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Best Famous Winning Ways Poems

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Canzone IV

CANZONE IV.
 Si è debile il filo a cui s' attene.
 HE GRIEVES IN ABSENCE FROM LAURA.
  The thread on which my weary life dependsSo fragile is and weak,If none kind succour lends,Soon 'neath the painful burden will it break;Since doom'd to take my sad farewell of her,In whom begins and endsMy bliss, one hope, to stirMy sinking spirit from its black despair,Whispers, "Though lost awhileThat form so dear and fair,Sad soul! the trial bear,For thee e'en yet the sun may brightly shine,And days more happy smile,Once more the lost loved treasure may be thine."This thought awhile sustains me, but againTo fail me and forsake in worse excess of pain.
 Time flies apace: the silent hours and swiftSo urge his journey on,Short span to me is leftEven to think how quick to death I run;Scarce, in the orient heaven, yon mountain crestSmiles in the sun's first ray,When, in the adverse west,His long round run, we see his light decay[Pg 41]So small of life the space,So frail and clogg'd with woe,To mortal man below,That, when I find me from that beauteous faceThus torn by fate's decree,Unable at a wish with her to be,So poor the profit that old comforts give,I know not how I brook in such a state to live.
 Each place offends, save where alone I seeThose eyes so sweet and bright,Which still shall bear the keyOf the soft thoughts I hide from other sight;And, though hard exile harder weighs on me,Whatever mood betide,I ask no theme beside,For all is hateful that I since have seen.What rivers and what heights,What shores and seas betweenMe rise and those twin lights,Which made the storm and blackness of my daysOne beautiful serene,To which tormented Memory still strays:Free as my life then pass'd from every care,So hard and heavy seems my present lot to bear.
 Alas! self-parleying thus, I but renewThe warm wish in my mind,Which first within it grewThe day I left my better half behind:If by long absence love is quench'd, then whoGuides me to the old bait,Whence all my sorrows date?Why rather not my lips in silence seal'd?By finest crystal ne'erWere hidden tints reveal'dSo faithfully and fair,As my sad spirit naked lays and bareIts every secret part,And the wild sweetness thrilling in my heart,Through eyes which, restlessly, o'erfraught with tears,Seek her whose sight alone with instant gladness cheers.
 [Pg 42]Strange pleasure!—yet so often that withinThe human heart to reignIs found—to woo and winEach new brief toy that men most sigh to gain:And I am one from sadness who reliefSo draw, as if it stillMy study were to fillThese eyes with softness, and this heart with grief:As weighs with me in chiefNay rather with sole force,The language and the lightOf those dear eyes to urge me on that course,So where its fullest sourceLong sorrow finds, I fix my often sight,And thus my heart and eyes like sufferers be,Which in love's path have been twin pioneers to me.
 The golden tresses which should make, I ween,The sun with envy pine;And the sweet look serene,Where love's own rays so bright and burning shine,That, ere its time, they make my strength decline,Each wise and truthful word,Rare in the world, which lateShe smiling gave, no more are seen or heard.But this of all my fateIs hardest to endure,That here I am deniedThe gentle greeting, angel-like and pure,Which still to virtue's sideInclined my heart with modest magic lure;So that, in sooth, I nothing hope againOf comfort more than this, how best to bear my pain.
 And—with fit ecstacy my loss to mourn—The soft hand's snowy charm,The finely-rounded arm,The winning ways, by turns, that quiet scorn,Chaste anger, proud humility adorn,The fair young breast that shrinedIntellect pure and high,Are now all hid the rugged Alp behind.My trust were vain to tryAnd see her ere I die,[Pg 43]For, though awhile he dareSuch dreams indulge, Hope ne'er can constant be,But falls back in despairHer, whom Heaven honours, there again to see,Where virtue, courtesy in her best mix,And where so oft I pray my future home to fix.
 My Song! if thou shalt see,Our common lady in that dear retreat,We both may hope that sheWill stretch to thee her fair and fav'ring hand,Whence I so far am bann'd;—Touch, touch it not, but, reverent at her feet,Tell her I will be there with earliest speed,A man of flesh and blood, or else a spirit freed.
 Macgregor.

Written by Gerard Manley Hopkins |

The Leaden Echo And The Golden Echo

 (Maidens' song from St. Winefred's Well) 


 THE LEADEN ECHO

How to kéep—is there ány any, is there none such, nowhere known some, bow or brooch or braid or brace, láce, latch or catch or key to keep
Back beauty, keep it, beauty, beauty, beauty, ... from vanishing away?
Ó is there no frowning of these wrinkles, rankéd wrinkles deep,
Dówn? no waving off of these most mournful messengers, still messengers, sad and stealing messengers of grey?
No there 's none, there 's none, O no there 's none,
Nor can you long be, what you now are, called fair,
Do what you may do, what, do what you may,
And wisdom is early to despair:
Be beginning; since, no, nothing can be done
To keep at bay
Age and age's evils, hoar hair,
Ruck and wrinkle, drooping, dying, death's worst, winding sheets, tombs and worms and tumbling to decay;
So be beginning, be beginning to despair.
O there 's none; no no no there 's none:
Be beginning to despair, to despair,
Despair, despair, despair, despair. 


 THE GOLDEN ECHO

 Spare!
There ís one, yes I have one (Hush there!);
Only not within seeing of the sun,
Not within the singeing of the strong sun,
Tall sun's tingeing, or treacherous the tainting of the earth's air,
Somewhere elsewhere there is ah well where! one,
Oné. Yes I can tell such a key, I do know such a place,
Where whatever's prized and passes of us, everything that 's fresh and fast flying of us, seems to us sweet of us and swiftly away with, done away with, undone,
Undone, done with, soon done with, and yet dearly and dangerously sweet
Of us, the wimpled-water-dimpled, not-by-morning-matchèd face,
The flower of beauty, fleece of beauty, too too apt to, ah! to fleet,
Never fleets móre, fastened with the tenderest truth
To its own best being and its loveliness of youth: it is an everlastingness of, O it is an all youth!
Come then, your ways and airs and looks, locks, maiden gear, gallantry and gaiety and grace,
Winning ways, airs innocent, maiden manners, sweet looks, loose locks, long locks, lovelocks, gaygear, going gallant, girlgrace—
Resign them, sign them, seal them, send them, motion them with breath,
And with sighs soaring, soaring síghs deliver
Them; beauty-in-the-ghost, deliver it, early now, long before death
Give beauty back, beauty, beauty, beauty, back to God, beauty's self and beauty's giver.
See; not a hair is, not an eyelash, not the least lash lost; every hair
Is, hair of the head, numbered.
Nay, what we had lighthanded left in surly the mere mould
Will have waked and have waxed and have walked with the wind what while we slept,
This side, that side hurling a heavyheaded hundredfold
What while we, while we slumbered.
O then, weary then why When the thing we freely fórfeit is kept with fonder a care,
Fonder a care kept than we could have kept it, kept
Far with fonder a care (and we, we should have lost it) finer, fonder
A care kept.—Where kept? Do but tell us where kept, where.—
Yonder.—What high as that! We follow, now we follow.—Yonder, yes yonder, yonder,
Yonder.