"And will you cut a stone for him,
To set above his head?
And will you cut a stone for him--
A stone for him?" she said.
Three days before, a splintered rock
Had struck her lover dead--
Had struck him in the quarry dead,
Where, careless of a warning call,
He loitered, while the shot was fired--
......
I
We who with songs beguile your pilgrimage
And swear that Beauty lives though lilies die,
We Poets of the proud old lineage
Who sing to find your hearts, we know not why, -
What shall we tell you? Tales, marvellous tales
Of ships and stars and isles where good men rest,
Where nevermore the rose of sunset pales,
And winds and shadows fall towards the West:
......
Veiling, barely, his dread
Beauty and its blaze,
An angel sets warm bread
and cool milk at my place.
His eyelids make the sign
Of prayer; I lower mine,
Words interleaving vision:
--Calm, calm, be ever calm!
Feel the whole weight a palm
Bears upright in profusion.
......
No stir in the air, no stir in the sea,
The Ship was still as she could be;
Her sails from heaven received no motion,
Her keel was steady in the ocean.
Without either sign or sound of their shock,
The waves flow’d over the Inchcape Rock;
So little they rose, so little they fell,
They did not move the Inchcape Bell.
......
Oft I had heard of Lucy Gray:
And, when I crossed the wild,
I chanced to see at break of day
The solitary child.
No mate, no comrade Lucy knew;
She dwelt on a wide moor,
- The sweetest thing that ever grew
Beside a human door!
......
my soul-rose has a fulcrum
sometimes
veined petals spread across
skies unknown, thorns ready
for piercing when blood
too perfumed passionate
both melancholic forlorn
vulnerable as jasmine or sturdy
as oak delivering acorns
unfurling as time dictates
......
do not ask what my IQ is,
ask whose empire it serves.
do not test my EQ,
test if i weep for your enslaved children.
do not quantify my soul,
quantify the graves dug by your greed.
is it rose--volt black velvet, or ken-&-dee,
who was shut down the same day like a pigeon,
with king, mal.com.x, and other black canaries.
some said the "sea i aye"
......
I open my eyes, a dream wearing thin
Your perfumed breath settled into my skin
I follow your path, to your voice I’m sworn
a grasping hand that’s been struck by your thorn
You plucked me away in twinkling night air
hands swiftly unweaving love undeclared
no root could hold on, no voice would remain
so I myself turn, and drift now away
......
In the garden of my heart, there grows a rose,
a mystery, a beauty, the one my heart chose.
Her smile, a radiant bloom in the twilight's grace,
a secret enhancement, a captivating embrace.
Oh, smile of rose, like petals soft and rare,
in your gentle laughter, I find solace there.
Your eyes, like stars that twinkle in the night,
......
Rosa the gem of flowers
the queen of every plant,
in spring she wears her fineries,
her beauty the eyes enchant.
Her colours are so attractive blushing with every hues,
her aroma is so romantic
to every love a muse.
Her greenish dress is gorgeous covering her prickly stem,
......