Mandragora

Pour me red wine from out the Venice flask,
------Pour faster, faster yet!
The joy of ruby thought, I do not ask,
------Bid me forget!

Breathe slumbrous music round me, sweet and slow,
------To honied phrases set!
Into the land of dreams I long to go.
------Bid me forget!

Lay not the rose's bloom against my cheek,
------With chill tears she is wet.
The wrinkled poppy is the flower I seek.
------Bid me forget!

Where is delight? And what are pleasures now?
------Moths that a garment fret.
The world is turned memorial, crying, "Thou
------shalt not forget!"


by Mary E. Coleridge

A Fixed Idea

What torture lurks within a single thought
When grown too constant; and however kind,
However welcome still, the weary mind
Aches with its presence. Dull remembrance taught
Remembers on unceasingly; unsought
The old delight is with us but to find
That all recurring joy is pain refined,
Become a habit, and we struggle, caught.
You lie upon my heart as on a nest,
Folded in peace, for you can never know
How crushed I am with having you at rest
Heavy upon my life. I love you so
You bind my freedom from its rightful quest.
In mercy lift your drooping wings and go.


by Amy Lowell

To Memory

I spent last weekend rummaging through old books and things in my great-great-grandmother's house, and I came across a wonderful collection of poetry. The book didn't even have the author's name written in it! Only a note explaining that "These poems owe much to one whose name I honour too highly to set it here." Amazing. A google search revealed the author to be Mary Elizabeth Coleridge. The poems are exquisite. This is the first:

To Memory

Strange Power, I know not what thou art
Murderer or mistress of my heart.
I know I'd rather meet the blow
Of my most unrelenting foe
Than live - as I now live - to be
Slain twenty times a day by thee.

Yet, when I would command thee hence,
Thou mockest at the vain pretence,
Murmuring in mine ear a song
Once loved, alas! forgotten long;
And on my brow I feel a kiss
That I would rather die than miss.


by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge