Rapids at Night
Here at the roots of the mountains,
Between the sombre legions of cedars and tamaracks,
The rapids charge the ravine:
A little light, cast by foam under starlight,
Wavers about the shimmering stems of the birches:
Here rise up the clangorous sounds of battle,
Immense and mournful.
Far above curves the great dome of darkness
Drawn with the limitless lines of the stars and the planets.
Deep at the core of the tumult,
Deeper than all the voices that cry at the surface,
Dwells one fathomless sound,
Under the hiss and cry, the stroke and the plangent clamour.
O human heart that sleeps,
Wild with rushing dreams and deep with sadness!
The abysmal roar drops into almost silence,
While over its sleep play in various cadence
Innumerous voices crashing in laughter;
Then rising calm, overwhelming,
Slow in power,
Rising supreme in utterance,
It sways, and reconquers and floods all the spaces of silence,
One voice, deep with the sadness,
That dwells at the core of all things.
There by a nest in the glimmering birches,
Speaks a thrush as if startled from slumber,
Dreaming of Southern ricefields,
The moted glow of the amber sunlight,
Where the long ripple roves among the reeds.
Above curves the great dome of darkness,
Scored with the limitless lines of the stars and the planets;
Like the strong palm of God,
Veined with the ancient laws,
Holding a human heart that sleeps,
Wild with rushing dreams and deep with the sadness,
That dwells at the core of all things.
poem by Duncan Campbell Scott

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Related quotes
She sleeps
She sleeps
~
She sleeps
her heart, soul at peace
she is as beautiful
as any painting by any artist
no brush has born such beauty
silence fills the walls
and the day is calm
my thoughts like trees
take deep roots
into the earth of my soul
unmoveable
mountains, stars and the sky
rise into an endless expanse
I wonder on her dreams
what places she sees
the weather and colours
the faces and events
unfolding
she sleeps
and I
I am moved
by her quiet beauty
poem by Matthew Holloway

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Night Hymns on Lake Nipigon
Here in the midnight, where the dark mainland and island
Shadows mingle in shadow deeper, profounder,
Sing we the hymns of the churches, while the dead water
Whispers before us.
Thunder is travelling slow on the path of the lightning;
One after one the stars and the beaming planets
Look serene in the lake from the edge of the storm-cloud,
Then have they vanished.
While our canoe, that floats dumb in the bursting thunder,
Gathers her voice in the quiet and thrills and whispers,
Presses her prow in the star-gleam, and all her ripple
Lapses in blackness.
Sing we the sacred ancient hymns of the churches,
Chanted first in old-world nooks of the desert,
While in the wild, pellucid Nipigon reaches
Hunted the savage.
Now have the ages met in the Northern midnight,
And on the lonely, loon-haunted Nipigon reaches
Rises the hymn of triumph and courage and comfort,
Adeste Fideles.
Tones that were fashioned when the faith brooded in darkness,
Joined with sonorous vowels in the noble Latin,
Now are married with the long-drawn Ojibwa,
Uncouth and mournful.
Soft with the silver drip of the regular paddles
Falling in rhythm, timed with the liquid, plangent
Sounds from the blades where the whirlpools break and are carried
Down into darkness;
Each long cadence, flying like a dove from her shelter
Deep in the shadow, wheels for a throbbing moment,
Poises in utterance, returning in circles of silver
To nest in the silence.
All wild nature stirs with the infinite, tender
Plaint of a bygone age whose soul is eternal,
Bound in the lonely phrases that thrill and falter
Back into quiet.
Back they falter as the deep storm overtakes them,
Whelms them in splendid hollows of booming thunder,
Wraps them in rain, that, sweeping, breaks and onrushes
Ringing like cymbals.
poem by Duncan Campbell Scott

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Going Under
I'm going under,
Deep within the surface,
To the bottom,
Where only despair dwells,
Its pulling me down,
Clawing at my heart,
Cooling my beating chest,
I feel despair's limitless power,
It is eternal,
Lasting forever,
Dragging me down,
Into the murky depths,
The only place dark enough.
That in which it may live,
At the back of the mind,
Deep within the soul,
Yet free on ones lips,
poem by Kieran J1996

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Deep within these brown eyes
Deep within these brown eyes,
You can see my sadness,
The tears that roll down my face,
The sadness I feel,
Awkward moment of my silence,
What hurts more that my sadness makes me as if time was going slow,
So far,
This was war,
War that never ended,
Deep within these brown eyes,
I would die for you,
Leaving everything behind,
Never coming back,
Never to be back on this earth,
Don't you dare bring me back,
Under the water I drown in my sorrows,
Die not regretting,
Regrets is all feel,
Blame things on myself,
Bringing me down with these sorrow,
The shame I feel,
How hateful the world has become,
Things was never perfect with me,
Deep within these brown eyes,
You'll see my true sadness I had to suffer alone.
poem by Jennifer Rondeau

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An Australian Symphony
Not as the songs of other lands
Her song shall be
Where dim Her purple shore-line stands
Above the sea!
As erst she stood, she stands alone;
Her inspiration is her own.
From sunlit plains to mangrove strands
Not as the songs of other lands
Her song shall be.
O Southern Singers! Rich and sweet,
Like chimes of bells,
The cadence swings with rhythmic beat
The music swells;
But undertones, weird, mournful, strong,
Sweep like swift currents thro' the song.
In deepest chords, with passion fraught,
In softest notes of sweetest thought,
This sadness dwells.
Is this her song, so weirdly strange,
So mixed with pain,
That whereso'er her poets range
Is heard the strain?
Broods there no spell upon the air
But desolation and despair?
No voice, save Sorrow's, to intrude
Upon her mountain solitude
Or sun-kissed plain?
The silence and the sunshine creep
With soft caress
O'er billowy plain and mountain steep
And wilderness --
A velvet touch, a subtle breath,
As sweet as love, as calm as death,
On earth, on air, so soft, so fine,
Till all the soul a spell divine
O'ershadoweth.
The gray gums by the lonely creek,
The star-crowned height,
The wind-swept plain, the dim blue peak,
The cold white light,
The solitude spread near and far
Around the camp-fire's tiny star,
The horse-bell's melody remote,
The curlew's melancholy note
Across the night.
These have their message; yet from these
Our songs have thrown
O'er all our Austral hills and leas
One sombre tone.
Whence doth the mournful keynote start?
From the pure depths of Nature's heart?
Or from the heart of him who sings
And deems his hand upon the strings
Is Nature's own?
Could tints be deeper, skies less dim,
More soft and fair,
Dappled with milk-white clouds that swim
In faintest air?
The soft moss sleeps upon the stone,
Green scrub-vine traceries enthrone
The dead gray trunks, and boulders red,
Roofed by the pine and carpeted
With maidenhair.
But far and near, o'er each, o'er all,
Above, below,
Hangs the great silence like a pall
Softer than snow.
Not sorrow is the spell it brings,
But thoughts of calmer, purer things,
Like the sweet touch of hands we love,
A woman's tenderness above
A fevered brow.
These purple hills, these yellow leas,
These forests lone,
These mangrove shores, these shimmering seas,
This summer zone --
Shall they inspire no nobler strain
Than songs of bitterness and pain?
Strike her wild harp with firmer hand,
And send her music thro' the land,
With loftier tone!
Her song is silence; unto her
Its mystery clings.
Silence is the interpreter
Of deeper things.
O for sonorous voice and strong
To change that silence into song,
To give that melody release
Which sleeps in the deep heart of peace
With folded wings!
poem by George Essex Evans

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The Inner Silence
Noises that strive to tear
Earth's mantle soft of air
And break upon the stillness where it dwells:
The noise of battle and the noise of prayer,
The cooing noise of love that softly tells
Joy's brevity, the brazen noise of laughter—
All these affront me not, nor echo after
Through the long memories.
They may not enter the deep chamber where
Forever silence is.
Silence more soft than spring hides in the ground
Beneath her budding flowers;
Silence more rich than ever was the sound
Of harps through long warm hours,
'Tis like a hidden vastness, even as though
Great suns might there beat out their measures slow
Nor break the hush mightier than they.
There do I dwell eternally,
There where no thought may follow me,
Nor stillest dreams whose pinions plume the way.
poem by Harriet Monroe

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to GOD
MY lines are to GOD
scratches of the cat's claws
on a wooden pillar of the old
deserted house.
To God my silence is noise
he hears them just like any
ordinary noise on the streets
where dreams are dumped
and stamped and left behind.
To God, my poems are rotten
and he would not care giving
them a second of his infinity.
To God i am just like you,
the anonymous, the leftover
of humanity, the leaf upon a
heap of leaves, the sand among
the oceans of sands in the desert,
a figment of a ray of sunlight,
one of the drops of rain in
the storm, a dust in the galaxies
of planets and stars.
To God, i am nothing.
Deep in my heart however,
I feel that He loves Me.
And so now He listens
and Touches truly me.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa

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Deep
Every time I hear the sound of the rain
Beating on my roof again
I want to taste your love
And I want to go deep
Deep
I want to go deep
Deep
I want to go deep
Every time I lift my eyes to the sky
Something in my heart asks why
I want to know the truth
And I want to go deep
Deep
I want to go deep
Like the footprints
Disappearing from the sand
I try to catch the thought
It slips right through my hand
And as the darkness
Throws its cloak upon the ground
I start to run to you
Ive got to take you down
I want to go deep
Deep
I want to go deep
Deep
I want to go deep
Every time I feel Im loosing my way
The power of your love remains
I want to touch your love
An I want to go deep
Deep
I want to go deep
Deep
I want to go deep
Deep
I want to go deep
song performed by by Moody Blues

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Night
I love to hear the silence of the night.
That time, when distance draws so near,
and memories come, and far sounds,
undisturbed, so close.
For night is dark and only self is true.
A self whose rest and past, are
only breaths away.
Yet for some,
the night may haunt and fear,
its conscience time, when curtains
closed are drawn.
So too, ones inner self and past,
to joy or fright, the
inner spirits will.
It is a blessed thing this night.
Was it not night when Christ came home,
and balanced Judas evil deed.
And blessed night,
when monks now rise and pray,
and Nicodemus,
for lack of sleep,
came home.
The lady of the night came too,
her stumbling led her home.
In the darkness of the well
the Magi saw the stars in day,
and in the psyche dwells our heart.
O Blessed night,
for rolling back the stone,
the angels let in light,
and finished night.
Night no more.
The silence of the night is deeply rich,
and homeward bound, we rest,
and sound our hope
and lasting joy,
dwells here,
in shadows of the night.
poem by Bernard Kennedy

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The Other End Of Time
Sometimes it hurts clear to the core
When we lose all weve cared for
The hunger and thirst for love that endures is never ending.
What will I do with my life?
Try to share it with somebody new?
And how can I learn to disguise that Im lost without you.
All I have left is a heart full of mirrors
A heart full of voices reminding me that its over... girl its over
Ill hear it echo deep inside
til the other end of time
The other end of time.
Left over dreams fade in my mind
And Im counting on this love to die
cause all that I need is to give my whole life a new beginning.
But something is holding me down
Like Im under a mountain of stone
And all I can hear is the sound of my own heart breaking.
cause all I have left is a heart full of mirrors
A heart full of voices reminding me that its over... girl its over
Ill hear it echo deep inside
til the other end of time.
til the other end of time.
cause all I have left is a heart full of mirrors
A heart full of voices reminding me that its over... girl its over
Ill hear it echo deep inside.
All I have left is a heart full of mirrors
A heart full of voices reminding me that its over... girl its over
Ill hear it echo deep inside
til the other end of time
til the other end of time.
song performed by by Toto

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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My Sadness Sleeps With Me
MY SADNESS SLEEPS WITH ME
My sadness sleeps with me
It wakes with me
It sings with me
My sadness walks with me
And smiles with me
And laughs with me
My sadness stays with me
And does not want to go anywhere without me
My sadness is me
And I am my sadness
All the way
To the end
Sadness in me as my sad friend.
poem by Shalom Freedman

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A Childs Sadness
A child s sadness (10/12/11)
Why do I feel this sadness deep inside
Is it mistakes that I try to hide?
Like a drowning victim gasping for air
Your chest becomes tight and your hearts in despair.
Like a wind blown feather landing on the ground
You want to scream, but you don’t make a sound.
Hundreds of people all around
Yet this sadness gets you down.
You don’t know how or why you get this way
You just want to hide - or run away.
Some get sad for menial things
But this is what sadness brings.
So this thought I will inflict
“ you have to get over it really quick”.
Sadness can pull you down, especially
When there’s no help around.
TAKE YOUR LIPS AND SPREAD THEM WIDE
AND PULL OUT THAT LAUGHTER FROM DEEP INSIDE.
Did you feel the difference that it brought
This is what I was taught.
SMILE! : -)
poem by Louis Rams

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Silence In Battle
Shapeless shadows, in silence listening,
Deepest feelings in restraint,
A silent voice calls in mournful feeling,
We move in silence, voices faint.
Harmful silence touches the soul,
A larger loneliness laid untold,
So speak only when you must,
Infinite dread, a knife's deep thrust.
Darkness and silence lay so long,
Self control from dusk to dawn.
Awful darkness and silence reign,
Over the lifeless, barren, Iraqi plain.
Crouching down when nothing stirs,
Mysterious night, we temper her.
Rocklike hardness in our mind,
Tryant silence steals our time.
No echo sounding when I speak,
Body trembles, silence deep.
We shall remain thousands of miles away,
Uneasy silence, dreadful day.
poem by Philip Lore

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How Calm The Night The Silence Writes
How calm the Night the Silence writes-
How still the Peace the Silence sleeps-
How soft the Light the Silence breathes-
How deep the Dreams the Silence reads.
poem by Shalom Freedman

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I Hear Nothing
I HEAR NOTHING
I hear nothing
There is no poem
No poetry
Dull stale flat unprofitable
Oh the uses of this world.
Silence
Fear
Oh the darkness the darkness
Deep deep deep
I hear nothing
I wait
A thousand great lines of others
And not one of mine
No poetry no poem no poet
The world is going on and by
And poetry is in it
But I am on the side mumbling in silence
A silence unheard and only alone.
poem by Shalom Freedman

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The Twin
Happiness is the hidden status
Of expressed sadness
It is the same source
From where happiness
And sadness originate.
Deep sadness enables one
To absorb deep happiness
The drink pot which kisses your lips
Once suffered the fire of potter
Its a game of space and time
Like light and darkness
Sadness and happiness live live together
But expresses in different time.
poem by Devil Poet

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In deep sleep
In deep sleep
I weep warm
Words of wooing you.
In deep sleep
I dream of
Men enlighten
Alone quickly
Come back to earth.
In deep sleep
My causal body
Sweat the sweet
Soul that dwells
Beneath the veiling-power
Of my holy approaches
To man and nature of the
Natural earth.
In deep sleep
My elements of mind
Rhyme all the time.
About bold black boy’s
Muscles active
In their enjoyed greatness.
In deep sleep
I am absorbed by my sense-organs
I am elemental
Holding death within me.
poem by David E. Patton

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If I Write A Few Lines
IF I WRITE A FEW LINES
If I write a few lines
My mind will open
My heart will take heart
I will begin to believe in myself again.
If I write a few lines
I will say that I still somewhere am alive,
Writing these lines
In such deep deep sadness and trouble,
I try
And word by word
Squeeze out a bit of Hope.
poem by Shalom Freedman

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Beast of Albion
From deep ancestral roots
In the Scottish Highlands
And cold Caledonian caves
Caressed by evening starlight
I await you
In dreams
I am the Great Celtic Bear, Arth
The Red-footed Raven, Bran
I am the Primal Mother
Arthur of the Roundtable
I pursue you
In dreams
I am the old spiritual warrior
Companion to Artemis
Darkness before birth
Take up your rank
I ride beside you
In dreams
I am the Beast of Albion
Keeper of ancient knowledge
Guardian of Stonehenge
Protector of the wild
And I guide you
In dreams
poem by Toney Brooks

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My Silent Teacher
I again try to write for him
To tell him how I feel
And again my thoughts just fall off the page
None of the poetic leaves of my tree
Of feeling for him come back into play when
The pen hits the paper
He says I stroke his confidence
He will one day pin mine down
As the stars were playing tag team with my eyes
He was with my heart
Looking deep in to my heart
Looking deep in to my soul
Through the sexy curves of the letter O
For being so far away that’s all we have for now
In he’s charming poetic way he tells me that he cares for me
Oh yes from now until forever
The forever that’s beyond the sea
Beyond the ears can hear
And beyond the heart can break
I will care for him
So different from the others
They just wanna use me as their toy or for their joy
They just make me cry
Take advantage of my great desire and deceive my young mind
To get what they want
Not him
He is the one that calls me his princess
He is the one that has cute nick names for me
That makes me smile
Within his clever words
The feeling of I’m high starts in my eyes
The smile emerges on my face
The butterflies try to charge though my stomach
The need the desire becomes so great for him
He is my silent teacher
Teaches me what’s right and
What’s ever so wrong without even a sound
He will teach me so many things I’m sure of it
Things of mystery that I already know and
Some that are still a mystery to me
For he is my silent teacher
Waiting to fill me up with his hard and thrusting knowledge
And I am willing to take all of it in
Many times a day
poem by Mrs. Cynosure

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