We That Were Friends

We that were friends to-night have found
A sudden fear, a secret flame:
I am on fire with that soft sound
You make, in uttering my name.

Forgive a young and boastful man
Whom dreams delight and passions please,
And love me as great women can
Who have no children at their knees.

James Elroy Flecker

James Elroy Flecker was an English poet and playwright born in London. He is best remembered for his poem "The Golden Journey to Samarkand" and his plays. Flecker was associated with the neo-romantic movement, and his works often explored themes of travel and classical antiquity. He died of tuberculosis at a young age, cutting short a promising literary career.

James Elroy Flecker

The Queen's Song

James Elroy Flecker, Simple Poetry

Pillage

James Elroy Flecker, Simple Poetry

Tenebris Interlucentem

James Elroy Flecker, Simple Poetry

English

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My Friend

I had a friend who battled for the truth
With stubborn heart and obstinate despair,
Till all his beauty left him, and his youth,
And there were few to love him anywhere.

Then would he wander out among the graves,
And think of dead men lying in a row;
Or, standing on a cliff observe the waves,
And hear the wistful sound of winds below;

And yet they told him nothing. So he sought
The twittering forest at the break of day,
Or on fantastic mountains shaped a thought
As lofty and impenitent as they.

And next he went in wonder through a town
Slowly by day and hurriedly by night,
And watched men walking up the street and down
With timorous and terrible delight.

Weary, he drew man's wisdom from a book,
And pondered on the high words spoken...

James Elroy Flecker

The Friends.

We were friends, and the warmest of friends, he and I,
Each glance was a language that broke from the heart,
No cloudlet swept over the realm of the sky,
And beneath it we swore that we never would part.

Our fingers were clasped with the clasp of a friend,
Each bosom rebounded with youthful delight,
We were foremost to honour and strong to defend,
And Heaven, beholding, was charmed at the sight.

Around us the pine-crested mountains were piled,
The sward in the vale was as down to the feet,
The far-rolling woodlands were pathless and wild,
And Nature was garbed in a grandeur complete.

Said he, "We are here side by side and alone,
Let us thus in the shade for a little remain,
For we may not return here ere boyhood is flown,
It may be we never shall ...

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A Western Voyage

My friend the Sun--like all my friends
Inconstant, lovely, far away -
Is out, and bright, and condescends
To glory in our holiday.

A furious march with him I'll go
And race him in the Western train,
And wake the hills of long ago
And swim the Devon sea again.

I have done foolishly to head
The footway of the false moonbeams,
To light my lamp and call the dead
And read their long black printed dreams.

I have done foolishly to dwell
With Fear upon her desert isle,
To take my shadowgraph to Hell,
And then to hope the shades would smile.

And since the light must fail me soon
(But faster, faster, Western train!)
Proud meadows of the afternoon,
I have remembered you again.

And I'll go seek through moor and dale
A...

James Elroy Flecker

The Sentimentalist

There lies a photograph of you
Deep in a box of broken things.
This was the face I loved and knew
Five years ago, when life had wings;

Five years ago, when through a town
Of bright and soft and shadowy bowers
We walked and talked and trailed our gown
Regardless of the cinctured hours.

The precepts that we held I kept;
Proudly my ways with you I went:
We lived our dreams while others slept,
And did not shrink from sentiment.

Now I go East and you stay West
And when between us Europe lies
I shall forget what I loved best
Away from lips and hands and eyes.

But we were Gods then: we were they
Who laughed at fools, believed in friends,
And drank to all that golden day
Before us, which this poem ends.

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That Night

You and I, and that night, with its perfume and glory! -
    The scent of the locusts - the light of the moon;
And the violin weaving the waltzers a story,
    Enmeshing their feet in the weft of the tune,
    Till their shadows uncertain
    Reeled round on the curtain,
    While under the trellis we drank in the June.

Soaked through with the midnight the cedars were sleeping,
    Their shadowy tresses outlined in the bright
Crystal, moon-smitten mists, where the fountain's heart, leaping
    Forever, forever burst, full with delight;
    And its lisp on my spirit
    Fell faint as that near it
    Whose love like a lily bloomed out in the night.

O your glove was an odorous sachet of blisses!
    The breath of your fan was a breeze from Cathay!
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The Ballad Of The Student In The South

It was no sooner than this morn
That first I found you there,
Deep in a field of southern corn
As golden as your hair.

I had read books you had not read,
Yet I was put to shame
To hear the simple words you said,
And see your eyes aflame.

Shall I forget when prying dawn
Sends me about my way,
The careless stars, the quiet lawn,
And you with whom I lay?

Your's is the beauty of the moon,
The wisdom of the sea,
Since first you tasted, sweet and soon,
Of God's forbidden tree.

Darling, a scholar's fancies sink
So faint beneath your song;
And you are right, why should we think,
We who are young and strong?

For we are simple, you and I,
We do what others do,
Linger and toil and laugh and die
And love the...

James Elroy Flecker