Ad Astra
Weary was I of Earth. My body lay,
Its fires turned down and slaked to faintest heat.
My soul went out into the night away
Where wing hath never beat.
The green earth like a marble ’neath me spun;
The shoreless ether and the island-stars
Rose up before, and sun and mightier sun
Flamed on their chariot bars,
Cleaving the blue abysmal without sound,
Pressed on my soul I felt the awful seals
Of that vast Cosmos without depth or bound,
Blazing with golden wheels.
I marked Orion’s armour glitter cold,
Where o’er dark bars the milk-white river runs;
I marked great Sirius flood the heavens with gold,
The sovran of the suns.
All stars grew dim, all suns turned sullen red,
Waned, and went out in that victorious light—
Heaven’s mightiest star swung on a viewless thread
His mightiest satellite.
And like some storm-tossed pilgrim of the sea,
Who sights the loom of unknown shores afar,
I felt the challenge and the mystery
Of that majestic star.
The giant planet in the golden stream
Turned all her massy bulk against the glow,
I watched her storm-blue mountain-turrets gleam
Crowned with unconquered snow;
And all her table-lands and wooded leas,
And emerald plains through which clear rivers run,
And all the foam crests of her plunging seas
That shout unto the sun;
And all her marble cities and her towers
That climb the hill or shine through deepmost brakes,
And all her velvet valleys, rich with flowers,
And all her silver lakes;
And, lastly, with a strange new majesty,
The face of man did pass before me there,
King of the Earth, and Victor of the Sea,
And Lord of all the Air;
Whose fleets have lit the caverns of the deep,
Whose wings have breasted all the winds that blow,
And flashed his signal from his airy keep
To worlds above, below.
On the faint limit of the air to north,
On utmost marge of that gigantic girth,
The grey-haired Warden of the sky looked forth
And called: “What news of earth?”
“Ah, woe is me!” I said, “that I should bring
To this fair orb the shadow of my pain;
The earth is full of toil and suffering,
And the fierce lust of gain.
“The earth is full of travail and unrest,
And hearts grown old and weary ere their time,
And shameful yokes upon men’s necks are prest
That some may ride sublime.
“They love the foot that spurns them. Let them be
Slaves to a conquering name or flattering breath.
Heroes have sought to teach them to be free,
And their reward was death.
“The salt of earth—the blood that loved them best,
Out of the ground it cries that all may hear,
From the dark cross on sullen Calvary’s crest
To Bruno’s flaming bier.
“They gave to Socrates the poisoned bowl,
They closed Hypatia’s noble eyes with fire,
They drove proud Dante forth, an exiled soul,
Reft of his heart’s desire;
“The Spaniard laid an Empire at their feet
And died despised. In chains Italia’s sage,
Great Galileo, at their judgment seat
Knelt in his hoary age.
“The cell, the cross, the gibbet, and the chain—
Thus have ye crowned, O World, your mighty sons!
The Earth is drunken with the blood and pain
Of all her noblest ones.”
Then answered he, and o’er his face there shone
A sudden rapture, as the lightning breath
Of some strong thought that quickens and is gone,
Yet bids us smile on death.
“By what strange guidance of the Central Powers
Thy soul draws near I know not, but I know
All that has crowned with joy this world of ours
Was won through bitter woe.
“Out of the hearts’ blood of the hero few,
Out of the lonely strength that scorned to flee,
Out of the sorrow of the souls that knew,
We made the world you see.
“We, too, have swung the mighty orbit round,
Chained by the toils that hold ye bound to-day,
When all men’s eyes were fixed upon the ground,
And no man saw the way.
“Yet was the germ within us, and the power
Of that great Unseen Truth to which we draw,
That from the seed may come the perfect flower
To crown the perfect law.
“The white suns sail the waveless seas of Space,
Where once their bulk was but a starry flow,
Down the long curves each System keeps its place
Around some mightier glow.
“From less to greater, through the scale of change,
All things ascend in their appointed time.
Who shall adjudge to Man the utmost range
His thoughts may climb!”
poem by George Essex Evans
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Sword Of Pain
The Lights burn dim and make weird shadow-play,
The white walls of the ward are changed to grey,
Down the long aisle of beds, with tender grace,
Sleep smoothes the lines on many a weary face;
Yet there are those for whom no midnight brings
Solace and strength to face the day again,
And, over all, with wide majestic wings,
There broods the awful mystery of Pain.
Night wears apace, and now the silence breaks
As here and there some fitful slumberer wakes;
And Pain triumphant—Pain with burning grip—
Wrings grudging tribute from the tortured lip:
A strong man’s groan, a boy’s short sobbing cry,
Pierces the stillness with a sudden breath,
Or the low moan of long-drawn agony,
Asking not respite but the boon of Death.
Here, in the halls of suffering, eye to eye,
Men measure Death, and mark if he pass by;
Here, in the halls of suffering, swings the strife
Wherein man’s skill and Death contest for life;
Here woman moves in tenderest ministeries,
With gracious hands that calm the throbbing brain:
Skill and compassion facing fell disease,
And mercy watching by the bed of pain.
Ah! Night and day, in armour like the snow,
Patient and brave, the grey-robed nurses go,
With light swift steps, low voices, cheery smiles,
From bed to bed, adown those dolorous aisles—
Angels of Succour, girt with snowy mail,
As warriors donned of old their armour bright:
Serene, when danger bids the bravest quail,
Against the batteries of Death they fight.
Here, in the restless night, upon my bed,
Whilst bands of steel seem tight’ning round my head,
Strong tides are rushing through my heart and brain
The Goal of Life? The Mystery of Pain?
Now on the rising wind that roars without
Murmurs and discord mingle till it seems
The Voice of the World’s Wounded, and about
Me seem to be the dreams that are not dreams.
“Wherefore, Great Architect, whose power august
Buildeth the universe of very dust,
And that imperial Palace of the Mind
More stately than the stars; who dost not bind
Thought that can conquer Nature, and above
The power of Mind hast set the power of Love—
O Thou, who weavest through this web of strife
Strands of great agony and bloody rue—
Must we still search this labyrinth of Life
To perish groping blindly for the clue?”
Even as I cried the grey walls fell away,
The long ward vanished in the glare of day,
The broad world spread before me, and I saw
Thousands lie stretched in the red swathes of War,
In rigid wreck, like fields of storm-crushed corn—
Grey faces twisted to a horrid smile,
And limbs and piteous bodies wrenched and torn,
Mangled unspeakably, strewn pile on pile.
I turned to Peace amid her olive trees:
Great cities rose before me, villages,
The spacious mansion and the lonely cot—
There was no door that Pain had entered not.
I heard like sobbings of an unseen tide
Its keen fire run through all things, and I said:
“Peace masks a secret war on every side.
There is no rest from travail: God is dead.”
No more the solid earth my footsteps prest;
The wide sky caught me upward to its breast.
The living ether seemed a quick’ning sea,
Where thrilled unseen the germs of worlds to be.
At times I seemed to move upon the verge
Of some vast viewless current streaming far,
And my brain quivered, as, with mighty surge,
Strange thought-waves swept the gulfs from star to star.
In ordered majesty each System runs,
With mighty planets circling sovran suns,
And strange pale moons like ghosts that haunt the scene
Of their once living glory; and serene,
Slow dying stars, dreaming of days forgot,
Of silent worlds and ancient memories—
White mountain-crest, dense forest, secret grot,
Wide plains, wild shores, the crash of plunging seas.
Like a blown leaf, caught by the vagrant air
That still ascends, I mounted: Everywhere
Dead suns and satellites—a lightless train
In darkness rushing to be born again—
Hurled through the void, or, by fierce shock redeemed,
Blazed back to life, and flushed with splendour bright
Thronged spaces and dark rolling orbs that seemed
Millions of black motes in a sea of light.
There is a river whose imperial flow
Circles the mid-most heaven with broad’ning glow;
Its fiery waves are rays of suns supreme,
Crimson and gold its changing currents gleam,
And blue and purest white, and in its tide
Move worlds unnumbered and the starry dust
That builds new suns and powers that shall abide
To rule new regions with a sway august.
Within the airy isle its waters fold
Seven mighty suns circle in quiv’ring gold;
And, over all, uplift above the gire,
Shaped like a cross, a Sword of Living Fire!
Emerald and amber, opal, white and blue
Swift lights, keen tremors flash from point to hilt;
And now blood-red it throbs, as though it knew
The whole world’s agony, the whole world’s guilt.
It is The Cross, sublime, uplifted high;
Great flames break from it, floating down the sky;
As though the blood of Him who, undismayed,
Suffered our sins, dript from its burning blade—
As though the blood of all earth’s noblest ones,
Dreamers and heroes, fell in fiery rain
To temper worlds new-born, and mightier suns—
The Sword of Victory! The Sword of Pain!
Trembling, I spake before that awful sword:
“Where is the golden city of the Lord,
With gates of pearl, and on its crystal sea
Peace and the solace of Eternity?”
Then, like a flash, I knew the air around
Was living ether, and I felt the gaze
Of myriad eyes unseen, and heard the sound
As of vast music known in far-off days.
There fell a star across the ’brow of Night,
And a voice answered, echoing from the height:
“The gods ye fashion perish one by one,
The Living God endures when all are gone.
Fool, canst thou know Th’ Eternal in a day?
Can mortal judge The Immortal face to face,
Who of the star-dust buildeth as He may,
And takes for throne the regions of all Space?”
Eternal Spirit, immanent, apart,
Thou, in the living temple of the Heart,
Lightest thine altar-fires that souls may reign
O’er worlds not yet create, and makest pain
The discipline of Life, the seal of worth,
The test of courage, and the burning star
That leads through vales of darkness to re-birth,
To loftier life and victory afar!
Ah! Not in golden city nor crystal sea,
But in wide circles of Infinity,
Our work is set; and not from harps of gold,
But hearts of men, deep harmonies are rolled!
Vast powers stir around us, and our course may be
By other paths than those our fathers trod;
And Science, with her torch, unconsciously,
Through strange new realms may lead men back to God.
He knows not Life who hath not felt the breath
Nor gazed once in the mocking eyes of Death.
The purest springs, the waters without stain,
Well upward from the burning heart of Pain.
Behold I saw in purest air afar
A great light dawn and widen and increase,
With white flame crested like a perfect star,
Above the Sword of Pain—the Crown of Peace!
poem by George Essex Evans
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A Baby's Death
A little soul scarce fledged for earth
Takes wing with heaven again for goal
Even while we hailed as fresh from birth
A little soul.
Our thoughts ring sad as bells that toll,
Not knowing beyond this blind world's girth
What things are writ in heaven's full scroll.
Our fruitfulness is there but dearth,
And all things held in time's control
Seem there, perchance, ill dreams, not worth
A little soul.
The little feet that never trod
Earth, never strayed in field or street,
What hand leads upward back to God
The little feet?
A rose in June's most honied heat,
When life makes keen the kindling sod,
Was not so soft and warm and sweet.
Their pilgrimage's period
A few swift moons have seen complete
Since mother's hands first clasped and shod
The little feet.
The little hands that never sought
Earth's prizes, worthless all as sands,
What gift has death, God's servant, brought
The little hands?
We ask: but love's self silent stands,
Love, that lends eyes and wings to thought
To search where death's dim heaven expands.
Ere this, perchance, though love know nought,
Flowers fill them, grown in lovelier lands,
Where hands of guiding angels caught
The little hands.
The little eyes that never knew
Light other than of dawning skies,
What new life now lights up anew
The little eyes?
Who knows but on their sleep may rise
Such light as never heaven let through
To lighten earth from Paradise?
No storm, we know, may change the blue
Soft heaven that haply death descries
No tears, like these in ours, bedew
The little eyes.
Was life so strange, so sad the sky,
So strait the wide world's range,
He would not stay to wonder why
Was life so strange?
Was earth's fair house a joyless grange
Beside that house on high
Whence Time that bore him failed to estrange?
That here at once his soul put by
All gifts of time and change,
And left us heavier hearts to sigh
'Was life so strange?'
Angel by name love called him, seeing so fair
The sweet small frame;
Meet to be called, if ever man's child were,
Angel by name.
Rose-bright and warm from heaven's own heart he came,
And might not bear
The cloud that covers earth's wan face with shame.
His little light of life was all too rare
And soft a flame:
Heaven yearned for him till angels hailed him there
Angel by name.
The song that smiled upon his birthday here
Weeps on the grave that holds him undefiled
Whose loss makes bitterer than a soundless tear
The song that smiled.
His name crowned once the mightiest ever styled
Sovereign of arts, and angel: fate and fear
Knew then their master, and were reconciled.
But we saw born beneath some tenderer sphere
Michael, an angel and a little child,
Whose loss bows down to weep upon his bier
The song that smiled.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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The Death Of Richard Wagner
Mourning on earth, as when dark hours descend,
Wide-winged with plagues, from heaven; when hope and mirth
Wane, and no lips rebuke or reprehend
Mourning on earth.
The soul wherein her songs of death and birth,
Darkness and light, were wont to sound and blend,
Now silent, leaves the whole world less in worth.
Winds that make moan and triumph, skies that bend,
Thunders, and sound of tides in gulf and firth,
Spake through his spirit of speech, whose death should send
Mourning on earth.
The world's great heart, whence all things strange and rare
Take form and sound, that each inseparate part
May bear its burden in all tuned thoughts that share
The world's great heart -
The fountain forces, whence like steeds that start
Leap forth the powers of earth and fire and air,
Seas that revolve and rivers that depart -
Spake, and were turned to song: yea, all they were,
With all their works, found in his mastering art
Speech as of powers whose uttered word laid bare
The world's great heart.
From the depths of the sea, from the wellsprings of earth, from the wastes of the midmost night,
From the fountains of darkness and tempest and thunder, from heights where the soul would be,
The spell of the mage of music evoked their sense, as an unknown light
From the depths of the sea.
As a vision of heaven from the hollows of ocean, that none but a god might see,
Rose out of the silence of things unknown of a presence, a form, a might,
And we heard as a prophet that hears God's message against him, and may not flee.
Eye might not endure it, but ear and heart with a rapture of dark delight,
With a terror and wonder whose core was joy, and a passion of thought set free,
Felt inly the rising of doom divine as a sundawn risen to sight
From the depths of the sea.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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At Dawn
O Hesper-Phosphor, far away
Shining, the first, the last white star,
Hear’st thou the strange, the ghostly cry,
That moan of an ancient agony
From purple forest to golden sky
Shivering over the breathless bay?
It is not the wind that wakes with the day;
For see, the gulls that wheel and call,
Beyond the tumbling white-topped bar,
Catching the sun-dawn on their wings,
Like snow-flakes or like rose-leaves fall,
Flutter and fall in airy rings;
And drift, like lilies ruffling into blossom
Upon a golden lake’s unwrinkled bosom.
Are not the forest’s deep-lashed fringes wet
With tears? Is not the voice of all regret
Breaking out of the dark earth’s heart?
She too, she too, has loved and lost; and we—
We that remember our lost Arcady,
Have we not known, we too,
The primal greenwood’s arch of blue,
The radiant clouds at sunrise curled
Around the brows of the golden world;
The marble temples, washed with dew,
To which with rosy limbs aflame
The violet-eyed Thalassian came,
Came pitiless, only to display
How soon the youthful splendour dies away;
Came, only to depart
Laughing across the gray-grown bitter sea?
For each man’s life is earth’s epitome,
And though the years bring more than aught they take,
Yet might his heart and hers well break
Remembering how one prayer must still be vain,
How one fair hope is dead,
One passion quenched, one glory fled,
With those first loves that never come again.
How many, how many generations,
Have heard that sigh in the dawn,
When the dark earth yearns to the unforgotten nations
And the old loves withdrawn,
Old loves, old lovers, wonderful and unnumbered
As waves on the wine-dark sea,
’Neath the tall white towers of Troy and the temples that slumbered;
In Thessaly?
From the beautiful palaces, from the miraculous portals,
The swift white feet are flown!
They were taintless of dust, the proud, the peerless Immortals
As they sped to their loftier throne!
Perchance they are there, earth dreams, on the shores of Hesper,
Her rosy-bosomed Hours,
Listening the wild fresh forest’s enchanted whisper,
Crowned with its new strange flowers;
Listening the great new ocean’s triumphant thunder
On the stainless unknown shore,
While that perilous queen of the world’s delight and wonder
Comes white from the foam once more.
When the mists divide with the dawn o’er those glittering waters,
Do they gaze over unoared seas—
Naiad and nymph and the woodland’s rose-crowned daughters
And the Oceanides?
Do they sing together, perchance, in that diamond splendour,
That world of dawn and dew,
With eyelids twitching to tears and with eyes grown tender,
The sweet old songs they knew,
The songs of Greece? Ah, with harp-strings mute do they falter
As the earth like a small star pales?
When the heroes launch their ship by the smoking altar
Does a memory lure their sails?
Far, far away, do their hearts resume the story
That never on earth was told,
When all those urgent oars on the waste of glory
Cast up its gold?
Are not the forest fringes wet
With tears? Is not the voice of all regret
Breaking out of the dark earth’s heart?
She too, she too, has loved and lost; and though
She turned last night in disdain
Away from the sunset-embers,
From her soul she can never depart;
She can never depart from her pain.
Vainly she strives to forget;
Beautiful in her woe,
She awakes in the dawn and remembers.
poem by Alfred Noyes
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The Good Earth
When I was a child and the road was dark and the way was long and alone,
My heart would lift as I turned the bend and saw the lights of home.
Now high above in a silent sky,
In a still and starry space,
A man looks down on the earth below,
And that blue and green and shining glow,
To him is the lights of home.
Its the good earth, yes the good earth.
Its a land of sun and rain and snow,
And mulberry trees and mistletoe,
And burning plains and raging seas,
And sunday morning taking your ease,
Watching your children grow.
Its the good earth, yes the good earth,
Where we fought and loved and killed and died,
And ruined and ravished the countryside,
But now, from a million miles away,
From another world thats cold and gray,
Someone is able to look and say,
Thats the good earth.
So isnt it time we stopped the tears?
Weve lived together for thousands of years,
And whether Im wrong, and whether youre right,
Whether youre black, and whether Im white,
One day well stand on the edge of the world,
And someone will ask us the land of our birth,
And well look into his eyes and quietly say:
Its the good earth, yes the good earth.
Why cant we be good on the good earth?
song performed by by Monkees
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Wayfarers
Still the white stars burn overhead,
The green earth swings upon her way:
Where are the voices of the dead,
The hearts of Yesterday?
Drawn by what strange, mysterious power,
From what dream world and magic sky
Came they to laugh on earth an hour,
To weep, to toil, to die?
And whither gone? On what wild flight
By planet pale and sceptred star?
What realms of sorrow or delight
Now wander they afar?
Pale Wayfarers, whose noiseless tread
Is near me as I seem to see
The mighty generations dead,
And all that yet shall be!
Are Past and Future, then, a breath
That one vast Present makes its own?
The Angel, Birth, the Shadow, Death,
Each guards a world unknown.
Wayfarers all, we know not whence
We came, nor whitherwards we go.
Deep in our hearts a haunting sense
That somewhere we shall know.
Still the white stars burn overhead,
The green earth swings upon her way:
Where are the voices of the dead,
The hearts of yesterday?
poem by George Essex Evans
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Hymn to Proserpine (After the Proclamation of the Christian
Vicisti, Galilæe
I have lived long enough, having seen one thing, that love hath an end;
Goddess and maiden and queen, be near me now and befriend.
Thou art more than the day or the morrow, the seasons that laugh or that weep;
For these give joy and sorrow; but thou, Proserpina, sleep.
Sweet is the treading of wine, and sweet the feet of the dove;
But a goodlier gift is thine than foam of the grapes or love.
Yea, is not even Apollo, with hair and harpstring of gold,
A bitter God to follow, a beautiful God to behold?
I am sick of singing; the bays burn deep and chafe: I am fain
To rest a little from praise and grievous pleasure and pain.
For the Gods we know not of, who give us our daily breath,
We know they are cruel as love or life, and lovely as death.
O Gods dethroned and deceased, cast forth, wiped out in a day!
From your wrath is the world released, redeemed from your chains, men say.
New Gods are crowned in the city; their flowers have broken your rods;
They are merciful, clothed with pity, the young compassionate Gods.
But for me their new device is barren, the days are bare;
Things long past over suffice, and men forgotten that were.
Time and the Gods are at strife; ye dwell in the midst thereof,
Draining a little life from the barren breasts of love.
I say to you, cease, take rest; yea, I say to you all, be at peace,
Till the bitter milk of her breast and the barren bosom shall cease.
Wilt thou take all, Galilean? but these thou shalt not take,
The laurel, the palms and the paean, the breasts of the nymphs in the brake;
Breasts more soft than a dove's, that tremble with tenderer breath;
And all the wings of the Loves, and all the joy before death;
All the feet of the hours that sound as a single lyre,
Dropped and deep in the flowers, with strings that flicker like fire.
More than these wilt thou give, things fairer than all these things?
Nay, for a little we live, and life hath mutable wings.
A little while and we die; shall life not thrive as it may?
For no man under the sky lives twice, outliving his day.
And grief is a grievous thing, and a man hath enough of his tears:
Why should he labour, and bring fresh grief to blacken his years?
Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean; the world has grown grey from thy breath;
We have drunken of things Lethean, and fed on the fullness of death.
Laurel is green for a season, and love is sweet for a day;
But love grows bitter with treason, and laurel outlives not May.
Sleep, shall we sleep after all? for the world is not sweet in the end;
For the old faiths loosen and fall, the new years ruin and rend.
Fate is a sea without shore, and the soul is a rock that abides;
But her ears are vexed with the roar and her face with the foam of the tides.
O lips that the live blood faints in, the leavings of racks and rods!
O ghastly glories of saints, dead limbs of gibbeted Gods!
Though all men abase them before you in spirit, and all knees bend,
I kneel not neither adore you, but standing, look to the end.
All delicate days and pleasant, all spirits and sorrows are cast
Far out with the foam of the present that sweeps to the surf of the past:
Where beyond the extreme sea-wall, and between the remote sea-gates,
Waste water washes, and tall ships founder, and deep death waits:
Where, mighty with deepening sides, clad about with the seas as with wings,
And impelled of invisible tides, and fulfilled of unspeakable things,
White-eyed and poisonous-finned, shark-toothed and serpentine-curled,
Rolls, under the whitening wind of the future, the wave of the world.
The depths stand naked in sunder behind it, the storms flee away;
In the hollow before it the thunder is taken and snared as a prey;
In its sides is the north-wind bound; and its salt is of all men's tears;
With light of ruin, and sound of changes, and pulse of years:
With travail of day after day, and with trouble of hour upon hour;
And bitter as blood is the spray; and the crests are as fangs that devour:
And its vapour and storm of its steam as the sighing of spirits to be;
And its noise as the noise in a dream; and its depth as the roots of the sea:
And the height of its heads as the height of the utmost stars of the air:
And the ends of the earth at the might thereof tremble, and time is made bare.
Will ye bridle the deep sea with reins, will ye chasten the high sea with rods?
Will ye take her to chain her with chains, who is older than all ye Gods?
All ye as a wind shall go by, as a fire shall ye pass and be past;
Ye are Gods, and behold, ye shall die, and the waves be upon you at last.
In the darkness of time, in the deeps of the years, in the changes of things,
Ye shall sleep as a slain man sleeps, and the world shall forget you for kings.
Though the feet of thine high priests tread where thy lords and our forefathers trod,
Though these that were Gods are dead, and thou being dead art a God,
Though before thee the throned Cytherean be fallen, and hidden her head,
Yet thy kingdom shall pass, Galilean, thy dead shall go down to thee dead.
Of the maiden thy mother men sing as a goddess with grace clad around;
Thou art throned where another was king; where another was queen she is crowned.
Yea, once we had sight of another: but now she is queen, say these.
Not as thine, not as thine was our mother, a blossom of flowering seas,
Clothed round with the world's desire as with raiment, and fair as the foam,
And fleeter than kindled fire, and a goddess, and mother of Rome.
For thine came pale and a maiden, and sister to sorrow; but ours,
Her deep hair heavily laden with odour and colour of flowers,
White rose of the rose-white water, a silver splendour, a flame,
Bent down unto us that besought her, and earth grew sweet with her name.
For thine came weeping, a slave among slaves, and rejected; but she
Came flushed from the full-flushed wave, and imperial, her foot on the sea.
And the wonderful waters knew her, the winds and the viewless ways,
And the roses grew rosier, and bluer the sea-blue stream of the bays.
Ye are fallen, our lords, by what token? we wise that ye should not fall.
Ye were all so fair that are broken; and one more fair than ye all.
But I turn to her still, having seen she shall surely abide in the end;
Goddess and maiden and queen, be near me now and befriend.
O daughter of earth, of my mother, her crown and blossom of birth,
I am also, I also, thy brother; I go as I came unto earth.
In the night where thine eyes are as moons are in heaven, the night where thou art,
Where the silence is more than all tunes, where sleep overflows from the heart,
Where the poppies are sweet as the rose in our world, and the red rose is white,
And the wind falls faint as it blows with the fume of the flowers of the night,
And the murmur of spirits that sleep in the shadow of Gods from afar
Grows dim in thine ears and deep as the deep dim soul of a star,
In the sweet low light of thy face, under heavens untrod by the sun,
Let my soul with their souls find place, and forget what is done and undone.
Thou art more than the Gods who number the days of our temporal breath;
Let these give labour and slumber; but thou, Proserpina, death.
Therefore now at thy feet I abide for a season in silence. I know
I shall die as my fathers died, and sleep as they sleep, even so.
For the glass of the years is brittle wherein we gaze for a span;
A little soul for a little bears up this corpse which is man.
So long I endure, no longer; and laugh not again, neither weep.
For there is no God found stronger than death; and death is a sleep.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Niobe
How like the sky she bends above her child,
One with the great horizon of her pain!
No sob from our low seas where woe runs wild,
No weeping cloud, no momentary rain,
Can mar the heaven-high visage of her grief,
That frozen anguish, proud, majestic, dumb.
She stoops in pity above the labouring earth,
Knowing how fond, how brief
Is all its hope, past, present, and to come,
She stoops in pity, and yearns to assuage its dearth.
Through that fair face the whole dark universe
Speaks, as a thorn-tree speaks thro’ one white flower;
And all those wrenched Promethean souls that curse
The gods, but cannot die before their hour,
Find utterance in her beauty. That fair head
Bows over all earth’s graves. It was her cry
Men heard in Rama when the twisted ways
With children’s blood ran red.
Her silence towers to Silences on high;
And, in her face, the whole earth’s anguish prays.
It is the pity, the pity of human love
That strains her face, upturned to meet the doom,
And her deep bosom, like a snow-white dove
Frozen upon its nest, ne’er to resume
Its happy breathing o’er the golden brace
That she must shield till death. Death, death alone
Can break the anguished horror of that spell.
The sorrow on her face
Is sealed: the living flesh is turned to stone;
She knows all, all, that Life and Time can tell.
Ah, yet, her woman’s love, so vast, so tender,
Her woman’s body, hurt by every dart,
Braving the thunder, still, still hide the slender
Soft frightened child beneath her mighty heart.
She is all one mute immortal cry, one brief
Infinite pang of such victorious pain
That she transcends the heavens and bows them down!
The majesty of grief
Is hers, and her dominion must remain
Eternal. Grief alone can wear that crown.
poem by Alfred Noyes
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A Year's Carols
JANUARY
HAIL, January, that bearest here
On snowbright breasts the babe-faced year
That weeps and trembles to be born.
Hail, maid and mother, strong and bright,
Hooded and cloaked and shod with white,
Whose eyes are stars that match the morn.
Thy forehead braves the storm's bent bow,
Thy feet enkindle stars of snow.
FEBRUARY
Wan February with weeping cheer,
Whose cold hand guides the youngling year
Down misty roads of mire and rime,
Before thy pale and fitful face
The shrill wind shifts the clouds apace
Through skies the morning scarce may climb.
Thine eyes are thick with heavy tears,
But lit with hopes that light the year's.
MARCH
Hail, happy March, whose foot on earth
Rings as the blast of martial mirth
When trumpets fire men's hearts for fray.
No race of wild things winged or finned
May match the might that wings thy wind
Through air and sea, through scud and spray.
Strong joy and thou were powers twin-born
Of tempest and the towering morn.
APRIL
Crowned April, king whose kiss bade earth
Bring forth to time her lordliest birth
When Shakespeare from thy lips drew breath
And laughed to hold in one soft hand
A spell that bade the world's wheel stand,
And power on life, and power on death,
With quiring suns and sunbright showers
Praise him, the flower of all thy flowers.
MAY
Hail, May, whose bark puts forth full-sailed
For summer; May, whom Chaucer hailed
With all his happy might of heart,
And gave thy rosebright daisy-tips
Strange frarance from his amorous lips
That still thine own breath seems to part
And sweeten till each word they say
Is even a flower of flowering May.
JUNE
Strong June, superb, serene, elate
With conscience of thy sovereign state
Untouched of thunder, though the storm
Scathe here and there thy shuddering skies
And bid its lightning cross thine eyes
With fire, thy golden hours inform
Earth and the souls of men with life
That brings forth peace from shining strife.
JULY
Hail, proud July, whose fervent mouth
Bids even be morn and north be south
By grace and gospel of thy word,
Whence all the splendour of the sea
Lies breathless with delight in thee
And marvel at the music heard
From the ardent silent lips of noon
And midnight's rapturous plenilune.
AUGUST
Great August, lord of golden lands,
Whose lordly joy through seas and strands
And all the red-ripe heart of earth
Strikes passion deep as life, and stills
The folded vales and folding hills
With gladness too divine for mirth,
The gracious glories of thine eyes
Make night a noon where darkness dies.
SEPTEMBER
Hail, kind September, friend whose grace
Renews the bland year's bounteous face
With largess given of corn and wine
Through many a land that laughs with love
Of thee and all the heaven above,
More fruitful found than all save thine
Whose skies fulfil with strenuous cheer
The fervent fields that knew thee near.
OCTOBER
October of the tawny crown,
Whose heavy-laden hands drop down
Blessing, the bounties of thy breath
And mildness of thy mellowing might
Fill earth and heaven with love and light
Too sweet for fear to dream of death
Or memory, while thy joy lives yet,
To know what joy would fain forget.
NOVEMBER
Hail, soft November, though thy pale
Sad smile rebuke the words that hail
Thy sorrow with no sorrowing words
Or gratulate thy grief with song
Less bitter than the winds that wrong
Thy withering woodlands, where the birds
Keep hardly heart to sing or see
How fair thy faint wan face may be.
DECEMBER
December, thou whose hallowing hands
On shuddering seas and hardening lands
Set as a sacramental sign
The seal of Christmas felt on earth
As witness toward a new year's birth
Whose promise makes thy death divine,
The crowning joy that comes of thee
Makes glad all grief on land or sea.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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Night
The night is young yet; an enchanted night
In early summer: calm and darkly bright.
I love the Night, and every little breeze
She brings, to soothe the sleep of dreaming trees.
Hearst thou the Voices? Sough! Susurrus!— Hark!
’Tis Mother Nature whispering in the dark!
Burden of cities, mad turmoil of men,
That vex the daylight—she forgets them then.
Her breasts are bare; Grief gains from them surcease:
She gives her restless sons the milk of Peace.
To sleep she lulls them—drawn from thoughts of pelf—
By telling sweet old stories of herself.
All secrets deep—yea, all I hear and see
Of things mysterious—Night reveals to me.
I know what every flower, with drowsy head
Down-drooping, dreams of—and the seeming dead.
I know how they, escaped from care and strife,
Ironically moralise on Life.
And know what—when the moon walks on the waves—
They whisper to each other in their graves.
I know that white clouds drifting from stark coasts
Across the sky at midnight are the ghosts
Of sailors drowned at sea, who yearn to win
A quiet grave beside their kith and kin
In still green graveyards, where they lie at ease
Far from the sound of surge and roar of seas.
I know the message of the mournful rain
That beats upon the widow’s window-pane.
I know the meaning of the roar of seas;
I know the glad Spring sap-song of the trees;
And that great chant to which in tuneful grooves
The green round earth upon its axis moves;
And that still greater chant the Bright Sun sings—
Fire-crowned Apollo—the great chant that brings
All things to life, and draws through spaces dim,
And star-sown realms, his planets after him.
I know the tune that led, since Life began,
The upward, downward, onward March of Man.
I hear the whispers that the Angels twain
Of Death and Life exchange in meeting—fain
Are they to pause and greet, yet may not stay.
“Never!” “For ever.” This is all they say.
I hear the twitterings inarticulate
Of souls unborn that press around the Gate
Of Birth, each striving which shall first escape
From formless vapour into human shape.
I know the tale the bird of passionate heart,
The nightingale, tries ever to impart
To men, though vainly—for I well believe
That in her brown breast beats the heart of Eve,
Who with her sweet, sad, wistful music tries
To tell her sons of their lost Paradise,
And solemn secrets Man had grace to know,
When God walked in the Garden long ago.
Yea, I have seen, methought, on nights of awe,
The vision terrible Lucretius saw:
The trembling Universe—suns, stars, grief, bliss—
Plunging for ever down a black abyss.
But more I love good Bishop Jeremy,
Who likens all the star-worlds that we see—
Which seem to run an everlasting race—
Unto a snowstorm sweeping on through space.
Suns, planets, stars, in glorious array
They march, melodious, on their unknown way.
Thought, seraph-winged and swifter than the light,
Unto the dim verge of the Infinite,
Pursues them, through that strange ethereal flood
In which they swim (mayhap it is the blood
Of Universal God wherein they are
But corpuscles—sun, satellite, and star—
And their great stream of glory but a dim,
Small pulse in the remotest vein of Him)
Pursues in vain, and from lone, awful glooms
Turns back to earth again with weary plumes.
Through glacial gulfs of Space the soul must roam
To feel the comfort of its earthly home.
Ah, Mother dear! broad-bosomed Mother Earth!
Mother of all our Joy, Grief, Madness, Mirth!—
Mother of flower and fruit, of stream and sea!—
We are thy children and must cling to thee.
I lay my head upon thy breast and hear—
Small, small and faint, yet strangely sweet and clear—
The hum and clash of little worlds below,
Each on its own path moving, swift or slow.
And listening, ever with intenter ear,
Through din of wars invisible I hear
A Homer—genius is not gauged by mass—
Singing his Iliad on a blade of grass.
And nations hearken: his great song resounds
Unto the tussock’s very utmost bounds.
States rise and fall, each blade of grass upon,
But still his song from blade to blade rolls on
Through all the tussock-world, and Helen still
Is Fairest Fair, and Ajax wild of will—
An Ajax whose huge size, when measured o’er,
Is full ten-thousandth of an inch or more—
Still hurls defiance at the gods whose home
Is in the distant, awful, dew-drop dome
That trembling hangs, suspended from a spray
An inch above him—worlds of space away.
Old prophecies foretell—but Time proves all—
The day will come when it, like Troy, shall fall.
Lo! through this small great wondrous song there runs
The marching melody of stars and suns.
I know these things, yet cannot speak and tell
Their meanings. Over all is cast a spell.
Secrets they are, sealed with a sevenfold seal;
My soul knows what my tongue may not reveal.
I love the Night! Bright Day the soul shuts in;
Night sends it soaring to its starry kin.
If I must leave at last my place of birth—
This homely, gracious, green, familiar Earth,
With all it holds of sorrow and delight—
I pray my parting-hour may be at night,
And that her curtain dark may softly fall
On scenes I love, ere I depart from all.
Then shall I haply, journeying through the Vast
Mysterious Silences, take one long, last
Fond look at Earth, and watch from depths afar
The dear old planet dwindling to a star;
And sigh farewell unto the friends of yore,
Whose kindly faces I shall see no more.
poem by Victor James Daley
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The Dead To The Living
Work while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.
IN the childhood of April, while purple woods
With the young year's blood in them smiled,
I passed through the lanes and the wakened fields,
And stood by the grave of the child.
And the pain awoke that is never dead
Though it sometimes sleeps, and again
It set its teeth in this heart of mine,
And fastened its claws in my brain:
For it seemed so hard that the little hands
And the little well-loved head
Should be out of reach of my living lips,
And be side by side with the dead--
Not side by side with us who had loved,
But with these who had never seen
The grace of the smile, the gold of the hair,
And the eyes of my baby-queen.
Yet with trees about where the brown birds build,
And with long green grass above,
She lies in the cold sweet breast of earth
Beyond the reach of our love;
Whatever befalls in the coarse loud world,
We know she will never wake.
When I thought of the sorrow she might have known,
I was almost glad for her sake. . . .
Tears might have tired those kiss-closed eyes,
Grief hardened the mouth I kissed;
I was almost glad that my dear was dead
Because of the pain she had missed.
Oh, if I could but have died a child
With a white child-soul like hers,
As pure as the wind-flowers down in the copse,
Where the soul of the spring's self stirs;
Or if I had only done with it all,
And might lie by her side unmoved!
I envied the very clods of earth
Their place near the child I loved!
And my soul rose up in revolt at life,
As I stood dry-eyed by her grave,
When sudden the grass of the churchyard sod
Rolled back like a green smooth wave;
The brown earth looked like the brown sea rocks,
The tombstones were white like spray,
And white like surf were the curling folds
Of the shrouds where the dead men lay;
For each in his place with his quiet face
I saw the dead lie low,
Who had worked and suffered and found life sad,
So many sad years ago.
Unchanged by time I saw them lie
As when first they were laid to rest,
The tired eyes closed, the sad lips still,
And the work-worn hands on the breast.
There were some who had found the green world so grey,
They had left it before their time,
And some were little ones like my dear,
And some had died in their prime;
And some were old, they had had their fill
Of bitter unfruitful hours,
And knew that none of them, none, had known
A flower of a hope like ours!
Through their shut eyelids the dead looked up,
And without a voice they said:
'We lived without hope, without hope we died,
And hopeless we lie here dead;
And death is better than life that draws
Pain in, as it draws in breath,
If life never dreams of a coming day
When life shall not envy death.
Through the dark of our hours and our times we lived,
Uncheered by a single ray
Of such hope as lightens the lives of you
Who are finding life hard to-day;
With our little lanterns of human love
We lighted our dark warm night--
But you in the chill of the dawn are set
With your face to the eastern light.
Freedom is waiting with hands held out
Till you tear the veil from her face--
And when once men have seen the light of her eyes,
And felt her divine embrace,
The light of the world will be risen indeed,
And will shine in the eyes of men,
And those who come after will find life fair,
And their lives worth living then!
Will you strive to the light in your loud rough world,
That these things may come to pass,
Or lie in the shadow beside the child,
And strive to the sun through the grass?'
'My world while I may,' I cried; 'but you
Whose lives were as dark as your grave?'
'We too are a part of the coming light,'
They called through the smooth green wave.
Their white shrouds gleamed as the flood of green
Rolled over and hid them from me--
Hid all but the little hands and the hair,
And the face that I always see.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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The Creation
And God stepped out on space,
And he looked around and said:
I'm lonely--
I'll make me a world.
And far as the eye of God could see
Darkness covered everything,
Blacker than a hundred midnights
Down in a cypress swamp.
Then God smiled,
And the light broke,
And the darkness rolled up on one side,
And the light stood shining on the other,
And God said: That's good!
Then God reached out and took the light in his hands,
And God rolled the light around in his hands
Until he made the sun;
And he set that sun a-blazing in the heavens.
And the light that was left from making the sun
God gathered it up in a shining ball
And flung it against the darkness,
Spangling the night with the moon and stars.
Then down between
The darkness and the light
He hurled the world;
And God said: That's good!
Then God himself stepped down--
And the sun was on his right hand,
And the moon was on his left;
The stars were clustered about his head,
And the earth was under his feet.
And God walked, and where he trod
His footsteps hollowed the valleys out
And bulged the mountains up.
Then he stopped and looked and saw
That the earth was hot and barren.
So God stepped over to the edge of the world
And he spat out the seven seas--
He batted his eyes, and the lightnings flashed--
He clapped his hands, and the thunders rolled--
And the waters above the earth came down,
The cooling waters came down.
Then the green grass sprouted,
And the little red flowers blossomed,
The pine tree pointed his finger to the sky,
And the oak spread out his arms,
The lakes cuddled down in the hollows of the ground,
And the rivers ran down to the sea;
And God smiled again,
And the rainbow appeared,
And curled itself around his shoulder.
Then God raised his arm and he waved his hand
Over the sea and over the land,
And he said: Bring forth! Bring forth!
And quicker than God could drop his hand,
Fishes and fowls
And beasts and birds
Swam the rivers and the seas,
Roamed the forests and the woods,
And split the air with their wings.
And God said: That's good!
Then God walked around,
And God looked around
On all that he had made.
He looked at his sun,
And he looked at his moon,
And he looked at his little stars;
He looked on his world
With all its living things,
And God said: I'm lonely still.
Then God sat down--
On the side of a hill where he could think;
By a deep, wide river he sat down;
With his head in his hands,
God thought and thought,
Till he thought: I'll make me a man!
Up from the bed of the river
God scooped the clay;
And by the bank of the river
He kneeled him down;
And there the great God Almighty
Who lit the sun and fixed it in the sky,
Who flung the stars to the most far corner of the night,
Who rounded the earth in the middle of his hand;
This great God,
Like a mammy bending over her baby,
Kneeled down in the dust
Toiling over a lump of clay
Till he shaped it in is his own image;
Then into it he blew the breath of life,
And man became a living soul.
Amen.Amen.
poem by James Weldon Johnson
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Bible in Poetry: Revelation 8
1He opened then the seventh seal,
And heav’n turned silent for half hour.
2The seven angels before God,
Were given seven trumpets then.
3An angel, with a gold censer,
Came and stood before the altar.
He had incense to offer much,
With prayers of all the saints,
On the golden altar of God.
4The incense-smoke and saints’ prayers
Went up to God from angel's hand.
5The angel took the censer then,
And filled it with altar’s fire,
And hurled it onto the earth’s face;
There came thunder, rumblings, flashes
Of lightning and an earthquake great.
The Trumpets:
6The seven angels then prepared
To blow their trumpets, one by one.
7 When first angel blew his trumpet,
Hail came with fire, mixed with blood,
And it was hurled down on the earth.
A third of earth was burned up soon,
A third of trees were burned up too,
And all the green grass was burned up.
8The second angel blew trumpet,
And something like a huge mountain
Ablaze, was thrown into the sea.
A third of sea then turned to blood,
9A third of creatures of sea died,
A third of ships were all destroyed.
10The third angel blew his trumpet,
A great star, blazing like a torch,
Fell from sky on third of rivers
And on the earth’s springs of water—
11The name of the star was Wormwood.
A third of waters turned bitter,
And many people died from it.
12The fourth angel sounded trumpet,
A third of sun was darkened then,
A third of moon, and third of stars,
Was turned dark soon afterwards.
A third of day was without light,
A third of night also alike.
13And as I watched, an eagle flew
In midair, calling out aloud:
'Woe! Woe! To earth’s inhabitants,
Because of trumpet blasts about
To come from three other angels! '
Copyright by Dr John Celes 7-16-2007
poem by John Celes
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The African Prince
IT was a king in Africa,
He had an only son;
And none of Europe's crowned kings
Could have a dearer one.
With good cane arrows five feet long,
And with a shining bow,
When but a boy, to the palm woods
Would that young hunter go.
And home he brought white ivory,
And many a spotted hide:
When leopards fierce and beautiful
Beneath his arrows died.
Around his arms, around his brow,
A shining bar was rolled;
It was to mark his royal blood,
He wore that bar of gold.
And often at his father's feet,
The evening he would pass;
When, weary of the hunt, he lay
Upon the scented grass.
Alas! it was an evil day,
When such a thing could be:
When strangers, pale and terrible,
Came o'er the distant sea.
They found the young prince mid the woods,
The palm woods deep and dark:
That day his lion-hunt was done,
They bore him to their bark.
They bound him in a narrow hold,
With others of his kind;
For weeks did that accursed ship
Sail on before the wind.
Now shame upon the cruel wind,
And on the cruel sea,
That did not with some mighty storm,
Set those poor captives free:
Or, shame to those weak thoughts, so fain
To have their wilful way:
God knoweth what is best for all—
The winds and seas obey.
At length a lovely island rose
From out the ocean wave;
They took him to the market-place,
And sold him for a slave.
Some built them homes, and in the shade
Of flowered and fragrant trees,
They half forgot the palm-hid huts
They left far o'er the seas.
But he was born of nobler blood,
And was of nobler kind;
And even unto death, his heart
For its own kindred pined.
There came to him a seraph child
With eyes of gentlest blue:
If there are angels in high heaven,
Earth has its angels too.
She cheered him with her holy words,
She soothed him with her tears;
And pityingly she spoke with him
Of home and early years.
And when his heart was all subdued
By kindness into love,
She taught him from this weary earth
To look in faith above.
She told him how the Saviour died
For man upon the tree;
'He suffered,' said the holy child,
'For you as well as me.'
Sorrow and death have need of faith—
The African believed;
As rain falls fertile on the earth
Those words his soul received.
He died in hope as only those
Who die in Christ depart—
One blessed name within his lips,
One hope within his heart.
poem by Letitia Elizabeth Landon
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Failure
THE BOY went out from the ranges grim,
And the breath of the mountains went with him;
With a song in his heart and a smile on his face,
And a light in his eyes for a foremost place:
And the good green earth, and the salt sea spray,
And the soft blue skies, they were his that day;
And, like Eden, ringed with a golden fire—
Afar rose the Land of His Heart’s Desire.
The boy went down to the city’s strife,
And his face was lost in the surge of life;
But a Power that he did not understand
Had nerved his brain and his fighting hand.
And he strove and failed, and he rose and won—
And he failed again ere the fight was done;
But he battled on when the days were dire
To win to the Land of His Heart’s Desire.
And there, in the heart of the stress and din,
’Mid want and labour and wealth and sin,
The strong man struggled with shining eyes,
And forced a passage, and grasped the prize.
And he cried to the Power who had lent the fire:
“Lo! Fame is the Land of My Heart’s Desire!
Give the cup to me with a beaded brim.”
And the Power that he knew not gave it him.
But the air is keen on the Cliffs of Fame,
And the shafts that fly have a deadly aim!
With a foothold scarce, and a sleepless dread
For the gulfs below and the heights o’erhead,
He cried to the Power who had steeled his hand:
“I am outcast yet from my Fairyland!
For Fame is a land where no strength may tire,
But Love is the Land of My Heart’s Desire!”
Then there came to the man all his dream of Love,
With the brow of snow and the eyes of a dove,
With the glint of the sun on her wavy hair,
And her soul as pure as her face was fair.
Like a living lily to him she came,
Till his eyes were wet and his soul was flame,
And she called to him, with an outstretched hand,
And they entered into the Promised Land.
But there came a day when he asked his soul,
“Is this the land, and is this the goal?”
In his heart there lay what his lips denied—
The pang of a hunger unsatisfied.
“For Fame,” he said, “and for Love I wrought;
They are not the things that I should have sought:
’Tis to boundless power that my dreams aspire—
And Wealth is the Land of My Heart’s Desire!”
Then the Power that he did not understand
Gave him ships and houses and gold and land,
And the man’s power grew with each passing year;
But his thoughts were vexed with a sleepless fear,
And his hair grew gray with the iron strain
Of the dread of loss and the lust of gain,
And he bowed his head on his hands and said.
“All things are mine, but my heart is dead!”
And he thought of the boy from the ranges grim
With the breath of the mountains over him,
With a song in his heart and a smile on his face,
And a light in his eyes for a foremost place,
And the good green earth and the salt sea spray,
And the soft blue skies that were his that day,
When, like Eden, ringed with a golden fire,
Afar rose the Land of His Heart’s Desire.
Then clear on his startled ear there fell
A voice like the sound of a silver bell:
“To each is the work that he best can do,
But you turned from the work when it called to you.
And you sought instead for the vulgar praise,
For the lips of love, and for prosperous days.
And with all that the world can give you here,
You have lost the thing that you hold most dear.
For who hears the word that the Gods inspire—
In his work finds the Land of His Heart’s Desire.”
poem by George Essex Evans
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Thorgerda
LO, what a golden day it is!
The glad sun rives the sapphire deeps
Down to the dim pearl-floor’d abyss
Where, cold in death, my lover sleeps;
Crowns with soft fire his sea-drench’d hair,
Kisses with gold his lips death-pale,
Lets down from heaven a golden stair,
Whose steps methinks his soul doth scale.
This is my treasure. White and sweet,
He lies beneath my ardent eyne,
With heart that nevermore shall beat,
Nor lips press softly against mine.
How like a dream it seems to me,
The time when hand in hand we went
By hill and valley, I and he,
Lost in a trance of ravishment!
I and my lover here that lies
And sleeps the everlasting sleep,
We walk’d whilere in Paradise;
(Can it be true?) Our souls drank deep
Together of Love’s wonder-wine:
We saw the golden days go by,
Unheeding, for we were divine;
Love had advanced us to the sky.
And of that time no traces bin,
Save the still shape that once did hold
My lover’s soul, that shone therein,
As wine laughs in a vase of gold.
Cold, cold he lies, and answers not
Unto my speech; his mouth is cold
Whose kiss to mine was sweet and hot
As sunshine to a marigold.
And yet his pallid lips I press;
I fold his neck in my embrace;
I rain down kisses none the less
Upon his unresponsive face:
I call on him with all the fair
Flower-names that blossom out of love;
I knit sea-jewels in his hair;
I weave fair coronals above
The cold, sweet silver of his brow:
For this is all of him I have;
Nor any Future more than now
Shall give me back what Love once gave.
For from Death’s gate our lives divide;
His was the Galilean’s faith:
With those that serve the Crucified,
He shar’d the chance of Life and Death.
And so my eyes shall never light
Upon his star-soft eyes again;
Nor ever in the day or night,
By hill or valley, wood or plain,
Our hands shall meet afresh. His voice
Shall never with its silver tone
The sadness of my soul rejoice,
Nor his breast throb against my own.
His sight shall never unto me
Return whilst heaven and earth remain:
Though Time blend with Eternity,
Our lives shall never meet again,—
Never by gray or purple sea,
Never again in heavens of blue,
Never in this old earth—ah me!
Never, ah never! in the new.
For me, he treads the windless ways
Among the thick star-diamonds,
Where in the middle æther blaze
The Golden City’s pearl gate-fronds;
Sitteth, palm-crown’d and silver-shod,
Where in strange dwellings of the skies
The Christians to their Woman-God
Cease nevermore from psalmodies.
And I, I wait, with haggard eyes
And face grown awful for desire,
The coming of that fierce day’s rise
When from the cities of the fire
The Wolf shall come with blazing crest,
And many a giant arm’d for war;
When from the sanguine-streaming West,
Hell-flaming, speedeth Naglfar.
poem by John Howard Payne
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Altiora Peto
O for a vision of the perfect light
To shame the splendour of the morning star!
O for a breath from out the Infinite
Where the great heart of Being throbs afar!
O for that sound, too fine for mortal ears,
The music of the silence of the spheres!
The Masters fathomed not that song sublime,
Tho’ oft on straining ear and brain o’erwrought,
And heart grown faint at heights too sheer to climb,
The roll of some immortal wave of thought
Swept by and left, adown its troubled verge,
The lingering echoes of its mighty surge.
To each there came the passion and the fire,
The breadth of vision and the sudden light,
And for a moment on an earthly lyre
Quivered a tremor of the Infinite;
Yet to each poet of that deep-browed throng
’Twas but the shadow of Immortal Song.
’Twas but the presage of th’ Omniscient Soul
That moves and throbs thro’ all this wondrous plan,
Unseen, unheard, unknown: that is the Whole,
Yet stirs in atoms and the heart of Man;
That thro’ all phase of change, and form, and name
Remains and works eternally the same.
That seems to whisper us:—“All life is one,
Reborn in death it blossoms from decay,
The same when first the fury of the sun
Belched forth his satellites of fiery spray,
The same when he and all his planet train
Shall plough the Ether, cold—to glow again!
“Whither, O whither? Still th’ eternal cry,
That from the ages rolled and yet shall roll!
Who shall declare to man his destiny—
A unit in the Cosmos of the Soul—
A spirit-germ, storm-tossed in doubt and strife,
That feebly dreams of larger light and life?”
Systems and stars their courses onward sweep,
And creeds and nations flower and fade away.
Still Nature worketh out her purpose deep—
New life, new thought for that of yesterday.
Unto the utmost confines of her range
One law abideth of unchanging change.
Around us dwells the secret no man reads!
About us swells the music none can hear!
Behind us lie the ruins of the creeds!
Before us loom the mystery and the fear!
To Love and Hope our souls are clinging fast,
What giveth these, perchance gives Truth at last!
poem by George Essex Evans
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Earth
Words and music by tim staffell
I might be at a table
And suddenly Ill catch
A fleeting vision of her crystal seas
Or I might be standing in a crowded dockyard faraway
Underneath the sun Ive never seen
cos I have seen many worlds
For what its worth
But Ill never see again the planet earth
My earth
I might be chasing waves of light
Out towards the rim
Where stars are sparse
And the cold of space seeps in
But I might be in a bar room
Drinking methylated gin
And thinking of the places I have been
Yes I have seen many worlds
For what its worth
But Ill never see again the planet earth
My earth
I have seen many worlds
For what its worth
But Ill never see again the planet earth
My earth
Cast adrift amongst the stars
I float from sun to sun
Dreaming of the world that gave me birth
All the places I have been
Remind me there is none
To match the green living hills of earth
cos I have seen many worlds
For what its worth
But Ill never see again the planet earth
My earth
song performed by by Queen
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Peace
I
IN EXCELSIS
Two dwellings, Peace, are thine.
One is the mountain-height,
Uplifted in the loneliness of light
Beyond the realm of shadows,--fine,
And far, and clear,--where advent of the night
Means only glorious nearness of the stars,
And dawn, unhindered, breaks above the bars
That long the lower world in twilight keep.
Thou sleepest not, and hast no need of sleep,
For all thy cares and fears have dropped away;
The night's fatigue, the fever-fret of day,
Are far below thee; and earth's weary wars,
In vain expense of passion, pass
Before thy sight like visions in a glass,
Or like the wrinkles of the storm that creep
Across the sea and leave no trace
Of trouble on that immemorial face,--
So brief appear the conflicts, and so slight
The wounds men give, the things for which they fight.
Here hangs a fortress on the distant steep,--
A lichen clinging to the rock:
There sails a fleet upon the deep,--
A wandering flock
Of snow-winged gulls: and yonder, in the plain,
A marble palace shines,--a grain
Of mica glittering in the rain.
Beneath thy feet the clouds are rolled
By voiceless winds: and far between
The rolling clouds new shores and peaks are seen,
In shimmering robes of green and gold,
And faint aerial hue
That silent fades into the silent blue.
Thou, from thy mountain-hold,
All day, in tranquil wisdom, looking down
On distant scenes of human toil and strife,
All night, with eyes aware of loftier life,
Uplooking to the sky, where stars are sown,
Dost watch the everlasting fields grow white
Unto the harvest of the sons of light,
And welcome to thy dwelling-place sublime
The few strong souls that dare to climb
The slippery crags and find thee on the height.
II
DE PROFUNDIS
But in the depth thou hast another home,
For hearts less daring, or more frail.
Thou dwellest also in the shadowy vale;
And pilgrim-souls that roam
With weary feet o'er hill and dale,
Bearing the burden and the heat
Of toilful days,
Turn from the dusty ways
To find thee in thy green and still retreat.
Here is no vision wide outspread
Before the lonely and exalted seat
Of all-embracing knowledge. Here, instead,
A little garden, and a sheltered nook,
With outlooks brief and sweet
Across the meadows, and along the brook,--
A little stream that little knows
Of the great sea towards which it gladly flows,--
A little field that bears a little wheat
To make a portion of earth's daily bread.
The vast cloud-armies overhead
Are marshalled, and the wild wind blows
Its trumpet, but thou canst not tell
Whence the storm comes nor where it goes.
Nor dost thou greatly care, since all is well;
Thy daily task is done,
And though a lowly one,
Thou gavest it of thy best,
And art content to rest
In patience till its slow reward is won.
Not far thou lookest, but thy sight is clear;
Not much thou knowest, but thy faith is dear;
For life is love, and love is always near.
Here friendship lights the fire, and every heart,
Sure of itself and sure of all the rest,
Dares to be true, and gladly takes its part
In open converse, bringing forth its best:
Here is Sweet music, melting every chain
Of lassitude and pain:
And here, at last, is sleep, the gift of gifts,
The tender nurse, who lifts
The soul grown weary of the waking world,
And lays it, with its thoughts all furled,
Its fears forgotten, and its passions still,
On the deep bosom of the Eternal Will.
poem by Henry Van Dyke
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Victory
I.
Before those golden altar-lights we stood,
Each one of us remembering his own dead.
A more than earthly beauty seemed to brood
On that hushed throng, and bless each bending head.
Beautiful on that gold, the deep-sea blue
Of those young seamen, ranked on either side,
Blent with the khaki, while the silence grew
Deep, as for wings--Oh, deep as England's pride.
Beautiful on that gold, two banners rose--
Two flags that told how Freedom's realm was made,
One fair with stars of hope, and one that shows
The glorious cross of England's long crusade;
Two flags, now joined, till that high will be done
Which sent them forth to make the whole world one.
II.
There were no signs of joy that eyes could see.
Our hearts were all three thousand miles away.
There were no trumpets blown for victory.
A million dead were calling us that day.
And eyes grew blind, at times; but grief was deep,
Deeper than any foes or friends have known;
For Oh, my country's lips are locked to keep
Her bitterest loss her own, and all her own.
Only the music told what else was dumb,
The funeral march to which our pulses beat;
For all our dead went by, to a muffled drum
We heard the tread of all those phantom feet.
Yes. There was victory! Deep in every soul.
We heard them marching to their unseen goal.
III.
There, once again, we saw the Cross go by,
The Cross that fell with all those glorious towers,
Burnt black in France or mocked on Calvary,
Till--in one night--the crosses rose like flowers,
Legions of small white crosses, mile on mile,
Pencilled with names that had outfought all pain,
Where every shell-torn acre seems to smile--
_Who shall destroy the cross that rose again?_
Out of the world's Walpurgis, where hope perished,
Where all the forms of faith in ruin fell,
Where every sign of heaven that earth had cherished
Shrivelled among the lava-floods of hell,
The eternal Cross that conquers might with right
Rose like a star to lead us through the night.
IV.
How shall the world remember? Men forget:
Our dead are all too many even for Fame!
Man's justice kneels to kings, and pays no debt
To those who never courted her acclaim.
Cheat not your heart with promises to pay
For gifts beyond all price so freely given.
Where is the heart so rich that it can say
To those who mourn, 'I will restore your heaven'?
But these, with their own hands, laid up their treasure
Where never an emperor can break in and steal,
Treasure for those that loved them past all measure
In those high griefs that earth can never heal,
Proud griefs, that walk on earth, yet gaze above,
Knowing that sorrow is but remembered love.
V.
Love that still holds us with immortal power,
Yet cannot lift us to His realm of light;
Love that still shows us heaven for one brief hour
Only to daunt the heart with that sheer height;
Love that is made of loveliness entire
In form and thought and act; and still must shame us
Because we ever acknowledge and aspire,
And yet let slip the shining hands that claim us.
O, if this Love might cloak with rags His glory,
Laugh, eat and drink, and dwell with suffering men,
Sit with us at our hearth, and hear our story,
This world--we thought--might be transfigured then.
'But Oh,' Love answered, with swift human tears,
'All these things have I done, these many years.'
VI.
'This day,' Love said, 'if ye will hear my voice;
I mount and sing with birds in all your skies.
I am the soul that calls you to rejoice.
And every wayside flower is my disguise.
'Look closely. Are the wings too wide for pity?
Look closely. Do these tender hues betray?
How often have I sought my Holy City?
How often have ye turned your hearts away?
'Is there not healing in the beauty I bring you?
Am I not whispering in green leaves and rain,
Singing in all that woods and seas can sing you?
Look, once, on Love, and earth is heaven again.
'O, did your Spring but once a century waken,
The heaven of heavens for this would be forsaken.'
VII.
There's but one gift that all our dead desire,
One gift that men can give, and that's a dream,
Unless we, too, can burn with that same fire
Of sacrifice; die to the things that seem;
Die to the little hatreds; die to greed;
Die to the old ignoble selves we knew;
Die to the base contempts of sect and creed,
And rise again, like these, with souls as true.
Nay (since these died before their task was finished)
Attempt new heights, bring even their dreams to birth:--
Build us that better world, Oh, not diminished
By one true splendor that they planned on earth.
And that's not done by sword, or tongue, or pen,
There's but one way. God make us better men.
poem by Alfred Noyes
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