Vanity Fair
In Vanity Fair, as we bow and smile,
As we talk of the opera after the weather,
As we chat of fashion and fad and style,
We know we are playing a part together.
You know that the mirth she wears, she borrows;
She knows you laugh but to hide your sorrows;
We know that under the silks and laces,
And back of beautiful, beaming faces,
Lie secret trouble and grim despair,
In Vanity Fair.
In Vanity Fair, on dress parade,
Our colors look bright and our swords are gleaming;
But many a uniform's worn and frayed,
And most of the weapons, despite their seeming.
Are dull and blunted and badly battered,
And close inspection will show how tattered
And stained are the banners that float above us.
Our comrades hate, while they swear to love us;
And robed like Pleasure walks gaunt-eyed Care,
In Vanity Fair.
In Vanity Fair, as we strive for place,
As we rush and jostle and crowd and hurry,
We know the goal is not worth the race-
We know the prize is not worth the worry;
That all our gain means loss for another;
That in fighting for self we wound each other;
That the crown of success weighs hard and presse
The brow of the victor with thorns-not caresses;
That honors are empty and worthless to wear,
In Vanity Fair.
But in Vanity Fair, as we pass along,
We meet strong hearts that are worth the knowing;
'Mong poor paste jewels that deck the throng,
We see a solitaire sometimes glowing.
We find grand souls under robes of fashion,
'Neath light demeanors hide strength and passion;
And fair fine honor and Godlike resistance.
In halls of pleasure may have existence;
And we find pure altars and shrines of prayer,
In Vanity Fair.
poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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The Dream Land
I
To think that men of former days
In naked truth deserved the praise
Which, fain to have in flesh and blood
An image of imagined good,
Poets have sung and men received,
And all too glad to be deceived,
Most plastic and most inexact,
Posterity has told for fact;
To say what was, was not as we,
This also is a vanity.
II
Ere Agamemnon, warriors were,
Ere Helen, beauties equalling her,
Brave ones and fair, whom no one knows,
And brave or fair as these or those.
The commonplace whom daily we
In our dull streets and houses see,
To think of other mould than these
Were Cato, Solon, Socrates,
Or Mahomet or Confutze,
This also is a vanity.
III
Hannibal, Cæsar, Charlemain,
And he before, who back on Spain
Repelled the fierce inundant Moor;
Godfrey, St. Louis, wise and pure,
Washington, Cromwell, John, and Paul,
Columbus, Luther, one and all,
Go mix them up, the false and true,
With Sindbad, Crusoe, or St. Preux,
And say as he was, so was he,
This also is a vanity.
IV
Say not: Behold it here or there,
Or on the earth, or in the air.
That better thing than can be seen
Is neither now nor e’er has been;
It is not in this land or that,
But in a place we soon are at,
Where all can seek and some can find,
Where hope is liberal, fancy kind,
And what we wish for we can see,
Which also is a vanity.
poem by Arthur Hugh Clough
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Vanity Kills
Have you heard the latest? (you love you)
Have you seen who just walked in (vain vain vain vain)
(uh huh, you love you) right over there
Shes so vain vain vain vain
Vain vain vain vain
Im glad youve found someone who loves you
But sad to say that someone is you
And now perhaps youll both be happy
Guess that makes two just you and you
Someone who cares so much about you
But does that someone have to be you
Bom bom bom bom bom bom bom bom yeah
Bom bom bom bom bom bom bom bom yeah
Vanity kills, it dont pay bills
Vanity kills, you love you
Vanity kills, it dont pay bills
Vanity kills, it kills
So glad I found you glancing in the mirror
Gazing deeply at loves patron saint
Admire the frame, survey the scenery
Or are you just inspecting the paint
Temptations strong modestys so weak
High on yourself humble you aint
Bom bom bom bom bom bom bom bom yeah
Bom bom bom bom bom bom bom bom yeah
Vanity kills, it dont pay bills
Vanity kills, you love you
Vanity kills, it dont pay bills
Vanity kills, you love you
Vanity kills, it dont pay bills (no way)
Vanity kills, you love you
Vanity kills, it dont pay bills
Vanity kills, it kills
So vain, vain vain vain
You love you (yeah)
Give it, give it us, give it us
So vain, so vain, so vain
Vanity kills, it dont pay bills
Vanity kills, you love you
Vanity kills, it dont pay bills
Vanity kills, you love you
Vanity kills, it dont pay bills
Vanity kills, you love you
Vanity kills, if the blast dont get you
Then the fallout will
You love you
song performed by by Abc
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Have pride and vanity
Service and sacrifice can be the base
For your pride and not your caste or creed.
Have pride that you have helped someone rise
And not that you have conquered someone.
Pride is that one feels about oneself high.
Show vanity for your simplicity;
Show not vanity for your affluence.
Show vanity for your affinity;
Show not vanity for your elegance.
Vanity is that one shows oneself high.
11.07.208
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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Gone Fishing.
I do not want to be involved, at your grand table of feast`s...For I will not drink blood with such shallow of beautifully dressed Beasts....I want no place where this meal be served....For I find all the vanity involved, to be absurd..
Your wills for ways in which that you think,
to me, a pathetic own worst enemy philosophy, in your sea of vanity you deserve to sink.
Governed by rules, the majority need be,
but in these laws dictated.please ffs do not include me.
All treated as equal? ...simply for ease of the rule,
is not fair to one or everyone, the clever.... or at least the fool.
poem by James Urwin
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Take Vanity Away
Oh take vanity away from me.
Make pure only my heart.
For vanity takes away from me
the most important part.
Let him that sees me, see past my form
and concentrate on my soul.
For that is of my body
is never the starring role.
What lies within the strength of my mind
is what should be possessed,
not the image I show to you,
not the way I'm dressed.
For outward appearance cannot compare
to the inner beauty inside.
Please let vanity be cast away
and take away my pride.
poem by Edwina Reizer
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Oh Vanity
Oh vanity oh vanity
You only like to read
About beauty
Little about pain
Or hateful disdain
Am I so vain
Am I so shallow
To refuse a
Dark place to go
I'll lend a hand
To those in need
I'll give my love
While looking up
Is this not positivity
Not vanity
poem by Harriet James
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Faithful In Vanity-Fair
I.
THE great human whirlpool--'t is seething and seething:
On! No time for shrieking out--scarcely for breathing:
All toiling and moiling, some feebler, some bolder,
But each sees a fiend-face grim over his shoulder:
Thus merrily live they in Vanity-fair.
The great human caldron--it boils ever higher:
Some drowning, some sinking; while some, stealing nigher
Athirst, come and lean o'er its outermost verges,
Or touch, as a child's feet touch, timorous, the surges--
One plunge--lo! more souls swamped in Vanity-fair.
Let's live while we live; for to-morrow all's over:
Drink deep, drunkard bold; and kiss close, maddened lover;
Smile, hypocrite, smile; it is no such hard labor,
While each stealthy hand stabs the heart of his neighbor--
Faugh! Fear not: we've no hearts in Vanity-fair.
The mad crowd divides and then soon closes after:
Afar towers the pyre. Through the shouting and laughter
'What new sport is this?' gasps a reveller, half turning.--
'One Faithful, meek fool, who is led to the burning,
He cumbered us sorely in Vanity-fair.
'A dreamer, who held every man for a brother;
A coward, who, smit on one cheek, gave the other;
A fool, whose blind soul took as truth all our lying,
Too simple to live, so best fitted for dying:
Sure, such are best swept out of Vanity-fair.'
II.
SILENCE! though the flames arise and quiver:
Silence! though the crowd howls on forever:
Silence! Through this fiery purgatory
God is leading up a soul to glory.
See, the white lips with no moans are trembling,
Hate of foes or plaint of friends' dissembling;
If sighs come--his patient prayers outlive them,
'Lord--these know not what they do. Forgive them!'
Thirstier still the roaring flames are glowing;
Fainter in his ear the laughter growing;
Brief will last the fierce and fiery trial,
Angel welcomes drown the earth denial.
Now the amorous death-fires, gleaming ruddy,
Clasp him close. Down drops the quivering body,
While through harmless flames ecstatic flying
Shoots the beauteous soul. This, this is dying.
Lo, the opening sky with splendor rifted,
Lo, the palm-branch for his hands uplifted:
Lo, the immortal chariot, cloud-descending,
And its legioned angels close attending.
Let his poor dust mingle with the embers
While the crowds sweep on and none remembers:
Saints unnumbered through the Infinite Glory,
Praising God, recount the martyr's story.
poem by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
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I'm wary of what goal I set, because then I'll have to accomplish it.
Reese Witherspoon in Vanity Fair (September 2004)
Submitted by Diana Frone, MTTLC
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On Anne Allen
The wind blew keenly from the Western sea,
And drove the dead leaves slanting from the tree--
Vanity of vanities, the Preacher saith--
Heaping them up before her Father's door
When I saw her whom I shall see no more--
We cannot bribe thee, Death.
She went abroad the falling leaves among,
She saw the merry season fade, and sung--
Vanity of vanities the Preacher saith--
Freely she wandered in the leafless wood,
And said that all was fresh, and fair, and good--
She knew thee not, O Death.
She bound her shining hair across her brow,
She went into the garden fading now;
Vanity of vanities the Preacher saith--
And if one sighed to think that it was sere,
She smiled to think that it would bloom next year!
She feared thee not, O Death.
Blooming she came back to the cheerful room
With all the fairer flowers yet in bloom--
Vanity of vanities the Preacher saith--
A fragrant knot for each of us she tied,
And placed the fairest at her Father's side--
She cannot charm thee, Death.
Her pleasant smile spread sunshine upon all;
We heard her sweet clear laughter in the Hall--
Vanity of vanities the Preacher saith--
We heard her sometimes after evening prayer,
As she went singing softly up the stair--
No voice can charm thee, Death.
Where is the pleasant smile, the laughter kind,
That made sweet music of the winter wind?
Vanity of vanities the Preacher saith--
Idly they gaze upon her empty place,
Her kiss hath faded from her Father's face--
She is with thee, O Death.
poem by Edward Fitzgerald
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I like work. If it's not hard enough, I try to make it harder. I like the process of being daunted by it, tackling it, and knowing I can do it.
Reese Witherspoon in Vanity Fair
Submitted by Diana Frone, MTTLC
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The Night Will Soon Be Lost
THE NIGHT WILL SOON BE LOST
The night will soon be lost
Another night of so many already gone
Who knows how many left?
I have seen far more nights
Than I will ever see again
Mostly it’s done
I have some nights left
But not so many
That I should waste it wholly
On frivolity
I’ll try now
To write a poem down
So this night
Will not have been wholly in vain
But who knows
Vanity of vanity of vanity
Perhaps for all nights and all poems- vanity
I am writing this poem down nonetheless
It flows as if it knows it has real life within it
I don’t know now how long this night will last
Or how many nights I have left
I have written a poem
Will G-d save it as if it were not vanity to vanity?
I do not know.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children
William Makepeace Thackeray in Vanity Fair
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Complaints Return Upon Themselves
THE COMPLAINTS RETURN UPON THEMSELVES
The complaints return upon themselves
There is only old age under the sun.
Vanity of vanity of vanities
I am the greatest vanity of all.
Even the morning light
That usually wakes my soul
Cannot break the dim foreboding
Of Hell on the horizon.
I will die
I will go down
I know.
But my People
This Land
Will You Save us?
poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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If I Could Only Bear My Own Silence
IF I COULD ONLY BEAR MY OWN SILENCE
If I could only bear my own silence
If I could only be quiet and still
If I could only let the world say itself
Without my commentary,
If I could only be wise enough
To know all my words
‘Vanity of vanity of vanity.
’
Oh again and again and again
As now
I must say that I am -
But in this world of billions now
And billions more before
And billions more after
Why me?
Why my name?
‘Vanity of vanities’
All aloud again.
poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Now, being on the cover of Vanity Fair is as important as being in great movies. The lines are very, very blurred.
quote by Jason Patric
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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They said this is Vanity Fair, and I said, Oh, I already take the magazine. They said Annie Leibovitz wants to take your picture and I thought, How nice!
quote by Shirley Knight
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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What Will I Do Today And What Will I Do Tomorrow?
What will I do today and what will I do tomorrow
And what will I do for the rest of my life?
Write and write and write
Until I can no longer write –
And even if this writing is never known?
And even if this writing is wholly lost?
And even if this writing is not really worth very much?
And even if it is known only a little?
And even if others are highly critical of it?
And even if it seems vanity of vanity and only vanity?
Write and write and write
To the end of my life.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Fool for Fools' go[l]d ploughs
the field of vanity fair
to cruel mirage hous
haiku by Jonathan Robin (19 June 2004)
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The happy story right now is the full page in Vanity Fair, which gives me a great deal of exposure.
quote by Jackie DeShannon
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Not Fair
Its not fair how people get treated
whether its race, religion, looks, style
they still get treated unequal
people are the same its not fair
put downs, hate crimes, etc.
its not fair people are people
well at least you would think
a single person feels the pain on others
so why do people do it?
its not fair
nothings fair
LIFE'S NOT FAIR
poem by Jessica Licklider
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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