The Sundial
The ivy o'er the mouldering wall
Spreads like a tree, the growth of years:
The wild wind through the doorless hall
A melancholy music rears,
A solitary voice, that sighs
O'er man's forgotten pageantries.
Above the central gate, the clock,
Through clustering ivy dimly seen,
Seems, like the ghost of Time, to mock
The wrecks of power that once has been.
The hands are rusted on its face;
Even where they ceased, in years gone by,
To keep the flying moments pace;
Fixing, in Fancy's thoughtful eye,
A point of ages passed away,
A speck of time, that owns no tie
With aught that lives and breathes to-day.
But 'mid the rank and towering grass,
Where breezes wave, in mournful sport,
The weeds that choke the ruined court,
The careless hours that circling pass,
Still trace upon the dialled brass
The shade of their unvarying way:
And evermore, with every ray
That breaks the clouds and gilds the air,
Time's stealthy steps are imaged there:
Even as the long-revolving years
In self-reflecting circles flow,
From the first bud the hedge-row bears,
To wintry Nature's robe of snow.
The changeful forms of mortal things
Decay and pass; and art and power
Oppose in vain the doom that flings
Oblivion on their closing hour:
While still, to every woodland vale,
New blooms, new fruits, the seasons bring,
For other eyes and lips to hail
With looks and sounds of welcoming:
As where some stream light-eddying roves
By sunny meads and shadowy groves,
Wave following wave departs for ever,
But still flows on the eternal river.
poem by Thomas Love Peacock
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View From A Height
Sharp wind, towering sky, apes howling mournfully;
untouched island, white sand, birds flying in circles.
Infinite forest, bleakly shedding leaf after leaf;
inexhaustible river, rolling on wave after wave.
Through a thousand miles of melancholy autumn, I travel;
carrying a hundred years of sickness, I climb to this terrace.
Hardship and bitter regret have frosted my temples--
and what torments me most? Giving up wine!
Be Drunk
You have to be always drunk. That's all there is to it--it's the
only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks
your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually
drunk.
But on what?Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be
drunk.
And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of
a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again,
drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave,
the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything
that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is
singing, everything that is speaking. . .ask what time it is and
wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you:"It is time to be
drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be
continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish."
poem by Charles Baudelaire
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Sonnet XXXII. To Melancholy
Written on the banks of the Arun, Oct. 1785.
WHEN latest Autumn spreads her evening veil,
And the grey mists from these dim waves arise,
I love to listen to the hollow sighs,
Through the half-leafless wood that breathes the gale:
For at such hours the shadowy phantom, pale,
Oft seems to fleet before the poet's eyes;
Strange sounds are heard, and mournful melodies,
As of night wanderers, who their woes bewail
Here, by his native stream, at such an hour,
Pity's own Otway I methinks could meet,
And hear his deep sighs swell the sadden'd wind!
O Melancholy!--such thy magic power,
That to the soul these dreams are often sweet,
And sooth the pensive visionary mind!
poem by Charlotte Smith
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Love and Age
I play'd with you 'mid cowslips blowing,
When I was six and you were four;
When garlands weaving, flower-balls throwing,
Were pleasures soon to please no more.
Through groves and meads, o'er grass and heather,
With little playmates, to and fro,
We wander'd hand in hand together;
But that was sixty years ago.
You grew a lovely roseate maiden,
And still our early love was strong;
Still with no care our days were laden,
They glided joyously along;
And I did love you very dearly,
How dearly words want power to show;
I thought your heart was touch'd as nearly;
But that was fifty years ago.
Then other lovers came around you,
Your beauty grew from year to year,
And many a splendid circle found you
The centre of its glimmering sphere.
I saw you then, first vows forsaking,
On rank and wealth your hand bestow;
O, then I thought my heart was breaking!--
But that was forty years ago.
And I lived on, to wed another:
No cause she gave me to repine;
And when I heard you were a mother,
I did not wish the children mine.
My own young flock, in fair progression,
Made up a pleasant Christmas row:
My joy in them was past expression;
But that was thirty years ago.
You grew a matron plump and comely,
You dwelt in fashion's brightest blaze;
My earthly lot was far more homely;
But I too had my festal days.
No merrier eyes have ever glisten'd
Around the hearth-stone's wintry glow,
Than when my youngest child was christen'd;
But that was twenty years ago.
Time pass'd. My eldest girl was married,
And I am now a grandsire gray;
One pet of four years old I've carried
Among the wild-flower'd meads to play.
In our old fields of childish pleasure,
Where now, as then, the cowslips blow,
She fills her basket's ample measure;
And that is not ten years ago.
But though first love's impassion'd blindness
Has pass'd away in colder light,
I still have thought of you with kindness,
And shall do, till our last good-night.
The ever-rolling silent hours
Will bring a time we shall not know,
When our young days of gathering flowers
Will be an hundred years ago.
poem by Thomas Love Peacock
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To Contemplation
Faint gleams the evening radiance thro' the sky,
The sober twilight dimly darkens round;
In short quick circles the shrill bat flits by,
And the slow vapour curls along the ground.
Now the pleas'd eye from yon lone cottage sees
On the green mead the smoke long-shadowing play;
The Red-breast on the blossom'd spray
Warbles wild her latest lay,
And sleeps along the dale the silent breeze.
Calm CONTEMPLATION,'tis thy favorite hour!
Come fill my bosom, tranquillizing Power.
Meek Power! I view thee on the calmy shore
When Ocean stills his waves to rest;
Or when slow-moving on the surge's hoar
Meet with deep hollow roar
And whiten o'er his breast;
For lo! the Moon with softer radiance gleams,
And lovelier heave the billows in her beams.
When the low gales of evening moan along,
I love with thee to feel the calm cool breeze,
And roam the pathless forest wilds among,
Listening the mellow murmur of the trees
Full-foliaged as they lift their arms on high
And wave their shadowy heads in wildest melody.
Or lead me where amid the tranquil vale
The broken stream flows on in silver light,
And I will linger where the gale
O'er the bank of violets sighs,
Listening to hear its soften'd sounds arise;
And hearken the dull beetle's drowsy flight,
And watch the horn-eyed snail
Creep o'er his long moon-glittering trail,
And mark where radiant thro' the night
Moves in the grass-green hedge the glow-worms living light.
Thee meekest Power! I love to meet,
As oft with even solitary pace
The scatter'd Abbeys hallowed rounds I trace
And listen to the echoings of my feet.
Or on the half demolished tomb,
Whole warning texts anticipate my doom:
Mark the clear orb of night
Cast thro' the storying glass a faintly-varied light.
Nor will I not in some more gloomy hour
Invoke with fearless awe thine holier power,
Wandering beneath the sainted pile
When the blast moans along the darksome aisle,
And clattering patters all around
The midnight shower with dreary sound.
But sweeter 'tis to wander wild
By melancholy dreams beguil'd,
While the summer moon's pale ray
Faintly guides me on my way
To the lone romantic glen
Far from all the haunts of men,
Where no noise of uproar rude
Breaks the calm of solitude.
But soothing Silence sleeps in all
Save the neighbouring waterfall,
Whose hoarse waters falling near
Load with hollow sounds the ear,
And with down-dasht torrent white
Gleam hoary thro' the shades of night.
Thus wandering silent on and slow
I'll nurse Reflection's sacred woe,
And muse upon the perish'd day
When Hope would weave her visions gay,
Ere FANCY chill'd by adverse fate
Left sad REALITY my mate.
O CONTEMPLATION! when to Memory's eyes
The visions of the long-past days arise,
Thy holy power imparts the best relief,
And the calm'd Spirit loves the joy of grief.
poem by Robert Southey
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The Rivulet
This little rill that, from the springs
Of yonder grove, its current brings,
Plays on the slope awhile, and then
Goes prattling into groves again,
Oft to its warbling waters drew
My little feet, when life was new.
When woods in early green were drest,
And from the chambers of the west
The warmer breezes, travelling out,
Breathed the new scent of flowers about,
My truant steps from home would stray,
Upon its grassy side to play,
List the brown thrasher's vernal hymn,
And crop the violet on its brim,
With blooming cheek and open brow,
As young and gay, sweet rill, as thou.
And when the days of boyhood came,
And I had grown in love with fame,
Duly I sought thy banks, and tried
My first rude numbers by thy side.
Words cannot tell how bright and gay
The scenes of life before me lay.
Then glorious hopes, that now to speak
Would bring the blood into my cheek,
Passed o’er me; and I wrote, on high,
A name I deemed should never die.
Years change thee not. Upon yon hill
The tall old maples, verdant still,
Yet tell, in grandeur of decay,
How swift the years have passed away,
Since first, a child, and half afraid,
I wandered in the forest shade.
Thou, ever-joyous rivulet,
Dost dimple, leap, and prattle yet;
And sporting with the sands that pave
The windings of thy silver wave,
And dancing to thy own wild chime,
Thou laughest at the lapse of time.
The same sweet sounds are in my ear
My early childhood loved to hear;
As pure thy limpid waters run;
As bright they sparkle to the sun;
As fresh and thick the bending ranks
Of herbs that line thy oozy banks;
The violet there, in soft May dew,
Comes up, as modest and as blue;
As green amid thy current’s stress,
Floats the scarce-rooted watercress;
And the brown ground-bird, in thy glen,
Still chirps as merrily as then.
Thou changest not—but I am changed
Since first thy pleasant banks I ranged;
And the grave stranger, come to see
The play-place of his infancy,
Has scarce a single trace of him
Who sported once upon thy brim.
The visions of my youth are past
Too bright, too beautiful to last.
I’ve tried the world—it wears no more
The coloring of romance it wore.
Yet well has Nature kept the truth
She promised in my earliest youth.
The radiant beauty shed abroad
On all the glorious works of God,
Shows freshly, to my sobered eye,
Each charm it wore in days gone by.
A few brief years shall pass away,
And I, all trembling, weak, and gray,
Bowed to the earth, which waits to fold
My ashes in the embracing mould,
(If haply the dark will of Fate
Indulge my life so long a date),
May come for the last time to look
Upon my childhood’s favorite brook.
Then dimly on my eye shall gleam
The sparkle of thy dancing stream;
And faintly on my ear shall fall
Thy prattling current’s merry call;
Yet shalt thou flow as glad and bright
As when thou met'st my infant sight.
And I shall sleep—and on thy side,
As ages after ages glide,
Children their early sports shall try,
And pass to hoary age and die.
But thou, unchanged from year to year,
Gayly shalt play and glitter here;
Amid young flowers and tender grass
Thy endless infancy shall pass;
And, singing down thy narrow glen,
Shalt mock the fading race of men.
poem by William Cullen Bryant
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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A Song Of Three Singers
I
Wave and wind and willow-tree
Speak a speech that no man knoweth;
Tree that sigheth, wind that bloweth,
Wave that floweth to the sea:
Wave and wind and willow-tree.
Peerless perfect poets ye,
Singing songs all songs excelling,
Fine as crystal music dwelling
In a welling fountain free:
Peerless perfect poets three!
II
Wave and wind and willow-tree
Know not aught of poets' rhyming,
Yet they make a silver-chiming
Sunward-climbing minstrelsy,
Soother than all songs that be.
Blows the wind it knows not why,
Flows the wave it knows not whither,
And the willow swayeth hither
Swayeth thither witlessly,
Nothing knowing save to sigh.
poem by William Watson
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Autumnal Nightfall
Round Autumn's mouldering urn
Loud mourns the chill and cheerless gale,
When nightfall shades the quiet vale
And stars in beauty burn.
'Tis the year's eventide.
The wind, like one that sighs in pain
O?er joys that ne'er will bloom again
Mourns on the far hillside.
And yet my pensive eye
Rests on the faint blue mountain long;
And for the fairy-land of song,
That lies beyond, I sigh.
The moon unveils her brow;
In the mid-sky her urn glows bright,
And in her sad and mellowing light
The valley sleeps below.
Upon the hazel gray
The lyre of Autumn hangs unstrung
And o?er its tremulous chords are flung
The fringes of decay.
I stand deep musing here,
Beneath the dark and motionless beech,
Whilst wandering winds of nightfall reach
My melancholy ear.
The air breathes chill and free:
A spirit in soft music calls
From Autumn's gray and moss-grown halls,
And round her withered tree.
The hoar and mantled oak,
With moss and twisted ivy brown,
Bends in its lifeless beauty down
Where weeds the fountain choke.
That fountain's hollow voice
Echoes the sound of precious things;
Of early feeling's tuneful springs
Choked with our blighted joys.
Leaves, that the night-wind bears
To earth's cold bosom with a sign,
Are types of our mortality,
And of our fading years.
The tree that shades the plain,
Wasting and hoar as time decays,
Spring shall renew with cheerful days,--
But not my joys again.
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Sonnet XXIV. By The Same.
MAKE there my tomb, beneath the lime-tree's shade,
Where grass and flowers in wild luxuriance wave;
Let no memorial mark where I am laid,
Or point to common eyes the lover's grave!
But oft at twilight morn, or closing day,
The faithful friend with fault'ring step shall glide,
Tributes of fond regret by stealth to pay,
And sigh o'er the unhappy suicide.
And sometimes, when the sun with parting rays
Gilds the long grass that hides my silent bed,
The tear shall tremble in my Charlotte's eyes;
Dear, precious drops!--they shall embalm the dead!
Yes--Charlotte o'er the mournful spot shall weep,
Where her poor Werter--and his sorrows sleep.
poem by Charlotte Smith
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The Rock of Cader Idris
I LAY on that rock where the storms have their dwelling,
The birthplace of phantoms, the home of the oloud;
Around it for ever deep music is swelling,
The voice of the mountain-wind, solemn and loud.
'Twas a midnight of shadows all fitfully streaming,
Of wild waves and breezes, that mingled their moan;
Of dim shrouded stars, as from gulfs faintly gleaming;
And I met the dread gloom of its grandeur alone.
I lay there in silence-a spirit came o'er me;
Man's tongue hath no language to speak what I saw:
Things glorious, unearthly, pass'd floating before me,
And my heart almost fainted with rapture and awe.
I view'd the dread beings around us that hover,
Though veil'd by the mists of mortality's breath;
And I call'd upon darkness the vision to cover,
For a strife was within me of madness and death.
I saw them-the powers of the wind and the ocean,
The rush of whose pinion bears onward the storms;
Like the sweep of the white-rolling wave was their motion,
I felt their dim presence,-but knew not their forms !
I saw them-the mighty of ages departed-
The dead were around me that night on the hill:
From their eyes, as they pass'd, a cold radiance they darted,-
There was light on my soul, but my heart's blood was chill.
I saw what man looks on, and dies-but my spirit
Was strong, and triumphantly lived through that hour;
And, as from the grave, I awoke to inherit
A flame all immortal, a voice, and a power !
Day burst on that rock with the purple cloud crested,
And high Cader Idris rejoiced in the sun;-
But O ! what new glory all nature invested,
When the sense which gives soul to her beauty was won !
poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans
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The Mirabeau bridge
Under the Mirabeau bridge flows the Seine
And all our loves
Why does it make so plain
That any joy must always follow pain
Let the night come the hour sound clear
The days all pass I’m still here
Our hands intertwined let’s stay face to face
While far below
The bridge of our arms strays
The languid wave of each endless gaze
Let the night come the hour sound clear
The days all pass I’m still here
Our love drifts away like these waters flow
Love drifts away
And our lives are so slow
With Hope more violent than we could know
Let the night come the hour sound clear
The days all pass I’m still here.
The days and weeks pass in a ceaseless train
But no past time
Or past love comes again
Under the Mirabeau bridge flows the Seine
Let the night come the hour sound clear
The days all pass I’m still here.
poem by Guillaume Apollinaire
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Manhattan Skyline
(mags/pal waaktaar)
We sit and watch umbrellas fly
Im trying to keep my newspaper dry
I hear myself say,
My boats leaving now
...so we shake hands and cry
Now I must wave goodbye
Wave goodbye
Wave goodbye
Wave goodbye
Wave goodbye
Wave goodbye
You know
I dont want to cry again
I dont want to cry again
Dont want to say goodbye
I dont want to cry again
I dont want to run away
Dont want to race this pain
Ill never see your face again
Oh but how
How can you say
That I didnt try...
You see things in the depths of my eyes
That may loves run dry
No...
We leave to their goodbyes
Ive come to depend on the look in their eyes
My bloods sweet for pain
The wind and the rain bring back words of a song
And they say: wave goodbye
Wave goodbye
Wave goodbye
Wave goodbye
Wave goodbye
Wave goodbye
But you know
I dont want to fall again
Dont want to look this pain
Dont want another friend
Dont want to try again
Dont want to see you hurt
Dont let me see you hurt
I dont want to cry again
Ill never see your face again
How can you say
That I didnt try
You know I did
You see things in the depths of my eyes
That my loves run dry
...so I read to myself:
A chance of a lifetime to see new horizons
On the front page
A black and white picture
Of manhattan skyline
song performed by by A-Ha
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Horologe Of The Fields
Addressed to a Young Lady, on seeing at the House of an
Acquaintance a magnificent French Timepiece.
FOR her who owns this splendid toy,
Where use with elegance unites,
Still may its index point to joy,
And moments wing'd with new delights.
Sweet may resound each silver bell,
And never quick returning chime,
Seem in reproving notes to tell,
Of hours mispent, and murder'd time.
Tho' Fortune, Emily, deny
To us these splendid works of art,
The woods, the lawns, the heaths supply
Lessons from Nature to the heart.
In every copse, and shelter'd dell,
Unveil'd to the observant eye,
Are faithful monitors, who tell
How pass the hours and seasons by.
The green robed children of the Spring
Will mark the periods as they pass,
Mingle with leaves Time's feather'd wing,
And bind with flowers his silent glass.
Mark where transparent waters glide,
Soft flowing o'er their tranquil bed;
There, cradled on the dimpling tide,
Nymphæa rests her lovely head.
But conscious of the earliest beam,
She rises from her humid rest,
And sees reflected in the stream
The virgin whiteness of her breast.
Till the bright daystar to the west
Declines, in Ocean's surge to lave,
Then folded in her modest vest,
She slumbers on the rocking wave.
See Hieracium's various tribe,
Of plumy seed and radiate flowers,
The course of Time their blooms describe
And wake or sleep appointed hours.
Broad o'er its imbricated cup
The Goatsbeard spreads its golden rays,
But shuts its cautious petals up,
Retreating from the noon-tide blaze:
Pale as a pensive cloister'd nun
The Bethlem-star, her face unveils,
When o'er the mountain peers the Sun,
But shades it from the vesper gales.
Among the loose and arid sands
The humble Arenaria creeps;
Slowly the purple star expands,
But soon within its calyx sleeps.
And those small bells so lightly ray'd
With young Aurora's rosy hue,
Are to the noon-tide Sun display'd,
But shut their plaits against the dew.
On upland slopes the shepherds mark
The hour, when as the dial true,
Cichorium to the towering Lark,
Lifts her soft eyes, serenely blue.
And thou 'Wee crimson tipped flower,'
Gatherest thy fringed mantle round
Thy bosom, at the closing hour,
When night drops bathe the turfy ground.
Unlike Silene, who declines
The garish noontide's blazing light;
But when the evening crescent shines
Gives all her sweetness to the night.
Thus in each flower and simple bell,
That in our path untrodden lie,
Are sweet remembrancers who tell
How fast the winged moments fly.
Time will steal on with ceaseless pace,
Yet lose we not the fleeting hours,
Who still their fairy footsteps trace,
As light they dance among the flowers.
poem by Charlotte Smith
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At Long Bay
FIVE years ago! you cannot choose
But know the face of change,
Though July sleeps and Spring renews
The gloss in gorge and range.
Five years ago! I hardly know
How they have slipped away,
Since here we watched at ebb and flow
The waters of the Bay;
And saw, with eyes of little faith,
From cumbered summits fade
The rainbow and the rainbow wraith,
That shadow of a shade.
For Love and Youth were vext with doubt,
Like ships on driving seas,
And in those days the heart gave out
Unthankful similes.
But let it be! I’ve often said
His lot was hardly cast
Who never turned a happy head
To an unhappy Past—
Who never turned a face of light
To cares beyond recall:
He only fares in sorer plight
Who hath no Past at all!
So take my faith, and let it stand
Between us for a sign
That five bright years have known the land
Since yonder tumbled line
Of seacliff took our troubled talk—
The words at random thrown,
And Echo lived about this walk
Of gap and slimy stone.
Here first we learned the Love which leaves
No lack or loss behind,
The dark, sweet Love which woos the eves
And haunts the morning wind.
And roves with runnels in the dell,
And houses by the wave
What time the storm hath struck the fell
And Terror fills the cave—
A Love, you know, that lives and lies
For moments past control,
And mellows through the Poet’s eyes
And sweetens in his soul.
Here first we faced a briny breeze,
What time the middle gale
Went shrilling over whitened seas
With flying towers of sail.
And here we heard the plovers call
As shattered pauses came,
When Heaven showed a fiery wall
With sheets of wasted flame.
Here grebe and gull and heavy glede
Passed eastward far away,
The while the wind, with slackened speed,
Drooped with the dying Day.
And here our friendship, like a tree,
Perennial grew and grew,
Till you were glad to live for me,
And I to live for you.
poem by Henry Kendall
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Written at Tivoli Falls
Sweet Tivoli! upon thy grassy side,
Whene'er I linger through the summer day,
And the soft music of thy silvery tide
So sweetly wiles the lagging hours away,
I cannot deem but thou are e'en as fair
As that Italian vale whose name thy waters bear.
O'er the old rocks thou boundest on thy way,
and wood, and glen, re-echo to thy song;
And then thy waters, weary of their play,
Through the long grass glide silently along,
So slow, and calm, as scarce to break the rest
Of the young flowers that sleep upon thy placid breast.
And sure no flowers are lovelier than these
That bloom so sweetly on thy grassy side,
And none more fair than the young forest trees,
That bathe their branches in thy crystal tide;
No sounds are sweeter than the winds at play
Amid these trembling pines at close of summer day.
Here by thy side I cannot feel alone;
Above my head the sheltering branches bend,
And at my feet the flowers; and thy low tone
Breathes softly in my ear, and, like a friend
Soothing my spirit, comes the perfumed air,
To kiss my fevered brow and play amid my hair.
Oh! when I turn me from the busy throng,
Chilled with their frozen words and heartless smiles,
I wander here, and thy melodious song,
And this sweet scene, my sadder mood beguiles;
And when I mingle with the crowd again,
More calm and holy thoughts flow through my burning brain.
Oft as I wander in these shadowy groves
My wayward fancy spreads her truant wing,
And through the past delightedly she roves,
From its recesses many a scene to bring
Of that far time, when, 'mid the deepening shade,
The Indian lover wooed, and won, his dusky maid.
And then she bears me on through future years,
When her frail prison will have passed away,
And she will look, with eyes undimmed by tears,
Upon the glories of a brighter day;
And still thy waves will glide as soft along;
And still thy praise be sung in many a sweeter song.
poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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To An Oak At Newstead
Young Oak! when I planted thee deep in the ground,
I hoped that thy days would be longer than mine;
That thy dark‑waving branches would flourish around,
And ivy thy trunk with its mantle entwine.
Such, such was my hope, when in infancy's
On the land of my fathers I rear'd thee with pride;
They are past, and I water thy stem with my tears,
Thy decay not the weeds that surround thee can hide.
I left thee, my Oak, and, since that fatal hour,
A stranger has dwelt in the hall of my sire;
Till manhood shall crown me, not mine is the power,
But his, whose neglect may have bade thee expire.
Oh! hardy thou went--even now little care
Might revive thy young head, and thy wounds gently heal:
But thou went not fated affection to share--
For who could suppose that a stranger would feel!
Ah, droop not, my Oak! lift thy head for a while;
Ere twice round yon Glory this planet shall run,
The hand of thy Master will teach thee to smile,
When Infancy's years of probation are done.
Oh, live then, my Oak! tow'r aloft from the weeds,
That clog thy young growth, and assist thy decay,
For still in thy bosom are life's early seeds,
And still may thy branches their beauty display.
Oh! yet, if maturity's years may be thine,
Though I shall lie low in the cavern of death,
On thy leaves yet the day‑beam of ages may shine,
Uninjured by time, or the rude winter's breath.
For centuries still may thy boughs lightly wave
O'er the Gorse of thy lord in thy canopy laid;
While the branches thus gratefully shelter his grave,
The chief who survives may recline in thy shade.
And as he, with his boys, shall revisit this spot,
He will tell them is whispers more softly to tread.
Oh! surely, by these I shall ne'er be forgot;
Remembrance still hallows the dust of the dead.
And here, will they say, when in life's glowing prime,
Perhaps he has pour'd forth his young simple lay,
And here must he sleep, till the moments of time
Are lost in the hours of Eternity's day.
Stanzas to the Po
River, that rollest by the ancient walls,
Where dwells the lady of my love, when she
Walks by thy brink, and there perchance recalls
A faint and fleeting memory of me;
What if thy deep and ample stream should be
A mirror of my heart, where she may read
The thousand thoughts I now betray to thee,
Wild as thy wave, and headlong as thy speed!
What do I say -a mirror of my heart?
Are not thy waters sweeping, dark, and strong?
Such as my feelings were and are, thou art;
And such as thou art were my passions long.
Time may have somewhat tamed them, -not for ever;
Thou overflow'st thy banks, and not for aye
The bosom overboils, congenial river!
Thy floods subside, and mine have sunk away.
But left long wrecks behind, and now again,
Born in our old unchanged career, we move;
Thou tendest wildly onwards to the main,
And I -to loving one I should not love.
The current I behold will sweep beneath
Her native walls and murmur at her feet;
Her eyes will look on thee, when she shall breathe
The twilight air, unharmed by summer's heat.
She will look on thee, -I have looked on thee,
Full of that thought; and, from that moment, ne'er
Thy waters could I dream of, name, or see,
Without the inseparable sigh for her!
Her bright eyes will be imaged in thy stream, -
Yes! they will meet the wave I gaze on now:
Mine cannot witness, even in a dream,
That happy wave repass me in its flow!
The wave that bears my tears returns no more:
Will she return by whom that wave shall sweep?
Both tread thy banks, both wander on thy shore,
I by thy source, she by the dark-blue deep.
But that which keepeth us apart is not
Distance, nor depth of wave, nor space of earth,
But the distraction of a various lot,
As various as the climates of our birth.
A stranger loves the lady of the land,
Born far beyond the mountains, but his blood
Is all meridian, as if never fanned
By the black wind that chills the polar flood.
My blood is all meridian; were it not,
I had not left my clime, nor should I be,
In spite of tortures, ne'er to be forgot,
A slave again of love, -at least of thee.
'Tis vain to struggle -let me perish young -
Live as I lived, and love as I have loved;
To dust if I return, from dust I sprung,
And then, at least, my heart can ne'er be moved.
poem by Byron (1819)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Palmyra (2nd Edition)
---anankta ton pantôn huperbal-
lonta chronon makarôn.
Pindar. Hymn. frag. 33
Spirit of the days of yore!
Thou! who, in thy haunted cave,
By the torrent's sounding shore,
Mark'st the autumnal tempest rave:
Or, where on some ivied wall
Twilight-mingled moonbeams fall,
Deep in aisles and cloisters dim,
Hear'st the grey monks' verpser hymn:
Or, beneath the cypress shade,
Where forgotten chiefs are laid,
Pacing slow with solemn tread,
Breathest the verse that wakes the dead---
By the ivied convent lone,
By the Runic warrior's stone,
By the mountain-cataract's roar,
Spirit! thee I seek no more.
Let me, remote from earthly care,
Thy philosophic vigils share,
Amid the wrecks of ancient time,
More sad, more solemn, more sublime,
Where, half-sunk in seas of sand,
Thedmor's marble wastes expand.
These silent wrecks, more eloquent than speech,
Full many a tale of awful note impart:
Truths more severe than bard or sage can teach
This pomp of ruin presses on the heart
Sad through the palm the evening breezes-sigh:
No sound of man the solitude pervades,
Where shattered forms of ancient monarchs lie,
Mid grass-grown halls, and falling colonnades.
Beneath the drifting sand, the clustering weed,
Rest the proud relics of departed power.
None may the trophy-cinctured tablet read,
On votive urn, or monumental tower,
Nor tell whose wasted forms the mouldering tombs embower.
Enthusiast fancy, robed in light,
Dispels oblivion's deepening night.
Her charms a solemn train unfold,
Sublime on evening clouds of gold,
Of sceptred kings, in proud array,
And laurelled chiefs, and sages grey.
But whose the forms, oh fame! declare,
That crowd majestic on the air?
Pour from thy deathless roll the praise
Of kings renowned in elder days.
I call in vain! The welcome strain
Of praise to them no more shall sound:
Their actions bright must sleep in night,
Till time shall cease his mystic round.
The glories of their ancient sway
The stream of years has swept away:
Their names, that nations heard with fear,
Shall ring no more on mortal ear.
Yet still the muse's eye may trace
The noblest chief of Thedmor's race,
Who, by Euphrates' startling waves,
Bade outraged Rome her prostrate might unfold,
Tore from the brow of Persia's pride
The wreath in crimson victory dyed,
And o'er his flying slaves
Tumultuous ruin rolled.
Throned by his side, a lovely form,
In youthful majesty sublime,
Like sun-beams through the scattering storm,
Shines through the floating mists of time:
Even as in other years she shone,
When here she fixed her desert-throne,
Triumphant in the transient smiles of fate;
When Zabdas led her conquering bands
O'er Asia's many-peopled lands,
And subject monarchs thronged her palace-gate:
Ere yet stern war's avenging storm,
Captivity's dejected form,
And death, in solitude and darkness furled,
Closed round the setting star, that ruled the eastern world.
Dim shades around her move again,
From memory blotted by the lapse of years:
Yet, foremost in the sacred train,
The venerable sage appears,
Who once, these desolate arcades
And time-worn porticoes among,
Disclosed to princely youths and high-born maids
The secret fountains of Mæonian song,
And traced the mazy warblings of the lyre,
With all a critic's art, and all a poet's fire.
What mystic form, uncouth and dread,
With withered cheek, and hoary head,
Swift as the death-fire cleaves the sky,
Swept on sounding pinions by?
'Twas Time. I know the foe of kings,
His scythe, and sand, and eagle-wings:
He cast a burning look around,
And waved his bony hand, and frowned.
Far from the spectre's scowl of fire,
Fancy's feeble forms retire:
Her air-born phantoms melt away,
Like stars before the rising day.
One shadowy tint enwraps the plain:
No form is near, no steps intrude,
To break the melancholy reign
Of silence and of solitude.
Ah! little thought the wealthy proud,
When rosy pleasure laughed aloud,
And music, with symphonious swell,
Attuned to joy her festal shell,
That here, amid their ancient land,
The wanderer of the distant days
Should mark, with sorrow-clouded gaze,
The mighty wilderness of sand,
While not a sound should meet his ear,
Save of the desert-gales, that sweep,
In modulated murmurs deep,
The wasted graves above
Of those, who once had revelled here
In happiness and love.
Short is the space to man assigned,
His earthly vale to tread.
He wanders, erring, weak, and blind,
By adverse passions led:
Love, that with feeling's tenderest flow
To rapture turns divided woe,
And brightens every smile of fate
That kindred souls participate:
Jealousy, whose poisonous breath
Blasts affection's opening bud:
Wild despair, that laughs in death:
Stern revenge, that bathes in blood:
Fear, that his form in darkness shrouds,
And trembles at the whispering air:
And hope, that pictures on the clouds
Celestial visions, false, but fair.
From the earliest twilight-ray,
That marked creation's natal day,
Till yesterday's declining fire,
Thus still have rolled, perplexed by strife,
he many-mingling wheels of life,
And still shall roll, till time's last beams expire.
And thus, in every age, in every clime,
While years swift-circling fly,
The varying deeds, that mark the present time,
Will be but shadows of the days gone by.
Swift as the meteor's midnight course,
Swift as the cataract's headlong force,
Swift as the clouds, whose changeful forms
Hang on the rear of flying storms,
So swift is Time's colossal stride
Above the wrecks of human pride.
These temples, awful in decay,
Whose ancient splendor half endures,
These arches, dim in parting day,
These dust-defiled entablatures,
These shafts, whose prostrate pride around
The desert-weed entwines its wreath,
These capitals, that strew the ground,
Their shattered colonnades beneath,
These pillars, white in lengthening files,
Grey tombs, and broken peristyles,
May yet, through many an age, retain
The pomp of Thedmor's wasted reign:
But Time still shakes, with giant-tread,
The marble city of the dead,
That crushed at last, a shapeless heap,
Beneath the drifted sands shall sleep.
The flower, that drinks the morning-dew,
Far on the evening gale shall fly:
The bark, that glides o'er ocean blue,
Dashed on the distant rocks shall lie:
The tower, that frowns in martial pride,
Shall by the lightning-brand be riven:
The arch, that spans the summer tide,
Shall down the wintry floods be driven:
The tomb, that guards the great one's name,
Shall yield to time its sacred trust:
The laurel of imperial fame
Shall wither in unwatered dust.
His mantle dark oblivion flings
Around the monuments of kings,
Who once to conquest shouting myriads bore.
Fame's trumpet-blast, and victory's clarion shrill,
Pass, like an echo of the hill,
That breathes one wild response, and then is heard no more.
But ne'er shall earthly time throw down
The immortal pile that virtue rears:
Her golden throne, and starry crown,
Decay not with revolving years:
For He, whose solemn voice controlled
Necessity's mysterious sway,
And yon vast orbs from chaos rolled
Along the elliptic paths of day,
Has fixed her empire, vast and high,
Where primogenial harmony
Unites, in ever-cloudless skies,
Affection's death-divided ties;
Where wisdom, with unwearying gaze,
The universal scheme surveys,
And truth, in central light enshrined,
Leads to its source sublime the indissoluble mind.
poem by Thomas Love Peacock
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Waiting In Vain
I STAND ALONE UNDER THAT TREE
WAITING FOR YOU
I DON’T SEE THE HOURS FLYING BY
THE PEOPLE DARTING BY
THE TREE UNDER WHICH WE HAD MET
DAYS PASS INTO MONTHS AND YEARS
STILL AM WAITING FOR YOU
AS TIME PASSES BY THE LOVE FOR YOU
GROWS AS THE BRANCHES OF THE TREE
BUT ONE DAY ALL THE LOVE SHATTERED
AS I SEE YOU UNDER THAT TREE
IN SOMEBODY ELSES ARMS.
ALL THOSE YEARS OF WAITING WAS REWARDED
BY THE HAPPINESS YOU HAVE
BUT AM LEFT BEHIND THINKING
IS THIS THE ONE I WAITED FOR
ALL THESE YEARS IN VAIN.
poem by Kanu Aravind
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Passing
The change, it comes so slowly
Like the winter of our lives,
It encroaches while we're playing,
While we're laughing with our wives,
As the children wave goodbye
The first brief chill will still the air,
And that silence settles on us
As they turn, and close the door.
Then we stare long at each other
But we find no words to say,
You have been the faithful mother
That I married, back some way,
But I see your smile has faded
With the passing of the years,
And you turn your face away so I
Won't see that trace of tears.
Are you thinking of that moment
When you held that new born child,
Of the joy of those first steps, or of
The day your baby smiled?
And the schooling and the learning
And the knees they brought home skinned,
Or the pride you took each time you watched
That graduation film.
While I find my own thoughts turning
To those days before we wed,
To your awesome, breathless beauty
As you passed, and turned my head,
Of that first-time kiss I savoured
Out beneath the apple tree,
When I took you to my heart, and you
First said you wanted me.
Now we're grey, and more like shadows
Since the lust in us has died,
And we rarely touch each other
Since we turned to ash inside,
For the years of work and struggle
Took their toll on you and I,
And I hear you every evening as
You go outside to cry.
All those dreams that ended shattered,
All those hopes that turned to tears,
Here we sit, both disillusioned
With the tolling of the years,
And we pass our friends unseeing
As we wander in the street,
We are ghosts, a long time passing
Now our story is complete.
We are like the leaves of autumn
That have fallen from the trees,
Blowing through our days unspoken
With each passing, gentle breeze,
We will fade and be forgotten
In the long term way of things,
But we'll cling in desperation for
What each last moment brings.
25 November 2012
poem by David Lewis Paget
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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