God poems
/ page 185 of 194 /The Heroes
© George William Russell
BY many a dream of God and man my thoughts in shining flocks were led:
But as I went through Patrick Street the hopes and prophecies were dead.
The hopes and prophecies were dead: they could not blossom where the feet
Walked amid rottenness, or where the brawling shouters stamped the street.
Aphrodite
© George William Russell
NOT unremembering we pass our exile from the starry ways:
One timeless hour in time we caught from the long night of endless days.
With solemn gaiety the stars danced far withdrawn on elfin heights:
The lilac breathed amid the shade of green and blue and citron lights.
The City
© George William Russell
WHAT domination of what darkness dies this hour,
And through what new, rejoicing, winged, ethereal power
Oerthrown, the cells opened, the heart released from fear?
Gay twilight and grave twilight pass. The stars appear
Pain
© George William Russell
MEN have made them gods of love,
Sun-gods, givers of the rain,
Deities of hill and grove:
I have made a god of Pain.
A Farewell
© George William Russell
I GO down from the hills half in gladness, and half with a pain I depart,
Where the Mother with gentlest breathing made music on lip and in heart;
For I know that my childhood is over: a call comes out of the vast,
And the love that I had in the old time, like beauty in twilight, is past.
Elegy IV: The Perfume
© John Donne
Once, and but once found in thy company,
All thy supposed escapes are laid on me;
And as a thief at bar is questioned there
By all the men that have been robed that year,
Elegy XVIII: Love's Progress
© John Donne
Who ever loves, if he do not propose
The right true end of love, he's one that goes
To sea for nothing but to make him sick.
Love is a bear-whelp born: if we o'erlick
Love's Deity
© John Donne
I long to talk with some old lover's ghost,
Who died before the God of Love was born:
I cannot think that he, who then loved most,
Sunk so low as to love one which did scorn.
Upon a Little Lady Under the Discipline of an Excellent Person.
© Anne Killigrew
A little Nymph whose Limbs divinely bright,
Lay like a Body of Collected Light,
But not to Love and Courtship so disclos'd,
But to the Rigour of a Dame oppos'd,
Who instant on the Faire with Words and Blows,
Now chastens Error, and now Virtue shews.
Penelope to Ulysses.
© Anne Killigrew
REturn my dearest Lord, at length return,
Let me no longer your sad absence mourn,
Ilium in Dust, does no more Work afford,
No more Employment for your Wit or Sword.
A Pastoral Dialogue (Melibæus, Alcippe, Asteria, Licida, Alcimedon, and Amira. )
© Anne Killigrew
Melibæus. WElcome fair Nymphs, most welcome to this shade,
Distemp'ring Heats do now the Plains invade:
But you may sit, from Sun securely here,
If you an old mans company not fear.
TO My Lord Colrane, In Answer to his Complemental Verses sent me under the Name of CLEANOR
© Anne Killigrew
LOng my dull Muse in heavy slumbers lay,
Indulging Sloth, and to soft Ease gave way,
Her Fill of Rest resolving to enjoy,
Or fancying little worthy her employ.
Love, the Soul of Poetry
© Anne Killigrew
Th' exalted Poet rais'd by this new Flame,
With Vigor flys, where late he crept along,
And Acts Divine, in a Diviner Song,
Commits to the eternal Trompe of Fame.
And thus Alexis does prove Love to be,
As the Worlds Soul, the Soul of Poetry.
Alexandreis.
© Anne Killigrew
Th'Heroick Queen (whose high pretence to War
Cancell'd the bashful Laws and nicer Bar
Of Modesty, which did her Sex restrain)
First boldly did advance before her Train,
And thus she spake. All but a God in Name,
And that a debt Time owes unto thy Fame.
The Poet
© Hermann Hesse
Only on me, the lonely one,
The unending stars of the night shine,
The stone fountain whispers its magic song,
To me alone, to me the lonely one
The Sale of Saint Thomas
© Lascelles Abercrombie
Captain Well, I hope so.
There's threatening in the weather. Have you a mind
To hug your belly to the slanted deck,
Like a louse on a whip-top, when the boat
Spins on an axlie in the hissing gales?
The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point
© Elizabeth Barrett Browning
I.
I stand on the mark beside the shore
Of the first white pilgrim's bended knee,
Where exile turned to ancestor,
A Musical Instrument
© Elizabeth Barrett Browning
What was he doing, the great god Pan,
Down in the reeds by the river?
Spreading ruin and scattering ban,
Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat,
And breaking the golden lilies afloat
With the dragon-fly on the river.
The Dream
© Alexander Pushkin
Not long ago, in a charming dream,
I saw myself -- a king with crown's treasure;
I was in love with you, it seemed,
And heart was beating with a pleasure.
Muse
© Alexander Pushkin
In my youth's years, she loved me, I am sure.
The flute of seven pipes she gave in my tenure
And harked to me with smile -- without speed,
Along the ringing holes of the reed,