A Summer Morning
Never was sun so bright before,
No matin of the lark so sweet,
No grass so green beneath my feet,
Nor with such dewdrops jewelled o'er.
I stand with thee outside the door,
The air not yet is close with heat,
And far across the yellowing wheat
The waves are breaking on the shore.
A lovely day! Yet many such,
Each like to each, this month have passed,
And none did so supremely shine.
One thing they lacked: the perfect touch
Of thee--and thou art come at last,
And half this loveliness is thine.
poem by Robert Fuller Murray
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Bande Mataram
Mother, I bow to thee!
Rich with thy hurrying streams,
Bright with thy orchard gleams,
Cool with thy winds of delight,
Dark fields waving, Mother of might,
Mother free.
Glory of moonlight dreams
Over thy branches and lordly streams,
Clad in thy blossoming trees,
Mother, giver of ease,
Laughing low and sweet!
Mother, I kiss thy feet,
Speaker sweet and low!
Mother, to thee I bow.
Who hath said thou art weak in thy lands,
When the swords flash out in twice seventy million hands
And seventy millions voices roar
Thy dreadful name from shore to shore?
With many strengths who art mighty and stored,
To thee I call, Mother and Lord!
Thou who savest, arise and save!
To her I cry who ever her foemen drave
Back from plain and sea
And shook herself free.
Thou art wisdom, thou art law,
Thou our heart, our soul, our breath,
Thou the love divine, the awe
In our hearts that conquers death.
Thine the strength that nerves the arm,
Thine the beauty, thine the charm.
Every image made divine
In our temples is but thine.
Thou art Durga, Lady and Queen,
With her hands that strike and her swords of sheen,
Thou art Lakshmi lotus-throned,
Pure and perfect without peer,
Mother, lend thine ear.
Rich with thy hurrying streams,
Bright with thy orchard gleams,
Dark of hue, O candid-fair
In thy soul, with jewelled hair
And thy glorious smile divine,
Loveliest of all earthly lands,
Showering wealth from well-stored hands!
Mother, mother mine!
Mother sweet, I bow to thee,
Mother great and free.
poem by Sri Aurobindo
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Glad Bird, I Do Bewail Thee
Glad bird, I do bewail thee,
Thy song it was so sweet
That Earth looked up to hail thee
Till wings grew to her feet.
But, ah! thy mate is lying dead
Among the new--mown hay,
And a fowler comes to jail thee
Where thou shalt pine away.
Bright butterfly, I wail thee,
So dainty was thy wing,
So bravely didst regale thee
On every honied thing.
But thou art all too lightly clad
For any month but May,
And Autumn rains shall trail thee
And wash thy paint away.
Sweet childhood, I bewail thee.
Thy smile it shifteth ever
As the ship that thou dost sail thee
Adown the running river.
But ah! life's river runneth fast
And forward lies the sea,
And what shall then avail thee
Thy laughter and thy glee?
And youth, I most bewail thee,
Thy purpose was so great,
But the fools that did assail thee
Were stronger than thy fate,
And thy heart it was so ruddy red
That every archer knew
Where he might best impale thee
And drive his arrows through.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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Tides
O patient shore, thou canst not go to meet
Thy love, the restless sea, how comfortest
Thou all thy loneliness? Art thou at rest,
When, loosing his strong arms from round thy feet,
He turns away? Know'st thou, however sweet
That other shore may be, that to thy breast
He must return? And when in sterner test
He folds thee to a heart which does not beat,
Wraps thee in ice, and gives no smile, no kiss,
To break long wintry days, still dost thou miss
Naught from thy trust? Still wait, unfaltering,
The higher, warmer waves which leap in spring?
O sweet, wise shore, to be so satisfied!
O heart, learn from the shore! Love has a tide!
poem by Helen Hunt Jackson
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Give to Love
Love came knocking on thy door
With you in sight to love and adore
But thine did give
All that thou have and
need to live?
You gave thine lips for love to speak
You gave thine heart for love's heart's weak
You gave thine face, to love to trace
its tears across thee a sorrowful place
thou give to thy loss when it comes to love!
You gave thine soul to love's control
You gave love thy hand to hold
You gave thy feet for love to kiss
You gave thy happiness to love's bliss
You gave thy breast for love to touch
You gave thine body for love to clutch.
But what did love give thee?
Love took and took and left thee with nothing!
With nothing now you are at peace, thou art free!
This is what love did to me!
poem by Kevin Michael Murphy
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I Arise from Dreams of Thee
I arise from dreams of thee
In the first sweet sleep of night,
When the winds are breathing low,
And the stars are shining bright
I arise from dreams of thee,
And a spirit in my feet
Has led me -- who knows how? --
To thy chamber-window, sweet!
The wandering airs they faint
On the dark, the silent stream, --
The champak odors fall
Like sweet thoughts in a dream,
The nightingale's complaint,
It dies upon her heart,
As I must die on thine,
O, beloved as thou art!
O, lift me from the grass!
I die, I faint, I fall!
Let thy love in kisses rain
On my lips and eyelids pale,
My cheek is cold and white, alas!
My Heart beats loud and fast
Oh! press it close to thine again,
Where it will break at last!
poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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To Anna
For thee, the Sibyl in the future sees
A lovely cottage hidden by the trees;---
Round its white porch are trained the clustering vines;
Beneath its roof perpetual summer shines---
The heart's sweet summer that shall take its dyes
From the clear sunshine of thine azure eyes.
The nightingale shall sing thee to thy dreams;
The lark shall wake thee with morn's earliest beams;
The flocks and herds shall own thy gentle care;
All living things thy kind regard shall share.
And as thou wanderest midst the lovely scene,
The flowers shall claim thee for their fairy queen.
And here, where Nature wears her loveliest spell,
Shalt thou, her fairest work, serenely dwell;
Far from the world's "ignoble strife" and care,
With some loved spirit "for thy minister,"
Thy life like some fair stream shall glide away,
And thou shalt sleep, to wake in the Eternal Day.
poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
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I said to Love
my love,
my love for you
is like the land
beneath your feet
if you want a comparison
forever supporting you
in life, in death
i take the wind, the rain, storm
in my stride
for your cause
honouring you
with blooms, roses, irises, clovers
crocuses, flowers of delight
to cheer up your heart
fruits of all shapes and colours
to brighten up your day
my love,
my love for you
is like the land
till me, graze me
the land that never says die
forever propping you up
tall as the angsana
my love, my love
for you is
like the land
beneath your feet
that takes all humiliation
to make sure you stand erect
honoured above all
i may be low but my love
is above all, unconditional
this land that lies all below you
the real love hidden
deep in its core, soul
for you deeper than mom and son
thanks for calling mother earth
cos i know you belong to me
one day wherever you may run
inspired by
'I Said to Love'
I said to Love,
'It is not now as in old days
When men adored thee and thy ways
All else above;
Named thee the Boy, the Bright, the One
Who spread a heaven beneath the sun, '
I said to Love.
I said to him,
'We now know more of thee than then;
We were but weak in judgment when,
With hearts abrim,
We clamoured thee that thou would'st please
Inflict on us thine agonies, '
I said to him.
I said to Love,
'Thou art not young, thou art not fair,
No faery darts, no cherub air,
Nor swan, nor dove
Are thine; but features pitiless,
And iron daggers of distress, '
I said to Love.
'Depart then, Love! ...
- Man's race shall end, dost threaten thou?
The age to come the man of now
Know nothing of? -
We fear not such a threat from thee;
We are too old in apathy!
Mankind shall cease.-So let it be, '
I said to Love.
poem by John Tiong Chunghoo
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The West Wind
Beneath the forest's skirts I rest,
Whose branching pines rise dark and high,
And hear the breezes of the West
Among the threaded foliage sigh.
Sweet Zephyr! why that sound of wo?
Is not thy home among the flowers?
Do not the bright June roses blow,
To meet thy kiss at morning hours?
And lo! thy glorious realm outspread
Yon stretching valleys, green and gay,
And yon free hilltops, o'er whose head
The loose white clouds are borne away.
And there the full broad river runs,
And many a fount wells fresh and sweet,
To cool thee when the mid-day suns
Have made thee faint beneath their heat.
Thou wind of joy, and youth, and love;
Spirit of the new wakened year!
The sun in his blue realm above
Smooths a bright path when thou art here.
In lawns the murmuring bee is heard,
The wooing ring-dove in the shade;
On thy soft breath, the new-fledged bird
Takes wing, half happy, half afraid.
Ah! thou art like our wayward race;
When not a shade of pain or ill
Dims the bright smile of Nature's face,
Thou lov'st to sigh and murmur still.
poem by William Cullen Bryant
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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West Wind, The
Beneath the forest's skirts I rest,
Whose branching pines rise dark and high,
And hear the breezes of the West
Among the threaded foliage sigh.
Sweet Zephyr! why that sound of wo?
Is not thy home among the flowers?
Do not the bright June roses blow,
To meet thy kiss at morning hours?
And lo! thy glorious realm outspread--
Yon stretching valleys, green and gay,
And yon free hilltops, o'er whose head
The loose white clouds are borne away.
And there the full broad river runs,
And many a fount wells fresh and sweet,
To cool thee when the mid-day suns
Have made thee faint beneath their heat.
Thou wind of joy, and youth, and love;
Spirit of the new wakened year!
The sun in his blue realm above
Smooths a bright path when thou art here.
In lawns the murmuring bee is heard,
The wooing ring-dove in the shade;
On thy soft breath, the new-fledged bird
Takes wing, half happy, half afraid.
Ah! thou art like our wayward race;--
When not a shade of pain or ill
Dims the bright smile of Nature's face,
Thou lov'st to sigh and murmur still.
poem by William Cullen Bryant
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I Said to Love.
I said to Love,
"It is not now as in old days
When men adored thee and thy ways
All else above;
Named thee the Boy, the Bright, the One
Who spread a heaven beneath the sun,"
I said to Love.
I said to him,
"We now know more of thee than then;
We were but weak in judgment when,
With hearts abrim,
We clamoured thee that thou would'st please
Inflict on us thine agonies,"
I said to him.
I said to Love,
"Thou art not young, thou art not fair,
No faery darts, no cherub air,
Nor swan, nor dove
Are thine; but features pitiless,
And iron daggers of distress,"
I said to Love.
"Depart then, Love! . . .
- Man's race shall end, dost threaten thou?
The age to come the man of now
Know nothing of? -
We fear not such a threat from thee;
We are too old in apathy!
Mankind shall cease.--So let it be,"
I said to Love.
poem by Thomas Hardy
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I said to Love
I said to Love,
"It is not now as in old days
When men adored thee and thy ways
All else above;
Named thee the Boy, the Bright, the One
Who spread a heaven beneath the sun,"
I said to Love.
I said to him,
"We now know more of thee than then;
We were but weak in judgment when,
With hearts abrim,
We clamoured thee that thou would'st please
Inflict on us thine agonies,"
I said to him.
I said to Love,
"Thou art not young, thou art not fair,
No elfin darts, no cherub air,
Nor swan, nor dove
Are thine; but features pitiless,
And iron daggers of distress,"
I said to Love.
"Depart then, Love!
Man's race shall perish, threatenest thou,
WIthout thy kindling coupling-vow?
The age to come the man of now
Know nothing of?
We fear not such a threat from thee;
We are too old in apathy!
Mankind shall cease.. -
So let it be,"
I said to Love.
poem by Thomas Hardy
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To an Early Daffodil
Thou yellow trumpeter of laggard Spring!
Thou herald of rich Summer's myriad flowers!
The climbing sun with new recovered powers
Does warm thee into being, through the ring
Of rich, brown earth he woos thee, makes thee fling
Thy green shoots up, inheriting the dowers
Of bending sky and sudden, sweeping showers,
Till ripe and blossoming thou art a thing
To make all nature glad, thou art so gay;
To fill the lonely with a joy untold;
Nodding at every gust of wind to-day,
To-morrow jewelled with raindrops. Always bold
To stand erect, full in the dazzling play
Of April's sun, for thou hast caught his gold.
poem by Amy Lowell
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Love's Nearness
I think of thee, when golden sunbeams shimmer
Across the sea;
And when the waves reflect the moon's pale glimmer,
I think of thee.
I see thy form, when down the distant highway
The dust-clouds rise;
In deepest night, above the mountain by-way,
I see thine eyes.
I hear thee when the ocean-tides returning
Loudly rejoice;
And on the lonely moor, in stillness yearning,
I hear thy voice.
I dwell with thee: though thou art far removed,
Yet art thou near.
The sun goes down, the stars shine out, ---
Beloved,
Ah, wert thou here!
poem by Henry Van Dyke
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The Moon's Minion
Thine eyes are like the sea, my dear,
The wand'ring waters, green and grey;
Thine eyes are wonderful and clear,
And deep, and deadly, even as they;
The spirit of the changeful sea
Informs thine eyes at night and noon,
She sways the tides, and the heart of thee,
The mystic, sad, capricious Moon!
The Moon came down the shining stair
Of clouds that fleck the summer sky,
She kissed thee, saying, 'Child, be fair,
And madden men's hearts, even as I;
Thou shalt love all things strange and sweet,
That know me and are known of me;
The lover thou shalt never meet,
The land where thou shalt never be!'
She held thee in her chill embrace,
She kissed thee with cold lips divine,
She left her pallor on thy face,
That mystic ivory face of thine;
And now I sit beside thy feet,
And all my heart is far from thee,
Dreaming of her I shall not meet,
And of the land I shall not see!
poem by Andrew Lang
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Would I Were With Thee!
WOULD I were with thee! every day and hour
Which now I spend so sadly, far from thee--
Would that my form possessed the magic power
To follow where my heavy heart would be!
Whate'er thy lot--by land or sea--
Would I were with thee--eternally!
Would I were with thee! when, the world forgetting,
Thy weary limbs upon the turf are thrown,
While bright and red the evening sun is setting,
And all thy thoughts belong to heaven alone:
While happy dreams thy heart employ--
Would I were with thee--in thy joy!
Would I were with thee! when, no longer feigning
The hurried laugh that stifles back a sigh;
Thy young lip pours unheard its sweet complaining,
And tears have quenched the light within thine eye:
When all seems dark and sad below,
Would I were with thee--in thy woe!
Would I were with thee! when the day is breaking,
And when the moon hath lit the lonely sea--
Or when in crowds some careless note awaking:
Speaks to thy heart in memory of me.
In joy or pain, by sea or shore--
Would I were with thee--evermore!
poem by Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton
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Preparatory Meditations - Second Series: 7
(Psalms 105:17. He sent a Man before Them, even Joseph, who was Sold, etc.)
All dull, my Lord, my spirits flat, and dead,
All water-soaked and sapless to the skin.
Oh! Screw me up and make my spirit's bed
Thy quickening virtue, for my ink is dim,
My pencil blunt. Doth Joseph type out Thee?
Heralds of angels sing out, 'Bow the knee.'
Is Joseph's glorious shine a type of Thee?
How bright art Thou? He envied was as well.
And so was Thou. He's stripped and picked, poor he,
Into the pit. And so was Thou. They shell
Thee of Thy kernel. He by Judah's sold
For twenty bits; thirty for Thee he'd told.
Joseph was tempted by his mistress vile.
Thou by the devil, but both shame the foe.
Joseph was cast into the jail awhile.
And so was Thou. Sweet apples mellow so.
Joseph did from his jail to glory run.
Thou from death's pallet rose like morning sun.
Joseph lays in against the famine, and
Thou dost prepare the bread of life for Thine,
He bought with corn for Pharaoh th' men and land.
Thou with Thy bread mak'st such themselves consign
Over to Thee, that eat it. Joseph makes
His brethren bow before him. Thine too quake.
Joseph constrains his brethren till their sins
Do gall their souls. Repentance babbles fresh.
Thou treatest sinners till repentance springs,
Then with him send'st a Benjamin-like mess.
Joseph doth cheer his humble brethren. Thou
Dost stud with joy the mourning saints that bow.
Joseph's bright shine th' Eleven Tribes must preach.
And Thine Apostles now eleven, Thine.
They bear his presents to his friends: Thine reach
Thine unto Thine, thus now behold a shine.
How hast Thou penciled out, my Lord, most bright
Thy glorious image here, on Joseph's light.
This I bewail in me under this shine,
To see so dull a color in my skin.
Lord, lay Thy brightsome colors on me Thine.
Scour Thou my pipes, then play Thy tunes therein.
I will not hang my harp in willows by,
While Thy sweet praise my tunes doth glorify.
poem by Edward Taylor
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O'Donohue's Mistress
Of all the fair months, that round the sun
In light-link'd dance their circles run,
Sweet May, shine thou for me;
For still, when thy earliest beams arise,
That youth, who beneath the blue lake lies,
Sweet May, returns to me.
Of all the bright haunts, where daylight leaves
Its lingering smile on golden eves,
Fair lake, thou'rt dearest to me;
For when the last April sun grows dim
Thy Naiads prepare his steed for him
Who dwells, bright lake, in thee.
Of all the proud steeds that ever bore
Young plumed Chiefs on sea or shore,
White Steed, most joy to thee;
Who still, with the first young glance of spring,
From under that glorious lake dost bring
My love, my chief, to me.
While, white as the sail some bark unfurls,
When newly launch'd, thy long mane curls,
Fair Steed, as white and free;
And spirits, from all the lake's deep bowers,
Glide o'er the blue wave scattering flowers,
Around my love and thee.
Of all the sweet deaths that maidens die,
Whose lovers beneath the cold wave lie,
Most sweet that death will be,
Which, under the next May evening's light,
When thou and thy steed are lost to sight,
Dear love, I'll die for thee.
poem by Thomas Moore
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The Tomb At Akr Çaar
‘I am thy soul, Nikoptis. I have watched
These five millennia, and thy dead eyes
Moved not, nor ever answer my desire,
And thy light limbs, wherethrough I leapt aflame,
Burn not with me nor any saffron thing.
See, the light grass sprang up to pillow thee,
And kissed thee with a myriad grassy tongues;
But not thou me.
I have read out the gold upon the wall,
And wearied out my thought upon the signs.
And there is no new thing in all this place.
I have been kind. See, I have left the jars sealed,
Lest thou shouldst wake and whimper for thy wine.
And all thy robes I have kept smooth on thee.
O thou unmindful ! How should I forget!
-Even the river many days ago,
The river? thou wast over young.
And three souls came upon Thee-
And I came.
And I flowed in upon thee, beat them off;
1 have been intimate with thee, known thy ways.
Have I not touched thy palms and finger-tips,
Flowed in, and through thee and about thy heels?
How 'came I in'? Was I not thee and Thee?
And no sun comes to rest me in this place,
And I am torn against the jagged dark,
And no light beats upon me, and you say
No word, day after day.
Oh! I could get me out, despite the marks
And all their crafty work upon the door,
Out through the glass-green fields. . . .
Yet it is quiet here:
I do not go.’
poem by Ezra Pound
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Sonnet- To Science
Science! true daughter of Old Time thou art!
Who alterest all things with thy peering eyes.
Why preyest thou thus upon the poet's heart,
Vulture, whose wings are dull realities?
How should he love thee? or how deem thee wise,
Who wouldst not leave him in his wandering
To seek for treasure in the jewelled skies,
Albeit he soared with an undaunted wing?
Hast thou not dragged Diana from her car?
And driven the Hamadryad from the wood
To seek a shelter in some happier star?
Hast thou not torn the Naiad from her flood,
The Elfin from the green grass, and from me
The summer dream beneath the tamarind tree?
poem by Edgar Allan Poe
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To a child
I love to look on that eye of blue,
For tears have not yet worn a channel through;
And the few bright summers since thy birth,
Have left thee a stranger still on earth.
A stranger -- and all, to thine untaught eyes,
Is bright with the hues of paradise.
The rapture of being thrills thy frame,
And sorrow thou know'st not even by name.
Thy innocent thoughts, unswayed by art,
Gush from the depths of thy guileless heart;
Like a harp when the wandering breezes sigh,
Answering each touch with melody.
I would, sweet one, I might wish for thee,
That a stranger thus thou shouldst ever be;
That time might not lift the enchanted veil,
Nor breathe in thine ear his mournful tale.
But those who are bid to this feast of life,
Must drink the cup, -- must abide the strife: --
Then it were better to wish for thee,
Strength for the conflict, and victory.
poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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