Undesired Revenge

Sorrow and sin have worked their will
    For years upon your sovereign face,
    And yet it keeps a faded trace
Of its unequalled beauty still,
    As ruined sanctuaries hold
    A crumbled trace of perfect mould
In shrines which saints no longer fill.

I knew you in your splendid morn,
    Oh, how imperiously sweet!
    I bowed and worshipped at your feet,
And you received my love with scorn.
    Now I scorn you.    It is a change,
    When I consider it, how strange
That you, not I, should be forlorn.

Do you suppose I have no pain
    To see you play this sorry part,
    With faded face and broken heart,
And life lived utterly in vain?
    Oh would to God that you once more
    Might scorn me as you did of yore,
And I might worship you again!

Robert Fuller Murray

Robert Fuller Murray was a Scottish poet known for his lyrical and expressive poetry. Born on December 26, 1863, in Roxbury, Massachusetts, he moved to Scotland at a young age. Despite a short life, ending on April 15, 1894, Murray left a significant mark with his works, which often reflected themes of nature and human emotion. His poetry is characterized by its elegance and depth of feeling. Murray's influence remained through posthumous publications and collections of his poetry.

Robert Fuller Murray

Poets

Robert Fuller Murray, Simple Poetry

In Time Of Sorrow

Robert Fuller Murray, Simple Poetry

Make-Believes

Robert Fuller Murray, Simple Poetry

The Crown Of Years

Robert Fuller Murray, Simple Poetry

English

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The Outcast's Farewell

The sun is banished,
The daylight vanished,
No rosy traces
    Are left behind.
Here in the meadow
I watch the shadow
Of forms and faces
    Upon your blind.

Through swift transitions,
In new positions,
My eyes still follow
    One shape most fair.
My heart delaying
Awhile, is playing
With pleasures hollow,
    Which mock despair.

I feel so lonely,
I long once only
To pass an hour
    With you, O sweet!
To touch your fingers,
Where fragrance lingers
From some rare flower,
    And kiss your feet.

But not this even
To me is given.
Of all sad mortals
    Most sad am I,
Never to meet you,
Never to greet you,
Nor pass your portals
    Before I die.

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Robert Fuller Murray

Sorrow's Treachery

I made a truce last night with Sorrow,
    The queen of tears, the foe of sleep,
To keep her tents until the morrow,
    Nor send such dreams to make me weep.

Before the lusty day was springing,
    Before the tired moon was set,
I dreamed I heard my dead love singing,
    And when I woke my eyes were wet.

Robert Fuller Murray

Sullen Moods

Love, do not count your labour lost
    Though I turn sullen, grim, retired
Even at your side; my thought is crossed
    With fancies by old longings fired.

And when I answer you, some days
    Vaguely and wildly, do not fear
That my love walks forbidden ways,
    Breaking the ties that hold it here.

If I speak gruffly, this mood is
    Mere indignation at my own
Shortcomings, plagues, uncertainties;
    I forget the gentler tone.

'You,' now that you have come to be
    My one beginning, prime and end,
I count at last as wholly 'me,'
    Lover no longer nor yet friend.

Friendship is flattery, though close hid;
    Must I then flatter my own mind?
And must (which laws of shame forbid)
    Blind love of you make self-love b...

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Love Recalled In Sleep

There was a time when in your face
    There dwelt such power, and in your smile
I know not what of magic grace;
    They held me captive for a while.

Ah, then I listened for your voice!
    Like music every word did fall,
Making the hearts of men rejoice,
    And mine rejoiced the most of all.

At sight of you, my soul took flame.
    But now, alas! the spell is fled.
Is it that you are not the same,
    Or only that my love is dead?

I know not--but last night I dreamed
    That you were walking by my side,
And sweet, as once you were, you seemed,
    And all my heart was glorified.

Your head against my shoulder lay,
    And round your waist my arm was pressed,
And as we walked a well-known way,
    Love was between us bo...

Robert Fuller Murray

Ursula

There is a village in a southern land,
By rounded hills closed in on every hand.
The streets slope steeply to the market-square,
Long lines of white-washed houses, clean and fair,
With roofs irregular, and steps of stone
Ascending to the front of every one.
The people swarthy, idle, full of mirth,
Live mostly by the tillage of the earth.

Upon the northern hill-top, looking down,
Like some sequestered saint upon the town,
Stands the great convent.

            On a summer night,
Ten years ago, the moon with rising light
Made all the convent towers as clear as day,
While still in deepest shade the village lay.
Both light and shadow with repose were filled,
The village sounds, the convent bells were stilled.
No foot in all the streets was now asti...

Robert Fuller Murray

In Time Of Sorrow

Despair is in the suns that shine,
    And in the rains that fall,
This sad forsaken soul of mine
    Is weary of them all.

They fall and shine on alien streets
    From those I love and know.
I cannot hear amid the heats
    The North Sea's freshening flow

The people hurry up and down,
    Like ghosts that cannot lie;
And wandering through the phantom town
    The weariest ghost am I.

Robert Fuller Murray