Madonna poem – Alfred Austin
Let me, calm face, remain For ever in these sweet sequestered nooks, Remote from pain, Where leafy laurustinus overlooks The blue abounding main. Ne’er will I crave, I vow, Your loveliness despite, that we may stand More nigh than now; You, with the fresh-plucked roses in your hand, And I with inclined brow. With […]
Love’s Wisdom poem – Alfred Austin
Love, that in my mind seeks Reason’s aid. Paraphrase. I crave not love, for it would only bring Tears to your eyes, and anguish to your heart; I am in Autumn, you are still in Spring, And you must linger after I depart. Then to you Summer would scarce Summer be, Vainly for you […]
Love’s Unity poem – Alfred Austin
How can I tell thee when I love thee best? In rapture or repose? how shall I say? I only know I love thee every way, Plumed for love’s flight, or folded in love’s nest. See, what is day but night bedewed with rest? And what the night except the tired-out day? And ’tis […]
Love’s Harvest poem – Alfred Austin
Nay, do not quarrel with the seasons, dear, Nor make an enemy of friendly Time. The fruit and foliage of the failing year Rival the buds and blossoms of its prime. Is not the harvest moon as round and bright As that to which the nightingales did sing? And thou, that call’st thyself my […]
Love’s Fitfulness poem – Alfred Austin
You say that I am fitful. Sweet, ’tis true; But ’tis that I your fitfulness obey. If you are April, how can I be May, Or flaunt bright roses when you wear sad rue? Shine like the sun, and my sky will be blue; Sing, and the lark shall envy me my lay: I […]
Love’s Wisdom poem – Alfred Austin
Love, that in my mind seeks Reason’s aid. Paraphrase. I crave not love, for it would only bring Tears to your eyes, and anguish to your heart; I am in Autumn, you are still in Spring, And you must linger after I depart. Then to you Summer would scarce Summer be, Vainly for you […]
Love’s Fitfulness poem – Alfred Austin
You say that I am fitful. Sweet, ’tis true; But ’tis that I your fitfulness obey. If you are April, how can I be May, Or flaunt bright roses when you wear sad rue? Shine like the sun, and my sky will be blue; Sing, and the lark shall envy me my lay: I […]
Love Of Life poem – Alfred Austin
Why love life more, the less of it be left, And what is left be little but the lees, And Time’s subsiding passions have bereft One’s taste for pleasure, and one’s power to please? Is it not better, like the waning year, Without lament resignedly to fade, Since by enduring ordinance all things here […]
Love Of Life poem – Alfred Austin
Why love life more, the less of it be left, And what is left be little but the lees, And Time’s subsiding passions have bereft One’s taste for pleasure, and one’s power to please? Is it not better, like the waning year, Without lament resignedly to fade, Since by enduring ordinance all things here […]
Lost poem – Alfred Austin
Sweet lark! that, bedded in the tangled grass, Protractest dewy slumbers, wake, arise! The brightest moments of the morning pass- Thou shouldst be up, and carolling in the skies. Go up! go up! and melt into the blue, And to heaven’s veil on wings of song repair; But, ere thou dost descend to earth, […]
“Look up, desponding hearts! See, Morning sallies” poem – Alfred Austin
Look up, desponding hearts! See, Morning sallies From out her tents behind the screening hill, And speeds her glittering lances on the valleys Where hostile mists, unconscious, slumber still. Roused from their vain security, they clamber Up the far slopes and seek the open sky, Till hill and dale are tinged with gold and […]
Lines Written On Visiting The Chateaux On The Loire poem – Alfred Austin
I “River rolling past the grey Battlements of yesterday, Palace strongholds reared by hands Summoned from transalpine lands, Skilled in wedding strength with grace, Fort with stately dwelling-place, Vizored brow with siren tress, Majesty with loveliness,- River, that beheld their sway Dawn and dwindle, then decay, Linger, loiter, while I sit, As the sunshine-shadows […]
Let The Weary World Go Round poem – Alfred Austin
Let the weary world go round! What care I? Life’s a surfeiting of sound: I would die. It would be so sweet to lie Under waving grasses, Where a maiden’s footstep sly, Tremulous for a lover nigh, Sometimes passes. Why, why remain? Graves are the sovereign simples Against life’s pain; Graves are the sheltering […]
Leszko The Bastard poem – Alfred Austin
“Why do I bid the rising gale To waft me from your shore? Why hail I, as the vultures hail, The scent of far-off gore? Why wear I with defiant pride The Paynim’s badge and gear, Though I am vowed to Christ that died, And fain would staunch the gaping side That felt the […]
“`Know, Nature, like the cuckoo, laughs at law” poem – Alfred Austin
`Know, Nature, like the cuckoo, laughs at law, Placing her eggs in whatso nest she will; And when, at callow-time, you think to find The sparrow’s stationary chirp, lo! bursts Voyaging voice to glorify the Spring.’ Alfred AustinAlfred Austin (1835 – 1913) was an English journalist and a poet who was appointed Poet […]
Is Life Worth Living? poem – Alfred Austin
Is life worth living? Yes, so long As Spring revives the year, And hails us with the cuckoo’s song, To show that she is here; So long as May of April takes, In smiles and tears, farewell, And windflowers dapple all the brakes, And primroses the dell; While children in the woodlands yet Adorn […]
Inflexible As Fate poem – Alfred Austin
When for one brief dark hour Rome’s virile sway Felt the sharp shock of Cannae’s adverse day, Forum, and field, and Senate-House were rent With cries of nor misgiving nor lament, Only of men contending now who should Purchase the spot on which the Victor stood. Legion on legion sprang up from the ground, […]
In The Month When Sings The Cuckoo poem – Alfred Austin
Hark! Spring is coming. Her herald sings, Cuckoo! The air resounds and the woodland rings, Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Leave the milking pail and the mantling cream, And down by the meadow, and up by the stream, Where movement is music and life a dream, In the month when sings the cuckoo. Away with old Winter’s […]
In The Forum poem – Alfred Austin
The last warm gleams of sunset fade From cypress spire and stonepine dome, And, in the twilight’s deepening shade, Lingering, I scan the wrecks of Rome. Husht the Madonna’s Evening Bell; The steers lie loosed from wain and plough; The vagrant monk is in his cell, The meek nun-novice cloistered now. Pedant’s presumptuous voice […]
In Sutton Woods poem – Alfred Austin
There-peace once more; the restless roar Of troubled cities dies away. “Welcome to our broad shade once more,” The dear old woodlands seem to say. The sweet suggestions of the wind, That spake in whispers, now are stilled; The songless branches all remind That summer’s glory is fulfilled. The petulant plaint of falling leaves […]
In Praise Of England poem – Alfred Austin
From tangled brake and trellised bower Bring every bud that blows, But never will you find the flower To match an English rose. It blooms with more than city grace, Though rustic and apart; It has a smile upon its face, And a dewdrop in its heart. Though wide the goodly world around Your […]
Impromptu: To Frances Garnet Wolseley poem – Alfred Austin
Little maiden just beginning To be comely, arch, and winning, In whose form I catch the traces Of your mother’s gifts and graces, And around whose head the glory Of your father’s growing story, O’er whose cradle, fortune-guided, Mars and Venus both presided, May your fuller years inherit Female charm and manly merit, So […]
“`If you were mine, if you were mine” poem – Alfred Austin
`If you were mine, if you were mine, The day would dawn, the stars would shine, The sun would set, the moon arise, In holier and yet heavenlier skies. Then unto me the Year would bring A younger April, fresher Spring. I should not then seek sylvan ways For primrose clusters, woodbine sprays, To […]
If I To You But Sorry Bring poem – Alfred Austin
If I to you but sorrow bring, But aching hours and brackish tears, And that poor drooping Hope whose wing Flags ‘neath the weight of clogging fears, Then let me in the desert hide This fatal gift, this feverish breast; Or, better,’neath the sounding tide Be hushed, and evermore at rest. What recks it […]
I Chide Not At The Seasons poem – Alfred Austin
I chide not at the seasons, for if Spring With backward look refuses to be fair, My Love still more than April makes me sing, And shows May blossom in the bleak March air. Should Summer fail its tryst, or June delay To wreathe my porch with roses red and pale, Her breath is […]
Hymn To Death poem – Alfred Austin
I What is it haunts the summer air? A sense of something lately passed away; Something pleasant, something fair, That was with us yesterday, And is no longer there. Now from the pasture comes no baby bleat, Nor the frisk of frolic feet There is seen. Blossom and bloom have spread their wings, and […]
“Here, where the vine and fig bask hand in hand,” poem – Alfred Austin
Here, where the vine and fig bask hand in hand, And the hot lizard lies along the wall, Blinded I shrink where cypress shadows fall, And gaze upon the far-off mountains bland: Then down the dusty track Lorenzo planned Watch the slow oxen oscillating crawl Sleek in the sultry glare, and feel withal Half […]
“Here have I learnt the little that I know” poem – Alfred Austin
Here have I learnt the little that I know, Here where in these untutored woodland ways The primrose, all unconscious of our praise, Dimpled the dainty coverlet of the snow, March’s first-born, and, still averse to go, Though drowsy-lidded, dallies and delays When, dawning through the bluebell’s heavenly haze, June into full mid-summer broadeneth […]
Grandmother’s Teaching poem – Alfred Austin
“Grandmother dear, you do not know; you have lived the old-world life, Under the twittering eaves of home, sheltered from storm and strife; Rocking cradles, and covering jams, knitting socks for baby feet, Or piecing together lavender bags for keeping the linen sweet: Daughter, wife, and mother in turn, and each with a blameless […]
Gleaners Of Fame poem – Alfred Austin
Hearken not, friend, for the resounding din That did the Poet’s verses once acclaim: We are but gleaners in the field of fame, Whence the main harvest hath been gathered in. The sheaves of glory you are fain to win, Long since were stored round many a household name, The reapers of the Past, […]
“Give me October’s meditative haze” poem – Alfred Austin
Give me October’s meditative haze, Its gossamer mornings, dewy-wimpled eves, Dewy and fragrant, fragrant and secure, The long slow sound of farmward-wending wains, When homely Love sups quiet ‘mid his sheaves, Sups ‘mid his sheaves, his sickle at his side, And all is peace, peace and plump fruitfulness. Alfred AustinAlfred Austin (1835 – […]
“Give me a roof where Wisdom dwells” poem – Alfred Austin
Give me a roof where Wisdom dwells, Where honeysuckle smiles and smells, A bleating flock, some lowing kine, An honest welcome always mine, A homely draught, a humble meal, Leisure to live, to think, to feel, A narrow plot, a prospect wide, A patch upon the mountain side! From these my heart you will […]
“For where, beneath one’s parent sky” poem – Alfred Austin
For where, beneath one’s parent sky, Our dear ones live, our dead ones lie. Alfred AustinAlfred Austin (1835 – 1913) was an English journalist and a poet who was appointed Poet Laureate in 1896, after an interval following the death of Tennyson, when the other candidates had either caused controversy or simply refused […]
“`Father, farewell! Be not distressed” poem – Alfred Austin
`Father, farewell! Be not distressed, And take my vow, ere I depart, To found a Convent in my breast, And keep a cloister in my heart.’ Alfred AustinAlfred Austin (1835 – 1913) was an English journalist and a poet who was appointed Poet Laureate in 1896, after an interval following the death of […]
Farewell To Spring poem – Alfred Austin
I saw this morning, with a sudden smart, Spring preparing to depart. I know her well and so I told her all my heart. “Why did you, Spring, your coming so delay, If, now here, you cannot stay? You win my love and then unloving pass away. “We waited, waited, O so long, so […]
Farewell To Italy poem – Alfred Austin
Incomparable Italy, farewell! Tears not unmanly trespass to the eyes, From thy soft touch and glance unspeakable Compelled to turn and suffer other skies. E’en as I leave thee, the maternal vine Under the weight of clustering fruitage bends; And the plump fig, beyond where tendrils twine, Shows greener, moister, as the sap ascends. […]
Dedication To The Edition Of 1876 To H.J.A. poem – Alfred Austin
Three graces still attend me, since the day Your step across my graceless threshold came: Reverence, and Gratitude, and Love, their name. Reverence, whose gaze fears from the ground to stray, And bows its head, and sues to you to lay Your foot thereon, and keep my base self down: Next, Gratitude, that, bolder, […]
Dedication To Lady Windsor poem – Alfred Austin
Where violets blue to olives gray From furrows brown lift laughing eyes, And silvery Mensola sings its way Through terraced slopes, nor seeks to stay, But onward and downward leaps and flies; Where vines, just newly burgeoned, link Their hands to join the dance of Spring, Green lizards glisten from clest and chink, And […]
“`Covet who will the patronage of Kings ” poem – Alfred Austin
`Covet who will the patronage of Kings, And pompous titles Emperors bestow, Splendour, and revelry, and all that brings A thousand bitter thoughts, a world of woe: A meadow glistening in an April shower, A green-banked rivulet, and, near his nest, A blackbird carolling in guelder bower, ‘Tis these that soothe and satisfy the […]
“Could I but leave men wiser by my song ” poem – Alfred Austin
Could I but leave men wiser by my song, And somewhat happier in their little day, Wean them from things that lure but to betray, Make the harsh gentle, and the feeble strong, Shunning the paths where pride and folly throng, Then would I carol all the livelong day, And, as the golden sunset […]