Love's Landmarks

The woods we used to walk, my love,
    Are woods no more,
But' villas' now with sounding names -
    All name and door.

The pond, where, early on in March,
    The yellow cup
Of water-lilies made us glad,
    Is now filled up.

But ah! what if they fill or fell
    Each pond, each tree,
What matters it to-day, my love,
    To me - to thee?

The jerry-builder may consume,
    A greedy moth,
God's mantle of the living green,
    I feel no wrath;

Eat up the beauty of the world,
    And gorge his fill
On mead and winding country lane,
    And grassy hill.

I only laugh, for now of these
    I have no care,
Now that to me the fair is foul,
    And foul as fair.

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

An Easter Hymn

Richard Le Gallienne, Simple Poetry

With Some Old Love Verses

Richard Le Gallienne, Simple Poetry

Summer Going

Richard Le Gallienne, Simple Poetry

Lightnings May Flicker Round My Head

Richard Le Gallienne, 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.

Lovers

They sit within a woodland place,
    Trellised with rustling light and shade;
So like a spirit is her face
    That he is half afraid
    To speak - lest she should fade.

Mysterious, beneath the boughs,
    Like two enchanted shapes, they are,
Whom Love hath builded them a house
    Of little leaf and star,
    And the brown evening jar.

So lovely and so strange a thing
    Each is to each to look upon,
They dare not hearken a bird sing,
    Or from the other one
    Take eyes - lest they be gone.

So still - the watching woodland peers
    And pecks about them, butterflies
Light on her hand - a flower; eve hears
    Two questions, two replies -
    O love that never dies!

Richard Le Gallienne

Young Love

Young love, all rainbows in the lane,
    Brushed by the honeysuckle vines,
Scattered the wild rose in a dream:
    A sweeter thing his arm entwines.

Ah, redder lips than any rose!
    Ah, sweeter breath than any bee
Sucks from the heart of any flower;
    Ah, bosom like the Summer sea!

A fairy creature made of dew
    And moonrise and the songs of birds,
And laughter like the running brook,
    And little soft, heart-broken words.

Haunted as marble in the moon,
    Her whiteness lies on young love's breast.
And living frankincense and myrrh
    Her lips that on his lips are pressed.

Her eyes are lost within his eyes,
    His eyes in hers are fathoms deep;
Death is not stiller than these twain
    That smile as in a magic...

Richard Le Gallienne

Broken Tryst

Waiting in the woodland, watching for my sweet,
Thinking every leaf that stirs the coming of her feet,
Thinking every whisper the rustle of her gown,
How my heart goes up and up, and then goes down and down.

First it is a squirrel, then it is a dove,
Then a red fox feather-soft and footed like a dream;
All the woodland fools me, promising my love;
I think I hear her talking - 'tis but the running stream.

Vowelled talking water, mimicking her voice -
O how she promised she'd surely come to-day!
There she comes! she comes at last!    O heart of mine rejoice -
Nothing but a flight of birds winging on their way.

Lonely grows the afternoon, empty grows the world;
Day's bright banners in the west one by one are furled,
Sadly sinks the lingering sun that like...

Richard Le Gallienne

Love's Proud Farewell

I am too proud of loving thee, too proud
Of the sweet months and years that now have end,
    To feign a heart indifferent to this loss,
Too thankful-happy that the gods allowed
    Our orbits cross,
Beloved and lovely friend;
And though I wend
Lonely henceforth along a road grown gray,
I shall not be all lonely on the way,
Companioned with the attar of thy rose,
Though in my garden it no longer blows.

Thou canst not give elsewhere thy gifts to me,
Or only seem to give;
Yea, not so fugitive
The glory that hath hallowed me and thee,
Not thou or I alone that marvel wrought
Immortal is the paradise of thought,
Nor ours to destroy,
Born of our hearts together, where bright streams
Ran through the woods for joy,
That heaven of our dreams.<...

Richard Le Gallienne

Young Love XIV - A June Lily

[The poet dramatises his Lady's loneliness]

Alone! once more alone! how like a tomb
My little parlour sounds which only now
Yearned like some holy chancel with his voice.
So still! so empty! Surely one might fear
The walls should meet in ruinous collapse
That held no more his music. Yet they stand
Firm in a foolish firmness, meaningless
As frescoed sepulchre some Pharaoh built
But never came to sleep in; built, indeed,
For - that grey moth to flit in like a ghost!

Alone! another feast-day come and gone,
Watched through the weeks as in my garden there
I watch a seedling grow from blade to bud
Impatient for its blossom. So this day
Has bloomed at last, and we have plucked its flower
And shared its sweetness, and once more the time
Is as t...

Richard Le Gallienne

Remembrances

Summer's pleasures they are gone like to visions every one,
And the cloudy days of autumn and of winter cometh on.
I tried to call them back, but unbidden they are gone
Far away from heart and eye and forever far away.
Dear heart, and can it be that such raptures meet decay?
I thought them all eternal when by Langley Bush I lay,
I thought them joys eternal when I used to shout and play
On its bank at "clink and bandy," "chock" and "taw" and "ducking stone,"
Where silence sitteth now on the wild heath as her own
Like a ruin of the past all alone.

When I used to lie and sing by old Eastwell's boiling spring,
When I used to tie the willow boughs together for a swing,
And fish with crooked pins and thread and never catch a thing,
With heart just like a feather, now as heav...

John Clare