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A Daughter of Eve
A fool I was to sleep at noon,
And wake when night is chilly
Beneath the comfortless cold moon;
A fool to pluck my rose too soon,
A fool to snap my lily.
My garden-plot I have not kept;
Faded and all-forsaken,
I weep as I have never wept:
Oh it was summer when I slept,
It's winter now I waken.
Talk what you please of future spring
And sun-warm'd sweet to-morrow:—
Stripp'd bare of hope and everything,
No more to laugh, no more to sing,
I sit alone with sorrow.
— -CHRISTINA ROSSETTI
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I loved you first: but af
I loved you first: but afterwards your love
Outsoaring mine, sang such a loftier song
As drowned the friendly cooings of my dove.
Which owes the other most? my love was long,
And yours one moment seemed to wax more strong;
I loved and guessed at you, you construed me
And loved me for what might or might not be –
Nay, weights and measures do us both a wrong.
For verily love knows not ‘mine’ or ‘thine;’
With separate ‘I’ and ‘thou’ free love has done,
For one is both and both are one in love:
Rich love knows nought of ‘thine that is not mine;’
Both have the strength and both the length thereof,
Both of us, of the love which makes us one.
— -CHRISTINA ROSSETTI
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A Dream Within A Dream
Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow--
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone.
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep-while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp.
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave.
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream.
— -Edgar Allan Poe
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विडम्बना
मैंने जन्मा है तुझे अपने अंश से
संस्कारों की घुट्टी पिलाई है ।
जिया हमेशा दिन-रात तुझको
ममता की दौलत लुटाई है ।
तेरे आँसू के मोती सहेजे हमेशा
स्नेह की सुगंध से महकायी है ।
उच्च विचारों की आचार-संहिता
भी तुझे सिखाई-समझाई है ।
हर पल अपने सपनों में तेरे लिए
खुशियों की बारात सजाई है ।
फिर भी क्यों कहती है दुनिया
बेटी तू मेरी नहीं पराई है ।
साजन की दहलीज पर जब पहुँची
तब माना गया तू परजायी है ।
रीति-रिवाजों की ये क्रूर-श्रृंखला
आखिर क्यों तेरे लिए बनाई है?
आखिर किसने तेरे लिए बनाई है??
— -रीता कौशल
-
कुछ लिखोगे
कुछ लिखोगे
तुमने कहा था न कुछ लिखोगे
लिखोगे धूप मेरे माथे पर
हथेलियों में बरसात का पानी लिखोगे
तुलिका में लिपटे रंगों की रंगीन तरलता लेकर
सूर्य की किरणों से पिघलते ध्रुवों के पानी में
लिखोगे मेरा नाम सांसों की गर्माहट से ?
बोलो न लिखोगे, क्या लिखोगे ?
परागकणों को सहेजकर
क्या सजाओगे मेरे काले घने केशों पर
या उसमें काली रात लिखोगे
पहाड़ के ऊपर बादलों की वाष्प में क्या लिख सकोगे कोई प्रेमगीत
यदि हाँ तो बोलो कब लिखोगे ?
नदी के चिकने पत्थर सी मेरी आँखों में
टकराता है तुम्हारा शीतल स्वच्छ प्रेम
तुम हिमालय के ह्रदय से बहकर
मेरी आँखों को आकृतियों में ढालते हो
क्या तुम भी मेरी तरह समर्पित हो सकोगे ?
किताबों के बीच में सूखे हुए गुलाब सा मेरा प्रेम
एक धरोहर सा है
क्या इसकी कीमत समझ सकोगे
यादों से खुरच खुरच कर क्या वर्तमान लिख सकोगे
तुमने कहा था न कुछ लिखोगे मुझपर बोलो क्या लिखा अब तक ?
— -मिताली खोड़ियार
-
एक अदद घर
जब
माँ
नींव की तरह बिछ जाती है
पिता
तने रहते हैं हरदम छत बनकर
भाई सभी
उठा लेते हैं स्तम्भों की मानिंद
बहन
हवा और अंजोर बटोर लेती है जैसे झरोखा
बहुएँ
मौसमी आघात से बचाने तब्दील हो जाती हैं दीवाल में
तब
नई पीढ़ी के बच्चे
खिलखिला उठते हैं आँगन-सा
आँगन में खिले किसी बारहमासी फूल-सा
तभी गमक-गमक उठता है
एक अदद घर
समूचे पड़ोस में
सारी गलियों में
सारे गाँव में
पूरी पृथ्वी में
— -Jaiprakash Manas
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ठण्डी का बिगुल (काव्य)
शंख बजे ज्यों ही ठण्डी के,
मौसम ने यूं पलटा खाया,
शीतल हो उठा कण-कण धरती का,
कोहरे ने बिगुल बजाया!
हीटर बने हैं भाग्य विधाता,
चाय और कॉफी की चुस्की बना जीवनदाता,
सुबह उठ के नहाते वक्त,
बेचैनी से जी घबराता!
घर से बाहर निकलते ही,
शरीर थरथराने लगता,
लगता सूरज अासमां में आज,
नहीं निकलने का वजह ढूढ़ता!
कोहरे के दस्तक के आतंक ने,
सुबह होते ही हड़कंप मचाया,
शंख बजे ज्यों ही ठण्डी के
मौसम ने यूं पलटा खाया!
दुबक पड़े इंसान रजाईयों में,
ठण्ड की मार से,
कांप उठा कण-कण धरती का
मौसम की चाल से!
बजी नया साल की शहनाईयां,
और क्रिसमस के इंतज़ार में,
झूम उठी पूरी धरती,
अपने-अपने परिवार में!
शंख बजे ज्यों ही ठण्डी के,
मौसम ने यूं ही पलटा खाया,
शीतल हो उठा कण-कण धरती का,
कोहरे ने बिगुल बजाया!
— -सुशील कुमार वर्मा
-
कौन मेरे भीतर और मैं
मेरी आँखों की नींद चुरा कर…
है मेरे सपने सजाता कौन….
चुरा के लाली वो अरुण की….
मेरी आँखों को है देता कौन….
जब होता दिल कभी बोझिल….
झोँका हवा का है लाता कौन….
दर्द कभी जो उभरे कहीं भी….
धीमे धीमें उसे सहलाता कौन….
पथ मेरा पत्थर सा भी हो तो….
नरम मुलायम बनाता कौन….
कांटे राह में हों कितने भी….
मन खुशबू भर जाता कौन….
हंसी मेरी से जब बिखरें मोती….
हर कोई पूछे मुझसे है तू कौन….
हो उदास या ग़मगीन कोई भी….
चोट मेरे दिल पे है करता कौन….
मैं अनजान न जानूं अपने को….
बिन कहे मेरे मुझे चलाता कौन….
हर पल खोजूं उसको अपने संग….
कौन मेरे भीतर और मैं हूँ कौन….
— -सी.एम्. शर्मा (बब्बू
-
जीवन :लड़कियों की
प्रतिदिन ही अखबार में
खबर बन रही है
लड़कियाँ
कही पर उसकी
इज्जत लूटी गई है
कही पर उसे
डायन कहा गया है
और कही पर उसे
जिन्दा जला दिया गया है
अपनों के बीच
रहने पर भी
वह अकेला ही–
नरक की जीवन
जी रही है
माँ की गर्भ में
रहने पर भी
उसे शांति कहाँ
लोग जान जायेंगे तो
वह बच नहीं पायेगी.
अब चारों ओर
अपनी आँसू गिरा रही है
औरतें.
सबको इज्जत देती
प्यार बाँटती है हर पल
और वह खुद
एक बून्द प्यार के लिए भी
तरसती रहती है.
— -chandramohan kisku
-
नदी का बहना मुझमे हो
मेरी कोशिश है कि
नदी का बहना मुझमें हो।
तट से सटे कछार घने हों
जगह जगह पर घाट बने हों
टीलों पर मंदिर हों जिनमें
स्वर के विविध वितान तने हों
मीड़ मूर्च्छनाओं का
उठना गिरना मुझमें हो।
जो भी प्यास पकड़ ले कगरी
भर ले जाये खाली गगरी
छूकर तीर उदास न लौटें
हिरन कि गाय बाघ या बकरी
मच्छ मगर घडियाल
सभी का रहना मुझमें हो।
मैं न रुकूँ संग्रह के घर मे
धार रहे मेरे तेवर में
मेरा बदन काट कर नहरे
पानी ले जायें ऊसर मे
जहाँ कहीं हो बंजरपन का
मरना मुझमें हो।
— -शिव बहादुर सिंह
-
I held a Jewel inmyfinger
I held a Jewel in my fingers --
And went to sleep --
The day was warm, and winds were prosy --
I said "'Twill keep" --
I woke -- and chid my honest fingers,
The Gem was gone --
And now, an Amethyst remembrance
Is all I own --
— -Emily Dickinson
-
जब से तुम गयी हो
जबसे तुम गये हो लगता है की जैसे हर कोई मुझसे रूठ गया है
हर रात जो बिस्तर मेरा इंतेजार करता था,
जो दिन भर की थकान को ऐसे पी जाता था जैसे की मंथन के बाद विष को पी लिया भोले नाथ ने
वो तकिया जो मेरी गर्दन को सहला लेता था जैसे की ममता की गोद
वो चादर जो छिपा लेती थी मुझको बाहर की दुनिया से
आजकल ये सब नाराज़ है, पूरी रात मुझे सताते है
जब से तुम गयी हो …
रात भी परेशान है मुझसे, दिन भी उदास है
शाम तो ना जाने कितनी बेचैन करती है
वो गिटार जो हर रोज मेरा इंतेजार करता था आजकल मुझे देखता ही नही
आज चाय बनाई तो वो भी जल गयी, बहुत काली सी हो गयी
लॅपटॉप है जो कुछ पल के लिए बहला लेता है मुझे सम्हाल लेता है
पर वो भी फिर कुछ ज़्यादा साथ नही निभाता ||
सब 2 दिन मे बदल गये है मुझसे, जब से तुम गयी हो….
— -शिवदत्त श्रोत्रिय
-
प्रेम दिवस
लो फिर आया ये प्रेम दिवस
प्रदर्शन का अनोखा दिवस
सच अगर प्रेम दिवस है ये,
तो प्रदर्शन की क्या आवश्यकता
अंतर्मन की नैससर्गिक भावना को
किसी सहारे की क्या आवश्यकता
युं तो प्रेम जो स्वयं मुक्त है,
उसे दिवसों के बन्धनो की क्या जरुरत है…
हाँ,जहाँ तक अभिव्यक्ति का प्रश्न है
तो हो अभिव्यक्त पर खास दिवस
सुनियोजित तरीके की क्या आवश्यकता..?
सच कहुं तो,ये दिवसों का संस्थानिकीकरण है
कहीं मूल वस्तु(प्रेम)ही कमजोर न हो जाय
क्योंकि जो दिखाया जाता है वह प्रेम नही प्रदर्शन है ..
••♪•••••••••••♪••
— -कपिल जैन
-
तोंद
कहते हैं सब लोग तोंद एक रोग बड़ा है
तोंद घटाएँ सभी चलन यह खूब चला है।
पर मानो यदि बात तोंद क्यों करनी कम है
सुख शान्ति सम्मान दायिनी तोंद में दम है।
औरों की क्या कहूं, मैं अपनी बात बताता
बचपन से ही रहा तोंद से सुखमय नाता।
जिससे भी की बात, अदब आँखों में पाया
नाम न लें गुरु, यार, मैं पंडित 'जी' कहलाया।
आज भी ऑफिस तक में तोंद से मान है मिलता
कितना भी हो बॉस शीर्ष, शुक्ला 'जी' कहता।
मान का यह कारक, धारक में गुरुता लाती
नाम में 'जी' जुड़ जाता, नजर ज्यों तोंद पे जाती।
मत सोचो कि घटी नहीं, अंगूर सो खट्टे
केवल नर में नहीं, चलन यह देवों तक में।
तोंद लिए बस एक देवता गणपति अपने
प्रथम हैं पूजे जाते, देव पड़े हैं कितने।
ताव मूंछ का समझो, तोंद जब तन लेती है
अड़ जाती है बीच, नहीं झुकने देती है।
राम नाम गुण धाम शान्ति सब पा जाता हूँ
भोजन के उपरान्त, तोंद जब सहलाता हूँ।
सम्मुख अपने जब भी पड़ती सुन्दर नारी
हाँ, कुछ बाधक तब हो जाती तोंद हमारी।
नजर तोंद पर जैसे ही उसकी पड़ जाती
'भैया' 'अंकल' तक सीमा अपनी रह जाती।
तब अपनी यह तोंद हृदय की पीड़ा हरती
बहन बेटी पर नारि, आह भर दिल से कहती।
इस प्रकार आचरण शुद्ध रहता अपना है
पत्नी भी खुश, कहती पति भोलू कितना है।
— -प्रदीप शुक्ला
-
Those lips that Love's
Those lips that Love's own hand did make
Breathed forth the sound that said "I hate"
To me that languished for her sake;
But when she saw my woeful state,
Straight in her heart did mercy come,
Chiding that tongue that ever sweet
Was used in giving gentle doom,
And taught it thus anew to greet:
"I hate" she altered with an end,
That followed it as gentle day
Doth follow night, who like a fiend
From heaven to hell is flown away.
"I hate" from hate away she threw,
And saved my life, saying "not you."
— -William Shakespeare
-
एक शाम बड़ी सुहानी थी
एक शाम बड़ी सुहानी थी
ठंडी पवन कर रही अपनी मनमानी थी
सूरज धीरे धीरे ढल रहा था
देख के उसको मेरा दिल मचल रहा था
आसमान में लालिमा छाई थी
प्रकृति सबसे सुन्दर रूप में आई थी
एक शाम बड़ी सुहानी थी
ठंडी पवन कर रही अपनी मनमानी थी
समुन्दर किनारे बैठे थे हम
दोस्तों के बीच बाँट रहे थे गम
लहरे गुनगुना रही थी
दिल में हलचल मचा रही थी
एक शाम बड़ी सुहानी थी
ठंडी पवन कर रही अपनी मनमानी थी
शुरू जब चुटकुलों का दौर हुआ
ठहाको का शोर चारो ओर हुआ
मौसम का लुफ्त उठाया हमने
जब मिलकर गीत गाया सबने
एक शाम बड़ी सुहानी थी
ठंडी पवन कर रही अपनी मनमानी थी
— -Bhoopendra Jaysawal
-
सितारा…
एक छोटा सा सितारा हूँ मैं
जिसमें चांदनी जितनी भी चमक नहीं…..
बस ये सोच कर जगमगा उठता हूँ
कि और भी हैं कितने सितारे….
जिन्हें मेरी जितनी भी
रौशनी नशीब नहीं……….
…… सोचा तो लगा कि कुछ जैसा नहीं मै…..
……… मगर कुछ तो हूँ…..
……. और जो हूँ…..
……….. अपनी पहचान आसमान में…
……..मुझे खुद ही बनानी होगी…… ।।
— -Kajal Soni
-
एक अपील
ऐ घर पे बैठे तमाशबीन लोग
लुट रहा है मुल्क, कब तलक रहोगे खामोश
शिकवा नहीं है उनसे, जो है बेखबर
पर तु तो सब जानता है, मैदान में क्यों नहीं रहा उतर
क्या ये मुल्क तेरा नहीं,या तु यहाँ रहता नहीं
दिखा दे आज दुनिया को, जिंदा है तु मुर्दा नहीं
घर के अंदर चीखने से, कुछ भी ना बदल पायेगा
आवाज़ वही खत्म हो जायेगी ,कोई सुन भी ना पायेगा
क्यों रोकता है अपने कदम, है तुझे किसका डर
इस लुट का तो हो रहा, तेरे घर पर भी असर
बुजदिली तुझमे भरी,या मुल्क से प्यार नहीं
इंतज़ार है खुदा का,या गद्दारी में हो शामिल कहीं
हौसलेवालों पर ही बरसती है खुदा की रहमत
एक कदम बढ़ाया ही नहीं, और कोसता है अपनी किस्मत
अगर प्यार है मुल्क से, तो अदा करो इसका नमक
कन्याकुमारी से दिल्ली तक, भर दो पूरा सड़क
— -Bhoopendra Jaysawal
-
जल कर दे
ईश्वर मुझको जल कर दे
सीमित कर सागर कर दे
मोड़े तू जिस ओर मुझे
चल दूँ दे जी-जान तुझे
चट्टानों से ढल कर के
निर्मल निर्झर सा कर दे
बहती जाऊं तेरी ओर
हर को लेकर अपनी ओर
पीड़ा मेरी हर कर के
वाणी मेरी सुन कर के
मंज़िल मेरी तय कर दे
ईश्वर मुझको जल कर दे
— -वाणी मुरारका
-
नदी का बहना मुझमे हो
मेरी कोशिश है कि
नदी का बहना मुझमें हो।
तट से सटे कछार घने हों
जगह जगह पर घाट बने हों
टीलों पर मंदिर हों जिनमें
स्वर के विविध वितान तने हों
मीड़ मूर्च्छनाओं का
उठना गिरना मुझमें हो।
जो भी प्यास पकड़ ले कगरी
भर ले जाये खाली गगरी
छूकर तीर उदास न लौटें
हिरन कि गाय बाघ या बकरी
मच्छ मगर घडियाल
सभी का रहना मुझमें हो।
मैं न रुकूँ संग्रह के घर मे
धार रहे मेरे तेवर में
मेरा बदन काट कर नहरे
पानी ले जायें ऊसर मे
जहाँ कहीं हो बंजरपन का
मरना मुझमें हो।
— -शिव बहादुर सिंह भदौर
-
एक यात्रा है ज़िन्दगी
कोई गणित नहीं ज़िन्दगी,
फिर क्यों हम लाभ हानि का हिसाब करे?
आश की उम्मीद है ज़िन्दगी,
रास्ते, चाहे हो, उतार-चढ़ाव भरे|
जंग का मैदान नहीं ज़िन्दगी,
फिर क्यों हम आपस में लड़े?
अपनेपन का एहसास है ज़िन्दगी,
भीड़ में, अपनों का हाथ धरे|
बाधाओं से थमती नहीं ज़िन्दगी,
फिर क्यों हम मुश्किलों से डरे?
एक अहम यात्रा है ज़िन्दगी,
भरोसे के साथ, हम उड़ान भरे|
— -Anu Maheshwari
-
प्रकृति (Nature)
ये प्रकृति शायद कुछ कहना चाहती है मुझसे
ये कान के पास से गुजरती हवाओ की सरसराहट
ये पेड़ो पर फुदकते चिड़ियों की चहचहाहट
ये समुन्दर की लहरों का शोर
ये बारिश में नाचती मोर
कुछ कहना चाहती है मुझसे
ये प्रकृति शायद कुछ कहना चाहती है मुझसे
ये चांदनी रात
ये तारों की बरसात
ये खिले हुए सुन्दर फूल
ये उड़ते हुए धुल
कुछ कहना चाहती है मुझसे
ये प्रकृति शायद कुछ कहना चाहती है मुझसे
ये नदियों की कलकल
ये मौसम की हलचल
ये पर्वत की चोटियाँ
ये झींगुर की सीटियाँ
कुछ कहना चाहती है मुझसे
ये प्रकृति शायद कुछ कहना चाहती है मुझसे
— -Bhoopendra Jaysawal
-
मुबारक हसीं सवेरा
नयी सी सुबह, नया सा सवेरा,
सूरज की किरणों में हवाओं का बसेरा,
खुले आसमान में सूरज का चेहरा,
मुबारक हो आपको ये हसीं सवेरा.
सुप्रभात
— -सुशांत
-
माँग कर तो देखो...
कही अँधेरा तो कहीं शाम होगी,
मेरी हर ख़ुशी आपके नाम होगी,
कुछ माँग कर तो देखो...दोस्त...
होंठों पर हँसी और हथेली पर मेरी जान होगी।
— -सागर भेलाही
-
Winter Love
I would like to decorate this silence,
but my house grows only cleaner
and more plain. The glass chimes I hung
over the register ring a little
when the heat goes on.
I waited too long to drink my tea.
It was not hot. It was only warm.
— -Linda Gregg
-
New Year's Poem
The Christmas twigs crispen and needles rattle
Along the window-ledge.
A solitary pearl
Shed from the necklace spilled at last week’s party
Lies in the suety, snow-luminous plainness
Of morning, on the window-ledge beside them.
And all the furniture that circled stately
And hospitable when these rooms were brimmed
With perfumes, furs, and black-and-silver
Crisscross of seasonal conversation, lapses
Into its previous largeness.
I remember
Anne’s rose-sweet gravity, and the stiff grave
Where cold so little can contain;
I mark the queer delightful skull and crossbones
Starlings and sparrows left, taking the crust,
And the long loop of winter wind
Smoothing its arc from dark Arcturus down
To the bricked corner of the drifted courtyard,
And the still window-ledge.
Gentle and just pleasure
It is, being human, to have won from space
This unchill, habitable interior
Which mirrors quietly the light
Of the snow, and the new year.
— -MARGARET AVISON
-
Jannat
Jannat-e-Ishq Mein Har Baat Ajeeb Hoti Hai,
KisiKo Aashiqi Toh KisiKo Shayari Naseeb Hoti Hai.
— -Sushant
-
Thinking of you
I woke up this morning thinking of you
And i wondered if you were thinking of me to...
I sat up and thought about our last goodbye
and all i could do was sit there and cry
It's hard to let you go when i know what we could be
I just have to wait until the day that you will finally see
Maybe someday you'll realize how much i care for you
and maybe you'll realize that you care for me to
But until we meet what could be fate,
i'll just sit here thinking of you and wait
— -Lauren Lee
-
In Love With You
IN LOVE AM I TOWARDS YOUR BEUATY
YOUR LOVE, HONESTY, AND TRUSsT I NEED IT TRULY
TO KNOW THE DEFINITION OF LOVE ALL ARE DREAMING
BUT ME AND YOU, NOW THAT`S THE MEANING
TO WIN YOUR LOVE I`LL FIGHT THE PRETTY BOY OR THE ACE OF SPADES
JUST TO TELL YOU SWEETHEART I LOVE YOU MORE EVERYDAY
— -Carlton Terrance
-
Never Without Love
My life was over,
Or so it had seemed,
I said my goodbyes,
And I silently screamed.
I knew it was wrong,
But it just felt so right,
When sadness creeps in,
It puts up a fight.
I went into the kitchen,
I looked all around,
I saw what I needed,
My heart started to pound.
I tested the edge,
As I picked up the knife,
I placed it over my wrist,
As I went over my life.
I had no one to leave,
Nobody who cared,
A small little girl,
Could certainly be spared.
The phone started to ring,
And I suddenly knew,
I don't really know how,
But it had to be you.
I slowly walked over,
And picked up the phone,
In that moment I'd never felt more alone.
You begged me to stop,
To not do what I would,
I said nothing at all,
I don't think that I could.
You cried and you pleaded,
And I didn't know how,
I had missed it so long,
But I finally saw now.
You may think life is hopeless,
That there's no help from above,
But as long as you have friends,
You'll always have love.
— -Chord Princess
-
कोशिश करने वालों की...
नन्ही सी चींटी जब दाना लेकर चलती है,
चढ़ती दीवारों पर सौ बार फिसलती है,
आखिर उसकी मेहनत बेकार नहीं होती,
कोशिश करने वालों की कभी हार नहीं होती।
— -Sushant
-
अँधेरा को अँधेरा नहीं..
अँधेरे को अँधेरा नहीं सिर्फ रोशनी मिटा सकती है,
नफरत को नफरत नहीं सिर्फ प्यार मिटा सकता है।
— -Sushant
-
बतूता का जूता
इब्न बतूता पहन के जूता
निकल पड़े तूफान में
थोड़ी हवा नाक में घुस गई
घुस गई थोड़ी कान में।
कभी नाक को कभी कान को
मलते इब्न बतूता
इसी बीच में निकल पड़ा
उनके पैरों का जूता।
उड़ते उड़ते जूता उनका
जा पहुंचा जापान में
इब्न बतूता खड़े रह गये
मोची की दुकान में।
— -सर्वेश्वरदयाल सक्सेन
-
किसे नहीं है बोलो ग़म
साँसों में है जब तक दम
किसे नहीं है बोलो ग़म!
हँस-हँस यूं तो बोल रहे हो
पर आँखें हैं क्योकर नम !
उठो, इरादे करो बुलंद
तूफ़ाँ भी जाएँगे थम !
चट्टानों से रखो इरादे
तुम्हें डिगा दे किसमें दम!
कितनी भी बाधाएं आएं
आत्म-शक्ति हो न कम!
उदय हो रहा सूरज देखो
कहाँ बचेगा बोलो तम !
— -रोहित कुमार 'हैप्पी
-
The Definition Of Love
My love is of a birth as rare
As 'tis for object strange and high:
It was begotten by Despair
Upon Impossibility.
Magnanimous Despair alone
Could show me so divine a thing,
Where feeble Hope could ne'er have flown
But vainly flapped its tinsel wing.
And yet I quickly might arrive
Where my extended soul is fixed
But Fate does iron wedges drive,
And always crowds itself betwixt.
For Fate with jealous eye does see
Two perfect loves, nor lets them close:
Their union would her ruin be,
And her tyrranic power depose.
And therefore her decrees of steel
Us as the distant Poles have placed
(Though Love's whole world on us doth wheel)
Not by themselves to be embraced,
Unless the giddy heaven fall,
And earth some new convulsion tear;
And, us to join, the world should all
Be cramped into a planisphere.
As lines (so loves) oblique may well
Themselves in every angle greet:
But ours so truly parallel,
Though infinite, can never meet.
Therefore the love which us doth bind,
But Fate so enviously debars,
Is the conjunction of the mind,
And opposition of the stars.
— -Andrew Marvell
-
Those lips that Love's ow
Those lips that Love's own hand did make
Breathed forth the sound that said "I hate"
To me that languished for her sake;
But when she saw my woeful state,
Straight in her heart did mercy come,
Chiding that tongue that ever sweet
Was used in giving gentle doom,
And taught it thus anew to greet:
"I hate" she altered with an end,
That followed it as gentle day
Doth follow night, who like a fiend
From heaven to hell is flown away.
"I hate" from hate away she threw,
And saved my life, saying "not you."
— -William Shakespeare
-
कोशिश करने वालों की...
नन्ही सी चींटी जब दाना लेकर चलती है,
चढ़ती दीवारों पर सौ बार फिसलती है,
आखिर उसकी मेहनत बेकार नहीं होती,
कोशिश करने वालों की कभी हार नहीं होती।
— -विनीत तरारा
-
आँधियों से जूझ के..
उंगली पकड़ के जिसकी खड़े हो गये हम,
माँ बाप की दुआ से बड़े हो गये हम,
हम आँधियों से जूझ के हँसते ही रहे हैं,
फौलाद से भी ज्यादा कड़े हो गये हम।
— -राम सूरत सिंह
-
अब तो आ जाइये...
शाम है बुझी बुझी वक्त है खफा खफा,
कुछ हंसीं यादें हैं कुछ भरी सी आँखें हैं,
कह रही है मेरी ये तरसती नजर,
अब तो आ जाइये अब न तड़पाइये।
हम ठहर भी जायेंगे राह-ए-जिंदगी में
तुम जो पास आने का इशारा करो,
मुँह को फेरे हुए मेरे तकदीर सी,
यूँ न चले जाइये अब तो आ जाइये।
— -Sushant
-
Humayan To Zobeida
You flaunt your beauty in the rose, your glory in the dawn,
Your sweetness in the nightingale, your whiteness in the swan.
You haunt my waking like a dream, my slumber like a moon,
Pervade me like a musky scent, possess me like a tune
Yet, when I crave of you, my sweet, one tender moment’s grace,
You cry, “I SIT BEHIND THE VEIL, I CANNOT SHOW MY FACE.”
— -Sarojini Naidu Poems
-
On Shakespeare
What needs my Shakespear for his honour’d Bones,
The labour of an age in piled Stones,
Or that his hallow’d reliques should be hid
Under a Star-ypointing Pyramid?
Dear son of memory, great heir of Fame, [ 5 ]
What need’st thou such weak witnes of thy name?
Thou in our wonder and astonishment
Hast built thy self a live-long Monument.
For whilst to th’ shame of slow-endeavouring art,
Thy easie numbers flow, and that each heart [ 10 ]
— -Milton
-
Reality
In love, nothing exists between heart and heart.
Speech is born out of longing,
True description from the real taste.
The one who tastes, knows;
the one who explains, lies.
How can you describe the true form of Something
In whose presence you are blotted out?
And in whose being you still exist?
And who lives as a sign for your journey?
— -Rabia
-
Dover Beach
The sea of faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl’d.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.
— -Richard
-
THE DERBY RACE
A woman of thousand hands,
Never I could imagine,
When I was just Ten,
My Mother said she has,
At twenty five, after my marriage,
I really found those thousand hands,
Attached very close to my arms.
— -MADHUPRIYA SHANMUGA
-
A Country Fair
Drive me out of my mind, O Mother!
What use is esoteric knowledge
Or philosophical knowledge
Transport me totally with the burning wine
Of your all-embracing love.
Mother of mystery, who imbues with mystery
The hearts of those who love you,
Immerse me irretrievably
In the stormy ocean without boundary,
Pure love, pure love, pure love.
— -Ramprasad
-
Autumn
HE autumn comes, a maiden fair
In slenderness and grace,
With nodding rice-stems in her hair
And lilies in her face.
In flowers of grasses she is clad;
And as she moves along,
Birds greet her with their cooing glad
Like bracelets’ tinkling song.
A diadem adorns the night
Of multitudinous stars.
— -Kalidasa
-
God of Visions
O, thy bright eyes must answer now,
When Reason, with a scornful brow,
Is mocking at my overthrow!
O, thy sweet tongue must plead for me,
And tell why I have chosen thee!
Stern Reason is to judgment come,
Arrayed in all her forms of gloom:
Wilt thou, my advocate, be dumb?
No, radiant angel, speak and say.
— -Emily Bronte Poems
-
That time of year
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire.
— -William Shakespeare
-
I Am He
Mind, nor intellect, nor ego, feeling;
Sky nor earth nor metals am I.
I am He, I am He, Blessed spirit, I am He!
No birth, no death, no caste have I;
Father, mother, have I none.
I am He, I am He, Blessed spirit, I am He!
Beyond the flights of fancy, formless am I,
Permeating the limbs of all life;
Bondage I do not fear; I am free, ever free.
I am He, I am He, Blessed spirit, I am He!
— -Shankaracharya
-
My secret and sacred bird
My secret and sacred bird now flies
To meet the Spirit’s vacancy.
All chaos of life today dissolved;
In me a surge of ecstasy.
Gold flames within my longing heart
Invoke the cosmos’ Parent-Sun.
A tapestry of Truth unseen
Bursts forth within; the Play is begun.
— -Sri Chinmoy.
-
Love Looking Your Face
Your face is neither infinite nor ephemeral.
You can never see your own face,
only a reflection, not the face itself.
So you sigh in front of mirrors
and cloud the surface.
It’s better to keep your breath cold.
Hold it, like a diver does in the ocean.
— -Attar
-
The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.
— -Robert Frost
-
Krishna
At last I find a meaning of soul’s birth
Into this universe terrible and sweet,
I who have felt the hungry heart of earth
Aspiring beyond heaven to Krishna’s feet.
I have seen the beauty of immortal eyes,
And heard the passion of the Lover’s flute,
And known a deathless ecstasy’s surprise
And sorrow in my heart for ever mute.
— -Sri Aurobindo
-
Fare well
Farewell to thee! but not farewell
To all my fondest thoughts of thee:
Within my heart they still shall dwell;
And they shall cheer and comfort me.
If thou hadst never met mine eye,
I had not dreamed a living face
Could fancied charms so far outvie.
If I may ne’er behold again
That form and face so dear to me.
— -Anne Bronte
-
At the Twilight
At the Twilight
At the twilight, a moon appeared in the sky;
Then it landed on earth to look at me.
Like a hawk stealing a bird at the time of prey;
That moon stole me and rushed back into the sky.
I looked at myself, I did not see me anymore;
For in that moon, my body turned as fine as soul.
The nine spheres disappeared in that moon;
The ship of my existence drowned in that sea.
— -Rumi
-
On His Blindness
WHEN I consider how my light is spent
E’re half my days, in this dark world and wide,
And that one Talent which is death to hide,
Lodg’d with me useless, though my Soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
My true account, least he returning chide,
Doth God exact day-lab our, light deny’d,
I fondly ask; But patience to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, God doth not need
Either man’s work or his own gifts, who best.
— -John Milton
-
Tidings of Union
WHERE are the tidings of union? that I may arise–
Forth from the dust I will rise up to welcome thee!
My soul, like a homing bird, yearning for Paradise,
Shall arise and soar, from the snares of the world set free.
When the voice of thy love shall call me to be thy slave,
I shall rise to a greater far than the mastery
Of life and the living, time and the mortal span:
Pour down, oh Lord! from the clouds of thy guiding grace.
The rain of a mercy that quickeneth on my grave,
Before, like dust that the wind bears from place to place.
— -Hafiz
-
A Brave And Startling Tru
We, this people, on a small and lonely planet
Traveling through casual space
Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns
To a destination where all signs tell us
It is possible and imperative that we learn
A brave and startling truth
And when we come to it
To the day of peacemaking
When we release our fingers
From fists of hostility
And allow the pure air to cool our palms
— -Maya Angelou
-
If I Thought
If I thought for just one moment that this would be my last breath,
I'd tell you I'll love you forever, even beyond death.
If I thought for just one moment that your face would be the last I'd see,
I'd take a million pictures and save them just for me.
If I thought for just one moment that your voice would be the last I'd hear,
I'd listen attentively and promise not to shed a tear.
— -Dana Schwartz
-
A Dream Within A Dream
Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
— -Edgar Allan
-
Still I Rise
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
— -Maya Angelou
-
A Simple Bouquet
I stopped at the store to buy you a bouquet
What I found is that it had a whole lot to say
The flowers each stood for a part of our life
And they were meant for you, my beautiful wife
— -Chris
-
Goodwill, Buffalo
Is it the glassy, empty potential
of the unfilled blouses
their prescient capability,
flat as catalogued moths
hung on racks
that require realization?
A poem, for instance,
pulls something thin
over itself.
A transparency with a weird fur collar.
— -KIMBERLY LYONS
-
My Dream India
My Dream India
My Dream India
In the India of my dreams,
All are with Toys and Ice-Creams.
Every Dad can fulfil his family needs,
And kids will make us happy with their deeds.
After reaching Mars, we'll go after another galaxy,
Ahead in alternate energy or urban radio taxi.
Education and food for all is the Target,
— -Indra B Chhetri
-
Freedom
“NOT one is filled with madness like to mine
In all the taverns! my soiled robe lies here,
There my neglected book, both pledged for wine.
With dust my heart is thick, that should be clear,
A glass to mirror forth the Great King’s face;
One ray of light from out Thy dwelling-place
To pierce my night, oh God! and draw me near ”
-
— -Hafiz
-
The last lesson
The past really matters
As it makes you resourceful to alter
The present poverty stage
Into golden page
It reminds you
And forces to look through
All failures and helplessness
And make it to transform into success
— -hashmukh Mehta
-
Natural
‘ Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.’
— -Maya Angelou
-
Fist Love
I Loved & lost only to live & Love another day,
been in Love with You since I was a kid & the sh-t wont go away,
I've tried it all from A-Z, from beginning to end,
from one girl to another in vain, it was all just to pretend,
to trick myself into believing I didn't Love You but I knew it was all a lie,
like I wouldn't give my life to keep You happy in the blink of an eye,
— -ThugPoet
-
A dream with in dream
From childhood's hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
— -Edgar Allan Poe
-
Alon
From childhood\'s hour I have not been
As others were; I have not seen
As others saw; I could not bring
My passions from a common spring.
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow; I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone;
— -Moncure D. Conway,
-
The Sick Rose
O Rose thou art sick.
The invisible worm.
That flies in the night
In the howling storm:
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.
— -William Blake
-
Inventory for Spring
Feeling rich for one moment for using money as a bookmark
Feeling deceitful for making public some opinions while neglecting others
Feeling disordered at the sight of three statues conspiring in a row
Feeling insufficient for having a lukewarm reaction to news
Feeling important for having been offered a seat at the table
Feeling apologetic for nonetheless tuning out an argument
— -WENDY XU
-
environment Protection
“Mother Earth – our only home – is under pressure…Without a sustainable environmental base, we will have little hope of attaining our objectives for reducing poverty and hunger and improving health and human well-being.”
— -Ban Ki-Moon
-
OLD MAN
I’m not that lover, filled with passion, -
That youth, who left the world amazed:
Alas, my spring and summer passed now,
And didn’t leave a single trace.
Cupid, the god of youth and love and virtue!
I used to be your steadfast servant;
Oh, if I could be reborn, - I’d serve you
Even more passionate and fervent!
— -Alexander Sergeyevic
-
I can do it
Peer pressure is not just for teenagers!
The ugly face of peer pressure will follow us all to the grave,
by those who would have us go in a different direction with our lives!
So, decide what you want in life,
and don't let anyone distract you from reaching your goals and your dreams!
— -Jerry Aragon
-
What Might Have Been
I held a moment in my hand,
Brilliant as a star,
Fragile as a flower,
A shiny silver out of one hour.
I dropped it carelessly.
Oh God! I knew not
I held opportunity.
— -Hazel Lee
-
kali ghata
काली घटा छाई है
लेकर साथ अपने यह
ढेर सारी खुशियां लायी है
ठंडी ठंडी सी हव यह
बहती कहती चली आ रही है
काली घटा छाई है
कोई आज बरसों बाद खुश हुआ
तो कोई आज खुसी से पकवान बना रहा
बच्चों की टोली यह
कभी छत तो कभी गलियों में
किलकारियां सीटी लगा रहे
काली घटा छाई है
जो गिरी धरती पर पहली बूँद
देख ईसको किसान मुस्कराया
संग जग भी झूम रहा
जब चली हवाएँ और तेज
आंधी का यह रूप ले रही
लगता ऐसा कोई क्रांति अब सुरु हो रही
.
छुपा जो झूट अमीरों का
कहीं गली में गढ़ा तो कहीं
बड़ी बड़ी ईमारत यूँ ड़ह रही
अंकुर जो भूमि में सोये हुए थे
महसूस इस वातावरण को
वो भी अब फूटने लगे
देख बगीचे का माली यह
खुसी से झूम रहा
और कहता काली घटा छाई है
साथ अपने यह ढेर सारी खुशियां लायी है
— -D.K.
-
Autumn Valentine
In May my heart was breaking-
Oh, wide the wound, and deep!
And bitter it beat at waking,
And sore it split in sleep.
And when it came November,
I sought my heart, and sighed,
"Poor thing, do you remember?"
"What heart was that?" it cried.
— -Dorothy Parker
-
Autobiography
Oh, both my shoes are shiny new,
And pristine is my hat;
My dress is 1922....
My life is all like that
— -Dorothy Parker
-
August
When my eyes are weeds,
And my lips are petals, spinning
Down the wind that has beginning
Where the crumpled beeches start
In a fringe of salty reeds;
When my arms are elder-bushes,
And the rangy lilac pushes
Upward, upward through my heart;
Summer, do your worst!
Light your tinsel moon, and call on
Your performing stars to fall on
Headlong through your paper sky;
Nevermore shall I be cursed
By a flushed and amorous slattern,
With her dusty laces' pattern
Trailing, as she straggles by
— -Dorothy Parker
-
Anecdote
So silent I when Love was by
He yawned, and turned away;
But Sorrow clings to my apron-strings,
I have so much to say.
— -Dorothy Parker
-
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Should Heaven send me any son,
I hope he's not like Tennyson.
I'd rather have him play a fiddle
Than rise and bow and speak an idyll.
— -Dorothy Parker
-
Alexandre Dumas
Although I work, and seldom cease,
At Dumas pere and Dumas fils,
Alas, I cannot make me care
For Dumas fils and Dumas pere.
— -Dorothy Parker
-
Afternoon
When I am old, and comforted,
And done with this desire,
With Memory to share my bed
And Peace to share my fire,
I'll comb my hair in scalloped bands
Beneath my laundered cap,
And watch my cool and fragile hands
Lie light upon my lap.
And I will have a sprigged gown
With lace to kiss my throat;
I'll draw my curtain to the town,
And hum a purring note.
And I'll forget the way of tears,
And rock, and stir my tea.
But oh, I wish those blessed years
Were further than they be!
— -Dorothy Parker
-
After Spanish Proverb
Oh, mercifullest one of all,
Oh, generous as dear,
None lived so lowly, none so small,
Thou couldst withhold thy tear:
How swift, in pure compassion,
How meek in charity,
To offer friendship to the one
Who begged but love of thee!
Oh, gentle word, and sweetest said!
Oh, tender hand, and first
To hold the warm, delicious bread
To lips burned black of thirst.
— -Dorothy Parker
-
A Well-Worn Story
In April, in April,
My one love came along,
And I ran the slope of my high hill
To follow a thread of song.
His eyes were hard as porphyry
With looking on cruel lands;
His voice went slipping over me
Like terrible silver hands.
Together we trod the secret lane
And walked the muttering town.
I wore my heart like a wet, red stain
On the breast of a velvet gown.
In April, in April,
My love went whistling by,
And I stumbled here to my high hill
Along the way of a lie.
Now what should I do in this place
But sit and count the chimes,
And splash cold water on my face
And spoil a page with rhymes?
— -Dorothy Parker
-
A Very Short Song
Once, when I was young and true,
Someone left me sad-
Broke my brittle heart in two;
And that is very bad.
Love is for unlucky folk,
Love is but a curse.
Once there was a heart I broke;
And that, I think, is worse.
— -Dorothy Parker
-
As It Was
As it was in the beginning, so we’ll find it in the end,
For a lover, or a brother, or a sweetheart, or a friend;
As it was in the beginning, so we’ll find it by-and-bye,
When weak women hug their babies, and strong men go out to die.
As ’tis written now, or spoken, so we’ll find it yet in deed—
For their State, or for their Country, for their Honour or their Creed;
For the love of Right, or hatred for the Everlasting Lie,
When the women think of some things, and strong men go out to die.
As it used to be in past times, in the future so it must,
We shall find him stretching forward with his face down in the dust,
All his wounds in front, and hidden—blood to earth, and back to sky,
When pale women pray in private, and strong men go out to die.
Rebels all we are, and brothers—rebels to the laws we make—
Rich or poor, or fat or lean man, fighting for another’s sake;
It is all as God decreed it—we shall find it by-and-bye,
When our girls, disguised in boys’ clothes, go to die where strong men die.
— -Henry Lawson
-
As Good As New
OH, this is a song of the old lights, that came to my heart like a hymn;
And this is a song for the old lights—the lights that we thought grew dim,
That came to my heart to comfort me, and I pass it along to you;
And here is a hand to the good old friend who turns up as good as new.
And this is a song for the camp-fire out west where the stars shine bright—
Oh, this is a song for the camp-fire where the old mates yarn to-night;
Where the old mates yarn of the old days, and their numbers are all too few,
And this is a song for the good old times that will turn up as good as new.
Oh, this is a song for the old foe—we have both grown wiser now,
And this is a song for the old foe, and we’re sorry we had that row;
And this is a song for the old love—the love that we thought untrue—
Oh, this is a song of the dear old love that comes back as good as new.
Oh, this is a song for the black sheep, for the black sheep that fled from town,
And this is a song for the brave heart, for the brave heart that lived it down;
And this is a song for the battler, for the battler who sees it through—
And this is a song for the broken heart that turns up as good as new.
Ah, this is a song for the brave mate, be he Bushman, Scot, or Russ,
A song for the mates we will stick to—for the mates who have stuck to us;
And this is a song for the old creed, to do as a man should do,
Till the Lord takes us all to a wider world—where we’ll turn up as good as new.
— -Henry Lawson
-
As Far As
Do you think, you slaves of a thousand years to poverty, wealth and pride,
You can crush the spirit that has been free in a land that's new and wide?
When you've scattered the last of the farmer bands, and the war for a while is over,
You will hold the land – ay, you'll hold the land – the land that your rifles cover.
Till your gold has levelled each mountain range where a wounded man can hide,
Till your gold has lighted the moonless night on the plains where the rebels ride;
Till the future is proved, and the past is bribed from the son of the land's dead lover –
You may hold the land – you may hold the land just as far as your rifles cover.
— -Henry Lawson
-
Andy's Return
With pannikins all rusty,
And billy burnt and black,
And clothes all torn and dusty,
That scarcely hide his back;
With sun-cracked saddle-leather,
And knotted greenhide rein,
And face burnt brown with weather,
Our Andy’s home again!
His unkempt hair is faded
With sleeping in the wet,
He’s looking old and jaded;
But he is hearty yet.
With eyes sunk in their sockets—
But merry as of yore;
With big cheques in his pockets,
Our Andy’s home once more!
Old Uncle’s bright and cheerful;
He wears a smiling face;
And Aunty’s never tearful
Now Andy’s round the place.
Old Blucher barks for gladness;
He broke his rusty chain,
And leapt in joyous madness
When Andy came again.
With tales of flood and famine,
On distant northern tracks,
And shady yarns—‘baal gammon!’
Of dealings with the blacks,
From where the skies hang lazy
On many a northern plain,
From regions dim and hazy
Our Andy’s home again!
His toil is nearly over;
He’ll soon enjoy his gains.
Not long he’ll be a drover,
And cross the lonely plains.
We’ll happy be for ever
When he’ll no longer roam,
But by some deep, cool river
Will make us all a home.
— -Henry Lawson
-
Andy's Gone
Our Andy's gone to battle now
'Gainst Drought, the red marauder;
Our Andy's gone with cattle now
Across the Queensland border.
He's left us in dejection now;
Our hearts with him are roving.
It's dull on this selection now,
Since Andy went a-droving.
Who now shall wear the cheerful face
In times when things are slackest?
And who shall whistle round the place
When Fortune frowns her blackest?
Oh, who shall cheek the squatter now
When he comes round us snarling?
His tongue is growing hotter now
Since Andy cross'd the Darling.
The gates are out of order now,
In storms the `riders' rattle;
For far across the border now
Our Andy's gone with cattle.
Poor Aunty's looking thin and white;
And Uncle's cross with worry;
And poor old Blucher howls all night
Since Andy left Macquarie.
Oh, may the showers in torrents fall,
And all the tanks run over;
And may the grass grow green and tall
In pathways of the drover;
And may good angels send the rain
On desert stretches sandy;
And when the summer comes again
God grant 'twill bring us Andy.
— -Henry Lawson
-
And What Have
I MIND the days when ladies fair
Helped on my overcoat,
And tucked the silken handkerchief
About my precious throat;
They used to see the poet’s soul
In every song I wrote.
They pleaded hard, but I had work
To do, and could not stay
I used to work the whole night through,
And what have you to say?
’Twas clever, handsome woman then,
And I their rising star;
I could not see they worshipped me,
Because I saw too far.
(’Tis well for one or two, I think,
That things are as they are.)
(I used to write for writing’s sake,
I used to write till day,
I loved my prose and poetry,
And what have you to say?)
I guess if one should meet me now
That she would gasp to think,
She ever knew a thing like me,
As down the street I slink,
And trembling cadge from some old pal
The tray-bit for a drink.
I used to drink with gentlemen
To pass an hour away:
I drink long beers in common bars,
And what have you to say?
But often, in the darkest night
(And ’tis a wondrous thing)—
When others see the devils dance,
I hear the angels sing,
And round the drunkard’s lonely bed
Heaven’s nurses whispering.
I wrote for Truth and Right alone,
I wrote from night till day;
I’ll find a drunken pauper grave,
And what have you to say?
Good night!
Good day!
My noble friends,
And what have you to say?
— -Henry Lawson
-
And The Bairns
So you’ve seen at last what we have seen so long through scalding tears:
You have found what we—the People—we have known for twenty years:
And Australia’s hymn is swelling till the furthest fence-wires hum—
Save your country, Legislators—and the bairns will come.
You would put the blame upon us—we are women, we are men;
And our fathers and our mothers gave the country nine and ten.
They had honest work and wages, and the ways to win a home—
Give us half the chances they had—and the bairns will come.
Try the ranks of wealth and fashion, ask the rich and well-to-do,
With their nurseries and their nurses and their children one and two,
Will they help us bear the burden?—but their purse-proud lips are dumb.
Let us earn a decent living—and the bairns will come.
Young men, helpless in the city’s wheel of greed that never stops,
Tramp the streets for work while sweethearts slave in factories and shops.
Shall they marry and bear children to their parents’ martyrdom?
Make the city what it should be—and the bairns will come.
Shall we give you sons and daughters to a life of never-rest,
Sacrificing all for nothing in the desert of the West,
To be driven to the city’s squalid suburb and the slum?
Make the city what it should be—and the bairns will come.
Don’t you hear Australia calling for her children unconceived?
Don’t you hear them calling to her while her heart is very grieved?
Give the best land to the farmers, make the barren West a home,
Save the rainfall, lock the rivers—and the bairns will come.
— -Henry Lawson
-
An Australian Advertiseme
WE WANT the man who will lead the van,
The man who will pioneer.
We have no use for the gentleman,
Or the cheating Cheap-Jack here;
We have no room for the men who shirk
The sweat of the brow. Condemn
The men who are frightened to look for work
And funk when it looks for them.
We’ll honour the man who can’t afford
To wait for a job that suits,
But sticks a swag on his shoulders broad
And his feet in blucher boots,
And tramps away o’er the ridges far
And over the burning sand
To look for work where the stations are
In the lonely Western land.
He’ll brave the drouth and he’ll brave the rain,
And fight his sorrows down,
And help to garden the inland plain
And build the inland town;
And he’ll be found in the coming years
With a heart as firm and stout,
An honoured man with the pioneers
Who lead the people out.
— -Henry Lawson
-
All Ashore
The rattling ‘donkey’ ceases,
The bell says we must part,
You long slab of good-nature,
And poetry and art!
We’ll miss your smile in Sydney,
We’ll miss your care-free air;
Where care-free airs are needed
And grins are growing rare,
Good Health! Good pay! Good liquor,
And good pals, night and day,
Good morning and good evening –
God bless you, Hugh McCrae!
— -Henry Lawson
-
After All
The brooding ghosts of Australian night have gone from the bush and town;
My spirit revives in the morning breeze,
though it died when the sun went down;
The river is high and the stream is strong,
and the grass is green and tall,
And I fain would think that this world of ours is a good world after all.
The light of passion in dreamy eyes, and a page of truth well read,
The glorious thrill in a heart grown cold of the spirit I thought was dead,
A song that goes to a comrade's heart, and a tear of pride let fall --
And my soul is strong! and the world to me is a grand world after all!
Let our enemies go by their old dull tracks,
and theirs be the fault or shame
(The man is bitter against the world who has only himself to blame);
Let the darkest side of the past be dark, and only the good recall;
For I must believe that the world, my dear, is a kind world after all.
It well may be that I saw too plain, and it may be I was blind;
But I'll keep my face to the dawning light,
though the devil may stand behind!
Though the devil may stand behind my back, I'll not see his shadow fall,
But read the signs in the morning stars of a good world after all.
Rest, for your eyes are weary, girl -- you have driven the worst away --
The ghost of the man that I might have been is gone from my heart to-day;
We'll live for life and the best it brings till our twilight shadows fall;
My heart grows brave, and the world, my girl, is a good world after all.
— -Henry Lawson
-
Ave Generosa
I behold you,
noble, glorious and whole woman,
the pupil of purity.
You are the sacred matrix
in which God takes great pleasure.
The essences of Heaven flooded into you,
and the Great Word of God dressed itself in flesh.
You appeared as a shining white lily,
as God looked upon you before all of Creation.
O lovely and tender one,
how greatly has God delighted in you.
For He has placed His passionate embrace within you,
so that His Son might nurse at your breast.
Your womb held joy,
with all the celestial symphony sounding through you,
Virgin, who bore the Son of God,
when your purity became luminous in God.
Your flesh held joy,
like grass upon which dew falls,
pouring its life-green into it,
and so it is true in you also,
o Mother of all delight.
Now let all Ecclesia shine in joy
and sound in symphony
praising the most tender woman,
Mary, the bequeather/seed-source of God.
Amen
— -Hildegard of Bingen
-
Antiphon for the Angels
Spirited light! on the edge
of the Presence your yearning
burns in the secret darkness,
O angels, insatiably
into God’s gaze.
Perversity
could not touch your beauty;
you are essential joy.
But your lost companion,
angel of the crooked
wings – he sought the summit,
shot down the depths of God
and plummeted past Adam –
that a mud – bound spirit might soar.
— -Hildegard of Bingen
-
To Live Out What I am
My distress is great and unknown to men.
They are cruel to me, for they wish to dissuade me
From all that the forces of Love urge me to.
They do not understand it, and I cannot explain it to them.
I must then live out what I am;
What love counsels my spirit,
In this is my being: for this reason I will do my best.
Whatever vicissitudes men lead me through for Love’s sake
I wish to stand firm and take no harm from them.
For I understand from the nobility of my soul
That in suffering for sublime Love, I conquer.
I will therefore gladly surrender myself
In pain, in repose, in dying, in living,
For I know the command of lofty fidelity.
I do not complain of suffering for Love:
It becomes me always to submit to her,
Whether she commands in storm or in stillness.
One can know her only in herself.
This is an unconceivable wonder,
Which has thus filled my heart
And makes me stray in a wild desert.
— -Hadewijch of Antwerp
-
The Madness of love
The madness of love
Is a rich fief;
Anyone who recognized this
Would not ask Love for anything else:
It can unite Opposites
And reverse the paradox.
I am declaring the truth about this:
The madness of love makes bitter what was sweet,
It makes the stranger a kinsman,
And it makes the smallest the most proud.
To souls who have not reached such love,
I give this good counsel:
If they cannot do more,
Let them beg Love for amnesty,
And serve with faith,
According to the counsel of noble Love,
And think: ‘It can happen,
Love’s power is so great!’
Only after his death
Is a man beyond cure.
— -Hadewijch of Antwerp
-
Imagining
What is sweetest in love is her tempestuousness,
Her deepest abyss is her most beautiful form;
To lose one’s way in her is to touch her close at hand.
To die of hunger for her is to feed and taste;…
We can say yet more about Love:
Her wealth is her lack of everything;
Her truest fidelity brings about our fall;
Her highest being drowns us in the depths;…
Her revelation is the total hiding of herself;
Her gifts, besides, are thieveries;
Her promises are all seductions;
Her adornments are all undressing;
Her truth is all deception;
To many her assurance appears to lie—
This is the witness that can be truly borne
At any moment by me and many others
To whom Love has often shown
Wonders by which we were mocked,
Imagining we possessed what she kept back for herself.
After she first played these tricks on me,
And I considered all her methods,
I went to work in an entirely different way:
By her threats and her promises
I was no longer deceived.
I will belong to her, whatever she may be,
Gracious or merciless; to me it is all one.
— -Hadewijch of Antwer
-
Glad We're Friends
We might not have been friends from the start,
But that doesn?t mean you weren?t always in my heart.
I wish I was friends with you from a very young age,
But its okay because when I became friends with you my life started a new page.
Our friendship means so much to me I just cant say,
I don?t know what I would do without you and your thoughtful way.
During our friendship we have had a few fights,
But in the end we knew we could make it right.
Whenever I would hit a bump in life and fall,
You were there to help and you?re the one who made me get through it all.
I wanted you to know I am happy we made it through,
And that one of the people I completely trusted with everything was you.
You have been there for me every step of the way,
Helping me to take life day by day.
You have helped me forget my fears,
And in the end that has stopped my tears.
Thank you so much for all you have done for me,
You made me be the best person I can be.
— -Jenna
-
The Gift of Friendship
Running to you once again
With big tears in my eyes
You pull me close in a brotherly hug
And just let me cry
Offering me a haven
In my time of need
Means so very much more
Then you could ever see
Your friendship is the greatest gift
It abides with me always
Just knowing that you are around
Gives me the courage to stay
The smiles that you send my way
The looks that say you care
Help me through the hardest days
In a world that?s so unfair
You must think I?m crazy
Every time that I complain
That ?Someone? is being stupid
Or causing me more pain
But you have stayed right with me
I know you?ve always tried
To help me face the honest truth
When I just wanted to hide
So love and hugs I send to you
Across the many miles
And hope that I, in turn, can be
A friend that brings you smiles
— -Ann Marie
-
A friend like you
Like a needle in a haystack, true friends are hard to find that is why i am glad to call you mine. whenever i need a shoulder your there 2 catch my tears you've kept all my secrets throughout the past few years. i dont think there is anything in life that i could more wisely do, that 2 know,be, and love a friend like you
This i dedicated 2 my best friend stirling love ya stir-stir
— -Erin
-
Friends Forever
Friends forever,
Friends till the end,
I love you,
And our friendship will never end.
I'll be by your side,
When times get rough,
I'll be there for you,
When you've had enough.
I know this world is cold,
But you will be safe with me,
For you are my best friend,
And I'll never let our friendship end.
I'm so glad that I have found you,
I thought my world was coming to an end,
But then you came around,
And now we are best friends.
— -Kristina M.
-
If I Were...
If I were a memory I’d hold you there forever
Reminding you of the good times we shared together
If I were a smile on your face I would stay
Never to let sadness chase me too far away
If I were a teardrop I’d roll gently down from your eyes
Not to burn much but to mend your sweet cries
If I were a hand I’d want you to hold me in your own
Carry me through life .. even when I’m grown
If I were feet I would stay inline with you
So I could be with you in all that you do
If I were a shadow I would always follow
We’d face things together in all the tomorrows
If I were pain I’d stay far away from the start
To make sure you never felt me or I never broke your heart
If I were a song I’d be a sweet sound to your ears
To keep up your hopes and carry you through the years
If I were strength I’d give you my all
I’d hold you high and never let your fall
If I were your heart I’d be steady and true
I’d be there in every beat; staying strong for you
If I were the sun I’d shine down upon your face
Illuminate your smile and radiate through your grace
If I were a star I’d sparkle like your eyes
I would look upon your life and never stop my shine
I don’t know how good at those things I could be
I’m not any of them but this I want you to see
If I were a friend I couldn’t let you down
I’d never let you fall or walk away from me with a frown
If I were a friend I would hold your hand
I would be with you always, I hope you understand
If I were a friend I would give you my all
And though it’s not much, I’ll be there when you call
If I were a friend I’d be in every memory too
When you laughed, when you cried, I’d be with you
I CAN be these things, it’s not impossible to be a friend
I CAN be your best and I’ll be here till the end
If I were forever, you would be too
Together forever – me and you…
— -Lucky
-
Katie Lavigne
A picture lays on the table
As color begins to fade away
Memories of us are still fresh
As if we just took it today
It seemed like so long ago
When we would sit down and chat
We used to get into so much trouble
We were the happiest little brats
Best friends forever
Together till the end
We were there there for each other
Your sorrows I would mend
We grew up together
Time flew so fast
Despite the changes in surroundings
Our friendship had no contrast
We were joined at the hips
All the people would say
But it broke my heart
To see you go away
You took away your life
It was too hard for you
You couldn't take it anymore
So your life you threw
I still remembered that night
You cried on the phone
You didn't know what to do
You felt so alone
I rushed over to you
I knew something was wrong
You used to be so cheery
You used to be so strong
I found you on the floor
Your body lifeless and cold
A little knife by your side
A letter in your hand I started to unfold
Smothered in blood
Told the story trapped inside
The pain you felt
The tears you've cried
I held you in my arms
You looked so pale
My angel
You've turned so frail
That memory broke my heart
One year has passed
But you're still my angel
Our friendship will last
*U'll always be my angel Stephanie
— -Lostlllsoul
-
We'll take a walk
One day we'll take a walk buddy just you and me
We'll walk around the neighborhood like we did in 03
Every night we talked about our hopes and dreams
It helped clear our minds and let go and be free
You would tell me not to give up and fight a good fight
I never took your advice but you were always right
I'm sorry about the accident we shouldn't have went out
But that night I pushed you and look where you are now
It should be me I should have died
or maybe the driver he was the one that was high
I'm lost now without you, you were my very best friend
You stood by me faithful right down to the end
At the hospital you asked a favor from me
you asked me to take care of Cris and Danny
I never got to answer you before you took your last breath
So I'll answer you through this poem and let you rest
I swear I'll live up to my promise to you
I'll tell Danny about you and Andrea too
Danny will know what his daddy was like and
Cris will know how her big bro was tight
I'm missing you man and the old passi too
I'm waiting to take a walk again just me and you
— -Corey Spelling
-
Heart Angel
You are my heart angel
That I won’t forget
I know your there no matter what
When you cry I try to stand tall and cheer you up, but its all so hard
Cause I want to cry with you too
When you laugh you spread happiness in the air
You’re a very special heart angel of mine
When you walk in the halls you glow
Nobody can ever forget you
When you get lost my heart angel I try to help you and try not to be lost with you
But every time when your sad, hurt, and lost I try not to show I’m lost with you
I want to show you how special you are to the world
Everything makes you my heart angel of mine
Just remember I love you every moment of the day my heart angel
— -Failure By Design
-
I got your back
I got your back
You got mine,
I'll help you out
Anytime.
To see you hurt
To see you cry,
Makes me weep
And wanna die.
And if you agree
To never fight,
It wouldn't matter
Who's wrong or right.
If a broken heart
Needs a mend,
I'll be right there
To the end.
If your cheeks are wet
From drops of tears,
Don't you worry,
Let go of your fears.
Hand in hand
Love is sent,
We'll be friends
Till the end
— -Janeth
-
For my best Friend
Thank you for being the friend you are Lyndsie
I never thought that I would find
a friend so great and a friend so kind
I look up to you in every way
'cause I learn something from you every day.
Without you I don't know where I'd be
but you're still here, friends with me
you deserve so much more than I can give
but without you I wouldn't live.
You've given me more than money can buy
and for you I'd give my all and I would die
This feeling I feel gets stronger every day
hoping not to mess it up, I constantly pray.
You're an angel from God up above
and I'm thankful for your understanding love
because when you're around everything seems right
and for you, until the end, I will fight.
It doesn't matter what you do or say
because you'll be my friend anyway
I know the real you that's down deep inside
and in you, I'll always confide.
Thank you for being the friend you are
you're my best friend, an angel by far
everything in you is an inspiration to do great
and you'll be loved by all cause that's your fate!
So never stop being the real and wonderful you
cause God shines through in all that you do
and whenever it seems like I'm never there
remember this: I love you and I'll always care!
This is for you, my best friend,
Lyndsie one person i can tell my soul too
Who can relate to me like no other
Who I can laugh with to no extents,
Who I can cry too when times are tough,
Who can help me with the problems of my life.
Never have you turned your back on me
Or told me I wasn't good enough
Or let me down
I don't think you know what that means to me
You have went through so much pain with your family and you still have time
For me.
And I love you for listening even when inside YOU are dying
And I look up too you because you are strong,
and caring
and beautiful.
Even though you don't think you are.
And I hope you know that I am always here
To listen to you laugh and cry and help
In all the ways that i can
And I will try to be at least half the friend you are
To me.
I hope you know I would not be the person I am today, with out you.
My best friend Lyndsie.
— -Moriah
-
Listen
Listen, my friend, this road is the heart opening,
kissing his feet, resistance broken, tears all night.
If we could reach the Lord through immersion in water,
I would have asked to be born a fish in this life.
If we could reach Him through nothing but berries and wild nuts
then surely the saints would have been monkeys when they came from the womb!
If we could reach him by munching lettuce and dry leaves
then the goats would surely get to the Holy One before us!
If the worship of stone statues could bring us all the way,
I would have adored a granite mountain years ago.
— -Mirabai
-
Life In The World
Life in the world is short,
Why shoulder an unnecessary load
Of worldly relationships?
Thy parents gave thee birth in the world,
But the Lord ordained thy fate.
Life passes in getting and spending,
No merit is earned by virtuous deeds.
I will sing the praises of Hari
In the company of the holy men,
Nothing else concerns me.
Mira’s Lord is the courtly Giridhara,
She says: Only by Thy power
Have I crossed to the further shore.
— -Mirabai
-
In A Sudden
In a sudden,
the sight,
Your look of light,
stills all,
The curd-pot
falls to the ground.
Parents and
brothers
all call a halt.
Prise out, they say,
this thing from your heart.
You’ve lost your path.
Says Meera:
Who but you
can see in the dark
of a heart?
— -Mirabai
-
I Have Found
I have found, yes, I have found the wealth of the Divine Name’s gem.
My true guru gave me a priceless thing.
With his grace, I accepted it.
I found the capital of my several births;
I have lost the whole rest of the world.
No one can spend it, no one can steal it.
Day by day it increases one and a quarter times.
On the boat of truth, the boatman was my true guru.
I came across the ocean of existence.
Mira’s Lord is the Mountain-Holder,
the suave lover, of whom I merrily, merrily sing.
— -Mirabai
-
Do not leave me alone
Do not leave me alone, a helpless woman.
My strength, my crown,
I am empty of virtues,
You, the ocean of them.
My heart’s music, you help me
In my world-crossing.
You protected the king of the elephants.
You dissolve the fear of the terrified.
Where can I go? Save my honour
For I have dedicated myself to you
And now there is no one else for me.
— -Shreprakash Kurl
-
Time for the pain to stop
I have decided to leave the world,
Because my heart is full of pain,
Not sure how to get over this,
Now I cannot breathe again,
I am struggling to get out of bed,
Every thought of you is here,
Inside, my heart is breaking,
I just want to hold you near,
I fought to get on with my life,
But the pain is feeling worse,
I cannot seem to forget you,
My life is just a curse,
I know that now you hate me,
To be truthful, so do I,
I tried to hold on to you,
Now I just want to die,
This feeling of awful rejection,
By everyone that I love,
Do not worry about me now,
I will watch you from above,
I wanted to tell you how I felt,
But you chose to ignore me,
I wanted to make things better,
But you chose not to see,
My job here on earth is done,
I loved someone with my heart,
Just remember me for who I was,
And we will never be apart.
— -Amanda Linzi
-
It takes Two
So much has happened
between you and I
It's strange how we managed
to make one another cry
How a friendship so strong
could become so weak
Torn apart so delicately
with such technique
It's astonishing how one
could speak upon an act
then turn around and
do the same thing right back
or how one speaks out of anger
when they know it is wrong
Destroy something so tantalizing,
something so extraordinarily strong
We both did our share
both now deceived and hurt
Belittled one another
as if we were dirt
one cannot mend such anguish,
on their own
but to let you know
from this, i have grown
As contemptible as it sounds,
yes it is true
that such an awful engagement
has helped me
"Do what i do"
Trust is difficult to gain
once it's been lost before
But this i am ready to work on.
I'm ready to open that door
This is me doing my part
to fix you and i
now it is your choice
to help stop...
a forever goodbye
— -Nicole
-
Look me in the eye
Could you look me in the eye,
And tell me that you’re content?
Could you tell me honestly,
That you’re happy with the present?
I know I’m not always right
But I have a strong feeling
That you’re not who you were
Your smiles you are stealing
You’ve found someone else
And I hope it works out
I hope your friendship is strong
Coz that’s what life’s about
I hope your smile is true
And the spark in your eye is real
But I have so many doubts
I know that you can conceal
Is it just, one big show?
For the entire world to see?
To show them you’ve moved on?
And that you don’t need to flee?
Remember I knew you best
I see more than the outside
I knew you deeper than most,
Coz I knew you on the inside
— -Sarah L Costello
-
Best Friends
Funny how friends say forever,
people never seem to stay together
You told me not to worry, told me not to cry,
you said we were best friends, it was a lie.
I'm here still pretending not to care,
pretending I don't notice your never there.
To have a bond like we did was amazing,
but you picked a boy over that, over me, just replacing.
You hurt me so bad you will never know,
and the pain I keep inside I will never show.
You'd probably see it if you just tried,
and know how many nights I have cried.
But don't worry I'll be fine,
I'm not the one who left all my friends behind.
— -Christa
-
Best Friends Lie
I thought we would always be best friends,
Isn't that what we said?
Best friends forever until the end?
We would stick together no matter what happened?
I guess I was wrong,
Cause you broke me down,
You don't wanna be my friend no more,
What did I do?
I thought I could always count on you,
But I guess not,
Cause you left me here all alone,
Now what am I supposed to do without you?
As the days go by life is getting harder,
And I'm thinking about you more and more,
Wishing you were still here.
I need you now more then I ever have before,
But your no where near.
How could this happen?
After all we've been through,
We were always there for each other,
We were so close,
At least I thought we were,
But maybe I was wrong, again.
Did you really want our friendship to end?
— -Kristina M.
-
What happened?
Remember when we were the best of friends?
I do.I remember the long talks on the phone
Everyday on the weekend spent together
Never having anyone say one name without the other
Going everywhere with each other
Doing everything together
Knowing each other better than ourselves
But then you decide to hurt me like I never thought possible
You always think it's me, but you were the one that hurt me
I am just so tried of all the things you find to get mad about
I'm not going to try to explain what happened because knowing you; you won't listen to anything I have to say
How could you think I would do something like that?
I thought you knew me, but I guess not
Nothing would have happened if you never decided to do what you did
You were the only one I trusted in life
I told you everything
Now I can't trust anyone
My heart is closed and will take a lot to be opened again
I want to talk to you the way we did before
I have cried over this too much and now I'm just mad
I wish you never did what you did
But at night all I think about is all the good times we have had
And I think to myself this is the end of our friendship
It hurts me so much to think like that, but I have to now
I loved you like a friend, a best friend, a sister
I just want you to realize that you were at wrong, but I know you won't
And that's why we can't be friends
I want you to remember the night I held you in my arms
You cried and told me everything that jerk did
I told you everything will be alright
I was there for you
I just can't get over how you are going to believe the boy that lied to you the most
And not believe your girl
It just scares me how much I try and sometimes knowing nothing will work
If you just try then maybe we can be friends
But until then I have to go on life living like I have never lived before
Without my best friend!
— -Ashley Fitz
-
I miss you
I miss your smile,
I miss your laugh,
I miss the fun times,
and the sad.
I miss your voice,
I miss your face,
I miss your hugs,
and your embrace.
I miss our friendship,
I miss those long talks,
I miss all those dances,
and those quiet walks.
Since you've been away,
I haven't known what to do,
I've been dazed and confused,
I really really miss you.
— -Lucy
-
I have a best friend...
have a best friend...
In the sandbox we used to play,
We grew up with eachother,
but things ended up this way
I began to meet some new friends,
they all seemed pretty nice,
You told me they were the wrong crew,
But I didn't take your advice
I started smoking and drinking,
sneaking out and skipping school,
I never returned your phonecalls
because I was just too cool
I never told you the truth,
I just had to lie,
You told me I needed help
And all I could say was why?
I went to a party that night,
And I got so messed up I couldn't talk,
I tried to cross the street,
but I could barely walk
I heard a loud engine,
and I saw a bright light,
I then felt a great shove,
and I looked to my right
You'd been hit by a Semi,
With all the blood I could see,
You just pushed me out of the way
And that's how it had to be
A tear rolled down my face,
I could tell that you were dead,
I hugged your lifeless body
and wished it was me instead
I've been sober for 3 years,
and I have many more to spend,
I have my guardian angel,
I have a best friend...
— -Jenna
-
The end
You say we will always be friends
all the way till the very end
But I'm beginning to feel
that our friendship may never heel
the end is creeping near
sometimes I wonder if it's already here
I try to talk
But all you do is walk
You no longer care for what I have to say
I guess I'm just getting in your way
You have a new group of friends
So this is what I call the end
— -Vanessa
-
How Could You?
How could you turn your back on me when I screamed your name so loud?
How could you let me fall away from you, did you get too proud?
How could you watch as I died a gruesome death and broke apart?
How could you walk away from me, or were you never really there to start?
How could you be so cruel to me when all I ever tried to do was fit in?
How could you be so hypocritical when I spoke my secrets from deep within?
How could you have said those things and pretended that they were true?
How could you have meant them all-I don't understand what you're trying to do.
How could you pull the floor from beneath me when I just learned to stand?
Please, could you just explain this to me, Because I don't understand..
How could you play this game of pretend and play the part of a friend?
How could you be so thoughtless, how could you want this all to end?
How could you look me in the eye and say the cruelest of words?
How could you say you listened to me when you never really heard?
How could you stick this knife in my chest, then twist it where you wanted it to go?
Please answer me all these questions, I really need to know
How could you have done things things and live with no regret?
How could you not remember what you said, how could you forget?
How could you say you'd do it, and then never really follow through
But really, I just have one question to ask ... I just want to know, How could you??
— -Unseen Exposure
-
After Tonight
Because there are avenues
Of traffic lights, a phone book
Of brothers and lawyers,
Why should you think your purse
Will not be tugged from your arm
Or the screen door
Will remain latched
Against the man
Who hugs and kisses
His pillow
In the corridor of loneliness?
There is a window of light
A sprinkler turning
As the earth turns,
And you do not think of the hills
And of the splintered wrists it takes
To give you
The heat rising toward the ceiling.
You expect your daughter
To be at the door any moment
And your husband to arrive
With the night
That is suddenly all around.
You expect the stove to burst
A collar of fire
When you want it,
The siamese cats
To move against your legs, purring.
But remember this:
Because blood revolves from one lung to the next,
Why think it will
After tonight?
— -Gary Soto
-
The Tale of Sunlight
Listen, nephew.
When I opened the cantina
At noon
A triangle of sunlight
Was stretched out
On the floor
Like a rug
Like a tired cat.
It flared in
From the window
Through a small hole
Shaped like a yawn.
Strange I thought
And placed my hand
Before the opening,
But the sunlight
Did not vanish.
I pulled back
The shutters
And the room glowed,
But this pyramid
Of whiteness
Was simply brighter.
The sunlight around it
Appeared soiled
Like the bed sheet
Of a borracho.
Amazed, I locked the door,
Closed the windows.
Workers, in from
The fields, knocked
To be let in,
Children peeked
Through the shutters,
But I remained silent.
I poured a beer,
At a table
Shuffled a pack
Of old cards,
And watched it
Cross the floor,
Hang on the wall
Like a portrait
Like a calendar
Without numbers.
When a fly settled
In the sunlight
And disappeared
In a wreath of smoke,
I tapped it with the broom,
Spat on it.
The broom vanished.
The spit sizzled.
It is the truth, little one.
I stood eye to blank eye
And by misfortune
This finger
This pink stump
Entered the sunlight,
Snapped off
With a dry sneeze,
And fell to the floor
As a gift
To the ants
Who know me
For what I gave
— -Gary Soto
-
The Map
When the sun's whiteness closes around us
Like a noose,
It is noon, and Molina squats
In the uneven shade of an oleander.
He unfolds a map and, with a pencil,
Blackens Panama
Into a bruise;
He dots rain over Bogotá, the city of spiders,
And x's in a mountain range that climbs
Like a thermometer
Above the stone fence
The old never thought to look over.
A fog presses over Lima.
Brazil is untangled of its rivers.
Where there is a smudge,
Snow has stitched its cold into the field.
Where the river Orinoco cuts east,
A new river rises nameless
From the open grasses,
And Molina calls it his place of birth.
— -Gary Soto
-
The Jungle Café
We could wipe away a fly,
Drink, and order that yellow
Thing behind the glass, peach
Or sweet bread. Sunlight
Is catching on a fork,
Toothy wink from a star.
The fan is busy, the waiter is busy,
And today, in this café
Of two dollars and fifty
Cents, we're so important
Dogs are shaking our hands.
"Welcome, turistas," they say,
Or might say if they could
Roll their Rs. Where we sit
It's three o'clock, and
Across the room, where
Old men are playing dominos
It's maybe later, it's maybe
Peru under their hats.
There are toads in this place
sullen guards by the door
And the bartender is just another
Uncle fooling with the radio.
"A little to the left,"
I shout, and he dials left,
Then right, until it's German
Polkas, accordions by the sea.
The toads move a little.
An old man clicks a domino.
Omar, my gypsy friend, puts in
"Love is chasing me up my sleeve."
I salute him, he salutes me,
And together we're so drunk
We're making sense. Little
By little, with rum the color
Of a woman's arm, we're seeing things
Of a dancer, no two,
Make that three with one chair.
And that manthe old one
Over thereis so blurry
He thinks he's flying.
— -Gary Soto
-
Yowzah
Well it wasn't too very long ago you know some folks walked with a hi-dee-ho
And other folks walked around kind of low
Sayin' Yowzah and Sho nuff and Yassuh boss
It was ashes to ashes and dust to dust and they didn't believe in makin' a fuss
So they quietly moved to the back of the bus
They just say Yowzah and Sho nuff and Yassuh boss
And when things got rough they did a little prayin'
Little arm wavin' and a little bit of swayin'
Didn't do no good they kept right on a sayin'
Sayin' Yowzah and Sho nuff and Yassuh boss
So they all went out and did a little standin' little less askin' and a lot more demandin'
Little less liftin' and a little less totin' a lot more thinkin' and a lot more votin'
A lot less hopin' a lot less waitin'
A whole lot more demonstratin'a lot less pearly gate'n'
A lot more fightin' and a lot more walkin' until finally no one at all was talkin'
Like Yowzah and Sho nuff and Yassuh boss
The end of this story is plain to see they finally achieved equality
And now like you and me they can stand up strong and free
And say Yes sir and Of course sir and Anything you say JB
— -Shel Silverstein
-
Woulda-Coulda-Shoulda
All the Woulda-Coulda-Shouldas
Layin' in the sun,
Talkin' 'bout the things
They woulda coulda shoulda done...
But those Woulda-Coulda-Shouldas
All ran away and hid
From one little Did.
— -Shel Silverstein
-
Workin’ It Out
Well I've been spendin' my life lookin' for a shoulder
To rest my head when the nights get colder
But the days are gettin' longer and I'm gettin' older
Been long time workin' it out
I been a long time workin' it out I been a long time workin' it out
I been a long time workin' it out I been a long time workin' it out
Now I got a little woman to scrub my floor
Right down the road I got me two or three more
And you know none of them knows about the one next door
I been a long time workin' it out
I been a long time workin' it out...
Well it was late one night when I stole a little money
I bought a couple of things and then gave them to my honey
And the judge said boy if you this that's funny
You got a long time workin' it out
I got a long time workin' it out...
[ guitar ]
Yeah well I look all around me and what do I see
The whole wide world got trouble like me
Between the taxes the missus and the deep blue sea
You'll be a long time workin' it out
We'll be a long time workin' it out...
— -Shel Silverstein
-
Won't You
Barbara's eyes are blue as azure,
But she is in love with Freddy.
Karen's sweet, but Harry has her.
Gentle Jane is going steady.
Carol hates me. So does May.
Abigail will not be mine.
Nancy lives too far away...
Won't you be my Valentine?
— -Shel Silverstein
-
Who's Taller?
Depends on if the judge is fair,
Depends how high the heels you wear,
Depends on if they count the hair,
Depends if they allow the chair.
— -Shel Silverstein
-
Who Does She Think
I asked the Zebra:
Are you black with white stripes?
Or white with black stripes?
And the zebra asked me:
Are you good with bad habits?
Or are you bad with good habits?
Are you noisy with quiet times?
Or are you quiet with noisy times?
Are you happy with some sad days?
Or are you sad with some happy days?
Are you neat with some sloppy ways?
Or are you sloppy with some neat ways?
And on and on and on and on
And on and on he went.
I’ll never ask a zebra
About stripes
Again
— -Shel Silverstein
-
Yet Love
Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed
And worthy of acceptation. Fire is bright,
Let temple burn, or flax; an equal light
Leaps in the flame from cedar-plank or weed:
And love is fire. And when I say at need
I love thee . . . mark! . . . I love thee–in thy sight
I stand transfigured, glorified aright,
With conscience of the new rays that proceed
Out of my face toward thine. There’s nothing low
In love, when love the lowest: meanest creatures
Who love God, God accepts while loving so.
And what I feel, across the inferior features
Of what I am, doth flash itself, and show
How that great work of Love enhances Nature’s.
— -Elizabeth Browning
-
The Sanctuary
It could be said that God’s foot is so vast
That this entire earth is but a
field on His
toe,
and all the forests in this world
came from the same root of just
a single hair
of His.
What then is not a sanctuary?
Where can I not kneel
and pray at a shrine
made holy by His
presence
— -Daniel Ladinsky.
-
Eternal Trinity
Eternal Trinity,
Godhead,
mystery deep as the sea,
you could give me no greater gift
than the gift of
yourself.
For you are a fire ever burning and never consumed,
which itself consumes all the selfish love
that fills my being.
Yes, you are a fire that takes away the coldness,
illuminates the mind with its light,
and causes me to know your
truth.
And I know that
you are beauty and wisdom itself.
The food of angels,
you gave yourself to man
in the fire of your
love.
— -Saint Catherine of
-
Consumed in Grace
I first saw God when I was a child, six years of age.
the cheeks of the sun were pale before Him,
and the earth acted as a shy
girl, like me.
Divine light entered my heart from His love
that did never fully wane,
though indeed, dear, I can understand how a person’s
faith can at time flicker,
for what is the mind to do
with something that becomes the mind’s ruin:
a God that consumes us
in His grace.
I have seen what you want;
it is there,
a Beloved of infinite
tenderness.
— -Daniel Ladinsky
-
Consecrated
CONSECRETED
All has been consecretad.
The creatures in the forest know this,
The earth does, the seas do, the clouds know
as does the heart full of
love.
Strange a priest would rob us of this
knowledge
and then empower himself
with the ability
to make holy what
already was
— -Daniel Ladinsky.
-
Consumed in Grace
I first saw God when I was a child, six years of age.
the cheeks of the sun were pale before Him,
and the earth acted as a shy
girl, like me.
Divine light entered my heart from His love
that did never fully wane,
though indeed, dear, I can understand how a person’s
faith can at time flicker,
for what is the mind to do
with something that becomes the mind’s ruin:
a God that consumes us
in His grace.
I have seen what you want;
it is there,
a Beloved of infinite
tenderness.
— -St Catherine
-
Consecrated
All has been consecretad.
The creatures in the forest know this,
The earth does, the seas do, the clouds know
as does the heart full of
love.
Strange a priest would rob us of this
knowledge
and then empower himself
with the ability
to make holy what
already was
— -St Catherine
-
Why was Adam
Why was Adam driven from the garden?’
The pupil asked his master. ‘His heart was hardened
With images, a hundred bonds that clutter the earth
Chained Adam to the cycle of death following birth.
He was blind to this equation, living for something other
Than God and so out of paradise he was driven
With his mortal body’s cover his soul was shriven.
Noblest of God’s creatures, Adam fell with blame,
Like a moth shrivelled by the candle’s flame,
Into history which taught mankind shame.
Since Adam had not given up his heart
To God’s attachment, there was no part
For Adam in paradise where the only friend
Is God; His will is not for Adam to imagine and bend.
— -Farid al-Din Attar
-
The Triumph of the Soul
Joy! Joy! I triumph! Now no more I know
Myself as simply me. I burn with love
Unto myself, and bury me in love.
The centre is within me and its wonder
Lies as a circle everywhere about me.
Joy! Joy! No mortal thought can fathom me.
I am the merchant and the pearl at once.
Lo, Time and Space lie crouching at my feet.
Joy! Joy! When I would reveal in a rapture.
I plunge into myself and all things know.
— -Farid al-Din Attar
-
Mystic Silence
From each, Love demands a mystic silence.
What do all seek so earnestly? Tis Love.
Love is the subject of their inmost thoughts,
In Love no longer “Thou” and “I” exist,
For self has passed away in the Beloved.
Now will I draw aside the veil from Love,
And in the temple of mine inmost soul
Behold the Friend, Incomparable Love.
He who would know the secret of both worlds
Will find that the secret of them both is Love.
— -Farid al-Din Attar
-
Looking for your own face
Your face is neither infinite nor ephemeral.
You can never see your own face,
only a reflection, not the face itself.
So you sigh in front of mirrors
and cloud the surface.
It’s better to keep your breath cold.
Hold it, like a diver does in the ocean.
One slight movement, the mirror-image goes.
Don’t be dead or asleep or awake.
Don’t be anything.
What you most want,
what you travel around wishing to find,
lose yourself as lovers lose themselves,
and you’ll be that.
— -Farid al-Din Attar
-
Invocation
We are busy with the luxury of things.
Their number and multiple faces bring
To us confusion we call knowledge. Say:
God created the world, pinned night to day,
Made mountains to weigh it down, seas
To wash its face, living creatures with pleas
(The ancestors of prayers) seeking a place
In this mystery that floats in endless space.
God set the earth on the back of a bull,
The bull on a fish dancing on a spool
Of silver light so fine it is like air;
That in turn rests on nothing there
But nothing that nothing can share.
All things are but masks at God’s beck and call,
They are symbols that instruct us that God is all.
— -Farid al-Din Attar
-
Intoxicated by the Wine o
Intoxicated by the Wine of Love.
From each a mystic silence Love demands.
What do all seek so earnestly? ‘Tis Love.
What do they whisper to each other? Love.
Love is the subject of their inmost thoughts.
In Love no longer ‘thou’ and ‘I’ exist,
For Self has passed away in the Beloved.
Now will I draw aside the veil from Love,
And in the temple of mine inmost soul,
Behold the Friend; Incomparable Love.
He who would know the secret of both worlds,
Will find the secret of them both, is Love.
— -Farid al-Din Attar
-
In the Dead of night
In the dead of night, a Sufi began to weep.
He said, “This world is like a closed coffin, in which
We are shut and in which, through our ignorance,
We spend our lives in folly and desolation.
When Death comes to open the lid of the coffin,
Each one who has wings will fly off to Eternity,
But those without will remain locked in the coffin.
So, my friends, before the lid of this coffin is taken off,
Do all you can to become a bird of the Way to God;
Do all you can to develop your wings and your feathers.”
— -Farid al-Din Attar
-
All Pervading Consciousne
And as His Essence all the world pervades
Naught in Creation is, save this alone.
Upon the waters has He fixed His Throne,
This earth suspended in the starry space,
Yet what are seas and what is air? For all
Is God, and but a talisman are heaven and earth
To veil Divinity. For heaven and earth,
Did He not permeate them, were but names;
Know then, that both this visible world and that
Which unseen is, alike are God Himself,
Naught is, save God: and all that is, is God.
And yet, alas! by how few is He seen,
Blind are men’s eyes, though all resplendent shines
The world by Deity’s own light illumined,
0 Thou whom man perceiveth not, although
To him Thou deignest to make known Thyself;
Thou all Creation art, all we behold, but Thou,
The soul within the body lies concealed,
And Thou dost hide Thyself within the soul,
0 soul in soul! Myst’ry in myst’ry hid!
Before all wert Thou, and are more than all!
— -Farid al-Din Attar
-
Here is my gift
Here is my gift, not roses on your grave,
not sticks of burning incense.
You lived aloof, maintaining to the end
your magnificent disdain.
You drank wine, and told the wittiest jokes,
and suffocated inside stifling walls.
Alone you let the terrible stranger in,
and stayed with her alone.
Now you’re gone, and nobody says a word
about your troubled and exalted life.
Only my voice, like a flute, will mourn
at your dumb funeral feast.
Oh, who would have dared believe that half-crazed I,
I, sick with grief for the buried past,
I, smoldering on a slow fire,
having lost everything and forgotten all,
would be fated to commemorate a man
so full of strength and will and bright inventions,
who only yesterday it seems, chatted with me,
hiding the tremor of his mortal pain.
— -tanley Kunitz
-
How many demands
How many demands the beloved can make!
The woman discarded, none.
How glad I am that today the water
Under the colorless ice is motionless.
And I stand — Christ help me! —
On this shroud that is brittle and bright,
But save my letters
So that our descendants can decide,
So that you, courageous and wise,
Will be seen by them with greater clarity.
Perhaps we may leave some gaps
In your glorious biography?
Too sweet is earthly drink,
Too tight the nets of love.
Sometime let the children read
My name in their lesson book,
And on learning the sad story,
Let them smile shyly. . .
Since you’ve given me neither love nor peace
Grant me bitter glory.
— -Judith Hemschemeyer
-
Muse
When, in the night, I wait for her, impatient,
Life seems to me, as hanging by a thread.
What just means liberty, or youth, or approbation,
When compared with the gentle piper’s tread?
And she came in, threw out the mantle’s edges,
Declined to me with a sincere heed.
I say to her, “Did you dictate the Pages
Of Hell to Dante?” She answers, “Yes, I did.”
— -Yevgeny Bonver
-
They Didn’t Meet
They didn’t meet me, roamed,
On steps with lanterns bright.
I entered quiet home
In murky, pail moonlight.
Under a lamp’s green halo,
With smile of kept in rage,
My friend said, “Cinderella,
Your voice is very strange…”
A cricket plays its fiddle;
A fire-place grew black.
Oh, someone took my little
White shoe as a keep-sake,
And gave me three carnations,
While casting dawn eyes –.
My sins for accusations,
You couldn’t be disguised.
And heart hates to believe in
The time, that’s close too,
When he will ask for women
To try on my white shoe.
— -Tanya Karshtedt
-
The Beacon Fires
A GLEAM — a gleam — from Ida’s height,
By the Fire-god sent, it came;
From watch to watch it leapt, that light,
As a rider rode the flame!
It shot through the startled sky,
And the torch of that blazing glory
Old Lemnos caught on high,
On its holy promontory,
And sent it on, the jocund sign,
To Athos, Mount of Jove divine.
Wildly the while, it rose from the isle,
So that the might of the journeying Light
Skimmed over the back of the gleaming brine!
Farther and faster speeds it on,
Till the watch that keeps Macistus steep
See it burst like a blazing Sun!
Doth Macistus sleep
On his tower-clad steep?
No! rapid and red doth the wild fire sweep;
It flashes afar on the wayward stream
Of the wild Euripus, the rushing beam!
It rouses the light on Messapion’s height,
And they feed its breath with the withered heath.
But it may not stay!
And away — away –
It bounds in its freshening might.
Silent and soon,
Like a broadened moon,
It passes in sheen, Asopus green,
And bursts on Cithaeron gray!
The warder wakes to the Signal-rays,
And it swoops from the hill with a broader blaze.
On, on the fiery Glory rode;
Thy lonely lake, Gorgopis, glowed!
To Megara’s Mount it came;
They feed it again
And it streams amain–
A giant beard of Flame!
The headland cliffs that darkly down
O’er the Saronic waters frown,
Are passed with the Swift One’s lurid stride,
And the huge rock glares on the glaring tide.
With mightier march and fiercer power
It gained Arachne’s neighboring tower;
Thence on our Argive roof its rest it won,
Of Ida’s fire the long-descended Son!
Bright Harbinger of glory and of joy!
So first and last with equal honor crowned,
In solemn feasts the race-torch circles round. –
And these my heralds! — this my SIGN OF PEACE;
Lo! while we breathe, the victor lords of Greece
Stalk, in stern tumult, through the halls of Troy!
— -Edward Bulwer Lytton
-
A Service of Song
Some keep the Sabbath going to church;
I keep it staying at home,
With a bobolink for a chorister,
And an orchard for a dome.
Some keep the Sabbath in surplice;
I just wear my wings,
And instead of tolling the bell for church,
Our little sexton sings.
God preaches, — a noted clergyman, –
And the sermon is never long;
So instead of getting to heaven at last,
I’m going all along!
— -Emily Dickinson
-
A Dew Sufficed Itself
A DEW sufficed itself
And satisfied a leaf,
And felt, ‘how vast a destiny!
How trivial is life!’
The sun went out to work,
The day went out to play,
But not again that dew was seen
By physiognomy.
Whether by day abducted,
Or emptied by the sun
Into the sea, in passing,
Eternally unknown.
— -Emily Dickinson
-
To Nature
It may indeed be phantasy, when I
Essay to draw from all created things
Deep, heartfelt, inward joy that closely clings ;
And trace in leaves and flowers that round me lie
Lessons of love and earnest piety.
So let it be ; and if the wide world rings
In mock of this belief, it brings
Nor fear, nor grief, nor vain perplexity.
So will I build my altar in the fields,
And the blue sky my fretted dome shall be,
And the sweet fragrance that the wild flower yields
Shall be the incense I will yield to Thee,
Thee only God ! and thou shalt not despise
Even me, the priest of this poor sacrifice
— -Samuel Taylor Coleri
-
The Sun
Have you ever seen
anything
in your life
more wonderful
than the way the sun,
every evening,
relaxed and easy,
floats toward the horizon
and into the clouds or the hills,
or the rumpled sea,
and is gone–
and how it slides again
out of the blackness,
every morning,
on the other side of the world,
like a red flower
streaming upward on its heavenly oils,
say, on a morning in early summer,
at its perfect imperial distance–
and have you ever felt for anything
such wild love–
do you think there is anywhere, in any language,
a word billowing enough
for the pleasure
that fills you,
as the sun
reaches out,
as it warms you
as you stand there,
empty-handed–
or have you too
turned from this world–
or have you too
gone crazy
for power,
for things?
— -Mary Oliver
-
The Sea At Night
The grey sea creeps half-visible, half-hushed,
And grasps with its innumerable hands
These silent walls. I see beyond a rough
Glimmering infinity, I feel the wash
And hear the sibilation of the waves
That whisper to each other as they push
To shoreward side by side, –long lines and dim
Of movement flecked with quivering spots of foam,
The quiet welter of a shifting world.
— -Sri Aurobindo
-
Farewell
Farewell to thee! but not farewell
To all my fondest thoughts of thee:
Within my heart they still shall dwell;
And they shall cheer and comfort me.
O, beautiful, and full of grace!
If thou hadst never met mine eye,
I had not dreamed a living face
Could fancied charms so far outvie.
If I may ne’er behold again
That form and face so dear to me,
Nor hear thy voice, still would I fain
Preserve, for aye, their memory.
That voice, the magic of whose tone
Can wake an echo in my breast,
Creating feelings that, alone,
Can make my tranced spirit blest.
That laughing eye, whose sunny beam
My memory would not cherish less; -
And oh, that smile! whose joyous gleam
Nor mortal language can express.
Adieu, but let me cherish, still,
The hope with which I cannot part.
Contempt may wound, and coldness chill,
But still it lingers in my heart.
And who can tell but Heaven, at last,
May answer all my thousand prayers,
And bid the future pay the past
With joy for anguish, smiles for tears?
— -Anne Bronte
-
When I shall sleep
Oh, for the time when I shall sleep
Without identity,
And never care how rain may steep,
Or snow may cover me!
No promised heaven these wild desires
Could all, or half, fulful;
No threatened hell, with quenchless fires,
Subdue this quenchless will!
So said I, and still say the same;
Still, to my death, will say –
Three gods within this little frame
Are warring night and day:
Heaven could not hold them all, and yet
They all are held in me;
And must be mine till I forget
My present entity!
Oh, for the time when in my breast
Their struggles will be o’er!
Oh, for the day when I shall rest,
And never suffer more!
— -Emily Bronte
-
The Prisoner
STILL let my tyrants know, I am not doom’d to wear
Year after year in gloom and desolate despair;
A messenger of Hope comes every night to me,
And offers for short life, eternal liberty.
He comes with Western winds, with evening’s wandering airs,
With that clear dusk of heaven that brings the thickest stars:
Winds take a pensive tone, and stars a tender fire,
And visions rise, and change, that kill me with desire.
Desire for nothing known in my maturer years,
When Joy grew mad with awe, at counting future tears:
When, if my spirit’s sky was full of flashes warm,
I knew not whence they came, from sun or thunder-storm.
But first, a hush of peace–a soundless calm descends;
The struggle of distress and fierce impatience ends.
Mute music soothes my breast–unutter’d harmony
That I could never dream, till Earth was lost to me.
Then dawns the Invisible; the Unseen its truth reveals;
My outward sense is gone, my inward essence feels;
Its wings are almost free–its home, its harbour found,
Measuring the gulf, it stoops, and dares the final bound.
O dreadful is the check–intense the agony–
When the ear begins to hear, and the eye begins to see;
When the pulse begins to throb–the brain to think again–
The soul to feel the flesh, and the flesh to feel the chain.
Yet I would lose no sting, would wish no torture less;
The more that anguish racks, the earlier it will bless;
And robed in fires of hell, or bright with heavenly shine,
If it but herald Death, the vision is divine.
— -Emily Bronte
-
The Old Stoic
Riches I hold in light esteem,
And Love I laugh to scorn;
And lust of fame was but a dream
That vanish’d with the morn:
And, if I pray, the only prayer
That moves my lips for me
Is, ‘Leave the heart that now I bear,
And give me liberty!’
Yea, as my swift days near their goal,
‘Tis all that I implore:
In life and death a chainless soul,
With courage to endure
— -Emily Bronte
-
Self Interrogation
The evening passes fast away.
‘Tis almost time to rest;
What thoughts has left the vanished day,
What feelings in thy breast?
“The vanished day? It leaves a sense
Of labour hardly done;
Of little gained with vast expense–
A sense of grief alone?
“Time stands before the door of Death,
Upbraiding bitterly
And Conscience, with exhaustless breath,
Pours black reproach on me:
“And though I’ve said that Conscience lies
And Time should Fate condemn;
Still, sad Repentance clouds my eyes,
And makes me yield to them!
“Then art thou glad to seek repose?
Art glad to leave the sea,
And anchor all thy weary woes
In calm Eternity?
“Nothing regrets to see thee go–
Not one voice sobs’ farewell;’
And where thy heart has suffered so,
Canst thou desire to dwell?”
“Alas! the countless links are strong
That bind us to our clay;
The loving spirit lingers long,
And would not pass away!
“And rest is sweet, when laurelled fame
Will crown the soldier’s crest;
But a brave heart, with a tarnished name,
Would rather fight than rest.
“Well, thou hast fought for many a year,
Hast fought thy whole life through,
Hast humbled Falsehood, trampled Fear;
What is there left to do?
“‘Tis true, this arm has hotly striven,
Has dared what few would dare;
Much have I done, and freely given,
But little learnt to bear!
“Look on the grave where thou must sleep
Thy last, and strongest foe;
It is endurance not to weep,
If that repose seem woe.
“The long war closing in defeat–
Defeat serenely borne,–
Thy midnight rest may still be sweet,
And break in glorious morn!”
— -Emily Bronte
-
Remembrance
COLD in the earth–and the deep snow piled above thee,
Far, far removed, cold in the dreary grave!
Have I forgot, my only Love, to love thee,
Sever’d at last by Time’s all-severing wave?
Now, when alone, do my thoughts no longer hover
Over the mountains, on that northern shore,
Resting their wings where heath and fern-leaves cover
Thy noble heart for ever, ever more?
Cold in the earth–and fifteen wild Decembers
From those brown hills have melted into spring:
Faithful, indeed, is the spirit that remembers
After such years of change and suffering!
Sweet Love of youth, forgive, if I forget thee,
While the world’s tide is bearing me along;
Other desires and other hopes beset me,
Hopes which obscure, but cannot do thee wrong!
No later light has lighten’d up my heaven,
No second morn has ever shone for me;
All my life’s bliss from thy dear life was given,
All my life’s bliss is in the grave with thee.
But when the days of golden dreams had perish’d,
And even Despair was powerless to destroy;
Then did I learn how existence could be cherish’d,
Strengthen’d and fed without the aid of joy.
Then did I check the tears of useless passion–
Wean’d my young soul from yearning after thine;
Sternly denied its burning wish to hasten
Down to that tomb already more than mine.
And, even yet, I dare not let it languish,
Dare not indulge in memory’s rapturous pain;
Once drinking deep of that divinest anguish,
How could I seek the empty world again?
— -Emily Bronte
-
My Lady’s Grave
THE linnet in the rocky dells,
The moor-lark in the air,
The bee among the heather bells
That hide my lady fair:
The wild deer browse above her breast;
The wild birds raise their brood;
And they, her smiles of love caress’d,
Have left her solitude!
I ween that when the grave’s dark wall
Did first her form retain,
They thought their hearts could ne’er recall
The light of joy again.
They thought the tide of grief would flow
Uncheck’d through future years;
But where is all their anguish now,
And where are all their tears?
Well, let them fight for honour’s breath,
Or pleasure’s shade pursue–
The dweller in the land of death
Is changed and careless too.
And if their eyes should watch and weep
Till sorrow’s source were dry,
She would not, in her tranquil sleep,
Return a single sigh!
Blow, west wind, by the lonely mound:
And murmur, summer streams!
There is no need of other sound
To soothe my lady’s dreams
— -Emily Bronte
-
God of Visions
O, thy bright eyes must answer now,
When Reason, with a scornful brow,
Is mocking at my overthrow!
O, thy sweet tongue must plead for me,
And tell why I have chosen thee!
Stern Reason is to judgment come,
Arrayed in all her forms of gloom:
Wilt thou, my advocate, be dumb?
No, radiant angel, speak and say
Why I did cast the world away;
Why I have presevered to shun
The common paths that others run,
And on a strange road journeyed on,
Heedless alike of wealth and power,
Of Glory’s wreath and Pleasure’s flower.
These once, indeed, seemed Beings Divine;
And they, perchance, heard vows of mine,
And saw my offerings on their shrine;
But careless gifts are seldom prized,
And mine were worthily despised.
So, with a ready heart I swore
To seek their altar-stone no more;
And gave my spirit to adore
Thee, ever-present, phantom thing –
My slave, my comrade, and my king.
A slave, because I rule thee still,
Incline thee to my changeful will,
And make thy influence good or ill;
A comrade, for by day and night
Thou art my intimate delight, –
My darling pain that wounds and sears,
And wrings a blessing out of tears
Be deadening me to earthly cares;
And yet, a king, though Prudence well
Have taught thy subject to rebel.
And I am wrong to worship where
Faith cannot doubt, nor Hope despair,
Since my own soul can grant my prayer?
Speak, God of Visions, plead for me,
And tell why I have chosen thee
— -Emily Bronte
-
Day Dream
On a sunny brae alone I lay
One summer afternoon;
It was the marriage-time of May,
With her young lover, June.
From her mother’s heart seemed loath to part
That queen of bridal charms,
But her father smiled on the fairest child
He ever held in his arms.
The trees did wave their plumy crests,
The glad birds carolled clear;
And I, of all the wedding guests,
Was only sullen there!
There was not one, but wished to shun
My aspect void of cheer;
The very gray rocks, looking on,
Asked, “What do you here?”
And I could utter no reply;
In sooth, I did not know
Why I had brought a clouded eye
To greet the general glow.
So, resting on a heathy bank,
I took my heart to me;
And we together sadly sank
Into a reverie.
We thought, “When winter comes again,
Where will these bright things be?
All vanished, like a vision vain,
An unreal mockery!
“The birds that now so blithely sing,
Through deserts, frozen dry,
Poor spectres of the perished spring,
In famished troops will fly.
“And why should we be glad at all?
The leaf is hardly green,
Before a token of its fall
Is on the surface seen!”
Now, whether it were really so,
I never could be sure;
But as in fit of peevish woe,
I stretched me on the moor,
A thousand thousand gleaming fires
Seemed kindling in the air;
A thousand thousand silvery lyres
Resounded far and near:
Methought, the very breath I breathed
Was full of sparks divine,
And all my heather-couch was wreathed
By that celestial shine!
And, while the wide earth echoing rung
To that strange minstrelsy
The little glittering spirits sung,
Or seemed to sing, to me:
“O mortal! mortal! let them die;
Let time and tears destroy,
That we may overflow the sky
With universal joy!
“Let grief distract the sufferer’s breast,
And night obscure his way;
They hasten him to endless rest,
And everlasting day.
“To thee the world is like a tomb,
A desert’s naked shore;
To us, in unimagined bloom,
It brightens more and more!
“And, could we lift the veil, and give
One brief glimpse to thine eye,
Thou wouldst rejoice for those that live,
Because they live to die.”
The music ceased; the noonday dream,
Like dream of night, withdrew;
But Fancy, still, will sometimes deem
— -Emily Bronte
-
A Little While
A little while, a little while,
The weary task is put away,
And I can sing and I can smile,
Alike, while I have holiday.
Why wilt thou go, my harassed heart,
What thought, what scene invites thee now?
What spot, or near or far,
Has rest for thee, my weary brow?
There is a spot, mid barren hills,
Where winter howls, and driving rain;
But if the dreary tempest chills,
There is a light that warms again.
The house is old, the trees are bare,
Moonless above bends twilight’s dome;
But what on earth is half so dear,
So longed for, as the hearth of home?
The mute bird sitting on the stone,
The dank moss dripping from the wall,
The thorn-trees gaunt, the walks o’ergrown,
I love them, how I love them all!
Still, as I mused, the naked room,
The alien firelight died away,
And from the midst of cheerless gloom
I passed to bright unclouded day.
A little and a lone green lane
That opened on a common wide;
A distant, dreamy, dim blue chain
Of mountains circling every side;
A heaven so clear, an earth so calm,
So sweet, so soft, so hushed an air;
And, deepening still the dream-like charm,
Wild moor-sheep feeding everywhere.
That was the scene, I knew it well;
I knew the turfy pathway’s sweep
That, winding o’er each billowy swell,
Marked out the tracks of wandering sheep.
Even as I stood with raptured eye,
Absorbed in bliss so deep and dear,
My hour of rest had fleeted by,
And back came labour, bondage, care.
— -Emily Bronte
-
Thank You
I'm really glad that I've found you,
knowing you'll be there whenever i may need you.
Thank you so much for what you've done,
for what you've said,what you'll do.
and what you'll say.
For all those times I've called,
and talked for hours on end,
You stayed there, on the line,
like a good true friend.
I'll never forget, those true hugs;
that you gave without regret,
those times i felt so sad,
you were right there,
something I'll never forget.
Let me tell you,
and i hope you take it to heart,
there'll never be someone like you,
and i hope you feel the same way too.
I'll be there for you,
like you've always been for me,I;ll give you my hand to hold,
my shoulder to cry on,
and my attention just for you.
I just want to say, THANK YOU.
— -Santana
-
Always
With natural brown hair
And greenish-grey eyes
You are one person
I will never tell good-bye
I love you with all my heart
You are the sister I never had
And I will always be there for you
Whenever you are sad
When you are upset, just call on me
And I'll be there
No matter what
I will always care
If you and I ever
Become two instead of one
I promise not to forget
About the things we have done
When we grow older
And haven't seen eachother in years
You'll still have a shoulder to lean on
If you ever need to shed some tears
I'm always going to hold on
And I'm NEVER gonna let go
But that is one thing
You and I both, already know
— -Kaylyn
-
What You Need
I read your words—the tears just come
I stare at the page, my body is numb
I feel your pain like it was my own
My heart sank in my stomach like a stone
I’m wishing I could span the miles
To wipe your tears and bring you smiles
I’d hold you close and hug you tight
Making promises that all will be right
Our friendship’s so important to me
I truly hope it’s plain to see
I wish from pain your heart was freed
You know I’ll give whatever you need
— -Ann Marie
-
Best Friends
Before i met you
my life was grey
I had no one to talk to
nothing to say
When i met you
you brighten up my life
if it wasn't for you
my life will be taking by a knife
me and you talked
and became best friends
we promised each other
we would be there to the end
i love you like a sister
like i knew you for ever
and on our key chains
it says best friends forever
I'll be there when you cry
or a relationship gone bad
when we get older, I'll make sure
that you are never ever sad
even in college
i want to stay in touch
seeing you once in awhile
will never be enough
i know we will have times
where we will not agree
but we will make it up with
sleepovers, popcorn, and movies
so to my best friend
i hope you never go away
because i do what best friends do
and i will always be here to stay
— -Simone
-
Everything
Just when I think I've lost my way
Something illuminates the dark
There you are leading the way
Love shining from your heart
Many friends have crossed my path
And I thank God for them all
But I got an extra special blessing
When your friendship answered my call
You stayed by my side every step
Even when others fled
I know that because you're here
I can face whatever's ahead
Your smile and laugh urge me on
And encourage me to be strong
Your loving support helps me stand
When the road is rough and long
So much that I can thank God for:
My family and health
But when He blessed me with you
He gave me more than wealth
Mortal words could never explain
What you have come to be
You are my life, my world, my heart
You are EVERYTHING to me
— -Ann Marie
-
If you ever need me
If ever you need a helping hand,
just reach out and touch mine.
If ever you're scared or afraid,
I'll be right by your side.
If ever you need words of advice,
I'll give you the best I have.
If ever you're sad and depressed,
I'll try to brighten your day.
If ever you need a shoulder to cry on,
I have two, waiting here for you.
If ever you simply need to talk,
I promise I'll sit and listen.
Whatever the reason,
whatever you're searching for,
whatever you need.....
I promise
I'll always be there for you!!
— -Ashley
-
My Best Friend
We have always been inseparable,
Well at least since the age of two,
Best friends we stood side by side,
It was always me and you.
We always told each other secrets,
There wasn?t anything we kept from each other,
I loved you more than anything,
You were like my brother.
From kindergarten to 4th grade,
You got teased for hanging out with a girl,
Still you never left me alone,
You put me before the world.
Then I fell in love,
With some guy in my 7th grade class,
And when he broke my heart,
You were there to kick his a$$.
You were always there for me,
Through the thick and thin,
Always you were there,
Being my best friend.
No matter what happened to us,
Or came in our way,
You never left me all alone,
You were there to stay.
You threw me the biggest party,
On my sweet sixteen,
Everyone from school was there,
But you I hadn?t seen.
As I went to open my presents,
I opened your card first,
It said the you loved me more than a friend,
And my tears soon began to burst.
Then out from the corner of the room,
You began to walk my way,
Tears came streaming down my face,
I began to runaway.
I locked myself in my room,
And cried tears to form a sea,
And soon I realized we were more than friends,
That we were meant to be.
I came out of my room,
To find you standing there,
I looked into your eyes,
And realized you really cared.
So soon you became my boyfriend,
And we kissed for moments to last,
And forgot all about just being friends,
Like we were in the past.
Then on my 21st birthday,
You took me for surprise,
As you went down on your knees,
And I looked right in your eyes.
You took my hand so firmly,
As you were about to change your life,
You took a ring from in your pocket,
And said, ?Will you be my wife??
I was so shocked my mind went blank,
I didn?t know what to say,
As I softly spoke words so true,
Tears came as I said, ?Okay?
You looked at me and said,
?I have another present waiting for you.?
You opened the curtains only to see,
A BMW painted blue.
We both jumped in,
My brand new car,
And we took off for a ride,
Though we didn?t go far.
Another car started swerving,
And right in a flash,
That car and I,
Had suddenly crashed.
It was a drunk driver,
Who took my soon to be husbands life,
And left me here all alone,
His soon to be wife.
If it wasn?t for them,
He?d still be alive,
Just shows to what happens,
When you drink and drive
— -Samantha
-
One True Friend
There is this girl, She means the world to me
Although it is hard to explain, I really wish she could see
That when I had not a reason to go on
She came into my life, Picked me up and made me strong
Although I fell down every now and then
She still was near, as my one true friend
We knew each other heart to heart
Without saying a word we were never apart
I always wanted to tell her, my one true friend
My whole life's story I thought could never end
But then one day she fell down too
I thought I was done for, I didn't know what to do
I could see the pain in here eyes,
As she tried not to cry
Everyday she came with a smile on her face
But I still could tell it was all fake
She tried to smile, but i still could see
The pain inside of her was becoming apart of me
She was full of secrets, just as I
And tried to cover up all the lil' lies
What was wrong, I had not a clue
I wanted to be there through and through
Yes I was bleeding, yes I did cry
But I could see she was bleeding more and needed someone by her side
So I stood near, just as she once stood for me
I wanted to be there, and wanted her to see
That no matter what went down or what went wrong
I would always be there with an ear to listen to her song
A song about life, a song about love
A song about anything, whatever it was
Cuz in the end after all that was said
I would still be there for my one true friend.
— -Vanessa
-
The One and Only You
I want you to remember
Those good old days
Those days of happiness
When everything went your way
I want you to cherish these memories
I don't want you to let them go
And I hope they make you happy
As they did so long ago
I wish I could comfort you
Shield you from life's pain
I wish I could just give you everything
You definitely deserve something to gain
You've always told me not to give up
Well here is a lesson for you
If you ever need me, call
That is all you have to do
You've been through so much these days
I'm sure God has something planned out
But in order to see it
You cannot be blinded by doubt
So help me help you
Tell me everything you're going through
Let go of all these troubles
Because the more you hold on the more it doubles
Please, I can see your smile fading
I can hear your voice crack
You may not be near
But you know I got your back
In the past I wasn't always there
Give me a chance this time
I swear on my life I'll be right beside you
To save the emptiness in your mind
With your heart so fragile
With your soul so true
This is a tribute
To the one and only you
So smile your gorgeous smile
Walk with your chin held high
Get up off the ground
Don't let your dreams die
— -Chris
-
Never Without Love
My life was over,
Or so it had seemed,
I said my goodbyes,
And I silently screamed.
I knew it was wrong,
But it just felt so right,
When sadness creeps in,
It puts up a fight.
I went into the kitchen,
I looked all around,
I saw what I needed,
My heart started to pound.
I tested the edge,
As I picked up the knife,
I placed it over my wrist,
As I went over my life.
I had no one to leave,
Nobody who cared,
A small little girl,
Could certainly be spared.
The phone started to ring,
And I suddenly knew,
I don't really know how,
But it had to be you.
I slowly walked over,
And picked up the phone,
In that moment I'd never felt more alone.
You begged me to stop,
To not do what I would,
I said nothing at all,
I don't think that I could.
You cried and you pleaded,
And I didn't know how,
I had missed it so long,
But I finally saw now.
You may think life is hopeless,
That there's no help from above,
But as long as you have friends,
You'll always have love.
*This poem is dedicated to my best friend, Billie. Literally seconds before I ended my life, she called me and automatically knew what I was going to do. I wouldn't be here without her.
— -Chord Princess
-
Man in Space
All you have to do is listen to the way a man
sometimes talks to his wife at a table of people
and notice how intent he is on making his point
even though her lower lip is beginning to quiver,
and you will know why the women in science
fiction movies who inhabit a planet of their own
are not pictured making a salad or reading a magazine
when the men from earth arrive in their rocket,
why they are always standing in a semicircle
with their arms folded, their bare legs set apart,
their breasts protected by hard metal disks.
— -Billy Collins
-
Madmen
They say you can jinx a poem
if you talk about it before it is done.
If you let it out too early, they warn,
your poem will fly away,
and this time they are absolutely right.
Take the night I mentioned to you
I wanted to write about the madmen,
as the newspapers so blithely call them,
who attack art, not in reviews,
but with breadknives and hammers
in the quiet museums of Prague and Amsterdam.
Actually, they are the real artists,
you said, spinning the ice in your glass.
The screwdriver is their brush.
The real vandals are the restorers,
you went on, slowly turning me upside-down,
the ones in the white doctor's smocks
who close the wound in the landscape,
and thus ruin the true art of the mad.
I watched my poem fly down to the front
of the bar and hover there
until the next customer walked in--
then I watched it fly out the open door into the night
and sail away, I could only imagine,
over the dark tenements of the city.
All I had wished to say
was that art was also short,
as a razor can teach with a slash or two,
that it only seems long compared to life,
but that night, I drove home alone
with nothing swinging in the cage of my heart
except the faint hope that I might
catch a glimpse of the thing
in the fan of my headlights,
maybe perched on a road sign or a street lamp,
poor unwritten bird, its wings folded,
staring down at me with tiny illuminated eyes.
— -Billy Collins
-
Litany
You are the bread and the knife,
The crystal goblet and the wine...
-Jacques Crickillon
You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker,
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.
However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.
It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general's head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.
And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.
It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.
I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.
I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman's tea cup.
But don't worry, I'm not the bread and the knife.
You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and--somehow--the wine.
— -Billy Collins
-
Japan
Today I pass the time reading
a favorite haiku,
saying the few words over and over.
It feels like eating
the same small, perfect grape
again and again.
I walk through the house reciting it
and leave its letters falling
through the air of every room.
I stand by the big silence of the piano and say it.
I say it in front of a painting of the sea.
I tap out its rhythm on an empty shelf.
I listen to myself saying it,
then I say it without listening,
then I hear it without saying it.
And when the dog looks up at me,
I kneel down on the floor
and whisper it into each of his long white ears.
It's the one about the one-ton temple bell
with the moth sleeping on its surface,
and every time I say it, I feel the excruciating
pressure of the moth
on the surface of the iron bell.
When I say it at the window,
the bell is the world
and I am the moth resting there.
When I say it at the mirror,
I am the heavy bell
and the moth is life with its papery wings.
And later, when I say it to you in the dark,
you are the bell,
and I am the tongue of the bell, ringing you,
and the moth has flown
from its line
and moves like a hinge in the air above our bed.
— -Billy Collins
-
Invention
Tonight the moon is a cracker,
with a bite out of it
floating in the night,
and in a week or so
according to the calendar
it will probably look
like a silver football,
and nine, maybe ten days ago
it reminded me of a thin bright claw.
But eventually --
by the end of the month,
I reckon --
it will waste away
to nothing,
nothing but stars in the sky,
and I will have a few nights
to myself,
a little time to rest my jittery pen.
— -Billy Collins
-
Introduction To Poetry
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.
— -Billy Collins
-
I Go Back
I turn around on the gravel
and go back to the house for a book,
something to read at the doctor’s office,
and while I am inside, running the finger
of inquisition along a shelf,
another me that did not bother
to go back to the house for a book
heads out on his own,
rolls down the driveway,
and swings left toward town,
a ghost in his ghost car,
another knot in the string of time,
a good three minutes ahead of me—
a spacing that will now continue
for the rest of my life.
Sometimes I think I see him
a few people in front of me on a line
or getting up from a table
to leave the restaurant just before I do,
slipping into his coat on the way out the door.
But there is no catching him,
no way to slow him down
and put us back in synch,
unless one day he decides to go back
to the house for something,
but I cannot imagine
for the life of me what that might be.
He is out there always before me,
blazing my trail, invisible scout,
hound that pulls me along,
shade I am doomed to follow,
my perfect double,
only bumped an inch into the future,
and not nearly as well-versed as I
in the love poems of Ovid—
I who went back to the house
that fateful winter morning and got the book.
— -Billy Collins
-
I Chop Some Parsley
And I start wondering how they came to be blind.
If it was congenital, they could be brothers and sister,
and I think of the poor mother
brooding over her sightless young triplets.
Or was it a common accident, all three caught
in a searing explosion, a firework perhaps?
If not,
if each came to his or her blindness separately,
how did they ever manage to find one another?
Would it not be difficult for a blind mouse
to locate even one fellow mouse with vision
let alone two other blind ones?
And how, in their tiny darkness,
could they possibly have run after a farmer's wife
or anyone else's wife for that matter?
Not to mention why.
Just so she could cut off their tails
with a carving knife, is the cynic's answer,
but the thought of them without eyes
and now without tails to trail through the moist grass
or slip around the corner of a baseboard
has the cynic who always lounges within me
up off his couch and at the window
trying to hide the rising softness that he feels.
By now I am on to dicing an onion
which might account for the wet stinging
in my own eyes, though Freddie Hubbard's
mournful trumpet on "Blue Moon,"
which happens to be the next cut,
cannot be said to be making matters any better.
— -Billy Collins
-
I Ask You
What scene would I want to be enveloped in
more than this one,
an ordinary night at the kitchen table,
floral wallpaper pressing in,
white cabinets full of glass,
the telephone silent,
a pen tilted back in my hand?
It gives me time to think
about all that is going on outside--
leaves gathering in corners,
lichen greening the high grey rocks,
while over the dunes the world sails on,
huge, ocean-going, history bubbling in its wake.
But beyond this table
there is nothing that I need,
not even a job that would allow me to row to work,
or a coffee-colored Aston Martin DB4
with cracked green leather seats.
No, it's all here,
the clear ovals of a glass of water,
a small crate of oranges, a book on Stalin,
not to mention the odd snarling fish
in a frame on the wall,
and the way these three candles--
each a different height--
are singing in perfect harmony.
So forgive me
if I lower my head now and listen
to the short bass candle as he takes a solo
while my heart
thrums under my shirt--
frog at the edge of a pond--
and my thoughts fly off to a province
made of one enormous sky
and about a million empty branches.
— -Billy Collins
-
Forgetfulness
The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,
as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.
Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,
something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.
Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.
It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.
No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.
— -Billy Collins
-
How Soon The Servant
How soon the servant sun,
(Sir morrow mark),
Can time unriddle, and the cupboard stone,
(Fog has a bone
He'll trumpet into meat),
Unshelve that all my gristles have a gown
And the naked egg stand straight,
Sir morrow at his sponge,
(The wound records),
The nurse of giants by the cut sea basin,
(Fog by his spring
Soaks up the sewing tides),
Tells you and you, my masters, as his strange
Man morrow blows through food.
All nerves to serve the sun,
The rite of light,
A claw I question from the mouse's bone,
The long-tailed stone
Trap I with coil and sheet,
Let the soil squeal I am the biting man
And the velvet dead inch out.
How soon my level, lord,
(Sir morrow stamps
Two heels of water on the floor of seed),
Shall raise a lamp
Or spirit up a cloud,
Erect a walking centre in the shroud,
Invisible on the stump
A leg as long as trees,
This inward sir,
Mister and master, darkness for his eyes,
The womb-eyed, cries,
And all sweet hell, deaf as an hour's ear,
Blasts back the trumpet voice.
— -Dylan Thomas
-
How Shall My Animal
How shall my animal
Whose wizard shape I trace in the cavernous skull,
Vessel of abscesses and exultation's shell,
Endure burial under the spelling wall,
The invoked, shrouding veil at the cap of the face,
Who should be furious,
Drunk as a vineyard snail, flailed like an octopus,
Roaring, crawling, quarrel
With the outside weathers,
The natural circle of the discovered skies
Draw down to its weird eyes?
How shall it magnetize,
Towards the studded male in a bent, midnight blaze
That melts the lionhead's heel and horseshoe of the heart
A brute land in the cool top of the country days
To trot with a loud mate the haybeds of a mile,
Love and labour and kill
In quick, sweet, cruel light till the locked ground sprout
The black, burst sea rejoice,
The bowels turn turtle,
Claw of the crabbed veins squeeze from each red particle
The parched and raging voice?
Fishermen of mermen
Creep and harp on the tide, sinking their charmed, bent pin
With bridebait of gold bread, I with a living skein,
Tongue and ear in the thread, angle the temple-bound
Curl-locked and animal cavepools of spells and bone,
Trace out a tentacle,
Nailed with an open eye, in the bowl of wounds and weed
To clasp my fury on ground
And clap its great blood down;
Never shall beast be born to atlas the few seas
Or poise the day on a horn.
Sigh long, clay cold, lie shorn,
Cast high, stunned on gilled stone; sly scissors ground in frost
Clack through the thicket of strength, love hewn in pillars drops
With carved bird, saint, and suns the wrackspiked maiden mouth
Lops, as a bush plumed with flames, the rant of the fierce eye,
Clips short the gesture of breath.
Die in red feathers when the flying heaven's cut,
And roll with the knocked earth:
Lie dry, rest robbed, my beast.
You have kicked from a dark den, leaped up the whinnying light,
And dug your grave in my breast.
— -Dylan Thomas
-
Holy Spring
O
Out of a bed of love
When that immortal hospital made one more moove to soothe
The curless counted body,
And ruin and his causes
Over the barbed and shooting sea assumed an army
And swept into our wounds and houses,
I climb to greet the war in which I have no heart but only
That one dark I owe my light,
Call for confessor and wiser mirror but there is none
To glow after the god stoning night
And I am struck as lonely as a holy marker by the sun
No
Praise that the spring time is all
Gabriel and radiant shrubbery as the morning grows joyful
Out of the woebegone pyre
And the multitude's sultry tear turns cool on the weeping wall,
My arising prodgidal
Sun the father his quiver full of the infants of pure fire,
But blessed be hail and upheaval
That uncalm still it is sure alone to stand and sing
Alone in the husk of man's home
And the mother and toppling house of the holy spring,
If only for a last time.
— -Dylan Thomas
-
Hold Hard
Hold hard, these ancient minutes in the cuckoo's month,
Under the lank, fourth folly on Glamorgan's hill,
As the green blooms ride upward, to the drive of time;
Time, in a folly's rider, like a county man
Over the vault of ridings with his hound at heel,
Drives forth my men, my children, from the hanging south.
Country, your sport is summer, and December's pools
By crane and water-tower by the seedy trees
Lie this fifth month unstaked, and the birds have flown;
Holy hard, my country children in the world if tales,
The greenwood dying as the deer fall in their tracks,
The first and steepled season, to the summer's game.
And now the horns of England, in the sound of shape,
Summon your snowy horsemen, and the four-stringed hill,
Over the sea-gut loudening, sets a rock alive;
Hurdles and guns and railings, as the boulders heave,
Crack like a spring in vice, bone breaking April,
Spill the lank folly's hunter and the hard-held hope.
Down fall four padding weathers on the scarlet lands,
Stalking my children's faces with a tail of blood,
Time, in a rider rising, from the harnessed valley;
Hold hard, my country darlings, for a hawk descends,
Golden Glamorgan straightens, to the falling birds.
Your sport is summer as the spring runs angrily.
— -Dylan Thomas
-
Here In This Spring
Here in this spring, stars float along the void;
Here in this ornamental winter
Down pelts the naked weather;
This summer buries a spring bird.
Symbols are selected from the years'
Slow rounding of four seasons' coasts,
In autumn teach three seasons' fires
And four birds' notes.
I should tell summer from the trees, the worms
Tell, if at all, the winter's storms
Or the funeral of the sun;
I should learn spring by the cuckooing,
And the slug should teach me destruction.
A worm tells summer better than the clock,
The slug's a living calendar of days;
What shall it tell me if a timeless insect
Says the world wears away?
— -Dylan Thomas
-
Grief Thief Of Time
Grief thief of time crawls off,
The moon-drawn grave, with the seafaring years,
The knave of pain steals off
The sea-halved faith that blew time to his knees,
The old forget the cries,
Lean time on tide and times the wind stood rough,
Call back the castaways
Riding the sea light on a sunken path,
The old forget the grief,
Hack of the cough, the hanging albatross,
Cast back the bone of youth
And salt-eyed stumble bedward where she lies
Who tossed the high tide in a time of stories
And timelessly lies loving with the thief.
Now Jack my fathers let the time-faced crook,
Death flashing from his sleeve,
With swag of bubbles in a seedy sack
Sneak down the stallion grave,
Bull's-eye the outlaw through a eunuch crack
And free the twin-boxed grief,
No silver whistles chase him down the weeks'
Dayed peaks to day to death,
These stolen bubbles have the bites of snakes
And the undead eye-teeth,
No third eye probe into a rainbow's sex
That bridged the human halves,
All shall remain and on the graveward gulf
Shape with my fathers' thieves
— -Dylan Thomas
-
Foster The Light
Foster the light nor veil the manshaped moon,
Nor weather winds that blow not down the bone,
But strip the twelve-winded marrow from his circle;
Master the night nor serve the snowman's brain
That shapes each bushy item of the air
Into a polestar pointed on an icicle.
Murmur of spring nor crush the cockerel's eggs,
Nor hammer back a season in the figs,
But graft these four-fruited ridings on your country;
Farmer in time of frost the burning leagues,
By red-eyed orchards sow the seeds of snow,
In your young years the vegetable century.
And father all nor fail the fly-lord's acre,
Nor sprout on owl-seed like a goblin-sucker,
But rail with your wizard's ribs the heart-shaped planet;
Of mortal voices to the ninnies' choir,
High lord esquire, speak up the singing cloud,
And pluck a mandrake music from the marrowroot.
Roll unmanly over this turning tuft,
O ring of seas, nor sorrow as I shift
From all my mortal lovers with a starboard smile;
Nor when my love lies in the cross-boned drift
Naked among the bow-and-arrow birds
Shall you turn cockwise on a tufted axle.
Who gave these seas their colour in a shape,
Shaped my clayfellow, and the heaven's ark
In time at flood filled with his coloured doubles;
O who is glory in the shapeless maps,
Now make the world of me as I have made
A merry manshape of your walking circle.
— -Dylan Thomas
-
Especially When The
Especially when the October wind
With frosty fingers punishes my hair,
Caught by the crabbing sun I walk on fire
And cast a shadow crab upon the land,
By the sea's side, hearing the noise of birds,
Hearing the raven cough in winter sticks,
My busy heart who shudders as she talks
Sheds the syllabic blood and drains her words.
Shut, too, in a tower of words, I mark
On the horizon walking like the trees
The wordy shapes of women, and the rows
Of the star-gestured children in the park.
Some let me make you of the vowelled beeches,
Some of the oaken voices, from the roots
Of many a thorny shire tell you notes,
Some let me make you of the water's speeches.
Behind a pot of ferns the wagging clock
Tells me the hour's word, the neural meaning
Flies on the shafted disk, declaims the morning
And tells the windy weather in the cock.
Some let me make you of the meadow's signs;
The signal grass that tells me all I know
Breaks with the wormy winter through the eye.
Some let me tell you of the raven's sins.
Especially when the October wind
(Some let me make you of autumnal spells,
The spider-tongued, and the loud hill of Wales)
With fists of turnips punishes the land,
Some let me make you of the heartless words.
The heart is drained that, spelling in the scurry
Of chemic blood, warned of the coming fury.
By the sea's side hear the dark-vowelled birds.
— -Dylan Thomas
-
Ears In The Turrets Hear
Ears in the turrets hear
Hands grumble on the door,
Eyes in the gables see
The fingers at the locks.
Shall I unbolt or stay
Alone till the day I die
Unseen by stranger-eyes
In this white house?
Hands, hold you poison or grapes?
Beyond this island bound
By a thin sea of flesh
And a bone coast,
The land lies out of sound
And the hills out of mind.
No birds or flying fish
Disturbs this island’s rest.
Ears in this island hear
The wind pass like a fire,
Eyes in this island see
Ships anchor off the bay.
Shall I run to the ships
With the wind in my hair,
Or stay till the day I die
And welcome no sailor?
Ships, hold you poison or grapes?
Hands grumble on the door,
Ships anchor off the bay,
Rain beats the sand and slates.
Shall I let in the stranger,
Shall I welcome the sailor,
Or stay till the day I die?
Hands of the stranger and holds of the ships,
Hold you poison or grapes?
— -Dylan Thomas
-
Do Not Go Gentle
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
— -Dylan Thomas
-
Love Poem
If by truth you mean hand then yes
I hold to be self-evident and hold you in the highest—
KO to my OT and bait to my switch, I crown
you one-trick pony to my one-horse town,
dub you my one-stop shopping, my space heater,
juke joint, tourist trap, my peep show, my meter reader,
you best batteries-not-included baring all or
nothing. Let me begin by saying if he hollers,
end with goes the weasel. In between,
cream filling. Get over it, meaning, the moon.
Tell me you’ll dismember this night forever,
you my punch-drunking bag, tar to my feather.
More than the sum of our private parts, we are some
peekaboo, some peak and valley, some
bright equation (if and then but, if er then uh).
My fruit bat, my gewgaw. You had me at no duh.
— -DORA MALECH
-
Wedding Hymn
Thou God, whose high, eternal Love
Is the only blue sky of our life,
Clear all the Heaven that bends above
The life-road of this man and wife.
May these two lives be but one note
In the world’s strange-sounding harmony,
Whose sacred music e’er shall float
Through every discord up to Thee.
As when from separate stars two beams
Unite to form one tender ray:
As when two sweet but shadowy dreams
Explain each other in the day:
So may these two dear hearts one light
Emit, and each interpret each.
Let an angel come and dwell tonight
In this dear double-heart, and teach.
— -SIDNEY LANIER
-
To My Dear and Loving Hus
If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee.
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold,
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee give recompense.
Thy love is such I can no way repay;
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let’s so persever,
That when we live no more, we may live ever.
— -ANNE BRADSTREET
-
An April Day
When the warm sun, that brings
Seed-time and harvest, has returned again,
'T is sweet to visit the still wood, where springs
The first flower of the plain.
I love the season well,
When forest glades are teeming with bright forms,
Nor dark and many-folded clouds foretell
The coming-on of storms.
From the earth's loosened mould
The sapling draws its sustenance, and thrives;
Though stricken to the heart with winter's cold,
The drooping tree revives.
The softly-warbled song
Comes from the pleasant woods, and colored wings
Glance quick in the bright sun, that moves along
The forest openings.
When the bright sunset fills
The silver woods with light, the green slope throws
Its shadows in the hollows of the hills,
And wide the upland glows.
And when the eve is born,
In the blue lake the sky, o'er-reaching far,
Is hollowed out and the moon dips her horn,
And twinkles many a star.
Inverted in the tide
Stand the gray rocks, and trembling shadows throw,
And the fair trees look over, side by side,
And see themselves below.
Sweet April! many a thought
Is wedded unto thee, as hearts are wed;
Nor shall they fail, till, to its autumn brought,
Life's golden fruit is shed.
— -Henry Wadsworth Long
-
Allah.
Allah gives light in darkness,
Allah gives rest in pain,
Cheeks that are white with weeping
Allah paints red again.
The flowers and the blossoms wither,
Years vanish with flying fleet;
But my heart will live on forever,
That here in sadness beat.
Gladly to Allah's dwelling
Yonder would I take flight;
There will the darkness vanish,
There will my eyes have sight.
— -Henry Wadsworth Long
-
Agassiz
I stand again on the familiar shore,
And hear the waves of the distracted sea
Piteously calling and lamenting thee,
And waiting restless at thy cottage door.
The rocks, the sea-weed on the ocean floor,
The willows in the meadow, and the free
Wild winds of the Atlantic welcome me;
Then why shouldst thou be dead, and come no more?
Ah, why shouldst thou be dead, when common men
Are busy with their trivial affairs,
Having and holding? Why, when thou hadst read
Nature's mysterious manuscript, and then
Wast ready to reveal the truth it bears,
Why art thou silent! Why shouldst thou be dead?
— -Henry Wadsworth Long
-
Afternoon In February
The day is ending,
The night is descending;
The marsh is frozen,
The river dead.
Through clouds like ashes
The red sun flashes
On village windows
That glimmer red.
The snow recommences;
The buried fences
Mark no longer
The road o'er the plain;
While through the meadows,
Like fearful shadows,
Slowly passes
A funeral train.
The bell is pealing,
And every feeling
Within me responds
To the dismal knell;
Shadows are trailing,
My heart is bewailing
And tolling within
Like a funeral bell.
— -Henry Wadsworth Long
-
Aftermath
When the summer fields are mown,
When the birds are fledged and flown,
And the dry leaves strew the path;
With the falling of the snow,
With the cawing of the crow,
Once again the fields we mow
And gather in the aftermath.
Not the sweet, new grass with flowers
Is this harvesting of ours;
Not the upland clover bloom;
But the rowen mixed with weeds,
Tangled tufts from marsh and meads,
Where the poppy drops its seeds
In the silence and the gloom.
— -Henry Wadsworth Long
-
A Wraith In The Mist
On the green little isle of Inchkenneth,
Who is it that walks by the shore,
So gay with his Highland blue bonnet,
So brave with his targe and claymore?
His form is the form of a giant,
But his face wears an aspect of pain;
Can this be the Laird of Inchkenneth?
Can this be Sir Allan McLean?
Ah, no! It is only the Rambler,
The Idler, who lives in Bolt Court,
And who says, were he Laird of Inchkenneth,
He would wall himself round with a fort.
— -Henry Wadsworth Long
-
A Summer Day
The sun is set; and in his latest beams
Yon little cloud of ashen gray and gold,
Slowly upon the amber air unrolled,
The falling mantle of the Prophet seems.
From the dim headlands many a light-house gleams,
The street-lamps of the ocean; and behold,
O'erhead the banners of the night unfold;
The day hath passed into the land of dreams.
O summer day beside the joyous sea!
O summer day so wonderful and white,
So full of gladness and so full of pain!
Forever and forever shalt thou be
To some the gravestone of a dead delight,
To some the landmark of a new domain.
— -Henry Wadsworth Long
-
A Song Of Savoy
As the dim twilight shrouds
The mountain's purple crest,
And Summer's white and folded clouds
Are glowing in the west,
Loud shouts come up the rocky dell,
And voices hail the evening-bell.
Faint is the goatherd's song,
And sighing comes the breeze;
The silent river sweeps along
Amid its bending trees -
And the full moon shines faintly there,
And music fills the evening air.
Beneath the waving firs
The tinkling cymbals sound;
And as the wind the foliage stirs,
I see the dancers bound
Where the green branches, arched above,
Bend over this fair scene of love.
And he is there, that sought
My young heart long ago!
But he has left me - though I thought
He ne'er could leave me so.
Ah! lover's vows - how frail are they!
And his - were made but yesterday.
Why comes he not? I call
In tears upon him yet;
'Twere better ne'er to love at all,
Than love, and then forget!
Why comes he not? Alas! I should
Reclaim him still, if weeping could.
But see - he leaves the glade,
And beckons me away:
He comes to seek his mountain maid!
I cannot chide his stay.
Glad sounds along the valley swell,
And voices hail the evening-bell.
— -Henry Wadsworth Long
-
A Shadow
I said unto myself, if I were dead,
What would befall these children? What would be
Their fate, who now are looking up to me
For help and furtherance? Their lives, I said,
Would be a volume wherein I have read
But the first chapters, and no longer see
To read the rest of their dear history,
So full of beauty and so full of dread.
Be comforted; the world is very old,
And generations pass, as they have passed,
A troop of shadows moving with the sun;
Thousands of times has the old tale been told;
The world belongs to those who come the last,
They will find hope and strength as we have done.
— -Henry Wadsworth Long
-
A Psalm Of Life
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!
Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,— act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o’erhead!
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
— -Henry Wadsworth Long
-
Mother and child
One night a tiny dewdrop fell
Into the bosom of a rose,--
"Dear little one, I love thee well,
Be ever here thy sweet repose!"
Seeing the rose with love bedight,
The envious sky frowned dark, and then
Sent forth a messenger of light
And caught the dewdrop up again.
"Oh, give me back my heavenly child,--
My love!" the rose in anguish cried;
Alas! the sky triumphant smiled,
And so the flower, heart-broken, died.
— -Eugene Field
-
Child and mother
O mother-my-love, if you'll give me your hand,
And go where I ask you to wander,
I will lead you away to a beautiful land,--
The Dreamland that's waiting out yonder.
We'll walk in a sweet posie-garden out there,
Where moonlight and starlight are streaming,
And the flowers and the birds are filling the air
With the fragrance and music of dreaming.
There'll be no little tired-out boy to undress,
No questions or cares to perplex you,
There'll be no little bruises or bumps to caress,
Nor patching of stockings to vex you;
For I'll rock you away on a silver-dew stream
And sing you asleep when you're weary,
And no one shall know of our beautiful dream
But you and your own little dearie.
And when I am tired I'll nestle my head
In the bosom that's soothed me so often,
And the wide-awake stars shall sing, in my stead,
A song which our dreaming shall soften.
So, Mother-my-Love, let me take your dear hand,
And away through the starlight we'll wander,--
Away through the mist to the beautiful land,--
The Dreamland that's waiting out yonder.
— -Eugene Field
-
If Nature smiles
If Nature smiles -- the Mother must
I'm sure, at many a whim
Of Her eccentric Family --
Is She so much to blame?
— -Emily Dickinson
-
Nature
Nature -- the Gentlest Mother is,
Impatient of no Child --
The feeblest -- or the waywardest --
Her Admonition mild --
In Forest -- and the Hill --
By Traveller -- be heard --
Restraining Rampant Squirrel --
Or too impetuous Bird --
How fair Her Conversation --
A Summer Afternoon --
Her Household -- Her Assembly --
And when the Sun go down --
Her Voice among the Aisles
Incite the timid prayer
Of the minutest Cricket --
The most unworthy Flower --
When all the Children sleep --
She turns as long away
As will suffice to light Her lamps --
Then bending from the Sky --
With infinite Affection --
And infiniter Care --
Her Golden finger on Her lip --
Wills Silence -- Everywhere --
— -Emily Dickinson
-
My mother was fortune
My mother was fortune, my father generosity and bounty; I
am joy, son of joy, son of joy, son of joy.
Behold, the Marquis of Glee has attainted felicity; this city and
plain are filled with soldiers and drums and flags.
If I encounter a wolf, he becomes moonfaced Joseph; if I go
down into a well, it converts into a Garden of Eram.
He whose heart is as iron and stone out of miserliness is now
changed before me into a Hatem of the age in generosity and
bounty.
Dust becomes gold and pure silver in my hand; how then
should the temptation of gold and silver waylay me?
I have an idol such that, were his sweet scent scattered
abroad, even an idol of stone would receive life through joy.
Sorrow has died for joy in him of “may God bind your consolation”;
how should not such a sword strike the neck of sorrow?
By tyranny he seizes the soul of whom he desires; justices are
all slaves of such injustice and tyranny.
What is that mole on that face? Should it manifest itself, out
of desire for it forthwith maternal aunt would be estranged from
paternal [uncle].
I said, “If I am done and send my story, will you finish it and
expound it?” He answered, “Yes.”
— -Mewlana Jalaluddin R
-
O Germany
Let others speak of her shame,
I speak of my own.
O Germany, pale mother!
How soiled you are
As you sit among the peoples.
You flaunt yourself
Among the besmirched.
The poorest of your sons
Lies struck down.
When his hunger was great.
Your other sons
Raised their hands against him.
This is notorious.
With their hands thus raised,
Raised against their brother,
They march insolently around you
And laugh in your face.
This is well known.
In your house
Lies are roared aloud.
But the truth
Must be silent.
Is it so?
Why do the oppressors praise you everywhere,
The oppressed accuse you?
The plundered
Point to you with their fingers, but
The plunderer praises the system
That was invented in your house!
Whereupon everyone sees you
Hiding the hem of your mantle which is bloody
With the blood
Of your best sons.
Hearing the harangues which echo from your house,
men laugh.
But whoever sees you reaches for a knife
As at the approach of a robber.
O Germany, pale mother!
How have your sons arrayed you
That you sit among the peoples
A thing of scorn and fear!
— -Bertolt Brecht
-
A Prayer for a Mother
Lord Jesus, Thou hast known
A mother's love and tender care:
And Thou wilt hear, while for my own
Mother most dear I make this birthday prayer.
Protect her life, I pray,
Who gave the gift of life to me;
And may she know, from day to day,
The deepening glow of Life that comes from Thee.
As once upon her breast
Fearless and well content I lay,
So let her heart, on Thee at rest,
Feel fears depart and troubles fade away.
Her every wish fulfill;
And even if Thou must refuse
In anything, let Thy wise will
A comfort bring such as kind mothers use.
Ah, hold her by the hand,
As once her hand held mine;
And though she may not understand
Life's winding way, lead her in peace divine.
I cannot pay my debt
For all the love that she has given;
But Thou, love's Lord, wilt not forget
Her due reward,--bless her in earth and heaven.
— -Henry Van Dyke
-
My Mother
I
Reg wished me to go with him to the field,
I paused because I did not want to go;
But in her quiet way she made me yield
Reluctantly, for she was breathing low.
Her hand she slowly lifted from her lap
And, smiling sadly in the old sweet way,
She pointed to the nail where hung my cap.
Her eyes said: I shall last another day.
But scarcely had we reached the distant place,
When o'er the hills we heard a faint bell ringing;
A boy came running up with frightened face;
We knew the fatal news that he was bringing.
I heard him listlessly, without a moan,
Although the only one I loved was gone.
II
The dawn departs, the morning is begun,
The trades come whispering from off the seas,
The fields of corn are golden in the sun,
The dark-brown tassels fluttering in the breeze;
The bell is sounding and the children pass,
Frog-leaping, skipping, shouting, laughing shrill,
Down the red road, over the pasture-grass,
Up to the school-house crumbling on the hill.
The older folk are at their peaceful toil,
Some pulling up the weeds, some plucking corn,
And others breaking up the sun-baked soil.
Float, faintly-scented breeze, at early morn
Over the earth where mortals sow and reap--
Beneath its breast my mother lies asleep
— -Claude McKay
-
The Black Lace Fan
It was the first gift he ever gave her,
buying it for five five francs in the Galeries
in pre-war Paris. It was stifling.
A starless drought made the nights stormy.
They stayed in the city for the summer.
The met in cafes. She was always early.
He was late. That evening he was later.
They wrapped the fan. He looked at his watch.
She looked down the Boulevard des Capucines.
She ordered more coffee. She stood up.
The streets were emptying. The heat was killing.
She thought the distance smelled of rain and lightning.
These are wild roses, appliqued on silk by hand,
darkly picked, stitched boldly, quickly.
The rest is tortoiseshell and has the reticent clear patience
of its element. It is
a worn-out, underwater bullion and it keeps,
even now, an inference of its violation.
The lace is overcast as if the weather
it opened for and offset had entered it.
The past is an empty cafe terrace.
An airless dusk before thunder. A man running.
And no way to know what happened then—
none at all—unless ,of course, you improvise:
The blackbird on this first sultry morning,
in summer, finding buds, worms, fruit,
feels the heat. Suddenly she puts out her wing—
the whole, full, flirtatious span of it.
— -Eavan Boland
-
Borrowed Bio
Where we’d recently lain,
exchanging a kiss,
stork consorted with crane,
limpkin with ibis.
Was this as much wedding
as there would ever be,
the fowls’ foot-webbing,
the identificatory
ring around a throat?
Exchange of earth and air:
not a vow but a vote
of confidence a feather
might tip by a single scale ...
That one’s a raconteur,
so much salt in his tale;
this one’s a countertenor,
lilting above the feast.
The archon of his hectare
— spotted — spotted least.
Here’s a little heckler ...
penciled seagull in the margin.
Following line by line
the path you took, I imagine
no print so fine.
— -ANGE MLINKO
-
Cave Dwellers
I’ve carved a cave in the mountainside.
I’ve drilled for water, stocked provisions
to last a lifetime. The walls are smooth.
We can live here, love, safe from elements.
We’ll invent another love that can’t destroy.
We’ll make exquisite reproductions of our
selves, immortal on these walls.
And when
this sea that can’t support us is burned clean,
when the first new creatures crawl from it,
gasping for water, air, more wondrous and more
wild than earth’s first couple, they shall see
there were two before them: you and me.
— -A. POULIN, JR.
-
Colors passing through us
Purple as tulips in May, mauve
into lush velvet, purple
as the stain blackberries leave
on the lips, on the hands,
the purple of ripe grapes
sunlit and warm as flesh.
Every day I will give you a color,
like a new flower in a bud vase
on your desk. Every day
I will paint you, as women
color each other with henna
on hands and on feet.
Red as henna, as cinnamon,
as coals after the fire is banked,
the cardinal in the feeder,
the roses tumbling on the arbor
their weight bending the wood
the red of the syrup I make from petals.
Orange as the perfumed fruit
hanging their globes on the glossy tree,
orange as pumpkins in the field,
orange as butterflyweed and the monarchs
who come to eat it, orange as my
cat running lithe through the high grass.
Yellow as a goat’s wise and wicked eyes,
yellow as a hill of daffodils,
yellow as dandelions by the highway,
yellow as butter and egg yolks,
yellow as a school bus stopping you,
yellow as a slicker in a downpour.
Here is my bouquet, here is a sing
song of all the things you make
me think of, here is oblique
praise for the height and depth
of you and the width too.
Here is my box of new crayons at your feet.
Green as mint jelly, green
as a frog on a lily pad twanging,
the green of cos lettuce upright
about to bolt into opulent towers,
green as Grand Chartreuse in a clear
glass, green as wine bottles.
Blue as cornflowers, delphiniums,
bachelors’ buttons. Blue as Roquefort,
blue as Saga. Blue as still water.
Blue as the eyes of a Siamese cat.
Blue as shadows on new snow, as a spring
azure sipping from a puddle on the blacktop.
Cobalt as the midnight sky
when day has gone without a trace
and we lie in each other’s arms
eyes shut and fingers open
and all the colors of the world
pass through our bodies like strings of fire.
— -MARGE PIERCY
-
One Hundred Love Sonnets:
I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as one loves certain obscure things,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom but carries
the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself,
and thanks to your love the tight aroma that arose
from the earth lives dimly in my body.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you directly without problems or pride:
I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love,
except in this form in which I am not nor are you,
so close that your hand upon my chest is mine,
so close that your eyes close with my dreams.
— -PABLO NERUDA
-
Love Song
There is a strong wall about me to protect me:
It is built of the words you have said to me.
There are swords about me to keep me safe:
They are the kisses of your lips.
Before me goes a shield to guard me from harm:
It is the shadow of your arms between me and danger.
All the wishes of my mind know your name,
And the white desires of my heart
They are acquainted with you.
The cry of my body for completeness,
That is a cry to you.
My blood beats out your name to me,
unceasing, pitiless
Your name, your name.
— -MARY CAROLYN DAVIES
-
Song for the Last Act
Now that I have your face by heart, I look
Less at its features than its darkening frame
Where quince and melon, yellow as young flame,
Lie with quilled dahlias and the shepherd’s crook.
Beyond, a garden. There, in insolent ease
The lead and marble figures watch the show
Of yet another summer loath to go
Although the scythes hang in the apple trees.
Now that I have your face by heart, I look.
Now that I have your voice by heart, I read
In the black chords upon a dulling page
Music that is not meant for music’s cage,
Whose emblems mix with words that shake and bleed.
The staves are shuttled over with a stark
Unprinted silence. In a double dream
I must spell out the storm, the running stream.
The beat’s too swift. The notes shift in the dark.
Now that I have your voice by heart, I read.
Now that I have your heart by heart, I see
The wharves with their great ships and architraves;
The rigging and the cargo and the slaves
On a strange beach under a broken sky.
O not departure, but a voyage done!
The bales stand on the stone; the anchor weeps
Its red rust downward, and the long vine creeps
Beside the salt herb, in the lengthening sun.
Now that I have your heart by heart, I see.
— -LOUISE BOGAN
-
Your Time's Comin
I knew that she belonged to someone else at the time,
But lonesome-lookin' women are a weakness of mine;
And so I bought that stuff about the love he never gave her,
And I figured I would love her some, and do us both a favor.
But just when I got up to leave, he walked in the door
And I guess I thought he'd be surprised.
He looked at me as if to say, 'I've been here before'
And he offered me this word to the wise:
cho; You know she's a cheater, son
And you think that you're the one
That's got a lot of what it takes to change her;
I've no doubt that you can get her
You ain't much, but that don't matter
Nothin' suits her better than a stranger.
— -Shel Silverstein
-
Woulda-Coulda-
All the Woulda-Coulda-Shouldas
Layin' in the sun,
Talkin' 'bout the things
They woulda coulda shoulda done...
But those Woulda-Coulda-Shouldas
All ran away and hid
From one little Did.
— -Shel Silverstein
-
Workin’ It Out
Well I've been spendin' my life lookin' for a shoulder
To rest my head when the nights get colder
But the days are gettin' longer and I'm gettin' older
Been long time workin' it out
I been a long time workin' it out I been a long time workin' it out
I been a long time workin' it out I been a long time workin' it out
Now I got a little woman to scrub my floor
Right down the road I got me two or three more
And you know none of them knows about the one next door
I been a long time workin' it out
I been a long time workin' it out...
Well it was late one night when I stole a little money
I bought a couple of things and then gave them to my honey
And the judge said boy if you this that's funny
You got a long time workin' it out
I got a long time workin' it out...
[ guitar ]
Yeah well I look all around me and what do I see
The whole wide world got trouble like me
Between the taxes the missus and the deep blue sea
You'll be a long time workin' it out
We'll be a long time workin' it out..
— -Shel Silverstein
-
Won't You?
Barbara's eyes are blue as azure,
But she is in love with Freddy.
Karen's sweet, but Harry has her.
Gentle Jane is going steady.
Carol hates me. So does May.
Abigail will not be mine.
Nancy lives too far away...
Won't you be my Valentine?
— -Shel Silverstein
-
Who's Taller
Depends on if the judge is fair,
Depends how high the heels you wear,
Depends on if they count the hair,
Depends if they allow the chair.
— -Shel Silverstein
-
Who Does She
I asked the Zebra:
Are you black with white stripes?
Or white with black stripes?
And the zebra asked me:
Are you good with bad habits?
Or are you bad with good habits?
Are you noisy with quiet times?
Or are you quiet with noisy times?
Are you happy with some sad days?
Or are you sad with some happy days?
Are you neat with some sloppy ways?
Or are you sloppy with some neat ways?
And on and on and on and on
And on and on he went.
I’ll never ask a zebra
About stripes
Again
— -Shel Silverstein
-
When She Cries
No one knows my lady when she's lonely
No one sees the fantasies and fears my lady hides
There are those who've shared her love and laughter
But no one hears my lady when she cries…but me
No one hears my lady when she cries
And when she cries she makes you wanna run
And chase the sun and bring it back
To brighten up a corner of her dark and troubled skies
When she cries
She walks barefoot through the misty mornin'
Dreams of golden yesterdays reflectin' in her eyes
But soon the evenin' shadows crowd around her
Frightening my lady till she cries…for me
Frightening my lady, till she cries
You may have seen her lyin' in your lamplight
And if you've heard her whispered words, it comes as no surprise
So be the one she shares her secret smiles with
But send me back my lady when she cries…for me
My lady's gonna need me when she cries
— -Shel Silverstein
-
Whatif
Last night, while I lay thinking here,
some Whatifs crawled inside my ear
and pranced and partied all night long
and sang their same old Whatif song:
Whatif I'm dumb in school?
Whatif they've closed the swimming pool?
Whatif I get beat up?
Whatif there's poison in my cup?
Whatif I start to cry?
Whatif I get sick and die?
Whatif I flunk that test?
Whatif green hair grows on my chest?
Whatif nobody likes me?
Whatif a bolt of lightning strikes me?
Whatif I don't grow talle?
Whatif my head starts getting smaller?
Whatif the fish won't bite?
Whatif the wind tears up my kite?
Whatif they start a war?
Whatif my parents get divorced?
Whatif the bus is late?
Whatif my teeth don't grow in straight?
Whatif I tear my pants?
Whatif I never learn to dance?
Everything seems well, and then
the nighttime Whatifs strike again!
— -Shel Silverstein
-
Wavy
I thought that I had wavy hair
Until I shaved. Instead,
I find that I have straight hair
And a very wavy head.
— -Shel Silverstein
-
Wastebasket Brother
Someone put their baby brother
Under this basket- -
The question is exactly why,
But I'm not going to ask it.
But someone, I ain't sayin' who,
Has got a guilty face,
Ashamed for lettin' such a lovely brother
Go to waste.
— -Shel Silverstein
-
Celery
Celery, raw
Develops the jaw,
But celery, stewed,
Is more quietly chewed.
— -Ogden Nash
-
Biological Reflection
A girl whose cheeks are covered with paint
Has an advantage with me over one whose ain't.
— -Ogden Nash
-
Always Marry
Praise the spells and bless the charms,
I found April in my arms.
April golden, April cloudy,
Gracious, cruel, tender, rowdy;
April soft in flowered languor,
April cold with sudden anger,
Ever changing, ever true --
I love April, I love you.
— -Ogden Nash
-
Adventures Of Isabel
Isabel met an enormous bear,
Isabel, Isabel, didn't care;
The bear was hungry, the bear was ravenous,
The bear's big mouth was cruel and cavernous.
The bear said, Isabel, glad to meet you,
How do, Isabel, now I'll eat you!
Isabel, Isabel, didn't worry.
Isabel didn't scream or scurry.
She washed her hands and she straightened her hair up,
Then Isabel quietly ate the bear up.
Once in a night as black as pitch
Isabel met a wicked old witch.
the witch's face was cross and wrinkled,
The witch's gums with teeth were sprinkled.
Ho, ho, Isabel! the old witch crowed,
I'll turn you into an ugly toad!
Isabel, Isabel, didn't worry,
Isabel didn't scream or scurry,
She showed no rage and she showed no rancor,
But she turned the witch into milk and drank her.
Isabel met a hideous giant,
Isabel continued self reliant.
The giant was hairy, the giant was horrid,
He had one eye in the middle of his forhead.
Good morning, Isabel, the giant said,
I'll grind your bones to make my bread.
Isabel, Isabel, didn't worry,
Isabel didn't scream or scurry.
She nibled the zwieback that she always fed off,
And when it was gone, she cut the giant's head off.
Isabel met a troublesome doctor,
He punched and he poked till he really shocked her.
The doctor's talk was of coughs and chills
And the doctor's satchel bulged with pills.
The doctor said unto Isabel,
Swallow this, it will make you well.
Isabel, Isabel, didn't worry,
Isabel didn't scream or scurry.
She took those pills from the pill concocter,
And Isabel calmly cured the doctor.
— -Ogden Nash
-
A Word To Husband
To keep your marriage brimming
With love in the loving cup,
Whenever you’re wrong, admit it;
Whenever you’re right, shut up.
Ogden Nash
— -Ogden Nash
-
Veruca Salt
'Veruca Salt, the little brute,
Has just gone down the garbage chute,
(And as we very rightly thought
That in a case like this we ought
To see the thing completely through,
We've polished off her parents, too.)
Down goes Veruca! Down the drain!
And here, perhaps, we should explain
That she will meet, as she descends,
A rather different set of friends
To those that she has left behind–
These won't be nearly so refined.
A fish head, for example, cut
This morning from a halibut.
'Hello! Good morning! How d'you do?
How nice to meet you! How are you?'
And then a little further down
A mass of others gather round:
A bacon rind, some rancid lard,
A loaf of bread gone stale and hard,
A steak that nobody could chew,
An oyster from an oyster stew,
Some liverwurst so old and gray
One smelled it from a mile away,
A rotten nut, a reeky pear,
A thing the cat left on the stair,
And lots of other things as well,
Each with a rather horrid smell.
These are Veruca's new found friends
That she will meet as she descends,
And this is the price she has to pay
For going so very far astray.
But now, my dears, we think you might
Be wondering–is it really right
That every single bit of blame
And all the scolding and the shame
Should fall upon Veruca Salt?
Is she the only one at fault?
For though she's spoiled, and dreadfully so,
A girl can't spoil herself, you know.
Who spoiled her, then? Ah, who indeed?
Who pandered to her every need?
Who turned her into such a brat?
Who are the culprits? Who did that?
Alas! You needen't look so far
To find out who these sinners are.
They are (and this is very sad)
Her loving parents, MUM and DAD.
And that is why we're glad they fell
Into the garbage chute as well.'
— -Rolad Dahi
-
There's No Earthly
There's no earthly way of knowing
Which direction they are going!
There's no knowing where they're rowing,
Or which way they river's flowing!
Not a speck of light is showing,
So the danger must be growing,
For the rowers keep on rowing,
And they're certainly not showing
Any signs that they are slowing...
— -Rolad Dahi
-
The Rowing Song
Round the world and home again
That's the sailor's way
Faster faster, faster faster
There's no earthly way of knowing
Which direction we are going
There's no knowing where we're rowing
Or which way the river's flowing
Is it raining, is it snowing
Is a hurricane a–blowing
Not a speck of light is showing
So the danger must be growing
Are the fires of Hell a–glowing
Is the grisly reaper mowing
Yes, the danger must be growing
For the rowers keep on rowing
And they're certainly not showing
Any signs that they are slowing.
— -Rolad Dahi
-
The Pig
In England once there lived a big
And wonderfully clever pig.
To everybody it was plain
That Piggy had a massive brain.
He worked out sums inside his head,
There was no book he hadn't read.
He knew what made an airplane fly,
He knew how engines worked and why.
He knew all this, but in the end
One question drove him round the bend:
He simply couldn't puzzle out
What LIFE was really all about.
What was the reason for his birth?
Why was he placed upon this earth?
His giant brain went round and round.
Alas, no answer could be found.
Till suddenly one wondrous night.
All in a flash he saw the light.
He jumped up like a ballet dancer
And yelled, 'By gum, I've got the answer! '
'They want my bacon slice by slice
'To sell at a tremendous price!
'They want my tender juicy chops
'To put in all the butcher's shops!
'They want my pork to make a roast
'And that's the part'll cost the most!
'They want my sausages in strings!
'They even want my chitterlings!
'The butcher's shop! The carving knife!
'That is the reason for my life! '
Such thoughts as these are not designed
To give a pig great peace of mind.
Next morning, in comes Farmer Bland,
A pail of pigswill in his hand,
And piggy with a mighty roar,
Bashes the farmer to the floor…
Now comes the rather grisly bit
So let's not make too much of it,
Except that you must understand
That Piggy did eat Farmer Bland,
He ate him up from head to toe,
Chewing the pieces nice and slow.
It took an hour to reach the feet,
Because there was so much to eat,
And when he finished, Pig, of course,
Felt absolutely no remorse.
Slowly he scratched his brainy head
And with a little smile he said,
'I had a fairly powerful hunch
'That he might have me for his lunch.
'And so, because I feared the worst,
'I thought I'd better eat him first.'
— -Rolad Dahi
-
The Crocodile
No animal is half as vile
As Crocky-Wock, the crocodile.
On Saturdays he likes to crunch
Six juicy children for his lunch
And he especially enjoys
Just three of each, three girls, three boys.
He smears the boys (to make them hot)
With mustard from the mustard pot.
But mustard doesn't go with girls,
It tastes all wrong with plaits and curls.
With them, what goes extremely well
Is butterscotch and caramel.
It's such a super marvelous treat
When boys are hot and girls are sweet.
At least that's Crocky's point of view
He ought to know. He's had a few.
That's all for now. It's time for bed.
Lie down and rest your sleepy head.
Ssh. Listen. What is that I hear,
Galumphing softly up the stair?
Go lock the door and fetch my gun!
Go on child, hurry! Quickly run!
No stop! Stand back! He's coming in!
Oh, look, that greasy greenish skin!
The shining teeth, the greedy smile!
It's Crocky-Wock, the Crocodile!'
— -Rolad Dahi
-
Mary's Song
The Sunday lamb cracks in its fat.
The fat
Sacrifices its opacity. . . .
A window, holy gold.
The fire makes it precious,
The same fire
Melting the tallow heretics,
Ousting the Jews.
Their thick palls float
Over the cicatrix of Poland, burnt-out
Germany.
They do not die.
Grey birds obsess my heart,
Mouth-ash, ash of eye.
They settle. On the high
Precipice
That emptied one man into space
The ovens glowed like heavens, incandescent.
It is a heart,
This holocaust I walk in,
O golden child the world will kill and eat.
— -Sylvia Plath
-
Man In Black
Where the three magenta
Breakwaters take the shove
And suck of the grey sea
To the left, and the wave
Unfists against the dun
Barb-wired headland of
The Deer Island prison
With its trim piggeries,
Hen huts and cattle green
To the right, and March ice
Glazes the rock pools yet,
Snuff-colored sand cliffs rise
Over a great stone spit
Bared by each falling tide,
And you, across those white
Stones, strode out in you dead
Black coat, black shoes, and your
Black hair till there you stood,
Fixed vortex on the far
Tip, riveting stones, air,
All of it, together.
— -Sylvia Plath
-
Magnolia Shoals
Up here among the gull cries
we stroll through a maze of pale
red-mottled relics, shells, claws
as if it were summer still.
That season has turned its back.
Through the green sea gardens stall,
bow, and recover their look
of the imperishable
gardens in an antique book
or tapestries on a wall,
leaves behind us warp and lapse.
The late month withers, as well.
Below us a white gull keeps
the weed-slicked shelf for his own,
hustles other gulls off. Crabs
rove over his field of stone;
mussels cluster blue as grapes :
his beak brings the harvest in.
The watercolorist grips
his brush in the stringent air.
The horizon's bare of ships,
the beach and the rocks are bare.
He paints a blizzard of gulls,
wings drumming in the winter.
— -Sylvia Plath
-
Magi
The abstracts hover like dull angels:
Nothing so vulgar as a nose or an eye
Bossing the ethereal blanks of their face-ovals.
Their whiteness bears no relation to laundry,
Snow, chalk or suchlike. They're
The real thing, all right: the Good, the True . . .
Salutary and pure as boiled water,
Loveless as the multiplication table.
While the child smiles into thin air.
Six months in the world, and she is able
To rock on all fours like a padded hammock.
For her, the heavy notion of Evil
Attending her cost less than a bellyache,
And Love the mother of milk, no theory.
They mistake their star, these papery godfolk.
They want the crib of some lamp-headed Plato.
Let them astound his heart with their merit.
What girl ever flourished in such company?
— -Sylvia Plath
-
Maenad
Once I was ordinary:
Sat by my father's bean tree
Eating the fingers of wisdom.
The birds made milk.
When it thundered I hid under a flat stone.
The mother of mouths didn't love me.
The old man shrank to a doll.
O I am too big to go backward:
Birdmilk is feathers,
The bean leaves are dumb as hands.
This month is fit for little.
The dead ripen in the grapeleaves.
A red tongue is among us.
Mother, keep out of my barnyard,
I am becoming another.
Dog-head, devourer:
Feed me the berries of dark.
The lids won't shut. Time
Unwinds from the great umbilicus of the sun
Its endless glitter.
I must swallow it all.
Lady, who are these others in the moon's vat —-
Sleepdrunk, their limbs at odds?
In this light the blood is black.
Tell me my name.
— -Sylvia Plath
-
Little Fugue
The yew's black fingers wag:
Cold clouds go over.
So the deaf and dumb
Signal the blind, and are ignored.
I like black statements.
The featurelessness of that cloud, now!
White as an eye all over!
The eye of the blind pianist
At my table on the ship.
He felt for his food.
His fingers had the noses of weasels.
I couldn't stop looking.
He could hear Beethoven:
Black yew, white cloud,
The horrific complications.
Finger-traps—a tumult of keys.
Empty and silly as plates,
So the blind smile.
I envy big noises,
The yew hedge of the Grosse Fuge.
Deafness is something else.
Such a dark funnel, my father!
I see your voice
Black and leafy, as in my childhood.
A yew hedge of orders,
Gothic and barbarous, pure German.
Dead men cry from it.
I am guilty of nothing.
The yew my Christ, then.
Is it not as tortured?
And you, during the Great War
In the California delicatessen
Lopping off the sausages!
They colour my sleep,
Red, mottled, like cut necks.
There was a silence!
Great silence of another order.
I was seven, I knew nothing.
The world occurred.
You had one leg, and a Prussian mind.
Now similar clouds
Are spreading their vacuous sheets.
Do you say nothing?
I am lame in the memory.
I remember a blue eye,
A briefcase of tangerines.
This was a man, then!
Death opened, like a black tree, blackly.
I survive the while,
Arranging my morning.
These are my fingers, this my baby.
The clouds are a marriage of dress, of that pallor.
— -Sylvia Plath
-
Letter To A Purist
That grandiose colossus who
Stood astride
The envious assaults of sea
(Essaying, wave by wave,
Tide by tide,
To undo him, perpetually),
Has nothing on you,
O my love,
O my great idiot, who
With one foot
Caught (as it were) in the muck-trap
Of skin and bone,
Dithers with the other way out
In preposterous provinces of the madcap
Cloud-cuckoo,
Agawp at the impeccable moon.
— -Sylvia Plath
-
Lament
The sting of bees took away my father
who walked in a swarming shroud of wings
and scorned the tick of the falling weather.
Lightning licked in a yellow lather
but missed the mark with snaking fangs:
the sting of bees took away my father.
Trouncing the sea like a ragin bather,
he rode the flood in a pride of prongs
and scorned the tick of the falling weather.
A scowl of sun struck down my mother,
tolling her grave with golden gongs,
but the sting of bees took away my father.
He counted the guns of god a bother,
laughed at the ambush of angels' tongues,
and scorned the tick of the falling weather.
O ransack the four winds and find another
man who can mangle the grin of kings:
the sting of bees took away my father
who scorned the tick of the falling weather.
— -Sylvia Plath
-
Incommunicado
The groundhog on the mountain did not run
But fatly scuttled into the splayed fern
And faced me, back to a ledge of dirt, to rattle
Her sallow rodent teeth like castanets
Against my leaning down, would not exchange
For that wary clatter sound or gesture
Of love : claws braced, at bay, my currency not hers.
Such meetings never occur in marchen
Where love-met groundhogs love one in return,
Where straight talk is the rule, whether warm or hostile,
Which no gruff animal misinterprets.
From what grace am I fallen. Tongues are strange,
Signs say nothing. The falcon who spoke clear
To Canacee cries gibberish to coarsened ears.
— -Sylvia Plath
-
In Midas' Country
Meadows of gold dust. The silver
Currents of the Connecticut fan
And meander in bland pleatings under
River-verge farms where rye-heads whiten.
All's polished to a dull luster
In the sulfurous noon. We move
With the languor of idols below
The sky's great bell glass and briefly engrave
Our limbs' image on a field of straw
And goldenrod as on gold leaf.
It might be heaven, this static
Plenitude: apples gold on the bough,
Goldfinch, goldfish, golden tiger cat stock-
Still in one gigantic tapestry—
And lovers affable, dovelike.
But now the water-skiers race,
Bracing their knees. On unseen towlines
They cleave the river's greening patinas;
The mirror quivers to smithereens.
They stunt like clowns in the circus.
So we are hauled, though we would stop
On this amber bank where grasses bleach.
Already the farmer's after his crop,
August gives over its Midas touch,
Wind bares a flintier landscape.
— -Sylvia Plath
-
air and light and time
'- you know, I've either had a family, a job, something
has always been in the
way
but now
I've sold my house, I've found this
place, a large studio, you should see the space and
the light.
for the first time in my life I'm going to have a place and
the time to
create.'
no baby, if you're going to create
you're going to create whether you work
16 hours a day in a coal mine
or
you're going to create in a small room with 3 children
while you're on
welfare,
you're going to create with part of your mind and your
body blown
away,
you're going to create blind
crippled
demented,
you're going to create with a cat crawling up your
back while
the whole city trembles in earthquakes, bombardment,
flood and fire.
baby, air and light and time and space
have nothing to do with it
and don't create anything
except maybe a longer life to find
new excuses
for.
— -Charles Bukowski
-
A Smile To Remember
we had goldfish and they circled around and around
in the bowl on the table near the heavy drapes
covering the picture window and
my mother, always smiling, wanting us all
to be happy, told me, 'be happy Henry!'
and she was right: it's better to be happy if you
can
but my father continued to beat her and me several times a week while
raging inside his 6-foot-two frame because he couldn't
understand what was attacking him from within.
my mother, poor fish,
wanting to be happy, beaten two or three times a
week, telling me to be happy: 'Henry, smile!
why don't you ever smile?'
and then she would smile, to show me how, and it was the
saddest smile I ever saw
one day the goldfish died, all five of them,
they floated on the water, on their sides, their
eyes still open,
and when my father got home he threw them to the cat
there on the kitchen floor and we watched as my mother
smiled.
— -Charles Bukowski
-
A Radio With Guts
it was on the 2nd floor on Coronado Street
I used to get drunk
and throw the radio through the window
while it was playing, and, of course,
it would break the glass in the window
and the radio would sit there on the roof
still playing
and I'd tell my woman,
"Ah, what a marvelous radio!"
the next morning I'd take the window
off the hinges
and carry it down the street
to the glass man
who would put in another pane.
I kept throwing that radio through the window
each time I got drunk
and it would sit there on the roof
still playing-
a magic radio
a radio with guts,
and each morning I'd take the window
back to the glass man.
I don't remember how it ended exactly
though I do remember
we finally moved out.
there was a woman downstairs who worked in
the garden in her bathing suit,
she really dug with that trowel
and she put her behind up in the air
and I used to sit in the window
and watch the sun shine all over that thing
while the music played.
— -Charles Bukowski
-
A Following
the phone rang at 1:30 a.m.
and it was a man from Denver:
— -Charles Bukowski
-
A Challenge To The Dark
shot in the eye
shot in the brain
shot in the ****
shot like a flower in the dance
amazing how death wins hands down
amazing how much credence is given to idiot forms of life
amazing how laughter has been drowned out
amazing how viciousness is such a constant
I must soon declare my own war on their war
I must hold to my last piece of ground
I must protect the small space I have made that has allowed me life
my life not their death
my death not their death…
— -Charles Bukowski
-
A 340 Dollar Horse
don’t ever get the idea I am a poet; you can see me
at the racetrack any day half drunk
betting quarters, sidewheelers and straight thoroughs,
but let me tell you, there are some women there
who go where the money goes, and sometimes when you
look at these whores these onehundreddollar whores
you wonder sometimes if nature isn’t playing a joke
dealing out so much breast and ass and the way
it’s all hung together, you look and you look and
you look and you can’t believe it; there are ordinary women
and then there is something else that wants to make you
tear up paintings and break albums of Beethoven
across the back of the john; anyhow, the season
was dragging and the big boys were getting busted,
all the non-pros, the producers, the cameraman,
the pushers of Mary, the fur salesman, the owners
themselves, and Saint Louie was running this day:
a sidewheeler that broke when he got in close;
he ran with his head down and was mean and ugly
and 35 to 1, and I put a ten down on him.
the driver broke him wide
took him out by the fence where he’d be alone
even if he had to travel four times as far,
and that’s the way he went it
all the way by the outer fence
traveling two miles in one
and he won like he was mad as hell
and he wasn’t even tired,
and the biggest blonde of all
all ass and breast, hardly anything else
went to the payoff window with me.
that night I couldn’t destroy her
although the springs shot sparks
and they pounded on the walls.
later she sat there in her slip
drinking Old Grandad
and she said
what’s a guy like you doing
living in a dump like this?
and I said
I’m a poet
and she threw back her beautiful head and laughed.
you? you . . . a poet?
I guess you’re right, I said, I guess you’re right.
but still she looked good to me, she still looked good,
and all thanks to an ugly horse
who wrote this poem.
— -Charles Bukowski
-
8 Count
from my bed
I watch
3 birds
on a telephone
wire.
one flies
off.
then
another.
one is left,
then
it too
is gone.
my typewriter is
tombstone
still.
and I am
reduced to bird
watching.
just thought I'd
let you
know,
fucker.
— -Charles Bukowski
-
40,000
at the track today,
Father's Day,
each paid admission was
entitled to a wallet
and each contained a
little surprise.
most of the men seemed
between 30 and 55,
going to fat,
many of them in walking
shorts,
they had gone stale in
life,
flattened out....
in fact, damn it, they
aren't even worth writing
about!
why am I doing
this?
these don't even
deserve a death bed,
these little walking
whales,
only there are so
many of
them,
in the urinals,
in the food lines,
they have managed to
survive
in a most limited
sense
but when you see
so many of them
like that,
there and not there,
breathing, farting,
commenting,
waiting for a thunder
that will not arrive,
waiting for the charging
white horse of
Glory,
waiting for the lovely
female that is not
there,
waiting to WIN,
waiting for the great
dream to
engulf them
but they do nothing,
they clomp in their
sandals,
gnaw at hot dogs
dog style,
gulping at the
meat,
they complain about
losing,
blame the jocks,
drink green
beer,
the parking lot is
jammed with their
unpaid for
cars,
the jocks mount
again for another
race,
the men press
toward the betting
windows
mesmerized,
fathers and non-fathers
Monday is waiting
for them,
this is the last
big lark.
and the horses are
totally
beautiful.
it is shocking how
beautiful they
are
at that time,
at that place,
their life shines
through;
miracles happen,
even in
hell.
I decide to stay for
one more
race.
— -Charles Bukowski
-
2 Flies
The flies are angry bits of life;
why are they so angry?
it seems they want more,
it seems almost as if they
are angry
that they are flies;
it is not my fault;
I sit in the room
with them
and they taunt me
with their agony;
it is as if they were
loose chunks of soul
left out of somewhere;
I try to read a paper
but they will not let me
be;
one seems to go in half-circles
high along the wall,
throwing a miserable sound
upon my head;
the other one, the smaller one
stays near and teases my hand,
saying nothing,
rising, dropping
crawling near;
what god puts these
lost things upon me?
other men suffer dictates of
empire, tragic love…
I suffer
insects…
I wave at the little one
which only seems to revive
his impulse to challenge:
he circles swifter,
nearer, even making
a fly-sound,
and one above
catching a sense of the new
whirling, he too, in excitement,
speeds his flight,
drops down suddenly
in a cuff of noise
and they join
in circling my hand,
strumming the base
of the lampshade
until some man-thing
in me
will take no more
unholiness
and I strike
with the rolled-up-paper -
missing! -
striking,
striking,
they break in discord,
some message lost between them,
and I get the big one
first, and he kicks on his back
flicking his legs
like an angry whore,
and I come down again
with my paper club
and he is a smear
of fly-ugliness;
the little one circles high
now, quiet and swift,
almost invisible;
he does not come near
my hand again;
he is tamed and
inaccessible; I leave
him be, he leaves me
be;
the paper, of course,
is ruined;
something has happened,
something has soiled my
day,
sometimes it does not
take man
or a woman,
only something alive;
I sit and watch
the small one;
we are woven together
in the air
and the living;
it is late
for both of us.
— -Charles Bukowski
-
16-Bit Intel 8088 Chip
with an Apple Macintosh
you can't run Radio Shack programs
in its disc drive.
nor can a Commodore 64
drive read a file
you have created on an
IBM Personal Computer.
both Kaypro and Osborne computers use
the CP/M operating system
but can't read each other's
handwriting
for they format (write
on) discs in different
ways.
the Tandy 2000 runs MS-DOS but
can't use most programs produced for
the IBM Personal Computer
unless certain
bits and bytes are
altered
but the wind still blows over
Savannah
and in the Spring
the turkey buzzard struts and
flounces before his
hens.
— -Charles Bukowski
-
Fragment Of An
Mother of Hermes! and still youthful Maia!
May I sing to thee
As thou wast hymned on the shores of Baiae?
Or may I woo thee
In earlier Sicilian? or thy smiles
Seek as they once were sought, in Grecian isles,
By bards who died content on pleasant sward,
Leaving great verse unto a little clan?
O give me their old vigour! and unheard
Save of the quiet primrose, and the span
Of heaven, and few ears,
Rounded by thee, my song should die away
Content as theirs,
Rich in the simple worship of a day.
— -John Keats
-
Fragment Of An Ode
MOTHER of Hermes! and still youthful Maia!
May I sing to thee
As thou wast hymned on the shores of Baiae?
Or may I woo thee
In earlier Sicilian? or thy smiles
Seek as they once were sought, in Grecian isles,
By bards who died content on pleasant sward,
Leaving great verse unto a little clan?
O give me their old vigour! and unheard
Save of the quiet primrose, and the span
Of heaven, and few ears,
Rounded by thee, my song should die away
Content as theirs,
Rich in the simple worship of a day.
— -John Keats
-
Fragment Of
To-night I'll have my friar -- let me think
About my room, -- I'll have it in the pink;
It should be rich and sombre, and the moon,
Just in its mid-life in the midst of June,
Should look thro' four large windows and display
Clear, but for gold-fish vases in the way,
Their glassy diamonding on Turkish floor;
The tapers keep aside, an hour and more,
To see what else the moon alone can show;
While the night-breeze doth softly let us know
My terrace is well bower'd with oranges.
Upon the floor the dullest spirit sees
A guitar-ribband and a lady's glove
Beside a crumple-leaved tale of love;
A tambour-frame, with Venus sleeping there,
All finish'd but some ringlets of her hair;
A viol, bow-strings torn, cross-wise upon
A glorious folio of Anacreon;
A skull upon a mat of roses lying,
Ink'd purple with a song concerning dying;
An hour-glass on the turn, amid the trails
Of passion-flower; -- just in time there sails
A cloud across the moon, -- the lights bring in!
And see what more my phantasy can win.
It is a gorgeous room, but somewhat sad;
The draperies are so, as tho' they had
Been made for Cleopatra's winding-sheet;
And opposite the stedfast eye doth meet
A spacious looking-glass, upon whose face,
In letters raven-sombre, you may trace
Old 'Mene, Mene, Tekel Upharsin.'
Greek busts and statuary have ever been
Held, by the finest spirits, fitter far
Than vase grotesque and Siamesian jar;
Therefore 'tis sure a want of Attic taste
That I should rather love a Gothic waste
Of eyesight on cinque-coloured potter's clay,
Than on the marble fairness of old Greece.
My table-coverlits of Jason's fleece
And black Numidian sheep-wool should be wrought,
Gold, black, and heavy, from the Lama brought.
My ebon sofas should delicious be
With down from Leda's cygnet progeny.
My pictures all Salvator's, save a few
Of Titian's portraiture, and one, though new,
Of Haydon's in its fresh magnificence.
My wine -- O good! 'tis here at my desire,
And I must sit to supper with my friar.
— -John Keats
-
Fill For Me
Fill for me a brimming bowl
And in it let me drown my soul:
But put therein some drug, designed
To Banish Women from my mind:
For I want not the stream inspiring
That fills the mind with--fond desiring,
But I want as deep a draught
As e'er from Lethe's wave was quaff'd;
From my despairing heart to charm
The Image of the fairest form
That e'er my reveling eyes beheld,
That e'er my wandering fancy spell'd.
In vain! away I cannot chace
The melting softness of that face,
The beaminess of those bright eyes,
That breast--earth's only Paradise.
My sight will never more be blest;
For all I see has lost its zest:
Nor with delight can I explore,
The Classic page, or Muse's lore.
Had she but known how beat my heart,
And with one smile reliev'd its smart
I should have felt a sweet relief,
I should have felt ``the joy of grief.''
Yet as the Tuscan mid the snow
Of Lapland dreams on sweet Arno,
Even so for ever shall she be
The Halo of my Memory.
— -John Keats
-
Fancy
Ever let the Fancy roam,
Pleasure never is at home:
At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth,
Like to bubbles when rain pelteth;
Then let winged Fancy wander
Through the thought still spread beyond her:
Open wide the mind's cage-door,
She'll dart forth, and cloudward soar.
O sweet Fancy! let her loose;
Summer's joys are spoilt by use,
And the enjoying of the Spring
Fades as does its blossoming;
Autumn's red-lipp'd fruitage too,
Blushing through the mist and dew,
Cloys with tasting: What do then?
Sit thee by the ingle, when
The sear faggot blazes bright,
Spirit of a winter's night;
When the soundless earth is muffled,
And the caked snow is shuffled
From the ploughboy's heavy shoon;
When the Night doth meet the Noon
In a dark conspiracy
To banish Even from her sky.
Sit thee there, and send abroad,
With a mind self-overaw'd,
Fancy, high-commission'd:--send her!
She has vassals to attend her:
She will bring, in spite of frost,
Beauties that the earth hath lost;
She will bring thee, all together,
All delights of summer weather;
All the buds and bells of May,
From dewy sward or thorny spray;
All the heaped Autumn's wealth,
With a still, mysterious stealth:
She will mix these pleasures up
Like three fit wines in a cup,
And thou shalt quaff it:--thou shalt hear
Distant harvest-carols clear;
Rustle of the reaped corn;
Sweet birds antheming the morn:
And, in the same moment, hark!
'Tis the early April lark,
Or the rooks, with busy caw,
Foraging for sticks and straw.
Thou shalt, at one glance, behold
The daisy and the marigold;
White-plum'd lillies, and the first
Hedge-grown primrose that hath burst;
Shaded hyacinth, alway
Sapphire queen of the mid-May;
And every leaf, and every flower
Pearled with the self-same shower.
Thou shalt see the field-mouse peep
Meagre from its celled sleep;
And the snake all winter-thin
Cast on sunny bank its skin;
Freckled nest-eggs thou shalt see
Hatching in the hawthorn-tree,
When the hen-bird's wing doth rest
Quiet on her mossy nest;
Then the hurry and alarm
When the bee-hive casts its swarm;
Acorns ripe down-pattering,
While the autumn breezes sing.
Oh, sweet Fancy! let her loose;
Every thing is spoilt by use:
Where's the cheek that doth not fade,
Too much gaz'd at? Where's the maid
Whose lip mature is ever new?
Where's the eye, however blue,
Doth not weary? Where's the face
One would meet in every place?
Where's the voice, however soft,
One would hear so very oft?
At a touch sweet Pleasure melteth
Like to bubbles when rain pelteth.
Let, then, winged Fancy find
Thee a mistress to thy mind:
Dulcet-ey'd as Ceres' daughter,
Ere the God of Torment taught her
How to frown and how to chide;
With a waist and with a side
White as Hebe's, when her zone
Slipt its golden clasp, and down
Fell her kirtle to her feet,
While she held the goblet sweet
And Jove grew languid.--Break the mesh
Of the Fancy's silken leash;
Quickly break her prison-string
And such joys as these she'll bring.--
Let the winged Fancy roam,
Pleasure never is at home.
— -John Keats
-
Faery Songs
I.
Shed no tear! oh, shed no tear!
The flower will bloom another year.
Weep no more! oh, weep no more!
Young buds sleep in the root's white core.
Dry your eyes! oh, dry your eyes!
For I was taught in Paradise
To ease my breast of melodies,--
Shed no tear.
Overhead! look overhead!
'Mong the blossoms white and red--
Look up, look up! I flutter now
On this fresh pomegranate bough.
See me! 'tis this silvery bill
Ever cures the good man's ill.
Shed no tear! oh, shed no tear!
The flower will bloom another year.
Adieu, adieu -- I fly -- adieu!
I vanish in the heaven’s blue,--
Adieu, adieu!
II.
Ah! woe is me! poor silver-wing!
That I must chant thy lady's dirge,
And death to this fair haunt of spring,
Of melody, and streams of flowery verge,--
Poor silver-wing! ah! woe is me!
That I must see
These blossoms snow upon thy lady's pall!
Go, pretty page! and in her ear
Whisper that the hour is near!
Softly tell her not to fear
Such calm favonian burial!
Go, pretty page! and soothly tell,--
The blossoms hang by a melting spell,
And fall they must, ere a star wink thrice
Upon her closed eyes,
That now in vain are weeping their last tears,
At sweet life leaving, and these arbours green,--
Rich dowry from the Spirit of the Spheres,
Alas! poor Queen!
— -John Keats
-
Endymion
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.
Nor do we merely feel these essences
For one short hour; no, even as the trees
That whisper round a temple become soon
Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon,
The passion poesy, glories infinite,
Haunt us till they become a cheering light
Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast,
That, whether there be shine, or gloom o'ercast;
They always must be with us, or we die.
Therefore, 'tis with full happiness that I
Will trace the story of Endymion.
The very music of the name has gone
Into my being, and each pleasant scene
Is growing fresh before me as the green
Of our own valleys: so I will begin
Now while I cannot hear the city's din;
Now while the early budders are just new,
And run in mazes of the youngest hue
About old forests; while the willow trails
Its delicate amber; and the dairy pails
Bring home increase of milk. And, as the year
Grows lush in juicy stalks, I'll smoothly steer
My little boat, for many quiet hours,
With streams that deepen freshly into bowers.
Many and many a verse I hope to write,
Before the daisies, vermeil rimm'd and white,
Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees
Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas,
I must be near the middle of my story.
O may no wintry season, bare and hoary,
See it half finish'd: but let Autumn bold,
With universal tinge of sober gold,
Be all about me when I make an end.
And now, at once adventuresome, I send
My herald thought into a wilderness:
There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress
My uncertain path with green, that I may speed
Easily onward, thorough flowers and weed.
— -John Keats
-
Dedication To Leigh
Glory and loveliness have pass'd away;
For if we wander out in early morn,
No wreathed incense do we see upborne
Into the east, to meet the smiling day:
No crowd of nymphs soft voic'd and young, and gay,
In woven baskets bringing ears of corn,
Roses, and pinks, and violets, to adorn
The shrine of Flora in her early May.
But there are left delights as high as these,
And I shall ever bless my destiny,
That in a time, when under pleasant trees
Pan is no longer sought, I feel a free,
A leafy luxury, seeing I could please
With these poor offerings, a man like thee.
— -John Keats
-
Dawlish Fair
Over the hill and over the dale,
And over the bourn to Dawlish--
Where gingerbread wives have a scanty sale
And gingerbread nuts are smallish.
-------------
Rantipole Betty she ran down a hill
And kicked up her petticoats fairly;
Says I I'll be Jack if you will be Gill--
So she sat on the grass debonairly.
Here's somebody coming, here's somebody coming!
Says I 'tis the wind at a parley;
So without any fuss any hawing and humming
She lay on the grass debonairly.
Here's somebody here and here's somebody there!
Says I hold your tongue you young Gipsey;
So she held her tongue and lay plump and fair
And dead as a Venus tipsy.
O who wouldn't hie to Dawlish fair,
O who wouldn't stop in a Meadow,
O who would not rumple the daisies there
And make the wild fern for a bed do!
— -John Keats
-
Daisy's Song
I
The sun, with his great eye,
Sees not so much as I;
And the moon, all silver-proud,
Might as well be in a cloud.
II
And O the spring- the spring
I lead the life of a king!
Couch'd in the teeming grass,
I spy each pretty lass.
III
I look where no one dares,
And I stare where no one stares,
And when the night is nigh,
Lambs bleat my lullaby
— -John Keats
-
Witchcraft Was Hung
Twas such a little - little boat
That toddled down the bay!
'Twas such a gallant - gallant sea
That beckoned it away!
'Twas such a greedy, greedy wave
That licked it from the Coast -
Nor ever guessed the stately sails
My little craft was lost!
— -Emily Dickinson
-
Witchcraft
Witchcraft has not a pedigree,
‘Tis early as our breath,
And mourners meet it going out
The moment of our death.
— -Emily Dickinson
-
Will There Really Be
Will there really be a "Morning"?
Is there such a thing as "Day"?
Could I see it from the mountains
If I were as tall as they?
Has it feet like Water lilies?
Has it feathers like a Bird?
Is it brought from famous countries
Of which I have never heard?
Oh some Scholar! Oh some Sailor!
Oh some Wise Men from the skies!
Please to tell a little Pilgrim
Where the place called "Morning" lies!
— -Emily Dickinson
-
Wild Nights! Wild Nights!
Wild Nights! Wild Nights!
Were I with thee,
Wild Nights should be
Our luxury!
Futile the winds
To a heart in port, --
Done with the compass,
Done with the chart!
Rowing in Eden!
Ah! the sea!
Might I but moor
To-night in Thee!
— -Emily Dickinson
-
Why Make It Doubt
Why make it doubt—it hurts it so—
So sick—to guess—
So strong—to know—
So brave—upon its little Bed
To tell the very last They said
Unto Itself—and smile—And shake—
For that dear—distant—dangerous—Sake—
But—the Instead—the Pinching fear
That Something—it did do—or dare—
Offend the Vision—and it flee—
And They no more remember me—
Nor ever turn to tell me why—
Oh, Master, This is Misery—
— -Emily Dickinson
-
Why Do They Shut Me
Why—do they shut Me out of Heaven?
Did I sing—too loud?
But—I can say a little 'Minor'
Timid as a Bird!
Wouldn't the Angels try me—
Just—once—more—
Just—see—if I troubled them—
But don't—shut the door!
Oh, if I—were the Gentleman
In the 'White Robe'—
And they—were the little Hand—that knocked—
Could—I—forbid?
— -Emily Dickinson
-
Why Do I Love You, Sir
Why do I love" You, Sir?
Because—
The Wind does not require the Grass
To answer—Wherefore when He pass
She cannot keep Her place.
Because He knows—and
Do not You—
And We know not—
Enough for Us
The Wisdom it be so—
The Lightning—never asked an Eye
Wherefore it shut—when He was by—
Because He knows it cannot speak—
And reasons not contained—
—Of Talk—
There be—preferred by Daintier Folk—
The Sunrise—Sire—compelleth Me—
Because He's Sunrise—and I see—
Therefore—Then—
I love Thee—
— -Emily Dickinson
-
Whose Cheek Is This
Whose cheek is this?
What rosy face
Has lost a blush today?
I found her—"pleiad"—in the woods
And bore her safe away.
Robins, in the tradition
Did cover such with leaves,
But which the cheek—
And which the pall
My scrutiny deceives.
— -Emily Dickinson
-
Whose Are The Little Beds
Whose are the little beds, I asked
Which in the valleys lie?
Some shook their heads, and others smiled—
And no one made reply.
Perhaps they did not hear, I said,
I will inquire again—
Whose are the beds—the tiny beds
So thick upon the plain?
'Tis Daisy, in the shortest—
A little further on—
Nearest the door—to wake the Ist—
Little Leontoden.
'Tis Iris, Sir, and Aster—
Anemone, and Bell—
Bartsia, in the blanket red—
And chubby Daffodil.
Meanwhile, at many cradles
Her busy foot she plied—
Humming the quaintest lullaby
That ever rocked a child.
Hush! Epigea wakens!
The Crocus stirs her lids—
Rhodora's cheek is crimson,
She's dreaming of the woods!
Then turning from them reverent—
Their bedtime 'tis, she said—
The Bumble bees will wake them
When April woods are red.
— -Emily Dickinson
-
Whole Gulfs
Whole Gulfs - of Red, and Fleets - of Red -
And Crews - of solid Blood -
Did place upon the West - Tonight -
As 'twere specific Ground -
And They - appointed Creatures -
In Authorized Arrays -
Due - promptly - as a Drama -
That bows - and disappears -
— -Emily Dickinson
-
The Eighth Of September
This day, Today, was a brimming glass.
This day, Today, was an immense wave.
This day was all the Earth.
This day, the storm-driven ocean
lifted us up in a kiss
so exalted we trembled
at the lightning flash
and bound as one, fell,
and drowned, without being unbound.
This day our bodies grew
stretched out to Earth’s limits,
orbited there, melded there
to one globe of wax, or a meteor’s flame.
A strange door opened, between us,
and someone, with no face as yet,
waited for us there.
— -Pablo Neruda
-
Tell Me
Tell me, is the rose naked
Or is that her only dress?
Why do trees conceal
The splendor of their roots?
Who hears the regrets
Of the thieving automobile?
Is there anything in the world sadder
Than a train standing in the rain?
— -Pablo Neruda
-
Still Another Day
The truth is in the prologue. Death to the romantic fool,
to the expert in solitary confinement,
I'm the same as the teacher from Colombia,
the rotarian from Philadelphia, the merchant
from Paysandu who save his silver
to come here. We all arrive by different streets,
by unequal languages, at Silence.
— -Pablo Neruda
-
Witches Chant
Round about the couldron go:
In the poisones entrails throw.
Toad,that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Sweated venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first in the charmed pot.
Double,double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blindworm's sting,
Lizard's leg and howlet's wing.
For charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
Double,double toil and trouble;
Fire burn and couldron bubble.
Scale of dragon,tooth of wolf,
Witch's mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark,
Root of hemlock digg'd in the dark,
Liver of blaspheming Jew;
Gall of goat; andslips of yew
silver'd in the moon's eclipse;
Nose of Turk, and Tartar's lips;
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-deliver'd by the drab,-
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add thereto a tiger's chaudron,
For ingrediants of our cauldron.
Double,double toil and trouble,
Fire burn and cauldron bubble
— -William Shakespeare
-
Winter
When icicles hang by the wall
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When Blood is nipped and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
Tu-who;
Tu-whit, tu-who: a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.
When all aloud the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,
And Marian's nose looks red and raw
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
Tu-who;
Tu-whit, tu-who: a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot
— -William Shakespeare
-
When To The Sessions
When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time's waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancelled woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanished sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoanèd moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.
— -William Shakespeare
-
When That I Was
When that I was and a little tiny boy,
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,
A foolish thing was but a toy,
For the rain it raineth every day.
But when I came to man's estate,
With hey, ho, . . .
'Gainst knaves and thieves men shut their gate
For the rain, . . .
But when I came, alas! to wive,
With hey, ho, . . .
By swaggering could I never thrive,
For the rain, . . .
But when I came unto my beds,
With hey, ho, . . .
With toss-pots still had drunken heads,
For the rain, . . .
A great while ago the world begun,
With hey, ho, . . .
But that's all one, our play is done.
And we'll strive to please you every day
— -William Shakespeare
-
When In Disgrace
When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee--and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.
— -William Shakespeare
-
To Be, Or Not To Be
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ‘tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover’d country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. —Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember’d.
— -William Shakespeare
-
The Quality Of Mercy
The quality of mercy is not strain'd.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes.
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown.
His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptered sway;
It is enthroned in the heart of kings;
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice.
— -William Shakespeare
-
For Once, Then, Something
Others taught me with having knelt at well-curbs
Always wrong to the light, so never seeing
Deeper down in the well than where the water
Gives me back in a shining surface picture
Me myself in the summer heaven godlike
Looking out of a wreath of fern and cloud puffs.
Once, when trying with chin against a well-curb,
I discerned, as I thought, beyond the picture,
Through the picture, a something white, uncertain,
Something more of the depths--and then I lost it.
Water came to rebuke the too clear water.
One drop fell from a fern, and lo, a ripple
Shook whatever it was lay there at bottom,
Blurred it, blotted it out. What was that whiteness?
Truth? A pebble of quartz? For once, then, something.
— -Robert Frost
-
Flower-Gathering
I left you in the morning,
And in the morning glow,
You walked a way beside me
To make me sad to go.
Do you know me in the gloaming,
Gaunt and dusty gray with roaming?
Are you dumb because you know me not,
Or dumb because you know?
All for me And not a question
For the faded flowers gay
That could take me from beside you
For the ages of a day?
They are yours, and be the measure
Of their worth for you to treasure,
The measure of the little while
That I've been long away.
— -Robert Frost
-
Evening In Sugar Orchard
From where I lingered in a lull in March
outside the sugar-house one night for choice,
I called the fireman with a careful voice
And bade him leave the pan and stoke the arch:
'O fireman, give the fire another stoke,
And send more sparks up chimney with the smoke.'
I thought a few might tangle, as they did,
Among bare maple boughs, and in the rare
Hill atmosphere not cease to glow,
And so be added to the moon up there.
The moon, though slight, was moon enough to show
On every tree a bucket with a lid,
And on black ground a bear-skin rug of snow.
The sparks made no attempt to be the moon.
They were content to figure in the trees
As Leo, Orion, and the Pleiades.
And that was what the boughs were full of soon.
— -Robert Frost
-
Devotion
The heart can think of no devotion
Greater than being shore to ocean -
Holding the curve of one position,
Counting an endless repetition.
— -Robert Frost
-
Desert Places
Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.
The woods around it have it - it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs.
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.
And lonely as it is, that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less -
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
WIth no expression, nothing to express.
They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars - on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.
— -Robert Frost
-
Departmental
An ant on the tablecloth
Ran into a dormant moth
Of many times his size.
He showed not the least surprise.
His business wasn't with such.
He gave it scarcely a touch,
And was off on his duty run.
Yet if he encountered one
Of the hive's enquiry squad
Whose work is to find out God
And the nature of time and space,
He would put him onto the case.
Ants are a curious race;
One crossing with hurried tread
The body of one of their dead
Isn't given a moment's arrest-
Seems not even impressed.
But he no doubt reports to any
With whom he crosses antennae,
And they no doubt report
To the higher-up at court.
Then word goes forth in Formic:
'Death's come to Jerry McCormic,
Our selfless forager Jerry.
Will the special Janizary
Whose office it is to bury
The dead of the commissary
Go bring him home to his people.
Lay him in state on a sepal.
Wrap him for shroud in a petal.
Embalm him with ichor of nettle.
This is the word of your Queen.'
And presently on the scene
Appears a solemn mortician;
And taking formal position,
With feelers calmly atwiddle,
Seizes the dead by the middle,
And heaving him high in air,
Carries him out of there.
No one stands round to stare.
It is nobody else's affair
It couldn't be called ungentle
But how thoroughly departmental
— -Robert Frost
-
Come In
As I came to the edge of the woods,
Thrush music -- hark!
Now if it was dusk outside,
Inside it was dark.
Too dark in the woods for a bird
By sleight of wing
To better its perch for the night,
Though it still could sing.
The last of the light of the sun
That had died in the west
Still lived for one song more
In a thrush's breast.
Far in the pillared dark
Thrush music went --
Almost like a call to come in
To the dark and lament.
But no, I was out for stars;
I would not come in.
I meant not even if asked;
And I hadn't been.
— -Robert Frost
-
Christmas Trees
The city had withdrawn into itself
And left at last the country to the country;
When between whirls of snow not come to lie
And whirls of foliage not yet laid, there drove
A stranger to our yard, who looked the city,
Yet did in country fashion in that there
He sat and waited till he drew us out
A-buttoning coats to ask him who he was.
He proved to be the city come again
To look for something it had left behind
And could not do without and keep its Christmas.
He asked if I would sell my Christmas trees;
My woods—the young fir balsams like a place
Where houses all are churches and have spires.
I hadn’t thought of them as Christmas Trees.
I doubt if I was tempted for a moment
To sell them off their feet to go in cars
And leave the slope behind the house all bare,
Where the sun shines now no warmer than the moon.
I’d hate to have them know it if I was.
Yet more I’d hate to hold my trees except
As others hold theirs or refuse for them,
Beyond the time of profitable growth,
The trial by market everything must come to.
I dallied so much with the thought of selling.
Then whether from mistaken courtesy
And fear of seeming short of speech, or whether
From hope of hearing good of what was mine,
I said, “There aren’t enough to be worth while.”
“I could soon tell how many they would cut,
You let me look them over.”
“You could look.
But don’t expect I’m going to let you have them.”
Pasture they spring in, some in clumps too close
That lop each other of boughs, but not a few
Quite solitary and having equal boughs
All round and round. The latter he nodded “Yes” to,
Or paused to say beneath some lovelier one,
With a buyer’s moderation, “That would do.”
I thought so too, but wasn’t there to say so.
We climbed the pasture on the south, crossed over,
And came down on the north.
He said, “A thousand.”
“A thousand Christmas trees! —at what apiece? ”
He felt some need of softening that to me:
“A thousand trees would come to thirty dollars.”
Then I was certain I had never meant
To let him have them. Never show surprise!
But thirty dollars seemed so small beside
The extent of pasture I should strip, three cents
(For that was all they figured out apiece) ,
Three cents so small beside the dollar friends
I should be writing to within the hour
Would pay in cities for good trees like those,
Regular vestry-trees whole Sunday Schools
Could hang enough on to pick off enough.
A thousand Christmas trees I didn’t know I had!
Worth three cents more to give away than sell,
As may be shown by a simple calculation.
Too bad I couldn’t lay one in a letter.
I can’t help wishing I could send you one,
In wishing you herewith a Merry Christmas.
— -Robert Frost
-
Carpe Diem
Age saw two quiet children
Go loving by at twilight,
He knew not whether homeward,
Or outward from the village,
Or (chimes were ringing) churchward,
He waited, (they were strangers)
Till they were out of hearing
To bid them both be happy.
'Be happy, happy, happy,
And seize the day of pleasure.'
The age-long theme is Age's.
'Twas Age imposed on poems
Their gather-roses burden
To warn against the danger
That overtaken lovers
From being overflooded
With happiness should have it.
And yet not know they have it.
But bid life seize the present?
It lives less in the present
Than in the future always,
And less in both together
Than in the past. The present
Is too much for the senses,
Too crowding, too confusing-
Too present to imagine.
— -Robert Frost
-
Brown's Descent
Brown lived at such a lofty farm
That everyone for miles could see
His lantern when he did his chores
In winter after half-past three.
And many must have seen him make
His wild descent from there one night,
'Cross lots, 'cross walls, 'cross everything,
Describing rings of lantern light.
Between the house and barn the gale
Got him by something he had on
And blew him out on the icy crust
That cased the world, and he was gone!
Walls were all buried, trees were few:
He saw no stay unless he stove
A hole in somewhere with his heel.
But though repeatedly he strove
And stamped and said things to himself,
And sometimes something seemed to yield,
He gained no foothold, but pursued
His journey down from field to field.
Sometimes he came with arms outspread
Like wings, revolving in the scene
Upon his longer axis, and
With no small dignity of mien.
Faster or slower as he chanced,
Sitting or standing as he chose,
According as he feared to risk
His neck, or thought to spare his clothes,
He never let the lantern drop.
And some exclaimed who saw afar
The figures he described with it,
"I wonder what those signals are
Brown makes at such an hour of night!
He's celebrating something strange.
I wonder if he's sold his farm,
Or been made Master of the Grange."
He reeled, he lurched, he bobbed, he checked;
He fell and made the lantern rattle
(But saved the light from going out.)
So half-way down he fought the battle
Incredulous of his own bad luck.
And then becoming reconciled
To everything, he gave it up
And came down like a coasting child.
"Well—I—be—" that was all he said,
As standing in the river road,
He looked back up the slippery slope
(Two miles it was) to his abode.
Sometimes as an authority
On motor-cars, I'm asked if I
Should say our stock was petered out,
And this is my sincere reply:
Yankees are what they always were.
Don't think Brown ever gave up hope
Of getting home again because
He couldn't climb that slippery slope;
Or even thought of standing there
Until the January thaw
Should take the polish off the crust.
He bowed with grace to natural law,
And then went round it on his feet,
After the manner of our stock;
Not much concerned for those to whom,
At that particular time o'clock,
It must have looked as if the course
He steered was really straight away
From that which he was headed for—
Not much concerned for them, I say:
No more so than became a man—
And politician at odd seasons.
I've kept Brown standing in the cold
While I invested him with reasons;
But now he snapped his eyes three times;
Then shook his lantern, saying, "Ile's
'Bout out!" and took the long way home
By road, a matter of several miles.
— -Robert Frost
-
Washington's Monument
Ah, not this marble, dead and cold:
Far from its base and shaft expanding—the round zones circling,
comprehending,
Thou, Washington, art all the world's, the continents' entire—
not yours alone, America,
Europe's as well, in every part, castle of lord or laborer's cot,
Or frozen North, or sultry South—the African's—the Arab's in
his tent,
Old Asia's there with venerable smile, seated amid her ruins;
(Greets the antique the hero new? ‘tis but the same—the heir
legitimate, continued ever,
The indomitable heart and arm—proofs of the never-broken
line,
Courage, alertness, patience, faith, the same—e'en in defeat
defeated not, the same:)
Wherever sails a ship, or house is built on land, or day or night,
Through teeming cities' streets, indoors or out, factories or farms,
Now, or to come, or past—where patriot wills existed or exist,
Wherever Freedom, pois'd by Toleration, sway'd by Law,
Stands or is rising thy true monument.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Wandering At Morn
WANDERING at morn,
Emerging from the night, from gloomy thoughts--thee in my thoughts,
Yearning for thee, harmonious Union! thee, Singing Bird divine!
Thee, seated coil'd in evil times, my Country, with craft and black
dismay--with every meanness, treason thrust upon thee;
--Wandering--this common marvel I beheld--the parent thrush I
watch'd, feeding its young,
(The singing thrush, whose tones of joy and faith ecstatic,
Fail not to certify and cheer my soul.)
There ponder'd, felt I,
If worms, snakes, loathsome grubs, may to sweet spiritual songs be
turn'd,
If vermin so transposed, so used, so bless'd may be, 10
Then may I trust in you, your fortunes, days, my country;
--Who knows that these may be the lessons fit for you?
From these your future Song may rise, with joyous trills,
Destin'd to fill the world.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Walt Whitman's Caution
TO The States, or any one of them, or any city of The States,
Resist much, obey little;
Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved;
Once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city, of this earth, ever
afterward resumes its liberty.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Voices
NOW I make a leaf of Voices--for I have found nothing mightier than
they are,
And I have found that no word spoken, but is beautiful, in its place.
O what is it in me that makes me tremble so at voices?
Surely, whoever speaks to me in the right voice, him or her I shall
follow,
As the water follows the moon, silently, with fluid steps, anywhere
around the globe.
All waits for the right voices;
Where is the practis'd and perfect organ? Where is the develop'd
Soul?
For I see every word utter'd thence, has deeper, sweeter, new sounds,
impossible on less terms.
I see brains and lips closed--tympans and temples unstruck,
Until that comes which has the quality to strike and to unclose, 10
Until that comes which has the quality to bring forth what lies
slumbering, forever ready, in all words.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Visor'D
A MASK--a perpetual natural disguiser of herself,
Concealing her face, concealing her form,
Changes and transformations every hour, every moment,
Falling upon her even when she sleeps.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Virginia
THE noble Sire, fallen on evil days,
I saw, with hand uplifted, menacing, brandishing,
(Memories of old in abeyance--love and faith in abeyance,)
The insane knife toward the Mother of All.
The noble Son, on sinewy feet advancing,
I saw--out of the land of prairies--land of Ohio's waters, and of
Indiana,
To the rescue, the stalwart giant, hurry his plenteous offspring,
Drest in blue, bearing their trusty rifles on their shoulders.
Then the Mother of All, with calm voice speaking,
As to you, Virginia, (I seemed to hear her say,) why strive against
me--and why seek my life? 10
When you yourself forever provide to defend me?
For you provided me Washington--and now these also.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Vigil Strange
Vigil strange I kept on the field one night;
When you my son and my comrade dropt at my side that day,
One look I but gave which your dear eyes return'd with a look I shall never forget,
One touch of your hand to mine O boy, reach'd up as you lay on the ground,
Then onward I sped in the battle, the even-contested battle,
Till late in the night reliev'd to the place at last again I made my way,
Found you in death so cold dear comrade, found your body son of responding kisses, (never again on earth responding,)
Bared your face in the starlight, curious the scene, cool blew the moderate night-wind,
Long there and then in vigil I stood, dimly around me the battle-field spreading,
Vigil wondrous and vigil sweet there in the fragrant silent night,
But not a tear fell, not even a long-drawn sigh, long, long I gazed,
Then on the earth partially reclining sat by your side leaning my chin in my hands,
Passing sweet hours, immortal and mystic hours with you dearest comrade -- not a tear, not a word,
Vigil of silence, love and death, vigil for you my son and my soldier,
As onward silently stars aloft, eastward new ones upward stole,
Vigil final for you brave boy, (I could not save you, swift was your death,
I faithfully loved you and cared for you living, I think we shall surely meet again,)
Till at latest lingering of the night, indeed just as the dawn appear'd,
My comrade I wrapt in his blanket, envelop'd well his form,
Folded the blanket well, tucking it carefully over head and carefully under feet,
And there and then and bathed by the rising sun, my son in his grave, in his rude-dug grave I deposited,
Ending my vigil strange with that, vigil of night and battle-field dim,
Vigil for boy of responding kisses, (never again on earth responding,)
Vigil for comrade swiftly slain, vigil I never forget, how as day brighten'd,
I rose from the chill ground and folded my soldier well in his blanket,
And buried him where he fell.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Vicouac On A Mountain
I SEE before me now, a traveling army halting;
Below, a fertile valley spread, with barns, and the orchards of
summer;
Behind, the terraced sides of a mountain, abrupt in places, rising
high;
Broken, with rocks, with clinging cedars, with tall shapes, dingily
seen;
The numerous camp-fires scatter'd near and far, some away up on the
mountain;
The shadowy forms of men and horses, looming, large-sized flickering;
And over all, the sky--the sky! far, far out of reach, studded,
breaking out, the eternal stars.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Unnamed Lands
NATIONS ten thousand years before These States, and many times ten
thousand years before These States;
Garner'd clusters of ages, that men and women like us grew up and
travel'd their course, and pass'd on;
What vast-built cities--what orderly republics--what pastoral tribes
and nomads;
What histories, rulers, heroes, perhaps transcending all others;
What laws, customs, wealth, arts, traditions;
What sort of marriage--what costumes--what physiology and phrenology;
What of liberty and slavery among them--what they thought of death
and the soul;
Who were witty and wise--who beautiful and poetic--who brutish and
undevelop'd;
Not a mark, not a record remains--And yet all remains.
O I know that those men and women were not for nothing, any more than
we are for nothing; 10
I know that they belong to the scheme of the world every bit as much
as we now belong to it, and as all will henceforth belong to
it.
Afar they stand--yet near to me they stand,
Some with oval countenances, learn'd and calm,
Some naked and savage--Some like huge collections of insects,
Some in tents--herdsmen, patriarchs, tribes, horsemen,
Some prowling through woods--Some living peaceably on farms,
laboring, reaping, filling barns,
Some traversing paved avenues, amid temples, palaces, factories,
libraries, shows, courts, theatres, wonderful monuments.
Are those billions of men really gone?
Are those women of the old experience of the earth gone?
Do their lives, cities, arts, rest only with us? 20
Did they achieve nothing for good, for themselves?
I believe of all those billions of men and women that fill'd the
unnamed lands, every one exists this hour, here or elsewhere,
invisible to us, in exact proportion to what he or she grew
from in life, and out of what he or she did, felt, became,
loved, sinn'd, in life.
I believe that was not the end of those nations, or any person of
them, any more than this shall be the end of my nation, or of
me;
Of their languages, governments, marriage, literature, products,
games, wars, manners, crimes, prisons, slaves, heroes, poets,
I suspect their results curiously await in the yet unseen
world--counterparts of what accrued to them in the seen world.
I suspect I shall meet them there,
I suspect I shall there find each old particular of those unnamed
lands.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Unfolded Out Of The Folds
UNFOLDED out of the folds of the woman, man comes unfolded, and is
always to come unfolded;
Unfolded only out of the superbest woman of the earth, is to come the
superbest man of the earth;
Unfolded out of the friendliest woman, is to come the friendliest
man;
Unfolded only out of the perfect body of a woman, can a man be form'd
of perfect body;
Unfolded only out of the inimitable poem of the woman, can come the
poems of man--(only thence have my poems come;)
Unfolded out of the strong and arrogant woman I love, only thence can
appear the strong and arrogant man I love;
Unfolded by brawny embraces from the well-muscled woman I love, only
thence come the brawny embraces of the man;
Unfolded out of the folds of the woman's brain, come all the folds of
the man's brain, duly obedient;
Unfolded out of the justice of the woman, all justice is unfolded;
Unfolded out of the sympathy of the woman is all sympathy: 10
A man is a great thing upon the earth, and through eternity--but
every jot of the greatness of man is unfolded out of woman,
First the man is shaped in the woman, he can then be shaped in
himself
— -Walt Whitman
-
France
A GREAT year and place;
A harsh, discordant, natal scream out-sounding, to touch the mother's
heart closer than any yet.
I walk'd the shores of my Eastern Sea,
Heard over the waves the little voice,
Saw the divine infant, where she woke, mournfully wailing, amid the
roar of cannon, curses, shouts, crash of falling buildings;
Was not so sick from the blood in the gutters running--nor from the
single corpses, nor those in heaps, nor those borne away in the
tumbrils;
Was not so desperate at the battues of death--was not so shock'd at
the repeated fusillades of the guns.
Pale, silent, stern, what could I say to that long-accrued
retribution?
Could I wish humanity different?
Could I wish the people made of wood and stone? 10
Or that there be no justice in destiny or time?
O Liberty! O mate for me!
Here too the blaze, the grape-shot and the axe, in reserve, to fetch
them out in case of need;
Here too, though long represt, can never be destroy'd;
Here too could rise at last, murdering and extatic;
Here too demanding full arrears of vengeance.
Hence I sign this salute over the sea,
And I do not deny that terrible red birth and baptism,
But remember the little voice that I heard wailing--and wait with
perfect trust, no matter how long;
And from to-day, sad and cogent, I maintain the bequeath'd cause, as
for all lands, 20
And I send these words to Paris with my love,
And I guess some chansonniers there will understand them,
For I guess there is latent music yet in France--floods of it;
O I hear already the bustle of instruments--they will soon be
drowning all that would interrupt them;
O I think the east wind brings a triumphal and free march,
It reaches hither--it swells me to joyful madness,
I will run transpose it in words, to justify it,
I will yet sing a song for you, MA FEMME.
— -Walt Whitman
-
For Him I Sing
FOR him I sing,
I raise the Present on the Past,
(As some perennial tree, out of its roots, the present on the past:)
With time and space I him dilate--and fuse the immortal laws,
To make himself, by them, the law unto himself.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Fast Anchor'D
FAST-ANCHOR'D, eternal, O love! O woman I love!
O bride! O wife! more resistless than I can tell, the thought of you!
--Then separate, as disembodied, or another born,
Ethereal, the last athletic reality, my consolation;
I ascend--I float in the regions of your love, O man,
O sharer of my roving life.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Facing West
FACING west, from California's shores,
Inquiring, tireless, seeking what is yet unfound,
I, a child, very old, over waves, towards the house of maternity, the
land of migrations, look afar,
Look off the shores of my Western Sea--the circle almost circled;
For, starting westward from Hindustan, from the vales of Kashmere,
From Asia--from the north--from the God, the sage, and the hero,
From the south--from the flowery peninsulas, and the spice islands;
Long having wander'd since--round the earth having wander'd,
Now I face home again--very pleas'd and joyous;
(But where is what I started for, so long ago? 10
And why is it yet unfound?)
— -Walt Whitman
-
Excelsior
WHO has gone farthest? For lo! have not I gone farther?
And who has been just? For I would be the most just person of the
earth;
And who most cautious? For I would be more cautious;
And who has been happiest? O I think it is I! I think no one was ever
happier than I;
And who has lavish'd all? For I lavish constantly the best I have;
And who has been firmest? For I would be firmer;
And who proudest? For I think I have reason to be the proudest son
alive--for I am the son of the brawny and tall-topt city;
And who has been bold and true? For I would be the boldest and truest
being of the universe;
And who benevolent? For I would show more benevolence than all the
rest;
And who has projected beautiful words through the longest time? Have
I not outvied him? have I not said the words that shall stretch
through longer time? 10
And who has receiv'd the love of the most friends? For I know what it
is to receive the passionate love of many friends;
And who possesses a perfect and enamour'd body? For I do not believe
any one possesses a more perfect or enamour'd body than mine;
And who thinks the amplest thoughts? For I will surround those
thoughts;
And who has made hymns fit for the earth? For I am mad with devouring
extasy to make joyous hymns for the whole earth!
— -Walt Whitman
-
Ethiopia Saluting
WHO are you, dusky woman, so ancient, hardly human,
With your woolly-white and turban'd head, and bare bony feet?
Why, rising by the roadside here, do you the colors greet?
('Tis while our army lines Carolina's sand and pines,
Forth from thy hovel door, thou, Ethiopia, com'st to me,
As, under doughty Sherman, I march toward the sea.)
Me, master, years a hundred, since from my parents sunder'd,
A little child, they caught me as the savage beast is caught;
Then hither me, across the sea, the cruel slaver brought.
No further does she say, but lingering all the day, 10
Her high-borne turban'd head she wags, and rolls her darkling eye,
And curtseys to the regiments, the guidons moving by.
What is it, fateful woman--so blear, hardly human?
Why wag your head, with turban bound--yellow, red and green?
Are the things so strange and marvelous, you see or have seen?
— -Walt Whitman
-
Election Day, November,
If I should need to name, O Western World, your powerfulest scene and show,
‘Twould not be you, Niagara—nor you, ye limitless prairies—nor your huge rifts of canyons, Colorado,
Nor you, Yosemite—nor Yellowstone, with all its spasmic geyser-loops ascending to the skies, appearing
and disappearing,
Nor Oregon's white cones—nor Huron's belt of mighty lakes—nor Mississippi's stream:
—This seething hemisphere's humanity, as now, I'd name—the still small voice vibrating—America's
choosing day,
(The heart of it not in the chosen—the act itself the main, the quadriennial choosing,)
The stretch of North and South arous'd—sea-board and inland—Texas to Maine—the Prairie States—Vermont,
Virginia, California,
The final ballot-shower from East to West—the paradox and conflict,
The countless snow-flakes falling—(a swordless conflict,
Yet more than all Rome's wars of old, or modern Napoleon's:) the peaceful choice of all,
Or good or ill humanity—welcoming the darker odds, the dross:
—Foams and ferments the wine? it serves to purify—while the heart pants, life glows:
These stormy gusts and winds waft precious ships,
Swell'd Washington's, Jefferson's, Lincoln's sails.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Dirge For Two Veterans
THE last sunbeam
Lightly falls from the finish'd Sabbath,
On the pavement here--and there beyond, it is looking,
Down a new-made double grave.
Lo! the moon ascending!
Up from the east, the silvery round moon;
Beautiful over the house tops, ghastly phantom moon;
Immense and silent moon.
I see a sad procession,
And I hear the sound of coming full-key'd bugles; 10
All the channels of the city streets they're flooding,
As with voices and with tears.
I hear the great drums pounding,
And the small drums steady whirring;
And every blow of the great convulsive drums,
Strikes me through and through.
For the son is brought with the father;
In the foremost ranks of the fierce assault they fell;
Two veterans, son and father, dropt together,
And the double grave awaits them. 20
Now nearer blow the bugles,
And the drums strike more convulsive;
And the day-light o'er the pavement quite has faded,
And the strong dead-march enwraps me.
In the eastern sky up-buoying,
The sorrowful vast phantom moves illumin'd;
('Tis some mother's large, transparent face,
In heaven brighter growing.)
O strong dead-march, you please me!
O moon immense, with your silvery face you soothe me! 30
O my soldiers twain! O my veterans, passing to burial!
What I have I also give you.
The moon gives you light,
And the bugles and the drums give you music;
And my heart, O my soldiers, my veterans,
My heart gives you love.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Despairing Cries
DESPAIRING cries float ceaselessly toward me, day and night,
The sad voice of Death--the call of my nearest lover, putting forth,
alarmed, uncertain,
This sea I am quickly to sail, come tell me,
Come tell me where I am speeding--tell me my destination.
I understand your anguish, but I cannot help you,
I approach, hear, behold--the sad mouth, the look out of the eyes,
your mute inquiry,
Whither I go from the bed I now recline on, come tell me;
Old age, alarmed, uncertain--A young woman's voice appealing to me,
for comfort,
A young man's voice, Shall I not escape?
— -Walt Whitman
-
Delicate Cluster
DELICATE cluster! flag of teeming life!
Covering all my lands! all my sea-shores lining!
Flag of death! (how I watch'd you through the smoke of battle
pressing!
How I heard you flap and rustle, cloth defiant!)
Flag cerulean! sunny flag! with the orbs of night dappled!
Ah my silvery beauty! ah my woolly white and crimson!
Ah to sing the song of you, my matron mighty!
My sacred one, my mother
— -Walt Whitman
-
On Journeys
ON journeys through the States we start,
(Ay, through the world--urged by these songs,
Sailing henceforth to every land--to every sea;)
We, willing learners of all, teachers of all, and lovers of all.
We have watch'd the seasons dispensing themselves, and passing on,
We have said, Why should not a man or woman do as much as the
seasons, and effuse as much?
We dwell a while in every city and town;
We pass through Kanada, the north-east, the vast valley of the
Mississippi, and the Southern States;
We confer on equal terms with each of The States,
We make trial of ourselves, and invite men and women to hear; 10
We say to ourselves, Remember, fear not, be candid, promulge the body
and the Soul;
Dwell a while and pass on--Be copious, temperate, chaste, magnetic,
And what you effuse may then return as the seasons return,
And may be just as much as the seasons.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Old Ireland
FAR hence, amid an isle of wondrous beauty,
Crouching over a grave, an ancient, sorrowful mother,
Once a queen--now lean and tatter'd, seated on the ground,
Her old white hair drooping dishevel'd round her shoulders;
At her feet fallen an unused royal harp,
Long silent--she too long silent--mourning her shrouded hope and
heir;
Of all the earth her heart most full of sorrow, because most full of
love.
Yet a word, ancient mother;
You need crouch there no longer on the cold ground, with forehead
between your knees;
O you need not sit there, veil'd in your old white hair, so
dishevel'd; 10
For know you, the one you mourn is not in that grave;
It was an illusion--the heir, the son you love, was not really dead;
The Lord is not dead--he is risen again, young and strong, in another
country;
Even while you wept there by your fallen harp, by the grave,
What you wept for, was translated, pass'd from the grave,
The winds favor'd, and the sea sail'd it,
And now with rosy and new blood,
Moves to-day in a new country.
— -Walt Whitman
-
O Sun Of Real Peace
O SUN of real peace! O hastening light!
O free and extatic! O what I here, preparing, warble for!
O the sun of the world will ascend, dazzling, and take his height--
and you too, O my Ideal, will surely ascend!
O so amazing and broad--up there resplendent, darting and burning!
O vision prophetic, stagger'd with weight of light! with pouring
glories!
O lips of my soul, already becoming powerless!
O ample and grand Presidentiads! Now the war, the war is over!
New history! new heroes! I project you!
Visions of poets! only you really last! sweep on! sweep on!
O heights too swift and dizzy yet! 10
O purged and luminous! you threaten me more than I can stand!
(I must not venture--the ground under my feet menaces me--it will not
support me:
O future too immense,)--O present, I return, while yet I may, to you.
— -Walt Whitman
-
O Me! O Life!
O ME! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless--of cities fill'd with the
foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I,
and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light--of the objects mean--of the
struggle ever renew'd;
Of the poor results of all--of the plodding and sordid crowds I see
around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest--with the rest me
intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring--What good amid these, O me, O
life?
Answer.
That you are here--that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.
— -Walt Whitman
-
O Living Always dying
O LIVING always--always dying!
O the burials of me, past and present!
O me, while I stride ahead, material, visible, imperious as ever!
O me, what I was for years, now dead, (I lament not--I am content;)
O to disengage myself from those corpses of me, which I turn and look
at, where I cast them!
To pass on, (O living! always living!) and leave the corpses behind!
— -Walt Whitman
-
O Hymen! O Hymenee!
O HYMEN! O hymenee!
Why do you tantalize me thus?
O why sting me for a swift moment only?
Why can you not continue? O why do you now cease?
Is it because, if you continued beyond the swift moment, you would
soon certainly kill me?
— -Walt Whitman
-
O Bitter Sprig!
O BITTER sprig! Confession sprig!
In the bouquet I give you place also--I bind you in,
Proceeding no further till, humbled publicly,
I give fair warning, once for all.
I own that I have been sly, thievish, mean, a prevaricator, greedy,
derelict,
And I own that I remain so yet.
What foul thought but I think it--or have in me the stuff out of
which it is thought?
What in darkness in bed at night, alone or with a companion?
— -Walt Whitman
-
Now Finale To The Shore
NOW finale to the shore!
Now, land and life, finale, and farewell!
Now Voyager depart! (much, much for thee is yet in store;)
Often enough hast thou adventur'd o'er the seas,
Cautiously cruising, studying the charts,
Duly again to port, and hawser's tie, returning:
--But now obey, thy cherish'd, secret wish,
Embrace thy friends--leave all in order;
To port, and hawser's tie, no more returning,
Depart upon thy endless cruise, old Sailor! 10
— -Walt Whitman
-
Not Youth Pertains To Me
NOT youth pertains to me,
Nor delicatesse--I cannot beguile the time with talk;
Awkward in the parlor, neither a dancer nor elegant;
In the learn'd coterie sitting constrain'd and still--for learning.
inures not to me;
Beauty, knowledge, inure not to me--yet there are two or three things
inure to me;
I have nourish'd the wounded, and sooth'd many a dying soldier,
And at intervals, waiting, or in the midst of camp,
Composed these songs.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Me Imperturbe
ME imperturbe, standing at ease in Nature,
Master of all, or mistress of all--aplomb in the midst of irrational
things,
Imbued as they--passive, receptive, silent as they,
Finding my occupation, poverty, notoriety, foibles, crimes, less
important than I thought;
Me private, or public, or menial, or solitary--all these subordinate,
(I am eternally equal with the best--I am not subordinate;)
Me toward the Mexican Sea, or in the Mannahatta, or the Tennessee, or
far north, or inland,
A river man, or a man of the woods, or of any farm-life in These
States, or of the coast, or the lakes, or Kanada,
Me, wherever my life is lived, O to be
self-balanced for
contingencies!
O to confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents, rebuffs, as
the trees and animals do.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Not The Pilot
NOT the pilot has charged himself to bring his ship into port, though
beaten back, and many times baffled;
Not the path-finder, penetrating inland, weary and long,
By deserts parch'd, snows-chill'd, rivers wet, perseveres till he
reaches his destination,
More than I have charged myself, heeded or unheeded, to compose a
free march for These States,
To be exhilarating music to them--a battle-call, rousing to arms, if
need be--years, centuries hence.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Not My Enemies Ever Invad
NOT my enemies ever invade me--no harm to my pride from them I fear;
But the lovers I recklessly love--lo! how they master me!
Lo! me, ever open and helpless, bereft of my strength!
Utterly abject, grovelling on the ground before them.
— -Walt Whitman
-
NOT heaving from my ribb'
NOT heaving from my ribb'd breast only;
Not in sighs at night, in rage, dissatisfied with myself;
Not in those long-drawn, ill-supprest sighs;
Not in many an oath and promise broken;
Not in my wilful and savage soul's volition;
Not in the subtle nourishment of the air;
Not in this beating and pounding at my temples and wrists;
Not in the curious systole and diastole within, which will one day
cease;
Not in many a hungry wish, told to the skies only;
Not in cries, laughter, defiances, thrown from me when alone, far in
the wilds; 10
Not in husky pantings through clench'd teeth;
Not in sounded and resounded words--chattering words, echoes, dead
words;
Not in the murmurs of my dreams while I sleep,
Nor the other murmurs of these incredible dreams of every day;
Nor in the limbs and senses of my body, that take you and dismiss you
continually--Not there;
Not in any or all of them, O adhesiveness! O pulse of my life!
Need I that you exist and show yourself, any more than in these
songs.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Not Heat Flames Up And Co
NOT heat flames up and consumes,
Not sea-waves hurry in and out,
Not the air, delicious and dry, the air of the ripe summer, bears
lightly along white down-balls of myriads of seeds,
Wafted, sailing gracefully, to drop where they may;
Not these--O none of these, more than the flames of me, consuming,
burning for his love whom I love!
O none, more than I, hurrying in and out:
--Does the tide hurry, seeking something, and never give up? O I the
same;
O nor down-balls, nor perfumes, nor the high, rain-emitting clouds,
are borne through the open air,
Any more than my Soul is borne through the open air,
Wafted in all directions, O love, for friendship, for you. 10
— -Walt Whitman
-
No Labor-Saving Machine
NO labor-saving machine,
Nor discovery have I made;
Nor will I be able to leave behind me any wealthy bequest to found a
hospital or library,
Nor reminiscence of any deed of courage, for America,
Nor literary success, nor intellect--nor book for the book-shelf;
Only a few carols, vibrating through the air, I leave,
For comrades and lovers.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Night On The Prairies
NIGHT on the prairies;
The supper is over--the fire on the ground burns low;
The wearied emigrants sleep, wrapt in their blankets:
I walk by myself--I stand and look at the stars, which I think now I
never realized before.
Now I absorb immortality and peace,
I admire death, and test propositions.
How plenteous! How spiritual! How resumé!
The same Old Man and Soul--the same old aspirations, and the same
content.
I was thinking the day most splendid, till I saw what the not-day
exhibited,
I was thinking this globe enough, till there sprang out so noiseless
around me myriads of other globes. 10
Now, while the great thoughts of space and eternity fill me, I will
measure myself by them;
And now, touch'd with the lives of other globes, arrived as far along
as those of the earth,
Or waiting to arrive, or pass'd on farther than those of the earth,
I henceforth no more ignore them, than I ignore my own life,
Or the lives of the earth arrived as far as mine, or waiting to
arrive.
O I see now that life cannot exhibit all to me--as the day cannot,
I see that I am to wait for what will be exhibited by death
— -Walt Whitman
-
Native Moments
NATIVE moments! when you come upon me--Ah you are here now! Give me now
libidinous joys only! Give me the drench of my passions! Give me life
coarse and rank! To-day, I go consort with nature's darlings--to-night too;
I am for those who believe in loose delights--I share the midnight orgies
of young men; I dance with the dancers, and drink with the drinkers; The
echoes ring with our indecent calls; I take for my love some prostitute--I
pick out some low person for my dearest friend, He shall be lawless, rude,
illiterate--he shall be one condemn'd by others for deeds done; I will play
a part no longer--Why should I exile myself from my companions? 10 O you
shunn'd persons! I at least do not shun you, I come forthwith in your
midst--I will be your poet, I will be more to you than to any of the rest.
— -Walt Whitman
-
My Picture-Callery
IN a little house keep I pictures suspended, it is not a fix'd house,
It is round, it is only a few inches from one side to the other;
Yet behold, it has room for all the shows of the world, all memories?
Here the tableaus of life, and here the groupings of death;
Here, do you know this? this is cicerone himself,
With finger rais'd he points to the prodigal pictures.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Mother And Babe
SEE the sleeping babe, nestling the breast of its mother;
The sleeping mother and babe- hush'd, I study them long and long.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Mediums
THEY shall arise in the States,
They shall report Nature, laws, physiology, and happiness;
They shall illustrate Democracy and the kosmos;
They shall be alimentive, amative, perceptive;
They shall be complete women and men--their pose brawny and supple,
their drink water, their blood clean and clear;
They shall enjoy materialism and the sight of products--they shall
enjoy the sight of the beef, lumber, bread-stuffs, of Chicago,
the great city;
They shall train themselves to go in public to become orators and
oratresses;
Strong and sweet shall their tongues be--poems and materials of poems
shall come from their lives--they shall be makers and finders;
Of them, and of their works, shall emerge divine conveyers, to convey
gospels;
Characters, events, retrospections, shall be convey'd in gospels
--Trees, animals, waters, shall be convey'd, 10
Death, the future, the invisible faith, shall all be convey'd
— -Walt Whitman
-
The Cocoon
As far as I can see this autumn haze
That spreading in the evening air both way,
Makes the new moon look anything but new,
And pours the elm-tree meadow full of blue,
Is all the smoke from one poor house alone
With but one chimney it can call its own;
So close it will not light an early light,
Keeping its life so close and out of sign
No one for hours has set a foot outdoors
So much as to take care of evening chores.
The inmates may be lonely women-folk.
I want to tell them that with all this smoke
They prudently are spinning their cocoon
And anchoring it to an earth and moon
From which no winter gale can hope to blow it,--
Spinning their own cocoon did they but know it.
— -Robert Frost
-
The Census-Taker
I came an errand one cloud-blowing evening
To a slab-built, black-paper-covered house
Of one room and one window and one door,
The only dwelling in a waste cut over
A hundred square miles round it in the mountains:
And that not dwelt in now by men or women.
(It never had been dwelt in, though, by women,
So what is this I make a sorrow of?)
I came as census-taker to the waste
To count the people in it and found none,
None in the hundred miles, none in the house,
Where I came last with some hope, but not much,
After hours' overlooking from the cliffs
An emptiness flayed to the very stone.
I found no people that dared show themselves,
None not in hiding from the outward eye.
The time was autumn, but how anyone
could tell the time of year when every tree
That could have dropped a leaf was down itself
And nothing but the stump of it was left
Now bringing out its rings in sugar of pitch;
And every tree up stood a rotting trunk
Without a single leaf to spend on autumn,
Or branch to whistle after what was spent.
Perhaps the wind the more without the help
Of breathing trees said something of the time
Of year or day the way it swung a door
Forever off the latch, as if rude men
Passed in and slammed it shut each one behind him
For the next one to open for himself.
I counted nine I had no right to count
(But this was dreamy unofficial counting)
Before I made the tenth across the threshold.
Where was my supper? Where was anyone's?
No lamp was lit. Nothing was on the table.
The stove was cold—the stove was off the chimney—
And down by one side where it lacked a leg.
The people that had loudly passed the door
Were people to the ear but not the eye.
They were not on the table with their elbows.
They were not sleeping in the shelves of bunks.
I saw no men there and no bones of men there.
I armed myself against such bones as might be
With the pitch-blackened stub of an ax-handle
I picked up off the straw-dust-covered floor.
Not bones, but the ill-fitted window rattled.
The door was still because I held it shut
While I thought what to do that could be done—
About the house—about the people not there.
This house in one year fallen to decay
Filled me with no less sorrow than the houses
Fallen to ruin in ten thousand years
Where Asia wedges Africa from Europe.
Nothing was left to do that I could see
Unless to find that there was no one there
And declare to the cliffs too far for echo,
"The place is desert, and let whoso lurks
In silence, if in this he is aggrieved,
Break silence now or be forever silent.
Let him say why it should not be declared so."
The melancholy of having to count souls
Where they grow fewer and fewer every year
Is extreme where they shrink to none at all.
It must be I want life to go on living.
— -Robert Frost
-
Plowmen
A plow, they say, to plow the snow.
They cannot mean to plant it, no--
Unless in bitterness to mock
At having cultivated rock.
— -Robert Frost
-
Our Singing Strength
It snowed in spring on earth so dry and warm
The flakes could find no landing place to form.
Hordes spent themselves to make it wet and cold,
And still they failed of any lasting hold.
They made no white impression on the black.
They disappeared as if earth sent them back.
Not till from separate flakes they changed at night
To almost strips and tapes of ragged white
Did grass and garden ground confess it snowed,
And all go back to winter but the road.
Next day the scene was piled and puffed and dead.
The grass lay flattened under one great tread.
Borne down until the end almost took root,
The rangey bough anticipated fruit
With snowball cupped in every opening bud.
The road alone maintained itself in mud,
Whatever its secret was of greater heat
From inward fires or brush of passing feet.
In spring more mortal singers than belong
To any one place cover us with song.
Thrush, bluebird, blackbird, sparrow, and robin throng;
Some to go further north to Hudson's Bay,
Some that have come too far north back away,
Really a very few to build and stay.
Now was seen how these liked belated snow.
the field had nowhere left for them to go;
They'd soon exhausted all there was in flying;
The trees they'd had enough of with once trying
And setting off their heavy powder load.
They could find nothing open but the road.
Sot there they let their lives be narrowed in
By thousands the bad weather made akin.
The road became a channel running flocks
Of glossy birds like ripples over rocks.
I drove them under foot in bits of flight
That kept the ground. almost disputing right
Of way with me from apathy of wing,
A talking twitter all they had to sing.
A few I must have driven to despair
Made quick asides, but having done in air
A whir among white branches great and small
As in some too much carven marble hall
Where one false wing beat would have brought down all,
Came tamely back in front of me, the Drover,
To suffer the same driven nightmare over.
One such storm in a lifetime couldn't teach them
That back behind pursuit it couldn't reach them;
None flew behind me to be left alone.
Well, something for a snowstorm to have shown
The country's singing strength thus brought together,
the thought repressed and moody with the weather
Was none the less there ready to be freed
And sing the wildflowers up from root and seed.
— -Robert Frost
-
On Going Unnoticed
As vain to raise a voice as a sigh
In the tumult of free leaves on high.
What are you in the shadow of trees
Engaged up there with the light and breeze?
Less than the coral-root you know
That is content with the daylight low,
And has no leaves at all of its own;
Whose spotted flowers hang meanly down.
You grasp the bark by a rugged pleat,
And look up small from the forest's feet.
The only leaf it drops goes wide,
Your name not written on either side.
You linger your little hour and are gone,
And still the wood sweep leafily on,
Not even missing the coral-root flower
You took as a trophy of the hour.
— -Robert Frost
-
Lo! Victress On The Peaks
LO! Victress on the peaks!
Where thou, with mighty brow, regarding the world,
(The world, O Libertad, that vainly conspired against thee;)
Out of its countless beleaguering toils, after thwarting them all;
Dominant, with the dazzling sun around thee,
Flauntest now unharm'd, in immortal soundness and bloom--lo! in these
hours supreme,
No poem proud, I, chanting, bring to thee--nor mastery's rapturous
verse;
But a book, containing night's darkness, and blood-dripping wounds,
And psalms of the dead.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Lessons
THERE are who teach only the sweet lessons of peace and safety;
But I teach lessons of war and death to those I love,
That they readily meet invasions, when they come.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Laws For Creations
LAWS for Creations,
For strong artists and leaders--for fresh broods of teachers, and
perfect literats for America,
For noble savans, and coming musicians.
All must have reference to the ensemble of the world, and the compact
truth of the world;
There shall be no subject too pronounced--All works shall illustrate
the divine law of indirections.
What do you suppose Creation is?
What do you suppose will satisfy the Soul, except to walk free, and
own no superior?
What do you suppose I would intimate to you in a hundred ways, but
that man or woman is as good as God?
And that there is no God any more divine than Yourself?
And that that is what the oldest and newest myths finally mean? 10
And that you or any one must approach Creations through such laws?
— -Walt Whitman
-
Kosmos
WHO includes diversity, and is Nature,
Who is the amplitude of the earth, and the coarseness and sexuality
of the earth, and the great charity of the earth, and the
equilibrium also,
Who has not look'd forth from the windows, the eyes, for nothing, or
whose brain held audience with messengers for nothing;
Who contains believers and disbelievers--Who is the most majestic
lover;
Who holds duly his or her triune proportion of realism, spiritualism,
and of the aesthetic, or intellectual,
Who, having consider'd the Body, finds all its organs and parts good;
Who, out of the theory of the earth, and of his or her body,
understands by subtle analogies all other theories,
The theory of a city, a poem, and of the large politics of These
States;
Who believes not only in our globe, with its sun and moon, but in
other globes, with their suns and moons;
Who, constructing the house of himself or herself, not for a day, but
for all time, sees races, eras, dates, generations, 10
The past, the future, dwelling there, like space, inseparable
together.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Joy, Shipmate
Joy! shipmate--joy!
(Pleas'd to my Soul at death I cry;)
Our life is closed--our life begins;
The long, long anchorage we leave,
The ship is clear at last--she leaps!
She swiftly courses from the shore;
Joy! shipmate--joy!
— -Walt Whitman
-
Not To Keep
They sent him back to her. The letter came
Saying... And she could have him. And before
She could be sure there was no hidden ill
Under the formal writing, he was in her sight,
Living. They gave him back to her alive
How else? They are not known to send the dead
And not disfigured visibly. His face?
His hands? She had to look, and ask,
"What was it, dear?" And she had given all
And still she had all they had they the lucky!
Wasn't she glad now? Everything seemed won,
And all the rest for them permissible ease.
She had to ask, "What was it, dear?"
"Enough,"
Yet not enough. A bullet through and through,
High in the breast. Nothing but what good care
And medicine and rest, and you a week,
Can cure me of to go again." The same
Grim giving to do over for them both.
She dared no more than ask him with her eyes
How was it with him for a second trial.
And with his eyes he asked her not to ask.
They had given him back to her, but not to keep.
— -Robert Frost
-
A Brook in the City
The firm house lingers, though averse to square
With the new city street it has to wear A number in.
But what about the brook That held the house as in an elbow-crook?
I ask as one who knew the brook, its strength
And impulse, having dipped a finger length
And made it leap my knuckle, having tossed
A flower to try its currents where they crossed.
The meadow grass could be cemented down
From growing under pavements of a town;
The apple trees be sent to hearth-stone flame.
Is water wood to serve a brook the same?
How else dispose of an immortal force
No longer needed? Staunch it at its source
With cinder loads dumped down? The brook was
thrown Deep in a sewer dungeon under stone
In fetid darkness still to live and run -
And all for nothing it hd ever done
Except forget to go in fear perhaps.
No one would know except for ancient maps
That such a brook ran water. But I wonder
If from its being kept forever under
The thoughts may not have risen that so keep
This new-built city from both work and sleep.
— -Robert Frost
-
A Boundless Moment
He halted in the wind, and--what was that
Far in the maples, pale, but not a ghost?
He stood there bringing March against his thought,
And yet too ready to believe the most.
'Oh, that's the Paradise-in-bloom,' I said;
And truly it was fair enough for flowers
had we but in us to assume in march
Such white luxuriance of May for ours.
We stood a moment so in a strange world,
Myself as one his own pretense deceives;
And then I said the truth (and we moved on).
A young beech clinging to its last year's leaves.
— -Robert Frost
-
The Wood-Pile
Out walking in the frozen swamp one gray day
I paused and said, 'I will turn back from here.
No, I will go on farther- and we shall see'.
The hard snow held me, save where now and then
One foot went through. The view was all in lines
Straight up and down of tail slim trees
Too much alike to mark or name a place by
So as to say for certain I was here
Or somewhere else: I was just far from home.
A small bird flew before me. He was careful
To put a tree between us when he lighted,
And say no word to tell me who he was
Who was so foolish as to think what he thought.
He thought that I was after him for a feather-
The white one in his tail; like one who takes
Everything said as personal to himself.
One flight out sideways would have undeceived him.
And then there was a pile of wood for which
I forgot him and let his little fear
Carry him off the way I might have gone,
Without so much as wishing him good-night.
He went behind it to make his last stand.
It was a cord of maple, cut and split
And piled- and measured, four by four by eight.
And not another like it could I see.
No runner tracks in this year's snow looped near it.
And it was older sure than this year's cutting,
Or even last year's or the year's before.
The wood was gray and the bark warping off it
And the pile somewhat sunken. Clematis
Had wound strings round and round it like a bundle.
What held it though on one side was a tree
Still growing, and on one a stake and prop,
These latter about to fall. I thought that only
Someone who lived in turning to fresh tasks
Could so forget his handiwork on which
He spent himself the labour of his axe,
And leave it there far from a useful fireplace
· To warm the frozen swamp as best it could
With the slow smokeless burning of decay.
— -Robert Frost
-
The Thatch
Out alone in the winter rain,
Intent on giving and taking pain.
But never was I far out of sight
Of a certain upper-window light.
The light was what it was all about:
I would not go in till the light went out;
It would not go out till I came in.
Well, we should wee which one would win,
We should see which one would be first to yield.
The world was black invisible field.
The rain by rights was snow for cold.
The wind was another layer of mold.
But the strangest thing: in the thick old thatch,
Where summer birds had been given hatch,
had fed in chorus, and lived to fledge,
Some still were living in hermitage.
And as I passed along the eaves,
So low I brushed the straw with my sleeves,
I flushed birds out of hole after hole,
Into the darkness. It grieved my soul,
It started a grief within a grief,
To think their case was beyond relief--
They could not go flying about in search
Of their nest again, nor find a perch.
They must brood where they fell in mulch and mire,
Trusting feathers and inward fire
Till daylight made it safe for a flyer.
My greater grief was by so much reduced
As I though of them without nest or roost.
That was how that grief started to melt.
They tell me the cottage where we dwelt,
Its wind-torn thatch goes now unmended;
Its life of hundred of years has ended
By letting the rain I knew outdoors
In on to the upper chamber floors.
— -Robert Frost
-
The Last Mowing
There's a place called Far-away Meadow
We never shall mow in again,
Or such is the talk at the farmhouse:
The meadow is finished with men.
Then now is the chance for the flowers
That can't stand mowers and plowers.
It must be now, through, in season
Before the not mowing brings trees on,
Before trees, seeing the opening,
March into a shadowy claim.
The trees are all I'm afraid of,
That flowers can't bloom in the shade of;
It's no more men I'm afraid of;
The meadow is done with the tame.
The place for the moment is ours
For you, oh tumultuous flowers,
To go to waste and go wild in,
All shapes and colors of flowers,
I needn't call you by name.
— -Robert Frost
-
The Gum-Gatherer
There overtook me and drew me in
To his down-hill, early-morning stride,
And set me five miles on my road
Better than if he had had me ride,
A man with a swinging bag for'load
And half the bag wound round his hand.
We talked like barking above the din
Of water we walked along beside.
And for my telling him where I'd been
And where I lived in mountain land
To be coming home the way I was,
He told me a little about himself.
He came from higher up in the pass
Where the grist of the new-beginning brooks
Is blocks split off the mountain mass --
And hop. eless grist enough it looks
Ever to grind to soil for grass.
(The way it is will do for moss.)
There he had built his stolen shack.
It had to be a stolen shack
Because of the fears of fire and logs
That trouble the sleep of lumber folk:
Visions of half the world burned black
And the sun shrunken yellow in smoke.
We know who when they come to town
Bring berries under the wagon seat,
Or a basket of eggs between their feet;
What this man brought in a cotton sack
Was gum, the gum of the mountain spruce.
He showed me lumps of the scented stuff
Like uncut jewels, dull and rough
It comes to market golden brown;
But turns to pink between the teeth.
I told him this is a pleasant life
To set your breast to the bark of trees
That all your days are dim beneath,
And reaching up with a little knife,
To loose the resin and take it down
And bring it to market when you please.
— -Robert Frost
-
Spring Pools
I WALKED down alone Sunday after church
To the place where John has been cutting trees
To see for myself about the birch
He said I could have to bush my peas.
The sun in the new-cut narrow gap
Was hot enough for the first of May,
And stifling hot with the odor of sap
From stumps still bleeding their life away.
The frogs that were peeping a thousand shrill
Wherever the ground was low and wet,
The minute they heard my step went still
To watch me and see what I came to get.
Birch boughs enough piled everywhere!—
All fresh and sound from the recent axe.
Time someone came with cart and pair
And got them off the wild flower’s backs.
They might be good for garden things
To curl a little finger round,
The same as you seize cat’s-cradle strings,
And lift themselves up off the ground.
Small good to anything growing wild,
They were crooking many a trillium
That had budded before the boughs were piled
And since it was coming up had to come.
— -Robert Frost
-
Pea Brush
I WALKED down alone Sunday after church
To the place where John has been cutting trees
To see for myself about the birch
He said I could have to bush my peas.
The sun in the new-cut narrow gap
Was hot enough for the first of May,
And stifling hot with the odor of sap
From stumps still bleeding their life away.
The frogs that were peeping a thousand shrill
Wherever the ground was low and wet,
The minute they heard my step went still
To watch me and see what I came to get.
Birch boughs enough piled everywhere!—
All fresh and sound from the recent axe.
Time someone came with cart and pair
And got them off the wild flower’s backs.
They might be good for garden things
To curl a little finger round,
The same as you seize cat’s-cradle strings,
And lift themselves up off the ground.
Small good to anything growing wild,
They were crooking many a trillium
That had budded before the boughs were piled
And since it was coming up had to come
— -Robert Frost
-
Misgiving
All crying, 'We will go with you, O Wind!'
The foliage follow him, leaf and stem;
But a sleep oppresses them as they go,
And they end by bidding them as they go,
And they end by bidding him stay with them.
Since ever they flung abroad in spring
The leaves had promised themselves this flight,
Who now would fain seek sheltering wall,
Or thicket, or hollow place for the night.
And now they answer his summoning blast
With an ever vaguer and vaguer stir,
Or at utmost a little reluctant whirl
That drops them no further than where they were.
I only hope that when I am free
As they are free to go in quest
Of the knowledge beyond the bounds of life
It may not seem better to me to rest.
— -Robert Frost
-
Visage Of Things
OF the visages of things--And of piercing through to the accepted
hells beneath;
Of ugliness--To me there is just as much in it as there is in
beauty--And now the ugliness of human beings is acceptable to
me;
Of detected persons--To me, detected persons are not, in any respect,
worse than undetected persons--and are not in any respect worse
than I am myself;
Of criminals--To me, any judge, or any juror, is equally criminal--
and any reputable person is also--and the President is also.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Terrible Doubt Of Appear
OF the terrible doubt of appearances,
Of the uncertainty after all--that we may be deluded,
That may-be reliance and hope are but speculations after all,
That may-be identity beyond the grave is a beautiful fable only,
May-be the things I perceive--the animals, plants, men, hills,
shining and flowing waters,
The skies of day and night--colors, densities, forms--May-be these
are, (as doubtless they are,) only apparitions, and the real
something has yet to be known;
(How often they dart out of themselves, as if to confound me and mock
me!
How often I think neither I know, nor any man knows, aught of them;)
May-be seeming to me what they are, (as doubtless they indeed but
seem,) as from my present point of view--And might prove, (as
of course they would,) naught of what they appear, or naught
any how, from entirely changed points of view;
--To me, these, and the like of these, are curiously answer'd by my
lovers, my dear friends; 10
When he whom I love travels with me, or sits a long while holding me
by the hand,
When the subtle air, the impalpable, the sense that words and reason
hold not, surround us and pervade us,
Then I am charged with untold and untellable wisdom--I am silent--I
require nothing further,
I cannot answer the question of appearances, or that of identity
beyond the grave;
But I walk or sit indifferent--I am satisfied,
He ahold of my hand has completely satisfied me.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Him I Love Day And Night
OF him I love day and night, I dream'd I heard he was dead;
And I dream'd I went where they had buried him I love--but he was not
in that place;
And I dream'd I wander'd, searching among burial-places, to find him;
And I found that every place was a burial-place;
The houses full of life were equally full of death, (this house is
now;)
The streets, the shipping, the places of amusement, the Chicago,
Boston, Philadelphia, the Mannahatta, were as full of the dead
as of the living,
And fuller, O vastly fuller, of the dead than of the living;
--And what I dream'd I will henceforth tell to every person and age,
And I stand henceforth bound to what I dream'd;
And now I am willing to disregard burial-places, and dispense with
them; 10
And if the memorials of the dead were put up indifferently
everywhere, even in the room where I eat or sleep, I should be
satisfied;
And if the corpse of any one I love, or if my own corpse, be duly
render'd to powder, and pour'd in the sea, I shall be
satisfied;
Or if it be distributed to the winds, I shall be satisfied.
— -Walt Whitman
-
I Often And Silently Com
O YOU whom I often and silently come where you are, that I may be
with you;
As I walk by your side, or sit near, or remain in the same room with
you,
Little you know the subtle electric fire that for your sake is
playing within me.
— -Walt Whitman
-
O Tan-Faced Prairie Boy
O TAN-FACED prairie-boy!
Before you came to camp, came many a welcome gift;
Praises and presents came, and nourishing food--till at last, among
the recruits,
You came, taciturn, with nothing to give--we but look'd on each
other,
When lo! more than all the gifts of the world, you gave me.
— -Walt Whitman
-
O Sun Of Real Peace
O SUN of real peace! O hastening light!
O free and extatic! O what I here, preparing, warble for!
O the sun of the world will ascend, dazzling, and take his height--
and you too, O my Ideal, will surely ascend!
O so amazing and broad--up there resplendent, darting and burning!
O vision prophetic, stagger'd with weight of light! with pouring
glories!
O lips of my soul, already becoming powerless!
O ample and grand Presidentiads! Now the war, the war is over!
New history! new heroes! I project you!
Visions of poets! only you really last! sweep on! sweep on!
O heights too swift and dizzy yet! 10
O purged and luminous! you threaten me more than I can stand!
(I must not venture--the ground under my feet menaces me--it will not
support me:
O future too immense,)--O present, I return, while yet I may, to you
— -Walt Whitman
-
O Star Of France
O STAR of France!
The brightness of thy hope and strength and fame,
Like some proud ship that led the fleet so long,
Beseems to-day a wreck, driven by the gale--a mastless hulk;
And 'mid its teeming, madden'd, half-drown'd crowds,
Nor helm nor helmsman.
Dim, smitten star!
Orb not of France alone--pale symbol of my soul, its dearest hopes,
The struggle and the daring--rage divine for liberty,
Of aspirations toward the far ideal--enthusiast's dreams of
brotherhood, 10
Of terror to the tyrant and the priest.
Star crucified! by traitors sold!
Star panting o'er a land of death--heroic land!
Strange, passionate, mocking, frivolous land.
Miserable! yet for thy errors, vanities, sins, I will not now rebuke
thee;
Thy unexampled woes and pangs have quell'd them all,
And left thee sacred.
In that amid thy many faults, thou ever aimedest highly,
In that thou wouldst not really sell thyself, however great the
price,
In that thou surely wakedst weeping from thy drugg'd sleep, 20
In that alone, among thy sisters, thou, Giantess, didst rend the ones
that shamed thee,
In that thou couldst not, wouldst not, wear the usual chains,
This cross, thy livid face, thy pierced hands and feet,
The spear thrust in thy side.
O star! O ship of France, beat back and baffled long!
Bear up, O smitten orb! O ship, continue on!
Sure, as the ship of all, the Earth itself,
Product of deathly fire and turbulent chaos,
Forth from its spasms of fury and its poisons,
Issuing at last in perfect power and beauty, 30
Onward, beneath the sun, following its course,
So thee, O ship of France!
Finish'd the days, the clouds dispell'd,
The travail o'er, the long-sought extrication,
When lo! reborn, high o'er the European world,
(In gladness, answering thence, as face afar to face, reflecting
ours, Columbia,)
Again thy star, O France--fair, lustrous star,
In heavenly peace, clearer, more bright than ever,
Shall beam immortal.
— -Walt Whitman
-
O Me! O Life
O ME! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless--of cities fill'd with the
foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I,
and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light--of the objects mean--of the
struggle ever renew'd;
Of the poor results of all--of the plodding and sordid crowds I see
around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest--with the rest me
intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring--What good amid these, O me, O
life?
Answer.
That you are here--that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Living Always dying
O LIVING always--always dying!
O the burials of me, past and present!
O me, while I stride ahead, material, visible, imperious as ever!
O me, what I was for years, now dead, (I lament not--I am content;)
O to disengage myself from those corpses of me, which I turn and look
at, where I cast them!
To pass on, (O living! always living!) and leave the corpses behind!
— -Walt Whitman
-
O Hymen! O Hymenee
O HYMEN! O hymenee!
Why do you tantalize me thus?
O why sting me for a swift moment only?
Why can you not continue? O why do you now cease?
Is it because, if you continued beyond the swift moment, you would
soon certainly kill me?
— -Walt Whitman
-
O Captain! My Captain!
O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up--for you the flag is flung--for you the bugle trills; 10
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths--for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head;
It is some dream that on the deck,
You've fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won; 20
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Full Fathom Five
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Ding-dong.
Hark! now I hear them,--ding-dong, bell.
— -William Shakespeare
-
Fear No More
Fear no more the heat o' the sun;
Nor the furious winter's rages,
Thou thy worldly task hast done,
Home art gone, and ta'en thy wages;
Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney sweepers come to dust.
Fear no more the frown of the great,
Thou art past the tyrant's stroke:
Care no more to clothe and eat;
To thee the reed is as the oak:
The sceptre, learning, physic, must
All follow this, and come to dust.
Fear no more the lightning-flash,
Nor the all-dread thunder-stone;
Fear not slander, censure rash;
Thou hast finished joy and moan;
All lovers young, all lovers must
Consign to thee, and come to dust.
No exorciser harm thee!
Nor no witchcraft charm thee!
Ghost unlaid forbear thee!
Nothing ill come near thee!
Quiet consummation have;
And renowned be thy grave!
— -William Shakespeare
-
Fairy Land I
OVER hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire,
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moone's sphere;
And I serve the fairy queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green:
The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours,
In those freckles live their savours:
I must go seek some dew-drops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.
— -William Shakespeare
-
Dirge Of The Three Queens
URNS and odours bring away!
Vapours, sighs, darken the day!
Our dole more deadly looks than dying;
Balms and gums and heavy cheers,
Sacred vials fill'd with tears,
And clamours through the wild air flying!
Come, all sad and solemn shows,
That are quick-eyed Pleasure's foes!
We convent naught else but woes.
— -William Shakespeare
-
Dirge
COME away, come away, death,
And in sad cypres let me be laid;
Fly away, fly away, breath;
I am slain by a fair cruel maid.
My shroud of white, stuck all with yew,
O prepare it!
My part of death, no one so true
Did share it.
Not a flower, not a flower sweet,
On my black coffin let there be strown;
Not a friend, not a friend greet
My poor corse, where my bones shall be thrown:
A thousand thousand sighs to save,
Lay me, O, where
Sad true lover never find my grave
To weep there!
— -William Shakespeare
-
Bridal Song
ROSES, their sharp spines being gone,
Not royal in their smells alone,
But in their hue;
Maiden pinks, of odour faint,
Daisies smell-less, yet most quaint,
And sweet thyme true;
Primrose, firstborn child of Ver;
Merry springtime's harbinger,
With her bells dim;
Oxlips in their cradles growing,
Marigolds on death-beds blowing,
Larks'-heels trim;
All dear Nature's children sweet
Lie 'fore bride and bridegroom's feet,
Blessing their sense!
Not an angel of the air,
Bird melodious or bird fair,
Be absent hence!
The crow, the slanderous cuckoo, nor
The boding raven, nor chough hoar,
Nor chattering pye,
May on our bride-house perch or sing,
Or with them any discord bring,
But from it fly!
— -William Shakespeare
-
Blow, Blow, Thou Winter W
Blow, blow, thou winter wind
Thou art not so unkind
As man's ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most freindship if feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then heigh-ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly.
Freeze, freeze thou bitter sky,
That does not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot:
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp
As a friend remembered not.
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then heigh-ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly.
— -William Shakespeare
-
Aubade
HARK! hark! the lark at heaven's gate sings,
And Phoebus 'gins arise,
His steeds to water at those springs
On chaliced flowers that lies;
And winking Mary-buds begin
To ope their golden eyes:
With everything that pretty bin,
My lady sweet, arise!
Arise, arise!
— -William Shakespeare
-
You Ask Me, Why, Tho' Ill
You ask me, why, tho' ill at ease,
Within this region I subsist,
Whose spirits falter in the mist,
And languish for the purple seas.
It is the land that freemen till,
That sober-suited Freedom chose,
The land, where girt with friends or foes
A man may speak the thing he will;
A land of settled government,
A land of just and old renown,
Where Freedom slowly broadens down
From precedent to precedent:
Where faction seldom gathers head,
But by degrees to fullness wrought,
The strength of some diffusive thought
Hath time and space to work and spread.
Should banded unions persecute
Opinion, and induce a time
When single thought is civil crime,
And individual freedom mute;
Tho' Power should make from land to land
The name of Britain trebly great--
Tho' every channel of the State
Should fill and choke with golden sand--
Yet waft me from the harbour-mouth,
Wild wind! I seek a warmer sky,
And I will see before I die
The palms and temples of the South.
— -Alfred Lord Tennyson
-
Art
Be eXperimental or be abstract
When your creativity touching infinite,
Then you can call it.?
— -Halil Xhafa
-
Dream Valley Of My Soul
Lord be the dream valley of my soul.
Come take me and make me whole.
Make my soul see the beauty that radiants from your throne.
Refresh my spirit and take me home cause without you am nothing at all.
Emcompass me with your love and make me strong because without you in my life am like a ship lose at sea being battered by the winds.
Forgive my sins and heal me Lord for all i have are broken dreams and tears.
May people see your presence in the acts i do, in every word i speak and every thought i think.
Please Jesus be the dream valley of my soul where peace in abandance is found, where fountains of love flow, where green pastures of good deeds grow, where flowers of forgiveness are beautful laid for admiration.
Lord be the dream valley of my soul.
— -Tigana Chileshe
-
Harlem Hopscotch
One foot down, then hop! It's hot.
Good things for the ones that's got.
Another jump, now to the left.
Everybody for hisself.
In the air, now both feet down.
Since you black, don't stick around.
Food is gone, the rent is due,
Curse and cry and then jump two.
All the people out of work,
Hold for three, then twist and jerk.
Cross the line, they count you out.
That's what hopping's all about.
Both feet flat, the game is done.
They think I lost. I think I won.
— -Maya Angelou
-
Promises...
I promise to be the one you\'ve always wanted and more.
I promise to never leave you or go walking out the door.
I promise to you a love that\'s honest, sincere, and true.
I promise to never cheat, to always be faithful to you.
I promise to never cause you pain, or lie about how I feel.
I promise to be a loving girlfriend and be that special one.
I promise to be the one to wipe away your tears and show you that love that can last a million years.
I promise to try and understand all you say and do.
I promise to be supportive whenever you need me to.
I promise these things to you, Ricky, you and only you.
I promise to give you a love that will always be true.
— -Naomi Garcia
-
In Your Eyes
Everytime my heart has been broken,
nothing but tears to support me
so I chained up my burning soul
with no hopes of it setting free.
The shackles held me down for so long,
even the dreams were forced into flame.
But once in a blue moon, a love comes
and life just never treats you the same.
Every trial of lonliness that ate me away,
The neglected one, with all the pain inside,
the support of tears have been replaced,
It all disappears in your beautiful eyes.
— -Heather M Craig
-
I Miss You, and I Love Yo
Will I ever see you again?
I miss you so much
and I love you more than anything,
Id give up my whole world just to be with you.
I look back on all the good times,
And when we used to be together,
but it makes me cry.
I dont know where this is heading,
But whatever happens,
I dont wanna say our final goodbye
Ive never felt this way about anyone before
Your my angel and I just want you to know
that I miss you, and I love you
— -Jess
-
The haze
If you'd only
look through the haze
of popularity
you might be able to see me and know that
I would never judge you, I have always loved
you. But you would never look and i'm
tired of waiting day after day
I've been hoping you would finally think
enough to know I love you but the haze it
won't let you through and I'm wasting my
time waiting for you.
— -Brianna
-
my true feelings bout you
WITH TEARFUL EYES
MY HEART SAYS YES
WITH BREATHLESS STEPS
MY SOUL SAYS GUESS
YOU MADE ME THINK
ABOUT MY LOVE FOR YOU
I\'VE THOUGHT ABOUT IT TWICE
SADLY ITS QUITE NOT TRUE
YOU CRY AND TELL ME NO
BCUZ MY TEARS HAVE BEEN SHED
NOW THAT YOU ARE LONELY
IM CRYING IN MY BED.
— -erica
-
Together
She\'s in her room,
scared to death.
She stands up,
just to fix her dress.
Everyone\'s waiting,
it\'s time to go.
She leaves the room,
she knows for sure.
They say their vows,
and \"I do.\"
they finnally are,
not one, but two.
She married the man,
of her dreams.
Down the road of life,
together it seems.
She took the steps,
made the leaps.
Finnally it seems,
thats all they need.
Together at last,
together forever.
Thats all she needs,
is to be together.
— -Melissa
-
Like a rose
Just like a rose,
so precious and rare,
is the forever friendship
the two of us share.
Planted with kindness,
it\'s warmed by the sun
of caring and sharing
laughter and fun.
It\'s grounded in trust
and nurtured by love,
with a sprinkling of grace
from god up above.
Tears of sadness and joy,
like dew, renew this friendship
i share with you.
And in the heart\'s garden,
we find the room to be ourselfs,
to grow and bloom.
A blessing of beauty unsurpassed,
our friendship\'s a flower
that will always last.
— -Baby gurl
-
Mirage
How is it that, being gone, you fill my days,
And all the long nights are made glad by thee?
No loneliness is this, nor misery,
But great content that these should be the ways
Whereby the Fancy, dreaming as she strays,
Makes bright and present what she would would be.
And who shall say if the reality
Is not with dreams so pregnant. For delays
And hindrances may bar the wished-for end;
A thousand misconceptions may prevent
Our souls from coming near enough to blend;
Let me but think we have the same intent,
That each one needs to call the other, "friend!"
It may be vain illusion. I'm content.
— -Amy Lowell
-
A Wife In London
December 1899
I
She sits in the tawny vapour
That the Thames-side lanes have uprolled,
Behind whose webby fold-on-fold
Like a waning taper
The street-lamp glimmers cold.
A messenger\'s knock cracks smartly,
Flashed news in her hand
Of meaning it dazes to understand
Though shaped so shortly:
He--he has fallen--in the far South Land...
II
\'Tis the morrow; the fog hangs thicker,
The postman nears and goes:
A letter is brought whose lines disclose
By the firelight flicker
His hand, whom the worm now knows:
Fresh--firm--penned in highest feather--
Page-full of his hoped return,
And of home-planned jaunts of brake and burn
In the summer weather,
And of new love that they would learn
— -Thomas Hardy
-
Wayside Flowers
Pluck not the wayside flower,
It is the traveller\'s dower;
A thousand passers-by
Its beauties may espy,
May win a touch of blessing
From Nature\'s mild caressing.
The sad of heart perceives
A violet under leaves
Like sonic fresh-budding hope;
The primrose on the slope
A spot of sunshine dwells,
And cheerful message tells
Of kind renewing power;
The nodding bluebell\'s dye
Is drawn from happy sky.
Then spare the wayside flower!
It is the traveller\'s dower.
— -William Allingham
-
A thing of beauty
” A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its lovliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing
— -John Keats
-
“ख़ुशी”…
पड़े हैं कदम आँगन में जबसे तेरे
सबकी “ख़ुशी” बन गई हो तुम
बदनसीब थे जो इस घर में
उनका नसीब बन गई हो तुम
जनक नहीं हूँ में तेरा
पर मेरी जानकी बन गई हो तुम
माँगते है जो हर कोई खुदा से
मेरी वो दुआ बन गई हो तुम
मोल नहीं जिसका जीवन में
वो अनमोल रत्न बन गई हो तुम
किस्सों में जो अबतक सुना था
मेरी वो परी बन गई हो तुम
— -अज्ञात कवि
-
I just want one more day
I'm so sad and depressed
Is all I want to do is rest
I go to sleep at night
But my dreams I just can't fight
I think of you lying in that bed
And wonder if there is anything I could have said
I wish you were still here
But I know that you are still near
I love you more than you know
I just wish you didn't have to go
I just want one more day with you
And I know thats what you would have wanted too
I miss you more and more each day
There is so much more we had to say
I know I will see you again
But my life is just started to begin
— -Cyndi
-
पुनर्मिलन
फिर तुम्हारे अंक में नव प्रीत के दो पल बिता लूँ
इस बहाने दंभ के उस आवरण को भी हटा लूँ
खिल रही है चंद्रिका और रैन नीरव हो रही
बह रहा शीतल पवन अँगड़ाइयाँ तुम ले रही
फिर सघनतम मेह बनकर गेह सारा मैं भिगा लूँ
फिर तुम्हारे अंक में नव प्रीत के दो पल बिता लूँ
सुप्त सी अब हो चुकी हैं स्नेह की वो भावनायें
मिट सकी न हृदय से अतृप्त सी वो कामनायें
तुम सरस श्रृंगार कर लो प्रेमरस फिर से पिला लूँ
फिर तुम्हारे अंक में नव प्रीत के दो पल बिता लूँ
दंश दे जो जिंदगी को वह कहानी हम भुला दें
आपसी मनभेद की अंतर्व्यथा को हम सुला दें
नेह के नवपुष्प का नव अंकुरण फिर से करा लूँ
फिर तुम्हारे अंक में नव प्रीत के दो पल बिता लूँ
अब कहीं अपवंचनायें वर्जनायें ना रहें
नियति से अभिशप्त होती वासनायें ना रहें
मधुभरे आलंब से मधुपान मैं तुमको करा लूँ
फिर तुम्हारे अंक में नव प्रीत के दो पल बिता लूँ
क्रोध को निस्तेज कर उसका शमन अब हम करें
इस तरह निज धैर्य की सीमा में अभिवर्धन करें
प्रीत के संबंध का अनुबंध तुमसे मैं करा लूँ
फिर तुम्हारे अंक में नव प्रीत के दो पल बिता लूँ
ज्योति के नवपुंज से अंतस प्रकाशित हम करें
जिंदगी के पुष्प को आओ सुवासित हम करें
फिर तुम्हारे मृदुल स्वर को गीत मैं अपना बना लूँ
फिर तुम्हारे अंक में नव प्रीत के दो पल बिता लूँ
कांत कुंजित किंशुकी की कांतिमय कमनीयता
फिर सुशोभित हो गई सौंदर्य की रमणीयता
विजन वन की वल्लरी को गुलमोहर फिर से बना लूँ
फिर तुम्हारे अंक में नव प्रीत के दो पल बिता लूँ
तुम नवल रससिक्त अंबुज हो सरस मधुयामिनी
छलकता है गेह से रसधार ओ उद्दामिनी
फिर तुम्हारे अधर का लालित्य आओ मैं बढ़ा लूँ
फिर तुम्हारे अंक में नव प्रीत के दो पल बिता लूँ
तुम मधुरतम कल्पना हो अल्पना हो कांति की
दिव्यतम अभिव्यंजना परिकल्पना मधुमास की
अर्चना के पुष्प से वेणी तुम्हारी मैं सजा लूँ
फिर तुम्हारे अंक में नव प्रीत के दो पल बिता लूँ
— -राजेश कुमार दूबे
-
A Study In Feeling
To be a great musician you must be a man of moods,
You have to be, to understand sonatas and etudes.
To execute pianos and to fiddle with success,
With sympathy and feeling you must fairly effervesce;
It was so with Paganini, Remenzi and Cho-pang,
And so it was with Peterkin Von Gabriel O’Lang.
Monsieur O’Lang had sympathy to such a great degree.
No virtuoso ever lived was quite so great as he;
He was either very happy or very, very sad;
He was always feeling heavenly or oppositely bad;
In fact, so sympathetic that he either must enthuse
Or have the dumps; feel ecstacy or flounder in the blues.
So all agreed that Peterkin Von Gabriel O’Lang
Was the greatest violinist in the virtuoso gang.
The ladies bought his photographs and put them on the shelves
In the place of greatest honor, right beside those of themselves;
They gladly gave ten dollars for a stiff backed parquette chair.
And sat in mouth-wide happiness a-looking at his hair.
I say “a looking at his hair,” I mean just what I say,
For no one ever had a chance to hear P. O’Lang play;
So subtle was his sympathy, so highly strung was he,
His moods were barometric to the very last degree;
The slightest change of weather would react upon his brain,
And fill his soul with joyousness or murder it with pain.
And when his soul was troubled he had not the heart to play.
But let his head droop sadly down in such a soulful way,
That every one that saw him declared it was worth twice
(And some there were said three times) the large admission price;
And all were quite unanimous and said it would be crude
For such a man to fiddle when he wasn’t in the mood.
But when his soul was filled with joy he tossed his flowing hair
And waved his violin-bow in great circles in the air;
Ecstaticly he flourished it, for so his spirit thrilled,
Thus only could he show the joy with which his heart was filled;
And so he waved it up and down and ’round and out and in,—
But he never, never, NEVER touched it to his violin!
— -Ellis Parker Butler
-
हँसते-हँसते फाँसी
अमर शहीद भगतसिंह का जन्म- 27 सितंबर, 1907 को बंगा, लायलपुर, पंजाब (अब पाकिस्तान में) हुआ था व 23 मार्च, 1931 को इन्हें दो अन्य साथियों सुखदेव व राजगुरू के साथ फांसी दे दी गई। भगतसिंह का नाम भारत के सवतंत्रता संग्राम में अविस्मरणीय है। भगतसिंह देश के लिये जीये और देश ही के लिए शहीद भी हो गए। # 24 अगस्त, 1908 को पुणे ज़िले के खेड़ा गाँव (जिसका नाम अब 'राजगुरु नगर' हो गया है) में पैदा हुए शहीद राजगुरु का पूरा नाम 'शिवराम हरि राजगुरु' था। आपके पिता का नाम 'श्री हरि नारायण' और माता का नाम 'पार्वती बाई' था। भगत सिंह और सुखदेव के साथ ही राजगुरु को भी 23 मार्च 1931 को फांसी दी गई थी।राजगुरु 'स्वराज मेरा जन्म सिद्ध अधिकार है और मैं उसे हासिल करके रहूंगा' का उद्घोष करने वाले लोकमान्य बाल गंगाधर तिलक के विचारों से अत्यधिक प्रभावित थे। # सुखदेव का जन्म 15 मई, 1907, पंजाब में हुआ था। 23 मार्च, 1931 को सेंट्रल जेल, लाहौर में भगतसिंह व राजगुरू के साथ इन्हें भी फांसी दे दी गई। सुखदेव का नाम भारत के अमर क्रांतिकारियों और शहीदों में गिना जाता है। आपने अल्पायु में ही देश के लिए जान कुर्बान कर दी। सुखदेव का पूरा नाम 'सुखदेव थापर' था। इनका नाम भगत सिंह और राजगुरु के साथ जोड़ा जाता है और इन तीनों की तिकड़ी भारत के इतिहास में सदैव याद रखी जाएगी। तीनों देशभक्त क्रांतिकारी आपस में अच्छे मित्र थे और देश की स्वतंत्रता के लिए अपना सर्वत्र न्यौछावर कर देने वालों में से थे। 23 मार्च, 1931 को भारत के इन तीनों वीर नौजवानों को एक साथ फ़ाँसी दी गई और 23 मार्च को 'शहीदी-दिवस के रुप में याद किया जाता है।
— -pawan kumar kirori
-
A Dream Within A Dream
Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow--
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand--
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep--while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?
— -Edgar Allan
-
Meeting and Passing
As I went down the hill along the wall
There was a gate I had leaned at for the view
And had just turned from when I first saw you
As you came up the hill. We met. But all
We did that day was mingle great and small
Footprints in summer dust as if we drew
The figure of our being less that two
But more than one as yet. Your parasol
Pointed the decimal off with one deep thrust.
And all the time we talked you seemed to see
Something down there to smile at in the dust.
(Oh, it was without prejudice to me!)
Afterward I went past what you had passed
Before we met and you what I had passed.
— -Robert Frost
-
In a Vale
WHEN I was young, we dwelt in a vale
By a misty fen that rang all night,
And thus it was the maidens pale
I knew so well, whose garments trail
Across the reeds to a window light.
The fen had every kind of bloom,
And for every kind there was a face,
And a voice that has sounded in my room
Across the sill from the outer gloom.
Each came singly unto her place,
But all came every night with the mist;
And often they brought so much to say
Of things of moment to which, they wist,
One so lonely was fain to list,
That the stars were almost faded away
Before the last went, heavy with dew,
Back to the place from which she came—
Where the bird was before it flew,
Where the flower was before it grew,
Where bird and flower were one and the same.
And thus it is I know so well
Why the flower has odor, the bird has song.
You have only to ask me, and I can tell.
No, not vainly there did I dwell,
Nor vainly listen all the night long.
— -Robert Frost
-
Dust in the Eyes
If, as they say, some dust thrown in my eyes
Will keep my talk from getting overwise,
I'm not the one for putting off the proof.
Let it be overwhelming, off a roof
And round a corner, blizzard snow for dust,
And blind me to a standstill if it must.
— -Robert Frost
-
Brown’s Descent
Brown lived at such a lofty farm
That everyone for miles could see
His lantern when he did his chores
In winter after half-past three.
And many must have seen him make
His wild descent from there one night,
’Cross lots, ’cross walls, ’cross everything,
Describing rings of lantern light.
Between the house and barn the gale
Got him by something he had on
And blew him out on the icy crust
That cased the world, and he was gone!
Walls were all buried, trees were few:
He saw no stay unless he stove
A hole in somewhere with his heel.
But though repeatedly he strove
And stamped and said things to himself,
And sometimes something seemed to yield,
He gained no foothold, but pursued
His journey down from field to field.
Sometimes he came with arms outspread
Like wings, revolving in the scene
Upon his longer axis, and
With no small dignity of mien.
Faster or slower as he chanced,
Sitting or standing as he chose,
According as he feared to risk
His neck, or thought to spare his clothes,
He never let the lantern drop.
And some exclaimed who saw afar
The figures he described with it,
”I wonder what those signals are
Brown makes at such an hour of night!
He’s celebrating something strange.
I wonder if he’s sold his farm,
Or been made Master of the Grange.”
He reeled, he lurched, he bobbed, he checked;
He fell and made the lantern rattle
(But saved the light from going out.)
So half-way down he fought the battle
Incredulous of his own bad luck.
And then becoming reconciled
To everything, he gave it up
And came down like a coasting child.
“Well—I—be—” that was all he said,
As standing in the river road,
He looked back up the slippery slope
(Two miles it was) to his abode.
Sometimes as an authority
On motor-cars, I’m asked if I
Should say our stock was petered out,
And this is my sincere reply:
Yankees are what they always were.
Don’t think Brown ever gave up hope
Of getting home again because
He couldn’t climb that slippery slope;
Or even thought of standing there
Until the January thaw
Should take the polish off the crust.
He bowed with grace to natural law,
And then went round it on his feet,
After the manner of our stock;
Not much concerned for those to whom,
At that particular time o’clock,
It must have looked as if the course
He steered was really straight away
From that which he was headed for—
Not much concerned for them, I say:
No more so than became a man—
And politician at odd seasons.
I’ve kept Brown standing in the cold
While I invested him with reasons;
But now he snapped his eyes three times;
Then shook his lantern, saying, “Ile’s
’Bout out!” and took the long way home
By road, a matter of several miles.
— -Robert Frost
-
An Encounter
ONCE on the kind of day called “weather breeder,”
When the heat slowly hazes and the sun
By its own power seems to be undone,
I was half boring through, half climbing through
A swamp of cedar. Choked with oil of cedar
And scurf of plants, and weary and over-heated,
And sorry I ever left the road I knew,
I paused and rested on a sort of hook
That had me by the coat as good as seated,
And since there was no other way to look,
Looked up toward heaven, and there against the blue,
Stood over me a resurrected tree,
A tree that had been down and raised again—
A barkless spectre. He had halted too,
As if for fear of treading upon me.
I saw the strange position of his hands—
Up at his shoulders, dragging yellow strands
Of wire with something in it from men to men.
“You here?” I said. “Where aren’t you nowadays
And what’s the news you carry—if you know?
And tell me where you’re off for—Montreal?
Me? I’m not off for anywhere at all.
Sometimes I wander out of beaten ways
Half looking for the orchid Calypso.”
— -Robert Frost
-
An Empty Threat
I stay;
But it isn't as if
There wasn't always Hudson's Bay
And the fur trade,
A small skiff
And a paddle blade.
I can just see my tent pegged,
And me on the floor,
Cross-legged,
And a trapper looking in at the door
With furs to sell.
His name's Joe,
Alias John,
And between what he doesn't know
And won't tell
About where Henry Hudson's gone,
I can't say he's much help;
But we get on.
The seal yelp
On an ice cake.
It's not men by some mistake?
No,
There's not a soul
For a windbreak
Between me and the North Pole—
Except always John-Joe,
My French Indian Esquimaux,
And he's off setting traps
In one himself perhaps.
Give a headshake
Over so much bay
Thrown away
In snow and mist
That doesn't exist,
I was going to say,
For God, man, or beast's sake,
Yet does perhaps for all three.
Don't ask Joe
What it is to him.
It's sometimes dim
What it is to me,
Unless it be
It's the old captain's dark fate
Who failed to find or force a strait
In its two-thousand-mile coast;
And his crew left him where be failed,
And nothing came of all be sailed.
It's to say, "You and I—"
To such a ghost—
You and I
Off here
With the dead race of the Great Auk!"
And, "Better defeat almost,
If seen clear,
Than life's victories of doubt
That need endless talk-talk
To make them out."
— -Robert Frost
-
A Star in a Stoneboat
For Lincoln MacVeagh
Never tell me that not one star of all
That slip from heaven at night and softly fall
Has been picked up with stones to build a wall.
Some laborer found one faded and stone-cold,
And saving that its weight suggested gold
And tugged it from his first too certain hold,
He noticed nothing in it to remark.
He was not used to handling stars thrown dark
And lifeless from an interrupted arc.
He did not recognize in that smooth coal
The one thing palpable besides the soul
To penetrate the air in which we roll.
He did not see how like a flying thing
It brooded ant eggs, and bad one large wing,
One not so large for flying in a ring,
And a long Bird of Paradise's tail
(Though these when not in use to fly and trail
It drew back in its body like a snail);
Nor know that be might move it from the spot—
The harm was done: from having been star-shot
The very nature of the soil was hot
And burning to yield flowers instead of grain,
Flowers fanned and not put out by all the rain
Poured on them by his prayers prayed in vain.
He moved it roughly with an iron bar,
He loaded an old stoneboat with the star
And not, as you might think, a flying car,
Such as even poets would admit perforce
More practical than Pegasus the horse
If it could put a star back in its course.
He dragged it through the plowed ground at a pace
But faintly reminiscent of the race
Of jostling rock in interstellar space.
It went for building stone, and I, as though
Commanded in a dream, forever go
To right the wrong that this should have been so.
Yet ask where else it could have gone as well,
I do not know—I cannot stop to tell:
He might have left it lying where it fell.
From following walls I never lift my eye,
Except at night to places in the sky
Where showers of charted meteors let fly.
Some may know what they seek in school and church,
And why they seek it there; for what I search
I must go measuring stone walls, perch on perch;
Sure that though not a star of death and birth,
So not to be compared, perhaps, in worth
To such resorts of life as Mars and Earth—
Though not, I say, a star of death and sin,
It yet has poles, and only needs a spin
To show its worldly nature and begin
To chafe and shuffle in my calloused palm
And run off in strange tangents with my arm,
As fish do with the line in first alarm.
Such as it is, it promises the prize
Of the one world complete in any size
That I am like to compass, fool or wise.
— -Robert Frost
-
A Hillside Thaw
To think to know the country and now know
The hillside on the day the sun lets go
Ten million silver lizards out of snow!
As often as I've seen it done before
I can't pretend to tell the way it's done.
It looks as if some magic of the sun
Lifted the rug that bred them on the floor
And the light breaking on them made them run.
But if I though to stop the wet stampede,
And caught one silver lizard by the tail,
And put my foot on one without avail,
And threw myself wet-elbowed and wet-kneed
In front of twenty others' wriggling speed,--
In the confusion of them all aglitter,
And birds that joined in the excited fun
By doubling and redoubling song and twitter,
I have no doubt I'd end by holding none.
It takes the moon for this. The sun's a wizard
By all I tell; but so's the moon a witch.
From the high west she makes a gentle cast
And suddenly, without a jerk or twitch,
She has her speel on every single lizard.
I fancied when I looked at six o'clock
The swarm still ran and scuttled just as fast.
The moon was waiting for her chill effect.
I looked at nine: the swarm was turned to rock
In every lifelike posture of the swarm,
Transfixed on mountain slopes almost erect.
Across each other and side by side they lay.
The spell that so could hold them as they were
Was wrought through trees without a breath of storm
To make a leaf, if there had been one, stir.
One lizard at the end of every ray.
The thought of my attempting such a stray!
— -Robert Frost
-
A Cliff Dwelling
There sandy seems the golden sky
And golden seems the sandy plain.
No habitation meets the eye
Unless in the horizon rim,
Some halfway up the limestone wall,
That spot of black is not a stain
Or shadow, but a cavern hole,
Where someone used to climb and crawl
To rest from his besetting fears.
I see the callus on his soul
The disappearing last of him
And of his race starvation slim,
Oh years ago -- ten thousand years.
— -Robert Frost
-
To E.T
I slumbered with your poems on my breast
Spread open as I dropped them half-read through
Like dove wings on a figure on a tomb
To see, if in a dream they brought of you,
I might not have the chance I missed in life
Through some delay, and call you to your face
First solider, and then poet, and then both,
Who died a soldier-poet of your race.
I meant, you meant, that nothing should remain
Unsaid between us, brother, and this remained--
And one thing more that was not then to say:
The Victory for what it lost and gained.
You went to meet the shell's embrace of fire
On Vimy Ridge; and when you fell that day
The war seemed over more for you than me,
But now for me than you--the other way.
How ever, though, for even me who knew
The foe thrust back unsafe beyond the Rhine,
If I was not speak of it to you
And see you pleased once more with words of mine?
— -Robert Frost
-
The Trial by Existence
Even the bravest that are slain
Shall not dissemble their surprise
On waking to find valor reign,
Even as on earth, in paradise;
And where they sought without the sword
Wide fields of asphodel fore'er,
To find that the utmost reward
Of daring should be still to dare.
The light of heaven falls whole and white
And is not shattered into dyes,
The light forever is morning light;
The hills are verdured pasture-wise;
The angle hosts with freshness go,
And seek with laughter what to brave;--
And binding all is the hushed snow
Of the far-distant breaking wave.
And from a cliff-top is proclaimed
The gathering of the souls for birth,
The trial by existence named,
The obscuration upon earth.
And the slant spirits trooping by
In streams and cross- and counter-streams
Can but give ear to that sweet cry
For its suggestion of what dreams!
And the more loitering are turned
To view once more the sacrifice
Of those who for some good discerned
Will gladly give up paradise.
And a white shimmering concourse rolls
Toward the throne to witness there
The speeding of devoted souls
Which God makes his especial care.
And none are taken but who will,
Having first heard the life read out
That opens earthward, good and ill,
Beyond the shadow of a doubt;
And very beautifully God limns,
And tenderly, life's little dream,
But naught extenuates or dims,
Setting the thing that is supreme.
Nor is there wanting in the press
Some spirit to stand simply forth,
Heroic in it nakedness,
Against the uttermost of earth.
The tale of earth's unhonored things
Sounds nobler there than 'neath the sun;
And the mind whirls and the heart sings,
And a shout greets the daring one.
But always God speaks at the end:
'One thought in agony of strife
The bravest would have by for friend,
The memory that he chose the life;
But the pure fate to which you go
Admits no memory of choice,
Or the woe were not earthly woe
To which you give the assenting voice.'
And so the choice must be again,
But the last choice is still the same;
And the awe passes wonder then,
And a hush falls for all acclaim.
And God has taken a flower of gold
And broken it, and used therefrom
The mystic link to bind and hold
Spirit to matter till death come.
'Tis of the essence of life here,
Though we choose greatly, still to lack
The lasting memory at all clear,
That life has for us on the wrack
Nothing but what we somehow chose;
Thus are we wholly stipped of pride
In the pain that has but one close,
Bearing it crushed and mystified.
— -Robert Frost
-
The Times Table
More than halfway up the pass
Was a spring with a broken drinking glass,
And whether the farmer drank or not
His mare was sure to observe the spot
By cramping the wheel on a water-bar,
turning her forehead with a star,
And straining her ribs for a monster sigh;
To which the farmer would make reply,
'A sigh for every so many breath,
And for every so many sigh a death.
That's what I always tell my wife
Is the multiplication table of life.'
The saying may be ever so true;
But it's just the kind of a thing that you
Nor I, nor nobody else may say,
Unless our purpose is doing harm,
And then I know of no better way
To close a road, abandon a farm,
Reduce the births of the human race,
And bring back nature in people's place.
— -Robert Frost
-
The Peaceful Shepherd
If heaven were to do again,
And on the pasture bars,
I leaned to line the figures in
Between the dotted starts,
I should be tempted to forget,
I fear, the Crown of Rule,
The Scales of Trade, the Cross of Faith,
As hardly worth renewal.
For these have governed in our lives,
And see how men have warred.
The Cross, the Crown, the Scales may all
As well have been the Sword.
— -Robert Frost
-
The Egg and the Machine
He gave the solid rail a hateful kick.
From far away there came an answering tick
And then another tick. He knew the code:
His hate had roused an engine up the road.
He wished when he had had the track alone
He had attacked it with a club or stone
And bent some rail wide open like switch
So as to wreck the engine in the ditch.
Too late though, now, he had himself to thank.
Its click was rising to a nearer clank.
Here it came breasting like a horse in skirts.
(He stood well back for fear of scalding squirts.)
Then for a moment all there was was size
Confusion and a roar that drowned the cries
He raised against the gods in the machine.
Then once again the sandbank lay serene.
The traveler's eye picked up a turtle train,
between the dotted feet a streak of tail,
And followed it to where he made out vague
But certain signs of buried turtle's egg;
And probing with one finger not too rough,
He found suspicious sand, and sure enough,
The pocket of a little turtle mine.
If there was one egg in it there were nine,
Torpedo-like, with shell of gritty leather
All packed in sand to wait the trump together.
'You'd better not disturb any more,'
He told the distance, 'I am armed for war.
The next machine that has the power to pass
Will get this plasm in it goggle glass.'
— -Robert Frost
-
The Demiurge's Laugh
It was far in the sameness of the wood;
I was running with joy on the Demon's trail,
Though I knew what I hunted was no true god.
i was just as the light was beginning to fail
That I suddenly head--all I needed to hear:
It has lasted me many and many a year.
The sound was behind me instead of before,
A sleepy sound, but mocking half,
As one who utterly couldn't care.
The Demon arose from his wallow to laugh,
Brushing the dirt from his eye as he went;
And well I knew what the Demon meant.
I shall not forget how his laugh rang out.
I felt as a fool to have been so caught,
And checked my steps to make pretense
I was something among the leaves I sought
(Though doubtful whether he stayed to see).
Thereafter I sat me against a tree.
— -Robert Frost
-
Another Way Of Love
I.
June was not over
Though past the fall,
And the best of her roses
Had yet to blow,
When a man I know
(But shall not discover,
Since ears are dull,
And time discloses)
Turned him and said with a man's true air,
Half sighing a smile in a yawn, as 'twere,---
``If I tire of your June, will she greatly care?''
II.
Well, dear, in-doors with you!
True! serene deadness
Tries a man's temper.
What's in the blossom
June wears on her bosom?
Can it clear scores with you?
Sweetness and redness.
_Eadem semper!_
Go, let me care for it greatly or slightly!
If June mend her bower now, your hand left unsightly
By plucking the roses,---my June will do rightly.
III.
And after, for pastime,
If June be refulgent
With flowers in completeness,
All petals, no prickles,
Delicious as trickles
Of wine poured at mass-time,---
And choose One indulgent
To redness and sweetness:
Or if, with experience of man and of spider,
June use my June-lightning, the strong insect-ridder,
And stop the fresh film-work,---why, June will consider.
— -Robert Browning
-
Why I Am a Liberal
"Why?" Because all I haply can and do,
All that I am now, all I hope to be,--
Whence comes it save from fortune setting free
Body and soul the purpose to pursue,
God traced for both? If fetters, not a few,
Of prejudice, convention, fall from me,
These shall I bid men--each in his degree
Also God-guided--bear, and gayly, too?
But little do or can the best of us:
That little is achieved through Liberty.
Who, then, dares hold, emancipated thus,
His fellow shall continue bound? Not I,
Who live, love, labour freely, nor discuss
A brother's right to freedom. That is "Why."
— -Robert Browning
-
The Lost Mistress
All's over, then: does truth sound bitter
As one at first believes?
Hark, 'tis the sparrows' good-night twitter
About your cottage eaves!
And the leaf-buds on the vine are woolly,
I noticed that today;
One day more bursts them open fully
—You know the red turns grey.
Tomorrow we meet the same then, dearest?
May I take your hand in mine?
Mere friends are we,—well, friends the merest
Keep much that I resign:
For each glance of that eye so bright and black,
Though I keep with heart's endeavour,—
Your voice, when you wish the snowdrops back,
Though it stay in my soul for ever!—
—Yet I will but say what mere friends say,
Or only a thought stronger;
I will hold your hand but as long as all may,
Or so very little longer!
— -Robert Browning
-
Song
I.
Nay but you, who do not love her,
Is she not pure gold, my mistress?
Holds earth aught---speak truth---above her?
Aught like this tress, see, and this tress,
And this last fairest tress of all,
So fair, see, ere I let it fall?
II.
Because, you spend your lives in praising;
To praise, you search the wide world over:
Then why not witness, calmly gazing,
If earth holds aught---speak truth---above her?
Above this tress, and this, I touch
But cannot praise, I love so much!
— -Robert Browning
-
How They Brought The Goo
sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he;
I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three;
"Good speed!" cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew;
"Speed!" echoed the wall to us galloping through;
Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest,
And into the midnight we galloped abreast.
Not a word to each other; we kept the great pace
Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place;
I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight,
Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right,
Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chained slacker the bit,
Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit.
'Twas moonset at starting; but while we drew near
Lokeren, the cocks crew and twilight dawned clear;
At Boom, a great yellow star came out to see;
At Duffeld, 'twas morning as plain as could be;
And from Mecheln church-steeple we heard the half-chime,
So Joris broke silence with, "Yet there is time!"
At Aerschot, up leaped of a sudden the sun,
And against him the cattle stood black every one,
To stare through the mist at us galloping past,
And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last,
With resolute shoulders, each butting away
The haze, as some bluff river headland its spray:
And his low head and crest, just one sharp ear bent back
For my voice, and the other pricked out on his track;
And one eye's black intelligence,—ever that glance
O'er its white edge at me, his own master, askance!
And the thick heavy spume-flakes which aye and anon
His fierce lips shook upwards in galloping on.
By Hasselt, Dirck groaned; and cried Joris, "Stay spur!
Your Roos galloped bravely, the fault's not in her,
We'll remember at Aix"—for one heard the quick wheeze
Of her chest, saw the stretched neck and staggering knees,
And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank,
As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank.
So, we were left galloping, Joris and I,
Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky;
The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh,
'Neath our feet broke the brittle bright stubble like chaff;
Till over by Dalhem a dome-spire sprang white,
And "Gallop," gasped Joris, "for Aix is in sight!"
"How they'll greet us!"—and all in a moment his roan
Rolled neck and croup over, lay dead as a stone;
And there was my Roland to bear the whole weight
Of the news which alone could save Aix from her fate,
With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim,
And with circles of red for his eye-socket's rim.
Then I cast loose my buffcoat, each holster let fall,
Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and all,
Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear,
Called my Roland his pet-name, my horse without peer;
Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any noise, bad or good,
Till at length into Aix Roland galloped and stood.
And all I remember is—friends flocking round
As I sat with his head 'twixt my knees on the ground;
And no voice but was praising this Roland of mine,
As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine,
Which (the burgesses voted by common consent)
— -Robert Browning
-
In A Gondola
The moth's kiss, first!
Kiss me as if you made believe
You were not sure, this eve,
How my face, your flower, had pursed
Its petals up; so, here and there
You brush it, till I grow aware
Who wants me, and wide open I burst.
The bee's kiss, now!
Kiss me as if you enter'd gay
My heart at some noonday,
A bud that dares not disallow
The claim, so all is rendered up,
And passively its shattered cup
Over your head to sleep I bow.
— -Robert Browning
-
The Lost Leader
Just for a handful of silver he left us,
Just for a riband to stick in his coat—
Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us,
Lost all the others she lets us devote;
They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver,
So much was theirs who so little allowed:
How all our copper had gone for his service!
Rags—were they purple, his heart had been proud!
We that had loved him so, followed him, honoured him,
Lived in his mild and magnificent eye,
Learned his great language, caught his clear accents,
Made him our pattern to live and to die!
Shakespeare was of us, Milton was for us,
Burns, Shelley, were with us,—they watch from their graves!
He alone breaks from the van and the freemen,
He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves!
We shall march prospering,—not through his presence;
Songs may inspirit us,—not from his lyre;
Deeds will be done,—while he boasts his quiescence,
Still bidding crouch whom the rest bade aspire:
Blot out his name, then, record one lost soul more,
One task more declined, one more footpath untrod,
One more triumph for devils and sorrow for angels,
One wrong more to man, one more insult to God!
Life's night begins: let him never come back to us!
There would be doubt, hesitation and pain,
Forced praise on our part—the glimmer of twilight,
Never glad confident morning again!
Best fight on well, for we taught him—strike gallantly,
Menace our heart ere we pierce through his own;
Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us,
Pardoned in heaven, the first by the throne!
— -Robert Browning
-
Love In A Life
I
Room after room,
I hunt the house through
We inhabit together.
Heart, fear nothing, for, heart, thou shalt find her,
Next time, herself!—not the trouble behind her
Left in the curtain, the couch's perfume!
As she brushed it, the cornice-wreath blossomed anew,—
Yon looking-glass gleamed at the wave of her feather.
II
Yet the day wears,
And door succeeds door;
I try the fresh fortune—
Range the wide house from the wing to the centre.
Still the same chance! she goes out as I enter.
Spend my whole day in the quest,—who cares?
But 'tis twilight, you see,—with such suites to explore,
Such closets to search, such alcoves to importune!
— -Robert Browning
-
Parting At Morning
Round the cape of a sudden came the sea,
And the sun looked over the mountain's rim:
And straight was a path of gold for him,
And the need of a world of men for me.
— -Robert Browning
-
De Gustibus
Your ghost will walk, you lover of trees,
(If our loves remain)
In an English lane,
By a cornfield-side a-flutter with poppies.
Hark, those two in the hazel coppice---
A boy and a girl, if the good fates please,
Making love, say,---
The happier they!
Draw yourself up from the light of the moon,
And let them pass, as they will too soon,
With the bean-flowers' boon,
And the blackbird's tune,
And May, and June!
II.
What I love best in all the world
Is a castle, precipice-encurled,
In a gash of the wind-grieved Apennine
Or look for me, old fellow of mine,
(If I get my head from out the mouth
O' the grave, and loose my spirit's bands,
And come again to the land of lands)---
In a sea-side house to the farther South,
Where the baked cicala dies of drouth,
And one sharp tree---'tis a cypress---stands,
By the many hundred years red-rusted,
Rough iron-spiked, ripe fruit-o'ercrusted,
My sentinel to guard the sands
To the water's edge. For, what expands
Before the house, but the great opaque
Blue breadth of sea without a break?
While, in the house, for ever crumbles
Some fragment of the frescoed walls,
From blisters where a scorpion sprawls.
A girl bare-footed brings, and tumbles
Down on the pavement, green-flesh melons,
And says there's news to-day---the king
Was shot at, touched in the liver-wing,
Goes with his Bourbon arm in a sling:
---She hopes they have not caught the felons.
Italy, my Italy!
Queen Mary's saying serves for me---
(When fortune's malice
Lost her---Calais)---
Open my heart and you will see
Graved inside of it, ``Italy.''
Such lovers old are I and she: So it always was, so shall ever be!
— -Robert Browning
-
Weird-Bird
Birds are flyin' south for winter.
Here's the Weird-Bird headin' north,
Wings a-flappin', beak a-chatterin',
Cold head bobbin' back 'n' forth.
He says, "It's not that I like ice
Or freezin' winds and snowy ground.
It's just sometimes it's kind of nice
To be the only bird in town."
— -Shel Silverstein
-
Cloony The Clown
I'll tell you the story of Cloony the Clown
Who worked in a circus that came through town.
His shoes were too big and his hat was too small,
But he just wasn't, just wasn't funny at all.
He had a trombone to play loud silly tunes,
He had a green dog and a thousand balloons.
He was floppy and sloppy and skinny and tall,
But he just wasn't, just wasn't funny at all.
And every time he did a trick,
Everyone felt a little sick.
And every time he told a joke,
Folks sighed as if their hearts were broke.
And every time he lost a shoe,
Everyone looked awfully blue.
And every time he stood on his head,
Everyone screamed, "Go back to bed!"
And every time he made a leap,
Everybody fell asleep.
And every time he ate his tie,
Everyone began to cry.
And Cloony could not make any money
Simply because he was not funny.
One day he said, "I'll tell this town
How it feels to be an unfunny clown."
And he told them all why he looked so sad,
And he told them all why he felt so bad.
He told of Pain and Rain and Cold,
He told of Darkness in his soul,
And after he finished his tale of woe,
Did everyone cry? Oh no, no, no,
They laughed until they shook the trees
With "Hah-Hah-Hahs" and "Hee-Hee-Hees."
They laughed with howls and yowls and shrieks,
They laughed all day, they laughed all week,
They laughed until they had a fit,
They laughed until their jackets split.
The laughter spread for miles around
To every city, every town,
Over mountains, 'cross the sea,
From Saint Tropez to Mun San Nee.
And soon the whole world rang with laughter,
Lasting till forever after,
While Cloony stood in the circus tent,
With his head drooped low and his shoulders bent.
And he said,"THAT IS NOT WHAT I MEANT -
I'M FUNNY JUST BY ACCIDENT."
And while the world laughed outside.
Cloony the Clown sat down and cried.
— -Shel Silverstein
-
Anteater
"A genuine anteater,"
The pet man told me dad.
Turned out, it was an aunt eater,
And now my uncle's mad
— -Shel Silverstein
-
Danny O'Dare
Danny O'Dare, the dancin' bear,
Ran away from the County Fair,
Ran right up to my back stair
And thought he'd do some dancin' there.
He started jumpin' and skippin' and kickin',
He did a dance called the Funky Chicken,
He did the Polka, he did the Twist,
He bent himself into a pretzel like this.
He did the Dog and the Jitterbug,
He did the Jerk and the Bunny Hug.
He did the Waltz and the Boogaloo,
He did the Hokey-Pokey too.
He did the Bop and the Mashed Potata,
He did the Split and the See Ya Later.
And now he's down upon one knee,
Bowin' oh so charmingly,
And winkin' and smilin'--it's easy to see
Danny O'Dare wants to dance with me.
— -Shel Silverstein
-
God's Wheel
GOD says to me with a kind
of smile, "Hey how would you like
to be God awhile And steer the world?"
"Okay," says I, "I'll give it a try.
Where do I set?
How much do I get?
What time is lunch?
When can I quit?"
"Gimme back that wheel," says GOD.
"I don't think you're quite ready YET."
— -Shel Silverstein
-
Bond and Free
Love has earth to which she clings
With hills and circling arms about--
Wall within wall to shut fear out.
But Though has need of no such things,
For Thought has a pair of dauntless wings.
On snow and sand and turn, I see
Where Love has left a printed trace
With straining in the world's embrace.
And such is Love and glad to be
But Though has shaken his ankles free.
Though cleaves the interstellar gloom
And sits in Sirius' disc all night,
Till day makes him retrace his flight
With smell of burning on every plume,
Back past the sun to an earthly room.
His gains in heaven are what they are.
Yet some say Love by being thrall
And simply staying possesses all
In several beauty that Thought fares far
To find fused in another star.
— -Robert Frost
-
Blue-Butterfly Day
It is blue-butterfly day here in spring,
And with these sky-flakes down in flurry on flurry
There is more unmixed color on the wing
Than flowers will show for days unless they hurry.
But these are flowers that fly and all but sing:
And now from having ridden out desire
They lie closed over in the wind and cling
Where wheels have freshly sliced the April mire.
— -Robert Frost
-
To the Thawing Wind
COME with rain. O loud Southwester!
Bring the singer, bring the nester;
Give the buried flower a dream;
make the settled snowbank steam;
Find the brown beneath the white;
But whate'er you do tonight,
bath my window, make it flow,
Melt it as the ice will go;
Melt the glass and leave the sticks
Like a hermit's crucifix;
Burst into my narrow stall;
Swing the picture on the wall;
Run the rattling pages o'er;
Scatter poems on the floor;
Turn the poet out of door.
— -Robert Frost
-
The Birthplace
Here further up the mountain slope
Than there was every any hope,
My father built, enclosed a spring,
Strung chains of wall round everything,
Subdued the growth of earth to grass,
And brought our various lives to pass.
A dozen girls and boys we were.
The mountain seemed to like the stir,
And made of us a little while--
With always something in her smile.
Today she wouldn't know our name.
(No girl's, of course, has stayed the same.)
The mountain pushed us off her knees.
And now her lap is full of trees.
— -Robert Frost
-
Now Close the Windows
Now close the windows and hush all the fields:
If the trees must, let them silently toss;
No bird is singing now, and if there is,
Be it my loss.
It will be long ere the marshes resume,
I will be long ere the earliest bird:
So close the windows and not hear the wind,
But see all wind-stirred.
— -Robert Frost
-
Preludes
THE WINTER evening settles down
With smell of steaks in passageways.
Six o’clock.
The burnt-out ends of smoky days.
And now a gusty shower wraps
The grimy scraps
Of withered leaves about your feet
And newspapers from vacant lots;
The showers beat
On broken blinds and chimney-pots,
And at the corner of the street
A lonely cab-horse steams and stamps.
And then the lighting of the lamps.
II
The morning comes to consciousness
Of faint stale smells of beer
From the sawdust-trampled street
With all its muddy feet that press
To early coffee-stands.
With the other masquerades
That time resumes,
One thinks of all the hands
That are raising dingy shades
In a thousand furnished rooms.
III
You tossed a blanket from the bed,
You lay upon your back, and waited;
You dozed, and watched the night revealing
The thousand sordid images
Of which your soul was constituted;
They flickered against the ceiling.
And when all the world came back
And the light crept up between the shutters
And you heard the sparrows in the gutters,
You had such a vision of the street
As the street hardly understands;
Sitting along the bed’s edge, where
You curled the papers from your hair,
Or clasped the yellow soles of feet
In the palms of both soiled hands.
IV
His soul stretched tight across the skies
That fade behind a city block,
Or trampled by insistent feet
At four and five and six o’clock;
And short square fingers stuffing pipes,
And evening newspapers, and eyes
Assured of certain certainties,
The conscience of a blackened street
Impatient to assume the world.
I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.
Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;
The worlds revolve like ancient women
Gathering fuel in vacant lots.
— -T. S. Eliot
-
Dans le Restaurant
LE garçon délabré qui n’a rien à faire
Que de se gratter les doigts et se pencher sur mon épaule:
“Dans mon pays il fera temps pluvieux,
Du vent, du grand soleil, et de la pluie;
C’est ce qu’on appelle le jour de lessive des gueux.”
(Bavard, baveux, à la croupe arrondie,
Je te prie, au moins, ne bave pas dans la soupe).
“Les saules trempés, et des bourgeons sur les ronces—
C’est là, dans une averse, qu’on s’abrite.
J’avais sept ans, elle était plus petite.
Elle était toute mouillée, je lui ai donné des primevères.”
Les taches de son gilet montent au chiffre de trentehuit.
“Je la chatouillais, pour la faire rire.
J’éprouvais un instant de puissance et de délire.”
Mais alors, vieux lubrique, à cet âge...
“Monsieur, le fait est dur.
Il est venu, nous peloter, un gros chien;
Moi j’avais peur, je l’ai quittée à mi-chemin.
C’est dommage.”
Mais alors, tu as ton vautour!
Va t’en te décrotter les rides du visage;
Tiens, ma fourchette, décrasse-toi le crâne.
De quel droit payes-tu des expériences comme moi?
Tiens, voilà dix sous, pour la salle-de-bains.
Phlébas, le Phénicien, pendant quinze jours noyé,
Oubliait les cris des mouettes et la houle de Cornouaille,
Et les profits et les pertes, et la cargaison d’étain:
Un courant de sous-mer l’emporta très loin,
Le repassant aux étapes de sa vie antérieure.
Figurez-vous donc, c’était un sort pénible;
Cependant, ce fut jadis un bel homme, de haute taille.
— -T. S. Eliot
-
Le Directeur
MALHEUR à la malheureuse Tamise
Qui coule si preès du Spectateur.
Le directeur
Conservateur
Du Spectateur
Empeste la brise.
Les actionnaires
Réactionnaires
Du Spectateur
Conservateur
Bras dessus bras dessous
Font des tours
A pas de loup.
Dans un égout
Une petite fille
En guenilles
Camarde
Regarde
Le directeur
Du Spectateur
Conservateur
Et crève d’amour.
— -T. S. Eliot
-
Hysteria
As she laughed I was aware of becoming involved in her laughter and being part of it, until her teeth
were only accidental stars with a talent for squad-drill. I was drawn in by short gasps, inhaled at
each momentary recovery, lost finally in the dark caverns of her throat, bruised by the ripple of
unseen muscles. An elderly waiter with trembling hands was hurriedly spreading a pink and white
checked cloth over the rusty green iron table, saying: “If the lady and gentleman wish to take their
tea in the garden, if the lady and gentleman wish to take their tea in the garden...” I decided that if
the shaking of her breasts could be stopped, some of the fragments of the afternoon might be
collected, and I concentrated my attention with careful subtlety to this end.
— -T. S. Eliot
-
Sympathy
If I were only a little puppy, not your baby, mother dear, would
you say "No" to me if I tried to eat from your dish?
Would you drive me off, saying to me, "Get away, you naughty
little puppy?"
Then go, mother, go! I will never come to you when you call
me, and never let you feed me any more.
If I were only a little green parrot, and not your baby,
mother dear, would you keep me chained lest I should fly away?
Would you shake your finger at me and say, "What an ungrateful
wretch of a bird! It is gnawing at its chain day and night?"
The go, mother, go! I will run away into the woods; I will
never let you take me in your arms again.
— -Rabindranath Tagore
-
Greatest Love
You bring me laughter when I'm down,
Always there to lift my frown...
You hold me tight when I'm cold,
You'll stand by me till I grow old...
Loving me like no other,
Gentle and sweet just like a
mother...
Your love is pure forever true,
Inside my heart is a place for you...
The touch of your lips against my
skin,
Softness so smooth brushing along
my chin...
Words of compassion forever sweet,
How ever was I so lucky to have
meet...
My dearest love I hold so dear,
For never do I have to fear...
Honest and truthful in loving me,
Always and forever it is she...
The woman I love and have given
my heart,
To live this life and never depart...
A beauty I found upon thee eye,
Captured my heart and I chose to
be by...
Her side through good times and
the bad,
To comfort and love her even when
she's sad...
She is my life she is my love,
She is the greatest gift from up
above...
— -EDDIE GARCIA
-
I, Too, Sing America
I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.
Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--
I, too, am America
— -Langston Hughes
-
I Will Sing You One-O
It was long I lay
Awake that night
Wishing that night
Would name the hour
And tell me whether
To call it day
(Though not yet light)
And give up sleep.
The snow fell deep
With the hiss of spray;
Two winds would meet,
One down one street,
One down another,
And fight in a smother
Of dust and feather.
I could not say,
But feared the cold
Had checked the pace
Of the tower clock
By tying together
Its hands of gold
Before its face.
Then cane one knock!
A note unruffled
Of earthly weather,
Though strange and muffled.
The tower said, "One!'
And then a steeple.
They spoke to themselves
And such few people
As winds might rouse
From sleeping warm
(But not unhouse).
They left the storm
That struck en masse
My window glass
Like a beaded fur.
In that grave One
They spoke of the sun
And moon and stars,
Saturn and Mars
And Jupiter.
Still more unfettered,
They left the named
And spoke of the lettered,
The sigmas and taus
Of constellations.
They filled their throats
With the furthest bodies
To which man sends his
Speculation,
Beyond which God is;
The cosmic motes
Of yawning lenses.
Their solemn peals
Were not their own:
They spoke for the clock
With whose vast wheels
Theirs interlock.
In that grave word
Uttered alone
The utmost star
Trembled and stirred,
Though set so far
Its whirling frenzies
Appear like standing
in one self station.
It has not ranged,
And save for the wonder
Of once expanding
To be a nova,
It has not changed
To the eye of man
On planets over
Around and under
It in creation
Since man began
To drag down man
And nation nation.
— -Robert Frost
-
Hannibal
Was there even a cause too lost,
Ever a cause that was lost too long,
Or that showed with the lapse of time to vain
For the generous tears of youth and song?
— -Robert Frost
-
Fragmentary Blue
Why make so much of fragmentary blue
In here and there a bird, or butterfly,
Or flower, or wearing-stone, or open eye,
When heaven presents in sheets the solid hue?
Since earth is earth, perhaps, not heaven (as yet)--
Though some savants make earth include the sky;
And blue so far above us comes so high,
It only gives our wish for blue a whet.
— -Robert Frost
-
Flower-Gathering
I LEFT you in the morning,
And in the morning glow,
You walked a way beside me
To make me sad to go.
Do you know me in the gloaming,
Gaunt and dusty gray with roaming?
Are you dumb because you know me not,
Or dumb because you know?
All for me And not a question
For the faded flowers gay
That could take me from beside you
For the ages of a day?
They are yours, and be the measure
Of their worth for you to treasure,
The measure of the little while
That I've been long away.
— -Robert Frost
-
Come In
As I came to the edge of the woods,
Thrush music -- hark!
Now if it was dusk outside,
Inside it was dark.
Too dark in the woods for a bird
By sleight of wing
To better its perch for the night,
Though it still could sing.
The last of the light of the sun
That had died in the west
Still lived for one song more
In a thrush's breast.
Far in the pillared dark
Thrush music went --
Almost like a call to come in
To the dark and lament.
But no, I was out for stars;
I would not come in.
I meant not even if asked;
And I hadn't been.
— -Robert Frost
-
MEANINGLESS
I looked into my soul
And saw a great emptiness that enswallowed me.
It was strange and it was dark.
A darkness so vast I fall into it.
Terrified, my heart froze
As fear’s ice hands griped it.
Big dreams and ambitions cut short by the shortness of life
My life now a black deep ocean to drown in
For this is now my fate for mine had being a vain pursuit for self.
DREAMS
The dreams,
These dreams that I dream when I sleep in my sleep.
Are so scary so dark that I awake to only find
That am trapped in the dusty dream of dreaminglessness.
Am lost like a codeless soul flowing in space.
Like a fading painting I evaporate losing myself in the mystic shadows of life.
I don’t know me;
I don’t feel me,
Am I dreaming or is this real?
The dreams,
These dreams that I dream when I sleep in my sleep.
These dreams that I dream are when my eyes are closed yet open
Are not for the faint hearted,
The dreams.
MIRROR, MIRROR, MIRROR
Internal reflections of my soul
Looking deep where I have never being before
I stand mouth agap at the images I see below.
Distorted images,
I can’t see me.
Is the mirror broken or is it the state f my soul?
Mirror, mirror, mirror!
Is there any hope at all?
Tell me now for I fear that I have completely lost my way.
Mirror…?
— -Tigana Chileshe
-
O Mistress Mine
O Mistress mine, where are you roaming?
O, stay and hear; your true love's coming,
That can sing both high and low:
Trip no further, - pretty sweeting;
Journeys end in lovers meeting
Every wise man's son doth know.
What is love? 'Tis not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laughter;
What's to come is still unsure:
In delay there lies not plenty;
Then, come kiss me, sweet and twenty,
Youth's a stuff will not endure.
— -William Shakespeare
-
बसपा नेता मोहम्मद शमी की
मोहम्मद शमी अपने घर लौट रहे थे, तभी बदमाशों ने ताबड़तोड़ कई राउंड गोलियां चला दी जिससे मौके पर ही उनकी मौत हो गई। हत्या के बाद लोगों ने थोड़ी देर के लिए इलाहाबाद-फैजाबाद हाइवे भी जाम कर दिया। मौके पर..
— -समाचार
-
Losing You
I can?t describe how I feel
I can?t believe that this could be real
Sometimes I talk to Whatever?s above
Praying that this could really be love
I wish I had the words for this emotion
To describe to you this total devotion
I?d crush anything that stood in our way
Fight everything each and every day
But I can?t shake off this feeling
That you are thinking of leaving
I can?t escape this crushing dread
That that?s what?s going through your head
I think you want someone not so far away
Someone you can touch and hold every day
And baby, I sometimes wish that too
Not for me, but only for you
Each day we are getting older
And all the time it?s feeling colder
Every night seems to be longer
But, you know that just makes me stronger
More certain and determined in every way
That when I come, it will be to stay
I hope you share this same dream with me
Wishing and hoping we are meant to be
We have lived such different lives
I looked at the ground and you looked at the skies
Life doesn?t like either of us too much
But you are blessed with this divine touch
You remind me of an angel, dancing on a star
So bright and so beautiful, but god so far
Back on the ground, I?m awed to see
This incredible person looking down at me
I wrote this one a few years back..its about the first girl I ever really loved who moved too far away for us to really continue our relationship :S
— -Chris
-
Lonely Nights
Since you’re gone
There is an empty space
Since you’re gone
The world is not the same
I go back to the places we’ve been
It feels like you’re still there
I live all those moments again
Wishing you were here
Since you’re gone
There is a lonely heart
Since you’re gone
Nothing is like it was
There are memories all over the place
Bringing it back all so clear
I remember all of those days
Wishing you were here
Since you’re gone
There is a heart that bleeds
Since you’re gone
I’m not the man I used to be
I follow you're steps in the snow
The traces disappear
We know what we’ve lost when it’s gone
I’m wishing you were here
All those lonely nights
I lied on my bed and cried
I still think of you
Yes I do
— -Ebony Tears
-
True Love
I tell u i love u every night
What would Love be without the silly fights
Without something to make it right
I'm glad the fights happened
Or we wouldn't be as strong as we are now
We stay up all night talking
But what we talk about is nothing
But the nothings are everything
To show the thought each of us care
I love you without regret
I've felt this way about you since We first met
No words can express
None so true
You might say I'm crazy
Yea your right just crazy about you
— -Ashley Redden
-
Lost Love
A Feeling of Despair ,The Choking Sobs
an Image of Being Trampled under a Mob.
Constricted Breathing, out of Control
a Feeling of Forever These Moments Stole
Darkness Settles, No Happy Thoughts,
the Battles over Before its Even Fought.
Clouds Drift in ,I Feel the Pain.
I Stand Destroyed in Your Domain
On the Edge of a Chasm, Inviting Cold
Hating Who I Am, a Man with No Soul.
Can You Hear My Cries of Anguish and Despair,
to Live or Die Do I Even Care?
I Know it Sounds Crazy, Not My Usual Peace.
But What to Do with Myself after this Six Year Lease
. Words Spoken to God Mean Nothing Anymore
I Spoke You Spoke Still You Walked out the Door.
How Do I Maintain My Guise as a Man
When Behind Closed Doors I Sift Away like Sand
.To Pick up and Continue What Is the Use?
I Had a Great Woman I Lost Her, I Deserve All Abuse.
I Prayed for Us Daily to God from Above, And for What Because Evidently There Is No Such Thing as True Love.
— -Anthony Crawford
-
i love you
I love you, not because of what you have but because of what I feels.. I care for you, not because you need care but because I want to.. I'm always here for you, not because i wan't you to be with me but because i want to be with you..
— -harry
-
Thinking of you
Thinking of you is easy - I do it every day. Missing you is the heartache, that never goes away.
— -Michael Pryce
-
Never Without Love
My life was over,
Or so it had seemed,
I said my goodbyes,
And I silently screamed.
I knew it was wrong,
But it just felt so right,
When sadness creeps in,
It puts up a fight.
I went into the kitchen,
I looked all around,
I saw what I needed,
My heart started to pound.
— -Chord Princess
-
Love Shayari
The day you fall in love with someone,
You think is the happiest day of your life,
But in actual you become the weakest
person Who can’t live without someone
— -William Shakespeare
-
जला कर आग सीने में मजा लो
जला कर आग सीने में मजा लो यार जीने का |
सलीका सीख लो हमसे दर्द को हँस पीने का ||
जख्म की कर नुमाइश खैर की चाहत करो क्यों तुम |
रखो तुम हौसला आकाश में ऊँचा हो उड़ने का ||
बना कर देखो आईना कभी खुद की निगाहों में |
भुला दोगे चलन खुद से खफा हो कर उखड़ने का ||
बुराई दूसरों में मत देखो यारो कभी भी तुम |
निकालो वक्त तुम आराम से खुद को ही पढ़ने का ||
नहीं कोई चले जो साथ ऐसा जिंदगी भर को |
इरादा है सभी का दूसरे को चोट करने का ||
— -मनिंदर सिंह मनी
-
dreams
The dreams,
These dreams that I dream when I sleep in my sleep.
These dreams that I dream are when my eyes are closed yet open
Are not for the faint hearted,
The dreams.
— -Langston Hughes
-
A Line-Storm Song
The line-storm clouds fly tattered and swift.
The road is forlorn all day,
Where a myriad snowy quartz stones lift,
And the hoof-prints vanish away.
The roadside flowers, too wet for the bee,
Expend their bloom in vain.
Come over the hills and far with me,
And be my love in the rain.
The birds have less to say for themselves
In the wood-world's torn despair
Than now these numberless years the elves,
Although they are no less there:
All song of the woods is crushed like some
Wild, earily shattered rose.
Come, be my love in the wet woods, come,
Where the boughs rain when it blows.
There is the gale to urge behind
And bruit our singing down,
And the shallow waters aflutter with wind
From which to gather your gown.
What matter if we go clear to the west,
And come not through dry-shod?
For wilding brooch shall wet your breast
The rain-fresh goldenrod.
Oh, never this whelming east wind swells
But it seems like the sea's return
To the ancient lands where it left the shells
Before the age of the fern;
And it seems like the time when after doubt
Our love came back amain.
Oh, come forth into the storm and rout
And be my love in the rain.
— -Robert Frost
-
A Dream Pang
I had withdrawn in forest, and my song
Was swallowed up in leaves that blew alway;
And to the forest edge you came one day
(This was my dream) and looked and pondered long,
But did not enter, though the wish was strong:
you shook your pensive head as who should say,
'I dare not--to far in his footsteps stray-
He must seek me would he undo the wrong.'
Not far, but near, I stood and saw it all
behind low boughs the trees let down outside;
And the sweet pang it cost me not to call
And tell you that I saw does still abide.
But 'tis not true that thus I dwelt aloof,
For the wood wakes, and you are here for proof.
— -Robert Frost
-
Waiting
Afield at dusk
What things for dream there are when specter-like,
Moving amond tall haycocks lightly piled,
I enter alone upon the stubbled filed,
From which the laborers' voices late have died,
And in the antiphony of afterglow
And rising full moon, sit me down
Upon the full moon's side of the first haycock
And lose myself amid so many alike.
I dream upon the opposing lights of the hour,
Preventing shadow until the moon prevail;
I dream upon the nighthawks peopling heaven,
Or plunging headlong with fierce twang afar;
And on the bat's mute antics, who would seem
Dimly to have made out my secret place,
Only to lose it when he pirouettes,
On the last swallow's sweep; and on the rasp
In the abyss of odor and rustle at my back,
That, silenced by my advent, finds once more,
After an interval, his instrument,
And tries once--twice--and thrice if I be there;
And on the worn book of old-golden song
I brought not here to read, it seems, but hold
And freshen in this air of withering sweetness;
But on the memor of one absent, most,
For whom these lines when they shall greet her eye.
— -Robert Frost
-
Tree At My Window
Tree at my window, window tree,
My sash is lowered when night comes on;
But let there never be curtain drawn
Between you and me.
Vague dream-head lifted out of the ground,
And thing next most diffuse to cloud,
Not all your light tongues talking aloud
Could be profound.
But tree, I have seen you taken and tossed,
And if you have seen me when I slept,
You have seen me when I was taken and swept
And all but lost.
That day she put our heads together,
Fate had her imagination about her,
Your head so much concerned with outer,
Mine with inner, weather.
— -Robert Frost
-
The Tuft of Flowers
I went to turn the grass once after one
Who mowed it in the dew before the sun.
The dew was gone that made his blade so keen
Before I came to view the leveled scene.
I looked for him behind an isle of trees;
I listened for his whetstone on the breeze.
But he had gone his way, the grass all mown,
And I must be, as he had been -- alone,
'As all must be,' I said within my heart,
'Whether they work together or apart.'
But as I said it, swift there passed me by
On noiseless wing a bewildered butterfly,
Seeking with memories grown dim o'er night
Some resting flower of yesterday's delight.
And once I marked his flight go round and round,
As where some flower lay withering on the ground.
And then he flew as far as eye could see,
And then on tremulous wing came back to me.
I thought of questions that have no reply,
And would have turned to toss the grass to dry;
But he turned first, and led my eye to look
At a tall tuft of flowers beside a brook,
A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared
Beside a reedy brook the scythe had bared.
The mower in the dew had loved them thus,
By leaving them to flourish, not for us,
Nor yet to draw one thought of ours to him.
But from sheer morning gladness at the brim.
The butterfly and I had lit upon,
Nevertheless, a message from the dawn,
That made me hear the wakening birds around,
And hear his long scythe whispering to the ground,
And feel a spirit kindred to my own;
So that henceforth I worked no more alone;
But glad with him, I worked as with his aid,
And weary, sought at noon with him the shade;
And dreaming, as it were, held brotherly speech
With one whose thought I had not hoped to reach.
'Men work together,' I told him from the heart,
'Whether they work together or apart.'
— -Robert Frost
-
The Armful
For every parcel I stoop down to seize
I lose some other off my arms and knees,
And the whole pile is slipping, bottles, buns,
Extremes too hard to comprehend at. once
Yet nothing I should care to leave behind.
With all I have to hold with~ hand and mind
And heart, if need be, I will do my best.
To keep their building balanced at my breast.
I crouch down to prevent them as they fall;
Then sit down in the middle of them all.
I had to drop the armful in the road
And try to stack them in a better load.
— -Robert Frost
-
I Love You Poems
You've brightened my world with
the warmth of your love... I Love
You with all my heart!
— -Keon Franks
-
Rose Pogonias
A SATURATED meadow,
Sun-shaped and jewel-small,
A circle scarcely wider
Than the trees around were tall;
Where winds were quite excluded,
And the air was stifling sweet
With the breath of many flowers, --
A temple of the hear.
There we bowed us in the burning,
As the sun's right worship is,
To pick where none could miss them
A thousand orchises;
For though the grass was scattered,
yet every second spear
Seemed tipped with wings of color,
That tinged the atmosphere.
We raised a simple prayer
Before we left the spot,
That in the general mowing
That place might be forgot;
Or if not all so favored,
Obtain such grace of hours,
that none should mow the grass there
While so confused with flowers
— -Robert Frost
-
Pan with Us
Pan came out of the woods one day,--
His skin and his hair and his eyes were gray,
The gray of the moss of walls were they,--
And stood in the sun and looked his fill
At wooded valley and wooded hill.
He stood in the zephyr, pipes in hand,
On a height of naked pasture land;
In all the country he did command
He saw no smoke and he saw no roof.
That was well! and he stamped a hoof.
His heart knew peace, for none came here
To this lean feeding save once a year
Someone to salt the half-wild steer,
Or homespun children with clicking pails
Who see so little they tell no tales.
He tossed his pipes, too hard to teach
A new-world song, far out of reach,
For sylvan sign that the blue jay's screech
And the whimper of hawks beside the sun
Were music enough for him, for one.
Times were changed from what they were:
Such pipes kept less of power to stir
The fruited bough of the juniper
And the fragile bluets clustered there
Than the merest aimless breath of air.
They were pipes of pagan mirth,
And the world had found new terms of worth.
He laid him down on the sun-burned earth
And raveled a flower and looked away--
Play? Play?--What should he play?
— -Robert Frost
-
Immigrants
No ship of all that under sail or steam
Have gathered people to us more and more
But Pilgrim-manned the Mayflower in a dream
Has been her anxious convoy in to shore.
— -Robert Frost
-
Good-by and Keep Cold
This saying good-by on the edge of the dark
And the cold to an orchard so young in the bark
Reminds me of all that can happen to harm
An orchard away at the end of the farm
All winter, cut off by a hill from the house.
I don't want it girdled by rabbit and mouse,
I don't want it dreamily nibbled for browse
By deer, and I don't want it budded by grouse.
(If certain it wouldn't be idle to call
I'd summon grouse, rabbit, and deer to the wall
And warn them away with a stick for a gun.)
I don't want it stirred by the heat of the sun.
(We made it secure against being, I hope,
By setting it out on a northerly slope.)
No orchard's the worse for the wintriest storm;
But one thing about it, it mustn't get warm.
'How often already you've had to be told,
Keep cold, young orchard. Good-by and keep cold.
Dread fifty above more than fifty below.'
I have to be gone for a season or so.
My business awhile is with different trees,
less carefully nurtured, less fruitful than these,
And such as is done to their wood with an ax--
Maples and birches and tamaracks.
I wish I could promise to lie in the night
And think of an orchard's arboreal plight
When slowly (and nobody comes with a light)
Its heart sinks lower under the sod.
But something has to be left to God.
— -Robert Frost
-
Good Hours
I had for my winter evening walk--
No one at all with whom to talk,
But I had the cottages in a row
Up to their shining eyes in snow.
And I thought I had the folk within:
I had the sound of a violin;
I had a glimpse through curtain laces
Of youthful forms and youthful faces.
I had such company outward bound.
I went till there were no cottages found.
I turned and repented, but coming back
I saw no window but that was black.
Over the snow my creaking feet
Disturbed the slumbering village street
Like profanation, by your leave,
At ten o'clock of a winter eve.
— -Robert Frost
-
Going for Water
The well was dry beside the door,
And so we went with pail and can
Across the fields behind the house
To seek the brook if still it ran;
Not loth to have excuse to go,
Because the autumn eve was fair
(Though chill), because the fields were ours,
And by the brook our woods were there.
We ran as if to meet the moon
That slowly dawned behind the trees,
The barren boughs without the leaves,
Without the birds, without the breeze.
But once within the wood, we paused
Like gnomes that hid us from the moon,
Ready to run to hiding new
With laughter when she found us soon.
Each laid on other a staying hand
To listen ere we dared to look,
And in the hush we joined to make
We heard, we knew we heard the brook.
A note as from a single place,
A slender tinkling fall that made
Now drops that floated on the pool
Like pearls, and now a silver blade.
— -Robert Frost
-
Fireflies in the Garden
Here come real stars to fill the upper skies,
And here on earth come emulating flies,
That though they never equal stars in size,
(And they were never really stars at heart)
Achieve at times a very star-like start.
Only, of course, they can't sustain the part.
— -Robert Frost
-
Devotion
The heart can think of no devotion
Greater than being shore to the ocean--
Holding the curve of one position,
Counting an endless repetition.
— -Robert Frost
-
Canis Major
The great Overdog
That heavenly beast
With a star in one eye
Gives a leap in the east.
He dances upright
All the way to the west
And never once drops
On his forefeet to rest.
I'm a poor underdog,
But to-night I will bark
With the great Overdog
That romps through the dark.
— -Robert Frost
-
Acceptance
When the spent sun throws up its rays on cloud
And goes down burning into the gulf below,
No voice in nature is heard to cry aloud
At what has happened. Birds, at least must know
It is the change to darkness in the sky.
Murmuring something quiet in her breast,
One bird begins to close a faded eye;
Or overtaken too far from his nest,
Hurrying low above the grove, some waif
Swoops just in time to his remembered tree.
At most he thinks or twitters softly, 'Safe!
Now let the night be dark for all of me.
Let the night bee too dark for me to see
Into the future. Let what will be, be.'
— -Robert Frost
-
A Patch of Old Snow
There's a patch of old snow in a corner
That I should have guessed
Was a blow-away paper the rain
Had brought to rest.
It is speckled with grime as if
Small print overspread it,
The news of a day I've forgotten--
If I ever read it.
— -Robert Frost
-
Provide, Provide
The witch that came (the withered hag)
To wash the steps with pail and rag,
Was once the beauty Abishag,
The picture pride of Hollywood.
Too many fall from great and good
For you to doubt the likelihood.
Die early and avoid the fate.
Or if predestined to die late,
Make up your mind to die in state.
Make the whole stock exchange your own!
If need be occupy a throne,
Where nobody can call you crone.
Some have relied on what they knew;
Others on simply being true.
What worked for them might work for you.
No memory of having starred
Atones for later disregard,
Or keeps the end from being hard.
Better to go down dignified
With boughten friendship at your side
Than none at all. Provide, provide!
— -Robert Frost
-
The Aim was Song
Before man came to blow it right
The wind once blew itself untaught,
And did its loudest day and night
In any rough place where it caught.
Man came to tell it what was wrong:
I hadn't found the place to blow;
It blew too hard--the aim was song.
And listen--how it ought to go!
He took a little in his mouth,
And held it long enough for north
To be converted into south,
And then by measure blew it forth.
By measure. It was word and note,
The wind the wind had meant to be--
A little through the lips and throat.
The aim was song--the wind could see
— -Robert Frost
-
A Prayer in Spring
OH, give us pleasure in the flowers today;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.
Oh, give us pleasure in the orcahrd white,
Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;
And make us happy in the happy bees,
The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.
And make us happy in the darting bird
That suddenly above the bees is heard,
The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,
And off a blossom in mid air stands still.
For this is love and nothing else is love,
To which it is reserved for God above
To sanctify to what far ends he will,
But which it only needs that we fulfill
— -Robert Frost
-
In a Disused Graveyard
The living come with grassy tread
To read the gravestones on the hill;
The graveyard draws the living still,
But never anymore the dead.
The verses in it say and say:
"The ones who living come today
To read the stones and go away
Tomorrow dead will come to stay."
So sure of death the marbles rhyme,
Yet can't help marking all the time
How no one dead will seem to come.
What is it men are shrinking from?
It would be easy to be clever
And tell the stones: Men hate to die
And have stopped dying now forever.
I think they would believe the lie.
— -Robert Frost
-
The Telephone
When I was just as far as I could walk
From here today,
There was an hour
All still
When leaning with my head again a flower
I heard you talk.
Don't say I didn't, for I heard you say--
You spoke from that flower on the window sill-
Do you remember what it was you said?'
'First tell me what it was you thought you heard.'
'Having found the flower and driven a bee away,
I leaned on my head
And holding by the stalk,
I listened and I thought I caught the word--
What was it? Did you call me by my name?
Or did you say--
Someone said "Come" -- I heard it as I bowed.'
'I may have thought as much, but not aloud.'
"Well, so I came.'
— -Robert Frost
-
A Question
A voice said, Look me in the stars
And tell me truly, men of earth,
If all the soul-and-body scars
Were not too much to pay for birth
— -Robert Frost
-
The Exposed Nest
You were forever finding some new play.
So when I saw you down on hands and knees
I the meadow, busy with the new-cut hay,
Trying, I thought, to set it up on end,
I went to show you how to make it stay,
If that was your idea, against the breeze,
And, if you asked me, even help pretend
To make it root again and grow afresh.
But 'twas no make-believe with you today,
Nor was the grass itself your real concern,
Though I found your hand full of wilted fern,
Steel-bright June-grass, and blackening heads of clovers.
'Twas a nest full of young birds on the ground
The cutter-bar had just gone champing over
(Miraculously without tasking flesh)
And left defenseless to the heat and light.
You wanted to restore them to their right
Of something interposed between their sight
And too much world at once--could means be found.
The way the nest-full every time we stirred
Stood up to us as to a mother-bird
Whose coming home has been too long deferred,
Made me ask would the mother-bird return
And care for them in such a change of scene
And might out meddling make her more afraid.
That was a thing we could not wait to learn.
We saw the risk we took in doing good,
But dared not spare to do the best we could
Though harm should come of it; so built the screen
You had begun, and gave them back their shade.
All this to prove we cared. Why is there then
No more to tell? We turned to other things.
I haven't any memory--have you?--
Of ever coming to the place again
To see if the birds lived the first night through,
And so at last to learn to use their wings.
— -Robert Frost
-
The Flower Boat
The fisherman's swapping a yarn for a yarn
Under the hand of the village barber,
And her in the angle of house and barn
His deep-sea dory has found a harbor.
At anchor she rides the sunny sod
As full to the gunnel of flowers growing
As ever she turned her home with cod
From George's bank when winds were blowing.
And I judge from that elysian freight
That all they ask is rougher weather,
And dory and master will sail by fate
To seek the Happy Isles together.
— -Robert Frost
-
The Kitchen Chimney
Builder, in building the little house,
In every way you may please yourself;
But please please me in the kitchen chimney:
Don't build me a chimney upon a shelf.
However far you must go for bricks,
Whatever they cost a-piece or a pound,
But me enough for a full-length chimney,
And build the chimney clear from the ground.
It's not that I'm greatly afraid of fire,
But I never heard of a house that throve
(And I know of one that didn't thrive)
Where the chimney started above the stove.
And I dread the ominous stain of tar
That there always is on the papered walls,
And the smell of fire drowned in rain
That there always is when the chimney's false.
A shelf's for a clock or vase or picture,
But I don't see why it should have to bear
A chimney that only would serve to remind me
Of castles I used to build in air.
— -Robert Frost
-
The Valley's Singing Day
The sound of the closing outside door was all.
You made no sound in the grass with your footfall,
As far as you went from the door, which was not far;
But had awakened under the morning star
The first song-bird that awakened all the rest.
He could have slept but a moment more at best.
Already determined dawn began to lay
In place across a cloud the slender ray
For prying across a cloud the slender ray
For prying beneath and forcing the lids of sight,
And loosing the pent-up music of over-night.
But dawn was not to begin their 'pearly-pearly;
(By which they mean the rain is pearls so early,
Before it changes to diamonds in the sun),
Neither was song that day to be self-begun.
You had begun it, and if there needed proof--
I was asleep still under the dripping roof,
My window curtain hung over the sill to wet;
But I should awake to confirm your story yet;
I should be willing to say and help you say
That once you had opened the valley's singing day.
— -Robert Frost
-
The Vanishing Red
He is said to have been the last Red man
In Action. And the Miller is said to have laughed--
If you like to call such a sound a laugh.
But he gave no one else a laugher's license.
For he turned suddenly grave as if to say,
'Whose business,--if I take it on myself,
Whose business--but why talk round the barn?--
When it's just that I hold with getting a thing done with.'
You can't get back and see it as he saw it.
It's too long a story to go into now.
You'd have to have been there and lived it.
They you wouldn't have looked on it as just a matter
Of who began it between the two races.
Some guttural exclamation of surprise
The Red man gave in poking about the mill
Over the great big thumping shuffling millstone
Disgusted the Miller physically as coming
From one who had no right to be heard from.
'Come, John,' he said, 'you want to see the wheel-pint?'
He took him down below a cramping rafter,
And showed him, through a manhole in the floor,
The water in desperate straits like frantic fish,
Salmon and sturgeon, lashing with their tails.
The he shut down the trap door with a ring in it
That jangled even above the general noise,
And came upstairs alone--and gave that laugh,
And said something to a man with a meal-sack
That the man with the meal-sack didn't catch--then.
Oh, yes, he showed John the wheel-pit all right.
— -Robert Frost
-
The Door in the Dark
In going from room to room in the dark,
I reached out blindly to save my face,
But neglected, however lightly, to lace
My fingers and close my arms in an arc.
A slim door got in past my guard,
And hit me a blow in the head so hard
I had my native simile jarred.
So people and things don't pair any more
With what they used to pair with before.
— -Robert Frost
-
October
O hushed October morning mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
Tomorrow's wind, if it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest call;
Tomorrow they may form and go.
O hushed October morning mild,
Begin the hours of this day slow.
Make the day seem to us less brief.
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you know.
Release one leaf at break of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far away.
Retard the sun with gentle mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
For the grapes' sake, if the were all,
Whose elaves already are burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost--
For the grapes' sake along the all.
— -Robert Frost
-
Asking For Roses
A house that lacks, seemingly, mistress and master,
With doors that none but the wind ever closes,
Its floor all littered with glass and with plaster;
It stands in a garden of old-fashioned roses.
I pass by that way in the gloaming with Mary;
'I wonder,' I say, 'who the owner of those is.'
'Oh, no one you know,' she answers me airy,
'But one we must ask if we want any roses.'
So we must join hands in the dew coming coldly
There in the hush of the wood that reposes,
And turn and go up to the open door boldly,
And knock to the echoes as beggars for roses.
'Pray, are you within there, Mistress Who-were-you?'
'Tis Mary that speaks and our errand discloses.
'Pray, are you within there? Bestir you, bestir you!
'Tis summer again; there's two come for roses.
'A word with you, that of the singer recalling--
Old Herrick: a saying that every maid knows is
A flower unplucked is but left to the falling,
And nothing is gained by not gathering roses.'
We do not loosen our hands' intertwining
(Not caring so very much what she supposes),
There when she comes on us mistily shining
And grants us by silence the boon of her roses.
— -Robert Frost
-
My November Guest
My Sorrow, when she's here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.
Her pleasure will not let me stay.
She talks and I am fain to list:
She's glad the birds are gone away,
She's glad her simple worsted grady
Is silver now with clinging mist.
The desolate, deserted trees,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so ryly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why.
Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell he so,
And they are better for her praise.
— -Robert Frost
-
Desert Places
Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.
The woods around it have it—it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs.
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.
And lonely as it is, that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less—
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
With no expression, nothing to express.
They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars—on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.
— -Robert Frost
-
Once By The Pacific
The shattered water made a misty din.
Great waves looked over others coming in,
And thought of doing something to the shore
That water never did to land before.
The clouds were low and hairy in the skies,
Like locks blown forward in the gleam of eyes.
You could not tell, and yet it looked as if
The shore was lucky in being backed by cliff,
The cliff in being backed by continent;
It looked as if a night of dark intent
Was coming, and not only a night, an age.
Someone had better be prepared for rage.
There would be more than ocean-water broken
Before God's last Put out the Light was spoken.
— -Robert Frost
-
Wind and Window Flower
LOVERS, forget your love,
And list to the love of these,
She a window flower,
And he a winter breeze.
When the frosty window veil
Was melted down at noon,
And the cagèd yellow bird
Hung over her in tune,
He marked her through the pane,
He could not help but mark,
And only passed her by,
To come again at dark.
He was a winter wind,
Concerned with ice and snow,
Dead weeds and unmated birds,
And little of love could know.
But he sighed upon the sill,
He gave the sash a shake,
As witness all within
Who lay that night awake.
Perchance he half prevailed
To win her for the flight
From the firelit looking-glass
And warm stove-window light.
But the flower leaned aside
And thought of naught to say,
And morning found the breeze
A hundred miles away.
— -Robert Frost
-
Into My Own
One of my wishes is that those dark trees,
So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze,
Were not, as 'twere, the merest mask of gloom,
But stretched away unto th eedge of doom.
I should not be withheld but that some day
into their vastness I should steal away,
Fearless of ever finding open land,
or highway where the slow wheel pours the sand.
I do not see why I should e'er turn back,
Or those should not set forth upon my track
To overtake me, who should miss me here
And long to know if still I held them dear.
They would not find me changed from him the knew--
Only more sure of all I though was true.
— -Robert Frost
-
Love and a Question
A stranger came to the door at eve,
And he spoke the bridegroom fair.
He bore a green-white stick in his hand,
And, for all burden, care.
He asked with the eyes more than the lips
For a shelter for the night,
And he turned and looked at the road afar
Without a window light.
The bridegroom came forth into the porch
With, 'Let us look at the sky,
And question what of the night to be,
Stranger, you and I.'
The woodbine leaves littered the yard,
The woodbine berries were blue,
Autumn, yes, winter was in the wind;
'Stranger, I wish I knew.'
Within, the bride in the dusk alone
Bent over the open fire,
Her face rose-red with the glowing coal
And the thought of the heart's desire.
The bridegroom looked at the weary road,
Yet saw but her within,
And wished her heart in a case of gold
And pinned with a silver pin.
The bridegroom thought it little to give
A dole of bread, a purse,
A heartfelt prayer for the poor of God,
Or for the rich a curse;
But whether or not a man was asked
To mar the love of two
By harboring woe in the bridal house,
The bridegroom wished he knew.
— -Robert Frost
-
A Girl's Garden
A NEIGHBOR of mine in the village
Likes to tell how one spring
When she was a girl on the farm, she did
A childlike thing.
One day she asked her father
To give her a garden plot
To plant and tend and reap herself,
And he said, "Why not?"
In casting about for a corner
He thought of an idle bit
Of walled-off ground where a shop had stood,
And he said, "Just it."
And he said, "That ought to make you
An ideal one-girl farm,
And give you a chance to put some strength
On your slim-jim arm."
It was not enough of a garden,
Her father said, to plough;
So she had to work it all by hand,
But she don't mind now.
She wheeled the dung in the wheelbarrow
Along a stretch of road;
But she always ran away and left
Her not-nice load.
And hid from anyone passing.
And then she begged the seed.
She says she thinks she planted one
Of all things but weed.
A hill each of potatoes,
Radishes, lettuce, peas,
Tomatoes, beets, beans, pumpkins, corn,
And even fruit trees
And yes, she has long mistrusted
That a cider apple tree
In bearing there to-day is hers,
Or at least may be.
Her crop was a miscellany
When all was said and done,
A little bit of everything,
A great deal of none.
Now when she sees in the village
How village things go,
Just when it seems to come in right,
She says, "I know!
It's as when I was a farmer--"
Oh, never by way of advice!
And she never sins by telling the tale
To the same person twice.
— -Robert Frost
-
Hyla Brook
By June our brook's run out of song and speed.
Sought for much after that, it will be found
Either to have gone groping underground
(And taken with it all the Hyla breed
That shouted in the mist a month ago,
Like ghost of sleigh-bells in a ghost of snow)--
Or flourished and come up in jewel-weed,
Weak foliage that is blown upon and bent
Even against the way its waters went.
Its bed is left a faded paper sheet
Of dead leaves stuck together by the heat--
A brook to none but who remember long.
This as it will be seen is other far
Than with brooks taken otherwhere in song.
We love the things we love for what they are.
— -Robert Frost
-
Design
I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth --
Assorted characters of death and blight
Mixed ready to begin the morning right,
Like the ingredients of a witches' broth --
A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
And dead wings carried like a paper kite.
What had that flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?--
If design govern in a thing so small.
— -Robert Frost
-
The Silken Tent
She is as in a field a silken tent
At midday when the sunny summer breeze
Has dried the dew and all its ropes relent,
So that in guys it gently sways at ease,
And its supporting central cedar pole,
That is its pinnacle to heavenward
And signifies the sureness of the soul,
Seems to owe naught to any single cord,
But strictly held by none, is loosely bound
By countless silken ties of love and thought
To everything on earth the compass round,
And only by one's going slightly taut
In the capriciousness of summer air
Is of the slightest bondage made aware.
— -Robert Frost
-
Putting in the Seed
You come to fetch me from my work to-night
When supper's on the table, and we'll see
If I can leave off burying the white
Soft petals fallen from the apple tree
(Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite,
Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea);
And go along with you ere you lose sight
Of what you came for and become like me,
Slave to a Springtime passion for the earth.
How Love burns through the Putting in the Seed
On through the watching for that early birth
When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed,
The sturdy seedling with arched body comes
Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.
— -Robert Frost
-
After Apple-Picking
My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing dear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.
And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it's like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep
— -Robert Frost
-
Two Tramps In Mud Time
Out of the mud two strangers came
And caught me splitting wood in the yard,
And one of them put me off my aim
By hailing cheerily "Hit them hard!"
I knew pretty well why he had dropped behind
And let the other go on a way.
I knew pretty well what he had in mind:
He wanted to take my job for pay.
Good blocks of oak it was I split,
As large around as the chopping block;
And every piece I squarely hit
Fell splinterless as a cloven rock.
The blows that a life of self-control
Spares to strike for the common good,
That day, giving a loose to my soul,
I spent on the unimportant wood.
The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day
When the sun is out and the wind is still,
You're one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And you're two months back in the middle of March.
A bluebird comes tenderly up to alight
And turns to the wind to unruffle a plume,
His song so pitched as not to excite
A single flower as yet to bloom.
It is snowing a flake; and he half knew
Winter was only playing possum.
Except in color he isn't blue,
But he wouldn't advise a thing to blossom.
The water for which we may have to look
In summertime with a witching wand,
In every wheelrut's now a brook,
In every print of a hoof a pond.
Be glad of water, but don't forget
The lurking frost in the earth beneath
That will steal forth after the sun is set
And show on the water its crystal teeth.
The time when most I loved my task
The two must make me love it more
By coming with what they came to ask.
You'd think I never had felt before
The weight of an ax-head poised aloft,
The grip of earth on outspread feet,
The life of muscles rocking soft
And smooth and moist in vernal heat.
Out of the wood two hulking tramps
(From sleeping God knows where last night,
But not long since in the lumber camps).
They thought all chopping was theirs of right.
Men of the woods and lumberjacks,
They judged me by their appropriate tool.
Except as a fellow handled an ax
They had no way of knowing a fool.
Nothing on either side was said.
They knew they had but to stay their stay
And all their logic would fill my head:
As that I had no right to play
With what was another man's work for gain.
My right might be love but theirs was need.
And where the two exist in twain
Theirs was the better right--agreed.
But yield who will to their separation,
My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight.
Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For Heaven and the future's sakes.
— -Robert Frost
-
Bereft
Where had I heard this wind before
Change like this to a deeper roar?
What would it take my standing there for,
Holding open a restive door,
Looking down hill to a frothy shore?
Summer was past and day was past.
Somber clouds in the west were massed.
Out in the porch's sagging floor,
leaves got up in a coil and hissed,
Blindly struck at my knee and missed.
Something sinister in the tone
Told me my secret must be known:
Word I was in the house alone
Somehow must have gotten abroad,
Word I was in my life alone,
Word I had no one left but God.
— -Robert Frost
-
Birches
When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.
Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-coloured
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground,
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm,
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows--
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate wilfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree~
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.
— -Robert Frost
-
Mending Wall
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it
And spills the upper boulder in the sun,
And make gaps even two can pass abreast.
The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there,
I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.
We keep the wall between us as we go.
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
"Stay where you are until our backs are turned!"
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.
Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side. It comes to little more:
There were it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors."
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
"Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there,
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having though of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."
— -Robert Frost
-
Ghost House
I DWELL in a lonely house I know
That vanished many a summer ago,
And left no trace but the cellar walls,
And a cellar in which the daylight falls,
And the purple-stemmed wild raspberries grow.
O'er ruined fences the grape-vines shield
The woods come back to the mowing field;
The orchard tree has grown one copse
Of new wood and old where the woodpecker chops;
The footpath down to the well is healed.
I dwell with a strangely aching heart
In that vanished abode there far apart
On that disused and forgotten road
That has no dust-bath now for the toad.
Night comes; the black bats tumble and dart;
The whippoorwill is coming to shout
And hush and cluck and flutter about:
I hear him begin far enough away
Full many a time to say his say
Before he arrives to say it out.
It is under the small, dim, summer star.
I know not who these mute folk are
Who share the unlit place with me--
Those stones out under the low-limbed tree
Doubtless bear names that the mosses mar.
They are tireless folk, but slow and sad,
Though two, close-keeping, are lass and lad,--
With none among them that ever sings,
And yet, in view of how many things,
As sweet companions as might be had.
— -Robert Frost
-
Dust of Snow
The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.
— -Robert Frost
-
Nothing Gold Can Stay
Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
— -Robert Frost
-
Fire and Ice
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favour fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
— -Robert Frost
-
The Lockless Door
It went many years,
But at last came a knock,
And I though of the door
With no lock to lock.
I blew out the light,
I tip-toed the floor,
And raised both hands
In prayer to the door.
But the knock came again.
My window was wide;
I climbed on the sill
And descended outside.
Back over the sill
I bade a 'Come in'
To whatever the knock
At the door may have been.
So at a knock
I emptied my cage
To hide in the world
And alter with age.
— -Robert Frost
-
'Out, Out--'
The buzz-saw snarled and rattled in the yard
And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,
Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.
And from there those that lifted eyes could count
Five mountain ranges one behind the other
Under the sunset far into Vermont.
And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,
As it ran light, or had to bear a load.
And nothing happened: day was all but done.
Call it a day, I wish they might have said
To please the boy by giving him the half hour
That a boy counts so much when saved from work.
His sister stood beside them in her apron
To tell them 'Supper'. At the word, the saw,
As if to prove saws knew what supper meant,
Leaped out at the boy's hand, or seemed to leap--
He must have given the hand. However it was,
Neither refused the meeting. But the hand!
The boy's first outcry was a rueful laugh.
As he swung toward them holding up the hand
Half in appeal, but half as if to keep
The life from spilling. Then the boy saw all--
Since he was old enough to know, big boy
Doing a man's work, though a child at heart--
He saw all spoiled. 'Don't let him cut my hand off
The doctor, when he comes. Don't let him, sister!'
So. But the hand was gone already.
The doctor put him in the dark of ether.
He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath.
And then -- the watcher at his pulse took fright.
No one believed. They listened at his heart.
Little -- less -- nothing! -- and that ended it.
No more to build on there. And they, since they
Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.
— -Robert Frost
-
Walkers With The Dawn
Being walkers with the dawn and morning,
Walkers with the sun and morning,
We are not afraid of night,
Nor days of gloom,
Nor darkness--
Being walkers with the sun and morning.
— -Amy Lowell
-
Madam And Her Madam
I worked for a woman,
She wasn't mean--
But she had a twelve-room
House to clean.
Had to get breakfast,
Dinner, and supper, too--
Then take care of her children
When I got through.
Wash, iron, and scrub,
Walk the dog around--
It was too much,
Nearly broke me down.
I said, Madam,
Can it be
You trying to make a
Pack-horse out of me?
She opened her mouth.
She cried, Oh, no!
You know, Alberta,
I love you so!
I said, Madam,
That may be true--
But I'll be dogged
If I love you!
— -Amy Lowell
-
Madam And The Phone Bill
You say I O.K.ed
LONG DISTANCE?
O.K.ed it when?
My goodness, Central
That was then!
I'm mad and disgusted
With that Negro now.
I don't pay no REVERSED
CHARGES nohow.
You say, I will pay it--
Else you'll take out my phone?
You better let
My phone alone.
I didn't ask him
To telephone me.
Roscoe knows darn well
LONG DISTANCE
Ain't free.
If I ever catch him,
Lawd, have pity!
Calling me up
From Kansas City.
Just to say he loves me!
I knowed that was so.
Why didn't he tell me some'n
I don't know?
For instance, what can
Them other girls do
That Alberta K. Johnson
Can't do--and more, too?
What's that, Central?
You say you don't care
Nothing about my
Private affair?
Well, even less about your
PHONE BILL, does I care!
Un-humm-m! . . . Yes!
You say I gave my O.K.?
Well, that O.K. you may keep--
But I sure ain't gonna pay!
— -Amy Lowell
-
The Exeter Road
Panels of claret and blue which shine
Under the moon like lees of wine.
A coronet done in a golden scroll,
And wheels which blunder and creak as they roll
Through the muddy ruts of a moorland track.
They daren't look back!
They are whipping and cursing the horses. Lord!
What brutes men are when they think they're scored.
Behind, my bay gelding gallops with me,
In a steaming sweat, it is fine to see
That coach, all claret, and gold, and blue,
Hop about and slue.
They are scared half out of their wits, poor souls.
For my lord has a casket full of rolls
Of minted sovereigns, and silver bars.
I laugh to think how he'll show his scars
In London to-morrow. He whines with rage
In his varnished cage.
My lady has shoved her rings over her toes.
'Tis an ancient trick every night-rider knows.
But I shall relieve her of them yet,
When I see she limps in the minuet
I must beg to celebrate this night,
And the green moonlight.
There's nothing to hurry about, the plain
Is hours long, and the mud's a strain.
My gelding's uncommonly strong in the loins,
In half an hour I'll bag the coins.
'Tis a clear, sweet night on the turn of Spring.
The chase is the thing!
How the coach flashes and wobbles, the moon
Dripping down so quietly on it. A tune
Is beating out of the curses and screams,
And the cracking all through the painted seams.
Steady, old horse, we'll keep it in sight.
'Tis a rare fine night!
There's a clump of trees on the dip of the down,
And the sky shimmers where it hangs over the town.
It seems a shame to break the air
In two with this pistol, but I've my share
Of drudgery like other men.
His hat? Amen!
Hold up, you beast, now what the devil!
Confound this moor for a pockholed, evil,
Rotten marsh. My right leg's snapped.
'Tis a mercy he's rolled, but I'm nicely capped.
A broken-legged man and a broken-legged horse!
They'll get me, of course.
The cursed coach will reach the town
And they'll all come out, every loafer grown
A lion to handcuff a man that's down.
What's that? Oh, the coachman's bulleted hat!
I'll give it a head to fit it pat.
Thank you! No cravat.
~They handcuffed the body just for style,
And they hung him in chains for the volatile
Wind to scour him flesh from bones.
Way out on the moor you can hear the groans
His gibbet makes when it blows a gale.
'Tis a common tale.~
— -Amy Lowell
-
The Cyclists
Spread on the roadway,
With open-blown jackets,
Like black, soaring pinions,
They swoop down the hillside,
The Cyclists.
Seeming dark-plumaged
Birds, after carrion,
Careening and circling,
Over the dying
Of England.
She lies with her bosom
Beneath them, no longer
The Dominant Mother,
The Virile -- but rotting
Before time.
The smell of her, tainted,
Has bitten their nostrils.
Exultant they hover,
And shadow the sun with
Foreboding.
— -Amy Lowell
-
Francis II King of Naples
Written after reading Trevelyan's "Garibaldi
and the making of Italy"
Poor foolish monarch, vacillating, vain,
Decaying victim of a race of kings,
Swift Destiny shook out her purple wings
And caught him in their shadow; not again
Could furtive plotting smear another stain
Across his tarnished honour. Smoulderings
Of sacrificial fires burst their rings
And blotted out in smoke his lost domain.
Bereft of courtiers, only with his queen,
From empty palace down to empty quay.
No challenge screamed from hostile carabine.
A single vessel waited, shadowy;
All night she ploughed her solitary way
Beneath the stars, and through a tranquil sea.
— -Amy Lowell
-
Miscast I
I have whetted my brain until it is like a Damascus
blade,
So keen that it nicks off the floating fringes of passers-by,
So sharp that the air would turn its edge
Were it to be twisted in flight.
Licking passions have bitten their arabesques into it,
And the mark of them lies, in and out,
Worm-like,
With the beauty of corroded copper patterning white steel.
My brain is curved like a scimitar,
And sighs at its cutting
Like a sickle mowing grass.
But of what use is all this to me!
I, who am set to crack stones
In a country lane!
— -Amy Lowell
-
The Precinct. Rochester
The tall yellow hollyhocks stand,
Still and straight,
With their round blossoms spread open,
In the quiet sunshine.
And still is the old Roman wall,
Rough with jagged bits of flint,
And jutting stones,
Old and cragged,
Quite still in its antiquity.
The pear-trees press their branches against it,
And feeling it warm and kindly,
The little pears ripen to yellow and red.
They hang heavy, bursting with juice,
Against the wall.
So old, so still!
The sky is still.
The clouds make no sound
As they slide away
Beyond the Cathedral Tower,
To the river,
And the sea.
It is very quiet,
Very sunny.
The myrtle flowers stretch themselves in the sunshine,
But make no sound.
The roses push their little tendrils up,
And climb higher and higher.
In spots they have climbed over the wall.
But they are very still,
They do not seem to move.
And the old wall carries them
Without effort, and quietly
Ripens and shields the vines and blossoms.
A bird in a plane-tree
Sings a few notes,
Cadenced and perfect
They weave into the silence.
The Cathedral bell knocks,
One, two, three, and again,
And then again.
It is a quiet sound,
Calling to prayer,
Hardly scattering the stillness,
Only making it close in more densely.
The gardener picks ripe gooseberries
For the Dean's supper to-night.
It is very quiet,
Very regulated and mellow.
But the wall is old,
It has known many days.
It is a Roman wall,
Left-over and forgotten.
Beyond the Cathedral Close
Yelp and mutter the discontents of people not mellow,
Not well-regulated.
People who care more for bread than for beauty,
Who would break the tombs of saints,
And give the painted windows of churches
To their children for toys.
People who say:
"They are dead, we live!
The world is for the living."
Fools! It is always the dead who breed.
Crush the ripe fruit, and cast it aside,
Yet its seeds shall fructify,
And trees rise where your huts were standing.
But the little people are ignorant,
They chaffer, and swarm.
They gnaw like rats,
And the foundations of the Cathedral are honeycombed.
The Dean is in the Chapter House;
He is reading the architect's bill
For the completed restoration of the Cathedral.
He will have ripe gooseberries for supper,
And then he will walk up and down the path
By the wall,
And admire the snapdragons and dahlias,
Thinking how quiet and peaceful
The garden is.
The old wall will watch him,
Very quietly and patiently it will watch.
For the wall is old,
It is a Roman wall.
— -Amy Lowell
-
Convalescence
From out the dragging vastness of the sea,
Wave-fettered, bound in sinuous, seaweed strands,
He toils toward the rounding beach, and stands
One moment, white and dripping, silently,
Cut like a cameo in lazuli,
Then falls, betrayed by shifting shells, and lands
Prone in the jeering water, and his hands
Clutch for support where no support can be.
So up, and down, and forward, inch by inch,
He gains upon the shore, where poppies glow
And sandflies dance their little lives away.
The sucking waves retard, and tighter clinch
The weeds about him, but the land-winds blow,
And in the sky there blooms the sun of May.
— -Amy Lowell
-
The Bungler
You glow in my heart
Like the flames of uncounted candles.
But when I go to warm my hands,
My clumsiness overturns the light,
And then I stumble
Against the tables and chairs.
— -Amy Lowell
-
A Petition
I pray to be the tool which to your hand
Long use has shaped and moulded till it be
Apt for your need, and, unconsideringly,
You take it for its service. I demand
To be forgotten in the woven strand
Which grows the multi-coloured tapestry
Of your bright life, and through its tissues lie
A hidden, strong, sustaining, grey-toned band.
I wish to dwell around your daylight dreams,
The railing to the stairway of the clouds,
To guard your steps securely up, where streams
A faery moonshine washing pale the crowds
Of pointed stars. Remember not whereby
You mount, protected, to the far-flung sky.
— -Amy Lowell
-
J--K. Huysmans
A flickering glimmer through a window-pane,
A dim red glare through mud bespattered glass,
Cleaving a path between blown walls of sleet
Across uneven pavements sunk in slime
To scatter and then quench itself in mist.
And struggling, slipping, often rudely hurled
Against the jutting angle of a wall,
And cursed, and reeled against, and flung aside
By drunken brawlers as they shuffled past,
A man was groping to what seemed a light.
His eyelids burnt and quivered with the strain
Of looking, and against his temples beat
The all enshrouding, suffocating dark.
He stumbled, lurched, and struck against a door
That opened, and a howl of obscene mirth
Grated his senses, wallowing on the floor
Lay men, and dogs and women in the dirt.
He sickened, loathing it, and as he gazed
The candle guttered, flared, and then went out.
Through travail of ignoble midnight streets
He came at last to shelter in a porch
Where gothic saints and warriors made a shield
To cover him, and tortured gargoyles spat
One long continuous stream of silver rain
That clattered down from myriad roofs and spires
Into a darkness, loud with rushing sound
Of water falling, gurgling as it fell,
But always thickly dark. Then as he leaned
Unconscious where, the great oak door blew back
And cast him, bruised and dripping, in the church.
His eyes from long sojourning in the night
Were blinded now as by some glorious sun;
He slowly crawled toward the altar steps.
He could not think, for heavy in his ears
An organ boomed majestic harmonies;
He only knew that what he saw was light!
He bowed himself before a cross of flame
And shut his eyes in fear lest it should fade.
— -Amy Lowell
-
White and Green
Hey! My daffodil-crowned,
Slim and without sandals!
As the sudden spurt of flame upon darkness
So my eyeballs are startled with you,
Supple-limbed youth among the fruit-trees,
Light runner through tasselled orchards.
You are an almond flower unsheathed
Leaping and flickering between the budded branches.
— -Amy Lowell
-
Storm-Racked
How should I sing when buffeting salt waves
And stung with bitter surges, in whose might
I toss, a cockleshell? The dreadful night
Marshals its undefeated dark and raves
In brutal madness, reeling over graves
Of vanquished men, long-sunken out of sight,
Sent wailing down to glut the ghoulish sprite
Who haunts foul seaweed forests and their caves.
No parting cloud reveals a watery star,
My cries are washed away upon the wind,
My cramped and blistering hands can find no spar,
My eyes with hope o'erstrained, are growing blind.
But painted on the sky great visions burn,
My voice, oblation from a shattered urn!
— -Amy Lowell
-
Crepuscule du Matin
All night I wrestled with a memory
Which knocked insurgent at the gates of thought.
The crumbled wreck of years behind has wrought
Its disillusion; now I only cry
For peace, for power to forget the lie
Which hope too long has whispered. So I sought
The sleep which would not come, and night was fraught
With old emotions weeping silently.
I heard your voice again, and knew the things
Which you had promised proved an empty vaunt.
I felt your clinging hands while night's broad wings
Cherished our love in darkness. From the lawn
A sudden, quivering birdnote, like a taunt.
My arms held nothing but the empty dawn.
— -Amy Lowell
-
Frankincense and Myrrh
My heart is tuned to sorrow, and the strings
Vibrate most readily to minor chords,
Searching and sad; my mind is stuffed with words
Which voice the passion and the ache of things:
Illusions beating with their baffled wings
Against the walls of circumstance, and hoards
Of torn desires, broken joys; records
Of all a bruised life's maimed imaginings.
Now you are come! You tremble like a star
Poised where, behind earth's rim, the sun has set.
Your voice has sung across my heart, but numb
And mute, I have no tones to answer. Far
Within I kneel before you, speechless yet,
And life ablaze with beauty, I am dumb.
— -Amy Lowell
-
To Elizabeth Ward Perkins
Dear Bessie, would my tired rhyme
Had force to rise from apathy,
And shaking off its lethargy
Ring word-tones like a Christmas chime.
But in my soul's high belfry, chill
The bitter wind of doubt has blown,
The summer swallows all have flown,
The bells are frost-bound, mute and still.
Upon the crumbling boards the snow
Has drifted deep, the clappers hang
Prismed with icicles, their clang
Unheard since ages long ago.
The rope I pull is stiff and cold,
My straining ears detect no sound
Except a sigh, as round and round
The wind rocks through the timbers old.
Below, I know the church is bright
With haloed tapers, warm with prayer;
But here I only feel the air
Of icy centuries of night.
Beneath my feet the snow is lit
And gemmed with colours, red, and blue,
Topaz, and green, where light falls through
The saints that in the windows sit.
Here darkness seems a spectred thing,
Voiceless and haunting, while the stars
Mock with a light of long dead years
The ache of present suffering.
Silent and winter-killed I stand,
No carol hymns my debt to you;
But take this frozen thought in lieu,
And thaw its music in your hand.
— -Amy Lowell
-
The Pleiades
By day you cannot see the sky
For it is up so very high.
You look and look, but it's so blue
That you can never see right through.
But when night comes it is quite plain,
And all the stars are there again.
They seem just like old friends to me,
I've known them all my life you see.
There is the dipper first, and there
Is Cassiopeia in her chair,
Orion's belt, the Milky Way,
And lots I know but cannot say.
One group looks like a swarm of bees,
Papa says they're the Pleiades;
But I think they must be the toy
Of some nice little angel boy.
Perhaps his jackstones which to-day
He has forgot to put away,
And left them lying on the sky
Where he will find them bye and bye.
I wish he'd come and play with me.
We'd have such fun, for it would be
A most unusual thing for boys
To feel that they had stars for toys!
— -Amy Lowell
-
The Road to Avignon
A Minstrel stands on a marble stair,
Blown by the bright wind, debonair;
Below lies the sea, a sapphire floor,
Above on the terrace a turret door
Frames a lady, listless and wan,
But fair for the eye to rest upon.
The minstrel plucks at his silver strings,
And looking up to the lady, sings: --
Down the road to Avignon,
The long, long road to Avignon,
Across the bridge to Avignon,
One morning in the spring.
The octagon tower casts a shade
Cool and gray like a cutlass blade;
In sun-baked vines the cicalas spin,
The little green lizards run out and in.
A sail dips over the ocean's rim,
And bubbles rise to the fountain's brim.
The minstrel touches his silver strings,
And gazing up to the lady, sings: --
Down the road to Avignon,
The long, long road to Avignon,
Across the bridge to Avignon,
One morning in the spring.
Slowly she walks to the balustrade,
Idly notes how the blossoms fade
In the sun's caress; then crosses where
The shadow shelters a carven chair.
Within its curve, supine she lies,
And wearily closes her tired eyes.
The minstrel beseeches his silver strings,
And holding the lady spellbound, sings: --
Down the road to Avignon,
The long, long road to Avignon,
Across the bridge to Avignon,
One morning in the spring.
Clouds sail over the distant trees,
Petals are shaken down by the breeze,
They fall on the terrace tiles like snow;
The sighing of waves sounds, far below.
A humming-bird kisses the lips of a rose
Then laden with honey and love he goes.
The minstrel woos with his silver strings,
And climbing up to the lady, sings: --
Down the road to Avignon,
The long, long road to Avignon,
Across the bridge to Avignon,
One morning in the spring.
Step by step, and he comes to her,
Fearful lest she suddenly stir.
Sunshine and silence, and each to each,
The lute and his singing their only speech;
He leans above her, her eyes unclose,
The humming-bird enters another rose.
The minstrel hushes his silver strings.
Hark! The beating of humming-birds' wings!
Down the road to Avignon,
The long, long road to Avignon,
Across the bridge to Avignon,
One morning in the spring.
— -Amy Lowell
-
From One Who Stays
How empty seems the town now you are gone!
A wilderness of sad streets, where gaunt walls
Hide nothing to desire; sunshine falls
Eery, distorted, as it long had shone
On white, dead faces tombed in halls of stone.
The whir of motors, stricken through with calls
Of playing boys, floats up at intervals;
But all these noises blur to one long moan.
What quest is worth pursuing? And how strange
That other men still go accustomed ways!
I hate their interest in the things they do.
A spectre-horde repeating without change
An old routine. Alone I know the days
Are still-born, and the world stopped, lacking
you.
— -Amy Lowell
-
War Profit Litany
To Ezra Pound
These are the names of the companies that have made
money from this war
nineteenhundredsixtyeight Annodomini fourthousand
eighty Hebraic
These are the Corporations who have profited by merchan-
dising skinburning phosphorous or shells fragmented
to thousands of fleshpiercing needles
and here listed money millions gained by each combine for
manufacture
and here are gains numbered, index'd swelling a decade, set
in order,
here named the Fathers in office in these industries, tele-
phones directing finance,
names of directors, makers of fates, and the names of the
stockholders of these destined Aggregates,
and here are the names of their ambassadors to the Capital,
representatives to legislature, those who sit drinking
in hotel lobbies to persuade,
and separate listed, those who drop Amphetamine with
military, gossip, argue, and persuade
suggesting policy naming language proposing strategy, this
done for fee as ambassadors to Pentagon, consul-
tants to military, paid by their industry:
and these are the names of the generals & captains mili-
tary, who know thus work for war goods manufactur-
ers;
and above these, listed, the names of the banks, combines,
investment trusts that control these industries:
and these are the names of the newspapers owned by these
banks
and these are the names of the airstations owned by these
combines;
and these are the numbers of thousands of citizens em-
ployed by these businesses named;
and the beginning of this accounting is 1958 and the end
1968, that static be contained in orderly mind,
coherent and definite,
and the first form of this litany begun first day December
1967 furthers this poem of these States.
— -Allen Ginsberg
-
An Asphodel
O dear sweet rosy
unattainable desire
...how sad, no way
to change the mad
cultivated asphodel, the
visible reality...
and skin's appalling
petals--how inspired
to be so Iying in the living
room drunk naked
and dreaming, in the absence
of electricity...
over and over eating the low root
of the asphodel,
gray fate...
rolling in generation
on the flowery couch
as on a bank in Arden--
my only rose tonite's the treat
of my own nudity.
— -Allen Ginsberg
-
Lo! Victress on the Peaks
LO! Victress on the peaks!
Where thou, with mighty brow, regarding the world,
(The world, O Libertad, that vainly conspired against thee;)
Out of its countless beleaguering toils, after thwarting them all;
Dominant, with the dazzling sun around thee,
Flauntest now unharm’d, in immortal soundness and bloom—lo! in these hours
supreme,
No poem proud, I, chanting, bring to thee—nor mastery’s rapturous verse;
But a book, containing night’s darkness, and blood-dripping wounds,
And psalms of the dead.
— -Walt Whitman
-
From Far Dakota’s Cañons
FROM far Dakota’s cañons,
Lands of the wild ravine, the dusky Sioux, the lonesome stretch, the silence,
Haply to-day a mournful wail, haply a trumpet-note for heroes.
The battle-bulletin,
The Indian ambuscade, the craft, the fatal environment,
The cavalry companies fighting to the last in sternest heroism,
In the midst of their little circle, with their slaughter’d horses for breastworks,
The fall of Custer and all his officers and men.
Continues yet the old, old legend of our race,
The loftiest of life upheld by death,
The ancient banner perfectly maintain’d,
O lesson opportune, O how I welcome thee!
As sitting in dark days,
Lone, sulky, through the time’s thick murk looking in vain for light, for hope,
From unsuspected parts a fierce and momentary proof,
(The sun there at the centre though conceal’d,
Electric life forever at the centre,)
Breaks forth a lightning flash.
Thou of the tawny flowing hair in battle,
I erewhile saw, with erect head, pressing ever in front, bearing a bright sword in thy
hand,
Now ending well in death the splendid fever of thy deeds,
(I bring no dirge for it or thee, I bring a glad triumphal sonnet,)
Desperate and glorious, aye in defeat most desperate, most glorious,
After thy many battles in which never yielding up a gun or a color
Leaving behind thee a memory sweet to soldiers,
Thou yieldest up thyself.
— -Walt Whitman
-
What Place is Besieged
WHAT place is besieged, and vainly tries to raise the siege?
Lo! I send to that place a commander, swift, brave, immortal;
And with him horse and foot—and parks of artillery,
And artillery-men, the deadliest that ever fired gun.
— -Walt Whitman
-
As Consequent, Etc
AS consequent from store of summer rains,
Or wayward rivulets in autumn flowing,
Or many a herb-lined brook’s reticulations,
Or subterranean sea-rills making for the sea,
Songs of continued years I sing.
Life’s ever-modern rapids first, (soon, soon to blend,
With the old streams of death.)
Some threading Ohio’s farm-fields or the woods,
Some down Colorado’s cañons from sources of perpetual snow,
Some half-hid in Oregon, or away southward in Texas,
Some in the north finding their way to Erie, Niagara, Ottawa,
Some to Atlantica’s bays, and so to the great salt brine.
In you whoe’er you are my book perusing,
In I myself, in all the world, these currents flowing,
All, all toward the mystic ocean tending.
Currents for starting a continent new,
Overtures sent to the solid out of the liquid,
Fusion of ocean and land, tender and pensive waves,
(Not safe and peaceful only, waves rous’d and ominous too,
Out of the depths the storm’s abysmic waves, who knows whence?
Raging over the vast, with many a broken spar and tatter’d sail.)
Or from the sea of Time, collecting vasting all, I bring,
A windrow-drift of weeds and shells.
O little shells, so curious-convolute, so limpid-cold and voiceless,
Will you not little shells to the tympans of temples held,
Murmurs and echoes still call up, eternity’s music faint and far,
Wafted inland, sent from Atlantica’s rim, strains for the soul of the prairies,
Whisper’d reverberations, chords for the ear of the West joyously sounding,
Your tidings old, yet ever new and untranslatable,
Infinitesimals out of my life, and many a life,
(For not my life and years alone I give—all, all I give,)
These waifs from the deep, cast high and dry,
Wash’d on America’s shores?
— -Walt Whitman
-
Thick-Sprinkled Bunting
THICK-SPRINKLED bunting! Flag of stars!
Long yet your road, fateful flag!—long yet your road, and lined with bloody death!
For the prize I see at issue, at last is the world!
All its ships and shores I see, interwoven with your threads, greedy banner!
—Dream’d again the flags of kings, highest born, to flaunt unrival’d?
O hasten, flag of man! O with sure and steady step, passing highest flags of kings,
Walk supreme to the heavens, mighty symbol—run up above them all,
Flag of stars! thick-sprinkled bunting!
— -Walt Whitman
-
Wandering at Morn
WANDERING at morn,
Emerging from the night, from gloomy thoughts—thee in my thoughts,
Yearning for thee, harmonious Union! thee, Singing Bird divine!
Thee, seated coil’d in evil times, my Country, with craft and black dismay—with
every
meanness, treason thrust upon thee;
—Wandering—this common marvel I beheld—the parent thrush I watch’d,
feeding
its young,
(The singing thrush, whose tones of joy and faith ecstatic,
Fail not to certify and cheer my soul.)
There ponder’d, felt I,
If worms, snakes, loathsome grubs, may to sweet spiritual songs be turn’d,
If vermin so transposed, so used, so bless’d may be,
Then may I trust in you, your fortunes, days, my country;
—Who knows that these may be the lessons fit for you?
From these your future Song may rise, with joyous trills,
Destin’d to fill the world.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Not the Pilot
NOT the pilot has charged himself to bring his ship into port, though beaten back, and
many
times
baffled;
Not the path-finder, penetrating inland, weary and long,
By deserts parch’d, snows-chill’d, rivers wet, perseveres till he reaches his
destination,
More than I have charged myself, heeded or unheeded, to compose a free march for These
States,
To be exhilarating music to them—a battle-call, rousing to arms, if need
be—years,
centuries hence. 5
— -Walt Whitman
-
Spain 1873–’74
OUT of the murk of heaviest clouds,
Out of the feudal wrecks, and heap’d-up skeletons of kings,
Out of that old entire European debris—the shatter’d mummeries,
Ruin’d cathedrals, crumble of palaces, tombs of priests,
Lo! Freedom’s features, fresh, undimm’d, look forth—the same immortal face
looks
forth;
(A glimpse as of thy mother’s face, Columbia,
A flash significant as of a sword,
Beaming towards thee.)
Nor think we forget thee, Maternal;
Lag’d’st thou so long? Shall the clouds close again upon thee?
Ah, but thou hast Thyself now appear’d to us—we know thee;
Thou hast given us a sure proof, the glimpse of Thyself;
Thou waitest there, as everywhere, thy time.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Recorders Ages Hence
RECORDERS ages hence!
Come, I will take you down underneath this impassive exterior—I will tell you what to
say
of
me;
Publish my name and hang up my picture as that of the tenderest lover,
The friend, the lover’s portrait, of whom his friend, his lover, was fondest,
Who was not proud of his songs, but of the measureless ocean of love within him—and
freely
pour’d it forth,
Who often walk’d lonesome walks, thinking of his dear friends, his lovers,
Who pensive, away from one he lov’d, often lay sleepless and dissatisfied at night,
Who knew too well the sick, sick dread lest the one he lov’d might secretly be
indifferent
to
him,
Whose happiest days were far away, through fields, in woods, on hills, he and another,
wandering
hand in hand, they twain, apart from other men,
Who oft as he saunter’d the streets, curv’d with his arm the shoulder of his
friend—while the arm of his friend rested upon him also.RECORDERS ages hence!
Come, I will take you down underneath this impassive exterior—I will tell you what to
say
of
me;
Publish my name and hang up my picture as that of the tenderest lover,
The friend, the lover’s portrait, of whom his friend, his lover, was fondest,
Who was not proud of his songs, but of the measureless ocean of love within him—and
freely
pour’d it forth,
Who often walk’d lonesome walks, thinking of his dear friends, his lovers,
Who pensive, away from one he lov’d, often lay sleepless and dissatisfied at night,
Who knew too well the sick, sick dread lest the one he lov’d might secretly be
indifferent
to
him,
Whose happiest days were far away, through fields, in woods, on hills, he and another,
wandering
hand in hand, they twain, apart from other men,
Who oft as he saunter’d the streets, curv’d with his arm the shoulder of his
friend—while the arm of his friend rested upon him also.
— -Walt Whitman
-
These Carols
THESE Carols, sung to cheer my passage through the world I see,
For completion, I dedicate to the Invisible World.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Patroling Barnegat
WILD, wild the storm, and the sea high running,
Steady the roar of the gale, with incessant undertone muttering,
Shouts of demoniac laughter fitfully piercing and pealing,
Waves, air, midnight, their savagest trinity lashing,
Out in the shadows there milk-white combs careering,
On beachy slush and sand spirts of snow fierce slanting,
Where through the murk the easterly death-wind breasting,
Through cutting swirl and spray watchful and firm advancing,
(That in the distance! is that a wreck? is the red signal flaring?)
Slush and sand of the beach tireless till daylight wending,
Steadily, slowly, through hoarse roar never remitting,
Along the midnight edge by those milk-white combs careering,
A group of dim, weird forms, struggling, the night confronting,
That savage trinity warily watching.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Savantism
THITHER, as I look, I see each result and glory retracing itself and nestling close,
always
obligated;
Thither hours, months, years—thither trades, compacts, establishments, even the most
minute;
Thither every-day life, speech, utensils, politics, persons, estates;
Thither we also, I with my leaves and songs, trustful, admirant,
As a father, to his father going, takes his children along with him. 5
— -Walt Whitman
-
Thou Reader
THOU reader throbbest life and pride and love the same as I,
Therefore for thee the following chants.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Year that Trembled
YEAR that trembled and reel’d beneath me!
Your summer wind was warm enough—yet the air I breathed froze me;
A thick gloom fell through the sunshine and darken’d me;
Must I change my triumphant songs? said I to myself;
Must I indeed learn to chant the cold dirges of the baffled?
And sullen hymns of defeat?
— -Walt Whitman
-
One Sweeps By
ONE sweeps by, attended by an immense train,
All emblematic of peace—not a soldier or menial among them.
One sweeps by, old, with black eyes, and profuse white hair,
He has the simple magnificence of health and strength,
His face strikes as with flashes of lightning whoever it turns toward.
Three old men slowly pass, followed by three others, and they by three others,
They are beautiful—the one in the middle of each group holds his companions by the
hand,
As they walk, they give out perfume wherever they walk.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Prairie States, The
A NEWER garden of creation, no primal solitude,
Dense, joyous, modern, populous millions, cities and farms,
With iron interlaced, composite, tied, many in one,
By all the world contributed—freedom’s and law’s and thrift’s society,
The crown and teeming paradise, so far, of time’s accumulations,
To justify the past.
— -Walt Whitman
-
In Former Songs
1
IN former songs Pride have I sung, and Love, and passionate, joyful Life,
But here I twine the strands of Patriotism and Death.
And now, Life, Pride, Love, Patriotism and Death,
To you, O FREEDOM, purport of all!
(You that elude me most—refusing to be caught in songs of mine,)
I offer all to you.
2
’Tis not for nothing, Death,
I sound out you, and words of you, with daring tone—embodying you,
In my new Democratic chants—keeping you for a close,
For last impregnable retreat—a citadel and tower,
For my last stand—my pealing, final cry.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Over the Carnage
OVER the carnage rose prophetic a voice,
Be not dishearten’d—Affection shall solve the problems of Freedom yet;
Those who love each other shall become invincible—they shall yet make Columbia
victorious.
Sons of the Mother of All! you shall yet be victorious!
You shall yet laugh to scorn the attacks of all the remainder of the earth.
No danger shall balk Columbia’s lovers;
If need be, a thousand shall sternly immolate themselves for one.
One from Massachusetts shall be a Missourian’s comrade;
From Maine and from hot Carolina, and another, an Oregonese, shall be friends triune,
More precious to each other than all the riches of the earth.
To Michigan, Florida perfumes shall tenderly come;
Not the perfumes of flowers, but sweeter, and wafted beyond death.
It shall be customary in the houses and streets to see manly affection;
The most dauntless and rude shall touch face to face lightly;
The dependence of Liberty shall be lovers,
The continuance of Equality shall be comrades.
These shall tie you and band you stronger than hoops of iron;
I, extatic, O partners! O lands! with the love of lovers tie you.
(Were you looking to be held together by the lawyers?
Or by an agreement on a paper? or by arms?
—Nay—nor the world, nor any living thing, will so cohere.)
— -Walt Whitman
-
Ox Tamer, The
IN a faraway northern county, in the placid, pastoral region,
Lives my farmer friend, the theme of my recitative, a famous Tamer of Oxen:
There they bring him the three-year-olds and the four-year-olds, to break them;
He will take the wildest steer in the world, and break him and tame him;
He will go, fearless, without any whip, where the young bullock chafes up and down the
yard;
The bullock’s head tosses restless high in the air, with raging eyes;
Yet, see you! how soon his rage subsides—how soon this Tamer tames him:
See you! on the farms hereabout, a hundred oxen, young and old—and he is the man who
has
tamed them;
They all know him—all are affectionate to him;
See you! some are such beautiful animals—so lofty looking!
Some are buff color’d—some mottled—one has a white line running along his
back—some are brindled,
Some have wide flaring horns (a good sign)—See you! the bright hides;
See, the two with stars on their foreheads—See, the round bodies and broad backs;
See, how straight and square they stand on their legs—See, what fine, sagacious eyes;
See, how they watch their Tamer—they wish him near them—how they turn to look
after
him!
What yearning expression! how uneasy they are when he moves away from them:
—Now I marvel what it can be he appears to them, (books, politics, poems
depart—all
else departs;)
I confess I envy only his fascination—my silent, illiterate friend,
Whom a hundred oxen love, there in his life on farms,
In the northern county far, in the placid, pastoral region
— -Walt Whitman
-
O Star of France
1
O STAR of France!
The brightness of thy hope and strength and fame,
Like some proud ship that led the fleet so long,
Beseems to-day a wreck, driven by the gale—a mastless hulk;
And ’mid its teeming, madden’d, half-drown’d crowds,
Nor helm nor helmsman.
2
Dim, smitten star!
Orb not of France alone—pale symbol of my soul, its dearest hopes,
The struggle and the daring—rage divine for liberty,
Of aspirations toward the far ideal—enthusiast’s dreams of brotherhood,
Of terror to the tyrant and the priest.
3
Star crucified! by traitors sold!
Star panting o’er a land of death—heroic land!
Strange, passionate, mocking, frivolous land.
Miserable! yet for thy errors, vanities, sins, I will not now rebuke thee;
Thy unexampled woes and pangs have quell’d them all,
And left thee sacred.
In that amid thy many faults, thou ever aimedest highly,
In that thou wouldst not really sell thyself, however great the price,
In that thou surely wakedst weeping from thy drugg’d sleep,
In that alone, among thy sisters, thou, Giantess, didst rend the ones that shamed thee,
In that thou couldst not, wouldst not, wear the usual chains,
This cross, thy livid face, thy pierced hands and feet,
The spear thrust in thy side.
4
O star! O ship of France, beat back and baffled long!
Bear up, O smitten orb! O ship, continue on!
Sure, as the ship of all, the Earth itself,
Product of deathly fire and turbulent chaos,
Forth from its spasms of fury and its poisons,
Issuing at last in perfect power and beauty,
Onward, beneath the sun, following its course,
So thee, O ship of France!
Finish’d the days, the clouds dispell’d,
The travail o’er, the long-sought extrication,
When lo! reborn, high o’er the European world,
(In gladness, answering thence, as face afar to face, reflecting ours, Columbia,)
Again thy star, O France—fair, lustrous star,
In heavenly peace, clearer, more bright than ever,
Shall beam immortal.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Inscription
SMALL is the theme of the following Chant, yet the greatest—namely,
One’s-Self—that wondrous thing a simple, separate person. That, for the use of
the
New World, I sing.
Man’s physiology complete, from top to toe, I sing. Not physiognomy alone, nor brain
alone, is worthy for the muse;—I say the Form complete is worthier far. The female
equal
with the male, I sing,
Nor cease at the theme of One’s-Self. I speak the word of the modern, the word
En-Masse:
My Days I sing, and the Lands—with interstice I knew of hapless War.
O friend whoe’er you are, at last arriving hither to commence, I feel through every
leaf
the pressure of your hand, which I return. And thus upon our journey link’d together
let
us go.
— -Walt Whitman
-
A Paumanok Picture
TWO boats with nets lying off the sea-beach, quite still,
Ten fishermen waiting—they discover a thick school of mossbonkers—they drop the
join’d seine-ends in the water,
The boats separate and row off, each on its rounding course to the beach, enclosing the
mossbonkers,
The net is drawn in by a windlass by those who stop ashore,
Some of the fishermen lounge in their boats, others stand ankle-deep in the water,
pois’d
on strong legs,
The boats partly drawn up, the water slapping against them,
Strew’d on the sand in heaps and windrows, well out from the water, the
green-back’d
spotted mossbonkers.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Hours Continuing Long
HOURS continuing long, sore and heavy-hearted,
Hours of the dusk, when I withdraw to a lonesome and unfrequented spot, seating myself,
leaning
my face in my hands;
Hours sleepless, deep in the night, when I go forth, speeding swiftly the country roads,
or
through the city streets, or pacing miles and miles, stifling plaintive cries;
Hours discouraged, distracted—for the one I cannot content myself without, soon I saw
him
content himself without me;
Hours when I am forgotten, (O weeks and months are passing, but I believe I am never to
forget!)
Sullen and suffering hours! (I am ashamed—but it is useless—I am what I am;)
Hours of my torment—I wonder if other men ever have the like, out of the like
feelings?
Is there even one other like me—distracted—his friend, his lover, lost to him?
Is he too as I am now? Does he still rise in the morning, dejected, thinking who is lost
to
him? and at night, awaking, think who is lost?
Does he too harbor his friendship silent and endless? harbor his anguish and passion?
Does some stray reminder, or the casual mention of a name, bring the fit back upon him,
taciturn and deprest?
Does he see himself reflected in me? In these hours, does he see the face of his hours
reflected?
— -Walt Whitman
-
Gliding Over All
GLIDING o’er all, through all,
Through Nature, Time, and Space,
As a ship on the waters advancing,
The voyage of the soul—not life alone,
Death, many deaths I’ll sing. 5
— -Walt Whitman
-
Delicate Cluster
DELICATE cluster! flag of teeming life!
Covering all my lands! all my sea-shores lining!
Flag of death! (how I watch’d you through the smoke of battle pressing!
How I heard you flap and rustle, cloth defiant!)
Flag cerulean! sunny flag! with the orbs of night dappled!
Ah my silvery beauty! ah my woolly white and crimson!
Ah to sing the song of you, my matron mighty!
My sacred one, my mother.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Debris
HE is wisest who has the most caution,
He only wins who goes far enough.
Any thing is as good as established, when that is established that will produce it and
continue
it.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Earth! my Likeness
EARTH! my likeness!
Though you look so impassive, ample and spheric there,
I now suspect that is not all;
I now suspect there is something fierce in you, eligible to burst forth;
For an athlete is enamour’d of me—and I of him;
But toward him there is something fierce and terrible in me, eligible to burst forth,
I dare not tell it in words—not even in these songs.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Me Imperturbe
ME imperturbe, standing at ease in Nature,
Master of all, or mistress of all—aplomb in the midst of irrational things,
Imbued as they—passive, receptive, silent as they,
Finding my occupation, poverty, notoriety, foibles, crimes, less important than I thought;
Me private, or public, or menial, or solitary—all these subordinate, (I am eternally
equal
with
the best—I am not subordinate;)
Me toward the Mexican Sea, or in the Mannahatta, or the Tennessee, or far north, or
inland,
A river man, or a man of the woods, or of any farm-life in These States, or of the coast,
or
the
lakes, or Kanada,
Me, wherever my life is lived, O to be self-balanced for contingencies!
O to confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents, rebuffs, as the trees and
animals do.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Portals
WHAT are those of the known, but to ascend and enter the Unknown?
And what are those of life, but for Death?
— -Walt Whitman
-
Mediums
THEY shall arise in the States,
They shall report Nature, laws, physiology, and happiness;
They shall illustrate Democracy and the kosmos;
They shall be alimentive, amative, perceptive;
They shall be complete women and men—their pose brawny and supple, their drink water,
their blood clean and clear;
They shall enjoy materialism and the sight of products—they shall enjoy the sight of
the
beef, lumber, bread-stuffs, of Chicago, the great city;
They shall train themselves to go in public to become orators and oratresses;
Strong and sweet shall their tongues be—poems and materials of poems shall come from
their
lives—they shall be makers and finders;
Of them, and of their works, shall emerge divine conveyers, to convey gospels;
Characters, events, retrospections, shall be convey’d in gospels
—Trees, animals, waters, shall be convey’d,
Death, the future, the invisible faith, shall all be convey’d.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Despairing Cries
1
DESPAIRING cries float ceaselessly toward me, day and night,
The sad voice of Death—the call of my nearest lover, putting forth, alarmed,
uncertain,
This sea I am quickly to sail, come tell me,
Come tell me where I am speeding—tell me my destination.
2
I understand your anguish, but I cannot help you,
I approach, hear, behold—the sad mouth, the look out of the eyes, your mute inquiry,
Whither I go from the bed I now recline on, come tell me;
Old age, alarmed, uncertain—A young woman’s voice appealing to me, for comfort,
A young man’s voice, Shall I not escape?
— -Walt Whitman
-
Among the Multitude
AMONG the men and women, the multitude,
I perceive one picking me out by secret and divine signs,
Acknowledging none else—not parent, wife, husband, brother, child, any nearer than I
am;
Some are baffled—But that one is not—that one knows me.
Ah, lover and perfect equal!
I meant that you should discover me so, by my faint indirections;
And I, when I meet you, mean to discover you by the like in you.
— -Walt Whitman
-
at Weeping Face
WHAT weeping face is that looking from the window?
Why does it stream those sorrowful tears?
Is it for some burial place, vast and dry?
Is it to wet the soil of graves?
— -Walt Whitman
-
Pensive and Faltering
PENSIVE and faltering,
The words, the dead, I write;
For living are the Dead;
(Haply the only living, only real,
And I the apparition—I the spectre.) 5
— -Walt Whitman
-
Night on The Prairies
NIGHT on the prairies;
The supper is over—the fire on the ground burns low;
The wearied emigrants sleep, wrapt in their blankets:
I walk by myself—I stand and look at the stars, which I think now I never realized
before.
Now I absorb immortality and peace,
I admire death, and test propositions.
How plenteous! How spiritual! How resumé!
The same Old Man and Soul—the same old aspirations, and the same content.
I was thinking the day most splendid, till I saw what the not-day exhibited,
I was thinking this globe enough, till there sprang out so noiseless around me myriads of
other
globes.
Now, while the great thoughts of space and eternity fill me, I will measure myself by
them;
And now, touch’d with the lives of other globes, arrived as far along as those of the
earth,
Or waiting to arrive, or pass’d on farther than those of the earth,
I henceforth no more ignore them, than I ignore my own life,
Or the lives of the earth arrived as far as mine, or waiting to arrive.
O I see now that life cannot exhibit all to me—as the day cannot,
I see that I am to wait for what will be exhibited by death.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Trickle, Drops
TRICKLE, drops! my blue veins leaving!
O drops of me! trickle, slow drops,
Candid, from me falling—drip, bleeding drops,
From wounds made to free you whence you were prison’d,
From my face—from my forehead and lips,
From my breast—from within where I was conceal’d—press forth, red drops—confession drops;
Stain every page—stain every song I sing, every word I say, bloody drops;
Let them know your scarlet heat—let them glisten;
Saturate them with yourself, all ashamed and wet;
Glow upon all I have written, or shall write, bleeding drops;
Let it all be seen in your light, blushing drops.
— -Walt Whitman
-
To The States
WHY reclining, interrogating? Why myself and all drowsing?
What deepening twilight! scum floating atop of the waters!
Who are they, as bats and night-dogs, askant in the Capitol?
What a filthy Presidentiad! (O south, your torrid suns! O north, your arctic freezings!)
Are those really Congressmen? are those the great Judges? is that the President?
Then I will sleep awhile yet—for I see that These States sleep, for reasons;
(With gathering murk—with muttering thunder and lambent shoots, we all duly awake,
South, north, east, west, inland and seaboard, we will surely awake.)
— -Walt Whitman
-
This Day, O Soul
THIS day, O Soul, I give you a wondrous mirror;
Long in the dark, in tarnish and cloud it lay—But the cloud has pass’d, and the
tarnish gone;
... Behold, O Soul! it is now a clean and bright mirror,
Faithfully showing you all the things of the world.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Poets to Come
POETS to come! orators, singers, musicians to come!
Not to-day is to justify me, and answer what I am for;
But you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater than before known,
Arouse! Arouse—for you must justify me—you must answer.
I myself but write one or two indicative words for the future,
I but advance a moment, only to wheel and hurry back in the darkness.
I am a man who, sauntering along, without fully stopping, turns a casual look upon you,
and
then
averts his face,
Leaving it to you to prove and define it,
Expecting the main things from you.
— -Walt Whitman
-
To Oratists.
TO oratists—to male or female,
Vocalism, measure, concentration, determination, and the divine power to use words.
Are you full-lung’d and limber-lipp’d from long trial? from vigorous practice?
from
physique?
Do you move in these broad lands as broad as they?
Come duly to the divine power to use words?
For only at last, after many years—after chastity, friendship, procreation, prudence,
and
nakedness;
After treading ground and breasting river and lake;
After a loosen’d throat—after absorbing eras, temperaments, races—after
knowledge, freedom, crimes;
After complete faith—after clarifyings, elevations, and removing obstructions;
After these, and more, it is just possible there comes to a man, a woman, the divine power
to
use words.
Then toward that man or that woman, swiftly hasten all—None refuse, all attend;
Armies, ships, antiquities, the dead, libraries, paintings, machines, cities, hate,
despair,
amity, pain, theft, murder, aspiration, form in close ranks;
They debouch as they are wanted to march obediently through the mouth of that man, or that
woman.
.... O I see arise orators fit for inland America;
And I see it is as slow to become an orator as to become a man;
And I see that all power is folded in a great vocalism.
Of a great vocalism, the merciless light thereof shall pour, and the storm rage,
Every flash shall be a revelation, an insult,
The glaring flame on depths, on heights, on suns, on stars,
On the interior and exterior of man or woman,
On the laws of Nature—on passive materials,
On what you called death—(and what to you therefore was death,
As far as there can be death.)
— -Walt Whitman
-
Look Down, Fair Moon
LOOK down, fair moon, and bathe this scene;
Pour softly down night’s nimbus floods, on faces ghastly, swollen, purple;
On the dead, on their backs, with their arms toss’d wide,
Pour down your unstinted nimbus, sacred moon.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Runner, The
ON a flat road runs the well-train’d runner;
He is lean and sinewy, with muscular legs;
He is thinly clothed—he leans forward as he runs,
With lightly closed fists, and arms partially rais’d.
— -Walt Whitman
-
With All Thy Gifts
WITH all thy gifts, America,
(Standing secure, rapidly tending, overlooking the world,)
Power, wealth, extent, vouchsafed to thee—With these, and like of these, vouchsafed
to
thee,
What if one gift thou lackest? (the ultimate human problem never solving;)
The gift of Perfect Women fit for thee—What of that gift of gifts thou lackest?
The towering Feminine of thee? the beauty, health, completion, fit for thee?
The Mothers fit for thee?
— -Walt Whitman
-
Behavior
BEHAVIOR—fresh, native, copious, each one for himself or herself,
Nature and the Soul expressed—America and freedom expressed—In it the finest
art,
In it pride, cleanliness, sympathy, to have their chance,
In it physique, intellect, faith—in it just as much as to manage an army or a city,
or to
write a book—perhaps more,
The youth, the laboring person, the poor person, rivalling all the rest—perhaps
outdoing
the rest,
The effects of the universe no greater than its;
For there is nothing in the whole universe that can be more effective than a man’s or
woman’s daily behavior can be,
In any position, in any one of These States.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Cavalry Crossing a Ford
A LINE in long array, where they wind betwixt green islands;
They take a serpentine course—their arms flash in the sun—Hark to the musical
clank;
Behold the silvery river—in it the splashing horses, loitering, stop to drink;
Behold the brown-faced men—each group, each person, a picture—the negligent rest
on
the
saddles;
Some emerge on the opposite bank—others are just entering the ford—while,
Scarlet, and blue, and snowy white,
The guidon flags flutter gaily in the wind.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Joy, Shipmate, Joy
JOY! shipmate—joy!
(Pleas’d to my Soul at death I cry;)
Our life is closed—our life begins;
The long, long anchorage we leave,
The ship is clear at last—she leaps!
She swiftly courses from the shore;
Joy! shipmate—joy!
— -Walt Whitman
-
A Sight in Camp
A SIGHT in camp in the day-break grey and dim,
As from my tent I emerge so early, sleepless,
As slow I walk in the cool fresh air, the path near by the hospital tent,
Three forms I see on stretchers lying, brought out there, untended lying,
Over each the blanket spread, ample brownish woollen blanket,
Grey and heavy blanket, folding, covering all.
Curious, I halt, and silent stand;
Then with light fingers I from the face of the nearest, the first, just lift the blanket:
Who are you, elderly man so gaunt and grim, with well-grey’d hair, and flesh all
sunken
about
the eyes?
Who are you, my dear comrade?
Then to the second I step—And who are you, my child and darling?
Who are you, sweet boy, with cheeks yet blooming?
Then to the third—a face nor child, nor old, very calm, as of beautiful yellow-white
ivory;
Young man, I think I know you—I think this face of yours is the face of the Christ
himself;
Dead and divine, and brother of all, and here again he lies.
— -Walt Whitman
-
1861
AARM’D year! year of the struggle!
No dainty rhymes or sentimental love verses for you, terrible year!
Not you as some pale poetling, seated at a desk, lisping cadenzas piano;
But as a strong man, erect, clothed in blue clothes, advancing, carrying a rifle on your
shoulder,
With well-gristled body and sunburnt face and hands—with a knife in the belt at your
side,
As I heard you shouting loud—your sonorous voice ringing across the continent;
Your masculine voice, O year, as rising amid the great cities,
Amid the men of Manhattan I saw you, as one of the workmen, the dwellers in Manhattan;
Or with large steps crossing the prairies out of Illinois and Indiana,
Rapidly crossing the West with springy gait, and descending the Alleghanies;
Or down from the great lakes, or in Pennsylvania, or on deck along the Ohio river;
Or southward along the Tennessee or Cumberland rivers, or at Chattanooga on the mountain
top,
Saw I your gait and saw I your sinewy limbs, clothed in blue, bearing weapons, robust
year;
Heard your determin’d voice, launch’d forth again and again;
Year that suddenly sang by the mouths of the round-lipp’d cannon,
I repeat you, hurrying, crashing, sad, distracted year.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Quicksand Years
QUICKSAND years that whirl me I know not whither,
Your schemes, politics, fail—lines give way—substances mock and elude me;
Only the theme I sing, the great and strong-possess’d Soul, eludes not;
One’s-self must never give way—that is the final substance—that out of all
is
sure;
Out of politics, triumphs, battles, life—what at last finally remains?
When shows break up, what but One’s-Self is sure?
— -Walt Whitman
-
Tests
ALL submit to them, where they sit, inner, secure, unapproachable to analysis, in the
Soul;
Not traditions—not the outer authorities are the judges—they are the judges of
outer
authorities, and of all traditions;
They corroborate as they go, only whatever corroborates themselves, and touches
themselves;
For all that, they have it forever in themselves to corroborate far and near, without one
exception.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Reconciliation
WORD over all, beautiful as the sky!
Beautiful that war, and all its deeds of carnage, must in time be utterly lost;
That the hands of the sisters Death and Night, incessantly softly wash again, and ever
again,
this
soil’d world:
... For my enemy is dead—a man divine as myself is dead;
I look where he lies, white-faced and still, in the coffin—I draw near;
I bend down, and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin.
— -Walt Whitman
-
A Riddle Song
THAT which eludes this verse and any verse,
Unheard by sharpest ear, unform’d in clearest eye or cunningest mind,
Nor lore nor fame, nor happiness nor wealth,
And yet the pulse of every heart and life throughout the world incessantly,
Which you and I and all pursuing ever ever miss,
Open but still a secret, the real of the real, an illusion,
Costless, vouchsafed to each, yet never man the owner,
Which poets vainly seek to put in rhyme, historians in prose,
Which sculptor never chisel’d yet, nor painter painted,
Which vocalist never sung, nor orator nor actor ever utter’d,
Invoking here and now I challenge for my song.
Indifferently, ’mid public, private haunts, in solitude,
Behind the mountain and the wood,
Companion of the city’s busiest streets, through the assemblage,
It and its radiations constantly glide.
In looks of fair unconscious babes,
Or strangely in the coffin’d dead,
Or show of breaking dawn or stars by night,
As some dissolving delicate film of dreams,
Hiding yet lingering.
Two little breaths of words comprising it.
Two words, yet all from first to last comprised in it.
How ardently for it!
How many ships have sail’d and sunk for it!
How many travelers started from their homes and ne’er return’d!
How much of genius boldly staked and lost for it!
What countless stores of beauty, love, ventur’d for it!
How all superbest deeds since Time began are traceable to it—and shall be to the end!
How all heroic martyrdoms to it!
How, justified by it, the horrors, evils, battles of the earth!
How the bright fascinating lambent flames of it, in every age and land, have drawn
men’s
eyes,
Rich as a sunset on the Norway coast, the sky, the islands, and the cliffs,
Or midnight’s silent glowing northern lights unreachable.
Haply God’s riddle it, so vague and yet so certain,
The soul for it, and all the visible universe for it,
And heaven at last for it.
— -Walt Whitman
-
To a Certain Civilian
DID you ask dulcet rhymes from me?
Did you seek the civilian’s peaceful and languishing rhymes?
Did you find what I sang erewhile so hard to follow?
Why I was not singing erewhile for you to follow, to understand—nor am I now;
(I have been born of the same as the war was born;
The drum-corps’ harsh rattle is to me sweet music—I love well the martial dirge,
With slow wail, and convulsive throb, leading the officer’s funeral:)
—What to such as you, anyhow, such a poet as I?—therefore leave my works,
And go lull yourself with what you can understand—and with piano-tunes;
For I lull nobody—and you will never understand me.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Kosmos
WHO includes diversity, and is Nature,
Who is the amplitude of the earth, and the coarseness and sexuality of the earth, and the
great
charity of the earth, and the equilibrium also,
Who has not look’d forth from the windows, the eyes, for nothing, or whose brain held
audience with messengers for nothing;
Who contains believers and disbelievers—Who is the most majestic lover;
Who holds duly his or her triune proportion of realism, spiritualism, and of the
aesthetic, or
intellectual,
Who, having consider’d the Body, finds all its organs and parts good;
Who, out of the theory of the earth, and of his or her body, understands by subtle
analogies
all other theories,
The theory of a city, a poem, and of the large politics of These States;
Who believes not only in our globe, with its sun and moon, but in other globes, with their
suns
and moons;
Who, constructing the house of himself or herself, not for a day, but for all time, sees
races,
eras, dates, generations,
The past, the future, dwelling there, like space, inseparable together.
— -Walt Whitman
-
To a Pupil
IS reform needed? Is it through you?
The greater the reform needed, the greater the personality you need to accomplish it.
You! do you not see how it would serve to have eyes, blood, complexion, clean and sweet?
Do you not see how it would serve to have such a Body and Soul, that when you enter the
crowd,
an atmosphere of desire and command enters with you, and every one is impress’d with
your
personality?
O the magnet! the flesh over and over!
Go, dear friend! if need be, give up all else, and commence to-day to inure yourself to
pluck,
reality, self-esteem, definiteness, elevatedness;
Rest not, till you rivet and publish yourself of your own personality.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Mother and Babe.
I SEE the sleeping babe, nestling the breast of its mother;
The sleeping mother and babe—hush’d, I study them long and long.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Thought
OF Justice—As if Justice could be anything but the same ample law, expounded by
natural
judges and saviors,
As if it might be this thing or that thing, according to decisions.
— -Walt Whitman
-
A Song
1
COME, I will make the continent indissoluble;
I will make the most splendid race the sun ever yet shone upon;
I will make divine magnetic lands,
With the love of comrades,
With the life-long love of comrades.
2
I will plant companionship thick as trees along all the rivers of America, and along the
shores
of
the great lakes, and all over the prairies;
I will make inseparable cities, with their arms about each other’s necks;
By the love of comrades,
By the manly love of comrades.
3
For you these, from me, O Democracy, to serve you, ma femme!
For you! for you, I am trilling these songs,
In the love of comrades,
In the high-towering love of comrades.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Going to Heaven
Going to Heaven!
I don't know when --
Pray do not ask me how!
Indeed I'm too astonished
To think of answering you!
Going to Heaven!
How dim it sounds!
And yet it will be done
As sure as flocks go home at night
Unto the Shepherd's arm!
Perhaps you're going too!
Who knows?
If you should get there first
Save just a little space for me
Close to the two I lost --
The smallest "Robe" will fit me
And just a bit of "Crown" --
For you know we do not mind our dress
When we are going home --
I'm glad I don't believe it
For it would stop my breath --
And I'd like to look a little more
At such a curious Earth!
I'm glad they did believe it
Whom I have never found
Since the might Autumn afternoon
I left them in the ground
— -Emily Dickinson
-
Snow flakes
Snow flakes.
I counted till they danced so
Their slippers leaped the town,
And then I took a pencil
To note the rebels down.
And then they grew so jolly
I did resign the prig,
And ten of my once stately toes
Are marshalled for a jig!
— -Emily Dickinson
-
I have a Bird in spring
I have a Bird in spring
Which for myself doth sing --
The spring decoys.
And as the summer nears --
And as the Rose appears,
Robin is gone.
Yet do I not repine
Knowing that Bird of mine
Though flown --
Learneth beyond the sea
Melody new for me
And will return.
Fast is a safer hand
Held in a truer Land
Are mine --
And though they now depart,
Tell I my doubting heart
They're thine.
In a serener Bright,
In a more golden light
I see
Each little doubt and fear,
Each little discord here
Removed.
Then will I not repine,
Knowing that Bird of mine
Though flown
Shall in a distant tree
Bright melody for me
Return.
— -Emily Dickinson
-
Fame is a bee
Fame is a bee.
It has a song --
It has a sting --
Ah, too, it has a wing.
— -Emily Dickinson
-
There is a word
There is a word
Which bears a sword
Can pierce an armed man --
It hurls its barbed syllables
And is mute again --
But where it fell
The saved will tell
On patriotic day,
Some epauletted Brother
Gave his breath away.
Wherever runs the breathless sun --
Wherever roams the day --
There is its noiseless onset --
There is its victory!
Behold the keenest marksman!
The most accomplished shot!
Time's sublimest target
Is a soul "forgot!"
— -Emily Dickinson
-
Faith is a fine invention
"Faith" is a fine invention
When Gentlemen can see --
But Microscopes are prudent
In an Emergency.
— -Emily Dickinson
-
If I should die
If I should die,
And you should live --
And time should gurgle on --
And morn should beam --
And noon should burn --
As it has usual done --
If Birds should build as early
And Bees as bustling go --
One might depart at option
From enterprise below!
'Tis sweet to know that stocks will stand
When we with Daisies lie --
That Commerce will continue --
And Trades as briskly fly --
It makes the parting tranquil
And keeps the soul serene --
That gentlemen so sprightly
Conduct the pleasing scene!
— -Emily Dickinson
-
A slash of Blue
A slash of Blue --
A sweep of Gray --
Some scarlet patches on the way,
Compose an Evening Sky --
A little purple -- slipped between --
Some Ruby Trousers hurried on --
A Wave of Gold --
A Bank of Day --
This just makes out the Morning Sky.
— -Emily Dickinson
-
Awake ye muses nine
Awake ye muses nine, sing me a strain divine,
Unwind the solemn twine, and tie my Valentine!
Oh the Earth was made for lovers, for damsel, and hopeless swain,
For sighing, and gentle whispering, and unity made of twain.
All things do go a courting, in earth, or sea, or air,
God hath made nothing single but thee in His world so fair!
The bride, and then the bridegroom, the two, and then the one,
Adam, and Eve, his consort, the moon, and then the sun;
The life doth prove the precept, who obey shall happy be,
Who will not serve the sovereign, be hanged on fatal tree.
The high do seek the lowly, the great do seek the small,
None cannot find who seeketh, on this terrestrial ball;
The bee doth court the flower, the flower his suit receives,
And they make merry wedding, whose guests are hundred leaves;
The wind doth woo the branches, the branches they are won,
And the father fond demandeth the maiden for his son.
The storm doth walk the seashore humming a mournful tune,
The wave with eye so pensive, looketh to see the moon,
Their spirits meet together, they make their solemn vows,
No more he singeth mournful, her sadness she doth lose.
The worm doth woo the mortal, death claims a living bride,
Night unto day is married, morn unto eventide;
Earth is a merry damsel, and heaven a knight so true,
And Earth is quite coquettish, and beseemeth in vain to sue.
Now to the application, to the reading of the roll,
To bringing thee to justice, and marshalling thy soul:
Thou art a human solo, a being cold, and lone,
Wilt have no kind companion, thou reap'st what thou hast sown.
Hast never silent hours, and minutes all too long,
And a deal of sad reflection, and wailing instead of song?
There's Sarah, and Eliza, and Emeline so fair,
And Harriet, and Susan, and she with curling hair!
Thine eyes are sadly blinded, but yet thou mayest see
Six true, and comely maidens sitting upon the tree;
Approach that tree with caution, then up it boldly climb,
And seize the one thou lovest, nor care for space, or time!
Then bear her to the greenwood, and build for her a bower,
And give her what she asketh, jewel, or bird, or flower --
And bring the fife, and trumpet, and beat upon the drum --
And bid the world Goodmorrow, and go to glory home!
— -Emily Dickinson
-
I never saw a Moor
I never saw a Moor --
I never saw the Sea --
Yet know I how the Heather looks
And what a Billow be.
I never spoke with God
Nor visited in Heaven --
Yet certain am I of the spot
As if the Checks were given --
— -Emily Dickinson
-
To E.T.
I slumbered with your poems on my breast
Spread open as I dropped them half-read through
Like dove wings on a figure on a tomb
To see, if in a dream they brought of you,
I might not have the chance I missed in life
Through some delay, and call you to your face
First solider, and then poet, and then both,
Who died a soldier-poet of your race.
I meant, you meant, that nothing should remain
Unsaid between us, brother, and this remained--
And one thing more that was not then to say:
The Victory for what it lost and gained.
You went to meet the shell's embrace of fire
On Vimy Ridge; and when you fell that day
The war seemed over more for you than me,
But now for me than you--the other way.
How ever, though, for even me who knew
The foe thrust back unsafe beyond the Rhine,
If I was not speak of it to you
And see you pleased once more with words of mine?
— -Robert Frost
-
The Vantage Point
If tired of trees I seek again mankind,
Well I know where to hie me--in the dawn,
To a slope where the cattle keep the lawn.
There amid lolling juniper reclined,
Myself unseen, I see in white defined
Far off the homes of men, and farther still,
The graves of men on an opposing hill,
Living or dead, whichever are to mind.
And if by noon I have too much of these,
I have but to turn on my arm, and lo,
The sun-burned hillside sets my face aglow,
My breathing shakes the bluet like a breeze,
I smell the earth, I smell the bruisèd plant,
I look into the crater of the ant.
— -Robert Frost
-
The Onset
Always the same, when on a fated night
At last the gathered snow lets down as white
As may be in dark woods, and with a song
It shall not make again all winter long
Of hissing on the yet uncovered ground,
I almost stumble looking up and round,
As one who overtaken by the end
Gives up his errand, and lets death descend
Upon him where he is, with nothing done
To evil, no important triumph won,
More than if life had never been begun.
Yet all the precedent is on my side:
I know that winter death has never tried
The earth but it has failed: the snow may heap
In long storms an undrifted four feet deep
As measured again maple, birch, and oak,
It cannot check the peeper's silver croak;
And I shall see the snow all go down hill
In water of a slender April rill
That flashes tail through last year's withered brake
And dead weeds, like a disappearing snake.
Nothing will be left white but here a birch,
And there a clump of houses with a church.
— -Robert Frost
-
The Line-Gang
Here come the line-gang pioneering by,
They throw a forest down less cut than broken.
They plant dead trees for living, and the dead
They string together with a living thread.
They string an instrument against the sky
Wherein words whether beaten out or spoken
Will run as hushed as when they were a thought
But in no hush they string it: they go past
With shouts afar to pull the cable taught,
To hold it hard until they make it fast,
To ease away--they have it. With a laugh,
An oath of towns that set the wild at naught
They bring the telephone and telegraph.
— -Robert Frost
-
The Hill Wife
I. LONELINESS
Her Word
One ought not to have to care
So much as you and I
Care when the birds come round the house
To seem to say good-bye;
Or care so much when they come back
With whatever it is they sing;
The truth being we are as much
Too glad for the one thing
As we are too sad for the other here --
With birds that fill their breasts
But with each other and themselves
And their built or driven nests.
II. HOUSE FEAR
Always -- I tell you this they learned --
Always at night when they returned
To the lonely house from far away
To lamps unlighted and fire gone gray,
They learned to rattle the lock and key
To give whatever might chance to be
Warning and time to be off in flight:
And preferring the out- to the in-door night,
They. learned to leave the house-door wide
Until they had lit the lamp inside.
III. THE SMILE
Her Word
I didn't like the way he went away.
That smile! It never came of being gay.
Still he smiled- did you see him?- I was sure!
Perhaps because we gave him only bread
And the wretch knew from that that we were poor.
Perhaps because he let us give instead
Of seizing from us as he might have seized.
Perhaps he mocked at us for being wed,
Or being very young (and he was pleased
To have a vision of us old and dead).
I wonder how far down the road he's got.
He's watching from the woods as like as not.
IV. THE OFT-REPEATED DREAM
She had no saying dark enough
For the dark pine that kept
Forever trying the window-latch
Of the room where they slept.
The tireless but ineffectual hands
That with every futile pass
Made the great tree seem as a little bird
Before the mystery of glass!
It never had been inside the room,
And only one of the two
Was afraid in an oft-repeated dream
Of what the tree might do.
V. THE IMPULSE
It was too lonely for her there,
And too wild,
And since there were but two of them,
And no child,
And work was little in the house,
She was free,
And followed where he furrowed field,
Or felled tree.
She rested on a log and tossed
The fresh chips,
With a song only to herself
On her lips.
And once she went to break a bough
Of black alder.
She strayed so far she scarcely heard.
When he called her --
And didn't answer -- didn't speak --
Or return.
She stood, and then she ran and hid
In the fern.
He never found her, though he looked
Everywhere,
And he asked at her mother's house
Was she there.
Sudden and swift and light as that
The ties gave,
And he learned of finalities
Besides the grave.
— -Robert Frost
-
The Bear
The bear puts both arms around the tree above her
And draws it down as if it were a lover
And its choke cherries lips to kiss good-bye,
Then lets it snap back upright in the sky.
Her next step rocks a boulder on the wall
(She's making her cross-country in the fall).
Her great weight creaks the barbed-wire in its staples
As she flings over and off down through the maples,
Leaving on one wire moth a lock of hair.
Such is the uncaged progress of the bear.
The world has room to make a bear feel free;
The universe seems cramped to you and me.
Man acts more like the poor bear in a cage
That all day fights a nervous inward rage~
His mood rejecting all his mind suggests.
He paces back and forth and never rests
The me-nail click and shuffle of his feet,
The telescope at one end of his beat~
And at the other end the microscope,
Two instruments of nearly equal hope,
And in conjunction giving quite a spread.
Or if he rests from scientific tread,
'Tis only to sit back and sway his head
Through ninety odd degrees of arc, it seems,
Between two metaphysical extremes.
He sits back on his fundamental butt
With lifted snout and eyes (if any) shut,
(lie almost looks religious but he's not),
And back and forth he sways from cheek to cheek,
At one extreme agreeing with one Greek~
At the other agreeing with another Greek
Which may be thought, but only so to speak.
A baggy figure, equally pathetic
When sedentary and when peripatetic.
— -Robert Frost
-
Storm Fear
WHEN the wind works against us in the dark,
And pelts with snow
The lowest chamber window on the east,
And whispers with a sort of stifled bark,
The beast,
‘Come out! Come out!’--
It costs no inward struggle not to go,
Ah, no!
I count our strength,
Two and a child,
Those of us not asleep subdued to mark
How the cold creeps as the fire dies at length,--
How drifts are piled,
Dooryard and road ungraded,
Till even the comforting barn grows far away
And my heart owns a doubt
Whether ’tis in us to arise with day
And save ourselves unaided.
— -Robert Frost
-
Range-Finding
The battle rent a cobweb diamond-strung
And cut a flower beside a ground bird's nest
Before it stained a single human breast.
The stricken flower bent double and so hung.
And still the bird revisited her young.
A butterfly its fall had dispossessed
A moment sought in air his flower of rest,
Then lightly stooped to it and fluttering clung.
On the bare upland pasture there had spread
O'ernight 'twixt mullein stalks a wheel of thread
And straining cables wet with silver dew.
A sudden passing bullet shook it dry.
The indwelling spider ran to greet the fly,
But finding nothing, sullenly withdrew.
— -Robert Frost
-
My Butterfly
Thine emulous fond flowers are dead, too,
And the daft sun-assaulter, he
That frightened thee so oft, is fled or dead:
Saave only me
(Nor is it sad to thee!)
Save only me
There is none left to mourn thee in the fields.
The gray grass is scarce dappled with the snow;
Its two banks have not shut upon the river;
But it is long ago--
It seems forever--
Since first I saw thee glance,
WIth all thy dazzling other ones,
In airy dalliance,
Precipitate in love,
Tossed, tangled, whirled and whirled above,
Like a linp rose-wreath in a fairy dance.
When that was, the soft mist
Of my regret hung not on all the land,
And I was glad for thee,
And glad for me, I wist.
Thou didst not know, who tottered, wandering on high,
That fate had made thee for the pleasure of the wind,
With those great careless wings,
Nor yet did I.
And there were othe rthings:
It seemed God let thee flutter from his gentle clasp:
Then fearful he had let thee win
Too far beyond him to be gathered in,
Santched thee, o'ereager, with ungentle gasp.
Ah! I remember me
How once conspiracy was rife
Against my life--
The languor of it and the dreaming fond;
Surging, the grasses dizzied me of thought,
The breeze three odors brought,
And a gem-flower waved in a wand!
Then when I was distraught
And could not speak,
Sidelong, full on my cheek,
What should that reckless zephyr fling
But the wild touch of thy dye-dusty wing!
I found that wing broken today!
For thou art dead, I said,
And the strang birds say.
I found it with the withered leaves
Under the eaves.
— -Robert Frost
-
Lodged
The rain to the wind said,
'You push and I'll pelt.'
They so smote the garden bed
That the flowers actually knelt,
And lay lodged--though not dead.
I know how the flowers felt.
— -Robert Frost
-
The Aim was Song
Before man came to blow it right
The wind once blew itself untaught,
And did its loudest day and night
In any rough place where it caught.
Man came to tell it what was wrong:
I hadn't found the place to blow;
It blew too hard--the aim was song.
And listen--how it ought to go!
He took a little in his mouth,
And held it long enough for north
To be converted into south,
And then by measure blew it forth.
By measure. It was word and note,
The wind the wind had meant to be--
A little through the lips and throat.
The aim was song--the wind could see.
— -Robert Frost
-
In Hardwood Groves
The same leaves over and over again!
They fall from giving shade above
To make one texture of faded brown
And fit the earth like a leather glove.
Before the leaves can mount again
To fill the trees with another shade,
They must go down past things coming up.
They must go down into the dark decayed.
They must be pierced by flowers and put
Beneath the feet of dancing flowers.
However it is in some other world
I know that this is way in ours.
— -Robert Frost
-
A Prayer in Spring
OH, give us pleasure in the flowers today;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.
Oh, give us pleasure in the orcahrd white,
Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night;
And make us happy in the happy bees,
The swarm dilating round the perfect trees.
And make us happy in the darting bird
That suddenly above the bees is heard,
The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill,
And off a blossom in mid air stands still.
For this is love and nothing else is love,
To which it is reserved for God above
To sanctify to what far ends he will,
But which it only needs that we fulfill.
— -Robert Frost
-
A Passing Glimpse
To Ridgely Torrence
On Last Looking into His 'Hesperides'
I often see flowers from a passing car
That are gone before I can tell what they are.
I want to get out of the train and go back
To see what they were beside the track.
I name all the flowers I am sure they weren't;
Not fireweed loving where woods have burnt--
Not bluebells gracing a tunnel mouth--
Not lupine living on sand and drouth.
Was something brushed across my mind
That no one on earth will ever find?
Heaven gives it glimpses only to those
Not in position to look too close.
— -Robert Frost
-
A Late Walk
When I go up through the mowing field,
The headless aftermath,
Smooth-laid like thatch with the heavy dew,
Half closes the garden path.
And when I come to the garden ground,
The whir of sober birds
Up from the tangle of withered weeds
Is sadder than any words
A tree beside the wall stands bare,
But a leaf that lingered brown,
Disturbed, I doubt not, by my thought,
Comes softly rattling down.
I end not far from my going forth
By picking the faded blue
Of the last remaining aster flower
To carry again to you.
— -Robert Frost
-
The Telephone
'When I was just as far as I could walk
From here today,
There was an hour
All still
When leaning with my head again a flower
I heard you talk.
Don't say I didn't, for I heard you say--
You spoke from that flower on the window sill-
Do you remember what it was you said?'
'First tell me what it was you thought you heard.'
'Having found the flower and driven a bee away,
I leaned on my head
And holding by the stalk,
I listened and I thought I caught the word--
What was it? Did you call me by my name?
Or did you say--
Someone said "Come" -- I heard it as I bowed.'
'I may have thought as much, but not aloud.'
"Well, so I came.'
— -Robert Frost
-
The Soldier
He is that fallen lance that lies as hurled,
That lies unlifted now, come dew, come rust,
But still lies pointed as it ploughed the dust.
If we who sight along it round the world,
See nothing worthy to have been its mark,
It is because like men we look too near,
Forgetting that as fitted to the sphere,
Our missiles always make too short an arc.
They fall, they rip the grass, they intersect
The curve of earth, and striking, break their own;
They make us cringe for metal-point on stone.
But this we know, the obstacle that checked
And tripped the body, shot the spirit on
Further than target ever showed or shone.
— -Robert Frost
-
Stars
How countlessly they congregate
O'er our tumultuous snow,
Which flows in shapes as tall as trees
When wintry winds do blow!--
As if with keeness for our fate,
Our faltering few steps on
To white rest, and a place of rest
Invisible at dawn,--
And yet with neither love nor hate,
Those starts like somw snow-white
Minerva's snow-white marble eyes
Without the gift of sight.
— -Robert Frost
-
A Time to Talk
When a friend calls to me from the road
And slows his horse to a meaning walk,
I don't stand still and look around
On all the hills I haven't hoed,
And shout from where I am, 'What is it?'
No, not as there is a time talk.
I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground,
Blade-end up and five feet tall,
And plod: I go up to the stone wall
For a friendly visit.
— -Robert Frost
-
A Question
A voice said, Look me in the stars
And tell me truly, men of earth,
If all the soul-and-body scars
Were not too much to pay for birth.
— -Robert Frost
-
To Marie Louise
Of all who hail thy presence as the morning-
Of all to whom thine absence is the night-
The blotting utterly from out high heaven
The sacred sun- of all who, weeping, bless thee
Hourly for hope- for life- ah! above all,
For the resurrection of deep-buried faith
In Truth- in Virtue- in Humanity-
Of all who, on Despair\'s unhallowed bed
Lying down to die, have suddenly arisen
At thy soft-murmured words, \'Let there be light!\'
At the soft-murmured words that were fulfilled
In the seraphic glancing of thine eyes-
Of all who owe thee most- whose gratitude
Nearest resembles worship- oh, remember
The truest- the most fervently devoted,
And think that these weak lines are written by him-
By him who, as he pens them, thrills to think
His spirit is communing with an angel\'s.
— -Edgar Allan Poe
-
Tonight I Can Write
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
Write, for example,\'The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.\'
The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.
Through nights like this one I held her in my arms
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.
She loved me sometimes, and I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.
To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.
What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is shattered and she is not with me.
This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
My sight searches for her as though to go to her.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.
The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.
I no longer love her, that\'s certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.
Another\'s. She will be another\'s. Like my kisses before.
Her voide. Her bright body. Her inifinite eyes.
I no longer love her, that\'s certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my sould is not satisfied that it has lost her.
Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.
— -Pablo Neruda
-
Heaven\
Heaven\"—is what I cannot reach!
The Apple on the Tree—
Provided it do hopeless—hang—
That—\"He aven\" is—to Me!
The Color, on the Cruising Cloud—
The interdicted Land—
Behind the Hill—the House behind—
There—Paradise—is found!
Her teasing Purples—Afternoons—
The credulous—decoy—
Enamored—of the Conjuror—
That spurned us—Yesterday!
— -Emily Dickinson
-
Nothing Gold Can Stay
Nature\'s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf\'s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf,
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day
Nothing gold can stay.
— -Robert Frost
-
The Bells - A Collaborati
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The Bells - A Collaboration - Poem by Edgar Allan Poe
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The bells! — ah, the bells!
The little silver bells!
How fairy-like a melody there floats
From their throats. —
From their merry little throats —
From the silver, tinkling throats
Of the bells, bells, bells —
Of the bells!
The bells! — ah, the bells!
The heavy iron bells!
How horrible a monody there floats
From their throats —
From their deep-toned throats —
From their melancholy throats!
How I shudder at the notes
Of the bells, bells, bells —
Of the bells!
— -Edgar Allan Poe
-
Ulalume
The skies they were ashen and sober;
The leaves they were crisped and sere -
The leaves they were withering and sere;
It was night in the lonesome October
Of my most immemorial year;
It was hard by the dim lake of Auber,
In the misty mid region of Weir -
It was down by the dank tarn of Auber,
In the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.
Here once, through an alley Titanic,
Of cypress, I roamed with my Soul -
Of cypress, with Psyche, my Soul.
These were days when my heart was volcanic
As the scoriac rivers that roll -
As the lavas that restlessly roll
Their sulphurous currents down Yaanek
In the ultimate climes of the pole -
That groan as they roll down Mount Yaanek
In the realms of the boreal pole.
Our talk had been serious and sober,
But our thoughts they were palsied and sere -
Our memories were treacherous and sere, -
For we knew not the month was October,
And we marked not the night of the year -
(Ah, night of all nights in the year!)
We noted not the dim lake of Auber -
(Though once we had journey down here),
Remembered not the dank tarn of Auber,
Nor the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir.
And now, as the night was senescent,
And star-dials pointed to morn -
As the star-dials hinted of morn -
At the end of our path a liquescent
And nebulous lustre was born,
Out of which a miraculous crescent
Arose with a duplicate horn -
Astarte\'s bediamonded crescent
Distinct with its duplicate horn.
And I said - \"She is warmer than Dian:
She rolls through an ether of sighs -
She revels in a region of sighs:
She has seen that the tears are not dry on
These cheeks, where the worm never dies,
And has come past the stars of the Lion
To point us the path to the skies -
To the Lethean peace of the skies -
Come up, in despite of the Lion,
To shine on us with her bright eyes -
Come up through the lair of the Lion,
With love in her luminous eyes.\"
But Psyche, uplifting her finger,
Said - \"Sadly this star I mistrust -
Her pallor I strangely mistrust: -
Oh, hasten! - oh, let us not linger!
Oh, fly! - let us fly! - for we must.\"
In terror she spoke, letting sink her
Wings until they trailed in the dust -
In agony sobbed, letting sink her
Plumes till they trailed in the dust -
Till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust.
I replied - \"This is nothing but dreaming:
Let us on by this tremulous light!
Let us bathe in this crystalline light!
Its Sybilic splendor is beaming
With Hope and in Beauty to-night! -
See! - it flickers up the sky through the night!
Ah, we safely may trust to its gleaming,
And be sure it will lead us aright -
We safely may trust to a gleaming,
That cannot but guide us aright,
Since it flickers up to Heaven through the night.\"
Thus I pacified Psyche and kissed her,
And tempted her out of her gloom -
And conquered her scruples and gloom;
And we passed to the end of the vista,
But were stopped by the door of a tomb -
By the door of a legended tomb;
And I said - \"What is written, sweet sister,
On the door of this legended tomb?\"
She replied - \"Ulalume - Ulal
— -Edgar Allan Poe
-
Let America Be America Ag
Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.
(America never was America to me.)
Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.
(It never was America to me.)
O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.
(There\'s never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this \"homeland of the free.\")
Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?
I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery\'s scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.
I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one\'s own greed!
I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.
Yet I\'m the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That\'s made America the land it has become.
O, I\'m the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I\'m the one who left dark Ireland\'s shore,
And Poland\'s plain, and England\'s grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa\'s strand I came
To build a \"homeland of the free.\"
The free?
Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we\'ve dreamed
And all the songs we\'ve sung
And all the hopes we\'ve held
And all the flags we\'ve hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that\'s almost dead today.
O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that\'s mine--the poor man\'s, Indian\'s, Negro\'s, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.
Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people\'s lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!
O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was
— -Langston Hughes
-
Ode To Fanny
Physician Nature! Let my spirit blood!
O ease my heart of verse and let me rest;
Throw me upon thy Tripod, till the flood
Of stifling numbers ebbs from my full breast.
A theme! a theme! great nature! give a theme;
Let me begin my dream.
I come -- I see thee, as thou standest there,
Beckon me not into the wintry air.
Ah! dearest love, sweet home of all my fears,
And hopes, and joys, and panting miseries, --
To-night, if I may guess, thy beauty wears
A smile of such delight,
As brilliant and as bright,
As when with ravished, aching, vassal eyes,
Lost in soft amaze,
I gaze, I gaze!
Who now, with greedy looks, eats up my feast?
What stare outfaces now my silver moon!
Ah! keep that hand unravished at the least;
Let, let, the amorous burn --
But pr\'ythee, do not turn
The current of your heart from me so soon.
O! save, in charity,
The quickest pulse for me.
Save it for me, sweet love! though music breathe
Voluptuous visions into the warm air;
Though swimming through the dance\'s dangerous wreath,
Be like an April day,
Smiling and cold and gay,
A temperate lilly, temperate as fair;
Then, Heaven! there will be
A warmer June for me.
Why, this, you\'ll say, my Fanny! is not true:
Put your soft hand upon your snowy side,
Where the heart beats: confess -- \'tis nothing new --
Must not a woman be
A feather on the sea,
Sway\'d to and fro by every wind and tide?
Of as uncertain speed
As blow-ball from the mead?
I know it -- and to know it is despair
To one who loves you as I love, sweet Fanny!
Whose heart goes fluttering for you every where,
Nor, when away you roam,
Dare keep its wretched home,
Love, love alone, his pains severe and many:
Then, loveliest! keep me free,
From torturing jealousy.
Ah! if you prize my subdued soul above
The poor, the fading, brief, pride of an hour;
Let none profane my Holy See of love,
Or with a rude hand break
The sacramental cake:
Let none else touch the just new-budded flower;
If not -- may my eyes close,
Love! on their lost repose.
— -John Keats
-
Democracy
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Democracy - Poem by Langston Hughes
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Democracy will not come
Today, this year
Nor ever
Through compromise and fear.
I have as much right
As the other fellow has
To stand
On my two feet
And own the land.
I tire so of hearing people say,
Let things take their course.
Tomorrow is another day.
I do not need my freedom when I\'m dead.
I cannot live on tomorrow\'s bread.
Freedom
Is a strong seed
Planted
In a great need.
I live here, too.
I want freedom
Just as you.
— -Langston Hughes
-
Ode To Autumn
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Ode To Autumn - Poem by John Keats
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Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o\'er-brimmed their clammy cell.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,---
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir, the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
— -John Keats
-
His Last Sonnet
Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art! -
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like Nature\'s patient sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth\'s human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors -
No -yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillowed upon my fair love\'s ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever -or else swoon to death.
— -John Keats
-
The Lake
In spring of youth it was my lot
To haunt of the wide world a spot
The which I could not love the less-
So lovely was the loneliness
Of a wild lake, with black rock bound,
And the tall pines that towered around.
But when the Night had thrown her pall
Upon that spot, as upon all,
And the mystic wind went by
Murmuring in melody-
Then- ah then I would awake
To the terror of the lone lake.
Yet that terror was not fright,
But a tremulous delight-
A feeling not the jewelled mine
Could teach or bribe me to define-
Nor Love- although the Love were thine.
Death was in that poisonous wave,
And in its gulf a fitting grave
For him who thence could solace bring
To his lone imagining-
Whose solitary soul could make
An Eden of that dim lake.
— -Edgar Allan Poe
-
Serenade
So sweet the hour, so calm the time,
I feel it more than half a crime,
When Nature sleeps and stars are mute,
To mar the silence ev'n with lute.
At rest on ocean's brilliant dyes
An image of Elysium lies:
Seven Pleiades entranced in Heaven,
Form in the deep another seven:
Endymion nodding from above
Sees in the sea a second love.
Within the valleys dim and brown,
And on the spectral mountain's crown,
The wearied light is dying down,
And earth, and stars, and sea, and sky
Are redolent of sleep, as I
Am redolent of thee and thine
Enthralling love, my Adeline.
But list, O list,- so soft and low
Thy lover's voice tonight shall flow,
That, scarce awake, thy soul shall deem
My words the music of a dream.
Thus, while no single sound too rude
Upon thy slumber shall intrude,
Our thoughts, our souls- O God above!
In every deed shall mingle, love.
— -Edgar Allan Poe
-
Hymn
At morn- at noon- at twilight dim-
Maria! thou hast heard my hymn!
In joy and woe- in good and ill-
Mother of God, be with me still!
When the hours flew brightly by,
And not a cloud obscured the sky,
My soul, lest it should truant be,
Thy grace did guide to thine and thee;
Now, when storms of Fate o'ercast
Darkly my Present and my Past,
Let my Future radiant shine
With sweet hopes of thee and thine!
— -Edgar Allan Poe
-
Stanzas
How often we forget all time, when lone
Admiring Nature's universal throne;
Her woods- her wilds- her mountains- the intense
Reply of HERS to OUR intelligence! [BYRON, The Island.]
I
In youth have I known one with whom the Earth
In secret communing held- as he with it,
In daylight, and in beauty from his birth:
Whose fervid, flickering torch of life was lit
From the sun and stars, whence he had drawn forth
A passionate light- such for his spirit was fit-
And yet that spirit knew not, in the hour
Of its own fervor what had o'er it power.
II
Perhaps it may be that my mind is wrought
To a fever by the moonbeam that hangs o'er,
But I will half believe that wild light fraught
With more of sovereignty than ancient lore
Hath ever told- or is it of a thought
The unembodied essence, and no more,
That with a quickening spell doth o'er us pass
As dew of the night-time o'er the summer grass?
III
Doth o'er us pass, when, as th' expanding eye
To the loved object- so the tear to the lid
Will start, which lately slept in apathy?
And yet it need not be- (that object) hid
From us in life- but common- which doth lie
Each hour before us- but then only, bid
With a strange sound, as of a harp-string broken,
To awake us- 'Tis a symbol and a token
IV
Of what in other worlds shall be- and given
In beauty by our God, to those alone
Who otherwise would fall from life and Heaven
Drawn by their heart's passion, and that tone,
That high tone of the spirit which hath striven,
Tho' not with Faith- with godliness- whose throne
With desperate energy 't hath beaten down;
Wearing its own deep feeling as a crown.
— -Edgar Allan Poe
-
The Forest Reverie
Tis said that when
The hands of men
Tamed this primeval wood,
And hoary trees with groans of woe,
Like warriors by an unknown foe,
Were in their strength subdued,
The virgin Earth Gave instant birth
To springs that ne'er did flow
That in the sun Did rivulets run,
And all around rare flowers did blow
The wild rose pale Perfumed the gale
And the queenly lily adown the dale
(Whom the sun and the dew
And the winds did woo),
With the gourd and the grape luxuriant grew.
So when in tears
The love of years
Is wasted like the snow,
And the fine fibrils of its life
By the rude wrong of instant strife
Are broken at a blow
Within the heart
Do springs upstart
Of which it doth now know,
And strange, sweet dreams,
Like silent streams
That from new fountains overflow,
With the earlier tide
Of rivers glide
Deep in the heart whose hope has died--
Quenching the fires its ashes hide,--
Its ashes, whence will spring and grow
Sweet flowers, ere long,
The rare and radiant flowers of song!
— -Edgar Allan Poe
-
Israfel
In Heaven a spirit doth dwell
"Whose heart-strings are a lute";
None sing so wildly well
As the angel Israfel,
And the giddy stars (so legends tell),
Ceasing their hymns, attend the spell
Of his voice, all mute.
Tottering above
In her highest noon,
The enamored moon
Blushes with love,
While, to listen, the red levin
(With the rapid Pleiads, even,
Which were seven,)
Pauses in Heaven.
And they say (the starry choir
And the other listening things)
That Israfeli's fire
Is owing to that lyre
By which he sits and sings-
The trembling living wire
Of those unusual strings.
But the skies that angel trod,
Where deep thoughts are a duty-
Where Love's a grown-up God-
Where the Houri glances are
Imbued with all the beauty
Which we worship in a star.
Therefore thou art not wrong,
Israfeli, who despisest
An unimpassioned song;
To thee the laurels belong,
Best bard, because the wisest!
Merrily live, and long!
The ecstasies above
With thy burning measures suit-
Thy grief, thy joy, thy hate, thy love,
With the fervor of thy lute-
Well may the stars be mute!
Yes, Heaven is thine; but this
Is a world of sweets and sours;
Our flowers are merely- flowers,
And the shadow of thy perfect bliss
Is the sunshine of ours.
If I could dwell
Where Israfel
Hath dwelt, and he where I,
He might not sing so wildly well
A mortal melody,
While a bolder note than this might swell
From my lyre within the sky.
— -Edgar Allan Poe
-
The Coliseum
Type of the antique Rome! Rich reliquary
Of lofty contemplation left to Time
By buried centuries of pomp and power!
At length- at length- after so many days
Of weary pilgrimage and burning thirst,
(Thirst for the springs of lore that in thee lie,)
I kneel, an altered and an humble man,
Amid thy shadows, and so drink within
My very soul thy grandeur, gloom, and glory!
Vastness! and Age! and Memories of Eld!
Silence! and Desolation! and dim Night!
I feel ye now- I feel ye in your strength-
O spells more sure than e'er Judaean king
Taught in the gardens of Gethsemane!
O charms more potent than the rapt Chaldee
Ever drew down from out the quiet stars!
Here, where a hero fell, a column falls!
Here, where the mimic eagle glared in gold,
A midnight vigil holds the swarthy bat!
Here, where the dames of Rome their gilded hair
Waved to the wind, now wave the reed and thistle!
Here, where on golden throne the monarch lolled,
Glides, spectre-like, unto his marble home,
Lit by the wan light of the horned moon,
The swift and silent lizard of the stones!
But stay! these walls- these ivy-clad arcades-
These moldering plinths- these sad and blackened shafts-
These vague entablatures- this crumbling frieze-
These shattered cornices- this wreck- this ruin-
These stones- alas! these grey stones- are they all-
All of the famed, and the colossal left
By the corrosive Hours to Fate and me?
"Not all"- the Echoes answer me- "not all!
Prophetic sounds and loud, arise forever
From us, and from all Ruin, unto the wise,
As melody from Memnon to the Sun.
We rule the hearts of mightiest men- we rule
With a despotic sway all giant minds.
We are not impotent- we pallid stones.
Not all our power is gone- not all our fame-
Not all the magic of our high renown-
Not all the wonder that encircles us-
Not all the mysteries that in us lie-
Not all the memories that hang upon
And cling around about us as a garment,
Clothing us in a robe of more than glory.
— -Edgar Allan Poe
-
To Helen 2
I saw thee once- once only- years ago:
I must not say how many- but not many.
It was a July midnight; and from out
A full-orbed moon, that, like thine own soul, soaring,
Sought a precipitate pathway up through heaven,
There fell a silvery-silken veil of light,
With quietude, and sultriness, and slumber,
Upon the upturned faces of a thousand
Roses that grew in an enchanted garden,
Where no wind dared to stir, unless on tiptoe-
Fell on the upturn'd faces of these roses
That gave out, in return for the love-light,
Their odorous souls in an ecstatic death-
Fell on the upturn'd faces of these roses
That smiled and died in this parterre, enchanted
By thee, and by the poetry of thy presence.
Clad all in white, upon a violet bank
I saw thee half reclining; while the moon
Fell on the upturn'd faces of the roses,
And on thine own, upturn'd- alas, in sorrow!
Was it not Fate, that, on this July midnight-
Was it not Fate, (whose name is also Sorrow,)
That bade me pause before that garden-gate,
To breathe the incense of those slumbering roses?
No footstep stirred: the hated world an slept,
Save only thee and me. (Oh, Heaven!- oh, God!
How my heart beats in coupling those two words!)
Save only thee and me. I paused- I looked-
And in an instant all things disappeared.
(Ah, bear in mind this garden was enchanted!)
The pearly lustre of the moon went out:
The mossy banks and the meandering paths,
The happy flowers and the repining trees,
Were seen no more: the very roses' odors
Died in the arms of the adoring airs.
All- all expired save thee- save less than thou:
Save only the divine light in thine eyes-
Save but the soul in thine uplifted eyes.
I saw but them- they were the world to me!
I saw but them- saw only them for hours,
Saw only them until the moon went down.
What wild heart-histories seemed to he enwritten
Upon those crystalline, celestial spheres!
How dark a woe, yet how sublime a hope!
How silently serene a sea of pride!
How daring an ambition; yet how deep-
How fathomless a capacity for love!
But now, at length, dear Dian sank from sight,
Into a western couch of thunder-cloud;
And thou, a ghost, amid the entombing trees
Didst glide away. Only thine eyes remained;
They would not go- they never yet have gone;
Lighting my lonely pathway home that night,
They have not left me (as my hopes have) since;
They follow me- they lead me through the years.
They are my ministers- yet I their slave.
Their office is to illumine and enkindle-
My duty, to be saved by their bright light,
And purified in their electric fire,
And sanctified in their elysian fire.
They fill my soul with Beauty (which is Hope),
And are far up in Heaven- the stars I kneel to
In the sad, silent watches of my night;
While even in the meridian glare of day
I see them still- two sweetly scintillant
Venuses, unextinguished by the sun!
— -Edgar Allan Poe
-
Sancta Maria
Sancta Maria! turn thine eyes -
Upon the sinner's sacrifice,
Of fervent prayer and humble love,
From thy holy throne above.
At morn - at noon - at twilight dim -
Maria! thou hast heard my hymn!
In joy and wo - in good and ill -
Mother of God, be with me still!
When the Hours flew brightly by,
And not a cloud obscured the sky,
My soul, lest it should truant be,
Thy grace did guide to thine and thee;
Now, when storms of Fate o'ercast
Darkly my Present and my Past,
Let my Future radiant shine
With sweet hopes of thee and thine!
— -Edgar Allan Poe
-
Eulalie
I dwelt alone
In a world of moan,
And my soul was a stagnant tide,
Till the fair and gentle Eulalie became my blushing bride-
Till the yellow-haired young Eulalie became my smiling bride.
Ah, less- less bright
The stars of the night
Than the eyes of the radiant girl!
That the vapor can make
With the moon-tints of purple and pearl,
Can vie with the modest Eulalie's most unregarded curl-
Can compare with the bright-eyed Eulalie's most humble and careless
curl.
Now Doubt- now Pain
Come never again,
For her soul gives me sigh for sigh,
And all day long
Shines, bright and strong,
Astarte within the sky,
While ever to her dear Eulalie upturns her matron eye-
While ever to her young Eulalie upturns her violet eye.
— -Edgar Allan Poe
-
Atmosphere
Inscription for a Garden Wall
Winds blow the open grassy places bleak;
But where this old wall burns a sunny cheek,
They eddy over it too toppling weak
To blow the earth or anything self-clear;
Moisture and color and odor thicken here.
The hours of daylight gather atmosphere.
— -Robert Frost
-
A Winter Eden
A winter garden in an alder swamp,
Where conies now come out to sun and romp,
As near a paradise as it can be
And not melt snow or start a dormant tree.
It lifts existence on a plane of snow
One level higher than the earth below,
One level nearer heaven overhead,
And last year's berries shining scarlet red.
It lifts a gaunt luxuriating beast
Where he can stretch and hold his highest feat
On some wild apple tree's young tender bark,
What well may prove the year's high girdle mark.
So near to paradise all pairing ends:
Here loveless birds now flock as winter friends,
Content with bud-inspecting. They presume
To say which buds are leaf and which are bloom.
A feather-hammer gives a double knock.
This Eden day is done at two o'clock.
An hour of winter day might seem too short
To make it worth life's while to wake and sport.
— -Robert Frost
-
To Earthward
Love at the lips was touch
As sweet as I could bear;
And once that seemed too much;
I lived on air
That crossed me from sweet things,
The scent of -- was it musk
From hidden grapevine springs
Down hill at dusk?
I had the swirl and ache
From sprays of honeysuckle
That when they're gathered shake
Dew on the knuckle.
I craved sweet things, but those
Seemed strong when I was young;
The petal of the rose
It was that stung.
Now no joy but lacks salt
That is not dashed with pain
And weariness and fault;
I crave the stain
Of tears, the aftermark
Of almost too much love,
The sweet of bitter bark
And burning clove.
When stiff and sore and scarred
I take away my hand
From leaning on it hard
In grass and sand,
The hurt is not enough:
I long for weight and strength
To feel the earth as rough
To all my length.
— -Robert Frost
-
The Investment
Over back where they speak of life as staying
('You couldn't call it living, for it ain't'),
There was an old, old house renewed with paint,
And in it a piano loudly playing.
Out in the plowed ground in the cold a digger,
Among unearthed potatoes standing still,
Was counting winter dinners, one a hill,
With half an ear to the piano's vigor.
All that piano and new paint back there,
Was it some money suddenly come into?
Or some extravagance young love had been to?
Or old love on an impulse not to care--
Not to sink under being man and wife,
But get some color and music out of life?
— -Robert Frost
-
The Flood
Blood has been harder to dam back than water.
Just when we think we have it impounded safe
Behind new barrier walls (and let it chafe!),
It breaks away in some new kind of slaughter.
We choose to say it is let loose by the devil;
But power of blood itself releases blood.
It goes by might of being such a flood
Held high at so unnatural a level.
It will have outlet, brave and not so brave.
weapons of war and implements of peace
Are but the points at which it finds release.
And now it is once more the tidal wave
That when it has swept by leaves summits stained.
Oh, blood will out. It cannot be contained.
— -Robert Frost
-
The Birthplace
Here further up the mountain slope
Than there was every any hope,
My father built, enclosed a spring,
Strung chains of wall round everything,
Subdued the growth of earth to grass,
And brought our various lives to pass.
A dozen girls and boys we were.
The mountain seemed to like the stir,
And made of us a little while--
With always something in her smile.
Today she wouldn\'t know our name.
(No girl\'s, of course, has stayed the same.)
The mountain pushed us off her knees.
And now her lap is full of trees.
— -Robert Frost
-
Riders
The surest thing there is is we are riders,
And though none too successful at it, guiders,
Through everything presented, land and tide
And now the very air, of what we ride.
What is this talked-of mystery of birth
But being mounted bareback on the earth?
We can just see the infant up astride,
His small fist buried in the bushy hide.
There is our wildest mount--a headless horse.
But though it runs unbridled off its course,
And all our blandishments would seem defied,
We have ideas yet that we haven't tried.
— -Robert Frost
-
Revelation
We make ourselves a place apart
Behind light words that tease and flout,
But oh, the agitated hear
Till someone really find us out.
'Tis pity if the case require
(Or so we say) that in the end
We speak the literal to inspire
The understanding of a friend.
But so with all, from babes that play
At hid-and-seek to God afar,
So all who hide too well away
Must speak and tell us where they are.
— -Robert Frost
-
Mowing
There was never a sound beside the wood but one,
And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground.
What was it it whispered? I knew not well myself;
Perhaps it was something about the heat of the sun,
Something, perhaps, about the lack of sound--
And that was why it whispered and did not speak.
It was no dream of the gift of idle hours,
Or easy gold at the hand of fay or elf:
Anything more than the truth would have seemed too weak
To the earnest love that laid the swale in rows,
Not without feeble-pointed spikes of flowers
(Pale orchises), and scared a bright green snake.
The fact is the sweetest dream that labour knows.
My long scythe whispered and left the hay to make.
— -Robert Frost
-
In Neglect
They leave us so to the way we took,
As two in whom them were proved mistaken,
That we sit sometimes in the wayside nook,
With michievous, vagrant, seraphic look,
And try if we cannot feel forsaken.
— -Robert Frost
-
Shall I compare
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,
Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
— -William Shakespeare
-
So are you to my thoughts
So are you to my thoughts as food to life,
Or as sweet-season’d showers are to the ground;
And for the peace of you I hold such strife
As ‘twixt a miser and his wealth is found;
Now proud as an enjoyer and anon
Doubting the filching age will steal his treasure,
Now counting best to be with you alone,
Then better’d that the world may see my pleasure;
Sometime all full with feasting on your sight
And by and by clean starved for a look;
Possessing or pursuing no delight,
Save what is had or must from you be took.
Thus do I pine and surfeit day by day,
Or gluttoning on all, or all away.
— -William Shakespeare
-
That God Forbid
That god forbid, that made me first your slave,
I should in thought control your times of pleasure,
Or at your hand the account of hours to crave,
Being your vassal, bound to stay your leisure!
O! let me suffer, being at your beck,
The imprison’d absence of your liberty;
And patience, tame to sufferance, bide each check,
Without accusing you of injury.
Be where you list, your charter is so strong
That you yourself may privilege your time
To what you will; to you it doth belong
Yourself to pardon of self-doing crime.
I am to wait, though waiting so be hell,
Not blame your pleasure be it ill or well.
— -William Shakespeare
-
That time of year
That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourish’d by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.
— -Wiliam Shakespeare
-
The little Love-god lying
The little Love-god lying once asleep
Laid by his side his heart-inflaming brand,
Whilst many nymphs that vow’d chaste life to keep
Came tripping by; but in her maiden hand
The fairest votary took up that fire
Which many legions of true hearts had warm’d;
And so the general of hot desire
Was sleeping by a virgin hand disarm’d.
This brand she quenched in a cool well by,
Which from Love’s fire took heat perpetual,
Growing a bath and healthful remedy
For men diseased; but I, my mistress’ thrall,
Came there for cure, and this by that I prove,
Love’s fire heats water, water cools not love.
— -William Shakespeare
-
They that have power
They that have power to hurt and will do none,
That do not do the thing they most do show,
Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,
Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow,
They rightly do inherit heaven’s graces
And husband nature’s riches from expense;
They are the lords and owners of their faces,
Others but stewards of their excellence.
The summer’s flower is to the summer sweet,
Though to itself it only live and die,
But if that flower with base infection meet,
The basest weed outbraves his dignity:
For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.
— -William Shakespeare
-
Tired with all these
Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,
As to behold desert a beggar born,
And needy nothing trimm’d in jollity,
And purest faith unhappily forsworn,
And gilded honour shamefully misplac’d,
And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
And right perfection wrongfully disgrac’d,
And strength by limping sway disabled
And art made tongue-tied by authority,
And folly, doctor-like, controlling skill,
And simple truth miscall’d simplicity,
And captive good attending captain ill:
Tir’d with all these, from these would I be gone,
Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.
— -William Shakespeare
-
When thou shalt be dispos
When thou shalt be disposed to set me light,
And place my merit in the eye of scorn,
Upon thy side against myself I’ll fight,
And prove thee virtuous, though thou art forsworn.
With mine own weakness being best acquainted,
Upon thy part I can set down a story
Of faults conceal’d, wherein I am attainted,
That thou in losing me shalt win much glory:
And I by this will be a gainer too;
For bending all my loving thoughts on thee,
The injuries that to myself I do,
Doing thee vantage, double-vantage me.
Such is my love, to thee I so belong,
That for thy right myself will bear all wrong.
— -William Shakespeare
-
When, in disgrace
When, in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least:
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven’s gate;
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings’.
Sonnet no.29 by W. Shakespeare
— -William Shakespeare
-
Where Art Thou Muse
100
Where art thou Muse that thou forget’st so long,
To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?
Spend’st thou thy fury on some worthless song,
Darkening thy power to lend base subjects light?
Return forgetful Muse, and straight redeem,
In gentle numbers time so idly spent;
Sing to the ear that doth thy lays esteem
And gives thy pen both skill and argument.
Rise, resty Muse, my love’s sweet face survey,
If Time have any wrinkle graven there;
If any, be a satire to decay,
And make time’s spoils despised every where.
Give my love fame faster than Time wastes life,
So thou prevent’st his scythe and crooked knife.
— -william Shakespeare
-
The Pauper Witch of Graft
NOW that they\'ve got it settled whose I be,
I\'m going to tell them something they won\'t like:
They\'ve got it settled wrong, and I can prove it.
Flattered I must be to have two towns fighting
To make a present of me to each other.
They don\'t dispose me, either one of them,
To spare them any trouble. Double trouble\'s
Always the witch\'s motto anyway.
I\'ll double theirs for both of them- you watch me.
They\'ll find they\'ve got the whole thing to do over,
That is, if facts is what they want to go by.
They set a lot (now don\'t they?) by a record
Of Arthur Amy\'s having once been up
For Hog Reeve in March Meeting here in Warren.
I could have told them any time this twelvemonth
The Arthur Amy I was married to
Couldn\'t have been the one they say was up
In Warren at March Meeting for the reason
He wa\'n\'t but fifteen at the time they say.
The Arthur Amy I was married to
voted the only times he ever voted,
Which wasn\'t many, in the town of Wentworth.
One of the times was when \'twas in the warrant
To see if the town wanted to take over
The tote road to our clearing where we lived.
I\'ll tell you who\'d remember- Heman Lapish.
Their Arthur Amy was the father of mine.
So now they\'ve dragged it through the law courts once
I guess they\'d better drag it through again.
Wentworth and Warren\'s both good towns to live in,
Only I happen to prefer to live
In Wentworth from now on; and when all\'s said,
Right\'s right, and the temptation to do right
When I can hurt someone by doing it
Has always been too much for me, it has.
I know of some folks that\'d be set up
At having in their town a noted witch:
But most would have to think of the expense
That even I would be. They ought to know
That as a witch I\'d often milk a bat
And that\'d be enough to last for days.
It\'d make my position stronger, I think,
If I was to consent to give some sign
To make it surer that I was a witch?
It wa\'n\'t no sign, I s\'pose, when Mallice Huse
Said that I took him out in his old age
And rode all over everything on him
Until I\'d had him worn to skin and bones,
And if I\'d left him hitched unblanketed
In front of one Town Hall, I\'d left him hitched
In front of every one in Grafton County.
Some cried shame on me not to blanket him,
The poor old man. It would have been all right
If some one hadn\'t said to gnaw the posts
He stood beside and leave his trade mark on them,
So they could recognize them. Not a post
That they could hear tell of was scarified.
They made him keep on gnawing till he whined.
Then that same smarty someone said to look-
He\'d bet Huse was a cribber and had gnawed
The crib he slept in- and as sure\'s you\'re born
They found he\'d gnawed the four posts of his bed,
All four of them to splinters. What did that prove?
Not that he hadn\'t gnawed the hitching posts
He said he had besides. Because a horse
Gnaws in the stable ain\'t no proof to me
He don\'t gnaw trees and posts and fences too.
But everybody took it for proof.
I was a strapping girl of twenty then.
The smarty someone who spoiled everyt
— -Robert Frost
-
Locked Out
As told to a child
When we locked up the house at night,
We always locked the flowers outside
And cut them off from window light.
The time I dreamed the door was tried
And brushed with buttons upon sleeves,
The flowers were out there with the thieves.
Yet nobody molested them!
We did find one nasturtium
Upon the steps with bitten stem.
I may have been to blame for that:
I always thought it must have been
Some Hower I played with as I sat
At dusk to watch the moon down early.
— -Robert Frost
-
It Was An April Morning
It was an April morning: fresh and clear
The Rivulet, delighting in its strength,
Ran with a young man\'s speed; and yet the voice
Of waters which the winter had supplied
Was softened down into a vernal tone.
The spirit of enjoyment and desire,
And hopes and wishes, from all living things
Went circling, like a multitude of sounds.
The budding groves seemed eager to urge on
The steps of June; as if their various hues
Were only hindrances that stood between
Them and their object: but, meanwhile, prevailed
Such an entire contentment in the air
That every naked ash, and tardy tree
Yet leafless, showed as if the countenance
With which it looked on this delightful day
Were native to the summer.--Up the brook
I roamed in the confusion of my heart,
Alive to all things and forgetting all.
At length I to a sudden turning came
In this continuous glen, where down a rock
The Stream, so ardent in its course before,
Sent forth such sallies of glad sound, that all
Which I till then had heard, appeared the voice
Of common pleasure: beast and bird, the lamb,
The shepherd\'s dog, the linnet and the thrush
Vied with this waterfall, and made a song,
Which, while I listened, seemed like the wild growth
Or like some natural produce of the air,
That could not cease to be. Green leaves were here;
But \'twas the foliage of the rocks--the birch,
The yew, the holly, and the bright green thorn,
With hanging islands of resplendent furze:
And, on a summit, distant a short space,
By any who should look beyond the dell,
A single mountain-cottage might be seen.
I gazed and gazed, and to myself I said,
\'Our thoughts at least are ours; and this wild nook,
My EMMA, I will dedicate to thee.\'
----Soon did the spot become my other home,
My dwelling, and my out-of-doors abode.
And, of the Shepherds who have seen me there,
To whom I sometimes in our idle talk
Have told this fancy, two or three, perhaps,
Years after we are gone and in our graves,
When they have cause to speak of this wild place,
May call it by the name of EMMA\'S DELL.
— -William Wordsworth
-
I Wandered Lonely As A Cl
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I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud (Daffodils) - Poem by William Wordsworth
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I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o\'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed- and gazed- but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
— -William Wordsworth
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Your Laughter
Take bread away from me, if you wish,
take air away, but
do not take from me your laughter.
Do not take away the rose,
the lance flower that you pluck,
the water that suddenly
bursts forth in joy,
the sudden wave
of silver born in you.
My struggle is harsh and I come back
with eyes tired
at times from having seen
the unchanging earth,
but when your laughter enters
it rises to the sky seeking me
and it opens for me all
the doors of life.
My love, in the darkest
hour your laughter
opens, and if suddenly
you see my blood staining
the stones of the street,
laugh, because your laughter
will be for my hands
like a fresh sword.
Next to the sea in the autumn,
your laughter must raise
its foamy cascade,
and in the spring, love,
I want your laughter like
the flower I was waiting for,
the blue flower, the rose
of my echoing country.
Laugh at the night,
at the day, at the moon,
laugh at the twisted
streets of the island,
laugh at this clumsy
boy who loves you,
but when I open
my eyes and close them,
when my steps go,
when my steps return,
deny me bread, air,
light, spring,
but never your laughter
for I would die.
— -Pablo Neruda
-
Still Another Day
Today is that day, the day that carried
a desperate light that since has died.
Don\'t let the squatters know:
let\'s keep it all between us,
day, between your bell
and my secret.
Today is dead winter in the forgotten land
that comes to visit me, with a cross on the map
and a volcano in the snow, to return to me,
to return again the water
fallen on the roof of my childhood.
Today when the sun began with its shafts
to tell the story, so clear, so old,
the slanting rain fell like a sword,
the rain my hard heart welcomes.
You, my love, still asleep in August,
my queen, my woman, my vastness, my geography
kiss of mud, the carbon-coated zither,
you, vestment of my persistent song,
today you are reborn again and with the sky\'s
black water confuse me and compel me:
I must renew my bones in your kingdom,
I must still uncloud my earthly duties.
— -Pablo Neruda
-
The City Of Sin
LO! Death hath rear\'d himself a throne
In a strange city, all alone,
Far down within the dim west —
Where the good, and the bad, and the worst, and the best,
Have gone to their eternal rest.
There shrines, and palaces, and towers
Are — not like any thing of ours —
Oh no! — O no! — ours never loom
To heaven with that ungodly gloom!
Time-eaten towers that tremble not!
Resemble nothing that is ours.
Around, by lifting winds forgot,
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
No holy rays from heaven come down
On the long night-time of that town,
But light from out the lurid sea
Streams up the turrets silently —
Up thrones — up long-forgotten bowers
Of scultur\'d ivy and stone flowers —
Up domes — up spires — up kingly halls —
Up fanes — up Babylon-like walls —
Up many a melancholy shrine
Whose entablatures intertwine
The mask — the viol — and the vine.
There open temples — open graves
Are on a level with the waves —
But not the riches there that lie
In each idol\'s diamond eye,
Not the gaily-jewell\'d dead
Tempt the waters from their bed:
For no ripples curl, alas!
Along that wilderness of glass —
No swellings hint that winds may be
Upon a far-off happier sea:
So blend the turrets and shadows there
That all seem pendulous in air,
While from the high towers of the town
Death looks gigantically down.
But lo! a stir is in the air!
The wave — there is a ripple there!
As if the towers had thrown aside,
In slightly sinking, the dull tide —
As if the turret-tops had given
A vacuum in the filmy heaven.
The waves have now a redder glow —
The very hours are breathing low —
And when, amid no earthly moans,
Down, down, that town shall settle hence,
All Hades, from a thousand thrones,
Shall do it reverence,
And Death to some more happy clime
Shall give his undivided time.
— -Edgar Allan Poe
-
Evening Star
Twas noontide of summer,
And mid-time of night;
And stars, in their orbits,
Shone pale, thro\' the light
Of the brighter, cold moon,
\'Mid planets her slaves,
Herself in the Heavens,
Her beam on the waves.
I gazed awhile
On her cold smile;
Too cold- too cold for me-
There pass\'d, as a shroud,
A fleecy cloud,
And I turned away to thee,
Proud Evening Star,
In thy glory afar,
And dearer thy beam shall be;
For joy to my heart
Is the proud part
Thou bearest in Heaven at night,
And more I admire
Thy distant fire,
Than that colder, lowly light.
— -Edgar Allan Poe
-
A Clear Midnight
HIS is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,
Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done,
Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou
lovest best.
Night, sleep, death and the stars.
— -Walt Whitman
-
O Captain! My Captain!
O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather\'d every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up--for you the flag is flung--for you the bugle trills; 10
For you bouquets and ribbon\'d wreaths--for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head;
It is some dream that on the deck,
You\'ve fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchor\'d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won; 20
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
— -Walt Whitman
-
Sand Dunes
Sea waves are green and wet,
But up from where they die,
Rise others vaster yet,
And those are brown and dry.
They are the sea made land
To come at the fisher town,
And bury in solid sand
The men she could not drown.
She may know cove and cape,
But she does not know mankind
If by any change of shape,
She hopes to cut off mind.
Men left her a ship to sink:
They can leave her a hut as well;
And be but more free to think
For the one more cast-off shell.
— -Robert Frost
-
Song For A Dark Girl
Way Down South in Dixie
(Break the heart of me)
They hung my black young lover
To a cross roads tree.
Way Down South in Dixie
(Bruised body high in air)
I asked the white Lord Jesus
What was the use of prayer.
Way Down South in Dixie
(Break the heart of me)
Love is a naked shadow
On a gnarled and naked tree.
— -Langston Hughes
-
Acrostic : Georgiana Augu
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Acrostic : Georgiana Augusta Keats - Poem by John Keats
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Give me your patience, sister, while I frame
Exact in capitals your golden name;
Or sue the fair Apollo and he will
Rouse from his heavy slumber and instill
Great love in me for thee and Poesy.
Imagine not that greatest mastery
And kingdom over all the Realms of verse,
Nears more to heaven in aught, than when we nurse
And surety give to love and Brotherhood.
Anthropophagi in Othello\'s mood;
Ulysses storm\'d and his enchanted belt
Glow with the Muse, but they are never felt
Unbosom\'d so and so eternal made,
Such tender incense in their laurel shade
To all the regent sisters of the Nine
As this poor offering to you, sister mine.
Kind sister! aye, this third name says you are;
Enchanted has it been the Lord knows where;
And may it taste to you like good old wine,
Take you to real happiness and give
Sons, daughters and a home like honied hive.
— -John Keats
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The Road Not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
— -Robert Frost
-
A Thing Of Beauty
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its lovliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o\\\'er-darkn\\\'d ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
\\\'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven\\\'s brink.
— -John Keats
-
In Time Of Silver Rain
In time of silver rain
The earth puts forth new life again,
Green grasses grow
And flowers lift their heads,
And over all the plain
The wonder spreads
Of Life,
Of Life,
Of life!
In time of silver rain
The butterflies lift silken wings
To catch a rainbow cry,
And trees put forth new leaves to sing
In joy beneath the sky
As down the roadway
Passing boys and girls
Go singing, too,
In time of silver rain When spring
And life
Are new.
— -Langston Hughes
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I, Too
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I, Too - Poem by Langston Hughes
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I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I\'ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody\'ll dare
Say to me,
\"Eat in the kitchen,\"
Then.
Besides,
They\'ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--
I, too, am America.
— -Langston Hughes
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A Late Walk
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A Late Walk - Poem by Robert Frost
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When I go up through the mowing field,
The headless aftermath,
Smooth-laid like thatch with the heavy dew,
Half closes the garden path.
And when I come to the garden ground,
The whir of sober birds
Up from the tangle of withered weeds
Is sadder than any words
A tree beside the wall stands bare,
But a leaf that lingered brown,
Disturbed, I doubt not, by my thought,
Comes softly rattling down.
I end not far from my going forth
By picking the faded blue
Of the last remaining aster flower
To carry again to you.
— -Robert Frost
-
A Character
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A Character - Poem by William Wordsworth
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I marvel how Nature could ever find space
For so many strange contrasts in one human face:
There\'s thought and no thought, and there\'s paleness and bloom
And bustle and sluggishness, pleasure and gloom.
There\'s weakness, and strength both redundant and vain;
Such strength as, if ever affliction and pain
Could pierce through a temper that\'s soft to disease,
Would be rational peace--a philosopher\'s ease.
There\'s indifference, alike when he fails or succeeds,
And attention full ten times as much as there needs;
Pride where there\'s no envy, there\'s so much of joy;
And mildness, and spirit both forward and coy.
There\'s freedom, and sometimes a diffident stare
Of shame scarcely seeming to know that she\'s there,
There\'s virtue, the title it surely may claim,
Yet wants heaven knows what to be worthy the name.
This picture from nature may seem to depart,
Yet the Man would at once run away with your heart;
And I for five centuries right gladly would be
Such an odd such a kind happy creature as he.
— -William Wordsworth
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poet William Shakespeare
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date”.
— -William Shakespeare
-
I Wait For You...
I wait for you. The years in silence pass
And as the image, one, I wait for you again.
The distance is in flame -- and clear one as glass,
I, silent, wait -- with sadness, love and pain.
The distance is in flame, and you are coming fast,
But I'm afraid that you will change your image yet,
And will initiate the challenging mistrust
By changing features, used, at long awaited end.
Oh, how I will fell -- so low and so pine,
Unable to overcome my dreams' continued set!
The distance is such bright! And azure is so fine!
But I'm afraid that you will change your image yet.
— -Aleksandr Blok
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I Prefer the Gorgeous
I prefer the gorgeous freedom,
And I fly to lands of grace,
Where in wide and clear meadows
All is good, as dreams, and blest.
Here they rice: the clover clear,
And corn-flower's gentle lace,
And the rustle is always here:
"Ears are leaning... Take your ways!"
In this immense sea of fair,
Only one of blades reclines.
You don't see in misty air,
I'd seen it!It will be mine!
— -Aleksandr Blok
-
He, who was born
He, who was born in stagnant year
Does not remember own way.
We, kids of Russia's years of fear,
Remember every night and day.
Years that burned everything to ashes!
Do you bring madness or grace?
The war's and freedom's fire flashes
Left bloody light on every face.
We are struck dumb: the toxsin's pressure
Has made us tightly close lips.
In living hearts, once full of pleasure,
The fateful desert now sleeps.
And let the crying ravens soar
Right over our death-bed,
May those who were striving more,
O God, behold Thy Kingdom's Great!
— -Aleksandr Blok
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Gamajun, the Prophetic
On waters, spread without end,
Dressed with the sunset so purple,
It sings and prophesies for land,
Unable to lift the smashed wings' couple...
The charge of Tartars' hordes it claims,
And bloody set of executions,
Earthquake, and hunger and the flames,
The death of justice, crime’s intrusion...
And caught with fear, cold and smooth,
The fair face flames as one of lovers’,
But sound with prophetic truth
The lips that the bloody foam covers!...
— -Aleksandr Blok
-
Don't fear death
Don't fear death in earthly travels.
Don't fear enemies or friends.
Just listen to the words of prayers,
To pass the facets of the dreads.
Your death will come to you, and never
You shall be, else, a slave of life,
Just waiting for a dawn's favor,
From nights of poverty and strife.
She'll build with you a common law,
One will of the Eternal Reign.
And you are not condemned to slow
And everlasting deadly pain.
— -Aleksandr Blok
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A Girl Sang a Song
A girl sang a song in the temple's chorus,
About men, tired in alien lands,
About the ships that left native shores,
And all who forgot their joy to the end.
Thus sang her clean voice, and flew up to the highness,
And sunbeams shined on her shoulder's white --
And everyone saw and heard from the darkness
The white and airy gown, singing in the light.
And all of them were sure, that joy would burst out:
The ships have arrived at their beach,
The people, in the land of the aliens tired,
Regaining their bearing, are happy and reach.
And sweet was her voice and the sun's beams around....
And only, by Caesar's Gates -- high on the vault,
The baby, versed into mysteries, mourned,
Because none of them will be ever returned.
— -Aleksandr Blok
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Guardian Angel
A warm feeling filled me
on reading the words she wrote
for me, written in her prison cell,
sent to me with love, with thanks
Touching me in ways
ways I cannot really explain
For coming into her life,
the life of her mother, her children
going before the courts, the agency
those who would stand in judgment
wag fingers, look down on them all
Take up her cause, fight for them
find a way through, to sanctuary
a new home with her
with her loving arms
ready and able to hold them
— -Raymond A. Foss
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My Guiding Angel
Unfortunately this poem has been removed from our archives at the insistence of the copyright holder.
— -Gary R. Ferris
-
Angel Love
There once was an angel,
All lonely and blue;
Hard times and trouble,
Were all that he knew.
*****
Hurting and drinking,
He did every night;
Searching for answers,
For wrong and for right.
*****
Then one day,
In the bright morning sun;
An angel appeared,
And his worries were done.
*****
Happy together,
Everywhere they went;
And the angel was happy,
For the angel God sent.
*****
Loving and caring,
Until the day was new;
A young angel was born,
Who looked like them too.
*****
The three angels cherished,
All that they had;
Until life’s winds shifted,
And they became sad.
*****
Fighting and fussing,
They hurt each other;
And soon began wandering,
In search of another.
*****
Sooner than later,
Things fell apart;
And left the two angels,
With broken hearts.
*****
Apart they looked,
Near and far;
Searching for answers,
In every star.
*****
The young angel hurt,
And grew very cold;
While the two angels fought,
And only grew old.
*****
The young angel tried,
To bring them together;
By giving her love,
She could make things better.
*****
Separate roads they took,
Soon all crossed;
When anger and pain,
Had long been tossed.
*****
The story ends,
With them parting never;
For who would have guessed,
“Angel Love” lasts forever.
— -Gary R. Ferris
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Sleeping Angel
So peaceful, so still
she lies there,
napping on our bed
commandeering the sanctuary
for her own devices
but so sweetly
so angelic in sleep
so much a blessing
when awake
as are the other two
— -Raymond A. Foss
-
the wounded angel
(from a painting by hugo simberg)
those who bear the wounded angel
are they honoured or destroyed
far beyond their comprehension
are the warfares of the void
angels have a sheen to lift them
well above the bloody battles
human beings give their hurts to
divines don't need such tittle-tattles
yet this angel has been wounded
here on earth its presence is
two young boys (the stretcher bearers)
are flung immensely into crisis
where to take a wounded angel
wait till we can tell our friends
is this something one is dreaming
- both are terrified of ends
are we martyrs heroes villains
should we drop the thing and run
will we be decorated or scolded
- something new beneath the sun
weightless stretcher far too heavy
sweating fingers burn like ice
legs revolve in all directions
thoughts race into paralysis
ahead the village breathes as normal
innocent of the eternal bloom
about to bleed its hope-fear petals
into each mortal living room
— -Rg Gregory
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Michaelangelo
Would I might wake in you the whirl-wind soul
Of Michelangelo, who hewed the stone
And Night and Day revealed, whose arm alone
Could draw the face of God, the titan high
Whose genius smote like lightning from the sky —
And shall he mold like dead leaves in the grave?
Nay he is in us! Let us dare and dare.
God help us to be brave.
— -Vachel Lindsay
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Los Angeles, 1954
It was in the old days,
When she used to hang out at a place
Called Club Zombie,
A black cabaret that the police liked
To raid now and then. As she
Stepped through the door, the light
Would hit her platinum hair,
And believe me, heads would turn. Maestro
Loved it; he'd have her by
The arm as he led us through the packed crowd
To a private corner
Where her secluded oak table always waited.
She'd say, Jordan...
And I'd order her usual,
A champagne cocktail with a tall shot of bourbon
On the side. She'd let her eyes
Trail the length of the sleek neck
Of the old stand-up bass, as
The bass player knocked out the bottom line,
His forehead glowing, glossy
With sweat in the blue lights;
Her own face, smooth and shining, as
The liquor slowly blanketed the pills
She'd slipped beneath her tongue.
Maestro'd kick the shit out of anybody
Who tried to sneak up for an autograph;
He'd say, Jordan, just let me know if
Somebody gets too close....
Then he'd turn to her and whisper, Here's
Where you get to be Miss Nobody...
And she'd smile as she let him
Kiss her hand. For a while, there was a singer
At the club, a guy named Louis--
But Maestro'd change his name to "Michael Champion";
Well, when this guy leaned forward,
Cradling the microphone in his huge hands,
All the legs went weak
Underneath the ladies.
He'd look over at her, letting his eyelids
Droop real low, singing, Oh Baby I...
Oh Baby I Love... I Love You...
And she'd be gone, those little mermaid tears
Running down her cheeks. Maestro
Was always cool. He'd let them use his room upstairs,
Sometimes, because they couldn't go out--
Black and white couldn't mix like that then.
I mean, think about it--
This kid star and a cool beauty who made King Cole
Sound raw? No, they had to keep it
To the club; though sometimes,
Near the end, he'd come out to her place
At the beach, always taking the iced whisky
I brought to him with a sly, sweet smile.
Once, sweeping his arm out in a slow
Half-circle, the way at the club he'd
Show the audience how far his endless love
Had grown, he marked
The circumference of the glare whitening the patio
Where her friends all sat, sunglasses
Masking their eyes...
And he said to me, Jordan, why do
White people love the sun so?--
God's spotlight, my man?
Leaning back, he looked over to where she
Stood at one end of the patio, watching
The breakers flatten along the beach below,
Her body reflected and mirrored
Perfectly in the bedroom's sliding black glass
Door. He stared at her
Reflection for a while, then looked up at me
And said, Jordan, I think that I must be
Like a pool of water in a cave that sometimes
She steps into...
Later, as I drove him back into the city,
He hummed a Bessie Smith tune he'd sing
For her, but he didn't say a word until
We stopped at last back at the club. He stepped
slowly out of the back
Of the Cadillac, and reaching to shake my hand
Through the open driver's window, said,
My man, Jordan... Goodbye.
— -David St. John
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The Angel Food Dogs
Leaping, leaping, leaping,
down line by line,
growling at the cadavers,
filling the holy jugs with their piss,
falling into windows and mauling the parents,
but soft, kiss-soft,
and sobbing sobbing
into their awful dog dish.
No point? No twist for you
in my white tunnel?
Let me speak plainly,
let me whisper it from the podium--
Mother, may I use your pseudonym?
May I take the dove named Mary
and shove out Anne?
May I take my check book, my holographs,
my eight naked books,
and sign it Mary, Mary, Mary
full of grace?
I know my name is not offensive
but my feet hang in the noose.
I want to be white.
I want to be blue.
I want to be a bee digging into an onion heart,
as you did to me, dug and squatted
long after death and its fang.
Hail Mary, full of me,
Nibbling in the sitting room of my head.
Mary, Mary, virgin forever,
whore forever,
give me your name,
give me your mirror.
Boils fester in my soul,
so give me your name so I may kiss them,
and they will fly off,
nameless
but named,
and they will fly off like angel food dogs
with thee
and with thy spirit.
Let me climb the face of my kitchen dog
and fly off into my terrified years.
— -Anne Sexton
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The Fallen Angels
They come on to my clean
sheet of paper and leave a Rorschach blot.
They do not do this to be mean,
they do it to give me a sign
they want me, as Aubrey Beardsley once said,
to shove it around till something comes.
Clumsy as I am,
I do it.
For I am like them -
both saved and lost,
tumbling downward like Humpty Dumpty
off the alphabet.
Each morning I push them off my bed
and when they get in the salad
rolling in it like a dog,
I pick each one out
just the way my daughter
picks out the anchoives.
In May they dance on the jonquils,
wearing out their toes,
laughing like fish.
In November, the dread month,
they suck the childhood out of the berries
and turn them sour and inedible.
Yet they keep me company.
They wiggle up life.
They pass out their magic
like Assorted Lifesavers.
They go with me to the dentist
and protect me form the drill.
At the same time,
they go to class with me
and lie to my students.
O fallen angel,
the companion within me,
whisper something holy
before you pinch me
into the grave.
— -Anne Sexton
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Angel Or Demon
You call me an angel of love and of light,
A being of goodness and heavenly fire,
Sent out from God’s kingdom to guide you aright,
In paths where your spirits may mount and aspire.
You say that I glow like a star on its course,
Like a ray from the alter, a spark from the source.
Now list to my answer; let all the world hear it;
I speak unafraid what I know to be true:
A pure, faithful love is the creative spirit
Which makes women angels! I live in but you.
We are bound soul to soul by life’s holiest laws;
If I am an angel – why, you are the cause.
As my ship skims the sea, I look up from the deck.
Fair, firm at the wheel shines Love’s beautiful form,
And shall I curse the barque that last night went to wreck,
By the Pilot abandoned to darkness and storm?
My craft is no stauncher, she too had been lost –
Had the wheelman deserted, or slept at his post.
I laid down the wealth of my soul at your feet
(Some woman does this for some man every day) .
No desperate creature who walks in the street,
Has a wickeder heart that I might have, I say,
Had you wantonly misused the treasures you woon,
-As so many men with heart riches have done.
This flame from God’s altar, this holy love flame,
That burns like sweet incense for ever for you,
Might now be a wild conflagration of shame,
Had you tortured my heart, or been base or untrue.
For angels and devils are cast in one mould,
Till love guides them upward, or downward, I hold.
I tell you the women who make fervent wives
And sweet tender mothers, had Fate been less fair,
Are the women who might have abandoned their lives
To the madness that springs from and ends in despair.
As the fire on the hearth which sheds brightness around,
Neglected, may level the walls to the ground.
The world makes grave errors in judging these things,
Great good and great evil are born in one breast.
Love horns us and hoofs us – or gives us our wings,
And the best could be worst, as the worst could be best.
You must thank your own worth for what I grew to be,
For the demon lurked under the angel in me.
— -Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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Hope Is The Thing With Fe
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Hope Is The Thing With Feathers - Poem by Emily Dickinson
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\'Hope\' is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—
And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—
And sore must be the storm—
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm—
I\'ve heard it in the chillest land—
And on the strangest Sea—
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb—of Me.
— -Emily Dickinson
-
poet William Shakespeare
Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, thorough brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire!
I do wander everywhere,
Swifter than the moon\'s sphere;
And I serve the Fairy Queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green;
The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours;
In those freckles live their savours;
I must go seek some dewdrops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip\'s ear.
— -William Shakespeare
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All The World\'s A Stage
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All The World\'s A Stage - Poem by William Shakespeare
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All the world\'s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse\'s arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress\' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon\'s mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
— -William Shakespeare
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Bright Star
Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art--
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature\'s patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth\'s human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors--
No--yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow\'d upon my fair love\'s ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever--or else swoon to death.
— -John Keats
-
A Thing Of Beauty
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its lovliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o\'er-darkn\'d ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
\'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven\'s brink.
— -John Keats
-
If You Forget Me
I want you to know
one thing.
You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.
Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.
If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.
If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.
But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.
— -Pablo Neruda
-
Friends Is What We\'ll Be
Friends are like angels sent from above
They came to give you an undying love.
Summer, winter, spring or fall,
They\'re there to help you when you call.
I will be there for you,
When your days are lonely and blue.
You can call on me for a helping hand,
I\'ll be there beside you to take that final stand.
I didn\'t know where to start,
But this is a poem straight from the heart.
I\'m here for you if you\'re here for me,
That\'s why friends is a thing we\'ll always be.
— -Christine Moore
-
My Beautiful Friend
You made me laugh when I cried so hard
You gave me bracelets to cover my scars
You held me close when I was so cold
You offered a comforting hand to hold
You picked me up whenever I fell
You showed me heaven when I was blinded by hell
You answered my calls in the darkened night
You gave me the reasons to hold on and fight
You rescued me when I was drowning in pain
You placed me back on the right path again
You loved me forever and stayed by my side
You entered my heart as an angel to guide
You may not be with me so much anymore
But I know you will leave open a beckoning door
I miss you so much but I\'ll fight till the end
I love you so much my Bestest friend.
— -Emma
-
A Youth Mowing
There are four men mowing down by the Isar;
I can hear the swish of the scythe-strokes, four
Sharp breaths taken: yea, and I
Am sorry for what\\\'s in store.
The first man out of the four that\\\'s mowing
Is mine, I claim him once and for all;
Though it\\\'s sorry I am, on his young feet, knowing
None of the trouble he\\\'s led to stall.
As he sees me bringing the dinner, he lifts
His head as proud as a deer that looks
Shoulder-deep out of the corn; and wipes
His scythe-blade bright, unhooks
The scythe-stone and over the stubble to me.
Lad, thou hast gotten a child in me,
Laddie, a man thou\\\'lt ha\\\'e to be,
Yea, though I\\\'m sorry for thee.
— -David Herbert Lawren
-
For The Foxes
“don\'t feel sorry for me.
I am a competent,
satisfied human being.
be sorry for the others
who
fidget
complain
who
constantly
rearrange their
lives
like
furniture.
juggling mates
and
attitudes
their
confusion is
constant
and it will
touch
whoever they
deal with.
beware of them:
one of their
key words is
\"love.\"
and beware those who
only take
instructions from their
God
for they have
failed completely to live their own
lives.
don\'t feel sorry for me
because I am alone
for even
at the most terrible
moments
humor
is my
companion.
I am a dog walking
backwards
I am a broken
banjo
I am a telephone wire
strung up in
Toledo, Ohio
I am a man
eating a meal
this night
in the month of
September.
put your sympathy
aside.
they say
water held up
Christ:
to come
through
you better be
nearly as
lucky.
— -Charles Bukowski
-
To A Cat
Mirrors are not more silent
nor the creeping dawn more secretive;
in the moonlight, you are that panther
we catch sight of from afar.
By the inexplicable workings of a divine law,
we look for you in vain;
More remote, even, than the Ganges or the setting sun,
yours is the solitude, yours the secret.
Your haunch allows the lingering
caress of my hand. You have accepted,
since that long forgotten past,
the love of the distrustful hand.
You belong to another time. You are lord
of a place bounded like a dream.
— -Jorge Luis Borges
-
Browning Decides
in these red labyrinths of London
I find that I have chosen
the strangest of all callings,
save that, in its way, any calling is strange.
Like the alchemist
who sought the philosopher's stone
in quicksilver,
I shall make everyday words--
the gambler's marked cards, the common coin--
give off the magic that was their
when Thor was both the god and the din,
the thunderclap and the prayer.
In today's dialect
I shall say, in my fashion, eternal things:
I shall try to be worthy
of the great echo of Byron.
This dust that I am will be invulnerable.
If a woman shares my love
my verse will touch the tenth sphere of the concentric heavens;
if a woman turns my love aside
I will make of my sadness a music,
a full river to resound through time.
I shall live by forgetting myself.
I shall be the face I glimpse and forget,
I shall be Judas who takes on
the divine mission of being a betrayer,
I shall be Caliban in his bog,
I shall be a mercenary who dies
without fear and without faith,
I shall be Polycrates, who looks in awe
upon the seal returned by fate.
I will be the friend who hates me.
The persian will give me the nightingale, and Rome the sword.
Masks, agonies, resurrections
will weave and unweave my life,
and in time I shall be Robert Browning.
— -Jorge Luis Borges
-
Adam Cast Forth
Was there a Garden or was the Garden a dream?
Amid the fleeting light, I have slowed myself and queried,
Almost for consolation, if the bygone period
Over which this Adam, wretched now, once reigned supreme,
Might not have been just a magical illusion
Of that God I dreamed. Already it's imprecise
In my memory, the clear Paradise,
But I know it exists, in flower and profusion,
Although not for me. My punishment for life
Is the stubborn earth with the incestuous strife
Of Cains and Abels and their brood; I await no pardon.
Yet, it's much to have loved, to have known true joy,
To have had -- if only for just one day --
The experience of touching the living Garden.
— -Jorge Luis Borges
-
Shinto
When sorrow lays us low
for a second we are saved
by humble windfalls
of the mindfulness or memory:
the taste of a fruit, the taste of water,
that face given back to us by a dream,
the first jasmine of November,
the endless yearning of the compass,
a book we thought was lost,
the throb of a hexameter,
the slight key that opens a house to us,
the smell of a library, or of sandalwood,
the former name of a street,
the colors of a map,
an unforeseen etymology,
the smoothness of a filed fingernail,
the date we were looking for,
the twelve dark bell-strokes, tolling as we count,
a sudden physical pain.
Eight million Shinto deities
travel secretly throughout the earth.
Those modest gods touch us--
touch us and move on.
— -Jorge Luis Borges
-
The Other Tiger
A tiger comes to mind. The twilight here
Exalts the vast and busy Library
And seems to set the bookshelves back in gloom;
Innocent, ruthless, bloodstained, sleek
It wanders through its forest and its day
Printing a track along the muddy banks
Of sluggish streams whose names it does not know
(In its world there are no names or past
Or time to come, only the vivid now)
And makes its way across wild distances
Sniffing the braided labyrinth of smells
And in the wind picking the smell of dawn
And tantalizing scent of grazing deer;
Among the bamboo's slanting stripes I glimpse
The tiger's stripes and sense the bony frame
Under the splendid, quivering cover of skin.
Curving oceans and the planet's wastes keep us
Apart in vain; from here in a house far off
In South America I dream of you,
Track you, O tiger of the Ganges' banks.
It strikes me now as evening fills my soul
That the tiger addressed in my poem
Is a shadowy beast, a tiger of symbols
And scraps picked up at random out of books,
A string of labored tropes that have no life,
And not the fated tiger, the deadly jewel
That under sun or stars or changing moon
Goes on in Bengal or Sumatra fulfilling
Its rounds of love and indolence and death.
To the tiger of symbols I hold opposed
The one that's real, the one whose blood runs hot
As it cuts down a herd of buffaloes,
And that today, this August third, nineteen
Fifty-nine, throws its shadow on the grass;
But by the act of giving it a name,
By trying to fix the limits of its world,
It becomes a fiction not a living beast,
Not a tiger out roaming the wilds of earth.
We'll hunt for a third tiger now, but like
The others this one too will be a form
Of what I dream, a structure of words, and not
The flesh and one tiger that beyond all myths
Paces the earth. I know these things quite well,
Yet nonetheless some force keeps driving me
In this vague, unreasonable, and ancient quest,
And I go on pursuing through the hours
Another tiger, the beast not found in verse.
— -Jorge Luis Borges
-
Susana Soca
With lingering love she gazed at the dispersed
Colors of dusk. It pleased her utterly
To lose herself in the complex melody
Or in the cunous life to be found in verse.
lt was not the primal red but rather grays
That spun the fine thread of her destiny,
For the nicest distinctions and all spent
In waverings, ambiguities, delays.
Lacking the nerve to tread this treacherous
Labyrinth, she looked in on, whom without,
The shapes, the turbulence, the striving rout,
(Like the other lady of the looking glass.)
The gods that dwell too far away for prayer
Abandoned her to the final tiger, Fire.
— -Jorge Luis Borges
-
The Far Field
I
I dream of journeys repeatedly:
Of flying like a bat deep into a narrowing tunnel
Of driving alone, without luggage, out a long peninsula,
The road lined with snow-laden second growth,
A fine dry snow ticking the windshield,
Alternate snow and sleet, no on-coming traffic,
And no lights behind, in the blurred side-mirror,
The road changing from glazed tarface to a rubble of stone,
Ending at last in a hopeless sand-rut,
Where the car stalls,
Churning in a snowdrift
Until the headlights darken.
II
At the field's end, in the corner missed by the mower,
Where the turf drops off into a grass-hidden culvert,
Haunt of the cat-bird, nesting-place of the field-mouse,
Not too far away from the ever-changing flower-dump,
Among the tin cans, tires, rusted pipes, broken machinery, --
One learned of the eternal;
And in the shrunken face of a dead rat, eaten by rain and ground-beetles
(I found in lying among the rubble of an old coal bin)
And the tom-cat, caught near the pheasant-run,
Its entrails strewn over the half-grown flowers,
Blasted to death by the night watchman.
I suffered for young birds, for young rabbits caught in the mower,
My grief was not excessive.
For to come upon warblers in early May
Was to forget time and death:
How they filled the oriole's elm, a twittering restless cloud, all one morning,
And I watched and watched till my eyes blurred from the bird shapes, --
Cape May, Blackburnian, Cerulean, --
Moving, elusive as fish, fearless,
Hanging, bunched like young fruit, bending the end branches,
Still for a moment,
Then pitching away in half-flight,
Lighter than finches,
While the wrens bickered and sang in the half-green hedgerows,
And the flicker drummed from his dead tree in the chicken-yard.
-- Or to lie naked in sand,
In the silted shallows of a slow river,
Fingering a shell,
Thinking:
Once I was something like this, mindless,
Or perhaps with another mind, less peculiar;
Or to sink down to the hips in a mossy quagmire;
Or, with skinny knees, to sit astride a wet log,
Believing:
I'll return again,
As a snake or a raucous bird,
Or, with luck, as a lion.
I learned not to fear infinity,
The far field, the windy cliffs of forever,
The dying of time in the white light of tomorrow,
The wheel turning away from itself,
The sprawl of the wave,
The on-coming water.
II
The river turns on itself,
The tree retreats into its own shadow.
I feel a weightless change, a moving forward
As of water quickening before a narrowing channel
When banks converge, and the wide river whitens;
Or when two rivers combine, the blue glacial torrent
And the yellowish-green from the mountainy upland, --
At first a swift rippling between rocks,
Then a long running over flat stones
Before descending to the alluvial plane,
To the clay banks, and the wild grapes hanging from the elmtrees.
The slightly trembling water
Dropping a fine yellow silt where the sun stays;
And the crabs bask near the edge,
The weedy edge, alive with small snakes and bloodsuckers, --
I hav
— -Theodore Roethke
-
Snake
I saw a young snake glide
Out of the mottled shade
And hang, limp on a stone:
A thin mouth, and a tongue
Stayed, in the still air.
It turned; it drew away;
Its shadow bent in half;
It quickened and was gone
I felt my slow blood warm.
I longed to be that thing.
The pure, sensuous form.
And I may be, some time.
— -Theodore Roethke
-
Cuttings
This urge, wrestle, resurrection of dry sticks,
Cut stems struggling to put down feet,
What saint strained so much,
Rose on such lopped limbs to a new life?
I can hear, underground, that sucking and sobbing,
In my veins, in my bones I feel it --
The small waters seeping upward,
The tight grains parting at last.
When sprouts break out,
Slippery as fish,
I quail, lean to beginnings, sheath-wet.
— -Theodore Roethke
-
In A Dark Time
In a dark time, the eye begins to see,
I meet my shadow in the deepening shade;
I hear my echo in the echoing wood--
A lord of nature weeping to a tree,
I live between the heron and the wren,
Beasts of the hill and serpents of the den.
What's madness but nobility of soul
At odds with circumstance? The day's on fire!
I know the purity of pure despair,
My shadow pinned against a sweating wall,
That place among the rocks--is it a cave,
Or winding path? The edge is what I have.
A steady storm of correspondences!
A night flowing with birds, a ragged moon,
And in broad day the midnight come again!
A man goes far to find out what he is--
Death of the self in a long, tearless night,
All natural shapes blazing unnatural light.
Dark,dark my light, and darker my desire.
My soul, like some heat-maddened summer fly,
Keeps buzzing at the sill. Which I is I?
A fallen man, I climb out of my fear.
The mind enters itself, and God the mind,
And one is One, free in the tearing wind.
— -Theodore Roethke
-
The Survivor
I am twenty-four
led to slaughter
I survived.
The following are empty synonyms:
man and beast
love and hate
friend and foe
darkness and light.
The way of killing men and beasts is the same
I've seen it:
truckfuls of chopped-up men
who will not be saved.
Ideas are mere words:
virtue and crime
truth and lies
beauty and ugliness
courage and cowardice.
Virtue and crime weigh the same
I've seen it:
in a man who was both
criminal and virtuous.
I seek a teacher and a master
may he restore my sight hearing and speech
may he again name objects and ideas
may he separate darkness from light.
I am twenty-four
led to slaughter
I survived.
— -Theodore Roethke
-
I Knew A Woman
I knew a woman, lovely in her bones,
When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them;
Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one:
The shapes a bright container can contain!
Of her choice virtues only gods should speak,
Or English poets who grew up on Greek
(I'd have them sing in chorus, cheek to cheek.)
How well her wishes went! She stroked my chin,
She taught me Turn, and Counter-turn, and stand;
She taught me Touch, that undulant white skin:
I nibbled meekly from her proffered hand;
She was the sickle; I, poor I, the rake,
Coming behind her for her pretty sake
(But what prodigious mowing did we make.)
Love likes a gander, and adores a goose:
Her full lips pursed, the errant note to seize;
She played it quick, she played it light and loose;
My eyes, they dazzled at her flowing knees;
Her several parts could keep a pure repose,
Or one hip quiver with a mobile nose
(She moved in circles, and those circles moved.)
Let seed be grass, and grass turn into hay:
I'm martyr to a motion not my own;
What's freedom for? To know eternity.
I swear she cast a shadow white as stone.
But who would count eternity in days?
These old bones live to learn her wanton ways:
(I measure time by how a body sways.)
— -Theodore Roethke
-
Elegy For Jane
(My student, thrown by a horse)
I remember the neckcurls, limp and damp as tendrils;
And her quick look, a sidelong pickerel smile;
And how, once startled into talk, the light syllables leaped for her,
And she balanced in the delight of her thought,
A wren, happy, tail into the wind,
Her song trembling the twigs and small branches.
The shade sang with her;
The leaves, their whispers turned to kissing,
And the mould sang in the bleached valleys under the rose.
Oh, when she was sad, she cast herself down into such a pure depth,
Even a father could not find her:
Scraping her cheek against straw,
Stirring the clearest water.
My sparrow, you are not here,
Waiting like a fern, making a spiney shadow.
The sides of wet stones cannot console me,
Nor the moss, wound with the last light.
If only I could nudge you from this sleep,
My maimed darling, my skittery pigeon.
Over this damp grave I speak the words of my love:
I, with no rights in this matter,
Neither father nor lover.
— -Theodore Roethke
-
Dolor
I have known the inexorable sadness of pencils,
Neat in their boxes, dolor of pad and paper weight,
All the misery of manilla folders and mucilage,
Desolation in immaculate public places,
Lonely reception room, lavatory, switchboard,
The unalterable pathos of basin and pitcher,
Ritual of multigraph, paper-clip, comma,
Endless duplication of lives and objects.
And I have seen dust from the walls of institutions,
Finer than flour, alive, more dangerous than silica,
Sift, almost invisible, through long afternoons of tedium,
Dropping a fine film on nails and delicate eyebrows,
Glazing the pale hair, the duplicate grey standard faces.
— -Theodore Roethke
-
The Waking
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.
Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.
This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.
— -Theodore Roethke
-
My Papa's Waltz
The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.
We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother's countenance
Could not unfrown itself.
The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.
You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.
— -Theodore Roethke
-
Winter Landscape
The three men coming down the winter hill
In brown, with tall poles and a pack of hounds
At heel, through the arrangement of the trees,
Past the five figures at the burning straw,
Returning cold and silent to their town,
Returning to the drifted snow, the rink
Lively with children, to the older men,
The long companions they can never reach,
The blue light, men with ladders, by the church
The sledge and shadow in the twilit street,
Are not aware that in the sandy time
To come, the evil waste of history
Outstretched, they will be seen upon the brow
Of that same hill: when all their company
Will have been irrecoverably lost,
These men, this particular three in brown
Witnessed by birds will keep the scene and say
By their configuration with the trees,
The small bridge, the red houses and the fire,
What place, what time, what morning occasion
Sent them into the wood, a pack of hounds
At heel and the tall poles upon their shoulders,
Thence to return as now we see them and
Ankle-deep in snow down the winter hill
Descend, while three birds watch and the fourth flies.
— -John Berryman
-
Dream Song
Huffy Henry hid the day,
unappeasable Henry sulked.
I see his point,—a trying to put things over.
It was the thought that they thought
they could do it made Henry wicked & away.
But he should have come out and talked.
All the world like a woolen lover
once did seem on Henry's side.
Then came a departure.
Thereafter nothing fell out as it might or ought.
I don't see how Henry, pried
open for all the world to see, survived.
What he has now to say is a long
wonder the world can bear & be.
Once in a sycamore I was glad
all at the top, and I sang.
Hard on the land wears the strong sea
and empty grows every bed.
— -John Berryman
-
The Traveller
They pointed me out on the highway, and they said
'That man has a curious way of holding his head.'
They pointed me out on the beach; they said 'That man
Will never become as we are, try as he can.'
They pointed me out at the station, and the guard
Looked at me twice, thrice, thoughtfully & hard.
I took the same train that the others took,
To the same place. Were it not for that look
And those words, we were all of us the same.
I studied merely maps. I tried to name
The effects of motion on the travellers,
I watched the couple I could see, the curse
And blessings of that couple, their destination,
The deception practised on them at the station,
Their courage. When the train stopped and they knew
The end of their journey, I descended too.
— -John Berryman
-
The Ball Poem
What is the boy now, who has lost his ball,
What, what is he to do? I saw it go
Merrily bouncing, down the street, and then
Merrily over—there it is in the water!
No use to say 'O there are other balls':
An ultimate shaking grief fixes the boy
As he stands rigid, trembling, staring down
All his young days into the harbour where
His ball went. I would not intrude on him,
A dime, another ball, is worthless. Now
He senses first responsibility
In a world of possessions. People will take balls,
Balls will be lost always, little boy,
And no one buys a ball back. Money is external.
He is learning, well behind his desperate eyes,
The epistemology of loss, how to stand up
Knowing what every man must one day know
And most know many days, how to stand up
And gradually light returns to the street
A whistle blows, the ball is out of sight,
Soon part of me will explore the deep and dark
Floor of the harbour . . I am everywhere,
I suffer and move, my mind and my heart move
With all that move me, under the water
Or whistling, I am not a little boy.
— -John Berryman
-
Dream Song 14
Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.
After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns,
we ourselves flash and yearn,
and moreover my mother told me as a boy
(repeatedly) 'Ever to confess you're bored
means you have no
Inner Resources.' I conclude now I have no
inner resources, because I am heavy bored.
Peoples bore me,
literature bores me, especially great literature,
Henry bores me, with his plights & gripes
as bad as achilles,
Who loves people and valiant art, which bores me.
And the tranquil hills, & gin, look like a drag
and somehow a dog
has taken itself & its tail considerably away
into mountains or sea or sky, leaving
behind: me, wag.
— -John Berryman
-
The Curse
Cedars and the westward sun.
The darkening sky. A man alone
Watches beside the fallen wall
The evening multitudes of sin
Crowd in upon us all.
For when the light fails they begin
Nocturnal sabotage among
The outcast and the loose of tongue,
The lax in walk, the murderers:
Our twilight universal curse.
Children are faultless in the wood,
Untouched. If they are later made
Scandal and index to their time,
It is that twilight brings for bread
The faculty of crime.
Only the idiot and the dead
Stand by, while who were young before
Wage insolent and guilty war
By night within that ancient house,
Immense, black, damned, anonymous.
— -John Berryman
-
Ode To Salt
This salt
in the saltcellar
I once saw in the salt mines.
I know
you won't
believe me,
but
it sings,
salt sings, the skin
of the salt mines
sings
with a mouth smothered
by the earth.
I shivered in those solitudes
when I heard
the voice of
the salt
in the desert.
Near Antofagasta
the nitrous
pampa
resounds:
a broken
voice,
a mournful
song.
In its caves
the salt moans, mountain
of buried light,
translucent cathedral,
crystal of the sea, oblivion
of the waves.
And then on every table
in the world,
salt,
we see your piquant
powder
sprinkling
vital light
upon
our food. Preserver
of the ancient
holds of ships,
discoverer
on
the high seas,
earliest
sailor
of the unknown, shifting
byways of the foam.
Dust of the sea, in you
the tongue receives a kiss
from ocean night:
taste imparts to every seasoned
dish your ocean essence;
the smallest,
miniature
wave from the saltcellar
reveals to us
more than domestic whiteness;
in it, we taste infinitude.
— -Pablo Neruda
-
Ode To The Onion
Onion,
luminous flask,
your beauty formed
petal by petal,
crystal scales expanded you
and in the secrecy of the dark earth
your belly grew round with dew.
Under the earth
the miracle
happened
and when your clumsy
green stem appeared,
and your leaves were born
like swords
in the garden,
the earth heaped up her power
showing your naked transparency,
and as the remote sea
in lifting the breasts of Aphrodite
duplicating the magnolia,
so did the earth
make you,
onion
clear as a planet
and destined
to shine,
constant constellation,
round rose of water,
upon
the table
of the poor.
You make us cry without hurting us.
I have praised everything that exists,
but to me, onion, you are
more beautiful than a bird
of dazzling feathers,
heavenly globe, platinum goblet,
unmoving dance
of the snowy anemone
and the fragrance of the earth lives
in your crystalline nature.
— -Pablo Neruda
-
Tower Of Light
O tower of light, sad beauty
that magnified necklaces and statues in the sea,
calcareous eye, insignia of the vast waters, cry
of the mourning petrel, tooth of the sea, wife
of the Oceanian wind, O separate rose
from the long stem of the trampled bush
that the depths, converted into archipelago,
O natural star, green diadem,
alone in your lonesome dynasty,
still unattainable, elusive, desolate
like one drop, like one grape, like the sea.
— -Pablo Neruda
-
Nothing But Death
There are cemeteries that are lonely,
graves full of bones that do not make a sound,
the heart moving through a tunnel,
in it darkness, darkness, darkness,
like a shipwreck we die going into ourselves,
as though we were drowning inside our hearts,
as though we lived falling out of the skin into the soul.
And there are corpses,
feet made of cold and sticky clay,
death is inside the bones,
like a barking where there are no dogs,
coming out from bells somewhere, from graves somewhere,
growing in the damp air like tears of rain.
Sometimes I see alone
coffins under sail,
embarking with the pale dead, with women that have dead hair,
with bakers who are as white as angels,
and pensive young girls married to notary publics,
caskets sailing up the vertical river of the dead,
the river of dark purple,
moving upstream with sails filled out by the sound of death,
filled by the sound of death which is silence.
Death arrives among all that sound
like a shoe with no foot in it, like a suit with no man in it,
comes and knocks, using a ring with no stone in it, with no
finger in it,
comes and shouts with no mouth, with no tongue, with no
throat.
Nevertheless its steps can be heard
and its clothing makes a hushed sound, like a tree.
I'm not sure, I understand only a little, I can hardly see,
but it seems to me that its singing has the color of damp violets,
of violets that are at home in the earth,
because the face of death is green,
and the look death gives is green,
with the penetrating dampness of a violet leaf
and the somber color of embittered winter.
But death also goes through the world dressed as a broom,
lapping the floor, looking for dead bodies,
death is inside the broom,
the broom is the tongue of death looking for corpses,
it is the needle of death looking for thread.
Death is inside the folding cots:
it spends its life sleeping on the slow mattresses,
in the black blankets, and suddenly breathes out:
it blows out a mournful sound that swells the sheets,
and the beds go sailing toward a port
where death is waiting, dressed like an admiral.
— -Pablo Neruda
-
Ode To The Lemon
From blossoms
released
by the moonlight,
from an
aroma of exasperated
love,
steeped in fragrance,
yellowness
drifted from the lemon tree,
and from its plantarium
lemons descended to the earth.
Tender yield!
The coasts,
the markets glowed
with light, with
unrefined gold;
we opened
two halves
of a miracle,
congealed acid
trickled
from the hemispheres
of a star,
the most intense liqueur
of nature,
unique, vivid,
concentrated,
born of the cool, fresh
lemon,
of its fragrant house,
its acid, secret symmetry.
Knives
sliced a small
cathedral
in the lemon,
the concealed apse, opened,
revealed acid stained glass,
drops
oozed topaz,
altars,
cool architecture.
So, when you hold
the hemisphere
of a cut lemon
above your plate,
you spill
a universe of gold,
a
yellow goblet
of miracles,
a fragrant nipple
of the earth's breast,
a ray of light that was made fruit,
the minute fire of a planet.
— -Pablo Neruda
-
Magellanic Penguin
Neither clown nor child nor black
nor white but verticle
and a questioning innocence
dressed in night and snow:
The mother smiles at the sailor,
the fisherman at the astronaunt,
but the child child does not smile
when he looks at the bird child,
and from the disorderly ocean
the immaculate passenger
emerges in snowy mourning.
I was without doubt the child bird
there in the cold archipelagoes
when it looked at me with its eyes,
with its ancient ocean eyes:
it had neither arms nor wings
but hard little oars
on its sides:
it was as old as the salt;
the age of moving water,
and it looked at me from its age:
since then I know I do not exist;
I am a worm in the sand.
the reasons for my respect
remained in the sand:
the religious bird
did not need to fly,
did not need to sing,
and through its form was visible
its wild soul bled salt:
as if a vein from the bitter sea
had been broken.
Penguin, static traveler,
deliberate priest of the cold,
I salute your vertical salt
and envy your plumed pride.
— -Pablo Neruda
-
Ode To Tomatoes
The street
filled with tomatoes,
midday,
summer,
light is
halved
like
a
tomato,
its juice
runs
through the streets.
In December,
unabated,
the tomato
invades
the kitchen,
it enters at lunchtime,
takes
its ease
on countertops,
among glasses,
butter dishes,
blue saltcellars.
It sheds
its own light,
benign majesty.
Unfortunately, we must
murder it:
the knife
sinks
into living flesh,
red
viscera
a cool
sun,
profound,
inexhaustible,
populates the salads
of Chile,
happily, it is wed
to the clear onion,
and to celebrate the union
we
pour
oil,
essential
child of the olive,
onto its halved hemispheres,
pepper
adds
its fragrance,
salt, its magnetism;
it is the wedding
of the day,
parsley
hoists
its flag,
potatoes
bubble vigorously,
the aroma
of the roast
knocks
at the door,
it's time!
come on!
and, on
the table, at the midpoint
of summer,
the tomato,
star of earth, recurrent
and fertile
star,
displays
its convolutions,
its canals,
its remarkable amplitude
and abundance,
no pit,
no husk,
no leaves or thorns,
the tomato offers
its gift
of fiery color
and cool completeness.
— -Pablo Neruda
-
The Dictators
An odor has remained among the sugarcane:
a mixture of blood and body, a penetrating
petal that brings nausea.
Between the coconut palms the graves are full
of ruined bones, of speechless death-rattles.
The delicate dictator is talking
with top hats, gold braid, and collars.
The tiny palace gleams like a watch
and the rapid laughs with gloves on
cross the corridors at times
and join the dead voices
and the blue mouths freshly buried.
The weeping cannot be seen, like a plant
whose seeds fall endlessly on the earth,
whose large blind leaves grow even without light.
Hatred has grown scale on scale,
blow on blow, in the ghastly water of the swamp,
with a snout full of ooze and silence
— -Pablo Neruda
-
Gentleman Alone
The young maricones and the horny muchachas,
The big fat widows delirious from insomnia,
The young wives thirty hours' pregnant,
And the hoarse tomcats that cross my garden at night,
Like a collar of palpitating sexual oysters
Surround my solitary home,
Enemies of my soul,
Conspirators in pajamas
Who exchange deep kisses for passwords.
Radiant summer brings out the lovers
In melancholy regiments,
Fat and thin and happy and sad couples;
Under the elegant coconut palms, near the ocean and moon,
There is a continual life of pants and panties,
A hum from the fondling of silk stockings,
And women's breasts that glisten like eyes.
The salary man, after a while,
After the week's tedium, and the novels read in bed at night,
Has decisively fucked his neighbor,
And now takes her to the miserable movies,
Where the heroes are horses or passionate princes,
And he caresses her legs covered with sweet down
With his ardent and sweaty palms that smell like cigarettes.
The night of the hunter and the night of the husband
Come together like bed sheets and bury me,
And the hours after lunch, when the students and priests are masturbating,
And the animals mount each other openly,
And the bees smell of blood, and the flies buzz cholerically,
And cousins play strange games with cousins,
And doctors glower at the husband of the young patient,
And the early morning in which the professor, without a thought,
Pays his conjugal debt and eats breakfast,
And to top it all off, the adulterers, who love each other truly
On beds big and tall as ships:
So, eternally,
This twisted and breathing forest crushes me
With gigantic flowers like mouth and teeth
And black roots like fingernails and shoes.
— -Pablo Neruda
-
A Song Of Despair
The memory of you emerges from the night around me.
The river mingles its stubborn lament with the sea.
Deserted like the dwarves at dawn.
It is the hour of departure, oh deserted one!
Cold flower heads are raining over my heart.
Oh pit of debris, fierce cave of the shipwrecked.
In you the wars and the flights accumulated.
From you the wings of the song birds rose.
You swallowed everything, like distance.
Like the sea, like time. In you everything sank!
It was the happy hour of assault and the kiss.
The hour of the spell that blazed like a lighthouse.
Pilot's dread, fury of blind driver,
turbulent drunkenness of love, in you everything sank!
In the childhood of mist my soul, winged and wounded.
Lost discoverer, in you everything sank!
You girdled sorrow, you clung to desire,
sadness stunned you, in you everything sank!
I made the wall of shadow draw back,
beyond desire and act, I walked on.
Oh flesh, my own flesh, woman whom I loved and lost,
I summon you in the moist hour, I raise my song to you.
Like a jar you housed infinite tenderness.
and the infinite oblivion shattered you like a jar.
There was the black solitude of the islands,
and there, woman of love, your arms took me in.
There was thirst and hunger, and you were the fruit.
There were grief and ruins, and you were the miracle.
Ah woman, I do not know how you could contain me
in the earth of your soul, in the cross of your arms!
How terrible and brief my desire was to you!
How difficult and drunken, how tensed and avid.
Cemetery of kisses, there is still fire in your tombs,
still the fruited boughs burn, pecked at by birds.
Oh the bitten mouth, oh the kissed limbs,
oh the hungering teeth, oh the entwined bodies.
Oh the mad coupling of hope and force
in which we merged and despaired.
And the tenderness, light as water and as flour.
And the word scarcely begun on the lips.
This was my destiny and in it was my voyage of my longing,
and in it my longing fell, in you everything sank!
Oh pit of debris, everything fell into you,
what sorrow did you not express, in what sorrow are you not drowned!
From billow to billow you still called and sang.
Standing like a sailor in the prow of a vessel.
You still flowered in songs, you still brike the currents.
Oh pit of debris, open and bitter well.
Pale blind diver, luckless slinger,
lost discoverer, in you everything sank!
It is the hour of departure, the hard cold hour
which the night fastens to all the timetables.
The rustling belt of the sea girdles the shore.
Cold stars heave up, black birds migrate.
Deserted like the wharves at dawn.
Only tremulous shadow twists in my hands.
Oh farther than everything. Oh farther than everything.
It is the hour of departure. Oh abandoned one!
— -Pablo Neruda
-
Dream Within A Dream
Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?
— -Edgar Allan
-
Stopping By Woods On A Sn
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound\'s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
— -Robert Frost
-
If
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don\'t deal in lies,
Or being hated don\'t give way to hating,
And yet don\'t look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream- -and not make dreams your master;
If you can think- -and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you\'ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build\'em up with worn-out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: \'Hold on! \'
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings- -nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds\' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that\'s in it,
And- -which is more- -you\'ll be a Man, my son
— -Rudyard Kipling
-
Caged Bird
The free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wings
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.
But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.
The caged bird sings
with fearful trill
of the things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom
The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn
and he names the sky his own.
But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing
The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.
— -Maya Angelou
-
Annabel Lee
It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.
I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love-
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.
And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.
The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me-
Yes! - that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.
But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we-
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.
For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.
— -Edgar Allan Poe
-
Dreams
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
— -Langston Hughes
-
If You Forget Me
I want you to know
one thing.
You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.
Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.
If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.
If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.
But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.
— -Pablo Neruda
-
Still I Ris
ou may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I\'ll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
\'Cause I walk like I\'ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I\'ll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don\'t you take it awful hard
\'Cause I laugh like I\'ve got gold mines
Diggin\' in my own back yard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I\'ll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I\'ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history\'s shame
I rise
Up from a past that\'s rooted in pain
I rise
I\'m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that\'s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
— -Maya Angelou
-
The Road Not Taken
wo roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
— -Robert Frost
-
Phenomenal Woman
poet Maya Angelou
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Poems by Maya Angelou : 26 / 53
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Phenomenal Woman - Poem by Maya Angelou
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Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I\'m not cute or built to suit a fashion model\'s size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I\'m telling lies.
I say,
It\'s in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I\'m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That\'s me.
I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It\'s the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I\'m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That\'s me.
Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can\'t touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can\'t see.
I say,
It\'s in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I\'m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That\'s me.
Now you understand
Just why my head\'s not bowed.
I don\'t shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It\'s in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
\'Cause I\'m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That\'s me.
— -Maya Angelou
-
Then I will miss you agai
Since the first time I saw you,
I knew you were mine for life.
You\'re the one I need to be with,
One day I\'ll be your wife.
You\'re not here with me now,
And I miss you more than ever.
All I want is to be with you,
And feel this love forever.
I want to feel you with me and,
See the twinkle in your eyes.
I know you feel the same way,
And for you my heart cries.
But I know that someday soon,
That we\'ll always be together.
True love feelings never will end,
Then I will miss you again
- Never
— -Nicola
-
I Miss You Friend.
I wake up during the night,
In cold sweats and tears.
I had another dream of you,
And I wish you were here.
It has been a while since we spoke,
Even longer since we were together.
I know that if you were here with me,
Things would be so much better.
I know that you are always there for me,
But things just are not the same.
Do not forget that I love and miss you,
And please never forget my name.
When you are not around me,
I feel your presence anyway.
Remember I am always here for you,
Whether dark of night or light of day.
Things are so much different now,
We do not see each other everyday.
But we grow up, things have to change,
And I had to move away.
Though it is so easy to pick up the phone,
And give you a call before bed.
I trade that in, for whatever reason,
And write an e-mail instead.
Maybe because it seems so much easier,
Since you do not hear my voice.
I do not feel vulnerable telling you things,
And you do not have a choice.
Friends forever, we always said,
Together until the end.
No matter what happens, the distance between,
On me you can depend.
Now I learned that I should cherish,
Every second I spend with you.
Though it is hard to be so far away,
I know we will get through.
— -Tiffany
-
I miss you daddy
Daddy come back.
I want you back.
Why did you have to go.
It\'s just not the same without you.
We still get mail with your name on it.
It makes me sad every time i see the envelopes.
Mommy\'s always crying.
She\'s always yelling too.
She makes me cry a lot but not as much as you.
I\'m always thinking about you.
Your always making me teary-eyed.
I love you daddy why did you have to go.
I miss you a lot but you obviously don\'t know.
Otherwise you wouldn\'t have had to go.
God makes me mad because he took you away.
It\'s hard not to cry in church but i go anyway.
Sometimes when I\'m all alone and i have time to think.
I think about you and i cry and cry and cry.
Some people think \"oh you should be over this\"
But then i think to myself you don\'t know how it feels to be in this pain
or to how hard it is to make it go away.
Councilors try to help me but they don\'t help at all.
My head hurts all the time, especially when I\'m about to cry.
Its hard to type down these words as tears blur up my eyes.
When i try to speak about you i choke and then i start to cry
I miss you daddy why did you have to go.
— -Dana Marie
-
Lonely Nights
ince you’re gone
There is an empty space
Since you’re gone
The world is not the same
I go back to the places we’ve been
It feels like you’re still there
I live all those moments again
Wishing you were here
Since you’re gone
There is a lonely heart
Since you’re gone
Nothing is like it was
There are memories all over the place
Bringing it back all so clear
I remember all of those days
Wishing you were here
Since you’re gone
There is a heart that bleeds
Since you’re gone
I’m not the man I used to be
I follow you\'re steps in the snow
The traces disappear
We know what we’ve lost when it’s gone
I’m wishing you were here
All those lonely nights
I lied on my bed and cried
I still think of you
Yes I do
— -Ebony Tears
-
Days of Longing
A quick note,
A rushed phone call,
A smile from a photo taken far away.
The knowledge that the one you love,
Loves you equally.
These, that germinate the seeds of longing,
A longing immense…never before felt.
One that pulls at the heart without remorse.
Yet from the pain instilled,
Infinite pleasures are born.
The thought of once again,
Holding you in my now empty arms.
Memories of the sweet taste
Of your warm lips on mine.
Remembering the scent of a far off love…
Anticipation of the moment our bodies will touch,
Entwined in a timeless moment of passion.
These somehow subdue the longing…
Allowing the heart to continue its beat,
For the days of longing now grow short.
— -Griz
-
Night
The sun descending in the west,
The evening star does shine;
The birds are silent in their nest,
And I must seek for mine.
The moon like a flower
In heaven’s high bower,
With silent delight
Sits and smiles on the night.
Farewell, green fields and happy groves,
Where flocks have took delight.
Where lambs have nibbled, silent moves
The feet of angels bright;
Unseen they pour blessing
And joy without ceasing,
On each bud and blossom,
And each sleeping bosom.
They look in every thoughtless nest,
Where birds are cover’d warm;
They visit caves of every beast,
To keep them all from harm.
If they see any weeping
That should have been sleeping,
They pour sleep on their head,
And sit down by their bed.
When wolves and tygers howl for prey,
They pitying stand and weep;
Seeking to drive their thirst away,
And keep them from the sheep;
But if they rush dreadful,
The angels, most heedful,
Receive each mild spirit,
New worlds to inherit.
And there the lion’s ruddy eyes
Shall flow with tears of gold,
And pitying the tender cries,
And walking round the fold,
Saying “Wrath, by his meekness,
And by his health, sickness
Is driven away
From our immortal day.
`And now beside thee, bleating lamb,
I can lie down and sleep;
Or think on him who bore thy name,
Graze after thee and weep.
For, wash’d in life’s river,
My bright mane for ever
Shall shine like the gold
As I guard o’er the fold.”
— -William Blake
-
Glory Falls
Glory falls around us
as we sob
a dirge of
desolation on the Cross
and hatred is the ballast of
the rock
which his upon our necks
and underfoot.
We have woven
robes of silk
and clothed our nakedness
with tapestry.
From crawling on this
murky planet’s floor
we soar beyond the
birds and
through the clouds
and edge our waays from hate
and blind despair and
bring horror
to our brothers, and to our sisters cheer.
We grow despite the
horror that we feed
upon our own
tomorrow.
We grow.
— -Maya Angelou
-
I, Too, Sing America
I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I\'ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody\'ll dare
Say to me,
\"Eat in the kitchen,\"
Then.
Besides,
They\'ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--
I, too, am America.
— -Langston Hughes
-
MEANINGLESS
I looked into my soul
And saw a great emptiness that enswallowed me.
It was strange and it was dark.
A darkness so vast I fall into it.
Terrified, my heart froze
As fear’s ice hands griped it.
Big dreams and ambitions cut short by the shortness of life
My life now a black deep ocean to drown in
For this is now my fate for mine had being a vain pursuit for self.
— -Tigana Chileshe
-
My Beautiful Friend
You made me laugh when I cried so hard
You gave me bracelets to cover my scars
You held me close when I was so cold
You offered a comforting hand to hold
You picked me up whenever I fell
You showed me heaven when I was blinded by hell
You answered my calls in the darkened night
You gave me the reasons to hold on and fight
You rescued me when I was drowning in pain
You placed me back on the right path again
You loved me forever and stayed by my side
You entered my heart as an angel to guide
You may not be with me so much anymore
But I know you will leave open a beckoning door
I miss you so much but I\'ll fight till the end
I love you so much my Bestest friend.
— -Emma
-
Stopping by Woods on
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
— -Robert Frost
-
Do Not Go Gentle Into
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on that sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
— -Dylan Thomas
-
Phenomenal Woman
Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
— -Maya Angelou
-
Still I Rise
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
— -Maya Angelou
-
Two Look at Two
Love and forgetting might have carried them
A little further up the mountain side
With night so near, but not much further up.
They must have halted soon in any case
With thoughts of a path back, how rough it was
With rock and washout, and unsafe in darkness;
When they were halted by a tumbled wall
With barbed-wire binding. They stood facing this,
Spending what onward impulse they still had
In One last look the way they must not go,
On up the failing path, where, if a stone
Or earthslide moved at night, it moved itself;
No footstep moved it. 'This is all,' they sighed,
Good-night to woods.' But not so; there was more.
A doe from round a spruce stood looking at them
Across the wall, as near the wall as they.
She saw them in their field, they her in hers.
The difficulty of seeing what stood still,
Like some up-ended boulder split in two,
Was in her clouded eyes; they saw no fear there.
She seemed to think that two thus they were safe.
Then, as if they were something that, though strange,
She could not trouble her mind with too long,
She sighed and passed unscared along the wall.
'This, then, is all. What more is there to ask?'
But no, not yet. A snort to bid them wait.
A buck from round the spruce stood looking at them
Across the wall as near the wall as they.
This was an antlered buck of lusty nostril,
Not the same doe come back into her place.
He viewed them quizzically with jerks of head,
As if to ask, 'Why don't you make some motion?
Or give some sign of life? Because you can't.
I doubt if you're as living as you look.'
Thus till he had them almost feeling dared
To stretch a proffering hand -- and a spell-breaking.
Then he too passed unscared along the wall.
Two had seen two, whichever side you spoke from.
'This must be all.' It was all. Still they stood,
A great wave from it going over them,
As if the earth in one unlooked-for favour
Had made them certain earth returned their love.
— -Robert Frost
-
Reluctance
Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.
The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.
And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last long aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch-hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question 'Whither?'
Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?
— -Robert Frost
-
But Outer Space
But outer Space,
At least this far,
For all the fuss
Of the populace
Stays more popular
Than populous
— -Robert Frost
-
A Peck of Gold
Dust always blowing about the town,
Except when sea-fog laid it down,
And I was one of the children told
Some of the blowing dust was gold.
All the dust the wind blew high
Appeared like god in the sunset sky,
But I was one of the children told
Some of the dust was really gold.
Such was life in the Golden Gate:
Gold dusted all we drank and ate,
And I was one of the children told,
'We all must eat our peck of gold.'
— -Robert Frost
-
The Runaway
Once when the snow of the year was beginning to fall,
We stopped by a mountain pasture to say 'Whose colt?'
A little Morgan had one forefoot on the wall,
The other curled at his breast. He dipped his head
And snorted at us. And then he had to bolt.
We heard the miniature thunder where he fled,
And we saw him, or thought we saw him, dim and grey,
Like a shadow against the curtain of falling flakes.
'I think the little fellow's afraid of the snow.
He isn't winter-broken. It isn't play
With the little fellow at all. He's running away.
I doubt if even his mother could tell him, "Sakes,
It's only weather". He'd think she didn't know !
Where is his mother? He can't be out alone.'
And now he comes again with a clatter of stone
And mounts the wall again with whited eyes
And all his tail that isn't hair up straight.
He shudders his coat as if to throw off flies.
'Whoever it is that leaves him out so late,
When other creatures have gone to stall and bin,
Ought to be told to come and take him in.'
— -Robert Frost
-
The Oven Bird
There is a singer everyone has heard,
Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,
Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.
He says that leaves are old and that for flowers
Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten.
he says the early petal-fall is past
When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers
On sunny days a moment overcast;
And comes that other fall we name the fall.
He says the highway dust is over all.
The bird would cease and be as other birds
But that he knows in singing not to sing.
The question that he frames in all but words
Is what to make of a diminished thing.
— -Robert Frost
-
Gathering Leaves
Spades take up leaves
No better than spoons,
And bags full of leaves
Are light as balloons.
I make a great noise
Of rustling all day
Like rabbit and deer
Running away.
But the mountains I raise
Elude my embrace,
Flowing over my arms
And into my face.
I may load and unload
Again and again
Till I fill the whole shed,
And what have I then?
Next to nothing for weight,
And since they grew duller
From contact with earth,
Next to nothing for color.
Next to nothing for use.
But a crop is a crop,
And who's to say where
The harvest shall stop?
— -Robert Frost
-
Christmas Trees
(A Christmas Circular Letter)
THE CITY had withdrawn into itself
And left at last the country to the country;
When between whirls of snow not come to lie
And whirls of foliage not yet laid, there drove
A stranger to our yard, who looked the city,
Yet did in country fashion in that there
He sat and waited till he drew us out
A-buttoning coats to ask him who he was.
He proved to be the city come again
To look for something it had left behind
And could not do without and keep its Christmas.
He asked if I would sell my Christmas trees;
My woods—the young fir balsams like a place
Where houses all are churches and have spires.
I hadn’t thought of them as Christmas Trees.
I doubt if I was tempted for a moment
To sell them off their feet to go in cars
And leave the slope behind the house all bare,
Where the sun shines now no warmer than the moon.
I’d hate to have them know it if I was.
Yet more I’d hate to hold my trees except
As others hold theirs or refuse for them,
Beyond the time of profitable growth,
The trial by market everything must come to.
I dallied so much with the thought of selling.
Then whether from mistaken courtesy
And fear of seeming short of speech, or whether
From hope of hearing good of what was mine,
I said, “There aren’t enough to be worth while.”
“I could soon tell how many they would cut,
You let me look them over.”
“You could look.
But don’t expect I’m going to let you have them.”
Pasture they spring in, some in clumps too close
That lop each other of boughs, but not a few
Quite solitary and having equal boughs
All round and round. The latter he nodded “Yes” to,
Or paused to say beneath some lovelier one,
With a buyer’s moderation, “That would do.”
I thought so too, but wasn’t there to say so.
We climbed the pasture on the south, crossed over,
And came down on the north.
He said, “A thousand.”
“A thousand Christmas trees!—at what apiece?”
He felt some need of softening that to me:
“A thousand trees would come to thirty dollars.”
Then I was certain I had never meant
To let him have them. Never show surprise!
But thirty dollars seemed so small beside
The extent of pasture I should strip, three cents
(For that was all they figured out apiece),
Three cents so small beside the dollar friends
I should be writing to within the hour
Would pay in cities for good trees like those,
Regular vestry-trees whole Sunday Schools
Could hang enough on to pick off enough.
A thousand Christmas trees I didn’t know I had!
Worth three cents more to give away than sell,
As may be shown by a simple calculation.
Too bad I couldn’t lay one in a letter.
I can’t help wishing I could send you one,
In wishing you herewith a Merry Christmas.
— -Robert Frost
-
A Minor Bird
I have wished a bird would fly away,
And not sing by my house all day;
Have clapped my hands at him from the door
When it seemed as if I could bear no more.
The fault must partly have been in me.
The bird was not to blame for his key.
And of course there must be something wrong
In wanting to silence any song.
— -Robert Frost
-
The Span Of Life
The old dog barks backwards without getting up.
I can remember when he was a pup.
— -Robert Frost
-
Germs.
FORMS, qualities, lives, humanity, language, thoughts,
The ones known, and the ones unknown—the ones on the stars,
The stars themselves, some shaped, others unshaped,
Wonders as of those countries—the soil, trees, cities, inhabitants, whatever they may
be,
Splendid suns, the moons and rings, the countless combinations and effects;
Such-like, and as good as such-like, visible here or anywhere, stand provided for in a
handful
of space, which I extend my arm and half enclose with my hand;
That contains the start of each and all—the virtue, the germs of all.
— -Walt Whitman
-
famous
A woman should never be seen eating or drinking, unless it be lobster salad and Champagne, the only true feminine and becoming viands.
— -Lord Byron
-
famous
A mistress never is nor can be a friend. While you agree, you are lovers; and when it is over, anything but friends
— -Lord Byron
-
famous
A man of eighty has outlived probably three new schools of painting, two of architecture and poetry and a hundred in dress
— -Lord Byron
-
Great Byron
A celebrity is one who is known to many persons he is glad he doesn't know.
— -Lord Byron
-
Refusal
Beloved,
In what other lives or lands
Have I known your lips
Your Hands
Your Laughter brave
Irreverent.
Those sweet excesses that
I do adore.
What surety is there
That we will meet again,
On other worlds some
Future time undated.
I defy my body's haste.
Without the promise
Of one more sweet encounter
I will not deign to die.
— -Maya Angelou
-
When You Come
When you come to me, unbidden,
Beckoning me
To long-ago rooms,
Where memories lie.
Offering me, as to a child, an attic,
Gatherings of days too few.
Baubles of stolen kisses.
Trinkets of borrowed loves.
Trunks of secret words,
I CRY.
— -Maya Angelou
-
Passing Time
Your skin like dawn
Mine like musk
One paints the beginning
of a certain end.
The other, the end of a
sure beginning.
— -Maya Angelou
-
Insomniac
There are some nights when
sleep plays coy,
aloof and disdainful.
And all the wiles
that I employ to win
its service to my side
are useless as wounded pride,
and much more painful.
— -Maya Angelou
-
Weekend Glory
Some clichty folks
don't know the facts,
posin' and preenin'
and puttin' on acts,
stretchin' their backs.
They move into condos
up over the ranks,
pawn their souls
to the local banks.
Buying big cars
they can't afford,
ridin' around town
actin' bored.
If they want to learn how to live life right
they ought to study me on Saturday night.
My job at the plant
ain't the biggest bet,
but I pay my bills
and stay out of debt.
I get my hair done
for my own self's sake,
so I don't have to pick
and I don't have to rake.
Take the church money out
and head cross town
to my friend girl's house
where we plan our round.
We meet our men and go to a joint
where the music is blue
and to the point.
Folks write about me.
They just can't see
how I work all week
at the factory.
Then get spruced up
and laugh and dance
And turn away from worry
with sassy glance.
They accuse me of livin'
from day to day,
but who are they kiddin'?
So are they.
My life ain't heaven
but it sure ain't hell.
I'm not on top
but I call it swell
if I'm able to work
and get paid right
and have the luck to be Black
on a Saturday night.
— -Maya Angelou
-
Remembrance
Your hands easy
weight, teasing the bees
hived in my hair, your smile at the
slope of my cheek. On the
occasion, you press
above me, glowing, spouting
readiness, mystery rapes
my reason
When you have withdrawn
your self and the magic, when
only the smell of your
love lingers between
my breasts, then, only
then, can I greedily consume
your presence.
— -Maya Angelou
-
The Lesson
I keep on dying again.
Veins collapse, opening like the
Small fists of sleeping
Children.
Memory of old tombs,
Rotting flesh and worms do
Not convince me against
The challenge. The years
And cold defeat live deep in
Lines along my face.
They dull my eyes, yet
I keep on dying,
Because I love to live.
— -Maya Angelou
-
A Conceit
Give me your hand
Make room for me
to lead and follow
you
beyond this rage of poetry.
Let others have
the privacy of
touching words
and love of loss
of love.
For me
Give me your hand.
— -Maya Angelou
-
Alone
Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don't believe I'm wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.
There are some millionaires
With money they can't use
Their wives run round like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They've got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone.
But nobody
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Now if you listen closely
I'll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
'Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.
Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.
— -Maya Angelou
-
Still I Rise
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
— -Maya Angelou
-
Music
My friend went to the piano; spun the stool
A little higher; left his pipe to cool;
Picked up a fat green volume from the chest;
And propped it open.
Whitely without rest,
His fingers swept the keys that flashed like swords,
. . . And to the brute drums of barbarian hordes,
Roaring and thunderous and weapon-bare,
An army stormed the bastions of the air!
Dreadful with banners, fire to slay and parch,
Marching together as the lightnings march,
And swift as storm-clouds. Brazen helms and cars
Clanged to a fierce resurgence of old wars
Above the screaming horns. In state they passed,
Trampling and splendid on and sought the vast --
Rending the darkness like a leaping knife,
The flame, the noble pageant of our life!
The burning seal that stamps man's high indenture
To vain attempt and most forlorn adventure;
Romance, and purple seas, and toppling towns,
And the wind's valiance crying o'er the downs;
That nerves the silly hand, the feeble brain,
From the loose net of words to deeds again
And to all courage! Perilous and sharp
The last chord shook me as wind shakes a harp!
. . . And my friend swung round on his stool, and from gods we were men,
"How pretty!" we said; and went on with our talk again.
— -Stephen Vincent Bene
-
May Morning
I lie stretched out upon the window-seat
And doze, and read a page or two, and doze,
And feel the air like water on me close,
Great waves of sunny air that lip and beat
With a small noise, monotonous and sweet,
Against the window -- and the scent of cool,
Frail flowers by some brown and dew-drenched pool
Possesses me from drowsy head to feet.
This is the time of all-sufficing laughter
At idiotic things some one has done,
And there is neither past nor vague hereafter.
And all your body stretches in the sun
And drinks the light in like a liquid thing;
Filled with the divine languor of late spring.
— -Stephen Vincent Bene
-
Lonely Burial
There were not many at that lonely place,
Where two scourged hills met in a little plain.
The wind cried loud in gusts, then low again.
Three pines strained darkly, runners in a race
Unseen by any. Toward the further woods
A dim harsh noise of voices rose and ceased.
-- We were most silent in those solitudes --
Then, sudden as a flame, the black-robed priest,
The clotted earth piled roughly up about
The hacked red oblong of the new-made thing,
Short words in swordlike Latin -- and a rout
Of dreams most impotent, unwearying.
Then, like a blind door shut on a carouse,
The terrible bareness of the soul's last house.
— -Stephen Vincent Bene
-
Ghosts of a Lunatic Asylu
Here, where men's eyes were empty and as bright
As the blank windows set in glaring brick,
When the wind strengthens from the sea -- and night
Drops like a fog and makes the breath come thick;
By the deserted paths, the vacant halls,
One may see figures, twisted shades and lean,
Like the mad shapes that crawl an Indian screen,
Or paunchy smears you find on prison walls.
Turn the knob gently! There's the Thumbless Man,
Still weaving glass and silk into a dream,
Although the wall shows through him -- and the Khan
Journeys Cathay beside a paper stream.
A Rabbit Woman chitters by the door --
-- Chilly the grave-smell comes from the turned sod --
Come -- lift the curtain -- and be cold before
The silence of the eight men who were God!
— -Stephen Vincent Bene
-
Dinner in a Quick Lunch
Soup should be heralded with a mellow horn,
Blowing clear notes of gold against the stars;
Strange entrees with a jangle of glass bars
Fantastically alive with subtle scorn;
Fish, by a plopping, gurgling rush of waters,
Clear, vibrant waters, beautifully austere;
Roast, with a thunder of drums to stun the ear,
A screaming fife, a voice from ancient slaughters!
Over the salad let the woodwinds moan;
Then the green silence of many watercresses;
Dessert, a balalaika, strummed alone;
Coffee, a slow, low singing no passion stresses;
Such are my thoughts as -- clang! crash! bang! -- I brood
And gorge the sticky mess these fools call food!
— -Stephen Vincent Bene
-
Colors
The little man with the vague beard and guise
Pulled at the wicket. "Come inside!" he said,
"I'll show you all we've got now -- it was size
You wanted? -- oh, dry colors! Well" -- he led
To a dim alley lined with musty bins,
And pulled one fiercely. Violent and bold
A sudden tempest of mad, shrieking sins
Scarlet screamed out above the battered gold
Of tins and picture-frames. I held my breath.
He tugged another hard -- and sapphire skies
Spread in vast quietude, serene as death,
O'er waves like crackled turquoise -- and my eyes
Burnt with the blinding brilliance of calm sea!
"We're selling that lot there out cheap!" said he.
— -Stephen Vincent Bene
-
Before an Examination
The little letters dance across the page,
Flaunt and retire, and trick the tired eyes;
Sick of the strain, the glaring light, I rise
Yawning and stretching, full of empty rage
At the dull maunderings of a long dead sage,
Fling up the windows, fling aside his lies;
Choosing to breathe, not stifle and be wise,
And let the air pour in upon my cage.
The breeze blows cool and there are stars and stars
Beyond the dark, soft masses of the elms
That whisper things in windy tones and light.
They seem to wheel for dim, celestial wars;
And I -- I hear the clash of silver helms
Ring icy-clear from the far deeps of night.
— -Stephen Vincent Bene
-
A Minor Poet
I am a shell. From me you shall not hear
The splendid tramplings of insistent drums,
The orbed gold of the viol's voice that comes,
Heavy with radiance, languorous and clear.
Yet, if you hold me close against the ear,
A dim, far whisper rises clamorously,
The thunderous beat and passion of the sea,
The slow surge of the tides that drown the mere.
Others with subtle hands may pluck the strings,
Making even Love in music audible,
And earth one glory. I am but a shell
That moves, not of itself, and moving sings;
Leaving a fragrance, faint as wine new-shed,
A tremulous murmur from great days long dead.
— -Stephen Vincent Bene
-
Italia
Italia! thou art fallen, though with sheen
Of battle-spears thy clamorous armies stride
From the north Alps to the Sicilian tide!
Ay! fallen, though the nations hail thee Queen
Because rich gold in every town is seen,
And on thy sapphire-lake in tossing pride
Of wind-filled vans thy myriad galleys ride
Beneath one flag of red and white and green.
O Fair and Strong! O Strong and Fair in vain!
Look southward where Rome's desecrated town
Lies mourning for her God-anointed King!
Look heaven-ward! shall God allow this thing?
Nay! but some flame-girt Raphael shall come down,
And smite the Spoiler with the sword of pain.
— -Oscar Wilde
-
The New Helen
Where hast thou been since round the walls of Troy
The sons of God fought in that great emprise?
Why dost thou walk our common earth again?
Hast thou forgotten that impassioned boy,
His purple galley and his Tyrian men
And treacherous Aphrodite's mocking eyes?
For surely it was thou, who, like a star
Hung in the silver silence of the night,
Didst lure the Old World's chivalry and might
Into the clamorous crimson waves of war!
Or didst thou rule the fire-laden moon?
In amorous Sidon was thy temple built
Over the light and laughter of the sea
Where, behind lattice scarlet-wrought and gilt,
Some brown-limbed girl did weave thee tapestry,
All through the waste and wearied hours of noon;
Till her wan cheek with flame of passion burned,
And she rose up the sea-washed lips to kiss
Of some glad Cyprian sailor, safe returned
From Calpe and the cliffs of Herakles!
No! thou art Helen, and none other one!
It was for thee that young Sarpedon died,
And Memnon's manhood was untimely spent;
It was for thee gold-crested Hector tried
With Thetis' child that evil race to run,
In the last year of thy beleaguerment;
Ay! even now the glory of thy fame
Burns in those fields of trampled asphodel,
Where the high lords whom Ilion knew so well
Clash ghostly shields, and call upon thy name.
Where hast thou been? in that enchanted land
Whose slumbering vales forlorn Calypso knew,
Where never mower rose at break of day
But all unswathed the trammelling grasses grew,
And the sad shepherd saw the tall corn stand
Till summer's red had changed to withered grey?
Didst thou lie there by some Lethaean stream
Deep brooding on thine ancient memory,
The crash of broken spears, the fiery gleam
From shivered helm, the Grecian battle-cry?
Nay, thou wert hidden in that hollow hill
With one who is forgotten utterly,
That discrowned Queen men call the Erycine;
Hidden away that never mightst thou see
The face of Her, before whose mouldering shrine
To-day at Rome the silent nations kneel;
Who gat from Love no joyous gladdening,
But only Love's intolerable pain,
Only a sword to pierce her heart in twain,
Only the bitterness of child-bearing.
The lotus-leaves which heal the wounds of Death
Lie in thy hand; O, be thou kind to me,
While yet I know the summer of my days;
For hardly can my tremulous lips draw breath
To fill the silver trumpet with thy praise,
So bowed am I before thy mystery;
So bowed and broken on Love's terrible wheel,
That I have lost all hope and heart to sing,
Yet care I not what ruin time may bring
If in thy temple thou wilt let me kneel.
Alas, alas, thou wilt not tarry here,
But, like that bird, the servant of the sun,
Who flies before the north wind and the night,
So wilt thou fly our evil land and drear,
Back to the tower of thine old delight,
And the red lips of young Euphorion;
Nor shall I ever see thy face again,
But in this poisonous garden-close must stay,
Crowning my brows with the thorn-crown of pain,
Till all my loveless life shall pass away.
O Helen! Helen!
— -Oscar Wilde
-
Magdalen Walks
The little white clouds are racing over the sky,
And the fields are strewn with the gold of the flower of March,
The daffodil breaks under foot, and the tasselled larch
Sways and swings as the thrush goes hurrying by.
A delicate odour is borne on the wings of the morning
breeze,
The odour of deep wet grass, and of brown new-furrowed earth,
The birds are singing for joy of the Spring's glad birth,
Hopping from branch to branch on the rocking trees.
And all the woods are alive with the murmur and
sound of Spring,
And the rose-bud breaks into pink on the climbing briar,
And the crocus-bed is a quivering moon of fire
Girdled round with the belt of an amethyst ring.
And the plane to the pine-tree is whispering some
tale of love
Till it rustles with laughter and tosses its mantle of green,
And the gloom of the wych-elm's hollow is lit with the iris sheen
Of the burnished rainbow throat and the silver breast of a dove.
See! the lark starts up from his bed in the meadow
there,
Breaking the gossamer threads and the nets of dew,
And flashing adown the river, a flame of blue!
The kingfisher flies like an arrow, and wounds the air.
— -Oscar Wilde
-
Phedre
(To Sarah Bernhardt)
How vain and dull this common world must seem
To such a One as thou, who should'st have talked
At Florence with Mirandola, or walked
Through the cool olives of the Academe:
Thou should'st have gathered reeds from a green stream
For Goat-foot Pan's shrill piping, and have played
With the white girls in that Phaeacian glade
Where grave Odysseus wakened from his dream.
Ah! surely once some urn of Attic clay
Held thy wan dust, and thou hast come again
Back to this common world so dull and vain,
For thou wert weary of the sunless day,
The heavy fields of scentless asphodel,
The loveless lips with which men kiss in Hell.
— -Oscar Wilde
-
E TENEBRIS
Come down, O Christ, and help me! reach Thy hand,
For I am drowning in a stormier sea
Than Simon on Thy lake of Galilee:
The wine of life is spilt upon the sand,
My heart is as some famine-murdered land
Whence all good things have perished utterly,
And well I know my soul in Hell must lie
If I this night before God's throne should stand.
'He sleeps perchance, or rideth to the chase,
Like Baal, when his prophets howled that name
From morn to noon on Carmel's smitten height.'
Nay, peace, I shall behold, before the night,
The feet of brass, the robe more white than flame,
The wounded hands, the weary human face.
— -Oscar Wilde
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Quantum Mutata
There was a time in Europe long ago
When no man died for freedom anywhere,
But England's lion leaping from its lair
Laid hands on the oppressor! it was so
While England could a great Republic show.
Witness the men of Piedmont, chiefest care
Of Cromwell, when with impotent despair
The Pontiff in his painted portico
Trembled before our stern ambassadors.
How comes it then that from such high estate
We have thus fallen, save that Luxury
With barren merchandise piles up the gate
Where noble thoughts and deeds should enter by:
Else might we still be Milton's heritors.
— -Oscar Wilde
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Under The Balcony
O beautiful star with the crimson mouth!
O moon with the brows of gold!
Rise up, rise up, from the odorous south!
And light for my love her way,
Lest her little feet should stray
On the windy hill and the wold!
O beautiful star with the crimson mouth!
O moon with the brows of gold!
O ship that shakes on the desolate sea!
O ship with the wet, white sail!
Put in, put in, to the port to me!
For my love and I would go
To the land where the daffodils blow
In the heart of a violet dale!
O ship that shakes on the desolate sea!
O ship with the wet, white sail!
O rapturous bird with the low, sweet note!
O bird that sits on the spray!
Sing on, sing on, from your soft brown throat!
And my love in her little bed
Will listen, and lift her head
From the pillow, and come my way!
O rapturous bird with the low, sweet note!
O bird that sits on the spray!
O blossom that hangs in the tremulous air!
O blossom with lips of snow!
Come down, come down, for my love to wear!
You will die on her head in a crown,
You will die in a fold of her gown,
To her little light heart you will go!
O blossom that hangs in the tremulous air!
O blossom with lips of snow!
— -Oscar Wilde
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Impression Du Matin
The Thames nocturne of blue and gold
Changed to a Harmony in grey:
A barge with ochre-coloured hay
Dropt from the wharf: and chill and cold
The yellow fog came creeping down
The bridges, till the houses' walls
Seemed changed to shadows and St. Paul's
Loomed like a bubble o'er the town.
Then suddenly arose the clang
Of waking life; the streets were stirred
With country waggons: and a bird
Flew to the glistening roofs and sang.
But one pale woman all alone,
The daylight kissing her wan hair,
Loitered beneath the gas lamps' flare,
With lips of flame and heart of stone.
— -Oscar Wilde
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Athanasia
To that gaunt House of Art which lacks for naught
Of all the great things men have saved from Time,
The withered body of a girl was brought
Dead ere the world's glad youth had touched its prime,
And seen by lonely Arabs lying hid
In the dim womb of some black pyramid.
But when they had unloosed the linen band
Which swathed the Egyptian's body, - lo! was found
Closed in the wasted hollow of her hand
A little seed, which sown in English ground
Did wondrous snow of starry blossoms bear
And spread rich odours through our spring-tide air.
With such strange arts this flower did allure
That all forgotten was the asphodel,
And the brown bee, the lily's paramour,
Forsook the cup where he was wont to dwell,
For not a thing of earth it seemed to be,
But stolen from some heavenly Arcady.
In vain the sad narcissus, wan and white
At its own beauty, hung across the stream,
The purple dragon-fly had no delight
With its gold dust to make his wings a-gleam,
Ah! no delight the jasmine-bloom to kiss,
Or brush the rain-pearls from the eucharis.
For love of it the passionate nightingale
Forgot the hills of Thrace, the cruel king,
And the pale dove no longer cared to sail
Through the wet woods at time of blossoming,
But round this flower of Egypt sought to float,
With silvered wing and amethystine throat.
While the hot sun blazed in his tower of blue
A cooling wind crept from the land of snows,
And the warm south with tender tears of dew
Drenched its white leaves when Hesperos up-rose
Amid those sea-green meadows of the sky
On which the scarlet bars of sunset lie.
But when o'er wastes of lily-haunted field
The tired birds had stayed their amorous tune,
And broad and glittering like an argent shield
High in the sapphire heavens hung the moon,
Did no strange dream or evil memory make
Each tremulous petal of its blossoms shake?
Ah no! to this bright flower a thousand years
Seemed but the lingering of a summer's day,
It never knew the tide of cankering fears
Which turn a boy's gold hair to withered grey,
The dread desire of death it never knew,
Or how all folk that they were born must rue.
For we to death with pipe and dancing go,
Nor would we pass the ivory gate again,
As some sad river wearied of its flow
Through the dull plains, the haunts of common men,
Leaps lover-like into the terrible sea!
And counts it gain to die so gloriously.
We mar our lordly strength in barren strife
With the world's legions led by clamorous care,
It never feels decay but gathers life
From the pure sunlight and the supreme air,
We live beneath Time's wasting sovereignty,
It is the child of all eternity.
— -Oscar Wilde
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Santa Decca
The Gods are dead: no longer do we bring
To grey-eyed Pallas crowns of olive-leaves!
Demeter's child no more hath tithe of sheaves,
And in the noon the careless shepherds sing,
For Pan is dead, and all the wantoning
By secret glade and devious haunt is o'er:
Young Hylas seeks the water-springs no more;
Great Pan is dead, and Mary's son is King.
And yet - perchance in this sea-tranced isle,
Chewing the bitter fruit of memory,
Some God lies hidden in the asphodel.
Ah Love! if such there be, then it were well
For us to fly his anger: nay, but see,
The leaves are stirring: let us watch awhile.
— -Oscar Wilde
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Mother and Poet
I.
Dead ! One of them shot by the sea in the east,
And one of them shot in the west by the sea.
Dead ! both my boys ! When you sit at the feast
And are wanting a great song for Italy free,
Let none look at me !
— -Elizabeth Barrett Br
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