From 'Lines In Memory Of Edmund Morris
HERE Morris, on the plains that we have loved,
Think of the death of Akoose, fleet of foot,
Who, in his prime, a herd of antelope
From sunrise, without rest, a hundred miles
Drove through rank prairie, loping like a wolf,
Tired them and slew them, ere the sun went down.
Akoose, in his old age, blind from the smoke
Of tepees and the sharp snow light, alone
With his great grandchildren, withered and spent,
Crept in the warm sun along a rope
Stretched for his guidance. Once when sharp autumn
Made membranes of thin ice upon the sloughs,
He caught a pony on a quick return
Of prowess, and, all his instincts cleared and quickened,
He mounted, sensed the north and bore away
To the Last Mountain Lake where in his youth
He shot the sand-hill-cranes with his flint arrows.
And for these hours in all the varied pomp
Of pagan fancy and free dreams of foray
And crude adventure, he ranged on entranced,
Until the sun blazed level with the prairie,
Then paused, faltered and slid from off his pony.
In a little bluff of poplars, hid in the bracken,
He lay down; the populace of leaves
In the lithe poplars whispered together and trembled,
Fluttered before a sunset of gold smoke,
With interspaces, green as sea water,
And calm as the deep water of the sea.
There Akoose lay, silent amid the bracken,
Gathered at last with the Algonquin Chieftains.
Then the tenebrous sunset was blown out,
And all the smoky gold turned into cloud wrack.
Akoose slept forever amid the poplars,
Swathed by the wind from the far-off Red Deer
Where dinosaurs sleep, clamped in their rocky tombs.
Who shall count the time that lies between
The sleep of Akoose and the dinosaurs?
Innumerable time, that yet is like the breath
Of the long wind that creeps upon the prairie
And dies away with the shadows at sundown.
. . . . . .
What we may think, who brood upon the theme,
Is, when the old world, tired of spinning, has fallen
Asleep, and all the forms, that carried the fire
Of life, are cold upon her marble heart–
Like ashes on the altar–just as she stops,
That something will escape of soul or essence,–
The sum of life, to kindle otherwhere:
Just as the fruit of a high sunny garden,
Grown mellow with autumnal sun and rain,
Shrivelled with ripeness, splits to the rich heart,
And looses a gold kernel to the mould,
So the old world, hanging long in the sun,
And deep enriched with effort and with love,
Shall, in the motions of maturity,
Wither and part, and the kernel of it all
Escape, a lovely wraith of spirit, to latitudes
Where the appearance, throated like a bird,
Winged with fire and bodied all with passion,
Shall flame with presage, not of tears, but joy.
poem by Duncan Campbell Scott
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Lines In Memory Of Edmund Morris
Dear Morris--here is your letter--
Can my answer reach you now?
Fate has left me your debtor,
You will remember how;
For I went away to Nantucket,
And you to the Isle of Orleans,
And when I was dawdling and dreaming
Over the ways and means
Of answering, the power was denied me,
Fate frowned and took her stand;
I have your unanswered letter
Here in my hand.
This--in your famous scribble,
It was ever a cryptic fist,
Cuneiform or Chaldaic
Meanings held in a mist.
Dear Morris, (now I'm inditing
And poring over your script)
I gather from the writing,
The coin that you had flipt,
Turned tails; and so you compel me
To meet you at Touchwood Hills:
Or, mayhap, you are trying to tell me
The sum of a painter's ills:
Is that Phimister Proctor
Or something about a doctor?
Well, nobody knows, but Eddie,
Whatever it is I'm ready.
For our friendship was always fortunate
In its greetings and adieux,
Nothing flat or importunate,
Nothing of the misuse
That comes of the constant grinding
Of one mind on another.
So memory has nothing to smother,
But only a few things captured
On the wing, as it were, and enraptured.
Yes, Morris, I am inditing--
Answering at last it seems,
How can you read the writing
In the vacancy of dreams?
I would have you look over my shoulder
Ere the long, dark year is colder,
And mark that as memory grows older,
The brighter it pulses and gleams.
And if I should try to render
The tissues of fugitive splendour
That fled down the wind of living,
Will they read it some day in the future,
And be conscious of an awareness
In our old lives, and the bareness
Of theirs, with the newest passions
In the last fad of the fashions?
* * * * *
How often have we risen without daylight
When the day star was hidden in mist,
When the dragon-fly was heavy with dew and sleep,
And viewed the miracle pre-eminent, matchless,
The prelusive light that quickens the morning.
O crystal dawn, how shall we distill your virginal freshness
When you steal upon a land that man has not sullied with his
intrusion,
When the aboriginal shy dwellers in the broad solitudes
Are asleep in their innumerable dens and night haunts
Amid the dry ferns, in the tender nests
Pressed into shape by the breasts of the Mother birds?
How shall we simulate the thrill of announcement
When lake after lake lingering in the starlight
Turn their faces towards you,
And are caressed with the salutation of colour?
How shall we transmit in tendril-like images,
The tenuous tremor in the tissues of ether,
Before the round of colour buds like the dome of a shrine,
The preconscious moment when love has fluttered in the bosom,
Before it begins to ache?
How often have we seen the even
Melt into the liquidity of twilight,
With passages of Titian splendour,
Pellucid preludes, exquisitely tender,
Where vanish and revive, thro' veils of the ashes of roses,
The crystal forms the breathless sky discloses.
The new moon a slender thing,
In a snood of virgin light,
She seemed all shy on venturing
Into the vast night.
Her own land and folk were afar,
She must have gone astray,
But the gods had given a silver star,
To be with her on the way.
* * * * *
I can feel the wind on the prairie
And see the bunch-grass wave,
And the sunlights ripple and vary
The hill with Crowfoot's grave,
Where he 'pitched off' for the last time
In sight of the Blackfoot Crossing,
Where in the sun for a pastime
You marked the site of his tepee
With a circle of stones. Old Napiw
Gave you credit for that day.
And well I recall the weirdness
Of that evening at Qu'Appelle,
In the wigwam with old Sakimay,
The keen, acrid smell,
As the kinnikinick was burning;
The planets outside were turning,
And the little splints of poplar
Flared with a thin, gold flame.
He showed us his painted robe
Where in primitive pigments
He had drawn his feats and his forays,
And told us the legend
Of the man without a name,
The hated Blackfoot,
How he lured the warriors,
The young men, to the foray
And they never returned.
Only their ghosts
Goaded by the Blackfoot
Mounted on stallions:
In the night time
He drove the stallions
Reeking into the camp;
The women gasped and whispered,
The children cowered and crept,
And the old men shuddered
Where they slept.
When Sakimay looked forth
He saw the Blackfoot,
And the ghosts of the warriors,
And the black stallions
Covered by the night wind
As by a mantle.
* * * * *
I remember well a day,
When the sunlight had free play,
When you worked in happy stress,
While grave Ne-Pah-Pee-Ness
Sat for his portrait there,
In his beaded coat and his bare
Head, with his mottled fan
Of hawk's feathers, A Man!
Ah Morris, those were the times
When you sang your inconsequent rhymes
Sprung from a careless fountain:
'_He met her on the mountain,
He gave her a horn to blow,
And the very last words he said to her
Were, 'Go 'long, Eliza, go.'_'
Foolish,--but life was all,
And under the skilful fingers
Contours came at your call--
Art grows and time lingers;--
But now the song has a change
Into something wistful and strange.
And one asks with a touch of ruth
What became of the youth
And where did Eliza go?
He met her on the mountain,
He gave her a horn to blow,
The horn was a silver whorl
With a mouthpiece of pure pearl,
And the mountain was all one glow,
With gulfs of blue and summits of rosy snow.
The cadence she blew on the silver horn
Was the meaning of life in one phrase caught,
And as soon as the magic notes were born,
She repeated them once in an afterthought.
They heard in the crystal passes,
The cadence, calling, calling,
And faint in the deep crevasses,
The echoes falling, falling.
They stood apart and wondered;
Her lips with a wound were aquiver,
His heart with a sword was sundered,
For life was changed forever
When he gave her the horn to blow:
But a shadow arose from the valley,
Desolate, slow and tender,
It hid the herdsmen's chalet,
Where it hung in the emerald meadow,
(Was death driving the shadow?)
It quenched the tranquil splendour
Of the colour of life on the glow-peaks,
Till at the end of the even,
The last shell-tint on the snow-peaks
Had passed away from the heaven.
And yet, when it passed, victorious,
The stars came out on the mountains,
And the torrents gusty and glorious,
Clamoured in a thousand fountains,
And even far down in the valley,
A light re-discovered the chalet.
The scene that was veiled had a meaning,
So deep that none might know;
Was it here in the morn on the mountain,
That he gave her the horn to blow?
* * * * *
Tears are the crushed essence of this world,
The wine of life, and he who treads the press
Is lofty with imperious disregard
Of the burst grapes, the red tears and the murk.
But nay! that is a thought of the old poets,
Who sullied life with the passional bitterness
Of their world-weary hearts. We of the sunrise,
Joined in the breast of God, feel deep the power
That urges all things onward, not to an end,
But in an endless flow, mounting and mounting,
Claiming not overmuch for human life,
Sharing with our brothers of nerve and leaf
The urgence of the one creative breath,--
All in the dim twilight--say of morning,
Where the florescence of the light and dew
Haloes and hallows with a crown adorning
The brows of life with love; herein the clue,
The love of life--yea, and the peerless love
Of things not seen, that leads the least of things
To cherish the green sprout, the hardening seed;
Here leans all nature with vast Mother-love,
Above the cradled future with a smile.
Why are there tears for failure, or sighs for weakness,
While life's rhythm beats on? Where is the rule
To measure the distance we have circled and clomb?
Catch up the sands of the sea and count and count
The failures hidden in our sum of conquest.
Persistence is the master of this life;
The master of these little lives of ours;
To the end--effort--even beyond the end.
* * * * *
Here, Morris, on the plains that we have loved,
Think of the death of Akoose, fleet of foot,
Who, in his prime, a herd of antelope
From sunrise, without rest, a hundred miles
Drove through rank prairie, loping like a wolf,
Tired them and slew them, ere the sun went down.
Akoose, in his old age, blind from the smoke
Of tepees and the sharp snow light, alone
With his great grandchildren, withered and spent,
Crept in the warm sun along a rope
Stretched for his guidance. Once when sharp autumn
Made membranes of thin ice upon the sloughs,
He caught a pony on a quick return
Of prowess and, all his instincts cleared and quickened,
He mounted, sensed the north and bore away
To the Last Mountain Lake where in his youth
He shot the sand-hill-cranes with his flint arrows.
And for these hours in all the varied pomp
Of pagan fancy and free dreams of foray
And crude adventure, he ranged on entranced,
Until the sun blazed level with the prairie,
Then paused, faltered and slid from off his pony.
In a little bluff of poplars, hid in the bracken,
He lay down; the populace of leaves
In the lithe poplars whispered together and trembled,
Fluttered before a sunset of gold smoke,
With interspaces, green as sea water,
And calm as the deep water of the sea.
There Akoose lay, silent amid the bracken,
Gathered at last with the Algonquin Chieftains.
Then the tenebrous sunset was blown out,
And all the smoky gold turned into cloud wrack.
Akoose slept forever amid the poplars,
Swathed by the wind from the far-off Red Deer
Where dinosaurs sleep, clamped in their rocky tombs.
Who shall count the time that lies between
The sleep of Akoose and the dinosaurs?
Innumerable time, that yet is like the breath
Of the long wind that creeps upon the prairie
And dies away with the shadows at sundown.
* * * * *
What we may think, who brood upon the theme,
Is, when the old world, tired of spinning, has fallen
Asleep, and all the forms, that carried the fire
Of life, are cold upon her marble heart--
Like ashes on the altar--just as she stops,
That something will escape of soul or essence,--
The sum of life, to kindle otherwhere:
Just as the fruit of a high sunny garden,
Grown mellow with autumnal sun and rain,
Shrivelled with ripeness, splits to the rich heart,
And looses a gold kernel to the mould,
So the old world, hanging long in the sun,
And deep enriched with effort and with love,
Shall, in the motions of maturity,
Wither and part, and the kernel of it all
Escape, a lovely wraith of spirit, to latitudes
Where the appearance, throated like a bird,
Winged with fire and bodied all with passion,
Shall flame with presage, not of tears, but joy.
poem by Duncan Campbell Scott
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Canto XLIX: For the Seven Lakes
For the seven lakes, and by no man these verses:
Rain; empty river; a voyage,
Fire from frozen cloud, heavy rain in the twilight
Under the cabin roof was one lantern.
The reeds are heavy; bent;
and the bamboos speak as if weeping.
Autumn moon; hills rise about lakes
against sunset
Evening is like a curtain of cloud,
a blurr above ripples; and through it
sharp long spikes of the cinnamon,
a cold tune amid reeds.
Behind hill the monk's bell
borne on the wind.
Sail passed here in April; may return in October
Boat fades in silver; slowly;
Sun blaze alone on the river.
Where wine flag catches the sunset
Sparse chimneys smoke in the cross light
Comes then snow scur on the river
And a world is covered with jade
Small boat floats like a lanthorn,
The flowing water closts as with cold. And at San Yin
they are a people of leisure.
Wild geese swoop to the sand-bar,
Clouds gather about the hole of the window
Broad water; geese line out with the autumn
Rooks clatter over the fishermen's lanthorns,
A light moves on the north sky line;
where the young boys prod stones for shrimp.
In seventeen hundred came Tsing to these hill lakes.
A light moves on the South sky line.
State by creating riches shd. thereby get into debt?
This is infamy; this is Geryon.
This canal goes still to TenShi
Though the old king built it for pleasure
K E I M E N R A N K E I
K I U M A N M A N K E I
JITSU GETSU K O K W A
T A N FUKU T A N K A I
Sun up; work
sundown; to rest
dig well and drink of the water
dig field; eat of the grain
Imperial power is? and to us what is it?
The fourth; the dimension of stillness.
And the power over wild beasts.
poem by Ezra Pound
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Canto 49
For the seven lakes, and by no man these verses:
Rain; empty river; a voyage,
Fire from frozen cloud, heavy rain in the twilight
Under the cabin roof was one lantern.
The reeds are heavy; bent;
and the bamboos speak as if weeping.
Autumn moon; hills rise about lakes
against sunset
Evening is like a curtain of cloud,
a blurr above ripples; and through it
sharp long spikes of the cinnamon,
a cold tune amid reeds.
Behind hill the monk's bell
borne on the wind.
Sail passed here in April; may return in October
Boat fades in silver; slowly;
Sun blaze alone on the river.
Where wine flag catches the sunset
Sparse chimneys smoke in the cross light
Comes then snow scur on the river
And a world is covered with jade
Small boat floats like a lanthorn,
The flowing water closts as with cold. And at San Yin
they are a people of leisure.
Wild geese swoop to the sand-bar,
Clouds gather about the hole of the window
Broad water; geese line out with the autumn
Rooks clatter over the fishermen's lanthorns,
A light moves on the north sky line;
where the young boys prod stones for shrimp.
In seventeen hundred came Tsing to these hill lakes.
A light moves on the South sky line.
State by creating riches shd. thereby get into debt?
Thsi is infamy; this is Geryon.
This canal goes still to TenShi
Though the old king built it for pleasure
K E I M E N R A N K E I
K I U M A N M A N K E I
JITSU GETSU K O K W A
T A N FUKU T A N K A I
Sun up; work
sundown; to rest
dig well and drink of the water
dig field; eat of the grain
Imperial power is? and to us what is it?
The fourth; the dimension of stillness.
And the power over wild beasts.
poem by Ezra Pound
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Autumn Longing
Let me die away with autumn
Let me be like fire
Ever ignite
Let me fall
I don't want the winter
To come after me
Let the autumn arms
Bright and gold
Let it come for me
In a dream
Like a swallow
Descending for Africa
I want to come with autumn
Let me come away with thee
I want to be wine red
I want tobe amber gold
I want to sleep
With the leaves
I want to burst with juices
Like the berries
I need to sleep
I need to burn
Like the sunset
I need the rest
Like the creatures
Who hibernate
To escape harsh winter
I want tobe with you
Autumn
Let me be asleep with thee
I want to hear you secrets
That hides forever deep
Oh autumn
Let one be in love with me
As I ‘am in love with you
Oh autumn
Let one die away with thee
poem by Guinevere Eveleigh
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No time to chase the wind
My life had started, as i feel my life will end
with twists, and turns, curves, and a bend
I used to race the wind, and fight the storms
an endless game, between me, and shaded forms
i would try and try, but always fail
i was determined to win, i was just behind, i had it by the tail
i was to beat the wind i swore it so
at any costs i would win, i had a lifetime to go
But i was only a child, and i neglected to see
that as i grew older, the wind eluded me
there's no time for chasing the wind, to much work you see
the wind had won again, how could this be
i spent all my life, running, and running, so far away
never would i stop, there was no time to stay
theres no time for chasing the wind anymore
my joints are old and sore
my days are numbered, i bow down to thee
i give in to you, i have lost all strength, i'm stiff as a tree
my limbs have grown tired, my lungs out of air
i'v run for so long, i haven't a care
there's no time for racing the wind, thats it, no more
a silence befell the field, the wind and ceased, he dropped to the floor.
have you grown tired as well, is it time to rest
has this game gone on long enough, have i passed the test
i'm so tired now, so very tired now, all i want is to lay here...
lay here only a moment, he lay on the ground, silent and calm,
his chest rises and drops, it rises, then stops... his breath is long gone he draws his last breath, and his spirit carried on.
The wind swept away his soul and he traveled within the breeze.
at last he could see, what he had fought for so long
so peaceful, so light, serene as a romantic song
There is no time to chase the wind, you've carried on
theres no time to chase wind, for the wind is far gone
In memory of my great grandfather
William Powers
poem by Collin Hagan
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Homeland
There's a piece of prairie with a white picket gate.
The geographic center of the lower 48.
How long it's been in our family is anybody's guess.
We were riding these plains before the pony express.
There's a sycamore tree all spintered and brown.
Well, it used to touch the sky 'til the twister came around.
It's got this one green branch pointing in the air.
Yeah it's still hanging on, just like the people around here.
You can hold back the rain, bring on the wind.
Knock us right down, we'll get up again.
We've dug in deep, made our stand.
This is our homeland.
I can feel their spirit deep in my bones.
Up on the hill we carved in in stone.
Been a long line before us, and little ones to come.
Yeah, it's a family thing that we're carrying on.
You can hold back the rain, bring on the wind.
Knock us right down, we'll get up again.
We've dug in deep, made our stand.
This is our homeland.
We've dug in deep, made our stand.
This is our home...
This is our homeland
song performed by by Kenny Rogers
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Chillingham
I
Through the sunny garden
The humming bees are still;
The fir climbs the heather,
The heather climbs the hill.
The low clouds have riven
A little rift through.
The hill climbs to heaven,
Far away and blue.
II
O the high valley, the little low hill,
And the cornfield over the sea,
The wind that rages and then lies still,
And the clouds that rest and flee!
O the gray island in the rainbow haze,
And the long thin spits of land,
The roughening pastures and the stony ways,
And the golden flash of the sand!
O the red heather on the moss-wrought rock,
And the fir-tree stiff and straight,
The shaggy old sheep-dog barking at the flock,
And the rotten old five-barred gate!
O the brown bracken, the blackberry bough,
The scent of the gorse in the air!
I shall love them ever as I love them now,
I shall weary in Heaven to be there!
III
Strike, Life, a happy hour, and let me live
But in that grace!
I shall have gathered all the world can give,
Unending Time and Space!
Bring light and air--the thin and shining air
Of the North land,
The light that falls on tower and garden there,
Close to the gold sea-sand.
Bring flowers, the latest colours of the earth,
Ere nun-like frost
Lay her hard hand upon this rainbow mirth,
With twinkling emerald crossed.
The white star of the traveller's joy, the deep
Empurpled rays that hide the smoky stone,
The dahlia rooted in Egyptian sleep,
The last frail rose alone.
Let music whisper from a casement set
By them of old,
Where the light smell of lavender may yet
Rise from the soft loose mould.
Then shall I know, with eyes and ears awake,
Not in bright gleams,
The joy my Heavenly Father joys to make
For men who grieve, in dreams!
poem by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge
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Ending [Final]
The memories invade my brain
As crows in poplars build their nest,
While clouds go by and come again,
Like smoke, above the lake and plain,
And never rest.
It's gone the autumn with its shine
Of faded green an vivid gold,
With purple grapes, which look so fine,
And now the park, my soul divine,
Are bare and cold.
The frozen lake will be resigned
When the last leaf falls to the ground
And wind through branches gently blows,
So that you know you left behind
A field of snow, which makes no sound,
And wailing crows.
poem by Al. O. Teodoreanu, translated by Octavian Cocoş
Submitted by anonym
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An Autumn Treasure-Trove
'Tis the time of the year's sundown, and flame
Hangs on the maple bough;
And June is the faded flower of a name;
The thin hedge hides not a singer now.
Yet rich am I; for my treasures be
The gold afloat in my willow-tree.
Sweet morn on the hillside dripping with dew,
Girded with blue and pearl,
Counts the leaves afloat in the streamlet too;
As the love-lorn heart of a wistful girl,
She sings while her soul brooding tearfully
Sees a dream of gold in the willow-tree.
All day pure white and saffron at eve,
Clouds awaiting the sun
Turn them at length to ghosts that leave
When the moon's white path is slowly run
Till the morning comes, and with joy for me
O'er my gold agleam in the willow-tree.
The lilacs that blew on the breast of May
Are an old and lost delight;
And the rose lies ruined in his careless way
As the wind turns the poplars underwhite,
Yet richer am I for the autumn; see
All my misty gold in the willow-tree.
poem by Eugene Field
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The Point Of View: I
I
There was never winter, summer only: roses,
Pink and white and red,
Shining down the warm rich garden closes;
Quiet trees and lawns of dappled shadow,
Silver lilies, whisper of mignonette,
Cloth-of-gold of buttercups outspread;
Good gold sun that kissed me when we met,
Shadows of floating clouds on sunny meadow.
In the hay-field, scented, grey,
Loving life and love, I lay;
By fresh airs blown, drifted into sleep;
Slept and dreamed there. Winter was the dream.
II
Summer never was, was always winter only;
Cold and ice and frost
Only, driven by the ice-wind, lonely,
In a world of strangers, in the welter
Of the puddles and the spiteful wind and sleet,
Blinded by the spitting hailstones, lost
In a bitter unfamiliar street,
I found a doorway, crouched there for just shelter,
Crouched and fought in vain for breath,
Cursed the cold and wished for death;
Crouched there, gathered somehow warmth to sleep;
Slept and dreamed there. Summer was the dream.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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Prairie Wedding
We only knew each other by letter,
When I met her over the train,
When the smoke cleared and the dust was still,
She was standing there speaking my name.
I guarantee she looked like an angel,
I couldnt think of what I should say,
But when Adam saw Eve in the garden,
I believe he felt the selfsame way.
I handed her up on the wagon,
And I loaded up her trunk behind,
She was sitting up there with the gold in her hair,
I tried to get a hope on my mind.
You think that you could love me, Mary? ,
You think we got a chance of a life,
Do you think that you could love me, Mary?
Now you are to be my wife.
We finally headed out of the station,
And drove up my home trail,
And when we came to the farm she laid a hand on my arm,
I thought my resolution would fail.
Now froze as she stepped thru the doorway,
And I stood there as still as could be,
I said: I know, it aint much it needs a womans touch,
Perhaps she turned around and looked at me.
Do you think that you could love me, Mary? ,
You think we got a chance of a life,
Do you think that you could love me, Mary?
Now you are to be my wife.
We had a prairie wedding,
There was a preacher and a neighbor or two,
I gave my golden thing, a gold wedding ring,
And the both of us said I do.
Now when the sun is going down in the prairie,
And the golden hair is a flame,
I say do you really love me, Mary?
I hold her and I whisper her name.
Do you think that you could love me, Mary? ,
You think we got a chance of a life,
Do you think that you could love me, Mary?
Now you are to be my wife...
song performed by by Kenny Rogers
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Year of the Rose
From the depths of the green garden-closes
Where the summer in darkness dozes
Till autumn pluck from his hand
An hour-glass that holds not a sand;
From the maze that a flower-belt encloses
To the stones and sea-grass on the strand
How red was the reign of the roses
Over the rose-crowned land!
The year of the rose is brief;
From the first blade blown to the sheaf,
From the thin green leaf to the gold,
It has time to be sweet and grow old,
To triumph and leave not a leaf
For witness in winter's sight
How lovers once in the light
Would mix their breath with its breath,
And its spirit was quenched not of night,
As love is subdued not of death.
In the red-rose land not a mile
Of the meadows from stile to stile,
Of the valleys from stream to stream,
But the air was a long sweet dream
And the earth was a sweet wide smile
Red-mouthed of a goddess, returned
From the sea which had borne her and burned,
That with one swift smile of her mouth
Looked full on the north as it yearned,
And the north was more than the south.
For the north, when winter was long,
In his heart had made him a song,
And clothed it with wings of desire,
And shod it with shoon as of fire,
To carry the tale of his wrong
To the south-west wind by the sea,
That none might bear it but he
To the ear of the goddess unknown
Who waits till her time shall be
To take the world for a throne.
In the earth beneath, and above
In the heaven where her name is love,
She warms with light from her eyes
The seasons of life as they rise,
And her eyes are as eyes of a dove,
But the wings that lift her and bear
As an eagle's, and all her hair
As fire by the wind's breath curled,
And her passage is song through the air,
And her presence is spring through the world.
So turned she northward and came,
And the white-thorn land was aflame
With the fires that were shed from her feet,
That the north, by her love made sweet,
Should be called by a rose-red name;
And a murmur was heard as of doves,
And a music beginning of loves
In the light that the roses made,
Such light as the music loves,
The music of man with maid.
But the days drop one upon one,
And a chill soft wind is begun
In the heart of the rose-red maze
That weeps for the roseleaf days
And the reign of the rose undone
That ruled so long in the light,
And by spirit, and not by sight,
Through the darkness thrilled with its breath,
Still ruled in the viewless night,
As love might rule over death.
The time of lovers is brief;
From the fair first joy to the grief
That tells when love is grown old,
From the warm wild kiss to the cold,
From the red to the white-rose leaf,
They have but a season to seem
As rose-leaves lost on a stream
That part not and pass not apart
As a spirit from dream to dream,
As a sorrow from heart to heart.
From the bloom and the gloom that encloses
The death-bed of Love where he dozes
Till a relic be left not of sand
To the hour-glass that breaks in his hand;
From the change in the grey garden-closes
To the last stray grass of the strand,
A rain and ruin of roses
Over the red-rose land.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Abandoned Prairie
A house sits empty
Upon the plains,
Left so suddenly
To bear it's own pains -
The windows broken
Doors open,
Dust walks right in...
and right out again.
No other homes
Any where in sight,
It moans alone
In the darkest part of night -
Sitting isolated on the Western prairie
Holding memories too strong to bury,
It looks and longs
For all who are gone...
From this country so solitary.
The abandoned prairie
Laughs in the wind,
At those intruders
Who tried in vain to tame this indefinate land -
With their weak cattle
To replace the buffalo,
And wretched reservations to capture
The proud Indian people of long ago.
Where are these invaders now, and
How shall they be found,
Lying so still
In the cold prairie ground.
And yet, the endless wind blows on
Singing so contrary,
The only one to never
Abandon the lonesome prairie.
poem by Smoky Hoss
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Clary
Because of her soul, Fall was mild,
in hazy noons, light was extolling,
in green pasture souls were calling
she called me; and the sun smiled.
Upon the grass she sat on prairie,
one thousand rain drops of longing
and was her rainy smile imploring,
amidst flowers, daisies, and clary.
There our souls sing odes forever,
fly above Autumn calls of twenty;
we pretend the world 's not empty,
wind's blades our love won't sever.
Above the prairie fly white doves;
care to see her form amid flow'rs
and then as night adorns the stars,
consents our stares then, of loves.
Winds call me, from empty noons;
her soul sings and snow flakes toil,
flying leaves dance my siren's coil,
and wonder aimlessly in odd tunes.
poem by Giorgio Veneto
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Green Woods Of Truagh
In the green woods of Truagh we met without fear,
Your kiss on my lips, and your voice in my ear,
Your tender arms about me, and your eyes glad and clear–
Ochón, the Green Woods of Truagh!
In the green woods of Truagh the days go on wings,
On every brown branch a gladsome bird sings
And the fragrant amber blossom of the honey-suckle swings–
Ochón, the Green Woods of Truagh!
In the green woods of Truagh the bracken stands high,
And wells of spring-water in deep hollows lie,
And the red deer is browsing in the cool shadows nigh–
Ochón, the Green Woods of Truagh!
In the green woods of Truagh no sorrow dared stay,
The lark called me early at dawn o' the day,
And o'er my sleep at night pleasant dreams used to play–
Ochón, the Green Woods of Truagh!
In the green woods of Truagh you wait till I come–
I left home and you for the stranger's far home,
To bring a hoard of yellow gold across the grey foam–
Ochón, the Green Woods of Truagh!
In the green woods of Truagh–if God hears my prayer–
I shall reach you, O true love, my empty hands there,
For little of the yellow gold has fallen to my share–
Ochón, the Green Woods of Truagh!
In the green woods of Truagh–your heart on my own,
And your bright hair in ringlets across my cheek blown
Now where in all the wide, wide world, could greater bliss be known?
Ochón, the Green Woods of Truagh!
poem by Anna Johnston MacManus
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Apparition
Gentle angel with your mantle,
All of tender green,
I was yearning for a vision
Of the life unseen.
When you hovered in the sunset,
Just as rain was done;
Where the dropping from the poplars
Seemed like rain begun.
There you gathered forming slowly
Rounding into view:
All your vesture glowed like verdure
When the sap is new.
Then you mutely gave your warning
And I felt the stress
Of its passion and its presage
And its utterness.
There you swayed one tranquil moment,
Mystically fair,
Then you were not of the sunset,
Were not in the air.
poem by Duncan Campbell Scott
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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At William Maclennan's Grave
Here where the cypress tall
Shadows the stucco wall,
Bronze and deep,
Where the chrysanthemums blow,
And the roses--blood and snow--
He lies asleep.
Florence dreameth afar;
Memories of foray and war,
Murmur still;
The Certosa crowns with a cold
Cloud of snow and gold
The olive hill.
What has he now for the streams
Born sweet and deep with dreams
From the cedar meres?
Only the Arno's flow,
Turbid, and weary, and slow
With wrath and tears.
What has he now for the song
Of the boatmen, joyous and long,
Where the rapids shine?
Only the sound of toil,
Where the peasants press the soil
For the oil and wine.
Spirit-fellow in sooth
With bold La Salle and Duluth,
And La Vérandrye,--
Nothing he has but rest,
Deep in his cypress nest
With memory.
Hearts of steel and of fire,
Why do ye love and aspire,
When follows
Death--all your passionate deeds,
Garnered with rust and with weeds
In the hollows?
God that hardened the steel,
Bid the flame leap and reel,
Gave us unrest;
We act in the dusk afar,
In a star beyond your star,
His behest.
'We leave you dreams and names
Still we are iron and flames,
Biting and bright;
Into some virgin world,
Champions, we are hurled,
Of venture and fight.'
Here where the shadows fall,
From the cypress by the wall,
Where the roses are--
Here is a dream and a name,
There, like a rose of flame,
Rises--a star.
poem by Duncan Campbell Scott
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Abandoned
SHE sat by the wayside and wept, where roses, red roses and white,
Lay wasted and withered and sere, like her life and its ruined delight;
Like chaff blown about in the wind whirled roses, white roses and red,
And pale, on night's threshold, the moon bent over the day that was dead.
She sat by the wayside and wept; far over the desolate plain
A noise as of one that is weeping re-echoed in wind and in rain,
And the long dim line of the spectral poplars with dolorous wail
Nodded their bald-headed tops as they chattered with cold in the gale.
She sat by the wayside and wept in a passion of vain desire,
And her weak heart fluttered and failed like the flame of a faltering fire,
Fluttered and failed in her breast like the broken wing of a bird
When its feathers are dabbled with gore, and the low last gurgle is heard.
And behold, like balm on her soul, while she sat by the wayside and wept,
There came a forgetting of sorrow, a lulling of grief, and she slept;
Yea, like the wings of a dove when cooing it broods on the nest,
So the wings of slumber about her assuaged and filled her with rest.
And a light that was not the sun's nor the moon's light illumined her brain;
From afar in the country of dreams three maidens stole over the plain,
Three loveliest maidens they were, like roses, red roses and white;
And behold the earth and the heavens were glorified in their light.
And the first of the maidens was fair, as fair as the blue-kirtled Spring,
When she comes with a snowfall of blossoms and a rustling of birds on the wing,
When a glimmer of green like a tide rolls over the woodland and vales,
And odours are blown on the winds with the song of the nightingales.
The second was loftier of stature, a huntress of grief;
The wilderness glowed as she passed and broke into blossom and leaf;
Yea, it seemed that her upturned eyes, with their fathomless gaze,
Could pierce to the shining stars through the veil of the noonday blaze.
But the third was a splendour incarnate, a luminous form,
Thrilling with raptures that keep the heart of the cold earth warm,
Who hidden far in the mystical glory of quivering rays
Sets the whole world on fire for an absolute sight of her face.
But darkling ever they see her, and ever as through a veil,
For if naked she lightens upon them, their lives must shrivel and fail,
Must fail and shrivel consumed by that burst of insufferable light,
As a tree set on fire by lightning which burns to the ground in a night.
The first one kissed her cheek, her cheek grew pallid and wan:
'Goodbye,' she cried, 'we must part; I am Youth, and I follow the sun;
I am Youth, and I love to build in the heart that is buoyant and gay;
Goodbye, we shall meet not again,' she cried, as she fluttered away.
The second she kissed her eyes, then the glamour went out of their gaze,
Through the magical show she beheld life staring her straight in the face;
With a terrible Gorgon stare that turned her heart into stone--
'Adieu,' she sighed, 'I am Hope, all is over between us and done.'
The third one she kissed her lips, and the kiss was a quenchless fire,
It burned up her life like a victim's in the flames of a funeral pyre--
'Farewell,' she wailed, 'I am Love,' and her wings were spread as for flight--
It seemed like the wail of the wind as they left her alone with the night.
poem by Mathilde Blind
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Smoke And Ashes
I'd heard rumors and I'd heard talk
About the trail you'd left of broken hearts
About the sea of tears too wide to cross
But a little bad press has never scared me off
So I burned a path to figure out
How to get me some of what you got
I've got a red hot heart
If the talk is true your's is the same
And we should be together
And let our passions fan love's flame
When I looked for you I almost passed you by
You were so cool and calm
I thought my friends had lied
But I thought so much reserve must make you wild inside
It was there and then that I knew
I had to get some of what you got
I've got a red hot heart
If the talk is true your's is the same
And we should be together
And let our passions fan love's flame
I thought I'd won your heart when I held you hand in mine
I thought it was true love the way we complemented each other
But my right is your wrong
And when you're right then I'm left with nothing
Your light and your heat have all been spent
Leaving only smoke and ashes
Only smoke and ashes baby
I've got a red hot heart
And your heart's as blue as the blood in your veins
I say there's fire down below
You say it's only smoke and ashes baby
I'm crying all the time
Salty stinging tears
And mourning for the past carbon-dated years
But knowing now for certain that you were always right
Because if a breeze could blow you out of my life
It's only smoke and ashes baby
Only smoke and ashes baby
I've got a red hot heart
And your heart's as blue as the blood in your veins
I say there's fire down below
You say it's only smoke and ashes baby
I was blinded by devotion
My unwavering love for you
So blinded that I thought all your lies were true
But now I know for certain since you've gone away
It was just a smoldering fire I mistook for a blaze
Only smoke and ashes baby
I've got a red hot heart
And your heart's as blue as the blood in your veins
I say there's fire down below
You say it's only smoke and ashes baby
Only smoke and ashes baby, baby ...
song performed by by Tracy Chapman
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Web Of Eros
Within your magic web of hair, lies furled
The fire and splendour of the ancient world;
The dire gold of the comet's wind-blown hair;
The songs that turned to gold the evening air
When all the stars of heaven sang for joy.
The flames that burnt the cloud-high city Troy.
The mænad fire of spring on the cold earth;
The myrrh-lit flame that gave both death and birth
To the soul Phoenix; and the star-bright shower
That came to Danaë in her brazen tower...
Within your magic web of hair lies furled
The fire and splendour of the ancient world.
poem by Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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