Palinode
Who is Lydia, pray, and who
Is Hypatia? Softly, dear,
Let me breathe it in your ear--
They are you, and only you.
And those other nameless two
Walking in Arcadian air--
She that was so very fair?
She that had the twilight hair?--
They were you, dear, only you.
If I speak of night or day,
Grace of fern or bloom of grape,
Hanging cloud or fountain spray,
Gem or star or glistening dew,
Or of mythologic shape,
Psyche, Pyrrha, Daphne, say--
I mean you, dear, you, just you.
poem by Thomas Bailey Aldrich
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To Hafiz
THOUGH gifts like thine the fates gave not to me,
One thing, O Hafiz, we both hold in fee—
Nay, it holds us; for when the June wind blows
We both are slaves and lovers to the rose.
In vain the pale Circassian lily shows
Her face at her green lattice, and in vain
The violet beckons, with unveilëd face—
The bosom’s white, the lip’s light purple stain,
These touch our liking, yet no passion stir.
But when the rose comes, Hafiz—in that place
Where she stands smiling, we kneel down to her!
poem by Thomas Bailey Aldrich
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The Letter
EDWARD ROWLAND SILL, DIED FEBRUARY 27, 1887
I held his letter in my hand,
And even while I read
The lightning flashed across the land
The word that he was dead.
How strange it seemed! His living voice
Was speaking from the page
Those courteous phrases, tersely choice,
Light-hearted, witty, sage.
I wondered what it was that died!
The man himself was here,
His modesty, his scholar's pride,
His soul serene and clear.
These neither death nor time shall dim,
Still this sad thing must be--
Henceforth I may not speak to him,
[...] Read more
poem by Thomas Bailey Aldrich
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Threnody
I
Upon your hearse this flower I lay
Brief be your sleep! You shall be known
When lesser men have had their day:
Fame blossoms where true seed is sown,
Or soon or late, let Time wound what it may.
II
Unvext by any dream of fame,
You smiled, and bade the world pass by:
But I--I turned, and saw a name
Shaping itself against the sky--
White star that rose amid the battle's flame!
III
Brief be your sleep, for I would see
Your laurels--ah, how trivial now
[...] Read more
poem by Thomas Bailey Aldrich
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Thorwaldsen
Not in the fabled influence of some star,
Benign or evil, do our fortunes lie;
We are the arbiters of destiny,
Lords of the life we either make or mar.
We are our own impediment and bar
To noble endings. With distracted eye
We let the golden moment pass us by,
Time's foolish spendthrifts, searching wide and far
For what lies close at hand. To serve our turn
We ask fair wind and favorable tide.
From the dead Danish sculptor let us learn
To make Occasion, not to be denied:
Against the sheer precipitous mountain-side
Thorwaldsen carved his Lion at Lucerne.
poem by Thomas Bailey Aldrich
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At Stratford-Upon-Avon
Thus spake his dust (so seemed it as I read
The words): Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbeare
(Poor ghost!) To digg the dust enclosèd heare --
Then came the malediction on the head
Of whoso dare disturb the sacred dead.
Outside the mavis whistled strong and clear,
The winding Avon murmured in its bed,
But in the solemn Stratford church the air
Was chill and dank, and on the foot-worn tomb
The evening shadows deepened momently.
Then a great awe fell on me, standing there,
As if some speechless presence in the gloom
Was hovering, and fain would speak with me.
poem by Thomas Bailey Aldrich
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Miracles
Sick of myself and all that keeps the light
Of the wide heavens away from me and mine,
I climb this ledge, and by this wind-swept pine
Lingering, watch the coming of the night:
'Tis ever a new wonder to my sight.
Men look to God for some mysterious sign,
For other stars than such as nightly shine,
For some unwonted symbol of His might.
Wouldst see a miracle not less than those
The Master wrought of old in Galilee?
Come watch with me the azure turn to rose
In yonder West, the changing pageantry,
The fading alps and archipelagoes,
And spectral cities of the sunset-sea.
poem by Thomas Bailey Aldrich
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Song from the Persian
AH, sad are they who know not love,
But, far from passion's tears and smiles,
Drift down a moonless sea, beyond
The silvery coasts of fairy isles.
And sadder they whose longing lips
Kiss empty air, and never touch
The dear warm mouth of those they love --
Waiting, wasting, suffering much.
But clear as amber, fine as musk,
Is life to those who, pilgrim-wise,
Move hand in hand from dawn to dusk,
Each morning nearer Paradise.
Ah, not for them shall angels pray!
They stand in everlasting light,
They walk in Allah's smile by day,
And slumber in his heart by night.
poem by Thomas Bailey Aldrich
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A Touch of Nature
When first the crocus thrusts its point of gold
Up through the still snow-drifted garden mould,
And folded green things in dim woods unclose
Their crinkled spears, a sudden tremor goes
Into my veins and makes me kith and kin
To every wild-born thing that thrills and blows.
Sitting beside this crumbling sea-coal fire,
Here in the city's ceaseless roar and din,
Far from the brambly paths I used to know,
Far from the rustling brooks that slip and shine
Where the Neponset alders take their glow,
I share the tremulous sense of bud and briar
And inarticulate ardors of the vine.
poem by Thomas Bailey Aldrich
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The Undiscovered Country
Forever am I conscious, moving here,
That should I step a little space aside
I pass the boundary of some glorified
Invisible domain -- it lies so near!
Yet nothing know we of that dim frontier
Which each must cross, whatever fate betide,
To reach the heavenly cities where abide
(Thus Sorrow whispers) those that were most dear,
Now all transfigured in celestial light!
Shall we indeed behold them, thine and mine,
Whose going hence made black the noonday sun? --
Strange is it that across the narrow night
They fling us not some token, or make sign
That all beyond is not Oblivion.
poem by Thomas Bailey Aldrich
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