The Marseillaise
What means this mighty chant, wherein its wail
Of some intolerable woe, grown strong
With sense of more intolerable wrong
Swells to a stern victorious march--a gale
Of vengeful wrath? What mean the faces pale,
The fierce resolve, the ecstatic pangs along
Life's fiery ways, the demon thoughts which throng
The gates of awe, when these wild notes assail
The sleeping of our souls ? Hear ye no more
Than the mad foam of revolution's leaven,
Than a roused people's throne-o'erwhelming tread?
Hark! 'tis man's spirit thundering on the shore
Of iron fate; the tramp of Titans dread,
Sworn to dethrone the Gods unjust from Heaven.
poem by John Todhunter
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Related quotes
The Fire Bells Are Ringing
One, two, three--hark, hark, boys!
One, two, three, four!
The fire-bells are ringing, this wild wintry night;
They ask aid from District Thirty-four,
There somebody's riches are now taking flight;
On flame-wings away, away they soar.
But hark!
With shriek and wail,
How raves the gale!
Like demon steeds it speeds--
like galloping gangs from Pandemonium hurl'd.
Yes, firemen, take courage! did valiant deeds avail,
Then you were the victors of the world.
Ring the bells again!
Wake the electric wire!
And flash abroad the warning words--
"FIRE! FIRE!"
God save the city! for man's devices fail
When fierce flames with wintry winds conspire,
But hark!
With shriek and wail (With shriek and wail!)
How raves the gale! (How raves the gale!)
Like demon steeds it speeds--
like galloping gangs from Pandemonium hurl'd.
Yes, firemen, take courage! did valiant deeds avail,
Then your were the victors of the world.
One, two, three--hark, hark, boys!
One, two, three, four!
The fire-bells are ringing, an urgent appeal;
The engines go dashing by the door,
All safe here, children, no fear need we feel;
But God help in District Thirty-four,
What's that?
Look there! look there!
A lurid glare
Lights up the sky--aye, aye!
and columns of red, devouring flame appear.
And see! for departure our neighbors prepare;
Perchance there is danger even here.
One, two, three--hark, hark, boys!
One, two, three, four!
The fire-bells are ringing, a last grand alarm;
How vast must the conflagration be!
Our own roof is blazing! yet where, free from harm,
Oh! where shall we our treasures flee?
Let's haste!
'Twill fall! 'Twill fall--
That granite wall;
I see it crumbling, tumbling!
Fly for your lives, from out this fiery grave!
Laid low, crush'd, buried are some beyond recall;
But thank God! my little flock I save.
poem by Henry Clay Work
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The Titanic
Forth flashed the serpent streak of steel,
Consummate crown of man's device;
Down crashed upon an immobile
And brainless barrier of ice.
Courage!
The grey gods shoot a laughing lip: -
Let not faith founder with the ship!
We reel before the blows of fate;
Our stout souls stagger at the shock.
Oh! there is Something ultimate
Fixed faster than the living rock.
Courage!
Catastrophe beyond belief
Harden our hearts to fear and grief!
The gods upon the Titans shower
Their high intolerable scorn;
But no god knoweth in what hour
A new Prometheus may be born.
Courage!
Man to his doom goes driving down;
A crown of thorns is still a crown!
No power of nature shall withstand
At last the spirit of mankind:
It is not built upon the sand;
It is not wastrel to the wind.
Courage!
Disaster and destruction tend
To taller triumph in the end.
poem by Aleister Crowley
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The Other Heros
They march not to drummer's beat
neither rise to trumpet's call.
They pass not through ticker tape cloud.
Nor thrill to cheering throng.
They sail not on mighty ships
to do battle on foreign shore.
They are not lauded or praised
by liberated grateful peoples.
They return not with victorious song.
To be welcomed with outstretched arms.
Warriors always in the forefront of conflict
Subjected often by ridicule and criticised by most.
Facing conquest daily their battles never end.
Supported not by mighty force engage confrontation alone.
Acknowledged seldom by cheering crowds.
Only by their peers for conflicts they resolve.
Warriors yes in every sense.
Hero always to some constant threat to others.
They are the other heros Marshall Sheriff Police.
Enforcing the law maintaining the peace.
poem by Kurt Hearth
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Serving Other Gods
Many gods of a darker realm, throughout the world overwhelm,
The minds of men and their faith, as God’s Truths they replace,
With doctrine, of their decisions, men create their own religions,
Following not God’s, but man’s will, religious desires they fulfill.
One Creator but man’s many gods, from pious deceptive nods,
Man’s attempt to reach God above, by the ways men dream of,
New religious ways perceived, through vain thoughts conceived,
Man’s polluted way to reach Heaven, tainted by religious leaven.
Religious and very arrogant men, who’ve never been born again,
From above, of the Spirit of God; they follow spirits of this sod,
Those spirits of a darker kind, that deceives their heart and mind,
Satan appears as an angel of light, leading all into spiritual night.
Turning away from God’s decrees, they create darkened heresies,
Changing Truth to their shame, as God Himself remains the same,
Turning many from Truth they need, as they become Satan’s lead,
Leading souls from God’s Truth, for this, they will see His reproof.
Not only for distorting God’s Word, but, because souls they herd,
Leading them down a broad path, heading directly to God’s Wrath,
Denying the finished work of Christ, leading them from eternal life,
Being used for Satan’s seduction; distorting Truth unto destruction.
(Copyright ©03/2011)
Thoughts in a library
Speak low---tread softly through these halls;
Here genius lives enshrined,---
Here reign, in silent majesty,
The monarchs of the mind.
A mighty spirit-host they come,
From every age and clime;
Above the buried wrecks of years,
They breast the tide of Time.
And in their presence-chamber here,
They hold their regal state,
And round them throng a noble train,
The gifted and the great.
Oh, child of Earth! when round thy path
The storms of life arise,
And when thy brothers pass thee by,
With stern, unloving eyes,---
Here shall the Poets chant for thee
Their sweetest, loftiest lays;
And Prophets wait to guide thy steps
In wisdom's pleasant ways.
Come, with these God-anointed kings,
Be thou companion here;
And in the mighty realm of mind,
Thou shalt go forth a peer!
poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Whitsunday
When God of old came down from Heaven,
In power and wrath He came;
Before His feet the clouds were riven,
Half darkness and half flame:
Around the trembling mountain's base
The prostrate people lay;
A day of wrath and not of grace;
A dim and dreadful day.
But when he came the second time,
He came in power and love,
Softer than gale at morning prime
Hovered His holy Dove.
The fires that rushed on Sinai down
In sudden torrents dread,
Now gently light, a glorious crown,
On every sainted head.
Like arrows went those lightnings forth
Winged with the sinner's doom,
But these, like tongues, o'er all the earth
Proclaiming life to come:
And as on Israel's awe-struck ear
The voice exceeding loud,
The trump, that angels quake to hear,
Thrilled from the deep, dark cloud;
So, when the Spirit of our God
Came down His flock to find,
A voice from Heaven was heard abroad,
A rushing, mighty wind.
Nor doth the outward ear alone
At that high warning start;
Conscience gives back th' appalling tone;
'Tis echoed in the heart.
It fills the Church of God; it fills
The sinful world around;
Only in stubborn hearts and wills
No place for it is found.
To other strains our souls are set:
A giddy whirl of sin
Fills ear and brain, and will not let
Heaven's harmonies come in.
Come Lord, Come Wisdom, Love, and Power,
Open our ears to hear;
Let us not miss th' accepted hour;
Save, Lord, by Love or Fear.
poem by John Keble
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The Russ at Kara
O King of kings, that watching from Thy throne
Sufferest the monster of Ust-Kara's hold,
With bosom than Siberia's wastes more cold,
And hear'st the wail of captives crushed and prone,
And sett'st no sign in heaven! Shall naught atone
For their wild pangs whose tale is yet scarce told,
Women by uttermost woe made deadly bold,
In the far dungeon's night that hid their moan?
Why waits Thy shattering arm, nor smites this Power
Whose beak and talons rend the unshielded breast,
Whose wings shed terror and a plague of gloom,
Whose ravin is the hearts of the oppressed;
Whose brood are hell-births-Hate that bides its hour,
Wrath, and a people's curse that loathe their doom?
poem by William Watson
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A Captain Of Song
(On a portrait of Coventry Patmore by J. S. Sargent, R.A.)
Look on him. This is he whose works ye know;
Ye have adored, thanked, loved him,--no, not him!
But that of him which proud portentous woe
To its own grim
Presentment was not potent to subdue,
Nor all the reek of Erebus to dim.
This, and not him, ye knew.
Look on him now. Love, worship if ye can,
The very man.
Ye may not. He has trod the ways afar,
The fatal ways of parting and farewell,
Where all the paths of pain-ed greatness are;
Where round and always round
The abhorr-ed words resound,
The words accursed of comfortable men,--
'For ever'; and infinite glooms intolerable
With spacious replication give again,
And hollow jar,
The words abhorred of comfortable men.
You the stern pities of the gods debar
To drink where he has drunk
The moonless mere of sighs,
And pace the places infamous to tell,
Where God wipes not the tears from any eyes,
Where-through the ways of dreadful greatness are
He knows the perilous rout
That all those ways about
Sink into doom, and sinking, still are sunk.
And if his sole and solemn term thereout
He has attained, to love ye shall not dare
One who has journeyed there;
Ye shall mark well
The mighty cruelties which arm and mar
That countenance of control,
With minatory warnings of a soul
That hath to its own selfhood been most fell,
And is not weak to spare:
And lo, that hair
Is blanch-ed with the travel-heats of hell.
If any be
That shall with rites of reverent piety
Approach this strong
Sad soul of sovereign Song,
Nor fail and falter with the intimidate throng;
If such there be,
These, these are only they
Have trod the self-same way;
The never-twice-revolving portals heard
Behind them clang infernal, and that word
Abhorr-ed sighed of kind mortality,
As he--
Ah, even as he!
poem by Francis Thompson
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Man is never honestly the fatalist, nor even the stoic. He fights his fate, often desperately. He is forever entering bold exceptions to the rulings of the bench of gods. This fighting, no doubt, makes for human progress, for it favors the strong and the brave. It also makes for beauty, for lesser men try to escape from a hopeless and intolerable world by creating a more lovely one of their own.
quote by H.L. Mencken
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Pains Of Sleep, The
Ere on my bed my limbs I lay,
It hath not been my use to pray
With moving lips or bended knees ;
But silently, by slow degrees,
My spirit I to Love compose,
In humble trust mine eye-lids close,
With reverential resignation,
No wish conceived, no thought exprest,
Only a sense of supplication ;
A sense o'er all my soul imprest
That I am weak, yet not unblest,
Since in me, round me, every where
Eternal Strength and Wisdom are.
But yester-night I prayed aloud
In anguish and in agony,
Up-starting from the fiendish crowd
Of shapes and thoughts that tortured me :
A lurid light, a trampling throng,
Sense of intolerable wrong,
And whom I scorned, those only strong !
Thirst of revenge, the powerless will
Still baffled, and yet burning still !
Desire with loathing strangely mixed
On wild or hateful objects fixed.
Fantastic passions ! maddening brawl !
And shame and terror over all !
Deeds to be hid which were not hid,
Which all confused I could not know
Whether I suffered, or I did :
For all seemed guilt, remorse or woe,
My own or others still the same
Life-stifling fear, soul-stifling shame.
So two nights passed : the night's dismay
Saddened and stunned the coming day.
Sleep, the wide blessing, seemed to me
Distemper's worst calamity.
The third night, when my own loud scream
Had waked me from the fiendish dream,
O'ercome with sufferings strange and wild,
I wept as I had been a child ;
And having thus by tears subdued
My anguish to a milder mood,
Such punishments, I said, were due
To natures deepliest stained with sin,--
For aye entempesting anew
The unfathomable hell within,
The horror of their deeds to view,
To know and loathe, yet wish and do !
Such griefs with such men well agree,
But wherefore, wherefore fall on me ?
To be beloved is all I need,
And whom I love, I love indeed.
poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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The Pains Of Sleep
Ere on my bed my limbs I lay,
It hath not been my use to pray
With moving lips or bended knees ;
But silently, by slow degrees,
My spirit I to Love compose,
In humble trust mine eye-lids close,
With reverential resignation,
No wish conceived, no thought exprest,
Only a sense of supplication ;
A sense o'er all my soul imprest
That I am weak, yet not unblest,
Since in me, round me, every where
Eternal Strength and Wisdom are.
But yester-night I prayed aloud
In anguish and in agony,
Up-starting from the fiendish crowd
Of shapes and thoughts that tortured me :
A lurid light, a trampling throng,
Sense of intolerable wrong,
And whom I scorned, those only strong !
Thirst of revenge, the powerless will
Still baffled, and yet burning still !
Desire with loathing strangely mixed
On wild or hateful objects fixed.
Fantastic passions ! maddening brawl !
And shame and terror over all !
Deeds to be hid which were not hid,
Which all confused I could not know
Whether I suffered, or I did :
For all seemed guilt, remorse or woe,
My own or others still the same
Life-stifling fear, soul-stifling shame.
So two nights passed : the night's dismay
Saddened and stunned the coming day.
Sleep, the wide blessing, seemed to me
Distemper's worst calamity.
The third night, when my own loud scream
Had waked me from the fiendish dream,
O'ercome with sufferings strange and wild,
I wept as I had been a child ;
And having thus by tears subdued
My anguish to a milder mood,
Such punishments, I said, were due
To natures deepliest stained with sin,--
For aye entempesting anew
The unfathomable hell within,
The horror of their deeds to view,
To know and loathe, yet wish and do !
Such griefs with such men well agree,
But wherefore, wherefore fall on me ?
To be beloved is all I need,
And whom I love, I love indeed.
poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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The Belief Of The Wick
Detached, unstipulated, under stimulated
With prejudice, I demand to be filled
Alas, without
Lust!
Lust, a prenatal configuration
Of two intolerable humans
Alas, without
Heed!
Heed not onto this wild act
Of one intolerable weakling
I would break like the thinnest of glass
While I re-puncture my wounds
Perhaps with that very glass shard
Broken
Old becoming new, never healing
My scabs flickering away
Like the belief of the wick
poem by Allie Edson
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The Two Angels
God called the nearest angels who dwell with Him above:
The tenderest one was Pity, the dearest one was Love.
'Arise,' He said, 'my angels! a wail of woe and sin
Steals through the gates of heaven, and saddens all within.
'My harps take up the mournful strain that from a lost world swells,
The smoke of torment clouds the light and blights the asphodels.
'Fly downward to that under world, and on its souls of pain,
Let Love drop smiles like sunshine, and Pity tears like rain!'
Two faces bowed before the Throne, veiled in their golden hair;
Four white wings lessened swiftly down the dark abyss of air.
The way was strange, the flight was long; at last the angels came
Where swung the lost and nether world, red-wrapped in rayless flame.
There Pity, shuddering, wept; but Love, with faith too strong for fear,
Took heart from God's almightiness and smiled a smile of cheer.
And lo! that tear of Pity quenched the flame whereon it fell,
And, with the sunshine of that smile, hope entered into hell!
Two unveiled faces full of joy looked upward to the Throne,
Four white wings folded at the feet of Him who sat thereon!
And deeper than the sound of seas, more soft than falling flake,
Amidst the hush of wing and song the Voice Eternal spake:
'Welcome, my angels! ye have brought a holier joy to heaven;
Henceforth its sweetest song shall be the song of sin forgiven!'
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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What Bird So Sings, Yet So Does Wail?
What bird so sings, yet so does wail?
Oh, 'tis the ravished nightingale.
Jug, jug, jug, jug, tereu, she cries,
And still her woes at midnight rise.
Brave prick-song! Who is't now we hear?
None but the lark so shrill and clear;
How at heaven's gates she claps her wings,
The morn not waking till she sings.
Hark, hark, with what a pretty throat
Poor robin redbreast tunes his note;
Hark how the jolly cuckoos sing
Cuckoo, to welcome in the spring,
Cuckoo, to welcome in the spring.
You know, different people are going to react different ways. And I don't think we should be intolerable because people do things a little differently.
quote by Brent Scowcroft
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Marlowe
With eastern banners flaunting in the breeze
Royal processions, sounding fife and gong
And showering jewels on the jostling throng,
March to the tramp of Marlowe's harmonies.
He drained life's brimming goblet to the lees;
He recked not that a peer superb and strong
Would tune great notes to his impassioned song
And top his cannonading lines with ease.
To the wild clash of cymbals we behold
The tragic ending of his youthful life;
The revelry of kisses bought with gold,
The jest and jealous rival and the strife,
A harlot weeping o'er a corpse scarce cold,
A scullion fleeing with a bloody knife.
poem by Arthur Bayldon
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A Legend Reborn
Youve been fighting for much to long
You saw the future and what to come
Restless spirits out on the run,
Among the shadows of the sun
You are the rising resistance now
Weve come to show you a way somehow
Beyond the past and in secrecy,
We found it all, but we want more
We come from the age of chivalry
Metal machines, unchained and free
We are hear for you to see
Flying on wings of steel, thundering, we are breaking the seal
Fighting for the oath we sworn, to spread the word of a legend reborn
Moving silent like a gentle breeze
Were the troops of metal and we do as we please
We are the restless, we are the wild,
Burning hearts that never die
We are going against the tide
The hammer has fallen, a thorn in your side
Break the silence or take the fall
The mighty templars will take it all
Welcome the age of chivalry,
Were we all will be set free
Its the time for you and me
Flying on wings of steel, thundering, we are breaking the seal
Fighting for the oath we sworn, to spread the word of a legend reborn
Sons and brothers fight or fall
With our sisters and daughters
Were standing one for all
Flying on wings of steel, thundering, we are breaking the seal
Fighting for the oath we sworn, to spread the word of a legend reborn
Flying on wings of steel, thundering, we are breaking the seal
Fighting for the oath we sworn, to spread the word of a legend reborn
song performed by by Hammerfall
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Inspiration.
There's a wind that sweeps through the day and night,
And like the lightning goes,
But none have heard the sound of its wings,
And none know whither it blows;
But where'er it comes the thoughts of men
Are like clouds together hurled,
As they are carried with mystic speed
Over the crazy world.
We see no waving of leafy boughs,
Nor heave of the purple sea;
When this wind its fiercest blows, the Earth
May be still as the dead men be;
But the spirit feels its fiery breath
And the souls of men are stirr'd,
As o'er the mesmeric lines of life
Is flashed the magic word.
The gale from the Spirit-land blows in,
And they who feel it glow
With an ecstasy and ardour like
The seers of long ago —
The vital and inspiring breath
With which ideas are sown,
Like visioned seeds, in the mystic soil
Where the spirit-flowers are grown!
poem by Robert Crawford
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Despair
And canst thou mock mine agony, thus calm
In cloudless radiance, Queen of silver night?
Can you, ye flow'rets, spread your perfumed balm
Mid pearly gems of dew that shine so bright?
And you wild winds, thus can you sleep so still
Whilst throbs the tempest of my breast so high?
Can the fierce night-fiends rest on yonder hill,
And, in the eternal mansions of the sky,
Can the directors of the storm in powerless silence lie?
Hark! I hear music on the zephyr’s wing,
Louder it floats along the unruffled sky;
Some fairy sure has touched the viewless string--
Now faint in distant air the murmurs die.
Awhile it stills the tide of agony.
Now--now it loftier swells--again stern woe
Arises with the awakening melody.
Again fierce torments, such as demons know,
In bitterer, feller tide, on this torn bosom flow.
Arise ye sightless spirits of the storm,
Ye unseen minstrels of the aereal song,
Pour the fierce tide around this lonely form,
And roll the tempest's wildest swell along.
Dart the red lightning, wing the forked flash,
Pour from thy cloud-formed hills the thunder’s roar;
Arouse the whirlwind--and let ocean dash
In fiercest tumult on the rocking shore,--
Destroy this life or let earth's fabric be no more.
Yes! every tie that links me here is dead;
Mysterious Fate, thy mandate I obey,
Since hope and peace, and joy, for aye are fled,
I come, terrific power, I come away.
Then o'er this ruined soul let spirits of Hell,
In triumph, laughing wildly, mock its pain;
And though with direst pangs mine heart-strings swell,
I’ll echo back their deadly yells again,
Cursing the power that ne’er made aught in vain.
poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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The gods' service is tolerable, man's intolerable.