Hymn To Death
I
What is it haunts the summer air?
A sense of something lately passed away;
Something pleasant, something fair,
That was with us yesterday,
And is no longer there.
Now from the pasture comes no baby bleat,
Nor the frisk of frolic feet
There is seen.
Blossom and bloom have spread their wings, and flown,
And the bosks and orchards green
The rosy flush of childhood have outgrown.
Lapwing and linnet and lark have fledged their brood;
Mavis and merle have gotten their desire;
The nightingale begins to tire;
Even the cuckoo's note hath fitful grown;
And in the closing leafage of the wood
The ringdove now is left to coo alone.
II
Then revel in your roses, reckless June!
Revel and ripen swift to your decay.
But your turn will follow soon,
And the rounding harvest-moon
Avenge the too brief innocence of May.
Yet once again there scents the morning air
The soul of something passed away;
Something precious, something fair,
That was breathing yesterday,
And is no longer there.
It is Autumn, dying, dying,
With her leaves around her lying,
And Winter, beggared heir, unprofitably sighing.
Let her die.
Unto us as unto her
Earth is but a sepulchre,
And the over-arching sky
Neither asks nor wonders why
Those who here are left behind
Season sweet and spacious mind
Fain would save;
Yet with pale visages and streaming tears
Must watch the harvest of the ripened years
Locked in the bootless granary of the grave.
III
Why do you call me hence?
To purge what fault, to punish what offence?
Had I maligned my lot,
Or ever once the privilege forgot
Of being, though the spirit's inward sense,
Mirror and measure of all things that are,
Then it were right, were just,
That, like a falling leaf or failing star,
The winds of Heaven should blow about my dust.
Or had I used the years as waifs and strays,
To build myself a comfortable nest,
Groped life for golden garbage, like the rest,
And, as a lacquey, on the public ways
For private profit hired out my tongue,
Then against death 'twere vain to plead,
Then, then 'twere meet indeed
I should grow silenced, like a bell unrung.
But bear me witness, every Spring that came
Since first with trembling furtive frame
Out of my little crib I crept
While others slept,
Because to me the rising moon
Was more than sleep, or toy, or boon,
That never yet the thrush resumed to sing,
But straight my heart did build, my voice was on the wing;
Found the first primrose gazing frank
From its cradle in the bank,
Harked for the cuckoo days before he called,
Then halted, at his note enthralled.
IV
Why do you beckon to another sphere?
Here was I born,
Am deeply rooted here,
And would not be uptorn.
I want no other fields than these,
No other skies,
No redder dawn to break on bluer seas,
No brighter stars to rise.
Neither do I crave to know
The origin of joy and woe.
I love the doubt, the dark, the fear,
That still surroundeth all things here.
I love the mystery, nor seek to solve;
Content to let the stars revolve,
Nor ask to have their meaning clear.
Enough for me, enough to feel;
To let the mystic shadows steal
Into a land whither I cannot follow;
To see the stealthy sunlight leave
Dewy dingle, dappled hollow;
To watch, when falls the hour of eve,
Quiet shadows on a quiet hill;
To watch, to wonder, and be still.
V
And can it be,
That there will break the day,
For me, for me,
When I no more shall hear the throstle flute;
Not because his voice is mute,
But that my soul sleeps stupefied in clay?
Never! what, never again!
Deep within some silent glen
To make a couch with peace, far from surmise of men?
Never, never more to stand,
Spell-bound in a leafy land,
Lie among the grasses tall,
Hear the yaffel call, and call,
And lazily watch the lazy clouds slow floating over all?
That time and life will be, but I shall ne'er
Find little feet upon the stair,
Feel little arms about my throat,
Hear little gleeful voices float
Upon the wavelets of the summer air.
That I again shall never share
The peace that lies upon an English lawn,
Watch the last lingering planet shining fair
Upon the unwrinkled forehead of the dawn?
Never, never, never more,
When fate or fancy bids me roam,
Lessen with loving thoughts the last long mile
That leads unto my home,
Descry the roses down the casement falling,
Hear the garden thrushes calling,
Behold my dear ones standing at the door,
Void of fear, void of guile,
And hail, as I so oft have hailed before,
The broadening salutation of their smile?
VI
Who will salute me There?
Who, who come forth to greet?
Will Virgil stand upon the golden stair?
Shall I see Spenser's face, and sit at Shakespeare's feet?
Will Galileo with unshrouded gaze
Guide me through the starry maze,
Upon wings that never tire,
Up to the Heaven of Heavens, and higher and ever higher?
If this be so,
Quick let me go!
But ah! pale spectre, paler still you grow.
You would but lure me to the other bank,
To find it blank!
Of all we loved, not one hath e'er come back
To beckon us along the track,
To point the way, to indicate the goal,
And stretch out steadying arms to help the tottering soul.
VII
But wilt thou make this compact with me, Death,
And keep thy bond?
That even if mine be but borrowed breath,
Lent here awhile, to be reclaimed beyond,
And its poor husk be dug into the ground;
Then, though the Future may not find my face,
Nor arms that love me round my neck be wound,
Fair lips that lisp not yet my name shall sound,
And hearts that beat not yet be my warm dwellingplace;
That under trees which have no rootlets now,
But will then be trunk and bough
And dome of sheltering leaves, sometimes
A tender tear shall fall upon my rhymes;
And hearts at secret war with life,
Or dreaming maid or disillusioned wife,
Shall my persuasive music bless,
Shall call me comforter in their distress,
And make me live again in sorrowing loveliness?
VIII
So unto Death I do commend my Spirit,
And Time which is in league with Death, that they
May hold in trust, and see my kin inherit,
All of me that is not clay;
Embalm my voice and keep it from decay.
Then I will not ask to stay;-
Nay, rather start at once upon the way:
Cheered by the faith that, at our mortal birth,
For some high reason beyond Reason's ken,
We are put out to nurse on this strange earth,
Until Death comes to take us home again.
poem by Alfred Austin
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The Dying Hour
I.
OH! watch me; watch me still
Thro' the long night's dreary hours,
Uphold by thy firm will
Worn Nature's sinking powers!
II.
While yet thy face is there
(The loose locks round it flying),
So young, and fresh, and fair,
I feel not I am dying!
III.
Stoop down, and kiss my brow!
The shadows round me closing
Warn me that dark and low
I soon shall be reposing.
IV.
But while those pitying eyes
Are bending thus above me,
In vain the death-dews rise,--
Thou dost regret and love me!
V.
Then watch me thro' the night,
Thro' my broken, fitful slumber;
By the pale lamp's sickly light
My dying moments number!
VI.
Thy fond and patient smile
Shall soothe my painful waking;
Thy voice shall cheer me while
The slow grey dawn is breaking!
VII.
The battle-slain, whose thirst
No kindly hand assuages,
Whose low faint farewells burst
Unheard, while combat rages,--
VIII.
The exiled, near whose bed
Some vision'd form seems weeping,
Whose steps shall never tread
The land where he lies sleeping,--
IX.
The drown'd, whose parting breath
Is caught by wild winds only,--
Theirs is the bitter death,
Beloved, for they die lonely!
X.
But thus, tho' rack'd, to lie,
Thou near, tho' full of sadness,
Leaves still, e'en while I die,
A lingering gleam of gladness!
XI.
I feel not half my pain
When to mine thy fond lip presses,--
I warm to life again
Beneath thy soft caresses!
XII.
Once more, oh! yet once more
Fling, fling thy white arms round me,
As oft in days of yore
Their gentle clasp hath bound me;
XIII.
And hold me to that breast
Which heaves so full with sorrow--
Who knows where I may rest
In the dark and blank to-morrow?
XIV.
Ah! weep not--it shall be
An after-thought to cheer thee,
That while mine eyes could see,
And while mine ears could hear thee--
XV.
Thy voice and smile were still
The spells on which I doated,
And thou, through good and ill,
To me and mine devoted!
XVI.
And calmly by my tomb,
When the low bright day declineth,
And athwart the cypress gloom
The mellow sunset shineth,--
XVII.
Thou'lt sit and think of Him,
Who, of Heaven's immortal splendour,
Had a dream on earth, though dim,
In thy love so pure and tender,--
XVIII.
Who scarcely feels thy touch,--
Whom thy voice can rouse no longer,--
But whose love on earth was such,
That only death was stronger.
XIX.
Yes, sit, but not in tears!
Thine eyes in faith uplifting,
From thy lot of changeful years,
To the Heaven where naught is shifting.
XX.
From this world, where all who love
Are doomed alike to sever,
To the glorious realms above,
Where they dwell in peace for ever!
XXI.
And then such hope shall beam
From the grave where I lie sleeping,
This bitter hour shall seem
Too vague and far for weeping--
XXII.
And grief--ah! hold me now!
My fluttering pulse is failing,--
The death-dews chill my brow,--
The morning light is paling!
XXIII.
I seek thy gaze in vain,--
Earth reels and fades before me;
I die!--but feel no pain,--
Thy sweet face shining o'er me!
poem by Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton
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The Pilgrims
Who is your lady of love, O ye that pass
Singing? and is it for sorrow of that which was
That ye sing sadly, or dream of what shall be?
For gladly at once and sadly it seems ye sing.
--Our lady of love by you is unbeholden;
For hands she hath none, nor eyes, nor lips, nor golden
Treasure of hair, nor face nor form; but we
That love, we know her more fair than anything.
--Is she a queen, having great gifts to give?
--Yea, these; that whoso hath seen her shall not live
Except he serve her sorrowing, with strange pain,
Travail and bloodshedding and bitterer tears;
And when she bids die he shall surely die.
And he shall leave all things under the sky
And go forth naked under sun and rain
And work and wait and watch out all his years.
--Hath she on earth no place of habitation?
--Age to age calling, nation answering nation,
Cries out, Where is she? and there is none to say;
For if she be not in the spirit of men,
For if in the inward soul she hath no place,
In vain they cry unto her, seeking her face,
In vain their mouths make much of her; for they
Cry with vain tongues, till the heart lives again.
--O ye that follow, and have ye no repentance?
For on your brows is written a mortal sentence,
An hieroglyph of sorrow, a fiery sign,
That in your lives ye shall not pause or rest,
Nor have the sure sweet common love, nor keep
Friends and safe days, nor joy of life nor sleep.
--These have we not, who have one thing, the divine
Face and clear eyes of faith and fruitful breast.
--And ye shall die before your thrones be won.
--Yea, and the changed world and the liberal sun
Shall move and shine without us, and we lie
Dead; but if she too move on earth and live,
But if the old world with all the old irons rent
Laugh and give thanks, shall we be not content?
Nay, we shall rather live, we shall not die,
Life being so little and death so good to give.
--And these men shall forget you.--Yea, but we
Shall be a part of the earth and the ancient sea,
And heaven-high air august, and awful fire,
And all things good; and no man's heart shall beat
But somewhat in it of our blood once shed
Shall quiver and quicken, as now in us the dead
Blood of men slain and the old same life's desire
Plants in their fiery footprints our fresh feet.
--But ye that might be clothed with all things pleasant,
Ye are foolish that put off the fair soft present,
That clothe yourselves with the cold future air;
When mother and father and tender sister and brother
And the old live love that was shall be as ye,
Dust, and no fruit of loving life shall be.
--She shall be yet who is more than all these were,
Than sister or wife or father unto us or mother.
--Is this worth life, is this, to win for wages?
Lo, the dead mouths of the awful grey-grown ages,
The venerable, in the past that is their prison,
In the outer darkness, in the unopening grave,
Laugh, knowing how many as ye now say have said,
How many, and all are fallen, are fallen and dead:
Shall ye dead rise, and these dead have not risen?
--Not we but she, who is tender and swift to save.
--Are ye not weary and faint not by the way,
Seeing night by night devoured of day by day,
Seeing hour by hour consumed in sleepless fire?
Sleepless: and ye too, when shall ye too sleep?
--We are weary in heart and head, in hands and feet,
And surely more than all things sleep were sweet,
Than all things save the inexorable desire
Which whoso knoweth shall neither faint nor weep.
--Is this so sweet that one were fain to follow?
Is this so sure where all men's hopes are hollow.
Even this your dream, that by much tribulation
Ye shall make whole flawed hearts, and bowed necks straight?
--Nay, though our life were blind, our death were fruitless,
Not therefore were the whole world's high hope rootless;
But man to man, nation would turn to nation,
And the old life live, and the old great world be great.
--Pass on then and pass by us and let us be,
For what light think ye after life to see?
And if the world fare better will ye know?
And if man triumph who shall seek you and say?
--Enough of light is this for one life's span,
That all men born are mortal, but not man:
And we men bring death lives by night to sow,
That man may reap and eat and live by day.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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Gone
Another hand is beckoning us,
Another call is given;
And glows once more with Angel-steps
The path which reaches Heaven.
Our young and gentle friend, whose smile
Made brighter summer hours,
Amid the frosts of autumn time
Has left us with the flowers.
No paling of the cheek of bloom
Forewarned us of decay;
No shadow from the Silent Land
Fell round our sister's way.
The light of her young life went down,
As sinks behind the hill
The glory of a setting star,
Clear, suddenly, and still.
As pure and sweet, her fair brow seemed
Eternal as the sky;
And like the brook's low song, her voice,--
A sound which could not die.
And half we deemed she needed not
The changing of her sphere,
To give to Heaven a Shining One,
Who walked an Angel here.
The blessing of her quiet life
Fell on us like the dew;
And good thoughts where her footsteps pressed
Like fairy blossoms grew.
Sweet promptings unto kindest deeds
Were in her very look;
We read her face, as one who reads
A true and holy book,
The measure of a blessed hymn,
To which our hearts could move;
The breathing of an inward psalm,
A canticle of love.
We miss her in the place of prayer,
And by the hearth-fire's light;
We pause beside her door to hear
Once more her sweet 'Good-night!'
There seems a shadow on the day,
Her smile no longer cheers;
A dimness on the stars of night,
Like eyes that look through tears.
Alone unto our Father's will
One thought hath reconciled;
That He whose love exceedeth ours
Hath taken home His child.
Fold her, O Father! in Thine arms,
And let her henceforth be
A messenger of love between
Our human hearts and Thee.
Still let her mild rebuking stand
Between us and the wrong,
And her dear memory serve to make
Our faith in Goodness strong.
And grant that she who, trembling, here
Distrusted all her powers,
May welcome to her holier home
The well-beloved of ours.
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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The Poet And The Muse
Whither, and whence, and why hast fled?
Thou art dumb, my muse; thou art dumb, thou art dead,
As a waterless stream, as a leafless tree.
What have I done to banish thee?
But a moon ago, the whole day long
My ears were full of the sound of song;
And still through my darkly silent dreams
Plashed the fitful music of far-off streams.
When the night turned pale and the stars grew dim,
The morning chanted a dewy hymn.
The fragrant languor of cradled noon
Was lulled by the hum of a self-sung tune.
Joy came on the wings of a jocund lay,
And sorrow in harmony passed away;
And the sunny hours of tideless time
Were buoyed on the surges of rolling rhyme.
The moon went up in a cloudless sky,
Silently but melodiously;
And the glitter of stars and the patter of rain
Were notes and chords of an endless strain.
And vision, and feeling, and sound, and scent,
Were the strings of a sensitive instrument,
That silently, patiently, watched and waited,
And unto my soul reverberated.
In the orchard reddens the rounded fruit
'Mid the yellowing leaves, but my voice is mute.
The thinned copse sighs like a heart forsaken,
But not one chord of my soul is shaken.
Through the gloaming broadens the harvest moon;
The fagged hind whistles his homeward tune;
The last load creaks up the hamlet hill;
'Tis only my voice, my voice that is still.
(The Muse answers)
Poet, look in your poet's heart.
It will tell you what keepeth us twain apart.
I have not left you; I still am near.
But a music not mine enchants your ear.
Another hath entered and nestles deep
In the lap of your love, like a babe asleep.
You watch her breathing from morn till night;
She is all your hearing and all your sight.
Yet fear not, poet, to do me wrong.
She is sweeter far than the sweetest song.
One looks and listens the way she went,
As towards lark that is lost in the firmament.
So gladly to her I you resign,
Her caress is tenderer much than mine;
I hover round you, and hear her kiss
With wonder at its melodiousness.
When you gaze on the moon, you see but her.
You hear her feet when the branches stir;
And sunrise and sunset and starlight only
Make their beauty, without her, feel more lonely.
So how should you, poet, hope to sing?
The lute of Love hath a single string.
Its note is sweet as the coo of the dove;
But 'tis only one note, and the note is Love.
But when once you have paired and built your nest,
And can brood therein with a settled breast,
You will sing once more, and your voice will stir
All hearts with the sweetness gained from her.
poem by Alfred Austin
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From the Grave
When the first sere leaves of the year were falling,
I heard, with a heart that was strangely thrilled,
Out of the grave of a dead Past calling,
A voice I fancied forever stilled.
All through winter and spring and summer,
Silence hung over that grave like a pall,
But, borne on the breath of the last sad comer,
I listen again to the old-time call.
It is only a love of a by-gone season,
A senseless folly that mocked at me
A reckless passion that lacked all reason,
So I killed it, and hid it where none could see.
I smothered it first to stop its crying,
Then stabbed it through with a good sharp blade,
And cold and pallid I saw it lying,
And deep—ah' deep was the grave I made.
But now I know that there is no killing
A thing like Love, for it laughs at Death.
There is no hushing, there is no stilling
That which is part of your life and breath.
You may bury it deep, and leave behind you
The land, the people, that knew your slain;
It will push the sods from its grave, and find you
On wastes of water or desert plain.
You may hear but tongues of a foreign people,
You may list to sounds that are strange and new;
But, clear as a silver bell in a steeple,
That voice from the grave shall call to you.
You may rouse your pride, you may use your reason.
And seem for a space to slay Love so;
But, all in its own good time and season,
It will rise and follow wherever you go.
You shall sit sometimes, when the leaves are falling,
Alone with your heart, as I sit to-day,
And hear that voice from your dead Past calling
Out of the graves that you hid away.
poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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Siste Viator
WHAT is it that is dead?
Somewhere there is a grave, and something lies
Cold in the ground, and stirs not for my sighs,
Nor songs that I can make, nor smiles from me,
Nor tenderest foolish words that I have said;
Something that was has hushed, and will not be.
Did it go yesterday?
Or did it wane away with the old years?
There hath not been farewell, nor watchers' tears,
Nor hopes, nor vain reprieves, nor strife with death,
Nor lingering in a meted out delay;
None closed the eyes nor felt the latest breath.
But, be there joyous skies,
It is not in their sunshine; in the night
It is not in the silence, and the light
Of all the silver stars; the flowers asleep
Dream no more of it, nor their morning eyes
Betray the secrets it has bidden them keep.
Birds that go singing now
Forget it and leave sweetness meaningless;
The fitful nightingale, that feigns distress
To sing it all away, flows on by rote;
The seeking lark, in very heaven, I trow,
Shall find no memory to inform her note.
The voices of the shore
Chime not with it for burden; in the wood,
Where it has soul of the vast solitude,
It hath forsook the stillness; dawn and day
And the deep-thoughted dusk know it no more;
It is no more the freshness of the May.
Joy hath it not for heart;
Nor music for its second, subtler, tongue,
Sounding what music's self hath never sung;
Nor very Sorrow needs it help her weep.
Vanished from everywhere! what was a part
Of all and everywhere; lost into sleep!
What was it ere it went?
Whence had it birth? What is its name to call,
That gone unmissed has left a want in all?
Or shall I cry on Youth, in June-time still?
Or cry on Hope, who long since am content?
Or Love, who hold him ready at my will?
What is it that is dead?
Breath of a flower? sea-freshness on a wind?
Oh, dearest, what is that that we should find,
If you and I at length could win it back?
What have we lost and know not it hath fled?
Heart of my heart, could it be love we lack?
poem by Augusta Davies Webster
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The Grave Of A Poetess
I stood beside thy lowly grave;
Spring-odours breath'd around,
And music, in the river-wave,
Pass'd with a lulling sound.
All happy things that love the sun,
In the bright air glanc'd by,
And a glad murmur seem'd to run
Thro' the soft azure sky.
Fresh leaves were on the ivy-bough
That fring'd the ruins near;
Young voices were abroad–but thou
Their sweetness couldst not hear.
And mournful grew my heart for thee,
Thou in whose woman's mind
The ray that brightens earth and sea,
The light of song was shrined.
Mournful, that thou wert slumbering low,
With a dread curtain drawn
Between thee and the golden glow
Of this world's vernal dawn.
Parted from all the song and bloom
Thou wouldst have lov'd so well,
To thee the sunshine round thy tomb
Was but a broken spell.
The bird, the insect on the wing,
In their bright reckless play,
Might feel the flush and life of spring,–
And thou wert pass'd away!
But then, ev'n then, a nobler thought
O'er my vain sadness came;
Th' immortal spirit woke, and wrought
Within my thrilling frame.
Surely on lovelier things, I said,
Thou must have look'd ere now,
Than all that round our pathway shed
Odours and hues below.
The shadows of the tomb are here,
Yet beautiful is earth!
What see'st thou then where no dim fear,
No haunting dream hath birth?
Here a vain love to passing flowers
Thou gav'st–but where thou art,
The sway is not with changeful hours,
There love and death must part.
Thou hast left sorrow in thy song,
A voice not loud, but deep!
The glorious bowers of earth among,
How often didst thou weep!
Where couldst thou fix on mortal ground
Thy tender thoughts and high?–
Now peace the woman's heart hath found,
And joy the poet's eye.
poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans
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To Thyrza: And Thou Art Dead, As Young And Fair
And thou art dead, as young and fair
As aught of mortal birth;
And form so soft, and charms so rare,
Too soon return'd to Earth!
Though Earth received them in her bed
And o'er the spot the crowd may tread
In carelessness or mirth,
There is an eye which could not brook
A moment on that grave to look.
I will not ask where thou liest low,
Nor gaze upon the spot;
There flowers or weeds at will may grow,
So I behold them not:
It is enough for me to prove
That what I loved, and long must love,
Like common earth can rot;
To me there needs no stone to tell,
'Tis Nothing that I loved so well.
Yet did I love thee to the last
As fervently as thou,
Who didst not change through all the past,
And cans't not alter now.
The love where Death has set his seal,
Nor age can chill, nor rival steal,
Nor falsehood disavow:
And, what were worse, thou canst not see
Or wrong, or change, or fault in me.
The better days of life were ours;
The worst can be but mine:
The sun that cheers, the storm that lowers,
Shall never more be thine.
The silence of that dreamless sleep
I envy now too much to weep;
Nor need I to repine,
That all those charms have pass'd away
I might have watch'd through long decay.
The flower in ripen'd bloom unmatch'd
Must fall the earliest prey;
Though by no hand untimely snatch'd,
The leaves must drop away:
And yet it were a greater grief
To watch it withering, leaf by leaf,
Than see it pluck'd to-day;
Since earthly eye but ill can bear
To trace the change to foul from fair.
I know not if I could have borne
To see thy beauties fade;
The night that followed such a morn
Had worn a deeper shade:
Thy day without a cloud hath passed
And thou wert lovely to the last;
Extinguish'd, not decay'd;
As stars that shoot along the sky
Shine brightest as they fall from high.
As once I wept, if I could weep,
My tears might well be shed,
To think I was not near to keep
One vigil o'er thy bed;
To gaze, how fondly! on thy face,
To fold thee in a faint embrace,
Uphold thy drooping head;
And show that love, however vain,
Nor thou nor I can feel again.
Yet how much less it were to gain,
Though thou hast left me free,
The loveliest things that still remain,
Than thus remember thee!
The all of thine that cannot die
Through dark and dread Eternity
Returns again to me,
And more thy buried love endears
Than aught except its living years.
A Baby's Death
A little soul scarce fledged for earth
Takes wing with heaven again for goal
Even while we hailed as fresh from birth
A little soul.
Our thoughts ring sad as bells that toll,
Not knowing beyond this blind world's girth
What things are writ in heaven's full scroll.
Our fruitfulness is there but dearth,
And all things held in time's control
Seem there, perchance, ill dreams, not worth
A little soul.
The little feet that never trod
Earth, never strayed in field or street,
What hand leads upward back to God
The little feet?
A rose in June's most honied heat,
When life makes keen the kindling sod,
Was not so soft and warm and sweet.
Their pilgrimage's period
A few swift moons have seen complete
Since mother's hands first clasped and shod
The little feet.
The little hands that never sought
Earth's prizes, worthless all as sands,
What gift has death, God's servant, brought
The little hands?
We ask: but love's self silent stands,
Love, that lends eyes and wings to thought
To search where death's dim heaven expands.
Ere this, perchance, though love know nought,
Flowers fill them, grown in lovelier lands,
Where hands of guiding angels caught
The little hands.
The little eyes that never knew
Light other than of dawning skies,
What new life now lights up anew
The little eyes?
Who knows but on their sleep may rise
Such light as never heaven let through
To lighten earth from Paradise?
No storm, we know, may change the blue
Soft heaven that haply death descries
No tears, like these in ours, bedew
The little eyes.
Was life so strange, so sad the sky,
So strait the wide world's range,
He would not stay to wonder why
Was life so strange?
Was earth's fair house a joyless grange
Beside that house on high
Whence Time that bore him failed to estrange?
That here at once his soul put by
All gifts of time and change,
And left us heavier hearts to sigh
'Was life so strange?'
Angel by name love called him, seeing so fair
The sweet small frame;
Meet to be called, if ever man's child were,
Angel by name.
Rose-bright and warm from heaven's own heart he came,
And might not bear
The cloud that covers earth's wan face with shame.
His little light of life was all too rare
And soft a flame:
Heaven yearned for him till angels hailed him there
Angel by name.
The song that smiled upon his birthday here
Weeps on the grave that holds him undefiled
Whose loss makes bitterer than a soundless tear
The song that smiled.
His name crowned once the mightiest ever styled
Sovereign of arts, and angel: fate and fear
Knew then their master, and were reconciled.
But we saw born beneath some tenderer sphere
Michael, an angel and a little child,
Whose loss bows down to weep upon his bier
The song that smiled.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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In April
I
AS lightly as a filmy veil
That folds the April larch,
My tenderest joy drops like a dream
Down from the buds of March,
My dim sweet joy that fills the wood
From delicate arch to arch.
My frailest joy that draws my heart
Out from its prison bar,
Whose step is swifter and more sweet
Than all Spring's blossoms are,
My trembling joy that holds my soul
Up like a ransomed star.
What shall I do to keep my joy,
That has become so dear,
Who dare not stir to hold it close,
My joy that is so near,
That wraps me with a filmy veil
So woven in with fear.
II
IF I should lose these petals you let fall
To my stretched hand,
If through the leaf-buds I should miss them all,
And empty stand,
The April flowers their petals would recall
Throughout the land.
If I should lose these shining clouds of white
Flying like doves,
To some embowered region shut from sight
Their spirit moves,
The glory would drop out of all the light
That April loves.
If I should miss to toss my reckless heart
Up to the sky,
Through every spray your careless fingers part
As you go by,
In every budding place where blossoms start,
April would die.
III
AH, do not let your spirit fail me now,
Now while the winds are sweet,
Now while the sun slips through the willow-bough
In patterns to my feet,
While shadows like mad rivers run,
Over the grass to fly the sun,
Ah, do not fail me now.
Now while the burnished poplars swing and play,
Like sails that would be free
To reach the untravelled azure far away,
And take the aerial sea,
Yet are too joyous in a birth
That binds them to the radiant earth,
Ah, fail me not to-day.
Ah, do not fail me while the unbroken dews
Hang like a captive shower,
In vagrant places that my wanderings choose
To cherish into flower;
Ah, do not let your spirit fail
My spirit, while the hours prevail
That only love can use.
IV
MUST I walk lonely underneath the seas
Of April's blossom, watch the shining drift
Of clustered bloom through all the apple-trees,
With never an azure rift,
Look upward through the glistening cherry-bough,
For ever lonely now.
Must I go empty through sweet lanes of thorn,
And see their wands flowered in fleecy white,
Stretching through all the land now Spring is born,
To fill the fields with light,
Must I stand empty for sweet April's sake
To watch the leaf-buds break.
Now when the primrose beds are palest gold,
And cuckoo-flowers stand sentinel in the grass,
Must I see all the joys of April told,
And through them joyless pass,
In all the love that drops from April's sky,
Must I go loveless by.
V
I CALL you through the sapphire deep
That hides the folded shrouds of sleep,
Along the amethystine way
That stretches in the wake of day.
Through all the pearly lakes that soon
Flow through the skies below the moon,
Through all the heaven's wide sea of light
I call you from the caves of night.
Through all earth's bitter prayers that press
Up from its floods of loneliness,
To find some pity for their pain,
I call you to my heart again.
VI
OH, do you doubt the ways,
The paths of breaking fire,
My chariot wheels shall take these April days
With swift desire,
The road whose delicate shadows are ablaze
With quivering flames that neither drop nor tire.
Oh, do you doubt they strayed
Down from the heavenly hill,
My captive steeds whose passionate feet are made
To be so still,
Whose breath stirs tenderly as wind-flowers laid
In tremulous dreams the April moonlights fill.
Fear not my steeds shall fail
To keep their high estate,
Their foreheads are new-crowned with stars that pale
The moons of fate;
Ah, do not doubt my chariot shall avail
To bring you surely to the Eternal Gate.
poem by Dollie Radford
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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At Dawn and Dusk
At Dawn and Dusk
Love-Laurel
IN MEMORY OF HENRY KENDALL
AH! that God once would touch my lips with song
To pierce, as prayer doth heaven, earth’s breast of iron,
So that with sweet mouth I might sing to thee,
O sweet dead singer buried by the sea,
A song, to woo thee, as a wooing siren,
Out of that silent sleep which seals too long
Thy mouth of melody.
For, if live lips might speak awhile to dead,
Or any speech could reach the sad world under
This world of ours, song surely should awake
Thee who didst dwell in shadow for song’s sake!
Alas! thou canst not hear the voice of thunder,
Nor low dirge over thy low-lying head
The winds of morning make.
Down through the clay there comes no sound of these;
Down in the grave there is no sign of Summer,
Nor any knowledge of the soft-eyed Spring;
But Death sits there, with outspread ebon wing,
Closing with dust the mouth of each new-comer
To that mute land, where never sound of seas
Is heard, and no birds sing.
Now thou hast found the end of all thy days
Hast thou found any heart a vigil keeping
For thee among the dead—some heart that heard
Thy singing when thou wert a brown, sweet bird
Gray Æons gone, in some old forest sleeping
Beneath the seas long since? in Death’s dim ways
Has thy heart any word?
For surely those in whom the deathless spark
Of song is kindled, sang from the beginning
If life were always? But the old desires—
Do they exist when sad-eyed Hope expires?
How live the dead? what crowns have they for winning?
Have they, to warm them in the dreamless dark,
For sun earth’s central fires?
Are the dead dead indeed whom we call dead?
Has God no life but this of ours for giving?—
When that they took thee by each well-known place,
Stark in thy coffin with a cold white face,
What thought, O Brother, hadst thou of the living?
What of the sun that round thee glory shed?
What of the fair day’s grace?
Is thy new life made up of memories
Or dreams that lull the dead, bright visions bringing
Of Spring above! Are thy days short or long?
Thou who wert master of our singing throng
Mayhap in death thou hast not lost thy singing,
But chauntst unheard, beside the moaning sea,
A solitary song.
The chance spade turns up skulls. God help the dead
And thee whose singing days have all passed over—
Thee, whom the gold-haired Spring shall seek in vain
When at the glad year’s doors she stands again,
Remembering the song-garlands thou hast wove her
In years gone by: but all these years have fled
With all their joy and pain.
. . . . .
My soul laughed out to hear my heart speak so,
And sprang forth skyward, as an eagle, hoping
To look upon thy soul with living eyes,
Until it came to where our dim life dies,
And dead suns darkly for a grave are groping
Through cycles of immeasurable woe,
Stone-blind in the blind skies.
The stars walk shuddering on that awful verge
From which my soul, with swift and fearless motion,
Clove the black depths, and sought for God and thee;
But God dwells where nor stars nor suns there be—
No shore there is to His Eternal Ocean;
A thousand systems are a fringe of surge
On that great starless sea.
And thou wert not. So that, with weary plumes,
My soul through the great void its way came winging
To earth again. “What hope for him who sings
Is there?” it sighed. “Death ends all sweetest things.”
When lo! there came a swell of mighty singing,
Flooding all space, and swift athwart the glooms
A flash of sudden wings.
. . . . .
Dreamer of dreams, thy songs and dreams are done.
Down where thou sleepest in earth’s secret bosom
There is no sorrow and no joy for thee,
Who canst not see what stars at eve there be,
Nor evermore at morn the green dawn blossom
Into the golden king-flower of the sun
Across the golden sea.
But haply there shall come in days to be
One who shall hear his own heart beating faster,
Plucking a rose sprung from thy heart beneath,
And from his soul, as sword from out its sheath,
Song shall leap forth where now, O silent master,
On thy lone grave beside the sounding sea,
I lay this laurel-wreath.
poem by Victor James Daley
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The Farewell To The Dead
Come near!-ere yet the dust
Soil the bright paleness of the settled brow,
Look on your brother, and embrace him now,
In still and solemn trust!
Come near!-once more let kindred lips be press'd
On his cold cheek; then bear him to his rest!
Look yet on this young face!
What shall the beauty, from amongst us gone,
Leave of its image, ev'n where most it shone,
Gladdening its hearth and race?
Dim grows the semblance on man's heart impress'd-
-Come near, and bear the beautiful to rest!
Ye weep, and it is well!
For tears befit earth's partings!-Yesterday
Song was upon the lips of this pale clay,
And sunshine seem'd to dwell
Where'er he mov'd-the welcome and the bless'd!
-Now gaze! and bear the silent unto rest!
Look yet on him, whose eye
Meets yours no more, in sadness or in mirth!
Was he not fair amidst the sons of earth,
The beings born to die?
-But not where death has power may love be bless'd--
Come near! and bear ye the belov'd to rest!
How may the mother's heart
Dwell on her son, and dare to hope again?
The spring's rich promise hath been given in vain,
The lovely must depart!
Is he not gone, our brightest and our best?
Come near! and bear the early-call'd to rest!
Look on him! is he laid
To slumber from the harvest or the chase?
-Too still and sad the smile upon his face,
Yet that, ev'n that, must fade!
Death holds not long unchang'd his fairest guest,-
Come near! and bear the mortal to his rest!
His voice of mirth hath ceas'd
Amidst the vineyards! there is left no place
For him whose dust receives your vain embrace,
At the gay bridal feast!
Earth must take earth to moulder on her breast;
Come near! weep o'er him! bear him to his rest!
Yet mourn ye not as they
Whose spirit's light is quench'd!-for him the past
Is seal'd. He may not fall, he may not cast
His birthright's hope away!
All is not here of our belov'd and bless'd-
-Leave ye the sleeper with his God to rest!
poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans
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Ella with the Shining Hair
Through many a fragrant cedar grove
A darkened water moans;
And there pale Memory stood with Love
Amongst the moss-green stones.
The shimmering sunlight fell and kissed
The grasstree’s golden sheaves;
But we were troubled with a mist
Of music in the leaves.
One passed us, like a sudden gleam;
Her face was deadly fair.
“Oh, go,” we said, “you homeless Dream
Of Ella’s shining hair!
“We halt, like one with tired wings,
And we would fain forget
That there are tempting, maddening things
Too high to clutch at yet!
“Though seven Springs have filled the Wood
With pleasant hints and signs,
Since faltering feet went forth and stood
With Death amongst the pines.”
From point to point unwittingly
We wish to clamber still,
Till we have light enough to see
The summits of the hill.
“O do not cry, my sister dear,”
Said beaming Hope to Love,
“Though we have been so troubled here
The Land is calm above;
“Beyond the regions of the storm
We’ll find the golden gates,
Where, all the day, a radiant Form,
Our Ella, sits and waits.”
And Memory murmured: “She was one
Of God’s own darlings lent;
And Angels wept that she had gone,
And wondered why she went.
“I know they came, and talked to her,
Through every garden breeze,
About eternal Hills of Myrrh,
And quiet Jasper Seas.
“For her the Earth contained no charms;
All things were strange and wild;
And I believe a Seraph’s arms
Caught up the sainted Child.”
And Love looked round, and said: “Oh, you
That sit by Beulah’s streams,
Shake on this thirsty life the dew
Which brings immortal dreams!
“Ah! turn to us, and greet us oft
With looks of pitying balm,
And hints of heaven, in whispers soft,
To make our troubles calm.
“My Ella with the shining hair,
Behold, these many years,
We’ve held up wearied hands in prayer;
And groped about in tears.”
But Hope sings on: “Beyond the storm
We’ll find the golden gates
Where, all the day, a radiant Form,
Our Ella, sits and waits.”
poem by Henry Kendall
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The Song Of Gracia
SPRING
Across the street, across the grass,
Across my life I watch her pass.
No pure star on a dusky height
Hath eyes more bright,
No lily on her emerald bed
A statelier head,
No dewdrop on the beaded thorn
More radiantly doth glow apart!
O, she doth shine all these to scorn
Fair are they all—star, flower, and dew;
She is the green bud breaking thro’
The winter of my heart.
Two violets, seeking Paradise,
Have hid themselves within her eyes.
Her lips are roses. She doth wear
A sunbeam woven in her hair.
And of the foam-flake of the sea
Her cheek and neck and bosom be.
And like a reed the low wind sways
Her slender figure glides along,
Serenely tall and fairy sweet
In this, the springtide of her days.
And O, to make my life a song
And lay it at her feet!
SUMMER
And now the world recedes. Time, Space, are fleeting.
All things but thee, O Love, have ceased to be.
Here where thy heart against my heart is beating,
And like a charm thy white arms compass me;
And on thy blue-veined breasts my head is lying,
And all about my face is blown thy hair.
Here let Love speak his full heart in sweet sighing,
For speech were powerless now to voice his prayer.
Softly thy breath, like scent of violets blowing,
Steals o’er my cheek with slow, delicious pain.
Drink whilst thou canst the goblet crowned and flowing,
For hours like these will never come again.
AUTUMN
There is no bud of Spring about this forest,
And in our hearts, too, are the autumn leaves.
Where are the wings, O Love, on which thou soarest?
Meeter art thou to toil and bind the sheaves.
But there is mellower light upon our faces,
Thro’ all our veins the steadier currents flow
The statelier charms remain and friendly graces,
Tho’ dull and fitful wanes love’s lava-glow.
WINTER
The slow bell tolls across the square:
She doth not hear its rise and swell.
The frosts of age have silvered there
The clusters of her sun-gold hair:
She sleepeth well.
Strange city echoes here are sent
Of reckless strife for prize and place,
Of hearts with warring passions rent,
But Death’s ineffable content
Is on her face—
A touch, a joy, a something there
That for my sake hath never shone;
Too well I deem in my despair
Her fairest dream I may not share,
And she is gone
Beyond these days of care and ruth
To those fair stars which poets sing,
Where grows the tree of fadeless Truth
In gardens of Immortal Youth,
Eternal Spring.
poem by George Essex Evans
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Mortua est
A torch watching closely the sad and wet tomb,
A bell chiming harshly in this holy gloom,
A dream which is dipping its wing in the gall
That's how you have traveled beyond the world's wall.
You've passed when the sky is a field of delight,
With rivers of sweet milk and flowers of light,
When castles of black clouds are hiding the sun
And moon, the fair queen, visits them one by one.
You are like the silver that catches the eye,
With wings elevated you soar to the sky,
The clouds airy scaffold you climb, pale white soul,
Through showers of sun rays, the stars are your goal.
A ray takes you higher, a song leads your quest,
Your arms, white and tender, are crossed on your chest,
When loud is the spinning of spells everywhere,
There's silver in waters and gold in the air.
Your pure, candid soul through heaven is rolled;
I watch your remains... just dust white and cold,
Attired in clothes in coffin they sleep
I look at your smile, still lively and deep –
And quickly I'm asking my poor injured soul,
How come you died angel and death took his toll?
Are you not the youngster who offered delight?
You've gone to extinguish a star shining bright?
But up there in heaven are castles it seems
With vaults made of fine gold and walls of star beams,
With bridges of silver and streams, which flames bring,
With banks full of myrrh trees and flowers that sing;
They're waiting for your steps, O, dear holy queen,
With hair made of sun rays and eyes bright and clean,
Dressed up in a blue dress – a gold spotted gown,
And wearing on your head a thin laurel crown.
O, death is a chaos, an ocean of stars
While life is a puddle of dreams and of scars;
O, death is an epoch embroidered with suns
While life is a story so ugly that stuns –
Or maybe my thinking is stormy and void
The good thoughts I cherish are quickly destroyed...
When all suns are dying and stars fall on earth
I'll come to believe that the world isn't worth.
The high vault of heaven may crash and lose might,
The nothingness maybe will bring its long night,
I may see the dark sky, its worlds out of breath,
Which are easy prey to perpetual death.
And if it were so... my thinking runs rife,
Your warm, feeble breathing won't come back to life,
Your voice sweet and sounding will hush in dismay,
So, this lovely angel was made out of clay.
And yet, my dead dust and beautiful queen,
Against your dark coffin my hoarse harp I lean;
I don't cry for your death, but happy I say
That you left the chaos and went far away.
I stand here and wonder, which one better goes,
To be or to not be... but anyone knows
That what's non-existent cannot feel the pain,
There are many hardships, few pleasures remain.
To be? It's sad madness and empty and wry
Your eyes are deceiving, your ears always lie;
An age teaches something, which others disdain,
So better have nothing than hoping in vain.
I see dreams embodied, which chase other dreams,
But each one in graveyard will give up its needs,
My thinking is hazy and all thoughts are frail,
Shall I laugh like crazy? Or curse them or wail?
But then, for what reason? There's madness throughout
How come, pretty angel, you had to die out?
Has this world a meaning? O, dear smiling face
You lived just for dying? An awful disgrace;
If this has a meaning, it's just a facade,
Because on your forehead it's not written God.
poem by Mihai Eminescu, translated by Octavian Cocoş
Submitted by Octavian Cocoş
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Written At Sea
What is my quarrel with thee, beautiful sea,
That thus I cannot love thy waves or thee,
Or hear thy voice but it tormenteth me?
Why do I hate thee, who art beautiful
Beyond all beauty, when the nights are cool,
And the stars fade because the moon is full?
Why do I hate thee? Thou art new and young,
And life is thine for loving, and thy tongue
Hath tones that I have known and loved and sung.
Thou hast a smile which would my smiling greet;
Thy brave heart beateth as my own doth beat,
And thou hast tears which should be true and sweet.
Thou art a creature, strong and fair and brave,
Such as I might have given the world to have
And love and cherish;--and thou art my slave.
I have my home in thee. Thy arms enfold
Me all night long, and I am rocked and rolled,
And thou art never weary of thy hold.
Thou art a woman in thy constancy,
And worthy better love than mine could be;
And yet, behold, I cannot suffer thee.
If thou wert dumb; if thou wert like the sky,
Which has not learned to speak our misery
In any voice less rude than the wind's cry;
If thou wert wholly young and didst not know
The secret of our ancient human woe,
Or if thou knewest it wholly as I know;
Or yet if thou wert old with all these years;
If thou wert dull to hopes and loves and fears;
If thou wert blind and couldst not see our tears;
If thou wert bounded by some rocky shore,
And hadst not given thyself thus wholly o'er
To our poor single selves with all thy store;
If thou wert not in thy immensity,
A single circle circling with the sky,
Where we must still be centres changelessly;
If thou wert other than thou art; alas,
If thou wert not of water, but a mass
Of formless earth, a waveless plain of grass;
If thou wert shapeless as the mountains are;
If thou wert clad in some discordant wear;
If thou wert not so blue and trim and fair;
If thou wert decked with towns and villages;
If there was heard, across the silent seas,
The music of church bells upon the breeze;
If thou wert this; or if thou wert not near,
But I could only sit apart and hear
The beating of thy waves, and find it drear,
But wild and quite unknown, and far from me;
Sea, if thou couldst no longer be the sea,
Then I could love thee as thou lovest me.
If thou wouldst have me love thee, beautiful sea,
Build up a wall of dark 'twixt thee and me;
Let me not see thee; call the night to thee.
League with the winds; rise up, and send them driven
To roll mad clouds about thy back at even.
Make thee a desolation of the heaven.
Thou shouldst compel me, with thy angry voice,
To choose 'twixt death and thee; and, at the choice,
If my cheek grew not pale, thou might'st rejoice,
And I might love thee, oh thou monstrous sea;
But now I cannot love thy waves or thee,
Or bear thy beauty in my misery.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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Love-Laurel
Ah! that God once would touch my lips with song
To pierce, as prayer doth heaven, earth’s breast of iron,
So that with sweet mouth I might sing to thee,
O sweet dead singer buried by the sea,
A song, to woo thee, as a wooing siren,
Out of that silent sleep which seals too long
Thy mouth of melody.
For, if live lips might speak awhile to dead,
Or any speech could reach the sad world under
This world of ours, song surely should awake
Thee who didst dwell in shadow for song’s sake!
Alas! thou canst not hear the voice of thunder,
Nor low dirge over thy low-lying head
The winds of morning make.
Down through the clay there comes no sound of these;
Down in the grave there is no sign of Summer,
Nor any knowledge of the soft-eyed Spring;
But Death sits there, with outspread ebon wing,
Closing with dust the mouth of each new-comer
To that mute land, where never sound of seas
Is heard, and no birds sing.
Now thou hast found the end of all thy days
Hast thou found any heart a vigil keeping
For thee among the dead—some heart that heard
Thy singing when thou wert a brown, sweet bird
Gray Æons gone, in some old forest sleeping
Beneath the seas long since? in Death’s dim ways
Has thy heart any word?
For surely those in whom the deathless spark
Of song is kindled, sang from the beginning
If life were always? But the old desires—
Do they exist when sad-eyed Hope expires?
How live the dead? what crowns have they for winning?
Have they, to warm them in the dreamless dark,
For sun earth’s central fires?
Are the dead dead indeed whom we call dead?
Has God no life but this of ours for giving?—
When that they took thee by each well-known place,
Stark in thy coffin with a cold white face,
What thought, O Brother, hadst thou of the living?
What of the sun that round thee glory shed?
What of the fair day’s grace?
Is thy new life made up of memories
Or dreams that lull the dead, bright visions bringing
Of Spring above! Are thy days short or long?
Thou who wert master of our singing throng
Mayhap in death thou hast not lost thy singing,
But chauntst unheard, beside the moaning sea,
A solitary song.
The chance spade turns up skulls. God help the dead
And thee whose singing days have all passed over—
Thee, whom the gold-haired Spring shall seek in vain
When at the glad year’s doors she stands again,
Remembering the song-garlands thou hast wove her
In years gone by: but all these years have fled
With all their joy and pain.
My soul laughed out to hear my heart speak so,
And sprang forth skyward, as an eagle, hoping
To look upon thy soul with living eyes,
Until it came to where our dim life dies,
And dead suns darkly for a grave are groping
Through cycles of immeasurable woe,
Stone-blind in the blind skies.
The stars walk shuddering on that awful verge
From which my soul, with swift and fearless motion,
Clove the black depths, and sought for God and thee;
But God dwells where nor stars nor suns there be—
No shore there is to His Eternal Ocean;
A thousand systems are a fringe of surge
On that great starless sea.
And thou wert not. So that, with weary plumes,
My soul through the great void its way came winging
To earth again. “What hope for him who sings
Is there?” it sighed. “Death ends all sweetest things.”
When lo! there came a swell of mighty singing,
Flooding all space, and swift athwart the glooms
A flash of sudden wings.
Dreamer of dreams, thy songs and dreams are done.
Down where thou sleepest in earth’s secret bosom
There is no sorrow and no joy for thee,
Who canst not see what stars at eve there be,
Nor evermore at morn the green dawn blossom
Into the golden king-flower of the sun
Across the golden sea.
But haply there shall come in days to be
One who shall hear his own heart beating faster,
Plucking a rose sprung from thy heart beneath,
And from his soul, as sword from out its sheath,
Song shall leap forth where now, O silent master,
On thy lone grave beside the sounding sea,
I lay this laurel-wreath.
poem by Victor James Daley
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Farewell To Spring
I saw this morning, with a sudden smart,
Spring preparing to depart.
I know her well and so I told her all my heart.
``Why did you, Spring, your coming so delay,
If, now here, you cannot stay?
You win my love and then unloving pass away.
``We waited, waited, O so long, so long,
Just to hear the ousel's song.
To-morrow 'twill be hushed, to-day that is so strong.
``Day after day, and dawn again on dawn,
Winter's shroud was on the lawn,
So still, so smooth, we thought 'twould never be withdrawn.
`Now that at last your welcome mimic snow
Doth upon the hawthorn blow,
It bides not on the bough, but melts before we know.
``Scarce hath the primrose o'er the sordid mould
Lavished treasure, than behold!
Our wealth of simple joy is robbed of all its gold.
``When to the woods we hie with feet of mirth,
Now the hyacinths have birth,
Swiftly the blue of Heaven fades from the face of earth.
``You with dry gusts and unrelenting wrack
Kept the liquid cuckoo back.
Now, even ere he goes, he turneth hoarse, alack!
``When, in the long warm nights of June,
Nightingales have got their tune,
Their sweet woe dies, and we are beggared of the boon.
``First drops the bloom, then darkens the green leaf;
Everything in life is brief,
Save autumn's deepening gloom and winter's changeless grief.''
Then with a smile thus answered me the Spring:
``To my voice and flight you cling,
For I, before I perch, again am on the wing.
``With you were I the whole year round to stay,
'Twould be you that went away,
Your love made fickle by monotony of May.
``Love cannot live save upon love beyond.
Leaving you, I keep you fond,
Not letting you despair, but making you despond.
`Farewell, and love me still, my lover dear,
Love me till another year,
And you, if you be true, again will find me here.''
Then darker, deeper, waxed the woods; the ground
Flowerless turned and then embrowned;
And less was of sweet scent, and less was of sweet sound.
Mute was the mavis, moulted was the thorn,
Meads were cut, and lambs were shorn,
And I by Spring was left forsaken and forlorn.
Forlorn, forsaken, shall I be until
Primrose peep and throstle shrill,
And in the orchard gleam the outriding daffodil.
Then shall I know that Spring among the trees
Hiding is, and that the breeze
Anew will fling abroad odours and melodies.
poem by Alfred Austin
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Garden Of Adonis
(The Garden of Life in Spenser's 'Faerie Queene.')
IT is no fabled garden in the skies,
But bloometh here— this is no world of death;
And nothing that once liveth, ever dies,
And naught that breathes can ever cease to breathe,
And naught that bloometh ever withereth.
The gods can ne'er take back their gifts from men,
They gave us life,— they cannot take again.
Who hath known Death, and who hath seen his face?
On what high mountain have ye met with him?
Within what lowest valley is there trace
Of his feared footsteps? in what forest dim,
In what great city, in what lonely ways?
Nay, there is no such god, but one called Change,
And all he does is beautiful and strange.
It is but Change that lays our darlings low,
And, though we doubt and fear, forsakes them not.
Where red lips smiled do sweetest roses blow,
And star-flowers bloom above the lovely spot
Where gleamed the eyes, with blue forget-me-not.
And through the grasses runs the same wave there
We knew of old within the golden hair.
Dig in the earth— ye shall not surely find
Death or death's semblance; only roots of flowers,
And all fair, goodly things there live enshrined,
With the foundations of the glad green bowers,
Through which the sunshine comes in golden showers.
And all the blossoms that this earth enwreathe,
Are for assurance that there is no death.
O mother, raise thy tear-bathed lids again:
Thy child died not, he only liveth more—
His soul is in the sunshine and the rain,
His life is in the waters and the shore,
He is around thee all the wide world o'er;
The daisy thou hast plucked smiles back at thee,
Because it doth again its mother see.
What noble deed that ever lived, is dead,
Or yet hath lost its power to inspire
Courage in hearts that sicken, and to shed
New faith and hope when hands and footsteps tire,
And make sad, downcast eyes look upward higher?
Yea, all men see and know it, whence it came;
It purifies them like a burning flame.
And dreams? What dreams were ever lost and gone,
But wandering in strange lands we found again?
When least we think of these dear birdlings flown,
We find that bright and fresh they still remain.
The garden of all life is round us then;
And he is blind who doth not know and see,
And praise the gods for immortality.
poem by Emma Lazarus
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Garden of Prosperine
Here, where the world is quiet,
Here, where all trouble seems
Dead winds' and spent waves' riot
In doubtful dreams of dreams;
I watch the green field growing
For reaping folk and sowing,
For harvest-time and mowing,
A sleepy world of streams.
I am tired of tears and laughter,
And men that laugh and weep;
Of what may come hereafter
For men that sow to reap:
I am weary of days and hours,
Blown buds of barren flowers,
Desires and dreams and powers
And everything but sleep.
Here life has death for neighbour,
And far from eye or ear
Wan waves and wet winds labour,
Weak ships and spirits steer;
They drive adrift, and whither
They wot not who make thither;
But no such winds blow hither,
And no such things grow here.
No growth of moor or coppice,
No heather-flower or vine,
But bloomless buds of poppies,
Green grapes of Proserpine,
Pale beds of blowing rushes,
Where no leaf blooms or blushes
Save this whereout she crushes
For dead men deadly wine.
Pale, without name or number,
In fruitless fields of corn,
They bow themselves and slumber
All night till light is born;
And like a soul belated,
In hell and heaven unmated,
By cloud and mist abated
Comes out of darkness morn.
Though one were strong as seven,
He too with death shall dwell,
Nor wake with wings in heaven,
Nor weep for pains in hell;
Though one were fair as roses,
His beauty clouds and closes;
And well though love reposes,
In the end it is not well.
Pale, beyond porch and portal,
Crowned with calm leaves, she stands
Who gathers all things mortal
With cold immortal hands;
Her languid lips are sweeter
Than love's who fears to greet her
To men that mix and meet her
From many times and lands.
She waits for each and other,
She waits for all men born;
Forgets the earth her mother,
The life of fruits and corn;
And spring and seed and swallow
Take wing for her and follow
Where summer song rings hollow
And flowers are put to scorn.
There go the loves that wither,
The old loves with wearier wings;
And all dead years draw thither,
And all disastrous things;
Dead dreams of days forsaken,
Blind buds that snows have shaken,
Wild leaves that winds have taken,
Red strays of ruined springs.
We are not sure of sorrow,
And joy was never sure;
Today will die tomorrow;
Time stoops to no man's lure;
And love, grown faint and fretful,
With lips but half regretful
Sighs, and with eyes forgetful
Weeps that no loves endure.
From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be That no life lives for ever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.
Then star nor sun shall waken,
Nor any change of light:
Nor sound of waters shaken,
Nor any sound or sight:
Nor wintry leaves nor vernal,
Nor days nor things diurnal;
Only the sleep eternal
In an eternal night.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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