Related quotes
Tour De France (Arc De Triumphe Remix)
The hell of Northern Paris - Roubaix
The Cote d'Azur and Saint Tropez
The Alps and the Pyrenees
Last stage Champs-Elysees
Galibier and Tourmalet (2 mountains)
Dancing even on the top
Bicycling at high gear
Final sprint at the finish
Flat tire on the paving-stones
The bicycle is repaired quickly
The peloton is regrouped
Comrades and friendship
song performed by by Kraftwerk
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Dawn Notes
Through a window pane in Worcester,
a scene Cezanne might have have painted,
sky of cornflower blue, Pyrenees replaced
by pale violet band of Malvern hills.
Trees, fifteen shades of green, surround
higgedly piggedly, sugar cube houses,
burnt sienna rooves jostle with
sun smeared, off white walls.
Emerald swarth of a rugby pitch
(this is not a football town)
draws the panorama to the
sleep kissed morning eye.
poem by Neil Crawford
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Tarantella
Do you remember an Inn,
Miranda?
Do you remember an Inn?
And the tedding and the spreading
Of the straw for a bedding,
And the fleas that tease in the High Pyrenees,
And the wine that tasted of tar?
And the cheers and the jeers of the young muleteers
(Under the vine of the dark verandah)?
Do you remember an Inn, Miranda,
Do you remember an Inn?
And the cheers and the jeers of the young muleteeers
Who hadn't got a penny,
And who weren't paying any,
And the hammer at the doors and the din?
And the hip! hop! hap!
Of the clap
Of the hands to the twirl and the swirl
Of the girl gone chancing,
Glancing,
Dancing,
Backing and advancing,
Snapping of a clapper to the spin
Out and in --
And the ting, tong, tang, of the guitar.
Do you remember an Inn,
Miranda?
Do you remember an Inn?
Never more; Miranda,
Never more.
Only the high peaks hoar:
And Aragon a torrent at the door.
No sound
In the walls of the halls where falls
The tread
Of the feet of the dead to the ground
No sound:
But the boom
Of the far waterfall like doom.
poem by Hilaire Belloc (31 December 1929)
Submitted by anonym
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From My Diary, July 1914
Leaves
Murmuring by miriads in the shimmering trees.
Lives
Wakening with wonder in the Pyrenees.
Birds
Cheerily chirping in the early day.
Bards
Singing of summer, scything thro' the hay.
Bees
Shaking the heavy dews from bloom and frond.
Boys
Bursting the surface of the ebony pond.
Flashes
Of swimmers carving thro' the sparkling cold.
Fleshes
Gleaming with wetness to the morning gold.
A mead
Bordered about with warbling water brooks.
A maid
Laughing the love-laugh with me; proud of looks.
The heat
Throbbing between the upland and the peak.
Her heart
Quivering with passion to my pressed cheek.
Braiding
Of floating flames across the mountain brow.
Brooding
Of stillness; and a sighing of the bough.
Stirs
Of leaflets in the gloom; soft petal-showers;
Stars
Expanding with the starr'd nocturnal flowers.
poem by Wilfred Owen
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Death and Last Confession of Wandering Peter
When Peter Wanderwide was young
He wandered everywhere he would:
All that he approved was sung,
And most of what he saw was good.
When Peter Wanderwide was thrown
By Death himself beyond Auxerre,
He chanted in heroic tone
To priests and people gathered there:
"If all that I have loved and seen
Be with me on the Judgment Day,
I shall be saved the crowd between
From Satan and his foul array.
"Almighty God will surely cry,
'St. Michael! Who is this that stands
With Ireland in his dubious eye,
And Perigord between his hands,
"'And on his arm the stirrup-thongs,
And in his gait the narrow seas,
And in his mouth Burgundian songs,
But in his heart the Pyrenees?'
"St. Michael then will answer right
(And not without angelic shame),
'I seem to know his face by sight:
I cannot recollect his name . . . . ?'
"St. Peter will befriend me then,
Because my name is Peter too:
'I know him for the best of men
That ever walloped barley brew.
"'And though I did not know him well
And though his soul were clogged with sin,
I hold the keys of Heaven and Hell.
Be welcome, noble Peterkin.'
"Then shall I spread my native wings
And tread secure the heavenly floor,
And tell the blessed doubtful things
Of Val d'Aran and Perigord."
_________
This was the last and solemn jest
Of weary Peter Wanderwide.
He spoke it with a failing zest,
And having spoken it, he died.
poem by Hilaire Belloc
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The Battle of Moncontour
Oh, weep for Moncontour! Oh! weep for the hour,
When the children of darkness and evil had power,
When the horsemen of Valois triumphantly trod
On the bosoms that bled for their rights and their God.
Oh, weep for Moncontour! Oh! weep for the slain,
Who for faith and for freedom lay slaughtered in vain;
Oh, weep for the living, who linger to bear
The renegade's shame, or the exile's despair.
One look, one last look, to our cots and our towers,
To the rows of our vines, and the beds of our flowers,
To the church where the bones of our fathers decayed,
Where we fondly had deemed that our own would be laid.
Alas! we must leave thee, dear desolate home,
To the spearmen of Uri, the shavelings of Rome,
To the serpent of Florence, the vulture of Spain,
To the pride of Anjou, and the guile of Lorraine.
Farewell to thy fountains, farewell to thy shades,
To the song of thy youths, and the dance of thy maids,
To the breath of thy gardens, the hum of thy bees,
And the long waving line of the blue Pyrenees.
Farewell, and for ever. The priest and the slave
May rule in the halls of the free and the brave.
Our hearths we abandon; our lands we resign;
But, Father, we kneel to no altar but thine.
poem by Thomas Babbington Macaulay
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Lourdes 2006
Jimmy opened his suitcase in the room
at Lourdes and said Oh no there's molasses
all over the clothes and shoes and I've got
a whole week here and he sat down in a chair
his head in his hands saying What have I done?
What am I going to do for clothes now? you
went over and looked in and sure enough
the molasses were over his clothes and shoes.
What am I going to do? he said and you said
Leave it to me Jim I'll sort it and you went through
the clothes taking out the items untouched
by the molasses and set them aside on the bed
and then carried the suitcase of black sticky items
Into the washroom and there one by one you carefully
washed them through with soap and water until
they were clean and smelt of soap and fresh air
and all the while 94 year old Jim sat in a chair
watching with his eyes watery and jaw hung loose
seeing the black water run down the wide plughole
and once it was done you wrung the clothes out
like your mother used to do when you were a kid
and hung them out on the balcony on the small
clothesline and placed the washed out black shoes
by the outside wall to dry out in the hot afternoon
sun and Jimmy came over and stood on the balcony
with one hand on the rail and the other on his stick
looking over at the Pyrenees in the distance and he
said That was real good of you. I owe you big time
and you stood next to him feeling the hot afternoon
sun on your face and arms and felt good and you
said You owe me nothing Jim I just did what some
good guy would and his watery eyes swept over you
matching the French sky's watery afternoon blue.
poem by Terry Collett
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Hanibal B.
It was round about the third century B.C.
In Carthage by the sea,
That General Hamilcar Barca's son grew up
By the name of Hanibal B.
And this boy lived with no other thought
Than elephant husbandry.
I was a calf and he was a child,
In Carthage by the sea,
But we loved with a love that was frowned upon by some
I and my Hanibal B.
With such love, that the elephant god Ganesh
Fancied him and me.
And this was the reason that in 218 B.C.
In Saguntum by the sea,
The double-dealing Romans played up, upsetting
My sensitive Hanibal B.
So that his relatives said,
‘For Baal's sake, let the elephants be!
And cross the Alps and sort Rome out
For Carthage by the sea'.
Ganesh, tiring of affairs on the sub-continent,
Trumped up some nasty weather in the Pyrenees-
Yes! - that was why my poor boy came down with a sniffle
And was a bit weepy,
That the soldiers teased him because he was talking through his nose,
Chiding, deriding, saying 'Hanibal, you're so twee! '
But our love was more interesting than the love
Of those who weren't at all twee-
Of many who were ever so twee-
And when push came to shove
No puny punic soldier draftee
Could ever convince me it was droll
To mock loving minorities.
For I, one-tusked Surus, narrating these reams
Of the beautiful Hanibal B.
Say, though we shared many rumbles and sighs,
There was never any bestiality;
And yet all the night-time, I lay by his side
Warming my darling- his skin on my hide,
In the Alps, encamped past treacherous scree,
Inscribed in my heart and my memory.
poem by Diane Hine
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Garibaldi
In trance and dream of old, God's prophet saw
The casting down of thrones. Thou, watching lone
The hot Sardinian coast-line, hazy-hilled,
Where, fringing round Caprera's rocky zone
With foam, the slow waves gather and withdraw,
Behold'st the vision of the seer fulfilled,
And hear'st the sea-winds burdened with a sound
Of falling chains, as, one by one, unbound,
The nations lift their right hands up and swear
Their oath of freedom. From the chalk-white wall
Of England, from the black Carpathian range,
Along the Danube and the Theiss, through all
The passes of the Spanish Pyrenees,
And from the Seine's thronged banks, a murmur strange
And glad floats to thee o'er thy summer seas
On the salt wind that stirs thy whitening hair,--
The song of freedom's bloodless victories!
Rejoice, O Garibaldi! Though thy sword
Failed at Rome's gates, and blood seemed vainly poured
Where, in Christ's name, the crowned infidel
Of France wrought murder with the arms of hell
On that sad mountain slope whose ghostly dead,
Unmindful of the gray exorcist's ban,
Walk, unappeased, the chambered Vatican,
And draw the curtains of Napoleon's bed!
God's providence is not blind, but, full of eyes,
It searches all the refuges of lies;
And in His time and way, the accursed things
Before whose evil feet thy battle-gage
Has clashed defiance from hot youth to age
Shall perish. All men shall be priests and kings,
One royal brotherhood, one church made free
By love, which is the law of liberty
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Train of Dreams
In the village called Mochudi, on the Kalahari fringe
Two sisters, Education Child and Miracle, carry their loads
Of elementary books beside the line of rail, climbing in neat grey uniforms
The hill to school. The single track
Awaits the daily train that hauls the sheep and goats
And owners to the north colonial lands
While in the dry warm hovering air
Infused by levitating specks of sand
Freedom is a perceptible dance
In the Pyrenees, carriages hug the snowy morning hills
Exhausted by the nightlong dash through redolent French fields
Now voices raise a chant in every silenced church
Invading like the lethal sunlight of a summer dawn.
The train descends for the embrace of Spanish plains,
The olive groves of Portugal, carnations from its windows strewn
And gathered by the thirsting wraiths
As the skirts of old Philadelphia unfold
The red-lined slums and drug-imprisoned zones
Snarl below the elevated track,
This line that finds its station
In a history of forgotten slaves, by the cracked bell of Liberty
Where Washington himself owned souls, where the Slave Trade Act
Of 1794 was passed in Congress, where African children
Apprehended from ships were indentured to education
And grew only to glimpse their freedom, to receive two suits of clothes,
One new, one old.
This train conveying dreams on every rack,
In every trunk, conceived by many minds,
Comes to halt in Pennsylvania, but remains primed,
While we its crew
In hope and servitude
Lay sleepers towards new frontiers and stoke
The engines of our dreams.
poem by Frank Bana
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Beyond Blossoms, For James Wright
.
Old teacher,
consigned
to poems now -
another way
beyond blossoms
of which you
often spoke.
If you were here now I, too, would
speak of horses encountered on a
hill in the south of France, Monthaut,
its ruined church without knees,
sun low over foothills of the Pyrenees -
From shadowed trees downhill
at least 20 of them run to me.
I feel them before they fiercely
appear, hooves tearing dirt
and grass in their ecstatic
ascent of the steep arriving
like excited birds, haunches
quivering, damp from late-summer heat.
Their soft noses push at my hands,
their vulnerable breasts press
hard against barbed wire.
They offer themselves to me,
their long necks extended,
massive heads dipping shyly,
not without some blood -
I think of you now as I did then,
remembering our bellowing lungs
in rich shared air, odors entwined
of earth, of mane, those of sweet
grasses and the binding brier
where they stamped, trembling.
Not poetry here,
Old Master;
just reporting,
how it all breaks open
blindly between doldrums,
dark hammock refusing
to be swayed on a bad day.
Something is here you already
know but if there is forgetting on
the other side of the fence
I remind you now.
My hands caress
echoing equine graces.
In their eyes I can see
in that way of all breezes, finally,
where you went.
********************************
Here is Wright's poem, 'A Blessing':
Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more, they begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl's wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.
poem by Warren Falcon
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Corporal
The History Reconstruction Arm
Of the Ministry of Offence,
Had called me in for a meeting
With the Chiefs of Recompense,
They said they needed an agent,
Prepared to risk his all,
‘We have the technology waiting
Now we need to change the world.'
The shelves in the shops were empty
People fought for a loaf of bread,
Butter was unobtainable
And so was cheese, they said,
The ration cards have been in place
For fifty years or more,
The money was spent on the army, sent
To fight this terrible war.
Thank God it hasn't gone nuclear,
But they said that it never would,
The threat of retaliation kept
The armies where they stood,
The Reds are commanding the channel coast
Right down to the Pyrenees.
And Britain is standing alone again
Though they've brought us to our knees.
The Fascists in Whitechapel
With their propaganda rule,
While down in Brixham Prison
Lie the hopes and dreams of fools,
They shot the Liberal Poets and
Wiped out the socialist left,
They say what's good for the country
Is the strong arm of the west!
The States are a bristling fortress
But they'll never come to our aid,
They say whatever they owed us
Was in 14-18 paid,
They've colonised the Pacific
Made New Zealand just a State,
Australia's turned their backs on us
And left us to our fate.
‘We've studied where it all went wrong, '
Said General Angus Pryde,
‘The Treaty of Rapallo is where
The hopes for peace had died,
That treaty, with the Russians helped
The Germans to re-arm,
Under the cloak of Soviet help,
That sounded the alarm! '
‘The man was Walter Rathenau
Who signed that evil form,
Sold Germany to the communists
That's where this war was born,
The Reds then flooded Germany,
The Reds took over France,
It was only the fact of the channel coast
That halted their advance.'
‘This Rathenau was the leader when
The war was first declared,
The whole of history hinged on him
And caught us unprepared,
So what we're now proposing is
The thing you need to do,
Go back, assassinate Rathenau
In 1922.'
‘Before or after the treaty's signed? '
I asked the generals there,
They each looked, one at the other, said
They didn't really care.
‘To stop the Communist Party taking
Over the German mind,
We'd rather a swing to the right, ' they said,
‘And the rest would fall in line.'
‘That would leave a mighty hole to fill,
The German leader's seat,
Who do you think would take his place
If I shot him in the street? '
‘There's only an Austrian Corporal has
The language, and the style,
But what would a Schicklgruber do?
Would the Germans still say ‘Heil? ' '
17 October 2012
poem by David Lewis Paget
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Outcast
“There is a race of people inhabiting the Vale of Lieze,
on the French side of the Pyrenees, who are supposed to be
descended from the Saracens, and are entirely excluded from
communion with the rest of mankind.—They are even obliged to
enter the churches by a separate door, and no one will make use
of the holy water which their touch has polluted.”
The vineyards of France ‘neath their fruitage were bending,
And spread their rich clusters of blue to the sun,
And high o'er the steep of the mountain ascending,
The soft voice of song, with wild merriment blending,
Told where the gay harvester's toil was begun.
The sun its last glance o'er the landscape was flinging,
And sounds from afar came distinctly and clear;
The birds from each covert their vespers were singing,
And far in the vale the deep convent-bell ringing,
Sent up its sad tones to the wanderer's ear.
He flung himself down with an aspect of sadness,
And listlessly gazed on the landscape below;
His spirit by scorn had been goaded to madness,
And now that bright scene, and those murmurs of gladness,
Seem'd rising before him to mock at his woe.
“Oh why,” he exclaim'd, as the bitter tear started,
“Oh why was I form'd with a bosom to feel!
Since thus I was doom'd from mankind to be parted,
An outcast on earth, lone, and desolate-hearted,
Too vile with the vilest in worship to kneel.
“And thou—loved and lost one—oh why didst thou nourish
The weed that was trampled by all, save by thee;
The gleamings of light in my young spirit cherish,
And waken high feelings and hopes but to perish,
And leave my dark fate doubly dreadful to me?
“In the hours of my slumber proud visions come o'er me,
And life for a moment seems brightly to smile,
The pathway of glory and fame is before me,
The noble caress, and the lovely adore me,
And every sad thought from my bosom beguile.
“But, ah! from those dreams soon and sadly I waken,
To find all around me thrice gloomy and drear;
To know that thou, too, from my arms hast been taken,
Thou blest and revered one, whose friendship unshaken,
The darkest, the saddest, of moments would cheer.
“Oh death! thou stern foe to the lovely and blooming,
Thou terror to those who are blessing and blest!
How freely this bosom would welcome thy coming,
How gladly, thy garment of darkness assuming,
Sink down into slumber and peace on thy breast!”
poem by Elizabeth Margaret Chandler from Poetical Works (1836)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Battle of Corunna
'Twas in the year of 1808, and in the autumn of the year,
Napoleon resolved to crush Spain and Portugal without fear;
So with a mighty army three hundred thousand strong
Through the passes of the Pyrenees into spain he passed along.
But Sir John Moore concentrated his troops in the north,
And into the west corner of Spain he boldly marched forth;
To cut off Napoleon's communications with France
He considered it to be advisable and his only chance.
And when Napoleon heard of Moore's coming, his march he did begin,
Declaring that he was the only General that could oppose him;
And in the month of December, when the hills were clad with snow,
Napoleon's army marched over the Guadiana Hills with their hearts full of woe.
And with fifty thousand cavalry, infantry, and artillery,
Napoleon marched on, facing obstacles most dismal to see;
And performed one of the most rapid marches recorded in history,
Leaving the command of his army to Generals Soult and Ney.
And on the 5th of January Soult made his attack,
But in a very short time the French were driven back;
With the Guards and the 50th Regiment and the 42d conjoint,
They were driven from the village of Elnina at the bayonet's point.
Oh! It was a most gorgeous and inspiring sight
To see Sir John Moore in the thickest of the fight,
And crying aloud to the 42d with all his might,
"Forward, my lads, and charge them with your bayonets left and right."
Then the 42d charged them with might and main,
And the French were repulsed again and again;
And although they poured into the British ranks a withering fire,
The British at the charge of the bayonet soon made them retire.
Oh! That battlefield was a fearful sight to behold,
'Twas enough to make one's blood run cold
To hear the crack, crack of the musketry and the cannon's roar,
Whilst the dead and the dying lay weltering in their gore.
But O Heaven! It was a heartrending sight,
When Sir John Moore was shot dead in the thickest of the fight;
And as the soldiers bore him from the field they looked woebegone,
And the hero's last words were "Let me see how the battle goes on."
Then he breathed his last with a gurgling sound,
And for the loss of the great hero the soldier's sorrow was profound,
Because he was always kind and served them well,
And as they thought of him tears down their cheeks trickling fell.
Oh! it was a weird and pathetic sight
As they buried him in the Citadel of Corunna at the dead of night,
While his staff and the men shed many tears
For the noble hero who had commanded them for many years.
Success to the British Army wherever they go,
For seldom they have failed to conquer the foe;
Long may the highlanders be able to make the foe reel,
By giving them an inch or two of cold steel.
poem by William Topaz McGonagall
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Dina Vieny, Maillol And Matisse
When posing for Maillol she looked quite obese,
since Aristide thought fat is fine,
but having been drawn by his good friend Matisse,
she left him reduced to a line.
Inspired by an obituary of Dina Vierny, Aristide Maillol’s model, by William Grimes (“Dina Vierny,89, model for Maillol’s sculptures, ” NYT, January 27,2009) :
Ms. Vierny was a 15-year-old lycée student in Paris when she met Maillol, in the mid-1930s. The architect Jean-Claude Dondel, a friend of her father’s, decided that she would make the perfect model for the artist, who was 73 and in the professional doldrums. “Mademoiselle, it is said that you look like a Maillol and a Renoir, ” Maillol wrote to her. “I’d be satisfied with a Renoir.” For the next 10 years, until his death in a car accident in 1944, Ms. Vierny was Maillol’s muse, posing for monumental works of sculpture that belied her modest height of 5 feet 2 inches. By mutual agreement, the relationship was strictly artistic….Her Rubenesque figure and jet-black hair indeed made her, as Dondel had predicted, “a living Maillol, ” memorialized in works like “The Seated Bather, ” “The Mountain, ” “Air, ” “The River, ” and “Harmony, ” his last, unfinished sculpture. Maillol also turned to her as a subject for drawings and painted portraits, like “Dina With a Scarf, ” now in the Maillol Museum.
In 1939, Maillol took refuge at his home in Banyuls-sur-Mer, at the foot of the eastern Pyrenees. There, Ms. Vierny, who had already begun working for a Resistance group in Paris, was approached by the Harvard-educated classicist Varian Fry, whose organization in Marseille helped smuggle refugees from occupied France into Spain. Unbeknownst to Maillol, she began working as a guide, identifiable to her fleeing charges by her red dress. The work was doubly dangerous because she was Jewish. Ms. Vierny soon began dozing off at her posing sessions. The story came out, and Maillol, a native of the region, showed her secret shortcuts, smugglers’ routes and goat paths to use. After several months of working for the Comité Fry, Ms. Vierny was arrested by the French police, who seized her correspondence with her friends in the Surrealist movement but failed to notice stacks of forged passports in her room. A lawyer hired by Maillol won her acquittal at trial, and to keep her out of harm’s way the artist sent her to pose for Matisse in Nice. “I am sending you the subject of my work, ” Maillol told Matisse, “whom you will reduce to a line.” Matisse did several drawings and proposed an ambitious painting that he called a “Matisse Olympia, ” after the famous painting by Manet. When Maillol heard that the project would take at least six months, he hastily recalled her to Banyuls. She also posed for Dufy and for Bonnard, who used her as the model for “Somber Nude.” In 1943, Ms. Vierny was again arrested, this time by the Gestapo, in Paris. She was released after six months in prison when Maillol appealed to Arno Breker, Hitler’s favorite sculptor.
1/27/09
poem by Gershon Hepner
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Tales Of A Wayside Inn : Part 2. The Student's Second Tale; The Baron of St. Castine
Baron Castine of St. Castine
Has left his château in the Pyrenees,
And sailed across the western seas.
When he went away from his fair demesne
The birds were building, the woods were green;
And now the winds of winter blow
Round the turrets of the old château,
The birds are silent and unseen,
The leaves lie dead in the ravine,
And the Pyrenees are white with snow.
His father, lonely, old, and gray,
Sits by the fireside day by day,
Thinking ever one thought of care;
Through the southern windows, narrow and tall,
The sun shines into the ancient hall,
And makes a glory round his hair.
The house-dog, stretched beneath his chair,
Groans in his sleep as if in pain,
Then wakes, and yawns, and sleeps again,
So silent is it everywhere,--
So silent you can hear the mouse
Run and rummage along the beams
Behind the wainscot of the wall;
And the old man rouses from his dreams,
And wanders restless through the house,
As if he heard strange voices call.
His footsteps echo along the floor
Of a distant passage, and pause awhile;
He is standing by an open door
Looking long, with a sad, sweet smile,
Into the room of his absent son.
There is the bed on which he lay,
There are the pictures bright and gay,
Horses and hounds and sun-lit seas;
There are his powder-flask and gun,
And his hunting-knives in shape of a fan;
The chair by the window where he sat,
With the clouded tiger-skin for a mat,
Looking out on the Pyrenees,
Looking out on Mount Marboré
And the Seven Valleys of Lavedan.
Ah me! he turns away and sighs;
There is a mist before his eyes.
At night whatever the weather be,
Wind or rain or starry heaven,
Just as the clock is striking seven,
Those who look from the windows see
The village Curate, with lantern and maid,
Come through the gateway from the park
And cross the courtyard damp and dark,--
A ring of light in a ring of shade.
And now at the old man's side he stands,
His voice is cheery, his heart expands,
He gossips pleasantly, by the blaze
Of the fire of fagots, about old days,
And Cardinal Mazarin and the Fronde,
And the Cardinal's nieces fair and fond,
And what they did, and what they said,
When they heard his Eminence was dead.
And after a pause the old man says,
His mind still coming back again
To the one sad thought that haunts his brain,
'Are there any tidings from over sea?
Ah, why has that wild boy gone from me?'
And the Curate answers, looking down,
Harmless and docile as a lamb,
'Young blood! young blood! It must so be!'
And draws from the pocket of his gown
A handkerchief like an oriflamb,
And wipes his spectacles, and they play
Their little game of lansquenet
In silence for an hour or so,
Till the clock at nine strikes loud and clear
From the village lying asleep below,
And across the courtyard, into the dark
Of the winding pathway in the park,
Curate and lantern disappear,
And darkness reigns in the old château .
The ship has come back from over sea,
She has been signalled from below,
And into the harbor of Bordeaux
She sails with her gallant company.
But among them is nowhere seen
The brave young Baron of St. Castine;
He hath tarried behind, I ween,
In the beautiful land of Acadie!
And the father paces to and fro
Through the chambers of the old château ,
Waiting, waiting to hear the hum
Of wheels on the road that runs below,
Of servants hurrying here and there,
The voice in the courtyard, the step on the stair,
Waiting for some one who doth not come!
But letters there are, which the old man reads
To the Curate, when he comes at night
Word by word, as an acolyte
Repeats his prayers and tells his beads;
Letters full of the rolling sea,
Full of a young man's joy to be
Abroad in the world, alone and free;
Full of adventures and wonderful scenes
Of hunting the deer through forests vast
In the royal grant of Pierre du Gast;
Of nights in the tents of the Tarratines;
Of Madocawando the Indian chief,
And his daughters, glorious as queens,
And beautiful beyond belief;
And so soft the tones of their native tongue,
The words are not spoken, they are sung!
And the Curate listens, and smiling says:
'Ah yes, dear friend! in our young days
We should have liked to hunt the deer
All day amid those forest scenes,
And to sleep in the tents of the Tarratines;
But now it is better sitting here
Within four walls, and without the fear
Of losing our hearts to Indian queens;
For man is fire and woman is tow,
And the Somebody comes and begins to blow.'
Then a gleam of distrust and vague surmise
Shines in the father's gentle eyes,
As fire-light on a window-pane
Glimmers and vanishes again;
But naught he answers; he only sighs,
And for a moment bows his head;
Then, as their custom is, they play
Their little game of lansquenet,
And another day is with the dead.
Another day, and many a day
And many a week and month depart,
When a fatal letter wings its way
Across the sea, like a bird of prey,
And strikes and tears the old man's heart.
Lo! the young Baron of St. Castine,
Swift as the wind is, and as wild,
Has married a dusky Tarratine,
Has married Madocawando's child!
The letter drops from the father's hand;
Though the sinews of his heart are wrung,
He utters no cry, he breathes no prayer,
No malediction falls from his tongue;
But his stately figure, erect and grand,
Bends and sinks like a column of sand
In the whirlwind of his great despair.
Dying, yes, dying! His latest breath
Of parley at the door of death
Is a blessing on his wayward son.
Lower and lower on his breast
Sinks his gray head; he is at rest;
No longer he waits for any one.
For many a year the old château
Lies tenantless and desolate;
Rank grasses in the courtyard grow,
About its gables caws the crow;
Only the porter at the gate
Is left to guard it, and to wait
The coming of the rightful heir;
No other life or sound is there;
No more the Curate comes at night,
No more is seen the unsteady light,
Threading the alleys of the park;
The windows of the hall are dark,
The chambers dreary, cold, and bare!
At length, at last, when the winter is past,
And birds are building, and woods are green,
With flying skirts is the Curate seen
Speeding along the woodland way,
Humming gayly, 'No day is so long
But it comes at last to vesper-song.'
He stops at the porter's lodge to say
That at last the Baron of St. Castine
Is coming home with his Indian queen,
Is coming without a week's delay;
And all the house must be swept and clean,
And all things set in good array!
And the solemn porter shakes his head;
And the answer he makes is: 'Lackaday!
We will see, as the blind man said!'
Alert since first the day began,
The cock upon the village church
Looks northward from his airy perch,
As if beyond the ken of man
To see the ships come sailing on,
And pass the isle of Oléron,
And pass the Tower of Cordouan.
In the church below is cold in clay
The heart that would have leaped for joy?
O tender heart of truth and trust!?
To see the coming of that day;
In the church below the lips are dust;
Dust are the hands, and dust the feet,
That would have been so swift to meet
The coming of that wayward boy.
At night the front of the old château
Is a blaze of light above and below;
There's a sound of wheels and hoofs in the street,
A cracking of whips, and scamper of feet,
Bells are ringing, and horns are blown,
And the Baron hath come again to his own.
The Curate is waiting in the hall,
Most eager and alive of all
To welcome the Baron and Baroness;
But his mind is full of vague distress,
For he hath read in Jesuit books
Of those children of the wilderness,
And now, good, simple man! he looks
To see a painted savage stride
Into the room, with shoulders bare,
And eagle feathers in her hair,
And around her a robe of panther's hide.
Instead, he beholds with secret shame
A form of beauty undefined,
A loveliness with out a name,
Not of degree, but more of kind;
Nor bold nor shy, nor short nor tall,
But a new mingling of them all.
Yes, beautiful beyond belief,
Transfigured and transfused, he sees
The lady of the Pyrenees,
The daughter of the Indian chief.
Beneath the shadow of her hair
The gold-bronze color of the skin
Seems lighted by a fire within,
As when a burst of sunlight shines
Beneath a sombre grove of pines,--
A dusky splendor in the air.
The two small hands, that now are pressed
In his, seem made to be caressed,
They lie so warm and soft and still,
Like birds half hidden in a nest,
Trustful, and innocent of ill.
And ah! he cannot believe his ears
When her melodious voice he hears
Speaking his native Gascon tongue;
The words she utters seem to be
Part of some poem of Goudouli,
They are not spoken, they are sung!
And the Baron smiles, and says, 'You see,
I told you but the simple truth;
Ah, you may trust the eyes of youth!'
Down in the village day by day
The people gossip in their way,
And stared to see the Baroness pass
On Sunday morning to early Mass;
And when she kneeleth down to pray,
They wonder, and whisper together, and say,
'Surely this is no heathen lass!'
And in course of time they learn to bless
The Baron and the Baroness.
And in course of time the Curate learns
A secret so dreadful, that by turns
He is ice and fire, he freezes and burns.
The Baron at confession hath said,
That though this woman be his wife,
He hath wed her as the Indians wed,
He hath bought her for a gun and a knife!
And the Curate replies: 'O profligate,
O Prodigal Son! return once more
To the open arms and the open door
Of the Church, or ever it be too late.
Thank God, thy father did not live
To see what he could not forgive;
On thee, so reckless and perverse,
He left his blessing, not his curse.
But the nearer the dawn the darker the night,
And by going wrong all things come right;
Things have been mended that were worse,
And the worse, the nearer they are to mend.
For the sake of the living and the dead,
Thou shalt be wed as Christians wed,
And all things come to a happy end.'
O sun, that followest the night,
In yon blue sky, serene and pure,
And pourest thine impartial light
Alike on mountain and on moor,
Pause for a moment in thy course,
And bless the bridegroom and the bride!
O Gave, that from thy hidden source
In yon mysterious mountain-side
Pursuest thy wandering way alone,
And leaping down its steps of stone,
Along the meadow-lands demure
Stealest away to the Adour,
Pause for a moment in thy course
To bless the bridegroom and the bride!
The choir is singing the matin song,
The doors of the church are opened wide,
The people crowd, and press, and throng
To see the bridegroom and the bride.
They enter and pass along the nave;
They stand upon the father's grave;
The bells are ringing soft and slow;
The living above and the dead below
Give their blessing on one and twain;
The warm wind blows from the hills of Spain,
The birds are building, the leaves are green,
And Baron Castine of St. Castine
Hath come at last to his own again.
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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An Appeal To Paris
BEAUTIFUL Paris! morning star of nations!
The Lucifer of cities, lifting high
The beacon blaze of young democracy!
Medina and Gomorrha both in one
Medina of a high and holy creed
To be developed in a coming time!
Gomorrha, rampant with all vice and guilt
Luxurious, godless, grovelling, soaring Paris,
Laden with intellect, and yet not wise
Metropolis of satire and lampoon,
Of wit, of elegance, of mirth, of song,
And fearful tragedies done day by day,
Which put our hair on end in the open streets
The busy hive of awful memories,
The potent arbiter of popular will,
The great electric centre whence the shocks
Of pulsing freedom vibrate through tbe world-
Beautiful Paris! sacred to our hearts,
With all thy folly, all thy wickedness-
If but for Bailly, Vergniaud, Gensonne,
And noblest Roland, she of Roman soul,
And the great patriots and friends of man
Who went to death for holy liberty-
Lift up thy voice, O Paris! once again,
And speak the thought that labours in thy breast;
Shake off thy gauds and tinsels-be thyself;
Cease thy lewd jests, and heartless revelries,
Thy adoration of all worthless things,
Thy scorn, thy sarcasm, and thy unbelief;
And in the conflict and the march of men
Do justice to thy nature, and complete
The glorious work, so gloriously begun
By the great souls of pregnant eighty-nine.
Come forth, oh, Paris! freed from vice and stain,
Like a young warrior dallying too long
With loving women, wasting precious hours
In base delights and enervating sloth;
Who, when he shakes them off, puts back his hair
From his broad brow, and places on his head
The plumed helmet-throws his velvets off.
And swathes his vigorous limbs in glancing steel.
To lead true hearts to struggle for mankind.
Or if no more, Soldier of Liberty!
Thou 'lt lead the nations-stand upon the hill,
And, like a prophet, preach a holy creed
Of freedom, progress, peace, and happiness;
And all the world shall listen to thy voice,
And Tyranny, hyaena big with young,
Dreading the sound, shall farrow in affright.
And drop, still-born, her sanguinary cubs,
And many a bloody feud be spared mankind.
Poland again, with desperate grasp, shall seize
The neck of her enslaver, and extort
Full justice from his terror; Hungary,
Ermined and crown'd, shall sit in her own seat
In peaceful state and sober majesty;
And Italy, unloosening her bonds
By her strong will, shall be at last the home
Of broadly based and virtuous liberty,
And in her bosom nuture evermore,
Not the fierce virtues of her Roman youth,
But the calm blessings of her later time
Science, and art, and civilizing trade,
Divine philosophy, diviner song,
And true religion reconciled with man.
Speak out, O Paris! purify thyself
By noble thoughts, and deeds will follow them.
The world has need of thee. Humanity
Droops for thy dalliance with degraded things,
Alien, and most unworthy of the soul
That sleeps within thee. Rouse thyself, O Paris!
The time expects thee. Pyrenees, and Alps,
And Appenines, and snow-clad Balkans, wait,
With all their echoes, to repeat the words
Which thou must utter! Thou hast slumber'd long
Long dallied. Speak! The world will answer thee!
poem by Charles Mackay
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Freedom Train Trilogy
Freedom Train...
The modest homes of the Borough of Queens
Are sturdy in their contrast to high Manhattan
Across which I saw drifting
The ashen smoke of the fallen towers
From this outpost of the city, a week after 'nine-eleven'
The tallest flagpole you could have imagined
Stands military-straight above a score of tollbooths
And the twelve lane thoroughfare of cars
Makes me feel like a visitor from a previous time -
But it's still that old union flag, however high it stands
Not a seat is empty on this sleek metal tube
That runs on its barely-subsidized tracks
Through a tiny stretch of the vast coastline
Stealing a peek at the brave Atlantic
A child concentrated on video games
Lends no mind to what her father sees. Around them,
Many tongues, ancestries, the faiths -
Fanaticisms held in check
By laws crafted for the needs
Of those who harness this diffusion
The airport which swallows the planes swooping low
Across the municipal towers of Newark
Is named for some primary notion of freedom -
But see, here is a passing Freedom Train
Gliding by the piles of industrial rage,
Seeking better ways and better days.
Train of State....
This train rides hard on buckled tracks
Through countryside so dark of late
Its owner's debt borne on its back
Its debtors all too profligate
Catch this train while best you can
During its long deceleration
Anticipate its sudden fall
Towards a deep degeneration
In service to an indigent nation
Consuming the loans of its eastern station
Secured by traded legislation
Without a brake on its destination.
Few hold great hopes for this railway system
Built by slaves of a penal condition
No-one predicts when the crash may happen
When the rates will soar and the misery deepen.
You boarded on time, the train relenting
To take on stocks. You rightly fear
You will not part so easily
Nor shed all your addictions here
Reassured by the strength of blind momentum
Plowing unrestrained across the plains
No plan on board for contingent moments
Only schedules of secret designs
The train a toy of moneyed ventures
Of who paid what to whom, and how -
Transactions in some currency
That shields them from detection now.
On pain of state investigation
I know I can't enquire, complain
Or claim the right to information
About the intent of this train.
Train of Dreams....
In the village called Mochudi, on the Kalahari fringe
Two sisters, Education Child and Miracle, carry their loads
Of elementary books beside the line of rail, climbing in neat grey uniforms
The hill to school. The single track
Awaits the daily train that hauls the sheep and goats
And owners to the north colonial lands
While in the dry warm hovering air
Infused by levitating specks of sand
Freedom is a perceptible dance
In the Pyrenees, carriages hug the snowy morning hills
Exhausted by the nightlong dash through redolent French fields
Now voices raise a chant in every silenced church
Invading like the lethal sunlight of a summer dawn.
The train descends for the embrace of Spanish plains,
The olive groves of Portugal, carnations from its windows strewn
And gathered by the thirsting wraiths
As the skirts of old Philadelphia unfold
The red-lined slums and drug-imprisoned zones
Snarl below the elevated track,
This line that finds its station
In a history of forgotten slaves, by the cracked bell of Liberty
Where Washington himself owned souls, where the Slave Trade Act
Of 1794 was passed in Congress, where African children
Apprehended from ships were indentured to education
And grew only to glimpse their freedom, to receive two suits of clothes,
One new, one old.
This train conveying dreams on every rack,
In every trunk, conceived by many minds,
Comes to halt in Pennsylvania, but remains primed,
While we its crew
In hope and servitude
Lay sleepers towards new frontiers and stoke
The engines of our dreams.
poem by Frank Bana
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The South-Wester
Day of the cloud in fleets! O day
Of wedded white and blue, that sail
Immingled, with a footing ray
In shadow-sandals down our vale! -
And swift to ravish golden meads,
Swift up the run of turf it speeds,
Thy bright of head and dark of heel,
To where the hilltop flings on sky,
As hawk from wrist or dust from wheel,
The tiptoe sealers tossed to fly:-
Thee the last thunder's caverned peal
Delivered from a wailful night:
All dusky round thy cradled light,
Those brine-born issues, now in bloom
Transfigured, wreathed as raven's plume
And briony-leaf to watch thee lie:
Dark eyebrows o'er a dreamful eye
Nigh opening: till in the braid
Of purpled vapours thou wert rosed:
Till that new babe a Goddess maid
Appeared and vividly disclosed
Her beat of life: then crimson played
On edges of the plume and leaf:
Shape had they and fair feature brief,
The wings, the smiles: they flew the breast,
Earth's milk. But what imperial march
Their standards led for earth, none guessed
Ere upward of a coloured arch,
An arrow straining eager head
Lightened, and high for zenith sped.
Fierier followed; followed Fire.
Name the young lord of Earth's desire,
Whose look her wine is, and whose mouth
Her music! Beauteous was she seen
Beneath her midway West of South;
And sister was her quivered green
To sapphire of the Nereid eyes
On sea when sun is breeze; she winked
As they, and waved, heaved waterwise
Her flood of leaves and grasses linked:
A myriad lustrous butterflies
A moment in the fluttering sheen;
Becapped with the slate air that throws
The reindeer's antlers black between
Low-frowning and wide-fallen snows,
A minute after; hooded, stoled
To suit a graveside Season's dirge.
Lo, but the breaking of a surge,
And she is in her lover's fold,
Illumined o'er a boundless range
Anew: and through quick morning hours
The Tropic-Arctic countercharge
Did seem to pant in beams and showers.
But noon beheld a larger heaven;
Beheld on our reflecting field
The Sower to the Bearer given,
And both their inner sweetest yield,
Fresh as when dews were grey or first
Received the flush of hues athirst.
Heard we the woodland, eyeing sun,
As harp and harper were they one.
A murky cloud a fair pursued,
Assailed, and felt the limbs elude:
He sat him down to pipe his woe,
And some strange beast of sky became:
A giant's club withheld the blow;
A milky cloud went all to flame.
And there were groups where silvery springs
The ethereal forest showed begirt
By companies in choric rings,
Whom but to see made ear alert.
For music did each movement rouse,
And motion was a minstrel's rage
To have our spirits out of house,
And bathe them on the open page.
This was a day that knew not age.
Since flew the vapoury twos and threes
From western pile to eastern rack;
As on from peaks of Pyrenees
To Graians; youngness ruled the track.
When songful beams were shut in caves,
And rainy drapery swept across;
When the ranked clouds were downy waves,
Breast of swan, eagle, albatross,
In ordered lines to screen the blue,
Youngest of light was nigh, we knew.
The silver finger of it laughed
Along the narrow rift: it shot,
Slew the huge gloom with golden shaft,
Then haled on high the volumed blot,
To build the hurling palace, cleave
The dazzling chasm; the flying nests,
The many glory-garlands weave,
Whose presence not our sight attests
Till wonder with the splendour blent,
And passion for the beauty flown,
Make evanescence permanent,
The thing at heart our endless own.
Only at gathered eve knew we
The marvels of the day: for then
Mount upon mountain out of sea
Arose, and to our spacious ken
Trebled sublime Olympus round
In towering amphitheatre.
Colossal on enormous mound,
Majestic gods we saw confer.
They wafted the Dream-messenger
From off the loftiest, the crowned:
That Lady of the hues of foam
In sun-rays: who, close under dome,
A figure on the foot's descent,
Irradiate to vapour went,
As one whose mission was resigned,
Dispieced, undraped, dissolved to threads;
Melting she passed into the mind,
Where immortal with mortal weds.
Whereby was known that we had viewed
The union of our earth and skies
Renewed: nor less alive renewed
Than when old bards, in nature wise,
Conceived pure beauty given to eyes,
And with undyingness imbued.
Pageant of man's poetic brain,
His grand procession of the song,
It was; the Muses and their train;
Their God to lead the glittering throng:
At whiles a beat of forest gong;
At whiles a glimpse of Python slain.
Mostly divinest harmony,
The lyre, the dance. We could believe
A life in orb and brook and tree,
And cloud; and still holds Memory
A morning in the eyes of eve.
poem by George Meredith
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A Legend of Madrid
Francesca
Crush'd and throng'd are all the places
In our amphitheatre,
'Midst a sea of swarming faces
I can yet distinguish her ;
Dost thou triumph, dark-brow'd Nina ?
Is my secret known to thee ?
On the sands of yon arena
I shall yet my vengeance see.
Now through portals fast careering
Picadors are disappearing ;
Now the barriers nimbly clearing
Has the hindmost chulo flown.
Clots of dusky crimson streaking,
Brindled flanks and haunches reeking,
Wheels the wild bull, vengeance seeking,
On the matador alone.
Features by sombrero shaded,
Pale and passionless and cold ;
Doublet richly laced and braided,
Trunks of velvet slash'd with gold,
Blood-red scarf, and bare Toledo,—
Mask more subtle, and disguise
Far less shallow, thou dost need, oh
Traitor, to deceive my eyes.
Shouts of noisy acclamation,
Breathing savage expectation,
Greet him while he takes his station
Leisurely, disdaining haste;
Now he doffs his tall sombrero,
Fools ! applaud your butcher hero,
Ye would idolize a Nero,
Pandering to public taste.
From the restless Guadalquivir
To my sire's estates he came,
Woo'd and won me, how I shiver !
Though my temples burn with shame.
I, a proud and high-born lady,
Daughter of an ancient race,
'Neath the vine and olive shade I
Yielded to a churl's embrace.
To a churl my vows were plighted,
Well my madness he requited,
Since, by priestly ties, united
To the muleteer's child,
And my prayers are wafted o'er him,
That the bull may crush and gore him,
Since the love that once I bore him
Has been changed to hatred wild.
Nina
Save him ! aid him ! oh Madonna !
Two are slain if he is slain ;
Shield his life, and guard his honour,
Let me not entreat in vain.
Sullenly the brindled savage
Tears and tosses up the sand ;
Horns that rend and hoofs that ravage,
How shall man your shock withstand ?
On the shaggy neck and head lie
Frothy flakes, the eyeballs redly
Flash, the horns so sharp and deadly
Lower, short, and strong, and straight ;
Fast, and furious, and fearless,
Now he charges ;—Virgin peerless,
Lifting lids all dry and tearless,
At thy throne I supplicate.
Francesca
Cool and calm the perjured varlet
Stands on strongly planted heel,
In his left a strip of scarlet,
In his right a streak of steel ;
Ah ! the monster topples over,
Till his haunches strike the plain !—
Low-born clown and lying lover,
Thou hast conquer'd once again.
Nina
Sweet Madonna, Maiden Mother,
Thou hast saved him, and no other ;
Now the tears I cannot smother,
Tears of joy my vision blind ;
Where thou sittest I am gazing,
These glad, misty eyes upraising,
I have pray'd, and I am praising,
Bless thee ! bless thee ! Virgin kind.
Francesca
While the crowd still sways and surges,
Ere the applauding shouts have ceas'd,
See, the second bull emerges—
'Tis the famed Cordovan beast,—
By the picador ungoaded,
Scathless of the chulo's dart.
Slay him, and with guerdon loaded,
And with honours crown'd depart.
No vain brutish strife he wages,
Never uselessly he rages,
And his cunning, as he ages,
With his hatred seems to grow ;
Though he stands amid the cheering,
Sluggish to the eye appearing,
Few will venture on the spearing
Of so resolute a foe.
Nina
Courage, there is little danger,
Yonder dull-eyed craven seems
Fitter far for stall and manger
Than for scarf and blade that gleams ;
Shorter, and of frame less massive,
Than his comrade lying low,
Tame, and cowardly, and passive,—
He will prove a feebler foe.
I have done with doubt and anguish,
Fears like dews in sunshine languish,
Courage, husband, we shall vanquish,
Thou art calm and so am I.
For the rush he has not waited,
On he strides with step elated,
And the steel with blood unsated,
Leaps to end the butchery.
Francesca
Tyro! mark the brands of battle
On those shoulders dusk and dun,
Such as he is are the cattle
Skill'd tauridors gladly shun ;
Warier than the Andalusian,
Swifter far, though not so large,
Think'st thou, to his own confusion,
He, like him, will blindly charge ?
Inch by inch the brute advances,
Stealthy yet vindictive glances,
Horns as straight as levell'd lances,
Crouching withers, stooping haunches ;—
Closer yet, until the tightening
Strains of rapt excitement height'ning
Grows oppressive. Ha ! like lightning
On his enemy he launches.
Nina
O,er the horn'd front drops the streamer,
In the nape the sharp steel hisses,
Glances, grazes,—Christ ! Redeemer !
By a hair the spine he misses.
Francesca
Hark ! that shock like muffled thunder,
Booming from the Pyrenees !
Both are down—the man is under—
Now he struggles to his knees,
Now he sinks, his features leaden,
Sharpen rigidly and deaden,
Sands beneath him soak and redden,
Skies above him spin and veer ;
Through the doublet, torn and riven,
Where the stunted horn was driven,
Wells the life-blood—We are even,
Daughter of the muleteer !
poem by Adam Lindsay Gordon
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