Stanzas For Music: There's Not A Joy The World Can Give
There’s not a joy the world can give like that it takes away
When the glow of early thought declines in feeling’s dull decay;
‘Tis not on youth’s smooth cheek the blush alone, which fades so fast,
But the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere youth itself be past.
Then the few whose spirits float above the wreck of happiness
Are driven o’er the shoals of guilt, or ocean of excess:
The magnet of their course is gone, or only points in vain
The shore to which their shivered sail shall never stretch again.
Then the mortal coldness of the soul like death itself comes down;
It cannot feel for others’ woes, it dare not dream its own;
That heavy chill has frozen o’er the fountain of our tears,
And though the eye may sparkle still, ’tis where the ice appears.
Though wit may flash from fluent lips, and mirth distract the breast,
Through midnight hours that yield no more their former hope of rest,
‘Tis but as ivy-leaves around the ruined turret wreath –
All green and wildly fresh without, but worn and grey beneath.
Oh, could I feel as I have felt, or be what I have been,
Or weep as I could once have wept, o’er many a vanished scene;
As springs in deserts found seem sweet, all brackish though they be,
So, midst the withered waste of life, those tears would flow to me.
Related poetry:
- Stanzas For Music There be none of Beauty’s daughters With a magic like thee; And like music on the waters Is thy sweet voice to me: When, as if its sound were causing The charmed ocean’s pausing, The waves lie still and gleaming, And the lulled winds seem dreaming; And the midnight moon is weaving Her bright chain […]...
- The World is with Me The world is with me, and its many cares, Its woes its wants the anxious hopes and fears That wait on all terrestrial affairs The shades of former and of future years Forboding fancies and prophetic tears, Quelling a spirit that was once elate. Heavens! what a wilderness the world appears, Where youth, and mirth, […]...
- Sonnet 09 – Can it be right to give what I can give? Can it be right to give what I can give? To let thee sit beneath the fall of tears As salt as mine, and hear the sighing years Re-sighing on my lips renunciative Through those infrequent smiles which fail to live For all thy adjurations? O my fears, That this can scarce be right! We […]...
- Sonnet 128: How oft, when thou, my music, music play'st How oft, when thou, my music, music play’st, Upon that blessèd wood whose motion sounds With thy sweet fingers when thou gently sway’st The wiry concord that mine ear confounds, Do I envy those jacks that nimble leap To kiss the tender inward of thy hand, Whilst my poor lips, which should that harvest reap, […]...
- Stanzas To Augusta When all around grew drear and dark, And reason half withheld her ray – And hope but shed a dying spark Which more misled my lonely way; In that deep midnight of the mind, And that internal strife of heart, When dreading to be deemed too kind, The weak despair-the cold depart; When fortune changed-and […]...
- Stanzas Composed During A Thunderstorm Chill and mirk is the nightly blast, Where Pindus’ mountains rise, And angry clouds are pouring fast The vengeance of the skies. Our guides are gone, our hope is lost, And lightnings, as they play, But show where rocks our path have crost, Or gild the torrent’s spray. Is yon a cot I saw, though […]...
- For Music THERE be none of Beauty’s daughters With a magic like thee; And like music on the waters Is thy sweet voice to me: When, as if its sound were causing The charmed ocean’s pausing, The waves lie still and gleaming, And the lull’d winds seem dreaming: And the midnight moon is weaving Her bright chain […]...
- As a World Would Have It Shall I never make him look at me again? I look at him, I look my life at him, I tell him all I know the way to tell, But there he stays the same. Shall I never make him speak one word to me? Shall I never make him say enough to show My […]...
- God Give to Men God give the yellow man An easy breeze at blossom time. Grant his eager, slanting eyes to cover Every land and dream Of afterwhile. Give blue-eyed men their swivel chairs To whirl in tall buildings. Allow them many ships at sea, And on land, soldiers And policemen. For black man, God, No need to bother […]...
- Stanzas IF thou be in a lonely place, If one hour’s calm be thine, As Evening bends her placid face O’er this sweet day’s decline; If all the earth and all the heaven Now look serene to thee, As o’er them shuts the summer even, One momentthink of me! Pause, in the lane, returning home; ‘Tis […]...
- Never Give All The Heart Never give all the heart, for love Will hardly seem worth thinking of To passionate women if it seem Certain, and they never dream That it fades out from kiss to kiss; For everything that’s lovely is But a brief, dreamy. Kind delight. O never give the heart outright, For they, for all smooth lips […]...
- Stanzas To Jessy There is a mystic thread of life So dearly wreath’d with mine alone, That Destiny’s relentless knife At once must sever both, or none. There is a Form on which these eyes Have fondly gazed with such delight – By day, that Form their joy supplies, And Dreams restore it, through the night. There is […]...
- Stanzas To The Po River, that rollest by the ancient walls, Where dwells the lady of my love, when she Walks by thy brink, and there perchance recalls A faint and fleeting memory of me; What if thy deep and ample stream should be A mirror of my heart, where she may read The thousand thoughts I now betray […]...
- Stanzas To A Lady, On Leaving England ‘Tis done – and shivering in the gale The bark unfurls her snowy sail; And whistling o’er the bending mast, Loud sings on high the fresh’ning blast; And I must from this land be gone, Because I cannot love but one. But could I be what I have been, And could I see what I […]...
- Remind Me Not, Remind Me Not Remind me not, remind me not, Of those beloved, those vanish’d hours, When all my soul was given to thee; Hours that may never be forgot, Till Time unnerves our vital powers, And thou and I shall cease to be. Can I forget – canst thou forget, When playing with thy golden hair, How quick […]...
- A New World I WHO had sought afar from earth The faery land to meet, Now find content within its girth And wonder nigh my feet. To-day a nearer love I choose And seek no distant sphere; For aureoled by faery dews The dear brown breasts appear. With rainbow radiance come and go The airy breaths of day; […]...
- How to Leave the World that Worships should Let faxes butter-curl on dusty shelves. Let junkmail build its castles in the hush Of other people’s halls. Let deadlines burst And flash like glorious fireworks somewhere else. As hours go softly by, let others curse The roads where distant drivers queue like sheep. Let e-mails fly like panicked, tiny birds. Let phones, unanswered, ring […]...
- Stanzas WHEN fragrant gales and summer show’rs Call’d forth the sweetly scented flow’rs; When ripen’d sheaves of golden grain, Strew’d their rich treasures o’er the plain; When the full grape did nectar yield, In tepid drops of purple hue; When the thick grove, and thirsty field, Drank the soft show’r and bloom’d a-new; O then my […]...
- Music This shape without space, This pattern without stuff, This stream without dimension Surrounds us, flows through us, But leaves no mark. This message without meaning, These tears without eyes This laughter without lips Speaks to us but does not Disclose its clue. These waves without sea Surge over us, smooth us. These hands without fingers […]...
- The End of the World Here, at the end of the world, The flowers bleed As if they were hearts, The hearts ooze a darkness Like india ink, & poets dip their pens in & they write. “Here, at the end of the world,” They write, Not knowing what it means. “Here, where the sky nurses on black milk, Where […]...
- What Would I Give What would I give for a heart of flesh to warm me through, Instead of this heart of stone ice-cold whatever I do! Hard and cold and small, of all hearts the worst of all. What would I give for words, if only words would come! But now in its misery my spirit has fallen […]...
- Stanzas for the Times Is this the land our fathers loved, The freedom which they toiled to win? Is this the soil whereon they moved? Are these the graves they slumber in? Are we the sons by whom are borne The mantles which the dead have worn? And shall we crouch above these graves, With craven soul and fettered […]...
- MUSIC MUSIC doth uplift me like a sea Towards my planet pale, Then through dark fogs or heaven’s infinity I lift my wandering sail. With breast advanced, drinking the winds that flee, And through the cordage wail, I mount the hurrying waves night hides from me Beneath her sombre veil. I feel the tremblings of all […]...
- Prayers After World War WANDERING oversea dreamer, Hunting and hoarse, Oh daughter and mother, Oh daughter of ashes and mother of blood, Child of the hair let down, and tears, Child of the cross in the south And the star in the north, Keeper of Egypt and Russia and France, Keeper of England and Poland and Spain, Make us […]...
- To M. S. G Whene’er I view those lips of thine, Their hue invites my fervent kiss; Yet, I forego that bliss divine, Alas! it were – unhallow’d bliss. Whene’er I dream of that pure breast, How could I dwell upon its snows! Yet, is the daring wish represt, For that, – would banish its repose. A glance from […]...
- Oh give it Motion deck it sweet Oh give it Motion deck it sweet With Artery and Vein Upon its fastened Lips lay words Affiance it again To that Pink stranger we call Dust Acquainted more with that Than with this horizontal one That will not lift its Hat...
- Stanzas to Time CAPRICIOUS foe to human joy, Still varying with the fleeting day; With thee the purest raptures cloy, The fairest prospects fade away; Nor worth, nor pow’r thy wings can bind, All earthly pleasures fly with THEE; Inconstant as the wav’ring wind That plays upon the summer sea. I court thee not, ungentle guest, For I […]...
- The House Of Dust: Part 03: 13: The half-shut doors through which we heard that music The half-shut doors through which we heard that music Are softly closed. Horns mutter down to silence. The stars whirl out, the night grows deep. Darkness settles upon us. A vague refrain Drowsily teases at the drowsy brain. In numberless rooms we stretch ourselves and sleep. Where have we been? What savage chaos of music […]...
- The World 1 I saw Eternity the other night, 2 Like a great ring of pure and endless light, 3 All calm, as it was bright; 4 And round beneath it, Time in hours, days, years, 5 Driv’n by the spheres 6 Like a vast shadow mov’d; in which the world 7 And all her train were […]...
- When The Light Appears Lento You’ll bare your bones you’ll grow you’ll pray you’ll only know When the light appears, boy, when the light appears You’ll sing & you’ll love you’ll praise blue heavens above When the light appears, boy, when the light appears You’ll whimper & you’ll cry you’ll get yourself sick and sigh You’ll sleep & you’ll […]...
- On Music When through life unblest we rove, Losing all that made life dear, Should some notes we used to love, In days of boyhood, meet our ear, Oh! how welcome breathes the strain! Wakening thoughts that long have slept, Kindling former smiles again In faded eyes that long have wept. Like the gale, that sighs along […]...
- The Pagan World In his cool hall, with haggard eyes, The Roman noble lay; He drove abroad, in furious guise, Along the Appian way. He made a feast, drank fierce and fast, And crowned his hair with flowers- No easier nor no quicker passed The impracticable hours. The brooding East with awe beheld Her impious younger world. The […]...
- The Rose Of The World Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream? For these red lips, with all their mournful pride, Mournful that no new wonder may betide, Troy passed away in one high funeral gleam, And Usna’s children died. We and the labouring world are passing by: Amid men’s souls, that waver and give place Like the pale […]...
- Stanzas to a Friend AH! think no more that Life’s delusive joys, Can charm my thoughts from FRIENDSHIP’S dearer claim; Or wound a heart, that scarce a wish employs, For age to censure, or discretion blame. Tir’d of the world, my weary mind recoils From splendid scenes, and transitory joys; From fell Ambition’s false and fruitless toils, From hope […]...
- Round About Midnight Jazz radio on a midnight kick, Round about Midnight. Sitting on the bed, With a jazz type chick Round about Midnight, Piano laughter, in my ears, Round about Midnight. Stirring up laughter, dying tears, Round about Midnight. Soft blue voices, muted grins, Excited voices, Father’s sins, Round about Midnight. Come on baby, take off your […]...
- Alexander's Feast; Or, The Power Of Music ‘Twas at the royal feast for Persia won By Philip’s warlike son – Aloft in awful state The godlike hero sate On his imperial throne; His valiant peers were placed around, Their brows with roses and with myrtles bound (So should desert in arms be crowned); The lovely Thais by his side Sate like a […]...
- 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. […]...
- Sonnet 08 – What can I give thee back, O liberal What can I give thee back, O liberal And princely giver, who hast brought the gold And purple of thine heart, unstained, untold, And laid them on the outside of the-wall For such as I to take or leave withal, In unexpected largesse? am I cold, Ungrateful, that for these most manifold High gifts, I […]...
- Stanzas IN a drear-nighted December, Too happy, happy tree, Thy branches ne’er remember Their green felicity: The north cannot undo them, With a sleety whistle through them; Nor frozen thawings glue them From budding at the prime. In a drear-nighted December, Too happy, happy brook, Thy bubblings ne’er remember Apollo’s summer look; But with a sweet […]...
- Music In The Bush O’er the dark pines she sees the silver moon, And in the west, all tremulous, a star; And soothing sweet she hears the mellow tune Of cow-bells jangled in the fields afar. Quite listless, for her daily stent is done, She stands, sad exile, at her rose-wreathed door, And sends her love eternal with the […]...