What poets say about love

Part 15

Qui amat, tamen hercle si esurit, nullum esurit.

  He that is in love, faith, if he be hungry, is not hungry at all.

        Plautus””Casina. IV. 2. 16.          271

Amor et melle et felle est fœcundissimus:

Gustu dat dulce, amarum ad satietatem usque aggerit.

  Love has both its gall and honey in abundance: it has sweetness to the taste, but it presents bitterness also to satiety.

        Plautus””Cistellaria. I. 1. 71.        272

Auro contra cedo modestum amatorem.

  Find me a reasonable lover against his weight in gold.

        Plautus””Curculio. I. 3. 45.          273

  Qui in amore præcipitavit pejus perit, quam si saxo saliat.

  He who falls in love meets a worse fate than he who leaps from a rock.

        Plautus””Trinummus. II. 1. 30.    274

A lover’s soul lives in the body of his mistress.

        Plutarch.    275

Ah! what avails it me the flocks to keep,

Who lost my heart while I preserv’d my sheep.

        Pope””Autumn. L. 79.     276

Is it, in Heav’n, a crime to love too well?

To bear too tender or too firm a heart,

To act a lover’s or a Roman’s part?

Is there no bright reversion in the sky

For those who greatly think, or bravely die?

        Pope””Elegy on an Unfortunate Lady.    277

Of all affliction taught a lover yet,

’Tis true the hardest science to forget.

        Pope””Eloisa to Abelard. L. 189.             278

One thought of thee puts all the pomp to flight;

Priests, tapers, temples, swim before my sight.

        Pope””Eloisa to Abelard. L. 273.             279

Love, free as air, at sight of human ties,

Spreads his light wings, and in a moment flies.

        Pope””Epistle to Eloisa. Last Line.          280

Ye gods, annihilate but space and time,

And make two lovers happy.

        Pope””Martinus Scriblerus on the Art of Sinking in Poetry. Ch. XI.      281

O Love! for Sylvia let me gain the prize,

And make my tongue victorious as her eyes.

        Pope””Spring. L. 49.        282

Scilicent insano nemo in amore videt.

  Everybody in love is blind.

        Propertius””Elegiæ. II. 14. 18.     283

Divine is Love and scorneth worldly pelf,

And can be bought with nothing but with self.

        Sir Walter Raleigh””Love the Only Price of Love.          284

If all the world and love were young,

And truth in every shepherd’s tongue,

These pretty pleasures might me move

To live with thee, and be thy love.

        Sir Walter Raleigh””The Nymph’s Reply to the Passionate Shepherd.   285

  Ach die Zeiten der Liebe rollen nicht zurück, sondern ewig weiter hinab.

  Ah! The seasons of love roll not backward but onward, downward forever.

        Jean Paul Richter””Hesperus. IX.            286

Die Liebe vermindert die weibliche

Feinheit und verstärkt die männliche.

  Love lessens woman’s delicacy and increases man’s.

        Jean Paul Richter””Titan. Zykel 34.         287

Ein liebendes Mädchen wird unbewust kühner.

  A loving maiden grows unconsciously more bold.

        Jean Paul Richter””Titan. Zykel 71.         288

As one who cons at evening o’er an album all alone,

And muses on the faces of the friends that he has known,

So I turn the leaves of Fancy, till in shadowy design

I find the smiling features of an old sweetheart of mine.

        James Whitcomb Riley””An Old Sweetheart of Mine.   289

The hours I spent with thee, dear heart,

  Are as a string of pearls to me;

I count them over, every one apart,

  My rosary, my rosary.

        Robert Cameron Rogers””My Rosary.     290