The Violet Pressed in a Copy of Shakespeare
Here in the inmost of the master's heart
This violet crisp with early dew
Has come to leave her beauty and to part
With all her vivid hue.
And while in hollow glades and dells of musk,
Her fellows will reflower in bands,
Clasping the deeps of shade and emerald dusk,
With sweet inviolate hands,
She will lie here, a ghost of their delight,
Their lucent stems all ashen gray,
Their purples fallen into pulvil white,
Dull as the bluebird's alula.
But her where human passions pulse in power,
She will transcend our Shakespeare's art,
From Desdemona to a smothered flower,
Will leap the tragic heart.
And memory will recall in keener mood
The precinct fair where passion grew,
The stars within the water in the wood,
The moonlit grove, the odorous dew.
The voice that throbbed along the summer dark
Will float and pause and thrill,
In lonely cadence silvern as the lark,
To fail below the hill.
The reader will grow weary of the play,
Finding his hearts half understood,
And with the young moon in the early dusk will stray
Beside the starry water in the wood.
poem by Duncan Campbell Scott
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The Sea By The Wood
I DWELL in the sea that is wild and deep,
But afar in a shadow still,
I can see the trees that gather and sleep
In the wood upon the hill.
The deeps are green as an emerald's face,
The caves are crystal calm,
But I wish the sea were a little trace
Of moisture in God's palm.
The waves are weary of hiding pearls,
Are aweary of smothering gold,
They would all be air that sweeps and swirls
In the branches manifold.
They are weary of laving the seaman's eyes
With their passion prayer unsaid,
They are weary of sobs and the sudden sighs
And movements of the dead.
All the sea is haunted with human lips
Ashen and sere and gray,
You can hear the sails of the sunken ships
Stir and shiver and sway
In the weary solitude;
If mine were the will of God, the main
Should melt away in the rustling wood
Like a mist that follows the rain.
But I dwell in the sea that is wild and deep
And afar in the shadow still,
I can see the trees that gather and sleep
In the wood upon the hill.
poem by Duncan Campbell Scott
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Lonely Hearts & Starry Nights! !
Lonely Hearts & Starry Nights! !
Lonely hearts and Starry nights,
Part of everyone's life,
Sometimes in heartbreaks,
Sometimes in delight,
Some nights the moon is shining bright,
And sometimes the eyes are crying,
Longing for her sight,
Some nights the stars are twinkling above,
And sometimes the heart is lonely,
And looking for love,
Sometimes in the beauty of night,
You dream of holding her,
And flying in moon's silvery light,
Filled with joy and delight,
Sometimes your heart takes flight,
And at other times you wish,
You don't wake up when you sleep tonight,
Lonely hearts and starry nights,
Part of everyone's life,
Sometimes in heartbreak,
Sometimes in delight! !
- Nikunj
poem by Nikunj xyz
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Hazel Blossoms
THE SUMMER warmth has left the sky,
The summer songs have died away;
And, withered, in the footpaths lie
The fallen leaves, but yesterday
With ruby and with topaz gay.
The grass is browning on the hills;
No pale, belated flowers recall
The astral fringes of the rills,
And drearily the dead vines fall,
Frost-blackened, from the roadside wall.
Yet through the gray and sombre wood,
Against the dusk of fir and pine,
Last of their floral sisterhood,
The hazel’s yellow blossoms shine,
The tawny gold of Afric’s mine!
Small beauty hath my unsung flower,
For spring to own or summer hail;
But, in the season’s saddest hour,
To skies that weep and winds that wail
Its glad surprisals never fail.
O days grown cold! O life grown old
No rose of June may bloom again;
But, like the hazel’s twisted gold,
Through early frost and latter rain
Shall hints of summer-time remain.
And as within the hazel’s bough
A gift of mystic virtue dwells,
That points to golden ores below,
And in dry desert places tells
Where flow unseen the cool, sweet wells,
So, in the wise Diviner’s hand,
Be mine the hazel’s grateful part
To feel, beneath a thirsty land,
The living waters thrill and start,
The beating of the rivulet’s heart!
Sufficeth me the gift to light
With latest bloom the dark, cold days;
To call some hidden spring to sight
That, in these dry and dusty ways,
Shall sing its pleasant song of praise.
O Love! the hazel-wand may fail,
But thou canst lend the surer spell,
That, passing over Baca’s vale,
Repeats the old-time miracle,
And makes the desert-land a well.
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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In The Shade Of The Green Wood
In the shade of the green wood
The holly does grow,
While in soft rays of sunlight
The wild roses glow,
And I smell their sweet perfume
That gently floats by,
Past trees strong and mighty
That reach to the sky,
The pathway of gold autumn
Leaves still remain,
As I walk through the green wood again.
In the shade of the green wood
This bright sunny morn,
That's so cool in the shadows
A new day is born,
All the birds in the treetops
Are singing for me,
Sweet songs of the summer
Which fill me with glee,
And know from its beauty
I never shall part,
For the green wood does live in my heart.
In the shade of the green wood
A soft gentle breeze,
Now caresses the branches
And whispers through trees,
A sound reassuring
Shall carry me to,
All the scenes that exist
In each marvellous view,
It's here that my spirit
Shall always now stay,
And the green wood is guiding my way.
poem by Andrew Blakemore
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The Poison-Flower
IIN the evergreen shade of an Austral wood,
Where the long branches laced above,
Through which all day it seemed
The sweet sunbeams down-gleamed
Like the rays of a young mother's love,
When she hides her glad face with her hands and peeps
At the youngling that crows on her knee:
'Neath such ray-shivered shade,
In a banksia glade,
Was this flower first shown to me.
A rich pansy it was, with a small white lip
And a wonderful purple hood;
And your eye caught the sheen
Of its leaves, parrot-green,
Down the dim gothic aisles of the wood.
And its foliage rich on the moistureless sand
Made you long for its odorous breath;
But ah! 'twas to take
To your bosom a snake,
For its pestilent fragrance was death.
And I saw it again, in a far northern land,—
Not a pansy, not purple and white;
Yet in beauteous guise
Did this poison-plant rise,
Fair and fatal again to my sight.
And men longed for her kiss and her odorous breath
When no friend was beside them to tell
That to kiss was to die,
That her truth was a lie,
And her beauty a soul-killing spell.
poem by John Boyle O'Reilly
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Through The Wood
THROUGH the wood, the green wood, the wet wood, the light wood,
Love and I went maying a thousand lives ago;
Shafts of golden sunlight had made a golden bright wood
In my heart reflected, because I loved you so.
Through the wood, the chill wood, the brown wood, the bare wood,
I alone went lonely no later than last year,
What had thinned the branches, and wrecked my dear and fair wood,
Killed the pale wild roses and left the rose-thorns sere?
Through the wood, the dead wood, the sad wood, the lone wood,
Winds of winter shiver through lichens old and grey,
You ride past forgetting the wood that was our own wood
All our own--and withered as ever a flower of May.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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In Faith
When the soft sweet wind o' the south went by,
I dwelt in the light of a dark brown eye;
And out where the robin sang his song,
We lived and loved, while the days were long.
In the sweet, sweet eves, when the moon swung high,
We wandered under the starry sky;
Or sat in the porch, and the moon looked through
The latticed wall where the roses grew.
My lips, that hd no lover's kiss,
You taught the art, till they trilled in bliss;
And the moon, and the stars, and the roses knew
That the heart you won was pure and true.
But true hearts weary men, maybe,
For you grew weary of love, and me.
Over the porch the dead vines hang,
And a mourning dove sobs where the robin sang.
In a warmer clime does another sigh
Under the light of your dark brown eye?
Did you follow the soft sweet wing o' the south,
And are you kissing a redder mouth?
Lips may be redder, and eyes more bright;
The face may be fairer you see to-night;
But never, love, while the stars shall shine,
Will you find a heart that is truer than mine.
Sometime, perhaps, when south winds blow,
You will think of a love you used to know;
Sometime, perhaps, when a robin sings,
Your heart will go back to olden things.
Sometime you will weary of this world's arts,
Of deceit and change and hollow hearts,
And, wearying, sigh for the 'used to be, '
And your feet will turn to the porch, and me.
I shall watch for you here when days grow long;
I shall list for your step through the robin's song;
I shall sit in the porch where the moon looks through,
And a vacant chair will wait - for you.
You may stray, and forget, and rove afar,
But my changeless love, like the polar star,
Will draw you at length o'er land and sea -
And I know you will yet come back to me.
The years may come, and the years may go,
But sometime again, when south winds blow,
When roses bloom, and the moon swings high,
I shall live in he light of your dark brown eye.
poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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Looking for Water
Still the leaves are spinning 'round
Take my hand as we go down, and down, and down
Looking for water
Well, our light's gone in a New York minute
Don't know about you, but my heart's not in it
(Looking, looking, looking)
I'm looking for water
I'm looking for water
(Looking, looking, looking)
I can't breathe the air, can't raise a fact
'Cause all we've got left is a beat in the night, and I'm
(Looking for water)
Looking for water
(Looking for water)
(Looking, looking)
Take my hand as we go down, and down
Leave it all behind, nothing could be found
(I'm, looking for water)
I'm looking for water
(Looking for water)
(Looking, looking)
(I, looking for water)
Looking everywhere
(Looking for water)
Looking here and there
(I'm looking for water)
I'm looking for water
(Looking for water)
(Looking, looking)
I can't live in this cage, I can't eat this candy
The edge of the earth to the spin in my head
The look in your eyes and never means never
The dawn's early light, baby, dark is forever
(Looking, looking)
(Looking, looking)
(Looking for water)
(Looking, looking)
I
(Looking for water)
(Looking for water)
(Looking, looking)
I
(Looking for water)
(Looking for water)
(Looking, looking)
I
(Looking for water)
(Looking for watter)
Looking, looking)
I
(Looking for water)
(Looking for watter)
Looking, looking)
I
(Looking for water)
(Looking for watter)
song performed by by David Bowie, music by David Bowie, lyrics by David Bowie from Reality
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Evening.
The light is drawn out of the leaves and grass,
And the sweet flowers grow pale in the gray air,
As if their beauty's essence e'en did pass
With the departing light from all things fair,
As the sap in the trees when summer's fled
Draws back to the earth, leaving the leaves dead.
The sky becomes a cloud, the hills a shade,
As the mysterious darkness fills the sphere,
A monstrous elf whose tentacles are laid
In silence upon all things far and near;
Now the bats flit about the mothy damp
In which the spiders weave their airy camp.
I, too, could fill as 'twere a dreamy bed
Under the green leaves in the darkness now,
And watch the evening planet overhead
Like a dewdrop upon the airy bough
Of heaven tremble — till my soul too grew
Like liquid light in water, shining through.
And I can feel that which the dead inherit —
Peace, and the power to forego the pain
That like a vulture on the human spirit
Draws its fine essence from the fading brain,
Till every sense contracts, and the slow breath
Oozes away in the desire of death.
So from me slips the day's disquietude,
And I am made one with the night, as those
Who pass from thought into a faery mood
On Lethe's wharf, whenas old Charon goes
Into the dusk of that eternal eve
Where all must go when the earth-light they leave.
poem by Robert Crawford
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To James Whitcomb Riley
On his "Book of Joyous Children"
Yours is a garden of old-fashioned flowers;
Joyous children delight to play there;
Weary men find rest in its bowers,
Watching the lingering light of day there.
Old-time tunes and young love's laughter
Ripple and run among the roses;
Memory's echoes, murmuring after,
Fill the dusk when the long day closes.
Simple songs with a cadence olden--
These you learned in the Forest of Arden:
Friendly flowers with hearts all golden--
These you borrowed from Eden's garden.
This is the reason why all men love you;
Truth to life is the charm of art:
Other poets may soar above you--
You keep close to the human heart.
poem by Henry Van Dyke
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Stanzas
If thou be in a lonely place,
If one hour's calm be thine,
As Evening bends her placid face
O'er this sweet day's decline;
If all the earth and all the heaven
Now look serene to thee,
As o'er them shuts the summer even,
One moment--think of me!
Pause, in the lane, returning home;
'Tis dusk, it will be still:
Pause near the elm, a sacred gloom
Its breezeless boughs will fill.
Look at that soft and golden light,
High in the unclouded sky;
Watch the last bird's belated flight,
As it flits silent by.
Hark! for a sound upon the wind,
A step, a voice, a sigh;
If all be still, then yield thy mind,
Unchecked, to memory.
If thy love were like mine, how blest
That twilight hour would seem,
When, back from the regretted Past,
Returned our early dream!
If thy love were like mine, how wild
Thy longings, even to pain,
For sunset soft, and moonlight mild,
To bring that hour again!
But oft, when in thine arms I lay,
I've seen thy dark eyes shine,
And deeply felt their changeful ray
Spoke other love than mine.
My love is almost anguish now,
It beats so strong and true;
'Twere rapture, could I deem that thou
Such anguish ever knew.
I have been but thy transient flower,
Thou wert my god divine;
Till checked by death's congealing power,
This heart must throb for thine.
And well my dying hour were blest,
If life's expiring breath
Should pass, as thy lips gently prest
My forehead cold in death;
And sound my sleep would be, and sweet,
Beneath the churchyard tree,
If sometimes in thy heart should beat
One pulse, still true to me.
poem by Charlotte Brontë from Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell (1846)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Lillian
I. PROEM.
This was a sweet white wildwood violet
I found among the painted slips that grow
Where, under hot-house glass, the flowers forget
How the sun shines, and how the cool winds blow.
The violet took the orchid's colouring,
Tricked out its dainty fairness like the rest;
Yet still its breath was as the breath of Spring,
And the wood's heart was wild within its breast.
The orchid mostly is the flower I love,
And violets, the mere violets of the wood,
For all their sweetness, have not power to move
The curiosity that rules my blood.
Yet here, in this spice-laden atmosphere,
Where only nature is a thing unreal,
I found in just a violet, planted here,
The artificial flower of my ideal.
II. CHRISTMAS-EVE.
April-hearted Lilian,
April with our love began;
Winter comes, but April violets
Linger on.
So the fancy of an hour,
Born of sudden sun and shower,
Braves the winter, and has blossomed
Into flower.
poem by Arthur Symons
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A Dream Of Gortavehy
A bright and sunny Summer's day the lark pipes in the sky
And the fragrant scent of flowering gorse and the hill sheep bleating nigh
I lay here on a bracken patch by sunlit mountain lake
In dreamy mood the mood we know when we lay half awake.
To get a break from cares of life the need to be alone
And where better than a place like this by bracken hill of stone
And Gortavehy beautiful on sunny Summer's day
But every day not warm in June and June has a brief stay.
The sunshine it feels wonderful I lay on bracken ground
And I the only person here there's no one else around
And peace so welcome to the soul it gently comes to me
And sheep are bleating on the hill and larks pipe merrily.
The currawongs are calling in the wood across the way
And white backed magpie piping on high branch of mountain gray
And rain is gently falling on a Sherbrooke Winter's day
And I'd been to Gortavehy a half a World away.
poem by Francis Duggan
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The Violet And The Rose
The violet in the wood, that's sweet to-day,
Is longer sweet than roses of red June;
Set me sweet violets along my way,
And bid the red rose flower, but not too soon.
Ah violet, ah rose, why not the two?
Why bloom not all fair flowers the whole year through?
Why not the two, young violet, ripe rose?
Why dies one sweetness when another blows?
poem by Augusta Davies Webster
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Choriambics-II.
Here the flame that was ash, shrine that was void, lost in the haunted wood,
I have tended and loved, year upon year, I in the solitude
Waiting, quiet and glad-eyed in the dark, knowing that once a gleam
Glowed and went through the wood. Still I abode strong in a golden dream,
Unrecaptured.
For I, I that had faith, knew that a face would glance
One day, white in the dim woods, and a voice call, and a radiance
Fill the grove, and the fire suddenly leap . . . and, in the heart of it,
End of labouring, you! Therefore I kept ready the altar, lit
The flame, burning apart.
Face of my dreams vainly in vision white
Gleaming down to me, lo! hopeless I rise now. For about midnight
Whispers grew through the wood suddenly, strange cries in the boughs above
Grated, cries like a laugh. Silent and black then through the sacred grove
Great birds flew, as a dream, troubling the leaves, passing at length.
I knew
Long expected and long loved, that afar, God of the dim wood, you
Somewhere lay, as a child sleeping, a child suddenly reft from mirth,
White and wonderful yet, white in your youth, stretched upon foreign earth,
God, immortal and dead!
Therefore I go; never to rest, or win
Peace, and worship of you more, and the dumb wood and the shrine therein.
poem by Rupert Brooke (1908)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Choriambics II
Here the flame that was ash, shrine that was void,
lost in the haunted wood,
I have tended and loved, year upon year, I in the solitude
Waiting, quiet and glad-eyed in the dark, knowing that once a gleam
Glowed and went through the wood. Still I abode strong in a golden dream,
Unrecaptured.
For I, I that had faith, knew that a face would glance
One day, white in the dim woods, and a voice call, and a radiance
Fill the grove, and the fire suddenly leap . . . and, in the heart of it,
End of labouring, you! Therefore I kept ready the altar, lit
The flame, burning apart.
Face of my dreams vainly in vision white
Gleaming down to me, lo! hopeless I rise now. For about midnight
Whispers grew through the wood suddenly, strange cries in the boughs above
Grated, cries like a laugh. Silent and black then through the sacred grove
Great birds flew, as a dream, troubling the leaves, passing at length.
I knew
Long expected and long loved, that afar, God of the dim wood, you
Somewhere lay, as a child sleeping, a child suddenly reft from mirth,
White and wonderful yet, white in your youth, stretched upon foreign earth,
God, immortal and dead!
Therefore I go; never to rest, or win
Peace, and worship of you more, and the dumb wood and the shrine therein.
poem by Rupert Brooke
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Golden Daffodil's
Oh, what joy my eyes behold
To see such beauty there unfold,
And my heart with pleasure fills
When sun from ebbing winter days
Bring forth the Golden Daffodil's.
Lovely flower, majestic king
Who God awakes in early spring
So cloth'd in all your golden hue
No flower on the garden scene
Is as beautiful as you.
With silent voices and knodding heads
Gayly dancing in swirling beds
Your beauty in the garden spills,
And lifts the lonely hearts of all
Oh, Daffodil's, Oh, Daffodil's.
Dazzling in your sunny place
You fill the garden with poise and grace
Your smell is sweet, your color bold,
And for the often pensive mood
You are the flower to the soul.
All too soon under an early spring sky
Leaves will yellow, crumble and die
Sweet flower that we long to stay
Slips away in peaceful sleep
To stir our hearts another day.
By
Richard Netherland Cook
poem by Richard Netherland Cook
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With Fingers Of Sand
WITH FINGERS OF SAND
With fingers of sand, with hands of water
with hearts fuller than apples with night,
we reach out to pluck the orchid on the moon,
to touch beauty on the wing,
the coal swan with feathers of flame,
the shadows that wear our face,
the skin of a waterleaf of gold
that evaporates like an eyelid of dust,
the pilgrim on the smoke-road of the candle,
the black panther in an oildrum,
and the vision is blanched from the seeing
like the albumen of an egg,
the albino leper cooked in the mouth of the moon,
we reach out for what exceeds us,
for the dark thresholds of blood
in the palace of the rose,
the vivid windows of the sea
with their curtains of light and salt,
the green chandeliers of the rain,
the hidden excellence of the early wood sorrel
that whispers to us from its solitude,
shy secrets, indigo birds of paradise
with harps of eloquent feathers,
the laments and deadly night shades
of the alone with the alone in a shadowless abyss.
And there's the predicate of an unexpected jewel
sewn into the lining of everything;
even the flies are touched by rainbows
and the morning lifts her gown
and wades gloriously through the oilslicks,
hummingbirds in the sour trumpets of the weeds,
jungle parrots painting passion fruit
with palettes of stuttering neon,
hard oyster hearts that bed with pearls. Everyone
reveres the beauty of the wine on the lips
of the unsayable quality of being
that supersedes them, a facet of the turning jewel
that falls like the eyelash of an angel,
a winged samara of autumn dusk
into the seeing, and for a moment as long as life
they touch the pulse of an ageless longing
and feel beating within them
in a panic of wonder and joy,
the radiance of the starbound dove
caught in the throat of the chimney.
Even the worst have known the nightsky reach down
and wipe the stains from their eyes,
or felt embraced by a warm summer rain
that polished their skin like heritage silver
and remembered it for the rest of their lives.
For me, the chalice in the ore is you;
for me, you are all lenses, all mirrors
dewed by the waterveils of the mystery
in the early morning dark before creation
begins itself anew. My heart is seized by the fire-trance
of a sacred silence, the word within the word
as if wax suddenly discovered the flame
whose dancing made its flesh melt in a luminous consummation.
Even seared in the igneous cages of my heart,
an iron tiger baring its worn fangs
to the torment of the staring, when I think of you,
a nightbird with gates for wings
brings me a star and a key
and the bars turn into the pillars of palatial winds,
and an openness lies before me that tastes of lilacs and rain.
For years I've been witching for water in hell,
for years I've been diving for corpses in quicksand,
living like a squall in a shipwreck
under the eyes of a pleading lighthouse,
and the morning was just the morning
and the night was just the night,
and I thought it would go on like this
until I stared myself to death,
believing there was only the suffering
and the emptiness, and the suffering
and the black, mute bells of the wingless seabirds.
Now there's a planet that gleams like an eye
in the peacock silks of the twilight,
and a woman standing in the last shadows of the willow
like a doorway, like a ghost on a wharf,
like the depths of an urgent spear.
PATRICK WHITE
poem by Patrick White
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Never is she shut #never is she shut
You are my Sun.
You are now set.
You brought me dawn
Everyday at ten.
You sent me dusk
Everyday at five.
Weekend two days,
You left me in dark.
You shone on me for brief,
But heavily, brightly
And deeply with warmth.
That referred warmth
Spread all the night.
I felt the shine of my Sun,
Off the dusk, at full night.
My night is brightly lit.
Now my sun is set.
Where is my dawn?
Where is my dusk?
Where is the sunny day?
Where is my beauty?
Who will there be to lit
My night-full day?
And dreaded night?
You be a Moon, now on.
Waxing and waning,
Be always on horizon
So that there comes
Once a while a full-moon,
To imbue me with life.
My day-less night
Is lit with Moonlight.
You be my stars, farther.
You twinkle and twinkle
At me high from horizon!
With your news, beckon!
With your heart, command!
I am in the bath of starlight.
My night-full day is lit.
My sun, though, is set,
No dark is there at night.
She is there as Moon.
She is there as Stars.
Though she is set as Sun.
I’m now a nocturnal.
She can never be set
Out of my heart and soul.
11.06.99
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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August
LEAVE me alone, for August's sleepy charm
Is on me, and I will not break the spell;
My head is on the mighty Mother's arm:
I will not ask if life goes ill or well.
There is no world!--I do not care to know
Whence aught has come, nor whither it shall go.
I want to wander over pastures still,
Where sheared white sheep and mild-eyed cattle graze;
To climb the thymy, clover-covered hill,
To look down on the valley's hot blue haze;
And on the short brown turf for hours to lie
Gazing straight up into the clear, deep sky,
I want to walk through crisp gold harvest fields,
Through meadows yellowed by the August heat;
To loiter through the cool dim wood, that yields
Such perfect flowers and quiet so complete--
The happy woods, where every bud and leaf
Is full of dreams as life is full of grief.
I want to think no more of all the pain
That in the city thrives, a poison flower--
The eternal loss, the never-coming gain,
The lifelong woe--the joy that lives an hour,
Bright, evanescent as the dew that dawn
Shows on this silent, wood-encircled lawn.
I want to pull the honey-bud that twines
About the blackberries and gold-leaf sloes;
To part the boughs where the rare water shines,
Tread the soft bank whereby the bulrush grows--
I want to be no more myself, but be
Made one with all the beauty that I see.
Oh, happy country, myriad voiced and dear,
I have no heart, no eyes, except for you;
Yours are the only voices I will hear,
Yours is the only bidding I will do:
You bid me be at peace, and let alone
That loud, rough world where peace is never known.
Yet through your voices comes a sterner cry,
A voice I cannot silence if I would;
It mars the song the lark sings to the sky,
It breaks the changeful music of the wood.
'Back to your post--a charge you have to keep--
Freedom is bleeding while her soldiers sleep.'
Oh, heart of mine I have to carry here,
Will you not let me rest a little while?--
A space 'mid doubtful fight and doubtful fear--
A little space to see the Mother's smile,
To stretch my hands out to her, and possess
No sense of aught but of her loveliness?
Ah, just this power to feel how she is fair
Means just the power to see how foul life is.
How can I linger in the sacred air
And taste the pure wine of the dear sun's kiss
When in the outer dark my brothers moan,
Nor even guess the joys that I have known?
Back the least soldier goes! To jar and fret,
To hope uncrowned--faith tried--love wounded sore--
To prayers that never have been answered yet,
To dreams that must be dreams for evermore;
To all that, after all, is far more dear
Than all the joys of all the changing year.
poem by Edith Nesbit
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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