Sonnet
Now let the draughtsman of my eyes be done
marking the line of petal and of hill.
Let the long commentary of the brain
be silent. Evening and the earth are one,
and bird and tree are simple and stand still.
Now, fragile heart swung in your webs of vein,
and perilous self won hardly out of clay,
gather the harvest of last light, and reap
the luminous fields of sunset for your bread.
Blurs the laborious focus of the day
and shadow brims the hillside slow as sleep.
Here is the word that, when all words are said,
shall compass more than speech. The sun is gone;
draws on the night at last; the dream draws on.
poem by Judith Wright
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Related quotes
Mumbai Wedding: An Obituary
Familiar signal for all to gather and bless
All rejoice but eye brims with unshed tear
Two become one, but grow more not less
Farewell to hearth draws ever more near
All rejoice but eye brims with unshed tear
The signature droning sound of shehnai
Farewell to hearth draws ever more near
Plaintive notes waft sweet and high.
poem by Mahfooz Ali
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Dream On
(being, in love)
Been travelling this road for so long
My eyes are tired but I carry on
The sun lays down its golden threads
I need a place to rest my head
Although I am far from home now
My souls with you
Its hard to be out here on my own
So far away, so far from home
I need to touch and feel your skin
To live this dream in sleep again
Although I am far from home now
My souls with you
So dream on, dream on
Freedom comes with timeless sleep
Dream on, dream on
In the arms of night
Your silent shadow gently speaks
Dream on, dream on
This hotel rooms a lonely place
Its a one night cell I must escape
So I drink away my loneliness
So I can sleep and dream again
Although I am far from home now
My souls with you
And as I fall into
The darkness of the night
You come to rescue me to
Shield me in your light
I feel your touch
The softness of your skin
You hold me close before
The day breaks in
This dreams so true
My heart it beats, it beats
It beats for you, for you
Although I am far from home now
My souls with you
So dream on, dream on
Freedom comes with timeless sleep
Dream on, dream on
In the arms of night
Your silent shadow gently speaks
So dream on, dream on
Dream on, dream on
So dream on, dream on
Dream on
song performed by by Uriah Heep
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Messidor
Put in the sickles and reap;
For the morning of harvest is red,
And the long large ranks of the corn
Coloured and clothed as the morn
Stand thick in the fields and deep
For them that faint to be fed.
Let all that hunger and weep
Come hither, and who would have bread
Put in the sickles and reap.
Coloured and clothed as the morn,
The grain grows ruddier than gold,
And the good strong sun is alight
In the mists of the day-dawn white,
And the crescent, a faint sharp horn,
In the fear of his face turns cold
As the snakes of the night-time that creep
From the flag of our faith unrolled.
Put in the sickles and reap.
In the mists of the day-dawn white
That roll round the morning star,
The large flame lightens and grows
Till the red-gold harvest-rows,
Full-grown, are full of the light
As the spirits of strong men are,
Crying, Who shall slumber or sleep?
Who put back morning or mar?
Put in the sickles and reap.
Till the red-gold harvest-rows
For miles through shudder and shine
In the wind's breath, fed with the sun,
A thousand spear-heads as one
Bowed as for battle to close
Line in rank against line
With place and station to keep
Till all men's hands at a sign
Put in the sickles and reap.
A thousand spear-heads as one
Wave as with swing of the sea
When the mid tide sways at its height;
For the hour is for harvest or fight
In face of the just calm sun,
As the signal in season may be
And the lot in the helm may leap
When chance shall shake it; but ye,
Put in the sickles and reap.
For the hour is for harvest or fight
To clothe with raiment of red;
O men sore stricken of hours,
Lo, this one, is not it ours
To glean, to gather, to smite?
Let none make risk of his head
Within reach of the clean scythe-sweep,
When the people that lay as the dead
Put in the sickles and reap.
Lo, this one, is not it ours,
Now the ruins of dead things rattle
As dead men's bones in the pit,
Now the kings wax lean as they sit
Girt round with memories of powers,
With musters counted as cattle
And armies folded as sheep
Till the red blind husbandman battle
Put in the sickles and reap?
Now the kings wax lean as they sit,
The people grow strong to stand;
The men they trod on and spat,
The dumb dread people that sat
As corpses cast in a pit,
Rise up with God at their hand,
And thrones are hurled on a heap,
And strong men, sons of the land,
Put in the sickles and reap.
The dumb dread people that sat
All night without screen for the night,
All day without food for the day,
They shall give not their harvest away,
They shall eat of its fruit and wax fat:
They shall see the desire of their sight,
Though the ways of the seasons be steep,
They shall climb with face to the light,
Put in the sickles and reap.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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The Lakeside
The shadows round the inland sea
Are deepening into night;
Slow up the slopes of Ossipee
They chase the lessening light.
Tired of the long day's blinding heat,
I rest my languid eye,
Lake of the Hills! where, cool and sweet,
Thy sunset waters lie!
Along the sky, in wavy lines,
O'er isle and reach and bay,
Green-belted with eternal pines,
The mountains stretch away.
Below, the maple masses sleep
Where shore with water blends,
While midway on the tranquil deep
The evening light descends.
So seemed it when yon hill's red crown,
Of old, the Indian trod,
And, through the sunset air, looked down
Upon the Smile of God.
To him of light and shade the laws
No forest skeptic taught;
Their living and eternal Cause
His truer instinct sought.
He saw these mountains in the light
Which now across them shines;
This lake, in summer sunset bright,
Walled round with sombering pines.
God near him seemed; from earth and skies
His loving voice he beard,
As, face to face, in Paradise,
Man stood before the Lord.
Thanks, O our Father! that, like him,
Thy tender love I see,
In radiant hill and woodland dim,
And tinted sunset sea.
For not in mockery dost Thou fill
Our earth with light and grace;
Thou hid'st no dark and cruel will
Behind Thy smiling face!
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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Sonnet On Hearing The Dies Irae Sung In The Sistine Chapel
Nay, Lord, not thus! white lilies in the spring,
Sad olive-groves, or silver-breasted dove,
Teach me more clearly of Thy life and love
Than terrors of red flame and thundering.
The hillside vines dear memories of Thee bring:
A bird at evening flying to its nest
Tells me of One who had no place of rest:
I think it is of Thee the sparrows sing.
Come rather on some autumn afternoon,
When red and brown are burnished on the leaves,
And the fields echo to the gleaner's song,
Come when the splendid fulness of the moon
Looks down upon the rows of golden sheaves,
And reap Thy harvest: we have waited long.
poem by Oscar Wilde
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Wheels
See the words appear on the wall
There for every man who's standing tall
This water's pure, the well is so deep
The only treasure that a man can keep
Miles to go, and I feel the weight
Of these chains that I create
As I climb to the top of the hill
It draws me still
And I can't look back
(Chorus)
The heart keeps on burning
Oh, wheels, wheels, don't slow down
My soul keeps on yearning
Oh, wheels, wheels, roll me homeward bound
I'm looking through the eyes of a child
Like the innocent and unbeguiled
From the east, and far to the west
Soldiers conquer in a royal quest
One by one, as the seasons change
I press on in a world so strange
As I climb to the top of the hill
It draws me still
And I won't look back
(Chorus)
We are marching in time
To the reason and rhyme
As the glory of youth starts to fade
There's no burden to bear
For a debt that is already paid
(Chorus
song performed by by Kansas
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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How Slow
How slow the time passes
On hot summer days,
How heavy the air,
And the heat, and the haze.
How slow the sun's creeping
In reaching for noon,
How long now the day-time
Belonging to June.
How dry lies the earth
In the farmer's old hands,
How slow plod the herds
As they stroll off his land.
How sweet the bird sings
In the old apple tree,
How slow the leaves falling
O'er pathway and lea.
How far the bell tolls
Over green evening fields,
How close now the haymakers'
Singing and reels.
How slow the time passes
In twilight's night shade,
How slow fell the footsteps
True lovers once made.
Written March 1995
poem by John Carter Brown
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Ancestral
The star dissolved in evening—the one star
The silently
and night O soon now, soon
And still the light now
and still now the large
Relinquishing
and through the pools of blue
Still, still the swallows
and a wind now
and the tree
Gathering darkness:
I was small. I lay
Beside my mother on the grass, and sleep
Came—
slow hooves and dripping with the dark
The velvet muzzles, the white feet that move
In a dream water
and O soon now soon
Sleep and the night.
And I was not afraid.
Her hand lay over mine. Her fingers knew
Darkness,—and sleep—the silent lands, the far
Far off of morning where I should awake.
poem by Archibald MacLeish
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Tenderly you come
tenderly you come
to touch the locks of hair
that rest there on the pillow
feathered in a dream
i sleep my silence long
two words for its spell
and no silence for a word
you touch my face and line it
up in warmth through glass
that stands there instead of window
sundialed roomed so spacious
i sleep my silence long
two words for its spell
and no silence for a word
you open eyes of a closure
'neath unfaithful sky
to write me there word cloudward
wipe me away or melt
in my sleep silence long
two words for its spell
and no silence for a word
poem by Miroslava Odalovic
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Thoughts In A Wheat-Field
IN his wide fields walks the Master,
In his fair fields, ripe for harvest,
Where the evening sun shines slant-wise
On the rich ears heavy bending;
Saith the Master: 'It is time.'
Though no leaf shows brown decadence,
And September's nightly frost-bite
Only reddens the horizon,
'It is full time,' saith the Master,
The wise Master, 'It is time.'
Lo, he looks. That look compelling
Brings his laborers to the harvest;
Quick they gather, as in autumn
Passage-birds in cloudy eddies
Drop upon the seaside fields;
White wings have they, and white raiment,
White feet shod with swift obedience,
Each lays down his golden palm branch,
And uprears his sickle shining,
'Speak, O Master,--is it time?'
O'er the field the servants hasten,
Where the full-stored ears droop downwards,
Humble with their weight of harvest:
Where the empty ears wave upward,
And the gay tares flaunt in rows:
But the sickles, the sharp sickles,
Flash new dawn at their appearing,
Songs are heard in earth and heaven,
For the reapers are the angels,
And it is the harvest time.
O Great Master, are thy footsteps
Even now upon the mountains?
Are thou walking in thy wheat-field?
Are the snowy-wingèd reapers
Gathering in the silent air?
Are thy signs abroad, the glowing
Of the distant sky, blood-reddened,--
And the near fields trodden, blighted,
Choked by gaudy tares triumphant,--
Sure, it must be harvest time?
Who shall know the Master's coming?
Whether it be at dawn or sunset,
When night dews weigh down the wheat-ears,
Or while noon rides high in heaven,
Sleeping lies the yellow field?
Only, may thy voice, Good Master,
Peal above the reapers' chorus,
And dull sound of sheaves slow falling,--
'Gather all into My garner,
For it is My harvest time.'
poem by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
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Slow Dancing
My love is cruel as the night
She steals the sun, and shuts out the light
All of my colors, they turn to blue
Win or lose
She does it slow dancing
Slow dancing
She does it slow...dancing
All night long
Scarlet eyes and a see-through heart
She saw me coming right from the start
She picked me up, but had me down on my knees
Just a beggin her, beggin her please
Take me slow dancing
Slow dancing
She took me slow...dancing
All night long
And I dont know a man
Search for himself in his lovers eyes
No I dont know why a man
Sees the truth but needs the lies
My love is restless as the wind
She moves like a shadow across my skin
She left with my conscience, I dont want it back
It just gets in the way
If you wanna go slow dancing
Slow dancing
She took me slow...dancing
All night long
Slow...dancing
Slow...dancing
Slow...
song performed by by U2
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Your Mandate
you do not like the image of the bird with a hundred eyes
and he follows you because he loves you
he exercises restraint on his fingers and sketches a petal
you want more of it and so he draws a rose with lots of red petals
just to please you but
deep within him he wants to be that bird with a hundred eyes
on a hundred wings to fly the thousand filaments of winds
but because he loves you he stays as a hand waiting
for your orders
time knows how to make a solution and
it takes you with the hard grip of its hands
your breath is taken away
and he buries you immediately deeper than you expect
to the dampness of
the earth
now he becomes a bird with a hundred eyes and a hundred wings
so free so delighted
he does not even want to mention your name ever again
despite the fact that he still loves you
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Hymn Of The Big Wheel (disc 2)
The big wheel keeps on turning
On a simple line day by day
The earth spins on its axis
One man struggle while another relaxes
There's a hole in my soul like a cavity
Seems the world is out to gather just by gravity
The wheel keeps turning the sky's rearranging
Look my son the weather is changing
I'd like to feel that you could be free
Look up at the blue skies beneath a new tree
Sometime again
You'll turn green and the sea turns red
My son I said the power of reflections over my head
The big wheel keeps on turning
On a simple line day by day
The earth spins on its axis
One man struggle while another relaxes
We sang about the sun and danced among the trees
And we listened to the whisper of the city on the breeze
Will you cry in the most in a lead-free zone
Down within the shadows where the factories drone
On the surface of the wheel they build another town
And so the green come tumbling down
Yes close your eyes and hold me tight
And i'll show you sunset sometime again
The big wheel keeps on turning
On a simple line day by day
The earth spins on its axis
One man struggle while another relaxes
As a child solemn pray my hope hides in disguise
While satellites and cameras watch from the skies
An acid drop of rain recycled from the sea
It washed away my shadow burnt a hole in me
And all the king's men cannot put it back again
But the ghetto sun will nurture life
And mend my soul sometime again
The big wheel keeps on turning
On a simple line day by day
The earth spins on its axis
One man struggle while another relaxes
(x2
song performed by by Massive Attack
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Hymn Of The Big Wheel
Horace andy
The big wheel keeps on turning
On a simple line day by day
The earth spins on its axis
One man struggle while another relaxes
Theres a hole in my soul like a cavity
Seems the world is out to gather just by gravity
The wheel keeps turning the skys rearranging
Look my son the weather is changing
Id like to feel that you could be free
Look up at the blue skies beneath a new tree
Sometime again
Youll turn green and the sea turns red
My son I said the power of ? ? ? s over my head
The big wheel keeps on turning
On a simple line day by day
The earth spins on its axis
One man struggle while another relaxes
We sang about the sun and danced about the trees
And we listened to the whisper of the city on the breeze
Will you cry ? ? ? in a lead-free zone
Down within the shadows where the factories drone
On the surface of the wheel they build another town
And so the green come tumbling down
Yes close your eyes and hold me tight
And Ill show you sunset sometime again
The big wheel keeps on turning
On a simple line day by day
The earth spins on its axis
One man struggle while another relaxes
As a child solemn pray my hope hides in disguise
While satellites and cameras watch from the skies
An acid drop of rain recycled from the sea
It washed away my shadow burnt a hole in me
And all the kings men cannot put it back again
But the ghetto sun will nurture life
And mend my soul sometime again
The big wheel keeps on turning
On a simple line day by day
The earth spins on its axis
One man struggle while another relaxes
(x2)
song performed by by Massive Attack
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I Dropped My Draws
I dropped my draws!
And instantly...
We did not care,
Where they were!
I drew her in my mind!
All the time.
On my canvas!
I caught the sunlight on her hair.
Dew dipped in the mornings,
To glisten.
With a hint of tint...
Captured by the setting of the Sun.
And after I was done...
I would collect my drawings,
To begin my long walk home!
High on Russian Hill.
In San Francisco.
And she rushed around from Chestnut.
Brushed against me...
As I turned to lose sight of the Wharf.
We bumped!
And I dropped my draws.
Scattered they flew into the street.
She noticed her image,
On nearly all of them.
She looked at me and grinned.
Within an instant...
We fixed our eyes.
And neither one of us cared,
Where my draws were.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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In Midnight Sleep
IN midnight sleep, of many a face of anguish,
Of the look at first of the mortally wounded--of that indescribable
look;
Of the dead on their backs, with arms extended wide,
I dream, I dream, I dream.
Of scenes of nature, fields and mountains;
Of skies, so beauteous after a storm--and at night the moon so
unearthly bright,
Shining sweetly, shining down, where we dig the trenches and gather
the heaps,
I dream, I dream, I dream.
Long, long have they pass'd--faces and trenches and fields;
Where through the carnage I moved with a callous composure--or away
from the fallen,
Onward I sped at the time--But now of their forms at night,
I dream, I dream, I dream. 10
poem by Walt Whitman
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Evening.
The light is drawn out of the leaves and grass,
And the sweet flowers grow pale in the gray air,
As if their beauty's essence e'en did pass
With the departing light from all things fair,
As the sap in the trees when summer's fled
Draws back to the earth, leaving the leaves dead.
The sky becomes a cloud, the hills a shade,
As the mysterious darkness fills the sphere,
A monstrous elf whose tentacles are laid
In silence upon all things far and near;
Now the bats flit about the mothy damp
In which the spiders weave their airy camp.
I, too, could fill as 'twere a dreamy bed
Under the green leaves in the darkness now,
And watch the evening planet overhead
Like a dewdrop upon the airy bough
Of heaven tremble — till my soul too grew
Like liquid light in water, shining through.
And I can feel that which the dead inherit —
Peace, and the power to forego the pain
That like a vulture on the human spirit
Draws its fine essence from the fading brain,
Till every sense contracts, and the slow breath
Oozes away in the desire of death.
So from me slips the day's disquietude,
And I am made one with the night, as those
Who pass from thought into a faery mood
On Lethe's wharf, whenas old Charon goes
Into the dusk of that eternal eve
Where all must go when the earth-light they leave.
poem by Robert Crawford
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Faculty
Sometimes it seems so hard to work out the words,
and then again it seems not hard at all. Just write,
is as simple as that. There are times i can't seem to
work the words, other times the words come up
bubbling in my head with character and meaning.
At times i feel challenged by other writers, and i
begging to doubt my ability to work the words,
i simple read another writer and then i know i have
nothing to be worry about. I understand then that my
contest is with myself and not with other writers.
We all think about the same things, because once
in our life’s we all go through the same situations.
We all have the brain to create anything in our heads.
There’s nothing that i can't do if i focus and if i
don't focus; “you see” this word- focus is meaningful
in some ways, we need the focus, but in poetry we
need more the fantasy in our thoughts, the meaning
to our words, focusing can be important, but if your
head is not in the mood, there’s not going to be any
words bubbling up, even though you don’t need it so
much, because you can create a poem out of anything.
There’s one thing about writing, and reading poetry,
understanding the meaning behind the words.
Every word or phrase has a meaning behind, this is
where readers need to understand; for example-if i'm
drinking away my sorrows, it can mean, crying my
heart out, it can mean, i need to forget, it can mean,
a big hangover, it can mean, sleeping out in the porch,
it can mean, forgetting all you did last night; how many
things out of a phrase. Right know I would just like
to be in my cabin and sit right in front of the fire-place
with a bottle of wine and enjoy my pastoral life while
i write, amazing things.
poem by Elenushka Toledo
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hurt draws a line
love draws a longer line
just above it
quote by by Indira Babbellapati (19 December 2009)
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Brother and Sister
The shorn moon trembling indistinct on her path,
Frail as a scar upon the pale blue sky,
Draws towards the downward slope: some sorrow hath
Worn her down to the quick, so she faintly fares
Along her foot-searched way without knowing why
She creeps persistent down the sky’s long stairs.
Some day they see, though I have never seen,
The dead moon heaped within the new moon’s arms;
For surely the fragile, fine young thing had been
Too heavily burdened to mount the heavens so.
But my heart stands still, as a new, strong dread alarms
Me; might a young girl be heaped with such shadow of woe?
Since Death from the mother moon has pared us down to the quick,
And cast us forth like shorn, thin moons, to travel
An uncharted way among the myriad thick
Strewn stars of silent people, and luminous litter
Of lives which sorrows like mischievous dark mice chavel
To nought, diminishing each star’s glitter,
Since Death has delivered us utterly, naked and white,
Since the month of childhood is over, and we stand alone,
Since the beloved, faded moon that set us alight
Is delivered from us and pays no heed though we moan
In sorrow, since we stand in bewilderment, strange
And fearful to sally forth down the sky’s long range.
We may not cry to her still to sustain us here,
We may not hold her shadow back from the dark.
Oh, let us here forget, let us take the sheer
Unknown that lies before us, bearing the ark
Of the covenant onwards where she cannot go.
Let us rise and leave her now, she will never know.
poem by David Herbert Lawrence
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