A Maiden To Her Mirror
He said he loved me! Then he called my hair
Silk threads wherewith sly Cupid strings his bow,
My cheek a rose leaf fallen on new snow;
And swore my round, full throat would bring despair
To Venus or to Psyche.
Time and care
Will fade these locks; the merry god, I know,
Uses no grizzled cords upon his bow.
How will it be when I, no longer fair,
Plead for his kiss with cheeks, whence long ago
The early snowflakes melted quite away,
The rose leaf died – and in whose sallow clay
Lie the deep sunken tracks of life’s gaunt crow?
When this full throat shall wattle fold on fold,
Like some ripe peach left drying on a wall,
Or like a spent accordion, when all
Its music has exhaled – will love grow cold?
poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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Related quotes
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
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Fragoletta
O LOVE! what shall be said of thee?
The son of grief begot by joy?
Being sightless, wilt thou see?
Being sexless, wilt thou be
Maiden or boy?
I dreamed of strange lips yesterday
And cheeks wherein the ambiguous blood
Was like a rose’s—yea,
A rose’s when it lay
Within the bud.
What fields have bred thee, or what groves
Concealed thee, O mysterious flower,
O double rose of Love’s,
With leaves that lure the doves
From bud to bower?
I dare not kiss it, lest my lip
Press harder than an indrawn breath,
And all the sweet life slip
Forth, and the sweet leaves drip,
Bloodlike, in death.
O sole desire of my delight!
O sole delight of my desire!
Mine eyelids and eyesight
Feed on thee day and night
Like lips of fire.
Lean back thy throat of carven pearl,
Let thy mouth murmur like the dove’s;
Say, Venus hath no girl,
No front of female curl,
Among her Loves.
Thy sweet low bosom, thy close hair,
Thy strait soft flanks and slenderer feet,
Thy virginal strange air,
Are these not over fair
For Love to greet?
How should he greet thee? what new name,
Fit to move all men’s hearts, could move
Thee, deaf to love or shame,
Love’s sister, by the same
Mother as Love?
Ah sweet, the maiden’s mouth is cold,
Her breast-blossoms are simply red,
Her hair mere brown or gold,
Fold over simple fold
Binding her head.
Thy mouth is made of fire and wine,
Thy barren bosom takes my kiss
And turns my soul to thine
And turns thy lip to mine,
And mine it is.
Thou hast a serpent in thine hair,
In all the curls that close and cling;
And ah, thy breast-flower!
Ah love, thy mouth too fair
To kiss and sting!
Cleave to me, love me, kiss mine eyes,
Satiate thy lips with loving me;
Nay, for thou shalt not rise;
Lie still as Love that dies
For love of thee.
Mine arms are close about thine head,
My lips are fervent on thy face,
And where my kiss hath fed
Thy flower-like blood leaps red
To the kissed place.
O bitterness of things too sweet!
O broken singing of the dove!
Love’s wings are over fleet,
And like the panther’s feet
The feet of Love.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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Last Rose Of Summer
Throughout the soft and timeless days of august
til now the shadows begin to grow much longer
The sunsets fire has deepened blood red
I give you this, the last rose of summer
A token of my unyielding love
So when the winters mantle stills the earth
And all around seems dead and cold
This rose reminds you of a time when all was warm and living
Do not despair, mother nature simply rests
In sleep she has well earned
til one day not so very far from now
With the opening of the first rose buds I shall return
A token of my unyielding love
So that when winters mettle steals the earth
And all around seems dead and cold
This rose reminds you of a time when all was warm and living
The last rose of summer
The last rose of summer
In your long shadows
The last rose of summer
In the sunset
The last rose of summer
Take this rose that I give you
The last rose of summer
The last rose of summer
Dont worry about the winter
The last rose of summer
I shall return
The last rose of summer
The last rose of summer
(fade)
song performed by by Judas Priest
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Summer
Come we to the summer, to the summer we will come,
For the woods are full of bluebells and the hedges full of bloom,
And the crow is on the oak a-building of her nest,
And love is burning diamonds in my true lover's breast;
She sits beneath the whitethorn a-plaiting of her hair,
And I will to my true lover with a fond request repair;
I will look upon her face, I will in her beauty rest,
And lay my aching weariness upon her lovely breast.
The clock-a-clay is creeping on the open bloom of May,
The merry bee is trampling the pinky threads all day,
And the chaffinch it is brooding on its grey mossy nest
In the whitethorn bush where I will lean upon my lover's breast;
I'll lean upon her breast and I'll whisper in her ear
That I cannot get a wink o'sleep for thinking of my dear;
I hunger at my meat and I daily fade away
Like the hedge rose that is broken in the heat of the day.
poem by John Clare (1865)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Fall to Earth
The stubborn little Maple leaf
held on when all its fellows fled.
They carpeting the ground beneath
a vast lushscape of gold and red.
Leaf held on through wind and rain,
the last survivor of its race.
Leaf held on past Turkey day
maintaining there its pride of place.
Then Leaf grew lonely, I suppose-
Like the summer's final rose.
Leaf envied then the flakes of snow
Who fluttered past to their repose.
Then, just as winter came to call,
Leaf felt a tug and then a snap.
Flying, tumbling on the winds
Fall to Earth. Fade to black.
poem by John F. McCullagh
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Women and Roses
I
I dream of a red-rose tree.
And which of its roses three
Is the dearest rose to me?
II
Round and round, like a dance of snow
In a dazzling drift, as its guardians, go
Floating the women faded for ages,
Sculptured in stone, on the poet's pages.
Then follow women fresh and gay,
Living and loving and loved to-day.
Last, in the rear, flee the multitude of maidens,
Beauties yet unborn. And all, to one cadence,
They circle their rose on my rose tree.
III
Dear rose, thy term is reached,
Thy leaf hangs loose and bleached:
Bees pass it unimpeached.
IV
Stay then, stoop, since I cannot climb,
You, great shapes of the antique time!
How shall I fix you, fire you, freeze you,
Break my heart at your feet to please you?
Oh, to possess and be possessed!
Hearts that beat 'neath each pallid breast!
Once but of love, the poesy, the passion,
Drink but once and die!—In vain, the same fashion,
They circle their rose on my rose tree.
V
Dear rose, thy joy's undimmed,
Thy cup is ruby-rimmed,
Thy cup's heart nectar-brimmed.
VI
Deep, as drops from a statue's plinth
The bee sucked in by the hyacinth,
So will I bury me while burning,
Quench like him at a plunge my yearning,
Eyes in your eyes, lips on your lips!
Fold me fast where the cincture slips,
Prison all my soul in eternities of pleasure,
Girdle me for once! But no—the old measure,
They circle their rose on my rose tree.
VII
Dear rose without a thorn,
Thy bud's the babe unborn:
First streak of a new morn.
VIII
Wings, lend wings for the cold, the clear!
What is far conquers what is near.
Roses will bloom nor want beholders,
Sprung from the dust where our flesh moulders.
What shall arrive with the cycle's change?
A novel grace and a beauty strange.
I will make an Eve, be the artist that began her,
Shaped her to his mind!—Alas! in like manner
They circle their rose on my rose tree.
poem by Robert Browning from Men and Women (1855)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Unyielding heart
Since he died,
her days are full.
Life goes quickly
and so it should
Since he died she toils,
works longer hours
has more hobbies
and new friends.
Since he died
her throat is tight
she hardly sleeps
the gap is wide.
Since he died
she reminisces,
recalls his kisses,
those warm full lips.
Since he died
her heart still beats
it will not stop ___
It defies her.
poem by Ruth Walters
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Sea Rose
Rose, harsh rose,
marred and with stint of petals,
meagre flower, thin,
sparse of leaf,
more precious
than a wet rose
single on a stem --
you are caught in the drift.
Stunted, with small leaf,
you are flung on the sand,
you are lifted
in the crisp sand
that drives in the wind.
Can the spice-rose
drip such acrid fragrance
hardened in a leaf?
poem by Hilda Doolittle
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The Year of the Rose
From the depths of the green garden-closes
Where the summer in darkness dozes
Till autumn pluck from his hand
An hour-glass that holds not a sand;
From the maze that a flower-belt encloses
To the stones and sea-grass on the strand
How red was the reign of the roses
Over the rose-crowned land!
The year of the rose is brief;
From the first blade blown to the sheaf,
From the thin green leaf to the gold,
It has time to be sweet and grow old,
To triumph and leave not a leaf
For witness in winter's sight
How lovers once in the light
Would mix their breath with its breath,
And its spirit was quenched not of night,
As love is subdued not of death.
In the red-rose land not a mile
Of the meadows from stile to stile,
Of the valleys from stream to stream,
But the air was a long sweet dream
And the earth was a sweet wide smile
Red-mouthed of a goddess, returned
From the sea which had borne her and burned,
That with one swift smile of her mouth
Looked full on the north as it yearned,
And the north was more than the south.
For the north, when winter was long,
In his heart had made him a song,
And clothed it with wings of desire,
And shod it with shoon as of fire,
To carry the tale of his wrong
To the south-west wind by the sea,
That none might bear it but he
To the ear of the goddess unknown
Who waits till her time shall be
To take the world for a throne.
In the earth beneath, and above
In the heaven where her name is love,
She warms with light from her eyes
The seasons of life as they rise,
And her eyes are as eyes of a dove,
But the wings that lift her and bear
As an eagle's, and all her hair
As fire by the wind's breath curled,
And her passage is song through the air,
And her presence is spring through the world.
So turned she northward and came,
And the white-thorn land was aflame
With the fires that were shed from her feet,
That the north, by her love made sweet,
Should be called by a rose-red name;
And a murmur was heard as of doves,
And a music beginning of loves
In the light that the roses made,
Such light as the music loves,
The music of man with maid.
But the days drop one upon one,
And a chill soft wind is begun
In the heart of the rose-red maze
That weeps for the roseleaf days
And the reign of the rose undone
That ruled so long in the light,
And by spirit, and not by sight,
Through the darkness thrilled with its breath,
Still ruled in the viewless night,
As love might rule over death.
The time of lovers is brief;
From the fair first joy to the grief
That tells when love is grown old,
From the warm wild kiss to the cold,
From the red to the white-rose leaf,
They have but a season to seem
As rose-leaves lost on a stream
That part not and pass not apart
As a spirit from dream to dream,
As a sorrow from heart to heart.
From the bloom and the gloom that encloses
The death-bed of Love where he dozes
Till a relic be left not of sand
To the hour-glass that breaks in his hand;
From the change in the grey garden-closes
To the last stray grass of the strand,
A rain and ruin of roses
Over the red-rose land.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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Sonnet XVIII: I Never Gave a Lock of Hair
I never gave a lock of hair away
To a man, dearest, except this to thee,
Which now upon my fingers thoughtfully,
I ring out to the full brown length and say
Take it. My day of youth went yesterday;
My hair no longer bounds to my foot's glee,
Nor plant I it from rose or myrtle-tree,
As girls do, any more: it only may
Now shade on two pale cheeks the mark of tears,
Taught drooping from the head that hangs aside
Through sorrow's trick. I thought the funeral-shears
Would take this first, but Love is justified,--
Take it thou,--finding pure, from all those years,
The kiss my mother left here when she died.
poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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Xviii
I never gave a lock of hair away
To a man, Dearest, except this to thee,
Which now upon my fingers thoughtfully,
I ring out to the full brown length and say
' Take it.' My day of youth went yesterday;
My hair no longer bounds to my foot's glee,
Nor plant I it from rose or myrtle-tree,
As girls do, any more: it only may
Now shade on two pale cheeks the mark of tears,
Taught drooping from the head that hangs aside
Through sorrow's trick. I thought the funeral-shears
Would take this first, but Love is justified,--
Take it thou,--finding pure, from all those years,
The kiss my mother left here when she died.
poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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Sonnet XVIII
I never gave a lock of hair away
To a man, Dearest, except this to thee,
Which now upon my fingers thoughtfully,
I ring out to the full brown length and say
' Take it.' My day of youth went yesterday;
My hair no longer bounds to my foot's glee,
Nor plant I it from rose or myrtle-tree,
As girls do, any more: it only may
Now shade on two pale cheeks the mark of tears,
Taught drooping from the head that hangs aside
Through sorrow's trick. I thought the funeral-shears
Would take this first, but Love is justified,--
Take it thou,--finding pure, from all those years,
The kiss my mother left here when she died.
poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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Dead Roses
He placed a rose in my nut-brown hair--
A deep red rose with a fragrant heart
And said: 'We'll set this day apart,
So sunny, so wondrous fair.'
His face was full of a happy light,
His voice was tender and low and sweet,
The daisies and the violets grew at our feet--
Alas, for the coming of night!
The rose is black and withered and dead!
'Tis hid in a tiny box away;
The nut-brown hair is turning to gray,
And the light of the day is fled!
The light of the beautiful day is fled,
Hush'd is the voice so sweet and low--
And I--ah, me! I loved him so--
And the daisies grow over his head!
poem by Eugene Field
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Orange Leaf
Orange leaf passing by
The air is stiff
And cold
Orange leaf passing by
Flying over the snow
Orange leaf passing by
Riding over the snow.
Past the oak tree
The old house is silent
Orange leaf
Fly with the wind
And snow
Fly past the frozen lake
Fish sleeping beneath
Its crystal surface
Orange leaf
fly to the sea
And wait
To be picked up
And carried off
Orange leaf passing by
The air is stiff
And cold
Orange leaf passing by
Flying over the snow
poem by Jesse love
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Sonnet 18 - I never gave a lock of hair away
XVIII
I never gave a lock of hair away
To a man, Dearest, except this to thee,
Which now upon my fingers thoughtfully,
I ring out to the full brown length and say
'Take it.' My day of youth went yesterday;
My hair no longer bounds to my foot's glee,
Nor plant I it from rose or myrtle-tree,
As girls do, any more: it only may
Now shade on two pale cheeks the mark of tears,
Taught drooping from the head that hangs aside
Through sorrow's trick. I thought the funeral-shears
Would take this first, but Love is justified,—
Take it thou,—finding pure, from all those years,
The kiss my mother left here when she died.
poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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Autumn Ill
Autumn ill and adored
You die when the hurricane blows in the roseries
When it has snowed
In the orchard trees
Poor autumn
Dead in whiteness and riches
Of snow and ripe fruits
Deep in the sky
The sparrow hawks cry
Over the sprites with green hair the dwarfs
Who’ve never been loved
In the far tree-lines
the stags are groaning
And how I love O season how I love your rumbling
The falling fruits that no one gathers
The wind the forest that are tumbling
All their tears in autumn leaf by leaf
The leaves
You press
A crowd
That flows
The life
That goes
poem by Guillaume Apollinaire
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Seasons of My Love
I loved a maid as fair as summer, with sunrise in her hair
There lived no other in the world could in my heart compare
Her eyes were stars of midnight bliss, her laugh a meadow breeze
I would have done all that she asked, so quick was I to please
I loved a maid as red as autumn, with sunset in her hair
Embraced in velvet lullabies, such sweetness did we share
We were all we ever had but we were wild and free
And in the lands you would not find a soul as lark as me
I loved a maid as white as winter, with snowflakes in her hair
The seasons of our love had both a beauty and despair
Two hearts that beat as one were we, our song was meant to be
And in the skies you would not find a dove as spry as she
I loved a maid as bright as spring, with blossoms in her hair
I loved her fierce, I loved her true, we were doomed; we did not care
The hands of time would take from me, even she was not to spare
In the whispers of my dreams, I still see my maiden fair
poem by Leonard Snow
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At Parting II
AND you could leave me now--
After the first remembered whispered vow
Which sings for ever and ever in my ears--
The vow which God among His Angels hears--
After the long-drawn years,
The slow hard tears,
Could break new ground, and wake
A new strange garden to blossom for your sake,
And leave me here alone,
In the old garden that was once our own?
How should I learn to bear
Our garden's pleasant ways and pleasant air,
Her flowers, her fruits, her lily, her rose and thorn,
When only in a picture these appear--
These, once alive, and always over-dear?
Ah--think again: the rose you used to wear
Must still be more than other roses be
The flower of flowers. Ah, pity, pity me!
For in my acres is no plot of ground
Whereon could any garden site be found,
I have but little skill
To water weed and till
And make the desert blossom like the rose;
Yet our old garden knows
If I have loved its ways and walks and kept
The garden watered, and the pleasance swept.
Yet--if you must--go now:
Go, with my blessing filling both your hands,
And, mid the desert sands
Which life drifts deep round every garden wall,
Make your new festival
Of bud and blossom--red rose and green leaf.
No blight born of my grief
Shall touch your garden, love; but my heart's prayer
Shall draw down blessings on you from the air,
And all we learned of leaf and plant and tree
Shall serve you when you walk no more with me
In garden ways; and when with her you tread
The pleasant ways with blossoms overhead
And when she asks, 'How did you come to know
The secrets of the ways these green things grow?'
Then you will answer--and I, please God, hear,
'I had another garden once, my dear'.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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If Not For Love
If not for love, who would be kissed?
Romance itself would not exist.
A billion songs would not be penned
And poetry would have an end.
The arts that we enjoy right now,
Would fade away in time somehow -
For who would sculpt and who would paint
Without the patience of a saint?
And what's a saint without a heart
That's full of love it would impart?
If not for love, no child would smile.
No queue would stand in single file.
No please, no thanks or God bless you!
No promise kept, no credit due,
No holding hands or soft caress,
No hope, no peace, no happiness,
No fervent prayer would reach God's Throne...
We would feel lost and so alone...
The world would spin and time would pass,
But life would be a foolish farce...
Not one of us would find life safe
Without strong heroes to be brave.
We know that emptiness within
Brings apathy that leads to sin.
There comes a parting of the ways -
There always is, if no-one prays...
If not for love, no rose would grow,
Because each rose would somehow know
If love had died, what use to live?
For who would buy and who would give?
If love left Earth and we lived on,
How soon before we sensed it gone?
An hour, a day, a week or more?
To tell the truth, I'm not quite sure!
For no-one wants to hold my hand
Or kiss my lips as I had planned...
In fact, upon my funeral...
I wonder who would care at all...
poem by Denis Martindale
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The Keepsake
The tedded hay, the first-fruits of the soil,
The tedded hay and corn-sheaves in one field,
Show summer gone, ere come. The foxglove tall
Sheds its loose purple bells, or in the gust,
Or when it bends beneath the up-springing lark,
Or mountain-finch alighting. And the rose
(In vain the darling of successful love)
Stands, like some boasted beauty of past years,
The thorns remaining, and the flowers all gone.
Nor can I find, amid my lonely walk
By rivulet, or spring, or wet road-side,
That blue and bright-eyed floweret of the brook,
Hope's gentle gem, the sweet Forget-me-not!
So will not fade the flowers which Emmeline
With delicate fingers on the snow-white silk
Has worked, (the flowers which most she knew I loved,)
And, more beloved than they, her auburn hair.
In the cool morning twilight, early waked
By her full bosom's joyous restlessness,
Softly she rose, and lightly stole along,
Down the slope coppice to the woodbine bower,
Whose rich flowers, swinging in the morning breeze
Over their dim fast-moving shadows hung,
Making a quiet image of disquiet
In the smooth, scarcely moving river-pool.
There, in that bower where first she owned her love,
And let me kiss my own warn tear of joy
From off her glowing cheek, she sate and stretched
The silk upon the frame, and worked her name
Between the Moss-Rose and Forget-me-not--
Her own dear name, with her own auburn hair!
That forced to wander till sweet spring return,
I yet might ne'er forget her smile, her look,
Her voice, (that even in her mirthful mood
Has made me wish to steal away and weep,)
Nor yet the entrancement of that maiden kiss
With which she promised, that when spring returned
She would resign one half of that dear name,
And own thenceforth no other name but mine!
poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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