What thing is love?--for (well I wot) love is a thing
It is a prick, it is a sting,
It is a pretty, pretty thing;
It is a fire, it is a coal,
Whose flame creeps in at every hole!
_The Hunting of Cupid_. G. PEELE.
O, love, love, love!
Love is like a dizziness;
It winna let a poor body
Gang about his biziness!
_Love is Like a Dizziness_. J. HOGG.
With a smile that glowed
Celestial rosy red; love's proper hue.
_Paradise Lost, Bk. VIII_. MILTON.
Love, like death,
Levels all ranks, and lays the shepherd's crook
Beside the sceptre.
_Lady of Lyons_. E. BULWER-LYTTON.
Didst thou but know the inly touch of love,
Thou wouldst as soon go kindle fire with snow,
As seek to quench the fire of love with words.
_Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act ii. Sc_. 7. SHAKESPEARE.
There's a bliss beyond all that the minstrel has told,
When two, that are linked in one heavenly tie.
With heart never changing, and brow never cold.
Love on through all ills, and love on till they die!
One hour of a passion so sacred is worth
Whole ages of heartless and wandering bliss;
And O, if there be an Elysium on earth,
It is this, it is this.
_Lalla Rookh: Light of the Harem_. T. MOORE.
Love is the tyrant of the heart; it darkens
Reason, confounds discretion; deaf to counsel
It runs a headlong course to desperate madness.
_The Lover's Melancholy, Act iii. Sc_. 3. J. FORD.
Ask not of me. Love, what is love?
Ask what is good of God above;
Ask of the great sun what is light;
Ask what is darkness of the night;
Ask sin of what may be forgiven;
Ask what is happiness of heaven;
Ask what is folly of the crowd;
Ask what is fashion of the shroud;
Ask what is sweetness of thy kiss;
Ask of thyself what beauty is.
_Festus, Sc. Party and Entertainment_. P.J. BAILEY.
All love is sweet,
Given or returned. Common as light is love,
And its familiar voice wearies not ever.
_Prometheus Unbound, Act ii. Sc_. 5. P.B. SHELLEY.
Love is a celestial harmony
Of likely hearts.
_Hymn in Honor of Beauty_. E. SPENSER.
There's beggary in the love that can be reckoned.
_Antony and Cleopatra, Act i. Sc_. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
Like Dian's kiss, unasked, unsought,
Love gives itself, but is not bought.
_Endymion_. H.W. LONGFELLOW.
It is not virtue, wisdom, valor, wit,
Strength, comeliness of shape, or amplest merit
That woman's love can win, or long inherit.
But what it is, hard is to say,
Harder to hit.
_Samson Agonistes_. MILTON.
Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.
_Twelfth Night, Act ii. Sc_. 5. SHAKESPEARE.
Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.
_Rape of the Lock, Canto V_. A. POPE.
Why did she love him? Curious fool!--be still--
Is human love the growth of human will?
_Lara, Canto II_. LORD BYRON.
I know not why
I love this youth; and I have heard you say,
Love's reason's without reason.
_Cymbeline, Act iv. Sc_. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
Love goes toward love as school-boys from their books,
But love from love, toward school with heavy looks.
_Romeo and Juliet, Act ii. Sc_. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
Divine is Love and scorneth worldly pelf,
And can be bought with nothing but with self.
_Love the Only Price of Love_. SIR W. RALEIGH.
Love like a shadow flies when substance love pursues;
Pursuing that that flies, and flying what pursues.
_Merry Wives of Windsor, Act ii. Sc_. 2. SHAKESPEARE.
Love, whose month is ever May,
Spied a blossom passing fair
Playing in the wanton air:
Through the velvet leaves the wind,
All unseen can passage find;
That the lover, sick to death.
Wish himself the heaven's breath.
_Love's Labor's Lost, Act iv. Sc_. 3. SHAKESPEARE.
Affection is a coal that must be cooled;
Else, suffered, it will set the heart on fire.
_Venus and Adonis_. SHAKESPEARE.
In all amours a lover burns.
With frowns, as well as smiles, by turns;
And hearts have been as oft with sullen,
As charming looks, surprised and stolen.
_Hudibras, Pt. III. Canto I_. S. BUTLER.
Mysterious love, uncertain treasure,
Hast thou more of pain or pleasure!
* * * * *
Endless torments dwell about thee:
Yet who would live, and live without thee!
_Rosamond, Act iii. Sc_. 2. J. ADDISON.
If there's delight in love, 'tis when I see
The heart, which others bleed-for, bleed for me.
_Way of the World, Act iii Sc_. 3. W. CONGREVE.
Give, you gods,
Give to your boy, your Cæsar,
The rattle of a globe to play withal,
This gewgaw world, and put him cheaply off;
I'll not be pleased with less than Cleopatra.
_All for Love, Act ii. Sc_. 1. J. DRYDEN.
Much ado there was, God wot;
He woold love, and she woold not,
She sayd, "Never man was trewe;"
He sayes, "None was false to you."
_Phillida and Corydon_. N. BRETON.
Forty thousand brothers
Could not, with all their quantity of love,
Make up my sum.
_Hamlet, Act v. Sc_. 1. SHAKESPEARE.
Love, then, hath every bliss in store;
'Tis friendship, and 'tis something more.
Each other every wish they give;
Not to know love is not to live.
_Plutus, Cupid, and Time_. J. GAY.