En.Citatepedia^®.ro

The Death-Bed

He drowsed and was aware of silence heaped
Round him, unshaken as the steadfast walls;
Aqueous like floating rays of amber light,
Soaring and quivering in the wings of sleep.
Silence and safety; and his mortal shore
Lipped by the inward, moonless waves of death.

Someone was holding water to his mouth.
He swallowed, unresisting; moaned and dropped
Through crimson gloom to darkness; and forgot
The opiate throb and ache that was his wound.
Water—calm, sliding green above the weir.
Water—a sky-lit alley for his boat,
Bird- voiced, and bordered with reflected flowers
And shaken hues of summer; drifting down,
He dipped contented oars, and sighed, and slept.

Night, with a gust of wind, was in the ward,
Blowing the curtain to a glimmering curve.
Night. He was blind; he could not see the stars
Glinting among the wraiths of wandering cloud;
Queer blots of colour, purple, scarlet, green,
Flickered and faded in his drowning eyes.

Rain—he could hear it rustling through the dark;
Fragrance and passionless music woven as one;
Warm rain on drooping roses; pattering showers
That soak the woods; not the harsh rain that sweeps
Behind the thunder, but a trickling peace,
Gently and slowly washing life away.

He stirred, shifting his body; then the pain
Leapt like a prowling beast, and gripped and tore
His groping dreams with grinding claws and fangs.
But someone was beside him; soon he lay
Shuddering because that evil thing had passed.
And death, who'd stepped toward him, paused and stared.

Light many lamps and gather round his bed.
Lend him your eyes, warm blood, and will to live.
Speak to him; rouse him; you may save him yet.
He's young; he hated War; how should he die
When cruel old campaigners win safe through?

But death replied: 'I choose him.' So he went,
And there was silence in the summer night;
Silence and safety; and the veils of sleep.
Then, far away, the thudding of the guns.

poem by Siegfried Sassoon
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The House Of Dust: Part 04: 05: The Bitter Love-Song

No, I shall not say why it is that I love you—
Why do you ask me, save for vanity?
Surely you would not have me, like a mirror,
Say 'yes,—your hair curls darkly back from the temples,
Your mouth has a humorous, tremulous, half-shy sweetness,
Your eyes are April grey. . . .with jonquils in them?'
No, if I tell at all, I shall tell in silence . . .
I'll say—my childhood broke through chords of music
—Or were they chords of sun?—wherein fell shadows,
Or silences; I rose through seas of sunlight;
Or sometimes found a darkness stooped above me
With wings of death, and a face of cold clear beauty. .
I lay in the warm sweet grass on a blue May morning,
My chin in a dandelion, my hands in clover,
And drowsed there like a bee. . . .blue days behind me
Stretched like a chain of deep blue pools of magic,
Enchanted, silent, timeless. . . .days before me
Murmured of blue-sea mornings, noons of gold,
Green evenings streaked with lilac, bee-starred nights.
Confused soft clouds of music fled above me.

Sharp shafts of music dazzled my eyes and pierced me.
I ran and turned and spun and danced in the sunlight,
Shrank, sometimes, from the freezing silence of beauty,
Or crept once more to the warm white cave of sleep.

No, I shall not say 'this is why I praise you—
Because you say such wise things, or such foolish. . .'
You would not have me say what you know better?
Let me instead be silent, only saying—:
My childhood lives in me—or half-lives, rather—
And, if I close my eyes cool chords of music
Flow up to me . . . long chords of wind and sunlight. . . .
Shadows of intricate vines on sunlit walls,
Deep bells beating, with aeons of blue between them,
Grass blades leagues apart with worlds between them,
Walls rushing up to heaven with stars upon them. . .
I lay in my bed and through the tall night window
Saw the green lightning plunging among the clouds,
And heard the harsh rain storm at the panes and roof. . . .
How should I know—how should I now remember—
What half-dreamed great wings curved and sang above me?
What wings like swords? What eyes with the dread night in them?

This I shall say.—I lay by the hot white sand-dunes. .
Small yellow flowers, sapless and squat and spiny,
Stared at the sky. And silently there above us
Day after day, beyond our dreams and knowledge,
Presences swept, and over us streamed their shadows,
Swift and blue, or dark. . . .What did they mean?
What sinister threat of power? What hint of beauty?
Prelude to what gigantic music, or subtle?
Only I know these things leaned over me,
Brooded upon me, paused, went flowing softly,
Glided and passed. I loved, I desired, I hated,
I struggled, I yielded and loved, was warmed to blossom . . .
You, when your eyes have evening sunlight in them,
Set these dunes before me, these salt bright flowers,
These presences. . . .I drowse, they stream above me,
I struggle, I yield and love, I am warmed to dream.

You are the window (if I could tell I'd tell you)
Through which I see a clear far world of sunlight.
You are the silence (if you could hear you'd hear me)
In which I remember a thin still whisper of singing.
It is not you I laugh for, you I touch!
My hands, that touch you, suddenly touch white cobwebs,
Coldly silvered, heavily silvered with dewdrops;
And clover, heavy with rain; and cold green grass. . .

poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
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Flight

Voices out of the shade that cried,
And long noon in the hot calm places,
And children's play by the wayside,
And country eyes, and quiet faces -
All these were round my steady paces.

Those that I could have loved went by me;
Cool gardened homes slept in the sun;
I heard the whisper of water nigh me,
Saw hands that beckoned, shone, were gone
In the green and gold. And I went on.

For if my echoing footfall slept,
Soon a far whispering there'd be
Of a little lonely wind that crept
From tree to tree, and distantly
Followed me, followed me. . . .

But the blue vaporous end of day
Brought peace, and pursuit baffled quite,
Where between pine-woods dipped the way.
I turned, slipped in and out of sight.
I trod as quiet as the night.

The pine-boles kept perpetual hush;
And in the boughs wind never swirled.
I found a flowering lowly bush,
And bowed, slid in, and sighed and curled,
Hidden at rest from all the world.

Safe! I was safe, and glad, I knew!
Yet - with cold heart and cold wet brows
I lay. And the dark fell. . . . There grew
Meward a sound of shaken boughs;
And ceased, above my intricate house;

And silence, silence, silence found me. . . .
I felt the unfaltering movement creep
Among the leaves. They shed around me
Calm clouds of scent, that I did weep;
And stroked my face. I fell asleep.

poem by Rupert Brooke (1919)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Flight

Voices out of the shade that cried,
And long noon in the hot calm places,
And children's play by the wayside,
And country eyes, and quiet faces -
All these were round my steady paces.

Those that I could have loved went by me;
Cool gardened homes slept in the sun;
I heard the whisper of water nigh me,
Saw hands that beckoned, shone, were gone
In the green and gold. And I went on.

For if my echoing footfall slept,
Soon a far whispering there'd be
Of a little lonely wind that crept
From tree to tree, and distantly
Followed me, followed me. . . .

But the blue vaporous end of day
Brought peace, and pursuit baffled quite,
Where between pine-woods dipped the way.
I turned, slipped in and out of sight.
I trod as quiet as the night.

The pine-boles kept perpetual hush;
And in the boughs wind never swirled.
I found a flowering lowly bush,
And bowed, slid in, and sighed and curled,
Hidden at rest from all the world.

Safe! I was safe, and glad, I knew!
Yet - with cold heart and cold wet brows
I lay. And the dark fell. . . . There grew
Meward a sound of shaken boughs;
And ceased, above my intricate house;

And silence, silence, silence found me. . . .
I felt the unfaltering movement creep
Among the leaves. They shed around me
Calm clouds of scent, that I did weep;
And stroked my face. I fell asleep.

poem by Rupert Brooke (1910)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Death of Silence

Let's celebrate the day
The death of silence
When even the soundless creature
Leave an echo
When the quiet evening sky
Speaks more volume 

Let's celebrate the day
The death of silence
When the darkness of night
Is calmed by the song of stars
When this cruel and frightening world
Is cheered by the joy of life

Let's celebrate the day
The death of silence
When the trees swaying their branches
Whispering the news from afar 
When the stone awaken to tell the story
And no more secret remains hidden

Let's celebrate the day
The death of silence
When the wind fills the void
And noises the ears
When the sunshine touches the skin
And screams in eyes

Let's celebrate the day
The death of silence
When you could taste the heart
Inside the food you eat
When you could understand 
The meaning the breath that taken

Let's celebrate the day
The death of silence
When smile is enough
To erase the rotten doubt 
When love is abundant
To wash the bitter pain

Let's celebrate the day
The death of silence
When the soul finds its freedom
And not chained in the grief of body
When the call is passing
Through the memory and time

poem by Maria Sudibyo
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The Lonely Silver Rain

Watching waves wash up the beach and washing out again
The water shining scarlet as another day begins
Gazing past the droplets falling on my window pane
On the tan and sandy silence of the lonely silver rain

My house and mind are wallowing in states of disarray
Nothing is for certain except you’ve gone away
Wash my hands obsessively but can’t remove the stain
In the tan and sandy silence of the lonely silver rain

Morning fog is crawling like a curse upon the water
Want to scream into the sky but can’t begin to bother
Old friends, like the darkness, never ask me to explain
To the tan and sandy silence of the lonely silver rain

poem by A.D. Varrone
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Pink Clouds Never Rain

I have never see a pink cloud rain before.
I have only seen a magenta bolt of lightening try to strike my heart, and
Aqua tears trickling from my dazzled misty eyes, down my
Flushed and lonesome cheek, though
I have never see a pink cloud rain before.

I have never seen a pink cloud rain before.
I have seen spotted purple snakes crawling up my bedroom walls, and
Transparent bubbles filled with dreams floating before my very eyes, though,
I have never seen a pink cloud rain before.

I have never seen a pink cloud rain before, though
I have seen a reddish sun cast shadows down upon a tortuous, rippling river;
I have seen tears cascading down a sloping hill, and
Gulls flapping their gentle, feathered wings atop some cragged cliffs, although
I have never seen a pink cloud rain before.

I have never seen a pink cloud rain before, although
I have heard eerie and commanding thoughts and voices
That no one else could hear.
I have had disturbing, stabbing thoughts that have injured me inside, though
I have never seen a pink cloud rain before.

I have never seen a pink cloud rain before, although
I have slid down an icy mountainside on a very sunny night.
I have wept a sea of deep blue and purple tears, though
I have never seen a pink cloud rain before.

I have never heard thunder clap behind a rosy cloud, or seen
Tears fall from heaven or have heard angels singing.
I have had morbid thoughts of loss, death and suicide,
While thunder clapped, and
These pink clouds could not rain.

Perhaps someday I shall see a pink cloud rain upon a
Magnificent world, which I have created for myself,
Where tall green and golden reeds are surrounded by swirling water pools, and
A hallucinogenic sun sets behind high and mighty mountains-
And there, people would be trustworthy and true to heart.

No, I have never seen a pink cloud rain before, although,
I have seen almost everything there is to see-
Some good sights and some bad-
I have heard some screaming voices echo in my mind, although,
Some quiet ones as well.
I have seen some orange and, pinkish sunsets, and mirages in
The fortress of my own mind, however-
I have never seen a pink cloud rain before, and
I have never seen a pink cloud weep before….

Claudia Krizay

poem by Claudia Krizay
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A Rain To Remember!

Rain lashed out with lightning and thunder!
For every lightning phone also rang without fail!
It continued till I switched off light and went to bed!

Next day morning some death news due to lightning came!
Storm has dissipated but rain lashed now and then;
It's raining time nothing can stop it from falling!

Today there is complete silence prevailing!
Night is cold and wind has stopped after evening
Yet rain warning is given and is expected for 24 hours!

The summer drought without rain is causing so heavy rain now!
Farming fields without rain crops are waiting for rain
A week's rain at least will make it okay now!

When there is no rain we cry for it and when it is there we don't want
Whether we say this or that rain will do the best it can when it comes!

poem by Ramesh T A
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I Don't Really Know When Will This End

this silence
when will this end, this silence between us at noon
a harsh noon, hot and humid, where i burn like a pile of wood in the forest
on a very cold night with you on the other side of the bed
facing the full moon and some shooting stars

this silence between us, when will this end when will the space
between our eyes
resolve the distance of the seasons night and day and summer and rain

i sleep on the bed alone on some scorpion thoughts biting one another
inflicting venoms that numb and even kill
and there you are rocking yourself on a chair making some sleep
like a concoction
of vodka and champagne teasing your eyes filled with tears

the soap on tv is busy with their stories of pain and twist and turns
i pray to end this silence so we can talk and
lay down the final plans
of our earthy longings some demarcations of pain and tolerance and
facts and conclusions
this wherefore and therefore finally

you turn off the tv, and you lay beside me touching my hand
i give in, i still miss you, and i think, the silence has come on the soft
wings of a butterfly for a brief flutter at the ceiling
looking at ourselves for another sweeter second time beginning

the cliche: love is sweeter the second time around is still written on the wall
how can i forget it

poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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At Her Door

OPEN! Open! Open!
I am here at your door outside;
The sea's blue tide flows speedily,
And ebbs a thin red tide.'
The woman rose from her warm white bed,
Threw back her hair and smiled;
The ears of scorn heard the words of love,
And the wind and the words were wild.
'Wake! Awake! Awake!
And hearken the woe outside;
The moon is hid in cloudiness;
Calleth and calleth the tide.'
The woman stood in the silence still
As a thing men carve from stone.
Her eyes burned largely in the dark,
And the smile, like a stain, stayed on.
'Listen! Listen! Listen!
Hear you the rain to-night?
A warm dark rain is falling too,
And I grow ghostly-white.'
The woman took three steps and bowed;
The smile waned from her lip;
She heard the dripping of the rain
And a soft thick other drip.
'Open! Open! Open!
I die in the dark alone.
My voice goes up in weariness
Against your heart of stone.'
The moon to a cloud-cleft stealing
Gazed down on the yearning tide;
The woman opened the streaming door
And stood in the rain outside.
Silence! Stillness! She whispers,
'Ah, Love, that death should be!'
He sighed, 'Your lips are loveliness!'
And she sobbed, 'Woe is me!'
The woman pressed his dead white face
With her face as deadly white:
The moon drew in behind a cloud,
And the tide moaned through the night.

poem by Roderic Quinn
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To Johnanna

Often I hear your steps

Ring through the alley.

In the small brown garden

The blueness of your shadow.

In the dawning bower

I sat in silence with the wine.

A dropp of blood

Sank from your temple

Into the singing glass

Hour of unending gloom.

From stars a snowy wind

Blows through the foliage.

Any death, the night

The pale man suffers.

Your purple mouth

Dwells a wound in me.

As if I came from the green

Fir hills and legends

Of our homeland,

Which we long forgot -

Who are we? Blue lament

Of a mossy forest spring,

Where the violets

Secretly scent in spring.

A peaceful village in summer

Once sheltered the childhood

Of our race,

Dying off now at the evening-

Hill the white grandchildren

We dream the terror

Of our nightly blood

Shadows in stony city.

poem by Georg Trakl
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The Memory of Water (for Scarlet)

Water remembers you
falling now on your sleeping face

waking you from dreams
with its surprise

after you fell asleep
at your first pinic.

Water remembers your childish
laughter.

Water remembers you

holding your body
in its body

as you learn not to fear it
as you learn the words float...sink...swim.

Water remembers you
becoming its friend.

Water remembers you
diving into its honeymoon waters

becoming fishes....kisses
lasting from here to eternity.

Water remembers two
delerious skinnydippers.

Water remembers you
crying in its rain

sobbing 'I'll never fall in love again! '
as if you were an old 1950's tune.

Water remembers such tears
hiding them in its rain.

Water remembers you
laughing in the rain

having fallen in love again

so quick to change
your tune.

Water remembers you
laughing here we go again.

Water remembers you
soaking wet in a sudden thunder storm

flowers held in your hand
having lost their heads

presenting her
with nothing but stalks.

Water remembers you
having to wear her old dress

as she dried your clothes.

Water remembers
kisses lost amonst the roar of a fire.

Water remembers you
& is saddened to find you

with no answers
with no questions

here on this bridge
reflecting itself

here in its depths
where only silence lives

holding you
as before

only water
remembers your death.

poem by Dónall Dempsey
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The House Of Dust: Part 03: 13: The half-shut doors through which we heard that music

The half-shut doors through which we heard that music
Are softly closed. Horns mutter down to silence.
The stars whirl out, the night grows deep.
Darkness settles upon us. A vague refrain
Drowsily teases at the drowsy brain.
In numberless rooms we stretch ourselves and sleep.

Where have we been? What savage chaos of music
Whirls in our dreams?—We suddenly rise in darkness,
Open our eyes, cry out, and sleep once more.
We dream we are numberless sea-waves languidly foaming
A warm white moonlit shore;

Or clouds blown windily over a sky at midnight,
Or chords of music scattered in hurrying darkness,
Or a singing sound of rain . . .
We open our eyes and stare at the coiling darkness,
And enter our dreams again.

poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
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Multitudes Turn In Darkness

The half-shut doors through which we heard that music
Are softly closed. Horns mutter down to silence,
The stars wheel out, the night grows deep.
Darkness settles upon us; a Vague refrain
Drowsily teases at the drowsy brain.
In numberless rooms we stretch ourselves and sleep.

Where have we been ? What savage chaos of music
Whirls in our dreams? We suddenly rise in darkness,
Open our eyes, cry out, and sleep once more.
We dream we are numberless sea-waves, languidly foaming
A warm white moonlit shore;

Or clouds blown windily over a sky at midnight,
Or chords of music scattered in hurrying darkness,
Or a singing sound of rain
We open our eyes and stare at the coiling darkness,
And enter our dreams again.

poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
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The House Of Dust: Part 04: 04: Counterpoint: Two Rooms

He, in the room above, grown old and tired,
She, in the room below—his floor her ceiling—
Pursue their separate dreams. He turns his light,
And throws himself on the bed, face down, in laughter. . . .
She, by the window, smiles at a starlight night,

His watch—the same he has heard these cycles of ages—
Wearily chimes at seconds beneath his pillow.
The clock, upon her mantelpiece, strikes nine.
The night wears on. She hears dull steps above her.
The world whirs on. . . .New stars come up to shine.

His youth—far off—he sees it brightly walking
In a golden cloud. . . .Wings flashing about it. . . . Darkness
Walls it around with dripping enormous walls.
Old age—far off—her death—what do they matter?
Down the smooth purple night a streaked star falls.

She hears slow steps in the street—they chime like music;
They climb to her heart, they break and flower in beauty,
Along her veins they glisten and ring and burn. . . .
He hears his own slow steps tread down to silence.
Far off they pass. He knows they will never return.

Far off—on a smooth dark road—he hears them faintly.
The road, like a sombre river, quietly flowing,
Moves among murmurous walls. A deeper breath
Swells them to sound: he hears his steps more clearly.
And death seems nearer to him: or he to death.

What's death?—She smiles. The cool stone hurts her elbows.
The last of the rain-drops gather and fall from elm-boughs,
She sees them glisten and break. The arc-lamp sings,
The new leaves dip in the warm wet air and fragrance.
A sparrow whirs to the eaves, and shakes his wings.

What's death—what's death? The spring returns like music,
The trees are like dark lovers who dream in starlight,
The soft grey clouds go over the stars like dreams.
The cool stone wounds her arms to pain, to pleasure.
Under the lamp a circle of wet street gleams. . . .
And death seems far away, a thing of roses,
A golden portal, where golden music closes,
Death seems far away:
And spring returns, the countless singing of lovers,
And spring returns to stay. . . .

He, in the room above, grown old and tired,
Flings himself on the bed, face down, in laughter,
And clenches his hands, and remembers, and desires to die.
And she, by the window, smiles at a night of starlight.
. . . The soft grey clouds go slowly across the sky.

poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
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Breaking The Silence

They told me to run, but just how far?
Can I go wearing the black mask of fear?
The hate in my eyes always gives me away
The tension building slowly
Now I lost everything I had in you
Nothing we shared means a thing
Without you close to me
I cant live without you
Breaking the silence of the night
Cant you hear me screaming?
I look for your face in the neon light
You never answer me
Theres no direction to my stare
No more flame burning in my heart anymore
Quiet, I keep it to myself
Until the sun sets slowly
I hear your voice in the evening rain calling
Nothing will keep us apart
No more lies and fear
Theres no end to our story
Breaking the silence of the night
Cant you hear me screaming?
I look for your face in the neon light
You never answer
I could make all the wrong seem right
If you were by my side
Id gather all the tears you cried
And hide them deep underground
Cant look back, its just a waste of time
Cant erase this hate from my eyes
Breaking the silence of the night
Through the streets Im screaming
Looking for you in the neon light
Why dont you answer me?
Breaking the silence with my cries
Cant you hear me screaming?
We could make all this wrong seem right
But you never answer me

song performed by by Queensryche
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Nocturne Of Remembered Spring

I.

Moonlight silvers the tops of trees,
Moonlight whitens the lilac shadowed wall
And through the evening fall,
Clearly, as if through enchanted seas,
Footsteps passing, an infinite distance away,
In another world and another day.
Moonlight turns the purple lilacs blue,
Moonlight leaves the fountain hoar and old,
And the boughs of elms grow green and cold,
Our footsteps echo on gleaming stones,
The leaves are stirred to a jargon of muted tones.
This is the night we have kept, you say:
This is the moonlit night that will never die.
Through the grey streets our memories retain
Let us go back again.

II.

Mist goes up from the river to dim the stars,
The river is black and cold; so let us dance
To flare of horns, and clang of cymbals and drums;
And strew the glimmering floor with roses,
And remember, while the rich music yawns and closes,
With a luxury of pain, how silence comes.
Yes, we loved each other, long ago;
We moved like wind to a music's ebb and flow.
At a phrase from violins you closed your eyes,
And smiled, and let me lead you how young we were!
Your hair, upon that music, seemed to stir.
Let us return there, let us return, you and I;
Through changeless streets our memories retain
Let us go back again.

III.

Mist goes up from the rain steeped earth, and clings
Ghostly with lamplight among drenched maple trees.
We walk in silence and see how the lamplight flings
Fans of shadow upon it the music's mournful pleas
Die out behind us, the door is closed at last,
A net of silver silence is softly cast
Over our thought slowly we walk,
Quietly with delicious pause, we talk,
Of foolish trivial things; of life and death,
Time, and forgetfulness, and dust and truth;
Lilacs and youth.
You laugh, I hear the after taken breath,
You darken your eyes and turn away your head
At something I have said
Some intuition that flew too deep,
And struck a plageant chord.
Tonight, tonight you will remember it as you fall asleep,
Your dream will suddenly blossom with sharp delight,
Goodnight! You say.
The leaves of the lilac dip and sway;
The purple spikes of bloom
Nod their sweetness upon us, lift again,
Your white face turns, I am caught with pain
And silence descends, and dripping of dew from eaves,
And jeweled points of leaves.

IV.

I walk in a pleasure of sorrow along the street
And try to remember you; slow drops patter;
Water upon the lilacs has made them sweet;
I brush them with my sleeve, the cool drops scatter;
And suddenly I laugh and stand and listen
As if another had laughed a gust
Rustles the leaves, the wet spikes glisten;
And it seems as though it were you who had shaken the bough,
And spilled the fragrance I pursue your face again,
It grows more vague and lovely, it eludes me now.
I remember that you are gone, and drown in pain.
Something there was I said to you I recall,
Something just as the music seemed to fall
That made you laugh, and burns me still with pleasure.
What were those words the words like dripping fire?
I remember them now, and in sweet leisure
Rehearse the scene, more exquisite than before,
And you more beautiful, and I more wise.
Lilacs and spring, and night, and your clear eyes,
And you, in white, by the darkness of a door:
These things, like voices weaving to richest music,
Flow and fall in the cool night of my mind,
I pursue your ghost among green leaves that are ghostly,
I pursue you, but cannot find.
And suddenly, with a pang that is sweetest of all,
I become aware that I cannot remember you;
The ghost I knew
Has silently plunged in shadows, shadows that stream and fall.

V.

Let us go in and dance once more
On the dream's glimmering floor,
Beneath the balcony festooned with roses.
Let us go in and dance once more.
The door behind us closes
Against an evening purple with stars and mist.
Let us go in and keep our tryst
With music and white roses, and spin around
In swirls of sound.
Do you foresee me, married and grown old?
And you, who smile about you at this room,
Is it foretold
That you must step from tumult into gloom,
Forget me, love another?
No, you are Cleopatra, fiercely young,
Laughing upon the topmost stair of night;
Roses upon the desert must be flung;
Above us, light by light,
Weaves the delirious darkness, petal fall,
And music breaks in waves on the pillared wall;
And you are Cleopatra, and do not care.
And so, in memory, you will always be
Young and foolish, a thing of dream and mist;
And so, perhaps when all is disillusioned,
And eternal spring returns once more,
Bringing a ghost of lovelier springs remembered,
You will remember me.

VI.

Yet when we meet we seem in silence to say,
Pretending serene forgetfulness of our youth,
"Do you remember but then why should you remember!
Do you remember a certain day,
Or evening rather, spring evening long ago,
We talked of death, and love, and time, and truth,
And said such wise things, things that amused us so
How foolish we were, who thought ourselves so wise!"
And then we laugh, with shadows in our eyes.

poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
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Alla Dogana

Night, and the silence of the night,
In Venice; far away, a song;
As if the lyric water made
Itself a serenade;
As if the water's silence were a song
Sent up into the night.

Night, a more perfect day,
A day of shadows luminous,
Water and sky at one, at one with us;
As if the very peace of night,
The older peace than heaven or light,
Came down into the day.

poem by Arthur Symons
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Let The Night Sleep

Let the night sleep
Sleep for ever deep
With the night I sleep
Beyond the world to peep
Universe will sleep
Plants and trees
Birds and bees
Stars and moon
To sleep very soon!
Fruits and flowers
Joy with showers
Will sleep with me and the night
Not to keep the life very tight!
No dawn of the day
Right upto the dooms day!
Sleep permanent
In the world impermanent
I'll sleep without light
My agonies will sleep
My worries will sleep
My pains will sleep
My sins will sleep!

While in sleep
I am pure
I am peace
I am noble!

While my body is asleep
Awake my soul I keep
Sleep akin to death
Death akin to sleep in mirth?

Let the night sleep
Sleep for ever deep
With night I sleep
Sleep to eternity
Soul to merge in Divinity!

poem by Subbaraman N V
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A Poets Era

They whispered as thunder clapped
and the rain fell
the bird hid as they songs
were awfully silent
nothing was said as the
television remained silent
the creatures stayed and stared
as the all stayed mouth open
pen to paper he wrote

the night were cold
and day brutal
sleep cometh not to these
eyes as my hand shake
retired from it all
fell sick as i stand tall
had to come back
said it was my last
but the mind of a poet
just refuse to quit
inspiration ran through
my veins as my body ache
the books took dust
but they story they tell
now pen to paper i see
when i write people listen
and through that peace evolves
so pen to paper its glad to say

In the dawn of my day
and the silence of the night
a poet time is never ended
cause in death our tale still tells
so my time is an era to be told
so here i go

poem by Robert Roberts
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The Country Of Marriage

I.

I dream of you walking at night along the streams
of the country of my birth, warm blooms and the nightsongs
of birds opening around you as you walk.
You are holding in your body the dark seed of my sleep.

II.

This comes after silence. Was it something I said
that bound me to you, some mere promise
or, worse, the fear of loneliness and death?
A man lost in the woods in the dark, I stood
still and said nothing. And then there rose in me,
like the earth's empowering brew rising
in root and branch, the words of a dream of you
I did not know I had dreamed. I was a wanderer
who feels the solace of his native land
under his feet again and moving in his blood.
I went on, blind and faithful. Where I stepped
my track was there to steady me. It was no abyss
that lay before me, but only the level ground.

III.

Sometimes our life reminds me
of a forest in which there is a graceful clearing
and in that opening a house,
an orchard and garden,
comfortable shades, and flowers
red and yellow in the sun, a pattern
made in the light for the light to return to.
The forest is mostly dark, its ways
to be made anew day after day, the dark
richer than the light and more blessed,
provided we stay brave
enough to keep on going in.

IV.

How many times have I come to you out of my head
with joy, if ever a man was,
for to approach you I have given up the light
and all directions. I come to you
lost, wholly trusting as a man who goes
into the forest unarmed. It is as though I descend
slowly earthward out of the air. I rest in peace
in you, when I arrive at last.

V.

Our bond is no little economy based on the exchange
of my love and work for yours, so much for so much
of an expendable fund. We don't know what its limits are--
that puts us in the dark. We are more together
than we know, how else could we keep on discovering
we are more together than we thought?
You are the known way leading always to the unknown,
and you are the known place to which the unknown is always
leading me back. More blessed in you than I know,
I possess nothing worthy to give you, nothing
not belittled by my saying that I possess it.
Even an hour of love is a moral predicament, a blessing
a man may be hard up to be worthy of. He can only
accept it, as a plant accepts from all the bounty of the light
enough to live, and then accepts the dark,
passing unencumbered back to the earth, as I
have fallen tine and again from the great strength
of my desire, helpless, into your arms.

VI.

What I am learning to give you is my death
to set you free of me, and me from myself
into the dark and the new light. Like the water
of a deep stream, love is always too much. We
did not make it. Though we drink till we burst
we cannot have it all, or want it all.
In its abundance it survives our thirst.
In the evening we come down to the shore
to drink our fill, and sleep, while it
flows through the regions of the dark.
It does not hold us, except we keep returning
to its rich waters thirsty. We enter,
willing to die, into the commonwealth of its joy.

VII.

I give you what is unbounded, passing from dark to dark,
containing darkness: a night of rain, an early morning.
I give you the life I have let live for the love of you:
a clump of orange-blooming weeds beside the road,
the young orchard waiting in the snow, our own life
that we have planted in the ground, as I
have planted mine in you. I give you my love for all
beautiful and honest women that you gather to yourself
again and again, and satisfy--and this poem,
no more mine than any man's who has loved a woman.

poem by Wendell Berry
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