Amavimus, Amamus, Amabimus

Persephone, Persephone!
Still I fancy I can see
Thee amid the daffodils.
Golden wealth thy basket fills;
Golden blossoms at thy breast;
Golden hair that shames the West;
Golden sunlight round thy head!
Ah! the golden years have fled;
Thee have reft, and me have left
Here alone, thy loss to mourn.

Persephone, Persephone!
Still I fancy I can see
Her, as white and still she lies:
Death has woo'd and won his prize.
White the blossoms at her breast;
White and still her face at rest;
White the moonbeams round her head.
Ah! the wintry years have fled;
Comfort lent and patience sent,
And my grief is easier borne.

Persephone, Persephone!
Still in dreams thou com'st to me;
Every night art at my side,
Half my bride, and half Death's bride!
Golden blossoms at thy breast;
Golden hair that shames the West;
Golden sunlight circling thee!
Half of gold the lone years flee:
Night is glad, though day is sad,
Till I go where thou art gone.

Arthur Shearly Cripps

Arthur Shearly Cripps was an English Anglican priest, missionary, and poet who spent most of his life in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). He is known for his works that reflect his deep compassion for the indigenous people and his opposition to colonial injustices. Cripps wrote extensively about the land and people of Zimbabwe, capturing the struggles and resilience of the African people during colonial rule. Apart from his poetry, he also authored several novels and short stories.

Arthur Shearly Cripps

Undines Of Diverse Days

Arthur Shearly Cripps, Simple Poetry

The Seasons' Comfort

Arthur Shearly Cripps, 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.

Persephone.

(Written for THE PORTFOLIO SOCIETY, January, 1862.

Subject given - "Light and Shade.")


She stepped upon Sicilian grass,
Demeter's daughter fresh and fair,
A child of light, a radiant lass,
And gamesome as the morning air.
The daffodils were fair to see,
They nodded lightly on the lea,
Persephone - Persephone!

Lo! one she marked of rarer growth
Than orchis or anemone;
For it the maiden left them both,
And parted from her company.
Drawn nigh she deemed it fairer still,
And stooped to gather by the rill
The daffodil, the daffodil.

What ailed the meadow that it shook?
What ailed the air of Sicily?
She wondered by the brattling brook,
And trembled with the trembling lea.
"The coal-black horses rise - they rise:

Jean Ingelow

Winter - The Fourth Pastoral, Or Daphne

Lycidas

Thyrsis, the music of that murm'ring spring,
Is not so mournful as the strains you sing.
Nor rivers winding thro' the vales below,
So sweetly warble, or so smoothly flow.
Now sleeping flocks on their soft fleeces lie,
The moon, serene in glory, mounts the sky,
Wile silent birds forget their tuneful lays,
Oh sing of Daphne's fate, and Daphne's praise!

Thyrsis

Behold the groves that shine with silver frost,
Their beauty wither'd, and their verdure lost.
Here shall I try the sweet Alexis' strain,
That call'd the list'ning Dryads to the plain?
Thames heard the numbers as he flow'd along,
And bade his willows learn the moving song.

Lycidas

So may kind rains their vital moisture yield,
And swell the future harvest of t...

Alexander Pope

Demeter.

Demeter sad! the wells of sorrow lay
Eternal gushing in thy lonely path.

Methinks I see her now - an awful shape
Tall o'er a dragon team in frenzied search
From Argive plains unto the jeweled shores
Of the remotest Ind, where Usha's hand
Tinged her grief-cloven brow with kindly touch,
And Savitar wheeled genial thro' the skies
O'er palmy regions of the faneless Brahm.

In melancholy search I see her roam
O'er the steep peaks of Himalayas keen
With the unmellowed frosts of Boreal storms,
Then back again with that wild mother woe
Writ in the anguished fire of her eyes, -
Back where old Atlas groans 'neath weight of worlds,
And the Cimmerian twilight glooms the soul.
Deep was her sleep in Persia's haunted vales,
Where many a languid Philomela moan...

Madison Julius Cawein

Persephone.

O Hades! O false gods! false to yourselves!
O Hades, 'twas thy brother gave her thee
Without a mother's sanction or her knowledge!
He bare her to the horrid gulfs below,
And made her queen, a shadowy queen of shades,
Queen of the fiery flood and mournful realms
Of grating iron and the clank of chains.

On blossomed plains in far Trinacria
A maiden, the dark cascade of whose hair
Seemed gleaming rays of midnight 'mid the stars,
Rays slowly bright'ning 'neath a mellow moon,
She 'mid the flowers with the Oceanids
Sought Echo's passion, loved Narcissus pale,
'Ghast staring in the mirror of a lake,
Whose smoothness brake his image, flickering seen,
E'en with the fast tears of his dewy eyes.
A shape there rose with iron wain and steeds
'Mid sallow fume of ...

Madison Julius Cawein

To Miss ---

Time beckons on the hours: the expiring year
    Already feels old Winter's icy breath;
As with cold hands, he scatters on her bier
    The faded glories of her Autumn wreath.
As fleetly as the Summer's sunshine past,
    The Winter's snow must melt; and the young Spring,
Strewing the earth with flowers, will come at last,
    And in her train the hour of parting bring.
But, though I leave the harbour, where my heart
    Sometime had found a peaceful resting-place,
Where it lay calmly moored; though I depart,
    Yet, let not time my memory quite efface.
'Tis true, I leave no void, the happy home
    To which you welcomed me, will be as gay,
As bright, as cheerful, when I've turned to roam,
    Once more, upon life's weary onward way.
But oh! if ever by the wa...

Frances Anne Kemble

Ode To A Nightingale

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:
Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thine happiness,
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been
Coold a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provenial song, and sunburnt mirth!
O for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stained mouth;
That I might drink, and leav...

John Keats