Pains Of Sleep, The
Ere on my bed my limbs I lay,
It hath not been my use to pray
With moving lips or bended knees ;
But silently, by slow degrees,
My spirit I to Love compose,
In humble trust mine eye-lids close,
With reverential resignation,
No wish conceived, no thought exprest,
Only a sense of supplication ;
A sense o'er all my soul imprest
That I am weak, yet not unblest,
Since in me, round me, every where
Eternal Strength and Wisdom are.
But yester-night I prayed aloud
In anguish and in agony,
Up-starting from the fiendish crowd
Of shapes and thoughts that tortured me :
A lurid light, a trampling throng,
Sense of intolerable wrong,
And whom I scorned, those only strong !
Thirst of revenge, the powerless will
Still baffled, and yet burning still !
Desire with loathing strangely mixed
On wild or hateful objects fixed.
Fantastic passions ! maddening brawl !
And shame and terror over all !
Deeds to be hid which were not hid,
Which all confused I could not know
Whether I suffered, or I did :
For all seemed guilt, remorse or woe,
My own or others still the same
Life-stifling fear, soul-stifling shame.
So two nights passed : the night's dismay
Saddened and stunned the coming day.
Sleep, the wide blessing, seemed to me
Distemper's worst calamity.
The third night, when my own loud scream
Had waked me from the fiendish dream,
O'ercome with sufferings strange and wild,
I wept as I had been a child ;
And having thus by tears subdued
My anguish to a milder mood,
Such punishments, I said, were due
To natures deepliest stained with sin,--
For aye entempesting anew
The unfathomable hell within,
The horror of their deeds to view,
To know and loathe, yet wish and do !
Such griefs with such men well agree,
But wherefore, wherefore fall on me ?
To be beloved is all I need,
And whom I love, I love indeed.
poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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The Pains Of Sleep
Ere on my bed my limbs I lay,
It hath not been my use to pray
With moving lips or bended knees ;
But silently, by slow degrees,
My spirit I to Love compose,
In humble trust mine eye-lids close,
With reverential resignation,
No wish conceived, no thought exprest,
Only a sense of supplication ;
A sense o'er all my soul imprest
That I am weak, yet not unblest,
Since in me, round me, every where
Eternal Strength and Wisdom are.
But yester-night I prayed aloud
In anguish and in agony,
Up-starting from the fiendish crowd
Of shapes and thoughts that tortured me :
A lurid light, a trampling throng,
Sense of intolerable wrong,
And whom I scorned, those only strong !
Thirst of revenge, the powerless will
Still baffled, and yet burning still !
Desire with loathing strangely mixed
On wild or hateful objects fixed.
Fantastic passions ! maddening brawl !
And shame and terror over all !
Deeds to be hid which were not hid,
Which all confused I could not know
Whether I suffered, or I did :
For all seemed guilt, remorse or woe,
My own or others still the same
Life-stifling fear, soul-stifling shame.
So two nights passed : the night's dismay
Saddened and stunned the coming day.
Sleep, the wide blessing, seemed to me
Distemper's worst calamity.
The third night, when my own loud scream
Had waked me from the fiendish dream,
O'ercome with sufferings strange and wild,
I wept as I had been a child ;
And having thus by tears subdued
My anguish to a milder mood,
Such punishments, I said, were due
To natures deepliest stained with sin,--
For aye entempesting anew
The unfathomable hell within,
The horror of their deeds to view,
To know and loathe, yet wish and do !
Such griefs with such men well agree,
But wherefore, wherefore fall on me ?
To be beloved is all I need,
And whom I love, I love indeed.
poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Joys Of Waking
When from camp bed cramp limbs I raise,
I never hesitate to praise
Lord Luck, loud laud and by degrees
attain crescendo! Nor bent knees,
nor moving lips, dumb witness lay
with supplication night or day,
convinced Fate’s finger points to please.
No reverential resignation
may undermine anticipation,
wish ill conceived, thought un expressed,
defensive mind-set, wants supressed.
Nowhere there’s sense of supplication -
for boundless strength spurns condemnation –
strength weakness spurns, by Fate twice blessed.
No shapes and thoughts some others see
in anguish and in agony,
up-starting from some fiendish crowd
of rued regrets bewailed aloud,
spoil waking moments which new dawn
should welcome, hibernation torn.
No nightmares bets hedged, lead head bowed.
Ignoring sense of painful wrong
lights lurid, frightful trampling throng,
for rights I fight forthrightfully
weave justice into equity.
Desires with loathing strangely mixed,
on threatening fearful neighbours fixed,
are strangers, foreigners for me;
The clock of optimism ticks
to scorn manipulative tricks,
thirst for revenge with powerless will
allied both baffled, burning, still
are absent from life’s waking leap
as from soft coverlets eyes peep
at fresh ambitions to fulfill.
Though aims stay hidden, flames are bid
to temper soul’s steel, conquering Cid
fools suffers not, time spilt, guilt, woe,
all banished by the will to know
without confusion, waste of time,
the causal links that tune life’s chime
through strings slave puppet daren’t o’erthrow.
Some toss, nights lost, to vain dismay,
sad, stunted, stunned, numbed, waking day
fear to embrace. Electron free
on waves chromatic, joyfully,
I would advance from sleep to greet
sustained success, triumph complete,
repudiating apathy.
Some treat quite as catastrophe
night’s spite, when haunting phantoms free
range till cock’s crow wakes from dream’s page
strange sufferings which teem and rage
as migraine’s over-riding theme
denying sunshine’s balmy beam –
convicts convinced by self-made cage.
Such punishments, I say, seem due
to twisted natures who simmer, stew
in their own fiery hell within
nocturnal sin sweat, fear to win.
Few slumber sound who can’t dispell
past problems from sleep tidal swell,
solutions positive can’t spin.
Greet each day’s play with heart unbound,
send spirits soaring, life’s then found
to know no horrors, aims unmet,
grief-laden, puffy lids tear wet.
Whet appetite ambitious, fresh,
with surge momentous, motives mesh
succeed seed, speed feed freed, not fret.
Life’s griefs on which most men agree,
will never, never fall on me,
to be beloved is all I need,
and whom I love, I love indeed.
I lose no sleep, solutions find
as wants with actions are combined
refreshed uniting thought and deed.
poem by Jonathan Robin
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Night And Sleep
How strange at night to wake
And watch, while others sleep,
Till sight and hearing ache
For objects that may keep
The awful inner sense
Unroused, lest it should mark
The life that haunts the emptiness
And horror of the dark!
How strange at night the bay
Of dogs, how wild the note
Of cocks that scream for day,
In homesteads far remote;
How strange and wild to hear
The old and crumbling tower,
Amid the darkness, suddenly
Take tongue and speak the hour!
Albeit the love-sick brain
Affects the dreary moon,
Ill things alone refrain
From life's nocturnal swoon:
Men melancholy mad,
Beasts ravenous and sly,
The robber, and the murderer,
Remorse, with lidless eye.
The nightingale is gay,
For she can vanquish night;
Dreaming, she sings of day
Notes that make darkness bright;
But when the refluent gloom
Saddens the gaps of song,
Men charge on her the dolefulness,
And call her crazed with wrong.
poem by Coventry Patmore
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Astarte
ACROSS the dripping ridges,
O, look, luxurious night!
She comes, the bright-haired beauty,
My luminous delight!
My luminous delight!
So hush, ye shores, your roar,
That my soul may sleep, forgetting
Dead Love’s wild Nevermore!
Astarte, Syrian sister,
Your face is wet with tears;
I think you know the secret
One heart hath held for years!
One heart hath held for years!
But hide your hapless love,
And my sweet—my Syrian sister,
Dead Love’s wild Nevermore!
Ah, Helen Hope in heaven,
My queen of long ago,
I’ve swooned with adoration,
But could not tell you so,
Or dared not tell you so,
My radiant queen of yore!
And you’ve passed away and left me
Dead Love’s wild Nevermore!
Astarte knoweth, darling,
Of eyes that once did weep,
What time entranced Passion
Hath kissed your lips in sleep;
Hath kissed your lips in sleep;
But now those tears are o’er,
Gone, my saint, with many a moan to
Dead Love’s wild Nevermore!
If I am past all crying,
What thoughts are maddening me,
Of you, my darling, dying
Upon the lone, wide sea,
Upon the lone, wide sea,
Ah! hush, ye shores, your roar,
That my soul may sleep, forgetting
Dead Love’s wild Nevermore!
poem by Henry Kendall
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Emblems of Love
She
ONLY to be twin elements of joy
In this extravagance of Being, Love,
Were our divided natures shaped in twain;
And to this hour the whole world must consent.
Is it not very marvellous, our lives
Can only come to this out of a long
Strange sundering, with the years of the world between us?
He
Shall life do more than God? for hath not God
Striven with himself, when into known delight
His unaccomplisht joy he would put forth,—
This mystery of a world sign of his striving?
Else wherefore this, a thing to break the mind
With labouring in the wonder of it, that here
Being—the world and we—is suffered to be!—
But, lying on thy breast one notable day,
Sudden exceeding agony of love
Made my mind a trance of infinite knowledge.
I was not: yet I saw the will of God
As light unfashion’d, unendurable flame,
Interminable, not to be supposed;
And there was no more creature except light,—
The dreadful burning of the lonely God’s
Unutter’d joy. And then, past telling, came
Shuddering and division in the light:
Therein, like trembling, was desire to know
Its own perfect beauty; and it became
A cloven fire, a double flaming, each
Adorable to each; against itself
Waging a burning love, which was the world;—
A moment satisfied in that love-strife
I knew the world!—And when I fell from there,
Then knew I also what this life would do
In being twin,—in being man and woman!
For it would do even as its endless Master,
Making the world, had done; yea, with itself
Would strive, and for the strife would into sex
Be cloven, double burning, made thereby
Desirable to itself. Contrivèd joy
Is sex in life; and by no other thing
Than by a perfect sundering, could life
Change the dark stream of unappointed joy
To perfect praise of itself, the glee that loves
And worships its own Being. This is ours!
Yet only for that we have been so long
Sundered desire: thence is our life all praise.—
But we, well knowing by our strength of joy
There is no sundering more, how far we love
From those sad lives that know a half-love only,
Alone thereby knowing themselves for ever
Sealed in division of love, and therefore made
To pour their strength always into their love’s
Fierceness, as green wood bleeds its hissing sap
Into red heat of a fire! Not so do we:
The cloven anger, life, hath left to wage
Its flame against itself, here turned to one
Self-adoration.—Ah, what comes of this?
The joy falters a moment, with closed wings
Wearying in its upward journey, ere
Again it goes on high, bearing its song,
Its delight breathing and its vigour beating
The highest height of the air above the world.
She
What hast thou done to me!—I would have soul,
Before I knew thee, Love, a captive held
By flesh. Now, inly delighted with desire,
My body knows itself to be nought else
But thy heart’s worship of me; and my soul
Therein is sunlight held by warm gold air.
Nay, all my body is become a song
Upon the breath of spirit, a love-song.
He
And mine is all like one rapt faculty,
As it were listening to the love in thee,
My whole mortality trembling to take
Thy body like heard singing of thy spirit.
She
Surely by this, Beloved, we must know
Our love is perfect here,—that not as holds
The common dullard thought, we are things lost
In an amazement that is all unware;
But wonderfully knowing what we are!
Lo, now that body is the song whereof
Spirit is mood, knoweth not our delight?
Knoweth not beautifully now our love,
That Life, here to this festival bid come
Clad in his splendour of worldly day and night,
Filled and empower’d by heavenly lust, is all
The glad imagination of the Spirit?
He
Were it not so, Love could not be at all:
Nought could be, but a yearning to fulfil
Desire of beauty, by vain reaching forth
Of sense to hold and understand the vision
Made by impassion’d body,—vision of thee!
But music mixt with music are, in love,
Bodily senses; and as flame hath light,
Spirit this nature hath imagined round it,
No way concealed therein, when love comes near,
Nor in the perfect wedding of desires
Suffering any hindrance.
She
Ah, but now,
Now am I given love’s eternal secret!
Yea, thou and I who speak, are but the joy
Of our for ever mated spirits; but now
The wisdom of my gladness even through Spirit
Looks, divinely elate. Who hath for joy
Our Spirits? Who hath imagined them
Round him in fashion’d radiance of desire,
As into light of these exulting bodies
Flaming Spirit is uttered?
He
Yea, here the end
Of love’s astonishment! Now know we Spirit,
And Who, for ease of joy, contriveth Spirit.
Now all life’s loveliness and power we have
Dissolved in this one moment, and our burning
Carries all shining upward, till in us
Life is not life, but the desire of God,
Himself desiring and himself accepting.
Now what was prophecy in us is made
Fulfilment: we are the hour and we are the joy,
We in our marvellousness of single knowledge,
Of Spirit breaking down the room of fate
And drawing into his light the greeting fire
Of God,—God known in ecstasy of love
Wedding himself to utterance of himself
poem by Lascelles Abercrombie
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In Memory of John Fairfax
Because this man fulfilled his days,
Like one who walks with steadfast gaze
Averted from forbidden ways
With lures of fair, false flowerage deep,
Behold the Lord whose throne is dim
With fires of flaming seraphim—
The Christ that suffered sent for him:
“He giveth His beloved sleep.”
Think not that souls whose deeds august
Put sin to shame and make men just
Become at last the helpless dust
That wintering winds through waste-lands sweep!
The higher life within us cries,
Like some fine spirit from the skies,
“The Father’s blessing on us lies—
‘He giveth His beloved sleep.’”
Not human sleep—the fitful rest
With evil shapes of dreams distressed,—
But perfect quiet, unexpressed
By any worldly word we keep.
The dim Hereafter framed in creeds
May not be this; but He who reads
Our lives, sets flowers on wayside weeds—
“He giveth His beloved sleep.”
Be sure this hero who has passed
The human space—the outer vast—
Who worked in harness to the last,
Doth now a hallowed harvest reap.
Love sees his grave, nor turns away—
The eyes of faith are like the day,
And grief has not a word to say—
“He giveth His beloved sleep.”
That fair, rare spirit, Honour, throws
A light, which puts to shame the rose,
Across his grave, because she knows
The son whose ashes it doth keep;
And, like far music, this is heard—
“Behold the man who never stirred,
By word of his, an angry word!—
‘He giveth His beloved sleep.’”
He earned his place. Within his hands,
The power which counsels and commands,
And shapes the social life of lands,
Became a blessing pure and deep.
Through thirty years of turbulence
Our thoughts were sweetened with a sense
Of his benignant influence—
“He giveth His beloved sleep.”
No splendid talents, which excite
Like music, songs, or floods of light,
Were his; but, rather, all those bright,
Calm qualities of soul which reap
A mute, but certain, fine respect,
Not only from a source elect,
But from the hearts of every sect—
“He giveth His beloved sleep.”
He giveth His beloved rest!
The faithful soul that onward pressed,
Unswerving, from Life’s east to west,
By paths austere and passes steep,
Is past all toil; and, over Death,
With reverent hands and prayerful breath,
I plant this flower, alive with faith—
“He giveth His beloved sleep.”
poem by Henry Kendall
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I Wondered What Was Next
So I wondered what was next
As I said good night
I wondered what was next
As I said good night
With head bowed and soul I prayed
These words I said
Please, send the Angels
To guard this, little sleepy head
And as I watched, I sung
Go to sleep, go to sleep
Close those little bright blue eyes
Night-time is coming
The sun is on the far side
Angels are watching
Our vigil to keep
While the Sandman is filling your eyes
It's time for you sleep
Hush-a-bye-baby
Hush-a-bye-sweet
Play time is over for your
Tiny little feet
Close your eyes, baby
Close your eyes, honey
Sleey-time's here
Good night little darling
Good night little dear
As I sung this song
I wondered what would be next
What God has done to my soul?
Because of this child, I confess
I held my daughter's child
while she fell to sleep
And it was there that I started to think
About the stories of my life, the constant agony
There had just been so dang many
The unending strife's
And just like that the tears again,
Came my way
I fought against torrential rains
As I held this child
That has caused love in my life
I fought against my memories of strife
As I struggled trying end my cares
I attemped again to find peace
But where?
A thought passed through my mind
It came almost like a nursery rhyme.
Oh hush-a-bye child
Hush-a-bye child
Look what you've become
The man that loves,
My little ones
And as I sat wondering
Where those words had Just came from?
I heard again
So hush-a-bye child
Hush-a-bye child
Look what you've become
The man that loves everyone
The man that sin can no longer
over run
So I spoke my question
With voice aloud
How can this be?
Hush-a-bye child
Hush-a-bye child
I can see
Hush-a-bye child
Leave the pains of the past
For me
For I have opened the windows
Of Heaven for thee
And poured out this blessing
With-out room enough to recieve
So (hush-a-bye child)
(Hush-a-bye child)
It's time for you to sleep
For even now I Am,
I Am
Baby tending with thee
poem by Clyde Bryson
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My Everything
The lonliness of nights alone
The search for strength to carry on
My every hope has seemed to die
My eyes had no more tears to cry
Then like the sun shinned from up above
You surrounded me with your endless love
And all the things I couldn't see
Are now so clear to me
CHORUS
You are my everything
Nothing your love won't bring
My life is yours alone
The only love I've ever known
Your spirit pulls me through
When nothing else will do
Every night I pray
On bended knee
That you will always be
My everything
Now all my hopes and all my dreams
Are suddenly reality
You've opened up my heart to feel
A kind of love that's truly real
A guiding light that'll never fade
There's not a thing inlife that I would ever trade
For the love you give it won't let go
I hope you'll always know
Chorus
Oh
You're the breath of life in me
The only one that sets me free
And you have made my soul complete for all time
For all time
Chorus
You are my everything
Nothing your love won't bring
My life is yours alone
The only love I've ever known
Your spirit pulls me through
When nothing else will do
Every night I pray
On bended knee
That you will always be
My everything
song performed by by 98 Degrees from Revelation
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Desire
I desire everything you are,
the sun, the moon, you're my shining star.
I smell the perfume of your hair
and my desire is beyond compare.
I feel your lips when they touch mine.
To me they are like sippimg wine.
I drink you in. I feel your breath.
I'll desire you until my death.
I desire everything you are.
My time with you has healed a scar
upon my heart that came to me
before I knew what love could be.
I touch the smoothness of your skin
and my desire creates this mood I'm in.
My passion becomes a burning flame
and overtakes all sense of shame.
For me there is no shame, my love.
There's only sweet desire.
poem by Edwina Reizer
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The Rendition
I HEARD the train's shrill whistle call,
I saw an earnest look beseech,
And rather by that look than speech
My neighbor told me all.
And, as I thought of Liberty
Marched handcuffed down that sworded street,
The solid earth beneath my feet
Reeled fluid as the sea.
I felt a sense of bitter loss, —
Shame, tearless grief, and stifling wrath,
And loathing fear, as if my path
A serpent stretched across.
All love of home, all pride of place,
All generous confidence and trust,
Sank smothering in that deep disgust
And anguish of disgrace.
Down on my native hills of June,
And home's green quiet, hiding all,
Fell sudden darkness like the fall
Of midnight upon noon!
And Law, an unloosed maniac, strong,
Blood-drunken, through the blackness trod,
Hoarse-shouting in the ear of God
The blasphemy of wrong.
'O Mother, from thy memories proud,
Thy old renown, dear Commonwealth,
Lend this dead air a breeze of health,
And smite with stars this cloud.
'Mother of Freedom, wise and brave,
Rise awful in thy strength,' I said;
Ah me! I spake but to the dead;
I stood upon her grave!
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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Forsaking My Love
I hate you
I wish to tear you away from me
This tumor that clings to my chest
The thing that makes me ache
That haunts my dreams
And tears at my desires
You have brought me only pain
My untamed heart
That beast that gnaws at my soul
That pitifully whines
Bringing my mind into unwanted pain
Yet how can I blame you
How can I chastise you when I listen intently to your pleas
Why should I punish you for what my eyes feed upon
How can I blame my eyes for falling upon her
She who brings light to the eternal darkness of my soul
She whose eyes bring me to subjection
Whose smile leaves me in awe
How can I blame you when my ears are met with her laughter
How they submerge into her song
How they quiver at her voice
Why should I punish you for inclining my soul
Tempting it with the one sense that has been forsaken by her
How could I look over the thought of the brushing of lips
The touching of hands
The binding of the soul, mind, and body
O you wretched heart
What am I to do with this constant companion
How could I tear you away
When she is the cause of my agony
Or rather
It is the lack of her which brings me sorrow
It is the need for her that leaves my heart in pain
Yet she is not mine
She was never mine
She will never be mine
O my poor heart
How can I make you see reason
When all you do is show me the truth
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poem by Michael Silver
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The Immortal Part
When I meet the morning beam,
Or lay me down at night to dream,
I hear my bones within me say,
"Another night, another day.
"When shall this slough of sense be cast,
This dust of thoughts be laid at last,
The man of flesh and soul be slain
And the man of bone remain?
"This tongue that talks, these lungs that shout,
These thews that hustle us about,
This brain that fills the skull with schemes,
And its humming hive of dreams,--
"These to-day are proud in power
And lord it in their little hour:
The immortal bones obey control
Of dying flesh and dying soul.
"'Tis long till eve and morn are gone:
Slow the endless night comes on,
And late to fulness grows the birth
That shall last as long as earth.
"Wanderers eastward, wanderers west,
Know you why you cannot rest?
'Tis that every mother's son
Travails with a skeleton.
"Lie down in the bed of dust;
Bear the fruit that bear you must;
Bring the eternal seed to light,
And morn is all the same as night.
"Rest you so from trouble sore,
Fear the heat o' the sun no more,
Nor the snowing winter wild,
Now you labour not with child.
"Empty vessel, garment cast,
We that wore you long shall last.
--Another night, another day."
So my bones within me say.
Therefore they shall do my will
To-day while I am master still,
And flesh and soul, now both are strong,
Shall hale the sullen slaves along,
Before this fire of sense decay,
This smoke of thought blow clean away,
And leave with ancient night alone
The stedfast and enduring bone.
poem by Alfred Edward Housman
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Hermaphroditus
I.
LIFT UP thy lips, turn round, look back for love,
Blind love that comes by night and casts out rest;
Of all things tired thy lips look weariest,
Save the long smile that they are wearied of.
Ah sweet, albeit no love be sweet enough,
Choose of two loves and cleave unto the best;
Two loves at either blossom of thy breast
Strive until one be under and one above.
Their breath is fire upon the amorous air,
Fire in thine eyes and where thy lips suspire:
And whosoever hath seen thee, being so fair,
Two things turn all his life and blood to fire;
A strong desire begot on great despair,
A great despair cast out by strong desire.
II.
Where between sleep and life some brief space is,
With love like gold bound round about the head,
Sex to sweet sex with lips and limbs is wed,
Turning the fruitful feud of hers and his
To the waste wedlock of a sterile kiss;
Yet from them something like as fire is shed
That shall not be assuaged till death be dead,
Though neither life nor sleep can find out this.
Love made himself of flesh that perisheth
A pleasure-house for all the loves his kin;
But on the one side sat a man like death,
And on the other a woman sat like sin.
So with veiled eyes and sobs between his breath
Love turned himself and would not enter in.
III.
Love, is it love or sleep or shadow or light
That lies between thine eyelids and thine eyes?
Like a flower laid upon a flower it lies,
Or like the night’s dew laid upon the night.
Love stands upon thy left hand and thy right,
Yet by no sunset and by no moonrise
Shall make thee man and ease a woman’s sighs,
Or make thee woman for a man’s delight.
To what strange end hath some strange god made fair
The double blossom of two fruitless flowers?
Hid love in all the folds of all thy hair,
Fed thee on summers, watered thee with showers,
Given all the gold that all the seasons wear
To thee that art a thing of barren hours?
IV.
Yea, love, I see; it is not love but fear.
Nay, sweet, it is not fear but love, I know;
Or wherefore should thy body’s blossom blow
So sweetly, or thine eyelids leave so clear
Thy gracious eyes that never made a tear—
Though for their love our tears like blood should flow,
Though love and life and death should come and go,
So dreadful, so desirable, so dear?
Yea, sweet, I know; I saw in what swift wise
Beneath the woman’s and the water’s kiss
Thy moist limbs melted into Salmacis,
And the large light turned tender in thine eyes,
And all thy boy’s breath softened into sighs;
But Love being blind, how should he know of this?
Au Musée du Louvre, Mars 1863.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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How Love Looked For Hell.
'To heal his heart of long-time pain
One day Prince Love for to travel was fain
With Ministers Mind and Sense.
`Now what to thee most strange may be?'
Quoth Mind and Sense. `All things above,
One curious thing I first would see --
Hell,' quoth Love.
'Then Mind rode in and Sense rode out:
They searched the ways of man about.
First frightfully groaneth Sense.
`'Tis here, 'tis here,' and spurreth in fear
To the top of the hill that hangeth above
And plucketh the Prince: `Come, come, 'tis here --'
`Where?' quoth Love --
'`Not far, not far,' said shivering Sense
As they rode on. `A short way hence,
-- But seventy paces hence:
Look, King, dost see where suddenly
This road doth dip from the height above?
Cold blew a mouldy wind by me'
(`Cold?' quoth Love)
'`As I rode down, and the River was black,
And yon-side, lo! an endless wrack
And rabble of souls,' sighed Sense,
`Their eyes upturned and begged and burned
In brimstone lakes, and a Hand above
Beat back the hands that upward yearned --'
`Nay!' quoth Love --
'`Yea, yea, sweet Prince; thyself shalt see,
Wilt thou but down this slope with me;
'Tis palpable,' whispered Sense.
-- At the foot of the hill a living rill
Shone, and the lilies shone white above;
`But now 'twas black, 'twas a river, this rill,'
(`Black?' quoth Love)
'`Ay, black, but lo! the lilies grow,
And yon-side where was woe, was woe,
-- Where the rabble of souls,' cried Sense,
`Did shrivel and turn and beg and burn,
Thrust back in the brimstone from above --
Is banked of violet, rose, and fern:'
`How?' quoth Love:
'`For lakes of pain, yon pleasant plain
Of woods and grass and yellow grain
Doth ravish the soul and sense:
And never a sigh beneath the sky,
And folk that smile and gaze above --'
`But saw'st thou here, with thine own eye,
Hell?' quoth Love.
'`I saw true hell with mine own eye,
True hell, or light hath told a lie,
True, verily,' quoth stout Sense.
Then Love rode round and searched the ground,
The caves below, the hills above;
`But I cannot find where thou hast found
Hell,' quoth Love.
'There, while they stood in a green wood
And marvelled still on Ill and Good,
Came suddenly Minister Mind.
`In the heart of sin doth hell begin:
'Tis not below, 'tis not above,
It lieth within, it lieth within:'
(`Where?' quoth Love)
'`I saw a man sit by a corse;
`Hell's in the murderer's breast: remorse!'
Thus clamored his mind to his mind:
Not fleshly dole is the sinner's goal,
Hell's not below, nor yet above,
'Tis fixed in the ever-damned soul --'
`Fixed?' quoth Love --
'`Fixed: follow me, would'st thou but see:
He weepeth under yon willow tree,
Fast chained to his corse,' quoth Mind.
Full soon they passed, for they rode fast,
Where the piteous willow bent above.
`Now shall I see at last, at last,
Hell,' quoth Love.
'There when they came Mind suffered shame:
`These be the same and not the same,'
A-wondering whispered Mind.
Lo, face by face two spirits pace
Where the blissful willow waves above:
One saith: `Do me a friendly grace --'
(`Grace!' quoth Love)
'`Read me two Dreams that linger long,
Dim as returns of old-time song
That flicker about the mind.
I dreamed (how deep in mortal sleep!)
I struck thee dead, then stood above,
With tears that none but dreamers weep;'
`Dreams,' quoth Love;
'`In dreams, again, I plucked a flower
That clung with pain and stung with power,
Yea, nettled me, body and mind.'
`'Twas the nettle of sin, 'twas medicine;
No need nor seed of it here Above;
In dreams of hate true loves begin.'
`True,' quoth Love.
'`Now strange,' quoth Sense, and `Strange,' quoth Mind,
`We saw it, and yet 'tis hard to find,
-- But we saw it,' quoth Sense and Mind.
Stretched on the ground, beautiful-crowned
Of the piteous willow that wreathed above,
`But I cannot find where ye have found
Hell,' quoth Love.'
poem by Sidney Lanier
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The Parting Soul And Her Guardian Angel
(Written during sickness).
Soul—
Oh! say must I leave this world of light
With its sparkling streams and sunshine bright,
Its budding flowers, its glorious sky?
Vain ’tis to ask me—I cannot die!
Angel—
But, sister, list! in the realms above,
That happy home of eternal love,
Are flowers more fair, and skies more clear
Than those thou dost cling to so fondly here.
Soul—
Ah! yes, but to reach that home of light
I must pass through the fearful vale of night;
And my soul with alarm doth shuddering cry—
O angel, I tell thee, I dare not die!
Angel—
Ah! mortal beloved, in that path untried
Will I be, as ever, still at thy side,
Through gloom to guide till, death’s shadows passed,
Thou nearest, unharmed, God’s throne at last.
Soul—
Alas! too many close ties of love
Around my wavering heart are wove!
Fond, tender voices, press me to stay—
Think’st thou from them I would pass away?
Daily my mother, with anguish wild,
Bends o’er the couch of her dying child,
And one, nearer still, with silent tears,
Betrays his anguish, his gloomy fears—
Yes, even now, while to thee I speak,
Are hot drops falling upon my cheek;
Think you I’d break from so close a tie?
No, my guardian angel, I cannot die!
Angel—
Poor child of earth! how closely clings
Thy heart to earth and to earthly things!
Wilt thou still revolt if I whisper low
That thy Father in Heaven wills it so—
Wills that with Him thou should’st henceforth dwell,
To pray for those whom thou lovest so well,
Till a time shall come when you’ll meet again,
To forget for ever life’s grief and pain?
Soul—
Spirit, thy words have a potent power
O’er my sinking heart in this awful hour,
And thy soft-breathed hopes, with magic might.
Have chased from my soul the shades of night.
Console the dear ones I part from now,
Who hang o’er my couch with pallid brow,
Tell them we’ll meet in yon shining sky—
And, Saviour tender, now let me die!
poem by Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
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Love, Dreaming of Death
I dreamt my little boys were dead
And I was sitting wild and lone;
On closed unmoving knees my head
Lay rigid as a stone.
And thus I sat without a tear,
And though I drew life’s painful breath,
All life to me seemed cold and drear,
And comfortless as death:
Sat on the earth as on a bier,
Where loss and ruin lived alone,
Without the comfort of a tear—
Without a passing groan.
And there was stillness everywhere,
Ensphering one wide sense of woe;
The stillness of a world’s despair,
Whose tides had ceased to flow.
Yea, so eternal seemed my grief,
Time moved out, neither slow nor fast,
Nor recked I whether periods brief
Or centuries had passed.
It was as if to marble cold
My loss had petrified the air,
And I was shut within its hold,
Made deathless by despair.
Made deathless in a world of death,
There ever sitting wild and lone,
With all but one pent painful breath
Transmutted into stone.
And more the gorgon horror crushed
With dry petrific pressure in,
Till forth my waking spirit rushed
With agonizing din!
And oh! What joy it was to wake—
To cast that haggard dream away,
And from its stony influence break
Into the living day!
I sought the objects of my care,
And felt, while I embraced the twain,
How much even from a dream’s despair
A father’s love may gain.
When this dream-record long ago
I penned, how little did I deem
That yet a distant coming woe
Was shadowed in its theme.
For ah! Of that beloved twain,
The lips of one, then warm with breath,
I since have kissed unkissed again,
For they were cold in death.
A swift wild death! And when I think
Of all that I have lost thereby,
My heart hath pangs that seem to drink
All Mara’s waters dry;
Yea, pangs that would my life destroy,
Did faith not whisper oft between:
“Peace! Sire of an immortal boy
Beyond this mortal scene.”
poem by Charles Harpur
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Lines For A Prologue
These alternate nights and days, these seasons
Somehow fail to convince me. It seems
I have the sense of infinity!
(In your dreams, O crew of Columbus,
O listeners over the sea
For the surf that breaks upon Nothing—)
Once I was waked by the nightingales in the garden.
I thought, What time is it? I thought,
Time—Is it Time still?—Now is it Time?
(Tell me your dreams, O sailors:
Tell me, in sleep did you climb
The tall masts, and before you—)
At night the stillness of old trees
Is a leaning over and the inertness
Of hills is a kind of waiting.
(In sleep, in a dream, did you see
The world’s end? Did the water
Break—and no shore—Did you see?)
Strange faces come through the streets to me
Like messengers: and I have been warned
By the moving slowly of hands at a window.
Oh, I have the sense of infinity—
But the world, sailors, is round.
They say there is no end to it.
poem by Archibald MacLeish
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Aint It Strange
Aint it strange that we destroy
What we embrace
And we leave
What we seek
Its such a shame
Aint it strange that we smile
When we cry
And no one knows why we are here
And where we going to
Aint it strange
We could be, we could be so good together
Aint it strange that we share what we hate
That we break what we love
Its such a shame
Aint it strange when we pray, we betray anyway
And no one knows what we are for
Why were so tough
When were so fragile
Aint it strange
Aint it strange, still we could fall into a dream, Id wish no one
Will catch that fall
For we could fall for love, life is but a dream, life is but a dream
All the tears in the world not in vain for the pain is gone, the
Shame is washed away
When were all one, life is but a dream, life is but a dream
Its hard to believe after thousands of years
The world is still drowning in blood and tears
Weve been quite advanced but again we fail
It is dog eats dog on the ratrace trail
It is getting too much and were getting nowhere
While hatred and fear is all that we share
I cant take it no more when Im watching the news
We must stick together or were bound to lose
Gold/1994
song performed by by Alphaville
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Kiss Mine Heart
With crimson blood I doth drink sorrow's love and weep till night drunk in love's enamor, while all hearts clamor with tongues lurid song and play with the night of vice all wrong and in orbits of each other's senses, lose their own sense, to sensualities path deep and immense… Like a saint of love I pray for love's sake and martyr myself in her name and where love dwells thou wilt find fame, engraved on the walls of a heart, where lover's kiss with crimson stained lips wert their sin lives and whisper din and burn their senses in mine heart within… O sweet is love in my heart's melody, wert I see beauty and love in souls underneath thy body. I see with mine heart and not my eye, with love's heart that will never die! Kiss mine heart!
poem by Kevin Michael Murphy
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Sensuality
Here I lay, so close to you
Knowing that you'll see me through
Another night when we'll feel the joy
The joy that makes me smile more and more
And every day I dream
Of holding you close to me
And every night I find
Me touching your lips with mine
Naahh ooooh, oh babe
It seems that time moves much too fast
Love is here and love will last
Your body's warm and sure to please
Lady of love, take all of me
Every day I dream
Of holding you close to me
Every night I find
Me touching your lips with mine
Noohhh ooooh
_ _ _ _ _ _
Every day I dream
Of holding you close to me
Every night I find
Me touching your lips with mine
Aaaah ooooh aaaah
And through the night, the touch of love will be
Forever strong and forever sweet
And giving in to passion's flow
Creates a world we want to grow
Every day I dream
Of holding you close to me
Every night I find
Me touching your lips with mine
Every day-hey-hey
Ooaoh every night
Every day-hey-hey
Whoaoh every, every night
Every day-hey-hey
Nahaooh every, every night
Every day I dream, oh I dream
Naohohh each and every night
You're moving me, soothing me, girl
Loving, touching, feeling, ooaaohh
And I'm feeling good
Ohh feels good
- F a d e-
song performed by by Isley Brothers
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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