Ballade
By Mystic's banks I held my dream.
(I held my fishing rod as well,)
The vision was of dace and bream,
A fruitless vision, sooth to tell.
But round about the sylvan dell
Were other sweet Arcadian shrines,
Gone now, is all the rural spell,
Arcadia has trolley lines.
Oh, once loved, sluggish, darkling stream,
For me no more, thy waters swell,
Thy music now the engines' scream,
Thy fragrance now the factory's smell;
Too near for me the clanging bell;
A false light in the water shines
While Solitude lists to her knell,--
Arcadia has trolley lines.
Thy wooded lanes with shade and gleam
Where bloomed the fragrant asphodel,
Now bleak commercially teem
With signs 'To Let,' 'To Buy,' 'To Sell.'
And Commerce holds them fierce and fell;
With vulgar sport she now combines
Sweet Nature's piping voice to quell.
Arcadia has trolley lines.
poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
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Related quotes
L'Envoi
Oh, awful Power whose works repel
The marvel of the earth's designs,--
I 'll hie me otherwhere to dwell,
Arcadia has trolley lines.
poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
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Longing For Childhood
I saw an elderly man in the supermarket
Moving fast and smoothly, his aim was to get to the end of the aisle
I took a closer look, he had such style
He rode that trolley with such glee
Everyone stood back to see
I wondered what was going through his head
Maybe next moment he was being put to bed
To reminisce of days long gone
Must be as sweet as a good song
As he grins from ear to ear
And the shoppers all clap and cheer
I hoped that trolley could stand the strain
A he didn't look as if he could survive any pain.
poem by Brian Roy Skyers
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Old Town Types No.2 - Red Matt
He gleaned all the gossip and he gathered all the news,
Mad Matt, the carrier, delivering the grub;
He knew the trooper's tattle and he knew the parson's views,
The gossip at the station-yard, the gossip at the pub.
That high-pitched voice of his, the loudest voice in town,
That shrewd blue eye of his, with humor all a-gleam -
Old Red Matt, with his cabbage-tree hat,
His trolley, and his two-horse team.
Driving down the main street a-clatter with his load,
The great red beard of him blowing out behind:
'Hear about that accident's mornin' up the road?
Hear about the gold rush at Joe Scott's find?
Warmish sort o' day we got; thirsty weather this.
Got a bag o' spuds for you - Dang! Fergot the cream!'
Says old Red Matt with his cabbage-tree hat,
And his trolley, and his two-horse team.
Mad Matt, the carrier, standing at the bar:
'Well here's a go, boys. Got to get along
Seven pints I've had today and still to travel far.
Drink fast and drive fast, yeh can't go wrong.
Fill 'em up again, boss, ans hove it on the slate.
Half-a-ton aboard today - just tipped the beam,'
Says old red Matt with the cabbage-tree hat,
And his trolley, and his two-horse team.
Sudden were his wild ways, sudden, too, his end.
Jumped to grab a bolting team with kiddie sin the trap;
And they picked up Mad Matt, everybody's friend,
Silent now and broken; and they said, 'Brave chap.
Wild an' all,' they said of him, 'always was a white man.'
And they laid him, with a blessing, where his old mates dream,
Saying, 'So long, Matt, with your cabbage-tree hat,
And your trolley, and your two-horse team.'
poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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The tempest
I saw the Lord God fishing
while we were sailing
on a stormy sea
and gigantic waves were crashing
while He cast His lines in
landing here and there
and later landing almost everywhere.
The lines of God were blue-white
hitting the ocean and some the boat
and while the storm ripped, tossed us
to and fro
that ship almost came apart.
His lines thundered in sizzling the water
where they fell
running up through the pitch black clouds
and no gale force wind, no raging storm sea
could deny His will
while His lines
with thundering flame came in
and I looked up into that howling sky
with rain bashing against me,
wanting to see Him
and heard the sea scream
in its anger, saw the torrent wind
ripping the sails to shreds
and the storm died down instead
with a great rainbow
against the horizon up ahead
and His lines were all gone
and I didn’t see one more
and the boat set a new course
to reach the shore.
poem by Gert Strydom
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I Can Read Between The Lines
Roy orbison/joe melson
Girl I got your letter telling me youre coming home tonight
The lines were sweet and tender signed with all your love
Pretty words to make me feel alright
Then I read it over I got the feeling youre not completely mine
I held it to my chest, where you always rest
And I cried cos I can read between the lines
Between the lines I see youre making believe
But I cant help it, I still want you
Between the lines its plain youre playing that old game
But I still love you, and I cant change
Baby Ill be waiting at the downtown station right on time
Reaching out to hold you, the way I always do
Ill pretend that you are only mine
And while Im loving you I cant read between the lines
While Im loving you I cant read between the lines
Transcribed by the teenking
song performed by by Roy Orbison
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Playing Infant
Play on thy mother's bosom, babe, for in that holy isle
The error cannot find thee yet, the grieving, nor the guile;
Held in thy mother's arms above life's dark and troubled wave,
Thou lookest with thy fearless smile upon the floating grave.
Play, loveliest innocence!--Thee yet Arcadia circles round,
A charmed power for thee has set the lists of fairy ground;
Each gleesome impulse Nature now can sanction and befriend,
Nor to that willing heart as yet the duty and the end.
Play, for the haggard labor soon will come to seize its prey.
Alas! when duty grows thy law, enjoyment fades away!
poem by Friedrich Schiller
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Flower a Key to Woman's Heart
oh, woman listens to my serenade voice of
wandering, look up the pleading voice of openness
as it lurks your beautiful plain of sweet
remembering may this hymn of praise, shadow the
closeness of your eyes to peep my lasting heart
forever
let me smell the greatness fragrance of your
sweet moment and hold me tied in your loving
care, may this moment of the night, leads me
to see the vision to see the wonderful sky, beyond
this delight of the star
envy not my lapses, all have gone forever rest
in the wave of promises; wondered in the picture of
time, be then the flower that dazzlingly bloom in the
garden of hope viewed to see the lasting dawn of a
new beginning in our hearts
pick the petal and let not your smell be the obstacle
of fragrance of sweet mistake for a new dream of
vigor lives in your lives, now and forward to the
end
be a lips that touches the fragrance of sweet smell,
and holds the heart that rainbow the beautiful sky
of tomorrow ….
poem by Antonio Liao
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New Day Callin
Woke today
Hypnotized
A blissful shimmer
Lit my window
Changed my eyes
Changed my mind
A new day callin'
It's what I see when I dream
It's what I feel when I pray
Except I'm redeemed
And this time I'm awake
Like a ringin' bell
That's freedom's spell
A new day callin'
Now nights get cold
And you know that there's gonna be rain
But that's yin and yang, my brother
You can't have one without the other
The morning shines new light
So that I can see
That I never left this road
That brings me sweet, sweet liberty
Like a ringin' bell...
That's freedom's spell...
A new day callin'
Like a ringin' bell...
That's freedom's spell...
A new day callin'
Woke today
Summer phase
All my yesterdays
Behind me
This new color of life
Can't deny it
A new day is callin'
The winter storm blows winds
That won't forgive
But rest your heart on one sure thing
The winter turns to spring
The morning shines new light
So that I can see
That I never left this road
That brings me sweet, sweet liberty
Like a ringin' bell...
That's freedom's spell...
A new day callin'
Like a ringin' bell...
That's freedom's spell...
A new day callin'
The morning shines new light
So that I can see (The morning shines new light_
That I never left this road
That brings me sweet, sweet liberty
Like a ringin' bell... (Like a ringin' bell)
That's freedom's spell...
A new day callin'
Like a ringin' bell...
That's freedom's spell...
A new day callin'
Yeah yeah yeah, can you hear it?
The morning shines new light
So that I can see (So that I can see, yeah)
That I never left this road
That brings me sweet, sweet liberty
Like a ringin' bell... (Like a ringin' bell)
That's freedom's spell... (That's freedom's spell)
A new day callin'
(Yeah, can't your hear it callin'? Yeah yeah...)
Like a ringin' bell...
That's freedom's spell...
A new day callin'
song performed by by En Vogue
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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From – Twenty Poems of Love
I can write the saddest lines tonight.
Write for example: ‘The night is fractured
and they shiver, blue, those stars, in the distance’
The night wind turns in the sky and sings.
I can write the saddest lines tonight.
I loved her, sometimes she loved me too.
On nights like these I held her in my arms.
I kissed her greatly under the infinite sky.
She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could I not have loved her huge, still eyes.
I can write the saddest lines tonight.
To think I don’t have her, to feel I have lost her.
Hear the vast night, vaster without her.
Lines fall on the soul like dew on the grass.
What does it matter that I couldn’t keep her.
The night is fractured and she is not with me.
That is all. Someone sings far off. Far off,
my soul is not content to have lost her.
As though to reach her, my sight looks for her.
My heart looks for her: she is not with me
The same night whitens, in the same branches.
We, from that time, we are not the same.
I don’t love her, that’s certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the breeze to reach her.
Another’s kisses on her, like my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body, infinite eyes.
I don’t love her, that’s certain, but perhaps I love her.
Love is brief: forgetting lasts so long.
Since, on these nights, I held her in my arms,
my soul is not content to have lost her.
Though this is the last pain she will make me suffer,
and these are the last lines I will write for her.
poem by Pablo Neruda
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A Pigeon
I've picked up your name from the floor
and held it for long on the palm of my hand
watching it gently peck its lines
until there remained nothing not a single crumb
and your name well fed slept for a while
in lines of death in lines of life
in lines of the head and lines of the heart
in intricate patterns that sealed me for too long
there was a lullaby I wanted to sing
but I was not able to open my mouth
for fear you'll wake up and disappear
and I promised myself I would never dropp you again
poem by Miroslava Odalovic
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Shopping Trolley
I am a shopping trolley.
I am hooked on pushers
They strip the shelves like locusts.
Bikers zoom me round with granite fists
Pensioners slump over me like caterpillars
Babies are dumped in me like pupae
I whizz through plastic jungles of bananas
To the surprisingly friendly cackle of plastic hens
I am a shopping trolley I am heavily into Zen.
I am a metal meditator
One day I may levitate
Over the drinks aisle
Frightening the alkies.
I am a water carrier,
This bottle on my spars
Contains the following:
(Please read before swallowing)
Calcium quinine magnesium
Chloride sodium potassium
Sulphate nitrate
If you've a dicky prostate
Avoid this mineral water at all costs.
It harbours aluminium and iron
The ideal drink for
Thirsty horse shoes
Parched park railings
Dehydrated nests of non-stick pans
poem by Sheena Blackhall
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A Thorough And Complete Irrigation
Just how stagnant, backed up and polluted,
Is the thinking in those country?
'One conversation.
That's all anyone will need,
To determind there has never been a flow...
Ongoing to flush out the rust.
It's all there...
Plugged up with stuff like raw sewage.
Kept to recycle in their minds.'
What can be done to undo this with a solution?
'A thorough and complete irrigation.'
And...
If that should fail?
'Well...
No one can make happen,
What time has already given to then pass on...
Has allowed.'
What do you mean by that?
'Trolley cars use to run up and down these streets.
Many years ago.'
And your point is?
Go over there,
And tell anyone standing...
You wish to wait for the next trolley to come.
And ask where you should wait.
Someone will then ask...
'Are the trolleys still running?
I thought they replaced those with buses? '
So what are you saying?
They are a little bit slow?
'That's a very good question.
Go over there and ask them.
I am sure they will let you know...
Just how slow.'
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Working At The Factory
All my life I've been a workin' man
When I was at school they said that's all you'll ever understand
No profession. I didn't figure in their plans
So they sent me down factory to be a workin' man
All I lived for, All I lived for
All I lived for was to get out of the factory
Now I'm here seemingly free, but working at the factory.
The music came along and gave new life to me
And gave me hope back in 1983
The music came and set me free
From working at the factory
All I lived for, All I lived for
All I lived for was to get out of the factory
All I lived for, All I lived for
All I lived for was to get out of the factory
Never wanted to be like everybody else
But now there are so many like me sitting on the shelf
They sold us a dream but in reality
It was just another factory
I made the music , thought that was mine
It made me free , but that was in another time
But then the corporations and the big combines
Turned musicians into factory workers on assembly lines.
All I lived for, All I lived for
All I lived for was to get out of the factory
We made the music to set ourselves free
From working at the factory.
All my life I've put in a working day
Now it's sign the contract. Get production on the way
Take the money, make the music pay
Working at the factory
All I lived for was to get out of the factory.
Never wanted to be like everybody else
But now there are so many like me sitting on the shelf
They sold us a dream but in reality
Was just another factory
Working at the factory.
song performed by by Kinks
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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To
LINES WRITTEN AFTER A SUMMER DAY'S EXCURSION.
Fair Nature's priestesses! to whom,
In hieroglyph of bud and bloom,
Her mysteries are told;
Who, wise in lore of wood and mead,
The seasons' pictured scrolls can read,
In lessons manifold!
Thanks for the courtesy, and gay
Good-humor, which on Washing Day
Our ill-timed visit bore;
Thanks for your graceful oars, which broke
The morning dreams of Artichoke,
Along his wooded shore!
Varied as varying Nature's ways,
Sprites of the river, woodland fays,
Or mountain nymphs, ye seem;
Free-limbed Dianas on the green,
Loch Katrine's Ellen, or Undine,
Upon your favorite stream.
The forms of which the poets told,
The fair benignities of old,
Were doubtless such as you;
What more than Artichoke the rill
Of Helicon? Than Pipe-stave hill
Arcadia's mountain-view?
No sweeter bowers the bee delayed,
In wild Hymettus' scented shade,
Than those you dwell among;
Snow-flowered azaleas, intertwined
With roses, over banks inclined
With trembling harebells hung!
A charmed life unknown to death,
Immortal freshness Nature hath;
Her fabled fount and glen
Are now and here: Dodona's shrine
Still murmurs in the wind-swept pine,--
All is that e'er hath been.
The Beauty which old Greece or Rome
Sung, painted, wrought, lies close at home;
We need but eye and ear
In all our daily walks to trace
The outlines of incarnate grace,
The hymns of gods to hear!
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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Democracy is only a dream: it should be put in the same category as Arcadia, Santa Claus, and Heaven.
quote by H.L. Mencken
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Friday Night Shopping
I went to do the shopping at the Supermarket Store
Couldn't find a trolley - so hunted round some more:
I dashed around the car park searching every trolley bay
And at last, with the one with the wonky wheel, I was on my way!
Inevitably, I met someone I'd not seen for a while
So we parked our trolleys in the middle of the aisle
Just to make shopping that bit harder for everybody else
Isn't it a pain when everyone just thinks of self/
We had a conversation about this and that
I was really pleased to see her and enjoyed our chat.
Eventually I reached the checkouts where the fun begins'
To search for the "right queue" and start unloading all my tins.
In front of me was a lady, quite mature.
She'd be quick, I was absolutely sure.
Then her cash could not be found amongst papers and all kinds of dockets
In one of those wretched handbags with about fifteen pockets.
I was glad to leave that store - I'd finished work at five - got home at seven
Sat down with a cuppa' which was pure magic, just sheer heaven!
poem by Jackie Holland
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If You Read These Lines This Morning
if you read these lines this morning
these lines that miss you
these lines that say i love you
these lines that are dying to touch you
to hug and kiss you
these lines that know every inch of you
if you read these lines well enough
then you know who i am
i, who is nothing to you.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Who You Are To Me
if you read these lines this morning
these lines that miss you
these lines that say i love you
these lines are dying to touch you
to hug and kiss you
these lines that know every inch of you
if you read these lines well enough
then you know who i am
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Solidarity In Lines
unemployment lines
lines of books
Lines of cocaine
Food stamp lines
Theater lines
Grocery store
car wash
school children
Soup kitchen
club
abortion clinic
Delicatessen
traffic lines
crosswalks
Traffic Jam
Lines on a map
Jules gets home and un-loads his rucksack
Gods laziness
Because of the machines and computers we will all end up lonely human beings
poem by Jerome Moore
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Deux Parallele
Two parallel lines, two parallel lines
why can't they intertwine?
Osculating endlessly in an oblivious dream
Protracting incessantly, continuing as they seem
Arduoulsy crisscrossing, but they try not
Restless, unfortunate and strange-they intersect-a lot
Abhorrent, one line was assentient
Lines that shouldn't have met-but with Fate's consent
Languishing now, they converge-supposedly inexorable
Envisaging an unbounded union, then one line fumbles
Lines- these two lines now distorted and twisted
Lonely and longing, their common point, now ill-fated
Inelastic, these two lines- concurrent and disentangled
Nevermore will these two lines meet and form the Angle
Excogitating now, these two lines, victims of fate
Saved...these two lines be, once parallel, intersecting, can only wait
poem by Pete Zaesar Galula
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