PoemsElkin Mathews & John Lane, 1893 - 81 pages |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
beauty birds blossom bosom breast breath burning cheek cincture clusters countenance dead dear death deep deep heart Deliberate speed divine doth dreadful drooping earth eyes of Viola face fair Father of Heaven feet learn fickly true flower footfall frankly fickle gates gav'st Gaze gold golden gonfalons grace hair harping of mortals hath heart hymn kerchief knew learn The harping leave their portals lest lips look Love's majestic instancy Mary mist moon Muse never night pale Paradise poesy poet poet's praise purpurate raiment reaper REC'D rhyme robe roseal round saith Seraphim silver singer singing skies smile song soul soul's Spin spirit stars Summer sweet eyes swift tears thee thine things thou thought Throne tongue trepidant tress turned UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Uranian veins vesture Viol Weave weep wild wind wine wings wise wist withered dreams woof
Popular passages
Page 49 - I pleaded, outlaw-wise, By many a hearted casement, curtained red, Trellised with intertwining charities; (For, though I knew His love Who followed, Yet was I sore adread Lest, having Him, I must have naught beside); But, if one little casement parted wide, The gust of His approach would clash it to. Fear wist not to evade, as Love wist to pursue.
Page 66 - She gave me tokens three, A look, a word of her winsome mouth, And a wild raspberry. A berry red, a guileless look, A still word, — strings of sand ! And yet they made my wild, wild heart Fly down to her little hand.
Page 54 - Of all man's clotted clay the dingiest clot? Alack, thou knowest not How little worthy of any love thou art! Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee, Save Me, save only Me? All which I took from thee I did but take, Not for thy harms, But just that thou might' st seek it in My arms. All which thy child's mistake Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home: Rise, clasp My hand, and come!
Page 23 - How should I gauge what beauty is her dole, Who cannot see her countenance for her soul, As birds see not the casement for the sky ? And, as 'tis check they prove its presence by, I know not of her body till I find My flight debarred the heaven of her mind.
Page 48 - I FLED Him, down the nights and down the days; I fled Him, down the arches of the years; I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears I hid from Him, and under running laughter. Up vistaed hopes, I sped; And shot, precipitated, Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears, From those strong Feet that followed, followed after. But with unhurrying chase, And unperturbed pace, Deliberate speed, majestic instancy, They beat, — and a Voice beat More instant than the Feet:...
Page 51 - Rose and drooped with; made them shapers Of mine own moods, or wailful or divine; With them joyed and was bereaven. I was heavy with the even, When she lit her glimmering tapers Round the day's dead sanctities. I laughed in the morning's eyes. I triumphed and I saddened with all weather, Heaven...
Page 39 - ... tooth of eld; And boys, there creeping unbeheld, A laughing moment dwelled. Yet they, within its very heart so crept, Reached not the heart that courage kept With winds and years beswept. And in its boughs did close and kindly nest The birds, as they within its breast, By all its leaves caressed. But bird nor child might touch by any art Each other's or the tree's hid heart, A whole God's breadth apart; The breadth of God, the breadth of death and life!
Page 74 - And when, immortal mortal, droops your head, And you, the child of deathless song, are dead ; Then, as you search with unaccustomed glance The ranks of Paradise for my countenance, Turn not your tread along the Uranian sod Among the bearded counsellors of God...
Page 65 - And the harebell shakes on the windy hillO the breath of the distant surf! — The hills look over on the South, And southward dreams the sea; And, with the sea-breeze hand in hand, Came innocence and she. Where 'mid the gorse the raspberry Red for the gatherer springs, Two children did we stray and talk Wise, idle, childish things.
Page 51 - Against the red throb of its sunset-heart I laid my own to beat, And share commingling heat ; But not by that, by that, was eased my human smart. In vain my tears were wet on Heaven's grey cheek.