Mourning
You, that decipher out the Fate
Of humane Off-springs from the Skies,
What mean these Infants which of late
Spring from the Starrs of Chlora’s Eyes?
Her Eyes confus’d, and doubled ore,
With Tears suspended ere they flow;
Seem bending upwards, to restore
To Heaven, whence it came, their Woe.
When, molding of the watry Sphears,
Slow drops unty themselves away;
As if she, with those precious Tears,
Would strow the ground where Strephon lay.
Yet some affirm, pretending Art,
Her Eyes have so her Bosome drown’d,
Only to soften near her Heart
A place to fix another Wound.
And, while vain Pomp does her restrain
Within her solitary Bowr,
She courts her self in am’rous Rain;
Her self both Danae and the Showr.
Nay others, bolder, hence esteem
Joy now so much her Master grown,
That whatsoever does but seem
Like Grief, is from her Windows thrown.
Nor that she payes, while she survives,
To her dead Love this Tribute due;
But casts abroad these Donatives,
At the installing of a new.
How wide they dream! The Indian Slaves
That sink for Pearl through Seas profound,
Would find her Tears yet deeper Waves
And not of one the bottom sound.
I yet my silent Judgment keep,
Disputing not what they believe:
But sure as oft as Women weep,
It is to be suppos’d they grieve.
Related poetry:
- Mirth And Mourning ‘O cast away your sorrow; A while, at least, be gay! If grief must come tomorrow, At least, be glad today! ‘How can you still be sighing When smiles are everywhere? The little birds are flying So blithely through the air; ‘The sunshine glows so brightly O’er all the blooming earth; And every heart beats […]...
- Mourning Alas my brother! the cry of the mourners of old That cried on each other, All crying aloud on the dead as the death-note rolled, Alas my brother! As flashes of dawn that mists from an east wind smother With fold upon fold, The past years gleam that linked us one with another. Time sunders […]...
- Mourning and Longing The Saviour hides His face; My spirit thirsts to prove Renew’d supplies of pardoning grace, And never-fading love. The favor’d souls who know What glories shine in Him, Pant for His presence as the roe Pants for the living stream. What trifles tease me now! They swarm like summer flies! They cleave to everything I […]...
- A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning As virtuous men pass mildly away, And whisper to their souls to go, Whilst some of their sad friends do say The breath goes now, and some say, No: So let us melt, and make no noise, No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move, ‘Twere profanation of our joys To tell the laity our love. Moving of […]...
- If I Could Mourn Like A Mourning Dove It is what recurs that we believe, Your face not at one moment looking Sideways up at me anguished or Elate, but the old words welling up by Gravity rearranged: Two weeks before you died in Pain worn out, after my usual casual sign-off With All my love, your simple Solemn My love to you, […]...
- They've Come Today my mother and sisters Came to see me. I had been alone a long time With my poems, my pride. . . almost nothing. My sister – the oldest – is grown up, Is blondish. An elemental dream Goes through her eyes: I told the youngest “Life is sweet. Everything bad comes to an […]...
- The Triple Fool I am two fools, I know – For loving, and for saying so In whining poetry; But where’s that wiseman that would not be I, If she would not deny? Then, as th’ earths inward narrow crooked lanes Do purge sea waters fretful salt away, I thought, if I could draw my pains Through rhymes […]...
- A Widow Bird Sate Mourning For Her Love A widow bird sate mourning for her Love Upon a wintry bough; The frozen wind crept on above, The freezing stream below. There was no leaf upon the forest bare, No flower upon the ground, And little motion in the air Except the mill-wheel’s sound....
- Dark Trinity Said I to Pain: “You would not dare Do ill to me.” Said Pain: “Poor fool! Why should I care Whom you may be? To clown and king alike I bring My meed of bane; Why should you shirk my chastening?” Said Pain. Said I to Grief: “No tears have I, Go on your way.” […]...
- Boldness in Love Mark how the bashful morn in vain Courts the amorous marigold, With sighing blasts and weeping rain, Yet she refuses to unfold. But when the planet of the day Approacheth with his powerful ray, The she spreads, then she receives His warmer beams into her virgin leaves. So shalt thou thrive in love, fond boy; […]...
- Song from Judith 3 BALKIS was in her marble town, And shadow over the world came down. Whiteness of walls, towers and piers, That all day dazzled eyes to tears, Turned from being white-golden flame, And like the deep-sea blue became. Balkis into her garden went; Her spirit was in discontent Like a torch in restless air. Joylessly she […]...
- Irish Love Song Well, if the thing is over, better it is for me, The lad was ever a rover, loving and laughing free, Far too clever a lover not to be having still A lass in the town and a lass by the road and a lass by the farther hill Love on the field and love […]...
- A Visit To The Asylum Once from a big, big building, When I was small, small, The queer folk in the windows Would smile at me and call. And in the hard wee gardens Such pleasant men would hoe: “Sir, may we touch the little girl’s hair!”- It was so red, you know. They cut me coloured asters With shears […]...
- The Pain of Earth DOES the earth grow grey with grief For her hero darling fled? Though her vales let fall no leaf, In our hearts her tears are shed. Still the stars laugh on above: Not to them her grief is said; Mourning for her hero love In our hearts the tears are shed. We her children mourn […]...
- TO PRIMROSES FILLED WITH MORNING DEW Why do ye weep, sweet babes? can tears Speak grief in you, Who were but born Just as the modest morn Teem’d her refreshing dew? Alas, you have not known that shower That mars a flower, Nor felt th’ unkind Breath of a blasting wind, Nor are ye worn with years; Or warp’d as we, […]...
- Joseph's Coat Wounded I sing, tormented I indite, Thrown down I fall into a bed, and rest: Sorrow hath chang’d its note: such is his will Who changeth all things, as him pleaseth best. For well he knows, if but one grief and smart Among my many had his full career, Sure it would carry with it […]...
- Factory Windows are Always Broken FACTORY windows are always broken. Somebody’s always throwing bricks, Somebody’s always heaving cinders, Playing ugly Yahoo tricks. Factory windows are always broken. Other windows are let alone. No one throws through the chapel-window The bitter, snarling, derisive stone. Factory windows are always broken. Something or other is going wrong. Something is rotten I think, in […]...
- Eyes And Tears How wisely Nature did decree, With the same Eyes to weep and see! That, having view’d the object vain, They might be ready to complain. And since the Self-deluding Sight, In a false Angle takes each hight; These Tears which better measure all, Like wat’ry Lines and Plummets fall. Two Tears, which Sorrow long did […]...
- Exaggeration WE overstate the ills of life, and take Imagination (given us to bring down The choirs of singing angels overshone By God’s clear glory) down our earth to rake The dismal snows instead, flake following flake, To cover all the corn; we walk upon The shadow of hills across a level thrown, And pant like […]...
- Sonnet 24: Mine eye hath played the painter and hath stelled Mine eye hath played the painter and hath stelled Thy beauty’s form in table of my heart; My body is the frame wherein ’tis held, And perspective it is best painter’s art. For through the painter must you see his skill To find where your true image pictured lies, Which in my bosom’s shop is […]...
- Sonnet XXIV Mine eye hath play’d the painter and hath stell’d Thy beauty’s form in table of my heart; My body is the frame wherein ’tis held, And perspective it is the painter’s art. For through the painter must you see his skill, To find where your true image pictured lies; Which in my bosom’s shop is […]...
- The Little Big Man I am small because I am a little child. I shall be big when I am As old as my father is. My teacher will come and say, “It is late, bring your slate And your books.” I shall tell him, ” Do you not know I am as big as father? And I must […]...
- A Midnight Meditation HOW often have I said, “We may not grieve for the immortal dead.” And now, poor blenchèd heart, Thy ruddy hues all tremulous depart. Why be with fate at strife Because one passes on from death to life, Who may no more delay Rapt from our strange and pitiful dream away By one with ancient […]...
- Grief O who will give me tears? Come, all ye springs, Dwell in my head and eyes; come, clouds And rain; My grief hath need of all the watery things That nature hath produced: let every vein Suck up a river to supply mine eyes, My weary weeping eyes, too dry for me, Unless they get […]...
- Sleep There was a man who didn’t know how to sleep; nodding Off every night into a drab, unprofessional sleep. Sleep that He’d grown so tired of sleeping. He tried reading The Manual of Sleep, but it just put him To sleep. That same old sleep that he had grown so tired of Sleeping. . . […]...
- Intrusion After I had cut off my hands And grown new ones Something my former hands had longed for Came and asked to be rocked. After my plucked out eyes Had withered, and new ones grown Something my former eyes had wept for Came asking to be pitied....
- Between Us Now Between us now and here Two thrown together Who are not wont to wear Life’s flushest feather Who see the scenes slide past, The daytimes dimming fast, Let there be truth at last, Even if despair. So thoroughly and long Have you now known me, So real in faith and strong Have I now shown […]...
- Cold Iron Cold is for the mistress silver for the maid Copper for the craftsman cunning at his trade.” “Good!” said the Baron, sitting in his hall, “But Iron Cold Iron is master of them all.” So he made rebellion ‘gainst the King his liege, Camped before his citadel and summoned it to siege. “Nay!” said the […]...
- Solitude So many stones have been thrown at me, That I’m not frightened of them anymore, And the pit has become a solid tower, Tall among tall towers. I thank the builders, May care and sadness pass them by. From here I’ll see the sunrise earlier, Here the sun’s last ray rejoices. And into the windows […]...
- The Difference When we were together, heart of my heart, on that unforgotten quest, With your tender arm about me thrown and your head upon my breast, There came a grief that was bitter and deep and straitly dwell with me, And I shunned it not, so sweet it was to suffer and be with thee. And […]...
- The Two Terrors Two terrors fright my soul by night and day: The first is Life, and with her come the years; A weary, winding train of maidens they, With forward-fronting eyes, too sad for tears; Upon whose kindred faces, blank and grey, The shadow of a kindred woe appears. Death is the second terror; who shall say […]...
- Tears In Sleep All night the cocks crew, under a moon like day, And I, in the cage of sleep, on a stranger’s breast, Shed tears, like a task not to be put away – In the false light, false grief in my happy bed, A labor of tears, set against joy’s undoing. I would not wake at […]...
- I meant to have but modest needs I meant to have but modest needs Such as Content and Heaven Within my income these could lie And Life and I keep even But since the last included both It would suffice my Prayer But just for One to stipulate And Grace would grant the Pair And so upon this wise I prayed Great […]...
- CONTEMPLATION THOU, O my Grief, be wise and tranquil still, The eve is thine which even now drops down, To carry peace or care to human will, And in a misty veil enfolds the town. While the vile mortals of the multitude, By pleasure, cruel tormentor, goaded on, Gather remorseful blossoms in light mood Grief, place […]...
- Slumber Songs I Sleep, little eyes That brim with childish tears amid thy play, Be comforted! No grief of night can weigh Against the joys that throng thy coming day. Sleep, little heart! There is no place in Slumberland for tears: Life soon enough will bring its chilling fears And sorrows that will dim the after years. […]...
- Tears TEARS! tears! tears! In the night, in solitude, tears; On the white shore dripping, dripping, suck’d in by the sand; Tears-not a star shining-all dark and desolate; Moist tears from the eyes of a muffled head: -O who is that ghost?-that form in the dark, with tears? What shapeless lump is that, bent, crouch’d there […]...
- On The New Forcers Of Conscience Under The Long Parliament Because you have thrown of your Prelate Lord, And with stiff Vowes renounc’d his Liturgie To seise the widdow’d whore Pluralitie From them whose sin ye envi’d, not abhor’d, Dare ye for this adjure the Civill Sword To force our Consciences that Christ set free, And ride us with a classic Hierarchy Taught ye by […]...
- Grief is a Mouse Grief is a Mouse And chooses Wainscot in the Breast For His Shy House And baffles quest Grief is a Thief quick startled Pricks His Ear report to hear Of that Vast Dark That swept His Being back Grief is a Juggler boldest at the Play Lest if He flinch the eye that way Pounce […]...
- To Caroline Think’st thou I saw thy beauteous eyes, Suffus’d in tears, implore to stay; And heard unmov’d thy plenteous sighs, Which said far more than words can say? Though keen the grief thy tears exprest, When love and hope lay both o’erthrown; Yet still, my girl, this bleeding breast Throbb’d, with deep sorrow, as thine own. […]...
- I Am There I come from there and remember, I was born like everyone is born, I have a mother And a house with many windows, I have brothers, friends and a prison. I have a wave that sea-gulls snatched away. I have a view of my own and an extra blade of grass. I have a moon […]...