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Romance Poem Collection - 20
La Bella Donna Della Mia Mente by Oscar Wilde
My limbs are wasted with a flame,
My feet are sore with travelling,
For calling on my Lady's name
My lips have now forgot to sing.
O Linnet in the wild-rose brake
Strain for my Love thy melody,
O Lark sing louder for love's sake,
My gentle Lady passeth by.
She is too fair for any man
To see or hold his heart's delight, 10
Fairer than Queen or courtezan
Or moon-lit water in the night.
Her hair is bound with myrtle leaves,
(Green leaves upon her golden hair!)
Green grasses through the yellow sheaves
Of autumn corn are not more fair.
Her little lips, more made to kiss
Than to cry bitterly for pain,
Are tremulous as brook-water is,
Or roses after evening rain. 20
Her neck is like white melilote
Flushing for pleasure of the sun,
The throbbing of the linnet's throat
Is not so sweet to look upon.
As a pomegranate, cut in twain,
White-seeded, is her crimson mouth,
Her cheeks are as the fading stain
Where the peach reddens to the south.
O twining hands! O delicate
White body made for love and pain! 30
O House of love! O desolate
Pale flower beaten by the rain!
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Idylls Of The King by Lord Alfred Tennyson
Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel, and lower the proud;
Turn thy wild wheel thro' sunshine, storm, and cloud;
Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate.
Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel with smile or frown;
With that wild wheel we go not up or down;
Our hoard is little, but our hearts are great.
Smile and we smile, the lords of many lands;
Frown and we smile, the lords of our own hands;
For man is man and master of his fate.
Turn, turn thy wheel above the staring crowd;
Thy wheel and thou are shadows in the cloud;
Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate.
= = = = = = = = = =
She Walks in Beauty Like the Night by Lord Byron
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies,
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meets in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellow'd to that tender light
Which Heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impair'd the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress
Or softly lightens o'er her face,
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
And on that cheek and o'er that brow
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,-
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent.
= = = = = = = = = =
The Dtatue And The Bust by Robert Browning
There's a palace in Florence, the world knows well,
And a statue watches it from the square,
And this story of both do our townsmen tell.
Ages ago, a lady there,
At the farthest window facing the East
Asked, 'Who rides by with the royal air?'
The bridesmaids' prattle around her ceased;
She leaned forth, one on either hand;
They saw how the blush of the bride increased---
They felt by its beats her heart expand---
As one at each ear and both in a breath
Whispered, 'The Great-Duke Ferdinand.'
That self-same instant, underneath,
The Duke rode past in his idle way,
Empty and fine like a swordless sheath.
Gay he rode, with a friend as gay,
Till he threw his head back---'Who is she?'
---'A bride the Riccardi brings home to-day.'
Hair in heaps lay heavily
Over a pale brow spirit-pure---
Carved like the heart of a coal-black tree,
Crisped like a war-steed's encolure---
And vainly sought to dissemble her eyes
Of the blackest black our eyes endure.
And lo, a blade for a knight's emprise
Filled the fine empty sheath of a man,---
The Duke grew straightway brave and wise.
He looked at her, as a lover can;
She looked at him, as one who awakes:
The past was a sleep, and her life began.
Now, love so ordered for both their sakes,
A feast was held that selfsame night
In the pile which the mighty shadow makes.
(For Via Larga is three-parts light,
But the palace overshadows one,
Because of a crime which may God requite!
To Florence and God the wrong was done,
Through the first republic's murder there
By Cosimo and his cursed son.)
The Duke (with the statue's face in the square)
Turned in the midst of his multitude
At the bright approach of the bridal pair.
Face to face the lovers stood
A single minute and no more,
While the bridegroom bent as a man subdued---
Bowed till his bonnet brushed the floor---
For the Duke on the lady a kiss conferred,
As the courtly custom was of yore.
In a minute can lovers exchange a word?
If a word did pass, which I do not think,
Only one out of the thousand heard.
That was the bridegroom. At day's brink
He and his bride were alone at last
In a bedchamber by a taper's blink.
Calmly he said that her lot was cast,
That the door she had passed was shut on her
Till the final catafalk repassed.
The world meanwhile, its noise and stir,
Through a certain window facing the East,
She could watch like a convent's chronicler.
Since passing the door might lead to a feast,
And a feast might lead to so much beside,
He, of many evils, chose the least.
'Freely I choose too,' said the bride---
'Your window and its world suffice,'
Replied the tongue, while the heart replied---
If I spend the night with that devil twice,
May his window serve as my loop of hell
Whence a damned soul looks on paradise!
I fly to the Duke who loves me well,
Sit by his side and laugh at sorrow
Ere I count another ave-bell.
'Tis only the coat of a page to borrow,
And tie my hair in a horse-boy's trim,
And I save my soul---but not to-morrow---
(She checked herself and her eye grew dim)
My father tarries to bless my state:
I must keep it one day more for him.
Is one day more so long to wait?
Moreover the Duke rides past, I know;
We shall see each other, sure as fate.'
She turned on her side and slept. Just so!
So we resolve on a thing and sleep:
So did the lady, ages ago.
That night the Duke said, 'Dear or cheap
As the cost of this cup of bliss may prove
To body or soul, I will drain it deep.'
And on the morrow, bold with love,
He beckoned the bridegroom (close on call,
As his duty bade, by the Duke's alcove)
And smiled 'Twas a very funeral,
Your lady will think, this feast of ours,---
A shame to efface, whate'er befall!
What if we break from the Arno bowers,
And try if Petraja, cool and green,
Cure last night's fault with this morning's flowers?
The bridegroom, not a thought to be seen
On his steady brow and quiet mouth,
Said, Too much favour for me so mean!
But, alas! my lady leaves the South;
Each wind that comes from the Apennine
Is a menace to her tender youth:
Nor a way exists, the wise opine,
If she quits her palace twice this year,
To avert the flower of life's decline.
Quoth the Duke, 'A sage and a kindly fear.
Moreover Petraja is cold this spring:
Be our feast to-night as usual here!'
And then to himself---Which night shall bring
Thy bride to her lover's embraces, fool---
Or I am the fool, and thou art the king!
Yet my passion must wait a night, nor cool---
For to-night the Envoy arrives from France
Whose heart I unlock with thyself, my tool.
I need thee still and might miss perchance.
To-day is not wholly lost, beside,
With its hope of my lady's countenance:
For I ride---what should I do but ride?
And passing her palace, if I list,
May glance at its window---well betide!
So said, so done: nor the lady missed
One ray that broke from the ardent brow,
Nor a curl of the lips where the spirit kissed.
Be sure that each renewed the vow,
No morrow's sun should arise---and set
And leave them then as it left them now.
But next day passed, and next day yet,
With still fresh cause to wait one day more
Ere each leaped over the parapet.
And still, as love's brief morning wore,
With a gentle start, half smile, half sigh,
They found love not as it seemed before.
They thought it would work infallibly,
But not in despite of heaven and earth:
The rose would blow when the storm passed by.
Meantime they could profit in winter's dearth
By store of fruits that supplant the rose:
The world and its ways have a certain worth:
And to press a point while these oppose
Were simple policy; better wait:
We lose no friends and we gain no foes.
Meantime, worse fates than a lover's fate,
Who daily may ride and pass and look
Where his lady watches behind the grate!
And she---she watched the square like a book
holding one picture and only one,
Which daily to find she undertook:
When the picture was reached the book was done,
And she turned from the picture at night to scheme
Of tearing it out for herself next sun.
So weeks grew months, years; gleam by gleam
The glory dropped from their youth and love,
And both perceived they had dreamed a dream;
Which hovered as dreams do, still above:
But who can take a dream for a truth?
Oh, hide our eyes from the next remove!
One day as the lady saw her youth
Depart, and the silver thread that streaked
Her hair, and, worn by the serpent's tooth,
The brow so puckered, the chin so peaked,---
And wondered who the woman was,
Hollow-eyed and haggard-cheeked,
Fronting her silent in the glass---
'Summon here,' she suddenly said,
Before the rest of my old self pass,
Him, the Carver, a hand to aid,
Who fashions the clay no love will change,
And fixes a beauty never to fade.
Let Robbia's craft so apt and strange
Arrest the remains of young and fair,
And rivet them while the seasons range.
Make me a face on the window there,
Waiting as ever, mute the while,
My love to pass below in the square!
And let me think that it may beguile
Dreary days which the dead must spend
Down in their darkness under the aisle,
To say, `What matters it at the end?
I did no more while my heart was warm
Than does that image, my pale-faced friend.
Where is the use of the lip's red charm,
The heaven of hair, the pride of the brow,
And the blood that blues the inside arm---
Unless we turn as the soul knows how,
The earthly gift to an end divine?
A lady of clay is as good, I trow.
But long ere Robbia's cornice, fine,
With flowers and fruits which leaves enlace,
Was set where now is the empty shrine---
(And, leaning out of a bright blue space,
As a ghost might lean from a chink of sky,
The passionate pale lady's face---
Eyeing ever, with earnest eye
And quick-turned neck at its breathless stretch,
Some one who ever is passing by---)
The Duke had sighed like the simplest wretch
In Florence, Youth---my dream escapes!
Will its record stay? And he bade them fetch
Some subtle moulder of brazen shapes---
Can the soul, the will, die out of a man
Ere his body find the grave that gapes?
John of Douay shall effect my plan,
Set me on horseback here aloft,
Alive, as the crafty sculptor can,
In the very square I have crossed so oft:
That men may admire, when future suns
Shall touch the eyes to a purpose soft,
While the mouth and the brow stay brave in bronze---
Admire and say, `When he was alive
How he would take his pleasure once!
And it shall go hard but I contrive
To listen the while, and laugh in my tomb
At idleness which aspires to strive.
------------
So! While these wait the trump of doom,
How do their spirits pass, I wonder,
Nights and days in the narrow room?
Still, I suppose, they sit and ponder
What a gift life was, ages ago,
Six steps out of the chapel yonder.
Only they see not God, I know,
Nor all that chivalry of his,
The soldier-saints who, row on row,
Burn upward each to his point of bliss---
Since, the end of life being manifest,
He had burned his way thro' the world to this.
I hear you reproach, But delay was best,
For their end was a crime.---Oh, a crime will do
As well, I reply, to serve for a test,
As a virtue golden through and through,
Sufficient to vindicate itself
And prove its worth at a moment's view!
Must a game be played for the sale of pelf?
Where a button goes, 'twere an epigram
To offer the stamp of the very Guelph.
The true has no value beyond the sham:
As well the counter as coin, I submit,
When your table's a hat, and your prize a dram.
Stake your counter as boldly every whit,
Venture as warily, use the same skill,
Do your best, whether winning or losing it,
If you choose to play!---is my principle.
Let a man contend to the uttermost
For his life's set prize, be it what it will!
The counter our lovers staked was lost
As surely as if it were lawful coin:
And the sin I impute to each frustrate ghost
Is---the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin,
Though the end in sight was a vice, I say.
You of the virtue (we issue join)
How strive you? De te, fabula!
= = = = = = = = = =
Mary, Pity Women! by Rudyard Kipling
You call yourself a man,
For all you used to swear,
An' leave me, as you can,
My certain shame to bear?
I 'ear! You do not care --
You done the worst you know.
I 'ate you, grinnin' there. . . .
Ah, Gawd, I love you so!
Nice while it lasted, an' now it is over --
Tear out your 'eart an' good-bye to your lover!
What's the use o' grievin', when the mother that bore you
(Mary, pity women!) knew it all before you?
It aren't no false alarm,
The finish to your fun;
You -- you 'ave brung the 'arm,
An' I'm the ruined one;
An' now you'll off an' run
With some new fool in tow.
Your 'eart? You 'aven't none. . . .
Ah, Gawd, I love you so!
When a man is tired there is naught will bind 'im;
All 'e solemn promised 'e will shove be'ind 'im.
What's the good o' prayin' for The Wrath to strike 'im
(Mary, pity women!), when the rest are like 'im?
What 'ope for me or -- it?
What's left for us to do?
I've walked with men a bit,
But this -- but this is you.
So 'elp me Christ, it's true!
Where can I 'ide or go?
You coward through and through! . . .
Ah, Gawd, I love you so!
All the more you give 'em the less are they for givin' --
Love lies dead, an' you cannot kiss 'im livin'.
Down the road 'e led you there is no returnin'
(Mary, pity women!), but you're late in learnin'!
You'd like to treat me fair?
You can't, because we're pore?
We'd starve? What do I care!
We might, but ~this~ is shore!
I want the name -- no more --
The name, an' lines to show,
An' not to be an 'ore. . . .
Ah, Gawd, I love you so!
What's the good o' pleadin', when the mother that bore you
(Mary, pity women!) knew it all before you?
Sleep on 'is promises an' wake to your sorrow
(Mary, pity women!), for we sail to-morrow!
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