Poems by Robert Nichols | Poetree

All Poems Original Poems Translations

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PÆan

PÆan

upon seeing a portrait of Blake

Something moves in his dust,

Flame sleeps beneath the crust;

O whence had he those eyes

Lit with celestial surprise?

From what world blew that gust?

Are we near to Paradise?

Gather a chaplet of five stars

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The Stranger

The Stranger

Never am I so alone

As when I walk among the crowd —

Blurred masks of stern or grinning stone,

Unmeaning eyes and voices loud.

Gaze dares not encounter gaze,…

Humbled, I turn my head aside;

When suddenly there is a face…

Pale, subdued and grievous-eyed.

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The Day's March

The Day's March

The battery grides and jingles,

Mile succeeds to mile;

Shaking the noonday sunshine

The guns lunge out awhile,

And then are still awhile.

We amble along the highway;

The reeking, powdery dust

Ascends and cakes our faces

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Seventeen

Seventeen

All the loud winds were in the garden wood,

All shadows joyfuller than lissom hounds

Doubled in chasing, all exultant clouds

That ever flung fierce mist and eddying fire

Across heavens deeper than blue polar seas

Fled over the sceptre-spikes of the chestnuts,

Over the speckle of the wych-elms' green.

She shouted; then stood still, hushed and abashed

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The Approach

The Approach

1.

In the Grass: Halt by the Wayside

In my tired, helpless body

I feel my sunk heart ache;

But suddenly, loudly

The far, the great guns shake.

Is it sudden terror

Burdens my heart? My hand

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The Pilgrim

The Pilgrim

Put by the sun my joyful soul,

We are for darkness that is whole;

Put by the wine, now for long years

We must be thirsty with salt tears;

Put by the rose, bind thou instead

The fiercest thorns about thy head;

Put by the courteous tire, we need

But the poor pilgrim's blackest weed;

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'To _____'

'To _____'

Asleep within the deadest hour of night

And turning with the earth, I was aware

How suddenly the eastern curve was bright,

As when the sun arises from his lair.

But not the sun arose: It was thy hair

Shaken up heaven in tossing leagues of light.

Since then I know that neither night nor day

May I escape thee, O my heavenly hell!

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by Robert Nichols

Evenstar

Evenstar

Evenstar, still evenstar

If this twilight thou dost shine

On a more unhappy head,

On tears lonelier than mine,

Vainer prayers and deepest sighs,

Take, sweet spirit, thou that art

Comforter of our despairs

All the prayers perforce unsaid,

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by Robert Nichols

Nearer

Nearer

Nearer and ever nearer...

My body, tired but tense,

Hovers 'twixt vague pleasure

And tremulous confidence.

Arms to have and to use them

And a soul to be made

Worthy, if not worthy;

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by Robert Nichols

The Naiads' Music: From A Faun's Holiday

The Naiads' Music: From A Faun's Holiday

Come, ye sorrowful, and steep

Your tired brows in a nectarous sleep:

For our kisses lightlier run

Than the traceries of the sun

By the lolling water cast

Up grey precipices vast,

Lifting smooth and waem and steep

Out of the palely shimmering deep.

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by Robert Nichols

November

November

As I walk the misty hill

All is languid, fogged, and still;

Not a note of any bird

Nor any motion's hint is heard,

Save from soaking thickets round

Trickle or water's rushing sound,

And from ghostly trees the drip

Of runnel dews or whispering slip

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by Robert Nichols

The Prophetic Bard's Oration: From A Faun's Holiday

The Prophetic Bard's Oration: From A Faun's Holiday

'Be warned! I feel the world grow old,

And off Olympus fades the gold

Of the simple passionate sun;

And the Gods wither one by one;

Proud-eyed Apollo's bow is broken,

And throned Zeus nods nor may be woken

But by the song of spirits seven

Quiring in the midnight heaven

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by Robert Nichols