A Basket of Flowers
From Dawn to Dusk
DAWN
ON skies still and starlit
White lustres take hold,
And grey flushes scarlet,
And red flashes gold.
And sun-glories cover
The rose, shed above her,
Like lover and lover
They flame and unfold.
. . . . . . .
Still bloom in the garden
Green grass-plot, fresh lawn,
Though pasture lands harden
And drought fissures yawn.
While leaves not a few fall,
Let rose-leaves for you fall
Leaves pearl-strung with dew-fall,
And gold shot with dawn.
Does the grass-plot remember
The fall of your feet
In Autumn's red ember
When drought leagues with heat,
When the last of the roses
Despairingly closes
In the lull that reposes
Ere storm winds wax fleet ?
Love's melodies languish
In 'Chastelard's' strain,
And 'Abelard's' anguish
Is love's pleasant pain !
And 'Sappho' rehearses
Love's blessings and curses
In passionate verses
Again and again.
And I !—I have heard of
All these long ago,
Yet never one word of
Their song-lore I know ;
Not under my finger
In songs of the singer
Love's litanies linger,
Love's rhapsodies flow.
Fresh flowers in a basket—
An offering to you—
Though you did not ask it,
Unbidden I strew ;
With heat and drought striving
Some blossoms still living
May render thanksgiving
For dawn and for dew.
The garlands I gather,
The rhymes I string fast,
Are hurriedly rather
Then heedlessly cast.
Yon tree's shady awning
Is short'ning, and warning,
Far spent is the morning,
And I must ride fast.
Songs empty, yet airy,
I've striven to write,
For failure, dear Mary !
Forgive me—Good-night !
Songs and flowers may beset you,
I can only regret you,
While the soil where I met you
Recedes from my sight.
For the sake of past hours,
For the love of old times,
Take 'A Basket of Flowers,'
And a bundle of rhymes ;
Though all the bloom perish
E'en your hand can cherish,
While churlish and bearish
The verse-jingle chimes.
And Eastward by Nor'ward
Looms sadly my track,
And I must ride forward,
And still I look back,—
Look back—Ah, how vainly !
For while I see plainly,
My hands on the reins lie
Uncertain and slack.
The warm wind breathes strong breath,
The dust dims mine eye,
And I draw one long breath,
And stifle one sigh.
Green slopes softly shaded,
Have flitted and faded—
My dreams flit as they did—
Good-night !—and—Good-bye !
. . . . . . .
DUSK
Lost rose ! end my story !
Dead core and dry husk—
Departed thy glory
And tainted thy musk.
Night spreads her dark limbs on
The face of the dim sun,
So flame fades to crimson
And crimson to dusk.
poem by Adam Lindsay Gordon
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Related quotes
When Age Comes On
When Age comes on!--
'The deepening dusk is where the dawn
Once glittered splendid, and the dew
In honey-drips, from red rose-lips
Was kissed away by me and you.--
And now across the frosty lawn
Black foot-prints trail, and Age comes on--
And Age comes on!
And biting wild-winds whistle through
Our tattered hopes--and Age comes on!
When Age comes on!--
O tide of raptures, long withdrawn,
Flow back in summer-floods, and fling
Here at our feet our childhood sweet,
And all the songs we used to sing! . . .
Old loves, old friends--all dead and gone--
Our old faith lost--and Age comes on--
And Age comes on!
Poor hearts! have we not anything
But longings left when Age comes on?
ENVOY.
Just as of old! The world rolls on and on;
The day dies into night--night into dawn--
Dawn into dusk--through centuries untold.--
Just as of old.
Time loiters not. The river ever flows,
Its brink or white with blossoms or with snows;
Its tide or warm with Spring or Winter cold:
Just as of old.
Lo! where is the beginning, where the end
Of living, loving, longing? Listen, friend!--
God answers with a silence of pure gold--
Just as of old.
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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The Last Lovely Rose Of The Fall
Her pink petals lay on the short grass beside the red brick garden wall
By the thorny mother that bore her the last lovely rose of the Fall
White butterflies flit in the garden in the warm sunshine of mid day
And the shrike thrush he pipes on a low branch in his cloak of light brown to gray,
The rose tree has lost her last and her finest daughter next year new roses she will bear
And the rose tree in her flowers does look lovely than her there is none quite so fair
And her flowers they must return to Nature and on Nature's bosom decay
And the rose tree herself sooner or later must return to Nature one day,
The dark willy wagtail he sits on the brick wall his long black tail he wags to and fro
For him 'tis a very good Season on butterlies fat he does grow
Each life form serves a purpose in Nature for one to live one has to die
And what comes from Nature goes back to Nature and the same goes for you and for i
The pink rose petals lay on the grass by their mother on this warm March day in the Fall
And of all of the flowers in the garden in bloom she was the fairest of all.
poem by Francis Duggan
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Argemone
The terrible night-watch is over,
I turn where I lie,
To eastward my dim eyes discover
Faint streaks in the sky ;
Faint streaks on a faint light that dapples
And dawns like the ripening of apples,
Closes with darkness and grapples,
And darkness must die.
And the dawn finds us where the dusk found us—
The quick and the dead ;
Thou dawn-slaying darkness around us,
Oh ! slay me instead !
Thou pitiless earth that would sever
Twain souls, reuniting them never,
Oh, gape and engulf me for ever,
Oh, cover my head !
The toils that men strive with stout-hearted,
The fears that men fly,
I have known them, but they have departed,
And thou hast gone by.
Men toiling, and straining, and striving,
Are glad, peradventure, for living ;
I render for life no thanksgiving,
Glad only to die.
Too alike to me now are all changes,
Naught gladdens, naught grieves.
Alike, now, pale snow on the ranges,
Pale gold on the sheaves.
Alike now the hum of glad bees on
Green boughs, and the sigh of sad trees on
Sere uplands, the fall of the season,
The fall of the leaves.
Alike now each wind blows the breezes
That kiss where they roam,
The breath of the March wind that freezes
In the rime of the loam ;
The storm-blast that lashes and scourges,
And rends the white crests of the surges,
As it sweeps with the thunder of dirges
Across the sea foam.
Alike now all rainfall and down-fall,
Foul seasons and fair ;
Let the rose on my patch or the thorn fall,
I heed not, nor care ;
Nor for grey light of dawn, nor for dun light
Of dusk, nor for dazzle of sunlight
At noon ; shall I seek light, or shun light ?
Seek warmth or seek care ?
Nor for breaking of fast neither grateful,
Nor for quenching of thirst,
In the dawn of the eventide hateful,
In the noontide accurst,
In the watch of the night sleep-forsaken
Till that sleep comes, no watch shall re-waken,
Be the best things of life never taken,
Never feared be the worst.
Skies laugh, and buds bloom, and birds warble
At breaking of day ;
Without and within, on grey marble,
The light glimmers grey :
O pale, silent mouth, surely this is
The spot where death strikes and life misses :
Warm lips, pressing cold lips, waste kisses
Clay-cold as cold clay.
Through sunset, and twilight, and nightfall,
And night-watches bleak,
We have lain thus. Now broad rays of light fall,
And flicker, and streak ;
The death-chamber glancing and shining,
Where death and dead life lie reclining,
My hand with her hand intertwining,
My cheek to her cheek.
I adjure thee by days spent together,
(So sad and so few),
By the seasons of fair and foul weather,
By the rose and the rue ;
By the storms and the joys of past hours,
By the thorns of the earth and the flowers,
By the sun of the skies and the showers,
By the mist and the dew,
By the time that annihilates all things—
Our woes and our crimes ;
By the gath'ring of great things and small things
At the end of all times,
Let thy soul answer mine through the portal
Of the grave, if the soul be immortal
(As the wise men of all climes have taught all
The fools of all climes).
If these men speak truth I come quickly—
My life does thee wrong :
Dost thou languish in shades peopled thickly
With phantoms that throng ?
Have they known thee, my love ? Hast thou known one
To welcome the stranger and lone one ?
O loved one, O lost one, mine own one,
I tarry not long.
The flower that no more shall enwreath us
Turns sunward : the dove
Sails skyward : the grass is beneath us,
The birds are above.
Those skies, an illegible letter,
Seem fairer and farther, scarce better
Than earth to man, crushed by life's fetter
When lifeless is love.
And none can love twice, says the heathen,
And none can twice die :
More hopeful than these are, are we then,
With hopes past the sky,
Yon judge—will He swerve from just sentence
For tardy, fear-stricken repentance ?
Ask those who came hither and went hence,
But hope no reply.
And He who shall judge us in light :
How, then, shall I trust
In Him, having sinned in His sight ?
. . . Is jealous and just ;
So priests taught me once, in their learning
Perplexed, slower still in discerning :
Are ashes to ashes returning,
And dust seeking dust.
Can life thrive when life's love expires ?
Are life and love twain ?
Men say so. Nay, all men are liars,
Or all lives are vain.
Let our dead loves and lives be forgotten
With the ripening of fruits that are rotten ;
So we loving fools, dust-begotten,
Go dustward again.
poem by Adam Lindsay Gordon
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Good Luck (but maybe I'm close enough)
What’s that you said, what you said, what you said
What’s that you said, what you said, what you said
You say your looking for your knight in shinning amour
Someone who'll rescue you when you fall
Someone, whose chivalry knows no boundary
Someone who'll answer when you call
Good luck. But maybe I’m close enough
Through the wind and the rain
Through the drought and Champaign
My love for you shines through
Like the sun, like the sun, like the sun
Bad boy, bad boy, sometimes I'm a bad boy, bad boy, bad boy, sometimes I'm a bad boy
What’s that you said, what you said, what you said
What’s that you said, what you said, what you said
You say you’re looking for your charming prince of passion
He who’ll recite sweet verse in your ear
Someone who’ll bring you flowers constantly
And remember special days of the year
Well good luck. But maybe I’m close enough
From dawn through to dusk
Through dark night’s dark blanket mask
My love for you shines through
Like the sun, like the sun, like the sun
Bad boy, bad boy, sometimes I'm a bad boy, bad boy, bad boy, sometimes I'm a bad boy
What’s that you said, what you said, what you said
What’s that you said, what you said, what you said
You say you’re looking for your Casanova
Someone who'll know your each and every mood
Someone with an understanding so developed
All ten senses so finally tuned
Yes someone who’ll know your each and every mood
Good luck. But maybe I’m close enough
From autumn through to spring
And then back again
My love for you shines through
Like the sun, like the sun, like the sun
Bad boy, bad boy, sometimes I'm a bad boy, bad boy, bad boy, sometimes I'm a bad boy
What’s that you said, what you said, what you said
What’s that you said, what you said, what you said
You say you want someone you can be proud of
Sometimes serious, sometimes a clown
Someone who’ll sing a song and dance with you
Someone to share the joys that you found
Good luck. But maybe I’m close enough
Through hope and the fear
Through the cloak and veneer
My love for you shines through Like the sun, like the sun, like the sun
Copyright Colin Coplin 2006 / 2010
poem by Colin Coplin
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Song VII: Dawn Talks to Day
Dawn talks to Day
Over dew-gleaming flowers,
Night flies away
Till the resting of hours:
Fresh are thy feet
And with dreams thine eyes glistening,
Thy still lips are sweet
Though the world is a-listening.
O Love, set a word in my mouth for our meeting,
Cast thine arms round about me to stay my heart's beating!
O fresh day, O fair day, O long day made ours!
Morn shall meet noon
While the flower-stems yet move,
Though the wind dieth soon
And the clouds fade above.
Loved lips are thine
As I tremble and hearken;
Bright thine eyes shine,
Though the leaves thy brow darken.
O Love, kiss me into silence, lest no word avail me,
Stay my head with thy bosom lest breath and life fail me!
O sweet day, O rich day, made long for our love!
Late day shall greet eve,
And the full blossoms shake,
For the wind will not leave
The tall trees while they wake.
Eyes soft with bliss,
Come nigher and nigher!
Sweet mouth I kiss,
Tell me all thy desire!
Let us speak, love, together some words of our story,
That our lips as they part may remember the glory!
O soft day, O calm day, made clear for our sake!
Eve shall kiss night,
And the leaves stir like rain
As the wind stealeth light
O'er the grass of the plain.
Unseen are thine eyes
Mid the dreamy night's sleeping,
And on my mouth there lies
The dear rain of thy weeping.
Hold silence, love, speak not of the sweet day departed,
Cling close to me, love, lest I waken sad-hearted!
O kind day, O dear day, short day, come again!
poem by William Morris
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When Your Lover Has Gone
Einar aaron swan
What good is the scheming, the planning and dreaming
That comes with each new love affair
The dreams that we cherish, so often might perish
And leaves you with castles in air
When youre alone, who cares for starlit skies
When youre alone, the magic moonlight dies
At break of dawn, there is no sunrise
When your lover has gone
What lonely hours, the evening shadows bring
What lonely hours, with memories lingering
Like faded flowers, life cant mean anything
When your lover has gone
song performed by by Billie Holiday
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Shamrock Song
O, the red rose may be fair,
And the lily statelier;
But my shamrock, one in three,
Takes the very heart of me!
Many a lover hath the rose
When june's musk-wind breathes and blows:
And in many a bower is heard
Her sweet praise from bee and bird.
Through the gold hours dreameth she,
In her warm heart passionately,
Her fair face hung languid-wise:
O, her breath of honey and spice!
Like a fair saint virginal
Stands your lily, silver and tall;
Over all the flowers that be
Is my shamrock dear to me.
Shines the lily like the sun,
Crystal-pure, a cold, sweet nun;
With her austere lip she sings
To her heart of heavenly things.
Gazeth through a night of June
To her sister-saint, the moon;
With the stars communeth long
Of the angels and their song.
But when summer died last year
Rose and lily died with her;
Shamrock stayeth every day,
Be the winds or gold or grey.
Irish hills, as grey as the dove,
Know the little plant I love;
Warm and fair it mantles them
Stretching down from throat to hem.
And it laughs o'er many a vale,
Sheltered safe from storm and gale;
Sky and sun and stars thereof
Love the gentle plant I love.
Soft it clothes the ruined floor
Of many an abbey, grey and hoar,
And the still home of the dead
With its green is carpeted.
Roses for an hour of love,
With the joy and pain thereof:
Stand my lilies white to see
All for prayer and purity.
These are white as the harvest moon,
Roses flush like the heart of June;
But my shamrock, brave and gay,
Glads the tired eyes every day.
O, the red rose shineth rare,
And the lily saintly fair;
But my shamrock, one in three,
Takes the inmost heart of me!
poem by Katharine Tynan
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When Your Lover Has Gone
(Einar Aaron Swan)
What good is the scheming, the planning and dreaming
That comes with each new love affair
The love that you cherish, so often might perish
And leave you with castles in air
When you're alone, who cares for starlit skies
When you're alone, the magic moonlight dies
At break of dawn, there is no sunrise
When your lover has gone
What lonely hours, the evening shadows bring
What lonely hours, with memories lingering
Like faded flowers, life can't mean anything
When your lover has gone, when your lover has gone
Ooooh, when your lover has gone
song performed by by Carly Simon
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Flower of Love
'Tis said the rose is Love's own flower,
Its blush so bright, its thorns so many;
And winter on its bloom has power,
But has not on its sweetness any.
For though young Love's ethereal rose
Will droop on Age's wintry bosom,
Yet still its faded leaves disclose
The fragrance of their earliest blossom.
But ah! the fragrance lingering there
Is like the sweets that mournful duty
Bestows with sadly-soothing care,
To deck the grave of bloom and beauty.
For when its leaves are shrunk and dry,
Its blush extinct, to kindle never,
That fragrance is but Memory's sigh,
That breathes of pleasures past for ever.
Why did not Love the amaranth choose,
That bears no thorns, and cannot perish ?
Alas! no sweets its flowers diffuse,
And only sweets Love's life can cherish.
But be the rose and amaranth twined,
And Love, their mingled powers assuming,
Shall round his brows a chaplet bind,
For ever sweet, for ever blooming.
poem by Thomas Love Peacock
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Dreams
I HAVE been dreaming all a summer day
Of rare and dainty poems I would write;
Love-lyrics delicate as lilac-scent,
Soft idylls woven of wind, and flower, and stream,
And songs and sonnets carven in fine gold.
The day is fading and the dusk is cold;
Out of the skies has gone the opal gleam,
Out of my heart has passed the high intent
Into the shadow of the falling night—
Must all my dreams in darkness pass away?
I have been dreaming all a summer day:
Shall I go dreaming so until Life’s light
Fades in Death’s dusk, and all my days are spent?
Ah, what am I the dreamer but a dream!
The day is fading and the dusk is cold.
My songs and sonnets carven in fine gold
Have faded from me with the last day -beam
That purple lustre to the sea-line lent,
And flushed the clouds with rose and chrysolite;
So days and dreams in darkness pass away.
I have been dreaming all a summer day
Of songs and sonnets carven in fine gold;
But all my dreams in darkness pass away;
The day is fading, and the dusk is cold.
poem by Victor James Daley
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Will You?
Will you hold me close
Or let me go?
Will we fall together
Or fall alone?
Lost love
The world afire
Silver tinged dusk
Gold tipped dawn
Once smiling
Blue eyes
Have lost their shine
Their spark
Can we hold it together
Or are we already too far apart?
Can something dead
Be resurrected?
Will you hold my hand
Or let it fall?
Will you whisper my name
Or say nothing at all?
Crumbling love
Falling fire
Crashes of lightning
The sound of thunder
Is nothing there?
Where everything used to be?
What happened to forever?
A life time together?
Are you giving up?
Will the sky scrapers crumble?
Will the ashes fall?
What will you chose?
Will you say goodbye
Or say forever?
Will you kiss me now
Or kiss me never?
poem by Autumn Winds
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The Rose
It tossed its head at the wooing breeze;
And the sun, like a bashful swain,
Beamed on it through the waving trees
With a passion all in vain,--
For my rose laughed in a crimson glee,
And hid in the leaves in wait for me.
The honey-bee came there to sing
His love through the languid hours,
And vaunt of his hives, as a proud old king
Might boast of his palace-towers:
But my rose bowed in a mockery,
And hid in the leaves in wait for me.
The humming-bird, like a courtier gay,
Dipped down with a dalliant song,
And twanged his wings through the roundelay
Of love the whole day long:
Yet my rose turned from his minstrelsy
And hid in the leaves in wait for me.
The firefly came in the twilight dim
My red, red rose to woo--
Till quenched was the flame of love in him,
And the light of his lantern too,
As my rose wept with dewdrops three
And hid in the leaves in wait for me.
And I said: I will cull my own sweet rose--
Some day I will claim as mine
The priceless worth of the flower that knows
No change, but a bloom divine--
The bloom of a fadeless constancy
That hides in the leaves in wait for me!
But time passed by in a strange disguise,
And I marked it not, but lay
In a lazy dream, with drowsy eyes,
Till the summer slipped away,
And a chill wind sang in a minor key:
'Where is the rose that waits for thee?'
. . . . . . . .
I dream to-day, o'er a purple stain
Of bloom on a withered stalk,
Pelted down by the autumn rain
In the dust of the garden-walk,
That an Angel-rose in the world to be
Will hide in the leaves in wait for me.
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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Primordial
Love is throwing your heart in the burning fire
and being willing to see it come back a frozen hulk;
and doing it again
time after time.
Love requires that we set fire
to our brain,
and watch it burn
all in Love's Name
and Passion's Call.
Love is heat;
Love is fire
and we
are Mashmellows
of the Flame.
Love is time lost.
Who can remember
how long
the Loving Night?
Love seethes
with searing heat
because once lit
flames surge
and take away
our oxygen;
and we
swoon in the Euphoria.
Love is Yearning's Call
peeking from behind
the Banyon Tree;
Love's sight
peering between
the leafy leaves
fixing on figure and form
and then is lost
in a single lover's returned glance;
then
both fall down
to Soul's Depth;
most times
never to return
from that
Landscape Primordial.
Why?
Simple.
One does not interrogate The Flame
One does not expect explanations of Fire.
One does not await memos from the Heat.
Forces of Nature exist within themselves
and we are the Willing Slaves
which obey and cannot resist.
Extinguish the flame, ban the heat
and we are merely hulks
in the vestibule of existence
feeding but without life,
seeing but without sight
breathing but without heart.
Ahh
Would we have all of this any
other way?
We are always, its seems
in the cold and damp
willing to re-light the fire
feel the heat
even if there is pain.
poem by Lonnie Hicks
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Dew
As dew leaves the cobweb lightly
Threaded with stars,
Scattering jewels on the fence
And the pasture bars;
As dawn leaves the dry grass bright
And the tangled weeds
Bearing a rainbow gem
On each of their seeds;
So has your love, my lover,
Fresh as the dawn,
Made me a shining road
To travel on,
Set every common sight
Of tree or stone
Delicately alight
For me alone.
poem by Sara Teasdale
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A Dedication
They are rhymes rudely strung with intent less
Of sound than of words,
In lands where bright blossoms are scentless,
And songless bright birds;
Where, with fire and fierce drought on her tresses,
Insatiable Summer oppresses
Sere woodlands and sad wildernesses,
And faint flocks and herds.
Where in drieariest days, when all dews end,
And all winds are warm,
Wild Winter's large floodgates are loosen'd,
And floods, freed by storm;
From broken-up fountain heads, dash on
Dry deserts with long pent up passion--
Here rhyme was first framed without fashion,
Song shaped without form.
Whence gather'd?--The locust's glad chirrup
May furnish a stave;
The ring os rowel and stirrup,
The wash of a wave.
The chauntof a marsh frog in rushes
That chimes through the pauses and hushes
Of nightfall, the torrent that gushes,
The tempests that rave.
In the deep'ning of dawn, when it dapples
The dusk of the sky,
With streaks like the redd'ning of apples,
The ripening of rye.
To eastward, when cluster by cluster,
Dim stars and dull planets, that muster,
Wax wan in a world of white lustre
That spreads far and high.
In the gathering of night gloom o'er head, in
The still silent change,
All fire-flush'd when forest trees redden
On slopes of the range.
When the gnarl'd knotted trunks Eucalyptian
Seemed carved like weird columns Egyptian
With curious device--quaint inscription,
And heiroglyph strange.
In the Spring, when the wattle gold trembles
'Twixt shadow and shine,
When each dew-laden air draught resembles
A long draught of wine;
When the skyline's blue burnished resistance
Makes deeper the dreamiest distance,
Some song in all hearts hath existence,--
Such songs have been mine.
poem by Adam Lindsay Gordon
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Winter Sunset
Roses in the sky,
Roses in the sea
Bowers of scarlet sky-roses
Take my heart and me.
God was good to make,
This December weather,
All this sky a rose-garden,
Rose and fire together.
To the East are burning
Roses in a garden,
Roses in a rosy field,
Hesper for their warden.
Yonder to the West
Roses all afire,
Mirror now some rare splendid
Rose of their desire.
Pulsing deeper, deeper,
Waves of fire throb on,
Never were such red roses
At sunset or dawn.
Roses on the hills,
Roses in the hollow,
Roses on the wet hedges,
In the shining fallow.
West wind, blow and blow!
That has blown ajar
Gates of God's great rose-garden,
Where His Angels are,
Gathering up the rose-leaves
For a shower of roses
On the night the Lord Babe
His sweet eye uncloses.
All the sky is scarlet
Flaming on the azure.
O, there's fire in Heaven
My heart aches with pleasure.
Leagues of rose and scarlet,
Roses red as blood:
All the world's a rose-garden.
God is good, is good.
poem by Katharine Tynan
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Do Not The
do not the leaves love the tree
even as they fall...
and moths love the flame
into which they die?
and shadows in the night
love the stillness,
as they lay down to meet the dawn?
so love then is a series of deaths,
and each funeral has a face...
it is in the stillness when breath is taken,
that we learn to touch
with the eyes of body and soul!
poem by Eric Cockrell
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Research on Cinderalla - after Shel Silverstein In search of Cinderalla
From dawn til dusk,
from land to land,
without too much ado,
I'd seek the perfect ankle,
From dawn til dusk
I'd stretch my hand
to virgin, husk, - not you! -
perceptions change, oh dear, they do!
perfection minds must rankle
In Search of Cinderella
From dusk to dawn,
From town to town,
Without a single clue,
I seek the tender, slender foot
To fit this crystal shoe.
From dusk to dawn,
I try it on
Each damsel that I meet.
And I still love her so, but oh,
I've started hating feet.
- Shel Silverstein
poem by Jonathan Robin
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Before the Mirror
I.
WHITE ROSE in red rose-garden
Is not so white;
Snowdrops that plead for pardon
And pine for fright
Because the hard East blows
Over their maiden rows
Grow not as this face grows from pale to bright.
Behind the veil, forbidden,
Shut up from sight,
Love, is there sorrow hidden,
Is there delight?
Is joy thy dower or grief,
White rose of weary leaf,
Late rose whose life is brief, whose loves are light?
Soft snows that hard winds harden
Till each flake bite
Fill all the flowerless garden
Whose flowers took flight
Long since when summer ceased,
And men rose up from feast,
And warm west wind grew east, and warm day night.
II.
“Come snow, come wind or thunder
High up in air,
I watch my face, and wonder
At my bright hair;
Nought else exalts or grieves
The rose at heart, that heaves
With love of her own leaves and lips that pair.
“She knows not loves that kissed her
She knows not where.
Art thou the ghost, my sister,
White sister there,
Am I the ghost, who knows?
My hand, a fallen rose,
Lies snow-white on white snows, and takes no care.
“I cannot see what pleasures
Or what pains were;
What pale new loves and treasures
New years will bear;
What beam will fall, what shower,
What grief or joy for dower;
But one thing knows the flower; the flower is fair.”
III.
Glad, but not flushed with gladness,
Since joys go by;
Sad, but not bent with sadness,
Since sorrows die;
Deep in the gleaming glass
She sees all past things pass,
And all sweet life that was lie down and lie.
There glowing ghosts of flowers
Draw down, draw nigh;
And wings of swift spent hours
Take flight and fly;
She sees by formless gleams,
She hears across cold streams,
Dead mouths of many dreams that sing and sigh.
Face fallen and white throat lifted,
With sleepless eye
She sees old loves that drifted,
She knew not why,
Old loves and faded fears
Float down a stream that hears
The flowing of all men’s tears beneath the sky.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Break o’ Day
You love me, you say, and I think you do,
But I know so many who don’t,
And how can I say I’ll be true to you
When I know very well that I won’t?
I have journeyed long and my goal is far,
I love, but I cannot bide,
For as sure as rises the morning star,
With the break of day I’ll ride.
I was doomed to ruin or doomed to mar
The home wherever I stay,
But I’ll think of you as the morning star
And they call me Break o’ Day.
They well might have named me the Fall o’ Night,
For drear is the track I mark,
But I love fair girls and I love the light,
For I and my tribe were dark.
You may love me dear, for a day and night,
You may cast your life aside;
But as sure as the morning star shines bright
With the break of day I’ll ride.
There was never a lover so proud and kind,
There was never a friend so true;
But the song of my life I have left behind
In the heart of a girl like you.
There was never so deep or cruel a wrong
In the land that is far away,
There was never so bitter a broken heart
That rode at the break of day.
God bless you, dear, with your red-gold hair
And your pitying eyes of grey—
Oh! my heart forbids that a star so fair
Should be marred by the Break o’ Day.
Live on, my girl, as the girl you are,
Be a good and a true man’s bride,
For as sure as beckons the evening star
With the fall o’ night I’ll ride.
I was born to ruin or born to mar
The home wherever I light.
Oh! I wish that you were the Evening Star
And that I were the Fall o’ Night.
poem by Henry Lawson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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