The Camp Within the West
O DID you see a troop go by
Way-weary and oppressed,
Dead kisses on the drooping lip
And a dead heart in the breast?
Yea, I have seen them one by one
Way-weary and oppressed,
And when I asked them, ‘Whither speed?’
They answered, ‘To the West!’
And were they pale as pale could be—
Death-pale with haunted eyes,
And did you see the hot white dust
Range round their feet and rise?
Oh, they were pale as pale could be,
And pale as an embered leaf;
The hot white dust had risen, but
They laid it with their grief.
Did no one say the way is long,
And crave a little rest?
Oh no, they said, ‘The night is nigh,
Our camp is in the West!’
And did pain pierce their feet, as though
The way with thorns were set,
And were they visited by strange
Dark angels of regret?
Oh yea, and some were mute as death,
Though shot by many a dart,
With them the salt of inward tears
Went stinging through the heart.
And how are these wayfarers called,
And whither do they wend?
The Weary-Hearted—and their road
At sunset hath and end.
Shed tears for them…Nay, nay, no tears!
They yearn for endless rest;
Perhaps large stars will burn above
Their camp within the West.
poem by Roderic Quinn
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Related quotes
The Drover Of The Stars
IT is little I care for earth's kings,
Its emperors, sultans and czars,
As I lie in the darkness and dream
All alone with my sheep and the stars.
For as dust of the moment are they,
Now agleam and now still on earth's breast;
But the stars, spreading wide in the night,
Travel on, ever on to the west.
My sheep, snugly camped in the dark,
Misty-white with the pale grasses blend;
But where is the camp of the stars?
And whither, O Night, do they wend?
Through leagues of dry distance we came,
Where dust-wreaths, wind-woven, upcurled,
Since Dawn dropped the rails of the east
And let the Day into our world.
Slow-moving we travelled the plains,
Trudging on through the sun and the wind,
Till Day galloped out of the west,
And Night set the sliprails behind.
And now, by my camp-fire alone,
A tryst with pale Wonder I keep —
That mystical Lady of Dreams,
Whose hour is the sleep-of-the-sheep.
Foot-tired in the grasses they lie,
Mist-pale in the darkness, and dumb;
Yet who was it mustered the stars,
And whence and what leagues have they come?
Who keeps them from straying apart?
Who urges them straight on their route?
No answer — none tell me; and lo!
The Night, though it listen, is mute!
Watch 'neath the stars of the Cross,
Orion, and Venus and Mars;
I am but a drover of sheep —
But who is the Drover of Stars?
poem by Roderic Quinn
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In Eclipse
PALE veil of mist bound round the trees
Pale fringe of rain upon the hills,
Cold earth, cold sky and biting breeze
That mock the withered daffodils.
And yet so short a while ago,
The sunlight on the quickened land
Laughed at the memory of the snow,
And we went hand in hand.
Pale veil of doubt wound round my heart,
Pale fringe of tears upon your eyes;
Why did we choose the evil part?
Why did we leave our Paradise?
There were such green and pleasant ways
Where you and I with happy heart
Laughed at the old unhappy days,
And now--we are apart.
Will the sun shine again some day?
Will you forgive me and forget?
Chill is the east, the west is gray,
And all our world with tears is wet.
Ah! love, the world is wide and cold,
The weary skies are wild with rain;
Give me at least your hand to hold
Till the sun shines again.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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Villanelle
Come hither, child, and rest,
This is the end of day,
Behold the weary West!
Sleep rounds with equal zest
Man's toil and children's play,
Come hither, child, and rest.
My white bird, seek thy nest,
Thy drooping head down lay,
Behold the weary West!
Now eve is manifest
And homeward lies our way,
Behold the weary West!
Tired flower! upon my breast
I would wear thee alway,
Come hither, child, and rest -
Behold the weary West!
poem by Ernest Christopher Dowson
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Villanelle Of Sunset
Come hither, child, and rest,
This is the end of day,
Behold the weary West!
Sleep rounds with equal zest
Man's toil and children's play,
Come hither, child, and rest.
My white bird, seek thy nest,
Thy drooping head down lay,
Behold the weary West!
Now eve is manifest
And homeward lies our way,
Behold the weary West!
Tired flower! upon my breast
I would wear thee alway,
Come hither, child, and rest -
Behold the weary West!
poem by Ernest Christopher Dowson
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Pale Blue Eyes
Sometimes I feel so happy
Sometimes I feel so sad
Sometimes I feel so happy
But mostly you just make me mad
Baby, you just make me mad
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Thought of you as my mountain top
Thought of you as my peak
A thought of you as everything
Ive had, but couldnt keep
Ive had, but couldnt keep
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Skip a life completely
Stuff it in a cup
They said, money is like us in time
It lies, but cant stand up
Down for you is up
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
It was good what we did yesterday
And Id do it once again
The fact that you are married
Only proves youre my best friend
But its truly, truly a sin
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
If I could make the world as pure
And strange as what I see
Id put you in a mirror
Id put in front of me
Id put in front of me
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
Linger on your pale blue eyes
song performed by by Lou Reed
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Pale
Pale blue clouds, in a pale blue sky,
Pale sea birds, fly every which way.
O'er the pale blue sea, they softly fly,
Throughout the pale blue day.
Pale brown grass, withering alone,
Amid the sand dunes dying.
Pale as a sun bleached animal bone,
As you hear the sea breeze sighing.
Pale grey mist upon the sea,
Slowly creeping to the shore.
Pale giant tarpons jumping free,
As the pale Atlantic, gently roars.
12/3/11 Alton Texas
poem by Juan Olivarez
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Go Down, Death
Weep not, weep not,
She is not dead;
She's resting in the bosom of Jesus.
Heart-broken husband--weep no more;
Grief-stricken son--weep no more;
Left-lonesome daughter --weep no more;
She only just gone home.
Day before yesterday morning,
God was looking down from his great, high heaven,
Looking down on all his children,
And his eye fell of Sister Caroline,
Tossing on her bed of pain.
And God's big heart was touched with pity,
With the everlasting pity.
And God sat back on his throne,
And he commanded that tall, bright angel standing at his right hand:
Call me Death!
And that tall, bright angel cried in a voice
That broke like a clap of thunder:
Call Death!--Call Death!
And the echo sounded down the streets of heaven
Till it reached away back to that shadowy place,
Where Death waits with his pale, white horses.
And Death heard the summons,
And he leaped on his fastest horse,
Pale as a sheet in the moonlight.
Up the golden street Death galloped,
And the hooves of his horses struck fire from the gold,
But they didn't make no sound.
Up Death rode to the Great White Throne,
And waited for God's command.
And God said: Go down, Death, go down,
Go down to Savannah, Georgia,
Down in Yamacraw,
And find Sister Caroline.
She's borne the burden and heat of the day,
She's labored long in my vineyard,
And she's tired--
She's weary--
Do down, Death, and bring her to me.
And Death didn't say a word,
But he loosed the reins on his pale, white horse,
And he clamped the spurs to his bloodless sides,
And out and down he rode,
Through heaven's pearly gates,
Past suns and moons and stars;
on Death rode,
Leaving the lightning's flash behind;
Straight down he came.
While we were watching round her bed,
She turned her eyes and looked away,
She saw what we couldn't see;
She saw Old Death.She saw Old Death
Coming like a falling star.
But Death didn't frighten Sister Caroline;
He looked to her like a welcome friend.
And she whispered to us: I'm going home,
And she smiled and closed her eyes.
And Death took her up like a baby,
And she lay in his icy arms,
But she didn't feel no chill.
And death began to ride again--
Up beyond the evening star,
Into the glittering light of glory,
On to the Great White Throne.
And there he laid Sister Caroline
On the loving breast of Jesus.
And Jesus took his own hand and wiped away her tears,
And he smoothed the furrows from her face,
And the angels sang a little song,
And Jesus rocked her in his arms,
And kept a-saying: Take your rest,
Take your rest.
Weep not--weep not,
She is not dead;
She's resting in the bosom of Jesus.
poem by James Weldon Johnson
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The Wayfarers
Still the white stars burn overhead,
The green earth swings upon her way:
Where are the voices of the dead,
The hearts of Yesterday?
Drawn by what strange, mysterious power,
From what dream world and magic sky
Came they to laugh on earth an hour,
To weep, to toil, to die?
And whither gone? On what wild flight
By planet pale and sceptred star?
What realms of sorrow or delight
Now wander they afar?
Pale Wayfarers, whose noiseless tread
Is near me as I seem to see
The mighty generations dead,
And all that yet shall be!
Are Past and Future, then, a breath
That one vast Present makes its own?
The Angel, Birth, the Shadow, Death,
Each guards a world unknown.
Wayfarers all, we know not whence
We came, nor whitherwards we go.
Deep in our hearts a haunting sense
That somewhere we shall know.
Still the white stars burn overhead,
The green earth swings upon her way:
Where are the voices of the dead,
The hearts of yesterday?
poem by George Essex Evans
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In Prison
I cried out for the pain of man,
I cried out for my bitter wrath
Against the hopeless life that ran
For ever in a circling path
From death to death since all began;
Till on a summer night
I lost my way in the pale starlight
And saw our planet, far and small,
Through endless depths of nothing fall
A lonely pin-prick spark of light,
Upon the wide, enfolding night,
With leagues on leagues of stars above it,
And powdered dust of stars below—
Dead things that neither hate nor love it
Not even their own loveliness can know,
Being but cosmic dust and dead.
And if some tears be shed,
Some evil God have power,
Some crown of sorrow sit
Upon a little world for a little hour—
Who shall remember? Who shall care for it?
poem by Clive Staples Lewis
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In The Forest
HERE, O my heart, let us burn the dear dreams that are dead,
Here in this wood let us fashion a funeral pyre
Of fallen white petals and leaves that are mellow and red,
Here let us burn them in noon's flaming torches of fire.
We are weary, my heart, we are weary, so long we have borne
The heavy loved burden of dreams that are dead, let us rest,
Let us scatter their ashes away, for a while let us mourn;
We will rest, O my heart, till the shadows are gray in the west.
But soon we must rise, O my heart, we must wander again
Into the war of the world and the strife of the throng;
Let us rise, O my heart, let us gather the dreams that remain,
We will conquer the sorrow of life with the sorrow of song.
poem by Sarojini Naidu
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The Requital
LOUD roared the tempest,
Fast fell the sleet;
A little Child Angel
Passed down the street,
With trailing pinions
And weary feet.
The moon was hidden;
No stars were bright;
So she could not shelter
In heaven that night,
For the Angels’ ladders
Are rays of light.
She beat her wings
At each windowpane,
And pleaded for shelter,
But all in vain;—
“Listen,” they said,
“To the pelting rain!”
She sobb’d, as the laughter
And mirth grew higher,
“Give me rest and shelter
Beside your fire,
And I will give you
Your heart’s desire.”
The dreamer sat watching
His embers gleam,
While his heart was floating
Down hope’s bright stream;
…So he wove her wailing
Into his dream.
The worker toil’d on,
For his time was brief;
The mourner was nursing
Her own pale grief;
They heard not the promise
That brought relief.
But fiercer the tempest
Rose than before,
When the Angel paus’d
At a humble door,
And ask’d for shelter
And help once more.
A weary woman,
Pale, worn, and thin,
With the brand upon her
Of want and sin,
Heard the Child Angel
And took her in:
Took her in gently,
And did her best
To dry her pinions;
And made her rest
With tender pity
Upon her breast.
When the eastern morning
Grew bright and red,
Up the first sunbeam
The Angel fled;
Having kiss’d the woman
And left her—dead.
poem by Adelaide Anne Procter
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Bohemian Folk-Song
(From the French)
The moon was in the sky,
Pale, pale her light had grown
I went into the forest
All alone.
All alone,
My heart was well-nigh glad,
But when I thought of thee
Grief came and made me sad.
It came with the winds of autumn
When the dead leaves drop from the tree,
Because thy heart hath forgotten
Thy lover afar from thee.
It came with the rain fast falling
Through the dead leaves again,
Because that over a dead love
The heart must weep like rain.
poem by Arthur Symons
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The Pale Woman
I spoke to the pale and heavy-lidded woman, and said:
O pale and heavy-lidded woman, why is your cheek
Pale as the dead, and what are your eyes afraid lest they speak?
And the woman answered me: I am pale as the dead,
For the dead have loved me, and I dream of the dead.
But I see in the eyes of the living, as a living fire,
The thing that my soul in triumph tells me I have forgot;
And therefore mine eyelids are heavy, and I raise them not,
For always I see in the eyes of men the old desire,
And I fear lest they see that I desire their desire.
poem by Arthur Symons
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Heroin
Death is a rider on a pale horse, Honey.
Yah roll up your sleeve and yah lay down your money.
Death is a rider on a pale horse.
A cord around your arm and the needle hunts your vein.
You'll starve in your dreams with the lotus in your brain.
Death is a rider on a pale horse.
There's blood in your eyes, and your time's not free.
Selling it like that will get yah HIV.
Death is a rider on a pale horse.
Death is a rider on a pale horse, Honey.
Yah roll up your sleeve and yah lay down your money.
Ya, death is a rider on a pale horse.
Aeolian Harp
O pale green sea,
With long, pale, purple clouds above -
What lies in me like weight of love ?
What dies in me
With utter grief, because there comes no sign
Through the sun-raying West, or the dim sea-line ?
O salted air,
Blown round the rocky headland still,
What calls me there from cove and hill?
What calls me fair
From thee, the first-born of the youthful night,
Or in the waves is coming through the dusk twilight ?
O yellow Star,
Quivering upon the rippling tide -
Sendest so far to one that sigh'd?
Bendest thou, Star,
Above, where the shadows of the dead have rest
And constant silence, with a message from the blest?
poem by William Allingham
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Behold a Pale Stranger
Behold a pale stranger
with white skeletal arms.
A blood red dance
in a mask of death.
Behold a pale stranger
with a cross of misgiving,
a staff of virginal white,
and arms crossed on his chest.
Behold a pale stranger
with a message of pending doom.
A white stallion
with headless rider.
Behold a pale stranger,
an empty shell of life.
7 January 1982
poem by David Harris
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The German Legion
In the cot beside the water,
In the white cot by the water,
The white cot by the white water,
There they laid the German maid.
There they wound her, singing round her,
Deftly wound her, singing round her,
Softly wound her, singing round her,
In a shroud like a cloud.
And they decked her as they wound her,
With a wreath of leaves they bound her,
Lornest leaves they scattered round her,
Singing grief with every leaf.
Singing grief with every leaf.
Sadder grief with sadder leaf,
Sweeter leaf with sweeter grief,
So't was sung in a dark tongue.
Like a latter lily lying,
O'er whom falling leaves are sighing,
And Autumn vapours crying,
Pale and cold on misty mould,
So I saw her sweet and lowly,
Shining shining pale and holy,
Thro' the dim woe slowly slowly,
Said and sung in that dark tongue.
Such an awe her beauty lent her,
While they sang I dared not enter
That charmed ring where she was centre,
But I stood with stirring blood
Till the song fell like a billow,
And I saw them leave her pillow,
And go forth to the far willow,
For the wreath of virgin death.
And I stood beside her pillow,
While they plucked the distant willow,
And my heart rose like a billow
As I said to the pale dead-
'Oh, thou most fair and sweet virginity,
Of whom this heart that beats for thee doth know
Nor name nor story, that these limbs can be
For no man evermore, that thou must go
Cold to the cold, and that no eye shall see
That which thine unsolved womanhood doth owe
Of the incommunicable mystery
Shakes me with tears. I could kneel down by thee,
And o'er thy chill unmarriageable rest
Cry, 'Thou who shalt no more at all be prest
To any heart, one moment come to this!
And feel me weeping with thy want of bliss,
And all the unpraisèd beauties of thy breast-
Thy breast which never shall a lover kiss!''
Then I slowly left her pillow,
For they came back with the willow,
And my heart sinks as a billow
Doth implore towards the shore,
As I see the crown they weave her,
And I know that I must leave her,
And I feel that I could grieve her
Sad and sore for evermore.
And again they sang around her,
In a richer robe they wound her,
With the willow wreath they bound her,
And the loud song like a cloud
Of golden obscuration,
With the strange tongue of her nation,
Filled the house of lamentation,
Till she lay in melody,
Like a latter lily lying,
O'er whom falling leaves are sighing,
And the Autumn vapours crying,
In a dream of evening gleam.
And I saw her sweet and lowly,
Shining shining pale and holy,
Thro' the dim woe slowly slowly
Said and sung in a dark tongue.
In the cot beside the water,
The white cot by the white water,
English cot by English water
That shall see the German sea.
poem by Sydney Thompson Dobell
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Now And Afterwards
TWO hands upon the breast,
And labor's done;
Two pale feet crossed in rest--
The race is won;
Two eyes with coin-weights shut,
And all tears cease;
Two lips where grief is mute,
Anger at peace':--
So pray we oftentimes, mourning our lot
God in his kindness answereth not.
'Two hands to work addrest
Aye for His praise;
Two feet that never rest
Walking His ways;
Two eyes that look above
Through all their tears;
Two lips still breathing love,
Not wrath, nor fear';
So pray we afterwards, low on our knees;
Pardon those erring prayers! Father, hear these!
poem by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
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Pale Blue Eyes (feat. Counting Crows)
originally by Lou Reed, Velvet Underground
Sometimes I feel so happy
Sometimes I feel so sad
Sometimes I feel so happy
But mostly you just make me mad
Baby, you just make me mad
Linger on, your pale blue eyes
Linger on, your pale blue eyes
Thought of you as my mountain top
Thought of you as my peak
Thought of you as everything
I've had but couldn't keep
I've had but couldn't keep
Linger on, your pale blue eyes
Linger on, your pale blue eyes
If I could make the world as pure and strange as what I see
I'd put you in the mirror
I put in front of me
I put in front of me Linger on, your pale blue eyes
Linger on, your pale blue eyes
Skip a life completely
Stuff it in a cup
She said, "Money is like us in time
It lies, but can't stand up
Down for you is up"
Linger on, your pale blue eyes
Linger on, your pale blue eyes
It was good what we did yesterday
And I'd do it once again
The fact that you are married
Only proves, you're my best friend
But it's truly, truly a sin
Linger on, your pale blue eyes
Linger on, your pale blue eyes
song performed by by Sheryl Crow
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A Song Of The Sea.
Here within the half-light 'tween the night and day
Upon the sands I lie, with thoughts that idly stirr'd
Seem, as in a dream, with life and death to play,
As o'er the sea there flits a pale white bird.
In my heart I hear it, the murmur of the sea,
Ah! and memories of other lives are stirr'd,
As somewise there came a mystic voice to me
As o'er the sea there flits a pale white bird.
Who but knows that in me is a ghost that hears
A voice it heard of old in the primeval word —
A memory so dim, it like a dream appears
As o'er the sea there flits a pale white bird!
poem by Robert Crawford
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