Modern Love XII: Not Solely That the Future
Not solely that the Future she destroys,
And the fair life which in the distance lies
For all men, beckoning out from dim rich skies:
Nor that the passing hour's supporting joys
Have lost the keen-edged flavour, which begat
Distinction in old times, and still should breed
Sweet Memory, and Hope,--earth's modest seed,
And heaven's high-prompting: not that the world is flat
Since that soft-luring creature I embraced,
Among the children of Illusion went:
Methinks with all this loss I were content,
If the mad Past, on which my foot is based,
Were firm, or might be blotted: but the whole
Of life is mixed: the mocking Past will stay:
And if I drink oblivion of a day,
So shorten I the stature of my soul.
poem by George Meredith
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
The To-Be-Forgotten
I
I heard a small sad sound,
And stood awhile among the tombs around:
"Wherefore, old friends," said I, "are you distrest,
Now, screened from life's unrest?"
II
--"O not at being here;
But that our future second death is near;
When, with the living, memory of us numbs,
And blank oblivion comes!
III
"These, our sped ancestry,
Lie here embraced by deeper death than we;
Nor shape nor thought of theirs can you descry
With keenest backward eye.
IV
"They count as quite forgot;
They are as men who have existed not;
Theirs is a loss past loss of fitful breath;
It is the second death.
V
"We here, as yet, each day
Are blest with dear recall; as yet, can say
We hold in some soul loved continuance
Of shape and voice and glance.
VI
"But what has been will be --
First memory, then oblivion's swallowing sea;
Like men foregone, shall we merge into those
Whose story no one knows.
VII
"For which of us could hope
To show in life that world-awakening scope
Granted the few whose memory none lets die,
But all men magnify?
VIII
"We were but Fortune's sport;
Things true, things lovely, things of good report
We neither shunned nor sought ... We see our bourne,
And seeing it we mourn."
poem by Thomas Hardy
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Stanzas Subjoined To The Yearly Bill Of Mortality Of The Parish Of All-Saints, Northampton. Anno Domini 1789
'Oh most delightful hour by man
Experienced here below,
The hour that terminates his span,
His folly and his woe!
'Worlds should not bribe me back to tread
Again life's dreary waste,
To see again my day o'erspread
With all the gloomy past.
'My home henceforth is in the skies,
Earth, seas, and sun, adieu!
All heaven unfolded to my eyes,
I have no sight for you.'
So spake Aspasio, firm possessed
Of faith's supporting rod,
Then breathed his soul into its rest,
The bosom of his God.
He was a man among the few
Sincere on virtue's side;
And all his strength from Scripture drew,
To hourly use applied.
That rule he prized, by that he feared,
He hated, hoped, and loved;
Nor ever frowned, or sad appeared,
But when his heart had roved.
For he was frail as thou or I,
And evil felt within:
But when he felt it, heaved a sigh,
And loathed the thought of sin.
Such lived Aspasio; and at last
Called up from earth to heaven,
The gulf of death triumphant passed,
By gales of blessing driven.
His joys be mine, each reader cries,
When my last hour arrives;
They shall be yours, my verse replies,
Such only be your lives.
poem by William Cowper
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Memory and Oblivion
When all is lost, there is still a memory
From which a new city can be built in a new world.
Those with memory will be wealthy.
Oblivion cures the old wounds, and you must agree,
There is only the past and the future on the path;
When all is lost, there is still a memory.
Memory will save oblivion from a bad reverie;
When the new city is built, it will be an abode,
Bestowed by those with memory to make others wealthy.
Before the temple, in the middle of the city,
Keepers of the fire all abided.
When all is lost, there is still a memory.
Fire will be born from night to be
New light when all knowledge is swallowed
And those with memory will be wealthy.
A new rose will bloom from the dark sea,
A city revived from memory and abroad;
When all is but a memory, there is still memory.
Those with memory will be wealthy.
poem by Dejan Stojanovic
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
To H.a.b. On My Forty-seventh Birthday
WHEN one is forty years and seven,
Is seven and forty sad years old,
He looks not onward for his Heaven,
The future is too blank and cold,
Its pale flowers smell of graveyard mould;
He looks back to his lifeful past;
If age is silver, youth is gold:-
Could youth but last, could youth but last!
He turns back toward his youthful past
A-throb with life and love and hope,
Whose long-dead joys in memory last,
Whose shining days had ample scope;
He turns and lingers on the slope
Whose dusk leads down to sightless death:-
The sun once crowned that darkening cope,
And song once thrilled this weary breath.
Ali, he plods wearily to death,
Adown the gloaming into night,
But other lives breathe joyous breath
In morning's boundless golden light;
Their feet are swift, their eyes are bright,
Their hearts beat rhythms of hope and love,
Their being is a pure delight
In earth below and heaven above.
And you have hope and joy and love,
And you have youth's abounding life,
Whose crystal currents flow above
The stones and sands of care and strife.
May all your years with joys be rifc,
May you grow calmly to your prime,
A maiden sweet, a cherished wife,
A happy mother in due time.
All good you wish me, past my prime,
I wish with better hope to you,
And richer blessings than old Time
And Fate or Fortune found my due:
For you are kind and good and true,
And so when you are forty-seven
May spouse and children in your view
Make Home the happiest life-long Heaven.
poem by James Thomson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Gone
Everything of the past is a memory gone
Remembering my past will only be a sign of weakness
Now life is so cruel, that the past has left no meaning
I am very alone and that is how I have to live my future life.
Anything which reminds me of my past, is to be stayed away from
That is the best and the only way to survive.
If I said I still do love you
Then it would be a big lie now
Since, now the love which I had for you has actually turned into hate
Earlier I loved you a lot and very truly
Now I do not love you
As a matter of fact, the hate is so much that the pain of the past is like a volcano
Which will just blast, if I ever again came close to you
Stay away my past, you are my memory, which is gone.
poem by Rohit Sapra
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Heartless Brothers
Who is this Future everyone talks about?
They have been talking about him since I was born
Good things all the time
I hope the world see you for who you are
I am yet to meet you
And tell you about the Past
Your heartless brother who have no mercy
Looking at him reminds me of sorrow
From the Past born of pain I looked to you for comfort
You never took time to give me your ear
Yet you destroyed so many of my people everyday
You kept taking my beloved people
All gone!
In the hopes of one day living their dreams
Dreams based on nothing but hope
Future give back the souls you stole!
Earth spit up the children you swallowed!
I heard God weeping, tears rolling down causing Tsunamis
Emitting words too heavy for my ears to hear
Crying for the children of Africa
He created the world, we created continents
He created land we created borders
All cause of pleasing Future, the invisible bum
Now we fight each other for the 'better Future'
The unseen goddess who care not for mortals
What I know now is I will meet you Future
But I won't have time to tell you what you done
Cause the day I meet you the Son of Man
Will be by my side to take me home
Where there is no lies about you
Where there is no tomorrow
Without tomorrow there is no you Future
Without tomorrow there is no you Past
Only me and the present
poem by Thabang SenoshaMashakane
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
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
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Besides
When I look inside the lines
When I look beside the black and white
You put my world in color
You’ve painted me a picture of my life
With laughs, and love, and you
When I look inside your eyes
I feel your pain
I feel your love
I see my future with you
When I look beyond the sea
When I look inside the dunes
You make me fly, high above the water
You’ve opened up a passage of my life
With tears, and pain, and you
When I look inside the sea
I see how deep you are
I see the waves of your past
I see my future with you
When I look up in the skies
When I see through the clouds
I soar beyond all belief into the heavens and above
You’ve given me faith and hope for all the world
When I look to the stars
I see your faith
I see your dreams
I see my future with you
When I look at you
When I see your soul
We become one
You’ve given my life the colors, the passage, and the faith and hope I need
When I look to you
I have no more fears
I have no more troubles
And I see my future with you for now and forever
poem by Isabella Epona
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Hoping Of Happy New Year
Hoping of happy New Year
The year has passed
The New Year has arrived
All the pains sadness and angriness has become past
All the happiness, sweetness and love has arrived
All the sickness, Madness and childness has gone
All the matureness, intelligence and hopes has arrived
My all the things are now my past
My all concentration is just focusing on future
New Year has arrived with hope
A hope of goodness in everything
A hope that my country will be in peace
A hope that all problems may come with a simple solution
May my all the relations become more sweet and loveable?
May my all pathetic memories be just past
May my life be quite simple
May my life be full of joy
Past year is a past don’t matter what was it
But the future is unknown and unseen
Don’t know that what will happen
Just hope that everything will be good and ok
So I hope that every hope will not just hope
Hope we can say next year with hope that Happy New Year
poem by Fatima Obaid
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Over And Undone
IF one might hope that when we say farewell
To life, we two might but be one at last!
But we look back on a divided past,
And a divided future must foretell.
Apart we sowed the seed that flowers in hell,
The seed that blooms in heaven apart we cast:
See what remembrances my heart holds fast--
Ask your own heart what deeds you deem done well!
The memory I find my heaven in
Is that one hand-touch you regret as sin;
Your goodness, dear, that stood between us two
And made my hell, may make a heaven for you;
So evermore must lie our souls between
The kiss unkissed, the infinite might-have-been!
poem by Edith Nesbit
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Passing of Things
All we have in the here and now, will be used or lost somehow,
When this life on earth is past, nothing on earth for us will last.
As we leave this world behind, we enter one, beyond our mind,
Even our bodies God will replace, through His Amazing Grace.
On earth moth and rust destroy, things that give us earthly joy,
Bringing to our life loss and pain, from items we cannot regain.
As this life comes to the end, there is eternity around the bend,
And as life comes to a close, an Eternal Life for all God chose.
Thoughts again of loss, never, as we have life in Christ forever,
For God chose men He knew, would believe His Son to be true.
Planning for men who believe, an eternity minds can’t conceive,
With their own eternal abode, that moth or rust will ever corrode.
But unbelievers will never see, the Heaven prepared for eternity,
They’ll experience greater loss, in denying the love of the cross.
Content with things of the earth, they see no need for new birth,
One in which they’re born of God, to live above this earthly sod.
They refuse to believe in Christ, and will never enter Eternal Life,
They obtain nothing from Him; who gave His life for all their sin.
As crowns are given to those, who follow Jesus Christ who rose,
At his feet the crowns we’ll cast, entering an eternity that will last.
(Copyright ©11/2007)
I Don't Know Where The Past Is Gone
I don’t know where the past is gone
I only know most of my own life is over-
I don’t know where the past has gone
I only know so many people I loved
Are no longer here and will never be here again-
I don’t know where the past has gone
I only know that that chance I had that hope for so many years
Can never be mine in the same way again-
I don’t know where the past has gone
So many moments of beauty and love and opportunity missed and longing unrealized-
I don’t know where the past has gone
And what of it I should miss
And why I should long for it so.
I don’t know where the past has gone
And where my life was lost and why I did not do better in it-
I don’t know where the past has gone
And what will be when for me
Everything is only the Past gone
poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The First Grey Hair
NO, let it stay. It speaks but truth:
My Autumn's day is dawning.
The dream is past; sweet dream of youth.
Hair, I accept thy warning.
With mournful thought, my spirit swells,
At the wild chime of memory bells.
Why will we in the present time,
Of by-gone days be dreaming?
Say, why throughout the storm sublime,
Is lightning ever gleaming?
Ah! there is naught on earth that quells
The chiming of sad memory bells.
Hope, garlands fair of future bliss,
With Fancy's pearls is weaving;
Alas! we find in world like this,
That Hope too is deceiving,
As on the past, our full heart dwells,
At your sad chiming, memory bells.
In youth all Earth was passing bright,
And life with joy was teeming —
But hidden in each flower was blight,
And happiness was seeming.
Yet charm me with your mystic spells —
With your sweet chiming, memory bells.
Why speak ye of the cruel wrong,
That I am ever grieving?
I would forget, forgive, be strong,
With faith in Christ, believing.
But oh! the strain triumphant knells —
Cease, cease your clashing, memory bells.
Avaunt, dark image of despair!
Why dost thou still go raving?
I would to Lethe's streams repair,
And drown thy taunts in laving.
Alas! can nothing still thy yells?
Cease, cease your clashing, memory bells.
Now mournful is the solemn strain,
And sadly I am weeping.
For those I love in battle slain,
Who all unknown are sleeping,
Like murmuring of ocean shells,
Swells your sad requiem, memory bells.
Now much loved voices in their glee
Their joyous shouts are sending;
And the sweet chorus, light and free,
Of many a song is blending,
Yet bitter tear-drops, sad fare-wells,
Melt in your chiming, memory bells.
Yet I would fain recall the past,
The bright celestial gleaming,
Which my first love around me cast,
Too sweet to be but dreaming.
Like flowing water, in lone dells,
Is your sweet chiming, memory bells.
Yes, silver hair, rest thee in peace,
I know that life is waning,
That soon will all my troubles cease,
And I, the goal attaining,
Will list the joy your music tells,
And love your chiming, memory bells.
poem by Mary Eliza Perine Tucker Lambert
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Uphold
These things say she
Who holds the gift of life
Who walks along a hard road
As time hold no means for at dusk
The word of truth takes hold
Who children shall over write one future
Children intertwine with the elements of
Past and future
Cannot control the fate they flee
One by one
Oldest to youngest
Destiny shall claim them
In the Corse of time
Past and present shall clash
Fear and lost hold new means
For these children question shall be asked
Children lost
But this prophecy, is not that of hope and love
It is that of pain
For pain is life without pain there is no mercy
Yes, these children
Yes, this prophecy is not that of hope and love
But that of the way of life
For each child that screams out in pain
Another screams out with laughter
Yes, it is cruel
For this is the way balance of time is uphold
poem by La Janine Garrett
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Past - Present Day - Future.
Baby - Past
You are smallest & the most cutest baby in the world.
You are fragile, perfect than you could ever imagine.
You are now independent by taking your first steps.
You are growing, speaking, walking & talking.
Child - Past
You start school, you are shy.
You make friends.
You share with your friends.
You have your first sleepover with your friends.
Teenager - Present
You start High School/Secondary School.
You lose old friends and gain new friends.
You go though change.
You move house.
You learn to drive.
You own a car.
You become sexually active.
You have your first girlfriend.
You have your first break up.
You have your first drink.
You have your first cigarette.
Adult Hood - Future.
You move out and become independent.
You have a job.
You settle down.
You travel the world.
You become successful.
You teach your children how you were tout by your own parents.
You have to let go of your children and let them go though life just like I have described in the poem.
Retirement - Future.
You grow old with your partner.
You become old and weak.
You have your children family member by your side.
You finale leave this earth and see heaven for what it really is.
Because who know what happened's after death you could live this over and over again.
poem by Billy AstonWright
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
If that high world
I
If that high world, which lies beyond
Our own, surviving love endears;
If there the cherished heart be fond,
The eye the same—except in tears—
How welcome those untrodden spheres!
How sweet this very hour to die!
To soar from earth and find all fears
Lost in thy light—Eternity!
II
It must be so—'tis not for self
That we so tremble on the brink,
And striving to o'erleap the gulph,
Yet cling to Being's breaking link.
Oh! in that future let us think
To hold each heart the heart that shares;
With them the immortal waters drink,
And soul in soul grow deathless theirs!
poem by Byron from The Hebrew Melodies (1815)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
Vote! | Copy!
What Lies Ahead
It was a windy day that day
But the apple still fell near its tree
The clock struck zero
A cry filled the room
A son of the past
The father of the future
The distance between two feet
As the clock ticked life away
The ground was opened each day
And seeds dropped quietly in it
Days came and walked away
With the same plot and stale tale
All looked upon the future
Wondering what glory lied ahead
Will I walk on the sky or ask the ground to bury me?
The clock delivered the future as he promised
Each got a basket of past deeds returned
The acorn became a mighty oak
It was a windy day that day
Yet the apple refused to fall far from the tree
All that had gone around
Came around to say hello
The future was here and held glory for some
The future was here and turned off the lights of others
The future is the past hidden in a seed
Today is tomorrow
What do you want to lie ahead?
Dig your ground
Drop your seed
Stand your ground
It will be a windy day that day
But your apple will fall right in your life
And when all you've done around
Comes around to say hello
You'd firmly shake their hands
And say, I've been waiting for you
My whole life long, welcome.
poem by Jenim Dibie
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Love Sonnets Of Proteus. Part II: To Juliet: LII
THE SAME CONTINUED
Lame, impotent conclusion to youth's dreams
Vast as all heaven! See, what glory lies
Entangled here in these base stratagems,
What virtue done to death! O glorious sighs,
Sublime beseechings, high cajoleries,
Fond wraths, brave ruptures, all that sometime was
Our daily bread of gods beneath the skies,
How are ye ended, in what utter loss!
Time was, time is, and time is yet to come,
Till even time itself shall have its end.
These were eternal. And behold, a tomb!
Come, let us laugh and eat and drink. God send
What all the world must need one day as we,
Speedy oblivion, rest for memory.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Lineage (in answer to Ted Hughes)
In the beginning was thought
in the mind of God
who begat sound
who begat word
who begat material formation
of light, air, water
and firm foundation
setting natural dimensions and laws,
forming biological living things,
going past natural selection,
where only the strongest survive
coming alive as mere man
begat from Mary
as a human being
who begat unsurpassable love
and self-sacrifice,
dying, shattered from the presence
of the Father
as a cast out being full of sin
and this linage begun and ended with Him.
[Reference: Lineage by Ted Hughes.]
poem by Gert Strydom
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Without Our Gift Of Memory
What would we be without the power to recall?
Without our gift of memory we'd be little at all
To those who lose their memory confusion is their lot
The faces of friends and family by them even forgot
For the children and kindred of alzheimers sufferers life must be very sad
The memory loss of a sibling, uncle, aunty, mum or dad
Though 'tis a natural instinct for us to cling to life's breath
In a choice between death and loss of memory I think I would choose death
I am a lucky fellow my gift of memory I retain
And I hope till my last breath of life that with me it will remain
To the great gift of memory I will gladly drink a toast
In that sense I am lucky far luckier than most
Life would not be worth much without it the great gift of memory
I am sure at what I say here that most with me would agree.
poem by Francis Duggan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!