The Bayadere

Related poetry:

1. THE GOD AND THE BAYADERE AN INDIAN LEGEND. [This very fine Ballad was also first given in the Horen.] (MAHADEVA is one of the numerous names of Seeva, the destroyer, The great god of the Brahmins.) MAHADEVA,* Lord of earth For the sixth time comes below, As a man of mortal birth, Like him, feeling joy and woe. Hither loves […]...
2. Working Girls THE working girls in the morning are going to work Long lines of them afoot amid the downtown stores And factories, thousands with little brick-shaped Lunches wrapped in newspapers under their arms. Each morning as I move through this river of young- Woman life I feel a wonder about where it is all Going, so […]...
3. To This Moment a Rebel To this moment a rebel I throw down my arms, Great Love, at first sight of Olinda’s bright charms. Make proud and secure by such forces as these, You may now play the tyrant as soon as you please. When Innocence, Beauty, and Wit do conspire To betray, and engage, and inflame my Desire, Why […]...
4. Widow McFarlane I was the Widow McFarlane, Weaver of carpets for all the village. And I pity you still at the loom of life, You who are singing to the shuttle And lovingly watching the work of your hands, If you reach the day of hate, of terrible truth. For the cloth of life is woven, you […]...
5. Countrywomen These be two Countrywomen. What a size! Grand big arms And round red faces; Big substantial Sit-down-places; Great big bosoms firm as cheese Bursting through their country jackets; Wide big laps And sturdy knees; Hands outspread, Round and rosy, Hands to hold A country posy Or a baby or a lamb And such eyes! Stupid, […]...
6. A Lost Angel When first we met she seemed so white I feared her; As one might near a spirit bright I neared her; An angel pure from heaven above I dreamed her, And far too good for human love I deemed her. A spirit free from mortal taint I thought her, And incense as unto a saint […]...
7. Champagne, 1914-15 In the glad revels, in the happy fetes, When cheeks are flushed, and glasses gilt and pearled With the sweet wine of France that concentrates The sunshine and the beauty of the world, Drink sometimes, you whose footsteps yet may tread The undisturbed, delightful paths of Earth, To those whose blood, in pious duty shed, […]...
8. Ballad for Gloom For God, our God is a gallant foe That playeth behind the veil. I have loved my God as a child at heart That seeketh deep bosoms for rest, I have loved my God as a maid to man – But lo, this thing is best: To love your God as a gallant foe that […]...
9. A City Remembered Unlovely city, to which few tourists come With squinting cameras and alien hats; Left under a cloud by those who love the sun And can afford to marry – a cloud of bits Of soot more myriad than gnats, a cloud Of smoke and rain, an insubstantial threat Whose colour is the pigment of long […]...
10. Lay It Away We will lay our summer away, my friend, So tenderly lay it away. It was bright and sweet to the very end, Like one long, golden day. Nothing sweeter could come to me, Nothing sweeter to you. We will lay it away, and let it be, Hid from the whole world’s view. We will lay […]...
11. The Coney Although I have never learned to mow I suddenly found myself half-way through Last year’s pea-sticks And cauliflower stalks In our half-acre of garden. My father had always left the whetstone Safely wrapped In his old, tweed cap And balanced on one particular plank Beside the septic tank. This past winter he had been too […]...
12. Symbols A storm-beaten old watch-tower, A blind hermit rings the hour. All-destroying sword-blade still Carried by the wandering fool. Gold-sewn silk on the sword-blade, Beauty and fool together laid....
13. Faith Lord, how couldst thou so much appease Thy wrath for sin, as when man’s sight was dim, And could see little, to regard his ease, And bring by Faith all things to him? Hungry I was, and had no meat: I did conceit a most delicious feast; I had it straight, and did as truly […]...
14. The Need to Love The need to love that all the stars obey Entered my heart and banished all beside. Bare were the gardens where I used to stray; Faded the flowers that one time satisfied. Before the beauty of the west on fire, The moonlit hills from cloister-casements viewed Cloud-like arose the image of desire, And cast out […]...
15. Question And Answer he sat naked and drunk in a room of summer night, running the blade of the knife under his fingernails, smiling, thinking of all the letters he had received telling him that the way he lived and wrote about that it had kept them going when all seemed truly hopeless. putting the blade on the […]...
16. Miscarriage Fold this, our daughter’s grave, And seal it with your kiss. For all the love I gave, You owe me this. Inside of me, she had Your lips and tongue, my air Of grimness, thin and sad, With your thick hair. Inside of you, I trust, She was a simple mesh Of need and paper, […]...
17. Modern Love XLVIII: Their Sense Their sense is with their senses all mixed in, Destroyed by subleties these women are! More brain, O Lord, more brain! or we shall mar Utterly this fair garden we might win. Behold! I looked for peace, and thought it near. Our inmost hearts had opened, each to each. We drank the pure daylight of […]...
18. Leonora They have made for Leonora this low dwelling in the ground, And with cedar they have woven the four walls round. Like a little dryad hiding she’ll be wrapped all in green, Better kept and longer valued than by ways that would have been. They will come with many roses in the early afternoon, They […]...
19. Oh, the Shamrock Through Erin’s Isle To sport awhile As Love and Valour wander’d, With Wit, the sprite, Whose quiver bright A thousand arrows squander’d; Where’er they pass, A triple grass Shoots up, with dew-drops streaming, As softly green As emeralds seen Through purest crystal gleaming. Oh the Shamrock, the green, immortal Shamrock! Chosen leaf Of Bard and […]...
20. Pleasures I like to find What’s not found At once, but lies Within something of another nature, In repose, distinct. Gull feathers of glass, hidden In white pulp: the bones of squid Which I pull out and lay Blade by blade on the draining board Tapered as if for swiftness, to pierce The heart, but fragile, […]...
21. Fragments In that fair capital where Pleasure, crowned Amidst her myriad courtiers, riots and rules, I too have been a suitor. Radiant eyes Were my life’s warmth and sunshine, outspread arms My gilded deep horizons. I rejoiced In yielding to all amorous influence And multiple impulsion of the flesh, To feel within my being surge and […]...
22. Song The weight of the world is love. Under the burden of solitude, Under the burden of dissatisfaction the weight, The weight we carry is love. Who can deny? In dreams It touches the body, In thought constructs A miracle, in imagination Anguishes till born In human Looks out of the heart burning with purity For […]...
23. Sonnet IV: Bright Star of Beauty Bright star of beauty, on whose eyelids sit A thousand nymph-like and enamour’d Graces, The Goddesses of Memory and Wit, Which there in order take their several places; In whose dear bosom sweet delicious Love Lays down his quiver, which he once did bear, Since he that blessed Paradise did prove, And leaves his mother’s […]...
24. Sten There is a knocking in the skull, An endless silent shout Of something beating on a wall, And crying, “Let me out! ” That solitary prisoner Will never hear reply. No comrade in eternity Can hear the frantic cry. No heart can share the terror That haunts his monstrous dark. The light that filters through […]...
25. The Sultan's Palace My spirit only lived to look on Beauty’s face, As only when they clasp the arms seem served aright; As in their flesh inheres the impulse to embrace, To gaze on Loveliness was my soul’s appetite. I have roamed far in search; white road and plunging bow Were keys in the blue doors where my […]...
26. Last Words to Miriam Yours is the shame and sorrow, But the disgrace is mine; Your love was dark and thorough, Mine was the love of the sun for a flower He creates with his shine. I was diligent to explore you, Blossom you stalk by stalk, Till my fire of creation bore you Shrivelling down in the final […]...
27. The Tuft of Flowers I went to turn the grass once after one Who mowed it in the dew before the sun. The dew was gone that made his blade so keen Before I came to view the leveled scene. I looked for him behind an isle of trees; I listened for his whetstone on the breeze. But he […]...
28. Beauty and Beauty When Beauty and Beauty meet All naked, fair to fair, The earth is crying-sweet, And scattering-bright the air, Eddying, dizzying, closing round, With soft and drunken laughter; Veiling all that may befall After after Where Beauty and Beauty met, Earth’s still a-tremble there, And winds are scented yet, And memory-soft the air, Bosoming, folding glints […]...
29. "Ave Ceasar&quot Long ago the Gladiators, When the call to combat came, Marching past the massed spectators, Hailed the Emp’ror with acclaim! Voices ringing with the fury Of the strife so soon to be, Cried, “O Caesar, morituri Salutamus te!” Nowadays the massed spectators See the unaccustomed sight Legislative gladiators Marching to their last great fight; Young […]...
30. To Charlotte Cushman Look where a three-point star shall weave his beam Into the slumb’rous tissue of some stream, Till his bright self o’er his bright copy seem Fulfillment dropping on a come-true dream; So in this night of art thy soul doth show Her excellent double in the steadfast flow Of wishing love that through men’s hearts […]...
31. The Wandering Bard What life like that of the bard can be The wandering bard, who roams as free As the mountain lark that o’er him sings, And, like that lark a music brings, Within him, where’er he comes or goes A fount that for ever flows! The world’s to him like some playground, Where fairies dance their […]...
32. Sonnet LXIII: The Gossamer O’er faded heath-flowers spun, or thorny furze, The filmy Gossamer is lightly spread; Waving in every sighing air that stirs, As Fairy fingers had entwined the thread: A thousand trembling orbs of lucid dew Spangle the texture of the fairy loom, As if soft Sylphs, lamenting as they flew, Had wept departed Summer’s transient bloom: […]...
33. Change But now life’s face beholden Seemed bright as heaven’s bare brow With hope of gifts withholden But now. From time’s full-flowering bough Each bud spake bloom to embolden Love’s heart, and seal his vow. Joy’s eyes grew deep with olden Dreams, born he wist not how; Thought’s meanest garb was golden; But now!...
34. La Nue Oft when sweet music undulated round, Like the full moon out of a perfumed sea Thine image from the waves of blissful sound Rose and thy sudden light illumined me. And in the country, leaf and flower and air Would alter and the eternal shape emerge; Because they spoke of thee the fields seemed fair, […]...
35. Winter A DIAMOND glow of winter o’er the world: Amid the chilly halo nigh the west Flickers a phantom violet bloom unfurled Dim on the twilight’s breast. Only phantasmal blooms but for an hour, A transient beauty; then the white stars shine Chilling the heart: I long for thee to flower, O bud of light divine. […]...
36. He Came To Read He came to read. Two or three books Are open; historians and poets. But he only read for ten minutes, And gave them up. He is dozing On the sofa. He is fully devoted to books But he is twenty-three years old, and he’s very handsome; And this afternoon love passed Through his ideal flesh, […]...
37. Sing To Me Sing to me! Something of sunlight and bloom, I am so compassed with sorrow and gloom, I am so sick with the world’s noisse and strife, – Sing of the beauty and brightness of life – Sing to me, sing to me! Sing to me! Something that’s jubilant, glad! I am so weary, my soul […]...
38. My wheel is in the dark! My wheel is in the dark! I cannot see a spoke Yet know its dripping feet Go round and round. My foot is on the Tide! An unfrequented road Yet have all roads A clearing at the end Some have resigned the Loom Some in the busy tomb Find quaint employ Some with new stately […]...
39. Springfield Magical In this, the City of my Discontent, Sometimes there comes a whisper from the grass, “Romance, Romance – is here. No Hindu town Is quite so strange. No Citadel of Brass By Sinbad found, held half such love and hate; No picture-palace in a picture-book Such webs of Friendship, Beauty, Greed and Fate!” In this, […]...
40. Poor Kid Mumsie and Dad are raven dark And I am lily blonde. ”Tis strange,’ I once heard nurse remark, ‘You do not correspond.’ And yet they claim me as their own, Born of their flesh and bone. To doubt their parenthood I dread, But now to girlhood grown, The thought is haunting in my head That […]...