Amalia
Angel-fair, Walhalla's charms displaying,
Fairer than all mortal youths was he;
Mild his look, as May-day sunbeams straying
Gently o'er the blue and glassy sea.
And his kisses!--what ecstatic feeling!
Like two flames that lovingly entwine,
Like the harp's soft tones together stealing
Into one sweet harmony divine,--
Soul and soul embraced, commingled, blended,
Lips and cheeks with trembling passion burned,
Heaven and earth, in pristine chaos ended,
Round the blissful lovers madly turn'd.
He is gone--and, ah! with bitter anguish
Vainly now I breathe my mournful sighs;
He is gone--in hopeless grief I languish
Earthly joys I ne'er again can prize!
poem by Friedrich Schiller
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Related quotes
From Love to Friendship
If you would have me love once more,
The blissful age of love restore;
From wine's free joys, and lovers' cares,
Relentless time, who no man spares,
Urges me quickly to retire,
And no more to such bliss aspire.
From such austerity exact,
Let's, if we can, some good extract;
Whose way of thinking with this age
Suits not, can ne'er be deemed a sage.
Let sprightly youth its follies gay,
Its follies amiable display;
Life to two moments is confined,
Let one to wisdom be consigned.
You sweet delusions of my mind,
Still to my ruling passion kind,
Which always brought a sure relief
To life's accurst companion, grief.
Will you forever from me fly,
And must I joyless, friendless die?
No mortal e'er resigns his breath
I see, without a double death;
Who loves, and is beloved no more,
His hapless fate may well deplore;
Life's loss may easily be borne,
Of love bereft man is forlorn.
'Twas thus those pleasures I lamented,
Which I so oft in youth repented;
My soul replete with soft desire,
Vainly regretted youthful fire.
But friendship then, celestial maid,
From heaven descended to my aid;
Less lively than the amorous flame,
Although her tenderness the same.
The charms of friendship I admired,
My soul was with new beauty fired;
I then made one in friendship's train,
But destitute of love, complain.
Requiem
To what bright world afar didst thou belong,
Thou whose pure soul seemed not of mortal birth?
From what fair clime of flowers and love and song,
Cam'st thou, a star beam to our shadowed earth?
What hadst thou done, sweet spirit in that sphere,
That thou wert banished here?
Here, where our blossoms early fade and die,
Where autumn frosts despoil our loveliest bowers,
Where song goes up to heaven an anguished cry
From wounded hearts, like perfume from crushed flowers;
Where Love despairing waits and weeps in vain,
His Psyche to regain.
Thou cam'st not unattended on thy way; --
Spirits of grace and beauty, joy and love,
Were with thee ever, bearing each some ray
From the far home that thou hadst left above;
And ever at thy side, upon our sight
Gleamed forth their wings of light.
We heard their voices in the gushing song
That rose like incense from thy poet heart;
We saw the footsteps of the shining throng
Glancing upon thy pathway, high apart,
Where in thy radiance thou didst walk the earth,
Thou child of glorious birth.
But the way lengthened and the song grew sad,
Breathing those tones that find no echo here;
Aspiring, soaring, but no longer glad,
Its mournful music fell upon the ear:
'Twas the home-sickness of a soul that sighs
For its own native skies.
Then he that to earth's children comes at last,
The angel-messenger, white-robed and pale,
Upon thy soul his sweet oblivion cast,
And bore thee gently through the shadowy vale,
The fleeting years of thy brief exile o'er,
Home to the blissful shore.
poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
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Angelic Love
Angelic love that stoops with heavenly lips
To meet its earthly mate;
Heroic love that to its sphere's eclipse
Can dare to join its fate
With one beloved devoted human heart,
And share with it the passion and the smart,
The undying bliss
Of its most fleeting kiss;
The fading grace
Of its most sweet embrace:-
Angelic love, heroic love!
Whose birth can only be above,
Whose wandering must be on earth,
Whose haven where it first had birth!
Love that can part with all but its own worth,
And joy in every sacrifice
That beautifies its Paradise!
And gently, like a golden-fruited vine,
With earnest tenderness itself consign,
And creeping up deliriously entwine
Its dear delicious arms
Round the beloved being!
With fair unfolded charms,
All-trusting, and all-seeing, -
Grape-laden with full bunches of young wine!
While to the panting heart's dry yearning drouth
Buds the rich dewy mouth -
Tenderly uplifted,
Like two rose-leaves drifted
Down in a long warm sigh of the sweet South!
Such love, such love is thine,
Such heart is mine,
O thou of mortal visions most divine!
poem by George Meredith
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Memory
Brightly the sun of summer shone,
Green fields and waving woods upon,
And soft winds wandered by;
Above, a sky of purest blue,
Around, bright flowers of loveliest hue,
Allured the gazer's eye.
But what were all these charms to me,
When one sweet breath of memory
Came gently wafting by?
I closed my eyes against the day,
And called my willing soul away,
From earth, and air, and sky;
That I might simply fancy there
One little flower - a primrose fair,
Just opening into sight;
As in the days of infancy,
An opening primrose seemed to me
A source of strange delight.
Sweet Memory! ever smile on me;
Nature's chief beauties spring from thee,
Oh, still thy tribute bring!
Still make the golden crocus shine
Among the flowers the most divine,
The glory of the spring.
Still in the wall-flower's fragrance dwell;
And hover round the slight blue bell,
My childhood's darling flower.
Smile on the little daisy still,
The buttercup's bright goblet fill
With all thy former power.
For ever hang thy dreamy spell
Round mountain star and heather bell,
And do not pass away
From sparkling frost, or wreathed snow,
And whisper when the wild winds blow,
Or rippling waters play.
Is childhood, then, so all divine?
Or Memory, is the glory thine,
That haloes thus the past?
Not all divine; its pangs of grief,
(Although, perchance, their stay be brief,)
Are bitter while they last.
Nor is the glory all thine own,
For on our earliest joys alone
That holy light is cast.
With such a ray, no spell of thine
Can make our later pleasures shine,
Though long ago they passed.
poem by Anne Brontë from Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (1846)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Sonnet VIII: Why, Through Each Aching Vein
Why, through each aching vein, with lazy pace
Thus steals the languid fountain of my heart,
While, from its source, each wild convulsive start
Tears the scorch'd roses from my burning face?
In vain, O Lesbian Vales! your charms I trace;
Vain is the poet's theme, the sculptor's art;
No more the Lyre its magic can impart,
Though wak'd to sound, with more than mortal grace!
Go, tuneful maids, go bid my Phaon prove
That passion mocks the empty boast of fame;
Tell him no joys are sweet, but joys of love,
Melting the soul, and thrilling all the frame!
Oh! may th'ecstatic thought in bosom move,
And sighs of rapture, fan the blush of shame!
poem by Mary Darby Robinson
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The Reckoning
LEADER.
LET no cares now hover o'er us
Let the wine unsparing run!
Wilt thou swell our merry chorus?
Hast thou all thy duty done?
SOLO.
Two young folks--the thing is curious--
Loved each other; yesterday
Both quite mild, to-day quite furious,
Next day, quite the deuce to pay!
If her neck she there was stooping,
He must here needs pull his hair.
I revived their spirits drooping,
And they're now a happy pair.
CHORUS.
Surely we for wine may languish!
Let the bumper then go round!
For all sighs and groans of anguish
Thou to-day in joy hast drown'd.
SOLO.
Why, young orphan, all this wailing?
"Would to heaven that I were dead!
For my guardian's craft prevailing
Soon will make me beg my bread."
Knowing well the rascal genus,
Into court I dragg'd the knave;
Fair the judges were between us,
And the maiden's wealth did save.
CHORUS.
Surely we for wine may languish!
Let the bumper then go round!
For all sighs and groans of anguish
Thou to-day in joy hast drown'd.
SOLO.
To a little fellow, quiet,
Unpretending and subdued,
Has a big clown, running riot,
Been to-day extremely rude.
I bethought me of my duty,
And my courage swell'd apace,
So I spoil'd the rascal's beauty,
Slashing him across the face.
CHORUS.
Surely we for wine may languish!
Let the bumper then go round!
For all sighs and groans of anguish
Thou to-day in joy hast drown'd.
SOLO.
Brief must be my explanation,
For I really have done nought.
Free from trouble and vexation,
I a landlord's business bought.
There I've done, with all due ardour,
All that duty order'd me;
Each one ask'd me for the larder,
And there was no scarcity.
CHORUS.
Surely we for wine may languish!
Let the bumper then go round!
For all sighs and groans of anguish
Thou to-day in joy hast drown'd.
LEADER.
Each should thus make proclamation
Of what he did well to-day!
That's the match whose conflagration
Should inflame our tuneful lay.
Let it be our precept ever
To admit no waverer here!
For to act the good endeavour,
None but rascals meek appear.
CHORUS.
Surely we for wine may languish!
Let the bumper then go round!
For all sighs and groans of anguish
We have now in rapture drown'd.
TRIO.
Let each merry minstrel enter,
He's right welcome to our hall!
'Tis but with the selfÄtormentor
That we are not liberal;
For we fear that his caprices,
That his eye-brows dark and sad,
That his grief that never ceases
Hide an empty heart, or bad.
CHORUS.
No one now for wine shall languish!
Here no minstrel shall be found,
Who all sighs and groans of anguish,
Has not first in rapture drown'd!
poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Song Of The Harp
Angel play upon your harp.
Play it soft and clear.
If I listen long enough
maybe I will hear
all the tones that vibrate,
reaching through the spheres.
Angel play upon your harp
sweet music for my ears.
All the sounds that reach our young
are not too heavenly.
Their music is just so much noise,
I know it cannot be
music that an angel plays,
music that is sweet.
All they seem to want is
a steady throbbing beat.
Angel play upon your harp.
Play it night and day.
Maybe they might listen
to the silken tones you play.
poem by Edwina Reizer
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Address To Music
OH thou! whose soft, bewitching lyre,
Can lull the sting of pain to rest;
Oh thou! whose warbling notes inspire,
The pensive muse with visions blest;
Sweet music! let thy melting airs
Enhance my joys, and sooth my cares!
Is there enchantment in thy voice,
Thy dulcet harp, thy moving measure;
To bid the mournful mind rejoice,
To raise the fairy form of pleasure?
Yes, heav'nly maid! a charm is thine,
A magic art, a spell divine!
Sweet music! when thy notes we hear,
Some dear remembrance oft they bring,
Of friends belov'd, no longer near,
And days that flew on rapture's wing;
Hours of delight that long are past,
And dreams of joy, too bright to last!
And oft 'tis thine the soul to fire,
With glory's animating flame,
Bid valor's noble sons aspire
To win th' immortal wreath of fame
Thine too, the soft, expressive tones,
That pity, tender pity owns!
Oh harmony! celestial pow'r!
Thou syren of the melting soul!
In sorrow's reign, in pleasure's hour,
My heart shall own thy blest control;
And ever let thy moving airs,
Enhance my joys and sooth my cares!
poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans
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Stabat Mater
Nigh the cross with sorrow laden,
Weeping stood the Mother-maiden
While her Son in torment hung:
Sadly moaning, deeply wailing,
Now the cruel sword prevailing
Pierced her soul with anguish wrung.
Oh how sad that spirit lowly,
Blessèd Virgin, pure and holy,
Mother of the Only-born.
She with bitter grief and sighing,
Piteous Mother of the dying,
Saw her son with anguish torn.
Who could, tearless, thus behold her,
While such agonies enfold her,
Mother of the Crucified?
Who could see the Christ before him
See his Mother grieving o'er Him,
And unpitying turn aside?
In His torment she beheld Him,
While the cruel scourge compelled Him
Others' sins to expiate,
Saw her Son so meek and tender
Forth His stainless spirit render,
Hers, yet dying desolate.
Mother, fount of all affection,
Let me, bowed in sore dejection,
Share the grief and bear the rod.
Let my soul with ardour glowing,
Hence abound to overflowing
With the love of Christ my God.
Holy Mother, pierce my spirit
With the wounds for my demerit
Borne upon the accursed tree.
Let me, keenly sympathising,
Feel the torment agonising,
Of the cross endured for me.
Tear for tear, thy sorrow bearing,
Be it mine, thine anguish sharing,
While I live to weep with thee,
With thee at the cross abiding,
With thee mournful watch dividing,
This I ask thee tearfully.
Virgin, virgins all excelling,
May my spirit near thee dwelling,
Feel thy bitter grief its own;
Share the Saviour's dark affliction,
Passion, scourge, and crucifixion,
Pang for pang and groan for groan.
Pierce me till my spirit bleedeth,
Pierce me till my sense recedeth,
Blood-enraptured clean away.
Virgin blest when time is ended,
Be my soul by thee defended,
In the dreadful Judgment Day
Christ, when hence my soul is fleeting,
Through thy mother mercy meeting,
Be the palm of victory given.
When this mortal bond shall sever,
Take my spirit home for ever,
To the glorious rest of Heaven.
poem by James Brunton Stephens
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The Parting Soul And Her Guardian Angel
(Written during sickness).
Soul—
Oh! say must I leave this world of light
With its sparkling streams and sunshine bright,
Its budding flowers, its glorious sky?
Vain ’tis to ask me—I cannot die!
Angel—
But, sister, list! in the realms above,
That happy home of eternal love,
Are flowers more fair, and skies more clear
Than those thou dost cling to so fondly here.
Soul—
Ah! yes, but to reach that home of light
I must pass through the fearful vale of night;
And my soul with alarm doth shuddering cry—
O angel, I tell thee, I dare not die!
Angel—
Ah! mortal beloved, in that path untried
Will I be, as ever, still at thy side,
Through gloom to guide till, death’s shadows passed,
Thou nearest, unharmed, God’s throne at last.
Soul—
Alas! too many close ties of love
Around my wavering heart are wove!
Fond, tender voices, press me to stay—
Think’st thou from them I would pass away?
Daily my mother, with anguish wild,
Bends o’er the couch of her dying child,
And one, nearer still, with silent tears,
Betrays his anguish, his gloomy fears—
Yes, even now, while to thee I speak,
Are hot drops falling upon my cheek;
Think you I’d break from so close a tie?
No, my guardian angel, I cannot die!
Angel—
Poor child of earth! how closely clings
Thy heart to earth and to earthly things!
Wilt thou still revolt if I whisper low
That thy Father in Heaven wills it so—
Wills that with Him thou should’st henceforth dwell,
To pray for those whom thou lovest so well,
Till a time shall come when you’ll meet again,
To forget for ever life’s grief and pain?
Soul—
Spirit, thy words have a potent power
O’er my sinking heart in this awful hour,
And thy soft-breathed hopes, with magic might.
Have chased from my soul the shades of night.
Console the dear ones I part from now,
Who hang o’er my couch with pallid brow,
Tell them we’ll meet in yon shining sky—
And, Saviour tender, now let me die!
poem by Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
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The Masterpiece
Within the passion of your kiss I feel your soft sweet lips,
I caress your skin so gently with my loving fingertips.
I hear your cries of mercy and it stirs my very soul,
Your body is soft putty, a masterpiece for me to mould.
Frantic grasping touches mixed with loving longing sounds,
Strokes of wanton desire wrapped in passion that surrounds.
Trembling with desire that flows through us feeding on our lust,
Content within our being, we embrace the one we trust.
Pressure from my hands as now I begin to play,
Tremours of desire rip right through us as we lay.
Your breath it is suspended as my tongue now travels far,
It gives such a sweet sensation and you shine now like a star.
We are lost within the moment as our bodies do compress,
An electrifying sensation, your skin pressing on my chest.
The wetness of your tongue feels the prescence of my heat,
Our bodies are on fire as the two of us do meet.
There is a desperate hunger that is fueling both our needs,
As two lovers come together both now desperate to feed.
Taking all my passion, wanting, feeling only me,
The joy it is transcended, we become what we can be.
I hear your longing whimpers, the smiling face of you I see,
Watching as you writhe below, you lock your gaze on me.
Clutching fingers tightly there's heat and passion in this room,
Your eyes can see right through me, in you I long to be comsumed.
Pounding hearts beat faster, beads of sweat begin to drop,
Lost within a moment that neither one of us can to stop.
I bite your lips as we kiss and pull upon your hair,
Our bodies move in rythm in the steamy humid air.
The moment is upon us cries of passion grip us now,
As within each thrusting motion we release not knowing how.
As we lay within each other we remember what has been,
We lay looking in each others eyes, the dream it was so keen.
Within the passion of your kiss, I felt your soft sweet lips,
I caressed your skin so gently with my loving fingertips.
I heard your cries of mercy and it stirred my very soul,
Your body was soft putty a masterpiece that I did mould...
Spread the love... The peace will follow...
poem by Cosmic Dreamer
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Spring Gathering
I'm wondering with my soul prepared feeling off and on
breeze within the springtime glare.I have met in my
mind a woman more fair-fairer than the bending green
of brooks, rare is her beauty never misunderstood.
Fairer than the mist over hills and mountains.
Fairer than sunshine on water when it sparkles.
Fairer than the sound of birds calling, mating.
Fairer than rapture of rivers running full force.
Fairer than trees with leaves of gold.
Fairer inside those dark brown eyes.
Fairer than raindrops falling from rooftops.
Fairer than a breathing bed of flowers.
Fairer than the most enchanting pools of the jungle.
Fairer than the sky in a radiant blue.
Fairer in heart than I could have ever imagined.
poem by William Blackman
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Sweet Woman
You lit a candle in my heart
I feel your warm eyes
You bring me blue skies
Yet take my breath
Away.
And I'll miss you for another day.
You inspire me
My passion is yours
The sweetest soul
That touched mine
Opened all my closing doors
With emotion so divine.
What is this
The secret lovers kiss
I send you on the breeze
To touch your lips
Oh darling answer please.
Our star will show
Then i will know
That you glimpse heaven too.
You made my heart brand new
Sweet woman
With every fibre of my being I feel your glow
It's surely love my soul is seeing
Don't ever go
And our tomorrow
Will tell us so.
poem by Kevin East
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A Nuptial Song
Come, gentle Venus! and assuage
A warring world, a bleeding age.
For nature lives beneath thy ray,
The wintry tempests haste away,
A lucid calm invests the sea,
Thy native deep is full of thee;
The flowering earth where'er you fly,
Is all o'er spring, all sun the sky;
A genial spirit warms the breeze,
Unseen among the blooming trees,
The feathered lovers tune their throat,
The desert growls a softened note,
Glad o'er the meads the cattle bound,
And love and harmony go round.
But chief into the human heart
You strike the dear delicious dart;
You teach us pleasing pangs to know,
To languish in luxurious woe,
To feel the generous passions rise,
Grow good by gazing; mild by sighs;
Each happy moment to improve,
And fill the perfect year with love.
Come, thou delight of heaven and earth!
To whom all creatures owe their birth;
Oh, come, sweet smiling! tender, come!
And yet prevent our final doom.
For long the furious god of war
Has crushed us with his iron car,
Has raged along our ruined plains,
Has soiled them with his cruel stains,
Has sunk our youth in endless sleep,
And made the widowed virgin weep.
Now let him feel thy wonted charms,
Oh, take him to thy twining arms!
And, while thy bosom heaves on his,
While deep he prints the humid kiss,
Ah, then! his stormy heart control,
And sigh thyself into his soul.
poem by James Thomson
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Homesick In Heaven
THE DIVINE VOICE
Go seek thine earth-born sisters,--thus the Voice
That all obey,--the sad and silent three;
These only, while the hosts of Heaven rejoice,
Smile never; ask them what their sorrows be;
And when the secret of their griefs they tell,
Look on them with thy mild, half-human eyes;
Say what thou wast on earth; thou knowest well;
So shall they cease from unavailing sighs.
THE ANGEL
Why thus, apart,--the swift-winged herald spake,--
Sit ye with silent lips and unstrung lyres
While the trisagion's blending chords awake
In shouts of joy from all the heavenly choirs?
FIRST SPIRIT
Chide not thy sisters,--thus the answer came;--
Children of earth, our half-weaned nature clings
To earth's fond memories, and her whispered name
Untunes our quivering lips, our saddened strings;
For there we loved, and where we love is home,
Home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts,
Though o'er us shine the jasper-lighted dome:--
The chain may lengthen, but it never parts!
Sometimes a sunlit sphere comes rolling by,
And then we softly whisper,--can it be?
And leaning toward the silvery orb, we try
To hear the music of its murmuring sea;
To catch, perchance, some flashing glimpse of green,
Or breathe some wild-wood fragrance, wafted through
The opening gates of pearl, that fold between
The blinding splendors and the changeless blue.
THE ANGEL
Nay, sister, nay! a single healing leaf
Plucked from the bough of yon twelve-fruited tree
Would soothe such anguish,--deeper stabbing grief
Has pierced thy throbbing heart--
THE FIRST SPIRIT
Ah, woe is me! I from my clinging babe was rudely torn;
His tender lips a loveless bosom pressed;
Can I forget him in my life new born?
Oh that my darling lay upon my breast!
THE ANGEL
And thou?--
THE SECOND SPIRIT
I was a fair and youthful bride,
The kiss of love still burns upon my cheek,
He whom I worshipped, ever at my side,--
Him through the spirit realm in vain I seek.
Sweet faces turn their beaming eyes on mine;
Ah! not in these the wished-for look I read;
Still for that one dear human smile I pine;
_Thou and none other!_--is the lover's creed.
THE ANGEL
And whence thy sadness in a world of bliss
Where never parting comes, nor mourner's tear?
Art thou, too, dreaming of a mortal's kiss
Amid the seraphs of the heavenly sphere?
THE THIRD SPIRIT
Nay, tax not me with passion's wasting fire;
When the swift message set my spirit free,
Blind, helpless, lone, I left my gray-haired sire;
My friends were many, he had none save me.
I left him, orphaned, in the starless night;
Alas, for him no cheerful morning's dawn
I wear the ransomed spirit's robe of white,
Yet still I hear him moaning, _She is gone!_
THE ANGEL
Ye know me not, sweet sisters?--All in vain
Ye seek your lost ones in the shapes they wore;
The flower once opened may not bud again,
The fruit once fallen finds the stem no more.
Child, lover, sire,--yea, all things loved below,--
Fair pictures damasked on a vapor's fold,--
Fade like the roseate flush, the golden glow,
When the bright curtain of the day is rolled.
I was the babe that slumbered on thy breast.
And, sister, mine the lips that called thee bride.
Mine were the silvered locks thy hand caressed,
That faithful hand, my faltering footstep's guide!
Each changing form, frail vesture of decay,
The soul unclad forgets it once hath worn,
Stained with the travel of the weary day,
And shamed with rents from every wayside
thorn.
To lie, an infant, in thy fond embrace,--
To come with love's warm kisses back to thee,--
To show thine eyes thy gray-haired father's face,
Not Heaven itself could grant; this may not be!
Then spread your folded wings, and leave to earth
The dust once breathing ye have mourned so long,
Till Love, new risen, owns his heavenly birth,
And sorrow's discords sweeten into song!
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
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Lily Adair
On the beryl-rimmed rebecs of Ruby,
Brought fresh from the hyaline streams,
She played, on the banks of the Yuba,
Such songs as she heard in her dreams.
Like the heavens, when the stars from their cyries
Look down through the ebon night air,
Were the groves by the Ouphantic Fairies
Lit up for my Lily Adair—
For my child-like Lily Adair—
For my heaven-born Lily Adair—
For my beautiful, dutiful Lily Adair.
Like two rose-leaves in sunshine when blowing,
Just curled softly, gently apart,
Were her lips by her passion, while growing
In perfume on the stalk of her heart.
As mild as the sweet influences
Of the Pleiades 'pregning the air—
More mild than the throned Excellencies
Up in heaven, was my Lily Adair—
Was my Christ-like Lily Adair—
Was my lamb-like Lily Adair—
Was my beautiful, dutiful Lily Adair.
At the birth of this fair virgin Vestal,
She was taken for Venus' child;
And her voice, though like diamond in crystal,
Was not more melodious than mild.
Like the moon in her soft silver splendor,
She was shrined in her own, past compare,
For no Angel in heaven was more tender
Than my beautiful Lily Adair—
Than my dove-like Lily Adair—
Than my saint-like Lily Adair—
Than my beautiful, dutiful Lily Adair.
Thus she stood on the arabesque borders
Of the beautiful blossoms that blew
On the banks of the crystalline waters,
Every morn, in the diaphane dew.
The flowers, they were radiant with glory,
And shed such perfume on the air,
That my soul, now to want them, feels sorry,
And bleeds for my Lily Adair—
For my much-loved Lily Adair—
For my long-lost Lily Adair—
For my beautiful, dutiful Lily Adair.
poem by Thomas Holley Chivers (1853)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Solitude
There is in stillness oft a magic power
To calm the breast, when struggling passions lower;
Touch'd by its influence, in the soul arise
Diviner feelings, kindred with the skies.
By this the Arab's kindling thoughts expand,
When circling skies inclose the desert sand;
For this the hermit seeks the thickest grove,
To catch th' inspiring glow of heavenly love.
It is not solely in the freedom given
To purify and fix the heart on heaven;
There is a Spirit singing aye in air,
That lifts us high above all mortal care.
No mortal measure swells that mystic sound,
No mortal minstrel breathes such tones around,—
The Angels' hymn,—the sovereign harmony
That guides the rolling orbs along the sky,—
And hence perchance the tales of saints who view'd
And heard Angelic choirs in solitude.
By most unheard,—because the earthly din
Of toil or mirth has charms their ears to win.
Alas for man! he knows not of the bliss,
The heaven that brightens such a life as this.
poem by John Henry Newman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Fair is my love from far
Fair is my love from far, but she is far from being fair
She is fickle, her nature is false and her character full of frauds.
No beauties can compensate for such flaws!
Yet her face; her face is so divine without the touch of impurity
She is mild as a dove, but neither true nor trusty
Brighter than glass, and yet as glass she is brittle
A soul softer than wax, and yet as iron rusty
A lily pale skin, with damask dye to grace her clad
None fairer, nor none falser to deface her.
Her lips how often she to truth and to logic she joined
Between each of her oaths of true love swearing
How many tales to please the truth she coined,
Dreading the truth, the loss of love and strength still fearing
Yet amid of all her pure protesting
Her faith in love, her oaths of the truth were all jesting.
She burned with love, as straw with fire flames
She burned herself out of true love as soon as straw out burns
She framed her feign love, and she foiled the framing
She forlorn with phantom of love, dark shadows and foul fair
She bade love last, and fell into a bust
Is he a lover last, he that inflicts pains in caress
Agony in soft whisper
A lecher, a vampire of the soul whichever
Bad in the best, though excellent in neither
What for me in all of that, any aspiration? Any goal?
Old, crumpling tattered soul
Do not look at the mirror tonight
For I profoundly hate thee for you keen sight
Rest; take your sleep in the tempest of the night
No comport will lay by your pillow
After such an acid, such a poison spilled by your ink
You awakened sleeping devils, released bottle of imps
O stay at the table! Cried the lines I wrote
We have no power to let her read love by rote
And watch her not able to spell
For her soul is enthralled by the devil of hell
I watched the silver moon plays upon glassy streams
Twinkle another counterfeit beam
How she can not tell
Foul from fair and fair from foul
So seems her gorgeous beauty to mine eyes
But I see her mind full of foul and follies
Fain shall I try to woo her wit, yet again? I dare not speak
Let me back for a pen and an ink I shall rather write my mind
Cowards have no tongue no character
Their comfort is in hide their pride is in hypocrisy
Is she not here?
Will you be daunted at the woman’s sight?
Beauty’s princely majesty is such
That it confounds the tongue
And makes the senses rough and the mind blur
Can such a villain woo such a virtuous woman?
Can she thus be won?
What side of the bed?
I shall rest my exploding head
My body is in flames of pains
Oh let it not start again!
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Snow Angel
The snowed bloomed into an angel fair
Freezing my heart with her heavenly stare
I felt naked, exposed, revealed and bare
Lost in my soul, lost in no where
So…
I kissed those crystal laced eyes
I breathed her serene scented sighs
I digested her heart full goodbyes
And watched her elevate, her soul rise
To the ethereal kingdom of earth's skies
where in the snow angel, my anguish dies.
poem by Kevin Michael Murphy
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Love and Harmony
Love and harmony combine,
And round our souls entwine
While thy branches mix with mine,
And our roots together join.
Joys upon our branches sit,
Chirping loud and singing sweet;
Like gentle streams beneath our feet
Innocence and virtue meet.
Thou the golden fruit dost bear,
I am clad in flowers fair;
Thy sweet boughs perfume the air,
And the turtle buildeth there.
There she sits and feeds her young,
Sweet I hear her mournful song;
And thy lovely leaves among,
There is love, I hear his tongue.
There his charming nest doth lay,
There he sleeps the night away;
There he sports along the day,
And doth among our branches play.
poem by William Blake
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