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Richard Le Gallienne

Richard Le Gallienne

What of the Darkness?

What of the darkness? Is it very fair?
Are there great calms and find ye silence there?
Like soft-shut lilies all your faces glow
With some strange peace our faces never know,
With some great faith our faces never dare.
Dwells it in Darkness? Do you find it there?
 
Is it a Bosom where tired heads may lie?
Is it a Mouth to kiss our weeping dry?
Is it a Hand to still the pulse’s leap?
Is it a Voice that holds the runes of sleep?
Day shows us not such comfort anywhere.
Dwells it in Darkness? Do you find it there?
 
Out of the Day’s deceiving light we call,
Day that shows man so great and God so small,
That hides the stars and magnifies the grass;
O is the Darkness too a lying glass,
Or, undistracted, do you find truth there?
What of the Darkness? Is it very fair?

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Other works by Richard Le Gallienne...
Satiety

The heart of the rose-how sweet Its fragrance to drain, Till the greedy brain Reels and grows faint With the garnered scent,
Man, the Destroyer

O spirit of Life, by whatsoe’er a… Known among men, even as our fathe… Before thee, and as little childre… For counsel in Life’s dread predi… Even we, with all our lore,
Johannes Vermeer The Love Letter
A Love-Letter

Darling little woman, just a littl… Just a little silver word For that dear gold of thine, Only a whisper you have so often h… Only such a whisper as hidden in a…
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To Madame Jumel

Of all the wind-blown dust of face… Had I a god’s re-animating breath… Thee, like a perfumed torch in the… Lethean and the eyeless halls of d… Would I relume; the cresset of th…
The Source

Water in hidden glens From the secret heart of the mount… Where the red fox hath its dens And the gods their crystal fountai… Up runnel and leaping cataract,
Flos Aevorum

You must mean more than just this… You perfect thing so subtly fair, Simple and complex as a flower, Wrought with such planetary care; How patient the eternal power
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A Ballad of the Kind Little Creatures

I had no where to go, I had no money to spend: ‘O come with me,’ the Beaver said… ‘I live at the world’s end.’ ‘Does the world ever end!’
Evening Song

The sun is weary, for he ran So far and fast to-day; The birds are weary, for who sang So many songs as they? The bees and butterflies at last
To Ralph Waldo Emerson

Poet, whose words are like the tig… Sealed in the capsule of a silver… Still at your art we wonder as we… The art dynamic charging each word… Seeds of the silver flower of Eme…
Ballade of Woman

A woman! lightly the mysterious wo… Falls from our lips, lightly as th… Its meaning, as we say—a flower, a… Or say the moon, the stream, the l… Simple familiar things, mysterious…
Parables

Dear Love, you ask if I be true, If other women move The heart that only beats for you With pulses all of love. Out in the chilly dew one morn
Alice

‘Alice, Alice, put on your things… The birds are calling, the church… The sun is shining, and I am here… Waiting—and waiting—for you, my de… Alice, Alice, doff your gown of n…
Singing Go I

Singing go I, seeking for ever a… Sung long ago; I ask no more to h… Her voice that sang-for I should… Had I the power, to bring her onc… Near to the earth, its sorrow or i…
We Are With France

We are with France—not by the tie… Of treaties made with tongue in ch… The ancient diplomatic lies, The paper promises that seek To hide the long maturing guile,
Love’s Arithmetic

You often ask me, love, how much… Bidding my fancy find An answer to your mind; I say: ‘Past count, as there are… You shake your head and say,



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