Mystical Rose, Pray For Us!
O aptly named, Illustrious One!
Thou art that flower fair
That filled this vast and changeful world
With mystic perfume rare—
Shedding on all the balmy breath
Of countless virtues high,
Rising like fragrant odours rich,
To God’s far, beauteous sky.
Mystical Rose! O aptly named!
For, as ’mid brightest flowers
The lovely Rose unquestioned reigns
The Queen of Nature’s bowers,
So ’mid the daughters fair of Eve
Art thou the peerless One!
The chosen handmaid of the Lord!
The Mother of His Son!
Yes, He endowed thee with all gifts
Which could thy beauty grace;
And ne’er did sin, e’en for one hour,
Thy spotless soul deface,
For from the first thou had’st the power
God’s fav’ring love to win;
It was His will that thou should’st be
Conceived devoid of sin.
Oh, Mother dear, obtain for us
That we from evil flee;
Throughout this, fleeting life’s career
Mayst thou our model be!
Seek we to imitate the gifts
That thy pure soul adorn—
Sweet flower of beauty and of grace!
Fair Rose without a thorn!
poem by Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
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Portrait Of A Lady. By Sir Thomas Lawrence
LADY , thy lofty brow is fair,
Beauty's sign and seal are there;
And thy lip is like the rose
Closing round the bee's repose;
And thine eye is like a star,
But blue as the sapphires' are.
Beautiful patrician! thou
Wearest on thy stately brow
All that suits a noble race,
All of high-born maiden's grace,--
Who is there could look on thee
And doubt thy nobility?
Round thee satin robe is flung,
Pearls upon thy neck are hung,
And upon thy arm of snow
Rubies like red sun-gifts glow;
Yet thou wearest pearl and gem
As thou hadst forgotten them.--
'Tis a step, but made to tread
O'er Persian web, or flower's head,--
Soft hand that might only move
In the broider'd silken glove,--
Cheek unused to ruder air
Than what hot-house rose might bear,--
One whom nature only meant
To be queen of the tournament,--
Courtly fete, and lighted hall,--
Grace and ornament of all!
poem by Letitia Elizabeth Landon
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A Welcome To The Month Of Mary
Oh! gladly do we welcome thee,
Fair pleasant month of May;
Month which we’ve eager longed to see,
Through many a wintry day:
And now with countless budding flowers,
With sunshine bright and clear—
To gild the quickly fleeting hours—
At length, sweet month, thou’rt here!
But, yet, we do not welcome thee
Because thy genial breath
Hath power our sleeping land to free
From winter’s clasp of death;
Nor yet because fair flowers are springing
Beneath thy genial ray;
And thousand happy birds are singing
All welcome to thee, May!
No, higher, nobler cause have we
These bright days to rejoice—
’Twas God ordained that thou should’st be
The loved month of our choice:
It is because thou hast been given
To honor her alone,
The ever gentle Queen of Heaven—
The mother of God’s son.
The blossoms that we joyous cull
By bank or silver stream;
The fragrant hawthorn boughs we pull,
Most sacred too, we deem:
For not amid our tresses we
Their op’ning buds will twine,
But garlands fair we’ll weave with care
For Mary’s lowly shrine.
And when the twilight shades descend
On earth, so hushed and still,
And the lone night bird’s soft notes blend
With breeze from glade and hill,
We seek her shrine with loving heart,
And, humbly kneeling there,
We linger long, loth to depart
From that sweet place of prayer!
Oh! who can tell with what gifts rare
Our Mother will repay
Their love who honor thus with care
Her own sweet month of May!
A grace for every flower they’ve brought
Or ’Ave, they have said;
And ev’ry pious, holy thought
Shall be by her repaid!
poem by Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
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The Rose
The rose thou show'st me has lost all its hue,
For thou dost seem to me than it less fair;
For when I look I turn from it to you,
And feel the flower has been thine only care;
Thou could'st have grown as freely by its side
As spring these buds from out the parent stem,
But thou art from thy Father severed wide,
And turnest from thyself to look at them,
Thy words, do not perfume the summer air,
Nor draw the eye and ear like this thy flower;
No bees shall make thy lips their daily care,
And sip the sweets distilled from hour to hour;
Nor shall new plants from out thy scattered seed,
O'er many a field the eye with beauty feed.
poem by Jones Very
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Paternal Love
[LE ROI S'AMUSE, Act II]
My child! oh, only blessing Heaven allows me!
Others have parents, brothers, kinsmen, friends,
A wife, a husband, vassals, followers,
Ancestors, and allies, or many children.
I have but thee, thee only. Some are rich;
Thou art my treasure, thou art all my riches.
And some believe in angels; I believe
In nothing but thy soul. Others have youth,
And woman's love, and pride, and grace, and health;
Others are beautiful; thou art my beauty,
Thou art my home, my country and my kin,
My wife, my mother, sister, friend--my child!
My bliss, my wealth, my worship, and my law,
My Universe! Oh, by all other things
My soul is tortured. If I should ever lose thee--
Horrible thought! I cannot utter it.
Smile, for thy smile is like thy mother's smiling.
She, too, was fair; you have a trick like her,
Of passing oft your hand athwart your brow
As though to clear it. Innocence still loves
A brow unclouded and an azure eye.
To me thou seem'st clothed in a holy halo,
My soul beholds thy soul through thy fair body;
E'en when my eyes are shut, I see thee still;
Thou art my daylight, and sometimes I wish
That Heaven had made me blind that thou might'st be
The sun that lighted up the world for me.
poem by Victor Hugo
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Fair Rose
Fair rose, fair rose, so sweet and soft,
Just as the skin of a new born babe,
Thy beauty grows as day goes by,
The danger wakes in thy razor thorns.
How, oh how can a creature so beauteous,
Hold such dire treacherousness?
Thou hast drawn me in so close,
Just outside thy painful touch,
When desire outgrows sense,
And thy thorn doth bring red stain.
Fair rose, fair rose, so sweet and soft,
How can thy beauty hold such great pain?
poem by Joseph Cross
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Song.—Thou wert lovely
Thou wert lovely to my sight,
When in yonder dell I found thee
In thy radiant beauty bright,
Though a desert spread around thee;
Like the heath-bell's purple flower,
Shrinking from a dewy shower.
Thou art rich in beauty yet,
Fair as when at first I loved thee;
All the snares that could beset,
Rank and splendour, since have proved thee;
Change thy fortune as it will,
Thou art fair and faultless still.
poem by Louisa Stuart Costello
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Requiem
To what bright world afar didst thou belong,
Thou whose pure soul seemed not of mortal birth?
From what fair clime of flowers and love and song,
Cam'st thou, a star beam to our shadowed earth?
What hadst thou done, sweet spirit in that sphere,
That thou wert banished here?
Here, where our blossoms early fade and die,
Where autumn frosts despoil our loveliest bowers,
Where song goes up to heaven an anguished cry
From wounded hearts, like perfume from crushed flowers;
Where Love despairing waits and weeps in vain,
His Psyche to regain.
Thou cam'st not unattended on thy way; --
Spirits of grace and beauty, joy and love,
Were with thee ever, bearing each some ray
From the far home that thou hadst left above;
And ever at thy side, upon our sight
Gleamed forth their wings of light.
We heard their voices in the gushing song
That rose like incense from thy poet heart;
We saw the footsteps of the shining throng
Glancing upon thy pathway, high apart,
Where in thy radiance thou didst walk the earth,
Thou child of glorious birth.
But the way lengthened and the song grew sad,
Breathing those tones that find no echo here;
Aspiring, soaring, but no longer glad,
Its mournful music fell upon the ear:
'Twas the home-sickness of a soul that sighs
For its own native skies.
Then he that to earth's children comes at last,
The angel-messenger, white-robed and pale,
Upon thy soul his sweet oblivion cast,
And bore thee gently through the shadowy vale,
The fleeting years of thy brief exile o'er,
Home to the blissful shore.
poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
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The Love Sonnets Of Proteus. Part I: To Manon: VIII
AS TO HIS CHOICE OF HER
If I had chosen thee, thou shouldst have been
A virgin proud, untamed, immaculate,
Chaste as the morning star, a saint, a queen,
Scarred by no wars, no violence of hate.
Thou shouldst have been of soul commensurate
With thy fair body, brave and virtuous
And kind and just; and, if of poor estate,
At least an honest woman for my house.
I would have had thee come of honoured blood
And honourable nurture. Thou shouldst bear
Sons to my pride and daughters to my heart,
And men should hold thee happy, wise, and good.
Lo, thou art none of this, but only fair.
Yet must I love thee, dear, and as thou art.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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The Child’s Dream
Buried in childhood’s cloudless dreams, a fair-haired nursling lay,
A soft smile hovered round the lips as if still oped to pray;
And then a vision came to him, of beauty, strange and mild,
Such as may only fill the dreams of a pure sinless child.
Stood by his couch an angel fair, with radiant, glitt’ring wings
Of hues as bright as the living gems the fount to Heaven flings;
With loving smile he bent above the fair child cradled there,
While sounds of sweet seraphic power stole o’er the fragrant air.
“Child, list to me,” he softly said, “on mission high I’m here:
Sent by that Glorious One to whom Heav’n bows in loving fear;
I seek thee now, whilst thou art still on the threshold of earth’s strife,
To speak of what thou knowest not yet, this new and wond’rous life.
“Dost cling to it? dost find this earth a fair and lovely one?
Dost love its bright-dyed birds and flowers, its radiant golden sun?
I come to bid thee leave it all—to turn from its bright bloom,
And, having closed thine eyes in death, descend into the tomb.
“Thou shudderest, child! with restless gaze from me thou turn’st away;
’Mid summer flowers and singing birds wouldst thou remain to play;
Thou still wouldst bask in the dear light of thy fond father’s smile,
And on thy mother’s doating heart would linger yet awhile.
“’Tis well, sweet child, I blame thee not, but in spheres far away
Are blossoms lovelier far than those which tempt thee here to stay;
And if the love of parents fond with joy thy heart doth fill,
In those bright distant realms is One who loves thee better still!
“That One for thee in suffering lived—for thy sake, too, he died;
Oh! like the ocean is His love, as deep, my child, as wide.
Leave, then, this earth ere hideous sin thy spotless brow shall dim—
One struggling breath, one parting pang, and then thou’lt be with Him!”
A smile lit up the sleeper’s face, but soon it softly fled,
The rose leaf cheeks and lips grew wan—could it be the child was dead?
Yes, dead—and spared the ills of life, and in bright bliss above
The pure soul nestles in the light of God’s unbounded Love.
poem by Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
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The Triumph Of The Flesh
I have passed from the regions of dreams and of vision
And the flesh is the flesh and the rose is the rose;
And we see but the absolute joy of the present
In the Sunlight of beauty.
I am filled with carnivorous lust: like a tiger
I crouch and I feed on my beautiful prey:
There is nought in the monstrous world of Astarte
So fair as thy body.
Let me lie, let me die on thy snow-coloured bosom,
I would eat of thy flesh as of delicate fruit,
I am drunk of its smell, and the scent of thy tresses
Is as flame that devours.
Thou art demon and God, thou art hell, thou art Heaven,
Thou art love that is lust, thou art lust that is love,
And I see but the heavenly grace of thy body,
A picture--a poem.
poem by George Moore
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Song I
FROM THE FRENCH OF CARDINAL BERNIS.
I.
FRUIT of Aurora's tears, fair rose,
On whose soft leaves fond zephyrs play,
Oh! queen of flowers, thy buds disclose,
And give thy fragrance to the day;
Unveil thy transient charms:--ah, no!
A little be thy bloom delay'd,
Since the same hour that bids thee blow,
Shall see thee droop thy languid head.
II.
But go! and on Themira's breast
Find, happy flower! thy throne and tomb;
While, jealous of a fate so blest,
How shall I envy thee thy doom!
Should some rude hand approach thee there,
Guard the sweet shrine thou wilt adorn;
Ah! punish those who rashly dare,
And for my rivals keep thy thorn.
III.
Love shall himself thy boughs compose,
And bid thy wanton leaves divide;
He'll show thee how, my lovely rose,
To deck her bosom, not to hide:
And thou shalt tell the cruel maid
How frail are youth and beauty's charms,
And teach her, ere her own shall fade,
To give them to her lover's arms.
poem by Charlotte Smith
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The Child's Last Sleep
Thou sleepest but when wilt thou wake, fair child?
When the fawn awakes in the forest wild?
When the lark's wing mounts with the breeze of morn?
When the first rich breath of the rose is born?
Lovely thou sleepest, yet something lies
Too deep and still on thy soft-seal'd eyes,
Mournful, tho' sweet, is thy rest to see
When will the hour of thy rising be?
Not when the fawn wakes, not when the lark
On the crimson cloud of the morn floats dark
Grief with vain passionate tears hath wet
The hair, shedding gleams from thy pale brow yet;
Love with sad kisses, unfelt, hath press'd
Thy meek dropt eyelids and quiet breast;
And the glad spring, calling out bird and bee,
Shall colour all blossoms, fair child! but thee.
Thou'rt gone from us, bright one! that thou shouldst die,
And life be left to the butterfly!
Thou'rt gone, as a dew-drop is swept from the bough
Oh! for the world where thy home is now!
How may we love but in doubt and fear,
How may we anchor our fond hearts here;
How should e'en joy but a trembler be,
Beautiful dust! when we look on thee?
poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans
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Written In A Young Lady's Album
Sweet friend, the world, like some fair infant blessed,
Radiant with sportive grace, around thee plays;
Yet 'tis not as depicted in thy breast--
Not as within thy soul's fair glass, its rays
Are mirrored. The respectful fealty
That my heart's nobleness hath won for thee,
The miracles thou workest everywhere,
The charms thy being to this life first lent,--
To it, mere charms to reckon thou'rt content,
To us, they seem humanity so fair.
The witchery sweet of ne'er-polluted youth,
The talisman of innocence and truth--
Him I would see, who these to scorn can dare!
Thou revellest joyously in telling o'er
The blooming flowers that round thy path are strown,--
The glad, whom thou hast made so evermore,--
The souls that thou hast conquered for thine own.
In thy deceit so blissful be thou glad!
Ne'er let a waking disenchantment sad
Hurl thee despairing from thy dream's proud flight!
Like the fair flowerets that thy beds perfume,
Observe them, but ne'er touch them as they bloom,--
Plant them, but only for the distant sight.
Created only to enchant the eye,
In faded beauty at thy feet they'll lie,
The nearer thee, the nearer their long night!
poem by Friedrich Schiller
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Fairest
thou art the fairest of all
thou art my beauty at the mall
thy picture always painted on the wall
thy beauty is always as i might recall
thy beauty shant fade away
all thy sad tears i've swiped away
all thy beauty are not for play
for every beauty is not for waste
thy beautifull smile so heavenly
always every beaty shops landlady
thou art qualified as milady
always fair always thy heart fairy
thou art my favourite episode
your black beauty describes my ode
always lovely when thou art in the mood
thy ancient beauty never growing old
thou art my fairest
thy smell of thy perfume the loveliest.
poem by Umoh Cyril
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On The Christening Of A Friend's Child
This day among the faithful placed,
And fed with fontal manna,
O with maternal title graced
Dear Anna's dearest Anna!--
While others wish thee wise and fair,
A maid of spotless fame,
I'll breathe this more compendious prayer--
May'st thou deserve thy name!
Thy mother's name--a potent spell,
That bids the virtues hie
From mystic grove and living cell
Confess'd to fancy's eye;--
Meek quietness without offence;
Content in homespun kirtle;
True love; and true love's innocence,
White blossom of the myrtle!
Associates of thy name, sweet child!
These virtues may'st thou win;
With face as eloquently mild
To say, they lodge within.
So, when her tale of days all flown,
Thy mother shall be mist here;
When Heaven at length shall claim its own,
And angels snatch their sister;
Some hoary-headed friend, perchance,
May gaze with stifled breath;
And oft, in momentary trance,
Forget the waste of death.
Ev'n thus a lovely rose I view'd,
In summer-swelling pride;
Nor mark'd the bud, that green and rude
Peep'd at the rose's side.
It chanced, I pass'd again that way
In autumn's latest hour,
And wond'ring saw the selfsame spray
Rich with the selfsame flower.
Ah, fond deceit! the rude green bud
Alike in shape, place, name,
Had bloom'd, where bloom'd its parent stud,
Another and the same!
poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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Translated from Geibel
O say, thou wild, thou oft deceived heart,
What mean these noisy throbbings in my breast?
After thy long, unutterable woe
Wouldst thou not rest?
Fall'n from Life's tree the sweet rose-blossom lies,
And fragrant youth has fled. What made to seem
This earth as fair to thee as Paradise,
Was all a dream.
The blossom fell, the thorn was left to me;
Deep from the wound the blood-drops ever flow,
All that I have are yearnings, wild desires,
And wrath and woe.
They brought me Lethe's water, saying, 'Drink!'
'Drink, for the draught is sweet,' I heard them say,
'Shalt learn how soft a thing forgetting is.'
I answered : 'Nay.'
What tho' indeed it were an idle cheat,
Nathless to me 'twas very fair and blest:
With every breath I draw I know that love
Reigns in my breast.
Let me go forth,--and thou, my heart, bleed on:
A lonely spot I seek by night and day,
That love and sorrow I may there breathe forth
In a last lay.
Sonnet to -----
Ah no! my love knows no vain jealousy:
The rose that blooms and lives but in the sun,
Asks not what other flowers he shines upon,
If he but shine on her. Enough for me,
Thus in thy light to dwell, and thus to share
The sunshine of thy smile with all things fair.
I know thou'rt vowed to Beauty, not to Love.
I would not stay thy footsteps from one shrine,
Nor would I bind thee by a sigh to mine.
For me -- I have no lingering wish to rove;
For though I worship all things fair, like thee,
Of outward grace, of soul-nobility;
Happier than thou, I find them all in one,
And I would worship at thy shrine alone!
poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Presence
ALL things give token of thee!
As soon as the bright sun is shining,
Thou too wilt follow, I trust.
When in the garden thou walk'st,
Thou then art the rose of all roses,
Lily of lilies as well.
When thou dost move in the dance,
Then each constellation moves also;
With thee and round thee they move.
Night! oh, what bliss were the night!
For then thou o'ershadow'st the lustre,
Dazzling and fair, of the moon.
Dazzling and beauteous art thou,
And flowers, and moon, and the planets
Homage pay, Sun, but to thee.
Sun! to me also be thou
Creator of days bright and glorious;
Life and Eternity this!
poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Bande Mataram
Mother, I bow to thee!
Rich with thy hurrying streams,
Bright with thy orchard gleams,
Cool with thy winds of delight,
Dark fields waving, Mother of might,
Mother free.
Glory of moonlight dreams
Over thy branches and lordly streams,
Clad in thy blossoming trees,
Mother, giver of ease,
Laughing low and sweet!
Mother, I kiss thy feet,
Speaker sweet and low!
Mother, to thee I bow.
Who hath said thou art weak in thy lands,
When the swords flash out in twice seventy million hands
And seventy millions voices roar
Thy dreadful name from shore to shore?
With many strengths who art mighty and stored,
To thee I call, Mother and Lord!
Thou who savest, arise and save!
To her I cry who ever her foemen drave
Back from plain and sea
And shook herself free.
Thou art wisdom, thou art law,
Thou our heart, our soul, our breath,
Thou the love divine, the awe
In our hearts that conquers death.
Thine the strength that nerves the arm,
Thine the beauty, thine the charm.
Every image made divine
In our temples is but thine.
Thou art Durga, Lady and Queen,
With her hands that strike and her swords of sheen,
Thou art Lakshmi lotus-throned,
Pure and perfect without peer,
Mother, lend thine ear.
Rich with thy hurrying streams,
Bright with thy orchard gleams,
Dark of hue, O candid-fair
In thy soul, with jewelled hair
And thy glorious smile divine,
Loveliest of all earthly lands,
Showering wealth from well-stored hands!
Mother, mother mine!
Mother sweet, I bow to thee,
Mother great and free.
poem by Sri Aurobindo
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Lover’s Song
[ANGELO, Act II., May, 1835.]
My soul unto thy heart is given,
In mystic fold do they entwine,
So bound in one that, were they riven,
Apart my soul would life resign.
Thou art my song and I the lyre;
Thou art the breeze and I the brier;
The altar I, and thou the fire;
Mine the deep love, the beauty thine!
As fleets away the rapid hour
While weeping--may
My sorrowing lay
Touch thee, sweet flower.
poem by Victor Hugo
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