George William Russell Short Poems
Famous Short George William Russell Poems. Short poetry by famous poet George William Russell. A collection of the all-time best George William Russell short poems
by
George William Russell
THOUGH your eyes with tears were blind,
Pain upon the path you trod:
Well we knew, the hosts behind,
Voice and shining of a god.
For your darkness was our day:
Signal fires, your pains untold
Lit us on our wandering way
To the mystic heart of gold.
Naught we knew of the high land,
Beauty burning in its spheres;
Sorrow we could understand
And the mystery told in tears.
by
George William Russell
IN day from some titanic past it seems
As if a thread divine of memory runs;
Born ere the Mighty One began his dreams,
Or yet were stars and suns.
But here an iron will has fixed the bars;
Forgetfulness falls on earth’s myriad races:
No image of the proud and morning stars
Looks at us from their faces.
Yet yearning still to reach to those dim heights,
Each dream remembered is a burning-glass,
Where through to darkness from the Light of Lights
Its rays in splendour pass.
by
George William Russell
I KNOW myself no more, my child,
Since thou art come to me,
Pity so tender and so wild
Hath wrapped my thoughts of thee.
These thoughts, a fiery gentle rain,
Are from the Mother shed,
Where many a broken heart hath lain
And many a weeping head.
by
George William Russell
THE LIGHTS shone down the street
In the long blue close of day:
A boy’s heart beat sweet, sweet,
As it flowered in its dreamy clay.
Beyond the dazzling throng
And above the towers of men
The stars made him long, long,
To return to their light again.
They lit the wondrous years
And his heart within was gay;
But a life of tears, tears,
He had won for himself that day.
by
George William Russell
WITH eyes all untroubled she laughs as she passes,
Bending beneath the creel with the seaweed brown,
Till evening with pearl dew dims the shining grasses
And night lit with dreamlight enfolds the sleepy town.
Then she will wander, her heart all a laughter,
Tracking the dream star that lights the purple gloom.
She follows the proud and golden races after,
As high as theirs her spirit, as high will be her doom.
by
George William Russell
NOT the soul that’s whitest
Wakens love the sweetest:
When the heart is lightest
Oft the charm is fleetest.
While the snow-frail maiden,
Waits the time of learning,
To the passion laden
Turn with eager yearning.
While the heart is burning
Heaven with earth is banded:
To the stars returning
Go not empty-handed.
Ah, the snow-frail maiden!
Somehow truth has missed her,
Left the heart unladen
For its burdened sister.
by
George William Russell
FAR up the dim twilight fluttered
Moth-wings of vapour and flame:
The lights danced over the mountains,
Star after star they came.
The lights grew thicker unheeded,
For silent and still were we;
Our hearts were drunk with a beauty
Our eyes could never see.
by
George William Russell
THE HERO first thought it
To him ’twas a deed:
To those who retaught it,
A chain on their speed.
The fire that we kindled,
A beacon by night,
When darkness has dwindled
Grows pale in the light.
For life has no glory
Stays long in one dwelling,
And time has no story
That’s true twice in telling.
And only the teaching
That never was spoken
Is worthy thy reaching,
The fountain unbroken.
by
George William Russell
WHEN for love it was fain of
The wild heart was chidden,
When the white limbs were clothed
And the beauty was hidden;
For the scorn that was done to
The least of her graces,
The Mother veiled over
And hid from our faces
The high soul of nature,
The deep and the wonder,
Her towers up in heaven,
And the fairyland under.
The Mother then whispered,
“The wrong done by thee
To the least limb of beauty
Was done unto me.”
by
George William Russell
WHAT is the love of shadowy lips
That know not what they seek or press,
From whom the lure for ever slips
And fails their phantom tenderness?
The mystery and light of eyes
That near to mine grow dim and cold;
They move afar in ancient skies
Mid flame and mystic darkness rolled.
O beauty, as thy heart o’erflows
In tender yielding unto me,
A vast desire awakes and grows
Unto forgetfulness of thee.
by
George William Russell
EVEN as a bird sprays many-coloured fires,
The plumes of paradise, the dying light
Rays through the fevered air in misty spires
That vanish in the heights.
These myriad eyes that look on me are mine;
Wandering beneath them I have found again
The ancient ample moment, the divine,
The God-root within men.
For this, for this the lights innumerable
As symbols shine that we the true light win:
For every star and every deep they fill
Are stars and deeps within.
by
George William Russell
THE WINDS, the stars, and the skies though wrought
By the heavenly King yet know it not;
And man who moves in the twilight dim
Feels not the love that encircles him,
Though in heart, on bosom, and eyelids press
Lips of an infinite tenderness,
He turns away through the dark to roam
Nor heeds the fire in his hearth and home.
by
George William Russell
IMAGE of beauty, when I gaze on thee,
Trembling I waken to a mystery,
How through one door we go to life or death
By spirit kindled or the sensual breath.
Image of beauty, when my way I go;
No single joy or sorrow do I know:
Elate for freedom leaps the starry power,
The life which passes mourns its wasted hour.
And, ah, to think how thin the veil that lies
Between the pain of hell and paradise!
Where the cool grass my aching head embowers
God sings the lovely carol of the flowers.
by
George William Russell
ON me to rest, my bird, my bird:
The swaying branches of my heart
Are blown by every wind toward
The home whereto their wings depart.
Build not your nest, my bird, on me;
I know no peace but ever sway:
O lovely bird, be free, be free,
On the wild music of the day.
But sometimes when your wings would rest,
And winds are laid on quiet eves:
Come, I will bear you breast to breast,
And lap you close with loving leaves.
by
George William Russell
DOES the earth grow grey with grief
For her hero darling fled?
Though her vales let fall no leaf,
In our hearts her tears are shed.
Still the stars laugh on above:
Not to them her grief is said;
Mourning for her hero love
In our hearts the tears are shed.
We her children mourn for him,
Mourn the elder hero dead;
In the twilight grey and dim
In our hearts the tears are shed.
by
George William Russell
THE CHILDREN were shouting together
And racing along the sands,
A glimmer of dancing shadows,
A dovelike flutter of hands.
The stars were shouting in heaven,
The sun was chasing the moon:
The game was the same as the children’s,
They danced to the self-same tune.
The whole of the world was merry,
One joy from the vale to the height,
Where the blue woods of twilight encircled
The lovely lawns of the light.
by
George William Russell
I DID not deem it half so sweet
To feel thy gentle hand,
As in a dream thy soul to greet
Across wide leagues of land.
Untouched more near to draw to you
Where, amid radiant skies,
Glimmered thy plumes of iris hue,
My Bird of Paradise.
Let me dream only with my heart,
Love first, and after see:
Know thy diviner counterpart
Before I kneel to thee.
So in thy motions all expressed
Thy angel I may view:
I shall not on thy beauty rest,
But beauty’s self in you.
by
George William Russell
LIGHTEST of dancers, with no thought
Thy glimmering feet beat on my heart,
Gayest of singers, with no care
Waking to beauty the still air,
More than the labours of our art,
More than our wisdom can impart,
Thine idle ecstasy hath taught.
Lost long in solemn ponderings,
With the blind shepherd mind for guide,
The uncreated joy in you
Hath lifted up my heart unto
The morning stars in their first pride,
And the angelic joys that glide
High upon heaven-uplifted wings.
by
George William Russell
ITS edges foamed with amethyst and rose,
Withers once more the old blue flower of day:
There where the ether like a diamond glows
Its petals fade away.
A shadowy tumult stirs the dusky air;
Sparkle the delicate dews, the distant snows;
The great deep thrills, for through it everywhere
The breath of Beauty blows.
I saw how all the trembling ages past,
Moulded to her by deep and deeper breath,
Neared to the hour when Beauty breathes her last
And knows herself in death.
by
George William Russell
DARK glowed the vales of amethyst
Beneath an opal shroud:
The moon bud opened through the mist
Its white-fire leaves of cloud.
Through rapt at gaze with eyes of light
Looked forth the seraph seers,
The vast and wandering dream of night
Rolled on above our tears.
by
George William Russell
DUSK wraps the village in its dim caress;
Each chimney’s vapour, like a thin grey rod,
Mounting aloft through miles of quietness,
Pillars the skies of God.
Far up they break or seem to break their line,
Mingling their nebulous crests that bow and nod
Under the light of those fierce stars that shine
Out of the calm of God.
Only in clouds and dreams I felt those souls
In the abyss, each fire hid in its clod;
From which in clouds and dreams the spirit rolls
Into the vast of God.
by
George William Russell
WITHIN the iron cities
One walked unknown for years,
In his heart the pity of pities
That grew for human tears.
When love and grief were ended
The flower of pity grew:
By unseen hands ’t was tended
And fed with holy dew.
Though in his heart were barred in
The blooms of beauty blown,
Yet he who grew the garden
Could call no flower his own.
For by the hands that watered,
The blooms that opened fair
Through frost and pain were scattered
To sweeten the dead air.
by
George William Russell
The flowers left thick at nightfall in the wood
This Eastertide call into mind the men,
Now far from home, who, with their sweethearts, should
Have gathered them and will do never again.
by
George William Russell
WE turned back mad from the mystic mountains,
All foamed with red and with elfin gold:
Up from the heart of the twilight’s fountains
The fires enchanted were starward rolled.
We turned back mad: we thought of the morrow,
The iron clang of the far-away town:
We could not weep in our bitter sorrow,
But joy as an Arctic sun went down.
by
George William Russell
THIS is the red, red region
Your heart must journey through:
Your pains will here be legion
And joy be death for you.
Rejoice to-day: to-morrow
A turning tide shall flow
Through infinite tones of sorrow
To reach an equal woe.
You pass by love unheeding
To gain the goal you long—
But my heart, my heart is bleeding:
I cannot sing this song.