A Vision Of Folly
I saw one rushing madly in pursuit
Of Liberty. With frenzied steps he strode.
Old laws and customs with disdainful foot
He spurned beneath him in a mire of blood.
He stood before the wondering world a god,
A king with Freedom for his spouse and queen.
He felt his empire was divine and trod,
As on a footstool, on the necks of men.
Ruin awhile and havoc strewed his path.
He had his day of glory and his fall.
He stood once more upon his father's hearth,
Sated with pride, and there in frenzy worse
Wrought foul dishonour on that honoured hall,
And left its walls forever with a curse.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
Walls
Walls of stone and walls of brick,
Some walls thin and some walls thick,
Walls so high and walls so low,
Walls to hide and walls to show.
Walls quite short and walls quite tall,
Some walls, last well, some walls fall,
Walls for comfort, walls of hate,
Walls for security, walls ornate.
Some as a barricade, some to support,
Walls of wood and walls of iron wrought,
Walls as a barrier, walls to enclose,
Some are to sit on, some to lean and doze.
Walls we build ourselves, these aren't good,
Walls for privacy, walls that have stood,
So many years through weather foul or fine,
Walls, that are yours, walls that are mine.
Brick by brick they are built to last,
Whether built now or in the past,
They shelter us from so many things,
And shield us from whatever this life brings.
poem by Ernestine Northover
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
There Is A Legend Told
Once upon a time in a land of wishes,
Wishes that took ages to manifest,
Yet certainly coming true,
Supremacy, an empire emerged,
The King and Queen did stand,
So noble and highly honoured,
So marubic in her seat of honour,
Her highness viewed by the maltitude,
His majesty greatly honoured beyond,
Yes beyond the beyond of the beyond,
Such was the kingdom,
Such was their love like a kingdom
The vow to guard, and also to guide,
To distinguish a potatoe from an egg,
To separate a kiss from sex,
For love was the kingdom,
And sex became war unto them,
The priceless bravery of a kingdom,
To never seek out war,
But certainly to be ready for it,
Someone did show us,
Certainly how it looked like
It was beyond the thoughts of cowards,
A kingdom fighting a cause,
To defend their appluase,
Was it a plausible perfidy we saw,
Or maybe an indecent disire he had
For to love is like building an empire,
For to commit is like to stand still,
And for sex is like engaging in war,
So shall the empire never seek war,
Certainly, but, be prepared for it
The meanings hidden were unveiled,
The empire's parables were explained,
The poets did saw it coming,
Some fell and few stood still,
The legend of the empire
poem by Gaylord Munemo
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
When The Stone Begins To Turn
I come here for dr. king
Who gave the people a precious thing
He found a light in the darkest hour
And the strength for speaking truth to power
And in the years since they shot him down
You see changes that once were a dream
Begin to come around
When the walls have begun to crumble
When the laws have begun to burn
When the winds is singing freedom
When the stone begins to turn
And I come here to praise mandela
And to send this message to his jailer
Your walls may hold the man inside
But theyll never ever hold back the tide
cause in the years youve shut him away
A generation has grown where he stood
Theyre gonna see the day
When the walls have begun to crumble
When the laws have begun to burn
When the wind is singing freedom
When the stone begins to turn
We come here to sing for freedom
And to send our voices to the ones who need them
Freedom for south africa
And justice for nelson mandela
cause in the years theyve shut him away
A generation has grown where he stood
Were gonna see the day
When the walls have begun to crumble
When the laws have begun to burn
When the wind is singing freedom
When the stone begins to turn
song performed by by Jackson Browne
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
The Giant Spider
In the bathroom this evening I saw the largest spider I’d ever seen,
it was the size of a saucer and it must’ve been a king or queen.
Menacingly it stood in front of me and looked me in the eye,
I think it was considering whether I should live or die.
It began tapping one of its front feet against the tiled floor,
I didn’t know what to do, I became anxious and unsure.
The spider licked its lips, as though it had decided what to do,
so I took one step backwards and then quickly another two.
I’m sure I felt the floor vibrate, as it tapped its foot once more,
it then stood in the doorway so I couldn’t get out the door
I considered jumping over it, but remembered that they also leap,
but then my brother walked in, and crushed it beneath his feet.
poem by Orlando Belo
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The Rendition
I HEARD the train's shrill whistle call,
I saw an earnest look beseech,
And rather by that look than speech
My neighbor told me all.
And, as I thought of Liberty
Marched handcuffed down that sworded street,
The solid earth beneath my feet
Reeled fluid as the sea.
I felt a sense of bitter loss, —
Shame, tearless grief, and stifling wrath,
And loathing fear, as if my path
A serpent stretched across.
All love of home, all pride of place,
All generous confidence and trust,
Sank smothering in that deep disgust
And anguish of disgrace.
Down on my native hills of June,
And home's green quiet, hiding all,
Fell sudden darkness like the fall
Of midnight upon noon!
And Law, an unloosed maniac, strong,
Blood-drunken, through the blackness trod,
Hoarse-shouting in the ear of God
The blasphemy of wrong.
'O Mother, from thy memories proud,
Thy old renown, dear Commonwealth,
Lend this dead air a breeze of health,
And smite with stars this cloud.
'Mother of Freedom, wise and brave,
Rise awful in thy strength,' I said;
Ah me! I spake but to the dead;
I stood upon her grave!
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Fireflies
On a moonless night,
With icy winds chilling my spine.
I sat down on the footsteps of my cottage;
Wondering what an empty night that was.
No sound of vehicles or people;
What a perfect silence!
I was wondering.
Just as i stood to leave,
In the mist i saw small flashes.
Dazed and bewildered in its beauty I stood;
A beauty out of the world!
First i saw only the flashes,
But then i realized.
They were dancing to a beat of their own!
A flawless silent choreography.
I felt out of the world;
A night to be remembered forever!
poem by Vivian Thompson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
This is my Father’s World
This is my Father’s world, and to my listening ears
All nature sings, and round me rings the music of the spheres.
This is my Father’s world: I rest me in the thought
Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas;
His hand the wonders wrought.
This is my Father’s world, the birds their carols raise,
The morning light, the lily white, declare their Maker’s praise.
This is my Father’s world: He shines in all that’s fair;
In the rustling grass I hear Him pass;
He speaks to me everywhere.
This is my Father’s world. O let me ne’er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.
This is my Father’s world: the battle is not done:
Jesus Who died shall be satisfied,
And earth and Heav’n be one.
This is my Father’s world, dreaming, I see His face.
I ope my eyes, and in glad surprise cry, “The Lord is in this place.”
This is my Father’s world, from the shining courts above,
The Beloved One, His Only Son,
Came—a pledge of deathless love.
This is my Father’s world, should my heart be ever sad?
The lord is King—let the heavens ring. God reigns—let the earth be glad.
This is my Father’s world. Now closer to Heaven bound,
For dear to God is the earth Christ trod.
No place but is holy ground.
This is my Father’s world. I walk a desert lone.
In a bush ablaze to my wondering gaze God makes His glory known.
This is my Father’s world, a wanderer I may roam
Whate’er my lot, it matters not,
My heart is still at home.
poem by Maltbie Davenport Babcock
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
Vote! | Copy!
Warned
They stood at the garden gate.
By the lifting of a lid
She might have read her fate
In a little thing he did.
He plucked a beautiful flower,
Tore it away from its place
On the side of the blooming bower,
And held it against his face.
Drank in its beauty and bloom,
In the midst of his idle talk;
Then cast it down to the gloom
And dust of the garden walk.
Ay, trod it under his foot,
As it lay in his pathway there;
Then spurned it away with his boot,
Because it had ceased to be fair.
Ah! the maiden might have read
The doom of her young life then;
But she looked in his eyes instead,
And thought him the king of men.
She looked in his eyes and blushed,
She hid in his strong arms' fold;
And the tale of the flower, crushed
And spurned, was once more told.
poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Boadicea. An Ode
When the British warrior queen,
Bleeding from the Roman rods,
Sought, with an indignant mien,
Counsel of her country's gods,
Sage beneath a spreading oak
Sat the Druid, hoary chief;
Every burning word he spoke
Full of rage, and full of grief.
Princess! if our aged eyes
Weep upon thy matchless wrongs,
'Tis because resentment ties
All the terrors of our tongues.
Rome shall perish,--write that word
In the blood that she has spilt;
Perish, hopeless and abhorred,
Deep in ruin as in guilt.
Rome, for empire far renowned,
Tramples on a thousand states;
Soon her pride shall kiss the ground--
Hark! the Gaul is at her gates!
Other Romans shall arise,
Heedless of a soldier's name;
Sounds, not arms, shall win the prize--
Harmony the path to fame.
Then the progeny that springs
From the forests of our land,
Armed with thunder, clad with wings,
Shall a wider world command.
Regions Cæsar never knew
Thy posterity shall sway,
Where his eagles never flew,
None invincible as they.
Such the bard's prophetic words,
Pregnant with celestial fire,
Bending, as he swept the chords
Of his sweet but awful lyre.
She, with all a monarch's pride,
Felt them in her bosom glow;
Rushed to battle, fought, and died;
Dying, hurled them at the foe.
Ruffians, pitiless as proud,
Heaven awards the vengeance due:
Empire is on us bestowed,
Shame and ruin wait for you!
poem by William Cowper
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Ballad Of Rose Red
Rose Red was the name they gave her
because of her flaming hair.
She grew up in a time of turmoil
where children were taken from their beds.
When her only son was stolen and butchered,
something snapped within her head.
She turned her attention to the seas
and pirates life she led.
With cutlass and pistol,
her wrath swathed through the Spanish Main.
A price as big as her rivals
was placed upon her head,
but no one was fool enough to collect it
fearing the wrath of Rose Red.
Her mighty ship the Dragon Queen
sailed without hindrance and impunity.
Treasures of captured ships lined
the Dragon Queen’s hold,
then back to her island home
was the course she chartered
for where her other treasures
lie buried there somewhere.
This secret was only hers
because she alone buried it there.
Anyone who saw where
never lived to tell the tale.
She was savage with her wrath
as she sought out the murderers
of her only son.
Year after year, she sought them down
whether on land or at sea
with her lasting vengeance.
One by one, the murderers fell
from those who had committed it
to those from which their orders fell.
Rose Red gave them their appointment
with the devil they served.
Fear ran among them
of this woman with flaming hair
who struck without warning.
She rode the seas for years
pillaging the greedy as her victims fell.
Now only one remained,
the highest of them all
and the most guarded as well.
He being the King of Spain,
but Rose Red was not
afraid of his army or him.
Into port she sailed one night
guns firing from fore to aft
until no ship was left afloat.
The guns then turned on the town
crumbling each building in turn
until only the palace was left standing.
Then into town, they went
with only one prize to seek.
The palace stood untouched
no holes within its walls
as the pirates strode against it.
First through the main gate
leaving no one left alive
except for the slaves.
Whose freedom they gave
until the king was cornered.
He stood among his treasures
to defend them with his might.
Rose Red strode into the chamber
to face his cowering body
pleading for mercy to be.
She looked at the coward
and lifting her pistol to finish
what had to be done.
The shot echoed in the chamber
and the body slumped down
no more would anyone loose their children
to this wicked crooked crown.
The king was dead and the evil hordes he had sown
where now facing what they gave to others
a hole in the ground.
The treasures were left along with the crown
Rose Red’s vengeance was now complete.
Back to the ship, they strode
sailing out to the oceans free.
No longer did they have
a bounty on their heads
now the king was dead.
They were free to do now as they pleased.
4 September 2011
poem by David Harris
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Before a Painting
I knew not who had wrought with skill so fine
What I beheld; nor by what laws of art
He had created life and love and heart
On canvas, from mere color, curve and line.
Silent I stood and made no move or sign;
Not with the crowd, but reverently apart;
Nor felt the power my rooted limbs to start,
But mutely gazed upon that face divine.
And over me the sense of beauty fell,
As music over a raptured listener to
The deep-voiced organ breathing out a hymn;
Or as on one who kneels, his beads to tell,
There falls the aureate glory filtered through
The windows in some old cathedral dim.
poem by James Weldon Johnson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Veronica's Napkin
THE Heavenly Circuit; Berenice's Hair;
Tent-pole of Eden; the tent's drapery;
Symbolical glory of thc earth and air!
The Father and His angelic hierarchy
That made the magnitude and glory there
Stood in the circuit of a needle's eye.
Some found a different pole, and where it stood
A pattern on a napkin dipped in blood.
poem by William Butler Yeats
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Born on the 4th of July.
Liberty is their destination.
Born on
The fourth of July 1776.
Liberty is taken
For the pursuit of happiness's, freedom
And declared, constitution.
Those who have chosen liberty
Have freedom, freedom to choose
Never oppression
© Calac
poem by Chris Lane
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Flutter
word by word
she spoke to me
hidden neath a mess of bygone linnen
she listens as to dry a thousand tongues
my love is thin and thinning
some cherised flower
flutters through
gentleborn beloved you
kindness always
kindness always
i hear the sound
the sound she's left me
i stood her ground
no
they've swayed me
i hear the sound
the sound she's left me
i stood her ground
i hear the sound
the sound she's left me
wrapped tight
inside your shawl
we wander round this dingy hall
softly spoken
shaken tree
the ash grove we come to be
the blood run
the blood run away
from arm and leg to a warm heart
all our colors agree
in the dark
but no man lives upon that land
far enough for us to see
i hear your voice yeah
in the hum of this machine
i hear the sound
the sound you've left me
i stood her ground
i hear the sound
the sound she's left me
song performed by by 16 Horsepower
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
When Jesus Left His Father's Throne
When Jesus left His Father’s throne,
He chose a humble birth;
Like us, unhonored and unknown,
He came to dwell on earth.
Like Him may we be found below,
In wisdom’s path of peace;
Like Him in grace and knowledge grow,
As years and strength increase.
Sweet were His words and kind His look,
When mothers round Him pressed;
Their infants in His arms He took,
And on His bosom blessed.
Safe from the world’s alluring harms,
Beneath His watchful eye,
Thus in the circle of His arms
May we forever lie.
When Jesus into Zion rode,
The children sang around;
For joy they plucked the palms and strewed
Their garments on the ground.
Hosanna our glad voices raise,
Hosanna to our King!
Should we forget our Savior’s praise,
The stones themselves would sing.
poem by James Montgomery
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Guenevere
I was a queen, and I have lost my crown;
A wife, and I have broken all my vows;
A lover, and I ruined him I loved: --
There is no other havoc left to do.
A little month ago I was a queen,
And mothers held their babies up to see
When I came riding out of Camelot.
The women smiled, and all the world smiled too.
And now, what woman's eyes would smile on me?
I still am beautiful, and yet what child
Would think of me as some high, heaven-sent thing,
An angel, clad in gold and miniver?
The world would run from me, and yet am I
No different from the queen they used to love.
If water, flowing silver over stones,
Is forded, and beneath the horses' feet
Grows turbid suddenly, it clears again,
And men will drink it with no thought of harm.
Yet I am branded for a single fault.
I was the flower amid a toiling world,
Where people smiled to see one happy thing,
And they were proud and glad to raise me high;
They only asked that I should be right fair,
A little kind, and gowned wondrously,
And surely it were little praise to me
If I had pleased them well throughout my life.
I was a queen, the daughter of a king.
The crown was never heavy on my head,
It was my right, and was a part of me.
The women thought me proud, the men were kind,
And bowed right gallantly to kiss my hand,
And watched me as I passed them calmly by,
Along the halls I shall not tread again.
What if, to-night, I should revisit them?
The warders at the gates, the kitchen-maids,
The very beggars would stand off from me,
And I, their queen, would climb the stairs alone,
Pass through the banquet-hall, a loathed thing,
And seek my chambers for a hiding-place,
And I should find them but a sepulchre,
The very rushes rotted on the floors,
The fire in ashes on the freezing hearth.
I was a queen, and he who loved me best
Made me a woman for a night and day,
And now I go unqueened forevermore.
A queen should never dream on summer eves,
When hovering spells are heavy in the dusk: --
I think no night was ever quite so still,
So smoothly lit with red along the west,
So deeply hushed with quiet through and through.
And strangely clear, and deeply dyed with light,
The trees stood straight against a paling sky,
With Venus burning lamp-like in the west.
I walked alone amid a thousand flowers,
That drooped their heads and drowsed beneath the dew,
And all my thoughts were quieted to sleep.
Behind me, on the walk, I heard a step --
I did not know my heart could tell his tread,
I did not know I loved him till that hour.
Within my breast I felt a wild, sick pain,
The garden reeled a little, I was weak,
And quick he came behind me, caught my arms,
That ached beneath his touch; and then I swayed,
My head fell backward and I saw his face.
All this grows bitter that was once so sweet,
And many mouths must drain the dregs of it.
But none will pity me, nor pity him
Whom Love so lashed, and with such cruel thongs.
poem by Sara Teasdale
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
I Could Not Move To Boo Hoo
You once had said you loved me,
But the end of fun had come.
And there,
I stood and was stunned.
You left it to your friends to tell me,
It was over and done.
And there,
I stood and was stunned.
There was...
No place I could run.
I could not move to boo hoo,
'Cause I felt like such a cuckoo.
And there,
I stood and was stunned.
If I was a drinker,
I'd be woozy from the booze.
And there,
I stood and was stunned.
There was...
No place I could run.
You once had said you loved me,
But the end of fun had come.
And there,
I stood and was stunned.
You left it to your friends to tell me,
It was over and done.
And there,
I stood and was stunned.
There was...
No place I could run.
I could not move to boo hoo,
'Cause I felt like such a cuckoo.
And there,
I stood and was stunned.
I could not move to boo hoo,
'Cause I felt like such a cuckoo.
And there,
I stood and was stunned.
There was...
No place I could run.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Freedom
For freedom you and I enjoy.
At the cost of blood and tears.
Of those warriors all.
Who stand in harm’s way.
What compensation
must be petitioned?
To satisfy the toll
of those who gave so much.
To some merely a word.
A word tossed loosely around.
To use and abuse
over and over for personal gain.
What would our country be
without it’s freedom?
How much torment
would we suffer?
How much would we lose?
If no one stood fast
to check evil’s tide?
Our freedom protect it well.
poem by Kurt Hearth
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Sweet Silent Sea-Waves Lapping By The Rocks
Sweet silent sea-waves lapping by the rocks
That beneath the frowning bastions lie
Nature, the tricky one
Left the door ajar half-open half-closed
And none of them - yet leaving things in the middle:
And he
And he
Pondering
Pondering as not be foolish
Said to himself
There’s danger if I open the door too much
I do not know what I will let in:
Yet
Yet
The option beckoned: either close or open to full:
So he pondered again
This time being quicker, rasher
Decided for the line of least resistance
For the prudent path
Fear, tall impudent fear
Stood by him like a dubious angel
His counsel was not lost – it moved him
And so
He closed the door thinking he said
And making sure against ‘the unforseen’.
Courage had stood by him
But Fear won him smiling green
Into the face of Courage
Another soul was won to Fear
Another to Courage lost:
Then Courage went away bashfully.
Fear sate him invisible by and by to watch.
So the drama quick unfolded:
And he sank
He could not walk on water
Because Fear had won him
Because Courage had lost him:
And so
And so
He sate on a safe rock
And put his feet into the water like a child
To feel the cool sweet water rush
And press with sweetness round his ankles
But Fear, yellow fear won!
For even here:
The sands started to
‘Twas a slippery bank, a bank of treachery
And treacherous the sand sank
And fast the sand
Sank like down the time-glass.
And Fear seizing him
He was un resourceful to the full
His mind Fear had made blank
It was blank – worse
Than if Morpheus on touching it
Had exceeded his dose of opiate sleep;
He saw nothing
Except him sink
And sink:
And all around him crush
And all around him go:
And yet
He felt a pleasure in the ruin
A sweetness new not felt before
He felt:
In sinking.
And so sinking
He still heard
The music of pleasantness
Ring in his ears
The sea was calm and wave-less
So no current churned
And linear and tall
He went down to the floor
The walls of water around him raged
The walls of water around him pressed
Like flames of wrath
Like flames of ruin Nero-like
When Nero burned his Rome
And staring stood
Stringing here and there a note
On his large funereal harp
And so
He touched the floor of the salt sea
Deep in and smiling in his ruin
At least pain had flown away
Fear had granted in recompense
A painless sinking:
And as he fell
His eyes were open yet closed
And he
Could not recriminate himself
As to why
He simply could not open the door - it was so easy
So imperative:
Yet so he did not and he sank.
And thus engrossed
He thought himself alone
If he could think:
And could not see
A case like his a-sinking to the floor
Another coward Fear his victim made
De te fabula!
poem by Emmanuel George Cefai
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The World’s Lover
My eyes are full of lonely mirth:
Reeling with want and worn with scars,
For pride of every stone on earth,
I shake my spear at all the stars.
A live bat beats my crest above,
Lean foxes nose where I have trod,
And on my naked face the love
Which is the loneliness of God.
Outlawed: since that great day gone by--
When before prince and pope and queen
I stood and spoke a blasphemy--
'Behold the summer leaves are green.'
They cursed me: what was that to me
Who in that summer darkness furled,
With but an owl and snail to see,
Had blessed and conquered all the world?
They bound me to the scourging-stake,
They laid their whips of thorn on me;
I wept to see the green rods break,
Though blood be beautiful to see.
Beneath the gallows' foot abhorred
The crowds cry 'Crucify!' and 'Kill!'
Higher the priests sing, 'Praise the Lord,
The warlock dies'; and higher still
Shall heaven and earth hear one cry sent
Even from the hideous gibbet height,
'Praise to the Lord Omnipotent,
The vultures have a feast to-night.'
poem by G.K. Chesterton from The Wild Knight and Other Poems (1900)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
Vote! | Copy!