To The Tiber
On its late (in 1871) Inundation of Rome
Well done, old Flood, that, hiding a clear eye
Beneath thy yellow veil, dost wend among
Those epic hills and dales of seven-topp'd song,
To keep watch on the stone eternity
Whereof the mortal tenants die and die;
One more is gone, the deadliest of the long
Line, the foul vast of whose unmeasured wrong
Twined to its summit in the triple Lie
Of that thrice-cursèd Crown. And thou, brave flood,
Enterest a thousand years of carrion
To swill away the deeps of dung and blood,
And drown the garbaged tribes that stank thereon,
That so, at least, the new investiture
Be on clean threshold and a hearth-stone pure.
poem by Sydney Thompson Dobell
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The Wounded
'Thou canst not wish to live,' the surgeon said.
He clutched him, as a soul thrust forth from bliss
Clings to the ledge of Heaven! 'Would'st thou keep this
Poor branchless trunk?' 'But she would lean my head
Upon her breast; oh, let me live!' 'Be wise.'
'I could be very happy; both these eyes
Are left me; I should see her; she would kiss
My forehead: only let me live.'-He dies
Even in the passionate prayer. 'Good Doctor, say
If thou canst give more than another day
Of life?' 'I think there may be hope.' 'Pass on.
I will not buy it with some widow's son!'
'Help,' 'help,' 'help,' 'help!' 'God curse thee!' 'Doctor, stay,
Yon Frenchman went down earlier in the day.'
poem by Sydney Thompson Dobell
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The Sailor's Return
This morn I lay a-dreaming,
This morn, this merry morn,
When the cock crew shrill from over the hill,
I heard a bugle horn.
And thro' the dream I was dreaming,
There sighed the sigh of the sea,
And thro' the dream I was dreaming,
This voice came singing to me.
'High over the breakers,
Low under the lee,
Sing ho
The billow,
And the lash of the rolling sea!
'Boat, boat, to the billow,
Boat, boat, to the lee!
Love on thy pillow,
Art thou dreaming of me?
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poem by Sydney Thompson Dobell
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To Professor And Mrs. J.S. Blackie
If Time that feeds love dies to die no more,
Immortal hours, dear friends, were yours and mine;
For Morn that on the hills oped eyes divine,
And Eve that walked like Mary by the shore
Where that old Dreamer, as he built, of yore,
Saw her, and told his dream in such a shrine
As was a kind of Mary, and the shine
Of Noon, and starry censers swinging o'er
With Night, all made ye dearer: thou whose soul,
Palimpsest of a dead and living world,
Taketh no dust from that nor stain from this,
And thou who with thyself hast so empearled
The writing-knowing well how rare it is-
That the scrolled jewels and the jewelled scroll
In total more than both complete a married whole.
poem by Sydney Thompson Dobell
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Deprecating A Gift
(Of Something Made By The Giver)
Child, your effectual hands create too much.
The things they fashion having, thenceforth, less
The type of matter than the preciousness
Of you, how can I serve myself of such?
The kindred in my being doth avouch
Your essence; in the very press and stress
Of action I am foiled to a caress.
Ah! give me something you but meant to touch!
Something your love has ripen'd till I'm 'ware
Of thoughts that came in light and stay'd in sweet,
Or th' apostolic shadow of your care,
Passing by, hath healed of malady,
Or wholed in use and grace: gifts rare and meet,
But not too rarely yours to be for me
Still meet, nor meetly mine to be still yours and rare.
poem by Sydney Thompson Dobell
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Perhaps
Ten heads and twenty hearts! so that this me,
Having more room and verge, and striking less
The cage that galls us into consciousness,
Might drown the rings and ripples of to be
In the smooth deep of being: plenary
Round hours; great days, as if two days should press
Together, and their wine-press'd night accresce
The next night to so dead a parody
Of death as cures such living: of these ordain
My years; of those large years grant me not seven,
Nor seventy, no, nor only seventy sevens!
And then, perhaps, I might stand well in even
This rain of things; down-rain, up-rain, side-rain;
This rain from Earth and Ocean, air and heaven,
And from the Heaven within the Heaven of Heavens.
poem by Sydney Thompson Dobell
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Where Are You Poets?
Where are you, Poets, that a Hero dies
Unsung? He who, when Duty brought too soon
His billet of rest toiled on till he had won
The countersign of Glory? There he lies,
And in the silence of your poesies
He looks a Poem; yea, so made and done
As if the Bardic Heavens had thrown him down
In model to your making. Close his eyes,
That yours may learn him. To fulfil the Law
In Gospel, force the seeds of use to flower
In Beauty, to enman invisible Truth
And then transfigure-this is Poetry.
And this the World and his dear Country saw
Hymned unawares in that unconquer'd youth
Who, scorning to give less than all his power,
Having bled for us, then aspired to die;
And, dying thus, left one more pledge behind
That England may again deserve to lead Mankind.
poem by Sydney Thompson Dobell
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Desolate
From the sad eaves the drip-drop of the rain!
The water washing at the latchel door;
A slow step plashing by upon the moor;
A single bleat far from the famished fold;
The clicking of an embered hearth and cold;
The rainy Robin tic-tac at the pane.
'So as it is with thee
Is it with me,
So as it is and it used not to be,
With thee used not to be,
Nor me.'
So singeth Robin on the willow tree,
The rainy robin tic-tac at the pane.
Here in this breast all day
The fire is dim and low,
Within I care not to stay,
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poem by Sydney Thompson Dobell
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Alone
There came to me softly a small wind from the sea.
And it lifted a curl as it passed by me.
But I sang sorrow and ho the heavy day!
And I sang heigho and well-away!
Again there came softly a small wind from the sea,
And it lifted a curl as it passed by me.
And still I sang sorrow and ho the heavy day!
And I sang heigho and well-away!
Once more there came softly that small wind from the sea,
And it lifted a curl as it passed by me.
I hushed my song of sorrow and ho the heavy day,
And I hushed my heigho and well-away.
Then, when I was silent, that small wind from the sea,
It came the fourth time tenderly to me;
To me, to me,
Sitting by the sea,
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poem by Sydney Thompson Dobell
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Wind
Oh the wold, the wold,
Oh the wold, the wold!
Oh the winter stark,
Oh the level dark,
On the wold, the wold, the wold!
Oh the wold, the wold,
Oh the wold, the wold!
Oh the mystery
Of the blasted tree
On the wold, the wold, the wold!
Oh the wold, the wold,
Oh the wold, the wold!
Oh the owlet's croon
To the haggard moon,
To the waning moon,
On the wold, the wold, the wold!
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poem by Sydney Thompson Dobell
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