Poems by Francis Thompson

All Poems Original Poems Translations

« ‹ 1 2 3 4 5 › »

A Girl's Sin - In His Eyes

Can I forget her cruelty

Who, brown miracle, gave you me?

Or with unmoisted eyes think on

The proud surrender overgone,

(Lowlihead in haughty dress),

Of the tender tyranness?

And ere thou for my joy was given,

How rough the road to that blest heaven!

by Francis Thompson

'Chose Vue'

A metrical caprice.

Up she rose, fair daughter--well she was graced

As a cloud her going, stept from her chair,

As a summer-soft cloud, in her going paced,

Down dropped her riband-band, and all her waving hair

Shook like loosened music cadent to her waist;--

Lapsing like music, wavery as water,

Slid to her waist.

by Francis Thompson

To Daisies

Ah, drops of gold in whitening flame

Burning, we know your lovely name -

Daisies, that little children pull!

Like all weak things, over the strong

Ye do not know your power for wrong,

And much abuse your feebleness.

Daisies, that little children pull,

As ye are weak, be merciful!

by Francis Thompson

A Fallen Yew

It seemed corrival of the world's great prime,

Made to un-edge the scythe of Time,

And last with stateliest rhyme.

No tender Dryad ever did indue

That rigid chiton of rough yew,

To fret her white flesh through:

But some god like to those grim Asgard lords,

Who walk the fables of the hordes

by Francis Thompson

A Carrier Song

Since you have waned from us,

Fairest of women!

I am a darkened cage

Song cannot hymn in.

My songs have followed you,

Like birds the summer;

Ah! bring them back to me,

by Francis Thompson

Any Saint

His shoulder did I hold

Too high that I, o'erbold

Weak one,

Should lean thereon.

But He a little hath

Declined His stately path

And my

Feet set more high;

by Francis Thompson

A Girl's Sin - In Her Eyes

Cross child! red, and frowning so?

'I, the day just over,

Gave a lock of hair to--no!

How DARE you say, my lover?'

He asked you?--Let me understand;

Come, child, let me sound it!

'Of course, he WOULD have asked it, and--

And so--somehow--he--found it.

by Francis Thompson

To Olivia

I fear to love thee, Sweet, because

Love's the ambassador of loss;

White flake of childhood, clinging so

To my soiled raiment, thy shy snow

At tenderest touch will shrink and go.

Love me not, delightful child.

My heart, by many snares beguiled,

Has grown timorous and wild.

by Francis Thompson

After Her Going

The after-even! Ah, did I walk,

Indeed, in her or even?

For nothing of me or around

But absent She did leaven,

Felt in my body as its soul,

And in my soul its heaven.

'Ah me! my very flesh turns soul,

Essenced,' I sighed, 'with bliss!'

by Francis Thompson

'Ex Ore Infantium'

Little Jesus, wast Thou shy

Once, and just so small as I?

And what did it feel like to be

Out of Heaven, and just like me?

Didst Thou sometimes think of THERE,

And ask where all the angels were?

I should think that I would cry

For my house all made of sky;

by Francis Thompson

Against Urania

Lo I, Song's most true lover, plain me sore

That worse than other women she can deceive,

For she being goddess, I have given her more

Than mortal ladies from their loves receive;

And first of her embrace

She was not coy, and gracious were her ways,

That I forgot all virgins to adore;

Nor did I greatly grieve

by Francis Thompson

A Sunset

From Hugo's 'Feuilles d'Automne'.

I love the evenings, passionless and fair, I love the evens,

Whether old manor-fronts their ray with golden fulgence leavens,

In numerous leafage bosomed close;

Whether the mist in reefs of fire extend its reaches sheer,

Or a hundred sunbeams splinter in an azure atmosphere

On cloudy archipelagos.

Oh gaze ye on the firmament! a hundred clouds in motion,

by Francis Thompson