While Yet we may
Ancient, wrinkled dames and jealous -
They whom joyless Age downcasts -
And the sere, gray-bearded fellows
Who would fain re-live their pasts -
These, the ancients, grimly tell us:
'Vows are vain, and no love lasts.'
Fleeting years fulfil Fate's sentence,
Eyes must dim, and hair turn gray,
Age bring wrinkles, p'rhaps repentance;
Youth shall quickly hie away,
And that time when youth has went hence,
We - and love - have had our day.
Let the world, and fuming, fretting,
Busy worldlings pass us by,
Bent on piles of lucre getting -
They shall lose it when they die;
Past and future, sweet! forgetting -
Seize the present ere it fly.
Your bright eyes are soft and smiling,
Pouting lips are moist and red,
And your whispers wondrous wiling -
Surely they would quick the dead -
And these hours they're now beguiling,
All too hasty will have fled.
Years may bring a dole of sorrow,
Time enough to fast and pray,
From the present pleasures borrow,
Let the distant future pay;
Leave the penance for the morrow,
Sweetheart! love and laugh to-day.
poem by Harry 'Breaker' Harbord Morant
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
The Future Is The Children's
The future is the children's and I am of the past
And I too had my young years but nothing ever last
On looking back the Seasons how quickly the years have gone
Old age is fast approaching and the clock ticks on and on.
The future is the children's the children of today
They have the gift of youth with them though youth with them won't stay
On looking back decades from now when time has left them slow
They will wonder as I do where did the years to go.
The years are catching up one me and time has left me gray
And the future is the children's that would be true to say
The people in their sixties are running out of time
And few of them will be living when today's children are in their prime.
The future is the children's and to them alone belong
And those who will tell you differently have somehow got it wrong
But the hands of time keep turning and time on none does wait
And all of us are branded with an invisible use by date.
poem by Francis Duggan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Will You Love Me In December As You Do In May
Now, in the summer of life, sweetheart
You say you love but me
Gladly I give all my heart to you
Throbbing with ecstasy
But last night I saw, while a-dreaming
, the future old and gray,
And I wondered if youll love me then, dear
Just as you do today?
Will you love me in december as you do in may?
Will you love me in the good old-fashioned way?
When my hair has all turned gray,
Will you kiss me then and say,
That you love me in december as you do in may?
You say the glow on my cheek, sweetheart
Is like the rose so sweet
But when the bloom of fair youth has flown
Then will our lips still meet?
When lifes setting sun fades away, dear,
And all is said and done,
Will you arms still entwine and caress me?
Will our hearts beat as one?
Will you love me in december as you do in may?
Will you love me in the good old-fashioned way?
When my hair has all turned gray,
Will you kiss me then and say,
That you love me in december as you do in may?
song performed by by They Might Be Giants
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
The Pilgrims
Who is your lady of love, O ye that pass
Singing? and is it for sorrow of that which was
That ye sing sadly, or dream of what shall be?
For gladly at once and sadly it seems ye sing.
--Our lady of love by you is unbeholden;
For hands she hath none, nor eyes, nor lips, nor golden
Treasure of hair, nor face nor form; but we
That love, we know her more fair than anything.
--Is she a queen, having great gifts to give?
--Yea, these; that whoso hath seen her shall not live
Except he serve her sorrowing, with strange pain,
Travail and bloodshedding and bitterer tears;
And when she bids die he shall surely die.
And he shall leave all things under the sky
And go forth naked under sun and rain
And work and wait and watch out all his years.
--Hath she on earth no place of habitation?
--Age to age calling, nation answering nation,
Cries out, Where is she? and there is none to say;
For if she be not in the spirit of men,
For if in the inward soul she hath no place,
In vain they cry unto her, seeking her face,
In vain their mouths make much of her; for they
Cry with vain tongues, till the heart lives again.
--O ye that follow, and have ye no repentance?
For on your brows is written a mortal sentence,
An hieroglyph of sorrow, a fiery sign,
That in your lives ye shall not pause or rest,
Nor have the sure sweet common love, nor keep
Friends and safe days, nor joy of life nor sleep.
--These have we not, who have one thing, the divine
Face and clear eyes of faith and fruitful breast.
--And ye shall die before your thrones be won.
--Yea, and the changed world and the liberal sun
Shall move and shine without us, and we lie
Dead; but if she too move on earth and live,
But if the old world with all the old irons rent
Laugh and give thanks, shall we be not content?
Nay, we shall rather live, we shall not die,
Life being so little and death so good to give.
--And these men shall forget you.--Yea, but we
Shall be a part of the earth and the ancient sea,
And heaven-high air august, and awful fire,
And all things good; and no man's heart shall beat
But somewhat in it of our blood once shed
Shall quiver and quicken, as now in us the dead
Blood of men slain and the old same life's desire
Plants in their fiery footprints our fresh feet.
--But ye that might be clothed with all things pleasant,
Ye are foolish that put off the fair soft present,
That clothe yourselves with the cold future air;
When mother and father and tender sister and brother
And the old live love that was shall be as ye,
Dust, and no fruit of loving life shall be.
--She shall be yet who is more than all these were,
Than sister or wife or father unto us or mother.
--Is this worth life, is this, to win for wages?
Lo, the dead mouths of the awful grey-grown ages,
The venerable, in the past that is their prison,
In the outer darkness, in the unopening grave,
Laugh, knowing how many as ye now say have said,
How many, and all are fallen, are fallen and dead:
Shall ye dead rise, and these dead have not risen?
--Not we but she, who is tender and swift to save.
--Are ye not weary and faint not by the way,
Seeing night by night devoured of day by day,
Seeing hour by hour consumed in sleepless fire?
Sleepless: and ye too, when shall ye too sleep?
--We are weary in heart and head, in hands and feet,
And surely more than all things sleep were sweet,
Than all things save the inexorable desire
Which whoso knoweth shall neither faint nor weep.
--Is this so sweet that one were fain to follow?
Is this so sure where all men's hopes are hollow.
Even this your dream, that by much tribulation
Ye shall make whole flawed hearts, and bowed necks straight?
--Nay, though our life were blind, our death were fruitless,
Not therefore were the whole world's high hope rootless;
But man to man, nation would turn to nation,
And the old life live, and the old great world be great.
--Pass on then and pass by us and let us be,
For what light think ye after life to see?
And if the world fare better will ye know?
And if man triumph who shall seek you and say?
--Enough of light is this for one life's span,
That all men born are mortal, but not man:
And we men bring death lives by night to sow,
That man may reap and eat and live by day.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Dimension Merge
For us the past has gone and the present moves on
into the yesterday of a future’s present time.
Despite living in the future’s past this will not last,
present and future will very soon combine.
Future or dimension, to some a misapprehension,
but they are one in the same.
If there’s more than one, they will follow on
to leave one, with it’s present name.
On merging we’ll realise we’ve no future to recognise,
and the past and present is all we’ll know.
The past will still be renewed, with each day used,
but the future will mean only tomorrow.
poem by Orlando Belo
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Elder's Rebuke
'Listen! When your hair, like mine,
Takes a tint of silver gray;
When your eyes, with dimmer shine,
Watch life's bubbles float away:
When you, young man, have borne like me
The weary weight of sixty-three,
Then shall penance sore be paid
For those hours so wildly squandered;
And the words that now fall dead
On your ear, be deeply pondered—
Pondered and approved at last:
But their virtue will be past!
'Glorious is the prize of Duty,
Though she be 'a serious power';
Treacherous all the lures of Beauty,
Thorny bud and poisonous flower!
'Mirth is but a mad beguiling
Of the golden-gifted time;
Love—a demon-meteor, wiling
Heedless feet to gulfs of crime.
'Those who follow earthly pleasure,
Heavenly knowledge will not lead;
Wisdom hides from them her treasure,
Virtue bids them evil-speed!
'Vainly may their hearts repenting.
Seek for aid in future years;
Wisdom, scorned, knows no relenting;
Virtue is not won by fears.'
Thus spake the ice-blooded elder gray;
The young man scoffed as he turned away,
Turned to the call of a sweet lute's measure,
Waked by the lightsome touch of pleasure:
Had he ne'er met a gentler teacher,
Woe had been wrought by that pitiless preacher.
poem by Emily Jane Brontë
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Three Coins
In the fountains of our youth
are scattered three coins of our life.
The past, the present and the future
all of them lay there.
As we dip into the waters,
we try to pluck out each coin.
We may grab the past,
maybe even the present,
but the future lies beyond our reach
elusive, as it will always be.
We have lived the past,
the present we are living.
However, the future
is never ours to see
and so we leave the three coins
in the fountains of our youth
where they will always be.
19 August 2009
poem by David Harris
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
As Long As Your Eyes Are Blue
'Will you love me, sweet, when my hair is grey
And my cheeks shall have lost their hue?
When the charms of youth shall have passed away
Will your love as of old prove true?
'For the looks may change, and the heart may range
And the love be no longer fond;
Will you love with truth in the years of youth
And away to the years beyond?'
Oh, I love you, sweet, for your locks of brown
And the blush on your cheek that lies,
But I love you most for the kindly heart
That I see in your sweet blue eyes.
For the eyes are the signs of the soul within,
Of the heart that is leal and true,
And, my own sweetheart, I shall love you still,
Just as long as your eyes are blue.
For the locks may bleach, and the cheeks of peach
May be reft of their golden hue;
But, my own sweetheart, I shall love you still,
Just as long as your eyes are blue.
poem by Andrew Barton Paterson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Elder's Rebuke
'Listen! When your hair, like mine,
Takes a tint of silver gray;
When your eyes, with dimmer shine,
Watch life's bubbles float away:
When you, young man, have borne like me
The weary weight of sixty-three,
Then shall penance sore be paid
For those hours so wildly squandered;
And the words that now fall dead
On your ear, be deeply pondered—
Pondered and approved at last:
But their virtue will be past!
'Glorious is the prize of Duty,
Though she be "a serious power";
Treacherous all the lures of Beauty,
Thorny bud and poisonous flower!
'Mirth is but a mad beguiling
Of the golden-gifted time;
Love—a demon-meteor, wiling
Heedless feet to gulfs of crime.
'Those who follow earthly pleasure,
Heavenly knowledge will not lead;
Wisdom hides from them her treasure,
Virtue bids them evil-speed!
'Vainly may their hearts repenting.
Seek for aid in future years;
Wisdom, scorned, knows no relenting;
Virtue is not won by fears.'
Thus spake the ice-blooded elder gray;
The young man scoffed as he turned away,
Turned to the call of a sweet lute's measure,
Waked by the lightsome touch of pleasure:
Had he ne'er met a gentler teacher,
Woe had been wrought by that pitiless preacher.
poem by Emily Brontë from Selections from the literary remains of Emily and Anne Brontë (1850)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
Vote! | Copy!
Conscience Speaks
Sun is bright in the sky,
The old man walks and sighs.
He walks up the lane, stops and looks for a shade
Stops and takes a cold breadth;
My heart shakes, emotions pour through the eyes:
Why is it so?
Stress should I put on heart or brain.
My body shivers, eyes add to the fuel.
He comes to know of my stress.
Future Past or Present is it;
Ambiguity throws a coat.
FUTURE- Negative capability is the answer
Future and past go hand in hand,
Sins of past drowising in my heart,
Bring the fear of Future.
PRESENT- What is now is because of past,
What will come, a product of present.
Present, past and future housed both in heart and brain.
poem by Sanjay Mehta
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
A Time Machine Mind!
Human mind, dreams, vision and imagination
Can transport one forward and backward in time.
Mind is the time machine to go to past and future
But time never goes backward but only forward;
Also, time never goes in circle but only straight!
Recollection of past is possible in the present;
Visualization of future is possible in the present;
But one cannot go to the past or future ever now!
Hour glass can show the time like clock of today
But it cannot bring back the past to reality now
Or bring to our vision the future of world now!
Mind is the time machine that can read history;
Mind is the same machine to see the future too;
But time never goes to the past but only to future!
poem by Ramesh T A
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Past-Present-Future
They spend no time together
Yet they're relatively linked
These three birds of a feather
Who march through time in sync
Present is right now
Past is just before it
Future rightly vows
Nothing will detour it
The past flies by too fast
It's movement so incessant
And with a final gasp
Bestows on us the present
The past is understood
When at present we look back
Most memories are good
But some do sadly lack
For the time that's yet to be
The future, as it's known
Let's prepare it present-ly
With good memories all it's own
poem by Stanley Cooper
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Phyllis
PHYLLIS, ah, Phyllis, my life is a gray day,
Few are my years, but my griefs are not few,
Ever to youth should each day be a May-day,
Warm wind and rose-breath and diamonded dew—
Phyllis, ah, Phyllis, my life is a gray day.
Oh for the sunlight that shines on a May-day!
Only the cloud hangeth over my life.
Love that should bring me youth's happiest heyday
Brings me but seasons of sorrow and strife:
Phyllis, ah, Phyllis, my life is a gray day.
Sunshine or shadow, or gold day or gray day,
Life must be lived as our destinies rule;
Leisure or labor or work day or play day—
Feasts for the famous and fun for the fool;
Phyllis, ah, Phyllis, my life is a gray day.
poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Constant Time
Time past and the future give way to this present picture,
But can somebody tell me how to recognize that gate that leads to the bed of roses,
We speak about the future like the past is a grain of sand on the shore,
Washed away by the ocean tide,
Giving way to new grains to make a portrait of the present,
These past memories stay deep in our heart like the depths of the ocean,
Though it gets washed back to shore ones in a blue moon,
Reminding us that our past is a standard measurement of our strength,
Time moves so fast making the past to fade away,
this makes us seem so secured about the present,
Forgetting the fact that our present becomes our past that was once a present from nature as a new day,
Some take the future to be a dream and a wish,
But I take my future to be what I see when I stand from the bottom of the mountain to look at the top,
And my past to be the depth of the ocean that can always be washed ashore …
The only thing I can control is my present,
Yes cos my mind controls my hands to give you a flash of what goes on in my head
Like this words i write to you was once my future and will become my past, making my future my past and my past my future..So ironical isn’t it?
Standing here I sure know 1 thing,
I will reach the top by that foot path,
Yes of course it’s not to mean that I wouldn’t fall,
But I have to break myself off my present past and walk with grace to stand where I belong,
There where I am the king of my destiny,
The past is just going to be a page of memories,
And my future will become my present making time constant in my head,
Because I stand on my past which was once my present and my present which was once my future, making time equal and constant
As I flip thru this page of life,
By: ade
poem by Adeniran Oluokun
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Future will be my better present
(1)
Yesterday was surely tomorrow one day
Definitely today will be yesterday tomorrow
One day hopefully tomorrow will be today
(2)
This sorrow and pain will be killed
and pushed into the past tomorrow
this defeat and despair will be vanished
into the future to bring better present
(3)
The past surely was the future of me one day
Definitely the present will be past tomorrow
One day hopefully the future will be my present
poem by Abdul Wahab
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
A Valentine To My Wife
Accept, dear girl, this little token,
And if between the lines you seek,
You'll find the love I've often spoken—
The love my dying lips shall speak.
Our little ones are making merry
O'er am'rous ditties rhymed in jest,
But in these words (though awkward—very)
The genuine article's expressed.
You are as fair and sweet and tender,
Dear brown-eyed little sweetheart mine,
As when, a callow youth and slender,
I asked to be your Valentine.
What though these years of ours be fleeting?
What though the years of youth be flown?
I'll mock old Tempus with repeating,
'I love my love and her alone!'
And when I fall before his reaping,
And when my stuttering speech is dumb,
Think not my love is dead or sleeping,
But that it waits for you to come.
So take, dear love, this little token,
And if there speaks in any line
The sentiment I'd fain have spoken,
Say, will you kiss your Valentine?
poem by Eugene Field
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Crime of Life
Life seems but a memory of years
Gone by too fast.
Before we can live the present,
The future is the past.
Tomorrow is yesterday;
An instant is today.
The present is just a pause
Along past's fleeting way.
Seconds tick, days go by
And years bow out of sight.
Time speeds on as days are born;
Then devoured by each night.
Mankind's curse is overlooked
By Old Father Time, who steals
Our precious gift
With life's most hideous crime.
This crime of life is in its passing;
The days, the years that fleet by.
Almost before a chance to live,
It seems we're given a chance to die.
poem by Gregory Huyette
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Despair
Beneath this gloomy shade,
By Nature only for my sorrows made,
I'll spend this voyce in crys,
In tears I'll waste these eyes
By Love so vainly fed;
So Lust of old the Deluge punished.
Ah wretched youth! said I,
'Ah, wretched youth!' twice did I sadly cry:
'Ah, wretched youth!' the fields and floods reply.
When thoughts of Love I entertain,
I meet no words but 'Never,' and 'In vain.'
'Never' alas that dreadful name
Which fuels the infernal flame:
'Never,' My time to come must waste;
'In vain,' torments the present and the past.
'In vain, in vain!' said I;
'In vain, in vain!' twice did I sadly cry;
'In vain, in vain!' the fields and floods reply.
No more shall fields or floods do so;
For I to shades more dark and silent go:
All this world's noise appears to me
A dull ill-acted comedy:
No comfort to my wounded sight,
In the suns busy and imperti'nent Light.
Then down I laid my head;
Down on cold earth; and for a while was dead,
And my freed soul to a strange somewhere fled.
'Ah, sottish Soul' said I,
When back to its cage again I saw it fly;
'Fool to resume her broken chain!
And row her galley here again!'
'Fool, to that body to return
Where it condemn'd and destin'd is to burn!
Once dead, how can it be,
Death should a thing so pleasant seem to thee,
That thou should'st come to live it o're again in me?'
poem by Abraham Cowley
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
A glorious past
Past is always glorious
by that only you have become known or famous
that must remain on or continuous
the reason may be many or various
you can't go by the past
though it might have ended fast
the present may still be eluded
if past is not at all included
you love the present and think of future
the thing which is not there for sure
Think of the past with little from present
you won't feel future too absent
don't read much about anything
you will have to prove for everything
you can't trust the present trend
you may plan accordingly with some mends
poem by Hasmukh Amathalal
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
0004 Love and law; law and love
Law of love? Sounds good… so, tell me more…
Love of law? mmm…maybe…not so sure…
You can disregard the ancients –
label them Not Applicable – bin that bulky file…
or try to make some sense; and they insist
that love and law are so close intertwined
that together, they may tell
more than each other taken individually.
What might this mean? Where can we start?
Those ancients say that all this universe,
all this creation, is one single act of love;
love brings it forth, sustains it, nourishes it,
and so ultimately, it merges into love;
and by the laws of love,
which hold all forms by law,
our natural state is naught but love;
and knowing this, knows no injustice in ourself;
knows all as equal; knows no pressures nor compulsions;
knows no darkness; and no partiality or preferentiality;
and partaking of this universal love,
we’re therefore just, and light of heart,
and ready of response..
and so, this love, which knows ourself as love,
(for every creature's nature is pure love)
may love the laws which make our nature thus;
love the laws of love, and live as love;
so out of love, comes law;
and out of law, comes love.
only in this fleeting moment of the present
is our life lived;
and only if, in this continuous now,
love and law are present in each action,
may we make our golden future;
live a golden life, where law has made us free.
this, the ancients say; the proof is ours to live.
poem by Michael Shepherd
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Bring Perfumes Sweet To Me
FROM out the street of So-and-So,
Oh wind, bring perfumes sweet to me
For I am sick and pale with woe;
Oh bring me rest from misery!
The dust that lies before her door,
Love's long desired elixir, pour
Upon this wasted heart of mine--
Bring me a promise and a sign!
Between the ambush of mine eyes
And my heart's fort there's enmity--
Her eye-brow's bow, the dart that flies,
Beneath her lashes, bring to me!
Sorrow and absence, glances cold,
Before my time have made me old;
A wine-cup from the hand of Youth
Bring me for pity and for ruth!
Then shall all unbelievers taste
A draught or two of that same wine;
But if they like it not, oh haste!
And let joy's flowing cup be mine.
Cup-bearer, seize to-day, nor wait
Until to-morrow!--or from Fate
Some passport to felicity,
Some written surety bring to me!
My heart threw back the veil of woe,
Consoled by Hafiz melody:
From out the street of So-and-So,
Oh wind, bring perfumes sweet to me!
poem by Shams al-Din Hafiz
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!