Harmonium (Adams) - Text

Text

Negative Love or The Nothing

I never stoop’d so low, as they
Which on an eye, cheek, lip can prey.
Seldom to them, which soar no higher
Than virtue or the mind to admire.
For sense, and understanding may
Know what gives fuel to their fire:
My love, though silly, is more brave,
For may I miss, when’er I crave,
If I know yet, what I would have.
If that be simply perfectest
Which can by no way be express’d
But Negatives, my love is so.
To All, which all love, I say no.
If any who deciphers best,
What we know not, our selves, can know,
Let him teach me that nothing; this
As yet my ease and comfort is,
Though I speed not, I cannot miss.

– John Donne

Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality.
We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.
We passed the school where children played
At wrestling in a ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.
We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground:
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.
Since then ‘tis centuries; but each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses’ heads
Were toward eternity.

– Emily Dickinson

Wild Nights–Wild Nights!
Were I with thee
Wild Nights should be
Our Luxury!
Futile – the winds –
To a Heart in port –
Done with the Compass –
Done with the Chart!
Rowing in Eden –
Ah, the sea!
Might I but moor – Tonight –
In thee!

– Emily Dickinson