Faces and Open DoorsRalph Fletcher Seymour, 1922 - 120 pages |
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Adelaide is dead agèd Apollo ASPHODEL birds bloom bough breast bright beautiful wave bring cages CHILD cling Clouds coming CORINNA dark DAVID dear doll door dream EASTLAND WATERS eyes FACES AND OPEN father fingers flashed a cruel flowers forever forevermore forget forgotten forsaken girl glad gray hair hear heard heart hill hour hush INGRID Israfel kisses lambrequin lepers letter light the lamps lips lock look Look-she Love's Malooly has gone MARTHA MARTIN Mary MOTHER never NIELS night NUMBERS old Lizette old must go path peristyle petals pierced rain rose round bright beautiful sang SECOND DAUGHTER shadow shake shining ships silent house sing sleep smile soft song soul star STEPHANA stood STRANGER sweet tears tell There's to-morrow town tree voice wait waken walk weep whisper WIFE wind wings woman wonder word
Popular passages
Page 38 - With the fervor of thy lute: Well may the stars be mute! Yes, Heaven is thine; but this Is a world of sweets and sours; Our flowers are merely — flowers, And the shadow of thy perfect bliss Is the sunshine of ours. If I could dwell Where Israfel Hath dwelt, and he where I, He might not sing so wildly well A mortal melody, While a bolder note than this might swell From my lyre within the sky.
Page 32 - GARDEN I was a goddess ere the marble found me. Wind, wind, delay not — Waft my spirit where the laurel crowned me! Will the wind stay not? Then tarry, tarry, listen, little swallow! An old glory feeds me — I lay upon the bosom of Apollo! Not a bird heeds me. For here the days are alien. Oh, to waken Mine, mine, with calling! But on my shoulders bare, like hopes forsaken, The dead leaves are falling. The sky is gray and full of unshed weeping As dim down the garden I wait and watch the early...
Page 34 - His ways were ever darling ways" — And Mary smiled — "So soft, so clinging! Glad relays Of love were all His precious days. My little Child! My infinite star! My music fled!" "Even so was mine,
Page 33 - Mary, the Christ long slain, passed silently, Following the children joyously astir Under the cedrus and the olive'tree, Pausing to let their laughter float to her. Each voice an echo of a voice more dear, She saw a little Christ in every face. Then came another woman gliding near To watch the tender life that filled the place. And Mary sought the woman's hand, and spoke: "I know thee not, yet know thy memory tossed With all a thousand dreams their eyes evoke Who bring to thee a child beloved and...
Page 34 - His balmy fingers left a thrill Deep in my breast that warms me still." Then she gazed down some wilder, darker hour, And said — when Mary questioned, knowing not, "Who art thou, mother of so sweet a son?" — "I am the mother of Iscariot.
Page 17 - And know nothing at all! Yes, never know at all If prowlers mew or bark, Nor wonder if it's three o'clock Or four o'clock of the dark. When the longer shades have fallen, And the last weariness Has brought the sweetest gift of life, The last forgetfulness, If a sound as of old leaves Stir the last bed I keep, Then say, my dears: "It's old Lizette — She's. turning in her sleep.
Page 16 - OLD LIZETTE ON SLEEP Bed is the boon for me! It's well to bake and sweep, But hear the word of old Lizette: It's better than all to sleep. Summer and flowers are gay, And morning light and dew; But aged eyelids love the dark Where never a light seeps through. What! — open-eyed, my dears, Thinking your hearts will break? There's nothing, nothing, nothing, I say, That's worth the lying awake! I learned it in my youth — Love I was dreaming of! I learned it from the needle-work That took the place...
Page 61 - Numbers are so much the measure of everything that is valuable, that it is not possible to demonstrate the success of any action, or the prudence of any undertaking, without them. I say this in answer to what Sir Roger is pleased to say, that little that is truly noble can be expected from one who is ever poring on his cash-book or balancing his accounts.
Page 37 - SHAKESPEARE Because, the singer of an age, he sang The passions of the ages, It was humanity itself that leaped To life upon his pages. He told no single being's tale — he forced All beings to his pen. And when he made a man to walk the street Forth walked a million men.
Page 21 - ... joy and pathos of motherhood is suggested to her not so much by the infant Christ as by the infant Iscariot in his mother's arms. A tale of leprosy from Honolulu is transmuted into that agonizing dialogue, The Asphodel. And a name in a newspaper police report gives us Mrs. Malooly done to the life: Mrs. Malooly has gone to her rest, Who scrubbed Manhattan's marble aisles. She has forgotten, forgotten, forgotten The mop and broom And the patterned tiles. Mrs. Malooly has gone to her rest In the...