The Dreamer
WHO seeks the shore where dreams outpour
Their floods in Slumber Seas
Lives all night long within a song
Of murmuring mysteries.
Where stars are lit above the pit
That holds the hollow dark,
Into their dawn he shall sail on
In an enchanted barque.
He shall not fear tho’ in his ear
The thrusting cranks of Time,
Thro’ blaze and gloom, with crash and boom,
Ring in tremendous rhyme,
Beyond the cloud that doth enshroud
Saturn with beauteous bands,
Where at the knees of Hyades
Creation claps her hands.
He shall bow low to God and know
Keen sorrow and delight,
The day’s full pride and eventide,
The inmost thoughts of night.
Into their calm white waves of balm
His soul shall plunge and swim,
Past silver-globed full moons unrobed
That float round Heaven’s rim.
He shall bow low to God and know
God, and be known of Him;
He shall surprise within the skies
The watching Seraphim.
He shall be known about the Throne
When names are named above,
As one redeemed through dreams he dreamed—
As one Beloved of Love.
poem by David MacDonald Ross
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Related quotes
The Ocean
1969 live version
--------------------------------------------
Here comes the ocean
And the waves down by the shore
Here comes the ocean
And the waves down by the sea
Earth is a hollow hair bought of a bigger head
It nearly drives me crazy
I am a lazy son
I never get things down
...(unknown)
But here comes the waves
Down by the shore
Washing the eye of the land
That has been down by the sea
Down by the sea
Down by the sea
Down by the sea
Here comes the ocean and the waves
Down by the shore
Here comes the ocean and the waves
Down by the sea
(incense or in sex or insects) for evil thoughts, thought of by selfish men
It nearly drives me crazy
I am a lazy son
I never get things done
...(unknown)
Here comes the waves down by the shore
Washing the eye of the land that has been down by the sea
Down by the sea
Here come the waves
Here come the waves
Here come the waves
Peel slowly and see version
---------------------------------------------
Here comes the ocean
And the waves
Down by the sea
Here comes the ocean
And the waves
Where have they been?
Silver and black with night
Heres to a summers night
An empty splendid castle
Glowering alone at night
The princess has had a fright
Madness seeks out the lover
And here come the waves down by the shore
Washing the soul of the body
That comes from the depths of the sea
Here comes the ocean
And the waves down by the sea
Here comes the ocean
And the waves, where have they been
Dont swim tonight my love
The tide is out my love
Malcoms curse haunts our family
Oh yes, loud in which, ruler of filthy seas, revelling heavans justice
And here come the waves
And save for a scream
Theres much like a song
To be heard, in the wind, that blows by the sea.
Like the wind
Here come the waves,
Here come the waves,
Here come the waves
song performed by by Velvet Underground
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Ocean
Here comes the ocean
And the waves down by the sea
Here comes the ocean
And the waves where have they been
Silver and black lit night, heres to a stealers night
An empty splendid castle
Glowering alone at night, the princess has had a fight
Madness seeks out a lover
And here come the waves
Down by the shore
Washing the soul of the body
That comes form the depth of the sea
Here comes the ocean
And the waves down by the sea
Here comes the ocean
And the waves where have they been
Dont swim tonight my love, the tide is out my love
Malcolms curse haunts our family
Odious loud and rich, ruler of filthy seas
Revel in heavens justice
And here come the waves
And save for a scream
Theres much like a song to be heard
In the wind that blows by the sea
Like the wind
Here come the waves
Here come the waves
Here come the waves
Here come the waves
song performed by by Velvet Underground
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Www.
At night, I sit in this darkened room
And stare at the hollow screen,
The World-Wide Web is a crystal ball
Of tides, and hopes, and dreams,
Though the world goes on outside my door
And time, it flows like the sea,
I have no truck with reality
When the web washes over me.
For I dredge the depths with a grappling hook
And I haul my catch on board,
Then I read the thoughts of a million minds
That were left on the furthest shore,
While the colours swirl and the lights go dim
And the sounds fade from without,
I float in the mass of cyberspace
'Til the light of the moon goes out.
Then emails beat at my cyber door
To ask if I'll let them in,
I cast my net for the viruses,
And choke the Recycle bin,
I stare at faces I've never seen
That float on a cyber wave,
Which disappear as the next comes near
For two are never the same.
But one returns, and it stares at me
And I see the limpid eyes,
Like pools in deep lagoons offshore
Where the mermaid lives and dies,
While the lips are full of promises
As false as the deepest sin,
I reach on out to the screen, but find
That the screen won't let me in.
Then night on night, like a dread parade
Those pictures come again,
From some lost ancient URL
Long gone from the world of men,
I search and Google in cyberspace
In hopes that you're somewhere there,
But all I have are those limpid eyes
And the bands in your dark brown hair.
One night, I'll leap right through the screen
And swim to your blue lagoon,
I'll take bright garlands of pretty flowers
To gladden the cyber gloom,
We'll live forever behind the screen
And our faces will go online,
For the stares of the grim night dwellers
Who are surfing the Web, World-Wide.
10 June 2008
poem by David Lewis Paget
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Point Of View: II
I
In the wood of lost causes, the valley of tears,
Old hopes, like dead leaves, choke the difficult way;
Dark pinions fold dank round the soul, and it hears:
'It is night, it is night, it has never been day;
Thou hast dreamed of the day, of the rose of delight;
It was always dead leaves and the heart of the night.
Drink deep then, and rest, O thou foolish wayfarer,
For night, like a chalice, holds sleep in her hands.'
II
Then you drain the dark cup, and, half-drugged as you lie
In the arms of despair that is masked as delight,
You thrill to the rush of white wings, and you hear:
'It is day, it is day, it has never been night!
Thou hast dreamed of the night and the wood of lost leaves;
It was always noon, June, and red roses in sheaves,
Unlock the blind lids, and behold the light-bearer
Who holds, like a monstrance, the sun in his hands.'
poem by Edith Nesbit
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Bell In The Sea
(music: marillion lyrics: steve hogarth & john helmer)
I dreamed I rolled on the ocean floor
In the sunken bones of a broken ship
On the shadow line where whispers creep
To the world above from the world beneath
On waves of silver I dreamed of gold
till I lost the peace that dreaming gives
I dreamed of the moment of my own death
That no one ever dreams and lives
I dreamed I sailed to the mirrored edge
Of that murky world for an iron bell
That dragged me down to the ocean bed
And rang to mark where my shadow fell
On waves of silver I dreamed of gold
till I lost the peace that dreaming gives
I dreamed of the moment of my own death
That no one ever dreams and lives
That no one ever dreams and lives
That no one ever dreams and lives
I dreamed I slept on the ocean bed
And a silent grave of silver sand
Rolled in the sway of an iron bell
Ive heard it said when they go to sea
On stormy nights you can hear her moan
She tolls for the mourning of her own death
And echoes here on the village stones
On the waves of silver I dreamed of gold
I dreamed of the moment of my own death
That no one ever dreams and lives
That no one ever dreams and lives
That no one ever dreams and lives
song performed by by Marillion
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Bell In The Sea, The
(music: marillion lyrics: steve hogarth & john helmer)
I dreamed i rolled on the ocean floor
In the sunken bones of a broken ship
On the shadow line where whispers creep
To the world above from the world beneath
On waves of silver i dreamed of gold
'till i lost the peace that dreaming gives
I dreamed of the moment of my own death
That no one ever dreams and lives
I dreamed i sailed to the mirrored edge
Of that murky world for an iron bell
That dragged me down to the ocean bed
And rang to mark where my shadow fell
On waves of silver i dreamed of gold
'till i lost the peace that dreaming gives
I dreamed of the moment of my own death
That no one ever dreams and lives
That no one ever dreams and lives
That no one ever dreams and lives
I dreamed i slept on the ocean bed
And a silent grave of silver sand
Rolled in the sway of an iron bell
I've heard it said when they go to sea
On stormy nights you can hear her moan
She tolls for the mourning of her own death
And echoes here on the village stones
On the waves of silver i dreamed of gold
I dreamed of the moment of my own death
That no one ever dreams and lives
That no one ever dreams and lives
That no one ever dreams and lives
song performed by by Marillion
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Asia: From Prometheus Unbound
My soul is an enchanted boat,
Which, like a sleeping swan, doth float
Upon the silver waves of thy sweet singing;
And thine doth like an angel sit
Beside a helm conducting it,
Whilst all the winds with melody are ringing.
It seems to float ever, for ever,
Upon that many-winding river,
Between mountains, woods, abysses,
A paradise of wildernesses!
Till, like one in slumber bound,
Borne to the ocean, I float down, around,
Into a sea profound, of ever-spreading sound:
Meanwhile thy spirit lifts its pinions
In music's most serene dominions;
Catching the winds that fan that happy heaven.
And we sail on, away, afar,
Without a course, without a star,
But, by the instinct of sweet music driven;
Till through Elysian garden islets
By thee, most beautiful of pilots,
Where never mortal pinnace glided,
The boat of my desire is guided:
Realms where the air we breathe is love,
Which in the winds and on the waves doth move,
Harmonizing this earth with what we feel above.
We have past Age's icy caves,
And Manhood's dark and tossing waves,
And Youth's smooth ocean, smiling to betray:
Beyond the glassy gulfs we flee
Of shadow-peopled Infancy,
Through Death and Birth, to a diviner day;
A paradise of vaulted bowers,
Lit by downward-gazing flowers,
And watery paths that wind between
Wildernesses calm and green,
Peopled by shapes too bright to see,
And rest, having beheld; somewhat like thee;
Which walk upon the sea, and chant melodiously!
poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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When the Day Is White
When the day is white
Full of clouds from above
Just new from old night
With its dream full of
And your heart is young
Filled with thoughts so free
In and easy going song
That without end shall be
A love song so fine
Full of its finesses air
Drifting through sunshine
From here to everywhere
I feel you are so close
In my heartbeat you'll stay
Until everything away goes
That you and I knew today
When day becomes eve
And the white sky to red
When our day thoughts leave
And night is here instead
When we go on sleeping
And travel so far beyond
Where angels' stars are keeping
Until it becomes dawned
*(A lyric made now to my song, When the Day Is White, at Garageband.com)
poem by Peter S. Quinn
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Magic Evening
Magic evening
Thru night and waves
Mirror gleam living
In a heart that craves
Yesterday was ambiance
Now is something more
In aquatic acquaintance
To the vast shore
Magic glowing
Dream of red yellow
On heaven showing
Moments saying hello
Sea of exotic song
Dream to set sail
Romantic heart to long
In its sodden trail
Magic of sky
Thru the ember ocean
As its time goes by
With its full emotion
Love of possibilities
Morning that shall bring
Blue drifting seas
As dawn again will sing
poem by Peter S. Quinn
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Dreamland
By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have reached these lands but newly
From an ultimate dim Thule-
From a wild clime that lieth, sublime,
Out of SPACE- out of TIME.
Bottomless vales and boundless floods,
And chasms, and caves, and Titan woods,
With forms that no man can discover
For the tears that drip all over;
Mountains toppling evermore
Into seas without a shore;
Seas that restlessly aspire,
Surging, unto skies of fire;
Lakes that endlessly outspread
Their lone waters- lone and dead,-
Their still waters- still and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily.
By the lakes that thus outspread
Their lone waters, lone and dead,-
Their sad waters, sad and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily,-
By the mountains- near the river
Murmuring lowly, murmuring ever,-
By the grey woods,- by the swamp
Where the toad and the newt encamp-
By the dismal tarns and pools
Where dwell the Ghouls,-
By each spot the most unholy-
In each nook most melancholy-
There the traveller meets aghast
Sheeted Memories of the Past-
Shrouded forms that start and sigh
As they pass the wanderer by-
White-robed forms of friends long given,
In agony, to the Earth- and Heaven.
For the heart whose woes are legion
'Tis a peaceful, soothing region-
For the spirit that walks in shadow
'Tis- oh, 'tis an Eldorado!
But the traveller, travelling through it,
May not- dare not openly view it!
Never its mysteries are exposed
To the weak human eye unclosed;
So wills its King, who hath forbid
The uplifting of the fringed lid;
And thus the sad Soul that here passes
Beholds it but through darkened glasses.
By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have wandered home but newly
From this ultimate dim Thule.
poem by Edgar Allan Poe
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Sestina
I saw my soul at rest upon a day
As a bird sleeping in the nest of night,
Among soft leaves that give the starlight way
To touch its wings but not its eyes with light;
So that it knew as one in visions may,
And knew not as men waking, of delight.
This was the measure of my soul's delight;
It had no power of joy to fly by day,
Nor part in the large lordship of the light;
But in a secret moon-beholden way
Had all its will of dreams and pleasant night,
And all the love and life that sleepers may.
But such life's triumph as men waking may
It might not have to feed its faint delight
Between the stars by night and sun by day,
Shut up with green leaves and a little light;
Because its way was as a lost star's way,
A world's not wholly known of day or night.
All loves and dreams and sounds and gleams of night
Made it all music that such minstrels may,
And all they had they gave it of delight;
But in the full face of the fire of day
What place shall be for any starry light,
What part of heaven in all the wide sun's way?
Yet the soul woke not, sleeping by the way,
Watched as a nursling of the large-eyed night,
And sought no strength nor knowledge of the day,
Nor closer touch conclusive of delight,
Nor mightier joy nor truer than dreamers may,
Nor more of song than they, nor more of light.
For who sleeps once and sees the secret light
Whereby sleep shows the soul a fairer way
Between the rise and rest of day and night,
Shall care no more to fare as all men may,
But be his place of pain or of delight,
There shall he dwell, beholding night as day.
Song, have thy day and take thy fill of light
Before the night be fallen across thy way;
Sing while he may, man hath no long delight.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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To Hope
WHEN by my solitary hearth I sit,
And hateful thoughts enwrap my soul in gloom;
When no fair dreams before my "mind's eye" flit,
And the bare heath of life presents no bloom;
Sweet Hope, ethereal balm upon me shed,
And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head!
Whene'er I wander, at the fall of night,
Where woven boughs shut out the moon's bright ray,
Should sad Despondency my musings fright,
And frown, to drive fair Cheerfulness away,
Peep with the moonbeams through the leafy roof,
And keep that fiend Despondence far aloof!
Should Disappointment, parent of Despair,
Strive for her son to seize my careless heart;
When, like a cloud, he sits upon the air,
Preparing on his spell-bound prey to dart:
Chase him away, sweet Hope, with visage bright,
And fright him as the morning frightens night!
Whene'er the fate of those I hold most dear
Tells to my fearful breast a tale of sorrow,
O bright-eyed Hope, my morbidfancy cheer;
Let me awhile thy sweetest comforts borrow:
Thy heaven-born radiance around me shed,
And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head!
Should e'er unhappy love my bosom pain,
From cruel parents, or relentless fair;
O let me think it is not quite in vain
To sigh out sonnets to the midnight air!
Sweet Hope, ethereal balm upon me shed,
And wave thy silver pinions o'er my head!
In the long vista of the years to roll,
Let me not see our country's honour fade:
O let me see our land retain her soul,
Her pride, her freedom; and not freedom's shade.
From thy bright eyes unusual brightness shed---
Beneath thy pinions canopy my head!
Let me not see the patriot's high bequest,
Great Liberty! how great in plain attire!
With the base purple of a court oppress'd,
Bowing her head, and ready to expire:
But let me see thee stoop from heaven on wings
That fill the skies with silver glitterings!
And as, in sparkling majesty, a star
Gilds the bright summit of some gloomy cloud;
Brightening the half veil'd face of heaven afar:
So, when dark thoughts my boding spirit shroud,
Sweet Hope, celestial influence round me shed,
Waving thy silver pinions o'er my head!
poem by John Keats
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Day dawn
All yesterday the thought of you was resting in my soul,
And when sleep wandered o'er the world that very thought she stole
To fill my dreams with splendour such as stars could not eclipse,
And in the morn I wakened with your name upon my lips.
Awakened, my beloved, to the morning of your eyes,
Your splendid eyes, so full of clouds, wherein a shadow tries
To overcome the flame that melts into the world of grey,
As coming suns dissolve the dark that veils the edge of day.
Cool drifts the air at dawn of day, cool lies the sleeping dew,
But all my heart is burning, for it woke from dreams of you;
And O! these longing eyes of mine look out and only see
A dying night, a waking day, and calm on all but me.
So gently creeps the morning through the heavy air,
The dawn grey-garbed and velvet-shod is wandering everywhere
To wake the slumber-laden hours that leave their dreamless rest,
With outspread, laggard wings to court the pillows of the west.
Up from the earth a moisture steals with odours fresh and soft,
A smell of moss and grasses warm with dew, and far aloft
The stars are growing colourless, while drooping in the west,
A late, wan moon is paling in a sky of amethyst.
The passing of the shadows, as they waft their pinions near,
Has stirred a tender wind within the night-hushed atmosphere,
That in its homeless wanderings sobs in an undertone
An echo to my heart that sobbing calls for you alone.
The night is gone, beloved, and another day set free,
Another day of hunger for the one I may not see.
What care I for the perfect dawn? the blue and empty skies?
The night is always mine without the morning of your eyes.
poem by Emily Pauline Johnson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Casually I Raise My Head Into The Skies
casually i raise my head to the skies
&
casually i raise my head to the skies
bereft of thoughts in gloom-
yes, i get my enlightenment
and my disease is dispelled-
there above amidst the white clouds
the orphaned moon flake sobs in sorrow-
a few days ago it was the queen of the night
with silver-plated smile priding amidst the stars-
life is never ever smooth and song-full;
one day beautiful and brilliant and brimming with thoughts
the next day drier more than a desert fuming emptiness-
yes, i am reminded of 'shakespeare's lines
'books in brooks and sermons in stones'!
--s.chandra kalaadhar
poem by Sundaram Chandrakalaadhar
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Licia Sonnets 30
Whenas my Licia sailed in the seas,
Viewing with pride god Neptune's stately crown,
A calm she made, and brought the merchant ease,
The storm she stayed, and checked him with a frown.
Love at the stern sate smiling and did sing
To see how seas had learned for to obey;
And balls of fire into the waves did fling;
And still the boy full wanton thus did say
"Both poles we burnt whereon the world doth turn,
The round of heaven from earth unto the skies;
And now the seas we both intend to burn,
I with my bow, and Licia with her eyes."
Then since thy force, heavens, earth, nor seas can move,
I conquered yield, and do confess I love.
poem by Giles Fletcher The Elder
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A Swimmer's Dream
Somno mollior unda
I
Dawn is dim on the dark soft water,
Soft and passionate, dark and sweet.
Love's own self was the deep sea's daughter,
Fair and flawless from face to feet,
Hailed of all when the world was golden,
Loved of lovers whose names beholden
Thrill men's eyes as with light of olden
Days more glad than their flight was fleet.
So they sang: but for men that love her,
Souls that hear not her word in vain,
Earth beside her and heaven above her
Seem but shadows that wax and wane.
Softer than sleep's are the sea's caresses,
Kinder than love's that betrays and blesses,
Blither than spring's when her flowerful tresses
Shake forth sunlight and shine with rain.
All the strength of the waves that perish
Swells beneath me and laughs and sighs,
Sighs for love of the life they cherish,
Laughs to know that it lives and dies,
Dies for joy of its life, and lives
Thrilled with joy that its brief death gives --
Death whose laugh or whose breath forgives
Change that bids it subside and rise.
II
Hard and heavy, remote but nearing,
Sunless hangs the severe sky's weight,
Cloud on cloud, though the wind be veering
Heaped on high to the sundawn's gate.
Dawn and even and noon are one,
Veiled with vapour and void of sun;
Nought in sight or in fancied hearing
Now less mighty than time or fate.
The grey sky gleams and the grey seas glimmer,
Pale and sweet as a dream's delight,
As a dream's where darkness and light seem dimmer,
Touched by dawn or subdued by night.
The dark wind, stern and sublime and sad,
Swings the rollers to westward, clad
With lustrous shadow that lures the swimmer,
Lures and lulls him with dreams of light.
Light, and sleep, and delight, and wonder,
Change, and rest, and a charm of cloud,
Fill the world of the skies whereunder
Heaves and quivers and pants aloud
All the world of the waters, hoary
Now, but clothed with its own live glory,
That mates the lightning and mocks the thunder
With light more living and word more proud.
III
Far off westward, whither sets the sounding strife,
Strife more sweet than peace, of shoreless waves whose glee
Scorns the shore and loves the wind that leaves them free,
Strange as sleep and pale as death and fair as life,
Shifts the moonlight-coloured sunshine on the sea.
Toward the sunset's goal the sunless waters crowd,
Fast as autumn days toward winter: yet it seems
Here that autumn wanes not, here that woods and streams
Lose not heart and change not likeness, chilled and bowed,
Warped and wrinkled: here the days are fair as dreams.
IV
O russet-robed November,
What ails thee so to smile?
Chill August, pale September,
Endured a woful while,
And fell as falls an ember
From forth a flameless pile:
But golden-girt November
Bids all she looks on smile.
The lustrous foliage, waning
As wanes the morning moon,
Here falling, here refraining,
Outbraves the pride of June
With statelier semblance, feigning
No fear lest death be soon:
As though the woods thus waning
Should wax to meet the moon.
As though, when fields lie stricken
By grey December's breath,
These lordlier growths that sicken
And die for fear of death
Should feel the sense requicken
That hears what springtide saith
And thrills for love, spring-stricken
And pierced with April's breath.
The keen white-winged north-easter
That stings and spurs thy sea
Doth yet but feed and feast her
With glowing sense of glee:
Calm chained her, storm released her,
And storm's glad voice was he:
South-wester or north-easter,
Thy winds rejoice the sea.
V
A dream, a dream is it all -- the season,
The sky, the water, the wind, the shore?
A day-born dream of divine unreason,
A marvel moulded of sleep -- no more?
For the cloudlike wave that my limbs while cleaving
Feel as in slumber beneath them heaving
Soothes the sense as to slumber, leaving
Sense of nought that was known of yore.
A purer passion, a lordlier leisure,
A peace more happy than lives on land,
Fulfils with pulse of diviner pleasure
The dreaming head and the steering hand.
I lean my cheek to the cold grey pillow,
The deep soft swell of the full broad billow,
And close mine eyes for delight past measure,
And wish the wheel of the world would stand.
The wild-winged hour that we fain would capture
Falls as from heaven that its light feet clomb,
So brief, so soft, and so full the rapture
Was felt that soothed me with sense of home.
To sleep, to swim, and to dream, for ever --
Such joy the vision of man saw never;
For here too soon will a dark day sever
The sea-bird's wing from the sea-wave's foam.
A dream, and more than a dream, and dimmer
At once and brighter than dreams that flee,
The moment's joy of the seaward swimmer
Abides, remembered as truth may be.
Not all the joy and not all the glory
Must fade as leaves when the woods wax hoary;
For there the downs and the sea-banks glimmer,
And here to south of them swells the sea.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Dedication
THE SEA gives her shells to the shingle,
The earth gives her streams to the sea;
They are many, but my gift is single,
My verses, the firstfruits of me.
Let the wind take the green and the grey leaf,
Cast forth without fruit upon air;
Take rose-leaf and vine-leaf and bay-leaf
Blown loose from the hair.
The night shakes them round me in legions,
Dawn drives them before her like dreams;
Time sheds them like snows on strange regions,
Swept shoreward on infinite streams;
Leaves pallid and sombre and ruddy,
Dead fruits of the fugitive years;
Some stained as with wine and made bloody,
And some as with tears.
Some scattered in seven years’ traces,
As they fell from the boy that was then;
Long left among idle green places,
Or gathered but now among men;
On seas full of wonder and peril,
Blown white round the capes of the north;
Or in islands where myrtles are sterile
And loves bring not forth.
O daughters of dreams and of stories
That life is not wearied of yet,
Faustine, Fragoletta, Dolores,
Félise and Yolande and Juliette,
Shall I find you not still, shall I miss you,
When sleep, that is true or that seems,
Comes back to me hopeless to kiss you,
O daughters of dreams?
They are past as a slumber that passes,
As the dew of a dawn of old time;
More frail than the shadows on glasses,
More fleet than a wave or a rhyme.
As the waves after ebb drawing seaward,
When their hollows are full of the night,
So the birds that flew singing to me-ward
Recede out of sight.
The songs of dead seasons, that wander
On wings of articulate words;
Lost leaves that the shore-wind may squander,
Light flocks of untameable birds;
Some sang to me dreaming in class-time
And truant in hand as in tongue;
For the youngest were born of boy’s pastime,
The eldest are young.
Is there shelter while life in them lingers,
Is there hearing for songs that recede,
Tunes touched from a harp with man’s fingers
Or blown with boy’s mouth in a reed?
Is there place in the land of your labour,
Is there room in your world of delight,
Where change has not sorrow for neighbour
And day has not night?
In their wings though the sea-wind yet quivers,
Will you spare not a space for them there
Made green with the running of rivers
And gracious with temperate air;
In the fields and the turreted cities,
That cover from sunshine and rain
Fair passions and bountiful pities
And loves without stain?
In a land of clear colours and stories,
In a region of shadowless hours,
Where earth has a garment of glories
And a murmur of musical flowers;
In woods where the spring half uncovers
The flush of her amorous face,
By the waters that listen for lovers,
For these is there place?
For the song-birds of sorrow, that muffle
Their music as clouds do their fire:
For the storm-birds of passion, that ruffle
Wild wings in a wind of desire;
In the stream of the storm as it settles
Blown seaward, borne far from the sun,
Shaken loose on the darkness like petals
Dropt one after one?
Though the world of your hands be more gracious
And lovelier in lordship of things
Clothed round by sweet art with the spacious
Warm heaven of her imminent wings,
Let them enter, unfledged and nigh fainting,
For the love of old loves and lost times;
And receive in your palace of painting
This revel of rhymes.
Though the seasons of man full of losses
Make empty the years full of youth,
If but one thing be constant in crosses,
Change lays not her hand upon truth;
Hopes die, and their tombs are for token
That the grief as the joy of them ends
Ere time that breaks all men has broken
The faith between friends.
Though the many lights dwindle to one light,
There is help if the heaven has one;
Though the skies be discrowned of the sunlight
And the earth dispossessed of the sun,
They have moonlight and sleep for repayment,
When, refreshed as a bride and set free,
With stars and sea-winds in her raiment,
Night sinks on the sea.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Our Night
When our lips melt
Through the conversation
Our night,
When our sails are
Followed by the shining stars
Our night,
When our challis
Is full of romance
Our night,
When the ragged mountain
Becomes a green meadow
Our night,
When our souls
Unite
Our night,
When the silver moon
Guards our clasping
Our night
When we live our
Dreams
Our night
When the dawn must wait.
poem by Ibrahim Ibn Salma
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Galleon Of Gold
And as I watch the breaking dawn
The sun begins to rise,
Above the scarlet clouds within
The early morning skies,
And as another day begins
My dreams I'll never hold,
Unless I sail across the ocean
In my galleon of gold.
I head out on a journey now
Not knowing where to go,
Searching for the rainbow's end
That never seems to show,
No treasure lies within my hand
My dreams I'll never hold,
Unless I sail across the ocean
In my galleon of gold.
Through seas so rough and stormy and
The winds that blow so strong,
I'll try to find the answers now
To where it all went wrong,
I'll search to find my destiny
My dreams I'll never hold,
Unless I sail across the ocean
In my galleon of gold.
I'll find a way to happiness
And leave this stony shore,
And far behind the past shall stay
My future waits before,
The stars will be my guiding light
My dreams I'll never hold,
Unless I sail across the ocean
In my galleon of gold.
poem by Andrew Blakemore
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Shells
Where the long waves put cool, caressing hands
Upon the fevered temples of the shore,
And with their eager lips are telling o’er
Their strange, unspoken secrets to the sands,
Along the shining rim of cape and cove
The shells in fair, unplanned mosaic lie;
And there the children, keen of heart and eye,
Gather their harvest in of treasure-trove.
Yet this is one of ocean’s mysteries—
That, while the humbler shells the breakers brave,
The fairest are most fragile, and the wave,
Ruthless, has crushed and mutilated these!
Ah, sea of life, we, too, like children, stand
Through youth and age, expectant, at thy rim,
To pray for golden argosies from Him
Who holds thee in the hollow of His hand.
Capricious tides delude us, veer and turn,
And flash our dreams to view, again to hide;
A moment on the breaker’s crest they ride,
The while we watch, their destiny to learn.
Poor, fragile dreams! Our humbler hopes befall;
But crushed and shattered, tempest-tossed and torn,
These come to shore, the dreams of youthful morn—
Most fair, most frail, and best beloved of all!
poem by Guy Wetmore Carryl from The Garden of Years and Other Poems (1897)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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