A Clock Striking Midnight
Hark to the echo of Time’s footsteps; gone
Thise moments are into the unseen grave
Of ages. Thy have vanished nameless. None,
While they are deep under the eddying wave
Of the chaotic past, shall placea stone
Sacred to these, the nurses of the brave,
The mighty, and the good. Futurity
Broods on the ocean, hatching ‘neath her wing
Invisible to man the century,
That on its hundered feet, a sluggish thing
Gnawing away the world, shall totter by
And sweep dead mortals with it. As I sing
Time, the colossus of the world, that strides
With each foot plunged in darkness silent glides,
And puffs death’s cloud upon us. It is vain
To struggle with the tide; we all must sink
Still grasping the thin air, with frantic pain
Grappling with Fame to buoy us. Can we think
Eternity, by whom swift Time is slain,
And dragged along to dark destruction’s brink,
Shall be the echo of man’s puny words?
Or that our grovelling thoughts shall e’er be writ
In never fading stars; or like proud birds
Undazzled in their cloud-built eyrie sit
Clutching the lightning, or in darting herds
Diving amid the sea’s vast treasury flit?
Sink, painted clay, back to thy parent earth
While the glad spirit seeks a brighter birth.
poem by Thomas Lovell Beddoes
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Related quotes
I Am My World
I am my world
my world of roses, birds, bees
and little things
yet as I think
it seems a vast world
of perpetuating thoughts
its unending
ray after ray, wave after wave
to time's last noted echo
it extends
my world
Ha! my world
I make my world
my world of blissful solitude
waves the field
and empurpling skies in west
and glittering dreams...
poem by Priyanka Nath
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In Memoriam Matris
IN my hot youth I rashly penned
A Sonnet of the After-life.
It was the time of stress and strife
Through which the ardent soul must wend.
It was the Spring-time of my days,
When Doubt, like an inspired sage,
With creeds did eager warfare wage,
And looked with scorn on ancient ways.
But gazing back across the years
That separate my youth from me,
These words and thoughts now seem to be
All dim, as through a mist of tears.
For then I saw, with eager eyes,
A coming world where joy would reign,
And evil pass away, and pain,
When man was rid of priestly ties.
While now I turn a backward gaze
On visions fled, and vanished hours,
On dead dry leaves and perished flow'rs,
That make the story of my days.
And midway on that dreary track
I see a grave-stone, standing white —
Far off. I see it in the night;
It says, “Thy mother comes not back.”
We brought her from the Austral land,
To this the land that gave her birth;
We laid her cold, in English earth,
My sire and I — and now we stand,
Like aliens, on a dreary shore,
Though once he fondly called it “Home.”
Now, old and mateless, he would roam
Back to that southern land once more.
For there her spirit seems to be,
There lie her babes beneath the sod;
And there, but for the hand of God,
Her grandchild would have climbed her knee.
* * * * *
These verses of the heedless Past,
They echo not my saddened thought,
— I held that after death came nought:
The earth was not then on her cast.
Denial now is dumb within,
Without I can but grope my way,
And trust that in some brighter day
Man's soul shall live — absolved of sin.
poem by Arthur Patchett Martin
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The Sphinx
Wanderer, behold Life's riddle writ in stone,
Fronting Eternity with lidless eyes;
Of all that is beneath the changing skies,
Immutably abiding and alone.
The handiwork of hands unseen, unknown,
When Pharaohs of immortal dynasties
Built Pyramids to brave the centuries,
Cheating Annihilation of her own.
The heart grows hushed before it. Nay, methinks
That Man, and all on which Man wastes his breath,
The World, and all the World inheriteth,
With infinite, inexorable links
Grappling the soul; that love, hate, birth and death
Dwindle to nothingness before thee--Sphinx.
poem by Mathilde Blind
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The Wanderer
ON unknown paths I falter forth,
A homeless wand'rer in the world;
Doubtful I flit across the earth,
Whither by blowing fates I'm hurled.
I grope about the pathless wood;
I tread along the boundless plain;
And with the wind's capricious mood,
I sink and rise upon the main.
The lonely cloud within the sky,
That by conflicting gales is torn,
Sways to and fro no more than I,
Now eastward, and now westward borne.
The crested billow on the deep
Knows to which shore its current lies;
The blast--the realms which he must sweep;
The ant--the hill to which it hies.
The stork that seeks the tropic glows,
It knoweth whither it is bound;
And the revolving planet knows
The circle of its luminous round.
But I, confusèd, seek a way
In darkness here; I fall, I sigh,
Upon a broken wing I stray,
And all my help lies in a cry!
poem by Mathilde Blind
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The Three Voices
The waves have a story to tell me,
As I lie on the lonely beach;
Chanting aloft in the pine-tops,
The wind has a lesson to teach;
But the stars sing an anthem of glory
I cannot put into speech.
The waves tell of ocean spaces,
Of hearts that are wild and brave,
Of populous city places,
Of desolate shores they lave,
Of men who sally in quest of gold
To sink in an ocean grave.
The wind is a mighty roamer;
He bids me keep me free,
Clean from the taint of the gold-lust,
Hardy and pure as he;
Cling with my love to nature,
As a child to the mother-knee.
But the stars throng out in their glory,
And they sing of the God in man;
They sing of the Mighty Master,
Of the loom his fingers span,
Where a star or a soul is a part of the whole,
And weft in the wondrous plan.
Here by the camp-fire's flicker,
Deep in my blanket curled,
I long for the peace of the pine-gloom,
When the scroll of the Lord is unfurled,
And the wind and the wave are silent,
And world is singing to world.
poem by Robert William Service
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Answer To A Beautiful Poem, Entitled 'The Common Lot
MONTGOMERY! true, the common lot
Of mortals lies in Lethe's wave;
Yet some shall never be forgot,
Some shall exist beyond the grave.
'Unknown the region of his birth,'
The hero rolls the tide of war;
Yet not unknown his martial worth,
Which glares a meteor from afar.
His joy or grief; his weal or woe,
Perchance may 'scape the page of fame;
Yet nations now unborn will know
The record of his deathless name.
The patriot's and the poet's frame
Must share the common tomb of all:
Their glory will not sleep the same;
That will arise, though empires fail.
The lustre of a beauty's eye
Assumes the ghastly stare of death;
The fair, the brave, the good must die,
And sink the yawning grave beneath
Once more the speaking eye revive,
Still beaming through the lover's strain;
For Petrarch's Laura still survives:
She died, but ne'er will die again.
The rolling seasons pass away,
And Time, untiring, waves his wing;
Whilst honour's laurel ne'er decay,
But bloom in fresh, unfading spring.
All, all must sleep in grim repose,
Collected in the silent tomb;
The old and young, with friends and foes,
Fest'ring alike in shrouds, consume.
The mouldering marble lasts its day,
Yet falls at length an useless fane;
To ruin's ruthless fangs a prey,
The wrecks of pillar'd pride remain.
What, though the sculpture he destroy'd,
From dark oblivion meant to ward;
A bright renown shall he enjoy'd
By those whose virtues claim reward
Then do not say the common lot
Of all lies deep in Lethe's wave;
Some few who ne'er will be forgot
Shall burst the bondage of the grave.
Answer to a Beautiful Poem
Montgomery! true, the common lot
Of mortals lies in Lethe’s wave;
Yet some shall never be forgot,
Some shall exist beyond the grave.
“Unknown the region of his birth,”
The hero rolls the tide of war;
Yet not unknown his martial worth,
Which glares a meteor from afar.
His joy or grief; his weal or woe,
Perchance may ’scape the page of fame;
Yet nations now unborn will know
The record of his deathless name.
The patriot’s and the poet’s frame
Must share the common tomb of all:
Their glory will not sleep the same;
That will arise, though empires fall.
The lustre of a Beauty’s eye
Assumes the ghastly stare of death;
The fair, the brave, the good must die,
And sink the yawning grave beneath.
Once more the speaking eye revive,
Still beaming through the lover’s strain;
For Petrarch’s Laura still survives:
She died, but ne’er will die again.
The rolling seasons pass away,
And Time, untiring, waves his wing;
Whilst honour’s laurel ne’er decay,
But bloom in fresh, unfading spring.
All, all must sleep in grim repose,
Collected in the silent tomb;
The old and young, with friends and foes,
Fest’ring alike in shrouds, consume.
The mouldering marble lasts its day,
Yet falls at length on useless fane;
To ruin’s ruthless fangs a prey,
The wrecks of pillar’d pride remain.
What, though the sculpture he destroy’d,
From dark oblivion meant to ward;
A bright renown shall be enjoy’d
By those whose virtues claim reward.
Then do not say the common lot
Of all lies deep in Lethe’s wave;
Some few who ne’er will be forgot
Shall burst the bondage of the grave.
poem by Byron (1807)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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My Master
Excellent my master thou art
rebuking and pacifying me at a time
asking me to sit down and stand still
and making me kneel down at a time.
shedding me tears in my eyes
giving me a smile on my lips
at a time asking me to be furious
I can not make sure, what to do?
Praising sometime for unwarranted deeds
telling sometime me a greatest fool
sometime showing me a splendid castle
at a time telling me your cottage is better
Giving me a lesson of universal kind
asking me the answer of selfish kind
Thou art my master
tell me what to say?
The helm of my life is on thy hand
sail thy ship as you like
if i sink in the whirlpool of this world ocean
I know you are the master of this great ocean
Sail me across this world
the depth of this ocean is too deep
wave of this ocean is more that Everest mount
but i have to go across the world
Because my destination is far flung
thou art my master
i must obey you, as i know
you will never let me sink.
poem by Ramesh Rai
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All the Hills and Vales Along
All the hills and vales along
Earth is bursting into song,
And the singers are the chaps
Who are going to die perhaps.
O sing, marching men,
Till the valleys ring again.
Give your gladness to earth's keeping,
So be glad, when you are sleeping.
Cast away regret and rue,
Think what you are marching to.
Little live, great pass.
Jesus Christ and Barabbas
Were found the same day.
This died, that went his way.
So sing with joyful breath,
For why, you are going to death.
Teeming earth will surely store
All the gladness that you pour.
Earth that never doubts nor fears,
Earth that knows of death, not tears,
Earth that bore with joyful ease
Hemlock for Socrates,
Earth that blossomed and was glad
'Neath the cross that Christ had,
Shall rejoice and blossom too
When the bullet reaches you.
Wherefore, men marching
On the road to death, sing!
Pour your gladness on earth's head,
So be merry, so be dead.
From the hills and valleys earth
Shouts back the sound of mirth,
Tramp of feet and lilt of sing
Ringing all the road along.
All the music of their going,
Ringing swinging glad song-throwing,
Earth will echo still, when foot
Lies numb and voice mute.
On, marching men, on
To the gates of death with song.
Sow your gladness for earth's reaping,
So you may be glad, though sleeping.
Strew your gladness on earth's bed,
So be merry, so be dead.
poem by Charles Hamilton Sorley
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Lines on an incident observed from the deck of a steamboat on the Mississippi river
Where the dark primeval forests
Rise against the western sky
And "the Father of the Waters"
In his strength goes rushing by:
There an eagle, flying earthward
From his eyrie far above,
With a serpent of the forest
In a fierce encounter strove.
Now he gains and now he loses,
Now he frees his ruffled wings;
And now high in air he rises;
But the serpent round him clings.
In that death embrace entwining,
Now they sink and now they rise;
But the serpent wins the battle
With the monarch of the skies.
Yet his wings still struggle upward,
Though that crushing weight they bear;
But more feebly those broad pinions
Strike the waves of upper air.
Down to earth he sinks a captive
In that writhing, living chain;
Never o'er the blue horizon
Will his proud form sweep again.
Never more in lightning flashes
Will his eye of terror gleam
Round the high and rocky eyrie,
Where his lonely eaglets scream.
Oh majestic, royal eagle,
Soaring sunward from thy birth,
Thou hast lost the realm of heaven
For one moment on the earth!
poem by Anne Lynch Botta from Poems (1848)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Eternal God And Loving Sustainer
Eternal Mighty God and Creator is our Loving Provider and Sustainer.
Everywhere on earth you can trod you find evidence of a Mighty God.
Mighty indeed with power from above and mightier is His Awesome Love.
God put to death His Only Seed, how can He not give us all we need?
Throughout your own life's pages you will find The Rock of All Ages.
He's there at every instance, for He spoke the world into existence.
He has always been Eternal God with Jesus and The Spirit at His side.
He gave us The Spirit to live inside to be our teacher and our guide.
Indeed God can be your provider and in eternally more ways than one.
First there's no way to deny it, He sent as a sacrifice His only Son.
God will provide all you need on earth to your death from your birth.
He provided us with new birth so we're not destroyed with the earth.
It is by Jesus, for whom all was made, that this earth is sustained.
The entire earth belongs to God, every spot where your foot may trod.
God gave you the breath of life and sustains you both day and night.
Not only you and I friend but the entire world from beginning to end.
To sustain you through Eternity God must first destroy your iniquity.
If Christ is not your desire, He'll preserve you in The Lake of Fire.
Sustained by God in a world of sin, imagine life as Eternity begins.
On the cross Christ set you free so He can sustain you in Eternity.
(Copyright ©03/2004)
Song Of The Furies
Up and lead the dance of Fate!
Lift the song that mortals hate!
Tell what rights are ours on earth,
Over all of human birth.
Swift of foot to avenge are we!
He whose hands are clean and pure,
Naught our wrath to dread hath he;
Calm his cloudless days endure.
But the man that seeks to hide
Like him (1), his gore-bedewèd hands,
Witnesses to them that died,
The blood avengers at his side,
The Furies' troop forever stands.
O'er our victim come begin!
Come, the incantation sing,
Frantic all and maddening,
To the heart a brand of fire,
The Furies' hymn,
That which claims the senses dim,
Tuneless to the gentle lyre,
Withering the soul within.
The pride of all of human birth,
All glorious in the eye of day,
Dishonored slowly melts away,
Trod down and trampled to the earth,
Whene'er our dark-stoled troop advances,
Whene'er our feet lead on the dismal dances.
For light our footsteps are,
And perfect is our might,
Awful remembrances of guilt and crime,
Implacable to mortal prayer,
Far from the gods, unhonored, and heaven's light,
We hold our voiceless dwellings dread,
All unapproached by living or by dead.
What mortal feels not awe,
Nor trembles at our name,
Hearing our fate-appointed power sublime,
Fixed by the eternal law.
For old our office, and our fame,
Might never yet of its due honors fail,
Though 'neath the earth our realm in unsunned regions pale.
Route March
All the hills and vales along
Earth is bursting into song,
And the singers are the chaps
Who are going to die perhaps.
O sing, marching men,
Till the valleys ring again.
Give your gladness to earth's keeping,
So be glad, when you are sleeping.
Cast away regret and rue,
Think what you are marching to,
Little live, great pass.
Jesus Christ and Barabbas
Were found the same day.
This died, that, went his way.
So sing with joyful breath.
For why, you are going to death.
Teeming earth will surely store
All the gladness that you pour.
Earth that never doubts nor fears
Earth that knows of death, not tears,
Earth that bore with joyful ease
Hemlock for Socrates,
Earth that blossomed and was glad
'Neath the cross that Christ had,
Shall rejoice and blossom too
When the bullet reaches you.
Wherefore, men marching
On the road to death, sing!
Pour gladness on earth's head,
So be merry, so be dead.
From the hills and valleys earth
Shouts back the sound of mirth,
Tramp of feet and lilt of song
Ringing all the road along.
All the music of their going,
Ringing swinging glad song-throwing,
Earth will echo still, when foot
Lies numb and voice mute.
On marching men, on
To the gates of death with song.
Sow your gladness for earth's reaping,
So you may be glad though sleeping.
Strew your gladness on earth's bed,
So be merry, so be dead.
poem by Charles Hamilton Sorley
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Lexington
1775.
No Berserk thirst of blood had they,
No battle-joy was theirs, who set
Against the alien bayonet
Their homespun breasts in that old day.
Their feet had trodden peaceful, ways;
They loved not strife, they dreaded pain;
They saw not, what to us is plain,
That God would make man's wrath his praise.
No seers were they, but simple men;
Its vast results the future hid
The meaning of the work they did
Was strange and dark and doubtful then.
Swift as their summons came they left
The plough mid-furrow standing still,
The half-ground corn grist in the mill,
The spade in earth, the axe in cleft.
They went where duty seemed to call,
They scarcely asked the reason why;
They only knew they could but die,
And death was not the worst of all!
Of man for man the sacrifice,
All that was theirs to give, they gave.
The flowers that blossomed from their grave
Have sown themselves beneath all skies.
Their death-shot shook the feudal tower,
And shattered slavery's chain as well;
On the sky's dome, as on a bell,
Its echo struck the world's great hour.
That fateful echo is not dumb
The nations listening to its sound
Wait, from a century's vantage-ground,
The holier triumphs yet to come,--
The bridal time of Law and Love,
The gladness of the world's release,
When, war-sick, at the feet of Peace
The hawk shall nestle with the dove!--
The golden age of brotherhood
Unknown to other rivalries
Than of the mild humanities,
And gracious interchange of good,
When closer strand shall lean to strand,
Till meet, beneath saluting flags,
The eagle of our mountain-crags,
The lion of our Motherland!
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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Echo
Echo, echo...
We come, we go-woah
No I don't want to be just another
Echo, echo...
Everywhere I go
There's something I really need
Everyone I know
Is someone I want to be
Even though
I don't really know me
I better pick it up
Before I let it slip away
I better stick it out
Before I take another day
Into mouth
Everything I say fades out
Echo, echo...
We come, we go-woah
No I don't want to be just another
Echo, echo...
Can I open up your eyes?
Only when the clouds break?
Can I feel the light?
Even though the world shakes
Every night,
You're my quiet satellite
Can I hold you close?
Do her out of focus
And everything I know
I don't even know this
It all falls through
I'm here and I hear you
Echo, echo...
We come, we go-woah
No I don't want to be just another
Echo, echo...
Do you hear me?
Do you hear me?
Cause I need to, just to reach you
Do you hear me?
Coming clearly?
Am I hollow?
Just an echo
Echo, echo...
We come, we go-woah
No I don't want to be just another
Echo, echo...
Echo, echo...
We come, we go-woah
No I don't want to be just another
Echo, echo...
song performed by by Vertical Horizon
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A dialog with the sea
I wrote her a poem upon the surf sand
But came the scudding waves and washed it all away
Again I wrote my verse the next day on the strand
But came the proud tide and made my pain its prey.
Mighty sea that sway up and down and breath by ancient shore
Along which the lady of my love, perchance when she
Walks by your pebbled brink you may bring to her more
Of the lines you have stolen virulently from me
Colossus vast sea what if your deep sapphire stream should be
A mirror of my pain and pangs where she can read
The thousands of thoughts you have betrayed from me
As wild and tempestuous as your inner powerful streams treat
Ah now the mirror of my love forlorn heart
Your waves and currents are sweeping dark and strong
Such as my feelings are along every part
Constant and persistent as you are such are my passions long
Ah, proud ocean of the sea, do not mock me
Time may not tame them as well you may see
For as you overflow your banks shore
And then your floods subside, yet my feelings for ever soar
And if you refuse, reject and not relent my plea
My lines will live and gnaw your inner bosom sea
The only way left for you to regret and repent
Your betrayal deeds is to succumb to my demand
For now that you have stolen my verses out of love I spell
You will suffer and live under its venomous acidic spell
Vex and tormented for days in eternity
Unless you release the imp and capture her heart for me
As a messenger of my love you let your wave sweep beneath
Her as she stroll along your white sand shore and murmur at her feet
And her eyes will look at it as she shall breath
The gentle breeze fresh distilled and unharmed by summer day heat
She will examine my lines as I have written upon your bosom
Full of that thought and from that moment on never
your waves can I dream of, name, or see any joy or blossom
Without the inseparable sigh for her
My lines will be imagined in your waves of stream
She will meet the waves; they will roll on to her show
I cannot witness even in the wildest dream
the happy gallant wave re-passing her in its flow
Her bright eyes will shine as she reads the lines in your depth
They will meet the mighty foaming wave I gaze on now full length
The wave that bears my tears returns no more
As my love engulf and swallow every word of your glamor
My verse will live in your depth as the sea grasses live the the sea
Brought up by each wave as it passes, drawn down by each ebb that regresses
For I have expelled my soul of all the dreams that I gathered for her into thee
So that I beat with her heart as it beats; I follow her soul for all its blesses
Time writes no lines or wrinkles on your azure brow
Such as Creation's dawn beheld, you roll on now
As we wanton with your breakers for miles in duns acres with no rest
These lines mused by her will for eternity live in your vast endless chest
Copy rights 2010
All rights reserved
Time
Friend, as the moments tick away, we can see the end of another day,
And as time continues marching on, soon we see another year is gone.
Friend, time for no one will stand still, but it continues on by God’s will.
And time each day does not change, for every man it stays the same.
All time by God has one set pace, for every man in this human race.
The only thing that varies friend, is your own beginning and your end,
That single day of your own birth, the very day you arrived on earth.
And the day that you shall depart, from this place you had your start.
At that point again time will be, the same for all throughout eternity.
The length of time you will endure, is the time will call forevermore.
Once in eternity you have a start, you will find that you won’t depart.
Throughout eternity there is no end, this truth is fact for all my friend.
The length of the coming eternity, is the end of any and all similarity.
There is one of two places friend, where in eternity you shall spend.
For when all men from earth depart, they leave with a different heart.
Your time on the earth can not be, compared at all with your eternity.
For when your time on earth is done, you’ll see darkness or The Son.
Friend, Hell is that special place, so men don’t have to see God’s face.
Since the darkness was their delight, God made for them eternal night.
If Christ has saved you from the night, you will enter His Eternal Light.
For those who do believe in Christ, for them, God offers Eternal Life.
All other men upon their last breath, shall descend into eternal death.
For unbelievers there is no return, from the fire that will eternally burn.
In the time you have left on earth, you need to experience a new birth.
For when your time does pass away, where you go you will go to stay.
The Desert
Uncircumscribed, unmeasured, vast,
Eternal as the Sea;
What lacks the tidal sea thou hast--
Profound stability.
Beneath the sun that burns and brands
In hushed Noon's halting breath,
Calm as the Sphinx upon thy sands
Thou art--nay, calm as death.
The desert foxes hide in holes,
The jackal seeks his lair;
The sombre rocks, like reddening coals,
Glow lurid in the glare.
Only some vulture far away,
Bald-headed, harpy-eyed,
Flaps down on lazy wing to prey
On what has lately died.
No palm tree lifts a lonely shade,
No dove is on the wing;
It seems a land which Nature made
Without a living thing,
Or wreckage of some older world,
Ere children grew, or flowers,
When rocks and hissing stones were hurled
In hot, volcanic showers.
The solemn Blue bends over all;
Far as winged thought may flee
Roll ridges of black mountain wall,
And flat sands like the sea.
No trace of footsteps to be seen,
No tent, no smoking roof;
Nay, even the vagrant Beeshareen
Keeps warily aloof.
But yon, mid tumbled hillocks prone,
Some human form I scan--
A human form, indeed, but stone:
A cold, colossal Man!
How came he here mid piling sands,
Like some huge cliff enisled,
Osiris-wise, with folded hands,
Mute spirit of the Wild?
Ages ago the hands that hewed,
And in the living rock
Carved this Colossus, granite-thewed
And curled each crispy lock:
Ages ago have dropped to rest
And left him passive, prone,
Forgotten on earth's barren breast,
Half statue and half stone.
And Persia ruled and Palestine;
And o'er her violet seas
Arose, with marble gods divine,
The grace of god-like Greece.
And Rome, the Mistress of the World,
Amid her diadem
Of Eastern Empires set impearled
The Scarab's mystic gem.
Perchance he has been lying here
Since first the world began,
Poor Titan of some earlier sphere
Of prehistoric Man!
To whom we are as idle flies,
That fuss and buzz their day;
While still immutable he lies,
As long ago he lay.
Empurpled in the Afterglow,
Thou, with the Sun alone,
Of all the stormy waste below,
Art King, but king of stone!
Uncircumscribed, unmeasured, vast,
Eternal as the Sea,
The present here becomes the past,
For all futurity.
poem by Mathilde Blind
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Sweet Echo Dell
"Three there were that left my cot;
Two are here, and one is not;
Why does Willie linger? Say, can you tell?"
"He was weary by the way;
When we came he could but stay
In the shady grove at Sweet Echo Dell."
Echo Dell! (Echo Dell!) Echo Dell! (Echo Dell!)
It was there we softly said "Farewell!" ("Farewell!")
And the towering granite crest
Nobly guards his place rest,
Near the lovely lake of Sweet Echo Dell.
"Is he laden well with gold?
Does he bring me wealth untold?
Why then does he linger? Say can you tell?"
"All his treasures are above;
All he sent you was his love,
With a whispered prayer from Sweet Echo Dell."
Coming homeward, does he sing
Like a lark upon the wing?
Why then does he linger? Say, can you tell?"
Naught is heard but rippling waves,
Warbling birds, and shouting braves;
Silent is his voice in Sweet Echo Dell."
"Is he coming by-and-by?
May I bless him ere I die?
Why then does he linger? Say, can you tell?"
"Mirrored in that mountain lake,
Heaven is near, and he will wake
Never elsewhere than in Sweet Echo Dell."
"Would you crush my only joy?
Surely I shall meet my boy;
When then does he linger? Say, can you tell?"
"Never will his weary feet
Travel more, yet may soon meet
When your soul floats over Sweet Echo Dell."
poem by Henry Clay Work
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Raleigh’s Cell In The Tower
HERE writ was the World's History by his hand
Whose steps knew all the earth; albeit his world
In these few piteous paces then was furl'd.
Here daily, hourly, have his proud feet spann'd
This smaller speck than the receding land
Had ever shown his ships; what time he hurl'd
Abroad o'er new-found regions spiced and pearl'd
His country's high dominion and command.
Here dwelt two spheres. The vast terrestrial zone
His spirit traversed; and that spirit was
Itself the zone celestial, round whose birth
The planets played within the zodiac's girth;
Till hence, through unjust death unfeared, did pass
His spirit to the only land unknown.
poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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