longing

Words in the Shadow ~ A Poem by Victor Hugo

by


When Love Waits in the Quiet Corner


Love doesn’t always shout—it often sits silently, hoping to be seen, aching to be dreamed of too. Victor Hugo gives voice to that silence.

Words in the Shadow

Victor Hugo

She said, “I am wrong to want something more, it’s true.
The hours go by very quietly just so.
You are there. I never takes my eyes off you.
In your eyes I see your thoughts as they come and go.

To watch you is a joy I have not yet got through.
No doubt it is still very charming of its kind!
I watch, for I know everything that annoys you.
So that nothing comes knocking when you’re not inclined.

I make myself so small in my corner near you.
You are my great lion, I am your little dove.
I listen to your leaves, the peacful froufrou.
Sometimes I pick up your pen when it falls off.

Without a doubt I have you. Surely I see you.
Thinking is a wine on which the dreamers are drunk.
I know. But sometimes I’d like to be dreamed of too.
When you are like that, in your books, all evening, sunk.

No lifting your head or saying a word to me,
There is a shadow deep down in my loving heart.
For me to see you whole, it is necessary
To look at me a little, sometimes, on your part.”

Source

Longing ~ A Poem by Matthew Arnold

by


What if the one you long for could visit you—not in life, but in dreams? Matthew Arnold’s “Longing” invites us into a hauntingly beautiful world where night offers what daylight denies.

Longing

Matthew Arnold

Come to me in my dreams, and then
By day I shall be well again!
For so the night will more than pay
The hopeless longing of the day.

Come, as thou cam’st a thousand times,
A messenger from radiant climes,
And smile on thy new world, and be
As kind to others as to me!

Or, as thou never cam’st in sooth,
Come now, and let me dream it truth,
And part my hair, and kiss my brow,
And say, My love why sufferest thou?

Come to me in my dreams, and then
By day I shall be well again!
For so the night will more than pay
The hopeless longing of the day.

Source

🧠 Reflection Questions:

  1. What does the speaker’s desire to see their loved one in a dream suggest about the power of the subconscious?
  2. How does the poem blur the line between what is real and what is imagined?
  3. Can dreams offer true healing—or do they deepen the ache?

💭 Poignant Reflection:

In Longing, Matthew Arnold captures the cruel arithmetic of grief: one night’s dream can feel more real—and more restorative—than a thousand waking hours. His plea is not for life to return as it was, but for just enough illusion to soothe the soul. It reminds us that sometimes, the heart accepts tenderness even if it’s wrapped in moonlight and illusion.

Don’t Go Far Off ~ A Poem by Pablo Neruda

by

Don’t Go Far Off

Pablo Neruda

Don’t go far off, not even for a day, because —
because — I don’t know how to say it: a day is long
and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station
when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep.

Don’t leave me, even for an hour, because
then the little drops of anguish will all run together,
the smoke that roams looking for a home will drift
into me, choking my lost heart.

Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve on the beach;
may your eyelids never flutter into the empty distance.
Don’t leave me for a second, my dearest,

because in that moment you’ll have gone so far
I’ll wander mazily over all the earth, asking,
Will you come back? Will you leave me here, dying?

Don’t Go Far Off ~ A Poem by Pablo Neruda

by

Don’t Go Far Off

Pablo Neruda

Don’t go far off, not even for a day, because —
because — I don’t know how to say it: a day is long
and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station
when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep.

Don’t leave me, even for an hour, because
then the little drops of anguish will all run together,
the smoke that roams looking for a home will drift
into me, choking my lost heart.

Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve on the beach;
may your eyelids never flutter into the empty distance.
Don’t leave me for a second, my dearest,

because in that moment you’ll have gone so far
I’ll wander mazily over all the earth, asking,
Will you come back? Will you leave me here, dying?

Source

Today’s Poem: share with me by Halina Poswiatowska

by

share with me

Halina Poswiatowska

share with me
the daily bread of my loneliness
fill with your presence
the absent walls
gild
the nonexistent window
be a door
above all a door
which can be thrown
wide open

Source

Today’s Poem: Always by Pablo Neruda

by

Always

Pablo Neruda

I am not jealous
of what came before me.

Come with a man
on your shoulders,
come with a hundred men in your hair,
come with a thousand men between your breasts and your feet,
come like a river
full of drowned men
which flows down to the wild sea,
to the eternal surf, to Time!

Bring them all
to where I am waiting for you;
we shall always be alone,
we shall always be you and I
alone on earth,
to start our life!

Source

Today’s Poem: Here I Love You by Pablo Neruda

by

Here I Love You

Pablo Neruda

Here I love you.
In the dark pines the wind disentangles itself.
The moon glows like phosphorous on the vagrant waters.
Days, all one kind, go chasing each other.

The snow unfurls in dancing figures.
A silver gull slips down from the west.
Sometimes a sail. High, high stars.
Oh the black cross of a ship.
Alone.

Sometimes I get up early and even my soul is wet.
Far away the sea sounds and resounds.
This is a port.

Here I love you.
Here I love you and the horizon hides you in vain.
I love you still among these cold things.
Sometimes my kisses go on those heavy vessels
that cross the sea towards no arrival.
I see myself forgotten like those old anchors.

The piers sadden when the afternoon moors there.
My life grows tired, hungry to no purpose.
I love what I do not have. You are so far.
My loathing wrestles with the slow twilights.
But night comes and starts to sing to me.

The moon turns its clockwork dream.
The biggest stars look at me with your eyes.
And as I love you, the pines in the wind
want to sing your name with their leaves of wire.

Source

Longing ~ A Poem by Matthew Arnold

by

Longing by Matthew Arnold

Come to me in my dreams, and then
By day I shall be well again!
For so the night will more than pay
The hopeless longing of the day.

Come, as thou cam’st a thousand times,
A messenger from radiant climes,
And smile on thy new world, and be
As kind to others as to me!

Or, as thou never cam’st in sooth,
Come now, and let me dream it truth,
And part my hair, and kiss my brow,
And say, My love why sufferest thou?

Come to me in my dreams, and then
By day I shall be well again!
For so the night will more than pay
The hopeless longing of the day.

Source

Poem for Today ~ At Sunset

by

At Sunset

Emily Pauline Johnson

To-night the west o’er-brims with warmest dyes;
Its chalice overflows
With pools of purple colouring the skies,
Aflood with gold and rose;
And some hot soul seems throbbing close to mine,
As sinks the sun within that world of wine.

I seem to hear a bar of music float
And swoon into the west;
My ear can scarcely catch the whispered note,
But something in my breast
Blends with that strain, till both accord in one,
As cloud and colour blend at set of sun.

And twilight comes with grey and restful eyes,
As ashes follow flame.
But O! I heard a voice from those rich skies
Call tenderly my name;
It was as if some priestly fingers stole
In benedictions o’er my lonely soul.

I know not why, but all my being longed
And leapt at that sweet call;
My heart outreached its arms, all passion thronged
And beat against Fate’s wall,
Crying in utter homesickness to be
Near to a heart that loves and leans to me.

 

Source

Verified by MonsterInsights