Elizabeth Stoddard

1823-1902

 

First Lines of Elizabeth Stoddard

Between me and the woods along the bayCome, white angels, to baby and me;Dearest though I have sung a many songs,Eleven o'clock:Falling leaves and falling men!Fan me with these lilies fair,Far from the empire of my present days,From thy translucent waves, great Thetis, rise!Ho, wind of March, speed over sea,Husband, to-day could you and I beholdI feel the breath of the summer night,I hear the waters of some inlet nowI live within the stranger's gate,I love you, but a sense of painI Should be happy with my lot:I was the queen of Karl, a northern king:I, knight-at-arms, in my own forest lost!In the still, dark shade of the palace wall,In the still, star-lit night,Let me be merry now, 't is time;Much have I spoken of the faded leafNo melancholy days are these!Now like the Lady of Shalott,Now that the pain is gone, I too can smileO Friend, begin a loftier song.O looked over the balustrade --Oh, the wild, wild days of youth!On my bed of a winter night,One morn I left him in his bedRead by the wayside, read by the brook,So, I must believe that I loved you once!Spending abroad these varied autumn days,Still I remember only autumn days,Stop on the Appian Way,Swift as the tide in the riverThe autumn morning sweetly calls to me,The guests were gathered in the ancient parkThe poet's secret I must know,The rough north winds have left their icy cavesThe shadows on the water reachThe testimony of my loss and gainThe willow boughs are yellow now,This chain of white arms round the room --Through the gorge of snow we go,To me, long absent from the world of art,Tonight I do the bidding of a ghost,Under a sultry, yellow sky,When I hear music, whether waltz or psalm,When I was camping on the Volga's banks,When I, enclosed within the city's walls,Why did I go where roses grew,Why should I tarry here, to be but oneYou left me, and the anguish passed,Your picture, slung about my neck