Art
I
Yes! Beauty still rebels!
Our dreams like clouds disperse:
She dwells
In agate, marble, verse.
No false constraint be thine!
But, for right walking, choose
The fine,
The strict cothurnus, Muse.
Vainly ye seek to escape
The toil! The yielding phrase
Ye shape
Is clay, not chrysoprase.
And all in vain ye scorn
That seeming ease which ne’er
Was born
Of aught but love and care.
Take up the sculptor’s tool!
Recall the gods that die
To rule
In Parian o’er the sky.
II
Poet, let passion sleep
Till with the cosmic rhyme
You keep
Eternal tone and time,
By rule of hour and flower,
By strength of stern restraint
And power
To fail and not to faint.
The task is hard to learn
While all the songs of Spring
Return
Along the blood and sing.
Yet hear—from her deep skies,
How Art, for all your pain,
Still cries
Ye must be born again!
Reject the wreath of rose,
Take up the crown of thorn
That shows
To-night a child is born.
The far immortal face
In chosen onyx fine
Enchase,
Delicate line by line.
Strive with Carrara, fight
With Parian, till there steal
To light
Apollo’s pure profile.
Set the great lucid form
Free from its marble tomb
To storm
The heights of death and doom.
Take up the sculptor’s tool!
Recall the gods that die
To rule
In Parian o’er the sky.
poem by Alfred Noyes
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Related quotes
Born To Rule
Lay down your arms this night
Surrender to the power
Embracing your metal heart
On your final walk through the snow
A hammer made of steel
From the river of blood
With magic, forged in flames
Delusions, a curse of the damned
What do you see?
Imaginary visions or reality
When you're free
Then you'll see that you are bound to rule
Rule - Born - Rule
We were Born to Rule
Rule - Born - Rule
We were Born to Rule
Born to Rule - Born to Rule
We're Born to Rule forever more
Born to Rule - Born to Rule
We're Born to Rule forever
The revolution forced us all to heed the final call
And if tomorrow never comes
Then we will strike the hammer down
Rule - Born - Rule
We were Born to Rule
Rule - Born - Rule
We were Born to Rule
Born to Rule - Born to Rule
We're Born to Rule forever more
Born to Rule - Born to Rule
We're Born to Rule forever
Forever, forever Rule!
song performed by by Hammerfall
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Innuendo
While the sun hangs in the sky and the desert has sand
While the waves crash in the sea and meet the land
While theres a wind and the stars and the rainbow
Till the mountains crumble into the plain
Oh yes well keep on tryin
Tread that fine line
Oh well keep on tryin yeah
Just passing our time
While we live according to race, colour or creed
While we rule by blind madness and pure greed
Our lives dictated by tradition, superstition, false religion
Through the eons, and on and on
Oh yes well keep on tryin
Well tread that fine line
Oh well keep on tryin
Till the end of time
Till the end of time
Through the sorrow all through our splendour
Dont take offence at my innuendo
You can be anything you want to be
Just turn yourself into anything you think that you could ever be
Be free with your tempo, be free be free
Surrender your ego - be free, be free to yourself
Oooh, ooh -
If theres a God or any kind of justice under the sky
If theres a point, if theres a reason to live or die
If theres an answer to the questions we feel bound to ask
Show yourself - destroy our fears - release your mask
Oh yes well keep on trying
Hey tread that fine line
Yeah well keep on smiling yeah
And whatever will be - will be
Well just keep on trying
Well just keep on trying
Till the end of time
Till the end of time
Till the end of time
song performed by by Queen
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Maui Victor
Unhewn in quarry lay the Parian stone,
Ere hands, god-guided, of Praxiteles
Might shape the Cnidian Venus. Long ungrown
The ivory was which, chiselled, robbed of ease
Pygmalion, sculptor-lover. Now are these,
The stone and ivory, immortal made.
The golden apples of Hesperides
Shall never, scattered, in blown dust be laid,
Till Time, the dragon-guard, has lived his last decade.
The Cnidian Venus, Galatea's shape,
A wondering world beheld, as we behold, --
Here, in blest isles beyond the stormy Cape,
Where man the new land dowers with the old,
Are neither marble shapes nor fruits of gold,
Nor white-limbed maidens, queened enchantress-wise;
Here, Nature's beauties no vast ruins enfold,
No glamour fills her such as 'wildering lies
Where Mediterranean waters laugh to Grecian skies.
Acropolis with figure group and frieze,
Parthenon, Temple, concepts born divine,
Where in these Isles are wonders great as these?
Unquarried lies the stone in teeming mine,
Bare is the land of sanctuary and shrine;
But though frail hands no god-like record set
Great Nature's powers are lavish, and combine
In mountain dome, ice-glancing minaret,
Deep fiord, fiery fountain and lake with tree-wove carcanet.
And though the dusky race that to and fro,
Like their own shades, pass by and leave no trace,
No age-contemning works from quick brain throw,
They still have left what Time shall not efface, --
The legends of an isolated race.
Not vainly Maui strove; no, not in vain
He dared the old Mother of Death and her embrace:
That mankind might go free, he suffered pain --
And death he boldly dared, eternal life to gain.
Not death but dormancy the old womb has known,
New love shall quicken it, new life attain:
These legends old in ivory and stone
Shall live their recreated life again, --
Shall wake, like Galatea, to joy and pain.
Legends and myths and wonders; what are these
But glittering mines that long unworked have lain?
A Homer shall unlock with magic keys
Treasure for some antipodean Praxiteles!
poem by Johannes Carl Andersen
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Unintelligent Design
An hour a day,
sometimes more,
I chipped away
with mallet and chisel
on a block of marble
I found in Carrara
and shipped to New York
on the deck of a trawler.
I offered the marble
to a famous sculptor
who told me he works
in granite only
so I grabbed his beret
and one of his smocks
and said I'd sculpt
the block myself
with whittling skills
picked up as a kid
from a drunken uncle
named Whittling Sid.
Several weeks later,
to my surprise,
I finished the bust
of a chimpanzee
simply by wielding
mallet and chisel
the way I wield
pencil and eraser
when hewing a poem.
Working with marble
or working with words,
a sculptor or poet
proves less is more
by chipping away
until something emerges
upright and walking
with a soul of its own.
poem by Donal Mahoney
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Fine Line
You're walking a fine line
You're walking a fine line
You're living on borrowed time
You're walking a fine line
Don't pretend you don't see
What's in front of your eyes
We're scraping the gutter
Or we're touching the skies
There's times when I feel
I'm in the eye of a storm
But there's times when I feel
That we could fly up to the moon
To the moon
You're walking a fine line
You're walking a fine fine line
You're living on borrowed time
You're walking a fine line
I know you agree that
We should try to work it out
It's too good to throw away
I never had a doubt
We're so good together
And there's nothing to prove
Seems we gotta learn
To take the rough times with the smooth
With the smooth
You're walking a fine line
You're walking a fine fine line
You're living on borrowed time
You're walking a fine line
You're walking a fine line
You're living on borrowed time
You're walking a fine line
song performed by by Will Young from From Now On
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Fundamental of Liar Chapter XXXV: Rules part 2
What’s the rule, when money could buy
What’s the rule, when power is absolute
What’s the rule, when feeling involved
What’s the rule, when pride is important
What’s the rule, when look affects
What’s the rule, when victory is a must
What’s the rule, when worlds are vain
What’s the rule, people don’t change
What’s the rule, when good is not always right
What’s the rule, freedom is misunderstood
What’s the rule, anger conquers
What’s the rule, past neglected
What’s the rule, crime that committed
poem by Maria Sudibyo
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Let Love Rule
Love is gentle as a rose
And love can conquer any war
It's time to take a stand
Brothers and sisters join hands
We got to let love rule
Let love rule
We got to let love rule
Let love rule
Love transcends all space and time
And love can make a little child smile
Oh can't you see
This won't go wrong
But we got to be strong
We can't do it alone
We got to let love rule
Let love rule
We got to let love rule
Let love rule
Let love rule
You got to got to got to
Let love rule
You got to got to got to
song performed by by Lenny Kravitz from Let Love Rule
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus
Come, thou long-expected Jesus,
Born to set thy people free;
From our fears and sins release us,
Let us find our rest in thee.
Israel’s strength and consolation,
Hope of all the earth thou art;
Dear desire of every nation,
Joy of every longing heart.
Born thy people to deliver,
Born a child, and yet a King,
Born to reign in us for ever,
Now thy gracious kingdom bring.
By thine own eternal Spirit,
Rule in all our hearts alone:
By thine all-sufficient merit,
Raise us to thy glorious throne. Amen.
poem by Charles Wesley
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Last Prophecy Of Cassandra
THE sun is fading in the skies,
And evening shades are gathering fast;
Fair city, ere that sun shall rise,
Thy night hath come,-thy day is past!
Ye know not,-but the hour is nigh;
Ye will not heed the warning breath;
No vision strikes your clouded eye,
To break the sleep that wakes in death.
Go, age, and let thy withered cheek
Be wet once more with freezing tears;
And bid thy trembling sorrows speak,
In accents of departed years.
Go, child, and pour thy sinless prayer
Before the everlasting throne;
And He, who sits in glory there,
May stoop to hear thy silver tone.
Go, warrior, in thy glittering steel,
And bow thee at the altar's side;
And bid thy frowning gods reveal
The doom their mystic counsels hide.
Go, maiden, in thy flowing veil,
And bare thy brow, and bend thy knee;
When the last hopes of mercy fail,
Thy God may yet remember thee.
Go, as thou didst in happier hours,
And lay thine incense on the shrine;
And greener leaves, and fairer flowers,
Around the sacred image twine.
I saw them rise, the buried dead,
From marble tomb and grassy mound;
I heard the spirits' printless tread,
And voices not of earthly sound.
I looked upon the quivering stream,
And its cold wave was bright with flame;
And wild, as from a fearful dream,
The wasted forms of battle came.
Ye will not hear, ye will not know,
Ye scorn the maniac's idle song;
Ye care not! but the voice of woe
Shall thunder loud, and echo long.
Blood shall be in your marble halls.
And spears shall glance, and fire shall glow;
Ruin shall sit upon your walls,
But ye shall lie in death below.
Ay, none shall live, to hear the storm
Around their blackened pillars sweep;
To shudder at the reptile's form,
Or scare the wild bird from her sleep.
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Daughter of Death
I was born
Born to the blood of angels
Born through the veil of a storm
Born without love inside of me
Born with a need to perform
Born out of vengence
Born out of scorn
Born out of hatred
out of love torn
Born with a mission
Born with a drive
Born with a need
with a need to sruvive.
Now it's time to show you what i'm really about
no more pretentions;
No more frothing at the mouth
there's no use of hiding
all my sins deep inside
I'll wear them on my shoulder like a badge of pride
Cuz i'm the daughter of death
from my very first breath
i'm the daughter of death
blood red as macbeth
living a filthy mess
i'm a daughter of death
just a daughter of death
I was
Raised from buring ashes
Raised with tragic crime
Raised from cries of chaos
Raised on borrowed time
Raised by the darkness
Rasied by the night
Raised by the claws of fright
Raised to be hated
Riased to be loved
Riased to be doomed
By the powers above
poem by Brittany Cook
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To Stang
May Seventeenth in Eidsvold's church united,
To hallow after fifty years the day
When they who there our charter free indited,
Together for our land were met to pray,-
We both were there with thanks to those great men,
With thanks to God, who to our people then
In days of danger courage gave unbounded.
And when so mighty through the church now sounded
'Praise ye the Lord!' lifting our pallid prayer
To fellowship with all her sons, our brothers,
I saw you, child-like, weep in secret there
Upon the breast we love, our common mother's.
Then I remembered that from boyhood's hour
With all your strength to serve her you have striven,
Your youthful fire, your counsel cool have given,
And till it waned, your manhood's wealth of power.
With blessing then and praise of you I thought
In thankful prayer, as one of those who fought
To shield our land from storms of fate's hard weather,
Till 'neath the roof in peace we sat together.
Of you I thought;-but so think few and fewer.
Your manhood's fame ere you yourself has crumbled,
And you, alas, will not find justice truer,
Till you and yours one day have fallen, humbled.
For see, the roads you drew o'er hill and plain
For all our people's onward-pressing longing,
You dare not travel with the joyous train,
That greater grows while towards its future thronging.
You knew not what it was your labor wrought,
When steam and powder, bursting every barrier,
Gave new-born cravings each its speedy carrier
And to the people's spirit power brought.
The new day's work, as 't were the tempest's welter,
In din about you seemed a dream, a fable,
And with your like you built in fear a shelter
From soul-unrest, a looming tower of Babel.
While now you wait for the impending fight,
With gentle eye and stately head all hoary,
And o'er the mountains gleams the morning's glory,-
Your foes half hid amid the mists of night,-
As from an outpost in the wooded wild,
These words I send, of peace a token mild.
You fear the people? 'Tis your own that rally,
And like the fog arisen from the valley.
You think them rebels, void of sense and oneness?
Yes, spring's full floods obey no rule precise;
Storm-squalls and slush render the roads less nice,
The snow's pure white is partly soiled to dunness.
But spring is born! The man of genius free,
Prophetic, heeds its holy harmony;
For genius shares the soul of what shall be.
This you have not and never had an hour,
And so you shrink before the people's power.
You were a foreman with the gift of leading,
When pioneers cleared up a pathless tract;
Your lucid thinking and your gracious tact
Oft helped them over obstacles impeding.
But what new growths the ancient fields have filled,
From western seed to feed our land's wants tilled,
And what new light shines through your window-pane,
Longing for truth beneath religion's reign,
And what new things but whispering we say,-
And what foretells the dawning reckoning-day,-
You fail to understand and find but madness
In our young nation's fairest growth and gladness.
You answer: Poet's deeming is but dreaming,
And in the statesman's art most unbeseeming.
I answer: None has might men's life to sway,
If impotent the worth of dreams to weigh.
From cravings, powers that seek their form, ascending,
They fill the air; their right to be defending,
Till all men wakened to one goal are tending.
His nation's dreams are all the statesman's life,
Create his might, direct his aim in strife,
And if he this forgets, the next dreams blooming
Bring forth another, unto death him dooming.
The tempest-clouds that mount afresh and thicken
Cannot so dense before the morn's light hover
That we may not through cloud-rifts clear discover
Great thoughts that new-born victories shall quicken.
Such thoughts are radiant over me to-day,
And to my heart the warmer blood is streaming,
And all we live for, all that we are dreaming,
Its summons sends and strengthens for the fray.
The war-horns soon beneath the woods shall bray,
Through dewy night th' assailing columns dash,
Amid the sudden gleams of shot and slash
The fog dissolve before our new-born day.
Soon, though you threaten, will the heights be taken
For future ages, and our nation's soul
Can thence o'erlook the land in might unshaken,
With even hand and right to rule the whole.
It soon shall roll war's billows on to battle,
While from the clouds the fathers' weapons rattle!
O aged man, look round you where you stand,
For soon you have against you all our land.
But when you fall defeated on the field,
Then shall we say by your inverted shield:
He stood against us, since he knew not better,
A noble knight and never honor's debtor.
poem by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Apathy rages unchecked
The time has come for real debate about the power of the state.
to interfere with liberties we have enjoyed for centuries.
Encouraged by our apathy the state moves forward stealthily
towards its long desired goal exerting power and control.
Reducing our right to choose intolerant of other views
The state knows best their constant theme as secretly they plot and scheme
To alter the existing laws and thus gain power to enforce
Further curbs on liberty, stealing power insidiously.
The time has come to call a halt, root out the guilty men at fault.
Strip them of all authority which they obtained dishonestly.
Remind them that the people rule. The government is just a tool
which we employ to do a task, or is that far too much to ask.
I am free born a citizen, a man just like all other men
I do not need a nanny state which has the power to dictate.
to tell me what to eat and drink and try to tell me what to think.
It’s time the people aired their views and stated firmly they refuse
to allow any government to act without their full consent.
Is this a democracy? to me it doesn’t seem to be.
Although you may reject my views while you have the power to choose.
15-Feb-08
poem by Ivor Or Ivor.e Hogg
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Power and life... By ajreeves wooo 13 last week
fallen power will kill us all,
greed,
destruction,
will make us fall,
why does no-one see fit to see,
relentless of personality,
that whereever there is a soul out there,
we where made!
made to care!
Money was not given to rule!
niether was war, war was a tool!
war was a tool of greed and doom!
forever incripted and elapsed in gloom!
we where made! As luck may have it!
to be as one and always show it!
give our love to those need!
need more than us and we need to feed!
give light to those who drown in sorrow!
and always sleep ready for tomorow!
poem by Ashley Reeves
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The Nightingale and the Rose
The song, it echoed sweetly
This melody of purity so fine
To cause this bud to life
To cause this rose to form
The price to pay… the thorn
This precious price to pay with life
Pressed against the heart of purity
So pure this gentle heart
For in the name of love was formed
This rose so red, so rare
And with this blood so red
This sad song so sweet this night so long.
Until the thorn so sharp did pierce
This gentle feathered heart
And spilled the blood to form
This red rose, so rare.
And as her song of love grew faint
And as her life it spilled unto the rose
The dawn approached to quicken this endeavour
Lest this rose of love be less than perfect formed
As wilder grew her song so sweet of love
As bitter grew the pain as life it ebbed
So slowly born this death that does not die
So one heart grew the other passed away.
Borne on the wind this melody of song
This song so sweet to cause to life
This rose of blood, of love, of pain and tears
And yet so easily cast into a gutter.
poem by Mike Shanahan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Red Pencil
Red Pencil
R ed pencil with magic flair
E nrichment while in school
D ancing red marks are everywhere
Red pencil; teachers’ tool
Red pencil marks, to make it right
I studied hard with all my might
Red pencil marks
Red pencil marks
I passed the test to my delight
P encil red is the teachers’ tool
E dified magic wand
N ebulous to the Golden Rule
C lassroom and teacher bond
I want to teach, want to be free
L ife as a teacher, that’s for me
I want to teach
I want to teach
Some day I’ll teach, Form Poetry
Red pencil, with magic flair
I studied hard in school
I’m now a teacher; answered prayer
Red pencil is my tool
I’m a teacher, I live my dream
Teaching poetry to the extreme
I’m a teacher
I’m a teacher
And my red pencil is supreme
Author Notes:
Acrostic Trijan Refrain
Trijan Refrain
The Trijan Refrain, created by Jan Turner, consists of three 9-line stanzas, for a total of 27 lines. Line 1 is the same in all three stanzas, although a variation of the form is not to repeat the same line at the beginning of each stanza. In other words, the beginning line of each stanza can be different. The first four syllables of line 5 in each stanza are repeated as the double-refrain for lines 7 and 8. The Trijan Refrain is a rhyming poem with a set meter and rhyme scheme as follows:
Rhyme scheme: a/b/a/b/c/c/d, d refrain of first 4 words of line five /c
Meter: 8/6/8/6/8/8/4,4 refrain/8
source: shadowpoetry.com
poem by Amera Andersen
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Epode
BEYOND the Night, down o'er the labouring East,
I see light's harbinger of day released:
Upon the false gleam of the ante-dawn,
Lo, the fair heaven of sun-pursuing morn.
Beyond the lampless sleep and perishing death,
That hold my heart, I feel my New Life's breath, —
I see the face my Spirit-shape shall have
When this frail clay and dust have fled the grave.
Beyond the Night, the death of doubt, defeat,
Rise dawn and morn, and life with light doth meet,
For the great cause, too, — sure as the Sun, you ray
Shoots up to strike the threatening clouds and say:
I come, and with me comes the victorious Day!
When I was young, the Muse I worshipped took me,
Fearless, a lonely heart, to look on men.
''Tis yours,' said she, 'to paint this show of them
Even as they are.' Then smiling she forsook me.
Wherefore with passionate patience I withdrew,
With eyes from which all loves, hates, hopes and fears,
Joy's aureole and the blinding sheen of tears,
Were purged away. And what I saw I drew.
Then, as I worked remote, serene, alone,
A Child-girl came to me and touched my cheek;
And lo her lips were pale, her limbs were weak,
Her eyes had thirst's desire and hunger's moan.
She said: 'I am the Soul of this sad day
Where thousands toil and suffer hideous Crime,
Where units rob and mock the empty time
With revel and rank prayer and death's display.'
I said: 'O Child, how shall I leave my songs,
My songs and tales, the warp and subtle woof
Of this great work and web, in your behoof
To strive and passionately sing of wrongs?
'Child, is it nothing that I here fulfil
My heart and soul? that I may look and see
Where Homer bends, and Shakspere smiles on me,
And Goethe praises the unswerving will?'
She hung her head, and straight, without a word,
Passed from me. And I raised my conscious face
To where, in beauteous power in her place,
She stood, the Muse, my Muse, and watched and heard.
Her proud and marble brow was faintly flushed;
Upon her flawless lips and in her eyes
A mild light flickered as the young sunrise,
Glad, sacred, terrible, serene and hushed.
Then I cried out, and rose with pure wrath wild,
Desperate with hatred of Fate's slavery
And this cold cruel Demon. With that cry,
I left her and sought out the piteous Child.
'Darling, 'tis nothing that I shed and weep
These tears of fire that wither all the heart,
These bloody sweats that drain and sear and smart.
I love you, and you'll kiss me when I sleep!'
poem by Francis William Lauderdale Adams
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Power Of Thy Sword
Lord of battle I pray on bended knee conquest by the rising sun
I'll wait for thy command with flame and blood at hand
glory and a broken sword.
I'm the master of the world I have no fear of man or beast
Born inside the soul of the world
Riding hard breaking bone with steel and stone
Eternal might I was born to wield.
Let us drink to the battles we've lived and we've fought
Celebrate the pain and havoc we have wrought
Great heroes charge into the fight
From the north to the south in the black of night
The clash of honor calls to stand when others fall
Gods of war feel the power of my sword
Drink to the battles we've lived and we've fought
Celebrate the pain and havoc we have wrought
Great heroes charge into the fight
From the north to the south in the black of night
Fierce is my blade fierce is my hate born to die in battle
I laugh at my fate
Now pay in blood when your blood has been spilled
You're never forgiven death is fulfilled !
The clash of honor calls to stand when others fall
Gods of war feel the power of my sword
The clash of honor calls
I will stand when others fall
Open magic doors
The will know the power of my sword
There is blood in my hands there is blood in my eyes
With blood in my voice I scream as you die
Thirsting for vengeance and mounds of the slain
Shaking the forest onto the plain
Fierce is my blade fierce is my hate born to die in battle
I laugh at my fate
Now pay in blood when your blood has been spilled
You're never forgiven death is fulfilled !
The clash of honor calls to stand when others fall
Gods of war feel the power of my sword
Know the power of my sword
Know the power of my sword
Know the power of my sword
Know the power of my sword
They will know the power of my sword
song performed by by Manowar from The Triumph Of Steel
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Nevers of Poetry
Never say aught in verse, or grave or gay,
That you in prose would hesitate to say.
Never in rhyme pretend to tears, unless
True feeling sheds them in unfeigned distress;
Or some dream-grief, with such a mournful strain
As night winds make in pine tops, stirs your brain,
To shake them, dew-like, o’er the flowers that bloom
In the wild dark, round Joy’s imagined tomb;
Or save when doubts that over Love may lower,
Like summer clouds, break in a sunny shower
Out of your gladdened eyes, to freshen all
The bowers of memory with their grateful fall.
Never too much affect that polished thing—
Once belauded—known as point, or sting.
The highest and the noblest growths of wit
Are never, or but seldom, touched with it.
For of the muse it is not truly born
Unless the apex of some burst of scorn,
Or irony, or hate all torture-torn!
Not to increase the passion, but to make
The wave, full surging, on its object break.
Never, if you’d be readable at all,
Aim overmuch at being ethical.
Though she should be a teacher, still the Muse
To be a mere schoolmistress should refuse.
She should instruct us, but her methods never
Be academic ones, however clever.
Her morals, like great nature’s morals, aye
Should work themselves out in an unforced way,
And not so patly as to hint the while
At cryptic ingenuities of style.
Whate’er the theme, her ethic lights should shine
Full forth, as from a central heat divine,
Or heat inherent to the passion, wrought
Into the chastened harmony of thought;
And not be mere extraneous coals of fire
Blown for the nonce into factitious ire.
Though sone has oft some beauty most divine,
Which well we feel, yet cannot well define—
Some yearning excellence, intense and far,
Coming and going like a clouded star—
Some awful glory we but half descry,
Like a strong sunset in a stormy sky—
Yet ne’er be murky of set purpose, since
You only thereby shall the more evince
That even the Sublime’s but then made sure
When, like a morning alp, it breaks from the obscure.
Never heed whether a line strictly goes
By learned rule, if, brook-like, it warble as it flows,
Or if, in concord with the thought, it fills
Fast forward, like a torrent fast flooding from the hills.
Never say aught is “fading like a star”
Because receding in the past afar,
Since stars do not fade, but shine on no less,
Thought lost in light to our weaksightedness;
And no true trope should ever rest on fancy,
But claim a universal relevancy;
Nor think a line is racy to the core,
And bold, and bravely eloquent, the more
It striving seems to tear itself asunder,
Like this—“Down there i’ the deep heart o’ the thunder,”
But for which, surely (out of chaos), none
Might feign to find a sanction, save in fun.
Never think harshness the best foil to raise
And relish sweetness; for love craggy lays.
Yet never be you glib, when passion’s force
Should ridge your style, as by a tempest hoarse
The deep is roughened into waves that roar
At heaven—upheaping, huddling, more and more,
To burst at last in booming thunder on the shore.
Never be such a pagan as to deem
That truth or beauty must diviner seem
For some abnormal set-off, hunched and rude,
Prowling for evil in the neighbourhood,
If such strange opposite breathe not the air
Of nature—being found, not conjured there;
And never to be graceless be you fain,
Till to be graceful you have tried in vain.
Never be cheated—never may you be!—
Into the cramp belief that poesy
Must of necessity in soul be one
With the mere form of verse if it but deftly run;
Or pour, as with a mill-wheel’s vigorous cheer,
A rhyming clatter hard upon the ear.
Never believe that verse a license knows
For aught that would be balderdash in prose,
Or that all reason may at any time
Find a sufficient substitute in rhyme;
Or that because with many words you re fraught,
There must be under them some flood of thought.
Never compel a simile that wont
Take service without forcing; if it don t,
As of itself, into your verses flow,
But true to liberty—and let it go.
Never reject a homely-sounding phrase,
That your whole meaning easily conveys,
For one made current by some courtly wit
Which barely indicates a shade of it,
Or which—for probably it so may fall—
Does not express what you would mean at all.
Never suppose that you in song are free
To strain all praise, and make it flattery.
To sing of the heroic is to raise
One value by another—but to praise
Mere clowns, in verse, or natures lean and cold,
Is like to setting gravel stones in gold.
Never exalt vagaries to a station
But due to flights of the imagination—
Gas-charged balloons, put vainly all a-bloat,
For clouds of God that in the orient float;
Theatric thunders, all set brattling for
The dread all-shaking tempest-trumps of Thor;
For in the end all charlatanry must,
The more it startle, but the more disgust.
And lastly, never take for gospel all
Your friends say of your genius, when they call
Its merits o’er; but at the same time see
That you do never take yourself to be
So great an ass as your known foes declare
They do most solemnly believe you are.
[Each embryo poet, profit by my strain!
Then shall men say, “He has not lived in vain! ”]
poem by Charles Harpur
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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A Souvenir
YES, lady! I can ne'er forget,
That once in other years we met;
Thy memory may perchance recall
A festal eve, a rose-wreathed hall,
Its tapers' blaze, its mirrors' glance,
Its melting song, its ringing glance;
Why, in thy dream of virgin joy,
Shouldst thou recall a pallid boy?
Thine eye had other forms to seek,
Why rest upon his bashful cheek?
With other tones thy heart was stirred,
Why waste on him a gentle word?
We parted, lady, all night long
Thine ear to thrill with dance and song,
And I to weep that I was born
A thing thou scarce wouldst deign to scorn.
And, lady! now that years have past,
My bark has reached the shore at last;
The gales that filled her ocean wing,
Have chilled and shrunk thy hasty spring,
And eye to eye, and brow to brow,
I stand before thy presence now;
Thy lip is smoothed, thy voice is sweet,
Thy warm hand offered when we meet.
Nay, lady! 't is not now for me
To droop the lid or bend the knee.
I seek thee, oh thou dost not shun;
I speak, thou listenest like a nun;
I ask thy smile, thy lip uncurls,
Too liberal of its flashing pearls ;
Thy tears, thy lashes sing again,
My Hebe turns to Magdalen !
O changing youth ! that evening hour
Looked down on ours, the bud the flower :
Thine faded in its virgin soil.
And mine was nursed in tears and toil;
Thy leaves were withering:, one by one,
While mine were opening to the sun.
Which now can meet the cold and storm,
With freshest leaf and hardiest form ?
Ay, lady ! that once haughty glance
Still wanders through the glittering dance,
She asks in vain from others' pride,
The charity thine own denied ;
And as thy fickle lips could learn
To smile and praise, that used to spurn,
So the last offering on thy shrine
Shall be this flattering lay of mine!
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
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An Earnest Prayer to God
God, rule my tongue, my works, my thought;
God, rule my mind, body, and heart;
God, rule all gifts from You I got;
God, rule my will, forget-me-not.
God, rule all things, my every part;
God, rule my actions from the start;
God, rule my soul, guide it with art;
God, rule my life till I depart!
Copyright by Dr John Celes 11-15-2006
poem by John Celes
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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