Hope
All treasures of the earth and opulent seas,
Metals and odorous woods and cunning gold,
Fowls of the air and furry beasts untold,
Vineyards and harvest fields and fruitful trees
Nature gave unto Man; and last her keys
Vouched passage to her secret ways of old
Whence knowledge should be wrung, nay power to mould
Out of the rough, his occult destinies.
But tired of these he craved a wider scope:
Then fair as Pallas from the brain of Jove
From his deep wish there sprang, full-armed, to cope
With all life's ills, even very death in love,
The only thing man never wearies of--
His own creation--visionary Hope.
poem by Mathilde Blind

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
Fields Of Gold
There are fields of Gold behind the little house
Filled with the greatest of treasures
Bronze, Gold and Silver
Do you remember?
Remember our childhood, Our life’s
The shinning Silver sparkling in the skies
The brightest Bronze hidden under the ground
The greatest Gold glimmering through the fields
Can you see them?
Picture it in your mind
All the times we danced
Every time we laughed
Where we used to love
Or have you forgotten?
Forgotten the good, Forgotten the bad
Every memory
Every moment
Every word
I wish you’d remember
To turn back time, So you could take me
Take me to the gold
To the fields on a summers day
To our fields, our treasure
The Silver, The Bronze
The Gold
But the treasures gone
The house still remains
The fields just as empty as the day we left
Times have changed
Our life’s have changed
Our Silver gone dull
Our Bronze all rusted
Our Gold long forgotten
It was never there
The winds of time and turns of the earth have seen to that
But I remember
I cry for the children who found the greatest of treasures and those who lost it so soon after
And I dream of dancing and singing and running and laughter, of the treasures that lie in the fields of Gold.
poem by Carrie Halliday

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Precious Treasures
Past sunsets as chains and anchors
Past sunsets as beauties of love’s connection
Hope as gold from a furnace
Hope as dragons of the east
Know the valued fuel of energy
The reasons for the strength of nature
Know the treasure worthy of all treasures
The reason for the strength of nature
Let your frozen moments hold you with soothing hands
Buried in the soil of the coming sunsets
Let the enlightened one be your guide
Showing the hidden treasures of secret places
Know the right reflections of love
The key to living treasures
Know the way above the adored
You will be humanity’s most precious
poem by Feyisayo Anjorin

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Bible Stories: Job (Chapter XXVIII)
There is a place for everything:
A mine for gold, and for silver;
Extracted is iron from earth;
And melted is from stone, copper.
Out of the earth, our food comes first;
It also gives us golden dust;
Out of its stones, comes sapphire;
Its bowels inside is afire.
But wherefrom wisdom can be gained?
Wherefrom understanding is rained?
Nothing equal to it, man knows;
Our living earth is not its source.
It cannot be purchased by gold;
To silver too, it can’t be sold;
No precious metals can buy it;
To hold, no gold vessel is fit.
Wisdom is more than priceless stone;
Wherefrom it comes, remains unknown;
From every beast, it hidden stays;
No bird or eyes have seen its ways.
No beast has ever trodden it;
The seas, abyss are far unfit;
Abaddon never came across;
To death, it was always a cross.
God only knows the way to it;
He knows the place by mere habit;
For, He beholds the ends of earth:
All under heavens that have birth!
Even the darkness has confines;
To farthest realms, His glory shines;
He knows the nature of each rock,
And pow’r to mountains even knock.
All precious things, He knows by heart,
And probes the springs and streams by art;
All hidden things, He brings to light,
And knows the wind by weight and might.
Even the rain follows His rule;
Nothing on earth can dare Him fool;
He fixed the scope of waters too;
And knew wisdom all through and through.
To man, God said, the fear of God-
Fortitude is wisdom, Behold!
Avoiding evil, more than gold-
Understanding, comes from the Lord!
Copyright by Dr John Celes 5-8-2007
poem by John Celes

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Storm
O GRIP the earth, ye forest trees,
Grip well the earth to-night,
The Storm-God rides across the seas
To greet the morning light.
All clouds that wander through the skies
Are tangled in his net,
The frightened stars have shut their eyes,
The breakers fume and fret.
The birds that cheer the woods all day
Now tremble in their nests,
The giant branches round them sway,
The wild wind never rests.
The squirrel and the cunning fox
Have hurried to their holes,
Far off, like distant earthquake shocks,
The muffled thunder rolls.
In scores of hidden woodland dells,
Where no rough winds can harm,
The timid wild-flowers toss their bells
In reasonless alarm.
Only the mountains rear their forms,
Silent and grim and bold;
To them the voices of the storms
Are as a tale re-told.
They saw the stars in heaven hung,
They heard the great Sea's birth,
They know the ancient pain that wrung
The entrails of the Earth.
Sprung from great Nature's royal lines,
They share her deep repose,–
Their rugged shoulders robed in pines,
Their foreheads crowned with snows.
But now there comes a lightning flash,
And now on hill and plain
The charging clouds in fury dash,
And blind the world with rain.
poem by Frederick George Scott

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
As God Gave Freely
As God gave freely unto me
gifts of compassion love patience time
so I also give freely unto you
in the fertile landscapes of harvest mind
have I not prepared fields broken ground
have I not sown in full measure love seed
will you now take ownership of these fields?
will you water fertilize tender growth shoots?
will you weed harvest all life love gift fields?
for 18 months more have I alone toiled prepared?
are not these fields without cost to you purchased?
did I not give sacred work all my time livelihood?
will you choose to help harvest these compassion seeds?
will you let peace love flower with purity in your minds?
will you turn swords into plough shears till peace fields?
poem by Terence George Craddock

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Earth Day,2008
Save planet earth;
Save earth from man;
Save all species,
Including man!
Man spills the oil
Upon the seas,
And kills the fish,
Birds, ruthlessly!
Man steals the shelf
Of coral reef,
And ruins grounds
Where fishes breed.
Man flattens hills,
Breaks mountains whole,
For granite stones:
So climes vary.
Man warms the earth
In many ways,
And makes the hole
In ozone sky.
Man shifts the weight
On earth’s surface,
By sky-scrapers:
And born are quakes
Man deforests
For farming lands;
Wild beasts come out
To eat his crops.
Man poaches beasts
For skin and bones,
And builds reserves
To save species.
Man sinks bore-wells
For raising crops,
And drought occurs
As trees are cut.
Man pollutes air
And water, soil;
Diseases come
New, unheard of.
Man makes genes too,
And clones some beasts;
But can’t breathe life
To things he makes.
Man kills his own
Through abortions,
And brags he does
For Eugenics.
Man wastes money
And resources,
While people starve
To death, in crowds.
Man spoils Nature
In many ways,
But takes not blame
For blunders made.
Man does most things
In stupid ways,
Quite hazardous
To human race.
Man acts like God
In every field
But cannot ape
The Maker’s feat.
Man boasts with pride
The things he makes;
Not one seems good
Like how God made.
Mother Nature
Has her balance;
Let man align
To her, sweet ways.
No man can beat
The Maker’s feat;
No creature can
Surpass the Lord!
Save planet earth;
Save earth from man;
Save all species,
Including man!
Copyright by Dr John Celes 4-16-2008
poem by John Celes

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Aesop
HE sat among the woods; he heard
The sylvan merriment; he saw
The pranks of butterfly and bird,
The humors of the ape, the daw.
And in the lion or the frog,—
In all the life of moor and fen,—
In ass and peacock, stork and dog,
He read similitudes of men.
“Of these, from those,” he cried, “we come,
Our hearts, our brains descend from these.”
And, lo! the Beasts no more were dumb,
But answered out of brakes and trees:
“Not ours,” they cried; “Degenerate,
If ours at all,” they cried again,
“Ye fools, who war with God and Fate,
Who strive and toil; strange race of men.
“For we are neither bond nor free,
For we have neither slaves nor kings;
But near to Nature’s heart are we,
And conscious of her secret things.
“Content are we to fall asleep,
And well content to wake no more;
We do not laugh, we do not weep,
Nor look behind us and before:
“But were there cause for moan or mirth,
’T is we, not you, should sigh or scorn,
Oh, latest children of the Earth,
Most childish children Earth has born.”
They spoke, but that misshapen slave
Told never of the thing he heard,
And unto men their portraits gave,
In likenesses of beast and bird!
poem by Andrew Lang

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Aurobindo 152 Savitri Book 10
An appreciation on Savitri-
Book Ten: The Book of the Double Twilight
Canto Three - The Debate of Love and Death
Words within inverted commas are Aurobindo's
'Death bowed his sovereign head in cold assent:
'I give to thee, saved from death and poignant fate
Whatever once the living Satyavan
Desired in his heart for Savitri.
Bright noons I give thee and unwounded dawns,
Daughters of thy own shape in heart and mind,
Fair hero sons and sweetness undisturbed
Of union with thy husband dear and true.'
A ransom-whim to provoke her to return to earth
Wonderful cunning words by Death..
'The opposite sweetness in thy days shall meet
Of tender service to thy life's desired'
'Two poles of bliss made one, O Savitri.
Return, O child, to thy forsaken earth.'
'But Savitri replied, 'Thy gifts resist.
Earth cannot flower if lonely I return.'
'What knowst thou of earth's rich and changing life
Who thinkst that one man dead all joy must cease? '
O'Death fair your words to Savitri? much unfair
'Hope not to be unhappy till the end:
For grief dies soon in the tired human heart;
Soon other guests the empty chambers fill.
A transient painting on a holiday's floor
Traced for a moment's beauty love was made.'
'Give me back Satyavan, my only lord.
Thy thoughts are vacant to my soul that feels
The deep eternal truth in transient things.'
'Death answered her, 'Return and try thy soul!
Soon shalt thou find appeased that other men
On lavish earth have beauty, strength and truth, '...
............My consciousness this moment,
O'Guru, I'm in awe....in invincible heights
Ineffable Thee embellishing poetic creation
My inquisitive apprehension, erring Thee may opine
May thereso, let Savitri in my self arise
Aroused thereso be knowledge and fortune
poem by Indira Renganathan

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Fragments
Open horizons round,
O mounting mind, to scenes unsung,
Wherein shall walk a lusty Time:
Our Earth is young;
Of measure without bound;
Infinite are the heights to climb,
The depths to sound.
A wilding little stubble flower
The sickle scorned which cut for wheat,
Such was our hope in that dark hour
When nought save uses held the street,
And daily pleasures, daily needs,
With barren vision, looked ahead.
And still the same result of seeds
Gave likeness 'twixt the live and dead.
From labours through the night, outworn,
Above the hills the front of morn
We see, whose eyes to heights are raised,
And the world's wise may deem us crazed.
While yet her lord lies under seas,
She takes us as the wind the trees'
Delighted leafage; all in song
We mount to her, to her belong.
This love of nature, that allures to take
Irregularity for harmony
Of larger scope than our hard measures make,
Cherish it as thy school for when on thee
The ills of life descend.
poem by George Meredith

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Preservation
Once upon a time
In a faraway land
Lived a villain called flash
He was such a wicked man
He terrorized the people
He broke arms and crushed hands
He ruled with a fist and he purchased all the land
Then he plowed up the fields and cut down the trees
For property speculation
And he did it all for a pot of gold
And for his own preservation
The people were scared
They didnt know where to turn
They couldnt see any salvation
From the hoods and the spivs
And the crooked politicians
Who were cheating and lying to the nation
Save the fields and the trees
And give them back to the nation
Bring the government down
A new leader must be found
For the sake of preservation
He said he did it to help us all
And did it for the good of the nation
But he did it for a pot of gold
And for his own preservation
When money is evil
And power is corrupt
The devil moves in and takes over
Mr. flash broke his word
And now hes got to pay
For his crimes and his lies and his evil ways
And its gonna get rough
And its gonna get rough
Its a crime and a sin that no one can win
In a story of self preservation
song performed by by Kinks

Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!

The Last Hero
The wind blew out from Bergen from the dawning to the day,
There was a wreck of trees and fall of towers a score of miles away,
And drifted like a livid leaf I go before its tide,
Spewed out of house and stable, beggared of flag and bride.
The heavens are bowed about my head, shouting like seraph wars,
With rains that might put out the sun and clean the sky of stars,
Rains like the fall of ruined seas from secret worlds above,
The roaring of the rains of God none but the lonely love.
Feast in my hall, O foemen, and eat and drink and drain,
You never loved the sun in heaven as I have loved the rain.
The chance of battle changes -- so may all battle be;
I stole my lady bride from them, they stole her back from me.
I rent her from her red-roofed hall, I rode and saw arise,
More lovely than the living flowers the hatred in her eyes.
She never loved me, never bent, never was less divine;
The sunset never loved me, the wind was never mine.
Was it all nothing that she stood imperial in duresse?
Silence itself made softer with the sweeping of her dress.
O you who drain the cup of life, O you who wear the crown,
You never loved a woman's smile as I have loved her frown.
The wind blew out from Bergen to the dawning of the day,
They ride and run with fifty spears to break and bar my way,
I shall not die alone, alone, but kin to all the powers,
As merry as the ancient sun and fighting like the flowers.
How white their steel, how bright their eyes! I love each laughing knave,
Cry high and bid him welcome to the banquet of the brave.
Yea, I will bless them as they bend and love them where they lie,
When on their skulls the sword I swing falls shattering from the sky.
The hour when death is like a light and blood is like a rose,-
You never loved your friends, my friends, as I shall love my foes.
Know you what earth shall lose to-night, what rich uncounted loans,
What heavy gold of tales untold you bury with my bones?
My loves in deep dim meadows, my ships that rode at ease,
Ruffling the purple plumage of strange and secret seas.
To see this fair earth as it is to me alone was given,
The blow that breaks my brow to-night shall break the dome of heaven.
The skies I saw, the trees I saw after no eyes shall see,
To-night I die the death of God; the stars shall die with me;
One sound shall sunder all the spears and break the trumpet's breath:
You never laughed in all your life as I shall laugh in death.
poem by G.K. Chesterton

Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
Vote! | Copy!

Generation To Generation
In a house which becomes a home,
one hands down and another takes up
the heritage of mind and heart,
laughter and tears, musings and deeds.
Love, like a carefully loaded ship,
crosses the gulf between the generations.
Therefore, we do not neglect the ceremonies
of our passage: when we wed, when we die,
and when we are blessed with a child;
When we depart and when we return;
When we plant and when we harvest.
Let us bring up our children. It is not
the place of some official to hand to them
their heritage.
If others impart to our children our knowledge
and ideals, they will lose all of us that is
wordless and full of wonder.
Let us build memories in our children,
lest they drag out joyless lives,
lest they allow treasures to be lost because
they have not been given the keys.
We live, not by things, but by the meanings
of things. It is needful to transmit the passwords
from generation to generation.
poem by Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Last Hero
The wind blew out from Bergen from the dawning to the day,
There was a wreck of trees and fall of towers a score of miles away,
And drifted like a livid leaf I go before its tide,
Spewed out of house and stable, beggared of flag and bride.
The heavens are bowed about my head, shouting like seraph wars,
With rains that might put out the sun and clean the sky of stars,
Rains like the fall of ruined seas from secret worlds above,
The roaring of the rains of God none but the lonely love.
Feast in my hall, O foemen, and eat and drink and drain,
You never loved the sun in heaven as I have loved the rain.
The chance of battle changes -- so may all battle be;
I stole my lady bride from them, they stole her back from me.
I rent her from her red-roofed hall, I rode and saw arise,
More lovely than the living flowers the hatred in her eyes.
She never loved me, never bent, never was less divine;
The sunset never loved me, the wind was never mine.
Was it all nothing that she stood imperial in duresse?
Silence itself made softer with the sweeping of her dress.
O you who drain the cup of life, O you who wear the crown,
You never loved a woman's smile as I have loved her frown.
The wind blew out from Bergen to the dawning of the day,
They ride and run with fifty spears to break and bar my way,
I shall not die alone, alone, but kin to all the powers,
As merry as the ancient sun and fighting like the flowers.
How white their steel, how bright their eyes! I love each laughing knave,
Cry high and bid him welcome to the banquet of the brave.
Yea, I will bless them as they bend and love them where they lie,
When on their skulls the sword I swing falls shattering from the sky.
The hour when death is like a light and blood is like a rose, --
You never loved your friends, my friends, as I shall love my foes.
Know you what earth shall lose to-night, what rich uncounted loans,
What heavy gold of tales untold you bury with my bones?
My loves in deep dim meadows, my ships that rode at ease,
Ruffling the purple plumage of strange and secret seas.
To see this fair earth as it is to me alone was given,
The blow that breaks my brow to-night shall break the dome of heaven.
The skies I saw, the trees I saw after no eyes shall see,
To-night I die the death of God; the stars shall die with me;
One sound shall sunder all the spears and break the trumpet's breath:
You never laughed in all your life as I shall laugh in death.
poem by Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Dawn
All the wild waves rock'd in shadow,
And the world was dim and grey,
Dark and silent, hush'd and breathless,
Waiting calmly for the day.
And the golden light came stealing
O'er the mountain-tops at last—
Flooding vale and wood and upland,—
It was morning—night was past.
There they lay—the silvery waters,
Fruitful forests, glade and lawn,—
All in beauty, new-created
By the angel of the dawn.
* * * * *
So my spirit slept in twilight;—
All was quiet, grey, and still,
Till the dawn of Love came stealing,
Over Hope's snow-crested hill.
Then the dim world woke in glory,
And the iris-dyes grew bright
On the waves and woods and valleys,
In a morning flood of light.
Ah! the vineyards and the gardens!—
Ah! the treasures, rich and rare,
Full of endless life and beauty,
Which that dawn created there!
poem by Ada Cambridge

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
For The New Year
FLUSHED with a crimson sunrise beauty,
The fair new year its promise gave;
Such dreams we had of love, of duty,
Of heights to scale, of foes to brave!
Oh, how hope's fire our future lighted--
How much to do, how much to know,
Yet on its brink we shrank affrighted
A year ago.
And now the year is done--its pleasure
So brief, so bright--its hours of pain;
Some moments' memories we treasure,
Some recollections loathe in vain.
Oh, for a brain where could not waken
Remembrances of purpose crossed,
Of trusts abandoned, aims forsaken,
And chances lost!
The changing seasons thrust upon us
Another year, fair-faced and new;
What evil have the old years done us
That this in its turn will not do?
This, too, will die, and leave us grieving
For all the ills its arms enfold--
For faiths betrayed, for friends deceiving,
And love grown cold.
We have been fooled. The hopes that fooled us--
We know them now--have been a lie;
The star that led, the light that ruled us--
We scorn them, and we pass them by.
Shut out hope's light; past is the season
When rose-red glow seemed good to see.
Look--by the cold white light of reason,
These things shall be:
A long, dim vista, blank and dreary--
The same hard failure, small success;
The same tired heart, the brain still weary
Of its intense self-consciousness;
The old despair, the old repining,
And, through the future's deepest night,
Down life's untrodden ways still shining,
The old hope's light!
poem by Edith Nesbit

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

On the Countess of Burlington Cutting Paper
Pallas grew vapourish once, and odd,
She would not do the least right thing,
Either for goddess, or for god,
Nor work, nor play, nor paint, nor sing.
Jove frown'd, and, 'Use,' he cried, 'those eyes
So skilful, and those hands so taper;
Do something exquisite and wise -'
She bow'd, obey'd him, - and cut paper.
This vexing him who gave her birth,
Thought by all heaven a burning shame;
What does she next, but bids, on earth,
Her Burlington do just the same.
Pallas, you give yourself strange airs;
But sure you'll find it hard to spoil
The sense and taste of one that bears
The name of Saville and of Boyle.
Alas! one bad example shown;
How quickly all the sex pursue!
See, madam, see the arts o'erthrown,
Between John Overton and you!
poem by Alexander Pope

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Seddon
When from his place a forest monarch falls,
A thunder shakes the leafy leagues across,
Reverberating to its utmost walls:
So through an Empire rings this sound of loss.
Still, as of old, the kingless forest-aisles
We see—but not the strength that was their fame:
So, at Death’s voice, far from his kingless aisles
The last Great Tribune answers to his name.
Nature, that builds great minds for mighty tasks,
Sculptured his frame to match the soul within;
Taught him how wisdom wields the power it asks;
For each new conquest set him more to win.
Rough-hewn was he for power, a massive mould,
Broad-brained, far-sighted, honourable, free
From narrowing envy, with a heart of gold
As wide and deep and dominant as the sea.
He passes, but his memory is power.
Behind him lives the good that none may stay;
His name remains a beacon-light, a tower
By which all feebler hearts may guide their way.
Come, let us follow him with reverent feet,
With fern and rata twine the wattle fair;
Tread soft: a mighty heart has ceased to beat
And one of Nature’s kings is sleeping there.
poem by George Essex Evans

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Labour — Capital — Land
IN that rich Archipelago of sea
With fiery hills, thick woods wherein the mias
Browses along the trees, and god-like men
Leave monuments of speech too large for us,
There are strange forest-trees. Far up, their roots
Spread from the central trunk, and settle down
Deep in the life-fed earth, seventy feet below.
In the past days here grew another tree,
On whose high fork the parasitic seed
Fell and sprang up, and finding life and strength
In the disease, decrepitude and death
Of that it fed on, utterly consumed it,
And stands the monument of Nature's crime!
So Labour with his parasites, the two
Great swollen Robbers, Land and Capital,
Stands to the gaze of men but as a heap
Of rotted dust whose only use must be
To rich the roots of the proud stem that killed it!
poem by Francis William Lauderdale Adams

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Madona Mia
UNDER green apple-boughs
That never a storm will rouse,
My lady hath her house
Between two bowers;
In either of the twain
Red roses full of rain;
She hath for bondwomen
All kind of flowers.
She hath no handmaid fair
To draw her curled gold hair
Through rings of gold that bear
Her whole hair’s weight;
She hath no maids to stand
Gold-clothed on either hand;
In all the great green land
None is so great.
She hath no more to wear
But one white hood of vair
Drawn over eyes and hair,
Wrought with strange gold,
Made for some great queen’s head,
Some fair great queen since dead;
And one strait gown of red
Against the cold.
Beneath her eyelids deep
Love lying seems asleep,
Love, swift to wake, to weep,
To laugh, to gaze;
Her breasts are like white birds,
And all her gracious words
As water-grass to herds
In the June-days.
To her all dews that fall
And rains are musical;
Her flowers are fed from all,
Her joy from these;
In the deep-feathered firs
Their gift of joy is hers,
In the least breath that stirs
Across the trees.
She grows with greenest leaves,
Ripens with reddest sheaves,
Forgets, remembers, grieves,
And is not sad;
The quiet lands and skies
Leave light upon her eyes;
None knows her, weak or wise,
Or tired or glad.
None knows, none understands,
What flowers are like her hands;
Though you should search all lands
Wherein time grows,
What snows are like her feet,
Though his eyes burn with heat
Through gazing on my sweet,
Yet no man knows.
Only this thing is said;
That white and gold and red,
God’s three chief words, man’s bread
And oil and wine,
Were given her for dowers,
And kingdom of all hours,
And grace of goodly flowers
And various vine.
This is my lady’s praise:
God after many days
Wrought her in unknown ways,
In sunset lands;
This was my lady’s birth;
God gave her might and mirth
And laid his whole sweet earth
Between her hands.
Under deep apple-boughs
My lady hath her house;
She wears upon her brows
The flower thereof;
All saying but what God saith
To her is as vain breath;
She is more strong than death,
Being strong as love.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!

Transfiguration
Mysterious death! who in a single hour
Life's gold can so refine
And by thy art divine
Change mortal weakness to immortal power!
Bending beneath the weight of eighty years
Spent with the noble strife
of a victorious life
We watched her fading heavenward, through our tears.
But ere the sense of loss our hearts had wrung
A miracle was wrought;
And swift as happy thought
She lived again -- brave, beautiful, and young.
Age, pain, and sorrow dropped the veils they wore
And showed the tender eyes
Of angels in disguise,
Whose discipline so patiently she bore.
The past years brought their harvest rich and fair;
While memory and love,
Together, fondly wove
A golden garland for the silver hair.
How could we mourn like those who are bereft,
When every pang of grief
found balm for its relief
In counting up the treasures she had left?--
Faith that withstood the shocks of toil and time;
Hope that defied despair;
Patience that conquered care;
And loyalty, whose courage was sublime;
The great deep heart that was a home for all--
Just, eloquent, and strong
In protest against wrong;
Wide charity, that knew no sin, no fall;
The spartan spirit that made life so grand,
Mating poor daily needs
With high, heroic deeds,
That wrested happiness from Fate's hard hand.
We thought to weep, but sing for joy instead,
Full of the grateful peace
That follows her release;
For nothing but the weary dust lies dead.
Oh, noble woman! never more a queen
Than in the laying down
Of sceptre and of crown
To win a greater kingdom, yet unseen;
Teaching us how to seek the highest goal,
To earn the true success --
To live, to love, to bless --
And make death proud to take a royal soul.
poem by Louisa May Alcott

Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!