Love Is

love is

  e e cummings

love1.gif  from Song

Some say that love's a little boy,
     And some say it's a bird,
Some say it makes the world go round,
     And some say that's absurd,
And when I asked the man next-door,
     Who looked as if he knew,
His wife got very cross indeed,
     And said it wouldn't do.

Does it look like a pair of pyjamas,
     Or the ham in a temperance hotel?
Does its odour remind one of llamas,
     Or has it a comforting smell?
Is it prickly to touch as a hedge is,
     Or soft as eiderdown fluff?
Is it sharp or quite smooth at the edges?
     O tell me the truth about love

Our history books refer to it
     In cryptic little notes,
It's quite a common topic on
     The Transatlantic boats;
I've found the subject mentioned in
     Accounts of suicides,
And even seen it scribbled on
     The backs of railway guides.

Does it howl like a hungry Alsatian,
     Or boom like a military band?
Could one give a first-rate imitation
     On a saw or a Steinway Grand?
Is its singing at parties a riot?
     Does it only like Classical stuff?
Will it stop when one wants to be quiet?
     O tell me the truth about love.

I looked inside the summer-house;
     It wasn't over there;
I tried the Thames at Maidenhead,
     And Brighton's bracing air.
I don't know what the blackbird sang,
     Or what the tulip said;
But it wasn't in the chicken-run,
     Or underneath the bed.

Can it pull extraordinary faces?
     Is it usually sick on a swing?
Does it spend all its time at the races,
     or fiddling with pieces of string?
Has it views of its own about money?
     Does it think Patriotism enough?
Are its stories vulgar but funny?
     O tell me the truth about love.

When it comes, will it come without warning
     Just as I'm picking my nose?
Will it knock on my door in the morning,
     Or tread in the bus on my toes?
Will it come like a change in the weather?
     Will its greeting be courteous or rough?
Will it alter my life altogether?
     O tell me the truth about love.

W H AUDEN

love1.gif  Love Is

Love is feeling cold in the back of vans
Love is a fan club with only two fans
Love is walking holding paintstained hands
Love is

Love is fish and chips on winter nights
Love is blankets full of strange delights
Love is when you don't put out the light
Love is

Love is the presents in Christmas shops
Love is when you're feeling Top of the Pops
Love is what happens when the music stops
Love is

Love is white panties lying all forlorn
Love is a pink nightdress still slightly warm
Love is when you have to leave at dawn
Love is

Love is you and love is me
Love is a prison and love is free
Love's what's there when you're away from me
Love is...

ADRIAN HENRI

love

  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
    1564-1616

love1.gif  All For Love

O talk not to me of a name great in story;
The days of our youth are the days of our glory;
And the myrtle and ivy of sweet two-and-twenty
Are worth all your laurels, though ever so plenty.

What are garlands and crowns to the brow that is wrinkled?
'Tis but as a dead flower with May-dew besprinkled:
Then away with all such from the head that is hoary--
What care I for the wreaths that can only give glory?

Oh Fame!--If I e'er took delight in thy praises,
'Twas less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases,
Than to see the bright eyes of the dear one discover
She thought that I was not unworthy to love her.

There chiefly I sought thee, there only I found thee;
Her glance was the best of the rays that surround thee;
When it sparkled o'er aught that was bright in my story,
I knew it was love, and I felt it was glory.

LORD BYRON
1788-1824


love is... first love in love love tokens
love + marriage out of love lost love lasting love

page © The Mock Turtle 1997-2007 (don't forget the lawyer cousins...)

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