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Low Barometer
The south-wind strengthens to a gale,
Across the moon the clouds fly fast,
The house is smitten as with a flail,
The chimney shudders to the blast.
On such a night, when Air has loosed
Its guardian grasp on blood and brain,
Old terrors then of god or ghost
Creep from their caves to life again;
And Reason kens he herits in
A haunted house. Tenants unknown
Assert their squalid lease of sin
With earlier title than his own.
Unbodied presences, the pack’d
Pollution and remorse of Time,
Slipp’d from oblivion reënact
The horrors of unhouseld crime.
Some men would quell the thing with prayer
Whose sightless footsteps pad the floor,
Whose fearful trespass mounts the stair
Or burts the lock’d forbidden door.
Some have seen corpses long interr’d
Escape from hallowing control,
Pale charnel forms—nay ev’n have heard
The shrilling of a troubled soul,
That wanders till the dawn hath cross’d
The dolorous dark, or Earth hath wound
Closer her storm-spredd cloke, and thrust
The baleful phantoms underground.
Robert Bridges
(1844-1930)
Low Barometer
• fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive A-B, Archive A-B, Bridges, Robert
La Chambrée de nuit
Rêve
On a faim dans la chambrée –
C’est vrai…
Émanations, explosions. Un génie :
« Je suis le gruère ! » –
Lefêbvre « Keller ! »
Le génie « Je suis le Brie ! » –
Les soldats coupent sur leur pain :
« C’est la vie ! »
Le génie. – « Je suis le Roquefort ! »
– « Ça s’ra not’ mort !… »
Je suis le gruère
Et le Brie !… etc.
Valse
On nous a joints, Lefèbvre et moi, etc.
Arthur Rimbaud
(1854 – 1891)
La Chambrée de nuit
Rêve
Derniers vers
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More in: #Editors Choice Archiv, Archive Q-R, Archive Q-R, Arthur Rimbaud, Rimbaud, Arthur
Petrarca
If far from turbid thoughts and gloomy mood
Some smiling day should see my wish fulfilled
Where breathe the vales with gentle brooks enrilled
The soft air of my Tuscan neighbourhood,
There, where is heard no more the garrulous brood
Of thoughtless minds, in deep oblivion stilled,
Would I to thee my heart’s pure altar build
In the green blackness of the tangled wood.
There with the dying splendours of the sun
Thy song should glow amid the flowers springing
On breezy banks where whispering streams do run;
As if, still sweeter sounds and odours flinging
Upward to heaven when the day is done,
A nightingale from bough to bough were singing.
Giosuè Carducci
(1835 – 1907)
Petrarca
• fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: # Classic Poetry Archive, Archive C-D, Archive C-D, Archive O-P, Petrarca, Francesco
Märchen
Ich hab vor deinem Hause still gestanden
In einer Nacht.
Und hatte ganz dich lieb und ohne Maßen;
Ich wies zu dir den Sternen goldne Straßen
Und habe selig stumm gelacht.
Ob meinem losen Haar hob ich die Arme
Wie Zweige, schlank und rund.
Da stürzte Regen in das Mainachtschweigen
Und rief sich zage Blüten aus den Zweigen,
Und jede war ein blasser Mund.
Du aber kamst nicht.
So streute ich mit lächelndem Verschwenden
Dem Mond die Blumen her.
Und spürte Treiben herber, dunkler Kräfte,
Mir ward die Frucht voll süßer, süßer Säfte;
Schon fiel sie, duftend, weich und schwer.
Du aber kamst nicht.
Eishagel tanzte höhnend auf den Steinen.
Da klaffte schwarz ein Schacht.
Drein ließ ich die zerbrochnen Arme hangen. –
Geblüht und Frucht getragen – und vergangen
In einer Nacht.
Gertrud Kolmar
(1894 – 1943)
Märchen
• fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: #Editors Choice Archiv, Archive K-L, Archive K-L, Grimm, Andersen e.o.: Fables, Fairy Tales & Stories, Holocaust, Kolmar, Gertrud
Thaw
Blow through me wind
As you blow through apple blossoms…
Scatter me in shining petals over the passers-by…
Joyously I reunite… sway and gather to myself…
Sedately I walk by the dancing feet of children—
Not knowing I too dance over the cobbled spring.
O, but they laugh back at me,
(Eyes like daisies smiling wide open),
And we both look askance at the snowed-in people
Thinking me one of them.
Lola Ridge
(1873-1941)
Thaw
• fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive Q-R, Archive Q-R, Ridge, Lola
All Alone
Alas! they have left me all alone
By the receding tide;
But oh! the countless multitudes
Upon the other side!
The loved, the lost, the cherished ones,
Who dwelt with us awhile,
To scatter sunbeams on our path,
And make the desert smile.
The other side! how fair it is!
Its loveliness untold,
Its “every several gate a pearl,”
Its streets are paved with gold.
Its sun shall never more go down,
For there is no night there!
And oh! what heavenly melodies
Are floating through the air!
How sweet to join the ransomed ones
On the other side the flood,
And sing a song of praise to Him
Who washed us in His blood.
Ten thousand times ten thousand
Are hymning the new song!
O Father, join Thy weary child
To that triumphant throng!
But oh! I would be patient,
“My times are in Thy hand,”
“And glory, glory dwelleth
In Immanuel’s land.”
Eliza Paul Kirkbride Gurney
(1801 – 1888)
All Alone
• fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: # Classic Poetry Archive, Archive G-H, Archive G-H
Madrigal
Breaking his way through the white clouds in the azure,
The sun laughs out and cries:
“O Springtime, come!”
Across the greening hills with placid murmurs
The streams sing back to the breeze:
“O Springtime, come!”
“O Springtime, come!” to his heart the poet is saying,
While gazing, O pure Lalage, in thine eyes!
Giosuè Carducci
(1835 – 1907)
Madrigal
• fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: # Classic Poetry Archive, 4SEASONS#Spring, Archive C-D, Archive C-D
Spring Rain
I thought I had forgotten,
But it all came back again
To-night with the first spring thunder
In a rush of rain.
I remembered a darkened doorway
Where we stood while the storm swept by,
Thunder gripping the earth
And lightning scrawled on the sky.
The passing motor busses swayed,
For the street was a river of rain,
Lashed into little golden waves
In the lamp light’s stain.
With the wild spring rain and thunder
My heart was wild and gay;
Your eyes said more to me that night
Than your lips would ever say….
I thought I had forgotten,
But it all came back again
To-night with the first spring thunder
In a rush of rain.
Sara Teasdale
(1884-1933)
Spring Rain
• fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: 4SEASONS#Spring, Archive Q-R, Archive S-T, Archive S-T, Teasdale, Sara
Si tu veux nous nous aimerons
Si tu veux nous nous aimerons
Avec tes lèvres sans le dire
Cette rose ne l’interromps
Qu’à verser un silence pire
Jamais de chants ne lancent prompts
Le scintillement du sourire
Si tu veux nous nous aimerons
Avec tes lèvres sans le dire
Muet muet entre les ronds
Sylphe dans la pourpre d’empire
Un baiser flambant se déchire
Jusqu’aux pointes des ailerons
Si tu veux nous nous aimerons.
Stéphane Mallarmé
(1842 – 1898)
Si tu veux nous nous aimerons
• fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive M-N, Archive M-N, Mallarmé, Stéphane, Mallarmé, Stéphane
The child is father to the man
‘The child is father to the man.’
How can he be? The words are wild.
Suck any sense from that who can:
‘The child is father to the man.’
No; what the poet did write ran,
‘The man is father to the child.’
‘The child is father to the man!’
How can he be? The words are wild!
Gerard Manley Hopkins
(1844-1889)
‘The child is father to the man.’
• fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive G-H, Archive G-H, Hopkins, Gerard Manley
The Evening Star
Hail, pensile gem, that thus can softly gild
The starry coronal of quiet eve!
What frost-work fabrics man shall vainly build
Ere thou art doomed thy heavenly post to leave!
Bright star! thou seem’st to me a blest retreat,
The wearied pilgrim’s paradise of rest;
I love to think long-parted friends shall meet,
Blissful reunion! in thy tranquil breast.
I saw thee shine when life with me was young,
And fresh as fleet-winged time’s infantile hour,
When Hope her treacherous chaplet ’round me flung,
And daily twined a new-created flower.
I saw thee shine while yet the sacred smile
Of home and kindred round my path would play,
But Time, who loves our fairest joys to spoil,
Destined this hour of bloom to swift decay.
The buds, that then were wreathed around my heart,
Now breathe their hallowed sweetness there no more;
‘Twas thine to see them one by one depart,
And yet thou shinest brightly as before.
So, when this bosom, that ‘mid all its woes
Has longed thy little port of rest to win,
In the calm grave shall find at last repose,
Thou’lt beam as fair as though I ne’er had been.
Eliza Paul Kirkbride Gurney
(1801 – 1888)
The Evening Star
• fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: # Classic Poetry Archive, Archive G-H, Archive G-H
Spring Night
The park is filled with night and fog,
The veils are drawn about the world,
The drowsy lights along the paths
Are dim and pearled.
Gold and gleaming the empty streets,
Gold and gleaming the misty lake,
The mirrored lights like sunken swords,
Glimmer and shake.
Oh, is it not enough to be
Here with this beauty over me?
My throat should ache with praise, and I
Should kneel in joy beneath the sky.
O, beauty, are you not enough?
Why am I crying after love,
With youth, a singing voice, and eyes
To take earth’s wonder with surprise?
Why have I put off my pride,
Why am I unsatisfied,
I, for whom the pensive night
Binds her cloudy hair with light,
I, for whom all beauty burns
Like incense in a million urns?
O beauty, are you not enough?
Why am I crying after love?
Sara Teasdale
(1884-1933)
Spring Night
• fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: 4SEASONS#Spring, Archive S-T, Archive S-T, Natural history, Teasdale, Sara
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