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The Sisters (1880)
They have left the doors ajar; and by their clash,And prelude on the keys, I know the song,Their favouritewhich I call The Tables Turned.Evelyn begins it O diviner Air.EVELYN.O diviner Air,Thro the heat, the drowth, the dust, the glare,Far from out the west in shadowing showers,Over all the meadow baked and bare,Making fresh and fairAll the bowers and the flowers,Fainting flowers, faded bowers,Over all this weary world of ours,Breathe, diviner Air!A sweet voice thatyou scarce could better that.Now follows Edith echoing Evelyn.EDITH.O diviner light,Thro the cloud that roofs our noon with night,Thro the blotting mist, the blinding showers,Far from out a sky for ever bright,Over ...
Alfred Lord Tennyson
The Thorn
The days of these two years like busy antsHave gone, confused and happy and distressed,Rich, yet sad with aching wants,Crowded, yet lonely and unblessed.I stare back as they vanish in a swarm,Seeming how purposeless, how mean and vain,Till creeping joy and brief alarmAre gone and prick me not again.The days are gone, yet still this heart of fireSmouldering, smoulders on with ancient love;And the red embers of desireI would not, oh, nor dare remove!Where is the bosom my head rested on,The arms that caught my boy's head, the soft kiss?Where is the light of your eyes gone?--For now I know what darkness is....It is the loneliness, the loneliness,Since she that brought me here has left me hereWith the sharp need o...
John Frederick Freeman
To The Unattainable
Oh, that my blood were water, thou athirst,And thou and I in some far Desert land,How would I shed it gladly, if but firstIt touched thy lips, before it reached the sand.Once, - Ah, the Gods were good to me, - I threwMyself upon a poison snake, that creptWhere my Beloved - a lesser love we knewThan this which now consumes me wholly - slept.But thou; Alas, what can I do for thee?By Fate, and thine own beauty, set aboveThe need of all or any aid from me,Too high for service, as too far for love.
Adela Florence Cory Nicolson
The Golden Wedding.
Inscribed to OUR FATHER AND MOTHER, and read on that Anniversary,FEBRUARY 15TH, 1876.A half a century of time, The mingled pain and blissThat make the history of life Between that day and this;Two lives that in that morning light, Together were made one,Now standing where the shadows fall Athwart the setting sun.How long it seems!--the devious way. And full of toil and pain,--Yet love and peace kept house with them, And love and peace remain.Though youth and strength and youthful friends Were left upon the roadLong since, an honest man is still The noblest work of God.No famous deeds, no acts achieved In battle or in stateMake memorable this festal day, The day ...
Kate Seymour Maclean
To My Daughter[1] On Her Birthday.
Dear Fanny! nine long years ago,While yet the morning sun was low,And rosy with the Eastern glowThe landscape smiled -Whilst lowed the newly-waken'd herds -Sweet as the early song of birds,I heard those first, delightful words,"Thou hast a Child!"Along with that uprising dewTears glisten'd in my eyes, though few,To hail a dawning quite as newTo me, as Time:It was not sorrow - not annoy -But like a happy maid, though coy,With grief-like welcome even JoyForestalls its prime.So mayst thou live, dear! many years,In all the bliss that life endears,Not without smiles, nor yet from tearsToo strictly kept:When first thy infant littlenessI folded in my fond caress,The greatest proof of happinessWas t...
Thomas Hood
Communion
In the silence of my heart,I will spend an hour with thee,When my love shall rend apartAll the veil of mystery:All that dim and misty veilThat shut in between our soulsWhen Death cried, "Ho, maiden, hail!"And your barque sped on the shoals.On the shoals? Nay, wrongly said.On the breeze of Death that sweepsFar from life, thy soul has spedOut into unsounded deeps.I shall take an hour and comeSailing, darling, to thy side.Wind nor sea may keep me fromSoft communings with my bride.I shall rest my head on theeAs I did long days of yore,When a calm, untroubled seaRocked thy vessel at the shore.I shall take thy hand in mine,And live o'er the olden daysWhen thy smile to me was wine,--
Paul Laurence Dunbar
TO ---- .
"Lydia, dic, per omnesTe deos oro!"IWhat are the subtletiesWhich woo me in her eyesTo oaths she deems but lies,I can not tell, I can not tell, Nor will she.They are beyond my thought.For when I gaze I'm nought,My senses all unwrought,It is not well, it is not well, Now Lily!IIWhat is the magic sweetWhich makes hot pulses beat,A wayward tongue repeatA name for weeks, a name for weeks Will, nill he?Ai me! the pleasant painFalls sweetly on the brainLike some slow sunny rain,Whene'er she speaks, whene'er she speaks This Lily.IIIWhat is the witchery rareWhich snares me in her hairSo deeply that I dare,I ...
Madison Julius Cawein
The Diary Of An Old Soul. - October.
1. REMEMBER, Lord, thou hast not made me good. Or if thou didst, it was so long ago I have forgotten--and never understood, I humbly think. At best it was a crude, A rough-hewn goodness, that did need this woe, This sin, these harms of all kinds fierce and rude, To shape it out, making it live and grow. 2. But thou art making me, I thank thee, sire. What thou hast done and doest thou know'st well, And I will help thee:--gently in thy fire I will lie burning; on thy potter's-wheel I will whirl patient, though my brain should reel; Thy grace shall be enough the grief to quell, And growing strength perfect through weakness d...
George MacDonald
Reunited.
Let us begin, dear love, where we left off; Tie up the broken threads of that old dream, And go on happy as before, and seem Lovers again, though all the world may scoff. Let us forget the graves which lie between Our parting and our meeting, and the tears That rusted out the gold-work of the years, The frosts that fell upon our gardens green. Let us forget the cold, malicious Fate Who made our loving hearts her idle toys, And once more revel in the old sweet joys Of happy love. Nay, it is not too late! Forget the deep-ploughed furrows in my brow; Forget the silver gleaming in my hair; Look only in my eyes! Oh! darling, there The old love shone no warme...
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
How Sweet It Were
How sweet it were, hearing the downward stream,With half-shut eyes ever to seemFalling asleep in a half-dream!To dream and dream, like yonder amber light,Which will not leave the myrrh-bush on the height;To hear each others whisperd speech;Eating the Lotos day by day,To watch the crisping ripples on the beach,And tender curving lines of creamy spray;To lend our hearts and spirits whollyTo the influence of mild-minded melancholy;To muse and brood and live again in memoryWith those old faces of our infancyHeapd over with a mound of grass,Two handfuls of white dust, shut in an urn of brass!
Love Killed By Lack.
Let me be warm, let me be fully fed,Luxurious love by wealth is nourished.Let me be lean, and cold, and once grown poor,I shall dislike what once I lov'd before.
Robert Herrick
Among The Lilies.
She stood among the liliesIn sunset's brightest ray,Among the tall June lilies,As stately fair as they;And I, a boyish lover then,Looked once, and, lingering, looked again,And life began that day.She sat among the lilies,My sweet, all lily-pale;The summer lilies listened,I whispered low my tale.O golden anthers, breathing balm,O hush of peace, O twilight calm,Did you or I prevail?She lies among the lily-snows,Beneath the wintry sky;All round her and about herThe buried lilies lie.They will awake at touch of Spring,And she, my fair and flower-like thing,In spring-time--by and by.
Susan Coolidge
On Love, To A Friend
No, foolish youth, To virtuous fameIf now thy early hopes be vow'd,If true ambition's nobler flameCommand thy footsteps from the croud,Lean not to love's inchanting snare;His songs, his words, his looks beware,Nor join his votaries, the young and fair.By thought, by dangers, and by toils,The wreath of just renown is worn;Nor will ambition's awful spoilsThe flowery pomp of ease adorn:But love unbends the force of thought;By love unmanly fears are taught;And love's reward with gaudy sloth is bought.Yet thou hast read in tuneful lays,And heard from many a zealous breast,The pleasing tale of beauty's praiseIn wisdom's lofty language dress'd;Of beauty powerful to impartEach finer sense, each comelier art,And sooth and p...
Mark Akenside
Love Letters of a Violinist. Letter X. A Retrospect.
Letter X. A Retrospect.I. I walk again beside the roaring sea, And once again I harken to the speech Of waves exulting on the madden'd beach. A sound of awful joy it seems to me, A shuddering sound of God's eternity, - Telling of things beyond the sage's reach.II. I walk alone. I see the bounding waves Curl'd into foam. I watch them as they leap Like wild sea-horses loosen'd from the deep. And well I know that they have seen the graves Of shipwreck'd sailors; for Disaster paves...
Eric Mackay
To ......., 1801.
To be the theme of every hourThe heart devotes to Fancy's power,When her prompt magic fills the mindWith friends and joys we've left behind,And joys return and friends are near,And all are welcomed with a tear:--In the mind's purest seat to dwell,To be remembered oft and wellBy one whose heart, though vain and wild,By passion led, by youth beguiled,Can proudly still aspire to beAll that may yet win smiles from thee:--If thus to live in every partOf a lone, weary wanderer's heart;If thus to be its sole employCan give thee one faint gleam of joy,Believe it. Mary,--oh! believeA tongue that never can deceive,Though, erring, it too oft betrayEven more than Love should dare to say,--In Pleasure's dream or Sorrow's hour,I...
Thomas Moore
Lines Upon A Diamond Cross, Worn On Her Bosom By Miss C.M.
Well on that neck, sweet Kitty! may you wearThe sparkling cross, with hopes to soften Heaven;For trust me, tho' so very young and fair,Thou hast some little sins to be forgiven: -For all the hopes which wit and grace can spread,For all the sighs which countless charms can move,Fall, lovely Kitty! on thy youthful head;Yet fall they gently - for the crime is love.
John Carr
A Word To Two Young Ladies.
WHEN tender Rose-trees first receiveOn half-expanded Leaves, the Shower;Hope's gayest pictures we believe,And anxious watch each coining flower.Then, if beneath the genial SunThat spreads abroad the full-blown May,Two infant Stems the rest out-run,Their buds the first to meet the day,With joy their op'ning tints we view,While morning's precious moments fly:My pretty Maids, 'tis thus with you;The fond admiring gazer, I.Preserve, sweet Buds, where'er you be;The richest gem that decks a Wife;The charm of female modesty:And let sweet Music give it life.Still may the favouring Muse be found:Still circumspect the paths ye tread:Plant moral truths in Fancy's ground;And meet old Age without...
Robert Bloomfield
Peggy Mitchell
As lily grows up easily, In modest, gentle dignity To sweet perfection, So grew she, As easily. Or as the rose that takes no care Will open out on sunny air Bloom after bloom, fair after fair, Sweet after sweet; Just so did she, As carelessly. She is our torment without end, She is our enemy and friend, Our joy, our woe; And she will send Madness or glee To you and me, And endlessly.
James Stephens