Passion

Fools! For I also had my hour;

In her first passion woman loves her lover,

Eternal Passion!

The greater the love, the more false to its object, Not to be born is the best for man; After the kiss comes the impulse to throttle, Break the embraces, dance while you can.

I burned my life, that I might find A passion wholly of the mind, Thought divorced from eye and bone, Ecstasy come to breath alone.

But what are pity, conscience, or fear To the brazen pair, compared With the living sorcery Of their hot embraces?

Who then devised the torment? Love. Love is the unfamiliar Name Behind the hands that wove The intolerable shirt of flame Which human power cannot remove.

Oh heart! oh blood that freezes, blood that burns! For whole centuries of folly, noise and sin! With their triumphs and their glories and the rest!

Beyond a mortal man impassion’d far At these voluptuous accents, he arose, Ethereal, flush’d, and like a throbbing star Seen mid the sapphire heaven’s deep repose; Into her dream he melted, as the rose, Blendeth its odour with the violet,— Solution sweet: meantime the frost-wind blows Like Love’s alarum pattering the sharp sleet Against the window-panes; St. Agnes’ moon hath set.

In her first passion woman loves her lover, In all the others, all she loves is love.

All thoughts, all passions, all delights, Whatever stirs this mortal frame, All are but ministers of Love, And feed his sacred flame.

Declamation roar’d, while Passion slept.

Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.

What passion cannot Music raise and quell?

This music crept by me upon the waters, Allaying both their fury, and my passion, With its sweet air.

Excellent wretch! Perdition catch my soul But I do love thee! and when I love thee not, Chaos is come again.

O shame! where is thy blush? Rebellious hell, If thou canst mutine in a matron’s bones, To flaming youth let virtue be as wax, And melt in her own fire: proclaim no shame When the compulsive ardor gives the charge, Since frost itself as actively doth burn, And reason panders will.

They are not a pipe for fortune’s finger To sound what stop she please. Give me that man That is not passion’s slave, and I will wear him In my heart’s core, ay, in my heart of heart, As I do thee. Something too much of this.

This is the very ecstasy of love.

Love is a spirit all compact of fire, Not gross to sink, but light, and will aspire.

Love distills desire upon the eyes, love brings bewitching grace into the heart of those he would destroy. I pray that love may never come to me with murderous intent, in rhythms measureless and wild. Not fire nor stars have stronger bolts than those of Aphrodite sent by the hand of Eros, Zeus’s child.

Love, unconquerable, Waster of rich men, keeper Of warm lights and all-night vigil In the soft face of a girl: Sea-wanderer, forest-visitor! Even the pure immortals cannot escape you, And mortal man, in his one day’s dusk, Trembles before your glory.

Technique alone is never enough. You have to have passion. Technique alone is just an embroidered potholder.

Love is madness, if thwarted it develops fast.