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Romantic Poetry - 18
Her Immortality by Thomas Hardy
Upon a noon I pilgrimed through
A pasture, mile by mile,
Unto the place where I last saw
My dead Love's living smile.
And sorrowing I lay me down
Upon the heated sod:
It seemed as if my body pressed
The very ground she trod.
I lay, and thought; and in a trance
She came and stood me by--
The same, even to the marvellous ray
That used to light her eye.
'You draw me, and I come to you,
My faithful one,' she said,
In voice that had the moving tone
It bore in maidenhead.
She said: 'Tis seven years since I died:
Few now remember me;
My husband clasps another bride;
My children mothers she.
My brethren, sisters, and my friends
Care not to meet my sprite:
Who prized me most I did not know
Till I passed down from sight.'
I said: 'My days are lonely here;
I need thy smile alway:
I'll use this night my ball or blade,
And join thee ere the day.'
A tremor stirred her tender lips,
Which parted to dissuade:
'That cannot be, O friend,' she cried;
'Think, I am but a Shade!
'A Shade but in its mindful ones
Has immortality;
By living, me you keep alive,
By dying you slay me.
'In you resides my single power
Of sweet continuance here;
On your fidelity I count
Through many a coming year.'
--I started through me at her plight,
So suddenly confessed:
Dismissing late distaste for life,
I craved its bleak unrest.
'I will not die, my One of all!--
To lengthen out thy days
I'll guard me from minutest harms
That may invest my ways!'
She smiled and went. Since then she comes
Oft when her birth-moon climbs,
Or at the seasons' ingresses
Or anniversary times;
But grows my grief. When I surcease,
Through whom alone lives she,
Ceases my Love, her words, her ways,
Never again to be!
= = = = = = = = = =
Why dost thou Shade thy Lovely Face? by Francis Quarles
Why dost thou shade thy lovely face? Oh, why
Does that eclipsing hand so long deny
The sunshine of thy soul-enliv'ning eye?
Without that light, what light remains in me?
Thou art my life, my way, my light; in thee
I live, I move, and by thy beams I see.
Thou art mv life; if thou but turn away
My life's a thousand deaths: thou art my way;
Without thee, Lord, I travel not, but stray.
My light thou art; without thy glorious sight
Mine eyes are darken'd with perpetual night.
My God, thou art my way, my life, my light.
Thou art my way; I wander if thou fly:
Thou art my light; if hid, how blind am I!
Thou art my life; if thou withdraw, I die.
Mine eyes are blind and dark, I cannot see;
To whom or whither should my darkness flee,
But to the light? and who's that light but thee?
My path is lost, my wand'ring steps do stray;
I cannot safely go, nor safely stay;
Whom should I seek but thee, my path, my way?
Oh, I am dead: to whom shall I, poor I,
Repair? to whom shall my sad ashes fly,
But life? and where is life but in thine eye?
And yet thou turn'st away thy face, and fly'st me;
And yet I sue for grace, and thou deny'st me;
Speak, art thou angry, Lord, or only try'st me?
Unscreen those heavenly lamps, or tell me why
Thou shad'st thy face; perhaps thou think'st no eye
Can view those flames, and not drop down and die.
If that be all, shine forth, and draw thee nigher;
Let me behold and die, for my desire
Is ph{oe}nix-like to perish in that fire.
Death-conquer'd Laz'rus was redeem'd by thee;
If I am dead, Lord, set death's prisoner free;
Am I more spent, or stink I worse than he?
If my puff'd life be out, give leave to tine
My shameless snuff at that bright lamp of thine;
Oh, what's thy light the less for lighting mine?
If I have lost my path, great Shepherd, say,
Shall I still wander in a doubtful way?
Lord, shall a lamb of Israel's sheep-fold stray?
Thou art the pilgrim's path, the blind man's eye,
The dead man's life; on thee my hopes rely;
If thou remove, I err, I grope, I die.
Disclose thy sunbeams; close thy wings, and stay;
See, see how I am blind, and dead, and stray,
O thou, that art my light, my life, my way.
= = = = = = = = = =
Sonnet 39 by Thomas Lodge
My matchless mistress, whose delicious eyes
Have power to perfect nature's privy wants,
Even when the sun in greatest pomp did rise,
With pretty tread did press the tender plants.
Each stalk, whilst forth she stalks, to kiss her feet
Is proud with pomp, and prodigal of sweet.
Her fingers fair in favouring every flower
That wooed their ivory for a wishèd touch,
By chance--sweet chance--upon a blessed hour
Did pluck the flower where Love himself did couch,
Where Love did couch by summer toil suppressed,
And sought his sleep within so sweet a nest.
The virgin's hand that held the wanton thrall,
Imprisoned him within the roseate leaves;
And twixt her teats, with favour did install
The lovely rose, where Love his rest receives.
The lad that felt the soft and sweet so nigh,
Drowned in delights, disdains his liberty,
And said, Let Venus seek another son,
For here my only matchless mother is;
From whose fair orient orbs the drink doth run,
That deifies my state with greater bliss.
This said, he sucked, my mistress blushing smiled,
Since Love was both her prisoner and her child
= = = = = = = = = =
To E. by Sarah Teasdale
I have remembered beauty in the night,
Against black silences I waked to see
A shower of sunlight over Italy
And green Ravello dreaming on her height;
I have remembered music in the dark,
The clean swift brightness of a fugue of Bach's,
And running water singing on the rocks
When once in English woods I heard a lark.
But all remembered beauty is no more
Than a vague prelude to the thought of you --
You are the rarest soul I ever knew,
Lover of beauty, knightliest and best;
My thoughts seek you as waves that seek the shore,
And when I think of you, I am at rest.
= = = = = = = = = =
The Broken Heart by William Barnes
News o' grief had overteaken
Dark-eyed Fanny, now vorseaken;
There she zot, wi' breast a-heaven,
While vrom zide to zide, wi' grieven,
Vell her head, wi' tears a-creepen
Down her cheaks, in bitter weepen.
There wer still the ribbon-bow
She tied avore her hour ov woe,
An' there wer still the hans that tied it
Hangen white,
Or wringen tight,
In ceare that drowned all ceare bezide it.
When a man, wi' heartless slighten,
Mid become a maiden's blighten,
He mid cearelessly vorseake her,
But must answer to her Meaker;
He mid slight, wi' selfish blindness,
All her deeds o' loven-kindness,
God wull waigh 'em wi' the slighten
That mid be her love's requiten;
He do look on each deceiver,
He do know
What weight o' woe
Do break the heart ov ev'ry griever.
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