The Solitary
I.
Dar’st thou amid the varied multitude
To live alone, an isolated thing?
To see the busy beings round thee spring,
And care for none; in thy calm solitude,
A flower that scarce breathes in the desert rude
To Zephyr’s passing wing?
II.
Not the swart Pariah in some Indian grove,
Lone, lean, and hunted by his brother’s hate,
Hath drunk so deep the cup of bitter fate
As that poor wretch who cannot, cannot love:
He bears a load which nothing can remove,
A killing, withering weight.
III.
He smiles--'tis sorrow's deadliest mockery;
He speaks--the cold words flow not from his soul;
He acts like others, drains the genial bowl,--
Yet, yet he longs--although he fears--to die;
He pants to reach what yet he seems to fly,
Dull life's extremest goal.
poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Related quotes
The Love Sonnets Of Proteus. Part II: To Juliet: XXIV
THE SAME CONTINUED
Give me thy soul, Juliet, give me thy soul!
I am a bitter sea, which drinketh in
The sweetness of all waters, and so thine.
Thou, like a river, pure and swift and full
And freighted with the wealth of many lands,
With hopes, and fears, and death and life, dost roll
Against the troubled ocean of my sin.
Thou doubtest not, though on these desert sands
The billows surge against thee black with brine,
Unwearied. For thy love is fixed and even
And bears thee onward, and thy faith is whole.
Though thou thyself shouldst sin, yet surely Heaven
Hath held thee guiltless and thou art forgiven.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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Fare Thee Well
Fare thee well! and if for ever,
Still for ever, fare thee well:
Even though unforgiving, never
'Gainst thee shall my heart rebel.
Would that breast were bared before thee
Where thy head so oft hath lain.
While that placid sleep came o'er thee
Which thou ne'er canst know again;
Would that breast, by thee glanced over,
Every inmost thought could show!
Then thou wouldst at last discover
'Twas not well to spurn it so.
Though the world for this commend thee--
Though it smile upon the blow,
Even its praises must offend thee,
Founded on another's woe:
Though my many faults defaced me,
Could no other arm be found,
Than the one which once embraced me,
To inflict a cureless wound?
Yet, oh yet, thyself deceive not;
Love may sink by slow decay,
But by sudden wrench, believe not
Hearts can thus be torn away:
Still thine own its life retaineth,
Still must mine, though bleeding, beat;
And the undying thought which paineth
Is - that we no more may meet.
These are words of deeper sorrow
Than the wail above the dead;
Both shall live, but every morrow
Wake us from a widow'd bed.
And when thou wouldst solace gather,
When our child's first accents flow,
Wilt thou teach her to say 'Father!'
Though his care she must forego?
When her little hands shall press thee,
When her lip to thine is press'd
Think of him whose prayer shall bless thee,
Think of him thy love had bless'd!
Should her lineaments resemble
Those thou never more may'st see,
Then thy heart will softly tremble
With a pulse yet true to me.
All my faults perchance thou knowest,
All my madness none can know;
All my hopes where'er thou goest,
Wither, yet with thee they go.
Every feeling hath been shaken;
Pride, which not a world could bow,
Bows to thee--by thee forsaken,
Even my soul forsakes me now:
But 'tis done--all words are idle
Words from me are vainer still;
But the thoughts we cannot bridle
Force their way without the will.
Fare thee well! thus disunited,
Torn from every nearer tie
Sear 'd in heart, and lone, and blighted,
More than this I scarce can die.
The Dirge
Deserted of her Spouse, she sat lamenting in the chamber.
Hast thou gone and left me,
Void of faults but strictly true?
Fly far away
Without delay,
Adieu, my love, adieu.
Hast thou gone and left me,
Hence to seek another bride?
I must be still,
Thou hast thy will,
The world is free and wide.
Only hadst thou told me
Ere I drunk the bitter cup,
I could with shame,
Now bear the blame,
And freely give thee up.
But I'm left to ponder,
Now in the depth of sorrow's gloom;
Like some dull sprite,
In dead of night,
Bewailing o'er her tomb.
Swiftly fly and welcome;
It is the fate of fools to rove;
With whom I know
Wedlock is woe
Without the stream of love.
Where constant love is wanting,
Pleasure has not long to dwell;
I view my fate,
Alas, too late!
So partner, fare thee well.
But, my love, remember,
Hence we meet and face to face,
Thy heart shall ache,
Thy soul shall quake,
The wretch of all disgrace.
poem by George Moses Horton
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The Poet's Song To His Wife
HOW many summers, love,
Have I been thine?
How many days, thou dove,
Hast thou been mine?
Time, like the winged wind
When ’t bends the flowers,
Hath left no mark behind,
To count the hours.
Some weight of thought, though loth,
On thee he leaves;
Some lines of care round both
Perhaps he weaves;
Some fears,—a soft regret
For joys scarce known;
Sweet looks we half forget;—
All else is flown!
Ah!—With what thankless heart
I mourn and sing!
Look, where our children start,
Like sudden Spring!
With tongues all sweet and low,
Like a pleasant rhyme,
They tell how much I owe
To thee and Time!
poem by Barry Cornwall
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Sonnet XV: Accuse Me Not
Accuse me not, beseech thee, that I wear
Too calm and sad a face in front of thine;
For we two look two ways, and cannot shine
With the same sunlight on our brow and hair.
On me thou lookest with no doubting care,
As on a bee in a crystalline;
Since sorrow hath shut me safe in love's divine
And to spread wing and fly in the outer air
Were most impossible failure, if I strove
To fail so. But I look on thee--on thee--
Beholding, besides love, the end of love,
Hearing oblivion beyond memory;
As one who sits and gazes from above,
Over the rivers to the bitter sea.
poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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Love And Beauty: II: To The Same
Oh Soul! that this fair flower dost so mirrour,
Ask of thyself, saying-'Soul beautiful,
Oh Soul-in-love, oh happy, happy Soul,
That wert so dull and poor, and this sweet hour
Art so more floral even than a flower,
That in thee it is better'd to a full,
Whereto each former rose is poor and dull,
Ah, what doth thus enlarge thee and empower,
That thou who, at thy most, wert a priesthood,
A vassal strength, a bliss feudàtory,
Hast grown a final joy, an absolute good,
A god that, for being god, believest in God
The more?' Thou canst not clear this mystery,
Ah happy, happy soul, whose fruit of life is nigh.
poem by Sydney Thompson Dobell
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Sonnet XV
Accuse me not, beseech thee, that I wear
Too calm and sad a face in front of thine;
For we two look two ways, and cannot shine
With the same sunlight on our brow and hair.
On me thou lookest with no doubting care,
As on a bee shut in a crystalline;
Since sorrow hath shut me safe in love's divine,
And to spread wing and fly in the outer air
Were most impossible failure, if I strove
To fail so. But I look on thee--on thee--
Beholding, besides love, the end of love,
Hearing oblivion beyond memory;
As one who sits and gazes from above,
Over the rivers to the bitter sea.
poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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Xv
Accuse me not, beseech thee, that I wear
Too calm and sad a face in front of thine;
For we two look two ways, and cannot shine
With the same sunlight on our brow and hair.
On me thou lookest with no doubting care,
As on a bee shut in a crystalline;
Since sorrow hath shut me safe in love's divine,
And to spread wing and fly in the outer air
Were most impossible failure, if I strove
To fail so. But I look on thee--on thee--
Beholding, besides love, the end of love,
Hearing oblivion beyond memory;
As one who sits and gazes from above,
Over the rivers to the bitter sea.
poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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The Bee and the Butterfly
UPON a garden's perfum'd bed
With various gaudy colours spread,
Beneath the shelter of a ROSE
A BUTTERFLY had sought repose;
Faint, with the sultry beams of day,
Supine the beauteous insect lay.
A BEE, impatient to devour
The nectar sweets of ev'ry flow'r,
Returning to her golden store,
A weight of fragrant treasure bore;
With envious eye, she mark'd the shade,
Where the poor BUTTERFLY was laid,
And resting on the bending spray,
Thus murmur'd forth her drony lay:
"Thou empty thing, whose merit lies
In the vain boast of orient dies;
Whose glittering form the slightest breath
Robs of its gloss, and fades to death;
Who idly rov'st the summer day,
Flutt'ring a transient life away,
Unmindful of the chilling hour,
The nipping frost, the drenching show'r;
Who heedless of "to-morrow's fare,"
Mak'st present bliss thy only care;
Is it for THEE, the damask ROSE
With such transcendent lustre glows?
Is it for such a giddy thing
Nature unveils the blushing spring?
Hence, from thy lurking place, and know,
'Tis not for THEE her beauties glow."
The BUTTERFLY, with decent pride,
In gentle accents, thus reply'd:
"'Tis true, I flutter life away
In pastime, innocent and gay;
The SUN that decks the blushing spring
Gives lustre to my painted wing;
'Tis NATURE bids each colour vie,
With rainbow tints of varying die;
I boast no skill, no subtle pow'r
To steal the balm from ev'ry flow'r;
The ROSE, that only shelter'd ME,
Has pour'd a load of sweets on THEE;
Of merit we have both our share,
Heav'n gave thee ART, and made me FAIR;
And tho' thy cunning can despise
The humble worth of harmless flies;
Remember, envious, busy thing,
Thy honey'd form conceals a sting;
Enjoy thy garden, while I rove
The sunny hill, the woodbine grove,
And far remov'd from care and THEE,
Embrace my humble destiny;
While in some lone sequester'd bow'r,
I'll live content beyond thy pow'r;
For where ILL-NATURE holds her reign
TASTE, WORTH, and BEAUTY, plead in vain;
E'en GENIUS must to PRIDE submit
When ENVY wings the shaft of WIT.
poem by Mary Darby Robinson
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Sonnet 15 - Accuse me not, beseech thee, that I wear
XV
Accuse me not, beseech thee, that I wear
Too calm and sad a face in front of thine;
For we two look two ways, and cannot shine
With the same sunlight on our brow and hair.
On me thou lookest with no doubting care,
As on a bee shut in a crystalline;
Since sorrow hath shut me safe in love's divine,
And to spread wing and fly in the outer air
Were most impossible failure, if I strove
To fail so. But I look on thee—on thee—
Beholding, besides love, the end of love,
Hearing oblivion beyond memory;
As one who sits and gazes from above,
Over the rivers to the bitter sea.
poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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To Time
Time! on whose arbitrary wing
The varying hours must flag or fly,
Whose tardy winter, fleeting spring,
But drag or drive us on to die---
Hail thou! who on my birth bestowed
Those boons to all that know thee known;
Yet better I sustain thy load,
For now I bear the weight alone.
I would not one fond heart should share
The bitter moments thou hast given;
And pardon thee---since thou couldst spare
All that I loved, to peace or Heaven.
To them be joy or rest---on me
Thy future ills shall press in vain;
I nothing owe but years to thee,
A debt already paid in pain.
Yet even that pain was some relief;
It felt, but still forgot thy power:
The active agony of grief
Retards, but never counts the hour.
In joy I've sighed to think thy flight
Would soon subside from swift to slow;
Thy cloud could overcast the light,
But could not add a night to Woe;
For then, however drear and dark,
My soul was suited to thy sky;
One star alone shot forth a spark
To prove thee---not Eternity.
That beam hath sunk---and now thou art
A blank---a thing to count and curse
Through each dull tedious trifling part,
Which all regret, yet all rehearse.
One scene even thou canst not deform---
The limit of thy sloth or speed
When future wanderers bear the storm
Which we shall sleep too sound to heed.
And I can smile to think how weak
Thine efforts shortly shall be shown,
When all the vengeance thou canst wreak
Must fall upon---a nameless stone.
A Romaic Love Song
Ah! Love was never yet without
The pang, the agony, the doubt,
Which rends my heart with ceaseless sigh,
While day and night roll darkling by.
Without one friend to hear my woe,
I faint, I die beneath the blow.
That Love had arrows well I knew;
Alas! I find them poison'd too.
Birds, yet in freedom, shun the net
Which Love around your haunts hath set;
Or, circled by his fatal fire,
Your hearts shall burn, your hopes expire.
A bird of free and careless wing
Was I through many a smiling spring;
But caught within the subtle snare,
I burn, and feebly flutter there.
Who ne'er have loved, and loved in vain,
Can neither feel nor pity pain,
The cold repulse, the look askance,
The lightning of Love's angry glance.
In flattering dreams I deem'd thee mine;
Now hope, and he who hoped, decline'
Like melting wax, or withering flower,
I feel my passion, and thy power.
My light of life! ah, tell me why
That pouting lip, and alter'd eye?
My bird of love! my beauteous mate!
And art thou changed, and canst thou hate?
Mine eyes like wintry streams o'erflow:
What wretch with me would barter woe?
My bird! relent: one note could give
A charm to bid thy lover live.
My curdling blood, my madd'ning brain,
In silent anguish I sustain
And still thy heart, without partaking
One pang, exults - while mine is breaking.
Pour me the poison; fear not thou!
Thou canst not murder more than now:
I've lived to curse my natal day,
And Love, that thus can lingering slay.
My wounded soul, my bleeding breast,
Can patience preach thee into rest?
Alas! too late, I dearly know
That joy is harbinger of woe.
song, translated by Byron
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A World For Love
Oh, the world is all too rude for thee, with much ado and care;
Oh, this world is but a rude world, and hurts a thing so fair;
Was there a nook in which the world had never been to sear,
That place would prove a paradise when thou and Love were near.
And there to pluck the blackberry, and there to reach the sloe,
How joyously and happily would Love thy partner go;
Then rest when weary on a bank, where not a grassy blade
Had eer been bent by Trouble's feet, and Love thy pillow made.
For Summer would be ever green, though sloes were in their prime,
And Winter smile his frowns to Spring, in beauty's happy clime;
And months would come, and months would go, and all in sunny mood,
And everything inspired by thee grow beautifully good.
And there to make a cot unknown to any care and pain,
And there to shut the door alone on singing wind and rain--
Far, far away from all the world, more rude than rain or wind,
Oh, who could wish a sweeter home, or better place to find?
Than thus to love and live with thee, thou beautiful delight!
Than thus to live and love with thee the summer day and night!
The Earth itself, where thou hadst rest, would surely smile to see
Herself grow Eden once again, possest of Love and thee
poem by John Clare
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To Harriet
Thy look of love has power to calm
The stormiest passion of my soul;
Thy gentle words are drops of balm
In life's too bitter bowl;
No grief is mine, but that alone
These choicest blessings I have known.
Harriet! if all who long to live
In the warm sunshine of thine eye,
That price beyond all pain must give,-
Beneath thy scorn to die;
Then hear thy chosen own too late
His heart most worthy of thy hate.
Be thou, then, one among mankind
Whose heart is harder not for state,
Thou only virtuous, gentle, kind,
Amid a world of hate;
And by a slight endurance seal
A fellow-being's lasting weal.
For pale with anguish is his cheek,
His breath comes fast, his eyes are dim,
Thy name is struggling ere he speak,
Weak is each trembling limb;
In mercy let him not endure
The misery of a fatal cure.
Oh, trust for once no erring guide!
Bid the remorseless feeling flee;
'Tis malice, 'tis revenge, 'tis pride,
'Tis anything but thee;
Oh, deign a nobler pride to prove,
And pity if thou canst not love.
poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Oh Tell Me Not, I Shall Forget
Oh! tell me not I shall forget,
Amid the scenes of nature's reign,
The cheeks with bitter tear-drops wet,
The hearts whose every throb is pain.
The wood-bird's merry notes may ring,
Exulting ‘neath the clear blue sky:
But louder still the breezes bring
The echo of a sister's cry.
The forest brook may sparkle fair,
And win my heart to love its sheen;
But still it shows me, mirror'd there,
The image of a distant scene.
The verdant sod around my feet,
The treasure of its flowers may spread,
And close embowering branches meet,
In fresh'ning coolness, o'er my head.
Yet not for these, oh! not for these,
Can I forget the Afric's woe,—
The sighs that float on every breeze,
The streaming tears that ceaseless flow.
No! though the loveliness of earth
Hath touch'd my spirit like a spell,
And sooth'd me back to joy and mirth,
When darkness else had round it fell.
Though not the simplest bud, that droops
Beneath its weight of morning dew,
When light the orient zephyr stoops
To trifle with its petals blue;
Though not a breeze that stirs the grove,
Or wing that cleaves the summer air,
But hath a link upon my love,
Or strikes some chord of feeling there;
Yet think not they can lull my heart,
To carelessness of human woe;
Or bid the bitter tears that start
For Afric's wrongs, no longer flow.
poem by Elizabeth Margaret Chandler from Poetical Works
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One Struggle More, And I Am Free
One struggle more, and I am free
From pangs that rend my heart in twain;
One last long sigh to love and thee,
Then back to busy life again.
It suits me well to mingle now
With things that never pleased before!
Though every joy is fled below,
What future grief can touch me more?
Then bring me wine, the banquet bring;
Man was not form'd to live alone:
I'll be that light, unmeaning thing
That smiles with all, and weeps with none.
It was not thus in days more dear,
It never would have been, but thou
Hast fled, and left me lonely here;
Thou'rt nothing--all are nothing now.
In vain my lyre would lightly breathe!
The smile that sorrow fain would wear
But mocks the woe that lurks beneath,
Like roses o'er a sepulchre.
Though gay companions o'er the bowl
Dispel awhile the sense of ill:
Though pleasure fires the maddening soul,
The heart,--the heart is lonely still!
On many a lone and lovely night
It sooth'd to gaze upon the sky;
For then I deem'd the heavenly light
Shone sweetly on thy pensive eye:
And oft I thought at Cynthia's noon,
When sailing o'er the Ægean wave,
'Now Thyrza gazes on that moon'
Alas, it gleam'd upon her grave!
When stretch'd on fever's sleepless bed,
And sickness shrunk my throbbing veins,
'Tis comfort still,' I faintly said,
'That Thyrza cannot know my pains:'
Like freedom to the time-worn slave,
A boon 'tis idle then to give,
Relenting Nature vainly gave
My life, when Thyrza ceased to live!
My Thyrza's pledge in better days,
When love and life alike were new!
How different now thou meet'st my gaze!
How tinged by time with sorrow's hue!
The heart that gave itself with thee
Is silent--ah, were mine as still!
Though cold as e'en the dead can be,
It feels, it sickens with the chill.
Thou bitter pledge! thou mournful token!
Though painful, welcome to my breast!
Still, still preserve that love unbroken,
Or break the heart to which thou'rt press'd.
Time tempers love, but not removes,
More hallow'd when its hope is fled:
Oh! what are thousand living loves
To that which cannot quit the dead?
Stanzas To Augusta (II.)
I.
Though the day of my destiny's over,
And the star of my fate hath declined,
Thy soft heart refused to discover
The faults which so many could find;
Though thy soul with my grief was acquainted,
It shrunk not to share it with me,
And the love which my spirit hath painted
It never hath found but in thee.
II.
Then when nature around me is smiling,
The last smile which answers to mine,
I do not believe it beguiling,
Because it reminds me of thine;
And when winds are at war with the ocean.
As the breasts I believed in with me,
If their billows excite an emotion,
It is that they bear me from thee.
III.
Though the rock of my last hope is shiver'd,
And its fragments are sunk in the wave,
Though I feel that my soul is deliver'd
To pain - it shall not be its slave.
There is many a pang to pursue me:
They may crush, but they shall not contemn;
They may torture, but shall not subdue me
'Tis of thee that I think - not of them.
IV.
Though human, thou didst not deceive me,
Though woman, thou didst not forsake,
Though loved, thou forborest to grieve me,
Though slander'd, thou never couldst shake;
Though trusted, thou didst not disclaim me,
Though parted, it was not to fly,
Though watchful, 'twas not to defame me,
Nor, mute, that the world might belie.
V.
Yet I blame not the world, nor despise it,
Nor the war of the many with one;
If my soul was not fitted to prize it,
'Twas folly not sooner to shun:
And if dearly that error hath cost me,
And more than I once could foresee,
I have found that, whatever it lost me,
It could not deprive me of thee.
VI.
From the wreck of the past, which hath perish'd
Thus much I at least may recall
It hath taught me that what I most cherish'd
Deserved to be dearest of all:
In the desert a fountain is springing,
In the wide waste there still is a tree,
And a bird in the solitude singing,
Which speaks to my spirit of thee.
To The Beloved
Beauty beloved, who hast my heart inspired,
Seen from afar, or with thy face concealed,
Save, when in visions of the night revealed,
Or seen in daydreams bright,
When all the fields are filled with light,
And Nature's smile is sweet,
Say, hast thou blessed
Some golden age of innocence,
And floatest, now, a shadow, o'er the earth?
Or hath Fate's envious doom
Reserved thee for some happier day to come?
To see thee e'er alive,
No hope remains to me;
Unless perchance, when from this body free,
My wandering spirit, lone,
O'er some new path, to some new world hath flown.
E'en here, at first, I, at the dawn
Of this, my day, so dreary and forlorn,
Sought thee, to guide me on my weary way:
But none on earth resembles thee. E'en if
One were in looks and acts and words thy peer,
Though like thee, she less lovely would appear.
Amidst the deepest grief
That fate hath e'er to human lot assigned,
Could one but love thee on this earth,
Alive, and such as my thought painteth thee,
He would be happy in his misery:
And I most clearly see, how, still,
As in my earliest days,
Thy love would make me cling to virtue's ways.
Unto _my_ grief heaven hath no comfort brought;
And yet with thee, this mortal life would seem
Like that in heaven, of which we fondly dream.
Along the valleys where is heard
The song of the laborious husbandman,
And where I sit and moan
O'er youth's illusions gone;
Along the hills, where I recall with tears,
The vanished joys and hopes of earlier years,
At thought of thee, my heart revives again.
O could I still thy image dear retain,
In this dark age, and in this baleful air!
To loss of thee, O let me be resigned,
And in thy image still some comfort find!
If thou art one of those
Ideas eternal, which the Eternal Mind
Refused in earthly form to clothe,
Nor would subject unto the pain and strife
Of this, our frail and dreary life;
Or if thou hast a mansion fair,
Amid the boundless realms of space,
That lighted is by a more genial sun,
And breathest there a more benignant air;
From here, where brief and wretched are our days,
Receive thy humble lover's hymn of praise!
poem by Count Giacomo Leopardi
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Hymn Of Hippolytus To Artemis
Artemis! thou fairest
Of the maids that be
In divine Olympus,
Hail! Hail to thee!
To thee I bring this woven weed
Culled for thee from a virgin mead,
Where neither shepherd claims his flocks to feed
Nor ever yet the mower's scythe hath come.
There in the Spring the wild bee hath his home,
Lightly passing to and fro
Where the virgin flowers grow;
And there the watchful Purity doth go
Moistening with dew-drops all the ground below,
Drawn from a river untaintedly flowing,
They who have gained by a kind fate's bestowing
Pure hearts, untaught by philosophy's care,
May gather the flowers in the mead that are blowing,
But the tainted in spirit may never be there.
Now, O Divinest, eternally fair,
Take thou this garland to gather thy hair,
Brought by a hand that is pure as the air.
For I alone of all the sons of men
Hear thy pure accents, answering thee again.
And may I reach the goal of life as I began the race,
Blest by the music of thy voice, though darkness ever veil thy face!
poem by Robert Fuller Murray
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Farewell The Bowl
Farewell to the cup, we have tarried too long,
Where the juice of the grape adds its witch'ry to song.
And the thoughts that flow'd freely are sombre and dull,
Our brains become heavy, farewell to the bowl,
Farewell, farewell, farewell, farewell to the bowl.
Oh, tarry no longer where joy flies away,
The heart and the soul lose their richest array,
Where eye mocketh eye, as unmeaning they roll,
The tongue whispers folly-farewell to the bowl.
Oh, think, if the maiden, who smiles in thine eyes,
Once saw thy proud mind in this shameful disguise;
Her heart would reject thee, how sadly her soul
Would pity and leave thee-oh, flee from the bowl.
Oh think, e'er the moment of thinking is past,
And chains of the mighty upon thee are cast!
Return-ere the iron shall enter thy soul,
And the dregs of thy life-a curse on the bowl.
poem by John Pierpont
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