It takes a minute to have a crush on someone, an hour to like someone, and a day to love someone… but it takes a lifetime to forget someone.
― Khalil Gibran
Tag: love
You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.
Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And 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.
Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
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.
― Khalil Gibran, The Prophet, “On Marriage”
And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
– Khalil Gibran, “Love Chapter II”
There never yet was honest man
That ever drove the trade of love;
It is impossible, nor can
Integrity our ends promove:
For Kings and Lovers are alike in this
That their chief art in reigne dissembling is.
Here we are lov’d, and there we love,
Good nature now and passion strive
Which of the two should be above,
And laws unto the other give.
So we false fire with art sometimes discover,
And the true fire with the same art do cover.
What Rack can Fancy find so high?
Here we must Court, and here ingage,
Though in the other place we die.
Oh! ‘tis torture all, and cozenage;
And which the harder is I cannot tell,
To hide true love, or make false love look well.
Since it is thus, God of desire,
Give me my honesty again,
And take thy brands back, and thy fire;
I’me weary of the State I’me in:
Since (if the very best should now befall)
Loves Triumph, must be Honours Funeral.
– Sir John Suckling, “Loving and Beloved”
Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all:
What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?
No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call—
All mine was thine before thou hadst this more.
Then if for my love thou my love receivest,
I cannot blame thee for my love thou usest;
But yet be blamed if thou this self deceivest
By wilful taste of what thyself refusest.
I do forgive thy robb’ry, gentle thief,
Although thou steal thee all my poverty;
And yet love knows it is a greater grief
To bear love’s wrong than hate’s known injury.
Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,
Kill me with spites, yet we must not be foes.
– William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 40”
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea
But sad mortality o’er-sways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O, how shall summer’s honey breath hold out
Against the wrackful siege of batt’ring days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong, but time decays?
O fearful meditation! where, alack,
Shall time’s best jewel from time’s chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
O, none, unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.
– William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 65”
I am not sorry that you’re not here,
I do not wish for things to be different.
You must hate me so much,
For all the pain I have caused you.
I hope you find her someday soon,
The one that is truly made for you.
I know she cannot be me,
Because you are not the one for me.
I am sorry that you’ve had to wait all this time,
Only to realize that we are not meant to be.
Maybe someday once you’ve found her,
You’ll be able to forgive me.
Until then I hope that we will never meet,
I could not bear to see the hate in your eyes for me.
© Sharon Kaur-Schuelke
The dull ache of pain and agony
The dread of its eternity
Lulls me to sleep tonight.
Cupid and his arrow
A figment of my desperate imagination
Endlessly waiting for that strike.
Loneliness spreads itself through my veins
Patience waits to be rewarded
Wishful thinking is all it is.
© Sharon Kaur-Schuelke
Anguish pounds through my veins
Love shuns my broken heart.
Torn, helpless and wounded,
Fate mocks my lethargy
My destiny, distant and uncertain.
© Sharon Kaur-Schuelke
…but, friend, to me
He is all fault who hath no fault at all:
For who loves me must have a touch of earth.
– Alfred Lord Tennyson, Idylls of the King, “Elaine”
Tonight once more we shall meet
As I wait in the still of the night
Watching the darkness, once again
You have been delayed.
Your desire a thirst too great to quench the craving
That has embedded itself in your soul forever
Will you be cursed never to redeem your soul
That aches for redemption to love once more
To feel that of which you are incapable
Of expressing human love.
The darkness engulfs me, my thoughts
I feel the teasing of the wind in my hair
The soft whistling as the leaves prepare
To dance the song of death.
© Sharon Kaur-Schuelke
I hold it true, whatever befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
‘Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
– Alfred Lord Tennyson, “In Memoriam”, Part XXVII
Last night you came to me once more
Like death knocked on my door,
Pure white angels snowy white
Jerked me right out of sleep,
Standing dark and solemn at the foot of my bed
You said let’s fly away over the pale moon,
As warm wind did we embrace
Your touch so cold on my heart,
My soul yearns for the light so warm
So why can’t I see the light at the end of you?
The promise of a new day bright and clear
Brings neither joy nor love into my soul,
Polar regions need no ends
For there is no end to the cold,
Solar regions feel no bends
Because light rays reflect off my soul,
My heart is not yet warm
My soul still so cold,
Take me away from this cruelty
Let me make you my choice.
© Sharon Kaur-Schuelke
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments; Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O, no, it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although highth be taken.
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.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
– William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 116”
My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep;
The more I give to you, the more I have,
For both are infinite.
– William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Love does not conquer all, except in Bombay Talkies; rip tear crunch will not be defeated by a mere ceremony; and optimism is a disease.
– Salman Rushdie, Midnight’s Children
Perfect love is rare indeed — for to be a lover will require that you continually have the subtlety of the very wise, the flexibility of the child, the sensitivity of the artist, the understanding of the philosopher, the acceptance of the saint, the tolerance of the scholar and the fortitude of the certain.
– Leo F. Buscaglia, Love (1972)
Till all the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt with the sun;
O I will love thee still, my dear,
While the sands of life shall run.
– Robert Burns, “A Red, Red Rose”
And all that memory loves the most
Was once our only hope to be:
And all that hope adored and lost
Hath melted into memory.
– Lord Byron, “they say that Hope is Happiness”
How many times do I love thee, dear?
Tell me how many thoughts there be
In the atmosphere
Of a new fallen year,
Whose white and sable hours appear
The latest flake of Eternity –
So many times do I love thee, dear.
How many time do I love thee, dear?
Tell me how many beads there are
In a silver chain
Of evening rain
Unravelled from the tumbling main,
And threading the eye of a yellowstar
So many times do I love again.
– Thomas Love Peacock, “Song”
Rainbow of Madness 