Fleurs du Mal Magazine
Or see the index
The Breath
A trembling crest
Of smoke, the winter sky
Congeals to bloom,
To please a poet’s eye:
A slender reed
Arisen from some gold
Recess or womb
Of flame to spaces cold.
Between the twigs,
That for a nest are spun
On flight’s grey loom,
A sapphire thread may run
And so between the grey,
The woven boughs of trees,
A little plume
Of mist the poet sees :
It will suffice —
Too scant a breath to name
For him to whom
It signifies a flame.
Gladys Cromwell
(1885-1919)
The Breath
From: Poems 1919
• fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive C-D, Cromwell, Gladys, Gladys Cromwell
Compensation
You never told me, never, yet I know
You hold a sadness in disguise, unseen
Behind the days and years that intervene
Since you renounced ambition long ago.
Whence comes the tender love that you bestow
To feed our loves? Behind your self serene
There burns a golden passion, how you screen
With radiant life the flame you must forego !
Then you assume our love is ample meed,
Atonement, oh ! I wonder any deed
Of ours can ease your spirit s lassitude,
Or lift your lonely heart ! Our stars elude
Your sun that made them bright your solitude.
Deprived, no boon avails to fill your need.
Gladys Cromwell
(1885-1919)
Compensation
From: Songs of the Dust, 1915
• fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive C-D, Cromwell, Gladys, Gladys Cromwell
The Crowning Gift
I have had courage to accuse;
And a fine wit that could upbraid;
And a nice cunning that could bruise;
And a shrewd wisdom, unafraid
Of what weak mortals fear to lose.
I have had virtue to despise
The sophistry of pious fools;
I have had firmness to chastise;
And intellect to make me rules,
To estimate and exorcise.
I have had knowledge to be true;
My faith could obstacles remove;
But now, by failure taught anew,
I would have courage now to love,
And lay aside the strength I knew.
Gladys Cromwell
(1885-1919)
The Crowning Gift
• fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive C-D, Cromwell, Gladys, Gladys Cromwell
The Fugitive
Fool, fool,
They can hear thy frighted feet,
And they poke fun at thee,
Or pity thee,
Or pity thee.
They can hear thy steps retreat,
Shuffling timidly.
Thy gait is hobbling and uncouth,
For stubborn is earth’s clay;
There was a day,
There was a day,
When from the doom of its own youth,
Thy spirit stole away.
Do they not know thy spirit’s home?
Thy spirit, glancing, glides
Beneath all tides,
Beneath all tides.
It is a coral under foam;
In the cool deep it hides.
For lo, the yielding element
Of immortality
Is like the sea,
Is like the sea.
Do they not hear, in wonderment,
The tides enfolding thee?
Gladys Cromwell
(1885-1919)
The Fugitive
• fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive C-D, Cromwell, Gladys, Gladys Cromwell
Transmission
A shell, expressed the verity
In tones more limpid than the sea,
Distilled the sea s infinity.
A mellow leaf disclosed the true
In more than sun s pellucid hue,
The sun was tinged in passing through.
A wing revealed the sky unseen,
Till motion made the air serene,
A wing a soaring life, I mean.
Gladys Cromwell
(1885-1919)
Transmission
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive C-D, Cromwell, Gladys, Gladys Cromwell
Preparation
A time will come when I shall breathe
New melodies to soothe and fold,
Like portions of a mellow sheath,
My sorrow. While my songs withhold
Their tones, I pause before the years;
I gaze on the grey world ; I strive
To clear the mist of doubting tears.
My songs, what music you ll derive
From silence in the time to come!
Gladys Cromwell
(1885-1919)
Preparation
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive C-D, Cromwell, Gladys, Gladys Cromwell
Grief
Exultant whirlwind wrung the branches ;
And the weak leaves were loosed with power.
I heard the pelting dissonances ;
Anguish in the autumn shower.
But living petals now take wing
Like butterflies with dusky flashes;
April flutters her white ashes
Inaudibly, remembering.
Gladys Cromwell
(1885-1919)
Grief
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive C-D, Cromwell, Gladys, Gladys Cromwell
The Actor-Soldier
On the grass I m lying,
My blanket is the sky ;
This feeling is called dying.
No one will testify
They saw me suffer this ;
There s no one passing by.
The wonder of it is,
I m by myself at last
With plain realities.
No one is here to cast
A part for me to play ;
My term of life is past.
No one is here to see
How I can meet and take
This end ; how gallantly
Though the ice that binds a lake
Must weigh less heavily
Than Death to my soul awake.
Gladys Cromwell
(1885-1919)
The Actor-Soldier
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive C-D, Cromwell, Gladys, Gladys Cromwell
The Poet
O tell me, tell me,
How did you drain
Your song to drops
Clear as rain?
What labor, what sorrow,
What sacrifice,
Crystal d your song
To beryl ice?
What burning gladness
Warmed it again
To a vapor sweet,
Clear as rain?
O tell me, tell me,
Melody s price
Is it work, is it pain,
Is it sacrifice?
Gladys Cromwell
(1885-1919)
The Poet
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: *War Poetry Archive, Archive C-D, Cromwell, Gladys, Gladys Cromwell
Star Song
There are twisted roots that grow
Even from a fragile white anemone.
But a star has no roots; to and fro
It floats in the light of the sky, like a water-lily,
And fades on the blue flood of day.
A star has no roots to hold it,
No living lonely entity to lose.
Floods of dim radiance fold it;
Night and day their silent aura transfuse;
But no change a star can bruise.
A star is adrift and free.
When day comes, it floats into space and complies;
Like a spirit quietly,
Like a spirit, amazed in a wider paradise
At mortal tears and sighs.
Gladys Cromwell
(1885-1919)
Star Song
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive C-D, Cromwell, Gladys, Gladys Cromwell
The Mould
No doubt this active will,
So bravely steeped in sun,
This will has vanquished Death
And foiled oblivion.
But this indifferent clay,
This fine experienced hand,
So quiet, and these thoughts
That all unfinished stand,
Feel death as though it were
A shadowy caress;
And win and wear a frail
Archaic wistfulness.
Gladys Cromwell
(1885-1919)
The Mould
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive C-D, CLASSIC POETRY, Cromwell, Gladys, Gladys Cromwell
Thank you for reading Fleurs du Mal - magazine for art & literature