Silke Lance
Nov 11, 2004, 01:02 AM
Memory
by: Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-1873)
One wild and simple bugle sound,
Breathed o'er Killarney's magic shore,
Awakes sweet floating echoes round
When that which made them is no more.
So slumber in the human breast
Wild echoes that will sweetly thrill
Through memory's vistas when the voice
That waked them first for aye is still.
Oh! memory, though thy records tell
Full many a tale of grief and folly,
Of mad excess, of hope decayed,
Of dark and cheerless melancholy.
Yet, memory, to me thou art
The dearest of the gifts of mind,
For all the joys that touch my heart
Are joys that I have left behind.
Silke Lance
Nov 12, 2004, 02:42 AM
A Doggrel in a Dormant Window
by: Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-1873)
Among the gray roofs nooked,
As Chronos in the skies,
Red chimneys, old and crook'd,
Like headstones round me rise.
The chimneys, crook'd and old,
My neighbors in the air,
Like gods of dingy gold,
Bend sadly here and there.
The crows to roost returning
In their misty woods below--
The hill-tops dimly burning
In the sun's refracted glow--
Like purple shadows sailing
Across the sea-green sky,
Like far waves hoarsely wailing
Call dimly as they fly.
My senses, sadly dreaming,
Just hear and see them fly,
Like bygone shadows streaming
Along pale memory's sky.
From the gray tower with its corbels,
And its belfry arching fair,
The mellow curfew warbles
Its old tune on the air;
It sails above me welling
Like long soft summer waves,
Still quivering on and swelling
Across the village graves.
My lattice open flies,
The dewy evening air,
Fresh from the starry skies,
Just stirs my silvered hair.
Come forth, my graceful pipe,
My halfpenny pipe of clay,
With Latachia rope
We'll wile the hour away.
Then musical by space,
Up from the gloaming street
Float sounds and songs apace,
And random prattle sweet--
Bold fellows laughing boldly
With soft-tongued maidens near,
Old people prating odly,
And children's voices clear.
And in their faint gradations,
While changeless stars gleam o'er us,
I hear three generations
All chiming in one chorus.
The twilight deepens fast,
My pipe grows like a star,
Or a distant smithy's blast,
Or a lighthouse flash from afar.
A lonely man am I,
In my dormant-window thinking,
So lowly, and so high,
The dreamy vapour drinking.
The vapour hangs and dozes,
And the stars no more I see;
The opening film discloses
A loved pale face to me.
The sad face smiling there,
The young face as of yore,
Inexorably fair,
To speak or change no more.
The brown hair is now gray,
Of him you loved, but to
Your lovely shadow years away
His lonely heart beats true.
And now my pipe is out,
I drop it in the weeds,
It served its little bout,
And quietude succeeds.
And when my glow is o'er,
In ashes quenched by fire,
When its fragrance is no more
And spark and smoke expire;
O'er me may some one say,
As I, of you to-day,
Beneath the nettles and the flowers
Where lies my worn-out clay;
He did in his allotted hours--
What fellows sometimes shirk--
In this enormous world of ours,
His halfpenny-worth of work.
Silke Lance
Nov 14, 2004, 03:40 AM
Song
by: Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-1873)
The autumn leaf was falling
At midnight from the tree,
When at her casement calling,
"I'm here, my love," cried he.
'Come down and mount behind me,
And rest your little head,
And in your white arms wind me,
Before that I be dead.
"You've stolen my heart by magic,
I've kissed your lips in dreams:
Our wooing, wild and tragic,
Has been in ghostly gleams.
The wondrous love I bear you
Has made one life of twain,
And it will bless or scare you,
In deathless peace or pain.
"Our dreamland shall be glowing,
If you my bride will be
To darkness both are going,
Unless you ride with me.
Come now, and mount behind me,
And rest your little head,
And in your white arms wind me,
Before that I be dead."