free-verse40 lines
Quatrains.
by Charles Hamilton MusgroveThe Sky Line.
Like black fangs in a cruel ogre's jaw
The grim piles lift against the sunset sky;
Down drops the night, and shuts the horrid maw--
I listen, breathless, but there comes no cry.
Defeat.
He sits and looks into the west
Where twilight gathers, wan and gray,
A knight who quit the Golden Quest,
And flung Excalibur away.
To an Amazon.
O! twain in spirit, we shall know
Thy like no more, so fierce, so mild,
One breast shorn clean to rest the bow,
One milk-full for thy warrior child.
The Old Mother.
Life is like an old mother whom trouble and toil
Have sufficed the best part of her nature to spoil,
Whom her children, the Passions, so worry and vex
That the good are forgot while the evil perplex.
The Call.
When the north wind, riding o'er the uplands,
Shouted to the red leaves: "I am Death!"
Was it fear that sent them all a-flying,
Sighing, flying o'er the withered heath?
Life.
Life is just a web of doubt
Where, with iridescent gleams,
Flickers in or struggles out
Love, the golden moth of dreams.
Revelation.
I called your name, Man-in-the-Grave,
And straight her lips grew cold on mine,
And then I knew although I have
Her hand, her heart and soul are thine.
Tears of Men.
Men shed their blood for honor or renown,
For freedom's sake to nameless graves go down,
But there's one cause alone 'neath heaven above
For which they shed their tears, and that is--Love.