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The poems of Trumbull Stickney

Stickney, Trumbull (1874-1904)

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I DRAMATIC VERSES
  
[dedication]
  
KALYPSO
  
ONCE
  
IN THE PAST
  
ONEIROPOLOS
  
LUCRETIUS
  
AGE IN YOUTH
  
IN SUMMER
  
IN AMPEZZO
  
MNEMOSYNE
  
LODOVICO MARTELLI
  
DOLOROSA
  
PITY
  
SONG
  
RALSTON
  
DRIFTWOOD
  
REQUIESCAM
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ERIDE
  
[prologue]
 1. 
I
 2. 
II
 3. 
III
 4. 
IV
 5. 
V
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SONNETS
  
[You say, Columbus with his argosies]
  
[They say that Cleopatra who of yore]
  
[They lived enamoured of the lovely moon]
  
ON RODIN'S “L'ILLUSION, SŒUR D'ICARE”
 1. 
[I My friend, who in this March unkind, uncouth]
 2. 
[II Your image walks not in my common way]
 3. 
[III Were you called home and I were left to grief]
  
IN A CHURCHYARD
  
[When I hereafter shall recover thee]
  
[Tho' inland far with mountains prisoned round]
  
ON SOME SHELLS FOUND INLAND
  
[Tho' lack of laurels and of wreaths not one]
  
[Live blindly and upon the hour. The Lord]
  
[Be still. The Hanging Gardens were a dream]
  
ON THE CONCERT
  
[The melancholy year is dead with rain]
  
[As a sad man, when evenings grayer grow]
  
[He said: “If in his image I was made]
  
LAKEWARD
  
PROMETHEUS PYRPHOROS [1900]
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II FRAGMENTS OF A DRAMA ON THE LIFE OF THE EMPEROR JULIAN
 1. 
ACT I
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ACT II
 1. 
I
 2. 
II
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III LATER LYRICS
 1. 
[I Listen! As though from other times and days]
 2. 
[II I saw how that a painter, given o'er]
 3. 
[III With long black wings an angel standing by]
 4. 
[IV You are to me the full vermilion rose]
 5. 
[V The trees and shrubbery glimmer]
 6. 
[VI A glad little rift, so shy]
 7. 
[VII I love thee longer and I love thee most]
 8. 
[VIII Dear and rich as a dawn of summer]
 9. 
[IX And, the last day being come, Man stood alone]
 10. 
X DEDICATION
 11. 
XI A FLOWER
 12. 
XII A STONE
 13. 
XIII PARDON
 14. 
XIV SERVICE
 15. 
XV CHESTNUTS IN NOVEMBER
 16. 
XVI FIDELITY
 17. 
[XVII With thy two eyes look on me once again]
 18. 
[XVIII When bye and bye relenting you regret]
 19. 
XIX LONELINESS
 20. 
[XX As pilgrims, when the ways of winter ope]
 21. 
[XXI Quiet after the rain of morning]
 22. 
[XXII If tho' alone I scarce do sigh]
 23. 
[XXIII Grudge not that I so long for thee]
 24. 
[XXIV Spirits that might have been]
 25. 
XXV SEPARATION
 26. 
XXVI AT SAINTE-MARGUERITE
 27. 
[XXVII I dreamed. Aye, it was very dark]
 28. 
[XXVIII Leave him now quiet by the way]
 29. 
XXIX AN ATHENIAN GARDEN
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XXX SONNETS FROM GREECE
  
SUNIUM
  
MT. LYKAION
  
NEAR HELIKON
  
ELEUSIS
  
MT. IDA
 31. 
XXXI SIX O'CLOCK
 32. 
XXXII IN A CITY GARDEN
 4. 
IV A DRAMATIC SCENE
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V JUVENILIA
 1. 
I ART IN MAN
 2. 
II MUSIC
 3. 
III NIGHT
 4. 
IV EVENING
 5. 
V AGE AND YOUTH
 6. 
[VI This is the nursling of an hundred years]
 7. 
[VII Tho', moored along the quiet quay on some]
 8. 
VIII THE DEATH OF AISCHYLOS
 9. 
[IX My note is highest of them all]
 10. 
[X When you've averaged emotion, found where Nature goes to school]
 11. 
XI ODE
 12. 
[XII 'T was yet an hour to dawn. Revengeful storm]
 13. 
XIII COLOGNE CATHEDRAL
 14. 
[XIV When by you lies my broken heart, and I]
 15. 
[XV Now the lovely moon is wilted]
 16. 
[XVI I know where all the singers hide]
 17. 
[XVII Hold still, my brain! My temples burst! Shall e'er]
 18. 
XVIII NIMIUM PASSUS
 19. 
[XIX Spring is come. From the wind lightly dissipate feathers of mist that an upland exhales]
 20. 
XX IN AMPEZZO
 21. 
[XXI If, in the night and madness of thy mind]
 22. 
[XXII Henceforward I no longer shall be known]
 23. 
XXIII A LETTER
 24. 
[XXIV My life shall count by the smile and tear]
 25. 
XXV You'll say when here again after it all
 26. 
XXVI This is the violin. If you remember—
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VI FRAGMENTS
 1. 
[I The Autumn's done; they have the golden corn in]
 2. 
[II She sat under the naked bough]
 3. 
III FRAGMENT OF AN ODE FOR GREEK LIBERTY
 4. 
[IV My Ludovico, it is sad]
 5. 
[V The weakened eyes regain their sight]
 6. 
[VI And I stood ringed about with marble dreams]
 7. 
[VII 'T is said that hearts are won, at length]
 8. 
[VIII We learn by suffering and we teach by pity]
 9. 
[IX I hear a river thro' the valley wander]
 10. 
[X Nay, take it all in all, the human sort]
 11. 
[XI The passions that we fought with and subdued]
 12. 
[XII As one who loving beyond words will bring]
 13. 
[XIII Teased by the burden of this little sky]
 14. 
[XIV If with my life I lifted from thy head]
 15. 
[XV The immortal mixes with mortality]
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XVI FRAGMENT OF A DRAMA CALLED “THE CARDINAL PLAY”
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SHORTER FRAGMENTS FROM “THE CARDINAL PLAY”
 1. 
I
 2. 
II
 3. 
III
 4. 
IV
 5. 
V
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XVII “DRAMATIC FRAGMENTS
 1. 
I
 2. 
II BLINDNESS AND DEAFNESS
 3. 
III THE SOUL OF TIME
 4. 
IV
 5. 
V

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281

XXVI
This is the violin. If you remember—

This is the violin. If you remember—
One afternoon late, in the early days,
One of those inconsolable December
Twilights of city haze,
You came to teach me how the hardened fingers
Must drop and nail the music down, and how
The sound then drags and nettled cries, then lingers
After the dying bow.—
For so all that could never be is given
And flutters off these piteously thin
Strings, till the night of a midsummer heaven
Quivers ... a violin.
I struggled, and alongside of a duty,
A nagging everyday-long commonplace!
I loved this hopeless exercise of beauty
Like an allotted grace,—
The changing scales and broken chords, the trying
From sombre notes below to catch the mark,
I have it all thro' my heart, I tell you, crying
Childishly in the dark.
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