Unknown Ideal

Whose is the voice that will not let me rest?
        I hear it speak.
Where is the shore will gratify my quest,
        Show what I seek?
Not yours, weak Muse, to mimic that far voice,
        With halting tongue;
No peace, sweet land, to bid my heart rejoice
        Your groves among.

Whose is the loveliness I know is by,
        Yet cannot place?
Is it perfection of the sea or sky,
        Or human face?
Not yours, my pencil, to delineate
        The splendid smile!
Blind in the sun, we struggle on with Fate
        That glows the while.

Whose are the feet that pass me, echoing
        On unknown ways?
Whose are the lips that only part to sing
        Through all my days?
Not yours, fond youth, to fill mine eager eyes
        Or find that shore
That will not let me rest, nor satisfies
        For evermore.

Dora Sigerson Shorter

Dora Sigerson Shorter was an Irish poet and sculptor born in Dublin in 1866. She was one of the leading figures of the Irish Literary Revival, a movement that aimed to promote Irish literature and culture in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. She was also a close friend of W.B. Yeats and married the writer and journalist Clement King Shorter. Dora's work often dealt with themes of Irish nationalism and folklore, and she published several volumes of poetry before her untimely death in 1918.

Dora Sigerson Shorter

A Weeping Cupid

Dora Sigerson Shorter, Simple Poetry

A New Year

Dora Sigerson Shorter, Simple Poetry

A Meadow Tragedy

Dora Sigerson Shorter, Simple Poetry

English

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A vision beauteous as the morn,
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Slow glided o'er a field late shorn
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The Unattained.

A vision beauteous as the morn,
    With heavenly eyes and tresses streaming,
Slow glided o'er a field late shorn
    Where walked a poet idly dreaming.
He saw her, and joy lit his face,
    "Oh, vanish not at human speaking,"
He cried, "thou form of magic grace,
    Thou art the poem I am seeking.

"I've sought thee long! I claim thee now -
    My thought embodied, living, real."
She shook the tresses from her brow.
    "Nay, nay!" she said, "I am ideal.
I am the phantom of desire -
    The spirit of all great endeavor,
I am the voice that says, 'Come higher,'
    That calls men up and up forever.

"'Tis not alone thy thought supreme
    That here upon thy path has risen;
I am the artist's highest dream,
    The ray of light he cannot...

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Night's Phantasies. A Fragment.

I have dreamed sweet dreams of a summer night,
When the moon was walking in cloudless light,
And my soul to the regions of Fancy sprung,
While the spirits of air their soft anthems sung,
Strains wafted down from those heavenly spheres
Which may not be warbled in waking ears;
More sweet than the voice of waters flowing,
Than the breeze over beds of violets blowing,
When it stirs the pines, and sultry day
Fans himself cool with their tremulous play.
On the sleeper's ear those rich notes stealing,
Speak of purer and holier feeling
Than man in his pilgrimage here below,
In the bondage of sin, can ever know.

    I heard in my slumbers the ceaseless roar
Of the sparkling waves, as they met the shore,
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A Vagrant Heart

O to be a woman! to be left to pique and pine,
When the winds are out and calling to this vagrant heart of mine.
Whisht! it whistles at the windows, and how can I be still?
There! the last leaves of the beech-tree go dancing down the hill.
All the boats at anchor they are plunging to be free-
O to be a sailor, and away across the sea!
When the sky is black with thunder, and the sea is white with foam,
The gray-gulls whirl up shrieking and seek their rocky home,
Low his boat is lying leeward, how she runs upon the gale,
As she rises with the billows, nor shakes her dripping sail.
There is danger on the waters-there is joy where dangers be-
Alas! to be a woman and the nomads heart in me.

Ochone! to be a woman, only sighing on the shore-
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Dora Sigerson Shorter

The Feaster

Oh, who will hush that cry outside the doors,
    While we are glad within?
Go forth, go forth, all you my servitors;
    (And gather close, my kin.)
Go out to her. Tell her we keep a feast,--
    Lost Loveliness who will not sit her down
        Though we implore.
It is her silence binds me unreleased,
    It is her silence that no flute can drown,
        It is her moonlit silence at the door,
Wide as the whiteness, but a fire on high
    That frights my heart with an immortal Cry,
        Calling me evermore.

Louder, you viols;--louder, O my harp;
    Let me not hear her voice;
And drown her keener silence, silver-sharp,
    With waves of golden noise!
For she is wise as Eden, even mute,
    To search my spirit through the deep and height

Josephine Preston Peabody

The Lover

I go through wet spring woods alone,
Through sweet green woods with heart of stone,
My weary foot upon the grass
Falls heavy as I pass.
The cuckoo from the distance cries,
The lark a pilgrim in the skies;
But all the pleasant spring is drear.
I want you, dear!

I pass the summer meadows by,
The autumn poppies bloom and die;
I speak alone so bitterly
For no voice answers me.
O lovers parting by the gate,
O robin singing to your mate,
Plead you well, for she will hear
I love you, dear!

I crouch alone, unsatisfied,
Mourning by winters fireside.
O Fate, what evil wind you blow.
Must this be so?
No southern breezes come to bless,
So conscious of their emptiness
My lonely arms I spread in woe,
I want you so.

Dora Sigerson Shorter