Age poems
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King Candaules And The Doctor Of Laws
© Jean de La Fontaine
IN life oft ills from self-imprudence spring;
As proof, Candaules' story we will bring;
In folly's scenes the king was truly great:
His vassal, Gyges, had from him a bait,
The like in gallantry was rarely known,
And want of prudence never more was shown.
Belphegor Addressed To Miss De Chammelay
© Jean de La Fontaine
NO hope of gaining such a charming fair,
Too soon, perhaps, I ceded to despair;
Your friend, was all I ventured to be thought,
Though in your net I more than half was caught.
Most willingly your lover I'd have been;
But time it is our story should be seen.
A Confidant Without Knowing It; Or The Stratagem
© Jean de La Fontaine
I NOW propose to give a fav'rite tale :--
The god of Love was never known to fail,
In finding stratagems, as I have read,
And many have I seen most nicely spread.
Carrowmore
© George William Russell
ITS a lonely road through bogland to the lake at Carrowmore,
And a sleeper there lies dreaming where the water laps the shore;
Though the moth-wings of the twilight in their purples are unfurled,
Yet his sleep is filled with music by the masters of the world.
Glory and Shadow
© George William Russell
SHADOWWHO art thou, O Glory,
In flame from the deep
Where stars chant their story;
Why trouble my sleep?
The Grey Eros
© George William Russell
WE are desert leagues apart;
Time is misty ages now
Since the warmth of heart to heart
Chased the shadows from my brow.
The Fountain of Shadowy Beauty
© George William Russell
I WOULD I could weave in
The colour, the wonder,
The song I conceive in
My heart while I ponder,
Inheritance
© George William Russell
And not alone unto your birth
Their gifts the weeping ages bore,
The old descents of God on earth
Have dowered thee with celestial lore:
So, wise, and filled with sad and gay
You pass unto the further day.
The Voice of the Waters
© George William Russell
WHERE the Greyhound River windeth through a loneliness so deep,
Scarce a wild fowl shakes the quiet that the purple boglands keep,
Only God exults in silence over fields no man may reap.
Om
© George William Russell
FAINT grew the yellow buds of light
Far flickering beyond the snows,
As leaning oer the shadowy white
Morn glimmered like a pale primrose.
The Parting of Ways
© George William Russell
THE SKIES from black to pearly grey
Had veered without a star or sun;
Only a burning opal ray
Fell on your brow when all was done.
Comfort
© George William Russell
DARK head by the fireside brooding,
Where upon your ears
Whirlwinds of the earth intruding
Sound in wrath and tears:
The Master Singer
© George William Russell
A LAUGHTER in the diamond air, a music in the trembling grass;
And one by one the words of light as joydrops through my being pass:
I am the sunlight in the heart, the silver moon-glow in the mind;
My laughter runs and ripples through the wavy tresses of the wind.
The Everlasting Battle
© George William Russell
WHEN in my shadowy hours I pierce the hidden heart of hopes and fears,
They change into immortal joys or end in immemorial tears.
Moyturas battle still endures and in this human heart of mine
The golden sun powers with the might of demon darkness intertwine.
The Faces of Memory
© George William Russell
DREAM faces bloom around your face
Like flowers upon one stem;
The heart of many a vanished race
Sighs as I look on them.
The Dream of the Children
© George William Russell
THE CHILDREN awoke in their dreaming
While earth lay dewy and still:
They followed the rill in its gleaming
To the heart-light of the hill.
Affinity
© George William Russell
YOU and I have found the secret way,
None can bar our love or say us nay:
All the world may stare and never know
You and I are twined together so.
A Vision of Beauty
© George William Russell
WHERE we sat at dawn together, while the star-rich heavens shifted,
We were weaving dreams in silence, suddenly the veil was lifted.
By a hand of fire awakened, in a moment caught and led
Upward to the heaven of heavensthrough the star-mists overhead
The Great Breath
© George William Russell
ITS edges foamed with amethyst and rose,
Withers once more the old blue flower of day:
There where the ether like a diamond glows
Its petals fade away.
Manteau Three
© Jorie Graham
must it tangles up into a weave,
tied up with votive offerings laws, electricity
what the speakers let loose from their tiny eternity,
what the empty streets held up as offering
when only a bit of wind
litigated in the sycamores,
