Elizabeth Siddal Some Examples of Poetry

The Lust of The Eyes

I care not for my Lady’s soul

Though I worship before her smile;
I care not where be my Lady’s goal
When her beauty shall lose its wile.

Low sit I down at my Lady’s feet
Gazing through her wild eyes
Smiling to think how my love will fleet
When their starlike beauty dies.

I care not if my Lady pray
To our Father which is in Heaven
But for joy my heart’s quick pulses play
For to me her love is given.

Then who shall close my Lady’s eyes
And who shall fold her hands?
Will any hearken if she cries
Up to the unknown lands?

Worn Out

Thy strong arms are around me love 

My head is on thy breast;

 Low words of comfort come from thee 

Yet my soul has no rest.

For I am but a startled thing

Nor can I ever be

Aught save a bird whose broken wing 

Must fly away from thee.

 I cannot give to thee 

the love I gave so long ago, 

The love that turned and struck me down

Amid the blinding snow.

I can but give a failing heart 

And weary eyes of pain,

A faded mouth that cannot smile

And may not laugh again. 

Yet keep thine arms around me, love,

Until I fall to sleep;

Then leave me, saying no goodbye

Lest I make wake, and weep.

The Passing of Love

O God, forgive me that I ranged
My live into a dream of love!
Will tears of anguish never wash
The passion from my blood?

Love kept my heart in a song of joy,
My pulses quivered to the tune; 
The coldest blasts of winter blew 
Upon me like sweet airs in June.

Love floated on the mists of morn
And rested on the sunset’s rays; 
He calmed the thunder of the storm
And lighted all my ways.
 
Love held me joyful through the day
And dreaming ever through the night;
No evil thing could come to me,
My spirit was so light.

O Heaven help my foolish heart 
Which heeded not the passing time 
That dragged my idol from its place
And shattered all its shrine

A Year and A Day ( 1855)
Slow days have passed that make a year, 
Slow hours that make a day,
Since I could take my first dear love
And kiss him the old way;
Yet the green leaves touch me on the cheek,
Dear Christ, this month of May.

 I lie among the tall green grass 
That bends above my head
And covers up my wasted face
And folds me in its bed
Tenderly and lovingly
Like grass above the dead.

Dim phantoms of an unknown ill 
Float through my tired brain; 
The unformed visions of my life 
Pass by in ghostly train; 
Some pause to touch me on the cheek, 
Some scatter tears like rain.

A shadow falls along the grass 
And lingers at my feet; 
A new face lies between my hands --
Dear Christ, if I could weep 
Tears to shut out the summer leaves 
When this new face I greet.

Still it is but the memory 
Of something I have seen 
In the dreamy summer weather 
When the green leaves came between: 
The shadow of my dear love’s face -- 
So far and strange it seems.

The river ever running down 
Between its grassy bed, 
The voices of a thousand birds 
That clang above my head, 
Shall bring to me a sadder dream 
When this sad dream is dead.

A silence falls upon my heart 
And hushes all its pain. 
I stretch my hands in the long grass 
And fall to sleep again, 
There to lie empty of all love 
Like beaten corn of grain. 


Lord May I Come?
Life and night are falling from me,
Death and day are opening on me,
Wherever my footsteps come and go,
Life is a stony way of woe.
Lord, have I long to go?

Hallow hearts are ever near me,
Soulless eyes have ceased to cheer me:
Lord may I come to thee?

Life and youth and summer weather
To my heart no joy can gather.
Lord, lift me from life’s stony way!
Loved eyes long closed in death watch for me:
Holy death is waiting for me – 
Lord, may I come to-day?

My outward life feels sad and still
Like lilies in a frozen rill;
I am gazing upwards to the sun,
Lord, Lord, remembering my lost one.
O Lord, remember me!

How is it in the unknown land?
Do the dead wander hand in hand?
God, give me trust in thee.

Do we clasp dead hands and quiver
With an endless joy for ever?
Do tall white angels gaze and wend
Along the banks where lilies bend?
Lord, we know not how this may be:
Good Lord we put our faith in thee – 
O God, remember me. 

Love and Hate
Ope not thy lips, thou foolish one,
Nor turn to me thy face;
The blasts of heaven shall strike thee down
Ere I will give thee grace.
Take thou thy shadow from my path,
Nor turn to me and pray;
The wild wild winds thy dirge may sing
Ere I will bid thee stay.

Turn thou away thy false dark eyes,
Nor gaze upon my face;
Great love I bore thee: now great hate
Sits grimly in its place.

All changes pass me like a dream,
I neither sing nor pray;
And thou art like the poisonous tree
That stole my life away.


At Last
O mother, open the window wide
And let the daylight in;
The hills grow darker to my sight
And thoughts begin to swim.

And mother dear, take my young son,
(Since I was born of thee)
And care for all his little ways
And nurse him on thy knee.

And mother, wash my pale pale hands
And then bind up my feet;
My body may no longer rest
Out of its winding sheet.

And mother dear, take a sapling twig
And green grass newly mown,
And lay them on my empty bed
That my sorrow be not known.

And mother, find three berries red
And pluck them from the stalk,
And burn them at the first cockcrow
That my spirit may not walk.

And mother dear, break a willow wand, 
And if the sap be even,
Then save it for sweet Robert’s sake
And he’ll know my soul’s in heaven.

And mother, when the big tears fall,
(And fall, God knows, they may)
Tell him I died of my great love
And my dying heart was gay.

And mother dear, when the sun has set
And the pale kirk grass waves,
Then carry me through the dim twilight
And hide me among the graves.