The Pagan World
In his cool hall, with haggard eyes,
The Roman noble lay;
He drove abroad, in furious guise,
Along the Appian way.
He made a feast, drank fierce and fast,
And crowned his hair with flowers -
No easier nor no quicker passed
The impracticable hours.
The brooding East with awe beheld
Her impious younger world.
The Roman tempest swelled and swelled,
And on her head was hurled.
The East bowed low before the blast
In patient, deep disdain;
She let the legions thunder past,
And plunged in thought again.
So well she mused, a morning broke
Across her spirit grey;
A conquering, new-born joy awoke,
And filled her life with day.
'Poor world,' she cried, 'so deep accurst
That runn'st from pole to pole
To seek a draught to slake thy thirst -
Go, seek it in thy soul!'
She heard it, the victorious West,
In crown and sword arrayed!
She felt the void which mined her breast,
She shivered and obeyed.
She veiled her eagles, snapped her sword,
And laid her sceptre down;
Her stately purple she abhorred,
And her imperial crown.
She broke her flutes, she stopped her sports,
Her artists could not please;
She tore her books, she shut her courts,
She fled her palaces;
Lust of the eye and pride of life
She left it all behind,
And hurried, torn with inward strife,
The wilderness to find.
Tears washed the trouble from her face!
She changed into a child!
Mid weeds and wrecks she stood -a place
Of ruin -but she smiled!
poem by Matthew Arnold
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Related quotes
Obermann Once More
Glion?--Ah, twenty years, it cuts
All meaning from a name!
White houses prank where once were huts.
Glion, but not the same!
And yet I know not! All unchanged
The turf, the pines, the sky!
The hills in their old order ranged;
The lake, with Chillon by!
And, 'neath those chestnut-trees, where stiff
And stony mounts the way,
The crackling husk-heaps burn, as if
I left them yesterday!
Across the valley, on that slope,
The huts of Avant shine!
lts pines, under their branches, ope
Ways for the pasturing kine.
Full-foaming milk-pails, Alpine fare,
Sweet heaps of fresh-cut grass,
Invite to rest the traveller there
Before he climb the pass--
The gentian-flower'd pass, its crown
With yellow spires aflame;
Whence drops the path to Allière down,
And walls where Byron came,
By their green river, who doth change
His birth-name just below;
Orchard, and croft, and full-stored grange
Nursed by his pastoral flow.
But stop!--to fetch back thoughts that stray
Beyond this gracious bound,
The cone of Jaman, pale and gray,
See, in the blue profound!
Ah, Jaman! delicately tall
Above his sun-warm'd firs--
What thoughts to me his rocks recall,
What memories he stirs!
And who but thou must be, in truth,
Obermann! with me here?
Thou master of my wandering youth,
But left this many a year!
Yes, I forget the world's work wrought,
Its warfare waged with pain;
An eremite with thee, in thought
Once more I slip my chain,
And to thy mountain-chalet come,
And lie beside its door,
And hear the wild bee's Alpine hum,
And thy sad, tranquil lore!
Again I feel the words inspire
Their mournful calm; serene,
Yet tinged with infinite desire
For all that might have been--
The harmony from which man swerved
Made his life's rule once more!
The universal order served,
Earth happier than before!
--While thus I mused, night gently ran
Down over hill and wood.
Then, still and sudden, Obermann
On the grass near me stood.
Those pensive features well I knew,
On my mind, years before,
Imaged so oft! imaged so true!
--A shepherd's garb he wore,
A mountain-flower was in his hand,
A book was in his breast.
Bent on my face, with gaze which scann'd
My soul, his eyes did rest.
'And is it thou,' he cried, 'so long
Held by the world which we
Loved not, who turnest from the throng
Back to thy youth and me?
'And from thy world, with heart opprest,
Choosest thou now to turn?--
Ah me! we anchorites read things best,
Clearest their course discern!
'Thou fledst me when the ungenial earth,
Man's work-place, lay in gloom.
Return'st thou in her hour of birth,
Of hopes and hearts in bloom?
'Perceiv'st thou not the change of day?
Ah! Carry back thy ken,
What, some two thousand years! Survey
The world as it was then!
'Like ours it look'd in outward air.
Its head was clear and true,
Sumptuous its clothing, rich its fare,
No pause its action knew;
'Stout was its arm, each thew and bone
Seem'd puissant and alive--
But, ah! its heart, its heart was stone,
And so it could not thrive!
'On that hard Pagan world disgust
And secret loathing fell.
Deep weariness and sated lust
Made human life a hell.
'In his cool hall, with haggard eyes,
The Roman noble lay;
He drove abroad, in furious guise,
Along the Appian way.
'He made a feast, drank fierce and fast,
And crown'd his hair with flowers--
No easier nor no quicker pass'd
The impracticable hours.
'The brooding East with awe beheld
Her impious younger world.
The Roman tempest swell'd and swell'd,
And on her head was hurl'd.
'The East bow'd low before the blast
In patient, deep disdain;
She let the legions thunder past,
And plunged in thought again.
'So well she mused, a morning broke
Across her spirit grey;
A conquering, new-born joy awoke,
And fill'd her life with day.
''Poor world,' she cried, 'so deep accurst,
That runn'st from pole to pole
To seek a draught to slake thy thirst--
Go, seek it in thy soul!'
'She heard it, the victorious West,
In crown and sword array'd!
She felt the void which mined her breast,
She shiver'd and obey'd.
'She veil'd her eagles, snapp'd her sword,
And laid her sceptre down;
Her stately purple she abhorr'd,
And her imperial crown.
'She broke her flutes, she stopp'd her sports,
Her artists could not please;
She tore her books, she shut her courts,
She fled her palaces;
'Lust of the eye and pride of life
She left it all behind,
And hurried, torn with inward strife,
The wilderness to find.
'Tears wash'd the trouble from her face!
She changed into a child!
'Mid weeds and wrecks she stood--a place
Of ruin--but she smiled!
'Oh, had I lived in that great day,
How had its glory new
Fill'd earth and heaven, and caught away
My ravish'd spirit too!
'No thoughts that to the world belong
Had stood against the wave
Of love which set so deep and strong
From Christ's then open grave.
'No cloister-floor of humid stone
Had been too cold for me.
For me no Eastern desert lone
Had been too far to flee.
'No lonely life had pass'd too slow,
When I could hourly scan
Upon his Cross, with head sunk low,
That nail'd, thorn-crowned Man!
'Could see the Mother with her Child
Whose tender winning arts
Have to his little arms beguiled
So many wounded hearts!
'And centuries came and ran their course,
And unspent all that time
Still, still went forth that Child's dear force,
And still was at its prime.
'Ay, ages long endured his span
Of life--'tis true received--
That gracious Child, that thorn-crown'd Man!
--He lived while we believed.
'While we believed, on earth he went,
And open stood his grave.
Men call'd from chamber, church, and tent;
And Christ was by to save.
'Now he is dead! Far hence he lies
In the lorn Syrian town;
And on his grave, with shining eyes,
The Syrian stars look down.
'In vain men still, with hoping new,
Regard his death-place dumb,
And say the stone is not yet to,
And wait for words to come.
'Ah, o'er that silent sacred land,
Of sun, and arid stone,
And crumbling wall, and sultry sand,
Sounds now one word alone!
'Unduped of fancy, henceforth man
Must labour!--must resign
His all too human creeds, and scan
Simply the way divine!
'But slow that tide of common thought,
Which bathed our life, retired;
Slow, slow the old world wore to nought,
And pulse by pulse expired.
'Its frame yet stood without a breach
When blood and warmth were fled;
And still it spake its wonted speech--
But every word was dead.
'And oh, we cried, that on this corse
Might fall a freshening storm!
Rive its dry bones, and with new force
A new-sprung world inform!
'--Down came the storm! O'er France it pass'd
In sheets of scathing fire;
All Europe felt that fiery blast,
And shook as it rush'd by her.
'Down came the storm! In ruins fell
The worn-out world we knew.
It pass'd, that elemental swell!
Again appear'd the blue;
'The sun shone in the new-wash'd sky,
And what from heaven saw he?
Blocks of the past, like icebergs high,
Float on a rolling sea!
'Upon them plies the race of man
All it before endeavour'd;
'Ye live,' I cried, 'ye work and plan,
And know not ye are sever'd!
''Poor fragments of a broken world
Whereon men pitch their tent!
Why were ye too to death not hurl'd
When your world's day was spent?
''That glow of central fire is done
Which with its fusing flame
Knit all your parts, and kept you one--
But ye, ye are the same!
''The past, its mask of union on,
Had ceased to live and thrive.
The past, its mask of union gone,
Say, is it more alive?
''Your creeds are dead, your rites are dead,
Your social order too!
Where tarries he, the Power who said:
See, I make all things new?
''The millions suffer still, and grieve,
And what can helpers heal
With old-world cures men half believe
For woes they wholly feel?
''And yet men have such need of joy!
But joy whose grounds are true;
And joy that should all hearts employ
As when the past was new.
''Ah, not the emotion of that past,
Its common hope, were vain!
Some new such hope must dawn at last,
Or man must toss in pain.
''But now the old is out of date,
The new is not yet born,
And who can be alone elate,
While the world lies forlorn?'
'Then to the wilderness I fled.--
There among Alpine snows
And pastoral huts I hid my head,
And sought and found repose.
'It was not yet the appointed hour.
Sad, patient, and resign'd,
I watch'd the crocus fade and flower,
I felt the sun and wind.
'The day I lived in was not mine,
Man gets no second day.
In dreams I saw the future shine--
But ah! I could not stay!
'Action I had not, followers, fame;
I pass'd obscure, alone.
The after-world forgets my name,
Nor do I wish it known.
'Composed to bear, I lived and died,
And knew my life was vain.
With fate I murmur not, nor chide;
At Sèvres by the Seine
'(If Paris that brief flight allow)
My humble tomb explore!
It bears: Eternity, be thou
My refuge! and no more.
'But thou, whom fellowship of mood
Did make from haunts of strife
Come to my mountain-solitude,
And learn my frustrate life;
'O thou, who, ere thy flying span
Was past of cheerful youth,
Didst find the solitary man
And love his cheerless truth--
'Despair not thou as I despair'd,
Nor be cold gloom thy prison!
Forward the gracious hours have fared,
And see! the sun is risen!
'He breaks the winter of the past;
A green, new earth appears.
Millions, whose life in ice lay fast,
Have thoughts, and smiles, and tears.
'What though there still need effort, strife?
Though much be still unwon?
Yet warm it mounts, the hour of life!
Death's frozen hour is done!
'The world's great order dawns in sheen,
After long darkness rude,
Divinelier imaged, clearer seen,
With happier zeal pursued.
'With hope extinct and brow composed
I mark'd the present die;
Its term of life was nearly closed,
Yet it had more than I.
'But thou, though to the world's new hour
Thou come with aspect marr'd,
Shorn of the joy, the bloom, the power,
Which best befits its bard--
'Though more than half thy years be past,
And spent thy youthful prime;
Though, round thy firmer manhood cast,
Hang weeds of our sad time
'Whereof thy youth felt all the spell,
And traversed all the shade--
Though late, though dimm'd, though weak, yet tell
Hope to a world new-made!
'Help it to fill that deep desire,
The want which rack'd our brain,
Consumed our heart with thirst like fire,
Immedicable pain;
'Which to the wilderness drove out
Our life, to Alpine snow,
And palsied all our word with doubt,
And all our work with woe--
'What still of strength is left, employ
That end to help attain:
One common wave of thought and joy
Lifting mankind again!'
--The vision ended. I awoke
As out of sleep, and no
Voice moved;--only the torrent broke
The silence, far below.
Soft darkness on the turf did lie.
Solemn, o'er hut and wood,
In the yet star-sown nightly sky,
The peak of Jaman stood.
Still in my soul the voice I heard
Of Obermann!--away
I turn'd; by some vague impulse stirr'd,
Along the rocks of Naye
Past Sonchaud's piny flanks I gaze
And the blanch'd summit bare
Of Malatrait, to where in haze
The Valais opens fair,
And the domed Velan, with his snows,
Behind the upcrowding hills,
Doth all the heavenly opening close
Which the Rhone's murmur fills--
And glorious there, without a sound,
Across the glimmering lake,
High in the Valais-depth profound,
I saw the morning break.
poem by Matthew Arnold
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Gifts
'O World-God, give me Wealth!' the Egyptian cried.
His prayer was granted. High as heaven, behold
Palace and Pyramid; the brimming tide
Of lavish Nile washed all his land with gold.
Armies of slaves toiled ant-wise at his feet,
World-circling traffic roared through mart and street,
His priests were gods, his spice-balmed kings enshrined,
Set death at naught in rock-ribbed charnels deep.
Seek Pharaoh's race to-day and ye shall find
Rust and the moth, silence and dusty sleep.
'O World-God, give me beauty!' cried the Greek.
His prayer was granted. All the earth became
Plastic and vocal to his sense; each peak,
Each grove, each stream, quick with Promethean flame,
Peopled the world with imaged grace and light.
The lyre was his, and his the breathing might
Of the immortal marble, his the play
Of diamond-pointed thought and golden tongue.
Go seek the sun-shine race, ye find to-day
A broken column and a lute unstrung.
'O World-God, give me Power!' the Roman cried.
His prayer was granted. The vast world was chained
A captive to the chariot of his pride.
The blood of myriad provinces was drained
To feed that fierce, insatiable red heart.
Invulnerably bulwarked every part
With serried legions and with close-meshed Code,
Within, the burrowing worm had gnawed its home,
A roofless ruin stands where once abode
The imperial race of everlasting Rome.
'O Godhead, give me Truth!' the Hebrew cried.
His prayer was granted; he became the slave
Of the Idea, a pilgrim far and wide,
Cursed, hated, spurned, and scourged with none to save.
The Pharaohs knew him, and when Greece beheld,
His wisdom wore the hoary crown of Eld.
Beauty he hath forsworn, and wealth and power.
Seek him to-day, and find in every land.
No fire consumes him, neither floods devour;
Immortal through the lamp within his hand.
poem by Emma Lazarus
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Tekel
WHEN on the West broke light from out the East,
Then from the splendour and the shame of Rome--
Renouncing wealth and pleasure, game and feast,
And all the joys of his polluted home,
Desiring not the gifts his world could give,
If haply he might save his soul and live--
Into the desert's heart a man had come.
His God had died for love of him, and he
For love of God would die to all of these
Sweet sins he had not known for sins, and be
Estranged for evermore from rest and ease;
His days in penance spent might half atone
For the iniquity of days bygone,
And in the desert might his soul find peace.
Crossing wide seas, he reached an alien land:
By mighty harbours and broad streams he passed
Into an arid, trackless waste of sand,
And journeying ever faster and more fast,
Left men behind, and onward still did press
To a ruined city in the wilderness,
And there he stayed his restless feet at last.
There stood long lines of columns richly wrought,
Colossal statues of forgotten kings,
Vast shadowy temples, court within dim court,
Great shapes of man-faced beasts with wide firm wings;
And in and out each broken colonnade
The bright-eyed, swift, green-gleaming lizards played,
In that still place the only living things.
But when the moon unveiled her still, white face,
And over sand and stone her glory shed--
Another life awoke within the place,
And great beasts stalked, with silent heavy tread,
Through pillared vista, over marble floor,
And the stern menace of the lion's roar
Made horrible the city of the dead.
Like a great bird soft sinking on its nest,
Too lightly to disturb its tender brood,
The night, with dark spread wings and cloudy breast,
Sank on the desert city's solitude
As he drew near. The shadows grew more dense,
The silence stronger; weariness intense
Fell on him then, and only rest seemed good.
He passed between tall pillars' sculptured gloom,
And entered a deserted, lightless fane,
And knew not if it temple were, or tomb,
But slept and slept, till over all the plain
The level sunbeams spread, and earth was bright
With morning's radiant resurrection-light;
Then he awoke, refreshed and strong again.
Through empty courts he passed, and lo! a wall
Whereon was imaged all the languid grace
Of fairest women, and among them all
Shone like a star one lovely Eastern face:
Undimmed by centuries the colours were,
Bright as when first the painter found her fair,
And set her there to glorify the place.
All he had fled from suddenly drew near,
And from her eyes a challenge seemed down-thrown;
'Ah, fool!' she seemed to say, 'what dost thou here?
How canst thou bear this stern, sad life alone,
When I--not just this face that copies me,
But I myself--stretch arms and lips to thee,
From that same world whose joys thou hast foregone?'
His heart leaped up like flame--she was so fair;
Then with a start he hid his eyes and fled
Into the hotness of the outer air.
His pulse beat quickly. 'Oh, my God!' he said,
'These be the heart made pure, and cleansèd brain!
I vow to Thee to never look again
On women, real or painted, quick or dead!'
So lest within the city he should find,
To tempt his soul, still some accursèd thing,
He left the palaces and courts behind,
Found a green spot, with date-palms and a spring
And built himself a rough stone shelter there
And saw no more the face, so strange and fair
That had begot such vain imagining.
He tilled the patch of land, and planted seeds
Which from his own far country he had brought;
And, caring little for his body's needs,
Strove still by blind belief to strangle thought,
By ceaseless penance to deny desire,
To quench in prayer and fast all human fire,
And wrest from Heaven the blessings that he sought.
And there peace found him, and he dwelt alone,
And gladly gave his life to God. Behind
Lay the long dim arcades of graven stone;
Before him lay the desert, burning blind
Sometimes with the dread dance of its own sand,
That wildly whirled in shadowy columns, fanned
By the hot breath of the fierce desert wind.
Each day passed by as had passed other days,
And days gone by were as the days to come,
Save that on some days he was wild with praise,
And weak with vigil and with fast on some;
And no man saw he for long months and years,
But ever did he penance with hot tears,
And but for prayer and praise his lips were dumb.
Sometimes at first, when spent with watch and prayer,
He saw again the Imperial City's towers,
Where, in a mist of music and sweet air,
Thais and Phryne crowned his cup with flowers--
He saw the easeful day, the festal night,
The life that was one dream of long delight,
One rose-red glow of rapture and fair hours.
He heard old well-remembered voices cry,
'Come back to us! Think of the joys you miss;
Each moment floats some foregone rapture by,
A cup, a crown, a song, a laugh, a kiss!
Cast down that crown of thorns, return, and be
Once more flower-crowned, love-thrilled, wine-warmed, and see
The old sweet life--how good a thing it is!'
But his soul answered, 'Nay, I am content;
Ye call in vain; the desert shuts me in.
Your flowers are sere, your wine with gall is blent,
Your sweets have all the sickening taste of sin;
Such sin I expiate with ceaseless pain,
And world and flesh and devil strive in vain
Back from its sanctuary my soul to win.
'Fair are the Imperial City's towers to see?
I seek the City with the streets of gold.
Beside the lilies God has grown for me
Faint are the roses that your fingers hold.
Ear hath not heard the music I shall hear,
Eye hath not seen the joys that shall appear,
Nor heart conceived the things I shall behold.'
After long days a stranger halted there,
For some far distant monastery bound.
The hermit fed and lodged, nor could forbear
To tell his guest what rest his soul had found
How with the world he long ago had done,
How the hard battle had been fought and won,
And he found peace, pure, perfect and profound.
The stranger answered, 'Thou hast watched an hour,
But many hours go to make up our day,
And some of these are dark with fateful power,
And Satan watches for our souls alway;
The spirit may be willing, but indeed
The flesh is weak, and so much more the need
To pray and watch, my brother, watch and pray.'
The Roman bowed his head in mute assent,
And, having served the stranger with his best,
Bade him God-speed, and down the way he went--
Gazed sadly after, but within his breast
A pale fire of resentment sprang to flame
Was he not holy now, and void of blame,
And certain of himself, and pure, and blest?
That night a new-born desolation grew
Within his heart as he made fast the stone
Against the doorway of his hut, and knew
How more than ever he was now alone.
He was in darkness, but the moon without
Made a new tender daylight round about
The hut, the palms, the plot with millet sown.
Hark!--what was that?--For many months and years
He had not heard that faint uncertain noise,
Broken, and weak, and indistinct with tears--
A voice--a human voice--a woman's voice.
'Oh, let me in,' it wailed, 'before I die!
Oh, let me in, for Holy Charity!
For see--my life or death is at thy choice!'
Unthinking, swift he rolled the stone away:
There stood a woman, trembling, shrinking, thin;
Her pale hair by the moon's white light looked grey,
And grey her hands and grey her withered skin.
'Oh, save me--lest I die among the beasts
Who roam, and roar, and hold their fearful feasts!
Oh, save me,' she besought him, 'let me in!'
Troubled, he answered, 'Nay, I have a vow
Never again a woman's face to see!'
'But, ah,' she cried, 'thy vow is broken now,
For at this moment thou beholdest me.
I cannot journey farther. Help!' she said,
'Or I before the dawning shall be dead,
And thou repent to all eternity!'
His soul was gentle and compassionate.
'Thou shalt not perish--enter here,' he said;
'My vow is broken, and thy need is great.'
She staggered forward to the dry leaf bed,
And sank upon it, cold and still and white.
'Perhaps she may not live until the light,'
He thought, and lifted up her drooping head,
And gave her wine from out a little store
Which he had kept untouched since first he came;
He rolled the stone again before his door
To keep the night air from her wasted frame;
And, though his vow was broken, somehow knew
That he was doing what was right to do,
Yet felt a weight of unacknowledged blame.
And many a day he tended her and fed;
But ever after that first night's surprise
With earnest vigilance he held his head
Averted, and downcast he kept his eyes.
His vow, though broken once, was still his law;
He looked upon her face no more, nor saw
Her whom he cared for in such kindly wise.
She never spoke to him, nor he to her--
That she was sick and sad was all he knew;
He never asked her what her past days were,
Nor of the future, what she meant to do.
So dwelt they, till the full moon's yellow light
Flooded the world once more. Then came the night
Which all his life had been a prelude to.
The stone was moved a little from the door,
And near it he was kneeling rapt in prayer
Upon the cold uneven earthen floor;
The moonbeams passed him by, and rested where
The woman slept--her breathing soft and slow,
With rhythmic cadence even, restful, low,
Stirring the stillness of the cool night air
His prayer being ended, as he turned to rest,
He chanced to let his eyes fall carelessly
Upon the figure that the moon caressed,
The woman that his care had not let die.
And now no more he turned his face aside,
But gazed, and gazed, and still unsatisfied
His eager look fed on her, hungrily.
On her? On whom? The suppliant he had saved,
Thin, hollow-cheeked and sunken-eyed had been,
With shrunken brow whereon care-lines were graved,
With withered arms, dull hair, and fingers lean.
'Has my blind care transformed her so?' he said;
For she was gone, and there lay in her stead
The loveliest woman he had ever seen.
The rags she wore but made her seem more sweet,
Since in despite of them she was so fair;
The rough brown leaves quite covered up her feet,
But left one ivory arm and shoulder bare,
The other lay beneath the little head,
And over all the moonlit couch was spread
The sunlight-coloured wonder of her hair.
He could not move, nor turn away his gaze:
How long he stood and looked he could not guess.
At last she faintly sighed, and in her face
Trembled the dawn of coming consciousness;
The eyelids quivered, and the red lips stirred,
As if they tried to find some sweet lost wo
And then her eyelids lifted, and he met
Full in his dazzled eyes the glorious light
Of eyes that he had struggled to forget
Since he had broken from their spells of might--
The Eastern eyes that from the painted wall
Had lightened down upon him, to enthral
Senses and soul with fetters of delight.
He knew her now, his love without a name,
Who in his dreams had looked on him and smiled,
And almost back to his old world of shame
His unconsenting manhood had beguiled!
There was no world now any more. At last
He knew that all--his future, present, past--
In her sole self was fused and reconciled.
The moments fled as in a dream divine:
Fire filled his veins--there beat within his brain
The madness that is born of love or wine;
And her eyes gleamed--softened and gleamed again,
And in those stormy seas he gazed, until
Her beauty seemed the whole vast night to fill,
And all, save her, seemed valueless and vain.
Then, with her eyes still deep in his, she rose
And moved towards him, and a wave of bliss
Flooded his sense with the wild joy that goes
Before a longed-for, almost granted kiss,
And slowly she drew nearer to his side--
Then, with a smile like mid-June's dawn, she sighed,
And turned to him, and laid her hand on his.
And at the touch, all he had deemed effaced--
All the heart-searing passions of his past--
Surged up, and their destroying wave laid waste
The ordered garden of his soul. At last
The spell of silence broke, and suddenly
The man's whole heart found voice in one low cry,
As round her perfect head his arms he cast--
And did not clasp her, for his foiled arms crossed
Only upon his own tumultuous breast!
His wrecked heart, tempest driven, passion tossed,
Beat fierce against his own hand on it pressed.
As on June fields might fall December frost,
In one cold breath he knew that she was lost--
Eternally foregone and unpossessed.
For even as he clasped she had seemed to melt,
And fade into the misty moonlit air;
His arms were empty, yet his hand still felt
The touch of her hand that had rested there:
But she was gone, with all her maddening grace--
The solitude and silence, in her place,
Like a chill searching wind crept everywhere.
Silence--at first. Then suddenly outbroke
A little laugh. And then, above, around,
A hideous peal of laughter, shout on shout,
Re-echoing from sky, and air, and ground;
And in his devastated soul had birth
A horrid echo of that demon mirth,
And with his human voice he swelled its sound.
'Tricked, fooled!' he laughed. 'We laugh, the fiends and I,
They for their triumph, I to feel my fall!
From snares like these is no security,
In desert wild or close-built city wall:
And since I must be tempted, let me go
And brave the old temptations that I know;
Not these, that are but phantoms after all--
'Phantoms, not living women, warm and real,
As the fair Roman women were. And yet
The phantom only is my soul's ideal,
Longed for through all the years and never met
Till now; and only now to make hell worse--
To fan my fires of infinite remorse
With the cold wind of infinite regret.
'Back to the world, the world of love and sin!
For since my soul is lost, I claim its price!
Prayers are not heard. The God I trusted in
Has failed me once--He shall not fail me twice!
No more of that wild striving and intense
For irrecoverable innocence--
No more of useless, vain self-sacrifice!
'Life is too potent and too passionate,
Against whose force I all these years have striven
In vain, in vain! Our own lives make our Fate;
And by our Fate our lives are blindly driven!
There is no refuge in the hermit's cell
From memories enough to make a hell--
Of chances lost that might have made a heaven!'
Back to his world he went, and plunged anew
Into the old foul life's polluted tide;
But ever in his sweetest feast he knew
A longing never to be satisfied:
This strange wild wickedness, that new mad sin,
Might be the frame to find her picture in;
And if that failed, some other must be tried.
And in the search, soul, body, heart, and brain
Were blasted and destroyed, and still his prize,
Ever untouched, seemed always just to gain,
And just beyond his reach shone Paradise.
So followed he, too faithfully, too well,
Through death, into the very gate of hell,
The love-light of those unforgotten eyes!
poem by Edith Nesbit
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The Dead To The Living
Work while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.
IN the childhood of April, while purple woods
With the young year's blood in them smiled,
I passed through the lanes and the wakened fields,
And stood by the grave of the child.
And the pain awoke that is never dead
Though it sometimes sleeps, and again
It set its teeth in this heart of mine,
And fastened its claws in my brain:
For it seemed so hard that the little hands
And the little well-loved head
Should be out of reach of my living lips,
And be side by side with the dead--
Not side by side with us who had loved,
But with these who had never seen
The grace of the smile, the gold of the hair,
And the eyes of my baby-queen.
Yet with trees about where the brown birds build,
And with long green grass above,
She lies in the cold sweet breast of earth
Beyond the reach of our love;
Whatever befalls in the coarse loud world,
We know she will never wake.
When I thought of the sorrow she might have known,
I was almost glad for her sake. . . .
Tears might have tired those kiss-closed eyes,
Grief hardened the mouth I kissed;
I was almost glad that my dear was dead
Because of the pain she had missed.
Oh, if I could but have died a child
With a white child-soul like hers,
As pure as the wind-flowers down in the copse,
Where the soul of the spring's self stirs;
Or if I had only done with it all,
And might lie by her side unmoved!
I envied the very clods of earth
Their place near the child I loved!
And my soul rose up in revolt at life,
As I stood dry-eyed by her grave,
When sudden the grass of the churchyard sod
Rolled back like a green smooth wave;
The brown earth looked like the brown sea rocks,
The tombstones were white like spray,
And white like surf were the curling folds
Of the shrouds where the dead men lay;
For each in his place with his quiet face
I saw the dead lie low,
Who had worked and suffered and found life sad,
So many sad years ago.
Unchanged by time I saw them lie
As when first they were laid to rest,
The tired eyes closed, the sad lips still,
And the work-worn hands on the breast.
There were some who had found the green world so grey,
They had left it before their time,
And some were little ones like my dear,
And some had died in their prime;
And some were old, they had had their fill
Of bitter unfruitful hours,
And knew that none of them, none, had known
A flower of a hope like ours!
Through their shut eyelids the dead looked up,
And without a voice they said:
'We lived without hope, without hope we died,
And hopeless we lie here dead;
And death is better than life that draws
Pain in, as it draws in breath,
If life never dreams of a coming day
When life shall not envy death.
Through the dark of our hours and our times we lived,
Uncheered by a single ray
Of such hope as lightens the lives of you
Who are finding life hard to-day;
With our little lanterns of human love
We lighted our dark warm night--
But you in the chill of the dawn are set
With your face to the eastern light.
Freedom is waiting with hands held out
Till you tear the veil from her face--
And when once men have seen the light of her eyes,
And felt her divine embrace,
The light of the world will be risen indeed,
And will shine in the eyes of men,
And those who come after will find life fair,
And their lives worth living then!
Will you strive to the light in your loud rough world,
That these things may come to pass,
Or lie in the shadow beside the child,
And strive to the sun through the grass?'
'My world while I may,' I cried; 'but you
Whose lives were as dark as your grave?'
'We too are a part of the coming light,'
They called through the smooth green wave.
Their white shrouds gleamed as the flood of green
Rolled over and hid them from me--
Hid all but the little hands and the hair,
And the face that I always see.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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Via Amoris
I.
IT is not Love, this beautiful unrest,
This tremor of longing that invades my breast:
For Love is in his grave this many a year,
He will not rise--I do not wish him here.
It is not memory, for your face and eyes
Are not reflected where that dark pool lies:
It is not hope, for life makes no amends,
And hope and I are long no longer friends:
It is a ghost out of another Spring
It needs but little for its comforting--
That I should hold your hand and see your face
And muse a little in this quiet place,
Where, through the silence, I can hear you sigh
And feel you sadden, O Virgin Mystery,
And know my thought has in your thought begot
Sadness, its child, and that you know it not.
II.
If this were Love, if all this bitter pain
Were but the birth-pang of Love born again,
If through the doubts and dreams resolved, smiled
The prophetic promise of the holy child,
What should I gain? The Love whose dream-lips smiled
Could never be my own and only child,
But to Love's birth would come, with the last pain,
Renunciation, also born again.
III.
If this were Love why should I turn away?
Am I not, too, made of the common clay?
Is life so fair, am I so fortunate,
I can refuse the capricious gift of Fate,
The sudden glory, the unhoped-for flowers,
The transfiguration of my earthly hours?
Come, Love! the house is garnished and is swept,
Washed clean with all the tears that I have wept,
Washed from the stain of my unworthy fears,
Hung with the splendid spoils of wasted years,
Lighted with lamps of hope, and curtained fast
Against the gathered darkness of the past.
I draw the bolts! I throw the portals wide,
The darkness rushes shivering to my side,
Love is not here--the darkness creeps about
My house wherein the lamps of hope die out.
Ah Love! it was not then your hand that came
Beating my door? your voice that called my name?
IV.
'It is not Love, it is not Love,' I said,
And bowed in fearful hope my trembling head.
'It is not Love, for Love could never rise
Out of the rock-hewn grave wherein he lies.'
But as I spake, the heavenly form drew near
Where close I clasped a hope grown keen as fear,
Upon my head His very hand He laid
And whispered, 'It is I, be not afraid!'
V.
And this is Love, no rose-crowned laughing guest
By whom my passionate heart should be caressed,
But one re-risen from the grave; austere,
Cold as the grave, and infinitely dear,
To follow whom I lay the whole world down,
Take up the cross, bind on the thorny crown;
And, following whom, my bleeding pilgrim feet
Find the rough pathway sure and very sweet.
The august environment of mighty wings
Shuts out the snare of vain imaginings,
For by my side, crowned with Love's death-white rose,
The Angel of Renunciation goes.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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Sic Semper Liberatoribus!
As one who feels the breathless nightmare grip
His heart-strings, and through visioned horrors fares,
Now on a thin-ledged chasm's rock-crumbling lip,
Now on a tottering pinnacle that dare
The front of heaven, while always unawares
Weird monsters start above, around, beneath,
Each glaring from some uglier mask of death,
So the White Czar imperial progress made
Through terror-haunted days. A shock, a cry
Whose echoes ring the globe-the spectre's laid.
Hurled o'er the abyss, see the crowned martyr lie
Resting in peace-fear, change, and death gone by.
Fit end for nightmare-mist of blood and tears,
Red climax to the slow, abortive years.
The world draws breath-one long, deep-shuddering sigh,
At that which dullest brain prefigured clear
As swift-sure bolt from thunder-threatening sky.
How heaven-anointed humblest lots appear
Beside his glittering eminence of fear;
His spiked crown, sackcloth purple, poisoned cates,
His golden palace honey-combed with hates.
Well is it done! A most heroic plan,
Which after myriad plots succeeds at last
In robbing of his life this poor old man,
Whose sole offense-his birthright-has but passed
To fresher blood, with younger strength recast.
What men are these, who, clamoring to be free,
Would bestialize the world to what they be?
Whose sons are they who made the snow-wreathed head
Their frenzy's target? In their Russian veins,
What alien current urged on to smite him dead,
Whose word had loosed a million Russian chains?
What brutes were they for whom such speechless pains,
So royally endured, no human thrill
Awoke, in hearts drunk with the lust to kill?
Not brutes! No tiger of the wilderness,
No jackal of the jungle, bears such brand
As man's black heart, who shrinks not to confess
The desperate deed of his deliberate hand.
Our kind, our kin, have done this thing. We stand
Bowed earthward, red with shame, to see such wrong
Prorogue Love's cause and Truth's-God knows how long!
poem by Emma Lazarus
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The Easter Lily
A little child, as winter turned to spring,
Tended a lily-plant with patient care,
Thinking, when she should see it blossoming,
To set it on the chancel-step; that there,
When Easter dawned on Lent, the spotless thing
Might on the feast-day be her offering,
Lifting its own white face to One more fair.
But, as the plant grew upward day by day,
Raising itself from earth towards the sky,
So seemed the child from earth to draw away,
The while she feared to see the lily die;
Unthinking that, ere broke the Easter ray,
She might her own white soul before Him lay
For Whom she sought the flower to sanctify.
Time passed. The lily bloomed not; and the night
Before the feast had come. And so the child
Sent to the church the cherished plant, despite
’T was but an unblown bud; and—reconciled
That on the altar-step, midst flowers white,
Her poor green stalk watched out the silent flight
Of hours until the morn—contented smiled.
• • • • • • • •
Fair broke the dawn upon the altar’s hem
Of lilies, breathing Easter greeting sweet;
But, with the night that so perfected them,
The child’s own spirit fled, the Light to meet
Beyond the heaven’s roseate diadem;
And, with the morning, bloomed upon the stem
The fair, white soul her own had longed to greet!
poem by Guy Wetmore Carryl from The Garden of Years and Other Poems (1893)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Guenevere
I was a queen, and I have lost my crown;
A wife, and I have broken all my vows;
A lover, and I ruined him I loved: --
There is no other havoc left to do.
A little month ago I was a queen,
And mothers held their babies up to see
When I came riding out of Camelot.
The women smiled, and all the world smiled too.
And now, what woman's eyes would smile on me?
I still am beautiful, and yet what child
Would think of me as some high, heaven-sent thing,
An angel, clad in gold and miniver?
The world would run from me, and yet am I
No different from the queen they used to love.
If water, flowing silver over stones,
Is forded, and beneath the horses' feet
Grows turbid suddenly, it clears again,
And men will drink it with no thought of harm.
Yet I am branded for a single fault.
I was the flower amid a toiling world,
Where people smiled to see one happy thing,
And they were proud and glad to raise me high;
They only asked that I should be right fair,
A little kind, and gowned wondrously,
And surely it were little praise to me
If I had pleased them well throughout my life.
I was a queen, the daughter of a king.
The crown was never heavy on my head,
It was my right, and was a part of me.
The women thought me proud, the men were kind,
And bowed right gallantly to kiss my hand,
And watched me as I passed them calmly by,
Along the halls I shall not tread again.
What if, to-night, I should revisit them?
The warders at the gates, the kitchen-maids,
The very beggars would stand off from me,
And I, their queen, would climb the stairs alone,
Pass through the banquet-hall, a loathed thing,
And seek my chambers for a hiding-place,
And I should find them but a sepulchre,
The very rushes rotted on the floors,
The fire in ashes on the freezing hearth.
I was a queen, and he who loved me best
Made me a woman for a night and day,
And now I go unqueened forevermore.
A queen should never dream on summer eves,
When hovering spells are heavy in the dusk: --
I think no night was ever quite so still,
So smoothly lit with red along the west,
So deeply hushed with quiet through and through.
And strangely clear, and deeply dyed with light,
The trees stood straight against a paling sky,
With Venus burning lamp-like in the west.
I walked alone amid a thousand flowers,
That drooped their heads and drowsed beneath the dew,
And all my thoughts were quieted to sleep.
Behind me, on the walk, I heard a step --
I did not know my heart could tell his tread,
I did not know I loved him till that hour.
Within my breast I felt a wild, sick pain,
The garden reeled a little, I was weak,
And quick he came behind me, caught my arms,
That ached beneath his touch; and then I swayed,
My head fell backward and I saw his face.
All this grows bitter that was once so sweet,
And many mouths must drain the dregs of it.
But none will pity me, nor pity him
Whom Love so lashed, and with such cruel thongs.
poem by Sara Teasdale
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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With A Kiss
Life begins with a smack on the ass
Followed by tears or a hardy laugh,
A celebration to a child entering into this world
Whether the recipient of this award be a boy or a girl.
As in this world when my child first arrived
I must admit, for his appearance I did cry,
But when he opened his eyes to this I must admit
I realized everything truly, begins with just a kiss.
And through my life as days did come
Sometimes so slow and many times on the run,
And in this life, be it that or be it this,
Everything truly, began with just a kiss.
There at the alter where I stood with my wife
Now my women she would be my life,
God made us one and that began it
Then everything for us, began with a kiss.
So as I entered and explored throughout my life
Entering with happiness and sometimes strife,
Sometimes my life, it is was either a hit or miss
But one thing again, everything began with just a kiss.
But then came along the sadden deaths
My heart was broken, and was full of regret,
I lost my father, and then my brother
And there left suffering, would be my mother.
And there where I stood I had only one reaction
Then to GOD and my soul, I made this one correction,
And around my bible I closed it with my fist
Everything I said, ends with just a kiss.
My reflection for life as it had changed
As washed away with the falling rain,
Hellos were farther, and goodbyes nearby
Less time for joy and yet more tears to cry.
Around my world It was a saddened place
Life was hurried and at a faster pace,
But one thing I understood, like a cheap magic trick
Everything in this life, ends with just a kiss.
As life comes at one, so fast and so furious
Some take it so easy and some do so serious,
Many take it simply and some take it with a risk
But one think for certain, everything ends with a kiss.
So as years will come and will past me by
I will look back with joy and wonders why,
As when a child is welcomed into this world
Or at a grave site, where a flag is unfurled.
In life's scheme there is either hellos or goodbyes
Along with the tears of joy, and or tears to cry,
And in this journey we understand the plan
We all try to grow to be the perfect woman or man.
But then comes sadness and then the sorrow
As we live for the day and never for tomorrow,
We welcome the plants in the summertime
As we say goodbye to the rain and hello to sunshine.
Life is though is always ending and or beginning
And souls of man are either rejecting or believing.
So when ones life is coming to the end
Will they remember in life where they have been.
But to myself I want to remember everyone in my life,
Whether they have came and or gone or still in my sight.
So now a solitary candle on my mantle I have lit,
As I have realize everything, either ends or begins with just a kiss.
Randy L. McClave
poem by Randy McClave
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A Little Old Maid
She grew, like other girls and flowers,
Sheltered and tended daintily;
And told her dolls, through sunny hours,
A prince would come her love to be.
And none denied her as she grew
The kingdom where her prince was lord.
For him she bloomed, and drank the dew
Of youth, and wore the virgin's sword.
From her strong tower of maidenhood
She saw brave men ride east and west;
And dreamed of peace in love's deep wood,
With babies nestling on her breast.
And when no knight her banner bore,
Nor hailed her with love's accolade,
Silent beside her open door
She wondered first, then grew afraid:
Afraid of quickened dust whereof
Life made but phantoms for a show;
Afraid of laughter and of love,
Of God and his unchanging No.
And things the world calls wise and good
She did to bid her fear be still;
Gave largess of her brains and blood,
Chastened her bold, far-wandering will.
But, withering ever at the heart,
She felt her spirit die unborn.
A ghost, she moved on earth apart,
And feared to face the angels' scorn.
poem by Harriet Monroe
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He Never Smiled Again
The bark that held a prince went down,
The sweeping waves roll'd on;
And what was England's glorious crown
To him that wept a son?
He lived-for life may long be borne
Ere sorrow break its chain;-
Why comes not death to those who mourn?
-He never smiled again!
There stood proud forms around his throne,
The stately and the brave,
But which could fill the place of one,
That one beneath the wave?
Before him pass'd the young and fair,
In pleasure's reckless train,
But seas dash'd o'er his son's bright hair-
-He never smiled again!
He sat where festal bowls went round ;
He heard the minstrel sing,
He saw the Tourney's victor crown'd,
Amidst the knightly ring:
A murmur of the restless deep
Was blent with every strain,
A voice of winds that would not sleep-
-He never smiled again!
Hearts, in that time, clos'd o'er the trace
Of vows once fondly pour'd,
And strangers took the kinsman's place
At many a joyous board;
Graves, which true love had bath'd with tears,
Were left to Heaven's bright rain,
Fresh hopes were born for other years-
-He never smiled again!
poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans
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The Answer
Men and boys, O fathers, brothers,
Burst these fetters round you bound.
Women, sisters, wives and mothers,
Lift your faces from the ground!
O Democracy, O People,
East and West and North and South,
Rise together, one for ever,
Strike this Crime upon the mouth!
Bid them not, the men who loved you,
Those who fought for you and died,
Scorn you that you broke a small Crime,
Left a great Crime pass in pride!
England, France, the played-out countries,
Let them reek there in their stew,
Let their past rot out their present,
But the Future is with you!
O America, O first-born
Of the age that yet shall be
Where all men shall be as one man,
Noble, faithful, fearless, free! —
O America, O paramour
Of the foul slave-owner Pelf,
You who saved from slavery others,
Now from slavery save yourself! —
Save yourself, though, anguish-shaken,
You cry out and bow your head,
Crying 'Why am I forsaken?'
Crying 'It is finishèd!'
Save yourself, no God will save you;
Not one angel can he give!
They and He are dead and vanished,
And 'tis you, 'tis you must live!
Risen again, fire-tried, victorious,
From the grave of Crime down-hurled,
Peerless, pure, serene and glorious,
Wield the sceptre of the world!
poem by Francis William Lauderdale Adams
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The Desert Wind
I went with happy heart (how happy!) a while since
Behind my camel flocks,
Piping all day where the Nile pastures end
And the white sand begins
Among the rocks.
The wheeling eagles mocked me high there from the skies,
The red blast of the desert wind
Hath seared mine eyes.
I saw a lady pass, (what lady?) none could tell,
Nor of her tribe nor race,
Of Roum or Franjistan or Fars or Hind;
None knew. But I knew well
That her sweet face
Had blossomed first within the gates of Paradise.
The red blast of the desert wind
Hath seared mine eyes.
Within a tasselled frame, rich wrought, she sat and sang
A song of love so sweet,
That beast and bird and serpent came behind,
And lizard with shut fang
And faltering feet.
My flocks strayed after them, and I who heard likewise.
The red blast of the desert wind
Hath seared mine eyes.
Upon a camel tall (how tall!) she rode by me
Enrobed in white and red,
And veiled to her bright eyes in bands that bind
But hide not all souls see;
And on her head
A crown entwined of wool with gold and various dyes.
The red blast of the desert wind
Hath seared mine eyes.
Out to the wilderness, all day, we followed her.
By winding paths untrod,
O'er rock and plain none knew nor I could find,
Although my home was there;
And still we rode.
The creatures tired and stopped; but I went on with sighs.
The red blast of the desert wind
Hath seared mine eyes.
We came to a deep pool (how deep!) I knew of none
In all that land accursed,
A pool of waters clear with white shells lined,
And there we lighted down
And suaged our thirst,
And bathed our weary limbs, we two without disguise.
The red blast of the desert wind
Hath seared mine eyes.
Upon the brink we sat (ah me!) alone, we two,
In that fair empty place.
I kissed her hands and told her all my mind,
And dared her grace to sue,
Her utter grace.
And she with smiles said ``yea'' to my too blest surprise.
The red blast of the desert wind
Hath seared mine eyes.
Ah me, that night of stars, those bridal stars of heaven!
Ah me, those eyes of hers,
So sweet, so near, of that same starry kind,
Which drank their light ungiven,
(Poor blinded stars!)
And left them dark as they have left me wise.
The red blast of the desert wind
Hath seared mine eyes.
How shall I tell it? All three months of happy love
I lived with her, blest queen,
Fed on sole joy and what God's care might send
Of milk and treasure--trove
Of sorrels green,
And roots and tubers fine and samh which we made prize.
The red blast of the desert wind
Hath seared mine eyes.
Since when I search the Earth (sad Earth!) in vain to win
Once more her wondrous voice,
Which led me forth to doom and left me blind,
Bereft of flocks and kin
And homely joys,
Of wife and children's love and to behold the skies.
The red blast of the desert wind
Hath seared mine eyes.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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The Tombstone Told When She Died
The tombstone told when she died.
Her two surnames stopped me still.
A virgin married at rest.
She married in this pouring place,
That I struck one day by luck,
Before I heard in my mother's side
Or saw in the looking-glass shell
The rain through her cold heart speak
And the sun killed in her face.
More the thick stone cannot tell.
Before she lay on a stranger's bed
With a hand plunged through her hair,
Or that rainy tongue beat back
Through the devilish years and innocent deaths
To the room of a secret child,
Among men later I heard it said
She cried her white-dressed limbs were bare
And her red lips were kissed black,
She wept in her pain and made mouths,
Talked and tore though her eyes smiled.
I who saw in a hurried film
Death and this mad heroine
Meet once on a mortal wall
Heard her speak through the chipped beak
Of the stone bird guarding her:
I died before bedtime came
But my womb was bellowing
And I felt with my bare fall
A blazing red harsh head tear up
And the dear floods of his hair.
poem by Dylan Thomas
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The Valley of the Shadow of Death
My soul is sad, and much dismay'd;
See, Lord, what legions of my foes,
With fierce Apollyon at their head,
My heavenly pilgrimage oppose.
See, from the ever-burning lake,
How like a smoky cloud they rise!
With horrid blasts my soul they shake,
With storms of blasphemies and lies.
Their fiery arrows reach the mark,
My throbbing heart with anguish tear;
Each lights upon a kindred spark,
And finds abundant fuel there.
I hate the thought that wrongs the Lord;
Oh! I would drive it from my breast,
With Thy own sharp two-edged sword,
Far as the east is from the west.
Come, then, and chase the cruel host,
Heal the deep wounds I have received!
Nor let the power of darkness boast
That I am foil'd, and Thou art grieved!
poem by William Cowper
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Olney Hymn 39: The Valley Of The Shadow Of Death
My soul is sad, and much dismay'd;
See, Lord, what legions of my foes,
With fierce Apollyon at their head,
My heavenly pilgrimage oppose.
See, from the ever-burning lake,
How like a smoky cloud they rise!
With horrid blasts my soul they shake,
With storms of blasphemies and lies.
Their fiery arrows reach the mark,
My throbbing heart with anguish tear;
Each lights upon a kindred spark,
And finds abundant fuel there.
I hate the thought that wrongs the Lord;
Oh! I would drive it from my breast,
With Thy own sharp two-edged sword,
Far as the east is from the west.
Come, then, and chase the cruel host,
Heal the deep wounds I have received!
Nor let the power of darkness boast
That I am foil'd, and Thou art grieved!
poem by William Cowper
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The Blood Of The Poor
I rise early
And see in the east
In the morning
Find you surprisingly
A ball of crimson red
The blood of the poor and destitute
You must have drunk yesterday!
Was it easy, tasty and very cheap?
Or the blood of the rich is not red!
At twilight
In the far west
Again I see you deep red
Surely you have been fed
With the blood of the poor and the destitute
As a tricky delicate delicious food.
Still you are honorable!
Still you are worship able!
In the east
You rise
For the rich
If we put
Our demand
In front of you
Behind the cloud
You start to play hide and seek.
Willingly you have forgotten
Without keeping the promise
Going down to sleep
In the west
Like a thief
And become a perjure
Now it is cent percent sure
No one is in this world for the weak and the poor.
poem by Abdul Wahab
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Elijah
INTO that good old Hebrew’s soul sublime
The spirit of the wilderness had passed;
For where the thunders of imperial Storm
Rolled over mighty hills; and where the caves
Of cloud-capt Horeb rang with hurricane;
And where wild-featured Solitude did hold
Supreme dominion; there the prophet saw
And heard and felt that large mysterious life
Which lies remote from cities, in the woods
And rocks and waters of the mountained Earth.
And so it came to pass, Elijah caught
That scholarship which gave him power to see
And solve the deep divinity that lies
With Nature, under lordly forest-domes,
And by the seas; and so his spirit waxed,
Made strong and perfect by its fellowship
With God’s authentic world, until his eyes
Became a splendour, and his face was as
A glory with the vision of the seer.
Thereafter, thundering in the towns of men,
His voice, a trumpet of the Lord, did shake
All evil to its deep foundations. He,
The hairy man who ran before the king,
Like some wild spectre fleeting through the storm,
What time Jezreel’s walls were smitten hard
By fourfold wind and rain; ’twas he who slew
The liars at the altars of the gods,
And, at the very threshold of a throne,
Heaped curses on its impious lord; ’twas he
Jehovah raised to grapple Sin that stalked,
Arrayed about with kingship; and to strike
Through gold and purple, to the heart of it.
And therefore Falsehood quaked before his face,
And Tyranny grew dumb at sight of him,
And Lust and Murder raged abroad no more;
But where these were he walked, a shining son
Of Truth, and cleared and sanctified the land.
Not always was the dreaded Tishbite stern;
The scourge of despots, when he saw the face
Of Love in sorrow by the bed of Death,
Grew tender as a maid; and she who missed
A little mouth that used to catch, and cling—
A small, sweet trouble—at her yearning breast;*
Yea, she of Zarephath, who sat and mourned
The silence of a birdlike voice that made
Her flutter with the joy of motherhood
In other days, she came to know the heart
Of Pity that the rugged prophet had.
And when he took the soft, still child away,
And laid it on his bed; and in the dark
Sent up a pleading voice to Heaven; and drew
The little body to his breast; and held
It there until the bright, young soul returned
To earth again; the gladdened woman saw
A radiant beauty in Elijah’s eyes,
And knew the stranger was a man of God.
We want a new Elijah in these days,
A mighty spirit clad in shining arms
Of Truth—yea, one whose lifted voice would break,
Like thunder, on our modern Apathy,
And shake the fanes of Falsehood from their domes
Down to the firm foundations; one whose words,
Directly coming from a source divine,
Would fall like flame where Vice holds festival,
And search the inmost heart of nations; one
Made godlike with that scholarship supreme
Which comes of suffering; one, with eyes to see
The very core of things; with hands to grasp
High opportunities, and use them for
His glorious mission; one, whose face inspired
Would wear a terror for the lying soul,
But seem a glory in the sight of those
Who make the light and sweetness of the world,
And are the high priests of the Beautiful.
Yea, one like this we want amongst us now
To drive away the evil fogs that choke
Our social atmosphere, and leave it clear
And pure and hallowed with authentic light.
poem by Henry Kendall
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Accession
ONCE I loved, and my heart bowed down,
Subject and slave, for Love was a King;
He sat above with sceptre and crown,
Turning his eyes from my sorrowing.
The laugh of a god on his lips lay light--
His lips victorious that mocked my pain,
And I mourned in the cold and the outer night,
And my tears and my prayers were vain.
Now the old spell is over and done,
Myself I wear the ermine and gold,
My brows are crowned, I ascend the throne,
I have taken the sceptre and orb to hold.
I smile victorious, set far above
The music of voices that moan and pray,
My feet are wet with the tears of love,
And I turn my eyes away.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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The Quest
Part i:
Three men set out for their worldly quest
One for gold, another for a pleasure nest
The third for what he could not tell
But trusted his heart to lead him well.
'I shall have every silver and every gold'
The first boasted so bold
'All pleasure everywhere is mine'
The second yelled, 'with plenty wine and dine'
To the third they asked, 'what will yours be'
'Well for all i ask and seek, ' said he
'Let the sun guide me by day, by night the moon
To my quest, my heart shall lead me there soon'
Part ii
And there before the rising sun
Set all three with hope to return
Through North, south, from east to west
In search of their worldly quest
Part iii
The first found silver and gold of every kind
Much more he hoped to find
Some so big, some sparkling small
O! How much he loved them all
The second found his pleasure land
With plenty merry go hand
So much to eat, and much to drink
Till his cheeks grew fat and pink
Part iv
The third, from valley low, to mountain top
And yet he did not stop
For deep inside love bade him come
Of your quest, you'd find the sum
Alas! So weary from his worldy quest
Sat he down quietly to rest
Soon he was gently fast asleep
As he snored so free and deep
He dreamt he stood before a court so heavily thronged
And he in kingly robe adorned
By his side stood a beautiful queen
That eye had ever seen
He woke up and lo! he saw before him
That castle in his dream
So marvelous still, was that royal face
In so splendid a place
Part v
Soon news went round as time unfold
Of those who sought for pleasure and gold
O! Such a terrible tale to hear
What strife they had to bear
For the first had gone to sail at sea
Aboard 'Her Golden Majesty'
'For all under heaven' boasted he
'There is none as rich as me'
Then came a gathering gloom
Of tempest christiened doom
It pressed them low and tossed them high
They screamed- 'we are all going to die'
'Ho! For every life and property aboard
One' said the capt, 'must go overboard
Choose now, your judgement me be fair
We have no time to spare'
A murmur here, a murmur there
But then it was quite clear
For all on board, silver and gold,
A life is worth more to behold
And so over and over went his silver and gold
Till none was left to hold
Thus he lost his worldly gain
His life now filled with vain
For the one who sought for pleasure
Had more than words could measure
Food, drink and women of every name
For fun he grew to fame
Soon one after one, as darkness befall
Till none was left at all
And so alone left he to fend
O! What a traggic end
For all he had were friends for fun
But now they were all gone
He knew not where to go or what to do
What will you, if it were you?
Part vi
Back to the one who sought for love
Had more that mortal quest could prove
A beautiful queen, and a royal gown
Sweet end and a golden crown
'Welcome my lord, come thee to me
I have by the gate waited thee
Its time to take thy rightful place
The world awaits thy face'
'I am not worthy of such glory and gold' he cried
Hush! Love knows best and never ask' she said
Then hand in hand she led him on
'Of all life's quest, the best you have won! '
'For begger is he who seek only riches and all it brings
But to find love the dream of kings! !
poem by Okonkwo Osamedua. Allen
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