Natural Gifts.
The gifts o' the gods; not all men have them, ay,
And some indeed that have them know it not;
And some that have them not, deem that they have,
And there's the mischief: it is this that makes
So many failures, tempts men to betray
Their proper selves, and on a false surmise
Of what they are or will be, lures them to
Their own undoing; as pirate lights decoy
Unwary mariners to ruin on
A monstrous shore.
poem by Robert Crawford
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At The Back Of The Brain.
At the back of the brain a picture lies
Of all we have been and done,
And ever and then a color flames
In the shadow of thought's sun.
At the back of the brain our life-tale's writ
In wondrous words and fine,
And poet and painter but mimic it,
Your life, my friend, and mine.
They are God's spies it may be, yet
They lack the art to limn
The back of the brain of a man that moves
And makes a dream of him.
poem by Robert Crawford
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Cheery Old Age.
The old man is not miserable, nay, cheery
For such a grey old fellow. Life's still good,
And he at many points is yet in touch
With the material; and what if now
He has not the old energy to sling
The passion of his nature off, he can
Beat many a fancy from its ambush; tease
A knotty problem with the best; in fine,
Go up and down the thoroughfares of thought,
And nobly don a holiday attire
To suit the season.
poem by Robert Crawford
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Song #6.
We have this life, this love only —
Kiss me on the mouth, my own!
Dust we'll soon be through the ages,
And who'll reck when we are gone?
Let us take what love can give us;
We'll find naught more sweet and true
In this life-time and this love-time,
In Time's dreamland, I and you.
What is after's so uncertain,
Love's the one thing Life has known;
And, while we have its dream in us,
Kiss me on the mouth, my own!
poem by Robert Crawford
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Winged Words
The winged words, they pass
Still everywhere,
Seeds of the spirit-grass
The dream-winds bear
From that heart-field to this,
Where thought as feeling is;
There’s not a seed will miss
Life, once sown there.
They pass, the faery words,
In shade and shine,
As they were magic birds
This heart of mine
Gave shape and colour to,
As in the light and dew
The primal creatures grew
From germs divine.
poem by Robert Crawford
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Bottom's Dream.
Bottom's dream had no bottom; ours may, too,
Have no foundation. We may wake, indeed;
But all seems such a vision, none can say
(If aught's real) where reality begins.
What if we were dead now — if this were death,
And we had been alive long, long ago,
And here and now were in an after-life!
Thought sets us to a tune that we can sing;
But, like the rustic waked in fairyland,
It's all too hard for us to understand.
poem by Robert Crawford
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Song #12.
I have brought thee all the faith
That a man can give,
I have sheltered thee with love,
O life's fugitive!
Round thy feet in the dank night
Death his snare had cast:
Haply in the future thou
Wilt forget the past.
From the cruel thing that would
E'en have ta'en thy breath
I have lifted thee in love
'Yond the doom of death.
Lean thy breast upon my brain,
Let thy faint heart beat
Near me, near me, nearer now,
my own, my sweet!
poem by Robert Crawford
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Life And Death.
We come like bats that out of a dark cave
Have suddenly been scared into the day,
Blear-eyed and vexed as here and there they flap,
Unnatural denizens of such a world.
So seem we all, as this were not our home,
And we, as aliens in these elements,
Move here and there, purblind, heart-weary, and
Possessed with many fears, till Death's new dark
Shows us our passage back to the old cave,
Whence Birth before may have affrighted us.
poem by Robert Crawford
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Womanhood.
She feels the world, it touches her
Like a weird thing she needs must know,
While all her fears and fancies stir
As in a death-dream long ago.
She has passed from her youth to this —
A woman grown with misty eyes,
Knowing the world no nunnery is
For the heart stripped of its disguise.
Her feet now pace a thorny path
Where mournful hopes like fiends confer,
And e'en the power her beauty hath
Seems one with what would ruin her.
poem by Robert Crawford
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Love's Mesmerism.
When you are with me I put by the world
In having you. When I can hear and see you,
All else is dark and dumb; or is it, Sweet,
You then are all, and I the dreamer know
No life but yours? But when that you are gone,
All things do image you, they do live then
For me, and in a thousand lights and shadows
A thousand voices echo you, until
Your presence dumbs and darkens them again:
Love has so made you, dearest, one with all
In and without me.
poem by Robert Crawford
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