Exile
I chose the place where I would rest
When death should come to claim me,
With the red-rose roots to wrap my breast
And a quiet stone to name me.
But I am laid on a northern steep
With the roaring tides below me,
And only the frosts to bind my sleep,
And only the winds to know me.
poem by Marjorie Lowry Christie Pickthall
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Again
JUST to live under green leaves and see them
Just to lie under low stars and watch them wane,
Just to sleep by a kind heart and know it loving
Again–
Just to wake on a sunny day and the wind blowing,
Just to walk on a bare road in the bright rain,–
These, O God, and the night, and the moon showing
Again–
poem by Marjorie Lowry Christie Pickthall
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Quiet
COME not the earliest petal here, but only
Wind, cloud, and star,
Lovely and far,
Make it less lonely.
Few are the feet that seek her here, but sleeping
Thoughts sweet as flowers
Linger for hours,
Things winged, yet weeping.
Here in the immortal empire of the grasses,
Time, like one wrong
Note in a song,
With their bloom, passes.
poem by Marjorie Lowry Christie Pickthall
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English Flowers
YE have been bought
With an immortal price,
O, windflowers quick as thought
Of love in solitude,
And daffodils, the year's young sacrifice
When summer's on the wood.
In no forgetful hour
Through the wind-trodden gold,
I follow the springs dower
Of leaf and sallow spray,
Men gave the flower of life that I might hold
Blossom and leaf to-day.
poem by Marjorie Lowry Christie Pickthall
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The House’s Setting
HERE is no hedge of yewe to hold in griefe,
No cypresse nor long willow for despaire.
But the young birch displayes his cheerfulle leaf
In tracerie most faire.
Where the sunne falls at morn stand poplars seven
Where freely I of all sweete joyes may borrowe,
An elm that lifts his prayerfulle arms to Heaven,
And three tall pines for sorrowe.
poem by Marjorie Lowry Christie Pickthall
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Daisy Time
See, the grass is full of stars,
Fallen in their brightness;
Hearts they have of shining gold,
Rays of shining whiteness.
Buttercups have honeyed hearts,
Bees they love the clover,
But I love the daisies' dance
All the meadow over.
Blow, O blow, you happy winds,
Singing summer's praises,
Up the field and down the field
A-dancing with the daisies.
poem by Marjorie Lowry Christie Pickthall
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Thoughts
I gave my thoughts a golden peach,
A silver citron tree;
They clustered dumbly out of reach
And would not sing for me.
I built my thoughts a roof of rush,
A little byre beside;
They left my music to the thrush
And flew at eveningtide.
I went my way and would not care
If they should come and go;
A thousand birds seemed up in air,
My thoughts were singing so.
poem by Marjorie Lowry Christie Pickthall
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Inheritance
DESOLATE strange sleep and wild
Came on me while yet a child;
I, before I tasted tears,
Knew the grief of all the years.
I, before I fronted pain,
Felt creation writhe and strain,
Sending ancient terrors through,
My small pulses, sweet and new.
I, before I learned how time
Robs all summers at their prime,
I, few seasons gone from birth,
Felt my body change to earth.
poem by Marjorie Lowry Christie Pickthall
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Serenade
DARK is the iris meadow,
Dark is the ivory tower,
And lightly the young moth's shadow
Sleeps on the passion-flower.
Gone are our day's red roses.
So lovely and lost and few,
But the first star uncloses
A silver bud in the blue.
Night, and a flame in the embers
Where the seal of the years was set,–
When the almond-bough remembers
How shall my heart forget ?
poem by Marjorie Lowry Christie Pickthall
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Vision
I have not walked on common ground,
Nor drunk of earthly streams;
A shining figure, mailed and crowned,
Moves softly through my dreams.
He makes the air so keen and strange,
The stars so fiercely bright;
The rocks of time, the tides of change,
Are nothing in his sight.
Death lays no shadow on his smile;
Life is a race fore-run;
Look in his face a little while,
And life and death are one.
poem by Marjorie Lowry Christie Pickthall
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