If Thou Must Love Me

This colorful handcrafted focal bead named for the poem, "If thou must love me" in Sonnets from the Portuguese XIV by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, can be found in the Gallery of the Beadshaper's web site, http://www.beadshaper.com/

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If thou must love me, let it be for nought

Except for love's sake only.

Do not say

'I love her for her smile--her look--her way

Of speaking gently,--for a trick of thought

That falls in well with mine, and certes brought

A sense of pleasant ease on such a day'--

For these things in themselves,

Beloved, may

Be changed, or change for thee,--and love, so wrought,

May be unwrought so.

Neither love me for

Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry,--

A creature might forget to weep, who bore

Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby !

But love me for love's sake, that evermore

Thou mayst love on, through love's eternity.

Farewell to Love

Farewell to Love

by Michael Drayton (1563-1631)

To read more about this bead named for the poem, Click http://www.beadshaper.com/

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Since there's not help, come let us kiss and part;

Nay, I am done, you get no more of me;

And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart,

That thus so cleanly I myself can free;

Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows,

And when we meet at any time again,

Be it not seen in either of our brows

That we, one jot of former love retain.

Now, at the last gasp of love's latest breath,

When his pulse failing, passion speechless lies,

When faith is kneeling by his bed of death,

And innocence is closing up his eyes,

Now, if thou woulds't, when all have given him over,

From death to life

Thou might'st him yet recover.

Garden of Love

Garden of Love by William Blake (1757-1827).

Click Garden of Love for further information about this handcrafted lampwork glass floral pendant named for the poem.

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I laid me down upon a bank,

Where Love lay sleeping;

I heard among the rushes dank

Weeping, weeping.

Then I went to the heath and the wild,

To the thistles and thorns of the waste;

And they told me how they were beguiled,

Driven out, and compelled to the chaste.

I went to the Garden of Love,

And saw what I never had seen;

A Chapel was built in the midst,

Where I used to play on the green.

And the gates of this Chapel were shut

And "Thou shalt not," writ over the door;

So I turned to the Garden of Love

That so many sweet flowers bore.

And I saw it was filled with graves,

And tombstones where flowers should be;

And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,

And binding with briars my joys and desires.

i carry your heart

i carry your heart
by EE Cummings (1894-1962)
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Click Beadshaper Gallery for further information about this heart shaped lampwork glass bead named for the poem.

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i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

Because She Would Me Ask Why I Loved Her

Because She Would Ask Me Why I Loved Her

by Christopher Brennan 1870-1932

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Click Beadshaper Gallery for further information about this bracelet named for the poem.

If questioning would make us wise
No eyes would ever gaze in eyes;

If all our tale were told in speech

No mouths would wander each to each.

Were spirits free from mortal flesh

And love not found in hearts of flesh

No aching breasts would yearn to meet

And find their ecstacy complete.

For who is there that lives and knows

The secret powers by which he grows?

Were knowledge all, what were our need

To thrill and faint and sweetly bleed?

Then seek not, sweet, the "If " and "Why"

I love you now until I die

For I must love because I live

And life in me is what you give.

Life in a Love

This elegant tabular shaped handcrafted lampwork glass focal bead is named for the poem, Life in a Love by Robert Browning (1812–1889) To read more about the pendant, see Beadshaper Gallery
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Escape me?
Never—Beloved!
While I am I, and you are you,
So long as the world contains us both,
Me the loving and you the loth,
While the one eludes, must the other pursue.
My life is a fault at last, I fear—
It seems too much like a fate, indeed!
Though I do my best I shall scarce succeed—
But what if I fail of my purpose here?
It is but to keep the nerves at strain,
To dry one's eyes and laugh at a fall,
And baffled, get up to begin again,—
So the chase takes up one's life, that's all.
While, look but once from your farthest bound,
At me so deep in the dust and dark,
No sooner the old hope drops to ground
Than a new one, straight to the selfsame mark,
I shape me—
Ever
Removed!

There is a Lady Sweet and Kind

This elegant beautiful pink and grey lentil shaped handcrafted glass pendant bead is named for the poem, There is a Lady Sweet and Kind by Thomas Ford (1580-1648) To read more about the pendant, see Beadshaper Gallery

There is a lady sweet and kind,
Was never a face so pleased my mind;
I did but see her passing by,
And yet I'll love her till I die.
Her gesture, motion, and her smiles,
Her wit, her voice my heart beguiles,
Beguiles my heart,
I know not why,
And yet I'll love her till I die.
Cupid is winged and he doth range,
Her country, so, my love doth change:
But change she earth, or change she sky,
Yet, I will love her till I die.