Richard Le Gallienne

Name: The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems
Author: Richard Le Gallienne

Summary

“The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems”, is a work by Richard Le Gallienne. It explores elements such as long shimmer, Ireland and eyes.

Quotes from The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems (Richard Le Gallienne)

Richard Le Gallienne, The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems

“ Tells of some face of legend or of dreams,
Still here and there remembered—scarce believed,
Or held the fancy of a heart bereaved.
So beautiful she—was; ah! "was," say I,
Yet doubt her dead—I did not see her die.
Only by others borne across the sea
Came the incredible wild blasphemy
They called her death—as though it could be true
Of such an immortality as you!
True of these eyes that from her picture gaze,
Serene, star-steadfast, as the heaven's own eyes;
Of that deep bosom, white as hawthorn sprays,
Where my world-weary head forever lies ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Richard Le Gallienne, The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems

“ He must turn his eyes away;
And the flowers and the faces he must pass by
With stern self-sacrificing eye.
For beauty and duty are strangers forever,
Work and wonder ever apart,
And the laws of life eternally sever
The ways of the brain from the ways of the heart;
Be it flower or pearl, or the face of a girl,
Or the ways of the waters as they swirl.
Lo! beauty is sorrow, and sorrowful men
Have no heart to look on the face of the sky,
Or hear the remorseful voice of the sea,
Or the song of the wandering wind in the tree,
Or even watch a butterfly. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Richard Le Gallienne, The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems

“ There are no girls beneath the sky
Like those of Spain.
All other women scarcely seem
More than pale women in a dream
By ours of Spain.
Ah! who aright shall tell their praise,—
Their subtle, soft, imperious ways,
Their high disdain.
Golden as bars of Spanish gold,
Hot as the sun, as the moon cold,
The girls of Spain.
Their faces as magnolias white,
Their hair the soul of summer night,
Soft as soft rain;
And swift as the steel blade that flies
Into a coward's heart their eyes,
Then soft again.
Under their little languid feet,
That carry such a world of sweet,
My heart lies slain. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Richard Le Gallienne, The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems

“ Time brings Eternity a flower.
All the words in all the world
Cannot tell you how I love you,
All the little stars that shine
To make a silver crown above you;
"ALL THE WORDS IN ALL THE WORLD" All the flowers cannot weave
A garland worthy of your hair,
Not a bird in the four winds
Can sing of you that is so fair.
Only the spheres can sing of you;
Some planet in celestial space,
Hallowed and lonely in the dawn,
Shall sing the poem of your face.
"I SAID—I CARE NOT" I said—I care not if I can
But look into her eyes again,
But lay my hand within her hand
Just once again. ”

[↩︎]

Source: Gutenberg

Richard Le Gallienne, The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems

“ All the wide world is but the thought of you:
Who made you out of wonder and of dew?
Was it some god with tears in his deep eyes,
Who loved a woman white and over-wise,
That strangely put all violets in your hair—
And put into your face all distance too?
"LIGHTNINGS MAY FLICKER ROUND MY HEAD" Lightnings may flicker round my head,
And all the world seem doom,
If you, like a wild rose, will walk
Strangely into the room.
If only my sad heart may hear
Your voice of faery laughter—
What matters though the heavens fall,
And hell come thundering after. ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Richard Le Gallienne, The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems

“ The afternoon is lonely for your face,
The pampered morning mocks the day's decline—
I was so rich at noon, the sun was mine,
Mine the sad sea that in that rocky place
Girded us round with blue betrothal ring.
Because your heart was mine, your heart, that precious thing.
The night will be a desert till the dawn,
Unless you take some ferry-boat of dreams,
And glide to me, a glory of silver beams,
Under my eyelids, like sad curtains drawn;
So, by good hap, my heart can find its way
Where all your sweetness lies in fragrant disarray. ”

[↩︎]

Source: Gutenberg

Richard Le Gallienne, The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems

“ Shatters the faith—that each slow minute brings
That meadow nearer to us where your feet
Shall flicker near me like white butterflies—
That meadow where immortal lovers meet,
Gazing for ever in immortal eyes.
"I KNOW NOT IN WHAT PLACE" I know not in what place again I'll meet
The face I love—but there is not a street
In the wide world where you can wander, sweet,
Without my finding you, with those great eyes;
Nor is there any star in all the skies
Can give you shelter from my pitiless love.
RESURRECTION Is it your face I see, your voice I hear? ”

[↩︎]

Source: Gutenberg

Richard Le Gallienne, The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems

“ The lie that flits from ear to ear,
Ye shall not speak, ye shall not hear;
Nor shall you fear your heart to say,
Lest he who listens shall betray.
The man who hearkens all day long
To the sea's cosmic-thoughted song
Comes with purged ears to lesser speech,
And something of the skyey reach
Greatens the gaze that feeds on space;
The starlight writes upon his face
That bathes in starlight, and the morn
Chrisms with dew, when day is born,
The eyes that drink the holy light
Welling from the deep springs of night. ”

[↩︎]

Source: Gutenberg

Richard Le Gallienne, The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems

“ Has us in keeping, heart to heart;
In his great book our names are writ—
The Book of Those that Never Part."
"How strange it is!" I heard him say;
"How strange!" and yet again, "How strange!
To meet at last, and know this love
Of ours can never fade or change."
"How strange to think that you are mine,
Each little hair of your dear head,
And no one else's in the world—
How strange it is!" the woman said.
* * * * *
I stand aside to let them pass,
My Autumn face they never see;
Their eyes are on the rising sun,
But 'tis the setting sun for me. ”

[↩︎]

Source: Gutenberg

Richard Le Gallienne, The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems

“ On Beauty sempiternal as the Spring's—
So old are all things fair.
Then for that face I cast aside my fears,
For changing Time is Beauty's changeless friend,
That never reaches but for ever nears,
Tireless the old perfections to transcend,
Fairness more fair to fashion with the years,
And loveliest to end.
YOUNG LOVE Young love, all rainbows in the lane,
Brushed by the honeysuckle vines,
Scattered the wild rose in a dream:
A sweeter thing his arm entwines.
Ah, redder lips than any rose!
Ah, sweeter breath than any bee
Sucks from the heart of any flower ”

[↩︎]

Source: Gutenberg

Richard Le Gallienne, The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems

“ Come back once more, know that the rainbowed rain
Is but our tears, saying: "Come back again."
IN A COPY OF FITZGERALD'S "OMAR" A little book, this grim November day,
Wherein, O tired heart, to creep away,—
Come drink this wine and wear this fadeless rose,
Nor heed the world, nor what the world shall say.
A thousand gardens—yet to-day there blows
In all their wintry walks no single rose,
But here with Omar you shall find the Spring
That fears no Autumn and eternal glows. ”

[↩︎]

Source: Gutenberg

Richard Le Gallienne, The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems

“ I see the time-clock, and I see
The endless day that glooms inside.
It is the Moloch of the dawn,
Capital calling for its prey—
Men, women and little boys and girls,
It's human sacrifice each day.
And, as I hear that dreadful scream,
High in the dawn all filled with song,—
I pray within my aching heart—"O Lord!
O Lord! How long! How long!"
MORALITY Give me the lifted skirt,
And the brave ways of wrong,
The fist, the dagger and the sword,
And the out-spoken song.
Ah! bring me not the love
That bargains, bids and buys:
For so much loving I will give
So much in lips and eyes ”

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Source: Gutenberg

Richard Le Gallienne, The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems

“ THE EYES THAT COME FROM IRELAND Don't you love the eyes that come from Ireland?
The grey-blue eyes so strangely grey and blue,
The fighting loving eyes,
The eyes that tell no lies—
Don't you love the eyes that come from Ireland?
Don't you love the eyes that come from Ireland?
The dreaming mocking eyes that see you through,
The eyes that smile and smile,
With the heart-break all the while,—
Don't you love the eyes that come from Ireland?
Don't you love the eyes that come from Ireland? ”

[↩︎]

Source: Gutenberg

Richard Le Gallienne, The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems

“ Dwells in your eyes, and on your tongue
The honey of a million bees,
And all the sorrows of all song:
You are the ending of all these,
The world grew old to make you young.
All time hath traveled to this rose;
To the strange making of this face
Came agonies of fires and snows ”

[↩︎]

Source: Gutenberg

Richard Le Gallienne, The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems

“ So like a spirit is her face
That he is half afraid
To speak—lest she should fade.
Mysterious, beneath the boughs,
Like two enchanted shapes, they are,
Whom Love hath builded them a house
Of little leaf and star,
And the brown evening jar.
So lovely and so strange a thing
Each is to each to look upon,
They dare not hearken a bird sing,
Or from the other one
Take eyes—lest they be gone. ”

[↩︎]

Source: Gutenberg

Richard Le Gallienne, The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems

“ Your face, your voice, again after these years!
Is it your face I see, your voice I hear,
And is this blessed rain, angel, your tears?
"WHEN THE LONG DAY HAS FADED" When the long day has faded to its end,
The flowers gone, and all the singing done,
And there is no companion left save Death—
Ah! there is one,
Though in her grave she lies this many a year,
Will send a violet made of her blue eyes,
A flowering whisper of her April breath,
Up through the sleeping grass to comfort me,
And in the April rain her tears shall fall. ”

[↩︎]

Source: Gutenberg

Richard Le Gallienne, The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems

“ Three springs I watched and waited for your face,
And listened for your voice upon the air;
I sought for you in many a hidden place,
Saying, "She must be there."
"Surely some magic slumber holds her fast,
She whose blue eyes were morning's earliest flowers,"
I sighed: and, one by one, before me passed
The rainbowed daughters of the vernal showers,
Saying, "She comes at last."
Ah! broken promise of the world! how fair
You speak young hearts! ”

[↩︎]

Source: Gutenberg

Richard Le Gallienne, The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems

“ And little soft, heart-broken words.
Haunted as marble in the moon,
Her whiteness lies on young love's breast.
And living frankincense and myrrh
Her lips that on his lips are pressed.
Her eyes are lost within his eyes,
His eyes in hers are fathoms deep;
Death is not stiller than these twain
That smile as in a magic sleep. ”

[↩︎]

Source: Gutenberg

Richard Le Gallienne, The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems

“ THE HEART UNSEEN So many times the heart can break,
So many ways,
Yet beat along and beat along
So many days.
A fluttering thing we never see,
And only hear
When some stern doctor to our side
Presses his ear.
Strange hidden thing, that beats and beats
We know not why,
And makes us live, though we indeed
Would rather die.
Mysterious, fighting, loving thing,
So sad, so true—
I would my laughing eyes some day
Might look on you. ”

[↩︎]

Source: Gutenberg

Richard Le Gallienne, The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems

“ Pure-faced, pure-thoughted, folk are mine
With whom to sit and laugh and dine;
In every sunlit room is heard
Love singing, like an April bird,
And everywhere the moonlit eyes
Of beauty guard our paradise ”

[↩︎]

Source: Gutenberg

Richard Le Gallienne, The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems

“ And what if all the meaning lies
Just in the music, not in those
Who dance thus with transfigured eyes,
Holding in vain each other close;
Only the music never dies,
The dance goes on,—the dancer goes. ”

[↩︎]

Source: Gutenberg

Richard Le Gallienne, The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems

“ That that is all,
Came a long weary way
To bid me home.
A snake said:
"In the world there is a place
Where you can lie
And dream of her white face."
The moss said: "Your blue eyes
Need my green sleep" ”

[↩︎]

Source: Gutenberg

Richard Le Gallienne, The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems

“ Smooth from your brow the little frets of time.
VII A BALLAD OF TOO MUCH BEAUTY There is too much beauty upon this earth
For lonely men to bear,
Too many eyes, too enchanted skies,
Too many things too fair;
And the man who would live the life of a man
Must turn his eyes away—if he can. ”

[↩︎]

Source: Gutenberg

Richard Le Gallienne, The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems

“ VII A BALLAD OF TOO MUCH BEAUTY There is too much beauty upon this earth ”

[↩︎]

Source: Gutenberg

Richard Le Gallienne, The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems

“ That singing water called the sea.
(O tell me was this sea-weed found In the long shimmer of the Sound!)
A SONG OF SINGERS Singers all along the street,
Singing every kind of song—
One man's song is honey-sweet,
One man's song is hammer-strong ”

Richard Le Gallienne

Summary

Quotes from The Lonely Dancer and Other Poems (Richard Le Gallienne)

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