Sonnet LXXV.
WHERE the wild woods and pathless forests frown,
The darkling Pilgrim seeks his unknown way,
Till on the grass he throws him weary down,
To wait in broken sleep the dawn of day:
Through boughs just waving in the silent air,
With pale capricious light the summer moon
Chequers his humid couch; while Fancy there,
That loves to wanton in the night's deep noon,
Calls from the mossy roots and fountain edge
Fair visionary Nymphs that haunt the shade,
Or Naiads rising from the whispering sedge:
And, 'mid the beauteous group, his dear loved maid
Seems beckoning him with smiles to join the train:
Then, starting from his dream, he feels his woes again!
poem by Charlotte Smith
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
The Little Girl Found
All the night in woe
Lyca’s parents go
Over valleys deep,
While the deserts weep.
Tired and woe-begone,
Hoarse with making moan,
Arm in arm, seven days
They traced the desert ways.
Seven nights they sleep
Among shadows deep,
And dream they see their child
Starved in desert wild.
Pale through pathless ways
The fancied image strays,
Famished, weeping, weak,
With hollow piteous shriek.
Rising from unrest,
The trembling woman pressed
With feet of weary woe;
She could no further go.
In his arms he bore
Her, armed with sorrow sore;
Till before their way
A couching lion lay.
Turning back was vain:
Soon his heavy mane
Bore them to the ground,
Then he stalked around,
Smelling to his prey;
But their fears allay
When he licks their hands,
And silent by them stands.
They look upon his eyes,
Filled with deep surprise;
And wondering behold
A spirit armed in gold.
On his head a crown,
On his shoulders down
Flowed his golden hair.
Gone was all their care.
‘Follow me,’ he said;
‘Weep not for the maid;
In my palace deep,
Lyca lies asleep.’
Then they followed
Where the vision led,
And saw their sleeping child
Among tigers wild.
To this day they dwell
In a lonely dell,
Nor fear the wolvish howl
Nor the lion’s growl.
poem by William Blake from Songs of Experience (1794)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
Vote! | Copy!
The River Wainsbeck
While slowly wanders thy sequestered stream,
WAINSBECK, the mossy-scattered rocks among,
In fancy's ear making a plaintive song
To the dark woods above, that waving seem
To bend o'er some enchanted spot, removed
From life's vain coil; I listen to the wind,
And think I hear meek Sorrow's plaint, reclined
O'er the forsaken tomb of him she loved!--
Fair scenes, ye lend a pleasure, long unknown,
To him who passes weary on his way;--
Yet recreated here he may delay
A while to thank you; and when years have flown,
And haunts that charmed his youth he would renew,
In the world's crowd he will remember you.
poem by William Lisle Bowles
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Roussalka
A LEGEND OF THE WATER-SPRITE
In forest depths, beside a mere,
A monk once made his habitation ;
Absorbed in penances severe,
In fast and prayer he sought salvation.
Already by his own poor spade
His grave was hollowed to receive him,
And every day the good saint prayed
That Heaven from earth would soon relieve him.
One summer's eve, the hermit poor,
At prayer within his narrow room,
Looked out beyond his humble door
And saw the forest wrapped in gloom ;
Night-mists were rising from the mere,
Between the clouds the moon 'gan peep;
The monk unto the pool drew near
And gazed into its waters deep.
He saw himself—drew back perturbed
By fears he ne'er had known before ;
For, lo, the waters were disturbed,
Then suddenly grew calm once more ;
'While fitful as a twilight shade,
Than virgin snow more purely white,
From out the pool appeared a maid
Approaching in the silver light.
She shook the bright drops from her hair
And gazed upon the anchorite ;
To look upon her form so fair
The good monk trembled with affright.
And he beheld her from afar
With head and hand strange signals make,
Then swifter than a shooting star
Dive back into the silent lake.
All night the hermit could not sleep,
All day in agony he prayed ;
But still he could not choose but keep
The image of that wondrous maid
Before him. So, when day did wane,
And overhead the moon was bright,
He watched, and saw her come again
In all her beauty, dazzling white.
She beckoned to him where he stood,
And gave him greeting glad and free.
She played and splashed about the flood,
She laughed and danced in childish glee,
As softly to the monk she cried :
' Come hither, monk, and join me here!'
Then suddenly she dipped to hide
Her beauty in the darkling mere.
The third day came—grown mad with love,
The hermit sought th' enchanted shore
Ere yet night's veil was drawn above,
And waited for the maid once more.
Dawn broke—the monk had disappeared . . .
And now the frightened children say
He haunts the pool: and lo! his beard
Floats on the water night and day.
poem by Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Late Loved--Well Loved
He stood beside her in the dawn
(And she his Dawn and she his Spring),
From her bright palm she fed her fawn,
Her swift eyes chased the swallow's wing:
Her restless lips, smile-haunted, cast
Shrill silver calls to hound and dove:
Her young locks wove them with the blast.
To the flush'd, azure shrine above,
The light boughs o'er her golden head
Toss'd em'rald arm and blossom palm.
The perfume of their prayer was spread
On the sweet wind in breath of balm.
'Dawn of my heart,' he said, 'O child,
Knit thy pure eyes a space with mine:
O chrystal, child eyes, undefiled,
Let fair love leap from mine to thine!'
'The Dawn is young,' she smiled and said,
'Too young for Love's dear joy and woe;
Too young to crown her careless head
With his ripe roses. Let me go--
Unquestion'd for a longer space,
Perchance, when day is at the flood,
In thy true palm I'll gladly place
Love's flower in its rounding bud.
But now the day is all too young,
The Dawn and I are playmates still.'
She slipped the blossomed boughs among,
He strode beyond the violet hill.
Again they stand (Imperial noon
Lays her red sceptre on the earth),
Where golden hangings make a gloom,
And far off lutes sing dreamy mirth.
The peacocks cry to lily cloud,
From the white gloss of balustrade:
Tall urns of gold the gloom make proud,
Tall statues whitely strike the shade,
And pulse in the dim quivering light
Until, most Galatea-wise--
Each looks from base of malachite
With mystic life in limbs and eyes.
Her robe, (a golden wave that rose,
And burst, and clung as water clings
To her long curves) about her flows.
Each jewel on her white breast sings
Its silent song of sun and fire.
No wheeling swallows smite the skies
And upward draw the faint desire,
Weaving its myst'ry in her eyes.
In the white kisses of the tips
Of her long fingers lies a rose,
Snow-pale beside her curving lips,
Red by her snowy breast it glows.
'Noon of my soul,' he says, 'behold!
The day is ripe, the rose full blown,
Love stands in panoply of gold,
To Jovian height and strength now grown,
No infant he, a king he stands,
And pleads with thee for love again.'
'Ah, yes!' she says, 'in known lands,
He kings it--lord of subtlest pain;
The moon is full, the rose is fair--
Too fair! 'tis neither white nor red:
'I know the rose that love should wear,
Must redden as the heart had bled!
The moon is mellow bright, and I
Am happy in its perfect glow.
The slanting sun the rose may dye--
But for the sweet noon--let me go.'
She parted--shimm'ring thro' the shade,
Bent the fair splendour of her head:
'Would the rich noon were past,' he said,
Would the pale rose were flush'd to red!'
Again. The noon is past and night
Binds on his brow the blood red Mars--
Down dusky vineyards dies the fight,
And blazing hamlets slay the stars.
Shriek the shrill shells: the heated throats
Of thunderous cannon burst--and high
Scales the fierce joy of bugle notes:
The flame-dimm'd splendours of the sky.
He, dying, lies beside his blade:
Clear smiling as a warrior blest
With victory smiles, thro' sinister shade
Gleams the White Cross upon her breast.
'Soul of my soul, or is it night
Or is it dawn or is it day?
I see no more nor dark nor light,
I hear no more the distant fray.'
''Tis Dawn,' she whispers: 'Dawn at last!
Bright flush'd with love's immortal glow
For me as thee, all earth is past!
Late loved--well loved, now let us go!'
poem by Isabella Valancy Crawford
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Willow-Tree
Know ye the willow-tree
Whose gray leaves quiver,
Whispering gloomily
To yon pale river;
Lady, at even-tide
Wander not near it,
They say its branches hide
A sad, lost spirit?
Once to the willow-tree
A maid came fearful,
Pale seemed her cheek to be,
Her blue eye tearful;
Soon as she saw the tree,
Her step moved fleeter,
No one was there—ah me!
No one to meet her!
Quick beat her heart to hear
The far bell's chime
Toll from the chapel-tower
The trysting time:
But the red sun went down
In golden flame,
And though she looked round,
Yet no one came!
Presently came the night,
Sadly to greet her,—
Moon in her silver light,
Stars in their glitter;
Then sank the moon away
Under the billow,
Still wept the maid alone—
There by the willow!
Through the long darkness,
By the stream rolling,
Hour after hour went on
Tolling and tolling.
Long was the darkness,
Lonely and stilly;
Shrill came the night-wind,
Piercing and chilly.
Shrill blew the morning breeze,
Biting and cold,
Bleak peers the gray dawn
Over the wold.
Bleak over moor and stream
Looks the grey dawn,
Gray, with dishevelled hair,
Still stands the willow there—
THE MAID IS GONE!
Domine, Domine!
Sing we a litany,—
Sing for poor maiden-hearts broken and weary;
Domine, Domine!
Sing we a litany,
Wail we and weep we a wild Miserere!
poem by William Makepeace Thackeray
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
I'd Rather Be Loved
I'd rather be loved,
Than to be painted...
As somebody that I aint,
To then be tainted.
I'd rather be loved,
Than to be sainted.
As someone that's depicted,
In a way to be shamed.
And by...
The light of the moon,
I want to be seen as the person that I am!
And by...
The dawn until noon,
I want to be seen as the person that I am!
I'd rather be loved...
Under bright lighted moon.
And,
Seen to be the person that I am.
I'd rather be loved...
From the dawning 'til noon.
By somebody who completely understands.
I'd rather be loved...
Under bright lighted moon.
I'd rather be loved...
From the dawning 'til noon.
And...
By that one who knows and understands.
I'd rather be loved...
From the dawning 'til noon.
And,
When night falls we know there's no demands.
And...
When night falls we're there and understand.
And...
We know what we do and what we can.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
An Indian Story
"I know where the timid fawn abides
In the depths of the shaded dell,
Where the leaves are broad and the thicket hides,
With its many stems and its tangled sides,
From the eye of the hunter well.
"I know where the young May violet grows,
In its lone and lowly nook,
On the mossy bank, where the larch-tree throws
Its broad dark bough, in solemn repose,
Far over the silent brook.
"And that timid fawn starts not with fear
When I steal to her secret bower;
And that young May violet to me is dear,
And I visit the silent streamlet near,
To look on the lovely flower."
Thus Maquon sings as he lightly walks
To the hunting-ground on the hills;
'Tis a song of his maid of the woods and rocks,
With her bright black eyes and long black locks,
And voice like the music of rills.
He goes to the chase- but evil eyes
Are at watch in the thicker shades;
For she was lovely that smiled oh his sighs,
And he bore, from a hundred lovers, his prize,
The flower of the forest maids.
The boughs in the morning wind are stirred,
And the woods their song renew,
With the early carol of many a bird,
And the quickened tune of the streamlet heard
Where the hazels trickle with dew.
And Maquon has promised his dark-haired maid,
Ere eve shall redden the sky,
A good red deer from the forest shade,
That bounds with the herd through grove and glade,
At her cabin-door shall lie.
The hollow woods, in the setting sun,
Ring shrill with the fire-bird's lay;
And Maquon's sylvan labors are done,
And his shafts are spent, but the spoil they won
He bears on his homeward way.
He stops near his bower- his eye perceives
Strange traces along the ground—
At once to the earth his burden he heaves;
He breaks through the veil of boughs and leaves;
And gains its door with a bound.
But the vines are torn on its walls that leant,
And all from the young shrubs there
By struggling hands have the leaves been rent,
And there hangs on the sassafras, broken and bent,
One tress of the well-known hair.
But where is she who, at this calm hour,
Ever watched his coming to see?
She is not at the door, nor yet in the bower;
He calls—but he only hears on the flower
The hum of the laden bee.
It is not a time for idle grief,
Nor a time for tears to flow;
The horror that freezes his limbs is brief—
He grasps his war-axe and bow, and a sheaf
Of darts made sharp for the foe.
And he looks for the print of the ruffian's feet
Where he bore the maiden away;
And he darts on the fatal path more fleet
Than the blast hurries the vapor and sleet
O'er the wild November day.
'Twas early summer when Maquon's bride
Was stolen away from his door;
But at length the maples in crimson are dyed,
And the grape is black on the cabin-side—
And she smiles at his hearth once more.
But far in the pine-grove, dark and cold,
Where the yellow leaf falls not,
Nor the autumn shines in scarlet and gold,
There lies a hillock of fresh dark mould,
In the deepest gloom of the spot.
And the Indian girls, that pass that way,
Point out the ravisher's grave;
"And how soon to the bower she loved," they say,
"Returned the maid that was borne away
From Maquon, the fond and the brave."
poem by William Cullen Bryant
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
Vote! | Copy!
An Aurora Borealis
O STRANGE soft gleam, o ghostly dawn
That never brightens unto day;
Ere earth's mirk pale once more be drawn
Let us look out beyond the gray.
It is just midnight by the clock--
There is no sound on glen or hill,
The moaning linn adown its rock
Leaps, but the woods lie dark and still.
Austere against the kindling sky
Yon broken turret blacker grows;
Harsh light, to show remorselessly
Ruins night hid in kind repose!
Nay, beauteous light, nay, light that fills
The whole heaven like a dream of morn,
As waking upon northern hills
She smiles to find herself new-born,--
Strange light, I know thou wilt not stay,
That many an hour must come and go
Before the pale November day
Break in the east, forlorn and slow.
Yet blest one gleam--one gleam like this,
When all heaven brightens in our sight,
And the long night that was and is
And shall be, vanishes in light:
O blest one hour like this! to rise
And see grief's shadows backward roll;
While bursts on unaccustomed eyes
The glad Aurora of the soul.
poem by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Summer Dawn.
Come with thy feet to the water, and bathe
Thy beauty here in the stream that will not pass!
The soft green leaves with their shadows swathe
The either bank, and under the ferns and grass
The dreamy crickets chirp in the dewy dawn,
Now that the light of the stars has grown
Into a thin pale mist in the night unknown;
The small birds twitter, whose senses quite
Have not yet out of their dreams withdrawn —
Here where my heart too waits for the light
Under the cloudy hills that soon will run
With bright feet in the ways of the sun,
As if they were but chained to the air:
Come to me now so fresh and fair —
Now that the reign of Sleep is done —
With twinkling feet in the dewy dawn!
O love, as grass comes to the lawn,
As day comes to the East, come thou —
Come to me now!
poem by Robert Crawford
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!
Dear love, good-night
DEAR love, good-night. And, tender sleep
,Seal up her lids like these drowsed flowers,
To make day fair when they unclose.
Be hushed around her, Night, and keep
Thy silent guard on her repose;
But speed thine hours.
Dear love, sleep on. This weary space
I wake and long for day and thee,
And count the slow stars from their west.
Sleep while I hunger for thy face,
Sleep, dearest, in unbroken rest;
But dream of me.
poem by Augusta Davies Webster
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Lily's Silent Tears
Each night Lily lay down her weary head
She pulled her pillow closer
Turned her face buried it deep as it soaked up all the silent tears
She cried, she begged,
She wished she hoped but most of all she closed her eyes and prayed
From the corners of her closed eyes a tear escaped….two… three….till she set them all free
Lily cried herself to sleep night after night
Crying over life and love lost
Time slipped by
High above in the heavens one night
There way up above you and I
Upon the brightest star
Sat he
Writing away his heart
He felt a tremor run through his heart
He heard a distant cry
He closed his eyes and there deep within the beauty of his loving heart He saw that tear
One silent solitary sad burning tear that bore so much pain
He closed his eyes and wished and willed
To see the owner of the tear
The silent tear that caused the tremor in his heart
He found Lily lying on her pillow crying herself to sleep
He reached out and touched her
Soothed her healed her loved her
Her days filled with warmth
Her nights filled with moonlight and love
Then one cold night he left a tremor in her heart
With unspoken word
He told her
He loved her
They were friends
But
He could never love her in the same way that she loved him
For his heart was already taken
Night after night once again Lily lays her head upon her faithful pillow
Night after night once gain she cries herself to sleep
Night after night once again she feels the tremor inside her heart
But
Night after night he feels the tremor of another
Kate Kearney
WHY doth the maiden turn away
From voice so sweet, and words so dear?
Why doth the maiden turn away
When love and flattery woo her ear?
And rarely that enchanted twain
Whisper in woman's ear in vain.
Why doth the maiden leave the hall?
No face is fair as hers is fair,
No step has such a fairy fall,
No azure eyes like hers are there.
The maiden seeks her lonely bower,
Although her father's guests are met;
She knows it is the midnight hour,
She knows the first pale star is set,
And now the silver moon-beams wake
The spirits of the haunted Lake.
The waves take rainbow hues, and now
The shining train are gliding by,
Their chieftain lifts his glorious brow,
The maiden meets his lingering eye.
The glittering shapes melt into night;
Another look, their chief is gone,
And chill and gray comes morning's light,
And clear and cold the Lake flows on;
Close, close the casement, not for sleep,
Over such visions eyes but weep.
How many share such destiny,
How many, lured by fancy's beam,
Ask the impossible to be,
And pine, the victims of a dream.
poem by Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Symphony for the night
Close your eyes
let me sing you a song of the night
When the sky is dark,
And sweet cold winds blows,
Dream it for me,
let your heart sleep,
To wander in magic,
Flying trough sea of stars that shimmering
Let the moon smiles,
Greeting you trough the sky,
Let the clouds go with you,
Let us sail trough the night!
Let them,
Let the stars, blanketing your night sleep
Let the wind, blowing for your dreams
Let the symphony in, filling your heart,
Putting you, a good sleep trough the night,
Lei it be,
Dream, oh dream it for me,
Till the dawn, let you sleep.
Sonnet 01
Go Valentine and tell that lovely maid
Whom Fancy still will pourtray to my sight,
How her Bard lingers in this sullen shade,
This dreary gloom of dull monastic night.
Say that from every joy of life remote
At evening's closing hour he quits the throng,
Listening alone the ring-dove's plaintive note
Who pours like him her solitary song.
Say that her absence calls the sorrowing sigh,
Say that of all her charms he loves to speak,
In fancy feels the magic of her eye,
In fancy views the smile illume her cheek,
Courts the lone hour when Silence stills the grove
And heaves the sigh of Memory and of Love.
poem by Robert Southey
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
O Pulchritudo
O Saint whose thousand shrines our feet have trod
And our eyes loved thy lamp's eternal beam,
Dim earthly radiance of the Unknown God,
Hope of the darkness, light of them that dream,
Far off, far off and faint, O glimmer on
Till we thy pilgrims from the road are gone.
O Word whose meaning every sense hath sought,
Voice of the teeming field and grassy mound,
Deep-whispering fountain of the wells of thought,
Will of the wind and soul of all sweet sound,
Far off, far off and faint, O murmur on
Till we thy pilgrims from the road are gone.
poem by Sir Henry Newbolt
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
A Noon Song
There are songs for the morning and songs for the night,
For sunrise and sunset, the stars and the moon;
But who will give praise to the fulness of light,
And sing us a song of the glory of noon?
Oh, the high noon, the clear noon,
The noon with golden crest;
When the blue sky burns, and the great sun turns
With his face to the way of the west!
How swiftly he rose in the dawn of his strength;
How slowly he crept as the morning wore by;
Ah, steep was the climbing that led him at length
To the height of his throne in the wide summer sky.
Oh, the long toil, the slow toil,
The toil that may not rest,
Till the sun looks down from his journey's crown,
To the wonderful way of the west!
Then a quietness falls over meadow and hill,
The wings of the wind in the forest are furled,
The river runs softly, the birds are all still,
The workers are resting all over the world.
Oh, the good hour, the kind hour,
The hour that calms the breast!
Little inn half-way on the road of the day,
Where it follows the turn to the west!
There's a plentiful feast in the maple-tree shade,
The lilt of a song to an old-fashioned tune,
The talk of a friend, or the kiss of a maid,
To sweeten the cup that we drink to the noon.
Oh, the deep noon, the full noon,
Of all the day the best!
When the blue sky burns, and the great sun turns
To his home by the way of the west.
poem by Henry Van Dyke
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Came a pretty maid
Came a pretty maid
By the moon's pure light . . .
Loved me well, she said,
Eyes with tears all bright,
A pretty maid.
But too late she strayed,
Moonlight pure was there . . .
She was nought but shade,
Hiding the more fair,
The heav'nly maid.
poem by George Eliot
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
Vote! | Copy!
The Spice-Tree
This is the song
The spice-tree sings:
"Hunger and fire,
Hunger and fire,
Sky-born Beauty—
Spice of desire,"
Under the spice-tree
Watch and wait,
Burning maidens
And lads that mate.
The spice-tree spreads
And its boughs come down
Shadowing village and farm and town.
And none can see
But the pure of heart
The great green leaves
And the boughs descending,
And hear the song that is never ending.
The deep roots whisper,
The branches say:—
"Love to-morrow,
And love to-day,
And till Heaven's day,
And till Heaven's day."
The moon is a bird's nest in its branches,
The moon is hung in its topmost spaces.
And there, to-night, two doves play house
While lovers watch with uplifted faces.
Two doves go home
To their nest, the moon.
It is woven of twigs of broken light,
With threads of scarlet and threads of gray
And a lining of down for silk delight.
To their Eden, the moon, fly home our doves,
Up through the boughs of the great spice-tree;—
And one is the kiss I took from you,
And one is the kiss you gave to me.
poem by Vachel Lindsay
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
On Hearing The Princess Royal Sing
In thine abode so high
Where yet one scarce can breathe,
Dear child, most tenderly
A soft song thou dost wreathe.
Thou singest, little girl--
Thy sire, the King is he:
Around thee glories whirl,
But all things sigh in thee.
Thy thought may seek not wings
Of speech; dear love's forbidden;
Thy smiles, those heavenly things,
Being faintly born, are chidden.
Thou feel'st, poor little Bride,
A hand unknown and chill
Clasp thine from out the wide
Deep shade so deathly still.
Thy sad heart, wingless, weak,
Is sunk in this black shade
So deep, thy small hands seek,
Vainly, the pulse God made.
Thou art yet but highness, thou
That shaft be majesty:
Though still on thy fair brow
Some faint dawn-flush may be,
Child, unto armies dear,
Even now we mark heaven's light
Dimmed with the fume and fear
And glory of battle-might.
Thy godfather is he,
Earth's Pope,--he hails thee, child!
Passing, armed men you see
Like unarmed women, mild.
As saint all worship thee;
Thyself even hast the strong
Thrill of divinity
Mingled with thy small song.
Each grand old warrior
Guards thee, submissive, proud;
Mute thunders at thy door
Sleep, that shall wake most loud.
Around thee foams the wild
Bright sea, the lot of kings.
Happier wert thou, my child,
I' the woods a bird that sings!
poem by Victor Hugo
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!