Epilogue
If I have studied here in part
A tale as old as maiden's heart,
'Tis that I do see herein
Shadow of more piteous sin.
She, that but giving part, not whole,
Took even the part back, is the Soul:
And that so disdain-ed Lover--
Best unthought, since Love is over.
Love to invite, desire, and fear,
And Love's exactions cost too dear
Count for Love's possession,--ah,
Thy way, misera Anima!
To give the pledge, and yet be pined
That a pledge should have force to bind,
This, O Soul, too often still
Is the recreance of thy will!
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poem by Francis Thompson
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Dream tryst
The breaths of kissing night and day
Were mingled in the eastern Heaven,
Throbbing with unheard melody,
Shook Lyra all its star-cloud seven.
When dusk shrank cold, and light trod shy,
And dawn's grey eyes were troubled grey;
And souls went palely up to the sky,
And mine to Lucidè,
There was no change in her sweet eyes
Since last I saw those sweet eyes shine;
There was no change in her deep heart
Since last that deep heart knocked at mine.
Her eyes were clear, her eyes were Hope's,
Wherein did ever come and go;
The sparkle of the fountain drops
From her sweet soul below.
The chambers in the house of dream
Are fed with so divine an air,
That Time's hoar wings grow young therein,
And they who walk there are most fair.
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poem by Francis Thompson
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Grief's Harmonics
At evening, when the lank and rigid trees,
To the mere forms of their sweet day-selves drying,
On heaven's blank leaf seem pressed and flatten-ed;
Or rather, to my sombre thoughts replying,
Of plumes funereal the thin effigies;
That hour when all old dead things seem most dead,
And their death instant most and most undying,
That the flesh aches at them; there stirred in me
The babe of an unborn calamity,
Ere its due time to be deliver-ed.
Dead sorrow and sorrow unborn so blent their pain,
That which more present was were hardly said,
But both more NOW than any Now can be.
My soul like sackcloth did her body rend,
And thus with Heaven contend:-
'Let pass the chalice of this coming dread,
Or that fore-drained O bid me not re-drain!'
So have I asked, who know my asking vain,
Woe against woe in antiphon set over,
That grief's soul transmigrates, and lives again,
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poem by Francis Thompson
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The Kingdom of God
'_In no Strange Land_'
O world invisible, we view thee,
O world intangible, we touch thee,
O world unknowable, we know thee,
Inapprehensible, we clutch thee!
Does the fish soar to find the ocean,
The eagle plunge to find the air--
That we ask of the stars in motion
If they have rumour of thee there?
Not where the wheeling systems darken,
And our benumbed conceiving soars!--
The drift of pinions, would we hearken,
Beats at our own clay-shuttered doors.
The angels keep their ancient places;--
Turn but a stone, and start a wing!
'Tis ye, 'tis your estranged faces,
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poem by Francis Thompson
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After Her Going
The after-even! Ah, did I walk,
Indeed, in her or even?
For nothing of me or around
But absent She did leaven,
Felt in my body as its soul,
And in my soul its heaven.
'Ah me! my very flesh turns soul,
Essenced,' I sighed, 'with bliss!'
And the blackbird held his lutany,
All fragrant-through with bliss;
And all things stilled were as a maid
Sweet with a single kiss.
For grief of perfect fairness, eve
Could nothing do but smile;
The time was far too perfect fair,
Being but for a while;
And ah, in me, too happy grief
Blinded herself with smile!
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poem by Francis Thompson
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In No Strange Land
The kingdom of God is within you
O world invisible, we view thee,
O world intangible, we touch thee,
O world unknowable, we know thee,
Inapprehensible, we clutch thee!
Does the fish soar to find the ocean,
The eagle plunge to find the air--
That we ask of the stars in motion
If they have rumor of thee there?
Not where the wheeling systems darken,
And our benumbed conceiving soars!--
The drift of pinions, would we hearken,
Beats at our own clay-shuttered doors.
The angels keep their ancient places--
Turn but a stone and start a wing!
'Tis ye, 'tis your estrangèd faces,
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poem by Francis Thompson
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The Way Of A Maid
The lover whose soul shaken is
In some decuman billow of bliss,
Who feels his gradual-wading feet
Sink in some sudden hollow of sweet,
And 'mid love's us-ed converse comes
Sharp on a mood which all joy sums--
An instant's fine compendium of
The liberal-leav-ed writ of love;
His abashed pulses beating thick
At the exigent joy and quick,
Is dumbed, by aiming utterance great
Up to the miracle of his fate.
The wise girl, such Icarian fall
Saved by her confidence that she's small,--
As what no kindred word will fit
Is uttered best by opposite,
Love in the tongue of hate exprest,
And deepest anguish in a jest,--
Feeling the infinite must be
Best said by triviality,
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poem by Francis Thompson
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A May Burden
Though meadow-ways as I did tread,
The corn grew in great lustihead,
And hey! the beeches burgeoned.
By Goddes fay, by Goddes fay!
It is the month, the jolly month,
It is the jolly month of May.
God ripe the wines and corn, I say,
And wenches for the marriage-day,
And boys to teach love's comely play.
By Goddes fay, by Goddes fay!
It is the month, the jolly month,
It is the jolly month of May.
As I went down by lane and lea,
The daisies reddened so, pardie!
'Blushets!' I said, 'I well do see,
By Goddes fay, by Goddes fay!
The thing ye think of in this month,
Heigho! this jolly month of May.'
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Penelope
Love, like a wind, shook wide your blosmy eyes,
You trembled, and your breath came sobbing-wise
For that you loved me.
You were so kind, so sweet, none could withhold
To adore, but that you were so strange, so cold;
For that you loved me.
Like to a box of spikenard did you break
Your heart about my feet. What words you spake!
For that you loved me.
Life fell to dust without me; so you tried
All carefullest ways to drive me from your side,
For that you loved me.
You gave yourself as children give, that weep
And snatch back, with--'I meant you not to keep!'
For that you loved me.
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poem by Francis Thompson
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A Question
O bird with heart of wassail,
That toss the Bacchic branch,
And slip your shaken music,
An elfin avalanche;
Come tell me, O tell me,
My poet of the blue!
What's YOUR thought of me, Sweet?--
Here's MY thought of you.
A small thing, a wee thing,
A brown fleck of nought;
With winging and singing
That who could have thought?
A small thing, a wee thing,
A brown amaze withal,
That fly a pitch more azure
Because you're so small.
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poem by Francis Thompson
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