Lover's Quarrels
JOIN hands, my dear, clasp long and close and fast,
Even this present we shall soon call past,
And lay among the unforgotten days,
Not the less loved because they could not last.
Make haste to put our hasty words away,
And hide them with dead leaves of yesterday,
Cast them aside among forgotten things,
Keep the love warm that turns to green life's grey.
Each little thorn that pricks these present hours
Is sure to hide under our memories' flowers,
Till we shall say, turning the dry wreath over,
'How sweet they were--these dear dead days of ours!'
poem by Edith Nesbit
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Related quotes
Waiting
A YOUNG fair girl among her flowers,
And, as to blossoms born in May,
Her morrows still brought sunnier hours
Than made up sunny yesterday.
She did but wait: 'Hope is so sweet;
We love so well, my love and I;
The hours that come, the hours that fleet,
End all in one glad by and by.'
A pale worn woman, scarcely sad,
But tired, like those who, too long pent,
Forget the joy they have not had
Of the free winds, and droop content.
She did but wait: 'Ah, no, to me
The silent hope is never dead;
What are the days that are to be
But part of the dear days long fled?'
He came: 'The wealth we need is mine;
And now?' 'Alas!' she said, 'in vain.
The love I love is noway thine,
I wait who never comes again.
Oh, for my lover of old days,
We two from all the world apart!
I must go lone on earth's bleak ways,
He is not now save in my heart.'
He wed another. She, alone,
Patient and weary, toiled for bread.
And bygone still was never gone,
The silent hope was never dead.
She did but wait: 'I have the past;
The new days live the old days o'er,
And there abides until the last
The by and by that was before.'
poem by Augusta Davies Webster
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Another Year
Another year has passed.
Things are finally looking up at last.
I'm twenty-five and still alive.
Suprisingly I feel alright.
Holding my loved ones near and tight.
The one I hold dearest gives me light.
Through all my life I knew it right.
Long days have passed since I came last.
Many happy days here in this cast.
A loving family with freinds present and in the past.
Most of them I still love, they're a smash.
Although from time to time we clash.
A faithful journey with falls a plenty.
They can't beat me because God has kept me.
I'll keep fighting to find my meaning.
Another year I know I'm dear.
To all of those who gave me cheer.
Some things are close with who I've chose.
The deals at hand to have and close.
When another year has passed.
I know that she'll be mine at last.
So I thank you all it's been a blast.
We'll celebrate all the years that pass.
poem by Michael McParland
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A Reflection on Lawson's Poems
Seasons bloom and seasons wither; dark or bright, they cannot last.
Must we try with floods of bitter teas to vivify the past?
Vainly chase the brown and broken blossoms blown along the blast?
Shall we scorn the flowers around us - red, or blue, or white as snow -
Flowers giving loads of fragrance unto all the winds that blow
Must we hide our eyes and falter: 'O, the days of long ago!'
Never stop to look behind you, if the blaze of glory there
Blinds you to the splendour stretching round about and everywhere.
True, the past was pleasant, Lawson, but the present is as fair.
I, too, love the days when heroes, seeking treasure, seaward sped;
Days of Drake, when English sailors followed where their leaders led;
Days when Marlowe trod the glowing clouds, that thundered to his tread.
Even then, though, there were cowards, traitors, swindler, 'business men,'
Plot and murder, slave and master, secret sneer, and wounding pen;
And the poets thought the present vile and barren even then.
And their comrades were no better than some modern mates we meet -
Even though they don't go wearing tights and feathers in the street;
And the girls are dear as ever, and their kisses just as sweet.
Sing the present; dropp the drivel of the 'days evanished,' please!
Though you pray until your pants are burst or baggy at the knees,
You can't bid the sun go backward - no, not even ten degrees.
poem by John Le Gay Brereton
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A Year and a Day
Slow days have passed that make a year,
Slow hours that make a day,
Since I could take my first dear love
And kiss him the old way;
Yet the green leaves touch me on the cheek,
Dear Christ, this month of May.
I lie among the tall green grass
That bends above my head
And covers up my wasted face
And folds me in its bed
Tenderly and lovingly
Like grass above the dead.
Dim phantoms of an unknown ill
Float through my tired brain;
The unformed visions of my life
Pass by in ghostly train;
Some pause to touch me on the cheek,
Some scatter tears like rain.
A shadow falls along the grass
And lingers at my feet;
A new face lies between my hands --
Dear Christ, if I could weep
Tears to shut out the summer leaves
When this new face I greet.
Still it is but the memory
Of something I have seen
In the dreamy summer weather
When the green leaves came between:
The shadow of my dear love’s face --
So far and strange it seems.
The river ever running down
Between its grassy bed,
The voices of a thousand birds
That clang above my head,
Shall bring to me a sadder dream
When this sad dream is dead.
A silence falls upon my heart
And hushes all its pain.
I stretch my hands in the long grass
And fall to sleep again,
There to lie empty of all love
Like beaten corn of grain.
poem by Elizabeth Eleanor Siddal
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A Dead Friend
I.
Gone, O gentle heart and true,
Friend of hopes foregone,
Hopes and hopeful days with you
Gone?
Days of old that shone
Saw what none shall see anew,
When we gazed thereon.
Soul as clear as sunlit dew,
Why so soon pass on,
Forth from all we loved and knew
Gone?
II.
Friend of many a season fled,
What may sorrow send
Toward thee now from lips that said
'Friend'?
Sighs and songs to blend
Praise with pain uncomforted
Though the praise ascend?
Darkness hides no dearer head:
Why should darkness end
Day so soon, O dear and dead
Friend?
III.
Dear in death, thou hast thy part
Yet in life, to cheer
Hearts that held thy gentle heart
Dear.
Time and chance may sear
Hope with grief, and death may part
Hand from hand's clasp here:
Memory, blind with tears that start,
Sees through every tear
All that made thee, as thou art,
Dear.
IV.
True and tender, single-souled,
What should memory do
Weeping o'er the trust we hold
True?
Known and loved of few,
But of these, though small their fold,
Loved how well were you!
Change, that makes of new things old,
Leaves one old thing new;
Love which promised truth, and told
True.
V.
Kind as heaven, while earth's control
Still had leave to bind
Thee, thy heart was toward man's whole
Kind.
Thee no shadows blind
Now: the change of hours that roll
Leaves thy sleep behind.
Love, that hears thy death-bell toll
Yet, may call to mind
Scarce a soul as thy sweet soul
Kind.
VI.
How should life, O friend, forget
Death, whose guest art thou?
Faith responds to love's regret,
How?
Still, for us that bow
Sorrowing, still, though life be set,
Shines thy bright mild brow.
Yea, though death and thou be met,
Love may find thee now
Still, albeit we know not yet
How.
VII.
Past as music fades, that shone
While its life might last;
As a song-bird's shadow flown
Past!
Death's reverberate blast
Now for music's lord has blown
Whom thy love held fast.
Dead thy king, and void his throne:
Yet for grief at last
Love makes music of his own
Past.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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Hide and Seek
All the trees are sleeping, all the winds are still,
All the flocks of fleecy clouds have wandered past the hill;
Through the noonday silence, down the woods of June,
Hark, a little hunter's voice comes running with a tune.
"Hide and seek!
"When I speak,
"You must answer me:
"Call again,
"Merry men,
"Coo-ee, coo-ee, coo-ee!"
Now I hear his footsteps, rustling through the grass:
Hidden in my leafy nook, shall I let him pass?
Just a low, soft whistle,--quick the hunter turns,
Leaps upon me laughing, rolls me in the ferns.
"Hold him fast,
"Caught at last!
"Now you're it, you see.
"Hide your eye,
"Till I cry,
"Coo-ee, coo-ee, coo-ee!"
II
Long ago he left me, long and long ago:
Now I wander through the world and seek him high and low;
Hidden safe and happy, in some pleasant place,--
Ah, if I could hear his voice, I soon should find his face.
Far away,
Many a day,
Where can Barney be?
Answer, dear,
Don't you hear?
Coo-ee, coo-ee, coo-ee!
Birds that in the spring-time thrilled his heart with joy,
Flowers he loved to pick for me, mind me of my boy.
Surely he is waiting till my steps come nigh;
Love may hide itself awhile, but love can never die.
Heart, be glad,
The little lad
Will call some day to thee:
"Father dear,
"Heaven is here,
"Coo-ee, coo-ee, coo-ee!"
poem by Henry Van Dyke
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Mimnermus in Church
You promise heavens free from strife,
Pure truth, and perfect change of will;
But sweet, sweet is this human life,
So sweet, I fain would breathe it still;
Your chilly stars I can forgo,
This warm kind world is all I know.
You say there is no substance here,
One great reality above:
Back from that void I shrink in fear,
And child-like hide myself in love:
Show me what angels feel. Till then
I cling, a mere weak man, to men.
You bid me lift my mean desires
From faltering lips and fitful veins
To sexless souls, ideal quires,
Unwearied voices, wordless strains:
My mind with fonder welcome owns
One dear dead friend's remember'd tones.
Forsooth the present we must give
To that which cannot pass away;
All beauteous things for which we live
By laws of time and space decay.
But O, the very reason why
I clasp them, is because they die.
poem by William Johnson Cory
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Old Times
Friend of my youth, let us talk of old times;
Of the long lost golden hours.
When "Winter" meant only Christmas chimes,
And "Summer" wreaths of flowers.
Life has grown old, and cold, my friend,
And the winter now, means death.
And summer blossoms speak all too plain
Of the dear, dead forms beneath.
But let us talk of the past to-night;
And live it over again,
We will put the long years out of sight,
And dream we are young as then.
But you must not look at me, my friend,
And I must not look at you,
Or the furrowed brows, and silvered locks,
Will prove our dream untrue.
Let us sing of the summer, too sweet to last,
And yet too sweet to die.
Let us read tales, from the book of the past,
And talk of the days gone by.
We will turn our backs to the West, my friend,
And forget we are growing old.
The skies of the Present are dull, and gray,
But the Past's are blue, and gold.
The sun has passed over the noontide line
And is sinking down the West.
And of friends we knew in days Lang Syne,
Full half have gone to rest.
And the few that are left on earth, my friend
Are scattered far, and wide.
But you and I will talk of the days
Ere any roamed, or died.
Auburn ringlets, and hazel eyes
Blue eyes and tresses of gold.
Winds joy laden, and azure skies,
Belong to those days of old.
We will leave the Present's shores awhile
And float on the Past's smooth sea.
But I must not look at you, my friend,
And you must not look at me.
poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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Past, Present, Future
i lived in the past for so long
that the present was always unknown.
now i always look ahead at all the possibilities
and there is so much, that i now see.
a shimmer of light at the end of the tunnel
and my thoughts being poured through a funnel.
the past is the past, and that's where it will stay
and in the present, we have to find a better way.
for the present will soon be our past
and if we don't do something, it will not last.
we must always look to the future
for it is only twenty four hours away
then it will be our past
and we have so much to do and say.
when i look at life, i truely have to laugh
today is our future and tomorrow it'll be our past.
now that i have you confused as to what i am
trying to say.
i guess i will try' to put it a better way'.
we all tend to procrastinate
always leaving it for tomorrow.
but! what if you don't see tomorrow.
and today you did'nt accomplish that task
how will you be remembered
if the present you left for last.
when we leave this material world
and our souls soar up in the sky
we will still have our memories
and that we can rely.
for when we get up there(if we do)
your soul will have carried all that you did
in this life
and the memories of friends, family
husband, or wife.
now when you look down on all that you had did
and asking yourself the question.
did i use my time, the way it was
meant to be?
or did i procrastinate, that others now speak of me?
we all have to work in order to survive.
but we must stop on occasion to smell the flowers.
and to enjoy all that we was given
otherwise how can you call this living.
(my thoughts: the words and stories were given to me.
so that i could write them down, for al the world to see.)
this is my philosophy.
poem by Louis Rams
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All Dead, All Dead
Memories, my memories
How long can you stay
To haunt my days
She came without a farthing
A babe without a name
So much ado about nothing
Is what shed try to say
So much ado my lover
So many games we played
Through every fleeted summer
Through every precious day
All dead all dead
All the dreams we had
And I wonder why I still live on
All dead all dead
And alone Im spared
My sweeter half instead
All dead
And gone
All dead...
All dead all dead
At the rainbows end
And still I hear her own sweet song
All dead all dead
Take me back again
You know my little friends
All dead
And gone
All dead and gone
Her ways are always with me
I wander all the while
But please you must forgive me
I am old but still a child
All dead all dead
But I should not grieve
In time it comes to everyone
All dead all dead
But in hope I breathe
Of course I dont believe
Youre dead
And gone
All dead
And gone
song performed by by Queen
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Time Long Past
Like the ghost of a dear friend dead
Is Time long past.
A tone which is now forever fled,
A hope which is now forever past,
A love so sweet it could not last,
Was Time long past.
There were sweet dreams in the night
Of Time long past:
And, was it sadness or delight,
Each day a shadow onward cast
Which made us wish it yet might last--
That Time long past.
There is regret, almost remorse,
For Time long past.
'Tis like a child's belovèd corse
A father watches, till at last
Beauty is like remembrance, cast
From Time long past.
poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Dear Friend
Dear friend,
Today I turn the pages of our memories
Those laughter and tears
That we have shared for more many years
Those secrets that we hide
Underneath the cherry tree
These photographs I held, and
I used to smile every time I looked at them
Dear friend,
I've been to the place were we first met
It’s the same old, and new, nothing has changed
Like an old book with precious stories
Every page has a wonderful thing to say
Like a laughter that remains on air
They’re sounds music in my ear
A symphony of our yesterday
Dear friend,
I plow our memories that blanket by autumn leaves
On this mango tree
And its branches look so droopy
But there’s a last leaf-standing firm on a trunk
That forgotten, as the time goes by
Like this friendship buried from the shadow of past
Thou I know it will never last
Dear friend,
Remember the summer skies
Those butterflies that landed in our hands
The kites that we ever flew
In these green fields of our childhood memory
We were children once before
When the trees were tall and we were small
And now we are tall and the trees fall
Dear friend,
Autumn was come
And the leaves started to fall
I can’t count the hours, how long I've stood here
Waiting for your presence
That you have promised you will come
The wind whistle like your soft voice
I feel the heavenly touch on my face
Dear friend,
You never told me that you are leaving
Together with the clouds that passed by
Together with the angels that flew into the sky
Like the waters that flow freely back to the sea
Like a wind that danced on its own
But your soul still live inside of me
You will always be my special memory
Dear friend,
I wrote you a letter sealed with my tears
Saying take care, I miss our funny deeds
Id rather be sad
And my heart is in grief
But somehow I’ll be happy then
That once in my life I had you as my friend
Dear friend, you will always be my best friend
poem by Cheryl Aldea
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Autumn
I have let go of time,
I have let days disappear and
As I walk down this pathway of life
For a brief moment
I have become a child again-
Not knowing where to run to or
How to evade misconceptions,
I do know that there are trees
Behind which to hide and even fortresses in the air-
Memories of my childhood, seeing what others did not see,
Being forever slighted and misunderstood,
Memories of my empty heart and these memories I cannot escape.
I often ask myself why these recollections of fear, sadness and mistrust
Have become a branch upon a tree that
Will not break and blow away in a windstorm and
More recent recurrences which others have
Deemed as impressive and worthwhile have
Vanished perhaps high in the sky as
Riding upon a shooting star that has burnt out in the universe-
I have let days disappear although not
Memories of childhood sorrows and rivers of tears-
I am drowning inside a tributary of sadness.
Leaves upon the trees turning rust, yellow and even red in the autumn,
Cool air at dawn caresses my arms within a brief moment of pleasure-
A voice inside of my mind tells me to never let go of present moments, as
The leaves shower upon me in a gust of wind and
This being the most picturesque and enlightening time of the year-
I am learning- never let go of time,
Never let these days disappear.
Childhood moments of abuse, disappointment and unrelenting pain,
Are forever gone and we must grasp onto today and
Perhaps even the future- I know not where to run to although
I shall keep running forward and cease looking behind-
Kicking fallen leaves aside and breathing the crisp autumn air-
As I bury the past within a moment of realization that
The agonizing past moments that we only see inside of our minds
Have ridden that shooting star and are lost someplace in the universe, while
I can see time ahead and in this present moment
Being a colorful aura and worth a lifetime of happiness.
I grasp and hold onto time, while letting all of those tears cried for yesterday
Flow downstream and over stones and to be forgotten as
Earth in a flurry of a storm-
poem by Claudia Krizay
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Oh Happy Days
Oh happy days,
Everyone likes you.
Oh happy days,
Please stay today.
Oh happy days,
Sweet like honey.
Oh happy days,
loving family ties.
Oh happy days,
Giving us strength.
Oh happy days,
Children out playing.
Oh happy days,
On the green grass.
Oh happy days,
With boundless optimism.
Oh happy days,
I give thanks.
Oh happy days,
Dreaming for more.
Oh happy days,
Warm and bright.
Oh happy days,
Like love eternal.
Oh happy days,
And glad memories.
Oh happy days,
New hope prayers.
Oh happy days,
With smiling faces.
Oh happy days,
Holidays and health.
Oh happy days,
With close friends.
Oh happy days,
Generous and giving.
Oh happy days,
Shiny rainbow dreams.
Oh happy days,
Till the very end.
Oh happy days,
Always and forever.
Amen.
poem by Rowina Mallick
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Lay It Away
We will lay our summer away, my friend,
So tenderly lay it away.
It was bright and sweet to the very end,
Like one long, golden day.
Nothing sweeter could come to me,
Nothing sweeter to you.
We will lay it away, and let it be,
Hid from the whole world’s view.
We will lay it away like a dear, dead thing –
Dead, yet for ever fair;
And the fresh green robes of a deathless spring,
Though dead, it shall alaways wear.
We will not hide it in grave or tomb,
But lay it away to sleep,
Guarded by beauty, and light, and bloom,
Wrapped in a slumber deep.
We were willing to let the summer go –
Willing to go our own ways;
But never on earth again I know
Will either find such days.
You are my friend, and it may seem strange,
But I would not see you again;
I would think of you, though all things change,
Just as I knew you then.
If we should go back to the olden place,
And the summer time went too,
It would be like looking a ghost in the face,
So much would be changed and new.
We cannot live it over again,
Not even a single day;
And as something sweet, and free from pain,
We had better let it away.
poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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With Eternity Standing By
How shall I bid you good--bye,
Dear, without tears?
Only once in the years,
The idle vanishing years,
We met, with Eternity standing by,
And loved, a little forgotten space,
I for the sake of your beautiful face,
You I hardly know how or why,
Or whether you loved me indeed, alas,
With Eternity standing by.
We played our comedy parts,
Scene after scene.
You were to be my queen,
My dear sweet comedy queen,
I your lover and knave of hearts
Who kissed your hand in the make--believe
And looked for the bee in your royal sleeve,
And stopped, because of the pain that smarts,
The pangs that soften, the sighs that grieve,
And the rest of the tragic parts.
We did not know that we loved,
Not at the first of it.
That, ah that was the worst of it,
The aching sorrowful worst of it,
Not till I saw that your soul was moved
At the sound of my voice, as in tears I read
Of Guinevere and the days long dead,
And the knights and ladies who lived and loved
And went to their graves and were harvested.
Then, ah then, it was proved.
So I dare not bid you good--bye,
Dear, without tears.
Things there are in the years,
The coming ominous years,
All too sad for us not to cry.
Other joys shall forgotten be,
But not the pilgrimage made with me,
The Severn's flood and the angry sky,
And the love we talked of, which could not be
With Eternity standing by.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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Little Queen
Do you remember the name I wore –
The old pet-name of Little Queen –
In the dear, dead days that are no more,
The happiest days of our lives, I ween?
For we loved with that passionate love of youth
That blesses but once with its perfect bliss, -
A love that, in spite of its trust and truth,
Seems never to thrive, in a world like this.
I lived for you, and you lived for me;
All was centred in “Little Queen”;
And never a thought in our hearts had we
That strife or trouble could come between,
What utter sinking of self it was!
How little we cared for the world of men!
For love’s fair kingdom, and loves’ sweet laws,
Were all of the world and life to us then.
But a love like ours was a challenge to fate;
She rang down the curtains and shifted the scene;
Yet sometimes now, when the day grows late,
I can hear you calling for Little Queen;
For a happy home and a busy life
Can never wholly crowd out our past;
In the twilight pauses that come from strife,
You will think of me while life shall last.
And however sweet the voice of fame
May sing to me of a great world’s praise,
I shall long sometimes for the old pet-name
That you gave to me in the dear, dead days;
And nothing the angel band can say,
When I reach the shores of the great Unseen,
Can please me so much as on that day
To hear your greeting of “Little Queen.”
poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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Twilight Night
I
We met, hand to hand,
We clasped hands close and fast,
As close as oak and ivy stand;
But it is past:
Come day, come night, day comes at last.
We loosed hand from hand,
We parted face from face;
Each went his way to his own land.
At his own pace,
Each went to fill his separate place.
If we should meet one day,
If both should not forget,
We shall clasp hands the accustomed way,
As when we met
So long ago, as I remember yet.
II
Where my heart is (wherever that may be)
Might I but follow!
If you fly thither over heath and lea,
O honey-seeking bee,
O careless swallow,
Bid some for whom I watch keep watch for me.
Alas! that we must dwell, my heart and I,
So far asunder.
Hours wax to days, and days and days creep by;
I watch with wistful eye,
I wait and wonder:
When will that day draw nigh—that hour draw nigh?
Not yesterday, and not, I think, to-day;
Perhaps to-morrow.
Day after day 'to-morrow' thus I say:
I watched so yesterday
In hope and sorrow,
Again to-day I watch the accustomed way.
poem by Christina Georgina Rossetti
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Orange juice kiss
A circle of dried, sweet orange juice
Finger to mouth, the taste memories seduce
Memories of that sweet orange juice kiss
Thoughts race to the past and days of bliss
The giggling young angel standing at the bedside
The past and the present, emotions collide
Those glorious hours playing in the park
Warm sunny days before the onset of dark
When long summer day’s end and it’s time to rest
Sweet angel climbs up and lays head on my chest
If there’s one memory that brings me this bliss
It’s the memory of that sweet orange juice kiss
poem by Brian 'Peza' Perrins
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Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
Yesterday I done things that pleased others
Today I do things that pleased myself
Tomorrow is the day I change what I have done wrong
Yesterday I hate things that hurt me
Today I shall change things under my control
Tomorrow I shall do more that I can envisioned
Yesterday I had past my youth era
Today I am wiser than yesterday
Tomorrow I will become a legend because I dare to dream big
Happy are those whom appreciated what yesterday had brought
Happy are those whom plan for things to do today
For tomorrow what might bring us is eternal happiness and peace
Yesterday Time flies so fast without realising we are already dead
Today Wasting our time is wasting our life
Tomorrow Time is valueless and priceless
Let yesterday remind me of the sweet memories of yester years
Let today be my reminder of treasuring our life
For tomorrow may bring uncertainty onto our life
So let us treasure and value our time
Time becomes priceless when we take things for granted
Time becomes meaningless when we face our final moment of our dead
Time becomes tomorrow heaven when we treasure the present moment.
© 2011 Lawrence Hiung
poem by Lawrence Hiung
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