72 quotes
A shaft of fire that falls like dew,
And melts and maddens all my blood,
From out thy spirit flashes through
The burning glass of womanhood.
The Nuts of Knowledge (1903)
The tower of heaven turns darker blue; a starry sparkle now begins;
The mystery and magnificence, the myriad beauty and the sins
Come back to me.
The Nuts of Knowledge (1903)
Its edges foamed with amethyst and rose,
Withers once more the old blue flower of day:
There where the ether like a diamond glows
Its petals fade away.
The Nuts of Knowledge (1903)
Image of beauty, when I gaze on thee,
Trembling I waken to a mystery,
How through one door we go to life or death
By spirit kindled or the sensual breath.
The Nuts of Knowledge (1903)
Late, late, I come to you, now death discloses
Love that in life was not to be our part:
On your low lying mound between the roses,
Sadly I cast my heart.
Nay, let this earth, your portion, likewise cover
All the old anger, setting us apart:
Always, in all, in truth was I your lover;
Always, I held your heart.
I can enchant the trees and rocks, and fill
The dumb brown lips of earth with mystery,
Make them reveal or hide the god. I breathe
A deeper pity than all love, myself
Mother of all, but without hands to heal:
Too vast and vague, they know me not.
By Still Waters (1906)
What of all the will to do?
It has vanished long ago,
For a dream-shaft pierced it through
From the Unknown Archer's bow.
The Nuts of Knowledge (1903)
We rise, but by the symbol charioted,
Through loved things rising up to Love's own ways
By these the soul unto the vast has wings
And sets the seal celestial on all mortal things.
The Nuts of Knowledge (1903)
Oh, I am so old, meseems
I am next of kin to Time,
The historian of her dreams
From the long forgotten prime.
The Nuts of Knowledge (1903)
The hope lives on age after age,
Earth with its beauty might be won
For labor as a heritage,
For this has Ireland lost a son.
To the Memory of Some I knew Who are Dead and Who Loved Ireland (1917)
We are tired who follow after
Phantasy and truth that flies:
You with only look and laughter
Stain our hearts with richest dyes.
By Still Waters (1906)
Something you see in me I wis not:
Another heart in you I guess:
A stranger's lips — but thine I kiss not,
Erring in all my tenderness.
By Still Waters (1906)
I sometimes think a mighty lover
Takes every burning kiss we give:
His lights are those which round us hover:
For him alone our lives we live.
By Still Waters (1906)
In day from some titanic past it seems
As if a thread divine of memory runs;
Born ere the Mighty One began his dreams,
Or yet were stars and suns.
By Still Waters (1906)
Make of thy gentleness thy might:
'Make of thy silence words to shake
The long-enthroned kings of earth:
Make of thy will the force to break
Their towers of wantonness and mirth.'
The Nuts of Knowledge (1903)
All the morn a spirit gay
Breathes within my heart a rhyme,
Tis but hide and seek we play
In and out the courts of Time.
The Nuts of Knowledge (1903)
Our true hearts are forever lonely:
A wistfulness is in our thought:
Our lights are like the dawns which only
Seem bright to us and yet are not.
By Still Waters (1906)
You would have understood me, had you waited;
I could have loved you, dear! as well as he:
Had we not been impatient, dear! and fated
Always to disagree.
If the Gods would only inspire me a little more vigorously I would write no end, but as it is I have to sweat over my work, such as it is, and often groan that I never have a chance to do it properly.
Letter to Mrs. T. P. Hyatt (1895)