Texas Cowboy
From garden-beds I tend, it is not far
To those great ranges where he used to ride;
Time’s shadowy Door still stands a rift ajar,
And Fancy, glancing backward and aside,
May glimpse him whirling in a storm, of dust,
A flashing bronze against a burning sky,
Before a sea of tossing horns up-thrust,
A peril thousand-pronged, to breast or die;
Or lying with locked hands beneath his head,
Watching the stars beside a lonely fire,
About him dim immensity outspread
Within, dim gulfs of question and desire.
He is a Thought; he is not flesh-and-bone;
He is immortal Youth astride a Dream:
The hungry flame that eats to ash and stone
The gorgeous fruitage of the things that seem;
And I (who sand, with pang and toil enough,
My roots at last down to the nether springs,
Yet, born to coax the shapely from the rough,
Have shunned the red and jagged edge of things),
A Woman with a bird, a book , a flower,
Who, sifting life, has kept the quiet part,
Whose days like pearls are sorted, hour by hour -
Why is it that he gallops through my heart?
poem by Karle Wilson Baker
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Related quotes
Annunciation
'The lord appeared in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush and behold, the bush burned with fire and the bush was not consumed.'-EXODOUS iii.2.
When to your virgin heart, unstirred, ungiven,
Upon the quiet mountainside untrod,
The sudden naked fire came down from heaven,
Burning you with the very breath of God,
Was the sun lost? Were all the sweet stars dim
While God raised round your head those walls of light?
Were you locked dumbly, terribly with Him,
Within that burning temple day and night?
What was it to have God there like a bird-
God like a great, gold flower upon your breast-
While He spake things that only one man heard,
Face down before that glory manifest?
When that strange flame went up the mountain side,
Were your forsaken lips so burned with gold
That the creatures of the wild stood off and cried,
And in your breast no blossom dared unfold?
Did you call back the startled birds to build,
And put forth all your simple buds again,
Forgetting how your branches once were filled,
In sweet embrace of passing sun and rain?
Or were all other birds forbidden sing
After those great, gold plumes had made their nest?
Was, in its strange and awful blossoming,
That great, gold flower the last upon your breast?
poem by Muriel Stuart
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Vermillion Stone
The sinuousness of sand dunes
Wind abraded stone
The sun pinwheels
Cross the sky
One feels so all alone
Pictographs on canyon walls
Pottery shards and bone
Distant dancing dust devils
Muted howls and muttered moans
Ancient beds of dry lakes deep
Vermillion cliffs, wind hone
Canyon keeps, spirits sleep
In beds of petrified stone
Time locked tight in grains of sand
In manic tint and tone
Hourglass sifting centuries, and
Mesas flat, wind mown
One feels time locked
In vermillion rock
One feels the ageless sky
The stars, the wind
Without, within
Alone…as you and I
poem by David Whalen
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Poetry
These words are not porcelain
Nor are they sculpted from a certain glass
Nor do they shine even after the hour is passed
But they break like flesh and bone
They are a metaphor
For china
For fragile things
And underneath lies the poetry
Beneath the skin
It lives and breathes
Some senses burn hot
Some passion dry cold
But beneath the tempest
Lies the still hour glass
Of all thats told
And these words are the flesh and the bone
The lines in your head
The shadow in the photograph
The stories you have lived
For who can read you, after words?
Who can know the journey you have taken?
Or understand such imprints in the sand?
And yet they the live and leave their sign
In the body of one life
yvette smith feb 09
poem by Yvette Smith
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Hearts On Fire
We saw the writings on the wall
When heathens ruled above us all
Tormented, we still heard the call
You come to bring us down
Wield the scepter, steal the crown
Time on the throne is running out
Cause seasons change but we are still the same
Event though the cold winds blow were burning like a flame
Hearts On Fire, Hearts On Fire
Burning, burning with desire
Hearts On Fire, Hearts On Fire
Burning, burning with desire
Hearts On Fire, Hearts On Fire
Burning, burning with desire
Burning for the steel
Hearts On Fire
For years shunned by society
Outcasts, condemned for our beliefs
Our legions grew in secrecy
And now, the time is here
I see the Templars everywhere
The Freedom Call is drawing near
We hold our rebel banners up with pride
The colours crimson and the Hammer is the sign
Hearts On Fire, Hearts On Fire
Burning, burning with desire
Hearts On Fire, Hearts On Fire
Burning, burning with desire
Hearts On Fire, Hearts On Fire
Burning, burning with desire
Burning for the steel
Solo: Stefan
Hearts On Fire, Hearts On Fire
Hearts On Fire, Hearts On Fire
Burning, burning with desire
Hearts On Fire
song performed by by Hammerfall
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Los Flores de la Luna
No one in the world
Be quite like you
With honeysuckle eyes
Happiness and sad
Flow through my roots
Like time through sand
I have seen the
Ever blooming lotus,
To grace these lips
Life’s most humorous
Happiness and sad
Flow through my roots
Like time through sand
Above all others
You are a flower
Growing ever more
Vibrant hour by hour
Happiness and sad
Flow through my roots
Like time through sand
All flowers will fade
As beauty will too,
But a beautiful mind
Will always remain new
Happiness and sad
Flow through my roots
Like time through sand
poem by Jeffrey McCambridge
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Lector thaasen
I read once of a flower that lonely grew,
Apart, with trembling stem and pale of hue;
The mountain-world of cold and strife
Gave little life
And less of color.
A botanist the flower chanced to see
And glad exclaimed: Oh, this must sheltered be,
Must seed produce, renewing birth,
In sun-warmed earth
Become a thousand.
But as he dug and drew it from the ground,
Strange glitterings upon his hands he found;
For to its roots clung dust of golden hue;
The flower grew
On golden treasure!
And from the region wide came all the youth
To see the wonder; they divined the truth:
Here lay their country's future might;
A ray of light
From God that flower!-
This I recall now even while I mourn;
The Lord of life has lifted him and borne
From mountain-cold and wintry air
To fruitage fair
In warmth eternal.
For where the roots were of that life replete,
What gleams and glitters! See, they ran to meet
The shafts of wisdom's goodly mines,
The gold that shines
In veins of God's thought.
Now he is lifted up, to light are brought
The riches he to guard so faithful sought.
The treasures of our past are there,
And glintings rare
Of future riches.
Come, Norway's youth! Unearth to use the hoard
That round this heaven-borne flower's roots was stored!
To you his message! Hear and heed!
Achieve in deed
His dream and longing!
poem by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
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The Magic Ring
Your touch on my hand is fire,
Your lips on my lips are flowers.
My darling, my one desire,
Dear crown of my days and hours.
Dear crown of each hour and day
Since ever my life began.
Ah! leave me--ah! go away -
We two are woman and man.
To lie in your arms and see
The stars melt into the sun;
Till there is no you and me,
Since you and I are one.
To loose my soul to your breath,
To bare my heart to your life -
It is death, it is death, it is death!
I am not your wife.
The hours will come and will go,
But never again such an hour
When the tides immortal flow
And life is a flood, a flower . . .
Wait for the ring; it is strong,
It has a magic of might
To make all that was splendid and wrong
Sordid and right.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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A Fire Within My Heart (Vengeance)
There is a fire in my soul, it has burnt me to the bone
There is a fire in my heart, it has melted flesh to stone
There is an inferno in my breast, it rages out of control
There is a firestorm in my chest, it has consumed my being whole
There is a fire in my heart, it has melted flesh to stone
There is a rage with in my soul, vengeance will by my own
There is a burning in my mind, for death I am hell-bent
There is a desire in my conscious, filled with devilish intent
There is a fire within my soul, and it rages just for you
This fire burns with anger, may it guide my sword hand true.
poem by Tim Vallie
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The Flame
I find myself remembering things I thought I'd forgot
I thought I'd gotten over you but I can see I've not
And seeing you has made me realize how wrong I've been
And the torch I've carried for so long is burning bright again
The flame is burning bright again it just took my seeing you to know
That the flame had not burned out it just had flickered low
Yes I still love you just as much as I ever did before
The flame is burning bright again and I can't fight it anymore
Could it be your seeing me has set your heart on fire
Could it be old memories has filled you with desire
Oh if after all this time you find that you still feel the same
Then come and take my hand and walk with me into the flame
The flame is burning bright again...
song performed by by Dolly Parton
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Ask For More
Id rather dance in the air than lye on the ground
Id rather open my ears than shut out the sound
Travel to the ends of the Earth and tell you what I found
I'd rather kneel down and pray than scream at the sun.
Prefer to know, than to hide from my skeletons.
I don't want to sit down and cry while watching others run.
If I missed the bus more than once, I'm not the only one.
Don't wanna wait around for things to come to me.
'Cause when my hands are tied, they struggle to be free.
And if they steal my eyes, I'll find a new way to see.
The world is forever turning, there's a thought that never stops burning
If I'm pounding at your door, it's because I'm here to ask for more.
The world is forever turning, there's a thought that never stops burning.
If I'm pounding at your door, it's because I'm here to ask for more.
Prefer a thousand hello's to just one goodbye.
Prefer the pain of the truth to a pretty lie.
Listen to the words in my head, although they may not rhyme.
Listen to the voice in my heart, some days it's so sublime.
Don't wanna wait around for things to come to me.
'Cause when my hands are tied, they struggle to be free.
And if they steal my eyes, I'll find a new way to see.
The world is forever turning, there's a thought that never stops burning
If I'm pounding at your door, it's because I'm here to ask for more.
The world is forever turning, there's a thought thats always burning.
If I'm pounding at your door, it's because I'm here to ask for more.
The world is forever turning, there's a thought that never stops burning
If I'm pounding at your door, it's because I'm here to ask for more.
The world is forever turning, there's a thought thats always burning.
If I'm pounding at your door, it's because I'm here to ask for more
song performed by by Shakira
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Song Of Heat: A Tribute
no cloud to dark
your hottie lagoon
wind sometimes travel
in the garden
rest the day
draught cracks the surface
water lost its layer
to feed the thirsty crown
....once long dawn
of rising amber
touched the wake
never to die the hallucination
of a monarch to play.........
riding rough
stone alley through the greens
of morbid
Draculic door of lying agony
generous to be haunted
to hunt the feverish apocalyptic pale
and forbidden feature
cloud alone covered
the drowsy dipper
who smelled blood
from scattered flesh
who tasted breath
from boneless cheeks
today
the thousand ponds and ditches,
river and sandy beds
raising hands above
crying shelter to suck
drops of wetly build
shouting burns to burn
your creepy scarlet
dozens of bead
made of dust
yet thirst screaming
the night in dense
of wild
and wordly dots and dashes
yet your hottie lagoon
crawls to blend
the barrels of soup to sip
if the dry goes round
the clocks of easy rounding
moments to hour
none could turn
the leaves and roots,
none could breed
the sin bypassing love...
poem by Pranab K. Chakraborty
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The Ghost
Peace in thy hands,
Peace in thine eyes,
Peace on thy brow;
Flower of a moment in the eternal hour,
Peace with me now.
Not a wave breaks,
Not a bird calls,
My heart, like a sea,
Silent after a storm that hath died,
Sleeps within me.
All the night's dews,
All the world's leaves,
All winter's snow
Seem with their quiet to have stilled in life's dream
All sorrowing now.
poem by Walter de la Mare
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Kiss Of Life
See me a big woman, big woman look how you dance
See me a big woman, big woman caught in a trance
Dancing on the tabletop, covered up with the easter feast
Youre dancing for the fishermen, from the very large right
To the least
Dancing for the slow release, first the boy and then the beast
Then the beast
Burning, buring with the kiss of life
Burning, buring with the kiss of life
See me, a big woman, big woman so full of life
See me, a big woman, big woman going to be my wife
Watching for the different eyes - they change your face -
They come inside
Watch the spirits laugh and cry, watch them find a place
To hide
Watch the spirits talk in tongues, watch them take you for
A ride
Down at the ocean lies a body in the sand
Big woman sits beside, head in hand
With heat from her skin, and fire from her breath
She blows hard, she slows deep in the mouth of death
Burning, burning with the kiss of life
Burning, burning with the kiss of life
Burning, burning with the kiss of life
song performed by by Peter Gabriel
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I Now, O Friend, Whom Noiselessly The Snows
I NOW, O friend, whom noiselessly the snows
Settle around, and whose small chamber grows
Dusk as the sloping window takes its load:
* * * * *
The kindly hill, as to complete our hap,
Has ta'en us in the shelter of her lap;
Well sheltered in our slender grove of trees
And ring of walls, we sit between her knees;
A disused quarry, paved with rose plots, hung
With clematis, the barren womb whence sprung
The crow-stepped house itself, that now far seen
Stands, like a bather, to the neck in green.
A disused quarry, furnished with a seat
Sacred to pipes and meditation meet
For such a sunny and retired nook.
There in the clear, warm mornings many a book
Has vied with the fair prospect of the hills
That, vale on vale, rough brae on brae, upfills
Halfway to the zenith all the vacant sky
To keep my loose attention. . . .
Horace has sat with me whole mornings through:
And Montaigne gossiped, fairly false and true;
And chattering Pepys, and a few beside
That suit the easy vein, the quiet tide,
The calm and certain stay of garden-life,
Far sunk from all the thunderous roar of strife.
There is about the small secluded place
A garnish of old times; a certain grace
Of pensive memories lays about the braes:
The old chestnuts gossip tales of bygone days.
Here, where some wandering preacher, blest Lazil,
Perhaps, or Peden, on the middle hill
Had made his secret church, in rain or snow,
He cheers the chosen residue from woe.
All night the doors stood open, come who might,
The hounded kebbock mat the mud all night.
Nor are there wanting later tales; of how
Prince Charlie's Highlanders . . .
* * * * *
I have had talents, too. In life's first hour
God crowned with benefits my childish head.
Flower after flower, I plucked them; flower by flower
Cast them behind me, ruined, withered, dead.
Full many a shining godhead disappeared.
From the bright rank that once adorned her brow
The old child's Olympus
* * * * *
Gone are the fair old dreams, and one by one,
As, one by one, the means to reach them went,
As, one by one, the stars in riot and disgrace,
I squandered what . . .
There shut the door, alas! on many a hope
Too many;
My face is set to the autumnal slope,
Where the loud winds shall . . .
There shut the door, alas! on many a hope,
And yet some hopes remain that shall decide
My rest of years and down the autumnal slope.
* * * * *
Gone are the quiet twilight dreams that I
Loved, as all men have loved them; gone!
I have great dreams, and still they stir my soul on high -
Dreams of the knight's stout heart and tempered will.
Not in Elysian lands they take their way;
Not as of yore across the gay champaign,
Towards some dream city, towered . . .
and my . . .
The path winds forth before me, sweet and plain,
Not now; but though beneath a stone-grey sky
November's russet woodlands toss and wail,
Still the white road goes thro' them, still may I,
Strong in new purpose, God, may still prevail.
* * * * *
I and my like, improvident sailors!
* * * * *
At whose light fall awaking, all my heart
Grew populous with gracious, favoured thought,
And all night long thereafter, hour by hour,
The pageant of dead love before my eyes
Went proudly, and old hopes with downcast head
Followed like Kings, subdued in Rome's imperial hour,
Followed the car; and I . . .
poem by Robert Louis Stevenson
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The Splendour And The Curse Of Song
Methought the unknown God we seek in vain
Grew weary of the evil He had wrought—
The piteous litanies of human pain—
Till here and there some lonely souls He sought
To bear the message of Immortal Thought,
And sent them forth to wander ’midst the throng
Crowned with the splendour and the curse of Song.
But that which still was kindred to the stars
Fought with the flesh and moaned within its cell,
And beat its wings against its prison bars.
Thus, soaring oft to heights sublime, they fell,
Dragged by the flesh into the gulfs of hell;
Till all their days were as a tumult long
Between the splendour and the curse of Song.
Yet often ’mid the fever of distress
Some singer’s lips would chant so sweet a strain
That storm-tossed souls forgot their weariness,
And comfort crept about the bed of pain,
And men took heart and dreamt of heaven again;
And to the weak came hope and courage strong
Born of the beauty and the balm of Song.
But Life was bitter to the lips that sung;
And heavier on those souls the curse did grow
Who strove to speak to men an unknown tongue,
And mournfully their hearts did weigh and know
The measure of the whole world’s cruel woe,
And wearily they fared Time’s path along
Vexed by the splendour and the curse of Song.
Theirs was the homeless hunger of the heart—
Immortal thought within a mortal breast,
Listless they wandered through the crowded mart,
Who to a careless world had given their best;
And when Death lulled them with his wings to rest
What reeked they where they slumbered calm and strong
Crowned with the splendour of Immortal Song?
poem by George Essex Evans
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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But a short time to live
Our little hour,—how swift it flies
When poppies flare and lilies smile;
How soon the fleeting minute dies,
Leaving us but a little while
To dream our dream, to sing our song,
To pick the fruit, to pluck the flower,
The Gods—They do not give us long,—
One little hour.
Our little hour,—how short it is
When Love with dew-eyed loveliness
Raises her lips for ours to kiss
And dies within our first caress.
Youth flickers out like wind-blown flame,
Sweets of to-day to-morrow sour,
For Time and Death, relentless, claim
Our little hour.
Our little hour,—how short a time
To wage our wars, to fan our hates,
To take our fill of armoured crime,
To troop our banners, storm the gates.
Blood on the sword, our eyes blood-red,
Blind in our puny reign of power,
Do we forget how soon is sped
Our little hour?
Our little hour,—how soon it dies:
How short a time to tell our beads,
To chant our feeble Litanies,
To think sweet thoughts, to do good deeds.
The altar lights grow pale and dim,
The bells hang silent in the tower—
So passes with the dying hymn
Our little hour.
poem by Leslie Coulson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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One Day
Today I have been happy. All the day
I held the memory of you, and wove
Its laughter with the dancing light o' the spray,
And sowed the sky with tiny clouds of love,
And sent you following the white waves of sea,
And crowned your head with fancies, nothing worth,
Stray buds from that old dust of misery,
Being glad with a new foolish quiet mirth.
So lightly I played with those dark memories,
Just as a child, beneath the summer skies,
Plays hour by hour with a strange shining stone,
For which (he knows not) towns were fire of old,
And love has been betrayed, and murder done,
And great kings turned to a little bitter mould.
poem by Rupert Brooke (1913)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Sun-Dial, In The Churchyard Of Bremhill
So passes silent o'er the dead thy shade,
Brief Time; and hour by hour, and day by day,
The pleasing pictures of the present fade,
And like a summer vapour steal away!
And have not they, who here forgotten lie
(Say, hoary chronicler of ages past!)
Once marked thy shadow with delighted eye,
Nor thought it fled, how certain, and how fast!
Since thou hast stood, and thus thy vigil kept,
Noting each hour, o'er mouldering stones beneath;
The pastor and his flock alike have slept,
And dust to dust proclaimed the stride of death.
Another race succeeds, and counts the hour,
Careless alike; the hour still seems to smile,
As hope, and youth, and life, were in our power;
So smiling and so perishing the while.
I heard the village bells, with gladsome sound,
When to these scenes a stranger I drew near,
Proclaim the tidings to the village round,
While memory wept upon the good man's bier.
Even so, when I am dead, shall the same bells
Ring merrily, when my brief days are gone;
While still the lapse of time thy shadow tells,
And strangers gaze upon my humble stone!
Enough, if we may wait in calm content,
The hour that bears us to the silent sod;
Blameless improve the time that heaven has lent,
And leave the issue to thy will, O God!
poem by William Lisle Bowles
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A Ballade of Theatricals
Though all the critics' canons grow--
Far seedier than the actors' own--
Although the cottage-door's too low--
Although the fairy's twenty stone--
Although, just like the telephone,
She comes by wire and not by wings,
Though all the mechanism's known--
Believe me, there are real things.
Yes, real people--even so--
Even in a theatre, truth is known,
Though the agnostic will not know,
And though the gnostic will not own,
There is a thing called skin and bone,
And many a man that struts and sings
Has been as stony-broke as stone . . .
Believe me, there are real things
There is an hour when all men go;
An hour when man is all alone.
When idle minstrels in a row
Went down with all the bugles blown--
When brass and hymn and drum went down,
Down in death's throat with thunderings--
Ah, though the unreal things have grown,
Believe me, there are real things.
ENVOY.
Prince, though your hair is not your own
And half your face held on by strings,
And if you sat, you'd smash your throne--
--Believe me, there are real things.
poem by G.K. Chesterton
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Pansy: Song-Words
IN a crooked angle
Of a garden bower,
'Neath a weedy tangle
Grew a modest flower;
Unpretending, unoffending,
Gifted but with fancy,
Unassuming in his blooming
Grew that modest pansy.
Ah! pansy, pansy,
Hope springs anew;
But fancy, fancy,
Never comes true.
Comes a maiden bashful,
Wandering here and there,
With her silken sash full
Of roses rich and rare;
Slow she takes them, dewless shakes them
In her shapely fingers,
While to choose some for her bosom
Lazily she lingers.
Ah! pansy, pansy,
Modest in hue;
Sweet fancy, fancy,
Never comes true.
With a lover's anguish
For her glance he sought,
On her breast to languish
Was his daring thought;
If he perished by her cherished,
Life was worth the leaving;
But she passes 'midst the grasses,
And she leaves him grieving!
Ah! pansy, pansy,
Sorrow for you;
But fancy, fancy,
Never comes true.
poem by Arthur Henry Adams
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