Dark Muse
08-22-2008, 08:48 PM
When I read A White Rose I just fell in love with it, so I could not skip over this poet, even though it was hard finding other works by him. White Rose I think is such a beautifully romantic poem. I did find a wonderful little sea-fearing poem of his which I placed in my Sea Ballads thread. But I was able to find a few more poems that I thought were interesting, though not as good as A White Rose.
A White Rose
THE red rose whispers of passion,
And the white rose breathes of love;
Oh, the red rose is a falcon,
And the white rose is a dove.
But I send you a cream-white rosebud,
With a flush on its petal tips;
For the love that is purest and sweetest
Has a kiss of desire on the lips
The Cry of the Dreamer
I AM tired of planning and toiling
In the crowded hives of men,
Heart-weary of building and spoiling,
And spoiling and building again,
And I long for the dear old river,
Where I dreamed my youth away;
For a dreamer lives forever,
And a toiler dies in a day.
I am sick of the showy seeming,
Of life that is half a lie;
Of the faces lined with scheming
In the throng that hurries by;
From the sleepless thought's endeavor
I would go where the children play;
For a dreamer lives forever,
And a thinker dies in a day.
I can feel no pride, but pity,
For the burdens the rich endure;
There is nothing sweet in the city
But the patient lives of the poor.
Oh, the little hands too skillful,
And the child-mind choked with weeds!
The daughter's heart grown willful
And the father's heart that bleeds!
No! no! from the street's rude bustle,
From trophies of mart and stage,
I would fly to the wood's low rustle
And the meadows' kindly page.
Let me dream as of old by the river,
And be loved for my dreams alway;
For a dreamer lives forever,
And the toiler dies in a day.
The Useless Ones
Poets should not reason:
Let them sing!
Argument is treason --
Bells should ring.
Statements none, nor questions;
Gnomic words.
Spirit-cries, suggestions,
Like the birds.
He may use deduction
Who must preach;
He may praise instruction
Who must teach;
But the poet duly
Fills his part
When the song bursts truly
From his heart.
For no purpose springing;
For no pelf:
He must do the singing
For itself.
Not in lines austerely
Let him build;
Not the surface merely
Let him gild.
Fearless, uninvited,
Like a spring.
Opal-words, inlighted,
Let him sing.
As the leaf grows sunward
Song must grow;
As the stream flows onward
Song must flow.
Useless? Ay, -- for measure;
Roses die,
35But their breath gives pleasure --
God knows why!
Living
To toil all day and lie worn-out at night;
To rise for all the years to slave and sleep,
And breed new broods to do no other thing
In toiling, bearing, breeding -- life is this
To myriad men, too base for man or brute.
To serve for common duty, while the brain
Is hot with high desire to be distinct;
To fill the sand-grain place among the stones
That build the social wall in million sameness,
Is life by leave, and death by insignificance.
To live the morbid years, with dripping blood
Of sacrificial labor for a Thought;
To take the dearest hope and lay it down
Beneath the crushing wheels for love of Freedom;
To bear the sordid jeers of cant and trade,
And go on hewing for a far ideal, --
This were a life worth giving to a cause,
If cause be found so worth a martyr life.
But highest life of man, nor work nor sacrifice,
But utter seeing of the things that be!
To pass amid the hurrying crowds, and watch
The hungry race for things of vulgar use;
To mark the growth of baser lines in men;
To note the bending to a servile rule;
To know the natural discord called disease
That rots like rust the blood and souls of men;
To test the wisdoms and philosophies by touch
Of that which is immutable, being clear,
The beam God opens to the poet's brain;
To see with eyes of pity laboring souls
Strive upward to the Freedom and the Truth,
And still be backward dragged by fear and ignorance;
To see the beauty of the world, and hear
The rising harmony of growth, whose shade
Of undertone is harmonized decay;
To know that love is life -- that blood is one
And rushes to the union -- that the heart
is like a cup athirst for wine of love;
Who sees and feels this meaning utterly,
The wrong of law, the right of man, the natural truth.
Partaking not of selfish aims, withholding not
The word that strengthens and the hand that helps:
Who waits and sympathizes with the pettiest life,
And loves all things, and reaches up to God
With thanks and blessing -- He alone is living.
A White Rose
THE red rose whispers of passion,
And the white rose breathes of love;
Oh, the red rose is a falcon,
And the white rose is a dove.
But I send you a cream-white rosebud,
With a flush on its petal tips;
For the love that is purest and sweetest
Has a kiss of desire on the lips
The Cry of the Dreamer
I AM tired of planning and toiling
In the crowded hives of men,
Heart-weary of building and spoiling,
And spoiling and building again,
And I long for the dear old river,
Where I dreamed my youth away;
For a dreamer lives forever,
And a toiler dies in a day.
I am sick of the showy seeming,
Of life that is half a lie;
Of the faces lined with scheming
In the throng that hurries by;
From the sleepless thought's endeavor
I would go where the children play;
For a dreamer lives forever,
And a thinker dies in a day.
I can feel no pride, but pity,
For the burdens the rich endure;
There is nothing sweet in the city
But the patient lives of the poor.
Oh, the little hands too skillful,
And the child-mind choked with weeds!
The daughter's heart grown willful
And the father's heart that bleeds!
No! no! from the street's rude bustle,
From trophies of mart and stage,
I would fly to the wood's low rustle
And the meadows' kindly page.
Let me dream as of old by the river,
And be loved for my dreams alway;
For a dreamer lives forever,
And the toiler dies in a day.
The Useless Ones
Poets should not reason:
Let them sing!
Argument is treason --
Bells should ring.
Statements none, nor questions;
Gnomic words.
Spirit-cries, suggestions,
Like the birds.
He may use deduction
Who must preach;
He may praise instruction
Who must teach;
But the poet duly
Fills his part
When the song bursts truly
From his heart.
For no purpose springing;
For no pelf:
He must do the singing
For itself.
Not in lines austerely
Let him build;
Not the surface merely
Let him gild.
Fearless, uninvited,
Like a spring.
Opal-words, inlighted,
Let him sing.
As the leaf grows sunward
Song must grow;
As the stream flows onward
Song must flow.
Useless? Ay, -- for measure;
Roses die,
35But their breath gives pleasure --
God knows why!
Living
To toil all day and lie worn-out at night;
To rise for all the years to slave and sleep,
And breed new broods to do no other thing
In toiling, bearing, breeding -- life is this
To myriad men, too base for man or brute.
To serve for common duty, while the brain
Is hot with high desire to be distinct;
To fill the sand-grain place among the stones
That build the social wall in million sameness,
Is life by leave, and death by insignificance.
To live the morbid years, with dripping blood
Of sacrificial labor for a Thought;
To take the dearest hope and lay it down
Beneath the crushing wheels for love of Freedom;
To bear the sordid jeers of cant and trade,
And go on hewing for a far ideal, --
This were a life worth giving to a cause,
If cause be found so worth a martyr life.
But highest life of man, nor work nor sacrifice,
But utter seeing of the things that be!
To pass amid the hurrying crowds, and watch
The hungry race for things of vulgar use;
To mark the growth of baser lines in men;
To note the bending to a servile rule;
To know the natural discord called disease
That rots like rust the blood and souls of men;
To test the wisdoms and philosophies by touch
Of that which is immutable, being clear,
The beam God opens to the poet's brain;
To see with eyes of pity laboring souls
Strive upward to the Freedom and the Truth,
And still be backward dragged by fear and ignorance;
To see the beauty of the world, and hear
The rising harmony of growth, whose shade
Of undertone is harmonized decay;
To know that love is life -- that blood is one
And rushes to the union -- that the heart
is like a cup athirst for wine of love;
Who sees and feels this meaning utterly,
The wrong of law, the right of man, the natural truth.
Partaking not of selfish aims, withholding not
The word that strengthens and the hand that helps:
Who waits and sympathizes with the pettiest life,
And loves all things, and reaches up to God
With thanks and blessing -- He alone is living.