Quotes about sere, page 8
Untimely Love
Peace, throbbing heart, nor let us shed one tear
O'er this late love's unseasonable glow;
Sweet as a violet blooming in the snow,
The posthumous offspring of the widowed year
That smells of March when all the world is sere,
And, while around the hurtling sea-winds blow--
Which twist the oak and lay the pine tree low--
Stands childlike in the storm and has no fear.
Poor helpless blossom orphaned of the sun,
How could it thus brave winter's rude estate?
Oh love, more helpless, why bloom so late,
Now that the flower-time of the year is done?
Since thy dear course must end when scarce begun,
Nipped by the cold touch of relentless fate.
poem by Mathilde Blind
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
In Answer To A Request
You ask me for a sonnet. Ah, my Dear,
Can clocks tick back to yesterday at noon?
Can cracked and fallen leaves recall last June
And leap up on the boughs, now stiff and sere?
For your sake, I would go and seek the year,
Faded beyond the purple ranks of dune,
Blown sands of drifted hours, which the moon
Streaks with a ghostly finger, and her sneer
Pulls at my lengthening shadow. Yes, 'tis that!
My shadow stretches forward, and the ground
Is dark in front because the light's behind.
It is grotesque, with such a funny hat,
In watching it and walking I have found
More than enough to occupy my mind.
I cannot turn, the light would make me blind.
poem by Amy Lowell
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
I am the Autumnal Sun
Sometimes a mortal feels in himself Nature
-- not his Father but his Mother stirs
within him, and he becomes immortal with her
immortality. From time to time she claims
kindredship with us, and some globule
from her veins steals up into our own.
I am the autumnal sun,
With autumn gales my race is run;
When will the hazel put forth its flowers,
Or the grape ripen under my bowers?
When will the harvest or the hunter's moon
Turn my midnight into mid-noon?
I am all sere and yellow,
And to my core mellow.
The mast is dropping within my woods,
The winter is lurking within my moods,
And the rustling of the withered leaf
Is the constant music of my grief...
poem by Henry David Thoreau
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Sere upon the Stem - 0849 - after William Shakespeare Sonnet LXXI
If, reader, brave, your stave taps this grave verse
unable to wave back Death's sable veil,
my phantom name don't pantomime, rehearse,
resign to Time that which beneath blade flail
harvest tithed, foregathered lies. Few wail
when petals fall, few care a tinkers curse
for memories that mattered once. Loves fail
when Winter's chill wind will to dust disperse
sad withered sepals sere upon time's stem.
Where shared chords strung wrung hands and shadowed hearse
mock best laid stratagem of mice and men.
none challenge Time beyond agenda terse.
Stark, poet sought postscriptum post mortem
to hitch starlight which might pitch night condemn.
(27 July 2007)
poem by Jonathan Robin
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
In Fisherrow
A hard north-easter fifty winters long
Has bronzed and shrivelled sere her face and neck;
Her locks are wild and grey, her teeth a wreck;
Her foot is vast, her bowed leg spare and strong.
A wide blue cloak, a squat and sturdy throng
Of curt blue coats, a mutch without a speck,
A white vest broidered black, her person deck,
Nor seems their picked, stern, old-world quaintness wrong.
Her great creel forehead-slung, she wanders nigh,
Easing the heavy strap with gnarled, brown fingers,
The spirit of traffic watchful in her eye,
Ever and anon imploring you to buy,
As looking down the street she onward lingers,
Reproachful, with a strange and doleful cry.
poem by William Ernest Henley
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
We'll go No More A-Roving
We'll go no more a-roving by the light of the moon.
November glooms are barren beside the dusk of June.
The summer flowers are faded, the summer thoughts are sere.
We'll go no more a-roving, lest worse befall, my dear.
We'll go no more a-roving by the light of the moon.
The song we sang rings hollow, and heavy runs the tune.
Glad ways and words remembered would shame the wretched year.
We'll go no more a-roving, nor dream we did, my dear.
We'll go no more a-roving by the light of the moon.
If yet we walk together, we need not shun the noon.
No sweet thing left to savour, no sad thing left to fear,
We'll go no more a-roving, but weep at home, my dear.
poem by William Ernest Henley
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The New-Year Babe
Two together, Babe and Year,
At the midnight chime,
Through the darkness drifted here
To the coast of Time.
Two together, Babe and Year,
Over night and day,
Crossed the desert Winter drear
To the land of May.
On together, Babe and Year
Swift to Summer passed.
'Rest a moment, Brother dear,'
Said the Babe at last.
'Nay, but onward,' answered Year,
'We must farther go,
[...] Read more
poem by John Bannister Tabb
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The Weakest Thing
Which is the weakest thing of all
Mine heart can ponder?
The sun, a little cloud can pall
With darkness yonder?
The cloud, a little wind can move
Where'er it listeth?
The wind, a little leaf above,
Though sere, resisteth?
What time that yellow leaf was green,
My days were gladder;
But now, whatever Spring may mean,
I must grow sadder.
Ah me! a leaf with sighs can wring
My lips asunder -
Then is mine heart the weakest thing
Itself can ponder.
Yet, Heart, when sun and cloud are pined
And drop together,
[...] Read more
poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Soft Chord - 0249 - after William Shakespeare Sonnet LXXI
If you, perchance, should glance upon this verse
discarding chance to dance behind dark veil,
force no false thought, distraught remorse rehearse,
advance to Time that which beneath his flail
best soonest were ingathered. What avail?
When flowers fade, few fill a pauper's purse
for souvenirs that shatter once we fail.
White Winter's chill will into dust disperse
shrunk, shrivelled sepals sere upon stormed stem.
Yet should soft chord be struck to intersperse
regrets with yearning, far from stratagem,
then could two spirits share, commune, converse...
Rhymed toxin tocsin sings no angel's wings,
no gilded lily brings to stem Time's stings.
(17 January 2007)
poem by Jonathan Robin
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
An Autumn Sonnet
These little presents of your tenderness,
Although less grand a gift than was your love,
Are dear to me in this October stress
Of wind and war and whirling leaves above.
They comfort my soul's Autumn, and they prove
How little time can do, to ban or bless,
How much ourselves. You willed the years should move
Back in their cycle. And behold, love, this!
--Now, therefore, let us mark this fortunate day,
And use it for our feast day. Every year
Let us, when winds are high and the leaves fall,
Hold in this house our love's memorial,
Sitting thus hand in hand. Still let me lay
As in the happy days, ere leaves were sere,
My head upon your lap and call you ``dear.''
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!