Allspirit

Tag: smiles

  • She Was A Phantom Of Delight

    By William Wordsworth

    SHE was a Phantom of delight
    When first she gleamed upon my sight;
    A lovely Apparition, sent
    To be a moment’s ornament;
    Her eyes as stars of Twilight fair;
    Like Twilight’s, too, her dusky hair;
    But all things else about her drawn
    From May-time and the cheerful Dawn;
    A dancing Shape, an Image gay,
    To haunt, to startle, and way-lay.  10

    I saw her upon nearer view,
    A Spirit, yet a Woman too!
    Her household motions light and free,
    And steps of virgin-liberty;
    A countenance in which did meet
    Sweet records, promises as sweet;
    A Creature not too bright or good
    For human nature’s daily food;
    For transient sorrows, simple wiles,
    Praise, blame, love, kisses, tears, and smiles.  20

    And now I see with eye serene
    The very pulse of the machine;
    A Being breathing thoughtful breath,
    A Traveller between life and death;
    The reason firm, the temperate will,
    Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;
    A perfect Woman, nobly planned,
    To warn, to comfort, and command;
    And yet a Spirit still, and bright
    With something of angelic light.  30
    1804.

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  • Snowfall

    By Sara Teasdale

    “She can’t be unhappy,” you said,
    “The smiles are like stars in her eyes,
    And her laughter is thistledown
    Around her low replies.”
    “Is she unhappy?” you said–
    But who has ever known
    Another’s heartbreak–
    All he can know is his own;
    And she seems hushed to me,
    As hushed as though
    Her heart were a hunter’s fire
    Smothered in snow.

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  • The Kiss

    By Rabindranath Tagore

    Lips’ language to lips’ ears.
    Two drinking each other’s heart, it seems.
    Two roving loves who have left home,
    pilgrims to the confluence of lips.
    Two waves rise by the law of love
    to break and die on two sets of lips.
    Two wild desires craving each other
    meet at last at the body’s limits.
    Love’s writing a song in dainty letters,
    layers of kiss-calligraphy on lips.
    Plucking flowers from two sets of lips
    perhaps to thread them into a chain later.
    This sweet union of lips
    is the red marriage-bed of a pair of smiles.

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  • A Little While

    By Dante Gabriel Rossetti

    A LITTLE while a little love
    The hour yet bears for thee and me
    Who have not drawn the veil to see
    If still our heaven be lit above.
    Thou merely, at the day’s last sigh,
    Hast felt thy soul prolong the tone;
    And I have heard the night-wind cry
    And deemed its speech mine own.

    A little while a little love
    The scattering autumn hoards for us
    Whose bower is not yet ruinous
    Nor quite unleaved our songless grove.
    Only across the shaken boughs
    We hear the flood-tides seek the sea,
    And deep in both our hearts they rouse
    One wail for thee and me.

    A little while a little love
    May yet be ours who have not said
    The word it makes our eyes afraid
    To know that each is thinking of.
    Not yet the end: be our lips dumb
    In smiles a little season yet:
    I’ll tell thee, when the end is come,
    How we may best forget.

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