Life poems
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In the Black Forest
© Amy Levy
I lay beneath the pine trees,
And looked aloft, where, through
The dusky, clustered tree-tops,
Gleamed rent, gay rifts of blue.
Ariel in the Cloven Pine
© James Bayard Taylor
NOW the frosty stars are gone:
I have watched them one by one,
Felo de Se
© Amy Levy
With Apologies to Mr. Swinburne.
For repose I have sighed and have struggled ; have sigh'd and have struggled in vain;
I am held in the Circle of Being and caught in the Circle of Pain.
I was wan and weary with life ; my sick soul yearned for death;
Lionel And Lucille
© Christopher Pearse Cranch
I.
IN the beautiful Castleton Island a mansion of lordly style,
Embowered in gardens and lawns, looks over the glimmering bay.
In the light of a morning in summer, with stately beauty and pride,
The Healer
© George MacDonald
They come to thee, the halt, the maimed, the blind,
The devil-torn, the sick, the sore;
Thy heart their well of life they find,
Thine ear their open door.
Cambridge in the Long
© Amy Levy
Where drowsy sound of college-chimes
Across the air is blown,
And drowsy fragrance of the limes,
I lie and dream alone.
A Minor Poet
© Amy Levy
"What should such fellows as I do,
Crawling between earth and heaven?"
Here is the phial; here I turn the key
Sharp in the lock. Click!--there's no doubt it turned.
A June-Tide Echo
© Amy Levy
In the long, sad time, when the sky was grey,
And the keen blast blew through the city drear,
When delight had fled from the night and the day,
My chill heart whispered, " June will be here!
A Greek Girl
© Amy Levy
Alas, alas, such idle thoughts are vain!
O cruel, cruel sunlight, get thee gone!
O dear, dim shades of eve, come swiftly on!
That when quick lips, keen eyes, are closed in sleep,
Through the long night till dawn I then may weep.
Dedication - Songs of Labor
© John Greenleaf Whittier
I WOULD the gift I offer here
Might graces from thy favor take,
We Never Said Farewell
© Mary Elizabeth Coleridge
WE never said farewell, nor even looked
Our last upon each other, for no sign
Was made when we the linkèd chain unhooked
And broke the level line.
The Needless Alarm. A Tale
© William Cowper
Moral
Beware of desperate steps. The darkest day,
Live till to-morrow, will have passd away.
The Other Side of a Mirror
© Mary Elizabeth Coleridge
Her lips were open - not a sound
Came though the parted lines of red,
Whate'er it was, the hideous wound
In silence and secret bled.
No sigh relieved her speechless woe,
She had no voice to speak her dread.
Father of light, and life, and love!
© James Montgomery
Father of light, and life, and love!
Thyself to us reveal;
As saints below, and saints above,
Thy sacred presence feel.
The Oak
© James Russell Lowell
What gnarled stretch, what depth of shade, is his!
There needs no crown to mark the forest's king;
Death and the Lady
© Mary Elizabeth Coleridge
TURN in, my lord, she said ;
As it were the Father of Sin
I have hated the Father of the Dead,
The slayer of my kin ;
By the Father of the Living led,
Turn in, my lord, turn in.
Marine Snow At Mid-Depths And Down
© Thomas Lux
As you descend, slowly, falling faster past
you this snow,
ghostly, some flakes bio-
luminescent (you plunge,
Motel Seedy
© Thomas Lux
The artisans of this room, who designed the lamp base
(a huge red slug with a hole
where its heart should be) or chose this print
of a butterscotch sunset,
