Nuremberg
In the valley of the Pegnitz, where across broad meadow-lands
Rise the blue Franconian mountains, Nuremberg, the ancient,
stands.
Quaint old town of toil and traffic, quaint old town of art and
song,
Memories haunt thy pointed gables, like the rooks that round them
throng:
Memories of the Middle Ages, when the emperors, rough and bold,
Had their dwelling in thy castle, time-defying, centuries old;
And thy brave and thrifty burghers boasted, in their uncouth
rhyme,
That their great imperial city stretched its hand through every
clime.
In the court-yard of the castle, bound with many an iron hand,
Stands the mighty linden planted by Queen Cunigunde's hand;
On the square the oriel window, where in old heroic days
Sat the poet Melchior singing Kaiser Maximilian's praise.
Everywhere I see around me rise the wondrous world of Art:
Fountains wrought with richest sculpture standing in the common
mart;
And above cathedral doorways saints and bishops carved in stone,
By a former age commissioned as apostles to our own.
In the church of sainted Sebald sleeps enshrined his holy dust,
And in bronze the Twelve Apostles guard from age to age their
trust;
In the church of sainted Lawrence stands a pix of sculpture rare,
Like the foamy sheaf of fountains, rising through the painted
air.
Here, when Art was still religion, with a simple, reverent heart,
Lived and labored Albrecht Durer, the Evangelist of Art;
Hence in silence and in sorrow, toiling still with busy hand,
Like an emigrant he wandered, seeking for the Better Land.
Emigravit is the inscription on the tombstone where he lies;
Dead he is not, but departed,--for the artist never dies.
Fairer seems the ancient city, and the sunshine seems more fair,
That he once has trod its pavement, that he once has breathed its
air!
Through these streets so broad and stately, these obscure and
dismal lanes,
Walked of yore the Mastersingers, chanting rude poetic strains.
From remote and sunless suburbs came they to the friendly guild,
Building nests in Fame's great temple, as in spouts the swallows
build.
As the weaver plied the shuttle, wove he too the mystic rhyme,
And the smith his iron measures hammered to the anvil's chime;
Thanking God, whose boundless wisdom makes the flowers of poesy
bloom
In the forge's dust and cinders, in the tissues of the loom.
Here Hans Sachs, the cobbler-poet, laureate of the gentle craft,
Wisest of the Twelve Wise Masters, in huge folios sang and
laughed.
But his house is now an ale-house, with a nicely sanded floor,
And a garland in the window, and his face above the door;
Painted by some humble artist, as in Adam Puschman's song,
As the old man gray and dove-like, with his great beard white and
long.
And at night the swart mechanic comes to drown his cark and care,
Quaffing ale from pewter tankard; in the master's antique chair.
Vanished is the ancient splendor, and before my dreamy eye
Wave these mingled shapes and figures, like a faded tapestry.
Not thy Councils, not thy Kaisers, win for thee the world's
regard;
But thy painter, Albrecht Durer, and Hans Sachs thy cobbler-bard.
Thus, O Nuremberg, a wanderer from a region far away,
As he paced thy streets and court-yards, sang in thought his
careless lay:
Gathering from the pavement's crevice, as a floweret of the soil,
The nobility of labor,--the long pedigree of toil.
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Related quotes
Nüremberg
How shallow it is, that in a city
where once Kaisers
on a throne did sit,
where the master painter Albrecht Dürer
aimed for the Promised Land
and the great poet Hans Sachs
spent time
to set images
to picture and rhyme,
Anti-Semitic laws were drawn up
and German war criminals
were brought to justice.
Yet the greatest criminals
never set their feet there
and left their nation
to carry their guilt instead
and most of them
now probably are dead.
poem by Gert Strydom
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Oliver Basselin. (Birds Of Passage. Flight The First)
In the Valley of the Vire
Still is seen an ancient mill,
With its gables quaint and queer,
And beneath the window-sill,
On the stone,
These words alone:
'Oliver Basselin lived here.'
Far above it, on the steep,
Ruined stands the old Chateau;
Nothing but the donjon-keep
Left for shelter or for show.
Its vacant eyes
Stare at the skies,
Stare at the valley green and deep.
Once a convent, old and brown,
Looked, but ah! it looks no more,
From the neighboring hillside down
On the rushing and the roar
Of the stream
Whose sunny gleam
Cheers the little Norman town.
In that darksome mill of stone,
To the water's dash and din,
Careless, humble, and unknown,
Sang the poet Basselin
Songs that fill
That ancient mill
With a splendor of its own.
Never feeling of unrest
Broke the pleasant dream he dreamed;
Only made to be his nest,
All the lovely valley seemed;
No desire
Of soaring higher
Stirred or fluttered in his breast.
True, his songs were not divine;
Were not songs of that high art,
Which, as winds do in the pine,
Find an answer in each heart;
But the mirth
Of this green earth
Laughed and revelled in his line.
From the alehouse and the inn,
Opening on the narrow street,
Came the loud, convivial din,
Singing and applause of feet,
The laughing lays
That in those days
Sang the poet Basselin.
In the castle, cased in steel,
Knights, who fought at Agincourt,
Watched and waited, spur on heel;
But the poet sang for sport
Songs that rang
Another clang,
Songs that lowlier hearts could feel.
In the convent, clad in gray,
Sat the monks in lonely cells,
Paced the cloisters, knelt to pray,
And the poet heard their bells;
But his rhymes
Found other chimes,
Nearer to the earth than they.
Gone are all the barons bold,
Gone are all the knights and squires,
Gone the abbot stern and cold,
And the brotherhood of friars;
Not a name
Remains to fame,
From those mouldering days of old!
But the poet's memory here
Of the landscape makes a part;
Like the river, swift and clear,
Flows his song through many a heart;
Haunting still
That ancient mill,
In the Valley of the Vire.
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Nuremberg
So quiet it was in that high, sun-steeped room,
So warm and still, that sometimes with the light
Through the great windows, bright with bottle-panes,
There’d float a chime from clock-jacks out of sight,
Clapping iron mallets on green copper gongs.
But only in blown music from the town’s
Quaint horologe could Time intrude . . . you’d say
Clocks had been bolted out, the flux of years
Defied, and that high chamber sealed away
From earthly change by some old alchemist.
And, oh, those thousand towers of Nuremberg
Flowering like leaden trees outside the panes:
Those gabled roofs with smoking cowls, and those
Encrusted spires of stone, those golden vanes
On shining housetops paved with scarlet tiles!
And all day nine wrought-pewter manticores
Blinked from their spouting faucets, not five steps
Across the cobbled street, or, peering through
The rounds of glass, espied that sun-flushed room
With Dürer graving at intaglios.
O happy nine, spouting your dew all day
In green-scaled rows of metal, whilst the town
Moves peacefully below in quiet joy . . .
O happy gargoyles to be gazing down
On Albrecht Dürer and his plates of iron!
poem by Kenneth Slessor
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About Troy
1
Troy O Troy
an archeologist
will sift your ashes through his fingers
yet a fire occurred greater than that of the Iliad
for seven strings--
too few strings
one needs a chorus
a sea of laments
and thunder of mountains
rain of stone
--how to lead
people away from the ruins
how to lead
the chorus from poems--
thinks the faultless poet
respectably mute
as a pillar of salt
--The song will escape unharmed
It escaped
with flaming wing
into a pure sky
The moon rises over the ruins
Troy O Troy
The city is silent
The poet struggles with his own shadow
The poet cries like a bird in the void
The moon repeats its landscape
gentle metal in smoldering ash
2
They walked along ravines of former streets
as if on a red sea of cinders
and wind lifted the red dust
faithfully painted the sunset of the city
They walked along ravines of former streets
they breathed on the frozen dawn in vain
they said: long years will pass
before the first house stands here
they walked along ravines of former streets
they thought they would find some traces
a cripple plays
on a harmonica
about the braids of a willow
about a girl
the poet is silent
rain falls
poem by Zbigniew Herbert
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Amalfi. (Birds Of Passage. Flight The Fourth)
Sweet the memory is to me
Of a land beyond the sea,
Where the waves and mountains meet,
Where amid her mulberry-trees
Sits Amalfi in the heat,
Bathing ever her white feet
In the tideless summer seas.
In the middle of the town,
From its fountains in the hills,
Tumbling through the narrow gorge,
The Canneto rushes down,
Turns the great wheels of the mills,
Lifts the hammers of the forge.
'T is a stairway, not a street,
That ascends the deep ravine,
Where the torrent leaps between
Rocky walls that almost meet.
Toiling up from stair to stair
Peasant girls their burdens bear;
Sunburnt daughters of the soil,
Stately figures tall and straight,
What inexorable fate
Dooms them to this life of toil?
Lord of vineyards and of lands,
Far above the convent stands.
On its terraced walk aloof
Leans a monk with folded hands,
Placid, satisfied, serene,
Looking down upon the scene
Over wall and red-tiled roof;
Wondering unto what good end
All this toil and traffic tend,
And why all men cannot be
Free from care and free from pain,
And the sordid love of gain,
And as indolent as he.
Where are now the freighted barks
From the marts of east and west?
Where the knights in iron sarks
Journeying to the Holy Land,
Glove of steel upon the hand,
Cross of crimson on the breast?
Where the pomp of camp and court?
Where the pilgrims with their prayers?
Where the merchants with their wares,
And their gallant brigantines
Sailing safely into port
Chased by corsair Algerines?
Vanished like a fleet of cloud,
Like a passing trumpet-blast,
Are those splendors of the past,
And the commerce and the crowd!
Fathoms deep beneath the seas
Lie the ancient wharves and quays,
Swallowed by the engulfing waves;
Silent streets and vacant halls,
Ruined roofs and towers and walls;
Hidden from all mortal eyes
Deep the sunken city lies:
Even cities have their graves!
This is an enchanted land!
Round the headlands far away
Sweeps the blue Salernian bay
With its sickle of white sand:
Further still and furthermost
On the dim discovered coast
Paestum with its ruins lies,
And its roses all in bloom
Seem to tinge the fatal skies
Of that lonely land of doom.
On his terrace, high in air,
Nothing doth the good monk care
For such worldly themes as these,
From the garden just below
Little puffs of perfume blow,
And a sound is in his ears
Of the murmur of the bees
In the shining chestnut trees;
Nothing else he heeds or hears.
All the landscape seems to swoon
In the happy afternoon;
Slowly o'er his senses creep
The encroaching waves of sleep,
And he sinks as sank the town,
Unresisting, fathoms down,
Into caverns cool and deep!
Walled about with drifts of snow,
Hearing the fierce north-wind blow,
Seeing all the landscape white,
And the river cased in ice,
Comes this memory of delight,
Comes this vision unto me
Of a long-lost Paradise
In the land beyond the sea.
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Carillon
In the ancient town of Bruges,
In the quaint old Flemish city,
As the evening shades descended,
Low and loud and sweetly blended,
Low at times and loud at times,
And changing like a poet's rhymes,
Rang the beautiful wild chimes
From the Belfry in the market
Of the ancient town of Bruges.
Then, with deep sonorous clangor
Calmly answering their sweet anger,
When the wrangling bells had ended,
Slowly struck the clock eleven,
And, from out the silent heaven,
Silence on the town descended.
Silence, silence everywhere,
On the earth and in the air,
Save that footsteps here and there
Of some burgher home returning,
By the street lamps faintly burning,
For a moment woke the echoes
Of the ancient town of Bruges.
But amid my broken slumbers
Still I heard those magic numbers,
As they loud proclaimed the flight
And stolen marches of the night;
Till their chimes in sweet collision
Mingled with each wandering vision,
Mingled with the fortune-telling
Gypsy-bands of dreams and fancies,
Which amid the waste expanses
Of the silent land of trances
Have their solitary dwelling;
All else seemed asleep in Bruges,
In the quaint old Flemish city.
And I thought how like these chimes
Are the poet's airy rhymes,
All his rhymes and roundelays,
His conceits, and songs, and ditties,
From the belfry of his brain,
Scattered downward, though in vain,
On the roofs and stones of cities!
For by night the drowsy ear
Under its curtains cannot hear,
And by day men go their ways,
Hearing the music as they pass,
But deeming it no more, alas!
Than the hollow sound of brass.
Yet perchance a sleepless wight,
Lodging at some humble inn
In the narrow lanes of life,
When the dusk and hush of night
Shut out the incessant din
Of daylight and its toil and strife,
May listen with a calm delight
To the poet's melodies,
Till he hears, or dreams he hears,
Intermingled with the song,
Thoughts that he has cherished long;
Hears amid the chime and singing
The bells of his own village ringing,
And wakes, and finds his slumberous eyes
Wet with most delicious tears.
Thus dreamed I, as by night I lay
In Bruges, at the Fleur-de-Ble,
Listening with a wild delight
To the chimes that, through the night
Bang their changes from the Belfry
Of that quaint old Flemish city.
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Tales Of A Wayside Inn : Part 2. The Student's Tale; The Cobbler of Hagenau
I trust that somewhere and somehow
You all have heard of Hagenau,
A quiet, quaint, and ancient town
Among the green Alsatian hills,
A place of valleys, streams, and mills,
Where Barbarossa's castle, brown
With rust of centuries, still looks down
On the broad, drowsy land below,--
On shadowy forests filled with game,
And the blue river winding slow
Through meadows, where the hedges grow
That give this little town its name.
It happened in the good old times,
While yet the Master-singers filled
The noisy workshop and the guild
With various melodies and rhymes,
That here in Hagenau there dwelt
A cobbler,--one who loved debate,
And, arguing from a postulate,
Would say what others only felt;
A man of forecast and of thrift,
And of a shrewd and careful mind
In this world's business, but inclined
Somewhat to let the next world drift.
Hans Sachs with vast delight he read,
And Regenbogen's rhymes of love,
For their poetic fame had spread
Even to the town of Hagenau;
And some Quick Melody of the Plough,
Or Double Harmony of the Dove,
Was always running in his head.
He kept, moreover, at his side,
Among his leathers and his tools,
Reynard the Fox, the Ship of Fools,
Or Eulenspiegel, open wide;
With these he was much edified:
He thought them wiser than the Schools.
His good wife, full of godly fear,
Liked not these worldly themes to hear;
The Psalter was her book of songs;
The only music to her ear
Was that which to the Church belongs,
When the loud choir on Sunday chanted,
And the two angels carved in wood,
That by the windy organ stood,
Blew on their trumpets loud and clear,
And all the echoes, far and near,
Gibbered as if the church were haunted.
Outside his door, one afternoon,
This humble votary of the muse
Sat in the narrow strip of shade
By a projecting cornice made,
Mending the Burgomaster's shoes,
And singing a familiar tune:--
'Our ingress into the world
Was naked and bare;
Our progress through the world
Is trouble and care;
Our egress from the world
Will be nobody knows where;
But if we do well here
We shall do well there;
And I could tell you no more,
Should I preach a whole year!'
Thus sang the cobbler at his work;
And with his gestures marked the time
Closing together with a jerk
Of his waxed thread the stitch and rhyme.
Meanwhile his quiet little dame
Was leaning o'er the window-sill,
Eager, excited, but mouse-still,
Gazing impatiently to see
What the great throng of folk might be
That onward in procession came,
Along the unfrequented street,
With horns that blew, and drums that beat,
And banners flying, and the flame
Of tapers, and, at times, the sweet
Voices of nuns; and as they sang
Suddenly all the church-bells rang.
In a gay coach, above the crowd,
There sat a monk in ample hood,
Who with his right hand held aloft
A red and ponderous cross of wood,
To which at times he meekly bowed.
In front three horsemen rode, and oft,
With voice and air importunate,
A boisterous herald cried aloud:
'The grace of God is at your gate!'
So onward to the church they passed.
The cobbler slowly tuned his last,
And, wagging his sagacious head,
Unto his kneeling housewife said:
''Tis the monk Tetzel. I have heard
The cawings of that reverend bird.
Don't let him cheat you of your gold;
Indulgence is not bought and sold.'
The church of Hagenau, that night,
Was full of people, full of light;
An odor of incense filled the air,
The priest intoned, the organ groaned
Its inarticulate despair;
The candles on the altar blazed,
And full in front of it upraised
The red cross stood against the glare.
Below, upon the altar-rail
Indulgences were set to sale,
Like ballads at a country fair.
A heavy strong-box, iron-bound
And carved with many a quaint device,
Received, with a melodious sound,
The coin that purchased Paradise.
Then from the pulpit overhead,
Tetzel the monk, with fiery glow,
Thundered upon the crowd below.
Good people all, draw near!' he said;
'Purchase these letters, signed and sealed,
By which all sins, though unrevealed
And unrepented, are forgiven!
Count but the gain, count not the loss
Your gold and silver are but dross,
And yet they pave the way to heaven.
I hear your mothers and your sires
Cry from their purgatorial fires,
And will ye not their ransom pay?
O senseless people! when the gate
Of heaven is open, will ye wait?
Will ye not enter in to-day?
To-morrow it will be too late;
I shall be gone upon my way.
Make haste! bring money while ye may!'
The women shuddered, and turned pale;
Allured by hope or driven by fear,
With many a sob and many a tear,
All crowded to the altar-rail.
Pieces of silver and of gold
Into the tinkling strong-box fell
Like pebbles dropped into a well;
And soon the ballads were all sold.
The cobbler's wife among the rest
Slipped into the capacious chest
A golden florin; then withdrew,
Hiding the paper in her breast;
And homeward through the darkness went
Comforted, quieted, content;
She did not walk, she rather flew,
A dove that settles to her nest,
When some appalling bird of prey
That scared her has been driven away.
The days went by, the monk was gone,
The summer passed, the winter came;
Though seasons changed, yet still the same
The daily round of life went on;
The daily round of household care,
The narrow life of toil and prayer.
But in her heart the cobbler's dame
Had now a treasure beyond price,
A secret joy without a name,
The certainty of Paradise.
Alas, alas! Dust unto dust!
Before the winter wore away,
Her body in the churchyard lay,
Her patient soul was with the Just!
After her death, among the things
That even the poor preserve with care,--
Some little trinkets and cheap rings,
A locket with her mother's hair,
Her wedding gown, the faded flowers
She wore upon her wedding day,--
Among these memories of past hours,
That so much of the heart reveal,
Carefully kept and put away,
The Letter of Indulgence lay
Folded, with signature and seal.
Meanwhile the Priest, aggrieved and pained,
Waited and wondered that no word
Of mass or requiem he heard,
As by the Holy Church ordained;
Then to the Magistrate complained,
That as this woman had been dead
A week or more, and no mass said,
It was rank heresy, or at least
Contempt of Church; thus said the Priest
And straight the cobbler was arraigned.
He came, confiding in his cause,
But rather doubtful of the laws.
The Justice from his elbow-chair
Gave him a look that seemed to say:
'Thou standest before a Magistrate,
Therefore do not prevaricate!'
Then asked him in a business way,
Kindly but cold: 'Is thy wife dead?'
The cobbler meekly bowed his head;
'She is,' came struggling from his throat
Scarce audibly. The Justice wrote
The words down in a book, and then
Continued, as he raised his pen:
'She is; and hath a mass been said
For the salvation of her soul?
Come, speak the truth! confess the whole!'
The cobbler without pause replied:
'Of mass or prayer there was no need;
For at the moment when she died
Her soul was with the glorified!'
And from his pocket with all speed
He drew the priestly title-deed,
And prayed the Justice he would read.
The Justice read, amused, amazed;
And as he read his mirth increased;
At times his shaggy brows he raised,
Now wondering at the cobbler gazed,
Now archly at the angry Priest.
'From all excesses, sins, and crimes
Thou hast committed in past times_
Thee I absolve! And furthermore,
Purified from all earthly taints,
To the communion of the Saints
And to the sacraments restore!
All stains of weakness, and all trace
Of shame and censure I efface;
Remit the pains thou shouldst endure,
And make thee innocent and pure,
So that in dying, unto thee
The gates of heaven shall open be!
Though long thou livest, yet this grace
Until the moment of thy death
Unchangeable continueth!'
Then said he to the Priest: 'I find
This document is duly signed
Brother John Tetzel, his own hand.
At all tribunals in the land
In evidence it may be used;
Therefore acquitted is the accused.'
Then to the cobbler turned: 'My friend,
Pray tell me, didst thou ever read
Reynard the Fox?'--'O yes, indeed!'?
'I thought so. Don't forget the end.'
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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The Lessons of Love
The wonderous world of art,
The wonderous world of love,
The womderous world of peace,
This is the pen of a humble writer;
The wonderous world of poetry,
The wonderous world of passion,
The wonderous world of romance,
This is the mind of a humble poet;
Of the long pedigree of toil with hopes and dreams,
I now see the light of my village.
Of that unknown tongue and mind,
Let me now repay the lessons of love;
Of the shades of the night falling like,
An artist painting wih his pen;
The nobility of my labour will surely move me on.
On the poet's sculptured face,
The long pedigree of toil;
I now see the lights of my village so,
Let me repay the lessons of love so far learnt.
Of one whose distant footsteps the echo replays,
This day is keen and very strong to me;
Like a look of joy and the thrill of pride.
Once in an ancient city,
Over the laws of the land of peace;
Like an old man's speech to us all when,
We all have the lessons of love to share.
The soft sea air,
Just beyond the billow's reach;
Of a love command that leaves me with many questions.
Build me straight wherever i am,
With your goldfingers like a teacher;
Life always with the lessons of love.
Like a ghost,
I am strong as a youth;
The strain and the stress of life teaches me.
Build me straight wherever ia m like,
A thought in everybody's mind;
For, pleasant is the voice that calls me to dinner.
Like a ghost standing beside her lover's side,
I am still learning the lessons of love;
In it's pleasure and in it's griefs,
Like a bridegroom upon the bosom of the sea.
Love lessons,
Many will still fall behind;
Love lessons,
Of a lovely laughter like water;
Pleasant is the voce that cals me to dinner.
poem by Edward Kofi Louis
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Troubadours
From the ancient sun to the old heart stove come the troubadours
From the city gates to the castle walls its the troubadours
On a sunlit day it was bright and clear
And the people came from far and they came from near
To hear the troubadours
Well the troubadours sang their songs of love to the lady fair
She was sitting outside on a balcony in in the cool night air
It was a starry night the moon was shining bright
And the trumpets rang and they gave a chime
For the troubadours
And for everyman all across the land and from shore to shore
They came singin songs of love and chivalry from the days of yore
Baby lift your window high do you hear that sound
Its the troubadours as they go through town
Baby lift your window high do you hear that sound
Its the troubadours with their freedom song
Lift your window high turn your lamp down low baby
Dont you know I love you so
Lift your window high do you dig that sound
Its the troubadours coming through town
song performed by by Van Morrison
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Crucifix
"Into thy hands I commend my spirit."
[This very ancient crucifix is sculptured on the exterior wall of the Abbey Church of Romsey. Its characteristic is a hand reaching down from the clouds, over the cross. It is said to be unique.]
In a quiet nook it standeth,
Which careless eyes might miss,
That image of Thy sorrow,
And fountain of our bliss.
Low within reach it standeth,
Close to the old church, door,
And by the common pathway,
Appealing evermore.
Low on the wall, that never
The dimmest eyes may miss,
And the lips of the little children
May reach the feet to kiss.
That humble, simple image,
Wrought by the hands of old;
Good hands! that so many ages
Helpless have grown and cold.
That blessed, sacred image
Born of the heart of old
That through the endless ages
Shall nevermore grow cold.
In the common stone rude-carven,
By no great artist's touch;
Yet never the wide world over
Will you find another such.
You may search the wide world over
From freezing to burning zone,
You will never find another
Quite like this only one.
Deep, deep the nails are driven
In the hands they crucified -
So deep, the nails you see not,
But only the arms stretched wide.
And over the head, so weary,
Bowing itself to die,
An open hand down-reaching
Forth from the clouded sky.
The torturers' hands have finished;
His hands are nailèd fast;
"Into thy hands my spirit -
Father, thy hands!" - at last.
. . . . . . .
Lord, ere thou call our spirits
Within thy hands to be,
Give us some such dear likeness
To leave behind of thee.
Hid in some quiet corner,
Cut in the common stone,
Poor, yet our best, we pray thee,
Our best, and our very own.
. . . . . . .
Dear Lord, our hearts grow bolder;
We dare to ask much more,
Knowing the more we ask thee,
Thou art hut pleased the more.
Give us to be that image
By the common paths like this:
Low, where the dimmest vision,
The features need not miss;
Low, where the lips of the children
May reach to cling and kiss.
Where the nails to the cross which fix us,
So deep in the wounds may hide,
That men see no more the torture,
But only the arms stretched wide.
A humble, simple image,
Cut in the common stone;
Like thee, yet like no other,
Because thy very own.
poem by Elizabeth Rundle Charles from Littell's Living Age, Volume 131, Issue 1693
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Nashville Casualty & Life
In faded gabardine he used to stand
Down by the union station with that ol hat in his hand.
A banjo-pickin devil, a singin rag-time saint.
The young folks called him beautiful, the old folks called him quaint.
And the station-master pointed to the sign
And they busted him for loiterin when he was makin memories rhyme.
Out in the falling snow hed sing his song
To a world too cold to listen and too white to sing along.
Just a nashville casualty and life
Done left him without a dime.
Ever since the good lord took his wife
Youll find him strummin on the corner all the time.
And most of music city never the saw the world within the song
Of a nashville casualty and life goes on.
In the attic sets a dusty hat and cane
And the kids they found a banjo there all rusted from the rain.
I strummed a little rusty rag-time beat
And I sang for every soul out on the street.
I could almost see him standin in the rain
His black and blinded face reflectin all the pain
Of all the years and people passin by
And all the ringin memories that can make a banjo cry.
Just a nashville casualty and life
Its a riff thats hell to play.
You sings for your livin in the street
And you sleeps in the back of some caf
And most of music city never sees the world within the song
Of a nashville casualty and life goes on.
song performed by by Kinky Friedman, lyrics by Kinky Friedman
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Magic
What was the spell she wove for me?
Life was a common useful thing,
An eligible building site
To hold a house to shelter me.
There were no woodlands whispering;
No unimagined dreams at night
About that house had folded wing,
Disordering my life for me.
I was so safe until she came
With starry secrets in her eyes,
And on her lips the word of power.
- Like to the moon of May she came,
That makes men mad who were born wise -
Within her hand the only flower
Man ever plucked from Paradise;
So to my half-built house she came.
She turned my useful plot of land
Into a garden wild and fair,
Where stars in garlands hung like flowers:
A moonlit, lonely, lovely land.
Dim groves and glimmering fountains there
Embraced a secret bower of bowers,
And in its rose-ringed heart we were
Alone in that enchanted land.
What was the spell I wove for her,
Her mad dear magic to undo?
The red rose dies, the white rose dies,
The garden spits me forth with her
On the old suburban road I knew.
My house is gone, and by my side
A stranger stands with angry eyes
And lips that swear I ruined her.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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Belfry of Bruges, The
In the market-place of Bruges stands the belfry old and brown;
Thrice consumed and thrice rebuilded, still it watches o'er the
town.
As the summer morn was breaking, on that lofty tower I stood,
And the world threw off the darkness, like the weeds of
widowhood.
Thick with towns and hamlets studded, and with streams and vapors
gray,
Like a shield embossed with silver, round and vast the landscape
lay.
At my feet the city slumbered. From its chimneys, here and
there,
Wreaths of snow-white smoke, ascending, vanished, ghost-like,
into air.
Not a sound rose from the city at that early morning hour,
But I heard a heart of iron beating in the ancient tower.
From their nests beneath the rafters sang the swallows wild and
high;
And the world, beneath me sleeping, seemed more distant than the
sky.
Then most musical and solemn, bringing back the olden times,
With their strange, unearthly changes rang the melancholy chimes,
Like the psalms from some old cloister, when the nuns sing in the
choir;
And the great bell tolled among them, like the chanting of a
friar.
Visions of the days departed, shadowy phantoms filled my brain;
They who live in history only seemed to walk the earth again;
All the Foresters of Flanders,--mighty Baldwin Bras de Fer,
Lyderick du Bucq and Cressy Philip, Guy de Dampierre.
I beheld the pageants splendid that adorned those days of old;
Stately dames, like queens attended, knights who bore the Fleece
of Gold
Lombard and Venetian merchants with deep-laden argosies;
Ministers from twenty nations; more than royal pomp and ease.
I beheld proud Maximilian, kneeling humbly on the ground;
I beheld the gentle Mary, hunting with her hawk and hound;
And her lighted bridal-chamber, where a duke slept with the
queen,
And the armed guard around them, and the sword unsheathed
between.
I beheld the Flemish weavers, with Namur and Juliers bold,
Marching homeward from the bloody battle of the Spurs of Gold;
Saw the light at Minnewater, saw the White Hoods moving west,
Saw great Artevelde victorious scale the Golden Dragon's nest.
And again the whiskered Spaniard all the land with terror smote;
And again the wild alarum sounded from the tocsin's throat;
Till the bell of Ghent responded o'er lagoon and dike of sand,
"I am Roland! I am Roland! there is victory in the land!"
Then the sound of drums aroused me. The awakened city's roar
Chased the phantoms I had summoned back into their graves once
more.
Hours had passed away like minutes; and, before I was aware,
Lo! the shadow of the belfry crossed the sun-illumined square.
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Fitz-Greene Halleck
AT THE UNVEILING OF HIS STATUE.
Among their graven shapes to whom
Thy civic wreaths belong,
O city of his love, make room
For one whose gift was song.
Not his the soldier's sword to wield,
Nor his the helm of state,
Nor glory of the stricken field,
Nor triumph of debate.
In common ways, with common men,
He served his race and time
As well as if his clerkly pen
Had never danced to rhyme.
If, in the thronged and noisy mart,
The Muses found their son,
Could any say his tuneful art
A duty left undone?
He toiled and sang; and year by year
Men found their homes more sweet,
And through a tenderer atmosphere
Looked down the brick-walled street.
The Greek's wild onset gall Street knew;
The Red King walked Broadway;
And Alnwick Castle's roses blew
From Palisades to Bay.
Fair City by the Sea! upraise
His veil with reverent hands;
And mingle with thy own the praise
And pride of other lands.
Let Greece his fiery lyric breathe
Above her hero-urns;
And Scotland, with her holly, wreathe
The flower he culled for Burns.
Oh, stately stand thy palace walls,
Thy tall ships ride the seas;
To-day thy poet's name recalls
A prouder thought than these.
Not less thy pulse of trade shall beat,
Nor less thy tall fleets swim,
That shaded square and dusty street
Are classic ground through him.
Alive, he loved, like all who sing,
The echoes of his song;
Too late the tardy meed we bring,
The praise delayed so long.
Too late, alas! Of all who knew
The living man, to-day
Before his unveiled face, how few
Make bare their locks of gray!
Our lips of praise must soon be dumb,
Our grateful eyes be dim;
O brothers of the days to come,
Take tender charge of him!
New hands the wires of song may sweep,
New voices challenge fame;
But let no moss of years o'ercreep
The lines of Halleck's name.
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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The Conqueror’s Grave
WITHIN this lowly grave a Conqueror lies,
And yet the monument proclaims it not,
Nor round the sleeper’s name hath chisel wrought
The emblems of a fame that never dies,—
Ivy and amaranth, in a graceful sheaf,
Twined with the laurel’s fair, imperial leaf.
A simple name alone,
To the great world unknown,
Is graven here, and wild-flowers, rising round,
Meek meadow-sweet and violets of the ground,
Lean lovingly against the humble stone.
Here, in the quiet earth, they laid apart
No man of iron mould and bloody hands,
Who sought to wreak upon the cowering lands
The passions that consumed his restless heart;
But one of tender spirit and delicate frame,
Gentlest, in mien and mind,
Of gentle womankind,
Timidly shrinking from the breath of blame:
One in whose eyes the smile of kindness made
Its haunts, like flowers by sunny brooks in May,
Yet, at the thought of others’ pain, a shade
Of sweeter sadness chased the smile away.
Nor deem that when the hand that moulders here
Was raised in menace, realms were chilled with fear,
And armies mustered at the sign, as when
Clouds rise on clouds before the rainy East—
Gray captains leading bands of veteran men
And fiery youths to be the vulture’s feast.
Not thus were waged the mighty wars that gave
The victory to her who fills this grave:
Alone her task was wrought,
Alone the battle fought;
Through that long strife her constant hope was stayed
On God alone, nor looked for other aid.
She met the hosts of Sorrow with a look
That altered not beneath the frown they wore,
And soon the lowering brood were tamed, and took,
Meekly, her gentle rule, and frowned no more.
Her soft hand put aside the assaults of wrath,
And calmly broke in twain
The fiery shafts of pain,
And rent the nets of passion from her path.
By that victorious hand despair was slain.
With love she vanquished hate and overcame
Evil with good, in her Great Master’s name.
Her glory is not of this shadowy state,
Glory that with the fleeting season dies;
But when she entered at the sapphire gate
What joy was radiant in celestial eyes!
How heaven’s bright depths with sounding welcomes rung,
And flowers of heaven by shining hands were flung!
And He who, long before,
Pain, scorn, and sorrow bore,
The Mighty Sufferer, with aspect sweet,
Smiled on the timid stranger from his seat;
He who returning, glorious, from the grave,
Dragged Death, disarmed, in chains, a crouching slave.
See, as I linger here, the sun grows low;
Cool airs are murmuring that the night is near.
Oh, gentle sleeper, from thy grave I go
Consoled though sad, in hope and yet in fear.
Brief is the time, I know,
The warfare scarce begun;
Yet all may win the triumphs thou hast won.
Still flows the fount whose waters strengthened thee,
The victors’ names are yet too few to fill
Heaven’s mighty roll; the glorious armory,
That ministered to thee, is open still.
poem by William Cullen Bryant
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Song Of The Rail
Oh, an ugly thing is an iron rail,
Black, with its face to the dust.
But it carries a message where winged things fail;
It crosses the mountains, and catches the trail,
While the winds and the sea make sport of a sail;
Oh, a rail is a friend to trust.
The iron rail, with its face to the sod,
Is only a bar of ore;
Yet it speeds where never a foot has trod;
And the narrow path where it leads, grows broad;
And it speaks to the world in the voice of God;
That echoes from shore to shore.
Though the iron rail, on the earth down flung,
Seems kin to the loam and the soil,
Wherever its high shrill note is sung,
Out of the jungle fair homes have sprung,
And the voices of babel find one tongue,
In the common language of toil.
Of priest, and warrior, and conquering king,
Of Knights of the Holy Grail,
Of wonders of winter, and glories of spring,
Always and ever the poets sing;
But the great God-Force, in a lowly thing,
I sing, in my song of the rail.
poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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Spring Dirge
A child came singing through the dusty town
A song so sweet that all men stayed to hear,
Forgetting for a space their ancient fear
Of evil days and death and fortune’s frown.
She sang of Winter dead and Spring new-born
In the green fields beyond the far hills’ bound;
And how this fair Spring, coming blossom-crowned,
Would cross the city’s threshold on the morn.
And each caged bird in every house anigh,
Even as she sang, caught up the glad refrain
Of Love and Hope and fair days come again,
Till all who heard forgot they had to die.
And all the ghosts of buried woes were laid
That heard the song of this sweet sorceress;
The Past grew to a dream of old distress,
And merry were the hearts of man and maid.
So, at the first faint blush of tender dawn,
Spring stole with noiseless steps through the gray gloom,
And men knew only by a strange perfume
That she had softly entered and withdrawn.
But ah! the lustre of her violet eyes
Was dimmed with tears for her sweet singing maid,
Whose voice would sound no more in shine or shade
To charm men’s souls at set of sun or rise.
For there, with dews of dawn upon her hair,
Like a fair flower plucked and flung away,
Dead in the street the little maiden lay
Who gave new life to hearts nigh dead of care.
Alas! must this be still the bitter doom
Awaiting those, the finer-souled of earth,
Who make for men a morning song of mirth
While yet the birds are dumb amid the gloom?
They walk on thorny ways with feet unshod,
Sing one last song, and die as that song dies.
There is no human hand to close their eyes,
And very heavy is the hand of God.
poem by Victor James Daley
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Swan Lee
Swan lee got up at the running foot pow-wow,
Heading from the fire to his waiting canoe.
Chattering squaw untied the wigwam door,
The chief blew smoke rings two by two!
The land in silence stands...
Swan lee, his boat by the bank in the darkness,
Loosened the rope in the creek is entwined.
A feather from the wing of a wild young eagle,
Pointed to the land where his fortune he'd find
The land in silence stands
Swan lee paddled on from the land of his fathers,
His eyes scanned the undergrowth on either side.
From the shore hung a hot, heavy, creature infested
Tropic, swan lee had a bow by his side
The land in silence stands
Swan lee kept time, half on land, half on water,
Grizzly bear and raccoon his fare.
He followed his ears to the great water fall,
Swan lee knew deep down that his squaw was there!
The land in silence stands....
Suddenly the rush of the mighty great thunder,
Confronted swan lee as his song he sang,
In the dawn, with his squaw, he was battling homewards
It was all written down by long silas lang.
The land in silence stands...
The land in silence stands...
The land in silence stands.
song performed by by Pink Floyd
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Australia
Earth's mightiest isle. She stands alone.
The wide seas wash around Her throne,
Crowned by the red sun as his own.
This is the last of all the lands
Where Freedom’s fray-torn banner stands,
Not wrested yet from freemen’s hands.
The world’s gray page lies bare to-day—
The rise of nations—the decay.
Will She, too, rise—and fall as they?
She called men to Her, and they came,
Whose deaths have given the Desert name.
Their fame is written with Her fame.
We toil and strive. We have our hour.
But She shall grow from power to power,
To wear the splendour of her dower.
The trust is ours—to us alone.
We are the strong foundation-stone,
The seed from which the flower is grown.
And whilst a realm in fee we hold,
To guard the New against the Old,
Nor take the glitter for the gold,
What shall it profit Her if we
Make gold our God, and strength our plea,
And call wild license Liberty?
If, in our scorn of creed and king,
All reverence to the winds we fling,
And fall before a baser thing?
Though in Her coming hour of pride
Her millions throng the Desert wide,
Her cities stud the water side?
What though Her sword unconquered be,
Her armoured navies sweep the sea,
If still Her people are not free?
To be the wave of thought indeed
From New World vaunt and Old World need,
To manlier day and mightier deed?
To be a people proved and strong—
True freemen of the Poet’s song
For whom the world has waited long?
poem by George Essex Evans
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The Strand
I saw my father’s face last week,
across the gulf of time..
I chanced upon a photograph
That you had left behind.
His hair shock white, his shoulders large
from years of heavy toil,
His eyes pale blue, his hands were rough
from working with the soil.
I thought I saw his face again
Across a crowded room
It must have been a trick of light-
a product of my gloom.
I saw my father’s face last night-
within a vivid dream.
We walked familiar streets of home
in forty year old scenes.
Long vanished homes and people
paraded through my head.
I did not choose to break the mood
or remind him he was dead.
I took my father’s hand last night
We walked a moon lit shore.
The beach’s sand was coarse and black
the surf a subdued roar.
The land behind was all I know,
But the Ocean beckoned me
So together, hand in hand,
We stepped into the sea.
*** *** *** ***
*• a poetic term for a shore (as the area periodically covered and uncovered by the tides)
poem by John F. McCullagh
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