Here are my favorite poems about ex lovers for him categorized:
- Short poems about ex lovers for him
- Sad poems about ex lovers for him
- Romantic poems about ex lovers for him
- Poems for your ex that you still love
So if you want the best poems about ex lovers for him, then you’re in the right place.
Let’s get to it!
- 35 Healing Poems About Letting Someone Go For Him
- 47 Liberating Poems About Ex Boyfriends
- 81 Daring Poems About Getting Over a Breakup for Him
- 93 Unwavering Love Poems For Boyfriends
- 125 Striking Love Poems For Him
Unforgettable Poems About Ex Lovers for Him
Love, the most enigmatic of emotions, often leads us down paths we never expected.
And sometimes, those paths wind their way through the realm of ex-lovers.
In this collection of poems, we explore the complex tapestry of emotions that arise when love fades and memories linger.
From heartbreak to healing, these verses capture the essence of past relationships and the unforgettable lessons they impart.
So, dear reader, join us on this poetic journey as we delve into the intricacies of ex-lovers and find solace in the beauty of words.
Keep reading!
My #1 Favorite Poem About Ex Lovers for Him
“After Parting” by Pakenham Beatty
What will you say to me, Love, when I come,
When swallows fly toward Spring?
I will but kiss your lips, love, and be dumb Kissing.
What will you answer when my voice, unheard
These many years, shall speak again to you?
I will but tell you some old tender word Love knew.
How will you love me, Love, when we two meet,
And all the pain of parting shall be o’er?
I will but love you as I loved you, Sweet, Before.
Why “After Parting” Is My Favorite Poem About Ex Lovers for Him
Many of us may have experienced a time in our lives when, due to certain circumstances, we were forced to let go of a beloved, even though love still remains in our hearts.
“After Parting” by Pakenham Beatty conveys this exact message.
I’m sure that many, like myself, can relate to this beautiful piece, which is why it is an easy favorite in this collection.
Each stanza begins with a question that precisely captures the innermost thoughts and desires of former lovers, especially when their love still lingers.
I love the vulnerability and simplicity of this love poem, as it creates a light and enjoyable narrative about someone who has lost their love but remains hopeful for a reunion.
Short Poems About Ex Lovers for Him
Love can be a bittersweet journey, and when it comes to ex lovers, emotions can run high.
In this collection of short poems, we delve into the complexities of past relationships, exploring the range of feelings and experiences that come with bidding farewell to a former flame.
Let’s get started!
“To Electra” by Robert Herrick
I dare not ask a kisse,
I dare not beg a smile,
Lest having that or this,
I might grow proud the while.
No, no; the utmost share
Of my desire shall be
Only to kiss the aire
That lately kissed thee.
“Lines: Burning A Love-Letter” by Letitia Elizabeth Landon
I took the scroll; I could not brook
An eye to gaze on it save mine;
I could not bear another’s look
Should dwell upon one thought of thine.
My lamp was burning by my side;
I held thy letter to the flame;
I marked the blaze swift o’er it glide;
It did not even spare thy name.
Soon the light from the embers passed;
I felt so sad to see it die,
So bright at first, so dark at last,
I feared it was love’s history.
“Forgiven” by Helen Hunt-Jackson
I dreamed so dear a dream of you last night!
I thought you came. I was so glad, so gay,
I whispered, “Those were foolish words to say;
I meant them not. I cannot bear the sight
Of your dear face. I cannot meet the light
Ofyour dear eyes upon me. Sit, I pray,
Sit here beside me; turn your look away,
And lay your cheek on mine.” Till morning bright
We sat so, and we did not speak. I knew
All was forgiven; so I nestled there
With your arms round me. Swift the sweet hours flew.
At last I waked, and sought you everywhere.
How long, Dear, think you, that my glad cheek will
Burn, as it burns with your cheek’s pressure still?
“Songs In Sleep” by William C. Richards
There’s not a strain of joy the birds could sing,
I could not set to words that I’ve been dreaming;
But when I wake, alas! they all take wing,
And leave of music but the empty seeming.
Believe me, Love, I sing to you, in sleep,
Songs that if voiced would waken you to pleasure;
Would you could hear them in your dreams, and keep
Their inner meaning, though you missed the measure.
“Remembrance” by Jean Blewett
“Once they were lovers,” says the world, “with young hearts all aglow;
They have forgotten,” says the world, “forgotten long ago.”
Between ourselves – just whisper it – the old world does not know.
They walk their lone, divided ways, but ever with them goes
Remembrance, the subtle breath of love’s sweet thorny rose.
“First Loss” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Ah! who’ll e’er those days restore,
Those bright days of early love
Who’ll one hour again concede,
Of that time so fondly cherish’d!
Silently my wounds I feed,
And with wailing evermore
Sorrow o’er each joy now perish’d.
Ah! who’ll e’er the days restore
Of that time so fondly cherish’d.
“Forgetting Someone” by Yehuda Amichai
Forgetting someone is like forgetting to turn off the light
in the backyard so it stays lit all the next day
But then it is the light that makes you remember.
Sad Poems About Ex Lovers for Him
Breakups can be heart-wrenching, leaving us with a kaleidoscope of emotions.
Together, let’s be captivated by these sad poems about ex-lovers as we delve into the depths of lost love, navigating the emotions of longing, reminiscence, and healing.
Let’s jump in!
“The Old Story” Elizabeth Akers Allen
My heart is chilled and my pulse is slow;
But often and often will memory go,
Like a blind child lost in a waste of snow,
Back to the days when I loved you so,
The beautiful long ago.
I sit here dreaming them through and through,
The blissful moments I shared with you,-
The sweet, sweet days when our love was new,
When I was trustful and you were true,
Beautiful days, but few.
Blest or wretched, fettered or free,
Why should I care how your life may be,
Or whether you wander by land or sea?
I only know you are dead to me,
Ever and hopelessly.
Oh, how often, at day’s decline,
I pushed from my window the curtaining vine
To see from your lattice the lamplight shine,
Type of a message that half divine
Flashed from your heart to mine!
Once more the starlight is silvering all;
The roses sleep by the garden wall;
The night- bird warbles his madrigal,
And I hear again through the sweet air fall
The evening bugle call.
But summers will vanish, and years will wane,
And bring no light to your window- pane;
Nor gracious sunshine, nor patient rain
Can bring dead love back to life again.
I call upon the past in vain.
My heart is heavy, my heart is old,
And that proves dross which I counted gold;
I watch no longer your curtain’s fold.
The window is dark and the night is cold,
And the story forever told.
“Sonnet” by Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton
Be frank with me, and I accept my lot;
But deal not with me as a grieving child,
Who for the loss of that which he hath not
Is by a show of kindness thus beguiled.
Raise not for me, from its enshrouded tomb,
The ghostly likeness of a hope deceased;
Nor think to cheat the darkness of my doom
By wavering doubts how far thou art released;
This dressing pity in the garb of love,
This effort of the heart to seem the same,
These sighs and lingerings (which nothing prove
But that thou leavest me with a kind of shame), —
Remind me more, by their most vain deceit,
Of the dear loss of all which thou dost counterfeit.
“To—” by Percy Bysshe Shelley
One word is too often profaned
For me to profane it,
One feeling too falsely disdained
For thee to disdain it.
One hope is too like despair
For prudence to smother,
And pity from thee more dear
Than that from another.
I can give not what men call love,
But wilt thou accept not
The worship the heart lifts above
And the Heavens reject not?
The desire of the moth for the star,
Of the night for the morrow,—
The devotion to something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow?
“The Window With Climbing Vines” by Julia R. Anagnos
A light shot out from My Lady’s room,
And it filled my heart with thoughts of bloom;
I knew not whether she slept or woke,
But the Spring was come, and the Winter broke.
She came to her window at break of day;
She hushed the March, and she brought the May;
She opened her casement and looked away,
And I knew to another her thoughts did stray.
But oh, I have loved her! Let that suffice;
I can never watch for her coming twice;
That bride-bell rings, and the bride-day shines;
Farewell to the window with climbing vines.
“Heart-Deaths” by Edna Dean Proctor
Hearts oft die bitter deaths before
The breath is breathed away,
And number weary twilights o’er
Ere the last evening gray.
I’ve sometimes looked on closed eyes
And folded hands of snow,
And said, “It was no sacrifice;
The heart went long ago.”
O blessed death, that makes our bed
Beneath the daisies deep!
O mocking life, when hearts have fled
And eyes must watch and weep!
“Song” by William Allingham
Sweet looks! I thought them Love.
Alas, how much mistaken!
A dream a dream will prove,
When time is come to waken.
She was friendly, fair, and kind;
I was weak of wit, I find.
Hope, adieu! for now I see
Her look of love, and — not for me.
I see within her eyes
Atender, blissful token;
Hope drops down and dies,
But no sad word is spoken.
Soon and silent let me go;
She, that knew not, shall not know.
Joy, good-by! for now I see
Her look of love, and — not for me.
The fault was mine alone,
Who from her gracious sweetness
Made fancies all my own
Of heavenly love’s completeness,—
This from me, poor fool, as far
As from the earthworm shines the star.
Dream, farewell! for now I see
Her look of love, and — not for me.
“Remind Me Not, Remind Me Not” by George Gordon Byron
I
Remind me not, remind me not,
Of those beloved, those vanish’d hours,
When all my soul was given to thee;
Hours that may never be forgot,
Till Time unnerves our vital powers,
And thou and I shall cease to be.
II
Can I forget – canst thou forget,
When playing with thy golden hair,
How quick thy fluttering heart did move?
Oh! by my soul, I see thee yet,
With eyes so languid, breast so fair,
And lips, though silent, breathing love.
III
When thus reclining on my breast,
Those eyes threw back a glance so sweet,
As half reproach’d yet rais’d desire,
And still we near and nearer prest,
And still our glowing lips would meet,
As if in kisses to expire.
IV
And then those pensive eyes would close,
And bid their lids each other seek,
Veiling the azure orbs below;
While their long lashes’ darken’d gloss
Seem’d stealing o’er thy brilliant cheek,
Like raven’s plumage smooth’d on snow.
V
I dreamt last night our love return’d,
And, sooth to say, that very dream
Was sweeter in its phantasy,
Than if for other hearts I burn’d,
For eyes that ne’er like thine could beam
In Rapture’s wild reality.
VI
Then tell me not, remind me not,
Of hours which, though for ever gone,
Can still a pleasing dream restore,
Till thou and I shall be forgot,
And senseless, as the mouldering stone
Which tells that we shall be no more.
“Faded Leaves: Separation” by Matthew Arnold
Stop, Not to me, at this bitter departing,
Speak of the sure consolations of Time.
Fresh be the wound, still-renew’d be its smarting,
So but thy image endure in its prime.
But, if the stedfast commandment of Nature
Wills that remembrance should always decay;
If the lov’d form and the deep-cherish’d feature
Must, when unseen, from the soul fade away,
Me let no half-effac’d memories cumber!
Fled, fled at once, be all vestige of thee,
Deep be the darkness, and still be the slumber,
Dead be the Past and its phantoms to me!
Then, when we meet, and thy look strays towards me,
Scanning my face and the changes wrought there,
Who, let me say, is this Stranger regards me,
With the grey eyes, and the lovely brown hair?
Romantic Poems About Ex Lovers for Him
Love has a way of leaving traces in our hearts, even long after the flames have died out.
In this compilation of romantic poems, let’s explore the beauty of reminiscing about past loves through the beautiful and touching words of renowned classical poets.
Let’s go!
“The Portrait” by Maresco Pearce
Her hair was a golden brown, —
The photograph makes it black;
You may take the portrait out if you will;
You’ll find a lock at the back.
Her eyes were a living blue,
And through their splendor rare
You could gaze right into her soul, and see
The feelings that sported there.
Why did we part? God knows!
It may be that she and I
Love still with as true and tender a love
As we swore in the days gone by.
To see a mighty rift
In a mountain, who would think
It was rent in twain by a tiny rill
That had trickled in at a chink?
Needs but an angry thought,
Or a light word lightly spoken,
And a mountain of love may be rent in twain,
And the chain of life be broken.
You may solder it up, if you will,
But the place will always show;
It’s better to do as she and I, —
Far better to let it go.
“You And I” by Henry Alford
The winter wind is wailing, sad and low,
Across the lake and through the rustling sedge;
The splendor of the golden afterglow
Gleams through the blackness of the great yew hedge;
And this I read on earth and in the sky:
We ought to be together, You and I.
Rapt through its rosy changes into dark,
Fades all the west; and through the shadowy trees,
And in the silent uplands of the park,
Creeps the soft sighing of the rising breeze.
It does but echo to my weary sigh,
We ought to be together, You and I.
My hand is lonely for your clasping, Dear;
My ear is tired, waiting for your call;
I want your strength to help, your laugh to cheer;
Heart, soul, and senses need you, one and all.
I droop without your full frank sympathy;
We ought to be together, You and I.
We want each other so, to comprehend
The dream, the hope, things planned, or seen, or wrought;
Companion, comforter, and guide, and friend,
As much as love asks love, does thought need thought.
Life is so short, so fast the lone hours fly,
We ought to be together, You and I.
“To A Pair Of Blue Eyes” by A. B. Houghton
“First love is best,” my sweet Blue-eyes,
For love is youth, and sure, youth flies,
As if to catch the years that go,
Nor, mocking, heeds our cries of woe.
We call; oh, yes! but who replies?
You look at me in shy surprise
(Within your eyes all dreamland lies!).
Oh! Darling, whisper soft and low,
“First love is best!”
A rosebud fairest seems, Blue-eyes,
When on its blush the dew first lies.
Ere long it dies; the rough winds strow
Its crumpled leaves where’er they blow.
Love on! Love on! the whole world sighs,
“First love is best!”
“One September” by Jane Goodwin-Austin
I remember
One September
When the purple plum-tree bore,
And the pears hung mellow,
And we heaped such ample store
Of pippins red and yellow.
Do you remember
That September?
When the aftermath was mown,
We tossed the fragrant hay, —
Hay with withered daisies strewn,
Sweet as freshest flowers of May.
Dear, do you remember
That September?
And you couched upon the hay,
While I sat quiet at your head;
Little found we then to say,
Unless to praise the lovely day,
Or some book that we had read,
But do not you remember
The joy of that September?
Many a day has passed since then,
Many a sunny day and bright,
Rare and precious moments, when
Earth has glowed with Eden’s light,
And we talk when we ‘ re together
Of other things than books or weather;
But, Love, do you remember
The joy of that September?
“Remembrance” by Fannie Isabelle Sherrick
Why should we dream of days gone by?
Why should we wait and wonder?
Sweet summer days have come and gone,
The leaves are falling yonder.
The wee sweet flowers we loved the best,
The king of frost has chosen;
And now the sun looks sadly down
Upon his darlings frozen.
Ah! summer sun and autumn frost,
You are at war forever;
For all the ties that one would make
The other fain would sever.
With autumn days remembrance comes
Of golden glories fleeting;
Of pleasures gone and sorrows come–
Of parting and of meeting.
Oh! summer days, why haunt us still?
Remembrance is a sorrow;
And all the dreams we dream to-day
Will fade upon the morrow.
Each life has some sweet summer-time,
Some perfect day of beauty;
When flowers of love and leaves of hope
Are twined around each duty.
But oh! the autumn-time will come,
Which fades each golden glory;
And life, when we are old and gray,
Seems but a sad, old story.
“Renouncement” by Alice Christiana Thompson Meynell
I must not think of thee; and, tired yet strong,
I shun the thought that lurks in all delight–
The thought of thee–and in the blue Heaven’s height,
And in the sweetest passage of a song.
Oh, just beyond the fairest thoughts that throng
This breast, the thought of thee waits, hidden yet bright;
But it must never, never come in sight;
I must stop short of thee the whole day long.
But when sleep comes to close each difficult day,
When night gives pause to the long watch I keep,
And all my bonds I needs must loose apart,
Must doff my will as raiment laid away,–
With the first dream that comes with the first sleep
I run, I run, I am gathered to thy heart.
“The Farewell” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Let mine eye the farewell say,
That my lips can utter ne’er;
Fain I’d be a man to-day,
Yet ’tis hard, oh, hard to bear!
Mournful in an hour like this
Is love’s sweetest pledge, I ween;
Cold upon thy mouth the kiss,
Faint thy fingers’ pressure e’en.
Oh what rapture to my heart
Used each stolen kiss to bring!
As the violets joy impart,
Gather’d in the early spring.
Now no garlands I entwine,
Now no roses pluck. for thee,
Though ’tis springtime, Fanny mine,
Dreary autumn ’tis to me!
“First Love” by John Clare
I ne’er was struck before that hour
With love so sudden and so sweet.
Her face it bloomed like a sweet flower
And stole my heart away complete.
My face turned pale as deadly pale,
My legs refused to walk away,
And when she looked “what could I ail?”
My life and all seemed turned to clay.
And then my blood rushed to my face
And took my sight away.
The trees and bushes round the place
Seemed midnight at noonday.
I could not see a single thing,
Words from my eyes did start;
They spoke as chords do from the string
And blood burnt round my heart.
Are flowers the winter’s choice?
Is love’s bed always snow?
She seemed to hear my silent voice
And love’s appeal to know.
I never saw so sweet a face
As that I stood before:
My heart has left its dwelling-place
And can return no more.
“For You” by James Whitcomb Riley
For you, I could forget the gay
Delirium of merriment,
And let my laughter die away
In endless silence of content.
I could forget, for your dear sake,
The utter emptiness and ache
Of every loss I ever knew. –
What could I not forget for you?
I could forget the just deserts
Of mine own sins, and so erase
The tear that burns, the smile that hurts,
And all that mars or masks my face.
For your fair sake I could forget
The bonds of life that chafe and fret,
Nor care if death were false or true. –
What could I not forget for you?
What could I not forget? Ah me!
One thing, I know, would still abide
Forever in my memory,
Though all of love were lost beside –
I yet would feel how first the wine
Of your sweet lips made fools of mine
Until they sung, all drunken through –
“What could I not forget for you?”
“Farewell To The Muse” by Sir Walter Scott
Enchantress, farewell, who so oft hast decoy’d me,
At the close of the evening through woodlands to roam,
Where the forester, ‘lated, with wonder espied me
Explore the wild scenes he was quitting for home.
Farewell and take with thee thy numbers wild speaking
The language alternate of rapture and woe:
Oh! none but some lover, whose heartstrings are breaking
he pang that I feel at our parting can know.
Each joy thou couldst double, and when there came sorrow,
Or pale disappointment to darken my way,
What voice was like thine, that could sing of tomorrow,
Till forgot in the strain was the grief of today!
But when friends drop around us in life’s weary waning,
The grief, Queen of Numbers, thou canst not assuage;
Nor the gradual estrangement of those yet remaining,
The languor of pain, and the chillness of age.
‘Twas thou that once taught me, accents bewailing,
To sing how a warrior I lay stretch’d on the plain,
And a maiden hung o’er him with aid unavailing,
And held to his lips the cold goblet in vain;
As vain thy enchantments, O Queen of wild Numbers
To a bard when the reign of his fancy is o’er,
And the quick pulse of feeling in apathy slumbers
Farewell, then, Enchantress I’ll meet thee no more!
Poems for Your Ex That You Still Love
When love relationships come to an end, the emotions that linger for an ex can be a complex mix of longing, nostalgia, and unresolved feelings.
In this selection of poems, we explore the affection and longing for past love as we navigate complex emotions amidst the bittersweet memories that still flicker with an ex.
Keep reading!
“You” by H. A. Freeman
If I could have my dearest wish fulfilled,
And take my choice of all earth’s treasures, too,
And ask from Heaven whatso’er I willed,
I’d ask for you.
No man I’d envy, neither low nor high,
Nor king in castle old or palace new;
I’d hold Golconda’s mines less rich than I,
If I had you.
Toil and privation, poverty and care,
Undaunted I’d defy, nor future woo;
Having my Wife, no jewels else I’d wear,
If she were you.
Little I’d care how lovely she might be,
How graced with every charm, how fond, how true;
E’en though perfection, she ‘ d be nought to me
Were she not you.
There is more charm for my true, loving heart
In everything you think, or say, or do,
Than all the joys of Heaven could e’er impart,
Because it’s you.
“Reminiscence” by Édouard Pailleron (James Freeman Clarke, Translator)
‘Twas April; ‘t was Sunday; the day was fair, —
Yes! sunny and fair.
And how happy was I!
You wore the white dress you loved to wear;
And two little flowers were hid in your hair, —
Yes! in your hair,
On that day, gone by!
We sat on the moss; it was shady and dry, —
Yes! shady and dry;
And we sat in the shadow.
We looked at the leaves ; we looked at the sky;
We looked at the brook which bubbled near by,—
Yes! bubbled near by,
Through the quiet meadow.
A bird sang on the swinging vine,—
Yes! on the vine;
And then — sang not ;
I took your little white hand in mine;
‘Twas April; ‘t was Sunday; ‘t was warm sunshine,—
Yes! warm sunshine.
Have you forgot?
“Parting” from All the Year Round
Weep not that we must part;
Partings are short, eternity is long.
Life is but one brief stage,
And they that say love ends with life are wrong.
List to thine own heart’s cry,
Love cannot die.
What though so far away?
Thy thoughts are still with me, and with thee mine;
And absence has no power
To lessen what by nature is divine.
List to thine own heart’s cry,
Love cannot die.
Then weep no more, My Love;
Weeping but shows thy trust in me is small.
Faith is by calmness proved,
For know this truth: thou canst not love at all
Unless thine own heart cry,
“Love cannot die.”
“My Old Love” by James Burnley
I saw a face in the streets to-night
That brought up the buried years,—
The face of the woman I might have wed;
And it filled my heart with tears,
For she loved me well, and I loved her too,
But a shadow fell o’er our way,
And I linked my fate with some one else,
And she is my wife to-day.
Long years have passed, and but few regrets
Have lingered around my heart,
For the wife I have wed is good and true,
And acts a womanly part.
I dare not think I had happier been
With the sweet first-love of my youth,
For she I have wed is a treasure of grace,
And has served me with love and truth.
But the face that I saw in the streets to-night
In my soul such dreams has stirred,
That I shrink before my wife’s kind gaze,
And am stung by each tender word;
And the children who troop around my knee
And deem me so good and wise,
Little reck of the thoughts that trouble me,
Or the tears that bedim my eyes.
Were my old love wed, well then, perhaps,
All these thoughts I could soon dissipate;
And yet, had her fate so designed it, I fear
The man she had wed I should hate.
Can her heart have been true to the past,
While mine has fresh anchorage sought?
I must not think that, lest a breach
In the peace of my home should be wrought.
How would it have been had we wed?
Should I happier be, or would she?
God knows; but this truth I am bound to confess:
My wife is a dear and a true wife to me.
‘Tis not from what might have been, but from what is,
That we now have to gather delight;
And yet, my old love, not the wife of my heart,
Will be first in my dreams to-night.
“A Rainy Day” by Unknown
How tired one grows of a rainy day,
For a rainy day brings back so much;
Old dreams revive that are buried away,
And the past comes back to the sight and touch.
When the night is short and the day is long,
And the rain falls down with ceaseless beat,
Wetire of our thoughts as we tire of a song
That over and over is played in the street.
When I woke this morning and heard the splash
Of the rain-drop over the tall elm’s leaves,
I was carried back in a lightning flash
To the dear old home with the sloping eaves.
And you and I, in the garret high,
Were playing again at hide-go-seek;
And bright was the light of your laughing eye,
And rich the glow of your rounded cheek.
And again I was nestled in my white bed
Under the eaves, and hearing above
The feet of the rain-steeds over my head,
While I dreamed sweet dreams of you, my love.
Love, my lover, with eyes of truth,
O beautiful love of the vanished years,
There is no other love like the love of youth,
I say it over and over with tears.
Wealth and honor and fame may come,
They cannot replace what is taken away;
There is no other home like the childhood’s home,
No other love like the love of May.
Though the sun is bright in the mid-day skies,
There cometh an hour when the sad heart grieves
With a lonely wail, like a lost child’s cry,
For the trundle- bed and the sloping eaves;
When, with vague unrest and nameless pain,
We hunger and thirst for a voice and touch
That we never on earth shall know again
Oh, a rainy day brings back so much!
“Remember” by Christina Georgina Rossetti
Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go, yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more, day by day,
You tell me of our future that you planned.
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while,
And afterwards remember, do not grieve;
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.
“We’ll Meet Again” by Richard Monckton Milnes, Lord Houghton
The Winter may perish, the Spring pass away;
The Summer may fade, and the year decay;
Thou wilt be mine, thou wilt return to me;
I’ve promised to wait, and I’ll truly wait for thee.
God help thee, if still the sun shines on thee;
God bless thee, if before His glory thou be.
I’ll wait for thee, and I’ll not wait in vain;
If thou waitest above, ah, then there we’ll meet again!
“Sonnet” by Henry Constable
Needs must I leave, and yet needs must I love;
In vain my wit doth paint in verse my woe;
Disdain in thee despair in me doth show
How by my wit I do my folly prove.
All this my heart from Love can never move;
Love is not in my heart! No, Lady, no;
My heart is Love itself; till I forego
My heart, I never can my love remove.
How shall I then leave Love? I do intend
Not to crave grace, but yet to wish it still;
Not to praise thee, but beauty to commend,
And so by beauty’s praise, praise thee I will.
For as my heart is Love, Love not in me,
So beauty thou, — beauty is not in thee.
“Farewell To The Muse” by George Gordon Byron
Thou Power! who hast ruled me through Infancy’s days,
Young offspring of Fancy, ’tis time we should part;
Then rise on the gale this the last of my lays,
The coldest effusion which springs from my heart.
This bosom, responsive to rapture no more,
Shall hush thy wild notes, nor implore thee to sing;
The feelings of childhood, which taught thee to soar,
Are wafted far distant on Apathy’s wing.
Though simple the themes of my rude flowing Lyre,
Yet even these themes are departed for ever;
No more beam the eyes which my dream could inspire,
My visions are flown, to return, – alas, never!
When drain’d is the nectar which gladdens the bowl,
How vain is the effort delight to prolong!
When cold is the beauty which dwelt in my soul,
What magic of Fancy can lengthen my song?
Can the lips sing of Love in the desert alone,
Of kisses and smiles which they now must resign?
Or dwell with delight on the hours that are flown?
Ah, no! for those hours can no longer be mine.
Can they speak of the friends that I lived but to love?
Ah, surely Affection ennobles the strain!
But how can my numbers in sympathy move,
When I scarcely can hope to behold them again?
Can I sing of the deeds which my Fathers have done,
And raise my loud harp to the fame of my Sires?
For glories like theirs, oh, how faint is my tone!
For Heroes’ exploits how unequal my fires!
Untouch’d, then, my Lyre shall reply to the blast –
‘Tis hush’d; and my feeble endeavours are o’er;
And those who have heard it will pardon the past,
When they know that its murmurs shall vibrate no more.
And soon shall its wild erring notes be forgot,
Since early affection and love is o’ercast:
Oh! blest had my Fate been, and happy my lot,
Had the first strain of love been the dearest, the last.
Farewell, my young Muse! since we now can ne’er meet;
If our songs have been languid, they surely are few:
Let us hope that the present at least will be sweet –
The present – which seals our eternal Adieu.