Euryalus
UPWARD we went by fields of asphodel,
Leaving Ortygia's moat-bound walls below;
By orchards, where the wind-flowers' drifted snow
Lay lightly heaped upon the turf's light swell;
By gardens, whence upon the wayside fell
Jasmine and rose in April's overflow;
Till, winding up in Epipolae's wide brow,
We reached at last the lonely citadel.
There, on the ruined rampart climbing high,
We sat and dreamed among the browsing sheep,
Until we heard the trumpet's startled cry
Waking a clang of arms about the keep,
And seaward saw, with rapt foreboding eye,
The sails of Athens whiten on the deep.
poem by Edith Wharton
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Related quotes
Asphodel
Dry grass is shifting
in chill autumn wind
soft hills once green
are brown once again
I yearn for the rain,
winter's blessing to fall
and spread wide white fields
of asphodel.
Gray stones mark my
resting place
deep in the earth
where I lie by dark lakes,
but in winter I crave
the fruit of the pall
Oh, spread wide bright fields
of asphodel.
___________
Author's Note: Asphodel, in Ancient Greek mythology, is a favored food of the dead and is often planted at grave-sites.
poem by Steven Federle
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The Skater
My glad feet shod with the glittering steel
I was the god of the wingèd heel.
The hills in the far white sky were lost;
The world lay still in the wide white frost;
And the woods hung hushed in their long white dream
By the ghostly, glimmering, ice-blue stream.
Here was a pathway, smooth like glass,
Where I and the wandering wind might pass
To the far-off palaces, drifted deep,
Where Winter's retinue rests in sleep.
I followed the lure, I fled like a bird,
Till the startled hollows awoke and heard
A spinning whisper, a sibilant twang,
As the stroke of the steel on the tense ice rang;
And the wandering wind was left behind
As faster, faster I followed my mind;
Till the blood sang high in my eager brain,
And the joy of my flight was almost pain.
The I stayed the rush of my eager speed
And silently went as a drifting seed, --
Slowly, furtively, till my eyes
Grew big with the awe of a dim surmise,
And the hair of my neck began to creep
At hearing the wilderness talk in sleep.
Shapes in the fir-gloom drifted near.
In the deep of my heart I heard my fear.
And I turned and fled, like a soul pursued,
From the white, inviolate solitude.
poem by Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
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To H.L.S.
I WANDERED on a lonely quest;
And deep within a dark forést
That lightened upward to the sky
A maiden, with her head borne high,
Went lightly by.
A bending shape, a glancing eye,
Long slender limbs borne maidenly,
Bound golden hair, — she trembled lest
She fright the butterfly at rest
On either breast.
So she went on into the west
Beyond the dark-green, dim forést
That fell to blackness — all the sky
Closed down, — when on my lips felt I
A butterfly!
poem by Philip Henry Savage
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Poetry And Flowers
Lark and rose go mad, even with winter
coming on, the garden beneath the verandah blooms,
the park is dense with sun and soccer balls.
By lark I mean generic bird, God knows
the names for all these things with wings. Ditto
the rose: the garden drooling colour and bloom.
Lavender I recognise, and jasmine climbing
the concrete wall, and a real rose in the corner,
red as blood. I meant to say: birds and flowers
go ballistic, even with winter coming on.
Carrying on their own life. The earth drowns
in the blooming. Even when there is no wind there is
the solar wind, whipping our bodies from the depths of space.
Ferocities of trees bent double. Playing soccer,
nobody notices this. The far park flutters in mirage.
The jasmine is awash with butterflies.
poem by Luke Davies
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The House Of Dust: Part 01: 04: Up high black walls, up sombre terraces
Up high black walls, up sombre terraces,
Clinging like luminous birds to the sides of cliffs,
The yellow lights went climbing towards the sky.
From high black walls, gleaming vaguely with rain,
Each yellow light looked down like a golden eye.
They trembled from coign to coign, and tower to tower,
Along high terraces quicker than dream they flew.
And some of them steadily glowed, and some soon vanished,
And some strange shadows threw.
And behind them all the ghosts of thoughts went moving,
Restlessly moving in each lamplit room,
From chair to mirror, from mirror to fire;
From some, the light was scarcely more than a gloom:
From some, a dazzling desire.
And there was one, beneath black eaves, who thought,
Combing with lifted arms her golden hair,
Of the lover who hurried towards her through the night;
And there was one who dreamed of a sudden death
As she blew out her light.
And there was one who turned from clamoring streets,
And walked in lamplit gardens among black trees,
And looked at the windy sky,
And thought with terror how stones and roots would freeze
And birds in the dead boughs cry . . .
And she hurried back, as snow fell, mixed with rain,
To mingle among the crowds again,
To jostle beneath blue lamps along the street;
And lost herself in the warm bright coiling dream,
With a sound of murmuring voices and shuffling feet.
And one, from his high bright window looking down
On luminous chasms that cleft the basalt town,
Hearing a sea-like murmur rise,
Desired to leave his dream, descend from the tower,
And drown in waves of shouts and laughter and cries.
poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
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The winds April cloak
The wind shall wear his April cloak
So all the flowers will laugh and poke
To see his dancing sprig of spring,
Admiral-on a butterflies wing.
Beneath his feet trees bow newly green,
Little clouds whiten on the glowing sheen,
for all the world is healthier in an April wind
Or so the chirping nestling sparrow's sing.
poem by Mark Heathcote
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Rose’s rose rose
Rose’s rose rose
In the light of the day
While the wind blows
Round its flowers of the lightest rosé.
Rose’s rose rose
In a way Rose may
When she grows
As her rose
Shows
How it grows
And by the end of the day
When her rose’s flowers’d close
And its head would sway
In the wind, Rose would say:
“My rose, as you rose
In the light of the day
Did you notice those,
The sounds of your stay?
Not only those of the day,
But, too, the ones of the dark, rose,
The ones of the dark and the moon in its pose.
Did you notice those, rose?
Did you notice those? ”
And the rose would know
What Rose would want to say
And it would sleep
With its flowers of the lightest rosé.
Climbing Up The Walls (Zero 7 Mix)
I am the key to the lock in your house
that keeps your toys in the basement,
and if you get too far inside
you'll only see my reflection.
See her face when she sleeps tonight,
I am the pick in the ice,
do not cry out or hit the alarm,
we are we're friends till we die.
And either way you turn I'll be there,
open up your skull, I'll be there
climbing up the walls.
It's always best when the light is off,
it's always better on the outside,
in the crack of your wanting smile,
fifteen blows to the skull.
So tuck the kids in safe tonight,
and shut the eyes in the cupboard.
do not cry out or hit the alarm,
you'll get the loneliest feeling
that either way you turn I'll be there,
open up your skull, I'll be there
climbing up the walls.
Climbing up the walls.
Climbing up the walls
song performed by by Radiohead
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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To Elizabeth Ward Perkins
Dear Bessie, would my tired rhyme
Had force to rise from apathy,
And shaking off its lethargy
Ring word-tones like a Christmas chime.
But in my soul's high belfry, chill
The bitter wind of doubt has blown,
The summer swallows all have flown,
The bells are frost-bound, mute and still.
Upon the crumbling boards the snow
Has drifted deep, the clappers hang
Prismed with icicles, their clang
Unheard since ages long ago.
The rope I pull is stiff and cold,
My straining ears detect no sound
Except a sigh, as round and round
The wind rocks through the timbers old.
Below, I know the church is bright
With haloed tapers, warm with prayer;
But here I only feel the air
Of icy centuries of night.
Beneath my feet the snow is lit
And gemmed with colours, red, and blue,
Topaz, and green, where light falls through
The saints that in the windows sit.
Here darkness seems a spectred thing,
Voiceless and haunting, while the stars
Mock with a light of long dead years
The ache of present suffering.
Silent and winter-killed I stand,
No carol hymns my debt to you;
But take this frozen thought in lieu,
And thaw its music in your hand.
poem by Amy Lowell
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Hopes
A PRINCESS, sleeping in enchanted bowers,
Earth springs to waking at Spring's voice and kiss,
And after winter's cold, unlovely hours,
Laughs out to find how beautiful she is.
Spring flings a song across the field and fold,
And sighs it through the glad wood's tangled ways;
And million, million tales of love are told,
And dreams are dreamed of undivided days.
In hollows where so late but dead leaves lay,
Through the dead leaves the primroses push up;
And wind-flowers fleck the copse, and fields are gay
With daisies and the budding buttercup.
So in our hearts, though thick the dead leaves lie
Of grief--heaped up by winds of old despair--
May there not be a spring-time by-and-by,
When flowers of joy shall blossom even there?
So long has Winter held our hearts in his,
We dare not dream of Spring and all her flowers?
Ah! the undreamed-of happiness it is
That comes--the dreamed-of joy is never ours!
When late the trees were brown and hedges bare,
And keen east wind cut sharp as human pain,
Did the Earth guess how soon she would be fair
With Spring's dear dainty loveliness again?
We do not guess of joy, but hope alone--
Like life's mysterious force that thrills the earth--
Lives in our souls, unrecognised, unknown,
Till time shall bring unhoped-for joy to birth.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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Song Of A Second April
April this year, not otherwise
Than April of a year ago,
Is full of whispers, full of sighs,
Of dazzling mud and dingy snow;
Hepaticas that pleased you so
Are here again, and butterflies.
There rings a hammering all day,
And shingles lie about the doors;
In orchards near and far away
The grey wood-pecker taps and bores;
The men are merry at their chores,
And children earnest at their play.
The larger streams run still and deep,
Noisy and swift the small brooks run
Among the mullein stalks the sheep
Go up the hillside in the sun,
Pensively,—only you are gone,
You that alone I cared to keep.
poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay
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The Beds of Fleur-de-Lys
HIGH-LYING, sea-blown stretches of green turf,
Wind-bitten close, salt-colored by the sea,
Low curve on curve spread far to the cool sky,
And, curving over them as long they lie,
Beds of wild fleur-de-lys.
Wide-flowing, self-sown, stealing near and far,
Breaking the green like islands in the sea;
Great stretches at your feet, and spots that bend
Dwindling over the horizon’s end,—
Wild beds of fleur-de-lys.
The light keen wind streams on across the lifts,
Their wind of western springtime by the sea;
The close turf smiles unmoved, but over her
Is the far-flying rustle and sweet stir
In beds of fleur-de-lys.
And here and there across the smooth, low grass
Tall maidens wander, thinking of the sea;
And bend, and bend, with light robes blown aside,
For the blue lily-flowers that bloom so wide,—
The beds of fleur-de-lys.
poem by Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
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The Legend of Cooee Gully
The night came down thro’ Deadman’s Gap,
Where the ghostly saplings bent
Before a wind that tore the fly
From many a digger’s tent.
Dark as pitch, and the rain rushed past
On a wind that howled again;
And we crowded into the only but
That stood on the hillside then.
The strong pine rafters creaked and strained,
’Til we thought that the roof would go;
And we felt the box-bark walls bend in
And bulge like calico.
A flood had come from the gorges round:
Thro’ the gully’s bed it poured.
Down many a deep, deserted shaft
The yellow waters roared.
The scene leapt out when the lightning flashed
And shone with a ghastly grey;
And the night sprang back to the distant range
’Neath a sky as bright as day.
Then the darkness closed like a trap that was sprung,
And the night grew black as coals,
And we heard the ceaseless thunder
Of the water down the holes.
And now and then like a cannon’s note
That sounds in the battle din,
We heard the louder thunder spring
From a shaft, when the sides fell in.
We had gathered close to the broad but fire
To yarn of the by-gone years,
When a coo-ee that came from the flooded grounds
Fell sharp on our startled ears.
We sprang to our feet, for well we knew
That in speed lay the only hope;
One caught and over his shoulder threw
A coil of yellow rope.
Then, blinded oft by the lightning’s flash,
Down the steep hillside we sped,
And at times we slipped on the sodden path
That ran to the gully’s bed.
And on past many a broken shaft
All reckless of risk we ran,
For the wind still brought in spiteful gusts
The cry of the drowning man.
But the cooeying ceased when we reached the place;
And then, ere a man could think,
We heard the treacherous earth give way
And fall from a shaft’s black brink.
And deep and wide the rotten side
Slipped into the hungry hole,
And the phosphorus leapt and vanished
Like the flight of the stranger’s soul.
And still in the sound of the rushing rain,
When the night comes dark and drear,
From the pitch-black side of that gully wide
The coo-ee you’ll hear and hear.
Coo-ee — coo-e-e-e, low and eerily,
It whispers afar and drear —
And then to the heart like an icy dart
It strikes thro’ the startled ear!
Dreader than wrung from the human tongue
It shrieks o’er the sound of the rain,
And back on the hill when the wind is still
It whispers and dies again.
And on thro’ the night like the voice of a sprite
That tells of a dire mishap
It echoes around in the gully’s bound
And out thro’ Deadman’s Gap.
poem by Henry Lawson
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Daily, Daily, Sing The Praises
Daily, daily, sing the praises
Of the city God hath made;
In the beauteous fields of Eden
Its foundation stones are laid.
Refrain
O that I had wings of angels,
Here to spread and heavenward fly!
I would seek the gates of Zion,
Far beyond the starry sky.
All the walls of that dear city
Are of bright and burnished gold;
It is matchless in its beauty,
And its treasures are untold.
Refrain
In the midst of that dear city
Christ is reigning on His seat,
And the angels swing their censers
In a ring about His feet.
Refrain
From the throne a river issues,
Clear as crystal, passing bright,
And it traverses the city
Like a sudden beam of light.
Refrain
There the forests ever blossom,
Like our orchards here in May;
There the gardens never wither,
But eternally are gay.
Refrain
There the meadows green and dewy
Shine with lilies wondrous fair;
Thousand, thousand, are the colors
Of the waving flowers there.
Refrain
There the forests ever blossom,
Like our orchards here in May;
There the gardens never wither,
But eternally are gay.
Refrain
There the wind is sweetly fragrant,
And is laden with the song
Of the seraphs, and the elders,
And the great redeemèd throng.
Refrain
O I would my ears were open
Here to catch that happy strain!
O I would my eyes some vision
Of that Eden would attain!
Refrain
poem by Sabine Baring-Gould
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Fields Of Gold
Youll remember me when the west wind moves
Upon the fields of barley
Youll forget the sun in his jealous sky
As we walk in the fields of gold
So she took her love
For to gaze awhile
Upon the fields of barley
In his arms she fell as her hair came down
Among the fields of gold
Will you stay with me, will you be my love
Among the fields of barley
Well forget the sun in his jealous sky
As we lie in the fields of gold
See the west wind move like a lover so
Upon the fields of barley
Feel her body rise when you kiss her mouth
Among the fields of gold
I never made promises lightly
And there have been some that Ive broken
But I swear in the days still left
Well walk in the fields of gold
Well walk in the fields of gold
Many years have passed since those summer days
Among the fields of barley
See the children run as the sun goes down
Among the fields of gold
Youll remember me when the west wind moves
Upon the fields of barley
You can tell the sun in his jealous sky
When we walked in the fields of gold
When we walked in the fields of gold
When we walked in the fields of gold
song performed by by Sting
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Indian Love Song
She
LIKE a serpent to the calling voice of flutes,
Glides my heart into thy fingers, O my Love!
Where the night-wind, like a lover, leans above
His jasmine-gardens and sirisha-bowers;
And on ripe boughs of many-coloured fruits
Bright parrots cluster like vermilion flowers.
He
Like the perfume in the petals of a rose,
Hides thy heart within my bosom, O my love!
Like a garland, like a jewel, like a dove
That hangs its nest in the asoka-tree.
Lie still, O love, until the morning sows
Her tents of gold on fields of ivory.
poem by Sarojini Naidu
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Trumpet Voice
I live to hear my father sing
People come
Far and wide
Gathering like anchovies in a can
To hear his deep, trumpet voice
My father burns a record
Neighbors and friends
Float from their lonely birdhouses
To hear his deep, trumpet voice
My father records a tape
The family sits in the living room
Under the golden chandelier
To hear his deep, trumpet voice
My father has a CD
My brother and I sit in my room
Playing Parcheesi
We open the player
To hear his deep, trumpet voice
I lie on the city bus
One seat for my head
The other for my feet
I turn on my small, silver iPod
And zone out from the world
To hear his deep, trumpet voice
poem by Aury Cecile
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A Rose Intoxication!
Queen of flowers rose is always a fascination!
Rose is symbol of passionate love cheers mood!
Rose lady gives great pride to be with anywhere!
Special respect to rose never changes anywhere;
Red rose, pink rose and even blue rose are there
Occupying a pride of place none can have ever!
Bouquet of rose flowers elates anyone to dizziness!
A special gift indeed rose flowers makes to all!
A single rose is enough to make one grand to look
Instead of a big cluster of flowers of jasmine or lily!
Scent of rose remains fresh in mind wherever one is;
Such a unique flower rose how can anyone ignore
Whether it is in the garden or lies on a wayward side!
Now after seeing rose and read on rose I am intoxicated..!
poem by Ramesh T A
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Ortygia
IN Ortygia the Dawn land the old gods dwell,
And the silver’s yet a-quiver on the old wizard well
By the milk-white walls of the Temple of the Moon,
Where the Dawn Maids hallow the red gods’ tune,
And old grey Time is a nine-year child,
Back between the rivers ere man was ever ’guiled,
Or the knelling ‘Never, never!’ by the cherubim was rung.
It was there, there, there, in Ortygia the young,—
It was there, there, there, in the meadows of the sky
That first we went a-summering, my love of loves and I.
And well I wot the pleasaunce for them that thither go
Is litten with the beacons that the Dawn Maids know,
With their vigil at end in the Temple of the Moon,
And their prayer all prayer for the waked world’s boon.
The words they speak in that land are new as the dawn;
The rills that run in that land are diamond, drawn
From the old wizard well where the red gods croon.
And walk you in Ortygia or late or soon,
It is but lovers only that ever you will see;
For every silver wood-king’s a trysting tree,
And the dream-flowers are keeping their first high May
For the glad and the glamoured who walk yon way;
And to the summit etherous the track you cannot miss,
Though the hills are dim and sheeny with the rainbow’s kiss.
O, we walked the road of iris, my love of loves and I
In Ortygia the young with the red gods by!
poem by Jessie Mackay
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In April
I
AS lightly as a filmy veil
That folds the April larch,
My tenderest joy drops like a dream
Down from the buds of March,
My dim sweet joy that fills the wood
From delicate arch to arch.
My frailest joy that draws my heart
Out from its prison bar,
Whose step is swifter and more sweet
Than all Spring's blossoms are,
My trembling joy that holds my soul
Up like a ransomed star.
What shall I do to keep my joy,
That has become so dear,
Who dare not stir to hold it close,
My joy that is so near,
That wraps me with a filmy veil
So woven in with fear.
II
IF I should lose these petals you let fall
To my stretched hand,
If through the leaf-buds I should miss them all,
And empty stand,
The April flowers their petals would recall
Throughout the land.
If I should lose these shining clouds of white
Flying like doves,
To some embowered region shut from sight
Their spirit moves,
The glory would drop out of all the light
That April loves.
If I should miss to toss my reckless heart
Up to the sky,
Through every spray your careless fingers part
As you go by,
In every budding place where blossoms start,
April would die.
III
AH, do not let your spirit fail me now,
Now while the winds are sweet,
Now while the sun slips through the willow-bough
In patterns to my feet,
While shadows like mad rivers run,
Over the grass to fly the sun,
Ah, do not fail me now.
Now while the burnished poplars swing and play,
Like sails that would be free
To reach the untravelled azure far away,
And take the aerial sea,
Yet are too joyous in a birth
That binds them to the radiant earth,
Ah, fail me not to-day.
Ah, do not fail me while the unbroken dews
Hang like a captive shower,
In vagrant places that my wanderings choose
To cherish into flower;
Ah, do not let your spirit fail
My spirit, while the hours prevail
That only love can use.
IV
MUST I walk lonely underneath the seas
Of April's blossom, watch the shining drift
Of clustered bloom through all the apple-trees,
With never an azure rift,
Look upward through the glistening cherry-bough,
For ever lonely now.
Must I go empty through sweet lanes of thorn,
And see their wands flowered in fleecy white,
Stretching through all the land now Spring is born,
To fill the fields with light,
Must I stand empty for sweet April's sake
To watch the leaf-buds break.
Now when the primrose beds are palest gold,
And cuckoo-flowers stand sentinel in the grass,
Must I see all the joys of April told,
And through them joyless pass,
In all the love that drops from April's sky,
Must I go loveless by.
V
I CALL you through the sapphire deep
That hides the folded shrouds of sleep,
Along the amethystine way
That stretches in the wake of day.
Through all the pearly lakes that soon
Flow through the skies below the moon,
Through all the heaven's wide sea of light
I call you from the caves of night.
Through all earth's bitter prayers that press
Up from its floods of loneliness,
To find some pity for their pain,
I call you to my heart again.
VI
OH, do you doubt the ways,
The paths of breaking fire,
My chariot wheels shall take these April days
With swift desire,
The road whose delicate shadows are ablaze
With quivering flames that neither drop nor tire.
Oh, do you doubt they strayed
Down from the heavenly hill,
My captive steeds whose passionate feet are made
To be so still,
Whose breath stirs tenderly as wind-flowers laid
In tremulous dreams the April moonlights fill.
Fear not my steeds shall fail
To keep their high estate,
Their foreheads are new-crowned with stars that pale
The moons of fate;
Ah, do not doubt my chariot shall avail
To bring you surely to the Eternal Gate.
poem by Dollie Radford
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