So for thy spirit did devise Its Maker seemly garniture, Of its own essence parcel pure.-- From grave simplicities a dress, And reticent demureness, And love encinctured with reserve; Which the woven vesture would subserve. For outward robes in their ostents Should show the soul's habiliments. Therefore I say,--Thou'rt fair even so, But better Fair I use to know.
Francis ThompsonThe desolation and terror of, for the first time, realizing that the mother can lose you, or you her, and your own abysmal loneliness and helplessness without her.
Francis ThompsonSummer set lip to earth's bosom bare, And left the flushed print in a poppy there: Like a yawn of fire from the grass it came, And the fanning wind puffed it to flapping flame. With burnt mouth red like a lion's it drank The blood of the sun as he slaughtered sank, And dipped its cup in the purpurate shine When the eastern conduits ran with wine.
Francis ThompsonBaby smiled, mother wailed, Earthward while the sweetling sailed; Mother smiled, baby wailed, When to earth came Viola.
Francis ThompsonNothing begins, and nothing ends, That is not paid with moan; For we are born in others pain And perish in our own.
Francis ThompsonThere is no expeditious road To pack and label men for God, And save them by the barrel-load. Some may perchance, with strange surprise, Have blundered into Paradise.
Francis ThompsonA dog, I will maintain, is a very tolerable judge of beauty, as appears from the fact that any liberally educated dog does, in a general way, prefer a woman to a man.
Francis ThompsonBut lilies, stolen from grassy mold, No more curled state unfold, Translated to a vase of gold; In burning throne though they keep still Serenities unthawed and chill.
Francis ThompsonThe innocent moon, that nothing does but shine,Moves all the labouring surges of the world.
Francis ThompsonBabies breathe a lot more rapidly than adults do, and what's more, they're also growing quickly and so they're absorbing lots more into the body and they're more fragile in terms of development and so on.
Francis ThompsonDeep in my heart subsides the infrequent word, And there dies slowly throbbing like a wounded bird.
Francis ThompsonSpring is come home with her world-wandering feet, And all things are made young with your desires.
Francis ThompsonLittle Jesus, was Thou shy Once, and just so small as I? And what did it feel like to be Out of Heaven, and just like me?
Francis ThompsonThe fairest things have fleetest end, Their scent survives their close: But the rose's scent is bitterness To him that loved the rose.
Francis Thompson