The Princess on the Headland

T
My mother the queen is dead.
My father the king is old.
He fumbles his cirque of gold
And dreams of a year long fled.
The young men stare at my face,
But cannot meet my glance—
Cavan tall as a lance,
Orra swift in the race.

death was ever my price,
Since my maidenhood began:
At the thought of a Gaelic man
My heart is sister of ice.
’Tis another for whom I wait,
Though I have not kissed his sword:
He or none is my lord,
Though our night be soon or late.

The star grows great in my breast:
It is crying clearly now
To the star on the burnished prow
Of his galley far in the West.
The capes of the North are dim,
And the windward beaches smoke
Where the last long roller spoke
The tidings it held of him.

sorrow I know he brings,
Battle, despair and change,—
beauty cruel and strange,
And the shed bright blood of kings.
Breast, be white for his sake!
Mouth, be red for the kiss!
Soul, be strong for your bliss!
Heart, be ready to break!

Rating:

Comment form:

*Max text - 1500. Manual moderation.

Similar Poems:

from The Prodigal: 10 by Derek Walcott
Derek Walcott
I

The ground dove stuttered for a few steps then flew
up from his path to settle in the sun-browned
branches that were now barely twigs; in drought it coos
with its relentless valve, a tiring sound,
not like the sweet exchanges of turtles in the Song
of Solomon, or the flutes of Venus in frescoes
though all the mounds in the dove-calling drought
Read Poem
0
115
Rating:

Yom Kippur 1984 by Adrienne Rich
Adrienne Rich
I drew solitude over me, on the long shore.
—Robinson Jeffers, “Prelude”

For whoever does not afflict his soul through this day, shall be
cut off from his people.
—Leviticus 23:29
Read Poem
0
155
Rating:

from “The Octoroon” by Albery Allson Whitman
Albery Allson Whitman
18

These creatures of the languid Orient,—
Rare pearls of caste, in their voluptuous swoon
And gilded ease, by Eunuchs watched and pent,
And doomed to hear the lute’s perpetual tune,
Were passion’s toys—to lust an ornament;
But not such was our thrush-voiced Octoroon,—
The Southland beauty who was wont to hear
Faith’s tender secrets whispered in her ear.


19

“An honest man’s the noblest work of”—No!
Read Poem
0
136
Rating:

Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift, D.S.P.D. by Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift
Dans l'adversité de nos meilleurs amis nous trouvons quelque chose, qui ne nous déplaît pas.
["In the hard times of our best friends we find something that doesn't displease us."]
As Rochefoucauld his maxims drew
From Nature, I believe 'em true:
They argue no corrupted mind
In him; the fault is in mankind.
Read Poem
0
164
Rating:

Astrophil and Stella 107: Stella, since thou so right a princess art  by Sir Philip Sidney
Sir Philip Sidney
Stella, since thou so right a princess art
Of all the powers which life bestows on me,
There ere by them aught undertaken be
They first resort unto that sovereign part;
Sweet, for a while give respite to my heart,
Which pants as though it still should leap to thee,
And on my thoughts give thy lieutenancy
To this great cause, which needs both use and art,
And as a queen, who from her presence sends
Whom she employs, dismiss from thee my wit,
Till it have wrought what thy own will attends.
On servants’ shame oft master’s blame doth sit.
Oh let not fools in me thy works reprove,
And scorning say, “See what it is to love.”
Read Poem
0
129
Rating:

Emily Hardcastle, Spinster by John Crowe Ransom
John Crowe Ransom
We shall come tomorrow morning, who were not to have her love,
We shall bring no face of envy but a gift of praise and lilies
To the stately ceremonial we are not the heroes of.

Let the sisters now attend her, who are red-eyed, who are wroth;
They were younger, she was finer, for they wearied of the waiting
And they married them to merchants, being unbelievers both.

I was dapper when I dangled in my pepper-and-salt;
We were only local beauties, and we beautifully trusted
Read Poem
0
85
Rating:

“If Cynthia Be a Queen, a Princess, and Supreme” by Sir Walter Ralegh
Sir Walter Ralegh
If Cynthia be a queen, a princess, and supreme,
Keep these among the rest, or say it was a dream,
For those that like, expound, and those that loathe express
Meanings according as their minds are moved more or less;
For writing what thou art, or showing what thou were,
Adds to the one disdain, to the other but despair,
Thy mind of neither needs, in both seeing it exceeds.

Read Poem
0
131
Rating:

The Shires by John Fuller
John Fuller
Bedfordshire
A blue bird showing off its undercarriage
En route between our oldest universities
Was observed slightly off-course above Woburn
In the leafy heart of our sleepiest county:
Two cyclists in tandem looked up at the same moment,
Like a busy footnote to its asterisk.

Berkshire
Read Poem
0
130
Rating:

Small Kingdom by Samuel Menashe
Samuel Menashe
In their doorways women sit sewing
By the good light of afternoon
And nothing is beyond knowing
Though the sun shall go down soon

A shepherdess near a bramble ditch
And the Princess in the Alcazar
Keep the same precise stitch
And they both can see far
Read Poem
0
141
Rating:

The Stars and the Moon by Grace Schulman
Grace Schulman
In Legends of the Jews, Lewis Ginzberg writes that an Egyptian princess hung a tapestry woven with diamonds and pearls above King Solomon’s bed. When the king wanted to rise, he thought he saw stars and, believing it was night, slept on. Scaling ladders with buckets of white enamel,
I painted the stars and the moon on my windowpanes
Read Poem
0
111
Rating:

Sympathy of Peoples by Robert Fitzgerald
Robert Fitzgerald
No but come closer. Come a little
Closer. Let the wall-eyed hornyhanded
Panhandler hit you for a dime
Sir and shiver. Snow like this
Drives its pelting shadows over Bremen,
Over sad Louvain and the eastern
Marshes, the black wold. It sighs
Into the cold sea of the north,
Read Poem
0
132
Rating:

from From the Theatre of Illusion by Pierre Corneille
Pierre Corneille
Act 2, Scene 2
Clindor, a young picaresque hero, has been living by his wits in Paris, but has now drifted to Bordeaux, to become the valet of a braggart bravo named Matamore. He is chiefly employed as a go-between, carrying Matamore's amorous messages to the beautiful Isabelle—who only suffers the master because she is in love with the messenger. clindor
Sir, why so restless? Is there any need,
With all your fame, for one more glorious deed?
Have you not slain enough bold foes by now,
Read Poem
0
136
Rating:

Abt Vogler by Robert Browning
Robert Browning
Would that the structure brave, the manifold music I build,
Bidding my organ obey, calling its keys to their work,
Claiming each slave of the sound, at a touch, as when Solomon willed
Armies of angels that soar, legions of demons that lurk,
Man, brute, reptile, fly,—alien of end and of aim,
Adverse, each from the other heaven-high, hell-deep removed,—
Should rush into sight at once as he named the ineffable Name,
And pile him a palace straight, to pleasure the princess he loved!
Read Poem
0
136
Rating:

The Anti-Suffragist by Eva Gore-Booth
Eva Gore-Booth
The princess in her world-old tower pined
A prisoner, brazen-caged, without a gleam
Of sunlight, or a windowful of wind;
She lived but in a long lamp-lighted dream.

They brought her forth at last when she was old;
The sunlight on her blanched hair was shed
Too late to turn its silver into gold.
“Ah, shield me from this brazen glare!” she said.
Read Poem
0
90
Rating:

from Idylls of the King: The Last Tournament by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Dagonet, the fool, whom Gawain in his mood
Had made mock-knight of Arthur's Table Round,
At Camelot, high above the yellowing woods,
Danced like a wither'd leaf before the hall.
And toward him from the hall, with harp in hand,
And from the crown thereof a carcanet
Of ruby swaying to and fro, the prize
Of Tristram in the jousts of yesterday,
Came Tristram, saying, "Why skip ye so, Sir Fool?"

For Arthur and Sir Lancelot riding once
Far down beneath a winding wall of rock
Heard a child wail. A stump of oak half-dead.
From roots like some black coil of carven snakes,
Clutch'd at the crag, and started thro' mid air
Read Poem
0
147
Rating:

In Honour of that High and Mighty Princess, Queen Elizabeth by Anne Bradstreet
Anne Bradstreet
Proem.
Although great Queen, thou now in silence lie,
Yet thy loud Herald Fame, doth to the sky
Thy wondrous worth proclaim, in every clime,
And so has vow’d, whilst there is world or time.
So great’s thy glory, and thine excellence,
The sound thereof raps every human sense
That men account it no impiety
To say thou wert a fleshly Deity.
Thousands bring off’rings (though out of date)
Thy world of honours to accumulate.
‘Mongst hundred Hecatombs of roaring Verse,
‘Mine bleating stands before thy royal Hearse.
Thou never didst, nor canst thou now disdain,
T’ accept the tribute of a loyal Brain.
Read Poem
0
130
Rating:

Town Eclogues: Monday; Roxana or the Drawing-Room by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
ROXANA from the court retiring late,
Sigh'd her soft sorrows at St. JAMES's gate:
Such heavy thoughts lay brooding in her breast,
Not her own chairmen wth more weight opprest;
They groan the cruel load they're doom'd to bear ;
She in these gentler sounds express'd her care.

" Was it for this, that I these Roses wear,
Read Poem
0
85
Rating:

Vixen by W. S. Merwin
W. S. Merwin
Comet of stillness princess of what is over
high note held without trembling without voice without sound
aura of complete darkness keeper of the kept secrets
of the destroyed stories the escaped dreams the sentences
never caught in words warden of where the river went
touch of its surface sibyl of the extinguished
window onto the hidden place and the other time
at the foot of the wall by the road patient without waiting
Read Poem
0
138
Rating:

Fresh Air by Kenneth Koch
Kenneth Koch
I

At the Poem Society a black-haired man stands up to say
“You make me sick with all your talk about restraint and mature talent!
Haven’t you ever looked out the window at a painting by Matisse,
Or did you always stay in hotels where there were too many spiders crawling on your visages?
Did you ever glance inside a bottle of sparkling pop,
Or see a citizen split in two by the lightning?
I am afraid you have never smiled at the hibernation
Read Poem
0
159
Rating:

Soft Hail by Keith Waldrop
Keith Waldrop
Afterward, to tell how it was possible to
identify absolute space, a matter of great
difficulty, keeping in mind always
that not all old music is beautiful and
therefore it’s necessary to choose. Ice
loading and unloading as the ice caps
wax and wither. Brutal and uncouth from the beginning
even unto time, space, place, motion.
Read Poem
0
103
Rating: