
On Carpaccio's Picture
Swept, clean, and still, across the polished floor
From some unshuttered casement, hid from sight,
The level sunshine slants, its greater light
Quenching the little lamp which pallid, poor,
Flickering, unreplenished, at the door
Has striven against darkness the long night.
Dawn fills the room, and penetrating, bright,
The silent sunbeams through the window pour.
And she lies sleeping, ignorant of Fate,
Enmeshed in listless dreams, her soul not yet
Ripened to bear the purport of this day.
The morning breeze scarce stirs the coverlet,
A shadow falls across the sunlight; wait!
A lark is singing as he flies away.
poem by Amy Lowell

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Sound Sleep
Some are laughing, some are weeping;
She is sleeping, only sleeping.
Round her rest wild flowers are creeping;
There the wind is heaping, heaping
Sweetest sweets of Summer's keeping.
By the corn-fields ripe for reaping.
There are lilies, and there blushes
The deep rose, and there the thrushes
Sing till latest sunlight flushes
In the west; a fresh wind brushes
Through the leaves while evening hushes.
There by day the lark is singing
And the grass and weeds are springing;
There by night the bat is winging;
There for ever winds are bringing
Far-off chimes of church-bells ringing.
Night and morning, noon and even,
Their sound fills her dreams with Heaven:
The long strife at lent is striven:
Till her grave-bands shall be riven
Such is the good portion given
To her soul at rest and shriven.
poem by Christina Georgina Rossetti

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Souls Sharing Mystery Nighttime Symphony
it was awake dark late the other night
moon was but a fingernail ribbon of light
all was silent quiet upon the sleeping hills
slight breeze in trees stirs nighttime thrills
from out of our bedroom we did silent creep
at still 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. it's time to shadow peep
I whistle twice thrice into friend dark shadow trees
soon a few familiar shapes flutter about night breeze
my daughters Rachael Kayla silent watch with me
my friends I smile call to introduce daughters to see
these are my season friends at this season call
fruit bats feast this season these trees their mall
in solo stillness of dark or star moon lit night
I whistle call then rapture watch their flutter flight
now as still as still as a shadow can be
my daughters by my side may watch with me
Rachael four cannot silent still wait or watch
words she spills her arm motions darkness cuts a swatch
yet faithful old season friend bat still flies to me greet
in darkness two span distance from my face we meet
nature's wild creatures my heart stirs in innocent delight
even fruit eating binturong greeted my face once in ink night
crossing telephone power cable from bat fruit trees
in cloak ink darkness adult male pause curiosity sees
this nightly poet shaman stand on this balcony ledge
to wondrous creation we share soul mystic pledge
in dead of night binturong two span face distance I meet
our senses one moment we part upon paths spiritual greet
poem by Terence George Craddock

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Darkness Of...
Darkness is not the darkness of night
it is the darkness of mind and soul.
darkness is not the darkness of night,
it is the darkness of discrimination between poor and rich.
darkness is not the darkness of night,
it is the darkness of dishonesty.
darkness is not the darkness of night,
it is the darkness of aggravate.
darkness is not the darkness of night,
it is darkness of corruption.
darkness is not the darkness of night,
it is the darkness of indiscipline.
darkness is not the darkness of night,
it is the darkness of animosity.
darkness is not the darkness of night,
it is the darkness of inveterate.
darkness is not the darkness of night,
it is the darkness of perjury.
darkness is not the darkness of night,
it is the darkness that we all brought up inside us,
so, light the lamp of light inside you...
poem by Suniya Garg

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Welcome Home
The fire burns bright
And the hearth is clean swept,
As she likes it kept,
And the lamp is alight.
She is coming to-night.
The wind's east of late.
When she comes, she'll be cold,
So the big chair is rolled
Close up to the grate,
And I listen and wait.
The shutters are fast,
And the red curtains hide
Every hint of outside.
But hark, how the blast
Whistled then as it passed!
Or was it the train?
How long shall I stand,
With my watch in my hand,
And listen in vain
For the wheels in the lane?
Hark! A rumble I hear
(Will the wind not be still?),
And it comes down the hill,
And it grows on the ear,
And now it is near.
Quick, a fresh log to burn!
Run and open the door,
Hold a lamp out before
To light up the turn,
And bring in the urn.
You are come, then, at last!
O my dear, is it you?
I can scarce think it true
I am holding you fast,
And sorrow is past.
poem by Robert Fuller Murray

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Blue
The earth again like a ship steams out of the dark sea over
The edge of the blue, and the sun stands up to see us glide
Slowly into another day; slowly the rover
Vessel of darkness takes the rising tide.
I, on the deck, am startled by this dawn confronting
Me who am issued amazed from the darkness, stripped
And quailing here in the sunshine, delivered from haunting
The night unsounded whereon our days are shipped.
Feeling myself undawning, the day’s light playing upon me,
I who am substance of shadow, I all compact
Of the stuff of the night, finding myself all wrongly
Among the crowds of things in the sunshine jostled and racked.
I with the night on my lips, I sigh with the silence of death;
And what do I care though the very stones should cry me unreal, though the clouds
Shine in conceit of substance upon me, who am less than the rain.
Do I know the darkness within them? What are they but shrouds?
The clouds go down the sky with a wealthy ease
Casting a shadow of scorn upon me for my share in death; but I
Hold my own in the midst of them, darkling, defy
The whole of the day to extinguish the shadow I lift on the breeze.
Yea, though the very clouds have vantage over me,
Enjoying their glancing flight, though my love is dead,
I still am not homeless here, I’ve a tent by day
Of darkness where she sleeps on her perfect bed.
And I know the host, the minute sparkling of darkness
Which vibrates untouched and virile through the grandeur of night,
But which, when dawn crows challenge, assaulting the vivid motes
Of living darkness, bursts fretfully, and is bright:
Runs like a fretted arc-lamp into light,
Stirred by conflict to shining, which else
Were dark and whole with the night.
Runs to a fret of speed like a racing wheel,
Which else were aslumber along with the whole
Of the dark, swinging rhythmic instead of a-reel.
Is chafed to anger, bursts into rage like thunder;
Which else were a silent grasp that held the heavens
Arrested, beating thick with wonder.
Leaps like a fountain of blue sparks leaping
In a jet from out of obscurity,
Which erst was darkness sleeping.
Runs into streams of bright blue drops,
Water and stones and stars, and myriads
Of twin-blue eyes, and crops
Of floury grain, and all the hosts of day,
All lovely hosts of ripples caused by fretting
The Darkness into play.
poem by David Herbert Lawrence

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Wait For The Morning
Wait for the morning:--It will come, indeed,
As surely as the night hath given need.
The yearning eyes, at last, will strain their sight
No more unanswered by the morning light;
No longer will they vainly strive, through tears,
To pierce the darkness of thy doubts and fears,
But, bathed in balmy dews and rays of dawn,
Will smile with rapture o'er the darkness drawn.
Wait for the morning, O thou smitten child,
Scorned, scourged and persecuted and reviled--
Athirst and famishing, none pitying thee,
Crowned with the twisted thorns of agony--
No faintest gleam of sunlight through the dense
Infinity of gloom to lead thee thence--
Wait for the morning:--It will come, indeed,
As surely as the night hath given need.
poem by James Whitcomb Riley

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Night Secrets
Night Secrets…
No more my aching heart
As you sleep silent in my breast
Awakening in the night
I await your sweet caress
My aching, barren arms in vain
So many times I've wept
At night upon my pillow
While in my bed I slept
Night secrets in the darkness
Like dark, murky shadows
That linger in the night
The rain softly whispers
Through the wind and trees
Carrying my secrets
To the moon shining bright
Secrets kept deep within my heart
They whisper in the night
No one else may listen
There's no one else in sight
They echo through the evening
Those things I cannot share
My secrets whispering in the darkness
Like a breeze fluttering through air
Until then…
I'll wait my love
For your soft, caressing touch
With the stars softly glowing
Through the window in my room
I lie quietly in my bed
With the shadows of the night
Whispers flow in the breeze
Sending them gently to the moon
Until then…
I'll wait til you come again
When I can softly whisper in your ear
Those secrets that I carry
Sharing secrets...
With the one I love so dear
Until then I'll wait...
For my heart belongs to only you
poem by ANNE P LadeeAnne MURRAY

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Waiting For A Blue Sky
He sits upon the empty sand
and gazes up to the endless grey
The weathered face
and battered hands
Protest the soul
that carried them so far this way
The beaten skin
is turning to a wrinkled smile
And his eyes light up
and give his soul away
He said, I'm waiting for a blue sky
I am waiting for a bright day
I'll be there thru the wind and rain
Don't care what anybody says
I'm waiting for a morning bright
that fills the day with all its clean bright light
I'm waiting for a blue sky
I'm waiting for a blue sky
I'm waiting for a bright day
I'll be there thru the wind and rain
Don't care what anyone else says
I'm waiting for a morning bright
that fills the day with all its clean bright light
I'm waiting for a blue sky
song performed by by Chris Rea

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Light Through The Morning Window
THE LIGHT THROUGH THE MORNING WINDOW
The light through the morning window
The small leaves of the light green tree
The pale sky waiting behind everything
The night which is gone now.
All these failures one after the other,
Other names other destinies, greater than mine
The single singing I cannot hear
The great prophecies I will not realize.
Others who are more to me
Even than I am to myself.
The morning
The morning again
Words again
Trying to live again
A poem again perhaps.
In a life of many days
In which each small day
Its own struggle
And each night
A night which ends
With morning light.
poem by Shalom Freedman

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The Haunted Chamber. (Birds Of Passage. Flight The Third)
Each heart has its haunted chamber,
Where the silent moonlight falls!
On the floor are mysterious footsteps,
There are whispers along the walls!
And mine at times is haunted
By phantoms of the Past
As motionless as shadows
By the silent moonlight cast.
A form sits by the window,
That is not seen by day,
For as soon as the dawn approaches
It vanishes away.
It sits there in the moonlight
Itself as pale and still,
And points with its airy finger
Across the window-sill.
Without before the window,
There stands a gloomy pine,
Whose boughs wave upward and downward
As wave these thoughts of mine.
And underneath its branches
Is the grave of a little child,
Who died upon life's threshold,
And never wept nor smiled.
What are ye, O pallid phantoms!
That haunt my troubled brain?
That vanish when day approaches,
And at night return again?
What are ye, O pallid phantoms!
But the statues without breath,
That stand on the bridge overarching
The silent river of death?
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

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No Star I Can See
There is no star,
Which I can see
From my window...
Boundless darkness
Is here in the
Chest of night.
The painted sky,
I saw in the daylight
Now is wiped away
As my last poem
I wrote but made
it vanish from
The page, because
It couldn't tell
The blank story,
Of my desolate
Life...no star
Still is visible
From this window..
Someone has spread
The melted pitch
On the road of my
Moped sky..I stare
And stare all night.
The caged breeze,
The starless sky
And night, none can share
My loneliness, I know
They are no living
Persons like me...
But, they can drown me
In complete void of
Sea of utter darkness.
One star can do this;
Only one star......
Thru my little window,
It's flickering light,
Can fill my dark room,
With its heavenly touch!
poem by Nilakshi Das

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Say I am You!
the speck of a star dust,
Filling a ray of light,
Get Exited to roam here and there!
The one who has neither born, nor die,
The eternal infinite singing its eternal song AUM,
Going round and round the Sun,
Along the revolving Earth,
Rotating about own axis along with rotating Planet!
Night is the time,
Sleeping in infinite nothing,
becoming nothing in beloved
embrace,
forgetting everything! In the lap of beloved enjoy
dreams,
may some come true,
Some may not,
Observing dreams one sees the
light within, At the dawn, with gentle breeze,
Dreams melt, innerlight into light
of world,
Never go back to sleep,
If you sleep at dawn,
What will be there at dusk? If dustfree dawn make you sleep,
Failing to Smile and work,
If can't feel lighter in the light of
dawn,
Sure the darkness covering light,
Will make you faint at dusk!
I and you are same here,
Counting the time, counting the days,
Everything is natural,
Why can't I be more natural
Why can't I be neutral,
All here are busy,
The Sun, the Moon,
The Earth,
The ocean and breeze,
Every cells of plants and animals busy,
Look at your cells,
That too are soundlessly busy,
Why can't I and you,
Say 'I am you' to the creator,
Because you too conferred same capacity,
capable to create your own world,
Your own happiness and sorrow,
Your own world of life, wisdom and knowledge,
Its show of shadow play is this world!
poem by Ramdas Bhandarkar

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The Night in Isla Negra
Ancient night and the unruly salt
beat at the walls of my house.
The shadow is all one, the sky
throbs now along with the ocean,
and sky and shadow erupt
in the crash of their vast conflict.
All night long they struggle;
nobody knows the name
of the harsh light that keeps slowly opening
like a languid fruit.
So on the coast comes to light,
out of seething shadow, the harsh dawn,
gnawed at by the moving salt,
swept clean by the mass of night,
bloodstained in its sea-washed crater.
poem by Pablo Neruda

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Face in the Mirror
She calls out to the face in the mirror
And runs her fingers down the varnished frame
Then she lights a cigarette and inhales deeply,
Leaving the lighter lit and staring into the flame.
The sun shines in through the half opened curtains
It lights up the room but not her face
The mirror still darkened as the face stands staring
Darkness wraps around her, concealing the empty space.
She never chased the dreams
Or ran through the morning light
She was never heard above the screams
She just hid in the darkness of the night,
With the face in the mirror.
Now the sun's gone down, she looks through the window
At the faces and places and motion below
The face in the mirror watches her shadow
As she sits on the window ledge waiting to go.
She sees cars drive by with their bright lights
She hears voices carrying away into the night
The face in the mirror incites her to jump
And she leaps and falls downwards flight after flight.
She never chased her dreams
Now she's chasing the ground
She wasn't heard above the screams
Now she doesn't make a sound,
And the face in the mirror smashes.
poem by Mark Hopwood

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Lamp Of Love
Light, oh where is the light?
Kindle it with the burning fire of desire!
There is the lamp but never a flicker of a flame--is such thy fate, my heart?
Ah, death were better by far for thee!
Misery knocks at thy door,
and her message is that thy lord is wakeful,
and he calls thee to the love-tryst through the darkness of night.
The sky is overcast with clouds and the rain is ceaseless.
I know not what this is that stirs in me--I know not its meaning.
A moment's flash of lightning drags down a deeper gloom on my sight,
and my heart gropes for the path to where the music of the night calls me.
Light, oh where is the light!
Kindle it with the burning fire of desire!
It thunders and the wind rushes screaming through the void.
The night is black as a black stone.
Let not the hours pass by in the dark.
Kindle the lamp of love with thy life.
poem by Rabindranath Tagore

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My Dark Room
Time has ended so I lay
The end to a very painful day
I lay silent with nothing to say
Here in my dark room
With eyes open I can hardly see
Staring at the ceiling thinking of me
Wondering in the future what I will be
Here in my dark room
Will I still have my dark room
The place where there is peace
Or will I feel deceased
In a new dark room
But maybe when the night turns to shine
I won’t feel so but feel fine
Until night when I come back and whine
Here is my dark room
Now it is late I can’t see no more
My arm falls and drops to the floor
The liquid dreams in my head start to pour
Here is my dark room
poem by Paul Celano

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Hours By The Window
Day and night
By the window
Of my mind
There you are
In the courtyard
One last time
The singing of a famous song Ive never heard before
A man without a shadow slowly walking past my door
My mind projects a face soon to be free of misery
The chiming of some distant bell that echoes in my heart
A dance upon the flagstones to the music of the stars
A mothers name that lingers on a soothing summers breeze
All alone I said no prayers today
I couldnt kneel to please the God that failed you
Now youre gone Ill sit and spend each day
Hours by the window
Morning comes
To my rescue
Once again
Whispers in the corridor and footsteps in the hall
My only point of reference now the sunlight on the wall
It draws me to the window where my dreams are memories
A step beyond the line where sunken eyes avert their gaze
An endless tract of time reveals a thousand silent ways
All searching for an answer to lifes deepest mysteries
On the ocean of pure time I sail away
I go and these four walls will not contain me
Maybe there Ill see your face again
Hours by the window
All alone I said no prayers today
I couldnt kneel to please the God that failed you
What Id give to see your face again
Hours by the window
song performed by by Level 42

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Sunshine vs. Darkness
The sunshine keeps the darkness away. The darkness takes over but soon the sunshine takes over again when its raining sunshine still comes through. We always want sunshine to light our way. But others want the darkness to stay around. When darkness falls many people come alive, others sleep and wait for the sunshine to come again. We all want different things for sunshine or for darkness. Some love the sunshine others love darkness. I see all the saddness when its sunshine. But yet the darkness I see all happiness. Sunshine brings saddness and the darkness brings happiness and excitement!
poem by Nicole Donoghue

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Good-Night
THE lark is silent in his nest,
The breeze is sighing in its flight,
Sleep, Love, and peaceful be thy rest.
Good-night, my love, good-night, good-night.
Sweet dreams' attend thee in thy sleep,
To soothe thy rest till morning's light,
And angels round thee vigil keep.
Good-night, my love, good-night, good-night.
Sleep well, my love, on night's dark breast,
And ease thy soul with slumber bright;
Be joy but thine and I am blest.
Good-night, my love, good-night, good-night.
poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar

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The Morning Sunshine
Wait til the morning sunshine
Wait til the morning sunshine
Feels like another day, I wouldnt know
My loves away, from home today
Wait til the morning sunshine
Wait til the morning sunshine
Its just the memory, of sunshine
In the morning, being close to me
And it was.....
Wait til the morning sunshine
Wait til the morning sunshine
Seems like the world is late, for I cant wait
For sunshine in the morning
Wait til the morning sunshine
Wait til the morning sunshine
song performed by by Electric Light Orchestra

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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