Elegiac II.
Trunks the forest yielded with gums ambrosial oozing,
Boughs with apples laden beautiful, Hesperian,
Golden, odoriferous, perfume exhaling about them,
Orbs in a dark umbrage luminous and radiant;
To the palate grateful, more luscious were not in Eden,
Or in that fabled garden of Alcinoüs;
Out of a dark umbrage sounds also musical issued,
Birds their sweet transports uttering in melody
Thrushes clear piping, wood-pigeons cooing, arousing
Loudly the nightingale, loudly the sylvan echoes;
Waters transpicuous flowed under, flowed to the list’ning
Ear with a soft murmur, softly soporiferous;
Nor, with ebon locks too, there wanted, circling, attentive
Unto the sweet fluting, girls, of a swarthy shepherd;
Over a sunny level their flocks are lazily feeding,
They of Amor musing rest in a leafy cavern.
poem by Arthur Hugh Clough
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Antinous
Stretched on a sunny bank he lay at rest,
Ferns at his elbow, lilies round his knees,
With sweet flesh patterned where the cool turf pressed,
Flowerlike crept o'er with emerald aphides.
Single he couched there, to his circling flocks
Piping at times some happy shepherd's tune,
Nude, with the warm wind in his golden locks,
And arched with the blue Asian afternoon.
Past him, gorse-purpled, to the distant coast
Rolled the clear foothills. There his white-walled town,
There, a blue band, the placid Euxine lay.
Beyond, on fields of azure light embossed
He watched from noon till dewy eve came down
The summer clouds pile up and fade away
poem by Alan Seeger
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To Angela
1
A lonely destiny in abandoned rooms
A soft insanity gropes on wallpapers.
Beds of geraniums flow by windows,
Daffodils also and more chaste in wasting away
As alabaster which gleams in the garden.
In blue veils India's mornings smile.
Their sweet incense scares away the stranger's worries,
Sleepless night by the pond because of Angela.
His pain rests hidden in an empty mask,
Thoughts which steal away blackly in the darkness.
The thrushes laugh all around from soft throats.
2
The fruits which round red in branches,-
Angela's lips which show her sweetness,
Like nymphs who bend over springs
In restful viewing for long hours,
The green-gold, long hours of the afternoon.
However, sometimes the spirit returns to fight and game.
In golden clouds a battle melee surges
And a hyacinth-like thing floats from mazy cresses.
A demon ponders thunderstorms in the sultriness,
In the grave's shadow of sad cypresses.
Then the first lightning falls from black flues.
3
The June willows' whisper in the evening;
A rain resounds long in flute sounds.
How motionless the birds hang in the gray!
And here Angela's rest in the dim branches;
The poet is this beauty's priest.
His mouth is flowed around by dark coolness.
In the valley fog softy rests poured out.
By the edge of the forest and gloom's shadow
A golden thing floats flowing from his mouth
By the edge of the forest and gloom's shadow.
Night embraces his drunken languishing.
poem by Georg Trakl
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The Golden Whistler
Golden bird whose golden voice,
When the summer days wax long
Cheery optimist from choice
Bids the feathered world rejoice
With full many a varied song
From the tree-tops flinging free
Golden bursts of melody.
Golden notes for golden hours
Where the sunlit waters gleam,
And the fragrant wattle flow'rs
Swoon in scented golden show'rs
To the bosom of the stream,
Singing, swinging, fluting high
None so gay, so glad as I.
Golden in the dawn's first hush
Sounds my matin, loud and long,
With a sweet, spontaneous rush,
Vying with harmonious thrush
For the bushlands Crown of Song
As the golden eye grows dim,
Sounds my joyous vesper hymn.
Golden minstrel, justly framed,
Greeted ere with grateful words
Long ere this my song has shamed
Him who fatuously named
This a land of songless birds
Seek you solace, seek you balm,
Hearken to my golden psalm.
poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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It is the hour
It is the hour when from the boughs
The nightingale's high note is heard—
It is the hour—when lovers' vows
Seem sweet in every whisper'd word—
And gentle winds and waters near
Make music to the lonely ear.
Each flower the dews have lightly wet,
And in the sky the stars are met:
And on the wave is deeper blue,
And on the leaf a browner hue—
And in the Heaven, that clear obscure
So softly dark—and darkly pure,
That follows the decline of day
As twilight melts beneath the moon away.
poem by Byron from The Hebrew Melodies (1815)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Skeleton Flat
HERE’S never a bough to be tossed in the breeze,
For it’s long since the forest was green;
And round all the trunks of the naked white trees
The marks of the death-ring are seen.
The solemn-faced bear, who had looked on the blacks
From his home with the ’possum and cat,
Blinked anxiously down when the death-dealing axe
Was ring-barking Skeleton Flat.
And, strange to be seen in the evergreen south,
The gums for ten summers have stood,
And dried in the terrible furnace of drouth,
Till harder than flint is the wood.
Now tall grows the grass at the roots of the trees,
But a beautiful forest it cost;
And the heart of the splitter is sad when he sees
And thinks of the timber that’s lost.
Here flies, through a sky that is glazed, the black crow,
And the eagle goes circling around,
Or evilly sits on a branch that is low,
With his gleaming black eye on the ground.
And loudly the jackasses chuckle in mirth,
When a comrade flies upward, until
Like a fragment of thread, in its height from the earth,
Is the writhing brown snake in his bill.
O fit for the place are the curlews that wail
On the banks of a distant lagoon,
Or round by the swamps that are shallow and pale
In the light of the nights of the moon;
When glist’ning and white are the frost-covered trees
That dead for ten summers have stood;
And the stranger, benighted, might fancy he sees
The skeleton wraith of a wood.
poem by Henry Lawson
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Pigeons Cooing When They Do
Pigeons cooing when they do,
A cooing begun.
As they strut after flying...
Or sit and stare with a sitting done.
They seem to fly around in packs,
To peck and pick in shifts.
Until someone begins to eat,
A delicious 'anything' pigeons seek...
With probing beaks.
Then other pigeons dropp in flocks,
From places suspicious.
While peacocking around,
Scouting out for something dished.
Like some popcorn or peanuts.
Or crumbs from crackers and/or bread.
To feed in a cooing...
As if a drooling done is did.
They seem to fly around in packs,
To peck and pick in shifts.
Until someone begins to eat,
A delicious 'anything' pigeons seek...
With probing beaks.
Pigeons cooing when they do,
A cooing begun.
As they strut after flying...
Or sit and stare with a sitting done.
Then other pigeons dropp in flocks,
From places suspicious.
While peacocking around,
Scouting out for something dished.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Children
Come to me, O ye children!
For I hear you at your play,
And the questions that perplexed me
Have vanished quite away.
Ye open the eastern windows,
That look towards the sun,
Where thoughts are singing swallows
And the brooks of morning run.
In your hearts are the birds and the sunshine,
In your thoughts the brooklet's flow,
But in mine is the wind of Autumn
And the first fall of the snow.
Ah! what would the world be to us
If the children were no more?
We should dread the desert behind us
Worse than the dark before.
What the leaves are to the forest,
With light and air for food,
Ere their sweet and tender juices
Have been hardened into wood, --
That to the world are children;
Through them it feels the glow
Of a brighter and sunnier climate
Than reaches the trunks below.
Come to me, O ye children!
And whisper in my ear
What the birds and the winds are singing
In your sunny atmosphere.
For what are all our contrivings,
And the wisdom of our books,
When compared with your caresses,
And the gladness of your looks?
Ye are better than all the ballads
That ever were sung or said;
For ye are living poems,
And all the rest are dead.
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Anti
Undone wishes give umbrage..
Worry and wrath on stage
Can't afflict umbrage beings stronger
To self but gives worry lowly to distress
Can smite but Umbrage beings weaker
To self but with wrath highly to distruction
Worst is lust..evil most is wrath
What loss will one gain
Gaming against wrath
Beware, beware..
poem by Indira Renganathan
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In the Dark Pine-Wood
In the dark pine-wood
I would we lay,
In deep cool shadow
At noon of day.
How sweet to lie there,
Sweet to kiss,
Where the great pine-forest
Enaisled is!
Thy kiss descending
Sweeter were
With a soft tumult
Of thy hair.
O unto the pine-wood
At noon of day
Come with me now,
Sweet love, away.
poem by James Joyce
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Homecoming
When the evening breathes golden rest
Forest and dark meadow before which
Man is a looker,
A shepherd, dwelling in the flocks' dusking stillness,
The patience of the red beeches;
So clearly since it has become autumn. By the hill
The lonely one listens to the flight of birds,
To dark meaning and the shadows of the dead
Have gathered more seriously around him;
Cool mignonette scent fulfills him with shudders,
The huts of the villagers the elder,
Where in former times the child dwelled.
Memory, buried hope
Is preserved by these brown rafters,
Over which dahlias hang
So that the hands strive after them,
In the brown garden the shimmering step
Forbidden loving, dark year,
That from blue eyelids the tears
Of the stranger fell irresistibly.
From brown treetops dew drips,
When that one, a blue deer, awakes on the hill,
Listening to the loud calls of the fishermen
By the evening pond
To the amorphous cry of the bats;
But in golden stillness
The drunken heart dwells
Full of its noble death.
poem by Georg Trakl
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In The Shade Of The Green Wood
In the shade of the green wood
The holly does grow,
While in soft rays of sunlight
The wild roses glow,
And I smell their sweet perfume
That gently floats by,
Past trees strong and mighty
That reach to the sky,
The pathway of gold autumn
Leaves still remain,
As I walk through the green wood again.
In the shade of the green wood
This bright sunny morn,
That's so cool in the shadows
A new day is born,
All the birds in the treetops
Are singing for me,
Sweet songs of the summer
Which fill me with glee,
And know from its beauty
I never shall part,
For the green wood does live in my heart.
In the shade of the green wood
A soft gentle breeze,
Now caresses the branches
And whispers through trees,
A sound reassuring
Shall carry me to,
All the scenes that exist
In each marvellous view,
It's here that my spirit
Shall always now stay,
And the green wood is guiding my way.
poem by Andrew Blakemore
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A Poem of Moving Fire n Fiery Wings
On cool waters
Of a winter morning
She moved like fire
Shifting in a blink
As the dark waters flowed
Through the thick fog
She appeared like a butterfly
Flapping its fiery wings
On the cactus
By the dark desert tracks
(04 Aug 2011)
poem by Indira Babbellapati
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A Child's Laughter
ALL the bells of heaven may ring,
All the birds of heaven may sing,
All the wells on earth may spring,
All the winds on earth may bring
All sweet sounds together---
Sweeter far than all things heard,
Hand of harper, tone of bird,
Sound of woods at sundawn stirred,
Welling water's winsome word,
Wind in warm wan weather,
One thing yet there is, that none
Hearing ere its chime be done
Knows not well the sweetest one
Heard of man beneath the sun,
Hoped in heaven hereafter;
Soft and strong and loud and light,
Very sound of very light
Heard from morning's rosiest height,
When the soul of all delight
Fills a child's clear laughter.
Golden bells of welcome rolled
Never forth such notes, nor told
Hours so blithe in tones so bold,
As the radiant mouth of gold
Here that rings forth heaven.
If the golden-crested wren
Were a nightingale---why, then,
Something seen and heard of men
Might be half as sweet as when
Laughs a child of seven.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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What Makes The Summer?
It is not the lark's clear tone
Cleaving the morning air with a soaring cry,
Nor the nightingale's dulcet melody all the balmy night--
Not these alone
Make the sweet sounds of summer;
But the drone of beetle and bee, the murmurous hum of the fly
And the chirp of the cricket hidden out of sight--
These help to make the summer.
Not roses redly blown,
Nor golden lilies, lighting the dusky meads,
Nor proud imperial pansies, nor queen-cups quaint and rare--
Not these alone
Make the sweet sights of summer
But the countless forest leaves, the myriad wayside weeds
And slender grasses, springing up everywhere--
These help to make the summer.
One heaven bends above;
The lowliest head ofttimes has sweetest rest;
O'er song-bird in the pine, and bee in the ivy low,
Is the same love, it is all God's summer;
Well pleased is He if we patiently do our best,
So hum little bee, and low green grasses grow,
You help to make the summer.
poem by Marietta Holley
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Dark Servant
I wish the moonlight away
In the dark with thee I wish to play
Like stars in the dark night
None shall see we for many years
Behind many tears
We will be out of sight
In the dark our truth see
In the dark where souls be
In the dark love laden
The dark shy sweet maiden..
Her poetic fervent
my dark servant
my poetry
poem by Kevin Michael Murphy
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In The Dark
I wish the moonlight away
In the dark with thee I wish to play
Like stars in the dark night
None shall see we for many years
Behind many tears
We will be out of sight
In the dark our truth see
In the dark where souls be
In the dark thine love laden
The dark shy sweet maiden..
Her poetic fervent
my dark servant
my poetry
poem by Kevin Michael Murphy
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I Know Not How to Find the Spring
I know not how to find the Spring,
Though violets are here,
And in the boughs high over me
The birds are fluting clear;
The magic and the melody,
The rapture—all are fled,
And could they wake, they would but break
My heart, now you are dead.
poem by Florence Earle Coates from Mine and Thine (1904)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Lily Adair
On the beryl-rimmed rebecs of Ruby,
Brought fresh from the hyaline streams,
She played, on the banks of the Yuba,
Such songs as she heard in her dreams.
Like the heavens, when the stars from their cyries
Look down through the ebon night air,
Were the groves by the Ouphantic Fairies
Lit up for my Lily Adair—
For my child-like Lily Adair—
For my heaven-born Lily Adair—
For my beautiful, dutiful Lily Adair.
Like two rose-leaves in sunshine when blowing,
Just curled softly, gently apart,
Were her lips by her passion, while growing
In perfume on the stalk of her heart.
As mild as the sweet influences
Of the Pleiades 'pregning the air—
More mild than the throned Excellencies
Up in heaven, was my Lily Adair—
Was my Christ-like Lily Adair—
Was my lamb-like Lily Adair—
Was my beautiful, dutiful Lily Adair.
At the birth of this fair virgin Vestal,
She was taken for Venus' child;
And her voice, though like diamond in crystal,
Was not more melodious than mild.
Like the moon in her soft silver splendor,
She was shrined in her own, past compare,
For no Angel in heaven was more tender
Than my beautiful Lily Adair—
Than my dove-like Lily Adair—
Than my saint-like Lily Adair—
Than my beautiful, dutiful Lily Adair.
Thus she stood on the arabesque borders
Of the beautiful blossoms that blew
On the banks of the crystalline waters,
Every morn, in the diaphane dew.
The flowers, they were radiant with glory,
And shed such perfume on the air,
That my soul, now to want them, feels sorry,
And bleeds for my Lily Adair—
For my much-loved Lily Adair—
For my long-lost Lily Adair—
For my beautiful, dutiful Lily Adair.
poem by Thomas Holley Chivers (1853)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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A Man with a Guitar
Men talk on the public square,
Pigeons eat on the sidewalk and fly,
Women flirt and feed the pigeons.
Men, envious of pigeons,
Desire more attention from the women
But women only notice birds who know how to sing.
There comes a nightingale that starts singing
And attention moves from pigeons to nightingales;
There comes a man with a guitar, and he starts playing
And singing like a nightingale.
A woman allured by these new sounds
Forgets the pigeons and nightingales;
She shyly starts to sing
And turns to a man with a guitar.
poem by Dejan Stojanovic
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Perennial Calendar (excerpt)
If now the sun extends his cheering beam,
And all the landscape casts a golden gleam
Clear is the sky, and calm and soft the air,
And through thin mist each object looks more fair.
Then, where the villa rears its sheltering grove,
Along the southern lawn 'tis sweet to rove:
There dark green pines, behind, their boughs extend,
And bright spruce firs like pyramids ascend,
And round their tops, in many a pendent row,
Their scaly cones of shining auburn show;
There the broad cedar's level branches spread,
And the tall cyprus lifts its spiry head;
With alaternus ilex interweaves,
And laurels mix their glossy oval leaves;
And gilded holly crimson fruit displays,
And white viburnum o'er the border strays.
Where these from storms the spacious greenhouse screen,
Ev'n now the eye beholds a flowery scene;
There crystal sashes ward the injurious cold,
And rows of benches fair exotics hold;
Rich plants, that Afric's sunny cape supplies,
Or o'er the isles of either India rise.
While striped geranium shows its tufts of red,
And verdant myrtles grateful fragrance shed;
A moment stay to mark the vivid bloom,
A moment stay to catch the high perfume.
poem by William Forster
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