Francis Thompson Poems

Little Jesus, wast Thou shy
Once, and just so small as I?
And what did it feel like to be
Out of Heaven, and just like me?
...

I looked, she drooped, and neither spake, and cold,
We stood, how unlike all forecasted thought
Of that desir-ed minute! Then I leaned
...

I walk, I only,
Not I only wake;
Nothing is, this sweet night,
But doth couch and wake
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Her soul from earth to Heaven lies,
Like the ladder of the vision,
Whereon go
To and fro,
...

Alas, and I have sung
Much song of matters vain,
And a heaven-sweetened tongue
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This morning saw I, fled the shower,
The earth reclining in a lull of power:
The heavens, pursuing not their path,
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At evening, when the lank and rigid trees,
To the mere forms of their sweet day-selves drying,
On heaven's blank leaf seem pressed and flatten-ed;
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Have you sometimes, calm, silent, let your tread aspirant rise
...

Oh, but the heavenly grammar did I hold
Of that high speech which angels' tongues turn gold!
So should her deathless beauty take no wrong,
...

When the last stir of bubbling melodies
Broke as my chants sank underneath the wave
Of dulcitude, but sank again to rise
...