Love is not given but is earned in kind,
The sweetest form of reciprocity;
Yet unrequited, is a chain that binds
Strong stalwart hearts unto despondency.
What must love do to earn this sacred trust
When sweetest overture is soundly spurned,
Where gentle offer is forthright rebuffed
And fairest comment is to darkness turned?
True love is sentient and lives or dies,
Yet what to nurture this most precious seed?
Where silver words and golden gifts denied,
No symbol yet surpasses simple deed;
Though gilt and grandeur oft false hearts will woo,
A simple rose can win a heart that’s true.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

Though my heart aches and aches, yes aches for you,
Your grace remains oblivious to my pain,
And I a wretch now lost with naught to do
Save strive in hope, your favor yet to gain.
Stand naked I, bereft of courage, bare;
With eyes too weak to hold that sovereign gaze
And you, a beauty true, beyond compare –
No lips exist to give you worthy praise.
There numbed to silence, I do sit and dream
That one day soon I might yet hold your hand,
And in these thoughts explore all lover’s schemes
To win your love and reign in soft command.
In dreams I rise to storm the castle gates;
At dawn, relent to all that love conflates.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

I play these words for you on my piano
Gently, softly and ever so lightly,
These chords evoking music in your soul;
Reverberations felt ever more deeply,
This little song of love, my gift to you
For all your precious kindness, sans compare,
And all those little things that lovers do
To make hearts sing, or yet just stop and stare
At the majesty of love, grown one from two.
As music mingles like two rivers joined;
As arms embrace and meld fond hearts as one;
Sweet kisses in staid drawing rooms purloined;
Impassioned couplings ‘neath a silver’d moon.
So let us sing and dance our life away…
And may our love’s sweet music ever play.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

Red roses given are a gift sublime
And capture love’s sweet essence in perfume,
But blossoms crowning thorny stems remind
Short distance sits between sharp barb and bloom.
As love can bring great pleasure and great pain
So fitting then this symbol of true love;
Though charms may fade, the memories there remain,
With pangs or pleasures oft staunch hearts to move.
A bitter sweetness thus enshrines the rose
Whose flourish wanes yet favor transcends time,
As floral odors on a lover’s clothes
Dulls on the silk, but strengthens in the mind;
Though scented petals oft loves’ stage adorn,
Rare is the love that never braves a thorn.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

One life is not enough to live with you
Reminds the fading glory in the west,
For he at dawn will golden grace renew
As we each day slip closer to our rest;
His march unfettered, measured in pure time,
Though clouds do oft besmirch his radiant smile,
Yet to our eyes, each day a faster climb
And to our limbs a longer span of toil.
Though time’s count quickens, love grows ever strong,
Where months may turn to weeks and weeks to days;
So be our time together short or long
What matters this when laboring in love’s praise?
Yes though our sun may set, it too shall rise;
Each day I see forever in your eyes.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

That I was never worthy of your love
Has been declared by many a sharp tongue,
Yet hearing such did bolster me to prove
Of many suitors, I your love alone.
Though lacking of fine purse, I drew my wage;
No title given, this I earned with sense,
Sound proper wit, no wisdom of an age;
To pay the tutor was my recompense.
With righteous patience I did bide my time,
Each promise made, in truth I swore to keep –
One purpose sure that you’d be ever mine,
True love thus sown, there ever love to reap.
Though not of noble birth I begged your hand,
Not lord nor king, but sure a self-made man.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.

If courage found might place your hand in mine,
And let me search those deep dark sultry eyes,
Might gentle fingers in sweet love entwine
And heart to heart dear smiles of love apprise;
Soft whispers then of many love worn thoughts,
Of airy dreams slow wafting on the breeze,
Where breast to breast and lips to lips now locked
Enrapture hope, admist life’s greatest theme.
But you sit now so far away from me,
No simple arms to breach that chasm cross,
There frozen in black doubt’s uncertainty,
My love’s own strength endorsing here a loss.
Yes I, a craven fool lost in my part,
Lips poised to kiss, now tremble with my heart.

© Loubert S Suddaby. All Rights Reserved.