From Iphigenia In Tauris
ACT IV. SCENE 5.
SONG OF THE FATES.
The deities dread!
The mastery hold they
In hands all-eternal,
And use them, unquestioned,
What manner they like.
Let him fear them doubly,
Whom they have uplifted!
On cliffs and on clouds, oh,
Round tables all-golden,
he seats are made ready.
When rises contention,
The guests are humid downwards
With shame and dishonor
To deep depths of midnight,
And vainly await they,
Bound fast in the darkness,
A just condemnation.
But they remain ever
In firmness unshaken
Round tables all-golden.
On stride they from mountain
To mountain far distant:
From out the abysses'
Dark jaws, the breath rises
Of torment-choked Titans
Up tow'rds them, like incense
In light clouds ascending.
The rulers immortal
Avert from whole peoples
Their blessing-fraught glances,
And shun, in the children,
To trace the once cherish'd,
Still, eloquent features
Their ancestors wore.
Thus chanted the Parae;
The old man, the banish'd,
In gloomy vault lying,
Their song overheareth,
Sons, grandsons remembereth,
And shaketh his head.
poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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The Hurricane
Lord of the winds! I feel thee nigh,
I know thy breath in the burning sky!
And I wait, with a thrill in every vein,
For the coming of the hurricane!
And lo! on the wing of the heavy gales,
Through the boundless arch of heaven he sails;
Silent and slow, and terribly strong,
The mighty shadow is borne along,
Like the dark eternity to come;
While the world below, dismayed and dumb,
Through the calm of the thick hot atmosphere
Looks up at its gloomy folds with fear.
They darken fast; and the golden blaze
Of the sun is quenched in the lurid haze,
And he sends through the shade a funeral ray--
A glare that is neither night nor day,
A beam that touches, with hues of death,
The clouds above and the earth beneath.
To its covert glides the silent bird,
While the hurricane's distant voice is heard,
Uplifted among the mountains round,
And the forests hear and answer the sound.
He is come! he is come! do ye not behold
His ample robes on the wind unrolled?
Giant of air! we bid thee hail!--
How his gray skirts toss in the whirling gale;
How his huge and writhing arms are bent,
To clasp the zone of the firmament,
And fold at length, in their dark embrace,
From mountain to mountain the visible space.
Darker--still darker! the whirlwinds bear
The dust of the plains to the middle air:
And hark to the crashing, long and loud,
Of the chariot of God in the thunder-cloud!
You may trace its path by the flashes that start
From the rapid wheels where'er they dart,
As the fire-bolts leap to the world below,
And flood the skies with a lurid glow.
What roar is that?--'tis the rain that breaks
In torrents away from the airy lakes,
Heavily poured on the shuddering ground,
And shedding a nameless horror round.
Ah! well known woods, and mountains, and skies,
With the very clouds!--ye are lost to my eyes.
I seek ye vainly, and see in your place
The shadowy tempest that sweeps through space,
A whirling ocean that fills the wall
Of the crystal heaven, and buries all.
And I, cut off from the world, remain
Alone with the terrible hurricane.
poem by William Cullen Bryant
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Evening Hymn
The crag-pent breezes sob and moan where hidden waters glide;
And twilight wanders round the earth with slow and shadowy stride.
The gleaming clouds, above the brows of western steeps uphurled,
Look like the spires of some fair town that bounds a brighter world.
Lo, from the depths of yonder wood, where many a blind creek strays,
The pure Australian moon comes forth, enwreathed with silver haze.
The rainy mists are trooping down the folding hills behind,
And distant torrent-voices rise like bells upon the wind.
The echeu's* songs are dying, with the flute-bird's mellow tone,
And night recalls the gloomy owl to rove the wilds alone;
Night, holy night, in robes of blue, with golden stars encrowned,
Ascending mountains like to walls that hem an Eden round.
Oh, lovely moon! oh, holy night! how good your God must be,
When, through the glories of your light, He stoops to look at me!
Oh, glittering clouds and silvery shapes, that vanish one by one!
Is not the kindness of our Lord too great to think upon?
If human song could flow as free as His created breeze,
When, sloping from some hoary height, it sweeps the vacant seas,
Then should my voice to heaven ascend, my tuneful lyre be strung,
And music sweeter than the winds should roam these glens among.
Go by, ye golden-footed hours, to your mysterious bourne,
And hide the sins ye bear from hence, so that they ne'er return.
Teach me, ye beauteous stars, to kiss kind Mercy's chastening rod,
And, looking up from Nature's face, to worship Nature's God.
poem by Henry Kendall
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Every Day Is Festival!
Every dawn is decorated,
as if an auspicious day,
As if everyday is festival,
On the treetops shining bulbs of dews,
like golden beads and bulbs,
Every leaf of grass bent with dew drops weight,
As if bowing to welcome the Sun,
fields look like green lakes,
wave of breeze,
on the mountain peak,
Clouds dancing around,
Golden rays piercing darkness,
Shining globules of dews,
Shining like decorative light bulbs,
Reflecting face of nature,
Bathed fresh,
look like a woman just excited
to welcome Sun,
her eternal Love!
Busy birds flying above,
Singing their own song,
Every heart has a song,
Busy, yet hearts kept cool by morning breeze!
In the flow of river,
Or in the sound of waterfalls,
The mantra that chanted,
With bells of temples and churches,
Call for prayer from mosques heard,
But call of love
in every heart is strongly heard,
than any sound
Light of love, melts hearts,
Melts negative feelings,
Bathing in beauty,
Every day is festival,
O mother, you are divine,
Washed by morning dews,
You make everyone to bathe in thy beauty,
just like mother calls children,
When father returns home,
Earth welcomes Sun,
With her children,
Shining whole nature as one!
poem by Ramdas Bhandarkar
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Love Poem
Yours is the face that the earth turns to me,
Continuous beyond its human features lie
The mountain forms that rest against the sky.
With your eyes, the reflecting rainbow, the sun's light
Sees me; forest and flower, bird and beast
Know and hold me forever in the world's thought,
Creation's deep untroubled retrospect.
When your hand touches mine it is the earth
That takes me--the green grass,
And rocks and rivers; the green graves,
And children still unborn, and ancestors,
In love passed down from hand to hand from God.
Your love comes from the creation of the world,
From those paternal fingers, streaming through the clouds
That break with light the surface of the sea.
Here, where I trace your body with my hand,
Love's presence has no end;
For these, your arms that hold me, are the world's.
In us, the continents, clouds and oceans meet
Our arbitrary selves, extensive with the night,
Lost, in the heart's worship, and the body's sleep.
poem by Kathleen Jessie Raine
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Awaiting Thee
When thou art gone;
I sing my lonely song.
When thou art gone;
My waking hours are filled only with thoughts of thee.
When I sleep,
My dreams are filled with thee-
As I long for thee.
My love;
I await thee-
Lonely day,
After lonely day.
Lonely night,
After lonely night.
When The sun shines bright,
And the songbirds sing their joyous chorus-
It reminds me of this love of ours-
As I long for thee.
I await thee,
My love-
Throughout the lonely day-
Till the setting sun dwindles in dusk’s twilight-
Beyond golden pastures-
Fading in the night.
My love;
I long for thee.
My love;
I await thee-
Throughout the lonely night,
As the crickets chirp their symphony,
And in the darkness,
Like floating candles,
The fireflies glow.
And I remember our love,
As I gaze at the silver moon,
And diamond stars.
Forever embracing this love of ours.
As I sleep at night,
I dream only of being with thee,
My love.
As I awake,
And the sun rises at dawn over the emerald mountain tops,
I await thee,
My love.
Longing for you-
Day through day,
Night through night-
I await thee,
My love.
My love;
When thou art gone;
I sing my lonely song…
poem by Philip Alarie
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Breakdown
When the whirlwind of noise surrounds and get intense,
And when words cant hide their anger or intent.
I feel it in my bones and in my head, cant make sense of what is said.
Ready for the take down, headed for a breakdown.
Fear has me backed against these walls that I follow and pace.
Time moves in and out of phase of everything that I face.
I feel it in my bones they rattle and shake, cant find a trace of what it takes to stop this take down.
Cant stop this breakdown!
Welcome to my scene. a place thats in-between where squares fit the round.
Some affectionately call it ... my breakdown....
When I feel the pressure mounting and my hands begin to clutch, I reach my limit of pain and Ive had enough.
It feels good to pound on tables and chairs and feel the frenzy start to wear.
Breakdown this take down, gotta stop this breakdown.
Welcome to my scene. a place thats in-between where squares fit the round.
Itll never be, never be more than this. never.
song performed by by Queensryche
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I Await Thee
When thou art gone;
I sing my lonely song.
When thou art gone;
My waking hours are filled only with thoughts of thee.
When I sleep,
My dreams are filled with thee-
As I long for thee.
My love;
I await thee-
Lonely day,
After lonely day.
Lonely night,
After lonely night.
When The sun shines bright,
And the songbirds sing their joyous chorus-
I remember our love-
As I long for thee.
I await thee,
My love-
Throughout the lonely day-
Till the setting sun dwindles in dusk’s twilight-
Beyond golden pastures-
Fading in the night.
My love;
I long for thee.
My love;
I await thee-
Throughout the lonely night,
As the crickets chirp their symphony,
And in the darkness,
Like floating candles,
The fireflies glow.
And I remember our love,
As I gaze at the silver moon,
And diamond stars.
And I Forever embrace this love of ours.
As I sleep at night,
I dream only of being with thee,
My love.
As I awake,
And the sun rises at dawn over the emerald mountain tops,
I await thee,
My love.
Longing for thee-
Day through day,
Night through night-
I await thee,
My love.
My love;
When thou art gone;
I sing my lonely song…
poem by Philip Alarie
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Tai Shan
Words by neil peart, music by geddy lee and alex lifeson
High on the sacred mountain
Up the seven thousand stairs
In the golden light of autumn
There was magic in the air
Clouds surrounded the summit
The wind blew strong and cold
Among the silent temples
And the writing carved in gold
Somewhere in my instincts
The primitive took hold...
I stood at the top of the mountain
And china sang to me
In the peaceful haze of harvest time
A song of eternity --
If you raise your hands to heaven
You will live a hundred years
I stood there like a mystic
Lost in the atmosphere
The clouds were suddenly parted
For a moment I could see
The patterns of the landscape
Reaching to the eastern sea
I looked upon a presence
Spanning forty centuries...
I thought of time and distance
The hardships of history
I heard the hope and the hunger
When china sang to me...
song performed by by Rush
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Ennui On The Mountain
(daryl hall/john oates)
We dont need a whole lot of money
We dont need a cadillac car
What we need is a mountain in montana
A thousand acre world for the roadies and the girls
But you need a whole lot of money
Lots of loot, to tell you the troot
Oh, we know whats good but we love whats bad
And itd be ennui on the mountain anyway
Oh I dont know if its high or low
But its round and round and round and round we go
I dont know what I need
Everyday we try to get higher
Any way to the dream at the end
Am airplay and a golden concept album
So they pay for what you say
And they hang on every word
You and me are just ponce de leon-y
Looking for something we aint never gonna find
Oh, we know whats good but we love whats bad
And itd be ennui on the mountain anyway
Oh I dont know if its high or low
But its round and round and round and round we go
song performed by by Hall & Oates
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A Night-Piece
------The sky is overcast
With a continuous cloud of texture close,
Heavy and wan, all whitened by the Moon,
Which through that veil is indistinctly seen,
A dull, contracted circle, yielding light
So feebly spread, that not a shadow falls,
Chequering the ground--from rock, plant, tree, or tower.
At length a pleasant instantaneous gleam
Startles the pensive traveller while he treads
His lonesome path, with unobserving eye
Bent earthwards; he looks up--the clouds are split
Asunder,--and above his head he sees
The clear Moon, and the glory of the heavens.
There, in a black-blue vault she sails along,
Followed by multitudes of stars, that, small
And sharp, and bright, along the dark abyss
Drive as she drives: how fast they wheel away,
Yet vanish not!--the wind is in the tree,
But they are silent;--still they roll along
Immeasurably distant; and the vault,
Built round by those white clouds, enormous clouds,
Still deepens its unfathomable depth.
At length the Vision closes; and the mind,
Not undisturbed by the delight it feels,
Which slowly settles into peaceful calm,
Is left to muse upon the solemn scene.
poem by William Wordsworth
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Song in the Night
I
Born from the shadow of a breath
We wander in abandonment
And are lost in the eternal,
Like victims ignorant wherefore they are consecrated.
Like beggars nothing is our own,
We fools at the locked gate.
As blind people we listen in the silence,
In which our whisper is lost.
We are the wanderers without destinations,
The clouds which the wind blows away,
The flowers shaking in death's coolness,
Which wait, until one mows them down.
II
So that the last torment becomes complete with me,
I do not defend you, you hostile dark powers.
You are the road to great stillness,
Upon which we stride in the coolest nights.
Your breath makes me burn louder,
Patience! The star dies down, the dreams glide
In those realms not named to us,
And which we may only walk along dreamlessly.
III
You dark night, you dark heart,
Who mirrors your holiest ground,
And your malice's last abysses?
The mask stares before our pain -
Before our pain, before our lust
The empty mask's stony laughter,
On it the earthen things broke,
And ourselves not deliberately.
And a strange enemy stands before us,
Who jeers, about which we struggle dying,
So that our songs sound cloudier
And what weeps in us remains dark.
IV
You are the wine that makes drunk,
Now I bleed in sweet dances
And must wreath my suffering with flowers!
So your deepest mind wills, o night!
I am the harp in your womb,
Now your dark song struggles
For the last pains in my heart
And makes me eternal, unreal.
V
Deep rest - o deep rest!
No devout bell rings,
You sweet mother of pain -
Your death-widened peace.
Close all wounds
With your cool, good hands -
So that inward they bleed to death -
Sweet mother of pain - you!
VI
O let my silence be your song!
What should the poor's whisper be to you,
Who is separated from life's gardens?
Let you be nameless in me -
Who is dreamlesslybuilt up in me ,
Like a bell without tone,
Like my pain's sweet bride
And the drunken poppy of my sleepings.
VII
I heard flowers die in the ground
And the wells' drunken lament
And a song from the bell's mouth,
Night, and a whispered question;
And a heart - o death-wound,
Beyond its poor days.
VIII
The darkness extinguished me in silence,
I became a dead shadow in the day -
Then I stepped from the house of joy
Outside in the night.
Now a silence dwells in my heart,
That does not feel the dreary day -
And smiles up to you like thorns,
Night - forever and ever!
IX
O night, you mute gate before my suffering,
See this dark stigmata bleeding to death
And completely inclined the staggering chalice of agony!
O night, I am ready!
O night, you garden of oblivion
Around my poverty's closed-to-the-world shine,
The wine leaves wilt, the wreath of thorns wilts.
O come, you grand time!
X
My demon once laughed,
When I was a light in gleaming gardens,
And play and dance were my companions
And the wine of love, which makes drunk.
My demon once wept,
When I was a light in painful gardens
And humility was my companion,
Whose radiance shines on poverty's house.
However, now my demon neither weeps nor laughs,
I am a shadow of lost gardens
And my death-dark companion is
The silence of the empty midnight.
XI
My poor smile which struggled for you,
My sobbing song faded away in darkness.
Now my path comes to an end.
Let me tread in your cathedral
Like once, a fool, simple minded, devoutly,
And stand adoring mutely before you.
XII
You are in deep midnight
A dead shore at the silent sea,
A dead shore: Never more!
You are in deep midnight.
You are in deep midnight
The heaven in which you glowed as a star,
A heaven from which no more God blossoms.
You are in deep midnight.
You are in deep midnight
An unbegotten in sweet womb,
And never existing, unreal!
You are in deep midnight.
poem by Georg Trakl
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Enviornmental Syndrome
As the roar of thunder comes thrashing through midnight
My sweet dream fades into a nightmare of ominous fright
As the strident echos of rumble ricochet inside my head
My darkened eyes fill with teardrops from an evil dread
As sheer lightning strikes this lavish mountain terrain
My tepid body is electrified in a pool of sinister rain
As crosswinds blow wildly free through crisp valley air
My sane mind is tainted by a raging fury of wicked fear
As grey sky fades & stars shine through trifling clouds
My precious heart still shadowed from nefarious shrouds
As the morning sun rises in a dawns far distant horizon
My lustrous spirit remains sedated from a rancor poison
(7/10/10)
poem by Arthur Garcia
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Silhouette of my soul
The dark mountain behind me looks so different
For every time I look it’s changed
My soul has the same identity
For when I think I have finally got it under control
The silhouette changes
The mountain starts it day dark with a siloute that defines it
My soul is always in dark
The mountain gets more defined as sun comes up
My soul is always dark
The mountain end up dark again
The silhouette changes
My soul starts it day
Always hung-over from last days confusing silhouettes
so I begin clawing my way out of the deep hole
Even in sleep my soul is confusing
I dream about things that always seem in the dark
Then one of my silhouettes comes up and shines all the darkness away
Bring a smile to day that started with a mountain of undefined silhouettes
I can hold this in place as long as I need it, because I do…always
So when the darkness approaches to make the mountain undefined
It silhouette lost again my silhouette of counterfeit dies a death everyday
In comes the dark
Drunk again with so many silhouettes of my soul that want to be
I fall down under my mountain of darkness in a silhouette
My soul surrounded by light, but the face of my soul in the dark
Hidden the truth of what all these moments mean
So I pass out drunk on confusion for the next day will be the same
The silhouette of my soul
Golden--of the selkirks
A trail upwinds from Golden;
It leads to a land God only knows,
To the land of eternal frozen snows,
That trail unknown and olden.
And they tell a tale that is strange and wild--
Of a lovely and lonely mountain child
That went up the trail from Golden.
A child in the sweet of her womanhood,
Beautiful, tender, grave and good
As the saints in time long olden.
And the days count not, nor the weeks avail;
For the child that went up the mountain trail
Came never again to Golden.
And the watchers wept in the midnight gloom,
Where the canyons yawn and the Selkirks loom,
For the love that they knew of olden.
And April dawned, with its suns aflame,
And the eagles wheeled and the vultures came
And poised o'er the town of Golden.
God of the white eternal peaks,
Guard the dead while the vulture seeks!--
God of the days so olden.
For only God in His greatness knows
Where the mountain holly above her grows,
On the trail that leads from Golden.
poem by Emily Pauline Johnson
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The Fire
The old men of the world have made a fire
To warm their trembling hands.
They poke the young men in.
The young men burn like withes.
If one run a little way,
The old men are wrath.
They catch him and bind him and throw him again to the flames.
Green withes burn slow…
And the smoke of the young men's torment
Rises round and sheer as the trunk of a pillared oak,
And the darkness thereof spreads over the sky….
Green withes burn slow…
And the old men of the world sit round the fire
And rub their hands….
But the smoke of the young men's torment
Ascends up for ever and ever.
poem by Lola Ridge
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Bird’s Song
Swim through oceans of air
Birds keep time up there
And spend their days winging
Through forests of clouds, singing
Hymns of nature’s style
Fluttering away all the while
Dancing with angels in the sky
Dancing, dancing as they fly
Through fields of blue
Just to sing their song for you.
Mountains of clouds all about
Saviors in times of drought
Gather up the tears you cry
Into your reservoir in the sky
And listen to the birds sing
Listen for the song in everything
From the forests to the sea
From the bird to the bee
Listen and the song is there
Nature sings everywhere.
The sun rejoices each new day
But it rises in the usual way
To wake up the world with beams of light
And to conquer the darkness of night
But still the birds sing their song
A tribute to the day that’s long
And travel through fields of blue
Just to sing their song for you
And then when all has gone away
They’ll sing for you some other day.
poem by Jamie Collins
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Just a Song – Just a Word
I am just a song
That belongs to you
A sweet melody
Lingering though
Its eternal affair
Drips from the clouds
In the autumn air
Over you
I am just a line
In the harmony of time
A flowering shade
Its tinctured grade
That love has made
On summer leaves
In moments eves
You and I
Could long for long
Be a song in our song
Its blissful breeze
That gives fresh overlay
In an evening song
The tones that play
When the love is young
I am just a word
That passes on free
Something that comes
From inside of me
Like daybreak that rises
In yellow to red
The colors and spices
From natures thriving bed
poem by Peter S. Quinn
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High Cumberland Dilemma
It's been a little fever and maybe Bucky Beaver
Who made me pull the lever and leave once again
We chose just not to marry but go ahead and carry
All of our earthly goods and go to live out in the woods
Midnight on the mountain and you watch the clouds roll by
Country air's appealin' but there's more than meets the eye
Meets the eye...
Moonlight on the cabin and you're too damn cold to sleep
Your head turns from my pillow so I can't see you weep
See you weep...Sarah sleep
Stoned alone together least the city streets have drains
Standing here ass high up in the rain longin' for Boston
Once again
Sarah's cold and hungry and the baby's due any day
Stuck up in high country and it don't thaw out 'til May
Here we'll stay...
Mountain fever's on me and tonight the truck broke down
Doctor in the valley but we can't get in to town
He don't come 'round
Sarah cried for Boston and her mother late last night
I reassured her everything was tight but I'm not sure that it's all
right...
Midnight on the mountain and you watch the clouds roll by
Country air's appealin' but there's more than meets the eye
Meets the eye.
song performed by by Jimmy Buffett
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Musings over a Morose Morning
Awakened from a sleepless night,
Grief-stricken sunflowers shun away the morning light
The sweet song of the cuckoo is heard no more
The eerie silence sounds like the shrieks of a whore
The depressions on the crags have deepened
Distances between bipolar cliffs widened
The fast arrived spring has beckoned the fall
The proximal mountain appears farther and unreachably tall.
Pensive, perturbed clouds glooming in melancholia,
Recollecting the maddening mists of euphoria.
A growing sense of isolation and vacuity
The valley awaits the restoration of inner peace and tranquility
poem by Supriya Choudary
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The Australian Stockman
The sun peers o'er you wooded ridge and thro' the forest dense,
Its golden edge o'er the mountain ledge looks down on the stockyard fence,
Looks down, looks down, looks down on the stockyard fence;
And dark creeks rush thro' the tangled brush, when their shuddering shadows throng
Until they chime in the rude rough rhyme of the wild goburra's song.
Till they chime, ha! ha! till they chime, ha! ha! in the wild goburra's song;
Till they chime, ha! ha! till they chime, ha! ha! in the wild goburra's song.
The night owl to her home hath fled, to shun the glorious pomp
Of golden day she speeds away to her nest in the tea-tree swamp;
Away, away to her nest in the tea-tree swamp.
The dingo looks with a timid stare as he stealthily prowls along,
And his pattering feet in concert beat with the wild goburra's song.
Oh! let them boast their city's wealth, who toil in a dusty town;
Give me the beam on the mountain stream, and the range's dark-faced frown
The stream, the stream, and the range's dark-faced frown.
When our steed shall pass o'er the quiv'ring grass, and the crack of the sounding thong
Shall bid the startled echoes join the wild goburra's song.
poem by Andrew Barton Paterson
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