The Raft
The whole world on a raft! A King is here,
The record of his grandeur but a smear.
Is it his deacon-beard, or old bald pate
That makes the band upon his whims to wait?
Loot and mud-honey have his soul defiled.
Quack, pig, and priest, he drives camp-meetings wild
Until they shower their pennies like spring rain
That he may preach upon the Spanish main.
What landlord, lawyer, voodoo-man has yet
A better native right to make men sweat?
The whole world on a raft! A Duke is here
At sight of whose lank jaw the muses leer.
Journeyman-printer, lamb with ferret eyes,
In life's skullduggery he takes the prize —
Yet stands at twilight wrapped in Hamlet dreams.
Into his eyes the Mississippi gleams.
The sandbar sings in moonlit veils of foam.
A candle shines from one lone cabin home.
The waves reflect it like a drunken star.
A banjo and a hymn are heard afar.
No solace on the lazy shore excels
The Duke's blue castle with its steamer-bells.
The floor is running water, and the roof
The stars' brocade with cloudy warp and woof.
And on past sorghum fields the current swings.
To Christian Jim the Mississippi sings.
This prankish wave-swept barque has won its place,
A ship of jesting for the human race.
But do you laugh when Jim bows down forlorn
His babe, his deaf Elizabeth to mourn?
And do you laugh, when Jim, from Huck apart
Gropes through the rain and night with breaking heart?
But now that imp is here and we can smile,
Jim's child and guardian this long-drawn while.
With knife and heavy gun, a hunter keen,
He stops for squirrel-meat in islands green.
The eternal gamin, sleeping half the day,
Then stripped and sleek, a river-fish at play.
And then well-dressed, ashore, he sees life spilt.
The river-bank is one bright crazy-quilt
Of patch-work dream, of wrath more red than lust,
Where long-haired feudist Hotspurs bite the dust...
This Huckleberry Finn is but the race,
America, still lovely in disgrace,
New childhood of the world, that blunders on
And wonders at the darkness and the dawn,
The poor damned human race, still unimpressed
With its damnation, all its gamin breast
Chorteling at dukes and kings with nigger Jim,
Then plotting for their fall, with jestings grim.
Behold a Republic
Where a river speaks to men
And cries to those that love its ways,
Answering again
When in the heart's extravagance
The rascals bend to say
"O singing Mississippi
Shine, sing for us today."
But who is this in sweeping Oxford gown
Who steers the raft, or ambles up and down,
Or throws his gown aside, and there in white
Stands gleaming like a pillar of the night?
The lion of high courts, with hoary mane,
Fierce jester that this boyish court will gain —
Mark Twain!
The bad world's idol:
Old Mark Twain!
He takes his turn as watchman with the rest,
With secret transports to the stars addressed,
With nightlong broodings upon cosmic law,
With daylong laughter at this world so raw.
All praise to Emerson and Whitman, yet
The best they have to say, their sons forget.
But who can dodge this genius of the stream,
The Mississippi Valley's laughing dream?
He is the artery that finds the sea
In this the land of slaves, and boys still free.
He is the river, and they one and all
Sail on his breast, and to each other call.
Come let us disgrace ourselves,
Knock the stuffed gods from their shelves,
And cinders at the schoolhouse fling.
Come let us disgrace ourselves,
And live on a raft with gray Mark Twain
And Huck and Jim
And the Duke and the King.
poem by Vachel Lindsay
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Related quotes
Little Andrew
Air -- "Gypsy's Warning"
Andrew was a little infant,
And his life was two years old;
He was his parents' eldest boy,
And he was drowned, I was told.
His parents never more can see him
In this world of grief and pain,
And Oh! they will not forget him
While on earth they do remain.
On one bright and pleasant morning
His uncle thought it would be nice
To take his dear little nephew
Down to play upon a raft,
Where he was to work upon it,
An this little child would company be --
The raft the water rushed around it,
Yet he the danger did not see.
This little child knew no danger --
Its little soul was free from sin --
He was looking in the water,
When, alas, this child fell in.
Beneath the raft the water took him,
For the current was so strong,
And before they could rescue him
He was drowned and was gone.
Oh! how sad were his kind parents
When they saw their drowned child,
As they brought him from the water,
It almost made their hearts grow wild.
Oh! how mournful was the parting
From that little infant son.
Friends, I pray you, all take warning,
Be careful of your little ones.
poem by Julia A Moore
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Swan
I'll leave the mortal world behind,
Take wing in an flight fantastical,
With singing, my eternal soul
Will rise up swan-like in the air.
Possessing two immortal traits,
In Purgatory I won't not linger,
But rising over jealousy
I'll leave behind me kingdoms' shine.
'Tis so! Though not renowned by birth,
I am the muses favorite,
From other notables a world apart-
I'll be preferred by death itself.
The tomb will not confine me,
I will not turn to dust among the stars,
But like a heavenly set of pipes,
My voice will ring out from the sky.
And now I see that feathered skin
My figure covers all around.
My breast is downy and my back is winged,
I shine with pearly swan-like white.
I fly, I soar-and see below
The world entire-- oceans, woods.
Like mountains they lift up their heads
To hear my lofty hymn to God.
From Kuril Islands to the river Bug,
From White Sea to the Caspian,
Peoples from half the world
Of whom the Russian race's comprised,
Will hear of me in time:
Slavs, Huns, the Scythians, and Finns,
And others locked today in battle,
Will point at me and they'll pronounce:
"There flies the one who tuned his lyre
To speak the language of the heart,
And preaching peace to the whole world,
Enjoyed the happiness of all."
Forget a big and stately funeral,
My friends! Cease singing, muses' choir!
My wife! With patience gird yourself!
Don't keen upon what seems a corpse.
poem by Gavril Romanovich Derzhavin
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Grand Rapids
Air -- "Bright Alfaretta"
Wild roved the Indians once
On the banks of Grand River,
And they built their little huts
Down by that flowing river.
In a pleasant valley fair,
Where flows the river rapid,
An Indian village once was there,
Where now stands Grand Rapids.
Indian girls and boys were seen,
With their bow and quiver,
Riding in their light canoes
Up and down the river.
Their hearts were full of joy,
Happy voices singing
Made music with forest birds,
They kept the valley ringing.
Indians have left and gone
Beyond the Mississippi.
They called the river Owashtenong
Where stands this pleasant city.
Louis Campau the first white man
Bought land in Grand Rapids.
He lived and died, an honored man
By people of Grand Rapids.
When Campau came to the valley
No bridge was across the river;
Indians in their light canoes
Rowed them o'er the water.
Railroads now from every way
Run through the city, Grand Rapids;
The largest town in west Michigan
Is the city of Grand Rapids.
poem by Julia A Moore
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Jackson, Mississippi
And when the sunshine showed
Her face I felt like I was ready to die
Went lookin for a place to hide
A hole I could crawl inside
Long lines
Whiskey bottles
And the same old song
I smell death in the air
And I know it wont be long
And I could say I'm trying to change
But that's just another lie
Its been a day and a half
And I'm still high
And I feel like Jackson Mississippi
A river runnin
Like Jackson Mississippi
A river runnin
Like Jackson Mississippi
A river runnin thru my veins
And when the daylight disappeared
I took a good look inside
Behind my pride
I sat down and cried
I know I'm not a fool
But I don't know what's wrong
Maybe its time to pack
And just move on
And I could say I'm trying to change
But that would just be a lie
I'm lookin for some one to tell me why
song performed by by Kid Rock
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Evangeline
(robbie robertson)
She stands on the banks of the mighty mississippi
Alone in the pale moonlight
Waitin for a man, a riverboat gambler
Said that hed return tonight
They used to waltz on the banks of the mighty mississippi
Lovin the whole night through
He was a riverboat gambler off to make a killin
And bring it on back to you
Evangeline evangeline
Curses the soul of the mississippi queen
That pulled her man away
Bayou sam from south louisian
Had gamblin in his veins
Evangeline from the maritime
Was slowly goin insane
High on the top of a hickory hill
She stands in the lightning and thunder
Down on the river the boat was a sinkin
She watched that queen go under
Evangeline evangeline
Curses the soul of the mississippi queen
That pulled her man away
Evangeline evangeline
Curses the soul of the mississippi queen
That pulled her man away
song performed by by Emmylou Harris
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Mountain Music
Words and music by randy owen
Chorus:
Oh, play me some mountain music, like grandma and grandpa used to play.
Then Ill float on down the river to a cajun hideaway
Drift away like tom sawyer, ride a raft with ol huck finn.
Take a nap like rip van winkle, daze dreamin again.
Chorus
Swim across the river, just to prove that Im a man.
Spend the day bein lazy, just bein natures friend.
Climb a long tall hickry. bend it over, skinnin cats.
Playin baseball with chert rocks, usin sawmill slabs for bats.
Bridge:
Play some back-home, come-on music that comes from the heart.
Play something with lots of feelin, cause thats where music has to start
Oh, play me some mountain music, like grandma and grandpa used to play.
Then Ill float on down the river to a cajun hideaway, hey hey.
Tag:
Oh play me mountain music
Oh play me mountain music
Oh play me mountain music
Oh play me mountain music
song performed by by Alabama
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Barb-Wire Bill
At dawn of day the white land lay all gruesome-like and grim,
When Bill Mc'Gee he says to me: "We've got to do it, Jim.
We've got to make Fort Liard quick. I know the river's bad,
But, oh! the little woman's sick . . . why! don't you savvy, lad?"
And me! Well, yes, I must confess it wasn't hard to see
Their little family group of two would soon be one of three.
And so I answered, careless-like: "Why, Bill! you don't suppose
I'm scared of that there `babbling brook'? Whatever you say -- goes."
A real live man was Barb-wire Bill, with insides copper-lined;
For "barb-wire" was the brand of "hooch" to which he most inclined.
They knew him far; his igloos are on Kittiegazuit strand.
They knew him well, the tribes who dwell within the Barren Land.
From Koyokuk to Kuskoquim his fame was everywhere;
And he did love, all life above, that little Julie Claire,
The lithe, white slave-girl he had bought for seven hundred skins,
And taken to his wickiup to make his moccasins.
We crawled down to the river bank and feeble folk were we,
That Julie Claire from God-knows-where, and Barb-wire Bill and me.
From shore to shore we heard the roar the heaving ice-floes make,
And loud we laughed, and launched our raft, and followed in their wake.
The river swept and seethed and leapt, and caught us in its stride;
And on we hurled amid a world that crashed on every side.
With sullen din the banks caved in; the shore-ice lanced the stream;
The naked floes like spooks arose, all jiggling and agleam.
Black anchor-ice of strange device shot upward from its bed,
As night and day we cleft our way, and arrow-like we sped.
But "Faster still!" cried Barb-wire Bill, and looked the live-long day
In dull despair at Julie Claire, as white like death she lay.
And sometimes he would seem to pray and sometimes seem to curse,
And bent above, with eyes of love, yet ever she grew worse.
And as we plunged and leapt and lunged, her face was plucked with pain,
And I could feel his nerves of steel a-quiver at the strain.
And in the night he gripped me tight as I lay fast asleep:
"The river's kicking like a steer . . . run out the forward sweep!
That's Hell-gate Canyon right ahead; I know of old its roar,
And . . . I'll be damned! the ice is jammed! We've GOT to make the shore."
With one wild leap I gripped the sweep. The night was black as sin.
The float-ice crashed and ripped and smashed, and stunned us with its din.
And near and near, and clear and clear I heard the canyon boom;
And swift and strong we swept along to meet our awful doom.
And as with dread I glimpsed ahead the death that waited there,
My only thought was of the girl, the little Julie Claire;
And so, like demon mad with fear, I panted at the oar,
And foot by foot, and inch by inch, we worked the raft ashore.
The bank was staked with grinding ice, and as we scraped and crashed,
I only knew one thing to do, and through my mind it flashed:
Yet while I groped to find the rope, I heard Bill's savage cry:
"That's my job, lad! It's me that jumps. I'll snub this raft or die!"
I saw him leap, I saw him creep, I saw him gain the land;
I saw him crawl, I saw him fall, then run with rope in hand.
And then the darkness gulped him up, and down we dashed once more,
And nearer, nearer drew the jam, and thunder-like its roar.
Oh God! all's lost . . . from Julie Claire there came a wail of pain,
And then -- the rope grew sudden taut, and quivered at the strain;
It slacked and slipped, it whined and gripped, and oh, I held my breath!
And there we hung and there we swung right in the jaws of death.
A little strand of hempen rope, and how I watched it there,
With all around a hell of sound, and darkness and despair;
A little strand of hempen rope, I watched it all alone,
And somewhere in the dark behind I heard a woman moan;
And somewhere in the dark ahead I heard a man cry out,
Then silence, silence, silence fell, and mocked my hollow shout.
And yet once more from out the shore I heard that cry of pain,
A moan of mortal agony, then all was still again.
That night was hell with all the frills, and when the dawn broke dim,
I saw a lean and level land, but never sign of him.
I saw a flat and frozen shore of hideous device,
I saw a long-drawn strand of rope that vanished through the ice.
And on that treeless, rockless shore I found my partner -- dead.
No place was there to snub the raft, so -- he had served instead;
And with the rope lashed round his waist, in last defiant fight,
He'd thrown himself beneath the ice, that closed and gripped him tight;
And there he'd held us back from death, as fast in death he lay. . . .
Say, boys! I'm not the pious brand, but -- I just tried to pray.
And then I looked to Julie Claire, and sore abashed was I,
For from the robes that covered her, I - heard - a - baby - cry....
Thus was Love conqueror of death, and life for life was given;
And though no saint on earth, d'ye think -- Bill's squared hisself with Heaven?
poem by Robert William Service
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Miss The Mississippi And You
(Bill Haley)
I'm growing tired on the big city lights
Tired of the glamour and tired of the sights
In all my dreams I am roaming once more
Back to my home on the old river shore
I am sad and weary, far away from home
Miss the Mississippi and you
Days are dark and dreary
Everywhere I go
Miss the Mississippi and you
Roaming the wide world over
Always along and blue
Nothing seems to cheer me under heaven's door
Miss the Mississippi and you
I'm growing tired on the big city lights
Tired of the glamour and tired of the sights
In all my dreams I am roaming once more
Back to my home on the old river shore
I am sad and weary, far away from home
Miss the Mississippi and you
Days are dark and dreary
Everywhere I go
Miss the Mississippi and you
song performed by by Emmylou Harris
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Miss The Mississippi & You
(bill haley)
Im growing tired on the big city lights
Tired of the glamour and tired of the sights
In all my dreams I am roaming once more
Back to my home on the old river shore
I am sad and weary, far away from home
Miss the mississippi and you
Days are dark and dreary
Everywhere I go
Miss the mississippi and you
Roaming the wide world over
Always along and blue
Nothing seems to cheer me under heavens door
Miss the mississippi and you
Im growing tired on the big city lights
Tired of the glamour and tired of the sights
In all my dreams I am roaming once more
Back to my home on the old river shore
I am sad and weary, far away from home
Miss the mississippi and you
Days are dark and dreary
Everywhere I go
Miss the mississippi and you
song performed by by Emmylou Harris
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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It was enough to make a body ashamed of the human race.
Mark Twain in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Three Island Songs
AFTER the wind in the wood,
Peace, and the night.
After the bond and the brood,
Flight.
After the height and the hush
Where the wild hawk swings,
Heart of the earth-loving thrush
Shaken with wings.
After the bloom and the leaf
Rain on the nest.
After the splendour and grief,
Rest.
After the hills and the far
Glories and gleams,
Cloud, and the dawn of a star,
And dreams.
------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------
O, THE gray rocks of the islands and the hemlock green above them,
The foam beneath the wild rose bloom, the star above the shoal.
When I am old and weary I'll wake my heart to love them,
For the blue ways of the islands are wound about my soul.
[Page 66]
Here in the early even when the young gray dew is falling,
And the king-heron seeks his mate beyond the loneliest wild,
Still your heart in the twilight, and you'll hear the river calling
Through all her outmost islands to seek her lastborn child.
------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------
I SAT among the green leaves, and heard the nuts falling,
The broad red butterflies were gold against the sun,
But in between the silence and the sweet birds calling
The nuts fell one by one.
Why should they fall and the year but half over ?
Why should sorrow seek me and I so young and kind ?
The leaf is on the bough and the dew is on the clover,
But the green nuts are falling in the wind.
O, I gave my lips away and all my soul behind them.
Why should trouble follow and the quick tears start ?
The little birds may love and fly with only God to mind them,
But the green nuts are falling on my heart.
poem by Marjorie Lowry Christie Pickthall
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Pop Goes The World
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls,
Pop goes the world, by men without hats
Johnny played guitar, jenny played bass.
Name of the band is the human race.
Everybody tell me have you heard? pop goes the world.
Jenny played keyboard, johnny played drums,
Called little baby and a big bonhomme
Everybody tell me have you heard? pop goes the world.
It goes something like this: (p p p pop)
Johnny and jenny had a crazy dream,
See their pictures in a magazine.
Every little boy needs a girl.
Pop goes the world.
Jenny and johnny getting smart (it seems)
Made more money on a movie screen.
Every little nest needs a bird.
Pop goes the world.
One two three and four is five,
Everybody here is a friend of mine.
Whatever happened to the duke of earl?
Pop goes the world.
Six seven eight and nine is ten,
Send al gunn to see the doctor (ben)
Say what planet are we on? the third!
Pop goes the world.
And every time I wonder where the world went wrong,
End up lying on my face going ringy dingy ding dong
And every time I wonder if the world is right,
End up in some disco dancin all night & day.
Johnny played guitar, jenny played bass,
Name of the band is the human race.
Everybody tell me have you heard? pop goes the world.
Johnny played guitar, jenny played bass,
Aint nobody couldnt take their place.
Everybody tell me have you heard? pop goes the world.....
song performed by by Men Without Hats
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Fly To The Rainbow
Music :michael schenker
Lyrics:ulrich roth
Life is empty, cant remember anytime before,
On a plain lit cold december, see it evermore,
Gliding through this life, and another is a child,
And were doing games, and losing things,
Always playing gigs.
Somewhere in the sky, where the moon the stars shine bright,
Where the sun is shining, in the night.
I am in disgrace, yet I see a smiling face,
And I hope you let me, share your place.
I dont live today.
Rain in the sky , make the world fly,
Into time, beg me your time.
Sun in the sky, make the world fly,
Into time, beg me your time.
Rain in the sky , make the world fly,
Into time, beg me your time.
Sun in the sky, make the world fly,
Into time, beg me your time.
Rain in the sky , make the world fly,
Into time, beg me your time.
Sun in the sky, make the world fly,
Into time, beg me your time.
I lived in magic solitude,
With cloudy looking mountains,
The lake made out of crystal raindrops.
Run through space, 2000 years ago,
Ive seen the giant city of atlantis,
Sinking into an eternal wave of darkness.
Shhh.
Somewhere in the blue distance,
Are those long forgotten trees of gold
Broken lives hidden down in the sand
Darkness everywhere, nothing
Symbols, strange symbols on a cold leaf
Painting torrid colours all sky green.
Candle painted white like the moon,
Faraway children bleed, God save them.
Drifting garish ghosts like shadows.
Save break to catch and kill time.
Echoes one round endless meadow.
Sublime.
song performed by by Scorpions
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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One of the first things I did as a new Member of Congress was help form a bipartisan Mississippi River Caucus so we could work together from both the North and the South in order to draw attention to the resources that are needed along the Mississippi River.
The Vagabond
White handkerchiefs wave from the short black pier
As we glide to the grand old sea --
But the song of my heart is for none to hear
If one of them waves for me.
A roving, roaming life is mine,
Ever by field or flood --
For not far back in my father's line
Was a dash of the Gipsy blood.
Flax and tussock and fern,
Gum and mulga and sand,
Reef and palm -- but my fancies turn
Ever away from land;
Strange wild cities in ancient state,
Range and river and tree,
Snow and ice. But my star of fate
Is ever across the sea.
A god-like ride on a thundering sea,
When all but the stars are blind --
A desperate race from Eternity
With a gale-and-a-half behind.
A jovial spree in the cabin at night,
A song on the rolling deck,
A lark ashore with the ships in sight,
Till -- a wreck goes down with a wreck.
A smoke and a yarn on the deck by day,
When life is a waking dream,
And care and trouble so far away
That out of your life they seem.
A roving spirit in sympathy,
Who has travelled the whole world o'er --
My heart forgets, in a week at sea,
The trouble of years on shore.
A rolling stone! -- 'tis a saw for slaves --
Philosophy false as old --
Wear out or break 'neath the feet of knaves,
Or rot in your bed of mould!
But I'D rather trust to the darkest skies
And the wildest seas that roar,
Or die, where the stars of Nations rise,
In the stormy clouds of war.
Cleave to your country, home, and friends,
Die in a sordid strife --
You can count your friends on your finger ends
In the critical hours of life.
Sacrifice all for the family's sake,
Bow to their selfish rule!
Slave till your big soft heart they break --
The heart of the family fool.
Domestic quarrels, and family spite,
And your Native Land may be
Controlled by custom, but, come what might,
The rest of the world for me.
I'd sail with money, or sail without! --
If your love be forced from home,
And you dare enough, and your heart be stout,
The world is your own to roam.
I've never a love that can sting my pride,
Nor a friend to prove untrue;
For I leave my love ere the turning tide,
And my friends are all too new.
The curse of the Powers on a peace like ours,
With its greed and its treachery --
A stranger's hand, and a stranger land,
And the rest of the world for me!
But why be bitter? The world is cold
To one with a frozen heart;
New friends are often so like the old,
They seem of the past a part --
As a better part of the past appears,
When enemies, parted long,
Are come together in kinder years,
With their better nature strong.
I had a friend, ere my first ship sailed,
A friend that I never deserved --
For the selfish strain in my blood prevailed
As soon as my turn was served.
And the memory haunts my heart with shame --
Or, rather, the pride that's there;
In different guises, but soul the same,
I meet him everywhere.
I had a chum. When the times were tight
We starved in Australian scrubs;
We froze together in parks at night,
And laughed together in pubs.
And I often hear a laugh like his
From a sense of humour keen,
And catch a glimpse in a passing phiz
Of his broad, good-humoured grin.
And I had a love -- 'twas a love to prize --
But I never went back again . . .
I have seen the light of her kind brown eyes
In many a face since then.
. . . . .
The sailors say 'twill be rough to-night,
As they fasten the hatches down,
The south is black, and the bar is white,
And the drifting smoke is brown.
The gold has gone from the western haze,
The sea-birds circle and swarm --
But we shall have plenty of sunny days,
And little enough of storm.
The hill is hiding the short black pier,
As the last white signal's seen;
The points run in, and the houses veer,
And the great bluff stands between.
So darkness swallows each far white speck
On many a wharf and quay.
The night comes down on a restless deck, --
Grim cliffs -- and -- The Open Sea!
poem by Henry Lawson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Future
A wanderer is man from his birth.
He was born in a ship
On the breast of the river of Time;
Brimming with wonder and joy
He spreads out his arms to the light,
Rivets his gaze on the banks of the stream.
As what he sees is, so have his thoughts been.
Whether he wakes,
Where the snowy mountainous pass,
Echoing the screams of the eagles,
Hems in its gorges the bed
Of the new-born clear-flowing stream;
Whether he first sees light
Where the river in gleaming rings
Sluggishly winds through the plain;
Whether in sound of the swallowing sea--
As is the world on the banks,
So is the mind of the man.
Vainly does each, as he glides,
Fable and dream
Of the lands which the river of Time
Had left ere he woke on its breast,
Or shall reach when his eyes have been closed.
Only the tract where he sails
He wots of; only the thoughts,
Raised by the objects he passes, are his.
Who can see the green earth any more
As she was by the sources of Time?
Who imagines her fields as they lay
In the sunshine, unworn by the plough?
Who thinks as they thought,
The tribes who then roam'd on her breast,
Her vigorous, primitive sons?
What girl
Now reads in her bosom as clear
As Rebekah read, when she sate
At eve by the palm-shaded well?
Who guards in her breast
As deep, as pellucid a spring
Of feeling, as tranquil, as sure?
What bard,
At the height of his vision, can deem
Of God, of the world, of the soul,
With a plainness as near,
As flashing as Moses felt
When he lay in the night by his flock
On the starlit Arabian waste?
Can rise and obey
The beck of the Spirit like him?
This tract which the river of Time
Now flows through with us, is the plain.
Gone is the calm of its earlier shore.
Border'd by cities and hoarse
With a thousand cries is its stream.
And we on its breast, our minds
Are confused as the cries which we hear,
Changing and shot as the sights which we see.
And we say that repose has fled
For ever the course of the river of Time.
That cities will crowd to its edge
In a blacker, incessanter line;
That the din will be more on its banks,
Denser the trade on its stream,
Flatter the plain where it flows,
Fiercer the sun overhead.
That never will those on its breast
See an ennobling sight,
Drink of the feeling of quiet again.
But what was before us we know not,
And we know not what shall succeed.
Haply, the river of Time--
As it grows, as the towns on its marge
Fling their wavering lights
On a wider, statelier stream--
May acquire, if not the calm
Of its early mountainous shore,
Yet a solemn peace of its own.
And the width of the waters, the hush
Of the grey expanse where he floats,
Freshening its current and spotted with foam
As it draws to the Ocean, may strike
Peace to the soul of the man on its breast--
As the pale waste widens around him,
As the banks fade dimmer away,
As the stars come out, and the night-wind
Brings up the stream
Murmurs and scents of the infinite sea.
poem by Matthew Arnold
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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In St. Louis the boys
In St. Louis the boys
Gather at night to pause
Beneath a cloud
To count the industry
Of circumcision
Driven by the memories
Of needles of the moment
Their bodies clothed in
Rough beauty that sleeps
In the breast of comrades
Who ache for Walt Whitman
Who ache between the river
And the sexual Satyr
Among the billboards
That howls to be heard
Like the taste of the
Nude Mississippi
That groan at the
Shore of St. Louis.
The boys, yes the boys
Darker then swamp water
The boys with pricks
The size of a long finger
They huddle at the corner of the river
Where the word faggot was drowned
And the blaze of the burnt color water
Decompose its rich
Stores of dying things.
In the wardrobe of a solitary man
Whose tongue is caked with
River mud and enemies
Of the desires that reaches
Out as branches
To pierce the pillow
Is to be found the secrets
That he keep in his back pocket.
The boys who stoned to death tomorrow
By his faith that foul
The silent sleepless
Motion of the water
The boys are swimming
The classical river
They celebrate the edge
Of the river with the words
Father of the waters
That celebrates nothing human.
poem by David E. Patton
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Mississippi
They call her Mississippi
But she don't flow to me
Spends her light on the Bayou
But she don't come to see
She's the one that makes my dreams
They call her Mississippi
But she don't flow to me
The shape of her horizon
Makes the morning sun
When she puts her eyes on
Each and anyone
She's the one that makes me fall
Midnight moon shines through it all
She's the one that makes me fall
Midnight moon shines through it all
She's the one that makes my dreams
They call her Mississippi
But she don't flow to me
They call her Mississippi
But she don't flow to me
song performed by by Train from Drops Of Jupiter
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Sitting On Top Of The World
Mississippi river so big and wide, blond haired woman on the other side.
Now shes gone, gone, gone and I dont worry cause Im sitting on top of the world.
I worked all summer, spring and fall, blond haired woman the cause of it all.
Now shes gone, gone, gone and I dont worry cause Im sitting on top of the world.
I saw her in dallas and el paso. said come back baby, I need you so.
Now shes gone, gone, gone and I dont worry cause Im sitting on top of the world.
Mississippi river so big and wide, blond haired woman on the other side.
Now shes gone, gone, gone and I dont worry cause Im sitting on top of the world.
song performed by by Grateful Dead
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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After the Rain
i may not give everything, of a wish that your
heart desire; a beautiful merry making, a balloon
of color, a garden of full of flowers, not even a
place for comfort that other can given, nor a
solitude place to lay your arm and dream that
wish my dear
look at the rain that fall and the sweat that call to
a journey that both of us wish to touch, see the
night that leaves the sky so bright they don't wait
the sunset to dark, yet! gloom spread the whole
night with glittering spark of light
trouble hurt, the wind turbid the river, breaks the
silent sky with a thundering light, the storm struggle
to clam the motionless wind as the rain wait to
settle the ground of lasting rest, never the sun
comes to show its face, nay! shine in the wavering
sky of silent
now tell me, that the rolling tide wave the flow
of lasting lament of your presence, the speechless
of your heart grow the courage to go on, behind the
scene of fear; the direction that the scent of
perfume comes the beginning of stronger heart,
something that makes it stands in the minted hope
of this world
the lasting comfort that both of us would meant to
live the sacrifice that we are on through, the painted
home comes in the melted candle of sweat at all, as
it live and be with me till, death leaves no more in
our dear dream
live the old dream and dream comes once more in
our weary sky........
poem by Antonio Liao
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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