Compensation
In that new world toward which our feet are set,
Shall we find aught to make our hearts forget
Earth's homely joys and her bright hours of bliss?
Has heaven a spell divine enough for this?
For who the pleasure of the spring shall tell
When on the leafless stalk the brown buds swell,
When the grass brightens and the days grow long,
And little birds break out in rippling song?
O sweet the dropping eve, the blush of morn,
The starlit sky, the rustling fields of corn,
The soft airs blowing from the freshening seas,
The sunflecked shadow of the stately trees,
The mellow thunder and the lulling rain,
The warm, delicious, happy summer rain,
When the grass brightens and the days grow long,
And little birds break out in rippling song!
O beauty manifold, from morn till night,
Dawn's flush, noon's blaze and sunset's tender light!
O fair, familiar features, changes sweet
Of her revolving seasons, storm and sleet
And golden calm, as slow she wheels through space,
From snow to roses, - and how dear her face,
When the grass brightens, when the days grow long,
And little birds break out in rippling song!
O happy earth! O home so well beloved!
What recompense have we, from thee removed?
One hope we have that overtops the whole, -
The hope of finding every vanished soul,
We love and long for daily, and for this
Gladly we turn from thee, and all thy bliss,
Even at thy loveliest, when the days are long,
And little birds break out in rippling song.
poem by Celia Thaxter
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Related quotes
Oh To Be Back Home In Ireland (To Jo)
Oh to be back home in Ireland now that April winds are blowing
And the weather getting milder and the green grass is a growing
And the breath of Spring is in the air and daylight hours grow long
And the skylark o'er the heather sings his merry April song.
Oh to be back home in Ireland the Country of my birth
The Land where I was bred and raised the greenest Land on Earth,
Land of the grassy valleys and scenic heather hills
Of murmuring brooks and rivers and rippling mountain rills.
I have travelled thousands of miles from my home in County Cork
I have been to London City and westward to New York,
I have seen the lights of Paris and the seven hills of Rome
But my heart is always yearning for my Country and my home.
And it's oh to be in Ireland now that April days are here
And the wildborn birds are singing in the Springtime of the year
And the wildflowers are a blooming and new leaves grow on the trees
In the Country I was raised in way beyond Atlantic seas.
poem by Francis Duggan
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In Early Spring
O Spring, I know thee! Seek for sweet surprise
In the young children's eyes.
But I have learnt the years, and know the yet
Leaf-folded violet.
Mine ear, awake to silence, can foretell
The cuckoo's fitful bell.
I wander in a gray time that encloses
June and the wild hedge-roses.
A year's procession of the flowers doth pass
My feet, along the grass.
And all you sweet birds silent yet, I know
The notes that stir you so,
Your songs yet half devised in the dim dear
Beginnings of the year.
In these young days you meditate your part;
I have it all by heart.
I know the secrets of the seeds of flowers
Hidden and warm with showers,
And how, in kindling Spring, the cuckoo shall
Alter his interval.
But not a flower or song I ponder is
My own, but memory's.
I shall be silent in those days desired
Before a world inspired.
O dear brown birds, compose your old song-phrases,
Earth, thy familiar daisies.
The poet mused upon the dusky height,
Between two stars towards night,
His purpose in his heart. I watched, a space,
The meaning of his face:
There was the secret, fled from earth and skies,
Hid in his gray young eyes.
My heart and all the Summer wait his choice,
And wonder for his voice.
Who shall foretell his songs, and who aspire
But to divine his lyre?
Sweet earth, we know thy dimmest mysteries,
But he is lord of his.
poem by Alice Meynell
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Mandilyn
As I lie on the grass
In the field upon my back,
At the heavens as I stare,
To remember my love, who now is there.
The clouds they shape her gentle form
The birds they sing her happy song,
The wind again it speaks her name,
As I hear it call for Mandilyn.
Oh how I long for her gentle touch,
How I long for her gentle kiss,
How I long for her loving hug,
Oh Wife, my life, you I miss.
I close my eyes and I see your face,
Lying beside me upon the grass,
Laughing and smiling we are again,
But when I open my eyes, you are gone again.
I see you walking rose in hand,
In the heavens your above this man,
Happy again I see you are,
Oh death, why be you so far.
The clouds they then turn a misty gray,
The wind has stopped calling her name,
The birds they all have flown away,
Then upon my face, it begins to rain.
But is it rain, or is it tears,
Falling from heaven upon this Man,
It is as though my wife’s trying to say,
In heaven again we’ll be together someday.
As I arise from the grass,
I leave the field into the night,
Death it came and it tempted my soul,
But then it left, when my Wife’s love did grow.
Randy L. McClave
poem by Randy McClave
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September Song
When I was a young man courting the girls
I played me the waiting game
If a maid refused me with a tossing curls, oh,
I let the old earth, take a couple of whirls
While I plied her with tears in prays of pearls
And as time came around she came my way
As time came around she came
For its a long, long while, from May to December
And the days grow short, when you reach September
And I have the lost my tears, and the walking in the little rain
Hey honey, I haven't gotta time for gaining Waiting Game
And the days turn to crawl(?grow old?) as they grow few
September, November
And these few colden(?golden?) days I'd like to spend 'em with you
These golden days, I'd like to spend 'em with you
And the days dwindle down to a precious few
September, November
And I'm not quite a quip for the waiting game
I have a little money, and I have a little pain
And these few golden days, as the days grow so few
These golden days, I'd like to spend 'em with you
These precious golden days, I'd like to spend 'em with you
September song, September song
September song, September song
song performed by by Lou Reed
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Country Living
Cats and dogs
Chickens and hogs
Lumps in the 'taters
And bumps on a log -
Stars in the night
The moon shines bright
Crowds pass through the country
Like clouds in flight -
Coffee and curds
Foxes and birds
Slow conversation
With a sweet flow in the words -
Fresh water rippling at the spring
Gives nature such a beautiful ring
Days like these
Have ways of making a heart sing -
Nights are short, days are long
Worries are few, oaks are strong
Living in the country
Is like giving the soul a wonderful song -
poem by Smoky Hoss
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Moorland Night
My face is against the grass - the moorland grass is wet -
My eyes are shut against the grass, against my lips there are the little blades,
Over my head the curlews call, And now there is the night wind in my hair;
My heart is against the grass and the sweet earth, - it has gone still, at last;
It does not want to beat any more,
And why should it beat?
This is the end of the journey.
The Thing is found.
This is the end of all the roads -
Over the grass there is the night-dew
And the wind that drives up from the sea along the moorland road,
I hear a curlew start out from the heath
And fly off calling through the dusk,
The wild, long, rippling call -:
The Thing is found and I am quiet with the earth;
Perhaps the earth will hold it or the wind, or that bird's cry,
But it is not for long in any life I know. This cannot stay,
Not now, not yet, not in a dying world, with me, for very long;
I leave it here:
And one day the wet grass may give it back -
One day the quiet earth may give it back -
The calling birds may give it back as they go by -
To someone walking on the moor who starves for love and will not know
Who gave it to all these to give away;
Or, if I come and ask for it again
Oh! then, to me.
poem by Charlotte Mary Mew
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Lament For Leaf Loss
Sing sad songs for the days that are gone
Now the days are growing darker and the night lasts long
But listen for the flutter of each shrivelled tear
As it drops in golden leaf-fall of the fading, dying year.
Sing sad songs for the days that are gone
Now the light is growing dimmer and the night lasts long
But listen for the echoes of the summer’s breeze
As it gossips with the branches of the leafless poplar trees.
Sing sad songs for the days that are gone
Now the frost is growing grimmer and the night lasts long
But listen for the rustle of lost autumn leaves
And the crying of the dewdrops as the barren forest grieves.
Sing sad songs for the days that are gone
Now the mood is growing glummer and the night lasts long
But listen for the whispers of the coming spring
When the buds begin their bursting and the birds begin to sing.
Sing no more for the days that are gone
For the light will soon be stronger and the night less long
And listen to the rhythm of season’s song
As spring will soon be with us while the winter won’t be long.
poem by C. Richard Miles
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Pleasant As May
Writer Dolly Parton
Copyright 1973
The mid summer sun shines but dim the fields try in vain to look gay
But when I was happy with him December was pleasant as May
There once was a time he and I picked flowers to braid in my hair
And the songbirds would sing sweet song of love that was tender and fair
No difference the seasons may quit our love was as warm as the sun
And it mattered not where did the snow
Or green grass kissed the fields where we'd run
Now the mid summer sun shines...
Sweet flowers sweet birds and sweet song have now lost their sweetness to me
For ever my darling is gone and for ever my heartbroken I'll be
Now the mid summer sun shines...
The mid summer sun shines but dim mmm
song performed by by Dolly Parton
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Oh Happy Days
Oh happy days,
Everyone likes you.
Oh happy days,
Please stay today.
Oh happy days,
Sweet like honey.
Oh happy days,
loving family ties.
Oh happy days,
Giving us strength.
Oh happy days,
Children out playing.
Oh happy days,
On the green grass.
Oh happy days,
With boundless optimism.
Oh happy days,
I give thanks.
Oh happy days,
Dreaming for more.
Oh happy days,
Warm and bright.
Oh happy days,
Like love eternal.
Oh happy days,
And glad memories.
Oh happy days,
New hope prayers.
Oh happy days,
With smiling faces.
Oh happy days,
Holidays and health.
Oh happy days,
With close friends.
Oh happy days,
Generous and giving.
Oh happy days,
Shiny rainbow dreams.
Oh happy days,
Till the very end.
Oh happy days,
Always and forever.
Amen.
poem by Rowina Mallick
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Alas, So Long!
AH! dear one, we were young so long,
It seemed that youth would never go,
For skies and trees were ever in song
And water in singing flow
In the days we never again shall know.
Alas, so long!
Ah! then was it all Spring weather?
Nay, but we were young and together.
Ah! dear one, I've been old so long,
It seems that age is loth to part,
Though days and years have never a song,
And oh! have they still the art
That warmed the pulses of heart to heart?
Alas, so long!
Ah! then was it all Spring weather?
Nay, but we were young and together.
Ah! dear one, you've been dead so long,—
How long until we meet again,
Where hours may never lose their song
Nor flowers forget the rain
In glad noonlight that never shall wane?
Alas, so long!
Ah! shall it be then Spring weather,
And ah! shall we be young together?
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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The songster
Music, music with throb and swing,
Of a plaintive note, and long;
'Tis a note no human throat could sing,
No harp with its dulcet golden string,--
Nor lute, nor lyre with liquid ring,
Is sweet as the robin's song.
He sings for love of the season
When the days grow warm and long,
For the beautiful God-sent reason
That his breast was born for song.
Calling, calling so fresh and clear,
Through the song-sweet days of May;
Warbling there, and whistling here,
He swells his voice on the drinking ear,
On the great, wide, pulsing atmosphere
Till his music drowns the day.
He sings for love of the season
When the days grow warm and long,
For the beautiful God-sent reason
That his breast was born for song.
poem by Emily Pauline Johnson
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Cadences
I
(MINOR)
THE ANCIENT memories buried lie,
And the olden fancies pass;
The old sweet flower-thoughts wither and fly,
And die as the April cowslips die,
That scatter the bloomy grass.
All dead, my dear! And the flowers are dead,
And the happy blossoming spring;
The winter comes with its iron tread,
The fields with the dying sun are red,
And the birds have ceas’d to sing.
I trace the steps on the wasted strand
Of the vanish’d springtime’s feet:
Wither’d and dead is our Fairyland,
For Love and Death go hand in hand
Go hand in hand, my sweet!
II
(MAJOR)
OH, what shall be the burden of our rhyme,
And what shall be our ditty when the blossom’s on the lime?
Our lips have fed on winter and on weariness too long:
We will hail the royal summer with a golden-footed song!
O lady of my summer and my spring,
We shall hear the blackbird whistle and the brown sweet throstle sing,
And the low clear noise of waters running softly by our feet,
When the sights and sounds of summer in the green clear fields are sweet.
We shall see the roses blowing in the green,
The pink-lipp’d roses kissing in the golden summer sheen;
We shall see the fields flower thick with stars and bells of summer gold,
And the poppies burn out red and sweet across the corn-crown’d wold.
The time shall be for pleasure, not for pain;
There shall come no ghost of grieving for the past betwixt us twain;
But in the time of roses our lives shall grow together,
And our love be as the love of gods in the blue Olympic weather.
poem by John Howard Payne
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I Love Spring
I love spring
Spring is new
It’s new blades of grass
It’s rain on a lass
It’s violets and rain
It’s a wood-scented lane
It’s a new bird song
It’s days growing long
It’s a tree in bud and puddles of mud
It’s birds in a tree and buzz from a bee
It’s kites in the sky
It’s spring. That’s why
I love spring.
poem by Mohammed Rashid
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Spring Dirge
A child came singing through the dusty town
A song so sweet that all men stayed to hear,
Forgetting for a space their ancient fear
Of evil days and death and fortune’s frown.
She sang of Winter dead and Spring new-born
In the green fields beyond the far hills’ bound;
And how this fair Spring, coming blossom-crowned,
Would cross the city’s threshold on the morn.
And each caged bird in every house anigh,
Even as she sang, caught up the glad refrain
Of Love and Hope and fair days come again,
Till all who heard forgot they had to die.
And all the ghosts of buried woes were laid
That heard the song of this sweet sorceress;
The Past grew to a dream of old distress,
And merry were the hearts of man and maid.
So, at the first faint blush of tender dawn,
Spring stole with noiseless steps through the gray gloom,
And men knew only by a strange perfume
That she had softly entered and withdrawn.
But ah! the lustre of her violet eyes
Was dimmed with tears for her sweet singing maid,
Whose voice would sound no more in shine or shade
To charm men’s souls at set of sun or rise.
For there, with dews of dawn upon her hair,
Like a fair flower plucked and flung away,
Dead in the street the little maiden lay
Who gave new life to hearts nigh dead of care.
Alas! must this be still the bitter doom
Awaiting those, the finer-souled of earth,
Who make for men a morning song of mirth
While yet the birds are dumb amid the gloom?
They walk on thorny ways with feet unshod,
Sing one last song, and die as that song dies.
There is no human hand to close their eyes,
And very heavy is the hand of God.
poem by Victor James Daley
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A Song For All Day
A rollicking song for the morn, my boy,
A rollicking song for the morn:
It's up and out with a laugh and shout,
While the bright sun circles the world about,
And the dew is on the corn, my boy,
The dew is on the corn.
Barefoot, brown, with trousers torn,
It's up and out with the morn.
A jolly good song for the noon, my boy,
A jolly good song for the noon:
It's out and away where the wild woods sway,
And the wind and the birds have a holiday,
And whistle an oldtime tune, my boy,
And whistle an oldtime tune.
Healthy, happy, a heart of June,
It's out in the woods at noon.
A wonderful song for the eve, my boy,
A wonderful song for the eve:
The sunset's bars and a trail of stars,
And the falls of the creek a mine of spars,
Or a weft of crystal weave, my boy,
A weft of crystal weave.
Hungry, tired, with nothing to grieve,
It's home again at eve.
A lullaby song for the night, my boy,
A lullaby song for the night:
When crickets cry and owlets fly,
And the house-hound bays the moon on high,
And the window-lamp shines bright, my boy,
The window-lamp shines bright.
A drowsy kiss and a bed snow-white,
And a lullaby-song for the night.
poem by Madison Julius Cawein
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It's Cold For May
it's cold for May and weather most severe
And swallow yet to return home this year
And still no trace or sound of bird cuckoo
And to hear him now would be like dream come true.
And trees and hedgerows not yet in full leaf
And Winter rob Spring like cruel hearted thief
And rain since morn and wind blow all day long
And lonely robin pipes a lonely song.
And worried farmer under cloud of woe,
His livestock hunger and the grass don't grow
And from fodder purchase last year's profits gone
And times are hard and hard to carry on.
I think of balmy days and Springs gone by
When sun shone brightly in a cloudless sky
And blissful skylark all day on the wing
At heaven's gate to angels songs did sing.
What's happened with the weather anyway?
Seems more like January than the month of May
And wintery conditions still prevail
And few birds sing now in the windswept vale.
But feelings of hopelessness and despair
Don't ever seem to get one anywhere
And in god's good time the weather will come fine
And grass will grow and the sun will brightly shine.
poem by Francis Duggan
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Love's Old Sweet Song
Once in the dear dead days beyond recall,
When on the world the mists began to fall,
Out of the dreams that rose in happy throng
Low to our hearts Love sung an old sweet song;
And in the dusk where fell the firelight gleam,
Softly it wove itself into our dream.
Just a song at twilight, when the lights are low,
And the flick'ring shadows softly come and go,
Tho' the heart be weary, sad the day and long,
Still to us at twilight comes Love's old song,
Comes Love's old sweet song.
Even today we hear Love's song of yore,
Deep in our hearts it dwells for evermore
Footsteps may falter, weary grow the way,
Still we can hear it at the close of day,
So till the end, when life's dim shadows fall,
Love will be found the sweetest song of all.
Just a song at twilight, when the lights are low,
And the flick'ring shadows softly come and go,
Tho' the heart be weary, sad the day and long,
Still to us at twilight comes Love's old song,
Comes Love's old sweet song.
poem by Clifton Bingham
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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In Faith
When the soft sweet wind o' the south went by,
I dwelt in the light of a dark brown eye;
And out where the robin sang his song,
We lived and loved, while the days were long.
In the sweet, sweet eves, when the moon swung high,
We wandered under the starry sky;
Or sat in the porch, and the moon looked through
The latticed wall where the roses grew.
My lips, that hd no lover's kiss,
You taught the art, till they trilled in bliss;
And the moon, and the stars, and the roses knew
That the heart you won was pure and true.
But true hearts weary men, maybe,
For you grew weary of love, and me.
Over the porch the dead vines hang,
And a mourning dove sobs where the robin sang.
In a warmer clime does another sigh
Under the light of your dark brown eye?
Did you follow the soft sweet wing o' the south,
And are you kissing a redder mouth?
Lips may be redder, and eyes more bright;
The face may be fairer you see to-night;
But never, love, while the stars shall shine,
Will you find a heart that is truer than mine.
Sometime, perhaps, when south winds blow,
You will think of a love you used to know;
Sometime, perhaps, when a robin sings,
Your heart will go back to olden things.
Sometime you will weary of this world's arts,
Of deceit and change and hollow hearts,
And, wearying, sigh for the 'used to be, '
And your feet will turn to the porch, and me.
I shall watch for you here when days grow long;
I shall list for your step through the robin's song;
I shall sit in the porch where the moon looks through,
And a vacant chair will wait - for you.
You may stray, and forget, and rove afar,
But my changeless love, like the polar star,
Will draw you at length o'er land and sea -
And I know you will yet come back to me.
The years may come, and the years may go,
But sometime again, when south winds blow,
When roses bloom, and the moon swings high,
I shall live in he light of your dark brown eye.
poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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Love-Laurel
Ah! that God once would touch my lips with song
To pierce, as prayer doth heaven, earth’s breast of iron,
So that with sweet mouth I might sing to thee,
O sweet dead singer buried by the sea,
A song, to woo thee, as a wooing siren,
Out of that silent sleep which seals too long
Thy mouth of melody.
For, if live lips might speak awhile to dead,
Or any speech could reach the sad world under
This world of ours, song surely should awake
Thee who didst dwell in shadow for song’s sake!
Alas! thou canst not hear the voice of thunder,
Nor low dirge over thy low-lying head
The winds of morning make.
Down through the clay there comes no sound of these;
Down in the grave there is no sign of Summer,
Nor any knowledge of the soft-eyed Spring;
But Death sits there, with outspread ebon wing,
Closing with dust the mouth of each new-comer
To that mute land, where never sound of seas
Is heard, and no birds sing.
Now thou hast found the end of all thy days
Hast thou found any heart a vigil keeping
For thee among the dead—some heart that heard
Thy singing when thou wert a brown, sweet bird
Gray Æons gone, in some old forest sleeping
Beneath the seas long since? in Death’s dim ways
Has thy heart any word?
For surely those in whom the deathless spark
Of song is kindled, sang from the beginning
If life were always? But the old desires—
Do they exist when sad-eyed Hope expires?
How live the dead? what crowns have they for winning?
Have they, to warm them in the dreamless dark,
For sun earth’s central fires?
Are the dead dead indeed whom we call dead?
Has God no life but this of ours for giving?—
When that they took thee by each well-known place,
Stark in thy coffin with a cold white face,
What thought, O Brother, hadst thou of the living?
What of the sun that round thee glory shed?
What of the fair day’s grace?
Is thy new life made up of memories
Or dreams that lull the dead, bright visions bringing
Of Spring above! Are thy days short or long?
Thou who wert master of our singing throng
Mayhap in death thou hast not lost thy singing,
But chauntst unheard, beside the moaning sea,
A solitary song.
The chance spade turns up skulls. God help the dead
And thee whose singing days have all passed over—
Thee, whom the gold-haired Spring shall seek in vain
When at the glad year’s doors she stands again,
Remembering the song-garlands thou hast wove her
In years gone by: but all these years have fled
With all their joy and pain.
My soul laughed out to hear my heart speak so,
And sprang forth skyward, as an eagle, hoping
To look upon thy soul with living eyes,
Until it came to where our dim life dies,
And dead suns darkly for a grave are groping
Through cycles of immeasurable woe,
Stone-blind in the blind skies.
The stars walk shuddering on that awful verge
From which my soul, with swift and fearless motion,
Clove the black depths, and sought for God and thee;
But God dwells where nor stars nor suns there be—
No shore there is to His Eternal Ocean;
A thousand systems are a fringe of surge
On that great starless sea.
And thou wert not. So that, with weary plumes,
My soul through the great void its way came winging
To earth again. “What hope for him who sings
Is there?” it sighed. “Death ends all sweetest things.”
When lo! there came a swell of mighty singing,
Flooding all space, and swift athwart the glooms
A flash of sudden wings.
Dreamer of dreams, thy songs and dreams are done.
Down where thou sleepest in earth’s secret bosom
There is no sorrow and no joy for thee,
Who canst not see what stars at eve there be,
Nor evermore at morn the green dawn blossom
Into the golden king-flower of the sun
Across the golden sea.
But haply there shall come in days to be
One who shall hear his own heart beating faster,
Plucking a rose sprung from thy heart beneath,
And from his soul, as sword from out its sheath,
Song shall leap forth where now, O silent master,
On thy lone grave beside the sounding sea,
I lay this laurel-wreath.
poem by Victor James Daley
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At Dawn and Dusk
At Dawn and Dusk
Love-Laurel
IN MEMORY OF HENRY KENDALL
AH! that God once would touch my lips with song
To pierce, as prayer doth heaven, earth’s breast of iron,
So that with sweet mouth I might sing to thee,
O sweet dead singer buried by the sea,
A song, to woo thee, as a wooing siren,
Out of that silent sleep which seals too long
Thy mouth of melody.
For, if live lips might speak awhile to dead,
Or any speech could reach the sad world under
This world of ours, song surely should awake
Thee who didst dwell in shadow for song’s sake!
Alas! thou canst not hear the voice of thunder,
Nor low dirge over thy low-lying head
The winds of morning make.
Down through the clay there comes no sound of these;
Down in the grave there is no sign of Summer,
Nor any knowledge of the soft-eyed Spring;
But Death sits there, with outspread ebon wing,
Closing with dust the mouth of each new-comer
To that mute land, where never sound of seas
Is heard, and no birds sing.
Now thou hast found the end of all thy days
Hast thou found any heart a vigil keeping
For thee among the dead—some heart that heard
Thy singing when thou wert a brown, sweet bird
Gray Æons gone, in some old forest sleeping
Beneath the seas long since? in Death’s dim ways
Has thy heart any word?
For surely those in whom the deathless spark
Of song is kindled, sang from the beginning
If life were always? But the old desires—
Do they exist when sad-eyed Hope expires?
How live the dead? what crowns have they for winning?
Have they, to warm them in the dreamless dark,
For sun earth’s central fires?
Are the dead dead indeed whom we call dead?
Has God no life but this of ours for giving?—
When that they took thee by each well-known place,
Stark in thy coffin with a cold white face,
What thought, O Brother, hadst thou of the living?
What of the sun that round thee glory shed?
What of the fair day’s grace?
Is thy new life made up of memories
Or dreams that lull the dead, bright visions bringing
Of Spring above! Are thy days short or long?
Thou who wert master of our singing throng
Mayhap in death thou hast not lost thy singing,
But chauntst unheard, beside the moaning sea,
A solitary song.
The chance spade turns up skulls. God help the dead
And thee whose singing days have all passed over—
Thee, whom the gold-haired Spring shall seek in vain
When at the glad year’s doors she stands again,
Remembering the song-garlands thou hast wove her
In years gone by: but all these years have fled
With all their joy and pain.
. . . . .
My soul laughed out to hear my heart speak so,
And sprang forth skyward, as an eagle, hoping
To look upon thy soul with living eyes,
Until it came to where our dim life dies,
And dead suns darkly for a grave are groping
Through cycles of immeasurable woe,
Stone-blind in the blind skies.
The stars walk shuddering on that awful verge
From which my soul, with swift and fearless motion,
Clove the black depths, and sought for God and thee;
But God dwells where nor stars nor suns there be—
No shore there is to His Eternal Ocean;
A thousand systems are a fringe of surge
On that great starless sea.
And thou wert not. So that, with weary plumes,
My soul through the great void its way came winging
To earth again. “What hope for him who sings
Is there?” it sighed. “Death ends all sweetest things.”
When lo! there came a swell of mighty singing,
Flooding all space, and swift athwart the glooms
A flash of sudden wings.
. . . . .
Dreamer of dreams, thy songs and dreams are done.
Down where thou sleepest in earth’s secret bosom
There is no sorrow and no joy for thee,
Who canst not see what stars at eve there be,
Nor evermore at morn the green dawn blossom
Into the golden king-flower of the sun
Across the golden sea.
But haply there shall come in days to be
One who shall hear his own heart beating faster,
Plucking a rose sprung from thy heart beneath,
And from his soul, as sword from out its sheath,
Song shall leap forth where now, O silent master,
On thy lone grave beside the sounding sea,
I lay this laurel-wreath.
poem by Victor James Daley
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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