Selected Poems of Francis Thompson

Name: Selected Poems of Francis Thompson
Author: Thompson, Francis

Thompson, Francis

English poetry

*       *       *       *       *

    I think thy girlhood's watchers must
    Have took thy folded songs on trust,
    And felt them, as one feels the stir
    Of still lightnings in the hair,
    When conscious hush expects the cloud
    To speak the golden secret loud
    Which tacit air is privy to;
    Flasked in the grape the wine they knew,
    Ere thy poet-mouth was able
    For its first young starry babble.
    Keep'st thou not yet that subtle grace?
    Yea, in this silent interspace,
    God sets His poems in thy face!

      The loom which mortal verse affords,
    Out of weak and mortal words,
    Wovest thou thy singing-weed in,
    To a rune of thy far Eden.
    Vain are all disguises! Ah,
    Heavenly _incognita_!
    Thy mien bewrayeth through that wrong
    The great Uranian House of Song!
    As the vintages of earth
    Taste of the sun that riped their birth,
    We know what never-cadent Sun
    Thy lampèd clusters throbbed upon,
    What plumèd feet the winepress trod;
    Thy wine is flavorous of God.
    Whatever singing-robe thou wear
    Has the paradisal air;
    And some gold feather it has kept
    Shows what Floor it lately swept.


 A CARRIER SONG

    Since you have waned from us,
        Fairest of women,
    I am a darkened cage
      Song cannot hymn in.
    My songs have followed you,
      Like birds the summer;
    Ah! bring them back to me,
      Swiftly, dear comer!
            _Seraphim,
            Her to hymn,
            Might leave their portals;
            And at my feet learn
            The harping of mortals!_

    Whereso your angel is,
      My angel goeth;
    I am left guardianless,
      Paradise knoweth!
    I have no Heaven left
      To weep my wrongs to;
    Heaven, when you went from us,
      Went with my songs too.
            _Seraphim,
            Her to hymn,
            Might leave their portals;
            And at my feet learn
            The harping of mortals!_

    I have no angels left
      Now, Sweet, to pray to:
    Where you have made your shrine
      They are away to.
    They have struck Heaven's tent,
      And gone to cover you:
    Whereso you keep your state
      Heaven is pitched over you!
            _Seraphim,
            Her to hymn,
            Might leave their portals;
            And at my feet learn
            The harping of mortals!_

    She that is Heaven's Queen
      Her title borrows,
    For that she, pitiful,
      Beareth our sorrows.
    So thou, _Regina mi,
      Spes infirmorum_;
    With all our grieving crowned
      _Mater dolorum!
            Seraphim,
            Her to hymn,
            Might leave their portals;
            And at my feet learn
            The harping of mortals!_

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Selected Poems of Francis Thompson

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