The Death Of Admiral Blake
(August 7th, 1657)
Laden with spoil of the South, fulfilled with the glory of achievement,
And freshly crowned with never-dying fame,
Sweeping by shores where the names are the names of the victories of England,
Across the Bay the squadron homeward came.
Proudly they came, but their pride was the pomp of a funeral at midnight,
When dreader yet the lonely morrow looms;
Few are the words that are spoken, and faces are gaunt beneath the torchlight
That does but darken more the nodding plumes.
Low on the field of his fame, past hope lay the Admiral triumphant,
And fain to rest him after all his pain;
Yet for the love that he bore to his own land, ever unforgotten,
He prayed to see the western hills again.
Fainter than stars in a sky long gray with the coming of the daybreak,
Or sounds of night that fade when night is done,
So in the death-dawn faded the splendour and loud renown of warfare,
And life of all its longings kept but one.
'Oh! to be there for an hour when the shade draws in beside the hedgerows,
And falling apples wake the drowsy noon:
Oh! for the hour when the elms grow sombre and human in the twilight,
And gardens dream beneath the rising moon.
'Only to look once more on the land of the memories of childhood,
Forgetting weary winds and barren foam:
Only to bid farewell to the combe and the orchard and the moorland,
And sleep at last among the fields of home!'
So he was silently praying, till now, when his strength was ebbing faster,
The Lizard lay before them faintly blue;
Now on the gleaming horizon the white cliffs laughed along the coast-line,
And now the forelands took the shapes they knew.
There lay the Sound and the Island with green leaves down beside the water,
The town, the Hoe, the masts with sunset fired----
Dreams! ay, dreams of the dead! for the great heart faltered on the threshold,
And darkness took the land his soul desired.
poem by Sir Henry Newbolt
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Related quotes
Twilight In The North
O THE long northern twilight between the day and the night,
When the heat and the weariness of the world are ended quite:
When the hills grow dim as dreams, and the crystal river seems
Like that River of Life from out the Throne where the blessèd walk in white.
O the weird northern twilight, which is neither night nor day,
When the amber wake of the long-set sun still marks his western way:
And but one great golden star in the deep blue east afar
Warns of sleep, and dark, and midnight--of oblivion and decay.
O the calm northern twilight, when labor is all done,
And the birds in drowsy twitter have dropped silent one by one:
And nothing stirs or sighs in mountains, waters, skies,--
Earth sleeps--but her heart waketh, till the rising of the sun.
O the sweet, sweet twilight, just before the time of rest,
When the black clouds are driven away, and the stormy winds suppressed:
And the dead day smiles so bright, filling earth and heaven with light,--
You would think 't was dawn come back again--but the light is in the west.
O the grand solemn twilight, spreading peace from pole to pole!--
Ere the rains sweep o'er the hillsides, and the waters rise and roll,
In the lull and the calm, come, O angel with the palm--
In the still norther twilight, Azrael, take my soul.
poem by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
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Insomnia
Thin are the night-skirts left behind
By daybreak hours that onward creep,
And thin, alas! the shred of sleep
That wavers with the spirit's wind:
But in half-dreams that shift and roll
And still remember and forget,
My soul this hour has drawn your soul
A little nearer yet.
Our lives, most dear, are never near,
Our thoughts are never far apart,
Though all that draws us heart to heart
Seems fainter now and now more clear.
To-night Love claims his full control,
And with desire and with regret
My soul this hour has drawn your soul
A little nearer yet.
Is there a home where heavy earth
Melts to bright air that breathes no pain,
Where water leaves no thirst again
And springing fire is Love's new birth?
If faith long bound to one true goal
May there at length its hope beget,
My soul that hour shall draw your soul
For ever nearer yet.
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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The Blind Caravan
1 I am a slave, both dumb and blind,
2 Upon a journey dread;
3 The iron hills lie far behind,
4 The seas of mist ahead.
5 Amid a mighty caravan
6 I toil a sombre track,
7 The strangest road since time began,
8 Where no foot turneth back.
9 Here rosy youth at morning's prime
10 And weary man at noon
11 Are crooked shapes at eventime
12 Beneath the haggard moon.
13 Faint elfin songs from out the past
14 Of some lost sunset land
15 Haunt this grim pageant drifting, vast,
16 Across the trackless sand.
17 And often for some nightward wind
18 We stay a space and hark,
19 Then leave the sunset lands behind,
20 And plunge into the dark.
21 Somewhere, somewhere, far on in front,
22 There strides a lonely man
23 Who is all strength, who bears the brunt,
24 The battle and the ban.
25 I know not of his face or form,
26 His voice or battle-scars,
27 Or how he fronts the haunted storm
28 Beneath the wintry stars;
29 I know not of his wisdom great
30 That leads this sightless host
31 Beyond the barren hills of fate
32 Unto some kindlier coast.
33 But often 'mid the eerie black
34 Through this sad caravan
35 A strange, sweet thrill is whispered back,
36 Borne on from man to man.
37 A strange, glad joy that fills the night
38 Like some far marriage horn,
39 Till every heart is filled with light
40 Of some belated morn.
41 The way is long, and rough the road,
42 And bitter the night, and dread,
43 And each poor slave is but a goad
44 To lash the one ahead.
45 Evil the foes that lie in wait
46 To slay us in the pass,
47 Bloody the slaughter at the gate,
48 And bleak the wild morass;
49 And I am but a shriveled thing
50 Beneath the midnight sky;
51 A wasted, wan remembering
52 Of days long wandered by.
53 And yet I lift my sightless face
54 Toward the eerie light,
55 And tread the lonely way we trace
56 Across the haunted night.
poem by William Wilfred Campbell
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Ionicus
With failing feet and shoulders bowed
Beneath the weight of happier days,
He lagged among the heedless crowd,
Or crept along suburban ways.
But still through all his heart was young,
A courage, a pride, a rapture, sprung
Of the strength and splendour of England's war.
From ill-requited toil he turned
To ride with Picton and with Pack,
Among his grammars inly burned
To storm the Afghan mountain-track.
When midnight chimed, before Quebec
He watched with Wolfe till he morning star;
At noon he saw from Victory's deck
The sweep and splendour of England's war.
Beyond the book his teaching sped,
He left on whom he taught the trace
Of kinship with the deathless dead,
And faith in all the Island race.
He passed : his life a tangle seemed,
His age from fame and power was far;
But his heart was night to the end, and dreamed
Of the sound and splendour of England's war.
poem by Sir Henry Newbolt
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A Jacobite's Exile
The weary day runs down and dies,
The weary night wears through:
And never an hour is fair wi' flower,
And never a flower wi' dew.
I would the day were night for me,
I would the night were day:
For then would I stand in my ain fair land,
As now in dreams I may.
O lordly flow the Loire and Seine,
And loud the dark Durance:
But bonnier shine the braes of Tyne
Than a' the fields of France;
And the waves of Till that speak sae still
Gleam goodlier where they glance.
O weel were they that fell fighting
On dark Drumossie's day:
They keep their hame ayont the faem
And we die far away.
O sound they sleep, and saft, and deep,
But night and day wake we;
And ever between the sea banks green
Sounds loud the sundering sea.
And ill we sleep, sae sair we weep
But sweet and fast sleep they:
And the mool that haps them roun' and laps them
Is e'en their country's clay;
But the land we tread that are not dead
Is strange as night by day.
Strange as night in a strange man's sight,
Though fair as dawn it be:
For what is here that a stranger's cheer
Should yet wax blithe to see?
The hills stand steep, the dells lie deep,
The fields are green and gold:
The hill-streams sing, and the hill-sides ring,
As ours at home of old.
But hills and flowers are nane of ours,
And ours are over sea:
And the kind strange land whereon we stand,
It wotsna what were we
Or ever we came, wi' scathe and shame,
To try what end might be.
Scathe and shame, and a waefu' name,
And a weary time and strange,
Have they that seeing a weird for dreeing
Can die, and cannot change.
Shame and scorn may we thole that mourn,
Though sair be they to dree:
But ill may we bide the thoughts we hide,
Mair keen than wind and sea.
Ill may we thole the night's watches,
And ill the weary day:
And the dreams that keep the gates of sleep,
A waefu' gift gie they;
For the songs they sing us, the sights they bring us,
The morn blaws all away.
On Aikenshaw the sun blinks braw,
The burn rins blithe and fain:
There's nought wi' me I wadna gie
To look thereon again.
On Keilder-side the wind blaws wide:
There sounds nae hunting-horn
That rings sae sweet as the winds that beat
Round banks where Tyne is born.
The Wansbeck sings with all her springs
The bents and braes give ear;
But the wood that rings wi' the sang she sings
I may not see nor hear;
For far and far thae blithe burns are,
And strange is a' thing near.
The light there lightens, the day there brightens,
The loud wind there lives free:
Nae light comes nigh me or wind blaws by me
That I wad hear or see.
But O gin I were there again,
Afar ayont the faem,
Cauld and dead in the sweet saft bed
That haps my sires at hame!
We'll see nae mair the sea-banks fair,
And the sweet grey gleaming sky,
And the lordly strand of Northumberland,
And the goodly towers thereby;
And none shall know but the winds that blow
The graves wherein we lie.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Years Ago
THE old dead flowers of bygone summers,
The old sweet songs that are no more sung,
The rose-red dawns that were welcome comers
When you and I and the world were young,
Are lost, O love, to the light for ever,
And seen no more of the moon or sun,
For seas divide, and the seasons sever,
And twain are we that of old were one.
O fair lost love, when the ship went sailing
Across the seas in the years agone,
And seaward-set were the eyes unquailing,
And landward-looking the faces wan,
My heart went back as a dove goes homeward
With wings aweary to seek its nest,
While fierce sea-eagles are flying foamward
And storm-winds whiten the surge’s crest;
And far inland for a farewell pardon
Flew on and on, while the ship went South—
The rose was red in the red-rose garden,
And red the rose of your laughing mouth.
But no word came on the wind in token
Of love that lasts till the end; and so
My heart returned to me bruised and broken,
From you, my love, of the long ago.
The green fields seemed in the distance growing
To silken squares on a weaver’s loom,
As oversea came the land-wind blowing
The faint sweet scent of the clover bloom.
A rarer odour to me it carried,
In subtle delicate way to tell
Of you, ere you and the world were married—
The lilac-odour you loved so well.
Again, I saw you beneath the blooms of
Those lilac-trees in the garden old.
Ah me! each tree is a mark for tombs of
Dead dreams and memories still and cold.
And Death comes there with his breath scent-laden,
And gathering gently the blossoms shed
(In guise of Autumn, the brown-browed maiden)
With your and my dead buries his dead.
O, fairer far than the fair ideal
Of him who imaged the foam-born Queen
In foam-white marble—a dream made real—
To me were you in those years, I ween.
Your lips were redder than night-shade berries
That burn in borders of hedgerowed lanes,
And sweeter far than the sweet wild cherries
The June sun flushes with crimson stains.
And gray your eyes as a gray dove’s wings were—
A gray soft-shadowing deeps profound,
Where thoughts that reached to the heart of things were,
And love lay dreaming though seeming drowned.
Twin-tulip-breasted like her the tread of
Whose feet made music in Paphos fair,
The world to me was not worth a thread of
Your brown, ambrosial, braided hair.
Mayhap you loved me at one time truly,
And I was jealous, and you were proud;
But mine the love of the king in Thule,
Till death; and yours—sleeps well in shroud.
So night came down like a sombre raven,
And southward ever the ship was borne,
Till glad green fields and lessening haven
Grew faint and faded like ghosts at morn.
As fields of Heaven eternal blooming,
Those flowerful fields of my mother-land
In midnight visions are still perfuming
All wild waste places and seas of sand.
And still in seasons of storm and thunder,
In strange lands under your land and mine,
And though our ways have been wide asunder,
In calm and tempest and shade and shine
Your face I see as I saw the last time—
As one borne space-ward on wings of light,
With eyes turned back to a sight of past time,
Beholds for ever that self-same sight.
But scorn has died on your lips, and through you
Shines out star-bright an immortal grace,
As though God then to His heaven drew you,
And sent an angel to take your place.
I plucked one rose from the tree you cherished,
My heart’s blood ebbing has kept it red,
And all my hopes with its scent have perished;
Why mourn them now—are the dead not dead?
And yet, God knows, as this rose I kiss, you
May feel the kisses across the sea;
And soul to soul for the larger issue
Your soul may stand with the soul of me,
Unknown to you—for the strings of Being
Are not so easily snapped or torn;
And we may journey with eyes unseeing
On paths that meet in the years unborn.
Farewell, dear heart. Warm sighs may sever
Ripe lips of love like a rose-leaf curled,
But you remain unto me for ever
The one fair woman in all the world.
poem by Victor James Daley
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Rock In The Weary Land
My love is my rock
In the long, low, weary land
Yes my love is my rock
In the long, low, weary land
None of this moves me,
I should be weeping but it only hurts when I yawn
I let it blow through me, and its gone!
Im dressed like a scarecrow
Stripped of all my power, as if some judge in judgement said
Off with his great coat, and his head!
My love is my rock
In the long, low, weary land
My love is my rock
In the long, low, weary land
My love is my rock
In the long, low, weary land
My love is my rock
In the long, low, weary land
Meaningless movies
On the screen behind the band thats blowing flowing shapes
Half of their music is on tape
My mentor and champion is busy tilting at the windows of his stately home
The daemon hes grappling
Is his own!
My love is my rock
In the long, low, weary land
My love is my rock
In the long, low, weary land
My love is my rock
In the long, low, weary land
Yes my love is my rock
In the long, low, weary land
His letter lies open
His accusations flow like poison from his every word
My heart would be broken, but for her
The fag-end of winter
Im in shock! Im on the ropes! I dont know whats become!
She plucks the splinter from my thumb
My love is my rock
In the long, low, weary land
Yes my love is my rock
In the long, low, weary land
My love is my rock
In the long, low, weary land
My love is my rock
In the long, low, weary land
In the weary land!
My rock in a weary land
My rock in a weary land
My love is my rock in a weary land
My love is my rock in a weary land
In a weary land
Hey!
A rock in a weary land
A rock in a weary land
A rock in a weary land
My love is my rock in a weary land
My love is my rock in a weary land
My love is my rock is my rock in a weary land
My love is my rock is my love is my rock in a weary land
My love is my rock is my love is my rock in a weary land
My love is my rock is my love is my rock is my love is my rock is my love is my rock is my love is my rock is my love is my rock in a weary land
In a weary land!
song performed by by Waterboys
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A Rock In A Weary Land
My love is my rock
In the long, low, weary land
Yes my love is my rock
In the long, low, weary land
None of this moves me,
I should be weeping but it only hurts when I yawn
I let it blow through me, and its gone!
Im dressed like a scarecrow
Stripped of all my power, as if some judge in judgement said
Off with his great coat, and his head!
My love is my rock
In the long, low, weary land
My love is my rock
In the long, low, weary land
My love is my rock
In the long, low, weary land
My love is my rock
In the long, low, weary land
Meaningless movies
On the screen behind the band thats blowing flowing shapes
Half of their music is on tape
My mentor and champion is busy tilting at the windows of his stately home
The daemon hes grappling
Is his own!
My love is my rock
In the long, low, weary land
My love is my rock
In the long, low, weary land
My love is my rock
In the long, low, weary land
Yes my love is my rock
In the long, low, weary land
His letter lies open
His accusations flow like poison from his every word
My heart would be broken, but for her
The fag-end of winter
Im in shock! Im on the ropes! I dont know whats become!
She plucks the splinter from my thumb
My love is my rock
In the long, low, weary land
Yes my love is my rock
In the long, low, weary land
My love is my rock
In the long, low, weary land
My love is my rock
In the long, low, weary land
In the weary land!
My rock in a weary land
My rock in a weary land
My love is my rock in a weary land
My love is my rock in a weary land
In a weary land
Hey!
A rock in a weary land
A rock in a weary land
A rock in a weary land
My love is my rock in a weary land
My love is my rock in a weary land
My love is my rock is my rock in a weary land
My love is my rock is my love is my rock in a weary land
My love is my rock is my love is my rock in a weary land
My love is my rock is my love is my rock is my love is my rock is my love is my rock is my love is my rock is my love is my rock in a weary land
In a weary land!
song performed by by Waterboys
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Rock In The Weary Land
My love is my rock
In the long, low, weary land
Yes my love is my rock
In the long, low, weary land
None of this moves me,
I should be weeping but it only hurts when I yawn
I let it blow through me, and its gone!
Im dressed like a scarecrow
Stripped of all my power, as if some judge in judgement said
Off with his great coat, and his head!
My love is my rock
In the long, low, weary land
My love is my rock
In the long, low, weary land
My love is my rock
In the long, low, weary land
My love is my rock
In the long, low, weary land
Meaningless movies
On the screen behind the band thats blowing flowing shapes
Half of their music is on tape
My mentor and champion is busy tilting at the windows of his stately home
The daemon hes grappling
Is his own!
My love is my rock
In the long, low, weary land
My love is my rock
In the long, low, weary land
My love is my rock
In the long, low, weary land
Yes my love is my rock
In the long, low, weary land
His letter lies open
His accusations flow like poison from his every word
My heart would be broken, but for her
The fag-end of winter
Im in shock! Im on the ropes! I dont know whats become!
She plucks the splinter from my thumb
My love is my rock
In the long, low, weary land
Yes my love is my rock
In the long, low, weary land
My love is my rock
In the long, low, weary land
My love is my rock
In the long, low, weary land
In the weary land!
My rock in a weary land
My rock in a weary land
My love is my rock in a weary land
My love is my rock in a weary land
In a weary land
Hey!
A rock in a weary land
A rock in a weary land
A rock in a weary land
My love is my rock in a weary land
My love is my rock in a weary land
My love is my rock is my rock in a weary land
My love is my rock is my love is my rock in a weary land
My love is my rock is my love is my rock in a weary land
My love is my rock is my love is my rock is my love is my rock is my love is my rock is my love is my rock is my love is my rock in a weary land
In a weary land!
song performed by by Waterboys
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Three Island Songs
AFTER the wind in the wood,
Peace, and the night.
After the bond and the brood,
Flight.
After the height and the hush
Where the wild hawk swings,
Heart of the earth-loving thrush
Shaken with wings.
After the bloom and the leaf
Rain on the nest.
After the splendour and grief,
Rest.
After the hills and the far
Glories and gleams,
Cloud, and the dawn of a star,
And dreams.
------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------
O, THE gray rocks of the islands and the hemlock green above them,
The foam beneath the wild rose bloom, the star above the shoal.
When I am old and weary I'll wake my heart to love them,
For the blue ways of the islands are wound about my soul.
[Page 66]
Here in the early even when the young gray dew is falling,
And the king-heron seeks his mate beyond the loneliest wild,
Still your heart in the twilight, and you'll hear the river calling
Through all her outmost islands to seek her lastborn child.
------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------
I SAT among the green leaves, and heard the nuts falling,
The broad red butterflies were gold against the sun,
But in between the silence and the sweet birds calling
The nuts fell one by one.
Why should they fall and the year but half over ?
Why should sorrow seek me and I so young and kind ?
The leaf is on the bough and the dew is on the clover,
But the green nuts are falling in the wind.
O, I gave my lips away and all my soul behind them.
Why should trouble follow and the quick tears start ?
The little birds may love and fly with only God to mind them,
But the green nuts are falling on my heart.
poem by Marjorie Lowry Christie Pickthall
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Emigrant's Farewell
Our native land - our native vale -
A long and last adieu!
Farewell to bonny Teviotdale,
And Cheviot mountains blue.
Farewell, ye hills of glorious deeds,
And streams renown'd in sing -
Farewell ye braes and blossom'd meads,
Our hearts have lov'd so long.
Farewell, the blythesome broomy knowes,
Where thyme and harebells grow -
Farewell, the hoary, haunted howes,
O'erhung with birk and sloe.
The mossy cave and mouldering tower
That skirt our native dell -
The martyr's grave, and lover's bower,
We bid a sad farewell!
Home of our love! our fathers' home!
Land of the brave and free!
The sail is flapping on the foam
That bears us far from thee.
We seek a wild and distant shore,
Beyond the western main -
We leave thee to return no more,
Nor view thy cliffs again!
Our native land - our native vale -
A long and last adieu!
Farewell to bonny Teviotdale,
And Scotland's mountains blue!
poem by Thomas Pringle
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Srahmandazi
Deep embowered beside the forest river,
Where the flame of sunset only falls,
Lapped in silence lies the House of Dying,
House of them to whom the twilight calls.
There within when day was near to ending,
By her lord a woman young and strong,
By his chief a songman old and stricken
Watched together till the hour of song.
'O my songman, now the bow is broken,
Now the arrows one by one are sped,
Sing to me the song of Srahmandazi,
Srahmandazi, home of all the dead.'
Then the songman, flinging wide his songnet,
On the last token laid his master's hand,
While he sang the song of Srahmandazi,
None but dying men can understand.
'Yonder sun that fierce and fiery-hearted
Marches down the sky to vanish soon,
At the self-same hour in Srahmandazi
Rises pallid like the rainy moon.
'There he sees the heroes by their river,
Where the great fish daily upward swim;
Yet they are but shadows hunting shadows,
Phantom fish in waters drear and dim.
'There he sees the kings among their headmen,
Women weaving, children playing games;
Yet they are but shadows ruling shadows,
Phantom folk with dim forgotten names.
'Bid farewell to all that most thou lovest,
Tell thy heart thy living life is done;
All the days and deeds of Srahmandazi
Are not worth an hour of yonder sun.
Dreamily the chief from out the songnet
Drew his hand and touched the woman's head:
'Know they not, then, love in Srahmandazi?
Has a king no bride among the dead?'
Then the songman answered, 'O my master,
Love they know, but none may learn it there;
Only souls that reach that land together
Keep their troth and find the twilight fair.
'Thou art still a king, and at thy passing
By thy latest word must all abide:
If thou willest, here am I, thy songman;
If thou lovest, here is she, thy bride.'
Hushed and dreamy lay the House of Dying,
Dreamily the sunlight upward failed,
Dreamily the chief on eyes that loved him
Looked with eyes the coming twilight veiled.
Then he cried, 'My songman, I am passing;
Let her live, her life is but begun;
All the days and nights of Srahmandazi
Are not worth an hour of yonder sun.'
Yet, when there within the House of Dying
The last silence held the sunset air,
Not alone he came to Srahmandazi,
Not alone she found the twilight fair:
While the songman, far beneath the forest
Sang of Srahmandazi all night through,
'Lovely be thy name, O Land of shadows,
Land of meeting, Land of all the true!'
poem by Sir Henry Newbolt
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Voice of Toil
I heard men saying, Leave hope and praying,
All days shall be as all have been;
To-day and to-morrow bring fear and sorrow,
The never-ending toil between.
When Earth was younger mid toil and hunger,
In hope we strove, and our hands were strong;
Then great men led us, with words they fed us,
And bade us right the earthly wrong.
Go read in story their deeds and glory,
Their names amidst the nameless dead;
Turn then from lying to us slow-dying
In that good world to which they led;
Where fast and faster our iron master,
The thing we made, for ever drives,
Bids us grind treasure and fashion pleasure
For other hopes and other lives.
Where home is a hovel and dull we grovel,
Forgetting that the world is fair;
Where no babe we cherish, lest its very soul perish;
Where mirth is crime, and love a snare.
Who now shall lead us, what God shall heed us
As we lie in the hell our hands have won?
For us are no rulers but fools and befoolers,
The great are fallen, the wise men gone.
I heard men saying, Leave tears and praying,
The sharp knife heedeth not the sheep;
Are we not stronger than the rich and the wronger,
When day breaks over dreams and sleep?
Come, shoulder to shoulder ere the world grows older!
Help lies in nought but thee and me;
Hope is before us, the long years that bore us
Bore leaders more than men may be.
Let dead hearts tarry and trade and marry,
And trembling nurse their dreams of mirth,
While we the living our lives are giving
To bring the bright new world to birth.
Come, shoulder to shoulder ere Earth grows older!
The Cause spreads over land and sea;
Now the world shaketh, and fear awaketh,
And joy at last for thee and me.
poem by William Morris
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The Ocean Strand
O leave the labouring roadways of the town,
The shifting faces and the changeful hue
Of markets, and broad echoing streets that drown
The heart’s own silent music. Though they too
Sing in their proper rhythm, and still delight
The friendly ear that loves warm human kind,
Yet it is good to leave them all behind,
Now when from lily dawn to purple night
Summer is queen,
Summer is queen in all the happy land.
Far, far away among the valleys green
Let us go forth and wander hand in hand
Beyond those solemn hills that we have seen
So often welcome home the falling sun
Into their cloudy peaks when day was done—
Beyond them till we find the ocean strand
And hear the great waves run,
With the waste song whose melodies I’d follow
And weary not for many a summer day,
Born of the vaulted breakers arching hollow
Before they flash and scatter into spray,
On, if we should be weary of their play
Then I would lead you further into land
Where, with their ragged walls, the stately rocks
Shunt in smooth courts and paved with quiet sand
To silence dedicate. The sea-god’s flocks
Have rested here, and mortal eyes have seen
By great adventure at the dead of noon
A lonely nereid drowsing half a-swoon
Buried beneath her dark and dripping locks.
poem by Clive Staples Lewis
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Early Works - The Twilight Hour
When twilight is here
you shall see
but not hear a sound
the world will be peaceful
the seas will be calm
the flowers will sway gracefully
in the breeze as night does come.
The twilight hour
is the hour before darkness does prevail
when little children into dreamland sail
when the sunset leaves the sky grey and blue
then the twilight hour comes into view.
The big city sounds die peacefully
when twilight calls gracefully
as small creatures rest their heads in sleep
as all the world in tranquil stillness does seep
for the twilight hour is tranquil
as it gracefully does call.
Date unknown
poem by David Harris
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At The Last.
The sky grows white with the moon,
And the sea yearns up to the night
As the soul to an unknown height,
Drawn thence by a starry rune.
Only a lost wind strays,
Like the breath of Passion blown
In the vault of the night unknown;
And the heart in me sobs and says:
'After a while we, too,
Shall rest as the stars above,
When we have no more to do
With the dream of life and love.'
O Time! thy feet that run
Over the hills and waves,
Over the cradles and graves,
From the first to the final sun!
Some day thou too shalt cease —
Some way there'll come to thee
Death's white tranquility,
The boon of an awful peace —
When the latest grief shall flow
With the surge that drifts away,
And the Night shall no more go
In her endless chase of Day.
Then shall the worn heart rest,
Then shall the sad Sea yearn
No more for the Moon's return,
Like a bird on its frozen nest
Dead, with her young ones dead
Under her breast on the bough,
Where nothing can wake them now —
Not the Dawn with its golden tread:
Where Death has been good to all,
Good to the mother and young,
And the dreams are beyond recall,
And the songs have all been sung.
So, at the last, to sleep!
So, at the last, to be
Still as the dead still sea!
Never to wake and weep,
Never to know Love's pain,
Never to yearn on for
What is gone for evermore;
To be as we were again
Ere we came o'er the bourne of birth,
Ere we knew of the fading flowers,
Of love and of life on Earth
And the hearts that were not ours!
poem by Robert Crawford
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The Skyline Riders
Against the light of a dawning white
My Skyline Riders stand—
There is trouble ahead for a dark year dead
And the selfish wrongs of a land;
There are hurrying feet of fools to repeat
The follies of Nineteen Eight,
But darkly still on each distant hill
My riders watch and wait.
My Skyline Riders are down and gone
As far as the eye can see,
And the horses stand in the shades of dawn
Where a single man holds three.
We feel the flush and we feel the thrill
Of the coming of Nineteen Nine,
For my Skyline Riders are over the hill
And into the firing line.
The skyline lifts while a storm-cloud lowers—
What’s that? A shot! All’s well!
There is news out there for this land of ours
That the tattling rifles tell.
A “thud” and a “thud” and a flash like blood!
There is light on the land at last!
Australian guns on the nearer hills
Are talking about the past.
O, a lonely place in the days gone by
Was the long first firing line,
Where we fought as strangers, you and I,
For the land that was yours and mine.
There was time to dream in the firing line,
There was time to starve and die,
When the only things in that world of mine
Were my Native Land and I.
O, a lonely place was the firing line
When the gaps were wide between—
Hundreds of miles, in this land of mine
And never a soldier seen.
The dying must die and the dead were left
Unmarked by the deadly tired—
When struck to the heart in a firing line
Where never a shot was fired.
O, a lonely place was the firing line
In the days of the dearth of men,
But hundreds and hundreds of soldiers’ sons
Have flocked to the line since then
We left it weak in the hour of pride,
When our rule seemed firmly set,
But danger threatened the firing line,
And there’s deadly danger yet.
Proud of virtue, and proud of sin,
Or proud ’neath a cruel wrong;
Proud in failure or proud to win—
Oh, the pride of man is strong!
Proud of gold or of being without
Or proud of women and wine—
But get you down from your horse of pride
And into the firing line.
Pride in poverty—all the same—
There’s work for all men to do,
With wrong to fight there is deathless fame
To win in a land so new.
Preacher and drunkard! and sportsman and bard!
In the dawning of Nineteen Nine—
Saints and sinners! ride hard! ride hard!
They are pressed in the Firing Line.
poem by Henry Lawson
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The Black Birds
I
Once, only once, I saw it clear, --
That Eden every human heart has dreamed
A hundred times, but always far away!
Ah, well do I remember how it seemed,
Through the still atmosphere
Of that enchanted day,
To lie wide open to my weary feet:
A little land of love and joy and rest,
With meadows of soft green,
Rosy with cyclamen, and sweet
With delicate breath of violets unseen, --
And, tranquil 'mid the bloom
As if it waited for a coming guest,
A little house of peace and joy and love
Was nested like a snow-white dove
From the rough mountain where I stood,
Homesick for happiness,
Only a narrow valley and a darkling wood
To cross, and then the long distress
Of solitude would be forever past, --
I should be home at last.
But not too soon! oh, let me linger here
And feed my eyes, hungry with sorrow,
On all this loveliness, so near,
And mine to-morrow!
Then, from the wood, across the silvery blue,
A dark bird flew,
Silent, with sable wings.
Close in his wake another came, --
Fragments of midnight floating through
The sunset flame, --
Another and another, weaving rings
Of blackness on the primrose sky, --
Another, and another, look, a score,
A hundred, yes, a thousand rising heavily
From that accursed, dumb, and ancient wood, --
They boiled into the lucid air
Like smoke from some deep caldron of despair!
And more, and more, and ever more,
The numberless, ill-omened brood,
Flapping their ragged plumes,
Possessed the landscape and the evening light
With menaces and glooms.
Oh, dark, dark, dark they hovered o'er the place
Where once I saw the little house so white
Amid the flowers, covering every trace
Of beauty from my troubled sight, --
And suddenly it was night!
II
At break of day I crossed the wooded vale;
And while the morning made
A trembling light among the tree-tops pale,
I saw the sable birds on every limb,
Clinging together closely in the shade,
And croaking placidly their surly hymn.
But, oh, the little land of peace and love
That those night-loving wings had poised above, --
Where was it gone?
Lost, lost forevermore!
Only a cottage, dull and gray,
In the cold light of dawn,
With iron bars across the door:
Only a garden where the withering heads
Of flowers, presaging decay,
Hung over barren beds:
Only a desolate field that lay
Untilled beneath the desolate day, --
Where Eden seemed to bloom I found but these!
So, wondering, I passed along my way,
With anger in my heart, too deep for words,
Against that grove of evil-sheltering trees,
And the black magic of the croaking birds.
poem by Henry Van Dyke
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Sonnet XLIII: Love and Hope
Bless love and hope. Full many a withered year
Whirled past us, eddying to its chill doomsday;
And clasped together where the blown leaves lay
We long have knelt and wept full many a tear.
Yet lo! one hour at last, the Spring's compeer,
Flutes softly to us from some green byeway:
Those years, those tears are dead, but only they:—
Bless love and hope, true soul; for we are here.
Cling heart to heart; nor of this hour demand
Whether in very truth, when we are dead,
Our hearts shall wake to know Love's golden head
Sole sunshine of the imperishable land;
Or but discern, through night's unfeatured scope,
Scorn-fired at length the illusive eyes of Hope.
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
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Dazzling
Within the fortress of my dreams
I paint the moon and a star upon my forehead as
I watch Saturn appear from
Behind the late evening's mist-
Where I am alone but never lonely-
At dawn I can see the sun rise
From behind the evergreens that
So magically decorate hills of fortune-
The sky at daybreak is inviting while
The nighttime sky is mysterious-
The sky in the land of my fantasies is dazzling,
Where I am alone but never lonely,
Watching stars emerge from behind clouds of prosperity, and
Venus and mars are aligned with the full moon
Illuminating the darkness-
on this mystical night.
Inside the world of my imagination-
I paint the sky a deep shade of cerulean blue and
The moon and star upon my forehead-
Giving me the utmost peace of mind-
Within the fortress of my dreams-
I shall be awake at daybreak to welcome the sunrise-
As I bid farewell to the nighttime's splendor-
My thoughts are always within the cosmos and
The sky of my own universe seemingly carries a tune-
A tune akin to the aura of Bach's Magnificat-
The star I have painted gives me peace of mind-
I am never lonely in the land of my delusions-
The nighttime sky is mysterious and
I carry inside my thoughts a vision that never leaves me.
Upon those sleepless nights I sing, dance and
Marvel at the beauty of my dream world's sky-
Surreptitiously dazzling-
At times when I feel threatened by others who wish me ill fate-
I just close my eyes and lose myself inside the
Universe of my fondest reverie,
Watch the planets circumvent the moon, and
That beautifully amazing castle in the sky,
Where I am free to enter and close the door behind me to behold
Another amazingly dazzling night alone- but never lonely-
poem by Claudia Krizay
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