Poems of Henry Timrod [38]
Break not on their bliss; Earth will blush in roses Many a day for this, And bend a brighter brow beneath thy burning kiss.
Baby's Age
She came with April blooms and showers; We count her little life by flowers. As buds the rose upon her cheek, We choose a flower for every week. A week of hyacinths, we say, And one of heart's-ease, ushered May; And then because two wishes met Upon the rose and violet -- I liked the Beauty, Kate, the Nun -- The violet and the rose count one. A week the apple marked with white; A week the lily scored in light; Red poppies closed May's happy moon, And tulips this blue week in June. Here end as yet the flowery links; To-day begins the week of pinks; But soon -- so grave, and deep, and wise The meaning grows in Baby's eyes, So VERY deep for Baby's age -- We think to date a week with sage!
The Messenger Rose
If you have seen a richer glow, Pray, tell me where your roses blow! Look! coral-leaved! and -- mark these spots Red staining red in crimson clots, Like a sweet lip bitten through In a pique. There, where that hue Is spilt in drops, some fairy thing Hath gashed the azure of its wing, Or thence, perhaps, this very morn, Plucked the splinters of a thorn.
Rose! I make thy bliss my care! In my lady's dusky hair Thou shalt burn this coming night, With even a richer crimson light. To requite me thou shalt tell -- What I might not say as well -- How I love her; how, in brief, On a certain crimson leaf In my bosom, is a debt Writ in deeper crimson yet. If she wonder what it be -- But she'll guess it, I foresee -- Tell her that I date it, pray, From the first sweet night in May.
On Pressing Some Flowers
So, they are dead! Love! when they passed From thee to me, our fingers met; O withered darlings of the May! I feel those fairy fingers yet.
And for the bliss ye brought me then, Your faded forms are precious things; No flowers so fair, no buds so sweet Shall bloom through all my future springs.
And so, pale ones! with hands as soft As if I closed a baby's eyes, I'll lay you in some favorite book Made sacred by a poet's sighs.
Your lips shall press the sweetest song, The sweetest, saddest song I know, As ye had perished, in your pride, Of some lone bard's melodious woe.
Oh, Love! hath love no holier shrine! Oh, heart! could love but lend the power, I'd lay thy crimson pages bare, And every leaf should fold its flower.
1866 -- Addressed to the Old Year
Art thou not glad to close Thy wearied eyes, O saddest child of Time, Eyes which have looked on every mortal crime, And swept the piteous round of mortal woes?
In dark Plutonian caves, Beneath the lowest deep, go, hide thy head; Or earth thee where the blood that thou hast shed May trickle on thee from thy countless graves!
Take with thee all thy gloom And guilt, and all our griefs, save what the breast, Without a wrong to some dear shadowy guest, May not surrender even to the tomb.
No tear shall weep thy fall, When, as the midnight bell doth toll thy fate, Another lifts the sceptre of thy state, And sits a monarch in thine ancient hall.
HIM all the hours attend, With a new hope like morning in their eyes; Him the fair earth and him these radiant skies Hail as their sovereign, welcome as their friend.
Him, too, the nations wait; "O lead us from the shadow of the Past," In a long wail like this December blast, They cry, and, crying, grow less desolate.
How he will shape his sway They ask not -- for old doubts and fears will cling -- And yet they trust that, somehow, he will bring A sweeter sunshine than thy mildest day.
Beneath his gentle hand They hope to see no meadow, vale, or hill Stained with a deeper red than roses spill, When some too boisterous zephyr sweeps the land.
A time of peaceful prayer, Of law, love, labor, honest loss and gain -- These are the visions of the coming reign Now floating to them on this wintry air.
Stanzas: A Mother Gazes Upon Her Daughter, Arrayed for an Approaching
Baby's Age
She came with April blooms and showers; We count her little life by flowers. As buds the rose upon her cheek, We choose a flower for every week. A week of hyacinths, we say, And one of heart's-ease, ushered May; And then because two wishes met Upon the rose and violet -- I liked the Beauty, Kate, the Nun -- The violet and the rose count one. A week the apple marked with white; A week the lily scored in light; Red poppies closed May's happy moon, And tulips this blue week in June. Here end as yet the flowery links; To-day begins the week of pinks; But soon -- so grave, and deep, and wise The meaning grows in Baby's eyes, So VERY deep for Baby's age -- We think to date a week with sage!
The Messenger Rose
If you have seen a richer glow, Pray, tell me where your roses blow! Look! coral-leaved! and -- mark these spots Red staining red in crimson clots, Like a sweet lip bitten through In a pique. There, where that hue Is spilt in drops, some fairy thing Hath gashed the azure of its wing, Or thence, perhaps, this very morn, Plucked the splinters of a thorn.
Rose! I make thy bliss my care! In my lady's dusky hair Thou shalt burn this coming night, With even a richer crimson light. To requite me thou shalt tell -- What I might not say as well -- How I love her; how, in brief, On a certain crimson leaf In my bosom, is a debt Writ in deeper crimson yet. If she wonder what it be -- But she'll guess it, I foresee -- Tell her that I date it, pray, From the first sweet night in May.
On Pressing Some Flowers
So, they are dead! Love! when they passed From thee to me, our fingers met; O withered darlings of the May! I feel those fairy fingers yet.
And for the bliss ye brought me then, Your faded forms are precious things; No flowers so fair, no buds so sweet Shall bloom through all my future springs.
And so, pale ones! with hands as soft As if I closed a baby's eyes, I'll lay you in some favorite book Made sacred by a poet's sighs.
Your lips shall press the sweetest song, The sweetest, saddest song I know, As ye had perished, in your pride, Of some lone bard's melodious woe.
Oh, Love! hath love no holier shrine! Oh, heart! could love but lend the power, I'd lay thy crimson pages bare, And every leaf should fold its flower.
1866 -- Addressed to the Old Year
Art thou not glad to close Thy wearied eyes, O saddest child of Time, Eyes which have looked on every mortal crime, And swept the piteous round of mortal woes?
In dark Plutonian caves, Beneath the lowest deep, go, hide thy head; Or earth thee where the blood that thou hast shed May trickle on thee from thy countless graves!
Take with thee all thy gloom And guilt, and all our griefs, save what the breast, Without a wrong to some dear shadowy guest, May not surrender even to the tomb.
No tear shall weep thy fall, When, as the midnight bell doth toll thy fate, Another lifts the sceptre of thy state, And sits a monarch in thine ancient hall.
HIM all the hours attend, With a new hope like morning in their eyes; Him the fair earth and him these radiant skies Hail as their sovereign, welcome as their friend.
Him, too, the nations wait; "O lead us from the shadow of the Past," In a long wail like this December blast, They cry, and, crying, grow less desolate.
How he will shape his sway They ask not -- for old doubts and fears will cling -- And yet they trust that, somehow, he will bring A sweeter sunshine than thy mildest day.
Beneath his gentle hand They hope to see no meadow, vale, or hill Stained with a deeper red than roses spill, When some too boisterous zephyr sweeps the land.
A time of peaceful prayer, Of law, love, labor, honest loss and gain -- These are the visions of the coming reign Now floating to them on this wintry air.
Stanzas: A Mother Gazes Upon Her Daughter, Arrayed for an Approaching