Alone And Cold

Do not, O do not use me
As you have used others.
Better you did refuse me:
You have refused others.
Better, far better hope to banish
A small child than, grown old,
Hope should decay, his vigour vanish,
And I be left alone and
Cold, cold.

Ah, use no guile nor cunning
If you should even yet love me.
Hark, Time with Love is running,
Death cloud-like floats above me.
Love me with such simplicity
As children, frankly bold,
Do love with; oh, never pity me,
Though I be left alone and
Cold, cold.

John Frederick Freeman

John Frederick Freeman was a British poet, notable as a Georgian poet. He was born in London and worked initially as an office boy and later as a clerk before gaining recognition for his poetic works. Freeman primarily wrote about nature, identity, and the human condition. Over the course of his literary career, he published several books of poetry, and his works were praised for their sincerity and technical excellence. His notable collections include 'Presage of Victory' and 'Stone Trees.'

John Frederick Freeman

The Body

John Frederick Freeman, Simple Poetry

Prayer To My Lord

John Frederick Freeman, Simple Poetry

The Wren

John Frederick Freeman, Simple Poetry

Sailing Of The Glory

John Frederick Freeman, Simple Poetry

English

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The Thorn

The days of these two years like busy ants
Have gone, confused and happy and distressed,
Rich, yet sad with aching wants,
Crowded, yet lonely and unblessed.

I stare back as they vanish in a swarm,
Seeming how purposeless, how mean and vain,
Till creeping joy and brief alarm
Are gone and prick me not again.

The days are gone, yet still this heart of fire
Smouldering, smoulders on with ancient love;
And the red embers of desire
I would not, oh, nor dare remove!

Where is the bosom my head rested on,
The arms that caught my boy's head, the soft kiss?
Where is the light of your eyes gone?--
For now I know what darkness is....

It is the loneliness, the loneliness,
Since she that brought me here has left me here
With the sharp need o...

John Frederick Freeman

Loneliness

How green and strange the light is,
Creeping through the window.
Lying alone in bed,
How strange the night is!

How still and chill the air is.
It seems no sound could live
Here in my room
That now so bare is.

All bright and still the room is,
But easeless here am I.
Deep in my heart
Cold lonely gloom is!

John Frederick Freeman

Inevitable Change

Young as the Spring seemed life when she
Came from her silent East to me;
Unquiet as Autumn was my breast
When she declined into her West.

Such tender, such untroubling things
She taught me, daughter of all Springs;
Such dusty deathly lore I learned
When her last embers redly burned.

How should it hap (Love, canst thou say?)
Such end should be to so pure day?
Such shining chastity give place
To this annulling grave's disgrace?

Such hopes be quenched in this despair,
Grace chilled to granite everywhere?
How should--in vain I cry--how should
That be, alas, which only could!

John Frederick Freeman

No, Thank You, John

I never said I loved you, John:
    Why will you tease me day by day,
And wax a weariness to think upon
    With always 'do' and 'pray'?

You know I never loved you, John;
    No fault of mine made me your toast:
Why will you haunt me with a face as wan
    As shows an hour-old ghost?

I dare say Meg or Moll would take
    Pity upon you, if you'd ask:
And pray don't remain single for my sake
    Who can't perform that task.

I have no heart?--Perhaps I have not;
    But then you're mad to take offence
That I don't give you what I have not got:
    Use your own common sense.

Let bygones be bygones:
    Don't call me false, who owed not to be true:
I'd rather answer 'No' to fifty Johns
    Than answer 'Yes' to you.

...

Christina Georgina Rossetti

First Love

I


"No, no! Leave me not in this dark hour,"
She cried. And I,
"Thou foolish dear, but call not dark this hour;
What night doth lour?"
And nought did she reply,
But in her eye
The clamorous trouble spoke, and then was still.

O that I heard her once more speak,
Or even with troubled eye
Teach me her fear, that I might seek
Poppies for misery.
The hour was dark, although I knew it not,
But when the livid dawn broke then I knew,
How while I slept the dense night through
Treachery's worm her fainting fealty slew.

O that I heard her once more speak
As then--so weak--
"No, no! Leave me not in this dark hour."
That I might answer her,
"Love, be at rest, for nothing now shall stir
Thy heart, but my heart beating there."<...

John Frederick Freeman

Perversities I

I


Now come,
And I that moment will forget you.
Sit here
And in your eyes I shall not see you.
Speak, speak
That I no more may hear your music.
Into my arms,
Till I've forgotten I ever met you.

I shall not have you when I hold you
Body to body,
Though your firm flesh, though your strong fingers
Be knit to these.
On a wild hill I shall be chasing
The thought of you;
False will be those true things I told you:
I shall forget you.

No, do not come.
Where the wind hunts, there shall I find you.
In cool gray cloud
Where the sun slips through I shall see you,
Or where the trees
Are silenced, and darken in their branches.
Your coming would
Loosen, when my thought still would bind you.

Against my...

John Frederick Freeman