Francis William Bourdillon

Francis William Bourdillon (March 22 1852 – January 13 1921) was a British poet and translator.

The Night has a thousand eyes,
And the Day but one;
Yet the light of the bright world dies
With the dying sun.

Quotes

The mind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one;
Yet the light of a whole life dies
When love is done.

I walk as one unclothed of flesh,
I wash my spirit clean;
I see old miracles afresh,
And wonders yet unseen.

Slowly the joy of flower and bird
Did like a tide withdraw;
And in the heaven a silent star
Smiled on me, infinitely far.

All are one brotherhood;
I and all creatures, plants, and trees,
The living limbs of God;
And in an hour, as this, divine,
I feel the vast pulse throb in mine.

• The Night has a thousand eyes,
  And the Day but one;
  Yet the light of the bright world dies
  With the dying sun.

  The mind has a thousand eyes,
  And the heart but one;
  Yet the light of a whole life dies
  When love is done.

  • "Light" (popularly known as "The Night has a Thousand Eyes"), published in The Spectator (October 1873).

• Sudden thy silent beauty on me shone,
  Fair as the moon had given thee all her spell.
  Then, as Endymion had found on earth,
  In unchanged beauty but in fashion changed,
  Her whom I loved so long; so felt I then,
  Not that a new love in my heart had birth,
  But that the old, that far from reach had ranged,
  Was now on earth, and to be loved of men.
  • "Sonnet I" in The Galaxy Vol. XIX, (January - June 1875), p. 747.

• As strong, as deep, as wide as is the sea,
  Though by the wind made restless as the wind,
  By billows fretted and by rocks confined,
  So strong, so deep, so wide my love for thee.
  • "Sonnet II" in Scribner's Monthly Vol. IX (November 1874 - April 1875), p. 359.

• So my great love for thee lies tranquil, deep,
  Forever; though above it passions fierce,
  Ambition, hatred, jealousy; like waves
  That seem from earth’s core to the sky to leap,
  But ocean’s depths can never really pierce;
  Hide its great calm, while all the surface raves.
  • "Sonnet II" in Scribner's Monthly Vol. IX (November 1874 - April 1875), p. 359.

• I walk as one unclothed of flesh,
  I wash my spirit clean;
  I see old miracles afresh,
  And wonders yet unseen.
  I will not leave Thee till Thou give
  Some word whereby my soul may live!

  I listened — but no voice I heard;
  I looked — no likeness saw;
  Slowly the joy of flower and bird
  Did like a tide withdraw;
  And in the heaven a silent star
  Smiled on me, infinitely far.

  • "The Chantry Of The Cherubim" in The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse (1917) by D. H. S. Nicholson.

• I buoyed me on the wings of dream,
  Above the world of sense;
  I set my thought to sound the scheme,
  And fathom the Immense;
  I tuned my spirit as a lute
  To catch wind-music wandering mute.

  Yet came there never voice nor sign;
  But through my being stole
  Sense of a Universe divine,
  And knowledge of a soul
  Perfected in the joy of things,
  The star, the flower, the bird that sings.

  Nor I am more, nor less, than these;
  All are one brotherhood;
  I and all creatures, plants, and trees,
  The living limbs of God;
  And in an hour, as this, divine,
  I feel the vast pulse throb in mine.

  • "The Chantry Of The Cherubim" in The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse (1917) by D. H. S. Nicholson.

External links

• Poems by Francis Bourdillon