Thomas Middleton: IX
A WILD MOON riding high from cloud to cloud,
That sees and sees not, glimmering far beneath,
Hell’s children revel along the shuddering heath
With dirge-like mirth and raiment like a shroud:
A worse fair face than witchcraft’s, passion-proud,
With brows blood-flecked behind their bridal wreath
And lips that bade the assassin’s sword find sheath
Deep in the heart whereto love’s heart was vowed:
A game of close contentious crafts and creeds
Played till white England bring black Spain to shame:
A son’s bright sword and brighter soul, whose deeds
High conscience lights for mother’s love and fame:
Pure gipsy flowers, and poisonous courtly weeds:
Such tokens and such trophies crown thy name.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
The Word Quick And Powerful
The word of Christ, our Lord,
With whom we have to do;
Is sharper than a two-edged sword,
To pierce the sinner through.
Swift as the lightnings blaze
When aweful thunders roll,
It fills the conscience with amaze,
And penetrates the soul.
No heart can he concealed
From his all-piercing eyes;
Each thought and purpose stands revealed,
Naked, without disguise.
He sees his peoples' fears,
He notes their mournful cry;
He counts their sighs and falling tears,
And helps them from on high.
Though feeble is their good,
It has his kind regard;
Yea, all they would do, if they could,
Shall find a sure reward.
He sees the wicked too,
And will repay them soon,
For all the evil deeds they do,
And all they would have done.
Since all our secret ways
Are marked and known by thee;
Afford us, Lord, thy light of grace
That we ourselves may see.
poem by John Newton
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Band of Gideon
The band of Gideon roam the sky,
The howling wind is their war-cry,
The thunder roll is their trump's peal,
And the lightning flash their vengeful steel.
Each black cloud
Is a fiery steed.
And they cry aloud
With each strond deed,
"The sword of the lord and Gideon."
And men below rear temples high
And mock their God with reasons why,
And live in arrogance, sin and shame,
And rape their souls for the world's good name.
Each black cloud
Is a fiery steed.
And they cry aloud
With each strond deed,
"The sword of the lord and Gideon."
The band of Gideon roam the sky
And view the earth with baleful eye,
In holy wrath they scourge the land
With earth-quake, storm and burning brand.
Each black cloud
Is a fiery steed.
And they cry aloud
With each strond deed,
"The sword of the lord and Gideon."
The lightnings flash and the thunders roll,
And "Lord have mercy on my soul,"
Cry men as they fall on the stricken sod,
In agony searching for their God.
Each black cloud
Is a fiery steed.
And they cry aloud
With each strond deed,
"The sword of the lord and Gideon."
And men repent and then forget
That heavenly wrath they ever met,
The band of Gideon yet will come
And strike their tongues of blasphemy dumb.
Each black cloud
Is a fiery steed.
And they cry aloud
With each strond deed,
"The sword of the lord and Gideon."
poem by Joseph Seamon Cotter
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Little Black Boy
My mother bore me in the southern wild,
And I am black, but O! my soul is white
White as an angel is the English child:
But I am black as if bereav'd of light.
My mother taught me underneath a tree
And sitting down before the heat of day
She took me on her lap and kissed me,
And pointing to the east began to say:
Look on the rising sun: there God does live
And gives his light, and gives his heat away
And flowers and trees and beasts and men receive
Comfort in morning joy in the noonday.
And we are put on earth a little space
That we may learn to bear the beams of love.
And these black bodies and this sunburnt face
Is but a cloud, and like a shady grove,
For when our souls have learn'd the heat to bear
The cloud will vanish we shall hear his voice,
Saying: come out from the grove my love & care
And round my golden tent like lambs rejoice.
Thus did my mother say and kissed me.
And thus I say to little English boy.
When I from black and he from white cloud free,
And round the tent of God like lambs we joy:
I'll shade him from the heat till he can bear
To lean in joy upon our fathers knee.
And then I’ll stand and stroke his silver hair,
And be like him and he will then love me.
poem by William Blake from Songs of Innocence (1789)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
Vote! | Copy!
Niobe
How like the sky she bends above her child,
One with the great horizon of her pain!
No sob from our low seas where woe runs wild,
No weeping cloud, no momentary rain,
Can mar the heaven-high visage of her grief,
That frozen anguish, proud, majestic, dumb.
She stoops in pity above the labouring earth,
Knowing how fond, how brief
Is all its hope, past, present, and to come,
She stoops in pity, and yearns to assuage its dearth.
Through that fair face the whole dark universe
Speaks, as a thorn-tree speaks thro’ one white flower;
And all those wrenched Promethean souls that curse
The gods, but cannot die before their hour,
Find utterance in her beauty. That fair head
Bows over all earth’s graves. It was her cry
Men heard in Rama when the twisted ways
With children’s blood ran red.
Her silence towers to Silences on high;
And, in her face, the whole earth’s anguish prays.
It is the pity, the pity of human love
That strains her face, upturned to meet the doom,
And her deep bosom, like a snow-white dove
Frozen upon its nest, ne’er to resume
Its happy breathing o’er the golden brace
That she must shield till death. Death, death alone
Can break the anguished horror of that spell.
The sorrow on her face
Is sealed: the living flesh is turned to stone;
She knows all, all, that Life and Time can tell.
Ah, yet, her woman’s love, so vast, so tender,
Her woman’s body, hurt by every dart,
Braving the thunder, still, still hide the slender
Soft frightened child beneath her mighty heart.
She is all one mute immortal cry, one brief
Infinite pang of such victorious pain
That she transcends the heavens and bows them down!
The majesty of grief
Is hers, and her dominion must remain
Eternal. Grief alone can wear that crown.
poem by Alfred Noyes
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Shape of Death
What does love look like? We know
the shape of death. Death is a cloud
immense and awesome. At first a lid
is lifted from the eye of light:
there is a clap of sound, a white blossom
belches from the jaw of fright,
a pillared cloud churns from white to gray
like a monstrous brain that bursts and burns,
then turns sickly black, spilling away,
filling the whole sky with ashes of dread;
thickly it wraps, between the clean sea
and the moon, the earth's green head.
Trapped in its cocoon, its choking breath
we know the shape of death:
Death is a cloud.
What does love look like?
Is it a particle, a star -
invisible entirely, beyond the microscope and Palomar?
A dimension unimagined, past the length of hope?
Is it a climate far and fair that we shall never dare
discover? What is its color, and its alchemy?
Is it a jewel in the earth-can it be dug?
Or dredged from the sea? Can it be bought?
Can it be sown and harvested?
Is it a shy beast to be caught?
Death is a cloud,
immense, a clap of sound.
Love is little and not loud.
It nests within each cell, and it
cannot be split.
It is a ray, a seed, a note, a word,
a secret motion of our air and blood.
It is not alien, it is near-
our very skin-
a sheath to keep us pure of fear.
poem by May Swenson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
To England
I
THERE was a time when all thy sons were proud
To speak thy name,
England, when Europe echoed back aloud
Thy fearless fame:
When Spain reeled shattered helpless from thy guns
And splendid ire,
When from Canadian snows to Indian suns
Pitt's soul was fire.
O that in days like these were, fair and free
From shame and scorn,
Fate had allowed, benignly, pityingly
That I was born!
O that, if struck, then struck with glorious wounds,
I bore apart
(Not torn with fangs of leprous coward hounds)
My bleeding heart!
II
We hate You — not because of cruel deeds
Staining a glorious effort. They who live
Learn in this earth to give and to forgive,
Where heart and soul are noble and fate's needs
Imperious: No, nor yet that cruel seeds
Of power and wrong you've sown alternative,
We hate You, we your sons who yet believe
That truth and justice are not empty creeds!
No, but because of greed and garbled pay,
Wages of sin and death: because you smother
Your conscience, making cursèd all the day.
Bible in one hand, bludgeon in the other,
Cain-like you come upon and slay your brother,
And, kneeling down, thank God for it, and pray!
III
I whom you fed with shame and starved with woe,
I wheel above You,
Your fatal vulture, for I hate You so,
I almost love You!
I smell your ruin out. I light and croak
My sombre lore,
As swaggering You go by, O 'heart of oak'
Rotten to the core!
Look westward! Ireland's vengeful eyes are cast
On freedom won.
Look eastward! India stirs from sleep at last.
You are undone!
Look southward, where Australia hears your voice,
And turns away!
O brutal Hypocrite, she makes her choice
With the rising day!
Foul Esau, you who sold your high birthright
For gilded mud,
Who did the wrong and, priestlike, called it right,
And swindled God! —
The hour is gone of insult, pain and patience;
The hour is come
When they arise, the faithful mightier Nations,
To drag you down!
IV
England, the land I loved
With passionate pride,
For hate of whom I live
Who for love had died,
Can I, while shines the sun,
That hour regain
When I again may come to you
And love again?
No, not while that Flag
Of greed and lust
Flaunts in the air, untaught
To drag the dust! —
Never, till expiant,
I see You kneel,
And, brandished, gleams aloft
The foeman's steel!
Ah, then to speed, and laugh,
As my heart caught the knife
'Mother, I love you! Here,
Here is my life!'
poem by Francis William Lauderdale Adams
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Lewti, Or The Circassian Love-Chaunt
At midnight by the stream I roved,
To forget the form I loved.
Image of Lewti! from my mind
Depart; for Lewti is not kind.
The Moon was high, the moonlight gleam
And the shadow of a star
Heaved upon Tamaha's stream;
But the rock shone brighter far,
The rock half sheltered from my view
By pendent boughs of tressy yew.--
So shines my Lewti's forehead fair,
Gleaming through her sable hair,
Image of Lewti! from my mind
Depart; for Lewti is not kind.
I saw a cloud of palest hue,
Onward to the moon it passed;
Still brighter and more bright it grew,
With floating colours not a few,
Till it reach'd the moon at last:
Then the cloud was wholly bright,
With a rich and amber light!
And so with many a hope I seek
And with such joy I find my Lewti;
And even so my pale wan cheek
Drinks in as deep a flush of beauty!
Nay, treacherous image! leave my mind,
If Lewti never will be kind.
The little cloud-it floats away,
Away it goes; away so soon?
Alas! it has no power to stay:
Its hues are dim, its hues are grey--
Away it passes from the moon!
How mournfully it seems to fly,
Ever fading more and more,
To joyless regions of the sky--
And now 'tis whiter than before!
As white as my poor cheek will be,
When, Lewti! on my couch I lie,
A dying man for love of thee.
Nay, treacherous image! leave my mind--
And yet, thou didst not look unkind.
I saw a vapour in the sky,
Thin, and white, and very high;
I ne'er beheld so thin a cloud:
Perhaps the breezes that can fly
Now below and now above,
Have snatched aloft the lawny shroud
Of Lady fair--that died for love.
For maids, as well as youths, have perished
From fruitless love too fondly cherished.
Nay, treacherous image! leave my mind--
For Lewti never will be kind.
Hush! my heedless feet from under
Slip the crumbling banks for ever:
Like echoes to a distant thunder,
They plunge into the gentle river.
The river-swans have heard my tread,
And startle from their reedy bed.
O beauteous birds! methinks ye measure
Your movements to some heavenly tune!
O beauteous birds! 'tis such a pleasure
To see you move beneath the moon,
I would it were your true delight
To sleep by day and wake all night.
I know the place where Lewti lies
When silent night has closed her eyes:
It is a breezy jasmine-bower,
The nightingale sings o'er her head:
Voice of the Night! had I the power
That leafy labyrinth to thread,
And creep, like thee, with soundless tread,
I then might view her bosom white
Heaving lovely to my sight,
As these two swans together heave
On the gently-swelling wave.
Oh! that she saw me in a dream,
And dreamt that I had died for care;
All pale and wasted I would seem
Yet fair withal, as spirits are!
I'd die indeed, if I might see
Her bosom heave, and heave for me!
Soothe, gentle image! soothe my mind!
To-morrow Lewti may be kind.
poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Burial of the Dead
I thought to meet no more, so dreary seem'd
Death's interposing veil, and thou so pure,
Thy place in Paradise
Beyond where I could soar;
Friend of this worthless heart! but happier thoughts
Spring like unbidden violets from the sod,
Where patiently thou tak'st
Thy sweet and sure repose.
The shadows fall more soothing: the soft air
Is full of cheering whispers like thine own;
While Memory, by thy grave,
Lives o'er thy funeral day;
The deep knell dying down, the mourners' pause,
Waiting their Saviour's welcome at the gate.—
Sure with the words of Heaven
Thy spirit met us there,
And sought with us along th' accustom'd way
The hallow'd porch, and entering in, beheld
The pageant of sad joy
So dear to Faith and Hope.
O! hadst thou brought a strain from Paradise
To cheer us, happy soul, thou hadst not touch'd
The sacred springs of grief
More tenderly and true,
Than those deep-warbled anthems, high and low,
Low as the grave, high as th' Eternal Throne,
Guiding through light and gloom
Our mourning fancies wild,
Till gently, like soft golden clouds at eve
Around the western twilight, all subside
Into a placid faith,
That even with beaming eye
Counts thy sad honours, coffin, bier, and pall;
So many relics of a frail love lost,
So many tokens dear
Of endless love begun.
Listen! it is no dream: th' Apostles' trump
Gives earnest of th' Archangel's;—calmly now,
Our hearts yet beating high
To that victorious lay
(Most like a warrior's, to the martial dirge
Of a true comrade), in the grave we trust
Our treasure for awhile:
And if a tear steal down,
If human anguish o'er the shaded brow
Pass shuddering, when the handful of pure earth
Touches the coffin-lid;
If at our brother's name,
Once and again the thought, 'for ever gone,'
Come o'er us like a cloud; yet, gentle spright,
Thou turnest not away,
Thou know'st us calm at heart.
One look, and we have seen our last of thee,
Till we too sleep and our long sleep be o'er.
O cleanse us, ere we view
That countenance pure again,
Thou, who canst change the heart, and raise the dead!
As Thou art by to soothe our parting hour,
Be ready when we meet,
With Thy dear pardoning words.
poem by John Keble
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Les Noyades
WHATEVER a man of the sons of men
Shall say to his heart of the lords above,
They have shown man verily, once and again,
Marvellous mercies and infinite love.
In the wild fifth year of the change of things,
When France was glorious and blood-red, fair
With dust of battle and deaths of kings,
A queen of men, with helmeted hair,
Carrier came down to the Loire and slew,
Till all the ways and the waves waxed red:
Bound and drowned, slaying two by two,
Maidens and young men, naked and wed.
They brought on a day to his judgment-place
One rough with labour and red with fight,
And a lady noble by name and face,
Faultless, a maiden, wonderful, white.
She knew not, being for shame’s sake blind,
If his eyes were hot on her face hard by.
And the judge bade strip and ship them, and bind
Bosom to bosom, to drown and die.
The white girl winced and whitened; but he
Caught fire, waxed bright as a great bright flame
Seen with thunder far out on the sea,
Laughed hard as the glad blood went and came.
Twice his lips quailed with delight, then said,
“I have but a word to you all, one word;
Bear with me; surely I am but dead;”
And all they laughed and mocked him and heard.
“Judge, when they open the judgment-roll,
I will stand upright before God and pray:
‘Lord God, have mercy on one man’s soul,
For his mercy was great upon earth, I say.
“‘Lord, if I loved thee—Lord, if I served—
If these who darkened thy fair Son’s face
I fought with, sparing not one, nor swerved
A hand’s-breadth, Lord, in the perilous place—
“‘I pray thee say to this man, O Lord,
Sit thou for him at my feet on a throne.
I will face thy wrath, though it bite as a sword,
And my soul shall burn for his soul, and atone.
“‘For, Lord, thou knowest, O God most wise,
How gracious on earth were his deeds towards me.
Shall this be a small thing in thine eyes,
That is greater in mine than the whole great sea?’
“I have loved this woman my whole life long,
And even for love’s sake when have I said
‘I love you’? when have I done you wrong,
Living? but now I shall have you dead.
“Yea, now, do I bid you love me, love?
Love me or loathe, we are one not twain.
But God be praised in his heaven above
For this my pleasure and that my pain!
“For never a man, being mean like me,
Shall die like me till the whole world dies.
I shall drown with her, laughing for love; and she
Mix with me, touching me, lips and eyes.
“Shall she not know me and see me all through,
Me, on whose heart as a worm she trod?
You have given me, God requite it you,
What man yet never was given of God.”
O sweet one love, O my life’s delight,
Dear, though the days have divided us,
Lost beyond hope, taken far out of sight,
Not twice in the world shall the gods do thus.
Had it been so hard for my love? but I,
Though the gods gave all that a god can give,
I had chosen rather the gift to die,
Cease, and be glad above all that live.
For the Loire would have driven us down to the sea,
And the sea would have pitched us from shoal to shoal;
And I should have held you, and you held me,
As flesh holds flesh, and the soul the soul.
Could I change you, help you to love me, sweet,
Could I give you the love that would sweeten death,
We should yield, go down, locked hands and feet,
Die, drown together, and breath catch breath;
But you would have felt my soul in a kiss,
And known that once if I loved you well;
And I would have given my soul for this
To burn for ever in burning hell.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Death-Day Of Korner
A song for the death-day of the brave
A song of pride!
The youth went down to a hero's grave,
With the sword, his bride.
He went, with his noble heart unworn,
And pure, and high;
An eagle stooping from clouds of morn,
Only to die!
He went with the lyre, whose lofty tone
Beneath his hand
Had thrill'd to the name of his God alone,
And his Father-land.
And with all his glorious feelings yet
In their first glow,
Like a southern stream that no frost hath met
To chain its flow.
A song for the death-day of the brave
A song of pride!
For him that went to a hero's grave,
With the sword, his bride.
He hath left a voice in his trumpet-lays
To turn the flight,
And a guiding spirit for after days,
Like a watch-fire's light.
And a grief in his father's soul to rest,
Midst all high thought;
And a memory unto his mother's breast,
With healing fraught.
And a name and fame above the blight
Of earthly breath,
Beautiful beautiful and bright,
In life and death!
A song for the death-day of the brave
A song of pride!
For him that went to a hero's grave,
With the sword, his bride!
poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Eight Years Old
SUN, whom the faltering snow-cloud fears,
Rise, let the time of year be May,
Speak now the word that April hears,
Let March have all his royal way;
Bid all spring raise in winter’s ears
All tunes her children hear or play,
Because the crown of eight glad years
On one bright head is set to-day.
II.
What matters cloud or sun to-day
To him who wears the wreath of years
So many, and all like flowers at play
With wind and sunshine, while his ears
Hear only song on every way?
More sweet than spring triumphant hears
Ring through the revel-rout of May
Are these, the notes that winter fears.
III.
Strong-hearted winter knows and fears
The music made of love at play,
Or haply loves the tune he hears
From hearts fulfilled with flowering May,
Whose molten music thaws his ears
Late frozen, deaf but yesterday
To sounds of dying and dawning years,
Now quickened on his deathward way.
IV.
For deathward now lies winter’s way
Down the green vestibule of years
That each year brightens day by day
With flower and shower till hope scarce fears
And fear grows wholly hope of May.
But we—the music in our ears
Made of love’s pulses as they play
The heart alone that makes it hears.
V.
The heart it is that plays and hears
High salutation of to-day.
Tongue falters, hand shrinks back, song fears
Its own unworthiness to play
Fit music for those eight sweet years,
Or sing their blithe accomplished way.
No song quite worth a young child’s ears
Broke ever even from birds in May.
VI.
There beats not in the heart of May,
When summer hopes and springtide fears,
There falls not from the height of day,
When sunlight speaks and silence hears,
So sweet a psalm as children play
And sing, each hour of all their years,
Each moment of their lovely way,
And know not how it thrills our ears.
VII.
Ah child, what are we, that our ears
Should hear you singing on your way,
Should have this happiness? The years
Whose hurrying wings about us play
Are not like yours, whose flower-time fears
Nought worse than sunlit showers in May,
Being sinless as the spring, that hears
Her own heart praise her every day.
VIII.
Yet we too triumph in the day
That bare, to entrance our eyes and ears,
To lighten daylight, and to play
Such notes as darkness knows and fears,
The child whose face illumes our way,
Whose voice lifts up the heart that hears,
Whose hand is as the hand of May
To bring us flowers from eight full years.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Said The Skylark
'O soft, small cloud, the dim, sweet dawn adorning,
Swan-like a-sailing on its tender grey;
Why dost thou, dost thou float,
So high, the wing'd, wild note
Of silver lamentation from my dark and pulsing throat
May never reach thee,
Tho' every note beseech thee
To bend thy white wings downward thro' the smiling of the morning,
And by the black wires of my prison lightly stray?
'O dear, small cloud, when all blue morn is ringing
With sweet notes piped from other throats than mine;
If those glad singers please
The tall and nodding trees--
If to them dance the pennants of the swaying columbine,
If to their songs are set
The dance of daffodil and trembling violet--
Will they pursue thee
With tireless wings as free and bold as thine?
Will they woo thee
With love throbs in the music of their singing?
Ah, nay! fair Cloud, ah, nay!
Their hearts and wings will stay
With yellow bud of primrose and soft blush of the May;
Their songs will thrill and die,
Tranc'd in the perfume of the rose's breast.
While I must see thee fly
With white, broad, lonely pinions down the sky.
'O fair, small cloud, unheeding o'er me straying,
Jewell'd with topaz light of fading stars;
Thy downy edges red
As the great eagle of the Dawn sails high
And sets his fire-bright head
And wind-blown pinions towards thy snowy breast;
And thou canst blush while I
Must pierce myself with song and die
On the bald sod behind my prison bars;
Nor feel upon my crest
Thy soft, sunn'd touches delicately playing!
'O fair, small cloud, grown small as lily flow'r!
Even while I smite the bars to see thee fade;
The wind shall bring thee
The strain I sing thee--
I, in wired prison stay'd,
Worse than the breathless primrose glade.
That in my morn,
I shrilly sang to scorn;
I'll burst my heart up to thee in this hour!
'O fair, small cloud, float nearer yet and hear me!
A prison'd lark once lov'd a snowy cloud,
Nor did the Day
With sapphire lips, and kiss
Of summery bliss,
Draw all her soul away;
Vainly the fervent East
Deck'd her with roses for their bridal feast;
She would not rest
In his red arms, but slipp'd adown the air
And wan and fair,
Her light foot touch'd a purple mountain crest,
And touching, turn'd
Into swift rain, that like to jewels burn'd;
In the great, wondering azure of the sky;
And while a rainbow spread
Its mighty arms above, she, singing, fled
To the lone-feather'd slave,
In his sad weird grave,
Whose heart upon his silver song had sped
To her in days of old,
In dawns of gold,
And murmuring to him, said:
'O love, I come! O love, I come to cheer thee--
Love, to be near thee!''
poem by Isabella Valancy Crawford
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
To The Queen Of England
COME forth! the world's aflame with flags and flowers,
The shout of bells fills full the shattered air,
This is the crown of all your golden hours,
More than all other hours august and fair;
This did the years prepare,
A triumph for our Lady and our Queen,
More rich than any king in any land hath seen.
Clothed are your streets with scarlet, gold, and blue,
Flowers under foot and banners over head,
And while your people's voice storms Heaven for you
About your way are voiceless blessings shed,
And over you are spread
Wide wings of love, free love, tamed to your hand,
Love that gold cannot buy, nor Majesty command.
Not these mere visible millions only, share
Your triumph--here all English hearts beat high,
Nations far off your royal colours wear,
And swell with unheard voice this loyal cry
That strikes the English sky:
A cloud of unseen witnesses is here
To testify how great is England's Queen, and dear.
From out the grey-veiled past, long years away,
Come visionary faces, vision-led,
And splendid shapes that are not of our day,
The spirits of the mute and mighty dead,
To see how Time has sped
The fortunes of their England, and behold
How much more great she is than in the days of old.
The world can see them not; but you can see--
You the inheritor of all the past
Wherein the dead, in noble heraldry,
Blazoned the shield of England, and forecast
The charge it bears at last--
More splendid than the azure and the or
Of the French lilies lost--long lost and sorrowed for.
Here be the weaponed men, the English folk,
Who in long ships across the swan's bath fared,
In whose rude tongue the voice of Freedom spoke,
In whose rough hands the sword was bright and bared--
The men who did and dared,
And to their sons bequeathed the fighting blood
That drives to Victory and will not be withstood.
Here, in your ordered festival, O Queen,
Mixed with the crowd and all unseen of these,
On their long swords the wild Norse rovers lean
And watch the progress of your pageantries,
And on this young June breeze
Float the bright pennons of the Cressy spears--
Shine shadowy shafts that fell, as snow falls, at Poitiers.
Here flutter phantom flags that once flew free
Above the travail of the tournament;
Here gleam old swords, once wet for Liberty;
Old blood-stiff banners, worn with war and rent,
Are with your fresh flowers blent,
And by your crown, where love and fame consort,
Shines the unvanquished cloven crown of Agincourt.
Upon your river where, by day and night,
Your world-adventuring ships come home again,
Glide ghostly galleons, manned by men of might
Who plucked the wings and singed the beard of Spain;
The men who, not in vain,
Saved to the children of a world new-trod
The birth-tongue of our land, her freedom, and her God.
Princes who lived to make our England great,
Poets who wreathed her greatness with their song,
Wise men who steered her heavy ship of State,
Brave men who steered her battle-ships along,
In spectral concourse throng
To applaud the consummated power and pride
Of that belovèd land for which they lived and died.
The thousand un-named heroes who, sword-strong,
Ploughed the long acre wherein Empire grows
Wide as the world, and long as Time is long--
These mark the crescence of the English rose
Whose thorny splendour glows
O'er far-off subject lands, by alien waves,
A crown for England's brow, a garland for her graves.
And faces out of unforgotten years,
Faces long hidden by death's misty screen,
Faces you still can scarcely see for tears,
Will smile on you to-day and near you lean,
O Mother, Wife, and Queen!
With whispered love too sacred and too dear
For any ear than yours, Mother and Wife, to hear.
Lady, the crowd will vaunt to-day your fame,
Daughter and heir of many mighty kings,
The Queen of England, whose imperial name
From England's heart and lips tumultuous springs
In prayers and thanksgivings,
Because your greatness and her greatness shine
Merged each in each, as stars their beams that intertwine.
Yet in the inmost heart, where folded close
The richest treasures of the poorest lie,
Love, whose clear eyes see many secrets, knows
A nobler name than Queen to call you by,
And breathes it silently;
But, 'mid His listening crowd of angels, One
Shall speak your name and say, 'Faithful and good, well done!'
poem by Edith Nesbit
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
When Angels Kiss...
The dark clouds turned into a brighter white,
And the moon it shone with a brighter light.
The flowers of life stand tall once again,
From this world is vanquished all of lifes pain...
An angel stared at me with eyes of love,
Looking down upon me from high above.
I'm mesmerised by those emerald eyes,
I look deep inside to where love lies...
My love approached, eyes down to the ground,
My heart it pumped with a roaring sound.
My smiling heart said what no one could say,
I breathed in every essence of this beautiful day...
And when my Angel uttered, 'I love you, '
Dark black skies turned into sapphire blue.
The bleak grey clouds turned into white,
And the moon it shone a brighter light...
Winters snow it melted and flowed,
The night passed and the sun it glowed.
All of this the world just could not miss,
For it happens only when angels kiss...
Spread the love... The peace will follow...
poem by Cosmic Dreamer
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
In Exchange For His Soul!
Long time one whisper'd in his ear--
'Give me my strong, pure soul; behold
'Tis mine to give what men hold dear--
The treasure of red gold.'
'I bribe thee not with crown and throne,
Pale spectres they of kingly pow'r!
I give thee gold--red gold alone
Can crown a king each hour!'
He frown'd, perchance he felt a throe,
Gold-hunger gnawing at his heart--
A passing pang--for, stern and low,
He bade the fiend depart!
Again there came the voice and said:
'Gold for that soul of thine were shame;
Thine be that thing for which have bled
Both Gods and men,--high Fame.
'And in long ages yet to sweep
Their gloom and glory on the day;
When mould'ring kings, forgot, shall sleep
In ashes, dust, and clay:
'Thy name shall, starlike, pulse and burn
On heights most Godlike; and divine,
Immortal bays thy funereal urn
Shall lastingly entwine!'
He sigh'd; perchance he felt the thrill,
The answ'ring pulse to Fame's high call;
But answer made his steadfast will--
'I will not be thy thrall!'
Again there came the voice and cried:
'Dost thou my kingly bribes disdain?
Yet shalt thou barter soul and pride
For things ignobly vain!
'Two shameless eyes--two false, sweet eyes--
A sinful brow of sinless white,
Shall hurl, thy soul from high clear skies
To ME, and Stygian night.
'Beneath the spell of gilded hair,
Thy palms, like sickly weeds, shall die!
God-strong Resolves, a sensuous air
Shall mock and crucify.
'Go to! my thrall at last thou art!
Ere bud to rounded blossom change;
Thou wilt for wanton lips and heart
Most false, thy soul exchange!'
poem by Isabella Valancy Crawford
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
At the Opera
THE CURTAIN rose—the play began—
The limelight on the gay garbs shone;
Yet carelessly I gazed upon
The painted players, maid and man,
As one with idle eyes who sees
The marble figures on a frieze.
Long lark-notes clear the first act close,
So the soprano: then a hush—
The tenor, tender as a thrush;
Then loud and high the chorus rose,
Till, with a sudden rush and strong,
It ended in a storm of song.
The curtain fell—the music died—
The lights grew bright, revealing there
The flash of jewelled fingers fair,
And wreaths of pearls on brows of pride;
Then, with a quick-flushed cheek, I turned,
And into mine her dark eyes burned.
Such eyes but once a man may see,
And, seeing once, his fancy dies
To thought of any other eyes:
So shadow-soft, they seemed to be
Twin haunted lakes, lit by the gleams
Of a mysterious moon of dreams.
Silk lashes veiled their liquid light
With such a shade as tall reeds fling
From the lake-marge at sunsetting:
Their darkness might have hid the night—
Yet whoso saw their glance would say
Night dreamt therein, and saw the day.
Long looked I at them, wondering
What tender memories were hid
Beneath each blue-veined lily-lid;
What hopes of joys the years would bring;
What griefs? In vain: I might not guess
The secret of their silentness.
What of her face? Her face, meseems,
Was such as painters see who muse
By moonlight in dim avenues,
Yet cannot paint; or as in dreams,
Young poets see, but, when they try
To limn in verse are dumb—so I.
Yet well I know that I have seen
That sweet face in the long ago
In a rose-bower—well I know—
Laughing the singing leaves between,
In that strange land of rose and rhyme—
The land of Once upon a Time.
O unknown sweet, so sweetly known,
I know not what your name may be—
Madonna is your name for me—
Nor where your lines in life are thrown;
But soul sees soul—what is the rest?
A passing phantom at the best.
Did your young bosom never glow
To love? or burns your heart beneath
As burns the rosebud in its sheath?
I neither know nor wish to know:
I smell the rose upon the tree;
Who will may pluck and wear, for me—
May wear the rose, and watch it die,
And, leaf by red leaf, fade and fall,
Till there be nothing left at all
Of its sweet loveliness; but I
Love it so well, I leave it free—
The scent alone I take with me!
As one who visits sacred spots
Brings tokens back, so I from you
A glance, a smile, a rapture new!
And these are my forget-me-nots!
I take from you but only these—
Give all the rest to whom you please.
Sweet eyes, your glance a light shall cast
On me, when dreaded ghosts arise
Of dead regrets with shrouded eyes,
And phantoms of the perished past,
Old thoughts, old hopes, and old desire
Gather around my lonely fire!
Farewell! In rhyme, I kiss your hand—
Kiss not unsweet, although unheard!—
This is our secret—say no word—
That I have been in Fairyland,
And seen for one brief moment’s space
The Queen Titania face to face.
poem by Victor James Daley
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Conflict
No! I this conflict longer will not wage,
The conflict duty claims--the giant task;--
Thy spells, O virtue, never can assuage
The heart's wild fire--this offering do not ask
True, I have sworn--a solemn vow have sworn,
That I myself will curb the self within;
Yet take thy wreath, no more it shall be worn--
Take back thy wreath, and leave me free to sin.
Rent be the contract I with thee once made;--
She loves me, loves me--forfeit be the crown!
Blessed he who, lulled in rapture's dreamy shade,
Glides, as I glide, the deep fall gladly down.
She sees the worm that my youth's bloom decays,
She sees my spring-time wasted as it flees;
And, marvelling at the rigor that gainsays
The heart's sweet impulse, my reward decrees.
Distrust this angel purity, fair soul!
It is to guilt thy pity armeth me;
Could being lavish its unmeasured whole,
It ne'er could give a gift to rival thee!
Thee--the dear guilt I ever seek to shun,
O tyranny of fate, O wild desires!
My virtue's only crown can but be won
In that last breath--when virtue's self expires!
poem by Friedrich Schiller
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Ripley
Rich in red honors, that upon him lie
As lightly as the Summer dews
Fall where he won his fame beneath the sky
Of tropic Vera Cruz;
Bold scorner of the cant that has its birth
In feeble or in failing powers;
A lover of all frank and genial mirth
That wreathes the sword with flowers;
He moves amid the warriors of the day,
Just such a soldier as the art
That builds its trophies upon human clay
Moulds of a cheerful heart.
I see him in the battle that shall shake,
Ere long, old Sumter's haughty crown,
And from their dreams of peaceful traffic wake
The wharves of yonder town;
As calm as one would greet a pleasant guest,
And quaff a cup to love and life,
He hurls his deadliest thunders with a jest,
And laughs amid the strife.
Yet not the gravest soldier of them all
Surveys a field with broader scope;
And who behind that sea-encircled wall
Fights with a loftier hope?
Gay Chieftain! on the crimson rolls of Fame
Thy deeds are written with the sword;
But there are gentler thoughts which, with thy name,
Thy country's page shall hoard.
A nature of that rare and happy cast
Which looks, unsteeled, on murder's face;
Through what dark scenes of bloodshed hast thou passed,
Yet lost no social grace?
So, when the bard depicts thee, thou shalt wield
The weapon of a tyrant's doom,
Round which, inscribed with many a well-fought field,
The rose of joy shall bloom.
poem by Henry Timrod
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
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
Vote! | Copy!
So We'll Go No More A-Roving
So we'll go no more a-roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.
For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And Love itself have rest.
Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a-roving
By the light of the moon.
poem by Byron (1817)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
Vote! | Copy!