Ernest Dowson Quotes

Last night, ah, yesternight, betwixt her lips and mine
There fell thy shadow, Cynara! thy breath was shed
Upon my soul between the kisses and the wine;
And I was desolate and sick of an old passion.

Better than mortal flowers,
Thy moon-kissed roses seem.

Ah, God, that sweet things should decline,
And fires fade out which were not cold, Erewhile.

I was not sorrowful, but only tired
Of everything that ever I desired.

I cried for madder music and for stronger wine,
But when the feast is finished and the lamps expire,
Then falls thy shadow, Cynara! the night is thine.

I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind,
Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng.

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.

I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! in my fashion.

They are not long, the weeping and the laughter,
Love and desire and hate:
I think they have no portion in us after
We pass the gate.<p>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.

O pray the earth enfold
Our life-sick hearts and turn them into dust.

Yea! for our roses fade, the world is wild,
But there, beside the altar, there, is rest.

The fairest face of all is the face I have not seen.

Say, doth she weep for very wantonness?
Or is it that she dimly doth foresee
Across her youth the joys grow less and less,
The burden of the days that are to be:
Autumn and withered leaves and vanity
And winter bringing end in barrenness.

You ask my love completest,
As strong next year as now,
The devil take you, sweetest,
Ere I make aught such vow.
Life is a masque that changes,
A fig for constancy!
No love at all were better,
Than love which is not free.

When this, our rose, is faded,
And these, our days, are done,
In lands profoundly shaded
From tempest and from sun:
Ah, once more come together,
Shall we forgive the past,
And safe from worldly weather
Possess our souls at last?