Home ⇒ 📌Hermann Hesse ⇒ Without You
Without You
My Pillow gazes upon me at night
Empty as a gravestone;
I never thought it would be so bitter
To be alone,
Not to lie down asleep in your hair.
I lie alone in a silent house,
The hanging lamp darkened,
And gently stretch out my hands
To gather in yours,
And softly press my warm mouth
Toward you, and kiss myself, exhausted and weak-
Then suddenly I’m awake
And all around me the cold night grows still.
The star in the window shines clearly-
Where is your blond hair,
Where your sweet mouth?
Now I drink pain in every delight
And poison in every wine;
I never knew it would be so bitter
To be alone,
Alone, without you.
(2 votes, average: 4.50 out of 5)
Related poetry:
- I Love You I love your lips when they’re wet with wine And red with a wild desire; I love your eyes when the lovelight lies Lit with a passionate fire. I love your arms when the warm white flesh Touches mine in a fond embrace; I love your hair when the strands enmesh Your kisses against my […]...
- Sonnet 104 – A spot of poontang on a five-foot piece A spot of poontang on a five-foot piece, Diminutive, but room enough. . like clay To finger eager on some torrid day. . Who’d throw her black hair back, and hang, and tease. Never, not once in all one’s horny lease To’have had a demi-lay, a pretty, gay, Snug, slim and supple-breasted girl for play. […]...
- The Gentlest Lady They say He was a serious child, And quiet in His ways; They say the gentlest lady smiled To hear the neighbors’ praise. The coffers of her heart would close Upon their smaliest word. Yet did they say, “How tall He grows!” They thought she had not heard. They say upon His birthday eve She’d […]...
- Rain Suddenly this defeat. This rain. The blues gone gray And the browns gone gray And yellow A terrible amber. In the cold streets Your warm body. In whatever room Your warm body. Among all the people Your absence The people who are always Not you. I have been easy with trees Too long. Too familiar […]...
- Ripening The longer we are together The larger death grows around us. How many we know by now Who are dead! We, who were young, Now count the cost of having been. And yet as we know the dead We grow familiar with the world. We, who were young and loved each other Ignorantly, now come […]...
- The Heart Of The Woman O what to me the little room That was brimmed up with prayer and rest; He bade me out into the gloom, And my breast lies upon his breast. O what to me my mother’s care, The house where I was safe and warm; The shadowy blossom of my hair Will hide us from the […]...
- Here Here I am in the garden laughing An old woman with heavy breasts And a nicely mapped face How did this happen Well that’s who I wanted to be At last a woman In the old style sitting Stout thighs apart under A big skirt grandchild sliding On off my lap a pleasant Summer perspiration […]...
- Love Love is a breach in the walls, a broken gate, Where that comes in that shall not go again; Love sells the proud heart’s citadel to Fate. They have known shame, who love unloved. Even then, When two mouths, thirsty each for each, find slaking, And agony’s forgot, and hushed the crying Of credulous hearts, […]...
- Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye I loved you in the morning, our kisses deep and warm, Your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy golden storm, Yes, many loved before us, I know that we are not new, In city and in forest they smiled like me and you, But now it’s come to distances and both of us must […]...
- Porphyria's Lover The rain set early in tonight, The sullen wind was soon awake, It tore the elm-tops down for spite, And did its worst to vex the lake: I listened with heart fit to break. When glided in Porphyria; straight She shut the cold out and the storm, And kneeled and made the cheerless grate Blaze […]...
- Awake, My Heart Awake, my heart, to be loved, awake, awake! The darkness silvers away, the morn doth break, It leaps in the sky: unrisen lustres slake The o’ertaken moon. Awake, O heart, awake! She too that loveth awaketh and hopes for thee: Her eyes already have sped the shades that flee, Already they watch the path thy […]...
- CHRISTEL My senses ofttimes are oppress’d, Oft stagnant is my blood; But when by Christel’s sight I’m blest, I feel my strength renew’d. I see her here, I see her there, And really cannot tell The manner how, the when, the where, The why I love her well. If with the merest glance I view Her […]...
- The Snow Fairy I Throughout the afternoon I watched them there, Snow-fairies falling, falling from the sky, Whirling fantastic in the misty air, Contending fierce for space supremacy. And they flew down a mightier force at night, As though in heaven there was revolt and riot, And they, frail things had taken panic flight Down to the calm […]...
- Half-waking I thought it was the little bed I slept in long ago; A straight white curtain at the head, And two smooth knobs below. I thought I saw the nursery fire, And in a chair well-known My mother sat, and did not tire With reading all alone. If I should make the slightest sound To […]...
- Absence My cup is empty to-night, Cold and dry are its sides, Chilled by the wind from the open window. Empty and void, it sparkles white in the moonlight. The room is filled with the strange scent Of wistaria blossoms. They sway in the moon’s radiance And tap against the wall. But the cup of my […]...
- Dedication To Joseph Mazzini Take, since you bade it should bear, These, of the seed of your sowing, Blossom or berry or weed. Sweet though they be not, or fair, That the dew of your word kept growing, Sweet at least was the seed. Men bring you love-offerings of tears, And sorrow the kiss that assuages, And slaves the […]...
- Caught in a Net Upon her breast her hands and hair Were tangled all together. The moon of June forbade me not – The golden night time weather In balmy sighs commanded me To kiss them like a feather. Her looming hair, her burning hands, Were tangled black and white. My face I buried there. I pray – So […]...
- The Bride My love looks like a girl to-night, But she is old. The plaits that lie along her pillow Are not gold, But threaded with filigree silver, And uncanny cold. She looks like a young maiden, since her brow Is smooth and fair, Her cheeks are very smooth, her eyes are closed. She sleeps a rare […]...
- THE MAD MAID'S SONG Good morrow to the day so fair; Good morning, sir, to you; Good morrow to mine own torn hair, Bedabbled with the dew. Good morning to this primrose too; Good morrow to each maid; That will with flowers the tomb bestrew Wherein my Love is laid. Ah! woe is me, woe, woe is me, Alack […]...
- After Prayers, Lie Cold Arise my body, my small body, we have striven Enough, and He is merciful; we are forgiven. Arise small body, puppet-like and pale, and go, White as the bed-clothes into bed, and cold as snow, Undress with small, cold fingers and put out the light, And be alone, hush’d mortal, in the sacred night, -A […]...
- Sick Leave When I’m asleep, dreaming and lulled and warm,- They come, the homeless ones, the noiseless dead. While the dim charging breakers of the storm Bellow and drone and rumble overhead, Out of the gloom they gather about my bed. They whisper to my heart; their thoughts are mine. ‘Why are you here with all your […]...
- To One Hated Had it been when I came to the valley where the paths parted asunder, Chance had led my feet to the way of love, not hate, I might have cherished you well, have been to you fond and faithful, Great as my hatred is, so might my love have been great. Each cold word of […]...
- You Asked How (formerly Even Now She Is Turning, Saying Everything I Always Wanted Her to Say) At the end there were straws In her glove compartment, I’d split them open To taste the familiar bitter residue, near the end I ate all her Percodans, hungry to know How far they could take me. A bottle of red wine each night moved her along As she wrote, I feel too much, again […]...
- Dead Men's Love There was a damned successful Poet; There was a Woman like the Sun. And they were dead. They did not know it. They did not know their time was done. They did not know his hymns Were silence; and her limbs, That had served Love so well, Dust, and a filthy smell. And so one […]...
- A Supplication Awake, awake, my Lyre! And tell thy silent master’s humble tale In sounds that may prevail; Sounds that gentle thoughts inspire: Though so exalted she And I so lowly be Tell her, such different notes make all thy harmony. Hark, how the strings awake! And, though the moving hand approach not near, Themselves with awful […]...
- The Land Of Dreams Awake, awake my little Boy! Thou wast thy Mother’s only joy: Why dost thou weep in thy gentle sleep? Awake! thy Father does thee keep. “O, what land is the Land of Dreams? What are its mountains, and what are its streams? O Father, I saw my Mother there, Among the lillies by waters fair. […]...
- Tz'u No. 5 To the tune of “Like a Dream” I always remember the sunset Over the pavilion by the river, So tipsy we could not find our way home. Our interest exhausted, the evening late, We tried to turn the boat homeward. By mistake, we entered deep within the lotus bed. Row! Row the boat! A flock […]...
- THE FAREWELL [Probably addressed to his mistress Frederica.] LET mine eye the farewell say, That my lips can utter ne’er; Fain I’d be a man to-day, Yet ’tis hard, oh, hard to bear! Mournful in an hour like this Is love’s sweetest pledge, I ween; Cold upon thy mouth the kiss, Faint thy fingers’ pressure e’en. Oh […]...
- Old And New Long have the poets vaunted, in their lays, Old times, old loves, old friendships, and old wine Why should the old monopolise all praise? Then let the new claim mine. Give me strong new friends, when the old prove weak, Or fail me in my darkest hour of need; Why perish with the ship that […]...
- A Fallen Leaf A trusting little leaf of green, A bold audacious frost; A rendezvous, a kiss or two, And youth for ever lost. Ah, me! The bitter, bitter cost. A flaunting patch of vivid red, That quivers in the sun; A windy gust, a grave of dust, The little race is run. Ah, me! Were that the […]...
- The Way That Lovers Use The Way that lovers use is this; They bow, catch hands, with never a word, And their lips meet, and they do kiss, ВЂ”So I have heard. They queerly find some healing so, And strange attainment in the touch; There is a secret lovers know, ВЂ”I have read as much. And theirs no longer joy […]...
- Elegy For My Father HLF, August 8, 1918-August 22, 1997 “Bequeath us to no earthly shore until Is answered in the vortex of our grave The seal’s wide spindrift gaze towards paradise.” -Hart Crane, “Voyages” “If a lion could talk, we couldn’t understand it” -Ludwig Wittgenstein Under the ocean that stretches out wordlessly Past the long edge of the […]...
- Evadne I first tasted under Apollo’s lips, Love and love sweetness, I, Evadne; My hair is made of crisp violets Or hyacinth which the wind combs back Across some rock shelf; I, Evadne, Was made of the god of light. His hair was crisp to my mouth, As the flower of the crocus, Across my cheek, […]...
- Guenevere I was a queen, and I have lost my crown; A wife, and I have broken all my vows; A lover, and I ruined him I loved: There is no other havoc left to do. A little month ago I was a queen, And mothers held their babies up to see When I came riding […]...
- Alas Madam for Stealing of a Kiss Alas, madam, for stealing of a kiss Have I so much your mind there offended? Have I then done so grievously amiss That by no means it may be amended? Then revenge you, and the next way is this: Another kiss shall have my life ended, For to my mouth the first my heart did […]...
- The Widow and Her Son XXI Night fell over North Lebanon and snow was covering the villages surrounded by the Kadeesha Valley, giving the fields and prairies the appearance of a great sheet of parchment upon which the furious Nature was recording her many deeds. Men came home from the streets while silence engulfed the night. In a lone house near […]...
- La Gitana Your hair was full of roses in the dewfall as we danced, The sorceress enchanting and the paladin entranced, In the starlight as we wove us in a web of silk and steel Immemorial as the marble in the halls of Boabdil, In the pleasuance of the roses with the fountains and the yews Where […]...
- The Merman I Who would be A merman bold, Sitting alone Singing alone Under the sea, With a crown of gold, On a throne? II I would be a merman bold, I would sit and sing the whole of the day; I would fill the sea-halls with a voice of power; But at night I would roam […]...
- The Death King I hired a carpenter To build my coffin And last night I lay in it, Braced by a pillow, Sniffing the wood, Letting the old king Breathe on me, Thinking of my poor murdered body, Murdered by time, Waiting to turn stiff as a field marshal, Letting the silence dishonor me, Remembering that I’ll never […]...
- Omens When daylight was yet sleeping under the pillow, And stars in the heavens still lingering shone, Young Kitty, all blushing, rose up from her pillow, The last time she e’er was to press it alone. For the youth whom she treasured her heart and her soul in Had promised to link the last tie before […]...
« Shiela