The Half Moon by Christina Rossetti

The half moon shows a face of plaintive sweetness
Ready and poised to wax or wane;
A fire of pale desire in incompleteness,
Tending to pleasure or to pain:--
Lo, while we gaze she rolleth on in fleetness
To perfect loss or perfect gain.

Half bitterness we know, we know half sweetness;
This world is all on wax, on wane:
When shall completeness round time's incompleteness,
Fulfilling joy, fulfilling pain?--
Lo, while we ask, life rolleth on in fleetness
To finished loss or finished gain.

For my thoughts on poetry click here.

Cate Le Bon-I Can't Help You

The Melancholy Year Is Dead with Rain by Trumbull Stickney

The melancholy year is dead with rain.
Drop after drop on every branch pursues.
From far away beyond the drizzled flues
A twilight saddens to the window pane.
And dimly thro' the chambers of the brain,
From place to place and gently touching, moves
My one and irrecoverable love's
Dear and lost shape one other time again.
So in the last of autumn for a day
Summer or summer's memory returns.
So in a mountain desolation burns
Some rich belated flower, and with the gray
Sick weather, in the world of rotting ferns
From out the dreadful stones it dies away.

Lamb-Gorecki

I Was Dying by anonymous

First I was dying to finish high school and start college
And then I was dying to finish college and start working
And then I was dying to marry and have children
And then I was dying for my children to grow old enough so they could go to school so I could go back to work
And then I was dying to retire
And now...I am dying .... and suddenly I realise I forgot to live.

Ezra Furman - Restless Year

DAY DREAMS, by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI

Gazing thro' her chamber window
Sits my soul's dear soul;
Looking northward, looking southward,
Looking to the goal,
Looking back without control. --

I have strewn thy path, beloved,
With plumed meadowsweet,
Iris and pale perfumed lilies,
Roses most complete:
Wherefore pause on listless feet? --

But she sits and never answers;
Gazing gazing still
On swift fountain, shadowed valley,
Cedared sunlit hill:
Who can guess or read her will?

Who can guess or read the spirit
Shrined within her eyes,
Part a longing, part a languor,
Part a mere surprise,
While slow mists do rise and rise? --

Is it love she looks and longs for;
Is it rest or peace;
Is it slumber self-forgetful
In its utter ease;
Is it one or all of these?

So she sits and doth not answer
With her dreaming eyes,
With her languid look delicious
Almost Paradise,
Less than happy, over wise.

Answer me, O self-forgetful --
Or of what beside? --
Is it day dream of a maiden,
Vision of a bride,
Is it knowledge, love, or pride?

Cold she sits thro' all my kindling,
Deaf to all I pray:
I have wasted might and wisdom,
Wasted night and day:
Deaf she dreams to all I say.

Now if I could guess her secret
Were it worth the guess? --
Time is lessening, hope is lessening,
Love grows less and less:
What care I for no or yes? --

I will give her stately burial,
Tho', when she lies dead:
For dear memory of the past time,
Of her royal head,
Of the much I strove and said.

I will give her stately burial,
Willow branches bent;
Have her carved in alabaster,
As she dreamed and leant
While I wondered what she meant.

Bill Nelson - Eros Arriving (1982)