While Yet These Tears

While yet these tears have power to flow
For hours for ever past away;
While yet these swelling sighs allow
My faltering voice to breathe a lay;
While yet my hand can touch the chords,
My tender lute, to wake thy tone;
While yet my mind no thought affords,
But one remembered dream alone,
I ask not death, whate'er my state:
But when my eyes can weep no more,
My voice is lost, my hand untrue.
And when my spirit's fire is o'er,
Nor can express the love it knew,
Come, Death, and cast thy shadows o'er my fate!

poem by Louise Labe
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Sonnet VIII

I live, I burn, I drown and I die
I endure at once chill and cold;
Life is too hard and too soft to hold;
I am joyful and sad, don't ask me why.

Suddenly I laugh and at the same time cry
And as I'm happy I must endure grief,
It lasts forever and goes like a thief,
Suddenly I bloom and vanish into sigh.

Thus I suffer Amors' inconstancy
And when I think I am in great pain,
Without thinking, it is gone again.

Then when my joy is a certainty
And my longing for love is not in vain,
I am in pain all over once again.

poem by Louise Labe
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Sonnet XVIII

Kiss me, kiss me again and kiss me more;
Give me one of your most tastiest,
Give me one of your most sexiest
And I'll give hot kisses, more than four.

Ah, are you sad? Let me ease the pain,
With more sweet kisses, five or six;
So that our desiring lips can mix
And we'll enjoy each other again.

Then double life will us both ensue:
You will live in me, as I live in you.
Love, let me dream about foolish things:

I'm always unsatisfied with my life
And I'm sad that I can't be your wife,
Because I can't fly away on wings.

poem by Louise Labe
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

I Live, I Die, I Burn, I Drown

I live, I die, I burn, I drown
I endure at once chill and cold
Life is at once too soft and too hard
I have sore troubles mingled with joys

Suddenly I laugh and at the same time cry
And in pleasure many a grief endure
My happiness wanes and yet it lasts unchanged
All at once I dry up and grow green

Thus I suffer love's inconstancies
And when I think the pain is most intense
Without thinking, it is gone again.

Then when I feel my joys certain
And my hour of greatest delight arrived
I find my pain beginning all over once again.

poem by Louise Labe
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

I Flee The City, Temples, And Each Place

I flee the city, temples, and each place
where you took pleasure in your own lament,
where you used every forceful argument
to make me yield what I could not replace.
Games, masques, tournaments bore me and I sigh
and I dream no beauty that is not of you.
And so I try to kill my passion too,
forcing another image to my eye,
hoping to break away from tender thought.
Deep in the woods I found a lonely trail,
and after wandering in a maze I sought
to put you wholly out of mind. I fail.
Only outside my body can I live
or else in exile like a fugitive.

poem by Louise Labe
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Sonnet III

O languid longing, o languorous sighs.
Rise up once more whenever you are here,
Because I can't stop these rivers of tears,
And these fountains flowing from my eyes.

O cruelties, o inhuman hardness,
Piteable regards of celestian lights.
O benumbed heart, o passionate heights,
Do you con me with false lovelinnes ?

Amor is disguised with a friendly face,
But I won't welcome him, nor embrace
His cunning features, mysterious and dark.

As he draws and aims on me his arrow,
I'm not afraid because it is too narrow,
Even for him, to hurt me and hit a free mark.

poem by Louise Labe
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Sonnet I

What if the hero of the Odyssey
Had been like you, a man that's fair of face ?
Would he have had that easy-mannered grace,
Yet be the cause of so much agony ?

At any rate, your roving ways are sure
To make me count the weeks we've been apart,
And open gaping wounds within my heart,
This ailing heart which you alone can cure.

O ill-starred fate! A scorpion sting
Eats at my heart. I need a remedy
From the malicious beast that poisoned me.

I beg you, dear, just stop my suffering.
Come back to your true love, and let me lie
Clasped in your arms again, or let me die.

poem by Louise Labe
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Sonnet XXIII

What good is it to me that once you praised
The golden splendour of my plaited hair,
Or that to two bright Suns you would compare
The beauty of my eyes, from which Love gazed

And shot the cruel darts so expertly ?
Where are you now, tears that so quickly dried ?
Or death, which was to prove you would abide
By oath of love and solemn loyalty ?

Or did you seek from malice to delude,
Slavery by pretending servitude ?
Forgive the thought, this once, my dearest one,

When grief and anger fiercely combine;
I know, wherever you may have gone,
Your martyrdom is as harsh as mine.

poem by Louise Labe
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Sonnet VII

All love is seen to fade and pass away.
When soul blends body by most subtle art,
I am the body, you the better part.
But O my well-loved soul, why did you stray ?

Why can't I always swoon with pleasure in
Your arms? My love, my better part, my soul,
O rescue me from drowning, even though
I know so well how badly I have sinned.

Dear friend, I sense there's something in the air
Of hunger lost. And if at last we meet
Again, please don't be cold, remote, discreet.

I am afraid our long concealed affair
Is willed to play out with a formal grace,
Both kind and cruel, never commonplace.

poem by Louise Labe
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Sonnet XXIV

Do not reproach me, Ladies, if I've loved
And felt a thousand torches burn my veins,
A thousand griefs, a thousand biting pains
And all my days to bitter tears dissolved.

Thus, Ladies, do not denigrate my name.
If I did wrong, the pain and punishment
Are now. Don't file their daggers to a point.
You must know, Love is master of the game:

No need of Vulcan to explain your fire,
Nor of Adonis to excuse your desire,
But with less cause and far less occasion,

As the whim takes her, idly she can curse
You with a stronger and stranger passion.
But take care your suffering is not worse !

poem by Louise Labe
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!