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- Herausgeber: DigiCat
- Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
- Sprache: Englisch
In "New Poems," Francis Thompson presents a poignant collection that encapsulates the struggles and triumphs of the human spirit, marked by his signature use of rich imagery and musicality. This volume, emerging from the late Victorian literary context, showcases Thompson's adeptness at intertwining personal reflection with broader existential themes, as he navigates the complexities of faith, love, and despair. His formal yet emotive style is evident in various pieces, where the intricate rhythms and vivid descriptions resonate with the reader, inviting deep engagement with each poem's emotional undercurrent. Francis Thompson, a tragic figure often linked with suffering and redemption, faced significant adversities that shaped his literary voice. Having experienced bouts of poverty and addiction, Thompson's life experiences infused his work with authenticity and raw vulnerability. His profound connection to spirituality, often at odds with his earthly struggles, provides a backdrop for the contemplative nature of this collection, making "New Poems" both a personal testament and a universal narrative. This collection is highly recommended for those who appreciate lyrical poetry that delves into the human condition. Thompson's insights into fragility and resilience, beautifully articulated through his mastery of language, make "New Poems" an essential read for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the emotional landscapes that define our existence.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
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New Poems
Table of Contents
DEDICATION
TO COVENTRY PATMORE
Lo, my book thinks to look Time’s leaguer down, Under the banner of your spread renown! Or if these levies of impuissant rhyme Fall to the overthrow of assaulting Time, Yet this one page shall fend oblivious shame, Armed with your crested and prevailing Name.
Note.—This dedication was written while the dear friend and great Poet to whom it was addressed yet lived. It is left as he saw it—the last verses of mine that were ever to pass under his eyes.
F. T.
SIGHT AND INSIGHT
‘Wisdom is easily seen by them that love her, and is found by them that seek her. To think therefore upon her is perfect understanding.’
Wisdom, vi.
THE MISTRESS OF VISION.
I
Secret was the garden; Set i’ the pathless awe Where no star its breath can draw. Life, that is its warden, Sits behind the fosse of death. Mine eyes saw not, and I saw.
II
It was a mazeful wonder; Thrice three times it was enwalled With an emerald— Sealèd so asunder. All its birds in middle air hung a-dream, their music thralled.
III
The Lady of fair weeping, At the garden’s core, Sang a song of sweet and sore And the after-sleeping; In the land of Luthany, and the tracts of Elenore.
IV
With sweet-panged singing, Sang she through a dream-night’s day; That the bowers might stay, Birds bate their winging, Nor the wall of emerald float in wreathèd haze away.
V
The lily kept its gleaming, In her tears (divine conservers!) Washèd with sad art; And the flowers of dreaming Palèd not their fervours, For her blood flowed through their nervures; And the roses were most red, for she dipt them in her heart.
VI
There was never moon, Save the white sufficing woman: Light most heavenly-human— Like the unseen form of sound, Sensed invisibly in tune,— With a sun-derivèd stole Did inaureole All her lovely body round; Lovelily her lucid body with that light was interstrewn.
VII
The sun which lit that garden wholly, Low and vibrant visible, Tempered glory woke; And it seemèd solely Like a silver thurible Solemnly swung, slowly, Fuming clouds of golden fire, for a cloud of incense-smoke.
VIII
But woe’s me, and woe’s me, For the secrets of her eyes! In my visions fearfully They are ever shown to be As fringèd pools, whereof each lies Pallid-dark beneath the skies Of a night that is But one blear necropolis. And her eyes a little tremble, in the wind of her own sighs.
IX
Many changes rise on Their phantasmal mysteries. They grow to an horizon Where earth and heaven meet; And like a wing that dies on The vague twilight-verges, Many a sinking dream doth fleet Lessening down their secrecies. And, as dusk with day converges, Their orbs are troublously Over-gloomed and over-glowed with hope and fear of things to be.
X
There is a peak on Himalay, And on the peak undeluged snow, And on the snow not eagles stray; There if your strong feet could go,— Looking over tow’rd Cathay From the never-deluged snow— Farthest ken might not survey Where the peoples underground dwell whom antique fables know.
XI
East, ah, east of Himalay, Dwell the nations underground; Hiding from the shock of Day, For the sun’s uprising-sound: Dare not issue from the ground At the tumults of the Day, So fearfully the sun doth sound Clanging up beyond Cathay; For the great earthquaking sunrise rolling up beyond Cathay.
XII
Lend me, O lend me The terrors of that sound, That its music may attend me. Wrap my chant in thunders round; While I tell the ancient secrets in that Lady’s singing found.
XIII
On Ararat there grew a vine, When Asia from her bathing rose; Our first sailor made a twine Thereof for his prefiguring brows. Canst divine Where, upon our dusty earth, of that vine a cluster grows?
XIV
On Golgotha there grew a thorn Round the long-prefigured Brows. Mourn, O mourn! For the vine have we the spine? Is this all the Heaven allows?
XV
On Calvary was shook a spear; Press the point into thy heart— Joy and fear! All the spines upon the thorn into curling tendrils start.
XVI
O, dismay! I, a wingless mortal, sporting With the tresses of the sun? I, that dare my hand to lay On the thunder in its snorting? Ere begun, Falls my singed song down the sky, even the old Icarian way.
XVII
From the fall precipitant These dim snatches of her chant Only have remainèd mine;— That from spear and thorn alone May be grown For the front of saint or singer any divinizing twine.
XVIII
Her song said that no springing Paradise but evermore Hangeth on a singing That has chords of weeping, And that sings the after-sleeping To souls which wake too sore. ‘But woe the singer, woe!’ she said; ‘beyond the dead his singing-lore, All its art of sweet and sore, He learns, in Elenore!’
XIX
Where is the land of Luthany, Where is the tract of Elenore? I am bound therefor.
XX
‘Pierce thy heart to find the key; With thee take Only what none else would keep; Learn to dream when thou dost wake, Learn to wake when thou dost sleep. Learn to water joy with tears, Learn from fears to vanquish fears; To hope, for thou dar’st not despair, Exult, for that thou dar’st not grieve; Plough thou the rock until it bear; Know, for thou else couldst not believe; Lose, that the lost thou may’st receive; Die, for none other way canst live. When earth and heaven lay down their veil, And that apocalypse turns thee pale; When thy seeing blindeth thee To what thy fellow-mortals see; When their sight to thee is sightless; Their living, death; their light, most lightless; Search no more— Pass the gates of Luthany, tread the region Elenore.’
XXI
Where is the land of Luthany, And where the region Elenore? I do faint therefor. ‘When to the new eyes of thee All things by immortal power, Near or far, Hiddenly To each other linkèd are, That thou canst not stir a flower Without troubling of a star; When thy song is shield and mirror To the fair snake-curlèd Pain, Where thou dar’st affront her terror That on her thou may’st attain Persean conquest; seek no more, O seek no more! Pass the gates of Luthany, tread the region Elenore.’
XXII
So sang she, so wept she, Through a dream-night’s day; And with her magic singing kept she— Mystical in music— That garden of enchanting In visionary May; Swayless for my spirit’s haunting, Thrice-threefold walled with emerald from our mortal mornings grey.
XXIII
And as a necromancer Raises from the rose-ash The ghost of the rose; My heart so made answer To her voice’s silver plash,— Stirred in reddening flash, And from out its mortal ruins the purpureal phantom blows.
XXIV
Her tears made dulcet fretting, Her voice had no word, More than thunder or the bird. Yet, unforgetting, The ravished soul her meanings knew. Mine ears heard not, and I heard.
XXV
When she shall unwind All those wiles she wound about me, Tears shall break from out me, That I cannot find Music in the holy poets to my wistful want, I doubt me!
CONTEMPLATION
This morning saw I, fled the shower, The earth reclining in a lull of power: The heavens, pursuing not their path, Lay stretched out naked after bath, Or so it seemed; field, water, tree, were still, Nor was there any purpose on the calm-browed hill.
The hill, which sometimes visibly is Wrought with unresting energies, Looked idly; from the musing wood, And every rock, a life renewed Exhaled like an unconscious thought When poets, dreaming unperplexed, Dream that they dream of nought. Nature one hour appears a thing unsexed, Or to such serene balance brought That her twin natures cease their sweet alarms, And sleep in one another’s arms. The sun with resting pulses seems to brood, And slacken its command upon my unurged blood.
The river has not any care Its passionless water to the sea to bear; The leaves have brown content; The wall to me has freshness like a scent, And takes half animate the air, Making one life with its green moss and stain; And life with all things seems too perfect blent For anything of life to be aware. The very shades on hill, and tree, and plain, Where they have fallen doze, and where they doze remain.
No hill can idler be than I; No stone its inter-particled vibration Investeth with a stiller lie; No heaven with a more urgent rest betrays The eyes that on it gaze. We are too near akin that thou shouldst cheat Me, Nature, with thy fair deceit.
