The Mutiny of the Chains
PENAL COLONY OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA, 1857
THE sun rose o'er dark Fremantle,
And the Sentry stood on the wall;
Above him, with white lines swinging,
The flag-staff, bare and tall:
The flag at its foot—the Mutiny Flag—
Was always fast to the line,—
For its sanguine field was a cry of fear,
And the Colony counted an hour a year
In the need of the blood-red sign.
The staff and the line, with its ruddy flash,
lake a threat or an evil-bode,
Were a monstrous whip with a crimson lash,
Fit sign for the penal code.
The Sentry leant on his rifle, and stood
By the mast, with a deep-drawn breath;
A stern-browed man, but there heaved a sigh
For the sight that greeted his downward eye
In the prison-square beneath.
In yellow garb, in soldier lines,
One hundred men in chains;
While the watchful warders, sword in hand,
With eyes suspicious keenly scanned
The links of the living lanes.
There, wary eyes met stony eyes,
And stony face met stone.
There was never a gleam of trust or truce;
In the covert thought of an iron loose,
Grim warder and ward were one.
Why was it so, that there they stood,—
Stern driver and branded slave?
Why rusted the gyve in the bondman's blood,
No hope for him but the grave?
Out of thousands there why was it so
That one hundred hearts must feel
The bitterest pang of the penal woe,
And the grind of a nation's heel?
Why, but for choice—the bondman's choice?
They balanced the gains and pains;.
They took their chance of the chains.
There spake in their hearts a hidden voice
Of the blinding joy of a freeman's burst
Through the great dim woods. Then the toil accurst;
The scorching days and the nights in tears
The riveted rings for years and years;
They weighed them all—they looked before
At the one and other, and spoke them o'er,
And they saw what the heart of man must see,
That the uttermost blessing is Liberty!
Ah, pity them, God! they must always choose,
For the life to gain and the death to lose.
They dream of the woods and the mountain spring,
And they grasp the flower, to clutch the sting.
Even so: they are better than those who bend
Like beasts to the lash, and go on to the end
As a beast will go, with to-day for a life,
And to-morrow a blank. Offer peace and strife
To a man enslaved—let him vote for ease
And coward labor, and be content;
Or let him go out in the front, as these,
With their eyes on the doom and the danger, went.
And take your choice—the man who remains
A self-willed serf, or the one who stains
His sudden hand with a drive for light
Through a bristling rank and a gloomy night.
This man for me—for his heart he'll share
With a friend: with a foe, he'll fight him fair.
And such as he are in every rank
Of the column that moves with a dismal clank
And a dead-march step toward the rock-bound place
Where the chain-gangs toil—o'er the beetling face
Of the cliff that roots in the Swan's deep tide:
Steep walls of granite on either side,
At the precipice' foot the river wide;
Behind them in ranks the warders fall;
And above them, the Sentry paces the wall.
Year in, year out, has the Sentry stood
On the wall at the foot of the mast.
He has turned from the toilers to watch the flood
Like, his own slow life go past.
He has noted the Chains grow fat and lean;
He has sighed for their empty spaces,
And thought of the cells where their end had been,
Where they lay with their poor dead faces,
With never a kiss, or prayer, or knell—
They were better at rest in the river;
He thinks of the shadow that o'er them fell
From the mast with its whip-like quiver;
He has seen it tipped with its crimson lash
When the mutiny-flood had risen
And swept like a sea with an awful swash
Through the squares and the vaulted prison.
His thoughts are afar with the woeful day,
With the ranged dead men and the dying,
And slowly he treads till they pass away—
Then a pause, and a start, and a scuffling sound,
And a glance beneath, at a battle-ground,
Where the lines are drawn, and the Chains are found
Their armed guards defying!
A hush of death—and the Sentry stands
By the mast, with the halyards tight in his hands,
And the Mutiny Flag is flying!
Woe to the weak, to the mutineers!
The bolt of their death is driven;
A mercy waits on all other tears,
But the Chains are never forgiven.
Woe to the rebels!—their hands are bare,
Their manacled bodies helpless there;
Their faces lit with a strange wild light,
As if they had fought and had won the fight!
No cry is uttered—upraised no hand;
All stilled to a muscle's quiver;
One line on the brink of the cliff they stand,
Their shadows flung down on the river.
The quarry wall is on either side,
The blood-red flag high o'er them;
But the lurid light in their eyes defied
The gathering guards before them.
No parley is held when the Chains revolt:
Grimly silent they stand secure
On the outward lip of the embrasure;
Waiting fierce-eyed for the fatal bolt.
A voice from the guard, in a monotone;
A voice that was cold and hard as stone: —
'Make ready! Fire!'
O Christ, the cry
From the manacled men! not fear to die,
Or whine for mercy; rebelled they stood,
Well knowing the price of revolt was blood;
Well knowing—but each one knew that he
Would sell his blood for his liberty!
Unwarned by a word, uncalled, unshriven,
They dare by a look—and the doom is given.
They raise their brows in the wild revolt,
And God's wrath flames in the fierce death-bolt;
God's wrath?—nay, man's; God never smote
A rebel dead whose swelling throat
Was full with protest. Hear, then smite;
God's justice weighs not shrieks the right.
'Make ready! Fire!'
Again outburst
The horror and shame for the deed accurst!
O, cry of the weak, as the hot blood calls
From the burning wound, and the stricken falls
With his face in the dust; and the strong one stands,
With scornful lips and ensanguined hands;
O, blood of the weak, unbought, unpriced,
Thy smoke is a piteous prayer to Christ!
They stand on the brink of the cliff—they bend
To the dead in their chains; then rise, and send
To the murdering muzzles defiant eyes.
'Make ready! Fire!'
The smoke-clouds rise:
They are still on the face of the cliff—they bend
Once more to the dead—they whisper a word
To the hearts in the dust—then, undeterred,
They raise their, faces, so grimly set,
Till the eyes of slayer and doomed have met.
O merciful God, let thy pity rain
Ere the hideous lightning leaps again!
They have sinned—they have erred—let the living stand
They have dared and rued—let thy loving hand
Be laid on those brows that bravely face
The death that shall wash them of all disgrace!
Be swift with pity—O, late, too late!
The tubes are leveled—the marksmen wait
For the word of doom—the spring is pressed
By the nervous finger—the sight is straight—
'Make ready!'—
Why falters the dread command?
Why stare as affrighted the armed band?
Why lower the rifles from shoulder to hip.
Why dies the word on the leader's lip,
While the voice that was hard grows husky deep
And the face is a-tremble as if to weep?
The Chains on the brink of the cliff are lined;
The living are bowed o'er the dead—they rise
And they face the rifles with burning eyes;
Then they bend again, and with one set mind
They raise the dead and the wounded raise
In their loving arms with words of praise
And tender grief for the torturing wounds.
One backward step with a burdened tread—
They bear toward the-precipice wounded and dead—
Then they turned on the cliff to front the guard
With faces like men that have died in fight;
Their brows were raised as if proud reward
Were theirs, and their eyes had a victor's light.
They spoke not a word, but stood sublime
In their somber strength, and the watchers saw
That they smiled as they looked, and their words were heard
As they spoke to the dying a loving word.
They were Men at last—they knew naught of crime;
They were masters and makers of life and law.
They turned from the guard that quailed and shrank
From the gleaming eyes of the burdened rank;
They turned on the cliff, and a sob was heard
As they looked far down on the darkened river;
They raised their eyes to the sky—they grasped
The dead to their breasts, while the wounded clasped
The necks of the brothers who bore their weight—
Then they sprang from the cliff, as a horse will spring
For his life from a precipice—sprang to death
In silence and sternness—one deep breath,
As they plunged, of liberty, thrilled their souls,
And then—the Chains were at rest forever!
poem by John Boyle O'Reilly
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
Muley Malak
THUNDER of guns, and cries—banners and spears and blood!
Troops have died where they stood holding the vantage points—
They have raced like waves at a wall, and dashed themselves to death.
Dawn the fight begin, and noon was red with its noon.
The armies stretch afar—and the plain of Alcazar
Is drenched with Moorish blood.
On one side, Muley the King—Muley Malek the Strong.
He had seized the Moorish crown because it would fit his brows.
Hamet the Fair was king; but Muley pulled him down, because he was strong.
The fierce sun glares on the clouds of dust and battlesmoke,
The hoarsened soldiers choke in the blinding heat.
Muley the King is afield, but sick to the death.
Borne on a litter he lies, his blood on fire, his eyes
Flaming with fever light.
Hamah Tabah the Captain, stands by the curtained bed,
Telling him news of the fight—how the waves roll and rise, and clash and mingle and seethe.
And Hamah bends to the scene. He peers under arched hand—
As an eagle he stoops to the field. One hand on the hilt
Is white at the knuckles, so fiercely gripped; while the hand
That had parted the curtains before now clutches the silk and wrings.
Hamet's squadrons are moving in mass—their lines are circling the plain!
The thousands of Muley stand, like bison dazed by an earthquake;
They are stunned by the thud of the fight, they are deer without a leader;
Their charge has died like the impulse of missiles freed from the sling;
Their spears waver like shaken barley,—they are dumbstruck and ready to fly!
Hamah Tabah the Captain, in words like the pouring of pitch, has painted
The terrible scene for the sick King, and terrible answer follows.
Up from the couch of pain, disdaining the bonds of weakness;
Flinging aside disease as a wrestler flings his tunic;
Strong with the smothered flre of fever, and fiercer far than its flaming,
Rises in mail from the litter Muley Malek the King!
Down on his plunging stallion, in the eyes of the shuddered troops,
His bent plume like a smoke, and his sword like a flame,
Smelting their souls with his courage, he rides before his soldiers!
They bend from his face like the sun—their eyes are blind with shame—
They thrill as a stricken tiger thrills, gathering his limbs from a blow;
They raise their faces, and watch him, sworded and mailed and strong;
They watch him, and shout his name fiercely—'Muley, the King!'
Grimly they close their ranks, drinking his face like wine;
Strength to the arm and wrath to the soul, and power—
Fuel and fire he was—and the battle roared like a crater!
Back to the litter, his face turned from the lines, and fixed
In a stare like the faces in granite, the King
Rode straight and strong, holding his sword
Soldierly, gripped on the thigh, grim as a king in iron!
Stiff in the saddle, stark, frowning—one hand is raised,
The mailed finger is laid on the mouth:
'Silence!' the warning said to Haman Tabah the Captain.
Help from his horse they give, moving him, still unbending,
Down to the bed, and lay him within the curtains.
Mutely they answer his frown, like ridges of bronze, and sternly
Again is the mailed hand raised and laid on the lips in warning:
' Silence! ' it said, and the meaning smote through their blood like flame,
As the tremor passed through his armor and the grayness crept o'er his features—
Muley the King was dead!
Furious the struggle and long, the armies with teeth aclench
And dripping weapons shortened, like athletes whose blows have killed pain.
The soldiers of Hamet were flushed—but the spirit of Muley opposed them;
The weak of Muley grew strong when they looked at the curtained litter.
Their thought of the King was wine in the thirst of the fight;
They saw that Hamah was there, still bending over the bed;
Holding the curtains wide and taking the order that came
From the burning lips of the King, and sending it down to his soldiers;
They knew that Hamah the Captain was telling him of the onset,
How they swept like hail on the fields, and left them like sickled grain.
Back, as the waves in a tempest are flung from a cliff and scattered,
Burst and horribly broken and driven beneath with the impact,
Shivered, for once and forever, the conquered forces; King Hamet
Was slain by the sword, and the foreign monarch who helped him,
And the plain was swept by the besom of death:
There never was grander faith in a king!
Trophies and victors' crowns, bring them to bind his brow!
Circle his curtained bed—thousands and thousands, come!
It will cure him, and kill his pain—we must see him tonight again:
One glance of his love and pride for all the hosts that died—
To his bedside—come!
Rigid, with frowning brow, his finger laid on his lips,
They saw him—saw him and knew, and read the word that he spake,
Stronger than death, and they stood in their tears, and were silent,
Obeying the King!
poem by John Boyle O'Reilly
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Stone
"And will you cut a stone for him,
To set above his head?
And will you cut a stone for him--
A stone for him?" she said.
Three days before, a splintered rock
Had struck her lover dead--
Had struck him in the quarry dead,
Where, careless of a warning call,
He loitered, while the shot was fired--
A lively stripling, brave and tall,
And sure of all his heart desired . . .
A flash, a shock,
A rumbling fall . . .
And, broken 'neath the broken rock,
A lifeless heap, with face of clay,
And still as any stone he lay,
With eyes that saw the end of all.
I went to break the news to her:
And I could hear my own heart beat
With dread of what my lips might say;
But some poor fool had sped before;
And, flinging wide her father's door,
Had blurted out the news to her,
Had struck her lover dead for her,
Had struck the girl's heart dead in her,
Had struck life, lifeless, at a word,
And dropped it at her feet:
Then hurried on his witless way,
Scarce knowing she had heard.
And when I came, she stood alone--
A woman, turned to stone:
And, though no word at all she said,
I knew that all was known.
Because her heart was dead,
She did not sigh nor moan.
His mother wept:
She could not weep.
Her lover slept:
She could not sleep.
Three days, three nights,
She did not stir:
Three days, three nights,
Were one to her,
Who never closed her eyes
From sunset to sunrise,
From dawn to evenfall--
Her tearless, staring eyes,
That, seeing naught, saw all.
The fourth night when I came from work,
I found her at my door.
"And will you cut a stone for him?"
She said: and spoke no more:
But followed me, as I went in,
And sank upon a chair;
And fixed her grey eyes on my face,
With still, unseeing stare.
And, as she waited patiently,
I could not bear to feel
Those still, grey eyes that followed me,
Those eyes that plucked the heart from me,
Those eyes that sucked the breath from me
And curdled the warm blood in me,
Those eyes that cut me to the bone,
And cut my marrow like cold steel.
And so I rose and sought a stone;
And cut it smooth and square:
And, as I worked, she sat and watched,
Beside me, in her chair.
Night after night, by candlelight,
I cut her lover's name:
Night after night, so still and white,
And like a ghost she came;
And sat beside me, in her chair,
And watched with eyes aflame.
She eyed each stroke,
And hardly stirred:
she never spoke
A single word:
And not a sound or murmur broke
The quiet, save the mallet stroke.
With still eyes ever on my hands,
With eyes that seemed to burn my hands,
My wincing, overwearied hands,
She watched, with bloodless lips apart,
And silent, indrawn breath:
And every stroke my chisel cut,
Death cut still deeper in her heart:
The two of us were chiselling,
Together, I and Death.
And when at length my job was done,
And I had laid the mallet by,
As if, at last, her peace were won,
She breathed his name, and, with a sigh,
Passed slowly through the open door:
And never crossed my threshold more.
Next night I laboured late, alone,
To cut her name upon the stone.
poem by Wilfred Wilson Gibson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Dead To The Living
Work while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.
IN the childhood of April, while purple woods
With the young year's blood in them smiled,
I passed through the lanes and the wakened fields,
And stood by the grave of the child.
And the pain awoke that is never dead
Though it sometimes sleeps, and again
It set its teeth in this heart of mine,
And fastened its claws in my brain:
For it seemed so hard that the little hands
And the little well-loved head
Should be out of reach of my living lips,
And be side by side with the dead--
Not side by side with us who had loved,
But with these who had never seen
The grace of the smile, the gold of the hair,
And the eyes of my baby-queen.
Yet with trees about where the brown birds build,
And with long green grass above,
She lies in the cold sweet breast of earth
Beyond the reach of our love;
Whatever befalls in the coarse loud world,
We know she will never wake.
When I thought of the sorrow she might have known,
I was almost glad for her sake. . . .
Tears might have tired those kiss-closed eyes,
Grief hardened the mouth I kissed;
I was almost glad that my dear was dead
Because of the pain she had missed.
Oh, if I could but have died a child
With a white child-soul like hers,
As pure as the wind-flowers down in the copse,
Where the soul of the spring's self stirs;
Or if I had only done with it all,
And might lie by her side unmoved!
I envied the very clods of earth
Their place near the child I loved!
And my soul rose up in revolt at life,
As I stood dry-eyed by her grave,
When sudden the grass of the churchyard sod
Rolled back like a green smooth wave;
The brown earth looked like the brown sea rocks,
The tombstones were white like spray,
And white like surf were the curling folds
Of the shrouds where the dead men lay;
For each in his place with his quiet face
I saw the dead lie low,
Who had worked and suffered and found life sad,
So many sad years ago.
Unchanged by time I saw them lie
As when first they were laid to rest,
The tired eyes closed, the sad lips still,
And the work-worn hands on the breast.
There were some who had found the green world so grey,
They had left it before their time,
And some were little ones like my dear,
And some had died in their prime;
And some were old, they had had their fill
Of bitter unfruitful hours,
And knew that none of them, none, had known
A flower of a hope like ours!
Through their shut eyelids the dead looked up,
And without a voice they said:
'We lived without hope, without hope we died,
And hopeless we lie here dead;
And death is better than life that draws
Pain in, as it draws in breath,
If life never dreams of a coming day
When life shall not envy death.
Through the dark of our hours and our times we lived,
Uncheered by a single ray
Of such hope as lightens the lives of you
Who are finding life hard to-day;
With our little lanterns of human love
We lighted our dark warm night--
But you in the chill of the dawn are set
With your face to the eastern light.
Freedom is waiting with hands held out
Till you tear the veil from her face--
And when once men have seen the light of her eyes,
And felt her divine embrace,
The light of the world will be risen indeed,
And will shine in the eyes of men,
And those who come after will find life fair,
And their lives worth living then!
Will you strive to the light in your loud rough world,
That these things may come to pass,
Or lie in the shadow beside the child,
And strive to the sun through the grass?'
'My world while I may,' I cried; 'but you
Whose lives were as dark as your grave?'
'We too are a part of the coming light,'
They called through the smooth green wave.
Their white shrouds gleamed as the flood of green
Rolled over and hid them from me--
Hid all but the little hands and the hair,
And the face that I always see.
poem by Edith Nesbit
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Monster Diamond
A TALE OF THE PENAL COLONY OF WEST AUSTRALIA.
'I’LL have it, I tell you! Curse you!—there!'
The long knife glittered, was sheathed, and was bare.
The sawyer staggered and tripped and fell,
And falling he uttered a frightened yell:
His face to the sky, he shuddered and gasped,
And tried to put from him the man he had grasped
A moment before in the terrible strife.
'I'll have it, I tell you, or have your life!
Where is it?' The sawyer grew weak, but still
His brown face gleamed with a desperate will.
'Where is it?' he heard, and the red knife's drip
In his slayer's hand fell down on his lip.
'Will you give it?' 'Never!' A curse, the knife
Was raised and buried.
Thus closed the life
Of Samuel Jones, known as 'Number Ten'
On his Ticket-of-Leave; and of all the men
In the Western Colony, bond or free,
None had manlier heart or hand than he.
In digging a sawpit, while all alone,—
For his mate was sleeping,—Sam struck a stone
With the edge of the spade, and it gleamed like fire,
And looked at Sam from its bed in the mire,
Till he dropped the spade and stooped and raised
The wonderful stone that glittered and blazed
As if it were mad at the spade's rude blow;
But its blaze set the sawyer's heart aglow
As he looked and trembled, then turned him round,
And crept from the pit, and lay on the ground,
Looking over the mold-heap at the camp
Where his mate still slept. Then down to the swamp
He ran with the stone, and washed it bright,
And felt like a drunken man at the sight
Of a diamond pure as spring-water and sun,
And larger than ever man's eyes looked on!
Then down sat Sam with the stone on his knees,
And fancies came to him, like swarms of bees
To a sugar-creamed hive; and he dreamed awake
Of the carriage and four in which he'd take
His pals from the Dials to Drury Lane,
The silks and the satins for Susan Jane,
The countless bottles of brandy and beer
He'd call for and pay for, and every year
The dinner he'd give to the Brummagem lads,—
He'd be king among cracksmen and chief among pads,
And he'd sport a—
Over him stooped his mate,
A pick in his hand, and his face all hate.
Sam saw the shadow, and guessed the pick,
And closed his dream with a spring so quick
The purpose was baffled of Aaron Mace,
And the sawyer mates stood face to face.
Sam folded his arms across his chest,
Having thrust the stone in his loose shirt-breast,
While he tried to think where he dropped the spade.
But Aaron Mace wore a long, keen blade
In his belt,—he drew it,—sprang on his man:
What happened, you read when the tale began.
Then he looked—the murderer, Aaron Mace—
At the gray-blue lines in the dead man's face;
And he turned away, for he feared its frown
More in death than life. Then he knelt him down,—
Not to pray,—but he shrank from the staring eyes,
And felt in the breast for the fatal prize.
And this was the man, and this was the way
That he took the stone on its natal day;
And for this he was cursed for evermore
By the West Australian Koh-i-nor.
In the half-dug pit the corpse was thrown,
And the murderer stood in the camp alone.
Alone? No, no! never more was he
To part from the terrible company
Of that gray-blue face and the bleeding breast
And the staring eyes in their awful rest.
The evening closed on the homicide,
And the blood of the buried sawyer cried
Through the night to God, and the shadows dark
That crossed the camp had the stiff and stark,
And horrible look of a murdered man!
Then he piled the fire, and crept within
The ring of its light, that closed him in
Like tender mercy, and drove away
For a time the specters that stood at bay,
And waited to clutch him as demons wait,
Shut out from the sinner by Faith's bright gate.
But the fire burnt low, and the slayer slept,
And the key of his sleep was always kept
By the leaden hand of him he had slain,
That oped the door but to drench the brain
With agony cruel. The night wind crept
Like a snake on the shuddering form that slept
And dreamt, and woke and shrieked; for there,
With its gray-blue lines and its ghastly stare,
Cutting into the vitals of Aaron Mace,
In the flickering light was the sawyer's face!
Evermore 'twas with him, that dismal sight,—
The white face set in the frame of night.
He wandered away from the spot, but found
No inch of the West Australian ground
Where he could hide from the bleeding breast,
Or sink his head in a dreamless rest.
And always with him he bore the prize
In a pouch of leather: the staring eyes
Might burn his soul, but the diamond's gleam
Was solace and joy for the haunted dream.
So the years rolled on, while the murderer's mind
Was bent on a futile quest,—to find
A way of escape from the blood-stained soil
And the terrible wear of the penal toil.
But this was a part of the diamond's curse,—
The toil that was heavy before grew worse,
Till the panting wretch in his fierce unrest
Would clutch the pouch as it lay on his breast,
And waking cower, with sob and moan,
Or shriek wild curses against the stone
That was only a stone; for he could not sell,
And he dare not break, and he feared to tell
Of his wealth: so he bore it through hopes and fears—
His God and his devil—for years and years.
And thus did he draw near the end of his race,
With a form bent double and horror-lined face,
And a piteous look, as if asking for grace
Or for kindness from some one; but no kind word
Was flung to his misery: shunned, abhorred,
E'en by wretches themselves, till his life was a curse,
And he thought that e'en death could bring nothing worse
Than the phantoms that stirred at the diamond's weight,—
His own life's ghost and the ghost of his mate.
So he turned one day from the haunts of men,
And their friendless faces: an old man then,
In a convict's garb, with white flowing hair,
And a brow deep seared with the word, 'Despair.'
He gazed not back as his way he took
To the untrod forest; and oh! the look,
The piteous look in his sunken eyes,
Told that life was the bitterest sacrifice.
But little was heard of his later days:
'Twas deemed in the West that in change of ways
He tried with his tears to wash out the sin.
'Twas told by some natives who once came in
From the Kojunnp Hills, that lonely there
They had seen a figure with long white hair;
They encamped close by where his hut was made,
And were scared at night when they saw he prayed
To the white man's God; and on one wild night
They had heard his voice till the morning light.
Years passed, and a sandal wood-cutter stood
At a ruined hut in a Kojunup wood:
The rank weeds covered the desolate floor,
And an ant-hill stood on the fallen door;
The cupboard within to the snakes was loot,
And the hearth was the home of the bandicoot.
But neither at hut nor snake nor rat
Was the woodcutter staring intent, but at
A human skeleton clad in gray,
The hands clasped over the breast, as they
Had fallen in peace when he ceased to pray.
As the bushman looked on the form, he saw
In the breast a paper: he stooped to draw
What might tell him the story, but at his touch
From under the hands rolled a leathern pouch,
And he raised it too,—on the paper's face
He read 'Ticket-of-Leave of Aaron Mace.'
Then he opened the pouch, and in dazed surprise
At its contents strange he unblessed his eyes:
'Twas a lump of quartz,—a pound weight in full,-
And it fell from his hand on the skeleton's skull!
poem by John Boyle O'Reilly
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Across The Lines
Left for dead? I—Charlie Coleman,
On the field we won—and lost,
Like a dog; the ditch my death-bed
My pillow but a log across.
Helpless hangs my arm beside me,
Drooping lies my aching head;
How strange it sounded when that soldier,
Passing, spoke of me as "dead."
Dead? and here—where yonder banner
Flaunts its scanty group of stars,
And that rebel emblem binds me
Close within those bloody bars.
Dead? without a stone to tell it,
Nor a flower above my breast!
Dead? where none will whisper softly,
"Here a brave man lies at rest!"
Help me, Thou, my mother's helper,—
Jesus, Thou who biding here,
Loved me like an earthly mother,
Be thou still to aid me near.
Give me strength to totter yonder,
Hold me up till o'er me shines
The flag of Union—there she promised
To meet me, just beyond the lines.
Well I know how she will wander
Where a woman's foot may stray,
Looking with those eyes so tender
Where the poor boys wounded lay.
How her hand will bring them water,
For her own boy Charlie's sake,
And when dying bid them whisper,
"I pray the Lord my soul to take."
Ah! I stand on foot but feebly,
And the blood runs very fast,
Yet by fence and bush I'll stagger
Till the rebel lines be past.
"Courage, Charlie! twist it tighter,—
The tourniquet about your arm;
Be a man—don't faint and shiver
When the lifetide trickles warm."
Faint and week,—still coming, mother,
Walking some, but creeping more,
Fearing lest the watchful sentry
Stops the heart-beat,—slow before
Stay—with fingers ruddy dabbled
Loose the belt your waist confines;
Write upon it "Charlie Coleman—
Carry him across the lines."
Trembling letters—but some stranger
Chance may read them when I'm gone,
And for the sake of love and pity
Bear my lifeless body on.
Coming! ah—what means this darkness—
Night too soon is coming on.
Mother, are you waiting?—"Jesus,
Tell her that with You I've gone."
Then the head her heart had pillowed,
Drooping laid it down to rest,
As calm as when in baby slumber
Its locks were cradled on her breast.
Glowed the sunset o'er the meadow,
Lighting up the gloomy pines,
Where a body only lingered—
Charlie's soul had crossed the lines.
A passing soldier—foe, yet human—
Stooped to read the words of blood;
So pitiful, so sadly earnest;
And bore him onward through the wood.
Beneath the white flag bore him safely.
Now, while Indian Summer shines,
A mother's tears dew springing myrtle,
O'er Charlie's grave across the lines.
poem by Ethel Lynn Beers from Pen Pictures of the War (1864)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
Vote! | Copy!
On The Downs
A faint sea without wind or sun;
A sky like flameless vapour dun;
A valley like an unsealed grave
That no man cares to weep upon,
Bare, without boon to crave,
Or flower to save.
And on the lip's edge of the down,
Here where the bent-grass burns to brown
In the dry sea-wind, and the heath
Crawls to the cliff-side and looks down,
I watch, and hear beneath
The low tide breathe.
Along the long lines of the cliff,
Down the flat sea-line without skiff
Or sail or back-blown fume for mark,
Through wind-worn heads of heath and stiff
Stems blossomless and stark
With dry sprays dark,
I send mine eyes out as for news
Of comfort that all these refuse,
Tidings of light or living air
From windward where the low clouds muse
And the sea blind and bare
Seems full of care.
So is it now as it was then,
And as men have been such are men.
There as I stood I seem to stand,
Here sitting chambered, and again
Feel spread on either hand
Sky, sea, and land.
As a queen taken and stripped and bound
Sat earth, discoloured and discrowned;
As a king's palace empty and dead
The sky was, without light or sound;
And on the summer's head
Were ashes shed.
Scarce wind enough was on the sea,
Scarce hope enough there moved in me,
To sow with live blown flowers of white
The green plain's sad serenity,
Or with stray thoughts of light
Touch my soul's sight.
By footless ways and sterile went
My thought unsatisfied, and bent
With blank unspeculative eyes
On the untracked sands of discontent
Where, watched of helpless skies,
Life hopeless lies.
East and west went my soul to find
Light, and the world was bare and blind
And the soil herbless where she trod
And saw men laughing scourge mankind,
Unsmitten by the rod
Of any God.
Out of time's blind old eyes were shed
Tears that were mortal, and left dead
The heart and spirit of the years,
And on mans fallen and helmless head
Time's disanointing tears
Fell cold as fears.
Hope flowering had but strength to bear
The fruitless fruitage of despair;
Grief trod the grapes of joy for wine,
Whereof love drinking unaware
Died as one undivine
And made no sign.
And soul and body dwelt apart;
And weary wisdom without heart
Stared on the dead round heaven and sighed,
'Is death too hollow as thou art,
Or as man's living pride?'
And saying so died.
And my soul heard the songs and groans
That are about and under thrones,
And felt through all time's murmur thrill
Fate's old imperious semitones
That made of good and ill
One same tune still.
Then 'Where is God? and where is aid?
Or what good end of these?' she said;
'Is there no God or end at all,
Nor reason with unreason weighed,
Nor force to disenthral
Weak feet that fall?
'No light to lighten and no rod
To chasten men? Is there no God?'
So girt with anguish, iron-zoned,
Went my soul weeping as she trod
Between the men enthroned
And men that groaned.
O fool, that for brute cries of wrong
Heard not the grey glad mother's song
Ring response from the hills and waves,
But heard harsh noises all day long
Of spirits that were slaves
And dwelt in graves.
The wise word of the secret earth
Who knows what life and death are worth,
And how no help and no control
Can speed or stay things come to birth,
Nor all worlds' wheels that roll
Crush one born soul.
With all her tongues of life and death,
With all her bloom and blood and breath,
From all years dead and all things done,
In the ear of man the mother saith,
'There is no God, O son,
If thou be none.'
So my soul sick with watching heard
That day the wonder of that word,
And as one springs out of a dream
Sprang, and the stagnant wells were stirred
Whence flows through gloom and gleam
Thought's soundless stream.
Out of pale cliff and sunburnt health,
Out of the low sea curled beneath
In the land's bending arm embayed,
Out of all lives that thought hears breathe
Life within life inlaid,
Was answer made.
A multitudinous monotone
Of dust and flower and seed and stone,
In the deep sea-rock's mid-sea sloth,
In the live water's trembling zone,
In all men love and loathe,
One God at growth.
One forceful nature uncreate
That feeds itself with death and fate,
Evil and good, and change and time,
That within all men lies at wait
Till the hour shall bid them climb
And live sublime.
For all things come by fate to flower
At their unconquerable hour,
And time brings truth, and truth makes free,
And freedom fills time's veins with power,
As, brooding on that sea,
My thought filled me.
And the sun smote the clouds and slew,
And from the sun the sea's breath blew,
And white waves laughed and turned and fled
The long green heaving sea-field through,
And on them overhead
The sky burnt red
Like a furled flag that wind sets free,
On the swift summer-coloured sea
Shook out the red lines of the light,
The live sun's standard, blown to lee
Across the live sea's white
And green delight.
And with divine triumphant awe
My spirit moved within me saw,
With burning passion of stretched eyes,
Clear as the light's own firstborn law,
In windless wastes of skies
Time's deep dawn rise.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Jean Desprez
Oh ye whose hearts are resonant, and ring to War's romance,
Hear ye the story of a boy, a peasant boy of France;
A lad uncouth and warped with toil, yet who, when trial came,
Could feel within his soul upleap and soar the sacred flame;
Could stand upright, and scorn and smite, as only heroes may:
Oh, harken! Let me try to tell the tale of Jean Desprez.
With fire and sword the Teuton horde was ravaging the land,
And there was darkness and despair, grim death on every hand;
Red fields of slaughter sloping down to ruin's black abyss;
The wolves of war ran evil-fanged, and little did they miss.
And on they came with fear and flame, to burn and loot and slay,
Until they reached the red-roofed croft, the home of Jean Desprez.
"Rout out the village, one and all!" the Uhlan Captain said.
"Behold! Some hand has fired a shot. My trumpeter is dead.
Now shall they Prussian vengeance know; now shall they rue the day,
For by this sacred German slain, ten of these dogs shall pay."
They drove the cowering peasants forth, women and babes and men,
And from the last, with many a jeer, the Captain chose he ten;
Ten simple peasants, bowed with toil; they stood, they knew not why,
Against the grey wall of the church, hearing their children cry;
Hearing their wives and mothers wail, with faces dazed they stood.
A moment only. . . . Ready! Fire! They weltered in their blood.
But there was one who gazed unseen, who heard the frenzied cries,
Who saw these men in sabots fall before their children's eyes;
A Zouave wounded in a ditch, and knowing death was nigh,
He laughed with joy: "Ah! here is where I settle ere I die."
He clutched his rifle once again, and long he aimed and well. . . .
A shot! Beside his victims ten the Uhlan Captain fell.
They dragged the wounded Zouave out; their rage was like a flame.
With bayonets they pinned him down, until their Major came.
A blonde, full-blooded man he was, and arrogant of eye;
He stared to see with shattered skull his favourite Captain lie.
"Nay, do not finish him so quick, this foreign swine," he cried;
"Go nail him to the big church door: he shall be crucified."
With bayonets through hands and feet they nailed the Zouave there,
And there was anguish in his eyes, and horror in his stare;
"Water! A single drop!" he moaned; but how they jeered at him,
And mocked him with an empty cup, and saw his sight grow dim;
And as in agony of death with blood his lips were wet,
The Prussian Major gaily laughed, and lit a cigarette.
But mid the white-faced villagers who cowered in horror by,
Was one who saw the woeful sight, who heard the woeful cry:
"Water! One little drop, I beg! For love of Christ who died. . . ."
It was the little Jean Desprez who turned and stole aside;
It was the little bare-foot boy who came with cup abrim
And walked up to the dying man, and gave the drink to him.
A roar of rage! They seize the boy; they tear him fast away.
The Prussian Major swings around; no longer is he gay.
His teeth are wolfishly agleam; his face all dark with spite:
"Go, shoot the brat," he snarls, "that dare defy our Prussian might.
Yet stay! I have another thought. I'll kindly be, and spare;
Quick! give the lad a rifle charged, and set him squarely there,
And bid him shoot, and shoot to kill. Haste! Make him understand
The dying dog he fain would save shall perish by his hand.
And all his kindred they shall see, and all shall curse his name,
Who bought his life at such a cost, the price of death and shame."
They brought the boy, wild-eyed with fear; they made him understand;
They stood him by the dying man, a rifle in his hand.
"Make haste!" said they; "the time is short, and you must kill or die."
The Major puffed his cigarette, amusement in his eye.
And then the dying Zouave heard, and raised his weary head:
"Shoot, son, 'twill be the best for both; shoot swift and straight," he said.
"Fire first and last, and do not flinch; for lost to hope am I;
And I will murmur: Vive La France! and bless you ere I die."
Half-blind with blows the boy stood there; he seemed to swoon and sway;
Then in that moment woke the soul of little Jean Desprez.
He saw the woods go sheening down; the larks were singing clear;
And oh! the scents and sounds of spring, how sweet they were! how dear!
He felt the scent of new-mown hay, a soft breeze fanned his brow;
O God! the paths of peace and toil! How precious were they now!
The summer days and summer ways, how bright with hope and bliss!
The autumn such a dream of gold . . . and all must end in this:
This shining rifle in his hand, that shambles all around;
The Zouave there with dying glare; the blood upon the ground;
The brutal faces round him ringed, the evil eyes aflame;
That Prussian bully standing by, as if he watched a game.
"Make haste and shoot," the Major sneered; "a minute more I give;
A minute more to kill your friend, if you yourself would live."
They only saw a bare-foot boy, with blanched and twitching face;
They did not see within his eyes the glory of his race;
The glory of a million men who for fair France have died,
The splendour of self-sacrifice that will not be denied.
Yet . . . he was but a peasant lad, and oh! but life was sweet. . . .
"Your minute's nearly gone, my lad," he heard a voice repeat.
"Shoot! Shoot!" the dying Zouave moaned; "Shoot! Shoot!" the soldiers said.
Then Jean Desprez reached out and shot . . . the Prussian Major dead!
poem by Robert William Service
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Young Lieutenant
The young lieutenant's face was grey.
As came the day.
The watchers saw it lifting white
And ghostlike from the pool of night.
His eyes were wide and strangely lit.
Each thought in that unhallowed pit:
“I, too, may seem like one who dies
With wide, set eyes.”
He stood so still we thought it death,
For through the breath
Of reeking shell we came, and fire,
To hell, unlit, of blood and mire.
Tianced in a chill delirium
We wondered, though our lips were dumb
What precious thing his fingers pressed
Against his breast.
His left hand clutched so lovingly
What none might see.
All bloodless were his lips beneath
The straight, white, rigid clip of teeth.
His eyes turned to the distance dim;
Our sleepless eyes were all on him.
He stirred; we aped a phantom cheer.
The hour was here!
The young lieutenant blew his call.
“God keep us all!”
He whispered softly. Out he led;
And over the vale of twisted dead,
Close holding that dear thing, he went.
On through the storm we followed, bent
To pelt of iron and the rain
Of flame and pain.
His wan face like a lodestar glowed
Down that black road,
And deep among the torn and slain
We drove, and twenty times again
He squared us to the charging hordes.
His word was like a hundred swords.
And still a hand the treasure pressed
Against his breast.
Our gain we held. Up flamed the sun.
“The ridge is won,”
He calmly said, and, with a sigh,
“Thank God, a man is free to die!”
He smiled at this, and so he passed.
His secret prize we knew at last,
For through his hand the jewel's red,
Fierce lustre bled.
poem by Edward George Dyson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
At Fredericksburg—Dec. 13, 1862
GOD send us peace, and keep red strife away;
But should it come, God send us men and steel!
The land is dead that dare not face the day
When foreign danger threats the common weal.
Defenders strong are they that homes defend;
From ready arms the spoiler keeps afar.
Well blest the country that has sons to lend
From trades of peace to learn the trade of war.
Thrice blest the nation that has every son
A soldier, ready for the warning sound;
Who marches homeward when the fight is done,
To swing the hammer and to till the ground.
Call back that morning, with its lurid light,
When through our land the awful war-bell tolled;
When lips were mute, and women's faces white
As the pale cloud that out from Sumter rolled.
Call back that morn: an instant all were dumb,
As if the shot had struck the Nation's life;
Then cleared the smoke, and rolled the calling drum,
And men streamed in to meet the coming strife,
They closed the ledger and they stilled the loom.
The plow left rusting in the prairie farm;
They saw but ' Union' in the gathering gloom;
The tearless women helped the men to arm;
Brigades from towns—each village sent its band:
German and Irish—every race and faith;
There was no question then of native land,
But—love the Flag and follow it to death.
No need to tell their tale: through every age
The splendid story shall be sung and said;
But let me draw one picture from the page—
For words of song embalm the hero dead.
The smooth hill is bare, and the cannons are planted,
Like Gorgon fates shading its terrible brow;
The word has been passed that the stormers are wanted,
And Burnside's battalions are mustering now.
The armies stand by to behold the dread meeting;
The work must be done by a desperate few;
The black-mouthed guns on the height give them greeting—
From gun-mouth to plain every grass blade in view.
Strong earthworks are there, and the rifles behind them
Are Georgia militia—an Irish brigade—
Their caps have green badges, as if to remind them
Of all the brave record their country has made.
The stormers go forward—the Federals cheer them;
They breast the smooth hillside—the black mouths are dumb;
The riflemen lie in the works till they near them,
And cover the stormers as upward they come.
Was ever a death-march so grand and so solemn?
At last, the dark summit with flame is enlined;
The great guns belch doom on the sacrificed column,
That reels from the height, leaving hundreds behind.
The armies are hushed—there is no cause for cheering:
The fall of brave men to brave men is a pain.
Again come the stormers! and as they are nearing
The flame-sheeted rifle-lines, reel back again.
And so till full noon come the Federal masses—
Flung back from the height, as the cliff flings a wave;
Brigade on brigade to the death-struggle passes,
No wavering rank till it steps on the grave.
Then comes a brief lull, and the smoke-pall is lifted,
The green of the hillside no longer is seen;
The dead soldiers lie as the sea-weed is drifted,
The earthworks still held by the badges of green.
Have they quailed? is the word. No: again they are forming—
Again comes a column to death and defeat!
What is it in these who shall now do the storming
That makes every Georgian spring to his feet?
' O God! what a pity!' they cry in their cover,
As rifles are readied and bayonets made tight;
''Tis Meagher and his fellows! their caps have green clover;
'Tis Greek to Greek now for the rest of the fight!'
Twelve hundred the column, their rent flag before them,
With Meagher at their head, they have dashed at the hill!
Their foemen are proud of the country that bore them;
But, Irish in love, they are enemies still.
Out rings the fierce word, ' Let them have it! ' the rifles
Are emptied point-blank in the hearts of the foe:
It is gueen against green, but a principle stifles
The Irishman's love in the Georgian's blow.
The column has reeled, but it is not defeated;
In front of the guns they re-form and attack;
Six times they have done it, and six times retreated;
Twelve hundred they came, and two hundred go back.
Two hundred go back with the chivalrous story;
The wild day is closed in the night's solemn shroud;
A thousand lie dead, but their death was a glory
That calls not for tears—the Green Badges are proud!
Bright honor be theirs who for honor were fearless,
Who charged for their fl:ig to the grim cannon's mouth;
And honor to them who were true, though not tearless,—
Who bravely that day kept the cause of the South.
The quarrel is done—God avert such another;
The lesson it brought we should evermore heed:
Who loveth the Flag is a man and a brother,
No matter what birth or what race or what creed.
poem by John Boyle O'Reilly
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Blood-Red Fourragere
What was the blackest sight to me
Of all that campaign?
A naked woman tied to a tree
With jagged holes where her breasts should be,
Rotting there in the rain.
On we pressed to the battle fray,
Dogged and dour and spent.
Sudden I heard my Captain say:
"Voilà! Kultur has passed this way,
And left us a monument."
So I looked and I saw our Colonel there,
And his grand head, snowed with the years,
Unto the beat of the rain was bare;
And, oh, there was grief in his frozen stare,
And his cheeks were stung with tears!
Then at last he turned from the woeful tree,
And his face like stone was set;
"Go, march the Regiment past," said he,
"That every father and son may see,
And none may ever forget."
Oh, the crimson strands of her hair downpoured
Over her breasts of woe;
And our grim old Colonel leaned on his sword,
And the men filed past with their rifles lowered,
Solemn and sad and slow.
But I'll never forget till the day I die,
As I stood in the driving rain,
And the jaded columns of men slouched by,
How amazement leapt into every eye,
Then fury and grief and pain.
And some would like madmen stand aghast,
With their hands upclenched to the sky;
And some would cross themselves as they passed,
And some would curse in a scalding blast,
And some like children cry.
Yea, some would be sobbing, and some would pray,
And some hurl hateful names;
But the best had never a word to say;
They turned their twitching faces away,
And their eyes were like hot flames.
They passed; then down on his bended knee
The Colonel dropped to the Dead:
"Poor martyred daughter of France!" said he,
"O dearly, dearly avenged you'll be
Or ever a day be sped!"
Now they hold that we are the best of the best,
And each of our men may wear,
Like a gash of crimson across his chest,
As one fierce-proved in the battle-test,
The blood-red Fourragere.
For each as he leaps to the top can see,
Like an etching of blood on his brain,
A wife or a mother lashed to a tree,
With two black holes where her breasts should be,
Left to rot in the rain.
So we fight like fiends, and of us they say
That we neither yield nor spare.
Oh, we have the bitterest debt to pay. . . .
Have we paid it? -- Look -- how we wear to-day
Like a trophy, gallant and proud and gay,
Our blood-red Fourragere.
poem by Robert William Service
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Father
The evening found us whom the day had fled,
Once more in bitter anger, you and I,
Over some small, some foolish, trivial thing
Our anger would not decently let die,
But dragged between us, shamed and shivering
Until each other's taunts we scarcely heard,
Until we lost the sense of all we said,
And knew not who first spoke the fatal word.
It seemed that even every kiss we wrung
We killed at birth with shuddering and hate,
As if we feared a thing too passionate.
However close we clung
One hour the next hour found us separate,
Estranged, and Love most bitter on our tongue.
To-night we quarrelled over one small head,
Our fruit of last year's maying, the white bud
Blown from our stormy kisses and the dead
First rapture of our wild, estranging blood.
You clutched him: there was panther in your eyes,
We breathed like beasts in thickets, on the wall
Our shadows in huge challenge seemed to rise,
The room grew dark with anger. Yet through all
The shame and hurt and pity of it you were
Still strangely and imperishably dear,
As one who loves the wild day none the less
That breaks in bitter hands the buds of Spring,
Whose cold hand stops the breath of loveliness,
And drives the wailing ghost of beauty past,
Making the rose, — even the rose, a thing
For pain to be remembered by at last.
I said: 'My son shall wear his father's sword.'
You said: 'Shall hands once blossoms at my breast
Be stained with blood?' I answered with a word
More bitter, and your own, the bitterest
Stung me to sullen anger, and I said:
'My son shall be no coward of his line
Because his mother choose'; you turned your head
And your eyes grew implacable in mine.
And like a trodden snake you turned to meet
The foe with sudden hissing… then you smiled,
And broke our life in pieces at my feet,
'Your child?' you said: 'Your child?'
poem by Muriel Stuart
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The House Of Dust: Part 03: 02: The Screen Maiden
You read—what is it, then that you are reading?
What music moves so silently in your mind?
Your bright hand turns the page.
I watch you from my window, unsuspected:
You move in an alien land, a silent age . . .
. . . The poet—what was his name—? Tokkei—Tokkei—
The poet walked alone in a cold late rain,
And thought his grief was like the crying of sea-birds;
For his lover was dead, he never would love again.
Rain in the dreams of the mind—rain forever—
Rain in the sky of the heart—rain in the willows—
But then he saw this face, this face like flame,
This quiet lady, this portrait by Hiroshigi;
And took it home with him; and with it came
What unexpected changes, subtle as weather!
The dark room, cold as rain,
Grew faintly fragrant, stirred with a stir of April,
Warmed its corners with light again,
And smoke of incense whirled about this portrait,
And the quiet lady there,
So young, so quietly smiling, with calm hands,
Seemed ready to loose her hair,
And smile, and lean from the picture, or say one word,
The word already clear,
Which seemed to rise like light between her eyelids . .
He held his breath to hear,
And smiled for shame, and drank a cup of wine,
And held a candle, and searched her face
Through all the little shadows, to see what secret
Might give so warm a grace . . .
Was it the quiet mouth, restrained a little?
The eyes, half-turned aside?
The jade ring on her wrist, still almost swinging? . . .
The secret was denied,
He chose his favorite pen and drew these verses,
And slept; and as he slept
A dream came into his heart, his lover entered,
And chided him, and wept.
And in the morning, waking, he remembered,
And thought the dream was strange.
Why did his darkened lover rise from the garden?
He turned, and felt a change,
As if a someone hidden smiled and watched him . . .
Yet there was only sunlight there.
Until he saw those young eyes, quietly smiling,
And held his breath to stare,
And could have sworn her cheek had turned—a little . . .
Had slightly turned away . . .
Sunlight dozed on the floor . . . He sat and wondered,
Nor left his room that day.
And that day, and for many days thereafter,
He sat alone, and thought
No lady had ever lived so beautiful
As Hiroshigi wrought . . .
Or if she lived, no matter in what country,
By what far river or hill or lonely sea,
He would look in every face until he found her . . .
There was no other as fair as she.
And before her quiet face he burned soft incense,
And brought her every day
Boughs of the peach, or almond, or snow-white cherry,
And somehow, she seemed to say,
That silent lady, young, and quietly smiling,
That she was happy there;
And sometimes, seeing this, he started to tremble,
And desired to touch her hair,
To lay his palm along her hand, touch faintly
With delicate finger-tips
The ghostly smile that seemed to hover and vanish
Upon her lips . . .
Until he knew he loved this quiet lady;
And night by night a dread
Leered at his dreams, for he knew that Hiroshigi
Was many centuries dead,—
And the lady, too, was dead, and all who knew her . .
Dead, and long turned to dust . . .
The thin moon waxed and waned, and left him paler,
The peach leaves flew in a gust,
And he would surely have died; but there one day
A wise man, white with age,
Stared at the portrait, and said, 'This Hiroshigi
Knew more than archimage,—
Cunningly drew the body, and called the spirit,
Till partly it entered there . . .
Sometimes, at death, it entered the portrait wholly . .
Do all I say with care,
And she you love may come to you when you call her . . . '
So then this ghost, Tokkei,
Ran in the sun, bought wine of a hundred merchants,
And alone at the end of day
Entered the darkening room, and faced the portrait,
And saw the quiet eyes
Gleaming and young in the dusk, and held the wine-cup,
And knelt, and did not rise,
And said, aloud, 'Lo-san, will you drink this wine?'
Said it three times aloud.
And at the third the faint blue smoke of incense
Rose to the walls in a cloud,
And the lips moved faintly, and the eyes, and the calm hands stirred;
And suddenly, with a sigh,
The quiet lady came slowly down from the portrait,
And stood, while worlds went by,
And lifted her young white hands and took the wine cup;
And the poet trembled, and said,
'Lo-san, will you stay forever?'—'Yes, I will stay.'—
'But what when I am dead?'
'When you are dead your spirit will find my spirit,
And then we shall die no more.'
Music came down upon them, and spring returning,
They remembered worlds before,
And years went over the earth, and over the sea,
And lovers were born and spoke and died,
But forever in sunlight went these two immortal,
Tokkei and the quiet bride . . .
poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
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
Vote! | Copy!
A Forsaken Garden
IN a coign of the cliff between lowland and highland,
At the sea-down's edge between windward and lee,
Walled round with rocks as an inland island,
The ghost of a garden fronts the sea.
A girdle of brushwood and thorn encloses
The steep square slope of the blossomless bed
Where the weeds that grew green from the graves of its roses
Now lie dead.
The fields fall southward, abrupt and broken,
To the low last edge of the long lone land.
If a step should sound or a word be spoken,
Would a ghost not rise at the strange guest's hand?
So long have the grey bare walks lain guestless,
Through branches and briars if a man make way,
He shall find no life but the sea-wind's, restless
Night and day.
The dense hard passage is blind and stifled
That crawls by a track none turn to climb
To the strait waste place that the years have rifled
Of all but the thorns that are touched not of time.
The thorns he spares when the rose is taken;
The rocks are left when he wastes the plain.
The wind that wanders, the weeds wind-shaken,
These remain.
Not a flower to be pressed of the foot that falls not;
As the heart of a dead man the seed-plots are dry;
From the thicket of thorns whence the nightingale calls not,
Could she call, there were never a rose to reply.
Over the meadows that blossom and wither
Rings but the note of a sea-bird's song;
Only the sun and the rain come hither
All year long.
The sun burns sere and the rain dishevels
One gaunt bleak blossom of scentless breath.
Only the wind here hovers and revels
In a round where life seems barren as death.
Here there was laughing of old, there was weeping,
Haply, of lovers none ever will know,
Whose eyes went seaward a hundred sleeping
Years ago.
Heart handfast in heart as they stood, "Look thither,"
Did he whisper? "look forth from the flowers to the sea;
For the foam-flowers endure when the rose-blossoms wither,
And men that love lightly may die---but we?"
And the same wind sang and the same waves whitened,
And or ever the garden's last petals were shed,
In the lips that had whispered, the eyes that had lightened,
Love was dead.
Or they loved their life through, and then went whither?
And were one to the endÑbut what end who knows?
Love deep as the sea as a rose must wither,
As the rose-red seaweed that mocks the rose.
Shall the dead take thought for the dead to love them ?
What love was ever as deep as a grave ?
They are loveless now as the grass above them
Or the wave.
All are at one now, roses and lovers,
Not known of the cliffs and the fields and the sea.
Not a breath of the time that has been hovers
In the air now soft with a summer to be.
Not a breath shall there sweeten the seasons hereafter
Of the flowers or the lovers that laugh now or weep,
When as they that are free now of weeping and laughter
We shall sleep.
Here death may deal not again for ever;
Here change may come not till all change end.
From the graves they have made they shall rise up never,
Who have left nought living to ravage and rend.
Earth, stones, and thorns of the wild ground growing,
While the sun and the rain live, these shall be;
Till a last wind's breath upon all these blowing
Roll the sea.
Till the slow sea rise and the sheer cliff crumble,
Till terrace and meadow the deep gulfs drink,
Till the strength of the waves of the high tides humble
The fields that lessen, the rocks that shrink,
Here now in his triumph where all things falter,
Stretched out on the spoils that his own hand spread,
As a god self-slain on his own strange altar,
Death lies dead.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Old Bark Hut
In an old bark hut on a mountainside
In a spot that was lone and drear
A woman whose heart was aching sat
Watching from year to year.
A small boy, Jim, her only child,
Helped her to watch and wait,
But the time never came when they could go free,
Free from the bond of hate.
For McConnel was out on the mountainside
Living without a hope
And seeing nothing before him now
But death by a hangman’s rope.
Hated and chased by his fellow men,
To take him alive or dead,
An outlaw banned by the world was he
With five hundred pounds on his head.
A message had come that evening which said
“Now, Jim, you mustn’t wait,
If you want to save your father, or
By heaven, you’ll be too late.
“He’s out at Mackinnon’s Crossing, they say,
The track is rough, old man,
But if any here can do it—why
It’s you and old Darky can.”
And Jim knew well what the message meant,
As he brought his horse to the door!
While away through the gathering darkness came
The sound of the river’s roar.
But the brave little heart never faltered as
He stooped to kiss her good-bye
And said, “God bless you, Mother dear,
I’ll save Dad tonight or I’ll die.”
The old horse answered the touch of his hand
And galloped away from the door;
He seemed to know ‘twas a journey for life—
Well, he’d done such journey’s before.
Out from the firelight, and through the rails,
Out through the ghastly trees,
While all the time the warning roar
Of the river came back on the breeze;
Steadily down the mountainside
He rode, for his course was plain,
Though his heart was heavy, though not with fear,
But because of that brand of Cain.
The boy thinks over his mother’s last words:
“I’ll love him as long as I live!
He must have time for repentance on earth
But surely God will forgive.”
As he glanced back over his shoulder there
She stood by the light of the door
Trying to pierce the darkness in vain,
Thinking she’d see him no more.
Then as he looked she bowed her head
And slowly turned away,
And the boy knew that the noble wife
Had knelt by the bed to pray.
Mile after mile, hour after hour,
And then just ahead, shining and white,
Was the foam of Mackinnon’s Crossing—
What a jump for old Darky tonight!
And then Jim thinks of the long, lone years
And the hopes that are crushed and dead;
And a woman whose heart is as true as steel,
As rue as the day she was wed.
As she loved him then in the years gone by
When the future held promise in store,
So she loved him today when the future held
Naught but death by his country’s law.
Jim pressed his knees to the saddle flap
And tightened his hold on the rein;
They had jumped the river last summertime,
How he hoped they would do it again!
Then a voice rang out through the darkness there,
“Hold, now hold, stand still!
We know you, lad, it’s too late to run;
Hands up or we’ll shoot to kill!”
Then he knew that the police were around him,
In the darkness they moved to and fro;
For an instant he pulled on the bridle-rein,
But he’d promised his mother he’d go.
And he thought of the poor, sad woman alone,
Kneeling in prayer by the bed;
So he loosened the reins on old Darky’s neck
And rushed at the river ahead.
Then a volley rang out through the forest dark—
A fall in the roaring flood;
And the darkness hid from all human eyes
The form that was stained with blood.
The horse struggled hard, the waters rushed on;
He sank to rise no more.
But the boy fought the flood in silence, inch
By inch to the other shore.
Slowly and sadly, but bravely on,
Brushing away the tears;
He was leaving behind in the river’s flood
His friend and companion for years.
And all the time the blood trickled down,
O God! what a hot burning pain!
And he knew he was doing is duty clean
He would never come back again.
Staggering in through the yielding door
Into the cold dark room
Where his father lay, and the faint firelight
Showed through the ghostly gloom.
The bushranger sprang to his feet in alarm
And levelled the gun at his head
And his loud voice demanded, “Who are you?
Speak quick, or you are dead.”
And then a weak little voice made answer,
“It’s me; Mother sends you her love;
The police are back at the crossing now,
So clear out and meet Mother above.”
Then McConnel placed his gun by the wall
And knelt on the cold hard floor;
And somehow the tears came rushing down
As they never had before.
His arms went around the brave little lad,
He nursed his head on his breast;
He seemed to know that the end was nigh
And Jim would soon be at rest.
And the boy was speaking feebly at last,
“They shot me back at the creek,
And old Darky is dead and gone, Dad,
And oh, I’m so tired and weak.”
Then his voice fell away in a whisper soft,
So faint it could scarce be heard,
“Oh Dad,, clear out, they are coming fast;
Tell Mother, I kept my word.”
Quickly in silence the police gathered around,
They had captured the beast in his lair;
The outlaw sat with his boy in his arms,
He semed not to heed nor to care.
He was thinking now of the seed he had sown,
He was tasting its bitter fruit,
When the sergeant stepped to the door and said,
“McConnel, bail up or I’ll shoot.”
Then the sergeant placed a lamp by the door,
The rifles gleamed out in the light;
But the outlaw said, “Sergeant O’Drady,
Let’s have no more shooting tonight.
“You can take me now to the judgement seat
As God has taken this lad;
You’d die to take my life, you men—
He died to save his dad.
“I want you to help me dig his grave,
And perhaps you will say a prayer;
Then you can take me and hang me dead—
It’s my wife, or I wouldn’t care.
“Carefully now. . . Oh thank you, men,
Lay him as best you can;
The policeman is shown by his coat, of course;
But the tears—well, they show the man.”
Then the party went back to the old bark hut
As the sun was mounting the hill;
No smoke arose from the chimney cold
And all was silent and still.
The sergeant opened the creaky door,
And lifted his cap with a start,
…Ah, McConnel had broken the country’s laws
And broken a woman’s heart.
poem by Anonymous Oceania
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Fight at Eureka Stockade
"Was I at Eureka?" His figure was drawn to a youthful height,
And a flood of proud recollections made the fire in his grey eyes bright;
With pleasure they lighted and glisten'd, tho' the digger was grizzled and old,
And we gathered about him and listen'd while the tale of Eureka he told.
"Ah, those were the days," said the digger, "twas a glorious life that we led,
When fortunes were dug up and lost in a day in the whirl of the years that are dead.
But there's many a veteran now in the land - old knights of the pick and the spade,
Who could tell you in language far stronger than mine 'bout the fight at Eureka Stockade.
"We were all of us young on the diggings in days when the nation had birth -
Light-hearted, and careless, and happy, and the flower of all nations on earth;
But we would have been peaceful an' quiet if the law had but let us alone;
And the fight - let them call it a riot - was due to no fault of our own.
"The creed of our rulers was narrow - they ruled with a merciless hand,
For the mark of the cursed broad arrow was deep in the heart of the land.
They treated us worse than the negroes were treated in slavery's day -
And justice was not for the diggers, as shown by the Bently affray.
"P'r'aps Bently was wrong. If he wasn't the bloodthirsty villain they said,
He was one of the jackals that gather where the carcass of labour is laid.
'Twas b'lieved that he murdered a digger, and they let him off scot-free as well,
And the beacon o' battle was lighted on the night that we burnt his hotel.
"You may talk as you like, but the facts are the same (as you've often been told),
And how could we pay when the license cost more than the worth of the gold?
We heard in the sunlight the clanking o' chains in the hillocks of clay,
And our mates, they were rounded like cattle an' handcuffed an' driven away.
"The troopers were most of them new-chums, with many a gentleman's son;
And ridin' on horseback was easy, and hunting the diggers was fun.
Why, many poor devils who came from the vessel in rags and down-heeled,
Were copped, if they hadn't their license, before they set foot on the field.
"But they roused the hot blood that was in us, and the cry came to roll up at last;
And I tell you that something had got to be done when the diggers rolled up in the past.
Yet they say that in spite o' the talkin' it all might have ended in smoke,
But just at the point o' the crisis, the voice of a quiet man spoke.
" `We have said all our say and it's useless, you must fight or be slaves!' said the voice;
" `If it's fight, and you're wanting a leader, I will lead to the end - take your choice!'
I looked, it was Pete! Peter Lalor! who stood with his face to the skies,
But his figure seemed nobler and taller, and brighter the light of his eyes.
"The blood to his forehead was rushin' as hot as the words from his mouth;
He had come from the wrongs of the old land to see those same wrongs in the South;
The wrongs that had followed our flight from the land where the life of the worker was spoiled.
Still tyranny followed! no wonder the blood of the Irishman boiled.
"And true to his promise, they found him - the mates who are vanished or dead,
Who gathered for justice around him with the flag of the diggers o'erhead.
When the people are cold and unb'lieving, when the hands of the tyrants are strong,
You must sacrifice life for the people before they'll come down on the wrong.
"I'd a mate on the diggings, a lad, curly-headed, an' blue-eyed, an' white,
And the diggers said I was his father, an', well, p'r'aps the diggers were right.
I forbade him to stir from the tent, made him swear on the book he'd obey,
But he followed me in, in the darkness, and - was - shot - on Eureka that day.
" `Down, down with the tyrant an' bully,' these were the last words from his mouth
As he caught up a broken pick-handle and struck for the Flag of the South
An' let it in sorrow be written - the worst of this terrible strife,
'Twas under the `Banner of Britain' came the bullet that ended his life.
"I struck then! I struck then for vengeance! When I saw him lie dead in the dirt,
And the blood that came oozing like water had darkened the red of his shirt,
I caught up the weapon he dropped an' I struck with the strength of my hate,
Until I fell wounded an' senseless, half-dead by the side of `my mate'.
"Surprised in the grey o' the morning half-armed, and the Barricade bad,
A battle o' twenty-five minutes was long 'gainst the odds that they had,
But the light o' the morning was deadened an' the smoke drifted far o'er the town
An' the clay o' Eureka was reddened ere the flag o' the diggers came down.
"But it rose in the hands of the people an' high in the breezes it tost,
And our mates only died for a cause that was won by the battle they lost.
When the people are selfish and narrow, when the hands of the tyrants are strong,
You must sacrifice life for the public before they come down on a wrong.
"It is thirty-six years this December - (December the first*) since we made
The first stand 'gainst the wrongs of old countries that day in Eureka Stockade,
But the lies and the follies and shams of the North have all landed since then
An' it's pretty near time that you lifted the flag of Eureka again.
"You boast of your progress an' thump empty thunder from out of your drums,
While two of your `marvellous cities' are reeking with alleys an' slums.
An' the landsharks, an' robbers, an' idlers an' -! Yes, I had best draw it mild
But whenever I think o' Eureka my talking is apt to run wild.
"Even now in my tent when I'm dreaming I'll spring from my bunk, strike a light,
And feel for my boots an' revolver, for the diggers' march past in the night.
An' the faces an' forms of old mates an' old comrades go driftin' along,
With a band in the front of 'em playing the tune of an old battle song."
poem by Henry Lawson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Blood
there is blood on my hands;
and they won't come clean
alone and weary I'm just so tired
of nobody knowing what I mean
I kneel down
Look into the eyes of Death
As it so simply lays there still
Within a sanguine puddle upon the ground.
Something here is not right
indeed all is quite wrong
This dark day has lingered on
Far too long.
When death's deed
Was done
The moon out shone
The sinking sun,
While blood dripped from the bullets
Outside of the gun.
A human heart had withdrawn
From it's beats
As the guiding angels
Quietly just took their seats
For what more could be said?
Jesus did not show this time,
To raise the dead.
Mary and Martha
Won't stop their crying,
Long after the paramedics
Stop their trying.
My mind won't believe
My eyes refuse to see
The senseless finality
Of this lowly evil deed.
The divine image bearer
Still as stone
Is left to lay there
Dead, upon the cold hard ground.
I walk lonely
In the night's weeping rain,
Wondering if any words can hold me together
and quiet the endless pain
Or, will it all come apart
With the great weight of this
One more broken and falling feather.
With drops like blood dripping down my face
I stand out here alone in the dark and pray
With words
I don't even know how to say,
Realizing more than ever
What a mere mortal man I am,
A stranger here.
Passing through such unfamiliar land;
We all march
In the earth's threnody,
Changing so as we go
Becoming all things new, while travelling into eternity.
Though we die, still we fly,
Hope does live Love does win
New life awaits for all
Even now, even then.
Though now the sadness of life remains,
The realization, before it's all through
We will hurt again.
And so often still do.
Here, the killer and the killed
Share in this pain,
For both must wear the long heavy chain
Of who is to blame;
Bloody chains
Leaving such bloody stains,
On more than just me
On more than just he.
Life is madly marked by plangent pauses
And consuming concerns,
We can only hope the reason and the cause is
For a life far greater to find and to learn.
There is a power in ancient Blood spilt for the ages,
And it is what it takes
To find the freedom of forgiveness.
For that freedom is precisely what it creates.
This power of blood is all around,
Death to be taken, Life to be found;
So man with mercy may show compassion to man.
And God smiling, blesses and understands.
We all are invited to live free,
Remembering,
There is always a dropp of holy, forgiving blood
In every tender tear
That each one of us does cry.
poem by Smoky Hoss
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Dead Man's Dump
The plunging limbers over the shattered track
Racketed with their rusty freight,
Stuck out like many crowns of thorns,
And the rusty stakes like sceptres old
To stay the flood of brutish men
Upon our brothers dear.
The wheels lurched over sprawled dead
But pained them not, though their bones crunched,
Their shut mouths made no moan.
They lie there huddled, friend and foeman,
Man born of man, and born of woman,
And shells go crying over them
From night till night and now.
Earth has waited for them,
All the time of their growth
Fretting for their decay:
Now she has them at last!
In the strength of their strength
Suspended--stopped and held.
What fierce imaginings their dark souls lit?
Earth! have they gone into you!
Somewhere they must have gone,
And flung on your hard back
Is their soul's sack
Emptied of God-ancestralled essences.
Who hurled them out? Who hurled?
None saw their spirits' shadow shake the grass,
Or stood aside for the half used life to pass
Out of those doomed nostrils and the doomed mouth,
When the swift iron burning bee
Drained the wild honey of their youth.
What of us who, flung on the shrieking pyre,
Walk, our usual thoughts untouched,
Our lucky limbs as on ichor fed,
Immortal seeming ever?
Perhaps when the flames beat loud on us,
A fear may choke in our veins
And the startled blood may stop.
The air is loud with death,
The dark air spurts with fire,
The explosions ceaseless are.
Timelessly now, some minutes past,
Those dead strode time with vigorous life,
Till the shrapnel called `An end!'
But not to all. In bleeding pangs
Some borne on stretchers dreamed of home,
Dear things, war-blotted from their hearts.
Maniac Earth! howling and flying, your bowel
Seared by the jagged fire, the iron love,
The impetuous storm of savage love.
Dark Earth! dark Heavens! swinging in chemic smoke,
What dead are born when you kiss each soundless soul
With lightning and thunder from your mined heart,
Which man's self dug, and his blind fingers loosed?
A man's brains splattered on
A stretcher-bearer's face;
His shook shoulders slipped their load,
But when they bent to look again
The drowning soul was sunk too deep
For human tenderness.
They left this dead with the older dead,
Stretched at the cross roads.
Burnt black by strange decay
Their sinister faces lie,
The lid over each eye,
The grass and coloured clay
More motion have than they,
Joined to the great sunk silences.
Here is one not long dead;
His dark hearing caught our far wheels,
And the choked soul stretched weak hands
To reach the living word the far wheels said,
The blood-dazed intelligence beating for light,
Crying through the suspense of the far torturing wheels
Swift for the end to break
Or the wheels to break,
Cried as the tide of the world broke over his sight.
Will they come? Will they ever come?
Even as the mixed hoofs of the mules,
The quivering-bellied mules,
And the rushing wheels all mixed
With his tortured upturned sight.
So we crashed round the bend,
We heard his weak scream,
We heard his very last sound,
And our wheels grazed his dead face.
poem by Isaac Rosenberg
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Pilgrims
Who is your lady of love, O ye that pass
Singing? and is it for sorrow of that which was
That ye sing sadly, or dream of what shall be?
For gladly at once and sadly it seems ye sing.
--Our lady of love by you is unbeholden;
For hands she hath none, nor eyes, nor lips, nor golden
Treasure of hair, nor face nor form; but we
That love, we know her more fair than anything.
--Is she a queen, having great gifts to give?
--Yea, these; that whoso hath seen her shall not live
Except he serve her sorrowing, with strange pain,
Travail and bloodshedding and bitterer tears;
And when she bids die he shall surely die.
And he shall leave all things under the sky
And go forth naked under sun and rain
And work and wait and watch out all his years.
--Hath she on earth no place of habitation?
--Age to age calling, nation answering nation,
Cries out, Where is she? and there is none to say;
For if she be not in the spirit of men,
For if in the inward soul she hath no place,
In vain they cry unto her, seeking her face,
In vain their mouths make much of her; for they
Cry with vain tongues, till the heart lives again.
--O ye that follow, and have ye no repentance?
For on your brows is written a mortal sentence,
An hieroglyph of sorrow, a fiery sign,
That in your lives ye shall not pause or rest,
Nor have the sure sweet common love, nor keep
Friends and safe days, nor joy of life nor sleep.
--These have we not, who have one thing, the divine
Face and clear eyes of faith and fruitful breast.
--And ye shall die before your thrones be won.
--Yea, and the changed world and the liberal sun
Shall move and shine without us, and we lie
Dead; but if she too move on earth and live,
But if the old world with all the old irons rent
Laugh and give thanks, shall we be not content?
Nay, we shall rather live, we shall not die,
Life being so little and death so good to give.
--And these men shall forget you.--Yea, but we
Shall be a part of the earth and the ancient sea,
And heaven-high air august, and awful fire,
And all things good; and no man's heart shall beat
But somewhat in it of our blood once shed
Shall quiver and quicken, as now in us the dead
Blood of men slain and the old same life's desire
Plants in their fiery footprints our fresh feet.
--But ye that might be clothed with all things pleasant,
Ye are foolish that put off the fair soft present,
That clothe yourselves with the cold future air;
When mother and father and tender sister and brother
And the old live love that was shall be as ye,
Dust, and no fruit of loving life shall be.
--She shall be yet who is more than all these were,
Than sister or wife or father unto us or mother.
--Is this worth life, is this, to win for wages?
Lo, the dead mouths of the awful grey-grown ages,
The venerable, in the past that is their prison,
In the outer darkness, in the unopening grave,
Laugh, knowing how many as ye now say have said,
How many, and all are fallen, are fallen and dead:
Shall ye dead rise, and these dead have not risen?
--Not we but she, who is tender and swift to save.
--Are ye not weary and faint not by the way,
Seeing night by night devoured of day by day,
Seeing hour by hour consumed in sleepless fire?
Sleepless: and ye too, when shall ye too sleep?
--We are weary in heart and head, in hands and feet,
And surely more than all things sleep were sweet,
Than all things save the inexorable desire
Which whoso knoweth shall neither faint nor weep.
--Is this so sweet that one were fain to follow?
Is this so sure where all men's hopes are hollow.
Even this your dream, that by much tribulation
Ye shall make whole flawed hearts, and bowed necks straight?
--Nay, though our life were blind, our death were fruitless,
Not therefore were the whole world's high hope rootless;
But man to man, nation would turn to nation,
And the old life live, and the old great world be great.
--Pass on then and pass by us and let us be,
For what light think ye after life to see?
And if the world fare better will ye know?
And if man triumph who shall seek you and say?
--Enough of light is this for one life's span,
That all men born are mortal, but not man:
And we men bring death lives by night to sow,
That man may reap and eat and live by day.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Vision X
There in the middle of the field, by the side of a crystalline stream, I saw a bird-cage whose rods and hinges were fashioned by an expert's hands. In one corner lay a dead bird, and in another were two basins -- one empty of water and the other of seeds. I stood there reverently, as if the lifeless bird and the murmur of the water were worthy of deep silence and respect -- something worth of examination and meditation by the heard and conscience.
As I engrossed myself in view and thought, I found that the poor creature had died of thirst beside a stream of water, and of hunger in the midst of a rich field, cradle of life; like a rich man locked inside his iron safe, perishing from hunger amid heaps of gold.
Before my eyes I saw the cage turned suddenly into a human skeleton, and the dead bird into a man's heart which was bleeding from a deep wound that looked like the lips of a sorrowing woman. A voice came from that wound saying, "I am the human heart, prisoner of substance and victim of earthly laws.
"In God's field of Beauty, at the edge of the stream of life, I was imprisoned in the cage of laws made by man.
"In the center of beautiful Creation I died neglected because I was kept from enjoying the freedom of God's bounty.
"Everything of beauty that awakens my love and desire is a disgrace, according to man's conceptions; everything of goodness that I crave is but naught, according to his judgment.
"I am the lost human heart, imprisoned in the foul dungeon of man's dictates, tied with chains of earthly authority, dead and forgotten by laughing humanity whose tongue is tied and whose eyes are empty of visible tears."
All these words I heard, and I saw them emerging with a stream of ever thinning blood from that wounded heart.
More was said, but my misted eyes and crying should prevented further sight or hearing.
poem by Khalil Gibran
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!