Stanzas To Augusta
When all around grew drear and dark,
And reason half withheld her ray—
And hope but shed a dying spark
Which more misled my lonely way;
In that deep midnight of the mind,
And that internal strife of heart,
When dreading to be deemed too kind,
The weak despair—the cold depart;
When fortune changed—and love fled far,
And hatred's shafts flew thick and fast,
Thou wert the solitary star
Which rose, and set not to the last.
Oh, blest be thine unbroken light!
That watched me as a seraph's eye,
And stood between me and the night,
For ever shining sweetly nigh.
And when the cloud upon us came,
Which strove to blacken o'er thy ray—
Then purer spread its gentle flame,
And dashed the darkness all away.
Still may thy spirit dwell on mine,
And teach it what to brave or brook—
There's more in one soft word of thine
Than in the world's defied rebuke.
Thou stood'st as stands a lovely tree
That, still unbroke though gently bent,
Still waves with fond fidelity
Its boughs above a monument.
The winds might rend, the skies might pour,
But there thou wert—and still wouldst be
Devoted in the stormiest hour
To shed thy weeping leaves o'er me.
But thou and thine shall know no blight,
Whatever fate on me may fall;
For heaven in sunshine will requite
The kind—and thee the most of all.
Then let the ties of baffled love
Be broken—thine will never break;
Thy heart can feel—but will not move;
Thy soul, though soft, will never shake.
And these, when all was lost beside,
Were found, and still are fixed in thee;—
And bearing still a breast so tried,
Earth is no desert—e'en to me.
Related quotes
To Mary in Heaven
I.
I met thee first in May, Mary!
The flower-crowned month of May;
But now thou art away, Mary!
Away from me—away!
Thou wert that all to me, Mary!
That all on earth to me,
That I will be to thee, Mary!
In Heaven above to thee.
II.
Ah! then thine eyes were mild, Mary!
Thy deep blue eyes were mild;
For thou wert then a child, Mary!
And I another child.
Thou wert that all to me, Mary!
That all on earth to me,
That I will be to thee, Mary!
In Heaven above to thee.
III.
Thy face was then so meek, Mary!
So saintly mild, so meek,
Thy lily-form seemed weak, Mary!
And mine for thine grew weak
For thou wert that to me, Mary!
That all on earth to me,
That I will be to thee, Mary!
In Heaven above to thee.
IV.
You led me through the meads, Mary!
The flower-enameled meads,
By brooks of rustling reeds, Mary!
By brooks of rustling reeds—
Where thou wert that to me, Mary!
That all on earth to me,
That I will be to thee, Mary!
In Heaven above to thee.
V.
Wherever you then went, Mary!
No matter where you went—
I followed with content, Mary!
Because you were content.
For thou wert that to me, Mary!
That all on earth to me,
That I will be to thee, Mary!
In Heaven above to thee.
VI.
I recollect the morn, Mary!
The beautiful May-Morn,
Beside the Field of Corn, Mary!
The rustling reeds of Corn—
That thou wert that to me, Mary!
That all on earth to me,
That I will be to thee, Mary!
In Heaven above to thee.
VII.
Ah! then I took thy hand, Mary!
Thy lily snow-white hand;
And walked along the sand, Mary!
The milk-white road of sand.
For thou wert that to me, Mary!
That all on earth to me,
That I will be to thee, Mary!
In Heaven above to thee.
VIII.
I caught thee round the waist, Mary!
The slender Sylph-like waist,
And felt my heart beat fast, Mary!
Because thine own beat fast.
For thou wert that to me, Mary!
That all on earth to me,
That I will be to thee, Mary!
In Heaven above to thee.
IX.
Such words fell from thy tongue, Mary!
Such sweet words from thy tongue,
That when you talked you sung, Mary!
You never talked but sung.
Then thou wert that to me, Mary!
That all on earth to me,
That I will be to thee, Mary!
In Heaven above to thee.
X.
Thus through the month of May, Mary!
The flower-crowned month of May,
We, courting, went to play, Mary!
And courted in our play.
The years were then to me, Mary!
As hours are now to me;
As time is now to thee, Mary!
In Heaven above to thee.
XI.
For Love knows nought of years, Mary!
Love nothing knows of years;
And sheds no bitter tears, Mary!
Time measured is by tears.
Thus thou wert that to me, Mary!
That all on earth to me,
That I will be to thee, Mary!
In Heaven above to thee.
XII.
What thou art now above, Mary!
I was, as if above;
For Heaven is made of love, Mary!
And I was full of love.
For thou wert that to me, Mary!
That all on earth to me,
That I will be to thee, Mary!
In Heaven above to thee.
XIII.
But now these days are gone, Mary!
These halcyon days are gone!
And I am left alone, Mary!
Alone on earth-- alone!
What would I give to see, Mary!
Thy precious form to see?
All thou wouldst give to be, Mary!
In this dark world with me.
poem by Thomas Holley Chivers from Eonchs of Ruby (1851)
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Written At Sea
What is my quarrel with thee, beautiful sea,
That thus I cannot love thy waves or thee,
Or hear thy voice but it tormenteth me?
Why do I hate thee, who art beautiful
Beyond all beauty, when the nights are cool,
And the stars fade because the moon is full?
Why do I hate thee? Thou art new and young,
And life is thine for loving, and thy tongue
Hath tones that I have known and loved and sung.
Thou hast a smile which would my smiling greet;
Thy brave heart beateth as my own doth beat,
And thou hast tears which should be true and sweet.
Thou art a creature, strong and fair and brave,
Such as I might have given the world to have
And love and cherish;--and thou art my slave.
I have my home in thee. Thy arms enfold
Me all night long, and I am rocked and rolled,
And thou art never weary of thy hold.
Thou art a woman in thy constancy,
And worthy better love than mine could be;
And yet, behold, I cannot suffer thee.
If thou wert dumb; if thou wert like the sky,
Which has not learned to speak our misery
In any voice less rude than the wind's cry;
If thou wert wholly young and didst not know
The secret of our ancient human woe,
Or if thou knewest it wholly as I know;
Or yet if thou wert old with all these years;
If thou wert dull to hopes and loves and fears;
If thou wert blind and couldst not see our tears;
If thou wert bounded by some rocky shore,
And hadst not given thyself thus wholly o'er
To our poor single selves with all thy store;
If thou wert not in thy immensity,
A single circle circling with the sky,
Where we must still be centres changelessly;
If thou wert other than thou art; alas,
If thou wert not of water, but a mass
Of formless earth, a waveless plain of grass;
If thou wert shapeless as the mountains are;
If thou wert clad in some discordant wear;
If thou wert not so blue and trim and fair;
If thou wert decked with towns and villages;
If there was heard, across the silent seas,
The music of church bells upon the breeze;
If thou wert this; or if thou wert not near,
But I could only sit apart and hear
The beating of thy waves, and find it drear,
But wild and quite unknown, and far from me;
Sea, if thou couldst no longer be the sea,
Then I could love thee as thou lovest me.
If thou wouldst have me love thee, beautiful sea,
Build up a wall of dark 'twixt thee and me;
Let me not see thee; call the night to thee.
League with the winds; rise up, and send them driven
To roll mad clouds about thy back at even.
Make thee a desolation of the heaven.
Thou shouldst compel me, with thy angry voice,
To choose 'twixt death and thee; and, at the choice,
If my cheek grew not pale, thou might'st rejoice,
And I might love thee, oh thou monstrous sea;
But now I cannot love thy waves or thee,
Or bear thy beauty in my misery.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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If Sometimes In The Haunts Of Men
If sometimes in the haunts of men
Thine image from my breast may fade,
The lonely hour presents again
The semblance of thy gentle shade:
And now that sad and silent hour
Thus much of thee can still restore,
And sorrow unobserved may pour
The plaint she dare not speak before.
Oh, pardon that in crowds awhile
I waste one thought I owe to thee,
And self?condemn'd, appear to smile,
Unfaithful to thy memory:
Nor deem that memory less dear,
That then I seem not to repine;
I would not fools should overhear
One sigh that should be wholly thine.
If not the goblet pass unquaff'd,
It is not drain'd to banish care;
The cup must hold a deadlier draught,
That brings a Lethe for despair.
And could Oblivion set my soul
From all her troubled visions free,
I'd dash to earth the sweetest bowl
That drown'd a single thought of thee.
For wert thou vanish'd from my mind,
Where could my vacant bosom turn?
And who would then remain behind
To honour thine abandon'd Um?
No, no - it is my sorrow's pride
That last dear duty to fulfil:
Though all the world forget beside,
'Tis meet that I remember still.
For well I know, that such had been
Thy gentle care for him, who now
Unmourn'd shall quit this mortal scene,
Where none regarded him, but thou:
And, oh! I feel in that was given
A blessing never meant for me;
Thou wert too like a dream of Heaven
For earthly Love to merit thee.
Severed and Gone
Severed and gone, so many years!
And art thou still so dear to me,
That throbbing heart and burning tears
Can witness how I cling to thee?
I know that in the narrow tomb
The form I loved was buried deep,
And left, in silence and in gloom,
To slumber out its dreamless sleep.
I know the corner where it lies,
Is but a dreary place of rest:
The charnel moisture never dries
From the dark flagstones o'er its breast,
For there the sunbeams never shine,
Nor ever breathes the freshening air,
- But not for this do I repine;
For my beloved is not there.
O, no! I do not think of thee
As festering there in slow decay:
'Tis this sole thought oppresses me,
That thou art gone so far away.
For ever gone; for I, by night,
Have prayed, within my silent room,
That Heaven would grant a burst of light
Its cheerless darkness to illume;
And give thee to my longing eyes,
A moment, as thou shinest now,
Fresh from thy mansion in the skies,
With all its glories on thy brow.
Wild was the wish, intense the gaze
I fixed upon the murky air,
Expecting, half, a kindling blaze
Would strike my raptured vision there,
A shape these human nerves would thrill,
A majesty that might appal,
Did not thy earthly likeness, still,
Gleam softly, gladly, through it all.
False hope! vain prayer! it might not be
That thou shouldst visit earth again.
I called on Heaven - I called on thee,
And watched, and waited - all in vain.
Had I one shining tress of thine,
How it would bless these longing eyes!
Or if thy pictured form were mine,
What gold should rob me of the prize?
A few cold words on yonder stone,
A corpse as cold as they can be -
Vain words, and mouldering dust, alone -
Can this be all that's left of thee?
O, no! thy spirit lingers still
Where'er thy sunny smile was seen:
There's less of darkness, less of chill
On earth, than if thou hadst not been.
Thou breathest in my bosom yet,
And dwellest in my beating heart;
And, while I cannot quite forget,
Thou, darling, canst not quite depart.
Though, freed from sin, and grief, and pain
Thou drinkest now the bliss of Heaven,
Thou didst not visit earth in vain;
And from us, yet, thou art not riven.
Life seems more sweet that thou didst live,
And men more true that thou wert one:
Nothing is lost that thou didst give,
Nothing destroyed that thou hast done.
Earth hath received thine earthly part;
Thine heavenly flame has heavenward flown;
But both still linger in my heart,
Still live, and not in mine alone.
poem by Anne Brontë
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Stanzas
If thou be in a lonely place,
If one hour's calm be thine,
As Evening bends her placid face
O'er this sweet day's decline;
If all the earth and all the heaven
Now look serene to thee,
As o'er them shuts the summer even,
One moment--think of me!
Pause, in the lane, returning home;
'Tis dusk, it will be still:
Pause near the elm, a sacred gloom
Its breezeless boughs will fill.
Look at that soft and golden light,
High in the unclouded sky;
Watch the last bird's belated flight,
As it flits silent by.
Hark! for a sound upon the wind,
A step, a voice, a sigh;
If all be still, then yield thy mind,
Unchecked, to memory.
If thy love were like mine, how blest
That twilight hour would seem,
When, back from the regretted Past,
Returned our early dream!
If thy love were like mine, how wild
Thy longings, even to pain,
For sunset soft, and moonlight mild,
To bring that hour again!
But oft, when in thine arms I lay,
I've seen thy dark eyes shine,
And deeply felt their changeful ray
Spoke other love than mine.
My love is almost anguish now,
It beats so strong and true;
'Twere rapture, could I deem that thou
Such anguish ever knew.
I have been but thy transient flower,
Thou wert my god divine;
Till checked by death's congealing power,
This heart must throb for thine.
And well my dying hour were blest,
If life's expiring breath
Should pass, as thy lips gently prest
My forehead cold in death;
And sound my sleep would be, and sweet,
Beneath the churchyard tree,
If sometimes in thy heart should beat
One pulse, still true to me.
poem by Charlotte Brontë from Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (1846)
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To ------
I will not mourn thee, lovely one,
Though thou art torn away.
'Tis said that if the morning sun
Arise with dazzling ray
And shed a bright and burning beam
Athwart the glittering main,
'Ere noon shall fade that laughing gleam
Engulfed in clouds and rain.
And if thy life as transient proved,
It hath been full as bright,
For thou wert hopeful and beloved;
Thy spirit knew no blight.
If few and short the joys of life
That thou on earth couldst know,
Little thou knew'st of sin and strife
Nor much of pain and woe.
If vain thy earthly hopes did prove,
Thou canst not mourn their flight;
Thy brightest hopes were fixed above
And they shall know no blight.
And yet I cannot check my sighs,
Thou wert so young and fair,
More bright than summer morning skies,
But stern death would not spare;
He would not pass our darling by
Nor grant one hour's delay,
But rudely closed his shining eye
And frowned his smile away,
That angel smile that late so much
Could my fond heart rejoice;
And he has silenced by his touch
The music of thy voice.
I'll weep no more thine early doom,
But O! I still must mourn
The pleasures buried in thy tomb,
For they will not return.
poem by Anne Brontë
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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To
I will not mourn thee, lovely one,
Though thou art torn away.
'Tis said that if the morning sun
Arise with dazzling ray
And shed a bright and burning beam
Athwart the glittering main,
'Ere noon shall fade that laughing gleam
Engulfed in clouds and rain.
And if thy life as transient proved,
It hath been full as bright,
For thou wert hopeful and beloved;
Thy spirit knew no blight.
If few and short the joys of life
That thou on earth couldst know,
Little thou knew'st of sin and strife
Nor much of pain and woe.
If vain thy earthly hopes did prove,
Thou canst not mourn their flight;
Thy brightest hopes were fixed above
And they shall know no blight.
And yet I cannot check my sighs,
Thou wert so young and fair,
More bright than summer morning skies,
But stern death would not spare;
He would not pass our darling by
Nor grant one hour's delay,
But rudely closed his shining eye
And frowned his smile away,
That angel smile that late so much
Could my fond heart rejoice;
And he has silenced by his touch
The music of thy voice.
I'll weep no more thine early doom,
But O! I still must mourn
The pleasures buried in thy tomb,
For they will not return.
poem by Anne Brontë
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To Coleridge
Oh! there are spirits of the air,
And genii of the evening breeze,
And gentle ghosts, with eyes as fair
As star-beams among twilight trees:
Such lovely ministers to meet
Oft hast thou turned from men thy lonely feet.
With mountain winds, and babbling springs,
And moonlight seas, that are the voice
Of these inexplicable things,
Thou dost hold commune, and rejoice
When they did answer thee, but they
Cast, like a worthless boon, thy love away.
And thou hast sought in starry eyes
Beams that were never meant for thine,
Another's wealth: tame sacrifice
To a fond faith ! still dost thou pine?
Still dost thou hope that greeting hands,
Voice, looks, or lips, may answer thy demands?
Ah! wherefore didst thou build thine hope
On the false earth's inconstancy?
Did thine own mind afford no scope
Of love, or moving thoughts to thee?
That natural scenes or human smiles
Could steal the power to wind thee in their wiles?
Yes, all the faithless smiles are fled
Whose falsehood left thee broken-hearted;
The glory of the moon is dead;
Night's ghosts and dreams have now departed;
Thine own soul still is true to thee,
But changed to a foul fiend through misery.
This fiend, whose ghastly presence ever
Beside thee like thy shadow hangs,
Dream not to chase: the mad endeavour
Would scourge thee to severer pangs.
Be as thou art. Thy settled fate,
Dark as it is, all change would aggravate.
poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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From This Hour the Pledge is Given
From this hour the pledge is given,
From this hour my soul is thine:
Come what will, from earth of heaven,
Weal or woe, thy fate be mine.
When the proud and great stood by thee,
None dared thy rights to spurn;
And if now they're false and fly thee,
Shall I, too, falsely turn?
No; -- whate'er the fire that try thee,
In the same this heart shall burn.
Though the sea, where thou embarkest,
Offers now no friendly shore,
Light may come where all looks darkest,
Hope hath life, when life seems o'er.
And of those past ages dreaming,
When glory deck'd thy brow,
Oft I fondly think, though seeming
So fallen and clouded now,
Thou'lt again break forth, all beaming --
None so bright, so blest as thou!
poem by Thomas Moore
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The Grief Of Love
Love, I am sick for thee, sick with an absolute grief,
Sick with the thought of thy eyes and lips and bosom.
All the beauty I saw, I see to my hurt revealed.
All that I felt I feel to--day for my pain and sorrow.
Love, I would fain forget thee, hide thee in deeper night,
Shut thee where no thought is, in the grave with tears.
Love, I would turn my face to the wall and, if needs be, die;
Death less cruel were than thy eyes which have blinded me.
Since thou art gone from me, glory is gone from my life;
Dumb are the woods and streams, and dumb the voice of my soul;
Dead are the flowers we loved, blackened and sere with blight;
Earth is frost--bound under my foot where our footsteps trod.
Give me back for my sorrow the days of senseless peace,
Days when I thought not of thee, or thought in wisdom;
Let me see thee once more as thou to my folly wert,
A woman senseless as sounding brass or as tinkling cymbal.
Why didst thou show me thy heart, which I thought not of?
Why didst thou bare me thy soul, who to me wert soulless?
Why didst thou kiss my mouth, when my mouth did mock?
Why didst thou speak to my lips of love, ere my lips had spoken?
Love, thou hast made me thine, thine, and in my despite,
Laying thy hand on my heart in the soft Spring weather;
Love, thou hast bought my soul at a price, the price of thine,
Never again to mock at love, ah, never, never!
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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Give to Love
Love came knocking on thy door
With you in sight to love and adore
But thine did give
All that thou have and
need to live?
You gave thine lips for love to speak
You gave thine heart for love's heart's weak
You gave thine face, to love to trace
its tears across thee a sorrowful place
thou give to thy loss when it comes to love!
You gave thine soul to love's control
You gave love thy hand to hold
You gave thy feet for love to kiss
You gave thy happiness to love's bliss
You gave thy breast for love to touch
You gave thine body for love to clutch.
But what did love give thee?
Love took and took and left thee with nothing!
With nothing now you are at peace, thou art free!
This is what love did to me!
poem by Kevin Michael Murphy
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Behind Waves Of Ebony Hair
I see thou changed thy hair color
For his liking and mine despair
To hide thy beauty to mine dolor
Every time I spy at thou there.
I begged thee to never change
A single hair, or who thou art
For I loved thee known and loved thee strange
With all my love, all mine heart.
Thy look so dark with love's desire
Behind thine waves of thine hair ebony
Hiding from him, revealing to me
Thy secret love of thy hidden desire.
Thou still love me then, thou love me so
Still I'll never be loved, for I don't know.
poem by Kevin Michael Murphy
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Sonnet XXXII: Equal Troth
Not by one measure mayst thou mete our love;
For how should I be loved as I love thee?—
I, graceless, joyless, lacking absolutely
All gifts that with thy queenship best behove;—
Thou, throned in every heart's elect alcove,
And crowned with garlands culled from every tree,
Which for no head but thine, by Love's decree,
All beauties and all mysteries interwove.
But here thine eyes and lips yield soft rebuke:—
“Then only” (say'st thou) “could I love thee less,
When thou couldst doubt my love's equality.”
Peace, sweet! If not to sum but worth we look,—
Thy heart's transcendence, not my heart's excess,—
Then more a thousandfold thou lov'st than I.
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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The Fall of Usher
An elegy on Edgar Allan Poe
"Thou wert the Morning Star among the living,
Ere thy fair light had fled;
But, having died, thou art like Hesperus giving
New splendor to the dead." - Plato's Aster.
"Thou art gone to the grave!" but thy spirit is shining,
And singing afar in the Realms of the Blest ;
While the living are left by thy cold grave reclining,
And mourning for thee while they long for thy rest---
Left mourning for thee while they long for thy rest!
"Thou art gone to the grave!" thou art gone where thy slumber
No more shall be broken by sorrow or pain---
Soon to rise with that host which no mortal can number,
To lie down no more in that Valley again!
No more to lie down in that Valley again!
"Thou art gone to the grave!" there is none can restore thee,
Or bring thee again from that Silent Abode !
But the Conqueror of Death went to dwell there before thee,
And He has prepared thee the way to thy God!
Prepared thee the way to thy Beautiful God !
"Thou art gone to the grave!" thou art silently sleeping
A sleep which no sorrow shall ever molest;
And, in longing for which, my poor heart now is keeping
This silent lament in its grave in my breast!
Like Shelley for Keats, in its grave in my breast!
"Thou art gone to the grave!" let the dark Weeping Willow
Bend over thy grave where thy beauty was laid!
While thy form, thus reclined on the earth for its pillow,
Shall live in the Spring-flowers which bloom at thy head---
To feed the young Butterflies born at thy head.
"Thou art gone to the grave!" where the Violets are springing,
And feeding upon thee above the damp sod,
Now thy Pandemos mourns, while thy spirit is singing,
And drinking delight from the Fountains of God ---
With thine Ullalume lost from the Fountains of God.
poem by Thomas Holley Chivers
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To-- Oh! there are spirits of the air
Dakrysi Dioisw Potmon Apotmon
Oh! there are spirits of the air,
And genii of the evening breeze,
And gentle ghosts, with eyes as fair
As star-beams among twilight trees:—
Such lovely ministers to meet
Oft hast thou turned from men thy lonely feet.
With mountain winds, and babbling springs,
And moonlight seas, that are the voice
Of these inexplicable things,
Thou didst hold commune, and rejoice
When they did answer thee; but they
Cast, like a worthless boon, thy love away.
And thou hast sought in starry eyes
Beams that were never meant for thine,
Another’s wealth:—tame sacrifice
To a fond faith! still dost thou pine?
Still dost thou hope that greeting hands,
Voice, looks, or lips, may answer thy demands?
Ah! wherefore didst thou build thine hope
On the false earth’s inconstancy?
Did thine own mind afford no scope
Of love, or moving thoughts to thee?
That natural scenes or human smiles
Could steal the power to wind thee in their wiles?
Yes, all the faithless smiles are fled
Whose falsehood left thee broken-hearted;
The glory of the moon is dead;
Night’s ghosts and dreams have now departed;
Thine own soul still is true to thee,
But changed to a foul fiend through misery.
This fiend, whose ghastly presence ever
Beside thee like thy shadow hangs,
Dream not to chase;—the mad endeavour
Would scourge thee to severer pangs.
Be as thou art. Thy settled fate,
Dark as it is, all change would aggravate.
poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Isabel
In the most early morn
I rise from a damp pillow, tempest-tost,
To seek the sun with silent gaze forlorn,
And mourn for thee, my lost
Isabel.
That early hour I meet
The daily vigil of my life to keep,
Because there are no other lights so sweet,
Or shades so long and deep,
Isabel.
And best I think of thee
Beside the duskest shade and brightest sun,
Whose mystic lot in life it was to be
Outshone, outwept by none,
Isabel.
Men said that thou wert fair:
There is no brightness in the heaven above,
There is no balm upon the summer air
Like thy warm love,
Isabel.
Men saw that thou wert bright:
There is no wildness in the winds that blow,
There is no darkness in the winter's night
Like thy dark woe,
Isabel.
And yet thy path did miss
Men's footsteps: in their haunts thou hadst no joy;
The thoughts of other worlds were thine in this;
In thy sweet piety, and in thy bliss
And grief, for life too coy,
Isabel.
And so my heart's despair
Looks for thee ere the firstling smoke hath curled;
While the rapt earth is at her morning pray'r,
Ere yet she putteth on her workday air
And robes her for the world,
Isabel.
When the sun-burst is o'er,
My lonely way about the world I take,
Doing and saying much, and feeling more,
And all things for thy sake,
Isabel.
But never once I dare
To see thine image till the day be new,
And lip hath sullied not the unbreathed air,
And waking eyes are few,
Isabel.
Then that lost form appears
Which was a joy to few on earth but me:
In the young light I see thy guileless glee,
In the deep dews thy tears,
Isabel.
So with Promethean moan
In widowhood renewed I learn to grieve;
Blest with one only thought-that I alone
Can fade: that thou thro' years shalt still shine on
In beauty, as in beauty art thou gone,
Thou morn that knew no eve,
Isabel.
In beauty art thou gone;
As some bright meteor gleams across the night,
Gazed on by all, but understood by none,
And dying by its own excess of light,
Isabel.
poem by Sydney Thompson Dobell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Lonely
If thine soul feels loneliness,
Thou art not perfectly understood
As thou soul wishes
If thine soul does not feel
The human word
It feels loneliness's hollow cry
If thine soul wearies of human love
It always has loneliness to watch thy love die
If thine soul speaks to deaf ears
Then the loneliest, most remote ears in the world, hear with melancholy
If thine soul has no hand to hold
Then loneliness walks by thy side and holds thee
If thou fear to die alone, alone with loneliness you will die
If thou fear the dark when alone, loneliness hides in the dark
Afraid with thee.
As mine tears fell
Into God's empty well
And to his lonely cell
Loneliness heard and spoke though me…
Lonely
poem by Kevin Michael Murphy
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Wert Thou but ill—that I might show thee
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Wert Thou but ill—that I might show thee
How long a Day I could endure
Though thine attention stop not on me
Nor the least signal, Me assure—
Wert Thou but Stranger in ungracious country—
And Mine—the Door
Thou paused at, for a passing bounty—
No More—
Accused—wert Thou—and Myself—Tribunal—
Convicted—Sentenced—Ermine—not to Me
Half the Condition, thy Reverse—to follow—
Just to partake—the infamy—
The Tenant of the Narrow Cottage, wert Thou—
Permit to be
The Housewife in thy low attendance
Contenteth Me—
No Service hast Thou, I would not achieve it—
To die—or live—
The first—Sweet, proved I, ere I saw thee—
For Life—be Love—
poem by Emily Dickinson
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We Met as Strangers
We met as strangers on life's lonely way,
And yet it seemed we knew each other well;
There was no end to what thou hadst to say,
Or to the thousand things I found to tell.
My heart, long silent, at thy voice that day
Chimed in my breast like to a silver bell.
How much we spoke, and yet still left untold
Some secret half revealed within our eyes:
Didst thou not love me once in ages old?
Had I not called thee with importunate cries,
And, like a child left sobbing in the cold,
Listened to catch from far thy fond replies?
We met as strangers, and as such we part;
Yet all my life seems leaving me with thine;
Ah, to be clasped once only heart to heart,
If only once to feel that thou wert mine!
These lips are locked, and yet I know thou art
That all in all for which my soul did pine.
poem by Mathilde Blind
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Love Elegy, to Henry
Then thou hast learnt the secret of my soul,
Officious Friendship has its trust betrayed;
No more I need the bursting sigh control,
Nor summon pride my struggling soul to aid.
But think not banished hope returns again,
Think not I write thy thankless heart to move;
The faded form that tells my tender pain
May win thy pity, but it can't thy love.
Nor can I move thee by soft winning art,
By manners taught to charm, or practised glance;
Artless as thine, my too too feeling heart
Disdains the tutored eye, the fond advance.
The cold coquette, to win her destined prey,
May feign a passion which she ne'er can feel;
But I true Passion's soft commands obey,
And fain my tender feelings would conceal.
In others' eyes, when fixed on thine, I see
That fondness painted which alone I know;
Think not, my Henry, they can love like me,
More love I hide than they can e'er bestow.
While tender glances their emotions speak,
And oft they heave and oft suppress the sigh;
O turn to me, behold my pallid cheek
Shrinking from thine, behold my downcast eye!
While they by mirth, by wit, thine ear amuse,
And by their eloquence thy plaudits seek;
See me the fond contention still refuse,
Nor in thy presence, Henry, dare to speak.
When asked to breathe the soul-enchanting song,
See them o'erjoyed exert their utmost art;
While vainly I would join the choral throng,
Lost are those tones which once could touch the heart.
But, Henry, wert thou in Love's language wise,
Vainly would others more than Emma shine;
Beyond their sweetest strains thy heart would prize
One faint, one broken, tender tone of mine.
O proofs of passion, eloquent as vain!
By thee unheeded, or perhaps unknown,....
But learn, the pangs that prompt this pensive strain,
Ere long, disdainful youth, may be thine own.
Ah! no....in hopeless love thou canst not pine,
Thou ne'er canst woo the brightest maid in vain;
For thee Love's star midst cloudless skies will shine,
And light thy graceful steps to Hymen's fane:
While I, as hope, and strength, and life recede,
Far, far from thee shall waste the languid day;
Blest, if the scroll that speaks thy bliss I read,
But far more blest to feel life's powers decay.
poem by Amelia Opie
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