Poems on Heart

In prayer the lips ne'er act the winning part
Without the sweet concurrence of the heart.

by Robert Herrick.

Sometimes with the Heart
Seldom with the Soul
Scarcer once with the Might
Few - love at all.

by Emily Dickinson.

His Heart was darker than the starless night
For that there is a morn
But in this black Receptacle
Can be no Bode of Dawn

by Emily Dickinson.

Take heart again. Joy may be lost awhile.
It is not always Spring.
And even now from some far Summer Isle
Hither the birds may wing.

by Madison Julius Cawein.

My heart is a pomegranate full of sweet fancies,
To crimson with sunshine and swell with the dew.
Warmed by your smile and besprent by your glances
See, it has opened for you!

by Lesbia Harford.

If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.

by Emily Dickinson.

In this small Character is sent
My Loves eternal Monument.
Whil'st we shall live, know, this chain'd Heart
Is our affections counter-part.
And if we never meet, think I
Bequeath'd it as my Legacy.

by Henry King.

Many red devils ran from my heart
And out upon the page,
They were so tiny
The pen could mash them.
And many struggled in the ink.
It was strange
To write in this red muck
Of things from my heart.

by Stephen Crane.

The heart asks pleasure first
And then, excuse from pain-
And then, those little anodynes
That deaden suffering;

And then, to go to sleep;
And then, if it should be
The will of its Inquisitor,
The liberty to die.

by Emily Dickinson.

Heart, we will forget him,
You and I, tonight!
You must forget the warmth he gave,
I will forget the light.
When you have done pray tell me,
Then I, my thoughts, will dim.
Haste! ‘lest while you’re lagging
I may remember him!

by Emily Dickinson.

With rue my heart is laden
For golden friends I had,
For many a rose-lipt maiden
And many a lightfoot lad.

By brooks too broad for leaping
The lightfoot boys are laid;
The rose-lipt girls are sleeping
In fields where roses fade.

by Alfred Edward Housman.

A little breath can make a prayer,
A little wind can take it
And turn it back again to air:
Then say, why should you make it ?

An ardent thought can make a word,
A little ear can hear it,
A careless heart forget it heard :
Then why keep ever near it ?

by Isaac Rosenberg.

Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.

by Alfred Edward Housman.

A worm fed on the heart of Corinth,
Babylon and Rome:
Not Paris raped tall Helen,
But this incestuous worm,
Who lured her vivid beauty
To his amorphous sleep.
England! Famous as Helen
Is thy betrothal sung
To him the shadowless,
More amorous than Solomon.

by Isaac Rosenberg.

The dreams of my heart and my mind pass,
Nothing stays with me long,
But I have had from a child
The deep solace of song;

If that should ever leave me,
Let me find death and stay
With things whose tunes are played out and forgotten
Like the rain of yesterday.

by Sara Teasdale.

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began;
So is it now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

by William Wordsworth.

My heart is heavy with many a song
Like ripe fruit bearing down the tree,
But I can never give you one --
My songs do not belong to me.

Yet in the evening, in the dusk
When moths go to and fro,
In the gray hour if the fruit has fallen,
Take it, no one will know.

by Sara Teasdale.

Stern Power, whose heavy hand I feel,
Whose infinite, world--urging force,
Nor silent pain nor strong appeal
Persuades from its imperious course,

Idly I strive with thee; 'tis thou
Rul'st in this world of thwarted will!
To thine omnipotence I bow;
And dare to disobey thee still.

by Robert Laurence Binyon.

145

This heart that broke so long—
These feet that never flagged—
This faith that watched for star in vain,
Give gently to the dead—

Hound cannot overtake the Hare
That fluttered panting, here—
Nor any schoolboy rob the nest
Tenderness builded there.

by Emily Dickinson.

She turned the page of wounds and death
With trembling fingers. In a breath
The gladness of her life became
Naught but a memory and a name.

Farewell! Farewell! I might not share
The perils it was yours to dare.
Dauntless you fronted death: for me
Rests to face life as fearlessly.

by Francis William Bourdillon.

BE you still, be you still, trembling heart;
Remember the wisdom out of the old days:
Him who trembles before the flame and the flood,
And the winds that blow through the starry ways,
Let the starry winds and the flame and the flood
Cover over and hide, for he has no part
With the lonely, majestical multitude.

by William Butler Yeats.

Ill-fated Heart! And can it be,
That thou should'st thus be rent in vain?
Have years of care for thine and thee
Alike been all employ'd in vain?

Yet precious seems each shatter'd part
And every fragment dearer grown
Since he who wears thee feels thou art
A fitter emblem of his own.

March 16, 1812

by George Gordon Byron.

Come, bring your sampler, and with art
Draw in't a wounded heart,
And dropping here and there;
Not that I think that any dart
Can make your's bleed a tear,
Or pierce it any where;
Yet do it to this end,--that I
May by
This secret see,
Though you can make
That heart to bleed, your's ne'er will ache
For me,

by Robert Herrick.

Your heart has trembled to my tongue,
Your hands in mine have lain,
Your thought to me has leaned and clung,
Again and yet again,
My dear,
Again and yet again.

Now die the dream, or come the wife,
The past is not in vain,
For wholly as it was your life
Can never be again,
My dear,
Can never be again.

by William Ernest Henley.

928

The Heart has narrow Banks
It measures like the Sea
In mighty—unremitting Bass
And Blue Monotony

Till Hurricane bisect
And as itself discerns
Its sufficient Area
The Heart convulsive learns

That Calm is but a Wall
Of unattempted Gauze
An instant's Push demolishes
A Questioning—dissolves.

by Emily Dickinson.

If the heart of a man is deprest with cares,
The mist is dispell'd when a woman appears;
Like the notes of a fiddle, she sweetly, sweetly
Raises the spirits, and charms our ears.
Roses and lillies her cheeks disclose,
But her ripe lips are more sweet than those.
Press her,
Caress her,
With blisses,
Her kisses
Dissolve us in pleasure, and soft repose

by John Gay.

192

Poor little Heart!
Did they forget thee?
Then dinna care! Then dinna care!

Proud little Heart!
Did they forsake thee?
Be debonnaire! Be debonnaire!

Frail little Heart!
I would not break thee—
Could'st credit me? Could'st credit me?

Gay little Heart—
Like Morning Glory!
Wind and Sun—wilt thee array!

by Emily Dickinson.

Not with a club, the Heart is broken,
Nor with a stone;
A whip, so small you could not see it,
I've known

To lash the magic creature
Till it fell,
Yet that whip's name too noble
Then to tell.

Magnanimous of bird
By boy descried,
To sing unto the stone
Of which it died.
Next: The Only News I know

by Emily Dickinson.

Name, that makes my heart beat,
Heard by chance in the throng'd street,
How delighted I turn to greet
The vision adored, the vision rare,
That surely should be where thou art spoken!
Alas, alas! it is not there:
Only hurrying faces stare,
Hard faces, in cold surprise,
Amazed at the joy that out of my eyes
Shines expectant, and then dies
Disappointed, the sweet spell broken!

by Robert Laurence Binyon.

MY heart, when first the blackbird sings,
My heart drinks in the song:
Cool pleasure fills my bosom through
And spreads each nerve along.

My bosom eddies quietly,
My heart is stirred and cool
As when a wind-moved briar sweeps
A stone into a pool

But unto thee, when thee I meet,
My pulses thicken fast,
As when the maddened lake grows black
And ruffles in the blast.

by Robert Louis Stevenson.

MY heart, when first the blackbird sings,
My heart drinks in the song:
Cool pleasure fills my bosom through
And spreads each nerve along.

My bosom eddies quietly,
My heart is stirred and cool
As when a wind-moved briar sweeps
A stone into a pool

But unto thee, when thee I meet,
My pulses thicken fast,
As when the maddened lake grows black
And ruffles in the blast.

by Robert Louis Stevenson.

I gave my heart to a woman –
I gave it her, branch and root.
She bruised, she wrung, she tortured,
She cast it under foot.

Under her feet she cast it,
She trampled it where it fell,
She broke it all to pieces,
And each was a clot of hell.

There in the rain and the sunshine
They lay and smouldered long;
And each, when again she viewed them,
Had turned to a living song.

by William Ernest Henley.

Open, my heart, thy ruddy valves;
It is thy master calls;
Let me go down, and, curious, trace
Thy labyrinthine halls.
Open, O heart, and let me view
The secrets of thy den;
Myself unto myself now show
With introspective ken.
Expose thyself, thou covered nest
Of passions, and be seen;
Stir up thy brood, that in unrest
Are ever piping keen.
Ah! what a motley multitude,
Magnanimous and mean!

by Charles Heavysege.

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, dos't shake it.
Not to partake thy passion, -my humility

Thou can'st not boast, like Jesus, drunken without companion
Was the strong cup of anguish brewed for the Nazarene
Thou can'st not pierce tradition with the peerless puncture,
See! I usurped thy crucifix to honor mine!

by Emily Dickinson.

O WHAT to me the little room
That was brimmed up with prayer and rest;
He bade me out into the gloom,
And my breast lies upon his breast.
O what to me my mother's care,
The house where I was safe and warm;
The shadowy blossom of my hair
Will hide us from the bitter storm.
O hiding hair and dewy eyes,
I am no more with life and death,
My heart upon his warm heart lies,
My breath is mixed into his breath.

by William Butler Yeats.

HENCEFORTH, please God, forever I forego
The yoke of men's opinions. I will be
Light-hearted as a bird, and live with God.
I find him in the bottom of my heart,
I hear continually his voice therein.
horizontal dotted line
The little needle always knows the North,
The little bird remembereth his note,
And this wise Seer within me never errs.
I never taught it what it teaches me;
I only follow, when I act aright.

by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

When this heart is cold and still,
And can throb for thee no more;
When it wakes not to the thrill
Of the harp's wild chord;
Nor can e'en afford
A sigh to the days of yore;

Then come to my silent tomb,
Which the breeze will murmur over:
Where reigns the deepest gloom—
Where the bat flits by
And the ravens cry—
Thou shalt the spot discover.

by Louisa Stuart Costello.

All my heart is stirring lightly
Like dim violets winter-bound,
Quickening as they feel the brightly
Glowing sunlight underground.

Yea, this drear and silent bosom,
Hushed as snow-hid grove but now,
Breaketh into leaf and blossom
Like a gleaming vernal bough.

Oh the singing, singing, singing!
Callow hopes that thrill my breast!
Can the lark of love be winging
Back to its abandoned nest?

by Mathilde Blind.

This heart that flutters near my heart
My hope and all my riches is,
Unhappy when we draw apart
And happy between kiss and kiss:
My hope and all my riches -- - yes! -- -
And all my happiness.

For there, as in some mossy nest
The wrens will divers treasures keep,
I laid those treasures I possessed
Ere that mine eyes had learned to weep.
Shall we not be as wise as they
Though love live but a day?

by James Joyce.

VVere thy heart soft as thou art faire,
Thou wer't a wonder past compare:
But frozen Love and fierce disdain
By their extremes thy graces stain.
Cold coyness quenches the still fires
Which glow in Lovers warm desires;
And scorn, like the quick Lightnings blaze,
Darts death against affections gaze.
O Heavens, what prodigy is this
When Love in Beauty buried is!
Or that dead pity thus should be
Tomb'd in a living cruelty.

by Henry King.