Akasha's blog: "Mushy Stuff"

There is a garden in her face Where roses and white lilies grow; A heavenly paradise is that place Wherein all pleasant fruits do flow. There cherries grow which none may buy, Till 'cherry-ripe' themselves do cry. Those cherries fairly do enclose Of orient pearl a double row, Which when her lovely laughter shows, They look like rosebuds filled with snow. Yet them nor peer no prince can buy, Till 'cherry-ripe' themselves do cry. Her eyes like angels watch them still, Her brows like bended bows do stand, Threatening with piercing frowns to kill All that attempt, with eye or hand, Those sacred cherries to come nigh, Till 'cherry-ripe' themselves do cry. THOMAS CAMPION

Little Fly, Thy summers play My thoughtless hand Has brush'd away. Am not I A fly like thee? Or art not thou A man like me? For I dance And drink and sing: Till some blind hand Shall brush my wing. If thought is life And strength & breath, And the want Of thought is death; Then am I A happy fly, If I live, Or if I die. WILLIAM BLAKE

The rose has no "why," it blooms because it blooms, It doesn't watch itself or wonder if anyone sees it. ANGELUS SILESIUS (GERMAN)

Away with silks, away with lawn, I'll have no scenes or curtains drawn: Give me my mistress as she is, Dress'd in her nak't simplicities: For as my heart, e'en so my eye Is won with flesh, not drapery. ROBERT HERRICK

Ask me no more where Jove bestows When June is past, the fading rose; For in you beauties' orient deep These flowers as in their causes sleep. Ask me no more whither do stray The golden atoms of the day; For in pure love Heaven did prepare These powders to enrich your hair. Ask me no more whither doth haste The nightingale when May is past; For in your sweet dividing throat She winters and keeps warm her note. Ask me no more where those stars light That downwards fall in dead of night; For in your eyes they sit and there Fixed become, as in their sphere. Ask me no more if east or west The phoenix builds her spicy nest; For unto you at last she flies And in your fragrant bosom dies. THOMAS CAREW

Thrice toss these oaken ashes in the air, Thrice sit thou mute in this enchanted chair; Then thrice-three times tie up this true love's knot, And murmur soft 'She will or she will not.' Go burn these poisonous weeds in yon blue fire, These screech-owl's feathers and this prickling brier, This cypress gathered at a dead man's grave, That all thy fears and cares an end may have. Then come, you Fairies! dance with me a round! Melt her hard heart with your melodious sound!- In vain are all the charms I can devise: She hath an art to break them with her eyes. THOMAS CAMPION

When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes I all alone beweep my outcast state, And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries, And look upon myself, and curse my fate, Wishing me like to one more rich in hope, Featured like him, like him with friends possessed, Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope, With what I most enjoy contented least; Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising, Haply I think on thee, and then my state, Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth, sing hymns at heaven's gate; For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings That when I scorn to change my state with the kings. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

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 dimmed; And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance, or nature's changing course untrimmed; But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest, Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou growest; So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

Over the mountains And under the waves, Under the fountains And under the graves; Under floods that are deepest, Which Neptune obey, Over rocks that are steepest, Love will find out the way. When there is no place For the glow-worm to lie, Where there is no space For receipt of a fly; Where the midge dares not venture Lest herself fast she lay, If Love come, he will enter And will find out the way. You may esteem him A child for his night; Or you may deem him A coward from his flight: But if she whom Love doth honour Be conceal'd from the day- Set a thousand guards upon her, Love will find out the way. Some think to lose him By having him confined; And some do suppose him, Poor heart! To be blind; But if ne'er so close ye wall him, Do the best that you may, Blind Love, if so you call him, Will find out his way. You may train the eagle To stoop to your fist; Or you may inveigle The Phoenix of the east; The lioness, ye may move her To give over her prey; But you'll ne'er stop a lover- He will find out his way. If the earth it should part him, He would gallop it o'er; If the seas should o'erthwart him, He would swim to the shore; Should his Love become a swallow, Through the air to stray, Love will lend wings to follow, And will find out the way. There is no striving To cross his intent; There is no contriving His plots to prevent; But if once the message greet him, Love will find out the way! ANONYMOUS