Ghosts in Love

    "Tell me, where do ghosts in love
    Find their bridal veils?"

    "If you and I were ghosts in love
    We'd climb the cliffs of Mystery,
    Above the sea of Wails.
    I'd trim your gray and streaming hair
    With veils of Fantasy
    From the tree of Memory.
    'Tis there the ghosts that fall in love
    Find their bridal veils."

Vachel Lindsay

Vachel Lindsay was an American poet known for his innovative performances of his poetry, which combined spoken word with music and theatrics. Born in Springfield, Illinois, Lindsay's work often revolved around American history and culture, reflecting his progressive social views. He played a significant role in the early 20th-century American poetry scene, influencing contemporaries and later poets with his dynamic style and passionate delivery.

Vachel Lindsay

The Alchemist's Petition

Vachel Lindsay, Simple Poetry

The Tree of Laughing Bells, or The Wings of the Morning

Vachel Lindsay, Simple Poetry

The Beggar's Valentine

Vachel Lindsay, Simple Poetry

An Apology for the Bottle Volcanic

Vachel Lindsay, 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.

Alone in the Wind, on the Prairie

I know a seraph who has golden eyes,
And hair of gold, and body like the snow.
Here in the wind I dream her unbound hair
Is blowing round me, that desire's sweet glow
Has touched her pale keen face, and willful mien.
And though she steps as one in manner born
To tread the forests of fair Paradise,
Dark memory's wood she chooses to adorn.
Here with bowed head, bashful with half-desire
She glides into my yesterday's deep dream,
All glowing by the misty ferny cliff
Beside the far forbidden thundering stream.
Within my dream I shake with the old flood.
I fear its going, ere the spring days go.
Yet pray the glory may have deathless years,
And kiss her hair, and sweet throat like the snow.

Vachel Lindsay

The Spider and the Ghost of the Fly

Once I loved a spider
When I was born a fly,
A velvet-footed spider
With a gown of rainbow-dye.
She ate my wings and gloated.
She bound me with a hair.
She drove me to her parlor
Above her winding stair.
To educate young spiders
She took me all apart.
My ghost came back to haunt her.
I saw her eat my heart.

Vachel Lindsay

To Lady Jane

Romance was always young.
You come today
Just eight years old
With marvellous dark hair.
Younger than Dante found you
When you turned
His heart into the way
That found the heavenly stair.

Perhaps we must be strangers.
I confess
My soul this hour is Dante's,
And your care
Should be for dolls
Whose painted hands caress
Your marvellous dark hair.

Romance, with moonflower face
And morning eyes,
And lips whose thread of scarlet prophesies
The canticles of a coming king unknown,
Remember, when you join him
On his throne,
Even me, your far off troubadour,
And wear
For me some trifling rose
Beneath your veil,
Dying a royal death,
Happy and pale,
Choked by the passion,
The wonder and the snare,

Vachel Lindsay

The Empty Boats

    Why do I see these empty boats, sailing on airy seas?
    One haunted me the whole night long, swaying with every breeze,
    Returning always near the eaves, or by the skylight glass:
    There it will wait me many weeks, and then, at last, will pass.
    Each soul is haunted by a ship in which that soul might ride
    And climb the glorious mysteries of Heaven's silent tide
    In voyages that change the very metes and bounds of Fate -
    O empty boats, we all refuse, that by our windows wait!

Vachel Lindsay

Caught in a Net

    Upon her breast her hands and hair
    Were tangled all together.
    The moon of June forbade me not -
    The golden night time weather
    In balmy sighs commanded me
    To kiss them like a feather.

    Her looming hair, her burning hands,
    Were tangled black and white.
    My face I buried there.    I pray -
    So far from her to-night -
    For grace, to dream I kiss her soul
    Amid the black and white.

Vachel Lindsay

The Hour And The Ghost

    BRIDE

O love, love, hold me fast,
He draws me away from thee;
I cannot stem the blast,
Nor the cold strong sea:
Far away a light shines
Beyond the hills and pines;
It is lit for me.

    BRIDEGROOM

I have thee close, my dear,
No terror can come near;
Only far off the northern light shines clear.

    GHOST

Come with me, fair and false,
To our home, come home.
It is my voice that calls:
Once thou wast not afraid
When I woo'd, and said,
'Come, our nest is newly made'--
Now cross the tossing foam.

    BRIDE

Hold me one moment longer,
He taunts me with the past,
His clutch is waxing stronger,
Hold me fast, hold me fast.
He draws me from thy heart,
And I cannot withhold:

Christina Georgina Rossetti