poems of peace and love

The Dole of the King’s Daughter
by Oscar Wilde

Seven stars in the still water,

And seven in the sky;

Seven sins on the King’s daughter,

Deep in her soul to lie.

Red roses at her feet,

(Roses are red in her red-gold hair)

And O where her bosom and girdle meet

Red roses are hidden there.

Fair is the knight who lieth slain

Amid the rush and reed,

See the lean fishes that are fain

Upon dead men to feed.

Sweet is the page that lieth there,

(Cloth of gold is goodly prey,)

See the black ravens in the air,

Black, O black as the night are they.

What do they there so stark and dead?

(There is blood upon her hand)

Why are the lilies flecked with red?

(There is blood on the river sand.)

There are two that ride from the south to the east,

And two from the north and west,

For the black raven a goodly feast,

For the King’s daughter to rest.

There is one man who loves her true,

(Red, O red, is the stain of gore!)

He hath duggen a grave by the darksome yew,

(One grave will do for four.)

No moon in the still heaven,

In the black water none,

The sins on her soul are seven,

The sin upon his is one.

Love’s Philosophy
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

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?

What Do Women Want?
by Kim Addonizio

I want a red dress.

I want it flimsy and cheap,

I want it too tight, I want to wear it

until someone tears it off me.

I want it sleeveless and backless,

this dress, so no one has to guess

what’s underneath. I want to walk down

the street past Thrifty’s and the hardware store

with all those keys glittering in the window,

past Mr. and Mrs. Wong selling day-old

donuts in their café, past the Guerra brothers

slinging pigs from the truck and onto the dolly,

hoisting the slick snouts over their shoulders.

I want to walk like I’m the only

woman on earth and I can have my pick.

I want that red dress bad.

I want it to confirm

your worst fears about me,

to show you how little I care about you

or anything except what

I want. When I find it, I’ll pull that garment

from its hanger like I’m choosing a body

to carry me into this world, through

the birth-cries and the love-cries too,

and I’ll wear it like bones, like skin,

it’ll be the goddamned

dress they bury me in.

Love’s Trinity
by Alfred Austin

Soul, heart, and body, we thus singly name,

Are not in love divisible and distinct,

But each with each inseparably link’d.

One is not honour, and the other shame,

But burn as closely fused as fuel, heat, and flame.

They do not love who give the body and keep

The heart ungiven; nor they who yield the soul,

And guard the body. Love doth give the whole;

Its range being high as heaven, as ocean deep,

Wide as the realms of air or planet’s curving sweep.

The Owl and the Pussy Cat
by Edward Lear

The Owl and the Pussy Cat went to sea

In a beautiful pea-green boat,

They took some honey, and plenty of money

Wrapped up in a five-pound note.

The Owl looked up to the stars above,

And sang to a small guitar,

“O lovely Pussy, O Pussy, my love,

What a beautiful Pussy you are,

You are,

You are!

What a beautiful Pussy you are!”

Pussy said to the Owl, “You elegant fowl!

How charmingly sweet you sing!

O let us be married! too long we have tarried:

But what shall we do for a ring?”

They sailed away, for a year and a day,

To the land where the Bong-tree grows

And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood

With a ring at the end of his nose,

His nose,

His nose,

With a ring at the end of his nose.

“Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling

Your ring?” Said the Piggy, “I will.”

So they took it away, and were married next day

By the Turkey who lives on the hill.

They dined on mince, and slices of quince,

Which they ate with a runcible spoon;

And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,

They danced by the light of the moon,

The moon,

The moon,

They danced by the light of the moon.

Success Is Counted Sweetest
by Emily Dickinson

Success is counted sweetest

By those who ne’er succeed.

To comprehend a nectar

Requires sorest need.

Not one of all the purple Host

Who took the Flag today

Can tell the definition

So clear of Victory

As he defeated-dying

On whose forbidden ear

The distant strains of triumph

Burst agonized and clear!

My Love Is Like to Ice
by Edmund Spenser

My love is like to ice, and I to fire:

How come it then that this her cold is so great

Is not dissolved through my so hot desire,

But harder grows the more I her entreat?

Or how comes it that my exceeding heat

Is not allayed by her heart-frozen cold,

But that I burn much more in boiling sweat,

And feel my flames augmented manifold?

What more miraculous thing may be told,

That fire, which is congealed with senseless cold,

Should kindle fire by wonderful device?

Such is the power of love in gentle mind,

That it can alter all the course of kind.