Ernest Christopher Dowson (Эрнест Кристофер Доусон)

Amor Umbratilis

  A gift of Silence, sweet!
    Who may not ever hear:
  To lay down at your unobservant feet,
    Is all the gift I bear.

  I have no songs to sing,
    That you should heed or know:
  I have no lilies, in full hands, to fling
    Across the path you go.

  I cast my flowers away,
    Blossoms unmeet for you!
  The garland I have gathered in my day:
    My rosemary and rue.

  I watch you pass and pass,
    Serene and cold: I lay
  My lips upon your trodden, daisied grass,
    And turn my life away.

  Yea, for I cast you, sweet!
    This one gift, you shall take:
  Like ointment, on your unobservant feet,
    My silence, for your sake.

Ernest Christopher Dowson’s other poems:

  1. Villanelle of Marguerite’s
  2. Soli Cantare Periti Arcades
  3. Quid Non Supremus, Amantes?
  4. Epigram
  5. Vain Resolves




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