Modern Love, and Other PoemsMosher, 1904 - 142 pages |
Common terms and phrases
arms beams beauty bed for Attila beneath bird blackcap bliss blood blue bosom brain breast breath broods brows Danube dare dark dart dawn dead Death deep divine dream dreaming lips dumb Earth enchanted woods Ended is begun Enter these enchanted eyes fair fear fire flower Fount Gods golden grass grave green hear heart heaven henbane honey kiss lark laugh leap light look Love's lyre Master of harmonies meadows Melampus mind mother tends mystical woods nature nest never night o'er pallor pipe revel all day rippled river rose round shade shadow shine shuttle weaving sight sings sleeps snake song soul sound spirit spring squirrel star strange stream swallow sweet Swift thee thou thro tongue tresses twilight valley violet voice wakes wave whirl white valleys whitebeam whither wild thing wedded winglets wings Wisdom woodland woods of Westermain yellow young
Popular passages
Page 71 - When her mother tends her before the laughing mirror, Tying up her laces, looping up her hair, Often she thinks, were this wild thing wedded, More love should I have, and much less care. When her mother tends her before the lighted mirror, Loosening her laces, combing down her curls, Often she thinks, were this wild thing wedded, I should miss but one for many boys and girls.
Page 81 - Lucifer in Starlight On a starred night Prince Lucifer uprose. Tired of his dark dominion swung the fiend Above the rolling ball in cloud part screened, Where sinners hugged their spectre of repose. Poor prey to his hot fit of pride were those. And now upon his western wing he leaned, Now his huge bulk o'er Afric's sands careened, Now the black planet shadowed Arctic snows. Soaring through wider zones that pricked his scars With memory of the old revolt from Awe, He reached a middle height, and at...
Page 75 - Shy as the squirrel and wayward as the swallow, Swift as the swallow along the river's light Circleting the surface to meet his mirrored winglets, Fleeter she seems in her stay than in her flight. Shy as the squirrel that leaps among the pine-tops, Wayward as the swallow overhead at set of sun, She whom I love is hard to catch and conquer...
Page 19 - At dinner, she is hostess, I am host. Went the feast ever cheerfuller? She keeps The Topic over intellectual deeps In buoyancy afloat. They see no ghost. With sparkling surface-eyes we ply the ball: It is in truth a most contagious game: HIDING THE SKELETON, shall be its name. Such play as this, the devils might appal!
Page 74 - When her mother tends her before the lighted mirror, Loosening her laces, combing down her curls, Often she thinks, were this wild thing wedded, I should miss but one for many boys and girls. Heartless she is as the shadow in the meadows Flying to the hills on a blue and breezy noon. No, she is athirst and drinking up her wonder : Earth to her is young as the slip of the new moon.
Page 81 - He reached a middle height, and at the stars, Which are the brain of heaven, he looked, and sank. Around the ancient track marched, rank on rank, The army of unalterable law.
Page 3 - By this he knew she wept with waking eyes : That, at his hand's light quiver by her head, The strange low sobs that shook their common bed, Were called into her with a sharp surprise, And strangled mute, like little gaping snakes, Dreadfully venomous to him. She lay Stone-still, and the long darkness flowed away With muffled pulses. Then, as midnight makes Her giant heart of Memory and Tears Drink the pale drug of silence, and so beat Sleep's heavy measure, they from head to feet Were moveless, looking...
Page 49 - We saw the swallows gathering in the sky, And in the osier-isle we heard them noise. We had not to look back on summer joys, Or forward to a summer of bright dye: But in the largeness of the evening earth Our spirits grew as we went side by side. The hour became her husband and my bride. Love that had robbed us so, thus blessed our dearth ! The pilgrims of the year waxed...
Page 75 - When at dawn she sighs, and like an infant to the window Turns grave eyes craving light, released from dreams, Beautiful she looks, like a white water-lily Bursting out of bud in havens of the streams.
Page 45 - Mark where the pressing wind shoots javelin-like Its skeleton shadow on the broad-backed wave! Here is a fitting spot to dig Love's grave; Here where the ponderous breakers plunge and strike, And dart their hissing tongues high up the sand: In hearing of the ocean, and in sight Of those ribbed wind-streaks running into white. If I the death of Love had deeply planned, I never could have made it half so sure, As by the unblest kisses which upbraid The full-waked sense; or failing that, degrade!