Heartbreak

Love

Life

Nature

Death

Friendship

Inspirational

Heartbreak

Sadness

Family

Hope

Happiness

Loss

War

Dreams

Spirituality

Courage

Freedom

Identity

Betrayal

Loneliness

Page 140 of 1418

Non Sum Qualis Eram Bonae Sub Regno Cynarae

Last night, ah, yesternight, betwixt her lips and mine
There fell thy shadow, Cynara! thy breath was shed
Upon my soul between the kisses and the wine;
And I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
Yea, I was desolate and bowed my head:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

All night upon mine heart I felt her warm heart beat,
Night-long within mine arms in love and sleep she lay;
Surely the kisses of her bought red mouth were sweet;
But I was desolate and sick of an old passion,
When I awoke and found the dawn was gray:
I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind,
Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng,
Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lilies out of mind;
But I was desolate and...

Ernest Christopher Dowson

Sunrise On The Hills.

I stood upon the hills, when heaven's wide arch
Was glorious with the sun's returning march,
And woods were brightened, and soft gales
Went forth to kiss the sun-clad vales.
The clouds were far beneath me; - bathed in light
They gathered mid-way round the wooded height,
And, in their fading glory, shone
Like hosts in battle overthrown,
As many a pinnacle, with shifting glance,
Through the grey mist thrust up its shattered lance,
And rocking on the cliff was left
The dark pine blasted, bare, and cleft,
The veil of cloud was lifted, and below
Glowed the rich valley, and the river's flow
Was darkened by the forest's shade,
Or glistened in the white cascade;
Where upward, in the mellow blush of day,
The noisy bittern wheeled his spiral way.

I heard...

William Henry Giles Kingston

The End Of The Episode

Indulge no more may we
In this sweet-bitter pastime:
The love-light shines the last time
Between you, Dear, and me.

There shall remain no trace
Of what so closely tied us,
And blank as ere love eyed us
Will be our meeting-place.

The flowers and thymy air,
Will they now miss our coming?
The dumbles thin their humming
To find we haunt not there?

Though fervent was our vow,
Though ruddily ran our pleasure,
Bliss has fulfilled its measure,
And sees its sentence now.

Ache deep; but make no moans:
Smile out; but stilly suffer:
The paths of love are rougher
Than thoroughfares of stones.

Thomas Hardy

Vain Hope

Sometimes, to solace my sad heart, I say,
Though late it be, though lily-time be past,
Though all the summer skies be overcast,
Haply I will go down to her, some day,
And cast my rests of life before her feet,
That she may have her will of me, being so sweet
And none gainsay!

So might she look on me with pitying eyes,
And lay calm hands of healing on my head:
"Because of thy long pains be comforted;
For I, even I, am Love: sad soul, arise!"
So, for her graciousness, I might at last
Gaze on the very face of Love, and hold Him fast
In no disguise.

Haply, I said, she will take pity on me,
Though late I come, long after lily-time,
With burden of waste days and drifted rhyme:
Her kind, calm eyes, down drooping maidenly,
Shall change, gr...

Ernest Christopher Dowson

Self Communion

'The mist is resting on the hill;
The smoke is hanging in the air;
The very clouds are standing still:
A breathless calm broods everywhere.
Thou pilgrim through this vale of tears,
Thou, too, a little moment cease
Thy anxious toil and fluttering fears,
And rest thee, for a while, in peace.'

'I would, but Time keeps working still
And moving on for good or ill:
He will not rest or stay.
In pain or ease, in smiles or tears,
He still keeps adding to my years
And stealing life away.
His footsteps in the ceaseless sound
Of yonder clock I seem to hear,
That through this stillness so profound
Distinctly strikes the vacant ear.
For ever striding on and on,
He pauses not by night or day;
And all my life will soon be gone
As these past year...

Anne Bronte

The Wind

Ah! no, no, it is nothing, surely nothing at all,
Only the wild-going wind round by the garden-wall,
For the dawn just now is breaking, the wind beginning to fall.

        Wind, wind! thou art sad, art thou kind?
        Wind, wind, unhappy! thou art blind,
        Yet still thou wanderest the lily-seed to find.

So I will sit, and think and think of the days gone by,
Never moving my chair for fear the dogs should cry,
Making no noise at all while the flambeau burns awry.

For my chair is heavy and carved, and with sweeping green behind
It is hung, and the dragons thereon grin out in the gusts of the wind;
On its folds an orange lies, with a deep gash cut in the rind.

        Wind, wind! thou art sad, art thou kind?
        Wind, wind, unhappy...

William Morris

She, To Him I
When you shall see me in the toils of Time,
My lauded beauties carried off from me,
My eyes no longer stars as in their prime,
My name forgot of Maiden Fair and Free;

When in your being heart concedes to mind,
And judgment, though you scarce its process know,
Recalls the excellencies I once enshrined,
And you are irked that they have withered so:

Remembering that with me lies not the blame,
That Sportsman Time but rears his brood to kill,
Knowing me in my soul the very same -
One who would die to spare you touch of ill! -
Will you not grant to old affection's claim
The hand of friendship down Life's sunless hill?

1866.
Thomas Hardy

Spirit Song
Thou wert once the purest wave
Where the tempests roar;
Thou art now a golden wave
On the golden shore --
Ever -- ever -- evermore!

Thou wert once the bluest wave
Shadows e'er hung o'er;
Thou art now the brightest wave
On the brightest shore --
Ever -- ever -- evermore!

Thou wert once the gentlest wave
Ocean ever bore;
Thou art now the fairest wave
On the fairest shore --
Ever -- ever -- evermore!

Whiter foam than thine, O wave,
Wavelet never wore,
Stainless wave; and now you lave
The far and stormless shore --
Ever -- ever -- evermore!

Who bade thee go, O bluest wave,
Beyond the tempest's roar?
Who bade thee flow, O fairest wave,
Unto the golden shore,
Ever -- ever -- evermore?

Who wav...
Abram Joseph Ryan

At Midnight.
At midnight in the trysting wood
I wandered by the waterside,
When, soft as mist, before me stood
My sweetheart who had died.

But so unchanged was she, meseemed
That I had only dreamed her dead;
Glad in her eyes the love-light gleamed;
Her lips were warm and red.

What though the stars shone shadowy through
Her form as by my side she went,
And by her feet no drop of dew
Was stirred, no blade was bent!

What though through her white loveliness
The wildflower dimmed, the moonlight paled,
Real to my touch she was; no less
Than when the earth prevailed.

She took my hand. My heart beat wild.
She kissed my mouth. I bowed my head.
Then gazing in my eyes, she smiled:
"When did'st thou die?" she said.
Madison Julius Cawein

The Mood O' The Earth.
My heart is high, is high, my dear,
And the warm wind sunnily blows;
My heart is high with a mood that's cheer,
And burns like a sun-blown rose.

My heart is high, is high, my dear,
And the Heaven's deep skies are blue;
My heart is high as the passionate year,
And smiles like a bud in dew.

My heart, my heart is high, my sweet,
For wild is the smell o' the wood,
That gusts in the breeze with a pulse o' heat,
Mad heat that beats like a blood.

My heart, my heart is high, my sweet,
And the sense of summer is full;
A sense of summer, - full fields of wheat,
Full forests and waters cool.

My heart is high, is high, my heart,
As the bee's that groans and swinks
In the dabbled flowers that dart and part
To his woolly bulk when he d...
Madison Julius Cawein

Ginevra.
Wild, pale, and wonder-stricken, even as one
Who staggers forth into the air and sun
From the dark chamber of a mortal fever,
Bewildered, and incapable, and ever
Fancying strange comments in her dizzy brain
Of usual shapes, till the familiar train
Of objects and of persons passed like things
Strange as a dreamer's mad imaginings,
Ginevra from the nuptial altar went;
The vows to which her lips had sworn assent
Rung in her brain still with a jarring din,
Deafening the lost intelligence within.

And so she moved under the bridal veil,
Which made the paleness of her cheek more pale,
And deepened the faint crimson of her mouth,
And darkened her dark locks, as moonlight doth, -
And of the gold and jewels glittering there
She scarce felt conscious, - but th...
Percy Bysshe Shelley

Sonnet: - XV.
Last night I heard the plaintive whippoorwill,
And straightway Sorrow shot his swiftest dart.
I know not why, but it has chilled my heart
Like some dread thing of evil. All night long
My nerves were shaken, and my pulse stood still,
And waited for a terror yet to come
To strike harsh discords through my life's sweet song.
Sleep came - an incubus that filled the sum
Of wretchedness with dreams so wild and chill
The sweat oozed from me like great drops of gall;
An evil spirit kept my mind in thrall,
And rolled my body up like a poor scroll
On which is written curses that the soul
Shrinks back from when it sees some hellish carnival.
Charles Sangster

Left Upon A Seat In A Yew-tree
Nay, Traveller! rest. This lonely Yew-tree stands
Far from all human dwelling: what if here
No sparkling rivulet spread the verdant herb?
What if the bee love not these barren boughs?
Yet, if the wind breathe soft, the curling waves,
That break against the shore, shall lull thy mind
By one soft impulse saved from vacancy.
Who he was
That piled these stones and with the mossy sod
First covered, and here taught this aged Tree
With its dark arms to form a circling bower,
I well remember. He was one who owned
No common soul. In youth by science nursed,
And led by nature into a wild scene
Of lofty hopes, he to the world went forth
A favoured Being, knowing no desire
Which genius did not hallow; 'gainst the taint
Of dissolute tongues, and jealou...
William Wordsworth

The Bell.
Through the calm and silent air
Floats the tolling funeral bell,
Swooning over hill and dell,
Heavy laden with despair;
Mute between each muffled stroke,
Sad as though a dead voice spoke,
Out of the dim Past time spoke,
Stands my heart all mute with care.

The Bell is tolling on, and deep,
Deep and drear into my heart
All its bitter accents dart.
Peace! sad chime, I will not weep--
What is there within thy tone,
That should wring my heart alone,
Rive it with this endless moan?
Peace! and let past sorrows sleep!

Fling your music on the breeze,
Mock the sighing of the willows,
Mock the lapping of the billows,
Mock not human sympathies;
Slow chime, sad chime, mock me not,
...
Walter R. Cassels

A Girl's Autumn Reverie
We plucked a red rose, you and I,
All in the summer weather;
Sweet its perfume and rare its bloom,
Enjoyed by us together.
The rose is dead, the summer fled,
And bleak winds are complaining;
We dwell apart, but in each heart
We find the thorn remaining.

We sipped a sweet wine, you and I,
All in the summer weather.
The beaded draught we lightly quaffed,
And filled the glass together.
Together we watched its rosy glow,
And saw its bubbles glitter;
Apart, alone we only know
The lees are very bitter.

We walked in sunshine, you and I,
All in the summer weather:
The very night seemed noonday bright,
When we two were together.
I wonder why with our good-bye
O'er hill and vale and meadow<...
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

In Morte. XLIII.
Yon nightingale who mourns so plaintively
Perchance his fledglings or his darling mate,
Fills sky and earth with sweetness, warbling late,
Prophetic notes of melting melody.
All night, he, as it were, companions me,
Reminding me of my so cruel fate,
Mourning no other grief save mine own state,
Who knew not Death reigned o'er divinity.
How easy 't is to dupe the soul secure!
Those two fair lamps, even than the sun more bright,
Who ever dreamed to see turn clay obscure?
But Fortune has ordained, I now am sure,
That I, midst lifelong tears, should learn aright,
Naught here can make us happy, or endure.
Emma Lazarus

Fragment: Where's The Poet?
Where's the Poet? show him! show him,
Muses nine! that I may know him.
'Tis the man who with a man
Is an equal, be he King,
Or poorest of the beggar-clan
Or any other wonderous thing
A man may be 'twixt ape and Plato;
'Tis the man who with a bird,
Wren or Eagle, finds his way to
All its instincts; he hath heard
The Lion's roaring, and can tell
What his horny throat expresseth,
And to him the Tiger's yell
Come articulate and presseth
Or his ear like mother-tongue.
John Keats

To A Redbreast (In Sickness)
Stay, little cheerful Robin! stay,
And at my casement sing,
Though it should prove a farewell lay
And this our parting spring.

Though I, alas! may ne'er enjoy
The promise in thy song;
A charm, 'that' thought can not destroy,
Doth to thy strain belong.

Methinks that in my dying hour
Thy song would still be dear,
And with a more than earthly power
My passing Spirit cheer.

Then, little Bird, this boon confer,
Come, and my requiem sing,
Nor fail to be the harbinger
Of everlasting Spring.
William Wordsworth

Page 140 of 1418

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