A Face In A Book

In an old book I found her face
    Writ by a dead man long ago -
I found, and then I lost the place;
    So nothing but her face I know,
    And her soft name writ fair below.

Even if she lived I cannot learn,
    Or but a dead man's dream she were;
Page after yellow page I turn,
    But cannot come again to her,
    Although I know she must be there.

On other books of other men,
    Far in the night, year-long, I pore,
Hoping to find her face again,
    Too fair a face to see no more -
    And 'twas so soft a name she bore.

Sometimes I think the book was Youth,
    And the dead man that wrote it I,
The face was Beauty, the name Truth -
    And thus, with an unseeing eye,
    I pass the long-sought image by.

Richard Le Gallienne

Richard Le Gallienne was an English author and poet born on January 20, 1866. Known for his lyrical poetry, he was a key figure in the literary circles of the fin de siècle. He contributed to the literary magazine 'The Yellow Book' and was involved with the Rhymers' Club, an influential group of London-based poets. His works often explored themes of beauty, love, and nature. His influence extended to both sides of the Atlantic, and he spent the latter part of his life in the United States, where he continued to write until his death on September 15, 1947.

Richard Le Gallienne

Death In A London Lodging

Richard Le Gallienne, Simple Poetry

To A Poet - (To Edmund Gosse)

Richard Le Gallienne, Simple Poetry

Love's Arithmetic

Richard Le Gallienne, Simple Poetry

The Second Crucifixion

Richard Le Gallienne, Simple Poetry

English

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Face In The Tomb That Lies So Still

Face in the tomb, that lies so still,
    May I draw near,
And watch your sleep and love you,
    Without word or tear.

You smile, your eyelids flicker;
    Shall I tell
How the world goes that lost you?
    Shall I tell?

Ah! love, lift not your eyelids;
    'Tis the same
Old story that we laughed at, -
    Still the same.

We knew it, you and I,
    We knew it all:
Still is the small the great,
    The great the small;

Still the cold lie quenches
    The flaming truth,
And still embattled age
    Wars against youth.

Yet I believe still in the ever-living God
    That fills your grave with perfume,
Writing your name in violets across the sod,
    Shielding your holy face from hail and snow;
 ...

Richard Le Gallienne

Ballade Of The Dead Face That Never Dies

The peril of fair faces all his days
No man shall 'scape: be it for joy or woe,
Each is the thrall of some predestined face
Divinely doomed to work his overthrow,
Transiently fair, as flowers in gardens blow,
Then fade, and charm no more our listless eyes;
But some fair faces ever fairer grow -
Beware of the dead face that never dies.

No snare young beauty for thy manhood lays,
No honeyed kiss the girls of Paphos know,
Shall hold thee as the silent smiling ways
Of her that went - yet only seemed to go -
With April blossoms and with last year's snow;
Each year she comes again in subtler guise,
And beckons us to her green bed below -
Beware of the dead face that never dies.

The living fade before her lunar gaze,
Her phantom youth their ruddy vei...

Richard Le Gallienne

Time, Beauty's Friend

"Is she still beautiful?" I asked of one
    Who of the unforgotten faces told
That for long years I had not looked upon -
    "Beautiful still - but she is growing old";
And for a space I sorrowed, thinking on
    That face of April gold.

Then up the summer night the moon arose,
    Glassing her sacred beauty in the sea,
That ever at her feet in silver flows;
    And with her rising came a thought to me -
How ever old and ever young she grows,
    And still more lovely she.

Thereat I smiled, thinking on lovely things
    That dateless and immortal beauty wear,
Whereof the song immortal tireless sings,
    And Time but touches to make lovelier;
On Beauty sempiternal as the Spring's -
    So old are all things fair.

Then for that fac...

Richard Le Gallienne

Her Portrait Immortal

Must I believe this beauty wholly gone
    That in her picture here so deathless seems,
And must I henceforth speak of her as one
    Tells of some face of legend or of dreams,
Still here and there remembered - scarce believed,
Or held the fancy of a heart bereaved.

So beautiful she - was; ah! "was," say I,
    Yet doubt her dead - I did not see her die.
Only by others borne across the sea
Came the incredible wild blasphemy
They called her death - as though it could be true
Of such an immortality as you!

True of these eyes that from her picture gaze,
    Serene, star-steadfast, as the heaven's own eyes;
Of that deep bosom, white as hawthorn sprays,
    Where my world-weary head forever lies;
True of these quiet hands, so marble-cool,
Still on ...

Richard Le Gallienne

Spring In The Paris Catacombs

I saw strange bones to-day in Paris town,
Deep in the quarried dark, while over-head
The roar of glad and busy things went by -
Over our heads -
So many heads -
Deep down, deep down -
Those strange old bones deep down in Paris town:
Heads where no longer dwell -
Yet who shall tell! -
Such thoughts as those
That make a rose
Of a maid's cheek,

Filling it with such bloom -
All fearless of the unsuspected doom -
As flood wild April with such hushing breath
That Death himself believes no more in Death.

Yea! I went down
Out of the chestnuts and the girl-filled town,
Only a yard or two beneath the street,
Haunted a little while by little feet,
Going, did they but know, the self-same way
As all those bones as white as the white May...

Richard Le Gallienne

A Boy's Virgil.

Dust on the page, from these forgetful years!
I brush it off, to see the fading date
Written in boyish hand; to find through tears
The lad's dear name, inscribed with all the state
Of the first day's possession; and to read
Along the tell-tale margin, scribbled thick.
Here is the note, 'twas writ with guilty speed
And here the sketch, with guilty pencil quick;
And here's a picture! Was she ever so?
Were these her curls and this her merry look
Who lieth in her old green grave as low
As he is lying? Ah, this faded book!
I think not of the bold and storied wrong
Done for a woman's fairness, nor of strong
And god-like heroes, nor of beauteous youth
In game and battle, but, with heart of ruth,
About this boy, who laughed and played and read
So carelessly! Ah, ...

Margaret Steele Anderson