A Lyric Day

Related poetry:

1. Lines in Praise of the Lyric Club Banquet Which was Held in the Queens Hotel, Perth, on the Evening of 5th September 1894 ‘Twas in the year of 1894, and on the 5th of September, Which for a long time I will remember, And the gentlemen I entertained in the city of Perth, Which is one of the grandest cities upon the earth. […]...
2. My Garden The world is sadly sick, they say, And plagued by woe and pain. But look! How looms my garden gay, With blooms in golden reign! With lyric music in the air, Of joy fulfilled in song, I can’t believe that anywhere Is hate and harm and wrong. A paradise my garden is, And there my […]...
3. Lord Let Me Live Lord, let me live, that more and more Your wonder world I may adore; With every dawn to grow and grow Alive to graciousness aglow; And every eve in beauty see Reason for rhapsody. Lord, let me bide, that I may prove The buoyant brightness of my love For sapphire sea and lyric sky And […]...
4. Maids In May Three maids there were in meadow bright, The eldest less then seven; Their eyes were dancing with delight, And innocent as Heaven. Wild flowers they wound with tender glee, Their cheeks with rapture rosy; All radiant they smiled at me, When I besought a posy. She gave me a columbine, And one a poppy brought […]...
5. They May Rail at this Life They may rail at this life from the hour I began it I found it a life full of kindness and bliss; And, until they can show me some happier planet, More social and bright, I’ll content me with this. As long as the world has such lips and such eyes As before me this […]...
6. All That Love Asks All that I ask, ‘says Love, ‘is just to stand And gaze, unchided, deep in thy dear eyes; For in their depths lies largest Paradise. Yet, if perchance one pressure of thy hand Be granted me, then joy I thought complete Were still more sweet. ‘All that I ask, ‘ says Love, ‘all that I […]...
7. A Lyric to Mirth While the milder fates consent, Let’s enjoy our merriment : Drink, and dance, and pipe, and play ; Kiss our dollies night and day : Crowned with clusters of the vine, Let us sit, and quaff our wine. Call on Bacchus, chant his praise ; Shake the thyrse, and bite the bays : Rouse Anacreon […]...
8. The Portrait The portrait there above my bed They tell me is a work of art; My Wife, since twenty years she’s dead: Her going nearly broke my heart. Alas! No little ones we had To light our hearth with joy and glee; Yet as I linger lone and sad I know she’s waiting me. The picture? […]...
9. Bastard The very skies wee black with shame, As near my moment drew; The very hour before you cam I felt I hated you. But now I see how fair you are, How divine your eyes, It seems I step upon a star To leap to Paradise. What care I who your father was: (‘Twas better […]...
10. Sacrifice I gave an eye to save from night A babe born blind; And now with eager semi-sight Vast joy I find To think a child can share with me Earth ecstasy! Delight of dawn with dewy gleam On damask rose; Crimson and gold as pennons stream Where sunset flows; And sight most nigh to paradise, […]...
11. Lyric of Love to Leah Come, my darling, let us dance To the moon that beckons us To dissolve our love in trance Heedless of the hideous Heat & hate of Sirius- Shun his baneful brilliance! Let us dance beneath the palm Moving in the moonlight, frond Wooing frond above the calm Of the ocean diamond Sparkling to the sky […]...
12. I Will Not Fight I will not fight: though proud of pith I hold no one worth striving with; And should resentment burn my breast I deem that silence serves me best: So having not a word to say, Contemptuous I turn away. I will not fret: my rest of life Free I will keep from hate and strife; […]...
13. Rhyme Builder I envy not those gay galoots Who count on dying in their boots; For that, to tell the sober truth Sould be the privilege of youth; But aged bones are better sped To heaven from a downy bed. So prop me up with pillows two, And serve me with the barley brew; And put a […]...
14. THE MAID OF THE MILL'S TREACHERY [This Ballad is introduced in the Wanderjahre, In a tale called The Foolish Pilgrim.] WHENCE comes our friend so hastily, When scarce the Eastern sky is grey? Hath he just ceased, though cold it be, In yonder holy spot to pray? The brook appears to hem his path, Would he barefooted o’er it go? Why […]...
15. The Golden Age WHEN the morning breaks above us And the wild sweet stars have fled, By the faery hands that love us Wakened you and I will tread Where the lilacs on the lawn Shine with all their silver dews, In the stillness of a dawn Wrapped in tender primrose hues. We will hear the strange old […]...
16. Breath Is Enough I draw sweet air Deeply and long, As pure as prayer, As sweet as song. Where lilies glow And roses wreath, Heart-joy I know Is just to breathe. Aye, so I think By shore or sea, As deep I drink Of purity. This brave machine, Bare to the buff, I keep ice-clean, Breath is enough. […]...
17. The End of the Day The night darkens fast & the shadows darken, Clouds & the rain gather about mine house, Only the wood-dove moans, hearken, O hearken! The moan of the wood-dove in the rain-wet boughs. Loneliness & the night! The night is lonely Star-covered the night takes to a tender breast Wrapping them in her veil these dark […]...
18. The Defeated Think not because you raise A gleaming sword, That you will win to praise Before the Lord. And though men hail you great Unto the skies, Deem not ’twill ope’ the gate Of Paradise. Though you have gold and gear And fame and power, What odds when you draw near The Judgement Hour? But if […]...
19. The Morning Star IN the black pool of the midnight Lu has slung the morning star, And its foam in rippling silver whitens into day afar Falling on the mountain rampart piled with pearl above our glen, Only you and I, beloved, moving in the fields of men. In the dark tarn of my spirit, love, the morning […]...
20. Invocation Come down from heaven to meet me when my breath Chokes, and through drumming shafts of stifling death I stumble toward escape, to find the door Opening on morn where I may breathe once more Clear cock-crow airs across some valley dim With whispering trees. While dawn along the rim Of night’s horizon flows in […]...
21. The King's Experiment It was a wet wan hour in spring, And Nature met King Doom beside a lane, Wherein Hodge trudged, all blithely ballading The Mother’s smiling reign. “Why warbles he that skies are fair And coombs alight,” she cried, “and fallows gay, When I have placed no sunshine in the air Or glow on earth to-day?” […]...
22. Preference NOT in scorn do I reprove thee, Not in pride thy vows I waive, But, believe, I could not love thee, Wert thou prince, and I a slave. These, then, are thine oaths of passion? This, thy tenderness for me? Judged, even, by thine own confession, Thou art steeped in perfidy. Having vanquished, thou wouldst […]...
23. The Two Trees Beloved, gaze in thine own heart, The holy tree is growing there; From joy the holy branches start, And all the trembling flowers they bear. The changing colours of its fruit Have dowered the stars with metry light; The surety of its hidden root Has planted quiet in the night; The shaking of its leafy […]...
24. WELCOME AND FAREWELL [Another of the love-songs addressed to Frederica.] QUICK throbb’d my heart: to norse! haste, haste, And lo! ’twas done with speed of light; The evening soon the world embraced, And o’er the mountains hung the night. Soon stood, in robe of mist, the oak, A tow’ring giant in his size, Where darkness through the thicket […]...
25. Om FAINT grew the yellow buds of light Far flickering beyond the snows, As leaning o’er the shadowy white Morn glimmered like a pale primrose. Within an Indian vale below A child said “OM” with tender heart, Watching with loving eyes the glow In dayshine fade and night depart. The word which Brahma at his dawn […]...
26. Archaic Bust Of Apollo (After Rilke) We cannot know the indescribable face Where the eyes like apples ripened. Even so, His torso has a candelabra’s glow, His gaze, contained as in a mirror’s grace, Shines within it. Otherwise his breast Would not be dazzling. Nor would you recognize The smile that moves along his curving thighs, There where love’s […]...
27. Frustration Gazing to gold seraph wing, With wistful wonder in my eyes, A blue-behinded ape, I swing Upon the palms of Paradise. A parakeet of gaudy hue Upon a flame tree smugly rocks; Oh, we’re a precious pair, we two, I gibber while the parrot squawks. “If I had but your wings,” I sigh, “How ardently […]...
28. Breakfast Of all the meals that glad my day My morning one’s the best; Purveyed me on a silver tray, Immaculately dressed. I rouse me when the dawn is bright; I leap into the sea, Returning with a rare delight To honey, toast and tea. My appetite was razor edged When I was in my prime; […]...
29. Waiting WHEN the dawn comes forth I wonder Will our sad, sad hearts awaken, And the grief we laboured under From the new-in-joy be shaken? If the night be long in going, All our souls will fix in sadness; And the light of morning glowing Waken in our eyes no gladness. All unschooled in mirth we […]...
30. The Virgin Mother WHO is that goddess to whom men should pray, But her from whom their hearts have turned away, Out of whose virgin being they were born, Whose mother nature they have named with scorn Calling its holy substance common clay. Yet from this so despised earth was made The milky whiteness of those queens who […]...
31. Spartan Mother My mother loved her horses and Her hounds of pedigree; She did not kiss the baby hand I held to her in glee. Of course I had a sweet nou-nou Who tended me with care, And mother reined her nag to view Me with a critic air. So I went to a famous school, But […]...
32. The First Extra A Waltz Song. O sway, and swing, and sway, And swing, and sway, and swing! Ah me, what bliss like unto this, Can days and daylight bring? A rose beneath your feet Has fallen from my head; Its odour rises sweet, All crushed it lies, and dead. O Love is like a rose, Fair-hued, of […]...
33. Rest O EARTH, lie heavily upon her eyes; Seal her sweet eyes weary of watching, Earth; Lie close around her; leave no room for mirth With its harsh laughter, nor for sound of sighs. She hath no questions, she hath no replies, Hush’d in and curtain’d with a blessed dearth Of all that irk’d her from […]...
34. One Blessing had I than the rest One Blessing had I than the rest So larger to my Eyes That I stopped gauging satisfied For this enchanted size It was the limit of my Dream The focus of my Prayer A perfect paralyzing Bliss Contented as Despair I knew no more of Want or Cold Phantasms both become For this new Value […]...
35. DEPARTURE WITH many a thousand kiss not yet content, At length with One kiss I was forced to go; After that bitter parting’s depth of woe, I deem’d the shore from which my steps I bent, Its hills, streams, dwellings, mountains, as I went, A pledge of joy, till daylight ceased to glow; Then on my […]...
36. I cannot live with You I cannot live with You It would be Life And Life is over there Behind the Shelf The Sexton keeps the Key to Putting up Our Life His Porcelain Like a Cup Discarded of the Housewife Quaint or Broke A newer Sevres pleases Old Ones crack I could not die with You For One must […]...
37. The Beginning “Where have I come from, where did you pick me up?” the baby asked Its mother. She answered, half crying, half laughing, and clasping the Baby to her breast- “You were hidden in my heart as its desire, my darling. You were in the dolls of my childhood’s games; and when with Clay I made […]...
38. Virginity My mother she had children five and four are dead and gone; While I, least worthy to survive, persist in living on. She looks at me, I must confess, sometimes with spite and bitterness. My mother is three-score and ten, while I am forty-three, You don’t know how it hurts me when we go somewhere […]...
39. The Learner I’ve learned Of all the friends I’ve won Dame Nature is the best, And to her like a child I run Craving her mother breast To comfort me in soul distress, And in green glade to find Far from the world’s unloveliness Pure peace of mind. I’ve learned the worth of simple ways, And though […]...
40. Son He hurried away, young heart of joy, under our Devon sky! And I watched him go, my beautiful boy, and a weary woman was I. For my hair is grey, and his was gold; he’d the best of his life to live; And I’d loved him so, and I’m old, I’m old; and he’s all […]...