Section: «Poems»
Verse (ancient Greek ὁ στίχος — row, structure), a term in versification used in several meanings:
artistic speech organized by division into rhythmically commensurate segments; poetry in the narrow sense; in particular, it implies the properties of versification of a particular tradition ("antique verse", "Akhmatova's verse", etc.);
a line of poetic text organized according to a certain rhythmic pattern ("My uncle of the most honest rules").
Drought
For rain, for rain the parched lands cry,Reproachful to the cloudless sky.The hot white fields in light are blinking,The rivers in their beds are..
© Francis William Bourdillon
The Call
Hark! 'tis the rush of the horses,The crash of the galloping gun!The stars are out of their courses;The hour of Doom has begun.Leap from thy..
© Francis William Bourdillon
The Home Of My Heart
Not here in the populous town,In the playhouse or mart,Not here in the ways gray and brown,Bnt afar on the green-swelling down,Is the home of my..
© Francis William Bourdillon
The Acorn
An acorn swungOn an oak-tree bough;So long it had hung,It would fain fall nowTo the kindly earth,That its germ withinMight burst into birth,And its..
© Francis William Bourdillon
The Heart Cry
She turned the page of wounds and deathWith trembling fingers. In a breathThe gladness of her life becameNaught but a memory and a name.Farewell!..
© Francis William Bourdillon
All's Well
Watchman, watchman, what of the night,What of the night to tell?The heavens are dark, and never a lightBut the far-off flicker of Hell.But the steed..
© Francis William Bourdillon
Here And There
'HERE'Soft benediction of September sun;Voices of children, laughing as they run;Green English lawns, bright flowers and butterflies;And over all the..
© Francis William Bourdillon
The Debt Unpayable
What have I given,Bold sailor on the sea?In earth or heaven,That you should die for me?What can I give,O soldier, leal and brave,Long as I live,To..
© Francis William Bourdillon
Eurydice
HE came to call me back from deathTo the bright world above.I hear him yet with trembling breathLow calling, “O sweet love!Come back! The earth is..
© Francis William Bourdillon
On The South Downs
Light falls the rainOn link and laine,After the burning day;And the bright scene,Blue, gold, and green,Is blotted out in gray.Not so will partThe..
© Francis William Bourdillon
A Spring Evening
Across the Glory of the glowing skies,A veil is drawn of shadowed mists that riseFrom lavishness from God's late gift. the rain.So, after farewell..
© Francis William Bourdillon
A Violinist
THE LARK above our heads doth knowA heaven we see not here below;She sees it, and for joy she sings;Then falls with ineffectual wings.Ah, soaring..
© Francis William Bourdillon
The Night Has A Thousand Eyes
The night has a thousand eyes,And the day but one;Yet the light of the bright world diesWith the dying sun.The mind has a thousand eyes,And the heart..
© Francis William Bourdillon
Old And Young
LONG ago, on a bright spring day,I passed a little child at play;And as I passed, in childish gleeShe called to me, “Come and play with me!”But my..
© Francis William Bourdillon
Night
The night has a thousand eyes,And the day but one;Yet the light of the bright world diesWith the dying sun.The mind has a thousand eyes,And the heart..
© Francis William Bourdillon
Elegy: Walking the Line
Every month or so, Sundays, we walked the line,The limit and the boundary. Past the sweet gumSuperb above the cabin, along the wall—Stones gathered..
© Edgar Bowers
Dedication for a House
We, who were long together homeless, raiseBrick walls, wood floors, a roof, and windows upTo what sustained us in those threatening daysUnto this..
© Edgar Bowers
Mary
The angel of self-discipline, her guardianSince she first knew and had to go awayFrom home that spring to have her child with strangers,Sustained..
© Edgar Bowers
Clear-Seeing
Bavaria, 1946The clairvoyante, a major general’s wife,The secretaries’ sibyl, read the lettersThey brought her from their GI..
© Edgar Bowers
Autumn Shade
1The autumn shade is thin. Grey leaves lie faintWhere they will lie, and, where the thick green was,Light stands up, like a presence, to the sky.The..
© Edgar Bowers
Clothes
Walking back to the office after lunch,I saw Hans. “Mister Isham, Mister Isham,”He called out in his hurry, “Herr Wegner needs you.A woman waiting..
© Edgar Bowers
The Poet Orders His Tomb
I summon up Panofskv from his bedAmong the famous deadTo build a tomb which, since I am not read,Suffers the stone’s mortality instead;Which, by the..
© Edgar Bowers
The Mountain Cemetery
With their harsh leaves old rhododendrons fillThe crevices in grave plots' broken stones.The bees renew the blossoms they destroy,While in the..
© Edgar Bowers
An Afternoon At The Beach
I’ll go among the dead to see my friend.The place I leave is beautiful: the seaRepeats the winds’ far swell in its long sound,And, there beside it..
© Edgar Bowers
The Virgin Considered As A Picture
Her unawed face, whose pose so long assumedIs touched with what reality we feel,Bends to itself and, to itself resumed,Restores a tender fiction to..
© Edgar Bowers