The Dawn
All the wild waves rock'd in shadow,
And the world was dim and grey,
Dark and silent, hush'd and breathless,
Waiting calmly for the day.
And the golden light came stealing
O'er the mountain-tops at last—
Flooding vale and wood and upland,—
It was morning—night was past.
There they lay—the silvery waters,
Fruitful forests, glade and lawn,—
All in beauty, new-created
By the angel of the dawn.
* * * * *
So my spirit slept in twilight;—
All was quiet, grey, and still,
Till the dawn of Love came stealing,
Over Hope's snow-crested hill.
Then the dim world woke in glory,
And the iris-dyes grew bright
On the waves and woods and valleys,
In a morning flood of light.
Ah! the vineyards and the gardens!—
Ah! the treasures, rich and rare,
Full of endless life and beauty,
Which that dawn created there!
poem by Ada Cambridge
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Related quotes
There’s Always a Dawn
There were spears
There were swords
Made for hunting
Not war
Yet with it, from the blood of the innocent will create a new dawn
But war came
Great battles and fights
Many dead
Few still alive
To face the never ending dawn
A new world made
By the people who were left
Conquerors and Defeated
United in one land
A new dawn created with the help of man
The one land changed
More wars began
Famine and disease
Grew a part of that
But the dawn still remained
It was after these wars that history began
Written by the victors about
The defeated
The damned
The dawn was never mentioned- forgotten
These people
The defeated left the land
In search for a new home
Away from the wars
Searching forever for a new dawn
Perhaps they were wise
To leave with such haste
For the empire they once knew
Began to break
The dawn now remembered- the people prayed
The empire broke
The great kingdom now gone
In its place a new world just like the dawn
Still life in the world went on and on
Yet the dawn was still worshiped- never forgotten
The years past
More wars began
Countries discovered
New weapons for man
The promise man made- left to die
Centuries turned
Discoveries made
Technology found
Diseases dead
Still on and on the dawn survives
But for every technology there’s always a weapon
For every discovery there’s always a second
With one disease dead more still arrive
And with every new day a new world is created
Though the dawn still remained
So the world keeps turning
In the dark and light
For every bad thing
There’s always a light
In the dawn
In war it is Peace
In death it is Life
In disease it is the Cures
In the world it is Hope
Disguised as the dawn
Hope keeps us going
Through the bad it is strength
To do what is right, To help the world
In the light it shines, shines for the future, a brighter day
A new dawn
The earth might be in darkness
With a shadow on its edge
Waiting to consume
Till the universe is dead
The dawn still remains
But still the world keeps turning
Like the never ending dawn
Time is forever
And the universe survives
Because of the dawn
It might seem the end
Of the world that we know
But at the end of a day
There’s always mans hope
There’s always a dawn
poem by Carrie Halliday
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Earlier Poems : The Spirit Of Poetry
There is a quiet spirit in these woods,
That dwells where'er the gentle south-wind blows;
Where, underneath the white-thorn, in the glade,
The wild flowers bloom, or, kissing the soft air,
The leaves above their sunny palms outspread.
With what a tender and impassioned voice
It fills the nice and delicate ear of thought,
When the fast ushering star of morning comes
O'er-riding the gray hills with golden scarf;
Or when the cowled and dusky-sandalled Eve,
In mourning weeds, from out the western gate,
Departs with silent pace! That spirit moves
In the green valley, where the silver brook,
From its full laver, pours the white cascade;
And, babbling low amid the tangled woods,
Slips down through moss-grown stones with endless laughter.
And frequent, on the everlasting hills,
Its feet go forth, when it doth wrap itself
In all the dark embroidery of the storm,
And shouts the stern, strong wind. And here, amid
The silent majesty of these deep woods,
lts presence shall uplift thy thoughts from earth,
As to the sunshine and the pure, bright air
Their tops the green trees lift. Hence gifted bards
Have ever loved the calm and quiet shades.
For them there was an eloquent voice in all
The sylvan pomp of woods, the golden sun,
The flowers, the leaves, the river on its way,
Blue skies, and silver clouds, and gentle winds,
The swelling upland, where the sidelong sun
Aslant the wooded slope, at evening, goes,
Groves, through whose broken roof the sky looks in,
Mountain, and shattered cliff, and sunny vale,
The distant lake, fountains, and mighty trees,
In many a lazy syllable, repeating
Their old poetic legends to the wind.
And this is the sweet spirit, that doth fill
The world; and, in these wayward days of youth,
My busy fancy oft embodies it,
As a bright image of the light and beauty
That dwell in nature; of the heavenly forms
We worship in our dreams, and the soft hues
That stain the wild bird's wing, and flush the clouds
When the sun sets. Within her tender eye
The heaven of April, with its changing light,
And when it wears the blue of May, is hung,
And on her lip the rich, red rose. Her hair
Is like the summer tresses of the trees,
When twilight makes them brown, and on her cheek
Blushes the richness of an autumn sky,
With ever-shifting beauty. Then her breath,
It is so like the gentle air of Spring,
As, front the morning's dewy flowers, it comes
Full of their fragrance, that it is a joy
To have it round us, and her silver voice
Is the rich music of a summer bird,
Heard in the still night, with its passionate cadence.
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Spirit of Poetry, The
There is a quiet spirit in these woods,
That dwells where'er the gentle south-wind blows;
Where, underneath the white-thorn, in the glade,
The wild flowers bloom, or, kissing the soft air,
The leaves above their sunny palms outspread.
With what a tender and impassioned voice
It fills the nice and delicate ear of thought,
When the fast ushering star of morning comes
O'er-riding the gray hills with golden scarf;
Or when the cowled and dusky-sandaled Eve,
In mourning weeds, from out the western gate,
Departs with silent pace! That spirit moves
In the green valley, where the silver brook,
From its full laver, pours the white cascade;
And, babbling low amid the tangled woods,
Slips down through moss-grown stones with endless laughter.
And frequent, on the everlasting hills,
Its feet go forth, when it doth wrap itself
In all the dark embroidery of the storm,
And shouts the stern, strong wind. And here, amid
The silent majesty of these deep woods,
lts presence shall uplift thy thoughts from earth,
As to the sunshine and the pure, bright air
Their tops the green trees lift. Hence gifted bards
Have ever loved the calm and quiet shades.
For them there was an eloquent voice in all
The sylvan pomp of woods, the golden sun,
The flowers, the leaves, the river on its way,
Blue skies, and silver clouds, and gentle winds,
The swelling upland, where the sidelong sun
Aslant the wooded slope, at evening, goes,
Groves, through whose broken roof the sky looks in,
Mountain, and shattered cliff, and sunny vale,
The distant lake, fountains, and mighty trees,
In many a lazy syllable, repeating
Their old poetic legends to the wind.
And this is the sweet spirit, that doth fill
The world; and, in these wayward days of youth,
My busy fancy oft embodies it,
As a bright image of the light and beauty
That dwell in nature; of the heavenly forms
We worship in our dreams, and the soft hues
That stain the wild bird's wing, and flush the clouds
When the sun sets. Within her tender eye
The heaven of April, with its changing light,
And when it wears the blue of May, is hung,
And on her lip the rich, red rose. Her hair
Is like the summer tresses of the trees,
When twilight makes them brown, and on her cheek
Blushes the richness of an autumn sky,
With ever-shifting beauty. Then her breath,
It is so like the gentle air of Spring,
As, front the morning's dewy flowers, it comes
Full of their fragrance, that it is a joy
To have it round us, and her silver voice
Is the rich music of a summer bird,
Heard in the still night, with its passionate cadence.
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Noli Me Tangere
We watched the dawn breaking across the sea
While just above us hung the evening star.
The nearer waters took a hint of white
And clouds and waves together massed afar,
Narrowed our morning world of pallid light
Till dawn seemed very close to you and me.
'Nay, dawn, stay farther off. Be Magdalen.
Go back into the distance whence you came.
The Near is meaningless when Far is nought,'
So I; and you. 'Wait but a little then,
And day, whole day, uprising like a flame,
Will show us the far reaches of our thought.'
poem by Lesbia Harford
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Dark Becomes Dawn
Dark as pitch - Dawn spreads light
Dark as dead - Dawn expires graves
Dark withers - Dawn freshness wears
Dark un-paths - Dawn re-strides.
Dark dapples gray - Dawn paints days
Dark specters doubt - Dawn assuredness' gate
Dark limitless plain - Dawn corrals night
Dark swifts shadows - Dawn hastens un-obscures.
Dark dissolves pace - Dawn zeniths one's range
Dark devours - Dawn sun rises
Dark bends down relief - Dawn uplifts sight
Dark dismantles - Dawn scatters golden arrows.
Dark de-flames - Dawn matches day
Dark invisibles - Dawn globes light
Dark unfolds dark dreams - Dawn un-sanctions screams
Dark submissively retires - Dawn crimson splendor.
'2008'
poem by Robert Sheridan
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An Emblem of Life
Oh! Life is like the summer rill, where weary daylight dies;
We long for morn to rise again, and blush along the skies:
For dull and dark that stream appears, whose waters in the day,
All glad, in conscious sunniness, went dancing on their way.
But when the glorious sun hath 'woke, and look'd upon the earth,
And over hill and dale there float the sounds of human mirth;
We sigh to see day hath not brought its perfect light to all,
For with the sunshine on those waves, the silent shadows fall.
Oh! like that changeful summer rill our years go gliding by,
Now bright with joy, now dark with tears, before youth's eager eye.
And thus we vainly pant for all the rich and golden glow,
Which young Hope, like an early sun, upon its course can throw,
Soon o'er our half illumined hearts the stealing shadows come,
And every thought that 'woke in light receives its share of gloom;
And we weep while joys and sorrows both are fading from our view,
To find, wherever sunbeams fall, the shadow cometh too.
poem by Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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As When From Dreams Awaking
AS when from dreams awaking
The dim forms float away
Whose visioned smiles were making
Our darkness bright as day;
We vainly strive, while weeping,
From their shining spirit track,
(Where they fled while we were sleeping,)
To call those dear ones back!
Like the stars, some power divides them
From a world of want and pain;
They are there, but daylight hides them,
And we look for them in vain.
For a while we dwell with sadness,
On the beauty of that dream,
Then turn, and hail with gladness
The light of morning's beam.
So, when memory's power is wringing
Our lonely hearts to tears,
Dim forms around us bringing
That brightened former years:
Fond looks and low words spoken,
Which those dreamy days could boast,
Rise; till the spell be broken,
We forget that they are lost!
But when the hour of darkness rolls
Like heavy night away;
And peace is stealing o'er our souls,
Like the dawn of summer day:
The dim sweet forms that used to bless,
Seem stealing from us too;
We loved them-but joy's sunniness
Hath hid them from our view!
Oh could day beam eternally,
And Memory's power cease,
This world, a world of light would be,
Our hearts were worlds of peace:
But dreams of joy return with night,
And dwell upon the past-
And every grief that clouds our light,
Reminds us of the last!
poem by Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton
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To Jane: The Recollection
I.
Now the last day of many days,
All beautiful and bright as thou,
The loveliest and the last, is dead,
Rise, Memory, and write its praise!
Up,--to thy wonted work! come, trace
The epitaph of glory fled,--
For now the Earth has changed its face,
A frown is on the Heaven’s brow.
II.
We wandered to the Pine Forest
That skirts the Ocean’s foam,
The lightest wind was in its nest,
The tempest in its home.
The whispering waves were half asleep,
The clouds were gone to play,
And on the bosom of the deep
The smile of Heaven lay;
It seemed as if the hour were one
Sent from beyond the skies,
Which scattered from above the sun
A light of Paradise.
III.
We paused amid the pines that stood
The giants of the waste,
Tortured by storms to shapes as rude
As serpents interlaced;
And, soothed by every azure breath,
That under Heaven is blown,
To harmonies and hues beneath,
As tender as its own,
Now all the tree-tops lay asleep,
Like green waves on the sea,
As still as in the silent deep
The ocean woods may be.
IV.
How calm it was!—the silence there
By such a chain was bound
That even the busy woodpecker
Made stiller by her sound
The inviolable quietness;
The breath of peace we drew
With its soft motion made not less
The calm that round us grew.
There seemed from the remotest seat
Of the white mountain waste,
To the soft flower beneath our feet,
A magic circle traced,--
A spirit interfused around
A thrilling, silent life,--
To momentary peace it bound
Our mortal nature’s strife;
And still I felt the centre of
The magic circle there
Was one fair form that filled with love
The lifeless atmosphere.
V.
We paused beside the pools that lie
Under the forest bough,--
Each seemed as ’twere a little sky
Gulfed in a world below;
A firmament of purple light
Which in the dark earth lay,
More boundless than the depth of night,
And purer than the day--
In which the lovely forests grew,
As in the upper air,
More perfect both in shape and hue
Than any spreading there.
There lay the glade and neighbouring lawn,
And through the dark green wood
The white sun twinkling like the dawn
Out of a speckled cloud.
Sweet views which in our world above
Can never well be seen,
Were imaged by the water’s love
Of that fair forest green.
And all was interfused beneath
With an Elysian glow,
An atmosphere without a breath,
A softer day below.
Like one beloved the scene had lent
To the dark water’s breast,
Its every leaf and lineament
With more than truth expressed;
Until an envious wind crept by,
Like an unwelcome thought,
Which from the mind’s too faithful eye
Blots one dear image out.
Though thou art ever fair and kind,
The forests ever green,
Less oft is peace in Shelley’s mind,
Than calm in waters, seen.
poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Qualities of light
A certain gauzy luminosity
In the dawn of a summer day
The diffuse, dispersive quality
As morning breaks… across the bay
That almost palpable morning spark
In a young girl’s liquid eyes
Dawn’s nascent glow… ‘neath night’s dark
Of star and moonlit skies
Golden haloes drape oe’r mountaintops
Beams peeking shyly through the valleys
Columns of crystal, piercing thunderclouds
Chasing darkness… down empty alleys
Filtering through filigree lace of old lady’s windows
Spotlighting dust motes dancing in air
Mirrored in tresses of maidens and widows
Reflected in highlights of grey and blonde hair
laths of lights, rise lazily toward the beams
Through cracks and splits of sun bleached wood
Old barns and sunbeams not always what they seem
Early light, … prismatic rainbow… oft misunderstood
Display the might of new sunny day
Then blazing bright…away with the night!
So much more… then one can say…
of…The many, curious qualities of light
poem by David Whalen
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By The Arno
THE oleander on the wall
Grows crimson in the dawning light,
Though the grey shadows of the night
Lie yet on Florence like a pall.
The dew is bright upon the hill,
And bright the blossoms overhead,
But ah! the grasshoppers have fled,
The little Attic song is still.
Only the leaves are gently stirred
By the soft breathing of the gale,
And in the almond-scented vale
The lonely nightingale is heard.
The day will make thee silent soon,
O nightingale sing on for love!
While yet upon the shadowy grove
Splinter the arrows of the moon.
Before across the silent lawn
In sea-green mist the morning steals,
And to love's frightened eyes reveals
The long white fingers of the dawn
Fast climbing up the eastern sky
To grasp and slay the shuddering night,
All careless of my heart's delight,
Or if the nightingale should die.
poem by Oscar Wilde
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Monalisa
Angel's touch at the twilight
A little dark is she at light
With hairs short like a well kept lawn
Behind her are all eyes drawn
Invigorating her beauty as the dew of dawn
She is my Monalisa
poem by Nicholas Boateng
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Sunlight on white paint. For the New Year.
The house across the way is newly painted white.
Right now, that’s all my being seems to need:
this winter morning, sharp, cold, bright and clear,
the morning sunlight pours across white paint;
contains a thousand messages, in me
interpreted.. or simply left to be..
this moment, that’s as much as being craves:
this morning’s glory; and I, born for praise..
even as I write, I watch the sun’s
white paint brush move across the house’s front
and tell the eye of reason that this world
is turning, basking, in this morning sun;
already sparkling on the Bondi waves
as if the world had just been washed anew;
cast early dawn’s pearl light on Taj Mahal
as if the sun itself could never tire of beauty;
Italian villa forecourts just hosed down,
the air all fresh to meet the warming day;
the gardens of Carmel, eight hours from now,
will paint their flowers fresh with mist and dew;
as every carefree holiday yourself
recall, as proof eternal of pure soul..
and here - the witness of my silent mind
needs nothing, need go nowhere else to find
its very self, this moment without taint:
immortal sunlight shining on white paint.
poem by Michael Shepherd
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Dawn
Dawn for the rich, the artistic and the wise,
Is beauty splashed on canvas of the skies,
The brushes being the clouds that float the blue,
Dipped in the breeze for paint, and washed by dew.
But dawn to those who bathe the night in tears,
Squeeze sustenance from hard unyielding years,
Is full of strange imaginings and fears.
The dawn renews the terror of the day
Where harassing uncertainties hold sway;
And pain held in surcease through brief hours of rest
Roars up its head in its unceasing quest
To wear out body, brain and mind and soul
Till death is a resolve, and death a goal.
For those life holds no beauty, dawn no light,
For day is hopeless, dawn is struck with blight.
poem by Gladys Casely-Hayford
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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An Old Colonist's Reverie
Dustily over the highway pipes the loud nor'-wester at morn,
Wind and the rising sun, and waving tussock and corn;
It brings to me days gone by when first in my ears it rang,
The wind is the voice of my home, and I think of the songs it sang
When, fresh from the desk and ledger, I crossed the long leagues of sea
'The old worn world is gone and the new bright world is free.'
The wide, wild pastures of old are fading and passing away,
All over the plain are the homes of the men who have come to stay
I sigh for the good old days in the station whare again;
But the good new days are better
I would not be heard to complain;
It is only the wind that cries with tears in its voice to me
Of the dead men low in the mould who came with me over the sea.
Some of them down in the city under the marble are laid,
Some on the bare hillside in the mound by the lone tree shade,
And some in the forest deeps of the west in their silence lie,
With the dark pine curtain above shutting out the blue of the sky.
And many have passed from my sight, whither I never shall know,
Swept away in the rushing river or caught in the mountain snow;
All the old hands are gone who came with me over the sea,
But the land that we made our own is the same bright land to me.
There are dreams in the gold of the kowhai, and when ratas are breaking in bloom
I can hear the rich murmur of voices in the deeps of the fern-shadowed gloom.
Old memory may bring me her treasures from the land of the blossoms of May,
But to me the hill daisies are dearer and the gorse on the river bed grey;
While the mists on the high hilltops curling, the dawn-haunted
haze of the sea,
To my fancy are bridal veils lifting from the face of the land of the free.
The speargrass and cabbage trees yonder, the honey-belled flax in its bloom,
The dark of the bush on the sidings, the snow-crested mountains that loom
Golden and grey in the sunlight, far up in the cloud-fringed blue,
Are the threads with old memory weaving and the line of my life
running through;
And the wind of the morning calling has ever a song for me
Of hope for the land of the dawning in the golden years to be.
poem by David McKee Wright
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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President Lincoln's Proclamation Of Freedom
IT shall flash through coming ages;
It shall light the distant years;
And eyes now dim with sorrow
Shall be clearer through their tears.
It shall flush the mountain ranges;
And the valleys shall grow bright;
It shall bathe the hills in radiance,
And crown their brows with light.
It shall flood with golden splendor
All the huts of Caroline,
And the sun-kissed brow of labor
With lustre new shall shine.
It shall gild the gloomy prison,
Darken'd by the nation's crime,
Where the dumb and patient millions
Wait the better coming time.
By the light that gilds their prison,
They shall seize its mould'ring key,
And the bolts and bars shall vibrate
With the triumphs of the free.
Like the dim and ancient chaos,
Shrinking from the dawn of light,
Oppression, grim and hoary,
Shall cower at the sight.
And her spawn of lies and malice
Shall grovel in the dust,
While joy shall thrill the bosoms
Of the merciful and just.
Though the morning seemed to linger
O'er the hill-tops far away,
Now the shadows bear the promise
Of the quickly coming day.
Soon the mists and murky shadows
Shall be fringed with crimson light,
And the glorious dawn of freedom
Break refulgent on the sight.
poem by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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An Old Colonist's Reverie
Dustily over the highway pipes the loud nor'-wester at morn,
Wind and the rising sun, and waving tussock and corn;
It brings to me days gone by when first in my ears it rang,
The wind is the voice of my home, and I think of the songs it sang
When, fresh from the desk and ledger, I crossed the long leagues of sea --
"The old worn world is gone and the new bright world is free."
The wide, wild pastures of old are fading and passing away,
All over the plain are the homes of the men who have come to stay --
I sigh for the good old days in the station whare again;
But the good new days are better -- I would not be heard to complain;
It is only the wind that cries with tears in its voice to me
Of the dead men low in the mould who came with me over the sea.
Some of them down in the city under the marble are laid,
Some on the bare hillside in the mound by the lone tree shade,
And some in the forest deeps of the west in their silence lie,
With the dark pine curtain above shutting out the blue of the sky.
And many have passed from my sight, whither I never shall know,
Swept away in the rushing river or caught in the mountain snow;
All the old hands are gone who came with me over the sea,
But the land that we made our own is the same bright land to me.
There are dreams in the gold of the kowhai, and when ratas are breaking
in bloom
I can hear the rich murmur of voices in the deeps of the fern-shadowed gloom.
Old memory may bring me her treasures from the land of the blossoms of May,
But to me the hill daisies are dearer and the gorse on the river bed grey;
While the mists on the high hilltops curling, the dawn-haunted
haze of the sea,
To my fancy are bridal veils lifting from the face of the land of the free.
The speargrass and cabbage trees yonder, the honey-belled flax in its bloom,
The dark of the bush on the sidings, the snow-crested mountains that loom
Golden and grey in the sunlight, far up in the cloud-fringed blue,
Are the threads with old memory weaving and the line of my life
running through;
And the wind of the morning calling has ever a song for me
Of hope for the land of the dawning in the golden years to be.
poem by David McKee Wright
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Idyll
In the grey summer garden I shall find you
With day-break and the morning hills behind you.
There will be rain-wet roses; stir of wings;
And down the wood a thrush that wakes and sings.
Not from the past you’ll come, but from that deep
Where beauty murmurs to the soul asleep:
And I shall know the sense of life re-born
From dreams into the mystery of morn
Where gloom and brightness meet. And standing there
Till that calm song is done, at last we’ll share
The league-spread, quiring symphonies that are
Joy in the world, and peace, and dawn’s one star.
poem by Siegfried Sassoon
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The Beauty Of Being In The World Jan.9,2009
THE BEAUTY OF BEING IN THE WORLD Jan.9 2009
The Beauty of being in the world,
The Beauty of Seeing,
The Beauty of these grey skies and small rain,
The Beauty of this park in all its greens.
The Beauty of morning Jerusalem light.
And three young soldiers
Killed yesterday
Defending Israel,
Ro’i Rosner 27, of Holon,
Omer Rabinovitch 23 of Arad,
Amit Robinson 20 of Kibbutz Magal,
Who will never see this Beauty again.
The Beauty of Being in the world
And I sixty- six years old, and more.
poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Untouched by Grace, but not by Snow
Waking up, noticing the ground
To my surprise I am surround by snow
Every detail in which was lay
With perfect precise wonder
In this most daring betray of beauty
And all is quiet
All is so annoyingly quiet
The dirt that is covered peeks through the ground
Destroying what was once beauty
That was pronounced by the glistened snow
And all I can do is wonder
How this world become simple to lay
When sleep takes us on we lay
And all is deeply quiet
Our dreams become our wonder
Weather we stand on solid ground
An undefined map layer out by snow
Creates to us sleeping beauty
But what is this beauty?
And where does it lay?
What is understood to be a lie as white as snow
And all has become a false quiet
Life, which puts our burdens to the ground
And here we are left to wonder
To whom to we place our wonder
The one who holds onto your beauty?
Who picks you up off the ground
And will be contempt as you lay
This is the lovely quiet
Dawn, of our love as pure as snow
To ask what is this snow
Pure, grace, love to which we wonder
Making this moment freeze in quiet
Holding unto this betrayed beauty
Which pours unto us as we lay
To the emissive ground
To become as pure as snow is beauty
But do we wonder under stars we lay?
And all was quiet as the snow flake touched ground
Hampton Beach
THE SUNLIGHT glitters keen and bright,
Where, miles away,
Lies stretching to my dazzled sight
A luminous belt, a misty light,
Beyond the dark pine bluffs and wastes of sandy gray.
The tremulous shadow of the Sea!
Against its ground
Of silvery light, rock, hill, and tree,
Still as a picture, clear and free,
With varying outline mark the coast for miles around.
On—on—we tread with loose-flung rein
Our seaward way,
Through dark-green fields and blossoming grain,
Where the wild brier-rose skirts the lane,
And bends above our heads the flowering locust spray.
Ha! like a kind hand on my brow
Comes this fresh breeze,
Cooling its dull and feverish glow,
While through my being seems to flow
The breath of a new life, the healing of the seas!
Now rest we, where this grassy mound
His feet hath set
In the great waters, which have bound
His granite ankles greenly round
With long and tangled moss, and weeds with cool spray wet.
Good-by to Pain and Care! I take
Mine ease to-day
Here where these sunny waters break,
And ripples this keen breeze, I shake
All burdens from the heart, all weary thoughts away.
I draw a freer breath, I seem
Like all I see—
Waves in the sun—the white-winged gleam—
Of sea-birds in the slanting beam—
And far-off sails which flit before the south-wind free.
So when Time’s veil shall fall asunder,
The soul may know
No fearful change, nor sudden wonder,
Nor sink the weight of mystery under,
But with the upward rise, and with the vastness grow.
And all we shrink from now may seem
No new revealing;
Familiar as our childhood’s stream,
Or pleasant memory of a dream
The loved and cherished Past upon the new life stealing.
Serene and mild the untried light
May have its dawning;
And, as in summer’s northern night
The evening and the dawn unite,
The sunset hues of Time blend with the soul’s new morning.
I sit alone; in foam and spray
Wave after wave
Breaks on the rocks which, stern and gray,
Shoulder the broken tide away,
Or murmurs hoarse and strong through mossy cleft and cave.
What heed I of the dusty land
And noisy town?
I see the mighty deep expand
From its white line of glimmering sand
To where the blue of heaven on bluer waves shuts down!
In listless quietude of mind,
I yield to all
The change of cloud and wave and wind
And passive on the flood reclined,
I wander with the waves, and with them rise and fall.
But look, thou dreamer!—wave and shore
In shadow lie;
The night-wind warns me back once more
To where, my native hill-tops o’er,
Bends like an arch of fire the glowing sunset sky.
So then, beach, bluff, and wave, farewell!
I bear with me
No token stone nor glittering shell,
But long and oft shall Memory tell
Of this brief thoughtful hour of musing by the Sea.
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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