The Bridegroom To His Bride.

        Fairest fair, best of good,
        Too high for hope that stood;
White star of womanhood shining apart
        O my liege lady,
        And O my one lady,
And O my loved lady, come down to my heart.

        Reach me life's wine and gold,
        What is man's best all told,
If thou thyself withhold, sweet, from thy throne?
        O my liege lady,
        And O my loved lady,
And O my heart's lady, come, reign there alone.

Jean Ingelow

Jean Ingelow was an English poet and novelist known for her popular stories and poems in the 19th century. Her work, including 'Mopsa the Fairy', earned her recognition during her lifetime. She was also involved in the Pre-Raphaelite movement. Ingelow published several poetry collections, with her first in 1863, which was well-received and cemented her reputation as a poet.

Jean Ingelow

Requiescat In Pace!

Jean Ingelow, Simple Poetry

Seven Times Six. Giving In Marriage.

Jean Ingelow, Simple Poetry

Songs On The Voices Of Birds. Introduction. Child And Boatman.

Jean Ingelow, Simple Poetry

Failure.

Jean Ingelow, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

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Married Lovers.

Come away, the clouds are high,
Put the flashing needles by.
Many days are not to spare,
Or to waste, my fairest fair!
All is ready. Come to-day,
For the nightingale her lay,
When she findeth that the whole
Of her love, and all her soul,
Cannot forth of her sweet throat,
Sobs the while she draws her breath,
And the bravery of her note
In a few days altereth.

Come, ere she despond, and see
In a silent ecstasy
Chestnuts heave for hours and hours
All the glory of their flowers
To the melting blue above,
That broods over them like love.
Leave the garden walls, where blow
Apple-blossoms pink, and low
Ordered beds of tulips fine.
Seek the blossoms made divine
With a scent that is their soul.
These are soulless. Bring the whit...

Jean Ingelow

Wedlock.

The sun was streaming in: I woke, and said,
"Where is my wife, - that has been made my wife
Only this year?" The casement stood ajar:
I did but lift my head: The pear-tree dropped,
The great white pear-tree dropped with dew from leaves
And blossom, under heavens of happy blue.

My wife had wakened first, and had gone down
Into the orchard. All the air was calm;
Audible humming filled it. At the roots
Of peony bushes lay in rose-red heaps,
Or snowy, fallen bloom. The crag-like hills
Were tossing down their silver messengers,
And two brown foreigners, called cuckoo-birds,
Gave them good answer; all things else were mute;
An idle world lay listening to their talk,
They had it to themselves.
    What ails my wife?
I know not if aught ails her; though her...

Jean Ingelow

The Fairy Woman's Song.

The fairy woman maketh moan,
    "Well-a-day, and well-a-day,
Forsooth I brought thee one rose, one,
    And thou didst cast my rose away."
Hark! Oh hark, she mourneth yet,
    "One good ship - the good ship sailed,
One bright star, at last it set,
    One, one chance, forsooth it failed."

Clear thy dusk hair from thy veiled eyes,
    Show thy face as thee beseems,
For yet is starlight in the skies,
    Weird woman piteous through my dreams.
"Nay," she mourns, "forsooth not now,
    Veiled I sit for evermore,
Rose is shed, and charmèd prow
    Shall not touch the charmèd shore."

There thy sons that were to be,
    Thy small gamesome children play;
There all loves that men foresee
    Straight as wands enrich the way.
Dove-eyed, ...

Jean Ingelow

Not In Vain I Waited.

        She was but a child, a child,
    And I a man grown;
        Sweet she was, and fresh, and wild,
    And, I thought, my own.
What could I do? The long grass groweth,
    The long wave floweth with a murmur on:
The why and the wherefore of it all who knoweth?
    Ere I thought to lose her she was grown - and gone.
This day or that day in warm spring weather.
The lamb that was tame will yearn to break its tether.
"But if the world wound thee," I said, "come back to me,
Down in the dell wishing - wishing, wishing for thee."

        The dews hang on the white may,
    Like a ghost it stands,
        All in the dusk before day
    That folds the dim lands:

Dark fell the skies when once belated,
    Sad, and sorrow-fated, I missed the sun;

Jean Ingelow

The Well-Beloved

I wayed by star and planet shine
Towards the dear one's home
At Kingsbere, there to make her mine
When the next sun upclomb.

I edged the ancient hill and wood
Beside the Ikling Way,
Nigh where the Pagan temple stood
In the world's earlier day.

And as I quick and quicker walked
On gravel and on green,
I sang to sky, and tree, or talked
Of her I called my queen.

- "O faultless is her dainty form,
And luminous her mind;
She is the God-created norm
Of perfect womankind!"

A shape whereon one star-blink gleamed
Glode softly by my side,
A woman's; and her motion seemed
The motion of my bride.

And yet methought she'd drawn erstwhile
Adown the ancient leaze,
Where once were pile and peristyle
For men's id...

Thomas Hardy

Midsummer Night, Not Dark, Not Light.

Midsummer night, not dark, not light,
    Dusk all the scented air,
I'll e'en go forth to one I love,
    And learn how he doth fare.
O the ring, the ring, my dear, for me,
    The ring was a world too fine,
I wish it had sunk in a forty-fathom sea,
    Or ever thou mad'st it mine.

Soft falls the dew, stars tremble through,
    Where lone he sits apart,
Would I might steal his grief away
    To hide in mine own heart.
Would, would 'twere shut in yon blossom fair,
    The sorrow that bows thy head,
Then - I would gather it, to thee unaware,
    And break my heart in thy stead.

That charmèd flower, far from thy bower,
    I'd bear the long hours through,
Thou should'st forget, and my sad breast
    The sorrows twain should rue.
O ...

Jean Ingelow