The Wan Sun Westers, Faint And Slow
The wan sun westers, faint and slow;
The eastern distance glimmers gray;
An eerie haze comes creeping low
Across the little, lonely bay;
And from the sky-line far away
About the quiet heaven are spread
Mysterious hints of dying day,
Thin, delicate dreams of green and red.
And weak, reluctant surges lap
And rustle round and down the strand.
No other sound . . . If it should hap,
The ship that sails from fairy-land!
The silken shrouds with spells are manned,
The hull is magically scrolled,
The squat mast lives, and in the sand
The gold prow-griffin claws a hold.
It steals to seaward silently;
Strange fish-folk follow thro' the gloom;
Great wings flap overhead; I see
The Castle of the Drowsy Doom
Vague thro' the changeless twilight loom,
Enchanted, hushed. And ever there
She slumbers in eternal bloom,
Her cushions hid with golden hair.
poem by William Ernest Henley
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Borderland
Am I waking, am I sleeping?
As the first faint dawn comes creeping
Thro' the pane, I am aware
Of an unseen presence hovering,
Round, above, in the dusky air:
A downy bird, with an odorous wing,
That fans my forehead, and sheds perfume,
As sweet as love, as soft as death,
Drowsy-slow through the summer-gloom.
My heart in some dream-rapture saith,
It is she. Half in a swoon,
I spread my arms in slow delight.--
O prolong, prolong the night,
For the nights are short in June!
At Queensferry
The blackbird sang, the skies were clear and clean
We bowled along a road that curved a spine
Superbly sinuous and serpentine
Thro' silent symphonies of summer green.
Sudden the Forth came on us--sad of mien,
No cloud to colour it, no breeze to line:
A sheet of dark, dull glass, without a sign
Of life or death, two spits of sand between.
Water and sky merged blank in mist together,
The Fort loomed spectral, and the Guardship's spars
Traced vague, black shadows on the shimmery glaze:
We felt the dim, strange years, the grey, strange weather,
The still, strange land, unvexed of sun or stars,
Where Lancelot rides clanking thro' the haze.
poem by William Ernest Henley
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A Mid-Day Dreamer
I love to sit alone, and dream,
And dream, and dream;
In fancy's boat to softly glide
Along some stream
Where fairy palaces of gold
And crystal bright
Stand all along the glistening shore:
A wondrous sight.
My craft is built of ivory,
With silver oars,
The sails are spun of golden threads,
And priceless stores
Of precious gems adorn its prow,
And 'round its mast
An hundred silken cords are set
To hold it fast.
My galley-slaves are sprightly elves
Who, as they row,
And as their shining oars they swing
Them to and fro,
Keep time to music wafted on
The scented air,
Made by the mermaids as they comb
Their golden hair.
And I the while lie idly back,
And dream, and dream,
And let them row me where they will
Adown the stream.
poem by James Weldon Johnson
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A Ship Sails up to Bideford
A ship sails up to Bideford;
Upon a western breeze,
Mast by mast, sail over sail,
She rises from the seas,
And sights the hills of Devon
And the misty English trees.
She comes from Eastern islands;
The sun is in her hold;
She bears the fruit of Jaffa,
Dates, oranges and gold;
She brings the silk of China,
And bales of Persian dyes,
And birds with sparkling feathers
And snakes with diamond eyes.
She’s gliding in the starlight
As white as any gull;
The east is gliding with her
In the shadows of her hull.
A ship sails up to Bideford;
Upon a western breeze,
With fruits of Eastern summers
She rises from the seas,
And sights the hills of Devon
And the misty English trees.
poem by Herbert Asquith
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Far-Far-Away
(For Music)
What sight so lured him thro' the fields he knew
As where earth's green stole into heaven's own hue,
Far-far-away?
What sound was dearest in his native dells?
The mellow lin-lan-lone of evening bells
Far-far-away.
What vague world-whisper, mystic pain or joy,
Thro' those three words would haunt him when a boy,
Far-far-away?
A whisper from his dawn of life? a breath
From some fair dawn beyond the doors of death
Far-far-away?
Far, far, how far? from o'er the gates of birth,
The faint horizons, all the bounds of earth,
Far-far-away?
What charm in words, a charm no words could give?
O dying words, can Music make you live
Far-far-away?
poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson
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They Desire A Better Country
I
I would not if I could undo my past,
Tho' for its sake my future is a blank;
My past, for which I have myself to thank,
For all its faults and follies first and last.
I would not cast anew the lot once cast,
Or launch a second ship for one that sank,
Or drug with sweets the bitterness I drank,
Or break by feasting my perpetual fast.
I would not if I could: for much more dear
Is one remembrance than a hundred joys,
More than a thousand hopes in jubilee;
Dearer the music of one tearful voice
That unforgotten calls and calls to me,
'Follow me here, rise up, and follow here.'
II
What seekest thou far in the unknown land?
In hope I follow joy gone on before,
In hope and fear persistent more and more,
As the dry desert lengthens out its sand.
Whilst day and night I carry in my hand
The golden key to ope the golden door
Of golden home; yet mine eye weepeth sore
For the long journey that must make no stand.
And who is this that veiled doth walk with thee?
Lo, this is Love that walketh at my right;
One exile holds us both, and we are bound
To selfsame home-joys in the land of light.
Weeping thou walkest with him; weepeth he?—
Some sobbing weep, some weep and make no sound.
III
A dimness of a glory glimmers here
Thro' veils and distance from the space remote,
A faintest far vibration of a note
Reaches to us and seems to bring us near,
Causing our face to glow with braver cheer,
Making the serried mist to stand afloat,
Subduing langour with an antidote,
And strengthening love almost to cast out fear,
Till for one moment golden city walls
Rise looming on us, golden walls of home,
Light of our eyes until the darkness falls;
Then thro' the outer darkness burdensome
I hear again the tender voice that calls,
'Follow me hither, follow, rise, and come.'
poem by Christina Georgina Rossetti
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Twilight and I Went Hand in Hand
Twilight and I went hand in hand,
As lovers walk in shining Mays,
O'er musky, memory-haunted ways,
Across a lonely harvest-land,
Where west winds chanted in the wheat
An old, old vesper wondrous sweet.
Oh, Twilight was a comrade rare
For gypsy heath or templed grove,
In her gray vesture, shadow-wove;
I saw the darkness of her hair
Faint-mirrored in a field-pool dim,
As we stood tip-toe on its rim.
We went as lightly as on wings
Through many a scented chamber fair,
Among the pines and balsams, where
I could have dreamed of darling things,
And ever as we went I knew
The peeping fairy folk went too.
I could have lingered now and then
By gates of moonrise that might lead
To some forgotten, spiceried mead,
Or in some mossy, cloistered glen,
Where silence, very still and deep,
Seemed fallen in enchanted sleep.
But Twilight ever led me on,
As lovers walk, until we came
To hills where sunset's shaken flame
Had paled to ashes dead and wan;
And there, with footsteps stolen-light
She left me to the lure of night.
poem by Lucy Maud Montgomery
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Love in Twilight
There is darkness behind the light -- and the pale light drips
Cold on vague shapes and figures, that, half-seen loom
Like the carven prows of proud, far-triumphing ships --
And the firelight wavers and changes about the room,
As the three logs crackle and burn with a small still sound;
Half-blotting with dark the deeper dark of her hair,
Where she lies, head pillowed on arm, and one hand curved round
To shield the white face and neck from the faint thin glare.
Gently she breathes -- and the long limbs lie at ease,
And the rise and fall of the young, slim, virginal breast
Is as certain-sweet as the march of slow wind through trees,
Or the great soft passage of clouds in a sky at rest.
I kneel, and our arms enlace, and we kiss long, long.
I am drowned in her as in sleep. There is no more pain.
Only the rustle of flames like a broken song
That rings half-heard through the dusty halls of the brain.
One shaking and fragile moment of ecstasy,
While the grey gloom flutters and beats like an owl above.
And I would not move or speak for the sea or the sky
Or the flame-bright wings of the miraculous Dove!
poem by Stephen Vincent Benet
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Recollection
Awawe-worn boulder, with green sea-moss wrapping
A silken mantle o'er its jagged sides;
And silvery, seething waters softly lapping
Through gulfs and channels hollow'd by the tides:
A lime-cliff overhead, o'erhanging grimly,
A dash of sunlight on its breast of snow;
The white line of the breakers, stretching dimly
Along the narrow sea-beach down below:
The grey waste of the waters, with one slender,
Glimmering, golden ripple far away;
The haze of summer twilight, sweet and tender,
Veiling the fair face of the dying day:
The measured plash of surf upon the shingle,
The ceaseless gurgle through the rocks and stones;
No sound of struggling human life, to mingle
With those mysterious and eternal tones!
No sound—no sound,—a hungry sea-mew only
Breaking the stillness with her little cry;
And the low whisper, when 'tis all so lonely,
Of soft south breezes as they wander by:—
I see it all; sweet dreams of it are thronging
In full floods back upon my weary brain;
To-night, in my dark chamber, the old longing
Almost fulfils its very self again.
The dying sunbeams, on the far waves glinting,
Come like warm kisses to my lips and brow,
Soothing my spirit—all its grey thoughts tinting
With tender shades of golden colour now.
Alone and still, I sit, and think, and listen,
Looking out westward o'er the darkening sea;
My seat the boulder, where the spray-drops glisten;
The tall, white cliffs my regal canopy.
And, as I sit, the fretting cares and sorrows,
Weighing so heavy when the work is done,
The gloomy yesterdays and dim to-morrows,
They slip away and vanish one by one,—
Slip backward to the world that lies behind me,
Ever by sinful footsteps overtrod;
And in this unstain'd world leave nought to bind me,
This sweet world, fillèd with the peace of God!
poem by Ada Cambridge
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The Dream Star
Whisper, O wings of the wind! Sing me your song, O sea!
Grey is the weary world, and grey is the heart of me!
Into my shadowy heart pierce like the star of old,
Pearl of the tender dawn, kissed by the trembling gold!
Sing me the hope made sure, sing me the heart made strong!
Give me the battle-fire, give me the bugle-song
Onward ever and on, O swift, green bird of the sun;
Ever a vaster goal for the goal that thy wings have won.
Keen with a tireless beat is the rush of thy wings that soar;
But keener, swifter than thee is the vision that flies before.
What though we die forgot and sad for the song unsung!
Fresh from her thousand deaths ever the world is young.
For, ever the dream-world floats, a light on a misty bar,
And ever the grey earth follows the wake of that pilot star;
Follows a spirit ship that bears o’er a spirit sea
Shadows of thoughts unborn, phantoms of destiny.
Silver the giant sails loom through the amber haze,
And ever the helmsman Hope steers for the halcyon days;
And ever the voices call, out of the golden light,
Into the dreamer’s heart, sad in the lonely night—
Call like the ring of steel and thrill as of bugles blown,
Splendours of days to be, flaming in skies unknown.
Deep in the eastern skies glimmers that phantom star;
Dim in the distance dies the surge of the world afar.
Ah, but like broken swords, scattered along the van,
Perish the outpost souls that fall in the march of Man!
Ah, but they die not so; out of their ashes then
Flowers of immortal Love spring in the hearts of men!
Wings of the swift green Earth, ever and ever young—
This is the whispered word the wind of the morning sung!
This is the rune I heard flung by the ocean old,
Pearl of the tender dawn, kissed by the trembling gold!
poem by George Essex Evans
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Legend of The Corrievrechan
Prince Breacan of Denmark was lord of the strand
And lord of the billowy sea;
Lord of the sea and lord of the land,
He might have let maidens be!
A maiden he met with locks of gold,
Straying beside the sea:
Maidens listened in days of old,
And repented grievously.
Wiser he left her in evil wiles,
Went sailing over the sea;
Came to the lord of the Western Isles:
Give me thy daughter, said he.
The lord of the Isles he laughed, and said:
Only a king of the sea
May think the Maid of the Isles to wed,
And such, men call not thee!
Hold thine own three nights and days
In yon whirlpool of the sea,
Or turn thy prow and go thy ways
And let the isle-maiden be.
Prince Breacan he turned his dragon prow
To Denmark over the sea:
Wise women, he said, now tell me how
In yon whirlpool to anchor me.
Make a cable of hemp and a cable of wool
And a cable of maidens' hair,
And hie thee back to the roaring pool
And anchor in safety there.
The smiths of Greydule, on the eve of Yule,
Will forge three anchors rare;
The hemp thou shalt pull, thou shalt shear the wool,
And the maidens will bring their hair.
Of the hair that is brown thou shalt twist one strand,
Of the hair that is raven another;
Of the golden hair thou shalt twine a band
To bind the one to the other!
The smiths of Greydule, on the eve of Yule,
They forged three anchors rare;
The hemp he did pull, and he shore the wool,
And the maidens brought their hair.
He twisted the brown hair for one strand,
The raven hair for another;
He twined the golden hair in a band
To bind the one to the other.
He took the cables of hemp and wool.
He took the cable of hair,
He hied him back to the roaring pool,
He cast the three anchors there.
The whirlpool roared, and the day went by,
And night came down on the sea;
But or ever the morning broke the sky
The hemp was broken in three.
The night it came down, the whirlpool it ran,
The wind it fiercely blew;
And or ever the second morning began
The wool it parted in two.
The storm it roared all day the third,
The whirlpool wallowed about,
The night came down like a wild black bird,
But the cable of hair held out.
Round and round with a giddy swing
Went the sea-king through the dark;
Round went the rope in the swivel-ring,
Round reeled the straining bark.
Prince Breacan he stood on his dragon prow,
A lantern in his hand:
Blest be the maidens of Denmark now,
By them shall Denmark stand!
He watched the rope through the tempest black
A lantern in his hold:
Out, out, alack! one strand will crack!
It is the strand of gold!
The third morn clear and calm came out:
No anchored ship was there!
The golden strand in the cable stout
Was not all of maidens' hair.
poem by George MacDonald
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Battle Sleep
SOMEWHERE, O sun, some corner there must be
Thou visitest, where down the strand
Quietly, still, the waves go out to sea
From the green fringes of a pastoral land.
Deep in the orchard-bloom the roof-trees stand,
The brown sheep graze along the bay,
And through the apple-boughs above the sand
The bees' hum sounds no fainter than the spray.
There through uncounted hours declines the day
To the low arch of twilight's close,
And, just as night about the moon grows gray,
One sail leans westward to the fading rose.
Giver of dreams, O thou with scatheless wing
Forever moving through the fiery hail,
To flame-seared lids the cooling vision bring,
And let some soul go seaward with that sail!
poem by Edith Wharton
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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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Near Avalon
A ship with shields before the sun,
Six maidens round the mast,
A red-gold crown on every one,
A green gown on the last.
The fluttering green banners there
Are wrought with ladies' heads most fair,
And a portraiture of Guenevere
The middle of each sail doth bear.
A ship with sails before the wind,
And round the helm six knights,
Their heaumes are on, whereby, half blind,
They pass by many sights.
The tatter'd scarlet banners there
Right soon will leave the spear-heads bare.
Those six knights sorrowfully bear
In all their heaumes some yellow hair.
poem by William Morris
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The mast Hangs Aft
The Mast hangs aft; we lower our Top-sails.
seeking a birth, aptly captain conns the ship
the vessel bears under the course, furls on trail,
we strike the flag, pull it down upon the cup;
The helm is 'hard a weather', we stow the hold,
the mizzen 's abaft, we gaze land in niep tides,
seaward to the land, course offing and bold.
ship rides a thwart, then betwixt wind and tide.
Ebony trees. Darkened vastness, we abreast,
quarter winds in favor, we lay the quoil on shore.
A whisper rides overset, cold spell's obverse,
sudden of darkness fell, time dissembled yore.
In mist we hear a hymn, icy cords of tensed lyre
numb we launch hoe, maids beseeched, beg;
unintelligibly, our minds freeze, at sound eerie;
accordment passive, and offing, fore to clegg.
They stare within, I shudder, a deaden bind,
deprived; my soul gripes, she smiles - her song,
my defense is veering, and I adore her grind,
I feel the sea's slow caress; forever I die along.
poem by Giorgio Veneto
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Candle At Twilight
Candle at twilight, on the grave
when ghosts on the wind, are sing
She sits on the tomb playing a violin
all brethren who gather are not heathen
Elizabeth the death
is the eternity of quest
Candle at twilight, in the heart of the night
this be the ballad of folk in ire
in the Hamlet, burn the bonfire
consecrated in the sear of King Lear
Witch on the dark side of the moon
this path I trudge along
and regal tall the omen will loom
Satan the possession is thy doom
these are all graves here eternal
each one is none of a mortal affair
far on the old hill
is Edward of the dead mill
eerie the cross of God! aghast
in the early morning mist
I saw her standing in a haze
through my broken tear gaze
She smiled like a fourteen year old
putting feathers in her cap, with a boy untold
old habits die hard, I said
She turned to a cold snob for a moment
I made my way again, under the same old moon
The evil witch in the loom
This room is a King size dormitory
King Arthur's cabin
on top of the world
poem by Gagan Ahuja
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Dead-Maid's-Pool
Oh water, water-water deep and still,
In this hollow of the hill,
Thou helenge well o'er which the long reeds lean,
Here a stream and there a stream,
And thou so still, between,
Thro' thy coloured dream,
Thro' the drownèd face
Of this lone leafy place,
Down, down, so deep and chill,
I see the pebbles gleam!
Ash-tree, ash-tree,
Bending o'er the well,
Why there thou bendest,
Kind hearts can tell.
'Tis that the pool is deep,
'Tis that-a single leap,
And the pool closes:
And in the solitude
Of this wild mountain wood,
None, none, would hear her cry,
From this bank where she stood
To that peak in the sky
Where the cloud dozes.
Ash-tree, ash-tree,
That art so sweet and good,
If any creeping thing
Among the summer games in the wild roses
Fall from its airy swing,
(While all its pigmy kind
Watch from some imminent rose-leaf half uncurled)-
I know thou hast it full in mind
(While yet the drowning minim lives,
And blots the shining water where it strives),
To touch it with a finger soft and kind,
As when the gentle sun, ere day is hot,
Feels for a little shadow in a grot,
And gives it to the shades behind the world.
And oh! if some poor fool
Should seek the fatal pool,
Thine arms-ah, yes! I know
For this thou watchest days, and months, and years,
For this dost bend beside
The lone and lorn well-side,
The guardian angel of the doom below,
Content if, once an age, thy helping hand
May lift repentant madness to the land:
Content to hear the cry
Of living love from lips that would have died:
To seem awhile endowed
With all thy limbs did save,
And in that voice they drew out of the grave,
To feel thy dumb desire for once released aloud,
And all thy muffled century
Repaid in one wild hour of sobs, and smiles, and tears.
Aye, aye, I envy thee,
Pitiful ash-tree!
Water, water-water deep and still,
In the hollow of the hill,
Water, water, well I wot,
Thro' the weary hours,
Well I wot thee lying there,
As fair as false, as false as fair.
The crows they fly o'er,
The small birds flit about,
The stream it ripples in, the stream it ripples out,
But what eye ever knew
A rinkle wimple thee?
And what eye shall see
A rinkle wimple thee
Evermore?
Thro' thy gauds and mocks,
All thy thin enchantment thro'-
The green delusion of thy bowers,
The cold flush of thy feignèd flowers,
All the treacherous state
Of fair things small and great,
That are and are not,
Well I wot thee shining there,
As fair as false, as false as fair.
Thro' the liquid rocks,
Thro' the watery trees,
Thro' the grass that never grew,
Thro' a face God never made,
Thro' the frequent gain and loss
Of the cold cold shine and shade,
Thro' the subtle fern and moss,
Thro' the humless, hiveless bees,
Round the ghosts of buds asleep,
Thro' the disembodied rose,
Waving, waving in the deep,
Where never wind blows,
I look down, and see far down,
In clear depths that do nothing hide,
Green in green, and brown in brown,
The long fish turn and glide!
Ash-tree, ash-tree,
Bending o'er the water-
Ash-tree, ash-tree,
Hadst thou a daughter?
Ash-tree, ash-tree, let me draw near,
Ash-tree, ash-tree, a word in thine ear!
Thou art wizen and white, ash-tree;
Other trees have gone on,
Have gathered and grown,
Have bourgeoned and borne:
Thou hast wasted and worn.
Thy knots are all eyes;
Every knot a dumb eye,
That has seen a sight
And heard a cry.
Thy leaves are dry:
The summer has not gone by,
But they're withered and dead,
Like locks round a head
That is bald with a secret sin,
That is scorched by a hell within.
Thy skin
Is withered and wan,
Like a guilty man:
It was thin,
Aye, silken and thin,
It is houghed
And ploughed,
Like a murderer's skin.
Thou hast no shoots nor wands,
All thy arms turn to the deep,
All thy twigs are crooked,
Twined and twisted,
Fingered and fisted,
Like one who had looked
On wringing hands
'Till his hands were wrung in his sleep.
Pardon my doubt of thee,
What is this
In the very groove
Of thy right arm?
There is not a snake
So yellow and red,
There is not a toad
So sappy and dread!
It doth not move,
It doth not hiss-
Ash-tree-for God's sake-
Hast thou known
What hath not been said
And the summer sun
Cannot keep it warm,
And the living wood
Cannot shut it down!
And it grows out of thee
And will be told,
Bloody as blood,
And yellow as gold!
Ash-tree, ash-tree,
That once wert so green!
Ash-tree, ash-tree!
What hast thou seen?
Was I a mother-nay or aye?
Am I childless-aye nor nay?
Ash-tree, ash-tree,
Bending o'er the water!
Ash-tree, ash-tree,
Give me my daughter!
Curse the water,
Curse thee,
Ash-tree,
Bending o'er the water!
Leaf on the tree,
Flower on the stem,
Curse thee,
And curse them!
Trunk and shoot,
Herb and weed,
Bud and fruit,
Blossom and seed,
Above and below,
About and about,
Inside and out,
Grown and to grow,
Curse you all,
Great and small,
That cannot give back my daughter!
But if there were any,
Among so many,
Any small thing that did lie sweet for her,
Any newt or marish-worm that, shrinking
Under the pillow of the water weed,
Left her a cleaner bed,
Any least leaves that fell with little plashes,
And sinking, sinking,
Sank soft and slow, and settled on her lashes,
And did what was so meet for her,
Them I do not curse.
See, see up the glen,
The evening sun agen!
It falls upon the water,
It falls upon the grass,
Thro' the birches, thro' the firs,
Thro' the alders, catching gold,
Thro' the bracken and the brier,
Goes the evening fire
To the bush-linnet's nest.
There between us and the west,
Dost thou see the angels pass?
Thro' the air, with streaming hair,
The golden angels pass?
Hold, hold! for mercy, hold!
I know thee! ah, I know thee!
I know thou wilt not pass me so-
The gray old woman is ready to go.
Call me to thee, call me to thee,
My daughter! oh, my daughter!
poem by Sydney Thompson Dobell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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To
AH, often do I wait and watch,
And look up, straining through the Real
With longing eyes, my friend, to catch
Faint glimpses of your white Ideal.
I know she loved to rest her feet
By slumbrous seas and hidden strand;
But mostly hints of her I meet
On moony spots of mountain land.
I’ve never reached her shining place,
And only cross at times a gleam;
As one might pass a fleeting face
Just on the outside of a Dream.
But you may climb, her happy Choice!
She knows your step, the maiden true,
And ever when she hears your voice,
She turns and sits and waits for you.
How sweet to rest on breezy crest
With such a Love, what time the Morn
Looks from his halls of rosy rest,
Across green miles of gleaming corn!
How sweet to find a leafy nook,
When bees are out, and Day burns mute,
Where you may hear a passion’d brook
Play past you, like a mellow flute!
Or, turning from the sunken sun,
On fields of dim delight to lie—
To close your eyes and muse upon
The twilight’s strange divinity!
Or through the Night’s mysterious noon,
While Sound lies hushed among the trees,
To sit and watch a mirror’d moon
Float over silver-sleeping seas!
Oh, vain regret! why should I stay
To think and dream of joys unknown?
You walk with her from day to day,
I faint afar off—and alone.
poem by Henry Kendall
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Introduction
‘Five windows light the cavern’d Man: thro’ one he breathes the air;
Thro’ one hears music of the spheres; thro’ on the eternal vine
Flourished, that he may receive the grapes; thro’ one can look
And see small portions of the eternal world that ever growth;
Thro’ one himself pass out what time he please, but he will not;
For stolen joys are sweet, & bread eaten in secret pleasant.’
So sang a Fairy mocking as he sat on a streak’d Tulip,
Thinking none saw him; when he ceas’d I started from the trees,
And caught him in my hat as boys knock down a butterfly.
‘How know you this,’ said I, ‘small Sir? where did you learn this song?’
seeing himself in my possession, thus he answer’d me:
‘My Master, I am yours; command me, for I must obey.’
‘Then tell me what is the material world, and is it dead?’
He laughing answer’d: ‘I will write a book on leaves of flowers,
If you will feed me on love-thoughts, & give me now and then
A cup of sparkling poetic fancies. So, when I am tipsie,
I’ll sing to you to this soft lute, and shew you all alive
The world, where every particle of dust breathes forth its joy.’
I took him home in my warm bosom. As we went along
Wild flowers I gather’d, & he shew’d me each eternal flower.
He laugh’d aloud to see them whimper because they were pluck’d.
They hover’d round me like a cloud of incense. When I came
Into my parlour and sat down, and took my pen to write,
My Fairy sat upon the table, and dictated ‘EUROPE.’
poem by William Blake from Europe a Prophecy (1794)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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For Those Who Do Not Understand
like birds on a new land
they have doubts whether to hop in or not
but the wings are tired
the claws are numb
and there is no choice
except to rub their feathers
against the cold wind
blink to reconsider
that after all
there is no other shadow of a land to see
and out there is the deeper horizon
gray then black then
empty
one bird decides to dive
fall on the water
and then
catch the first fish
of course the rest follow
and then
the community begins
to take shape
like any body like any ant
or sand
or mound of earth
or the first birth of the
whirl and the
twirl
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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