A Blackbird Singing
It seems wrong that out of this bird,
Black, bold, a suggestion of dark
Places about it, there yet should come
Such rich music, as though the notes'
Ore were changed to a rare metal
At one touch of that bright bill.
You have heard it often, alone at your desk
In a green April, your mind drawn
Away from its work by sweet disturbance
Of the mild evening outside your room.
A slow singer, but loading each phrase
With history's overtones, love, joy
And grief learned by his dark tribe
In other orchards and passed on
Instinctively as they are now,
But fresh always with new tears.
Submitted by Andrew Mayers
poem by Ronald Stuart Thomas
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
On The Farm
There was Dai Puw. He was no good.
They put him in the fields to dock swedes,
And took the knife from him, when he came home
At late evening with a grin
Like the slash of a knife on his face.
There was Llew Puw, and he was no good.
Every evening after the ploughing
With the big tractor he would sit in his chair,
And stare into the tangled fire garden,
Opening his slow lips like a snail.
There was Huw Puw, too. What shall I say?
I have heard him whistling in the hedges
On and on, as though winter
Would never again leave those fields,
And all the trees were deformed.
And lastly there was the girl:
Beauty under some spell of the beast.
Her pale face was the lantern
By which they read in life's dark book
The shrill sentence: God is love.
Submitted by Andrew Mayers
poem by Ronald Stuart Thomas
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Village
Scarcely a street, too few houses
To merit the title; just a way between
The one tavern and the one shop
That leads nowhere and fails at the top
Of the short hill, eaten away
By long erosion of the green tide
Of grass creeping perpetually nearer
This last outpost of time past.
So little happens; the black dog
Cracking his fleas in the hot sun
Is history. Yet the girl who crosses
From door to door moves to a scale
Beyond the bland day's two dimensions.
Stay, then, village, for round you spins
On a slow axis a world as vast
And meaningful as any posed
By great Plato's solitary mind.
Submitted by Andrew Mayers
poem by Ronald Stuart Thomas
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Evans
Evans? Yes, many a time
I came down his bare flight
Of stairs into the gaunt kitchen
With its wood fire, where crickets sang
Accompaniment to the black kettle"s
Whine, and so into the cold
Dark to smother in the thick tide
Of night that drifted about the walls
Of his stark farm on the hill ridge.
It was not the dark filling my eyes
And mouth appalled me; not even the drip
Of rain like blood from the one tree
Weather-tortured. It was the dark
Silting the veins of that sick man
I left stranded upon the vast
And lonely shore of his bleak bed.
Submitted by Andrew Mayers
poem by Ronald Stuart Thomas
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Ballad
I KNOW my love is true,
And oh the day is fair.
The sky is dear and blue,
The flowers are rich of hue,
The air I breathe is rare,
I have no grief or care;
For my own love is true,
And oh the day is fair.
My love is false I find,
And oh the day is dark.
Blows sadly down the wind,
While sorrow holds my mind;
I do not hear the lark,
For quenched is life's dear spark,—
My love is false I find,
And oh the day is dark!
For love doth make the day
Or dark or doubly bright;
Her beams along the way
Dispel the gloom and gray.
She lives and all is bright,
She dies and life is night.
For love doth make the day,
Or dark or doubly bright.
poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Canal Bank Walk
Leafy-with-love banks and the green waters of the canal
Pouring redemption for me, that I do
The will of God, wallow in the habitual, the banal,
Grow with nature again as before I grew.
The bright stick trapped, the breeze adding a third
Party to the couple kissing on an old seat,
And a bird gathering materials for the nest for the Word
Eloquently new and abandoned to its delirious beat.
O unworn world enrapture me, encapture me in a web
Of fabulous grass and eternal voices by a beech,
Feed the gaping need of my senses, give me ad lib
To pray unselfconsciously with overflowing speech
For this soul needs to be honoured with a new dress woven
From green and blue things and arguments that cannot be proven.
Submitted by Andrew Mayers
poem by Patrick Kavanagh
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Right Kind Of Phrase
Once there was a girl that came from not too far from here
And she wasn't satisfied at the rate that she applied herself
To the items on the shelf, she was a retail girl
And that really has to do with nothing
though she gave me something
A smile I'll rely on for a lifetime I'd try on for awhile
So now why is she getting married on the 25th of April
She believes in higher energy and better things for all the people
She is a charm of good luck when she's sitting by your side
But I think my luck run out on april twenty five
Oh love, oh love is all I'm looking for
Sitting in the corner in the dark
Hoping that she'd eye me, I'm looking right her way
But I'd never find the right thing to say
I'd never find the right kind of phrase
There was a secret somebody
Of course I never get the upper hand
Those kinds of rare finds are all born with a man
I just don't understand how they can
Oh love, oh love is all I'm looking for
Sitting in the corner in the dark and on the floor
Hoping that she'd spy on me, I'm looking right her way
I'd never find the right kind of phrase
The right kind, the right line, or the right time to say almost anything that's right
the right kind of phrase.
I'd never find the right thing to say
song performed by by Jason Mraz
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Incantation
A white well
In a black cave;
A bright shell
In a dark wave.
A white rose
Black brambles hood;
Smooth bright snows
In a dark wood.
A flung white glove
In a dark fight;
A white dove
On a wild black night.
A white door
In a dark lane;
A bright core
To bitter black pain.
A white hand
Waved from dark walls;
In a burnt black land
Bright waterfalls.
A bright spark
Where black ashes are;
In the smothering dark
One white star.
poem by Elinor Morton Wylie
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Source
There in the fringe of trees between
the upper field and the edge of the one
below it that runs above the valley
one time I heard in the early
days of summer the clear ringing
six notes that I knew were the opening
of the Fingal's Cave Overture
I heard them again and again that year
and the next summer and the year
afterward those six descending
notes the same for all the changing
in my own life since the last time
I had heard them fall past me from
the bright air in the morning of a bird
and I believed that what I had heard
would always be there if I came again
to be overtaken by that season
in that place after the winter
and I would wonder again whether
Mendelssohn really had heard them somewhere
far to the north that many years ago
looking up from his youth to listen to
those six notes of an ancestor
spilling over from a presence neither
water nor human that led to the cave
in his mind the fluted cliffs and the wave
going out and the falling water
he thought those notes could be the music for
Mendelssohn is gone and Fingal is gone
all but his name for a cave and for one
piece of music and the black-capped warbler
as we called that bird that I remember
singing there those notes descending
from the age of the ice dripping
I have not heard again this year can it
be gone then will I not hear it
from now on will the overture begin
for a time and all those who listen
feel that falling in them but as always
without knowing what they recognize
poem by William Stanley Merwin
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
As bright as the biggest star
As bright as the biggest star
in that dark night,
your smile lasted
much longer
than just for a while.
With the moon
straying away
to romance at another place,
night came sooner
than was expected
and your lips
was soft and sweet
upon mine.
Somewhere a bird called
for its mate,
and the night was young
and our love
was again fresh and new
and I wiped tears
from your eyes
that fell like the evening dew.
Somehow everything
was again all right
between me and you
and the sparkle was back
in your eyes
and there was passion
in your touch
and when the moon came
you were mine again.
I thanked the gods
for your spirit
had returned from the place
where it went to hide
and life was great
and just too much
for both of us.
poem by Gert Strydom
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Address to the Woodlark
O Stay, sweet warbling woodlark, stay,
Nor quit for me the trembling spray,
A hapless lover courts thy lay,
Thy soothing, fond complaining.
Again, again that tender part,
That I may catch thy melting art;
For surely that wad touch her heart
Wha kills me wi’ disdaining.
Say, was thy little mate unkind,
And heard thee as the careless wind?
Oh, nocht but love and sorrow join’d,
Sic notes o’ woe could wauken!
Thou tells o’ never-ending care;
O’speechless grief, and dark despair:
For pity’s sake, sweet bird, nae mair!
Or my poor heart is broken.
poem by Robert Burns
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
Vote! | Copy!
You, the Dark
Dark, She is the mind of yours.
Icy chill of thought becomes
A steely shimmer.
Behold a glimmer in the black -
A flash of grey, that even glows
In show against the hallowed dark of you.
And that is why you scream in jarring tones
'I have no heart for joy!
My white and brittle bones have died'
You cried in dark and fractured moans.
So now the Queen of Black you writhe,
Whence from dark of shade
That honed an evil form afar;
In curse of me you bade:
'I, the wave shall rape the shore!
Violence will there be in glares I'll throw
At all who prey, and more:
A dark and fetid sea I'll bleed.'
And now, the bitter tinge
And bleak of waste
That eyed the death of once your soul
Will here forever be!
Indeed you tell:
'The cramping pain is here!
Eternal spasm, infinite chasm,
The Devil's chaplain plays!
We'll climax in a tortured glee
As all my love decays.'
Copyright Mark R Slaughter 2009
Dark dark dark dark dark dark dark
Dark dark dark dark dark dark
Dark dark dark dark dark
Dark dark dark dark
Dark dark dark
Dark dark dark dark dark
dark dark dark dark dark dark dark darkdarkdarkdark
poem by Mark R Slaughter
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
I sit alone...
I sit alone
In this cold dark room
No windows no doors
Just icy cold air
I live alone
In this cold dark room
No family no friends
Just loneliness to share
I stay alone
In this cold dark room
No voices no sounds
Just nobody to care
I probe alone
In this cold dark room
In my mind in my world
Just a room filled with despair
I roam alone
In this cold dark room
No way in no way out
Just a worn but rigid snare
I rust alone
In this cold dark room
Not because there is no other way
Just because its easier that way....
poem by Deep Dark Soul Poet
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Cold Dark..
I sit alone
In this cold dark room
No windows no doors
Just icy cold air
I live alone
In this cold dark room
No family no friends
Just loneliness to share
I stay alone
In this cold dark room
No voices no sounds
Just nobody to care
I probe alone
In this cold dark room
In my mind in my world
Just a room filled with despair
I roam alone
In this cold dark room
No way in no way out
Just a worn but rigid snare
I rust alone
In this cold dark room
Not because there is no other way
Just because its easier that way....
poem by Deep Dark Soul Poet
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
6th Nonsense
The room is dark, I die.
Like painting the wind, it's impossible.
If oranges were gray we might call them 'Grays'
That would be groovy.
The room is dark, I die.
The room is dark, I die.
If there's rain in Spain would it make it to Maine?
I don't think so.
Everything's Zen?
I don't think so.
The room is dark I die.
The room is dark, I die.
I want to drift through lavender fields like honey on a cotton ball.
Dig it.
But the high-talking motorcross bandits won't let me.
The sorrow.
The room is dark, I die.
The room is dark, I die.
But if I were in Punjab I never would have seen the quartet.
If only quartets had 7 people.
That's alright because bunsen burners don't cost much.
The room is dark, I die.
The room is dark, I die.
That's my favorite Bible verse.
I think it's in Lushiticus, or Nueteronomy.
The hail storms don't mean anything when you're a unicorn anyway.
The room is dark, I die.
poem by Sledge Hammer
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Advent
We have tested and tasted too much, lover-
Through a chink too wide there comes in no wonder.
But here in the Advent-darkened room
Where the dry black bread and the sugarless tea
Of penance will charm back the luxury
Of a child's soul, we'll return to Doom
The knowledge we stole but could not use.
And the newness that was in every stale thing
When we looked at it as children: the spirit-shocking
Wonder in a black slanting Ulster hill
Or the prophetic astonishment in the tedious talking
Of an old fool will awake for us and bring
You and me to the yard gate to watch the whins
And the bog-holes, cart-tracks, old stables where Time begins.
O after Christmas we'll have no need to go searching
For the difference that sets an old phrase burning-
We'll hear it in the whispered argument of a churning
Or in the streets where the village boys are lurching.
And we'll hear it among decent men too
Who barrow dung in gardens under trees,
Wherever life pours ordinary plenty.
Won't we be rich, my love and I, and
God we shall not ask for reason's payment,
The why of heart-breaking strangeness in dreeping hedges
Nor analyse God's breath in common statement.
We have thrown into the dust-bin the clay-minted wages
Of pleasure, knowledge and the conscious hour-
And Christ comes with a January flower.
Submitted by Andrew Mayers
poem by Patrick Kavanagh
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
My glare Love
Dark in the dark
covered with bright light
Love like the shadow
came attending the darkness
Darkness was changed
forget the black shadow
illuminate the dark and shiny
like a diamond in the sand sea
The world was dark again
Waiting patiently sparkling diamonds
Love illuminates the dark heart
and Love shine a light heart
The heart is the cup
prisoner of love
Love comes light
Fill in the dark life
poem by Annas Malik
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Quest
I am looking for Love. Has he passed this way,
With eyes as blue as the skies of May,
And a face as fair as the summer dawn?--
You answer back, but I wander on,--
For you say: 'Oh, yes; but his eyes were gray,
And his face as dim as a rainy day.'
Good friends, I query, I search for Love;
His eyes are as blue as the skies above,
And his smile as bright as the midst of May
When the truce-bird pipes: Has he passed this way?
And one says: 'Ay; but his face, alack!
Frowned as he passed, and his eyes were black.'
O who will tell me of Love? I cry!
His eyes are as blue as the mid-May sky,
And his face as bright as the morning sun;
And you answer and mock me, every one,
That his eyes were dark, and his face was wan,
And he passed you frowning and wandered on.
But stout of heart will I onward fare,
Knowing _my_ Love is beyond--somewhere,--
The Love I seek, with the eyes of blue,
And the bright, sweet smile unknown of you;
And on from the hour his trail is found
I shall sing sonnets the whole year round.
poem by James Whitcomb Riley
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Changed. (Birds Of Passage. Flight The Third)
From the outskirts of the town
Where of old the mile-stone stood,
Now a stranger, looking down
I behold the shadowy crown
Of the dark and haunted wood.
Is it changed, or am I changed?
Ah! the oaks are fresh and green,
But the friends with whom I ranged
Through their thickets are estranged
By the years that intervene.
Bright as ever flows the sea,
Bright as ever shines the sun,
But alas! they seem to me
Not the sun that used to be,
Not the tides that used to run.
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Sheep and Lambs
All in the April evening,
April airs were abroad;
The sheep with their little lambs
Passed me by on the road.
The sheep with their little lambs
Passed me by on the road;
All in the April evening
I thought on the Lamb of God.
The lambs were weary and crying
With a weak, human cry.
I thought on the Lamb of God
Going meekly to die.
Up in the blue, blue mountains
Dewy pastures are sweet;
Rest for the little bodies,
Rest for the little feet.
But for the Lamb of God,
Up on the hill-top green,
Only a Cross of shame
Two stark crosses between.
All in the April evening,
April airs were abroad;
I saw the sheep with their lambs,
And thought on the Lamb of God.
poem by Katharine Tynan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Whistling In The Dark
A woman came up to me and said
Id like to poison your mind
With wrong ideas that appeal to you
Though I am not unkind
She looked at me, I looked at something
Written across her scalp
And these are the words that it faintly said
As I tried to call for help:
Theres only one thing that I know how to do well
And Ive often been told that you only can do
What you know how to do well
And thats be you,
Be what youre like,
Be like yourself,
And so Im having a wonderful time
But Id rather be whistling in the dark
Whistling in the dark
Whistling in the dark
Whistling in the dark
Whistling in the dark
Whistling in the dark
Theres only one thing that I like
And that is whistling in the dark
A man came up to me and said
Id like to change your mind
By hitting it with a rock, he said,
Though I am not unkind.
We laughed at his little joke
And then I happily walked away
And hit my head on the wall of the jail
Where the two of us live today.
Theres only one thing that I know how to do well
And Ive often been told that you only can do
What you know how to do well
And thats be you,
Be what youre like,
Be like yourself,
And so Im having a wonderful time
But Id rather be whistling in the dark
Whistling in the dark
Whistling in the dark
Whistling in the dark
Whistling in the dark
Whistling in the dark
Theres only one thing that I like
And that is whistling in the dark
Theres only one thing that I know how to do well
And Ive often been told that you only can do
What you know how to do well
And thats be you,
Be what youre like,
Be like yourself,
And so Im having a wonderful time
But Id rather be whistling in the dark
Whistling in the dark
Whistling in the dark
Whistling in the dark
Whistling in the dark
Whistling in the dark
Whistling, whistling
Whistling in the dark
Whistling (whistling), whistling (whistling)
Dark (dark), dark (dark)
Whistling (whistling), whistling (whistling)
Dark (dark), dark (dark)
Whistling (whistling), whistling (whistling)
Dark (dark), dark (dark)
Whistling (whistling), whistling (whistling)
Dark (dark), dark (dark)
Whistling (whistling), whistling (whistling)
Dark (dark), dark (dark)
Whistling (whistling), whistling (whistling)
Dark (dark), dark (dark)
Whistling (whistling), whistling (whistling)
Dark (dark), dark (dark)
Whistling (whistling), whistling (whistling)
Dark (dark), dark (dark)
Whistling (whistling), whistling (whistling)
Dark (dark), dark (dark)
Whistling (whistling), whistling (whistling)
Dark (dark), dark (dark)
Whistling (whistling), whistling (whistling)
Dark (dark), dark (dark)
Whistling (whistling), whistling (whistling)
Dark (dark), dark (dark)
song performed by by They Might Be Giants
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!