FOLLOW A WORD THROUGH THE COLLECTION
Search the corpus.
Phrase search ignores case and repeated whitespace. All-words search finds whole words anywhere on the same page. OCR errors can affect results.
47 matching pages
Page 1 of 31905 · PDF PAGE 133
… own secret eyes and eyelashes, Long and deep ecstasies, Knowing as now I know—at last—how this Foreshadows my own bliss Of falling into death when life is tired. For all things desired Not one as death is so desirable, Seeing all sorrows pass, all joys endure, All lessons last. Not heaven and not hell (My spirit is grown sure) Await the lover But death’s veil draws, life’s mother to discover, Nature ; no longer mother, but a bride ! Ay ! there is none beside. O brothers mightier than my mightiest word In the least sob that stirred Your lyres, …
1905 · PDF PAGE 180
THE HILLS I75 Not death as ye name in derision The change to a cycle of pain, To a cycle of joy as a vision Ye chase, and may capture in vain. Endeth you peace, and your change is Like the change in a measure that shrills And slackens and ranges ; your passion estranges The love of the hills ! Nay ! death is a portal of passing To miseries other but sure. Yet the snow on the hills amassing The wind of an hour may endure ; But as day after day grows the summer The crystals melt one after one. The hill—shall they numb her ? Their frost overcome h…
1905 · PDF PAGE 82
THE HERMIT’S HYMN TO SOLITUDE 77 V All change, all motion, and all sound, are weakness ! Man cannot bear the darkness which is death. Even that calm Christ, manifest in meekness, Cried on the cross and gave his ghostly breath, On the prick of death, Voice, for his passion could not bear nor dare The interlunar, the abundant air Darkened, and silence on the shuddering Hill, and the unbeating wing Of the legions of His Father, and so died. But I, should I be still Poised between fear and will ? Should I be silent, I, and be unsatisfied ? For soli…
1905 · PDF PAGE 45
…n the glamour of the moon, will not some pitying godhead weep For cold grey anguish of her eyes, that look to God, and look in vain, For death, the anodyne of pain, for sleep, earth’s trivial paradise ? Sleep I forget. Her silky breath no longer fans my ears ; I dream I float on some forgotten stream that hath a savour still of death, A sweet warm smell of hidden flowers whose heavy petals kiss the sun, Fierce tropic poisons every one that fume and sweat through forest hours. They grow in darkness ; heat beguiles their sluggish kisses ; in the …
1905 · PDF PAGE 6
THE DEATH OF THE DRUNKARD (This, the earliest poem ever written by me, has perished save the following fragment. Its date is 1886 or 1887.) I TERROR, and darkness, and horrid despair ! Agony painted upon the once fair Brow of the man who refused to give up The love of the wine-filled, the o’erflowing cup. “ Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging.” No wine in death is his torment assuaging. II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Just what the parson had told me when young : Just what the people in chapel have sung : “ Wine is a mocker, strong drink is…
1905 · PDF PAGE 150
…r flower. Like unto foam this body whoso sees, its mirage-nature comprehends aright, Breaking dread Mara’s flower-pointed shaft he goes, Death’s monarch shall not meet his sight. Like one who strayeth gathering flowers, is he who Pleasure lusteth on ; As the flood whelms the sleeping village, so Death snaps him—he is gone. Like one who strayeth gathering flowers is he whose thoughts to Pleasure clings ; While yet unsatisfied with lusts, there conquereth him the Iron King. As the bee gathers nectar, hurts not the flower’s colour, its sweet smell…
1905 · PDF PAGE 32
…ach merged in each The golden fruit is reaping ! . . . . . . . Wilt slumber, dear ? One last kiss, I beseech ! . . . . . . . Come to us, Death ! My love and I are sleeping !
1905 · PDF PAGE 17
…sand devils ! nay ! And a devil in a vision Hisses as I slumber, “ Yea ! “ Heaven of your accurst creation Shall become a hell of fire ; Death for kisses, and damnation For your love shall God require.”
1905 · PDF PAGE 122
… dream spans !— And so he dreamed of life : and failing plumes Wrought through ancestral looms In the man’s brain : and so he dreamed of death. And slower still the grey God wrought Dividing consciousness from breath, And life and death from thought. So the king dreamed of Nought. Yet subtly-shapen was this Nothingness, Not mere negation, as before that dream
1905 · PDF PAGE 102
…sun, the Universe. I was in Heaven, lost, alone. Alone ! A new curse gathered as a sombre breath : “ Power without Wisdom is the Name of Death ! ” And therefore from my devastating hand (for I was then unwilling to be dead) I loosed the lightning, and in hate and dread Despairing, did I break the royal wand. Mortal, a plaything for a thousand fears, I found the earth ; I found a lonely place To gaze for ever on the ocean’s face, Lamenting through the lamentable years ; Without a god, deprived of life and death, Sensible only to that sombre brea…
1905 · PDF PAGE 39
…e away, to dive Into the deep recesses of his heaven. But we, one joy, one love, one shame for leaven, Quit hope and life, quit fear and death and love, Implacable as God, desired above All loves of hell or heaven, supremely wed, Knit in one soul in one delicious bed More hot than hell, more wicked than all things, Vast in our sin, whose unredeeming wings Rise o’er the world, and flap for lust of death, Eager as any one that travaileth ; So in our lust, the monstrous burden borne Heavy within the womb, we wait the morn Of its fulfilment. Thus e…
1905 · PDF PAGE 53
…nd, at that moment when thy breath mixes with mine, like wine, to call Each memory, one merged into all, to kiss, to sleep, to mate with death !
1905 · PDF PAGE 31
…fume Shall hide our shame ! Come, love, within the gloom ! For one last night, sweet sister, be the same ; Come, nestle with me in sweet Death’s hot womb ! Two sunny eyes ! And this is all my ruin ! Two gleaming thighs ! And all to my undoing ! Far-swelling curves in ivory rapture rise Warm and too white—bethink you of the wooing ! A kiss of fire ; A touch of passionate yearning Steals higher and higher— And kisses are returning ! The strong white grasp draws me still nigher and nigher, Our fusing forms in one fierce furnace burning ! 26
1905 · PDF PAGE 107
… thing. Dull heavy heat burns through the clouded sky, And yet no promise of the latter rains. Earth bears her fruit, but unrefreshed of death. In winter is no sorrow, in the dry Harsh spring no joy, while pestilence and pains Hover like wolves behind the summer’s breath. I02
1905 · PDF PAGE 108
…oul and carrion, flap, and call Their ghastly comrades to the domèd wall That crowns the grey cathedral. There they go— The parasites of death, decay and woe, Gorged with the day’s indecent festival. I think these birds were once the souls of priests. They haunt by ancient habit the old home Wherein they held high mass in days of old. But now they soar above it—for behold ! God hath looked mercifully down on Rome, Promoting thus her children to be beasts. I03
1905 · PDF PAGE 166
TO “ELIZABETH ” WITH A COPY OF TANNHÄUSER Written in the Akasa. THE story of a fool. From love and death Emancipate, he stands above. The goal Is in the shrines of misty air : there roll The voices and the songs of One who saith : “ There is no peace for him who lingereth.” Love is a cinder now that was a coal : Either were vain. The great magician’s soul Is far too weak to risk Elizabeth. All this is past and under me. Above, Around, the magian tree of knowledge waves Its rosy flowers and golden fruit. I know Indeed that he is caught therein w…
1905 · PDF PAGE 153
…OOD St Patrick, turn again Thy mild eyes to the Western main ! Shalt thou be silent ? thou forget ? Are there no snakes in Ireland yet ? Death to the Saxon ! Slay nor spare ! O God of Justice, hear us swear ! The iron Saxon’s bloody hand Metes out his murder on the land. The light of Erin is forlorn. The country fades : the people mourn. Of land bereft, of right beguiled, Starved, tortured, murdered, or exiled ; Of freedom robbed, of faith cajoled, In secret councils bought and sold ! Their weapons are the cell, the law, The gallows, and the sc…
1905 · PDF PAGE 4
CONTENTS PAGE THE DEATH OF THE DRUNKARD I THE BALLOON 2 SPOLIA OPIMA 5 LINES ON BEING INVITED TO MEET THE PREMIER IN WALES, SEPTEMBER ’92 6 A PEEP BEHIND THE SCENES 8 TO MRS O . . . . . . N C . . . T 9 ELVINA I I A WELCOME TO JABEZ I3 THE LITTLE HALF-SOVEREIGN I5 ADAPTATION OF “ ONWARD CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS ” TO THE NEEDS OF BRETHREN I8 ODE TO SAPPHO 2 I IN A LESBIAN MEADOW 23 “ ’ TIS PITY ” 26 MY WIFE DIES 28 ALL NIGHT 3 I ODE TO VENUS CALLIPYGE 35 THE BLOOD-LOTUS 40 TRANSLATIONS FROM BAUDELAIRE 49 INVOCATION 6 I A LITANY 69 CALL OF THE SYLPHS 72…
1905 · PDF PAGE 174
…anging of voices That lament or regret or are sad, But the sun in his strength rejoices, The moon in her beauty is glad. As timeless and deathless time passes, And death is a hermit that dwells By the imminent masses of ice, where the grasses Abandon the fells. There silence, arrayed as a spectre, Is visible, tangible, near, To the cup of the man pours nectar, To the heart of the coward is fear : 169
1905 · PDF PAGE 14
…don’s wicked city ? Perhaps you might yourself have one wee fling, If you were pretty. What might not hard starvation drive you to, With Death so near and sure ? Perhaps it might drive even virtuous you, If you were poor. But is it just, or grateful to the One That keeps even you from wrong ? Or even humble to shriek, “ Get you gone, For I am strong ” ? Temptation has not touched you, Mrs C . . . t ! Forsooth, I do not lie there, For you are only not the thing you aren’t Through being neither. 9