Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-Four
I HEAR no footfall beating through the dark,
A lonely gust is loitering at the pane;
There is no sound within these forests stark
Beyond a splash or two of sullen rain;
But you are with us! and our patient land
Is filled with long-expected change at last,
Though we have scarce the heart to lift a hand
Of welcome, after all the yearning past!
Ah! marvel not; the days and nights were long
And cold and dull and dashed with many tears;
And lately there hath been a doleful song,
Of “Mene, Mene,” in our restless ears!
Indeed, we’ve said, “The royal son of Time,
Whose feet will shortly cross our threshold floor,
May lead us to those outer heights sublime
Our Sires have sold their lives to see before!
We’ll follow him! Beyond the waves and wrecks
Of years fulfilled, some fine results must lie;
We’ll pass the last of all wild things that vex
The pale, sad face of our Humanity!”
But now our fainting feet are loth to stray
From trodden paths; our eyes with pain are blind!
We’ve lost fair treasures by the weary way;
We cry, like children, to be left behind.
Our human speech is dim. Yet, latest born
Of God’s Eternity, there came to me,
In saddened streets last week, from lips forlorn
A sound more solemn than the sleepless sea!
O, Rachael! Rachael! We have heard the cries
In Rama, stranger, o’er our darling dead;
And seen our mothers with the heavy eyes,
Who would not hearken to be comforted!
Then lead us gently! It must come to pass
That some of us shall halt and faint and fall;
For we are looking through a darkened glass,
And Heaven seems far, and faith grows cold and pale.
I know, for one, I need a subtle strength
I have not yet to hold me from a fall;
What time I cry to God within the length
Of weary hours; my face against the wall!
My mourning brothers! in the long, still nights,
When sleep is wilful, and the lone moon shines,
Bethink you of the silent, silver lights,
And darks with Death amongst the moody pines!
Then, though you cannot shut a stricken face
Away from you, this hope will come about
That Christ hath sent again throughout the place
Some signs of Love to worst and weaken doubt.
So you may find in every afterthought
A peace beyond your best expression dear;
And haply hearken to the Voice which wrought
Such strength in Peter on the seas of fear!
poem by Henry Kendall
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God Help our Men at Sea
The wild night comes like an owl to its lair,
The black clouds follow fast,
And the sun-gleams die, and the lightnings glare,
And the ships go heaving past, past, past -
The ships go heaving past!
Bar the doors, and higher, higher
Pile the faggots on the fire:
Now abroad, by many a light,
Empty seats there are to-night -
Empty seats that none may fill,
For the storm grows louder still:
How it surges and swells through the gorges and dells,
Under the ledges and over the lea,
Where a watery sound goeth moaning around -
God help our men at sea!
Oh! never a tempest blew on the shore
But that some heart did moan
For a darling voice it would hear no more
And a face that had left it lone, lone, lone -
A face that had left it lone!
I am watching by a pane
Darkened with the gusty rain,
Watching, through a mist of tears,
Sad with thoughts of other years,
For a brother I did miss
In a stormy time like this.
Ah! the torrent howls past, like a fiend on the blast,
Under the ledges and over the lea;
And the pent waters gleam, and the wild surges scream -
God help our men at sea!
Ah, Lord! they may grope through the dark to find
Thy hand within the gale;
And cries may rise on the wings of the wind
From mariners weary and pale, pale, pale -
From mariners weary and pale!
'Tis a fearful thing to know,
While the storm-winds loudly blow,
That a man can sometimes come
Too near to his father's home;
So that he shall kneel and say,
'Lord, I would be far away!'
Ho! the hurricanes roar round a dangerous shore,
Under the ledges and over the lea;
And there twinkles a light on the billows so white -
God help our men at sea!
poem by Henry Kendall
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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
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Song IV: Draw Near and Behold Me
Love is enough: draw near and behold me
Ye who pass by the way to your rest and your laughter,
And are full of the hope of the dawn coming after;
For the strong of the world have bought me and sold me
And my house is all wasted from threshold to rafter.
--Pass by me, and hearken, and think of me not!
Cry out and come near; for my ears may not hearken,
And my eyes are grown dim as the eyes of the dying.
Is this the grey rack o'er the sun's face a-flying?
Or is it your faces his brightness that darken?
Comes a wind from the sea, or is it your sighing?
--Pass by me and hearken, and pity me not!
Ye know not how void is your hope and your living:
Depart with your helping lest yet ye undo me!
Ye know not that at nightfall she draweth near to me,
There is soft speech between us and words of forgiving
Till in dead of the midnight her kisses thrill through me.
--Pass by me and harken, and waken me not!
Wherewith will ye buy it, ye rich who behold me?
Draw out from your coffers your rest and your laughter,
And the fair gilded hope of the dawn coming after!
Nay this I sell not,--though ye bought me and sold me,--
For your house stored with such things from threshold to rafter.
--Pass by me, I hearken, and think of you not!
poem by William Morris
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To Henry Halloran
YOU KNOW I left my forest home full loth,
And those weird ways I knew so well and long,
Dishevelled with their sloping sidelong growth
Of twisted thorn and kurrajong.
It seems to me, my friend (and this wild thought
Of all wild thoughts, doth chiefly make me bleed),
That in those hills and valleys wonder-fraught,
I loved and lost a noble creed.
A splendid creed! But let me even turn
And hide myself from what I’ve seen, and try
To fathom certain truths you know, and learn
The Beauty shining in your sky:
Remembering you in ardent autumn nights,
And Stenhouse near you, like a fine stray guest
Of other days, with all his lore of lights
So manifold and manifest!
Then hold me firm. I cannot choose but long
For that which lies and burns beyond my reach,
Suggested in your steadfast, subtle song
And his most marvellous speech!
For now my soul goes drifting back again,
Ay, drifting, drifting, like the silent snow
While scattered sheddings, in a fall of rain,
Revive the dear lost Long Ago!
The time I, loitering by untrodden fens,
Intent upon low-hanging lustrous skies,
Heard mellowed psalms from sounding southern glens—
Euroma, dear to dreaming eyes!
And caught seductive tokens of a voice
Half maddened with the dim, delirious themes
Of perfect Love, and the immortal choice
Of starry faces—Astral dreams!
That last was yours! And if you sometimes find
An alien darkness on the front of things,
Sing none the less for Life, nor fall behind,
Like me, with trailing, tired wings!
Yea, though the heavy Earth wears sackcloth now
Because she hath the great prophetic grief
Which makes me set my face one way, and bow
And falter for a far belief,
Be faithful yet for all, my brave bright peer,
In that rare light you hold so true and good;
And find me something clearer than the clear
White spaces of Infinitude.
poem by Henry Kendall
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The Rain Comes Sobbing to the Door
The night grows dark, and weird, and cold; and thick drops patter on the pane;
There comes a wailing from the sea; the wind is weary of the rain.
The red coals click beneath the flame, and see, with slow and silent feet
The hooded shadows cross the woods to where the twilight waters beat!
Now, fan-wise from the ruddy fire, a brilliance sweeps athwart the floor;
As, streaming down the lattices, the rain comes sobbing to the door:
As, streaming down the lattices,
The rain comes sobbing to the door.
Dull echoes round the casement fall, and through the empty chambers go,
Like forms unseen whom we can hear on tip-toe stealing to and fro.
But fill your glasses to the brims, and, through a mist of smiles and tears,
Our eyes shall tell how much we love to toast the shades of other years!
And hither they will flock again, the ghosts of things that are no more,
While, streaming down the lattices, the rain comes sobbing to the door:
While, streaming down the lattices,
The rain comes sobbing to the door.
The tempest-trodden wastelands moan - the trees are threshing at the blast;
And now they come, the pallid shapes of Dreams that perished in the past;
And, when we lift the windows up, a smothered whisper round us strays,
Like some lone wandering voice from graves
that hold the wrecks of bygone days.
I tell ye that I ~love~ the storm, for think we not of ~thoughts~ of yore,
When, streaming down the lattices, the rain comes sobbing to the door?
When, streaming down the lattices,
The rain comes sobbing to the door?
We'll drink to those we sadly miss, and sing some mournful song we know,
Since they may chance to hear it all, and muse on friends they've left below.
Who knows - if souls in bliss can leave the borders of their Eden-home -
But that some loving one may now about the ancient threshold roam?
Oh, like an exile, he would hail a glimpse of the familiar floor,
Though, streaming down the lattices, the rain comes sobbing to the door!
Though, streaming down the lattices,
The rain comes sobbing to the door!
poem by Henry Kendall
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The Maid of Gerringong
Rolling through the gloomy gorges, comes the roaring southern blast,
With a sound of torrents flying, like a routed army, past,
And, beneath the shaggy forelands, strange fantastic forms of surf
Fly, like wild hounds, at the darkness, crouching over sea and earth;
Swooping round the sunken caverns, with an aggravated roar;
Falling where the waters tumble foaming on a screaming shore!
In a night like this we parted. Eyes were wet though speech was low,
And our thoughts were all in mourning for the dear, dead Long Ago!
In a night like this we parted. Hearts were sad though they were young,
And you left me very lonely, dark-haired Maid of Gerringong.
Said my darling, looking at me, through the radiance of her tears:
“Many changes, O my loved One, we will meet in after years;
Changes like to sudden sunbursts flashing down a rainy steep —
Changes like to swift-winged shadows falling on a moony deep!
And they are so cheerless sometimes, leaving, when they pass us by,
Deepening dolours on the sweet, sad face of our Humanity.
But you’ll hope, and fail and faint not, with that heart so warm and true,
Watching for the coming Morning, that will flood the World for you;
Listening through a thirsty silence, till the low winds bear along
Eager footfalls — pleasant voices,” said the Maid of Gerringong.
Said my darling, when the wind came sobbing wildly round the eaves:
“Oh, the Purpose scattered from me, like the withered autumn leaves!
Oh, the wreck of Love’s ambition! Oh, the fond and full belief
That I yet should hear them hail you in your land a God-made chief!
In the loud day they may slumber, but my thoughts will not be still
When the weary world is sleeping, and the moon is on the hill;
Then your form will bend above me, then your voice will rise and fall,
Though I turn and hide in darkness, with my face against the wall,
And my Soul must rise and listen while those homeless memories throng
Moaning in the night for shelter,” said the Maid of Gerringong.
Ay, she passed away and left me! Rising through the dusk of tears,
Came a vision of that parting every day for many years!
Every day, though she had told me not to court the strange sweet pain,
Something whispered — something led me to our olden haunts again:
And I used to wander nightly, by the surges and the ships,
Harping on those last fond accents that had trembled from her lips:
Till a vessel crossed the waters, and I heard a stranger say,
“One you loved has died in silence with her dear face turned away.”
Oh! the eyes that flash upon me, and the voice that comes along —
Oh! my light, my life, my darling dark-haired Maid of Gerringong.
Some one saith, “Oh, you that mock at Passion with a worldly whine,
Would you change the face of Nature — would you limit God’s design?
Hide for shame from well-raised clamour, moderate fools who would be wise;
Hide for shame — the World will hoot you! Love is Love, and never dies”
And another asketh, doubting that my brother speaks the truth,
“Can we love in age as fondly as we did in days of youth?
Will dead faces always haunt us, in the time of faltering breath?
Shall we yearn, and we so feeble?” Ay, for Love is Love in Death.
Oh! the Faith with sure foundation! — let the Ages roll along,
You are mine, and mine for ever, dark-haired Maid of Gerringong.
Last night, dear, I dreamt about you, and I thought that far from men
We were walking, both together, in a fragrant seaside glen;
Down where we could hear the surges wailing round the castled cliffs,
Down where we could see the sunset reddening on the distant skiffs;
There a fall of mountain waters tumbled through the knotted bowers
Bright with rainbow colours reeling on the purple forest flowers.
And we rested on the benches of a cavern old and hoar;
And I whispered, “this is surely her I loved in days of yore!
False he was who brought sad tidings! Why were you away so long,
When you knew who waited for you, dark-haired Maid of Gerringong?
“Did the strangers come around you, in the far-off foreign land?
Did they lead you out of sorrow, with kind face and loving hand?
Had they pleasant ways to court you — had they silver words to bind?
Had they souls more fond and loyal than the soul you left behind?
Do not think I blame you, dear one! Ah! my heart is gushing o’er
With the sudden joy and wonder, thus to see your face once more.
Happy is the chance which joins us after long, long years of pain:
And, oh, blessed was whatever sent you back to me again!
Now our pleasure will be real — now our hopes again are young:
Now we’ll climb Life’s brightest summits, dark-haired Maid of Gerringong.
“In the sound of many footfalls, did you falter with regret
For a step which used to gladden in the time so vivid yet?
When they left you in the night-hours, did you lie awake like me,
With the thoughts of what we had been — what we never more could be?
Ah! you look but do not answer while I halt and question here,
Wondering why I am so happy, doubting that you are so near.
Sure these eyes with love are blinded, for your form is waxing faint;
And a dreamy splendour crowns it, like the halo round a saint!
When I talk of what we will be, and new aspirations throng,
Why are you so sadly silent, dark-haired Maid of Gerringong?”
But she faded into sunset, and the sunset passed from sight;
And I followed madly after, through the misty, moony night,
Crying, “do not leave me lonely! Life has been so cold and drear,
You are all that God has left me, and I want you to be near!
Do not leave me in the darkness! I have walked a weary way,
Listening for your truant footsteps — turn and stay, my darling, stay!”
But she came not though I waited, watching through a splendid haze,
Where the lovely Phantom halted ere she vanished from my gaze.
Then I thought that rain was falling, for there rose a stormy song,
And I woke in gloom and tempest, dark-haired Maid of Gerringong!
poem by Henry Kendall
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Chorus of Eden Spirits
HEARKEN, oh hearken! let your souls behind you
Turn, gently moved!
Our voices feel along the Dread to find you,
O lost, beloved!
Through the thick-shielded and strong-marshalled angels,
They press and pierce:
Our requiems follow fast on our evangels,—
Voice throbs in verse.
We are but orphaned spirits left in Eden
A time ago:
God gave us golden cups, and we were bidden
To feed you so.
But now our right hand hath no cup remaining,
No work to do,
The mystic hydromel is spilt, and staining
The whole earth through.
Most ineradicable stains, for showing
(Not interfused!)
That brighter colours were the world’s foregoing,
Than shall be used.
Hearken, oh hearken! ye shall hearken surely
For years and years,
The noise beside you, dripping coldly, purely,
Of spirits’ tears.
The yearning to a beautiful denied you,
Shall strain your powers.
Ideal sweetnesses shall over-glide you,
Resumed from ours.
In all your music, our pathetic minor
Your ears shall cross;
And all good gifts shall mind you of diviner,
With sense of loss.
We shall be near you in your poet-languors
And wild extremes,
What time ye vex the desert with vain angers,
Or mock with dreams.
And when upon you, weary after roaming,
Death’s seal is put,
By the foregone ye shall discern the coming,
Through eyelids shut.
poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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How Wide The Dawn
How wide the Dawn
Is smiling!
How silent-new
The air is breathing!
How raw the sea
Without a wave
Is looking!
And in the night –
Id est last night
How strange
The owl chanteth!
How far, how far
Its cry did seem
And yet
It was so near!
How thrilled the tree
Below my lighted window
And in the night
The solemn night
The owl was still a-calling
To spirits wild
Perhaps
Or long white ghosts
Perhaps!
And in the eyes
Of the pale moon
The lake nearby glistened:
How white
How thin
The rays that fall
In midst of the dark waters!
And from the lake
A soundless sound
Is coming:
For in the waves
And from the waves
There comes a little gurgling
And in the night
In the long night
The owl is speaking, speaking!
Ah! this night – in the night
The people in the house
Are all a-sleeping
I – only I
The vigil, the night-vigil
Am making:
And I
And only I
Will my reward receive
For I
And only I
Am seeing
For I
And only I
Am hearing
And I
And only I
Am feeling!
How strange how sere
The feeling!
How from the clear night
The mist of sudden riseth!
And from afar
Past ten long fields
The cemetery is burning
With the pale light
Of the swift moon
That fall
On every wall
This long, long night!
It seems
It seems
That the cemetery’s open:
And yet
And yet
There is no noise
No sound
But from the yews
A soundless sound
Is coming:
A restless sound
Like souls
This night all-aching
And restless
Restless
At some thing
I am not hearing!
Ha! We on earth
Make prisons
And lodge
Bodies – human bodies in them:
And we on earth
Make cemeteries
And lodge
Bodies – human bodies in them
And the long night
Under the light
Of heaven
How waning-blue
And tight
Is coming!
So:
At long last
We fall into a prison
If not the one
In fine to the other
And at the last
And in the last
We enter our last prison:
And in the night
The long and lonely night
The cemetery is shining!
poem by Emmanuel George Cefai
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Faith in God
HAVE faith in God. For whosoever lists
To calm conviction in these days of strife,
Will learn that in this steadfast stand exists
The scholarship severe of human life.
This face to face with doubt! I know how strong
His thews must be who fights and falls and bears,
By sleepless nights and vigils lone and long,
And many a woeful wraith of wrestling prayers.
Yet trust in Him! Not in an old man throned
With thunders on an everlasting cloud,
But in that awful Entity enzoned
By no wild wraths nor bitter homage loud.
When from the summit of some sudden steep
Of speculation you have strength to turn
To things too boundless for the broken sweep
Of finer comprehension, wait and learn
That God hath been “His own interpreter”
From first to last. So you will understand
The tribe who best succeed, when men most err,
To suck through fogs the fatness of the land.
One thing is surer than the autumn tints
We saw last week in yonder river bend—
That all our poor expression helps and hints,
However vaguely, to the solemn end
That God is truth; and if our dim ideal
Fall short of fact—so short that we must weep—
Why shape specific sorrows, though the real
Be not the song which erewhile made us sleep?
Remember, truth draws upward. This to us
Of steady happiness should be a cause
Beyond the differential calculus
Or Kant’s dull dogmas and mechanic laws.
A man is manliest when he wisely knows
How vain it is to halt and pule and pine;
Whilst under every mystery haply flows
The finest issue of a love divine.
poem by Henry Kendall
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Rose Lorraine
Sweet water-moons, blown into lights
Of flying gold on pool and creek,
And many sounds and many sights
Of younger days are back this week.
I cannot say I sought to face
Or greatly cared to cross again
The subtle spirit of the place
Whose life is mixed with Rose Lorraine.
What though her voice rings clearly through
A nightly dream I gladly keep,
No wish have I to start anew
Heart fountains that have ceased to leap.
Here, face to face with different days,
And later things that plead for love,
It would be worse than wrong to raise
A phantom far too vain to move.
But, Rose Lorraine -- ah! Rose Lorraine,
I'll whisper now, where no one hears --
If you should chance to meet again
The man you kissed in soft, dead years,
Just say for once "He suffered much,"
And add to this "His fate was worst
Because of me, my voice, my touch" --
There is no passion like the first!
If I that breathe your slow sweet name,
As one breathes low notes on a flute,
Have vext your peace with word of blame,
The phrase is dead -- the lips are mute.
Yet when I turn towards the wall,
In stormy nights, in times of rain,
I often wish you could recall
Your tender speeches, Rose Lorraine.
Because, you see, I thought them true,
And did not count you self-deceived,
And gave myself in all to you,
And looked on Love as Life achieved.
Then came the bitter, sudden change,
The fastened lips, the dumb despair:
The first few weeks were very strange,
And long, and sad, and hard to bear.
No woman lives with power to burst
My passion's bonds, and set me free;
For Rose is last where Rose was first,
And only Rose is fair to me.
The faintest memory of her face,
The wilful face that hurt me so,
Is followed by a fiery trace
That Rose Lorraine must never know.
I keep a faded ribbon string
You used to wear about your throat;
And of this pale, this perished thing,
I think I know the threads by rote.
God help such love! To touch your hand,
To loiter where your feet might fall,
You marvellous girl, my soul would stand
The worst of hell -- its fires and all!
poem by Henry Kendall
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Astarte
ACROSS the dripping ridges,
O, look, luxurious night!
She comes, the bright-haired beauty,
My luminous delight!
My luminous delight!
So hush, ye shores, your roar,
That my soul may sleep, forgetting
Dead Love’s wild Nevermore!
Astarte, Syrian sister,
Your face is wet with tears;
I think you know the secret
One heart hath held for years!
One heart hath held for years!
But hide your hapless love,
And my sweet—my Syrian sister,
Dead Love’s wild Nevermore!
Ah, Helen Hope in heaven,
My queen of long ago,
I’ve swooned with adoration,
But could not tell you so,
Or dared not tell you so,
My radiant queen of yore!
And you’ve passed away and left me
Dead Love’s wild Nevermore!
Astarte knoweth, darling,
Of eyes that once did weep,
What time entranced Passion
Hath kissed your lips in sleep;
Hath kissed your lips in sleep;
But now those tears are o’er,
Gone, my saint, with many a moan to
Dead Love’s wild Nevermore!
If I am past all crying,
What thoughts are maddening me,
Of you, my darling, dying
Upon the lone, wide sea,
Upon the lone, wide sea,
Ah! hush, ye shores, your roar,
That my soul may sleep, forgetting
Dead Love’s wild Nevermore!
poem by Henry Kendall
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Rizpah
SAID one who led the spears of swarthy Gad,
To Jesse’s mighty son: “My Lord, O King,
I, halting hard by Gibeon’s bleak-blown hill
Three nightfalls past, saw dark-eyed Rizpah, clad
In dripping sackcloth, pace with naked feet
The flinty rock where lie unburied yet
The sons of her and Saul; and he whose post
Of watch is in those places desolate,
Got up, and spake unto thy servant here
Concerning her—yea, even unto me:—
‘Behold,’ he said, ‘the woman seeks not rest,
Nor fire, nor food, nor roof, nor any haunt
Where sojourns man; but rather on yon rock
Abideth, like a wild thing, with the slain,
And watcheth them, lest evil wing or paw
Should light upon the comely faces dead,
To spoil them of their beauty. Three long moons
Hath Rizpah, daughter of Aiah, dwelt
With drouth and cold and rain and wind by turns,
And many birds there are that know her face,
And many beasts that flee not at her step,
And many cunning eyes do look at her
From serpent-holes and burrows of the rat.
Moreover,’ spake the scout, ‘her skin is brown
And sere by reason of exceeding heat;
And all her darkness of abundant hair
Is shot with gray, because of many nights
When grief hath crouched in fellowship with frost
Upon that desert rock. Yea, thus and thus
Fares Rizpah,’ said the spy, O King, to me.”
But David, son of Jesse, spake no word,
But turned himself, and wept against the wall.
We have our Rizpahs in these modern days
Who’ve lost their households through no sin of theirs,
On bloody fields and in the pits of war;
And though their dead were sheltered in the sod
By friendly hands, these have not suffered less
Than she of Judah did, nor is their love
Surpassed by hers. The Bard who, in great days
Afar off yet, shall set to epic song
The grand pathetic story of the strife
That shook America for five long years,
And struck its homes with desolation—he
Shall in his lofty verse relate to men
How, through the heat and havoc of that time,
Columbia’s Rachael in her Rama wept
Her children, and would not be comforted;
And sing of Woman waiting day by day
With that high patience that no man attains,
For tidings, from the bitter field, of spouse,
Or son, or brother, or some other love
Set face to face with Death. Moreover, he
Shall say how, through her sleepless hours at night,
When rain or leaves were dropping, every noise
Seemed like an omen; every coming step
Fell on her ears like a presentiment
And every hand that rested on the door
She fancied was a herald bearing grief;
While every letter brought a faintness on
That made her gasp before she opened it,
To read the story written for her eyes,
And cry, or brighten, over its contents.
poem by Henry Kendall
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Daniel Henry Deniehy
TAKE the harp, but very softly for our brother touch the strings:
Wind and wood shall help to wail him, waves and mournful mountain-springs.
Take the harp, but very softly, for the friend who grew so old
Through the hours we would not hear of—nights we would not fain behold!
Other voices, sweeter voices, shall lament him year by year,
Though the morning finds us lonely, though we sit and marvel here:
Marvel much while Summer cometh, trammelled with November wheat,
Gold about her forehead gleaming, green and gold about her feet;
Yea, and while the land is dark with plover, gull, and gloomy glede,
Where the cold, swift songs of Winter fill the interlucent reed.
Yet, my harp—and oh, my fathers! never look for Sorrow’s lay,
Making life a mighty darkness in the patient noon of day;
Since he resteth whom we loved so, out beyond these fleeting seas,
Blowing clouds and restless regions paved with old perplexities,
In a land where thunder breaks not, in a place unknown of snow,
Where the rain is mute for ever, where the wild winds never go:
Home of far-forgotten phantoms—genii of our peaceful prime,
Shining by perpetual waters past the ways of Change and Time:
Haven of the harried spirit, where it folds its wearied wings,
Turns its face and sleeps a sleep with deep forgetfulness of things.
His should be a grave by mountains, in a cool and thick-mossed lea,
With the lone creek falling past it—falling ever to the sea.
His should be a grave by waters, by a bright and broad lagoon,
Making steadfast splendours hallowed of the quiet, shining moon.
There the elves of many forests—wandering winds and flying lights—
Born of green, of happy mornings, dear to yellow summer nights,
Full of dole for him that loved them, then might halt and then might go,
Finding fathers of the people to their children speaking low—
Speaking low of one who, failing, suffered all the poet’s pain,
Dying with the dead leaves round him—hopes which never grow again.
poem by Henry Kendall
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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I Have Gone Long, Long Time
I have gone long, long time
Not knowing where to find you-
Peace was never meant for me,
Only heartache and tears-
I have gone long, long time
Without you, darling,
Losing hope that we'll ever
Be together,
But I walked alone and stayed
The course-
I have gone long, long time
Thinking of you, knowing
It was you who would be
There in the end-
The light that would lead me
Back home.
I have gone long, long time
Loving you and missing you,
Knowing well that the path
Would be winding and filled
With pain.
I have gone long, long time
Through the rivers of solitude,
Through the nights of despair,
Through the crowds of anonymity-
Just to hear your voice crystal clear,
Just to touch your lips and feel
The warmth of your hands,
Embracing me.
I have gone long, long time
Through the hills of pain
And the deserts of banality,
Through the corridors filled
With empty laughter and ignorance.
I have gone long, long time
Just to tell you I love you, darling.
March 7,2006
poem by Alexander Shaumyan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Watcher
I think I hear the sound of horses' feet
Beating upon the graveled avenue.
Go to the window that looks on the street,
He would not let me die alone, I knew.'
Back to the couch the patient watcher passed,
And said: 'It is the wailing of the blast.'
She turned upon her couch and, seeming, slept,
The long, dark lashes shadowing her cheek;
And on and on the weary moments crept,
When suddenly the watcher heard her speak:
'I think I hear the sound of horses' hoofs-'
And answered, ''Tis the rain upon the roofs.'
Unbroken silence, quiet, deep, profound.
The restless sleeper turns: 'How dark, how late!
What is it that I hear-a trampling sound?
I think there is a horseman at the gate.'
The watcher turns away her eyes tear-blind:
'It is the shutter beating in the wind.'
The dread hours passed; the patient clock ticked on;
The weary watcher moved not from her place.
The gray dim shadows of the early dawn
Caught sudden glory from the sleeper's face.
'He comes! my love! I knew he would!' she cried;
And smiling sweetly in her slumbers, died.
poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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Love Will Follow
I run out of breath and start to shake
I love you with all my heart can take
I hold you beside me in my sleep
And long to be dreaming in my sleep
Weve come into a place in time
Where I am yours and youre mine
A circle filled with love
If youll come away with me
I could show you ecstasy
Close your eyes and we will lead
And love will follow
Take a chance and hold my hand
I know youll understand
Well find a special land
And love will follow
A smile on your lips and in your eyes
A stranger adrift in paradise
You touch me and slowly move away
Take all of the night you need to take
Just wait a little while and see
What you mean to me
Ive waited all my life
If you come away with me
I could show you ecstasy
Close your eyes and we will lead
And love will follow
Use your wings and fly away
And come with me today
Your heart will lead the way
And love will follow
(if this was just a chance of make-believe)
(youd never feel it this way)
Ive always wanted to love somebody
As much as i, I wanted you now
Weve come into a place in time
Where I am yours and youre mine
A circle filled with love
If youll come away with me
I could show you ecstasy
Close your eyes and we will lead
And love will follow
Take a chance and hold my hand
I know youll understand
Well find a special land
And love will follow
Girl, I swear Ill never fall
Its a natural pure law
And everywhere we go
Love will follow
Use your wings to fly away
And come with me today
Your heart will lead the way
And love will follow
(hold me long, all night long, where you belong, my baby)
(hold me long, all night long, where you belong, my baby)
(hold me long, all night long, where you belong, my baby)
(hold me long, all night long, where you belong, my baby)
(hold me long, all night long, where you belong, my baby)
(hold me long, all night long, where you belong, my baby)
(hold me long, all night long, where you belong, my baby)
(hold me long, all night long, where you belong, my baby)
(hold me long, all night long, where you belong, my baby)
Fade
song performed by by Kenny Loggins
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Three Kings
WHEN the star in the East was lit to shine
The three kings journeyed to Palestine;
They came from the uttermost parts of earth
With long trains laden with gifts of worth.
The first king rode on a camel's back,
He came from the land where the kings are black,
Bringing treasures desired of kings,
Rubies and ivory and precious things.
An elephant carried the second king,
He came from the land of the sun-rising,
And gems and gold and spices he bare
With broidered raiment for kings to wear.
The third king came without steed or train
From the misty land where the white kings reign.
He bore no gifts save the myrrh in his hand,
For he came on foot from a far-off land.
Now when they had travelled a-many days
Through tangled forests and desert ways,
By angry seas and by paths thorn-set
On Christmas Vigil the three kings met.
And over their meeting a shrouded sky
Made dark the star they had travelled by.
Then the first king spake and he frowned and said:
'By some ill spell have our feet been led,
'Now I see in the darkness the fools we are
To follow the light of a lying star.
'Let us fool no more, but like kings and men
Each get him home to his land again!'
Then the second king with the weary face,
Gold-tinct as the sun of his reigning place,
Lifted sad eyes to the clouds and said,
'It was but a dream and the dream is sped.
'We dreamed of a star that rose new and fair,
But it sets in the night of the old despair.
'Yet night is faithful though stars betray,
It will lead to our kingdoms far away.'
Then spake the king who had fared alone
From the far-off kingdom, the white-hung throne:
'O brothers, brothers, so very far
Ye have followed the light of the radiant star,
'And because for a while ye see it not
Shall its faithful shining be all forgot?
'On the spirit's pathway the light still lies
Though the star be hid from our longing eyes.
'To-morrow our star will be bright once more
The little pin-hole in heaven's floor--
'The Angels pricked it to let it bring
Our feet to the throne of the new-born King!'
And the first king heard and the second heard
And their hearts grew humble before the third.
And they laid them down beside bale and beast
and their sleeping eyes saw light in the East.
For the Angels fanned them with starry wings
And the waft of visions of unseen things.
And the next gold day waned trembling and white
And the star was born of the waxing night.
And the three kings came where the Great King lay,
A little baby among the hay,
The ox and the ass were standing near
And Mary Mother beside her Dear.
Then low in the litter the kings bowed down,
They gave Him gold for a kingly crown,
And frankincense for a great God's breath
and Myrrh to sweeten the day of death.
The Maiden Mother she stood and smiled
And she took from the manger her little child.
On the dark king's head she laid His hand
And anger died at that dear command.
She laid His hand on the gold king's head
And despair itself was comforted.
But when the pale king knelt in the stall
She heard on the straw his tears down fall.
And she stooped where he knelt beside her feet
And laid on his bosom her baby sweet.
And the king in the holy stable-place
Felt the little lips through the tears on his face.
* * * * * * *
Christ! lay Thy hand on the angry king
Who reigns in my breast to my undoing,
And lay thy hands on the king who lays
The spell of sadness on all my days,
And give the white king my soul, Thy soul,
Of these other kings the high control.
That soul and spirit and sense may meet
In adoration before Thy feet!
Now Glory to God the Father Most High,
And the Star, the Spirit, He leads us by.
And to God's dear Son, the Babe who was born
And laid in the manger on Christmas morn!
poem by Edith Nesbit
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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One Of Us Two
The day will dawn when one of us shall hearken
In vain to hear a voice that has grown dumb.
And morns will fade, noons pale, and shadows darken,
While sad eyes watch for feet that never come.
One of us two must sometime face existence
Alone with the memories that but sharpen pain.
And these sweet days shall shine back in the distance,
Like dreams of summer dawns, in nights of rain.
One of us two, with tortured heart half broken,
Shall read long-treasured letters through salt tears,
Shall kiss with anguished lips each cherished token,
That speaks of these love-crowned, delicious years.
One of us two shall find all light, all beauty,
All joy on earth, a tale for ever done;
Shall know henceforth that life means only duty.
O God! O God! have pity on that one.
poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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Mater Dolorosa
Who is this that sits by the way, by the wild wayside,
In a rent stained raiment, the robe of a cast-off bride,
In the dust, in the rainfall sitting, with soiled feet bare,
With the night for a garment upon her, with torn wet hair?
She is fairer of face than the daughters of men, and her eyes,
Worn through with her tears, are deep as the depth of skies.
This is she for whose sake being fallen, for whose abject sake,
Earth groans in the blackness of darkness, and men's hearts break.
This is she for whose love, having seen her, the men that were
Poured life out as water, and shed their souls upon air.
This is she for whose glory their years were counted as foam;
Whose face was a light upon Greece, was a fire upon Rome.
Is it now not surely a vain thing, a foolish and vain,
To sit down by her, mourn to her, serve her, partake in the pain?
She is grey with the dust of time on his manifold ways,
Where her faint feet stumble and falter through year-long days.
Shall she help us at all, O fools, give fruit or give fame,
Who herself is a name despised, a rejected name?
We have not served her for guerdon. If any do so,
That his mouth may be sweet with such honey, we care not to know.
We have drunk from a wine-unsweetened, a perilous cup,
A draught very bitter. The kings of the earth stood up,
And the rulers took counsel together, to smite her and slay;
And the blood of her wounds is given us to drink today.
Can these bones live? or the leaves that are dead leaves bud?
Or the dead blood drawn from her veins be in your veins blood?
Will ye gather up water again that was drawn and shed?
In the blood is the life of the veins, and her veins are dead.
For the lives that are over are over, and past things past;
She had her day, and it is not; was first, and is last.
Is it nothing unto you then, all ye that pass by,
If her breath be left in her lips, if she live now or die?
Behold now, O people, and say if she be not fair,
Whom your fathers followed to find her, with praise and prayer,
And rejoiced, having found her, though roof they had none nor bread;
But ye care not; what is it to you if her day be dead?
It was well with our fathers; their sound was in all men's lands;
There was fire in their hearts, and the hunger of fight in their
hands.
Naked and strong they went forth in her strength like flame,
For her love's and her name's sake of old, her republican name.
But their children, by kings made quiet, by priests made wise,
Love better the heat of their hearths than the light of her eyes.
Are they children of these thy children indeed, who have sold,
O golden goddess, the light of thy face for gold?
Are they sons indeed of the sons of thy dayspring of hope,
Whose lives are in fief of an emperor, whose souls of a Pope?
Hide then thine head, O beloved; thy time is done;
Thy kingdom is broken in heaven, and blind thy sun.
What sleep is upon you, to dream she indeed shall rise,
When the hopes are dead in her heart as the tears in her eyes?
If ye sing of her dead, will she stir? if ye weep for her, weep?
Come away now, leave her; what hath she to do but sleep?
But ye that mourn are alive, and have years to be;
And life is good, and the world is wiser than we.
Yea, wise is the world and mighty, with years to give,
And years to promise; but how long now shall it live?
And foolish and poor is faith, and her ways are bare,
Till she find the way of the sun, and the morning air.
In that hour shall this dead face shine as the face of the sun,
And the soul of man and her soul and the world's be one.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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The Cathedral tombs
THEY lie, with upraised hands, and feet
Stretched like dead feet that walk no more,
And stony masks oft human sweet,
As if the olden look each wore,
Familiar curves of lip and eye,
Were wrought by some fond memory.
All waiting: the new-coffined dead,
The handful of mere dust that lies
Sarcophagused in stone and lead
Under the weight of centuries:
Knight, cardinal, bishop, abbess mild,
With last week's buried year-old child.
After the tempest cometh peace,
After long travail sweet repose;
These folded palms, these feet that cease
From any motion, are but shows
Of--what? What rest? How rest they? Where?
The generations naught declare.
Dark grave, unto whose brink we come,
Drawn nearer by all nights and days;
Each after each, thy solemn gloom
We pierce with momentary gaze,
Then go, unwilling or content,
The way that all our fathers went.
Is there no voice or guiding hand
Arising from the awful void,
To say, 'Fear not the silent land;
Would He make aught to be destroyed?
Would He? or can He? What know we
Of Him who is Infinity?
Strong Love, which taught us human love,
Helped us to follow through all spheres
Some soul that did sweet dead lips move,
Lived in dear eyes in smiles and tears,
Love--once so near our flesh allied,
That 'Jesus wept' when Lazarus died;--
Eagle-eyed Faith that can see God,
In worlds without and heart within;
In sorrow by the smart o' the rod,
In guilt by the anguish of the sin;
In everything pure, holy, fair,
God saying to man's soul, 'I am there';--
These only, twin-archangels, stand
Above the abyss of common doom,
These only stretch the tender hand
To us descending to the tomb,
Thus making it a bed of rest
With spices and with odors drest.
So, like one weary and worn, who sinks
To sleep beneath long faithful eyes,
Who asks no word of love, but drinks
The silence which is paradise--
We only cry--'Keep angelward,
And give us good rest, O good Lord!'
poem by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
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