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"Lucy" - For Her Golden Wedding, October 18, 1875
"Lucy." - The old familiar nameIs now, as always, pleasant,Its liquid melody the sameAlike in past or present;Let others call you what they will,I know you'll let me use it;To me your name is Lucy still,I cannot bear to lose it.What visions of the past returnWith Lucy's image blended!What memories from the silent urnOf gentle lives long ended!What dreams of childhood's fleeting morn,What starry aspirations,That filled the misty days unbornWith fancy's coruscations!Ah, Lucy, life has swiftly spedFrom April to November;The summer blossoms all are shedThat you and I remember;But while the vanished years we shareWith mingling recollections,How all their shadowy features wearThe hue of old affect...
Oliver Wendell Holmes
October
The thought of old, dear things is in thine eyes, O, month of memories! Musing on days thine heart hath sorrow of, Old joy, dead hope, dear love, I see thee stand where all thy sisters meet To cast down at thy feet The garnered largess of the fruitful year, And on thy cheek a tear. Thy glory flames in every blade and leaf To blind the eyes of grief; Thy vineyards and thine orchards bend with fruit That sorrow may be mute; A hectic splendor lights thy days to sleep, Ere the gray dusk may creep Sober and sad along thy dusty ways, Like a lone nun, who prays; High and faint-heard thy passing migrant calls;<...
John Charles McNeill
Vestal Flame
Light, light,--the last:Till the night be done,Keep the watch for stars and sun, and eyelids over-cast.Once there seemed a sky,Brooding over men.Now no stars have come again, since their bright good-bye!Once my dreams were wise.Now I nothing know;Fasting and the dark have so put out my heart's eyes.But thy golden breathBurns against my cheek.I can feel and love, and seek all the rune it saith.Do not thou be spent,Holy thing of fire,--Only hope of heart's desire dulled with wonderment!While there bide these twoHands to bar the wind;Though such fingers chill and thinned, shed no roses through.While this body bendsOnly for thy guard;Like a tower, to ward and worship all the light it sends...
Josephine Preston Peabody
To Isabel
A Beautiful Little Girl.Fair as some sea-child, in her coral bower, Decked with the rare, rich treasures of the deep;Mild as the spirit of the dream whose power Bears back the infant's soul to heaven, in sleepBrightens the hues of summer's first-born flower Pure as the tears repentant mourners weepO'er deeds to which the siren, Sin, beguiled, -Art thou, sweet, smiling, bright-eyed cherub child.Thy presence is a spell of holiness, From which unhallowed thoughts shrink blushing back, -Thy smile is a warm light that shines to bless, As beams the beacon o'er the wanderer's track, -Thy voice is music, at whose sounds Distress Unbinds her writhing victim from the rackOf misery, and charmed by what she hears,Forgets her w...
George W. Sands
To Laura In Death. Sonnet LXXVII.
Da' più begli occhi e dal più chiaro viso.HIS ONLY COMFORT IS THE EXPECTATION OF MEETING HER AGAIN IN HEAVEN. The brightest eyes, the most resplendent faceThat ever shone; and the most radiant hair,With which nor gold nor sunbeam could compare;The sweetest accent, and a smile all grace;Hands, arms, that would e'en motionless abaseThose who to Love the most rebellious were;Fine, nimble feet; a form that would appearLike that of her who first did Eden trace;These fann'd life's spark: now heaven, and all its choirOf angel hosts those kindred charms admire;While lone and darkling I on earth remain.Yet is not comfort fled; she, who can readEach secret of my soul, shall intercede;And I her sainted form behold again.N...
Francesco Petrarca
By the Wayside
Summer's face was rosiest, skies and woods were mellow,Earth had heaven to friend, and heaven had earth to fellow,When we met where wooded hills and meadows meet.Autumn's face is pale, and all her late leaves yellow,Now that here again we greet.Wan with years whereof this eightieth nears December,Fair and bright with love, the kind old face I knowShines above the sweet small twain whose eyes rememberHeaven, and fill with April's light this pale November,Though the dark year's glass run low.Like a rose whose joy of life her silence uttersWhen the birds are loud, and low the lulled wind mutters,Grave and silent shines the boy nigh three years old.Wise and sweet his smile, that falters not nor flutters,Glows, and turns the gloom to gold.Like the new-bor...
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Four Points in a Life
ILOVE'S DAWNStill 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 avowThe thrill with which I ever meet their glance?At first they gazed a calm abstracted gaze,The while thy soul was floating through some mazeOf beautiful divinely-peopled trance;But now I shrink from them in shame and fear,For they are gathering all their beams of lightInto 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 throughWhatever ls not brave and clean and whole.And yet I w...
James Thomson
My Beauty's Home.
My beauty lives in a cottage grey by a gentle river's mouth,A cottage grey by the lone sea-shore away in the sunny south,Her eye's as fair, oh fairer, than the moonlight o'er the sea,And I love to look in my darling's face as she sits and sings to me.I'm as happy as a monarch as she lingers at my side,As we watch the far horizon of the ever-tossing tide,While the cool refreshing zephyr bears her tresses in its train,Now starting into motion and now slumbering again.She trips beside the waters on the distant yellow sandWhile holy vespers steal across the ocean and the land,And the sea bears the reflection of the worlds that roll aboveAnd every breath of even seems to whisper but of love.Oh what to me is Glory, what is Power, what is Pride!I care...
Lennox Amott
If Thou'lt Be Mine.
If thou'lt be mine, the treasures of air, Of earth, and sea, shall lie at thy feet;Whatever in Fancy's eye looks fair, Or in Hope's sweet music sounds most sweet,Shall be ours--if thou wilt be mine, love!Bright flowers shall bloom wherever we rove, A voice divine shall talk in each stream;The stars shall look like worlds of love, And this earth be all one beautiful dream In our eyes--if thou wilt be mine, love!And thoughts, whose source is hidden and high, Like streams, that come from heavenward hills,Shall keep our hearts, like meads, that lie To be bathed by those eternal rills, Ever green, if thou wilt be mine, love!All this and more the Spirit of Love Can breathe o'er them, who feel hi...
Thomas Moore
Lucy IV
Three years she grew in sun and shower;Then Nature said, A lovelier flowerOn earth was never sown;This child I to myself will take;She shall be mine, and I will makeA lady of my own.Myself will to my darling beBoth law and impulse: and with meThe girl, in rock and plain,In earth and heaven, in glade and bower,Shall feel an overseeing powerTo kindle or restrain.She shall be sportive as the fawnThat wild with glee across the lawnOr up the mountain springs;And hers shall be the breathing balm,And hers the silence and the calmOf mute insensate things.The floating clouds their state shall lendTo her; for her the willow bend;Nor shall she fail to seeEven in the motions of the stormGrace that s...
William Wordsworth
Meditations - Hers
After the ball last night, when I came homeI stood before my mirror, and took noteOf all that men call beautiful. Delight,Keen sweet delight, possessed me, when I sawMy own reflection smiling on me there,Because your eyes, through all the swirling hours,And in your slow good-night, had made a factOf what before I fancied might be so;Yet knowing how men lie, by look and act,I still had doubted. But I doubt no more,I know you love me, love me. And I feelYour satisfaction in my comeliness.Beauty and youth, good health and willing mind,A spotless reputation, and a heartLonging for mating and for motherhood,And lips unsullied by another's kiss -These are the riches I can bring to you.But as I sit here, thinking of it all
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
The Lily Of The Valley
I've a lily of the Valley That I'm keeping here for you; I care for and protect it, And water it with dew. It is a living emblem Of the wonderful domain, Where all is pure and love-like, And where we feel no pain. Yes, the Lily of the Valley Is a tie twixt you and me; For every time you see one Think how happy I must be. I'm an atom of the infinite, How wonderful it seems; Yet from your sphere the finite But a thin veil intervenes.
Alan L. Strang
The Sunset Thoughts Of A Dying Girl.
Friends! do you see in yon sunset sky, That cloud of crimson bright?Soon will its gorgeous colors die In coming dim twilight;E'en now it fadeth ray by ray -Like it I too shall pass away!Look on yon fragile summer flower Yielding its sweet perfume;Soon shall it have lived out its hour, Its beauty and its bloom:Trampled, 'twill perish in the shade -Alas! as quickly shall I fade.Mark you yon planet gleaming clear With steadfast, gentle light,See, heavy dark clouds hovering near, Have veiled its radiance bright -As you vainly search that gloomy spot,You'll look for me and find me not!Turn now to yonder sparkling stream, Where silver ripples play;Dancing within the moon's pale beam -
Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
To I. F.
The star which comes at close of day to shineMore heavenly bright than when it leads the morn,Is friendship's emblem, whether the forlornShe visiteth, or, shedding light benignThrough shades that solemnize Life's calm decline,Doth make the happy happier. This have weLearnt, Isabel, from thy society,Which now we too unwillingly resignThough for brief absence. But farewell! the pageGlimmers before my sight through thankful tears,Such as start forth, not seldom, to approveOur truth, when we, old yet unchilled by age,Call thee, though known but for a few fleet years,The heart-affianced sister of our love!
Don Cupid
Oh! little pink and white god of love,With your tender smiling mouth,And eyes as blue as the blue above,Afar in the sunny south.No army e'er laid so many lowOr wounded so many hearts,No mighty gunner e'er wrought such woeAs you with your feathered darts.
Virna Sheard
Sonnet L.
In every breast Affection fires, there dwells A secret consciousness to what degree They are themselves belov'd. - We hourly see Th' involuntary proof, that either quells,Or ought to quell false hopes, - or sets us free From pain'd distrust; - but, O, the misery! Weak Self-Delusion timidly repels The lights obtrusive - shrinks from all that tellsUnwelcome truths, and vainly seeks repose For startled Fondness, in the opiate balm, Of kind profession, tho', perchance, it flowsTo hush Complaint - O! in Belief's clear calm, Or 'mid the lurid clouds of Doubt, we find LOVE rise the Sun, or Comet of the Mind.
Anna Seward
Parting
Farewell! that word has broken heartsAnd blinded eyes with tears;Farewell! one stays, and one departs;Between them roll the years.No wonder why who say it think --Farewell! he may fare illNo wonder that their spirits sinkAnd all their hopes grow chill.Good-bye! that word makes faces paleAnd fills the soul with fears;Good-bye! two words that wing a wailWhich flutters down the years.No wonder they who say it feelSuch pangs for those who go;Good-bye they wish the parted weal,But ah! they may meet woe.Adieu! such is the word for us,'Tis more than word -- 'tis prayer;They do not part, who do part thus,For God is everywhere.
Abram Joseph Ryan
Eros
The sense of the world is short,--Long and various the report,--To love and be beloved;Men and gods have not outlearned it;And, how oft soe'er they've turned it,Not to be improved.
Ralph Waldo Emerson