https://sonett.fontane-place.de/ Tue, 30 Jun 2026 10:37:58 +0000 MyBB https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=14473 Mon, 21 May 2007 13:07:35 +0200 ZaunköniG]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=14473
I. To G. H. B.

If that my hand, like yours, dear George, were skilled
To win from Wordsworth’s scandy plot of ground
A shining harvest, such as you have found,
Where strength and grace, fraternally fulfilled,

As in those sheaves whose rustling glories gild
The hills of August, folded are and bound:
So would I draw my loving tillage round
Its borders, let the gentlest rains be spilled,

The goldenest suns its happy growth compel,
And bind for you the ripe, redundant grain:
But ah! you stand amid your songful sheaves

So rich, this wed-born flower you might disdain,
Save that of me its groth and color tell,
And of my love some perfume haunt its leaves.


II. To E. C. S. (Edmund Clarence Stedmen?)

When days were long, and o’er that farm of mine,
Green Cedarcroft, the summer breezes blew,
And from the walnut-shadows I and you,
Dear Edmund, saw the red lawn-roses shine,

Or, following our idyllic Brandywine
Through meadows flecked with many a flowery hue,
To where with wild Arcadian pomp I drew
Your Bacchic march among the startled kine, -

You gave me, linked with old Mæonides,
Your loving sonnet, -record dear and true
Of days as dear; and now, when suns are brief

And Christmas snows are on the nacked trees,
I give you this, - a withered winter leaf,
Yet with your blossom from one root it grew!


III. To R. H. S. (Richard Henry Stoddard?)

The Years go by, old friend! Each, as it fleets,
Moves to a farther, fairer realm the time
When first we twain the pleasant land of rhyme
Discovered, choosing sie by side our seats

Below our separate gods: in midnight streets
And haunted attics flattered by the chime
Of silver words, and fed by faith sublime,
I Shelley’s mantle wore, you that of Keats, -

Dear dreams, that marked the Muse’s childhood then,
Nor now to be disowned! The years go by:
The clear-eyed goddess flatters us no more,

And yet, I think, in soberer aims of men
And servitude of Song, that you and I
Are nearer, dearer, faithfuller than before.


IV. To J. L. G. (James Lorimer Graham?)

If I could touch with Petrarch’s pen thin strain
Of graver song, and shape to liquid flow
Of soft Italian syllables the glow
That warms my heart, my tribute were not vain;

But how shall I such measured sweetness gain
As may your golden nature fitly show,
And with the heart-light shine, that fills you so,
It pales the graces of the cultured brain?

Long have I known, Love better is than Fame,
And Love hath crowned you; yet if any bay
Cling to my chaplet when the years have fled

And I am dust, may this which bears your name
Cling latest, that my love’s result shall stray,
When that which mine ambition wrought is dead!]]>
I. To G. H. B.

If that my hand, like yours, dear George, were skilled
To win from Wordsworth’s scandy plot of ground
A shining harvest, such as you have found,
Where strength and grace, fraternally fulfilled,

As in those sheaves whose rustling glories gild
The hills of August, folded are and bound:
So would I draw my loving tillage round
Its borders, let the gentlest rains be spilled,

The goldenest suns its happy growth compel,
And bind for you the ripe, redundant grain:
But ah! you stand amid your songful sheaves

So rich, this wed-born flower you might disdain,
Save that of me its groth and color tell,
And of my love some perfume haunt its leaves.


II. To E. C. S. (Edmund Clarence Stedmen?)

When days were long, and o’er that farm of mine,
Green Cedarcroft, the summer breezes blew,
And from the walnut-shadows I and you,
Dear Edmund, saw the red lawn-roses shine,

Or, following our idyllic Brandywine
Through meadows flecked with many a flowery hue,
To where with wild Arcadian pomp I drew
Your Bacchic march among the startled kine, -

You gave me, linked with old Mæonides,
Your loving sonnet, -record dear and true
Of days as dear; and now, when suns are brief

And Christmas snows are on the nacked trees,
I give you this, - a withered winter leaf,
Yet with your blossom from one root it grew!


III. To R. H. S. (Richard Henry Stoddard?)

The Years go by, old friend! Each, as it fleets,
Moves to a farther, fairer realm the time
When first we twain the pleasant land of rhyme
Discovered, choosing sie by side our seats

Below our separate gods: in midnight streets
And haunted attics flattered by the chime
Of silver words, and fed by faith sublime,
I Shelley’s mantle wore, you that of Keats, -

Dear dreams, that marked the Muse’s childhood then,
Nor now to be disowned! The years go by:
The clear-eyed goddess flatters us no more,

And yet, I think, in soberer aims of men
And servitude of Song, that you and I
Are nearer, dearer, faithfuller than before.


IV. To J. L. G. (James Lorimer Graham?)

If I could touch with Petrarch’s pen thin strain
Of graver song, and shape to liquid flow
Of soft Italian syllables the glow
That warms my heart, my tribute were not vain;

But how shall I such measured sweetness gain
As may your golden nature fitly show,
And with the heart-light shine, that fills you so,
It pales the graces of the cultured brain?

Long have I known, Love better is than Fame,
And Love hath crowned you; yet if any bay
Cling to my chaplet when the years have fled

And I am dust, may this which bears your name
Cling latest, that my love’s result shall stray,
When that which mine ambition wrought is dead!]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=14470 Mon, 21 May 2007 13:03:26 +0200 ZaunköniG]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=14470
Once more without you! Sighing, dear, once more,
For all the sweet, accustomed ministries
Of wife and mother; not as when the seas
That parted us my tender message bore
From the gray olives of the Cretan shore
To those that hide the broken Phidian frieze
Of our Athenian home,--but far degrees,
Wide plains, great forests, part us now. My door
Looks on the rushing Neva, cold and clear:
The swelling domes in hovering splendour lie
Like golden bubbles, eager to be gone;
But the chill crystal of the atmosphere
Withholds them, and along the northern sky
The amber midnight smiles in dreams of dawn.]]>
Once more without you! Sighing, dear, once more,
For all the sweet, accustomed ministries
Of wife and mother; not as when the seas
That parted us my tender message bore
From the gray olives of the Cretan shore
To those that hide the broken Phidian frieze
Of our Athenian home,--but far degrees,
Wide plains, great forests, part us now. My door
Looks on the rushing Neva, cold and clear:
The swelling domes in hovering splendour lie
Like golden bubbles, eager to be gone;
But the chill crystal of the atmosphere
Withholds them, and along the northern sky
The amber midnight smiles in dreams of dawn.]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=14469 Mon, 21 May 2007 13:02:23 +0200 ZaunköniG]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=14469
Absence from thee is something worse than death;
For, to the heart that slumbers in the shroud,
What are the mourners' tears and clamours loud,
The open grave, the dismal cypress wreath?
The quiet body misses not its breath;
The pain that shivers through the weeping crowd
Is idle homage to the visage proud
That changeth not for all Affliction saith.
But to be thus from thee so far away,
Is as though I, in seeming death, might be
Conscious of all that passed about my clay;
As though I saw my doleful obsequy,
Mourned my own loss, rebelled against decay,
And felt thy tear-drops trickling over me.]]>
Absence from thee is something worse than death;
For, to the heart that slumbers in the shroud,
What are the mourners' tears and clamours loud,
The open grave, the dismal cypress wreath?
The quiet body misses not its breath;
The pain that shivers through the weeping crowd
Is idle homage to the visage proud
That changeth not for all Affliction saith.
But to be thus from thee so far away,
Is as though I, in seeming death, might be
Conscious of all that passed about my clay;
As though I saw my doleful obsequy,
Mourned my own loss, rebelled against decay,
And felt thy tear-drops trickling over me.]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=14468 Mon, 21 May 2007 13:01:49 +0200 ZaunköniG]]> https://sonett.fontane-place.de/showthread.php?tid=14468
Where should the Poet's house and household be?
Beneath what skies, in what untroubled air
Sings he for very joy of songs so fair
That in their steadfast laws he most is free?
In woods remote, where darkly tree on tree
Let fall their curtained shadows, to ensnare
His dreams, or hid in Fancy's happiest lair,--
Some laughing island of the stormless sea?
Ah, never such to him their welcome gave!
But, flattered by the gods in finer scorn,
He drifts upon the world's unresting wave,
As drifts a sea-flower, by the tempest torn
From sheltered porches of the coral cave
Where it expands, of calm and silence born.]]>
Where should the Poet's house and household be?
Beneath what skies, in what untroubled air
Sings he for very joy of songs so fair
That in their steadfast laws he most is free?
In woods remote, where darkly tree on tree
Let fall their curtained shadows, to ensnare
His dreams, or hid in Fancy's happiest lair,--
Some laughing island of the stormless sea?
Ah, never such to him their welcome gave!
But, flattered by the gods in finer scorn,
He drifts upon the world's unresting wave,
As drifts a sea-flower, by the tempest torn
From sheltered porches of the coral cave
Where it expands, of calm and silence born.]]>