Classic Love Poems
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Richard Lovelace (1618-1657) was an English poet and Cavalier who lived a legendary life as a soldier, lover, and courtier. He wrote poems to praise friends or fellow poets, to give advice in grief or love, to define a relationship, to articulate the precise amount of attention a man owes a woman, to celebrate beauty, and to persuade to love. Persecuted for his unflagging support of King Charles I, he was imprisoned and died in poverty; but not before writing two of the age’s most melodic and moving lyrics, To Althea, from Prison and To Lucasta, Going to the Wars.
“A Huguenot on St. Bartolomew’s Day”
by John Everett Millais, 1852
A la Chabot
Object adorable of charms!
My sighs and tears may testifie my harms;
But my respect forbids me to reveal.
Ah, what a pain ’tis to conceal!
And how I suffer worse then hell,
To love, and not to dare to tell!
To Lucasta, Like the Sentinel Stars
I.
Like to the sent’nel stars, I watch all night;
For still the grand round of your light
And glorious breast
Awake in me an east:
Nor will my rolling eyes ere know a west.
II.
Now on my down I’m toss’d as on a wave,
And my repose is made my grave;
Fluttering I lye,
Do beat my self and dye,
But for a resurrection from your eye.
III.
Ah, my fair murdresse! dost thou cruelly heal
With various pains to make me well?
Then let me be
Thy cut anatomie,
And in each mangled part my heart you’l see.
To Lucasta, On Going to the Wars
Tell me not, Sweet, I am unkind
For, from the nunnery
Of thy chaste breast, and quiet mind,
To war and arms I fly.
True, a new mistress now I chase,
The first foe in the field;
And with a stronger faith—embrace
A sword, a horse, a shield.
Yet this unconstancy is such
As you too shall adore;
For, I could not love thee, Dear, so much,
Loved I not honour more.
on “Lovelace, Richard”
