From the Midst of the Fire

From the midst of the fire I fling
These arrows of fire to you:
If they sing, and burn, and sting,
You feel how I burn too;
But if they reach you there
Speed-spent, charred black and cold,
The fire burns out in the air,
The Passion will not be told.

James Thomson

No biography available

James Thomson

Two Sonnets

James Thomson, Simple Poetry

Two Lovers

James Thomson, Simple Poetry

Suggested by Matthew Arnold's Stanzas - Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse

James Thomson, Simple Poetry

For I Must Sing of All I Feel and Know

James Thomson, 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.

The Fire That Filled My Heart of Old

The fire that filled my heart of old
Gave luster while it burned;
Now only ashes gray and cold
Are in its silence urned.
Ah! better was the furious flame,
The splendor with the smart;
I never cared for the singer's fame
But, oh! for the singer's heart
Once more--
The burning fulgent heart!

No love, no hate, no hope, no fear,
No anguish and no mirth;
Thus life extends from year to year,
A flat of sullen dearth.
Ah! life's blood creepeth cold and tame,
Life's thought plays no new part;
I never cared for the singer's fame,
But, oh! for the singer's heart
Once more--
The bleeding passionate heart!

James Thomson

But Most Thy Light

I know how fire burns,
How from the wrangling fumes
Rose and amber blooms,
And slowly dies.

Nothing's so swift as fire,
There's nothing alive so fierce.
The lifted lances pierce,
Sink, and upspring.

Like an Indian sword it leaps
Out of the smoking sheath.
Even the winged feet of death
Learn speed from fire;

And pain its cunning learns;
Languor its sweet
From the decaying heat
That never dies.

I know how fire burns
Unguessed, save for tears,
When the thousand-fanged flame spears
The body's guard;

Or when the mind, the mind
Is ever-glowing wood,
And fire runs in the blood
Lunatic, blind;

When remorse burns and burns
And burns always, always--
The fire that surest slays
Or ...

John Frederick Freeman

Mater Tenebrarum

In the endless nights, from my bed, where sleepless in anguish I lie,
I startle the stillness and gloom with a bitter and strong cry:
0 Love! 0 Beloved long lost! come down from thy Heaven above,
For my heart is wasting and dying in uttermost famine for love!

Come down for a moment! oh, come! Come serious and mild
And pale, as thou wert on this earth, thou adorable Child!
Or come as thou art, with thy sanctitude, triumph and bliss,
For a garment of glory about thee; and give me one kiss,
One tender and pitying look of thy tenderest eyes,
One word of solemn assurance and truth that
the soul with its love never dies!

In the endless nights, from my bed, where sleepless in frenzy I lie,
I cleave through the crushing gloom with a bitter and deadly cry:
Oh! where have ...

James Thomson

The Dark Fire

Love me not less
Yet ease me of this fever,
That in my wondering heart
Burns, sinks, burns again ever.

Is it your love
In me so fiercely burning,
Or my love leaping to you
Then requickened returning?

Come not to me,
Bring not your body nearer,
Though you overleapt the miles
I could not behold you clearer.

I could not clasp you
Than in my thought more surely;
Breast to breast, heart to heart
Might cling no more securely.

I do not know you,
Seeing you, more than unseeing.
What you are that you are
Here in my spiritual being.

Leave me you cannot,
Nor can I remove me
From the sevenfold dark fire
You have lit here since you love me.

Yet love unsure
No wilder could be burning.
Come...

John Frederick Freeman

Through Foulest Fogs

Through foulest fogs of my own sluggish soul,
Through midnight glooms of all the wide world's guilt,
Through sulphurous cannon-clouds that surge and roll
Above the steam of blood in anger spilt;
Through all the sombre earth-oppressing piles
Of old cathedral temples which expand
Sepulchral vaults and monumental aisles,
Hopeless and freezing in the lifeful land;
I gaze and seek with ever-longing eyes
For God, the Love-Supreme, all-wise, all-good:
Alas! in vain; for over all the skies
A dark and awful shadow seems to brood,
A numbing, infinite, eternal gloom:
I tremble in the consciousness of Doom.

James Thomson

Two Lovers

Their eyes met; flashed an instant like swift swords
That leapt unparring to each other's heart,
Jarring convulsion through the inmost chords;
Then fell, for they had fully done their part.

She, in the manner of her folk unveiled,
Might have been veiled for all he saw of her;
Those sudden eyes, from which he reeled and quailed;
The old life dead, no new life yet astir.

His good steed bore him onward slow and proud:
And through the open lattice still she leant;
Pale, still, though whirled in a black rushing cloud,
As if on her fair flowers and dreams intent.

Days passed, and he passed timid, furtive, slow:
Nights came, and he came motionless and mute,
A steadfast sentinel till morning-glow,
Though blank her window, dumb her voice and lute.

James Thomson