Day's End
Little girls,
You are gay,
Little factory girls,
At the end of your day.
There you stand,
Huddled close,
On the back of a tram,
Having taken your dose.
And you go
Through the gray
And the gold of the streets
At the close of the day,
Blind as moles.
You are crude,
You are sweet, little girls,
And amazingly rude,
But so fine
To be gay.
Gentle people are dull
At the end of the day.
poem by Lesbia Harford
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Lovers Parted
Old memories waken old desires
Infallibly. While we're alive
With eye or ear or sense at all,
Sometimes, must love revive.
But we'll not think, when some stray gust
Relumes the flicker of desire,
That fuel of circumstance could make
A furnace of our fire.
The past is gone. We must believe
It has no power to change our lives.
Yet still our constant hearts rejoice
Because the past survives.
poem by Lesbia Harford
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Today, in class,
Today, in class,
I read aloud to forty little boys
The legend of King Croesus' boasted joys.
They were so young,
Restless, and eager, I believed they'd find
This moral story little to their mind.
But they were pleased
With the old legend, quick to comprehend
Sorrowful wisdom's triumph at the end:
They seemed to feel,
In hush of wonder, hurry of amaze,
The sure uncertainty of all men's days.
poem by Lesbia Harford
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Now all the lovely days are past
Now all the lovely days are past,
The hours of sun and leagues of sea,
And starry nights that lay between
Yourself and me.
Our boat has left the sea behind.
She lies beside the friendly dock.
And soon the gangway will go down,
And lips will meet, and hands will lock,
And carriers will come climbing up
To take my things and leave us free.
There's trams and streets and home at last
For you and me.
poem by Lesbia Harford
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Those must be masts of ships the gazer sees
Those must be masts of ships the gazer sees
On through the little gap in the park trees
So far away that seeing almost fails.
Those must be masts, the lovely masts of ships
Stripped bare of sails.
There's nothing here to please the seeing eyes,
Four poles with crossway beams against the skies.
But beauty's not for sight. True beauty sings
Of latent movement to the unsensed soul
In love with wings.
poem by Lesbia Harford
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Appearances
I hated them when I was four years old,
The bright pink berries on the pepper tree.
And now they seem quite beautiful to me.
My tower of dreams when I was four years old
Was such a tree. Its branches hid me well,
Although I so disliked the berries' smell.
I had my dreams when I was four years old . . .
But groundling now, who once could mount in air,
I judge the high-swung bright pink berries, fair.
poem by Lesbia Harford
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Learning Geography
They have a few little hours
To study the world—
Its lovely absence of clouds,
Or the thunderbolts hurled
By hidden powers—
All the soft shapes of the vales
And the trees of the north
They dream of a minute, no longer,
No longer—then forth
Ere the year fails
To cities where carnival glows
Or the furnace is bright.
So is measured or leisured
According as teachers dispose
Their cosmic delight.
poem by Lesbia Harford
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When I get up to light the fire,
When I get up to light the fire,
And dress with all the speed I may
By candle-light, I dread the hours
That go to make a single day.
But then I leave my room, and see
How brightly, clearly darkness shines,
When stars ten thousand miles away
Are caught in our verandah vines.
And I am almost glad that fires
Have to be lit, before the day
Comes up between the trees and drives
The strange familiar dark away.
poem by Lesbia Harford
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Lie-a-bed
My darling lies down in her soft white bed,
And she laughs at me.
Her laughter has flushed her pale cheeks with red.
Her eyes dance with glee.
My darling lies close in her warm white bed,
And she will not rise.
I will shower kisses down on her sleepyhead
Till she close her eyes.
Gioja's no happier fresh from the South.
But my kisses free
Will straiten the curves of this teasing mouth,
If it laughs at me.
poem by Lesbia Harford
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She has all Ireland in her blood
She has all Ireland in her blood,
All Ireland's need of sword and tears,
With memories dim before the flood,
And conflicts of a thousand years.
No son of Italy should love
A heart the centuries have worn.
She had no thought of kissing lips—
She held her womanhood in scorn.
And all her joy is blackest pain,
And all her love is bitter woe.
Then you must leave her side again.
That is no path for you to go.
poem by Lesbia Harford
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