Presences

Related poetry:

1. Like eyes that looked on Wastes Like eyes that looked on Wastes Incredulous of Ought But Blank and steady Wilderness Diversified by Night Just Infinites of Nought As far as it could see So looked the face I looked upon So looked itself on Me I offered it no Help Because the Cause was Mine The Misery a Compact As hopeless […]...
2. Dream Song 72: The Elder Presences Shh! on a twine hung from disastered trees Henry is swinging his daughter. They seem drunk. Over across them look out, Tranquil, the high statues of the wise. Her feet peep, like a lady’s in sleep sunk. That which this scene’s about— He pushes violent, his calves distend, His mouth is open with effort, so […]...
3. At The Beating Of A Drum Fear ye not the stormy future, for the Battle Hymn is strong, And the armies of Australia shall not march without a song; The glorious words and music of Australia’s song shall come When her true hearts rush together at the beating of a drum. We may not be there to hear it – ’twill […]...
4. Singapore They grouped together about the chief And each one looked at his mate, Ashamed to think that Australian men Should meet such bitter fate! And black was the wrath in each hot heart And savage oaths they swore As they thought of how they had all been ditched By “Impregnable” Singapore. In her vaunted place […]...
5. The Three Beggars ‘Though to my feathers in the wet, I have stood here from break of day. I have not found a thing to eat, For only rubbish comes my way. Am I to live on lebeen-lone?’ Muttered the old crane of Gort. ‘For all my pains on lebeen-lone?’ King Guaire walked amid his court The palace-yard […]...
6. The Fear A lantern light from deeper in the barn Shone on a man and woman in the door And threw their lurching shadows on a house Near by, all dark in every glossy window. A horse’s hoof pawed once the hollow floor, And the back of the gig they stood beside Moved in a little. The […]...
7. The Dawn I would be ignorant as the dawn That has looked down On that old queen measuring a town With the pin of a brooch, Or on the withered men that saw From their pedantic Babylon The careless planets in their courses, The stars fade out where the moon comes. And took their tablets and did […]...
8. Those Images What if I bade you leave The cavern of the mind? There’s better exercise In the sunlight and wind. I never bade you go To Moscow or to Rome. Renounce that drudgery, Call the Muses home. Seek those images That constitute the wild, The lion and the virgin, The harlot and the child. Find in […]...
9. The Ghost Of Roger Casement O what has made that sudden noise? What on the threshold stands? It never crossed the sea because John Bull and the sea are friends; But this is not the old sea Nor this the old seashore. What gave that roar of mockery, That roar in the sea’s roar? The ghost of Roger Casement Is […]...
10. I'd Love To Be A Fairy's Child Children born of fairy stock Never need for shirt or frock, Never want for food or fire, Always get their hearts desire: Jingle pockets full of gold, Marry when they’re seven years old. Every fairy child may keep Two ponies and ten sheep; All have houses, each his own, Built of brick or granite stone; […]...
11. Little Queen Do you remember the name I wore – The old pet-name of Little Queen – In the dear, dead days that are no more, The happiest days of our lives, I ween? For we loved with that passionate love of youth That blesses but once with its perfect bliss, – A love that, in spite […]...
12. Money When I had money, money, O! I knew no joy till I went poor; For many a false man as a friend Came knocking all day at my door. Then felt I like a child that holds A trumpet that he must not blow Because a man is dead; I dared Not speak to let […]...
13. The Ragged Wood O hurry where by water among the trees The delicate-stepping stag and his lady sigh, When they have but looked upon their images – Would none had ever loved but you and I! Or have you heard that sliding silver-shoed Pale silver-proud queen-woman of the sky, When the sun looked out of his golden hood? […]...
14. I felt a Funeral, in my Brain I felt a Funeral, in my Brain, And Mourners to and fro Kept treading treading till it seemed That Sense was breaking through And when they all were seated, A Service, like a Drum Kept beating beating till I thought My Mind was going numb And then I heard them lift a Box And creak […]...
15. The Last Evening And night and distant rumbling; now the army’s Carrier-train was moving out, to war. He looked up from the harpsichord, and as He went on playing, he looked across at her Almost as one might gaze into a mirror: So deeply was her every feature filled With his young features, which bore his pain and […]...
16. Magellanic Penguin Neither clown nor child nor black Nor white but verticle And a questioning innocence Dressed in night and snow: The mother smiles at the sailor, The fisherman at the astronaunt, But the child child does not smile When he looks at the bird child, And from the disorderly ocean The immaculate passenger Emerges in snowy […]...
17. Cor Cordium O heart of hearts, the chalice of love’s fire, Hid round with flowers and all the bounty of bloom; O wonderful and perfect heart, for whom The lyrist liberty made life a lyre; O heavenly heart, at whose most dear desire Dead love, living and singing, cleft his tomb, And with him risen and regent […]...
18. The Divine Lullaby I hear Thy voice, dear Lord; I hear it by the stormy sea When winter nights are black and wild, And when, affright, I call to Thee; It calms my fears and whispers me, “Sleep well, my child.” I hear Thy voice, dear Lord, In singing winds, in falling snow, The curfew chimes, the midnight […]...
19. Lover's Gifts XLIV: Where Is Heaven Where is heaven? you ask me, my child,-the sages tell us it is Beyond the limits of birth and death, unswayed by the rhythm of day And night; it is not of the earth. But your poet knows that its eternal hunger is for time and Space, and it strives evermore to be born in […]...
20. The Snapped Thread Desire, first, by a natural miracle United bodies, united hearts, blazed beauty; Transcended bodies, transcended hearts. Two souls, now unalterably one In whole love always and for ever, Soar out of twilight, through upper air, Let fall their sensous burden. Is it kind, though, is it honest even, To consort with none but spirits- Leaving […]...
21. Life CHILDREN, ye have not lived, to you it seems Life is a lovely stalactite of dreams, Or carnival of careless joys that leap About your hearts like billows on the deep In flames of amber and of amethyst. Children, ye have not lived, ye but exist Till some resistless hour shall rise and move Your […]...
22. All Day Long ALL day long in fog and wind, The waves have flung their beating crests Against the palisades of adamant. My boy, he went to sea, long and long ago, Curls of brown were slipping underneath his cap, He looked at me from blue and steely eyes; Natty, straight and true, he stepped away, My boy, […]...
23. Attempted Assassination of the Queen God prosper long our noble Queen, And long may she reign! Maclean he tried to shoot her, But it was all in vain. For God He turned the ball aside Maclean aimed at her head; And he felt very angry Because he didn’t shoot her dead. There’s a divinity that hedges a king, And so […]...
24. Love, Though for This I LOVE, though for this you riddle me with darts, And drag me at your chariot till I die,­ Oh, heavy prince! O, panderer of hearts!­ Yet hear me tell how in their throats they lie Who shout you mighty: thick about my hair, Day in, day out, your ominous arrows purr, Who still am […]...
25. An Old Man's Winter Night All out of doors looked darkly in at him Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars, That gathers on the pane in empty rooms. What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze Was the lamp tilted near them in his hand. What kept him from remembering what it was That brought him to […]...
26. A Strange Wild Song He thought he saw an Elephant That practised on a fife: He looked again, and found it was A letter from his wife. “At length I realize,” he said, “The bitterness of life!” He thought he saw a Buffalo Upon the chimney-piece: He looked again, and found it was His Sister’s Husband’s Niece. “Unless you […]...
27. The Idealist Oh you who have daring deeds to tell! And you who have felt Ambition’s spell! Have you heard of the louse who longed to dwell In the golden hair of a queen? He sighed all day and he sighed all night, And no one could understand it quite, For the head of a slut is […]...
28. A Memory YOU remember, dear, together Two children, you and I, Sat once in the autumn weather, Watching the autumn sky. There was some one round us straying The whole of the long day through, Who seemed to say, “I am playing At hide and seek with you.” And one thing after another Was whispered out of […]...
29. ENGLAND’S OPENERS A blackbird lands A good beer-barrel A man sits in a cave knitting A theatre in Copenhagen Abask the sea-wall Alice was demure and O All the way to Bury Amid the heather Among the lupins And after little suzie And it was his grief that kept him travelling And the baby miscarried And the […]...
30. In The Garden One moment alone in the garden, Under the August skies; The moon had gone but the stars shone on, – Shone like your beautiful eyes. Away from the glitter and gaslight, Alone in the garden there, While the mirth of the throng, in laugh and song, Floated out on the air. You looked down through […]...
31. Star of My Heart Star of my heart, I follow from afar. Sweet Love on high, lead on where shepherds are, Where Time is not, and only dreamers are. Star from of old, the Magi-Kings are dead And a foolish Saxon seeks the manger-bed. O lead me to Jehovah’s child Across this dreamland lone and wild, Then will I […]...
32. The Light That Failed So we settled it all when the storm was done As comfy as comfy could be; And I was to wait in the barn, my dears, Because I was only three. And Teddy would run to the rainbow’s foot Because he was five and a man And that’s how it all began, my dears, And […]...
33. If I were dead ‘IF I were dead, you’d sometimes say, Poor Child!’ The dear lips quiver’d as they spake, And the tears brake From eyes which, not to grieve me, brightly smiled. Poor Child, poor Child! I seem to hear your laugh, your talk, your song. It is not true that Love will do no wrong. Poor Child! […]...
34. His Phoenix There is a queen in China, or maybe it’s in Spain, And birthdays and holidays such praises can be heard Of her unblemished lineaments, a whiteness with no stain, That she might be that sprightly girl trodden by a bird; And there’s a score of duchesses, surpassing womankind, Or who have found a painter to […]...
35. Guenevere I was a queen, and I have lost my crown; A wife, and I have broken all my vows; A lover, and I ruined him I loved: There is no other havoc left to do. A little month ago I was a queen, And mothers held their babies up to see When I came riding […]...
36. The Island of Skyros Here, where we stood together, we three men, Before the war had swept us to the East Three thousand miles away, I stand again And hear the bells, and breathe, and go to feast. We trod the same path, to the selfsame place, Yet here I stand, having beheld their graves, Skyros whose shadows the […]...
37. Cloony The Clown I’ll tell you the story of Cloony the Clown Who worked in a circus that came through town. His shoes were too big and his hat was too small, But he just wasn’t, just wasn’t funny at all. He had a trombone to play loud silly tunes, He had a green dog and a thousand […]...
38. Romance To clasp you now and feel your head close-pressed, Scented and warm against my beating breast; To whisper soft and quivering your name, And drink the passion burning in your frame; To lie at full length, taut, with cheek to cheek, And tease your mouth with kisses till you speak Love words, mad words, dream […]...
39. Storm-Music O Music hast thou only heard The laughing river, the singing bird, The murmuring wind in the poplar-trees, Nothing but Nature’s melodies? Nay, thou hearest all her tones, As a Queen must hear! Sounds of wrath and fear, Mutterings, shouts, and moans, Madness, tumult, and despair, All she has that shakes the air With voices […]...
40. To Any Reader As from the house your mother sees You playing round the garden trees, So you may see, if you will look Through the windows of this book, Another child, far, far away, And in another garden, play. But do not think you can at all, By knocking on the window, call That child to hear […]...