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Ernest Christopher Dowson
was born on August 2, 1867 in Belmont Hill, Lee, Kent to Alfred and
Annie (Swan) Dowson. Dowson had one sibling, a younger brother, Rowland.
Dowson attended Queen's College, Oxford for two years from 1886 to 1888,
but refused to continue for unknown reasons. In 1889 Dowson met and fell
in love with Adelaide Foltinowicz, to whom his first book of poems, "Verses,"
was dedicated. In 1894, shortly after announcing his intention to marry
Adelaide, both her father and Dowson's died. Dowson found his mother, who
had hanged herself, later that year. Dowson died on February 22, 1900,
due most likely to complications from tuberculosis. I have tried to select
(what I believe to be) some of his best work |
The Days of Wine
and Roses
They are not long the weepng and the laughter,
Love and desire and hate:
I think they have no portion in us after
we pass the gate
They are not long, the days of wine and roses:
Out of a misty dream
Our path emerges for a while, then closes
within a dream
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Exile
By the sad waters of separation
Where we have wandered
by divers ways,
I have but the shadow and imitation
Of the old memorial
days.
In music I have no consolation,
No roses are pale enough
for me;
The sound of the waters of separation
Surpasseth roses and
melody.
By the sad waters of separation
Dimly I hear from an
hidden place
The sigh of mine ancient adoration:
Hardly can I remember
your face.
If you be dead, no proclamation
Sprang to me over the
waste, gray sea:
Living, the waters of separation
Sever for ever your
soul from me.
No man knoweth our desolation;
Memory pales of the
old delight;
While the sad waters of separation
Bear us on to the ultimate
night.
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Wine
Women
And Song
Wine and woman and song,
Three things garnish
our way:
Yet is day over long.
Lest we do our youth wrong,
Gather them while we
may:
Wine and woman and song.
Three things render us strong,
Vine leaves, kisses
and bay:
Yet is day over long.
Unto us they belong,
Us the bitter and gay,
Wine and woman and song.
We, as we pass along,
Are sad that they will
not stay;
Yet is day over long.
Fruits and flowers among,
What is better than
they:
Wine and woman and song?
Yet is day over long.
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Amor Profanus
Beyond the pale of memory,
In some mysterious dusky grove;
A place of shadows utterly
Where never coos the turtle-dove,
A world forgotten by the sun:
I dreamed we met when day was done,
And marvelled at our ancient love.
Met there by chance, long kept apart,
We wandered through the darkling glades;
And that old language of the heart
We sought to speak: alas! poor shades!
Over pallid lips had run
The waters of oblivion,
Which crown all loves of men or maids
In vain we stammered: from afar
Our old desire shown cold and dead:
That time was distant as a star,
When eyes were bright and lips were red.
And still we went with downcast eye
And no delight in being nigh,
Poor shadows most uncomforted.
Ah, Lalage! while life is ours,
Hoard not thy beauty rose and white,
But pluck the pretty, fleeting flowers
That deck our little path of light:
For all too soon we twain shall tread
The bitter pastures of the dead:
Estranged, sad spectres of the night
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A LAST WORD
Let us go hence: the night is now at hand;
The day is overworn, the birds all flown;
And we have reaped the crops the gods
have
sown;
Despair and death; deep darkness o'er the land,
Broods like an owl; we cannot understand
Laughter or tears, for we have only known
Surpassing vanity: vain things alone
Have driven our perverse and aimless band.
Let us go hence, somewhither strange and cold,
To Hollow Lands where just men and unjust
Find end of labour, where's rest for the
old,
Freedom to all from love and fear and
lust.
Twine our torn hands I pray the
earth enfold
Our life-sick hearts and turn them into
dust.
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DREGS
The fire is out, and spent the warmth thereof
(This is the end of every song man sings!)
The golden wine is drunk, the dregs remain,
Bitter as wormwood and as salt as pain;
And health and hope have gone the way of love
Into the drear oblivion of lost things.
Ghosts go along with us until the end;
This was a mistress, this, perhaps a friend.
With pale, indifferent eyes, we sit and wait
For the dropt curtain and the closing gate:
This is the end of all the songs man sings.
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