Mother Mind
I never made a poem, dear friend--
I never sat me down, and said,
This cunning brain and patient hand
Shall fashion something to be read.
Men often came to me, and prayed
I should indite a fitting verse
For fast, or festival, or in
Some stately pageant to rehearse.
(As if, than Balaam more endowed,
I of myself could bless or curse.)
Reluctantly I bade them go,
Ungladdened by my poet-mite;
My heart is not so churlish but
Its loves to minister delight.
But not a word I breathe is mine
To sing, in praise of man or God;
My Master calls, at noon or night,
I know his whisper and his nod.
Yet all my thoyghts to rhythms run,
To rhyme, my wisdom and my wit?
True, I consume my life in verse,
But wouldst thou know how that is writ?
'T is thus--through weary length of days,
I bear a thought within my breast
That greatens from my growth of soul,
And waits, and will not be expressed.
It greatens, till its hour has come,
Not without pain, it sees the light;
'Twixt smiles and tears I view it o'er,
And dare not deem it perfect, quite.
These children of my soul I keep
Where scarce a mortal man may see,
Yet not unconsecrate, dear friend,
Baptismal rites they claim of thee.
poem by Julia Ward Howe
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A Dead Friend
I.
Gone, O gentle heart and true,
Friend of hopes foregone,
Hopes and hopeful days with you
Gone?
Days of old that shone
Saw what none shall see anew,
When we gazed thereon.
Soul as clear as sunlit dew,
Why so soon pass on,
Forth from all we loved and knew
Gone?
II.
Friend of many a season fled,
What may sorrow send
Toward thee now from lips that said
'Friend'?
Sighs and songs to blend
Praise with pain uncomforted
Though the praise ascend?
Darkness hides no dearer head:
Why should darkness end
Day so soon, O dear and dead
Friend?
III.
Dear in death, thou hast thy part
Yet in life, to cheer
Hearts that held thy gentle heart
Dear.
Time and chance may sear
Hope with grief, and death may part
Hand from hand's clasp here:
Memory, blind with tears that start,
Sees through every tear
All that made thee, as thou art,
Dear.
IV.
True and tender, single-souled,
What should memory do
Weeping o'er the trust we hold
True?
Known and loved of few,
But of these, though small their fold,
Loved how well were you!
Change, that makes of new things old,
Leaves one old thing new;
Love which promised truth, and told
True.
V.
Kind as heaven, while earth's control
Still had leave to bind
Thee, thy heart was toward man's whole
Kind.
Thee no shadows blind
Now: the change of hours that roll
Leaves thy sleep behind.
Love, that hears thy death-bell toll
Yet, may call to mind
Scarce a soul as thy sweet soul
Kind.
VI.
How should life, O friend, forget
Death, whose guest art thou?
Faith responds to love's regret,
How?
Still, for us that bow
Sorrowing, still, though life be set,
Shines thy bright mild brow.
Yea, though death and thou be met,
Love may find thee now
Still, albeit we know not yet
How.
VII.
Past as music fades, that shone
While its life might last;
As a song-bird's shadow flown
Past!
Death's reverberate blast
Now for music's lord has blown
Whom thy love held fast.
Dead thy king, and void his throne:
Yet for grief at last
Love makes music of his own
Past.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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A Better Answer
Dear Cloe, how blubber'd is that pretty Face?
Thy cheek all on fire, and thy hair all uncurl'd:
Pr'ythee quit this caprice; and (as old Falstaf says)
Let us e'en talk a little like folks of this world.
How can'st thou presume, thou hast leave to destroy
The beauties, which Venus but lent to thy keeping?
Those looks were design'd to inspire love and joy:
More ord'nary eyes may serve people for weeping.
To be vexed at a trifle or two that I writ,
Your judgment at once, and my passion you wrong:
You take that for fact, which will scarce be found Wit:
Od's Life! must one swear to the truth of a song?
What I speak, my fair Cloe, and what I write, shews
The diff'rence there is betwixt Nature and Art:
I court others in verse; but I love thee in prose:
And they have my whimsies; but thou hast my heart.
The god of us verse-men (you know child) the sun,
How after his journeys he sets up his rest:
If at morning o'er earth 'tis his fancy to run;
At night he reclines on his Thetis's breast.
So when I am weary'd with wand'ring all day,
To thee my delight in the evening I come:
No matter what beauties I saw in my way:
They were but my visits; but thou art my home.
Then finish, dear Cloe, this pastoral war;
And let us like Horace and Lydia agree:
For thou art a girl as much brighter than her
As he was a poet sublimer than me.
poem by Matthew Prior
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To A Friend, With An Unfinished Poem
Thus far my scanty brain hath built the rhyme
Elaborate and swelling; yet the heart
Not owns it. From thy spirit-breathing powers
I ask not now, my friend! the aiding verse
Tedious to thee, and from thy anxious thought
Of dissonant mood. In fancy (well I know)
From business wand'ring far and local cares,
Thou creepest round a dear-loved sister's bed
With noiseless step, and watchest the faint look,
Soothing each pang with fond solicitude,
And tenderest tones medicinal of love.
I, too, a sister had, an only sister --
She loved me dearly, and I doted on her;
To her I pour'd forth all my puny sorrows;
(As a sick patient in a nurse's arms,)
And of the heart those hidden maladies
That e'en from friendship's eye will shrink ashamed.
O! I have waked at midnight, and have wept
Because she was not! Cheerily, dear Charles!
Thou thy best friend shalt cherish many a year;
Such warm presages feel I of high hope!
For not uninterested the dear maid
I've view'd her soul affectionate yet wise,
Her polish'd wit as mild as lambent glories
That play around a sainted infant's head.
He knows (the Spirit that in secret sees,
Of whose omniscient and all-spreading love
Aught to implore were impotence of mind!)
That my mute thoughts are sad before his throne,
Prepared, when He his healing ray vouchsafes,
Thanksgiving to pour forth with lifted heart,
And praise him gracious with a brother's joy!
Dec. 1794
poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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Geist's Grave
Four years!—and didst thou stay above
The ground, which hides thee now, but four?
And all that life, and all that love,
Were crowded, Geist! into no more?
Only four years those winning ways,
Which make me for thy presence yearn,
Call’d us to pet thee or to praise,
Dear little friend! at every turn?
That loving heart, that patient soul,
Had they indeed no longer span, 10
To run their course, and reach their goal,
And read their homily to man?
That liquid, melancholy eye,
From whose pathetic, soul-fed springs
Seem’d urging the Virgilian cry, 1
The sense of tears in mortal things—
That steadfast, mournful strain, consol’d
By spirits gloriously gay,
And temper of heroic mould—
What, was four years their whole short day?
Yes, only four!—and not the course
Of all the centuries yet to come,
And not the infinite resource
Of Nature, with her countless sum
Of figures, with her fulness vast
Of new creation evermore,
Can ever quite repeat the past,
Or just thy little self restore.
Stern law of every mortal lot!
Which man, proud man, finds hard to bear,
And builds himself I know not what
Of second life I know not where.
But thou, when struck thine hour to go,
On us, who stood despondent by,
A meek last glance of love didst throw,
And humbly lay thee down to die.
Yet would we keep thee in our heart—
Would fix our favorite on the scene,
Nor let thee utterly depart
And be as if thou ne’er hadst been.
And so there rise these lines of verse
On lips that rarely form them now;
While to each other we rehearse:
Such ways, such arts, such looks hadst thou!
We stroke thy broad brown paws again,
We bid thee to thy vacant chair,
We greet thee by the window-pane,
We hear thy scuffle on the stair.
We see the flaps of thy large ears
Quick rais’d to ask which way we go;
Crossing the frozen lake, appears
Thy small black figure on the snow!
Nor to us only art thou dear
Who mourn thee in thine English home;
Thou hast thine absent master’s tear,
Dropp’d by the far Australian foam.
Thy memory lasts both here and there,
And thou shalt live as long as we.
And after that—thou dost not care!
In us was all the world to thee.
Yet, fondly zealous for thy fame,
Even to a date beyond our own
We strive to carry down thy name,
By mounded turf, and graven stone.
We lay thee, close within our reach,
Here, where the grass is smooth and warm,
Between the holly and the beech,
Where oft we watch’d thy couchant form,
Asleep, yet lending half an ear
To travellers on the Portsmouth road;—
There build we thee, O guardian dear,
Mark’d with a stone, thy last abode!
Then some, who through this garden pass,
When we too, like thyself, are clay,
Shall see thy grave upon the grass,
And stop before the stone, and say:
People who lived here long ago
Did by this stone, it seems, intend
To name for future times to know
The dachs-hound, Geist, their little friend.
poem by Matthew Arnold (1881)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Exequy on his Wife
ACCEPT, thou shrine of my dead saint,
Instead of dirges this complaint;
And for sweet flowers to crown thy herse
Receive a strew of weeping verse
From thy grieved friend, whom thou might'st see
Quite melted into tears for thee.
Dear loss! since thy untimely fate,
My task hath been to meditate
On thee, on thee! Thou art the book,
The library whereon I look,
Tho' almost blind. For thee, loved clay,
I languish out, not live, the day....
Thou hast benighted me; thy set
This eve of blackness did beget,
Who wast my day (tho' overcast
Before thou hadst thy noontide past):
And I remember must in tears
Thou scarce hadst seen so many years
As day tells hours. By thy clear sun
My love and fortune first did run;
But thou wilt never more appear
Folded within my hemisphere,
Since both thy light and motion,
Like a fled star, is fall'n and gone,
And 'twixt me and my soul's dear wish
The earth now interposed is....
I could allow thee for a time
To darken me and my sad clime;
Were it a month, a year, or ten,
I would thy exile live till then,
And all that space my mirth adjourn--
So thou wouldst promise to return,
And putting off thy ashy shroud
At length disperse this sorrow's cloud.
But woe is me! the longest date
Too narrow is to calculate
These empty hopes: never shall I
Be so much blest as to descry
A glimpse of thee, till that day come
Which shall the earth to cinders doom,
And a fierce fever must calcine
The body of this world--like thine,
My little world! That fit of fire
Once off, our bodies shall aspire
To our souls' bliss: then we shall rise
And view ourselves with clearer eyes
In that calm region where no night
Can hide us from each other's sight.
Meantime thou hast her, earth: much good
May my harm do thee! Since it stood
With Heaven's will I might not call
Her longer mine, I give thee all
My short-lived right and interest
In her whom living I loved best.
Be kind to her, and prithee look
Thou write into thy Doomsday book
Each parcel of this rarity
Which in thy casket shrined doth lie,
As thou wilt answer Him that lent--
Not gave--thee my dear monument.
So close the ground, and 'bout her shade
Black curtains draw: my bride is laid.
Sleep on, my Love, in thy cold bed
Never to be disquieted!
My last good-night! Thou wilt not wake
Till I thy fate shall overtake:
Till age, or grief, or sickness must
Marry my body to that dust
It so much loves; and fill the room
My heart keeps empty in thy tomb.
Stay for me there: I will not fail
To meet thee in that hollow vale.
And think not much of my delay:
I am already on the way,
And follow thee with all the speed
Desire can make, or sorrows breed.
Each minute is a short degree
And every hour a step towards thee....
'Tis true--with shame and grief I yield--
Thou, like the van, first took'st the field;
And gotten hast the victory
In thus adventuring to die
Before me, whose more years might crave
A just precedence in the grave.
But hark! my pulse, like a soft drum,
Beats my approach, tells thee I come;
And slow howe'er my marches be
I shall at last sit down by thee.
The thought of this bids me go on
And wait my dissolution
With hope and comfort. Dear--forgive
The crime--I am content to live
Divided, with but half a heart,
Till we shall meet and never part.
poem by Henry King
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Christmas Eve
Oh, hush thee, little Dear-my-Soul,
The evening shades are falling,--
Hush thee, my dear, dost thou not hear
The voice of the Master calling?
Deep lies the snow upon the earth,
But all the sky is ringing
With joyous song, and all night long
The stars shall dance, with singing.
Oh, hush thee, little Dear-my-Soul,
And close thine eyes in dreaming,
And angels fair shall lead thee where
The singing stars are beaming.
A shepherd calls his little lambs,
And he longeth to caress them;
He bids them rest upon his breast,
That his tender love may bless them.
So, hush thee, little Dear-my-Soul,
Whilst evening shades are falling,
And above the song of the heavenly throng
Thou shalt hear the Master calling.
poem by Eugene Field
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Stay With Me (o' Dear Heart Of Mine)
stay with me
o' dear heart
live with me
my soulheart
come with me
sit with me
talk with me
sing with me
dream with me
o' dear heart of mine
kneel with me
feel with me
smile a joy with me
pain a tear with me
frown with me
but come with me
and stay with thee
dance with me
chance with me
cleanse my heart
and stay with me
o' dear heart of mine
plan with me
journey with me
run with me
walk with me
o' dear heart of mine
brand with me
trend with me
trek with me
pray with me
thirst with me
quench with me
o' dear heart of mine
deal with me
seal with me
not steal with me
but steel with me
care with me
tenderly, humbly
o' dear heart of mine
friend with me
blend with me
mend with me
bend with me
nod with me
unto lord with me
come on board with me
o' dear heart of mine
fear not with me
as far as i see
a life to be
with you and me
o' dear heart of mine
corn with me
form with me
shape with me
tape with me
face with me
race with me
sense with me
nurse with me
o' dear heart of mine
nap with me
not a trap with me
this time
o' dear soul of mine
proud is me
rock with me
my heart
o' dear heart
of mine
map with me
wap with me
come with me
alone with me
stare with me
not to sick me
nor seek me
but stay with me
o' dear heart of mine
cross with me
boss with me
sail with me
rail with me
if i cry
cry with me
when i die
die with me
o' dear heart of mine
cold with me
fold with thee
rainbow with me
shine with me
rise with me
fall with me
stay with me
o' dear heart of mine
share
and care
with thee
o' dear heart of thine
**stay with me o' dear heart of mine** january 2012 ebook
(r) opn
(c) 09.01.2012
2159hrs
***ntema's unique poetry (nup)
(p) all rights of this piece are those of the poet.
poem by Onalethuso Petruss Ntema
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Special Pleading
Time, hurry my Love to me:
Haste, haste! Lov'st not good company?
Here's but a heart-break sandy waste
'Twixt Now and Then. Why, killing haste
Were best, dear Time, for thee, for thee!
Oh, would that I might divine
Thy name beyond the zodiac sign
Wherefrom our times-to-come descend.
He called thee `Sometime'. Change it, friend:
`Now-time' sounds so much more fine!
Sweet Sometime, fly fast to me:
Poor Now-time sits in the Lonesome-tree
And broods as gray as any dove,
And calls, `When wilt thou come, O Love?'
And pleads across the waste to thee.
Good Moment, that giv'st him me,
Wast ever in love? Maybe, maybe
Thou'lt be this heavenly velvet time
When Day and Night as rhyme and rhyme
Set lip to lip dusk-modestly;
Or haply some noon afar,
-- O life's top bud, mixt rose and star,
How ever can thine utmost sweet
Be star-consummate, rose-complete,
Till thy rich reds full opened are?
Well, be it dusk-time or noon-time,
I ask but one small boon, Time:
Come thou in night, come thou in day,
I care not, I care not: have thine own way,
But only, but only, come soon, Time.
poem by Sidney Lanier
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Evening
'Tis gone, that bright and orbed blaze,
Fast fading from our wistful gaze;
You mantling cloud has hid from sight
The last faint pulse of quivering light.
In darkness and in weariness
The traveller on his way must press,
No gleam to watch on tree or tower,
Whiling away the lonesome hour.
Sun of my soul! Thou Saviour dear,
It is not night if Thou be near:
Oh, may no earth-born cloud arise
To hide Thee from Thy servant's eyes!
When round Thy wondrous works below
My searching rapturous glance I throw,
Tracing out Wisdom, Power and Love,
In earth or sky, in stream or grove; -
Or by the light Thy words disclose
Watch Time's full river as it flows,
Scanning Thy gracious Providence,
Where not too deep for mortal sense:-
When with dear friends sweet talk I hold,
And all the flowers of life unfold;
Let not my heart within me burn,
Except in all I Thee discern.
When the soft dews of kindly sleep
My wearied eyelids gently steep,
Be my last thought, how sweet to rest
For ever on my Saviour's breast.
Abide with me from morn till eve,
For without Thee I cannot live:
Abide with me when night is nigh,
For without Thee I dare not die.
Thou Framer of the light and dark,
Steer through the tempest Thine own ark:
Amid the howling wintry sea
We are in port if we have Thee.
The Rulers of this Christian land,
'Twixt Thee and us ordained to stand, -
Guide Thou their course, O Lord, aright,
Let all do all as in Thy sight.
Oh! by Thine own sad burthen, borne
So meekly up the hill of scorn,
Teach Thou Thy Priests their daily cross
To bear as Thine, nor count it loss!
If some poor wandering child of Thine
Have spurned to-day the voice divine,
Now, Lord, the gracious work begin;
Let him no more lie down in sin.
Watch by the sick: enrich the poor
With blessings from Thy boundless store:
Be every mourner's sleep to-night,
Like infants' slumbers, pure and light.
Come near and bless us when we wake,
Ere through the world our way we take;
Till in the ocean of Thy love
We lose ourselves, in Heaven above.
poem by John Keble
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To the Departed Soul of my dear friend KASTHURI-Poem-1
To the departed soul
of my dear friend
KASTHURI
POEM -1
Oh! my Kasthuri!
My dear, dear friend!
My beloved, revered, a God-send!
I know not
What sin of any sort
I ever did commit, even in thought
To lose you,
A gem of lives few
Who attained full nobility true!
To your duty tightly tied,
You were kindness personified,
With simplicity swinging in your stride!
Beauty you ardently loved,
Gulping it to your heart's content, you roved,
But by fate's cruel hand were you shoved!
Books and books you read,
All day your eyes on them, you shed,
Peace they instilled even in thy death-bed!
A loving dear indeed!
My heart's fond friend in need;
From Death's icy hands, her life I couldn't plead!
Wherever can I find
A true friend of thy kind
Taking my heart behind? .
poem by Chandra Thiagarajan
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To Chloe Jealous
Dear Chloe, how blubber'd is that pretty face;
Thy cheek all on fire, and thy hair all uncurl'd:
Prythee quit this caprice; and (as old Falstaff says)
Let us e'en talk a little like folks of this world.
How canst thou presume, thou hast leave to destroy
The beauties, which Venus but lent to thy keeping?
Those looks were design'd to inspire love and joy:
More ord'nary eyes may serve people for weeping.
To be vext at a trifle or two that I writ,
Your judgment at once, and my passion you wrong:
You take that for fact, which will scarce be found wit:
Odds life! must one swear to the truth of a song?
What I speak, my fair Chloe, and what I write, shows
The diff'rence there is betwixt nature and art:
I court others in verse; but I love thee in prose:
And they have my whimsies, but thou hast my heart.
The god of us verse-men (you know, child) the Sun,
How after his journeys he sets up his rest:
If at morning o'er earth 'tis his fancy to run;
At night he declines on his Thetis's breast.
So when I am wearied with wand'ring all day,
To thee my delight in the evening I come:
No matter what beauties I saw in my way;
They were but my visits, but thou art my home.
Then finish, dear Chloe, this pastoral war;
And let us like Horace and Lydia agree:
For thou art a girl as much brighter than her,
As he was a poet sublimer than me.
poem by Matthew Prior
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A Hymn
While thee I seek, protecting Power!
Be my vain wishes still'd;
And may this consecrated hour
With better hopes be fill'd.
Thy love the powers of thought bestow'd,
To thee my thoughts would soar;
Thy mercy o'er my life has flow'd-
That mercy I adore.
In each event of life, how clear,
Thy ruling hand I see;
Each blessing to my soul more dear,
Because conferr'd by thee.
In every joy that crowns my days,
In every pain I bear,
My heart shall find delight in praise,
Or seek relief in prayer.
When gladness wings my favour'd hour,
Thy love my thoughts shall fill:
Resign'd, when storms of sorrow lower,
My soul shall meet thy will.
My lifted eye without a tear
The lowring storm shall see;
My stedfast heart shall know no fear-
That heart will rest on Thee!
poem by Helen Maria Williams
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A Child My Choice
Let folly praise that fancy loves, I praise and love that Child
Whose heart no thought, whose tongue no word, whose hand no deed defiled.
I praise Him most, I love Him best, all praise and love is His;
While Him I love, in Him I live, and cannot live amiss.
Love's sweetest mark, laud's highest theme, man's most desired light,
To love Him life, to leave Him death, to live in Him delight.
He mine by gift, I His by debt, thus each to other due;
First friend He was, best friend He is, all times will try Him true.
Though young, yet wise; though small, yet strong; though man, yet God He is:
As wise, He knows; as strong, He can; as God, He loves to bless.
His knowledge rules, His strength defends, His love doth cherish all;
His birth our joy, His life our light, His death our end of thrall.
Alas! He weeps, He sighs, He pants, yet do His angels sing;
Out of His tears, His sighs and throbs, doth bud a joyful spring.
Almighty Babe, whose tender arms can force all foes to fly,
Correct my faults, protect my life, direct me when I die!
poem by Robert Southwell
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Plighted
Mine to the core of the heart, my beauty!
Mine, all mine, and for love, not duty:
Love given willingly, full and free,
Love for love's sake, - as mine to thee.
Duty's a slave that keeps the keys,
But Love, the master, goes in and out
Of his goodly chambers with song and shout,
Just as he please, - just as he please.
Mine, from the dear head's crown, brown-golden,
To the silken foot that's scarce beholden;
Give to a few friends hand or smile,
Like a generous lady, now and awhile,
But the sanctuary heart, that none dare win,
Keep holiest of holiest evermore;
The crowd in the aisles may watch the door,
The high-priest only enters in.
Mine, my own, without doubts or terrors,
With all thy goodnesses, all thy errors,
Unto me and to me alone revealed,
'A spring shut up, a fountain sealed.'
Many may praise thee, - praise mine as thine,
Many may love thee, - I'll love them too;
But thy heart of hearts, pure, faithful, and true,
Must be mine, mine wholly, and only mine.
Mine! - God, I thank Thee that Thou hast given
Something all mine on this side heaven:
Something as much myself to be
As this my soul which I lift to Thee:
Flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone,
Life of my life, whom Thou dost make
Two to the world for the world's work's sake, -
But each unto each, as in Thy sight, one.
poem by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
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Na Audiart
Though thou well dost wish me ill
Audiart, Audiart,
Where thy bodice laces start
As ivy fingers clutching through
Its crevices,
Audiart, Audiart,
Stately, tall and lovely tender
Who shall render
Audiart, Audiart,
Praises meet unto thy fashion?
Here a word kiss !
Pass I on
Unto Lady ‘Miels-de-Ben’,
Having praised thy girdle's scope
How the stays ply back from it;
I breath no hope
That thou shouldst . . .
Nay no whit
Bespeak thyself for anything.
Just a word in thy praise, girl,
Just for the swirl
Thy satins make upon the stair,
'Cause never a flaw was there
Where thy torse and limbs are met
Though thou hate me, read it set
In rose and gold.
Or when the minstrel, tale half told,
Shall burst to lilting at the praise
'Audiart, Audiart' . .
Bertrans, master of his lays,
Bertrans of Aultaforte thy praise
Sets forth, and though thou hate me well,
Yea though thou wish me ill,
Audiart, Audiart.
Thy loveliness is here writ till,
Audiart,
Oh, till thou come again.
And being bent and wrinkled, in a form
That hath no perfect limning, when the warm
Youth dew is cold
Upon thy hands, and thy old soul
Scorning a new, wry'd casement,
Churlish at seemed misplacement,
Finds the earth as bitter
As now seems it sweet,
Being so young and fair
As then only in dreams,
Being then young and wry'd,
Broken of ancient pride,
Thou shalt then soften,
Knowing, I know not how,
Thou wert once she
Audiart, Audiart
For whose fairness one forgave
Audiart,
Audiart
Que be-m vols mal.
poem by Ezra Pound
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Prelude To A Volume Printed In Raised Letters For The Blind
DEAR friends, left darkling in the long eclipse
That veils the noonday,--you whose finger-tips
A meaning in these ridgy leaves can find
Where ours go stumbling, senseless, helpless, blind.
This wreath of verse how dare I offer you
To whom the garden's choicest gifts are due?
The hues of all its glowing beds are ours,
Shall you not claim its sweetest-smelling flowers?
Nay, those I have I bring you,--at their birth
Life's cheerful sunshine warmed the grateful earth;
If my rash boyhood dropped some idle seeds,
And here and there you light on saucy weeds
Among the fairer growths, remember still
Song comes of grace, and not of human will:
We get a jarring note when most we try,
Then strike the chord we know not how or why;
Our stately verse with too aspiring art
Oft overshoots and fails to reach the heart,
While the rude rhyme one human throb endears
Turns grief to smiles, and softens mirth to tears.
Kindest of critics, ye whose fingers read,
From Nature's lesson learn the poet's creed;
The queenly tulip flaunts in robes of flame,
The wayside seedling scarce a tint may claim,
Yet may the lowliest leaflets that unfold
A dewdrop fresh from heaven's own chalice hold.
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
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Sonnet 38:
How can my muse want subject to invent,
While thou dost breathe, that pour'st into my verse
Thine own sweet argument, too excellent
For every vulgar paper to rehearse?
O! give thy self the thanks, if aught in me
Worthy perusal stand against thy sight;
For who's so dumb that cannot write to thee,
When thou thy self dost give invention light?
Be thou the tenth Muse, ten times more in worth
Than those old nine which rhymers invocate;
And he that calls on thee, let him bring forth
Eternal numbers to outlive long date.
If my slight muse do please these curious days,
The pain be mine, but thine shall be the praise.
poem by William Shakespeare
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Written A Year After The Events
Alas! how am I chang'd! Where be the tears,
The sobs, and forc'd suspensions of the breath,
And all the dull desertions of the heart,
With which I hung o'er my dead mother's corse?
Where be the blest subsidings of the storm
Within, the sweet resignedness of hope
Drawn heavenward, and strength of filial love,
In which I bow'd me to my father's will?
My God, and my Redeemer! keep not thou
My soul in brute and sensual thanklessness
Seal'd up; oblivious ever of that dear grace,
And health restor'd to my long-loved friend,
Long-lov'd, and worthy known. Thou didst not leave
Her soul in death! O leave not now, my Lord,
Thy servants in far worse, in spiritual death!
And darkness blacker than those feared shadows
Of the valley all must tread. Lend us thy balms,
Thou dear Physician of the sin-sick soul,
And heal our cleansed bosoms of the wounds
With which the world has pierc'd us thro' and thro'.
Give us new flesh, new birth. Elect of heav'n
May we become; in thine election sure
Contain'd, and to one purpose stedfast drawn,
Our soul's salvation!
Thou, and I, dear friend,
With filial recognition sweet, shall know
One day the face of our dear mother in heaven;
And her remember'd looks of love shall greet
With looks of answering love; her placid smiles
Meet with a smile as placid, and her hand
With drops of fondness wet, nor fear repulse.
Be witness for me, Lord, I do not ask
Those days of vanity to return again
(Nor fitting me to ask, nor thee to give).
Vain loves and wanderings with a fair-hair'd maid,
Child of the dust as I am, who so long
My captive heart steep'd in idolatry
And creature-loves. Forgive me, O my Maker!
If in a mood of grief I sin almost
In sometimes brooding on the days long past,
And from the grave of time wishing them back,
Days of a mother's fondness to her child,
Her little one.
O where be now those sports,
And infant play-games? where the joyous troops
Of children, and the haunts I did so love?
O my companions, O ye loved names
Of friend or playmate dear; gone are ye now;
Gone diverse ways; to honour and credit some,
And some, I fear, to ignominy and shame!
I only am left, with unavailing grief
To mourn one parent dead, and see one live
Of all life's joys bereft and desolate:
Am left with a few friends, and one, above
The rest, found faithful in a length of years,
Contented as I may, to bear me on
To the not unpeaceful evening of a day
Made black by morning storms!
September 1797
poem by Charles Lamb
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Youth And Death
What hast thou done to this dear friend of mine,
Thou cold, white, silent Stranger? From my hand
Her clasped hand slips to meet the grasp of thine;
Here eyes that flamed with love, at thy command
Stare stone-blank on blank air; her frozen heart
Forgets my presence. Teach me who thou art,
Vague shadow sliding 'twixt my friend and me.
I never saw thee till this sudden hour.
What secret door gave entrance unto thee?
What power in thine, o'ermastering Love's own power?
poem by Emma Lazarus
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Thou Dost Not Know
Thou dost not know it! but to hear
One word of praise from thee,
There is no pain I would not bear,
No task too great for me.
My hands could tireless toil all day,
My feet could tireless run,
If at the close thy lips would say,
'Brave, noble heart, well done.'
* * * * *
Thou dost not know it! but to win
Approval from thine eyes,
My soul has conquered many a sin,
And conquering neared the skies.
And though the reward may not be given,
In all my earthly days,
I feel that after death, in heaven,
Thy lips will give me praise.
* * * * *
Thou dost not know, may never know,
That all I strive to be,
All things praiseworthy that I do,
I strive, and do, for thee.
And though I seldom see thy face,
Or touch thy hand, my friend,
Those meetings are the means of grace,
That help me to the end.
* * * * *
Thou dost not know that thy grand life
Has been my beacon light.
I aim to conquer in the strife,
That I may reach thy height.
I strive to live, so that my feet
May walk the fields most fair,
For the after-life, seems, oh! so sweet,
Because thou wilt be there.
* * * * *
Thou dost not know how brave and strong
A woman's heart can be.
But few could hide so well and long
What mine has hid from thee.
So well, that should this idyl chance
To meet thine eye, my friend,
Thou'd scan it with a careless glance,
Nor dream to whom 'twas penned.
poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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