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Poems By: Francis Thompson (1859-1907) |
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Poems by Francis Thompson
Contents: Dedication
Love in Dian's Lap
Before Her Portrait in Youth
To a Poet Breaking Silence
Manus Animam Pinxit
A Carrier Song
Scala Jacobi Portaque Eburnea
Gilded Gold
Her Portrait
Miscellaneous Poems
To the Dead Cardinal of Westminster
A Fallen Yew
Dream Tryst
A Corymbus for Autumn
The Hound of Heaven
A Judgment in Heaven
Poems on Children
Daisy
The Making of Viola
To My Godchild
To Poppy
To Monica Thought Dying DEDICATION TO WILFRID AND ALICE MEYNELL If the rose in meek duty
May dedicate humbly
To her grower the beauty
Wherewith she is comely;
If the mine to the miner
The jewels that pined in it,
Earth to diviner
The springs he divined in it;
To the grapes the wine pitcher
Their juice that was crushed in it,
Viol to its witcher
The music lay hushed in it;
If the lips may pay Gladness
In laughters she wakened,
And the heart to its sadness
Weeping unslakened,
If the hid and sealed coffer,
Whose having not his is,
To the loosers may proffer
Their finding here this is;
Their lives if all livers
To the Life of all living,
To you, O dear givers!
I give your own giving. 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,
It cheateth me.
As gale to gale drifts breath
Of blossoms' death,
So dropping down the years from hour to hour
This dead youth's scent is wafted me to day:
I sit, and from the fragrance dream the flower.
So, then, she looked (I say);
And so her front sunk down
Heavy beneath the poet's iron crown:
On her mouth museful sweet
(Even as the twin lips meet)
Did thought and sadness greet:
Sighs
In those mournful eyes
So put on visibilities;
As viewless ether turns, in deep on deep, to dyes.
Thus, long ago,
She kept her meditative paces slow
Through maiden meads, with waved shadow and gleam
Of locks half lifted on the winds of dream,
Till love up caught her to his chariot's glow.
Yet, voluntary, happier Proserpine!
This drooping flower of youth thou lettest fall
I, faring in the cockshut light, astray,
Find on my 'lated way,
And stoop, and gather for memorial,
And lay it on my bosom, and make it mine.
To this, the all of love the stars allow me,
I dedicate and vow me.
I reach back through the days
A trothed hand to the dead the last trump shall not raise.
The water wraith that cries
From those eternal sorrows of thy pictured eyes
Entwines and draws me down their soundless intricacies! TO A POET BREAKING SILENCE Too wearily had we and song
Been left to look and left to long,
Yea, song and we to long and look,
Since thine acquainted feet forsook
The mountain where the Muses hymn
For Sinai and the Seraphim.
Now in both the mountains' shine
Dress thy countenance, twice divine!
From Moses and the Muses draw
The Tables of thy double Law!
His rod born fount and Castaly
Let the one rock bring forth for thee,
Renewing so from either spring
The songs which both thy countries sing:
Or we shall fear lest, heavened thus long,
Thou should'st forget thy native song,
And mar thy mortal melodies
With broken stammer of the skies. Ah! let the sweet birds of the Lord
With earth's waters make accord;
Teach how the crucifix may be
Carven from the laurel tree,
Fruit of the Hesperides
Burnish take on Eden trees,
The Muses' sacred grove be wet
With the red dew of Olivet,
And Sappho lay her burning brows
In white Cecilia's lap of snows! Thy childhood must have felt the stings
Of too divine o'ershadowings;
Its odorous heart have been a blossom
That in darkness did unbosom,
Those fire flies of God to invite,
Burning spirits, which by night
Bear upon their laden wing
To such hearts impregnating... Continue reading book >>
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