Edmund William Gosse Poems

THE soft wind blows
Across the snows,
And turns the palest face to rose;
The wind it goes
...

Between two russet tufts of summer grass,
I watch the world through hot air as through glass,
And by my face sweet lights and colours pass.
...

WHAT gift for passionate lovers shall we find?
Not flowers nor books of verse suffice for me,
But splinters of the odorous cedar-tree,
...

LIFE, like an overweighted shaken rose,
Falls, in a cloud of colour, to my feet;
Its petals strew my first November snows,
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BESIDE the dusty road of life,
Deflower'd with toil and foul with strife,
Lie hid within a charm of dew
Pure harbours made for me and you.
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WE traced the bleak ridge, to and fro,
Grave forty, gay fourteen;
While yellow larks, in heaven's blue glow,
Like laughing stars were seen,
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THE Past is like a funeral gone by,
The Future comes like an unwelcome guest,
And some men gaze behind them to find rest
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WOULDST thou not be content to die
When low-hung fruit is hardly clinging,
And golden Autumn passes by?
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FRESH with all airs of woodland brooks
And scents of showers,
Take to your haunt of holy books
This saint of flowers.
...

BREAK, long wave, below my feet!
Wind and meet,
Sea-streams that the moon hath shaken!
...