Flower-De-Luce: Palingenesis
I lay upon the headland-height, and listened
To the incessant sobbing of the sea
In caverns under me,
And watched the waves, that tossed and fled and glistened,
Until the rolling meadows of amethyst
Melted away in mist.
Then suddenly, as one from sleep, I started;
For round about me all the sunny capes
Seemed peopled with the shapes
Of those whom I had known in days departed,
Apparelled in the loveliness which gleams
On faces seen in dreams.
A moment only, and the light and glory
Faded away, and the disconsolate shore
Stood lonely as before;
And the wild-roses of the promontory
Around me shuddered in the wind, and shed
Their petals of pale red.
There was an old belief that in the embers
Of all things their primordial form exists,
And cunning alchemists
Could re-create the rose with all its members
From its own ashes, but without the bloom,
Without the lost perfume.
Ah me! what wonder-working, occult science
Can from the ashes in our hearts once more
The rose of youth restore?
What craft of alchemy can bid defiance
To time and change, and for a single hour
Renew this phantom-flower?
'O, give me back,' I cried, 'the vanished splendors,
The breath of morn, and the exultant strife,
When the swift stream of life
Bounds o'er its rocky channel, and surrenders
The pond, with all its lilies, for the leap
Into the unknown deep!'
And the sea answered, with a lamentation,
Like some old prophet wailing, and it said,
'Alas! thy youth is dead!
It breathes no more, its heart has no pulsation;
In the dark places with the dead of old
It lies forever cold!'
Then said I, 'From its consecrated cerements
I will not drag this sacred dust again,
Only to give me pain;
But, still remembering all the lost endearments,
Go on my way, like one who looks before,
And turns to weep no more.'
Into what land of harvests, what plantations
Bright with autumnal foliage and the glow
Of sunsets burning low;
Beneath what midnight skies, whose constellations
Light up the spacious avenues between
This world and the unseen!
Amid what friendly greetings and caresses,
What households, though not alien, yet not mine,
What bowers of rest divine;
To what temptations in lone wildernesses,
What famine of the heart, what pain and loss,
The bearing of what cross!
I do not know; nor will I vainly question
Those pages of the mystic book which hold
The story still untold,
But without rash conjecture or suggestion
Turn its last leaves in reverence and good heed,
Until 'The End' I read.
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Related quotes
Memory's River
In Nature's bright blossoms not always reposes
That strange subtle essence more rare than their bloom,
Which lies in the hearts of carnations and roses,
That unexplained something by men called perfume.
Though modest the flower, yet great is its power
And pregnant with meaning each pistil and leaf,
If only it hides there, if only abides there,
The fragrance suggestive of love, joy and grief.
Not always the air that a master composes
Can stir human heart-strings with pleasure or pain.
But strange, subtle chords, like the scent of the roses,
Breathe out of some measures, though simple the strain.
And lo! when you hear them, you love them and fear them,
You tremble with anguish, you thrill with delight,
For back of them slumber old dreams without number,
And faces long vanished peer out into sight.
Those dear foolish days when the earth seemed all beauty,
Before you had knowledge enough to be sad;
When youth held no higher ideal of duty
Than just to lilt on through the world and be glad.
On harmony's river they seemed to float hither
With all the sweet fancies that hung round that time-
Life's burdens and troubles turn into air-bubbles
And break on the music's swift current of rhyme.
Fair Folly comes back with her spell while you listen
And points to the paths where she led you of old.
You gaze on past sunsets, you see dead stars glisten,
You bathe in life's glory, you swoon in death's cold.
All pains and all pleasures surge up through those measures,
Your heart is wrenched open with earthquakes of sound;
From ashes and embers rise Junes and Decembers,
Lost islands in fathoms of feeling refound.
Some airs are like outlets of memory's oceans,
They rise in the past and flow into the heart;
And down them float shipwrecks of mighty emotions,
All sea-soaked and storm-tossed and drifting apart:
Their fair timbers battered, their lordly sails tattered,
Their skeleton crew of dead days on their decks;
Then a crash of chords blending, a crisis, an ending-
The music is over, and vanished the wrecks.
poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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On Some Rose Leaves Brought From The Vale Of Cashmere
Faded and pale their beauty, vanished their early bloom,
Their folded leaves emit alone a sweet though faint perfume,
But, oh! than brightest bud or flower to me are they more dear,
They come from that rose-haunted land, the bright Vale of Cashmere.
Cashmere! a spell is in that name! what dreams its sound awakes
Of roses sweet as Eden’s flowers, of minarets and lakes,
Of scenes as vaguely, strangely bright as those of fairy land,
Springing to life and loveliness ’neath some enchanter’s wand!
Cashmere! poetic in its name, its clear and brilliant skies
That seem to clothe earth, flower and wave in their own lovely dyes;
Poetic in its legend lore, and spell more dear than all,
Enshrined in poet’s inmost heart, the home of “Nourmahal.”
Yes, there oft fell her fairy feet, there shone the glances bright,
That won for her the glorious name of harem’s queen and light;
There, as she wandered ’mid its bowers, her royal love beside,
She taught him to forget all else save her, his beauteous, bride.
Cashmere! what would this heart not give to see thy favored earth,
So rich in nature’s peerless gifts, in beauty’s dazzling worth,
Rich in a name that in mine ear from childhood’s hour hath rung,
The land of which impassioned Moore with such sweet power hath sung.
Yet, were I there, oh! well I know the time would surely come
When my yearning heart would turn again to my far Canadian home,
Longing to look once more upon its wintry wastes of snow,
And the friends whose hearts throb like mine own, with friendship’s changeless glow.
poem by Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
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And Thou Too
The moonlight rolls down like a river,
The silence streams out like a sea;
And far where the eastern winds quiver,
My farewell goes floating to thee.
Like night, when the sunset is fading
And starbeams troop up in the skies,
Through a cold, dark and lonely forever
Gleams the light of the poet eyes.
And sometimes when I am weary,
When the path is thorny and Wild,
I'll look back to the Eyes in the twilight,
Back to the eyes that smiled.
And pray that a wreath like a rainbow
May slip from the beautiful past,
And Crown me again with the sweet, strong love
And keep me, and hold me fast.
For the way is not strown with petal soft,
It is covered with hearts that weep,
And the wounds I tread touch a deeper source
Than you think it mine to keep.
Down the years I shall move without you,
Yet ever must feel the blow
That caused me a deeper pain to give
Than you will ever know.
For the tears that dropped on my hands that night
'Neath the mystical shining moon,
Were a sacred dew, consecrated there,
On the rose-altered heart of June.
And the heart that beat against mine like a bird
That is fluttering, wounded sore,
With it's nest all broken, deserted, torn,
Will beat there forevermore.
But the world moves on, and the piteous Earth
Still groans in the monster pain;
And the star that leads me points onward yet,
Though the red drops fall like rain!
Ah, not to a blaze of light I go,
Nor shouts of a triumph train;
I go down to kiss the dregs of woe,
And drink up the Cup of Pain.
And whether a scaffold or crucifix waits
'Neath the light of my silver star,
I know and I care not: I only know
I shall pause not though it be far.
Though a crucified life or an agonized death,
Though long, or quick and sharp,
I am firmly wrought in the endless thread
Of Destiny's woof and warp.
And I do not shrink, though a wave of pain
Sobs over me now and then,
As I think of those "saddest of all sad words,"
The pitiful "might have been."
"It might have been"— it is not to be;
And the tones of your "swan's farewell"
Ring sadly, solemnly deep to me
Like the voice of a sobbing bell.
Ay, gather your petals and take them back
To the dead heart under the dew;
And crown it again with the red love bloom,
For the dead are always true.
But go not "back to the sediment"
In the slime of the moaning sea,
For a better world belongs to you,
And a better friend to me.
poem by Voltairine de Cleyre (1888)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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From The Portuguese
I
When I lived in the village of youth
There were lilies in all the orchards,
Flowers in the orange-gardens
For brides to wear in their hair.
It was always sunshine and summer,
Roses at every lattice,
Dreams in the eyes of maidens,
Love in the eyes of men.
When I lived in the village of youth
The doors, all the doors, stood open;
We went in and out of them laughing,
Laughing and calling each other
To shew each other our fairings,
The new shawl, the new comb, the new fan,
The new rose, the new lover.
Now I live in the town of age
Where are no orchards, no gardens.
Here, too, all the doors stand open,
But no one goes in or goes out.
We sit alone by the hearthstone
Where memories lie like ashes
Upon a hearth that is cold;
And they from the village of youth
Run by our doorsteps laughing,
Calling, to shew each other
The new shawl, the new comb, the new fan,
The new rose, the new lover.
Once we had all these things -
We kept them from the old people,
And now the young people have them
And will not shew them to us -
To us who are old and have nothing
But the white, still, heaped-up ashes
On the hearth where the fire went out
A very long time ago.
II
I had a mistress; I loved her.
She left me with memories bitter,
Corroding, eating my heart
As the acid eats into the steel
Etching the portrait triumphant.
Intolerable, indelible,
Never to be effaced.
A wife was mine to my heart,
Beautiful flower of my garden,
Lily I worshipped by day,
Scented rose of my nights.
Now the night wind sighing
Blows white rose petals only
Over the bed where she sleeps
Dreamless alone.
I had a son; I loved him.
Mother of God, bear witness
How all my manhood loved him
As thy womanhood loved thy Son!
When he was grown to his manhood
He crucified my heart,
And even as it hung bleeding
He laughed with his bold companions,
Mocked and turned away
With laughter into the night.
Those three I loved and lost;
But there was one who loved me
With all the fire of her heart.
Mine was the sacred altar
Where she burnt her life for my worship.
She was my slave, my servant;
Mine all she had, all she was,
All she could suffer, could be.
That was the love of my life,
I did not say, 'She loves me';
I was so used to her love
I never asked its name,
Till, feeling the wind blow cold
Where all the doors were left open,
And seeing a fireless hearth
And the garden deserted and weed-grown
That once was full of flowers for me,
I said, 'What has changed? What is it
That has made all the clocks stop?'
Thus I asked and they answered:
'It is thy mother who is dead.'
And now I am alone.
My son, too, some day will stand
Here, where I stand and weep.
He too will weep, knowing too late
The love that wrapped round his life.
Dear God spare him this:
Let him never know how I loved him,
For he was always weak.
He could not endure as I can.
Mother, my dear, ask God
To grant me this, for my son!
poem by Edith Nesbit
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Love's Autumn
YES, love, the Spring shall come again,
But not as once it came:
Once more in meadow and in lane
The daffodils shall flame,
The cowslips blow, but all in vain;
Alike, yet not the same.
The roses that we pluck’d of old
Were dew’d with heart’s delight;
Our gladness steep’d the primrose-gold
In half its lovely light:
The hopes are long since dead and cold
That flush’d the wind-flowers’ white.
Oh, who shall give us back our Spring?
What spell can fill the air
With all the birds of painted wing
That sang for us whilere?
What charm reclothe with blossoming
Our lives, grown blank and bare?
What sun can draw the ruddy bloom
Back to hope’s faded rose?
What stir of summer re-illume
Our hearts’ wreck’d garden-close?
What flowers can fill the empty room
Where now the nightshade grows?
’T is but the Autumn’s chilly sun
That mocks the glow of May;
’T is but the pallid bindweeds run
Across our garden way,
Pale orchids, scentless every one,
Ghosts of the summer day.
Yet, if it must be so, ’t is well:
What part have we in June?
Our hearts have all forgot the spell
That held the summer noon;
We echo back the cuckoo’s knell,
And not the linnet’s tune.
What shall we do with roses now,
Whose cheeks no more are red?
What violets should deck our brow,
Whose hopes long since are fled?
Recalling many a wasted vow
And many a faith struck dead.
Bring heath and pimpernel and rue,
The Autumn’s sober flowers:
At least their scent will not renew
The thought of happy hours,
Nor drag sad memory back unto
That lost sweet time of ours.
Faith is no sun of summertide,
Only the pale, calm light
That, when the Autumn clouds divide,
Hangs in the watchet height,—
A lamp, wherewith we may abide
The coming of the night.
And yet, beneath its languid ray,
The moorlands bare and dry
Bethink them of the summer day
And flower, far and nigh,
With fragile memories of the May,
Blue as the August sky.
These are our flowers: they have no scent
To mock our waste desire,
No hint of bygone ravishment
To stir the faded fire:
The very soul of sad content
Dwells in each azure spire.
I have no violets: you laid
Your blight upon them all:
It was your hand, alas! that made
My roses fade and fall,
Your breath my lilies that forbade
To come at Summer’s call.
Yet take these scentless flowers and pale,
The last of all my year:
Be tender to them; they are frail:
But if thou hold them dear,
I ’ll not their brighter kin bewail,
That now lie cold and sere.
poem by John Howard Payne
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Here will I take my rest
My lady, that did change this house of mine
Into a heaven when that she dwelt therein,
From head to foot an angel's grace divine
Enwrapped her; pure she was, spotless of sin;
Fair as the moon her countenance, and wise;
Lords of the kind and tender glance, her eyes
With an abounding loveliness did shine.
Then said my heart: Here will I take my rest!
This city breathes her love in every part.
But to a distant bourne was she addressed,
Alas! he knew it not, alas, poor heart!
The influence of some cold malignant star
Has loosed my hand that held her, lone and far
She joumeyeth that lay upon my breast.
Not only did she lift my bosom's veil,
Reveal its inmost secret, but her grace
Drew back the curtain from Heaven's mansions pale,
And gave her there an eternal dwelling-place.
The flower-strewn river lip and meadows fair,
The rose herself but fleeting treasures were,
Regret and Winter follow in their trail.
Dear were the days which perished with my friend--
Ah, what is left of life, now she is dead,
All wisdomless and profitless I spend!
The nightingale his own life's blood doth shed,
When, to the kisses of the wind, the morn
Unveils the rose's splendour-with his torn
And jealous breast he dyes her petals red.
Yet pardon her, oh Heart, for poor wert thou,
A humble dervish on the dusty way;
Crowned with the crown of empire was her brow,
And in the realms of beauty she bore sway.
But all the joy that Hafiz' hand might hold,
Lay in the beads that morn and eve he told,
Worn with God's praise; and see! he holds it now.
poem by Shams al-Din Hafiz
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On the Face of the Moon
I feel your pain running deep,
By the light of the moon I see you weep,
Lost and lonely in a crowd,
You shout your thoughts out loud,
Is there nothing sacred on earth?
Is there no love without dirt?
Your heart is on the moon,
Craters filled with gloom,
To whom will you turn,
Loves ashes fill the urn,
Why, oh why, did I forget?
This is no time for regret,
I should have taken more time,
Your pain is greater than mine,
It's never too late, love can be great!
Love lost, need not be your fate!
Your heart is on the moon,
Craters filled with gloom,
To whom will you turn,
Loves ashes fill the urn,
They never meant to cause you pain,
Love lets them live their game,
We watch and learn about life,
There is no need for strife,
I'll wait for you on the face of the moon,
Stars shining bright, lift the gloom,
Your heart in the clouds,
Far from the crowds,
Eyes bright as stars,
Life might be better on Mars?
April 2012
poem by David Andre' Klopper
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Once
I SET a lily long ago;
I watched it whiten in the sun;
I loved it well, I had but one.
Then summer-time was done,
The wind came and the rain,
My lily bent, lay low.
Only the night-time sees my pain—
Alas, my lily long ago!
I had a rose-tree born in May;
I watched it burgeon and grow red,
I breathed the perfume that it shed.
Then summer-time had sped,
The frost came with its sleep
My rose-tree died away.
Only the silence hears me weep—
Alas, lost rose-tree! lost, lost May!
The garden's lily blows once more;
The buried rose will wake and climb;
There is no thought of rain and rime
After, next summer-time.
But the heart's blooms are weak;
Once dead for ever o'er.
Not night, not silence knows me seek
My joy that waned and blooms no more.
poem by Augusta Davies Webster
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Love Lost Broken Hearts
Love Lost Broken Hearts
Within the time love is lost
Thrown asunder into the
Wind
Left
Many broken hearts to live
In loneliness
Broken down piece by piece
Weaken just to mourn a love
That was once beautiful
But Now
Just tossed into the wind
Like the petals from the rose
Destined to ride upon the
Wind
Now used and broken
Just
Tears fills the wind
Sobbing echo's into the night
From the broken hearts
Tossed away like broken
Glass
Ancient and old as the lost
Love is trapped
Within time
Within the mind
Love that is lost from time
Back than
Weaken from the fight trying
To hold their lover heart
But
Cannot be regained
Cannot be mended
Spoiled without even a
'Sigh'
From her lover's heart
Just echo's of hurt and tears
From
The painful ruins of love tied
So strong
Being tossed to the wind as
Unwanted paper
Lonely eyes
Lonely hearts
Lonely tears
Just rides and echo's in the
Wind
Crying out for their love
That cannot be found
So desperately in need
To find their place in
The heart of the wind
That holds all their tears
Their fears
Their Pain
That bleeds into the heart
Of the wind
From The Love That Is Lost
And The Broken hearts..
poem by Carolyn Sears
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Hesperia
OUT OF the golden remote wild west where the sea without shore is,
Full of the sunset, and sad, if at all, with the fulness of joy,
As a wind sets in with the autumn that blows from the region of stories,
Blows with a perfume of songs and of memories beloved from a boy,
Blows from the capes of the past oversea to the bays of the present,
Filled as with shadow of sound with the pulse of invisible feet,
Far out to the shallows and straits of the future, by rough ways or pleasant,
Is it thither the wind’s wings beat? is it hither to me, O my sweet?
For thee, in the stream of the deep tide-wind blowing in with the water,
Thee I behold as a bird borne in with the wind from the west,
Straight from the sunset, across white waves whence rose as a daughter
Venus thy mother, in years when the world was a water at rest.
Out of the distance of dreams, as a dream that abides after slumber,
Strayed from the fugitive flock of the night, when the moon overhead
Wanes in the wan waste heights of the heaven, and stars without number
Die without sound, and are spent like lamps that are burnt by the dead,
Comes back to me, stays by me, lulls me with touch of forgotten caresses,
One warm dream clad about with a fire as of life that endures;
The delight of thy face, and the sound of thy feet, and the wind of thy tresses,
And all of a man that regrets, and all of a maid that allures.
But thy bosom is warm for my face and profound as a manifold flower,
Thy silence as music, thy voice as an odour that fades in a flame;
Not a dream, not a dream is the kiss of thy mouth, and the bountiful hour
That makes me forget what was sin, and would make me forget were it shame.
Thine eyes that are quiet, thine hands that are tender, thy lips that are loving,
Comfort and cool me as dew in the dawn of a moon like a dream;
And my heart yearns baffled and blind, moved vainly toward thee, and moving
As the refluent seaweed moves in the languid exuberant stream,
Fair as a rose is on earth, as a rose under water in prison,
That stretches and swings to the slow passionate pulse of the sea,
Closed up from the air and the sun, but alive, as a ghost rearisen,
Pale as the love that revives as a ghost rearisen in me.
From the bountiful infinite west, from the happy memorial places
Full of the stately repose and the lordly delight of the dead,
Where the fortunate islands are lit with the light of ineffable faces,
And the sound of a sea without wind is about them, and sunset is red,
Come back to redeem and release me from love that recalls and represses,
That cleaves to my flesh as a flame, till the serpent has eaten his fill;
From the bitter delights of the dark, and the feverish, the furtive caresses
That murder the youth in a man or ever his heart have its will.
Thy lips cannot laugh and thine eyes cannot weep; thou art pale as a rose is,
Paler and sweeter than leaves that cover the blush of the bud;
And the heart of the flower is compassion, and pity the core it encloses,
Pity, not love, that is born of the breath and decays with the blood.
As the cross that a wild nun clasps till the edge of it bruises her bosom,
So love wounds as we grasp it, and blackens and burns as a flame;
I have loved overmuch in my life; when the live bud bursts with the blossom,
Bitter as ashes or tears is the fruit, and the wine thereof shame.
As a heart that its anguish divides is the green bud cloven asunder;
As the blood of a man self-slain is the flush of the leaves that allure;
And the perfume as poison and wine to the brain, a delight and a wonder;
And the thorns are too sharp for a boy, too slight for a man, to endure.
Too soon did I love it, and lost love’s rose; and I cared not for glory’s;
Only the blossoms of sleep and of pleasure were mixed in my hair.
Was it myrtle or poppy thy garland was woven with, O my Dolores?
Was it pallor of slumber, or blush as of blood, that I found in thee fair?
For desire is a respite from love, and the flesh not the heart is her fuel;
She was sweet to me once, who am fled and escaped from the rage of her reign;
Who behold as of old time at hand as I turn, with her mouth growing cruel,
And flushed as with wine with the blood of her lovers, Our Lady of Pain.
Low down where the thicket is thicker with thorns than with leaves in the summer,
In the brake is a gleaming of eyes and a hissing of tongues that I knew;
And the lithe long throats of her snakes reach round her, their mouths overcome her,
And her lips grow cool with their foam, made moist as a desert with dew.
With the thirst and the hunger of lust though her beautiful lips be so bitter,
With the cold foul foam of the snakes they soften and redden and smile;
And her fierce mouth sweetens, her eyes wax wide and her eyelashes glitter,
And she laughs with a savour of blood in her face, and a savour of guile.
She laughs, and her hands reach hither, her hair blows hither and hisses,
As a low-lit flame in a wind, back-blown till it shudder and leap;
Let her lips not again lay hold on my soul, nor her poisonous kisses,
To consume it alive and divide from thy bosom, Our Lady of Sleep.
Ah daughter of sunset and slumber, if now it return into prison,
Who shall redeem it anew? but we, if thou wilt, let us fly;
Let us take to us, now that the white skies thrill with a moon unarisen,
Swift horses of fear or of love, take flight and depart and not die.
They are swifter than dreams, they are stronger than death; there is none that hath ridden,
None that shall ride in the dim strange ways of his life as we ride;
By the meadows of memory, the highlands of hope, and the shore that is hidden,
Where life breaks loud and unseen, a sonorous invisible tide;
By the sands where sorrow has trodden, the salt pools bitter and sterile,
By the thundering reef and the low sea-wall and the channel of years,
Our wild steeds press on the night, strain hard through pleasure and peril,
Labour and listen and pant not or pause for the peril that nears;
And the sound of them trampling the way cleaves night as an arrow asunder,
And slow by the sand-hill and swift by the down with its glimpses of grass,
Sudden and steady the music, as eight hoofs trample and thunder,
Rings in the ear of the low blind wind of the night as we pass;
Shrill shrieks in our faces the blind bland air that was mute as a maiden,
Stung into storm by the speed of our passage, and deaf where we past;
And our spirits too burn as we bound, thine holy but mine heavy-laden,
As we burn with the fire of our flight; ah love, shall we win at the last?
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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Out Of The Depths
Lost! Lost! Lost!
The cry went up from a sea --
The waves were wild with an awful wrath,
Not a light shone down on the lone ship's path;
The clouds hung low:
Lost! Lost! Lost!
Rose wild from the hearts of the tempest-tossed.
Lost! Lost! Lost!
The cry floated over the waves --
Far over the pitiless waves;
It smote on the dark and it rended the clouds;
The billows below them were weaving white shrouds
Out of the foam of the surge,
And the wind-voices chanted a dirge:
Lost! Lost! Lost!
Wailed wilder the lips of the tempest-tossed.
Lost! Lost! Lost!
Not the sign of a hope was nigh,
In the sea, in the air, or the sky;
And the lifted faces were wan and white,
There was nothing without them but storm and night
And nothing within but fear.
But far to a Father's ear:
Lost! Lost! Lost!
Floated the wail of the tempest-tossed.
Lost! Lost! Lost!
Out of the depths of the sea --
Out of the night and the sea;
And the waves and the winds of the storm were hushed,
And the sky with the gleams of the stars was flushed.
Saved! Saved! Saved!
And a calm and a joyous cry
Floated up through the starry sky,
In the dark -- in the storm -- 'Our Father' is nigh.
poem by Abram Joseph Ryan
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In War
Fret the nonchalant noon
With your spleen
Or your gay brow,
For the motion of your spirit
Ever moves with these.
When day shall be too quiet,
Deaf to you
And your dumb smile,
Untuned air shall lap the stillness
In the old space for your voice-
The voice that once could mirror
Remote depths
Of moving being,
Stirred by responsive voices near,
Suddenly stilled for ever.
No ghost darkens the places
Dark to One ;
But my eyes dream,
And my heart is heavy to think
How it was heavy once.
In the old days when death Stalked the world
For the flower of men,
And the rose of beauty faded
And pined in the great gloom,
One day we dug a grave :
We were vexed
With the sun's heat.
We scanned the hooded dead :
At noon we sat and talked.
How death had kissed their eyes
Three dread noons since,
How human art won
The dark soul to flicker
Till it was lost again :
And we whom chance kept whole-
But haggard,
Spent-were charged
To make a place for them who knew
No pain in any place.
The good priest came to pray ;
Our ears half heard,
And half we thought
Of alien things, irrelevant ;
And the heat and thirst were great.
The good priest read : 'I heard .
Dimly my brain
Held words and lost. . . .
Sudden my blood ran cold. . . .
God ! God ! It could not be.
He read my brother's name ; I sank-
I clutched the priest.
They did not tell me it was he
Was killed three days ago.
What are the great sceptred dooms
To us, caught
In the wild wave
We break ourselves on them,
My brother, our hearts and years.
THE DEAD HEROES
Flame out, you glorious skies,
Welcome our brave;
Kiss their exultant eyes ;
Give what they gave.
Flash, mailed seraphim,
Your burning spears;
New days to outflame their dim
Heroic years.
Thrills their baptismal tread
The bright proud air ;
The embattled plumes outspread
Burn upwards there.
Flame out, flame out, 0 Song !
Star ring to star;
Strong as our hurt is strong
Our children are.
Their blood is England's heart ;
By their dead hands
It is their noble part
That England stands.
England-Time gave them thee;
They gave back this
To win Eternity
And claim God's kiss.
poem by Isaac Rosenberg
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Haunted In Old Japan
I
Music of the star-shine shimmering o’er the sea
Mirror me no longer in the dusk of memory:
Dim and white the rose-leaves drift along the shore
Wind among the roses, blow no more!
II
All along the purple creek, lit with silver foam,
Silent, silent voices, cry no more of home;
Soft beyond the cherry-trees, o’er the dim lagoon,
Dawns the crimson lantern of the large low moon.
III
We that loved in April, we that turned away
Laughing, ere the wood-dove crooned across the May,
Watch the withered rose-leaves drift along the shore.
Wind among the roses, blow no more!
IV
We that saw the winter waste the weeping bower,
We that saw the young love perish like a flower,
We that saw the dark eyes deepening with tears,
Hear the vanished voices in the land beyond the years.
V
We that hurt the thing we loved; we that went astray,
We that in the darkness idly dreamed of day . . .
. . . Ah! The dreary rose-leaves drift along the shore.
Wind among the roses, blow no more!
VI
Lonely starry faces, wonderful and white,
Yearning with a cry across the dim sweet night,
All our dreams are blown a-drift as flowers before a fan,
All our hearts are haunted in the heart of old Japan.
VII
Haunted, haunted, haunted; we that mocked and sinned
Hear the vanished voices wailing down the wind,
Watch the ruined rose-leaves drift along the shore;
Wind among the roses, blow no more!
VIII
We, the sons of reason, we that chose to bride
Knowledge and rejected the Dream that we denied,
We that mocked the Holy Ghost and chose the Son of Man, [1]
Now must wander haunted in the heart of old Japan
IX
Haunted, haunted, haunted, by the sound of falling tears,
Haunted, haunted, haunted, by the yearning of the years;
Ah! the phantom rose-leaves drift along the shore;
Wind among the roses, blow no more!
X
All along the purple creek, lit with silver foam,
Sobbing, sobbing voices, cry no more of home:
Soft beyond the cherry trees, o’er the dim lagoon,
Dawns the crimson lantern of the large, low moon.
poem by Alfred Noyes
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~...In Days Of Yore~
A different sort of glimmer
'Tis shed in Spring time days
Along the red rose gardened path
Where youth and love once stayed
The Light shed 'twas much brighter
The air fresh with a rose kissed mist
The arms of my cherished lover
Brought us together with eternal kiss
But those days they are gone forever
Aging dreams of a rose coloured lane
When my youth took me to higher altitudes
And kept at bay any shred of pain
poem by Theodora Onken
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When!
WHEN I am young again I'll hoard my bliss,
Nor deem that inexhaustible it is,
Remembering old age comes after this,
Joy grows to pain;
Nor waste one moment of youth's rose-sweet hours,
Nor trample one of all its countless flowers,
But drink the summer sun and soft spring showers,
When I am young again.
I will be wise with wisdom dearly won
By those who through life's wood have nearly run;
Learn what to do, and what to leave undone,
Risk or refrain.
I will not seek into my mouth to take
The bitter apple of the acrid lake,
But at clear fountains all my thirsts will slake,
When I am young again.
I will not brush the bloom to reach the core,
Remembering how it chanced with me before,
And bloom once lost returns not any more,
Hard cores remain:
I will fence round with prudence and secure
A lasting bloom whose freshness shall endure;
Oh, I will guard my peach of youth, be sure,
When I am young again.
When I am young again, I'll spend no breath
On bitter words the heart remembereth
When bitterness is swallowed up by Death
Holding sole reign;
I'll love so well that if they pass to sleep
Before me, I shall have no watch to keep
Over their tears-only my tears to weep
When I am young again.
I will not lightly joy nor idly grieve,
Nor for a heaven itself one soul deceive,
Nor will I be deceived, vainly believe,
Nor love in vain.
Come back, lost youth! Ah, Fate, that one gift give!
Then I will show that I have learned to live;
Youth shall be wise--and two and two make five--
When I am young again!
poem by Edith Nesbit
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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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The Lady And The Dame
So thou hast the art, good dame, thou swearest,
To keep Time's perishing touch at bay
From the roseate splendor of the cheek so tender,
And the silver threads from the gold away;
And the tell-tale years that have hurried by us
Shall tiptoe back, and, with kind good-will,
They shall take their traces from off our faces,
If we will trust to thy magic skill.
Thou speakest fairly; but if I listen
And buy thy secret and prove its truth,
Hast thou the potion and magic lotion
To give me also the heart of youth?
With the cheek of rose and the eye of beauty,
And the lustrous locks of life's lost prime,
Wilt thou bring thronging each hope and longing
That made the glory of that dead Time?
When the sap in the trees sets young buds bursting,
And the song of the birds fills the air like spray,
Will rivers of feeling come once more stealing
From the beautiful hills of the far-away?
Wilt thou demolish the tower of reason
And fling forever down into the dust,
The caution time brought me, the lessons life taught me,
And put in their places my old sweet trust?
If Time's footprint from my brow is driven,
Canst thou, too, take with thy subtle powers
The burden of thinking, and let me go drinking
The careless pleasures of youth's bright hours?
If silver threads from my tresses vanish,
If a glow once more in my pale cheek gleams,
Wilt thou slay duty and give back the beauty
Of days untroubled by aught but dreams?
When the soft, fair arms of the siren Summer
Encircle the earth in their languorous fold,
Will vast, deep oceans of sweet emotions
Surge through my veins as they surged of old?
Canst thou bring back from a day long vanished
The leaping pulse and the boundless aim?
I will pay thee double for all thy trouble,
If thou wilt restore all these, good dame.
poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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Song of The Rose
F Zeus chose us a King of the flowers in his mirth,
He would call to the rose, and would royally crown it;
For the rose, ho, the rose! is the grace of the earth,
Is the light of the plants that are growing upon it!
For the rose, ho, the rose! is the eye of the flowers,
Is the blush of the meadows that feel themselves fair,
Is the lightning of beauty that strikes through the bowers
On pale lovers that sit in the glow unaware.
Ho, the rose breathes of love! ho, the rose lifts the cup
To the red lips of Cypris invoked for a guest!
Ho, the rose having curled its sweet leaves for the world
Takes delight in the motion its petals keep up,
As they laugh to the wind as it laughs from the west.
The Magnetic Lady To Her Patient
I.
'Sleep, sleep on! forget thy pain;
My hand is on thy brow,
My spirit on thy brain;
My pity on thy heart, poor friend;
And from my fingers flow
The powers of life, and like a sign,
Seal thee from thine hour of woe;
And brood on thee, but may not blend
With thine.
II.
'Sleep, sleep on! I love thee not;
But when I think that he
Who made and makes my lot
As full of flowers as thine of weeds,
Might have been lost like thee;
And that a hand which was not mine
Might then have charmed his agony
As I another's--my heart bleeds
For thine.
III.
'Sleep, sleep, and with the slumber of
The dead and the unborn
Forget thy life and love;
Forget that thou must wake forever;
Forget the world's dull scorn;
Forget lost health, and the divine
Feelings which died in youth's brief morn;
And forget me, for I can never
Be thine.
IV.
'Like a cloud big with a May shower,
My soul weeps healing rain
On thee, thou withered flower!
It breathes mute music on thy sleep
Its odour calms thy brain!
Its light within thy gloomy breast
Spreads like a second youth again.
By mine thy being is to its deep
Possessed.
V.
'The spell is done. How feel you now?'
'Better—Quite well,' replied
The sleeper.--'What would do
You good when suffering and awake?
What cure your head and side?--'
‘What would cure, that would kill me, Jane:
And as I must on earth abide
Awhile, yet tempt me not to break
My chain.'
poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Out Of The Silence
Here in the silence cometh unto me
A song that is not mine,
With wash of waves along the cold shore line,
And sob of wind, and rain upon the sea.
It is the song and message of the dead!
Around my soul to-night
I feel the kinship of the Infinite,
I hear the sound of voices that are fled.
And as beneath the viewless angel’s wing
Bethesda’s pool was stirred,
My heart is troubled by the mystic word
Of one who through my soul and lips would sing.
There is no note of wailing in the strain,
But resonant and deep,
Out of the vastness, doth the music sweep,
Into the silence dieth it again.
To breaking hearts it saith, “Be comforted.
With secret pain and tears
And night-long penance thro’ the torturing years
Vex not the spirits of the mighty dead.”
“Weep not thine error done, thy thought untold
Shall not their vision be
Subtler than ours, more delicate to see
All that the fulness of the heart can hold?”
“Make not by grief an evil of their good!
Where the Immortal look
Life’s hidden secrets are an open book,
All thou hast felt is known and understood.”
Out of the silence thro’ my soul to thine,
From realms unknown,
A breath of tenderness from far lips blown
Floats, with the promise of a Peace Divine.
And soaring thro’ the shadows where we grope
A mighty cadence rings,
A spirit moves with morning on its wings—
The Voice and Vision of Eternal Hope!
poem by George Essex Evans
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