A Thousand Years
Just to utter a word,
That is all I desire;
That may still be heard,
When I expire;
That still may glow,
Like a soft, sweet flame,
When others go,
As they lightly came;
That may still be sung
With hopes and fears,
By a careless tongue
In a thousand years.
poem by Gamaliel Bradford
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The Careless Word
A WORD is ringing thro' my brain,
It was not meant to give me pain;
It had no tone to bid it stay,
When other things had past away;
It had no meaning more than all
Which in an idle hour fall:
It was when first the sound I heard
A lightly uttered, careless word.
That word--oh! it doth haunt me now,
In scenes of joy, in scenes of woe;
By night, by day, in sun or shade,
With the half smile that gently played
Reproachfully, and gave the sound
Eternal power thro' life to wound.
There is no voice I ever heard,
So deeply fix'd as that one word.
When in the laughing crowd some tone,
Like those whose joyous sound is gone,
Strikes on my ear, I shrink--for then
The careless word comes back again.
When all alone I sit and gaze
Upon the cheerful home-fire blaze,
Lo! freshly as when first 'twas heard,
Returns that lightly uttered word.
When dreams bring back the days of old;
With all that wishes could not hold;
And from my feverish couch I start
To press a shadow to my heart--
Amid its beating echoes, clear
That little word I seem to hear:
In vain I say, while it is heard,
Why weep?--'twas but a foolish word.
It comes--and with it come the tears,
The hopes, the joys of former years;
Forgotten smiles, forgotten looks,
Thick as dead leaves on autumn brooks,
And all as joyless, though they were
The brightest things life's spring could share.
Oh! would to God I ne'er had heard
That lightly uttered, careless word!
It was the first, the only one
Of those which lips for ever gone
Breathed in their love--which had for me
Rebuke of harshness at my glee:
And if those lips were here to say,
'Beloved, let it pass away,'
Ah! then, perchance--but I have heard
The last dear tone--the careless word!
Oh! ye who, meeting, sigh to part,
Whose words are treasures to some heart,
Deal gently, ere the dark days come,
When earth hath but for one a home;
Lest, musing o'er the past, like me,
They feel their hearts wrung bitterly,
And, heeding not what else they heard,
Dwell weeping on a careless word.
poem by Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton
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The Language Of The Suprreme God
The Supreme God has no freedom
to taste the hymns and idylls
of the classical, lively Tamil.
The people’s tongue is denied the right
to be sung in the abodes of the Lord.
India has got freedom but its tongues not!
When I prayed to God to teach me some words
of the tongue He heard for a thousand years,
“ Sorry, I have been deaf all these years
to what these priests blabbered about! ”
He said and hid in his abode.
poem by Rajendran Muthiah
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Larkspur
Words roll free from a tongue sometime
From a sometime, tongue-tied tongue,
Words that were heard by the stream and the bird
When the world and the wild were young,
When the world and the wild were young, sometime…
(Larkspur, marigold, ebony, lime) .
Sounds that were born in sweet young breath
In a bubble-sighed, trouble-tried time,
Sounds that were found by a child at the breast
In a bubble-tried pantomime,
In a bubble-tried pantomime, no less…
(Nightshade, cinnamon, green watercress) .
Love is the sound of a word, soft-said
From the lips of the love you too,
Love is the dove of the bubble-thought read
Soft sift from the me to you,
Soft sift from the me to you, soft said…
(Homespun, empathy, marmalade, bread) .
poem by David Lewis Paget (16 December 1973)
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The Abbot Of Innisfallen
The Abbot of Innisfallen
awoke ere dawn of day;
Under the dewy green leaves
went he forth to pray.
The lake around his island
lay smooth and dark and deep,
And wrapt in a misty stillness
the mountains were all asleep.
Low kneel'd the Abbot Cormac
when the dawn was dim and gray;
The prayers of his holy office
he faithfully 'gan say.
Low kneel'd the Abbot Cormac
while the dawn was waxing red;
And for his sins' forgiveness
a solemn prayer he said:
Low kneel'd that holy Abbot
while the dawn was waxing clear;
And he pray'd with loving-kindness
for his convent-brethren dear.
Low kneel'd that blessed Abbot
while the dawn was waxing bright;
He pray'd a great prayer for Ireland,
he pray'd with all his might.
Low kneel'd that good old Father
while the sun began to dart;
He pray'd a prayer for all men,
he pray'd it from his heart.
His blissful soul was in Heaven,
tho' a breathing man was he;
He was out of time's dominion,
so far as the living may be.
The Abbot of Innisfallen
arose upon his feet;
He heard a small bird singing,
and O but it sung sweet!
It sung upon a holly-bush,
this little snow-white bird;
A song so full of gladness
he never before had heard.
It sung upon a hazel,
it sung upon a thorn;
He had never heard such music
since the hour that he was born.
It sung upon a sycamore,
it sung upon a briar;
To follow the song and hearken
this Abbot could never tire.
Till at last he well bethought him;
he might no longer stay;
So he bless'd the little white singing-bird,
and gladly went his way.
But, when he came to his Abbey,
he found a wondrous change;
He saw no friendly faces there,
for every face was strange.
The strange men spoke unto him;
and he heard from all and each
The foreign tongue of the Sassenach,
not wholesome Irish speech.
Then the oldest monk came forward,
in Irish tongue spake he:
'Thou wearest the holy Augustine's dress,
and who hath given it to thee?'
'I wear the Augustine's dress,
and Cormac is my name,
The Abbot of this good Abbey
by grace of God I am.
I went forth to pray, at the dawn of day;
and when my prayers were said,
I hearken'd awhile to a little bird,
that sung above my head.'
The monks to him made answer,
'Two hundred years have gone o'er,
Since our Abbot Cormac went through the gate,
and never was heard of more.
Matthias now is our Abbot,
and twenty have pass'd away.
The stranger is lord of Ireland;
we live in an evil day.'
'Days will come and go,' he said,
'and the world will pass away,
In Heaven a day is a thousand years,
a thousand years are a day.'
'Now give me absolution;
for my time is come,' said he.
And they gave him absolution,
as speedily as might be.
Then, close outside the window,
the sweetest song they heard
That ever yet since the world began
was utter'd by any bird.
The monks look'd out and saw the bird,
its feathers all white and clean;
And there in a moment, beside it,
another white bird was seen.
Those two they sang together,
waved their white wings, and fled;
Flew aloft, and vanish'd;
but the good old man was dead.
They buried his blessed body
where lake and green-sward meet;
A carven cross above his head,
a holly-bush at his feet;
Where spreads the beautiful water
to gay or cloudy skies,
And the purple peaks of Killarney
from ancient woods arise.
poem by William Allingham
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Yesterday When I Was Young
(charles aznavour / herbert kretzmer)
Spoken : somehow, it seems the love I knew was always the most destructive kind
Yesterday when I was young
The taste of life was sweet
As rain upon my tongue
I teased at life as if it were a foolish game
The way the evening breeze
May tease the candle flame
The thousand dreams I dreamed
The splendid things I planned
I always built to last on weak and shifting sand
I lived by night and shunned the naked light of day
And only now I see how the time ran away
Yesterday when I was young
So many lovely songs were waiting to be sung
So many wild pleasures lay in store for me
And so much pain my eyes refused to see
I ran so fast that time and youth at last ran out
I never stopped to think what life was all about
And every conversation that I can now recall
Concerned itself with me and nothing else at all
The game of love I played with arrogance and pride
And every flame I lit too quickly, quickly died
The friends I made all somehow seemed to slip away
And only now Im left alone to end the play, yeah
Oh, yesterday when I was young
So many, many songs were waiting to be sung
So many wild pleasures lay in store for me
And so much pain my eyes refused to see
There are so many songs in me that wont be sung
I feel the bitter taste of tears upon my tongue
The time has come for me to pay for yesterday
When I was young
song performed by by Dusty Springfield
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Dawn Is A Feeling
Dawn is a feeling,
A beautiful ceiling.
The smell of grass
Just makes you pass
Into a dream.
You're here today,
No future fears,
This day will last
A thousand years
If you want it to.
You look around you,
Things they astound you
So breathe in deep,
You're not asleep,
Open your mind.
You're here today,
No future fears,
This day will last
A thousand years
If you want it to.
Do you understand
That all over this land
There's a feeling?
In minds far and near
Things are becoming clear
With a meaning.
Now that you're knowing
Pleasure starts flowing.
It's true life flies
Faster than eyes
Could ever see.
You're here today.
No future fears.
This day will last
A thousand years
If you want it to.
song performed by by Moody Blues
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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No One Heard
A song was sung that no one heard.
The song was sung all through the town.
It played for days - from dust until dawn.
It greeted on the morning and midnight yawn.
A song was sung that no one heard.
The melody was sweet and words were strong.
The instruments were the piano and the gong.
No one heard, no they did not,
For to hear, you needed the purest heart.
The song was played in the land on man;
A song was sung that no one heard.
Copyright © 2010 Leslie Alexis
poem by Leslie Alexis
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To The Countess Of Blessington
You have ask'd for a verse:--the request
In a rhymer 'twere strange to deny;
But my Hippocrene was but my breast,
And my feelings (its fountain) are dry.
Were I now as I was, I had sung
What Lawrence has painted so well;
But the strain would expire on my tongue,
And the theme is too soft for my shell.
I am ashes where once I was fire,
And the bard in my bosom is dead;
What I loved I now merely admire,
And my heart is as grey as my head.
My life is not dated by years--
There are moments which act as plough;
And there is not a furrow appears
But is deep in my soul as my brow.
Let the young and the brilliant aspire
To sing what I gaze on in vain;
For sorrow has torn from my lyre
The string which was worthy the strain.
Forever
I HAD not known before
Forever was so long a word.
The slow stroke of the clock of time
I had not heard.
'Tis hard to learn so late;
It seems no sad heart really learns,
But hopes and trusts and doubts and fears,
And bleeds and burns.
The night is not all dark,
Nor is the day all it seems,
But each may bring me this relief —
My dreams and dreams.
I had not known before
That Never was so sad a word,
So wrap me in forgetfulness —
I have not heard.
poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
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The Ah Goo Tongue
The queerest languages known to man,
Sanscrit, Hebrew, Hindoostan,
Are all translated and made as free
And comprehensive as A B C.
Yet the oldest language talked or sung,
The strange mysterious Ah Goo tongue,
The royal language of Babyland
No man living can understand.
Every soul in the world to-day
Was one time anchored in Babyland Bay,
And quarantined there for a year or more
Before he even could step on shore.
And everybody in Babyland Bay
Talks the Ah Goo tongue, so people say,
But once on land-why not a word
Do they understand of it when 'tis heard.
For the fairy rulers of Babyland
Who guard the kingdom on every hand,
Have willed that no one shall keep the key
Who crosses into the Grown-up Sea.
So the sweet court language has never been made
A common parlance of strife or trade,
But is kept in the kingdom where natives come
Versed in the language of Babydom.
They are all of them royal and that is how
The Grown-up people all kneel and bow,
When they hear that language talked or sung-
The strange mysterious Ah Goo tongue.
poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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Dawn: Dawn Is A Feeling
Dawn is a feeling
A beautiful ceiling
The smell of grass
Just makes you pass
Into a dream
Youre here today
No future fears
This day will last
A thousand years
If you want it to
You look around you
Things they astound you
So breathe in deep
Youre not asleep
Open your mind
Youre here today
No future fears
This day will last
A thousand years
If you want it to
Do you understand
That all over this land
Theres a feeling
In minds far and near
Things are becoming clear
With a meaning
Now that youre knowing
Pleasure starts flowing
Its true life flies
Faster than eyes
Could ever see
Youre here today
No future fears
This day will last
A thousand years
If you want it to
song performed by by Moody Blues
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Seven Days
She was so young and so afraid
Of a world she could not understand
For seven days I held her close
Like a child in the palm of my hand
There were
Seven tears
To wipe away
Seven fears
To keep at bay
Seven words
For me to say
In seven days
The strands of wisdom twist and curl
Soft flame in the warmth of my heart
Oh essential words that lightly fall
Like snow thru the mist of her thought
The gentle rain of innocence
That flows from her ebony eyes
Another secret moment shared
To be part of the rest of our lives
There were
Seven dreams
To live for real
Seven streams
Of hope revealed
Seven ways
Of love to feel
In seven days
We are the only ones who know
Her smile was poetry
Her soul she showed it to me
The dawning of the seventh day
Saw her shine like the radiant skies
I knew that she would leave me then
Bright hope in her ebony eyes
(and now) I watch her dance before the world
Soft flame in the movements she makes
And all those secret moments shared
Stay warm in my thoughts everyday
Remembering
Seven tears
Wiped away
Seven fears
Kept at bay
Seven words
You heard me say
Seven dreams
To live and play
Seven streams
Of hope revealed
Seven waves
Of love we feel
Seven days
Memory of seven days
song performed by by Level 42
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Fairy Song
The moonlight fades from flower and rose
And the stars dim one by one;
The tale is told, the song is sung,
And the Fairy feast is done.
The night-wind rocks the sleeping flowers,
And sings to them, soft and low.
The early birds erelong will wake:
'T is time for the Elves to go.
O'er the sleeping earth we silently pass,
Unseen by mortal eye,
And send sweet dreams, as we lightly float
Through the quiet moonlit sky;--
For the stars' soft eyes alone may see,
And the flowers alone may know,
The feasts we hold, the tales we tell;
So't is time for the Elves to go.
From bird, and blossom, and bee,
We learn the lessons they teach;
And seek, by kindly deeds, to win
A loving friend in each.
And though unseen on earth we dwell,
Sweet voices whisper low,
And gentle hearts most joyously greet
The Elves where'er they go.
When next we meet in the Fairy dell,
May the silver moon's soft light
Shine then on faces gay as now,
And Elfin hearts as light.
Now spread each wing, for the eastern sky
With sunlight soon shall glow.
The morning star shall light us home:
Farewell! for the Elves must go.
poem by Louisa May Alcott
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One
One thousand voices
But not one heard
One thousand thoughts
But not one word
One thousand troubles
But no one will know it
Unless I decide to
Finally show it
One thousand cuts
Run down my arm
A tribute to my
Life of self-harm
One thousand scars
That will not heal
One thousand people
Who will not feel
One thousand but no more
I finally decide
There will be one less person
And one more suicide
poem by Anonymous Ghurl
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Touch the Sleeping Strings Again
Say not, O say not, we are strangers,
By freak chance together brought;
Remind me not of lurking dangers
In wreaths of friendship quickly wrought.
Some sweet attraction draws me to you;
From Memory's harp strange murmurs flow;
And something makes me think I knew you
Beyond the sea of Long Ago.
Touch the sleeping strings and
tell me, tell me whether,
Thence comes music sweet and low:
Did not we walk some shore together
Beyond the sea of Long Ago?
Your eyes, in bashful glances falling,
Light up a landscape far away;
Your voice-- to hear it is recalling
A sweet but long forgotten lay.
When all the year was pleasant weather,
And none had heard of pain or woe,
Did not we sing this tune together
Beyond the sea of Long Ago?
Think not, although I speak so boldly,
That idle words are on my tongue;
Receive my greeting not so coldly,
Nor hush the harp that would have sung;
For lightly touched, as by a feather,
The sleeping strings will thrill, I know:
Were not our spririts linked together
Beyond the sea of Long Ago?
poem by Henry Clay Work
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Eight Years Old
SUN, whom the faltering snow-cloud fears,
Rise, let the time of year be May,
Speak now the word that April hears,
Let March have all his royal way;
Bid all spring raise in winter’s ears
All tunes her children hear or play,
Because the crown of eight glad years
On one bright head is set to-day.
II.
What matters cloud or sun to-day
To him who wears the wreath of years
So many, and all like flowers at play
With wind and sunshine, while his ears
Hear only song on every way?
More sweet than spring triumphant hears
Ring through the revel-rout of May
Are these, the notes that winter fears.
III.
Strong-hearted winter knows and fears
The music made of love at play,
Or haply loves the tune he hears
From hearts fulfilled with flowering May,
Whose molten music thaws his ears
Late frozen, deaf but yesterday
To sounds of dying and dawning years,
Now quickened on his deathward way.
IV.
For deathward now lies winter’s way
Down the green vestibule of years
That each year brightens day by day
With flower and shower till hope scarce fears
And fear grows wholly hope of May.
But we—the music in our ears
Made of love’s pulses as they play
The heart alone that makes it hears.
V.
The heart it is that plays and hears
High salutation of to-day.
Tongue falters, hand shrinks back, song fears
Its own unworthiness to play
Fit music for those eight sweet years,
Or sing their blithe accomplished way.
No song quite worth a young child’s ears
Broke ever even from birds in May.
VI.
There beats not in the heart of May,
When summer hopes and springtide fears,
There falls not from the height of day,
When sunlight speaks and silence hears,
So sweet a psalm as children play
And sing, each hour of all their years,
Each moment of their lovely way,
And know not how it thrills our ears.
VII.
Ah child, what are we, that our ears
Should hear you singing on your way,
Should have this happiness? The years
Whose hurrying wings about us play
Are not like yours, whose flower-time fears
Nought worse than sunlit showers in May,
Being sinless as the spring, that hears
Her own heart praise her every day.
VIII.
Yet we too triumph in the day
That bare, to entrance our eyes and ears,
To lighten daylight, and to play
Such notes as darkness knows and fears,
The child whose face illumes our way,
Whose voice lifts up the heart that hears,
Whose hand is as the hand of May
To bring us flowers from eight full years.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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Among the Pines
Here let us linger at will and delightsomely hearken
Music aeolian of wind in the boughs of pine,
Timbrel of falling waters, sounds all soft and sonorous,
Worshipful litanies sung at a bannered shrine.
Deep let us breathe the ripeness and savor of balsam,
Tears that the pines have wept in sorrow sweet,
With its aroma comes beguilement of things forgotten,
Long-past hopes of the years on tip-toeing feet.
Far in the boskiest glen of this wood is a dream and a silence
Come, we shall claim them ours ere look we long;
A dream that we dreamed and lost, a silence richly hearted,
Deep at its lyric core with the soul of a song.
If there be storm, it will thunder a march in the branches,
So that our feet may keep true time as we go;
If there be rain, it will laugh, it will glisten, and beckon,
Calling to us as a friend all lightly and low.
If it be night, the moonlight will wander winsomely with us,
If it be hour of dawn, all heaven will bloom,
If it be sunset, it's glow will enfold and pursue us.
To the remotest valley of purple gloom.
Lo! the pine wood is a temple where the days meet to worship,
Laying their cark and care for the nonce aside,
God, who made it, keeps it as a witness to Him forever,
Walking in it, as a garden, at eventide.
poem by Lucy Maud Montgomery
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Hopes just lie there and die there
Hopes lie there and just die there
Hopes just lie there and die there...
...Hearts don’t let me, down courage don’t desert me...
Now that I know my mind, my eyes do clearly see,
That the world is covered with so many fakes.
......Promises made but was made to bluntly forsake.
Religion twisted to meet every ones brutal needs,
Preachers, teachers with distorted versions do feed.
The sweet fragrance all exhausted by careless hands,
With war of words exchanged from land to land,
The tongue let loose and the white soldiers stall,
Sees the end of peace and happiness as it falls
Dims a vision of hopes, that may never surface
Shattering, tattering the trembling earthly face.
Alas a dream of a wonderful life, sees a sad end
Concern to many heartaches.. none did ever lend.
A child is born with peace that ceases, to surely be
Love that runs away, sweet dreams that no longer be.
poem by Shirani Ibrahim
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Birds in May
As (woo'd by May's delights) I have been borne
To take the kind air of a wistful morn
Near Tavy's voiceful stream (to whom I owe
More strains than from my pipe can ever flow),
Here have I heard a sweet bird never lin
To chide the river for his clam'rous din;
There seem'd another in his song to tell,
That what the fair stream did he liked well
And going further heard another too,
All varying still in what the others do
A little thence, a fourth with little pain
Conn'd all their lessons, and them sung again;
So numberless the songsters are that sing
In the sweet groves of the too-careless spring,
That I no sooner could the hearing lose
Of one of them, but straight another rose
And perching deftly on a quaking spray,
Nigh tir'd herself to make her hearer stay.
. . . . .
Shrill as a thrush upon a morn of May.
poem by William Browne
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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I
I thought once how Theocritus had sung
Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,
Who each one in a gracious hand appears
To bear a gift for mortals, old or young:
And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,
I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,
The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,
Those of my own life, who by turns had flung
A shadow across me. Straightway I was 'ware,
So weeping, how a mystic Shape did move
Behind me, and drew me backward by the hair:
And a voice said in mastery, while I strove,--
'Guess now who holds thee ? '--' Death,' I said. But, there,
The silver answer rang,--' Not Death, but Love.'
poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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