The Pleiades
LAST night I saw the Pleiades again,
Faint as a drift of steam
From some tall chimney-stack;
And I remembered you as you were then:
Awoke dead worlds of dream,
And Time turned slowly back.
I saw the Pleiades through branches bare,
And close to mine your face
Soft glowing in the dark;
For Youth and Hope and Love and You were there
At our dear trysting-place
In that bleak London park.
And as we kissed the Pleiades looked down
From their immeasurable
Aloofness in cold Space.
Do you remember how a last leaf brown
Between us flickering fell
Soft on your upturned face?
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poem by Arthur Henry Adams
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Lullaby
DAY has fled to the west afar,
Where no shadows or sorrows are;
O'er earth's radiant western rim
God has gathered the day to him.
Hush! the river of night is here,
Flowing silently, cool and clear,
With its mystical thoughts that throng
And its silences deep as song.
Babe of my bosom, sleep;
Tender, sweet blossom, sleep!
Hearts may ache
While the long hours go creeping;
Hearts may break
While my baby is sleeping;
Never wake,
Though thy mother is weeping;
Babe of my bosom, sleep!
Sleep! the silence is all around,
Save the sighings that are not sound,
Where the wind in the branches weaves
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poem by Arthur Henry Adams
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Blossom of Life
SO now she lies silent and sweet
With white flowers at her head and feet,
And she, the fairest flower, between.
The bud that with her bosom's swell
In dear delight once rose and fell
Now wafts her all it has to tell,
And wonders why she sleeps serene.
And yet in life how small a part,
With pretty face and petty heart,
She played! And in that form so fair
There never dwelt a deep desire,
Her bosom never thrilled a-fire:
She loved too lightly e'en to tire—
And all my heart was meant for her.
Was there a soul within those eyes
That seemed to speak my dear surmise,
That with no tears were ever wet?
Through life she laughed her careless way,
She knew not sorrow or dismay—
And I have sorrowed day by day,
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poem by Arthur Henry Adams
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Fleet Street
BENEATH this narrow jostling street,
Unruffled by the noise of feet,
Like a slow organ-note I hear
The pulses of the great world beat.
Unseen beneath the city’s show
Through this aorta ever flow
The currents of the universe—
A thousand pulses throbbing low!
Unheard beneath the pavement’s din
Unknown magicians sit within
Dim caves, and weave life into words
On patient looms that spin and spin.
There, uninspired, yet with the dower
Of mightier mechanic power,
Some bent, obscure Euripides
Builds the loud drama of the hour!
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poem by Arthur Henry Adams
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Just A Woman
YOU ask me why I love her;
Not a charm can you discover!
Would you see
The heart that a shut rose is,
And whose beauty ne'er uncloses
Save for me?
She is not rich or clever,
But her speeches thrill me ever,
And with bliss
My heart her whisper flutters,
Though the wisest word she utters
Is a kiss.
All evil things have shunned her,
And with a wide-eyed wonder
Is she tasked,
What lavish god has given
In her earth so much of heaven
All unasked?
She has no gifts or graces,
But the gladness in her face is
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poem by Arthur Henry Adams
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The Poet To Be Yet
NOT he who sings smooth songs that soothe—
Sweet opiates that lull asleep
The sorrow that would only weep;
There are some spirit-stains so deep
That only tears may wash away.
Not he whose lays thrill fiercely till
The soul is sick with surfeiting,
Such passion flies, and leaves its sting,
Till through the body quivering
The wearied dull pain throbs again.
Not he whose glad voice says “Rejoice!”
For whom no clouds o'ercast the sky;
Whose god is in his heaven so high
That this dull world he come not nigh:
Life is no sun-kissed optimist!
But he who Sorrow's presence knows,
Who hears the minor chords beneath
The song of life, and feels the breath
Upon his cheek of quiet death,
Yet stirs and sings of life and love.
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poem by Arthur Henry Adams
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Lament
PEACE, your little child is dead:
Peace, I cannot weep with you;
I have no more tears to shed;
I have mourned my baby too—
I, that ne'er was wooed or wed.
Love has looked within your eyes,
Love has filled your hungry heart;
You have borne the babe, your prize;
You have blossomed, done your part,
Though the flower faded lies.
But to me was love denied—
God had said it might not be;
Still my hungry hopes abide;
All the motherhood in me
Aches—and starves, unsatisfied.
How my soul has yearned for thee,
Sweet, sweet unborn child of mine!
How thy life would tenderly
Round thy mother's life entwine—
Hope of hopes that may not be.
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poem by Arthur Henry Adams
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Epitaph
The Earth Speaks:
HUSH! he drowses, drowses deep,
While my quiet arms I keep
Close about him in his sleep.
Once he glanced at me aghast,
Shuddered from my kiss, and passed—
But I hold him here at last.
He had frenzied thoughts of fame,
Piteous strivings for a name—
But I called him, and he came.
Called him with the mother-call
That shall on the weary fall,
Whispering “Home” to all, to all.
Fair white skin he looked upon;
Eyes in his with passion shone;
But my patient love has won.
There was one he deemed to wed;
But he faltered, came instead
To my narrow bridal bed.
Vehement his veins and wild—
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poem by Arthur Henry Adams
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Other Verses
Myself—My Song.
HERE, aloof, I take my stand—
Alien, iconoclast—
Poet of a newer land,
Confident, aggressive, lonely,
Product of the present only,
Thinking nothing of the past.
If some word of mine abide,
Yet no immortality
Looks my soul for; satisfied,
Though my voice be evanescent,
If it sing the pregnant present
And the birth that is to be.
All the beauty that has been,
All of wisdom's overplus,
Has been given me to glean;
In Earth's story clear one page is—
This—the widest of the ages—
Virile, vast, tumultuous.
I shall croon no love-song old,
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poem by Arthur Henry Adams
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A Portrait
HER glance is equable, serene;
She looks at life with level brow;
She strides through circumstance—a queen!
To compromise she cannot bow—
Even to love she will not lean!
Not hers the head that, like a flower,
Trembles upon a swaying stem;
Her neck is firm-curved as a tower,
And on her brow for diadem
Shine steadfastness and peace and power.
She wills no limits to her scope;
Her head imperiously borne
Above her gradual bosom's slope;
Her chin a dainty-moulded scorn,
Her eyes a deep, untarnished hope.
By gusts of passion undistressed,
She spurs not on a panting pulse;
Throned in her womanhood, at rest,
No ripples of her moods convulse
The tidal swayings of her breast.
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poem by Arthur Henry Adams
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