THE MAIDEN SPEAKS

Related poetry:

1. THE TRAVELLER AND THE FARM~MAIDEN HE. CANST thou give, oh fair and matchless maiden, ‘Neath the shadow of the lindens yonder, Where I’d fain one moment cease to wander, Food and drink to one so heavy laden? SHE. Wouldst thou find refreshment, traveller weary, Bread, ripe fruit and cream to meet thy wishes, None but Nature’s plain and homely dishes, […]...
2. 13. Song-Bonie Peggy Alison Chor.-And I’ll kiss thee yet, yet, And I’ll kiss thee o’er again: And I’ll kiss thee yet, yet, My bonie Peggy Alison. ILK care and fear, when thou art near I evermair defy them, O! Young kings upon their hansel throne Are no sae blest as I am, O! And I’ll kiss thee yet, yet, […]...
3. Queen Elizabeth Speaks My hands were stained with blood, my heart was Proud and cold, My soul is black with shame. . . but I gave Shakespeare gold. So after aeons of flame, I may, by grace of God, Rise up to kiss the dust that Shakespeare’s feet have trod....
4. Simon the Cyrenian Speaks He never spoke a word to me, And yet He called my name; He never gave a sign to me, And yet I knew and came. At first I said, “I will not bear His cross upon my back; He only seeks to place it there Because my skin is black.” But He was dying […]...
5. Soldier, Maiden, and Flower “Sweetheart, take this,” a soldier said, “And bid me brave good-by; It may befall we ne’er shall wed, But love can never die. Be steadfast in thy troth to me, And then, whate’er my lot, ‘My soul to God, my heart to thee,’ Sweetheart, forget me not!” The maiden took the tiny flower And nursed […]...
6. THE WEDDING NIGHT WITHIN the chamber, far away From the glad feast, sits Love in dread Lest guests disturb, in wanton play, The silence of the bridal bed. His torch’s pale flame serves to gild The scene with mystic sacred glow; The room with incense-clouds is fil’d, That ye may perfect rapture know. How beats thy heart, when […]...
7. Sonnet XXXV: Some, Misbelieving To Miracle Some, misbelieving and profane in love, When I do speak of miracles by thee, May say, that thou art flattered by me, Who only write my skill in verse to prove. See miracles, ye unbelieving, see A dumb-born Muse made t’express the mind, A cripple hand to write, yet lame by kind, One […]...
8. PROXIMITY I KNOW not, wherefore, dearest love, Thou often art so strange and coy When ‘mongst man’s busy haunts we move, Thy coldness puts to flight my joy. But soon as night and silence round us reign, I know thee by thy kisses sweet again! 1789.*...
9. The Maiden's Lament The clouds fast gather, The forest-oaks roar A maiden is sitting Beside the green shore, The billows are breaking with might, with might, And she sighs aloud in the darkling night, Her eyelid heavy with weeping. “My heart’s dead within me, The world is a void; To the wish it gives nothing, Each hope is […]...
10. In San Lorenzo Is thine hour come to wake, O slumbering Night? Hath not the Dawn a message in thine ear? Though thou be stone and sleep, yet shalt thou hear When the word falls from heaven Let there be light. Thou knowest we would not do thee the despite To wake thee while the old sorrow and […]...
11. The Poetry Of Life “Who would himself with shadows entertain, Or gild his life with lights that shine in vain, Or nurse false hopes that do but cheat the true? Though with my dream my heaven should be resigned Though the free-pinioned soul that once could dwell In the large empire of the possible, This workday life with iron […]...
12. To Memory Strange Power, I know not what thou art, Murderer or mistress of my heart. I know I’d rather meet the blow Of my most unrelenting foe Than live – as now I live – to be Slain twenty times a day by thee. Yet, when I would command thee hence, Thou mockest at the vain […]...
13. Specula When He appoints to meet thee, go thou forth – It matters not If south or north, Bleak waste or sunny plot. Nor think, if haply He thou seek’st be late, He does thee wrong. To stile or gate Lean thou thy head, and long! It may be that to spy thee He is mounting […]...
14. The Moon Maiden's Song Sleep! Cast thy canopy Over this sleeper’s brain, Dim grow his memory, When he wake again. Love stays a summer night, Till lights of morning come; Then takes her winged flight Back to her starry home. Sleep! Yet thy days are mine; Love’s seal is over thee: Far though my ways from thine, Dim though […]...
15. MAIDEN WISHES WHAT pleasure to me A bridegroom would be! When married we are, They call us mamma. No need then to sew, To school we ne’er go; Command uncontroll’d, Have maids, whom to scold; Choose clothes at our ease, Of what tradesmen we please; Walk freely about, And go to each rout, And unrestrained are By […]...
16. Affinity YOU and I have found the secret way, None can bar our love or say us nay: All the world may stare and never know You and I are twined together so. You and I for all his vaunted width Know the giant Space is but a myth; Over miles and miles of pure deceit […]...
17. If I may have it, when it's dead If I may have it, when it’s dead, I’ll be contented so If just as soon as Breath is out It shall belong to me Until they lock it in the Grave, ‘Tis Bliss I cannot weigh For tho’ they lock Thee in the Grave, Myself can own the key Think of it Lover! I […]...
18. Fear No More Fear no more the heat o’ the sun; Nor the furious winter’s rages, Thou thy worldly task hast done, Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages; Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney sweepers come to dust. Fear no more the frown of the great, Thou art past the tyrant’s stroke: Care no more […]...
19. Fidele FEAR no more the heat o’ the sun, Nor the furious winter’s rages; Thou thy worldly task hast done, Home art gone, and ta’en thy wages: Golden lads and girls all must, As chimney-sweepers, come to dust. Fear no more the frown o’ the great, Thou art past the tyrant’s stroke; Care no more to […]...
20. The Curse of Kehama I charm thy life, From the weapons of strife, From stone and from wood, From fire and from flood, From the serpent’s tooth, And the beast of blood. From sickness I charm thee, And time shall not harm thee; But earth, which is mine, Its fruits shall deny thee; And water shall hear me, And […]...
21. O Beauty, Passing Beauty! O beauty, passing beauty! Sweetest sweet! How can thou let me waste my youth in sighs? I only ask to sit beside thy feet. Thou knowest I dare not look into thine eyes. Might I but kiss thy hand! I dare not fold My arms about thee scarcely dare to speak. And nothing seems to […]...
22. I see thee clearer for the Grave I see thee clearer for the Grave That took thy face between No Mirror could illumine thee Like that impassive stone I know thee better for the Act That made thee first unknown The stature of the empty nest Attests the Bird that’s gone....
23. Tides O patient shore, thou canst not go to meet Thy love, the restless sea, how comfortest Thou all thy loneliness? Art thou at rest, When, loosing his strong arms from round thy feet, He turns away? Know’st thou, however sweet That other shore may be, that to thy breast He must return? And when in […]...
24. THE REMORSE OF THE DEAD O SHADOWY Beauty mine, when thou shalt sleep In the deep heart of a black marble tomb; When thou for mansion and for bower shalt keep Only one rainy cave of hollow gloom; And when the stone upon thy trembling breast, And on thy straight sweet body’s supple grace, Crushes thy will and keeps thy […]...
25. Song (Go And Catch A Falling Star) Go and catch a falling star, Get with child a mandrake root, Tell me where all past years are, Or who cleft the Devil’s foot, Teach me to hear mermaids singing, Or to keep off envy’s stinging, And find What wind Serves to advance an honest mind. If thou be’st born to strange sights, Things […]...
26. Briefly It Enters, and Briefly Speaks I am the blossom pressed in a book, Found again after two hundred years. . . . I am the maker, the lover, and the keeper. . . . When the young girl who starves Sits down to a table She will sit beside me. . . . I am food on the prisoner’s plate. […]...
27. The Kiss Returned AS WILLIAM walking with his wife was seen, A man of rank admired her lovely mien. Who gave you such a charming fair? he cried, May I presume to kiss your beauteous bride? With all my heart, replied the humble swain, You’re welcome, sir: I beg you’ll not refrain; She’s at your service: take the […]...
28. They Who Tread the Path of Labor They who tread the path of labor follow where My feet have trod; They who work without complaining, do the holy will of God; Nevermore thou needest seek me; I am with thee everywhere; Raise the stone, and thou shalt find Me, clease the wood and I am there. Where the many toil together, there […]...
29. Any Man Speaks I, after difficult entry through my mother’s blood And stumbling childhood (hitting my head against the world); I, intricate, easily unshipped, untracked, unaligned; Cut off in my communications; stammering; speaking A dialect shared by you, but not you and you; I, strangely undeft, bereft; I searching always For my lost rib (clothed in laughter yet […]...
30. The Princess: A Medley: As thro' the land As thro’ the land at eve we went, And pluck’d the ripen’d ears, We fell out, my wife and I, O we fell out I know not why, And kiss’d again with tears. And blessings on the falling out That all the more endears, When we fall out with those we love And kiss again […]...
31. PRESERVATION My maiden she proved false to me; To hate all joys I soon began, Then to a flowing stream I ran, The stream ran past me hastily. There stood I fix’d, in mute despair; My head swam round as in a dream; I well-nigh fell into the stream, And earth seem’d with me whirling there. […]...
32. When Bryan Speaks When Bryan speaks, the town’s a hive. From miles around, the autos drive. The sparrow chirps. The rooster crows. The place is kicking and alive. When Bryan speaks, the bunting glows. The raw procession onward flows. The small dogs bark. The children laugh A wind of springtime fancy blows. When Bryan speaks, the wigwam shakes. […]...
33. Sonnet 23 – Is it indeed so? If I lay here dead Is it indeed so? If I lay here dead, Wouldst thou miss any life in losing mine? And would the sun for thee more coldly shine Because of grave-damps falling round my head? I marvelled, my Beloved, when I read Thy thought so in the letter. I am thine- But. . . so much to […]...
34. Sepulchre O blessed body! Whither are thou thrown? No lodging for thee, but a cold hard stone? So many hearts on earth, and yet not one Receive thee? Sure there is room within our hearts’ good store; For they can lodge transgressions by the score: Thousands of toys dwell there, yet out of door They leave […]...
35. PRESENCE ALL things give token of thee! As soon as the bright sun is shining, Thou too wilt follow, I trust. When in the garden thou walk’st, Thou then art the rose of all roses, Lily of lilies as well. When thou dost move in the dance, Then each constellation moves also; With thee and round […]...
36. The Negro Speaks Of Rivers I’ve known rivers: I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. My soul has grown deep like the rivers. I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young. I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep. I looked upon the […]...
37. RHYMED DISTICHS RHYMED DISTICHS. [The Distichs, of which these are given as a Specimen, are about forty in number.] WHO trusts in God, Fears not His rod. THIS truth may be by all believed: Whom God deceives, is well deceived. HOW? when? and where? No answer comes from high; Thou wait’st for the Because, and yet thou […]...
38. Upon the Book and Picture of the Seraphical Saint Teresa O THOU undaunted daughter of desires! By all thy dower of lights and fires; By all the eagle in thee, all the dove; By all thy lives and deaths of love; By thy large draughts of intellectual day, And by thy thirsts of love more large than they; By all thy brim-fill’d bowls of fierce […]...
39. THE CHOSEN CLIFF HERE in silence the lover fondly mused on his loved one; Gladly he spake to me thus: “Be thou my witness, thou stone! Yet thou must not be vainglorious, thou hast many companions; Unto each rock on the plain, where I, the happy one, dwell, Unto each tree of the wood that I cling to, […]...
40. To A World-Reformer “I Have sacrificed all,” thou sayest, “that man I might succor; Vain the attempt; my reward was persecution and hate.” Shall I tell thee, my friend, how I to humor him manage? Trust the proverb! I ne’er have been deceived by it yet. Thou canst not sufficiently prize humanity’s value; Let it be coined in […]...