Edmund Gosse

1886 portrait of Gosse by John Singer Sargent

Edmund William Gosse (21 September 1849 – 16 May 1928) was an English poet, author and critic.

Quotes

The wizard silence of the hours of dew.

• A sheep in sheep's clothing.
  • Of T. Sturge Moore, c. 1906
  • Quoted in Ferris Greenslet, Under the Bridge (1943), ch. 12

On Viol and Flute (1873)

• Canst thou not wait for Love one flying hour
  O heart of little faith?
  • "Dejection and Delay"

• The high-voiced children trebled clear and cold.
  • "Epithalamium"

• What curled and scented sun-girls, almond-eyed,
  With lotos-blossoms in their hands and hair.
  • "On a Lute Found in a Sarcophagus"

• The music of the scythes that glide and leap,
  The young men whistling as their great arms sweep,
  And all the perfume and sweet sense of sleep,
  The weary butterflies that droop their wings,
  The dreamy nightingale that hardly sings,
  And all the lassitude of happy things,
  Is mingling with the warm and pulsing blood
  That gushes through my veins a languid flood,
  And feeds my spirit as the sap a bud.
  • "Lying in the Grass", sts. 5–7

• And see that girl, with pitcher on her head,
  And clean white apron on her gown of red,—
  Her even-song of love is but half-said:
  She waits the youngest mower. Now he goes;
  Her cheeks are redder than the wild blush-rose:
  They climb up where the deepest shadows close.
  • "Lying in the Grass", sts. 9–10

• I watch his rough hands meet beneath her hair,
  Their broken speech sounds sweet to me like prayer.
  • "Lying in the Grass", st. 11

• The happy children! full of frank surprise,
  And sudden whims and innocent ecstasies;
  What godhead sparkles from their liquid eyes!
  • "Lying in the Grass", st. 15

• No wonder round those urns of mingled clays
  That Tuscan potters fashion’d in old days,
  And colour’d like the torrid earth ablaze,
  We find the little gods and loves portray’d,
  Through ancient forests wandering undismay’d,
  And fluting hymns of pleasure unafraid.
  • "Lying in the Grass", sts. 16–17

New Poems (1879)

• The enchanted silence of the hours of dew.
  • "The Whitethroat"
  • Variant: 'wizard' for 'enchanted' in Collected Poems (1911)

• Sophocles, the poet loved and feared,
  Whose mighty voice once called out of her lair
  The Dorian muse severe, with braided hair,
  Who loved the thyrsus and wild dances weird.
  • "The Tomb of Sophocles"

• In fair Provence, the land of lute and rose,
  Arnaut, great master of the lore of love,
  First wrought sestines to win his lady’s heart.
  • "Sestina", st. 1

• Ah! sovereign Love, forgive this weaker rhyme!
  The men of old who sang were great at heart,
  Yet have we too known woe, and worn thy rose.
  • "Sestina", coda

External links

• Encyclopedic article on Edmund Gosse on Wikipedia
• Media related to Edmund Gosse on Wikimedia Commons
• Works related to Author:Edmund William Gosse on Wikisource
• Works by Edmund Gosse at Project Gutenberg
• Works by Edmund Gosse at Internet Archive