Sumerian Love Poem

Bridegroom, dear to my heart
Goodly is your beauty
Honeysweet,
Lion, dear to my heart
Goodly is your beauty
Honeysweet,
You have captivated me,
Let me stand tremblingly before you.
Bridegroom, I would be taken by you to the bedchamber
you have captivated me,
let me stand tremblingly before you.
Lion, I would be taken by you to the bedchamber.
Bridegroom, let me caress you,
My precious caress is more savory than honey,
in the bedchamber, honey-filled
let me enjoy your goodly beauty,
Lion, let me caress you,
My precious caress is more savory than honey.
Bridegroom, you have taken your pleasure of me,
Tell my mother, she will give you delicacies,
My father, he will give you gifts.
Your spirit, I know where to cheer your spirit,
Bridegroom, sleep in our house until dawn,
Your heart, I know where to gladden your heart,
Lion, sleep in our house until dawn.
You, because you love me
Give me pray of your caress,
My lord god, my lord protector,
My Shu-Sin who gladdens Enlil’s heart
give my pray of your caress
Your place goodly as honey
pray lay your hand on it
bring your hand over like a gishban-garment
cup your hand over it like a gishban-sikin-garment.

- (2050 b.c.e.?)

At Verona

How steep the stairs within Kings' houses are
for exile-wearied feet as mine to tread,
And O how salt and bitter is the bread
Which falls from this Hound's table,-- better far
That I had died in the red ways of war,
Or that the gate of Florence bare my head,
Than to live thus, by all things comraded
Which seek the essence of my soul to mar.

'Curse God and die: what better hope than this?
He hath forgotten thee in all the bliss
Of his gold city, and eternal day'--
Nay peace: behind my prison's blinded bars
I do possess what none can take away
My love, and all the glory of the stars.

- Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

His Last Sonnet

Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art!-
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like Nature’s patient sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors -
No -yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillowed upon my fair love’s ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever -or else swoon to death.

- John Keats (1795-1821)