Dreams of France
Oh, dreams of France! Oh, faded dreams of France!
Ohm France, that I had ever dreamed of thee!
I thought to help thee bear thy brandished lance,
But, lo, I sail the blue Aegean sea!
Sweet thought of thee sill stand before mine eyes
While I lie fettered in this stagnant cage;
Unseen by me the golden Grecian skies,
Forgotten is the Grecian Golden Age.
Drear and dank this stale Ionian bark,
That plods its path alone Aegean ways.
Could I but see old Homer, tall and dark,
And hear the battle-laughter of his lays!
Farewell, oh France! Farewell, thou tortured West!
Bear strong thy shield above thine outraged breast.
poem by Leon Gellert
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The Beautiful Stranger
I cannot know what country owns thee now,
With France's forest lilies on thy brow.
When England knew thee thou wert passing fair;
I never knew a foreign face so rare.
The world of waters rolls and rushes bye,
Nor lets me wander where thy vallies lie.
But surely France must be a pleasant place
That greets the stranger with so fair a face;
The English maiden blushes down the dance,
But few can equal the fair maid of France.
I saw thee lovely and I wished thee mine,
And the last song I ever wrote is thine.
Thy country's honour on thy face attends;
Men may be foes but beauty makes us friends.
poem by John Clare
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Dear Motherland Of France
DEDICATED TO THE MEN AND WOMEN OF FRANCE
Our Motherland, dear Motherland,
The source of beauty and of Art,
Who but thy children understand
The love which permeates each heart!
We see, through rainbow-tints of tears,
Thy glory of a thousand years.
O country of the Great and Free,
We live for thee, we live for thee,
Dear Motherland of France.
O Motherland, both blithe and brave,
What magic lies in thy name-France!
Yet can thy radiant mien be grave,
And stern thy ever-smiling glance.
And when thy sons and daughters know
That enemies would lay thee low
And dim thy fame on land and sea,
We fight for thee, we fight for thee,
Dear Motherland of France.
Dear Motherland of joy and mirth,
Dear Motherland of faith divine,
A thousand years the wondering earth
Has seen thy star in splendour shine.
Still shall it see that star of France
Its splendour and its light enhance.
Dear Motherland, when it need be
We die for thee, we die for thee,
Dear Motherland of France.
poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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Napoleon's Farewell (From The French)
I.
Farewell to the Land where the gloom of my Glory
Arose and o'ershadow'd the earth with her name--
She abandons me now--but the page of her story,
The brightest or blackest, is fill'd with my fame.
I have warr'd with a world which vanquish'd me only
When the meteor of conquest allured me too far;
I have coped with the nations which dread me thus lonely,
The last single Captive to millions in war.
II.
Farewell to thee, France! when thy diadem crown'd me,
I made thee the gem and the wonder of earth,
But thy weakness decrees I should leave as I found thee,
Decay'd in thy glory, and sunk in thy worth.
Oh! for the veteran hearts that were wasted
In strife with the storm, when their battles were won
Then the Eagle, whose gaze in that moment was lasted,
Had still soar'd with eyes fix'd on victory's sun!
III.
Farewell to thee, France!--but when Liberty rallies
Once more in thy regions, remember me then,
The violet still grows in the depth of thy valleys;
Though wither'd, thy tear will unfold it
Yet, yet, I may baffle the hosts that surround us,
And yet may thy heart leap awake to my voice
There are links which must break in the chain that has bound us,
Then turn thee and call on the Chief of thy choice!
On Reading William Watson's Sonnet Entitled The Purple East
Restless the Northern Bear amid his snows
Crouched by the Neva; menacing is France,
That sees the shadow of the Uhlan's lance
On her clipped borders; struggling in the throes
Of wanton war lies Spain, and deathward goes.
And thou, O England, how the time's mischance
Hath fettered thee, that with averted glance
Thou standest, marble to Armenia's woes!
If 'twas thy haughty Dauther of the West
That stayed thy hand,, a word had driven away
Her sudden ire, and brought her to thy breast!
Thy blood makes quick her pulses, and some day,
Not now, yet some day, at thy soft behest
She by thy side shall hold the world at bay.
poem by Thomas Bailey Aldrich
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THe Unification of London and France
She dreams of London whilst we dwell here in France
Paris the cruel spectacle as it is as it were
Darling would you cross the far enchanted sea
That I might build a kingdom with thee
Dawn of day
Day now Past
She leads London
Whilst I perish away in France
poem by Harlan Lovestone
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I Bid Thee Farewell
I bid thee farewell my sweet love
All the staggering moments we both shared
All the joy we both brought to one another's heart
All the great things we did for one another
I bid thee farewell my sweet love
All the laughter we shared together
All the memories we created together
All the pleasures we did for one another
I bid thee farewell my sweet love
It was good while it lasted
O, I do miss it, all those moments
I am only left with memories, which I shall forever cherish
I bid thee farewell my sweet love
Now that it is all over, all I can do is bid thee farewell
As I must set you free, free to be happy
I bid thee farewell - My Sweet Love
poem by Gabriel Gauci Maistre
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To My Husband on Our Wedding-Day
I leave for thee, beloved one,
The home and friends of youth,
Trusting my hopes, my happiness,
Unto thy love and truth;
I leave for thee my girlhood's joys,
Its sunny, careless mirth,
To bear henceforth my share amid
The many cares of earth.
And yet, no wild regret I give
To all that now I leave,
The golden dreams, the flow'ry wreaths
That I no more may weave;
The future that before me lies
A dark and unknown sea --
Whate'er may be its storms or shoals,
I brave them all with thee!
I will not tell thee now of love
Whose life, ere this, thou'st guessed,
And which, like sacred secret, long
Was treasured in my breast;
Enough that if thy lot be calm,
Or storms should o'er it sweep,
Thou'lt learn that it is woman's love,
Unchanging, pure and deep.
If this life's sunshine gild thy lot,
Bestowing wealth and pride,
Its light enjoying, I shall stand,
Rejoicing, at thy side;
But, oh! if thou should'st prove the griefs
That blight thy fellow-men,
'Twill be my highest, dearest right,
To be, love, with thee then.
And thou, wilt thou not promise me
Thy heart will never change,
That tones and looks, so loving now,
Will ne'er grow stern and strange?
That thou'lt be kind, whatever faults
Or failings may be mine,
And bear with them in patient love,
As I will bear with thine?
poem by Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
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The Conscript's Farewell
Farewell, father;—
I had hoped that I should be
In thine age a staff for thee;
But when years have mark'd thy brow,
When thy step is weak and slow,
When thy hair is thin and white,
And thine eye hath lost its light,
I shall never seek thy side,
And thy faltering footsteps guide.
Where my country's banners fly
Proudly ‘neath a distant sky,
To the battle forth I speed,
There to fight and there to bleed;
Not because the foeman's lance
Glitters in the vales of France;
Not because a stranger's mirth
Rises round my father's hearth;
Not at glory's trumpet call,
Nor in freedom's cause to fall;
But because ambitious power
Tears me from my peaceful bower.
Yet amidst the battle strife,
In the closing hours of life,
Think not that my heart shall quail,
Spirit droop, or courage fail.
Where the boldest deed is done,
Where the laurel-wreath is won,
Where the standard eagles fly,
There thy son shall proudly die;
Though, perhaps, no voice may tell
How the nameless conscript fell!
Thy blessing, father.
Farewell, mother;—
It is hard to part from thee,
And my tears are flowing free.
While around thee gloom and night
Quench'd religion's blessed light,
Still thou bad'st my lisping voice
In the evening hymn rejoice;
And my childhood's prayer was said,
Ere thou bless'd my pillow'd head.
Oh, before I leave thee now,
Place thy hand upon my brow,
And with every treasured word,
That my infant ears have heard,
Bless me, mother.
Farewell, brother;—
Many an hour of boyish glee,
I have pass'd in joy with thee;
If with careless act or tongue
I have ever done thee wrong,
Think upon thy brother's lot,
And be all his faults forgot;
Thou may'st dry our mother's tears,
Soothe our sisters’ anxious fears,
Be their shield, their guide, their stay
Throughout many a coming day;
Freely with thy father share
All his secret weight of care;
Be what it were mine to be,
Had I still remain'd with thee,
And love me, brother.
Farewell, sisters;—
Yonder is our favourite vine,
You must now its tendrils twine,
And when ‘neath its leafy bower,
You are met at evening hour,
Think how oft in by-past days,
There we waked the song of praise,
Till your beaming eyes are wet
With the tears of fond regret;
Then together fondly bend,
And your gentle voices blend.
Pray for me, sisters.
poem by Elizabeth Margaret Chandler from Poetical Works (1836)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Jeanne d'Arc Returns
1914-1916
What hast thou done, O womanhood of France,
Mother and daughter, sister, sweetheart, wife,
What hast thou done, amid this fateful strife,
To prove the pride of thine inheritance
In this fair land of freedom and romance?
I hear thy voice with tears and courage rife,--
Smiling against the swords that seek thy life,--
Make answer in a noble utterance:
"I give France all I have, and all she asks.
Would it were more! Ah, let her ask and take:
My hands to nurse her wounded, do her tasks,--
My feet to run her errands through the dark,--
My heart to bleed in triumph for her sake,--
And all my soul to follow thee, Jeanne d'Arc!"
poem by Henry Van Dyke
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O Star Of France
O STAR of France!
The brightness of thy hope and strength and fame,
Like some proud ship that led the fleet so long,
Beseems to-day a wreck, driven by the gale--a mastless hulk;
And 'mid its teeming, madden'd, half-drown'd crowds,
Nor helm nor helmsman.
Dim, smitten star!
Orb not of France alone--pale symbol of my soul, its dearest hopes,
The struggle and the daring--rage divine for liberty,
Of aspirations toward the far ideal--enthusiast's dreams of
brotherhood, 10
Of terror to the tyrant and the priest.
Star crucified! by traitors sold!
Star panting o'er a land of death--heroic land!
Strange, passionate, mocking, frivolous land.
Miserable! yet for thy errors, vanities, sins, I will not now rebuke
thee;
Thy unexampled woes and pangs have quell'd them all,
And left thee sacred.
In that amid thy many faults, thou ever aimedest highly,
In that thou wouldst not really sell thyself, however great the
price,
In that thou surely wakedst weeping from thy drugg'd sleep, 20
In that alone, among thy sisters, thou, Giantess, didst rend the ones
that shamed thee,
In that thou couldst not, wouldst not, wear the usual chains,
This cross, thy livid face, thy pierced hands and feet,
The spear thrust in thy side.
O star! O ship of France, beat back and baffled long!
Bear up, O smitten orb! O ship, continue on!
Sure, as the ship of all, the Earth itself,
Product of deathly fire and turbulent chaos,
Forth from its spasms of fury and its poisons,
Issuing at last in perfect power and beauty, 30
Onward, beneath the sun, following its course,
So thee, O ship of France!
Finish'd the days, the clouds dispell'd,
The travail o'er, the long-sought extrication,
When lo! reborn, high o'er the European world,
(In gladness, answering thence, as face afar to face, reflecting
ours, Columbia,)
Again thy star, O France--fair, lustrous star,
In heavenly peace, clearer, more bright than ever,
Shall beam immortal.
poem by Walt Whitman
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Good Bye My Sweet Heart
GOODBYE SWEET HEART
Where do you want to take
All my sad notes
When every eye of heart’s fountain
Dried up in this waste land
When my last word too
Defeated to the last straw.
Farewell, oh, my sweet thought
The thought where I gently float.
Let me remain here itself
With bruised wounds
Being all my dreams shattered to ground.
Oh, my sweet thoughts
Flow not again out of my deep sea
As rising waves
Throw not my messages in vain
Again and again.
I am thrown lying
In my silence, are all my dreams buried
I am lying thrown in my street
Like an empty mutilated tin
Exhausted all of its contains.
Farewell, oh, my sweet thought
The thought where I always gently float
The death is certain
Yes honey, it’s for me too
Yet I see not yours in any of my scripts
Even I myself request.
Farewell, oh, my sweet thought
Oh, my sweet heart, farewell to thee
Is the love narrowed only to a fire
Whenever I like to light
And whenever you like to put it out?
poem by Ponniah Ganeshan
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Sonnet LXXXIV: Farewell to the Glen
Sweet stream-fed glen, why say “farewell” to thee
Who far'st so well and find'st for ever smooth
The brow of Time where man may read no ruth?
Nay, do thou rather say “farewell” to me,
Who now fare forth in bitterer fantasy
Than erst was mine where other shade might soothe
By other streams, what while in fragrant youth
The bliss of being sad made melancholy.
And yet, farewell! For better shalt thou fare
When children bathe sweet faces in thy flow
And happy lovers blend sweet shadows there
In hours to come, than when an hour ago
Thine echoes had but one man's sighs to bear
And thy trees whispered what he feared to know.
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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An Exile's Song
My soul is like a prisoned lark,
That sings and dreams of liberty,
The nights are long, the days are dark,
Away from home, away from thee!
My only joy is in my dreams,
When I thy loving face can see.
How dreary the awakening seems,
Away from home, away from thee!
At dawn I hasten to the shore,
To gaze across the sparkling sea -
The sea is bright to me no more,
Which parts me from my home and thee.
At twilight, when the air grows chill,
And cold and leaden is the sea,
My tears like bitter dews distil,
Away from home, away from thee.
I could not live, did I not know
That thou art ever true to me,
I could not bear a doubtful woe,
Away from home, away from thee.
I could not live, did I not hear
A voice that sings the day to be,
When hitherward a ship shall steer,
To bear me back to home and thee.
Oh, when at last that day shall break
In sunshine on the dancing sea,
It will be brighter for the sake
Of my return to home and thee!
poem by Robert Fuller Murray
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The Slave-Mother's Farewell
May God have mercy on thee, son, for man's stern heart hath none!
My gentle boy, my beautiful, my loved and only one!
I would the bitter tears that steep thy young and grief-doom'd head,
Were springing from a broken heart, that mourn'd thee with the dead.
And yet how often have I watch'd above thine infant sleep,
With love whose gushing tenderness strove vainly not to weep,
When starting through my timid heart, the thought that thou couldst die,
Shot, even amidst a mother's bliss, a pang of agony.
My boy! my boy! Oh cling not thus around me in thy grief,
Thy mother's arm, thy mother's love, can yield thee no relief;
The tiger's bloody jaw hath not a gripe more fierce and fell
Than that which tears thee from my arms—thou who wert loved so well!
How may I live bereft of thee? Thy smile was all that flung
A ray of gladness ‘midst the gloom, forever round me hung:
How may a mother's heart endure to think upon thy fate,
Thou doom'd to misery and chains!—so young and desolate!
Farewell! farewell!—They tear thee hence!—and yet my heart beats on;
How can it bear the weight of life, when thou art from me gone?
Mine own! mine own! Yet cruel hands have barter'd thee for gold,
And torn thee, with a ruthless grasp, forever from my hold!
poem by Elizabeth Margaret Chandler from Poetical Works (1836)
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‘O Θεòς μετα σου!
Ho Thëos meta sou — God be with you!
. . . . .
FAREWELL, my Highland lassie! when the year returns around,
Be it Greece, or be it Norway, where my vagrant feet are found,
I shall call to mind the place, I shall call to mind the day,
The day that’s gone for ever, and the glen that’s far away;
I shall mind me, be it Rhine or Rhone, Italian land or France,
Of the laughings and the whispers, of the pipings and the dance;
I shall see thy soft brown eyes dilate to wakening woman thought,
And whiter still the white cheek grow to which the blush was brought;
And oh, with mine commixing I thy breath of life shall feel,
And clasp thy shyly passive hands in joyous Highland reel;
I shall hear, and see, and feel, and in sequence sadly true,
Shall repeat the bitter-sweet of the lingering last adieu;
I shall seem as now to leave thee, with the kiss upon the brow,
And the fervent benediction of—‘O Θεòς μετα σου!
Ah me, my Highland lassie! though in winter drear and long
Deep arose the heavy snows, and the stormy winds were strong,
Though the rain, in summer’s brightest, it were raining every day,
With worldly comforts few and far, how glad were I to stay!
I fall to sleep with dreams of life in some black bothie spent,
Coarse poortith’s ware thou changing there to gold of pure content,
With barefoot lads and lassies round, and thee the cheery wife,
In the braes of old Lochaber a laborious homely life;
But I wake—to leave thee, smiling, with the kiss upon the brow,
And the peaceful benediction of—‘O Θεòς μετα σου!
. . . . .
poem by Arthur Hugh Clough
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After Parting
Farewell has long been said; I have forgone thee;
I never name thee even.
But how shall I learn virtues and yet shun thee?
For thou art so near Heaven
That Heavenward meditations pause upon thee.
Thou dost beset the path to every shrine;
My trembling thoughts discern
Thy goodness in the good for which I pine;
And, if I turn from but one sin, I turn
Unto a smile of thine.
How shall I thrust thee apart
Since all my growth tends to thee night and day--
To thee faith, hope, and art?
Swift are the currents setting all one way;
They draw my life, my life, out of my heart.
poem by Alice Meynell
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Having viewed Europe as an extension and projection of itself, France now finds Europe developing a mind and identity of its own which embraces France but is not controlled by France.
quote by Peter Mandelson
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Ballad III
Now in good sooth my joy is vanished clean,
And all my gladness changed to grievous ire :
What profits it, dear flower ! since I have seen
Thy going hence, that I could never tire
When thou wast here
To greet thee every day in every year ?
Delight that was is grown disaster fell :
Alas ! How can I bid thee now farewell !
My love, my choice, my lady and my queen,
For whom my heart is kindled in desire,
What shall I do when love from what hath been
Taketh the gold and leaveth me the mire ?
Nor far nor near
Is comfort found, nor any pleasant cheer.
Gone is thy beauty, that did all excel :
Alas ! How can I bid thee now farewell !
Thine is the deed, O evil tongue and keen !
Forged for my fate upon an anvil dire :
Fortune, that loveth not my hand, I ween,
Nor yet my pen, did in the task conspire.
No help is clear
Save Death, when God shall grant him to appear
Else thou alone could'st win me out of hell.
Alas ! How can I bid thee now farewell !
Ah, simple and dear !
At least behold me and my mourning drear.
Thy loss is torment more than I can tell.
Alas ! How can I bid thee now farewell !
poem by Christine de Pizan
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Now Art has lost its mental Charms
Now Art has lost its mental Charmst
France shall subdue the World in Arms
So spoke an Angel at my birth
Then said Descend thou upon Earth
Renew the Arts on Britains Shore
And France shall fall down and adore
With works of Art their Armies meet
And War shall sink beneath thy feett
But if thy Nation Arts refuse
And if they scorn the immortal Muse
France shall the arts of Peace restore
And save thee from the Ungrateful shoret
Spirit who lovst Brittannias Islet
Round which the Fiends of Commerce smilet
[unfinished]
[Dedication to Blake's Illustrations to Blair's Grave, printed 1808]
poem by William Blake from Songs and Ballads (1794)
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Sonnet 65: Love By Sure Proof
Love by sure proof I may call thee unkind,
That giv'st no better ear to my just cries:
Thou whom to me such my good turns should bind,
As I may well recount, but none can prize:
For when, nak'd boy, thou couldst no harbor find
In this old world, grown now so too too wise,
I lodg'd thee in my heart, and being blind
Bu nature born, I gave to thee mine eyes.
Mine eyes, my light, my heart, my life alas,
If so great services may scorned be,
Yet let this thought thy tigrish courage pass:
That I perhaps am somewhat kin to thee,
Since in thine arms, if learn'd fame truth hath spread,
Thou bear'st the arrow, I the arrowhead.
poem by Philip Sidney
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