Asking Forgiveness

I did not say, "Yes, we had better part
Since love is over or must be suppressed."
I did not say, "I'll hold you in my heart
Saint-like, and in the thought of your thought rest,
And pray for you and wish you happiness
In a better love than mine."

I was another man to another woman,
Tears falling or burnt dry were nothing then.
I struck your heart, I struck your mind; inhuman,
Future and past I stabbed and stabbed again,
Cursing the very thought of your happiness
In another love than mine:

--Then left you sick to death, and I like death.
It was a broken body bore me away--
A broken mind--poisoned by my own breath,
And love self-poisoned.... Was it but yesterday?
--Forgive, forgive, forgive, forgive, forgive,
Forgive!

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 Call

John Frederick Freeman, Simple Poetry

The Native Country

John Frederick Freeman, Simple Poetry

English Hills

John Frederick Freeman, Simple Poetry

The Wakers

John Frederick Freeman, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

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Unpardoned

Gentle as the air that kisses
The splendid and ignoble with one breath,
Gentle as obliterating Death--
Though you be gentler yet,
In days when the old, old things begin to fret
The backward-looking consciousness,
Will you forget?
Or if remembering, will you forgive?

But there is one severer.
Stung by your forgivingness so great
Shall I forgive you then?--
Basest of men
Would rise in bitterness and sting again.
Not if you should forget
Could I forget:
Or if remembering, myself could I forgive?

Never! And yet such things have been,
And ills as dark forgiven or forgot.
But in those black hours when the heart burns hot
And there's no nerve that's not
Quick with the sense of things unheard, unseen--
A terrible voice that's mine ...

John Frederick Freeman

Forgiveness

My heart was heavy, for its trust had been
Abused, its kindness answered with foul wrong;
So, turning gloomily from my fellow-men,
One summer Sabbath day I strolled among
The green mounds of the village burial-place;
Where, pondering how all human love and hate
Find one sad level; and how, soon or late,
Wronged and wrongdoer, each with meekened face,
And cold hands folded over a still heart,
Pass the green threshold of our common grave,
Whither all footsteps tend, whence none depart,
Awed for myself, and pitying my race,
Our common sorrow, like a mighty wave,
Swept all my pride away, and trembling I forgave

John Greenleaf Whittier

Remorse.

None ever knew I had wronged her,
That secret she kept to the end.
None knew that our ties had been stronger,
Than such as should bind friend to friend.
Her beauty and innocence gave her
Such charms as are lavished on few;
And vain was my earnest endeavour
To resist, - though I strove to be true.

She had given her heart to my keeping, -
'Twas a treasure more precious than gold;
And I guarded it, waking or sleeping,
Lest a strange breath should make it grow cold.
And I longed to be tender, yet honest, -
Alas! loved, - where to love was a sin, -
And passion was deaf to the warning,
Of a still small voice crying within.

I feasted my eyes on her beauty, -
I ravished my ears with her voice, -
And I felt as her bosom rose softly,
That my h...

John Hartley

Forgive And Forget.

    I'll tell you the sweetest thing, dear heart,
    I'll tell you the sweetest thing -
    'Tis saying to one that we love: "Forgive
    The careless words and the sting;
    Forgive and forget, and be friends once more,
    For the world is an empty place
    Without the light of your warm, true eyes,
    And the smile of your tender face."

    O the kissing and making up again,
    And the tender whispering!
    I'll tell you the sweetest thing, dear heart,
    I'll tell you the sweetest thing.

    I'll tell you the saddest thing, dear heart,
    I'll tell you the saddest thing:
    'Tis coming to one that we love full well,
    Some tender message to bring.
    And loitering, loitering, by the way -
    Held back by a foolish pride -

Jean Blewett

You That Were

You that were
Half my life ere life was mine;
You that on my shape the sign
Set of yours;
You that my young lips did kiss
When your kiss summed up my bliss....
Ah, once more
You to kiss were all my bliss!

You whom I
Could forget--strange, could forget
Even for days (ah, now the fret
Of my grief!);
You who loved me though forgot;
Welcomed still, reproaching not....
Ah, that now
That forgetting were forgot!

You that now
On my shoulder as I go
Put your hand that wounds me so;
You that brush
Yet my lips with that one last
Kiss that bitters all things past....
How shall I
Yet endure that kiss the last?

You that are
Where the feet of my blind grief
Find you not, nor find relief;
You that are

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