Nilsson
A rose of perfect red, embossed
With silver sheens of crystal frost,
Yet warm, nor life nor fragrance lost.
High passion throbbing in a sphere
That Art hath wrought of diamond clear,
-- A great heart beating in a tear.
The listening soul is full of dreams
That shape the wondrous-varying themes
As cries of men or plash of streams.
Or noise of summer rain-drops round
That patter daintily a-ground
With hints of heaven in the sound.
Or noble wind-tones chanting free
Through morning-skies across the sea
Wild hymns to some strange majesty.
O, if one trope, clear-cut and keen,
May type the art of Song's best queen,
White-hot of soul, white-chaste of mien,
On Music's heart doth Nilsson dwell
As if a Swedish snow-flake fell
Into a glowing flower-bell.
poem by Sidney Lanier
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Related quotes
On A Clear Morning
on a clear morning
the farmer
has just finished plowing
his field
the rain comes
and fills
the muddy field
with more water
a mirror is placed
and the sky look upon
itself
a very white sky
on a crystal clear rain water
a white heron from the green mountain
glides in perfect lightness
on the mirror of water
daintily it walks
and i see not a single ripple
on its feet
on a clear morning
the world is at peace with me.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Snow
Down out of heaven,
Frost-kissed
And wind driven,
Flake upon flake,
Over forest and lake,
Cometh the snow.
Folding the forest,
Folding the farms,
In a mantle of white;
And the river’s great arms,
Kissed by the chill night
From clamor to rest,
Lie all white and shrouded
Upon the world’s breast.
Falling so slowly
Down from above,
So white, hushed, and holy,
Folding the city
Like the great pity
Of God in His love; 20
Sent down out of heaven
On its sorrow and crime,
Blotting them, folding them
Under its rime.
Fluttering, rustling,
Soft as a breath,
The whisper of leaves,
The low pinions of death,
Or the voice of the dawning,
When day has its birth,
Is the music of silence
It makes to the earth.
Thus down out of heaven,
Frost-kissed
And wind driven,
Flake upon flake,
Over forest and lake,
Cometh the snow.
poem by William Wilfred Campbell
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A Light in My Winter
A light in my winter
For spring dreams to come
Shady darkish tinter
Where my summer is from
A light in white frost
For the blossoming dreams
Those with autumn were lost
In oblivion river streams
Each morning come glowing
With sunshine and day
Through the darkness going
To lead forthcoming way
When rose shall reddish
So lovesome in my bed
To bring in spring wish
Through their colors red
A light in my heart
To fulfill my dark eyes
For blossoms shall start
When there are blue skies
And again summer spring
With each beauty of worth
And birds in trees to sing
Every song of new earth
poem by Peter S. Quinn
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The Fairy's Promise
Poet.
Beautiful silver-winged spirits of good,
That hide in the leaves of the loneliest wood;
Green-kirtled fairies whom none may see
But the soul that hath passion for Poesie.
Brownies and kelpies and fays and elves
Who keep the moon to your own little selves;
Ye whose light revel and quick-tripping round
Bend the white daisy-buds down to the ground:
The moon may be high and the night may be clear,
But leave them and list to a poet's prayer.
Fairy.
Mortal, speak on! we have loved thee long,
Thou hast told of our revels in sweetest song;
And only, alas! by the faith of men
Hold we our lives in the grassy glen.
Thou hast never plucked daisy or heather-bell
From the emerald braes where the fairies dwell;
Thou didst never fright from her leafy nest
The bird that the Fairies love ever the best,
But hast turned thy foot aside silently
When her round black eye fell fearful on thee;
Thou hast never torn fishes with cruel hooks
From the pleasant ripple of summer brooks;
So we love thee well, and will list to thy prayer,
Though the moon may be up, and the night may be clear.
Poet.
White-footed Fairy-Queen, close by the sea,
Like a beautiful child at her father's knee,
There sitteth a city beneath a hill
Where a lady is living apart and still;
Lovely and gentle and wise is she,
I love her most truly and faithfully;
Better than all that the world may hold,
Better than honour and life and gold.
I would thou shouldst watch her by day and by night,
That her beautiful eyes may be ever bright.
Fairy.
How shall we know her, that we may keep
Watch of her waking, and ward of her sleep?
Poet.
Look for a lady whose glossy hair
Borders a forehead most frank and fair;
Eyes that are full of a heavenly light
Like sister stars in the front of night;
Lips curving red like the crimson fold
Of a half-shut rose in the early cold,
Which never with singing or speech were stirred,
But the singing and speech was the sweetest heard;
Busy white fingers, slender and small,
Little feet lost in her garments' fall.
Graces like these and a thousand above
Shall guide thee in seeking the lady I love.
Fairy.
What name weareth she? tell us it true;
Whisper it low to the fairy crew.
Poet.
Read it, sweet Queen, on my beating heart,
Graven so deep, it can never part;
This shall be sign of the lady ye seek,
Say to her 'Janet' and she shall speak.
Fairy.
Fifty and four of my valiant fays
Shall watch in her walks through the weariest days;
Fifty and four in their liveries white
Have charge of her dreams in the dreariest night.
And the spirit that doth not his bidding well
Shall pine for the year in a dark nut shell.
Poet.
And may two of the truest at either ear
Whisper his name who hath sent them there!
Fairy.
Ay! and the fleetest shall come on the wind
Bringing thee news of thy lady's mind;
Rest thee well, lover! be quiet and calm;
Thy lady is charmed with the Fairies' charm.
poem by Edwin Arnold
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The Austral Months
January
The first fair month! In singing Summer’s sphere
She glows, the eldest daughter of the year.
All light, all warmth, all passion, breaths of myrrh,
And subtle hints of rose-lands, come with her.
She is the warm, live month of lustre—she
Makes glad the land and lulls the strong, sad sea.
The highest hope comes with her. In her face
Of pure, clear colour lives exalted grace;
Her speech is beauty, and her radiant eyes
Are eloquent with splendid prophecies.
February
The bright-haired, blue-eyed last of Summer. Lo,
Her clear song lives in all the winds that blow;
The upland torrent and the lowland rill,
The stream of valley and the spring of hill,
The pools that slumber and the brooks that run
Where dense the leaves are, green the light of sun,
Take all her grace of voice and colour. She,
With rich warm vine-blood splashed from heel to knee,
Comes radiant through the yellow woodlands. Far
And near her sweet gifts shine like star by star.
She is the true Demeter. Life of root
Glows under her in gardens flushed with fruit;
She fills the fields with strength and passion—makes
A fire of lustre on the lawn-ringed lakes;
Her beauty awes the great wild sea; the height
Of grey magnificence takes strange delight
And softens at her presence, at the dear
Sweet face whose memory beams through all the year.
March
Clear upland voices, full of wind and stream,
Greet March, the sister of the flying beam
And speedy shadow. She, with rainbow crowned,
Lives in a sphere of songs of mazy sound.
The hymn of waters and the gale’s high tone,
With anthems from the thunder’s mountain throne,
Are with her ever. This, behold, is she
Who draws its great cry from the strong, sad sea;
She is the month of majesty. Her force
Is power that moves along a stately course,
Within the lines of order, like no wild
And lawless strength of winter’s fiercest child.
About her are the wind-whipped torrents; far
Above her gleams and flies the stormy star,
And round her, through the highlands and their rocks,
Rings loud the grand speech from the equinox.
April
The darling of Australia’s Autumn—now
Down dewy dells the strong, swift torrents flow!
This is the month of singing waters—here
A tender radiance fills the Southern year;
No bitter winter sets on herb and root,
Within these gracious glades, a frosty foot;
The spears of sleet, the arrows of the hail,
Are here unknown. But down the dark green dale
Of moss and myrtle, and the herby streams,
This April wanders in a home of dreams;
Her flower-soft name makes language falter. All
Her paths are soft and cool, and runnels fall
In music round her; and the woodlands sing
For evermore, with voice of wind and wing,
Because this is the month of beauty—this
The crowning grace of all the grace that is.
May
Now sings a cool, bland wind, where falls and flows
The runnel by the grave of last year’s rose;
Now, underneath the strong perennial leaves,
The first slow voice of wintering torrent grieves.
Now in a light like English August’s day,
Is seen the fair, sweet, chastened face of May;
She is the daughter of the year who stands
With Autumn’s last rich offerings in her hands;
Behind her gleams the ghost of April’s noon,
Before her is the far, faint dawn of June;
She lingers where the dells and dewy leas
Catch stormy sayings from the great bold seas;
Her nightly raiment is the misty fold
That zones her round with moonlight-coloured gold;
And in the day she sheds, from shining wings,
A tender heat that keeps the life in things.
June
Not like that month when, in imperial space,
The high, strong sun stares at the white world’s face;
Not like that haughty daughter of the year
Who moves, a splendour, in a splendid sphere;
But rather like a nymph of afternoon,
With cool, soft sunshine, comes Australian June.
She is the calm, sweet lady, from whose lips
No breath of living passion ever slips;
The wind that on her virgin forehead blows
Was born too late to speak of last year’s rose;
She never saw a blossom, but her eyes
Of tender beauty see blue, gracious skies;
She loves the mosses, and her feet have been
In woodlands where the leaves are always green;
Her days pass on with sea-songs, and her nights
Shine, full of stars, on lands of frosty lights.
July
High travelling winds, filled with the strong storm’s soul,
Are here, with dark, strange sayings from the Pole;
Now is the time when every great cave rings
With sharp, clear echoes caught from mountain springs;
This is the season when all torrents run
Beneath no bright, glad beauty of the sun.
Here, where the trace of last year’s green is lost,
Are haughty gales, and lordships of the frost.
Far down, by fields forlorn and forelands bleak,
Are wings that fly not, birds that never speak;
But in the deep hearts of the glens, unseen,
Stand grave, mute forests of eternal green;
And here the lady, born in wind and rain,
Comes oft to moan and clap her palms with pain.
This is our wild-faced July, in whose breast
Is never faultless light or perfect rest.
August
Across the range, by every scarred black fell,
Strong Winter blows his horn of wild farewell;
And in the glens, where yet there moves no wing,
A slow, sweet voice is singing of the Spring.
Yea, where the bright, quick woodland torrents run,
A music trembles under rain and sun.
The lips that breathe it are the lips of her
At whose dear touch the wan world’s pulses stir—
The nymph who sets the bow of promise high
And fills with warm life-light the bleak grey sky.
She is the fair-haired August. Ere she leaves
She brings the woodbine blossom round the eaves;
And where the bitter barbs of frost have been
She makes a beauty with her gold and green;
And, while a sea-song floats from bay and beach,
She sheds a mist of blossoms on the peach.
September
*
October
Where fountains sing and many waters meet,
October comes with blossom-trammelled feet.
She sheds green glory by the wayside rills
And clothes with grace the haughty-featured hills.
This is the queen of all the year. She brings
The pure chief beauty of our southern springs.
Fair lady of the yellow hair! Her breath
Starts flowers to life, and shames the storm to death;
Through tender nights and days of generous sun
By prospering woods her clear strong torrents run;
In far deep forests, where all life is mute,
Of leaf and bough she makes a touching lute.
Her life is lovely. Stream, and wind, and bird
Have seen her face—her marvellous voice have heard;
And, in strange tracts of wildwood, all day long,
They tell the story in surpassing song.
November
Now beats the first warm pulse of Summer—now
There shines great glory on the mountain’s brow.
The face of heaven in the western sky,
When falls the sun, is filled with Deity!
And while the first light floods the lake and lea,
The morning makes a marvel of the sea;
The strong leaves sing; and in the deep green zones
Of rock-bound glens the streams have many tones;
And where the evening-coloured waters pass,
Now glides November down fair falls of grass.
She is the wonder with the golden wings,
Who lays one hand in Summer’s—one in Spring’s;
About her hair a sunset radiance glows;
Her mouth is sister of the dewy rose;
And all the beauty of the pure blue skies
Has lent its lustre to her soft bright eyes.
December
The month whose face is holiness! She brings
With her the glory of majestic things.
What words of light, what high resplendent phrase
Have I for all the lustre of her days?
She comes, and carries in her shining sphere
August traditions of the world’s great year;
The noble tale which lifts the human race
Has made a morning of her sacred face.
Now in the emerald home of flower and wing
Clear summer streams their sweet hosannas sing;
The winds are full of anthems, and a lute
Speaks in the listening hills when night is mute
And through dim tracks where talks the royal tree
There floats a grand hymn from the mighty sea;
And where the grey, grave, pondering mountains stand
High music lives—the place is holy land!
poem by Henry Kendall
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To A Skylark
Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from Heaven, or near it,
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.
Higher still and higher
From the earth thou springest
Like a cloud of fire;
The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.
In the golden lightning
Of the sunken sun
O'er which clouds are bright'ning,
Thou dost float and run,
Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.
The pale purple even
Melts around thy flight;
Like a star of Heaven
In the broad daylight
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight:
Keen as are the arrows
Of that silver sphere,
Whose intense lamp narrows
In the white dawn clear
Until we hardly see--we feel that it is there.
All the earth and air
With thy voice is loud.
As, when night is bare,
From one lonely cloud
The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed.
What thou art we know not;
What is most like thee?
From rainbow clouds there flow not
Drops so bright to see
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.
Like a poet hidden
In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,
Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:
Like a high-born maiden
In a palace tower,
Soothing her love-laden
Soul in secret hour
With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:
Like a glow-worm golden
In a dell of dew,
Scattering unbeholden
Its aerial hue
Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view:
Like a rose embowered
In its own green leaves,
By warm winds deflowered,
Till the scent it gives
Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged thieves.
Sound of vernal showers
On the twinkling grass,
Rain-awakened flowers,
All that ever was
Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass.
Teach us, sprite or bird,
What sweet thoughts are thine:
I have never heard
Praise of love or wine
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.
Chorus hymeneal
Or triumphal chaunt
Matched with thine, would be all
But an empty vaunt--
A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.
What objects are the fountains
Of thy happy strain?
What fields, or waves, or mountains?
What shapes of sky or plain?
What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?
With thy clear keen joyance
Languor cannot be:
Shadow of annoyance
Never came near thee:
Thou lovest, but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.
Waking or asleep,
Thou of death must deem
Things more true and deep
Than we mortals dream,
Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?
We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.
Yet if we could scorn
Hate, and pride, and fear;
If we were things born
Not to shed a tear,
I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.
Better than all measures
Of delightful sound,
Better than all treasures
That in books are found,
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!
Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know,
Such harmonious madness
From my lips would flow
The world should listen then, as I am listening now!
poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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The wind
(THE TALE)
Cometh the Wind from the garden, fragrant and full of sweet singing--
Under my tree where I sit cometh the Wind to confession.
"Out in the garden abides the Queen of the beautiful Roses--
Her do I love and to-night wooed her with passionate singing;
Told I my love in those songs, and answer she gave in her blushes--
She shall be bride of the Wind, and she is the Queen of the Roses!"
"Wind, there is spice in thy breath; thy rapture hath fragrance Sabaean!"
"Straight from my wooing I come--my lips are bedewed with her kisses--
My lips and my song and my heart are drunk with the rapture of loving!"
(THE SONG)
The Wind he loveth the red, red Rose,
And he wooeth his love to wed:
Sweet is his song
The Summer long
As he kisseth her lips so red;
And he recketh naught of the ruin wrought
When the Summer of love is sped!
(AGAIN THE TALE)
Cometh the Wind from the garden, bitter with sorrow of winter.
"Wind, is thy love-song forgot? Wherefore thy dread lamentations?"
Sigheth and moaneth the Wind: "Out of the desolate garden
Come I from vigils with ghosts over the grave of the Summer!"
"Thy breath that was fragrant anon with rapture of music and loving,
It grieveth all things with its sting and the frost of its wailing
displeasure."
The Wind maketh ever more moan and ever it giveth this answer:
"My heart it is numb with the cold of the love that was born of the
Summer--
I come from the garden all white with the wrath and the sorrow of Winter;
I have kissed the low, desolate tomb where my bride in her loveliness
lieth
And the voice of the ghost in my heart is the voice that forever
outcrieth!"
(AGAIN THE SONG)
The Wind he waileth the red, red Rose
When the Summer of love is sped--
He waileth above
His lifeless love
With her shroud of snow o'erspread--
Crieth such things as a true heart brings
To the grave of its precious dead.
poem by Eugene Field
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A Kentish Garden
THERE is a grey-walled garden, far away
From noise and smoke of cities, where the hours
Pass with soft wings among the happy flowers,
And lovely leisure blossoms every day.
There, tall and white, the sceptral lily blows;
There grow the pansy, pink, and columbine,
Brave hollyhocks, and star-white jessamine,
And the red glory of the royal rose.
There greeny glow-worms gem the dusky lawn,
The lime-trees breathe their fragrance to the night,
Pink roses sleep, and dream that they are white,
Until they wake to colour with the dawn.
There, in the splendour of the sultry noon,
The sunshine sleeps upon the garden bed
Where the white poppy droops a drowsy head
And dreams of kisses from the white full moon.
And there, some days, all wild with wind and rain,
The tossed trees show the white side of their leaves,
While the great drops drip from the ivied eaves,
And birds are still--till the sun shines again.
And there, all days, my heart goes wandering,
Because there, first, my heart began to know
The glories of the summer and the snow,
The loveliness of harvest and of spring.
There may be fairer gardens; but I know
There is no other garden half so dear;
Because 'tis there, this many, many a year,
The sacred, sweet, white flowers of memory grow!
poem by Edith Nesbit
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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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As The Snow Falls (song)
As the rain falls down,
It turns to snow.
As the snow falls down,
It hits the ground.
You look outside,
And it’s a sheet of white.
So you think,
Oh what a beautiful night.
The fire is warm,
And the coco too.
And you wonder,
What is next to do?
Looking outside,
All you see is white,
And stars in the sky…ayyy.
The stars are falling,
The stars are falling,
And they cover the ground.
The snow has fallen,
Snow has fallen,
And it covers the ground.
You sit there,
Lookin’ out your window,
Sippin’ on your coco. Oh
Watching as the rain falls down-
The snow falls down-
The stars fall down.
And you see,
All of natures beauty.
The rain falls down,
And it turns to snow.
The snow falls down,
And it hits the ground.
Lookin’ outside,
And it’s a sheet of white.
you bundle up,
and step outside.
standing in the cold,
you look around.
its all so calm and still.
Oh there’s not a single sound.
It’s a silent night,
Oh what a sight.
Snow covers the trees,
So beautiful to see.
Back inside you go
To the fire you stand,
With coco in hand.
You’re cozy and warm,
All alone.
It’s getting late,
So you sleep the night away.
As the rain fell down,
It turned to snow.
As the snow fell down,
It hit the ground.
And the sheet of white,
It disappeared.
The next day you wake,
And the beauty is gone.
The morning sun,
Thawed the lawn.
And the snowy wondrous night is done.
poem by Tessa Monaghan
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Three Flowers
I made a little song about the rose
And sang it for the rose to hear,
Nor ever marked until the music's close
A lily that was listening near.
The red red rose flushed redder with delight,
And like a queen her head she raised.
The white white lily blanched a paler white,
For anger that she was not praised.
Turning I left the rose unto her pride,
The lily to her enviousness,
And soon upon the grassy ground espied
A daisy all companionless.
Doubtless no flattered flower is this, I deemed;
And not so graciously it grew
As rose or lily: but methought it seemed
More thankful for the sun and dew.
Dear love, my sweet small flower that grew'st among
The grass, from all the flowers apart,-
Forgive me that I gave the rose my song,
Ere thou, the daisy, hadst my heart!
poem by William Watson
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The Pageant
A sound as if from bells of silver,
Or elfin cymbals smitten clear,
Through the frost-pictured panes I hear.
A brightness which outshines the morning,
A splendor brooking no delay,
Beckons and tempts my feet away.
I leave the trodden village highway
For virgin snow-paths glimmering through
A jewelled elm-tree avenue;
Where, keen against the walls of sapphire,
The gleaming tree-bolls, ice-embossed,
Hold up their chandeliers of frost.
I tread in Orient halls enchanted,
I dream the Saga's dream of caves
Gem-lit beneath the North Sea waves!
I walk the land of Eldorado,
I touch its mimic garden bowers,
Its silver leaves and diamond flowers!
The flora of the mystic mine-world
Around me lifts on crystal stems
The petals of its clustered gems!
What miracle of weird transforming
In this wild work of frost and light,
This glimpse of glory infinite!
This foregleam of the Holy City
Like that to him of Patmos given,
The white bride coming down from heaven!
How flash the ranked and mail-clad alders,
Through what sharp-glancing spears of reeds
The brook its muffled water leads!
Yon maple, like the bush of Horeb,
Burns unconsumed: a white, cold fire
Rays out from every grassy spire.
Each slender rush and spike of mullein,
Low laurel shrub and drooping fern,
Transfigured, blaze where'er I turn.
How yonder Ethiopian hemlock
Crowned with his glistening circlet stands!
What jewels light his swarthy hands!
Here, where the forest opens southward,
Between its hospitable pines,
As through a door, the warm sun shines.
The jewels loosen on the branches,
And lightly, as the soft winds blow,
Fall, tinkling, on the ice below.
And through the clashing of their cymbals
I hear the old familiar fall
Of water down the rocky wall,
Where, from its wintry prison breaking,
In dark and silence hidden long,
The brook repeats its summer song.
One instant flashing in the sunshine,
Keen as a sabre from its sheath,
Then lost again the ice beneath.
I hear the rabbit lightly leaping,
The foolish screaming of the jay,
The chopper's axe-stroke far away;
The clamor of some neighboring barn-yard,
The lazy cock's belated crow,
Or cattle-tramp in crispy snow.
And, as in some enchanted forest
The lost knight hears his comrades sing,
And, near at hand, their bridles ring,--
So welcome I these sounds and voices,
These airs from far-off summer blown,
This life that leaves me not alone.
For the white glory overawes me;
The crystal terror of the seer
Of Chebar's vision blinds me here.
Rebuke me not, O sapphire heaven!
Thou stainless earth, lay not on me,
Thy keen reproach of purity,
If, in this August presence-chamber,
I sigh for summer's leaf-green gloom
And warm airs thick with odorous bloom!
Let the strange frost-work sink and crumble,
And let the loosened tree-boughs swing,
Till all their bells of silver ring.
Shine warmly down, thou sun of noontime,
On this chill pageant, melt and move
The winter's frozen heart with love.
And, soft and low, thou wind south-blowing,
Breathe through a veil of tenderest haze
Thy prophecy of summer days.
Come with thy green relief of promise,
And to this dead, cold splendor bring
The living jewels of the spring!
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Ballad IV
Farewell, my lady dear and dread,
Farewell, of all sovereign and queen,
Farewell, perfect and sacred head,
Farewell, who dost all honour mean,
Farewell, true heart, loyal and clean,
Farewell, best flower the world doth bear,
Farewell, yet not farewell, O white and fair !
Farewell, O wise, that no ill said,
Farewell, river that made life green,
Farewell, in whom fame harboured,
Farewell, voice that all ears could win,
Farewell, solace of all my teen,
Farewell, whose grace is wide as air,
Farewell, yet not farewell, O white and fair !
Farewell, soft look that through me sped,
Farewell, more fair than Helen queen,
Farewell, body and sweet soul wed,
Farewell, thou most gracious demesne,
Farewell, pole-star, joyous and keen,
Farewell, fountain of valour rare,
Farewell, yet not farewell, O white and fair !
Farewell, Princess of noblest mien,
Farewell, thou aweing smile serene,
Farewell, without fault, sin's despair,
Farewell, yet not farewell, O white and fair !
poem by Christine de Pizan
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Before the Mirror
I.
WHITE ROSE in red rose-garden
Is not so white;
Snowdrops that plead for pardon
And pine for fright
Because the hard East blows
Over their maiden rows
Grow not as this face grows from pale to bright.
Behind the veil, forbidden,
Shut up from sight,
Love, is there sorrow hidden,
Is there delight?
Is joy thy dower or grief,
White rose of weary leaf,
Late rose whose life is brief, whose loves are light?
Soft snows that hard winds harden
Till each flake bite
Fill all the flowerless garden
Whose flowers took flight
Long since when summer ceased,
And men rose up from feast,
And warm west wind grew east, and warm day night.
II.
“Come snow, come wind or thunder
High up in air,
I watch my face, and wonder
At my bright hair;
Nought else exalts or grieves
The rose at heart, that heaves
With love of her own leaves and lips that pair.
“She knows not loves that kissed her
She knows not where.
Art thou the ghost, my sister,
White sister there,
Am I the ghost, who knows?
My hand, a fallen rose,
Lies snow-white on white snows, and takes no care.
“I cannot see what pleasures
Or what pains were;
What pale new loves and treasures
New years will bear;
What beam will fall, what shower,
What grief or joy for dower;
But one thing knows the flower; the flower is fair.”
III.
Glad, but not flushed with gladness,
Since joys go by;
Sad, but not bent with sadness,
Since sorrows die;
Deep in the gleaming glass
She sees all past things pass,
And all sweet life that was lie down and lie.
There glowing ghosts of flowers
Draw down, draw nigh;
And wings of swift spent hours
Take flight and fly;
She sees by formless gleams,
She hears across cold streams,
Dead mouths of many dreams that sing and sigh.
Face fallen and white throat lifted,
With sleepless eye
She sees old loves that drifted,
She knew not why,
Old loves and faded fears
Float down a stream that hears
The flowing of all men’s tears beneath the sky.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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On The Purple And White Carnation
'TWAS a bright May morn, and each opening flower
Lay sunning itself in Flora's bower;
Young Love, who was fluttering round, espied
The blossoms so gay in their painted pride;
And he gazed on the point of a feathered dart,
For mischief had filled the boy-god's heart;
And laughed as his bowstring of silk he drew,
And away that arrow at random flew:
Onward it sped like a ray of light,
And fell on a flower of virgin white,
Which glanced all snowy and pure at the sun,
And wept when his glorious course was run:
Two little drops on its pale leaves lay
Pure as pearls, but with diamond ray,
(Like the tear on Beauty's lid of snow,
Which waits but Compassion to bid it flow
It rested, that dart; and its pointed tip
Sank deep where the bees were wont to sip;
And the sickening flower gazed with grief
On the purple stains which dimmed each leaf,
And the crystal drops on its leaves that stood
Blushed with sorrow and shame till they turned to blood.
It chanced that Flora, wandering by,
Beheld her flow'ret droop and die;
And Love laughed in scorn at the flower-queen's woe,
As she vainly shook its leaves of snow.
Fled from her lip was the smile of light :--
'Oh! who hath worked thee this fell despite!
Thou who did'st harm, alas! to none,
But joyed'st all day in the beams of the sun!'
''Twas Love!' said the flower, and a scented sigh
Loaded the gale that murmured by.
'Twas Love! and the dew-drops that blushed on the wound
Sank slow and sad to the pitying ground.
''Twas Love!' said Flora: 'accursed be the power
That could blight the bloom of so fair a flower.
With whispers and smiles he wins Beauty's ears,
But he leaves her nothing save grief and tears.
Ye gods! shall he bend with such tyranny still
The weak and the strong to his wanton will?
No! the hearts that he joins may rude discord sever;
Accursed be his power for ever and ever.'
She spoke, and wept; and the echo again
Repeated the curse, but all in vain--
The tyrant laughed as he fluttered away,
Spreading his rainbow wings to the day,
And settling at random his feathered darts
To spoil sweet flowers, or break fond hearts.
He fled--and the queen o'er her flower in vain
Poured the evening dew and the April rain,
The purple spots on her heart still were.
And she said, as she wept her fruitless care,
'The blight and the stain may be washed away,
But what Love hath ruined must sink in decay.'
And she sent it on earth, to dwell below
In the autumn fog and the winter snow.
And even, 'tis said, on summer eves
O'er that sad lost flower she wails and grieves;
And the drops that by mortals as dew are seen
Are the tears of the mourning flower-queen.
And when men are gazing with fond delight
On its varied leaves, and call them bright,
And praise the velvet tints, and say
There never was flower more pure and gay:
That flow'ret says, as it droops its head,
'Alas! for the day when by love I bled;
When my feathery flowers were pure and white,
And my leaves had no earthly stain or blight,
When no chilling blasts around me blew,
And in Flora's garden of light I grew.
Oh! the blight and the stain may be washed away,
But what Love hath ruined must sink in decay.'
poem by Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Adieux à Marie Stuart
I.
QUEEN, for whose house my fathers fought,
With hopes that rose and fell,
Red star of boyhood’s fiery thought,
Farewell
They gave their lives, and I, my queen,
Have given you of my life,
Seeing your brave star burn high between
Men’s strife.
The strife that lightened round their spears
Long since fell still: so long
Hardly may hope to last in years
My song.
But still through strife of time and thought
Your light on me too fell:
Queen, in whose name we sang or fought,
Farewell.
II.
There beats no heart on either border
Wherethrough the north blasts blow
But keeps your memory as a warder
His beacon-fire aglow.
Long since it fired with love and wonder
Mine, for whose April age
Blithe midsummer made banquet under
The shade of Hermitage.
Soft sang the burn’s blithe notes, that gather
Strength to ring true:
And air and trees and sun and heather
Remembered you.
Old border ghosts of fight or fairy
Or love or teen,
These they forgot, remembering Mary
The Queen.
III.
Queen once of Scots and ever of ours
Whose sires brought forth for you
Their lives to strew your way like flowers,
Adieu.
Dead is full many a dead man’s name
Who died for you this long
Time past: shall this too fare the same,
My song?
But surely, though it die or live,
Your face was worth
All that a man may think to give
On earth.
No darkness cast of years between
Can darken you:
Man’s love will never bid my queen
Adieu.
IV.
Love hangs like light about your name
As music round the shell:
No heart can take of you a tame
Farewell.
Yet, when your very face was seen,
Ill gifts were yours for giving:
Love gat strange guerdons of my queen
When living.
O diamond heart unflawed and clear,
The whole world’s crowning jewel!
Was ever heart so deadly dear
So cruel?
Yet none for you of all that bled
Grudged once one drop that fell:
Not one to life reluctant said
Farewell
V.
Strange love they have given you, love disloyal,
Who mock with praise your name,
To leave a head so rare and royal
Too low for praise or blame.
You could not love nor hate, they tell us,
You had nor sense nor sting:
In God’s name, then, what plague befell us
To fight for such a thing?
‘Some faults the gods will give’ to fetter
Man’s highest intent:
But surely you were something better
Than innocent !
No maid that strays with steps unwary
Through snares unseen,
But one to live and die for; Mary,
The Queen.
VI.
Forgive them all their praise, who blot
Your fame with praise of you:
Then love may say, and falter not
Adieu.
Yet some you hardly would forgive
Who did you much less wrong
Once: but resentment should not live
Too long.
They never saw your lip’s bright bow,
Your swordbright eyes,
The bluest of heavenly things below
The skies.
Clear eyes that love’s self finds most like
A swordblade’s blue,
A swordblade’s ever keen to strike,
Adieu.
VII.
Though all things breathe or sound of fight
That yet make up your spell,
To bid you were to bid the light
Farewell
Farewell the song says only, being
A star whose race is run:
Farewell the soul says never, seeing
The sun.
Yet, wellnigh as with flash of tears,
The song must say but so
That took your praise up twenty years
Ago,
More bright than stars or moons that vary,
Sun kindling heaven and hell,
Here, after all these years, Queen Mary,
Farewell
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Rain Rain Rain
Rain Rain Rain,
Up above from the skies
Youu come,
As drops of joy
As drops of sorrow
As a shower of blessing from the heavens.
Rain Rain Rain,
Pitter patter pitter patter
on the window panes,
thunder and lightning fill up the skies
creating an orchestral symphony.
Rain Rain Rain,
With wind, sun and clouds,
seven colors you bring together
and joy in our hearts.
Rain Rain Rain
A miracle to a drought
A curse when in glut,
tiny silver crystals trickles from up above.
poem by Anoop Lokkur
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Practising the Anthem
A summer wind blows through the open porch,
And, 'neath the rustling eaves,
A summer light of moonrise, calm and pale,
Shines through a vale of leaves.
The soft gusts bring a scent of summer flowers,
Fresh with the falling dew,
And round the doorway, glimmering white as snow,
The tender petals strew.
Clear through the silence, from a reedy pool
The curlew's whistle thrills;
A lonely mopoke sorrowfully cries
From the far-folding hills.
O lovely night, and yet so sad and strange!
My fingers touch the key;
And down the empty church my Christmas song
Goes ringing, glad and free.
Each sweet note knocks at dreaming memory's door,
And memory wakes in pain;
The spectral faces she had turn'd away
Come crowding in again.
The air seems full of music all around—
I know not what I hear,
The multitudinous echoes of the past,
Or these few voices near.
Ah me! the dim aisle vaguely widens out,
I see me stand therein;
A glory of grey sculpture takes the light
A winter morn brings in.
No more I smell the fragrant jessamine flowers
That flake a moonlit floor;
The rustling night-breeze and the open porch
I hear and see no more.
Great solemn windows, down a long, long nave
Their shadow'd rainbows fling;
Dark Purbeck shafts, with hoary capitals,
In carven archways spring.
And overhead the throbbing organ waves
Roll in one mighty sea,
Bearing the song the herald angels sang
Of Christ's nativity.
Dear hands touch mine beneath the open book,
Sweet eyes look in my face,—
They smile, they melt in darkness; I am snatch'd
From my familiar place.
The summer night-wind blows upon my tears;
Its flowery scent is pain.
O cold, white day! O noble minster—when
May I come back again!
To hear the angels' anthem shake the air,
Where never discord jars,—
The Christmas carols in the windy street,
Under the frosty stars;
The dream-like falling from the still, grey skies,
With falling flakes of snow,
Of mellow chimes from old cathedral bells,
Solemn and sweet and slow.
To hear loved footsteps beating time with mine
Along the churchyard path,—
To see that ring of faces once again
Drawn round the blazing hearth.
When may I come? O Lord, when may I go?
Nay, I must wait Thy will.
Give patience, Lord, and in Thine own best way
My hopes and prayers fulfil.
poem by Ada Cambridge
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William Bede Dalley
That love of letters which is as the light
Of deathless verse, intense, ineffable,
Hath made this scholar’s nature like the white,
Pure Roman soul of whom the poets tell.
He having lived so long with lords of thought,
The grand hierophants of speech and song,
Hath from the high, august communion caught
Some portion of their inspiration strong.
The clear, bright atmosphere through which he looks
Is one by no dim, close horizon bound;
The power shed as flame from noble books
Hath made for him a larger world around.
And he, thus strengthened with the fourfold force
Which scholarship to genius gives, is one
That liberal thinkers, pausing in their course,
With fine esteem are glad to look upon.
He, with the faultless intuition born
Of splendid faculties, sees things aright,
And all his strong, immeasurable scorn
Falls like a thunder on the hypocrite.
But for the sufferer and the son of shame
On whom remorse — a great, sad burden — lies,
His kindness glistens like a morning flame,
Immense compassion shines within his eyes.
Firm to the Church by which his fathers stood,
But tolerant to every form of creed,
He longs for universal brotherhood,
And is a Christian gentleman indeed.
These in his honour. May his life be long,
And, like a summer with a brilliant close,
As full of music as a perfect song,
As radiant as a rich, unhandled rose.
poem by Henry Kendall
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White Limozeen
Fresh scrubbed hot off the bus
Dressed up and feelin good
Eyes full of stars
A heart full of dreams
Daisy mae in hollywood
Struttin down the boulevard
The walkway of the stars
With a vision of her name in lights
Reflectin off the cars
And dreamin of a white limozeen
She wants to have a white limozeen
Well the days to come were long and dark
And the nights were hard and cold
She met the devil in the city of angels
But she never lost her soul
She kept her dreams close to her heart
Like a family photograph
She cried sometimes and died sometimes
But still knew how to laugh
Dreamin of a white limozeen
Dreamin of a white limozeen
Chorus:
Now shes a livin her dreams
Like a movie queen
Diamond rings and all things good
From the breadlines to the headlines
Shes the toast of hollywood
White limozeen
White limozeen
Now shes really ridin high
Shes a woman of the world
But deep inside she never changed
Shes the same old down home girl
And when the airplane brings the kinfolk
To visit for awhile
Theres a friendly guy in a red bow tie
To take em around in style
He drives em in a white limozeen
She finally got a white limozeen
Chorus:
Now shes a livin her dreams
Like a movie queen
Diamond rings and all things good
From the breadlines to the headlines
Shes the toast of hollywood
She was fresh scrubbed hot off the bus
Dressed up and feelin good
Eyes full of stars
A heart full of dreams
Daisy mae in hollywood
She goes struttin down the boulevard
The walkway of the stars
With a vision of her name in lights
Reflectin off the cars
And dreamin of a white limozeen
She finally got a white limozeen
Oh ridin in a white limozeen
Limozeen a white limozeen
A big white limozeen
Limozeen a white limozeen
A big white limozeen
Limozeen a white limozeen
A big white limozeen
Limozeen a white limozeen
A big white limozeen
Limozeen a white limozeen
A big white limozeen
Limozeen a white limozeen
A big white limozeen
Limozeen a white limozeen
A big white limozeen
Limozeen a white limozeen
A big white limozeen
Limozeen a white limozeen
A big white limozeen
song performed by by Dolly Parton
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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