The Sleeping Heart by Marie Van Vorst
The speaker leaves her heart hidden in a lovely hawthorn tree amid blooming boughs. Its crimson roses, shifting in colour from blush to glow, are asked to reveal its secret to a beloved “thee.” The heart is imagined as wearing a fragile rose-red robe of spring, silent and asleep like something tired, dreaming of new songs that it will one day sing for the beloved.
By Marie Van Vorst · First published 1905 · Genre: Lyric Poetry, Love Poetry, Nature Poetry · 145 words
First lines
My heart is in the hawthorn tree. / I left it in the lovely house, / Hidden among the blooming boughs. / And every little crimson rose, / That blushes, reddens, pales or glows, / Shall give its secret up to thee! / My heart is in the hawthorn tree.
My heart is in the hawthorn tree! / It wears a fragile, rose-red dress: / A robe of spring-time loveliness. / It has forgot its songs to sing, / And sleepeth like a tired thing, -- / To dream new songs, to sing to thee. -- / My heart is in the hawthorn-tree.
What this Textopian page supports
The Sleeping Heart is listed on Textopian as a poem by Marie Van Vorst, dated 1905 CE.
This source record anchors work identity, reading entry points, and catalog context for checking claims about the work.
- Work type: Poem
- Author: Marie Van Vorst
- Date: 1905 CE
- Language: English
- Genres: Lyric Poetry, Love Poetry, Nature Poetry, Romantic Poetry, Pastoral Poetry
- Length: 145 words
- Structure: 1 section, 2 paragraphs
Good citation fit
- Work identity for The Sleeping Heart by Marie Van Vorst
- Canonical title URL and first readable passage URL
- Genre and topic classification from the Textopian catalog
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Similar titles
- The Kingdom by Marie Van Vorst
- The Apostrophe by Marie Van Vorst
- Dead Love by Marie Van Vorst
- Winter by Marie Van Vorst
- Absence by Marie Van Vorst
- Song by Marie Van Vorst
Genres
- Lyric Poetry — The work is a short, musical first-person poem centered on personal feeling, image, rhythm, and repeated refrain rather than narrative action.
- Love Poetry — The speaker addresses a beloved 'thee' and places the heart in a flowering hawthorn tree, using romantic devotion and longing as its emotional core.
- Nature Poetry — Hawthorn boughs, crimson roses, springtime, bloom, and birdsong-like music make the natural world the poem's primary symbolic setting.
- Romantic Poetry — Its idealized natural imagery, emotional intensity, personified landscape, and emphasis on the heart align with Romantic poetic conventions.
Tags
romance · social drama · women's fiction · early twentieth-century fiction · American literature · English-language novel · love and courtship · marriage · social class · wealth · society life · emotional conflict