Immortality
So I have sunk my roots in earth
Since that my pretty boys had birth;
And fear no more the grave and gloom,
I, with the centuries to come.
As the tree blossoms so bloom I,
Flinging wild branches to the sky;
Renew each year my leafy suit,
Strike with the years a deeper root.
Shelter a thousand birds to be,
A thousand herds give praise to me;
And in my kind and grateful shade
How many a weary head be laid.
I clothe myself without a stain.
In me a child is born again,
A child that looks with innocent eyes
On a new world with glad surprise.
The old mistakes are all undone,
All the old sins are purged and gone.
Old wounds and scars have left no trace,
There are no lines in this young face.
To hear the cuckoo the first time,
And 'mid new roses in the prime
To read the poets newly. This,
Year after year, shall be my bliss.
Of me shall love be born anew;
I shall be loved and lover too;
Years after this poor body has died
Shall be the bridegroom and the bride.
Of me shall mothers spring to know
The mother's bliss, the mother's woe;
And children's children yet to be
Shall learn their prayers about my knee.
And many million lights of home
Shall light for me the time to come.
Unto me much shall be forgiven,
I that make many souls for heaven.
poem by Katharine Tynan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
New Year 2001...Ironic!
Two thousand years ago a child was born
Now two thousand years from then, centuries have been torn
By wars and hate and lusts of men refusing to be filled
Now two thousand years have been beaten and been killed
This new millennia can heal wounds of the past
Only if man looks back and stands aghast
At blood that has flowed from his fellow man
At sick and poor and the sorrow they withstand
Only then can the spirit of a child born long ago
Save the world from hate and help us to know
That through love there is a future free and clear
Let us not repeat the past in this bright new year!
poem by Gregory Huyette
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
My Fore-Elders
When from the child, that still is led
By hand, a father's hand is gone, ---
Or when a few-year'd mother dead
Has left her children growing on, ---
When men have left their children staid,
And they again have boy and maid, ---
O, can they know, as years may roll,
Their children's children, soul by soul?
If this with souls in heaven can be,
Do my fore-elders know of me?
My elders' elders, man and wife,
Were borne full early to the tomb,
With children still in childhood life
To play with butterfly or bloom.
And did they see the seasons mould
Their faces on, from young to old,
As years might bring them, turn by turn,
A time to laugh or time to mourn?
If this with souls in heaven can be,
Do my fore-elders know of me?
How fain I now would walk the floor
Within their mossy porch's bow,
Or linger by their church's door,
Or road that bore them to and fro,
Or nook where once they build their mow,
Or gateway open to their plough
(Though now indeed no gate is swung
That their live hands had ever hung ), ---
If I could know that they would see
Their child's late child, and know of me.
poem by William Barnes
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Our Child
this is our child.
not just yours or mine
but everyones, that are born in our time.
a child is born every minute around this world
beautiful boys and girls.
these children are gifts from god.
and he has chosen you to be the one
who will carry the daughter or son
look into any childs face and you will see
that they belong to you and me.
the child has a bit of all humanity
this is the way god meant it to be.
these are the children of peace
the children of love
given to us from god above.
.
i read in the papers of childrens lives taken
because of anger, fear, sickness and hate.
lets stop them before it too late
put them in jail and throw away the key.
just so that children can sleep peacefully.
if as a child you was abused, neglected, and not loved
then it's time for you to change your life around
and not let these children die on the ground.
stand up and fight, and take
pride in what you do.
the child you save, could have been you.
poem by Louis Rams
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
July 21st,1980
July 21st,1980
============
A Momentous Time Back Upon A Monday In July
The Place Where Be: New York
The Date There Be: The 21st
The Dawn Of New Life
A Newborn Angel Born
To A Sign Astrological In Time
An Astrological Sign That Resembles The Number Year 69
The Year Man First Touch Downed Upon The Moon
Of An Angel On The Rise
Man Reached Out Toward The Skies
When This Angel Came From Heaven
A Birth Timed To Perfection
A Moon Child Synchronous In Birth
To A Walk Of Man Upon The Moon
To Find A Celestial Body Here On Earth
Embodied In A Child Born Of Woman
A Monday's Child So Pure Of Face
Wholesome In Appearance
Born At The End Of A Summer Solstice
Born To The Astrological Sign Of Cancer
To Gaze Up At The Stars
To Find Her Birthed Here On Earth
A True Product Of The Heavens
A True Product Of Perfection
She Was Born Upon A Day
Aligned By The Moon
A Celestial Body Tread Forth Upon By Man
11 Years Prior To The Day To Astonish
Fore Man To Spend Their Lives
In Wait To Reach The Stars
To Find One Here Born On This Earth
A Decade And A Year Thenceforward
A Leap Year Past Toward A Leap Of Time Back
To This Very Day Of Grandeur
Man First Stepped Forth Upon The Moon
Her Very Birth Was Much Grander
poem by Ricardo Antunes
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
A Mothers Love
A mothers love is everlasting, forever
A mother and her child will always be together
A mothers love for her child through the smiles and the tears
Will stay strong for years and years
A mothers love will never die
Even if sometimes her child makes her cry
A mother can really reach up high, and touch the sky
When next to her is her child
A mothers love will reach beyond the grave
When a mother is with her child she will always be brave
Two children or one, daughter or son
More precious than the stars above
You can never take a mothers love
poem by Natasha Potter
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
One Year In Heaven
One year in heaven,
One year you've been there,
So far away,
Someday I'll see you in the air,
One year in heaven,
I miss you so much,
Smile down upon me,
And show me your love.
One year in heaven,
It seems like so long,
Since the last time I saw you,
And then you were gone,
One year in heaven,
You left earth to soon,
But I know they need you,
More then I do,
One year in heaven,
I'm alone on the earth,
I miss your sweet kisses,
And all that you're worth,
One year in heaven,
Is God really there?
Why did he take you,
As I cried in despair.
One year in heaven,
I still see your face,
The day that you took,
The last breath you would take,
One year in heaven,
Why did you die,
I know God needed you,
But still I cry.
One year in heaven,
Soon I'll be there,
So wait by the gate,
Please, this do swear,
One year in heaven,
To me it is long,
But you have no pain,
From this earth you have gone.
One year in heaven,
It's so hard to move on,
I'll send you a prayer,
And sing you a song,
One year in heaven,
Life's not the same,
Since you left this world,
I'm living in a daze.
One year in heaven,
You watch from above,
Sit there and smile,
And send me your love,
One year in heaven,
You may think it's just a day,
But this world is so different,
Since God took you away
poem by Michele Weston
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Since I’ve Been In Jail
Since I've been in jail
the world has turned around the sun ten times
And if you ask the earth, it will say:
'It's not worth mentioning,
a microscopic time.'
And if you ask me, I will say:
'It's ten years of my life.'
I had a pencil
the year I came to jail.
It wore out in a week from writing.
And if you ask the pencil, it will say:
'A whole life.'
And if you ask me, I will say:
'It's nothing, a mere week.'
Osman who was jailed for murder
completed a seven-year stretch and left
since I've been in jail.
He wandered around outside for a while,
and then got jailed again for smuggling.
He served a six-month term and left again,
and yesterday a letter came saying he's married
and a child will be born in the spring.
Now they're ten years old
the children who fell from their mothers' womb
that year I came to jail,
And the colts of that year who had long thin shaky legs
have long since become docile broad-rumped mares.
But the olive shoots are still shoots
and they're still children.
New squares have opened up in my distant city
since I've been in jail.
And our family
is living in a house I've never seen
on a street I don't know.
The bread was pure white, like cotton,
the year I came to jail.
Later it was rationed out,
And we here on the inside beat one another
for a piece of black crust the size of a fist.
Now it's free again,
But brown and tasteless.
The year I came to jail
The Second One had just begun.
The ovens in Dachau Camp were not yet lit,
The atom bomb was not yet hurled upon Hiroshima.
Time flowed like the blood of a child with his throat cut.
Later that chapter was officially closed,
Now American dollars are talking about a Third.
But in spite of everything, the days have brightened
since I've been in jail,
And about half of them
'put their heavy hands on the pavement
and on the edge of darkness
straightened up.'
Since I've been in jail
the world has turned around the sun ten times.
And again I repeat with the same passion
what I wrote for them
the year I came to jail:
'They
whose number is as great
as ants on the earth
fish in the water
birds in the sky
are fearful and brave
ignorant and learned
and they are children,
And they
who destroy and create
it is only their adventure in these songs.'
And for the rest,
for example, my lying here for ten years,
it's nothing...
poem by Nazim Hikmet
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Son In Old Age
Thy noble face, Regina, calls to mind
My poor lost little one, my latest born.
He was a gift from God--a sign of pardon--
That child vouchsafed me in my eightieth year!
I to his little cradle went, and went,
And even while 'twas sleeping, talked to it.
For when one's very old, one is a child!
Then took it up and placed it on my knees,
And with both hands stroked down its soft, light hair--
Thou wert not born then--and he would stammer
Those pretty little sounds that make one smile!
And though not twelve months old, he had a mind.
He recognized me--nay, knew me right well,
And in my face would laugh--and that child-laugh,
Oh, poor old man! 'twas sunlight to my heart.
I meant him for a soldier, ay, a conqueror,
And named him George. One day--oh, bitter thought!
The child played in the fields. When thou art mother,
Ne'er let thy children out of sight to play!
The gypsies took him from me--oh, for what?
Perhaps to kill him at a witch's rite.
I weep!--now, after twenty years--I weep
As if 'twere yesterday. I loved him so!
I used to call him 'my own little king!'
I was intoxicated with my joy
When o'er my white beard ran his rosy hands,
Thrilling me all through.
poem by Victor Hugo
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
39
Words and music by brian may
in the year of thirty-nine
Assembled here the volunteers
In the days when lands were few
Here the ship sailed out into the blue and sunny morn
The sweetest sight ever seen
And the night followed day
And the story tellers say
That the score brave souls inside
For many a lonely day
Sailed across the milky seas
Never looked back never feared never cried
Dont you hear my call
Though youre many years away
Dont you hear me calling you
Write your letters in the sand
For the day Ill take your hand
In the land that our grand-children knew
in the year of thirty-nine
Came a ship from the blue
The volunteers came home that day
And they bring good news
Of a world so newly born
Though their hearts so heavily weigh
For the earth is old and grey
Little darlin well away
But my love this cannot be
Oh so many years have gone
Though Im older than a year
Your mothers eyes from your eyes cry to me
Dont you hear my call
Though youre many years away
Dont you hear me calling you
Write your letters in the sand
For the day Ill take your hand
In the land that our grand-children knew
Dont you hear my call
Though youre many years away
Dont you hear me calling you
All your letters in the sand
Cannot heal me like your hand
For my life still ahead pity me
song performed by by Queen
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Signing the Pledge
Do you see this cup, this tempting cup,
Its sparkle and its glow?
I tell you this cup has brought to me
A world of shame and woe.
Do you see that woman sad and wan?
One day with joy and pride,
With orange blossoms in her hair,
I claimed her as my bride.
And vowed that I would faithful prove
Till death our lives should part;
I've drenched her soul with floods of grief,
And almost crushed her heart.
Do you see that grayp;haired mother bend
Beneath her weight of years?
I've filled that aged mother's eyes
With many bitter tears.
Year after year for me she prays,
And tries her child to save;
I've almost brought her gray hairs down
In sorrow to the grave.
Do you see that boy whose wistful eyes
Are gazing on my face?
I've overshadowed his young life
With sorrow and disgrace.
He used to greet me with a smile,
His heart was light and glad;
I've seen him tremble at my voice,
I've made that heart so sad.
Do you see this pledge I've signed to-night?
My mother, wife, and boy
Shall read my purpose on that pledge
And smile through tears of joy.
To know this night, this very night,
I cast the winep;cup down,
And from the dust of a sinful life
Lift up my manhood's crown.
The faded face of my young wife
With roses yet shall bloom,
And joy shall light my mother's eyes
On the margin of the tomb.
I have vowed top;night my only boy,
With brow so fair and mile,
Shall not be taunted on the streets,
And called a drunkard's child.
Never again shall that young face
Whiten with grief and dread,
Because I've madly staggered home
And sold for drink his bread.
This strong right arm unnerved by rum
Shall battle with my fate;
And peace and comfort crown the home
By drink made desolate.
Like a drowning man, tempestp;tossed,
Clings to a rocky ledge,
With trembling hands I've learned to grasp
The gospel and the pledge.
A captive bounding from my chain,
I've rent each hateful band,
And by the help of grace divine
A victor hope to stand.
poem by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
New Things Are Best
What shall I tell you, child, in this new Sonnet?
Life's art is to forget, and last year's sowing
Cast in Time's furrow with the storm winds blowing
Bears me a wild crop with strange fancies on it.
Last year I wore your sole rose in my bonnet.
This year--who knows--who, even the All--knowing,
What to my vagrant heart, for its undoing,
Of weeds shall blossom ere my tears atone it?
--New Spring is in the air with new desirings;
New wonders fructify Earth, Sea, and Heaven,
And happy birds sing loud from a new nest.
Ah, why then grieve Love's recreant aspirings,
His last year's hopes, his vows forgot, forgiven?
Child, be we comforted! New things are best.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
In Early Spring
O Spring, I know thee! Seek for sweet surprise
In the young children's eyes.
But I have learnt the years, and know the yet
Leaf-folded violet.
Mine ear, awake to silence, can foretell
The cuckoo's fitful bell.
I wander in a gray time that encloses
June and the wild hedge-roses.
A year's procession of the flowers doth pass
My feet, along the grass.
And all you sweet birds silent yet, I know
The notes that stir you so,
Your songs yet half devised in the dim dear
Beginnings of the year.
In these young days you meditate your part;
I have it all by heart.
I know the secrets of the seeds of flowers
Hidden and warm with showers,
And how, in kindling Spring, the cuckoo shall
Alter his interval.
But not a flower or song I ponder is
My own, but memory's.
I shall be silent in those days desired
Before a world inspired.
O dear brown birds, compose your old song-phrases,
Earth, thy familiar daisies.
The poet mused upon the dusky height,
Between two stars towards night,
His purpose in his heart. I watched, a space,
The meaning of his face:
There was the secret, fled from earth and skies,
Hid in his gray young eyes.
My heart and all the Summer wait his choice,
And wonder for his voice.
Who shall foretell his songs, and who aspire
But to divine his lyre?
Sweet earth, we know thy dimmest mysteries,
But he is lord of his.
poem by Alice Meynell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
A Thousand Years
Words by sting, music by sting and kipper
A thousand years, a thousand more,
A thousand times a million doors to eternity
I may have lived a thousand lives, a thousand times
An endless turning stairway climbs
To a tower of souls
If it takes another thousand years, a thousand wars,
The towers rise to numberless floors in space
I could shed another million tears, a million breaths,
A million names but only one truth to face
A million roads, a million fears
A million suns, ten million years of uncertainty
I could speak a million lies, a million songs,
A million rights, a million wrongs in this balance of time
But if there was a single truth, a single light
A single thought, a singular touch of grace
Then following this single point , this single flame,
The single haunted memory of your face
I still love you
I still want you
A thousand times the mysteries unfold themselves
Like galaxies in my head
I may be numberless, I may be innocent
I may know many things, I may be ignorant
Or I could ride with kings and conquer many lands
Or win this world at cards and let it slip my hands
I could be cannon food, destroyed a thousand times
Reborn as fortunes child to judge anothers crimes
Or wear this pilgrims cloak, or be a common thief
Ive kept this single faith, I have but one belief
I still love you
I still want you
A thousand times the mysteries unfold themselves
Like galaxies in my head
On and on the mysteries unwind themselves
Eternities still unsaid
til you love me
song performed by by Sting
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
The First Spring Day
THE sunshine died long ago,
Stifled out long ago,
And the waste of the world was grey,
And night was the best to know,
For night was to doze and forget the day,
To be warm and forgetting and still,
And need not the sun and know not the chill:
But oh, for the day that was darkened so!
Why gaze on a barren heaven,
Void and unchanging heaven,
On a barren earth in the grime,
And not a poor blossom given,
No thing that was thinking of sunshine time,
For a promise, a praise of the past?
And so one forgot the sunshine at last;
And sleep could avail, but what to have striven?
The sunshine wakes once anew,
Wakes and is born anew,
And the Age of the earth grows young,
And heaven has its youth for hue,
And hope is the tune of the spring-bird's tongue,
And the leaves in their prisons all hark,
And blossoms will know there is end of the dark:
One hour of the sun, and the spring-time grew!
The sunshine new on the earth,
Heaven to brighten the earth,
And the deathful dimness gone by,
The barren and winter dearth!
And to-day is the best till the next is nigh,
And to-night is to-morrow begun,
To-morrow, when blossoms remember the sun!
Dead hopes, are ye born with the blossoms birth?
poem by Augusta Davies Webster
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
A Mother
A mother shows the child the world
A mother is its world when small
A mother shows the child what's love
A mother loves her child like a doll!
A mother makes the home and bed
A mother cares for all at home
A mother trains the child to walk
And stand on own, perfectly talk.
A mother is the teacher prime
A mother moulds the character
A mother shows the child to pray
And trust the unseen God all life.
A mother is the child's best friend
A mother knows its needs and wants
A mother cares for child when sick
And feels so proud, when child achieves.
Children, thank God for a good mother
On ‘Mother's day! '
Copyright by Dr John Celes 13-05-12
poem by John Celes
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
To The Tree
when i'm done
with this ash and dust
wrap me in the quilt
my mother and my father's mother
sewed together
put my body in a simple
pine box if a box you must
this should be enough
to keep the carnivores
from clawing at the earth
but there in the ground
which covers my body
plant a young oak tree
so that when i'm done and done
more dust than bone
what's left will nourish
the tree as it grows
and when you visit
year after year to the tree
think of your child and your brother
becoming the air that you breathe
a way of returning
all that you gave to me
(march 2010, new orleans, la, usa)
poem by Thomas Quentin Sims
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
William Upson
Air -- "The Major's Only Son"
Come all good people, far and near,
Oh, come and see what you can hear,
It's of a young man, true and brave,
Who is now sleeping in his grave.
Now, William Upson was his name --
If it's not that it's all the same --
He did enlist in the cruel strife,
And it caused him to lose his life.
He was Jesse Upson's eldest son,
His father loved his noble son;
This son was nineteen years of age,
In the rebellion he engaged.
His father said that he might go,
But his dear mother she said no.
"Stay at home, dear Billy," she said,
But oh, she could not turn his head.
For go he would, and go he did --
He would not do as his mother bid,
For he went away down South, there
Where he could not have his mother's care.
He went to Nashville, Tennessee,
There his kind friends he could not see;
He died among strangers, far away,
They knew not where his body lay.
He was taken sick and lived four weeks,
And oh, how his parents weep,
But now they must in sorrow mourn,
Billy has gone to his heaven home.
If his mother could have seen her son,
For she loved him, her darling one,
If she could heard his dying prayer,
It would ease her heart till she met him there.
It would relieved his mother's heart,
To have seen her son from this world depart,
And hear his noble words of love,
As he left this world for that above.
It will relieve his mother's heart,
That her son is laid in our grave yard;
Now she knows that his grave is near,
She will not shed so many tears.
She knows not that it was her son,
His coffin could not be opened --
It might be some one in his place,
For she could not see his noble face.
He enrolled in eighteen sixty-three,
The next day after Christmas eve;
He died in eighteen sixty-four,
Twenty-third of March, as I was told.
poem by Julia A Moore
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Washington McNeely
Rich, honored by my fellow citizens,
The father of many children, born of a noble mother,
All raised there
In the great mansion-house, at the edge of town.
Note the cedar tree on the lawn!
I sent all the boys to Ann Arbor, all the girls to Rockford,
The while my life went on, getting more riches and honors—
Resting under my cedar tree at evening.
The years went on.
I sent the girls to Europe;
I dowered them when married.
I gave the boys money to start in business.
They were strong children, promising as apples
Before the bitten places show.
But John fled the country in disgrace.
Jenny died in child-birth—
I sat under my cedar tree.
Harry killed himself after a debauch,
Susan was divorced—
I sat under my cedar tree.
Paul was invalided from over study,
Mary became a recluse at home for love of a man—
I sat under my cedar tree.
All were gone, or broken-winged or devoured by life—
I sat under my cedar tree.
My mate, the mother of them, was taken—
I sat under my cedar tree,
Till ninety years were tolled.
O maternal Earth, which rocks the fallen leaf to sleep!
poem by Edgar Lee Masters from Spoon River Anthology
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
Vote! | Copy! | In Romanian
Remembrance of a Child
This poem is written for all children taken from this world by rape and abuse.
Remembrance of a Child
By: Adam M. Snow
Remembrance of a child,
born tender and mild,
not an age past eight.
Such innocent filled eyes,
this world despise,
now lying in this grave.
She would laugh and play,
every night and every day,
with that smile upon her face.
She could light up the world,
when she danced and twirled,
now her essence is broken.
She never done no harm,
with her joyous charm,
now her essence is tainted.
She didn't deserve what she got,
yet the people soon forgot,
how she died in vain.
Taken from home by a family friend,
raped and abused, soon would be her end.
Now tarnished and left for dead,
cold and alone she waits,
as the world berates,
now naked and afraid, she dies.
Remembrance of a child,
born tender and mild,
yet taken at a young age.
Such innocent filled eyes,
this world despise,
now lying in this grave.
poem by Adam M. Snow
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
My Playmate
The pines were dark on Ramoth hill,
Their song was soft and low;
The blossoms in the sweet May wind
Were falling like the snow.
The blossoms drifted at our feet,
The orchard birds sang clear;
The sweetest and the saddest day
It seemed of all the year.
For, more to me than birds or flowers,
My playmate left her home,
And took with her the laughing spring,
The music and the bloom.
She kissed the lips of kith and kin,
She laid her hand in mine
What more could ask the bashful boy
Who fed her father's kine?
She left us in the bloom of May
The constant years told o'er
Their seasons with as sweet May morns,
But she came back no more.
I walk, with noiseless feet, the round
Of uneventful years;
Still o'er and o'er I sow the spring
And reap the autumn ears.
She lives where all the golden year
Her summer roses blow;
The dusky children of the sun
Before her come and go.
There haply with her jewelled hands
She smooths her silken gown,-
No more the homespun lap wherein
I shook the walnuts down.
The wild grapes wait us by the brook,
The brown nuts on the hill,
And still the May-day flowers make sweet
The woods of Follymill.
The lilies blossom in the pond,
The bird builds in the tree,
The dark pines sing on Ramoth hill
The slow song of the sea.
I wonder if she thinks of them,
And how the old time seems,-
If ever the pines of Ramoth wood
Are sounding in her dreams.
I see her face, I hear her voice;
Does she remember mine?
And what to her is now the boy
Who fed her father's kine?
What cares she that the orioles build
For other eyes than ours,-
That other hands with nuts are filled,
And other laps with flowers?
O playmate in the golden time!
Our mossy seat is green,
Its fringing violets blossom yet,
The old trees o'er it lean.
The winds so sweet with birch and fern
A sweeter memory blow;
And there in spring the veeries sing
The song of long ago.
And still the pines of Ramoth wood
Are moaning like the sea,-
The moaning of the sea of change
Between myself and thee!
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!