Poems by Lord Alfred Douglas | Poetree

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Not All The Singers Of A Thousand Years

Not All The Singers Of A Thousand Years

Not all the singers of a thousand years

Can open English prisons. No. Though hell

Opened for Tracian Orpheus, now the spell

Of song and art is powerless as the tears

That love has shed. You that were full of fears,

And mean self-love, shall live to know full well

That you yourselves, not he, were pitiable

When you met mercy's voice with frowns or jeers.

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by Lord Alfred Douglas

The City Of The Soul: II

The City Of The Soul: II

What shall we do, my soul, to please the King?

Seeing he hath no pleasure in the dance,

And hath condemned the honeyed utterance

Of silver flutes and mouths made round to sing.

Along the wall red roses climb and cling,

And oh! my prince, lift up thy countenance,

For there be thoughts like roses that entrance

More than the languors of soft lute-playing.

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by Lord Alfred Douglas

The Green River

The Green River

I know a green grass path that leaves the field,

And like a running river, winds along

Into a leafy wood where is no throng

Of birds at noon-day, and no soft throats yield

Their music to the moon. The place is sealed,

An unclaimed sovereignty of voiceless song,

And all the unravished silences belong

To some sweet singer lost or unrevealed.

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by Lord Alfred Douglas

Sonnet On The Sonnet

Sonnet On The Sonnet

To see the moment holds a madrigal,

To find some cloistered place, some hermitage

For free devices, some deliberate cage

Wherein to keep wild thoughts like birds in thrall;

To eat sweet honey and to taste black gall,

To fight with form, to wrestle and to rage,

Till at the last upon the conquered page

The shadows of created Beauty fall.

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by Lord Alfred Douglas

The Garden Of Death

The Garden Of Death

There is an isle in an unfurrowed sea

That I wot of, whereon the whole year round

The apple-blossoms and the rosebuds be

In early blooming ; and a many sound

Of ten-stringed lute, and most mellifluous breath

Of silver flute, and mellow half-heard horn,

Making unmeasured music. Thither Death

Coming like Love, takes all things in the morn

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by Lord Alfred Douglas

The Dead Poet

The Dead Poet

I dreamed of him last night, I saw his face

All radiant and unshadowed of distress,

And as of old, in music measureless,

I heard his golden voice and marked him trace

Under the common thing the hidden grace,

And conjure wonder out of emptiness,

Till mean things put on beauty like a dress

And all the world was an enchanted place.

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by Lord Alfred Douglas