Ad Finem Fideles
Far out, far out they lie. Like stricken women weeping,
Eternal vigil keeping with slow and silent tread—
Soft-shod as are the fairies, the winds patrol the prairies,
The sentinels of God about the pale and patient dead!
Above them, as they slumber in graves that none may number.
Dawns grow to day, days dim to dusk, and dusks in darkness pass;
Unheeded springs are born, unheeded summers brighten,
And winters wake to whiten the wilderness of grass.
Slow stride appointed years across their bivouac places,
With stern, devoted faces they lie, as when they lay,
In long battalions dreaming, till dawn, to eastward gleaming,
Awoke the clarion greeting of the bugles to the day.
The still and stealthy speeding of the pilgrim days unheeding,
At rest upon the roadway that their feet unfaltering trod,
The faithful unto death abide, with trust unshaken,
The morn when they shall waken to the reveille of God.
The faithful unto death! Their sleeping-places over
The torn and trampled clover to braver beauty blows;
Of all their grim campaigning no sight or sound remaining,
The memory of them mutely to greater glory grows.
Through waning ages winding, new inspiration finding,
Their creed of consecration like a silver ribbon runs,
Sole relic of the strife that woke the world to wonder
With riot and the thunder of a sundered people’s guns.
What matters now the cause? As little children resting,
No more the battle breasting to the rumble of the drums,
Enlinked by duty’s tether, the blue and gray together,
They wait the great hereafter when the last assembly comes.
Where’er the summons found them, whate’er the tie that bound them,
’T is this alone the record of the sleeping army saith:—
They knew no creed but this, in duty not to falter,
With strength that naught could alter to be faithful unto death.
poem by Guy Wetmore Carryl from The Garden of Years and Other Poems (1898)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Atlantis
The light of suns unseen, through depths of sea descending,
Within her street awakes the ghost of noon
To bide its little hour and die unheeded, blending
Into her night that knows nor stars nor moon.
The hurrying feet of storms that trample o’er the surges
Arouse no echo in these silent deeps;
No thunder thrills her peace, no sword of lightning scourges
The dim, dead calm where lost Atlantis sleeps.
Long leagues above her courts the stately days advancing
Kindle new dawns and see new sunsets dim;
And, white and weary-eyed, the old stars, backward glancing,
Reluctant pause upon the ocean’s rim.
But she, of dawns and dusks forgotten and forgetful,
Broods in her depths with slumber-weighted eyes;
For all her splendid past unanxious, unregretful,
She waits the call that bids her wake and rise.
No mortal voice she hears. The strong young ships, full-freighted,
With hopes of men, with women’s sighs and tears,
Above her blue-black walls and portals golden-gated
Sweep on unnoted through the speeding years—
Until at last they come, as still in silence resting
She keeps her vigil underneath the waves,
By tempests tossed and torn, and weary of their questing,
Slow sliding downward past her to their graves.
So side by side they lie in ever gaining number,
The sunken ships, by fate or fortune led
To this, their final port, resistless sent to slumber
Until the sea shall render up her dead—
Shall render up her dead to all their olden glories,
Shall render up what now so well she keeps,
The buried lives and loves, the strange, unfinished stories
Of these dim depths where lost Atlantis sleeps!
poem by Guy Wetmore Carryl from The Garden of Years and Other Poems (1899)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Little Nell
GLEAMING through the silent church-yard,
Winter sunlight seemed to shed
Golden shadows like soft blessings
O'er a quiet little bed,
Where a pale face lay unheeding
Tender tears that o'er it fell;
No sorrow now could touch the heart
Of gentle little Nell.
Ah, with what silent patient strength
The frail form lying there
Had borne its heavy load of grief,
Of loneliness and care.
Now, earthly burdens were laid down,
And on the meek young face
There shone a holier loveliness
Than childhood's simple grace.
Beset with sorrow, pain and fear,
Tempted by want and sin,
With none to guide or counsel her
But the brave child-heart within.
Strong in her fearless, faithful love,
Devoted to the last,
Unfaltering through gloom and gleam
The little wanderer passed.
Hand in hand they journeyed on
Through pathways strange and wild,
The gray-haired, feeble, sin-bowed man
Led by the noble child.
So through the world's dark ways she passed,
Till o'er the church-yard sod,
To the quiet spot where they found rest,
Those little feet had trod.
To that last resting-place on earth
Kind voices bid her come,
There her long wanderings found an end,
And weary Nell a home.
A home whose light and joy she was,
Though on her spirit lay
A solemn sense of coming change,
That deepened day by day.
There in the church-yard, tenderly,
Through quiet summer hours,
Above the poor neglected graves
She planted fragrant flowers.
The dim aisles of the ruined church
Echoed the child's light tread,
And flickering sunbeams thro' the leaves
Shone on her as she read.
And here where a holy silence dwelt,
And golden shadows fell,
When Death's mild face had looked on her,
They laid dear happy Nell.
Long had she wandered o'er the earth,
One hand to the old man given,
By the other angels led her on
Up a sunlit path to Heaven.
Oh! 'patient, loving, noble Nell,'
Like light from sunset skies,
The beauty of thy sinless life
Upon the dark world lies.
On thy sad story, gentle child,
Dim eyes will often dwell,
And loving hearts will cherish long
The memory of Nell.
poem by Louisa May Alcott
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A Departed Friend
He is sleeping, sounding sleeping
In the cold and silent tomb.
He is resting, sweetly resting
In perfect peace, all alone.
He has left us, God bereft us,
And his will must e'er be done,
It will grieve us, and bereave us
To think of this noble son.
While on earth he done his duty,
To all his fellow men,
Some will miss him in his of office,
Where he often used the pen.
He was witty, always happy,
Kind and genial in his way;
He was generous in his actions,
And his honor could display.
He has held many an office,
And has done his duty well;
And his name will be remembered
By the friends that knew him well.
Friends are weeping, softly weeping,
In his kind and loving home;
Let him slumber, sweetly slumber,
Till God calls him from the tomb.
poem by Julia A Moore
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My Army, O, My Army!
My Army, O, my army! The time I dreamed of comes!
I want to see your colours; I want to hear your drums!
I heard them in my boyhood when all men’s hearts seemed cold;
I heard them as a Young Man—and I am growing old!
My army, O, my army! The signs are manifold!
My army, O, my army! My army and my Queen!
I used to sing your battle-songs when I was seventeen!
They came to me from ages, they came from far and near;
They came to me from Paris, they came to me from Here!—
They came when I was marching with the Army of the Rear.
My Queen’s dark eyes were flashing (oh, she was younger then!);
My Queen’s Red Cap was redder than the reddest blood of men!
My Queen marched like an Amazon, with anger manifest—
Her dark hair darkly matted from a knifegash in her breast
(For blood will flow where milk will not—her sisters knew the rest).
My legions ne’er were listed, they had no need to be;
My army ne’er was trained in arms—’twas trained in misery!
It took long years to mould it, but war could never drown
The shuffling of my army’s feet in the hunger-haunted town—
A little child was murdered, and so Tyranny went down.
My army kept no order, my army kept no time;
My army dug no trenches, yet died in dust and slime;
Its troops were fiercely ignorant, as to the manner born;
Its clothes were rags and tatters, or patches worn and torn—
Ah, me! It wore a uniform that I have often worn!
The faces of my army were ghastly as the dead;
My army’s cause was Hunger, my army’s cry was “Bread!”
It called on God and Mary and Christ of Nazareth;
It cried to kings and courtesans that fainted at its breath—
Its women beat their poor, flat breasts where babes had starved to death.
My army! My army—I hear the sound of drums
Above the roar of battles—and, lo! my army comes!
Nor creed of man may stay it—nor war, nor nation’s law—
The pikes go through the firing-lines as pitchforks go through straw—
Like pitchforks through the litter, while empires stand in awe.
poem by Henry Lawson
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When a people reach the top of a hill,
When a people reach the top of a hill,
Then does God lean toward them,
Shortens tongues and lengthens arms.
A vision of their dead comes to the weak.
The moon shall not be too old
Before the new battalions rise,
Blue battalions.
The moon shall not be too old
When the children of change shall fall
Before the new battalions,
The blue battalions.
Mistakes and virtues will be trampled deep.
A church and a thief shall fall together.
A sword will come at the bidding of the eyeless,
The God-led, turning only to beckon,
Swinging a creed like a censer
At the head of the new battalions,
Blue battalions.
March the tools of nature's impulse,
Men born of wrong, men born of right,
Men of the new battalions,
The blue battalions.
The clang of swords is Thy wisdom,
The wounded make gestures like Thy Son's;
The feet of mad horses is one part --
Ay, another is the hand of a mother on the brow of a youth.
Then, swift as they charge through a shadow,
The men of the new battalions,
Blue battalions --
God lead them high, God lead them far,
God lead them far, God lead them high,
These new battalions,
The blue battalions.
poem by Stephen Crane
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Faithful
Faithful to the end
She's a lover and a friend
Faithful to the end
And with this i know you can win, just stay faithful
Faithful till the end
Faithful to the end
Listen ya'll she's a mother and a wife, she is everything, faithful
Faithful to the end
Even when things go wrong and you got nobody else to call
You call on good ol' faithful
Faithful to the end
Cause i know you gotta stay faithful
Faithful to the end
She's the one that will cook and clean, wash your clothes
So you always gotta stay faithful
Faithful to the end
Ya'll just take it on home, i can't even sing no more
Faithful to the end
Yeah, i like that
song performed by by Faith Evans
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A Fresh Endeavour
So now I've taken leave of life,
I thought you'd like to know, I still
Possess a mind in love, oh wife;
A soulful eye to catch a show of
Silent beauty – ever yours;
An ear to pick the metaphors
Of tonal dance in words you say,
Grasp a thought in verse you pray
Inside your head, bemused of mind,
Softly mournful, intertwined with
Understanding tears.
I'll drift a whisper o'er to you
To tell that I am quietly calm;
Keeping time till your adieu
To flesh, upon the carol of a
Psalm of consummation. Now!
A fresh endeavour – we're forever
One together, resting yonder,
Cross our open plane of blue.
Copyright Mark R Slaughter 2009
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poem by Mark R Slaughter
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Phœbus Apollo
Hear us, Phœbus Apollo, who are shorn of contempt and pride,
Humbled and crushed in a world gone wrong since the smoke on thine altars died;
Hear us, Lord of the morning, King of the Eastern Flame,
Dawn on our doubts and darkness and the night of our later shame!
There are strange gods come among us, of passion, and scorn, and greed;
They are throned in our stately cities, our sons at their altars bleed:
The smoke of their thousand battles hath blinded thy children’s eyes,
And our hearts are sick for a ruler that answers us not with lies,
Sick for thy light unblemished, great fruit of Latona’s pain—
Hear us, Phœbus Apollo, and come to thine own again!
Our eyes, of earth grown weary, through the backward ages peer,
Till, wooed by our eager craving, the scent of thy birth grows clear
And across the calm Ægean, gray-green in the early morn,
We hear the cry of the circling swans that salute the god new-born—
The challenge of mighty Python, the song of thy shafts that go
Straight to the heart of the monster, sped from the loosened bow.
Again through the vale of Tempe a magical music rings
The songs of the marching muses, the ripple of fingered strings!
But this is our dreaming only; we wait for a stronger strain:
Hear us, Phœbus Apollo, and come to thine own again!
There are some among us, Diviner, who know not thy way or will,
Some of thy rebel children who bow to the strange gods still;
Some that dream of oppression, and many that dream of gold,
Whose ears are deaf to the music that gladdened the world of old.
But we, the few and the faithful, we are weary of wars unjust,
There is left no god of our thousand gods that we love, believe, or trust;
In our courts is justice scoffed at, in our senates gold has sway,
And the deeds of our priests and preachers make mock of the words they say!
Cardinals, kings, and captains, there is left none fit to reign:
Hear us, Phœbus Apollo, and come to thine own again!
We have hearkened to creeds unnumbered, we have given them trial and test,
And the creed of thy Delphic temple is still of them all the best;
Thy clean-limbed, lithe disciples, slender, and strong, and young,
The swing of their long processions, the lilt of the songs they sung,
Thine own majestic presence, pursuing the nymph of dawn,
In thy chariot eastward blazing, by the swans and griffons drawn;
The spell of thy liquid music, once heard in the speeding year: —
These are the things, Great Archer, that we yearn to see and hear,
For beside thy creed untarnished all others are stale and vain!
Hear us, Phœbus Apollo, and come to thine own again!
Monarch of light and laughter, honor, and trust, and truth,
God of all inspiration, King of eternal youth,
Whose words are fitted to music as jewels are set in gold,
There is need of thy splendid worship in a world grown grim and old!
We have drunk the wine of the ages, we are come to the dregs and lees,
And the shrines are all unworthy where we bend reluctant knees;
The brand of the beast is on us, we grovel, and grope, and err,
Wake, Great god of the Morning, the moment has come to stir!
The stars of our night of evil on a wan horizon wane: —
Hear us, Phœbus Apollo, and come to thine own again!
poem by Guy Wetmore Carryl from The Garden of Years and Other Poems (1900)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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By The Bivouac's Fitful Flame
BY the bivouac's fitful flame,
A procession winding around me, solemn and sweet and slow;--but first
I note,
The tents of the sleeping army, the fields' and woods' dim outline,
The darkness, lit by spots of kindled fire--the silence;
Like a phantom far or near an occasional figure moving;
The shrubs and trees, (as I lift my eyes they seem to be stealthily
watching me;)
While wind in procession thoughts, O tender and wondrous thoughts,
Of life and death--of home and the past and loved, and of those that
are far away;
A solemn and slow procession there as I sit on the ground,
By the bivouac's fitful flame. 10
poem by Walt Whitman
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The Garden of Prosperine
Here, where the world is quiet,
Here, where all trouble seems
Dead winds' and spent waves' riot
In doubtful dreams of dreams;
I watch the green field growing
For reaping folk and sowing,
For harvest-time and mowing,
A sleepy world of streams.
I am tired of tears and laughter,
And men that laugh and weep;
Of what may come hereafter
For men that sow to reap:
I am weary of days and hours,
Blown buds of barren flowers,
Desires and dreams and powers
And everything but sleep.
Here life has death for neighbour,
And far from eye or ear
Wan waves and wet winds labour,
Weak ships and spirits steer;
They drive adrift, and whither
They wot not who make thither;
But no such winds blow hither,
And no such things grow here.
No growth of moor or coppice,
No heather-flower or vine,
But bloomless buds of poppies,
Green grapes of Proserpine,
Pale beds of blowing rushes,
Where no leaf blooms or blushes
Save this whereout she crushes
For dead men deadly wine.
Pale, without name or number,
In fruitless fields of corn,
They bow themselves and slumber
All night till light is born;
And like a soul belated,
In hell and heaven unmated,
By cloud and mist abated
Comes out of darkness morn.
Though one were strong as seven,
He too with death shall dwell,
Nor wake with wings in heaven,
Nor weep for pains in hell;
Though one were fair as roses,
His beauty clouds and closes;
And well though love reposes,
In the end it is not well.
Pale, beyond porch and portal,
Crowned with calm leaves, she stands
Who gathers all things mortal
With cold immortal hands;
Her languid lips are sweeter
Than love's who fears to greet her
To men that mix and meet her
From many times and lands.
She waits for each and other,
She waits for all men born;
Forgets the earth her mother,
The life of fruits and corn;
And spring and seed and swallow
Take wing for her and follow
Where summer song rings hollow
And flowers are put to scorn.
There go the loves that wither,
The old loves with wearier wings;
And all dead years draw thither,
And all disastrous things;
Dead dreams of days forsaken,
Blind buds that snows have shaken,
Wild leaves that winds have taken,
Red strays of ruined springs.
We are not sure of sorrow,
And joy was never sure;
Today will die tomorrow;
Time stoops to no man's lure;
And love, grown faint and fretful,
With lips but half regretful
Sighs, and with eyes forgetful
Weeps that no loves endure.
From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be That no life lives for ever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.
Then star nor sun shall waken,
Nor any change of light:
Nor sound of waters shaken,
Nor any sound or sight:
Nor wintry leaves nor vernal,
Nor days nor things diurnal;
Only the sleep eternal
In an eternal night.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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Anima Anceps
TILL death have broken
Sweet life’s love-token,
Till all be spoken
That shall be said,
What dost thou praying,
O soul, and playing
With song and saying,
Things flown and fled?
For this we know not—
That fresh springs flow not
And fresh griefs grow not
When men are dead;
When strange years cover
Lover and lover,
And joys are over
And tears are shed.
If one day’s sorrow
Mar the day’s morrow—
If man’s life borrow
And man’s death pay—
If souls once taken,
If lives once shaken,
Arise, awaken,
By night, by day—
Why with strong crying
And years of sighing,
Living and dying,
Fast ye and pray?
For all your weeping,
Waking and sleeping,
Death comes to reaping
And takes away.
Though time rend after
Roof-tree from rafter,
A little laughter
Is much more worth
Than thus to measure
The hour, the treasure,
The pain, the pleasure,
The death, the birth;
Grief, when days alter,
Like joy shall falter;
Song-book and psalter,
Mourning and mirth.
Live like the swallow;
Seek not to follow
Where earth is hollow
Under the earth.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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Confederate Memorial Day
The marching armies of the past
Along our Southern plains,
Are sleeping now in quiet rest
Beneath the Southern rains.
The bugle call is now in vain
To rouse them from their bed;
To arms they'll never march again-
They are sleeping with the dead.
No more will Shiloh's plains be stained
With blood our heroes shed,
Nor Chancellorsville resound again
To our noble warriors' tread.
For them no more shall reveille
Sound at the break of dawn,
But may their sleep peaceful be
Till God's great judgment morn.
We bow our heads in solemn prayer
For those who wore the gray,
And clasp again their unseen hands
On our Memorial Day.
poem by Anonymous Americas
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The Dreamers
THEY lingered on the middle heights
Betwixt the brown earth and the heaven;
They whispered, 'We are not the night's,
But pallid children of the even.'
They muttered, 'We are not the day's,
For the old struggle and endeavour,
The rugged and unquiet ways
Are dead and driven past for ever.'
They dreamed upon the cricket's tune,
The winds that stirred the withered grasses:
But never saw the blood-red moon
That lit the spectre mountain-passes.
They sat and marked the brooklet steal
In smoke-mist o'er its silvered surges:
But marked not, with its peal on peal,
The storm that swept the granite gorges.
They dreamed the shimmer and the shade,
And sought in pools for haunted faces:
Nor heard again the cannonade
In dreams from earth's old battle-places.
They spake, 'The ages all are dead,
The strife, the struggle, and the glory;
We are the silences that wed
Betwixt the story and the story.
'We are the little winds that moan
Between the woodlands and the meadows;
We are the ghosted leaves, wind-blown
Across the gust-light and the shadows.'
Then came a soul across those lands
Whose face was all one glad, rapt wonder,
And spake: 'The skies are ribbed with bands
Of fire, and heaven all racked with thunder.
'Climb up and see the glory spread,
High over cliff and 'scarpment yawning:
The night is past, the dark is dead,
Behold the triumph of the dawning!'
Then laughed they with a wistful scorn,
'You are a ghost, a long-dead vision;
You passed by ages ere was born
This twilight of the days elysian.
'There is no hope, there is no strife,
But only haunted hearts that hunger
About a dead, scarce-dreamed-of life,
Old ages when the earth was younger.'
Then came by one in mad distress,
'Haste, haste below, where strong arms weaken,
The fighting ones grow less and less!
Great cities of the world are taken!
'Dread evil rolls by like a flood,
Men's bones beneath his surges whiten,
Go where the ages mark in blood
The footsteps that their days enlighten.'
Still they but heard, discordant mirth,
The thin winds through the dead stalks rattle,
While out from far-off haunts of earth
There smote the mighty sound of battle.
Now there was heard an awful cry,
Despair that rended heaven asunder,
White pauses when a cause would die,
Where love was lost and souls went under,
The while these feebly dreamed and talked
Betwixt the brown earth and the heaven,
Faint ghosts of men who breathed and walked,
But deader than the dead ones even.
And out there on the middle height
They sought in pools for haunted faces,
Nor heard the cry across the night
That swept from earth's dread battle-places.
poem by William Wilfred Campbell
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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.
Translated by Robert Bly
poem by Pablo Neruda
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Love is Enough: Songs I-IX
I1.
Love is enough: though the World be a-waning
.
And the woods have no voice but the voice of complaining,
.
Though the sky be too dark for dim eyes to discover
.
The gold-cups and daisies fair blooming thereunder,
.
Though the hills be held shadows, and the sea a dark wonder,
.
And this day draw a veil over all deeds passed over,
.
Yet their hands shall not tremble, their feet shall not falter;
.
The void shall not weary, the fear shall not alter
.
These lips and these eyes of the loved and the lover.II2.
Love is enough: have no thought for to-morrow
.
If ye lie down this even in rest from your pain,
.
Ye who have paid for your bliss with great sorrow:
.
For as it was once so it shall be again.
.
Ye shall cry out for death as ye stretch forth in vain2.
Feeble hands to the hands that would help but they may not,
.
Cry out to deaf ears that would hear if they could;
.
Till again shall the change come, and words your lips say not
.
Your hearts make all plain in the best wise they would
.
And the world ye thought waning is glorious and good:2.
And no morning now mocks you and no nightfall is weary,
.
The plains are not empty of song and of deed:
.
The sea strayeth not, nor the mountains are dreary;
.
The wind is not helpless for any man's need,
.
Nor falleth the rain but for thistle and weed.2.
O surely this morning all sorrow is hidden,
.
All battle is hushed for this even at least;
.
And no one this noontide may hunger, unbidden
.
To the flowers and the singing and the joy of your feast
.
Where silent ye sit midst the world's tale increased.2.
Lo, the lovers unloved that draw nigh for your blessing!
.
For your tale makes the dreaming whereby yet they live
.
The dreams of the day with their hopes of redressing,
.
The dreams of the night with the kisses they give,
.
The dreams of the dawn wherein death and hope strive.2.
Ah, what shall we say then, but that earth threatened often
.
Shall live on for ever that such things may be,
.
That the dry seed shall quicken, the hard earth shall soften,
.
And the spring-bearing birds flutter north o'er the sea,
.
That earth's garden may bloom round my love's feet and me?III3.
Love is enough: it grew up without heeding
.
In the days when ye knew not its name nor its measure,
.
And its leaflets untrodden by the light feet of pleasure
.
Had no boast of the blossom, no sign of the seeding,
.
As the morning and evening passed over its treasure.3.
And what do ye say then?--That Spring long departed
.
Has brought forth no child to the softness and showers;
.
--That we slept and we dreamed through the Summer of flowers;
.
We dreamed of the Winter, and waking dead-hearted
.
Found Winter upon us and waste of dull hours.3.
Nay, Spring was o'er-happy and knew not the reason,
.
And Summer dreamed sadly, for she thought all was ended
.
In her fulness of wealth that might not be amended;
.
But this is the harvest and the garnering season,
.
And the leaf and the blossom in the ripe fruit are blended.3.
It sprang without sowing, it grew without heeding,
.
Ye knew not its name and ye knew not its measure,
.
Ye noted it not mid your hope and your pleasure;
.
There was pain in its blossom, despair in its seeding,
.
But daylong your bosom now nurseth its treasure.IV4.
Love is enough: draw near and behold me
.
Ye who pass by the way to your rest and your laughter,
.
And are full of the hope of the dawn coming after;
.
For the strong of the world have bought me and sold me
.
And my house is all wasted from threshold to rafter.
.
--Pass by me, and hearken, and think of me not!4.
Cry out and come near; for my ears may not hearken,
.
And my eyes are grown dim as the eyes of the dying.
.
Is this the grey rack o'er the sun's face a-flying?
.
Or is it your faces his brightness that darken?
.
Comes a wind from the sea, or is it your sighing?
.
--Pass by me and hearken, and pity me not!4.
Ye know not how void is your hope and your living:
.
Depart with your helping lest yet ye undo me!
.
Ye know not that at nightfall she draweth near to me,
.
There is soft speech between us and words of forgiving
.
Till in dead of the midnight her kisses thrill through me.
.
--Pass by me and harken, and waken me not!4.
Wherewith will ye buy it, ye rich who behold me?
.
Draw out from your coffers your rest and your laughter,
.
And the fair gilded hope of the dawn coming after!
.
Nay this I sell not,--though ye bought me and sold me,--
.
For your house stored with such things from threshold to rafter.
.
--Pass by me, I hearken, and think of you not!V5.
Love is enough: through the trouble and tangle
.
From yesterday's dawning to yesterday's night
.
I sought through the vales where the prisoned winds wrangle,
.
Till, wearied and bleeding, at end of the light
.
I met him, and we wrestled, and great was my might.5.
O great was my joy, though no rest was around me,
.
Though mid wastes of the world were we twain all alone,
.
For methought that I conquered and he knelt and he crowned me,
.
And the driving rain ceased, and the wind ceased to moan,
.
And through clefts of the clouds her planet outshone.5.
O through clefts of the clouds 'gan the world to awaken,
.
And the bitter wind piped, and down drifted the rain,
.
And I was alone--and yet not forsaken,
.
For the grass was untrodden except by my pain:
.
With a Shadow of the Night had I wrestled in vain.5.
And the Shadow of the Night and not Love was departed;
.
I was sore, I was weary, yet Love lived to seek;
.
So I scaled the dark mountains, and wandered sad-hearted
.
Over wearier wastes, where e'en sunlight was bleak,
.
With no rest of the night for my soul waxen weak.5.
With no rest of the night; for I waked mid a story
.
Of a land wherein Love is the light and the lord,
.
Where my tale shall be heard, and my wounds gain a glory,
.
And my tears be a treasure to add to the hoard
.
Of pleasure laid up for his people's reward.5.
Ah, pleasure laid up! Haste then onward and listen,
.
For the wind of the waste has no music like this,
.
And not thus do the rocks of the wilderness glisten:
.
With the host of his faithful through sorrow and bliss
.
My Lord goeth forth now, and knows me for his.VI6.
Love is enough: cherish life that abideth,
.
Lest ye die ere ye know him, and curse and misname him;
.
For who knows in what ruin of all hope he hideth,
.
On what wings of the terror of darkness he rideth?
.
And what is the joy of man's life that ye blame him
.
For his bliss grown a sword, and his rest grown a fire?6.
Ye who tremble for death, or the death of desire,
.
Pass about the cold winter-tide garden and ponder
.
On the rose in his glory amidst of June's fire,
.
On the languor of noontide that gathered the thunder,
.
On the morn and its freshness, the eve and its wonder:
.
Ye may make it no more--shall Spring come to awaken?6.
Live on, for Love liveth, and earth shall be shaken
.
By the wind of his wings on the triumphing morning,
.
When the dead, and their deeds that die not shall awaken,
.
And the world's tale shall sound in your trumpet of warning,
.
And the sun smite the banner called Scorn of the Scorning,
.
And dead pain ye shall trample, dead fruitless desire,
.
As ye wend to pluck out the new world from the fire.VII7.
Dawn talks to Day
.
Over dew-gleaming flowers,
.
Night flies away
.
Till the resting of hours:
.
Fresh are thy feet
.
And with dreams thine eyes glistening,
.
Thy still lips are sweet
.
Though the world is a-listening.
.
O Love, set a word in my mouth for our meeting,
.
Cast thine arms round about me to stay my heart's beating!
.
O fresh day, O fair day, O long day made ours!...7.
Morn shall meet noon
.
While the flower-stems yet move,
.
Though the wind dieth soon
.
And the clouds fade above.
.
Loved lips are thine
.
As I tremble and hearken;
.
Bright thine eyes shine,
.
Though the leaves thy brow darken.
.
O Love, kiss me into silence, lest no word avail me,
.
Stay my head with thy bosom lest breath and life fail me!
.
O sweet day, O rich day, made long for our love!7.
Late day shall greet eve,
.
And the full blossoms shake,
.
For the wind will not leave
.
The tall trees while they wake.
.
Eyes soft with bliss,
.
Come nigher and nigher!
.
Sweet mouth I kiss,
.
Tell me all thy desire!
.
Let us speak, love, together some words of our story,
.
That our lips as they part may remember the glory!
.
O soft day, O calm day, made clear for our sake!7.
Eve shall kiss night,
.
And the leaves stir like rain
.
As the wind stealeth light
.
O'er the grass of the plain.
.
Unseen are thine eyes
.
Mid the dreamy night's sleeping,
.
And on my mouth there lies
.
The dear rain of thy weeping.
.
Hold silence, love, speak not of the sweet day departed,
.
Cling close to me, love, lest I waken sad-hearted!
.
O kind day, O dear day, short day, come again!VIII8.
Love is enough: while ye deemed him a-sleeping,
.
There were signs of his coming and sounds of his feet;
.
His touch it was that would bring you to weeping,
.
When the summer was deepest and music most sweet:
.
In his footsteps ye followed the day to its dying,
.
Ye went forth by his gown-skirts the morning to meet:
.
In his place on the beaten-down orchard-grass lying,
.
Of the sweet ways ye pondered left for life's trying.8.
Ah, what was all dreaming of pleasure anear you,
.
To the time when his eyes on your wistful eyes turned,
.
And ye saw his lips move, and his head bent to hear you,
.
As new-born and glad to his kindness ye yearned?
.
Ah, what was all dreaming of anguish and sorrow,
.
To the time when the world in his torment was burned,
.
And no god your heart from its prison might borrow,
.
And no rest was left, no today, no tomorrow?8.
All wonder of pleasure, all doubt of desire,
.
All blindness, are ended, and no more ye feel
.
If your feet treat his flowers or the flames of his fire,
.
If your breast meet his balms or the edge of his steel.
.
Change is come, and past over, no more strife, no more learning:
.
Now your lips and your forehead are sealed with his seal,
.
Look backward and smile at the thorns and the burning.
.
--Sweet rest, O my soul, and no fear of returning!IX9.
Love is enough: ho ye who seek saving,
.
Go no further; come hither; there have been who have found it,
.
And these know the House of Fulfilment of Craving;
.
These know the Cup with the roses around it;
.
These know the World's Wound and the balm that hath bound it:
.
Cry out, the World heedeth not, 'Love, lead us home!'9.
He leadeth, He hearkeneth, He cometh to you-ward;
.
Set your faces as steel to the fears that assemble
.
Round his goad for the faint, and his scourge for the froward,
.
Lo his lips, how with tales of last kisses they tremble!
.
Lo his eyes of all sorrow that may not dissemble!
.
Cry out, for he heedeth, 'O Love, lead us home!'9.
O hearken the words of his voice of compassion:
.
'Come cling round about me, ye faithful who sicken
.
Of the weary unrest and the world's passing fashions!
.
As the rain in mid-morning your troubles shall thicken,
.
But surely within you some Godhead doth quicken,
.
As ye cry to me heeding, and leading you home.9.
'Come--pain ye shall have, and be blind to the ending!
.
Come--fear ye shall have, mid the sky's overcasting!
.
Come--change ye shall have, for far are ye wending!
.
Come--no crown ye shall have for your thirst and your fasting,
.
But the kissed lips of Love and fair life everlasting!
.
Cry out, for one heedeth, who leadeth you home!'9.
Is he gone? was he with us?--ho ye who seek saving,
.
Go no further; come hither; for have we not found it?
.
Here is the House of Fulfilment of Craving;
.
Here is the Cup with the roses around it;
.
The World's Wound well healed, and the balm that hath bound it:
.
Cry out! for he heedeth, fair Love that led home.
poem by William Morris
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Ilicet
THERE is an end of joy and sorrow;
Peace all day long, all night, all morrow,
But never a time to laugh or weep.
The end is come of pleasant places,
The end of tender words and faces,
The end of all, the poppied sleep.
No place for sound within their hearing,
No room to hope, no time for fearing,
No lips to laugh, no lids for tears.
The old years have run out all their measure;
No chance of pain, no chance of pleasure,
No fragment of the broken years.
Outside of all the worlds and ages,
There where the fool is as the sage is,
There where the slayer is clean of blood,
No end, no passage, no beginning,
There where the sinner leaves off sinning,
There where the good man is not good.
There is not one thing with another,
But Evil saith to Good: My brother,
My brother, I am one with thee:
They shall not strive nor cry for ever:
No man shall choose between them: never
Shall this thing end and that thing be.
Wind wherein seas and stars are shaken
Shall shake them, and they shall not waken;
None that has lain down shall arise;
The stones are sealed across their places;
One shadow is shed on all their faces,
One blindness cast on all their eyes.
Sleep, is it sleep perchance that covers
Each face, as each face were his lover’s?
Farewell; as men that sleep fare well.
The grave’s mouth laughs unto derision
Desire and dread and dream and vision,
Delight of heaven and sorrow of hell.
No soul shall tell nor lip shall number
The names and tribes of you that slumber;
No memory, no memorial.
“Thou knowest”—who shall say thou knowest?
There is none highest and none lowest:
An end, an end, an end of all.
Good night, good sleep, good rest from sorrow
To these that shall not have good morrow;
The gods be gentle to all these.
Nay, if death be not, how shall they be?
Nay, is there help in heaven? it may be
All things and lords of things shall cease.
The stooped urn, filling, dips and flashes;
The bronzèd brims are deep in ashes;
The pale old lips of death are fed.
Shall this dust gather flesh hereafter?
Shall one shed tears or fall to laughter,
At sight of all these poor old dead?
Nay, as thou wilt; these know not of it;
Thine eyes’ strong weeping shall not profit,
Thy laughter shall not give thee ease;
Cry aloud, spare not, cease not crying,
Sigh, till thou cleave thy sides with sighing,
Thou shalt not raise up one of these.
Burnt spices flash, and burnt wine hisses,
The breathing flame’s mouth curls and kisses
The small dried rows of frankincense;
All round the sad red blossoms smoulder,
Flowers coloured like the fire, but colder,
In sign of sweet things taken hence;
Yea, for their sake and in death’s favour
Things of sweet shape and of sweet savour
We yield them, spice and flower and wine;
Yea, costlier things than wine or spices,
Whereof none knoweth how great the price is,
And fruit that comes not of the vine.
From boy’s pierced throat and girl’s pierced bosom
Drips, reddening round the blood-red blossom,
The slow delicious bright soft blood,
Bathing the spices and the pyre,
Bathing the flowers and fallen fire,
Bathing the blossom by the bud.
Roses whose lips the flame has deadened
Drink till the lapping leaves are reddened
And warm wet inner petals weep;
The flower whereof sick sleep gets leisure,
Barren of balm and purple pleasure,
Fumes with no native steam of sleep.
Why will ye weep? what do ye weeping?
For waking folk and people sleeping,
And sands that fill and sands that fall,
The days rose-red, the poppied hours,
Blood, wine, and spice and fire and flowers,
There is one end of one and all.
Shall such an one lend love or borrow?
Shall these be sorry for thy sorrow?
Shall these give thanks for words or breath?
Their hate is as their loving-kindness;
The frontlet of their brows is blindness,
The armlet of their arms is death.
Lo, for no noise or light of thunder
Shall these grave-clothes be rent in sunder;
He that hath taken, shall he give?
He hath rent them: shall he bind together?
He hath bound them: shall he break the tether?
He hath slain them: shall he bid them live?
A little sorrow, a little pleasure,
Fate metes us from the dusty measure
That holds the date of all of us;
We are born with travail and strong crying,
And from the birth-day to the dying
The likeness of our life is thus.
One girds himself to serve another,
Whose father was the dust, whose mother
The little dead red worm therein;
They find no fruit of things they cherish;
The goodness of a man shall perish,
It shall be one thing with his sin.
In deep wet ways by grey old gardens
Fed with sharp spring the sweet fruit hardens;
They know not what fruits wane or grow;
Red summer burns to the utmost ember;
They know not, neither can remember,
The old years and flowers they used to know.
Ah, for their sakes, so trapped and taken,
For theirs, forgotten and forsaken,
Watch, sleep not, gird thyself with prayer.
Nay, where the heart of wrath is broken,
Where long love ends as a thing spoken,
How shall thy crying enter there?
Though the iron sides of the old world falter,
The likeness of them shall not alter
For all the rumour of periods,
The stars and seasons that come after,
The tears of latter men, the laughter
Of the old unalterable gods.
Far up above the years and nations,
The high gods, clothed and crowned with patience,
Endure through days of deathlike date;
They bear the witness of things hidden;
Before their eyes all life stands chidden,
As they before the eyes of Fate.
Not for their love shall Fate retire,
Nor they relent for our desire,
Nor the graves open for their call.
The end is more than joy and anguish,
Than lives that laugh and lives that languish,
The poppied sleep, the end of all.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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Psalm XC
O God, the everlasting One,
In Thee alone, from sire to son,
Through generations all, our race
Hath found a sure abiding place.
Before the mountains rose from earth,
Before the world itself had birth,
Ere yet the heav'ns were spread abroad,
Thou wast and art eternal God.
But man, the creature of Thy breath,
Thou humblest to the deeps of death;
Few days and sad thou giv'st and then
“Return,” Thou say'st, “ye sons of men.”
For, lo, the space of thousand years
To Thine unchanging eye appears
As yesterday to mortal sight,
When passed, or as a watch of night.
As comes a flood on those who sleep,
So over man Thy wrath doth sweep.
As fades the freshness of the grass,
So swiftly doth his vigour pass.
As grass at morn he flourisheth;
Cut down, at eve he lies in death;
Like flame Thy wrath against us burns,
And all our life to anguish turns.
Thou our iniquities hast set
Before Thy face, unpardon'd yet;
Our secret sins, in darkness done,
Thy light reveals them ev'ry one.
And all our days beneath the blast
Of Thy consuming wrath are past;
Our barren lives from year to year
Ev'n as an idle tale appear.
In seventy years our race is run,
And what if here and there an one,
Through greater strength four-score attains
He only added sorrow gains.
And soon the longest life is o'er,
We pass away and are no more.
Oh, who Thine anger can express,
Thine ire is as Thine awfulness.
Lord, teach us so our days to count,
That as we mark their small amount,
Our hearts we may the more apply
To learn Thy wisdom ere we die.
Return, Oh God. How long wilt Thou
Thy grace withhold? Oh, even now,
In mercy hear Thy servant's voice,
That all our days we may rejoice.
According as the days have been
Wherein we have but sorrow seen,
According to our years of ill
Do Thou our lives with gladness fill.
Give Thou to us Thy works to know;
Thy glory to our children show,
And on Thy servants let there rest
The beauty of the Holiest.
To all the work we do on earth
Give Thou, O Lord, enduring worth;
Yea, that our handwork may endure,
Do Thou, Eternal, make it sure.
poem by James Brunton Stephens
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Ode for Memorial Day
DONE are the toils and the wearisome marches,
Done is the summons of bugle and drum.
Softly and sweetly the sky overarches,
Shelt'ring a land where Rebellion is dumb.
Dark were the days of the country's derangement,
Sad were the hours when the conflict was on,
But through the gloom of fraternal estrangement
God sent his light, and we welcome the dawn.
O'er the expanse of our mighty dominions,
Sweeping away to the uttermost parts,
Peace, the wide-flying, on untiring pinions,
Bringeth her message of joy to our hearts.
Ah, but this joy which our minds cannot measure,
What did it cost for our fathers to gain!
Bought at the price of the heart's dearest treasure,
Born out of travail and sorrow and pain;
Born in the battle where fleet Death was flying,
Slaying with sabre-stroke bloody and fell;
Born where the heroes and martyrs were dying,
Torn by the fury of bullet and shell.
Ah, but the day is past: silent the rattle,
And the confusion that followed the fight.
Peace to the heroes who died in the battle,
Martyrs to truth and the crowning of Right!
Out of the blood of a conflict fraternal,
Out of the dust and the dimness of death,
Burst into blossoms of glory eternal
Flowers that sweeten the world with their breath.
Flowers of charity, peace, and devotion
Bloom in the hearts that are empty of strife;
Love that is boundless and broad as the ocean
Leaps into beauty and fullness of life.
So, with the singing of paeans and chorals,
And with the flag flashing high in the sun,
Place on the graves of our heroes the laurels
Which their unfaltering valor has won!
poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Love Is All That Matters
Love forgiving
Love for good
Love to keep us faithful
After all is said and done
Love is all that matters
Got this beautiful situation
Ive finally found out
What lifes about
Want to talk about it
In my conversation
Going to tell the world
Going to sing it
From the highest mountain top
Love forgiving
Love for good
Love to keep us faithful
After all is said and done
Love is all that matters
Every person pledge allegiance
All our efforts
To one common cause
Take a minute to improve a life
Form a legion
Thats united for a love cause
Love forgiving
Love for good
Love to keep us faithful
After all is said and done
Love is all that matters
March
Love forgiving
Love for good
Love to keep us faithful
After all is said and done
Love is all that matters
Love forgiving
Love for good
Love to keep us faithful
After all is said and done
Love is all that matters
Love forgiving
Love for good
Love to keep us faithful
After all is said and done
Love is all that matters
Love forgiving
Love for good
Love to keep us faithful
After all is said and done
Love is all that matters
song performed by by Human League
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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John Mitchel
I.
DEAD, with his harness on him:
Rigid and cold and white,
Marking the place of the vanguard
Still in the ancient fight.
The climber dead on the hill-side,
Before the height is won:
The workman dead on the building,
Before the work is done!
O, for a tongue to utter
The words that should be said—
Of his worth that was silver, living,
That is gold and jasper, dead!
Dead—but the death was fitting:
His life, to the latest breath,
Was poured like wax on the chart of right,
And is sealed by the stamp of Death!
Dead—but the end was fitting:
First in the ranks he led;
And he marks the height of his nation's gain,
As he lies in his harness—dead!
II.
Weep for him, Ireland—mother lonely;
Weep for the son w'ho died for thee.
Wayward he was, but he loved thee only,
Loyal and fearless as son could be.
Weep for him, Ireland—sorrowing nation
Faithful to all who are true to thee:
Never a son in thy desolation
Had holier love for thy cause than he.
Sons of the Old Land, mark the story—
Mother and son in the final test:
Weeping she sits in her darkened glory,
Holding her dead to her stricken breast.
Only the dead on her knees are lying—
Ah, poor mother beneath the cross!
Strength is won by the constant trying,
Crowns are gemmed by the tears of loss!
Sons of the Old Land, mark the story—
Mother and son to each other true:
She called, and he answered, old and hoary,
And gave her his life as a man should do.
She may weep—but for us no weeping:
Tears are vain till the work is done;
Tears for her—but for us the keeping
Our hearts as true as her faithful son.
poem by John Boyle O'Reilly
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