Queen Djenira

When Queen Djenira slumbers through
    The sultry noon's repose,
From out her dreams, as soft she lies,
    A faint thin music flows.

Her lovely hands lie narrow and pale
    With gilded nails, her head
Couched in its banded nets of gold
    Lies pillowed on her bed.

The little Nubian boys who fan
    Her cheeks and tresses clear,
Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful voices
    Seem afar to hear.

They slide their eyes, and nodding, say,
    "Queen Djenira walks to-day
The courts of the lord Pthamasar
    Where the sweet birds of Psuthys are."

And those of earth about her porch
    Of shadow cool and grey
Their sidelong beaks in silence lean,
    And silent flit away.

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

April

Walter De La Mare, Simple Poetry

Banquo

Walter De La Mare, Simple Poetry

The Mountains

Walter De La Mare, Simple Poetry

The Birthnight: To F.

Walter De La Mare, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

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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

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

A Night Scene.

The lights have faded from the little casement,
    As though her closing eyes had brought on night;
    And now she dreams--Ah! dreams supremely bright,
While silence reigns around from roof to basement.
    And slow the moon is mounting up the sky,
Drawing Heaven's myriads in her queenly train,
    Flinging rich largesse, as she passes by,
Of beauty freely over hill and plain.

Around the lattice creep the pure white roses,
    And one light bough rests gently on the pane,
    The diamond pane, through which the angel train
Gaze on the sister saint who there reposes;
    The moonlight silvers softly o'er it now;
And round the eaves the south wind whispers lowly,
    Waving the leaves like curls on maiden's brow;
The peace and stillness make the place seem ho...

Walter R. Cassels

The World Of Dream

Now, through the dusk
With muffled bell
The Dustman comes
    The World to tell,
Night's elfin lanterns
    Burn and gleam
In the twilight, wonderful
    World of Dream.

Hollow and dim
    Sleep's boat doth ride,
Heavily still
    At the waterside.
Patter, patter,
    The children come,
Yawning and sleepy,
    Out of the gloom.

Like droning bees
    In a garden green,
Over the thwarts
    They clamber in.
And lovely Sleep
    With long-drawn oar
Turns away
    From the whispering shore.

Over the water
    Like roses glide
Her hundreds of passengers
    Packed inside,
To where in her garden
    Tremble and gleam
The harps and lamps
    Of the World of Dream.

Walter De La Mare

Sephina

Black lacqueys at the wide-flung door
    Stand mute as men of wood.
Gleams like a pool the ballroom floor,
            A burnished solitude.
    A hundred waxen tapers shine
    From silver sconces; softly pine
    'Cello, fiddle, mandoline,
            To music deftly wooed,
And dancers in cambric, satin, silk,
With glancing hair and cheeks like milk,
            Wreathe, curtsey, intertwine.

The drowse of roses lulls the air
Wafted up the marble stair.
Like warbling water clucks the talk.
From room to room in splendour walk
Guests, smiling in the æry sheen;
Carmine and azure, white and green,
They stoop and languish, pace and preen
            Bare shoulder, painted fan,
Gemmed wrist and finger, neck of swan;
And still the pluckt s...

Walter De La Mare

The Princess

The stone-grey roses by the desert's rim
Are soft-edged shadows on the moonlit sand,
Grey are the broken walls of Khangavar,
That haunt of nightingales, whose voices are
Fountains that bubble in the dream-soft Moon.

Shall the Gazelles with moonbeam pale bright feet
Entering the vanished gardens sniff the air -
Some scent may linger of that ancient time,
Musician's song, or poet's passionate rhyme,
The Princess dead, still wandering love-sick there.

A Princess pale and cold as mountain snow,
In cool, dark chambers sheltered from the sun,
With long dark lashes and small delicate hands:
All Persia sighed to kiss her small red mouth
Until they buried her in shifting sand.

And the Gazelles shall flit by in the Moon
And never shake the frail Tree's...

W.J. Turner