Lagrimas.

        God send me tears!
Loose the fierce band that binds my tired brain,
Give me the melting heart of other years,
        And let me weep again!

        Before me pass
The shapes of things inexorably true.
Gone is the sparkle of transforming dew
        From every blade of grass.

        In life's high noon
Aimless I stand, my promised task undone,
And raise my hot eyes to the angry sun
        That will go down too soon.

        Turned into gall
Are the sweet joys of childhood's sunny reign;
And memory is a torture, love a chain
        That binds my life in thrall.

        And childhood's pain
Could to me now the purest rapture yield;
I pray for tears as in his parching field
        The husbandman for rain.

        We pray in vain!
The sullen sky flings down its blaze of brass;
The joys of life all scorched and withering pass;
        I shall not weep again.

John Hay

John Milton Hay was an American statesman and official whose government career stretched over almost half a century. He began as a private secretary to Abraham Lincoln, eventually becoming Secretary of State under Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt. Aside from his political career, Hay was also a poet and writer, remembered for his influence on American literature and foreign policy.

John Hay

My Castle In Spain.

John Hay, Simple Poetry

In A Graveyard.

John Hay, Simple Poetry

Student-Song.

John Hay, 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.

Remorse.

Sad is the thought of sunniest days
    Of love and rapture perished,
And shine through memory's tearful haze
    The eyes once fondliest cherished.
Reproachful is the ghost of toys
    That charmed while life was wasted.
But saddest is the thought of joys
    That never yet were tasted.

Sad is the vague and tender dream
    Of dead love's lingering kisses,
To crushed hearts haloed by the gleam
    Of unreturning blisses;
Deep mourns the soul in anguished pride
    For the pitiless death that won them, -
But the saddest wail is for lips that died
    With the virgin dew upon them.

John Hay

Regardant.

As I lay at your feet that afternoon,
Little we spoke, - you sat and mused,
Humming a sweet old-fashioned tune,

And I worshipped you, with a sense confused
Of the good time gone and the bad on the way,
While my hungry eyes your face perused,

To catch and brand on my soul for aye
The subtle smile which had grown my doom.
Drinking sweet poison hushed I lay

Till the sunset shimmered athwart the room.
I rose to go.    You stood so fair
And dim in the dead day's tender gloom:

All at once, or ever I was aware,
Flashed from you on me a warm strong wave
Of passion and power; in the silence there

I fell on my knees, like a lover, or slave,
With my wild hands clasping your slender waist;
And my lips, with a sudden frenzy brave,

John Hay

Too Late.

Had we but met in other days,
Had we but loved in other ways,
Another light and hope had shone
    On your life and my own.

In sweet but hopeless reveries
I fancy how your wistful eyes
Had saved me, had I known their power
    In fate's imperious hour;

How loving you, beloved of God,
And following you, the path I trod
Had led me, through your love and prayers,
    To God's love unawares:

And how our beings joined as one
Had passed through checkered shade and sun,
Until the earth our lives had given,
    With little change, to heaven.

God knows why this was not to be.
You bloomed from childhood far from me.
The sunshine of the favoured place
    That knew your youth and grace.

And when your eyes, so fair and fre...

John Hay

Lese-Amour.

    How well my heart remembers
    Beside these camp-fire embers
The eyes that smiled so far away, -
    The joy that was November's.

    Her voice to laughter moving,
    So merrily reproving, -
We wandered through the autumn woods,
    And neither thought of loving.

    The hills with light were glowing,
    The waves in joy were flowing, -
It was not to the clouded sun
    The day's delight was owing.

    Though through the brown leaves straying,
    Our lives seemed gone a-Maying;
We knew not Love was with us there,
    No look nor tone betraying.

    How unbelief still misses
    The best of being's blisses!
Our parting saw the first and last
    Of love's imagined kisses.

    Now 'mid these scenes the dr...

John Hay

In A Graveyard.

In the dewy depths of the graveyard
    I lie in the tangled grass,
And watch, in the sea of azure,
    The white cloud-islands pass.

The birds in the rustling branches
    Sing gaily overhead;
Grey stones like sentinel spectres
    Are guarding the silent dead.

The early flowers sleep shaded
    In the cool green noonday glooms;
The broken light falls shuddering
    On the cold white face of the tombs.

Without, the world is smiling
    In the infinite love of God,
But the sunlight fails and falters
    When it falls on the churchyard sod.

On me the joyous rapture
    Of a heart's first love is shed,
But it falls on my heart as coldly
    As sunlight on the dead.

John Hay

On The Bluff.

O grandly flowing River!
O silver-gliding River!
Thy springing willows shiver
    In the sunset as of old;
They shiver in the silence
Of the willow-whitened islands,
While the sun-bars and the sand-bars
    Fill air and wave with gold.

O gay, oblivious River!
O sunset-kindled River!
Do you remember ever
    The eyes and skies so blue
On a summer day that shone here,
When we were all alone here,
And the blue eyes were too wise
    To speak the love they knew?

O stern, impassive River!
O still, unanswering River!
The shivering willows quiver
    As the night-winds moan and rave.
From the past a voice is calling,
From heaven a star is falling,
And dew swells in the bluebells
    Above her hillside grave.

John Hay