The Works of Dowson

If you like poetry take a moment and subscribe
to our FREE "Poem a Week". By subscribing you
will receive a poem every week in your mailbox.
What a great way to start your day!

2 August 1867-23 February 1900



Dowson attendedThe Queen's College,Oxford, but left before obtaining a degree. He was born in Kent in England, educated at Oxford though he left without taking a degree. He joined the Rhymer's club and contributed poems to The Yellow Book and The Savoy. In 1891 he met Adelaide Foltinowicz, a restaurateur's daughter, then aged 12 and she became a symbol of love and innocence some of his verse. He courted her for 2 years but when she came of age she married a waiter who worked in her father's restaurant! Robert Sherard one day found Dowson almost penniless in a wine bar and took him back to the cottage inCatford where he was himself living. Dowson spent the last six weeks of his life at Sherard's cottage and died there of alcoholism (or some say of tuberculosis) at the age of 32.




The first offering here is probably his most famous work. The latin title translates as:

'I am no more the man I was in the reign of the Good Cynara'



It reflects a lover trying to put aside his feelings for a former lover but failing.

(The brief sum of life forbids us the hope of enduring long - Horace)

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.

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.



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 of 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 our 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 shone 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 fleeing 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.



Yvonne of Brittany

In your mother's apple-orchard,
Just a year ago, last spring:
Do you remember, Yvonne!
The dear trees lavishing
Rain of their starry blossoms
To make you a coronet?
Do you ever remember, Yvonne,
As I remember yet?

In your mother's apple-orchard,
When the world was left behind:
You were shy, so shy, Yvonne!
But your eyes were calm and kind.
We spoke of the apple harvest,
When the cider press is set,
And such-like trifles, Yvonne,
That doubtless you forget.
 

Ernest Christopher Dowson

2 August 1867-23 February 1900

In the still, soft Breton twilight,
We were silent; words were few,
Till your mother came out chiding,
For the grass was bright with dew:
But I know your heart was beating,
Like a fluttered, frightened dove.
Do you ever remember, Yvonne,
That first faint flush of love?

In the fulness of midsummer,
When the apple-bloom was shed,
Oh, brave was your surrender,
Though shy the words you said.
I was glad, so glad, Yvonne!
To have led you home at last;
Do you ever remember, Yvonne,
How swiftly the days passed?

In your mother's apple-orchard
It is grown too dark to stray,
There is none to chide you, Yvonne!
You are over far away.
There is dew on your grave grass, Yvonne!
But your feet it shall not wet:
No, you never remember, Yvonne!
And I shall soon forget.