Eternities
I cannot count the pebbles in the brook.
Well hath He spoken: "Swear not by thy head.
Thou knowest not the hairs," though He, we read,
Writes that wild number in His own strange book.
I cannot count the sands or search the seas,
Death cometh, and I leave so much untrod.
Grant my immortal aureole, O my God,
And I will name the leaves upon the trees,
In heaven I shall stand on gold and glass,
Still brooding earth's arithmetic to spell;
Or see the fading of the fires of hell
Ere I have thanked my God for all the grass.
poem by G.K. Chesterton
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Related quotes
Eternities
I cannot count the pebbles in the brook.
Well hath He spoken: 'Swear not by thy head,
Thou knowest not the hairs,' though He, we read,
Writes that wild number in his own strange book.
I cannot count the sands or search the seas,
Death cometh, and I leave so much untrod.
Grant my immortal aureole, O my God,
And I will name the leaves upon the trees.
In heaven I shall stand on gold and glass,
Still brooding earth's arithmetic to spell;
Or see the fading of the fires of hell
Ere I have thanked my God for all the grass.
poem by G.K. Chesterton from The Wild Knight and Other Poems (1900)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Eternities
I cannot count the pebbles in the brook.
Well hath He spoken: "Swear not by thy head.
Thou knowest not the hairs," though He, we read,
Writes that wild number in His own strange book.
I cannot count the sands or search the seas,
Death cometh, and I leave so much untrod.
Grant my immortal aureole, O my God,
And I will name the leaves upon the trees,
In heaven I shall stand on gold and glass,
Still brooding earth's arithmetic to spell;
Or see the fading of the fires of hell
Ere I have thanked my God for all the grass.
poem by Gilbert Keith Chesterton
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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A Dialogue
I
DEATH, if thou wilt, fain would I plead with thee:
Canst thou not spare, of all our hopes have built,
One shelter where our spirits fain would be,
Death, if thou wit?
No dome with suns and dews impearled and gilt,
Imperial: but some roof of wildwood tree,
Too mean for sceptre's heft or swordblade's hilt.
Some low sweet roof where love might live, set free
From change and fear and dreams of grief or guilt;
Canst thou not leave life even thus much to see,
Death, if thou wilt?
II
Man, what art thou to speak and plead with me?
What knowest thou of my workings, where and how
What things I fashion? Nay, behold and see,
Man, what art thou?
Thy fruits of life, and blossoms of thy bough,
What are they but my seedlings? Earth and sea
Bear nought but when I breathe on it must bow.
Bow thou too down before me: though thou be
Great, all the pride shall fade from off thy brow,
When Time and strong Oblivion ask of thee,
Man, what art thou ?
III
Death, if thou be or be not, as was said,
Immortal; if thou make us nought, or we
Survive: thy power is made but of our dread,
Death, if thou be.
Thy might is made out of our fear of thee:
Who fears thee not, hath plucked from off thine head
The crown of cloud that darkens earth and sea.
Earth, sea, and sky, as rain or vapour shed,
Shall vanish; all the shows of them shall flee:
Then shall we know full surely, quick or dead,
Death, if thou be.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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A Dialog
I.
Death, if thou wilt, fain would I plead with thee:
Canst thou not spare, of all our hopes have built,
One shelter where our spirits fain would be,
Death, if thou wilt?
No dome with suns and dews impearled and gilt,
Imperial: but some roof of wildwood tree,
Too mean for sceptre's heft or swordblade's hilt.
Some low sweet roof where love might live, set free
From change and fear and dreams of grief or guilt;
Canst thou not leave life even thus much to see,
Death, if thou wilt?
II.
Man, what art thou to speak and plead with me?
What knowest thou of my workings, where and how
What things I fashion? Nay, behold and see,
Man, what art thou?
Thy fruits of life, and blossoms of thy bough,
What are they but my seedlings? Earth and sea
Bear nought but when I breathe on it must bow.
Bow thou too down before me: though thou be
Great, all the pride shall fade from off thy brow,
When Time and strong Oblivion ask of thee,
Man, what art thou?
III.
Death, if thou be or be not, as was said,
Immortal; if thou make us nought, or we
Survive: thy power is made but of our dread,
Death, if thou be.
Thy might is made out of our fear of thee:
Who fears thee not, hath plucked from off thine head
The crown of cloud that darkens earth and sea.
Earth, sea, and sky, as rain or vapour shed,
Shall vanish; all the shows of them shall flee:
Then shall we know full surely, quick or dead,
Death, if thou be.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Count Me Out
Count me out
Count me out
Fellas want to hang
And save tonight just
For the gang
But youll have to count me
Out this time
If I cant bring my girl
Dont look surprised
When I tell you that
Gotta spend some time
With my baby, yes
So if that means
Were gonna rain on
Your parade
Youll have to count me out
Youre gonna have to count me
Out
Youll have to count me out
I wanna be with my girlfriend
Youll have to count me out
This time
Youll have to count me out
When she asked me please
Could I say no and feel at
Ease
If you count me out tonight
Shes gonna be with me wherever
I go
Shes got a sweet personality
She saves her kisses just for me
So if that means were gonna rain on
Your parade
Youll have to count me out
Youre gonna have to count
Me out
Youll have to count me out
Im saving kisses for my baby
Youll have to count me out
This time
Youll have to count me out
Youll have to count me out
Youre gonna have to count
Me out
Youll have to count me out
My baby wants to be with me
Youll have to count me out
Thats the way its gonna be
Youll have to count me out
Count me out
Count me out
Youll have to count me out
Youre gonna have to count me
Out
Youll have to count me out
I wanna be with my girlfriend
Youll have to count me out
This time
Youll have to count me out
This time
Youll have to count me out
Youll have to count me out
Youre gonna have to count
Me out
Youll have to count me out
Im saving all my loving for her
Youll have to count me out
This time
Youll have to count me out
I love my baby but shes just a
Tease
And when I need her I say please,
Please, please
Can I hold you,
Squeeze you,
Cause I need you
Count me out
Youll have to count me out
This time
Dont count me out
Dont leave me out
Youll have to count me out
This time
Youll have to count me out
Count me out
Youll have to count me out
Youll have to count me out
Count me out
Youll have to count me out
Man, were going to the movies
Then to the park, to play a little
Ball till it get dark
Thats what being young is all about
Man, c-o-u-n-t me out
Well what about us,
Were your friends
We wanna c-o-u-n-t
Me in,
No not tonight
Where you going then
Tonight I wanna be with my girlfriend
Youll have to count me out
Youll have to count me out
Youll have to count me out
Youll have to count me out
This time
Youll have to count me out
Count me out
Count me out
Count me out
Dont count me out
Dont leave me out
Youll have to count me out
Youre gonna have to count
Me out
Youll have to count me out
Im saving kisses for my baby
Youll have to count me out
This time
Youll have to count me out
Youll have to count me out
Youre gonna have to count
Me out
Youll have to count me out
I wanna be with my girlfriend
Youll have to count me out
This time
Youll have to count me out
song performed by by New Edition
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Call On Me
The feelin is clear
Clear as a blue sky on a sunny day
Everything was you
cause no one made me feel
The way I felt with you
Call on me cause
I love you
You know I do
You love me too
Then came a change
When I said I would soon be leavin you
Nothin else to do
Please remember Ill never lose the thought of you
Call on me cause
I love you
You know I do
You love me too
Youve got to find
Someone else to somehow take my place
Share his love with you
But if you need a friend
You can always count on me
Count on me cause
I love you
You know I do
You love me too
You can count on me oh
You can count on me
You can count on me baby
You can count on me
You can count on me oh
You can count on me
You can count on me baby
You can count on me
You can count on me oh
You can count on me
You can count on me baby
You can count on me
You can count on me oh
You can count on me
song performed by by Chicago
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Sugar Curls
You can count the stars
and the count will be incomplete.
You can count times
I've looked for you
in dreams
I've dreamed.
You can count the hours
I've marked,
my stomach knotting
etching time across my heart
since I've seen your face.
I know how many steps
to your house;
your phone number backwards;
the colors in your eyes,
how many sighs
I make
looking at your photograph.
If there in a number to infinity
then you can see me circling back;
starting again infinitely.
Lower me down to deepest depths
count my fathoms there
plumb these and more
for our ocean is endlessly
deep.
How many grains in beachy sand?
I know having sifted each.
What is the size of this love for you?
There is no count of instances,
for that is a number which cannot be reached.
Simply put
you count with me;
together we
count twice infinitely.
Oh so sweet
are the sugar
grains
whose white dotted
fractals
swirl
in our hearts;
rotating
Love Curls
circling
endlessly.
poem by Lonnie Hicks
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Heaven Is Paved With Broken Glass
Heaven is paved with broken glass,
Since your hammer struck my heart,
This world, a hell of trees and grass.
All is wrong like north gone south,
Theres a bad taste in my mouth.
Everything was stars,
til you had a notion to leave,
Beauty marks turned to scars,
Bet you had a laugh up your sleeve.
Congratulations love, love, love, love.
You made a fool of me and physics.
Heaven is paved with broken glass,
Since your hammer struck my heart,
This world, a hell of trees and grass.
All is wrong like north gone south,
Theres a bad taste in my mouth.
Everything was gold,
til you thought you were above me,
Soldier turns to rogue,
Pretty turns to pretty ugly.
Congratulations love, love, love, love,
You made a fool of me and physics.
And Im feeling cheated,
And Im feeling used,
And whats even worse is,
You just look amused.
Heaven is paved with broken glass,
Since your hammer struck my heart,
This world, a hell of trees and grass.
Since your hammer struck my heart.
Heaven is paved with broken glass.
song performed by by Xtc
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Heaven Is Paved With Broken Glass
Heaven is paved with broken glass,
Since your hammer struck my heart,
This world, a hell of trees and grass.
All is wrong like north gone south,
Theres a bad taste in my mouth.
Everything was stars,
til you had a notion to leave,
Beauty marks turned to scars,
Bet you had a laugh up your sleeve.
Congratulations love, love, love, love.
You made a fool of me and physics.
Heaven is paved with broken glass,
Since your hammer struck my heart,
This world, a hell of trees and grass.
All is wrong like north gone south,
Theres a bad taste in my mouth.
Everything was gold,
til you thought you were above me,
Soldier turns to rogue,
Pretty turns to pretty ugly.
Congratulations love, love, love, love,
You made a fool of me and physics.
And Im feeling cheated,
And Im feeling used,
And whats even worse is,
You just look amused.
Heaven is paved with broken glass,
Since your hammer struck my heart,
This world, a hell of trees and grass.
Since your hammer struck my heart.
Heaven is paved with broken glass.
song performed by by Xtc
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Brook. (From The Spanish)
Laugh of the mountain! -- lyre of bird and tree!
Pomp of the meadow! mirror of the morn!
The soul of April, unto whom are born
The rose and jessamine, leaps wild in thee!
Although, where'er thy devious current strays,
The lap of earth with gold and silver teems,
To me thy clear proceeding brighter seems
Than golden sands, that charm each shepherd's gaze.
How without guile thy bosom, all transparent
As the pure crystal, lets the curious eye
Thy secrets scan, thy smooth, round pebbles count!
How, without malice murmuring, glides thy current!
O sweet simplicity of days gone by!
Thou shun'st the haunts of man, to dwell in limpid fount!
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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I read a book
I read a book
Not to enhance my looks
I read a book
Maybe to avoid being a crook
I read a book
Not just to learn how to cook
I read a book
To ascertain how to defend my rights
Not just to acquire knowledge
Reading a book I pledge,
Is one of the roads to the light
I read a book
To understand how a kings territory
Is defended with pieces such as the rook
I read a book
So there will be no questions asked
When I count correctly what you took
I read a book
So that I play not ignorant
Now on life I’ve a different outlook
I read a book
So if I come up with all the right answers
I will know for sure it is not merely a fluke
Copyright 2006 - Sylvia Chidi
poem by Sylvia Chidi
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Arithmetic
Arithmetic is where numbers fly like pigeons in and out of your
head.
Arithmet ic tell you how many you lose or win if you know how
many you had before you lost or won.
Arithmetic is seven eleven all good children go to heaven -- or five
six bundle of sticks.
Arithmetic is numbers you squeeze from your head to your hand
to your pencil to your paper till you get the answer.
Arithmetic is where the answer is right and everything is nice and
you can look out of the window and see the blue sky -- or the
answer is wrong and you have to start all over and try again
and see how it comes out this time.
If you take a number and double it and double it again and then
double it a few more times, the number gets bigger and bigger
and goes higher and higher and only arithmetic can tell you
what the number is when you decide to quit doubling.
Arithmetic is where you have to multiply -- and you carry the
multiplication table in your head and hope you won't lose it.
If you have two animal crackers, one good and one bad, and you
eat one and a striped zebra with streaks all over him eats the
other, how many animal crackers will you have if somebody
offers you five six seven and you say No no no and you say
Nay nay nay and you say Nix nix nix?
If you ask your mother for one fried egg for breakfast and she
gives you two fried eggs and you eat both of them, who is
better in arithmetic, you or your mother?
poem by Carl Sandburg
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The Burning Of The Temple
Fierce wrath of Solomon,
Where sleepest thou ?
0 see, The fabric which thou won
Earth and ocean to give thee-
0 look at the red skies.
Or hath the sun plunged down ?
What is this molten gold-
These thundering fires blown
Through heaven, where the smoke rolled ?
Again the great king dies.
His dreams go out in smoke.
His days he let not pass
And sculptured here are broke,
Are charred as the burnt grass,
Gone as his mouth's last sighs.
poem by Isaac Rosenberg
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The Test
Love has moods: and I am cold,
Very cold ofttimes to Thee;
Fain to slip from Thy dear hold
To my follies and be free.
Yet I love: Thou knowest all.
I am Thine in heat and chill;
Thou, Thou hast my heart in thrall,
All my life and all my will.
Thou, Immortal Lover, sure
Knowest the way that lovers have,
Now so cold, afraid, unsure,
Now afire with love and brave.
If I loved less it might be
That the way was smoother, less
Of the heavenly joys for me
And the cast-down bitterness.
I am cold -- be that Love's proof! --
And I burn -- the proof again! --
I would not be smooth but rough
Lest the smoother love should wane.
Give me earth or Heaven -- and yet
If it is Love's test to swing
'Twixt the earth and Heaven still set --
I -- I ask no other thing.
poem by Katharine Tynan
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Information
This tree has two million and seventy-five thousand leaves.
Perhaps I missed a leaf or two but I do feel triumphant
at having persisted in counting by hand branch by branch
and marked down on paper with pencil each total.
Adding them up was a pleasure I could understand;
I did something on my own that was not dependent on others,
and to count leaves is not less meaningful than to count the stars,
as astronomers are always doing.
They want the facts to be sure they have them all.
It would help them to know whether the world is finite.
I discovered one tree that is finite.
I must try counting the hairs on my head, and you too.
We could swap information.
poem by David Ignatow
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From the biography of an unknown woman: xxxvii
...And she looked back
standing by the shore
in a stark day light
trying to count
the innumerable steps
the sands hid
in her search for love
and for that one moment of
unadulterated passion
where the boundaries of
earth and above get
disolved...
'just like my foot-steps
on these sands!
can i ever trace?
how far i travelled
in search of love...
tough is the path not to think of
travails the self negotiates...! '
she mused
sea, the witness...
30aug2010
12.12 hrs
poem by Indira Babbellapati
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Sonnet XXIII: Is It Indeed So?
Is it indeed so? If I lay here dead,
Wouldst thou miss any life in losing mine?
And would the sun for thee more coldly shine
Because of grave-damps falling round my head?
I marvelled, my Belovèd, when I read
Thy thought so in the letter. I am thine--
But...so much to thee? Can I pour your wine
While my hands tremble? Then my soul, instead
Of dreams of death, resumes life's lower range.
Then, love me, Love! Look on me--breathe on me!
As brighter ladies do not count it strange,
For love, to give up acres and degree,
I yield the grave for thy sake, and exchange
My near sweet view of Heaven, for earth with thee!
poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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Xxiii
Is it indeed so ? If I lay here dead,
Wouldst thou miss any life in losing mine ?
And would the sun for thee more coldly shine
Because of grave-damps falling round my head ?
I marvelled, my Beloved, when I read
Thy thought so in the letter. I am thine--
But . . . so much to thee ? Can I pour thy wine
While my hands tremble ? Then my soul, instead
Of dreams of death, resumes life's lower range.
Then, love me, Love ! look on me--breathe on me !
As brighter ladies do not count it strange,
For love, to give up acres and degree,
I yield the grave for thy sake, and exchange
My near sweet view of Heaven, for earth with thee !
poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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Sonnet XXIII
Is it indeed so ? If I lay here dead,
Wouldst thou miss any life in losing mine ?
And would the sun for thee more coldly shine
Because of grave-damps falling round my head ?
I marvelled, my Beloved, when I read
Thy thought so in the letter. I am thine--
But . . . so much to thee ? Can I pour thy wine
While my hands tremble ? Then my soul, instead
Of dreams of death, resumes life's lower range.
Then, love me, Love ! look on me--breathe on me !
As brighter ladies do not count it strange,
For love, to give up acres and degree,
I yield the grave for thy sake, and exchange
My near sweet view of Heaven, for earth with thee !
poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Flesh and the Spirit, The
In secret place where once I stood
Close by the Banks of Lacrim flood,
I heard two sisters reason on
Things that are past and things to come.
One Flesh was call'd, who had her eye
On worldly wealth and vanity;
The other Spirit, who did rear
Her thoughts unto a higher sphere.
"Sister," quoth Flesh, "what liv'st thou on
Nothing but Meditation?
Doth Contemplation feed thee so
Regardlessly to let earth go?
Can Speculation satisfy
Notion without Reality?
Dost dream of things beyond the Moon
And dost thou hope to dwell there soon?
Hast treasures there laid up in store
That all in th' world thou count'st but poor?
Art fancy-sick or turn'd a Sot
To catch at shadows which are not?
Come, come. I'll show unto thy sense,
Industry hath its recompence.
What canst desire, but thou maist see
True substance in variety?
Dost honour like? Acquire the same,
As some to their immortal fame;
And trophies to thy name erect
Which wearing time shall ne'er deject.
For riches dost thou long full sore?
Behold enough of precious store.
Earth hath more silver, pearls, and gold
Than eyes can see or hands can hold.
Affects thou pleasure? Take thy fill.
Earth hath enough of what you will.
Then let not go what thou maist find
For things unknown only in mind."
poem by Anne Bradstreet
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