Timeless Love: Poems, Stories, and Letters

By William Shakespeare, John Keats and Edith Wharton

This beautiful, giftable collection celebrates the beauty and the agony of love through classic poems, stories, and letters from beloved writers.

Because it defines human existence, love is one of art’s favorite subjects. Timeless Love: Poems, Stories, and Letters celebrates the mysterious nature of love and passion by bringing together classic works by beloved writers through the ages. 

Including stories, poems, and letters from Shakespeare, Elizabeth Barret Browning, John Keats, Edith Wharton, and more, this collection explores how each love is singular—yet love itself is universal. Hand-selected and presented in a lovely, gift-worthy package, Timeless Love will make a romantic, thoughtful gift for the reader in your life or the perfect addition to a collector’s shelf.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson
• Release date: Dec 29, 2020
• ISBN: 9780785246244

William Shakespeare

William Shakespeare is widely regarded as the greatest playwright the world has seen. He produced an astonishing amount of work; 37 plays, 154 sonnets, and 5 poems. He died on 23rd April 1616, aged 52, and was buried in the Holy Trinity Church, Stratford.

Book preview

Poems

William Shakespeare

1564–1616

Sonnet 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm’d;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature’s changing course,

untrimm’d;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,

Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.

So long as men can breathe, or eyes

can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life

to thee.

Sonnet 55

Not marble nor the gilded monuments

Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme;

But you shall shine more bright in these contents

Than unswept stone, besmear’d with

sluttish time.

When wasteful war shall statues overturn,

And broils root out the work of masonry,

Nor Mars his sword nor war’s quick fire shall

burn

The living record of your memory.

’Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity

Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still

find room,

Even in the eyes of all posterity

That wear this world out to the ending doom.

So, till the Judgement that yourself

arise,

You live in this, and dwell in lovers’

eyes.

Sonnet 130

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;

Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;

If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.

I have seen roses damasked, red and white,

But no such roses see I in her cheeks;

And in some perfumes is there more delight

Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know

That music hath a far more pleasing sound;

I grant I never saw a goddess go;

My mistress when she walks treads on the

ground.

And yet, by heaven, I think my love as

rare

As any she belied with false compare.

Sonnet 147

My love is as a fever, longing still

For that which longer nurseth the disease;

Feeding on that which doth preserve the sill,

The uncertain sickly appetite to please.

My reason, the physician to my love,

Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,

Hath left me, and I desperate now approve

Desire is death, which physic did except.

Past cure I am, now reason is past care,

And frantic-mad with evermore unrest;

My thoughts and my discourse as madmen’s are,

At random from the truth vainly express’d;

For I have sworn thee fair and thought

thee bright,

Who art as black as hell, as dark as

night.

John Keats

1795–1821

To Fanny

Physician Nature! let my spirit blood!

O ease my heart of verse and let

me rest;

Throw me upon thy tripod, till the flood

Of stifling numbers ebbs from my full

breast.

A theme! a theme! Great Nature! give a theme;

Let me begin my dream.

I come—I see thee, as thou standest there,

Beckon me out into the wintry air.

Ah! dearest love, sweet home of all my fears

And hopes and joys and panting

miseries,—

To-night, if I may guess, thy beauty wears

A smile of such delight,

As brilliant and as bright,

As when with ravished, aching,

vassal eyes,

Lost in a soft amaze,

I gaze, I gaze!

Who now, with greedy looks, eats up my feast?

What stare outfaces now my

silver moon!

Ah! keep that hand unravished at the least;

Let, let the amorous burn—

But, prithee, do not turn

The current of your heart from me

so soon:

O save, in charity,

The quickest pulse for me.

Save it for me, sweet love! though music breathe

Voluptuous visions into the warm air,

Though swimming through the dance’s

dangerous wreath,

Be like an April day,

Smiling and cold and gay,

A temperate lily, temperate as fair;

Then, heaven! there will be

A warmer June for me.

Why this, you’ll say—my Fanny!—is not true;

Put your soft hand upon your

snowy side,

Where the heart beats: confess—’tis

nothing new—

Must not a woman be

A feather on the sea,

Swayed to and fro by every wind

and tide?

Of as uncertain speed

As blow-ball from the mead?

I know it—and to know it is despair

To one who loves you as I love, sweet

Fanny,

Whose heart goes fluttering for you every where,

Nor when away you roam,

Dare keep its wretched home:

Love, love alone, has pains severe

and many;

Then, loveliest! keep me free

From torturing jealousy.

Ah! if you prize my subdued soul above

The poor, the fading, brief pride of

an hour:

Let none profane my Holy See of Love,

Or with a rude hand break

The sacramental cake:

Let none else touch the just new-

budded flower;

If not—may my eyes close,

Love, on their last repose!

Bright Star

Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art—

Not in lone splendour hung aloft the

night,

And watching, with eternal lids apart,

Like Nature’s patient sleepless Eremite,

The moving waters at their priestlike task

Of pure ablution round earth’s human

shores,

Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask

Of snow upon the mountains and the

moors—

No—yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,

Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening

breast,

To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,

Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,

Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,

And so live ever—or else swoon to death.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

1806–1861

Yet, Love, Mere Love, Is Beautiful Indeed

(Sonnet 10)

Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed

And worthy of acceptation. Fire is bright,

Let temple burn, or flax; an equal light

Leaps in the flame from cedar-plank or weed:

And love is fire. And when I say at need

I love thee—mark!—I love thee—in thy sight

I stand transfigured, glorified aright,

With conscience of the new rays that proceed

Out of my face toward thine. There’s nothing low

In love, when love the lowest: meanest creatures

Who love God, God accepts while loving so.

And what I feel, across the inferior features

Of what I am, doth flash itself, and show

How that great work of Love enhances Nature’s.

If Thou Must Love Me

(Sonnet 14)

If thou must love me, let it be for nought

Except for love’s sake only. Do not say,

"I love her for her smile—her look—her way

Of speaking gently,—for a trick of thought

That falls in well with mine, and certes brought

A sense of pleasant ease on such a day"—

For these things in themselves, Belovèd, may

Be changed, or change for thee—and love, so

wrought,

May be unwrought so. Neither love me for

Thine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry:

A creature might forget to weep, who bore

Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!

But love me for love’s sake, that evermore

Thou may’st love on, through love’s eternity.

How Do I Love Thee?

(Sonnet 43)

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of being and ideal grace.

I love thee to the level of every day’s

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.

I love thee freely, as men strive for right.

I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.

I love thee with the passion put to use

In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints. I love thee with the breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.

William Wordsworth

1770–1850

Perfect Woman

She was a phantom of delight

When first she gleam’d upon my sight;

A lovely apparition, sent

To be a moment’s ornament;

Her eyes as stars of twilight fair;

Like twilight’s, too, her dusky hair;

But all things else about her drawn

From May-time and the cheerful dawn;

A dancing shape, an image gay,

To haunt, to startle, and waylay.

I saw her upon nearer view,

A Spirit, yet a Woman too!

Her household motions light and free,

And steps of virgin liberty;

A countenance in which did meet

Sweet records, promises as sweet;

A creature not too bright or good

For human nature’s daily food;

For transient sorrows, simple wiles,

Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and

smiles.

And now I see with eye serene

The very pulse of the machine;

A being breathing thoughtful breath,

A traveller between life and death;

The reason firm, the temperate will,

Endurance, foresight, strength, and

skill;

A perfect Woman, nobly plann’d,

To warn, to comfort, and command;

And yet a Spirit still, and bright

With something of angelic light.

Robert Burns

1759–1796

A Red, Red Rose

O my luve’s like a red, red rose,

That’s newly sprung in June;

O my luve’s like the melodie

That’s sweetly played in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,

So deep in luve am I;

And I will luve thee still, my dear,

Till a’ the seas gang dry.

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,

And the rocks melt wi’ the sun:

O I will love thee still, my dear,

While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare thee weel, my only luve,

And fare thee weel awhile!

And I will come again, my luve,

Though it were ten thousand mile.

Anna, Thy Charms

Anna, thy charms my bosom fire,

And waste my soul with care;

But ah! how bootless to admire,

When fated to despair!

Yet in thy presence, lovely Fair,

To hope may be forgiven;

For sure ’twere impious to despair

So much in sight of heaven.

Christina Rossetti

1830–1894

Monna Innominata [I loved you first]

I loved you first: but afterwards your love,

Outsoaring mine, sang such a loftier song

As drowned the friendly cooings of my dove.

Which owes the other most? my love was long,

And yours one moment seemed to wax more

strong;

I loved and guessed at you, you construed me

And loved me for what might or might not be—

Nay, weights and measures do us both a wrong.

For verily love knows not ‘mine’ or ‘thine’;

With separate ‘I’ and ‘thou’ free love has done,

For one is both and both are one in love:

Rich love knows nought of ‘thine that is

not mine’;

Both have the strength and both the length

thereof,

Both of us, of the love which makes us one.

A Birthday

My heart is like a singing bird

Whose nest is in a water’d shoot;

My heart is like an apple-tree

Whose boughs are bent with thick-set

fruit;

My heart is like a rainbow shell

That paddles in a halcyon sea;

My heart is gladder than all these,

Because my love is come to me.

Raise me a daïs of silk and down;

Hang it with vair and purple dyes;

Carve it in doves and pomegranates,

And peacocks with a hundred eyes;

Work it in gold and silver grapes,

In leaves and silver fleurs-de-lys;

Because the birthday of my life

Is come, my love is come to me.

Mary Weston Fordham

1842–1904

For Who?

When the heavens with stars are gleaming

Like a diadem of light,

And the moon’s pale rays are streaming,

Decking earth with radiance bright;

When the autumn’s winds are sighing,

O’er the hill and o’er the lea,

When the summer time is dying,

Wanderer, wilt thou think of me?

When thy life is crowned with gladness,

And thy home with love is blest,

Not one brow o’ercast with sadness,

Not one bosom of unrest—

When at eventide reclining,

At thy hearthstone gay and free,

Think of one whose life is pining,

Breathe thou, love, a prayer for me.

Should dark sorrows make thee languish,

Cause thy cheek to lose its hue,

In the hour of deepest anguish,

Darling, then I’ll grieve with you.

Though the night be dark and dreary,

And it seemeth long to thee,

I would whisper, be not weary;

I would pray love, then, for thee.

Well I know that