A Drama of Exile: And Other Poems, Volume 1

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H.G. Langley, 1845
 

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Page 220 - What flowers grow in my field wherewith to dress thee ? My good reverts to ill ; My calmnesses would move thee, My softnesses would prick thee, My bindings up would break thee, My crownings, curse and kill. Alas, I can but love thee ! May GOD bless thee my beloved, — may GOD bless thee.
Page 141 - I TELL you, hopeless grief is passionless— That only men incredulous of despair, Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air Beat upward to God's throne in loud access Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness In souls as countries, lieth silent-bare Under the blanching, vertical eye-glare Of the absolute Heavens. Deep-hearted man ! express Grief for thy Dead in silence like to death,— Most like a monumental statue set In everlasting watch and moveless woe, Till itself crumble to the dust...
Page 109 - Some coldness from the guarded, some mistrust From those thou hast too well served, from those beloved Too loyally some treason; feebleness Within thy heart, and cruelty without, And pressures of an alien tyranny With its dynastic reasons of larger bones And stronger sinews.
Page 139 - HAvE been in the meadows all the day, And gathered there the nosegay that you see, Singing within myself as bird or bee, When such do field-work on a morn of May. But, now I look upon my flowers, decay Has met them in my hands more fatally Because more warmly clasped; and sobs are free To come instead of songs. What do you say, Sweet counsellors, dear friends ? that I should go Back straightway to the fields and gather more ? Another, sooth, may do it; but not I ! My heart is very tired, my strength...
Page 83 - In spasms of awful sunshine, at that hour A lion couched, — part raised upon his paws, With his calm, massive face turned full on thine, And his mane listening. When the ended curse Left silence in the world, — right suddenly He sprang up rampant, and stood straight and stiff, As if the new reality of death Were dashed against his eyes,- — and roared so fierce, (Such thick carnivorous passion in his...
Page 143 - ... and sweet From out the hallelujahs, sweet and low, Lest I should fear and fall, and miss Thee so Who art not missed by any that entreat. Speak to me as to Mary at Thy feet — And if no precious gums my hands bestow, Let my tears drop like amber, while I go In reach of Thy divinest voice complete In humanest affection — thus, in sooth, To lose the sense of losing ! As a child, Whose song-bird seeks the wood for evermore, Is sung to in its stead by mother's mouth ; Till, sinking on her breast,...
Page 244 - If we trod the deeps of ocean, if we struck the stars in rising, If we wrapped the globe intensely with one hot electric breath, 'Twere but power within our tether — no new spirit-power comprising — And in life we were not greater men, nor bolder men in death...
Page 239 - Pomegranate,' which, if cut deep down the middle, Shows a heart within blood-tinctured, of a veined humanity.
Page 143 - SPEAK low to me, my Saviour, low and sweet From out the hallelujahs, sweet and low, Lest I should fear and fall, and miss thee so Who art not missed by any that entreat. Speak to me as to Mary at thy feet — And if no precious gums my hands bestow, Let my tears drop like amber, while I go In reach of thy divinest voice...
Page 116 - Shall open on a hinge of harmony, And let you through to mercy. Ye shall fall No more, within that Eden, nor pass out Any more from it. In which hope, move on, First sinners and first mourners. Live and love, — Doing both nobly, because lowlily ; Live and work, strongly, — because patiently ! And, for the deed of death, trust it to God, That it be well done, unrepented of, And not to loss. And thence, with constant prayers Fasten your souls so high, that constantly The smile of your heroic cheer...

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