Dai Butsu. {70}

He sits. Upon the kingly head doth rest
    The round-balled wimple, and the heavy rings
    Touch on the shoulders where the shadow clings.
The downward garment shows the ambiguous breast;
The face - that face one scarce can look on lest
    One learn the secret of unspeakable things;
    But the dread gaze descends with shudderings,
To the veiled couched knees, the hands and thumbs close-pressed.
O lidded, downcast eyes that bear the weight
    Of all our woes and terrible wrong's increase:
    Proud nostrils, lips proud-perfecter than these,
With what a soul within you do you wait!
Disdain and pity, love late-born of hate,
    Passion eternal, patience, pain and peace!

Francis William Lauderdale Adams

Francis William Lauderdale Adams (27 September 1862 – 4 September 1893) was an English writer, poet, dramatist, and social reformer. His literary work often reflected his radical socialist views. Adams lived a life marred by poverty and struggles with his health, eventually committing suicide at the age of 30. Despite his brief life, his contributions to literature and social thought remain significant.

Francis William Lauderdale Adams

A Glimpse Of China. In A Sampan.

Francis William Lauderdale Adams, Simple Poetry

To The Emperor William.

Francis William Lauderdale Adams, Simple Poetry

Art.

Francis William Lauderdale Adams, Simple Poetry

To John Ruskin. (After Reading His "Modern Painters.")

Francis William Lauderdale Adams, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

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Aux Ternes. {46} (Paris.)

SHE. - "Up and down, up and down,
            From early eve to early day.
        Life is quicker in the town;
            When you've leisure, anyway!

        "Down and up, down and up!
            O will no one stop and speak?
        I would really like to sup,
            And my limbs are heavy and weak.

        "What's my price, sir? I'm no Jew.
            If with me you wish to sleep,
        'Tis five francs, sir. Surely you
            Will admit that that is cheap?"

HE. - "Christ, if you are not stone blind,
        Stone deaf also, you know it is
    Christian towns leave far behind
        Sodom and thos...

Francis William Lauderdale Adams

Epode. "On The Ranges, Queensland."

Beyond the night, down o'er the labouring East,
I see light's harbinger of dawn released:
Upon the false gleam of the ante-dawn,
Lo, the fair heaven of day-pursuing morn!

Beyond the lampless sleep and perishing death
That hold my heart, I feel my new life's breath,
I see the face my spirit-shape shall have
When this frail clay and dust have fled the grave.

Beyond the night, the death of doubt, defeat,
Rise dawn and morn, and life with light doth meet,
For the great Cause, too, - sure as the sun yon ray
Shoots up to strike the threatening clouds and say;
"I come, and with me comes the victorious Day!"

                            * * * * *

When I was young, the muse I wors...

Francis William Lauderdale Adams

Recollection Of The Portrait Of King Henry Eighth, Trinity Lodge, Cambridge

The imperial Stature, the colossal stride,
Are yet before me; yet do I behold
The broad full visage, chest of amplest mould,
The vestments 'broidered with barbaric pride:
And lo! a poniard, at the Monarch's side,
Hangs ready to be grasped in sympathy
With the keen threatenings of that fulgent eye,
Below the white-rimmed bonnet, far-descried,
Who trembles now at thy capricious mood?
'Mid those surrounding Worthies, haughty King,
We rather think, with grateful mind sedate,
How Providence educeth, from the spring
Of lawless will, unlooked-for streams of good,
Which neither force shall check nor time abate!

William Wordsworth

Dirge. (Brisbane.) "A Little Soldier Of The Army Of The Night."

Bury him without a word!
    No appeal to death;
Only the call of the bird
    And the blind spring's breath.

Nature slays ten, yet the one
    Reaches but to a part
Of what's to be done, to be sung.
    Keep we a proud heart!

Let us not glose her waste
    With lies and dreams;
Fawn on her wanton haste,
    Say it but seems.

Comrades, with faces unstirred,
    Scorning grief's dole,
Though with him, with him lies interred
    Our heart and soul,

Bury him without a word!
    No appeal to death;
Only the call of the bird
    And the blind spring's breath.

Francis William Lauderdale Adams

Algernon Charles Swinburne.

Shrieks out of smoke, a flame of dung-straw fire
    That is not quenched but hath for only fruit
    What writhes and dies not in its rotten root:
Two things made flesh, the visible desire
To match in filth the skunk, the ape in ire, {87a}
    Mouthing before the mirrors with wild foot
    Beyond all feebler footprint of pursuit,
The perfect twanger of the Chinese lyre!
A heart with generous virtues run to seed
In vices making all a jumbled creed:
    A soul that knows not love nor trust nor shame,
But cuts itself with knives to bawl and bleed -
    If thou we've known of late, art still the same,
    What need, O soul, to sign thee with thy name?

Once on thy lips the golden-honeyed bees
    Settling made sweet the heart that was not strong,
    And sky...

Francis William Lauderdale Adams

The Infanticide.

Hark where the bells toll, chiming, dull and steady,
The clock's slow hand hath reached the appointed time.
Well, be it so prepare, my soul is ready,
Companions of the grave the rest for crime!
Now take, O world! my last farewell receiving
My parting kisses in these tears they dwell!
Sweet are thy poisons while we taste believing,
Now we are quits heart-poisoner, fare-thee-well!

Farewell, ye suns that once to joy invited,
Changed for the mould beneath the funeral shade;
Farewell, farewell, thou rosy time delighted,
Luring to soft desire the careless maid,
Pale gossamers of gold, farewell, sweet dreaming
Fancies the children that an Eden bore!
Blossoms that died while dawn itself was gleaming,
Opening in happy sunlight never more.

Swanlike the robe ...

Friedrich Schiller