Ballad of Reading Gaol eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 139 pages of information about Ballad of Reading Gaol.

Ballad of Reading Gaol eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 139 pages of information about Ballad of Reading Gaol.

And suddenly the moon withdraws
Her sickle from the lightening skies,
And to her sombre cavern flies,
Wrapped in a veil of yellow gauze.

Poem:  The Grave Of Keats

Rid of the world’s injustice, and his pain,
He rests at last beneath God’s veil of blue: 
Taken from life when life and love were new
The youngest of the martyrs here is lain,
Fair as Sebastian, and as early slain. 
No cypress shades his grave, no funeral yew,
But gentle violets weeping with the dew
Weave on his bones an ever-blossoming chain. 
O proudest heart that broke for misery! 
O sweetest lips since those of Mitylene! 
O poet-painter of our English Land! 
Thy name was writ in water—­it shall stand: 
And tears like mine will keep thy memory green,
As Isabella did her Basil-tree.

Rome.

Poem:  Theocritus—­A Villanelle

O singer of Persephone! 
In the dim meadows desolate
Dost thou remember Sicily?

Still through the ivy flits the bee
Where Amaryllis lies in state;
O Singer of Persephone!

Simaetha calls on Hecate
And hears the wild dogs at the gate;
Dost thou remember Sicily?

Still by the light and laughing sea
Poor Polypheme bemoans his fate;
O Singer of Persephone!

And still in boyish rivalry
Young Daphnis challenges his mate;
Dost thou remember Sicily?

Slim Lacon keeps a goat for thee,
For thee the jocund shepherds wait;
O Singer of Persephone! 
Dost thou remember Sicily?

Poem:  In The Gold Room—­A Harmony

Her ivory hands on the ivory keys
Strayed in a fitful fantasy,
Like the silver gleam when the poplar trees
Rustle their pale-leaves listlessly,
Or the drifting foam of a restless sea
When the waves show their teeth in the flying breeze.

Her gold hair fell on the wall of gold
Like the delicate gossamer tangles spun
On the burnished disk of the marigold,
Or the sunflower turning to meet the sun
When the gloom of the dark blue night is done,
And the spear of the lily is aureoled.

And her sweet red lips on these lips of mine
Burned like the ruby fire set
In the swinging lamp of a crimson shrine,
Or the bleeding wounds of the pomegranate,
Or the heart of the lotus drenched and wet
With the spilt-out blood of the rose-red wine.

Poem:  Ballade De Marguerite (Normande)

I am weary of lying within the chase
When the knights are meeting in market-place.

Nay, go not thou to the red-roofed town
Lest the hoofs of the war-horse tread thee down.

But I would not go where the Squires ride,
I would only walk by my Lady’s side.

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
Ballad of Reading Gaol from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.