The Moon-Path
The full, clear moon uprose and spread
Her cold, pale splendor o'er the sea;
A light-strewn path that seemed to lead
Outward into eternity.
Between the darkness and the gleam
An old-world spell encompassed me:
Methought that in a godlike dream
I trod upon the sea.
And lo! upon that glimmering road,
In shining companies unfurled,
The trains of many a primal god,
The monsters of the elder world;
Strange creatures that, with silver wings,
Scarce touched the ocean's thronging floor,
The phantoms of old tales, and things
Whose shapes are known no more.
Giants and demi-gods who once
Were dwellers of the earth and sea,
And they who from Deucalion's stones,
Rose men without an infancy;
Beings on whose majestic lids
Time's solemn secrets seemed to dwell,
Tritons and pale-limbed Nereids,
And forms of heaven and hell.
Some who were heroes long of yore,
When the great world was hale and young;
And some whose marble lips yet pour
The murmur of an antique tongue;
Sad queens, whose names are like soft moans,
Whose griefs were written up in gold;
And some who on their silver thrones
Were goddesses of old.
As if I had been dead indeed,
And come into some after-land,
I saw them pass me, and take heed,
And touch me with each mighty hand;
And evermore a murmurous stream,
So beautiful they seemed to me,
Not less than in a godlike dream
I trod the shining sea.
poem by Archibald Lampman
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Silver
Silver was a rounder with a wicked reputation
Music was his magic and his madness rolled in one
It's said he charmed the fairest hearts of this world's fairest maidens
Quick as silver mercury and slippery as a song
Winding like a river through a thirsty world of strangers
Carving out a legend in a dream-forsaken land
Silver took his pleasures just as freely as he gave them
'cause hungry eyes weren't quick enough for silver's flashing hands
Then once upon escaping from the world of silk and shadows
Sudden growin' sicker of the secrets and the shame
He stumbled onto something real that beckoned like a candle
And never lookin' backwards, he surrendered to the flame
Chorus:
Because hunger, is the surface, of a darkened pool of sadness
Silver pale reflection of a deeper need below
Mystery and magic are the holy forms of madness
Sacred as the ecstasy that slumbers in your soul
Silver moved instinctively within her soft defenses
Soon unfolding mysteries he'd never seen before
And wakening an ancient need, she slipped inside his senses
And silver took it easy as the closing of a door
Then soon he touched the secret fears she'd hidden with her sorrows
Darker than her raven hair and deeper than her eyes
And dared to try to lead her to the sunlight from her shadows
Following the line between her laughter and her lies
But silver left his magic with the legend he'd abandoned
Love had stripped him naked of illusion and it's charms
Then one long night her changing mind took kindly to a stranger
And morning found her moving in the golden stranger's arms
Chorus:
Because hunger, is the surface, of a darkened pool of sadness
Silver pale reflection of a deeper need below
Mystery and magic are the holy forms of madness
Sacred as the ecstasy that slumbers in your soul
Silver stared in silence at the tangled scene before him
Time was burning frozen in the oceans of his eyes
And sadly turning backwards to the world that he'd forsaken
He donned the shining mantle of deception and disguise
Slowly, with the patience born of silent desperation
Silver worked his way into the darkness of her mind
Weaving through her conscience like a chance she might have taken
Sadder than the shadows of the love she'll never find
And silver's spell was stronger than the softly smiling stranger
Whose star was burning smaller in the naked light of day
And silver took her hand again, a wiser man, but sadder
Ready for the stranger who would steal her love away
Chorus:
Because hunger, is the surface, of a darkened pool of sadness
Silver pale reflection of a deeper need below
Mystery and magic are the holy forms of madness
Sworn to free the ecstasy that slumbers in your soul
song performed by by Kris Kristofferson
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Lost Dream
Its a beautiful dream
Like a crimson sun
On a milky blue sky
Birds flying to home
And myself in Rome
Its a beautiful dream
Like silver cloud line
To mounted dark cloud
Light kissing the head
And myself on rose bed
Its a beautiful dream
Like shining dew drop
On a lush green grass
Bright day smiling
And myself flying
Its a beautiful dream
Like a new born cub
In hands of young love
Tears flowing in joy
And myself with toys
Its a beautiful dream
Like a painless sleep
On a dry soft pillow
Night not slept slow
And myself out of flow
Its a beautiful dream
Like full moon night
On a artful dark sky
Dogs stopped scream
And myself out of dream
poem by Kranthi Pothineni
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Matins
Gray earth, gray mist, gray sky:
Through vapors hurrying by,
Larger than wont, on high
Floats the horned, yellow moon.
Chill airs are faintly stirred,
And far away is heard,
Of some fresh-awakened bird,
The querulous, shrill tune.
The dark mist hides the face
Of the dim land: no trace
Of rock or river's place
In the thick air is drawn;
But dripping grass smells sweet,
And rustling branches meet,
And sounding water greet
The slow, sure, sacred dawn.
Past is the long black night,
With its keen lightnings white,
Thunder and floods: new light
The glimmering low east streaks.
The dense clouds part: between
Their jagged rents are seen
Pale reaches blue and green,
As the mirk curtain breaks.
Above the shadowy world,
Still more and more unfurled,
The gathered mists upcurled
Like phantoms melt and pass.
In clear-obscure revealed,
Brown wood, gray stream, dark field:
Fresh, healthy odors yield
Wet furrows, flowers, and grass.
The sudden, splendid gleam
Of one thin, golden beam
Shoots from the feathered rim
Of yon hill crowned with woods.
Down its embowered side,
As living waters slide,
So the great morning tide
Follows in sunny floods.
From bush and hedge and tree
Joy, unrestrained and free,
Breaks forth in melody,
Twitter and chirp and song:
Alive the festal air
With gauze-winged creatures fair,
That flicker everywhere,
Dart, poise, and flash along.
The shining mists are gone,
Slight films of gold swift-blown
Before the strong, bright sun
Or the deep-colored sky:
A world of life and glow
Sparkles and basks below,
Where the soft meads a-row,
Hoary with dew-fall, lie.
Does not the morn break thus,
Swift, bright, victorious,
With new skies cleared for us,
Over the soul storm-tost?
Her night was long and deep,
Strange visions vexed her sleep,
Strange sorrows bade her weep:
Her faith in dawn was lost.
No halt, no rest for her,
The immortal wanderer
From sphere to higher sphere,
Toward the pure source of day.
The new light shames her fears,
Her faithlessness, her tears,
As the new sun appears
To light her godlike way.
poem by Emma Lazarus
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The Fairy Clock
Silver clock! O silver clock! tell to me the time o' day!
Is there yet a little hour left for us to work and play?
Tell me when the sun will set--tiny globe of silver-grey.
It has been so glad a world since the coming of the morn,
Oft I wondered when I met any souls who seemed forlorn--
And I scarce gave heed to those who were old or travel worn.
Mayhap I have loved too well the merry fleeting things;
Run too lightly with the wind--chased too many shining wings;
Thought too seldom of the night, and the silence that it brings.
Well I fear me I have been but an idler in the sun--
All unfinished are the tasks long and long ago begun--
In the dark perchance they weep, who have left their work undone.
And I know each black-frocked friar preacheth sermons that, alas!
Fain would halt the dancing feet of those careless ones who pass
Down a sweet and primrose path, through the ribbons of the grass.
Silver-clock! O Silver-clock! It was only yesterday
Dandelions flecked the field, starry bright, and gold and gay;
You are but the ghost of one--little globe of silver-grey!
Tell me--tell me of the hour--for there is so much to do!
Is it early? Is it late? Fairy clock! 0 tell me true,
As I blow you down the wind, out upon a road of blue.
poem by Virna Sheard
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Heaven And Hell
Imagine no Heaven and no Hell, these are words on which to dwell,
Written by a spiritually empty pen, this, to deceive a world of men.
Told to think about just today, ignoring what God’s Word does say,
Suggesting nothing about eternity, but only what their eyes can see.
But, there is a Heaven up above, a place in Eternity, filled with love,
The dwelling place of Eternal God, reigning above the earth we trod.
And there really is a Hell beneath, full of wailing and gnashing teeth.
The Hell Christ described my friend, is a lake of fire that has no end.
This man’s imagination will not last, when his life upon earth is past,
And indeed all men will face reality, when they pass on into eternity.
Heaven and Hell were spoke of, by Jesus Christ, who reigns above.
Hell was created by God for sin, that in mortal bodies reigns within,
Created for Satan and his crew, not initially intended for me or you,
A place in Heaven is prepared for us, who in Christ place their trust,
But, one thing that cannot enter in, the Glories of Heaven is our sin.
So Christ came as our sacrifice, to cleanse believers, for Paradise.
Up in Heaven not down in Hell, is where believers one day will dwell,
And not through vain imagination, but through God’s great Salvation.
Hell eternally is prepared for, Satan and all men who reject The Lord,
Far from a mindless interjection, it is for many their eternal selection.
(Copyright ©08/2007)
Silver And Gold
Silver, silver and gold
Silver and gold, silver and gold
Ev'ryone wishes for silver and gold
How do you measure its worth?
Just by the pleasure it gives here on earth.
Silver and gold, silver and gold
Mean so much more when I see
Silver and gold decorations
On ev'ry Christmas tree.
Silver, silver and gold
Silver, silver and gold
Silver and gold
Silver and gold
Silver and gold
Wise men brought gifts to the mange I'm told
Mary was humble to see
Shepherds and kings there on bended knees
It's silver and gold, silver and gold
Feeling the world with their lives
Silver and gold how they shimmer on ev'ry Christmas night
On ev'ry Christmas night
Silver, silver and gold
song performed by by Vanessa Williams
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Silver & Gold
Words and Music by Johnny Marks.
Silver, silver and gold
Silver and gold, silver and gold
Ev'ryone wishes for silver and gold
How do you measure its worth?
Just by the pleasure it gives here on earth.
Silver and gold, silver and gold
Mean so much more when I see
Silver and gold decorations
On ev'ry Christmas tree.
Silver, silver and gold
Silver, silver and gold
Silver and gold
Silver and gold
Silver and gold
Wise men brought gifts to the mange I'm told
Mary was humble to see
Shepherds and kings there on bended knees
It's silver and gold, silver and gold
Feeling the world with their lives
Silver and gold how they shimmer on ev'ry Christmas night
On ev'ry Christmas night
Silver, silver and gold
song performed by by Vanessa Williams
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Joy Of Little Things
It's good the great green earth to roam,
Where sights of awe the soul inspire;
But oh, it's best, the coming home,
The crackle of one's own hearth-fire!
You've hob-nobbed with the solemn Past;
You've seen the pageantry of kings;
Yet oh, how sweet to gain at last
The peace and rest of Little Things!
Perhaps you're counted with the Great;
You strain and strive with mighty men;
Your hand is on the helm of State;
Colossus-like you stride . . . and then
There comes a pause, a shining hour,
A dog that leaps, a hand that clings:
O Titan, turn from pomp and power;
Give all your heart to Little Things.
Go couch you childwise in the grass,
Believing it's some jungle strange,
Where mighty monsters peer and pass,
Where beetles roam and spiders range.
'Mid gloom and gleam of leaf and blade,
What dragons rasp their painted wings!
O magic world of shine and shade!
O beauty land of Little Things!
I sometimes wonder, after all,
Amid this tangled web of fate,
If what is great may not be small,
And what is small may not be great.
So wondering I go my way,
Yet in my heart contentment sings . . .
O may I ever see, I pray,
God's grace and love in Little Things.
So give to me, I only beg,
A little roof to call my own,
A little cider in the keg,
A little meat upon the bone;
A little garden by the sea,
A little boat that dips and swings . . .
Take wealth, take fame, but leave to me,
O Lord of Life, just Little Things.
poem by Robert William Service
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The Days go by
THE DAYS go by—the days go by,
Sadly and wearily to die:
Each with its burden of small cares,
Each with its sad gift of gray hairs
For those who sit, like me, and sigh,
“The days go by! The days go by!”
Ah, nevermore on shining plumes,
Shedding a rain of rare perfumes
That men call memories, they are borne
As in life’s many-visioned morn,
When Love sang in the myrtle-blooms—
Ah, nevermore on shining plumes!
Where is my life? Where is my life?
The morning of my youth was rife
With promise of a golden day.
Where have my hopes gone? Where are they—
The passion and the splendid strife?
Where is my life? Where is my life?
My thoughts take hue from this wild day,
And, like the skies, are ashen gray;
The sharp rain, falling constantly,
Lashes with whips of steel the sea:
What words are left for Hope to say?
My thoughts take hue from this wild day.
I dreamt—my life is all a dream!—
That I should sing a song supreme
To gladden all sad eyes that weep,
And take the Harp to Time, and sweep
Its chords to some eternal theme.
I dreamt—my life is all a dream.
The world is very old and wan—
The sun that once so brightly shone
Is now as pale as the pale moon.
I would that Death came swift and soon;
For all my dreams are dead and gone.
The world is very old and wan.
. . . . .
The world is young, the world is strong,
But I in dreams have wandered long.
God lives. What can Death do to me
The sun is shining on the sea.
Yet shall I sing my splendid song—
The world is young, the world is strong.
poem by Victor James Daley
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Even So
THE DAYS go by—the days go by,
Sadly and wearily to die:
Each with its burden of small cares,
Each with its sad gift of gray hairs
For those who sit, like me, and sigh,
“The days go by! The days go by!”
Ah, nevermore on shining plumes,
Shedding a rain of rare perfumes
That men call memories, they are borne
As in life’s many-visioned morn,
When Love sang in the myrtle-blooms—
Ah, nevermore on shining plumes!
Where is my life? Where is my life?
The morning of my youth was rife
With promise of a golden day.
Where have my hopes gone? Where are they—
The passion and the splendid strife?
Where is my life? Where is my life?
My thoughts take hue from this wild day,
And, like the skies, are ashen gray;
The sharp rain, falling constantly,
Lashes with whips of steel the sea:
What words are left for Hope to say?
My thoughts take hue from this wild day.
I dreamt—my life is all a dream!—
That I should sing a song supreme
To gladden all sad eyes that weep,
And take the Harp to Time, and sweep
Its chords to some eternal theme.
I dreamt—my life is all a dream.
The world is very old and wan—
The sun that once so brightly shone
Is now as pale as the pale moon.
I would that Death came swift and soon;
For all my dreams are dead and gone.
The world is very old and wan.
The world is young, the world is strong,
But I in dreams have wandered long.
God lives. What can Death do to me
The sun is shining on the sea.
Yet shall I sing my splendid song—
The world is young, the world is strong.
poem by Victor James Daley
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Year of the Rose
From the depths of the green garden-closes
Where the summer in darkness dozes
Till autumn pluck from his hand
An hour-glass that holds not a sand;
From the maze that a flower-belt encloses
To the stones and sea-grass on the strand
How red was the reign of the roses
Over the rose-crowned land!
The year of the rose is brief;
From the first blade blown to the sheaf,
From the thin green leaf to the gold,
It has time to be sweet and grow old,
To triumph and leave not a leaf
For witness in winter's sight
How lovers once in the light
Would mix their breath with its breath,
And its spirit was quenched not of night,
As love is subdued not of death.
In the red-rose land not a mile
Of the meadows from stile to stile,
Of the valleys from stream to stream,
But the air was a long sweet dream
And the earth was a sweet wide smile
Red-mouthed of a goddess, returned
From the sea which had borne her and burned,
That with one swift smile of her mouth
Looked full on the north as it yearned,
And the north was more than the south.
For the north, when winter was long,
In his heart had made him a song,
And clothed it with wings of desire,
And shod it with shoon as of fire,
To carry the tale of his wrong
To the south-west wind by the sea,
That none might bear it but he
To the ear of the goddess unknown
Who waits till her time shall be
To take the world for a throne.
In the earth beneath, and above
In the heaven where her name is love,
She warms with light from her eyes
The seasons of life as they rise,
And her eyes are as eyes of a dove,
But the wings that lift her and bear
As an eagle's, and all her hair
As fire by the wind's breath curled,
And her passage is song through the air,
And her presence is spring through the world.
So turned she northward and came,
And the white-thorn land was aflame
With the fires that were shed from her feet,
That the north, by her love made sweet,
Should be called by a rose-red name;
And a murmur was heard as of doves,
And a music beginning of loves
In the light that the roses made,
Such light as the music loves,
The music of man with maid.
But the days drop one upon one,
And a chill soft wind is begun
In the heart of the rose-red maze
That weeps for the roseleaf days
And the reign of the rose undone
That ruled so long in the light,
And by spirit, and not by sight,
Through the darkness thrilled with its breath,
Still ruled in the viewless night,
As love might rule over death.
The time of lovers is brief;
From the fair first joy to the grief
That tells when love is grown old,
From the warm wild kiss to the cold,
From the red to the white-rose leaf,
They have but a season to seem
As rose-leaves lost on a stream
That part not and pass not apart
As a spirit from dream to dream,
As a sorrow from heart to heart.
From the bloom and the gloom that encloses
The death-bed of Love where he dozes
Till a relic be left not of sand
To the hour-glass that breaks in his hand;
From the change in the grey garden-closes
To the last stray grass of the strand,
A rain and ruin of roses
Over the red-rose land.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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In Midnight Sleep
IN midnight sleep, of many a face of anguish,
Of the look at first of the mortally wounded--of that indescribable
look;
Of the dead on their backs, with arms extended wide,
I dream, I dream, I dream.
Of scenes of nature, fields and mountains;
Of skies, so beauteous after a storm--and at night the moon so
unearthly bright,
Shining sweetly, shining down, where we dig the trenches and gather
the heaps,
I dream, I dream, I dream.
Long, long have they pass'd--faces and trenches and fields;
Where through the carnage I moved with a callous composure--or away
from the fallen,
Onward I sped at the time--But now of their forms at night,
I dream, I dream, I dream. 10
poem by Walt Whitman
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Favorites of Pan
Once, long ago, before the gods
Had left this earth, by stream and forest glade,
Where the first plough upturned the clinging sods,
Or the lost shepherd strayed,
Often to the tired listener's ear
There came at noonday or beneath the stars
A sound, he knew not whence, so sweet and clear,
That all his aches and scars
And every brooded bitterness,
Fallen asunder from his soul took flight,
Like mist or darkness yielding to the press
Of an unnamed delight,-
A sudden brightness of the heart,
A magic fire drawn down from Paradise,
That rent the cloud with golden gleam apart,-
And far before his eyes
The loveliness and calm of earth
Lay like a limitless dream remote and strange,
The joy, the strife, the triumph and the mirth,
And the enchanted change;
And so he followed the sweet sound,
Till faith had traversed her appointed span,
And murmured as he pressed the sacred ground:
'It is the note of Pan!'
Now though no more by marsh or stream
Or dewy forest sounds the secret reed-
For Pan is gone-Ah yet, the infinite dream
Still lives for them that heed.
In April, when the turning year
Regains its pensive youth, and a soft breath
And amorous influence over marsh and mere
Dissolves the grasp of death,
To them that are in love with life,
Wandering like children with untroubled eyes,
Far from the noise of cities and the strife,
Strange flute-like voices rise
At noon and in the quiet of the night
From every watery waste; and in that hour
The same strange spell, the same unnamed delight,
Enfolds them in its power.
An old-world joyousness supreme,
The warmth and glow of an immortal balm,
The mood-touch of the gods, the endless dream,
The high lethean calm.
They see, wide on the eternal way,
The services of earth, the life of man;
And, listening to the magic cry they say:
'It is the note of Pan!'
For, long ago, when the new strains
Of hostile hymns and conquering faiths grew keen,
And the old gods from their deserted fanes,
Fled silent and unseen,
So, too, the goat-foot Pan, not less
Sadly obedient to the mightier hand,
Cut him new reeds, and in a sore distress
Passed out from land to land;
And lingering by each haunt he knew,
Of fount or sinuous stream or grassy marge,
He set the syrinx to his lips, and blew
A note divinely large;
And all around him on the wet
Cool earth the frogs came up, and with a smile
He took them in his hairy hands, and set
His mouth to theirs awhile,
And blew into their velvet throats;
And ever from that hour the frogs repeat
The murmur of Pan's pipes, the notes,
And answers strange and sweet;
And they that hear them are renewed
By knowledge in some god-like touch conveyed,
Entering again into the eternal mood,
Wherein the world was made.
poem by Archibald Lampman
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The Mother
I
IT was April, blossoming spring,
They buried me, when the birds did sing;
Earth, in clammy wedging earth,
They banked my bed with a black, damp girth.
Under the damp and under the mould,
I kenned my breasts were clammy and cold.
Out from the red beams, slanting and bright,
I kenned my cheeks were sunken and white.
I was a dream, and the world was a dream,
And yet I kenned all things that seem.
I was a dream, and the world was a dream,
But you cannot bury a red sunbeam.
For though in the under-grave's doom-night
I lay all silent and stark and white,
Yet over my head I seemed to know
The murmurous moods of wind and snow,
The snows that wasted, the winds that blew,
The rays that slanted, the clouds that drew
The water-ghosts up from lakes below,
And the little flower-souls in earth that grow.
Under earth, in the grave's stark night,
I felt the stars and the moon's pale light.
I felt the winds of ocean and land
That whispered the blossoms soft and bland.
Though they had buried me dark and low,
My soul with the season's seemed to grow.
II
From throes of pain they buried me low,
For death had finished a mother's woe.
But under the sod, in the grave's dread doom,
I dreamed of my baby in glimmer and gloom.
I dreamed of my babe, and I kenned that his rest
Was broken in wailings on my dead breast.
I dreamed that a rose-leaf hand did cling;
Oh, you cannot bury a mother in spring!
When the winds are soft and the blossoms are red
She could not sleep in her cold earth-bed.
I dreamed of my babe for a day and a night,
And then I rose in my grave-clothes white.
I rose like a flower from my damp earth-bed
To the world of sorrowing overhead.
Men would have called me a thing of harm,
But dreams of my babe made me rosy and warm.
I felt my breasts swell under my shroud;
No star shone white, no winds were loud;
But I stole me past the graveyard wall,
For the voice of my baby seemed to call;
And I kenned me a voice, though my lips were dumb:
Hush, baby, hush! for mother is come.
I passed the streets to my husband's home;
The chamber stairs in a dream I clomb;
I heard the sound of each sleeper's breath,
Light waves that break on the shores of death.
I listened a space at my chamber door,
Then stole like a moon-ray over its floor.
My babe was asleep on a stranger's arm,
'O baby, my baby, the grave is so warm,
'Though dark and so deep, for mother is there!
O come with me from the pain and care!
'O come with me from the anguish of earth,
Where the bed is banked with a blossoming girth,
'Where the pillow is soft and the rest is long,
And mother will croon you a slumber-song–
'A slumber-song that will charm your eyes
To a sleep that never in earth-song lies!
'The loves of earth your being can spare,
But never the grave, for mother is there.'
I nestled him soft to my throbbing breast,
And stole me back to my long, long rest.
And here I lie with him under the stars,
Dead to earth, its peace and its wars;
Dead to its hates, its hopes, and its harms,
So long as he cradles up soft in my arms.
And heaven may open its shimmering doors,
And saints make music on pearly floors,
And hell may yawn to its infinite sea,
But they never can take my baby from me.
For so much a part of my soul he hath grown
That God doth know of it high on His throne.
And here I lie with him under the flowers
That sun-winds rock through the billowy hours,
With the night-airs that steal from the murmuring sea,
Bringing sweet peace to my baby and me.
poem by William Wilfred Campbell
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Humanity
I dreamed I was a sculptor, and had wrought
Out of a towering adamantine crag
A mighty figure, stately, giant-limbed,
And with the face of a Homeric god.
Planted aloft upon the levelled cone
Of a vast tumulus, that seemed to swell
Above the sinking outline of the view
As up from the dusk past, firm fixed it stood,
Full in the face of the resplendent morn
Against the deep of heaven all flecked with clouds;
And I methought was glorying in my work
One large arm lay upon the powerful breast,
The other held a scroll. The ample head,
Majestic in its dome-like curvatures,
Looked heedful out with full expectant eyes
Over the brightening world, and in the lines
And gracious curves of nostrils and of lips
You traced the use of smiles. But on the brows
There pained a weight and weariness of thought,
And furrows spake of care. Much, too, of doubt
Shadowed the meaning of the mighty face;
Much was there also in its cast, that seemed
Significant of a striving to believe,
To be the liege of an ancestral faith
In things remote, unsecular, more the birth
Of mystic than sciential lore, and thence
But half assured itself.
Such was my work:
A formal type, though dream-designed, it seemed
Of that great ultimate of manhood, which
By daring, hoping, doing, and enduring,
Doubting, divining,—still from age to age
Doth mould the world, and lead it truthward on,
Even through its seers, its heroes, and its kings:
For all who saw it were constrained, methought,
To sigh, as they looked up—“Humanity.”
poem by Charles Harpur
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Butterfly's Dream
I'm having a butterfly's dream
Sealed off from the real world
Shielded from the storm
Yet I feel at home
Having a butterfly's dream
I'm having a butterfly's dream
Looking out, the world looking in
Imprisoned by nature, all alone
Yet I feel at home
Having my butterfly's dream
I can see the pretty colors come and go
The sun is shining, the moon a glow
I want all that to be a part of me
I want my dreaming to become a reality
I want to feel the fresh ocean breeze
I want to rest on flowers, rest on trees
I want to be part of the world that everybody sees
I feel the light flashing in
The air fills my cocoon all too soon
My wings search to spread towards the sun
And lift me to my new home-All alone
On my own to face the storm
I should have known
A dream is nothing but a dream
poem by Alfred Ramos
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My Secret Garden
I dream of a secret garden
Filled with roses
And a bench that seats two
I dream of a majestic fountain
With sparkling water
That brings life to those near
I dream of a blue sky
That watches over
The beautiful creatures of my world
I dream a dream of romance
That warms you
In a cold, unsafe outside world
I dream this would be real
But I know
That this dream will stay dreamt
poem by John McClay
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Silver & Gold
Well, I met an old man walkin down the street
His clothes were torn and tattered
With sandals on his feet
And I stopped to help him
And lend him a hand
He said, I love you so much
But you must understand
1st chorus:
Silver and gold might buy you a home
But things of this world
They wont last you long
And time has a way of turning us old
And time cant be bought back with silver and gold
And he said to me, lets rest for awhile
For I have some good news to share with you, child
He said, you cant change this old world
The people need to know
That a dear savior died here
A long, long time ago
Repeat 1st chorus
His eyes shown like diamonds
And his smile was heaven sent
His hair was long and flowing
And his back was slightly bent
And I knew he knew it
For that day I changed
As I watched him walk on
I forgot to get his name
2nd chorus:
He said, silver and gold cant buy you a home
When this life has ended
And your time is gone
But you can live in a world where
Youll never grow old
And things cant be bought there with silver and gold
Tag:
And time cant be bought back with silver and gold
song performed by by Dolly Parton
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Fancy and the Poet
Poet --
Enchanting spirit! -- at thy votive shrine
I lowly bend a simple wreath to twine;
O Come from the ideal world and fling
Thy airy fingers o'er my rugged string;
Sweep the dark chords of thought and give to earth
The thrilling song that tells thy heavenly birth --
Fancy --
Happiness when from earth she fled
I passed on her heavenward flight --
"Take this crown," the spirit said
"Of heaven's own golden light --
To the sons of sorrow the token give,
And bid them follow my steps and live!" --
I took the crown from the snowy hand,
It flashed like a living star;
I turned this dark earth to a fairy land
When I hither drive my car;
But I placed the crown round my tresses bright,
And man only saw its reflected light --
Many a lovely dream I've given,
And many a song divine;
But never! -- oh never -- that gift of heaven
Shall mortals temples twine --
Hope and love in the circlet glow!
'Tis all too bright for a world of woe --
Poet --
Hist -- Beautiful spirit! -- why silent so soon?
My ear drinks each word of thy magical tune;
My lyre owns thy touch -- and its tremulous strings
Vibrate beneath the soft play of thy wings;
Resume thy sweet lay, and reveal, ere we part
Thy home lovely spirit -- and say what thou art?" --
Fancy --
The gleam of a star thou cans't not see --
Of an eye 'neath its sleeping lid,
The sound of a far off melody
The voice of a stream that's hid;
Such must I still remain to thee
A wonder and a mystery! --
I live in the poet's dream
I flash on the painter's eye;
I dwell in the moon's pale beam,
In the depths of the star lit sky;
I traverse the earth, the air, the main,
And bind young hearts in my magic chain --
I float on the fleecy cloud
My voice is in ev'ry breeze;
I speak in the tempest loud,
In the sigh of the waving trees --
To the sons of earth -- in a mystic tone,
I tell of a world more bright than their own! --
poem by Susanna Strickland Moodie
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The Psalm Of Adonis - from Fifteenth Idyll
O Queen that loves Golgi, and Idalium,
And the steep of Eryx,
O Aphrodite, that playes with gold,
Lo, from the stream eternal of Acheron
They have brought back to you Adonis---
Even in the twelfth month they have brought him,
The dainty-footed Hours.
Tardiest of the Immortals are the beloved Hours,
But dear and desired they come,
For always, to all mortals,
They bring some gift with them.
O Cypris, daughter of Dione,
From mortal to immortal, so men tell,
You have changed Berenice, dropping softly in
The woman's breast the stuff of immortality.
Therefore, for your delight,
O you of many names and many temples,
Does the daughter of Berenice, even Arsinoë,
Lovely as Helen, cherish Adonis with all things beautiful.
Before him lie all ripe fruits that the tall trees' branches bear,
And the delicate gardens, arrayed in baskets of silver,
And the golden vessels are full of incense of Syria.
And all the dainty cakes that women fashion in the kneading tray,
Mingling blossoms manifold with the white wheaten flour,
All that is wrought of honey sweet, and in soft olive oil,
All cakes fashioned in the semblance of things that fly,
And of things that creep, lo, here they are set before him.
Here are built for him shadowy bowers of green,
All laden with tender anise, and children flit overhead---
The little loves---
As the young nightingales perched upon
The trees fly forth and try their wings
From bough to bough.
O! the ebony, O! the gold, O! the twin eagles of white
Ivory that carry to Zeus, the son of Cronos,
His darling, his cupbearer!
O! the purple coverlet strewn above,
More soft than sleep!
So Miletus will say,
And whoso feeds sheep in Samos.
Another bed is strewn for beautiful Adonis,
One bed Cypris keeps, and one the rosy-armed Adonis.
A bride-groom of eighteen or nineteen years is he,
His kisses are not rough, the golden down being yet upon his lips!
And now, good-night to Cypris, in the arms of her lover!
But lo, in the morning we will all of us gather with the dew,
And carry him forth among the waves that break upon the beach,
And with locks unloosed, and ungirt raiment falling to the ankles,
And bosom bare, will we begin our shrill, sweet song.
You only, dear Adonis, so men tell,
You only of the demi-gods,
Do visit both this world and the stream of Acheron.
For Agamemnon had no such lot, nor Aias,
That mighty lord of the terrible anger, nor Hector,
The eldest born of the twenty sons of Hecuba, nor Patroclus,
Nor Pyrrhus, that returned out of Troy land,
Nor the heroes of yet more ancient days,
The Lapithai and Deucalion's sons,
Nor the sons of Pelops, and the chiefs of Pelasgian Argos.
Be gracious now, dear Adonis, and propitious
Even in the coming year.
Dear to us has your advent been, Adonis,
And dear shall it be when you come again.
poem by Theocritus
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