Edmund Waller: Quotes about love

“Go, lovely rose!
Tell her that wastes her time and me
That now she knows,
When I resemble her to thee,
How sweet and fair she seems to be.”

Edmund Waller

Go, Lovely Rose (1664), st. 1.
Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham (1857)

Love , Time

“He that alone would wise and mighty be,
Commands that others love as well as he.”

Edmund Waller

Canto III.
Of Divine Love (c. 1686)
Context: He that alone would wise and mighty be,
Commands that others love as well as he.
Love as he lov'd! — How can we soar so high?—
He can add wings when he commands to fly.
Nor should we be with this command dismay'd;
He that examples gives will give his aid:
For he took flesh, that where his precepts fall,
His practice, as a pattern, may prevail.

Love

“Could we forbear dispute, and practice love,
We should agree as angels do above.”

Edmund Waller

Canto III.
Of Divine Love (c. 1686)
Context: Could we forbear dispute, and practice love,
We should agree as angels do above.
Where love presides, not vice alone does find
No entrance there, hut virtues stay behind:
Both faith, and hope, and all the meaner train
Of mortal virtues, at the door remain.
Love only enters as a native there,
For born in heav'n, it does but sojourn here.

Love , Angels

“Love only enters as a native there,
For born in heav'n, it does but sojourn here.”

Edmund Waller

Canto III.
Of Divine Love (c. 1686)
Context: Could we forbear dispute, and practice love,
We should agree as angels do above.
Where love presides, not vice alone does find
No entrance there, hut virtues stay behind:
Both faith, and hope, and all the meaner train
Of mortal virtues, at the door remain.
Love only enters as a native there,
For born in heav'n, it does but sojourn here.

Love

“Consent in virtue knit your hearts so fast,
That still the knot, in spite of death, does last;
For as your tears, and sorrow-wounded soul,
Prove well that on your part this bond is whole,
So all we know of what they do above,
Is that they happy are, and that they love.
Let dark oblivion, and the hollow grave,
Content themselves our frailer thoughts to have;
Well-chosen love is never taught to die,
But with our nobler part invades the sky.
Then grieve no more that one so heavenly shaped
The crooked hand of trembling age escaped;
Rather, since we beheld her not decay,
But that she vanish'd so entire away,
Her wondrous beauty, and her goodness, merit
We should suppose that some propitious spirit
In that celestial form frequented here,
And is not dead, but ceases to appear.”

Edmund Waller

Upon the Death of My Lady Rich (1664).
Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham (1857)

Love , Death , Age , Beauty

“For all we know
Of what the blessed do above
Is, that they sing, and that they love.”

Edmund Waller

While I listen to thy Voice; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Love , Singing

“My joy, my grief, my hope, my love,
Did all within this circle move!”

Edmund Waller

On a Girdle (1664), st. 2.
Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham (1857)

Love , Hope , Joy