Sixty-Two
If you wanted
astrology, I would
be an astrologer;
if you hoped for
music, a singer then.
As it was, you had
one wish only:
that I not
run away.
Poems on the topic: devotion
Poems on the topic “devotion” on Poets.by.
The Tree of Song
I sang my songs for the rest,
For you I am still;
The tree of my song is bare
On its shining hill.
For you came like a lordly wind,
And the leaves were whirled
Far as forgotten things
Past the rim of the world.
The tree of my song stands bare
Against the blue--
I gave my songs to the rest,
Myself to you.
Because
Oh, because you never tried
To bow my will or break my pride,
And nothing of the cave-man made
You want to keep me half afraid,
Nor ever with a conquering air
You thought to draw me unaware--
Take me, for I love you more
Than I ever loved before.
And since the body's maidenhood
Alone were neither rare nor good
Unless with it I gave to you
A spirit still untrammeled, too,
Take my dreams and take my mind
That were masterless as wind;
And "Master!" I shall say to you
Since you never asked me to.
Let It Be You
Let it be you who lean above me
On my last day,
Let it be you who shut my eyelids
Forever and aye.
Say a “Good-night” as you have said it
All of these years,
With the old look, with the old whisper
And without tears.
You will know then all that in silence
You always knew,
Though I have loved, I loved no other
As I love you.
Proving
Were you a leper bathed in wounds
And by the world denied,
I’d share your fatal exile
As a privilege, with pride.
You are the very sun, the moon,
The starlight of my soul,
The sounding motif of my heart
Its impetus and goal!
Her Poet
Many a bard
Sang many a song;
Many a dreamer
Dreamt many a dream;
Many a smile
Cast many a beam;
Many a lover
Loved, eternal, long.
But no life
Lived like his;
None sang
Sweet like him;
None loved
Love like him;
No love
True as his.
Flagellant
Happiness is like a kind wife,
Within her rounded arms, she carries Sleep.
But I who am mad for Ecstasy, would keep
The favour of my mistress, Sorrow, all my life.
For Sorrow's sake.
Through the dark hours I lie awake.
So that my songs shall greet a day.
Which has forgot the pleasures of my clay.
The Little Room
I AM my Love's laboratory.
For truly he shall find
The proof of his high quality
Within my heart and mind.
Look down, my Love, my Dear,
At the sure change wrought here!
To "Nucleus"
'Tis you who hold
My heat, my cold,
My rigour and my ecstasy.
Control my days.
Compel my ways
To action or to lethargy.
You fill my nights
With keen delights
Of a stupendous dreaming.
O! Little Seed,
Who at my need
Flowers to such splendid seeming!
The Supreme Courtesy
My man is like a good steel blade.
As subtle, strong, and finely made,
His power blue-white
As steely light.
O, he is cruel-quick enough!
But to my touch, as pleasant as fine stuff,
And from a wound of him I'd die,
Happy at such keen mastery.
A Lady
You are beautiful and faded
Like an old opera tune
Played upon a harpsichord;
Or like the sun-flooded silks
Of an eighteenth-century boudoir.
In your eyes
Smoulder the fallen roses of out-lived minutes,
And the perfume of your soul
Is vague and suffusing,
With the pungence of sealed spice-jars.
Your half-tones delight me,
And I grow mad with gazing
At your blent colours.
My vigour is a new-minted penny,
Which I cast at your feet.
Gather it up from the dust,
Fool's Money Bags
Outside the long window,
With his head on the stone sill,
The dog is lying,
Gazing at his Beloved.
His eyes are wet and urgent,
And his body is taut and shaking.
It is cold on the terrace;
A pale wind licks along the stone slabs,
But the dog gazes through the glass
And is content.
The Beloved is writing a letter.
Occasionally she speaks to the dog,
But she is thinking of her writing.
Does she, too, give her devotion to one
Not worthy?
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