The Dainty Virtue
She fled me through the meadow,
She fled me o'er the hill.
With such a fling she fled, oh,
She may be flying still.
But doubtless she grew weary
By thicket or by wood.—
A dainty virtue, dearie,
That fled when none pursued.
poem by Gamaliel Bradford
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When The Sleepy Man Comes
When the Sleepy Man comes with the dust on his eyes,
(Oh, weary, my Dearie, so weary!)
He shuts up the earth, and he opens the skies.
(So hush-a-by, weary my Dearie!)
He smiles through his fingers, and shuts up the sun;
(Oh, weary, my Dearie, so weary!)
The stars that he loves he lets out one by one.
(So hush-a-by, weary my Dearie!)
He comes from the castles of Drowsy-boy Town;
(Oh, weary, my Dearie, so weary!)
At the touch of his hand the tired eyelids fall down.
(So hush-a-by, weary my Dearie!)
He comes with a murmur of dream in his wings;
(Oh, weary, my Dearie, so weary!)
And whispers of mermaids and wonderful things.
(So hush-a-by, weary my Dearie!)
Then the top is a burden, the bugle a bane;
(Oh, weary, my Dearie, so weary!)
When one would be faring down Dream-a-way Lane.
(So hush-a-by, weary my Dearie!)
When one would be wending in Lullaby Wherry,
(Oh, weary, my Dearie, so weary!)
To Sleepy Man's Castle, by Comforting Ferry.
(So hush-a-by, weary my Dearie!)
poem by Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
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The Brassiere Factory
Is the governor falling
From a great height?
Arm in arm we fled the brassiere factory,
The motion-boat stayed on the shore!
I saw how round its bottom was
As you walked into southern France—
Upon the light hair of an arm
Cigar bands lay!
I kissed you then. Oh is my bar
The insect of your will? The water rose,
But will the buffalo on
The nickel yet be still?
For how can windows hold out the light
In your eyes!
Darling, we fled the brassiere factory
In forty-eight states,
Arm in arm,
When human beings hung on us
And you had been arrested by the cloths
Were used in making, and I said, “The Goths
Know such delight,” but still we fled, away
Into a dinner atmosphere
From all we knew, and fall asleep this day.
O maintenance men, with cruel eyes,
Then arm in arm we fled the listless factory!
The music changed your fingers’ ends to pearl,
I punched you, you foolish girl,
For thanks to the metronome we got out alive, in the air
Where the sun filled us with cruelty!
There’s what to do
Except despair, like pages! and laugh
Like prawns, about the sea!
Oh arm in arm we fled the industry
Into an earth of banks
And foolish tanks, for what bare breasts might be.
“The Brassiere Factory” from The Collected Poems of Kenneth Koch, published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Copyright © 2006 by Kenneth Koch.
poem by Kenneth Koch
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My Friend has fled
My friend has fled! alas, my friend has fled,
And left me nought but tears and pain behind!
Like smoke above a flame caught by the wind,
So rose she from my breast and forth she sped.
Drunk with desire, I seized Love's cup divine,
But she that held it poured the bitter wine
Of Separation into it and fled.
The hunter she, and I the helpless prey;
Wounded and sick, round me her toils she drew,
My heart into a sea of sorrow threw,
Bound up her camel loads and fled away.
Fain had I laid an ambush for her soul,
She saw and vanished, and the timid foal,
Good Fortune, slipped the rein and would not stay.
My heart was all too narrow for my woe,
And tears of blood my weeping eyes have shed,
A crimson stream across the desert sped,
Rising from out my sad heart's overflow.
She knew not what Love's meanest slave can tell:
''Tis sweet to serve!' but threw me a Farewell,
Kissing my threshold, turned, and cried 'I go!'
In the clear dawn, before the east was red,
Before the rose had torn her veil in two,
A nightingale through Hafiz' garden flew,
Stayed but to fill its song with tears, and fled.
poem by Shams al-Din Hafiz
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Me: The thief of my Identity
The thief of my Identity
To my Friends and Family
My true Identity
Is all that makes me
I stole my identity
My personality
What I live for, What I breath for
What I'd fight for, what I'd die for
If not for my soul,
I would be lost once again
For my True Identity has fled me
Fled me for another
It is the dancing shadow you play with,
The beauty you can see in yourself,
And the hostility.
It wants to see you suffer,
It is most content, when you are in despair.
When I can look into my self
and find the real Identity of my inner self,
Until then I will not blame anyone
for my misfortune
poem by Brad Combs
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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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New Love, New Life
HEART! my heart! what means this feeling?
What oppresseth thee so sore?
What strange life is o'er me stealing!
I acknowledge thee no more.
Fled is all that gave thee gladness,
Fled the cause of all thy sadness,
Fled thy peace, thine industry-
Ah, why suffer it to be?
Say, do beauty's graces youthful,
Does this form so fair and bright,
Does this gaze, so kind, so truthful,
Chain thee with unceasing might?
Would I tear me from her boldly,
Courage take, and fly her coldly,
Back to her. I'm forthwith led
By the path I seek to tread.
By a thread I ne'er can sever,
For 'tis 'twined with magic skill,
Doth the cruel maid for ever
Hold me fast against my will.
While those magic chains confine me,
To her will I must resign me.
Ah, the change in truth is great!
Love! kind love! release me straight!
poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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My Memory's Care
Sing not to me a song of beauty bright,
Nor festive scenes of dazzling light;
Nor of gorgeous pageant in palace hall
Begemmed with many a coronal;
But sing to me my memory's care -
The misspent hours fled where - oh where?
Sing not to me of the battlefield,
Nor splintered lance nor of broken shield,
Not of gory plumes once freshly fair,
Not of banners rent nor pennon bare;
But sing to me my memory's care -
The misspent hours fled where - oh where?
Sing not to me of the sea-fight won,
By daring hearts and by flashing gun,
Not how o'er the deep in exultant glee
The victor's ship speeds galliantly;
But sing to me my memory's care -
The misspent hours fled where - oh where?
Sing not of summer, sing not of spring,
For these no joy to my heart can bring;
Sing not of autumn yellow and sere
Sing not of pallid winter frosty and drear;
But sing to me my memory's care -
The misspent hours fled where - oh where?
Sing not of Love's deep tenderness
Nor its whispered words, share its sweet caress;
Sing not to me of Beauty's power,
Nor the bridal morn - Love's dearest hour!
But sing to me my memory's care
The misspent hours fled where - oh where?
Sing - sing to me with a mocking song,
Of the guilty past and its deeds of wrong;
Sing - till around me the phantoms come,
Or the broken hearts in a distant home;
These, these are my memory's care,
And shriek them forth to my soul's despair!
poem by Owen Suffolk
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Love Sonnet XVII
Beloved, lest I should remember, I
Must swift forget the wonder of last night.
Hot memory would but blacken out my sight
And dull my senses till they seemed to die.
How could I live, remembering that sigh…
That breath…that sob…that all sublime delight?
Eternal joy is death, I think, and might
Not such sweet madness kill me, coming nigh?
I died with you that hour. Or, if not, merged
Myself in you, commingling all my life
Within your own, until I fled and fled
Into your blood; and my pure pulses surged,
Heaped with the wedded bliss of man and wife…
Dying, I lived…and living, I was dead.
poem by Zora Bernice May Cross
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You Left Without an Au Revoir
You fled like the last summer breeze,
Without whispering a word; without a tease.
I am sadly disappointed; I thought you were different.
I thought that you were a special plant,
You had a sweetly exotic smell,
And you would gently usher me under your spell.
Instead, you crushed me in a cruel and unusual way;
You surreptitiously broke my heart,
You abruptly and unnecessarily took me apart.
Oh! You miserably failed to make my day.
You vanished like the last spring frost,
You abandoned me in sadness and in lust.
I am left to fight the demons and the stooges alone.
You fled without an au revoir, without humming a last song.
poem by Hebert Logerie
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She Has Made Me Wayside Posies
She has made me wayside posies: here they stand,
Bringing fresh memories of where they grew.
As new-come travellers from a world we knew
Wake every while some image of their land,
So these whose buds our woodland breezes fanned
Bring to my room the meadow where they blew,
The brook-side cliff, the elms where wood-doves coo--
And every flower is dearer for her hand.
Oh blossoms of the paths she loves to tread,
Some grace of her is in all thoughts you bear:
For in my memories of your homes that were
The old sweet loneliness they kept is fled,
And would I think it back I find instead
A presence of my darling mingling there.
poem by Augusta Davies Webster
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The Angel
I dreamt a dream! What can it mean?
And that I was a maiden Queen
Guarded by an Angel mild:
Witless woe was ne’er beguiled!
And I wept both night and day,
And he wiped my tears away;
And I wept both day and night,
And hid from him my heart’s delight.
So he took his wings, and fled;
Then the morn blushed rosy red.
I dried my tears, and armed my fears
With ten thousand shields and spears.
Soon my Angel came again;
I was armed, he came in vain;
For the time of youth was fled,
And grey hairs were on my head.
poem by William Blake from Songs of Experience (1794)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Middle-Ages
I heard a clash, and a cry,
And a horseman fleeing the wood.
The moon hid in a cloud.
Deep in shadow I stood.
‘Ugly work!’ thought I,
Holding my breath.
‘Men must be cruel and proud,
‘Jousting for death’.
With gusty glimmering shone
The moon; and the wind blew colder.
A man went over the hill,
Bent to his horse’s shoulder.
‘Time for me to be gone’...
Darkly I fled.
Owls in the wood were shrill,
And the moon sank red.
poem by Siegfried Sassoon
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Middle-Ages
I heard a clash, and a cry,
And a horseman fleeing the wood.
The moon hid in a cloud.
Deep in shadow I stood.
‘Ugly work!’ thought I,
Holding my breath.
‘Men must be cruel and proud,
‘Jousting for death’.
With gusty glimmering shone
The moon; and the wind blew colder.
A man went over the hill,
Bent to his horse’s shoulder.
‘Time for me to be gone’…
Darkly I fled.
Owls in the wood were shrill,
And the moon sank red.
poem by Siegfried Sassoon
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Attraction
The meadow and the mountain with desire
Gazed on each other, till a fierce unrest
Surged ‘neath the meadow’s seemingly calm breast,
And all the mountain’s fissures ran with fire.
A mighty river rolled between them there.
What could the mountain do but gaze and burn?
What could the meadow do but look and yearn,
And gem its bosom to conceal despair?
Their seething passion agitated space,
Till lo! the lands a sudden earthquake shook,
The river fled: the meadow leaped, and took
The leaning mountain in a close embrace.
poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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Ah, Lover's goodbye!
Ah lover's goodbye!
How hard to discribe! .
With every separation the love vibrates in the memory of time
With them shivers lifeless tears of the hearts.
Oh shoreless hearts,
Your delights have taken flight
With them fled away youth's gently maden desires.
Your sweet kisses fled with pale constancy of love,
While the hands of lovers get apart
The angels of heaven begin to cry above
Moaing vainy dirges
Sweet memories soon turn onto frown fire flames
With every mention of past to burn up woeful lovers hearts
poem by Sossi Khachadourian
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The Old Year
IT PASSED like the breath of the night-wind away,
It fled like a mist at the dawn of the day;
It lasted its moment, then backward was hurled,
Another increase to the age of the world.
It passed with its shadows, its smiles and its tears,
It passed as a stream to the ocean of years;
Years that were coming—were here—and are o’er,
The ages departed to visit no more.
It passed, but the bark on its billowy track
Leaves an impression on waters aback:
The glow of the gloaming remains on the sky,
Unwilling to leave us—unwilling to die.
It fled; but away and away in its wake
There lingers a something that time cannot break.
The past and the future are joined by a chain,
And memories live that must ever remain.
poem by Henry Kendall
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On An Army Of Rebelling Mercenaries (Rondel) (In Answer To A.E. Housman)
Those rebels wanting heaven to be falling,
who before Michael and his forces fled;
had a demonic, destructive calling
and by there wages are worse than dead;
on earth their actions are still appalling
as they only bring some sorrow and dread.
Those rebels wanting heaven to be falling
who before Michael and his forces fled,
are trying almost everything to be stalling
as their corruption and evil they spread;
the high heaven they are still recalling
as to utter destruction they do head;
those rebels wanting heaven to be falling.
[Reference: “Epitaph on an Army of Mercenaries” by A. E. Housman.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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Laughing Mauves
He fled beyond sea-roads, in mists;
where sirens' songs enchant sea men,
in fogs odd sorrows are dismissed,
shorelines' harpsichord organists,
betimes to keep requests withheld,
conceptual forms are nuptial veiled,
residing schemes in mind's earnest,
where scopes spread on white sails.
But when he called the maid's sprite
her wraith like clouds fled to aboves;
shoreline of rocks was fogged in sight,
remote the beacon's sends dim light,
where solitude wore velvet gloves,
and blurred horizons' mist to trust,
sea men (old ghosts) will dance at night,
and laugh in fields of greens and mauves.
poem by Giorgio Veneto
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Over The Border
O, justice, you have fled, to dwell
In Mexico, unstrangled,
Lest you should hang as high as-well,
As Haman dangled.
(I know not if his cord he twanged,
Or the King proved forgiving.
'Tis hard to think of Haman hanged,
And Haymond living.)
Yes, as I said: in mortal fear
To Mexico you journeyed;
For you were on your trial here,
And ill attorneyed.
The Law had long regarded you
As an extreme offender.
Religion looked upon you, too,
With thoughts untender.
The Press to you was cold as snow,
For sin you'd always call so.
In Politics you were _de trop_,
In Morals also.
All this is accurately true
And, faith! there might be more said;
But-well, to save your thrapple you
Fled, as aforesaid.
You're down in Mexico-that's plain
As that the sun is risen;
For Daniel Burns, down there, his chain
Drags round in prison.
poem by Ambrose Bierce
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Over the Horizon
Summer is a coming
and it brings the shining sun
The glistening water
girls in bikinis
and a masculine brown tan
but also it brings a pain
For I lost someone that fateful summer
Over the horizon
He was starved of life
One summer I fled
Fled, from the beach house
deep in the night
out for a midnight swim
the dark ocean
the silent breeze
and the surprise crashing of waves
But it also brings pain
For I lost my life that fateful summer
Over the horizon
I was starved of life
poem by Declan McBride
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