Divine Comedy Mother Goose after Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Divina Commedia Fleur de Luce
Oft have I seen within some bookstore door
a comic book, with illustrations neat,
unburdened by the hands of tiny feet
chaperoned by smothering mothers sure
to seal a bargain in free-time for chore
while toddler turns the page of storied treat,
from loud vociferations saved before tears fleet
become an undistinguishable roar.
Fables' chapters read aloud each day
provide the basic groundwork, opens gate
well earned to letters learned the easy way,
The tumult of bed-time disconsolate,
complaints, and plaintive murmurs fade away,
while pages turn on Cinderella's fate.
Strange sculptures do adorn Prince Charming's towers,
round Sleeping Beauty's statue crowd, fly leaves
bird's eye view provide of of dark Queen's sleeves
from which immortal bloom witch hands for hours,
gesticulate vast curses, scheme crossed princess cowers.
See fiends and dragons on the gargoyled eaves
throw Snow White frightening curses. Child believes
in Ali Baba's forty thieves and powers
fantastical suspending heart and brain,
till exultation tramples on despair,
till tenderness soothes tears, till hate of wrong -
with passionate cries of infant soul in pain -
reads through these tales of Hubbard's cupboard bare
in mediæval miracle of song.
These entertaing gossips glitter, gloom
dissolves before Pierrot and Columbine,
for nurs'ry rhymes step up pace children sign
their names, prepare for fame till they make room
in turn for others through life's mortal doom
when mourners pass, when votive tapers shine.
Psych books don't daunt imaginations fine,
synaptic echoes linked to Perrault's plume
from fairy tales of sixpence, apple pies,
rehearsing songs of blackbirds as crow flies
from cryptic lamentations, cheeks aglow.
For parents' choice celestial voice begins
with 'Once upon a time...' sows peace time wins,
no scarlet sins knows, Mother Goose morals show.
See seven dwarfs fight flame of evil fame,
Queen's poisoned apple sent so long ago,
filling young hearts with passion, dread, and woe,
rescued from wrong when song's conclusions came
splendiferous while stern rebukes bad tame,
and ice about cold heart melts as the snow
on mountain heights when spring rains overflow
through climate change gush like lips' sobs of shame,
with full confession made. Child's eyes may gleam,
like dawn's beam slant chant on dark forest cast,
seems to uplifted hope's scope, also increase
imagination, sparks remembered dream,
sorrow forgotten, enlightenment at last
rings perfect pardon that brings perfect peace.
Eyes T.V. free read on, souls' windows blaze
with forms of black sheep wool bags well supplied,
her set to song, hereafter glorified,
see bramble Rose upon its leaves displays
elf arrow thorns for Beauty's roundelay,
with splendor upon splendor multiplied
in bedside book that's seldom set aside.
No more rebukes, but smiles greet words of praise
from pre-school up, contentment's chorus choirs
re-sing old tales no child e'er fails to love,
and many on the Internet would post
cockle-shells, melodious bells, light fires
to warm from house-tops up to heaven above
Contrary Mary, Curly Locks' love boast.
Historic star whose kindergarden key
unlocks appreciation of these easy rhymes
both ageless and with age together climbs,
becomes forerunner of adults to be.
The choice of Hark the Lark, Georgie Porgie,
free voice for Jack Straw, Jack and Jill's Hill, signs,
repeats, light songs until familiar lines
are footpaths for deep thoughts of root and tree.
Fond fame is blown abroad from all the heights,
throughout all nations Mother Goose is heard
as child's and adult's album, leaves none out,
strangers, at home, becoming proselytes,
In their own language hear tales' wondrous word,
and many stay amazed, no penny doubt.
Divina Commedia Fleur de Luce
Oft have I seen at some cathedral door
A laborer, pausing in the dust and heat,
Lay down his burden, and with reverent feet
Enter, and cross himself, and on the floor
Kneel to repeat his paternoster o'er;
Far off the noises of the world retreat;
The loud vociferations of the street
Become an undistinguishable roar.
So, as I enter here from day to day,
And leave my burden at this minster gate,
Kneeling in prayer, and not ashamed to pray,
The tumult of the time disconsolate
To inarticulate murmurs dies away,
While the eternal ages watch and wait.
How strange the sculptures that adorn these towers!
This crowd of statues, in whose folded sleeves
Birds build their nests; while canopied with leaves
Parvis and portal bloom like trellised bowers,
And the vast minster seems a cross of flowers!
But fiends and dragons on the gargoyled eaves
Watch the dead Christ between the living thieves,
And, underneath, the traitor Judas lowers!
Ah! from what agonies of heart and brain,
What exultations trampling on despair,
What tenderness, what tears, what hate of wrong,
What passionate outcry of a soul in pain,
Uprose this poem of the earth and air,
This mediæval miracle of song!
I enter, and I see thee in the gloom
Of the long aisles, O poet saturnine!
And strive to make my steps keep pace with thine.
The air is filled with some unknown perfume;
The congregation of the dead make room
For thee to pass; the votive tapers shine;
Like rooks that haunt Ravenna's groves of pine
The hovering echoes fly from tomb to tomb.
From the confessionals I hear arise
Rehearsals of forgotten tragedies,
And lamentations from the crypts below;
And then a voice celestial that begins
With the pathetic words, "Although your sins
As scarlet be, " and ends with "as the snow."
With snow-white veil and garments as of flame,
She stands before thee, who so long ago
Filled thy young heart with passion and the woe
From which thy song and all its splendors came;
And while with stern rebuke she speaks thy name,
The ice about thy heart melts as the snow
On mountain heights, and in swift overflow
Comes gushing from thy lips in sobs of shame.
Thou makest full confession; and a gleam,
As of the dawn on some dark forest cast,
Seems on thy lifted forehead to increase;
Lethe and Eunoë—the remembered dream
And the forgotten sorrow—bring at last
That perfect pardon which is perfect peace.
I lift mine eyes, and all the windows blaze
With forms of Saints and holy men who died,
Here martyred and hereafter glorified;
And the great Rose upon its leaves displays
Christ's Triumph, and the angelic roundelays,
With splendor upon splendor multiplied;
And Beatrice again at Dante's side
No more rebukes, but smiles her words of praise.
And then the organ sounds, and unseen choirs
Sing the old Latin hymns of peace and love
And benedictions of the Holy Ghost;
And the melodious bells among the spires
O'er all the house-tops and through heaven above
Proclaim the elevation of the Host!
O star of morning and of liberty!
O bringer of the light, whose splendor shines
Above the darkness of the Apennines,
Forerunner of the day that is to be!
The voices of the city and the sea,
The voices of the mountains and the pines,
Repeat thy song, till the familiar lines
Are footpaths for the thought of Italy!
Thy fame is blown abroad from all the heights,
Through all the nations, and a sound is heard,
As of a mighty wind, and men devout,
Strangers of Rome, and the new proselytes,
In their own language hear thy wondrous word,
And many are amazed and many doubt.
(25 February 2012)
poem by Jonathan Robin
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Related quotes
Flower-De-Luce: Divina Commedia
I.
Oft have I seen at some cathedral door
A laborer, pausing in the dust and heat,
Lay down his burden, and with reverent feet
Enter, and cross himself, and on the floor
Kneel to repeat his paternoster o'er;
Far off the noises of the world retreat;
The loud vociferations of the street
Become an undistinguishable roar.
So, as I enter here from day to day,
And leave my burden at this minster gate,
Kneeling in prayer, and not ashamed to pray,
The tumult of the time disconsolate
To inarticulate murmurs dies away,
While the eternal ages watch and wait.
II.
How strange the sculptures that adorn these towers!
This crowd of statues, in whose folded sleeves
Birds build their nests; while canopied with leaves
Parvis and portal bloom like trellised bowers,
And the vast minster seems a cross of flowers!
But fiends and dragons on the gargoyled eaves
Watch the dead Christ between the living thieves,
And, underneath, the traitor Judas lowers!
Ah! from what agonies of heart and brain,
What exultations trampling on despair,
What tenderness, what tears, what hate of wrong,
What passionate outcry of a soul in pain,
Uprose this poem of the earth and air,
This medieval miracle of song!
III.
I enter, and I see thee in the gloom
Of the long aisles, O poet saturnine!
And strive to make my steps keep pace with thine.
The air is filled with some unknown perfume;
The congregation of the dead make room
For thee to pass; the votive tapers shine;
Like rooks that haunt Ravenna's groves of pine
The hovering echoes fly from tomb to tomb.
From the confessionals I hear arise
Rehearsals of forgotten tragedies,
And lamentations from the crypts below;
And then a voice celestial, that begins
With the pathetic words, 'Although your sins
As scarlet be,' and ends with 'as the snow.'
IV.
With snow-white veil and garments as of flame,
She stands before thee, who so long ago
Filled thy young heart with passion and the woe
From which thy song and all its splendors came;
And while with stern rebuke she speaks thy name,
The ice about thy heart melts as the snow
On mountain height; and in swift overflow
Comes gushing from thy lips in sobs of shame.
Thou makest full confession; and a gleam,
As of the dawn on some dark forest cast,
Seems on thy lifted forehead to increase;
Lethe and Eunoe--the remembered dream
And the forgotten sorrow--bring at last
That perfect pardon which is perfect peace.
V.
I lift mine eyes, and all the windows blaze
With forms of saints and holy men who died,
Here martyred and hereafter glorified;
And the great Rose upon its leaves displays
Christ's Triumph, and the angelic roundelays,
With splendor upon splendor multiplied;
And Beatrice again at Dante's side
No more rebukes, but smiles her words of praise.
And then the organ sounds, and unseen choirs
Sing the old Latin hymns of peace and love,
And benedictions of the Holy Ghost;
And the melodious bells among the spires
O'er all the house-tops and through heaven above
Proclaim the elevation of the Host!
VI.
O star of morning and of liberty!
O bringer of the light, whose splendor shines
Above the darkness of the Apennines,
Forerunner of the day that is to be!
The voices of the city and the sea,
The voices of the mountains and the pines,
Repeat thy song, till the familiar lines
Are footpaths for the thought of Italy!
Thy fame is blown abroad from all the heights,
Through all the nations, and a sound is heard,
As of a mighty wind, and men devout,
Strangers of Rome, and the new proselytes,
In their own language hear thy wondrous word,
And many are amazed and many doubt.
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Divina Commedia
I.Written March 29, 1864.1.
Oft have I seen at some cathedral door
.
A laborer, pausing in the dust and heat,
.
Lay down his burden, and with reverent feet
.
Enter, and cross himself, and on the floor
.
Kneel to repeat his paternoster o'er;
.
Far off the noises of the world retreat;
.
The loud vociferations of the street
.
Become an undistinguishable roar.
.
So, as I enter here from day to day,
.
And leave my burden at this minster gate,
.
Kneeling in prayer, and not ashamed to pray,
.
The tumult of the time disconsolate
.
To inarticulate murmurs dies away,
.
While the eternal ages watch and wait.II.2.
How strange the sculptures that adorn these towers!
.
This crowd of statues, in whose folded sleeves
.
Birds build their nests; while canopied with leaves
.
Parvis and portal bloom like trellised bowers,
.
And the vast minster seems a cross of flowers!
.
But fiends and dragons on the gargoyled eaves
.
Watch the dead Christ between the living thieves,
.
And, underneath, the traitor Judas lowers!
.
Ah! from what agonies of heart and brain,
.
What exultations trampling on despair,
.
What tenderness, what tears, what hate of wrong,
.
What passionate outcry of a soul in pain,
.
Uprose this poem of the earth and air,
.
This mediæval miracle of song!
III.Written December 22, 1865.3.
I enter, and I see thee in the gloom
.
Of the long aisles, O poet saturnine!
.
And strive to make my steps keep pace with thine.
.
The air is filled with some unknown perfume;
.
The congregation of the dead make room
.
For thee to pass; the votive tapers shine;
.
Like rooks that haunt Ravenna's groves of pine
.
The hovering echoes fly from tomb to tomb.
.
From the confessionals I hear arise
.
Rehearsals of forgotten tragedies,
.
And lamentations from the crypts below;
.
And then a voice celestial that begins
.
With the pathetic words, "Although your sins
.
As scarlet be," and ends with "as the snow."
IV.Written May 5, 1867.4.
With snow-white veil and garments as of flame,
.
She stands before thee, who so long ago
.
Filled thy young heart with passion and the woe
.
From which thy song and all its splendors came;
.
And while with stern rebuke she speaks thy name,
.
The ice about thy heart melts as the snow
.
On mountain heights, and in swift overflow
.
Comes gushing from thy lips in sobs of shame.
.
Thou makest full confession; and a gleam,
.
As of the dawn on some dark forest cast,
.
Seems on thy lifted forehead to increase;
.
Lethe and Eunoë -- the remembered dream
.
And the forgotten sorrow -- bring at last
.
That perfect pardon which is perfect peace.
V.Written January 16, 1866.5.
I lift mine eyes, and all the windows blaze
.
With forms of Saints and holy men who died,
.
Here martyred and hereafter glorified;
.
And the great Rose upon its leaves displays
.
Christ's Triumph, and the angelic roundelays,
.
With splendor upon splendor multiplied;
.
And Beatrice again at Dante's side
.
No more rebukes, but smiles her words of praise.
.
And then the organ sounds, and unseen choirs
.
Sing the old Latin hymns of peace and love
.
And benedictions of the Holy Ghost;
.
And the melodious bells among the spires
.
O'er all the house-tops and through heaven above
.
Proclaim the elevation of the Host!
VI.Written March 7, 1866.6.
O star of morning and of liberty!
.
O bringer of the light, whose splendor shines
.
Above the darkness of the Apennines,
.
Forerunner of the day that is to be!
.
The voices of the city and the sea,
.
The voices of the mountains and the pines,
.
Repeat thy song, till the familiar lines
.
Are footpaths for the thought of Italy!
.
Thy fame is blown abroad from all the heights,
.
Through all the nations, and a sound is heard,
.
As of a mighty wind, and men devout,
.
Strangers of Rome, and the new proselytes,
.
In their own language hear thy wondrous word,
.
And many are amazed and many doubt.
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Blessed Among Women --To The Signora Cairoli
Blessed was she that bare,
Hidden in flesh most fair,
For all men's sake the likeness of all love;
Holy that virgin's womb,
The old record saith, on whom
The glory of God alighted as a dove;
Blessed, who brought to gracious birth
The sweet-souled Saviour of a man-tormented earth.
But four times art thou blest,
At whose most holy breast
Four times a godlike soldier-saviour hung;
And thence a fourfold Christ
Given to be sacrificed
To the same cross as the same bosom clung;
Poured the same blood, to leave the same
Light on the many-folded mountain-skirts of fame.
Shall they and thou not live,
The children thou didst give
Forth of thine hands, a godlike gift, to death,
Through fire of death to pass
For her high sake that was
Thine and their mother, that gave all you breath?
Shall ye not live till time drop dead,
O mother, and each her children's consecrated head?
Many brought gifts to take
For her love's supreme sake,
Life and life's love, pleasure and praise and rest,
And went forth bare; but thou,
So much once richer, and now
Poorer than all these, more than these be blest;
Poorer so much, by so much given,
Than who gives earth for heaven's sake, not for earth's sake heaven.
Somewhat could each soul save,
What thing soever it gave,
But thine, mother, what has thy soul kept back?
None of thine all, not one,
To serve thee and be thy son,
Feed with love all thy days, lest one day lack;
All thy whole life's love, thine heart's whole,
Thou hast given as who gives gladly, O thou the supreme soul.
The heart's pure flesh and blood,
The heaven thy motherhood,
The live lips, the live eyes, that lived on thee;
The hands that clove with sweet
Blind clutch to thine, the feet
That felt on earth their first way to thy knee;
The little laughter of mouths milk-fed,
Now open again to feed on dust among the dead;
The fair, strong, young men's strength,
Light of life-days and length,
And glory of earth seen under and stars above,
And years that bring to tame
Now the wild falcon fame,
Now, to stroke smooth, the dove-white breast of love;
The life unlived, the unsown seeds,
Suns unbeholden, songs unsung, and undone deeds.
Therefore shall man's love be
As an own son to thee,
And the world's worship of thee for a child;
All thine own land as one
New-born, a nursing son,
All thine own people a new birth undefiled;
And all the unborn Italian time,
And all its glory, and all its works, thy seed sublime.
That henceforth no man's breath,
Saying "Italy," but saith
In that most sovereign word thine equal name;
Nor can one speak of thee
But he saith "Italy,"
Seeing in two suns one co-eternal flame;
One heat, one heaven, one heart, one fire,
One light, one love, one benediction, one desire.
Blest above praise and prayer
And incense of men's air,
Thy place is higher than where such voices rise
As in men's temples make
Music for some vain sake,
This God's or that God's, in one weary wise;
Thee the soul silent, the shut heart,
The locked lips of the spirit praise thee that thou art.
Yea, for man's whole life's length,
And with man's whole soul's strength,
We praise thee, O holy, and bless thee, O mother of lights;
And send forth as on wings
The world's heart's thanksgivings,
Song-birds to sing thy days through and thy nights;
And wrap thee around and arch thee above
With the air of benediction and the heaven of love.
And toward thee our unbreathed words
Fly speechless, winged as birds,
As the Indian flock, children of Paradise,
The winged things without feet,
Fed with God's dew for meat,
That live in the air and light of the utter skies;
So fleet, so flying a footless flight,
With wings for feet love seeks thee, to partake thy sight.
Love like a clear sky spread
Bends over thy loved head,
As a new heaven bends over a new-born earth,
When the old night's womb is great
With young stars passionate
And fair new planets fiery-fresh from birth;
And moon-white here, there hot like Mars,
Souls that are worlds shine on thee, spirits that are stars.
Till the whole sky burns through
With heaven's own heart-deep hue,
With passion-coloured glories of lit souls;
And thine above all names
Writ highest with lettering flames
Lightens, and all the old starriest aureoles
And all the old holiest memories wane,
And the old names of love's chosen, found in thy sight vain.
And crowned heads are discrowned,
And stars sink without sound,
And love's self for thy love's sake waxes pale
Seeing from his storied skies
In what new reverent wise
Thee Rome's most highest, her sovereign daughters, hail;
Thee Portia, thee Veturia grey,
Thee Arria, thee Cornelia, Roman more than they.
Even all these as all we
Subdue themselves to thee,
Bow their heads haloed, quench their fiery fame;
Seen through dim years divine,
Their faint lights feminine
Sink, then spring up rekindled from thy flame;
Fade, then reflower and reillume
From thy fresh spring their wintering age with new-blown bloom.
To thy much holier head
Even theirs, the holy and dead,
Bow themselves each one from her heavenward height;
Each in her shining turn,
All tremble toward thee and yearn
To melt in thine their consummated light;
Till from day's Capitolian dome
One glory of many glories lighten upon Rome.
Hush thyself, song, and cease,
Close, lips, and hold your peace;
What help hast thou, what part have ye herein?
But you, with sweet shut eyes,
Heart-hidden memories,
Dreams and dumb thoughts that keep what things have been
Silent, and pure of all words said,
Praise without song the living, without dirge the dead.
Thou, strengthless in these things,
Song, fold thy feebler wings,
And as a pilgrim go forth girt and shod,
And where the new graves are,
And where the sunset star,
To the pure spirit of man that men call God,
To the high soul of things, that is
Made of men's heavenlier hopes and mightier memories;
To the elements that make
For the soul's living sake
This raiment of dead things, of shadow and trance,
That give us chance and time
Wherein to aspire and climb
And set our life's work higher than time or chance
The old sacred elements, that give
The breath of life to days that die, to deeds that live;
To them, veiled gods and great,
There bow thee and dedicate
The speechless spirit in these thy weak words hidden;
And mix thy reverent breath
With holier air of death,
At the high feast of sorrow a guest unbidden,
Till with divine triumphal tears
Thou fill men's eyes who listen with a heart that hears.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Feast Of The Assumption
Dark! Dark! Dark!
The sun is set; the day is dead:
Thy Feast has fled;
My eyes are wet with tears unshed;
I bow my head;
Where the star-fringed shadows softly sway
I bend my knee,
And, like a homesick child, I pray,
Mary, to thee.
Dark! Dark! Dark!
And, all the day -- since white-robed priest
In farthest East,
In dawn's first ray -- began the Feast,
I -- I the least --
Thy least, and last, and lowest child,
I called on thee!
Virgin! didst hear? my words were wild;
Didst think of me?
Dark! Dark! Dark!
Alas! and no! The angels bright,
With wings as white
As a dream of snow in love and light,
Flashed on thy sight;
They shone like stars around thee, Queen!
I knelt afar --
A shadow only dims the scene
Where shines a star!
Dark! Dark! Dark!
And all day long, beyond the sky,
Sweet, pure, and high,
The angel's song swept sounding by
Triumphantly;
And when such music filled thy ear,
Rose round thy throne,
How could I hope that thou wouldst hear
My far, faint moan?
Dark! Dark! Dark!
And all day long, where altars stand,
Or poor or grand,
A countless throng from every land,
With lifted hand,
Winged hymns to thee from sorrow's vale
In glad acclaim;
How couldst thou hear my lone lips wail
Thy sweet, pure name?
Dark! Dark! Dark!
Alas! and no! Thou didst not hear
Nor bend thy ear,
To prayer of woe as mine so drear;
For hearts more dear
Hid me from hearing and from sight
This bright Feast-day;
Wilt hear me, Mother, if in its night
I kneel and pray?
Dark! Dark! Dark!
The sun is set, the day is dead;
Thy Feast hath fled;
My eyes are wet with the tears I shed;
I bow my head;
Angels and altars hailed thee, Queen,
All day; ah! be
To-night what thou hast ever been --
A mother to me!
Dark! Dark! Dark!
Thy queenly crown in angels' sight
Is fair and bright;
Ah! lay it down; for, oh! to-night
Its jeweled light
Shines not as the tender love-light shines,
O Mary! mild,
In the mother's eyes, whose pure heart pines
For poor, lost child!
Dark! Dark! Dark!
Sceptre in hand, thou dost hold sway
Fore'er and aye
In angel-land; but, fair Queen! pray
Lay it away.
Let thy sceptre wave in the realms above
Where angels are;
But, Mother! fold in thine arms of love
Thy child afar!
Dark! Dark! Dark!
Mary, I call! Wilt hear the prayer
My poor lips dare?
Yea! be to all a Queen most fair,
Crown, sceptre, bear!
But look on me with a mother's eyes
From heaven's bliss;
And waft to me from the starry skies
A mother's kiss!
Dark! Dark! Dark!
The sun is set; the day is dead;
Her Feast has fled;
Can she forget the sweet blood shed,
The last words said
That evening -- 'Woman! behold thy Son!
Oh! priceless right,
Of all His children! The last, least one,
Is heard to-night.
poem by Abram Joseph Ryan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Chamois Hunter's Love
Thy heart is in the upper world, where fleet the chamois bounds;
Thy heart is where the mountain-fir shakes to the torrent-sounds;
And where the snow-peaks gleam like stars, through the stillness of the air,
And where the Lauwine's peal is heart - Hunter! thy heart is there!
I know thou lovest me well, dear friend! but better, better far,
Thou lovest that high and haughty life, with rocks and storms at war;
In the green sunny vales with me, thy spirit would but pine,
And yet I will be thine, my love! and yet I will be thine!
And I will not seek to woo thee down from those thy native heights,
With the sweet song, our land's own song, of pastoral delights;
For thou must live as eagles live, thy path is not as mine,
And yet I will be thine, my love! and yet I will be thine!
And I will leave my blessed home, my father's joyous hearth,
With all the voices meeting there in tenderness and mirth,
With all the kind and laughing eyes that in its firelight shine,
To sit forsaken in thy hut, yet know that thou art mine!
It is my youth, it is my bloom, it is my glad free heart,
That I cast away for thee - for thee, all reckless as thou art!
With tremblings and with vigils lone, I bind myself to dwell,
Yet, yet I would not change that lot, oh no! I love too well!
A mournful thing is love which grows to one so wild as thou,
With that bright restlessness of eye, that tameless fire of brow.
Mournful! - but dearer far I call its mingled fear and pride,
And the trouble of its happiness, than aught on earth beside.
To listen for thy step in vain, to start at every breath,
To watch through long long nights of storm, to sleep and dream of death,
To wake in doubt and loneliness - this doom I know is mine
And yet I will be thine, my love! and yet I will be thine!
That I may greet thee from thine Alps, when thence thou comest at last,
That I may hear thy thrilling voice tell o'er each danger past,
That I may kneel and pray for thee, and win thee aid divine -
For this I will be thine, my love! for this I will be thine!
poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Christmas Bells
"I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Till, ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Then from each black accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said;
"For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead; nor doth he sleep!
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men!"
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Melody
Melody
By: Adam M. Snow
O' Melody, names like the angel's song;
music swaying around thine love
but of thy love my days be long;
O' my Melody, sang my song.
I long to hear thy voice, thy angelic voice
soothes away my hearts desire.
But it be that of love's choice
echoing upon thy voice.
Can thee forever love a lonely man such as I,
or do thee live on knowing not that of love,
or do thee walk passed and curse myself to die?
This feeling, this love O' Melody I cannot deny.
Let me hear thy choir of thy song;
a voice so deep calming the soul.
Let thy voice and passion be strong;
O' my Melody, sang my song.
Sing; let thy voice be heard across the Earth.
Let it pierce thy shadows.
Let the world see a new found birth
and the wonders its worth.
O' Melody, a song I longed after
to cleanse my immortal soul,
to feel the joy and laughter
and be with you hereafter.
O' Melody, names like the angel's song;
music swaying around thine love
but of thy love my days be long;
O' my Melody, sang my song.
O' Melody, play thy music for I love thee.
Thy lyrics be true thy heart,
Thy song be thy key
to set all souls free.
Let me hear thy choir of thy song;
a voice so deep calming the soul.
Let thy voice and passion be strong;
O' my Melody, sang my song.
poem by Adam M. Snow
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The Gift Of The Sea
The dead child lay in the shroud,
And the widow watched beside;
And her mother slept, and the Channel swept
The gale in the teeth of the tide.
But the mother laughed at all.
"I have lost my man in the sea,
And the child is dead. Be still," she said,
"What more can ye do to me?"
The widow watched the dead,
And the candle guttered low,
And she tried to sing the Passing Song
That bids the poor soul go.
And "Mary take you now," she sang,
"That lay against my heart."
And "Mary smooth your crib to-night,"
But she could not say "Depart."
Then came a cry from the sea,
But the sea-rime blinded the glass,
And "Heard ye nothing, mother?" she said,
"'Tis the child that waits to pass."
And the nodding mother sighed.
"'Tis a lambing ewe in the whin,
For why should the christened soul cry out
That never knew of sin?"
"O feet I have held in my hand,
O hands at my heart to catch,
How should they know the road to go,
And how should they lift the latch?"
They laid a sheet to the door,
With the little quilt atop,
That it might not hurt from the cold or the dirt,
But the crying would not stop.
The widow lifted the latch
And strained her eyes to see,
And opened the door on the bitter shore
To let the soul go free.
There was neither glimmer nor ghost,
There was neither spirit nor spark,
And "Heard ye nothing, mother?" she said,
"'Tis crying for me in the dark."
And the nodding mother sighed:
"'Tis sorrow makes ye dull;
Have ye yet to learn the cry of the tern,
Or the wail of the wind-blown gull?"
"The terns are blown inland,
The gray gull follows the plough.
'Twas never a bird, the voice I heard,
O mother, I hear it now!"
"Lie still, dear lamb, lie still;
The child is passed from harm,
'Tis the ache in your breast that broke your rest,
And the feel of an empty arm."
She put her mother aside,
"In Mary's name let be!
For the peace of my soul I must go," she said,
And she went to the calling sea.
In the heel of the wind-bit pier,
Where the twisted weed was piled,
She came to the life she had missed by an hour,
For she came to a little child.
She laid it into her breast,
And back to her mother she came,
But it would not feed and it would not heed,
Though she gave it her own child's name.
And the dead child dripped on her breast,
And her own in the shroud lay stark;
And "God forgive us, mother," she said,
"We let it die in the dark!"
poem by Rudyard Kipling
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Beauty XXV
And a poet said, "Speak to us of Beauty."
Where shall you seek beauty, and how shall you find her unless she herself be your way and your guide?
And how shall you speak of her except she be the weaver of your speech?
The aggrieved and the injured say, "Beauty is kind and gentle.
Like a young mother half-shy of her own glory she walks among us."
And the passionate say, "Nay, beauty is a thing of might and dread.
Like the tempest she shakes the earth beneath us and the sky above us."
The tired and the weary say, "beauty is of soft whisperings. She speaks in our spirit.
Her voice yields to our silences like a faint light that quivers in fear of the shadow."
But the restless say, "We have heard her shouting among the mountains,
And with her cries came the sound of hoofs, and the beating of wings and the roaring of lions."
At night the watchmen of the city say, "Beauty shall rise with the dawn from the east."
And at noontide the toilers and the wayfarers say, "we have seen her leaning over the earth from the windows of the sunset."
In winter say the snow-bound, "She shall come with the spring leaping upon the hills."
And in the summer heat the reapers say, "We have seen her dancing with the autumn leaves, and we saw a drift of snow in her hair."
All these things have you said of beauty.
Yet in truth you spoke not of her but of needs unsatisfied,
And beauty is not a need but an ecstasy.
It is not a mouth thirsting nor an empty hand stretched forth,
But rather a heart enflamed and a soul enchanted.
It is not the image you would see nor the song you would hear,
But rather an image you see though you close your eyes and a song you hear though you shut your ears.
It is not the sap within the furrowed bark, nor a wing attached to a claw,
But rather a garden forever in bloom and a flock of angels for ever in flight.
People of Orphalese, beauty is life when life unveils her holy face.
But you are life and you are the veil.
Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.
But you are eternity and you are the mirror.
poem by Khalil Gibran
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The Wife
"Tell Annie I'll be home in time
To help her with her Christmas-tree."
That's what he wrote, and hark! the chime
Of Christmas bells, and where is he?
And how the house is dark and sad,
And Annie's sobbing on my knee!
The page beside the candle-flame
With cruel type was overfilled;
I read and read until a name
Leapt at me and my heart was stilled:
My eye crept up the column -- up
Unto its hateful heading: Killed.
And there was Annie on the stair:
"And will he not be long?" she said.
Her eyes were bright and in her hair
She'd twined a bit of riband red;
And every step was daddy's sure,
Till tired out she went to bed.
And there alone I sat so still,
With staring eyes that did not see;
The room was desolate and chill,
And desolate the heart of me;
Outside I heard the news-boys shrill:
"Another Glorious Victory!"
A victory. . . . Ah! what care I?
A thousand victories are vain.
Here in my ruined home I cry
From out my black despair and pain,
I'd rather, rather damned defeat,
And have my man with me again.
They talk to us of pride and power,
Of Empire vast beyond the sea;
As here beside my hearth I cower,
What mean such words as these to me?
Oh, will they lift the clouds that low'r,
Or light my load in years to be?
What matters it to us poor folk?
Who win or lose, it's we who pay.
Oh, I would laugh beneath the yoke
If I had him at home to-day;
One's home before one's country comes:
Aye, so a million women say.
"Hush, Annie dear, don't sorrow so."
(How can I tell her?) "See, we'll light
With tiny star of purest glow
Each little candle pink and white."
(They make mistakes. I'll tell myself
I did not read that name aright.)
Come, dearest one; come, let us pray
Beside our gleaming Christmas-tree;
Just fold your little hands and say
These words so softly after me:
"God pity mothers in distress,
And little children fatherless."
"God pity mothers in distress,
And little children fatherless."
. . . . .
What's that? -- a step upon the stair;
A shout! -- the door thrown open wide!
My hero and my man is there,
And Annie's leaping by his side. . . .
The room reels round, I faint, I fall. . . .
"O God! Thy world is glorified."
poem by Robert William Service
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The Building Of The Temple
(An Anthem Heard In Canterbury Cathedral)
[The Organ]
O Lord our God, we are strangers before Thee, and sojourners, as were
all our fathers: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is
none abiding.
O Lord God of our fathers, keep this for ever in the imagination of
the thoughts of Thy people, and prepare their heart unto Thee.
And give unto Solomon my son a perfect heart to keep Thy commandments,
and to build the palace for the which I have made provision.
[Boys' voices.]
O come to the Palace of Life,
Let us build it again.
It was founded on terror and strife,
It was laid in the curse of the womb,
And pillared on toil and pain,
And hung with veils of doom,
And vaulted with the darkness of the tomb.
[Men's voices.]
O Lord our God, we are sojourners here for a day,
Strangers and sojourners, as all our fathers were:
Our years on the earth are a shadow that fadeth away;
Grant us light for our labour, and a time for prayer.
[Boys.]
But now with endless song,
And joy fulfilling the Law;
Of passion as pure as strong
And pleasure undimmed of awe;
With garners of wine and grain
Laid up for the ages long,
Let us build the Palace again
And enter with endless song,
Enter and dwell secure, forgetting the years of wrong.
[Men.]
O Lord our God, we are strangers and sojourners here,
Our beginning was night, and our end is hid in Thee:
Our labour on the earth is hope redeeming fear,
In sorrow we build for the days we shall not see.
[Boys.]
Great is the name
Of the strong and skilled,
Lasting the fame
Of them that build:
The tongues of many nations
Shall speak of our praise,
And far generations
Be glad for our days.
[Men.]
We are sojourners here as all our fathers were,
As all our children shall be, forgetting and forgot:
The fame of man is a murmur that passeth on the air,
We perish indeed if Thou remember not.
We are sojourners here as all our fathers were,
Strangers travelling down to the land of death:
There is neither work nor device nor knowledge there,
O grant us might for our labour, and to rest in faith.
[Boys.]
In joy, in the joy of the light to be,
[Men.]
O Father of Lights, unvarying and true,
[Boys.]
Let us build the Palace of Life anew.
[Men.]
Let us build for the years we shall not see.
[Boys.]
Lofty of line and glorious of hue,
With gold and pearl and with the cedar tree,
[Men.]
With silence due
And with service free,
[Boys.]
Let us build it for ever in splendour new.
[Men.]
Let us build in hope and in sorrow, and rest in Thee.
poem by Sir Henry Newbolt
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Tenebrae
At the chill high tide of the night,
At the turn of the fluctuant hours,
When the waters of time are at height,
In a vision arose on my sight
The kingdoms of earth and the powers.
In a dream without lightening of eyes
I saw them, children of earth,
Nations and races arise,
Each one after his wise,
Signed with the sign of his birth.
Sound was none of their feet,
Light was none of their faces;
In their lips breath was not, or heat,
But a subtle murmur and sweet
As of water in wan waste places.
Pale as from passionate years,
Years unassuaged of desire,
Sang they soft in mine ears,
Crowned with jewels of tears,
Girt with girdles of fire.
A slow song beaten and broken,
As it were from the dust and the dead,
As of spirits athirst unsloken,
As of things unspeakable spoken,
As of tears unendurable shed.
In the manifold sound remote,
In the molten murmur of song,
There was but a sharp sole note
Alive on the night and afloat,
The cry of the world's heart's wrong.
As the sea in the strait sea-caves,
The sound came straitened and strange;
A noise of the rending of graves,
A tidal thunder of waves,
The music of death and of change.
"We have waited so long," they say,
"For a sound of the God, for a breath,
For a ripple of the refluence of day,
For the fresh bright wind of the fray,
For the light of the sunrise of death.
"We have prayed not, we, to be strong,
To fulfil the desire of our eyes;
- Howbeit they have watched for it long,
Watched, and the night did them wrong,
Yet they say not of day, shall it rise?
"They are fearful and feeble with years,
Yet they doubt not of day if it be;
Yea, blinded and beaten with tears,
Yea, sick with foresight of fears,
Yet a little, and hardly, they see.
"We pray not, we, for the palm,
For the fruit ingraffed of the fight,
For the blossom of peace and the balm,
And the tender triumph and calm
Of crownless and weaponless right.
"We pray not, we, to behold
The latter august new birth,
The young day's purple and gold,
And divine, and rerisen as of old,
The sun-god Freedom on earth.
"Peace, and world's honour, and fame,
We have sought after none of these things;
The light of a life like flame
Passing, the storm of a name
Shaking the strongholds of kings:
"Nor, fashioned of fire and of air,
The splendour that burns on his head
Who was chiefest in ages that were,
Whose breath blew palaces bare,
Whose eye shone tyrannies dead:
"All these things in your day
Ye shall see, O our sons, and shall hold
Surely; but we, in the grey
Twilight, for one thing we pray,
In that day though our memories be cold:
"To feel on our brows as we wait
An air of the morning, a breath
From the springs of the east, from the gate
Whence freedom issues, and fate,
Sorrow, and triumph, and death
"From a land whereon time hath not trod,
Where the spirit is bondless and bare,
And the world's rein breaks, and the rod,
And the soul of a man, which is God,
He adores without altar or prayer:
For alone of herself and her right
She takes, and alone gives grace:
And the colours of things lose light,
And the forms, in the limitless white
Splendour of space without space:
"And the blossom of man from his tomb
Yearns open, the flower that survives;
And the shadows of changes consume
In the colourless passionate bloom
Of the live light made of our lives:
"Seeing each life given is a leaf
Of the manifold multiform flower,
And the least among these, and the chief,
As an ear in the red-ripe sheaf
Stored for the harvesting hour.
"O spirit of man, most holy,
The measure of things and the root,
In our summers and winters a lowly
Seed, putting forth of them slowly
Thy supreme blossom and fruit;
"In thy sacred and perfect year,
The souls that were parcel of thee
In the labour and life of us here
Shall be rays of thy sovereign sphere,
Springs of thy motion shall be.
"There is the fire that was man,
The light that was love, and the breath
That was hope ere deliverance began,
And the wind that was life for a span,
And the birth of new things, which is death
There, whosoever had light,
And, having, for men's sake gave;
All that warred against night;
All that were found in the fight
Swift to be slain and to save;
"Undisbranched of the storms that disroot us,
Of the lures that enthrall unenticed;
The names that exalt and transmute us;
The blood-bright splendour of Brutus,
The snow-bright splendour of Christ.
"There all chains are undone;
Day there seems but as night;
Spirit and sense are as one
In the light not of star nor of sun;
Liberty there is the light.
She, sole mother and maker,
Stronger than sorrow, than strife;
Deathless, though death overtake her;
Faithful, though faith should forsake her;
Spirit, and saviour, and life."
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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The Litany Of Nations
CHORUS
If with voice of words or prayers thy sons may reach thee,
We thy latter sons, the men thine after-birth,
We the children of thy grey-grown age, O Earth,
O our mother everlasting, we beseech thee,
By the sealed and secret ages of thy life;
By the darkness wherein grew thy sacred forces;
By the songs of stars thy sisters in their courses;
By thine own song hoarse and hollow and shrill with strife;
By thy voice distuned and marred of modulation;
By the discord of thy measure's march with theirs;
By the beauties of thy bosom, and the cares;
By thy glory of growth, and splendour of thy station;
By the shame of men thy children, and the pride;
By the pale-cheeked hope that sleeps and weeps and passes,
As the grey dew from the morning mountain-grasses;
By the white-lipped sightless memories that abide;
By the silence and the sound of many sorrows;
By the joys that leapt up living and fell dead;
By the veil that hides thy hands and breasts and head,
Wrought of divers-coloured days and nights and morrows;
Isis, thou that knowest of God what worlds are worth,
Thou the ghost of God, the mother uncreated,
Soul for whom the floating forceless ages waited
As our forceless fancies wait on thee, O Earth;
Thou the body and soul, the father-God and mother,
If at all it move thee, knowing of all things done
Here where evil things and good things are not one,
But their faces are as fire against each other;
By thy morning and thine evening, night and day;
By the first white light that stirs and strives and hovers
As a bird above the brood her bosom covers,
By the sweet last star that takes the westward way;
By the night whose feet are shod with snow or thunder,
Fledged with plumes of storm, or soundless as the dew;
By the vesture bound of many-folded blue
Round her breathless breasts, and all the woven wonder;
By the golden-growing eastern stream of sea;
By the sounds of sunrise moving in the mountains;
By the forces of the floods and unsealed fountains;
Thou that badest man be born, bid man be free.
GREECE
I am she that made thee lovely with my beauty
From north to south:
Mine, the fairest lips, took first the fire of duty
From thine own mouth.
Mine, the fairest eyes, sought first thy laws and knew them
Truths undefiled;
Mine, the fairest hands, took freedom first into them,
A weanling child.
By my light, now he lies sleeping, seen above him
Where none sees other;
By my dead that loved and living men that love him;
(Cho.) Hear us, O mother.
ITALY
I am she that was the light of thee enkindled
When Greece grew dim;
She whose life grew up with man's free life, and dwindled
With wane of him.
She that once by sword and once by word imperial
Struck bright thy gloom;
And a third time, casting off these years funereal,
Shall burst thy tomb.
By that bond 'twixt thee and me whereat affrighted
Thy tyrants fear us;
By that hope and this remembrance reunited;
(Cho.) O mother, hear us.
SPAIN
I am she that set my seal upon the nameless
West worlds of seas;
And my sons as brides took unto them the tameless
Hesperides.
Till my sins and sons through sinless lands dispersed,
With red flame shod,
Made accurst the name of man, and thrice accursed
The name of God.
Lest for those past fires the fires of my repentance
Hell's fume yet smother,
Now my blood would buy remission of my sentence;
(Cho.) Hear us, O mother.
FRANCE
I am she that was thy sign and standard-bearer,
Thy voice and cry;
She that washed thee with her blood and left thee fairer,
The same was I.
Were not these the hands that raised thee fallen and fed thee,
These hands defiled?
Was not I thy tongue that spake, thine eye that led thee,
Not I thy child?
By the darkness on our dreams, and the dead errors
Of dead times near us;
By the hopes that hang around thee, and the terrors;
(Cho.) O mother, hear us.
RUSSIA
I am she whose hands are strong and her eyes blinded
And lips athirst
Till upon the night of nations many-minded
One bright day burst:
Till the myriad stars be molten into one light,
And that light thine;
Till the soul of man be parcel of the sunlight,
And thine of mine.
By the snows that blanch not him nor cleanse from slaughter
Who slays his brother;
By the stains and by the chains on me thy daughter;
(Cho.) Hear us, O mother.
SWITZERLAND
I am she that shews on mighty limbs and maiden
Nor chain nor stain;
For what blood can touch these hands with gold unladen,
These feet what chain?
By the surf of spears one shieldless bosom breasted
And was my shield,
Till the plume-plucked Austrian vulture-heads twin-crested
Twice drenched the field;
By the snows and souls untrampled and untroubled
That shine to cheer us,
Light of those to these responsive and redoubled;
(Cho.) O mother, hear us.
GERMANY
I am she beside whose forest-hidden fountains
Slept freedom armed,
By the magic born to music in my mountains
Heart-chained and charmed.
By those days the very dream whereof delivers
My soul from wrong;
By the sounds that make of all my ringing rivers
None knows what song;
By the many tribes and names of my division
One from another;
By the single eye of sun-compelling vision;
(Cho.) Hear us, O mother.
ENGLAND
I am she that was and was not of thy chosen,
Free, and not free;
She that fed thy springs, till now her springs are frozen;
Yet I am she.
By the sea that clothed and sun that saw me splendid
And fame that crowned,
By the song-fires and the sword-fires mixed and blended
That robed me round;
By the star that Milton's soul for Shelley's lighted,
Whose rays insphere us;
By the beacon-bright Republic far-off sighted;
(Cho.) O mother, hear us.
CHORUS
Turn away from us the cross-blown blasts of error,
That drown each other;
Turn away the fearful cry, the loud-tongued terror,
O Earth, O mother.
Turn away their eyes who track, their hearts who follow,
The pathless past;
Shew the soul of man, as summer shews the swallow,
The way at last.
By the sloth of men that all too long endure men
On man to tread;
By the cry of men, the bitter cry of poor men
That faint for bread;
By the blood-sweat of the people in the garden
Inwalled of kings;
By his passion interceding for their pardon
Who do these things;
By the sightless souls and fleshless limbs that labour
For not their fruit;
By the foodless mouth with foodless heart for neighbour,
That, mad, is mute;
By the child that famine eats as worms the blossom
--Ah God, the child!
By the milkless lips that strain the bloodless bosom
Till woe runs wild;
By the pastures that give grass to feed the lamb in,
Where men lack meat;
By the cities clad with gold and shame and famine;
By field and street;
By the people, by the poor man, by the master
That men call slave;
By the cross-winds of defeat and of disaster,
By wreck, by wave;
By the helm that keeps us still to sunwards driving,
Still eastward bound,
Till, as night-watch ends, day burn on eyes reviving,
And land be found:
We thy children, that arraign not nor impeach thee
Though no star steer us,
By the waves that wash the morning we beseech thee,
O mother, hear us.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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The wind
(THE TALE)
Cometh the Wind from the garden, fragrant and full of sweet singing--
Under my tree where I sit cometh the Wind to confession.
"Out in the garden abides the Queen of the beautiful Roses--
Her do I love and to-night wooed her with passionate singing;
Told I my love in those songs, and answer she gave in her blushes--
She shall be bride of the Wind, and she is the Queen of the Roses!"
"Wind, there is spice in thy breath; thy rapture hath fragrance Sabaean!"
"Straight from my wooing I come--my lips are bedewed with her kisses--
My lips and my song and my heart are drunk with the rapture of loving!"
(THE SONG)
The Wind he loveth the red, red Rose,
And he wooeth his love to wed:
Sweet is his song
The Summer long
As he kisseth her lips so red;
And he recketh naught of the ruin wrought
When the Summer of love is sped!
(AGAIN THE TALE)
Cometh the Wind from the garden, bitter with sorrow of winter.
"Wind, is thy love-song forgot? Wherefore thy dread lamentations?"
Sigheth and moaneth the Wind: "Out of the desolate garden
Come I from vigils with ghosts over the grave of the Summer!"
"Thy breath that was fragrant anon with rapture of music and loving,
It grieveth all things with its sting and the frost of its wailing
displeasure."
The Wind maketh ever more moan and ever it giveth this answer:
"My heart it is numb with the cold of the love that was born of the
Summer--
I come from the garden all white with the wrath and the sorrow of Winter;
I have kissed the low, desolate tomb where my bride in her loveliness
lieth
And the voice of the ghost in my heart is the voice that forever
outcrieth!"
(AGAIN THE SONG)
The Wind he waileth the red, red Rose
When the Summer of love is sped--
He waileth above
His lifeless love
With her shroud of snow o'erspread--
Crieth such things as a true heart brings
To the grave of its precious dead.
poem by Eugene Field
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Introit : V. Litany Of Beauty
Joy, if the Soul or aught immortal be,
How may this Beauty know mortality?
O Beauty, perfect child of Light,
Sempiternal spirit of delight!
White and set with gold like the gold of the night,
The gold of the stars in quiet weather,--
White and shapely and pure!--
O lily-flower from stain secure,
With life and virginity dying together!
One lily liveth so,
Liveth for ever unstained, immortal, a mystic flower:
Perfectly wrought its frame,
Gold inwrought and eternal white,
White more white than cold of the snow,
For never, never, near it came,
Never shall come till the end of all,
Hurtful thing in wind or shower,
Worm or stain or blight;
But ever, ever, gently fall
The dews elysian of years that flow
Where it doth live secure
In flawless comeliness mature,
Golden and white and pure.
In the fair far-shining glow
Of eternal and holy Light.
Beauty of earthly things
Wrought by God and with hands of men!
Beauty of Nature and Art,
Fashioned anew for each Time brings,
For each new soul and living heart!
Beauty of Beauty that fills the ken
Till the soul is swooning, faint with delight!
Beauty of human form and voice,
Of eyes and ears and lips!--
O golden hair and brow of white!--
Wine of Beauty that whoso sips
Doth die to a spirit free, and rejoice,
Living with God and living with men,
Rapt rejoice in eternal bliss,
Raising his face to meet the kiss
Of the Beauty seraphic he sees above
In figure of his love.
O Beauty of Wisdom unsought
That in trance to poet is taught,
Uttered in secret lay,
Singing the heart from earth away,
Cunning the soul from care to lure,--
O mystic lily, from stain and death secure,
Till the end of all to stay!
O shapely flower that must for ever endure!
O voice of God that every heart must hear!
O hymn of purest souls that dost unsphere
The ravished soul that hears! O white, white gem!
O rose that dost the senses drown in bliss!
No thought shall stay the wing, or stem
The song or win the heart to miss
Thy love, thy joy, thy rapture divine!
O Beauty, Beauty, ever thine
The soul, the heart, the brain,
To own three in a loud perpetual strain,
Shriller and sweeter than song of wine,
Than song of sorrow or love or war!
Beauty of heaven and sun and day,
Beauty of water and frost and star,
Beauty of dusk-tide, narrowing, grey!
Beauty of silver light,
Beauty of purple night,
Beauty of solemn breath,
Beauty of closèd eye, and sleep, and death!
Beauty of dawn and dew,
Beauty of morning peace,
Ever ancient and ever new,
Ever renewed till waking cease
Or sleep for ever, when loud the angel's word
Through all the world is heard!
Beauty of brute and bird,
Beauty of earthly creatures
Whose hearts by the hand of God are stirred!
Beauty of the soul,
Beauty informing forms and features,
Fairest to God's eye,--
Beauty that cannot fade or die
Though atoms to ruin roll!
Beauty of blinded Trust,
Led by the hand of God
To a heaven where Cherub hath never trod!
Austere Beauty of Truth
Lighting the way of the just!
Splendid Beauty of Youth
Staying when Youth is sped,
Living when Life is dead,
Burning in funeral dust!
The glory of form doth pale and pall,
Beauty endures to the end of all.
poem by Thomas MacDonagh
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Its Not A Song
Day turns to night, and I turn into bed.
Cant get to sleep; somethings in my head.
Pacing the floor, I try to force a rhyme.
Why do I fear this time?
Its not a song till it touches your heart.
Its not a song till it tears you apart.
After whats left of whats right and whats wrong,
Till it gets through to you,
Its not a song.
Now close your eyes; look into your hand.
What do you see?
Life is our song, to give and learn to take.
Time will not wait.
Oh, wont you please come dance,
While the songs still playing,
Wont be long till the silence falls.
Its not a song till it touches your heart. (its not a song.)
Its not a song till it tears you apart.
After whats left of whats right and whats wrong,
Till it gets through to you,
Its not a song.
Its not a song till it touches your heart. (its not a song.)
Its not a song till it tears you apart.
After whats left of whats right and whats wrong,
Till it gets through to you,
Its not a song.
Its not a song till it touches your heart. (its not a song.)
Its not a song till it tears you apart.
After whats left of whats right and whats wrong,
Till it gets through to you,
Its not a song.
Its not a song till it touches your heart. (its not a song.)
Its not a song till it tears you apart.
After whats left of whats right and whats wrong,
Till it gets through to you,
Its not a song.
song performed by by Amy Grant
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Cloud Confines
The day is dark and the night
To him that would search their heart;
No lips of cloud that will part
Nor morning song in the light:
Only, gazing alone,
To him wild shadows are shown,
Deep under deep unknown
And height above unknown height.
Still we say as we go,--
"Strange to think by the way,
Whatever there is to know,
That shall we know one day."
The Past is over and fled;
Nam'd new, we name it the old;
Thereof some tale hath been told,
But no word comes from the dead;
Whether at all they be,
Or whether as bond or free,
Or whether they too were we,
Or by what spell they have sped.
Still we say as we go,--
"Strange to think by the way,
Whatever there is to know,
That shall we know one day."
What of the heart of hate
That beats in thy breast, O Time?--
Red strife from the furthest prime,
And anguish of fierce debate;
War that shatters her slain,
And peace that grinds them as grain,
And eyes fix'd ever in vain
On the pitiless eyes of Fate.
Still we say as we go,--
"Strange to think by the way,
Whatever there is to know,
That shall we know one day."
What of the heart of love
That bleeds in thy breast, O Man?--
Thy kisses snatch'd 'neath the ban
Of fangs that mock them above;
Thy bells prolong'd unto knells,
Thy hope that a breath dispels,
Thy bitter forlorn farewells
And the empty echoes thereof?
Still we say as we go,--
"Strange to think by the way,
Whatever there is to know,
That shall we know one day."
The sky leans dumb on the sea,
Aweary with all its wings;
And oh! the song the sea sings
Is dark everlastingly.
Our past is clean forgot,
Our present is and is not,
Our future's a seal'd seedplot,
And what betwixt them are we?--
We who say as we go,--
"Strange to think by the way,
Whatever there is to know,
That shall we know one day."
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Breathings Of Spring
Thou giv'st me flowers, thou giv'st me songs; bring back
The love that I have lost!
WHAT wak'st thou, Spring? sweet voices in the woods,
And reed-like echoes, that have long been mute;
Thou bringest back, to fill the solitudes,
The lark's clear pipe, the cuckoo's viewless flute,
Whose tone seems breathing mournfulness or glee,
Ev'n as our hearts may be.
And the leaves greet thee, Spring! the joyous leaves,
Whose tremblings gladden many a copse and glade,
Where each young spray a rosy flush receives,
When thy south-wind hath pierced the whispery shade,
And happy murmurs, running thro' the grass,
Tell that thy footsteps pass.
And the bright waters they too hear thy call,
Spring, the awakener! thou hast burst their sleep!
Amidst the hollows of the rocks their fall
Makes melody, and in the forests deep,
Where sudden sparkles and blue gleams betray
Their windings to the day.
And flowers the fairy-peopled world of flowers!
Thou from the dust hast set that glory free,
Colouring the cowslip with the sunny hours,
And pencilling the wood-anemone;
Silent they seem yet each to thoughtful eye
Glows with mute poesy.
But what awak'st thou in the heart, O Spring!
The human heart, with all its dreams and sighs?
Thou that giv'st back so many a buried thing,
Restorer of forgotten harmonies!
Fresh songs and scents break forth where'er thou art,
What wak'st thou in the heart?
Too much, oh! there too much! we know not well
Wherefore it should be thus, yet rous'd by thee,
What fond, strange yearnings, from the soul's deep cell,
Gush for the faces we no more may see!
How are we haunted, in thy wind's low tone,
By voices that are gone!
Looks of familiar love, that never more,
Never on earth, our aching eyes shall meet,
Past words of welcome to our household door,
And vanish'd smiles, and sounds of parted feet
Spring! midst the murmurs of thy flowering trees,
Why, why reviv'st thou these?
Vain longings for the dead! why come they back
With thy young birds, and leaves, and living blooms?
Oh! is it not, that from thine earthly track
Hope to thy world may look beyond the tombs?
Yes! gentle spring; no sorrow dims thine air,
Breath'd by our lov'd ones there!
poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Lost In The Mist
THE thin white snow-streaks pencilling
That mountain's shoulder gray,
While in the west the pale green sky
Smiled back the dawning day,
Till from the misty east the sun
Was of a sudden born
Like a new soul in Paradise--
How long it seems since morn!
One little hour, O round red sun,
And thou and I shall come
Unto the golden gate of rest,
The open door of home:
One little hour, O weary sun,
Delay the threatened eve
Till my tired feet that pleasant door
Enter and never leave.
Ye rooks that fly in slender file
Into the thick'ning gloom,
Ye'll scarce have reached your grim gray tower
Ere I have reached my home;
Plover, that thrills the solitude
With such an eerie cry,
Seek you your nest ere night-fall comes,
As my heart's nest seek I.
O light, light heart and heavy feet,
Patience a little while!
Keep the warm love-light in these eyes,
And on these lips the smile:
Out-speed the mist, the gathering mist
That follows o'er the moor!--
The darker grows the world without
The brighter seems that door.
O door, so close yet so far off;
O mist that nears and nears!
What, shall I faint in sight of home?
Blinded--but not with tears--
'T is but the mist, the cruel mist,
Which chills this heart of mine:
These eyes, too weak to see that light--
It has not ceased to shine.
A little further, further yet:
The white mist crawls and crawls;
It hems me around, it shuts me in
Its great sepulchral walls:
No earth--no sky--no path--no light--
A silence like the tomb:
O me, it is too soon to die--
And I was going home!
A little further, further yet:
My limbs are young,--my heart--
O heart, it is not only life
That feels it hard to part:
Poor lips, slow freezing into calm,
Numbed hands that helpless fall,
And, a mile off, warm lips, fond hands,
Waiting to welcome all!
I see the pictures in the room,
The figures moving round,
The very flicker of the fire
Upon the patterned ground:
O that I were the shepherd-dog
That guards their happy door!
Or even the silly household cat
That basks upon the floor!
O that I sat one minute's space
Where I have sat so long!
O that I heard one little word
Sweeter than angel's song!
A pause--and then the table fills,
The harmless mirth brims o'er;
While I--O can it be God's will?--
I die, outside the door.
My body fails--my desperate soul
Struggles before it go:
The bleak air's full of voices wild,
But not the voice I know;
Dim shapes come wandering through the dark:
With mocking, curious stares,
Faces long strange peer glimmering by--
But not one face of theirs.
Lost, lost, and such a little way
From that dear sheltering door!
Lost, lost, out of the loving arms
Left empty evermore!
His will be done. O, gate of heaven,
Fairer than earthly door,
Receive me! Everlasting arms,
Enfold me evermore!
And so, farewell * * * * *
What is this touch
Upon my closing eyes?
My name too, that I thought to hear
Next time in Paradise?
Warm arms--close lips--O, saved, saved, saved!
Across the deathly moor
Sought, found--and yonder through the night
Shineth the blessed door.
poem by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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I Wonder Where My Papa Is?
I wonder where my papa is,
Oh, where could he have gone,
I wonder why he does not come
And see his Lilly Long.
He would come and sit by me
When the fever burnt my brow,
I wonder where my papa is,
For he comes not near me now.
I hear no more the foot pace
In the hall by my door,
Where he would gently, gently tread
Upon the oaken floor.
His place is vacant by the hearth,
There stands his easy chair;
I hear no more his loving voice
Raising the evening prayer.
The last time I saw my papa dear
Was just five days ago,
He took me in his arms and said,
"You are getting better slow,
Thank God, my little Lilly pet
Will soon be well again,
And run about the house and play
With little Nettie Lane."
I wonder where my papa is,
Oh, where could he have gone,
It cannot be he has forgotten
His little Lilly Long.
No, he never would have left me
And mamma without aid;
I fear my papa has fallen
A victim of the "plague."
The mother listened to her child,
Her heart filled with pain
To hear her loved one mourn for him
Who would never come again.
Tears were falling from her eyes,
From her bossom heaved a sigh;
Little Lilly asked in wonder,
"Mamma dear, what makes you cry?"
"Dearest Lilly must I tell you
That your papa is no more,
That he cannot come and see you
And caress you as of yore.
He has gone to live with Jesus,
In the heavenly home above,
Where are dwelling the blessed
In God's everlasting love."
Lilly listened to her mother,
She uttered not a sound,
O'er her little pale cheeks softly
Tears began to trinkle down;
At last she sweetly murmured,
"Mamma dear, you and I
Must live so we can meet papa
In Heaven, by and by."
"Yes, my child," the mother answered,
"Your words are very true,
While we live on earth we should keep
The heavenly land in view;
Then bright on earth will be our future,
Bright as a shining star;
We will live in love together,
Till we reach that home afar."
poem by Julia A Moore
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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