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Venus by Adonis' Side
Venus by Adonis' sideCrying kiss'd, and kissing cried,Wrung her hands and tore her hairFor Adonis dying there.Stay (quoth she) O stay and live!Nature surely doth not giveTo the earth her sweetest flowersTo be seen but some few hours.On his face, still as he bledFor each drop a tear she shed,Which she kiss'd or wip'd away,Else had drown'd him where he lay.Fair Proserpina (quoth she)Shall not have thee yet from me;Nor my soul to fly beginWhile my lips can keep it in.Here she clos'd again. And someSay Apollo would have comeTo have cur'd his wounded limb,But that she had smothered him.From Britannia's Pastorals.
William Browne
An Autumn Day
Leaden skies and a lonesome shadow Where summer has passed with her gorgeous train;Snow on the mountain, and frost on the meadow - A white face pressed to the window pane;A cold mist falling, a bleak wind calling, And oh! but life seems vain.Rain is better than golden weather, When the heart is dulled with a dumb despair.Dead leaves lie where they walked together, The hammock is gone, and the rustic chair.Let bleak snows cover the whole world over - It will never again seem fair.Time laughs lightly at youth's sad 'Never,' Summer shall come again, smiling once more,High o'er the cold world the sun shines for ever, Hearts that seemed dead are alive at the core.Oh, but the pain of it -oh, but the gain of it,
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Consolation
Mist clogs the sunshine.Smoky dwarf housesHem me round everywhere;A vague dejectionWeighs down my soul.Yet, while I languish,Everywhere countlessProspects unroll themselves,And countless beingsPass countless moods.Far hence, in Asia,On the smooth convent-roofs,On the gilt terraces,Of holy Lassa,Bright shines the sun.Grey time-worn marblesHold the pure Muses;In their cool gallery,By yellow Tiber,They still look fair.Strange unloved uproarShrills round their portal;Yet not on HeliconKept they more cloudlessTheir noble calm.Through sun-proof alleysIn a lone, sand-hemm'dCity of Africa,A blind, led beggar,Age-bow'd, asks alms.No bolder robberErst abode ambush'd...
Matthew Arnold
Gifts Returned
"You must give back," her mother said,To a poor sobbing little maid,"All the young man has given you,Hard as it now may seem to do.""'Tis done already, mother dear!"Said the sweet girl, "So never fear." Mother. Are you quite certain? Come, recount(There was not much) the whole amount. Girl. The locket; the kid gloves. Mother. Go on. Girl. Of the kid gloves I found but one. Mother. Never mind that. What else? Proceed.You gave back all his trash? Girl. Indeed. Mother. And was there nothing you would save? Girl. Everything I could give I gave. Mother. To the last tittle? Girl. Even to that. Mother. Freely? Girl<...
Walter Savage Landor
The Feaster
Oh, who will hush that cry outside the doors, While we are glad within?Go forth, go forth, all you my servitors; (And gather close, my kin.)Go out to her. Tell her we keep a feast,-- Lost Loveliness who will not sit her down Though we implore.It is her silence binds me unreleased, It is her silence that no flute can drown, It is her moonlit silence at the door,Wide as the whiteness, but a fire on high That frights my heart with an immortal Cry, Calling me evermore.Louder, you viols;--louder, O my harp; Let me not hear her voice;And drown her keener silence, silver-sharp, With waves of golden noise!For she is wise as Eden, even mute, To search my spirit through the deep and height
Josephine Preston Peabody
The Adieu. Written Under The Impression That The Author Would Soon Die.
1.Adieu, thou Hill! [1] where early joySpread roses o'er my brow;Where Science seeks each loitering boyWith knowledge to endow.Adieu, my youthful friends or foes,Partners of former bliss or woes;No more through Ida's paths we stray;Soon must I share the gloomy cell,Whose ever-slumbering inmates dwellUnconscious of the day.2.Adieu, ye hoary Regal Fanes,Ye spires of Granta's vale,Where Learning robed in sable reigns.And Melancholy pale.Ye comrades of the jovial hour,Ye tenants of the classic bower,On Cama's verdant margin plac'd,Adieu! while memory still is mine,For offerings on Oblivion's shrine,These scenes must be effac'd.3Adieu, ye mountains of the clime<...
George Gordon Byron
Left Upon A Seat In A Yew-tree
Nay, Traveller! rest. This lonely Yew-tree standsFar from all human dwelling: what if hereNo 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 mindBy one soft impulse saved from vacancy. Who he wasThat piled these stones and with the mossy sodFirst covered, and here taught this aged TreeWith its dark arms to form a circling bower,I well remember. He was one who ownedNo common soul. In youth by science nursed,And led by nature into a wild sceneOf lofty hopes, he to the world went forthA favoured Being, knowing no desireWhich genius did not hallow; 'gainst the taintOf dissolute tongues, and jealou...
William Wordsworth
Caroline Branson
With our hearts like drifting suns, had we but walked, As often before, the April fields till star - light Silkened over with viewless gauze the darkness Under the cliff, our trysting place in the wood, Where the brook turns! Had we but passed from wooing Like notes of music that run together, into winning, In the inspired improvisation of love! But to put back of us as a canticle ended The rapt enchantment of the flesh, In which our souls swooned, down, down, Where time was not, nor space, nor ourselves - Annihilated in love! To leave these behind for a room with lamps: And to stand with our Secret mocking itself, And hiding itself amid flowers and mandolins, Stared at by all between salad and coffee....
Edgar Lee Masters
Sonnet CCIV.
Mira quel colle, o stanco mio cor vago.HE BIDS HIS HEART RETURN TO LAURA, NOT PERCEIVING THAT IT HAD NEVER LEFT HER.P. Look on that hill, my fond but harass'd heart! Yestreen we left her there, who 'gan to take Some care of us and friendlier looks to dart; Now from our eyes she draws a very lake: Return alone--I love to be apart-- Try, if perchance the day will ever break To mitigate our still increasing smart, Partner and prophet of my lifelong ache.H. O wretch! in whom vain thoughts and idle swell, Thou, who thyself hast tutor'd to forget, Speak'st to thy heart as if 'twere with thee yet? When to thy greatest bliss thou saidst farewell, ...
Francesco Petrarca
Ode on Beauty.
Infinite peace is hanging in the air, Infinite peace is resting on mine eyes, That just an hour ago learnt how to bear Seeing your body's flaming harmonies. The grey clouds flecked with orange are and gold, Birds unto rest are falling, falling, falling, And all the earth goes slowly into night, Steadily turning from the harshly bright Sunset. And now the wind is growing cold And in my heart a hidden voice is calling. Say, is our sense of beauty mixed with earth When lip on lip and breast on breast we cling, When ecstasy brings short bright sobs to birth And all our pulses, both our bodies sing? When through the haze that gathers on my sight I see you...
Edward Shanks
From "Myrtis"
Friends, whom she lookd at blandly from her couchAnd her white wrist above it, gem-bedewd,Were arguing with Pentheusa: she had heardReport of Creons death, whom years beforeShe listend to, well-pleasd; and sighs arose; For sighs full often fondle with reproofsAnd will be fondled by them. When I cameAfter the rest to visit her, she said,"Myrtis! how kind! Who better knows than thouThe pangs of love? and my first love was he!" Tell me (if ever, Eros! are revealdThy secrets to the earth) have they been trueTo any love who speak about the first?What! shall these holier lights, like twinkling starsIn the few hours assignd them, change their place, And, when comes ampler splendor, disappear?Idler I am, and pard...
Poppy And Mandragora
Let us go far from here!Here there is sadness in the early year:Here sorrow waits where joy went laughing late:The sicklied face of heaven hangs like hateAbove the woodland and the meadowland;And Spring hath taken fire in her handOf frost and made a dead bloom of her face,Which was a flower of marvel once and grace,And sweet serenity and stainless glow.Delay not. Let us go.Let us go far awayInto the sunrise of a fairer May:Where all the nights resign them to the moon,And drug their souls with odor and soft tune,And tell their dreams in starlight: where the hoursTeach immortality with fadeless flowers;And all the day the bee weights down the bloom,And all the night the moth shakes strange perfume,Like music, from the flower-bel...
Madison Julius Cawein
Camilla
Camilla calls me heartless: hence you seeLogic in love has little part.How can I otherwise than heartless beSeeing Camilla has my heart?
Victor James Daley
How Clear She Shines.
How clear she shines! How quietlyI lie beneath her guardian light;While heaven and earth are whispering me,"To morrow, wake, but dream to-night."Yes, Fancy, come, my Fairy love!These throbbing temples softly kiss;And bend my lonely couch above,And bring me rest, and bring me bliss.The world is going; dark world, adieu!Grim world, conceal thee till the day;The heart thou canst not all subdueMust still resist, if thou delay!Thy love I will not, will not share;Thy hatred only wakes a smile;Thy griefs may wound, thy wrongs may tear,But, oh, thy lies shall ne'er beguile!While gazing on the stars that glowAbove me, in that stormless sea,I long to hope that all the woeCreation knows, is held in thee!And this s...
Emily Bronte
Departed Days
Yes, dear departed, cherished days,Could Memory's hand restoreYour morning light, your evening rays,From Time's gray urn once more,Then might this restless heart be still,This straining eye might close,And Hope her fainting pinions fold,While the fair phantoms rose.But, like a child in ocean's arms,We strive against the stream,Each moment farther from the shoreWhere life's young fountains gleam;Each moment fainter wave the fields,And wider rolls the sea;The mist grows dark, - the sun goes down, -Day breaks, - and where are we?
Oliver Wendell Holmes
A Sea-Side Walk
We walked beside the sea,After a day which perished silentlyOf its own glory, like the Princess weirdWho, combating the Genius, scorched and seared,Uttered with burning breath, "Ho! victory!"And sank adown, an heap of ashes pale;So runs the Arab tale.The sky above us showedAn universal and unmoving cloud,On which, the cliffs permitted us to seeOnly the outline of their majesty,As master-minds, when gazed at by the crowd!And, shining with a gloom, the water greySwang in its moon-taught way.Nor moon nor stars were out.They did not dare to tread so soon about,Though trembling, in the footsteps of the sun.The light was neither night's nor day's, but oneWhich, life-like, had a beauty in its doubt;And Silence's impassion...
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
In Memoriam (Father Keeler)
Father Keeler died February 28, 1880, in Mobile, Ala.Inscribed to his sister."Sweet Christ! let him live, ah! we need his life, And woe to us if he goes!Oh! his life is beautiful, sweet, and fair,Like a holy hymn, and the stillest prayer;Let him linger to help us in the strife On earth, with our sins and woes."'Twas the cry of thousands who loved him so,The Angel of Death said: "No! oh! no!"He was passing away -- and none might saveThe virgin priest from a spotless grave."O God! spare his life, we plead and pray, He taught us to love You so --So, so much -- his life is so sweet and fair --A still, still song -- and a holy prayer;He is our Father; oh! let him stay -- He gone, to whom shall we go?"<...
Abram Joseph Ryan
Dead Before Death - Sonnet
Ah! changed and cold, how changed and very cold, With stiffened smiling lips and cold calm eyes: Changed, yet the same; much knowing, little wise;This was the promise of the days of old!Grown hard and stubborn in the ancient mould, Grown rigid in the sham of lifelong lies: We hoped for better things as years would rise,But it is over as a tale once told.All fallen the blossom that no fruitage bore, All lost the present and the future time,All lost, all lost, the lapse that went before:So lost till death shut-to the opened door, So lost from chime to everlasting chime,So cold and lost for ever evermore.
Christina Georgina Rossetti