The Chamber Over The Gate
Is it so far from thee
Thou canst no longer see,
In the Chamber over the Gate,
That old man desolate,
Weeping and wailing sore
For his son, who is no more?
O Absalom, my son!
Is it so long ago
That cry of human woe
From the walled city came,
Calling on his dear name,
That it has died away
In the distance of to-day?
O Absalom, my son!
There is no far or near,
There is neither there nor here,
There is neither soon nor late,
In that Chamber over the Gate,
Nor any long ago
To that cry of human woe,
O Absalom, my son!
From the ages that are past
The voice sounds like a blast,
Over seas that wreck and drown,
Over tumult of traffic and town;
And from ages yet to be
Come the echoes back to me,
O Absalom, my son!
Somewhere at every hour
The watchman on the tower
Looks forth, and sees the fleet
Approach of the hurrying feet
Of messengers, that bear
The tidings of despair.
O Absalom, my son!
He goes forth from the door
Who shall return no more.
With him our joy departs;
The light goes out in our hearts;
In the Chamber over the Gate
We sit disconsolate.
O Absalom, my son!
That 't is a common grief
Bringeth but slight relief;
Ours is the bitterest loss,
Ours is the heaviest cross;
And forever the cry will be
'Would God I had died for thee,
O Absalom, my son!'
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Related quotes
Distant Early Warning
An ill wind comes arising
Across the cities of the plain
Theres no swimming in the heavy water
No singing in the acid rain
Red alert
Red alert
Its so hard to stay together
Passing through revolving doors
We need someone to talk to
And someone to sweep the floors
Incomplete
Incomplete
Chorus
The world weighs on my shoulders
But what am I to do?
You sometimes drive me crazy
But I worry about you
I know it makes no difference
To what youre going through
But I see the tip of the iceberg
And I worry about you...
Cruising under your radar
Watching from satellites
Take a page from the red book
Keep them in your sights
Red alert
Red alert
Left and rights of passage
Black and whites of youth
Who can face the knowledge
That the truth is not the truth?
Obsolete
Absolute
Chorus
Absalom, absalom, absalom
song performed by by Rush
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Songs Of The Innocence
Songs of the inocence and the songs of love,
The fables of Absalom are like the histories of your mind;
But some characteristics are passed onto us by our parents.
Songs of the innocence and the games of skilled players,
Who is my checkmate on this side?
For bats are the only mammals that flies today and,
In 1611 the King James Version of the Bible was written.
From Botany to Zoology to muse up with the world,
The fables of Absalom are like the histories of your mind;
But men and women are like the dogs and the cats playing around.
poem by Edward Kofi Louis
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Somebodys Heaven
Music by 10,000 maniacs - lyrics by mary ramsey
There like a feather you fell someones heaven above me
Floating so fickle tempting me teasing my ways
Thrown from its clutches I struggle to free what escapes me
Absalom hanging like you Im caught in between
Heaven then earth then heaven between you
Release me untangle my hair
Absalom hanging like you Im caught in between
Heaven then earth heaven between you
Patient I wait as I hold a small feather
That floated from somebodys heaven.
song performed by by 10000 Maniacs
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Chagrin
Caught still as Absalom,
Surely the air hangs
From the swayless cloud-boughs
Like hair of Absalom
Caught and hanging still.
From the imagined weight
Of spaces in a sky
Of mute chagrin my thoughts
Hang like branch-clung hair
To trunks of silence swung,
With the choked soul weighing down
Into thick emptiness.
Christ, end this hanging death,
For endlessness hangs therefrom !
Invisibly branches break
From invisible trees:
The cloud-woods where we rush
(Our eyes holding so much),
Which we must ride dim ages round
Ere the hands (we dream) can touch,
We ride, we ride-before the morning
The secret roots of the sun to tread-
And suddenly
We are lifted of all we know,
And hang from implacable boughs.
poem by Isaac Rosenberg
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Beware the fury of a patient man.
John Dryden in Absalom and Achitophel (1681)
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Obit.
Jennifer Absalom Maudlin-Mand
Passed away yesterday, by her own hand,
Scribbled a note to be found once she'd done it,
'Please put the strawberries back in the punnet!
I am so weary of life and the living,
Tell all my friends, it's all right! I forgive them! '
Jennifer penned all her poetry passé,
Lolled all her life on the lawn, on the grassé,
Painted her pictures from life in the nuddy,
Rolled in the puddles and made herself muddy,
Nothing survives of her art or her passion,
Only stained clothes that she rolled in the grass on.
'Wealth is a burden! ' was one of her utters,
'Time is so tedious! ' 'Love is for nutters! '
'I am so jaded with cell phones and gadgets,
Emails and sea sails, and that poet, Paget,
I have done everything, been there and spent it,
Now I look forward, I'm planning to end it.'
Jennifer Absalom Maudlin-Mand
Passed away yesterday, by her own hand,
Stuck her two fingers inside a light socket,
Flashed once and screamed, the delightful Miss Muppet,
If she had waited to pass on to heaven,
Today was her birthday, she would have been seven!
3 March 2008
poem by David Lewis Paget
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So Long For Now
You look so peaceful lying there
With your hands folded upon your chest.
You look like you are sleeping
But you are at eternal rest.
So Long For Now.
Not a hair out of place,
Your make-up nicely done,
A beautiful smile upon your lips -
For now you are with Absalom.
When someone special passes on
It does not mean they are gone,
Though they are no longer with us
Their memory still lives on.
It hurts so much to lose a friend -
Especially one that is trustworthy and kind.
Nan Legge, you were that special friend,
A rare and special find.
Nan Legge, you will always be with me
In spirit and in mind.
You will always have a special place in my heart
Forever until the end of time.
Nan Legge, I will not say 'Good-bye'.
This is not the end.
So I will just say, 'So long...'
Until we meet again.
poem by Jayesh Patel
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By Our Will There Springs
by our will
there springs
our fatigue-
able days
an ever work-
man's limb
lays dead
half-spirited
half-spent life
of industry
what's left
by our will
we feel
half-dead
down midnight's moon
and howl-
complain
of our will
by the day
and no one but me
who thanks
my broken limb
poem by R. Absalom Catarata
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Psalm 03
Aug. 9.
When He Fled From Absalom.
Lord how many are my foes
How many those
That in arms against me rise
Many are they
That of my life distrustfully thus say,
No help for him in God there lies.
But thou Lord art my shield my glory,
Thee through my story
Th' exalter of my head I count
Aloud I cry'd
Unto Jehovah, he full soon reply'd
And heard me from his holy mount.
I lay and slept, I wak'd again,
For my sustain
Was the Lord. Of many millions
The populous rout
I fear not though incamping round about
They pitch against me their Pavillions.
Rise Lord, save me my God for thou
Hast smote ere now
On the cheek-bone all my foes,
Of men abhor'd
Hast broke the teeth. This help was from the Lord;
Thy blessing on thy people flows.
poem by John Milton
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Iva
Arm yourself for war!
For the end is at hand;
And, how shall i make a mends to you?
For the end is at hand.
One belt is for a warrior like Absalom's Statue,
But Yahweh is worthy to be praised;
Iva, life is like a gigantic man with six fingers on each hand;
But you are not to be intoxicated with wine!
Iva, life is like a gigantic man with six toes on each foot;
And merciful and compassionate like,
The god (el) of gold in this war!
But you have the sweet-smelling cinnamon around you,
So arm yourself for war! !
Iva, you have the sweet-smelling cane around you too;
And the end is at hand for all of us but,
Those who sin always are unconfortable with righteousness.
poem by Edward Kofi Louis
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Armani
To Susilo Bambarg Yudhoyono of Indinesia,
And to Lula Da Silvia of Brazil;
Your name is Armani and,
My love for you is like Absalom's Monument.
Life is like a message to the unknown girl,
Life is like a message to the unnown boy,
Life is like a message to the unknown man,
Life is like a message to the unknown woman,
Life is like a message to the unkown gardener,
Life is likea message to the unknown potter,
Life is like a message to the unknown seller,
Life is like a message to the unknown painter,
But i will be with you my love.
poem by Edward Kofi Louis
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Specula
When He appoints to meet thee, go thou forth—
It matters not
If south or north,
Bleak waste or sunny plot.
Nor think, if haply He thou seek’st be late,
He does thee wrong.
To stile or gate
Lean thou thy head, and long!
It may be that to spy thee He is mounting
Upon a tower,
Or in thy counting
Thou hast mista’en the hour.
But, if He comes not, neither do thou go
Till Vesper chime.
Belike thou then shalt know
He hath been with thee all the time.
poem by Thomas Edward Brown
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After The German Subjugation Of France, 1871
LO the twelfth year—the wedding-feast come round
With years for months—and lo the babe new-born;
Out of the womb's rank furnace cast forlorn,
And with contagious effluence seamed and crown'd.
To hail this birth, what fiery tongues surround
Hell's Pentecost—what clamour of all cries
That swell, from Absalom's scoff to Shimei's,
One scornful gamut of tumultuous sound!
For now the harlot's heart on a new sleeve
Is prankt; and her heart's lord of yesterday
(Spurned from her bed, whose worm-spun silks o'erlay
Such fretwork as that other worm can weave)
Takes in his ears the vanished world's last yell,
And in his flesh the closing teeth of Hell.
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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Recitative
Regard the capture here, 0 Janus-faced,
As double as the hands that twist this glass.
Such eves at search or rest you cannot see;
Reciting pain or glee, how can you bear!
Twin shadowed halves: the breaking, second holds t,
In each the skin alone, and so it is
I crust a plate of vibrant mercury
Borne cleft to you, and brother in the half.
Inquire this much-exacting fragment smile,
Its drums and darkest blowing leaves ignore,-
Defer though, revocation of the tears
That yield attendance to one crucial sign.
Look steadily-how the wind feasts and spins
The brain's disk shivered against lust. Then watch
While darkness, like an ape's face, falls away,
And gradually white buildings answer day.
Let the same nameless gulf beleaguer us-
Alike suspend us from atrocious sums
Built floor by floor on shafts of steel that grant
The plummet heart, like Absalom, no stream.
The highest tower,-let her ribs palisade
Wrenched gold of Nineveh;-yet leave the tower.
The bridge swings over salvage, beyond wharves;
A wind abides the ensign of your will . . .
In alternating bells have you not heard
All hours clapped dense into a single stride?
Forgive me for an echo of these things,
And let us walk through time with equal pride.
poem by Harold Hart Crane
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Open The Gate
I see you from the distance
From beyond the fence you made
Hiding all your feelings
Behind your barricade
Oh have you been invaded
Is this the reason why you hide
I know just how you're feeling
I know - let me inside
Open the gate up
Open the gate up - hurry
Open the gate up - hurry
I want to get near you
But you just won't let me in
'Cause you're so scared of losing
Everything you've got within
Come on now you can trust me
Come on and open the door
'Cause I know just how you're feeling
I know - I've been there before
Open the gate up
Open the gate up - hurry
Open the gate up
Hurry hurry hurry hurry
And do it right now
Do it right now
Do it right now
Do it right now - hurry
Do it right now - do it right now
Do it right now - do it right now
And do it right now - do it right now
Do it right now - do it right now
Hurry
Open the gate up
Open the gate up - hurry
Open the gate up
Hurry hurry hurry hurry
Open the gate up - open the gate up
Or I'm gonna knock the damn door down
Open the gate up - open the gate up
Or I'm gonna knock the damn door down
Open the gate up - open the gate up
Or I'm gonna knock the damn door down
Open the gate up - open the gate up
Or I'm gonna knock the damn door down
Down
song performed by by No Doubt from Beacon Street Collection
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Robert Gould Shaw
Why was it that the thunder voice of Fate
Should call thee, studious, from the classic groves,
Where calm-eyed Pallas with still footsteps roves,
And charge thee seek the turmoil of the State?
What bade thee hear the voice and rise elate,
Leave home and kindred and thy spicy loaves,
To lead th' unlettered and despised droves
To manhood's home and thunder at the gate?
Far better the slow blaze of Learning's light,
The cool and quiet of her dearer fane,
Than this hot terror of a hopeless fight,
This cold endurance of the final pain,-
Since thou and those who with thee died for right
Have died, the Present teaches, but in vain!
poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
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To the memory of my dear Daughter in Law, Mrs. Mercy Bradstreet, who deceased Sept. 6. 1669. in the
And live I still to see Relations gone,
And yet survive to sound this wailing tone;
Ah, woe is me, to write thy Funeral Song,
Who might in reason yet have lived long,
I saw the branches lopt the Tree now fall,
I stood so nigh, it crusht me down withal;
My bruised heart lies sobbing at the Root,
That thou dear Son hath lost both Tree and fruit:
Thou then on Seas sailing to forreign Coast;
Was ignorant what riches thou hadst lost.
But ah too soon those heavy tydings fly,
To strike thee with amazing misery;
Oh how I simpathize with thy sad heart,
And in thy griefs still bear a second part:
I lost a daughter dear, but thou a wife,
Who lov'd thee more (it seem'd) then her own life.
Thou being gone, she longer could not be,
Because her Soul she'd sent along with thee.
One week she only past in pain and woe,
And then her sorrows all at once did go;
A Babe she left before, she soar'd above,
The fifth and last pledg of her dying love,
E're nature would, it hither did arrive,
No wonder it no longer did survive.
So with her Children four, she's now a rest,
All freed from grief (I trust) among the blest;
She one hath left, a joy to thee and me,
The Heavens vouchsafe she may so ever be.
Chear up, (dear Son) thy fainting bleeding heart,
In him alone, that caused all this smart;
What though thy strokes full sad & grievous be,
He knows it is the best for thee and me.
poem by Anne Bradstreet
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an Angel's love to Erica
while the Angel weeps
her eyes will tear
as she the Angel cries
her happiness has gone missing
many below will be listening
yet only one human will hear
a gate-way will open up in the skies
suddenly with one great leap
lunges through the clouds
closer to the gate far above
he hails through the air
one man faster than that of a hare
has the Angel found her love?
coming upon her home he stops panting aloud
as the Angel cries up inside her quarters
the man rushes up the stairs and into her chamber
his heart pounding like a battle of mortars
upon the Angel's lap he rushes to he
o' most divine Angel why do you weep?
humble human i've no one to hold
my dear Angel i've traveled from below with one great leap
why have you rushed to me so tired and bold?
o' dearest Angel for i too have none of who to hold
humble man will you stay above so i'll not mourn?
divine Angel forever i'll stay for together our love will be reborn
poem by Sedrick Chambers
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Heaven's Gate
Grass over my grave
So I died,
So long before you cried.
And now I wait at Heaven's gate,
Will they let me pass?
I doubt.
The things I did in my past
They now stand on my way
At Heaven's gate.
Lucifer! bare my heart,
Christ! hear my cry;
I wait at the gate
To your heart,
And they wont let me pass
poem by Efe Benjamin
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Golden Gate - Beauty/Despair
The golden gate stretched far and wide,
Till the eye can see,
The line of beauty never fading,
Strong, bewildered and free.
Caste a gaze by the shadowed eye,
It brings the brilliance bound,
But in the pupil suffering
For despair is the sound.
It echoes each vibrant step,
As if waiting for light,
Even with the brilliance,
Despair steps in sight.
Even with the beauty hold,
And with the gate solid gold,
Despair lurks round and round,
Bringing glory to the ground.
And this alas, the golden gate,
Not beautiful, but nor in despair,
Not enough to shine the world,
But given enough thou care.
poem by Viraj Bhanshaly
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