In An Album

Like the south-flying swallow the summer has flown,
Like a fast-falling star, from unknown to unknown
Life flashes and falters and fails from our sight,
Good-night, friends, good-night.

Like home-coming swallows that seek the old eaves,
Like the buds that wait patient beneath the dead leaves,
Love shall sleep in our hearts till our hands meet again,
Till then, friends, till then!

Arthur Sherburne Hardy

Arthur Sherburne Hardy was an American engineer, educator, editor, diplomat, novelist, and poet, born on August 13, 1847. He is known for his diverse career and contribution to various fields, including literature. Hardy served as a professor of civil engineering and later became a notable figure in diplomacy, serving in positions such as the United States Ambassador to Greece, Romania, and Switzerland. He passed away on March 13, 1930.

Arthur Sherburne Hardy

Duality

Arthur Sherburne Hardy, Simple Poetry

Immortality

Arthur Sherburne Hardy, Simple Poetry

J. E. B.

Arthur Sherburne Hardy, Simple Poetry

By A Grave

Arthur Sherburne Hardy, 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.

In Harbour

I.

Goodnight and goodbye to the life whose signs denote us
As mourners clothed with regret for the life gone by;
To the waters of gloom whence winds of the dayspring float us
Goodnight and goodbye.

A time is for mourning, a season for grief to sigh;
But were we not fools and blind, by day to devote us
As thralls to the darkness, unseen of the sundawn's eye?

We have drunken of Lethe at length, we have eaten of lotus;
What hurts it us here that sorrows are born and die?
We have said to the dream that caressed and the dread that smote us
Goodnight and goodbye.

II.

Outside of the port ye are moored in, lying
Close from the wind and at ease from the tide,
What sounds come swelling, what notes fall dying
Outside?

They will no...

Algernon Charles Swinburne

A Singer Asleep

(Algernon Charles Swinburne, 1837-1909)



I

In this fair niche above the unslumbering sea,
That sentrys up and down all night, all day,
From cove to promontory, from ness to bay,
    The Fates have fitly bidden that he should be Pillowed eternally.

II

- It was as though a garland of red roses
Had fallen about the hood of some smug nun
When irresponsibly dropped as from the sun,
In fulth of numbers freaked with musical closes,
Upon Victoria's formal middle time
    His leaves of rhythm and rhyme.

III

O that far morning of a summer day
When, down a terraced street whose pavements lay
Glassing the sunshine into my bent eyes,
I walked and read with a quick glad surprise
    New words, in classic guise, -

Thomas Hardy

Remembrance.

1.
Swifter far than summer's flight -
Swifter far than youth's delight -
Swifter far than happy night,
Art thou come and gone -
As the earth when leaves are dead,
As the night when sleep is sped,
As the heart when joy is fled,
I am left lone, alone.

2.
The swallow summer comes again -
The owlet night resumes her reign -
But the wild-swan youth is fain
To fly with thee, false as thou. -
My heart each day desires the morrow;
Sleep itself is turned to sorrow;
Vainly would my winter borrow
Sunny leaves from any bough.

3.
Lilies for a bridal bed -
Roses for a matron's head -
Violets for a maiden dead -
Pansies let MY flowers be:
On the living grave I bear
Scatter them without a tear -
Let no friend, however d...

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Summer Song Of The Swallow.

You will journey many a weary day and long,
Ere you will see so restful and sweet a place,
As this, my home, my nest so downy and warm,
The labor of many happy and hopeful days;
But its low brown walls are laid and softly lined,
And oh, full happily now my rest I take,
And care not I when it lightly rocks in the wind,
For the branch above though it bends will never break;
And close by my side rings out the voice of my mate - my lover;
Oh, the days are long, and the days are bright - and
    Summer will last forever.

Now the stream that divides us from perfect bliss
Seems floating past so narrow - so narrow,
You could span its wave such a morn as this,
With a moment winged like a golden arrow,
And the sweet wind waves all the tasselled broom,
And over the...

Marietta Holley

Itylus

Swallow, my sister, O sister swallow,
How can thine heart be full of the spring?
A thousand summers are over and dead.
What hast thou found in the spring to follow?
What hast thou found in thine heart to sing?
What wilt thou do when the summer is shed?

O swallow, sister, O fair swift swallow,
Why wilt thou fly after spring to the south,
The soft south whither thine heart is set?
Shall not the grief of the old time follow?
Shall not the song thereof cleave to thy mouth?
Hast thou forgotten ere I forget?

Sister, my sister, O fleet sweet swallow,
Thy way is long to the sun and the south;
But I, fulfilled of my hearts desire,
Shedding my song upon height, upon hollow,
From tawny body and sweet small mouth
Feed the heart of the night with fire.

Algernon Charles Swinburne

Anima Anceps

Till death have broken
Sweet lifes love-token,
Till all be spoken
That shall be said,
What dost thou praying,
O soul, and playing
With song and saying,
Things flown and fled?
For this we know not
That fresh springs flow not
And fresh griefs grow not
When men are dead;
When strange years cover
Lover and lover,
And joys are over
And tears are shed.

If one days sorrow
Mar the days morrow
If mans life borrow
And mans death pay
If souls once taken,
If lives once shaken,
Arise, awaken,
By night, by day
Why with strong crying
And years of sighing,
Living and dying,
Fast ye and pray?
For all your weeping,
Waking and sleeping,
Death comes to reaping
And takes away.

Though t...

Algernon Charles Swinburne