Obsession.

    I will not have roses in my room again,
    Nor listen to sonnets of Michael Angelo
    To-night nor any night, nor fret my brain
    With all the trouble of things that I should know.
    I will be as other women - come and go
    Careless and free, my own self sure and sane,
    As I was once ... then suddenly you were there
    With your old power ... roses were everywhere
    And I was listening to Michael Angelo.

Muriel Stuart

Muriel Stuart was a British poet who gained prominence during the early 20th century. She was highly regarded for her contributions to Georgian poetry, a movement characterized by its eclectic and modernist styles. Stuart's work often grappled with themes of nature, love, and the human condition, reflecting the changing societal landscapes of her time. In addition to her poetry, she penned essays and other literary works, cementing her status as an influential literary figure.

Muriel Stuart

Shrift.

Muriel Stuart, Simple Poetry

Boys Bathing.

Muriel Stuart, Simple Poetry

Words.

Muriel Stuart, 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.

Leda.

    Do you remember, Leda?


    There are those who love, to whom Love brings
    Great gladness: such thing have not I.
    Love looks and has no mercy, brings
    Long doom to others.    Such was I.
    Heart breaking hand upon the lute,
    Touching one note only ... such were you.
    Who shall play now upon that lute
    Long last made musical by you?
    Sharp bird-beak in the swelling fruit,
    Blind frost upon the eyes of flowers.
    Who shall now praise the shrivelled fruit,
    Or raise the eyelids of those flowers?

    I dare not watch that hidden pool,
    Nor see the wild bird's sudden wing
    Lifting the wide, brown, shaken pool,
    But round me falls that secret wing,
    And in that sharp, perverse, sweet pain

Muriel Stuart

At the Opera

The curtain rose, the play began,
The limelight on the gay garbs shone;
Yet carelessly I gazed upon
The painted players, maid and man,
As one with idle eyes who sees
The marble figures on a frieze.

Long lark-notes clear the first act close,
So the soprano: then a hush,
The tenor, tender as a thrush;
Then loud and high the chorus rose,
Till, with a sudden rush and strong,
It ended in a storm of song.

The curtain fell, the music died,
The lights grew bright, revealing there
The flash of jewelled fingers fair,
And wreaths of pearls on brows of pride;
Then, with a quick-flushed cheek, I turned,
And into mine her dark eyes burned.

Such eyes but once a man may see,
And, seeing once, his fancy dies
To thought of any other eyes:

Victor James Daley

White Magic.

Is it not a wonderful thing to be able to force an astonished plant to bear rare flowers which are foreign to it ... and to obtain a marvellous result from sap which, left to itself, would have produced corollas without beauty? - VIRGIL.


    I stood forlorn and pale,
    Pressed by the cold sand, pinched by the thin grass,
    Last of my race and frail
    Who reigned in beauty once when beauty was,
    Before the rich earth beckoned to the sea,
    Took his salt lips to taste,
    And spread this gradual waste -
    This ruin of flower, this doom of grass and tree.
    Each Spring could scarcely lift
    My brows from the sand drift
    To fill my lips with April as she went,
    Or force my weariness
    To its sad, summer dress:
    On the harsh beach I h...

Muriel Stuart

Mrs. Effingham's Swan Song.

    I am growing old: I have kept youth too long,
    But I dare not let them know it now.
    I have done the heart of youth a grievous wrong,
    Danced it to dust and drugged it with the rose,
    Forced its reluctant lips to one more vow.
    I have denied the lawful grey,
    So kind, so wise, to settle in my hair;
    I belong no more to April, but September has not taught me her repose.
    I wish I had let myself grow old in the quiet way
    That is so gracious....    I wish I did not care.
    My faded mouth will never flower again,
    Under the paint the wrinkles fret my eyes,
    My hair is dull beneath its henna stain,
    I have come to the last ramparts of disguise.
    And now the day draws on of my defeat.
    I shall not meet
    The swift, ...

Muriel Stuart

Beatrice

Send out the singers,let the room be still;
They have not eased my pain nor brought me sleep.
Close out the sun, for I would have it dark
That I may feel how black the grave will be.
The sun is setting, for the light is red,
And you are outlined in a golden fire,
Like Ursula upon an altar-screen.
Come, leave the light and sit beside my bed,
For I have had enough of saints and prayers.
Strange broken thoughts are beating in my brain,
They come and vanish and again they come.
It is the fever driving out my soul,
And Death stands waiting by the arras there.

Ornella, I will speak, for soon my lips
Shall keep a silence till the end of time.
You have a mouth for loving,listen then:
Keep tryst with Love before Death comes to tryst;
For I, who die, could wi...

Sara Teasdale

The Tryst.

    I raised the veil, I loosed the bands,
    I took the dead thing from its place.
    Like a warm stream in frozen lands
    My lips went wandering on her face,
            My hands burnt in her hands.

    She could not stay me, being dead;
    Her body here was mine to hold.
    What if her lips had lost their red?
    To me they always tasted cold
            With the cold words she said.

    Did my breath run along her hair,
    And free the pulse, and fire the brain,
    My wild blood wake her wild blood there?
    Her eyelids lifted wide again
            In a blue, sudden stare.

    Beneath my fierce, profane caress
    The whole white length of body moved;
    The drowsy bosom seemed to press
    As if against a breast bel...

Muriel Stuart