Press "Enter" to skip to content

Posts published in “Poems”

Helas

suprusr 0

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,…

We Are Made One with What We Touch and See

suprusr 0

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…

With A Copy Of ‘A House Of Pomegranates’

suprusr 0

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…

Vita Nuova

suprusr 0

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…

URBS SACRA AETERNA

suprusr 0

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…

Under The Balcony

suprusr 0

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…

Tristitiae

suprusr 0

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…

To Milton

suprusr 0

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…

Theoretikos

suprusr 0

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…

The True Knowledge

suprusr 0

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…

The Sphinx

suprusr 0

(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 NEW REMORSE

suprusr 0

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.…

The New Helen

suprusr 0

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…

The Harlot’s House

suprusr 0

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…

The Grave Of Shelley

suprusr 0

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…

The Grave Of Keats

suprusr 0

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…

The Garden Of Eros

suprusr 0

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…

The Burden Of Itys

suprusr 0

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…

The Ballad Of Reading Gaol

suprusr 0

(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…

Taedium Vitae

suprusr 0

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,…

SYMPHONY IN YELLOW

suprusr 0

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…

Sonnet To Liberty

suprusr 0

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…

Sonnet On Approaching Italy

suprusr 0

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…

Silentium Amoris

suprusr 0

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…

Serenade (For Music)

suprusr 0

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,…

Santa Decca

suprusr 0

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…

SAN MINIATO

suprusr 0

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…

Roses And Rue

suprusr 0

(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…

ROME UNVISITED

suprusr 0

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…

REQUIESCAT

suprusr 0

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…

Ravenna

suprusr 0

(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…

Quia Multum Amavi

suprusr 0

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…

Queen Henrietta Maria

suprusr 0

(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…

Quantum Mutata

suprusr 0

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…

Portia

suprusr 0

(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…

Phedre

suprusr 0

(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…

Panthea

suprusr 0

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…

ON THE SALE BY AUCTION OF KEATS’ LOVE LETTERS

suprusr 0

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…

ON THE MASSACRE OF THE CHRISTIANS IN BULGARIA

suprusr 0

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…

My Voice

suprusr 0

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…

Magdalen Walks

suprusr 0

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…

Madonna Mia

suprusr 0

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…

Louis Napoleon

suprusr 0

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!…

Libertatis Sacra Fames

suprusr 0

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…

Les Silhouettes

suprusr 0

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…

LES BALLONS

suprusr 0

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…

LE PANNEAU

suprusr 0

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…

LE JARDIN DES TUILERIES

suprusr 0

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…