When London Calls
They leave us - artists, singers, all -
When London calls aloud,
Commanding to her Festival
The gifted crowd.
She sits beside the ship-choked Thames,
Sad, weary, cruel, grand;
Her crown imperial gleams with gems
From many a land.
From overseas, and far away,
Come crowded ships and ships -
Grim-faced she gazes on them; yea,
With scornful lips.
The garden of the earth is wide;
Its rarest blooms she picks
To deck her board, this haggard-eyed
Imperatrix.
Sad, sad is she, and yearns for mirth;
With voice of golden guile
She lures men from the ends of earth
To make her smile.
The student of wild human ways
In wild new lands; the sage
With new great thoughts; the bard whose lays
Bring youth to age;
The painter young whose pictures shine
With colours magical;
The singer with the voice divine -
She lures them all.
But all their new is old to her
Who bore the Anakim;
She gives them gold or Charon's fare
As suits her whim.
Crowned Ogress - old, and sad, and wise -
She sits with painted face
And hard, imperious, cruel eyes
In her high place.
To him who for her pleasure lives,
And makes her wish his goal,
A rich Tarpeian gift she gives -
That slays his soul.
The story-teller from the Isles
Upon the Empire's rim,
With smiles she welcomes - and her smiles
Are death to him.
For Her, whose pleasure is her law,
In vain the shy heart bleeds -
The Genius with the Iron jaw
Alone succeeds.
And when the Poet's lays grow bland,
And urbanised, and prim -
She stretches forth a jewelled hand
And strangles him.
She sits beside the ship-choked Thames
With Sphinx-like lips apart -
Mistress of many diadems -
Death in her heart!
poem by Victor James Daley
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My Ships
If all the ships I have at sea
Should come a-sailing home to me,
From sunny lands, and lands of cold,
Ah well! the harbor could not hold
So many sails as there would be
If all my ships came in from sea.
If half my ships came home from sea,
And brought their precious freight to me,
Ah, well! I should have wealth as great
As any king who sits in state,
So rich the treasures that would be
In half my ships now at sea.
If just one ship I have at sea
Should come a-sailing home to me,
Ah well! the storm clouds then might frown,
For if the others all went down
Still rich and proud and glad I’d be,
If that one ship came back to me.
If that one ship were down at sea,
And all the others came to me,
Weighed down with gems and wealth untold,
With glory, honor, riches, gold,
The poorest soul on earth I’d be
If that one ship came not to me.
O skies be calm! O winds blow free--
Blow all my ships safe home to me.
But if thou sendest some awrack
To never more come sailing back,
Send any--all that skim the sea--
But bring my love-ship home to me.
poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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Each day I see the long ships coming into port
Each day I see the long ships coming into port
and the people crowding to their rail, glad of the shore:
because to have been alone with the sea and not to have known
of anything happening in any crowded way,
and to have heard no other voice than the crooning sea's
has charmed away the old rancours, and the great winds
have search'd and swept their hearts of the old irksome thoughts:
so, to their freshen'd gaze, each land smiles a good home.
Why envy I, seeing them made gay to greet the shore?
Surely I do not foolishly desire to go
hither and thither upon the earth and grow weary
with seeing many lands and peoples and the sea:
but if I might, some day, landing I reck not where
have heart to find a welcome and perchance a rest,
I would spread the sail to any wandering wind of the air
this night, when waves are hard and rain blots out the land.
poem by Christopher John Brennan
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To The Queen Of England
COME forth! the world's aflame with flags and flowers,
The shout of bells fills full the shattered air,
This is the crown of all your golden hours,
More than all other hours august and fair;
This did the years prepare,
A triumph for our Lady and our Queen,
More rich than any king in any land hath seen.
Clothed are your streets with scarlet, gold, and blue,
Flowers under foot and banners over head,
And while your people's voice storms Heaven for you
About your way are voiceless blessings shed,
And over you are spread
Wide wings of love, free love, tamed to your hand,
Love that gold cannot buy, nor Majesty command.
Not these mere visible millions only, share
Your triumph--here all English hearts beat high,
Nations far off your royal colours wear,
And swell with unheard voice this loyal cry
That strikes the English sky:
A cloud of unseen witnesses is here
To testify how great is England's Queen, and dear.
From out the grey-veiled past, long years away,
Come visionary faces, vision-led,
And splendid shapes that are not of our day,
The spirits of the mute and mighty dead,
To see how Time has sped
The fortunes of their England, and behold
How much more great she is than in the days of old.
The world can see them not; but you can see--
You the inheritor of all the past
Wherein the dead, in noble heraldry,
Blazoned the shield of England, and forecast
The charge it bears at last--
More splendid than the azure and the or
Of the French lilies lost--long lost and sorrowed for.
Here be the weaponed men, the English folk,
Who in long ships across the swan's bath fared,
In whose rude tongue the voice of Freedom spoke,
In whose rough hands the sword was bright and bared--
The men who did and dared,
And to their sons bequeathed the fighting blood
That drives to Victory and will not be withstood.
Here, in your ordered festival, O Queen,
Mixed with the crowd and all unseen of these,
On their long swords the wild Norse rovers lean
And watch the progress of your pageantries,
And on this young June breeze
Float the bright pennons of the Cressy spears--
Shine shadowy shafts that fell, as snow falls, at Poitiers.
Here flutter phantom flags that once flew free
Above the travail of the tournament;
Here gleam old swords, once wet for Liberty;
Old blood-stiff banners, worn with war and rent,
Are with your fresh flowers blent,
And by your crown, where love and fame consort,
Shines the unvanquished cloven crown of Agincourt.
Upon your river where, by day and night,
Your world-adventuring ships come home again,
Glide ghostly galleons, manned by men of might
Who plucked the wings and singed the beard of Spain;
The men who, not in vain,
Saved to the children of a world new-trod
The birth-tongue of our land, her freedom, and her God.
Princes who lived to make our England great,
Poets who wreathed her greatness with their song,
Wise men who steered her heavy ship of State,
Brave men who steered her battle-ships along,
In spectral concourse throng
To applaud the consummated power and pride
Of that belovèd land for which they lived and died.
The thousand un-named heroes who, sword-strong,
Ploughed the long acre wherein Empire grows
Wide as the world, and long as Time is long--
These mark the crescence of the English rose
Whose thorny splendour glows
O'er far-off subject lands, by alien waves,
A crown for England's brow, a garland for her graves.
And faces out of unforgotten years,
Faces long hidden by death's misty screen,
Faces you still can scarcely see for tears,
Will smile on you to-day and near you lean,
O Mother, Wife, and Queen!
With whispered love too sacred and too dear
For any ear than yours, Mother and Wife, to hear.
Lady, the crowd will vaunt to-day your fame,
Daughter and heir of many mighty kings,
The Queen of England, whose imperial name
From England's heart and lips tumultuous springs
In prayers and thanksgivings,
Because your greatness and her greatness shine
Merged each in each, as stars their beams that intertwine.
Yet in the inmost heart, where folded close
The richest treasures of the poorest lie,
Love, whose clear eyes see many secrets, knows
A nobler name than Queen to call you by,
And breathes it silently;
But, 'mid His listening crowd of angels, One
Shall speak your name and say, 'Faithful and good, well done!'
poem by Edith Nesbit
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Sestina
I wandered o'er the vast green plains of youth,
And searched for Pleasure. On a distant height
Fame's silhouette stood sharp against the skies.
Beyond vast crowds that thronged a broad highway
I caught the glimmer of a golden goal,
While from a blooming bower smiled siren Love.
Straight gazing in her eyes, I laughed at Love,
With all the haughty insolence of youth,
As past her bower I strode to seek my goal.
'Now will I climb to glory's dizzy height, '
I said, ' for there above the common way
Doth pleasure dwell companioned by the skies.'
But when I reached that summit near the skies,
So far from man I seemed, so far from Love-
'Not here, ' I cried, 'doth Pleasure find her way, '
Seen from the distant borderland of youth.
Fame smiles upon us from her sun-kissed height,
But frowns in shadows when we reach the goal.
Then were mine eyes fixed on that glittering goal,
Dear to all sense-sunk souls beneath the skies.
Gold tempts the artist from the lofty height,
Gold lures the maiden from the arms of Love,
Gold buys the fresh ingenuous heart of youth,
'And gold, ' I said, 'will show me Pleasure's way.'
But ah! the soil and discord of that way,
Where savage hordes rushed headlong to the goal,
Dead to the best impulses of their youth,
Blind to the azure beauty of the skies;
Dulled to the voice of conscience and of love,
They wandered far from Truth's eternal height.
Then Truth spoke to me from that noble height,
Saying: 'Thou didst pass Pleasure on the way,
She with the yearning eyes so full of Love,
Whom thou disdained to seek for glory's goal.'
Two blending paths beneath God's arching skies
Lead straight to Pleasure. Ah, blind heart of youth,
Not up fame's height, not toward the base god's goal,
Doth Pleasure make her way, but 'neath calm skies
Where Duty walks with Love in endless youth.
poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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On An Old Roundel
Death, from thy rigour a voice appealed,
And men still hear what the sweet cry saith,
Crying aloud in thine ears fast sealed,
Death.
As a voice in a vision that vanisheth,
Through the grave's gate barred and the portal steeled
The sound of the wail of it travelleth.
Wailing aloud from a heart unhealed,
It woke response of melodious breath
From lips now too by thy kiss congealed,
Death
II.
Ages ago, from the lips of a sad glad poet
Whose soul was a wild dove lost in the whirling snow,
The soft keen plaint of his pain took voice to show it
Ages ago.
So clear, so deep, the divine drear accents flow,
No soul that listens may choose but thrill to know it,
Pierced and wrung by the passionate music's throe.
For us there murmurs a nearer voice below it,
Known once of ears that never again shall know,
Now mute as the mouth which felt death's wave o'erflow it
Ages ago.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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A Song For Peace And Honour
TO THE QUEEN
LADY and Queen, for whom our laurels twine,
Upon whose head the glories of our land
In one immortal diadem are met,
Embodied England, in whose woman-hand
The sceptre of Imperial sway is set,
Receive this song of mine!
For you are England, and her bays grow green
To deck your brow, your goodness lends her grace,
And in our hearts your face is as Her face;
The Mother-Country is the Mother-Queen.
We, men of England, children of her might,
With all our Mother's record-roll of glory,
Great with her greatness, noble by her name,
Drank with our mothers' milk our Mother's story,
And in our veins the splendour of her fame
Made strong our blood and bright;
And to her absent sons her name has been
Familiar music heard in distant lands,
Heart of our heart and sinews of our hands,
England, our Mother, our Mistress and our Queen!
Out of the thunderous echoes of the past
Through the gold-dust of centuries we hear
Her voice, 'O children of a royal line,
Sons of her heart, whom England holdeth dear,
Mine was the Past--make ye the future mine
All glorious to the last!'
And, as we hear her, cowards grow to men,
And men to heroes, and the voice of fear
Is as a whisper in a deaf man's ear,
And the dead past is quick in us again.
Her robe is woven of glory and renown,
Hers are the golden-laden Argosies,
And lordship of the wild and watery ways,
Her flag is blown across the utmost seas:
Dead nations built her throne, and kingdoms blaze
For jewels in her crown.
Her Empire like a girdle doth enfold
The world; her feet upon her foes are set;
She wears the steel-wrought, blood-bright amulet
Won by her children in the days of old.
Yet in a treasury of such gems as these
Which power and sovereignty and kingship fill
To the vast limit of the circling sun,
England, our Mother, in her heart holds still,
As her most precious jewel, save only one,
The priceless pearl of peace--
Peace plucked from out the very heart of war
Through the long agony of strenuous years,
Made pure by blood and sanctified by tears,
A pearl to lie where England's treasures are.
O peaceful English lanes all white with may,
O English meadows where the grass grows tall,
O red-roofed village, field and farm and fold
Where the long shadows of the elm-trees fall
On the wide pastures which the sun calls gold
And twilit dew calls gray;--
These are the home, the happy cradle-place
Of every man who has our English tongue,
Sprung from those loins from which our sires have sprung,
Heirs of the glory of our mighty race!
Brothers, we hold the pearl of priceless worth:
Shall Peace, our pearl, by us be cast aside?
Is it not more to us than all things are?
Nay, Peace is precious as the world is wide,
But England's honour is more precious far
Than all the heavens and earth.
Were honour outcast from her supreme place
Our pearl of Peace no more a pearl would shine,
But, trampled under-foot of cowards and swine,
Rot in the mire of a deserved disgrace.
Know then, O ye our brothers over sea,
We will not cast our pearl of Peace away,
But, holding it, we wait; and if, at last,
The whole world came against us in array,
If all our glory into darkness passed,
Our Empire ceased to be,
Yet should we still have chosen the better part
Though in the dust our kingdoms were cast down,
Though lost were every jewel in our crown
We still should wear our jewel in our heart.
So, for our Mother's honour, if it must
Let Peace be lost, but lost the worthier way;
Not trampled down, but given, for her sake
Who forged of many an iron yesterday
The golden song that gold-tongued fame shall wake
When we are dust, in dust:
For brotherhood and strife and praise and blame
And all the world, even to our very land,
Weighed in the balance, are as a grain of sand
Against the honour of our English name!
poem by Edith Nesbit
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The Dead Singer
'SHE is dead!' they say; 'she is robed for the grave; O there are lilies upon her breast;
Her mother has kissed her clay-cold lips, and folded her hands to rest;
Her blue eyes show through the waxen lids: they have hidden her hair's gold crown;
Her grave is dug, and its heap of earth is waiting to press her down.'
'She is dead!' they say to the people, her people, for whom she sung;
Whose hearts she touched with sorrow and love, like a harp with life-chords strung.
And the people hear—but behind their tear they smile as though they heard
Another voice, like a mystery, proclaim another word.
'She is not dead.' it says to their hearts; 'true Singers can never die;
Their life is a voice of higher things, unseen to the common eye;
The truths and the beauties are clear to them, God's right and the human wrong,
The heroes who die unknown, and the weak who are chained and scourged by the strong.'
And the people smile at the death-word, for the mystic voice is clear:
'THE SINGER WHO LIVED IS ALWAYS ALIVE: WE HEARKEN AND ALWAYS HEAR!'
And they raise her body with tender hands, and bear her down to the main,
They lay her in state on the mourning ship, like the lily-maid Elaine;
And they sail to her isle across the sea, where the people wait on the shore
To lift her in silence with heads all bare to her home forevermore,
Her home in the heart of her country; oh, a grave among our own
Is warmer and dearer than living on in the stranger lands alone.
No need of a tomb for the Singer! Her fair hair's pillow now
Is the sacred clay of her country, and the sky above her brow
Is the same that smiled and wept on her youth, and the grass around is deep
With the clinging leaves of the shamrock that cover her peaceful sleep.
Undreaming there she will rest and wait, in the tomb her people make,
Till she hears men's hearts, like the seeds in Spring, all stirring to be awake,
Till she feels the moving of souls that strain till the bands around them break;
And then, I think, her dead lips will smile and her eyes be oped to see,
When the cry goes out to the Nations that the Singer's land is free!
poem by John Boyle O'Reilly
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An Ending
I will go my ways from the city, and then, maybe,
My heart shall forget one woman's voice, and her lips;
I will arise, and set my face to the sea,
Among stranger-folk and in the wandering ships.
The world is great, and the bounds of it who shall set?
It may be I shall find, somewhere in the world I shall find,
A land that my feet may abide in; then I shall forget
The woman I loved, and the years that are left behind.
But, if the ends of the world are not wide enough
To out-weary my heart, and to find for my heart some fold,
I will go back to the city, and her I love,
And look on her face, and remember the days of old.
poem by Arthur Symons
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Ships that Pass in the Night
Out in the sky the great dark clouds are massing;
I look far out into the pregnant night,
Where I can hear the solemn booming gun
And catch the gleaming of a random light,
That tells me that the ship I seek
is passing, passing.
My tearful eyes my soul's deep hurt are glassing;
For I would hail and check that ship of ships.
I stretch my hands imploring, cry aloud,
My voice falls dead a foot from mine own lips,
And but its ghost doth reach that vessel, passing, passing.
O Earth, O Sky, O Ocean, both surpassing,
O heart of mine, O soul that dreads the dark!
Is there no hope for me? Is there no way
That I may sight and check that speeding bark
Which out of sight and sound is passing, passing?
poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
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Voices Of The Night : Footsteps of Angels
When the hours of Day are numbered,
And the voices of the Night
Wake the better soul, that slumbered,
To a holy, calm delight;
Ere the evening lamps are lighted,
And, like phantoms grim and tall,
Shadows from the fitful firelight
Dance upon the parlor wall;
Then the forms of the departed
Enter at the open door;
The beloved, the true-hearted,
Come to visit me once more;
He, the young and strong, who cherished
Noble longings for the strife,
By the roadside fell and perished,
Weary with the march of life!
They, the holy ones and weakly,
Who the cross of suffering bore,
Folded their pale hands so meekly,
Spake with us on earth no more!
And with them the Being Beauteous,
Who unto my youth was given,
More than all things else to love me,
And is now a saint in heaven.
With a slow and noiseless footstep
Comes that messenger divine,
Takes the vacant chair beside me,
Lays her gentle hand in mine.
And she sits and gazes at me
With those deep and tender eyes,
Like the stars, so still and saint-like,
Looking downward from the skies.
Uttered not, yet comprehended,
Is the spirit's voiceless prayer,
Soft rebukes, in blessings ended,
Breathing from her lips of air.
Oh, though oft depressed and lonely,
All my fears are laid aside,
If I but remember only
Such as these have lived and died!
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Footsteps of Angels
When the hours of Day are numbered,
And the voices of the Night
Wake the better soul, that slumbered,
To a holy, calm delight;
Ere the evening lamps are lighted,
And, like phantoms grim and tall,
Shadows from the fitful firelight
Dance upon the parlor wall;
Then the forms of the departed
Enter at the open door;
The beloved, the true-hearted,
Come to visit me once more;
He, the young and strong, who cherished
Noble longings for the strife,
By the roadside fell and perished,
Weary with the march of life!
They, the holy ones and weakly,
Who the cross of suffering bore,
Folded their pale hands so meekly,
Spake with us on earth no more!
And with them the Being Beauteous,
Who unto my youth was given,
More than all things else to love me,
And is now a saint in heaven.
With a slow and noiseless footstep
Comes that messenger divine,
Takes the vacant chair beside me,
Lays her gentle hand in mine.
And she sits and gazes at me
With those deep and tender eyes,
Like the stars, so still and saint-like,
Looking downward from the skies.
Uttered not, yet comprehended,
Is the spirit's voiceless prayer,
Soft rebukes, in blessings ended,
Breathing from her lips of air.
Oh, though oft depressed and lonely,
All my fears are laid aside,
If I but remember only
Such as these have lived and died!
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Failure
THE BOY went out from the ranges grim,
And the breath of the mountains went with him;
With a song in his heart and a smile on his face,
And a light in his eyes for a foremost place:
And the good green earth, and the salt sea spray,
And the soft blue skies, they were his that day;
And, like Eden, ringed with a golden fire—
Afar rose the Land of His Heart’s Desire.
The boy went down to the city’s strife,
And his face was lost in the surge of life;
But a Power that he did not understand
Had nerved his brain and his fighting hand.
And he strove and failed, and he rose and won—
And he failed again ere the fight was done;
But he battled on when the days were dire
To win to the Land of His Heart’s Desire.
And there, in the heart of the stress and din,
’Mid want and labour and wealth and sin,
The strong man struggled with shining eyes,
And forced a passage, and grasped the prize.
And he cried to the Power who had lent the fire:
“Lo! Fame is the Land of My Heart’s Desire!
Give the cup to me with a beaded brim.”
And the Power that he knew not gave it him.
But the air is keen on the Cliffs of Fame,
And the shafts that fly have a deadly aim!
With a foothold scarce, and a sleepless dread
For the gulfs below and the heights o’erhead,
He cried to the Power who had steeled his hand:
“I am outcast yet from my Fairyland!
For Fame is a land where no strength may tire,
But Love is the Land of My Heart’s Desire!”
Then there came to the man all his dream of Love,
With the brow of snow and the eyes of a dove,
With the glint of the sun on her wavy hair,
And her soul as pure as her face was fair.
Like a living lily to him she came,
Till his eyes were wet and his soul was flame,
And she called to him, with an outstretched hand,
And they entered into the Promised Land.
But there came a day when he asked his soul,
“Is this the land, and is this the goal?”
In his heart there lay what his lips denied—
The pang of a hunger unsatisfied.
“For Fame,” he said, “and for Love I wrought;
They are not the things that I should have sought:
’Tis to boundless power that my dreams aspire—
And Wealth is the Land of My Heart’s Desire!”
Then the Power that he did not understand
Gave him ships and houses and gold and land,
And the man’s power grew with each passing year;
But his thoughts were vexed with a sleepless fear,
And his hair grew gray with the iron strain
Of the dread of loss and the lust of gain,
And he bowed his head on his hands and said.
“All things are mine, but my heart is dead!”
And he thought of the boy from the ranges grim
With the breath of the mountains over him,
With a song in his heart and a smile on his face,
And a light in his eyes for a foremost place,
And the good green earth and the salt sea spray,
And the soft blue skies that were his that day,
When, like Eden, ringed with a golden fire,
Afar rose the Land of His Heart’s Desire.
Then clear on his startled ear there fell
A voice like the sound of a silver bell:
“To each is the work that he best can do,
But you turned from the work when it called to you.
And you sought instead for the vulgar praise,
For the lips of love, and for prosperous days.
And with all that the world can give you here,
You have lost the thing that you hold most dear.
For who hears the word that the Gods inspire—
In his work finds the Land of His Heart’s Desire.”
poem by George Essex Evans
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The Spider Queen
IN the deep heart of furthest fairyland
Where foot of man has never trodden yet
The enchanted portals of her palace stand,
And there her sleepless sentinels are set.
All round grow forests of white eglantine
And drooping, dreaming clematis; there blows
The purple nightshade; there pale bindweeds twine
And there the pale, frail flower of slumber grows.
Her palaces are decked with gleaming wings,
Hung o'er with webs through spacious bower and hall,
Filled through and through with precious priceless things;
She is their mistress and she hates them all.
No darkling webs, woven in dust and gloom,
Adorn her palace walls; there gleam astir
Live threads of light, spun for a fairy's loom,
And stolen by her slaves and brought to her.
She wears a robe woven of the July sun,
Mixed with green threads won from the East at dawn,
Bordered with silver moonrays, finely spun,
And gemmed with glowworms from some shadowy lawn.
She wears a crown of dewdrops bright like tears,
Her girdle is a web of rainbow dyes;
She knows no youth, nor age; the hours and years
Leave never a shadow on her lips and eyes.
In magic rings of green and glistening light
Her fairies dance, in star-spun raiment clad,
Her people do her bidding day and night,
Her dark-robed servants toil to make her glad.
Her minstrels play to her--her singers raise
Soft songs, more sweet than man has ever heard,
With endless rhythms of love her courtiers praise,
And all their heart is in their every word.
She is the mistress of all things that set
Snare of fine webs to win their hearts' desire,
Queen of all folk who weave the death-strong net
Between the poppy and the wild-rose briar.
Yet sits despair upon that brow of hers,
And sorrow in her eyes makes festival;
The soul of grief with her sad soul confers,
And she sits lonely in her crowded hall;
Because she has woven a web of her bright hair--
A tear-bright web, to catch one soul; and he
Beheld her, in her beauty, set the snare,
And seeing laughed, and laughing passed out free!
poem by Edith Nesbit
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When the Great Gray Ships Come In
To eastward ringing, to westward winging, o’er mapless miles of sea,
On winds and tides the gospel rides that the furthermost isles are free,
And the furthermost isles make answer, harbor, and height, and hill,
Breaker and beach cry, each to each, “’Tis the Mother who calls! Be still!”
Mother! new-found, beloved, and strong to hold from harm,
Stretching to these across the seas the shield of her sovereign arm,
Who summoned the guns of her sailor sons, who bade her navies roam,
Who calls again to the leagues of main, and who calls them this time home!
And the great gray ships are silent, and the weary watchers rest;
The black cloud dies in the August skies, and deep in the golden west
Invisible hands are limning a glory of crimson bars,
And far above is the wonder of a myriad wakened stars!
Peace! As the tidings silence the strenuous cannonade,
Peace at last! is the bugle blast the length of the long blockade,
And eyes of vigil weary are lit with the glad release,
From ship to ship and from lip to lip it is “Peace! Thank God for peace.”
Ah, in the sweet hereafter Columbia still shall show
The sons of these who swept the seas how she bade them rise and go,—
How, when the stirring summons smote on her children’s ear,
South and North at the call stood forth, and the whole land answered, “Here!”
For the soul of the soldier’s story and the heart of the sailor’s song
Are all of those who meet their foes as right should meet with wrong,
Who fight their guns till the foeman runs, and then, on the decks they trod,
Brave faces raise, and give the praise to the grace of their country’s God!
Yes, it is good to battle, and good to be strong and free,
To carry the hearts of a people to the uttermost ends of sea,
To see the day steal up the bay where the enemy lies in wait,
To run your ship to the harbor’s lip and sink her across the strait:—
But better the golden evening when the ships round heads for home,
And the long gray miles slip swiftly past in a swirl of seething foam,
And the people wait at the haven’s gate to greet the men who win!
Thank God for peace! Thank God for peace, when the great gray ships come in!
poem by Guy Wetmore Carryl from The Garden of Years and Other Poems (1898)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Ship Of Fools
Went to see the captain, strangest I could find,
Laid my proposition down, laid it on the line.
I wont slave for beggars pay, likewise gold and jewels,
But I would slave to learn the way to sink your ship of fools.
Ship of fools on a cruel sea, ship of fools sail away from me.
It was later than I thought when I first believed you,
Now I cannot share your laughter, ship of fools.
Saw your first ship sink and drown, from rockin of the boat,
And all that could not sink or swim was just left there to float.
I wont leave you drifting down, but woh it makes me wild,
With thirty years upon my head to have you call me child.
Ship of fools on a cruel sea, ship of fools sail away from me.
It was later than I thought when I first believed you,
Now I cannot share your laughter, ship of fools.
The bottles stand as empty, as they were filled before.
Time there was and plenty, but from that cup no more.
Though I could not caution all, I still might warn a few:
Dont lend your hand to raise no flag atop no ship of fools.
Ship of fools on a cruel sea, ship of fools sail away from me.
It was later than I thought, when I first believed you,
Now I cannot share your laughter, ship of fools.
It was later than I thought when I first believed you,
Now I cannot share your laughter, ship of fools.
song performed by by Grateful Dead
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A Story Of Old
She has heard stories of old
Of men with legs
That takes the lives of many
Of her friends
Is all this just a fantasy as she thinks of stories of old
As she sits basking in the sun
Her golden flesh cascading
With the sprays of the deep blue sea
She sits upon the rock
Were the waves laps
From morn to night
Braiding her long raven hair
As her tail sways to the waves
From story's of old
The golden rays reflect
Of the gems of spray
As it splashes around her
In its foamy depth of blue wonder
She opens her rose colored lips
To sing a soft haunting melody
That as captured a many souls
That has been cast into a world of bliss
She dives below the waves
To capture a friend
Its skin so smooth
As it roams the seven seas
They frolic and play
In the ocean of jade
That as carried the life
Of so many souls
Down to the depths of the seas
But amongst the beauty
Of the seven seas
She still wonders
How man can walk upon the earth
With two legs I might add
Is that no a tad strange
For one who lives under the sea
How can they breathe the air?
That strangles the voice of purity
How can they dance as gracefully?
As the dolphins swim
From place to place with so much ease
Then to her surprise
She finds a dream come true
The one that moves her soul
The one that makes her shake with
Exquisite joy at the mere sight of his face
Is a mere mortal just like you and me?
She longs to be apart of his world
To walk the lands and smell the flowers
That bloom in April showers
She longs to be apart of his world
To feel the warmth of Mother Nature
As the sun shines down on thee
She longs to taste the tender kiss
Of love that blooms inside one soul
As man and wife learns the joys of life
She longs to hear the laughter
Of children running through the lands
As they play hide and seek
In the land of make believe
She longs to hold a child
Close to her heart
And sing sweet lullabies
In a mothers world of bliss
Her soul bleeds
To hear the sounds of family
Singing their Christmas yuletides
With glee as they sing carols
Next to a snowy Christmas tree
All that just out of reach
As she watches with sorrow
At the man that invades her dreams
She glances at one last chance
To touch him briefly
As the waves surges
To carry her to her ultimate of all dreams
Tears fall as she realizes
To let him know she exists
She must risk her life for just one touch of bliss
She touches him briefly he sees her
She sees him he wonders
To himself is this just but a dream
He catches her beauty before a glimpse in the light
He catches his breath as he watches her float
In mid air graceful with all that she is
Then like a dream she fades
Into the deep blue ocean
Never to be seen again
Was it just a dream?
Was it just a fantasy of stories of old?
Of how mermaids captured the soul
Of mere mortal men to lure them
To their deaths to the bottom
Of the deep blue sea
Perhaps the vision he just saw
Was in fact just a fantasy
One told by many
A story of old
poem by Kaila George
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Created Earth Reshaped Cast Down
When our Lord God smiles
the whole universe shines,
it is only the earth in shadow
eclipsed denied a radiant golden sun,
denied blessing of vibrant illuminating sunlight
denied blessing of healing rapture in sunbeams,
it is only the earth in shadow
the earth is cast down in suffering
the earth is cast down in sorrow
the earth is cast down in insanity
the earth is cast down in rampant sin
the earth is cast down in humiliation shame
the earth is choked with a cast down sentenced Satan
the earth is choked with millions of demon victims slain
the earth is choked with injustice corruption evil sinners
God’s rebellious enemies tempt subvert
all earthly governments political systems
all religions through ensnared stray sheep
When our Divine Lord God smiles,
entire expansive created universe shines,
it is just the earth still bound in slavery,
eclipsed still denied her coming saviour,
denied still blessing of Divine Sovereignty,
denied still salvation blessing of Holy Spirit.
poem by Terence George Craddock
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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By The Fireside : The Singers
God sent his Singers upon earth
With songs of sadness and of mirth,
That they might touch the hearts of men,
And bring them back to heaven again.
The first, a youth, with soul of fire,
Held in his hand a golden lyre;
Through groves he wandered, and by streams,
Playing the music of our dreams.
The second, with a bearded face,
Stood singing in the market-place,
And stirred with accents deep and loud
The hearts of all the listening crowd.
A gray old man, the third and last,
Sang in cathedrals dim and vast,
While the majestic organ rolled
Contrition from its mouths of gold.
And those who heard the Singers three
Disputed which the best might be;
For still their music seemed to start
Discordant echoes in each heart,
But the great Master said, 'I see
No best in kind, but in degree;
I gave a various gift to each,
To charm, to strengthen, and to teach.
'These are the three great chords of might,
And he whose ear is tuned aright
Will hear no discord in the three,
But the most perfect harmony.'
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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To Carmen Sylva
Oh, that the golden lyre divine
Whence David smote flame-tones were mine!
Oh, that the silent harp which hung
Untuned, unstrung,
Upon the willows by the river,
Would throb beneath my touch and quiver
With the old song-enchanted spell
Of Israel!
Oh, that the large prophetic Voice
Would make my reed-piped throat its choice!
All ears should prick, all hearts should spring,
To hear me sing
The burden of the isles, the word
Assyria knew, Damascus heard,
When, like the wind, while cedars shake,
Isaiah spake.
For I would frame a song to-day
Winged like a bird to cleave its way
O'er land and sea that spread between,
To where a Queen
Sits with a triple coronet.
Genius and Sorrow both have set
Their diadems above the gold-
A Queen three-fold!
To her the forest lent its lyre,
Hers are the sylvan dews, the fire
Of Orient suns, the mist-wreathed gleams
?????? Of mountain streams.
She, the imperial Rhine's own child,
Takes to her heart the wood-nymph wild,
The gypsy Pelech, and the wide,
White Danube's tide.
She who beside an infant's bier
Long since resigned all hope to hear
The sacred name of 'Mother' bless
Her childlessness,
Now from a people's sole acclaim
Receives the heart-vibrating name,
And 'Mother, Mother, Mother!' fills
The echoing hills.
Yet who is he who pines apart,
Estranged from that maternal heart,
Ungraced, unfriended, and forlorn,
The butt of scorn?
An alien in his land of birth,
An outcast from his brethren's earth,
Albeit with theirs his blood mixed well
When Plevna fell?
When all Roumania's chains were riven,
When unto all his sons was given
The hero's glorious reward,
Reaped by the sword,-
Wherefore was this poor thrall, whose chains
Hung heaviest, within whose veins
The oldest blood of freedom streamed,
Still unredeemed?
O Mother, Poet, Queen in one!
Pity and save-he is thy son.
For poet David's sake, the king
Of all who sing;
For thine own people's sake who share
His law, his truth, his praise, his prayer;
For his sake who was sacrificed-
His brother-Christ!
poem by Emma Lazarus
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Under The Balcony
O beautiful star with the crimson mouth!
O moon with the brows of gold!
Rise up, rise up, from the odorous south!
And light for my love her way,
Lest her little feet should stray
On the windy hill and the wold!
O beautiful star with the crimson mouth!
O moon with the brows of gold!
O ship that shakes on the desolate sea!
O ship with the wet, white sail!
Put in, put in, to the port to me!
For my love and I would go
To the land where the daffodils blow
In the heart of a violet dale!
O ship that shakes on the desolate sea!
O ship with the wet, white sail!
O rapturous bird with the low, sweet note!
O bird that sits on the spray!
Sing on, sing on, from your soft brown throat!
And my love in her little bed
Will listen, and lift her head
From the pillow, and come my way!
O rapturous bird with the low, sweet note!
O bird that sits on the spray!
O blossom that hangs in the tremulous air!
O blossom with lips of snow!
Come down, come down, for my love to wear!
You will die on her head in a crown,
You will die in a fold of her gown,
To her little light heart you will go!
O blossom that hangs in the tremulous air!
O blossom with lips of snow!
poem by Oscar Wilde
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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