An Old Man's Journal

The Road Not Taken

2010-04-18T20:58:00.005-03:00

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 rodas diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less traveled by,
and that has made all the difference.

"The Road Not Taken"

Robert Frost

The Cottager's Hymn - IX

2010-04-11T17:33:00.003-03:00

Whatever is hid
Shall burst on my sight
When hence I have fled
To glorious light.
Should chastisements lower,
Then let me resign;
Should kindnesses shower,
Let gratitude shine.

excerpt from "The Cottager's Hymn"

Branwell Brontë

Sonnet LXXV

2010-03-26T21:50:00.001-03:00

ONE day I wrote her name upon the strand,
but came the waves and washed it away:
again I wrote it with a second hand,
but came the tide, and made my pains his prey.

Vain man, said she, that dost in vain assay,
a mortal thing so to immortalize,
for I my self shall like to this decay,
and eek my name be wiped out likewise.

Not so, (quoth I) let baser things devise,
to die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
my verse your virtues rare shall eternize,
and in the heavens write your glorious name.

Where when as death shall all the world subdue,
our love shall live, and later life renew.

"Sonnet LXXV"

Edmund Spenser

The Rose of the World

2010-03-25T20:59:00.002-03:00

Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream?
For these red lips, with all their mournful pride,
Mournful that no new wonder may betide,
Troy passed away in one high funeral gleam,
And Usna's children died.

We and the labouring world are passing by:
Amid men's souls, that waver and give place
Like the pale waters in their wintry race,
Under the passing stars, foam of the sky,
Lives on this lonely face.

Bow down, archangels, in your dim abode:
Before you were, or any hearts to beat,
Weary and kind one lingered by His seat;
He made the world to be a grassy road
Before her wandering feet.

"The Rose of the World"

William Butler Yeats

(as found in "The Countess Kathleen and Various Legends and Lyrics")

On Time

2009-10-16T14:45:00.002-03:00

Ever eating, never cloying,

All-devouring, all-destroying

Never finding full repast,

Till I eat the world at last.

"On Time"

Jonathan Swift

The Hourglass

2009-09-02T23:04:00.001-03:00

Do but consider this small dust
Here running in the glass,
By atoms moved;
Could you believe that this
The body was
Of one that loved?
And in his mistress' flame, playing like a fly,
Turned to cinders by her eye?
Yes; and in death, as life, unblessed,
To have't expressed,
Even ashes of lovers find no rest.

“The Hourglass”
Ben Jonson

The Gladness of Nature

2009-08-23T12:44:00.001-03:00

Is this a time to be cloudy and sad,
When our mother Nature laughs around;
When even the deep blue heavens look glad,
And gladness breathes from the blossoming ground?

There are notes of joy from the hang-bird and wren,
And the gossip of swallows through all the sky;
The ground-squirrel gaily chirps by his den,
And the wilding bee hums merrily by.

The clouds are at play in the azure space,
And their shadows at play on the bright green vale,
And here they stretch to the frolic chase,
And there they roll on the easy gale.

There's a dance of leaves in that aspen bower,
There's a titter of winds in that beechen tree,
There's a smile on the fruit, and a smile on the flower,
And a laugh from the brook that runs to the sea.

And look at the broad-faced sun, how he smiles
On the dewy earth that smiles in his ray,
On the leaping waters and gay young isles;
Ay, look, and he'll smile thy gloom away.

“The Gladness of Nature”
William Cullen Bryant

The Way Through the Woods

2009-07-31T16:34:00.001-03:00

They shut the road through the woods
Seventy years ago.
Weather and rain have undone it again,
And now you would never know
There was once a road through the woods
Before they planted the trees.
It is underneath the coppice and heath,
And the thin anemones.
Only the keeper sees
That, where the ring-dove broods,
And the badgers roll at ease,
There was once a road through the woods.

Yet, if you enter the woods
Of a summer evening late,
When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools
Where the otter whistles his mate.
(They fear not men in the woods,
Because they see so few)
You will hear the beat of a horse's feet,
And the swish of a skirt in the dew,
Steadily cantering through
The misty solitudes,
As though they perfectly knew
The old lost road through the woods...
But there is no road through the woods.

“The Way Through the Woods”
Rudyard Kipling

On Death

2009-05-22T19:22:00.001-03:00

Can death be sleep, when life is but a dream,
And scenes of bliss pass as a phantom by?
The transient pleasures as a vision seem,
And yet we think the greatest pain's to die.

II.

How strange it is that man on earth should roam,
And lead a life of woe, but not forsake
His rugged path; nor dare he view alone
His future doom which is but to awake.

“On Death”
John Keats

Just Think!

2009-05-11T20:26:00.001-03:00

Just think! some night the stars will gleam
Upon a cold, grey stone,
And trace a name with silver beam,
And lo! ’twill be your own.

That night is speeding on to greet
Your epitaphic rhyme.
Your life is but a little beat
Within the heart of Time.

A little gain, a little pain,
A laugh, lest you may moan;
A little blame, a little fame,
A star-gleam on a stone.

“Just Think!”
Robert William Service

Gratitude

2009-05-10T00:53:00.001-03:00

I am not ungrateful for the things I received.
I thank them with all my heart.
I appreciate every one that passed on my life, no matter how brief the encounter was, is, or will be.

Sometimes I wish I could relive the past.
Not that I would change a thing.
I just wanted to try again the happiness I had and knew not it was there.

Relatives that are gone.
Friends that are lost.
I just wanted them to know that they really made the difference.

No matter how hard we try,
We simply cannot explain
How do we feel to those who we really love.

Or maybe it’s too easy,
We just have to say
‘Thank you’.

----------

I guess this is the way I found to thank you all. It’s not really a poem. I don’t have that gift. But it’s always nice to tell those whom you like how you feel about them, right?

The Great Minimum

2009-05-10T00:27:00.001-03:00

It is something to have wept as we have wept,
It is something to have done as we have done,
It is something to have watched when all men slept,
And seen the stars which never see the sun.

It is something to have smelt the mystic rose,
Although it break and leave the thorny rods,
It is something to have hungered once as those
Must hunger who have ate the bread of gods.

To have seen you and your unforgotten face,
Brave as a blast of trumpets for the fray,
Pure as white lilies in a watery space,
It were something, though you went from me today.

To have known the things that from the weak are furled,
Perilous ancient passions, strange and high;
It is something to be wiser than the world,
It is something to be older than the sky.

In a time of sceptic moths and cynic rusts,
And fattened lives that of their sweetness tire
In a world of flying loves and fading lusts,
It is something to be sure of a desire.

Lo, blessed are our ears for they have heard;
Yea, blessed are our eyes for they have seen:
Let the thunder break on man and beast and bird
And the lightning. It is something to have been.

“The Great Minimum”
Gilbert Keith Chesterton

A Man Said to the Universe

2009-05-04T23:40:00.001-03:00

A man said to the universe:
"Sir I exist!"
"However," replied the universe,
"The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation."

‘A Man Said to the Universe’
Stephen Crane

Go on, old chap. Laugh all you want!

Words, Wide Night

2009-05-03T10:08:00.001-03:00

The winds of change are surely blowing over the Old Continent. “Carol Ann Duffy (…) is the first woman, the first Scot and the first openly lesbian person to hold the position, as well as the first laureate to be chosen in the 21st century.” [Extracted from wikipedia.] The poem that entitles this post is this:

Somewhere on the other side of this wide night
and the distance between us, I am thinking of you.
The room is turning slowly away from the moon.

This is pleasurable. Or shall I cross that out and say
it is sad? In one of the tenses I singing
an impossible song of desire that you cannot hear.

La lala la. See? I close my eyes
and imagine the dark hills I would have to cross
to reach you. For I am in love with you

and this is what it is like or what it is like in words.

‘Words, Wide Night’
Carol Ann Duffy

"There Will Come Soft Rains"

2009-05-01T12:06:00.001-03:00

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum-trees in tremulous white;

Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

"There Will Come Soft Rains"
Sara Teasdale

So We'll Go No More A-Roving

2009-04-30T10:44:00.001-03:00

So we'll go no more a-roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.

For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And Love itself have rest.

Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a-roving
By the light of the moon.

'So We'll Go No More A-Roving'
George Gordon, Lord Byron

To**** (II)

2009-02-24T10:14:00.002-03:00

Had I a man's fair form, then might my sighs
Be echoed swiftly through that ivory shell
Thine ear, and find thy gentle heart; so well
Would passion arm me for the enterprize:

But ah! I am no knight whose foeman dies;
No cuirass glistens on my bosom's swell;
I am no happy shepherd of the dell
Whose lips have trembled with a maiden's eyes.

Yet must I dote upon thee,- call thee sweet,
Sweeter by far than Hybla's honied roses
When steep'd in dew rich to intoxication.

Ah! I will taste that dew, for me 'tis meet,
And when the moon her pallid face discloses,
I'll gather some by spells, and incantation.

"To**** (II)"

John Keats

Thin Blue Flame

2009-01-02T00:15:00.002-02:00

Hey everyone. Sorry I've been away... Oh, before I forget, Happy New Year for you!

This one is not actually a poem, but a song. I find it quite fantastic. Hope you enjoy it too.

And I'll try not to be away like this again! Bear with me, please!

I became a thin blue flame
Polished on a mountain range
And over hills and fields I flew
Wrapped up in a royal blue
I flew over Royal City last night
A bullfighter on the horns of a new moon’s light
Caesar’s ghost I saw the war-time tides
The prince of Denmark’s father’s still and quiet
And the whole world was looking to get drowned
Trees were a fist shaking themselves at the clouds
I looked over curtains and it was then that I knew
Only a full house gonna make it through

I became a thin blue wire
That held the world above the fire
And so it was I saw behind
Heaven’s just a thin blue line
If God’s up there he’s in a cold dark room
The heavenly host are just the cold dark moons
He bent down and made the world in seven days
And ever since he’s been a’walking away
Mixing with nitrogen in lonely holes
Where neither seraphim or raindrops go
I see an old man wandering the halls alone
Only a full house gonna make a home

I became a thin blue stream
The smoke between asleep and dreams
And in that clear blue undertow
I saw Royal City far below
Borders soft with refugees
Streets a’swimming with amputees
It’s a Bible or a bullet they put over your heart
It’s getting harder and harder to tell them apart
Days are nights and the nights are long
Beating hearts blossom into walking bombs
And those still looking in the clear blue sky for a sign
Get missiles from so high they might as well be divine
Now the wolves are howling at our door
Singing bout vengeance like it’s the joy of the Lord
Bringing justice to the enemies not the other way round
They’re guilty when killed and they’re killed where they’re found
If what’s loosed on earth will be loosed up on high
It’s a Hell of a Heaven we must go to when we die
Where even Laurel begs Hardy for vengeance please
The fat man is crying on his hands and his knees
Back in the peacetime he caught roses on the stage
Now he twists indecision takes bourbon for rage
Lead pellets peppering aluminum
Halcyon, laudanum and Opium
Sings kiss thee hardy this poisoned cup
His winding sheet is busy winding up
In darkness he looks for the light that has died
But you need faith for the same reasons that it’s so hard to find
And this whole thing is headed for a terrible wreck
And like good tragedy that’s what we expect

At night I make plans for a city laid down
Like the hips of a girl on the spring covered ground
Spirals and capitals like the twist of a script
Streets named for heroes that could almost exist
The fruit trees of Eden and the gardens that seem
To float like the smoke from a lithium dream
Cedar trees growing in the cool of the squares
The young women walking in the portals of prayer
And the future glass buildings and the past an address
And the weddings in pollen and the wine bottomless
And all wrongs forgotten and all vengeance made right
The suffering verbs put to sleep in the night
The future descending like a bright chandelier
And the world just beginning and the guests in good cheer
In Royal City I fell into a trance
Oh it’s hell to believe there ain’t a hell of a chance

I woke beneath a clear blue sky
The sun a shout the breeze a sigh
My old hometown and the streets I knew
Were wrapped up in a royal blue
I heard my friends laughing out across the fields
The girls in the gloaming and the birds on the wheel
The raw smell of horses and the warm smell of hay
Cicadas electric in the heat of the day
A run of Three Sisters and the flush of the land
And the lake was a diamond in the valley’s hand
The straight of the highway and the scattered out hearts
They were coming together they pulling apart
And angels everywhere were in my midst
In the ones that I loved in the ones that I kissed
I wondered what it was I’d been looking for up above
Heaven is so big there ain’t no need to look up
So I stopped looking for royal cities in the air
Only a full house gonna have a prayer

"Thin Blue Flame"

Josh Ritter

Annabel Lee

2008-10-02T22:44:00.001-03:00

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 kinsmen 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 her sepulchre there by the sea,
    In her tomb by the sounding sea.

"Annabel Lee"
Edgar Allan Poe

To the Whippoorwill

2008-09-30T23:28:00.001-03:00

        Bird of the lone and joyless night,
           Whence is thy sad and solemn lay?
        Attendant on the pale moon's light,
           Why shun the gairish blaze of day?

        When darkness fills the dewy air,
           Nor sounds the song of happier bird,
        Alone, amid the silence there,
           Thy wild and plaintive note is heard.

        Thyself unseen, thy pensive moan
           Pour'd in no living comrade's ear,
        The forest's shaded depths alone
           Thy mournful melody can hear.

        Beside what still and secret spring,
           In what dark wood the livelong day,
        Sett'st thou with dusk and folded wing,
           To while the hours of light away.

        Sad minstrel! thou hast learn'd, like me,
           That life's deceitful gleam is vain;
        And well the lesson profits thee,
           Who will not trust its charm again.

        Thou, unbeguiled, thy plaint dost trill
           To listening night, when mirth is o'er:
        I, heedless of the warning, still
           Believe, to be deceived once more.

"To the Whippoorwill"
Elizabeth F. Ellet

Funeral Blues

2008-09-22T20:28:00.001-03:00

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

"Funeral Blues"
Wystan Hugh Auden

Remember

2008-09-17T19:41:00.000-03:00

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day.
You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.

"Remember"
Christina Rossetti

A Valentine

2008-09-14T13:52:00.001-03:00

For her this rhyme is penned, whose luminous eyes,
Brightly expressive as the twins of Leda,
Shall find her own sweet name, that nestling lies
Upon the page, enwrapped from every reader.
Search narrowly the lines! — they hold a treasure
Divine — a talisman — an amulet
That must be worn at heart. Search well the measure-
The words — the syllables! Do not forget
The trivialest point, or you may lose your labor
And yet there is in this no Gordian knot
Which one might not undo without a sabre,
If one could merely comprehend the plot.
Enwritten upon the leaf where now are peering
Eyes scintillating soul, there lie perdus
Three eloquent words oft uttered in the hearing
Of poets, by poets — as the name is a poet's, too,
Its letters, although naturally lying
Like the knight Pinto-Mendez Ferdinando —
Still form a synonym for Truth — Cease trying!
You will not read the riddle, though you do the best you can do.

"A Valentine"
Edgar Allan Poe

Sometimes the true mark of a genius pass us by without we even noticing. Edgar Allan Poe addressed this poem for a very special person in his life. To find out who it was, you'll have to take the first letter of the first line and continue to the second letter of the second line and so on. To help us out, there is a highlighted version of this poem.

Autumn

2008-09-11T18:06:00.001-03:00

I love the fitful gust that shakes
The casement all the day,
And from the glossy elm tree takes
The faded leaves away,
Twirling them by the window pane
With thousand others down the lane.

I love to see the shaking twig
Dance till the shut of eve,
The sparrow on the cottage rig,
Whose chirp would make believe
That Spring was just now flirting by
In Summer's lap with flowers to lie.

I love to see the cottage smoke
Curl upwards through the trees,
The pigeons nestled round the cote
On November days like these;
The cock upon the dunghill crowing,
The mill sails on the heath a-going.

The feather from the raven's breast
Falls on the stubble lea,
The acorns near the old crow's nest
Drop pattering down the tree;
The grunting pigs, that wait for all,
Scramble and hurry where they fall.

"Autumn"
John Clare

Twilight

2008-09-02T08:23:00.001-03:00

Dreamily over the roofs
The cold spring rain is falling,
Out in the lonely tree
A bird is calling, calling.

Slowly over the earth
The wings of night are falling;
My heart like the bird in the tree
Is calling, calling, calling.

"Twilight"
Sara Teasdale

Despondency

2008-08-29T17:21:00.000-03:00

The thoughts that rain their steady glow
Like stars on life's cold sea,
Which others know, or say they know --
They never shone for me.
Thoughts light, like gleams, my spirit's sky,
But they will not remain.
They light me once, they hurry by,
And never come again.

"Despondency"
Matthew Arnold

How Do I Love Thee

2008-08-26T23:13:00.001-03:00

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of being and ideal grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for right.
I love thee purely, as they turn from praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints. I love with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life; and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

"How Do I Love Thee"
Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Snow-flakes

2008-08-25T17:48:00.002-03:00

Out of the bosom of the Air,
Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,
Over the woodlands brown and bare,
Over the harvest-fields forsaken,
Silent, and soft, and slow
Descends the snow.

Even as our cloudy fancies take
Suddenly shape in some divine expression,
Even as the troubled heart doth make
In the white countenance confession,
The troubled sky reveals
The grief it feels.

This is the poem of the air,
Slowly in silent syllables recorded;
This is the secret of despair,
Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,
Now whispered and revealed
To wood and field.

"Snow-Flakes"
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Is it too late to touch you, Dear?

2008-08-21T22:40:00.001-03:00

Is it too late to touch you, Dear?
We this moment knew —
Love Marine and Love terrene —
Love celestial too —

"Is it too late to touch you, Dear?"
Emily Dickinson

My Love is Like to Ice

2008-08-18T10:01:00.001-03:00

My love is like to ice, and I to fire:
How comes it then that this her cold so great
Is not dissolved through my so hot desire,
But harder grows the more I her entreat?
Or how comes it that my exceeding heat
Is not allayed by her heart-frozen cold,
But that I burn much more in boiling sweat,
And feel my flames augmented manifold?
What more miraculous thing may be told,
That fire, which all things melts, should harden ice,
And ice, which is congealed with senseless cold,
Should kindle fire by wonderful device?
Such is the power of love in gentle mind,
That it can alter all the course of kind.

"My Love is Like to Ice"
Edmund Spenser

Farewell

2008-08-04T03:39:00.000-03:00

Farewell! Oh how hard and how sad 'tis to speak
That last word of parting—forever to break
The fond ties and affection that cling round the heart
From home and from friends and from country to part.
'Though it grieves to remember, 'tis vain to regret.
The sad word must be spoken, and memory's spell
Now steals o'er me sadly. Farewell! Oh farewell!

Farewell to thy green hills, thy valleys and plains,
My poor blighted country! In exile and chains
Are the sons doomed to linger. Of God who didst bring
Thy children to Zion from Egypt's proud king,
We implore Thy great mercy! Oh stretch forth Thy hand,
And guide back her sons to their poor blighted land.

Never more thy fair face am I destined to see;
E'en the savage loves home, but 'tis crime to love thee.
God bless thee, dear Erin, my loved one, my own,
Oh! how hard 'tis these tendrils to break that have grown

Round my heart. But 'tis over, and memory's spell
Now stears o'er me sadly. Farewell! Oh, Farewell!

"Farewell"
John Boyle O'Reilly

Autumn Leaves

2008-08-02T08:22:00.001-03:00

Behold that tree in autumn's dim decay,
Stripped by the frequent chill and eddying wind;
Where yet some yellow lonely leaves we find
Lingering and trembling on the naked spray,
Twenty, perchance, for millions whirled away!
Emblem--alas too just!--of human kind:
Vain man expects longevity, designed
For few indeed; and their protracted day--

What is it worth that wisdom does not scorn?
The blasts of sickness, care, and grief appal,
That laid the friends in dust, whose natal morn
Rose near their own!--and solemn is the call;
Yet, like those weak, deserted leaves forlorn,
Shivering they cling to life and fear to fall.

"Autumn Leaves"
Anna Seward

Milton

2008-07-29T00:00:00.001-03:00

O Mighty-Mouth'd inventor of harmonies,
O skill'd to sing of Time or Eternity,
    God-gifted organ-voice of England,
        Milton, a name to resound for ages;
Whose Titan angels, Gabriel, Abdiel,
Starr'd from Jehovah's gorgeous armories,
    Tower, as the deep-domed empyrean
        Rings to the roar of an angel onset!
Me rather all that bowery loneliness,
The brooks of Eden mazily murmuring,
    And bloom profuse and cedar arches
        Charm as a wanderer out in ocean,
Where some refulgent sunset of India
Streams o'er a rich ambrosial ocean isle,
    And crimson-hued the stately palm-woods
        Whisper in odorous heights of even.

"Milton"
Alfred Tennyson

Parting

2008-07-23T23:20:00.002-03:00

There's no use in weeping,
Though we are condemned to part:
There's such a thing as keeping
A remembrance in one's heart:

There's such a thing as dwelling
On the thought ourselves have nurs'd,
And with scorn and courage telling
The world to do its worst.

We'll not let its follies grieve us,
We'll just take them as they come;
And then every day will leave us
A merry laugh for home.

When we've left each friend and brother,
When we're parted wide and far,
We will think of one another,
As even better than we are.

Every glorious sight above us,
Every pleasant sight beneath,
We'll connect with those that love us,
Whom we truly love till death!

In the evening, when we're sitting
By the fire perchance alone,
Then shall heart with warm heart meeting,
Give responsive tone for tone.

We can burst the bonds which chain us,
Which cold human hands have wrought,
And where none shall dare restrain us
We can meet again, in thought.

So there's no use in weeping,
Bear a cheerful spirit still;
Never doubt that Fate is keeping
Future good for present ill!

"Parting"
Charlotte Brontë

Loss and Gain

2008-07-19T01:23:00.000-03:00

When I compare
What I have lost with what I have gained,
What I have missed with what attained,
Little room do I find for pride.

I am aware
How many days have been idly spent;
How like an arrow the good intent
Has fallen short or been turned aside.

But who shall dare
To measure loss and gain in this wise?
Defeat may be victory in disguise;
The lowest ebb is the turn of the tide.

"Loss and Gain"
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Patience

2008-07-18T10:03:00.000-03:00

PATIENCE and I have traveled hand in hand
So many days that I have grown to trace
The lines of sad, sweet beauty in her face,
And all its veiled depths to understand.

Not beautiful is she to eyes profane;
Silent and unrevealed her holy charms;
But, like a mother's, her serene, strong arms
Uphold my footsteps on the path of pain.

I long to cry, -- her soft voice whispers, "Nay!"
I seek to fly, but she restrains my feet;
In wisdom stern, yet in compassion sweet,
She guides my helpless wanderings, day by day.

O my Beloved, life's golden visions fade,
And one by one life's phantom joys depart;
They leave a sudden darkness in the heart,
And patience fills their empty place instead.

"Patience"
Edith Wharton

Visions

2008-07-17T22:39:00.001-03:00

I cannot believe in a paradise
Glorious, undefiled,
For gates all scrolled and streets of gold
Are tales for a dreaming child.

I am too lost for shame
That it moves me unto mirth,
But I can vision a Hell of flame
For I have lived on earth.

"Visions"
Robert E. Howard

To Byron

2008-07-14T00:53:00.001-03:00

O mighty mind, in whose deep stream this age
Shakes like a reed in the unheeding storm,
Why dost thou curb not thine own sacred rage?

"To Byron"
Percy Bysshe Shelley

Surprised by Joy, Impatient as the Wind

2008-07-13T11:17:00.001-03:00

Surprised by joy, impatient as the wind,
I turned to share the transport, — oh, with whom?
But thee, deep buried in the silent tomb,
That spot which no vicissitude can find.
Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind —
But how could I forget thee? Through what power,
Even for the least division of an hour,
Have I been so beguiled as to be blind
To my most grevious loss? That thought’s return
Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore,
Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn,
Knowing my heart’s best treasure was no more;
That neither present time nor years unborn
Could to my sight that heavenly face restore.

"Surprised by Joy, Impatient as the Wind"
William Wordsworth

Where Once Poe Walked

2008-07-07T19:54:00.001-03:00

Eternal brood the shadows on this ground,
Dreaming of centuries that have gone before;
Great elms rise solemnly by slab and mound,
Arched high above a hidden world of yore.
Round all the scene a light of memory plays,
And dead leaves whisper of departed days,
Longing for sights and sounds that are no more.

Lonely and sad, a specter glides along
Aisles where of old his living footsteps fell;
No common glance discerns him, though his song
Peals down through time with a mysterious spell.
Only the few who sorcery's secret know,
Espy amidst these tombs the shade of Poe.

"Where Once Poe Walked"
Howard Phillips Lovecraft

The True Knowledge

2008-06-08T17:34:00.003-03:00

Thou knowest all; I seek in vain

What lands to till or sow with seed -

The land is black with briar and weed,

Nor cares for falling tears or rain.

Thou knowest all; I sit and wait

With blinded eyes and hands that fail,

Till the last lifting of the veil

And the first opening of the gate.

Thou knowest all; I cannot see.

I trust I shall not live in vain,

I know that we shall meet again

In some divine eternity.

"The True Knowledge"

Oscar Wilde

Once I Met Hapiness

2008-06-07T18:24:00.002-03:00

ONCE when all the Spring was wild,
All the leaves dew-pearled,
Once I met Happiness,
Singing down the world.

She had laughter on her lips,
Flowers in her hair–
Once I met Happiness–
Oh, she was fair!

There was yellow sun, I know,
Scent o' pine that day,
Once she kissed me on the lips,
Laughed and went her way.

What if all the lights are dim,
All the flowers furled?
Once I met Happiness,
Singing down the world!

"Once I Met Happiness"

Margaret Widdemer

I Am

2008-06-06T20:20:00.001-03:00

I am: yet what I am none cares or knows,
My friends forsake me like a memory lost;
I am the self-consumer of my woes,
They rise and vanish in oblivious host,
Like shades in love and death's oblivion lost;
And yet I am! and live like shadows tossed

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life nor joys,
But the vast shipwreck of my life's esteems;
And e'en the dearest--that I loved the best--
Are strange--nay, rather stranger than the rest.

I long for scenes where man has never trod;
A place where woman never smil'd or wept;
There to abide with my creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept:
Untroubling and untroubled where I lie;
The grass below--above the vaulted sky.

"I Am"

John Clare

Song

2008-06-05T09:19:00.002-03:00

'Tis true our life is but a long disease,
Made up of reàl pain and seeming ease.
You stars, who these entangled fortunes give,
O tell me why
It is so hard to die,
Yet such a task to live!

If with some pleasure we our griefs betray,
It costs us dearer than it can repay,
For time or fortune all things so devours,
Our hopes are crossed,
Or els the object lost,
Ere we can call it ours.

"Song"

Katherine Philips

Room to Roam

2008-06-04T00:20:00.000-03:00

You go yours today
and I'll go mine today
the many ways we wend
Many days
and many ways
ending in one end

Many a wrong
and its curing song
Many a road
and many an inn
Room to roam
but only one home
for all the world to win

You go yours
and I'll go mine
and the many many ways we'll wend
Many days
and many ways
ending in one end

"Room to Roam"
George MacDonald

Night

2008-06-03T00:12:00.001-03:00

Fair is the wedded reign of Night and Day.
Each rules a half of earth with different sway,
Exchanging kingdoms, East and West, alway.

Like the round pearl that Egypt drunk in wine,
The sun half sinks i’ the brimming, rosy brine:
The wild Night drinks all up: how her eyes shine!

Now the swift sail of straining life is furled,
And through the stillness of my soul is whirled
The throbbing of the hearts of half the world.

I hear the cries that follow Birth and Death.
I hear huge Pestilence draw his vaporous breath:
"Beware, prepare, or else ye die," he saith.

I hear a haggard student turn and sigh:
I hear men begging Heaven to let them die:
And, drowning all, a wild-eyed woman’s cry.

So Night takes toll of Wisdom as of Sin.
The student’s and the drunkard’s cheek is thin:
But flesh is not the prize we strive to win.

Now airy swarms of fluttering dreams descend
On souls, like birds on trees, and have no end.
O God, from vulture-dreams my soul defend!

Let fall on Her a rose-leaf rain of dreams,
All passionate-sweet, as are the loving beams
Of starlight on the glimmering woods and streams.

"Night"
Sidney Lanier

There’s a Green Grave in Ireland

2008-06-02T15:31:00.001-03:00

There's a green grave in Ireland,
Where my heart lies buried deep;
Where Mary, my fond sweetheart,
Rests in her dreamless sleep:
We loved when both our hearts were young,
And hope throbbed in each breast;
But nevermore has hope been mine
Since Mary sank to rest!

I've lived through many weary years,
Since on that summer morn
Sweet Mary gave her farewell kiss
And left me all forlorn:
I hear her sweet voice calling me,
I have not long to stay;
Bright hope will once again be mine
When death bids me away!

There's a green grave in Ireland,
Where my heart lies buried deep;
Oh, lay me there beside my love,
In my last, dreamless sleep!

"There’s a Green Grave in Ireland"
Jennie E. T. Dowe

Invictus

2008-05-28T23:04:00.001-03:00

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

"Invictus"
William Ernest Henley

A Poet's Epitaph

2008-05-24T12:21:00.000-03:00

Stop, Mortal! Here thy brother lies,
The Poet of the Poor.
His books were rivers, woods and skies,
The meadow and the moor,
His teachers were the torn hearts’ wail,
The tyrant, and the slave,
The street, the factory, the jail,
The palace — and the grave!
The meanest thing, earth’s feeblest worm,
He fear’d to scorn or hate;
And honour’d in a peasant’s form
The equal of the great.

But if he loved the rich who make
The poor man’s little more,
Ill could he praise the rich who take
From plunder’d labour’s store.
A hand to do, a head to plan,
A heart to feel and dare —
Tell man’s worst foes, here lies the man
Who drew them as they are.

"A Poet's Epitaph"
Ebenezer Elliott

A Happy Life

2008-05-23T21:12:00.000-03:00

    How happy is he born and taught
      That serveth not another's will;
    Whose armour is his honest thought,
      And simple truth his utmost skill!

    Whose passions not his master's are,
      Whose soul is still prepared for death,
    Not tied unto the world with care
      Of public fame, or private breath.

"A Happy Life"
Henry Wotton

Mist

2008-05-21T00:20:00.000-03:00

Low-anchored cloud
Newfoundlan air,
Fountain-head and source of rivers,
Dew-cloth, dream drapery,
And napkin spread by fays;
Drifting meadow of the air,
Where bloom the daisied banks and violets,
And in whose fenny labyrinth
The bittern booms and heron wades;
Spirit of lakes and seas and rivers,
Bear only perfumes and the scent
Of healing herbs to just men's fields!

"Mist"
Henry David Thoreau

The Thread of Truth

2008-05-20T00:20:00.000-03:00

TRUTH is a golden thread, seen here and there
In small bright specks upon the visible side
Of our strange being's parti-coloured web.
How rich the universe! 'Tis a vein of ore
Emerging now and then on Earth's rude breast,
But flowing full below. Like islands set
At distant intervals on Ocean's face,
We see it on our course; but in the depths
The mystic colonnade unbroken keeps
Its faithful way, invisible but sure.
Oh, if it be so, wherefore do we men
Pass by so many marks, so little heeding?

"The Thread of Truth"
Arthur Hugh Clough

Home

2008-05-19T00:20:00.001-03:00

There is a land, of every land the pride,
Beloved by heaven o'er all the world beside;
Where brighter suns dispense serener light,
And milder moons emparadise the night;
A land of beauty, virtue, valour, truth,
Time-tutored age, and love-exalted youth.

The wandering mariner, whose eye explores
The wealthiest isles, the most enchanting shores,
Views not a realm so bountiful and fair,
Nor breathes the spirit of a purer air;
In every clime the magnet of his soul,
Touched by remembrance, trembles to that pole;
For in this land of heaven's peculiar grace,
The heritage of nature's noblest race,
There is a spot of earth supremely blest,
A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest,
Where man, creation's tyrant, casts aside
His sword and sceptre, pageantry and pride,
While in his softened looks benignly blend
The sire, the son, the husband, brother, friend.

Here woman reigns; the mother, daughter, wife,
Strew with fresh flowers the narrow way of life!
In the clear heaven of her delightful eye,
An angel-guard of love and graces lie;
Around her knees domestic duties meet,
And fireside pleasures gambol at her feet.

Where shall that land, that spot of earth be found?
Art thou a man? - a patriot? - look around;
Oh, thou shalt find, howe'er thy footsteps roam,
That land thy country, and that spot thy home!

"Home"
James Montgomery

Lead, Kindly Light

2008-05-18T00:22:00.001-03:00

Lead, kindly light, amid th' encircling gloom,
Lead Thou me on;
The night is dark and I am far from home;
Lead Thou me on;
Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus, nor prayed that Thou
Should lead me on;
I loved to choose and see my path; but now
Lead Thou me on!
I loved the garish day, and spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will. Remember not past years!

So long Thy Power hast blest me, sure it still
Will lead me on;
O'er moor and fen, o'er crag and torrent, till
The night is gone,
And with the morn those angel faces smile
Which I have loved long since, and lost awhile!

"Lead, Kindly Light"
John Henry Newman

Leisure and Love

2008-05-16T21:15:00.001-03:00

Sooth 'twere a pleasant life to lead,
     With nothing in the world to do,
But just to blow a shepherd's reed
     The silent seasons through,
And just to drive a flock to feed—
     Sheep, quiet, fond, and few!

Pleasant to breathe beside a brook,
     And count the bubbles - love-worlds - there;
To muse upon some minstrel's book,
     Or watch the haunted air;
To slumber in some leafy nook-
     Or, idle anywhere.

And then a draught of nature's wine,
     A meal of summer's daintiest fruit;
To take the air with forms divine;
     Clouds, silvery, cool, and mute;
Descending, if the night be fine,
     In a star-parachute.

Give me to live with love alone,
     And let the world go dine and dress;
For love hath lowly haunts - a stone
     Holds something meant to bless.
If life's a flower, I choose my own -
     'Tis "Love in Idleness!"

"Leisure and Love"
Samuel Laman Blanchard

Inscription on Raleigh's Bible

2008-05-14T21:58:00.001-03:00

Even such is time that takes on trust
Our youth, our joys, and all we have,
And pays us but with age and dust;
Who in the dark and silent grave,
When we have wandered all our ways,
Shuts up the story of our days!
But from this earth, this grave, this dust,
The Lord shall raise me up, I trust.

"Inscription on Raleigh's Bible"
Walter Raleigh

'Whiles in the early Winter eve'

2008-05-12T21:59:00.001-03:00

Whiles in the early Winter eve

We pass amid the gathering night

Some homestead that we had to leave

Years past; and see its candles bright

Shine in the room beside the door

Where we were merry years agone

But now must never enter more,

As still the dark road drives us on.

E'en so the world of men may turn

At even of some hurried day

And see the ancient glimmer burn

Across the waste that hath no way;

Then with that faint light in its eyes

A while I bid it linger near

And nurse in wavering memories

The bitter-sweet of days that were.

" 'Whiles in the early Winter eve' "
William Morris

Found at the beginning of "The House of the Wolfings" by William Morris.

Life in Death

2008-05-11T22:14:00.001-03:00

     He should have followed who goes forth before us,
       Last born of us in life, in death first-born:
       The last to lift up eyes against the morn,
     The first to see the sunset. Life, that bore us
     Perchance for death to comfort and restore us,
       Of him hath left us here awhile forlorn,
       For him is as a garment overworn,
     And time and change, with suns and stars in chorus,
     Silent. But if, beyond all change or time,
     A law more just, more equal, more sublime
       Than sways the surge of life's loud sterile sea
     Sways that still world whose peace environs him,
     Where death lies dead as night when stars wax dim,
       Above all thought or hope of ours is he.

"Life in Death"
Algernon Charles Swinburne

Richard Cory

2008-05-10T22:29:00.001-03:00

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich - yes, richer than a king -
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.

"Richard Cory"
Edwin Arlington Robinson

The New Colossus

2008-05-07T22:57:00.001-03:00

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.

"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

"The New Colossus"
Emma Lazarus

The Light of Other Days

2008-05-06T23:27:00.001-03:00

   Oft in the stilly night
      Ere slumber's chain has bound me,
    Fond Memory brings the light
      Of other days around me:
        The smiles, the tears
        Of boyhood's years,
      The words of love then spoken;
        The eyes that shone,
        Now dimmed and gone,
      The cheerful hearts now broken!
    Thus in the stilly night
      Ere slumber's chain has bound me,
    Sad Memory brings the light
      Of other days around me.

    When I remember all
      The friends so link'd together
    I've seen around me fall
      Like leaves in wintry weather,
        I feel like one
        Who treads alone
      Some banquet-hall deserted,
        Whose lights are fled,
        Whose garlands dead,
      And all but he departed!
    Thus in the stilly night
      Ere slumber's chain has bound me,
    Sad Memory brings the light
      Of other days around me.

"The Light of Other Days"
Thomas Moore

A Wish

2008-05-05T22:59:00.001-03:00

   Mine be a cot beside the hill;
      A bee-hive's hum shall soothe my ear;
    A willowy brook that turns a mill
      With many a fall shall linger near.

    The swallow, oft, beneath my thatch
      Shall twitter from her clay-built nest;
    Oft shall the pilgrim lift the latch,
      And share my meal, a welcome guest.

    Around my ivied porch shall spring
      Each fragrant flower that drinks the dew;
    And Lucy, at her wheel, shall sing
      In russet gown and apron blue.

    The village church among the trees,
      Where first our marriage-vows were given,
    With merry peals shall swell the breeze
      And point with taper spire to Heaven.

"A Wish"
Samuel Rogers

Oh come to me now

2008-05-04T22:28:00.001-03:00

Oh! come to me now, for my sorrows are past,
And the cloud on my heart is dissolv'd at last;
Spirit of Poesy, come from above,
Come, on the wings of nature and love!

Come, while the yellow light streams thro' the pane,
And the air is fresh with the morning rain,
And the wind is up with its sweet wild voice,
Like a song of sorrow that bids us rejoice.

Come, mid fancies gathering fast,
'Mid thoughts of the present, and thoughts of the past,
Oh! come to me now! 't is thy chosen hour,
And the spirits of evil no longer have power!

"Oh come to me now"

The Death of Procris

2008-05-02T20:49:00.001-03:00

Poor jealous Procris in the Cretan wood,
Slain by the very hand of love at last!
This way was best; the cordial bath of blood,
The long love-sickness past.

The brown fauns gather round with piteous cries;
They mourn her beauty, know not of her woe;
They find no Eos graven on those eyes
Whence tears no longer flow.

Her griefs, her frailties from the flowery turf
Exhaled, are like the dews of yesterday;
The grim ship hurrying through the Phocian surf,
The exile on her way,

The cruel goddess, and the twofold test,
The breaking heart of hate, the poisoned hours, —
All these have faded out in utter rest
Among the Cretan flowers.

Ah! wrap her body in its fluttering lawns!
'Tis Cephalus' own shaft that hath made cease
The passion of her breast; hush, foolish fauns,
Hush! for her end was peace.

"The Death of Procris"
Edmund William Gosse

Norse Lullaby

2008-04-28T19:33:00.001-03:00

The sky is dark and the hills are white
As the storm-king speeds from the north to-night;
And this is the song the storm-king sings,
As over the world his cloak he flings:
"Sleep, sleep, little one, sleep;"
He rustles his wings and gruffly sings:
"Sleep, little one, sleep."

On yonder mountain-side a vine
Clings at the foot of a mother pine;
The tree bends over the trembling thing,
And only the vine can hear her sing:
"Sleep, sleep, little one, sleep;
What shall you fear when I am here?
Sleep, little one, sleep."

The king may sing in his bitter flight,
The pine may croon to the vine to-night,
But the little snowflake at my breast
Liketh the song I sing the best, ---
"Sleep, sleep, little one, sleep;
Weary thou art, anext my heart;
Sleep, little one, sleep."

"Norse Lullaby"
Eugene Field

(Untitled)

2008-04-26T08:02:00.001-03:00

Were I a king I might command content;
Were I obscure unknown should be my cares,
And were I dead no thoughts should me torment,
Nor words, nor wrongs, nor love, nor hate, nor fears
A doubtful choice for me of three things one to crave,
A kingdom or a cottage or a grave.

(Untitled)
Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford

Peace

2008-04-25T00:25:00.001-03:00

My soul, there is a country
Far beyond the stars,
Where stands a wingéd sentry
All skilful in the wars;

There above the noise and danger,
Sweet Peace sits crown'd with smiles,
And One born in a manger
Commands the beauteous files.

He is thy gracious Friend,
And—O my Soul awake! —
Did in pure love descend
To die here for thy sake.

If thou canst get but thither,
There grows the flower of Peace,
The Rose that cannot wither,
Thy fortress and thy ease.

Leave then thy foolish ranges,
For none can thee secure
But One, who never changes,
Thy God, thy life, thy cure.

"Peace"
Henry Vaughan

The Dead Man Walking

2008-04-23T12:44:00.001-03:00

They hail me as one living,
But don't they know
That I have died of late years,
Untombed although?

I am but a shape that stands here,
A pulseless mould,
A pale past picture, screening
Ashes gone cold.

Not at a minute's warning,
Not in a loud hour,
For me ceased Time's enchantments
In hall and bower.

There was no tragic transit,
No catch of breath,
When silent seasons inched me
On to this death ....

— A Troubadour-youth I rambled
With Life for lyre,
The beats of being raging
In me like fire.

But when I practised eyeing
The goal of men,
It iced me, and I perished
A little then.

When passed my friend, my kinsfolk,
Through the Last Door,
And left me standing bleakly,
I died yet more;

And when my Love's heart kindled
In hate of me,
Wherefore I knew not, died I
One more degree.

And if when I died fully
I cannot say,
And changed into the corpse-thing
I am to-day,

Yet is it that, though whiling
The time somehow
In walking, talking, smiling,
I live not now.

"The Dead Man Walking"
Thomas Hardy

How to Die

2008-04-21T23:53:00.001-03:00

Dark clouds are smouldering into red
   While down the craters morning burns.
The dying soldier shifts his head
   To watch the glory that returns;
He lifts his fingers toward the skies
   Where holy brightness breaks in flame;
Radiance reflected in his eyes,
      And on his lips a whispered name.

You'd think, to hear some people talk,
   That lads go West with sobs and curses,
And sullen faces white as chalk,
   Hankering for wreaths and tombs and hearses.
But they've been taught the way to do it
   Like Christian soldiers; not with haste
And shuddering groans; but passing through it
   With due regard for decent taste.

"How to Die"
Siegfried Sassoon

Futility

2008-04-19T01:02:00.001-03:00

Move him into the sun-
Gently its touch awoke him once,
At home, whispering of fields unsown.
Always it woke him, even in France,
Until this morning and this snow.
If anything might rouse him now
The kind old sun will know.

Think how it wakes the seeds-
Woke once the clays of a cold star.
Are limbs, so dear-achieved, are sides
Full-nerved, still warm, too hard to stir?
Was it for this the clay grew tall?
-O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
To break earth's sleep at all?

"Futility"
Wilfred Owen

Such, Such is Death

2008-04-18T01:35:00.001-03:00

Such, such is Death: no triumph: no defeat:
Only an empty pail, a slate rubbed clean,
A merciful putting away of what has been.

And this we know: Death is not Life, effete,
Life crushed, the broken pail. We who have seen
So marvellous things know well the end not yet.

Victor and vanquished are a-one in death:
Coward and brave: friend, foe. Ghosts do not say,
"Come, what was your record when you drew breath?"
But a big blot has hid each yesterday
So poor, so manifestly incomplete.
And your bright Promise, withered long and sped,
Is touched, stirs, rises, opens and grows sweet
And blossoms and is you, when you are dead.

"Such, Such is Death"
Charles Hamilton Sorley

Sunshine

2008-04-17T14:14:00.001-03:00

Arise and shine! The gold light
     Fair morning makes for thee —
A tender and untold light,
     Like music on the sea.
Light and music shining
     In melodious glory,
A rare and radiant shining
     On thy changing story.

To-day the golden sunlight
     Is full and broad and strong.
The glory of the One Light
     Must overflow in song —
Song that floweth ever,
     Sweeter every day;
Song whose echoes never,
     Never die away.

How shall the light be clearer
     That is so bright to-day?
How shall the hope be dearer
     That pours such joyous ray?
We are only waiting
     For the answer golden;
What faith is antedating
     Shall not be withholden.

Sunshine
Frances Ridley Havergal

The Good Great Man

2008-04-15T09:08:00.001-03:00

How seldom, friend, a good great man inherits
Honor or wealth, with all his worth and pains!
It sounds like stories from the world of spirits,
If any man obtain that which he merits,
Or any merit that which he obtains.
For shame, dear friend! renounce this canting strain,
What wouldst thou have a good great man obtain?
Place — titles — salary — a gilded chain —
Or throne of corses which his sword hath slain? —
Greatness and goodness are not means, but ends;
Hath he not always treasures, always friends,
The good great man? — three treasures, love and light,
And calm thoughts, regular as infant's breath;
And three firm friends, more sure than day and night —
Himself, his Maker, and the Angel Death.

"The Good Great Man"
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

By the North Sea

2008-04-13T22:11:00.001-03:00

Her cheek was wet with North Sea spray,
We walked where tide and shingle meet;
The long waves rolled from far away
To purr in ripples at our feet.
And as we walked it seemed to me
That three old friends had met that day,
The old, old sky, the old, old sea,
And love, which is as old as they.

Out seaward hung the brooding mist
We saw it rolling, fold on fold,
And marked the great Sun alchemist
Turn all its leaden edge to gold,
Look well, look well, oh lady mine,
The grey below, the gold above,
For so the greyest life may shine
All golden in the light of love.

"By the North Sea"
Arthur Conan Doyle

First Praise

2008-04-11T10:14:00.001-03:00

Lady of dusk-wood fastnesses,
Thou art my Lady.
I have known the crisp, splintering leaf-tread with thee on before,
White, slender through green saplings;
I have lain by thee on the brown forest floor
Beside thee, my Lady.

Lady of rivers strewn with stones,
Only thou art my Lady.
Where thousand the freshets are crowded like peasants to a fair;
Clear-skinned, wild from seclusion
They jostle white-armed down the tent-bordered thoroughfare
Praising my Lady.

"First Praise"
William Carlos Williams

On Reading Lord Dunsany's Book of Wonder

2008-04-09T14:35:00.001-03:00

The hours of night unheeded fly,
And in the grate the embers fade;
Vast shadows one by one pass by
In silent daemon cavalcade.
But still the magic volume holds
The raptur'd eye in realms apart,
And fulgent sorcery enfolds
The willing mind and eager heart.
The lonely room no more is there -
For to the sight in pomp appear
Temples and cities pois'd in air
And blazing glories - sphere on sphere.

"On Reading Lord Dunsany's Book of Wonder"
Howard Phillips Lovecraft

Thorp Green

2008-04-08T22:52:00.003-03:00

I sit, this evening, far away,
From all I used to know,
And nought reminds my soul to-day
Of happy long ago.

Unwelcome cares, unthought-of fears,
Around my room arise;
I seek for suns of former years
But clouds o'ercast my skies.

Yes--Memory, wherefore does thy voice
Bring old times back to view,
As thou wouldst bid me not rejoice
In thoughts and prospects new?

I'll thank thee, Memory, in the hour
When troubled thoughts are mine--
For thou, like suns in April's shower,
On shadowy scenes wilt shine.

I'll thank thee when approaching death
Would quench life's feeble ember,
For thou wouldst even renew my breath
With thy sweet word 'Remember'!

"Thorp Green"
Branwell Brontë

Luck

2008-04-07T12:45:00.001-03:00

I sought a four-leaved clover,—
The grass was gemmed with dew,—
I searched the meadow over
To find a four-leaved clover;
I was a lucky rover,—
You sought the charm-grass, too,
And seeking luck and clover
I found it—finding you.

"Luck"
Abbie Farwell Brown

Epitaph on the World

2008-04-05T00:41:00.001-03:00

Here lies the body of this world,
Whose soul alas to hell is hurled.
This golden youth long since was past,
Its silver manhood went as fast,
An iron age drew on at last;
'Tis vain its character to tell,
The several fates which it befell,
What year it died, when 'twill arise,
We only know that here it lies.

"Epitaph on the World"
Henry David Thoreau

Echo-Song

2008-04-04T11:25:00.001-03:00

I know a noble heart that beats
For one it loves how "wildly well!"
I only know for whom it beats;
But I must never tell!
Never tell!
Hush! hark! how Echo soft repeats,--
Ah! never tell!

I know a voice that falters low,
Whene'er one little name 't would say;
Full well that little name I know,
But that I'll ne'er betray!
Ne'er betray!
Hush! hark! how Echo murmurs low,--
Ah! ne'er betray!

I know a smile that beaming flies
From soul to lip, with rapturous glow,
And I can guess who bids it rise;
But none -- but none shall know!
None shall know!
Hush! hark! how Echo faintly sighs--
But none shall know!

"Echo-Song"
Frances Sargent Osgood

To Edgar Allan Poe

2008-04-03T00:55:00.001-03:00

If thy sad heart, pining for human love,
In its earth solitude grew dark with fear,
Lest the high Sun of Heaven itself should prove
Powerless to save from that phantasmal sphere
Wherein thy spirit wandered,—if the flowers
That pressed around thy feet, seemed but to bloom
In lone Gethsemanes, through starless hours,
When all who loved had left thee to thy doom,—
Oh, yet believe that in that hollow vale
Where thy soul lingers, waiting to attain
So much of Heaven's sweet grace as shall avail
To lift its burden of remorseful pain,
My soul shall meet thee, and its Heaven forego
Till God's great love, on both, one hope, one Heaven bestow.

"To Edgar Allan Poe"
Sarah Helen Whitman

Meeting at Night

2008-04-02T01:05:00.001-03:00

The grey sea and the long black land;
And the yellow half-moon large and low;
And the startled little waves that leap
In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
As I gain the cove with pushing prow,
And quench its speed i' the slushy sand.

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;
Three fields to cross till a farm appears;
A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch
And blue spurt of a lighted match,
And a voice less loud, thro' its joys and fears,
Than the two hearts beating each to each!

"Meeting at Night"
Robert Browning

The Dream-Bridge

2008-03-31T22:18:00.001-03:00

All drear and barren seemed the hours,
That passed rain-swept and tempest-blown.
The dead leaves fell like brownish notes
Within the rain's grey monotone.

There came a lapse between the showers:
The clouds grew rich with sunset gleams;
Then o'er the sky a rainbow sprang-
A bridge unto the Land of Dreams.

"The Dream-Bridge"
Clark Ashton Smith

Love

2008-03-30T10:43:00.001-03:00

Foolish love is only folly;
Wanton love is too unholy;
Greedy love is covetous;
Idle love is frivolous;
But the gracious love is it
That doth prove the work of it.

Beauty but deceives the eye;
Flattery leads the ear awry;
Wealth doth but enchant the wit;
Want, the overthrow of it;
While in Wisdom's worthy grace,
Virtue sees the sweetest face.

There hath Love found out his life,
Peace without all thought of strife;
Kindness in Discretion's care;
Truth, that clearly doth declare
Faith doth in true fancy prove,
Lust the excrements of Love.

Then in faith may fancy see
How my love may constru'd be;
How it grows and what it seeks;
How it lives and what it likes;
So in highest grace regard it,
Or in lowest scorn discard it.

"Love"
Nicholas Breton

If—

2008-03-29T10:32:00.001-03:00

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 imposters 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!

"If—"
Rudyard Kipling

The Rainy Day

2008-03-28T10:10:00.002-03:00

The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.

Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.

"The Rainy Day"
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Valley of Unrest

2008-03-27T00:52:00.001-03:00

Once it smiled a silent dell
Where the people did not dwell;
They had gone unto the wars,
Trusting to the mild-eyed stars,
Nightly, from their azure towers,
To keep watch above the flowers,
In the midst of which all day
The red sunlight lazily lay.
Now each visitor shall confess
The sad valley's restlessness.
Nothing there is motionless-
Nothing save the airs that brood
Over the magic solitude.
Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees
That palpitate like the chill seas
Around the misty Hebrides!
Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven
That rustle through the unquiet Heaven
Over the violets there that lie
In myriad types of the human eye-
Over the lilies there that wave
And weep above a nameless grave!
They wave:- from out their fragrant tops
Eternal dews come down in drops.
They weep:- from off their delicate stems
Perennial tears descend in gems.

"The Valley of Unrest"
Edgar Allan Poe

The Poet

2008-03-26T00:10:00.001-03:00

A moody child and wildly wise

Pursued the game with joyful eyes,

Which chose, like meteors, their way,

And rived the dark with private ray:

They overleapt the horizon's edge,

Searched with Apollo's privilege;

Through man, and woman, and sea, and star,

Saw the dance of nature forward far;

Through worlds, and races, and terms, and times,

Saw musical order, and pairing rhymes.

Olympian bards who sung

Divine ideas below,

Which always find us young,

And always keep us so.

"The Poet"
Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Other World

2008-03-25T11:06:00.001-03:00

    It lies around us like a cloud,--
    The world we do not see;
    Yet the sweet closing of an eye
    May bring us there to be.

    Its gentle breezes fan our cheeks
    Amid our worldly cares;
    Its gentle voices whisper love,
    And mingle with our prayers.

    Sweet hearts around us throb and beat,
    Sweet helping hands are stirred,
    And palpitates the veil between
    With breathings almost heard.

    The silence--awful, sweet, and calm,--
    They have no power to break;
    For mortal words are not for them
    To utter or partake.

    So thin, so soft, so sweet they glide,
    So near to press they seem,
    They lull us gently to our rest,
    And melt into our dream.

    And, in the hush of rest they bring,
    'Tis easy now to see
    How lovely and how sweet a pass
    The hour of death may be!

    To close the eye and close the ear,
    Wrapped in a trance of bliss,
    And, gently drawn in loving arms,
    To swoon to that--from this.

    Scarce knowing if we wake or sleep,
    Scarce asking where we are,
    To feel all evil sink away,
    All sorrow and all care.

    Sweet souls around us! Watch us still,
    Press nearer to our side,
    Into our thoughts, into our prayers,
    With gentle helping glide.

    Let death between us be as naught,
    A dried and vanished stream;
    Your joy be the reality,
    Our suffering life the dream.

"The Other World"
Harriet Beecher Stowe

The Stream of Life

2008-03-24T00:59:00.001-03:00

O STREAM descending to the sea,
Thy mossy banks between,
The flowerets blow, the grasses grow,
The leafy trees are green.

In garden plots the children play,
The fields the labourers till,
And houses stand on either hand,
And thou descendest still.

O life descending into death,
Our walking eyes behold,
Parent and friend thy lapse attend,
Companions young and old.

Strong purposes our minds possess,
Our hearts affections fill,
We toil and earn, we seek and learn,
And thou descendest still.

O end to which our currents tend,
Inevitable sea,
To which we flow, what do we know,
What shall we guess of thee?

A roar we hear upon thy shore,
As we our course fulfil;
Scarce we divine a sun will shine
And be above us still.

"The Stream of Life"
Arthur Hugh Clough

The Wayfarers

2008-03-23T00:34:00.001-03:00

Is it the hour? We leave this resting-place
Made fair by one another for a while.
Now, for a god-speed, one last mad embrace;
The long road then, unlit by your faint smile.
Ah! the long road! and you so far away!
Oh, I'll remember! but . . . each crawling day
Will pale a little your scarlet lips, each mile
Dull the dear pain of your remembered face.

. . . Do you think there's a far border town, somewhere,
The desert's edge, last of the lands we know,
Some gaunt eventual limit of our light,
In which I'll find you waiting; and we'll go
Together, hand in hand again, out there,
Into the waste we know not, into the night?

"The Wayfarers"
Rupert Brooke

The Cry of the Dreamer

2008-03-21T00:17:00.001-03:00

I am tired of planning and toiling
In the crowded hives of men;
Heart-weary of building and spoiling,
And spoiling and building again.
And I long for the dear old river,
Where I dreamed my youth away;
For a dreamer lives for ever,
And a toiler dies in a day.

I am sick of the showy seeming
Of a life that is half a lie;
Of the faces lined with scheming
In the throng that hurries by.
From the sleepless thoughts endeavour
I would go where the children play;
For a dreamer lives forever
And a thinker dies in a day.

I can feel no pride but pity
For the burdens the rich endure;
There is nothing sweet in the city
But the patient lives of the poor.
Oh, the little hands too skilful
And the child-mind chocked with weeds!
The daughter's heart grown wilful,
And the father's heart that bleeds!

No, no! from the streat's rude bustle,
From trophies of mart and stage,
I would fly to the woods' low rustle
And the meadows' kindly page.
Let me dream as of old by the river,
And be loved by the dream away;
For the dreamer lives for ever,
And a toiler dies in a day.

"The Cry of the Dreamer"
John Boyle O'Reilly

August on the Mountains

2008-03-20T12:34:00.001-03:00

There is sultry gloom on the mountain's brow
And a sultry glow beneath;
Oh, for a breeze from the western sea,
Soft and reviving, sweet and free,
Over the shadowless hill and lea,
Over the barren heath.

There are clouds and darkness around God's ways,
And the noon of life grows hot;
And though his faithfulness standeth fast
As the mighty mountains, a shroud is cast
Over the glory, solemn and vast,
Veiling, but changing it not.

Send a sweet breeze from thy sea, O Lord,
From thy deep, deep sea of love;
Though it lift not the veil from the cloudy height,
Let the brow grow cool and the footstep light,
As it comes with holy and soothing might,
Like the wing of a snowy dove.

"August on the Mountains"
Frances Ridley Havergal

To My Brother

2008-03-19T00:11:00.001-03:00

O faithful!
Moulded in one womb,
We have stood together all the years,
All the glad years and all the sorrowful years,
Own brothers: through good repute and ill,
In direst peril true to me,
Leaving all things for me, spending yourself
In the hard service that I taught to you,
Of all the men that I have known on earth,
You only have been my familiar friend,
Nor needed I another.

"To My Brother"
Patrick Henry Pearse

The Holy Thing

2008-03-18T00:09:00.001-03:00

THEY all were looking for a king
   To slay their foes and lift them high:
Thou cam'st, a little baby thing
   That made a woman cry.
O Son of Man, to right my lot
   Naught but Thy presence can avail;
Yet on the road Thy wheels are not,
   Nor on the sea Thy sail!
My how or when Thou wilt not heed,
   But come down Thine own secret stair,
That Thou mayst answer all my need-
   Yea, every bygone prayer.

"The Holy Thing"
George MacDonald

Who Ever Loved, That Loved Not at First Sight

2008-03-17T00:15:00.001-03:00

It lies not in our power to love or hate,
For will in us is overruled by fate.
When two are stripped, long ere the course begin,
We wish that one should love, the other win;
And one especially do we affect
Of two gold ingots, like in each respect:
The reason no man knows, let it suffice,
What we behold is censured by our eyes.
Where both deliberate, the love is slight:
Who ever loved, that loved not at first sight?

"Who Ever Loved, That Loved Not at First Sight"
Christopher Marlowe

The Forest Glade

2008-03-16T00:42:00.001-03:00

As one dark morn I trod a forest glade,
     A sunbeam entered at the further end,
And ran to meet me through the yielding shade —
     As one who in the distance sees a friend,
And smiling, hurries to him; but mine eyes,
     Bewilder'd by the change from dark to bright,
Received the greeting with a quick surprise
     At first, and then with tears of pure delight;
For sad my thoughts had been, — the tempest's wrath
     Had gloom'd the night, and made the morrow gray;
That heavenly guidance humble sorrow hath,
     Had turn'd my feet into that forest way,
Just when His morning light came down the path,
     Among the lonely woods at early day.

"The Forest Glade"
Charles Tennyson Turner

The Pagan

2008-03-15T00:32:00.001-03:00

SO HERE are you, and here am I,
    Where we may thank our gods to be;
Above the earth, beneath the sky,
    Naked souls alive and free.
The autumn wind goes rustling by
    And stirs the stubble at our feet;
        Out of the west it whispering blows,
        Stops to caress and onward goes,
    Bringing its earthy odours sweet.
See with what pride the the setting sun
    Kinglike in gold and purple dies,
And like a robe of rainbow spun
Tinges the earth with shades divine.
    That mystic light is in your eyes
And ever in your heart will shine.

"The Pagan"
George Orwell

Fairest Maid on Devon Banks

2008-03-14T00:03:00.001-03:00

Fairest maid on Devon banks,
Crystal Devon, winding Devon,
Wilt thou lay that frown aside,
And smile as thou were wont to do?
Full well thou know’st I love thee, dear!
Could’st thou to malice lend an ear!
O! did not love exclaim “Forbear,
Nor use a faithful lover so.”

Then come, thou fairest of the fair,
Those wonted smiles, O let me share;
And by thy beauteous self I swear,
No love but thine my heart shall know.
Fairest maid on Devon banks,
Crystal Devon, winding Devon,
Wilt thou lay that frown aside,
And smile as thou were wont to do?

"Fairest Maid on Devon Banks"
Robert Burns

Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night

2008-03-11T00:08:00.000-03:00

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 the 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.

"Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night"
Dylan Thomas