Home ⇒ 📌Sidney Lanier ⇒ A Dedication. To Charlotte Cushman
A Dedication. To Charlotte Cushman
As Love will carve dear names upon a tree,
Symbol of gravure on his heart to be,
So thought I thine with loving text to set
In the growth and substance of my canzonet;
But, writing it, my tears begin to fall
This wild-rose stem for thy large name’s too small!
Nay, still my trembling hands are fain, are fain
Cut the good letters though they lap again;
Perchance such folk as mark the blur and stain
Will say, ‘It was the beating of the rain;’
Or, haply these o’er-woundings of the stem
May loose some little balm, to plead for them.
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)Related poetry:
- At First. To Charlotte Cushman My crippled sense fares bow’d along His uncompanioned way, And wronged by death pays life with wrong And I wake by night and dream by day. And the Morning seems but fatigued Night That hath wept his visage pale, And the healthy mark ‘twixt dark and light In sickly sameness out doth fail. And the […]...
- To Charlotte Cushman Look where a three-point star shall weave his beam Into the slumb’rous tissue of some stream, Till his bright self o’er his bright copy seem Fulfillment dropping on a come-true dream; So in this night of art thy soul doth show Her excellent double in the steadfast flow Of wishing love that through men’s hearts […]...
- TO CHARLOTTE ‘MIDST the noise of merriment and glee, ‘Midst full many a sorrow, many a care, Charlotte, I remember, we remember thee, How, at evening’s hour so fair, Thou a kindly hand didst reach us, When thou, in some happy place Where more fair is Nature s face, Many a lightly-hidden trace Of a spirit loved […]...
- Dedication Dedication These to His Memory since he held them dear, Perchance as finding there unconsciously Some image of himself I dedicate, I dedicate, I consecrate with tears These Idylls. And indeed He seems to me Scarce other than my king’s ideal knight, ‘Who reverenced his conscience as his king; Whose glory was, redressing human wrong; […]...
- Walt Whitman The master-songs are ended, and the man That sang them is a name. And so is God A name; and so is love, and life, and death, And everything. But we, who are too blind To read what we have written, or what faith Has written for us, do not understand: We only blink, and […]...
- The Wicked Postman Why do you sit there on the floor so quiet and silent, tell me, Mother dear? The rain is coming in through the open window, making you all Wet, and you don’t mind it. Do you hear the gong striking four? It is time for my brother To come home from school. What has happened […]...
- Dedication MY first gift and my last, to you I dedicate this fascicle of songs – The only wealth I have: Just as they are, to you. I speak the truth in soberness, and say I had rather bring a light to your clear eyes, Had rather hear you praise This bosomful of songs Than that […]...
- 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 […]...
- Dedication For A Plot Of Ground This plot of ground Facing the waters of this inlet Is dedicated to the living presence of Emily Dickinson Wellcome Who was born in England; married; Lost her husband and with Her five year old son Sailed for New York in a two-master; Was driven to the Azores; Ran adrift on Fire Island shoal, Met […]...
- Mossbawn: Two Poems in Dedication 1. Sunlight There was a sunlit absence. The helmeted pump in the yard Heated its iron, Water honeyed In the slung bucket And the sun stood Like a griddle cooling Against the wall Of each long afternoon. So, her hands scuffled Over the bakeboard, The reddening stove Sent its plaque of heat Against her where […]...
- Love's Gleaning Tide Draw not away thy hands, my love, With wind alone the branches move, And though the leaves be scant above The Autumn shall not shame us. Say; Let the world wax cold and drear, What is the worst of all the year But life, and what can hurt us, dear, Or death, and who shall […]...
- Dedication To the City of Bombay The Cities are full of pride, Challenging each to each This from her mountain-side, That from her burthened beach. They count their ships full tale Their corn and oil and wine, Derrick and loom and bale, And rampart’s gun-flecked line; City by City they hail: “Hast aught to match with […]...
- 113. A Dedication to Gavin Hamilton, Esq EXPECT na, sir, in this narration, A fleechin, fleth’rin Dedication, To roose you up, an’ ca’ you guid, An’ sprung o’ great an’ noble bluid, Because ye’re surnam’d like His Grace- Perhaps related to the race: Then, when I’m tir’d-and sae are ye, Wi’ mony a fulsome, sinfu’ lie, Set up a face how I […]...
- Dedication I have great faith in all things not yet spoken. I want my deepest pious feelings freed. What no one yet has dared to risk and warrant Will be for me a challenge I must meet. If this presumptious seems, God, may I be forgiven. For what I want to say to you is this: […]...
- Dedication Inscribed to a Dear Child: In Memory of Golden Summer Hours And Whispers of a Summer Sea Girt with a boyish garb for boyish task, Eager she wields her spade: yet loves as well Rest on a friendly knee, intent to ask The tale he loves to tell. Rude spirits of the seething outer strife, […]...
- DEDICATION The morn arrived; his footstep quickly scared The gentle sleep that round my senses clung, And I, awak’ning, from my cottage fared, And up the mountain side with light heart sprung; At every step I felt my gaze ensnared By new-born flow’rs that full of dew-drops hung; The youthful day awoke with ecstacy, And all […]...
- Dedication for Moremi, 1963 Earth will not share the rafter’s envy; dung floors Break, not the gecko’s slight skin, but its fall Taste this soil for death and plumb her deep for life As this yam, wholly earthed, yet a living tuber To the warmth of waters, earthed as springs As roots of baobab, as the […]...
- Dedication You whom I could not save Listen to me. Try to understand this simple speech as I would be ashamed of another. I swear, there is in me no wizardry of words. I speak to you with silence like a cloud or a tree. What strengthened me, for you was lethal. You mixed up farewell […]...
- Dedication To M Swing of the heart. O firmly hung, fastened on what Invisible branch. Who, who gave you the push, That you swung with me into the leaves? How near I was to the exquisite fruits. But not-staying Is the essence of this motion. Only the nearness, only Toward the forever-too-high, all at once the possible Nearness. […]...
- A Dedication They are rhymes rudely strung with intent less Of sound than of words, In lands where bright blossoms are scentless, And songless bright birds; Where, with fire and fierce drought on her tresses, Insatiable Summer oppresses Sere woodlands and sad wildernesses, And faint flocks and herds. Where in drieariest days, when all dews end, And […]...
- All the letters I can write All the letters I can write Are not fair as this Syllables of Velvet Sentences of Plush, Depths of Ruby, undrained, Hid, Lip, for Thee Play it were a Humming Bird And just sipped me...
- The Faces of Memory DREAM faces bloom around your face Like flowers upon one stem; The heart of many a vanished race Sighs as I look on them. The sun rich face of Egypt glows, The eyes of Eire brood, With whom the golden Cyprian shows In lovely sisterhood. Your tree of life put forth these flowers In ages […]...
- Dedication In youth I longed to paint The loveliness I saw; And yet by dire constraint I had to study Law. But now all that is past, And I have no regret, For I am free at last Law to forget. To beauty newly born With brush and tube I play; And though my daubs you […]...
- Dedication To W. R. B. And so, to you, who always were Perseus, D’Artagnan, Lancelot To me, I give these weedy rhymes In memory of earlier times. Now all those careless days are not. Of all my heroes, you endure. Words are such silly things! too rough, Too smooth, they boil up or congeal, And neither […]...
- A Farewell With all my will, but much against my heart, We two now part. My Very Dear, Our solace is, the sad road lies so clear. It needs no art, With faint, averted feet And many a tear, In our opposèd paths to persevere. Go thou to East, I West. We will not say There ‘s […]...
- Dedication To Providence I loved to toy with tuneful rhyme, My fancies into verse to weave; For as I walked my words would chime So bell-like I could scarce believe; My rhymes rippled like a brook, My stanzas bloomed like blossoms gay: And that is why I dream this book A verseman’s holiday. The palm-blades brindle in the […]...
- Dedication To Christina G. Rossetti Songs light as these may sound, though deep and strong The heart spake through them, scarce should hope to please Ears tuned to strains of loftier thoughts than throng Songs light as these. Yet grace may set their sometime doubt at ease, Nor need their too rash reverence fear to wrong The shrine it serves […]...
- Ultima Thule: Dedication to G. W. G With favoring winds, o’er sunlit seas, We sailed for the Hesperides, The land where golden apples grow; But that, ah! that was long ago. How far, since then, the ocean streams Have swept us from that land of dreams, That land of fiction and of truth, The lost Atlantis of our youth! Whither, ah, whither? […]...
- Dedication for a House We, who were long together homeless, raise Brick walls, wood floors, a roof, and windows up To what sustained us in those threatening days Unto this end. Alas, that this bright cup Be empty of the care and life of him Who should have made it overflow its brim....
- John Horace Burleson I won the prize essay at school Here in the village, And published a novel before I was twenty-five. I went to the city for themes and to enrich my art; There married the banker’s daughter, And later became president of the bank- Always looking forward to some leisure To write an epic novel of […]...
- Poem (Halleck monument dedication) SAY not the Poet dies! Though in the dust he lies, He cannot forfeit his melodious breath, Unsphered by envious death! Life drops the voiceless myriads from its roll; Their fate he cannot share, Who, in the enchanted air Sweet with the lingering strains that Echo stole, Has left his dearer self, the music of […]...
- Impromptu, to Lady Winchelsea In vain you boast Poetic Names of yore, And cite those Sapho’s we admire no more: Fate doom’d the Fall of ev’ry Female Wit, But doom’d it then when first Ardelia writ. Of all Examples by the World confest, I knew Ardelia could not quote the best; Who, like her Mistress on Britannia’s Throne; Fights, […]...
- Passer-By, These Are Words Passer-by, these are words. But instead of reading I want you to listen: to this frail Voice like that of letters eaten by grass. Lend an ear, hear first of all the happy bee Foraging in our almost rubbed-out names. It flits between two sprays of leaves, Carrying the sound of branches that are real […]...
- Abou Ben Adhem Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!) Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace, And saw, within the moonlight in his room, Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom, An angel writing in a book of gold:- Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold, And to the Presence in the room […]...
- The Letters I wonder if You keep the letters still, Spidery and blotted Now, like old days Just withered away. I remember sunlight bursts That inspired Those winged words, The spirit of spaces Flying paper aeroplanes of love. I picture us then- A perfect summer’s night Calligraphy of stars Burning Indian fire And I wonder if You […]...
- Dedication To A Book Of Stories Selected From The Irish Novelists There was a green branch hung with many a bell When her own people ruled this tragic Eire; And from its murmuring greenness, calm of Faery, A Druid kindness, on all hearers fell. It charmed away the merchant from his guile, And turned the farmer’s memory from his cattle, And hushed in sleep the roaring […]...
- Autobiographical The lover in these poems Is me; The doctor, Love. He appears As husband, lover Analyst & muse, As father, son & maybe even God & surely death. All this is true. The man you turn to In the dark Is many men. This is an open secret Women share & yet agree to hide […]...
- The Appology ‘Tis true I write and tell me by what Rule I am alone forbid to play the fool To follow through the Groves a wand’ring Muse And fain’d Idea’s for my pleasures chuse Why shou’d it in my Pen be held a fault Whilst Mira paints her face, to paint a thought Whilst Lamia to […]...
- Evening ‘Tis evening; the black snail has got on his track, And gone to its nest is the wren, And the packman snail, too, with his home on his back, Clings to the bowed bents like a wen. The shepherd has made a rude mark with his foot Where his shadow reached when he first came, […]...
- Autumn Whoever has no house now will never have one. Whoever is alone will stay alone Will sit, read, write long letters through the evening And wander on the boulevards, up and down… – from Autumn Day, Rainer Maria Rilke Its stain is everywhere. The sharpening air Of late afternoon Is now the colour of tea. […]...