https://sonett.fontane-place.de/ Sat, 27 Jun 2026 16:42:04 +0000 MyBB https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=35654 Fri, 07 Nov 2025 10:31:49 +0100 ZaunköniG]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=35654 John Barlas
(pseud. Evelyn Douglas)

Love Sonnets

I. "Lo in thine honour I will build a place"

Lo in thine honour I will build a place
Where thou and I may dwell with love apart,
Hand clasped in hand and beating heart to heart,
And find from life's dull tumult a sweet space
Of rest and quiet: on its walls I trace
Shapes of religious and devoted art
And hues of fair imaginings, that start
And fill each crevice with thy sudden face.
Come live in it, for it is thine; thy friend
Is but the architect. 'Tis dark: so come,
Reveal its form with thine indwelling smile.
Nor lack I some far hope that in the end
Thy memory may thine heritor become,
And live in this pure house a little while.]]> John Barlas
(pseud. Evelyn Douglas)

Love Sonnets

I. "Lo in thine honour I will build a place"

Lo in thine honour I will build a place
Where thou and I may dwell with love apart,
Hand clasped in hand and beating heart to heart,
And find from life's dull tumult a sweet space
Of rest and quiet: on its walls I trace
Shapes of religious and devoted art
And hues of fair imaginings, that start
And fill each crevice with thy sudden face.
Come live in it, for it is thine; thy friend
Is but the architect. 'Tis dark: so come,
Reveal its form with thine indwelling smile.
Nor lack I some far hope that in the end
Thy memory may thine heritor become,
And live in this pure house a little while.]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=22999 Sat, 11 Jan 2014 12:47:59 +0100 ZaunköniG]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=22999 A carven goddess of miraculous mould;
Not, like flesh, warm; nor yet, like marble, cold;
But wan, and beautiful to make love weep;
I yet behold you when my dreams are deep
With all the lamplight round you rich and gold,
And all your black hair on your round head rolled
And dreamy eyes that under great lids peep.
Ah then my heart aches bitterly, for I guess
Another now kneels by that loveliness.
His the wan body in the warm lamplight,
His too--oh torturing thought--the bosom white
And dreamy lids my kisses used to press,
And all her body's beauty and delight.]]> A carven goddess of miraculous mould;
Not, like flesh, warm; nor yet, like marble, cold;
But wan, and beautiful to make love weep;
I yet behold you when my dreams are deep
With all the lamplight round you rich and gold,
And all your black hair on your round head rolled
And dreamy eyes that under great lids peep.
Ah then my heart aches bitterly, for I guess
Another now kneels by that loveliness.
His the wan body in the warm lamplight,
His too--oh torturing thought--the bosom white
And dreamy lids my kisses used to press,
And all her body's beauty and delight.]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=22998 Sat, 11 Jan 2014 12:45:50 +0100 ZaunköniG]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=22998 With opiums weight, this drunkenness of soul,
Bizarre, grotesque, satiric, with strange scroll
Of flaunting fancy's wildest foliage screening
No plashy depths of philosophic meaning,
Scoffing, believing, laughing at life's dole,
From heart that bleeds the while to death's dear goal,
Take, friend—my own, from no mans field a gleaning.

For I have made myself a clean new mould
To pour my fancies in, of mad burlesque,
Yet full of death withal as charnel air.
I first of men have carved in fancy's gold
So queer a pagod freaked in fancy's gold,
Though treading Wagner's ground twixt Goethe and Baudelaire.]]> With opiums weight, this drunkenness of soul,
Bizarre, grotesque, satiric, with strange scroll
Of flaunting fancy's wildest foliage screening
No plashy depths of philosophic meaning,
Scoffing, believing, laughing at life's dole,
From heart that bleeds the while to death's dear goal,
Take, friend—my own, from no mans field a gleaning.

For I have made myself a clean new mould
To pour my fancies in, of mad burlesque,
Yet full of death withal as charnel air.
I first of men have carved in fancy's gold
So queer a pagod freaked in fancy's gold,
Though treading Wagner's ground twixt Goethe and Baudelaire.]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=17288 Mon, 13 Aug 2007 12:20:22 +0200 ZaunköniG]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=17288 John Barlas
(pseud. Evelyn Douglas)

Love Sonnets


Beauty

Beauty is liberal as the heavenly air,
Beauty is boundless as the universe:
The waves of evil ponderously immerse
The pearl of good; beauty is everywhere.
Beauty is a devout a deep despair;
Hopes that with heaven's highest stars converse:
The poisonous blossom of a devil's curse;
The first and last word of an angel's prayer.
Creation and destruction at thy beck
Call love and lust: throiugh battle's bloody swarm
That youth with smiling face sees but thy form:
And, 'mid the shrieks of the fast sinking wreck,
A poet, standing on the wave-washed deck,
Stares awe-struck at the beauty of the storm.


.]]> John Barlas
(pseud. Evelyn Douglas)

Love Sonnets


Beauty

Beauty is liberal as the heavenly air,
Beauty is boundless as the universe:
The waves of evil ponderously immerse
The pearl of good; beauty is everywhere.
Beauty is a devout a deep despair;
Hopes that with heaven's highest stars converse:
The poisonous blossom of a devil's curse;
The first and last word of an angel's prayer.
Creation and destruction at thy beck
Call love and lust: throiugh battle's bloody swarm
That youth with smiling face sees but thy form:
And, 'mid the shrieks of the fast sinking wreck,
A poet, standing on the wave-washed deck,
Stares awe-struck at the beauty of the storm.


.]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=16217 Mon, 02 Jul 2007 12:27:49 +0200 ZaunköniG]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=16217
The marriage of two murderers in the gloom
Of a dark fane to hymns of blackest night;
Before a priest who keeps his hands from sight
Hidden away beneath his robe of doom,
Lest any see the flowers of blood that bloom
For gems upon the fingers, red on white;
The while far up in domes of dizzy height
The trumpets of the organ peal and boom:
Such is our love. Oh sweet delicious lips
From which I fancy all the world's blood drips!
Oh supple waist, pale cheek, and eyes of fire,
Hard little breasts and white gigantic hips,
And blue-black hair with serpent coils that slips
Out of my hand in hours of red desire.]]>
The marriage of two murderers in the gloom
Of a dark fane to hymns of blackest night;
Before a priest who keeps his hands from sight
Hidden away beneath his robe of doom,
Lest any see the flowers of blood that bloom
For gems upon the fingers, red on white;
The while far up in domes of dizzy height
The trumpets of the organ peal and boom:
Such is our love. Oh sweet delicious lips
From which I fancy all the world's blood drips!
Oh supple waist, pale cheek, and eyes of fire,
Hard little breasts and white gigantic hips,
And blue-black hair with serpent coils that slips
Out of my hand in hours of red desire.]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=16216 Mon, 02 Jul 2007 12:26:06 +0200 ZaunköniG]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=16216
Her hair is yellow as sulphur, and her gaze
As brimstone burning blue and odorous:
I know not how her eyes came to be thus
But I do think her soul must be ablaze:
Their pupils wane or wax to blame or praise;
As a cat watches mice, she watches us;
And I am sure her claws are murderous,
So feline are her velvet coaxing ways.
She purrs like a young leopard soothed and pleased
At flattery; so too turns and snarls when teased,
And pats her love like a beast of prey.
I fancy too that over wine and food
Her saffron hair turns tawny and grand her mood--
She broods like a young lioness of play.]]>
Her hair is yellow as sulphur, and her gaze
As brimstone burning blue and odorous:
I know not how her eyes came to be thus
But I do think her soul must be ablaze:
Their pupils wane or wax to blame or praise;
As a cat watches mice, she watches us;
And I am sure her claws are murderous,
So feline are her velvet coaxing ways.
She purrs like a young leopard soothed and pleased
At flattery; so too turns and snarls when teased,
And pats her love like a beast of prey.
I fancy too that over wine and food
Her saffron hair turns tawny and grand her mood--
She broods like a young lioness of play.]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=16215 Mon, 02 Jul 2007 12:25:26 +0200 ZaunköniG]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=16215
A dagger-hilt crusted with flaming gems:
A queen's rich girdle clasped with tiger's claws;
A lady's glove or a cat's velvet paws;
The whisper of a judge when he condemns;
Fierce night-shade berries purple on their stems
Among the rose's healthsome scarlet haws;
A rainbow-sheathed snake with jagged jaws:
Such are queen Beauty's sovran anadems.
For she caresses with a poisoned hand,
And venom hangs about her moistened lips,
And plots of murder lurk with her eyes
She loves lewd girls dancing a saraband
The murderer stabbing till all his body drips,
And thee, my gentle lady, and thy soft sighs.]]>
A dagger-hilt crusted with flaming gems:
A queen's rich girdle clasped with tiger's claws;
A lady's glove or a cat's velvet paws;
The whisper of a judge when he condemns;
Fierce night-shade berries purple on their stems
Among the rose's healthsome scarlet haws;
A rainbow-sheathed snake with jagged jaws:
Such are queen Beauty's sovran anadems.
For she caresses with a poisoned hand,
And venom hangs about her moistened lips,
And plots of murder lurk with her eyes
She loves lewd girls dancing a saraband
The murderer stabbing till all his body drips,
And thee, my gentle lady, and thy soft sighs.]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=16214 Mon, 02 Jul 2007 12:24:50 +0200 ZaunköniG]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=16214
Oblivion! is it not one name of death?
Nay, is not Lethe death's most dismal name,
Death growing hour by hour within our frame,
Death settling slowly in our brain, the breath
Of the soul ebbing, so that he who saith,
I am to-day as yesterday the same,
Lies, for his thoughts are fled like smoke from flame,
And like the dew his sorrow vanisheth.
Changed is the river, though the waves remain,
Which rocks of slowlier-changing circumstance
Plough up in every day of chafing foam.
Changed is the river, gone, gone to the main,
Yesterday's dream and last year's happy chance,
And the heart's thoughts again return not home.]]>
Oblivion! is it not one name of death?
Nay, is not Lethe death's most dismal name,
Death growing hour by hour within our frame,
Death settling slowly in our brain, the breath
Of the soul ebbing, so that he who saith,
I am to-day as yesterday the same,
Lies, for his thoughts are fled like smoke from flame,
And like the dew his sorrow vanisheth.
Changed is the river, though the waves remain,
Which rocks of slowlier-changing circumstance
Plough up in every day of chafing foam.
Changed is the river, gone, gone to the main,
Yesterday's dream and last year's happy chance,
And the heart's thoughts again return not home.]]>