To Sylvia
O Sylvia, dost thou remember still
That period of thy mortal life,
When beauty so bewildering
Shone in thy laughing, glancing eyes,
As thou, so merry, yet so wise,
Youth's threshold then wast entering?
How did the quiet rooms,
And all the paths around,
With thy perpetual song resound,
As thou didst sit, on woman's work intent,
Abundantly content
With the vague future, floating on thy mind!
Thy custom thus to spend the day
In that sweet time of youth and May!
How could I, then, at times,
In those fair days of youth,
The only happy days I ever knew,
My hard tasks dropping, or my careless rhymes,
My station take, on father's balcony,
And listen to thy voice's melody,
And watch thy hands, as they would deftly fly
O'er thy embroidery!
I gazed upon the heaven serene,
The sun-lit paths, the orchards green,
The distant mountain here,
And there, the far-off sea.
Ah, mortal tongue cannot express
What then I felt of happiness!
What gentle thoughts, what hopes divine,
What loving hearts, O Sylvia mine!
In what bright colors then portrayed
Were human life and fate!
Oh, when I think of such fond hopes betrayed,
A feeling seizes me
Of bitterness and misery,
And tenfold is my grief renewed!
O Nature, why this treachery?
Why thus, with broken promises,
Thy children's hearts delude?
Thou, ere the grass was touched with winter's frost,
By fell disease attacked and overcome,
O tender plant, didst die!
The flower of thy days thou ne'er didst see;
Nor did thy soft heart move
Now of thy raven locks the tender praise,
Now of thy eyes, so loving and so shy;
Nor with thee, on the holidays,
Did thy companions talk of love.
So perished, too, erelong,
My own sweet hope;
So too, unto my years
Did Fate their youth deny.
Alas, alas the day,
Lamented hope, companion dear,
How hast thou passed away!
Is _this_ that world? These the delights,
The love, the labors, the events,
Of which we once so fondly spoke?
And must _all_ mortals wear this weary yoke?
Ah, when the truth appeared,
It better seemed to die!
Cold death, the barren tomb, didst thou prefer
To harsh reality.
poem by Count Giacomo Leopardi
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Related quotes
Christmas, 1880
Great-hearted child, thy very being
The Son
,
Who know'st the hearts of all us prodigals;-
For who is prodigal but he who has gone
Far from the true to heart it with the false?-
Who, who but thou, that, from the animals',
Know'st all the hearts, up to the Father's own,
Can tell what it would be to be alone!
Alone! No father!-At the very thought
Thou, the eternal light, wast once aghast;
A death in death for thee it almost wrought!
But thou didst haste, about to breathe thy last,
And call'dst out
Father
ere thy spirit passed,
Exhausted in fulfilling not any vow,
But doing his will who greater is than thou.
That we might know him, thou didst come and live;
That we might find him, thou didst come and die;
The son-heart, brother, thy son-being give-
We too would love the father perfectly,
And to his bosom go back with the cry,
Father, into thy hands I give the heart
Which left thee but to learn how good thou art!
There are but two in all the universe-
The father and his children-not a third;
Nor, all the weary time, fell any curse!
Not once dropped from its nest an unfledged bird
But thou wast with it! Never sorrow stirred
But a love-pull it was upon the chain
That draws the children to the father again!
O Jesus Christ, babe, man, eternal son,
Take pity! we are poor where thou art rich:
Our hearts are small; and yet there is not one
In all thy father's noisy nursery which,
Merry, or mourning in its narrow niche,
Needs not thy father's heart, this very now,
With all his being's being, even as thou!
poem by George MacDonald
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Ex Ore Infantium
Little Jesus, wast Thou shy
Once, and just so small as I?
And what did it feel like to be
Out of Heaven, and just like me?
Didst Thou sometimes think of THERE,
And ask where all the angels were?
I should think that I would cry
For my house all made of sky;
I would look about the air,
And wonder where my angels were;
And at waking 'twould distress me--
Not an angel there to dress me!
Hadst Thou ever any toys,
Like us little girls and boys?
And didst Thou play in Heaven with all
The angels that were not too tall,
With stars for marbles? Did the things
Play Can you see me? through their wings?
And did Thy Mother let Thee spoil
Thy robes, with playing on OUR soil?
How nice to have them always new
In Heaven, because 'twas quite clean blue!
Didst Thou kneel at night to pray,
And didst Thou join Thy hands, this way?
And did they tire sometimes, being young,
And make the prayer seem very long?
And dost Thou like it best, that we
Should join our hands to pray to Thee?
I used to think, before I knew,
The prayer not said unless we do.
And did Thy Mother at the night
Kiss Thee, and fold the clothes in right?
And didst Thou feel quite good in bed,
Kissed, and sweet, and thy prayers said?
Thou canst not have forgotten all
That it feels like to be small:
And Thou know'st I cannot pray
To Thee in my father's way--
When Thou wast so little, say,
Couldst Thou talk Thy Father's way?--
So, a little Child, come down
And hear a child's tongue like Thy own;
Take me by the hand and walk,
And listen to my baby-talk.
To Thy Father show my prayer
(He will look, Thou art so fair),
And say: 'O Father, I, Thy Son,
Bring the prayer of a little one.'
And He will smile, that children's tongue
Has not changed since Thou wast young!
poem by Francis Thompson
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Sonnet: God Ne’er Forsakes Me
How many times have I ignored warnings?
How many times have I tried not to heed?
How many times have I sinned by mornings?
And yet, Thou didst forgive my acts indeed.
How many times have I walked in sin’s paths?
How many times have I reveled in sin?
How many times have I taken sin-baths?
And yet, Thou didst help me o’er Tempter win.
How many times have I failed my duties?
How many times have I Thee disobeyed?
How many times have I lost my mind’s peace?
And yet, Thou didst come promptly to my aid.
How many times have I forgotten Thee?
And yet, Thou didst not once ev’r forsake me.
7-23-2001
poem by John Celes
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Brittania's Throne
MIRROR of the trackless sky,
Priestess of its changing mood,
Ere thy shores were piled on high
Thou didst feel God’s Spirit brood;
Thou didst hear His word alone;—
Be thou still Britannia’s throne.
From thy deeps the creeping things
Spread through cove and brook and fen,
Changing scales for soaring wings
And the mould of mortal men;
From thy womb the world hath grown!
Be thou still Britannia’s throne.
Then among the happier ones
Filing in millennial train,
Thou didst make us favoured sons,
Teaching us to rule and reign:
Thou didst call us for thine own—
Be thou still Britannia’s throne.
Mighty Mistress, thou didst school
England’s heart in all thy ways;
May she learn no nicer rule
In the ease of after days;
For the greatness we have known
Be thou still Britannia’s throne.
For the passion of our plea,
For the memory of our brave,
For the fights we fought for thee,
For the bones that thou dost lave,
For the love that we have shown!
Be thou still Britannia’s throne.
poem by Arthur Maquarie
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The Grief Of Love
Love, I am sick for thee, sick with an absolute grief,
Sick with the thought of thy eyes and lips and bosom.
All the beauty I saw, I see to my hurt revealed.
All that I felt I feel to--day for my pain and sorrow.
Love, I would fain forget thee, hide thee in deeper night,
Shut thee where no thought is, in the grave with tears.
Love, I would turn my face to the wall and, if needs be, die;
Death less cruel were than thy eyes which have blinded me.
Since thou art gone from me, glory is gone from my life;
Dumb are the woods and streams, and dumb the voice of my soul;
Dead are the flowers we loved, blackened and sere with blight;
Earth is frost--bound under my foot where our footsteps trod.
Give me back for my sorrow the days of senseless peace,
Days when I thought not of thee, or thought in wisdom;
Let me see thee once more as thou to my folly wert,
A woman senseless as sounding brass or as tinkling cymbal.
Why didst thou show me thy heart, which I thought not of?
Why didst thou bare me thy soul, who to me wert soulless?
Why didst thou kiss my mouth, when my mouth did mock?
Why didst thou speak to my lips of love, ere my lips had spoken?
Love, thou hast made me thine, thine, and in my despite,
Laying thy hand on my heart in the soft Spring weather;
Love, thou hast bought my soul at a price, the price of thine,
Never again to mock at love, ah, never, never!
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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The Broken Pitcher
Accursed be the hour of that sad day
The careless potter put his hand to thee,
And dared to fashion out of common clay
So pure a shape as thou didst seem to me.
An idle boy, when vintage was begun,
I passed and saw thy beauty for my sin,
And poured unheedingly till it was done
The red wine of my love's first gathering in.
And thou, ah! thou didst look at me and smile
To see me give with such ungrudging hand,
As taking all to thy dear heart, the while
It only fell upon the thirsty sand.
Sad pitcher, thou wast broken at the well,
Ere yet the shepherd's lip had tasted thine.
A god had lost in thee his hydromel,
As I have wasted my poor wealth of wine.
Yet, wherefore wast thou made so fair a thing?
Or why of clay, whose fabric rightly were
Of finest gold, new--fashioned for a king,
And framed by some divine artificer?
I will not curse thee, thou poor shape of clay,
That thou art other than thou seemed to be,
Yet I will break thee, that no passer may
Unthinking break another heart on thee.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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The Dream
It was the morning; through the shutters closed,
Along the balcony, the earliest rays
Of sunlight my dark room were entering;
When, at the time that sleep upon our eyes
Its softest and most grateful shadows casts,
There stood beside me, looking in my face,
The image dear of her, who taught me first
To love, then left me to lament her loss.
To me she seemed not dead, but sad, with such
A countenance as the unhappy wear.
Her right hand near my head she sighing placed;
'Dost thou still live,' she said to me, 'and dost
Thou still remember what we _were_ and are?'
And I replied: 'Whence comest thou, and how,
Beloved and beautiful? Oh how, how I
Have grieved, still grieve for thee! Nor did I think
Thou e'er couldst know it more; and oh, that thought
My sorrow rendered more disconsolate!
But art thou now again to leave me?
I fear so. Say, what hath befallen thee?
Art thou the same? What preys upon thee thus?'
'Oblivion weighs upon thy thoughts, and sleep
Envelops them,' she answered; 'I am dead,
And many months have passed, since last we met.'
What grief oppressed me, as these words I heard!
And she continued: 'In the flower of youth
Cut off, when life is sweetest, and before
The heart that lesson sad and sure hath learnt,
The utter vanity of human hope!
The sick man may e'en covet, as a boon,
That which withdraws him from all suffering;
But to the young, Death comes, disconsolate;
And hard the fate of hope, that in the grave
Is quenched! And yet, how vain that knowledge is,
That Nature from the inexperienced hides!
And a blind sorrow is to be preferred
To wisdom premature!'--'Hush, hush!' I cried,
'Unhappy one, and dear! My heart is crushed
With these thy words! And art thou dead, indeed,
O my beloved? and am I still alive?
And was it, then, in heaven decreed, that this,
Thy tender body the last damps of death
Should feel, and my poor, wretched frame remain
Unharmed? Oh, often, often as I think
That thou no longer livest, and that I
Shall never see thee on the earth again,
Incredible it seems! Alas, alas!
What _is_ this thing, that they call death? Oh, would
That I, this day, the mystery could solve,
And my defenceless head withdraw from Fate's
Relentless hate! I still am young, and still
Feel all the blight and misery of age,
Which I so dread; and distant far it seems;
But, ah, how little different from age,
The flower of my years!'--'We both were born,'
She said, 'to weep; unhappy were our lives,
And heaven took pleasure in our sufferings.'
'Oh if my eyes with tears,' I added, 'then,
My face with pallor veiled thou seest, for loss
Of thee, and anguish weighing on my heart;
Tell me, was any spark of pity or of love
For the poor lover kindled in thy heart,
While thou didst live? I, then, between my hope
And my despair, passed weary nights and days;
And now, my mind is with vain doubts oppressed.
Oh if but once compassion smote thee for
My darkened life, conceal it not from me,
I pray thee; let the memory console me,
Since of their future our young days were robbed!'
And she: 'Be comforted, unhappy one!
I was not churlish of my pity whilst
I lived, and am not now, myself so wretched!
Oh, do not chide this most unhappy child!'
'By all our sufferings, and by the love
Which preys upon me,' I exclaimed, 'and by
Our youth, and by the hope that faded from
Our lives, O let me, dearest, touch thy hand!'
And sweetly, sadly, she extended it.
And while I covered it with kisses, while
With sorrow and with rapture quivering,
I to my panting bosom fondly pressed it,
With fervent passion glowed my face and breast,
My trembling voice refused its utterance,
And all things swam before my sight; when she,
Her eyes fixed tenderly on mine, replied:
'And dost thou, then, forget, dear friend, that I
Am of my beauty utterly deprived?
And vainly thou, unhappy one, dost yield
To passion's transports. Now, a last farewell!
Our wretched minds, our feeble bodies, too,
Eternally are parted. Thou to me
No longer livest, nevermore shall live.
Fate hath annulled the faith that thou hast sworn.'
Then, in my anguish as I seemed to cry
Aloud, convulsed, my eyes o'erflowing with
The tears of utter, helpless misery,
I started from my sleep. The image still
Was seen, and in the sun's uncertain light
Above my couch she seemed to linger still.
poem by Count Giacomo Leopardi
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Then and Now -A Stone Breaker
When first I saw thee breaking stones
My heart was filled with praise
And delight on a rose like face.
What heaving bosom and how did it nurse
The hopes of life and desires of youth
And how joyfully didst thou talk
Of life everlasting.
But now I am pained to see thee;
Is it thou same young lady?
So changed in so short a time!
These sunken eyes, these hollow looks
Are these the same that pierced my heart?
O stony stare, where is life?
Whither is hope fled?
These withered cheeks, these pale lips
No more betray the colour of a rose;
And this bosom which once did nurse
The hopes of life; the joys of youth:
To this bosom now clings a child,
A life! Oh no no no
It's misery nursing death.
Hast Thou Forgotten Me?
HAST thou forgotten me? the days are dark—
Light ebbs from heaven, and songless soars the lark—
Vexed like my heart, loud moans the unquiet sea—
Hast thou forgotten me?
Hast thou forgotten me? O dead delight
Whose dreams and memories torture me to-night—
O love—my life! O sweet—so fair to see—
Hast thou forgotten me?
Hast thou forgotten? Lo, if one should say—
Noontide were night, or night were flaming day—
Grief blinds mine eyes, I know not which it be!
Hast thou forgotten me?
Hast thou forgotten? Ah, if Death should come,
Close my sad eyes, and charm my song-bird dumb—
Tired of strange woes—my fate were hailed with glee—
Hast thou forgotten me?
Hast thou forgotten me? What joy have I?
A dim blown bird beneath an alien sky,—
O that on mighty pinions I could flee—
Hast thou forgotten me?
Hast thou forgotten? Yea, Love’s horoscope
Is blurred with tears and suffering beyond Hope—
Ah, like dead leaves forsaken of the tree,
Thou hast forgotten me.
poem by Philip Joseph Holdsworth
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Butterflies
O child of Joy! What idle life is thine!
Thou, in these meadows, while thy skies are blue,
And while thy joys are new to thee like wine,
Chasest mad butterflies as children do.
And lo, thou turnest from them to repine,
Because it was not love thou didst pursue.
O child of Hope! Thou sighest thy sad sighs,
Mourning for that which is not nor can be.
Where is the noon can match with thy sunrise?
Whose is the heart shall win thy constancy?
Thou, with thy foolish loves, mad butterflies,
What dost thou ask of my sad heart and me?
O child of Love, begotten for man's bliss!
O child of Pleasure, nursed for thy own pain!
Needs must I weep the day of thy distress,
The fate that brushes at thy arm in vain,
Thy skies of blue, thy broken happiness,
The hopes thou chasest never to attain.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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When Thou must Home to Shades of Underground
When thou must home to shades of underground,
And there arriv'd, a new admired guest,
The beauteous spirits do engirt thee round,
White Iope, blithe Helen, and the rest,
To hear the stories of thy finish'd love
From that smooth tongue whose music hell can move;
Then wilt thou speak of banqueting delights,
Of masques and revels which sweet youth did make,
Of tourneys and great challenges of knights,
And all these triumphs for thy beauty's sake:
When thou hast told these honours done to thee,
Then tell, O tell, how thou didst murder me.
poem by Thomas Campion
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Vobiscum est Iope
WHEN thou must home to shades of underground,
And there arrived, a new admired guest,
The beauteous spirits do engirt thee round,
White Iope, blithe Helen, and the rest,
To hear the stories of thy finish'd love
From that smooth tongue whose music hell can move;
Then wilt thou speak of banqueting delights,
Of masques and revels which sweet youth did make,
Of tourneys and great challenges of knights,
And all these triumphs for thy beauty's sake:
When thou hast told these honours done to thee,
Then tell, O tell, how thou didst murder me!
poem by Thomas Campion
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To-- Oh! there are spirits of the air
Dakrysi Dioisw Potmon Apotmon
Oh! there are spirits of the air,
And genii of the evening breeze,
And gentle ghosts, with eyes as fair
As star-beams among twilight trees:—
Such lovely ministers to meet
Oft hast thou turned from men thy lonely feet.
With mountain winds, and babbling springs,
And moonlight seas, that are the voice
Of these inexplicable things,
Thou didst hold commune, and rejoice
When they did answer thee; but they
Cast, like a worthless boon, thy love away.
And thou hast sought in starry eyes
Beams that were never meant for thine,
Another’s wealth:—tame sacrifice
To a fond faith! still dost thou pine?
Still dost thou hope that greeting hands,
Voice, looks, or lips, may answer thy demands?
Ah! wherefore didst thou build thine hope
On the false earth’s inconstancy?
Did thine own mind afford no scope
Of love, or moving thoughts to thee?
That natural scenes or human smiles
Could steal the power to wind thee in their wiles?
Yes, all the faithless smiles are fled
Whose falsehood left thee broken-hearted;
The glory of the moon is dead;
Night’s ghosts and dreams have now departed;
Thine own soul still is true to thee,
But changed to a foul fiend through misery.
This fiend, whose ghastly presence ever
Beside thee like thy shadow hangs,
Dream not to chase;—the mad endeavour
Would scourge thee to severer pangs.
Be as thou art. Thy settled fate,
Dark as it is, all change would aggravate.
poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Sonnet II
Oh thou who once on earth, beneath the weight
Of our mortality didst live and move,
The incarnation of profoundest love;
Who on the Cross that love didst consummate;
Whose deep and ample fullness could embrace
The poorest, meanest of our fallen race:
How shall we e'er that boundless debt repay?
By long loud prayers in gorgeous temples said?
By rich oblations on thine altars laid?
Ah, no! not thus thou didst appoint the way:
When thou wast bowed our human woe beneath,
Then as a legacy thou didst bequeath
Earth's sorrowing children to our ministry --
And as we do to them, we do to thee.
poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Lonely Sparrow
Thou from the top of yonder antique tower,
O lonely sparrow, wandering, hast gone,
Thy song repeating till the day is done,
And through this valley strays the harmony.
How Spring rejoices in the fields around,
And fills the air with light,
So that the heart is melted at the sight!
Hark to the bleating flocks, the lowing herds!
In sweet content, the other birds
Through the free sky in emulous circles wheel,
In pure enjoyment of their happy time:
Thou, pensive, gazest on the scene apart,
Nor wilt thou join them in the merry round;
Shy playmate, thou for mirth hast little heart;
And with thy plaintive music, dost consume
Both of the year, and of thy life, the bloom.
Alas, how much my ways
Resemble thine! The laughter and the sport,
That fill with glee our youthful days,
And thee, O love, who art youth's brother still,
Too oft the bitter sigh of later years,
I care not for; I know not why,
But from them ever distant fly:
Here in my native place,
As if of alien race,
My spring of life I like a hermit pass.
This day, that to the evening now gives way,
Is in our town an ancient holiday.
Hark, through the air, that voice of festal bell,
While rustic guns in frequent thunders sound,
Reverberated from the hills around.
In festal robes arrayed,
The neighboring youth,
Their houses leaving, o'er the roads are spread;
They pleasant looks exchange, and in their hearts
Rejoice. I, lonely, in this distant spot,
Along the country wandering,
Postpone all pleasure and delight
To some more genial time: meanwhile,
As through the sunny air around I gaze,
My brow is smitten by his rays,
As after such a day serene,
Dropping behind yon distant hills,
He vanishes, and seems to say,
That thus all happy youth must pass away.
Thou, lonely little bird, when thou
Hast reached the evening of the days
Thy stars assign to thee,
Wilt surely not regret thy ways;
For all thy wishes are
Obedient to Nature's law. But ah!
If I, in spite of all my prayers,
Am doomed the hateful threshold of old age
To cross, when these dull eyes will give
No response to another's heart,
The world to them a void will be,
Each day become more full of misery,
How then, will this, my wish appear
In those dark hours, that dungeon drear?
My blighted youth, my sore distress,
Alas, will _then_ seem happiness!
poem by Count Giacomo Leopardi
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Written At Sea
What is my quarrel with thee, beautiful sea,
That thus I cannot love thy waves or thee,
Or hear thy voice but it tormenteth me?
Why do I hate thee, who art beautiful
Beyond all beauty, when the nights are cool,
And the stars fade because the moon is full?
Why do I hate thee? Thou art new and young,
And life is thine for loving, and thy tongue
Hath tones that I have known and loved and sung.
Thou hast a smile which would my smiling greet;
Thy brave heart beateth as my own doth beat,
And thou hast tears which should be true and sweet.
Thou art a creature, strong and fair and brave,
Such as I might have given the world to have
And love and cherish;--and thou art my slave.
I have my home in thee. Thy arms enfold
Me all night long, and I am rocked and rolled,
And thou art never weary of thy hold.
Thou art a woman in thy constancy,
And worthy better love than mine could be;
And yet, behold, I cannot suffer thee.
If thou wert dumb; if thou wert like the sky,
Which has not learned to speak our misery
In any voice less rude than the wind's cry;
If thou wert wholly young and didst not know
The secret of our ancient human woe,
Or if thou knewest it wholly as I know;
Or yet if thou wert old with all these years;
If thou wert dull to hopes and loves and fears;
If thou wert blind and couldst not see our tears;
If thou wert bounded by some rocky shore,
And hadst not given thyself thus wholly o'er
To our poor single selves with all thy store;
If thou wert not in thy immensity,
A single circle circling with the sky,
Where we must still be centres changelessly;
If thou wert other than thou art; alas,
If thou wert not of water, but a mass
Of formless earth, a waveless plain of grass;
If thou wert shapeless as the mountains are;
If thou wert clad in some discordant wear;
If thou wert not so blue and trim and fair;
If thou wert decked with towns and villages;
If there was heard, across the silent seas,
The music of church bells upon the breeze;
If thou wert this; or if thou wert not near,
But I could only sit apart and hear
The beating of thy waves, and find it drear,
But wild and quite unknown, and far from me;
Sea, if thou couldst no longer be the sea,
Then I could love thee as thou lovest me.
If thou wouldst have me love thee, beautiful sea,
Build up a wall of dark 'twixt thee and me;
Let me not see thee; call the night to thee.
League with the winds; rise up, and send them driven
To roll mad clouds about thy back at even.
Make thee a desolation of the heaven.
Thou shouldst compel me, with thy angry voice,
To choose 'twixt death and thee; and, at the choice,
If my cheek grew not pale, thou might'st rejoice,
And I might love thee, oh thou monstrous sea;
But now I cannot love thy waves or thee,
Or bear thy beauty in my misery.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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Tennyson
How beautiful to live as thou didst live!
How beautiful to die as thou didst die,—
In moonlight of the night, without a sigh,
At rest in all the best that love could give!
How excellent to bear into old age
The poet's ardor and the heart of youth,
To keep to the last sleep the vow of truth,
And leave to lands that grieve a glowing page!
How glorious to feel the spirit's power
Unbroken by the near approach of death,
To breathe blest prophecies with failing breath,
Soul-bound to beauty in that latest hour!
How sweet to greet, in final kinship owned,
The master-spirit to thy dreams so dear,
At last from his immortal lips to hear
The dirge for Imogen, and thee, intoned!
How beautiful to live as thou didst live!
How beautiful to die as thou didst die,—
In moonlight of the night, without a sigh,
At rest in all the best that love could give!
poem by Florence Earle Coates from Poems (1898)
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Charity
O Thou who once on earth beneath the weight
Of our mortality didst live and move,
The incarnation of profoundest love;
Who on the Cross that love didst consummate,
Whose deep and ample fullness could embrace
The poorest, meanest of our fallen race:
How shall we e'er that boundless debt repay?
By long, loud prayers in gorgeous temples said?
By rich oblations on thine altars laid?
Ah, no! not thus Thou didst appoint the way:
When Thou wast bowed our human woe beneath,
Then as a legacy Thou didst bequeath
Earth's sorrowing children to our ministry,
Saying, As ye do to them ye do to me.
poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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To Thee Thou Hast Drawn My Love
To Thee Thou hast drawn my love, O Fakir!
I was sleeping in my own chamber,
and Thou didst awaken me;
striking me with Thy voice, O Fakir!
I was drowning in the deeps of the ocean of this world, and
Thou didst save me: upholding me with Thine arm, O Fakir!
Only one word and no second-
and Thou hast made me tear off all
my bonds, O Fakir!
Kabîr says, 'Thou hast united Thy heart to my heart, O Fakir! '
Age And Death
Come closer, kind, white, long-familiar friend,
Embrace me, fold me to thy broad, soft breast.
Life has grown strange and cold, but thou dost bend
Mild eyes of blessing wooing to my rest.
So often hast thou come, and from my side
So many hast thou lured, I only bide
Thy beck, to follow glad thy steps divine.
Thy world is peopled for me; this world's bare.
Through all these years my couch thou didst prepare.
Thou art supreme Love-kiss me-I am thine!
poem by Emma Lazarus
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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