Autumn And Winter
Three months bade wane and wax the wintering moon
Between two dates of death, while men were fain
Yet of the living light that all too soon
Three months bade wane.
Cold autumn, wan with wrath of wind and rain,
Saw pass a soul sweet as the sovereign tune
That death smote silent when he smote again.
First went my friend, in life's mid light of noon,
Who loved the lord of music: then the strain
Whence earth was kindled like as heaven in June
Three months bade wane.
A herald soul before its master's flying
Touched by some few moons first the darkling goal
Where shades rose up to greet the shade, espying
A herald soul;
Shades of dead lords of music, who control
Men living by the might of men undying,
With strength of strains that make delight of dole.
The deep dense dust on death's dim threshold lying
Trembled with sense of kindling sound that stole
Through darkness, and the night gave ear, descrying
A herald soul.
One went before, one after, but so fast
They seem gone hence together, from the shore
Whence we now gaze: yet ere the mightier passed
One went before;
One whose whole heart of love, being set of yore
On that high joy which music lends us, cast
Light round him forth of music's radiant store.
Then went, while earth on winter glared aghast,
The mortal god he worshipped, through the door
Wherethrough so late, his lover to the last,
One went before.
A star had set an hour before the sun
Sank from the skies wherethrough his heart's pulse yet
Thrills audibly: but few took heed, or none,
A star had set.
All heaven rings back, sonorous with regret,
The deep dirge of the sunset: how should one
Soft star be missed in all the concourse met?
But, O sweet single heart whose work is done,
Whose songs are silent, how should I forget
That ere the sunset's fiery goal was won
A star had set?
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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Music: An Ode
WAS it light that spake from the darkness,
or music that shone from the word,
When the night was enkindled with sound
of the sun or the first-born bird?
Souls enthralled and entrammelled in bondage
of seasons that fall and rise,
Bound fast round with the fetters of flesh,
and blinded with light that dies,
Lived not surely till music spake,
and the spirit of life was heard.
Music, sister of sunrise, and herald of life to be,
Smiled as dawn on the spirit of man,
and the thrall was free.
Slave of nature and serf of time,
the bondman of life and death,
Dumb with passionless patience that breathed
but forlorn and reluctant breath,
Heard, beheld, and his soul made answer,
and communed aloud with the sea.
Morning spake, and he heard:
and the passionate silent noon
Kept for him not silence:
and soft from the mounting moon
Fell the sound of her splendour,
heard as dawn's in the breathless night,
Not of men but of birds whose note
bade man's soul quicken and leap to light:
And the song of it spake, and the light and the darkness
of earth were as chords in tune.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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A Channel Crossing
Forth from Calais, at dawn of night, when sunset summer on autumn shone,
Fared the steamer alert and loud through seas whence only the sun was gone:
Soft and sweet as the sky they smiled, and bade man welcome: a dim sweet hour
Gleamed and whispered in wind and sea, and heaven was fair as a field in flower,
Stars fulfilled the desire of the darkling world as with music: the star-bright air
Made the face of the sea, if aught may make the face of the sea, more fair.
Whence came change? Was the sweet night weary of rest? What anguish awoke in the dark?
Sudden, sublime, the strong storm spake: we heard the thunders as hounds that bark.
Lovelier if aught may be lovelier than stars, we saw the lightnings exalt the sky,
Living and lustrous and rapturous as love that is born but to quicken and lighten and die.
Heaven's own heart at its highest of delight found utterance in music and semblance in fire:
Thunder on thunder exulted, rejoicing to live and to satiate the night's desire.
And the night was alive and an-hungered of life as a tiger from toils cast free:
And a rapture of rage made joyous the spirit and strength of the soul of the sea.
All the weight of the wind bore down on it, freighted with death for fraught:
And the keen waves kindled and quickened as things transfigured or things distraught.
And madness fell on them laughing and leaping; and madness came on the wind:
And the might and the light and the darkness of storm were as storm in the heart of Ind.
Such glory, such terror, such passion, as lighten and harrow the far fierce East,
Rang, shone, spake, shuddered around us: the night was an altar with death for priest.
The channel that sunders England from shores where never was man born free
Was clothed with the likeness and thrilled with the strength and the wrath of a tropic sea.
As a wild steed ramps in rebellion, and rears till it swerves from a backward fall,
The strong ship struggled and reared, and her deck was upright as a sheer cliff's wall.
Stern and prow plunged under, alternate: a glimpse, a recoil, a breath,
And she sprang as the life in a god made man would spring at the throat of death.
Three glad hours, and it seemed not an hour of supreme and supernal joy,
Filled full with delight that revives in remembrance a sea-bird's heart in a boy.
For the central crest of the night was cloud that thundered and flamed, sublime
As the splendour and song of the soul everlasting that quickens the pulse of time.
The glory beholden of man in a vision, the music of light overheard,
The rapture and radiance of battle, the life that abides in the fire of a word,
In the midmost heaven enkindled, was manifest far on the face of the sea,
And the rage in the roar of the voice of the waters was heard but when heaven breathed free.
Far eastward, clear of the covering of cloud, the sky laughed out into light
From the rims of the storm to the sea's dark edge with flames that were flowerlike and white.
The leaping and luminous blossoms of live sheet lightning that laugh as they fade
From the cloud's black base to the black wave's brim rejoiced in the light they made.
Far westward, throned in a silent sky, where life was in lustrous tune,
Shone, sweeter and surer than morning or evening, the steadfast smile of the moon.
The limitless heaven that enshrined them was lovelier than dreams may behold, and deep
As life or as death, revealed and transfigured, may shine on the soul through sleep.
All glories of toil and of triumph and passion and pride that it yearns to know
Bore witness there to the soul of its likeness and kinship, above and below.
The joys of the lightnings, the songs of the thunders, the strong sea's labour and rage,
Were tokens and signs of the war that is life and is joy for the soul to wage.
No thought strikes deeper or higher than the heights and the depths that the night made bare,
Illimitable, infinite, awful and joyful, alive in the summit of air--
Air stilled and thrilled by the tempest that thundered between its reign and the sea's,
Rebellious, rapturous, and transient as faith or as terror that bows men's knees.
No love sees loftier and fairer the form of its godlike vision in dreams
Than the world shone then, when the sky and the sea were as love for a breath's length seems--
One utterly, mingled and mastering and mastered and laughing with love that subsides
As the glad mad night sank panting and satiate with storm, and released the tides.
In the dense mid channel the steam-souled ship hung hovering, assailed and withheld
As a soul born royal, if life or if death be against it, is thwarted and quelled.
As the glories of myriads of glow-worms in lustrous grass on a boundless lawn
Were the glories of flames phosphoric that made of the water a light like dawn.
A thousand Phosphors, a thousand Hespers, awoke in the churning sea,
And the swift soft hiss of them living and dying was clear as a tune could be;
As a tune that is played by the fingers of death on the keys of life or of sleep,
Audible alway alive in the storm, too fleet for a dream to keep:
Too fleet, too sweet for a dream to recover and thought to remember awake:
Light subtler and swifter than lightning, that whispers and laughs in the live storm's wake,
In the wild bright wake of the storm, in the dense loud heart of the labouring hour,
A harvest of stars by the storm's hand reaped, each fair as a star-shaped flower.
And sudden and soft as the passing of sleep is the passing of tempest seemed
When the light and the sound of it sank, and the glory was gone as a dream half dreamed.
The glory, the terror, the passion that made of the midnight a miracle, died,
Not slain at a stroke, nor in gradual reluctance abated of power and of pride;
With strong swift subsidence, awful as power that is wearied of power upon earth,
As a God that were wearied of power upon heaven, and were fain of a new God's birth,
The might of the night subsided: the tyranny kindled in darkness fell:
And the sea and the sky put off them the rapture and radiance of heaven and of hell.
The waters, heaving and hungering at heart, made way, and were wellnigh fain,
For the ship that had fought them, and wrestled, and revelled in labour, to cease from her pain.
And an end was made of it: only remembrance endures of the glad loud strife;
And the sense that a rapture so royal may come not again in the passage of life.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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The Death Of Richard Wagner
Mourning on earth, as when dark hours descend,
Wide-winged with plagues, from heaven; when hope and mirth
Wane, and no lips rebuke or reprehend
Mourning on earth.
The soul wherein her songs of death and birth,
Darkness and light, were wont to sound and blend,
Now silent, leaves the whole world less in worth.
Winds that make moan and triumph, skies that bend,
Thunders, and sound of tides in gulf and firth,
Spake through his spirit of speech, whose death should send
Mourning on earth.
The world's great heart, whence all things strange and rare
Take form and sound, that each inseparate part
May bear its burden in all tuned thoughts that share
The world's great heart -
The fountain forces, whence like steeds that start
Leap forth the powers of earth and fire and air,
Seas that revolve and rivers that depart -
Spake, and were turned to song: yea, all they were,
With all their works, found in his mastering art
Speech as of powers whose uttered word laid bare
The world's great heart.
From the depths of the sea, from the wellsprings of earth, from the wastes of the midmost night,
From the fountains of darkness and tempest and thunder, from heights where the soul would be,
The spell of the mage of music evoked their sense, as an unknown light
From the depths of the sea.
As a vision of heaven from the hollows of ocean, that none but a god might see,
Rose out of the silence of things unknown of a presence, a form, a might,
And we heard as a prophet that hears God's message against him, and may not flee.
Eye might not endure it, but ear and heart with a rapture of dark delight,
With a terror and wonder whose core was joy, and a passion of thought set free,
Felt inly the rising of doom divine as a sundawn risen to sight
From the depths of the sea.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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The sound of music.......
The sound of music gives us so much emotions
and that plays a melody deep in our heart greatly
All the sound on the earth are like music
and the music brings love and enjoyment to our life
Music expresses universal language of the world
and brings people together where ever they live
The music is the best gift of God to all of us
where its fills our soul with peace and mind with creativity
Every music has its own rhythm
and it's creates a great sound of music
Music in the mountain brings peace in our heart
and music in the ocean fills our soul with love
When I hear the sound of music
then I begin to write a song as a soul of music
If you don't love the sound of music
then your soul will be unsung
Because music can put life in to a dead man
Ravi Sathasivam / Sri Lanka
Copyright @2006 Ravi Sathasivam
poem by Ravi Sathasivam
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A Dead Friend
I.
Gone, O gentle heart and true,
Friend of hopes foregone,
Hopes and hopeful days with you
Gone?
Days of old that shone
Saw what none shall see anew,
When we gazed thereon.
Soul as clear as sunlit dew,
Why so soon pass on,
Forth from all we loved and knew
Gone?
II.
Friend of many a season fled,
What may sorrow send
Toward thee now from lips that said
'Friend'?
Sighs and songs to blend
Praise with pain uncomforted
Though the praise ascend?
Darkness hides no dearer head:
Why should darkness end
Day so soon, O dear and dead
Friend?
III.
Dear in death, thou hast thy part
Yet in life, to cheer
Hearts that held thy gentle heart
Dear.
Time and chance may sear
Hope with grief, and death may part
Hand from hand's clasp here:
Memory, blind with tears that start,
Sees through every tear
All that made thee, as thou art,
Dear.
IV.
True and tender, single-souled,
What should memory do
Weeping o'er the trust we hold
True?
Known and loved of few,
But of these, though small their fold,
Loved how well were you!
Change, that makes of new things old,
Leaves one old thing new;
Love which promised truth, and told
True.
V.
Kind as heaven, while earth's control
Still had leave to bind
Thee, thy heart was toward man's whole
Kind.
Thee no shadows blind
Now: the change of hours that roll
Leaves thy sleep behind.
Love, that hears thy death-bell toll
Yet, may call to mind
Scarce a soul as thy sweet soul
Kind.
VI.
How should life, O friend, forget
Death, whose guest art thou?
Faith responds to love's regret,
How?
Still, for us that bow
Sorrowing, still, though life be set,
Shines thy bright mild brow.
Yea, though death and thou be met,
Love may find thee now
Still, albeit we know not yet
How.
VII.
Past as music fades, that shone
While its life might last;
As a song-bird's shadow flown
Past!
Death's reverberate blast
Now for music's lord has blown
Whom thy love held fast.
Dead thy king, and void his throne:
Yet for grief at last
Love makes music of his own
Past.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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A Baby's Death
A little soul scarce fledged for earth
Takes wing with heaven again for goal
Even while we hailed as fresh from birth
A little soul.
Our thoughts ring sad as bells that toll,
Not knowing beyond this blind world's girth
What things are writ in heaven's full scroll.
Our fruitfulness is there but dearth,
And all things held in time's control
Seem there, perchance, ill dreams, not worth
A little soul.
The little feet that never trod
Earth, never strayed in field or street,
What hand leads upward back to God
The little feet?
A rose in June's most honied heat,
When life makes keen the kindling sod,
Was not so soft and warm and sweet.
Their pilgrimage's period
A few swift moons have seen complete
Since mother's hands first clasped and shod
The little feet.
The little hands that never sought
Earth's prizes, worthless all as sands,
What gift has death, God's servant, brought
The little hands?
We ask: but love's self silent stands,
Love, that lends eyes and wings to thought
To search where death's dim heaven expands.
Ere this, perchance, though love know nought,
Flowers fill them, grown in lovelier lands,
Where hands of guiding angels caught
The little hands.
The little eyes that never knew
Light other than of dawning skies,
What new life now lights up anew
The little eyes?
Who knows but on their sleep may rise
Such light as never heaven let through
To lighten earth from Paradise?
No storm, we know, may change the blue
Soft heaven that haply death descries
No tears, like these in ours, bedew
The little eyes.
Was life so strange, so sad the sky,
So strait the wide world's range,
He would not stay to wonder why
Was life so strange?
Was earth's fair house a joyless grange
Beside that house on high
Whence Time that bore him failed to estrange?
That here at once his soul put by
All gifts of time and change,
And left us heavier hearts to sigh
'Was life so strange?'
Angel by name love called him, seeing so fair
The sweet small frame;
Meet to be called, if ever man's child were,
Angel by name.
Rose-bright and warm from heaven's own heart he came,
And might not bear
The cloud that covers earth's wan face with shame.
His little light of life was all too rare
And soft a flame:
Heaven yearned for him till angels hailed him there
Angel by name.
The song that smiled upon his birthday here
Weeps on the grave that holds him undefiled
Whose loss makes bitterer than a soundless tear
The song that smiled.
His name crowned once the mightiest ever styled
Sovereign of arts, and angel: fate and fear
Knew then their master, and were reconciled.
But we saw born beneath some tenderer sphere
Michael, an angel and a little child,
Whose loss bows down to weep upon his bier
The song that smiled.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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The Invitation
BEST and brightest, come away!
Fairer far than this fair Day,
Which, like thee to those in sorrow,
Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow
To the rough Year just awake
In its cradle on the brake.
The brightest hour of unborn Spring,
Through the winter wandering,
Found, it seems, the halcyon Morn
To hoar February born.
Bending from heaven, in azure mirth,
It kiss'd the forehead of the Earth;
And smiled upon the silent sea;
And bade the frozen streams be free;
And waked to music all their fountains;
And breathed upon the frozen mountains;
And like a prophetess of May
Strew'd flowers upon the barren way,
Making the wintry world appear
Like one on whom thou smilest, dear.
Away, away, from men and towns,
To the wild wood and the downs--
To the silent wilderness
Where the soul need not repress
Its music lest it should not find
An echo in another's mind,
While the touch of Nature's art
Harmonizes heart to heart.
I leave this notice on my door
For each accustom'd visitor:--
'I am gone into the fields
To take what this sweet hour yields.
Reflection, you may come to-morrow;
Sit by the fireside with Sorrow.
You with the unpaid bill, Despair,--
You, tiresome verse-reciter, Care,--
I will pay you in the grave,--
Death will listen to your stave.
Expectation too, be off!
To-day is for itself enough.
Hope, in pity mock not Woe
With smiles, nor follow where I go;
Long having lived on your sweet food,
At length I find one moment's good
After long pain: with all your love,
This you never told me of.'
Radiant Sister of the Day,
Awake! arise! and come away!
To the wild woods and the plains;
And the pools where winter rains
Image all their roof of leaves;
Where the pine its garland weaves
Of sapless green and ivy dun
Round stems that never kiss the sun;
Where the lawns and pastures be,
And the sandhills of the sea;
Where the melting hoar-frost wets
The daisy-star that never sets,
And wind-flowers, and violets
Which yet join not scent to hue,
Crown the pale year weak and new;
When the night is left behind
In the deep east, dun and blind,
And the blue noon is over us,
And the multitudinous
Billows murmur at our feet
Where the earth and ocean meet,
And all things seem only one
In the universal sun.
poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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To A Departed Spirit
From the bright stars, or from the viewless air,
Or from some world unreached by human thought,
Spirit, sweet spirit! if thy home be there,
And if thy visions with the past be fraught,
Answer me, answer me!
Have we not communed here of life and death?
Have we not said that love, such love as ours,
Was not to perish as a rose's breath,
To melt away, like song from festal bowers?
Answer me, answer me!
Thine eye's last light was mine - the soul thtat shone
Intensely, mournfully, through gathering haze -
Didst thou bear with thee to the shore unknown,
Nought of what lived in that long, earnest gaze!
Hear, hear, and answer me!
Thy voice - its low, soft, fervent, farewell tone
Thrilled through the tempest of the parting strife,
Like a faint breeze: - oh, from that music flown,
Send back
one
sound, if love's be quenchless life,
But once, oh! answer me!
In the still noontide, in the sunset's hush,
In the dead hour of night, when thought grows deep,
When the heart's phantoms from the darkness rush,
Fearfully beautiful, to strive with sleep -
Spirit! then answer me!
By the remembrance of our blended prayer;
By all our tears, whose mingling made them sweet
By our last hope, the victor o'er despair; -
Speak! if our souls in deathless yearnings meet;
Answer me, answer me!
The grave is silent: - and the far-off sky,
And the deep midnight - silent all, and lone!
Oh! if thy buried love make no reply,
What voice has earth! - Hear, pity, speak, mine own!
Answer me, answer me!
poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans
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Adieux à Marie Stuart
I.
QUEEN, for whose house my fathers fought,
With hopes that rose and fell,
Red star of boyhood’s fiery thought,
Farewell
They gave their lives, and I, my queen,
Have given you of my life,
Seeing your brave star burn high between
Men’s strife.
The strife that lightened round their spears
Long since fell still: so long
Hardly may hope to last in years
My song.
But still through strife of time and thought
Your light on me too fell:
Queen, in whose name we sang or fought,
Farewell.
II.
There beats no heart on either border
Wherethrough the north blasts blow
But keeps your memory as a warder
His beacon-fire aglow.
Long since it fired with love and wonder
Mine, for whose April age
Blithe midsummer made banquet under
The shade of Hermitage.
Soft sang the burn’s blithe notes, that gather
Strength to ring true:
And air and trees and sun and heather
Remembered you.
Old border ghosts of fight or fairy
Or love or teen,
These they forgot, remembering Mary
The Queen.
III.
Queen once of Scots and ever of ours
Whose sires brought forth for you
Their lives to strew your way like flowers,
Adieu.
Dead is full many a dead man’s name
Who died for you this long
Time past: shall this too fare the same,
My song?
But surely, though it die or live,
Your face was worth
All that a man may think to give
On earth.
No darkness cast of years between
Can darken you:
Man’s love will never bid my queen
Adieu.
IV.
Love hangs like light about your name
As music round the shell:
No heart can take of you a tame
Farewell.
Yet, when your very face was seen,
Ill gifts were yours for giving:
Love gat strange guerdons of my queen
When living.
O diamond heart unflawed and clear,
The whole world’s crowning jewel!
Was ever heart so deadly dear
So cruel?
Yet none for you of all that bled
Grudged once one drop that fell:
Not one to life reluctant said
Farewell
V.
Strange love they have given you, love disloyal,
Who mock with praise your name,
To leave a head so rare and royal
Too low for praise or blame.
You could not love nor hate, they tell us,
You had nor sense nor sting:
In God’s name, then, what plague befell us
To fight for such a thing?
‘Some faults the gods will give’ to fetter
Man’s highest intent:
But surely you were something better
Than innocent !
No maid that strays with steps unwary
Through snares unseen,
But one to live and die for; Mary,
The Queen.
VI.
Forgive them all their praise, who blot
Your fame with praise of you:
Then love may say, and falter not
Adieu.
Yet some you hardly would forgive
Who did you much less wrong
Once: but resentment should not live
Too long.
They never saw your lip’s bright bow,
Your swordbright eyes,
The bluest of heavenly things below
The skies.
Clear eyes that love’s self finds most like
A swordblade’s blue,
A swordblade’s ever keen to strike,
Adieu.
VII.
Though all things breathe or sound of fight
That yet make up your spell,
To bid you were to bid the light
Farewell
Farewell the song says only, being
A star whose race is run:
Farewell the soul says never, seeing
The sun.
Yet, wellnigh as with flash of tears,
The song must say but so
That took your praise up twenty years
Ago,
More bright than stars or moons that vary,
Sun kindling heaven and hell,
Here, after all these years, Queen Mary,
Farewell
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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L'Envoi
Thou art the goal for which my spirit longs;
As dove on dove,
Bound for one home, I send thee all my songs
With all my love.
Thou art the haven with fair harbour lights;
Safe locked in thee,
My heart would anchor after stormful nights
Alone at sea.
Thou art the rest of which my life is fain,
The perfect peace;
Absorbed in thee the world, with all its pain
And toil, would cease.
Thou art the heaven to which my soul would go!
O dearest eyes,
Lost in your light you would turn hell below
To Paradise.
Thou all in all for which my heart-blood yearns!
Yea, near or far--
Where the unfathomed ether throbs and burns
With star on star,
Or where, enkindled by the fires of June,
The fresh earth glows,
Blushing beneath the mystical white moon
Through rose on rose--
Thee, thee, I see, thee feel in all live things,
Beloved one;
In the first bird which tremulously sings
Ere peep of sun;
In the last nestling orphaned in the hedge,
Rocked to and fro,
When dying summer shudders in the sedge,
And swallows go;
When roaring snows rush down the mountain-pass,
March floods with rills
Or April lightens through the living grass
In daffodils;
When poppied cornfields simmer in the heat
With tare and thistle,
And, like winged clouds above the mellow wheat,
The starlings whistle;
When stained with sunset the wide moorlands glare
In the wild weather,
And clouds with flaming craters smoke and flare
Red o'er red heather;
When the bent moon, on frostbound midnights waking,
Leans to the snow
Like some world-mother whose deep heart is breaking
O'er human woe.
As the round sun rolls red into the ocean,
Till all the sea
Glows fluid gold, even so life's mazy motion
Is dyed with thee:
For as the wave-like years subside and roll,
O heart's desire,
Thy soul glows interfused within my soul,
A quenchless fire.
Yea, thee I feel, all storms of life above,
Near though afar;
O thou my glorious morning star of love,
And evening star.
poem by Mathilde Blind
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Away, Away, Ye Notes Of Woe!
Away, away, ye notes of woe!
Be silent, thou once soothing strain,
Or I must flee from hence--for, oh!
I dare not trust those sounds again.
To me they speak of brighter days
But lull the chords, for now, alas!
I must not think, I may not gaze,
On what I am--on what I was.
The voice that made those sounds more sweet
Is hush'd, and all their charms are fled
And now their softest notes repeat
A dirge, an anthem o'er the dead!
Yes, Thyrza! yes, they breathe of thee,
Beloved dust! since dust thou art;
And all that once was harmony
Is worse than discord to my heart!
'Tis silent all!--but on my ear
The well remember'd echoes thrill;
I hear a voice I would not hear,
A voice that now might well be still:
Yet oft my doubting soul 'twill shake;
Even slumber owns its gentle tone,
Till consciousness will vainly wake
To listen, though the dream be flown.
Sweet Thyrza! waking as in sleep,
Thou art but now a lovely dream;
A star that trembled o'er the deep,
Then turn'd from earth its tender beam.
But he who through life's dreary way
Must pass, when heaven is veil'd in wrath,
Will long lament the vanish'd ray
That scatter'd gladness o'er his path.
December 6, 1811.
Blessed Among Women --To The Signora Cairoli
Blessed was she that bare,
Hidden in flesh most fair,
For all men's sake the likeness of all love;
Holy that virgin's womb,
The old record saith, on whom
The glory of God alighted as a dove;
Blessed, who brought to gracious birth
The sweet-souled Saviour of a man-tormented earth.
But four times art thou blest,
At whose most holy breast
Four times a godlike soldier-saviour hung;
And thence a fourfold Christ
Given to be sacrificed
To the same cross as the same bosom clung;
Poured the same blood, to leave the same
Light on the many-folded mountain-skirts of fame.
Shall they and thou not live,
The children thou didst give
Forth of thine hands, a godlike gift, to death,
Through fire of death to pass
For her high sake that was
Thine and their mother, that gave all you breath?
Shall ye not live till time drop dead,
O mother, and each her children's consecrated head?
Many brought gifts to take
For her love's supreme sake,
Life and life's love, pleasure and praise and rest,
And went forth bare; but thou,
So much once richer, and now
Poorer than all these, more than these be blest;
Poorer so much, by so much given,
Than who gives earth for heaven's sake, not for earth's sake heaven.
Somewhat could each soul save,
What thing soever it gave,
But thine, mother, what has thy soul kept back?
None of thine all, not one,
To serve thee and be thy son,
Feed with love all thy days, lest one day lack;
All thy whole life's love, thine heart's whole,
Thou hast given as who gives gladly, O thou the supreme soul.
The heart's pure flesh and blood,
The heaven thy motherhood,
The live lips, the live eyes, that lived on thee;
The hands that clove with sweet
Blind clutch to thine, the feet
That felt on earth their first way to thy knee;
The little laughter of mouths milk-fed,
Now open again to feed on dust among the dead;
The fair, strong, young men's strength,
Light of life-days and length,
And glory of earth seen under and stars above,
And years that bring to tame
Now the wild falcon fame,
Now, to stroke smooth, the dove-white breast of love;
The life unlived, the unsown seeds,
Suns unbeholden, songs unsung, and undone deeds.
Therefore shall man's love be
As an own son to thee,
And the world's worship of thee for a child;
All thine own land as one
New-born, a nursing son,
All thine own people a new birth undefiled;
And all the unborn Italian time,
And all its glory, and all its works, thy seed sublime.
That henceforth no man's breath,
Saying "Italy," but saith
In that most sovereign word thine equal name;
Nor can one speak of thee
But he saith "Italy,"
Seeing in two suns one co-eternal flame;
One heat, one heaven, one heart, one fire,
One light, one love, one benediction, one desire.
Blest above praise and prayer
And incense of men's air,
Thy place is higher than where such voices rise
As in men's temples make
Music for some vain sake,
This God's or that God's, in one weary wise;
Thee the soul silent, the shut heart,
The locked lips of the spirit praise thee that thou art.
Yea, for man's whole life's length,
And with man's whole soul's strength,
We praise thee, O holy, and bless thee, O mother of lights;
And send forth as on wings
The world's heart's thanksgivings,
Song-birds to sing thy days through and thy nights;
And wrap thee around and arch thee above
With the air of benediction and the heaven of love.
And toward thee our unbreathed words
Fly speechless, winged as birds,
As the Indian flock, children of Paradise,
The winged things without feet,
Fed with God's dew for meat,
That live in the air and light of the utter skies;
So fleet, so flying a footless flight,
With wings for feet love seeks thee, to partake thy sight.
Love like a clear sky spread
Bends over thy loved head,
As a new heaven bends over a new-born earth,
When the old night's womb is great
With young stars passionate
And fair new planets fiery-fresh from birth;
And moon-white here, there hot like Mars,
Souls that are worlds shine on thee, spirits that are stars.
Till the whole sky burns through
With heaven's own heart-deep hue,
With passion-coloured glories of lit souls;
And thine above all names
Writ highest with lettering flames
Lightens, and all the old starriest aureoles
And all the old holiest memories wane,
And the old names of love's chosen, found in thy sight vain.
And crowned heads are discrowned,
And stars sink without sound,
And love's self for thy love's sake waxes pale
Seeing from his storied skies
In what new reverent wise
Thee Rome's most highest, her sovereign daughters, hail;
Thee Portia, thee Veturia grey,
Thee Arria, thee Cornelia, Roman more than they.
Even all these as all we
Subdue themselves to thee,
Bow their heads haloed, quench their fiery fame;
Seen through dim years divine,
Their faint lights feminine
Sink, then spring up rekindled from thy flame;
Fade, then reflower and reillume
From thy fresh spring their wintering age with new-blown bloom.
To thy much holier head
Even theirs, the holy and dead,
Bow themselves each one from her heavenward height;
Each in her shining turn,
All tremble toward thee and yearn
To melt in thine their consummated light;
Till from day's Capitolian dome
One glory of many glories lighten upon Rome.
Hush thyself, song, and cease,
Close, lips, and hold your peace;
What help hast thou, what part have ye herein?
But you, with sweet shut eyes,
Heart-hidden memories,
Dreams and dumb thoughts that keep what things have been
Silent, and pure of all words said,
Praise without song the living, without dirge the dead.
Thou, strengthless in these things,
Song, fold thy feebler wings,
And as a pilgrim go forth girt and shod,
And where the new graves are,
And where the sunset star,
To the pure spirit of man that men call God,
To the high soul of things, that is
Made of men's heavenlier hopes and mightier memories;
To the elements that make
For the soul's living sake
This raiment of dead things, of shadow and trance,
That give us chance and time
Wherein to aspire and climb
And set our life's work higher than time or chance
The old sacred elements, that give
The breath of life to days that die, to deeds that live;
To them, veiled gods and great,
There bow thee and dedicate
The speechless spirit in these thy weak words hidden;
And mix thy reverent breath
With holier air of death,
At the high feast of sorrow a guest unbidden,
Till with divine triumphal tears
Thou fill men's eyes who listen with a heart that hears.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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Fluctuations
What though the sun had left my sky;
To save me from despair
The blessed moon arose on high,
And shone serenely there.
I watched her, with a tearful gaze,
Rise slowly o'er the hill,
While through the dim horizon's haze
Her light gleamed faint and chill.
I thought such wan and lifeless beams
Could ne'er my heart repay,
For the bright sun's most transient gleams
That cheered me through the day:
But as above that mist's control
She rose, and brighter shone,
I felt her light upon my soul;
But now - that light is gone!
Thick vapours snatched her from my sight,
And I was darkling left,
All in the cold and gloomy night,
Of light and hope bereft:
Until, methought, a little star
Shone forth with trembling ray,
To cheer me with its light afar -
But that, too, passed away.
Anon, an earthly meteor blazed
The gloomy darkness through;
I smiled, yet trembled while I gazed -
But that soon vanished too!
And darker, drearier fell the night
Upon my spirit then; -
But what is that faint struggling light?
Is it the Moon again?
Kind Heaven! increase that silvery gleam,
And bid these clouds depart,
And let her soft celestial beam
Restore my fainting heart!
poem by Anne Brontë from Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (1846)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Of A Virgin Born
Have you seen the
Star of wonder
Star of grace
Star by which
The stars themselves
All navigate?
Have you sensed the
Star behind all sight
Reaching out
Through all the senses
Calling you in
Silent song?
Is this the
Star that brought me here
The light behind my eyes
The store of shining words
Before the living thoughts
Are spoken?
Have you seen the
Star of wonder
Star of grace
Star that lights
The life behind
Each face?
poem by Steven Silent Wolf
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Clara Morris (Written for a Benefit Given Mrs. Morris)
The Radiant Ruler of Mystic Regions
Where souls of artists are fitted for birth,
Gathered together their lovely legions
And fashioned a woman to shine on earth.
They bathed her in splendor
They made her tender:
They gave her a nature both sweet and wild.
They gave her emotions
Like storm stirred oceans,
And they gave her the heart of a little child.
These Radiant Rulers (who are not human
Nor yet divine like the gods above)
Poured all their gifts in the soul of a woman
That fragile vessel meant only for love.
Still more they taught her,
Still more they brought her-
Till they gave her the world for a harp one day,
And they bade her string it-
They bade her ring it,
While the stars all wondered to hear her play.
She touched the strings in a master fashion,
She uttered the cry of a world's despair.
Its long-hid secret, its pent-up passion,
She gave to the winds in a vibrant air.
For ah! the heart of her,
That was the art of her,
Great with the feeling that makes men kin.
Art unapproachable,
Art all uncoachable,
Fragrance and flame from the spirit within.
The earth turns ever an ear unheeding
To the sorrows of art, as it cries for more:
And she played on the harp till her hands were bleeding
And her brow was bruised by the laurels she wore.
She knew the trend of it,
She knew the end of it.
Men heard the music and men felt the thrill.
Bound to the altar
Of art, could she falter?
Then came a silence-the music was still.
And yet in the echoes we seem to hear it
In waves unbroken it circles the earth:
And we catch in the light of her dauntless spirit
A gleam from the center that gave her birth.
Still is the fame of her
Felt in the name of her.
But low lies the harp that once thrilled to her strain.
No hand has taken it,
No hand can waken it-
For the soul of her art was her secret of pain.
poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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Ode to George
Who is this man with bearded face?
A child from some forgotten race,
An alien from outer space
That just fell from a star;
Who is this man with turquoise eyes?
Reflections of the desert skies
That have the power to hypnotize
And see into the soul;
Who is this man that speaks of love
For all the earth and all above
Who comforts with a velvet glove
That soothes the troubled heart?
Who is this man that teaches all
To search the soul and heed the call
Respect this life or lose it all
The truth resides within;
Who sent this man to touch our lives,
Define the goal toward which man strives
To guarantee that earth survives
To mend our reckless ways?
He must have come from worlds away
A random sparkle from a ray
Of light so precious one could say
'An angel touched my heart.'
And one day I would hope to learn
That I have touched you in return,
This candle lit will always burn
Because of you, my friend.
For a mentor from the old days of soul searching
Sestina
I saw my soul at rest upon a day
As a bird sleeping in the nest of night,
Among soft leaves that give the starlight way
To touch its wings but not its eyes with light;
So that it knew as one in visions may,
And knew not as men waking, of delight.
This was the measure of my soul's delight;
It had no power of joy to fly by day,
Nor part in the large lordship of the light;
But in a secret moon-beholden way
Had all its will of dreams and pleasant night,
And all the love and life that sleepers may.
But such life's triumph as men waking may
It might not have to feed its faint delight
Between the stars by night and sun by day,
Shut up with green leaves and a little light;
Because its way was as a lost star's way,
A world's not wholly known of day or night.
All loves and dreams and sounds and gleams of night
Made it all music that such minstrels may,
And all they had they gave it of delight;
But in the full face of the fire of day
What place shall be for any starry light,
What part of heaven in all the wide sun's way?
Yet the soul woke not, sleeping by the way,
Watched as a nursling of the large-eyed night,
And sought no strength nor knowledge of the day,
Nor closer touch conclusive of delight,
Nor mightier joy nor truer than dreamers may,
Nor more of song than they, nor more of light.
For who sleeps once and sees the secret light
Whereby sleep shows the soul a fairer way
Between the rise and rest of day and night,
Shall care no more to fare as all men may,
But be his place of pain or of delight,
There shall he dwell, beholding night as day.
Song, have thy day and take thy fill of light
Before the night be fallen across thy way;
Sing while he may, man hath no long delight.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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If There Is Music There
If there is music there
Ill have to go
Never been anything in my life that I wanted more
This is my greatest fear
That Im loosing you my dear
Its more than I want to give
But if there is music there
If there is music there
Ill have to know
Never met anyone who could take music out of my soul
Theres something deep inside
That I no longer want to hide
My love you would never share
If there is music there
Its not my fault
Ive done no wrong
Its something that youve always known
I tried to tell you all along
It seems that heaven has a plan
An extraordinary plan
A reason for my soul
For my soul
If there music there
Ill have to go
Never found anyone who could take music out of my soul
This is my greatest fear
That Im loosing you my dear
Its more than I want to give
Its more than my heart can bear
I could be losing you
If there music there
Spoken:
Im so sorry, honey
Ive always loved you
I do love you
But I just have to go
song performed by by Donna Summer
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Siste Viator
WHAT is it that is dead?
Somewhere there is a grave, and something lies
Cold in the ground, and stirs not for my sighs,
Nor songs that I can make, nor smiles from me,
Nor tenderest foolish words that I have said;
Something that was has hushed, and will not be.
Did it go yesterday?
Or did it wane away with the old years?
There hath not been farewell, nor watchers' tears,
Nor hopes, nor vain reprieves, nor strife with death,
Nor lingering in a meted out delay;
None closed the eyes nor felt the latest breath.
But, be there joyous skies,
It is not in their sunshine; in the night
It is not in the silence, and the light
Of all the silver stars; the flowers asleep
Dream no more of it, nor their morning eyes
Betray the secrets it has bidden them keep.
Birds that go singing now
Forget it and leave sweetness meaningless;
The fitful nightingale, that feigns distress
To sing it all away, flows on by rote;
The seeking lark, in very heaven, I trow,
Shall find no memory to inform her note.
The voices of the shore
Chime not with it for burden; in the wood,
Where it has soul of the vast solitude,
It hath forsook the stillness; dawn and day
And the deep-thoughted dusk know it no more;
It is no more the freshness of the May.
Joy hath it not for heart;
Nor music for its second, subtler, tongue,
Sounding what music's self hath never sung;
Nor very Sorrow needs it help her weep.
Vanished from everywhere! what was a part
Of all and everywhere; lost into sleep!
What was it ere it went?
Whence had it birth? What is its name to call,
That gone unmissed has left a want in all?
Or shall I cry on Youth, in June-time still?
Or cry on Hope, who long since am content?
Or Love, who hold him ready at my will?
What is it that is dead?
Breath of a flower? sea-freshness on a wind?
Oh, dearest, what is that that we should find,
If you and I at length could win it back?
What have we lost and know not it hath fled?
Heart of my heart, could it be love we lack?
poem by Augusta Davies Webster
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Hymn before Sun-rise, in the Vale of Chamouni
Hast thou a charm to stay the morning-star
In his steep course? So long he seems to pause
On thy bald awful head, O sovran BLANC,
The Arve and Arveiron at thy base
Rave ceaselessly; but thou, most awful Form!
Risest from forth thy silent sea of pines,
How silently! Around thee and above
Deep is the air and dark, substantial, black,
An ebon mass: methinks thou piercest it,
As with a wedge! But when I look again,
It is thine own calm home, thy crystal shrine,
Thy habitation from eternity!
O dread and silent Mount! I gazed upon thee,
Till thou, still present to the bodily sense,
Didst vanish from my thought: entranced in prayer
I worshipped the Invisible alone.
Yet, like some sweet beguiling melody,
So sweet, we know not we are listening to it,
Thou, the meanwhile, wast blending with my Thought,
Yea, with my Life and Life's own secret joy:
Till the dilating Soul, enrapt, transfused,
Into the mighty vision passing--there
As in her natural form, swelled vast to Heaven!
Awake, my soul! not only passive praise
Thou owest! not alone these swelling tears,
Mute thanks and secret ecstasy! Awake,
Voice of sweet song! Awake, my heart, awake!
Green vales and icy cliffs, all join my Hymn.
Thou first and chief, sole sovereign of the Vale!
O struggling with the darkness all the night,
And visited all night by troops of stars,
Or when they climb the sky or when they sink:
Companion of the morning-star at dawn,
Thyself Earth's rosy star, and of the dawn
Co-herald: wake, O wake, and utter praise!
Who sank thy sunless pillars deep in Earth?
Who filled thy countenance with rosy light?
Who made thee parent of perpetual streams?
And you, ye five wild torrents fiercely glad!
Who called you forth from night and utter death,
From dark and icy caverns called you forth,
Down those precipitous, black, jaggéd rocks,
For ever shattered and the same for ever?
Who gave you your invulnerable life,
Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy,
Unceasing thunder and eternal foam?
And who commanded (and the silence came),
Here let the billows stiffen, and have rest?
Ye Ice-falls! ye that from the mountain's brow
Adown enormous ravines slope amain--
Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice,
And stopped at once amid their maddest plunge!
Motionless torrents! silent cataracts!
Who made your glorious as the Gates of Heaven
Beneath the keen full moon? Who bade the sun
Clothe you with rainbows? Who, with living flowers
Of loveliest blue, spread garlands at your feet?--
God! let the torrents, like a shout of nations,
Answer! and let the ice-plains echo, God!
God! sing ye meadow-streams with gladsome voice!
Ye pine-groves, with your soft and soul-like sounds!
And they too have a voice, yon piles of snow,
And in their perilous fall shall thunder, God!
Ye living flowers that skirt the eternal frost!
Ye wild goats sporting round the eagle's nest!
Yet eagles, play-mates of the mountain-storm!
Ye lightnings, the dread arrows of the clouds!
Ye signs and wonders of the element!
Utter forth God, and fill the hills with praise!
Thou too, hoar Mount! with thy sky-pointing peaks,
Oft from whose feet the avalanche, unheard,
Shoots downward, glittering through the pure serene
Into the depth of clouds, that veil thy breast--
Thou too again, stupendous Mountain! thou
That as I raise my head, awhile bowed low
In adoration, upward from thy base
Slow travelling with dim eyes suffused with tears,
Solemnly seemest, like a vapoury cloud,
To rise before me--Rise, O ever rise,
Rise like a cloud of incense from the Earth!
Thou kingly Spirit throned among the hills,
Thou dread ambassador from Earth to Heaven,
Great Hierarch! tell thou the silent sky,
And tell the stars, and tell yon rising sun
Earth, with her thousand voices, praises God.
poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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