Classic Love Poems
Elizabeth “Eliza” Acton (1799-1859) was an English writer, poet, cook, and social reformer. She spent some time in France where it was rumored she had an unhappy love affair with a French officer. Her collection, Poems (1826), was published after her return to England. Acton is most famous for producing one of England’s first cookbooks, Modern Cookery for Private Families (1845). Written for the basic housewife instead of a professional cook or chef, the cookbook introduced the now-universal practice of listing ingredients and suggested cooking times with each recipe.
“The Love Letter”
by Edmund Blair Leighton
In 2009, a rare 1845 edition of Acton’s “Modern Cookery,” in its original binding of brown cloth with gilt imprints of various animals on the spine, sold for $2712 USD.
I Love Thee
I love thee, as I love the calm
Of sweet, star-lighted hours!
I love thee, as I love the balm
Of early jes’mine flow’rs.
I love thee, as I love the last
Rich smile of fading day,
Which lingereth, like the look we cast,
On rapture pass’d away.
I love thee as I love the tone
Of some soft-breathing flute
Whose soul is wak’d for me alone,
When all beside is mute.
I love thee as I love the first
Young violet of the spring;
Or the pale lily, April-nurs’d,
To scented blossoming.
I love thee, as I love the full,
Clear gushings of the song,
Which lonely—sad—and beautiful—
At night-fall floats along,
Pour’d by the bul-bul forth to greet
The hours of rest and dew;
When melody and moonlight meet
To blend their charm, and hue.
I love thee, as the glad bird loves
The freedom of its wing,
On which delightedly it moves
In wildest wandering.
I love thee as I love the swell,
And hush, of some low strain,
Which bringeth, by its gentle spell,
The past to life again.
Such is the feeling which from thee
Nought earthly can allure:
‘Tis ever link’d to all I see
Of gifted—high—and pure!
Yes Leave Me
Yes leave me!—I can bear it now,
For e’en while those wild words are spoken,
See I am calm, as though thy vow
Of faithfulness, had ne’er been broken.
I do not weep!—fast tears may fall
O’er transient cares, and lighter ill;
But oh! the bitterest griefs of all,
Are nurs’d in tearless anguish still.
E’en in our happiest days I felt
Thy love was but a summer-beam,
Which soon, with quick decline would melt
Away, like some dissolving dream.
I know that round that wand’ring heart
New ties are woven—and thy will
Would rend the ling’ring bond apart,
Which seemingly unites us still.
Well, be it so!—the charm is o’er
Which long hath bound me with its spell;
My thoughts shall never waken more
In tenderness for thee—Farewell!
on “Acton, Eliza”
