Disillusion

    I wrote the burning words to you
    That meant so much to me.
    I sent them speeding straight to you,
    To you across the sea;
    I waited with sure reckoning
    For your reply to me.

    I waited, and the counted day
    Fruitlessly came and went;
    I made excuse for the delay,
    Pitiable confident.
    I knew to-morrow's light must bring
    The words you must have sent.

    And still I stand on that dim verge
    And look across the sea;
    The waves have changed into a dirge
    Their volubility.
    And in my disillusioned heart
    Is a little grave for me.

    But still with shaded eyes I gaze
    As mournfully I sing,
    And one by one the trailing days,
    As they no message bring,
    Fall with their slow monotony
    As beads fall from a string.

Victoria Mary Sackville-West

Victoria Mary Sackville-West, commonly known as Vita Sackville-West, was an English author and poet, renowned for her prolific writing and her association with the Bloomsbury Group. She achieved great success with her novels and significant acclaim for her poetry, particularly in the early 20th century. In addition to her literary pursuits, Sackville-West was also known for her creation of the gardens at Sissinghurst Castle, which remain celebrated to this day.

Victoria Mary Sackville-West

Constantinople - The Muezzin

Victoria Mary Sackville-West, Simple Poetry

Bitterness

Victoria Mary Sackville-West, Simple Poetry

Morning In Constantinople

Victoria Mary Sackville-West, Simple Poetry

The Dancing Elf*

Victoria Mary Sackville-West, 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.

For ***

    No eyes shall see the poems that I write
    For you; not even yours; but after long
    Forgetful years have passed on our delight
    Some hand may chance upon a dusty song

    Of those fond days when every spoken word
    Was sweet, and all the fleeting things unspoken
    Yet sweeter, and the music half unheard
    Murmured through forests as a charm unbroken.

    It is the plain and ordinary page
    Of two who loved, sole-spirited and clear.
    Will you, O stranger of another age,
    Not grant a human and compassionate tear
    To us, who each the other held so dear?
    A single tear fraternal, sadly shed,
    Since that which was so living, is so dead.

Victoria Mary Sackville-West

Disillusion

For some forty years, and over,
Poets had with me their way;
And they made me think that Sorrow
Owned the Night and owned the Day;
And the corpse beneath the clover
Had a hopeful word to say.

And they made me think that Sorrow
Was the Shadow in the Sun;
And they made me think To-morrow
Was a gift to everyone:
And the days I used to borrow,
Till my credit now is done.

And they told me softly, sweetly,
That, when Life had lost its glee,
I could be consoled completely

By the Forest or the Sea;
And they wrote their rhymes so neatly
That they quite deluded me.

But when Sorrow is at sorest,
And the heart weeps silently,
Is there healing in the Forest?
Is there solace in the Sea?
And the God whom thou adorest

Victor James Daley

Through Time And Bitter Distance"[1]

Unknown to you, I walk the cheerless shore.
    The cutting blast, the hurl of biting brine
May freeze, and still, and bind the waves at war,
    Ere you will ever know, O! Heart of mine,
That I have sought, reflected in the blue
    Of these sea depths, some shadow of your eyes;
Have hoped the laughing waves would sing of you,
    But this is all my starving sight descries -

I

Far out at sea a sail
    Bends to the freshening breeze,
Yields to the rising gale
    That sweeps the seas;

II

Yields, as a bird wind-tossed,
    To saltish waves that fling
Their spray, whose rime and frost
    Like crystals cling

III

To canvas, mast and spar,
    Till, gleaming like a gem,
She sinks beyond the far
   ...

Emily Pauline Johnson

Constantinople - Retour En Songe

    After a dream-dim voyage
    We came with sails all set
    Towards the city of the sea,
    And it was wonderful to me
    To find her reigning yet.

    Oh beauty that my eyes and heart
    Had feasted on before!
    The evening mosques were brushed with gold,
    The water lapped a lazy fold
    Upon that lovely shore;

    The gardens of her terraced hills
    Rose up above the port,
    And little houses half concealed
    The presence of a light revealed,
    And here my journey's end was sealed,
    And I reached the home I sought.

    Those windows I had opened wide
    To welcome in the sun!
    Those stairs that only happy feet
    Had measured with their running beat!
    That well-remembered winding street!

Victoria Mary Sackville-West

To A Poet Whose Verses I Had Read

    I would not venture to dispraise or praise.
    Too well I know the indifference which bounds
    A poet in the narrow working-grounds
    Where he is blind and deaf in all his ways.

    He must work out alone his path to glory;
    A thousand breaths are fanning him along;
    A thousand tears end in one little song,
    A thousand conflicts in one little story;

    A thousand notes swell to a single chord.
    He cannot tell where his direction tends;
    He strives unguided towards indefinite ends;
    He is an ignorant though absolute lord.

Victoria Mary Sackville-West

Fragment III - Years After

Fade off the ridges, rosy light,
Fade slowly from the last gray height,
And leave no gloomy cloud to grieve
The heart of this enchanted eve!

All things beneath the still sky seem
Bound by the spell of a sweet dream;
In the dusk forest, dreamingly,
Droops slowly down each plumèd head;
The river flowing softly by
Dreams of the sea; the quiet sea
Dreams of the unseen stars; and I
Am dreaming of the dreamless dead.

The river has a silken sheen,
But red rays of the sunset stain
Its pictures, from the steep shore caught,
Till shades of rock, and fern, and tree
Glow like the figures on a pane
Of some old church by twilight seen,
Or like the rich devices wrought
In mediaeval tapestry.

All lonely in a drifting boat
Through shi...

Victor James Daley