On Olympus.
The high noises,
The great voices,
They of the sky
In the clouds wrangle,
Jar it and jangle
Till Death shall die.
In the bright houses
With their false spouses
The high ones rave —
Gods in a passion,
As those in their fashion
Who go to the grave.
Out of the portal
Where never a mortal
Has climbed or been,
Their insane thunder
Comes to us under
The holy demesne.
poem by Robert Crawford
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Work.
For thyself work, not for another, so
'Tis possible; else all thy worth is his
Whose maybe paltry payment scarce serves to
The base sufficing of thy bed and board:
And all thy days to this sad use are given,
Till age or sickness shall subdue thy pith,
And put thee on the Jewish mercy of
The monstrous world, ere like a brute's, alas!
Thy poor remainder finds a burial.
poem by Robert Crawford
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The Charm.
O touch her with thy heavenly beams,
Bright Moon! that she may know
Within his paradise of dreams
Love died not long ago.
Though Helen's eyes are dust, and she
No more in Ilion sighs,
Love still is Love (tell her) and we
Are but his late allies!
We bear his burning shield and spear,
True knights in Beauty's war —
We who are women's offspring here,
And made for women are.
poem by Robert Crawford
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Supernatural Discernment.
If we could spy into each other, ken
The heathen aims and the familiar evils
That in the seeming good and virtuous reign;
If we could only pierce the fallacy
Each of the other, strip convention off,
And in our nakedness strut up and down
For thought's perusal — what a world 'twould be,
If then, like God all-seeing, we could come
Straight to the truth of others and ourselves!
poem by Robert Crawford
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Men And Women.
It is not that I love you — nay! and yet
Had I a lover, he would have your eyes,
Your lips, and be in all like you. Sir, see
This is a rose the winds have harried. Oh!
Here is a violet marred, a lily there.
Poor girls, their love or lover was too cruel;
And we are like them — we you men call flowers;
We, too, like these, are hurt with love, and lie
On the sweet earth so forsaken.
poem by Robert Crawford
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Threnody.
Dark Pine that moanest long,
Sad, solitary tree!
As if the world's wrong
A tongue had found in thee,
Sad as when Ariel
Cursed by the witch's spell
Endured his pitiable
Period of misery.
When will time's Prospero
Come with his cure for thee?
The world in weary woe
Wails for its liberty.
Till it shall look above
Unto the heavenly Love
Nothing the world may move,
Sin-shut in Sorrow's tree!
poem by Robert Crawford
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To Lynette.
God knows that I love you, I love you, and yet
He knows, too, I'm weary, Lynette, O Lynette!
He gave me the love-feeling, the tired feeling, too;
Will He take them together, and part me from you?
Could I sleep for a hundred sun-seasons, and then
Wake ... would you be waiting to kiss me again?
To live still and love you, life-weary ... and yet
Would even Death charm me without you, Lynette!
poem by Robert Crawford
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Loss.
She gave the day its heart of fire,
She gave the night her soul of flame;
The sun and moon translated through
Her love as gods became.
She filled me with unearthly strength,
A power not of my own was mine;
She passed, and crumbled into dust
And ashes my divine.
The Night knows not how fair she is
Before the stars come in the sky:
It is the light within ourselves
We see ourselves and others by.
poem by Robert Crawford
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A River Isle.
A little island in the river
There is, round which the breezes quiver
Like sweet birds that would stay
A moment on their way,
So green it is with leaves and grass,
And chequered by the clouds that pass
Far over in the blue above:
As sweet with flowers as life with love,
And breathing of a mood
That, like a wild bird in the city's din,
Though far from all its kith and kin,
Sustains its solitude.
poem by Robert Crawford
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True Love.
It is the very tune of hearts, and rhythms
To all occasions truly musical.
He sticks as fast to her each whim as does
The scarabaeus to its curious ball,
As if life's very destiny were in it;
And as the thing would rather die than part
With what occasions her so much turmoil,
I swear by what I now of true love know,
He'd dare even death rather than banished be
From her who has become a part of him.
poem by Robert Crawford
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