An ecstasy of solitude in an estranged city
An ecstasy of solitude in an estranged city
With the company of a winding spider swaying on its pall
At dark, dusty, sticky, silky corner wall
A craving anticipation for the monotonous music of a solitary cricket
At midnight sound and fury of streets wicket
Pondering at the queue of laborious ants
Undisturbed by on going neighbors rant
Indifferently they are pursuing their heavy task
As I wonder how long and how far it may last
Cold damp frigid winter night at the edge of city
In the middle of the garden wood
A folded leaf is wooed from out its root
With wind rising and gusting upon the barren branch
It floats and falls down to the dark dreary air
And now bouncing between barren boughs in a macabre dance
To the sound of the music of the whispering wind there
This black spotted yellow leaf joins his clan
that dances as often as dance it can
A back choir of hissing leaves at the curb
Of deserted street in a slumbering suburb
At dark sleeps isolated desert city
A stale out of its prime apple hangs at a naked peak
Once fully juiced and waxed and sweetened with summer light
Drops in silence into this winter night
It rolls into the chilling water of a winding creek
It falls it fades and rolls and has no toil
On the leaves bedded damp soil
So as I strut and fret my peak hour on stage
Like this apple my time will come to be a solemn purge
My very heart faints and my whole soul grieves
At the moist rich smell of rotten leaves
The thin window glass into my room gives
The persistent rain keeps hammering hard on the plain
And on the remote jog of a mountains' crag
My inward is gnawed and shuttered with unbalanced pain
With the piercing acidic ache of isolation rack
A foul air hangs over a ghost city
A heavy spirit haunts the weekend last hours
At my window the sight of yellowing bowers
The cold damp earth is a grave of scream chilly
Moldings beaten down flowers hang over a tattered lily
Slumbering indifferently sunk in weakness and in woe city
The blackest moss is engraving its path on a tiled wall
There thickly crushed through the cracks one as a whole
Not thick enough to bar from a neighbor bath
The burst of a seductive maiden laugh
Entrenching my memories of my maiden passion
for the first encounter with love session
Encircled by these deep dire solitude walls and awful room cell
Where heavy pensive suffocating contemplations creep into brain to dwell
And ever musing melancholy holds me hostage under its reigns
My blood frizzes, it stops flowing in my veins
Relentless walls whose rectangular darkness contains
My repentant sighs and isolation imprisoned pains
Time drags slothfully at deserted empty city
Tonight the rough winds begin to flow and rise
A roar from the far West dropping day
Blows dust and hay and whirls them away
The flock of alarmed crows blown to the skies
In the stormy East the wind rushes roaring straining
The frightening bare wood twigs are waning
And the broad Sacramento River with brimful banks complaining
Of heavily loaded low clouds raining
And the bolted levee sighing and water gaining
A sudden tumult shakes the city in violent dread
When a sullen thunder in the streets has crushed and rolled
And in haste I wake to the sounds of the night with my dream fled
And in the shuddering daunting dawn I behold
With blunt awareness with indifference of an annoyed and self pity
As the drama of the night enfolds in the streets of isolated city
By the curtains of my bed
That abiding phantom of cold shade
The lonely wind whirled twist and howl strong
And the night before me is still long
The shadow of the dark is still heavy the same
My heavy eyelids my anguish hangs like shame
When by this dreadful night of solitude I sit
And hateful thoughts grasp and enwrap my soul in shadow gloom
When no fair hopeful dreams are in my mind to repeat
And the bare burden of life' toil offers no bloom
Where are thou starry fires of summer's night vault
in the blue unclouded calm weather
When choirs of stars and some bearded metros trails light together
You foul night soon to draw the dismal solitude cult
And with your capacious pall
illuminating the sky with lighting and sullen thunder roll
placing a death-like colors in all things
As the rusted nail fell from the knots in piercing ring
the stressed shutter bang without a rhyme on the wall
the broken sheds looked outworn, sad and strange
Through the lifted clinking latch the naked branches vacillate out of range
Then out of helplessness and boredom I fall into long sleep
So heavy was my rest as death deep
And in my dream I am dead
Buried at the cemetery remote row edge
By a fence where a heavy load train may at dusk pass
My face and my body full of worms and dust
And in my dream I lay dead
All dust and sand over my head
My tomb under the night calm starry arc
But it is quiet chilly not dark
The thin gray cloud is spread sparingly on high
It covers but not hides the sky
The moon is behind, and at full shape
And yet she seems remotely small and out of grape
A high heels lady walks over taking no heed
My grave is only few yards from a busy street
And she walks with heels beat beat
And I long to see the face of these passing feet
But she passes away leaving me beneath sand and stone tomb
How awful different distorted deformed to the scene coming from the womb
And she prompts away on beds of amaranth and molly
As the nightly sweet breeze lull her legs blowing lowly
I try to push grave and stone wholly
To watch her face so divine and holy
But she draws away far slowly
As the lunar face is hidden from earth
I lay here in the grave dust with ruined blood
That once used to burst in veins and throb
Now it is all turning into mud
As worthless liquid thrown down the tab
In a remote tavern I hear men sing
Their song collapses at the grave yard brink
Fill the cup and fill the can
All winding paths of man
Are but dust of nothing that rises up
And likely lightly laid down again
As the gloomy sanguine sunrise with fiery eyes
And his burning wings plumes out spread through the skies
I wake and I rise the eave-drops fall blurring my eyes
And the yellow vapors chock the frail morning air
That floats from the mist over the river tide flail
Last night showers brought relief to the thirsting flowers
At a city with no towers encircled with vast bowers
The moss in the wet night rapidly breeds
The water in the river has covered half way in heights the marsh reeds
In the morning the wind shakes and trembles the woods to and fro
Bending them aggravatingly into shimmering forms that flash before my view
They mingled and melt in green as the dawn stars melt in dawn blue
The scudding winds waves whitening the green wheat fields in caress
Like tender maiden hands the embracing gales express
A subtlety of mighty tenderness, free of stress
Engulf sky and earth, the beauty that leaves us out of breath
Over the rills and crags and hills in depth
As a slanting and whirling swarm of golden bees
Twirl swirl and flee in front of me
As the day comes back from the death
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City Night
Night is lively.
Night is stunning
Night is pleasurable.
Night is sugary like apple pie.
Night is walking towards with hobo.
Night will never end.
Night is dark.
Night is now simple, sweet, calm, amusing.
I am in love with this city night.
City is covered with this pleasant night.
Night is having the shine of city.
Night is getting wilder.
Night is getting cruel.
Time will never stop running.
Night will over with the time.
Another night will come in this city.
I am waiting for the night.
Here city shed tears
Here city chuckle like a little kid.
Here city dance with the mysterious wind.
I am in love with this city night.
Night never stops coming.
Night will never break its rule.
It will come over and over in this cold blooded city.
But I will never stop loving this city night.
Night is resting.
It will come again into my little black book.
poem by Farzana Hossain
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The House Of Dust: Part 01: 07: Midnight; bells toll, and along the cloud-high towers
Midnight; bells toll, and along the cloud-high towers
The golden lights go out . . .
The yellow windows darken, the shades are drawn,
In thousands of rooms we sleep, we await the dawn,
We lie face down, we dream,
We cry aloud with terror, half rise, or seem
To stare at the ceiling or walls . . .
Midnight . . . the last of shattering bell-notes falls.
A rush of silence whirls over the cloud-high towers,
A vortex of soundless hours.
'The bells have just struck twelve: I should be sleeping.
But I cannot delay any longer to write and tell you.
The woman is dead.
She died—you know the way. Just as we planned.
Smiling, with open sunlit eyes.
Smiling upon the outstretched fatal hand . . .'
He folds his letter, steps softly down the stairs.
The doors are closed and silent. A gas-jet flares.
His shadow disturbs a shadow of balustrades.
The door swings shut behind. Night roars above him.
Into the night he fades.
Wind; wind; wind; carving the walls;
Blowing the water that gleams in the street;
Blowing the rain, the sleet.
In the dark alley, an old tree cracks and falls,
Oak-boughs moan in the haunted air;
Lamps blow down with a crash and tinkle of glass . . .
Darkness whistles . . . Wild hours pass . . .
And those whom sleep eludes lie wide-eyed, hearing
Above their heads a goblin night go by;
Children are waked, and cry,
The young girl hears the roar in her sleep, and dreams
That her lover is caught in a burning tower,
She clutches the pillow, she gasps for breath, she screams . . .
And then by degrees her breath grows quiet and slow,
She dreams of an evening, long ago:
Of colored lanterns balancing under trees,
Some of them softly catching afire;
And beneath the lanterns a motionless face she sees,
Golden with lamplight, smiling, serene . . .
The leaves are a pale and glittering green,
The sound of horns blows over the trampled grass,
Shadows of dancers pass . . .
The face smiles closer to hers, she tries to lean
Backward, away, the eyes burn close and strange,
The face is beginning to change,—
It is her lover, she no longer desires to resist,
She is held and kissed.
She closes her eyes, and melts in a seethe of flame . . .
With a smoking ghost of shame . . .
Wind, wind, wind . . . Wind in an enormous brain
Blowing dark thoughts like fallen leaves . . .
The wind shrieks, the wind grieves;
It dashes the leaves on walls, it whirls then again;
And the enormous sleeper vaguely and stupidly dreams
And desires to stir, to resist a ghost of pain.
One, whom the city imprisoned because of his cunning,
Who dreamed for years in a tower,
Seizes this hour
Of tumult and wind. He files through the rusted bar,
Leans his face to the rain, laughs up at the night,
Slides down the knotted sheet, swings over the wall,
To fall to the street with a cat-like fall,
Slinks round a quavering rim of windy light,
And at last is gone,
Leaving his empty cell for the pallor of dawn . . .
The mother whose child was buried to-day
Turns her face to the window; her face is grey;
And all her body is cold with the coldness of rain.
He would have grown as easily as a tree,
He would have spread a pleasure of shade above her,
He would have been his father again . . .
His growth was ended by a freezing invisible shadow.
She lies, and does not move, and is stabbed by the rain.
Wind, wind, wind; we toss and dream;
We dream we are clouds and stars, blown in a stream:
Windows rattle above our beds;
We reach vague-gesturing hands, we lift our heads,
Hear sounds far off,—and dream, with quivering breath,
Our curious separate ways through life and death.
poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Sacramento's sacraments
Sacramento, Sacramento a city under twilight dusk
From your deserted streets the people one by one will not last
Where are all the lights and the young lads gone?
Where are all the flowers and the nightly gowns?
Solely and slowly the homeless roam in the ghostly streets
Searching morsels and shredded company in dark allies pits
Poverty and desolation scream from every corner wall
An inferno wall of fear cankering the human soul
A shady tattered figure with torn vomits on the side walk stone
His lungs and soul all widely, publically blown
His pal lays his liquids in comfort on a bank of murky creek
while a salty dropp slides down my dusty cheek
Sacramento, Sacramento in your elongated gardens
the black bat night has flown
In his path a wooden bench of lovers lane is unattended alone
And the roses by the hush of the moon lost their pardons
The nightly beasts will not come out of their den banned by fright
The little birds winged their way shrieking out of their natural game
As the broad moon rises looming like a beacon flame
against the red murky evening light.
Gothic ornaments attached to buildings with granite pillars broad and tall
Standing in support shoulder to shoulder, brother to brother
as the night shades on the weary city fall
their claws grasp and wrap your avenues like blight
Lovers will not whisper to each other
“be by the roses tonight”.
A granite bright silhouette appears streamed into the air by the gable wall
As slowly steals the moon in a silver flame
Along her rarely naked breast she announces the starry night her proclaim
There among the tall pillars the glory of the night holds its fall
I muse upon her high state as the broad moon laves
The lawn by the cathedral through the door
Hearing the holy organ waves
Of sound rolling on roof and floor
Odd ominous is that lunar light
The granite rock column which stands on
Confronting the sanguine beam bright
Seems to change into a pillar of crimson
While its lower part is doused in darkness half averted
Shrouded in the densest pall of dark
And the vaults of blending beams of nightly arc
And a bronze snake twines his black folds and glossy neck converted
Sacramento, Sacramento the meadows around you are shining with splendor haze
As the sun daily gilds the wheat stems with glaze
And the night desert winds blow and the palm tree arms stir
a star barely peers through the thick heavy atmosphere
You are far from any native shores
Where waves roll high and foaming breakers roar
Sacramento, Sacramento the charmed sunset lingers in the West
The hot feverish night succeeds with parched unwholesome air
That softly falls on petals blown from roses crest
And your inner land cannot see the silent pinnacles of snow aged and fair
The hills around are full with flowers in bright bloom
Grow green and broad and take no care
except sun-steep at noon and nightly dew-fed at the moon
far from misery and despair
Sacrament, Sacramento no crocodiles in your briny creeks
The sun scorches mercilessly your mountains peaks
in the sand fields of your river foot
reluctantly avoiding the banks outcropping tree's roots
The plain in not grassy in your wide river, but wild and bare
Whirl, wild and open to the hot afternoon air
which has built up through the streets everywhere
Under high elevated train rail concrete gray
With inner voice the wide silent river runs
In it floats a dying half plucked swan
The willow trees sagging over the floating swan weep
On their shades on tangled blankets the settlements of the homeless sleep
the sadden trees with boughs drooping in deep lament
As the weary wind sighs and calms the grieving reeds tops at ascend.
Sacramento Sacramento
In your field the thundering steed
Rushes aimlessly struck by the long day heat
There is windless calm a dismal pause beat
The dust of hooves cloud the inferno air
Towering to the vaults of colossus blue without a stair
The lonely shaded spider’s thin gray pall
Waves slowly widening over between a pole and wall
The bat hangs by the whispering reeds in the bower
And waits the kingdom of the night by the fortress of his power
The ominous owl usurps the beacon tower
The stray dog howls in despair over the river brim
By his emaciated human both baffled thirst and famine grim
As the line of dust on the human face lingers
The hands idle with patina of skin and sot on the fingers
Though the river never shrinks from its sandy bed
There the weeds and desolating dust spread
Unable to cope with the sultriness of the day
The children hide and do not play
A dark shadow flits before me where I stand
Murmuring old themes of ancient biblical days
He holds a worn out book in his hand
Trance in delirium he conjures prophets in his prays
Oh lo, finally approaches an old city bus
Making its way heavily across a track of phantom city cars
Its image faint against countless closed shops and abandoned bars
Its engine vocals its core in a choir with a shuttered glass din
Oh bus, where so long have you been?
But thank God you came at last!
Blessed the Lord, you are real and well seen!
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A bird at my window
The relentless rain and the whirling winds
The first pushed with violent gusts the other pelt
The windows shutters banged in sound grimed;
The roof’s gutters over brimmed
The two culprits smote the garden bed
The new flowery sprouts in horror knelt
And lay lodged motionless in the ground as dead
I watched and I knew how the shaken flowers felt
The howling gales scud through the flower plots
The rusted nails squeaked on its knots
That held the tree to the gable-wall
All night long under the foul dark pall
The broken shades torn by the winds
Are hanging loose from silver white rings
Uplifted was the clinking thatch
Upon the lonely deserted grange
It is a dark chilly dreary morning
Sun delayed over city with gray sky in mourning
The day comes suddenly at last- A dull red ball in chock
Wrapped in snake drifts of lurid smoke
At my window a naked bird sate chirruping for her love
Upon a wintery bare with congealed pores boughs
The frozen wind whirled creeping on above
As the wire cold twigs took shaken bows
There was no leaf upon the avenue trees bare
No flower upon the solidified ground
And very little motion in the calm air
Except the train moan wheels' sound
What made the bird to sing at my window with no rest
A furlong from the castle of her warm nest
Her betrothed knight she all day at the sill pray
For the weal of him who is that's far away
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The dancing whirling leaves
I will befall into my tomb
As a waning river falls to the sea
I embrace death the existence of ‘not to be’
As a child welcomes his calm night dream
I walked in the shadows of darkness and sorrow
Unfriendly and cold and alone
As dismally gurgle besides me
The bleak river desolate moan
The rise of the volleying thunder
The mountain’s lone echoes repeat
The roar whirl wind around me
The galling autumn leaves at my feet
I stooped in shadows of darkness and sorrow
Uncheered by the moon’s spangled ray
Not a friend that I love but is dead
Not a hope I have but have faded away
Oh Shall I rest in the tomb
Wrapped about with the chill winding white sheet
For the roar of the wind is around me
And the waving yellow leaves above my head
I heed not the blasts that sweep over me
I mind not the hail the storm and the raging sea
I blame not the tempest of night
They are not the foes who have banished
The visions of youthful delight
I hail the wild sound of their raving
Their merciless presence I greet
Oh let it be! Let me join these eternal elements
And roam the land and rove the vexed sea
Yet my fate is the roar of the wind engulfing me
And the piling reddened leaves at my feet
In this waste of existence and solitude, for solace
On whom shall my lone spiral call?
Shall I seek shall I fly to the friends of my bosom
My God I have buried them all
They are dead they are gone they are cold
My embrace no longer they meet or feel
Fall to the roar of the wind around me
The yellow leaves hissing in a macabre music at my feet
Those eyes that glanced love into mine
With motionless and cold slumber are pressed
Those hearts which once throbbed are no more in line
They are chill as the earth where they rest
Then around me my wan withered form
Let the pestilent gale beat
Submit to the howling wind around me
While the mocking leaves dance at my feet
Like the voice of the owl in the hall
Where the song of choir and the banquet ceased
Where the green weeds have mantled the hearth
Where raise the proud flame of feast
So I cry to the storm whose dark wings
Scatter on my eyes the wild driving sleet
Let the roar of the wind around me
And the dancing whirling clan leaves at my feet
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Maud: A Monodrama (Part II, excerpt)
.
O that 'twere possible
.
After long grief and pain
.
To find the arms of my true love
.
Round me once again!2.
When I was wont to meet her
.
In the silent woody places
.
By the home that gave me birth,
.
We stood tranced in long embraces
.
Mixt with kisses sweeter sweeter
.
Than anything on earth.2.
A shadow flits before me,
.
Not thou, but like to thee:
.
Ah Christ, that it were possible
.
For one short hour to see
.
The souls we loved, that they might tell us
.
What and where they be.2.
It leads me forth at evening,
.
It lightly winds and steals
.
In a cold white robe before me,
.
When all my spirit reels
.
At the shouts, the leagues of lights,
.
And the roaring of the wheels.2.
Half the night I waste in sighs,
.
Half in dreams I sorrow after
.
The delight of early skies;
.
In a wakeful doze I sorrow
.
For the hand, the lips, the eyes,
.
For the meeting of the morrow,
.
The delight of happy laughter,
.
The delight of low replies.2.
'Tis a morning pure and sweet,
.
And a dewy splendour falls
.
On the little flower that clings
.
To the turrets and the walls;
.
'Tis a morning pure and sweet,
.
And the light and shadow fleet;
.
She is walking in the meadow,
.
And the woodland echo rings;
.
In a moment we shall meet;
.
She is singing in the meadow,
.
And the rivulet at her feet
.
Ripples on in light and shadow
.
To the ballad that she sings.2.
So I hear her sing as of old,
.
My bird with the shining head,
.
My own dove with the tender eye?
.
But there rings on a sudden a passionate cry,
.
There is some one dying or dead,
.
And a sullen thunder is roll'd;
.
For a tumult shakes the city,
.
And I wake, my dream is fled;
.
In the shuddering dawn, behold,
.
Without knowledge, without pity,
.
By the curtains of my bed
.
That abiding phantom cold.2.
Get thee hence, nor come again,
.
Mix not memory with doubt,
.
Pass, thou deathlike type of pain,
.
Pass and cease to move about!
.
'Tis the blot upon the brain
.
That will show itself without.2.
Then I rise, the eave-drops fall,
.
And the yellow vapours choke
.
The great city sounding wide;
.
The day comes, a dull red ball
.
Wrapt in drifts of lurid smoke
.
On the misty river-tide.2.
Thro' the hubbub of the market
.
I steal, a wasted frame;
.
It crosses here, it crosses there,
.
Thro' all that crowd confused and loud,
.
The shadow still the same;
.
And on my heavy eyelids
.
My anguish hangs like shame.2.
Alas for her that met me,
.
That heard me softly call,
.
Came glimmering thro' the laurels
.
At the quiet evenfall,
.
In the garden by the turrets
.
Of the old manorial hall.2.
Would the happy spirit descend
.
From the realms of light and song,
.
In the chamber or the street,
.
As she looks among the blest,
.
Should I fear to greet my friend
.
Or to say "Forgive the wrong,"
.
Or to ask her, "Take me, sweet,
.
To the regions of thy rest"?2.
But the broad light glares and beats,
.
And the shadow flits and fleets
.
And will not let me be;
.
And I loathe the squares and streets,
.
And the faces that one meets,
.
Hearts with no love for me:
.
Always I long to creep
.
Into some still cavern deep,
.
There to weep, and weep, and weep
.
My whole soul out to thee....
poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Oh prophet!
Oh prophet! Oh prophet! get up and flee
The dormant city
Is vicious, merciless without joviality or glee
Oh prophet! Oh prophet get up and run
The dreadful city before the rising sun
The gentle night welcomes with cover and calm
Oh prophet! oh prophet get up and haste your retreat
The night city drums thunder and beat
A place so foul, no man is liberated or free in solitary streets
Oh prophet! oh prophet get up and hide
This city is filled with bigotry and shameful pride
The night is pure with divinity and delight
Oh Prophet! oh Prophet wake up and rise
Large treasure rapture city eyes
Their sins are blotted in shape and size
Oh prophet! oh prophet take a warning heed
Tomorrow God's wrath will over the city take lead
And with fury and fire burns her towers and her peaks
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A woman at a café’
She is a burning beauty so beguiling bright
As she sits in a café’ of a city under the night
Her skin over her face and limbs is spread like a dream
All the lights around her turn their heads in shame dim
Her legs peep beneath a dark collied skirt
Setting all passers by into anguish alert
What mortal hand or eye
Could frame or design your thigh
In what clay, in what mould
Were her eyes of fury and beauty rolled?
In what distant depths or vaulting high skies
Burnt the fire of her eyes?
He who framed her what dare he aspire?
What hand could dare size this intense fire?
Her shoulders, what an art
What craft could twist the sinews of her heart?
And when her heart begin to beat
What dread hands what dread feet?
Where is the hammer where is the chain
In what furnace she was give birth where it all began
The stars above the city threw down their spears
And watered heaven with their tears
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the man make thee?
She, she, the burning fire of the night
Lent her ore to the canopy of the city so bright
The flames of the candles at her table
Competed to reflect their image in her eyes like shadows fragile
Her glass of wine did not delay; it had stelled
Her beauty's form within its convex heart
So proudly its bounty to the world it held
Claiming it never captured a better art
Burnt! Burnt! Beguiling beauty in bright
As the city approached the edge of the midnight
The trees at the avenue their blooming boughs dropped
To feel her blood in her veins throbbed
What immortal hand what heavenly eye
Dare contrive your fearful symmetry beneath this sky
And there was none in the city’s daughters
With the magic like her when she sat down to eat
And like the night music on the East river water
Was her voice loud in tease and in din beat
When as if her humor and soul were causing
The charmed river pausing
The waves at its banks to lie still gleaming
And the lulled winds seemed dreaming
And the midnight moon was weaving
Her bright image over the water deep
While her twin breasts were gently heaving
As if an infant was asleep
As she got up to leave
She walked in beauty into the night
That a city of cloudless climates can give
And all that was best in dark and bright
Were reflected in the lofty vaults of starry skies
And met in her structure and in her eyes
And thus mellowed to that tender glow of night
Which heaven bestowed on her yet to the gaudy day denied
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A dark chilly dreary morning
It is a dark chilly dreary morning
Sun delayed over city with gray sky in mourning
The throng of comers and goers in my face flits and fleets
And will not let me be
I walk passing eave-drops lofty fall
And the yellow vapors choke
The great city subway sounding wide
The day comes suddenly at last- A dull red ball
Wrapped in drifts of lurid smoke
On the misty East river tide
I loath the city of solitude in squares and in streets
And the faces of stutters that one meets
Empty aloof hearts arrogant introvert souls with no love for me
I crave to crawl, to crouch to creep
Into some under street cafe’ deep
And there to weep and weep and weep
My whole soul out for you in silent grief
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Night of dew and tangle
I recall a night of dew and tangle
As the dew fell on the cobweb from a wind at angle
To leave it threaded with stars
A night of scattering jewels on fences and pastures bars
As proud dawn rose against dry grass bright
Yet to come under human sight
And tangled boughs and weaved weeds
Bearing a rainbow gem on each of their seeds
Come again you blue dust of evening over slumbering city,
Over this ocean of roofs, walls, streets and tall towers
Where the window-lights innumerable claim skies without pity
And bloom from the walls like climbing flowers.
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Over The Darkened City
Over the darkened city, the city of towers,
The city of a thousand gates,
Over the gleaming terraced roofs, the huddled towers,
Over a somnolent whisper of loves and hates,
The slow wind flows, drearily streams and falls,
With a mournful sound down rain-dark walls.
On one side purples the lustrous dusk of the sea,
And dreams in white at the city's feet;
On one side sleep the plains, with heaped-up hills.
Oaks and beeches whisper in rings about it.
Above the trees are towers where dread bells beat.
The fisherman draws his streaming net from the sea
And sails toward the far-off city, that seems
Like one vague tower.
The dark bow plunges to foam on blue-black waves,
And shrill rain seethes like a ghostly music about him
In a quiet shower.
Rain with a shrill sings on the lapsing waves;
Rain thrills over the roofs again;
Like a shadow of shifting silver it crosses the city;
The lamps in the streets are streamed with rain;
And sparrows complain beneath deep eaves,
And among whirled leaves
The sea-gulls, blowing from tower to lower tower,
From wall to remoter wall,
Skim with the driven rain to the rising sea-sound
And close grey wings and fall . . .
. . . Hearing great rain above me, I now remember
A girl who stood by the door and shut her eyes:
Her pale cheeks glistened with rain, she stood and shivered.
Into a forest of silver she vanished slowly . . .
Voices about me rise . . .
Voices clear and silvery, voices of raindrops,-
'We struck with silver claws, we struck her down.
We are the ghosts of the singing furies . . . '
A chorus of elfin voices blowing about me
Weaves to a babel of sound. Each cries a secret.
I run among them, reach out vain hands, and drown.
'I am the one who stood beside you and smiled,
Thinking your face so strangely young . . . '
'I am the one who loved you but did not dare.'
'I am the one you followed through crowded streets,
The one who escaped you, the one with red-gleamed hair.'
'I am the one you saw to-day, who fell
Senseless before you, hearing a certain bell:
A bell that broke great memories in my brain.'
'I am the one who passed unnoticed before you,
Invisible, in a cloud of secret pain.'
'I am the one who suddenly cried, beholding
The face of a certain man on the dazzling screen.
They wrote me that he was dead. It was long ago.
I walked in the streets for a long while, hearing nothing,
And returned to see it again. And it was so.'
Weave, weave, weave, you streaks of rain!
I am dissolved and woven again . . .
Thousands of faces rise and vanish before me.
Thousands of voices weave in the rain.
'I am the one who rode beside you, blinking
At a dazzle of golden lights.
Tempests of music swept me: I was thinking
Of the gorgeous promise of certain nights:
Of the woman who suddenly smiled at me this day,
Smiled in a certain delicious sidelong way,
And turned, as she reached the door,
To smile once more . . .
Her hands are whiter than snow on midnight water.
Her throat is golden and full of golden laughter,
Her eyes are strange as the stealth of the moon
On a night in June . . .
She runs among whistling leaves; I hurry after;
She dances in dreams over white-waved water;
Her body is white and fragrant and cool,
Magnolia petals that float on a white-starred pool . . .
I have dreamed of her, dreaming for many nights
Of a broken music and golden lights,
Of broken webs of silver, heavily falling
Between my hands and their white desire:
And dark-leaved boughs, edged with a golden radiance,
Dipping to screen a fire . . .
I dream that I walk with her beneath high trees,
But as I lean to kiss her face,
She is blown aloft on wind, I catch at leaves,
And run in a moonless place;
And I hear a crashing of terrible rocks flung down,
And shattering trees and cracking walls,
And a net of intense white flame roars over the town,
And someone cries; and darkness falls . . .
But now she has leaned and smiled at me,
My veins are afire with music,
Her eyes have kissed me, my body is turned to light;
I shall dream to her secret heart tonight . . . '
He rises and moves away, he says no word,
He folds his evening paper and turns away;
I rush through the dark with rows of lamplit faces;
Fire bells peal, and some of us turn to listen,
And some sit motionless in their accustomed places.
Cold rain lashes the car-roof, scurries in gusts,
Streams down the windows in waves and ripples of lustre;
The lamps in the streets are distorted and strange.
Someone takes his watch from his pocket and yawns.
One peers out in the night for the place to change.
Rain . . . rain . . . rain . . . we are buried in rain,
It will rain forever, the swift wheels hiss through water,
Pale sheets of water gleam in the windy street.
The pealing of bells is lost in a drive of rain-drops.
Remote and hurried the great bells beat.
'I am the one whom life so shrewdly betrayed,
Misfortune dogs me, it always hunted me down.
And to-day the woman I love lies dead.
I gave her roses, a ring with opals;
These hands have touched her head.
'I bound her to me in all soft ways,
I bound her to me in a net of days,
Yet now she has gone in silence and said no word.
How can we face these dazzling things, I ask you?
There is no use: we cry: and are not heard.
'They cover a body with roses . . . I shall not see it . . .
Must one return to the lifeless walls of a city
Whose soul is charred by fire? . . . '
His eyes are closed, his lips press tightly together.
Wheels hiss beneath us. He yields us our desire.
'No, do not stare so-he is weak with grief,
He cannot face you, he turns his eyes aside;
He is confused with pain.
I suffered this. I know. It was long ago . . .
He closes his eyes and drowns in death again.'
The wind hurls blows at the rain-starred glistening windows,
The wind shrills down from the half-seen walls.
We flow on the mournful wind in a dream of dying;
And at last a silence falls.
poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Starry Night
When the night falls in your small room
Nothing seen but the dark and the air becomes chill
Everybody has turned asleep
Leaving the blue mountain bored and lonely
Look at your window, the moon calls
There is stars bloom in the dark sky
Giving a hazy sight of the imaginary city
The tall tree is now awaking
When the cold rigid line blurred into waving hands ready to dance
And city lights accompany you to sing a long the midnight
Even the scary darkness drunken in the party
Marching the clouds around the stars and moon
Inspired by Starry Night, Vincent van Gogh
poem by Maria Sudibyo
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The House Of Dust: Part 01: 06: Over the darkened city, the city of towers
Over the darkened city, the city of towers,
The city of a thousand gates,
Over the gleaming terraced roofs, the huddled towers,
Over a somnolent whisper of loves and hates,
The slow wind flows, drearily streams and falls,
With a mournful sound down rain-dark walls.
On one side purples the lustrous dusk of the sea,
And dreams in white at the city's feet;
On one side sleep the plains, with heaped-up hills.
Oaks and beeches whisper in rings about it.
Above the trees are towers where dread bells beat.
The fisherman draws his streaming net from the sea
And sails toward the far-off city, that seems
Like one vague tower.
The dark bow plunges to foam on blue-black waves,
And shrill rain seethes like a ghostly music about him
In a quiet shower.
Rain with a shrill sings on the lapsing waves;
Rain thrills over the roofs again;
Like a shadow of shifting silver it crosses the city;
The lamps in the streets are streamed with rain;
And sparrows complain beneath deep eaves,
And among whirled leaves
The sea-gulls, blowing from tower to lower tower,
From wall to remoter wall,
Skim with the driven rain to the rising sea-sound
And close grey wings and fall . . .
. . . Hearing great rain above me, I now remember
A girl who stood by the door and shut her eyes:
Her pale cheeks glistened with rain, she stood and shivered.
Into a forest of silver she vanished slowly . . .
Voices about me rise . . .
Voices clear and silvery, voices of raindrops,—
'We struck with silver claws, we struck her down.
We are the ghosts of the singing furies . . . '
A chorus of elfin voices blowing about me
Weaves to a babel of sound. Each cries a secret.
I run among them, reach out vain hands, and drown.
'I am the one who stood beside you and smiled,
Thinking your face so strangely young . . . '
'I am the one who loved you but did not dare.'
'I am the one you followed through crowded streets,
The one who escaped you, the one with red-gleamed hair.'
'I am the one you saw to-day, who fell
Senseless before you, hearing a certain bell:
A bell that broke great memories in my brain.'
'I am the one who passed unnoticed before you,
Invisible, in a cloud of secret pain.'
'I am the one who suddenly cried, beholding
The face of a certain man on the dazzling screen.
They wrote me that he was dead. It was long ago.
I walked in the streets for a long while, hearing nothing,
And returned to see it again. And it was so.'
Weave, weave, weave, you streaks of rain!
I am dissolved and woven again . . .
Thousands of faces rise and vanish before me.
Thousands of voices weave in the rain.
'I am the one who rode beside you, blinking
At a dazzle of golden lights.
Tempests of music swept me: I was thinking
Of the gorgeous promise of certain nights:
Of the woman who suddenly smiled at me this day,
Smiled in a certain delicious sidelong way,
And turned, as she reached the door,
To smile once more . . .
Her hands are whiter than snow on midnight water.
Her throat is golden and full of golden laughter,
Her eyes are strange as the stealth of the moon
On a night in June . . .
She runs among whistling leaves; I hurry after;
She dances in dreams over white-waved water;
Her body is white and fragrant and cool,
Magnolia petals that float on a white-starred pool . . .
I have dreamed of her, dreaming for many nights
Of a broken music and golden lights,
Of broken webs of silver, heavily falling
Between my hands and their white desire:
And dark-leaved boughs, edged with a golden radiance,
Dipping to screen a fire . . .
I dream that I walk with her beneath high trees,
But as I lean to kiss her face,
She is blown aloft on wind, I catch at leaves,
And run in a moonless place;
And I hear a crashing of terrible rocks flung down,
And shattering trees and cracking walls,
And a net of intense white flame roars over the town,
And someone cries; and darkness falls . . .
But now she has leaned and smiled at me,
My veins are afire with music,
Her eyes have kissed me, my body is turned to light;
I shall dream to her secret heart tonight . . . '
He rises and moves away, he says no word,
He folds his evening paper and turns away;
I rush through the dark with rows of lamplit faces;
Fire bells peal, and some of us turn to listen,
And some sit motionless in their accustomed places.
Cold rain lashes the car-roof, scurries in gusts,
Streams down the windows in waves and ripples of lustre;
The lamps in the streets are distorted and strange.
Someone takes his watch from his pocket and yawns.
One peers out in the night for the place to change.
Rain . . . rain . . . rain . . . we are buried in rain,
It will rain forever, the swift wheels hiss through water,
Pale sheets of water gleam in the windy street.
The pealing of bells is lost in a drive of rain-drops.
Remote and hurried the great bells beat.
'I am the one whom life so shrewdly betrayed,
Misfortune dogs me, it always hunted me down.
And to-day the woman I love lies dead.
I gave her roses, a ring with opals;
These hands have touched her head.
'I bound her to me in all soft ways,
I bound her to me in a net of days,
Yet now she has gone in silence and said no word.
How can we face these dazzling things, I ask you?
There is no use: we cry: and are not heard.
'They cover a body with roses . . . I shall not see it . . .
Must one return to the lifeless walls of a city
Whose soul is charred by fire? . . . '
His eyes are closed, his lips press tightly together.
Wheels hiss beneath us. He yields us our desire.
'No, do not stare so—he is weak with grief,
He cannot face you, he turns his eyes aside;
He is confused with pain.
I suffered this. I know. It was long ago . . .
He closes his eyes and drowns in death again.'
The wind hurls blows at the rain-starred glistening windows,
The wind shrills down from the half-seen walls.
We flow on the mournful wind in a dream of dying;
And at last a silence falls.
poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The House Of Dust: Part 02: 07: Two Lovers: Overtones
Two lovers, here at the corner, by the steeple,
Two lovers blow together like music blowing:
And the crowd dissolves about them like a sea.
Recurring waves of sound break vaguely about them,
They drift from wall to wall, from tree to tree.
'Well, am I late?' Upward they look and laugh,
They look at the great clock's golden hands,
They laugh and talk, not knowing what they say:
Only, their words like music seem to play;
And seeming to walk, they tread strange sarabands.
'I brought you this . . . ' the soft words float like stars
Down the smooth heaven of her memory.
She stands again by a garden wall,
The peach tree is in bloom, pink blossoms fall,
Water sings from an opened tap, the bees
Glisten and murmur among the trees.
Someone calls from the house. She does not answer.
Backward she leans her head,
And dreamily smiles at the peach-tree leaves, wherethrough
She sees an infinite May sky spread
A vault profoundly blue.
The voice from the house fades far away,
The glistening leaves more vaguely ripple and sway . .
The tap is closed, the water ceases to hiss . . .
Silence . . . blue sky . . . and then, 'I brought you this . . . '
She turns again, and smiles . . . He does not know
She smiles from long ago . . .
She turns to him and smiles . . . Sunlight above him
Roars like a vast invisible sea,
Gold is beaten before him, shrill bells of silver;
He is released of weight, his body is free,
He lifts his arms to swim,
Dark years like sinister tides coil under him . . .
The lazy sea-waves crumble along the beach
With a whirring sound like wind in bells,
He lies outstretched on the yellow wind-worn sands
Reaching his lazy hands
Among the golden grains and sea-white shells . . .
'One white rose . . . or is it pink, to-day?'
They pause and smile, not caring what they say,
If only they may talk.
The crowd flows past them like dividing waters.
Dreaming they stand, dreaming they walk.
'Pink,—to-day!'—Face turns to dream-bright face,
Green leaves rise round them, sunshine settles upon them,
Water, in drops of silver, falls from the rose.
She smiles at a face that smiles through leaves from the mirror.
She breathes the fragrance; her dark eyes close . . .
Time is dissolved, it blows like a little dust:
Time, like a flurry of rain,
Patters and passes, starring the window-pane.
Once, long ago, one night,
She saw the lightning, with long blue quiver of light,
Ripping the darkness . . . and as she turned in terror
A soft face leaned above her, leaned softly down,
Softly around her a breath of roses was blown,
She sank in waves of quiet, she seemed to float
In a sea of silence . . . and soft steps grew remote . .
'Well, let us walk in the park . . . The sun is warm,
We'll sit on a bench and talk . . .' They turn and glide,
The crowd of faces wavers and breaks and flows.
'Look how the oak-tops turn to gold in the sunlight!
Look how the tower is changed and glows!'
Two lovers move in the crowd like a link of music,
We press upon them, we hold them, and let them pass;
A chord of music strikes us and straight we tremble;
We tremble like wind-blown grass.
What was this dream we had, a dream of music,
Music that rose from the opening earth like magic
And shook its beauty upon us and died away?
The long cold streets extend once more before us.
The red sun drops, the walls grow grey.
poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Mother
I
IT was April, blossoming spring,
They buried me, when the birds did sing;
Earth, in clammy wedging earth,
They banked my bed with a black, damp girth.
Under the damp and under the mould,
I kenned my breasts were clammy and cold.
Out from the red beams, slanting and bright,
I kenned my cheeks were sunken and white.
I was a dream, and the world was a dream,
And yet I kenned all things that seem.
I was a dream, and the world was a dream,
But you cannot bury a red sunbeam.
For though in the under-grave's doom-night
I lay all silent and stark and white,
Yet over my head I seemed to know
The murmurous moods of wind and snow,
The snows that wasted, the winds that blew,
The rays that slanted, the clouds that drew
The water-ghosts up from lakes below,
And the little flower-souls in earth that grow.
Under earth, in the grave's stark night,
I felt the stars and the moon's pale light.
I felt the winds of ocean and land
That whispered the blossoms soft and bland.
Though they had buried me dark and low,
My soul with the season's seemed to grow.
II
From throes of pain they buried me low,
For death had finished a mother's woe.
But under the sod, in the grave's dread doom,
I dreamed of my baby in glimmer and gloom.
I dreamed of my babe, and I kenned that his rest
Was broken in wailings on my dead breast.
I dreamed that a rose-leaf hand did cling;
Oh, you cannot bury a mother in spring!
When the winds are soft and the blossoms are red
She could not sleep in her cold earth-bed.
I dreamed of my babe for a day and a night,
And then I rose in my grave-clothes white.
I rose like a flower from my damp earth-bed
To the world of sorrowing overhead.
Men would have called me a thing of harm,
But dreams of my babe made me rosy and warm.
I felt my breasts swell under my shroud;
No star shone white, no winds were loud;
But I stole me past the graveyard wall,
For the voice of my baby seemed to call;
And I kenned me a voice, though my lips were dumb:
Hush, baby, hush! for mother is come.
I passed the streets to my husband's home;
The chamber stairs in a dream I clomb;
I heard the sound of each sleeper's breath,
Light waves that break on the shores of death.
I listened a space at my chamber door,
Then stole like a moon-ray over its floor.
My babe was asleep on a stranger's arm,
'O baby, my baby, the grave is so warm,
'Though dark and so deep, for mother is there!
O come with me from the pain and care!
'O come with me from the anguish of earth,
Where the bed is banked with a blossoming girth,
'Where the pillow is soft and the rest is long,
And mother will croon you a slumber-song–
'A slumber-song that will charm your eyes
To a sleep that never in earth-song lies!
'The loves of earth your being can spare,
But never the grave, for mother is there.'
I nestled him soft to my throbbing breast,
And stole me back to my long, long rest.
And here I lie with him under the stars,
Dead to earth, its peace and its wars;
Dead to its hates, its hopes, and its harms,
So long as he cradles up soft in my arms.
And heaven may open its shimmering doors,
And saints make music on pearly floors,
And hell may yawn to its infinite sea,
But they never can take my baby from me.
For so much a part of my soul he hath grown
That God doth know of it high on His throne.
And here I lie with him under the flowers
That sun-winds rock through the billowy hours,
With the night-airs that steal from the murmuring sea,
Bringing sweet peace to my baby and me.
poem by William Wilfred Campbell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Summer Night City
Summer night city...
Summer night city...
Waiting for the sunrise, soul dancing in the dark
Summer night city
Walking in the moonlight, love-making in the park
Summer night city
In the sun i feel like sleeping
I can't take it for too long
My impatience slowly creeping
Up my spine and growing strong
I know what's waiting there for me
Tonight i'm loose and fancy-free
Aa-ahhh
When the night comes with the action
I just know it's time to go
Can't resist the strange attraction
From that giant dynamo
Lots to take and lots to give
Time to breathe and time to live
Waiting for the sunrise, soul dancing in the dark
Summer night city
Walking in the moonlight, love-making in the park
Summer night city
It's elusive party feeling
Somehow something turns me on
Some folks only see the middle
We don't miss them when they're gone
I love feeling in the air
My kind of people everywhere
When the night comes with the action
I just know it's time to go
Can't resist the strange attraction
From that giant dynamo
And tomorrow, when it's dawning
And the first birds start to sing
In the pale light of the morning
Nothing's worth remembering
It's a dream, it's out of reach
Scattered driftwood on the beach
Waiting for the sunrise, soul dancing in the dark
Summer night city
Walking in the moonlight, love-making in the park
Summer night city
song performed by by ABBA
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Fire-Fly City
Like a long arrow through the dark the train is darting,
Bearing me far away, after a perfect day of love's delight:
Wakeful with all the sad-sweet memories of parting,
I lift the narrow window-shade and look out on the night.
Lonely the land unknown, and like a river flowing,
Forest and field and hill are gliding backward still athwart my dream;
Till in that country strange, and ever stranger growing,
A magic city full of lights begins to glow and gleam.
Wide through the landscape dim the lamps are lit in millions;
Long avenues unfold clear-shining lines of gold across the green;
Clusters and rings of light, and luminous pavilions, --
Oh, who will tell the city's name, and what these wonders mean?
Why do they beckon me, and what have they to show me?
Crowds in the blazing street, mirth where the feasters meet, kisses and wine:
Many to laugh with me, but never one to know me:
A cityful of stranger-hearts and none to beat with mine!
Look how the glittering lines are wavering and lifting, --
Softly the breeze of night, scatters the vision bright: and, passing fair,
Over the meadow-grass and through the forest drifting,
The Fire-Fly City of the Dark is lost in empty air!
Girl of the golden eyes, to you my heart is turning:
Sleep in your quiet room, while through the midnight gloom my train is whirled.
Clear in your dreams of me the light of love is burning, --
The only never failing light in all the phantom world.
poem by Henry Van Dyke
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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My worst nightmare
My worst nightmare I dread and fear
To be buried beneath a street far from my dears
I will be long dead and my heart full of dust
The place, the dwell of my wherever lost lust
The wheels and hooves of machines and beasts rolling over my head
My bones will be shaken with pain and dread
This is how it will be
If no one is going to take a heed of me
If into a shallow grave my tattered skeleton is thrust
Imagine only inches beneath a heavy traffic street bust
The gallop of horses and the trot of goats and cows
Will keep their relentless beat with a chorus of crows
Beat into my scalp and my brain
Like never an end to the stream of rushing ants under rain
Heedless of poor me carrying, traveling, hurrying, leaving
In my life I shun away from front busy street living
When the wretched age catch up with my bones
Not a bell will be rang, not a pray or eulogy will be read
It is that which makes us noble in the world of the dead
Just like this lowering me down to my eternal tomb bed?
Ah, my spirit where does it wander where does it pass
My soul where does it dwell in heaven or in hell
In the face of immortality and ancient laws unveil
Deep sleep, eternal doom comes to every sinew and lust
No more pleasant summer night dreams, no more morning first shine
But this eternal entity; all formless kingdom divine
Along my bones the creeping tattered flesh will quake
And my all damped besmeared hair stiffened with dust and thus it spake
Do you find God there in this colossus universe of ultimate justice pure
Or you be-left to deem and contemplate in land of spiritual desolation insecure
Among creatures of grave clay; the vain dwellers of tomb dust
A moth out survive you; a mold digs and borrows under your gravel rust
Things of normal routine day you never see nor attend the dusk of night
Heedless, stale and blind to wisdom and light
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Daughter of the Night
My body’s very heavy, lethargy
My eyelid’s very heavy, fluttering
My hand’s very heavy, twitching
My breathing’s very heavy, ragged
The sun is setting, bats are betting
The rats are scurrying
The miners are hurrying
The women are worrying
The sun is running
The moon is coming
Eye’s open, deep breath
Sky’s open, black death
Door’s open, living death
Daughter of the night
Slaughter of the light
Hunger pangs, bare fangs
Know where the younger, gangs
Know where the younger, hangs
Hear the blood flowing
Hear the wind blowing
A deep dark desire
A deep dark promise
Daughter of the night
poem by Anand Dixit
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Moon-Struck
IT is a moor
Barren and treeless; lying high and bare
Beneath the archèd sky. The rushing winds
Fly over it, each with his strong bow bent
And quiver full of whistling arrows keen.
I am a woman, lonely, old, and poor.
If there be any one who watches me
(But there is none) adown the long blank wold,
My figure painted on the level sky
Would startle him as if it were a ghost,--
And like a ghost, a weary wandering ghost,
I roam and roam, and shiver through the dark
That will not hide me. O but for one hour,
One blessed hour of warm and dewy night,
To wrap me like a pall--with not an eye
In earth or heaven to pierce the black serene.
Night, call yet this? No night; no dark--no rest--
A moon-ray sweeps down sudden from the sky,
And smites the moor--
Is't thou, accursèd Thing,
Broad, pallid, like a great woe looming out--
Out of its long-sealed grave, to fill all earth
With its dead, ghastly smile? Art there again,
Round, perfect, large, as when we buried thee,
I and the kindly clouds that heard my prayers?
I'll sit me down and meet thee face to face,
Mine enemy!--Why didst thou rise upon
My world--my innocent world, to make me mad?
Wherefore shine forth, a tiny tremulous curve
Hung out in the gray sunset beauteously,
To tempt mine eyes--then nightly to increase
Slow orbing, till thy full, blank, pitiless stare
Hunts me across the world?
No rest--no dark.
Hour after hour that passionless bright face
Climbs up the desolate blue. I will press down
The lids on my tired eyeballs--crouch in dust,
And pray.
--Thank God, thank God!--a cloud has hid
My torturer. The night at last is free:
Forth peep in crowds the merry twinkling stars.
Ah, we'll shine out, the little silly stars
And I; we'll dance together across the moor,
They up aloft--I here. At last, at last
We are avengèd of our adversary!
The freshening of the night air feels like dawn.
Who said that I was mad? I will arise,
Throw off my burthen, march across the wold
Airily--Ha! what, stumbling? Nay, no fear--
I am used unto the dark, for many a year
Steering compassionless athwart the waste
To where, deep hid in valleys of white mist,
The pleasant home-lights shine. I will but pause,
Turn round and gaze--
O me! O miserable me!
The cloud-bank overflows: sudden outpour
The bright white moon-rays--ah! I drown, I drown,
And o'er the flood, with steady motion, slow
It walketh--my inexorable Doom.
No more: I shall not struggle any more:
I will lie down as quiet as a child,--
I can but die.
There, I have hid my face:
Stray travellers passing o'er the silent wold
Would only say, 'She sleeps.'
Glare on, my Doom;
I will not look at thee: and if at times
I shiver, still I neither weep nor moan:
Angels may see, I neither weep nor moan.
Was that sharp whistling wind the morning breeze
That calls the stars back to the obscure of heaven?
I am very cold.--And yet there is a change.
Less fiercely the sharp moonbeams smite my brain,
My heart beats slower, duller: soothing rest
Like a soft garment binds my shuddering limbs.--
If I looked up now, should I see it still
Gibbeted ghastly in the hopeless sky?--
No!
It is very strange: all things seem strange:
Pale spectral face, I do not fear thee now:
Was't this mere shadow which did haunt me once
Like an avenging fiend?--Well, we fade out
Together: I'll nor dread nor curse thee more.
How calm the earth seems! and I know the moor
Glistens with dew-stars. I will try and turn
My poor face eastward. Close not, eyes! That light
Fringing the far hills, all so fair--so fair,
Is it not dawn? I am dying, but 't is dawn.
'Upon the mountains I behold the feet
Of my Beloved: let us forth to meet'--
Death.
This is death. I see the light no more;
I sleep.
But like a morning bird my soul
Springs singing upward, into the deeps of heaven
Through world on world to follow Infinite Day.
poem by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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