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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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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
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Alcyone

In the silent depth of space,
Immeasurably old, immeasurably far,
Glittering with a silver flame
Through eternity,
Rolls a great and burning star,
With a noble name,
Alcyone!

In the glorious chart of heaven
It is marked the first of seven;
'Tis a Pleiad:
And a hundred years of earth
With their long-forgotten deeds have come and gone,
Since that tiny point of light,
Once a splendour fierce and bright,
Had its birth
In the star we gaze upon.

It has travelled all that time--
Thought has not a swifter flight--
Through a region where no faintest gust
Of life comes ever, but the power of night
Dwells stupendous and sublime,
Limitless and void and lonely,
A region mute with age, and peopled only
With the dead and ruined dust
Of worlds that lived eternities ago.

Man! when thou dost think of this,
And what our earth and its existence is,
The half-blind toils since life began,
The little aims, the little span,
With what passion and what pride,
And what hunger fierce and wide,
Thou dost break beyond it all,
Seeking for the spirit unconfined
In the clear abyss of mind
A shelter and a peace majestical.
For what is life to thee,
Turning toward the primal light,
With that stern and silent face,
If thou canst not be
Something radiant and august as night,
Something wide as space?

Therefore with a love and gratitude divine
Thou shalt cherish in thine heart for sign
A vision of the great and burning star,
Immeasurably old, immeasurably far,
Surging forth its silver flame
Through eternity;
And thine inner heart shall ring and cry
With the music strange and high,
The grandeur of its name
Alcyone!

poem by Archibald Lampman
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Love-Laurel

Ah! that God once would touch my lips with song
To pierce, as prayer doth heaven, earth’s breast of iron,
So that with sweet mouth I might sing to thee,
O sweet dead singer buried by the sea,
A song, to woo thee, as a wooing siren,
Out of that silent sleep which seals too long
Thy mouth of melody.
For, if live lips might speak awhile to dead,
Or any speech could reach the sad world under
This world of ours, song surely should awake
Thee who didst dwell in shadow for song’s sake!
Alas! thou canst not hear the voice of thunder,
Nor low dirge over thy low-lying head
The winds of morning make.

Down through the clay there comes no sound of these;
Down in the grave there is no sign of Summer,
Nor any knowledge of the soft-eyed Spring;
But Death sits there, with outspread ebon wing,
Closing with dust the mouth of each new-comer
To that mute land, where never sound of seas
Is heard, and no birds sing.

Now thou hast found the end of all thy days
Hast thou found any heart a vigil keeping
For thee among the dead—some heart that heard
Thy singing when thou wert a brown, sweet bird
Gray Æons gone, in some old forest sleeping
Beneath the seas long since? in Death’s dim ways
Has thy heart any word?

For surely those in whom the deathless spark
Of song is kindled, sang from the beginning
If life were always? But the old desires—
Do they exist when sad-eyed Hope expires?
How live the dead? what crowns have they for winning?
Have they, to warm them in the dreamless dark,
For sun earth’s central fires?

Are the dead dead indeed whom we call dead?
Has God no life but this of ours for giving?—
When that they took thee by each well-known place,
Stark in thy coffin with a cold white face,
What thought, O Brother, hadst thou of the living?
What of the sun that round thee glory shed?
What of the fair day’s grace?

Is thy new life made up of memories
Or dreams that lull the dead, bright visions bringing
Of Spring above! Are thy days short or long?
Thou who wert master of our singing throng
Mayhap in death thou hast not lost thy singing,
But chauntst unheard, beside the moaning sea,
A solitary song.

The chance spade turns up skulls. God help the dead
And thee whose singing days have all passed over—
Thee, whom the gold-haired Spring shall seek in vain
When at the glad year’s doors she stands again,
Remembering the song-garlands thou hast wove her
In years gone by: but all these years have fled
With all their joy and pain.

My soul laughed out to hear my heart speak so,
And sprang forth skyward, as an eagle, hoping
To look upon thy soul with living eyes,
Until it came to where our dim life dies,
And dead suns darkly for a grave are groping
Through cycles of immeasurable woe,
Stone-blind in the blind skies.
The stars walk shuddering on that awful verge
From which my soul, with swift and fearless motion,
Clove the black depths, and sought for God and thee;
But God dwells where nor stars nor suns there be—
No shore there is to His Eternal Ocean;
A thousand systems are a fringe of surge
On that great starless sea.

And thou wert not. So that, with weary plumes,
My soul through the great void its way came winging
To earth again. “What hope for him who sings
Is there?” it sighed. “Death ends all sweetest things.”
When lo! there came a swell of mighty singing,
Flooding all space, and swift athwart the glooms
A flash of sudden wings.

Dreamer of dreams, thy songs and dreams are done.
Down where thou sleepest in earth’s secret bosom
There is no sorrow and no joy for thee,
Who canst not see what stars at eve there be,
Nor evermore at morn the green dawn blossom
Into the golden king-flower of the sun
Across the golden sea.
But haply there shall come in days to be
One who shall hear his own heart beating faster,
Plucking a rose sprung from thy heart beneath,
And from his soul, as sword from out its sheath,
Song shall leap forth where now, O silent master,
On thy lone grave beside the sounding sea,
I lay this laurel-wreath.

poem by Victor James Daley
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The Dance Of Life

Gracious and lovable and sweet,
She made his jaded pulses beat,
And made the glare of streets grow dim
And life more soft and hushed for him….
Over her shoulder now she smiled
Trustfully to him, like a child,
The while her fingers gayly moved
Alonge these white keys dearly loved,
Making them laugh a jocund measure,
Making them show and sing her pleasure….
A smile that dwelt upon his eyes,
To see what mood might therein rise,-
What point of soft light seen afar
Which might dilate to moon or star….
A smile that for a second space
Brooded wistfully on her face,
Opening soft her spirit's door,
Disclosing depths undreamed before:
Passionate depths of half-seen flame,
Young loveliness despising shame,
Desire that trembled to meet desire,
And fire that yearned to fuse with fire….
And lightly then she turned away,
Ironic music rippled gay,-
Subtle sarcastic flippancies
Disguising speechless ecstasies…
'Play something else…' He rose to turn
The pages, while the deep nocturne
Struck slow rich chords of plangent pain,
Beautiful, into heart and brain;
A tortured, anguished, suffering thing
That seemed at once to cry and sing;
Despairing love that strove to find
The face beloved with fingers blind.
He saw her body's slender grace,
This drooping shoulder, shadowed face;
All of her body, hidden so
In saffron satin's flush and flow,-
Its white and simple loveliness,-
Came on his heart like giddiness,
Seductive as this music came;
Until her body seemed like flame,-
Intense white flame, so swiftly moving
That it gave scarcely time for loving;
But rapid as the sun she seemed,
A blinding light that flowed and streamed
And sang and shone through roaring space….
The sun itself! for now her face,
Wherein this music's whole soul dwelt,
Drew him like helpless star, he felt
A fierce compulsion, reckless, mad,
A sweet compulsion, troubled, glad,
His trembling hands went out to her,
Her cool flesh made his senses blur;
While, head thrown backward, sinking dim,
She opened wide her soul to him….
Past his life went whirls of lights,
Chaos of music, days and nights,
Her wild eyes yearned to lure him in
And close him up in dark of sin,
To lure him in and drink him down
And all his soul in love to drown….
Her nakedness he seemed to see.
And breast to breast, and knee to knee,
Tremulous, breathless, swaying, burning,
Body to beautiful body yearning,
In joy and terror, flesh to flesh,
They flamed in passion's fine red mesh,-
Living in one short breath again
The cosmic tide's whole bliss and pain,
Darkness and ether, nebulous fire,
Vast suns whirled forth by vast desire,
Huge moons flung out with monstrous mirth
And stars in glorious hells of birth,
All jubilating, blazing, reeling,
An orgiastic splendor wheeling,
Moon torn from earth and star from sun
In screaming pain, titanic fun,
And stars whirled back to sun again
To be consumed in flaming pain!…
In them at last all life was met:
They were God's self! This earth had set.
Mad fires of life sang through their veins,
Ruinous blisses, joyous pains,
Life the destroyer, life the breaker,
And death, the everlasting maker….

poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
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At Dawn and Dusk

At Dawn and Dusk
Love-Laurel
IN MEMORY OF HENRY KENDALL

AH! that God once would touch my lips with song
To pierce, as prayer doth heaven, earth’s breast of iron,
So that with sweet mouth I might sing to thee,
O sweet dead singer buried by the sea,
A song, to woo thee, as a wooing siren,
Out of that silent sleep which seals too long
Thy mouth of melody.
For, if live lips might speak awhile to dead,
Or any speech could reach the sad world under
This world of ours, song surely should awake
Thee who didst dwell in shadow for song’s sake!
Alas! thou canst not hear the voice of thunder,
Nor low dirge over thy low-lying head
The winds of morning make.

Down through the clay there comes no sound of these;
Down in the grave there is no sign of Summer,
Nor any knowledge of the soft-eyed Spring;
But Death sits there, with outspread ebon wing,
Closing with dust the mouth of each new-comer
To that mute land, where never sound of seas
Is heard, and no birds sing.

Now thou hast found the end of all thy days
Hast thou found any heart a vigil keeping
For thee among the dead—some heart that heard
Thy singing when thou wert a brown, sweet bird
Gray Æons gone, in some old forest sleeping
Beneath the seas long since? in Death’s dim ways
Has thy heart any word?

For surely those in whom the deathless spark
Of song is kindled, sang from the beginning
If life were always? But the old desires—
Do they exist when sad-eyed Hope expires?
How live the dead? what crowns have they for winning?
Have they, to warm them in the dreamless dark,
For sun earth’s central fires?

Are the dead dead indeed whom we call dead?
Has God no life but this of ours for giving?—
When that they took thee by each well-known place,
Stark in thy coffin with a cold white face,
What thought, O Brother, hadst thou of the living?
What of the sun that round thee glory shed?
What of the fair day’s grace?

Is thy new life made up of memories
Or dreams that lull the dead, bright visions bringing
Of Spring above! Are thy days short or long?
Thou who wert master of our singing throng
Mayhap in death thou hast not lost thy singing,
But chauntst unheard, beside the moaning sea,
A solitary song.

The chance spade turns up skulls. God help the dead
And thee whose singing days have all passed over—
Thee, whom the gold-haired Spring shall seek in vain
When at the glad year’s doors she stands again,
Remembering the song-garlands thou hast wove her
In years gone by: but all these years have fled
With all their joy and pain.

. . . . .
My soul laughed out to hear my heart speak so,
And sprang forth skyward, as an eagle, hoping
To look upon thy soul with living eyes,
Until it came to where our dim life dies,
And dead suns darkly for a grave are groping
Through cycles of immeasurable woe,
Stone-blind in the blind skies.
The stars walk shuddering on that awful verge
From which my soul, with swift and fearless motion,
Clove the black depths, and sought for God and thee;
But God dwells where nor stars nor suns there be—
No shore there is to His Eternal Ocean;
A thousand systems are a fringe of surge
On that great starless sea.

And thou wert not. So that, with weary plumes,
My soul through the great void its way came winging
To earth again. “What hope for him who sings
Is there?” it sighed. “Death ends all sweetest things.”
When lo! there came a swell of mighty singing,
Flooding all space, and swift athwart the glooms
A flash of sudden wings.

. . . . .
Dreamer of dreams, thy songs and dreams are done.
Down where thou sleepest in earth’s secret bosom
There is no sorrow and no joy for thee,
Who canst not see what stars at eve there be,
Nor evermore at morn the green dawn blossom
Into the golden king-flower of the sun
Across the golden sea.
But haply there shall come in days to be
One who shall hear his own heart beating faster,
Plucking a rose sprung from thy heart beneath,
And from his soul, as sword from out its sheath,
Song shall leap forth where now, O silent master,
On thy lone grave beside the sounding sea,
I lay this laurel-wreath.

poem by Victor James Daley
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Twilight Of Disquietude

Scant majesty of stars prevails
across the uncreated night,
and fate is in the wind that wails
or clamours on the lonely height.

The years that go to make me man
this day are told a score and six
that should have set me magian
o'er my half-souls that struggle and mix.
But wisdom still remains a star
just hung within my aching ken,
and common prudence dwells afar
among contented homes of men.
In wide revolt and ruin tost
against whatever is or seems
my futile heart still wanders lost
in the same vast and impotent dreams.
On either hand life hurries by
its common joy, its common mirth;
I reach vague hands of sympathy,
a ghost upon this common earth.

I said, And let horizons tempt
and windy gates of eastern flame,
henceforth my place is close and kempt
who know their mockery the same.
Tho' nearer to my humble garth
no star may win its law's release,
patience shall tend my modest hearth
and trim a golden flame of peace,
wherein, perchance, from near and far
shall mingle boons right glad to wed,
the mild ray of the distant star
and the mild oil earth's patience bred.
— No roof-tree join'd the unfinish'd walls;
no lamp might shine, nor hearth-fire burn:
only the wind — the wind that calls —
may sing me welcome..who return.

The pangs that guard the gates of joy
the naked sword that will be kist,
how distant seem'd they to the boy,
white flashes in the rosy mist!
Ah, not where tender play was screen'd
in the light heart of leafy mirth
of that obdurate might we ween'd
that shakes the sure repose of earth.
And sudden, 'twixt a sun and sun,
the veil of dreaming is withdrawn:
lo, our disrupt dominion
and mountains solemn in the dawn;
hard paths that chase the dayspring's white,
and glooms that hold the nether heat:
oh, strange the world upheaved from night,
oh, dread the life before our feet!

My heart was wandering in the sands,
a restless thing, a scorn apart;
Love set his fire in my hands,
I clasped the flame unto my heart.
Surely, I said, my heart shall turn
one fierce delight of pointed flame;
and in that holocaust shall burn
its old unrest and scorn and shame:
surely my heart the heavens at last
shall storm with fiery orisons,
and know, enthroned in the vast,
the fervid peace of molten suns.
The flame that feeds upon my heart
fades or flares, by wild winds controll'd:
my heart still walks a thing apart,
my heart is restless as of old.

The banners of the king unfold
to tend me on my evening way:
my trumpets flood the air with gold;
my pride uplifts the vanquish'd day.
The riches of my heart are bled
to feed the passion of the west:
the limpid springs of life are shed,
and Beauty bares her secret breast.
Hasten, O night with nuptial breath!
O hour remote from any face!
vain-glories fade to sweetest death
heart-whelm'd in her divine embrace.

What of the battles I would win?
alas! their glory is unheard:
the wind of song wakes not their din
wandering in shadowy glens unstirr'd.
— And the great sorrows that I dream'd?
not all unscathed I thought to rise
high in the dateless dawn, redeem'd,
and bare before eternal eyes.
— And is it then the end of dream?
O heart, that long'd for splendid woe,
our shame to endure this dire extreme
of joy we scorned so long ago!

Disaster drives the shatter'd night
before its coming thro' the deep:
the soul is swept with monstrous flight
of fears upstartled from their sleep.
Its silent heaven is rolled away,
and shaken stars flit to and fro:
the mother-face is livid grey
with dumb apocalypse of woe.
The heart that knows its naked doom
awaits the unspoken shock of fate:
perchance, beyond these powers that loom
its hidden god shall rise more great.

The mother-deep, wise, yearning, bound,
I feel it press beneath my heart,
the deep where I were free and crown'd
o'er mine own realm, alone, apart.
It haunts, a grey unlit abysm,
thro' solitary eyelet-slits
pierced in the mean inflicted schism
where day deludes my purblind wits.
But mighty hands have lock'd the keep
and flung the key, long ages past:
there lies no way into the deep
that is myself, alone, aghast.

What do I know? myself alone,
a gulf of uncreated night,
wherein no star may e'er be shown
save I create it in my might.
What have I done? Oh foolish word,
and foolish deed your question craves!
think ye the sleeping depths are stirr'd
tho' tempest hound the madden'd waves?
What do I seek? I seek the word
that shall become the deed of might
whereby the sullen gulfs are stirr'd
and stars begotten on their night.

This is the sea where good and evil merge.
The night is black: we sail towards what sun
or lurid star may flare below the verge.
This is the night where good or bad is none.
O wandering soul upon this darkling surge,
does it not pain thee for the days now done,
the narrow days ere some dark god did urge
to seek some isle where life is whole and one!

poem by Christopher John Brennan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Introit : V. Litany Of Beauty

Joy, if the Soul or aught immortal be,
How may this Beauty know mortality?

O Beauty, perfect child of Light,
Sempiternal spirit of delight!
White and set with gold like the gold of the night,
The gold of the stars in quiet weather,--
White and shapely and pure!--
O lily-flower from stain secure,
With life and virginity dying together!

One lily liveth so,
Liveth for ever unstained, immortal, a mystic flower:
Perfectly wrought its frame,
Gold inwrought and eternal white,
White more white than cold of the snow,
For never, never, near it came,
Never shall come till the end of all,
Hurtful thing in wind or shower,
Worm or stain or blight;
But ever, ever, gently fall
The dews elysian of years that flow
Where it doth live secure
In flawless comeliness mature,
Golden and white and pure.
In the fair far-shining glow
Of eternal and holy Light.

Beauty of earthly things
Wrought by God and with hands of men!
Beauty of Nature and Art,
Fashioned anew for each Time brings,
For each new soul and living heart!
Beauty of Beauty that fills the ken
Till the soul is swooning, faint with delight!
Beauty of human form and voice,
Of eyes and ears and lips!--
O golden hair and brow of white!--
Wine of Beauty that whoso sips
Doth die to a spirit free, and rejoice,
Living with God and living with men,
Rapt rejoice in eternal bliss,
Raising his face to meet the kiss
Of the Beauty seraphic he sees above
In figure of his love.

O Beauty of Wisdom unsought
That in trance to poet is taught,
Uttered in secret lay,
Singing the heart from earth away,
Cunning the soul from care to lure,--
O mystic lily, from stain and death secure,
Till the end of all to stay!
O shapely flower that must for ever endure!
O voice of God that every heart must hear!
O hymn of purest souls that dost unsphere
The ravished soul that hears! O white, white gem!
O rose that dost the senses drown in bliss!
No thought shall stay the wing, or stem
The song or win the heart to miss
Thy love, thy joy, thy rapture divine!
O Beauty, Beauty, ever thine
The soul, the heart, the brain,
To own three in a loud perpetual strain,
Shriller and sweeter than song of wine,
Than song of sorrow or love or war!

Beauty of heaven and sun and day,
Beauty of water and frost and star,
Beauty of dusk-tide, narrowing, grey!

Beauty of silver light,
Beauty of purple night,
Beauty of solemn breath,
Beauty of closèd eye, and sleep, and death!

Beauty of dawn and dew,
Beauty of morning peace,
Ever ancient and ever new,
Ever renewed till waking cease
Or sleep for ever, when loud the angel's word
Through all the world is heard!

Beauty of brute and bird,
Beauty of earthly creatures
Whose hearts by the hand of God are stirred!

Beauty of the soul,
Beauty informing forms and features,
Fairest to God's eye,--
Beauty that cannot fade or die
Though atoms to ruin roll!

Beauty of blinded Trust,
Led by the hand of God
To a heaven where Cherub hath never trod!

Austere Beauty of Truth
Lighting the way of the just!

Splendid Beauty of Youth
Staying when Youth is sped,
Living when Life is dead,
Burning in funeral dust!

The glory of form doth pale and pall,
Beauty endures to the end of all.

poem by Thomas MacDonagh
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Spirit and Star

Through the bleak cold voids, through the wilds of space,
Trackless and starless, forgotten of grace,—
Through the dusk that is neither day nor night,
Through the grey that is neither dark nor light—
Through thin chill ethers where dieth speech,
Where the pulse of the music of heaven cannot reach,
Unwarmed by the breath of living thing,
And for ever unswept of angel's wing—
Through the cold, through the void, through the wilds of space,
With never a home or a resting-place,
How far must I wander? Oh God, how far?
I have lost my star, I have lost my star!

Once on a time unto me was given
The fairest star in the starry heaven—
A little star, to tend and to guide,
To nourish and cherish and love as a bride.
Far from all great bright orbs, alone,
Even to few of the angels known,
It moved; but a sweet pale light on its face
From the sapphire foot of the throne of grace,
That was better than glory and more than might,
Made it a wonder of quiet delight.
Still must I wander? Oh God, how far?
I have lost my star, I have lost my star!

On the starry brow was the peace of the blest,
And bounteous peace on the starry breast;
All beautiful things were blossoming there,
Sighing their loves to the delicate air:
No creature of God such fragrance breathed,
White-rose girdled and white-rose wreathed;
And its motion was music, an undertone,
With a strange sad sweetness all its own,
Dearer to me than the louder hymn
Of the God-enraptured seraphim.—
How far must I wander? Ah Heaven, how far?
I have lost my star, I have lost my star!

In a round of joy, remote and alone,
Yet ever in sight of the great white throne,
Together we moved, for a love divine
Had blent the life of the star with mine:—
And had all the angels of all the spheres
Forecast my fate and foretold my tears,

The weary wand'ring, the gruesome gloom,
And bruited them forth through the Trump of Doom—
Hiding a smile in my soul, I had moved
Only the nearer to what I loved.
Yet I must wander! Oh God, how far?
I have lost my star, I have lost my star!

Ah, woe the delusive demon-light
That beckoned me, beckoned me, day and night!
The untwining of heartstrings, the backward glance,
The truce with faith, and the severance!
Ah, woe the unfolding of wayward wings
That bore me away from all joyous things,
To realms of space whence the pale sweet gleam
Looked dim as a dimly-remembered dream—
To farther realms where the faint light spent
Vanished at length from my firmament;
And I seek it in vain—Ah God, how far?
I have lost my star, I have lost my star!

On sleepless wings I have followed it
Through the star-sown fields of the Infinite;
And where foot of angel hath never trod
I have threaded the golden mazes of God;
I have pierced where the fire-fount of being runs,
I have dashed myself madly on burning suns,
Then downward have swept with shuddering breath
Through the place of the shadows and shapes of death,
Till sick with sorrow and spent with pain
I float and faint in the dim inane!
Must I yet wander? Ah God, how far?
I have lost my star, I have lost my star!

Oh could I find in uttermost space
A place for hope, and for prayer a place,
Mine were no suit for a glittering prize
In the chosen seats of the upper skies—
No grand ministration, no thronèd height
In the midmost intense of unspeakable light.
What sun-god sphere with all-dazzling beam
Could be unto me as that sweet, sad gleam?
Let me roam through the ages all alone,
If He give me not back my own, my own!
How far must I wander? Oh God, how far?
I have lost my star, I have lost my star!

In the whispers that tremble from sphere to sphere,
Which the ear of a spirit alone can hear,

I have heard it breathed that there cometh a day
When tears from all eyes shall be wiped away,
When faintness of heart and drooping of wings
Shall be told as a tale of olden things,
When toil and trouble and all distress
Shall be lost in the round of Blessedness.
In that day when dividing of loves shall cease,
And all things draw near to the centre of peace,
In the fulness of time, in the ages afar,
God, oh God, shall I find my star?

poem by James Brunton Stephens
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Mortua est

A torch watching closely the sad and wet tomb,
A bell chiming harshly in this holy gloom,
A dream which is dipping its wing in the gall
That's how you have traveled beyond the world's wall.

You've passed when the sky is a field of delight,
With rivers of sweet milk and flowers of light,
When castles of black clouds are hiding the sun
And moon, the fair queen, visits them one by one.

You are like the silver that catches the eye,
With wings elevated you soar to the sky,
The clouds airy scaffold you climb, pale white soul,
Through showers of sun rays, the stars are your goal.

A ray takes you higher, a song leads your quest,
Your arms, white and tender, are crossed on your chest,
When loud is the spinning of spells everywhere,
There's silver in waters and gold in the air.

Your pure, candid soul through heaven is rolled;
I watch your remains... just dust white and cold,
Attired in clothes in coffin they sleep
I look at your smile, still lively and deep –

And quickly I'm asking my poor injured soul,
How come you died angel and death took his toll?
Are you not the youngster who offered delight?
You've gone to extinguish a star shining bright?

But up there in heaven are castles it seems
With vaults made of fine gold and walls of star beams,
With bridges of silver and streams, which flames bring,
With banks full of myrrh trees and flowers that sing;

They're waiting for your steps, O, dear holy queen,
With hair made of sun rays and eyes bright and clean,
Dressed up in a blue dress – a gold spotted gown,
And wearing on your head a thin laurel crown.

O, death is a chaos, an ocean of stars
While life is a puddle of dreams and of scars;
O, death is an epoch embroidered with suns
While life is a story so ugly that stuns –

Or maybe my thinking is stormy and void
The good thoughts I cherish are quickly destroyed...
When all suns are dying and stars fall on earth
I'll come to believe that the world isn't worth.

The high vault of heaven may crash and lose might,
The nothingness maybe will bring its long night,
I may see the dark sky, its worlds out of breath,
Which are easy prey to perpetual death.

And if it were so... my thinking runs rife,
Your warm, feeble breathing won't come back to life,
Your voice sweet and sounding will hush in dismay,
So, this lovely angel was made out of clay.

And yet, my dead dust and beautiful queen,
Against your dark coffin my hoarse harp I lean;
I don't cry for your death, but happy I say
That you left the chaos and went far away.

I stand here and wonder, which one better goes,
To be or to not be... but anyone knows
That what's non-existent cannot feel the pain,
There are many hardships, few pleasures remain.

To be? It's sad madness and empty and wry
Your eyes are deceiving, your ears always lie;
An age teaches something, which others disdain,
So better have nothing than hoping in vain.

I see dreams embodied, which chase other dreams,
But each one in graveyard will give up its needs,
My thinking is hazy and all thoughts are frail,
Shall I laugh like crazy? Or curse them or wail?

But then, for what reason? There's madness throughout
How come, pretty angel, you had to die out?
Has this world a meaning? O, dear smiling face
You lived just for dying? An awful disgrace;
If this has a meaning, it's just a facade,
Because on your forehead it's not written God.

poem by Mihai Eminescu, translated by Octavian Cocoş
Submitted by Octavian Cocoş
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The Phantom Fleet

The sunset lingered in the pale green West:
In rosy wastes the low soft evening star
Woke; while the last white sea-mew sought for rest;
And tawny sails came stealing o'er the bar.

But, in the hillside cottage, through the panes
The light streamed like a thin far trumpet-call,
And quickened, as with quivering battle-stains,
The printed ships that decked the parlour wall.

From oaken frames old admirals looked down:
They saw the lonely slumberer at their feet:
They saw the paper, headed _Talk from Town;
Our rusting trident, and our phantom fleet_:

And from a neighbouring tavern surged a song
Of England laughing in the face of war,
With eyes unconquerably proud and strong,
And lips triumphant from her Trafalgar.

But he, the slumberer in that glimmering room,
Saw distant waters glide and heave and gleam;
Around him in the softly coloured gloom
The pictures clustered slowly to a dream.

He saw how England, resting on her past,
Among the faded garlands of her dead,
Woke; for a whisper reached her heart at last,
And once again she raised her steel-clad head.

Her eyes were filled with sudden strange alarms;
She heard the westering waters change and chime;
She heard the distant tumult of her arms
Defeated, not by courage, but by Time.

Knowledge had made a deadlier pact with death,
Nor strength nor steel availed against that bond:
Slowly approached--and Britain held her breath--
The battle booming from the deeps beyond.

O, then what darkness rolled upon the wind,
Threatening the torch that Britain held on high?
Where all her navies, baffled, broken, blind,
Slunk backward, snarling in their agony!
_Who guards the gates of Freedom now?_ The cry
Stabbed heaven! _England, the shattered ramparts fall!_
Then, like a trumpet shivering through the sky
O, like white lightning rending the black pall
Of heaven, an answer pealed: _Her dead shall hear that call._

Then came a distant light of great waves breaking
That brought the sunset on each crumbling crest,
A rumour as of buried ages waking,
And mighty spirits rising from their rest;
Then ghostly clouds arose, with billowing breast,
White clouds that turned to sails upon their way,
Red clouds that burned like flags against the West,
Till even the conquering fleet in silence lay
Dazed with that strange old light, and night grew bright as day.

_We come to fight for Freedom!_ The great East
Heard, and was rent asunder like a veil.
Host upon host out of the night increased
Its towering clouds and crowded zones of sail:
_England, our England, canst thou faint or fail?
We come to fight for Freedom yet once more!_
This, this is ours at least! Count the great tale
Of all these dead that rise to guard thy shore
By right of the red life they never feared to pour.

_We come to fight for Freedom!_ On they came,
One cloud of beauty sweeping the wild sea;
And there, through all their thousands, flashed like flame
That star-born signal of the Victory:
_Duty_, that deathless lantern of the free;
_Duty_, that makes a god of every man.
And there was Nelson, watching silently
As through the phantom fleet the message ran;
And his tall frigate rushed before the stormy van.

Nelson, our Nelson, frail and maimed and blind,
Stretched out his dead cold face against the foe:
And England's Raleigh followed hard behind,
With all his eager fighting heart aglow;
Glad, glad for England's sake once more to know
The old joy of battle and contempt of pain;
Glad, glad to die, if England willed it so,
The traitor's and the coward's death again;
But hurl the world back now as once he hurled back Spain.

And there were all those others, Drake and Blake,
Rodney and Howard, Byron, Collingwood;
With deathless eyes aflame for England's sake,
As on their ancient decks they proudly stood,--
Decks washed of old with England's purplest blood;
And there, once more, each rushing oaken side
Bared its dark-throated, thirsty, gleaming brood
Of cannon, watched by laughing lads who died
Long, long ago for England and her ancient pride.

_We come to fight for England!_ The great sea
In a wild light of song began to break
Round that tall phantom of the Victory
And all the foam was music in her wake:
Ship after phantom ship, with guns a-rake
And shot-rent flags a-stream from every mast
Moved in a deepening splendour, not to make
A shield for England of her own dead past;
But, with a living dream to arm her soul at last.

_We come to die for England_: through the hush
Of gathered nations rose that regal cry,
From naked oaken walls one word could crush
If those vast armoured throats dared to reply:
But there the most implacable enemy
Felt his eyes fill with gladder, prouder tears,
As Nelson's calm eternal face went by,
Gazing beyond all perishable fears
To some diviner goal above the waste of years.

Through the hushed fleets the vision streamed away,
Then slowly turned once more to that deep West,
While voices cried, O, England, the new day
Is dawning, but thy soul can take no rest.

Thy freedom and thy peace are only thine
By right of toil on every land and sea
And by that crimson sacrificial wine
Of thine own heart and thine own agony.

Peace is not slumber. Peace, in every hour,
Throbs like the heart of music. This alone
Can save thy heritage and confirm that power
Whereof the past is but the cushioned throne.

Look to the fleet! Again and yet again,
Hear us who storm thy heart with this one cry.
Hear us, who cannot help, though fair and fain,
To hold thy seas before thee, and to die.

Look to the fleet! Thy fleet, the first, last line:
The sword of Liberty, her strength, her shield,
Her food, her life-blood! Britain, it is thine,
Here, now, to hold that birth-right, or to yield.

So, through the dark, those phantom ships of old
Faded, it seemed, through mists of blood and tears.
Sails turned to clouds, and slowly westward rolled
The sad returning pageant of the years.
On tides of light, where all our tumults cease,
Through that rich West, the Victory returned;
And all the waves around her whispered 'peace,'
And from her mast no battle-message burned.

Like clouds, like fragments of those fading skies,
The pageant passed, with all its misty spars,
While the hushed nations raised their dreaming eyes
To that great light which brings the end of wars.

Ship after ship, in some strange glory drowned,
Cloud after cloud, was lost in that deep light
Each with a sovran stillness haloed round.
Then--that high fleet of stars led on the night.

poem by Alfred Noyes
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In Collins Street

I stood in the heart of the city street,
I felt the throb of her pulses beat,
The thunder of life on the sunny air,
The waves of the people everywhere,
Like the stirring lilt of a mighty song
Ran the fever of life in the moving throng,
With the hope and joy and the want and woe
Of a million souls in its ebb and flow.
Like a floating straw in an eddy caught
My soul was whirled in the city’s thought—
The purse-born pride and the scheming brain,
The grinding need and the grasping gain;
The silent strength that is born to rule,
And the shallow laugh of the feckless fool,
The fresh young face where no shadow lies,
And the quenchless pain in the harlot’s eyes.

I stood in the heart of the city street,
And I heard not the tread of the passing feet,
For the days were grey and the nights were long,
And my soul was vexed with a wild sad song,
And the world like a stream flowed thro’ my brain,
And I saw her lands in a dream of pain,
And her power enthroned on the people’s needs,
And her heroes dead for a hundred creeds.

And I saw thro’ the pageant moving on
The same dark horrors of ages gone,
The dumb despair and the dire distress,
And man still mad in his littleness.
Who cares tho’ Earth be a masterpiece,
If pain and sorrow shall never cease?
Does God endure in His vaulted skies
The hopeless pain in His creatures’ eyes?

Then I saw, like a glory shining thro’,
What man had conquered and yet shall do.
I saw the depths where he lay of old,
And the heights of a splendour yet untold.
And I knew, in a flash, since the world began
What man had suffered and done for man,
And I felt like a note that is borne along
On the upward swell of a battle song.

poem by George Essex Evans
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Tales Of A Wayside Inn : Part 1. The Spanish Jew's Tale; The Legend of Rabbi Ben Levi

Rabbi Ben Levi, on the Sabbath, read
A volume of the Law, in which it said,
'No man shall look upon my face and live.'
And as he read, he prayed that God would give
His faithful servant grace with mortal eye
To look upon His face and yet not die.

Then fell a sudden shadow on the page,
And, lifting up his eyes, grown dim with age,
He saw the Angel of Death before him stand,
Holding a naked sword in his right hand.
Rabbi Ben Levi was a righteous man,
Yet through his veins a chill of terror ran.
With trembling voice he said, 'What wilt thou here?'
The angel answered, 'Lo! the time draws near
When thou must die; yet first, by God's decree,
Whate'er thou askest shall be granted thee.'
Replied the Rabbi, 'Let these living eyes
First look upon my place in Paradise.'

Then said the Angel, 'Come with me and look.'
Rabbi Ben Levi closed the sacred book,
And rising, and uplifting his gray head,
'Give me thy sword,' he to the Angel said,
'Lest thou shouldst fall upon me by the way.'
The angel smiled and hastened to obey,
Then led him forth to the Celestial Town,
And set him on the wall, whence, gazing down,
Rabbi Ben Levi, with his living eyes,
Might look upon his place in Paradise.

Then straight into the city of the Lord
The Rabbi leaped with the Death-Angel's sword,
And through the streets there swept a sudden breath
Of something there unknown, which men call death.
Meanwhile the Angel stayed without and cried,
'Come back!' To which the Rabbi's voice replied,
'No! in the name of God, whom I adore,
I swear that hence I will depart no more!'

Then all the Angels cried, 'O Holy One,
See what the son of Levi here hath done!
The kingdom of Heaven he takes by violence,
And in Thy name refuses to go hence!'
The Lord replied, 'My Angels, be not wroth;
Did e'er the son of Levi break his oath?
Let him remain; for he with mortal eye
Shall look upon my face and yet not die.'

Beyond the outer wall the Angel of Death
Heard the great voice, and said, with panting breath,
'Give back the sword, and let me go my way.'
Whereat the Rabbi paused, and answered, 'Nay!
Anguish enough already hath it caused
Among the sons of men.' And while he paused
He heard the awful mandate of the Lord
Resounding through the air, 'Give back the sword!'

The Rabbi bowed his head in silent prayer;
Then said he to the dreadful Angel, 'Swear,
No human eye shall look on it again;
But when thou takest away the souls of men,
Thyself unseen, and with an unseen sword,
Thou wilt perform the bidding of the Lord.'
The Angel took the sword again, and swore,
And walks on earth unseen forevermore.

poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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From the Commemoration Ode

WASHINGTON

WHEN dreaming kings, at odds with swift paced time,
Would strike that banner down,
A nobler knight than ever writ or rhyme
With fame’s bright wreath did crown
Through armed hosts bore it till it floated high
Beyond the clouds, a light that cannot die!
Ah, hero of our younger race!
Great builder of a temple new!
Ruler, who sought no lordly place!
Warrior, who sheathed the sword he drew!
Lover of men, who saw afar
A world unmarred by want or war,
Who knew the path, and yet forbore
To tread, till all men should implore;
Who saw the light, and led the way
Where the gray would might greet the day;
Father and leader, prophet sure,
Whose will in vast works shall endure,
How shall we praise him on this day of days,
Great son of fame who has no need of praise?

How shall we praise him? Open wide the doors
Of the fair temple whose broad base he laid.
Through its white halls a shadowy cavalcade
Of heroes moves o’er unresounding floors—
Men whose brawned arms upraised these columns high,
And reared the towers that vanish in the sky,—
The strong who, having wrought, can never die.

LINCOLN

AND, lo! leading a blessed host comes one
Who held a warring nation in his heart;
Who knew love’s agony, but had no part
In love’s delight; whose mightly task was done
Through blood and tears that we might walk in joy,
And this day’s rapture own no sad alloy.
Around him heirs of bliss, whose bright brows wear
Palm-leaves amid their laurels ever fair.
Gaily they come, as though the drum
Beat out the call their glad hearts knew so well:
Brothers once more, dear as of yore,
Who in a noble conflict nobly fell.
Their blood washed pure you banner in the sky,
And quenched the brands laid ’neath these arches high—
The brave who, having fought, can never die.

Then surging through the vastness rise once more
The aureoled heirs of light, who onward bore
Through darksome times and trackless realms of ruth
The flag of beauty and the torch of truth.
They tore the mask from the foul face of wrong;
Even to God’s mysteries they dared aspire;
High in the choir they built yon altar-fire,
And filled these aisles with color and with song:
The ever-young, the unfallen, wreathing for time
Fresh garlands of the seeming-vanished years;
Faces long luminous, remote, sublime,
And shining brows still dewy with our tears.
Back with the old glad smile comes one we knew—
We bade him rear our house of joy today.
But Beauty opened wide her starry way,
And he passed on. Bright champions of the true,
Soldiers of peace, seers, singers ever blest,—
From the wide ether of a loftier quest
Their winged souls throng our rites to glorify,—
The wise who, having known, can never die.

DEMOCRACY

FOR, lo! the living God doth bare his arm.
No more he makes his house of clouds and gloom.
Lightly the shuttles move within his loom;
Unveiled his thunder leaps to meet the storm.
From God’s right hand man takes the powers that sway
A universe of stars.
He bows them down; he bids them go or stay;
He tames them for his wars.
He scans the burning paces of the sun,
And names the invisible orbs whose courses run
Through the dim deeps of space.
He sees in dew upon a rose impearled
The swarming legions of a monad world
Begin life’s upward race.
Voices of hope he hears
Long dumb to his despair,
And dreams of golden years
Meet for a world so fair.
For now Democracy doth wake and rise
From the sweet sloth of youth.
By storms made strong, by many dreams made wise,
He clasps the hand of Truth.
Through the armed nations lies his path of peace,
The open book of knowledge in his hand.
Food to the starving, to the oppressed release,
And love to all he bears from land to land.
Before his march the barriers fall,
The laws grow gentle at his call.
His glowing breath blows far away
The fogs that veil the coming day,—
That wondrous day
When earth shall sing as through the blue she rolls
Laden with joy for all her thronging souls.
Then shall want’s call to sin resound no more
Across her teeming fields. And pain shall sleep,
Soothed by brave science with her magic lore;
And war no more shall bid the nations weep.
Then the worn chains shall slip from man’s desire,
And ever higher and higher
His swift foot shall aspire;
Still deeper and more deep
His soul its watch shall keep,
Till love shall make the world a holy place,
Where knowledge dare unveil God’s very face.

Not yet the angels hear life’s last sweet song.
Music unutterably pure and strong
From earth shall rise to haunt the peopled skies,
When the long march of time,
Patient in birth and death, in growth and blight,
Shall lead man up through happy realms of light
Unto his goal sublime.

poem by Harriet Monroe
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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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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Lux In Tenebris

When first the Gods, whose Empire is eternal,
In Time’s deep chalice poured Life’s sacred wine,
Flashed all the crystal cup with fire supernal;
Then said they: “Shall the mortal be divine?
Shall man usurp the ways the Gods have trod?
Who quaffs this cup, himself should be a God!”
So tempered they the measure of their giving,
And mingled germs of evil with the good;
So mixed they death with the fierce fire of living,
And anguish with the joy of motherhood;
And with the balm of peace a weird unrest,
And an unformed desire in every breast.

So set they discord in the sweetest singing,
And a sharp thorn about the fairest rose;
And doubt around the cross where faith was clinging,
And fear to haunt the regions of repose;
And dimmed men’s eyes, so that they should not see,
Like Gods, the vistas of futurity.

They coloured failure with hope’s rainbow splendour,
And tinged the hour of triumph with regret;
Made strength subservient to the weak and tender,
And wisdom, folly-caught in beauty’s net;
Till unto man life’s wine was bitter-sweet—
Betwixt the perfect and the incomplete.

Then said the Gods—the Gods who live for ever—
“Let us shower gifts upon the soul of man,
That he may catch a glimpse of our endeavour,
And yet not solve the Universal Plan.
For, though Life’s deepest truths be near to find,
Man shall behold and see not, being blind!”

Thus, to the blessing of the Gods descending,
The universal curse and shadow clung;
The mystic evil with the glory blending
That mars the aeons since the world was young.
For upon all whom the High Gods had blest
There fell the quenchless fever of unrest.

Then rose a ferment and an exaltation,
And all men’s souls were thrilled and stirred within.
There came a prophet unto every nation
To teach new doctrines of the source of sin;
And men arose as Gods, and creeds began
To preach th’ Eternal Godhead one with man.

And ever, thro’ all lands, with waves sonorous,
Rolled on from age to age the stream of song
Which made low valleys sweet with rhythmic chorus,
And shook the rock-bound hills with music strong,
And flushed and fired men’s souls like fumes of wine—
Yet was but human! . . . not a song divine!

For, lo! thro’ all that seemeth inspiration
Enters the curse that blurs created things;
Beyond the barriers of our limitation
Not ever yet a soul has spread its wings!
Nor has been yet, nor ever shall there be,
A perfect song—a perfect harmony!

O music of the wind and of the ocean!—
O Power that sways the glory of the spheres!
O aching hearts that vibrate with emotion!
O mystery of Life! O human tears!
What light shall lead us thro’ the wilderness
From out the Egypt of our bitterness?

O Poets, round whose souls, since the beginning,
Strange echoes tremble and wild visions throng,
Ye all have heard the sweetness of the singing,
But no man knows the meaning of the song
That lifts our frail souls heavenwards with its strain—
Then flings us bleeding to the earth again!

Brothers, my soul has quickened with your gladness.
I, too, have sorrowed over human woe.
I, too, have felt the terror and the madness
That all who seek for truth and light must know.
My faint heart falters in the bitter strife—
The labyrinths of the mysteries of Life.

What hope—what comfort—in our desolation?
What ray to pierce the blackness of our night?
To weary hearts, what balm of consolation
That earth is finite, heaven is infinite?
What tho’ the hand of Faith still points the way—
The voice of Reason ever brings delay.

Nay! tho’ Life’s secret be beyond our dreaming,
And all the creeds that sway the world untrue,
A radiance creeps aslant the shadows gleaming
Whose golden arrows pierce the darkness thro’.
If all our errors hold one germ of right,
The paths that lead to truth are infinite!

Throughout all nature and throughout creation
A Power Supreme its manual sign has writ.
In pain and stress, thro’ aeons of gradation,
Shall the weak soul of man decipher it;
For, since the spirit is above the clay,
Man shall not know th’ Eternal in a day.

Yet, tho’ we know not their immortal places,
And tho’ their footsteps are not heard of man,
And tho’ with mystery they veil their faces
And bid us search the Universal Plan,
And tho’ to all there cometh with Life’s breath
Suffering, and doubt, and weariness, and death—

I sing Eternal Hope and Strong Endeavour,
Truth shining down a myriad aisles of thought;
I sing the deathless souls of men, for ever
By strange, wild paths to one vast triumph brought.
The God in Man—the hunger of the soul—
One with the Wisdom that inspires the Whole!

poem by George Essex Evans
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The Quality of Courage

Black trees against an orange sky,
Trees that the wind shook terribly,
Like a harsh spume along the road,
Quavering up like withered arms,
Writhing like streams, like twisted charms
Of hot lead flung in snow. Below
The iron ice stung like a goad,
Slashing the torn shoes from my feet,
And all the air was bitter sleet.

And all the land was cramped with snow,
Steel-strong and fierce and glimmering wan,
Like pale plains of obsidian.
-- And yet I strove -- and I was fire
And ice -- and fire and ice were one
In one vast hunger of desire.
A dim desire, of pleasant places,
And lush fields in the summer sun,
And logs aflame, and walls, and faces,
-- And wine, and old ambrosial talk,
A golden ball in fountains dancing,
And unforgotten hands. (Ah, God,
I trod them down where I have trod,
And they remain, and they remain,
Etched in unutterable pain,
Loved lips and faces now apart,
That once were closer than my heart --
In agony, in agony,
And horribly a part of me. . . .
For Lethe is for no man set,
And in Hell may no man forget.)

And there were flowers, and jugs, bright-glancing,
And old Italian swords -- and looks,
A moment's glance of fire, of fire,
Spiring, leaping, flaming higher,
Into the intense, the cloudless blue,
Until two souls were one, and flame,
And very flesh, and yet the same!
As if all springs were crushed anew
Into one globed drop of dew!
But for the most I thought of heat,
Desiring greatly. . . . Hot white sand
The lazy body lies at rest in,
Or sun-dried, scented grass to nest in,
And fires, innumerable fires,
Great fagots hurling golden gyres
Of sparks far up, and the red heart
In sea-coals, crashing as they part
To tiny flares, and kindling snapping,
Bunched sticks that burst their string and wrapping
And fall like jackstraws; green and blue
The evil flames of driftwood too,
And heavy, sullen lumps of coke
With still, fierce heat and ugly smoke. . . .
. . . And then the vision of his face,
And theirs, all theirs, came like a sword,
Thrice, to the heart -- and as I fell
I thought I saw a light before.

I woke. My hands were blue and sore,
Torn on the ice. I scarcely felt
The frozen sleet begin to melt
Upon my face as I breathed deeper,
But lay there warmly, like a sleeper
Who shifts his arm once, and moans low,
And then sinks back to night. Slow, slow,
And still as Death, came Sleep and Death
And looked at me with quiet breath.
Unbending figures, black and stark
Against the intense deeps of the dark.
Tall and like trees. Like sweet and fire
Rest crept and crept along my veins,
Gently. And there were no more pains. . . .

Was it not better so to lie?
The fight was done. Even gods tire
Of fighting. . . . My way was the wrong.
Now I should drift and drift along
To endless quiet, golden peace . . .
And let the tortured body cease.

And then a light winked like an eye.
. . . And very many miles away
A girl stood at a warm, lit door,
Holding a lamp. Ray upon ray
It cloaked the snow with perfect light.
And where she was there was no night
Nor could be, ever. God is sure,
And in his hands are things secure.
It is not given me to trace
The lovely laughter of that face,
Like a clear brook most full of light,
Or olives swaying on a height,
So silver they have wings, almost;
Like a great word once known and lost
And meaning all things. Nor her voice
A happy sound where larks rejoice,
Her body, that great loveliness,
The tender fashion of her dress,
I may not paint them.
These I see,
Blazing through all eternity,
A fire-winged sign, a glorious tree!

She stood there, and at once I knew
The bitter thing that I must do.
There could be no surrender now;
Though Sleep and Death were whispering low.
My way was wrong. So. Would it mend
If I shrank back before the end?
And sank to death and cowardice?
No, the last lees must be drained up,
Base wine from an ignoble cup;
(Yet not so base as sleek content
When I had shrunk from punishment)
The wretched body strain anew!
Life was a storm to wander through.
I took the wrong way. Good and well,
At least my feet sought out not Hell!
Though night were one consuming flame
I must go on for my base aim,
And so, perhaps, make evil grow
To something clean by agony . . .
And reach that light upon the snow . . .
And touch her dress at last . . .
So, so,
I crawled. I could not speak or see
Save dimly. The ice glared like fire,
A long bright Hell of choking cold,
And each vein was a tautened wire,
Throbbing with torture -- and I crawled.
My hands were wounds.
So I attained
The second Hell. The snow was stained
I thought, and shook my head at it
How red it was! Black tree-roots clutched
And tore -- and soon the snow was smutched
Anew; and I lurched babbling on,
And then fell down to rest a bit,
And came upon another Hell . . .
Loose stones that ice made terrible,
That rolled and gashed men as they fell.
I stumbled, slipped . . . and all was gone
That I had gained. Once more I lay
Before the long bright Hell of ice.
And still the light was far away.
There was red mist before my eyes
Or I could tell you how I went
Across the swaying firmament,
A glittering torture of cold stars,
And how I fought in Titan wars . . .
And died . . . and lived again upon
The rack . . . and how the horses strain
When their red task is nearly done. . . .

I only know that there was Pain,
Infinite and eternal Pain.
And that I fell -- and rose again.

So she was walking in the road.
And I stood upright like a man,
Once, and fell blind, and heard her cry . . .
And then there came long agony.
There was no pain when I awoke,
No pain at all. Rest, like a goad,
Spurred my eyes open -- and light broke
Upon them like a million swords:
And she was there. There are no words.

Heaven is for a moment's span.
And ever.
So I spoke and said,
"My honor stands up unbetrayed,
And I have seen you. Dear . . ."
Sharp pain
Closed like a cloak. . . .
I moaned and died.

Here, even here, these things remain.
I shall draw nearer to her side.

Oh dear and laughing, lost to me,
Hidden in grey Eternity,
I shall attain, with burning feet,
To you and to the mercy-seat!
The ages crumble down like dust,
Dark roses, deviously thrust
And scattered in sweet wine -- but I,
I shall lift up to you my cry,
And kiss your wet lips presently
Beneath the ever-living Tree.

This in my heart I keep for goad!
Somewhere, in Heaven she walks that road.
Somewhere . . . in Heaven . . . she walks . . . that . . . road. . . .

poem by Stephen Vincent Benet
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Ode To Heaven

CHORUS OF SPIRITS:

FIRST SPIRIT:
Palace-roof of cloudless nights!
Paradise of golden lights!
Deep, immeasurable, vast,
Which art now, and which wert then
Of the Present and the Past,
Of the eternal Where and When,
Presence-chamber, temple, home,
Ever-canopying dome,
Of acts and ages yet to come!

Glorious shapes have life in thee,
Earth, and all earth’s company;
Living globes which ever throng
Thy deep chasms and wildernesses;
And green worlds that glide along;
And swift stars with flashing tresses;
And icy moons most cold and bright,
And mighty suns beyond the night,
Atoms of intensest light.

Even thy name is as a god,
Heaven! for thou art the abode
Of that Power which is the glass
Wherein man his nature sees.
Generations as they pass
Worship thee with bended knees.
Their unremaining gods and they
Like a river roll away:
Thou remainest such—alway!—

SECOND SPIRIT:
Thou art but the mind’s first chamber,
Round which its young fancies clamber,
Like weak insects in a cave,
Lighted up by stalactites;
But the portal of the grave,
Where a world of new delights
Will make thy best glories seem
But a dim and noonday gleam
From the shadow of a dream!

THIRD SPIRIT:
Peace! the abyss is wreathed with scorn
At your presumption, atom-born!
What is Heaven? and what are ye
Who its brief expanse inherit?
What are suns and spheres which flee
With the instinct of that Spirit
Of which ye are but a part?
Drops which Nature’s mighty heart
Drives through thinnest veins! Depart!

What is Heaven? a globe of dew,
Filling in the morning new
Some eyed flower whose young leaves waken
On an unimagined world:
Constellated suns unshaken,
Orbits measureless, are furled
In that frail and fading sphere,
With ten millions gathered there,
To tremble, gleam, and disappear.

CANCELLED FRAGMENTS OF THE ODE TO HEAVEN.
[Published by Mr. C.D. Locock, “Examination”, etc., 1903.]

The [living frame which sustains my soul]
Is [sinking beneath the fierce control]
Down through the lampless deep of song
I am drawn and driven along—

When a Nation screams aloud
Like an eagle from the cloud
When a...

...

When the night...

...

Watch the look askance and old—
See neglect, and falsehood fold...

poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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Go Down, Death

Weep not, weep not,
She is not dead;
She's resting in the bosom of Jesus.
Heart-broken husband--weep no more;
Grief-stricken son--weep no more;
Left-lonesome daughter --weep no more;
She only just gone home.

Day before yesterday morning,
God was looking down from his great, high heaven,
Looking down on all his children,
And his eye fell of Sister Caroline,
Tossing on her bed of pain.
And God's big heart was touched with pity,
With the everlasting pity.

And God sat back on his throne,
And he commanded that tall, bright angel standing at his right hand:
Call me Death!
And that tall, bright angel cried in a voice
That broke like a clap of thunder:
Call Death!--Call Death!
And the echo sounded down the streets of heaven
Till it reached away back to that shadowy place,
Where Death waits with his pale, white horses.

And Death heard the summons,
And he leaped on his fastest horse,
Pale as a sheet in the moonlight.
Up the golden street Death galloped,
And the hooves of his horses struck fire from the gold,
But they didn't make no sound.
Up Death rode to the Great White Throne,
And waited for God's command.

And God said: Go down, Death, go down,
Go down to Savannah, Georgia,
Down in Yamacraw,
And find Sister Caroline.
She's borne the burden and heat of the day,
She's labored long in my vineyard,
And she's tired--
She's weary--
Do down, Death, and bring her to me.

And Death didn't say a word,
But he loosed the reins on his pale, white horse,
And he clamped the spurs to his bloodless sides,
And out and down he rode,
Through heaven's pearly gates,
Past suns and moons and stars;
on Death rode,
Leaving the lightning's flash behind;
Straight down he came.

While we were watching round her bed,
She turned her eyes and looked away,
She saw what we couldn't see;
She saw Old Death.She saw Old Death
Coming like a falling star.
But Death didn't frighten Sister Caroline;
He looked to her like a welcome friend.
And she whispered to us: I'm going home,
And she smiled and closed her eyes.

And Death took her up like a baby,
And she lay in his icy arms,
But she didn't feel no chill.
And death began to ride again--
Up beyond the evening star,
Into the glittering light of glory,
On to the Great White Throne.
And there he laid Sister Caroline
On the loving breast of Jesus.

And Jesus took his own hand and wiped away her tears,
And he smoothed the furrows from her face,
And the angels sang a little song,
And Jesus rocked her in his arms,
And kept a-saying: Take your rest,
Take your rest.

Weep not--weep not,
She is not dead;
She's resting in the bosom of Jesus.

poem by James Weldon Johnson
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Mont Blanc: Lines Written in the Vale of Chamouni

I
The everlasting universe of things
Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves,
Now dark--now glittering--now reflecting gloom--
Now lending splendour, where from secret springs
The source of human thought its tribute brings
Of waters--with a sound but half its own,
Such as a feeble brook will oft assume,
In the wild woods, among the mountains lone,
Where waterfalls around it leap for ever,
Where woods and winds contend, and a vast river
Over its rocks ceaselessly bursts and raves.
II

Thus thou, Ravine of Arve--dark, deep Ravine--
Thou many-colour'd, many-voiced vale,
Over whose pines, and crags, and caverns sail
Fast cloud-shadows and sunbeams: awful scene,
Where Power in likeness of the Arve comes down
From the ice-gulfs that gird his secret throne,
Bursting through these dark mountains like the flame
Of lightning through the tempest;--thou dost lie,
Thy giant brood of pines around thee clinging,
Children of elder time, in whose devotion
The chainless winds still come and ever came
To drink their odours, and their mighty swinging
To hear--an old and solemn harmony;
Thine earthly rainbows stretch'd across the sweep
Of the aethereal waterfall, whose veil
Robes some unsculptur'd image; the strange sleep
Which when the voices of the desert fail
Wraps all in its own deep eternity;
Thy caverns echoing to the Arve's commotion,
A loud, lone sound no other sound can tame;
Thou art pervaded with that ceaseless motion,
Thou art the path of that unresting sound--
Dizzy Ravine! and when I gaze on thee
I seem as in a trance sublime and strange
To muse on my own separate fantasy,
My own, my human mind, which passively
Now renders and receives fast influencings,
Holding an unremitting interchange
With the clear universe of things around;
One legion of wild thoughts, whose wandering wings
Now float above thy darkness, and now rest
Where that or thou art no unbidden guest,
In the still cave of the witch Poesy,
Seeking among the shadows that pass by
Ghosts of all things that are, some shade of thee,
Some phantom, some faint image; till the breast
From which they fled recalls them, thou art there!
III

Some say that gleams of a remoter world
Visit the soul in sleep, that death is slumber,
And that its shapes the busy thoughts outnumber
Of those who wake and live.--I look on high;
Has some unknown omnipotence unfurl'd
The veil of life and death? or do I lie
In dream, and does the mightier world of sleep
Spread far around and inaccessibly
Its circles? For the very spirit fails,
Driven like a homeless cloud from steep to steep
That vanishes among the viewless gales!
Far, far above, piercing the infinite sky,
Mont Blanc appears--still, snowy, and serene;
Its subject mountains their unearthly forms
Pile around it, ice and rock; broad vales between
Of frozen floods, unfathomable deeps,
Blue as the overhanging heaven, that spread
And wind among the accumulated steeps;
A desert peopled by the storms alone,
Save when the eagle brings some hunter's bone,
And the wolf tracks her there--how hideously
Its shapes are heap'd around! rude, bare, and high,
Ghastly, and scarr'd, and riven.--Is this the scene
Where the old Earthquake-daemon taught her young
Ruin? Were these their toys? or did a sea
Of fire envelop once this silent snow?
None can reply--all seems eternal now.
The wilderness has a mysterious tongue
Which teaches awful doubt, or faith so mild,
So solemn, so serene, that man may be,
But for such faith, with Nature reconcil'd;
Thou hast a voice, great Mountain, to repeal
Large codes of fraud and woe; not understood
By all, but which the wise, and great, and good
Interpret, or make felt, or deeply feel.
IV

The fields, the lakes, the forests, and the streams,
Ocean, and all the living things that dwell
Within the daedal earth; lightning, and rain,
Earthquake, and fiery flood, and hurricane,
The torpor of the year when feeble dreams
Visit the hidden buds, or dreamless sleep
Holds every future leaf and flower; the bound
With which from that detested trance they leap;
The works and ways of man, their death and birth,
And that of him and all that his may be;
All things that move and breathe with toil and sound
Are born and die; revolve, subside, and swell.
Power dwells apart in its tranquillity,
Remote, serene, and inaccessible:
And this, the naked countenance of earth,
On which I gaze, even these primeval mountains
Teach the adverting mind. The glaciers creep
Like snakes that watch their prey, from their far fountains,
Slow rolling on; there, many a precipice
Frost and the Sun in scorn of mortal power
Have pil'd: dome, pyramid, and pinnacle,
A city of death, distinct with many a tower
And wall impregnable of beaming ice.
Yet not a city, but a flood of ruin
Is there, that from the boundaries of the sky
Rolls its perpetual stream; vast pines are strewing
Its destin'd path, or in the mangled soil
Branchless and shatter'd stand; the rocks, drawn down
From yon remotest waste, have overthrown
The limits of the dead and living world,
Never to be reclaim'd. The dwelling-place
Of insects, beasts, and birds, becomes its spoil;
Their food and their retreat for ever gone,
So much of life and joy is lost. The race
Of man flies far in dread; his work and dwelling
Vanish, like smoke before the tempest's stream,
And their place is not known. Below, vast caves
Shine in the rushing torrents' restless gleam,
Which from those secret chasms in tumult welling
Meet in the vale, and one majestic River,
The breath and blood of distant lands, for ever
Rolls its loud waters to the ocean-waves,
Breathes its swift vapours to the circling air.
V

Mont Blanc yet gleams on high:--the power is there,
The still and solemn power of many sights,
And many sounds, and much of life and death.
In the calm darkness of the moonless nights,
In the lone glare of day, the snows descend
Upon that Mountain; none beholds them there,
Nor when the flakes burn in the sinking sun,
Or the star-beams dart through them. Winds contend
Silently there, and heap the snow with breath
Rapid and strong, but silently! Its home
The voiceless lightning in these solitudes
Keeps innocently, and like vapour broods
Over the snow. The secret Strength of things
Which governs thought, and to the infinite dome
Of Heaven is as a law, inhabits thee!
And what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea,
If to the human mind's imaginings
Silence and solitude were vacancy?

poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Comfortable Light

Most comfortable Light,
Light of the small lamp burning up the night,
With dawn enleagued against the beaten dark;
Pure golden perfect spark;

Or sudden wind-bright flame,
That but the strong-handed wind can urge or tame;
Chill loveliest light the kneeling clouds between,
Silverly serene;

Comfort of happy light,
That mouse-like leaps amid brown leaves, cheating sight;
Clear naked stars, burning with swift intense
Earthward intelligence;--

Sensitive, single
Points in the dark inane that purely tingle
With eager fire, pouring night's circles through
Their living blue;

Dark light still waters hold;
Broad silver moonpath trodden into gold:
Candle-flame glittering through the traveller's night--
Most comfortable light....

And lovelier, the eye
Where light from darkness shines unfathomably,
Light secret, clear, shallow, profound, known, strange,
Constant alone in change:--

Not that wild light that turns
Hunted from dying eyes when the last fire burns;
O, not that bitter light of wounded things,
When bony anguish springs

Sudden, intolerable;
Nor light of mad eyes gleaming up from hell....
Come not again, wild light! Shine not again,
Hill-flare of pain!

But thou, most holy light....
Not the noon blaze that stings, too fiercely bright,
Not that unwinking stare of shameless day;
But thou, the gray,

Nun-like and silent, still,
Fine-breathed on many an eastern bare green hill;
Keen light of gray eyes, cool rain, and stern spears;
Sad light, but not to tears:--

--O, comfort thou of eyes
Watching expectant from chill northern skies,
Excellent joy for lids heavy with night--
Strange with delight!

poem by John Freeman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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