En.Citatepedia^®.ro

On The Medusa Of Leonardo da Vinci In The Florentine Gallery

I.
It lieth, gazing on the midnight sky,
Upon the cloudy mountain-peak supine;
Below, far lands are seen tremblingly;
Its horror and its beauty are divine.
Upon its lips and eyelids seems to lie
Loveliness like a shadow, from which shine,
Fiery and lurid, struggling underneath,
The agonies of anguish and of death.

II.
Yet it is less the horror than the grace
Which turns the gazer's spirit into stone,
Whereon the lineaments of that dead face
Are graven, till the characters be grown
Into itself, and thought no more can trace;
’Tis the melodious hue of beauty thrown
Athwart the darkness and the glare of pain,
Which humanize and harmonize the strain.

III.
And from its head as from one body grow,
As grass out of a watery rock,
Hairs which are vipers, and they curl and flow
And their long tangles in each other lock,
And with unending involutions show
Their mailed radiance, as it were to mock
The torture and the death within, and saw
The solid air with many a ragged jaw.

IV.
And, from a stone beside, a poisonous eft
Peeps idly into those Gorgonian eyes;
Whilst in the air a ghastly bat, bereft
Of sense, has flitted with a mad surprise
Out of the cave this hideous light had cleft,
And he comes hastening like a moth that hies
After a taper; and the midnight sky
Flares, a light more dread than obscurity.

V.
'Tis the tempestuous loveliness of terror;
For from the serpents gleams a brazen glare
Kindled by that inextricable error,
Which makes a thrilling vapour of the air
Become a and ever-shifting mirror
Of all the beauty and the terror there--
A woman’s countenance, with serpent-locks,
Gazing in death on Heaven from those wet rocks.

poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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The Beauty Of A Poem

The beauty of a poem
The beauty of music
The beauty of light
The beauty of life
The beauty which makes us want to live life more
The beauty which pains us inside
The beauty in longing.
The beauty we come upon by surprise
The beauty of the day and the beauty of the night
The beauty we all have inside us
The beauty we can see and feel and never explain
The beauty that lifts us up
The beauty that makes us want to live more
The beauty that makes us reach out to God
The beauty we want to thank God for
The beauty of lilacs
The beauty of autumn leaves
The beauty of the people we love
The beauty that pervades life
The beauty that turns away from us
And will not let us be a part of it
The beauty we hold on to fragilely
As a driven leaf
The beauty the beauty the beauty
Oh life oh God of goodness oh death
The beauty we can never see
And the Beauty within us all
Oh God
The Beauty in us and Beyond us all.

poem by Shalom Freedman
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After our Likeness.

Before me now a little picture lies—
A little shadow of a childish face,
Childishly sweet, yet with the dawning grace
Of thought and wisdom on her lips and eyes.

Fair, oval, broad-brow'd face—small, delicate head—
Transparent skin, with blue veins shining through—
All the soft outlines, beautiful and true,
Bring me the echo of the words “God said.”

Made “in our image”—sure 'tis that we see,
God's likeness, in the fair face of a child,
By the world's sin and passion undefiled—
Ay, as I look, it seems quite plain to me.

The light wherein the little features shine,
Strange, mystic light, so undefined and faint,
So far too pure for any words to paint—
'Tis a reflection of the Face divine.

Some day the earthly shadows will be cast
Across that sunshine—it may be to dim
A while the visible countenance of Him;
But 'twill be there—the likeness—to the last.

Some day the lucid waters, in which lie
Pictured those glorious lineaments, will be
Stirred up and troubled like a stormy sea;—
But they will yet re-settle—by-and-by.

They will re-settle when the soul is still'd,
Its passions, its wild longings, and its pain;
The pure reflection will shine out again
When earth's hopes are relinquish'd, unfulfill'd.

They will re-settle in those after-years
When life's hard lessons have been conned and learn'd;
Then this child's beauty will have all return'd,
More lovely for the trouble and the tears.
They will re-settle in the calm of death,
When the sweet eyes are laid asleep, and when
The heart is hush'd. Truly God's likeness then—
The mirror clear, unsullied by a breath.

Ah! while I look, and trace each tender line,
I think most of the day when I shall see
The dear face in that perfect purity,
Its mortal features clothed with the divine.

This self-same face, but with the image bright,
Nevermore undefined, and faint, and dim;
This self-same face, yet like the face of Him,
In glory and in beauty infinite.

poem by Ada Cambridge
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Death and I

When death comes
I’ll need not love –
Consumed,
No wreath or dove
Could offer me salvation,
Not when I’m no more.

A weathered stone will bear my name –
Identity of once a being
Living out existence in
A world of risk, and never seeing
Sense of why we’re here.

My genes will die away thro’ child –
Hue of eyes and hair, the way of thought,
Will quickly dim with generation –
Bow to future dominance –
Memories of provenance
Resigned to curious few.

When death comes
I’ll need not grace
Below; no grieving face
Will call my resurrection,
Not when I’m at ground –

Death and I so bound.

Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2011

D eath Crawl

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poem by Mark R Slaughter
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Sestina

I have come, alas, to the great circle of shadow,
to the short day and to the whitening hills,
when the colour is all lost from the grass,
though my desire will not lose its green,
so rooted is it in this hardest stone,
that speaks and feels as though it were a woman.

And likewise this heaven-born woman
stays frozen, like the snow in shadow,
and is unmoved, or moved like a stone,
by the sweet season that warms all the hills,
and makes them alter from pure white to green,
so as to clothe them with the flowers and grass.

When her head wears a crown of grass
she draws the mind from any other woman,
because she blends her gold hair with the green
so well that Amor lingers in their shadow,
he who fastens me in these low hills,
more certainly than lime fastens stone.

Her beauty has more virtue than rare stone.
The wound she gives cannot be healed with grass,
since I have travelled, through the plains and hills,
to find my release from such a woman,
yet from her light had never a shadow
thrown on me, by hill, wall, or leaves’ green.

I have seen her walk all dressed in green,
so formed she would have sparked love in a stone,
that love I bear for her very shadow,
so that I wished her, in those fields of grass,
as much in love as ever yet was woman,
closed around by all the highest hills.

The rivers will flow upwards to the hills
before this wood, that is so soft and green,
takes fire, as might ever lovely woman,
for me, who would choose to sleep on stone,
all my life, and go eating grass,
only to gaze at where her clothes cast shadow.

Whenever the hills cast blackest shadow,
with her sweet green, the lovely woman
hides it, as a man hides stone in grass.

poem by Dante Alighieri
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Death by Beauty

Beauty is the source of all things in day,
but then Death comes to take our sight away.
Beauty is the sower of love and peace,
then Death comes a knocking so it can reap.
Beauty 's in the eye of the beholder,
but Death comes when all that mess is over.

Most think that all hope has run astray,
when death makes true beauty fade away;
but I am here to tell you the truth,
that beauty will always be in you.
Beauty is such a magical thing;
It happens when the soul laughs and sings.

Death is such a horrible sight.
Death makes moods colder than dry ice.
The world can always devour
a beautiful flawless flower.
so, The price you pay for beauty's sin
is the kiss of Death upon your chin.

poem by Wesley Garrett
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A Fresh Endeavour

So now I've taken leave of life,
I thought you'd like to know, I still
Possess a mind in love, oh wife;
A soulful eye to catch a show of
Silent beauty – ever yours;
An ear to pick the metaphors
Of tonal dance in words you say,
Grasp a thought in verse you pray
Inside your head, bemused of mind,
Softly mournful, intertwined with
Understanding tears.

I'll drift a whisper o'er to you
To tell that I am quietly calm;
Keeping time till your adieu
To flesh, upon the carol of a
Psalm of consummation. Now!
A fresh endeavour – we're forever
One together, resting yonder,
Cross our open plane of blue.

Copyright Mark R Slaughter 2009

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poem by Mark R Slaughter
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The Drowned Alive

I was one so deeply drowned,
That when the drag my body found,
Twas void of motion, void of breath,
And to sensation dead as death.
In a languid summer mood
I had plunged into a flood,
That to the low sun’s slanting beams
Gleamed with only quiet gleams,
Each with a wide flicker sheeting
From its still floor, fast and fleeting,
E’en such a flood as, one would say,
Could never, or by night or day,
Have drenched a man’s warm life away.

But what are these down in its bed
That trail so long and look so red,
Moving as in conscious sport?
Are they weeds of curious sort?
But I’ll drive to them and see
Into all their mystery.

Down I dive. A plentious crop!
Some shall with me to the top,
For here there is too dim a light
To show their character aright.
I wind them in my arms, intent
To root them up in my ascent;
But they resist me, and again
I tug them with a stronger strain.
Full well, I trow, they hold their own,
Gripping fast each bedded stone
With their tuby roots, that go
Down through the stiff slime below.
Well at last I find that I
Must leave them.—But in vain I try!
Fierce as lightning on my brain
Smites the dread truth—I try in vain!
Yea, more and more, in coils and flakes
Like long blood-red watersnakes,
The deadly things around me clasp—
The more I tug the more they grasp!
My pent breath, growing hot and thin,
Explodes with a dull booming din;
While through my unclenched teeth the wave
Comes drenching! Is there none to save?
None near to see, to guess, to trace
Under the water s gleaming face
The dread extremity of one
Thus fastened down? Ah! Is there none?
Wild as vain my struggles grow—
Horror, horror, life must go!

Hope gives up her ghost, despair;
I am dying; round me here
The long weeds erst so deeply red,
Look, even where nearest, grey as lead,
As mid them, settling down, I sway
To and fro, and fast away
Life keeps bubbling—bubbling, aye
Through my cold lips wide agape,
White, and stiffening to that shape
They take at last when done with breath
In the rigid face of death.

And now, while sullen drummings make
My spirit through mine ears to ache,
Life-long memories interwrought
With all I ever felt or thought,
Sacred fancies hidden long
Lest the world should do them wrong,
Pent-back feelings that for years
Just below the source of tears
Folded close their glowing wings,
With a million other things,
All thick interthronging press
Through my drowning consciousness;
Then comes the thought of how my doom
Must wrap my mother in its gloom;
And give my sire to hold his breath
For anguish, hearing of my death,
And wound one fond heart to the core
In the wide world evermore.
All in the same instant so
Do these quick thoughts come and go,
Life within my failing brain
Full of pity, full of pain.

Lastly a drear stupor blent
With a comfortless content,
Into one mass of clammy clay
Kneads mind and body. Drenched away
With one faint shudder, one last throe,
Life stagnates and its shell lies low,
Swaying weed-bound to and fro,
Void of feeling and of breath,
How die we, if this be not death?

Ah! What thrilling, thrilling pain
Kindles through my heart and brain!
Ah! What horrors o’er me wave,
Shadowing forth as from the grave;
Ah! Those sudden gleams of light,
They fall like firebrands on my sight!
Ah! What vast and heavy world
Is all at once upon me hurled,
Massing into one immense
Oppression, every tortured sense.

. . . . .
Yes; I now remember well
How my sudden fate befell;
And are we, then, in death s grim thrall,
Thus consciousness of our funeral?
But where are they who most should mourn
When by bier is graveward borne?
With her whose face I yearn to see—
Where are they? And where is she?
Where the crape-trimm’d followers all?
Where the coffin and the pall?
Or do death and nature strive
Within me? Is the drowned alive?

poem by Charles Harpur
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Beautiful Death

Time with chisel doth carved many line
In thine countenance wrinkled thou lay supine
In front of my eyes I see beauty bear
Death as dotage thine heart's only wear
Underneath thy raiment doth love subtly grow
Into me as I look at life of love thy soul did show
A beautiful death, is a beautiful life
With life and death there is no need to strife…

poem by Kevin Michael Murphy
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A Single Candle/Death Herself

A single flame lights her face
The face of death
A single candle holds her fears
The fears of death

Her hands clasped anrond their souls
The souls of the dead
She feeds of their screams
The screams of the dead

Her legs lay bellow her
Bellow death
Her black gown over her body
The body of death

Her chest rises and falls with her breath
The breath of death
Her cloak drawn over her long flowing jet hair
The face of death

Her eyes unmoved unfeeling
Do you see it?
Do you see the soul of death?
Do you feel it?

Her skin as white as snow as it fades into darkness
The snow of tears
Her cloths as dark as night that swallows the light
The dark we all shall see

Her eyes close as she feels their souls flow
Flow from the dead
She leaves them there to lay in darkness
She steals from the dead

A single candle lights their faces filled with her
Filled with death
They fall into the darkness of her eyes, of her heart
The darkness of death

A single candle shall stay to light their way
Their way through the dark
A single candle holds their past
The pain and trials

A single candle lights her face
The face of death
A single candle holds her fears
The fears of death herself

A single candle

poem by Bethany Maxwell
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Death, Inevitable Death

Death, inevitable Death.
So now You come to show Your world,
Hence the blackened cloak – unfurled.
And peering down upon my form
– Bereft of pity – Your eyes of storm.

Death, inexorable Death.
‘When? ’ The only question out of Thee.
My dream retorts 'But ne’er for me! ’
But now awake, I bid you so –
My giving tears cry ‘Where to go? ’

Death, adamant Death.
You cast Your spell and guide me 'way,
For life and I have had our day.
And what of me? I prey You, tell!
Be glorious in Heaven or gnarled in Hell?

Death, ineluctable Death.
Oh wiry ghoul, I'm here to follow –
I leave my body grey and shallow.
‘Come! ’ You bid in thund’ring tones,
‘Beg farewell to shattered bones.’

Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2009

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poem by Mark R Slaughter
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Impromptu

Tell me your race, your name,
O Lady limned as dead, yet as when living fair!
That within this faded frame
An unfading beauty wear.
Were you ever known to fame,
Or, more wisely, chose to be
Lost in love's obscurity?
We may question, gaze, and guess,
You will never answer ``yes,''
For your sweet lips are closed by Death's relentlessness.

Yes, you were chill before
Some thoughtful hand to us your loveliness bequeathed.
You already then no more
Moved, or spoke, or felt, or breathed,
But an eternal silence wore.
Dank and limp your ample hair,
And your eyelids kept the stare
Of a face that cannot speak;
And, where lived the rose's streak,
There only lingered then the lily in your cheek.

Was it your own strange prayer
That you, in death, should be in living garb arrayed,
And your aspect seem as fair,
Fanciful and undecayed,
As when life and love were there?
No! it was no idle whim:
Death was in love with you, and you in love with Him.
And when you, with tender dread,
All to Him surrenderëd,
He took care you should retain
All of life except its pain,
And with unabated charms
Lie fast asleep in your unsleeping lover's arms.

poem by Alfred Austin
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Wintry Midnight Moon

Setting at night,
Through ghostly clouds,
Moving giving comfort,
To all those young 'uns,
Sleeping and dreaming of monsters,
Fairy-tales and sweet dreams.

Moon so silent, gentle
In the skies,
Joyful at being the one,
To watch over all,
Except over the suns territory,
They do swaps...

The brilliance of the white light,
The cheese up in the sky,
So peaceful to sit under,
The starry sky gazing at the moon,
In the night-time dew in the grass,
Have a glass of apple juice.

Take the 'cheers' to the moon,
For the light and beauty,
The loveliness about the moon,
For in this poem nothing bad is said,
The moons brilliance, relaxing the dead...

Through the winter midnight strikes,
Christmas day begins,
The moon shines to all extent,
The clouds wearing sunglasses to see the moon,
Never to block its rays,
In these numbered, wintery midnight days,
Which this wintery midnight moon so much enjoys,
As being the main part of this starry festival,
Keeping the tradition going...

poem by Viraj Bhanshaly
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Modern Beauty

I am the torch, she saith, and what to me
If the moth die of me? I am the flame
Of Beauty, and I burn that all may see
Beauty, and I have neither joy nor shame.
But live with that clear light of perfect fire
Which is to men the death of their desire.

I am Yseult and Helen, I have seen
Troy burn, and the most loving knight lies dead.
The world has been my mirror, time has been
My breath upon the glass; and men have said,
Age after age, in rapture and despair,
Love's poor few words, before my image there.

I live, and am immortal; in my eyes
The sorrow of the world, and on my lips
The joy of life, mingle to make me wise;
Yet now the day is darkened with eclipse:
Who is there lives for beauty? Still am I
The torch, but where's the moth that still dares die?

poem by Arthur Symons
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Beldame of Death

A crunch: afoot a dead arachnid
Spanning once a serving plate –
Oh! that others be alive
With such as me for spider bait!

I slunk along the silent hall
Of ancient ore attired in grime –
Feculent beyond the nose;
No bearing here, nor feel for time.

I shuddered in appreciation –
The ambience would mortify
A feeble mind, aghast, opined
Of murky thought, and typify
The will of Belial err I brought
Upon myself to loathe and dread
Exquisite retribution: to linger
Oftentimes alive, then dead.

Compulsion saw me edging on
Toward a narrow door of oak.
Behind, I knew, a greater evil
Waiting in her fusty cloak.

A choice of nil upon the table;
Aught of leave, I had to face
Alone the shrew – her flaming aura
Angling me; my deep disgrace
From ugly deeds I dealt in life,
A heinous world I honed in glee…

'Now take a crooked path to death,
For I have come to torture thee! '

Out of eyes of orange flame,
A piercing glare, then here it came –
The cackling cry of chanting song:

'You thought you'd die alone in pain
The once – nay nay! you'll die with me,
And so a catch: you'll die again
Ad infinitum - ever be!

Your soul to curse, my heart we'll gore,
Your liver to draw and quarter;
A sadomasochistic pair,
We'll slither together in slaughter! '

I answered only with a scream, from
Sensing near her craving lust.
My crimes to answer; wrongs annul;
Renounce my soul and turn to dust...

On an evening cool and quiet,
Stretch an ear to listen tight –
Are you lucky of a moment –?
Hark! my clarion call of plight.

Copyright Mark R Slaughter 2009

Notes on this poem can be found at:
http: //succumbedtothinking.webs.com/featuredpoems.htm

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poem by Mark R Slaughter
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Death’s Too Near

Death, you’re standing rather near!
Don’t you understand the fear
You trigger deep within my soul–?
The terror sprung by such a ghoul
Of dark and hideous hue!

Now you’re rattling on my door!
I’m sure I threw you out before –
Methinks you really need to learn!
So leg it please and ne’er return
To haunt me ‘gain, now shoo!

Gain a sense of social pride, and
Keep your bearing far and wide –
Perform the deed when I am done –
Be free and loose to have your fun
When I’m too frail to turn and run,
But now I’ve living to do!

Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2010

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poem by Mark R Slaughter
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The Moon and Sea

Whilst the moon decks herself in Neptune's glass
And ponders over her image in the sea,
Her cloudy locks smoothing from off her face
That she may all as bright as beauty be;
It is my wont to sit upon the shore
And mark with what an even grace she glides
Her two concurrent paths of azure o'er,
One in the heavens, the other in the tides:
Now with a transient veil her face she hides
And ocean blackens with a human frown;
Now her fine screen of vapour she divides
And looks with all her light of beauty down;
Her splendid smile over-silvering the main
Spreads her the glass she looks into again.

poem by George Darley
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Shadows in the mirror

Shadows in the mirror
With memories of his midnight,
Is that you, with aglow on face?
Sad and pale filled with pain.

With a struggle for self;
Slipping past from my reaching hands.
With horizontal thrust from the present
Peeps into past for the venom errors.

I show not your face, your intuitive feeling.
A man of a solitary disposition
Your cold is gone with the wind
So close your eyes with holy dread,

His flashing eyes and floating hair!
Weave a circle round him.
And in your lurid eyes there glistened hope
The dying flame of life's desire;

Your reflections are stretched and distorted
With irony, and humor, and sadness.
It’s not my error; I am a mirror,
Showing you what you have in mettle;
Shadow tried to speak; but its tongue stumbles

poem by Sakkthi Subramaniyam
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Grief

I TELL you, hopeless grief is passionless;
That only men incredulous of despair,
Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air
Beat upward to God's throne in loud access
Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness,
In souls as countries, lieth silent-bare
Under the blanching, vertical eye-glare
Of the absolute Heavens. Deep-hearted man, express
Grief for thy Dead in silence like to death--
Most like a monumental statue set
In everlasting watch and moveless woe
Till itself crumble to the dust beneath.
Touch it; the marble eyelids are not wet:
If it could weep, it could arise and go.

poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
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Nothing, Nothing, Could be Clearer...

Abyss has never ventured nearer!
Horror, cloaked in tainted glass-
Reflecting terror, midnight’s mirror…

The stars convulse- vomit, wither!
Birdsong stops- shadows dance,
Abyss has never ventured nearer!

Reflecting terror, midnights mirror…
Shows my soul- writhing in a dark romance!
Nothing, Nothing, could be clearer…

No witchdoctor, nor faith healer
Could un-forge this fate flame-cast
Reflecting terror, midnights mirror…

I weep! In vain I beg beneath her!
While an envy looms above my past
Abyss has never ventured nearer!
Reflecting terror, midnight’s mirror…

…Nothing, Nothing, could be clearer.

poem by Lazarus Knix
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Before You

Supposing Death
to be a woman

what then?
She asked

would you embrace it
as willingly as you do me?

The afternoon sun
seemed to hang

in the sky
like a child's balloon

as you lay that day
in the tall grass

maybe
you said

if it had eyes
and a smile like yours

and she pulled
a stem of grass

and placed between lips
and stared above

as birds flew
to and fro

and would you go
willingly into the dark

as you do with me
into this tall grass?

You turned to face her
taking in

her blue eyes
and cheeks

maybe
if it allowed me

to kiss as good
as you do

and as long
and she turned over

took out
the stem of grass

and kissed your lips
welcome to Miss Death

she said
and you both laughed

and lay back
gazing at the summer sky

a deep blue
not knowing then

death would come for her
long before

it would ever
come for you.

poem by Terry Collett
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