By Reason Of Thy Law
Here I make oath--
Although the heart that knows its bitterness
Hear loath,
And credit less--
That he who kens to meet Pain's kisses fierce
Which hiss against his tears,
Dread, loss, nor love frustrate,
Nor all iniquity of the froward years
Shall his inur-ed wing make idly bate,
Nor of the appointed quarry his staunch sight
To lose observance quite;
Seal from half-sad and all-elate
Sagacious eyes
Ultimate Paradise;
Nor shake his certitude of haughty fate.
Pacing the burning shares of many dooms,
I with stern tread do the clear-witting stars
To judgment cite,
If I have borne aright
[...] Read more
poem by Francis Thompson
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Gilded Gold
Thou dost to rich attire a grace,
To let it deck itself with thee,
And teachest pomp strange cunning ways
To be thought simplicity.
But lilies, stolen from grassy mold,
No more curled state unfold
Translated to a vase of gold;
In burning throne though they keep still
Serenities unthawed and chill.
Therefore, albeit thou'rt stately so,
In statelier state thou us'dst to go.
Though jewels should phosphoric burn
Through those night-waters of thine hair,
A flower from its translucid urn
Poured silver flame more lunar-fair.
These futile trappings but recall
Degenerate worshippers who fall
In purfled kirtle and brocade
To 'parel the white Mother-Maid.
[...] Read more
poem by Francis Thompson
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Ex Ore Infantium
Little Jesus, wast Thou shy
Once, and just so small as I?
And what did it feel like to be
Out of Heaven, and just like me?
Didst Thou sometimes think of THERE,
And ask where all the angels were?
I should think that I would cry
For my house all made of sky;
I would look about the air,
And wonder where my angels were;
And at waking 'twould distress me--
Not an angel there to dress me!
Hadst Thou ever any toys,
Like us little girls and boys?
And didst Thou play in Heaven with all
The angels that were not too tall,
With stars for marbles? Did the things
Play Can you see me? through their wings?
And did Thy Mother let Thee spoil
Thy robes, with playing on OUR soil?
[...] Read more
poem by Francis Thompson
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Unto This Last
A boy's young fancy taketh love
Most simply, with the rind thereof;
A boy's young fancy tasteth more
The rind, than the deific core.
Ah, Sweet! to cast away the slips
Of unessential rind, and lips
Fix on the immortal core, is well;
But heard'st thou ever any tell
Of such a fool would take for food
Aspect and scent, however good,
Of sweetest core Love's orchards grow?
Should such a phantast please him so,
Love where Love's reverent self denies
Love to feed, but with his eyes,
All the savour, all the touch,
Another's--was there ever such?
Such were fool, if fool there be;
Such fool was I, and was for thee!
But if the touch and savour too
Of this fruit--say, Sweet, of you--
[...] Read more
poem by Francis Thompson
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
After-Strain
Now with wan ray that other sun of Song
Sets in the bleakening waters of my soul:
One step, and lo! the Cross stands gaunt and long
'Twixt me and yet bright skies, a presaged dole.
Even so, O Cross! thine is the victory.
Thy roots are fast within our fairest fields;
Brightness may emanate in Heaven from thee,
Here thy dread symbol only shadow yields.
Of reap-ed joys thou art the heavy sheaf
Which must be lifted, though the reaper groan;
Yea, we may cry till Heaven's great ear be deaf,
But we must bear thee, and must bear alone.
Vain were a Simon; of the Antipodes
Our night not borrows the superfluous day.
Yet woe to him that from his burden flees!
Crushed in the fall of what he cast away.
[...] Read more
poem by Francis Thompson
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
A Captain Of Song
(On a portrait of Coventry Patmore by J. S. Sargent, R.A.)
Look on him. This is he whose works ye know;
Ye have adored, thanked, loved him,--no, not him!
But that of him which proud portentous woe
To its own grim
Presentment was not potent to subdue,
Nor all the reek of Erebus to dim.
This, and not him, ye knew.
Look on him now. Love, worship if ye can,
The very man.
Ye may not. He has trod the ways afar,
The fatal ways of parting and farewell,
Where all the paths of pain-ed greatness are;
Where round and always round
The abhorr-ed words resound,
The words accursed of comfortable men,--
'For ever'; and infinite glooms intolerable
With spacious replication give again,
And hollow jar,
[...] Read more
poem by Francis Thompson
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Inscription
When the last stir of bubbling melodies
Broke as my chants sank underneath the wave
Of dulcitude, but sank again to rise
Where man's embaying mind those waters lave,
(For music hath its Oceanides
Flexuously floating through their parent seas,
And such are these),
I saw a vision--or may it be
The effluence of a dear desired reality?
I saw two spirits high, -
Two spirits, dim within the silver smoke
Which is for ever woke
By snowing lights of fountained Poesy.
Two shapes they were familiar as love;
They were those souls, whereof
One twines from finest gracious daily things,
Strong, constant, noticeless, as are heart-strings
The golden cage wherein this song-bird sings;
And the other's sun gives hue to all my flowers,
Which else pale flowers of Tartarus would grow,
[...] Read more
poem by Francis Thompson
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Before Her Portrait In Youth
As lovers, banished from their lady's face
And hopeless of her grace,
Fashion a ghostly sweetness in its place,
Fondly adore
Some stealth-won cast attire she wore,
A kerchief or a glove:
And at the lover's beck
Into the glove there fleets the hand,
Or at impetuous command
Up from the kerchief floats the virgin neck:
So I, in very lowlihead of love, -
Too shyly reverencing
To let one thought's light footfall smooth
Tread near the living, consecrated thing, -
Treasure me thy cast youth.
This outworn vesture, tenantless of thee,
Hath yet my knee,
For that, with show and semblance fair
Of the past Her
Who once the beautiful, discarded raiment bare,
[...] Read more
poem by Francis Thompson
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Daisy
Where the thistle lifts a purple crown
Six foot out of the turf,
And the harebell shakes on the windy hill--
O breath of the distant surf!--
The hills look over on the South,
And southward dreams the sea;
And with the sea-breeze hand in hand
Came innocence and she.
Where 'mid the gorse the raspberry
Red for the gatherer springs;
Two children did we stray and talk
Wise, idle, childish things.
She listened with big-lipped surprise,
Breast-deep 'mid flower and spine:
Her skin was like a grape whose veins
Run snow instead of wine.
[...] Read more
poem by Francis Thompson
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The Making Of Viola
I.
THE FATHER OF HEAVEN.
Spin, daughter Mary, spin,
Twirl your wheel with silver din;
Spin, daughter Mary, spin,
Spin a tress for Viola.
ANGELS.
Spin, Queen Mary, a
Brown tress for Viola!
II.
THE FATHER OF HEAVEN.
Weave, hands angelical,
Weave a woof of flesh to pall -
Weave, hands angelical -
Flesh to pall our Viola.
ANGELS.
Weave, singing brothers, a
[...] Read more
poem by Francis Thompson
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!