
Incompatibility
Higher there, higher, far from the ways,
from the farms and the valleys, beyond the trees,
beyond the hills and the grasses’ haze,
far from the herd-trampled tapestries,
you discover a sombre pool in the deep
that a few bare snow-covered mountains form.
The lake, in light’s, and night’s, sublime sleep,
is never disturbed in its silent storm.
In that mournful waste, to the unsure ear,
come faint drawn-out sounds, more dead than the bell,
of some far-off cow, the echoes unclear,
as it grazes the slope, of a distant dell.
On those hills where the wind effaces all signs,
on those glaciers, fired by the sun’s pure light,
on those rocks, where dizziness threatens the mind,
in that lake’s vermilion presage of night,
under my feet, and above my head,
silence, that makes you wish to escape;
that eternal silence, of the mountainous bed
of motionless air, where everything waits.
You would say that the sky, in its loneliness,
gazed at itself in the glass, and, up there,
the mountains listened, in grave watchfulness
to the mystery nothing that’s human can hear.
And when, by chance, a wandering cloud
darkens the silent lake, moving by,
you might think that you saw some spirit’s robe,
or else its clear shadow, travelling, over the sky.
poem by Charles Baudelaire

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The Unnamed Lake
It sleeps among the thousand hills
Where no man ever trod,
And only nature's music fills
The silences of God.
Great mountains tower above its shore,
Green rushes fringe its brim,
And over its breast for evermore
The wanton breezes skim.
Dark clouds that intercept the sun
Go there in Spring to weep,
And there, when Autumn days are done.
White mists lie down to sleep.
Sunrise and sunset crown with gold
The pinks of ageless stone,
Her winds have thundered from of old -
And storms have set their throne.
No echoes of the world afar
Disturb it night or day,
The sun and shadow, moon and star
Pass and repass for aye.
'Twas in the grey of early dawn,
When first the lake we spied,
And fragments of a cloud were drawn
Half down the mountain side.
Along the shore a heron flew,
And from a speck on high,
That hovered in the deepening blue,
We heard the fish-hawk's cry.
Among the cloud-capt solitudes,
No sound the silence broke,
Save when, in whispers down the woods,
The guardian mountains spoke.
Through tangled brush and dewy brake,
Returning whence we came,
We passed in silence, and the lake
We left without a name.
poem by Frederick George Scott

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The Country Wife
She makes her way through the dark trees
Down to the lake to be alone.
Following their voices on the breeze,
She makes her way. Through the dark trees
The distant stars are all she sees.
They cannot light the way she's gone.
She make her way through the dark trees
Down to the lake to be alone.
The night reflected on the lake,
The fire of stars changed into water.
She cannot see the winds that break
The night reflected on the lake
But knows they motion for her sake.
These are the choices they have brought her:
The night reflected on the lake,
The fire of stars changed into water.
poem by Dana Gioia

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The Dying Of Pere Pierre
". . . with two other priests; the same night he died,
and was buried by the shores of the lake that bears his name."
Chronicle.
"Nay, grieve not that ye can no honour give
To these poor bones that presently must be
But carrion; since I have sought to live
Upon God's earth, as He hath guided me,
I shall not lack! Where would ye have me lie?
High heaven is higher than cathedral nave:
Do men paint chancels fairer than the sky?"
Beside the darkened lake they made his grave,
Below the altar of the hills; and night
Swung incense clouds of mist in creeping lines
That twisted through the tree-trunks, where the light
Groped through the arches of the silent pines:
And he, beside the lonely path he trod,
Lay, tombed in splendour, in the House of God.
poem by John McCrae

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Like the lake a Chinese poet sits beside in a painting
Who cares about
the weight of a lake?
Who would care to weigh it?
Who cares about
the colour of a lake
without the light of the sky
to reflect in it?
Who notices its modesty,
reflecting all, but silent of itself?
Who observes that the lake
remains unaffected,
not pained by loss,
not pleased by gain?
Who notices its wisdom,
obeying every law?
Who names its generosity,
among the fish, the birds,
the animals who drink?
Who knows whether the tree
leaning over it, sees its own reflection?
Who notices its love?
It bonds with earth,
It flows when needed,
as love does.
Who asks where the lake came from,
seeing it there?
Who wonders how old that lake is?
It is without age today.
Who wonders whether the lake
knows itself water,
or if water knows itself lake?
Who does not go to seek it,
for its stillness, for its silence,
as if it understands the mind’s needs,
the heart’s nourishment?
He is like that.
poem by Michael Shepherd

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The Splendor Of The Days
Sweet and shrill the crickets hiding in the grasses brown and lean
Pipe their gladness-sweeter, shriller-one would think the world was green.
O the haze is on the hilltops, and the haze is on the lake!
See it fleeing through the valley with the bold wind in its wake!
Mark the warm October haze!
Mark the splendor of the days!
And the mingling of the crimson with the sombre brown and grays!
See the bare hills turn their furrows to the shine and to the glow;
If you listen you can hear it, hear a murmur soft and low-
'We are naked,' so the fields say, 'stripped of all our golden dress.'
'Heed it not,' October answers, 'for I love ye none the less.
Share my beauty and my cheer
While we rest together here,
In these sun-filled days of languor, in these late days of the year.'
All the splendor of the summer, all the springtime's light and grace,
All the riches of the harvest, crown her head and light her face;
And the wind goes sighing, sighing, as if loath to let her pass,
While the crickets sing exultant in the lean and withered grass.
O the warm October haze!
O the splendor of the days!
O the mingling of the crimson with the sombre brown and grays!
poem by Jean Blewett

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Chicago Sestina
I am surprised by the streets of Chicago
when the palm of winter grips them with snow
as if to forgive the city’s mistakes
and give it a canvas that’s new, white, and clean–
its fingers, the branches on all of the trees
kneading the air that blows in from the lake.
I’ve never lived next to the pulse of the lake
(until I set foot down the side of Chicago)
breathing in through the streets and out through the trees
welcoming the cool of the wet, numbing snow.
It lets my mind slip into thinking it’s clean
as if to personally forgive my mistakes.
“But what have you done to forgive your mistakes? ”
Did I ask this? Or is that the voice of the lake?
Some days, not even does it appear clean,
worn down from its tall standing neighbor, Chicago.
It scrapes at the sky, asking it for more snow
to stick to and freeze the trunks of the trees.
If I were a branch on one of these trees
incapable of making a single mistake,
I’d grab at the sky as it shook out the snow
and grow my roots thick till they tasted the lake.
But I wouldn’t bend to the force of Chicago
that’s constantly keeping me from being clean.
And what does it mean to try to be clean?
I don’t understand the stillness of the trees
when they’re being attacked by the size of Chicago
as if to glorify the city’s mistakes
that glisten like stars at night on the lake
before it all froze and was covered with snow.
Ah! To imagine how long there’s been snow.
How can something this old still feel so clean
and dance through the wind that swoops in from the lake?
Is it the kneading by the spiny branches on trees
trusting that there will be no more mistakes
that leaves these the only pure thing in Chicago?
Here comes the snow that seeks out the trees
Am I now clean? Where are my mistakes?
Chicago belongs where it lay with the lake.
poem by Brian Maloney

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Australian Scenery
The Mountains
A land of sombre, silent hills, where mountain cattle go
By twisted tracks, on sidelings deep, where giant gum trees grow
And the wind replies, in the river oaks, to the song of the stream below.
A land where the hills keep watch and ward, silent and wide awake
As those who sit by a dead campfire, and wait for the dawn to break,
Or those who watched by the Holy Cross for the dead Redeemer's sake.
A land where silence lies so deep that sound itself is dead
And a gaunt grey bird, like a homeless soul, drifts, noiseless, overhead
And the world's great story is left untold, and the message is left unsaid.
The Plains
A land as far as the eye can see, where the waving grasses grow
Or the plains are blackened and burnt and bare, where the false mirages go
Like shifting symbols of hope deferred -- land where you never know.
Land of plenty or land of want, where the grey Companions dance,
Feast or famine, or hope or fear, and in all things land of chance,
Where Nature pampers or Nature slays, in her ruthless, red, romance.
And we catch a sound of a fairy's song, as the wind goes whipping by,
Or a scent like incense drifts along from the herbage ripe and dry
-- Or the dust storms dance on their ballroom floor, where the bones of the cattle lie.
poem by Andrew Barton Paterson

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Summer By The Lakeside: Lake Winnipesaukee
I. NOON.
White clouds, whose shadows haunt the deep,
Light mists, whose soft embraces keep
The sunshine on the hills asleep!
O isles of calm! O dark, still wood!
And stiller skies that overbrood
Your rest with deeper quietude!
O shapes and hues, dim beckoning, through
Yon mountain gaps, my longing view
Beyond the purple and the blue,
To stiller sea and greener land,
And softer lights and airs more bland,
And skies,--the hollow of God's hand!
Transfused through you, O mountain friends!
With mine your solemn spirit blends,
And life no more hath separate ends.
I read each misty mountain sign,
I know the voice of wave and pine,
And I am yours, and ye are mine.
Life's burdens fall, its discords cease,
I lapse into the glad release
Of Nature's own exceeding peace.
O welcome calm of heart and mind!
As falls yon fir-tree's loosened rind
To leave a tenderer growth behind,
So fall the weary years away;
A child again, my head I lay
Upon the lap of this sweet day.
This western wind hath Lethean powers,
Yon noonday cloud nepenthe showers,
The lake is white with lotus-flowers!
Even Duty's voice is faint and low,
And slumberous Conscience, waking slow,
Forgets her blotted scroll to show.
The Shadow which pursues us all,
Whose ever-nearing steps appall,
Whose voice we hear behind us call,--
That Shadow blends with mountain gray,
It speaks but what the light waves say,--
Death walks apart from Fear to-day!
Rocked on her breast, these pines and I
Alike on Nature's love rely;
And equal seems to live or die.
Assured that He whose presence fills
With light the spaces of these hills
No evil to His creatures wills,
The simple faith remains, that He
Will do, whatever that may be,
The best alike for man and tree.
What mosses over one shall grow,
What light and life the other know,
Unanxious, leaving Him to show.
II. EVENING.
Yon mountain's side is black with night,
While, broad-orhed, o'er its gleaming crown
The moon, slow-rounding into sight,
On the hushed inland sea looks down.
How start to light the clustering isles,
Each silver-hemmed! How sharply show
The shadows of their rocky piles,
And tree-tops in the wave below!
How far and strange the mountains seem,
Dim-looming through the pale, still light
The vague, vast grouping of a dream,
They stretch into the solemn night.
Beneath, lake, wood, and peopled vale,
Hushed by that presence grand and grave,
Are silent, save the cricket's wail,
And low response of leaf and wave.
Fair scenes! whereto the Day and Night
Make rival love, I leave ye soon,
What time before the eastern light
The pale ghost of the setting moon
Shall hide behind yon rocky spines,
And the young archer, Morn, shall break
His arrows on the mountain pines,
And, golden-sandalled, walk the lake!
Farewell! around this smiling bay
Gay-hearted Health, and Life in bloom,
With lighter steps than mine, may stray
In radiant summers yet to come.
But none shall more regretful leave
These waters and these hills than I
Or, distant, fonder dream how eve
Or dawn is painting wave and sky;
How rising moons shine sad and mild
On wooded isle and silvering bay;
Or setting suns beyond the piled
And purple mountains lead the day;
Nor laughing girl, nor bearding boy,
Nor full-pulsed manhood, lingering here,
Shall add, to life's abounding joy,
The charmed repose to suffering dear.
Still waits kind Nature to impart
Her choicest gifts to such as gain
An entrance to her loving heart
Through the sharp discipline of pain.
Forever from the Hand that takes
One blessing from us others fall;
And, soon or late, our Father makes
His perfect recompense to all!
Oh, watched by Silence and the Night,
And folded in the strong embrace
Of the great mountains, with the light
Of the sweet heavens upon thy face,
Lake of the Northland! keep thy dower
Of beauty still, and while above
Thy solemn mountains speak of power,
Be thou the mirror of God's love.
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier

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The Lakeside
The shadows round the inland sea
Are deepening into night;
Slow up the slopes of Ossipee
They chase the lessening light.
Tired of the long day's blinding heat,
I rest my languid eye,
Lake of the Hills! where, cool and sweet,
Thy sunset waters lie!
Along the sky, in wavy lines,
O'er isle and reach and bay,
Green-belted with eternal pines,
The mountains stretch away.
Below, the maple masses sleep
Where shore with water blends,
While midway on the tranquil deep
The evening light descends.
So seemed it when yon hill's red crown,
Of old, the Indian trod,
And, through the sunset air, looked down
Upon the Smile of God.
To him of light and shade the laws
No forest skeptic taught;
Their living and eternal Cause
His truer instinct sought.
He saw these mountains in the light
Which now across them shines;
This lake, in summer sunset bright,
Walled round with sombering pines.
God near him seemed; from earth and skies
His loving voice he beard,
As, face to face, in Paradise,
Man stood before the Lord.
Thanks, O our Father! that, like him,
Thy tender love I see,
In radiant hill and woodland dim,
And tinted sunset sea.
For not in mockery dost Thou fill
Our earth with light and grace;
Thou hid'st no dark and cruel will
Behind Thy smiling face!
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier

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The Rock Climber Of Stone Woods
He is innocent like a child
A pure soul
Climbing up rock and mountains
Head up in the sky
He has no answers for kids
No answers for loved ones
Climbing up higher and higher
Head up in the sky
Children need strong words
Need limits and discussions
He climbs higher and higher
Head up in the sky
No lover, no father, no brother and friend
Light like a feather climbing higher and higher
Head up in the sky
Mountains embrace him
World will forget him
poem by Petra Yasmeen Baroness von Schleinitz

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There was a Boy
There was a Boy; ye knew him well, ye cliffs
And islands of Winander!--many a time,
At evening, when the earliest stars began
To move along the edges of the hills,
Rising or setting, would he stand alone,
Beneath the trees, or by the glimmering lake;
And there, with fingers interwoven, both hands
Pressed closely palm to palm and to his mouth
Uplifted, he, as through an instrument,
Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls,
That they might answer him.--And they would shout
Across the watery vale, and shout again,
Responsive to his call,--with quivering peals,
And long halloos, and screams, and echoes loud
Redoubled and redoubled; concourse wild
Of jocund din! And, when there came a pause
Of silence such as baffled his best skill:
Then, sometimes, in that silence, while he hung
Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprise
Has carried far into his heart the voice
Of mountain-torrents; or the visible scene
Would enter unawares into his mind
With all its solemn imagery, its rocks,
Its woods, and that uncertain heaven received
Into the bosom of the steady lake.
This boy was taken from his mates, and died
In childhood, ere he was full twelve years old.
Pre-eminent in beauty is the vale
Where he was born and bred: the churchyard hangs
Upon a slope above the village-school;
And, through that church-yard when my way has led
On summer-evenings, I believe, that there
A long half-hour together I have stood
Mute--looking at the grave in which he lies!
poem by William Wordsworth

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The Last to Leave
The guns were silent, and the silent hills
had bowed their grasses to a gentle breeze
I gazed upon the vales and on the rills,
And whispered, "What of these?' and "What of these?
These long forgotten dead with sunken graves,
Some crossless, with unwritten memories
Their only mourners are the moaning waves,
Their only minstrels are the singing trees
And thus I mused and sorrowed wistfully
I watched the place where they had scaled the height,
The height whereon they bled so bitterly
Throughout each day and through each blistered night
I sat there long, and listened - all things listened too
I heard the epics of a thousand trees,
A thousand waves I heard; and then I knew
The waves were very old, the trees were wise:
The dead would be remembered evermore-
The valiant dead that gazed upon the skies,
And slept in great battalions by the shore.
poem by Leon Gellert

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Rise Up
rise up and fly like eagles
rise up through the sky
we've got to rise up
over higher mountains
rise up, rise up, rise up
Everybody's come a long long way
such a long way ,to be here today
we're going hard ,giving it all
we've been knocking on wood with our backs to the walls
we've been working every day and night
waiting for the chance for the day to arrive
and now we've all got something to prove
win or lose, there's only one thing to do
We've got to rise up
and fly like eagles
rise up through the sky
you've got to rise up
over higher mountains
rise up, rise up, rise up
Inside the sweat, inside the heat
in each and every heart there's a pounding beat
to do it wrong, to do it right
each of us has put up, one hell of a fight
and as we face the final test
all that we can do is to do our best
and as we're making time stand still
to get to the top you've got to give all you've got
You've got to rise up
and fly like eagles
rise up through the sky
you've got to rise up
over higher mountains
rise up, rise up
Shine a light and let them see
everything you want to be
Shine a light and let them know
you are never letting go
Rise up... win or lose there's only one thing to do
We've got to rise up
and fly like eagles
rise up through the sky
you've got to rise up
over higher mountains
rise up, rise up, rise up
Rise, and fly like eagles
rise up through the sky
you've got to rise up
over higher mountains
rise up, rise up, rise up, rise up,
over higher mountains, rise,
We've got to rise up.
song performed by by Vanessa Amorosi

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Improvisations: Light And Snow: 03
The first bell is silver,
And breathing darkness I think only of the long scythe of time.
The second bell is crimson,
And I think of a holiday night, with rockets
Furrowing the sky with red, and a soft shatter of stars.
The third bell is saffron and slow,
And I behold a long sunset over the sea
With wall on wall of castled cloud and glittering balustrades.
The fourth bell is color of bronze,
I walk by a frozen lake in the dun light of dusk:
Muffled crackings run in the ice,
Trees creak, birds fly.
The fifth bell is cold clear azure,
Delicately tinged with green:
One golden star hangs melting in it,
And towards this, sleepily, I go.
The sixth bell is as if a pebble
Had been dropped into a deep sea far above me . . .
Rings of sound ebb slowly into the silence.
poem by Conrad Potter Aiken

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Then There Are The Mountains
On a mountain's peak is there peace?
Mountains that overlook the quiet prairie.
Mountains that borders life in rural counties.
Mountains chiseled by years of wind and rain.
Mountain winds creep keeping all secrets.
Mountains a kin to the lower hills of death.
Mountains at the height of glamour baked in sunshine.
Mountains that reach for more majestic planes.
Mountains giving to the ridges, valleys and cliffs.
Mountains in spring the fulfillment of adventure and dream.
Mountains which can shelter one from storm.
Mountains an enduring symbol in poetry.
Mountains which inhabit the calls of the wild.
Mountains of spectacle, below the bending roads between.
Mountains embracing, magnifying the sounds of river.
Mountains the stellar monuments of time.
poem by William Blackman

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Echoes of silence
A silent scream
A bad dream..
nightmare
Wake me up
Some one dare
Spare me.. spare!
Everytime i remember
that touch that smell
The day i experienced hell
my cross to bear
All my life
My death knell
My tortured sigh
someone hear in silence
my helplessness
As i laid that night
Silence echoes my fight
my plight!
Silence echoes
Scot free, he walks away
echoes till this day
Silence echoes
My lost innocence
At nights in dreams..
Night, witness to my pain
Driving me insane
within my heart...
Silence echoes,
My silent scream
my broken dreams..
Silence echoes....
poem by Meena Iyer

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I Could Be The Moon
i could be the moon
where you can be a body and a
shadow
i could be a lake where
the moon may shine
and you can still be the body
and the shadow
and the voice
i could be a candle in the dark
where you may put
your hope and you can still be the
body and the shadow
and the scent
i could all be your moon
your lake and your candle
and you can still be the body and the shadow
and you shall walk
under me (if i were the moon)
and around me (if i were the lake)
and you may have the power
to put me off (if i were just a candle
in the dark
where you are the body
and the shadow and the voice
and by the mere sigh
of your whimper
i may die
so i still prefer to be your moon
or your lake so i can be your full light
so i can be your mirror
larger than your body
not helpless to your shadow
in silence, i still like to be myself
not a slave, not someone whom you can just
give away as easily as a flicker of a candle
as fickle as you are
poem by Ric S. Bastasa

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It was night and I could see a large and calm lake, reflecting the moon. Black mountains rose around it. I arrived from between two of these mountains, I looked at the lake and the moon, and that was it, nothing else happened.
quote by Georges Simenon

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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My House
The image of the poets in the breeze
Canadian geese are flying above the trees
A mist is hanging gently on the lake
My house is very beautiful at night
My friend and teacher occupies a spare room
Hes dead, at peace at last the wandering jew
Other friends had put stones on his grave
He was the first great man that I had ever met
Sylvia and I got out our ouija board
To dial a spirit, across the room it soared
We were happy and amazed at what we saw
Blazing stood the proud and regal name delmore
Delmore, I missed all your funny ways
I missed your jokes and the brilliant things you said
My dedalus to your bloom, was such a perfect wit
And to find you in my house makes things perfect
I really got a lucky life
My writing, my motorcycle and my wife
And to top it all off a spirit of pure poetry
Is living in this stone and wood house with me
The image of the poets in the breeze
Canadian geese are flying above the trees
A mist is hanging gently on the lake
Our house is very beautiful at night
Our house is very beautiful at night
Our house is very beautiful at night
Our house is very beautiful at night
song performed by by Lou Reed

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Colors of Silence
Yellow roses swing in the wind
Lonely dogs bark but the wolves prevail
The violin strings snap, protesting
The aloofly silent mind of the nail.
Blue tulips pray with the bells
On the lake white triangles sail
The postman walks slowly, pondering
The silent somber red box of the mail.
Evening descends on the green hills
The trees are wincing along the grey tail
In the dense dark rests the black forest
The silence dreams it screams under a veil.
poem by Paul Hartal

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