Poem by Robert Seymour Bridges

Shorter Poems. Book III. 1. “O My Vague Desires!”

O my vague desires!
Ye lambent flames of the soul, her offspring fires:
That are my soul herself in pangs sublime
Rising and flying to heaven before her time:

What doth tempt you forth
To drown in the south or shiver in the frosty north?
What seek ye or find ye in your random flying,
Ever soaring aloft, soaring and dying?

Joy, the joy of flight!
They hide in the sun, they flare and dance in the night;
Gone up, gone out of sight: and ever again
Follow fresh tongues of fire, fresh pangs of pain.

Ah! they burn my soul,
The fires, devour my soul that once was whole:
She is scattered in fiery phantoms day by day,
But whither, whither? ay whither? away, away!

Could I but control
These vague desires, these leaping flames of the soul:
Could I but quench the fire: ah! could I stay
My soul that flieth, alas, and dieth away!

1. Shorter Poems. Book I. 17. Triolet (All women born are so perverse)
2. Shorter Poems. Book IV. 25. “Say Who Is This with Silvered Hair”
3. Shorter Poems. Book III. 7. Indolence
4. Shorter Poems. Book II. 12. Morning Hymn
5. Shorter Poems. Book IV. 6. April, 1885

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