Love Is Strong
A VIEWLESS thing is the wind,
But its strength is mightier far
Than a phalanxed host in battle line,
Than the limbs of a Samson are.
And a viewless thing is Love,
And a name that vanisheth;
But her strength is the wind’s wild strength above,
For she conquers shame and Death.
poem by Richard Francis Burton
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The First Song
A POET writ a song of May
That checked his breath awhile;
He kept it for a summer day,
Then spake with half a smile:
“Oh, little song of purity,
Of mystic to-and-fro,
You are so much a part of me
I dare not let you go.”
And so he made a sister-song
With more of cunning art;
But held the first his whole life long
Deep hidden in his heart.
poem by Richard Francis Burton
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In Sleep
NOT drowsihood and dreams and mere idless,
Nor yet the blessedness of strength regained,
Alone are in what men call sleep. The past,
My unsuspected soul, my parents’ voice,
The generations of my forbears, yea,
The very will of God himself are there
And potent-working: so that many a doubt
Is wiped away at daylight, many a soil
Washed cleanlier, many a puzzle riddled plain.
Strong, silent forces push my puny self
Towards unguessed issues, and the waking man
Rises a Greatheart where a Slave lay down.
poem by Richard Francis Burton
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The Polar Quest
UNCONQUERABLY, men venture on the quest
And seek an ocean amplitude unsailed,
Cold, virgin, awful. Scorning ease and rest,
And heedless of the heroes who have failed,
They face the ice floes with a dauntless zest.
The polar quest! Life’s offer to the strong!
To pass beyond the pale, to do and dare,
Leaving a name that stirs us like a song.
And making captive some strange Otherwhere,
Though grim the conquest, and the labor long.
Forever courage kindles, faith moves forth
To find the mystic floodway of the North.
poem by Richard Francis Burton
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Extras
THE CROCUSES in the Square
Lend a winsome touch to the May;
The clouds are vanished away,
The weather is bland and fair;
Now peace seems everywhere.
Hark to the raucous, sullen cries:
“Extra! extra!”—tersely flies
The news, and a great hope mounts, or dies.
About the bulletin-boards
Dark knots of people surge;
Strained faces show, then merge
In the inconspicuous hordes
That yet are the Nation’s lords.
“Extra! extra! Big fight at sea!”
Was the luck with us? Is it victory?
Dear God, they died for you and me!
Meanwhile the crocuses down the street
With heaven’s own patience are calm and sweet.
poem by Richard Francis Burton
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An Unpraised Picture
I SAW a picture once by Angelo.
“Unfinished,” said the critic; “done in youth;”
And that was all, no thought of praise, forsooth!
He was informed, and doubtless it was so.
And yet, I let an hour of dreaming go
The way of all time, touched to tears and ruth,
Passion and joy, the prick of conscience’ tooth,
Before that careworn Christ’s divine, soft glow.
The painter’s yearning with an unsure hand
Had moved me more than might his master days;
He seemed to speak like one whose Meccaland
Is first beheld, though faint and far the ways;
Who may not then his shaken voice command,
Yet trembles forth a word of prayer and praise.
poem by Richard Francis Burton
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The Forefather
HERE at the country inn,
I lie in my quiet bed,
And the ardent onrush of armies
Throbs and throbs in my head.
Why, in this calm, sweet place,
Where only silence is heard,
Am I ware of the crash of conflict,—
Is my blood to battle stirred?
Without, the night is blessed
With the smell of pines, with stars;
Within, is the mood of slumber,
The healing of daytime scars.
’T is strange,—yet I am thrall
To epic agonies;
The tumult of myriads dying
Is borne to me on the breeze.
[...] Read more
poem by Richard Francis Burton
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Black Sheep
FROM their folded mates they wander far,
Their ways seem harsh and wild:
They follow the beck of a baleful star,
Their paths are dream-beguiled.
Yet haply they sought but a wider range,
Some loftier mountain slope,
And little recked of the country strange
Beyond the gates of hope.
And haply a bell with a luring call
Summoned their feet to tread
Midst the cruel rocks, where the deep pitfall
And the lurking snare are spread.
Maybe, in spite of their tameless days
Of outcast liberty,
They ’re sick at heart for the homely ways
Where their gathered brothers be.
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poem by Richard Francis Burton
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On A Ferry Boat
THE RIVER widens to a pathless sea
Beneath the rain and mist and sullen skies.
Look out the window; ’t is a gray emprise,
This piloting of massed humanity
On such a day, from shore to busy shore,
And breeds the thought that beauty is no more.
But see yon woman in the cabin seat,
The Southland in her face and foreign dress;
She bends above a babe, with tenderness
That mothers use; her mouth grows soft and sweet.
Then, lifting eyes, ye saints in heaven, what pain
In that strange look of hers into the rain!
There lies a vivid band of scarlet red
With careless grace across her raven hair;
Her cheek burns brown; and ’t is her way to wear
A gown where colors stand in satin’s stead.
Her eye gleams dark as any you may see
Along the winding roads of Italy.
[...] Read more
poem by Richard Francis Burton
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