Poems by Lord Alfred Douglas

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Night Coming Into A Garden

Roses red and white,

Every rose is hanging her head,

Silently comes the lady Night,

Only the flowers can hear her tread.

All day long the birds have been calling,

Calling shrill and sweet,

They are still when she comes with her long robe falling

Falling down to her feet.

Lord Alfred Douglas

Le Balcon

Mere des souvenirs, mattresses des mattresses

Mother of Memories! O mistress-queen !

Oh ! all my joy and all my duty thou !

The beauty of caresses that have been,

The evenings and the hearth remember now,

Mother of Memories! O mistress-queen !

The evenings burning with the glowing fire,

And on the balcony, the rose-stained nights!

Lord Alfred Douglas

Spring

Wake up again, sad heart, wake up again !

(I heard the birds this morning singing sweet.)

Wake up again ! The sky was crystal clear,

And washed quite clean with rain ;

And tar below my heart stirred with the year,

Stirred with the year and sighed. O pallid feet

Move now at last, O heart that sleeps with pain

Rise up and hear

Lord Alfred Douglas

Plainte Eternelle

The sun sinks down, the tremulous daylight dies.

(Down their long shafts the weary sunbeams glide.)

The white-winged ships drift with the falling tide,

Come back, my love, with pity in your eyes!

The tall white ships drift with the falling tide.

(Far, far away I hear the seamews' cries.)

Come back, my love, with pity in your eyes !

There is no room now in my heart for pride.

Lord Alfred Douglas

Ode To Autumn

Thou sombre lady of down-bended head,

And weary lashes drooping to the cheek,

With sweet sad fold of lips uncomforted,

And listless hands more tired with strife than meek ;

Turn here thy soft brown feet, and to my heart,

Unmatched to Summer's golden minstrelsy,

Or Spring's shrill pipe of joy, sing once again

Sad songs, and I to thee

Lord Alfred Douglas

To Sleep

Ah, Sleep, to me thou com'st not in the guise

Of one who brings good gifts to weary men,

Balm for bruised hearts and fancies alien

To unkind truth, and drying for sad eyes.

I dread the summons to that fierce assize

Of all my foes and woes, that waits me when

Thou mak'st my soul the unwilling denizen

Of thy dim troubled house where unrest lies.

Lord Alfred Douglas

Ennui

Alas! and oh that Spring should come again

Upon the soft wings of desired days,

And bring with her no anodyne to pain,

And no discernment of untroubled ways.

There was a time when her yet distant feet,

Guessed by some prescience more than half divine,

Gave to my listening ear such happy warning,

That fresh, serene, and sweet,

Lord Alfred Douglas

A Song

Steal from the meadows, rob the tall green hills,

Ravish my orchard's blossoms, let me bind

A crown of orchard flowers and daffodils,

Because my love is fair and white and kind.

To-day the thrush has trilled her daintiest phrases,

Flowers with their incense have made drunk the air,

God has bent down to gild the hearts of daisies,

Because my love is kind and white and fair.

Lord Alfred Douglas

The Image Of Death

I carved an image coloured like the night,

Winged with huge wings, stern-browed and menacing,

With hair caught back, and diademed like a king.

The left hand held a sceptre, and the right

Grasped a sharp sword, the bitter marble lips

Were curled and proud ; the yellow topaz eyes

(Each eye a jewel) stared in fearful wise ;

The hard fierce limbs were bare, and from the hips

Lord Alfred Douglas

Autumn Days

I have been through the woods to-day

And the leaves were falling,

Summer had crept away,

And the birds were not calling.

And the bracken was like yellow gold

That comes too late,

When the heart is sad and old,

And death at the gate.

Lord Alfred Douglas

A Winter Sunset

The frosty sky, like a furnace burning,

The keen air, crisp and cold,

And a sunset that splashes the clouds with gold

But my heart to summer turning.

Come back, sweet summer ! come back again !

I hate the snow,

And the icy winds that the north lands blow,

And the fall of the frozen rain.

Lord Alfred Douglas

To Shakespeare

Most tuneful singer, lover tenderest,

Most sad, most piteous, and most musical,

Thine is the shrine more pilgrim-worn than all

The shrines of singers; high above the rest

Thy trumpet sounds most loud, most manifest.

Yet better were it if a lonely call

Of woodland birds, a song, a madrigal,

Were all the jetsam of thy sea's unrest.

Lord Alfred Douglas