In Tenebris

Related poetry:

1. De Profundis I “Percussus sum sicut foenum, et aruit cor meum.” – Ps. ci Wintertime nighs; But my bereavement-pain It cannot bring again: Twice no one dies. Flower-petals flee; But, since it once hath been, No more that severing scene Can harrow me. Birds faint in dread: I shall not lose old strength In the lone frost’s […]...
2. E TENEBRIS Come down, O Christ, and help me! reach Thy hand, For I am drowning in a stormier sea Than Simon on Thy lake of Galilee: The wine of life is spilt upon the sand, My heart is as some famine-murdered land Whence all good things have perished utterly, And well I know my soul in […]...
3. Ho, everyone that thirsteth Ho, everyone that thirsteth And hath the price to give, Come to the stolen waters, Drink and your soul shall live. Come to the stolen waters, And leap the guarded pale, And pull the flower in season Before desire shall fail. It shall not last for ever, No more than earth and skies; But he […]...
4. The Last Chrysanthemum Why should this flower delay so long To show its tremulous plumes? Now is the time of plaintive robin-song, When flowers are in their tombs. Through the slow summer, when the sun Called to each frond and whorl That all he could for flowers was being done, Why did it not uncurl? It must have […]...
5. Sonnet XXXI Ah why hath nature to so hard a hart, Giuen so goodly giftes of beauties grace? Whose pryde depraues each other better part, And all those pretious ornaments deface. Sith to all other beastes of bloody race, A dreadfull countenaunce she giuen hath: That with theyr terrour al the rest may chace, And warne to […]...
6. I Have Some Friends I have some friends, some worthy friends, And worthy friends are rare: These carpet slippers on my feet, That padded leather chair; This old and shabby dressing-gown, So well the worse of wear. I have some friends, some honest friends, And honest friends are few; My pipe of briar, my open fire, A book that’s […]...
7. My Friends My friends without shields walk on the target It is late the windows are breaking My friends without shoes leave What they love Grief moves among them as a fire among Its bells My friends without clocks turn On the dial they turn They part My friends with names like gloves set out Bare handed […]...
8. Unlyric Love Song It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first: To offer you now at last my least and my worst: Minor, absurd preserves, The shell’s end-curves, A document kept at the back of a drawer, A tin hidden under the floor, Recalcitrant prides and hesitations: To pile them carefully in a desparate […]...
9. Sir Richard's Song (A. D. 1066) I followed my Duke ere I was a lover, To take from England fief and fee; But now this game is the other way over But now England hath taken me! I had my horse, my shield and banner, And a boy’s heart, so whole and free; But now I sing in […]...
10. A Hill In Italy, where this sort of thing can occur, I had a vision once – though you understand It was nothing at all like Dante’s, or the visions of saints, And perhaps not a vision at all. I was with some friends, Picking my way through a warm sunlit piazza In the early morning. A […]...
11. Take Back the Virgin Page Written on Returning a Blank Book Take back the virgin page, White and unwritten still; Some hand, more calm and sage, The leaf must fill. Thoughts come, as pure as light Pure as even you require; But, oh! each word I write Love turns to fire. Yet let me keep the book: Oft shall my […]...
12. Sonnet 23: As an unperfect actor on the stage As an unperfect actor on the stage Who with his fear is put beside his part, Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage, Whose strength’s abundance weakens his own heart, So I, for fear of trust, forget to say The perfect ceremony of love’s rite, And in mine own love’s strength seem to […]...
13. 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 […]...
14. Good Friday O my chief good, How shall I measure out thy blood? How shall I count what thee befell, And each grief tell? Shall I thy woes Number according to thy foes? Or, since one star show’d thy first breath, Shall all thy death? Or shall each leaf, Which falls in Autumn, score a grief? Or […]...
15. Autumn Love Search. Search. Seek. Seek. Cold. Cold. Clear. Clear. Sorrow. Sorrow. Pain. Pain. Hot flashes. Sudden chills. Stabbing pains. Slow agonies. I can find no peace. I drink two cups, then three bowls, Of clear wine until I can’t Stand up against a gust of wind. Wild geese fly over head. They wrench my heart. They […]...
16. Cold Poem Cold now. Close to the edge. Almost Unbearable. Clouds Bunch up and boil down From the north of the white bear. This tree-splitting morning I dream of his fat tracks, The lifesaving suet. I think of summer with its luminous fruit, Blossoms rounding to berries, leaves, Handfuls of grain. Maybe what cold is, is the […]...
17. Sonnet XLIX: Thou Leaden Brain Thou leaden brain, which censur’st what I write, And say’st my lines be dull and do not move, I marvel not thou feel’st not my delight, Which never felt’st my fiery touch of love. But thou, whose pen hath like a pack-horse serv’d, Whose stomach unto gall hath turn’d thy food, Whose senses, like poor […]...
18. I Will Be Worthy Of It It I may not reach the heights I seek, My untried strength may fail me; Or, halfway up the mountain peak Fierce tempests may assail me. But though that place I never gain, Herein lies the comfort for my pain – I will be worthy of it. I may not triumph in success, Despite my […]...
19. Holy Sonnet IV: Oh My Black Soul! Now Art Thou Summoned Oh my black soul! now art thou summoned By sickness, death’s herald, and champion; Thou art like a pilgrim, which abroad hath done Treason, and durst not turn to whence he is fled; Or like a thief, which till death’s doom be read, Wisheth himself delivered from prison, But damned and haled to execution, Wisheth […]...
20. Psalm 119 part 11 Breathing after holiness. Ver. 5,33 O that the Lord would guide my ways To keep his statutes still! O that my God would grant me grace To know and do his will! Ver. 29 O send thy Spirit down to write Thy law upon my heart! Nor let my tongue indulge deceit, Nor act the […]...
21. The Irish Peasant to his Mistress Through grief and through danger thy smile hath cheer’d my way, Till hope seem’d to bud from each thorn that round me lay; The darker our fortune, the brighter our pure love burn’d, Till shame into glory, till fear into zeal was turn’d; Yes, slave as I was, in thy arms my spirit felt free, […]...
22. Sonnet 19 – The soul's Rialto hath its merchandise XIX The soul’s Rialto hath its merchandise; I barter curl for curl upon that mart, And from my poet’s forehead to my heart Receive this lock which outweighs argosies,- As purply black, as erst to Pindar’s eyes The dim purpureal tresses gloomed athwart The nine white Muse-brows. For this counterpart, . . . The bay-crown’s […]...
23. The Falling Of The Leaves Autumn is over the long leaves that love us, And over the mice in the barley sheaves; Yellow the leaves of the rowan above us, And yellow the wet wild-strawberry leaves. The hour of the waning of love has beset us, And weary and worn are our sad souls now; Let us patt, ere the […]...
24. TO ROBIN RED-BREAST Laid out for dead, let thy last kindness be With leaves and moss-work for to cover me; And while the wood-nymphs my cold corpse inter, Sing thou my dirge, sweet-warbling chorister! For epitaph, in foliage, next write this: HERE, HERE THE TOMB OF ROBIN HERRICK IS!...
25. Give Me Strength This is my prayer to thee, my lord – strike, Strike at the root of penury in my heart. Give me the strength lightly to bear my joys and sorrows. Give me the strength to make my love fruitful in service. Give me the strength never to disown the poor or bend my knees before […]...
26. Last Word To Childhood Ice-cold fear has slowly decreased As my bones have grown, my height increased. Though I shiver in snow of dreams, I shall never Freeze again in a noonday terror. I shall never break, my sinews crumble As God-the-headmaster’s fingers fumble At the other side of unopening doors Which I watch for a hundred thousand years. […]...
27. Death and the Lady TURN in, my lord, she said ; As it were the Father of Sin I have hated the Father of the Dead, The slayer of my kin ; By the Father of the Living led, Turn in, my lord, turn in. We were foes of old ; thy touch was cold, But mine is warm […]...
28. Letter To My Wife 11-11-1933 Bursa Prison My one and only! Your last letter says: “My head is throbbing, my heart is stunned!” You say: “If they hang you, if I lose you, I’ll die!” You’ll live, my dear My memory will vanish like black smoke in the wind. Of course you’ll live, red-haired lady of my heart: In […]...
29. Be My Mistress Short or Tall Be my mistress short or tall And distorted therewithall Be she likewise one of those That an acre hath of nose Be her teeth ill hung or set And her grinders black as jet Be her cheeks so shallow too As to show her tongue wag through Hath she thin hair, hath she none She’s […]...
30. Amoretti III: The Sovereign Beauty The sovereign beauty which I do admire, Witness the world how worthy to be praised: The light whereof hath kindled heavenly fire In my frail spirit, by her from baseness raised; That being now with her huge brightness dazed, Base thing I can no more endure to view; But looking still on her, I stand […]...
31. Scented Herbage of My Breast SCENTED herbage of my breast, Leaves from you I yield, I write, to be perused best afterwards, Tomb-leaves, body-leaves, growing up above me, above death, Perennial roots, tall leaves-O the winter shall not freeze you, delicate leaves, Every year shall you bloom again-out from where you retired, you shall emerge again; O I do not […]...
32. Psalm 01 Done into Verse, 1653. Bless’d is the man who hath not walk’d astray In counsel of the wicked, and ith’way Of sinners hath not stood, and in the seat Of scorners hath not sate. But in the great Jehovahs Law is ever his delight, And in his law he studies day and night. He shall […]...
33. The Spring Now that the winter’s gone, the earth hath lost Her snow-white robes, and now no more the frost Candies the grass, or casts an icy cream Upon the silver lake or crystal stream; But the warm sun thaws the benumbed earth, And makes it tender; gives a sacred birth To the dead swallow; wakes in […]...
34. Echo to Him Who Complains O FLY thee from the shades of night, Where the loud tempests yelling rise; Where horrror wings her sullen flight Beneath the bleak and lurid skies. As the pale light’ning swiftly gleams O’er the scorch’d wood, thy well-known form More radiant than an angel seems, Contending with the ruthless storm. I see the scowling witch, […]...
35. A Song Of Winter Weather It isn’t the foe that we fear; It isn’t the bullets that whine; It isn’t the business career Of a shell, or the bust of a mine; It isn’t the snipers who seek To nip our young hopes in the bud: No, it isn’t the guns, And it isn’t the Huns It’s the MUD, MUD, […]...
36. Patriotism 01 Innominatus BREATHES there the man with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, ‘This is my own, my native land!’ Whose heart hath ne’er within him burn’d As home his footsteps he hath turn’d From wandering on a foreign strand? If such there breathe, go, mark him well; For him no Minstrel raptures swell; […]...
37. Reluctance Out through the fields and the woods And over the walls I have wended; I have climbed the hills of view And looked at the world, and descended; I have come by the highway home, And lo, it is ended. The leaves are all dead on the ground, Save those that the oak is keeping […]...
38. Song My silks and fine array, My smiles and languish’d air, By love are driv’n away; And mournful lean Despair Brings me yew to deck my grave; Such end true lovers have. His face is fair as heav’n When springing buds unfold; O why to him was’t giv’n Whose heart is wintry cold? His breast is […]...
39. The Layers I have walked through many lives, Some of them my own, And I am not who I was, Though some principle of being Abides, from which I struggle Not to stray. When I look behind, As I am compelled to look Before I can gather strength To proceed on my journey, I see the milestones […]...
40. On a Dead Child Perfect little body, without fault or stain on thee, With promise of strength and manhood full and fair! Though cold and stark and bare, The bloom and the charm of life doth awhile remain on thee. Thy mother’s treasure wert thou;-alas! no longer To visit her heart with wondrous joy; to be Thy father’s pride:-ah, […]...