The Night-Watches.

The laurel withers on your brow,
victor, weary of the race!
And you, who sit in mighty place,
How heavy is your scepter now!

Flushed with the kiss your lips have known,
"Woman, this is your hour to wake.
And know that flesh and heart may break
When love hath entered on its own.

And you, who knew where angels trod.
And marked the path for duller eyes.
In this lone hour are you still wise?
Do you not quail before your God?

God, to whom the dark is day.
Forget not these, the strong, the right.
The happy souls, for. Lord, at night
They tremble in their tents of clay!

Margaret Steele Anderson

Margaret Steele Anderson was an American poet and author, born on October 8, 1867. She is known for her lyrical and expressive poetry, which often explores themes of nature, emotion, and personal reflection. Anderson's works include several published collections of poetry and prose that garnered critical acclaim during her lifetime. Though not as widely recognized today, her contributions to American literature remain significant. She passed away on October 7, 1921.

Margaret Steele Anderson

From Sudden Death. . . .

Margaret Steele Anderson, Simple Poetry

To A Fighter, Dead.

Margaret Steele Anderson, Simple Poetry

The Lesser Beauty.

Margaret Steele Anderson, Simple Poetry

The Church.

Margaret Steele Anderson, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

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The Night Watch

Beneath the trees with heedful step and slow
At night I go,
Fearful upon their whispering to break
Lest they awake
Out of those dreams of heavenly light that fill
Their branches still
With a soft murmur of memoried ecstasy.
There 'neath each tree
Nightlong a spirit watches, and I feel
His breath unseal
The fast-shut thoughts and longings of tired day,
That flutter away
Mothlike on luminous soft wings and frail
And moonlike pale.
There in the flowering chestnuts' bowering gloom
And limes' perfume
Wandering wavelike through the moondrawn night
That heaves toward light,
There hang I my dark thoughts and deeper prayers;
And as the airs
Of star-kissed dawn come stirring and o'er-creep
The ford of sleep,
Thy shape, great Love, grows sha...

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The Watches Of The Night.

    O the waiting in the watches of the night!
    In the darkness, desolation, and contrition and affright;
    The awful hush that holds us shut away from all delight:
    The ever weary memory that ever weary goes
    Recounting ever over every aching loss it knows -
    The ever weary eyelids gasping ever for repose -
    In the dreary, weary watches of the night!

    Dark - stifling dark - the watches of the night!
    With tingling nerves at tension, how the blackness flashes white
    With spectral visitations smitten past the inner sight! -
    What shuddering sense of wrongs we've wrought that may not be redressed -
    Of tears we did not brush away - of lips we left unpressed,
    And hands that we let fall, with all their loyalty unguessed!
    Ah! the empt...

James Whitcomb Riley

Night.

Lo! where the car of Day down slopes of flame
On burnished axle quits the drowsy skies!
And as his snorting steeds of glowing brass
Rush 'neath the earth, a glimmering dust of gold
From their fierce hoofs o'er heaven's azure meads
Rolls to yon star that burns beneath the moon.
With solemn tread and holy-stoled, star-bound,
The Night steps in, sad votaress, like a nun,
To pace lone corridors of th' ebon-archéd sky.
How sad! how beautiful! her raven locks
Pale-filleted with stars that dance their sheen
On her deep, holy eyes, and woo to sleep,
Sleep or the easeful slumber of white Death!
How calm o'er this great water, in its flow
Silent and vast, smoothes yon cold sister sphere,
Her lucid chasteness feathering the wax-white foam!
As o'er a troubled brow falls c...

Madison Julius Cawein

Iseult Of Ireland

Raise the light, my page! that I may see her.
Thou art come at last, then, haughty Queen!
Long Ive waited, long Ive fought my fever;
Late thou comest, cruel thou hast been.

Iseult

Blame me not, poor sufferer! that I tarried;
Bound I was, I could not break the band.
Chide not with the past, but feel the present!
I am here we meet I hold thy hand.

Tristram

Thou art come, indeed thou hast rejoind me;
Thou hast dared it but too late to save.
Fear not now that men should tax thine honour!
I am dying: build (thou mayst) my grave!

Iseult

Tristram, ah, for love of Heaven, speak kindly!
What, I hear these bitter words from thee?
Sick with grief I am, and faint with travel
Take my hand dear Tristram, look on me!

Matthew Arnold

The Longest Day

Let us quit the leafy arbor,
And the torrent murmuring by;
For the sun is in his harbor,
Weary of the open sky.

Evening now unbinds the fetters
Fashioned by the glowing light;
All that breathe are thankful debtors
To the harbinger of night.

Yet by some grave thoughts attended
Eve renews her calm career;
For the day that now is ended,
Is the longest of the year.

Dora! sport, as now thou sportest,
On this platform, light and free;
Take thy bliss, while longest, shortest,
Are indifferent to thee!

Who would check the happy feeling
That inspires the linnet's song?
Who would stop the swallow, wheeling
On her pinions swift and strong?

Yet at this impressive season,
Words which tenderness can speak
From the t...

William Wordsworth

Nay, not To-night

Nay, not to-night; - the slow, sad rain is falling
Sorrowful tears, beneath a grieving sky,
Far off a famished jackal, faintly calling,
Renders the dusk more lonely with its cry.

The mighty river rushes, sobbing, seawards,
The shadows shelter faint mysterious fears,
I turn mine eyes for consolation theewards,
And find thy lashes tremulous with tears.

If some new soul, asearch for incarnation,
Should, through our kisses, enter Life again,
It would inherit all our desolation,
All the soft sorrow of the slanting rain.

When thou desirest Love's supreme surrender,
Come while the morning revels in the light,
Bulbuls around us, passionately tender,
Singing among the roses red and white.

Thus, if it be my sweet and sacred duty,
Subservient...

Adela Florence Cory Nicolson