The Lamplighter

When the light of day declineth,
And a swift angel through the sky
Kindleth God's tapers clear,
With ashen staff the lamplighter
Passeth along the darkling streets
To light our earthly lamps;

Lest, prowling in the darkness,
The thief should haunt with quiet tread,
Or men on evil errands set;
Or wayfarers be benighted;
Or neighbours bent from house to house
Should need a guiding torch.

He is like a needlewoman
Who deftly on a sable hem
Stitches in gleaming jewels;
Or, haply, he is like a hero,
Whose bright deeds on the long journey
Are beacons on our way.

And when in the East cometh morning,
And the broad splendour of the sun,
Then, with the tune of little birds
Ringing on high, the lamplighter
Passeth by each quiet house,
And putteth out the lamps.

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

The Bindweed

Walter De La Mare, Simple Poetry

Will Ever?

Walter De La Mare, Simple Poetry

Nod

Walter De La Mare, Simple Poetry

Silver

Walter De La Mare, Simple Poetry

English

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The Two Lamplighters

I niver thowt when I grew owd
    I'd tak to leetin' lamps;
I sud have said, I'd rayther pad
    My hoof on t' road wi' tramps.
But sin I gate that skelp(1) i' t' mine,
    I'm wankle(2) i' my heead;
So gaffer said, I'd give ower wark
    An' leet town lamps atsteead.

At first, when I were liggin' snug
    I' bed, warm as a bee,
'T were hard to rise and get agate
    As sooin as t' clock strake three.
An' I were flaid to hear my steps
    Echoin' on ivery wall;
An' flaider yet when down by t' church
    Ullets would skreek and call.

But now I'm flaid o' nowt; I love
    All unkerd(3) sounds o' t' neet,
Frae childer talkin' i' their dreams
    To t' tramp o' p'licemen' feet.
But most of all I love to hark
    To t' song o' t...

Frederic William Moorman

Evening

When twilight darkens, and one by one,
The sweet birds to their nests have gone;
When to green banks the glow-worms bring
Pale lamps to brighten evening;
Then stirs in his thick sleep the owl
Through the dewy air to prowl.

Hawking the meadows swiftly he flits,
While the small mouse atrembling sits
With tiny eye of fear upcast
Until his brooding shape be past,
Hiding her where the moonbeams beat,
Casting black shadows in the wheat.

Now all is still: the field-man is
Lapped deep in slumbering silentness.
Not a leaf stirs, but clouds on high
Pass in dim flocks across the sky,
Puffed by a breeze too light to move
Aught but these wakeful sheep above.

O what an arch of light now spans
These fields by night no longer Man's!
Their...

Walter De La Mare

The Child In The Story Goes To Bed

I prythee, Nurse, come smooth my hair,
    And prythee, Nurse, unloose my shoe,
And trimly turn my silken sheet
    Upon my quilt of gentle blue.

My pillow sweet of lavender
    Smooth with an amiable hand,
And may the dark pass peacefully by
    As in the hour-glass droops the sand.

Prepare my cornered manchet sweet,
    And in my little crystal cup
Pour out the blithe and flowering mead
    That forthwith I may sup.

Withdraw my curtains from the night,
    And let the crispèd crescent shine
Upon my eyelids while I sleep,
    And soothe me with her beams benign.

From far-away there streams the singing
    Of the mellifluent nightingale, -
Surely if goblins hear her lay,
    They shall not o'er my peace prevail.

Walter De La Mare

Nightfall

The last light fails - that shallow pool of day!
The coursers of the dark stamp down to drink,
Arch their wild necks, lift their wild heads and neigh;
Their drivers, gathering at the water-brink,
With eyes ashine from out their clustering hair,
Utter their hollow speech, or gaze afar,
Rapt in irradiant reverie, to where
Languishes, lost in light, the evening star.

Come the wood-nymphs to dance within the glooms,
Calling these charioteers with timbrels' din;
Ashen with twilight the dark forest looms
O'er the nocturnal beasts that prowl within
"O glory of beauty which the world makes fair!"
Pant they their serenading on the air.

Sound the loud hooves, and all abroad the sky
The lusty charioteers their stations take;
Planet to planet do the sweet Love...

Walter De La Mare

Let Your Light So Shine.

Sometimes, O Lord, thou lightest in my head
    A lamp that well might pharos all the lands;
Anon the light will neither rise nor spread:
    Shrouded in danger gray the beacon stands!

A pharos? Oh dull brain! poor dying lamp
    Under a bushel with an earthy smell!
Mouldering it stands, in rust and eating damp,
    While the slow oil keeps oozing from its cell!

For me it were enough to be a flower
    Knowing its root in thee, the Living, hid,
Ordained to blossom at the appointed hour,
    And wake or sleep as thou, my Nature, bid;

But hear my brethren in their darkling fright!
    Hearten my lamp that it may shine abroad
Then will they cry--Lo, there is something bright!
    Who kindled it if not the shining God?

George MacDonald

The Tailor

Few footsteps stray when dusk droops o'er
The tailor's old stone-lintelled door:
There sits he stitching half asleep,
Beside his smoky tallow dip.
'Click, click,' his needle hastes, and shrill
Cries back the cricket 'neath the sill.
Sometimes he stays, and o'er his thread
Leans sidelong his old tousled head;
Or stoops to peer with half-shut eye
When some strange footfall echoes by;
Till clearer gleams his candle's spark
Into the dusty summer dark.
Then from his crosslegs he gets down,
To find how dark the evening's grown;
And hunched-up in his door he'll hear
The cricket whistling crisp and clear;
And so beneath the starry grey
Will mutter half a seam away.

Walter De La Mare