The Nevers of Poetry
Never say aught in verse, or grave or gay,
That you in prose would hesitate to say.
Never in rhyme pretend to tears, unless
True feeling sheds them in unfeigned distress;
Or some dream-grief, with such a mournful strain
As night winds make in pine tops, stirs your brain,
To shake them, dew-like, o’er the flowers that bloom
In the wild dark, round Joy’s imagined tomb;
Or save when doubts that over Love may lower,
Like summer clouds, break in a sunny shower
Out of your gladdened eyes, to freshen all
The bowers of memory with their grateful fall.
Never too much affect that polished thing—
Once belauded—known as point, or sting.
The highest and the noblest growths of wit
Are never, or but seldom, touched with it.
For of the muse it is not truly born
Unless the apex of some burst of scorn,
Or irony, or hate all torture-torn!
Not to increase the passion, but to make
The wave, full surging, on its object break.
Never, if you’d be readable at all,
Aim overmuch at being ethical.
Though she should be a teacher, still the Muse
To be a mere schoolmistress should refuse.
She should instruct us, but her methods never
Be academic ones, however clever.
Her morals, like great nature’s morals, aye
Should work themselves out in an unforced way,
And not so patly as to hint the while
At cryptic ingenuities of style.
Whate’er the theme, her ethic lights should shine
Full forth, as from a central heat divine,
Or heat inherent to the passion, wrought
Into the chastened harmony of thought;
And not be mere extraneous coals of fire
Blown for the nonce into factitious ire.
Though sone has oft some beauty most divine,
Which well we feel, yet cannot well define—
Some yearning excellence, intense and far,
Coming and going like a clouded star—
Some awful glory we but half descry,
Like a strong sunset in a stormy sky—
Yet ne’er be murky of set purpose, since
You only thereby shall the more evince
That even the Sublime’s but then made sure
When, like a morning alp, it breaks from the obscure.
Never heed whether a line strictly goes
By learned rule, if, brook-like, it warble as it flows,
Or if, in concord with the thought, it fills
Fast forward, like a torrent fast flooding from the hills.
Never say aught is “fading like a star”
Because receding in the past afar,
Since stars do not fade, but shine on no less,
Thought lost in light to our weaksightedness;
And no true trope should ever rest on fancy,
But claim a universal relevancy;
Nor think a line is racy to the core,
And bold, and bravely eloquent, the more
It striving seems to tear itself asunder,
Like this—“Down there i’ the deep heart o’ the thunder,”
But for which, surely (out of chaos), none
Might feign to find a sanction, save in fun.
Never think harshness the best foil to raise
And relish sweetness; for love craggy lays.
Yet never be you glib, when passion’s force
Should ridge your style, as by a tempest hoarse
The deep is roughened into waves that roar
At heaven—upheaping, huddling, more and more,
To burst at last in booming thunder on the shore.
Never be such a pagan as to deem
That truth or beauty must diviner seem
For some abnormal set-off, hunched and rude,
Prowling for evil in the neighbourhood,
If such strange opposite breathe not the air
Of nature—being found, not conjured there;
And never to be graceless be you fain,
Till to be graceful you have tried in vain.
Never be cheated—never may you be!—
Into the cramp belief that poesy
Must of necessity in soul be one
With the mere form of verse if it but deftly run;
Or pour, as with a mill-wheel’s vigorous cheer,
A rhyming clatter hard upon the ear.
Never believe that verse a license knows
For aught that would be balderdash in prose,
Or that all reason may at any time
Find a sufficient substitute in rhyme;
Or that because with many words you re fraught,
There must be under them some flood of thought.
Never compel a simile that wont
Take service without forcing; if it don t,
As of itself, into your verses flow,
But true to liberty—and let it go.
Never reject a homely-sounding phrase,
That your whole meaning easily conveys,
For one made current by some courtly wit
Which barely indicates a shade of it,
Or which—for probably it so may fall—
Does not express what you would mean at all.
Never suppose that you in song are free
To strain all praise, and make it flattery.
To sing of the heroic is to raise
One value by another—but to praise
Mere clowns, in verse, or natures lean and cold,
Is like to setting gravel stones in gold.
Never exalt vagaries to a station
But due to flights of the imagination—
Gas-charged balloons, put vainly all a-bloat,
For clouds of God that in the orient float;
Theatric thunders, all set brattling for
The dread all-shaking tempest-trumps of Thor;
For in the end all charlatanry must,
The more it startle, but the more disgust.
And lastly, never take for gospel all
Your friends say of your genius, when they call
Its merits o’er; but at the same time see
That you do never take yourself to be
So great an ass as your known foes declare
They do most solemnly believe you are.
[Each embryo poet, profit by my strain!
Then shall men say, “He has not lived in vain! ”]
poem by Charles Harpur
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Related quotes
Art
I
Yes! Beauty still rebels!
Our dreams like clouds disperse:
She dwells
In agate, marble, verse.
No false constraint be thine!
But, for right walking, choose
The fine,
The strict cothurnus, Muse.
Vainly ye seek to escape
The toil! The yielding phrase
Ye shape
Is clay, not chrysoprase.
And all in vain ye scorn
That seeming ease which ne’er
Was born
Of aught but love and care.
Take up the sculptor’s tool!
Recall the gods that die
To rule
In Parian o’er the sky.
II
Poet, let passion sleep
Till with the cosmic rhyme
You keep
Eternal tone and time,
By rule of hour and flower,
By strength of stern restraint
And power
To fail and not to faint.
The task is hard to learn
While all the songs of Spring
Return
Along the blood and sing.
Yet hear—from her deep skies,
How Art, for all your pain,
Still cries
Ye must be born again!
Reject the wreath of rose,
Take up the crown of thorn
That shows
To-night a child is born.
The far immortal face
In chosen onyx fine
Enchase,
Delicate line by line.
Strive with Carrara, fight
With Parian, till there steal
To light
Apollo’s pure profile.
Set the great lucid form
Free from its marble tomb
To storm
The heights of death and doom.
Take up the sculptor’s tool!
Recall the gods that die
To rule
In Parian o’er the sky.
poem by Alfred Noyes
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Song Of A Rhyming Man
I love the sound of rhyming words like Dan will rhyme with Ann
And I could never be a poet just call me rhyming man
This modern verse too much for me it's way above my head
Though modern poets are now the rage and Rhyme is with the dead.
I love the sound of rhyming words, I love the verse that rhyme
To blank or free or non rhyme verse prefer it every time
And there's many who will disagree and most will say I'm wrong
But give me ballad or rhyme verse or good old rhyming song.
You may say I am limited and with you most will agree
That I'm not into modern verse of twenty first century
But I've been an old style rhyming man since nineteen seventy three
And I am in my sixties now and there's no changing me.
I love the sound of rhyming words like Dan will rhyme with Ann
And I could never be a poet just call me rhyming man
And I am guilty of no sin and I can't see no crime
In liking sound of rhyming verse and loving words that rhyme
poem by Francis Duggan
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Epitaph On Johnson
Here Johnson lies, a sage by all allowed,
Whom to have bred, may well make England proud;
Whose prose was eloquence, by wisdom taught,
The graceful vehicle of virtuous thought;
Whose verse may claim, grave, masculine and strong,
Superior praise to the mere poet's song;
Who many a noble gift from Heaven possessed,
And faith at last, alone worth all the rest.
O man, immortal by a double prize,
By fame on earth, by glory in the skies!
poem by William Cowper
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Collins
A Genius caged in niceties of art;
A full-souled Bard that should have thought apart,
Creatively peculiar—not as taught
By models which (though rare and richly wrought,
As polished jewels set in chastened gold)
Have lost at length their birth-fire, and are cold.
Yet how shot through with beauty are the Lays
His nice hand fashioned for the after days!
Painting and Sculpture in his verse combine
With Poesy; and breathing through each line
In harmonised transfusion, they dispense
The spirit of a triune excellence.
poem by Charles Harpur
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Decay
O Poesy is on the wane,
For Fancy's visions all unfitting;
I hardly know her face again,
Nature herself seems on the flitting.
The fields grow old and common things,
The grass, the sky, the winds a-blowing;
And spots, where still a beauty clings,
Are sighing 'going! all a-going!'
O Poesy is on the wane,
I hardly know her face again.
The bank with brambles overspread,
And little molehills round about it,
Was more to me than laurel shades,
With paths of gravel finely clouted;
And streaking here and streaking there,
Through shaven grass and many a border,
With rutty lanes had no compare,
And heaths were in a richer order.
But Poesy is on the wane,
I hardly know her face again.
I sat beside the pasture stream,
When Beauty's self was sitting by,
The fields did more than Eden seem
Nor could I tell the reason why.
I often drank when not adry
To pledge her health in draughts divine;
Smiles made it nectar from the sky,
Love turned een water into wine.
O Poesy is on the wane,
I cannot find her face again.
The sun those mornings used to find,
Its clouds were other-country mountains,
And heaven looked downward on the mind,
Like groves, and rocks, and mottled fountains.
Those heavens are gone, the mountains grey
Turned mist--the sun, a homeless ranger,
Pursues alone his naked way,
Unnoticed like a very stranger.
O Poesy is on the wane,
Nor love nor joy is mine again.
Love's sun went down without a frown,
For very joy it used to grieve us;
I often think the West is gone,
Ah, cruel Time, to undeceive us.
The stream it is a common stream,
Where we on Sundays used to ramble,
The sky hangs oer a broken dream,
The bramble's dwindled to a bramble!
O Poesy is on the wane,
I cannot find her haunts again.
Mere withered stalks and fading trees,
And pastures spread with hills and rushes,
Are all my fading vision sees;
Gone, gone are rapture's flooding gushes!
When mushrooms they were fairy bowers,
Their marble pillars overswelling,
And Danger paused to pluck the flowers
That in their swarthy rings were dwelling.
Yes, Poesy is on the wane,
Nor joy nor fear is mine again.
Aye, Poesy hath passed away,
And Fancy's visions undeceive us;
The night hath ta'en the place of day,
And why should passing shadows grieve us?
I thought the flowers upon the hills
Were flowers from Adam's open gardens;
But I have had my summer thrills,
And I have had my heart's rewardings.
So Poesy is on the wane,
I hardly know her face again.
And Friendship it hath burned away,
Like to a very ember cooling,
A make-believe on April day
That sent the simple heart a-fooling;
Mere jesting in an earnest way,
Deceiving on and still deceiving;
And Hope is but a fancy-play,
And Joy the art of true believing;
For Poesy is on the wane,
O could I feel her faith again!
poem by John Clare
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To J. S.
The wind, that beats the mountain, blows
More softly round the open wold,
And gently comes the world to those
That are cast in gentle mould.
And me this knowledge bolder made,
Or else I had not dare to flow
In these words toward you, and invade
Even with a verse your holy woe.
'Tis strange that those we lean on most,
Those in whose laps our limbs are nursed,
Fall into shadow, soonest lost:
Those we love first are taken first.
God gives us love. Something to love
He lends us; but, when love is grown
To ripeness, that on which it throve
Falls off, and love is left alone.
This is the curse of time. Alas!
In grief I am not all unlearn'd;
Once thro' mine own doors Death did pass;
One went, who never hath return'd.
He will not smile--not speak to me
Once more. Two years his chair is seen
Empty before us. That was he
Without whose life I had not been.
Your loss is rarer; for this star
Rose with you thro' a little arc
Of heaven, nor having wander'd far
Shot on the sudden into dark.
I knew your brother: his mute dust
I honour and his living worth:
A man more pure and bold and just
Was never born into the earth.
I have not look'd upon you nigh,
Since that dear soul hath fall'n asleep.
Great nature is more wise than I:
I will not tell you not to weep.
And tho' mine own eyes fill with dew,
Drawn from the spirit thro' the brain,
I will not even preach to you,
"Weep, weeping dulls the inward pain."
Let Grief be her own mistress still.
She loveth her own anguish deep
More than much pleasure. Let her will
Be done--to weep or not to weep.
I will not say "God's ordinance
Of death is blown in every wind;"
For that is not a common chance
That takes away a noble mind.
His memory long will live alone
In all our hearts, as mournful light
That broods above the fallen sun,
And dwells in heaven half the night.
Vain solace! Memory standing near
Cast down her eyes, and in her throat
Her voice seem'd distant, and a tear
Dropt on the letters as I wrote.
I wrote I know not what. In truth,
How should I soothe you anyway,
Who miss the brother of your youth?
Yet something I did wish to say:
For he too was a friend to me:
Both are my friends, and my true breast
Bleedeth for both: yet it may be
That only silence suiteth best.
Words weaker than your grief would make
Grief more. 'Twere better I should cease;
Although myself could almost take
The place of him that sleeps in peace.
Sleep sweetly, tender heart, in peace;
Sleep, holy spirit, blessed soul,
While the stars burn, the moons increase,
And the great ages onward roll.
Sleep till the end, true soul and sweet.
Nothing comes to thee new or strange,
Sleep full of rest from head to feet:
Lie still, dry dust, secure of change.
poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson
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On the Death of E. Waller, Esq.
How, to thy Sacred Memory, shall I bring
(Worthy thy Fame) a grateful Offering?
I, who by Toils of Sickness, am become
Almost as near as thou art to a Tomb?
While every soft, and every tender Strain
Is ruffl'd, and ill-natur'd grown with Pain.
But, at thy Name, my languisht Muse revives,
And a new Spark in the dull Ashes strives.
I hear thy tuneful Verse, thy Song Divine;
And am lnspir'd by every charming Line.
But, Oh! –––––––––
What Inspiration, at the second hand,
Can an Immortal Elegic Command?
Unless, Me Pious Offerings, mine should be
Made Sacred, being Consecrate to thee.
Eternal, as thy own Almighty Verse,
Should be those Trophies that adom thy Hearse.
The Thought Illustrious, and the Fancy Young;
The Wit Sublime, the Judgment Fine, and Strong;
Soft, as thy Notes to Sacharissa sung.
Whilst mine, like Transitory Flowers, decay,
That come to deck thy Tomb a short-liv'd Day.
Such Tributes are, like Tenures, only fit
To shew from whom we hold our Right to Wit.
Hafl, wondrous Bard, whose Heav'n-born Genius first
My Infant Muse, and Blooming Fancy Nurst.
With thy soft Food of Love I first began,
Then fed on nobler Panegyrick Strain,
Numbers Seraphic! and, at every View,
My Soul extended, and much larger grew:
Where e're I Read, new Raptures seiz'd my Blood;
Methought I heard the Language of a God.
Long did the untun'd World in Ignorance stray,
Producing nothing that was Great and Gay,
Till taught, by thee, the true Poetick way.
Rough were the Tracts before, Dull, and Obscure;
Nor Pleasure, nor Instruction could procure.
Their thoughtless Labour could no Passion move;
Sure, in that Age, the Poets knew not Love:
That Charming God, like Apparitions, then
Was only talk'd on, but ne're seen by Men:
Darkness was o're the Muses Land displaid,
And even the Chosen Tribe unguided straid.
Till, by thee rescu'd from th' Egyptian Night,
They now look up, and view the God of Light,
That taught them how to Love, and how to Write;
And to Enhance the Blessing which Heav'n lent,
When for our great Instructor thou wert sent.
Large was thy Life, but yet thy Glories more;
And, like the Sun, did still dispense thy Power,
Producing somthing wondrous every hour:
And, in thy Circulary Course, didst see
The very Life and Death of Poetry.
Thou saw'st the Generous Nine neglected lie,
None listning to their Heav'nly Harmony;
The World being grown to that low Ebb of Sense,
To disesteem the noblest Excellence;
And no Encouragement to Phophets shewn,
Who in past Ages got so great Renown.
Though Fortune Elevated thee above
Its scanty Gratitude, or fickle Love;
Yet, fallen with the World, untir'd by Age,
Scorning th'unthinking Crowd, thou quit'st the Stage.
poem by Aphra Behn
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My Work's
My work’s
My work’s was all for you and I see that I need it and now let me feel all of it’s meaning,
All plans that I have for my past was all for your future,
I found that you made me strong and now I see that in your love I define all love in your work’s,
Time is all moving so fast and there is nothing to lose for your essence we violated all your work’s and see that nothing but pain made me see that I need to prepare that we love all nature by what we all define for the new creation,
I see that you made me strong in my heart and find that you are eventually made me see that we are creature’s that search for a Creator, this is all I see and in it let me define all it’s true meaning,
This is all that I have and in your work’s I know that you never made me fall and now I know that in your love never make me hesitate and in your love I see that in your love let me love and in these work’s I know that you never made me fall,
I know that in all work’s I see that in my life you never planned to waste any of my time and in your immutability I saw that we shared equal opportunities,
Heal me and tell me that I need it all in me for the new creation that never made me to get lost in all love that made me suffer and know that the unseen in you is all justice in you and I feel that I need and in all love that is all love that healed all afflictions.
poem by Maxim Muyu
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A Landscape By Courbet
Low lies the mere beneath the moorside, still
And glad of silence: down the wood sweeps clear
To the utmost verge where fed with many a rill
Low lies the mere.
The wind speaks only summer: eye nor ear
Sees aught at all of dark, hears aught of shrill,
From sound or shadow felt or fancied here.
Strange, as we praise the dead man's might and skill,
Strange that harsh thoughts should make such heavy cheer,
While, clothed with peace by heaven's most gentle will,
Low lies the mere.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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What A Feeling
Intro-Chorus:
What a feeling, beings believing
I can have it all now Im dancing for my life
Verse 1 BoBo:
All alone I have cried
Silent tears full of pride
In a world made of steel
Made of stone
Verse 2 Irene:
First when theres nothing
But a slow glowing dream
That your fear seems to hide
Deep inside your mind
Chorus:
What a feeling, beings believing
I can have it all now Im dancing for my life
Take your passion and make it happen
Pictures come alive you could dance right through your life
Verse 3 BoBo:
Now I know, I got the chance
To reach the top, is so intense
In a world made of steel
Made of stone
Verse 4 Irene:
Now I hear the music
Close my eyes I am rhythm
In a flash it takes hold
Of my heart
Chorus:...
Verse 5 BoBo:
I feel the passion, deep inside
I got strength, I got pride
In a world made of steel
Made of stone
Rap 2 BoBo:
Dancing- till the end of this night
Like now or never, got strength and pride
When I feel the music Im losing control
Of my mind, my body, my heart and my soul
Lets go - make this dream come true
For me and for you, we can dance right through
You can have it all, theres no price to pay
Your feelings will show you the way
Chorus
song performed by by DJ Bobo
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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God Gave Me Style
[Chorus]
God gave me style
God gave me grace
God gave me style
God gave me grace
God put a smile on my face
Haha, God put this smile on my face
God made me shine like the sun
God make me shine like the sun
Sometimes I feel like I'm the one
Sometimes I feel like I'm the one
It ain't my fault
[Bridge]
I just reach for style, I'm hot I breaks it down
It ain't my fault, you can't break it down the way I break it down
[Verse 1]
Listen you can call me what you want, black and ugly
But you can't convince me the Lord don't love me
When my cds drop, they sell the best
You call it luck, why can't it just be I'm blessed
I'm a trackstar, runnin' through life, chasin' my dream
?? I may even trade in a mic in for a triple beam
I zone off thinkin' is there really heaven or hell
So what happens to a changed man who dies in a cell
I need no answers to these questions, cuz time will tell
Got a date with destiny, she's more than a girl
Don't much good come from me, but my music
Is a gift given from God so I'ma use it (Yeaaah!)
[Chorus]
God gave me style
God gave me grace
God gave me style
God gave me grace
God put a smile on my face
Haha, God put this smile on my face
God made me shine like the sun
God make me shine like the sun
Sometimes I feel like I'm the one
Sometimes I feel like I'm the one
It ain't my fault
[Bridge]
I just reach for style, I'm hot I breaks it down
It ain't my fault, you can't break it down the way I break it down
[Verse 2]
Some days, I'm in the crowd all by myself
Bunch of niggas around I'm still by myself
I'm drink off in the crowd, by myself
Thinkin' bout nothin' more than life, what else
These days its hard to tell who really cares for me
So you when hear this song, you should say a prayer for me
I put a message in my music, hope it brightens your day
If times are hard, when you hear it, know you'll be okay
A O.G. told me God's favorites have a hard time
You out the hood, that's good now stay on the grind
I'm a spunge, knowledge and wisdom, my ?? off fast
I'm in a class by myself, you do the math
[Chorus]
God gave me style
God gave me grace
God gave me style
God gave me grace
God put a smile on my face
Haha, God put this smile on my face
God made me shine like the sun
God make me shine like the sun
Sometimes I feel like I'm the one
Sometimes I feel like I'm the one
song performed by by 50 Cent
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Creativity Continued
The first line of the poetry came visiting one day
And hit me with alacrity and wouldn't go away.
It stayed with me the whole day long, repeating in my mind
And finally, I'm not that strong, I let the verse unwind.
I made some coffee, then returned and read the poem through,
Regretting what I once had spurned and thought of what to do.
How could I make this poem great, transform it, make it shine?
What precious thoughts could I create? I needed help divine.
I bowed my head and simply prayed, for love to lead me well,
Forgiveness for each time I strayed, delayed what I should tell.
The prophet as the psalmist knows the duties I forgot,
The poet must receive his prose, strike while the iron's hot.
Revitalised, with hope renewed, by faith, I wrote once more,
The second verse improved my mood and thrilled me to the core.
Then suddenly, I thought of her, my dream girl long ago
And of true love that once could stir this heart to overflow.
But life goes on, we parted friends, I miss her now and then,
That's how it is when true love ends, but that was way back when.
The third verse shared the love we had, the sweethearts' tenderness,
The magic moments we were glad and thought God chose to bless.
Now all that's left are memories, the fragments of romance,
The peace of mind as tears decrease, no more a second chance.
The poem done and sent by mail, accepted in due course
And published so it told the tale: Two lovers and their flaws.
My broken heart has never healed, through cracks the poems rise,
Like wheat within a farmer's field, they try to touch God's skies,
They blossom in the readers' hearts, they nestle in their minds
And then, not one of them departs, for such as these are signs.
The years bring wisdom, come what may and creativity,
If we but only seize the day, to be what we must be.
For some, romance leads to respect, then children by and by.
In time, they, too, will pause, reflect, create and ask God, 'Why? '
poem by Denis Martindale
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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God Save My Style
[Chorus]
God gave me style
God gave me grace
God gave me style
God gave me grace
God put a smile on my face
Haha, God put this smile on my face
God made me shine like the sun
God make me shine like the sun
Sometimes I feel like I'm the one
Sometimes I feel like I'm the one
It ain't my fault
[Bridge]
I just reach for style, I'm hot I breaks it down
It ain't my fault, you can't break it down the way I break it down
[Verse 1- 50 Cent]
Listen you can call me what you want, black and ugly
But you can't convince me the Lord don't love me
When my cds drop, they sell the best
You call it luck, why can't it just be I'm blessed
I'm a trackstar, runnin' through life, chasin' my dream
?? I may even trade in a mic in for a triple beam
I zone off thinkin' is there really heaven or hell
So what happens to a changed man who dies in a cell
I need no answers to these questions, cuz time will tell
Got a date with destiny, she's more than a girl
Don't much good come from me, but my music
Is a gift given from God so I'ma use it (Yeaaah!)
[Chorus]
God gave me style
God gave me grace
God gave me style
God gave me grace
God put a smile on my face
Haha, God put this smile on my face
God made me shine like the sun
God make me shine like the sun
Sometimes I feel like I'm the one
Sometimes I feel like I'm the one
It ain't my fault
[Bridge]
I just reach for style, I'm hot I breaks it down
It ain't my fault, you can't break it down the way I break it down
[Verse 2- 50 Cent]
Some days, I'm in the crowd all by myself
Bunch of niggas around I'm still by myself
I'm drink off in the crowd, by myself
Thinkin' bout nothin' more than life, what else
These days its hard to tell who really cares for me
So you when hear this song, you should say a prayer for me
I put a message in my music, hope it brightens your day
If times are hard, when you hear it, know you'll be okay
A O.G. told me God's favorites have a hard time
You out the hood, that's good now stay on the grind
I'm a spunge, knowledge and wisdom, my ?? off fast
I'm in a class by myself, you do the math
[Chorus]
God gave me style
God gave me grace
God gave me style
God gave me grace
God put a smile on my face
Haha, God put this smile on my face
God made me shine like the sun
God make me shine like the sun
Sometimes I feel like I'm the one
Sometimes I feel like I'm the one
song performed by by 50 Cent
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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In Absence.
I.
The storm that snapped our fate's one ship in twain
Hath blown my half o' the wreck from thine apart.
O Love! O Love! across the gray-waved main
To thee-ward strain my eyes, my arms, my heart.
I ask my God if e'en in His sweet place,
Where, by one waving of a wistful wing,
My soul could straightway tremble face to face
With thee, with thee, across the stellar ring --
Yea, where thine absence I could ne'er bewail
Longer than lasts that little blank of bliss
When lips draw back, with recent pressure pale,
To round and redden for another kiss --
Would not my lonesome heart still sigh for thee
What time the drear kiss-intervals must be?
II.
So do the mottled formulas of Sense
Glide snakewise through our dreams of Aftertime;
So errors breed in reeds and grasses dense
That bank our singing rivulets of rhyme.
By Sense rule Space and Time; but in God's Land
Their intervals are not, save such as lie
Betwixt successive tones in concords bland
Whose loving distance makes the harmony.
Ah, there shall never come 'twixt me and thee
Gross dissonances of the mile, the year;
But in the multichords of ecstasy
Our souls shall mingle, yet be featured clear,
And absence, wrought to intervals divine,
Shall part, yet link, thy nature's tone and mine.
III.
Look down the shining peaks of all my days
Base-hidden in the valleys of deep night,
So shalt thou see the heights and depths of praise
My love would render unto love's delight;
For I would make each day an Alp sublime
Of passionate snow, white-hot yet icy-clear,
-- One crystal of the true-loves of all time
Spiring the world's prismatic atmosphere;
And I would make each night an awful vale
Deep as thy soul, obscure as modesty,
With every star in heaven trembling pale
O'er sweet profounds where only Love can see.
Oh, runs not thus the lesson thou hast taught? --
When life's all love, 'tis life: aught else, 'tis naught.
IV.
Let no man say, `He at his lady's feet
Lays worship that to Heaven alone belongs;
Yea, swings the incense that for God is meet
In flippant censers of light lover's songs.'
Who says it, knows not God, nor love, nor thee;
For love is large as is yon heavenly dome:
In love's great blue, each passion is full free
To fly his favorite flight and build his home.
Did e'er a lark with skyward-pointing beak
Stab by mischance a level-flying dove?
Wife-love flies level, his dear mate to seek:
God-love darts straight into the skies above.
Crossing, the windage of each other's wings
But speeds them both upon their journeyings.
poem by Sidney Lanier
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Out Of The Blue
Verse 1:
Without you, without you
I always thought that everything was fine without you
Never knowing youd be mine
Suddenly my world has changed
And I just wonder why
All it took was just one smile
Chorus:
Now with you, out of the blue
Love appeared before my eyes with you
A dream come true
I never thought Id realize what love was
What love was, what love was...
Verse 2:
I need you, oh I need you
And everyday I love you more and more
Without you (dreams and tears)
I know what its all for
Suddenly I see you there
And everythings ok
Dont know why I feel this way
Chorus
Here with you
Bridge:
We are together now
Never take my heart away
All the love I found
Is here to stay (out of the blue)
Its like a dream come true
I never thought Id fall in love with you
Out of the blue
Love appeared before my eyes with you
A dream come true
I never thought
Here with you
Out of the, out of the, out of the clear blue
Oh, its like a dream come true
I never thought, I never thought
Out of the blue
Before my eyes with you
A dream come true
I never thought Id fall in love with you
Out of the, out of the, out of the, out of the clear blue...
song performed by by Debbie Gibson
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Prelude
Between the green bud and the red
Youth sat and sang by Time, and shed
From eyes and tresses flowers and tears,
From heart and spirit hopes and fears,
Upon the hollow stream whose bed
Is channelled by the foamless years;
And with the white the gold-haired head
Mixed running locks, and in Time's ears
Youth's dreams hung singing, and Time's truth
Was half not harsh in the ears of Youth.
Between the bud and the blown flower
Youth talked with joy and grief an hour,
With footless joy and wingless grief
And twin-born faith and disbelief
Who share the seasons to devour;
And long ere these made up their sheaf
Felt the winds round him shake and shower
The rose-red and the blood-red leaf,
Delight whose germ grew never grain,
And passion dyed in its own pain.
Then he stood up, and trod to dust
Fear and desire, mistrust and trust,
And dreams of bitter sleep and sweet,
And bound for sandals on his feet
Knowledge and patience of what must
And what things may be, in the heat
And cold of years that rot and rust
And alter; and his spirit's meat
Was freedom, and his staff was wrought
Of strength, and his cloak woven of thought.
For what has he whose will sees clear
To do with doubt and faith and fear,
Swift hopes and slow despondencies?
His heart is equal with the sea's
And with the sea-wind's, and his ear
Is level to the speech of these,
And his soul communes and takes cheer
With the actual earth's equalities,
Air, light, and night, hills, winds, and streams,
And seeks not strength from strengthless dreams.
His soul is even with the sun
Whose spirit and whose eye are one,
Who seeks not stars by day, nor light
And heavy heat of day by night.
Him can no God cast down, whom none
Can lift in hope beyond the height
Of fate and nature and things done
By the calm rule of might and right
That bids men be and bear and do,
And die beneath blind skies or blue.
To him the lights of even and morn
Speak no vain things of love or scorn,
Fancies and passions miscreate
By man in things dispassionate.
Nor holds he fellowship forlorn
With souls that pray and hope and hate,
And doubt they had better not been born,
And fain would lure or scare off fate
And charm their doomsman from their doom
And make fear dig its own false tomb.
He builds not half of doubts and half
Of dreams his own soul's cenotaph,
Whence hopes and fears with helpless eyes,
Wrapt loose in cast-off cerecloths, rise
And dance and wring their hands and laugh,
And weep thin tears and sigh light sighs,
And without living lips would quaff
The living spring in man that lies,
And drain his soul of faith and strength
It might have lived on a life's length.
He hath given himself and hath not sold
To God for heaven or man for gold,
Or grief for comfort that it gives,
Or joy for grief's restoratives.
He hath given himself to time, whose fold
Shuts in the mortal flock that lives
On its plain pasture's heat and cold
And the equal year's alternatives.
Earth, heaven, and time, death, life, and he,
Endure while they shall be to be.
"Yet between death and life are hours
To flush with love and hide in flowers;
What profit save in these?" men cry:
"Ah, see, between soft earth and sky,
What only good things here are ours!"
They say, "what better wouldst thou try,
What sweeter sing of? or what powers
Serve, that will give thee ere thou die
More joy to sing and be less sad,
More heart to play and grow more glad?"
Play then and sing; we too have played,
We likewise, in that subtle shade.
We too have twisted through our hair
Such tendrils as the wild Loves wear,
And heard what mirth the Maenads made,
Till the wind blew our garlands bare
And left their roses disarrayed,
And smote the summer with strange air,
And disengirdled and discrowned
The limbs and locks that vine-wreaths bound.
We too have tracked by star-proof trees
The tempest of the Thyiades
Scare the loud night on hills that hid
The blood-feasts of the Bassarid,
Heard their song's iron cadences
Fright the wolf hungering from the kid,
Outroar the lion-throated seas,
Outchide the north-wind if it chid,
And hush the torrent-tongued ravines
With thunders of their tambourines.
But the fierce flute whose notes acclaim
Dim goddesses of fiery fame,
Cymbal and clamorous kettledrum,
Timbrels and tabrets, all are dumb
That turned the high chill air to flame;
The singing tongues of fire are numb
That called on Cotys by her name
Edonian, till they felt her come
And maddened, and her mystic face
Lightened along the streams of Thrace.
For Pleasure slumberless and pale,
And Passion with rejected veil,
Pass, and the tempest-footed throng
Of hours that follow them with song
Till their feet flag and voices fail,
And lips that were so loud so long
Learn silence, or a wearier wail;
So keen is change, and time so strong,
To weave the robes of life and rend
And weave again till life have end.
But weak is change, but strengthless time,
To take the light from heaven, or climb
The hills of heaven with wasting feet.
Songs they can stop that earth found meet,
But the stars keep their ageless rhyme;
Flowers they can slay that spring thought sweet,
But the stars keep their spring sublime;
Passions and pleasures can defeat,
Actions and agonies control,
And life and death, but not the soul.
Because man's soul is man's God still,
What wind soever waft his will
Across the waves of day and night
To port or shipwreck, left or right,
By shores and shoals of good and ill;
And still its flame at mainmast height
Through the rent air that foam-flakes fill
Sustains the indomitable light
Whence only man hath strength to steer
Or helm to handle without fear.
Save his own soul's light overhead,
None leads him, and none ever led,
Across birth's hidden harbour-bar,
Past youth where shoreward shallows are,
Through age that drives on toward the red
Vast void of sunset hailed from far,
To the equal waters of the dead;
Save his own soul he hath no star,
And sinks, except his own soul guide,
Helmless in middle turn of tide.
No blast of air or fire of sun
Puts out the light whereby we run
With girded loins our lamplit race,
And each from each takes heart of grace
And spirit till his turn be done,
And light of face from each man's face
In whom the light of trust is one;
Since only souls that keep their place
By their own light, and watch things roll,
And stand, have light for any soul.
A little time we gain from time
To set our seasons in some chime,
For harsh or sweet or loud or low,
With seasons played out long ago
And souls that in their time and prime
Took part with summer or with snow,
Lived abject lives out or sublime,
And had their chance of seed to sow
For service or disservice done
To those days daed and this their son.
A little time that we may fill
Or with such good works or such ill
As loose the bonds or make them strong
Wherein all manhood suffers wrong.
By rose-hung river and light-foot rill
There are who rest not; who think long
Till they discern as from a hill
At the sun's hour of morning song,
Known of souls only, and those souls free,
The sacred spaces of the sea.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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In Memoriam~ -- Alice Fane Gunn Stenhouse
The grand, authentic songs that roll
Across grey widths of wild-faced sea,
The lordly anthems of the Pole,
Are loud upon the lea.
Yea, deep and full the South Wind sings
The mighty symphonies that make
A thunder at the mountain springs -
A whiteness on the lake.
And where the hermit hornet hums,
When Summer fires his wings with gold,
The hollow voice of August comes,
Across the rain and cold.
Now on the misty mountain tops,
Where gleams the crag and glares the fell,
Wild Winter, like one hunted, stops
And shouts a fierce farewell.
Keen fitful gusts shoot past the shore
And hiss by moor and moody mere -
The heralds bleak that come before
The turning of the year.
A sobbing spirit wanders where
By fits and starts the wild-fire shines;
Like one who walks in deep despair,
With Death amongst the pines.
And ah! the fine, majestic grief
Which fills the heart of forests lone,
And makes a lute of limb and leaf
Is human in its tone.
Too human for the thought to slip -
How every song that sorrow sings
Betrays the broad relationship
Of all created things.
Man's mournful speech, the wail of tree,
The words the winds and waters say,
Make up that general elegy,
Whose burden is decay.
To-night my soul looks back and sees,
Across wind-broken wastes of wave,
A widow on her bended knees
Beside a new-made grave.
A sufferer with a touching face
By love and grief made beautiful;
Whose rapt religion lights the place
Where death holds awful rule.
The fair, tired soul whose twofold grief
For child and father lends a tone
Of pathos to the pallid leaf
That sighs above the stone.
The large beloved heart whereon
She used to lean, lies still and cold,
Where, like a seraph, shines the sun
On flowerful green and gold.
I knew him well - the grand, the sweet,
Pure nature past all human praise;
The dear Gamaliel at whose feet
I sat in other days.
He, glorified by god-like lore,
First showed my soul Life's highest aim;
When, like one winged, I breathed - before
The years of sin and shame.
God called him Home. And, in the calm
Beyond our best possessions priced,
He passed, as floats a faultless psalm,
To his fair Father, Christ.
But left as solace for the hours
Of sorrow and the loss thereof;
A sister of the birds and flowers,
The daughter of his love.
She, like a stray sweet seraph, shed
A healing spirit, that flamed and flowed
As if about her bright young head
A crown of saintship glowed.
Suppressing, with sublime self-slight,
The awful face of that distress
Which fell upon her youth like blight,
She shone like happiness.
And, in the home so sanctified
By death in its most noble guise,
She kissed the lips of love, and dried
The tears in sorrow's eyes.
And helped the widowed heart to lean,
So broken up with human cares,
On one who must be felt and seen
By such pure souls as hers.
Moreover, having lived, and learned
The taste of Life's most bitter spring,
For all the sick this sister yearned -
The poor and suffering.
But though she had for every one
The phrase of comfort and the smile,
This shining daughter of the sun
Was dying all the while.
Yet self-withdrawn - held out of reach
Was grief; except when music blent
Its deep, divine, prophetic speech
With voice and instrument.
Then sometimes would escape a cry
From that dark other life of hers -
The half of her humanity -
And sob through sound and verse.
At last there came the holy touch,
With psalms from higher homes and hours;
And she who loved the flowers so much
Now sleeps amongst the flowers.
By hearse-like yews and grey-haired moss,
Where wails the wind in starts and fits,
Twice bowed and broken down with loss,
The wife, the mother sits.
God help her soul! She cannot see,
For very trouble, anything
Beyond this wild Gethsemane
Of swift, black suffering;
Except it be that faltering faith
Which leads the lips of life to say:
'There must be something past this death -
Lord, teach me how to pray!'
Ah, teach her, Lord! And shed through grief
The clear full light, the undefiled,
The blessing of the bright belief
Which sanctified her child.
Let me, a son of sin and doubt,
Whose feet are set in ways amiss -
Who cannot read Thy riddle out,
Just plead, and ask Thee this;
Give her the eyes to see the things -
The Life and Love I cannot see;
And lift her with the helping wings
Thou hast denied to me.
Yea, shining from the highest blue
On those that sing by Beulah's streams,
Shake on her thirsty soul the dew
Which brings immortal dreams.
So that her heart may find the great,
Pure faith for which it looks so long;
And learn the noble way to wait,
To suffer, and be strong.
poem by Henry Kendall
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Muse And The Poet
The Muse said, Let us sing a little song
Wherein no hint of wrong,
No echo of the great world need, or pain,
Shall mar the strain.
Lock fast the swinging portal of thy heart;
Keep sympathy apart.
Sing of the sunset, of the dawn, the sea;
Of any thing or nothing, so there be
No purpose to thy art.
Yea, let us make, art for Art's sake.
And sing no more unto the hearts of men,
But for the critic's pen.
With songs that are but words, sweet sounding words,
Like joyous jargon of the birds.
Tune now thy lyre, O Poet, and sing on.
Sing of
THE DAWN
The Virgin Night, all languorous with dreams
Of her belovèd Darkness, rose in fear,
Feeling the presence of another near.
Outside her curtained casement shone the gleams
Of burning orbs; and modestly she hid
Her brow and bosom with her dusky hair.
When lo! the bold intruder lurking there
Leaped through the fragile lattice, all unbid,
And half unveiled her. Then the swooning Night
Fell pale and dead, while yet her soul was white
Before that lawless Ravisher, the Light.
The Muse said, Poet, nay; thou hast not caught
My meaning. For there lurks a thought
Back of thy song.
In art, all thought is wrong.
Re-string thy lyre; and let the echoes bound
To nothing but sweet sound.
Strike now the chords
And sing of
WORDS
One day sweet Ladye Language gave to me
A little golden key.
I sat me down beside her jewel box
And turned its locks.
And oh, the wealth that lay there in my sight.
Great solitaires of words, so bright, so bright;
Words that no use can commonize; like God,
And Truth, and Love; and words of sapphire blue;
And amber words; with sunshine dripping through;
And words of that strange hue
A pearl reveals upon a wanton's hand.
Again the Muse:
Thou dost not understand;
A thought within thy song is lingering yet.
Sing but of words; all else forget, forget.
Nor let thy words convey one thought to men.
Try once again.
Down through the dusk and dew there fell a word;
Down through the dew and dusk.
And all the garments of the air it stirred
Smelled sweet as musk;
And all the little waves of air it kissed
Turned gold and amethyst.
There in the dew and dusk a heart it found;
There in the dusk and dew
The sodden silence changed to fragrant sound;
And all the world seemed new.
Upon the path that little word had trod,
There shone the smile of God.
The Muse said, Drop thy lyre.
I tire, I tire.
poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Who stands with me?
True poets write in meter.
Not because they think it’s neater
but because the flow is sweeter
When their words are read aloud
as they perform before the crowd.
Their poems pass the acid test.
Prose writers do not choose to rhyme.
They see it as a waste of time.
Although their word choice is sublime.
Without meter it is prose,
not poetry as they suppose.
Their definition I contest.
Poetic prose it’s plain to see.
Can not be classed as poetry.
I can accept you disagree.
I know I have a biased view
I think I am entitled to
Decide which one I like the best.
I choose meter every time
Preferably with lines that rhyme.
I find such poetry sublime.
Though I enjoy well written prose.
Each to his own I must suppose
So write the way that suits you best.
I am old fashioned I admit
and not one whit ashamed of it.
I do not find rules inhibit.
Free expression of my views
They merely mean I have to choose
the words that will express them best
Free form, free verse, poetic prose.
Are methods other writers chose
as being fit for their purpose.
To rebel against fixed form.
Which was regarded as the norm.
Just to be different from the rest.
But fashions change and now free form
Must be regarded as the norm.
I see no reason to conform.
I choose to write my poetry
In the old way that pleases me.
A lonely voice raised in protest.
The wheel of fate will slowly turn
Metered poetry will return
and well deserved plaudits earn.
I hope I live to see the day.
when classic poets can display.
That fixed forms can outshine the rest.
Monday,06 December 2010
http: // blog.myspace.com/poeticpiers
poem by Ivor Or Ivor.e Hogg
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Ad Comitissam Rutlandiæ
Madam, so may my verses pleasing be,
So may you laugh at them and not at me,
'Tis something to you gladly I would say;
But how to do't I cannot find the way.
I would avoid the common beaten ways
To women used, which are love or praise:
As for the first, the little wit I have
Is not yet grown so near unto the grave,
But that I can, by that dim fading light,
Perceive of what, or unto whom I write.
Let such as in a hopeless, witless rage,
Can sigh a quire, and read it to a page;
Such is do backs of books and windows fill,
With their too furious diamond or quill;
Such as were well resolved to end their days
With a loud laughter blown beyond the seas;
Who are so mortified that they can live
Contemned of all the world, and yet forgive,
Write love to you: I would not willingly
Be pointed at in every company;
As was that little tailor, who till death
Was hot in love with Queen Elizabeth:
And, for the last, in all my idle days
I never yet did living woman praise
In prose or verse: and when I do begin
I'll pick some woman out as full of sin
As you are full of virtue; with a soul
As black as you are white; a face as foul
As you are beautiful: for it shall be
Out of the rules of physiognomy
So far, that I do fear I must displace
The art a little, to let in her face.
It shall att least four faces be below
The devil's; and her parched corpse shall show
In her loose skill as if some sprite she were
Kept in a bag by some great conjurer.
Her breath shall be as horrible and wild
As every word you speak is sweet and mild;
It shall be such a one as will not be
Covered with any art or policy:
But let her take all powders, fumes, and drink,
She shall make nothing but a dearer stink;
She shall have such a foot and such a nose,
She shall not stand in anything but prose;
If I bestow my praises upon such,
'Tis charity, and I shall merit much.
My praise will come to her like a full bowl,
Bestowed at most need on a thirsty soul;
Where, if I sing your praises in my rhyme,
I lose my ink, my paper, and my time;
And nothing add to your o'erflowing store,
And tell you nought, but what you knew before.
Nor do the virtuous-minded (which I swear,
Madam, I think you are) endure to hear
Their own perfections into questions brought,
But stop their ears at them; for if I thought
You took a pride to have your virtues known,
Pardon me, madam, I should think them none.
To what a length is this strange letter grown,
In seeking of a subject, yet finds none!
But your brave thoughts, which I so much respect
Above your glorious titles, shall accept
These harsh disordered lines. I shall ere long
Dress up your virtues new, in a new song;
Yet far from all base praise and flattery,
Although I know whate'er my verses be,
They will like the most servile flattery shew,
If I write truth, and make the subject you.
poem by Francis Beaumont
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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