Within A Year

I.

    Lips that are met in love's
        Devotion sweet,
While parting lovers passionately greet,
And earth through heaven's arc more swiftly moves -
    Oh, will they be less dear
    Within a year?


II.

    Eyes in whose shadow-spell
        Far off I read
That which to lovers taking loving heed
Dear women's eyes full soon and plainly tell -
    Oh, will you give such cheer
    This time a year?


III.

    Behold! the dark year goes,
        Nor will reveal
Aught of its purpose, if for woe or weal,
Swift as a stream that o'er the mill-weir flows:
    Mayhap the end draws near
    Within the year!


IV.

    Yet, darling, once more touch
        Those lips to mine.
Set on my life that talisman divine;
Absence, new friends, I fear not overmuch -    -
    Even Death, should he appear
    Within the year!

George Parsons Lathrop

George Parsons Lathrop (August 25, 1851 – April 19, 1898) was an American poet, novelist, and editor. He was closely associated with the literary world of New England and was a prominent figure in the late 19th century. Lathrop was also known for his marriage to Rose Hawthorne, the daughter of famed novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne, and for his efforts in editing and preserving Hawthorne's works. His contributions spanned various literary forms including poetry and prose.

George Parsons Lathrop

Grant's Dirge

George Parsons Lathrop, Simple Poetry

Breakers

George Parsons Lathrop, Simple Poetry

The Phoebe-Bird

George Parsons Lathrop, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

The Child Year

I

"Dying of hunger and sorrow:
I die for my youth I fear!"
Murmured the midnight-haunting
Voice of the stricken Year.

There like a child it perished
In the stormy thoroughfare:
The snow with cruel whiteness
Had aged its flowing hair.

Ah, little Year so fruitful,
Ah, child that brought us bliss,
Must we so early lose you -
Our dear hopes end in this?

II

"Too young am I, too tender,
To bear earth's avalanche
Of wrong, that grinds down life-hope,
And makes my heart's-blood blanch.

"Tell him who soon shall follow
Where my tired feet have bled,
He must be older, shrewder,
Hard, cold, and selfish-bred -

"Or else like me be trampled
Under the harsh world's heel.
'Tis weakness to be yout...

George Parsons Lathrop

In A Year

I.
Never any more,
While I live,
Need I hope to see his face
As before.
Once his love grown chill,
Mine may strive
Bitterly we re-embrace,
Single still.

II.
Was it something said,
Something done,
Vexed him? was it touch of hand,
Turn of head?
Strange! that very way
Love begun:
I as little understand
Loves decay.

III.
When I sewed or drew,
I recall
How he looked as if I sung,
Sweetly too.
If I spoke a word,
First of all
Up his cheek the colour sprang,
Then he heard.

IV.
Sitting by my side,
At my feet,
So he breathed but air I breathed,
Satisfied!
I, too, at loves brim
Touched the sweet:
I would die if death bequeathed
Sweet to him.

V.

Robert Browning

I Loved You, Once

And did you think my heart
Could keep its love unchanging,
Fresh as the buds that start
In spring, nor know estranging?
Listen! The buds depart:
I loved you once, but now -
I love you more than ever.

'T is not the early love;
With day and night it alters,
And onward still must move
Like earth, that never falters
For storm or star above.
I loved you once; but now -
I love you more than ever.

With gifts in those glad days
How eagerly I sought you!
Youth, shining hope, and praise:
These were the gifts I brought you.
In this world little stays:
I loved you once, but now -
I love you more than ever.

A child with glorious eyes
Here in our arms half sleeping -
So passion wakeful lies;
Then grows to manhood, ke...

George Parsons Lathrop

Song.

    Pass thy hand through my hair, lore;
        One little year ago,
    In a curtain bright and rare, love,
        It fell golden o'er my brow.
    But the gold has passed away, love,
        And the drooping curls are thin,
    And cold threads of wintry gray, love,
        Glitter their folds within:
How should this be, in one short year?
It is not age - can it be care?

    Fasten thine eyes on mine, love;
        One little year ago,
    Midsummer's sunny shine, love,
        Had not a warmer glow.
    But the light is there no more, love,
        Save in melancholy gleams,
    Like wan moonlight wand'ring o'er, love,
        Dim lands in troubled dreams:
How should this be, in one short year?
It is not age - can it be care?

Frances Anne Kemble

Four Points in a Life

I

LOVE'S DAWN


Still thine eyes haunt me; in the darkness now,
The dreamtime, the hushed stillness of the night,
I see them shining pure and earnest light;
And here, all lonely, may I not avow
The thrill with which I ever meet their glance?
At first they gazed a calm abstracted gaze,
The while thy soul was floating through some maze
Of beautiful divinely-peopled trance;
But now I shrink from them in shame and fear,
For they are gathering all their beams of light
Into an arrow, keen, intense and bright,
Swerveless and starlike from its deep blue sphere,
Piercing the cavernous darkness of my soul,
Burning its foul recesses into view,
Transfixing with sharp agony through and through
Whatever ls not brave and clean and whole.
And yet I w...

James Thomson

A New Year Letter

To Two Friends married in the New Year

(TO. MR. AND MRS. WELCH)

Another year to its last day,
Like a lost sovereign, runaway,
Tips down the gloomy grid of time:
In vain to holloa, 'Stop it! hey!' -
A cab-horse that has taken fright,
Be you a policeman, stop you may;
But not a sovereign mad with glee
That scampers to the grid, perdie,
And not a year that's taken flight;
To both 'tis just a grim good night.

But no! the imagery, say you,
Is wondrous witty - but not true;
For the old year that last night went
Has not been so much lost as spent:
You gave it in exchange to Death
For just twelve months of happy breath.

It was a ticket to admit
Two happy people close to sit -
A 'Season' ticket, one might say,
At ...

Richard Le Gallienne