The Van Nessiad
From end to end, thine avenue, Van Ness,
Rang with the cries of battle and distress!
Brave lungs were thundering with dreadful sound
And perspiration smoked along the ground!
Sing, heavenly muse, to ears of mortal clay,
The meaning, cause and finish of the fray.
Great Porter Ashe (invoking first the gods,
Who signed their favor with assenting nods
That snapped off half their heads-their necks grown dry
Since last the nectar cup went circling by)
Resolved to build a stable on his lot,
His neighbors fiercely swearing he should not.
Said he: 'I build that stable!' 'No, you don't,'
Said they. 'I can!' 'You can't!' 'I will!' 'You won't!'
'By heaven!' he swore; 'not only will I build,
But purchase donkeys till the place is filled!'
'Needless expense,' they sneered in tones of ice
'The owner's self, if lodged there, would suffice.'
For three long months the awful war they waged:
With women, women, men with men engaged,
While roaring babes and shrilling poodles raged!
Jove, from Olympus, where he still maintains
His ancient session (with rheumatic pains
Touched by his long exposure) marked the strife,
Interminable but by loss of life;
For malediction soon exhausts the breath
If not, old age itself is certain death.
Lo! he holds high in heaven the fatal beam;
A golden pan depends from each, extreme;
This feels of Porter's fate the downward stress,
That bears the destiny of all Van Ness.
Alas! the rusted scales, their life all gone,
Deliver judgment neither pro nor con:
The dooms hang level and the war goes on.
With a divine, contemptuous disesteem
Jove dropped the pans and kicked, himself, the beam:
Then, to decide the strife, with ready wit,
The nickel that he did not care for it
Twirled absently, remarking: 'See it spin:
Head, Porter loses; tail, the others win.'
The conscious nickel, charged with doom, spun round,
Portentously and made a ringing sound,
Then, staggering beneath its load of fate,
Sank rattling, died at last and lay in state.
Jove scanned the disk and then, as is his wont,
Raised his considering orbs, exclaiming: 'Front!'
With leisurely alacrity approached
The herald god, to whom his mind he broached:
'In San Francisco two belligerent Powers,
Such as contended round great Ilion's towers,
Fight for a stable, though in either class
There's not a horse, and but a single ass.
Achilles Ashe, with formidable jaw
Assails a Trojan band with fierce hee-haw,
Firing the night with brilliant curses. They
With dark vituperation gloom the day.
Fate, against which nor gods nor men compete,
Decrees their victory and his defeat.
With haste, good Mercury, betake thee hence
And salivate him till he has no sense!'
Sheer downward shot the messenger afar,
Trailing a splendor like a falling star!
With dimming lustre through the air he burned,
Vanished, nor till another sun returned.
The sovereign of the gods superior smiled,
Beaming benignant, fatherly and mild:
'Is Destiny's decree performed, my lad?
And has he now no sense?' 'Ah, sire, he never had.'
poem by Ambrose Bierce
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Homer's Hymn To Minerva
I sing the glorious Power with azure eyes,
Athenian Pallas! tameless, chaste, and wise,
Tritogenia, town-preserving Maid,
Revered and mighty; from his awful head
Whom Jove brought forth, in warlike armour dressed,
Golden, all radiant! wonder strange possessed
The everlasting Gods that Shape to see,
Shaking a javelin keen, impetuously
Rush from the crest of Aegis-bearing Jove;
Fearfully Heaven was shaken, and did move
Beneath the might of the Cerulean-eyed;
Earth dreadfully resounded, far and wide;
And, lifted from its depths, the sea swelled high
In purple billows, the tide suddenly
Stood still, and great Hyperion’s son long time
Checked his swift steeds, till, where she stood sublime,
Pallas from her immortal shoulders threw
The arms divine; wise Jove rejoiced to view.
Child of the Aegis-bearer, hail to thee,
Nor thine nor others’ praise shall unremembered be.
poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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An Allegory On Man
A thoughtful Being, long and spare,
Our Race of Mortals call him Care:
(Were Homer living, well he knew
What Name the Gods have call'd him too)
With fine Mechanick Genius wrought,
And lov'd to work, tho' no one bought.
This Being, by a Model bred
In Jove's eternal sable Head,
Contriv'd a Shape impow'rd to breathe,
And be the Worldling here beneath.
The Man rose staring, like a Stake;
Wond'ring to see himself awake!
Then look'd so wise, before he knew
The Bus'ness he was made to do;
That pleas'd to see with what a Grace
He gravely shew'd his forward Face,
Jove talk'd of breeding him on high,
An Under-something of the Sky.
But e'er he gave the mighty Nod,
Which ever binds a Poet's God:
(For which his Curls Ambrosial shake,
And Mother Earth's oblig'd to quake
He saw old Mother Earth arise,
She stood confess'd before his Eyes;
But not with what we read she wore,
A Castle for a Crown before,
Nor with long Streets and longer Roads
Dangling behind her, like Commodes:
As yet with Wreaths alone she drest,
And trail'd a Landskip-painted Vest.
Then thrice she rais'd, (as Ovid said)
And thrice she bow'd, her weighty Head.
Her Honours made, Great Jove, she cry'd,
This Thing was fashion'd from my Side;
His Hands, his Heart, his Head are mine;
Then what hast thou to call him thine?
Nay rather ask, the Monarch said,
What boots his Hand, his Heart, his Head,
Were what I gave remov'd away?
Thy Part's an idle Shape of Clay.
Halves, more than Halves! cry'd honest Care,
Your Pleas wou'd make your Titles fair,
You claim the Body, you the Soul,
But I who join'd them, claim the whole.
Thus with the Gods Debate began,
On such a trivial Cause, as Man.
And can Celestial Tempers rage?
(Quoth Virgil in a later Age.)
As thus they wrangled, Time came by;
(There's none that paint him such as I,
For what the Fabling Antients sung
Makes Saturn old, when Time was young.)
As yet his Winters had not shed
Their silver Honours on his Head;
He just had got his Pinions free
From his old Sire Eternity.
A Serpent girdled round he wore,
The Tail within the Mouth before;
By which our Almanacks are clear
That learned Ægypt meant the Year.
A Staff he carry'd, where on high
A Glass was fix'd to measure by,
As Amber Boxes made a Show
For Heads of Canes an Age ago.
His Vest, for Day, and Night, was py'd;
A bending Sickle arm'd his Side;
And Spring's new Months his Train adorn;
The other Seasons were unborn.
Known by the Gods, as near he draws,
They make him Umpire of the Cause.
O'er a low Trunk his Arm he laid,
(Where since his Hours a Dial made
Then leaning heard the nice Debate,
And thus pronounc'd the Words of Fate.
Since Body from the Parent Earth,
And Soul from Jove receiv'd a Birth,
Return they where they first began;
But since their Union makes the Man,
'Till Jove and Earth shall part these two,
To Care who join'd them, Man is due.
He said, and sprung with swift Career
To trace a Circle for the Year;
Where ever since the Seasons wheel,
And tread on one another's Heel.
'Tis well, said Jove, and for consent
Thund'ring he shook the Firmament.
Our Umpire Time shall have his Way,
With Care I let the Creature stay:
Let Bus'ness vex him, Av'rice blind,
Let Doubt and Knowledge rack his Mind,
Let Error act, Opinion speak,
And Want afflict, and Sickness break,
And Anger burn, Dejection chill,
And Joy distract, and Sorrow kill.
'Till arm'd by Care and taught to Mow,
Time draws the long destructive Blow;
And wasted Man, whose quick decay
Comes hurrying on before his Day,
Shall only find, by this Decree,
The Soul flies sooner back to Me.
poem by Thomas Parnell
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Homer's Hymn To The Moon
Daughters of Jove, whose voice is melody,
Muses, who know and rule all minstrelsy
Sing the wide-winged Moon! Around the earth,
From her immortal head in Heaven shot forth,
Far light is scattered—boundless glory springs;
Where’er she spreads her many-beaming wings
The lampless air glows round her golden crown.
But when the Moon divine from Heaven is gone
Under the sea, her beams within abide,
Till, bathing her bright limbs in Ocean’s tide,
Clothing her form in garments glittering far,
And having yoked to her immortal car
The beam-invested steeds whose necks on high
Curve back, she drives to a remoter sky
A western Crescent, borne impetuously.
Then is made full the circle of her light,
And as she grows, her beams more bright and bright
Are poured from Heaven, where she is hovering then,
A wonder and a sign to mortal men.
The Son of Saturn with this glorious Power
Mingled in love and sleep--to whom she bore
Pandeia, a bright maid of beauty rare
Among the Gods, whose lives eternal are.
Hail Queen, great Moon, white-armed Divinity,
Fair-haired and favourable! thus with thee
My song beginning, by its music sweet
Shall make immortal many a glorious feat
Of demigods, with lovely lips, so well
Which minstrels, servants of the Muses, tell.
poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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For Our Future
They were real kings
His Highness majesty who could sing
Turn the fortune and change the fate
They had everything at disposal to relate
They left it behind
For world to find
To help the poor
And worked from door to door
They were great and may be remembered
For their contribution and what they have offered
To live with peace and brotherhood
In life they practiced and understood
They were real supporter
To work for people as porter
Carry out their plight and pain
Into life of their own
With great vision and mission
The great Ashoka made frank admission
'Love and compassion is the only way'
Hatred must go away
We on our part
Can pick little from their humanitarian art
At least to show some compassion
If not deteriorate but build the good relation
We need stable world
To live with unison and in one fold
Not to speak with threatening posture
But to build world for our future
poem by Hasmukh Amathalal
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From The Prometheus Vinctus Of Aeschylus
Great Jove, to whose almighty throne
Both gods and mortals homage pay,
Ne'er may my soul thy power disown,
Thy dread behests ne'er disobey.
Oft shall the sacred victim fall
In sea-girt Ocean's mossy hall;
My voice shall raise no impious strain
'Gainst him who rules the sky and azure main.
How different now thy joyless fate,
Since first Hesione thy bride,
When placed aloft in godlike state,
The blushing beauty by the side,
Thou sat'st, while reverend Ocean smiled,
And mirthful strains the hours beguiled;
The Nymphs and Tritons dances around,
Nor yet thy doom was fix'd, nor Jove relentless frown'd.
Homer's Hymn To The Earth: Mother Of All
O universal Mother, who dost keep
From everlasting thy foundations deep,
Eldest of things, Great Earth, I sing of thee!
All shapes that have their dwelling in the sea,
All things that fly, or on the ground divine
Live, move, and there are nourished—these are thine;
These from thy wealth thou dost sustain; from thee
Fair babes are born, and fruits on every tree
Hang ripe and large, revered Divinity!
The life of mortal men beneath thy sway
Is held; thy power both gives and takes away!
Happy are they whom thy mild favours nourish;
All things unstinted round them grow and flourish.
For them, endures the life-sustaining field
Its load of harvest, and their cattle yield
Large increase, and their house with wealth is filled.
Such honoured dwell in cities fair and free,
The homes of lovely women, prosperously;
Their sons exult in youth’s new budding gladness,
And their fresh daughters free from care or sadness,
With bloom-inwoven dance and happy song,
On the soft flowers the meadow-grass among,
Leap round them sporting--such delights by thee
Are given, rich Power, revered Divinity.
Mother of gods, thou Wife of starry Heaven,
Farewell! be thou propitious, and be given
A happy life for this brief melody,
Nor thou nor other songs shall unremembered be.
poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Two Lovers
Their eyes met; flashed an instant like swift swords
That leapt unparring to each other's heart,
Jarring convulsion through the inmost chords;
Then fell, for they had fully done their part.
She, in the manner of her folk unveiled,
Might have been veiled for all he saw of her;
Those sudden eyes, from which he reeled and quailed;
The old life dead, no new life yet astir.
His good steed bore him onward slow and proud:
And through the open lattice still she leant;
Pale, still, though whirled in a black rushing cloud,
As if on her fair flowers and dreams intent.
Days passed, and he passed timid, furtive, slow:
Nights came, and he came motionless and mute,
A steadfast sentinel till morning-glow,
Though blank her window, dumb her voice and lute.
She loved: the Cross stretched rigid arms to scare
Her soul from the perdition of that love;
She saw Christ's wounds bleed when she knelt in prayer,
And frown abhorrent all the saints above.
He loved: the Crescent hung with sharp cold gleam,
A scimitar to cleave such love in twain;
The Prophet menaced in his waking dream,
Livid and swoln with wrath that great brow-vein.
Each sternly true to the immortal soul,
Crushed down the passion of the mortal heart;
Which bled away beneath the iron control,
But inwardly: they die; none sees the smart.
Thus long months went, until his time came round
To leave that city terrible and dear;
To go afar on soulless business bound,
Perchance for absence of a whole dead year.
No word: but as she knelt to pray one night,
What was that silk thing pendant from the Cross?
Half of a talisman of chrysolite:
Farewell! Full triumph stunned like fatal loss.
A sacred jewel-charm of sovereign power
'Gainst demons haunting soul and sense and brain,
'Gainst madness: had it not until that hour
Despite love's impious frenzy kept him sane?
Now let her look forth boldly day by day;
He will not come to wound her with his eyes;
Now at the open lattice darkling stay,
Only the stars are watching from the skies;
Now with clear spirit let her sing and pray;
No human presence clouds her Lord's full light:
Now let her weep and moan and waste away,
With broken heart a-bleeding day and night.
Thin as a spectre, haggard, taciturn,
He reached his native city; there did all
He had to do: indifferent yet stern,
As one whose task must end ere evening-fall.
Then sank, and knew that Azrael was near:
The hard dull rage of impotent remorse
Burned into passion that consumed old fear:
He loathed his unlived life, his unspent force.
'Must we be sundered, then, beyond the grave,
By that which here has sundered us? Not so!
I can be lost with her I cannot save,
And with these Christian dogs to deep Hell go.'
A priest baptized the sinking renegade,
A priest assured him of the Heaven he spurned;
His wealth for many a mass thereafter paid;
And many a Moslem his example turned.
A friend had sworn to do his last behest;
To be his swift and faithful messenger:
His own half talisman from his true breast
Would seal the truth of all things told to her.
The funeral over, while the stars yet shone
Though pale in the new dawn, this friend forth-spurred:
Brief rests, long stages, hurried fiercely on;
Hating the errand, loyal to his word.
Twenty days' travel done in thrice three days,
He reached her city, found her mansion there;
A crowd before it busy with amaze,
Cries from within it wounding the sweet air.
She was no more since that day's sun had set;
But wonder outran grief; for ere she died
Infinite yearning, fathomless regret,
Flooded her soul and drowned its faith and pride.
'Shall I be happy with the saints above,
While he is burning in the paynim Hell?
Here I have cheated him of all my love,
But there with him I can for ever dwell.'
So she renounced the Cross and threefold God,
And died in Islam; whence the bruit was great.
Silent the friend his backward journey trod,
Silent, and shrouded with the sense of Fate.
Thus in the very hour supreme of death
These two great hearts first dared live perfect life; go
Drew inspiration with their failing breath,
Snatched victory as they sank down slain in strife.
And thus Fate mocked them, who when life was sweet
Had kept apart, both famished to the core;
Let them draw near and in the death-point meet,
But to diverge for ever, evermore.
Yet both died happy in self-sacrifice;
A dolorous happiness, yet true and deep:
And Gods and Fate and Hell and Paradise
Perchance are one to their eternal sleep.
Poor human hearts, that yearn beyond the tomb,
Wherein you all must moulder into dust!
What has the blank immitigable gloom
Of light or fervour to reward your trust?
Live out your whole free life while yet on earth;
Seize the quick Present, prize your one sure boon;
Though brief, each day a golden sun has birth;
Though dim, the night is gemmed with stars and moon.
Love out your cordial love, hate out your hate;
Be strong to grasp a foe, to clasp a friend:
Your wants true laws are; thirst and hunger sate:
Feel you have been yourselves when comes the end.
Let the great gods, if they indeed exist,
Fight out their fight themselves; for they are strong:
How can we puny mortals e'er assist?
How judge the supra-mortal right and wrong?
But if we made these gods, with all their strife,
And not they us: what frenzy equals this;
To starve, maim, poison, strangle our poor He,
For empty shadows of death's dark abyss?
This man and maiden claim a brother's tear,
Martyrs of sweet love, killed by bitter faith;
Defrauded by the Gods of glad life here,
And mocked by Doom in their heroic death.
poem by James Thomson
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Uriel.
IT fell in the ancient periods
Which the brooding soul surveys,
Or ever the wild Time coin'd itself
Into calendar months and days.
This was the lapse of Uriel,
Which in Paradise befell.
Once, among the Pleiads walking,
Sayd overheard the young gods talking;
And the treason, too long pent,
To his ears was evident.
The young deities discuss'd
Laws of form, and metre just,
Orb, quintessence, and sunbeams,
What subsisteth, and what seems.
One, with low tones that decide,
And doubt and reverend use defied,
With a look that solved the sphere,
And stirr'd the devils everywhere,
Gave his sentiment divine
Against the being of a line.
'Line in nature is not found;
Unit and universe are round;
In vain produced, all rays return;
Evil will bless, and ice will burn.'
As Uriel spoke with piercing eye,
A shudder ran around the sky;
The stern old war-gods shook their heads;
The seraphs frown'd from myrtle-beds;
Seem'd to the holy festival
The rash word boded ill to all;
The balance-beam of Fate was bent;
The bounds of good and ill were rent;
Strong Hades could not keep his own,
But all slid to confusion.
A sad self-knowledge withering fell
On the beauty of Uriel;
In heaven once eminent, the god
Withdrew that hour into his cloud;
Whether doom'd to long gyration
In the sea of generation,
Or by knowledge grown too bright
To hit the nerve of feebler sight.
Straightway a forgetting wind
Stole over the celestial kind,
And their lips the secret kept,
If in ashes the fire-seed slept.
But, now and then, truth-speaking things
Shamed the angels' veiling wings;
And, shrilling from the solar course,
Or from fruit of chemic force,
Procession of a soul in matter,
Or the speeding change of water,
Or out of the good of evil born,
Came Uriel's voice of cherub scorn,
And a blush tinged the upper sky,
And the gods shook, they knew not why
poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Hey Porter
(johnny cash)
(c) - (g) - (f)
(c) hey, porter, hey porter! would you tell me the (f) time?
(c) how much longer will it be til we cross that (g) mason dixon line? (c)
At daylight would you tell the engineer to slow it (f) down;
Or better still, just stop the train cause I (g) wanna look a (c) round.
Hey, porter! hey porter! what time did you say ?
How much longer will it be till I can see the light of day ?
When we hit dixie would ya tell the engineer to ring his bell;
And tell everybody that aint asleep to stand right up and yell.
Hey, porter! hey, porter! please, go on and get my bags for me,
I dont need nobody to tell me now that Im in tennessee.
Were not so far from home, you know, and its a-getting light outside
This old train is a-puffin smoke and I have to strain in my eyes
Hey porter! hey porter! please open up the door.
When they stop this train Im gonna get off first cause I cant wait no more.
Tell the engineer I say, thanks a lot. and I didnt mind the fare.
Im gonna set my feet on southern soil, Im gonna breathe the southern air.
song performed by by Ry Cooder
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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As One Very Powerful Deity
Gods created the universe,
That's what numerous bibles state,
All life the creators did disperse,
Then they left us to our fate.
The miracle is the diversity of life,
Just how do we all survive?
Is it these Gods who give us strife?
Or do they help us to stay alive?
What came first the chicken or the egg?
I guess only the Gods can tell,
It truly is a question to beg,
It's like, is there a Heaven and Hell.
They must all be really clever,
As it was completed in six full days,
Work on the seventh, never,
That's their day to laze.
Could that mean that Gods needs rest?
Surely that can't be true,
I would imagine they'd all be full of zest,
Or I'd imagine chaos would ensue.
An endless cosmos forever evolving,
Keeping it safe is a major task,
Constant problems which do need resolving,
For our Gods help we all tend to ask.
They must be busy all year round,
Well apart from their day of leisure,
Wherever there's trouble to be found,
We all pray to our national treasure.
Humans believe in multiple Gods,
Yet religion can be so unforgiving,
That is why we are all at odds,
Dying is the reason we are living.
Before we pass we live in hope,
That to Gods Heaven we will ascend,
If we don't, how would we cope,
As past mistakes we cannot amend.
Who made them and who made their maker?
Or are they all just one big illusion,
If they are that would be an Earth shaker,
All that would do is create more confusion.
Myself, well I've been thinking hard,
If these beings are so high and mighty,
The creator of the Gods I would have to regard,
‘' As One Very Powerful Deity ‘'
The Godlike
In one great man we view with odds
A parallel to all the gods.
Great Jove, that shook heaven with his brow,
Could never match his princely bow.
In him a Bacchus we behold:
Like Bacchus, too, he ne'er grows old.
Like Phoebus next, a flaming lover;
And then he's Mercury-all over.
A Vulcan, for domestic strife,
He lamely lives without his wife.
And sure-unless our wits be dull-
Minerva-like, when moon was full,
He issued from paternal skull.
R. et R.
poem by Charles Lamb
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Uriel
IT fell in the ancient periods
Which the brooding soul surveys,
Or ever the wild Time coin'd itself
Into calendar months and days.
This was the lapse of Uriel,
Which in Paradise befell.
Once, among the Pleiads walking,
Sayd overheard the young gods talking;
And the treason, too long pent,
To his ears was evident.
The young deities discuss'd
Laws of form, and metre just,
Orb, quintessence, and sunbeams,
What subsisteth, and what seems.
One, with low tones that decide,
And doubt and reverend use defied,
With a look that solved the sphere,
And stirr'd the devils everywhere,
Gave his sentiment divine
Against the being of a line.
'Line in nature is not found;
Unit and universe are round;
In vain produced, all rays return;
Evil will bless, and ice will burn.'
As Uriel spoke with piercing eye,
A shudder ran around the sky;
The stern old war-gods shook their heads;
The seraphs frown'd from myrtle-beds;
Seem'd to the holy festival
The rash word boded ill to all;
The balance-beam of Fate was bent;
The bounds of good and ill were rent;
Strong Hades could not keep his own,
But all slid to confusion.
A sad self-knowledge withering fell
On the beauty of Uriel;
In heaven once eminent, the god
Withdrew that hour into his cloud;
Whether doom'd to long gyration
In the sea of generation,
Or by knowledge grown too bright
To hit the nerve of feebler sight.
Straightway a forgetting wind
Stole over the celestial kind,
And their lips the secret kept,
If in ashes the fire-seed slept.
But, now and then, truth-speaking things
Shamed the angels' veiling wings;
And, shrilling from the solar course,
Or from fruit of chemic force,
Procession of a soul in matter,
Or the speeding change of water,
Or out of the good of evil born,
Came Uriel's voice of cherub scorn,
And a blush tinged the upper sky,
And the gods shook, they knew not why.
poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson
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To A Young Lady, Who Was Fond Of Fortune-Telling
You, Madam, may, with safety go
Decrees of destiny to know;
For at your birth kind planets reign'd,
And certain happiness ordain'd:
Such charms as yours are only given
To chosen favourites of Heaven.
But such is my uncertain state
'Tis dangerous to try my fate;
For I would only know from art
The future motions of your hert,
And what predestinated doom
Attends my love for years to come,
No secrets else that mortals learn
My cares deserve, or life concern;
But this will so important be
I dread to search the dark decree;
For while the smallest hope remains
Faint joys are mingled with my pains.
Vain distant views my fancy please,
And give some intermitting ease;
But should the stars too plainly show
That you have doom'd my endless wo,
No human force or art could bear
The torment of my wild despair.
This secret then I dare not know,
And other truths are useless now.
What matters if, unbless'd in love,
How long or short my life will prove?
To gratify what low desire
Should I with needless haste inquire,
How great how wealthy I shall be?
Oh, what is wealth or power to me!
If I am happy or undone,
It must proceed from you alone.
poem by Matthew Prior
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A Prayer unto Christ
The Judge Of The World
O Dearest Dread, most glorious King,
I'le of thy justest Judgements sing:
So thou my head and heart inspire,
To Sing aright, as I desire.
Thee, thee alone I'le invocate,
For I do much abominate
To call the Muses to mine aid:
Which is th' Unchristian use, and trade
Of some that Christians would be thought,
And yet they worship worse then nought.
Oh! what a deal of Blasphemy,
And Heathenish Impiety,
In Christian Poets may be found,
Where Heathen gods with praise are Crown'd,
They make Jehovah to stand by,
Till Juno, Venus, Mercury,
With frowning Mars, and thundering Jove
Rule Earth below, and Heaven above.
But I have learnt to pray to none,
Save unto God in Christ alone.
Nor will I laud, no, not in jest,
That which I know God doth detest.
I reckon it a damning evil
To give Gods Praises to the Devil.
Thou, Christ, art he to whom I pray,
Thy Glory fain I would display.
Oh! guide me by thy sacred Sprite
So to indite, and so to write,
That I thine holy Name may praise,
And teach the Sons of men thy wayes.
poem by Michael Wigglesworth
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Destiny the Driving Force
Destiny is controlled by the mighty gods.
It swirls like a massive whirl pool.
No mortal being can escape it's hold.
Destiny controls our every action.
Destiny makes sure we take the right path in life.
Without a person taking a desired path the universe will go out of balance.
Balance of fate is essential.
The thread of destiny is so tangled that's why destiny is so uncontrollable by mortals.
Destiny goes around and around.
It never stops swirling.
Such an active force.
Mortal beings can't control what happens to them.
If it's negative or positive.
Destiny and fate are the same thing.
They intertwine when two people are in love.
Destiny carries people to their purposes in life.
It's a driving force.
Scientist can't figure it out.
It's the most complex thing second to the universe.
poem by Vega Destiny Star
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The Fortune-Favored
Ah! happy he, upon whose birth each god
Looks down in love, whose earliest sleep the bright
Idalia cradles, whose young lips the rod
Of eloquent Hermes kindles--to whose eyes,
Scarce wakened yet, Apollo steals in light,
While on imperial brows Jove sets the seal of might!
Godlike the lot ordained for him to share,
He wins the garland ere he runs the race;
He learns life's wisdom ere he knows life's care,
And, without labor vanquished, smiles the grace.
Great is the man, I grant, whose strength of mind,
Self-shapes its objects and subdues the fates--
Virtue subdues the fates, but cannot blind
The fickle happiness, whose smile awaits
Those who scarce seek it; nor can courage earn
What the grace showers not from her own free urn!
From aught unworthy, the determined will
Can guard the watchful spirit--there it ends
The all that's glorious from the heaven descends;
As some sweet mistress loves us, freely still
Come the spontaneous gifts of heaven!--Above
Favor rules Jove, as it below rules love!
The immortals have their bias!--Kindly they
See the bright locks of youth enamored play,
And where the glad one goes, shed gladness round the way.
It is not they who boast the best to see,
Whose eyes the holy apparitions bless;
The stately light of their divinity
Hath oft but shone the brightest on the blind;--
And their choice spirit found its calm recess
In the pure childhood of a simple mind.
Unasked they come delighted to delude
The expectation of our baffled pride;
No law can call their free steps to our side.
Him whom he loves, the sire of men and gods
(Selected from the marvelling multitude)
Bears on his eagle to his bright abodes;
And showers, with partial hand and lavish, down,
The minstrel's laurel or the monarch's crown!
Before the fortune-favored son of earth,
Apollo walks--and, with his jocund mirth,
The heart-enthralling smiler of the skies
For him gray Neptune smooths the pliant wave--
Harmless the waters for the ship that bore
The Caesar and his fortunes to the shore!
Charmed at his feet the crouching lion lies,
To him his back the murmuring dolphin gave;
His soul is born a sovereign o'er the strife--
The lord of all the beautiful of life;
Where'er his presence in its calm has trod,
It charms--it sways as solve diviner God.
Scorn not the fortune-favored, that to him
The light-won victory by the gods is given,
Or that, as Paris, from the strife severe,
The Venus draws her darling--Whom the heaven
So prospers, love so watches, I revere!
And not the man upon whose eyes, with dim
And baleful night, sits fate. Achaia boasts,
No less the glory of the Dorian lord
That Vulcan wrought for him the shield and sword--
That round the mortal hovered all the hosts
Of all Olympus--that his wrath to grace,
The best and bravest of the Grecian race
Untimely slaughtered, with resentful ghosts
Awed the pale people of the Stygian coasts!
Scorn not the darlings of the beautiful,
If without labor they life's blossoms cull;
If, like the stately lilies, they have won
A crown for which they neither toiled nor spun;--
If without merit, theirs be beauty, still
Thy sense, unenvying, with the beauty fill.
Alike for thee no merit wins the right,
To share, by simply seeing, their delight.
Heaven breathes the soul into the minstrel's breast,
But with that soul he animates the rest;
The god inspires the mortal--but to God,
In turn, the mortal lifts thee from the sod.
Oh, not in vain to heaven the bard is dear;
Holy himself--he hallows those who hear!
The busy mart let justice still control,
Weighing the guerdon to the toil!--What then?
A God alone claims joy--all joy is his,
Flushing with unsought light the cheeks of men.
Where is no miracle, why there no bliss!
Grow, change, and ripen all that mortal be,
Shapened from form to form, by toiling time;
The blissful and the beautiful are born
Full grown, and ripened from eternity--
No gradual changes to their glorious prime,
No childhood dwarfs them, and no age has worn.--
Like heaven's, each earthly Venus on the sight
Comes, a dark birth, from out an endless sea;
Like the first Pallas, in maturest might,
Armed, from the thunderer's--brow, leaps forth each thought of light.
poem by Friedrich Schiller
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Fate and Destiny
Fate and Destiny
Who can tell us what Fate and Destiny are?
Who can tell us what our Fate is?
Who can tell us what our Destiny is?
Fate. Destiny.
People say we cannot choose our Fate, but we can choose our Destiny.
People say we are Fated or Destined to do/become something.
Fate. Destiny.
Are they different?
Are they the same?
People say we can choose Destiny and we are Fated to do it.
People say that our Destiny is open, but our Fate is sealed.
Are Fate and Destiny the same?
If our Destiny has yet to be chosen but our Fate is sealed, then is not our Destiny already chosen, but unseen to us until the opportune moment?
Fate. Destiny.
When is the opportune moment?
At what point in our life will our Fate and Destiny be revealed?
Or will we realize what our Fate and Destiny are only when it is too late?
Or will we pass our Fate and Destiny without knowing it?
Fate. Destiny.
If someone tells us what our Fate and Destiny are, will we like what we hear?
Or will you strive against the path set before you?
poem by Robert Grimes
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Homer's Hymn To The Sun
Offspring of Jove, Calliope, once more
To the bright Sun, thy hymn of music pour;
Whom to the child of star-clad Heaven and Earth
Euryphaessa, large-eyed nymph, brought forth;
Euryphaessa, the famed sister fair
Of great Hyperion, who to him did bear
A race of loveliest children; the young Morn,
Whose arms are like twin roses newly born,
The fair-haired Moon, and the immortal Sun,
Who borne by heavenly steeds his race doth run
Unconquerably, illuming the abodes
Of mortal Men and the eternal Gods.
Fiercely look forth his awe-inspiring eyes,
Beneath his golden helmet, whence arise
And are shot forth afar, clear beams of light;
His countenance, with radiant glory bright,
Beneath his graceful locks far shines around,
And the light vest with which his limbs are bound,
Of woof aethereal delicately twined,
Glows in the stream of the uplifting wind.
His rapid steeds soon bear him to the West;
Where their steep flight his hands divine arrest,
And the fleet car with yoke of gold, which he
Sends from bright Heaven beneath the shadowy sea.
poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Destiny or Fate
There’s a question I ask myself
Each and every night
It doesn’t cost any wealth
Or matter if I’m right
It seems so unfair to wait
And ask, if it was destiny or fate
Destiny, who brought me to you
Fate, that keeps with you my love
How can I see clear through
When the sky is filled with doves
They’re all trying to escape
From their Destiny or Fate
I was born
To give you my love
Never was I torn
About, if I could rise above
I can never keep straight
If it was destiny or fate
Now can’t you see, Destiny
Just what your doing to me
You won my love for you
Never since, have I been blue
For you, I will never be late
Or care, if it was Destiny or fate
Fallen
O, hadst thou died when thou wert great,
When at thy feet a nation knelt
To sob the gratitude it felt
And thank the Saviour of the State,
Gods might have envied thee thy fate!
Then was the laurel round thy brow,
And friend and foe spoke praise of thee,
While all our hearts sang victory.
Alas! thou art too base to bow
To hide the shame that brands it now.
poem by Ambrose Bierce
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