The Common Grave
Last night beneath the foreign stars I stood
And saw the thoughts of those at home go by
To the great grave upon the hill of blood.
Upon the darkness they went visibly,
Each in the vesture of its own distress.
Among them there came One, frail as a sigh,
And like a creature of the wilderness
Dug with her bleeding hands. She neither cried
Nor wept; nor did she see the many stark
And dead that lay unburied at her side.
All night she toiled, and at that time of dawn,
When Day and Night do change their More and Less,
And Day is More, I saw the melting Dark
Stir to the last, and knew she laboured on.
poem by Sydney Thompson Dobell
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The Song Unknown
It was many a day and many a night
A windswept night ago
When over the tempest-tossed sea rose and swelled
A terrible cry of woe
And one maiden fair sat straight up in her bed
And wept for she knew her lover was dead
It was many a day and many a night
Many a night ago
It was many a day and many a night
A windtorn night ago
When over the balmy sea rose and swelled
A song of mourning low
And one maiden fair wept long and wept loud
For she knew it was her lover who was wrapped in that shroud
It was many a day and many a night
Many a night ago
It was many a day and many a night
A windswept night ago
When over the rolling sea rose and died
A song we shall never know
It is sung by the maiden fair and the stars shining brightly
And her lover who lies in the depths of the sea
It was many a day and many a night
Many a night ago.
poem by Rebecca Walker
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Last Night
It was all dark:
not that i expected light at night,
the sound of a lingering silence,
echoes reverberating from without,
last night is gone!
When i could see no more,
than the darkness of evil.
When i could hear no more,
than the sounds of the devils laughter
last night is gone
Upon the rock, i watered my plant.
On dry pastures, i cast my seed.
Unto the swine, i gave out my pearl
and all in vain that i toiled.
for it was all dark last night.
In the darkness of night, i am captived
by the light of dawn, i am freed.
Yesterday i was lost, today i am found.
The night is gone, last night is gone.
In the darkness of the world,
humanity is captived.
By the light of Christ,
Man kind is free.
At the fall of man, we were lost
On the day of salvation, we were found
The fallen is restored, last night is gone!
poem by Timothy muggaga
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The Last Ode
Nov. 27, 8 B.C. Horace, BK. V. Ode 31
As watchers couched beneath a Bantine oak,
Hearing the dawn-wind stir,
Know that the present strength of night is broke
Though no dawn threaten her
Till dawn's appointed hour--so Virgil died,
Aware of change at hand, and prophesied
Change upon all the Eternal Gods had made
And on the Gods alike--
Fated as dawn but, as the dawn, delayed
Till the just hour should strike--
A Star new-risen above the living and dead;
And the lost shades that were our loves restored
As lovers, and for ever. So he said;
Having received the word...
Maecenas waits me on the Esquiline:
Thither to-night go I....
And shall this dawn restore us, Virgil mine
To dawn? Beneath what sky?
poem by Rudyard Kipling
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Where Does It Go?
As I watch the
Night Sky
I think of you.
The one I grew
Up with,
The one I always
Talked to,
The one I never left.
I watched the sky
On theanniversary
Of you death.
I feel that in times
Nature atunes to
Our emotions.
I watched the
Night sky.
Your death
Was so abrupt
Everyone was
Shocked.
I watch the
Night sky
As all the
Stars cry.
I stand over the
Grave marked as mine.
The sky bleeds
It's crystal
Tears.
Dead in the winter
A death had
Occured,
People cry for
The lost,
They cry for
The pain.
Now they weep
For my soul
For it is lost.
I can't join
The dead for
It wasn't my
Time, but
I can't be
Alive for my
Body is dead.
I'm lost between
Worlds.
I want to
Sleep.
As I stand over the
Grave marked as mine.
The night of the anniversary
Replays every year.
When I return to the
Scene where I wept
Crimson tears
Every night of the anniversary
The story replays,
But no living soul
Can see it.
Wrong conclusions
Drawn by human thoughts
And yet if they could
See what I do,
Then all will be
Explained
As the night of the anniversary
Replays every year.
As I watch the
Night sky
And all the stars
Cry,
As I stand over the
Grave marked as mine,
The night of the anniversary
Replays every year.
I live on.
poem by Sans Serif
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Night
He cried out through the night:
"Where is the light?
Shall nevermore
Open Heaven's door?
Oh, I am left
Lonely, bereft!"
He cried out through the night:
It spread vaguely white,
With its ghost of a moon
Above the dark swoon
Of the earth lying chill,
Breathless, grave still.
He cried out through the night:
His voice in its might
Rang forth far and far,
And then like a star
Dwindled from sense
In the Immense.
He cried out through the night:
No answering light,
No syllabled sound;
Beneath and around
A long shuddering thrill
Then all again still.
poem by James Thomson
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Night-Night (Children)
Night-night moon
Night-night stars
Night-night noisy
trucks and cars.
Night-night sand box
Night-night toys
Night-night other
girls and boys.
Night-night mom
Night-night dad
Night-night Boogie Man
who's not bad.
It's time to go to sleep now,
most all my night nights said.
Night-night blankie
Night-night bed.
The Vain Spell
THE house sleeps dark and the moon wakes white,
The fields are alight with dew;
'Oh, will you not come to me, Love, to-night?
I have waited the whole night through,
For I knew,
O Heart of my heart, I knew by my heart,
That the night of all nights is this,
When elm shall crack and lead shall part,
When moulds shall sunder and shot bolts start
To let you through to my kiss.'
So spake she alone in the lonely house.
She had wrapped her round with the spell,
She called the call, she vowed the vow,
And the heart she had pledged knew well
That this was the night, the only night,
When the moulds might be wrenched apart,
When the living and dead, in the dead of the night,
Might clasp once more, in the grave's despite,
For the price of a living heart.
But out in the grave the corpse lay white
And the grave clothes were wet with dew;
'Oh, will you not come to me, Love, to-night,
I have waited the whole night through,
For I knew
That I dared not leave my grave for an hour
Since the hour of all hours is near,
When you shall come to the hollow bower,
In a cast of the wind, in a waft of the Power,
To the heart that to-night beats here!'
The moon grows pale and the house sleeps still
Ah, God! do the dead forget?
The grave is white and the bed is chill,
But a guest may be coming yet.
But the hour has come and the hour has gone
That never will come again;
Love's only chance is over and done,
And the quick and the dead are twain, not one,
And the price has been paid in vain.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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Darkness Of...
Darkness is not the darkness of night
it is the darkness of mind and soul.
darkness is not the darkness of night,
it is the darkness of discrimination between poor and rich.
darkness is not the darkness of night,
it is the darkness of dishonesty.
darkness is not the darkness of night,
it is the darkness of aggravate.
darkness is not the darkness of night,
it is darkness of corruption.
darkness is not the darkness of night,
it is the darkness of indiscipline.
darkness is not the darkness of night,
it is the darkness of animosity.
darkness is not the darkness of night,
it is the darkness of inveterate.
darkness is not the darkness of night,
it is the darkness of perjury.
darkness is not the darkness of night,
it is the darkness that we all brought up inside us,
so, light the lamp of light inside you...
poem by Suniya Garg
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The Guardians Of The Sky
To what is this orb that toward earth shines,
Illuminating the many dark corners of the night,
Piercing through the dark and lonely wilderness,
To show the innocent the way home.
There’s nothing in the dark the orb can’t spy,
No mission or secret a man can hide,
Try as you might,
Futile your attempt would be.
But does the orb hide secrets of its own,
Things stationary, concealed behind it’s glowing face,
Mysteries that yet hold the key to a new life,
A life of living in the dark and realm of shadow.
But fear not the dark at night,
The dark may be overpowering but its might is short lived,
With the downfall of night a new power arrives,
The power of light and warmth.
The orb of day has power beyond measure,
Power to rid the world of darkness and fear,
When the orb of day cometh the orb of night retreat,
The unrelenting assault taking its toll.
Yet the next night and every night approaching,
We will see the orb of night glowing in the sky,
This if nothing else proves to us that,
Darkness is a part of the day, just as much as light.
poem by Thomas Vaudin
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Error And Loss
Upon an eve I sat me down and wept,
Because the world to me seemed nowise good;
Still autumn was it, & the meadows slept,
The misty hills dreamed, and the silent wood
Seemed listening to the sorrow of my mood:
I knew not if the earth with me did grieve,
Or if it mocked my grief that bitter eve.
Then ’twixt my tears a maiden did I see,
Who drew anigh me on the leaf-strewn grass,
Then stood and gazed upon me pitifully
With grief-worn eyes, until my woe did pass
From me to her, and tearless now I was,
And she mid tears was asking me of one
She long had sought unaided and alone.
I knew not of him, and she turned away
Into the dark wood, and my own great pain
Still held me there, till dark had slain the day,
And perished at the grey dawn’s hand again;
Then from the wood a voice cried: “Ah, in vain,
In vain I seek thee, O thou bitter-sweet!
In what lone land are set thy longed-for feet?”
Then I looked up, and lo, a man there came
From midst the trees, and stood regarding me
Until my tears were dried for very shame;
Then he cried out: “O mourner, where is she
Whom I have sought o’er every land and sea?
I love her and she loveth me, and still
We meet no more than green hill meeteth hill.”
With that he passed on sadly, and I knew
That these had met and missed in the dark night,
Blinded by blindness of the world untrue,
That hideth love and maketh wrong of right.
Then midst my pity for their lost delight,
Yet more with barren longing I grew weak,
Yet more I mourned that I had none to seek.
poem by William Morris
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The Stone
"And will you cut a stone for him,
To set above his head?
And will you cut a stone for him--
A stone for him?" she said.
Three days before, a splintered rock
Had struck her lover dead--
Had struck him in the quarry dead,
Where, careless of a warning call,
He loitered, while the shot was fired--
A lively stripling, brave and tall,
And sure of all his heart desired . . .
A flash, a shock,
A rumbling fall . . .
And, broken 'neath the broken rock,
A lifeless heap, with face of clay,
And still as any stone he lay,
With eyes that saw the end of all.
I went to break the news to her:
And I could hear my own heart beat
With dread of what my lips might say;
But some poor fool had sped before;
And, flinging wide her father's door,
Had blurted out the news to her,
Had struck her lover dead for her,
Had struck the girl's heart dead in her,
Had struck life, lifeless, at a word,
And dropped it at her feet:
Then hurried on his witless way,
Scarce knowing she had heard.
And when I came, she stood alone--
A woman, turned to stone:
And, though no word at all she said,
I knew that all was known.
Because her heart was dead,
She did not sigh nor moan.
His mother wept:
She could not weep.
Her lover slept:
She could not sleep.
Three days, three nights,
She did not stir:
Three days, three nights,
Were one to her,
Who never closed her eyes
From sunset to sunrise,
From dawn to evenfall--
Her tearless, staring eyes,
That, seeing naught, saw all.
The fourth night when I came from work,
I found her at my door.
"And will you cut a stone for him?"
She said: and spoke no more:
But followed me, as I went in,
And sank upon a chair;
And fixed her grey eyes on my face,
With still, unseeing stare.
And, as she waited patiently,
I could not bear to feel
Those still, grey eyes that followed me,
Those eyes that plucked the heart from me,
Those eyes that sucked the breath from me
And curdled the warm blood in me,
Those eyes that cut me to the bone,
And cut my marrow like cold steel.
And so I rose and sought a stone;
And cut it smooth and square:
And, as I worked, she sat and watched,
Beside me, in her chair.
Night after night, by candlelight,
I cut her lover's name:
Night after night, so still and white,
And like a ghost she came;
And sat beside me, in her chair,
And watched with eyes aflame.
She eyed each stroke,
And hardly stirred:
she never spoke
A single word:
And not a sound or murmur broke
The quiet, save the mallet stroke.
With still eyes ever on my hands,
With eyes that seemed to burn my hands,
My wincing, overwearied hands,
She watched, with bloodless lips apart,
And silent, indrawn breath:
And every stroke my chisel cut,
Death cut still deeper in her heart:
The two of us were chiselling,
Together, I and Death.
And when at length my job was done,
And I had laid the mallet by,
As if, at last, her peace were won,
She breathed his name, and, with a sigh,
Passed slowly through the open door:
And never crossed my threshold more.
Next night I laboured late, alone,
To cut her name upon the stone.
poem by Wilfred Wilson Gibson
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Ladies Pay
All the sailors theyre all home from leave
And everybodys waiting for them to try to deceive
The storekeepers have drawn their lace curtains bare
And all the women and the wee young girls all waiting there
Oh, but how the ladies pay
Oh, if they only knew how the ladies pay
Yeah now, how the ladies pay
Oh, when the men theyve gone away
Nobody is standing on upon the door
And nobody is feeding any of the poor
The poor sick soldier lies in bed beside his girl
Thinking of another place on the other side of the world
Ah
How the ladies pay
Oh-oh, oh, how the ladies pay
When the men theyve gone away
Oh, I wish I knew how the ladies pay
Day and night, night and day
How the ladies pay
Day and night, night and day
How the ladies pay
Day and night
Night and day
Day and night
Day and night, night and day, ladies pay now
Night and day, day and night
How the ladies pay
Day and night, night and day
How the ladies pay
Day and night now
Night and day and now
How the pay now
Oh, how the pay now
Ladies pay, ladies pay
Ah, ladies pay the way now
Ladies pay, ah, ladies pay
Ah, ladies pay
Night and day, night and day, night and day
Oh, how the ladies pay
Oh, night and day, night and day, night and day
Oh, how the ladies pay
song performed by by Lou Reed
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Quest For The Cross!
A dream from nowhere came to me,
I dreamt I searched for Calvary!
I walked along God's streets of old!
I saw God's Temple crowned in gold!
I watched the Romans, Gentiles, Jews.
Barabbas? Jesus? They must choose!
They choose Barabbas! Christ must die!
The wicked cried out, 'Crucify! '
'No, no! ' I shouted, 'Leave Him be! '
The Lord looked up, then looked at me.
A loving smile adorned His face,
Yet He must die to take my place,
For I have sinned and know this well,
Without Christ's Blood I'd go to Hell.
I followed Jesus to the Hill.
They pierced Him, made His Blood to spill.
Beneath the Cross I wept and wept
All through the night my body slept.
Yet with the miracle of dawn,
I rose from sleep, at peace, reborn!
poem by Denis Martindale
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The Vampire
She rose among us where we lay.
She wept, we put our work away.
She chilled our laughter, stilled our play;
And spread a silence there.
And darkness shot across the sky,
And once, and twice, we heard her cry;
And saw her lift white hands on high
And toss her troubled hair.
What shape was this who came to us,
With basilisk eyes so ominous,
With mouth so sweet, so poisonous,
And tortured hands so pale?
We saw her wavering to and fro,
Through dark and wind we saw her go;
Yet what her name was did not know;
And felt our spirits fail.
We tried to turn away; but still
Above we heard her sorrow thrill;
And those that slept, they dreamed of ill
And dreadful things:
Of skies grown red with rending flames
And shuddering hills that cracked their frames;
Of twilights foul with wings;
And skeletons dancing to a tune;
And cries of children stifled soon;
And over all a blood-red moon
A dull and nightmare size.
They woke, and sought to go their ways,
Yet everywhere they met her gaze,
Her fixed and burning eyes.
Who are you now, —we cried to her—
Spirit so strange, so sinister?
We felt dead winds above us stir;
And in the darkness heard
A voice fall, singing, cloying sweet,
Heavily dropping, though that heat,
Heavy as honeyed pulses beat,
Slow word by anguished word.
And through the night strange music went
With voice and cry so darkly blent
We could not fathom what they meant;
Save only that they seemed
To thin the blood along our veins,
Foretelling vile, delirious pains,
And clouds divulging blood-red rains
Upon a hill undreamed.
And this we heard: 'Who dies for me,
He shall possess me secretly,
My terrible beauty he shall see,
And slake my body's flame.
But who denies me cursed shall be,
And slain, and buried loathsomely,
And slimed upon with shame.'
And darkness fell. And like a sea
Of stumbling deaths we followed, we
Who dared not stay behind.
There all night long beneath a cloud
We rose and fell, we struck and bowed,
We were the ploughman and the ploughed,
Our eyes were red and blind.
And some, they said, had touched her side,
Before she fled us there;
And some had taken her to bride;
And some lain down for her and died;
Who had not touched her hair,
Ran to and fro and cursed and cried
And sought her everywhere.
'Her eyes have feasted on the dead,
And small and shapely is her head,
And dark and small her mouth,' they said,
'And beautiful to kiss;
Her mouth is sinister and red
As blood in moonlight is.'
Then poets forgot their jeweled words
And cut the sky with glittering swords;
And innocent souls turned carrion birds
To perch upon the dead.
Sweet daisy fields were drenched with death,
The air became a charnel breath,
Pale stones were splashed with red.
Green leaves were dappled bright with blood
And fruit trees murdered in the bud;
And when at length the dawn
Came green as twilight from the east,
And all that heaving horror ceased,
Silent was every bird and beast,
And that dark voice was gone.
No word was there, no song, no bell,
No furious tongue that dream to tell;
Only the dead, who rose and fell
Above the wounded men;
And whisperings and wails of pain
Blown slowly from the wounded grain,
Blown slowly from the smoking plain;
And silence fallen again.
Until at dusk, from God knows where,
Beneath dark birds that filled the air,
Like one who did not hear or care,
Under a blood-red cloud,
An aged ploughman came alone
And drove his share through flesh and bone,
And turned them under to mould and stone;
All night long he ploughed.
poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
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The Rainbow
Watch the white dawn gleam,
To the thunder of hidden guns.
I hear the hot shells scream
Through skies as sweet as a dream
Where the silver dawn-break runs.
And stabbing of light
Scorches the virginal white.
But I feel in my being the old, high, sanctified thrill,
And I thank the gods that the dawn is beautiful still.
From death that hurtles by
I crouch in the trench day-long,
But up to a cloudless sky
From the ground where our dead men lie
A brown lark soars in song.
Through the tortured air,
Rent by the shrapnel's flare,
Over the troubleless dead he carols his fill,
And I thank the gods that the birds are beautiful still.
Where the parapet is low
And level with the eye
Poppies and cornflowers glow
And the corn sways to and fro
In a pattern against the sky.
The gold stalks hide
Bodies of men who died
Charging at dawn through the dew to be killed or to kill.
I thank the gods that the flowers are beautiful still.
When night falls dark we creep
In silence to our dead.
We dig a few feet deep
And leave them there to sleep -
But blood at night is red,
Yea, even at night,
And a dead man's face is white.
And I dry my hands, that are also trained to kill,
And I look at the stars - for the stars are beautiful still.
poem by Leslie Coulson
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Night
I love to hear the silence of the night.
That time, when distance draws so near,
and memories come, and far sounds,
undisturbed, so close.
For night is dark and only self is true.
A self whose rest and past, are
only breaths away.
Yet for some,
the night may haunt and fear,
its conscience time, when curtains
closed are drawn.
So too, ones inner self and past,
to joy or fright, the
inner spirits will.
It is a blessed thing this night.
Was it not night when Christ came home,
and balanced Judas evil deed.
And blessed night,
when monks now rise and pray,
and Nicodemus,
for lack of sleep,
came home.
The lady of the night came too,
her stumbling led her home.
In the darkness of the well
the Magi saw the stars in day,
and in the psyche dwells our heart.
O Blessed night,
for rolling back the stone,
the angels let in light,
and finished night.
Night no more.
The silence of the night is deeply rich,
and homeward bound, we rest,
and sound our hope
and lasting joy,
dwells here,
in shadows of the night.
poem by Bernard Kennedy
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Vain Death
ALL the first night she might not weep
But watched till morning came,
And when she slept at dawn, she heard
The dead man call her name.
The second night she watched and wept
And called on death for grace,
And when she slept before the dawn
She saw the dead man’s face.
The third night through she laughed as one
That knows her way to bliss,
And in the instant ere she slept
She felt the dead man’s kiss.
She rose and faced the flickering fire
(And oh, but she was fair!),
Like a wild witch behind her danced
The shadow of her hair.
She took her penknife from its sheath,
The tender blade she kissed,
And by the firelight’s dying leap
She bared her little wrist.
And where the vein ran large and blue
She cut, once and again,
Yet ere she swooned from life, she knew
Her death had been in vain.
For while life thundered in her ears,
Ere yet her pulse might fail,
Far off across the kindless night
She heard the dead man’s wail,
And knew her doom was one with theirs
That kill the life God gave,
And that she might not leave this earth
Her soul alive to save,
But ay must dwell within that house
As in a living grave,
While he for whom she died might ne’er
Win to her in that place,
But must for ever make his moan
Ranging in agony alone
The trackless void of space
poem by Archibald Thomas Strong
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I Was The Child of The Night
I was the child of the night
Dark is my father
The moon is my mother
Star of stars was my sister
I was the child of the night
My father is a symbol of fear and helplessness
My mom is the charm
My sister is the beauty of the night
I was the child of night who afraid of the dark night
Mom, please tell to father i would not like the darkness
But my mother said, need not be afraid, my daughter, my light will always protect you from the dark night.
I always give you a glimmer of light in the darkness.
And see your sister, she was very beautiful among the dark of night.
My daughter, the darkness is tranquility.
Many people would like stay in it although it will make them are scared and helpless because
They are find peace in the darkness.
O Night O Trembling Night
O night O trembling night O night of sighs
O night when my body was a rod O night
When my mouth was a vague animal cry
Pasturing on her flesh O night
When the close darkness was a nest
Made of her hair and filled with my eyes
(O stars impenetrable above
The fragile tent poled with our thighs
Among the petals falling fields of time
O night revolving all our dark away)
O day O gradual day O sheeted light
Covering her body as with dews
Until I brushed her sealing sleep away
To read once more in the uncurtained day
Her naked love, my great good news.
poem by Stephen Spender
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Night After Night
by Bob Dylan
Night after night you wander the streets of my mind.
Night after night don't know what you think you will find.
No place to go, nowhere to turn,
Everything around you seems to burn, burn, burn.
And there's never any mercy night after night.
Night after night
Night after night
Night after night some new plan to blow up the world.
Night after night another old man kissing some young girl.
You look for salvation, you find none.
Just another broken heart, another barrel of a gun,
Just another stick of dynamite night after night.
Night after night
Night after night
Night after night you drop dead in your bed,
Night after night another bottle finds a head.
Night after night I think about cutting you loose
But I just can't do it, what would be the use?
So I just keep a holding you tight night after night.
Night after night
Night after night
Night after night
Night after night
song performed by by Bob Dylan
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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