The Pain of Earth

Related poetry:

1. The Twilight of Earth THE WONDER of the world is o’er: The magic from the sea is gone: There is no unimagined shore, No islet yet to venture on. The Sacred Hazels’ blooms are shed, The Nuts of Knowledge harvested. Oh, what is worth this lore of age If time shall never bring us back Our battle with the […]...
2. The Joy of Earth OH, the sudden wings arising from the ploughed fields brown Showered aloft in spray of song the wild-bird twitter floats O’er the unseen fount awhile, and then comes dropping down Nigh the cool brown earth to hush enraptured notes. Far within a dome of trembling opal throbs the fire, Mistily its rain of diamond lances […]...
3. Purposely Ungrammatical Love Song There’s many and many, and not so far, Is willing to dry my tears away; There’s many to tell me what you are, And never a lie to all they say. It’s little the good to hide my head, It’s never the use to bar my door; There’s many as counts the tears I shed, […]...
4. Transit of the Gods Strange that the self’s continuum should outlast The Virgin, Aphrodite, and the Mourning Mother, All loves and griefs, successive deities That hold their kingdom in the human breast. Abandoned by the gods, woman with an ageing body That half remembers the Annunciation The passion and the travail and the grief That wore the mask of […]...
5. An Orphan's Lament She’s gone and twice the summer’s sun Has gilt Regina’s towers, And melted wild Angora’s snows, And warmed Exina’s bowers. The flowerets twice on hill and dale Have bloomed and died away, And twice the rustling forest leaves Have fallen to decay, And thrice stern winter’s icy hand Has checked the river’s flow, And three […]...
6. The Memory of Earth IN the wet dusk silver sweet, Down the violet scented ways, As I moved with quiet feet I was met by mighty days. On the hedge the hanging dew Glassed the eve and stars and skies; While I gazed a madness grew Into thundered battle cries. Where the hawthorn glimmered white, Flashed the spear and […]...
7. The Living Lost Matron! the children of whose love, Each to his grave, in youth have passed, And now the mould is heaped above The dearest and the last! Bride! who dost wear the widow’s veil Before the wedding flowers are pale! Ye deem the human heart endures No deeper, bitterer grief than yours. Yet there are pangs […]...
8. The Earth Falls Down If I could blame it all on the weather, The snow like the cadaver’s table, The trees turned into knitting needles, The ground as hard as a frozen haddock, The pond wearing its mustache of frost. If I could blame conditions on that, If I could blame the hearts of strangers Striding muffled down the […]...
9. Sonnet 132: Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me, Knowing thy heart torment me with disdain, Have put on black, and loving mourners be, Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain. And truly not the morning sun of heaven Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east, Nor that full star that ushers in the […]...
10. Sonnet CXXXII Thine eyes I love, and they, as pitying me, Knowing thy heart torments me with disdain, Have put on black and loving mourners be, Looking with pretty ruth upon my pain. And truly not the morning sun of heaven Better becomes the grey cheeks of the east, Nor that full star that ushers in the […]...
11. Mater Dolorosa Who is this that sits by the way, by the wild wayside, In a rent stained raiment, the robe of a cast-off bride, In the dust, in the rainfall sitting, with soiled feet bare, With the night for a garment upon her, with torn wet hair? She is fairer of face than the daughters of […]...
12. On Pain Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses Your understanding. Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its Heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain. And could you keep your heart in wonder at the Daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem Less […]...
13. The Earth THEY tell me that the earth is still the same Although the Red Branch now is but a name, That yonder peasant lifting up his eyes Can see the marvel of the morning rise, The wonder Deirdre gazed on when she came. I cannot think the hearts that beat so high Had not a lordlier […]...
14. Mother Earth Mother of all the high-strung poets and singers departed, Mother of all the grass that weaves over their graves the glory of the field, Mother of all the manifold forms of life, deep-bosomed, patient, impassive, Silent brooder and nurse of lyrical joys and sorrows! Out of thee, yea, surely out of the fertile depth below […]...
15. Earth the Healer, Earth the Keeper So swift the hours are moving Unto the time unproved: Farewell my love unloving, Farewell my love beloved! What! are we not glad-hearted? Is there no deed to do? Is not all fear departed And Spring-tide blossomed new? The sails swell out above us, The sea-ridge lifts the keel; For They have called who love […]...
16. The Penitent I mourn with thee and yet rejoice That thou shouldst sorrow so; With Angel choirs I join my voice To bless the sinner’s woe. Though friends and kindred turn away And laugh thy grief to scorn, I hear the great Redeemer say ‘Blessed are ye that mourn’. Hold on thy course nor deem it strange […]...
17. The missing the way loss seeps Into neck hollows And curls at temples Sits between front teeth Cavity Empty and waiting For mourning to open The way mourning stays Forever shadowing vision Shaping lives with memory A drawer won’t close Sleep elusive Smile illusive The only real is grief Forever counting the days Minutes missing without knowing […]...
18. I cried at Pity not at Pain I cried at Pity not at Pain I heard a Woman say “Poor Child” and something in her voice Convicted me of me So long I fainted, to myself It seemed the common way, And Health, and Laughter, Curious things To look at, like a Toy To sometimes hear “Rich people” buy And see the […]...
19. Our Thrones Decay I SAID my pleasure shall not move; It is not fixed in things apart: Seeking not love-but yet to love- I put my trust in mine own heart. I knew the fountain of the deep Wells up with living joy, unfed: Such joys the lonely heart may keep, And love grow rich with love unwed. […]...
20. The Song Of The Pacifist What do they matter, our headlong hates, when we take the toll of our Dead? Think ye our glory and gain will pay for the torrent of blood we have shed? By the cheers of our Victory will the heart of the mother be comforted? If by the Victory all we mean is a broken […]...
21. A Baby Asleep after Pain As a drenched, drowned bee Hangs numb and heavy from a bending flower, So clings to me My baby, her brown hair brushed with wet tears And laid against her cheek; Her soft white legs hanging heavily over my arm Swinging heavily to my movements as I walk. My sleeping baby hangs upon my life, […]...
22. Corn Grinders O little mouse, why dost thou cry While merry stars laugh in the sky? Alas! alas! my lord is dead! Ah, who will ease my bitter pain? He went to seek a millet-grain In the rich farmer’s granary shed; They caught him in a baited snare, And slew my lover unaware: Alas! alas! my lord […]...
23. Earth's Immortalities FAME. See, as the prettiest graves will do in time, Our poet’s wants the freshness of its prime; Spite of the sexton’s browsing horse, the sods Have struggled through its binding osier rods; Headstone and half-sunk footstone lean awry, Wanting the brick-work promised by-and-by; How the minute grey lichens, plate o’er plate, Have softened down […]...
24. Miss Lloyd has now went to Miss Green Miss Lloyd has now sent to Miss Green, As, on opening the box, may be seen, Some years of a Black Ploughman’s Gauze, To be made up directly, because Miss Lloyd must in mourning appear For the death of a Relative dear Miss Lloyd must expect to receive This license to mourn and to grieve, […]...
25. The Funeral of the Late Prince Henry of Battenberg Alas! Prince Henry of Battenberg is dead! And, I hope, has gone to heaven, its streets to tread, And to sing with God’s saints above, Where all is joy and peace and love. ‘Twas in the year of 1896, and on the 5th of February, Prince Henry was buried at Whippingham – a solemn sight […]...
26. The Death of the Queen Alas! our noble and generous Queen Victoria is dead, And I hope her soul to Heaven has fled, To sing and rejoice with saints above, Where ah is joy, peace, and love. ‘Twas on January 22, 1901, in the evening she died at 6.30 o’clock, Which to the civilised world has been a great shock; […]...
27. Funeral Of Youth, The: Threnody The day that YOUTH had died, There came to his grave-side, In decent mourning, from the country’s ends, Those scatter’d friends Who had lived the boon companions of his prime, And laughed with him and sung with him and wasted, In feast and wine and many-crown’d carouse, The days and nights and dawnings of the […]...
28. The Funeral of Youth: Threnody The Day that Youth had died, There came to his grave-side, In decent mourning, from the country’s ends, Those scatter’d friends Who had lived the boon companions of his prime, And laughed with him and sung with him and wasted, In feast and wine and many-crown’d carouse, The days and nights and dawnings of the […]...
29. The Mourners I look into the aching womb of night; I look across the mist that masks the dead; The moon is tired and gives but little light, The stars have gone to bed. The earth is sick and seems to breathe with pain; A lost wind whimpers in a mangled tree; I do not see the […]...
30. 154. Lines Inscribed under Fergusson's Portrait CURSE on ungrateful man, that can be pleased, And yet can starve the author of the pleasure. O thou, my elder brother in misfortune, By far my elder brother in the Muses, With tears I pity thy unhappy fate! Why is the Bard unpitied by the world, Yet has so keen a relish of its […]...
31. Memorial Day For The War Dead Memorial day for the war dead. Add now The grief of all your losses to their grief, Even of a woman that has left you. Mix Sorrow with sorrow, like time-saving history, Which stacks holiday and sacrifice and mourning On one day for easy, convenient memory. Oh, sweet world soaked, like bread, In sweet milk […]...
32. The Big Boots Of Pain There can be certain potions Needled in the clock For the body’s fall from grace, To untorture and to plead for. These I have known And would sell all my furniture And books and assorted goods To avoid, and more, more. But the other pain I would sell my life to avoid The pain that […]...
33. The Great Grey Plain Out West, where the stars are brightest, Where the scorching north wind blows, And the bones of the dead gleam whitest, And the sun on a desert glows Yet within the selfish kingdom Where man starves man for gain, Where white men tramp for existence Wide lies the Great Grey Plain. No break in its […]...
34. The Death of Prince Leopold Alas! noble Prince Leopold, he is dead! Who often has his lustre shed: Especially by singing for the benefit of Esher School, Which proves he was a wise prince. and no conceited fool. Methinks I see him on the platform singing the Sands o’ Dee, The generous-hearted Leopold, the good and the free, Who was […]...
35. 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, […]...
36. The Sunderland Calamity ‘Twas in the town of Sunderland, and in the year of 1883, That about 200 children were launch’d into eternity While witnessing an entertainment in Victoria Hall, While they, poor little innocents, to God for help did call. The entertainment consisted of conjuring, and the ghost illusion play, Also talking waxworks, and living marionettes, and […]...
37. Pain MEN have made them gods of love, Sun-gods, givers of the rain, Deities of hill and grove: I have made a god of Pain. Of my god I know this much, And in singing I repeat, Though there’s anguish in his touch, Yet his soul within is sweet....
38. Life CHILDREN, ye have not lived, to you it seems Life is a lovely stalactite of dreams, Or carnival of careless joys that leap About your hearts like billows on the deep In flames of amber and of amethyst. Children, ye have not lived, ye but exist Till some resistless hour shall rise and move Your […]...
39. 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 […]...
40. Earth's Answer Earth raised up her head. From the darkness dread & drear, Her light fled: Stony dread! And her locks cover’d with grey despair. Prison’d on watery shore Starry Jealousy does keep my den Cold and hoar Weeping o’er I hear the father of the ancient men Selfish father of men Cruel jealous selfish fear Can […]...