Lovelocks

I watched the Lady Caroline
Bind up her dark and beauteous hair;
Her face was rosy in the glass,
And 'twixt the coils her hands would pass,
    White in the candleshine.

Her bottles on the table lay,
Stoppered yet sweet of violet;
Her image in the mirror stooped
To view those locks as lightly looped
    As cherry-boughs in May.

The snowy night lay dim without,
I heard the Waits their sweet song sing;
The window smouldered keen with frost;
Yet still she twisted, sleeked and tossed
    Her beauteous hair about.

Walter De La Mare

Walter De La Mare was an English poet, short story writer, and novelist, best remembered for his works for children and his poem "The Listeners". Born in 1873 in Charlton, Kent, De La Mare's unique blend of haunting, dreamlike imagery and masterful command of language earned him a lasting place in English literature. He was awarded the Order of Merit in 1953, and his works continue to be celebrated for their ethereal and evocative quality.

Walter De La Mare

The Changeling

Walter De La Mare, Simple Poetry

The Miracle

Walter De La Mare, Simple Poetry

The Fool Rings His Bells

Walter De La Mare, Simple Poetry

The Cage

Walter De La Mare, Simple Poetry

English

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The Sleeping Beauty

The scent of bramble sweets the air,
    Amid her folded sheets she lies,
The gold of evening in her hair,
    The blue of morn shut in her eyes.

How many a changing moon hath lit
    The unchanging roses of her face!
Her mirror ever broods on it
    In silver stillness of the days.

Oft flits the moth on filmy wings
    Into his solitary lair;
Shrill evensong the cricket sings
    From some still shadow in her hair.

In heat, in snow, in wind, in flood,
    She sleeps in lovely loneliness,
Half folded like an April bud
    On winter-haunted trees.

Walter De La Mare

Sleeping Beauty

The scent of bramble fills the air,
    Amid her folded sheets she lies,
The gold of evening in her hair,
    The blue of morn shut in her eyes.

How many a changing moon hath lit
    The unchanging roses of her face!
Her mirror ever broods on it
    In silver stillness of the days.

Oft flits the moth on filmy wings
    Into his solitary lair;
Shrill evensong the cricket sings
    From some still shadow in her hair.

In heat, in snow, in wind, in flood,
    She sleeps in lovely loneliness,
Half-folded like an April bud
    On winter-haunted trees.

Walter De La Mare

Bewitched

I have heard a lady this night,
    Lissom and jimp and slim,
Calling me - calling me over the heather,
    'Neath the beech boughs dusk and dim.

I have followed a lady this night,
    Followed her far and lone,
Fox and adder and weasel know
    The ways that we have gone.

I sit at my supper 'mid honest faces,
    And crumble my crust and say
Nought in the long-drawn drawl of the voices
    Talking the hours away.

I'll go to my chamber under the gable,
    And the moon will lift her light
In at my lattice from over the moorland
    Hollow and still and bright.

And I know she will shine on a lady of witchcraft,
    Gladness and grief to see,
Who has taken my heart with her nimble fingers,
    Calls in my dreams to me:

Walter De La Mare

Bewitched

,,
    Lissom and jimp and slim,
Calling me - calling me over the heather,
    'Neath the beech boughs dusk and dim.

I have followed a lady this night,
    Followed her far and lone,
Fox and adder and weasel know
    The ways that we have gone.

I sit at my supper 'mid honest faces,
    And crumble my crust and say
Naught in the long-drawn drawl of the voices
    Talking the hours away.

I'll go to my chamber under the gable,
    And the moon will lift her light
In at my lattice from over the moorland
    Hollow and still and bright.

And I know she will shine on a lady of witchcraft,
    Gladness and grief to see,
Who has taken my heart with her nimble fingers,
    Calls in my dreams to me;

Who has led me a dance...

Walter De La Mare

Haunted

From out the wood I watched them shine, -
    The windows of the haunted house,
Now ruddy as enchanted wine,
    Now dim as flittermouse.

There went a thin voice piping airs
    Along the grey and crooked walks, -
A garden of thistledown and tares,
    Bright leaves, and giant stalks.

The twilight rain shone at its gates,
    Where long-leaved grass in shadow grew;
And black in silence to her mates
    A voiceless raven flew.

Lichen and moss the lone stones greened,
    Green paths led lightly to its door,
Keen from her lair the spider leaned,
    And dusk to darkness wore.

Amidst the sedge a whisper ran,
    The West shut down a heavy eye,
And like last tapers, few and wan,
    The watch-stars kindled in the sky.

Walter De La Mare

Beauty's Wardrobe

My love said she had nought to wear;
Her garments all were old,
And soon her body must go bare
Against the winter's cold.

I took her out into the dawn,
And from the mountain's crest
Unwound long wreaths of misty lawn,
And wound them round her breast.

Then passed we to the maple grove,
Like a great hall of gold,
The yellow and the red we wove
In rustling flounce and fold.

"Now, love," said I, "go, do it on!
And I would have you note
No lovely lady dead and gone
Had such a petticoat."

Then span I out of milkweeds fine
Fair stockings soft and long,
And other things of quaint design
That unto maids belong.

And beads of amber and of pearl
About her neck I strung,
And in the bronze of her thick hair
Th...

Richard Le Gallienne