The Queen of Bubbles

[Written for a picture]


    The Youth speaks: -
    "Why do you seek the sun
    In your bubble-crown ascending?
    Your chariot will melt to mist.
    Your crown will have an ending."

    The Goddess replies: -
    "Nay, sun is but a bubble,
    Earth is a whiff of foam -
    To my caves on the coast of Thule
    Each night I call them home.
    Thence Faiths blow forth to angels
    And loves blow forth to men -
    They break and turn to nothing
    And I make them whole again.
    On the crested waves of chaos
    I ride them back reborn:
    New stars I bring at evening
    For those that burst at morn:
    My soul is the wind of Thule
    And evening is the sign -
    The sun is but a bubble,
    A fragile child of mine."

Vachel Lindsay

Vachel Lindsay was an American poet known for his innovative performances of his poetry, which combined spoken word with music and theatrics. Born in Springfield, Illinois, Lindsay's work often revolved around American history and culture, reflecting his progressive social views. He played a significant role in the early 20th-century American poetry scene, influencing contemporaries and later poets with his dynamic style and passionate delivery.

Vachel Lindsay

The Proud Farmer

Vachel Lindsay, Simple Poetry

How a Little Girl Sang

Vachel Lindsay, Simple Poetry

The Dangerous Little Boy Fairies

Vachel Lindsay, Simple Poetry

By the Spring, at Sunset

Vachel Lindsay, Simple Poetry

English

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Bubbles

As I went through the wood, the wood,
Through fern and pimpernel,
A water fell, a water stood,
Twinkling within a dell,
And Naiad fancies, gleaming, hung
Like bubbles there the moss among.

And as I sat beside the fall
And watched a rainbow beam,
There rose a dream, a spirit tall,
Out of the woodland stream:
Bright, prismed bubbles in her hair,
She rose and smiled upon me there.

But as I gazed at her and gazed,
Dim bubbles grew her eyes;
And frail of dyes her body raised,
And'vanished in the skies:
And with the spirit went my dream
A rainbow bubble of the stream.

Madison Julius Cawein

The Bubble

See the pretty planet!
Floating sphere!
Faintest breeze will fan it
Far or near;

World as light as feather;
Moonshine rays,
Rainbow tints together,
As it plays.

Drooping, sinking, failing,
Nigh to earth,
Mounting, whirling, sailing,
Full of mirth;

Life there, welling, flowing,
Waving round;
Pictures coming, going,
Without sound.

Quick now, be this airy
Globe repelled!
Never can the fairy
Star be held.

Touched, it in a twinkle
Disappears!
Leaving but a sprinkle,
As of tears.

William Allingham

Sunshine

For a Very Little Girl, Not a Year Old.Catharine Frazee Wakefield.



    The sun gives not directly
        The coal, the diamond crown;
    Not in a special basket
        Are these from Heaven let down.

    The sun gives not directly
        The plough, man's iron friend;
    Not by a path or stairway
        Do tools from Heaven descend.

    Yet sunshine fashions all things
        That cut or burn or fly;
    And corn that seems upon the earth
        Is made in the hot sky.

    The gravel of the roadbed,
        The metal of the gun,
    The engine of the airship
        Trace somehow from the sun.

    And so your soul, my lady -
        (Mere sunshine, nothing more) -
    Prepares me the contraptions...

Vachel Lindsay

The Cloud.

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
From the seas and the streams;
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noonday dreams.
From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet buds every one,
When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,
As she dances about the sun.
I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
And whiten the green plains under,
And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder.

I sift the snow on the mountains below,
And their great pines groan aghast;
And all the night 'tis my pillow white,
While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers,
Lightning my pilot sits;
In a cavern under is fettered the thunder,
It struggles and howls at fits;
Over ea...

Percy Bysshe Shelley

An Incantation. Sung By The Bubble Spirit.

Air.--Come with me, and we will go
                Where the rocks of coral grow.


Come with me and we will blow
Lots of bubbles as we go;
Bubbles bright as ever Hope
Drew from fancy--or from soap;
Bright as e'er the South Sea sent
From its frothy element!
Come with me and we will blow
Lots of bubbles as we go.
Mix the lather, Johnny Wilks,
Thou, who rhym'st so well to bilks;^[1]
Mix the lather--who can be
Fitter for such tasks than thee,
Great M. P. for Sudsbury!

Now the frothy charm is ripe,
Puffing Peter,^[2] bring thy pipe,--
Thou whom ancient Coventry
Once so dearly loved that she
Knew not which to her was sweeter,
Peeping Tom or Puffing Peter;--
Puff the bubbles high in air,

Thomas Moore

Alma Venus

Only a breath - hardly a breath! The shore
Is still a huddled alabaster floor
Of shelving ice and shattered slabs of cold,
Stern wreckage of the fiercely frozen wave,
Gleaming in mailed wastes of white and gold;
As though the sea, in an enchanted grave,
Of fearful crystal locked, no more shall stir
Softly, all lover, to the April moon:
Hardly a breath! yet was I now aware
Of a most delicate balm upon the air,
Almost a voice that almost whispered "soon"!

Not of the earth it was - no living thing
Moves in the iron landscape far or near,
Saving, in raucous flight, the winter crow,
Staining the whiteness with its ebon wing,
Or silver-sailing gull, or 'mid the drear
Rock cedars, like a summer soul astray,
A lone red squirrel makes believe to play,
N...

Richard Le Gallienne