Ballad of Reading Gaol eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 139 pages of information about Ballad of Reading Gaol.

Ballad of Reading Gaol eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 139 pages of information about Ballad of Reading Gaol.

No moon in the still heaven,
In the black water none,
The sins on her soul are seven,
The sin upon his is one.

Poem:  Amor Intellectualis

Oft have we trod the vales of Castaly
And heard sweet notes of sylvan music blown
From antique reeds to common folk unknown: 
And often launched our bark upon that sea
Which the nine Muses hold in empery,
And ploughed free furrows through the wave and foam,
Nor spread reluctant sail for more safe home
Till we had freighted well our argosy. 
Of which despoiled treasures these remain,
Sordello’s passion, and the honeyed line
Of young Endymion, lordly Tamburlaine
Driving his pampered jades, and more than these,
The seven-fold vision of the Florentine,
And grave-browed Milton’s solemn harmonies.

Poem:  Santa Decca

The Gods are dead:  no longer do we bring
To grey-eyed Pallas crowns of olive-leaves! 
Demeter’s child no more hath tithe of sheaves,
And in the noon the careless shepherds sing,
For Pan is dead, and all the wantoning
By secret glade and devious haunt is o’er: 
Young Hylas seeks the water-springs no more;
Great Pan is dead, and Mary’s son is King.

And yet—­perchance in this sea-tranced isle,
Chewing the bitter fruit of memory,
Some God lies hidden in the asphodel. 
Ah Love! if such there be, then it were well
For us to fly his anger:  nay, but see,
The leaves are stirring:  let us watch awhile.

Corfu.

Poem:  A Vision

Two crowned Kings, and One that stood alone
With no green weight of laurels round his head,
But with sad eyes as one uncomforted,
And wearied with man’s never-ceasing moan
For sins no bleating victim can atone,
And sweet long lips with tears and kisses fed. 
Girt was he in a garment black and red,
And at his feet I marked a broken stone
Which sent up lilies, dove-like, to his knees. 
Now at their sight, my heart being lit with flame,
I cried to Beatrice, ‘Who are these?’
And she made answer, knowing well each name,
’AEschylos first, the second Sophokles,
And last (wide stream of tears!) Euripides.’

Poem:  Impression De Voyage

The sea was sapphire coloured, and the sky
Burned like a heated opal through the air;
We hoisted sail; the wind was blowing fair
For the blue lands that to the eastward lie. 
From the steep prow I marked with quickening eye
Zakynthos, every olive grove and creek,
Ithaca’s cliff, Lycaon’s snowy peak,
And all the flower-strewn hills of Arcady. 
The flapping of the sail against the mast,
The ripple of the water on the side,
The ripple of girls’ laughter at the stern,
The only sounds:- when ’gan the West to burn,
And a red sun upon the seas to ride,
I stood upon the soil of Greece at last!

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
Ballad of Reading Gaol from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.