Menu
Meta Sorting
Arrow
Author Photo

Alfred Austin

Poems by Austin Alfred


found 235 works
Now do I know that Love is blind, for I
Can see no beauty on this beauteous earth,
No life, no light, no hopefulness, no mirth,
Pleasure nor purpose, when thou art not nigh.
Thy absence exiles sunshine from the sky,
Seres Spring's maturity, checks Summer's birth...
Let not the roses lie
Too thickly tangled round my tomb,
Lest fleecy clouds that skim the summer sky,
Flinging their faint soft shadows, pass it by,
And know not over whom.
And let not footsteps come...
Should fickle hands in far-off days
No longer stroke thy hair,
And lips that once were proud to praise
Forget to call thee fair,
Sigh but my name, and though I be
Mute in the churchyard mould...
`You ask me why I envy not
The Monarch on his throne.
It is that I myself have got
A Kingdom of my own:
Kingdom by Free Will divine
Made inalienably mine...
Where have you been through the long sweet hours
That follow the fragrant feet of June?
By the dells and the dingles gathering flowers,
Ere the dew of the dawn be sipped by noon.
And sooth each wilding that buds and blows
You seem to have found and clustered here...
I
Lately, when we wished good-bye
Underneath a gloomy sky,
``Bear,'' you said, ``my love in mind,
Leaving me not quite behind;
And across the mountains send...
Alfred Austin
222 lines
There was a snow-white lily
Grew by a cottage door:
Such a white and wonderful lily
Never was seen before.
The earth and the ether brought it
Sustenance, raiment, grace...
Why, throstle, do you sing
In this November haze?
Singing for what? for whom?
Deem you that it is Spring,
Or that your lonely lays
Will stave off Winter's gloom...
Good-bye, old year, good-bye!
Gentle you were to many as to me,
And so we, meditating, sigh,
Since what hath been will be,
That you must die.
Hark! In the crumbling grey church tower...
Is life worth living? Yes, so long
As Spring revives the year,
And hails us with the cuckoo's song,
To show that she is here;
So long as May of April takes,
In smiles and tears, farewell...
Alfred Austin
104 lines
Unnamed, unknown, but surely bred
Where Thames, once silver, now runs lead,
Whose journeys daily ebb and flow
'Twixt Tyburn and the bells of Bow,
You late in learnëd prose have told
How, for the happy bards of old...
Alfred Austin
341 lines
Lady! in this night of June
Fair like thee and holy,
Art thou gazing at the moon
That is rising slowly?
I am gazing on her now:
Something tells me, so art thou...
Give me a roof where Wisdom dwells,
Where honeysuckle smiles and smells,
A bleating flock, some lowing kine,
An honest welcome always mine,
A homely draught, a humble meal,
Leisure to live, to think, to feel...
When friends grown faithless, or the fickle throng,
Withdrawing from my life the love they lent,
Breed in my heart disdainful discontent,
And sadden sunshine with a sense of wrong,
Then I, forgetting to be wise and strong,
And on my own endearment too intent...
`If you were mine, if you were mine,
The day would dawn, the stars would shine,
The sun would set, the moon arise,
In holier and yet heavenlier skies.
Then unto me the Year would bring
A younger April, fresher Spring...
Ere that I say farewell to youth, and take
The homely road that leads to life's decline,
Let me be sure again I shall not pine
To taste the bliss you bid me to forsake:
That Spring's returning raptures will not wake
Too late repentance for abjuring mine...
SHE wanders in the April woods,
That glisten with the fallen shower;
She leans her face against the buds,
She stops, she stoops, she plucks a flower.
She feels the ferment of the hour:
She broodeth when the ringdove broods...
I had a dream of England. Wild and weird,
The billows ravened round her, and the wrack,
Darkening and dwindling, blotted out the track,
Then flashed on her a bolt that scorched and seared.
She, writhing in her ruin, rolled, and reared,
Then headlonged unto doom, that drove her back...
Whither, and whence, and why hast fled?
Thou art dumb, my muse; thou art dumb, thou art dead,
As a waterless stream, as a leafless tree.
What have I done to banish thee?
But a moon ago, the whole day long
My ears were full of the sound of song...
The love within my heart that dwells
Knows nought of days or hours;
I hear thee in the Christmas bells,
I feel thee in the vernal showers;
And thy breath is blent with the wandering scent
Of the summer fruits and flowers...
Show 20 more works