Quotes about myrtle, page 13
Mignon
Do you know the land where the lemon-trees grow,
in darkened leaves the gold-oranges glow,
a soft wind blows from the pure blue sky,
the myrtle stands mute, and the bay-tree high?
Do you know it well?
It’s there I’d be gone,
to be there with you, O, my beloved one!
Do you know the house? It has columns and beams,
there are glittering rooms, the hallway gleams,
and figures of marble looking at me?
‘What have they done, child of misery?
Do you know it well?
It’s there I’d be gone,
to be there with you, O my true guardian!
Do you know the clouded mountain mass?
The mule picks its way through the misted pass,
and dragons in caves raise their ancient brood,
and the cliffs are polished smooth by the flood;
[...] Read more
poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Mrs. Charles N. Cadwallader,
Died at Philadelphia, July 2nd, 1859, five weeks after her marriage.
The year rolls round, and brings again
The bright, auspicious day,
The marriage scene, the festive cheer,
The group serenely gay,
The hopes that nurs'd by sun and shower
O'er youth's fair trellis wound,
And in that consecrated rite
Their full fruition found.
But One unseen amid the throng
Drew near with purpose fell,
And lo! the orange-flowers were changed
To mournful asphodel.
Five sabbaths walk'd the beautiful
Her chosen lord beside,
[...] Read more
poem by Lydia Howard Huntley Sigourney
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The Passionate Shepherd to his Love
Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.
And we will sit upon rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.
And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant poises,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;
A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;
A belt of straw and ivy buds,
[...] Read more
poem by Christopher Marlowe
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
When you are very old...
translation of a famous sonnet by Pierre de Ronsard (1524-1585)
from Sonnets for Hélène
When you are very old, at evening, by the fire,
spinning wool by candlelight and winding it in skeins,
you will say in wonderment as you recite my lines:
'Ronsard admired me in the days when I was fair.'
Then not one of your servants dozing gently there
hearing my name's cadence break through your low repines
but will start into wakefulness out of her dreams
and bless your name - immortalised by my desire.
I'll be underneath the ground, and a boneless shade
taking my long rest in the scented myrtle-glade,
and you'll be an old woman, nodding towards life's close,
regretting my love, and regretting your disdain.
Heed me, and live for now: this time won't come again.
Come, pluck now - today - life's so quickly-fading rose.
[...] Read more
poem by Anthony Weir
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Quid Non Supremus, Amantes?
Why is there in the least touch of her hands
More grace than other women's lips bestow,
If love is but a slave in fleshly bands
Of flesh to flesh, wherever love may go?
Why choose vain grief and heavy-hearted hours
For her lost voice, and dear remembered hair,
If love may cull his honey from all flowers,
And girls grow thick as violets, everywhere?
Nay! She is gone, and all things fall apart;
Or she is cold, and vainly have we prayed;
And broken is the summer's splendid heart,
And hope within a deep, dark grave is laid.
As man aspires and falls, yet a soul springs
Out of his agony of flesh at last,
So love that flesh enthralls, shall rise on wings
Soul-centred, when the rule of flesh is past.
[...] Read more
poem by Ernest Christopher Dowson
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Anacreontics, The Epicure
UNDERNEATH this myrtle shade,
On flowerly beds supinely laid,
With odorous oils my head o'erflowing,
And around it roses growing,
What should I do but drink away
The heat and troubles of the day?
In this more than kingly state
Love himself on me shall wait.
Fill to me, Love! nay, fill it up!
And mingled cast into the cup
Wit and mirth and noble fires,
Vigorous health and gay desires.
The wheel of life no less will stay
In a smooth than rugged way:
Since it equally doth flee,
Let the motion pleasant be.
Why do we precious ointments shower?--
Nobler wines why do we pour?--
Beauteous flowers why do we spread
Upon the monuments of the dead?
[...] Read more
poem by Abraham Cowley
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Shelley's Skylark (The neighbourhood of Leghorn: March, 1887)
Somewhere afield here something lies
In Earth's oblivious eyeless trust
That moved a poet to prophecies -
A pinch of unseen, unguarded dust
The dust of the lark that Shelley heard,
And made immortal through times to be; -
Though it only lived like another bird,
And knew not its immortality.
Lived its meek life; then, one day, fell -
A little ball of feather and bone;
And how it perished, when piped farewell,
And where it wastes, are alike unknown.
Maybe it rests in the loam I view,
Maybe it throbs in a myrtle's green,
Maybe it sleeps in the coming hue
Of a grape on the slopes of yon inland scene.
[...] Read more
poem by Thomas Hardy
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Shelley's Skylark.
Somewhere afield here something lies
In Earth's oblivious eyeless trust
That moved a poet to prophecies -
A pinch of unseen, unguarded dust
The dust of the lark that Shelley heard,
And made immortal through times to be; -
Though it only lived like another bird,
And knew not its immortality.
Lived its meek life; then, one day, fell -
A little ball of feather and bone;
And how it perished, when piped farewell,
And where it wastes, are alike unknown.
Maybe it rests in the loam I view,
Maybe it throbs in a myrtle's green,
Maybe it sleeps in the coming hue
Of a grape on the slopes of yon inland scene.
[...] Read more
poem by Thomas Hardy
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Don't Tell the World that You're Waiting for Me
THREE summers have gone since the first time we met, love,
And still 'tis in vain that I ask thee to wed ;
I hear no reply but a gentle " Not yet, love,"
With a smile of your lip, and a shake of your head.
Ah ! how oft have I whispered, how oft have I sued thee,
And breathed my soul's question of " When shall it be ?"
You know, dear, how long and how truly I've wooed thee,
So don't tell the world that you're waiting for me.
I have fashioned a home, where the fairies might dwell, love,
I've planted the myrtle, the rose, and the vine ;
But the cottage to me is a mere hermit's cell, love,
And the bloom will be dull till the flowers are thine.
I've a ring of bright gold, which I gaze on when lonely,
And sigh with Hope's eloquence, " When will it be ?"
There needs but thy " Yes," love--one little word only,
So don't tell the world that you're waiting for me.
poem by Eliza Cook
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
A Statue of Figwood
For yon oaken avenue, swain, you must steer,
Where a statue of figwood, you'll see, has been set:
It has never been barked, has three legs and no ear;
But I think there is life in the patriarch yet.
He is handsomely shrined within fair chapel-walls;
Where, fringed with sweet cypress and myrtle and bay,
A stream ever-fresh from the rock's hollow falls,
And the ringleted vine her ripe shore doth display:
And the blackbirds, those whrill-piping songsters of spring,
Wake the echoes with wild inarticulate song:
And the notes of the nightingale plaintively ring,
As she pours from her dun throat her lay sweet and strong.
Sitting there, to Priapus, the gracious one, pray
That the lore he has taught me I soon may unlearn:
Say I'll give him a kid, and in case he says nay
To this offer, three victims to him will I burn;
A kid, a fleeced ram, and a lamb sleek and fat;
He will listen, mayhap, to my prayers upon that.
poem by Theocritus
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!