Rain Before Dawn
He dull, faint patter in the drooping hours
Drifts in upon my sleep and fills my hair
With damp; the burden of the heavy air
Is strewn upon me where my tired soul cowers,
Shrinking like some lone queen in empty towers
Dying. Blind with unrest I grow aware:
The pounding of broad wings drifts down the stair
And sates me like the heavy scent of flowers.
I lie upon my heart. My eyes like hands
Grip at the soggy pillow. Now the dawn
Tears from her wetted breast the splattered blouse
Of night; lead-eyed and moist she straggles o'er the lawn,
Between the curtains brooding stares and stands
Like some drenched swimmer -- Death's within the house!
poem by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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Gray Fog
A FOG drifts in, the heavy laden
Cold white ghost of the sea—
One by one the hills go out,
The road and the pepper-tree.
I watch the fog float in at the window
With the whole world gone blind,
Everything, even my longing, drowses,
Even the thoughts in my mind.
I put my head on my hands before me,
There is nothing left to be done or said,
There is nothing to hope for, I am tired,
And heavy as the dead.
poem by Sara Teasdale
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Day dawn
All yesterday the thought of you was resting in my soul,
And when sleep wandered o'er the world that very thought she stole
To fill my dreams with splendour such as stars could not eclipse,
And in the morn I wakened with your name upon my lips.
Awakened, my beloved, to the morning of your eyes,
Your splendid eyes, so full of clouds, wherein a shadow tries
To overcome the flame that melts into the world of grey,
As coming suns dissolve the dark that veils the edge of day.
Cool drifts the air at dawn of day, cool lies the sleeping dew,
But all my heart is burning, for it woke from dreams of you;
And O! these longing eyes of mine look out and only see
A dying night, a waking day, and calm on all but me.
So gently creeps the morning through the heavy air,
The dawn grey-garbed and velvet-shod is wandering everywhere
To wake the slumber-laden hours that leave their dreamless rest,
With outspread, laggard wings to court the pillows of the west.
Up from the earth a moisture steals with odours fresh and soft,
A smell of moss and grasses warm with dew, and far aloft
The stars are growing colourless, while drooping in the west,
A late, wan moon is paling in a sky of amethyst.
The passing of the shadows, as they waft their pinions near,
Has stirred a tender wind within the night-hushed atmosphere,
That in its homeless wanderings sobs in an undertone
An echo to my heart that sobbing calls for you alone.
The night is gone, beloved, and another day set free,
Another day of hunger for the one I may not see.
What care I for the perfect dawn? the blue and empty skies?
The night is always mine without the morning of your eyes.
poem by Emily Pauline Johnson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Hospital
Large, heavy, wooden, daunting doors
loom before my eyes as I enter.
An empty side office, reception
with old fashioned filing cabinets,
dark now, glass shutters, closed.
Another heavy door in front of me,
this one leads to a wide, cold floored corridor.
I baulk, want to turn heel, go home.
The black and white tiling, lofty ceiling,
does nothing but repulse me.
More heavy, locked doors
with tiny, peep hole windows, all barred.
Screaming, faint screaming echoes,
ghost like, as it drifts towards me
gradually getting louder.
I reach a wide, stone staircase.
Everything's locked and bolted,
no one passes and the screaming echoes.
Asylums, those old mental hospitals,
where we still send the forgotten
to live out their lives and rot.
You wouldn't ever call this home
and the world outside rolls on
as the traffic drifts by.
poem by Ruth Walters
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The End of the Day
The night darkens fast & the shadows darken,
Clouds & the rain gather about mine house,
Only the wood-dove moans, hearken, O hearken!
The moan of the wood-dove in the rain-wet boughs.
Loneliness & the night! The night is lonely
Star-covered the night takes to a tender breast
Wrapping them in her veil these dark hours only
The weary, the bereaved, the dispossessed.
When will it lighten? Once the night was kindly
Nor all her hours went by leaden & long.
Now in mine house the hours go groping blindly.
After the shiver of dawn, the first bird's song.
Sleep now! The night with wings of splendour swept
Hides heavy eyes from light that they may sleep
Soft & secure, under her gaze so tender
Lest they should wake to weep, should wake to weep.
poem by Katharine Tynan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Fairy Frost
Before the dawn, the fairy, Frost, flies free
Amongst the dewy grassblades on the lawn.
She drapes her feathers on each branch and tree
Before the dawn.
As if she were to rule an empire born,
White as the bloom upon the cherry, she
Drifts over gardens with a haughty scorn.
With angel wings she flits, just like Queen Bee,
But, as the blackness of the night is torn
To shreds by sunlight, Fairy Frost must flee
Before the dawn.
poem by C. Richard Miles
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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After Death
IF we must part, this parting is the best:
How would you bear to lay
Your head on some warm pillow far away--
Your head, so used to lying on my breast?
But now your pillow is cold;
Your hands have flowers, and not my hands, to hold;
Upon our bed the worn bride-linen lies.
I have put the death-money upon your eyes,
So that you should not wake up in the night.
I have bound your face with white;
I have washed you, yes, with water and not with tears,--
Those arms wherein I have slept so many years,
Those feet that hastened when they came to me,
And all your body that belonged to me.
I have smoothed your dear dull hair,
And there is nothing left to say for you
And nothing left to fear or pray for you;
And I have got the rest of life to bear:
Thank God it is you, not I, who are lying there.
If I had died
And you had stood beside
This still white bed
Where the white, scented, horrible flowers are spread,--
I know the thing it is,
And I thank God that He has spared you this.
If one must bear it, thank God it was I
Who had to live and bear to see you die,
Who have to live, and bear to see you dead.
You will have nothing of it all to bear:
You will not even know that in your bed
You lie alone. You will not miss my head
Beside you on the pillow: you will rest
So soft in the grave you will not miss my breast.
But I--but I--Your pillow and your place--
And only the darkness laid against my face,
And only my anguish pressed against my side--
Thank God, thank God, that it was you who died!
poem by Edith Nesbit
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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A Baby Asleep after Pain
As a drenched, drowned bee
Hangs numb and heavy from a bending flower,
So clings to me
My baby, her brown hair brushed with wet tears
And laid against her cheek;
Her soft white legs hanging heavily over my arm
Swinging heavily to my movements as I walk.
My sleeping baby hangs upon my life,
Like a burden she hangs on me.
She has always seemed so light,
But now she is wet with tears and numb with pain
Even her floating hair sinks heavily,
Reaching downwards;
As the wings of a drenched, drowned bee
Are a heaviness, and a weariness.
poem by David Herbert Lawrence
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Hamlet soliliquy insomnia
'To sleep, or, not to sleep?
That is the question
Whether it is nobler in the mind
To heave the leaded unslept eyes of sleep
Adrift in that uncertain hour
Between the hem of dawn
And sombre headed night
Or drink the hemlock of dispair
And sleep herewith eternally
In some far distant land?
I, but there's the rub
For in that sleep of death
What dreams may come?
When we have shuffled off our mortal duvets
Must give us pause,
And wrench thus the heavy eyed soul of heaven
With a careful prayer
And thus without relent
Allow the troubled heart and troubled thoughts
No rest but beckon in the coming dawn
With one last stretch
One final yawn
Alas I melt and thaw into a dew!
yvette smith march 09
poem by Yvette Smith
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Restless Night
As bamboo chill drifts into the bedroom,
Moonlight fills every corner of our
Garden. Heavy dew beads and trickles.
Stars suddenly there, sparse, next aren't.
Fireflies in dark flight flash. Waking
Waterbirds begin calling, one to another.
All things caught between shield and sword,
All grief empty, the clear night passes.
Restless Night
As bamboo chill drifts into the bedroom,
Moonlight fills every corner of our
Garden. Heavy dew beads and trickles.
Stars suddenly there, sparse, next aren't.
Fireflies in dark flight flash. Waking
Waterbirds begin calling, one to another.
All things caught between shield and sword,
All grief empty, the clear night passes.
Blind!
A red-roofed house is shining to the skies;
A house red-roofed and brilliant in the wind:
A house of colour filled with wandering eyes;
And all the eyes are blind.
A gentle sound of moving fills each room:
A sound of hands, - dumb hands that touch and pry:
A sound of fingers feeling in a tomb
Before they close and die.
A hundred windows face long rows of flowers-
Long rows of flowers, and flowers that sway and dance
Where lidded eyes can gaze for hours and hours;
Blue eyes that shut in France.
poem by Leon Gellert
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Despair Is Heavy
DESPAIR IS HEAVY
Despair is heavy
And I am heavier than I have been in a long time-
The cold and the dark and the damp
Also weigh me down.
I still can move
But more slowly now
And with much more aching.
When will the minor pain become paralysis?
And when will the weight kill me?
Perhaps I am done forever
And will never move again
And the weight will take me all the way down
So low I will not even be aware anymore of my despair.
It is a heavy day now
And I am too heavy a person
And Heaviness is in the air
And rules the Universe
And everything is sinking down
And falling into its own meaninglessness.
Life is heavy
I am heavy
Everything is heavy now and getting heavier.
poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Life Is Bitter
Life is bitter. All the faces of the years,
Young and old, are gray with travail and with tears.
Must we only wake to toil, to tire, to weep?
In the sun, among the leaves, upon the flowers,
Slumber stills to dreamy death the heavy hours …
Let me sleep.
Riches won but mock the old, unable years;
Fame’s a pearl that hides beneath a sea of tears;
Love must wither, or must live alone and weep.
In the sunshine, through the leaves, across the flowers,
While we slumber, death approaches through the hours …
Let me sleep.
poem by William Ernest Henley
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Crepuscule du Matin
All night I wrestled with a memory
Which knocked insurgent at the gates of thought.
The crumbled wreck of years behind has wrought
Its disillusion; now I only cry
For peace, for power to forget the lie
Which hope too long has whispered. So I sought
The sleep which would not come, and night was fraught
With old emotions weeping silently.
I heard your voice again, and knew the things
Which you had promised proved an empty vaunt.
I felt your clinging hands while night's broad wings
Cherished our love in darkness. From the lawn
A sudden, quivering birdnote, like a taunt.
My arms held nothing but the empty dawn.
poem by Amy Lowell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Knowledge
What is more large than knowledge and more sweet;
Knowledge of thoughts and deeds, of rights and wrongs,
Of passions and of beauties and of songs;
Knowledge of life; to feel its great heart beat
Through all the soul upon her crystal seat;
To see, to feel, and evermore to know;
To till the old world's wisdom till it grow
A garden for the wandering of our feet.
Oh for a life of leisure and broad hours,
To think and dream, to put away small things,
This world's perpetual leaguer of dull naughts;
To wander like the bee among the flowers
Till old age find us weary, feet and wings
Grown heavy with the gold of many thoughts.
poem by Archibald Lampman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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House Of Many Rooms
The sound of the clock ticking
How this old house creeps
Another storm tonight approaches
So restless I can't sleep
Dark filled big long rooms
Portrait of a lady in view
Corridor that never seems to end
From a distance I thought I seen you
House Of Many Rooms
The sound of heavy rain falling
Feelings sourround of another place
An oval mirror hangs on the wall
And there I thought I seen your face
The smell of wild flowers
A gentle breeze blows from outside
Heavy laced dark curtains
A vision of you before my eyes
House Of Many Rooms
poem by Suelynn Walters
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Day that I have Loved
Tenderly, day that I have loved, I close your eyes,
And smooth your quiet brow, and fold your thin dead hands.
The grey veils of the half-light deepen; colour dies.
I bear you, a light burden, to the shrouded sands,
Where lies your waiting boat, by wreaths of the sea's making
Mist-garlanded, with all grey weeds of the water crowned.
There you'll be laid, past fear of sleep or hope of waking;
And over the unmoving sea, without a sound,
Faint hands will row you outward, out beyond our sight,
Us with stretched arms and empty eyes on the far-gleaming
And marble sand. . . .
Beyond the shifting cold twilight,
Further than laughter goes, or tears, further than dreaming,
There'll be no port, no dawn-lit islands! But the drear
Waste darkening, and, at length, flame ultimate on the deep.
Oh, the last fire - and you, unkissed, unfriended there!
Oh, the lone way's red ending, and we not there to weep!
(We found you pale and quiet, and strangely crowned with flowers,
Lovely and secret as a child. You came with us,
Came happily, hand in hand with the young dancing hours,
High on the downs at dawn!) Void now and tenebrous,
The grey sands curve before me. . . .
From the inland meadows,
Fragrant of June and clover, floats the dark, and fills
The hollow sea's dead face with little creeping shadows,
And the white silence brims the hollow of the hills.
Close in the nest is folded every weary wing,
Hushed all the joyful voices; and we, who held you dear,
Eastward we turn and homeward, alone, remembering . . .
Day that I loved, day that I loved, the Night is here!
poem by Rupert Brooke
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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To Night
Swiftly walk o'er the western wave,
Spirit of Night!
Out of the misty eastern cave,
Where, all the long and lone daylight,
Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear,
Which make thee terrible and dear--
Swift be thy flight!
Wrap thy form in a mantle gray,
Star-inwrought!
Blind with thine hair the eyes of day;
Kiss her until she be wearied out,
Then wander o'er city, and sea, and land,
Touching all with thine opiate wand--
Come, long-sought!
When I arose and saw the dawn,
I sighed for thee;
When light rode high, and the dew was gone,
And noon lay heavy on flower and tree,
And the weary day turned to his rest,
Lingering like an unloved guest,
I sighed for thee.
Thy brother Death came, and cried,
Wouldst thou me?
Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed,
Murmured like a noontide bee,
Shall I nestle near thy side?
Wouldst thou me?--And I replied,
No, not thee!
Death will come when thou art dead,
Soon, too soon--
Sleep will come when thou art fled;
Of neither would I ask the boon
I ask of thee, beloved Night--
Swift be thine approaching flight,
Come soon, soon!
poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Leaving an old ancestral house...
i always remember someone leaving the house with a heavy heart. I sympathize. My heart is also heavy.
It is dark and someone carries a bag and begins to step away.
The steps become fainter.
I like to help. I suggest he stays. But Papa is vehement
and decisive.
Many years ago, five or ten people already left this house.
I stayed. I keep on staying.
The house is empty now.
I have decided not to listen anymore about the sound of emptiness.
The house of Gregorio must fall.
Everyone here dies.
I want to live. And so i must go somewhere else.
Where there are no hands that will choke me.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Faith
A wall
Gray and tall,
And a sky of gray,
And a twilight cold;
And that is all
That my eyes behold.
But I know that unseen,
Beyond the wall,
On a lawn of green
White blossoms fall
In the waning light;
And beyond the lawn
Curtains are drawn
From windows bright.
And within she moves with her gracious hands
And the heart that loves and that understands,
Waiting to succour poor souls in need,
And to bind with her blessing the hearts that bleed.
I know it all, though I cannot see;
But the tired-out tramp,
Dirty and ill,
In the evening's damp,
In the Spring's clean chill,
Knows not that there
Is the heart to care
For such as I and for such as he.
He slouches along, and sees alone
The gray of the sky and the gray of the stone.
Lord, when my eyes see nothing but grey
In all Thy world that is now so green,
I will bethink me of this spring day
And the house of welcome, known yet unseen;
The wall that conceals
And the faith that reveals.
poem by Edith Nesbit
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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