The Flower of Beauty
by George Darley (1795-1846)

Sweet in her green dell the flower of beauty slumbers,
      Lull’d by the faint breezes sighing through her hair;
Sleeps she and hears not the melancholy numbers
      Breathed to my sad lute ’mid the lonely air.

Down from the high cliffs the rivulet is teeming
      To wind round the willow banks that lure him from above:
O that in tears, from my rocky prison streaming,
      I too could glide to the bower of my love!

Ah! where the woodbines with sleepy arms have wound her,
      Opes she her eyelids at the dream of my lay,
Listening, like the dove, while the fountains echo round her,
      To her lost mate’s call in the forests far away.

Come then, my bird! For the peace thou ever bearest,
      Still Heaven’s messenger of comfort to me—
Come—this fond bosom, O faithfullest and fairest,
      Bleeds with its death-wound, its wound of love for thee!

Views: 39

The Splendour Falls
by Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

      The splendour falls on castle walls
      And snowy summits old in story:
      The long light shakes across the lakes
      And the wild cataract leaps in glory.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes dying, dying, dying.

      O hark, O hear! how thin and clear,
      And thinner, clearer, farther going!
      O sweet and far from cliff and scar
      The horns of Elfland faintly blowing!
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying,
Blow, bugle; answer, echoes dying, dying, dying.

      O love they die in yon rich sky,
      They faint on hill or field, or river:
      Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
      And grow forever and forever.
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying,
And answer, echoes, answer, dying, dying, dying.

Views: 29

In the Highlands
by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)

In the highlands, in the country places,
Where the old plain men have rosy faces,
      And the young fair maidens
            Quiet eyes;
Where essential silence cheers and blesses,
And for ever in the hill-recesses
      Her more lovely music
            Broods and dies—

O to mount again where erst I haunted;
Where the old red hills are bird-enchanted,
      And the low green meadows
            Bright with sward;
And when even dies, the million-tinted,
And the night has come, and planets glinted,
      Lo, the valley hollow
            Lamp-bestarr’d!

O to dream, O to awake and wander
There, and with delight to take and render,
      Through the trance of silence,
            Quiet breath!
Lo! for there, among the flowers and grasses,
Only the mightier movement sounds and passes;
      Only winds and rivers,
            Life and death.

Views: 40

Epipsychidion
by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

My Song, I fear that thou wilt find but few
Who fitly shall conceive thy reasoning,
Of such hard matter dost thou entertain;
Whence, if by misadventure, chance should bring
Thee to base company (as chance may do),
Quite unaware of what thou dost contain,
I prithee, comfort thy sweet self again,
My last delight! tell them that they are dull,
And bid them own that thou art beautiful.

Sweet Spirit! Sister of that orphan one,
Whose empire is the name thou weepest on,
In my heart’s temple I suspend to thee
These votive wreaths of withered memory.

Poor captive bird! who, from thy narrow cage,
Pourest such music, that it might assuage
The rugged hearts of those who prisoned thee,
Were they not deaf to all sweet melody;

This song shall be thy rose: its petals pale
Are dead, indeed, my adored Nightingale!
But soft and fragrant is the faded blossom,
And it has no thorn left to wound thy bosom.
Continue reading …

Views: 28

The Dance
by Rupert Brook (1887-1915)

As the Wind and as the Wind
⁠      In a corner of the way,
Goes stepping, stands twirling,
Invisibly, comes whirling,
Bows before and skips behind
⁠      In a grave, an endless play—

So my Heart and so my Heart
⁠      Following where your feet have gone,
Stirs dust of old dreams there;
He turns a toe; he gleams there,
Treading you a dance apart.
⁠      But you see not. You pass on.

Views: 32

The Three Witches
by Ernest Dowson (1867-1900)

All the moon-shed nights are over,
⁠      And the days of gray and dun;
There is neither may nor clover,
⁠      And the day and night are one.

Not an hamlet, not a city
⁠      Meets our strained and tearless eyes;
In the plain without a pity,
⁠      Where the wan grass droops and dies.

We shall wander through the meaning
⁠      Of a day and see no light,
For our lichened arms are leaning
⁠      On the ends of endless night.

We, the children of Astarte,
⁠      Dear abortions of the moon,
In a gay and silent party,
⁠      We are riding to you soon.

Burning ramparts, ever burning!
⁠      To the flame which never dies
We are yearning, yearning, yearning,
⁠      With our gay and tearless eyes.

In the plain without a pity,
⁠      (Not an hamlet, not a city)
⁠      Where the wan grass droops and dies.

Views: 40

The Maldive Shark
by Herman Melville (1819-1891)

About the Shark, phlegmatical one,
Pale sot of the Maldive sea,
The sleek little pilot-fish, azure and slim,
How alert in attendance be.
From his saw-pit of mouth, from his charnel of maw
They have nothing of harm to dread,
But liquidly glide on his ghastly flank
Or before his Gorgonian head;
Or lurk in the port of serrated teeth
In white triple tiers of glittering gates,
And there find a haven when peril’s abroad,
An asylum in jaws of the Fates!
They are friends; and friendly they guide him to prey,
Yet never partake of the treat—
Eyes and brains to the dotard lethargic and dull,
Pale ravener of horrible meat.

Views: 33

Deine schöne Augen
by Peter Rosegger (1843-1918)

Oh nichts giebt es auf Erden,
Was mich so sehr entzückt,
Als Deine schönen Augen,
Seit sie mich angeblickt.
Sie sind meine Himmelssterne,
Die ich so selig schau’;
Sie sind mein Sonnenschein;
Sie sind mein Morgenthau;
Sie sind meine Frühlingsblumen;
Sie sind mein Alpensee,
Wo mein Schifflein schaukelt
Und wo ich untergeh.

Views: 43

A Day Dream
by Emily Brontë (1818-1848)

On a sunny brae alone I lay
⁠   One summer afternoon;
It was the marriage-time of May,
⁠   With her young lover, June.

From her mother’s heart seemed loath to part
⁠   That queen of bridal charms,
But her father smiled on the fairest child
⁠   He ever held in his arms.

The trees did wave their plumy crests,
⁠   The glad birds carolled clear;
And I, of all the wedding guests,
⁠   Was only sullen there!

There was not one but wished to shun
⁠   My aspect void of cheer;
The very gray rocks, looking on,
⁠   Asked, ‛What do you here?’

And I could utter no reply;
⁠   In sooth, I did not know
Why I had brought a clouded eye
⁠   To greet the general glow.

So, resting on a heathy bank,
⁠   I took my heart to me;
And we together sadly sank
⁠   Into a reverie.

We thought, ‛When winter comes again,
⁠   Where will these bright things be?
All vanished, like a vision vain,
⁠   An unreal mockery!

‛The birds that now so blithely sing,
⁠   Through deserts, frozen dry,
Poor spectres of the perished spring,
⁠   In famished troops will fly.

‛And why should we be glad at all?
⁠   The leaf is hardly green,
Before a token of its fall
⁠   Is on the surface seen!’

Now, whether it were really so,
⁠   I never could be sure;
But as in fit of peevish woe,
⁠   I stretched me on the moor,

A thousand thousand gleaming fires
⁠   Seemed kindling in the air;
A thousand thousand silvery lyres
⁠   Resounded far and near:

Methought, the very breath I breathed
⁠   Was full of sparks divine,
And all my heather-couch was wreathed
⁠   By that celestial shine!

And, while the wide earth echoing rung
⁠   To that strange minstrelsy,
The little glittering spirits sung,
⁠   Or seemed to sing, to me:

‛O mortal! mortal! let them die;
⁠   Let time and tears destroy,
That we may overflow the sky
⁠   With universal joy!

‛Let grief distract the sufferer’s breast,
⁠   And night obscure his way;
They hasten him to endless rest,
⁠   And everlasting day.

‛To thee the world is like a tomb,
⁠   A desert’s naked shore;
To us, in unimagined bloom,
⁠   It brightens more and more!

‛And, could we lift the veil, and give
⁠   One brief glimpse to thine eye,
Thou wouldst rejoice for those that live,
⁠   Because they live to die.’

The music ceased; the noonday dream,
⁠   Like dream of night, withdrew;
But Fancy, still, will sometimes deem
⁠   Her fond creation true.

Views: 64

The Mystic
by Don Marquis (1878-1889)

Have I not know the sky and sea
Put on a look as hushed and stilled
As if some ancient prophecy
Drew on to be fulfilled?

And would it be so strange a thing,
Among the rainy hills of Spring
A veritable god to see
In luminous reality?
To see him pass, as bursts of sun
Pass over the valleys and are gone?

Have I not seen the candid street
Grow secret in the blaze of noon,
Swaying before the Paraclete
Who weaves its being through his rune?

And would it be too strange to say
I see a dead man come this way?
Like mist the houses shrink and swell,
Like blood the highways throb and beat,
The sapless stones beneath my feet
Turn foliate with miracle;
And from the crowd my dead men come,
Fragrant with youth… and living mirth
Moves lips and eyes that once were dumb
And blinded in the charnel earth.

And I have dwelt with Presences
Behind the veils of Time and Place
And hearkened to the silences
that guard the courts of grace,
And I have dared the Distances
Where the red planets race—
And I have seen that Near and Far
And god and Man and Avatar
And Life and Death but one thing are—
And I have seen this wingless world
Curst with impermanence and whirled
Like dust across the Summer swirled,
And I have seen this world a star
All wonderful in Space!

Views: 58