Gettysburg
Today at Gettysburg the woods are calm, nodding to and through
With shimmering forms that flash before an observer view
And then melt in green, variety of hues as the dawn stars melt in blue
The smiling leaves wave whitening against one's cheek in peaceful caress
As the hands of shadow widows against the wide meadow still express
Even now, their mighty subtle tenderness over this past battle field duress
Embracing boughs at the wood depth into a little wind whisper start
That noise like the echo of wounded fire heart
The agony of despaired screams coming from lips smoking wide apart
It is all quiet now, the trees dream in balm undisturbed by past wrong
The scenery is innocent in beauty, multiplying and strong
The scent of flowers scan through the valley of breath calm and long
Yet reminiscence does breed the stress and the urgent of war
The haunted ecstasy of humans and beast cries tore
The smoke, the fire, and bullets rushing into blood gore
The wounded, the battled deformed dragged behind steeds neighing roar
This morning the dew plashed road is clear and dry
Rich wreathes grape the spacious foreheads of sturdy pines
And from heights breathe ambrosial passion from their vines
And like a timid child they hide from human eye
As I stroll in past paths, I pray with mosses and flowers shy
And as they lift adoring perfumes to the July sky
I slowly move, with ranging looks that pass
Over corn fields and matted miracles of grass
My route leads me into veined complex of space
Where the vast sky with elongated leafage interlace
So close, so calm the heaven of sapphire is seen
As if in woven with heaven of infinitude pastoral green
One may feel the urge to summon the prophet Ezekiel
Who as that past miracle bones revival, will conjure you from hell
Back to here where I pause, my forward faring eyes
Take these magnificent harvests, where the stately vigorous corn-ranks rise.
Oh spirits passing before me as I behold
Your faces in the kingdom of mortality are unfold
Deep eternal sleep comes to every watching eye
Yet yours came so swiftly unjustly under dire battle sigh
Along your bones the creeping flesh did quiver and quake
As your damp hair stiffened with agony and fear it hardly spake
Is man more just in morals than God? , is man more pure
Than he who deems all of us in basic sinful and insecure?
I do mourn you creatures of clay, vainly fell to dwell in the dust
The fields around beauty and calm survive defiantly of your unjust
Things of the day happen and go about their cause before the night
You are the victims of heedlessness and blindness to wisdom wasted light
For politicians like poets should build up their hardihood
From human humility and universal moral food
Drawn in proportions unselfish un individual fair
From honest mould and vagabond ancient wisdom air
Shall man be eventually wise to learn from antique ashes departed flame
Which can bestow on him finer life and longer fame
From past battle wounds and historical balms
From tempest storm and following peace and calms
From archeological potsherds and dry bones
And ruins of past emperors and lying unturned broken stones
Across Gettysburg the woods are holy and calm
Under summer night they absorb the gorgeous moon charm
The colors of splendid night, as the veils of dusk turn deep
Mother earth takes back her sons' sorrow as it turns to sleep
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The soul and the core of every language
The soul and the core of every language
lie in the lines and rhymes of its poetry
As the divine poets spirit should
Guide us to built our emerging human hood
With universal sublime inner soul nurturing food
Drawn and scale in select proportion fair
From honest mold and vagabond air
From that foul awful dreadful night
Into joyful rebirth bright day light
From antique ashes, whose departed flame
In us a finer life and a longer instated fame
From injuries and wounds; pains and balms
From the quiet after storm that calms
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I dread the calm
I dread the calm in the morning of a mourn without a sound
It is a calm that comes to foster a greater grief
It is a calm light of dusk before ever dew was falling from leaves
It is a calm sinking in calm pattering to the ground
I fear the calm and scudding winds in the high wold
And on the dews the drench the gorse
And all the silvery gossamer
Shaken into gilded gold
Is it calm and still in the dusky light over great plains
That sweeps late and swiftly in autumn bowers
Of secluded farms and solitary towers
To merge with the bounding and the saint
Is it calm on the vast sea under the spangled silver sleep
The waves that sway in colossus to lull themselves to rest
And the dead calm in the deepening breast
Which heaves with the heaving deep
Yet calm is the mute peace in the meadow’s air
The forest gloom with loom of leaves that redden to fall
And in my chest if calm can ever dwell at all
If any calm is there, it is the calm of despair
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Corn.
To-day the woods are trembling through and through
With shimmering forms, that flash before my view,
Then melt in green as dawn-stars melt in blue.
The leaves that wave against my cheek caress
Like women's hands; the embracing boughs express
A subtlety of mighty tenderness;
The copse-depths into little noises start,
That sound anon like beatings of a heart,
Anon like talk 'twixt lips not far apart.
The beech dreams balm, as a dreamer hums a song;
Through that vague wafture, expirations strong
Throb from young hickories breathing deep and long
With stress and urgence bold of prisoned spring
And ecstasy of burgeoning.
Now, since the dew-plashed road of morn is dry,
Forth venture odors of more quality
And heavenlier giving. Like Jove's locks awry,
Long muscadines
Rich-wreathe the spacious foreheads of great pines,
And breathe ambrosial passion from their vines.
I pray with mosses, ferns and flowers shy
That hide like gentle nuns from human eye
To lift adoring perfumes to the sky.
I hear faint bridal-sighs of brown and green
Dying to silent hints of kisses keen
As far lights fringe into a pleasant sheen.
I start at fragmentary whispers, blown
From undertalks of leafy souls unknown,
Vague purports sweet, of inarticulate tone.
Dreaming of gods, men, nuns and brides, between
Old companies of oaks that inward lean
To join their radiant amplitudes of green
I slowly move, with ranging looks that pass
Up from the matted miracles of grass
Into yon veined complex of space
Where sky and leafage interlace
So close, the heaven of blue is seen
Inwoven with a heaven of green.
I wander to the zigzag-cornered fence
Where sassafras, intrenched in brambles dense,
Contests with stolid vehemence
The march of culture, setting limb and thorn
As pikes against the army of the corn.
There, while I pause, my fieldward-faring eyes
Take harvests, where the stately corn-ranks rise,
Of inward dignities
And large benignities and insights wise,
Graces and modest majesties.
Thus, without theft, I reap another's field;
Thus, without tilth, I house a wondrous yield,
And heap my heart with quintuple crops concealed.
Look, out of line one tall corn-captain stands
Advanced beyond the foremost of his bands,
And waves his blades upon the very edge
And hottest thicket of the battling hedge.
Thou lustrous stalk, that ne'er mayst walk nor talk,
Still shalt thou type the poet-soul sublime
That leads the vanward of his timid time
And sings up cowards with commanding rhyme --
Soul calm, like thee, yet fain, like thee, to grow
By double increment, above, below;
Soul homely, as thou art, yet rich in grace like thee,
Teaching the yeomen selfless chivalry
That moves in gentle curves of courtesy;
Soul filled like thy long veins with sweetness tense,
By every godlike sense
Transmuted from the four wild elements.
Drawn to high plans,
Thou lift'st more stature than a mortal man's,
Yet ever piercest downward in the mould
And keepest hold
Upon the reverend and steadfast earth
That gave thee birth;
Yea, standest smiling in thy future grave,
Serene and brave,
With unremitting breath
Inhaling life from death,
Thine epitaph writ fair in fruitage eloquent,
Thyself thy monument.
As poets should,
Thou hast built up thy hardihood
With universal food,
Drawn in select proportion fair
From honest mould and vagabond air;
From darkness of the dreadful night,
And joyful light;
From antique ashes, whose departed flame
In thee has finer life and longer fame;
From wounds and balms,
From storms and calms,
From potsherds and dry bones
And ruin-stones.
Into thy vigorous substance thou hast wrought
Whate'er the hand of Circumstance hath brought;
Yea, into cool solacing green hast spun
White radiance hot from out the sun.
So thou dost mutually leaven
Strength of earth with grace of heaven;
So thou dost marry new and old
Into a one of higher mould;
So thou dost reconcile the hot and cold,
The dark and bright,
And many a heart-perplexing opposite,
And so,
Akin by blood to high and low,
Fitly thou playest out thy poet's part,
Richly expending thy much-bruised heart
In equal care to nourish lord in hall
Or beast in stall:
Thou took'st from all that thou mightst give to all.
O steadfast dweller on the selfsame spot
Where thou wast born, that still repinest not --
Type of the home-fond heart, the happy lot! --
Deeply thy mild content rebukes the land
Whose flimsy homes, built on the shifting sand
Of trade, for ever rise and fall
With alternation whimsical,
Enduring scarce a day,
Then swept away
By swift engulfments of incalculable tides
Whereon capricious Commerce rides.
Look, thou substantial spirit of content!
Across this little vale, thy continent,
To where, beyond the mouldering mill,
Yon old deserted Georgian hill
Bares to the sun his piteous aged crest
And seamy breast,
By restless-hearted children left to lie
Untended there beneath the heedless sky,
As barbarous folk expose their old to die.
Upon that generous-rounding side,
With gullies scarified
Where keen Neglect his lash hath plied,
Dwelt one I knew of old, who played at toil,
And gave to coquette Cotton soul and soil.
Scorning the slow reward of patient grain,
He sowed his heart with hopes of swifter gain,
Then sat him down and waited for the rain.
He sailed in borrowed ships of usury --
A foolish Jason on a treacherous sea,
Seeking the Fleece and finding misery.
Lulled by smooth-rippling loans, in idle trance
He lay, content that unthrift Circumstance
Should plough for him the stony field of Chance.
Yea, gathering crops whose worth no man might tell,
He staked his life on games of Buy-and-Sell,
And turned each field into a gambler's hell.
Aye, as each year began,
My farmer to the neighboring city ran;
Passed with a mournful anxious face
Into the banker's inner place;
Parleyed, excused, pleaded for longer grace;
Railed at the drought, the worm, the rust, the grass;
Protested ne'er again 'twould come to pass;
With many an `oh' and `if' and `but alas'
Parried or swallowed searching questions rude,
And kissed the dust to soften Dives's mood.
At last, small loans by pledges great renewed,
He issues smiling from the fatal door,
And buys with lavish hand his yearly store
Till his small borrowings will yield no more.
Aye, as each year declined,
With bitter heart and ever-brooding mind
He mourned his fate unkind.
In dust, in rain, with might and main,
He nursed his cotton, cursed his grain,
Fretted for news that made him fret again,
Snatched at each telegram of Future Sale,
And thrilled with Bulls' or Bears' alternate wail --
In hope or fear alike for ever pale.
And thus from year to year, through hope and fear,
With many a curse and many a secret tear,
Striving in vain his cloud of debt to clear,
At last
He woke to find his foolish dreaming past,
And all his best-of-life the easy prey
Of squandering scamps and quacks that lined his way
With vile array,
From rascal statesman down to petty knave;
Himself, at best, for all his bragging brave,
A gamester's catspaw and a banker's slave.
Then, worn and gray, and sick with deep unrest,
He fled away into the oblivious West,
Unmourned, unblest.
Old hill! old hill! thou gashed and hairy Lear
Whom the divine Cordelia of the year,
E'en pitying Spring, will vainly strive to cheer --
King, that no subject man nor beast may own,
Discrowned, undaughtered and alone --
Yet shall the great God turn thy fate,
And bring thee back into thy monarch state
And majesty immaculate.
Lo, through hot waverings of the August morn,
Thou givest from thy vasty sides forlorn
Visions of golden treasuries of corn --
Ripe largesse lingering for some bolder heart
That manfully shall take thy part,
And tend thee,
And defend thee,
With antique sinew and with modern art.
poem by Sidney Lanier
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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A Spirit Passed Before Me [From Job]
A spirit passed before me: I beheld
The face of immortality unveiled--
Deep sleep came down on every eye save mine--
And there it stood,--all formless--but divine:
Along my bones the creeping flesh did quake;
And as my damp hair stiffened, thus it spake:
'Is man more just than God? Is man more pure
Than He who deems even Seraphs insecure?
Creatures of clay--vain dwellers in the dust!
The moth survives you, and are ye more just?
Things of a day! you wither ere the night,
Heedless and blind to Wisdom's wasted light!'
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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A spirit pass'd before me
A spirit pass'd before me: I beheld
The face of immortality unveil'd.
Deep sleep came down on every eye save mine.
And there it stood,—all formless—but divine;
Along my bones the creeping flesh did quake;
And, as my damp hair stiffen'd, thus it spake.
"Is man more just than God? Is man more pure
Than He who deems even Seraphs insecure?
Creatures of clay—vain dwellers in the dust!
The moth survives you, and are ye more just?
Things of a day! you wither ere the night,
Heedless and blind to Wisdom's wasted light!"
poem by Byron (1815)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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I, the son of fragile mortality
I, the son of fragile mortality
A living soul and then nothing
me who would be cast as a die
standing and adoring the yellow sunset declines
and its long rays and shades the landscapes shines
to mark the barks of trees and flowers stems all with golden light
that lit the dark slant woods of dusk with silvery white
all quiet and calm before the moon takes its roll in the East
adoring all this holy scene I realized that
I am not even a leaf on the blooming bough
Just not a part of this beauty and bloom
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Said the West Wind
1 I love old earth! Why should I lift my wings,
2 My misty wings, so high above her breast
3 That flowers would shake no perfumes from their hearts,
4 And waters breathe no whispers to the shores?
5 I love deep places builded high with woods,
6 Deep, dusk, fern-closed, and starred with nodding blooms,
7 Close watched by hills, green, garlanded and tall.
8 On hazy wings, all shot with mellow gold,
9 I float, I float thro' shadows clear as glass;
10 With perfumed feet I wander o'er the seas,
11 And touch white sails with gentle finger-tips;
12 I blow the faithless butterfly against
13 The rose-red thorn, and thus avenge the rose;
14 I whisper low amid the solemn boughs,
15 And stir a leaf where not my loudest sigh
16 Could move the emerald branches from their calm,--
17 Leaves, leaves, I love ye much, for ye and I
18 Do make sweet music over all the earth!
19 I dream by glassy ponds, and, lingering, kiss
20 The gold crowns of their lilies one by one,
21 As mothers kiss their babes who be asleep
22 On the clear gilding of their infant heads,
23 Lest if they kissed the dimple on the chin,
24 The rose flecks on the cheek or dewy lips,
25 The calm of sleep might feel the touch of love,
26 And so be lost. I steal before the rain,
27 The longed-for guest of summer; as his fringe
28 Of mist drifts slowly from the mountain peaks,
29 The flowers dance to my fairy pipe and fling
30 Rich odours on my wings, and voices cry,
31 'The dear West Wind is damp, and rich with scent;
32 We shall have fruits and yellow sheaves for this.'
33 At night I play amidst the silver mists,
34 And chase them on soft feet until they climb
35 And dance their gilded plumes against the stars;
36 At dawn the last round primrose star I hide
37 By wafting o'er her some small fleck of cloud,
38 And ere it passes comes the broad, bold Sun
39 And blots her from the azure of the sky,
40 As later, toward his noon, he blots a drop
41 Of pollen-gilded dew from violet cup
42 Set bluely in the mosses of the wood.
poem by Isabella Valancy Crawford
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Woman of God
Deep in the crevices we touch life
Down and down into a sea of gold
Woven in stars from grand eons
We are a dream from the throne
Music plays from mystic trees
Fruit bright with living light
Saturn shines like a lovers caress
Rivers sigh with whispering night
She is a well from a deep river
Streams of peace flow from above
Thirsty hearts drink pure water
Lilies of the field tenderly love
Visions blend with daily eternity
Joy radiates with a pure blue glow
Unity the treasure of redemption
Past the past we struggle and grow
Touch the very hem of beauty
She brings the kiss of temporal time
Price above rubies, virtue and warmth
Light a fire with the torch of moonlight
Groaning deep in agony of soul
Temporary love becomes worldly lust
A kingdom not made by hands of man
Do you reach for love past this dust?
This mortal coil is filled with despair
Thorns and thistle on a bed of time
Hope must be in the permanent realm
Dying flowers lose their summer light
I seek essence in your sky above
Paths born in the eternal spring
Touch me with life that never ends
Let me hear the bright angels sing
A Woman of God shines for evermore
poem by Joseph Narusiewicz
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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I stand and watch a tree of sturdy oak
I stand and watch a tree of sturdy oak
It braves against the rain, the sun and the gust
Thunder roars through its boughs with blast
Yet its leaves whitening in sight like a royal cloak
An oak proclaims against echoing dunes and scourging sun
Through the storm, tempest and chilly damp dark
Its boughs wave against torrents and bent in arcs
As it stands against the events like a calm nun
The clouds above its foliage are straining
The pale yellow woods around its trunk are waning
And a broad stream by its roots is complaining
Of heavy low skies constantly raining
With one black self reflected shadow at its feet
the oak through all its lush foliage shines
As summer haze brooding heat
And holy still silent in its dusty lusty vines
Oh I wish I had the strength and stamina of this oak
My life would be so much in a better clock
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Let Me Wake Up Young
Let me wake up young at early dawn again
And welcome the showers of spring first rain
Let me love and peer up at the morning sun
With half shut eyes and comfortable fresh cheek
Let me live a sweet life tale full often to seek
Through meadows and pathless woods where rivers fall and run
Let me love again my brightest beautiful one
Of heaven and divine let me slowly speak
These love tunes to the night and the starlight meek
Or the moon, if that her hunting be begun
Let me know, let me relive these delights and be prone
To moralize upon a smile and a tear
And find at once a region in a world of my own
A meadow, a bower for my spirit where it will steer
To alleys of forest gloom where pine tree dropp their cone
Where foxes hide, robins chirp and leaves are fallen sere
Let me wake up in strength and vigor hope
Worship the morning, the mystic night, the light the shade and lush lea on slope
Let me glance again fresh on wide plains, fair foliage trees, and at sprouting flowers
Call on birds over clear streams, smooth calm lakes, and long stretched bowers
Let me lost in the happiness of pathless woods with tall towers
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Oh that it were possible
Oh that it were possible
After long grief and pain
You walk in the path of amiable
Innocence and repentance plain
And your bare sole
Will touch the field scudding chaffs
The meadow wheat elongated spikes will dagger your soul
And the wind will blow your skirt in halves
A throng of persistent rain drops caress
Your neck, your shoulders and your fresh head
And as you walk wet and soaked and careless
You shall see the vermillion canopy of dawn’s shade
And you stand breast high amid gilded wheat field
Clasped by the golden light of a bright morning yield
Like a sweet creature a beloved of the sun
You draw many glowing kisses like one
And you rush brushing ankle-high in a sea of flowers
And you hear the wind behind playing in thousands waves of golden wheat
And you breath nostrils wide the field sweet
As the cows thick with milk and the buzzing bees honey your hour
Tranquility and calm will extend within thee newly bred
As a ray of dusk breaks through the edge of a dark cloud
And you will be free from scalp to sole of any doubt
Like a bird in the sky your soul will fly without a dread
And you shall smell the fresh cut field’s furrows
As your breath grows calm as a nun
And you will watch the waning sun
In the mirror of a puddle wrapped in golden rows
And things turn so simple and apparent in life
Calm without a struggle or the din of a strife
And you can touch, and you can live under secure heaven above
And you can love! And you can love! And you can love!
Oh that it were possible
After long grief and pain
You walk in the path of freedom lane
Untouched by scourging fire along or by storms of evil
And you fall into innocence and repentance plain
And the divine spirit will canopy your life a whole
And you will be shy and innocent again
Like a lawn; like a lea; like a new born soul
Oh that it were possible
After long grief and pain
You walk wandering towards your beauteous hours
When summer haze hangs over short simmering showers
To be welcomed by lush grass and sprouting flowers
And you wonder in peace while you pace along
As the fields and woods are full with whisper and song
And shall be without a slough, a crust of sin or any other touch of wrong
And you shall stay away from the basest of mankind
Debark and astray from them with a clear mind
And let them be who harm you all these years
For them you shade no vows; from them withhold your tears
Let them keep battering the gates of heaven with fruitless pray
“Have mercy Lord, Take my flaws away”
Oh that it were possible
After long grief and pain
From this fearful thing you abstain
Of glancing back at the gloom of miss-spent years
When your heart sweats and weeps with a thousand tears
And you shall forgive these wild wandering cries
Confusions of wasted years; a beam of hope breaks through
Portrayed in shapes and shades of feeling of yearning true
To illuminate your night of darkness and to cheer your aching eyes
Oh that it were possible
After long grief and pain
You walk these pastures after rain
A pleasant gale urging breaks behind
And bruit your song to the very creatures in the grass down
Rain drops aflutter with gentle wind
Will fall on your goddess like shape gown
And on the wilding brooch of your dress
From which gilded drops fall on your breast
And you break forth from all past enslaving love
And you adore the freedom bestowed from heaven above
Oh that it were possible
After long grief and pain
You bridge back the river of your youth's years
To the first fountain of innocent love smiles and tears
And you would not trace again the stream of human lukewarm hours
Between outworn banks of life withered flowers
Nor shall you bid your time flow until it ripples and glides
Into number of meaningless nameless love wavelets tides
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In Memoriam A. H. H.: 11. Calm is the morn without a sound
Calm is the morn without a sound,
Calm as to suit a calmer grief,
And only thro' the faded leaf
The chestnut pattering to the ground:
Calm and deep peace on this high wold,
And on these dews that drench the furze.
And all the silvery gossamers
That twinkle into green and gold:
Calm and still light on yon great plain
That sweeps with all its autumn bowers,
And crowded farms and lessening towers,
To mingle with the bounding main:
Calm and deep peace in this wide air,
These leaves that redden to the fall;
And in my heart, if calm at all,
If any calm, a calm despair:
Calm on the seas, and silver sleep,
And waves that sway themselves in rest,
And dead calm in that noble breast
Which heaves but with the heaving deep.
poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Mater Dolorosa
Who is this that sits by the way, by the wild wayside,
In a rent stained raiment, the robe of a cast-off bride,
In the dust, in the rainfall sitting, with soiled feet bare,
With the night for a garment upon her, with torn wet hair?
She is fairer of face than the daughters of men, and her eyes,
Worn through with her tears, are deep as the depth of skies.
This is she for whose sake being fallen, for whose abject sake,
Earth groans in the blackness of darkness, and men's hearts break.
This is she for whose love, having seen her, the men that were
Poured life out as water, and shed their souls upon air.
This is she for whose glory their years were counted as foam;
Whose face was a light upon Greece, was a fire upon Rome.
Is it now not surely a vain thing, a foolish and vain,
To sit down by her, mourn to her, serve her, partake in the pain?
She is grey with the dust of time on his manifold ways,
Where her faint feet stumble and falter through year-long days.
Shall she help us at all, O fools, give fruit or give fame,
Who herself is a name despised, a rejected name?
We have not served her for guerdon. If any do so,
That his mouth may be sweet with such honey, we care not to know.
We have drunk from a wine-unsweetened, a perilous cup,
A draught very bitter. The kings of the earth stood up,
And the rulers took counsel together, to smite her and slay;
And the blood of her wounds is given us to drink today.
Can these bones live? or the leaves that are dead leaves bud?
Or the dead blood drawn from her veins be in your veins blood?
Will ye gather up water again that was drawn and shed?
In the blood is the life of the veins, and her veins are dead.
For the lives that are over are over, and past things past;
She had her day, and it is not; was first, and is last.
Is it nothing unto you then, all ye that pass by,
If her breath be left in her lips, if she live now or die?
Behold now, O people, and say if she be not fair,
Whom your fathers followed to find her, with praise and prayer,
And rejoiced, having found her, though roof they had none nor bread;
But ye care not; what is it to you if her day be dead?
It was well with our fathers; their sound was in all men's lands;
There was fire in their hearts, and the hunger of fight in their
hands.
Naked and strong they went forth in her strength like flame,
For her love's and her name's sake of old, her republican name.
But their children, by kings made quiet, by priests made wise,
Love better the heat of their hearths than the light of her eyes.
Are they children of these thy children indeed, who have sold,
O golden goddess, the light of thy face for gold?
Are they sons indeed of the sons of thy dayspring of hope,
Whose lives are in fief of an emperor, whose souls of a Pope?
Hide then thine head, O beloved; thy time is done;
Thy kingdom is broken in heaven, and blind thy sun.
What sleep is upon you, to dream she indeed shall rise,
When the hopes are dead in her heart as the tears in her eyes?
If ye sing of her dead, will she stir? if ye weep for her, weep?
Come away now, leave her; what hath she to do but sleep?
But ye that mourn are alive, and have years to be;
And life is good, and the world is wiser than we.
Yea, wise is the world and mighty, with years to give,
And years to promise; but how long now shall it live?
And foolish and poor is faith, and her ways are bare,
Till she find the way of the sun, and the morning air.
In that hour shall this dead face shine as the face of the sun,
And the soul of man and her soul and the world's be one.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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History Will Teach Us Nothing
If we seek solace in the prisons of the distant past
Security in human systems were told will always always last
Emotions are the sail and blind faith is the mast
Without a breath of real freedom were getting nowhere fast
If God is dead and an actor plays his part
His words of fear will find their way to a place in your heart
Without the voice of reason every faith is its own curse
Without freedom from the past things can only get worse
Sooner or later just like the world first day
Sooner or later we learn to throw the past away
Sooner or later just like the world first day
Sooner or later we learn to throw the past away
Sooner or later we learn to throw the past away
History will teach us nothing
History will teach us nothing
Our written history is a catalogue of crime
The sordid and the powerful, the architects of time
The mother of invention, the oppression of the mild
The constant fear of scarcity, aggression as its child
Sooner or later
Sooner or later
Sooner or later
Sooner or later
Convince an enemy, convince him that hes wrong
Is to win a bloodless battle where victory is long
A simple act of faith
In reason over might
To blow up his children will only prove him right
History will teach us nothing
Sooner or later the world first day
Sooner or later we learn to throw the past away
Sooner or later the world first day
Sooner or later we learn to throw the past away
Sooner or later we learn to throw the past away
History will teach us nothing
History will teach us nothing
Know you human rights
Be what you come here for
Know your human rights
Be what you come here for
Know your human rights
Be what you come here for
Know your human rights
Be what you come here for
song performed by by Sting
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Schuylkill
WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM
Sun-lit and shadow'd waters, leaping by
'Midst flowers and greenness, singing as they pass,
Or sleeping in some deep and shaded pool,
Lake-like, and dimpled by the playful touch
Of stooping branches, rocks vine-garlanded,
And the green pleasant woods, and over all
The wide blue glorious sky—oh it is sweet
To breathe amid such scenes!
Look on the page
Of Schuylkill's pictured beauty! that is such—
And thou may'st gaze, till it shall waken thoughts
Treasured in memory—for thou hast watch'd
The flashing of its waters, and hast stood,
Perchance, beside them, when the moonlight made
The scene a paradise, and friends were nigh,
Smiling with their glad eyes upon thy joy;
And music floated off upon the air,
As if the zephyrs breathed in melody.
Now other scenes are round thee—it is fair—
This wide extended landscape—but unlike
To that the Schuylkill mirrors. The old trees
That lift their tall green heads against the sky,
Are relies of past ages, and there seems,
Beneath their dim gray shade, to linger yet
A faint and mournful echo of the tones
Of the old forest tribes.
But when the hush,
And the dim beauty of the twilight steals
O'er the calm earth, and on thy spirit lies
A shadow and a pensiveness as sweet,
Then memory will lift the mystic screen
That veils departed years, and give them back
The consecrated past; and thou shalt stand
'Midst scenes where thou hast stood in other days;
And the gay laugh, and the remember'd tone,
Will seem, with startling vividness, to thrill
Across thy ear—but mine will not be there;
Thy memory hath no garner'd thought of me—
Yet think of me, for there may gleam a light
Amidst thy twilight dreams, from scenes to which
I turn for my most sweet remembrances;
Oh, how one charmed word will start to life
A thousand breathing memories of the past!
Schuylkill! sweet Schuylkill! and still dearer loved,
And hallow'd with yet deeper, sweeter thoughts,
My own dear native vale, and the bright flood*
That makes it beautiful! name them again,
For thou hast trodden there, and let me dwell
With thee upon the past! Yet they will come
To thee, with but a stranger's parting glance
Of brief and pleasant memory—to me—
With tales of childhood's years, of hours of glee,
Friendships, and tears, and rainbow-pinion'd hopes,
And all the sacred thoughts that halo home!
(*The Brandywine)
poem by Elizabeth Margaret Chandler from Poetical Works (1836)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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If?
If I should die this night, (as well might be,
So pain has on my weakness worked its will),
And they should come at morn and look on me
Lying more white than I am wont, and still
In the strong silence of unchanging sleep,
And feel upon my brow the deepening chill,
And know me gathered to His time-long keep,
The quiet watcher over all men's rest,
And weep as those around a death-bed weep --
There would no anguish throb my vacant breast,
No tear-drop trickle down my stony cheek,
No smile of long farewell say "Calm is best."
I should not answer aught that they should speak,
Nor look my meaning out of earnest eyes,
Nor press the reverent hands that mine should seek;
But, lying there in such an awful guise,
Like some strange presence from a world unknown
Unmoved by any human sympathies,
Seem strange to them, and dreadfully alone,
Vacant to love of theirs or agony,
Having no pulse in union with their own.
Gazing henceforth upon infinity
With a calm consciousness devoid of change,
Watching the current of the years pass by,
And watching the long cycles onward range,
With stronger vision of their perfect whole,
As one whom time and space from them estrange.
And they might mourn and say "The parted soul
"Is gone out of our love; we spend in vain
"A tenderness that cannot reach its goal."
Yet I might still perchance with them remain
In spirit, being free from laws of mould,
Still comprehending human joy and pain.
Ah me! but if I knew them as of old,
Clasping them in vain arms, they unaware,
And mourned to find my kisses leave them cold,
And sought still some part of their life to share
Still standing by them, hoping they might see,
And seemed to them but as the viewless air!
For so once came it in a dream to me,
And in my heart it seemed a pang too deep,
A shadow having human life to be.
For it at least would be long perfect sleep
Unknowing Being and all Past to lie,
Void of the growing Future, in God's keep:
But such a knowledge would be misery
Too great to be believed. Yet if the dead
In a diviner mood might still be nigh,
Their former life unto their death so wed
That they could watch their loved with heavenly eye,
That were a thing to joy in, not to dread.
poem by Augusta Davies Webster
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Spirit of Poetry, The
There is a quiet spirit in these woods,
That dwells where'er the gentle south-wind blows;
Where, underneath the white-thorn, in the glade,
The wild flowers bloom, or, kissing the soft air,
The leaves above their sunny palms outspread.
With what a tender and impassioned voice
It fills the nice and delicate ear of thought,
When the fast ushering star of morning comes
O'er-riding the gray hills with golden scarf;
Or when the cowled and dusky-sandaled Eve,
In mourning weeds, from out the western gate,
Departs with silent pace! That spirit moves
In the green valley, where the silver brook,
From its full laver, pours the white cascade;
And, babbling low amid the tangled woods,
Slips down through moss-grown stones with endless laughter.
And frequent, on the everlasting hills,
Its feet go forth, when it doth wrap itself
In all the dark embroidery of the storm,
And shouts the stern, strong wind. And here, amid
The silent majesty of these deep woods,
lts presence shall uplift thy thoughts from earth,
As to the sunshine and the pure, bright air
Their tops the green trees lift. Hence gifted bards
Have ever loved the calm and quiet shades.
For them there was an eloquent voice in all
The sylvan pomp of woods, the golden sun,
The flowers, the leaves, the river on its way,
Blue skies, and silver clouds, and gentle winds,
The swelling upland, where the sidelong sun
Aslant the wooded slope, at evening, goes,
Groves, through whose broken roof the sky looks in,
Mountain, and shattered cliff, and sunny vale,
The distant lake, fountains, and mighty trees,
In many a lazy syllable, repeating
Their old poetic legends to the wind.
And this is the sweet spirit, that doth fill
The world; and, in these wayward days of youth,
My busy fancy oft embodies it,
As a bright image of the light and beauty
That dwell in nature; of the heavenly forms
We worship in our dreams, and the soft hues
That stain the wild bird's wing, and flush the clouds
When the sun sets. Within her tender eye
The heaven of April, with its changing light,
And when it wears the blue of May, is hung,
And on her lip the rich, red rose. Her hair
Is like the summer tresses of the trees,
When twilight makes them brown, and on her cheek
Blushes the richness of an autumn sky,
With ever-shifting beauty. Then her breath,
It is so like the gentle air of Spring,
As, front the morning's dewy flowers, it comes
Full of their fragrance, that it is a joy
To have it round us, and her silver voice
Is the rich music of a summer bird,
Heard in the still night, with its passionate cadence.
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Earlier Poems : The Spirit Of Poetry
There is a quiet spirit in these woods,
That dwells where'er the gentle south-wind blows;
Where, underneath the white-thorn, in the glade,
The wild flowers bloom, or, kissing the soft air,
The leaves above their sunny palms outspread.
With what a tender and impassioned voice
It fills the nice and delicate ear of thought,
When the fast ushering star of morning comes
O'er-riding the gray hills with golden scarf;
Or when the cowled and dusky-sandalled Eve,
In mourning weeds, from out the western gate,
Departs with silent pace! That spirit moves
In the green valley, where the silver brook,
From its full laver, pours the white cascade;
And, babbling low amid the tangled woods,
Slips down through moss-grown stones with endless laughter.
And frequent, on the everlasting hills,
Its feet go forth, when it doth wrap itself
In all the dark embroidery of the storm,
And shouts the stern, strong wind. And here, amid
The silent majesty of these deep woods,
lts presence shall uplift thy thoughts from earth,
As to the sunshine and the pure, bright air
Their tops the green trees lift. Hence gifted bards
Have ever loved the calm and quiet shades.
For them there was an eloquent voice in all
The sylvan pomp of woods, the golden sun,
The flowers, the leaves, the river on its way,
Blue skies, and silver clouds, and gentle winds,
The swelling upland, where the sidelong sun
Aslant the wooded slope, at evening, goes,
Groves, through whose broken roof the sky looks in,
Mountain, and shattered cliff, and sunny vale,
The distant lake, fountains, and mighty trees,
In many a lazy syllable, repeating
Their old poetic legends to the wind.
And this is the sweet spirit, that doth fill
The world; and, in these wayward days of youth,
My busy fancy oft embodies it,
As a bright image of the light and beauty
That dwell in nature; of the heavenly forms
We worship in our dreams, and the soft hues
That stain the wild bird's wing, and flush the clouds
When the sun sets. Within her tender eye
The heaven of April, with its changing light,
And when it wears the blue of May, is hung,
And on her lip the rich, red rose. Her hair
Is like the summer tresses of the trees,
When twilight makes them brown, and on her cheek
Blushes the richness of an autumn sky,
With ever-shifting beauty. Then her breath,
It is so like the gentle air of Spring,
As, front the morning's dewy flowers, it comes
Full of their fragrance, that it is a joy
To have it round us, and her silver voice
Is the rich music of a summer bird,
Heard in the still night, with its passionate cadence.
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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You have stormed into my life
You have stormed into my life
You have stolen from me the fire so suddenly without a strife
From the fountains of the past
Left me with none for all others craving lust
All too insignificant for my memory to bother
To glorify the present, you haste and gather
The smoulding ashes to rekindle my low forgotten desire
Stunned as I am against this ancient days fire
Against you I put these lofty steep walls
I fortified my determinations with thick deep trenches
None are a match for the lurid passionate launches
As deep are the moats around me or the towers tall
They are all doomed to melt to dry out and to fall
There, there is the waxing moon in its orbit set so beautiful now
With ore and grace that none can disavow
Goes to the rhythm of the day
Gliding the mirror face of the bay
Gliding the flowers' beds
Gliding the reed's blades
Gliding the golden hours of the night
The meadow, lea and bower under cover bright
Come swiftly come not of late
While the moon is still in its orbit state
Come before the clouds wrapped in morning mists
Strengthen me; enlighten me with your passionate kiss
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