In The Cathedral
THE altar-lights burn low, the incense-fume
Sickens: O listen, how the priestly prayer
Runs as a fenland stream; a dim despair
Hails through their chaunt of praise, who here inhume
A clay-cold Faith within its carven tomb.
But come thou forth into the vital air
Keen, dark, and pure! grave Night is no betrayer,
And if perchance some faint cold star illume
Her brow of mystery, shall we walk forlorn?
An altar of the natural rock may rise
Somewhere for men who seek; there may be borne
On the night-wind authentic prophecies:
If not, let this--to breathe sane breath--suffice,
Till in yon East, mayhap, the dark be worn.
poem by Edward Dowden
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Rollin The Rock
Feels so cold, so alone
An empty stage, no one home
I feel so strange, so scared
No point in screaming
I wont be heard
Youre so cold, youre so cool
Its so dark in this tomb
Time has come so soon
And time takes no prisoners
Except in the womb
Theres no way out, no escape
This silence is deafening
I have to cry out
Youre so cold, youre so cool
Its so dark in this tomb
Roll away the rock
Roll the rock away
Set me free from this grave
Am I forgiven, can I be saved?
Youve been so cold for so long
This silence is deafening
Was I so wrong?
Youre so cold, youre so cool
Its so dark in this tomb
Roll away the rock
Take that rock and roll it
Roll away the rock
You gotta roll the rock away
This silence is deafening
song performed by by Uriah Heep
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I sit alone...
I sit alone
In this cold dark room
No windows no doors
Just icy cold air
I live alone
In this cold dark room
No family no friends
Just loneliness to share
I stay alone
In this cold dark room
No voices no sounds
Just nobody to care
I probe alone
In this cold dark room
In my mind in my world
Just a room filled with despair
I roam alone
In this cold dark room
No way in no way out
Just a worn but rigid snare
I rust alone
In this cold dark room
Not because there is no other way
Just because its easier that way....
poem by Deep Dark Soul Poet
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Cold Dark..
I sit alone
In this cold dark room
No windows no doors
Just icy cold air
I live alone
In this cold dark room
No family no friends
Just loneliness to share
I stay alone
In this cold dark room
No voices no sounds
Just nobody to care
I probe alone
In this cold dark room
In my mind in my world
Just a room filled with despair
I roam alone
In this cold dark room
No way in no way out
Just a worn but rigid snare
I rust alone
In this cold dark room
Not because there is no other way
Just because its easier that way....
poem by Deep Dark Soul Poet
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In Thou dark stormy Night
All alone in the night
All alone with my own fright
A lightning strikes, runs across the dead black sky
I am alone
but I wonder, why?
In Thou dark stormy night
In Thou dark stormy night
I call your name with all my might
All alone hanging in the night
My arms are sore, my soul is light
I hear the thunder, in the cloudy black sky
I am scared
but I don't know, why?
In Thou dark stormy night
in Thou dark stormy night
I call your name with all my might
Inside Your house in the night
Calling Your name with all my might
Father! Father! Why have you forsaken me?
'You must die so my people can be free.'
In Thou dark stormy night
In Thou dark stormy night
Jesus drew his final breath
Saving us all from our own eternal death
poem by Summer Song
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Hymn For The Fair At Chicago
O GOD! in danger's darkest hour,
In battle's deadliest field,
Thy name has been our Nation's tower,
Thy truth her help and shield.
Our lips should fill the air with praise,
Nor pay the debt we owe,
So high above the songs we raise
The floods of mercy flow.
Yet Thou wilt hear the prayer we speak,
The song of praise we sing,--
Thy children, who thine altar seek
Their grateful gifts to bring.
Thine altar is the sufferer's bed,
The home of woe and pain,
The soldier's turfy pillow, red
With battle's crimson rain.
No smoke of burning stains the air,
No incense-clouds arise;
Thy peaceful servants, Lord, prepare
A bloodless sacrifice.
Lo! for our wounded brothers' need,
We bear the wine and oil;
For us they faint, for us they bleed,
For them our gracious toil!
O Father, bless the gifts we bring!
Cause Thou thy face to shine,
Till every nation owns her King,
And all the earth is thine.
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
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The Dead Church
Wild wild wind, wilt thou never cease thy sighing?
Dark dark night, wilt thou never wear away?
Cold cold church, in thy death sleep lying,
The Lent is past, thy Passion here, but not thine Easter-day.
Peace, faint heart, though the night be dark and sighing;
Rest, fair corpse, where thy Lord himself hath lain.
Weep, dear Lord, above thy bride low lying;
Thy tears shall wake her frozen limbs to life and health again.
poem by Charles Kingsley
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Train Journey
Glassed with cold sleep and dazzled by the moon,
out of the confused hammering dark of the train
I looked and saw under the moon's cold sheet
your delicate dry breasts, country that built my heart;
and the small trees on their uncoloured slope
like poetry moved, articulate and sharp
and purposeful under the great dry flight of air,
under the crosswise currents of wind and star.
Clench down your strength, box-tree and ironbark.
Break with your violent root the virgin rock.
Draw from the flying dark its breath of dew
till the unliving come to life in you.
Be over the blind rock a skin of sense,
under the barren height a slender dance...
I woke and saw the dark small trees that burn
suddenly into flowers more lovely that the white moon.
poem by Judith Wright
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The Watcher on the Tower
I
The Voice of a Man
WHAT of the Night, O Watcher?
The Voice of a Woman
Yea, what of it?
The Watcher
A star has risen; and a wind blows strong.
Voice of the Man
The Night is dark.
The Watcher
But God is there above it.
Voice of the Woman
The Night is dark; the Night is dark and long.
II
Voice of the Man
What of the Night, O Watcher?
Voice of the Woman
Night of sorrow!
The Watcher
Out of the East there comes a sound, like song.
Voice of the Man
The Night is dark.
The Watcher
Have courage! There’s To-morrow!
Voice of the Woman
The Night is dark; the Night is dark and long.
III
Voice of the Man
What of the Night, O Watcher?
Voice of the Woman
Is it other?
The Watcher
I see a gleam; a thorn of light; a thong.
Voice of the Man
The Night is dark.
The Watcher
The Morning comes, my Brother.
Voice of the Woman
The Night is dark; the Night is dark and long.
IV
Voice of the Man
What now, what now, O Watcher?
The Watcher
Red as slaughter
The Darkness dies. The Light comes swift and strong.
Voice of the Man
The Night was long.—What sayest thou, my Daughter?
Voice of the Woman
The Night was dark; the Night was dark and long.
poem by Madison Julius Cawein
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Hannibal's Oath
AND the night was dark and calm,
There was not a breath of air,
The leaves of the grove were still,
As the presence of death were there;
Only a moaning sound
Came from the distant sea,
It was as if, like life,
It had no tranquillity.
A warrior and a child
Pass'd through the sacred wood,
Which, like a mystery,
Around the temple stood.
The warrior's brow was worn
With the weight of casque and plume,
And sun-burnt was his cheek,
And his eye and brow were gloom.
The child was young and fair,
But the forehead large and high,
And the dark eyes' flashing light
Seem'd to feel their destiny.
They enter'd in the temple,
And stood before the shrine,
It stream'd with the victim's blood,
With incense and with wine.
The ground rock'd beneath their feet,
The thunder shook the dome,
But the boy stood firm, and swore
Eternal hate to Rome.
There's a page in history
O'er which tears of blood were wept,
And that page is the record
How that oath of hate was kept.
poem by Letitia Elizabeth Landon
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Gertrude, Or Fidelity Till Death
Dark lowers our fate,
And terrible the storm that gathers o'er us;
But nothing, till that latest agony
Which severs thee from nature, shall unloose
This fix'd and sacred hold. In thy dark prison-house,
In the terrific face of armed law,
Yea, on the scaffold, if it needs must be,
I never will forsake thee.
-Joanna Baillie
HER hands were clasp'd, her dark eyes rais'd,
The breeze threw back her hair;
Up to the fearful wheel she gaz'd–
All that she lov'd was there.
The night was round her clear and cold,
The holy heaven above,
Its pale stars watching to behold
The might of earthly love.
'And bid me not depart,' she cried,
'My Rudolph, say not so!
This is no time to quit thy side,
Peace, peace! I cannot go.
Hath the world aught for me to fear,
When death is on thy brow?
The world!–what means it?–mine is here–
I will not leave thee now.
'I have been with thee in thine hour
Of glory and of bliss;
Doubt not its memory's living power
To strengthen me thro' this!
And thou, mine honour'd love and true,
Bear on, bear nobly on!
We have the blessed heaven in view,
Whose rest shall soon be won.'
And were not these high words to flow
From woman's breaking heart?
Thro' all that night of bitterest woe
She bore her lofty part;
But oh! with such a glazing eye,
With such a curdling cheek–
Love, love! of mortal agony,
Thou, only thou, should'st speak!
The wind rose high–but with it rose
Her voice, that he might hear:
Perchance that dark hour brought repose
To happy bosoms near;
While she sat striving with despair
Beside his tortured form,
And pouring her deep soul in prayer
Forth on the rushing storm.
She wiped the death-damps from his brow
With her pale hands and soft,
Whose touch upon the lute-chords low
Had still'd his heart so oft.
She spread her mantle o'er his breast,
She bath'd his lips with dew,
And on his cheek such kisses press'd
As hope and joy ne'er knew.
Oh! lovely are ye, Love and Faith,
Enduring to the last!
She had her meed–one smile in death–
And his worn spirit pass'd.
While ev'n as o'er a martyr's grave
She knelt on that sad spot,
And, weeping, bless'd the God who gave
Strength to forsake it not!
poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans
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On The Same Day I Was So Happy
ON THE SAME DAY I WAS SO HAPPY
On the same day I have been so happy
Deep Loneliness comes in the night -
A dark dark cold cold world comes
And I feel more all alone
Than in a long time-
Our worlds inside are endlessly changing moods and minds-
I now am so alone
And anxious
And afraid also-
And I was so so happy today
So so happy in the morning
Far far
From the cold cold dark dark dark night
poem by Shalom Freedman
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The image broken
'Twas but a dream; a fond and foolish dream;
The calenture of a delirious brain,
Whose fever thirst creates the rushing stream.
Now to the actual I awake again:
The vision to my gaze one moment granted,
Fades in its light away, and leaves me disenchanted.
The image that my glowing fancy wrought,
Now to the dust with ruthless hand I cast:
Thus I renounce the worship that I sought;
Of my own idol the iconoclast.
The echo of "Eureka, I have found!"
Falls back upon my heart, a vain and empty sound.
Oh disembodied being of my mind,
So wildly loved, so fervently adored;
In whom all high and glorious gifts I shrined,
And my heart's incense on the altar poured;
Now do I know, that clad in mortal guise,
Ne'er on this earth wilt thou upon my vision rise.
That only in the vague, cold realm of thought,
Shall I meet thee whom here I seek in vain;
And like Egyptian Isis, when she sought
The scattered fragments of Osiris slain,
Now do I know that I shall never find
But fragments of thy soul within earth's clay enshrined.
Thou whom I have not seen, and shall not see,
Till the sad drama of this life be o'er!
Yet do I not renounce my faith in thee:
Thou art still mine, I think, forevermore;
And this belief shall be the funeral pyre
Of all less noble love, -- of all less high desire.
Here, like the Hindoo widow, I will bring
Hope, youth, and all that woman prizes most,
The glow of summer and the bloom of spring,
And on thy altar lay the holocaust;
And in my faith exulting, I will see
The sacrifice consume, I consecrate to thee.
To love's sweet tones my heart shall never thrill,
Nor, as the tardy years their circles roll,
Shall they the ardor of its pulses chill.
Thus will I live, in widowhood of soul,
Until, at last, my lingering exile o'er,
Upon some lovelier star, too bless'd, we meet once more.
Oh, tell me not, that now indeed I dream;
That these aspirings mocked at last will be: --
Gleams of a higher life, to me they seem
A sacred pledge of immortality.
Tell not the yearning heart it shall not find:
Oh Love, thou art too strong! Oh God, thou art too kind!
poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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By The Seaside : Sir Humphrey Gilbert
Southward with fleet of ice
Sailed the corsair Death;
Wild and gast blew the blast,
And the east-wind was his breath.
His lordly ships of ice
Glisten in the sun;
On each side, like pennons wide,
Flashing crystal streamlets run.
His sails of white sea-mist
Dripped with silver rain;
But where he passed there were cast
Leaden shadows o'er the main.
Eastward from Campobello
Sir Humphrey Gilbert sailed;
Three days or more seaward he bore,
Then, alas! the land-wind failed.
Alas! the land-wind failed,
And ice-cold grew the night;
And nevermore, on sea or shore,
Should Sir Humphrey see the light.
He sat upon the deck,
The Book was in his hand;
'Do not fear! Heaven is as near,'
He said, 'by water as by land!'
In the first watch of the night,
Without a signal's sound,
Out of the sea, mysteriously,
The fleet of Death rose all around.
The moon and the evening star
Were hanging in the shrouds;
Every mast, as it passed,
Seemed to rake the passing clouds.
They grappled with their prize,
At midnight black and cold!
As of a rock was the shock;
Heavily the ground-swell rolled.
Southward through day and dark,
They drift in cold embrace,
With mist and rain, o'er the open main;
Yet there seems no change of place.
Southward, forever southward,
They drift through dark and day;
And like a dream, in the Gulf-Stream
Sinking, vanish all away.
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Darkness Sets Upon Her
Dark as ebony, dark as night
Dark as the raven in mid flight
Dark as the grave doth her heart grow
Cold and silent as the dead of night
Oh sweet angel of mercy, sweet angel of light
Beckon to her before she takes flight
Speak ever so softly, breath life back into her soul
That she'll not tread life's pathway
A hollow, empty shell full of darkness so foul
That eats away at the radiant light
Which once from the windows of her soul did flow
For quickly doth darkness set upon her
Stealing away what little remains pure
Blackening her heart, blotting out the light
Nevermore to shine, cold and silent as the dead of night
poem by Jennifer Batch
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To Isa in Heaven
Early, bright, transient, chaste as morning dew,
She sparkled, was exhaled, and went to heaven! — Young.
Where is she now?
Oh! Isa! tell me where thou art?
If death has laid his hand upon thy brow,
Has he not touched my heart?
Has he not laid it in the grave with thine,
And buried all my joys?—Speak! thou art mine!
If thou were dead,
I would not ask thee to reply;
But thou art living—thy dear soul has fled
To heaven, where it can never die!
Then why not come to me? Return—return
And comfort me, for I have much to mourn!
I sigh all day!
I mourn for thee the livelong night!
And when the next night comes, thou art away,
And so is absent my delight!
Oh! as the lone dove for his absent mate,
So is my soul for thee disconsolate!
I long for death—
For any thing—to be with thee!
I did inhale, alas! thy dying breath,
That it might have some power on me
To make me what thou art!—but, thou art dead!
And I am here!—it strengthened me instead!
Joy there is none—
It went into the grave with thee!
And grief, because my spirit is alone,
Is all that comes to comfort me!
The very air I breathe is turned to sighs,
And all mine soul is melting from mine eyes!
I hear, at even,
The liquid carol of birds;
Their music makes me think of thee in heaven,
It is so much like thy sweet words.
The brooklet whispers, as it runs along,
Our first love-story with its liquid tongue.
Wake, Isa! wake!
And come back in this world again!
Oh! come down to me, for my soul's dear sake,
And cure me of this trying pain!
I would give all that earth to man can be,
If thou wert only in this world with me!
Day after day
I seek thee, but thou art not near!
I sit down on thy grave in the cold clay,
And listen for thy soul!—oh! dear!
And when some withered leaf falls from the tree,
I start as if thy soul had spoke to me!
And so it is,
And so it ever more must ever be
To him, who has been robbed of all the bliss
He ever knew, by loving thee!
For misery, in thine absence, is my wife!
What joy had been, hadst thou remained in life!
It is now even;
The birds have sung themselves to sleep;
And all the stars seem coming out of heaven,
As if to look upon me weep!—
Oh! let me not look up to thee in vain,
But come back to me in this world again!
poem by Thomas Holley Chivers (1842)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Sir Humphrey Gilbert
Southward with fleet of ice
Sailed the corsair Death;
Wild and gast blew the blast,
And the east-wind was his breath.
His lordly ships of ice
Glisten in the sun;
On each side, like pennons wide,
Flashing crystal streamlets run.
His sails of white sea-mist
Dripped with silver rain;
But where he passed there were cast
Leaden shadows o'er the main.
Eastward from Campobello
Sir Humphrey Gilbert sailed;
Three days or more seaward he bore,
Then, alas! the land-wind failed.
Alas! the land-wind failed,
And ice-cold grew the night;
And nevermore, on sea or shore,
Should Sir Humphrey see the light.
He sat upon the deck,
The Book was in his hand;
"Do not fear! Heaven is as near,"
He said, "by water as by land!"
In the first watch of the night,
Without a signal's sound,
Out of the sea, mysteriously,
The fleet of Death rose all around.
The moon and the evening star
Were hanging in the shrouds;
Every mast, as it passed,
Seemed to rake the passing clouds.
They grappled with their prize,
At midnight black and cold!
As of a rock was the shock;
Heavily the ground-swell rolled.
Southward through day and dark,
They drift in cold embrace,
With mist and rain, o'er the open main;
Yet there seems no change of place.
Southward, forever southward,
They drift through dark and day;
And like a dream, in the Gulf-Stream
Sinking, vanish all away.
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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In A Cold Wind
In a cold wind
in a night wind,
under a yellow street-light,
its paleness and the dark night.
Leaves blown past,
down the wind, cast
onto the silent roadway,
or in heaps, on the footway.
The houses that rise
into grey skies,
windows with drawn curtains,
facing onto pale gardens.
Slow in the sky,
the clouds moving by;
on the ground, the shadows blurred,
the whistling wind heard.
And the wind that blows
comes not, nor goes.
In this night, its sound
wraps all around.
Not here alone,
its long low drone,
along endless fences and hedges,
insidiously edges.
Now is the hour,
now is the closing of the flower,
an end to approaching and retreating,
to losing and defeating,
in a cold wind,
in a night wind,
on a corner of a cold street,
where all directions meet.
poem by Rory Hudson
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Written On Sunday Morning
Go thou and seek the House of Prayer!
I to the Woodlands wend, and there
In lovely Nature see the GOD OF LOVE.
The swelling organ's peal
Wakes not my soul to zeal,
Like the wild music of the wind-swept grove.
The gorgeous altar and the mystic vest
Rouse not such ardor in my breast,
As where the noon-tide beam
Flash'd from the broken stream,
Quick vibrates on the dazzled sight;
Or where the cloud-suspended rain
Sweeps in shadows o'er the plain;
Or when reclining on the clift's huge height
I mark the billows burst in silver light.
Go thou and seek the House of Prayer!
I to the Woodlands shall repair,
Feed with all Natures charms mine eyes,
And hear all Natures melodies.
The primrose bank shall there dispense
Faint fragrance to the awaken'd sense,
The morning beams that life and joy impart
Shall with their influence warm my heart.
And the full tear that down my cheek will steal,
Shall speak the prayer of praise I feel!
Go thou and seek the House of Prayer!
I to the woodlands bend my way
And meet RELIGION there.
She needs not haunt the high-arch'd dome to pray
Where storied windows dim the doubtful day:
With LIBERTY she loves to rove.
Wide o'er the heathy hill or cowslip'd dale;
Or seek the shelter of the embowering grove,
Sweet are these scenes to her, and when the night
Pours in the north her silver streams of light,
She woos Reflexion in the silent gloom,
And ponders on the world to come.
poem by Robert Southey
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Life
Oh Life! I breathe thee in the breeze,
I feel thee bounding in my veins,
I see thee in these stretching trees,
These flowers, this still rock's mossy stains.
This stream of odours flowing by
From clover-field and clumps of pine,
This music, thrilling all the sky,
From all the morning birds, are thine.
Thou fill'st with joy this little one,
That leaps and shouts beside me here,
Where Isar's clay-white rivulets run
Through the dark woods like frighted deer.
Ah! must thy mighty breath, that wakes
Insect and bird, and flower and tree,
From the low trodden dust, and makes
Their daily gladness, pass from me--
Pass, pulse by pulse, till o'er the ground
These limbs, now strong, shall creep with pain,
And this fair world of sight and sound
Seem fading into night again?
The things, oh LIFE! thou quickenest, all
Strive upwards toward the broad bright sky,
Upward and outward, and they fall
Back to earth's bosom when they die.
All that have borne the touch of death,
All that shall live, lie mingled there,
Beneath that veil of bloom and breath,
That living zone 'twixt earth and air.
There lies my chamber dark and still,
The atoms trampled by my feet,
There wait, to take the place I fill
In the sweet air and sunshine sweet.
Well, I have had my turn, have been
Raised from the darkness of the clod,
And for a glorious moment seen
The brightness of the skirts of God;
And knew the light within my breast,
Though wavering oftentimes and dim,
The power, the will, that never rest,
And cannot die, were all from him.
Dear child! I know that thou wilt grieve
To see me taken from thy love,
Wilt seek my grave at Sabbath eve,
And weep, and scatter flowers above.
Thy little heart will soon be healed,
And being shall be bliss, till thou
To younger forms of life must yield
The place thou fill'st with beauty now.
When we descend to dust again,
Where will the final dwelling be
Of Thought and all its memories then,
My love for thee, and thine for me?
poem by William Cullen Bryant
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Jeckoyva
They made the warrior's grave beside
The dashing of his native time:
And there was mourning in the glen--
The strong wail of a thousand men--
O'er him thus fallen in his pride,
Ere mist of age - or blight or blast
Had o'er his might spirit past.
They made the warrior's grave beneath
The bending of the wild elm's wreath,
When the dark hunter's piercing eye
Had found that mountain rest on high,
Where, scattered by the sharp wind's breath,
Beneath the ragged cliff were thrown
The strong belt and the mouldering bone.
Where was the warrior's foot, when first
The red sun on the mountain burst?
Where -- when the sultry noon-time came
On the green vales with scorching flame,
And made the woodlands faint with thirst?
'Twas where the wind is keen and loud,
And the gray eagle breasts the cloud.
Where was the warrior's foot when night
Veiled in thick cloud the mountain-height?
None heard the loud and sudden crash--
None saw the fallen warrior dash
Down the bare rock so high and white!
But he that drooped not in the chase
Made on the hills his burial-place.
They found him there, when the long day
Of cold desertion passed away,
And traces on that barren cleft
Of struggling hard with death were left--
Deep marks and footprints in the clay!
And they have laid this feathery helm
By the dark river and green elm.
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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