Skip to main content

The Departed Light

Thou know'st the place where purple rocks receive
The deepened silence of the pausing stream;
And myrtles and white olives interweave
Their cool grey shadows with the azure gleam
Of noontide; and pale temple columns cleave
Those waves with shafts of light (as through a dream
Of sorrow, pierced the memories of loved hours—
Cold and fixed thoughts that will not pass away)
All chapleted with wreaths of marble flowers,
Too calm to live,—too lovely to decay.
And hills rise round, pyramidal and vast,
Like tombs built of blue heaven, above the clay

Song

The black-winged gull
of love is flying—
hurl of the waters'
futile might!

Tirelessly
his deft strokes plying
he skims free in the licking
waves' despite—

There is no lying
to his shrill mockery
of their torment

A Prayer

To love is heaven, and not to love is hell.—
To give sweet love away
Eternally and boundlessly is well.
For this alone I pray!

I ask the power of loving without bound:
No limit there should be.
If thine arms, love, may never close me round,
Let my arms cover thee!

Let my strong love and limitless embrace
Of fiery fervent heart
Be ever round about thee,—in each place;
Blessing, where'er thou art.

Let me on earth and through all worlds to be
Be just the one who so
Completely loved that he saw nought but thee;

Love's Message

All Nature hath its voice.—The meadows have their message.
The river leaping down the rocky narrow passage
Hath its own voice and heart.
Each star hath its own voice, each sun its speech excelling;
The fountain its soft voice of mystery upward welling.
Tongued is the lightning's dart.

Each poet hath his word.—Some in triumphant measure
Sing of the reign of sweet old-world Saturnian pleasure:
Some thunder like the sea.
I sing of Love, Love, Love. I give the world for token
The message that strong Love with sweetness never broken
Himself has given to me.

Love in Dreamland

White cloud-wonders waver and wander,
White mists rising and falling yonder
Are like chill fingers laid upon my heart;
Ever the nightingale's plaint grows fonder—
Can it be true that you and I must part?

Red, red roses hang in a cluster,
Red lips glow in the wine-cup's lustre;
Stay me, before I go, with wine and bread!
Round me an army of shadows muster
And weave a veil of darkness for my head.

Will o' the wisp before me flying,
Pale sad faces like faint flames dying—
I walk alone beside a spectral mere;
Ghostly voices about me crying

Wake Up, Jacob

Wake up, Jacob, day is abreaking, I'm on my way;
O, wake up, Jacob, day is abreaking I'm on my way.
O! way. I want to go to heaven when I die,
Do love de Lord!
I want to go to heaven when I die,
Do love de Lord!
O! Lord

Got some friends on de oder shore,
Do love de Lord!
I want to see 'em more an' more,
Do love de Lord!
Wake up, Jacob, &c.

When love on time and measure makes his ground

When loue on time and measure makes his ground,
Time that must end though loue can neuer die,
Tis loue betwixt a shadow and a sound,
A loue not in the hart but in the eie,
A loue that ebbes and flowes now vp now downe,
A mornings fauor and an euenings frowne.

Sweete lookes shew loue, yet they are but as beames,
Faire wordes seeme true, yet they are but as wind,
Eies shed their teares yet are but outward streames:
Sighes paint a sadnes in the falsest minde.
Lookes, wordes, teares, sighes, shew loue when loue they leaue,

In Memoriam F. O. S.

You go a long and lovely journey,
For all the stars, like burning dew,
Are luminous and luring footprints
Of souls adventurous as you.

Oh, if you lived on earth elated,
How is it now that you can run
Free of the weight of flesh, and faring
Far past the birthplace of the sun?