103 Tempting Poems About Lies

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Here are my favorite poems about lies categorized:

  • Short poems about lies
  • Poems about lies and truth
  • Poems about lies and betrayal
  • Poems about lies and deceit
  • Poems about lies and secrets
  • Poems about lies and love

So if you want the best poems about lies, then you’re in the right place.

Keep reading!

103 Best Poems About Lies (Handpicked)
Contents: hide
81 Poems About Lies and Love

Tempting Poems About Lies

Dive into a curated selection of the most captivating poems about lies, thoughtfully categorized for your contemplative exploration.

Our collection delves into the intricate web of deception, unveiling works that unravel the complexities and consequences of falsehoods, deceit, and the masks we wear.

With our handpicked assortment, you can now unravel the threads of untruths, all conveniently gathered in one place, where words whisper secrets, confront illusions, and explore the tangled web of lies that shape our perceptions and relationships.

Take a moment to immerse yourself in these thought-provoking verses, where truth and fiction intertwine, inviting you to ponder the hidden truths, moral dilemmas, and the profound impact that lies have on our lives.

Let’s jump right in!

My #1 Favorite Poem About Lies

Fantasy portrait romantic couple in love man and woman, medieval style masquerade ball.

“The Lie” by John Donne

Sir, say not that you love, unless you do,
For often lying will dishonour you.
Lady, I love, and therefore love to do,
And will not lie, unless I lie with you.
You say I lie, I say you lie, judge whether;
If we then both do lie, let’s lie together.

Short Poems About Lies

Portrait capricious fantasy princess girl.

“May” by Sara Teasdale

The wind is tossing the lilacs,
The new leaves laugh in the sun,
And the petals fall on the orchard wall,
But for me the spring is done.

Beneath the apple blossoms
I go a wintry way,
For love that smiled in April
Is false to me in May.

“To A Young Girl” by William Butler Yeats

My dear, my dear, I know
More than another
What makes your heart beat so;
Not even your own mother
Can know it as I know,
Who broke my heart for her
When the wild thought,
That she denies
And has forgot,
Set all her blood astir
And glittered in her eyes

“Consecration.” by Emily Dickinson

Proud of my broken heart since thou didst break it,
Proud of the pain I did not feel till thee,
Proud of my night since thou with moons dost slake it,
Not to partake thy passion, my humility.

Beautiful woman retro portrait

“The Sick Rose” by William Blake

O Rose, thou art sick!
The invisible worm
That flies in the night,
In the howling storm,

Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.

“Ashes of Roses” by Elaine Goodale Eastman

Soft on the sunset sky
Bright daylight closes,
Leaving, when light doth die,
Pale hues that mingling lie,—
Ashes of roses.

When love’s warm sun is set,
Love’s brightness closes;
Eyes with hot tears are wet,
In hearts there linger yet
Ashes of roses.

“Parted” by Paul Laurence Dunbar

She wrapped her soul in a lace of lies,
With a prime deceit to pin it;
And I thought I was gaining a fearsome prize,
So I staked my soul to win it.

We wed and parted on her complaint,
And both were a bit of barter,
Tho’ I’ll confess that I’m no saint,
I’ll swear that she’s no martyr.

portrait of pretty female ship wrecked  model wearing  torn dre

“False Though She Be” by Arthur Quiller-Couch

False though she be to me and love,
I’ll ne’er pursue revenge;
For still the charmer I approve,
Though I deplore her change.

In hours of bliss we oft have met:
They could not always last;
And though the present I regret,
I’m grateful for the past.

“Great Spirits Supervive.” by Robert Herrick

Our mortal parts may wrapp’d in sear-cloths lie:
Great spirits never with their bodies die.

“A Deep-sworn Vow” by William Butler Yeats

Others because you did not keep
That deep-sworn vow have been friends of mine;
Yet always when I look death in the face,
When I clamber to the heights of sleep,
Or when I grow excited with wine,
Suddenly I meet your face.

A very beautiful and feminine girl an aristocrat in the sunshine

“A Cry” by Sara Teasdale

Oh, there are eyes that he can see,
And hands to make his hands rejoice,
But to my lover I must be
Only a voice.

Oh, there are breasts to bear his head,
And lips whereon his lips can lie,
But I must be till I am dead
Only a cry.

“Upon Boreman. Epig.” by Robert Herrick

Boreman takes toll, cheats, natters, lies; yet Boreman,
For all the devil helps, will be a poor man.

“A Truth about a Lie” by Leonora Speyer

From “Reflections”

I lied, trusting you knew
I could not lie to you.
Beloved friend, I lied and am forgiven; but I
Cannot forgive that you believed my lie.

Mysterious woman in black dress near chirch

“False Mourning.” by Robert Herrick

He who wears blacks, and mourns not for the dead,
Does but deride the party buried.

“On Hearing It Asserted Falsehood” by Robert Burns

is expressed in the Rev. Dr. Babington’s very looks.

That there is a falsehood in his looks,
I must and will deny:
They tell their Master is a knave,
And sure they do not lie.

Poems About Lies and Truth

Young, a princess with very long hair sits on a large stump as from the cover of Vogue. Brutally waiting for a miracle and changes in my life. The girl has a vintage dress and a diadem. Artistic photo

“False Love and True Logic” by Samuel Laman Blanchard

The Disconsolate

My heart will break, I’m sure it will:
My lover, yes, my favorite, he
Who seemed my own through good and ill,
Has basely turned his back on me.

The Comforter

Ah! silly sorrower, weep no more;
Your lover’s turned his back, we see;
But you had turned his head before,
And now he’s as he ought to be.

“Quarrel” by Elinor Wylie

Let us quarrel for these reasons:
You detest the salt which seasons
My speech. . . and all my lights go out
In the cold poison of your doubt.
I love Shelley. . . you love Keats
Something parts and something meets.
I love salads. . . you love chops;
Something goes and something stops.
Something hides its face and cries;
Something shivers; something dies.
I love blue ribbons brought from fairs;
You love sitting splitting hairs.
I love truth, and so do you. . .
Tell me, is it truly true?

“The Lie” by Sir Walter Raleigh

Go, Soul, the body’s guest,
Upon a thankless arrant:
Fear not to touch the best;
The truth shall be thy warrant:
Go, since I needs must die,
And give the world the lie.
Say to the court, it glows
And shines like rotten wood;
Say to the church, it shows
What’s good, and doth no good:
If church and court reply,
Then give them both the lie.
Tell potentates, they live
Acting by others’ action;
Not loved unless they give,
Not strong, but by a faction:
If potentates reply,
Give potentates the lie.
Tell men of high condition,
That manage the estate,
Their purpose is ambition,
Their practice only hate:
And if they once reply,
Then give them all the lie.
Tell them that brave it most,
They beg for more by spending,
Who, in their greatest cost,
Seek nothing but commending:
And if they make reply,
Then give them all the lie.
Tell zeal it wants devotion;
Tell love it is but lust;
Tell time it is but motion;
Tell flesh it is but dust:
And wish them not reply,
For thou must give the lie.
Tell age it daily wasteth;
Tell honour how it alters;
Tell beauty how she blasteth;
Tell favour how it falters:
And as they shall reply,
Give every one the lie.
Tell wit how much it wrangles
In tickle points of niceness;
Tell wisdom she entangles
Herself in over-wiseness:
And when they do reply,
Straight give them both the lie.
Tell physic of her boldness;
Tell skill it is pretension;
Tell charity of coldness;
Tell law it is contention:
And as they do reply,
So give them still the lie.
Tell fortune of her blindness;
Tell nature of decay;
Tell friendship of unkindness;
Tell justice of delay;
And if they will reply,
Then give them all the lie.
Tell arts they have no soundness,
But vary by esteeming;
Tell schools they want profoundness,
And stand too much on seeming:
If arts and schools reply,
Give arts and schools the lie.
Tell faith it’s fled the city;
Tell how the country erreth;
Tell, manhood shakes off pity;
Tell, virtue least preferreth:
And if they do reply,
Spare not to give the lie.
So when thou hast, as I
Commanded thee, done blabbing,—
Although to give the lie
Deserves no less than stabbing,—
Stab at thee he that will,
No stab the soul can kill.

Portrait girl with a bouquet in vintage dress standing by founta

“Complaint for true Love unrequited” by Sir Thomas Wyatt

What vaileth truth, or by it to take pain?
To strive by steadfastness for to attain
How to be just, and flee from doubleness?
Since all alike, where ruleth craftiness,
Rewarded is both crafty, false, and plain.
Soonest he speeds that most can lie and feign:
True meaning heart is had in high disdain.
Against deceit and cloaked doubleness,
What vaileth truth, or perfect steadfastness?
Deceived is he by false and crafty train,
That means no guile, and faithful doth remain
Within the trap, without help or redress:
But for to love, lo, such a stern mistress,
Where cruelty dwells, alas, it were in vain.

“The Conqueror Worm” by Edgar Allan Poe

Lo! ’tis a gala night
Within the lonesome latter years!
An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
In veils, and drowned in tears,
Sit in a theatre, to see
A play of hopes and fears,
While the orchestra breathes fitfully
The music of the spheres.

Mimes, in the form of God on high,
Mutter and mumble low,
And hither and thither fly
Mere puppets they, who come and go
At bidding of vast formless things
That shift the scenery to and fro,
Flapping from out their Condor wings
Invisible Wo!

That motley drama oh, be sure
It shall not be forgot!
With its Phantom chased for evermore,
By a crowd that seize it not,
Through a circle that ever returneth in
To the self-same spot,
And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
And Horror the soul of the plot.

But see, amid the mimic rout
A crawling shape intrude!
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
The scenic solitude!
It writhes! it writhes! with mortal pangs
The mimes become its food,
And the angels sob at vermin fangs
In human gore imbued.

Out out are the lights out all!
And, over each quivering form,
The curtain, a funeral pall,
Comes down with the rush of a storm,
And the angels, all pallid and wan,
Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, “Man,”
And its hero the Conqueror Worm.

“A Legend Of Truth” by Rudyard Kipling

Once on a time, the ancient legends tell,
Truth, rising from the bottom of her well,
Looked on the world, but, hearing how it lied,
Returned to her seclusion horrified.
There she abode, so conscious of her worth,
Not even Pilate’s Question called her forth,
Nor Galileo, kneeling to deny
The Laws that hold our Planet ‘neath the sky.
Meantime, her kindlier sister, whom men call
Fiction, did all her work and more than all,
With so much zeal, devotion, tact, and care,
That no one noticed Truth was otherwhere.

Then came a War when, bombed and gassed and mined,
Truth rose once more, perforce, to meet mankind,
And through the dust and glare and wreck of things,
Beheld a phantom on unbalanced wings,
Reeling and groping, dazed, dishevelled, dumb,
But semaphoring direr deeds to come.

Truth hailed and bade her stand; the quavering shade
Clung to her knees and babbled, “Sister, aid!
I am I was thy Deputy, and men
Besought me for my useful tongue or pen
To gloss their gentle deeds, and I complied,
And they, and thy demands, were satisfied.
But this ” she pointed o’er the blistered plain,
Where men as Gods and devils wrought amain
“This is beyond me! Take thy work again.”

Tablets and pen transferred, she fled afar,
And Truth assumed the record of the War…
She saw, she heard, she read, she tried to tell
Facts beyond precedent and parallel
Unfit to hint or breathe, much less to write,
But happening every minute, day and night.
She called for proof. It came. The dossiers grew.
She marked them, first, “Return. This can’t be true.”
Then, underneath the cold official word:
“This is not really half of what occurred.”

She faced herself at last, the story runs,
And telegraphed her sister: “Come at once.
Facts out of hand. Unable overtake
Without your aid. Come back for Truth’s own sake!
Co-equal rank and powers if you agree.
They need us both, but you far more than me!”

Dark mysterious blurred silhouette of a woman with an owl that sits on her arm and flaps her wings. Fantasy photography a girl fairy walks in misty dense autumn forest. Back rear view. Red silk dress

“False Impulse To Study.” by Friedrich Schiller

Oh, how many new foes against truth! My very soul bleedeth
When I behold the owl-race now bursting forth to the light.

“To My Sister, On Her Twenty-First Birthday.” by George MacDonald

I.
Old fables are not all a lie
That tell of wondrous birth,
Of Titan children, father Sky,
And mighty mother Earth.

Yea, now are walking on the ground
Sons of the mingled brood;
Yea, now upon the earth are found
Such daughters of the Good.

Earth-born, my sister, thou art still
A daughter of the sky;
Oh, climb for ever up the hill
Of thy divinity!

To thee thy mother Earth is sweet,
Her face to thee is fair;
But thou, a goddess incomplete,
Must climb the starry stair.

II.
Wouldst thou the holy hill ascend,
Wouldst see the Father’s face?
To all his other children bend,
And take the lowest place.

Be like a cottage on a moor,
A covert from the wind,
With burning fire and open door,
And welcome free and kind.

Thus humbly doing on the earth
The things the earthly scorn,
Thou shalt declare the lofty birth
Of all the lowly born.

III.
Be then thy sacred womanhood
A sign upon thee set,
A second baptism–understood–
For what thou must be yet.

For, cause and end of all thy strife,
And unrest as thou art,
Still stings thee to a higher life
The Father at thy heart.

“All Is Truth” by Walt Whitman

O me, man of slack faith so long!
Standing aloof–denying portions so long;
Only aware to-day of compact, all-diffused truth;
Discovering to-day there is no lie, or form of lie, and can be none, but grows as inevitably upon itself as the truth does upon itself,
Or as any law of the earth, or any natural production of the earth does.

(This is curious, and may not be realized immediately–But it must be realized;
I feel in myself that I represent falsehoods equally with the rest,
And that the universe does.)

Where has fail’d a perfect return, indifferent of lies or the truth?
Is it upon the ground, or in water or fire? or in the spirit of man? or in the meat and blood?

Meditating among liars, and retreating sternly into myself, I see
that there are really no liars or lies after all,
And that nothing fails its perfect return–And that what are called lies are perfect returns,
And that each thing exactly represents itself, and what has preceded it,
And that the truth includes all, and is compact, just as much as space is compact,
And that there is no flaw or vacuum in the amount of the truth–but that all is truth without exception;
And henceforth I will go celebrate anything I see or am,
And sing and laugh, and deny nothing.

Portrait fantasy woman hand touching flower in night dark garden bloom spring nature green trees pink roses Blue neon light. Girl sexy fashion model posing beauty face glamour makeup natural cosmetics

“True And False Comforts.” by William Cowper

O God, whose favourable eye
The sin-sick soul revives,
Holy and heavenly is the joy
Thy shining presence gives.

Not such as hypocrites suppose,
Who with a graceless heart
Taste not of thee, but drink a dose,
Prepared by Satan’s art.

Intoxicating joys are theirs,
Who, while they boast their light,
And seem to soar above the stars,
Are plunging into night.

Lull’d in a soft and fatal sleep,
They sin, and yet rejoice;
Were they indeed the Saviour’s sheep,
Would they not hear his voice?

Be mine the comforts that reclaim
The soul from Satan’s power;
That make me blush for what I am,
And hate my sin the more.

‘Tis joy enough, my All in All,
At thy dear feet to lie;
Thou wilt not let me lower fall,
And none can higher fly.

“False Poets And True. – To Wordsworth.” by Thomas Hood

Look how the lark soars upward and is gone,
Turning a spirit as he nears the sky!
His voice is heard, but body there is none
To fix the vague excursions of the eye.
So, poets’ songs are with us, tho’ they die
Obscured, and hid by death’s oblivious shroud,
And Earth inherits the rich melody
Like raining music from the morning cloud.
Yet, few there be who pipe so sweet and loud
Their voices reach us through the lapse of space:
The noisy day is deafen’d by a crowd
Of undistinguished birds, a twittering race;
But only lark and nightingale forlorn
Fill up the silences of night and morn.

“Jacobite Song” by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Now who will speak, and lie not,
And pledge not life, but give?
Slaves herd with herded cattle:
The dawn grows bright for battle,
And if we die, we die not;
And if we live, we live.
The faith our fathers fought for,
The kings our fathers knew,
We fight but as they fought for:
We seek the goal they sought for,
The chance they hailed and knew,
The praise they strove and wrought for,
To leave their blood as dew
On fields that flower anew.
Men live that serve the stranger;
Hounds live that huntsmen tame:
These life-days of our living
Are days of God’s good giving
Where death smiles soft on danger
And life scowls dark on shame.
And what would you do other,
Sweet wife, if you were I?
And how should you be other,
My sister, than your brother,
If you were man as I,
Born of our sire and mother,
With choice to cower and fly,
And chance to strike and die?
No churl’s our oldworld name is,
The lands we leave are fair:
But fairer far than these are,
But wide as all the seas are,
But high as heaven the fame is
That if we die we share.
Our name the night may swallow,
Our lands the churl may take:
But night nor death may swallow,
Nor hell’s nor heaven’s dim hollow,
The star whose height we take,
The star whose light we follow
For faith’s unfaltering sake
Till hope that sleeps awake.
Soft hope’s light lure we serve not,
Nor follow, fain to find:
Dark time’s last word may smite her
Dead, ere man’s falsehood blight her,
But though she die, we swerve not,
Who cast not eye behind.
Faith speaks when hope dissembles:
Faith lives when hope lies dead:
If death as life dissembles,
And all that night assembles
Of stars at dawn lie dead,
Faint hope that smiles and trembles
May tell not well for dread:
But faith has heard it said.
Now who will fight, and fly not,
And grudge not life to give?
And who will strike beside us,
If life’s or death’s light guide us?
For if we live, we die not,
And if we die, we live.

Beautiful fantasy woman princess elf in long white dress walks in fairy forest with large flowers lilies of valley. Queen girl in silver diadem. Silk vintage outfit with wide sleeves. Green trees

“Sonnet XXX.” by Fernando António Nogueira Pessoa

I do not know what truth the false untruth
Of this sad sense of the seen world may own,
Or if this flowered plant bears also a fruit
Unto the true reality unknown.
But as the rainbow, neither earth’s nor sky’s,
Stands in the dripping freshness of lulled rain,
A hope, not real yet not fancy’s, lies
Athwart the moment of our ceasing pain.
Somehow, since pain is felt yet felt as ill,
Hope hath a better warrant than being hoped;
Since pain is felt as aught we should not feel
Man hath a Nature’s reason for having groped,
Since Time was Time and age and grief his measures,
Towards a better shelter than Time’s pleasures.

“A Protest” by Arthur Hugh Clough

Light words they were, and lightly, falsely said:
She heard them, and she started, and she rose,
As in the act to speak; the sudden thought
And unconsidered impulse led her on.
In act to speak she rose, but with the sense
Of all the eyes of that mixed company
Now suddenly turned upon her, some with age
Hardened and dulled, some cold and critical;
Some in whom vapours of their own conceit,
As moist malarious mists the heavenly stars,
Still blotted out their good, the best at best
By frivolous laugh and prate conventional
All too untuned for all she thought to say
With such a thought the mantling blood to her cheek
Flushed-up, and o’er-flushed itself, blank night her soul
Made dark, and in her all her purpose swooned.
She stood as if for sinking. Yet anon
With recollections clear, august, sublime,
Of God’s great truth, and right immutable,
Which, as obedient vassals, to her mind
Came summoned of her will, in self-negation
Quelling her troublous earthy consciousness,
She queened it o’er her weakness. At the spell
Back rolled the ruddy tide, and leaves her cheek
Paler than erst, and yet not ebbs so far
But that one pulse of one indignant thought
Might hurry it hither in flood. So as she stood
She spoke. God in her spoke and made her heard.

“A Truthful Song” by Rudyard Kipling

THE BRICKLAYER:

I tell this tale, which is strictly true,
Just by way of convincing you
How very little, since things were made,
Things have altered in building trade.

A year ago, come the middle of March,
We was building flats near the Marble Arch,
When a thin young man with coal-black hair
Came up to watch us working there.

Now there wasn’t a trick in brick or stone
Which this young man hadn’t seen or known;
Nor there wasn’t a tool from trowel to maul
But this young man could use ’em all!

Then up and spoke the plumbyers bold,
Which was laying the pipes for the hot and cold:
“Since you with us have made so free,
Will you kindly say what your name might be? “

The young man kindly answered them:
“It might be Lot or Methusalem,
Or it might be Moses (a man I hate),
Whereas it is Pharaoh surnamed the Great.

“Your glazing is new and your plumbing’s strange,
But otherwise I perceive no change;
And in less than a month if you do as I bid
I’d learn you to build me a Pyramid!”

THE SAILOR:

I tell this tale, which is stricter true,
Just by way of convincing you
How very little, since things was made,
Things have altered in the shipwright’s trade.

In Blackwall Basin yesterday
A China barque re-fitting lay,
When a fat old man with snow-white hair
Came up to watch us working there.

Now there wasn’t a knot which the riggers knew
But the old man made it–and better too;
Nor there wasn’t a sheet, or a lift, or a brace,
But the old man knew its lead and place.

Then up and spoke the caulkyers bold,
Which was packing the pump in the afterhold:
“Since you with us have made so free,
Will you kindly tell what your name might be? “

The old man kindly answered them:
“It might be Japheth, it might be Shem,
Or it might be Ham (though his skin was dark),
Whereas it is Noah, commanding the Ark.

“Your wheel is new and your pumps are strange,
But otherwise I perceive no change;
And in less than a week, if she did not ground,
I’d sail this hooker the wide world round! “

BOTH:

We tell these tales, which are strictest true,
Just by way of convincing you
How very little, since things was made,
Any thing alters in any one’s trade!

Beautiful woman in red dress walking in the garden full of roses.

“Youth” by Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Cory Nicolson)

I am not sure if I knew the truth
What his case or crime might be,
I only know that he pleaded Youth,
A beautiful, golden plea!

Youth, with its sunlit, passionate eyes,
Its roseate velvet skin –
A plea to cancel a thousand lies,
Or a thousand nights of sin.

The men who judged him were old and grey
Their eyes and their senses dim,
He brought the light of a warm Spring day
To the Court-house bare and grim.

Could he plead guilty in a lovelier way?
His judges acquitted him.

“Hatred Of Sin.” by William Cowper

Holy Lord God! I love thy truth,
Nor dare thy least commandment slight;
Yet pierced by sin, the serpent’s tooth,
I mourn the anguish of the bite.

But, though the poison lurks within,
Hope bids me still with patience wait;
Till death shall set me free from sin,
Free from the only thing I hate.

Had I a throne above the rest,
Where angels and archangels dwell,
One sin, unslain, within my breast,
Would make that heaven as dark as hell.

The prisoner, sent to breathe fresh air,
And bless’d with liberty again,
Would mourn, were he condemn’d to wear
One link of all his former chain.

But, oh! no foe invades the bliss,
When glory crowns the Christian’s head;
One view of Jesus as he is
Will strike all sin for ever dead.

“Sonnet XIX. To – – .” by Anna Seward

Farewell, false Friend! – our scenes of kindness close!
To cordial looks, to sunny smiles farewell!
To sweet consolings, that can grief expel,
And every joy soft sympathy bestows!
For alter’d looks, where truth no longer glows,
Thou hast prepar’d my heart; – and it was well
To bid thy pen th’ unlook’d for story tell,
Falsehood avow’d, that shame, nor sorrow knows. –
O! when we meet, – (to meet we’re destin’d, try
To avoid it as thou may’st) on either brow,
Nor in the stealing consciousness of eye,
Be seen the slightest trace of what, or how
We once were to each other; – nor one sigh
Flatter with weak regret a broken vow!

Art photo fantasy pixie butterfly. young fairy with glow wings holds bouquet flower. dark blue backdrop fabolous night Firefly star glitter light. Fingers show sign silence. cute face, makeup red lips

“The Tidings (Easter 1916)” by Lola Ridge

Censored lies that mimic truth…
Censored truth as pale as fear…
My heart is like a rousing bell –
And but the dead to hear…

My heart is like a mother bird,
Circling ever higher,
And the nest-tree rimmed about
By a forest fire…

My heart is like a lover foiled
By a broken stair –
They are fighting to-night in Sackville Street,
And I am not there!

“False” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

False! Good God, I am dreaming!
No, no, it never can be –
You who are so true in seeming,
You, false to your vows and me?
My wife and my fair boy’s mother
The star of my life – my queen –
To yield herself to another
Like some light Magdalene!

Proofs! what are proofs – I defy them!
They never can shake my trust;
If you look in my face and deny them
I will trample them into the dust.
For whenever I read of the glory
Of the realms of Paradise,
I sought for the truth of the story
And found it in your sweet eyes.

Why, you are the shy young creature
I wooed in her maiden grace;
There was purity in each feature,
And my heaven I found in your face.
And, “not only married but mated,”
I would say in my pride and joy;
And our hopes were all consummated
When the angels gave us our boy.

Now you could not blot that beginning
So beautiful, pure and true,
With a record of wicked sinning
As a common woman might do.
Look up in your old frank fashion,
With your smile so free from art;
And say that no guilty passion
Has ever crept into your heart.

How pallid you are, and you tremble!
You are hiding your face from view!
“Tho’ a sinner, you cannot dissemble” –
My God! then the tale is true?
True, and the sun above us
Shines on in the summer skies?
And men say the angels love us,
And that God is good and wise.

Yet he lets a wanton thing like you
Ruin my home and my name!
Get out of my sight or I strike you
Dead in your shameless shame!
No, no, I was wild, I was brutal;
I would not take your life,
For the efforts of death would be futile
To wipe out the sin of a wife.
Wife – why, that word has seemed sainted
I uttered it like a prayer;
And now to think it is tainted –
Christ! how much we can bear!

“Slay you!” my boy’s stained mother –
Nay, that would not punish, or save;
A soul that has outraged another
Finds no sudden peace in the grave.
I will leave you here to remember
The Eden that was your own,
While on toward my life’s December
I walk in the dark alone.

“The Agreement.” by Friedrich Schiller

Both of us seek for truth in the world without thou dost seek it,
I in the bosom within; both of us therefore succeed.
If the eye be healthy, it sees from without the Creator;
And if the heart, then within doubtless it mirrors the world.

Poems About Lies and Betrayal

Young princess with very long hair posing against the background of an old stone staircase.

“Betrayed” by John Clare

Dream not of love, to think it like
What waking love may prove to be,
For I dreamed so and broke my heart,
When my false lover slighted me.

Love, like to flowers, is sweet when green;
The rose in bud aye best appears;
And she that loves a handsome man
Should have more wit than she has years.

I put my finger in a bush,
Thinking the sweeter rose to find;
I pricked my finger to the bone,
And left the sweetest rose behind.

I threw a stone into the sea,
And deep it sunk into the sand,
And so did my poor heart in me
When my false lover left the land.

I watched the sun an hour too soon
Set into clouds behind the town;
So my false lover left, and said
“Good night” before the day was down.

I cropt a lily from the stalk,
And in my hand it died away;
So did my joy, so will my heart,
In false love’s cruel grasp decay.

“Betrayal” by Walter De La Mare

She will not die, they say,
She will but put her beauty by
And hie away.

Oh, but her beauty gone, how lonely
Then will seem all reverie,
How black to me!

All things will sad be made
And every hope a memory,
All gladness dead.

Ghosts of the past will know
My weakest hour, and whisper to me,
And coldly go.

And hers in deep of sleep,
Clothed in its mortal beauty I shall see,
And, waking, weep.

Naught will my mind then find
In man’s false Heaven my peace to be:
All blind, and blind.

“Bluebeard” by Edna St. Vincent Millay

This door you might not open, and you did;
So enter now, and see for what slight thing
You are betrayed… Here is no treasure hid,
No cauldron, no clear crystal mirroring
The sought-for Truth, no heads of women slain
For greed like yours, no writhings of distress;
But only what you see… Look yet again;
An empty room, cobwebbed and comfortless.
Yet this alone out of my life I kept
Unto myself, lest any know me quite;
And you did so profane me when you crept
Unto the threshold of this room tonight
That I must never more behold your face.
This now is yours. I seek another place.

beautiful girl in a red dress standing in the thickets of the ju

“Agatha” by Alfred Austin

She wanders in the April woods,
That glisten with the fallen shower;
She leans her face against the buds,
She stops, she stoops, she plucks a flower.
She feels the ferment of the hour:
She broodeth when the ringdove broods;
The sun and flying clouds have power
Upon her cheek and changing moods.
She cannot think she is alone,
As over her senses warmly steal
Floods of unrest she fears to own
And almost dreads to feel.

Among the summer woodlands wide
Anew she roams, no more alone;
The joy she feared is at her side,
Spring’s blushing secret now is known.
The primrose and its mates have flown,
The thrush’s ringing note hath died;
But glancing eye and glowing tone
Fall on her from her god, her guide.
She knows not, asks not, what the goal,
She only feels she moves towards bliss,
And yields her pure unquestioning soul
To touch and fondling kiss.

And still she haunts those woodland ways,
Though all fond fancy finds there now
To mind of spring or summer days,
Are sodden trunk and songless bough.
The past sits widowed on her brow,
Homeward she wends with wintry gaze,
To walls that house a hollow vow,
To hearth where love hath ceased to blaze;
Watches the clammy twilight wane,
With grief too fixed for woe or tear;
And, with her forehead ’gainst the pane,
Envies the dying year.

“The Wind and the Moon” by George Macdonald

Said the Wind to the Moon, “I will blow you out;
You stare
In the air
Like a ghost in a chair,
Always looking what I am about —
I hate to be watched; I’ll blow you out.”

The Wind blew hard, and out went the Moon.
So, deep
On a heap
Of clouds to sleep,
Down lay the Wind, and slumbered soon,
Muttering low, “I’ve done for that Moon.”

He turned in his bed; she was there again!
On high
In the sky,
With her one ghost eye,
The Moon shone white and alive and plain.
Said the Wind, “I will blow you out again.”

The Wind blew hard, and the Moon grew dim.
“With my sledge,
And my wedge,
I have knocked off her edge!
If only I blow right fierce and grim,
The creature will soon be dimmer than dim.”

He blew and he blew, and she thinned to a thread.
“One puff
More’s enough
To blow her to snuff!
One good puff more where the last was bred,
And glimmer, glimmer, glum will go the thread.”

He blew a great blast, and the thread was gone.
In the air
Nowhere
Was a moonbeam bare;
Far off and harmless the shy stars shone —
Sure and certain the Moon was gone!

The Wind he took to his revels once more;
On down,
In town,
Like a merry—mad clown,
He leaped and halloed with whistle and roar —
“What’s that?” The glimmering thread once more!

He flew in a rage — he danced and blew;
But in vain
Was the pain
Of his bursting brain;
For still the broader the Moon—scrap grew,
The broader he swelled his big cheeks and blew.

Slowly she grew — till she filled the night,
And shone
On her throne
In the sky alone,
A matchless, wonderful silvery light,
Radiant and lovely, the queen of the night.

Said the Wind: “What a marvel of power am I!
With my breath,
Good faith!
I blew her to death —
First blew her away right out of the sky —
Then blew her in; what strength have I!

But the Moon she knew nothing about the affair;
For high
In the sky,
With her one white eye,
Motionless, miles above the air,
She had never heard the great Wind blare.

“Lillian Stewart” by Edgar Lee Masters

I was the daughter of Lambert Hutchins,
Born in a cottage near the grist-mill,
Reared in the mansion there on the hill,
With its spires, bay-windows, and roof of slate.
How proud my mother was of the mansion!
How proud of father’s rise in the world!
And how my father loved and watched us,
And guarded our happiness.
But I believe the house was a curse,
For father’s fortune was little beside it;
And when my husband found he had married
A girl who was really poor,
He taunted me with the spires,
And called the house a fraud on the world,
A treacherous lure to young men, raising hopes
Of a dowry not to be had;
And a man while selling his vote
Should get enough from the people’s betrayal
To wall the whole of his family in.
He vexed my life till I went back home
And lived like an old maid till I died,
Keeping house for father.

a gentle and graceful girl sleeps on a magical purple flower field, a dreaming beauty with long dark hair and a pink wreath in a purple dress, a new fairy tale about Thumbelina, bright artwork

“The Last Betrayal” by Edith Nesbit

And I shall lie alone at last,
Clear of the stream that ran so fast,
And feel the flower roots in my hair,
And in my hands the roots of trees;
Myself wrapt in the ungrudging peace
That leaves no pain uncovered anywhere.

What–this hope left? this way not barred?
This last best treasure without guard?
This heaven free–no prayers to pay?

Fool–are the Rulers of men asleep?
Thou knowest what tears They bade thee weep,
But, when peace comes, ’tis thou wilt sleep, not they.

“Sleep” by John Gould Fletcher

Do you give yourself to me utterly,
Body and no-body, flesh and no-flesh
Not as a fugitive, blindly or bitterly,
But as a child might, with no other wish?
Yes, utterly.

Then I shall bear you down my estuary,
Carry you and ferry you to burial mysteriously,
Take you and receive you,
Consume you, engulf you,
In the huge cave, my belly, lave you
With huger waves continually.

And you shall cling and clamber there
And slumber there, in that dumb chamber,
Beat with my blood’s beat, hear my heart move
Blindly in bones that ride above you,
Delve in my flesh, dissolved and bedded,
Through viewless valves embodied so –

Till daylight, the expulsion and awakening,
The riving and the driving forth,
Life with remorseless forceps beckoning –
Pangs and betrayal of harsh birth.

“Julia Miller” by Edgar Lee Masters

We quarreled that morning,
For he was sixty—five, and I was thirty,
And I was nervous and heavy with the child
Whose birth I dreaded.
I thought over the last letter written me
By that estranged young soul
Whose betrayal of me I had concealed
By marrying the old man.
Then I took morphine and sat down to read.
Across the blackness that came over my eyes
I see the flickering light of these words even now:
“And Jesus said unto him, Verily
I say unto thee, To-day thou shalt
Be with me in paradise.”

Young sad woman princess. Backdrop blue sky white snow winter. Snowy frosty desert Ice cross. Religion Concept spirituality pray with hope. Red hair flying in wind. Medieval vintage dress fluttering

“Solitude” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone;
For the sad old earth must borrow its mirth,
But has trouble enough of its own.
Sing, and the hills will answer;
Sigh, it is lost on the air;
The echoes bound to a joyful sound,
But shrink from voicing care.

Rejoice, and men will seek you;
Grieve, and they turn and go;
They want full measure of all your pleasure,
But they do not need your woe.
Be glad, and your friends are many;
Be sad, and you lose them all,
There are none to decline your nectared wine,
But alone you must drink life’s gall.

Feast, and your halls are crowded;
Fast, and the world goes by.
Succeed and give, and it helps you live,
But no man can help you die.
There is room in the halls of pleasure
For a large and lordly train,
But one by one we must all file on
Through the narrow aisles of pain.

“Ashes of Life” by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Love has gone and left me and the days are all alike;
Eat I must, and sleep I will, — and would that night were here!
But ah! — to lie awake and hear the slow hours strike!
Would that it were day again! — with twilight near!

Love has gone and left me and I don’t know what to do;
This or that or what you will is all the same to me;
But all the things that I begin I leave before I’m through, —
There’s little use in anything as far as I can see.

Love has gone and left me, — and the neighbors knock and borrow,
And life goes on forever like the gnawing of a mouse, —
And to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow
There’s this little street and this little house.

“The Shadow Rose” by Robert Cameron Rogers

A Noisette on my garden path
An ever-swaying shadow throws;
But if I pluck it strolling by,
I pluck the shadow with the rose.

Just near enough my heart you stood
To shadow it,—but was it fair
In him, who plucked and bore you off,
To leave your shadow lingering there?

cute red-haired girl, looks into the camera with brown eyes, wearing an emerald raincoat with a hood on her head, has a leather quiver for arrows and an expensive shiny look on her neck. Gothic style

“Eurydice” by Willa Cather

A bitter doom they did upon her place:
She might not touch his hand nor see his face
The while he led her up from death and dreams
Into his world of bright Arcadian streams.
For all of him she yearned to touch and see,
Only the sweet ghost of his melody;
For all of him she yearned to have and hold,
Only the wraith of song, sweet, sweet and cold.
With only song to stop her ears by day
And hold above her frozen heart always,
And strain within her arms and glad her sight,
With only song to feed her lips by night,
To lay within her bosom only song—
Sweetheart! The way from Hell’s so long, so long!

“Disillusion” by Victoria Mary Sackville-West

I wrote the burning words to you
That meant so much to me.
I sent them speeding straight to you,
To you across the sea;
I waited with sure reckoning
For your reply to me.

I waited, and the counted day
Fruitlessly came and went;
I made excuse for the delay,
Pitiable confident.
I knew to-morrow’s light must bring
The words you must have sent.

And still I stand on that dim verge
And look across the sea;
The waves have changed into a dirge
Their volubility.
And in my disillusioned heart
Is a little grave for me.

But still with shaded eyes I gaze
As mournfully I sing,
And one by one the trailing days,
As they no message bring,
Fall with their slow monotony
As beads fall from a string.

“She’s All My Fancy Painted Him” by Lewis Carroll

She’s all my fancy painted him
(I make no idle boast);
If he or you had lost a limb,
Which would have suffered most?

He said that you had been to her,
And seen me here before;
But, in another character,
She was the same of yore.

There was not one that spoke to us,
Of all that thronged the street:
So he sadly got into a ‘bus,
And pattered with his feet.

They sent him word I had not gone
(We know it to be true);
If she should push the matter on,
What would become of you?

They gave her one, the gave me two,
They gave us three or more;
They all returned from him to you,
Though they were mine before.

If I or she should chance to be
Involved in this affair,
He trusts to you to set them free,
Exactly as we were.

It seemed to me that you had been
(Before she had this fit)
An obstacle, that came between
Him, and ourselves, and it.

Don’t let him know she liked them best,
For this must ever be
A secret, kept from all the rest,
Between yourself and me.

fabulous image, dark-haired brunette attractive lady in short white dress, long red scarlet cloak lying on ground sits beside Alaskan Malamute like wolf, gently touches it with his hands, head

“Forgiveness” by John Greenleaf Whittier

My heart was heavy, for its trust had been
Abused, its kindness answered with foul wrong;
So, turning gloomily from my fellow-men,
One summer Sabbath day I strolled among
The green mounds of the village burial-place;
Where, pondering how all human love and hate
Find one sad level; and how, soon or late,
Wronged and wrongdoer, each with meekened face,
And cold hands folded over a still heart,
Pass the green threshold of our common grave,
Whither all footsteps tend, whence none depart,
Awed for myself, and pitying my race,
Our common sorrow, like a mighty wave,
Swept all my pride away, and trembling I forgave!

“A Rhymeless Song.” by Edward Shanks

Rhyme with its jingle still betrays
The song that’s meant for one alone.
Dearest, I dedicate to you
A little song without a rhyme.

The most unpractised schoolboy knows
That quiet kisses are the sweetest.
Safe locked within my arms you lie,
Let not a single sound betray us.

Suppose your jealous mother came
By chance this way and found us here…
Be still, be still, and not a sound
Shall give her warning that we love.

“The Betrayal” by Alice Furlong

When you were weary, roaming the wide world, over,
I gave my fickle heart to a new lover.
Now they tell me that you are lying dead:
O mountains fall on me and hide my head!
When you lay burning in the throes of fever,
He vowed me love by the willow-margined river:
Death smote you there—here was your trust betrayed,
O darkness, cover me, I am afraid!
Yea, in the hour of your supremest trial,
I laughed with him! The shadows on the dial
Stayed not, aghast at my dread ignorance:
Nor man nor angel looked at me askance.
Under the mountains there is peace abiding,
Darkness shall be pavilion for my hiding,
Tears shall blot out the sin of broken faith,
The lips that falsely kissed, shall kiss but Death.

Beautiful brunette girl in blue vintage dress.

“A First Confession” by William Butler Yeats

I admit the briar
Entangled in my hair
Did not injure me;
My blenching and trembling,
Nothing but dissembling,
Nothing but coquetry.

I long for truth, and yet
I cannot stay from that
My better self disowns,
For a man’s attention
Brings such satisfaction
To the craving in my bones.

Brightness that I pull back
From the Zodiac,
Why those questioning eyes
That are fixed upon me?
What can they do but shun me
If empty night replies?

“Shrift.” by Muriel Stuart

I am not true, but you would pardon this
If you could see the tortured spirit take
Its place beside you in the dark, and break
Your daily food of love and kindliness.
You’d guess the bitter thing that treachery is,
Furtive and on its guard, asleep, awake,
Fearing to sin, yet fearing to forsake,
And daily giving Christ the Judas kiss.

But piteous amends I make each day
To recompense the evil with the good;
With double pang I play the double part
Of all you trust and all that I betray.
What long atonement makes my penitent blood,
To what sad tryst goes my unfaithful heart!

Poems About Lies and Deceit

countess in a long red dress  is walking in a green forest full

“Oh, oh, you will be sorry for that word!” by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Oh, oh, you will be sorry for that word!
Give back my book and take my kiss instead.
Was it my enemy or my friend I heard,
“What a big book for such a little head!”
Come, I will show you now my newest hat,
And you may watch me purse my mouth and prink!
Oh, I shall love you still, and all of that.
I never again shall tell you what I think.
I shall be sweet and crafty, soft and sly;
You will not catch me reading any more:
I shall be called a wife to pattern by;
And some day when you knock and push the door,
Some sane day, not too bright and not too stormy,
I shall be gone, and you may whistle for me.

“Treachery” by Madison Julius Cawein

I.
Came a spicy smell of showers
On the purple wings of night,
And a pearl-encrusted crescent
On the lake looked still and white,
While a sound of distant singing
From the vales rose sad and light.

II.
Dripped the musk of sodden roses
From their million heavy sprays,
And the nightingales were sobbing
Of the roses amorous praise
Where the raven down of even
Caught the moonlight’s bleaching rays.

III.
And the turrets of the palace,
From its belt of ancient trees,
On the mountain rose romantic
White as foam from troubled seas;
And the murmur of an ocean
Smote the chords of ev’ry breeze.

IV.
Where the moon shone on the terrace
And its fountain’s lisping foam;
Where the bronzen urns of flowers
Breathed faint perfume thro’ the gloam,
By the alabaster Venus
‘Neath the quiet stars we’d roam.

V.
And we stopped beside the statue
Of the marble Venus there
Deeply pedestaled ‘mid roses,
Who their crimson hearts laid bare,
Breathing out their lives in fragrance
At her naked feet and fair.

VI.
And we marked the purple dingles
Where the lazy vapors lolled,
Like thin, fleecy ribs of moonlight
Touched with amethyst and gold;
And we marked the wild deer glimmer
Like dim specters where they strolled….

VII.
But from out those treach’rous roses
Crept a serpent and it stung,
Poisoned him who’d tuned my heart-strings
Till for him alone they sung,
Froze the nerves of hands that only
From its chords a note had wrung.

VIII.
Now the nightingales in anguish
To cold, ashen roses moan;
Now a sound of desolate wailing
In the darkened palace lone
From a harp ëolian quavers
Broken on an empty throne.

“A Woman’s Love” by John Hay

A sentinel angel, sitting high in glory,
Heard this shrill wail ring out from Purgatory:
“Have mercy, mighty angel, hear my story!

“I loved,—and, blind with passionate love, I fell.
Love brought me down to death, and death to Hell;
For God is just, and death for sin is well.

“I do not rage against his high decree,
Nor for myself do ask that grace shall be;
But for my love on earth who mourns for me.

“Great Spirit! Let me see my love again
And comfort him one hour, and I were fain
To pay a thousand years of fire and pain.”

Then said the pitying angel, “Nay, repent
That wild vow! Look, the dial-finger’s bent
Down to the last hour of thy punishment!”

But still she wailed, “I pray thee, let me go!
I cannot rise to peace and leave him so.
O, let me soothe him in his bitter woe!”

The brazen gates ground sullenly ajar,
And upwards, joyous, like a rising star,
She rose and vanished in the ether far.

But soon adown the dying sunset sailing,
And like a wounded bird her pinions trailing,
She fluttered back, with broken-hearted wailing.

She sobbed, “I found him by the summer sea
Reclined, his head upon a maiden’s knee,—
She curled his hair and kissed him. Woe is me!”

She wept, “Now let my punishment begin!
I have been fond and foolish. Let me in
To expiate my sorrow and my sin.”

The angel answered, “Nay, sad soul, go higher!
To be deceived in your true heart’s desire
Was bitterer than a thousand years of fire!”

dark-haired girl in a long, light gray, old-fashioned dress, sits on cold ground covered with autumnal fallen leaves, in a dark forest, crying over Pandora’s open box. no face on art photo, depersia

“On Pain” by Kahlil Gibran

And a woman spoke, saying, Tell us of Pain.
And he said:
Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.
Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.
And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;
And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.
And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.

Much of your pain is self-chosen.
It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your sick self.
Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and tranquility:
For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of the Unseen,
And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has moistened with His own sacred tears.

“The Puppet-Player” by Angelina Weld Grimké

Sometimes it seems as though some puppet-player,
A clenched claw cupping a craggy chin
Sits just beyond the border of our seeing,
Twitching the strings with slow, sardonic grin.

“Self-Deception” by Matthew Arnold

Say, what blinds us, that we claim the glory
Of possessing powers not our share?
Since man woke on earth, he knows his story,
But, before we woke on earth, we were.

Long, long since, undower’d yet, our spirit
Roam’d, ere birth, the treasuries of God
Saw the gifts, the powers it might inherit;
Ask’d an outfit for its earthly road.

Then, as now, this tremulous, eager Being
Strain’d, and long’d, and grasp’d each gift it saw.
Then, as now, a Power beyond our seeing
Stav’d us back, and gave our choice the law.

Ah, whose hand that day through heaven guided
Man’s blank spirit, since it was not we?
Ah, who sway’d our choice, and who decided
What our gifts, and what our wants should be?

For, alas! he left us each retaining
Shreds of gifts which he refus’d in full.
Still these waste us with their hopeless straining
Still the attempt to use them proves them null.

And on earth we wander, groping, reeling;
Powers stir in us, stir and disappear.
Ah. and he, who placed our master-feeling,
Fail’d to place our master-feeling clear.

We but dream we have our wish’d-for powers.
Ends we seek we never shall attain.
Ah, some power exists there, which is ours?
Some end is there, we indeed may gain?

Lady in a luxury lush blue dress, fantastic shot, fairytale prin

“Faith” by Frances Anne Kemble

Better trust all and be deceived,
And weep that trust and that deceiving,
Than doubt one heart that, if believed,
Had blessed one’s life with true believing.
O, in this mocking world too fast
The doubting fiend o’ertakes our youth;
Better be cheated to the last
Than lose the blessed hope of truth.

Poems About Lies and Secrets

Fairy Tales cosplay. Fantasy portrait

“Mysteries” by Madison Julius Cawein

Soft and silken and silvery brown,
In shoes of lichen and leafy gown,
Little blue butterflies fluttering around her,
Deep in the forest, afar from town,
There where a stream came trickling down,
I met with Silence, who wove a crown
Of sleep whose mystery bound her.

I gazed in her eyes, that were mossy green
As the rain that pools in a hollow between
The twisted roots of a tree that towers:
And I saw the things that none has seen,
That mean far more than facts may mean,
The dreams, that are true, of an age that has been,
That God has thought into flowers.

I gazed on her lips, that were dewy gray
As the mist that clings, at the close of day,
To the wet hillside when the winds cease blowing;
And I heard the things that none may f
That are holier far than the prayers we pray,
The murmured music God breathes alway
Through the hearts of all things growing.

Soft and subtle and vapory white,
In shoes of shadow and gown of light,
Crimson poppies asleep around her,
Far in the forest, beneath a height,
I came on Slumber, who wove from night
A wreath of silence, that, darkly bright,
With its mystic beauty bound her.

I looked in her face that was pale and still
As the moon that rises above the hill
Where the pines loom sombre as sorrow:
And the things that all have known and will,
I knew for a moment: the myths that fill
And people the past of the soul and thrill
Its hope with a far to-morrow.

I heard her voice, that was strange with pain
As a wind that whispers of wreck and rain
To the leaves of the autumn rustling lonely:
And I felt the things that are felt in vain
By all the longings that haunt the brain
Of man, that come and depart again
And are part of his dreamings only.

“My Angeline” by Harry Bache Smith

She kept her secret well, oh, yes,
Her hideous secret well.
We together were cast, I knew not her past;
For how was I to tell?
I married her, guileless lamb I was;
I’d have died for her sweet sake.
How could I have known that my Angeline
Had been a Human Snake?
Ah, we had been wed but a week or two
When I found her quite a wreck:
Her limbs were tied in a double bow-knot
At the back of her swan-like neck.
No curse there sprang to my pallid lips,
Nor did I reproach her then;
I calmly untied my bonny bride
And straightened her out again.

Refrain

My Angeline! My Angeline!
Why didst disturb my mind serene?
My well-beloved circus queen,
My Human Snake, my Angeline!
At night I’d wake at the midnight hour,
With a weird and haunted feeling,
And there she’d be, in her robe de nuit,
A-walking upon the ceiling.
She said she was being “the human fly,”
And she’d lift me up from beneath
By a section slight of my garb of night,
Which she held in her pearly teeth.
For the sweet, sweet sake of the Human Snake
I’d have stood this conduct shady;
But she skipped in the end with an old, old friend,
An eminent bearded lady.
But, oh, at night, when my slumber’s light,
Regret comes o’er me stealing;
For I miss the sound of those little feet,
As they pattered along the ceiling.

Refrain

My Angeline! My Angeline!
Why didst disturb my mind serene?
My well-beloved circus queen,
My Human Snake, my Angeline!

“Jenifer’s Love” by Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

Small is my secret–let it pass–
Small in your life the share I had,
Who sat beside you in the class,
Awed by the bright superior lad:
Whom yet with hot and eager face
I prompted when he missed his place.

For you the call came swift and soon:
But sometimes in your holidays
You meet me trudging home at noon
To dinner through the dusty ways,
And recognized, and with a nod
Passed on, but never guessed–thank God!

Truly our ways were separate.
I bent myself to hoe and drill,

Yea, with an honest man to mate,
Fulfilling God Almighty’s will;
And bore him children. But my prayers
Were yours–and, only after, theirs.

While you–still loftier, more remote,
You sprang from stair to stair of fame,
And you’ve a riband on your coat,
And you’ve a title to your name;
But have you yet a star to shine
Above your bed, as I o’er mine?

a girl in a black long dress walking along ia a clearing in thick fog. scared, beautiful, witch ia going to the forest, looking for a house. art photo. halloween costume. model. dark. mystic. evil.

“Evening Solace” by Charlotte Brontë

The human heart has hidden treasures,
In secret kept, in silence sealed;—
The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures,
Whose charms were broken if revealed.
And days may pass in gay confusion,
And nights in rosy riot fly,
While, lost in Fame’s or Wealth’s illusion,
The memory of the Past may die.

But there are hours of lonely musing,
Such as in evening silence come,
When, soft as birds their pinions closing,
The heart’s best feelings gather home.
Then in our souls there seems to languish
A tender grief that is not woe;
And thoughts that once wrung groans of anguish
Now cause but some mild tears to flow.

And feelings, once as strong as passions,
Float softly back—a faded dream;
Our own sharp griefs and wild sensations,
The tale of others’ sufferings seem.
Oh! when the heart is freshly bleeding,
How longs it for that time to be,
When, through the mist of years receding,
Its woes but live in reverie!

And it can dwell on moonlight glimmer,
On evening shade and loneliness;
And, while the sky grows dim and dimmer,
Feel no untold and strange distress—
Only a deeper impulse given
By lonely hour and darkened room,
To solemn thoughts that soar to heaven
Seeking a life and world to come.

“A Drinking Song” by W.B. Yeats

Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That’s all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you, and I sigh.

“The Secret.” by Friedrich Schiller

She sought to breathe one word, but vainly;
Too many listeners were nigh;
And yet my timid glance read plainly
The language of her speaking eye.
Thy silent glades my footstep presses,
Thou fair and leaf-embosomed grove!
Conceal within thy green recesses
From mortal eye our sacred love!

Afar with strange discordant noises,
The busy day is echoing;
And ‘mid the hollow hum of voices,
I hear the heavy hammer ring.
‘Tis thus that man, with toil ne’er ending
Extorts from heaven his daily bread;
Yet oft unseen the Gods are sending
The gifts of fortune on his head!

Oh, let mankind discover never
How true love fills with bliss our hearts
They would but crush our joy forever,
For joy to them no glow imparts.
Thou ne’er wilt from the world obtain it –
‘Tis never captured save as prey;
Thou needs must strain each nerve to gain it,
E’er envy dark asserts her sway.

The hours of night and stillness loving,
It comes upon us silently –
Away with hasty footstep moving
Soon as it sees a treacherous eye.
Thou gentle stream, soft circlets weaving,
A watery barrier cast around,
And, with thy waves in anger heaving,
Guard from each foe this holy ground!

a beautiful woman like a fairy or nymph walking in the park

“I hide myself within my flower” by Emily Dickinson

I hide myself within my flower,
That wearing on your breast,
You, unsuspecting, wear me too—
And angels know the rest.

I hide myself within my flower,
That, fading from your vase,
You, unsuspecting, feel for me
Almost a loneliness.

“Said Secrecy To Cowardice And Fraud” by William Wordsworth

Said Secrecy to Cowardice and Fraud,
Falsehood and Treachery, in close council met,
Deep under ground, in Pluto’s cabinet,
“The frost of England’s pride will soon be thawed;
“Hooded the open brow that overawed
“Our schemes; the faith and honour, never yet
“By us with hope encountered, be upset;
“For once I burst my bands, and cry, applaud!”
Then whispered she, “The Bill is carrying out!”
They heard, and, starting up, the Brood of Night
Clapped hands, and shook with glee their matted locks;
All Powers and Places that abhor the light
Joined in the transport, echoed back their shout,
Hurrah for, hugging his Ballot-box!

“The First Lie” by Helen Leah Reed

I’m sure I did not break this cup;
It just fell down, – I know it did –
For I was only climbing up,
Why do they keep the cake-box hid? –
I wanted such a little bit!
And then I heard that creaking door,
I can’t tell what it was I hit,
Nor how that cup got on the floor.

The shelf it stood on was too high,
That cup my mother loved the most!
Oh dear! I never told a lie,
And mother whispered, “Do not boast,”
The day I said I never could.
(But there’s that broken cup!) – and then
I promised that I never would –
So – I’ll not tell a lie -again.

A fabulous, forest nymph with long hair lies on a tree branch wi

“Secrets” by Lola Ridge

Secrets
infesting my half-sleep…
did you enter my wound from another wound
brushing mine in a crowd…
or did I snare you on my sharper edges
as a bird flying through cobwebbed trees at sun-up
carries off spiders on its wings?

Secrets,
running over my soul without sound,
only when dawn comes tip-toeing
ushered by a suave wind,
and dreams disintegrate
like breath shapes in frosty air,
I shall overhear you, bare-foot,
scatting off into the darkness….
I shall know you, secrets
by the litter you have left
and by your bloody foot-prints.

Poems About Lies and Love

Beautiful woman in red dress walking in the garden full of roses.

“When my love swears that she is made of truth (Sonnet 138)” by William Shakespeare

When my love swears that she is made of truth,
I do believe her though I know she lies,
That she might think me some untutor’d youth,
Unlearned in the world’s false subtleties.
Thus vainly thinking that she thinks me young,
Although she knows my days are past the best,
Simply I credit her false-speaking tongue:
On both sides thus is simple truth suppressed:
But wherefore says she not she is unjust?
And wherefore say not I that I am old?
O! love’s best habit is in seeming trust,
And age in love, loves not to have years told:
Therefore I lie with her, and she with me,
And in our faults by lies we flatter’d be.

“Love is too young to know what conscience is: (Sonnet 151)” by William Shakespeare

Love is too young to know what conscience is,
Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?
Then, gentle cheater, urge not my amiss,
Lest guilty of my faults thy sweet self prove:
For, thou betraying me, I do betray
My nobler part to my gross body’s treason;
My soul doth tell my body that he may
Triumph in love; flesh stays no farther reason,
But rising at thy name doth point out thee,
As his triumphant prize. Proud of this pride,
He is contented thy poor drudge to be,
To stand in thy affairs, fall by thy side.
No want of conscience hold it that I call
Her love, for whose dear love I rise and fall.

“Treachery” by Walter De La Mare

She had amid her ringlets bound
Green leaves to rival their dark hue;
How could such locks with beauty bound
Dry up their dew,
Wither them through and through?

She had within her dark eyes lit
Sweet fires to burn all doubt away;
Yet did those fires, in darkness lit,
Burn but a day,
Not even till twilight stay.

She had within a dusk of words
A vow in simple splendour set;
How, in the memory of such words,
Could she forget
That vow – the soul of it?

Woman in medieval clothes with a fox

“A Fallen Leaf” by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

A trusting little leaf of green,
A bold audacious frost;
A rendezvous, a kiss or two,
And youth for ever lost.
Ah, me!
The bitter, bitter cost.

A flaunting patch of vivid red,
That quivers in the sun;
A windy gust, a grave of dust,
The little race is run.
Ah, me!
Were that the only one.

“Wild May” by Claude McKay

Aleta mentions in her tender letters,
Among a chain of quaint and touching things,
That you are feeble, weighted down with fetters,
And given to strange deeds and mutterings.
No longer without trace or thought of fear,
Do you leap to and ride the rebel roan;
But have become the victim of grim care,
With three brown beauties to support alone.
But none the less will you be in my mind,
Wild May that cantered by the risky ways,
With showy head-cloth flirting in the wind,
From market in the glad December days;
Wild May of whom even other girls could rave
Before sex tamed your spirit, made you slave.

“The Kiss” by Sara Teasdale

I hoped that he would love me,
And he has kissed my mouth,
But I am like a stricken bird
That cannot reach the south.

For though I know he loves me,
To-night my heart is sad;
His kiss was not so wonderful
As all the dreams I had.

Romantic portrait of a young girl in a long red dress standing n

“Modern Love: XXXVII” by George Meredith

Along the garden terrace, under which
A purple valley (lighted at its edge
By smoky torch-flame on the long cloud-ledge
Whereunder dropped the chariot), glimmers rich,
A quiet company we pace, and wait
The dinner-bell in prae-digestive calm.
So sweet up violet banks the Southern balm
Breathes round, we care not if the bell be late:
Though here and there grey seniors question Time
In irritable coughings. With slow foot
The low rosed moon, the face of Music mute,
Begins among her silent bars to climb.
As in and out, in silvery dusk, we tread,
I hear the laugh of Madam, and discern
My Lady’s heel before me at each turn.
Our tragedy, is it alive or dead?

“Modern Love: XVII” by George Meredith

At dinner, she is hostess, I am host.
Went the feast ever cheerfuller? She keeps
The Topic over intellectual deeps
In buoyancy afloat. They see no ghost.
With sparkling surface-eyes we ply the ball:
It is in truth a most contagious game:
‘Hiding the skeleton,’ shall be its name.
Such play as this, the devils might appal!
But here’s the greater wonder; in that we
Enamoured of an acting naught can tire,
Each other, like true hypocrites, admire;
Warm-lighted looks, Love’s ephemoerioe,
Shoot gaily o’er the dishes and the wine.
We waken envy of our happy lot.
Fast, sweet, and golden, shows the marriage-knot.
Dear guests, you now have seen Love’s corpse-light shine.

“To a Portrait” by Arthur Symons

A pensive photograph
Watches me from the shelf—
Ghost of old love, and half
Ghost of myself!

How the dear waiting eyes
Watch me and love me yet—
Sad home of memories,
Her waiting eyes!

Ghost of old love, wronged ghost,
Return: though all the pain
Of all once loved, long lost,
Come back again.

Forget not, but forgive!
Alas, too late I cry.
We are two ghosts that had their chance to live,
And lost it, she and I.

forest goddess on stone steps, dreams with her eyes closed, dark-haired girl in long white dress, elegant golden wreath on her head, the fairy-tale spirit listens to the sound of grass and leaves

“Linda to Hafed” by Thomas Moore

“How sweetly,” said the trembling maid,
Of her own gentle voice afraid,
So long had they in silence stood,
Looking upon that moonlight flood,—
“How sweetly does the moonbeam smile
To-night upon yon leafy isle!
Oft in my fancy’s wanderings,
I ’ve wished that little isle had wings,
And we, within its fairy bowers,
Were wafted off to seas unknown,
Where not a pulse should beat but ours,
And we might live, love, die alone!
Far from the cruel and the cold,—
Where the bright eyes of angels only
Should come around us, to behold
A paradise so pure and lonely!
Would this be world enough for thee?”—
Playful she turned, that he might see
The passing smile her cheek put on;
But when she marked how mournfully
His eyes met hers, that smile was gone;
And, bursting into heartfelt tears,
“Yes, yes,” she cried, “my hourly fears,
My dreams, have boded all too right,—
We part—forever part—to-night!
I knew, I knew it could not last,—
’T was bright, ’t was heavenly, but ’t is past!
O, ever thus, from childhood’s hour,
I ’ve seen my fondest hopes decay;
I never loved a tree or flower
But ’t was the first to fade away.
I never nursed a dear gazelle,
To glad me with its soft black eye,
But when it came to know me well,
And love me, it was sure to die!
Now, too, the joy most like divine
Of all I ever dreamt or knew,
To see thee, hear thee, call thee mine,—
O misery! must I lose that too?”

“Astrophel and Stella – Sonnet XXXI” by Sir Philip Sidney

With how sad steps, O Moon! thou climb’st the skies,
How silently, and with how wan a face!
What may it be, that even in heavenly place
That busy Archer his sharp arrows tries?
Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes 5
Can judge of love, thou feel’st a lover’s case;
I read it in thy looks; thy languished grace
To me, that feel the like, thy state descries.
Then, even of fellowship, O Moon, tell me,
Is constant love deemed there but want of wit? 10
Are beauties there as proud as here they be?
Do they above love to be loved, and yet
Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess?
Do they call virtue there ungratefulness?

“The Banks O’ Doon” by Robert Burns

Ye banks and braes o’ bonnie Doon,
How can ye bloom sae fresh and fair?
How can ye chant, ye little birds,
And I sae weary, fu’ o’ care?

Thou ’lt break my heart, thou warbling bird,
That wantons through the flowering thorn;
Thou minds me o’ departed joys,
Departed—never to return.

Thou ’lt break my heart, thou bonnie bird,
That sings beside thy mate;
For sae I sat, and sae I sang,
And wistna o’ my fate.

Aft hae I roved by bonnie Doon,
To see the rose and woodbine twine;
And ilka bird sang o’ its luve,
And, fondly, sae did I o’ mine.

Wi’ lightsome heart I pou’d a rose,
Fu’ sweet upon its thorny tree;
And my fause luver stole my rose,
But ah! he left the thorn wi’ me.

lovely tender girl with perfect skin and dark magnificent eyes, wonderful work of hairdresser and gathered brown hair with silver tiara, light natural make-up, portrait photo and creative colors

“Fidelity in Doubt” by Guiraud Le Roux (Harriet Waters Preston, Translator)

Come, lady, to my song incline,
The last that shall assail thine ear.
None other cares my strains to hear,
And scarce thou feign’st thyself therewith delighted!
Nor know I well if I am loved or slighted;
But this I know, thou radiant one and sweet,
That, loved or spurned, I die before thy feet!
Yea, I will yield this life of mine
In every deed, if cause appear,
Without another boon to cheer.
Honor it is to be by thee incited
To any deed; and I, when most benighted
By doubt, remind me that times change and fleet,
And brave men still do their occasion meet.

“Love Not” by Caroline Elizabeth Sarah (Sheridan) Norton

Love not, love not, ye hapless sons of clay!
Hope’s gayest wreaths are made of earthly flowers,—
Things that are made to fade and fall away
Ere they have blossomed for a few short hours.
Love not!

Love not! the thing ye love may change;
The rosy lip may cease to smile on you,
The kindly-beaming eye grow cold and strange,
The heart still warmly beat, yet not be true.
Love not!

Love not! the thing you love may die,—
May perish from the gay and gladsome earth;
The silent stars, the blue and smiling sky,
Beam o’er its grave, as once upon its birth.
Love not!

Love not! O warning vainly said
In present hours as in years gone by!
Love flings a halo round the dear one’s head,
Faultless, immortal, till they change or die.
Love not!

“Song: A Weary Lot Is Thine, Fair Maid” by Sir Walter Scott

“A weary lot is thine, fair maid,
A weary lot is thine!
To pull the thorn thy brow to braid,
And press the rue for wine!
A lightsome eye, a soldier’s mien,
A feather of the blue,
A doublet of the Lincoln green—
No more of me you knew,
My love!
No more of me you knew.

“The morn is merry June, I trow—
The rose is budding fain;
But she shall bloom in winter snow
Ere we two meet again.”
He turned his charger as he spake,
Upon the river shore;
He gave his bridle-rein a shake,
Said, “Adieu for evermore,
My love!
And adieu for evermore.”

Gourmet lady in a vintage dress. A beautiful rider gently hugs t

“Time does not bring relief (Sonnet II)” by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year’s bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide.
There are a hundred places where I fear
To go,—so with his memory they brim.
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, “There is no memory of him here!”
And so stand stricken, so remembering him.

“To A False Friend.” by Thomas Hood

Our hands have met, but not our hearts;
Our hands will never meet again.
Friends, if we have ever been,
Friends we cannot now remain:
I only know I loved you once,
I only know I loved in vain;
Our hands have met, but not our hearts;
Our hands will never meet again!

Then farewell to heart and hand!
I would our hands had never met:
Even the outward form of love
Must be resign’d with some regret.
Friends, we still might seem to be,
If I my wrong could e’er forget;
Our hands have join’d but not our hearts:
I would our hands had never met!

“Mistrust” by George William Russell

You look at me with wan, bright eyes
When in the deeper world I stray:
You fear some hidden ambush lies
In wait to call me, “Come away.”

What if I see behind the veil
Your starry self beseeching me,
Or at its stern command grow pale,
“Let her be free, let her be free”?

Lonely Attractive brunette woman walks in the rain near the stator castle. Young princess in a pink wet dress with a train. Hair fluttering, flying in the wind. Autumn sad landscape.

“To His Inconstant Mistress” by Thomas Carew

When thou, poor Excommunicate
From all the joys of Love, shalt see
The full reward and glorious fate
Which my strong faith shall purchase me,
Then curse thine own inconstancy!

A fairer hand than thine shall cure
That heart which thy false oaths did wound;
And to my soul a soul more pure
Than thine shall by Love’s hand be bound,
And both with equal glory crowned.

Then shalt thou weep, entreat, complain
To Love, as I did once to thee;
When all thy tears shall be in vain
As mine were then: for thou shalt be
Damn’d for thy false apostasy.

“The Feet of Judas” by George Marion McClellan

Christ washed the feet of Judas!
The dark and evil passions of his soul,
His secret plot, and sordidness complete,
His hate, his purposing, Christ knew the whole.
And still in love he stooped and washed his feet.

Christ washed the feet of Judas!
Yet all his lurking sin was bare to him,
His bargain with the priest, and more than this,
In Olivet, beneath the moonlight dim,
Aforehand knew and felt his treacherous kiss.

Christ washed the feet of Judas!
And so ineffable his love ’twas meet,
That pity fill his great forgiving heart,
And tenderly to wash the traitor’s feet,
Who in his Lord had basely sold his part.

Christ washed the feet of Judas!
And thus a girded servant, self-abased,
Taught that no wrong this side the gate of heaven
Was ever too great to wholly be effaced,
And though unasked, in spirit be forgiven.

And so if we have ever felt the wrong
Of Trampled rights, of caste, it matters not,
What e’er the soul has felt or suffered long,
Oh, heart! this one thing should not be forgot:
Christ washed the feet of Judas.

“I shall forget you presently, my dear (Sonnet IV)” by Edna St. Vincent Millay

I shall forget you presently, my dear,
So make the most of this, your little day,
Your little month, your little half a year
Ere I forget, or die, or move away,
And we are done forever; by and by
I shall forget you, as I said, but now,
If you entreat me with your loveliest lie
I will protest you with my favorite vow.
I would indeed that love were longer-lived,
And vows were not so brittle as they are,
But so it is, and nature has contrived
To struggle on without a break thus far,—
Whether or not we find what we are seeking
Is idle, biologically speaking.

A fragile, tender girl in a yellow vintage dress strolls against

“Song.” by Thomas Moore

Mary, I believed thee true,
And I was blest in thus believing
But now I mourn that e’er I knew
A girl so fair and so deceiving.
Fare thee well.

Few have ever loved like me,–
Yes, I have loved thee too sincerely!
And few have e’er deceived like thee.–
Alas! deceived me too severely.

Fare thee well!–yet think awhile
On one whose bosom bleeds to doubt thee:
Who now would rather trust that smile,
And die with thee than live without thee.

Fare thee well! I’ll think of thee.
Thou leavest me many a bitter token;
For see, distracting woman, see,
My peace is gone, my heart is broken!–
Fare thee well!

“The Sonnets CXLII – Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate” by William Shakespeare

Love is my sin, and thy dear virtue hate,
Hate of my sin, grounded on sinful loving:
O! but with mine compare thou thine own state,
And thou shalt find it merits not reproving;
Or, if it do, not from those lips of thine,
That have profan’d their scarlet ornaments
And seal’d false bonds of love as oft as mine,
Robb’d others’ beds’ revenues of their rents.
Be it lawful I love thee, as thou lov’st those
Whom thine eyes woo as mine importune thee:
Root pity in thy heart, that, when it grows,
Thy pity may deserve to pitied be.
If thou dost seek to have what thou dost hide,
By self-example mayst thou be denied!

“One And Two.” by Will Carleton

I.
If you to me be cold,
Or I be false to you,
The world will go on, I think,
Just as it used to do;
The clouds will flirt with the moon,
The sun will kiss the sea,
The wind to the trees will whisper,
And laugh at you and me;
But the sun will not shine so bright,
The clouds will not seem so white,
To one, as they will to two;
So I think you had better be kind,
And I had best be true,
And let the old love go on,
Just as it used to do.

II.
If the whole of a page be read,
If a book be finished through,
Still the world may read on, I think,
Just as it used to do;
For other lovers will con
The pages that we have passed,
And the treacherous gold of the binding
Will glitter unto the last.
But lids have a lonely look,
And one may not read the book–
It opens only to two;
So I think you had better be kind,
And I had best be true,
And let the reading go on,
Just as it used to do.

III.
If we who have sailed together
Flit out of each other’s view,
The world will sail on, I think,
Just as it used to do;
And we may reckon by stars
That flash from different skies,
And another of love’s pirates
May capture my lost prize;
But ships long time together
Can better the tempest weather
Than any other two;
So I think you had better be kind,
And I had best be true,
That we together may sail,
Just as we used to do.

Beautiful young woman with very long red hair in a golden medieval dress walking through the autumn forest. Long red hair develops in the wind.

“Preservation.” by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

My maiden she proved false to me;

To hate all joys I soon began,

Then to a flowing stream I ran,
The stream ran past me hastily.

There stood I fix’d, in mute despair;

My head swam round as in a dream;

I well-nigh fell into the stream,
And earth seem’d with me whirling there.

Sudden I heard a voice that cried

I had just turn’d my face from thence

It was a voice to charm each sense:
“Beware, for deep is yonder tide!”

A thrill my blood pervaded now,

I look’d and saw a beauteous maid

I asked her name twas Kate, she said
“Oh lovely Kate! how kind art thou!

“From death I have been sav’d by thee,

‘Tis through thee only that I live;

Little ’twere life alone to give,
My joy in life then deign to be!”

And then I told my sorrows o’er,

Her eyes to earth she sweetly threw;

I kiss’d her, and she kiss’d me too,
And then I talked of death no more.

“Love Cannot Die” by John Clare

In crime and enmity they lie
Who sin and tell us love can die,
Who say to us in slander’s breath
That love belongs to sin and death.
From heaven it came on angel’s wing
To bloom on earth, eternal spring;
In falsehood’s enmity they lie
Who sin and tell us love can die.

Twas born upon an angel’s breast.
The softest dreams, the sweetest rest,
The brightest sun, the bluest sky,
Are love’s own home and canopy.
The thought that cheers this heart of mine
Is that of love; love so divine
They sin who say in slander’s breath
That love belongs to sin and death.

The sweetest voice that lips contain,
The sweetest thought that leaves the brain,
The sweetest feeling of the heart–
There’s pleasure in its very smart.
The scent of rose and cinnamon
Is not like love remembered on;
In falsehood’s enmity they lie
Who sin and tell us love can die.

“I Love Thee Still.” by George Pope Morris

I never have been false to thee!–
The heart I gave thee still is thine;
Though thou hast been untrue to me,
And I no more may call thee mine!
I’ve loved, as woman ever loves,
With constant soul in good or ill:
Thou’st proved as man too often proves,
A rover–but I love thee still!

Yet think not that my spirit stoops
To bind thee captive in my train!–
Love’s not a flower at sunset droops,
But smiles when comes her god again!
Thy words, which fall unheeded now,
Could once my heart-strings madly thrill!
Love a golden chain and burning vow
Are broken–but I love thee still!

Once what a heaven of bliss was ours,
When love dispelled the clouds of care,
And time went by with birds and flowers,
While song and incense filled the air!
The past is mine–the present thine–
Should thoughts of me thy future fill,
Think what a destiny is mine,
To lose–but love thee, false one, still!

Beautiful woman queen gently touches open window hand. Smiling face glamour fashion model. Girl Princess blond long wavy curl hair Luxury pink dress gold crown. Backdrop white room interior black tree

“Open The Door To Me, Oh” by Robert Burns

Oh, open the door, some pity to shew,
Oh, open the door to me, oh,
Tho’ thou hast been false, I’ll ever prove true,
Oh, open the door to me, oh.

Cauld is the blast upon my pale cheek,
But caulder thy love for me, oh:
The frost that freezes the life at my heart,
Is nought to my pains frae thee, oh.

The wan Moon is setting beyond the white wave,
And Time is setting with me, oh:
False friends, false love, farewell! for mair
I’ll ne’er trouble them, nor thee, oh.

She has open’d the door, she has open’d it wide,
She sees the pale corse on the plain, oh:
“My true love!” she cried, and sank down by his side,
Never to rise again, oh.

“Ballad” by Paul Laurence Dunbar

I know my love is true,
And oh the day is fair.
The sky is clear and blue,
The flowers are rich of hue,
The air I breathe is rare,
I have no grief or care;
For my own love is true,
And oh ‘the day is fair.

My love is false I find,
And oh the day is dark.
Blows sadly down the wind,
While sorrow holds my mind;
I do not hear the lark,
For quenched is life’s dear spark,–
My love is false I find,
And oh the day is dark!

For love doth make the day
Or dark or doubly bright;
Her beams along the way
Dispel the gloom and gray.
She lives and all is bright,
She dies and life is night.
For love doth make the day,
Or dark or doubly bright.

“The Lover suspected of Change prayeth that it be not believed against him” by Sir Thomas Wyatt

Accused though I be without desert;
Sith none can prove, believe it not for true:
For never yet, since that you had my heart,
Intended I to false, or be untrue.
Sooner I would of death sustain the smart,
Than break one word of that I promised you;
Accept therefore my service in good part:
None is alive, that can ill tongues eschew,
Hold them as false; and let us not depart
Our friendship old in hope of any new:
Put not thy trust in such as use to feign,
Except thou mind to put thy friend to pain.