Time and Grief

Related poetry:

1. Sonnet: July 18th 1787 O Time! who know’st a lenient hand to lay Softest on sorrow’s wound, and slowly thence (Lulling to sad repose the weary sense) The faint pang stealest unperceived away; On thee I rest my only hope at last, And think, when thou hast dried the bitter tear That flows in vain o’er all my soul […]...
2. XIII. O Time! Who Know'st a Lenient Hand to Lay O TIME! who know’st a lenient hand to lay Softest on sorrow’s wound, and slowly thence, (Lulling to sad repose the weary sense) Stealest the long-forgotten pang away; On Thee I rest my only hope at last, And think, when thou hast dried the bitter tear That flows in vain o’er all my soul held […]...
3. If grief for grief can touch thee If grief for grief can touch thee, If answering woe for woe, If any truth can melt thee Come to me now! I cannot be more lonely, More drear I cannot be! My worn heart beats so wildly ‘Twill break for thee And when the world despises When Heaven repels my prayer Will not mine […]...
4. Let me be to Thee as the circling bird Let me be to Thee as the circling bird, Or bat with tender and air-crisping wings That shapes in half-light his departing rings, From both of whom a changeless note is heard. I have found my music in a common word, Trying each pleasurable throat that sings And every praised sequence of sweet strings, And […]...
5. I know why the caged bird sings A free bird leaps on the back Of the wind and floats downstream Till the current ends and dips his wing In the orange suns rays And dares to claim the sky. But a BIRD that stalks down his narrow cage Can seldom see through his bars of rage His wings are clipped and his […]...
6. New Love, New Life I. She, who so long has lain Stone-stiff with folded wings, Within my heart again The brown bird wakes and sings. Brown nightingale, whose strain Is heard by day, by night, She sings of joy and pain, Of sorrow and delight. II. ‘Tis true, in other days Have I unbarred the door; He knows the […]...
7. Sunbeam I pray to the sunbeam from the window – It is pale, thin, straight. Since morning I have been silent, And my heart – is split. The copper on my washstand Has turned green, But the sunbeam plays on it So charmingly. How innocent it is, and simple, In the evening calm, But to me […]...
8. Euthanasia When Time, or soon or late, shall bring The dreamless sleep that lulls the dead, Oblivion! may thy languid wing Wave gently o’er my dying bed! No band of friends or heirs be there, To weep, or wish, the coming blow: No maiden, with dishevelled hair, To feel, or feign, decorous woe. But silent let […]...
9. There Was A Time, I Need Not Name There was a time, I need not name, Since it will ne’er forgotten be, When all our feelings were the same As still my soul hath been to thee. And from that hour when first thy tongue Confess’d a love which equall’d mine, Though many a grief my heart hath wrung, Unknown, and thus unfelt, […]...
10. Sympathy I know what the caged bird feels, alas! When the sun is bright on the upland slopes; When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass, And the river flows like a stream of glass; When the first bird sings and the first bud opes, And the faint perfume from its chalice steals I know […]...
11. Sonnet 42: That thou hast her, it is not all my grief That thou hast her, it is not all my grief, And yet it may be said I loved her dearly; That she hath thee is of my wailing chief, A loss in love that touches me more nearly. Loving offenders, thus I will excuse ye: Thou dost love her because thou know’st I love her, […]...
12. Lovest Thou Me? (John, xxi.16) Hark my soul! it is the Lord; ‘Tis Thy Saviour, hear His word; Jesus speaks and speaks to thee, “Say poor sinner, lovst thou me? “I deliver’d thee when bound, And when bleeding, heal’d thy wound; Sought thee wandering, set thee right, Turn’d thy darkness into light. “Can a woman’s tender care Cease […]...
13. God's Grief “Lord God of Hosts,” the people pray, “Make strong our arms that we may slay Our cursed foe and win the day.” “Lord God of Battles,” cries the foe, “Guide us to strike a bloody blow, And lay the adversary low.” But brooding o’er the battle smother Bewails the Lord: “Brother to brother, Why must […]...
14. "How Great My Grief" (Triolet) How great my grief, my joys how few, Since first it was my fate to know thee! – Have the slow years not brought to view How great my grief, my joys how few, Nor memory shaped old times anew, Nor loving-kindness helped to show thee How great my grief, my joys how few, Since […]...
15. Ye Banks And Braes O'Bonnie Doon Ye banks and braes o’ bonnie Doon, How can ye bloom sae fair! How can ye chant, ye little birds, And I sae fu’ o’ care! Thou’ll break my heart, thou bonnie bird That sings upon the bough; Thou minds me o’ the happy days When my fause Luve was true. Thou’ll break my heart, […]...
16. From Spring Days To Winter (For Music) In the glad springtime when leaves were green, O merrily the throstle sings! I sought, amid the tangled sheen, Love whom mine eyes had never seen, O the glad dove has golden wings! Between the blossoms red and white, O merrily the throstle sings! My love first came into my sight, O perfect vision of […]...
17. Life LIFE, believe, is not a dream So dark as sages say; Oft a little morning rain Foretells a pleasant day. Sometimes there are clouds of gloom, But these are transient all; If the shower will make the roses bloom, O why lament its fall? Rapidly, merrily, Life’s sunny hours flit by, Gratefully, cheerily, Enjoy them […]...
18. No ladder needs the bird but skies No ladder needs the bird but skies To situate its wings, Nor any leader’s grim baton Arraigns it as it sings. The implements of bliss are few As Jesus says of Him, “Come unto me” the moiety That wafts the cherubim....
19. Whom We Worship I WOULD not have the love of lips and eyes, The ancient ways of love: But in my heart I built a Paradise, A nest there for the dove. I felt the wings of light that fluttered through The gate I held apart: And all without was shadow, but I knew The bird within my […]...
20. In the Old Age of the Soul I do not choose to dream; there cometh on me Some strange old lust for deeds. As to the nerveless hand of some old warrior The sword-hilt or the war-worn wonted helmet Brings momentary life and long-fled cunning, So to my soul grown old – Grown old with many a jousting, many a foray, Grown […]...
21. 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 […]...
22. Rest ON me to rest, my bird, my bird: The swaying branches of my heart Are blown by every wind toward The home whereto their wings depart. Build not your nest, my bird, on me; I know no peace but ever sway: O lovely bird, be free, be free, On the wild music of the day. […]...
23. Epilogue UNDER THE BLESSING OF YOUR PSYCHE WINGS Though I have found you llke a snow-drop pale, On sunny days have found you weak and still, Though I have often held your girlish head Drooped on my shoulder, faint from little ill:- Under the blessing of your Psyche-wings I hide to-night like one small broken bird, […]...
24. Songs of Joy Sing out, my soul, thy songs of joy; Sing as a happy bird will sing Beneath a rainbow’s lovely arch In the spring. Think not of death in thy young days; Why shouldst thou that grim tyrant fear? And fear him not when thou art old, And he is near. Strive not for gold, for […]...
25. 317. Song-The Banks o' Doon (Second Version) YE flowery banks o’ bonie Doon, How can ye blume sae fair? How can ye chant, ye little birds, And I sae fu’ o care! Thou’ll break my heart, thou bonie bird, That sings upon the bough! Thou minds me o’ the happy days When my fause Luve was true. Thou’ll break my heart, thou […]...
26. The Nurse Such innocent companionship Is hers, whether she wake or sleep, ‘Tis scarcely strange her face should wear The young child’s grave and innocent air. All the night long she hath by her The quiet breathing, the soft stir, Nor knows how in that tender place The children’s angels veil the face. She wakes at dawn […]...
27. Joy My heart is like a little bird That sits and sings for very gladness. Sorrow is some forgotten word, And so, except in rhyme, is sadness. The world is very fair to me – Such azure skies, such golden weather, I’m like a long caged bird set free, My heart is lighter than a feather. […]...
28. Elegy Your dextrous wit will haunt us long Wounding our grief with yesterday. Your laughter is a broken song; And death has found you, kind and gay. We may forget those transient things That made your charm and our delight: But loyal love has deathless wings That rise and triumph out of night. So, in the […]...
29. Freedom I WILL not follow you, my bird, I will not follow you. I would not breathe a word, my bird, To bring thee here anew. I love the free in thee, my bird, The lure of freedom drew; The light you fly toward, my bird, I fly with thee unto. And there we yet will […]...
30. The Gentian weaves her fringes The Gentian weaves her fringes The Maple’s loom is red My departing blossoms Obviate parade. A brief, but patient illness An hour to prepare, And one below this morning Is where the angels are It was a short procession, The Bobolink was there An aged Bee addressed us And then we knelt in prayer We […]...
31. The Clock's Clear Voice Into The Clearer Air THE cock’s clear voice into the clearer air Where westward far I roam, Mounts with a thrill of hope, Falls with a sigh of home. A rural sentry, he from farm and field The coming morn descries, And, mankind’s bugler, wakes The camp of enterprise. He sings the morn upon the westward hills Strange and […]...
32. Love's Apparition and Evanishment: An Allegoric Romance Like a lone Arab, old and blind, Some caravan had left behind, Who sits beside a ruin’d well, Where the shy sand-asps bask and swell; And now he hangs his ag{‘e}d head aslant, And listens for a human sound in vain! And now the aid, which Heaven alone can grant, Upturns his eyeless face from […]...
33. The Bee and the Butterfly UPON a garden’s perfum’d bed With various gaudy colours spread, Beneath the shelter of a ROSE A BUTTERFLY had sought repose; Faint, with the sultry beams of day, Supine the beauteous insect lay. A BEE, impatient to devour The nectar sweets of ev’ry flow’r, Returning to her golden store, A weight of fragrant treasure bore; […]...
34. The School Boy I love to rise in a summer morn, When the birds sing on every tree; The distant huntsman winds his horn, And the sky-lark sings with me. O! what sweet company. But to go to school in a summer morn, O! it drives all joy away; Under a cruel eye outworn. The little ones spend […]...
35. Busy Heart, The Now that we’ve done our best and worst, and parted, I would fill my mind with thoughts that will not rend. (O heart, I do not dare go empty-hearted) I’ll think of Love in books, Love without end; Women with child, content; and old men sleeping; And wet strong ploughlands, scarred for certain grain; And […]...
36. Sonnet XLII That thou hast her, it is not all my grief, And yet it may be said I loved her dearly; That she hath thee, is of my wailing chief, A loss in love that touches me more nearly. Loving offenders, thus I will excuse ye: Thou dost love her, because thou knowst I love her; […]...
37. The Change POOR River, now thou’rt almost dry, What Nymph, or Swain, will near thee lie? Since brought, alas! to sad Decay, What Flocks, or Herds, will near thee stay? The Swans, that sought thee in thy Pride, Now on new Streams forgetful ride: And Fish, that in thy Bosom lay, Chuse in more prosp’rous Floods to […]...
38. Suggested by the Cover of a Volume of Keats's Poems Wild little bird, who chose thee for a sign To put upon the cover of this book? Who heard thee singing in the distance dim, The vague, far greenness of the enshrouding wood, When the damp freshness of the morning earth Was full of pungent sweetness and thy song? Who followed over moss and twisted […]...
39. Passing showers Yesterday a passing, transient shower, Slaked my thirst so gently, softly, Showers in March are unheard – In this arid part of the world. They say the world is dying, I know, I remember how you said love died, It was a passing shower, a fancy, That left you cold and shivering. This distance, these […]...
40. Sonnet 03: Mindful Of You The Sodden Earth In Spring Mindful of you the sodden earth in spring, And all the flowers that in the springtime grow, And dusty roads, and thistles, and the slow Rising of the round moon, all throats that sing The summer through, and each departing wing, And all the nests that the bared branches show, And all winds that in […]...