Vis Medicatrix Naturae
When Faith turns false and Fancy grows unkind,
And Fortune, more from fickleness than spite,
Takes the keen savour out of all delight,
And of sweet pulp leaves only bitter rind,
Then I the load of living leave behind,
Fleeing where, far from human sound and sight,
Over brown furrows wheels the lapwing white,
And whistles tunely with the winter wind.
For Nature's frank indifference woundeth less
Than Man's feigned smiles and simulated tears:
She is at least the egoist she appears,
Scorning to proffer or entice caress;
And, through the long reiterated years,
Endures her doom with uncomplainingness.
poem by Alfred Austin
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Related quotes
Cold winter night
It was a cold winter night.
All was deadly still.
My guts so tight
I must kill!
The cry of a wolf enters my head
Like a train whistle that echoes far away.
Can it be…something lives on this winter night?
Follow the sound and pray
It does not go away.
My hunger juices flowing; I go.
I and the wolf both now know
Neither is alone in the land of snow.
Oh, how I wish I had his sight
On this cold winter night
The north wind moved in the night before.
The ground all snow and bitter cold…so bitter cold.
The sky filled with stars.
The snow grows old.
My guts so tight
What a cold, cold winter night!
The wolf stays hidden from my sight
With it’s furry coat of gray and white.
He glides across the snow without sound
Like a ballerina tiptoeing over the ground.
My guts so tight
On this bitter cold winter night
I with my blood running slow
My hands burning cold; my face red glow
Driven by the pain in my gut
On this cold-cold bitter winter night
I must kill
To make the night still
So the hunger pains
Will be gone again
I hear nothing on this cold winter night
My hair stands up on the back of my neck
I fear the wolf knows
I turn
Crutch to spring
His fangs showing white; my knife in my hand
We circle like two roosters in a pen.
For one this will be the end.
The pain in my gut is still tight
I will kill but not for the trill
On such a killing bitter cold winter night
With the grace of a cat he springs to flight
My throat his aim on this cold winter night
My knife hits his heart…he hunches in pain;
His fangs rip my throat cutting the jugular vein.
The snows now stain on this cold winter night.
Blood and flesh flung upon the snow
Cries of pain, moans of death…soon will go
From this bitter cold ground
All is still on winter’s playground.
The wolf dances no more
My lips move but there is no sound.
My gut is still tight
I feel alright
No more time to fight
On this bitter cold winter night
Wind and snow now fill the air.
The wolf has an empty den.
The snow will be tracked no more.
Twinkle, twinkle little star
Genocide complete
In a galaxy so far
poem by Ronald Brissette
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To An Old Friend In England
WAS it for nothing in the years gone by,
O my love, O my friend,
You thrilled me with your noble words of faith? —
Hope beyond life, and love, love beyond death!
Yet now I shudder, and yet you did not die,
O my friend, O my love!
Was it for nothing in the dear dead years,
O my love, O my friend,
I kissed you when you wrung my heart from me,
And gave my stubborn hand where trust might be?
Yet then I smiled, and see, these bitter tears,
O my friend, O my love!
No bitter words to say to you have I,
O my love, O my friend!
That faith, that hope, that love was mine, not yours!
And yet that kiss, that clasp endures, endures.
I have no bitter words to say. Good-bye,
O my friend, O my love!
poem by Francis William Lauderdale Adams
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Unto This Last
A boy's young fancy taketh love
Most simply, with the rind thereof;
A boy's young fancy tasteth more
The rind, than the deific core.
Ah, Sweet! to cast away the slips
Of unessential rind, and lips
Fix on the immortal core, is well;
But heard'st thou ever any tell
Of such a fool would take for food
Aspect and scent, however good,
Of sweetest core Love's orchards grow?
Should such a phantast please him so,
Love where Love's reverent self denies
Love to feed, but with his eyes,
All the savour, all the touch,
Another's--was there ever such?
Such were fool, if fool there be;
Such fool was I, and was for thee!
But if the touch and savour too
Of this fruit--say, Sweet, of you--
You unto another give
For sacrosanct prerogative,
Yet even scent and aspect were
Some elected Second's share;
And one, gone mad, should rest content
With memory of show and scent;
Would not thyself vow, if there sigh
Such a fool--say, Sweet, as I--
Treble frenzy it must be
Still to love, and to love thee?
Yet had I torn (man knoweth not,
Nor scarce the unweeping angels wot
Of such dread task the lightest part)
Her fingers from about my heart.
Heart, did we not think that she
Had surceased her tyranny?
Heart, we bounded, and were free!
O sacrilegious freedom!--Till
She came, and taught my apostate will
The winnowed sweet mirth cannot guess
And tear-fined peace of hopefulness;
Looked, spake, simply touched, and went.
Now old pain is fresh content,
Proved content is unproved pain.
Pangs fore-tempted, which in vain
I, faithless, have denied, now bud
To untempted fragrance and the mood
Of contrite heavenliness; all days
Joy affrights me in my ways;
Extremities of old delight
Afflict me with new exquisite
Virgin piercings of surprise,--
Stung by those wild brown bees, her eyes!
poem by Francis Thompson
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Changing Seasons
Trees begin to shed
their clothing,
leaves change colors
turning brown then
gold,
falling from their
homes,
to be blown away.
they stand alone
bare in distress
for all to see.
the wind whistles
through the pines,
there's a chill in
the air.
close the door
gently,
days become bitter
cold,
winter has arrived.
poem by Heather Burns
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Winter Walk
The holly bush, a sober lump of green,
Shines through the leafless shrubs all brown and grey,
And smiles at winter be it eer so keen
With all the leafy luxury of May.
And O it is delicious, when the day
In winter's loaded garment keenly blows
And turns her back on sudden falling snows,
To go where gravel pathways creep between
Arches of evergreen that scarce let through
A single feather of the driving storm;
And in the bitterest day that ever blew
The walk will find some places still and warm
Where dead leaves rustle sweet and give alarm
To little birds that flirt and start away.
poem by John Clare
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Thou Art Not False, But Thou Art Fickle
Thou art not false, but thou art fickle,
To those thyself so fondly sought;
The tears that thou hast forced to trickle
Are doubly bitter from that thought:
'Tis this which breaks the heart thou grievest
Too well thou lov'st - too soon thou leavest.
The wholly false the heart despises,
And spurns deceiver and deceit;
But she who not a thought disguises,
Whose love is as sincere as sweet,
When she can change who loved so truly,
It feels what mine has felt so newly.
To dream of joy and wake to sorrow
Is doom'd to all who love or live;
And if, when conscious on the morrow,
We scarce our fancy can forgive,
That cheated us in slumber only,
To leave the waking soul more lonely,
What must they feel whom no false vision,
But truest, tenderest passion warm'd?
Sincere, but swift in sad transition;
As if a dream alone had charm'd?
Ah! sure such grief is fancy's scheming,
And all thy change can be but dreaming!
Michael The Archangel
A Statuette.
I.
MY white archangel, with thy steadfast eyes
Beholding all this empty ghost-filled room,
Thy clasped hands resting on the sword of doom,
Thy firm, close lips, not made for human sighs
Or smiles, or kisses sweet, or bitter cries,
But for divine exhorting, holy song
And righteous counsel, bold from seraph tongue.
Beautiful angel, strong as thou art wise,
Would that the sight of thee made wise and strong!
Would that this sheathèd sword of thine, which lies
Stonily idle, could gleam out among
The spiritual hosts of enemies
That tempting shriek--'Requite thou wrong with wrong.'
Lama Sabachthani,--How long, how long.
II.
MICHAEL, the leader of the hosts of God,
Who warred with Satan for the body of him
Whom, living, God had loved--If cherubim
With cherubim contended for one clod
Of human dust, for forty years that trod
The gloomy desert of Heaven's chastisement,
Are there not ministering angels sent
To battle with the devils that roam abroad,
Clutching our living souls? 'The living, still
The living, they shall praise Thee!'--Let some great
Invisible spirit enter in and fill
The howling chambers of hearts desolate;
With looks like thine, O Michael, strong and wise,
My white archangel with the steadfast eyes.
poem by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
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Hendecasyllabics
In the month of the long decline of roses
I, beholding the summer dead before me,
Set my face to the sea and journeyed silent,
Gazing eagerly where above the sea-mark
Flame as fierce as the fervid eyes of lions
Half divided the eyelids of the sunset;
Till I heard as it were a noise of waters
Moving tremulous under feet of angels
Multitudinous, out of all the heavens;
Knew the fluttering wind, the fluttered foliage,
Shaken fitfully, full of sound and shadow;
And saw, trodden upon by noiseless angels,
Long mysterious reaches fed with moonlight,
Sweet sad straits in a soft subsiding channel,
Blown about by the lips of winds I knew not,
Winds not born in the north nor any quarter,
Winds not warm with the south nor any sunshine;
Heard between them a voice of exultation,
'Lo, the summer is dead, the sun is faded,
Even like as a leaf the year is withered,
All the fruits of the day from all her branches
Gathered, neither is any left to gather.
All the flowers are dead, the tender blossoms,
All are taken away; the season wasted,
Like an ember among the fallen ashes.
Now with light of the winter days, with moonlight,
Light of snow, and the bitter light of hoarfrost,
We bring flowers that fade not after autumn,
Pale white chaplets and crowns of latter seasons,
Fair false leaves (but the summer leaves were falser),
Woven under the eyes of stars and planets
When low light was upon the windy reaches
Where the flower of foam was blown, a lily
Dropt among the sonorous fruitless furrows
And green fields of the sea that make no pasture:
Since the winter begins, the weeping winter,
All whose flowers are tears, and round his temples
Iron blossom of frost is bound for ever.'
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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Joy that's half too keen, and true
Joy that's half too keen, and true,
Makes us tears.
Oh! the sweetness of the tears!
If such joy at hand appears,
Snatch it, give thine all for it;
Joy that is so exquisite,
Lost, comes not new.
One blossom for a hundred years.
Grief that's fond and dies not soon
Makes delight.
Oh! the pain of the delight!
If thy grief be love's aright,
Tend it close and let it grow:
Grief so tender not to know
Loses Love's boon.
Sweet Philomel sings all the night.
poem by Augusta Davies Webster
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The Life of a Season
Autumn bids a fond farewell
As Sister Winter takes her place
The colors of the trees in glory
With Winter's white is soon replaced
As Winter's gift is gently falling
Upon the trees that soundly sleep
The world in silent wonder watches
The miracle the season brings
Sadly, nothing in this fickle world
May live forever in its youth
And likewise winter starts to age
Her beauty she begins to lose
Her snow white hair now turns to gray
Her voice is quiet when she speaks
And as the days grow warm and long,
Her touch is light while she grows weak
And soon the people who had loved her
Grow tired of her chilling song
Then Winter sadly leaves her throne
And waits for baby spring to come along
So old, frail Winter bids farewell
As Sister Spring now takes her place
She waits with quiet, steady patience
To come again with youth and grace.
poem by Dee Slater
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Ode To Autumn (I'm in awe of Fall)
Ode to Autumn
Pumpkins on porches, cut cruelly into ferocious faces
Wisps of white smoke melting into cold clear skies
Hands held out as if praying, to crackling fireplaces
Odors of allspice waft from plump pumpkin pies
Cold swirling winds, skirling leaves in the lane
While a few golden stalwarts, in tall trees still remain
Clinging and quivering, making restless, rattling sound
As if In anxious anticipation of graceful descent to the ground
As Haunting apparitions, appear the skeletal trees
To spook little kids into feigned, fun-filled fright
With witchy appearance, bare limbs wave in the breeze
Scarecrows wave back with ghoulish delight
Autumn leaves burning, create aromatic auras so sweet
Crisp air numbs kid’s noses, toes and their feet
Once strutting Tom Turkey now reclines in the oven
Exuding the aroma that everyone’s lovin’
Autumn’s a time of renewal
Preparing for change and transition
Mother nature shedding summer green
and doffing brown tradition
Summer, winter and spring are beautiful seasons
And in them I find much of delight
But Autumn’s the season that I’ve come to love
Because everything about it …
is just right
poem by David Whalen
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On An Old Deluded Suitor
See sad deluded love, in years too late,
With tears desponding o'er the tomb of fate,
While dusky evening's veil excludes the light
Which in the morning broke upon his sight.
He now regrets his vain, his fruitless plan,
And sadly wonders at the faults of man.
'Tis now from beauty's torch he wheels aside,
And strives to soar above affection's tide;
'Tis now that sorrow feeds the worm of pain
With tears which never can the loss regain;
'Tis now he drinks the wormwood and the gall,
And all the sweets of early pleasures pall,
When from his breast the hope of fortune flies,
The songs of transport languish into sighs;
Fond, lovely rose, that beamed as she blew,
Of all the charms of youth the most untrue,
She, with delusive smiles, prevail'd to move
This silly heart into the snare of love;
Then like a flower closed against the bee,
Folds her arms and turns her back on me.
When on my fancy's eye her smiles she shed,
The torch by which deluded love was led,
Then, like a lark, from boyhood's maze I soar'd,
And thus in song her flattering smiles adored.
My heart was then by fondling love betray'd,
A thousand pleasures bloom'd but soon to fade,
From joy to joy my heart exulting flew,
In quest of one, though fair, yet far from true.
poem by George Moses Horton
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Leaves That Are Green
I was twenty-one years when I wrote this song
I'm twenty-two now but I won't be for long
Time hurries on
And the leaves that are green turn to brown
And they wither in the wind
And they crumble in your hand
Once my heart was filled with the love of a girl
I held her close but she faded in the night
Like a poem I meant to write
And the leaves that are green turn to brown
And they wither in the wind
And they crumble in your hand
I threw a pebble in a brook
And watched the ripple run away
And they never made a sound
And the leaves that are green turn to brown
And they wither in the wind
And they crumble in your hand
Hello, hello, hello, hello
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye
That's all there is
And the leaves that are green turn to brown
And they wither in the wind
And they crumble in your hand
song performed by by Simon & Garfunkel
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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`Through Pleasant Paths
Through pleasant paths, through dainty ways,
Love leads my feet;
Where beauty shines with living rays,
Soft, gentle, sweet;
The placid heart at random strays,
And sings, and smiles, and laughs and plays,
And gathers from the summer days
Their light and heat,
That in its chambers burn and blaze
And beam and beat.
I throw myself among the ferns
Under the shade,
And watch the summer sun that burns
On dell and glade;
To thee, my dear, my fancy turns,
In thee its Paradise discerns,
For thee it sighs, for thee it yearns,
My chosen maid;
And that still depth of passion learns
Which cannot fade.
The wind that whispers in the night,
Subtle and free,
The gorgeous noonday's blinding light,
On hill and tree,
All lovely things that meet my sight,
All shifting lovelinesses bright,
Speak to my heart with calm delight,
Seeming to be
Cloth'd with enchantment, robed in white,
To sing of thee.
The ways of life are hard and cold
To one alone;
Bitter the strife for place and gold --
We weep and groan:
But when love warms the heart grows bold;
And when our arms the prize enfold,
Dearest! the heart can hardly hold
The bliss unknown,
Unspoken, never to be told --
My own, my own!
poem by James Lionel Michael
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Winter Is White
WINTER IS WHITE
Winter is white
.......dogwood white
..............forgetfulness
......... ..........an empty slate
Winter is windy
.......windless words
..............empty words
....................drifting aimlessly
Winter is cold
.......deedless words
..............barrenness
............ ........suffering cold
What sound goes there?
What meaning fills the void?
These white lies of life
...............blown sands –– no trace
.....................................–– no path
.....................blindness––no seeking
...................................... ––no faith
No seeing here
No leading love
White and no light
White and no sight
White and no flight
- March 6,2008
poem by Ben Gieske
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Bitter Tears
In the mist
Of my endless search
The best in life
Becomes clear
The rest just begins
To fade by itself
Thats a trick I learnt
Though it took so long
Bitter tears taste so sweet
Chorus
Im seeing my way
For the first time in years
When the love around
Begins to suffer
And you cant find love
In one
In one another
Push away those bitter tears
Bitter tears
And I thought I was doing no wrong
And I thought I was doing no wrong
In the hour of your needs
Lips are trembling
Cause youre gonna be free
Realise what were doing here
The time is right to kill your fears
Bitter tears taste so sweet
Chorus
And I thought I was doing no wrong
Push away those bitter tears
Push away those bitter tears
Push away those bitter tears
Push away those bitter tears
Thats what they call doing no wrong
Thats what they call doing no wrong
Push away those bitter tears
Push away those bitter tears
Push away those bitter tears
Thats what they call doing no wrong
song performed by by INXS
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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In The Rose Garden
RED roses bright, pink roses and white
That bud and blossom and fall;
The very sight of my heart's delight
Is more than worth them all!
Is worth far more than the whole sweet store
That ever a garden grew--
She plucked the best to die at her breast,
But it laughed and it bloomed anew!
The red rose lay at her lips to-day,
And flushed with the joy thereof;
She said a word that the white rose heard,
And the white rose paled with love.
But the west wind blows, and my lady goes,
And she leaves the world forlorn;
And every rose that the garden grows,
Might just as well be a thorn!
poem by Edith Nesbit
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Quieta Ne Movete II
IF one should wake one's frozen faith
In sunlight of her radiant eyes,
Bid it forget its dream of death,
In this new dream of Paradise,
Bid it forget the long, slow pain,
The agony when, all in vain,
It fought for life, and how one swore,
Once cold, it should not waken more;
If hope one buried long ago
Should thrill beneath those smiles of hers,
Should in one's sere life stir and grow,
As in brown woods the young spring stirs;
If, breaking icy bonds of grief,
One's soul should start to bud and leaf,
It might forget in that springtide
How last year's leaves fell off and died.
If from warm faith and hope set high
A lovely living child was born,
With lips more pure than starlit sky,
And eyes as clear as summer morn,
Child-love might grow till one forgot
Old love, that was and now is not--
Forgot that far-off time of tears,
And all these desolated years.
And yet of faith, hope, love, one knows
So well what end the years will make,
If one should dig beneath Time's snows
And wake them now for her sweet sake.
New life may mean new joy; but then,
What lives again may die again,
And to that second death there may
Be no new resurrection-day.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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Anaphora
Each day with so much ceremony
begins, with birds, with bells,
with whistles from a factory;
such white-gold skies our eyes
first open on, such brilliant walls
that for a moment we wonder
"Where is the music coming from, the energy?
The day was meant for what ineffable creature
we must have missed?" Oh promptly he
appears and takes his earthly nature
instantly, instantly falls
victim of long intrigue,
assuming memory and mortal
mortal fatigue.
More slowly falling into sight
and showering into stippled faces,
darkening, condensing all his light;
in spite of all the dreaming
squandered upon him with that look,
suffers our uses and abuses,
sinks through the drift of bodies,
sinks through the drift of vlasses
to evening to the beggar in the park
who, weary, without lamp or book
prepares stupendous studies:
the fiery event
of every day in endless
endless assent.
poem by Elizabeth Bishop
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When The Bluebells Bloom
There is so much beauty in Nature but as lovely a thing as I've seen
Is in May when the bluebells are blooming on the ditch along the old bohreen
The wild hyacinths of Mother Nature so lovely and bell like and blue
When the bohreen is lit by bright sunlight they sparkle in the morning dew.
Of the beautiful bluebells of Nature the memory with me remain
On the damp and shady ditch of the bohreem they bloom in the wind and the rain
Surrounded by Nature's leafy greenery where nesting birds whistle and sing
In fancy I can visualize the beauty of the Northern Spring.
In May when the bluebells are blooming birds whistle on the hedgerows and trees
And the wildflowers blooming amongst the long grass are dancing in the freshening breeze
And the hawthorns are heavily laden in their fragile blossoms of white
Than the natural beauty of Nature there's not a more beautiful sight.
When the bluebells bloom by the bohreen the little brown lark upwards fly
And pleasant the sound of his carolling this tiny speck in the Spring sky
And though I now live far from the bohreen in distance almost a World away
I fancy I hear the birds singing in the leafy woodlands of May.
poem by Francis Duggan
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