To drift with every passion till my soul Is a stringed lute on which all winds can play, Is it for this that I have given away Mine ancient wisdom,…
Posts published by “suprusr”
We are resolved into the supreme air, We are made one with what we touch and see, With our heart’s blood each crimson sun is fair, With our young lives…
Go, little book, To him who, on a lute with horns of pearl, Sang of the white feet of the Golden Girl: And bid him look Into thy pages: it…
I stood by the unvintageable sea Till the wet waves drenched face and hair with spray; The long red fires of the dying day Burned in the west; the wind…
Rome! what a scroll of History thine has been; In the first days thy sword republican Ruled the whole world for many an age’s span: Then of the peoples wert…
O beautiful star with the crimson mouth! O moon with the brows of gold! Rise up, rise up, from the odorous south! And light for my love her way, Lest…
O well for him who lives at ease With garnered gold in wide domain, Nor heeds the splashing of the rain, The crashing down of forest trees. O well for…
Milton! I think thy spirit hath passed away From these white cliffs and high-embattled towers; This gorgeous fiery-coloured world of ours Seems fallen into ashes dull and grey, And the…
This mighty empire hath but feet of clay: Of all its ancient chivalry and might Our little island is forsaken quite: Some enemy hath stolen its crown of bay, And…
Thou knowest all; I seek in vain What lands to till or sow with seed – The land is black with briar and weed, Nor cares for falling tears or…
(To Marcel Schwob in friendship and in admiration) In a dim corner of my room for longer than my fancy thinks A beautiful and silent Sphinx has watched me through…
The sin was mine; I did not understand. So now is music prisoned in her cave, Save where some ebbing desultory wave Frets with its restless whirls this meagre strand.…
Where hast thou been since round the walls of Troy The sons of God fought in that great emprise? Why dost thou walk our common earth again? Hast thou forgotten…
We caught the tread of dancing feet, We loitered down the moonlit street, And stopped beneath the harlot’s house. Inside, above the din and fray, We heard the loud musicians…
Like burnt-out torches by a sick man’s bed Gaunt cypress-trees stand round the sun-bleached stone; Here doth the little night-owl make her throne, And the slight lizard show his jewelled…
Rid of the world’s injustice, and his pain, He rests at last beneath God’s veil of blue: Taken from life when life and love were new The youngest of the…
It is full summer now, the heart of June; Not yet the sunburnt reapers are astir Upon the upland meadow where too soon Rich autumn time, the season’s usurer, Will…
This English Thames is holier far than Rome, Those harebells like a sudden flush of sea Breaking across the woodland, with the foam Of meadow-sweet and white anemone To fleck…
(In memoriam C. T. W. Sometime trooper of the Royal Horse Guards obiit H.M. prison, Reading, Berkshire July 7, 1896) I He did not wear his scarlet coat, For blood…
To stab my youth with desperate knives, to wear This paltry age’s gaudy livery, To let each base hand filch my treasury, To mesh my soul within a woman’s hair,…
An omnibus across the bridge Crawls like a yellow butterfly And, here and there, a passer-by Shows like a little restless midge. Big barges full of yellow hay Are moored…
These are the letters which Endymion wrote To one he loved in secret, and apart. And now the brawlers of the auction mart Bargain and bid for each poor blotted…
Nay, Lord, not thus! white lilies in the spring, Sad olive-groves, or silver-breasted dove, Teach me more clearly of Thy life and love Than terrors of red flame and thundering.…
I reached the Alps: the soul within me burned, Italia, my Italia, at thy name: And when from out the mountain’s heart I came And saw the land for which…
As often-times the too resplendent sun Hurries the pallid and reluctant moon Back to her sombre cave, ere she hath won A single ballad from the nightingale, So doth thy…
The western wind is blowing fair Across the dark AEgean sea, And at the secret marble stair My Tyrian galley waits for thee. Come down! the purple sail is spread,…
The Gods are dead: no longer do we bring To grey-eyed Pallas crowns of olive-leaves! Demeter’s child no more hath tithe of sheaves, And in the noon the careless shepherds…
See, I have climbed the mountain side Up to this holy house of God, Where once that Angel-Painter trod Who saw the heavens opened wide, And throned upon the crescent…
(To L. L.) Could we dig up this long-buried treasure, Were it worth the pleasure, We never could learn love’s song, We are parted too long. Could the passionate past…
I. The corn has turned from grey to red, Since first my spirit wandered forth From the drear cities of the north, And to Italia’s mountains fled. And here I…
Tread lightly, she is near Under the snow, Speak gently, she can hear The daisies grow. All her bright golden hair Tarnished with rust, She that was young and fair…
(Newdigate prize poem recited in the Sheldonian Theatre Oxford June 26th, 1878. To my friend George Fleming author of ‘The Nile Novel’ and ‘Mirage’) I. A year ago I breathed…
Dear Heart, I think the young impassioned priest When first he takes from out the hidden shrine His God imprisoned in the Eucharist, And eats the bread, and drinks the…
(To Ellen Terry) In the lone tent, waiting for victory, She stands with eyes marred by the mists of pain, Like some wan lily overdrenched with rain: The clamorous clang…
There was a time in Europe long ago When no man died for freedom anywhere, But England’s lion leaping from its lair Laid hands on the oppressor! it was so…
(To Ellen Terry) I marvel not Bassanio was so bold To peril all he had upon the lead, Or that proud Aragon bent low his head Or that Morocco’s fiery…
(To Sarah Bernhardt) How vain and dull this common world must seem To such a One as thou, who should’st have talked At Florence with Mirandola, or walked Through the…
Nay, let us walk from fire unto fire, From passionate pain to deadlier delight, – I am too young to live without desire, Too young art thou to waste this…
These are the letters which Endymion wrote To one he loved in secret, and apart. And now the brawlers of the auction mart Bargain and bid for each poor blotted…
Christ, dost Thou live indeed? or are Thy bones Still straitened in their rock-hewn sepulchre? And was Thy Rising only dreamed by her Whose love of Thee for all her…
Seven stars in the still water, And seven in the sky; Seven sins on the King’s daughter, Deep in her soul to lie. Red roses are at her feet, (Roses…
Within this restless, hurried, modern world We took our hearts’ full pleasure; You and I, And now the white sails of our ship are furled, And spent the lading of…
The little white clouds are racing over the sky, And the fields are strewn with the gold of the flower of March, The daffodil breaks under foot, and the tasselled…
A lily-girl, not made for this world’s pain, With brown, soft hair close braided by her ears, And longing eyes half veiled by slumberous tears Like bluest water seen through…
Eagle of Austerlitz! where were thy wings When far away upon a barbarous strand, In fight unequal, by an obscure hand, Fell the last scion of thy brood of Kings!…
Albeit nurtured in democracy, And liking best that state republican Where every man is Kinglike and no man Is crowned above his fellows, yet I see, Spite of this modern…
The sea is flecked with bars of grey, The dull dead wind is out of tune, And like a withered leaf the moon Is blown across the stormy bay. Etched…
Against these turbid turquoise skies The light and luminous balloons Dip and drift like satin moons Drift like silken butterflies; Reel with every windy gust, Rise and reel like dancing…
Under the rose-tree’s dancing shade There stands a little ivory girl, Pulling the leaves of pink and pearl With pale green nails of polished jade. The red leaves fall upon…
This winter air is keen and cold, And keen and cold this winter sun, But round my chair the children run Like little things of dancing gold. Sometimes about the…