding seaward on the waves

Combing the white hair of the waves blown back

When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea

By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown

Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

12. The Movement: Die Bewegung weg vom Experiment

Philip Larkin (1922–1985)

"Talking in Bed"

Talking in bed ought to be easiest,

Lying together there goes back so far,

An emblem of two people being honest.

Yet more and more time passes silently.

Outside, the wind’s incomplete unrest

Builds and disperses clouds about the sky,

And dark towns heap up on the horizon.

None of this cares for us. Nothing shows why

At this unique distance from isolation

It becomes still more difficult to find

Words at once true and kind,

Or not untrue and not unkind.

Elizabeth Jennings (1926–)

"Winter Love"

Let us have winter loving that the heart

May be in peace and ready to partake

Of the slow pleasure spring would wish to hurry

Or that in summer harshly would awake,

And let us fall apart, O gladly weary,

The white skin shaken like a white snowflake.

Thom Gunn (1929–)

"Carnal Knowledge"

Even in bed I pose: desire may grow

More circumstantial and less circumspect

Each night, but an acute girl would suspect

My thoughts might not be, like my body, bare.

I wonder if you know, or, knowing care?

You know I know you know I know you know.

I am not what I seem, believe me, so

For the magnanimous pagan I pretend

Substitute a forked creature as your friend.

When darkness lies – without a roll or stir –

Flaccid, you want a competent poseur

Whose seeming is the only thing to know.

I prod you, you react. Thus to and fro

We turn, to see ourselves perform the same

Comical act inside the tragic game.

Or is it perhaps simpler: could it be

A mere tear-jerker void of honesty

In which there are no motives left to know?

Lie back. Within a minute I will stow

Your greedy mouth, but will not yet to grips.

‘There is a space between the breast and lips.’

Also a space between the thighs and head,

So great, we might as well not be in bed:

For we learn nothing here we did not know.

I hardly hoped for happy thoughts, although

In a most happy sleeping time I dreamt

We did not hold each other in contempt.

Then lifting from my lids night’s penny weights

I saw that lack of love contaminates.

You know I know you know I know you know.

Abandon me to stammering, and go;

If you have tears, prepare to cry elsewhere –

I know of no emotion we can share.

Your intellectual protests are a bore,

And even now I pose, so now go, for

I know you know.

13. Postmoderne Spielereien in der Lyrik

Gavin Ewart (1916–1996)

Rosemary Norman (1946–)

Carol Ann Duffy (1955–)

Timothy Emlyn Jones