Song

She's somewhere in the sunlight strong,
    Her tears are in the falling rain,
She calls me in the wind's soft song,
    And with the flowers she comes again.

Yon bird is but her messenger,
    The moon is but her silver car;
Yea! sun and moon are sent by her,
    And every wistful waiting star.

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

Tobacco Next

Richard Le Gallienne, Simple Poetry

The End Of Laughter

Richard Le Gallienne, Simple Poetry

An Inscription

Richard Le Gallienne, Simple Poetry

Ballade Of The Unchanging Béloved

Richard Le Gallienne, Simple Poetry

English

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Singers

She smiles, my darling smiles, and all
    The world is filled with light;
She laughs - 'tis like the bird's sweet call,
    In meadows fair and bright.
She weeps - the world is cold and gray,
    Rain-clouds shut out the view;
She sings - I softly steal away
    And wait till she gets through.

Unknown

To A Bird At Dawn

O bird that somewhere yonder sings,
    In the dim hour 'twixt dreams and dawn,
Lone in the hush of sleeping things,
    In some sky sanctuary withdrawn;
Your perfect song is too like pain,
And will not let me sleep again.

I think you must be more than bird,
    A little creature of soft wings,
Not yours this deep and thrilling word -
    Some morning planet 'tis that sings;
Surely from no small feathered throat
    Wells that august, eternal note.

As some old language of the dead,
    In one resounding syllable,
Says Rome and Greece and all is said -
    A simple word a child may spell;
So in your liquid note impearled
Sings the long epic of the world.

Unfathomed sweetness of your song,
    With ancient anguish at its core,

Richard Le Gallienne

When Yon Full Moon

When yon full moon's with her white fleet of stars,
And but one bird makes music in the grove;
When you and I are breathing side by side,
Where our two bodies make one shadow, love;

Not for her beauty will I praise the moon,
But that she lights thy purer face and throat;
The only praise I'll give the nightingale
Is that she draws from thee a richer note.

For, blinded with thy beauty, I am filled,
Like Saul of Tarsus, with a greater light;
When he had heard that warning voice in Heaven,
And lost his eyes to find a deeper sight.

Come, let us sit in that deep silence then,
Launched on love's rapids, with our passions proud
That makes all music hollow - though the lark
Raves in his windy heights above a cloud.

William Henry Davies

A Lover's Universe

When winter comes and takes away the rose,
And all the singing of sweet birds is done,
The warm and honeyed world lost deep in snows,
Still, independent of the summer sun,
In vain, with sullen roar,
December shakes my door,
And sleet upon the pane
Threatens my peace in vain,
While, seated by the fire upon my knee,
My love abides with me.

For he who, wise in time, his harvest yields
Reaped into barns, sweet-smelling and secure,
Smiles as the rain beats sternly on his fields,
For wealth is his no winter can make poor;
Safe all his waving gold
Shut in against the cold,
Treasure of summer grass -
So sit I with my lass,
My harvest sheaves of all her garnered charms
Safe in my happy arms.

Still fragrant in the garden of her breast,

Richard Le Gallienne

Singing Go I

Singing go I, seeking for ever a song
    Sung long ago; I ask no more to hear
Her voice that sang - for I should do her wrong,
    Had I the power, to bring her once more near -

Near to the earth, its sorrow or its joy,
    To drag her back into the arms of pain
    And Love and all the April flowers again
And all her little dreams of heaven destroy.

Have I the heart? Ah! had I but the song,
The nightingale would listen and all things
That talk in waterfalls and trees and strings
Would hush themselves to listen as I sang,
    Had I the song.

Richard Le Gallienne

Blue Flower

Blue flower waving in the wind,
    Say whose blue eyes
Lift up your swaying fragile stem
    To the blue skies.

Is she a queen that lies asleep
    In a green hill,
With all her silver ornaments
    Around her still?

Or is she but a simple girl,
    Whose boy was drowned,
In some cold sea, some stormy morn,
    On some blue sound?

Richard Le Gallienne