Ortho's Epitaph
Friend, Ortho of Syracuse gives thee this charge:
Never venture out, drunk, on a wild winter's night.
I did so and died. My possessions were large;
Yet the turf that I'm clad with is strange to me quite.
poem by Theocritus
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Related quotes
Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer Day?
"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? "
I think you may be right,
But you would be better off to say:
"I compare thee to a winter's night! "
For she is so cold and unforgiving,
If such a fool would try
To venture forth for conquests,
Then such a fool would die.
To take on such a winter
You truly must prepare,
All summer long work hard, work strong,
Prepare your winters fare.
Gather fire-wood and bedding,
Clothes and curtains too,
Get ready for the siege of winter,
Prepare all the autumn through.
Now bolt your doors and windows,
(The time for travel now is through) ,
Light the fire and retire
And let winter come to you.
poem by Neil Milliner
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Today My Friend Died
Today my friend died,
I still cant believe my eyes.
It seems like my world has ended.
Today my friend died,
the cute face and sweet smile,
keeps flashing in front of my eyes.
Today my friend died,
my first and last best friend.
She was waiting for this day,
as she had only sorrows and troubles with her.
Today my friend died,
the friend who cared about me,
the friend who solved my problem,
the friend who always fought with life.
Today my friend died,
and I think,
I am filled with problems with no solution,
a human with no confidence,
today I am here with no hope,
I am here today without happiness.
Today my friend died,
she has stepped into my life,
as a spirit of mine.
I cannot express how important she is to me.
Today my friend died,
I recall my memories with her,
and cry....
poem by Afreen Khan
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In Memoriam
Obiit 1854.
HEAVEN rest thee!
We shall go about today
In our festal garlands gay;
Whatsoever robes we wear
Not a trace of black be there.
Well, what matters? none is seen
On thy daisy covering green,
Or thy pure white pillow, hid
Underneath a cofin lid.
Heaven rest thee!
Heaven take thee!--
Ay, heaven only. Sleeps beneath
One who died a virgin death:
Died so slowly, day by day,
That it scarcely seemed decay,
Till this lonely churchyard kind
Opened,--and we left behind
Nothing but a little dust;--
Heaven is pitiful and just:
Heaven take thee!
Heaven keep thee:
Nevermore above the ground
Be one relic of thee found:
Lay the turf so smooth, we crave,
None would guess it was a grave,
Save for grass that greener grows,
Or for wind that gentlier blows
All the earth o'er, from this spot
Where thou wert--and thou art not.
Heaven keep thee!
poem by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
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Night And Sleep
How strange at night to wake
And watch, while others sleep,
Till sight and hearing ache
For objects that may keep
The awful inner sense
Unroused, lest it should mark
The life that haunts the emptiness
And horror of the dark!
How strange at night the bay
Of dogs, how wild the note
Of cocks that scream for day,
In homesteads far remote;
How strange and wild to hear
The old and crumbling tower,
Amid the darkness, suddenly
Take tongue and speak the hour!
Albeit the love-sick brain
Affects the dreary moon,
Ill things alone refrain
From life's nocturnal swoon:
Men melancholy mad,
Beasts ravenous and sly,
The robber, and the murderer,
Remorse, with lidless eye.
The nightingale is gay,
For she can vanquish night;
Dreaming, she sings of day
Notes that make darkness bright;
But when the refluent gloom
Saddens the gaps of song,
Men charge on her the dolefulness,
And call her crazed with wrong.
poem by Coventry Patmore
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To J. D. H.
(Killed at Surrey C. H., October, 1866.)
. . . . .
Dear friend, forgive a wild lament
Insanely following thy flight.
I would not cumber thine ascent
Nor drag thee back into the night;
But the great sea-winds sigh with me,
The fair-faced stars seem wrinkled, old,
And I would that I might lie with thee
There in the grave so cold, so cold!
Grave walls are thick, I cannot see thee,
And the round skies are far and steep;
A-wild to quaff some cup of Lethe,
Pain is proud and scorns to weep.
My heart breaks if it cling about thee,
And still breaks, if far from thine.
O drear, drear death, to live without thee,
O sad life -- to keep thee mine.
. . . . .
poem by Sidney Lanier
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Winter Sinfonia
The storm is coming soon
It rolls in from the sea
But your voice is a beacon in the night
And I can hear all the kind words that you are saying my friend
But your light will always shine in the sky at night during the winter
The winter is cold and it gives me the shivers all through my body
This is the winter
That will carry me to you
And I know that you will be waiting for me on the other side of the frozen lake when God delivers me on earthagainduring this winter
Is your love alive during the winter?
Is your love alive during the winter?
This is the winter
February never felt so right
But I am where I belong
poem by Aldo Kraas
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Villanelle
Apollo left the golden Muse
And shepherded a mortal's sheep,
Theocritus of Syracuse!
To mock the giant swain that woo's
The sea-nymph in the sunny deep,
Apollo left the golden Muse.
Afield he drove his lambs and ewes,
Where Milon and where Battus reap,
Theocritus of Syracuse!
To watch thy tunny-fishers cruise
Below the dim Sicilian steep
Apollo left the golden Muse.
Ye twain did loiter in the dews,
Ye slept the swain's unfever'd sleep,
Theocritus of Syracuse!
That Time might half with HIS confuse
Thy songs,--like his, that laugh and leap, -
Theocritus of Syracuse,
Apollo left the golden Muse!
poem by Andrew Lang
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Last Night
Last night I drank to much gin.
Last night I got drunk a fought with a friend.
Last night I slept with the same friend.
Last night I took a trip to Las Vegas.
This morning when I awoke I found out
I got married last night.
Transition
A little while to walk with thee, dear child;
To lean on thee my weak and weary head;
Then evening comes: the winter sky is wild,
The leafless trees are black, the leaves long dead.
A little while to hold thee and to stand,
By harvest-fields of bending golden corn;
Then the predestined silence, and thine hand,
Lost in the night, long and weary and forlorn.
A little while to love thee, scarcely time
To love thee well enough; then time to part,
To fare through wintry fields alone and climb
The frozen hills, not knowing where thou art.
Short summer-time and then, my heart's desire,
The winter and the darkness: one by one
The roses fall, the pale roses expire
Beneath the slow decadence of the sun.
poem by Ernest Christopher Dowson
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Robert Gould Shaw
Why was it that the thunder voice of Fate
Should call thee, studious, from the classic groves,
Where calm-eyed Pallas with still footsteps roves,
And charge thee seek the turmoil of the State?
What bade thee hear the voice and rise elate,
Leave home and kindred and thy spicy loaves,
To lead th' unlettered and despised droves
To manhood's home and thunder at the gate?
Far better the slow blaze of Learning's light,
The cool and quiet of her dearer fane,
Than this hot terror of a hopeless fight,
This cold endurance of the final pain,-
Since thou and those who with thee died for right
Have died, the Present teaches, but in vain!
poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
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Wild Nights! Wild Nights!
Wild Nights! Wild Nights!
Were I with thee,
Wild Nights should be
Our luxury!
Futile the winds
To a heart in port, --
Done with the compass,
Done with the chart!
Rowing in Eden!
Ah! the sea!
Might I but moor
To-night in Thee!
poem by Emily Dickinson
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Antipholus of Syracuse: Why, but there's many a man hath more hair than wit.
Dromio of Syracuse: Not a man of those but he hath the wit to lose his hair.
line from The Comedy of Errors, Act II, Scene 2, script by William Shakespeare (1594)
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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Lost Horizons
The last horizons I can see are filled with bars and factories
And in them all we fight to stay awake...
Drink enough of anything to make this world look new again
Drunk drunk drunk in the gardens and the graves
She had nothing left to say so she said she loved me
I stood there grateful for the lie...
Drink enough of anything to make this girl look new again
Drunk drunk drunk in the gardens and the graves
Turn summer trees to bones and ice
Turn insect songs against the night
With words we build and words we break
Im drunk drunk drunk in the gardens and the graves...
Drink enough of anything to make myself look new again
Drunk drunk drunk in the gardens and the graves
song performed by by Gin Blossoms
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Strange Night
Get out that wig - I know you
Put on those shiny pointed shoes
We'll have a strange night
Corsage - long gown - all the rest
That ain't what we call dressed
For a strange night
You're gonna lose who you are
We could take it pretty far
Can there ever be any harm
No one will know you
You won't show
Feels wild like we used to
Just tonight that the feeling's right
We'll wear a disguise that won't
show through
We'll go out in the old red car
You can sit in the bakc seat and play
your guitar
If the blue lights flash while we're rockin
Don't you worry I'll do the talking
And tell it right
You're gonna lose who you are
We could take it pretty far
Can there ever be any harm
No one will know you
You won't show
Feels wild like we used to
Just tonight that the feeling's right
We'll wear a disguise that won't
show through
Let's just stop at random places
Just to see the look on their faces
What a strange sight
Put on that wig - I know you
I know what you like to do
Have a strange night
song performed by by Heart from Bebe Le Strange
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A Madrigal
Crabbed Age and Youth
Cannot live together:
Youth is full of pleasance,
Age is full of care;
Youth like summer morn,
Age like winter weather;
Youth like summer brave,
Age like winter bare:
Youth is full of sports,
Age's breath is short,
Youth is nimble, Age is lame:
Youth is hot and bold,
Age is weak and cold,
Youth is wild, and Age is tame:-
Age, I do abhor thee;
Youth, I do adore thee;
O! my Love, my Love is young!
Age, I do defy thee-
O sweet shepherd, hie thee,
For methinks thou stay'st too long.
poem by William Shakespeare
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Take Charge
Before it’s too late to obviate the past,
Take charge of the present or it won’t last.
Tomorrow is yours when you take charge.
Ensure that your future always looms large.
poem by Gregory Huyette
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On The Way Home
It bled dry the light from the night,
Again, in this shreds pass of strange creatures.
Gateway of home; stations
where you can encounter all species kind.
Long legs, short skirts
backpack, lonely heart,
skimmed jeans, lost dreams.
However, is the drunk man, lost along the line,
apparently straight,
to commit arrogance, abuse of obscene,
they tomorrow remorse.
I'm not much sober,
tiredness drunk me of cocoon vest; I cannot move.
My eyes judge.
The place is crowded, on the empty day,
The light unreal of large pupils, stack midnight,
trough the bridgehead
where fence hold,
the light to be fouled.
poem by Luca Menin
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The Complaint Of a Forsaken Indian Woman
Before I see another day,
Oh let my body die away!
In sleep I heard the northern gleams;
The stars, they were among my dreams;
In rustling conflict through the skies,
I heard, I saw the flashes drive,
And yet they are upon my eyes,
And yet I am alive;
Before I see another day,
Oh let my body die away!
My fire is dead: it knew no pain;
Yet is it dead, and I remain:
All stiff with ice the ashes lie;
And they are dead, and I will die.
When I was well, I wished to live,
For clothes, for warmth, for food, and fire;
But they to me no joy can give,
No pleasure now, and no desire.
Then here contented will I lie
Alone, I cannot fear to die.
Alas! ye might have dragged me on
Another day, a single one!
Too soon I yielded to despair;
Why did ye listen to my prayer
When ye were gone my limb were stronger;
And oh, how grievously I rue,
That, afterward, a little longer,
My friends, I did not follow you!
For strong and without pain I lay,
Dear friends, when ye were gone away.
My Child! they gave thee to another,
A woman who was not thy mother.
When from my arms my Babe they took,
On me how strangely did he look !
Through his whole body something ran,
A most strange working did I see;
---As if he strove to be a man,
That he might pull the sledge for me:
And then he stretched his arm, how wild!
Oh mercy! like a helpless child.
My little joy! my little pride!
In two day more I must have died.
Then do not weep and grieve for me;
I feel I must have died with thee.
O wind, that o'er my head art flying
The way my friends their course did bend,
I should not feel the pain of dying,
Could I with thee a message end;
Too soon, my friend, ye went away;
For I had many thing to say.
I'll follow you across the snow;
Ye travel heavily and slow;
In spite of all my weary pain
I'll look upon your tent again.
---My fire is dead, and snowy white
The water which beside it stood:
The wolf has come to me to-night,
And he has stolen away my food.
Forever left alone am I;
Then wherefore should I fear to die ?
Young as I am, my course is run,
I shall not see another sun;
I cannot lift my limb to know
If they have any life or no.
My poor forsaken child, if I
For once could have thee close to me,
With happy heart I then would die,
And my last thought would happy be;
But thou, dear Babe, art far away,
Nor shall I see another day.
poem by William Wordsworth
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Buddy (Death Poem)
It’s over 50 years since the day the music died
The Winter Dance Party tour ended for some
On that cold winter’s night at Clear Lake Iowa.
It was Buddy, Richie, Jiles and Roger who died
But the party went on for Waylon and Tommy.
Bus or plane was a flip of a coin or a fever too hot -
How did they feel, did it change their lives for ever?
poem by Ian Beckett
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I am beginning to have a healthy dread of possessions, be it of a country, a house, a being or even an idea. If we are bothered by possessions we cannot really live either from without or from within; we are the possession of our possessions. All wars and most loves come from the possessive instinct. Why grab possessions like thieves, or divide them like socialists when you can ignore them like wise men: that you may belong to everything and everything be yours inclusive of yourself. Could we, and we can, have the vital necessities for all, we should do away with this cry of class and begin to differentiate between individuals.
quote by Natalie Clifford Barney
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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