Hearts Of Women

It is hard for a man to tell
The hidden thought in his friend's heart,
And the thought in a man's own heart
Is a thing darker.

If you have seen a woman's heart
Bare to your eyes,
Go quickly away and never tell
What you have seen there.

Street Song of Manchuria.

Edward Powys Mathers

Edward Powys Mathers was an English translator and poet, best known for translating the French Orientalist J.C. Mardrus's translation of 'The Book of the Thousand Nights and One Night' in 1923. In addition to translations, Powys Mathers was an influential figure in the realm of cryptic crosswords, devising some of the most challenging puzzles for 'The Observer'. His translations have been lauded for their literary beauty and for introducing English-speaking audiences to classic Persian, Arabic, and Turkish poetry.

Edward Powys Mathers

Misadventure

Edward Powys Mathers, Simple Poetry

The Western Window

Edward Powys Mathers, Simple Poetry

In The Cold Night

Edward Powys Mathers, Simple Poetry

A Conceit

Edward Powys Mathers, Simple Poetry

English

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Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

The Opinion Of Men

My desires are like the white snows on Fuji
That grow but never melt.
I am becoming proud of my bad reputation;
And the more men say,
We cannot understand why she loves him,
The less I care.
I am sure that in a very short time
I shall give myself to him.

Japanese Street Song.

Edward Powys Mathers

Fire And Love

If you do not want your heart
Burnt at a small flame
Like a spitted sheep,
Fly the love of women.
Fire burns what it touches,
But love burns from afar.

Folk Song of Manchuria.

Edward Powys Mathers

This Heart - A Woman's Dream

At midnight, in the room where he lay dead
Whom in his life I had never clearly read,
I thought if I could peer into that citadel
His heart, I should at last know full and well

What hereto had been known to him alone,
Despite our long sit-out of years foreflown,
"And if," I said, "I do this for his memory's sake,
It would not wound him, even if he could wake."

So I bent over him. He seemed to smile
With a calm confidence the whole long while
That I, withdrawing his heart, held it and, bit by bit,
Perused the unguessed things found written on it.

It was inscribed like a terrestrial sphere
With quaint vermiculations close and clear -
His graving. Had I known, would I have risked the stroke
Its reading brought, and my own heart nigh broke!

Thomas Hardy

Tears

How can a heart play any more with life,
    After it has found a woman and known tears?

In vain I shut my windows against the moonlight;
    I have estranged sleep.

The flower of her face is growing in the shadow
    Among warm and rustling leaves....

I see the sunlight on her house,
    I see her curtains of vermilion silk....

Here is the almond-coloured dawn;
    And there is dew on the petals of my night flower.

Lyric of Korea.

Edward Powys Mathers

The Heart On The Sleeve

I wore my heart upon my sleeve,
Tis most unwise, they say, to do -
But then how could I but believe
The foolish thing was safe with you?
Yet, had I known, 'twas safer far
With wolves and tigers, the wild sea
Were kinder to it than you are -
Sweetheart, how you must laugh at me!

Yet am I glad I did not know
That creatures of such tender bloom,
Beneath their sanctuary snow,
Were such cold ministers of doom;
For had I known, as I began
To love you, ere we flung apart,
I had not been so glad a man
As holds his lady to his heart.

And am I lonely here to-night
With empty eyes, the cause is this,
Your face it was that gave me sight,
My heart ran over with your kiss.
Still do I think that what I laid
Before the altar of your face,<...

Richard Le Gallienne

The Things We Dare Not Tell

The fields are fair in autumn yet, and the suns still shining there,
But we bow our heads and we brood and fret, because of the masks we wear;
Or we nod and smile the social while, and we say were doing well,
But we break our hearts, oh, we break our hearts! for the things we must not tell.

Theres the old love wronged ere the new was won, theres the light of long ago;
Theres the cruel lie that we suffer for, and the public must not know.
So we go through life with a ghastly mask, and were doing fairly well,
While they break our hearts, oh, they kill our hearts! do the things we must not tell.

We see but pride in a selfish breast, while a heart is breaking there;
Oh, the world would be such a kindly world if all mens hearts lay bare!
We live and share the living lie, we a...

Henry Lawson