It Was Winter
Winter came as it does in this valley.
After eight dry months rain fell
And the mountains, straw-colored, turned green for a while.
In the canyons where gray laurels
Graft their stony roots to granite,
Streams must have filled the dried-up creek beds.
Ocean winds churned the eucalyptus trees,
And under clouds torn by a crystal of towers
Prickly lights were glowing on the docks.
This is not a place where you sit under a café awning
On a marble piazza, watching the crowd,
Or play the flute at a window over a narrow street
While children’s sandals clatter in the vaulted entryway.
They heard of a land, empty and vast,
Bordered by mountains. So they went, leaving behind crosses
Of thorny wood and traces of campfires.
As it happened, they spent winter in the snow of a mountain pass,
And drew lots and boiled the bones of their companions;
And so afterward a hot valley where indigo could be grown
Seemed beautiful to them. And beyond, where fog
Heaved into shoreline coves, the ocean labored.
Sleep: rocks and capes will lie down inside you,
War councils of motionless animals in a barren place,
Basilicas of reptiles, a frothy whiteness.
Sleep on your coat, while your horse nibbles grass
And an eagle gauges a precipice.
When you wake up, you will have the parts of the world.
West, an empty conch of water and air.
East, always behind you, the voided memory of snow-covered fir.
And extending from your outspread arms
Nothing but bronze grasses, north and south.
We are poor people, much afflicted.
We camped under various stars,
Where you dip water with a cup from a muddy river
And slice your bread with a pocketknife.
This is the place; accepted, not chosen.
We remembered that there were streets and houses where we came
from,
So there had to be houses here, a saddler’s signboard,
A small veranda with a chair. But empty, a country where
The thunder beneath the rippled skin of the earth,
The breaking waves, a patrol of pelicans, nullified us.
As if our vases, brought here from another shore,
Were the dug-up spearheads of some lost tribe
Who fed on lizards and acorn flour.
And here I am walking the eternal earth.
Tiny, leaning on a stick.
I pass a volcanic park, lie down at a spring,
Not knowing how to express what is always and everywhere:
The earth I cling to is so solid
Under my breast and belly that I feel grateful
For every pebble, and I don’t know whether
It is my pulse or the earth’s that I hear,
When the hems of invisible silk vestments pass over me,
Hands, wherever they have been, touch my arm,
Or small laughter, once, long ago over wine,
With lanterns in the magnolias, for my house is huge.
poem by Czeslaw Milosz
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Related quotes
Show me
Show me the place
where we lived once
when the earth was still young,
before man’s hand
like a sickle went over it
and chopped until woods
disappeared totally
and deserts appeared in places.
Show me the fields, marches and hillocks
where animals at a time was carefree
before the rifle
sounded without end
and mines, factories, buildings
and rail tracts harassed the earth
and everything yielded
to steel and concrete.
Show me the blue sky
that at a time was pure
and now is full of smoke and ash
and water that fell sparkling
as rain from the air
and brought life
and could wash everything clean
and now eat
while it falls filled with acid.
Show me the streams and rivers
where at a time there were healthy fish
that could bring water to fields
and where children for the fun
could jump in
and now are filled with sewerage,
poisons, minerals
and garbage that drifts everywhere.
Show me seasons
that comes on their time
and now every day
is winter, summer and spring
while life
pass much too quickly
and the hand of man
for ever are mowing out the earth
and a day might come,
when the earth
becomes man’s own
place of damnation.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Where The Land Meets The Ocean
The great white waves of the Pacific how loudly they do roar
And crash against the volcanic rocks that guard the ocean shore
The silver gulls above the beach are calling as they fly
And the terns dive in shallow waters for small sea things from the sky,
The feeling is so refreshing on your skin saltwater spray
'Tis nice to be by the ocean on a breezy Autumn day
In a place far off of the highway and far from the noisy street
A place where Nature reign Supreme where the land and ocean meet
The huge surf waves are rolling foamy and white as snow
At the awesome power of Nature my wonder only grow
Though not a seafaring person from land I love to watch the big waves roll
It has been a watery grave for many an ocean out of control
Where the land meets the ocean on a March evening in the Fall
A memory for to cherish and in the future to recall.
poem by Francis Duggan
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Makarora
Rocky peaks of Makarora in the summer wear their snow
And down the lush green grassy valley the clear mountain river flow
Songbirds piping in the beechwoods songthrush, bellbird and
redpoll
This a place of peace and beauty Makarora has a soul.
These great mountains look no different than to when the first man came
They have a wild rugged beauty for want of a better name
To the coming generations these high peaks will look the same
Man will not build houses on them man such wildness could not tame.
Summer's come to Makarora and along with her brought her green
Beauty to compare with any with the finest I have seen
This place would inspire an artist peaks in summer white
with snow
Beechwoods and through lush green valley sparkling mountain river flow.
Those high peaks of makarora will not change as years go by
Out there on those rugged mountains bones of Maori hunter lie
Still these mountains keep their secrets monarchs of the higher ground
Overlooking Makarora and the woodlands all around
Snow clad peaks of Makarora reaching upwards towards the sky
I am just a passing stranger and I'll be bidding you goodbye
But I will take with me the memories of beauty I have seen
today
Woodlands in a lush green valley by those mountains far away
poem by Francis Duggan
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Paradise Valley
can't think straight my mind is covered with clouds
no doubt what I'm talking about;
I've never seen a place like this I miss no bliss
how could I ever forget how it feels, how it heals,
my wound, my blood, whatever pain my soul has got
these waters so clear
near and far all I can hear
rustle of leaves and insects hummin on trees
no place like this - no place like this
paradise valley
the sun reflects some billion glitters of water
direct in my face but I can't take my eyes of this place
so peaceful, beautiful, it flows all into one
meadows, mountains, I, the sky
so close I can never feel to gods own miracle
and then I see, I see that eagle fly
no place like this - no place like this
paradise valley
song performed by by H-BlockX
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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An Aura about the Sun
There is an aura about the sun
On this late winter's day as
Snow falls from castles in the sky-
Invisible clouds shall not obliterate the sun-
In my most startled moment,
I would look down from
My stance upon a purple mountain peak-
Purple transforms to magenta as
A ray of hope shines
Downward and mysteriously about-
I see reflections of copper- hued branches in the creek below-
Upon trees seemingly awakening from a passionate night amidst the darkness-
In the bitter coldness of the season's end-
Branches so like arms reaching towards the sky-
Decorated with snow and bending in the wind as
Would ballerina dancers upon a stage of oblivion-
Not knowing what the next moment in time shall bring?
There is an aura about the sun and
The snow keeps falling-
Crocuses trying to hide their blossoms from the late winter's chill-
Yesterday the sun rose and cast its shadows about the mountainsides-
Purple mountains and magenta reflections in the creek in all of its
Crystalline clarity have never looked so striking
Even stones polished by rushing water rapids- and grasses sparkle in the dew-
I have found my place in this world so vast, and so majestic- yet so ethereal,
Alone with the trees and nowhere to hide-
No need to hide because I have escaped reality-
In the real world mountains have never been purple-hued and
Reflections never magenta-crocuses never emerge and blossom on
A cold winder's twilight-
There is an aura about the sun and I listen to the voices
Chanting baritone melodies inside the fortress of my mind-
Others may say that this is none but a delusion, although
I do not recognize their disparagement -
I have lost myself in a world of fearlessness and
I find nothing intimidating in this land of my dreams-
It has been said that dreams often never come true but
I have carried my dreams inside of my mind to the peak of
Purple mountains glowing beneath the moon at midnight and
The sun as it rises at daybreak- nobody shall unlock the door to my madness
My dream has come true and I shall never escape-
I have painted a picture inside of my mind and here in my solitude
I have escaped the pain of veracity as
I chant my own special melodies, though in silence.
There is an aura about the sun and I am proud to say it shines light
Upon the essence of my dreams, illuminating a path before me
Upon which I can walk -I can walk further and further from all that threatens-
Where there is no place to hide and no need to hide
As the snow keeps falling from invisible clouds and
Fantasy has never appeared so magnificently regal….
poem by Claudia Krizay
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I Walk A Nameless River
I walk a nameless river
One which collects water from the houses,
The streets and such,
A river of rain that carry small sticks,
Cigarettes butts and, bits of paper
A shadow river that moves pap like rocks
A river trapped in the street cars’ tracks
A river rushing past ants and praying mantises
Against butterflies and worms that comes up and leave
Body tracks in the mud.
A river fed by puddles and cracks; indents in the sidewalks
By downward slanted driveways and situated front yards
By small streams on window glass and streams down sycamore trucks,
Maple, oak and such.
A cleaning river of gutterized rain,
A leaf drooping rain of green things,
River of no name
Too thin to carry twigs
Easily distracted by my foot
Easily stagnated into a nameless pond
When the sky has dried out.
I walk a one street river
A shallow river of clinched fists
A narrow river of butterflies in the nameless sky
A concrete river of feet saturated against the maple rocks
A river of bodies coming up leaving a river of cracks
A river of cigarettes of worms of sycamore trunks, oak
Marble and such.
A thin river of destruction, of gutters and traped tracks
Of sticks collected among themselves like dead praying mantises
In the rush of houses and driveways stacked in the water
Of a small rainy sky.
poem by David E. Patton
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Matamoras Banks
(Each year many die crossing the deserts,
mountains and rivers of our southern border
in search of a better life. Here I follow the
journey backwards, from the body at the
river bottom, to the man walking across
the desert towards the banks of the Rio Grande.)
For two days the river keeps you down
Then you rise to the light without a sound
Past the playgrounds and empty switching yards
The turtles eat the skin from your eyes, so they lay open to the stars
Your clothes give way to the current and river stone
'Till every trace of who you ever were is gone
And the things of the earth they make their claim
That the things of heaven may do the same
Goodbye, my darling, for your love I give God thanks,
Meet me on the Matamoros
Meet me on the Matamoros
Meet me on the Matamoros banks
Over rivers of stone and ancient ocean beds
I walk on sandals of twine and tire tread
My pockets full of dust, my mouth filled with cool stone
The pale moon opens the earth to its bones
I long, my darling, for your kiss, for your sweet love I give God thanks
The touch of your loving fingertips
Meet me on the Matamoros
Meet me on the Matamoros
Meet me on the Matamoros banks
Your sweet memory comes on the evenin' wind
I sleep and dream of holding you in my arms again
The lights of Brownsville, across the river shine
A shout rings out and into the silty red river I dive
I long, my darling, for your kiss, for your sweet love I give God thanks
A touch of your loving fingertips
Meet me on the Matamoros
Meet me on the Matamoros
Meet me on the Matamoros banks
song performed by by Bruce Springsteen
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Empty Old Houses
Empty Old Houses
Empty old houses can talk…
But one must know how to listen…
to hear them
Empty old houses have stories…
But one must be eager to listen…
to hear them
Empty old houses can suffer..
But one must have empathy …
To feel it
Empty old houses can feel pain
But one must be able to bear it …
To feel it
Empty old houses have memories
But one must believe … that they have…
To share them
Empty old houses contain people’s lives
But one must believe…that they do…
To share them
Empty old houses can seem dead and deserted
But one must know that they’re not..
To know them
Empty old houses can teem with life’s pleasures
But one must walk through
to sense the aura of life
Empty old houses abound in life’s treasures
But one cannot help but…
To admire them
poem by David Whalen
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The Exile’s Letter
(To Yüan)
Remember how Tung built us a place to drink in
At Lo-yang south of the T’ien-ching bridge?
White jade and gold bought songs and laughter.
We drank forgetting Court and princes.
Those amongst us, wisest and bravest
On all this side of rivers and oceans,
Hearts high as clouds, and you and I together,
Cared nothing at crossing lakes and mountains
Only to share our thoughts and feelings.
Then I went out south-east to cut the laurel,
You north of Lo River still lost in dreams.
No joy in being parted. Soon back again in mountains,
Tracking the thirty-six twists and turns of valley,
By the streams bright with a thousand flowers,
By endless waters,
Hearing pine-trees sighing,
Till we met the Hang-tung Governor
On a gold and silver saddle,
And Hu the True-Taoist drew us with his pipe playing,
Making unearthly music out of the high tower,
Strange sounds of the mating phoenix.
The Governor’s sleeves kept time to the music,
So that he rose, drunk, and danced a little,
Brought his brocade coat, covered my body.
I fell asleep, head resting in his lap.
By day our hearts rose to the nine heavens.
At evening we scattered like blown stars or rain,
I to my far mountain over hills and waters,
You to your own house by the bridge of Wei.
That winter I made your father’s North City,
Loved you for the way you did me honour,
Sharing your wealth, thinking nothing of it.
Wine there - in cups of amber,
Food there - on plates of jade.
I ate and drank, no thoughts of returning.
We went out to the west. The river parts there,
Round the ancient shrine of a Prince of Chou.
Boats on the waters to drums and piping.
Waves made of dragon scales. Jade-green rushes.
We drank and drank, lived the passing moments,
Forgetting how they go like blossoms or snowfall.
Flushed with wine, warm in glow of sunset,
The hundred-foot deep pool mirroring bright faces,
Dancing-girls delicate as willows in the moonlight,
Notes lost in the silken sleeves’ fluttering.
A white breeze blew their song to the sky,
Winding through the air, twisting in the cloud-lanes.
Never again. Never again such joy.
I went west but got no promotion.
White-headed back to eastern hills.
Met once more south of Wei’s bridge.
Parted again north of Tso’s terrace.
And if you ask my feelings at parting,
They were inside me like Spring flowers falling.
No way to say what’s in the heart. Never.
I call in the boy. Have him kneel here, tie this,
To send my feelings through a thousand miles.
Please Don't Stop Loving Me When I'm Old
Our love rose with the fall of golden leaves
rough winter roots for gentle plants in spring.
It seems we were planted in earth, grew together,
and blossomed together.
When I pass, place a rose petal on my grave.
Sweet love is born out of souls; outside winds whistles;
stars and moon twinkles…All God’s handmaids.
In obedient to my heart, I entrust me to you.
Now, let’s continue on down lover’s lane,
Walking alongside grass holding
Baby shrubs on her lap.
Straining our ears we hear bird
Singing songs of praise
Reminding us of the good old days.
When clouds no longer hold the rain;
will you shower me with your love?
When my head is covered with snow;
will you forever be my beau?
When my eyes cease to be my panes
Will your arms my cane,
Please don’t stop loving me because I’m old.
poem by Almedia Knight Oliver
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The Days
Issuing from the Word
The seven days came,
Each in its own place,
Its own name.
And the first long days
A hard and rocky spring,
Inhuman burgeoning,
And nothing there for claw or hand,
Vast loneliness ere loneliness began,
Where the blank seasons in their journeying
Saw water at play with water and sand with sand.
The waters stirred
And from the doors were cast
Wild lights and shadows on the formless face
Of the flood of chaos, vast
Lengthening and dwindling image of earth and heaven.
The forest's green shadow
Softly over the water driven,
As if the earth's green wonder, endless meadow
Floated and sank within its own green light.
In water and night
Sudden appeared the lion's violent head,
Raging and burning in its watery cave.
The stallion's tread
Soundless fell on the flood, and the animals poured
Onward, flowing across the flowing wave.
Then on the waters fell
The shadow of man, and earth and the heavens scrawled
With names, as if each pebble and leaf would tell
The tale untellable. And the Lord called
The seventh day forth and the glory of the Lord.
And now we see in the sun
The mountains standing clear in the third day
(Where they shall always stay)
And thence a river run,
Threading, clear cord of water, all to all:
The wooded hill and the cattle in the meadow,
The tall wave breaking on the high sea-wall,
The people at evening walking,
The crescent shadow
Of the light built bridge, the hunter stalking
The flying quarry, each in a different morning,
The fish in the billow's heart, the man with the net,
The hungry swords crossed in the cross of warning,
The lion set
High on the banner, leaping into the sky,
The seasons playing
Their game of sun and moon and east and west,
The animal watching man and bird go by,
The women praying
For the passing of this fragmentary day
Into the day where all are gathered together,
Things and their names, in the storm's and the lightning's nest,
The seventh great day and the clear eternal weather.
poem by Edwin Muir
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High Water
Words by neil peart, music by geddy lee and alex lifeson
When the waters rose
In the darkness
In the wake of the endless flood
It flowed into our memory --
It flowed into our blood
When something broke the surface
Just to see the starry dome --
We still feel that relation
When the water takes us home
In the flying spray of the ocean
The water takes you home --
Springing from the weight
Of the mountains
Like the heart of the earth
Would burst
Flowing out from marble fountains
In the dreams of a desert thirst
Something swam through
The jungles
Where the mighty rivers roam --
Something breaks the silence
When the water takes you home
I hear the wordless voices
When the water takes me home --
Waves that crash on the shoreline
Torrents of tropical rain
Streaming down
Beyond our memory
Streaming down inside our veins
When something left the ocean
To crawl high above the foam --
We still feel that elation
When the water takes us home
In a driving rain of redemption
The water takes me home...
song performed by by Rush
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Winter Love
Such a cold was in january.
In december love had come vainly.
Winter love is short,
Obviously.
Snow is quiet falls
Down on earth.
Snow is on the streets,
Snow's in wood.
Snow in words I hear,
In your eyes, too.
Winter love is short,
Obviously.
Snow is quiet falls
Down on earth.
You are saying: 'Bye'
To me now.
And I hear your voice
Icy, round.
Winter love is short,
Obviously.
Snow is quiet falls
Down on earth.
And the oaths
are cold
In winter time.
I'll wait for long
The spring love.
Winter love is short,
Obviously.
Snow is quiet, falls
Down on earth.
poem by Robert Rozhdestvensky, translated by Lyudmila Purgina
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Graveyard in the snow
Today, I cannot find your grave,
because the stone with your name
is set in the earth,
down, where it is not in the way,
when the caretakers mow the grass,
now you are covered with snow.
Everything is white,
so full of peace, so still,
I sit on the bench,
it is so cold, but
I feel so close to you,
after all, you are cold,
under the earth,
under this white sheet,
hidden, but there, I know.
Only a raven,
shiny in funeral coat of feathers,
black against the white,
sits with me, in a tree,
not far, insistently cawing,
a warning, an emphatic word
of solace.
The trees, dark green
under the snow,
are so silent,
I can hear a soft sliding,
when the clumps of snow
fall on the ground,
startling the raven.
He flies away,
a shadow against the clouds
of winter sky.
I must leave you now,
the deep cavity of my grief
is like the silence
of your snow-covered grave,
enticing me to stay.
But I have promised
a pledge to live,
before I can sleep
under the snow.
poem by Martina E. Elenbaas
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The Deer Lay Down Their Bones
I followed the narrow cliffside trail half way up the mountain
Above the deep river-canyon. There was a little cataract crossed the path,
flinging itself
Over tree roots and rocks, shaking the jeweled fern-fronds, bright bubbling
water
Pure from the mountain, but a bad smell came up. Wondering at it I clam-
bered down the steep stream
Some forty feet, and found in the midst of bush-oak and laurel,
Hung like a bird's nest on the precipice brink a small hidden clearing,
Grass and a shallow pool. But all about there were bones Iying in the grass,
clean bones and stinking bones,
Antlers and bones: I understood that the place was a refuge for wounded
deer; there are so many
Hurt ones escape the hunters and limp away to lie hidden; here they have
water for the awful thirst
And peace to die in; dense green laurel and grim cliff
Make sanctuary, and a sweet wind blows upward from the deep gorge.--I
wish my bones were with theirs.
But that's a foolish thing to confess, and a little cowardly. We know that life
Is on the whole quite equally good and bad, mostly gray neutral, and can
be endured
To the dim end, no matter what magic of grass, water and precipice, and
pain of wounds,
Makes death look dear. We have been given life and have used it--not a
great gift perhaps--but in honesty
Should use it all. Mine's empty since my love died--Empty? The flame-
haired grandchild with great blue eyes
That look like hers?--What can I do for the child? I gaze at her and wonder
what sort of man
In the fall of the world . . . I am growing old, that is the trouble. My chil-
dren and little grandchildren
Will find their way, and why should I wait ten years yet, having lived sixty-
seven, ten years more or less,
Before I crawl out on a ledge of rock and die snapping, like a wolf
Who has lost his mate?--I am bound by my own thirty-year-old decision:
who drinks the wine
Should take the dregs; even in the bitter lees and sediment
New discovery may lie. The deer in that beautiful place lay down their
bones: I must wear mine.
poem by Robinson Jeffers
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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I Am
I've risen from the burning rocks
At birth when earth was forming,
And traveled icy streams to lochs
When spring the snow was warming.
And high above in mist and cloud
I've felt the cool winds blowing.
Saw lightning flash, heard thunder loud,
The land, the heavens sowing.
Far from the light by rock and sand,
By clear streams darkly flowing
Beneath the surface of the land,
To caverns deep there going.
And to the great and briny sea,
There countless times returning;
But restless, to the clouds I flee,
Take flight, while sun is burning.
By coral bright and river wide,
By mountain tarn and fording,
I've felt the ebb and flow of tide,
My kin the sea there hoarding.
Eternal life, the secret found,
I live though life is dying.
When mortals weep, a mournful sound,
I am the tears they're crying.
I wear the rock, I shape the land,
My waves, on headlands falling;
As rain I beat upon the sand,
As winter winds are squalling.
From tropic sea to frozen lake,
In each and every quarter
I can a transformation make,
I am - a dropp of water.
poem by Dennis N. O'Brien
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Cloud
I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
From the seas and the streams;
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noonday dreams.
From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet buds every one,
When rocked to rest on their mother's breast,
As she dances about the sun.
I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
And whiten the green plains under,
And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder.
I sift the snow on the mountains below,
And their great pines groan aghast;
And all the night 'tis my pillow white,
While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers,
Lightning, my pilot, sits;
In a cavern under is fettered the thunder,
It struggles and howls at fits;
Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,
This pilot is guiding me,
Lured by the love of the genii that move
In the depths of the purple sea;
Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills,
Over the lakes and the plains,
Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream,
The Spirit he loves remains;
And I all the while bask in Heaven's blue smile,
Whilst he is dissolving in rains.
The sanguine Sunrise, with his meteor eyes,
And his burning plumes outspread,
Leaps on the back of my sailing rack,
When the morning star shines dead;
As on the jag of a mountain crag,
Which an earthquake rocks and swings,
An eagle alit one moment may sit
In the light of its golden wings.
And when Sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath,
Its ardors of rest and of love,
And the crimson pall of eve may fall
From the depth of Heaven above,
With wings folded I rest, on mine aery nest,
As still as a brooding dove.
That orbed maiden with white fire laden,
Whom mortals call the Moon,
Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor,
By the midnight breezes strewn;
And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,
Which only the angels hear,
May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof,
The stars peep behind her and peer;
And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,
Like a swarm of golden bees,
When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,
Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,
Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,
Are each paved with the moon and these.
I bind the Sun's throne with a burning zone,
And the Moon's with a girdle of pearl;
The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim
When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl.
From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,
Over a torrent sea,
Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof,--
The mountains its columns be.
The triumphal arch through which I march
With hurricane, fire, and snow,
When the Powers of the air are chained to my chair,
Is the million-colored bow;
The sphere-fire above its soft colors wove,
While the moist Earth was laughing below.
I am the daughter of Earth and Water,
And the nursling of the Sky;
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;
I change, but I cannot die.
For after the rain when with never a stain
The pavilion of Heaven is bare,
And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams
Build up the blue dome of air,
I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,
And out of the caverns of rain,
Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,
I arise and unbuild it again.
poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Arethusa
I.
Arethusa arose
From her couch of snows
In the Acroceraunian mountains,--
From cloud and from crag,
With many a jag,
Shepherding her bright fountains.
She leapt down the rocks,
With her rainbow locks
Streaming among the streams;--
Her steps paved with green
The downward ravine
Which slopes to the western gleams;
And gliding and springing
She went, ever singing,
In murmurs as soft as sleep;
The Earth seemed to love her,
And Heaven smiled above her,
As she lingered towards the deep.
II.
Then Alpheus bold,
On his glacier cold,
With his trident the mountains strook;
And opened a chasm
In the rocks—with the spasm
All Erymanthus shook.
And the black south wind
It unsealed behind
The urns of the silent snow,
And earthquake and thunder
Did rend in sunder
The bars of the springs below.
And the beard and the hair
Of the River-god were
Seen through the torrent’s sweep,
As he followed the light
Of the fleet nymph’s flight
To the brink of the Dorian deep.
III.
'Oh, save me! Oh, guide me!
And bid the deep hide me,
For he grasps me now by the hair!'
The loud Ocean heard,
To its blue depth stirred,
And divided at her prayer;
And under the water
The Earth’s white daughter
Fled like a sunny beam;
Behind her descended
Her billows, unblended
With the brackish Dorian stream:—
Like a gloomy stain
On the emerald main
Alpheus rushed behind,--
As an eagle pursuing
A dove to its ruin
Down the streams of the cloudy wind.
IV.
Under the bowers
Where the Ocean Powers
Sit on their pearled thrones;
Through the coral woods
Of the weltering floods,
Over heaps of unvalued stones;
Through the dim beams
Which amid the streams
Weave a network of coloured light;
And under the caves,
Where the shadowy waves
Are as green as the forest’s night:--
Outspeeding the shark,
And the sword-fish dark,
Under the Ocean’s foam,
And up through the rifts
Of the mountain clifts
They passed to their Dorian home.
V.
And now from their fountains
In Enna’s mountains,
Down one vale where the morning basks,
Like friends once parted
Grown single-hearted,
They ply their watery tasks.
At sunrise they leap
From their cradles steep
In the cave of the shelving hill;
At noontide they flow
Through the woods below
And the meadows of asphodel;
And at night they sleep
In the rocking deep
Beneath the Ortygian shore;--
Like spirits that lie
In the azure sky
When they love but live no more.
poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Dark Winter Blues
The darkness of winter in some parts of the world,
The blues that it brings to make them sick;
But who is able to challenge nature?
Dark winter blues,
From the middle of November to the end of January;
There our hopes lied so low in the North of the Arctic Circle.
Dark winter blues,
To endure the long dark nights of the Arctic winter;
With pastel shades of blue and violet wrapped in the snow.
Snow ballls,
Snow falls;
The dark winter does have negative effects on some people,
But the earth will keep on moving.
Wrapped in the cold of the snow,
With seasonal moods from the winter blues;
But this sadness of winter cannot be wiped away so easily.
There is no place to escape to with this claustrophobic,
But it is a matter of patience to push the days away;
And the orbit of the earth is all that makes the difference.
poem by Edward Kofi Louis
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Endless Skies
I've been to the edge of the earth
Haven't we all? Heaven's what it's called
That old sacred place of our birth
No clouds were above me
Nor land was beneath me.
The winds were an unknown crowd
But the tides were my carpet
and the oceans my tiles
The stars glistened above me
as the sun brushed the sea
and the lies of this life regressed beneath the waves
The ocean swells separated my heart, body and soul
And only my heart was left alone
To tell of an untold toll.
The day turned to nigh'
Tis' A cold empty grave
And I sank, sank sank.
Beyond the sea floor
Beyond the core.
Till' i found my place abroad.
No crimson crowns or lovely hills but
A prisoner of war
poem by Nicholas Rahming
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