Lightnings May Flicker Round My Head

Lightnings may flicker round my head,
    And all the world seem doom,
If you, like a wild rose, will walk
    Strangely into the room.

If only my sad heart may hear
    Your voice of faery laughter -
What matters though the heavens fall,
    And hell come thundering after.

Richard Le Gallienne

Richard Le Gallienne was an English author and poet born on January 20, 1866. Known for his lyrical poetry, he was a key figure in the literary circles of the fin de siècle. He contributed to the literary magazine 'The Yellow Book' and was involved with the Rhymers' Club, an influential group of London-based poets. His works often explored themes of beauty, love, and nature. His influence extended to both sides of the Atlantic, and he spent the latter part of his life in the United States, where he continued to write until his death on September 15, 1947.

Richard Le Gallienne

I Meant To Do My Work To-Day

Richard Le Gallienne, Simple Poetry

The Dead Arose

Richard Le Gallienne, Simple Poetry

Her Portrait Immortal

Richard Le Gallienne, Simple Poetry

The New Husbandman

Richard Le Gallienne, Simple Poetry

English

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Storm.

Serene was morning with clear, winnowed air,
    But threatening soon the low, blue mass of cloud
Rose in the west, with mutterings faint and rare
    At first, but waxing frequent and more loud.
    Thick sultry mists the distant hill-tops shroud;
The sunshine dies; athwart black skies of lead
Flash noiselessly thin threads of lightning red.


Breathless the earth seems waiting some wild blow,
    Dreaded, but far too close to ward or shun.
Scared birds aloft fly aimless, and below
    Naught stirs in fields whence light and life are gone,
    Save floating leaves, with wisps of straw and down,
Upon the heavy air; 'neath blue-black skies,
Livid and yellow the green landscape lies.


And all the while the dreadful thunder breaks,
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To A Thunder-Cloud.

Oh, melancholy fragment of the night
Drawing thy lazy web against the sun,
Thou shouldst have waited till the day was done
With kindred glooms to build thy fane aright,
Sublime amid the ruins of the light!
But thus to shape our glories one by one
With fearful hands, ere we had well begun
To look for shadows--even in the bright!
Yet may we charm a lesson from thy breast,
A secret wisdom from thy folds of thunder:
There is a wind that cometh from the west
Will rend thy tottering piles of gloom asunder,
And fling thee ruinous along the grass,
To sparkle on us as our footsteps pass!

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Lightning-bugs.

Around my vine-wreathed portico,
At evening, there's a perfect glow
    Of little lights a-flashing -
As if the stellar bodies had
From super-heat grown hyper-mad,
    And spend their ire in clashing.

As frisky each as shooting star,
These tiny electricians are
    The Lampyrine Linnæan -
Or lightning-bugs, that sparkling gleam
Like scintillations in a dream
    Of something empyrean.

They brush my face, light up my hair,
My garments touch, dart everywhere;
    And if I try to catch them
They're quicker than the wicked flea -
And then I wonder how 'twould be
    To have a dress to match them.

To be a "princess in disguise,"
And wear a robe of fireflies
All strung and wove together,
And be the cynosure of all

Hattie Howard

As In The Woodland I Walk

As in the woodland I walk, many a strange thing I learn -
How from the dross and the drift the beautiful things return,
And the fires quenched in October in April reburn;

How foulness grows fair with the stern lustration of sleets and snows,
And rottenness changes back to the breath and the cheek of the rose,
And how gentle the wind that seems wild to each blossom that blows;

How the lost is ever found, and the darkness the door of the light,
And how soft the caress of the hand that to shape must not fear to smite,
And how the dim pearl of the moon is drawn from the gulf of the night;

How, when the great tree falls, with its empire of rustling leaves,
The earth with a thousand hands its sunlit ruin receives,
And out of the wreck of its glory each secret artist weaves...

Richard Le Gallienne

Moonstruck

Cold shone the moon, with noise
The night went by.
Trees uttered things of woe:
Bent grass dared not grow:

Ah, desperate man with haggard eyes
And hands that fence away the skies,
On rock and briar stumbling,
Is it fear of the storm's rumbling,
Of the hissing cold rain,
Or lightning's tragic pain
Drives you so madly?
See, see the patient moon;
How she her course keeps
Through cloudy shallows and across black deeps,
Now gone, now shines soon.
Where's cause for fear?

'I shudder and shudder
At her bright light:
I fear, I fear,
That she her fixt course follows
So still and white
Through deeps and shallows
With never a tremor:
Naught shall disturb her.
I fear, I fear
What they may be
That secretly bind h...

Richard Arthur Warren Hughes

I Will Not Despair.

I will not despair while thou rulest the storm,
    Though the red lightning stream o'er the cloud's sable-breast,
For I catch through the darkness bright gleams of thy form,
    And I know 'tis thy voice lulls the tempest to rest -
                The wild tempest to rest:
Nor yet, though the shadows of deepening night,
    Hang over my path like the pall of despair;
For one star through the gloom sends its hallowed light,
    And I know 'tis thy love smiling tenderly there,
                - Ah! tenderly there.

I will not despair, though the fountain that burst
    For me in life's desert be wasted and dry;
For thy love was the fountain that cheered me at first,
    And again to its life-giving waters I fly -
                O Holiest, fly!
No; I will not d...

Pamela S. Vining (J. C. Yule)