Ode on Melancholy
No, no! go not to Lethe, neither twist
Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;
Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kissed
By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;
Make not your rosary of yew-berries,
Nor let the beetle nor the death-moth be
Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl
A partner in your sorrow's mysteries;
For shade to shade will come too drowsily,
And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.
But when the melancholy fit shall fall
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,
And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,
Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,
Or on the wealth of globed peonies;
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,
Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.
She dwells with Beauty -- Beauty that must die;
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips;
Ay, in the very temple of delight
Veiled Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous
tongue
Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;
His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,
And be among her cloudy trophies hung.
poem by John Keats
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Ode On Melancholy
1.
No, no! go not to Lethe, neither twist
Wolf's-bane, tight-rooted, for its poisonous wine;
Nor suffer thy pale forehead to be kissed
By nightshade, ruby grape of Proserpine;
Make not your rosary of yew-berries,
Nor let the beetle nor the death-moth be
Your mournful Psyche, nor the downy owl
A partner in your sorrow's mysteries;
For shade to shade will come too drowsily,
And drown the wakeful anguish of the soul.
2.
But when the melancholy fit shall fall
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,
And hides the green hill in an April shroud;
Then glut thy sorrow on a morning rose,
Or on the rainbow of the salt sand-wave,
Or on the wealth of globed peonies;
Or if thy mistress some rich anger shows,
Emprison her soft hand, and let her rave,
And feed deep, deep upon her peerless eyes.
3.
She dwells with Beauty - Beauty that must die;
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips;
Ay, in the very temple of delight
Veiled Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous
tongue
Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;
His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,
And be among her cloudy trophies hung.
poem by John Keats
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Daisy
Where the thistle lifts a purple crown
Six foot out of the turf,
And the harebell shakes on the windy hill--
O breath of the distant surf!--
The hills look over on the South,
And southward dreams the sea;
And with the sea-breeze hand in hand
Came innocence and she.
Where 'mid the gorse the raspberry
Red for the gatherer springs;
Two children did we stray and talk
Wise, idle, childish things.
She listened with big-lipped surprise,
Breast-deep 'mid flower and spine:
Her skin was like a grape whose veins
Run snow instead of wine.
She knew not those sweet words she spake,
Nor knew her own sweet way;
But there's never a bird, so sweet a song
Thronged in whose throat all day.
Oh, there were flowers in Storrington
On the turf and on the spray;
But the sweetest flower on Sussex hills
Was the Daisy-flower that day!
Her beauty smoothed earth's furrowed face.
She gave me tokens three:--
A look, a word of her winsome mouth,
And a wild raspberry.
A berry red, a guileless look,
A still word,--strings of sand!
And yet they made my wild, wild heart
Fly down to her little hand.
For standing artless as the air,
And candid as the skies,
She took the berries with her hand,
And the love with her sweet eyes.
The fairest things have fleetest end,
Their scent survives their close:
But the rose's scent is bitterness
To him that loved the rose.
She looked a little wistfully,
Then went her sunshine way--
The sea's eye had a mist on it,
And the leaves fell from the day.
She went her unremembering way,
She went and left in me
The pang of all he partings gone,
And partings yet to be.
She left me marvelling why my soul
Was sad that she was glad;
At all the sadness in the sweet,
The sweetness in the sad.
Still, still I seemed to see her, still
Look up with soft replies,
And take the berries with her hand,
And the love with her lovely eyes.
Nothing begins, and nothing ends,
That is not paid with moan,
For we are born in other's pain,
And perish in our own.
poem by Francis Thompson
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More Strong Than Time
Since I have set my lips to your full cup, my sweet,
Since I my pallid face between your hands have laid,
Since I have known your soul, and all the bloom of it,
And all the perfume rare, now buried in the shade;
Since it was given to me to hear on happy while,
The words wherein your heart spoke all its mysteries,
Since I have seen you weep, and since I have seen you smile,
Your lips upon my lips, and your eyes upon my eyes;
Since I have known above my forehead glance and gleam,
A ray, a single ray, of your star, veiled always,
Since I have felt the fall, upon my lifetime's stream,
Of one rose petal plucked from the roses of your days;
I now am bold to say to the swift changing hours,
Pass, pass upon your way, for I grow never old,
Fleet to the dark abysm with all your fading flowers,
One rose that none may pluck, within my heart I hold.
Your flying wings may smite, but they can never spill
The cup fulfilled of love, from which my lips are wet;
My heart has far more fire than you can frost to chill,
My soul more love than you can make my soul forget
poem by Victor Hugo
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More Strong Than Time
Since I have set my lips to your full cup, my sweet,
Since I my pallid face between your hands have laid,
Since I have known your soul, and all the bloom of it,
And all the perfume rare, now buried in the shade;
Since it was given to me to hear on happy while,
The words wherein your heart spoke all its mysteries,
Since I have seen you weep, and since I have seen you smile,
Your lips upon my lips, and your eyes upon my eyes;
Since I have known above my forehead glance and gleam,
A ray, a single ray, of your star, veiled always,
Since I have felt the fall, upon my lifetime's stream,
Of one rose petal plucked from the roses of your days;
I now am bold to say to the swift changing hours,
Pass, pass upon your way, for I grow never old,
Fleet to the dark abysm with all your fading flowers,
One rose that none may pluck, within my heart I hold.
Your flying wings may smite, but they can never spill
The cup fulfilled of love, from which my lips are wet;
My heart has far more fire than you can frost to chill,
My soul more love than you can make my soul forget
poem by Victor Hugo
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The Spider Queen
IN the deep heart of furthest fairyland
Where foot of man has never trodden yet
The enchanted portals of her palace stand,
And there her sleepless sentinels are set.
All round grow forests of white eglantine
And drooping, dreaming clematis; there blows
The purple nightshade; there pale bindweeds twine
And there the pale, frail flower of slumber grows.
Her palaces are decked with gleaming wings,
Hung o'er with webs through spacious bower and hall,
Filled through and through with precious priceless things;
She is their mistress and she hates them all.
No darkling webs, woven in dust and gloom,
Adorn her palace walls; there gleam astir
Live threads of light, spun for a fairy's loom,
And stolen by her slaves and brought to her.
She wears a robe woven of the July sun,
Mixed with green threads won from the East at dawn,
Bordered with silver moonrays, finely spun,
And gemmed with glowworms from some shadowy lawn.
She wears a crown of dewdrops bright like tears,
Her girdle is a web of rainbow dyes;
She knows no youth, nor age; the hours and years
Leave never a shadow on her lips and eyes.
In magic rings of green and glistening light
Her fairies dance, in star-spun raiment clad,
Her people do her bidding day and night,
Her dark-robed servants toil to make her glad.
Her minstrels play to her--her singers raise
Soft songs, more sweet than man has ever heard,
With endless rhythms of love her courtiers praise,
And all their heart is in their every word.
She is the mistress of all things that set
Snare of fine webs to win their hearts' desire,
Queen of all folk who weave the death-strong net
Between the poppy and the wild-rose briar.
Yet sits despair upon that brow of hers,
And sorrow in her eyes makes festival;
The soul of grief with her sad soul confers,
And she sits lonely in her crowded hall;
Because she has woven a web of her bright hair--
A tear-bright web, to catch one soul; and he
Beheld her, in her beauty, set the snare,
And seeing laughed, and laughing passed out free!
poem by Edith Nesbit
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Ode to Autumn
I saw old Autumn in the misty morn
Stand shadowless like Silence, listening
To silence, for no lonely bird would sing
Into his hollow ear from woods forlorn,
Nor lowly hedge nor solitary thorn;
Shaking his languid locks all dewy bright
With tangled gossamer that fell by night,
Pearling his coronet of golden corn.
Where are the songs of Summer?—With the sun,
Opening the dusky eyelids of the south,
Till shade and silence waken up as one,
And Morning sings with a warm odorous mouth.
Where are the merry birds?—Away, away,
On panting wings through the inclement skies,
Lest owls should prey
Undazzled at noon-day,
And tear with horny beak their lustrous eyes.
Where are the blooms of Summer?—In the west,
Blushing their last to the last sunny hours.
When the mild Eve by sudden Night is prest
Like tearful Proserpine, snatch'd from her flow'rs
To a most gloomy breast.
Where is the pride of Summer,—the green prime,—
The many, many leaves all twinkling?—Three
On the moss'd elm; three on the naked lime
Trembling,—and one upon the old oak tree!
Where is the Dryad's immortality?—
Gone into mournful cypress and dark yew,
Or wearing the long gloomy Winter through
In the smooth holly's green eternity.
The squirrel gloats on his accomplish'd hoard,
The ants have brimm'd their garners with ripe grain,
And honey been save stored
The sweets of summer in their luscious cells;
The swallows all have wing'd across the main;
But here the Autumn melancholy dwells,
And sighs her tearful spells
Amongst the sunless shadows of the plain.
Alone, alone,
Upon a mossy stone,
She sits and reckons up the dead and gone,
With the last leaves for a love-rosary;
Whilst all the wither'd world looks drearily,
Like a dim picture of the drownëd past
In the hush'd mind's mysterious far-away,
Doubtful what ghostly thing will steal the last
Into that distance, gray upon the gray.
O go and sit with her, and be o'ershaded
Under the languid downfall of her hair;
She wears a coronal of flowers faded
Upon her forehead, and a face of care;—
There is enough of wither'd everywhere
To make her bower,—and enough of gloom;
There is enough of sadness to invite,
If only for the rose that died, whose doom
Is Beauty's,—she that with the living bloom
Of conscious cheeks most beautifies the light:
There is enough of sorrowing, and quite
Enough of bitter fruits the earth doth bear,—
Enough of chilly droppings from her bowl;
Enough of fear and shadowy despair,
To frame her cloudy prison for the soul!
poem by Thomas Hood
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Autumn
I Saw old Autumn in the misty morn
Stand shadowless like Silence, listening
To silence, for no lonely bird would sing
Into his hollow ear from woods forlorn,
Nor lowly hedge nor solitary thorn;—
Shaking his languid locks all dewy bright
With tangled gossamer that fell by night,
Pearling his coronet of golden corn.
Where are the songs of Summer?—With the sun,
Oping the dusky eyelids of the south,
Till shade and silence waken up as one,
And Morning sings with a warm odorous mouth.
Where are the merry birds?—Away, away,
On panting wings through the inclement skies,
Lest owls should prey
Undazzled at noonday,
And tear with horny beak their lustrous eyes.
Where are the blooms of Summer?—In the west,
Blushing their last to the last sunny hours,
When the mild Eve by sudden Night is prest
Like tearful Proserpine, snatch'd from her flow'rs
To a most gloomy breast.
Where is the pride of Summer,—the green prime,—
The many, many leaves all twinkling?—Three
On the moss'd elm; three on the naked lime
Trembling,—and one upon the old oak-tree!
Where is the Dryad's immortality?—
Gone into mournful cypress and dark yew,
Or wearing the long gloomy Winter through
In the smooth holly's green eternity.
The squirrel gloats on his accomplish'd hoard,
The ants have brimm'd their garners with ripe grain,
And honey bees have stored
The sweets of Summer in their luscious cells;
The swallows all have wing'd across the main;
But here the Autumn melancholy dwells,
And sighs her tearful spells
Amongst the sunless shadows of the plain.
Alone, alone,
Upon a mossy stone,
She sits and reckons up the dead and gone
With the last leaves for a love-rosary,
Whilst all the wither'd world looks drearily,
Like a dim picture of the drownèd past
In the hush'd mind's mysterious far away,
Doubtful what ghostly thing will steal the last
Into that distance, gray upon the gray.
O go and sit with her, and be o'ershaded
Under the languid downfall of her hair:
She wears a coronal of flowers faded
Upon her forehead, and a face of care;—
There is enough of wither'd everywhere
To make her bower,—and enough of gloom;
There is enough of sadness to invite,
If only for the rose that died, whose doom
Is Beauty's,—she that with the living bloom
Of conscious cheeks most beautifies the light:
There is enough of sorrowing, and quite
Enough of bitter fruits the earth doth bear,—
Enough of chilly droppings for her bowl;
Enough of fear and shadowy despair,
To frame her cloudy prison for the soul!
poem by Thomas Hood
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Song: Tis Not the Beam
'Tis not the beam of her bright blue eye,
Nor the smile of her lip of rosy dye,
Nor the dark brown wreaths of her glossy hair,
Nor her changing cheek, so rich and rare.
Oh! these are the sweets of a fairy dream,
The changing hues of an April sky.
They fade like dew in the morning beam,
Or the passing zephyr's odour'd sigh.
'Tis a dearer spell that bids me kneel,
'Tis the heart to love, and the soul to feel:
'Tis the mind of light, and the spirit free,
And the bosom that heaves alone for me.
Oh! these are the sweets that kindly stay
From youth's gay morning to age's night;
When beauty's rainbow tints decay,
Love's torch still burns with a holy light.
Soon will the bloom of the fairest fade,
And love will droop in the cheerless shade,
Or if tears should fall on his wing of joy,
It will hasten the flight of the laughing boy.
But oh! the light of the constant soul
Nor time can darken nor sorrow dim;
Though woe may weep in life's mingled bowl,
Love still shall hover around its brim.
poem by Joseph Rodman Drake
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Introit : V. Litany Of Beauty
Joy, if the Soul or aught immortal be,
How may this Beauty know mortality?
O Beauty, perfect child of Light,
Sempiternal spirit of delight!
White and set with gold like the gold of the night,
The gold of the stars in quiet weather,--
White and shapely and pure!--
O lily-flower from stain secure,
With life and virginity dying together!
One lily liveth so,
Liveth for ever unstained, immortal, a mystic flower:
Perfectly wrought its frame,
Gold inwrought and eternal white,
White more white than cold of the snow,
For never, never, near it came,
Never shall come till the end of all,
Hurtful thing in wind or shower,
Worm or stain or blight;
But ever, ever, gently fall
The dews elysian of years that flow
Where it doth live secure
In flawless comeliness mature,
Golden and white and pure.
In the fair far-shining glow
Of eternal and holy Light.
Beauty of earthly things
Wrought by God and with hands of men!
Beauty of Nature and Art,
Fashioned anew for each Time brings,
For each new soul and living heart!
Beauty of Beauty that fills the ken
Till the soul is swooning, faint with delight!
Beauty of human form and voice,
Of eyes and ears and lips!--
O golden hair and brow of white!--
Wine of Beauty that whoso sips
Doth die to a spirit free, and rejoice,
Living with God and living with men,
Rapt rejoice in eternal bliss,
Raising his face to meet the kiss
Of the Beauty seraphic he sees above
In figure of his love.
O Beauty of Wisdom unsought
That in trance to poet is taught,
Uttered in secret lay,
Singing the heart from earth away,
Cunning the soul from care to lure,--
O mystic lily, from stain and death secure,
Till the end of all to stay!
O shapely flower that must for ever endure!
O voice of God that every heart must hear!
O hymn of purest souls that dost unsphere
The ravished soul that hears! O white, white gem!
O rose that dost the senses drown in bliss!
No thought shall stay the wing, or stem
The song or win the heart to miss
Thy love, thy joy, thy rapture divine!
O Beauty, Beauty, ever thine
The soul, the heart, the brain,
To own three in a loud perpetual strain,
Shriller and sweeter than song of wine,
Than song of sorrow or love or war!
Beauty of heaven and sun and day,
Beauty of water and frost and star,
Beauty of dusk-tide, narrowing, grey!
Beauty of silver light,
Beauty of purple night,
Beauty of solemn breath,
Beauty of closèd eye, and sleep, and death!
Beauty of dawn and dew,
Beauty of morning peace,
Ever ancient and ever new,
Ever renewed till waking cease
Or sleep for ever, when loud the angel's word
Through all the world is heard!
Beauty of brute and bird,
Beauty of earthly creatures
Whose hearts by the hand of God are stirred!
Beauty of the soul,
Beauty informing forms and features,
Fairest to God's eye,--
Beauty that cannot fade or die
Though atoms to ruin roll!
Beauty of blinded Trust,
Led by the hand of God
To a heaven where Cherub hath never trod!
Austere Beauty of Truth
Lighting the way of the just!
Splendid Beauty of Youth
Staying when Youth is sped,
Living when Life is dead,
Burning in funeral dust!
The glory of form doth pale and pall,
Beauty endures to the end of all.
poem by Thomas MacDonagh
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To X. (With Ephemeral Kisses)
I hear you will not fall in love with me
because I come without a guarantee,
because someday I may depart at whim
and leave you desolate, abandoned, grim.
If that's the case, what use to be alive?
In loving life you love what can't survive:
and if you grow too fond and lose your head,
it's all for nought-for someday you'll be dead.
Maintain a cool detachment through the years.
Wear blinders, dear, put cotton in your ears.
Since worms will taste the tongue that tastes the wine,
burst not the grape against your palate fine.
With care, your puny heart will still be whole
the day they come to fetch your tepid soul.
And as that strumpet, Life, deals her last blow,
you'll have this final consolatio:
you'll snap your flippant fingers as you fall,
and say, 'I never cared for her at all!'
poem by Erica Jong
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White Magic
Is it not a wonderful thing to be able to force an astonished plant to bear rare flowers which are foreign to it. . . and to obtain a marvelous result from sap which, left to itself, would have produced corollas without beauty? -VIRGIL.
I stood forlorn and pale,
Pressed by the cold sand, pinched by the thin grass,
Last of my race and frail
Who reigned in beauty once, when beauty was,
Before the rich earth beckoned to the sea,
Took his salt lips to taste,
And spread this gradual waste-
This ruin of lower, this doom of grass and tree.
Each Spring could scarcely lift
My brows from the sand drift
To fill my lips with April as she went,
Or force my weariness
To its sad, summer dress:
On the harsh beach, I heard the grey sea rise,
The ragged grass made ceaseless, dim lament,
And day and night scarce changed the mournful skies.
Foot on the sand, a shadow on the sea!
A face leaned over me.
Across each wasted limb
Passed healingly a warm, great, god-like hand.
I was drawn up to him,
From my frail feet fell the last grains of sand.
Then haste and darkness stooped and made me theirs;
Deep handed me to deep; . . .
I faded then as names fade from men's prayers,--
As a sigh at last made friends with sleep.
But the same hand that bore me from the sea,
Waking me tenderly,
Bound me to a rough stranger of my race,--
Me weary and pale to him, and him to me.
I turned my piteous face
Aside ashamed; I struggled to be free.
I slept, I dreamed, I woke to that embrace! . . .
Sweet tides stole through my veins,
Strange fires and thrills and pains;
To my cold lips the bloom crept back once more
I glowed as a bride glows;
I watched the day with delicate hands restore
My kinship with the rose.
About my throat my hair went like a flame,
My brows were wreathed, in purple I was dressed,
I bore my bride's name,
A great star burned my breast.
No longer bound, I leaned the same sweet way
Towards her lover. Now astonished I
Who was a beggar stand obediently
Beside Cophetua.
poem by Muriel Stuart
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In The Gardens Of Shushan
BE pitiful ! Her lips have touched this cool
Clear stream that sets the long green leaves astir.
The very doves that dream beside the pool
Sang their soft notes to her.
For her these doors that claim the amorous south,
Bound in red bronze and stayed with cedar-wood.
And here the bees sought honey from her mouth,
So like a flower she stood.
For her the globed pomegranates grew, and all
Sweet savoury fruits rose perfect from their flower.
Here has her soul known silence and the fall
Of each enchanted hour.
Under her feet all beauty was laid low,
In her deep eyes all beauty was made clear.
When the king called her through the evening glow,
'O Vashti, I am here !'
Still the sweet wells return to me her face,
Still her lost name on every wind is blown.
The shadows and the silence of this place
Are hers alone.
poem by Marjorie Lowry Christie Pickthall
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Ruby Red Rose
To touch your lips,
ruby red rose
is to touch the petals
of a rose that grows
soft with moisture,
dewy and wet.
They're touched by your tongue,
withdrawn and yet
they glisten and shine.
And what I see
are kisses saved
just for me.
They sometimes smile
and beckon me.
I savor the feel
they give and see
that no other lips
could be as fine.
No other lips
like ruby red wine
could ever compare
as they open and close
to anything else
but a ruby red rose.
poem by Edwina Reizer
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The Flowers I See
The belladonna in the valley, so magical in purple, so deadly within me, the nightshade thou possess, and in thee my life fade. The amaryllis in mine soul, thy scarlet leaf haunts me, for in thy scarlet stained grief, mine love and life I see. The blossom canna even thee! with lips stained with vice, from the vice of pleasure you chose, to create the beauty of thine treasure for our souls to greed. The begonia of beauty delicious thy beauty leave, and like all beauty thou deceive, the love pregnant in me. The oriental poppy, thy aroma helps me to sleep and dream of colors as vivid as thee and as unreal as thy petals be, unreal my dreams of thee. O fairy blossoms, in pink and white wing, inside thy petals the butterfly dwells and the spring ferries sing. Ah! there is the rose, with all its beauty in she which grows, wins the hearts of all whom know, that in the rose our love to doth grow. Still all these flowers look pale next to she, the panther in brown, with eyes of ebony, whom stares at me and sees flowers in my gleaming eye and preys on me before I die.
poem by Kevin Michael Murphy
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Heavenly Beauty
Bow down I to Him
Who created you out of His dream
Bow down I to Him
For the colours He dedicated for you.
Undress yourself and appreaciate Him
Do not cover you
Do not hide you
With false colour or dress.
Let me enjoy your beauty
Let my soul suffer the fire
of your beauty
Let me taste the wine of your beauty
Let me become a drunk
Let me drown in the sea of your beauty
Do not hide the beauty He devoted for you
Bow down I
Who created such a heavenly beauty for me.
poem by Devil Poet
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Scenes In London II - Oxford Street
LIFE in its many shapes was there,
The busy and the gay;
Faces that seemed too young and fair
To ever know decay.
Wealth, with its waste, its pomp, and pride,
Led forth its glittering train;
And poverty's pale face beside
Asked aid, and asked in vain.
The shops were filled from many lands,
Toys, silks, and gems, and flowers;
The patient work of many hands,
The hope of many hours.
Yet, mid life's myriad shapes around
There was a sigh of death;
There rose a melancholy sound,
The bugle's wailing breath.
They played a mournful Scottish air,
That on its native hill
Had caught the notes the night-winds bear
From weeping leaf and rill.
'Twas strange to hear that sad wild strain
Its warning music shed,
Rising above life's busy train,
In memory of the dead.
There came a slow and silent band
In sad procession by:
Reversed the musket in each hand,
And downcast every eye.
They bore the soldier to his grave;
The sympathyzing crowd
Divided like a parted wave
By some dark vessel ploughed.
A moment, and all sounds were mute,
For awe was over all;
You heard the soldier's measured foot,
The bugle's wailing call.
The gloves were laid upon the bier,
The helmet and the sword,
The drooping war-horse followed near,
As he, too, mourned his lord.
Slowly—I followed too—they led
To where a church arose,
And flung a shadow o'er the dead,
Deep as their own repose.
Green trees were there—beneath the shade
Of one, was made a grave;
And there to his last rest was laid
The weary and the brave.
They fired a volley o'er the bed
Of an unconscious ear;
The birds sprang fluttering overhead,
Struck with a sudden fear.
All left the ground, the bugles died
Away upon the wind;
Only the tree's green branches sighed
O'er him they left behind.
Again, all filled with light and breath,
I passed the crowded street—
Oh, great extremes of life and death,
How strangely do ye meet!
poem by Letitia Elizabeth Landon
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Blossom of Life
SO now she lies silent and sweet
With white flowers at her head and feet,
And she, the fairest flower, between.
The bud that with her bosom's swell
In dear delight once rose and fell
Now wafts her all it has to tell,
And wonders why she sleeps serene.
And yet in life how small a part,
With pretty face and petty heart,
She played! And in that form so fair
There never dwelt a deep desire,
Her bosom never thrilled a-fire:
She loved too lightly e'en to tire—
And all my heart was meant for her.
Was there a soul within those eyes
That seemed to speak my dear surmise,
That with no tears were ever wet?
Through life she laughed her careless way,
She knew not sorrow or dismay—
And I have sorrowed day by day,
While those pale lips are smiling yet!
And so she lies on her small bed,
With white flowers at her feet and head,
And she, the fairest flower between!
In life how false the little rôle —
The peerless face, the paltry soul!
But she is perfect now—the whole
Pale blossom of the Might-Have-Been.
poem by Arthur Henry Adams
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Death Pities
Oh fair without yet pitch within
Beauties outer cover hides the rot.
The skin pale so soft to touch, is ice.
The eyes deep, hold no warmth.
The rosy lips carmen red, smile
But it never reaches the soul.
For that you have sold too cheaply.
You are all for outward show, sick,
An empty vessel that holds no joy.
Your honeyed words cloy and poison
Corrupt the air and blacken the rose.
Death pities but cannot touch,
For you are already dead.
poem by Paul Brookes
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When
When the last sparkle has left the final star,
When the last rock has turned to sand,
I will still have a vision of you and I,
As we walk hand in hand.
When the last minutes of the eleventh hour fade away,
When the last ray comes from the sun,
I will have remembrance of songs we sang,
I'll remember when we became one.
When the last juice comes from the last grape,
When the last cloud comes gently across the sky,
I'll see your golden hair,
I'll still be lost in the deep blue of your eyes.
When the last petal drifts from the last rose,
When the last note of the last song fades,
I'll be listening for the sound of your voice,
You'll still surprise me with your love in all its shades.
R K Hart 2012
Oh! Green, Stay Green!
In the brilliant spectrum of rainbow hues,
Oh, Green! Thou art a ravishing shade.
You glow and fade in distant skies,
You hide beneath the oceans deep,
You make the Earth so cheery to live,
You ward off famine and assure wealth,
You signal movement and ensure health,
You sooth the eyes and cool the hearts.
In the brilliant spectrum of rainbow hues,
Oh, Green! Thou art a ravishing shade.
Green is the garb; God gave the Earth to wear,
Green is the harbinger of blooming spring,
Green – the forests that is home to beasts,
Green – the meadows, where the cattle graze,
Green – the prairies that stretch afar,
Green – the lawns that adorn the homes,
Green – the tuft of grass that grows beneath,
Green – the unripe fruits that hangs from boughs.
In the brilliant spectrum of rainbow hues,
Oh, Green! Thou art a ravishing shade.
But Alas! The Green is fast fading out,
The verdant Earth, turned into an arid stretch,
Life made so horrid for man and beast,
And Nature mourns her doleful plight,
Toil hard to usher the Green again,
Never let the trees fall and rot,
Take from Nature just enough to make you go,
And keep in reserve what is due for the ones to come!
In the brilliant spectrum of rainbow hues,
Oh, Green! Thou art a ravishing shade.
poem by Valsa George
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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