Mrs. Macqueen (Or The Lollie-Shop)

With glass like a bull's-eye,
And shutters of green,
Down on the cobbles
Lives Mrs. MacQueen,

At six she rises;
At nine you see
Her candle shine out
In the linden tree:

And at half-past nine
Not a sound is nigh
But the bright moon's creeping
Across the sky;

Or a far dog baying;
Or a twittering bird
In its drowsy nest,
In the darkness stirred;

Or like the roar
Of a distant sea
A long-drawn S-s-sh
In the linden tree.

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

Some One

Walter De La Mare, Simple Poetry

Many A Mickle

Walter De La Mare, Simple Poetry

Reverie

Walter De La Mare, Simple Poetry

The Mountains

Walter De La Mare, 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.

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

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

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

The Ogre

'Tis moonlight on Trebarwith Vale,
    And moonlight on an Ogre keen,
Who prowling hungry through the dale
    A lone cottage hath seen.

Small with thin smoke ascending up
    Three casements and a door: -
The Ogre eager is to sup,
    And here seems dainty store.

Sweet as a larder to a mouse,
    So to him staring down,
Seemed the sweet-windowed moonlit house,
    With jasmine overgrown.

He snorted, as the billows snort
    In darkness of the night,
Betwixt his lean locks tawny-swart,
    He glowered on the sight.

Into the garden sweet with peas
    He put his wooden shoe,
And bending back the apple trees
    Crept covetously through;

Then, stooping, with an impious eye
    Stared through the lattice smal...

Walter De La Mare

The Little Green Orchard

Some one is always sitting there,
        In the little green orchard;
    Even when the sun is high
    In noon's unclouded sky,
    And faintly droning goes
    The bee from rose to rose,
Some one in shadow is sitting there
        In the little green orchard.

Yes, when the twilight's falling softly
        In the little green orchard;
    When the grey dew distills
    And every flower-cup fills;
    When the last blackbird says,
    'What - what!' and goes her way - ssh!
I have heard voices calling softly
        In the little green orchard

Not that I am afraid of being there,
        In the little green orchard;
    Why, when the moon's been bright,
    Shedding her lonesome light,
    And moths like ghosties come,
   ...

Walter De La Mare