Absence

I visited the place where we last met.
Nothing was changed, the gardens were well-tended,
The fountains sprayed their usual steady jet;
There was no sign that anything had ended
And nothing to instruct me to forget.

The thoughtless birds that shook out of the trees,
Singing an ecstasy I could not share,
Played cunning in my thoughts. Surely in these
Pleasures there could not be a pain to bear
Or any discord shake the level breeze.

It was because the place was just the same
That made your absence seem a savage force,
For under all the gentleness there came
An earthquake tremor: Fountain, birds and grass
Were shaken by my thinking of your name.

Elizabeth Jennings

Elizabeth Jennings was an English poet known for her lyric poetry and precision. She was part of the Movement, a group of British poets in the mid-20th century who championed a return to traditional verse forms and a clear, accessible style. Her work often explored themes of love, religion, and mental illness. Jennings' poetry was deeply personal and introspective, earning her both critical acclaim and a devoted readership. She also worked as a librarian and editor during her career.

Elizabeth Jennings

A Chorus

Elizabeth Jennings, Simple Poetry

The Enemies

Elizabeth Jennings, Simple Poetry

In Memory Of Anyone Unknown To Me

Elizabeth Jennings, Simple Poetry

Answers

Elizabeth Jennings, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

Absence

HERE, ever since you went abroad,
If there be change no change I see:
I only walk our wonted road,
The road is only walk'd by me.

Yes; I forgot; a change there is,
Was it of that you bade me tell?
I catch at times, at times I miss
The sight, the tone, I know so well.

Only two months since you stood here?
Two shortest months? Then tell me why
Voices are harsher than they were,
And tears are longer ere they dry.

Walter Savage Landor

Absence

When she had left us but a little while
Methought I sensed her spirit here and there
About my house: upon the empty stair
Her robe brusht softly; o'er her chamber still
There lay her fragrant presence to beguile
Numb heart, dead heart. I knelt before her chair,
And praying felt her hand laid on my hair,
Felt her sweet breath, and guess'd her wistful smile.

Then thro' my tears I lookt about the room,
But she was gone. I heard my heart beat fast;
The street was silent; I could not see her now.
Sorrow and I took up our load, and past
To where our station was with heads bent low,
And autumn's death-moan shiver'd thro' the gloom.

Maurice Henry Hewlett

In A Garden

When the gardener has gone this garden
Looks wistful and seems waiting an event.
It is so spruce, a metaphor of Eden
And even more so since the gardener went,

Quietly godlike, but of course, he had
Not made me promise anything and I
Had no one tempting me to make the bad
Choice. Yet I still felt lost and wonder why.

Even the beech tree from next door which shares
Its shadow with me, seemed a kind of threat.
Everything was too neat, and someone cares

In the wrong way. I need not have stood long
Mocked by the smell of a mown lawn, and yet
I did. Sickness for Eden was so strong.

Elizabeth Jennings

The Vacant Day

As I did walk in meadows green
I heard the summer noon resound
With call of myriad things unseen
That leapt and crept upon the ground.

High overhead the windless air
Throbbed with the homesick coursing cry
Of swallows that did everywhere
Wake echo in the sky.

Beside me, too, clear waters coursed
Which willow branches, lapsing low,
Breaking their crystal gliding forced
To sing as they did flow.

I listened; and my heart was dumb
With praise no language could express;
Longing in vain for him to come
Who had breathed such blessedness

On this fair world, wherein we pass
So chequered and so brief a stay;
And yearned in spirit to learn, alas,
What kept him still away.

Walter De La Mare

Absence

How shall I cheat the heavy hours, of thee
Deprived, of thy kind looks and converse sweet,
Now that the waving grove the dark storms beat,
And wintry winds sad sounding o'er the lea,^[1]
Scatter the sallow leaf! I would believe,
Thou, at this hour, with tearful tenderness
Dost muse on absent images, and press
In thought my hand, and say: Oh do not grieve,
Friend of my heart! at wayward fortune's power;
One day we shall be happy, and each hour
Of pain forget, cheered by the summer ray.
These thoughts beguile my sorrow for thy loss,
And, as the aged pines their dark heads toss,
Oft steal the sense of solitude away.
So am I sadly soothed, yet do I cast
A wishful glance upon the seasons past,
And think how different was the happy tide,
When thou, wi...

William Lisle Bowles

Absence

There is strange music in the stirring wind,
When lowers the autumnal eve, and all alone
To the dark wood's cold covert thou art gone,
Whose ancient trees on the rough slope reclined
Rock, and at times scatter their tresses sere.
If in such shades, beneath their murmuring,
Thou late hast passed the happier hours of spring,
With sadness thou wilt mark the fading year;
Chiefly if one, with whom such sweets at morn
Or evening thou hast shared, afar shall stray.
O Spring, return! return, auspicious May!
But sad will be thy coming, and forlorn,
If she return not with thy cheering ray,
Who from these shades is gone, far, far away.

William Lisle Bowles