At the Opera
THE CURTAIN rose—the play began—
The limelight on the gay garbs shone;
Yet carelessly I gazed upon
The painted players, maid and man,
As one with idle eyes who sees
The marble figures on a frieze.
Long lark-notes clear the first act close,
So the soprano: then a hush—
The tenor, tender as a thrush;
Then loud and high the chorus rose,
Till, with a sudden rush and strong,
It ended in a storm of song.
The curtain fell—the music died—
The lights grew bright, revealing there
The flash of jewelled fingers fair,
And wreaths of pearls on brows of pride;
Then, with a quick-flushed cheek, I turned,
And into mine her dark eyes burned.
Such eyes but once a man may see,
And, seeing once, his fancy dies
To thought of any other eyes:
So shadow-soft, they seemed to be
Twin haunted lakes, lit by the gleams
Of a mysterious moon of dreams.
Silk lashes veiled their liquid light
With such a shade as tall reeds fling
From the lake-marge at sunsetting:
Their darkness might have hid the night—
Yet whoso saw their glance would say
Night dreamt therein, and saw the day.
Long looked I at them, wondering
What tender memories were hid
Beneath each blue-veined lily-lid;
What hopes of joys the years would bring;
What griefs? In vain: I might not guess
The secret of their silentness.
What of her face? Her face, meseems,
Was such as painters see who muse
By moonlight in dim avenues,
Yet cannot paint; or as in dreams,
Young poets see, but, when they try
To limn in verse are dumb—so I.
Yet well I know that I have seen
That sweet face in the long ago
In a rose-bower—well I know—
Laughing the singing leaves between,
In that strange land of rose and rhyme—
The land of Once upon a Time.
O unknown sweet, so sweetly known,
I know not what your name may be—
Madonna is your name for me—
Nor where your lines in life are thrown;
But soul sees soul—what is the rest?
A passing phantom at the best.
Did your young bosom never glow
To love? or burns your heart beneath
As burns the rosebud in its sheath?
I neither know nor wish to know:
I smell the rose upon the tree;
Who will may pluck and wear, for me—
May wear the rose, and watch it die,
And, leaf by red leaf, fade and fall,
Till there be nothing left at all
Of its sweet loveliness; but I
Love it so well, I leave it free—
The scent alone I take with me!
As one who visits sacred spots
Brings tokens back, so I from you
A glance, a smile, a rapture new!
And these are my forget-me-nots!
I take from you but only these—
Give all the rest to whom you please.
Sweet eyes, your glance a light shall cast
On me, when dreaded ghosts arise
Of dead regrets with shrouded eyes,
And phantoms of the perished past,
Old thoughts, old hopes, and old desire
Gather around my lonely fire!
Farewell! In rhyme, I kiss your hand—
Kiss not unsweet, although unheard!—
This is our secret—say no word—
That I have been in Fairyland,
And seen for one brief moment’s space
The Queen Titania face to face.
poem by Victor James Daley
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Related quotes
A Pretty Woman
I
That fawn-skin-dappled hair of hers,
And the blue eye
Dear and dewy,
And that infantine fresh air of hers!
II
To think men cannot take you, Sweet,
And enfold you,
Ay, and hold you,
And so keep you what they make you, Sweet!
III
You like us for a glance, you know—
For a word's sake
Or a sword's sake,
All's the same, whate'er the chance, you know.
IV
And in turn we make you ours, we say—
You and youth too,
Eyes and mouth too,
All the face composed of flowers, we say.
V
All's our own, to make the most of, Sweet—
Sing and say for,
Watch and pray for,
Keep a secret or go boast of, Sweet!
VI
But for loving, why, you would not, Sweet,
Though we prayed you,
Paid you, brayed you
in a mortar—for you could not, Sweet!
VII
So, we leave the sweet face fondly there:
Be its beauty
Its sole duty!
Let all hope of grace beyond, lie there!
VIII
And while the face lies quiet there,
Who shall wonder
That I ponder
A conclusion? I will try it there.
IX
As,—why must one, for the love foregone,
Scout mere liking?
Thunder-striking
Earth,—the heaven, we looked above for, gone!
X
Why, with beauty, needs there money be,
Love with liking?
Crush the fly-king
In his gauze, because no honey-bee?
XI
May not liking be so simple-sweet,
If love grew there
'Twould undo there
All that breaks the cheek to dimples sweet?
XII
Is the creature too imperfect,
Would you mend it
And so end it?
Since not all addition perfects aye!
XIII
Or is it of its kind, perhaps,
Just perfection—
Whence, rejection
Of a grace not to its mind, perhaps?
XIV
Shall we burn up, tread that face at once
Into tinder,
And so hinder
Sparks from kindling all the place at once?
XV
Or else kiss away one's soul on her?
Your love-fancies!
—A sick man sees
Truer, when his hot eyes roll on her!
XVI
Thus the craftsman thinks to grace the rose,—
Plucks a mould-flower
For his gold flower,
Uses fine things that efface the rose:
XVII
Rosy rubies make its cup more rose,
Precious metals
Ape the petals,—
Last, some old king locks it up, morose!
XVIII
Then how grace a rose? I know a way!
Leave it, rather.
Must you gather?
Smell, kiss, wear it—at last, throw away!
poem by Robert Browning from Men and Women (1855)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Years Ago
THE old dead flowers of bygone summers,
The old sweet songs that are no more sung,
The rose-red dawns that were welcome comers
When you and I and the world were young,
Are lost, O love, to the light for ever,
And seen no more of the moon or sun,
For seas divide, and the seasons sever,
And twain are we that of old were one.
O fair lost love, when the ship went sailing
Across the seas in the years agone,
And seaward-set were the eyes unquailing,
And landward-looking the faces wan,
My heart went back as a dove goes homeward
With wings aweary to seek its nest,
While fierce sea-eagles are flying foamward
And storm-winds whiten the surge’s crest;
And far inland for a farewell pardon
Flew on and on, while the ship went South—
The rose was red in the red-rose garden,
And red the rose of your laughing mouth.
But no word came on the wind in token
Of love that lasts till the end; and so
My heart returned to me bruised and broken,
From you, my love, of the long ago.
The green fields seemed in the distance growing
To silken squares on a weaver’s loom,
As oversea came the land-wind blowing
The faint sweet scent of the clover bloom.
A rarer odour to me it carried,
In subtle delicate way to tell
Of you, ere you and the world were married—
The lilac-odour you loved so well.
Again, I saw you beneath the blooms of
Those lilac-trees in the garden old.
Ah me! each tree is a mark for tombs of
Dead dreams and memories still and cold.
And Death comes there with his breath scent-laden,
And gathering gently the blossoms shed
(In guise of Autumn, the brown-browed maiden)
With your and my dead buries his dead.
O, fairer far than the fair ideal
Of him who imaged the foam-born Queen
In foam-white marble—a dream made real—
To me were you in those years, I ween.
Your lips were redder than night-shade berries
That burn in borders of hedgerowed lanes,
And sweeter far than the sweet wild cherries
The June sun flushes with crimson stains.
And gray your eyes as a gray dove’s wings were—
A gray soft-shadowing deeps profound,
Where thoughts that reached to the heart of things were,
And love lay dreaming though seeming drowned.
Twin-tulip-breasted like her the tread of
Whose feet made music in Paphos fair,
The world to me was not worth a thread of
Your brown, ambrosial, braided hair.
Mayhap you loved me at one time truly,
And I was jealous, and you were proud;
But mine the love of the king in Thule,
Till death; and yours—sleeps well in shroud.
So night came down like a sombre raven,
And southward ever the ship was borne,
Till glad green fields and lessening haven
Grew faint and faded like ghosts at morn.
As fields of Heaven eternal blooming,
Those flowerful fields of my mother-land
In midnight visions are still perfuming
All wild waste places and seas of sand.
And still in seasons of storm and thunder,
In strange lands under your land and mine,
And though our ways have been wide asunder,
In calm and tempest and shade and shine
Your face I see as I saw the last time—
As one borne space-ward on wings of light,
With eyes turned back to a sight of past time,
Beholds for ever that self-same sight.
But scorn has died on your lips, and through you
Shines out star-bright an immortal grace,
As though God then to His heaven drew you,
And sent an angel to take your place.
I plucked one rose from the tree you cherished,
My heart’s blood ebbing has kept it red,
And all my hopes with its scent have perished;
Why mourn them now—are the dead not dead?
And yet, God knows, as this rose I kiss, you
May feel the kisses across the sea;
And soul to soul for the larger issue
Your soul may stand with the soul of me,
Unknown to you—for the strings of Being
Are not so easily snapped or torn;
And we may journey with eyes unseeing
On paths that meet in the years unborn.
Farewell, dear heart. Warm sighs may sever
Ripe lips of love like a rose-leaf curled,
But you remain unto me for ever
The one fair woman in all the world.
poem by Victor James Daley
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The Change
She leaned out into the soft June weather,
With her long loose tresses the night breeze played;
Her eyes were as blue as the bells on the heather:
Oh, what is so fair as a fair young maid!
She folded her hands, like the leaves of a lily,
'My life, ' she said, 'is a night in June,
Fair and quiet, and calm and stilly;
Bring me a change, O changeful moon!
'Who would drift on a lake forever?
Young hearts weary - it is not strange,
And sigh for the beautiful bounding river;
New moon, true moon, bring me a change! '
The rose that rivalled her maiden blushes
Dropped from her breast, at a strangers feet;
Only a glance; but the hot blood rushes
To mantle a fair face, shy and sweet.
To and fro, while the moon is waning,
They walk, and the stars shine on above;
And one is in earnest, and one is feigning -
Oh, what is so sweet as a sweet young love?
A young life crushed, and a young heart broken,
A bleak wind blows through the lovely bower,
And all that remains of the love vows spoken -
Is the trampled leaf of a faded flower.
The night is dark, for the moon is failing -
And what is so pale as a pale old moon?
Cold is the wind through the tree tops wailing -
Woe that the change should come so soon.
poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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Betrothed
I DID not think to love her. As we go
We pluck a hedge-rose blushing in its sheath,
Fresh, and at hand; and not the less we know
That where rich garden blossoms take the breath
With eddying sweets and wear a thousand hues
We shall be fain to linger and to choose.
And who indeed
Would pass the garden by to choose the weed,
The little wayside rose we hold and lose?
Fair; and so loving. With the young surprise
Of children who still newly understand
Their right and wrong out of their mother's eyes,
She watches for my thought. Her trustful hand
Creeps into mine and rests. Ah, little one,
Hadst thou loved less I had not been undone;
My wayside rose.
I love thee, sweet: some hopes have found their close
Ere yet their aim; some joys ceased unbegun.
I had not thought to love her. She is fair;
But I had pictured eyes which, meeting mine,
Should kindle something in me that was there
But waited Her arousing; I divine
A love, that was to be, past hence unborn,
The sun o'erclouded ere it rose at morn.
I love thee, yes:
Let hopes be dead which thou couldst never guess.
Sweet, could I let thy blossom drop unworn?
poem by Augusta Davies Webster
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Year of the Rose
From the depths of the green garden-closes
Where the summer in darkness dozes
Till autumn pluck from his hand
An hour-glass that holds not a sand;
From the maze that a flower-belt encloses
To the stones and sea-grass on the strand
How red was the reign of the roses
Over the rose-crowned land!
The year of the rose is brief;
From the first blade blown to the sheaf,
From the thin green leaf to the gold,
It has time to be sweet and grow old,
To triumph and leave not a leaf
For witness in winter's sight
How lovers once in the light
Would mix their breath with its breath,
And its spirit was quenched not of night,
As love is subdued not of death.
In the red-rose land not a mile
Of the meadows from stile to stile,
Of the valleys from stream to stream,
But the air was a long sweet dream
And the earth was a sweet wide smile
Red-mouthed of a goddess, returned
From the sea which had borne her and burned,
That with one swift smile of her mouth
Looked full on the north as it yearned,
And the north was more than the south.
For the north, when winter was long,
In his heart had made him a song,
And clothed it with wings of desire,
And shod it with shoon as of fire,
To carry the tale of his wrong
To the south-west wind by the sea,
That none might bear it but he
To the ear of the goddess unknown
Who waits till her time shall be
To take the world for a throne.
In the earth beneath, and above
In the heaven where her name is love,
She warms with light from her eyes
The seasons of life as they rise,
And her eyes are as eyes of a dove,
But the wings that lift her and bear
As an eagle's, and all her hair
As fire by the wind's breath curled,
And her passage is song through the air,
And her presence is spring through the world.
So turned she northward and came,
And the white-thorn land was aflame
With the fires that were shed from her feet,
That the north, by her love made sweet,
Should be called by a rose-red name;
And a murmur was heard as of doves,
And a music beginning of loves
In the light that the roses made,
Such light as the music loves,
The music of man with maid.
But the days drop one upon one,
And a chill soft wind is begun
In the heart of the rose-red maze
That weeps for the roseleaf days
And the reign of the rose undone
That ruled so long in the light,
And by spirit, and not by sight,
Through the darkness thrilled with its breath,
Still ruled in the viewless night,
As love might rule over death.
The time of lovers is brief;
From the fair first joy to the grief
That tells when love is grown old,
From the warm wild kiss to the cold,
From the red to the white-rose leaf,
They have but a season to seem
As rose-leaves lost on a stream
That part not and pass not apart
As a spirit from dream to dream,
As a sorrow from heart to heart.
From the bloom and the gloom that encloses
The death-bed of Love where he dozes
Till a relic be left not of sand
To the hour-glass that breaks in his hand;
From the change in the grey garden-closes
To the last stray grass of the strand,
A rain and ruin of roses
Over the red-rose land.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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At the Stage Door
Kicking my heels in the street,
Here at the edge of the pavement I wait for you, sweet,
Here in the crowd, the blent noises, blurred lights, of the street.
Under the archway sheer,
Sudden and black as a hole in the placarded wall,
Faces flicker and veer,
Wavering out of the darkness into the light,
Wavering back into night;
Under the archway, suddenly seen, the curls
And thin, bright faces of girls,
Roving eyes, and smiling lips, and the glance
Seeking, finding perchance,
Here at the edge of the pavement, there by the wall,
One face, out of them all.
Steadily, face after face,
Cheeks with the blush of the paint yet lingering, eyes
Still with their circle of black ...
But hers, but hers?
Rose-leaf cheeks, and flower-soft lips, and the grace
Of the vanishing Spring come back,
And a child's heart blithe in the sudden and sweet surprise,
Subtly expectant, that stirs
In the smile of her heart to my heart, of her eyes to my eyes
poem by Arthur Symons
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All That Love Asks
All that I ask, 'says Love, 'is just to stand
And gaze, unchided, deep in thy dear eyes;
For in their depths lies largest Paradise.
Yet, if perchance one pressure of thy hand
Be granted me, then joy I thought complete
Were still more sweet.
'All that I ask, ' says Love, 'all that I ask,
Is just thy hand clasp. Could I brush thy cheek
As zephyrs brush a rose leaf, words are weak
To tell the bliss in which my soul would bask.
There is no language but would desecrate
A joy so great.
'All that I ask, is just one tender touch
Of that soft cheek. Thy pulsing palm in mine,
Thy dark eyes lifted in a trust divine
And those curled lips that tempt me overmuch
Turned where I may not seize the supreme bliss
Of one mad kiss.
'All that I ask, ' says Love, 'of life, of death,
Or of high heaven itself, is just to stand,
Glance melting into glance, hand twined in hand,
The while I drink the nectar of thy breath,
In one sweet kiss, but one, of all thy store,
I ask no more.'
'All that I ask'-nay, self-deceiving Love,
Reverse thy phrase, so thus the words may fall,
In place of 'all I ask, ' say, 'I ask all, '
All that pertains to earth or soars above,
All that thou wert, art, will be, body, soul,
Love asks the whole.
poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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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
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Rose Lorraine
Sweet water-moons, blown into lights
Of flying gold on pool and creek,
And many sounds and many sights
Of younger days are back this week.
I cannot say I sought to face
Or greatly cared to cross again
The subtle spirit of the place
Whose life is mixed with Rose Lorraine.
What though her voice rings clearly through
A nightly dream I gladly keep,
No wish have I to start anew
Heart fountains that have ceased to leap.
Here, face to face with different days,
And later things that plead for love,
It would be worse than wrong to raise
A phantom far too vain to move.
But, Rose Lorraine -- ah! Rose Lorraine,
I'll whisper now, where no one hears --
If you should chance to meet again
The man you kissed in soft, dead years,
Just say for once "He suffered much,"
And add to this "His fate was worst
Because of me, my voice, my touch" --
There is no passion like the first!
If I that breathe your slow sweet name,
As one breathes low notes on a flute,
Have vext your peace with word of blame,
The phrase is dead -- the lips are mute.
Yet when I turn towards the wall,
In stormy nights, in times of rain,
I often wish you could recall
Your tender speeches, Rose Lorraine.
Because, you see, I thought them true,
And did not count you self-deceived,
And gave myself in all to you,
And looked on Love as Life achieved.
Then came the bitter, sudden change,
The fastened lips, the dumb despair:
The first few weeks were very strange,
And long, and sad, and hard to bear.
No woman lives with power to burst
My passion's bonds, and set me free;
For Rose is last where Rose was first,
And only Rose is fair to me.
The faintest memory of her face,
The wilful face that hurt me so,
Is followed by a fiery trace
That Rose Lorraine must never know.
I keep a faded ribbon string
You used to wear about your throat;
And of this pale, this perished thing,
I think I know the threads by rote.
God help such love! To touch your hand,
To loiter where your feet might fall,
You marvellous girl, my soul would stand
The worst of hell -- its fires and all!
poem by Henry Kendall
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Failure
THE BOY went out from the ranges grim,
And the breath of the mountains went with him;
With a song in his heart and a smile on his face,
And a light in his eyes for a foremost place:
And the good green earth, and the salt sea spray,
And the soft blue skies, they were his that day;
And, like Eden, ringed with a golden fire—
Afar rose the Land of His Heart’s Desire.
The boy went down to the city’s strife,
And his face was lost in the surge of life;
But a Power that he did not understand
Had nerved his brain and his fighting hand.
And he strove and failed, and he rose and won—
And he failed again ere the fight was done;
But he battled on when the days were dire
To win to the Land of His Heart’s Desire.
And there, in the heart of the stress and din,
’Mid want and labour and wealth and sin,
The strong man struggled with shining eyes,
And forced a passage, and grasped the prize.
And he cried to the Power who had lent the fire:
“Lo! Fame is the Land of My Heart’s Desire!
Give the cup to me with a beaded brim.”
And the Power that he knew not gave it him.
But the air is keen on the Cliffs of Fame,
And the shafts that fly have a deadly aim!
With a foothold scarce, and a sleepless dread
For the gulfs below and the heights o’erhead,
He cried to the Power who had steeled his hand:
“I am outcast yet from my Fairyland!
For Fame is a land where no strength may tire,
But Love is the Land of My Heart’s Desire!”
Then there came to the man all his dream of Love,
With the brow of snow and the eyes of a dove,
With the glint of the sun on her wavy hair,
And her soul as pure as her face was fair.
Like a living lily to him she came,
Till his eyes were wet and his soul was flame,
And she called to him, with an outstretched hand,
And they entered into the Promised Land.
But there came a day when he asked his soul,
“Is this the land, and is this the goal?”
In his heart there lay what his lips denied—
The pang of a hunger unsatisfied.
“For Fame,” he said, “and for Love I wrought;
They are not the things that I should have sought:
’Tis to boundless power that my dreams aspire—
And Wealth is the Land of My Heart’s Desire!”
Then the Power that he did not understand
Gave him ships and houses and gold and land,
And the man’s power grew with each passing year;
But his thoughts were vexed with a sleepless fear,
And his hair grew gray with the iron strain
Of the dread of loss and the lust of gain,
And he bowed his head on his hands and said.
“All things are mine, but my heart is dead!”
And he thought of the boy from the ranges grim
With the breath of the mountains over him,
With a song in his heart and a smile on his face,
And a light in his eyes for a foremost place,
And the good green earth and the salt sea spray,
And the soft blue skies that were his that day,
When, like Eden, ringed with a golden fire,
Afar rose the Land of His Heart’s Desire.
Then clear on his startled ear there fell
A voice like the sound of a silver bell:
“To each is the work that he best can do,
But you turned from the work when it called to you.
And you sought instead for the vulgar praise,
For the lips of love, and for prosperous days.
And with all that the world can give you here,
You have lost the thing that you hold most dear.
For who hears the word that the Gods inspire—
In his work finds the Land of His Heart’s Desire.”
poem by George Essex Evans
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More Strong Than Time
Since I have set my lips to your full cup, my sweet,
Since I my pallid face between your hands have laid,
Since I have known your soul, and all the bloom of it,
And all the perfume rare, now buried in the shade;
Since it was given to me to hear on happy while,
The words wherein your heart spoke all its mysteries,
Since I have seen you weep, and since I have seen you smile,
Your lips upon my lips, and your eyes upon my eyes;
Since I have known above my forehead glance and gleam,
A ray, a single ray, of your star, veiled always,
Since I have felt the fall, upon my lifetime's stream,
Of one rose petal plucked from the roses of your days;
I now am bold to say to the swift changing hours,
Pass, pass upon your way, for I grow never old,
Fleet to the dark abysm with all your fading flowers,
One rose that none may pluck, within my heart I hold.
Your flying wings may smite, but they can never spill
The cup fulfilled of love, from which my lips are wet;
My heart has far more fire than you can frost to chill,
My soul more love than you can make my soul forget
poem by Victor Hugo
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More Strong Than Time
Since I have set my lips to your full cup, my sweet,
Since I my pallid face between your hands have laid,
Since I have known your soul, and all the bloom of it,
And all the perfume rare, now buried in the shade;
Since it was given to me to hear on happy while,
The words wherein your heart spoke all its mysteries,
Since I have seen you weep, and since I have seen you smile,
Your lips upon my lips, and your eyes upon my eyes;
Since I have known above my forehead glance and gleam,
A ray, a single ray, of your star, veiled always,
Since I have felt the fall, upon my lifetime's stream,
Of one rose petal plucked from the roses of your days;
I now am bold to say to the swift changing hours,
Pass, pass upon your way, for I grow never old,
Fleet to the dark abysm with all your fading flowers,
One rose that none may pluck, within my heart I hold.
Your flying wings may smite, but they can never spill
The cup fulfilled of love, from which my lips are wet;
My heart has far more fire than you can frost to chill,
My soul more love than you can make my soul forget
poem by Victor Hugo
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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
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Come Into the Garde, Maud
Come into the garden, Maud,
For the black bat, Night, has flown,
Come into the garden, Maud,
I am here at the gate alone;
And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad,
And the musk of the roses blown.
For a breeze of morning moves,
And the planet of Love is on high,
Beginning to faint in the light that she loves
On a bed of daffodil sky,
To faint in the light of the sun she loves,
To faint in his light, and to die.
All night have the roses heard
The flute, violin, bassoon;
All night has the casement jessamine stirr'd
To the dancers dancing in tune:
Till a silence fell with the waking bird,
And a hush with the setting moon.
I said to the lily, "There is but one
With whom she has heart to be gay.
When will the dancers leave her alone?
She is weary of dance and play."
Now half to the setting moon are gone,
And half to the rising day;
Low on the sand and loud on the stone
The last wheel echoes away.
I said to the rose, "The brief night goes
In babble and revel and wine.
O young lordlover, what sighs are those
For one that will never be thine?
But mine, but mine," so I sware to the rose,
"For ever and ever, mine."
And the soul of the rose went into my blood,
As the music clash'd in the hall;
And long by the garden lake I stood,
For I heard your rivulet fall
From the lake to the meadow and on to the wood,
Our wood, that is dearer than all;
From the meadow your walks have left so sweet
That whenever a March-wind sighs
He sets the jewelprint of your feet
In violets blue as your eyes,
To the woody hollows in which we meet
And the valleys of Paradise.
The slender acacia would not shake
One long milk-bloom on the tree;
The white lake-blossom fell into the lake,
As the pimpernel dozed on the lea;
But the rose was awake all night for your sake,
Knowing your promise to me;
The lilies and roses were all awake,
They sigh'd for the dawn and thee.
Queen rose of the rosebud garden of girls,
Come hither, the dances are done,
In gloss of satin and glimmer of pearls,
Queen lily and rose in one;
Shine out, little head, sunning over with curls,
To the flowers, and be their sun.
There has fallen a splendid tear
From the passion-flower at the gate.
She is coming, my dove, my dear;
She is coming, my life, my fate;
The red rose cries, "She is near, she is near;"
And the white rose weeps, "She is late;"
The larkspur listens, "I hear, I hear;"
And the lily whispers, "I wait."
She is coming, my own, my sweet;
Were it ever so airy a tread,
My heart would hear her and beat,
Were it earth in an earthy bed;
My dust would hear her and beat,
Had I lain for a century dead;
Would start and tremble under her feet,
And blossom in purple and red.
poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson
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Rose from my Love
Rose from my love,
My love the black dragon,
With teeth like daggers,
Claws of steel,
Scales of darkness,
And a soul of fire.
Do not raid the village,
Do not steal the maiden,
Just guard the rose,
My rose,
The rose of the dark moon.
Under the cloudy sky,
Surrounded by trees dead and charred,
Looking out at the frozen lake,
Remember me,
And wait for my return.
My sweet dragon,
Dragon of my dreams,
Your soul is dark like me,
Even when that fire goes out,
The rose will remain,
As a memory of our love,
But was that love in vain?
No, not in vain will I die,
I will die in the arms of my love,
My love Mokar,
Protector of my rose,
The rose of the dark moon,
The moon I was born under.
poem by Nicolette Gonzalez
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Sweet Reprieve Rose
Oh the smell of the sweet reprieve rose
That was thrown on the battle field for my soul
The inevitable mortal wound waits for me on yonder hill
As the dawn breaks on the time transcribed for me
Oh the smell of the sweet reprieve rose
Oh the smell of the sweet reprieve rose
When he was first enclosed
For three dark days and three lonely nights
Until he returned unto the light
Oh the smell of the sweet reprieve rose
Oh the smell of the sweet reprieve rose
When we are first enclosed
Waiting for his trumpet to blow
And for all of his people to be called home
Oh the smell of the sweet reprieve rose
poem by Brian Kilpatrick
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Sonnets XLIX: L: LI: LII: Willowwood
I
I sat with Love upon a woodside well,
Leaning across the water, I and he;
Nor ever did he speak nor looked at me,
But touched his lute wherein was audible
The certain secret thing he had to tell:
Only our mirrored eyes met silently
In the low wave; and that sound came to be
The passionate voice I knew; and my tears fell.
And at their fall, his eyes beneath grew hers;
And with his foot and with his wing-feathers
He swept the spring that watered my heart's drouth.
Then the dark ripples spread to waving hair,
And as I stooped, her own lips rising there
Bubbled with brimming kisses at my mouth.
II
And now Love sang: but his was such a song,
So meshed with half-remembrance hard to free,
As souls disused in death's sterility
May sing when the new birthday tarries long.
And I was made aware of a dumb throng
That stood aloof, one form by every tree,
All mournful forms, for each was I or she,
The shades of those our days that had no tongue.
They looked on us, and knew us and were known;
While fast together, alive from the abyss,
Clung the soul-wrung implacable close kiss;
And pity of self through all made broken moan
Which said “For once, for once, for once alone!”
And still Love sang, and what he sang was this:—
III
“O Ye, all ye that walk in Willowwood,
That walk with hollow faces burning white;
What fathom-depth of soul-struck widowhood,
What long, what longer hours, one lifelong night,
Ere ye again, who so in vain have wooed
Your last hope lost, who so in vain invite
Your lips to that their unforgotten food,
Ere ye, ere ye again shall see the light!
Alas! the bitter banks in Willowwood,
With tear-spurge wan, with blood-wort burning red:
Alas! if ever such a pillow could
Steep deep the soul in sleep till she were dead,—
Better all life forget her than this thing,
That Willowwood should hold her wandering!”
IV
So sang he: and as meeting rose and rose
Together cling through the wind's wellaway
Nor change at once, yet near the end of day
The leaves drop loosened where the heart-stain glows,—
So when the song died did the kiss unclose;
And her face fell back drowned, and was as grey
As its grey eyes; and if it ever may
Meet mine again I know not if Love knows.
Only I know that I leaned low and drank
A long draught from the water where she sank,
Her breath and all her tears and all her soul:
And as I leaned, I know I felt Love's face
Pressed on my neck with moan of pity and grace,
Till both our heads were in his aureole.
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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Couleur de Rose
All things to-day 'Couleur de rose,'
I see,-oh, why?
I know, and my dear love she knows,
Why, oh, why!
On both my eyes her lips she set,
All red and warm and dewy wet,
As she passed by.
The kiss did not my eyelids close,
But like a rosy vapor goes,
Where'er I sit, where'er I lie,
Before my every glance, and shows
All things to-day 'Couleur de rose.'
Would it last thus? Alas, who knows?
Men ask and sigh:
They say it fades, 'Couleur de rose.'
Why, oh, why?
Without swift joy and sweet surprise,
Surely those lips upon my eyes
Could never lie,
Though both our heads were white as snows,
And though the bitterest storm that blows,
Of trouble and adversity,
Had bent us low: all life still shows
To eyes that love 'Couleur de rose.'
poem by Helen Hunt Jackson
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Vashti
I sometimes take you in my dreams to a far-off land I used to know,
Back in the ages long ago; a land of palms and languid streams.
A land, by night, of jeweled skies, by day, of shores that glistened bright,
Within whose arms, outstretched and white, a sapphire sea lay crescent-wise.
Where twilight fell like silver floss, where rose, the golden moon half-hid
Behind a shadowy pyramid; a land beneath the Southern Cross.
And there the days dreamed in their flight, each one a poem chanted through,
Which at its close was merged into the muted music of the night.
And you were a princess in those days. And I — I was your serving lad.
But who ever served with heart so glad, or lived so for a word of praise?
And if that word you chanced to speak, how all my senses swayed and reeled,
Till low beside your feet I kneeled, with happiness o'erwrought and weak.
If, when your golden cup I bore, you deigned to lower your eyes to mine,
Eyes cold, yet fervid, like the wine, I knew not how to wish for more.
I trembled at the thought to dare to gaze upon, to scrutinize
The deep-sea mystery of your eyes, the sun-lit splendor of your hair.
To let my timid glances rest upon you long enough to note
How fair and slender was your throat, how white the promise of your breast.
But though I did not dare to chance a lingering look, an open gaze
Upon your beauty's blinding rays, I ventured many a stolen glance.
I fancy, too, (but could not state what trick of mind the fancy caused)
At times your eyes upon me paused, and marked my figure lithe and straight.
Once when my eyes met yours it seemed that in
your cheek, despite your pride,
A flush arose and swiftly died; or was it something that I dreamed?
Within your radiance like the star of morning, there I stood and served,
Close by, unheeded, unobserved. You were so near, and, yet, so far.
Ah! just to stretch my hand and touch the musky sandals on your feet!—
My breaking heart! of rapture sweet it never could have held so much.
Oh, beauty-haunted memory! Your face so proud, your eyes so calm,
Your body like a slim young palm, and sinuous as a willow tree.
Caught up beneath your slender arms, and girdled 'round your supple waist,
A robe of curious silk that graced, but only scarce concealed your charms.
A golden band about your head, a crimson jewel at your throat
Which, when the sunlight on it smote, turned to a living heart and bled.
But, oh, that mystic bleeding stone, that work of Nature's magic art,
Which mimicked so a wounded heart, could never bleed as did my own!
Now after ages long and sad, in this stern land we meet anew;
No more a princess proud are you, and I — I am no serving lad.
And yet, dividing us, I meet a wider gulf than that which stood
Between a princess of the blood and him who served low at her feet.
poem by James Weldon Johnson
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(Love Poem) Bitter Sweet Rose
Bitter sweet rose will you be mine?
Or am I wasting my time?
Bitter sweet rose you smell divine.
Do you have a succulent kiss?
Is it something I've already missed?
Bitter sweet rose what gives?
Is it how we must live?
Bitter sweet rose will you answer my questions?
Are you devote?
Do you stray when your bored?
Will you doubt?
Is what you want something more?
Bitter sweet rose are you keeping score?
Will you try something new?
Will you lock your door?
Do your lips taste like dew?
Bitter sweet rose do you want to go?
Do you love the snow?
Is this right?
Is this what you want tonight?
Bitter sweet rose, oh my bitter rose.
poem by Ace Of Black Hearts
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