She Shall Not Guess
Even if I died no sound should tell it her.
Death babbles, but the calm of her dear eyes
In vain would ask, no tell--tale breath should stir
The lips still treasuring a thought unwise.
How vain my life has been in its disguise,
Left unregarded, her least pensioner,
Yielding to all, unasking even with sighs
The dole of hope not Heaven could quite confer.
--To--day behold me on this page her name
Over my own inscribing, with no prayer,
Nor daring even to kneel in my distress.
What I have written in this candle's flame
Shrinks ere 'tis finished, and the incensed air
Bears but betrays it not. She shall not guess.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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To Die In Vain
When they lie me in my grave
Will I had done a lot of living
Or will the people just look and say
That I had done a lot of grieving.
And on my tomb what will be wrote
Will it just be a name,
With words that many had spoke
Saying that I had died in vain.
Through a graveyard as I stroll
I read many a lonesome name
That's all I see that's all that is wrote
I guess too, they died in vain.
No living for them had they done
No feats of greatness have they achieved
So now they are hid beneath the sun
As though they never had lived.
A name on marble a heart with no soul
It equals to about the same
For one does die, the other survives
And they both just lived in vain.
A tarnished tomb I do see
Forgotten by the years gone by
So beside it I will kneel and pray
For is that how I will die.
Then the graveyard I do leave
Mournful, bitter and shamed
Now no longer will I sit and grieve
For I WILL NOT! , die in vain.
So when they lay me in the ground
I now know what the people will say
They all will make a joyful sound
While saying, I lived and enjoyed everyday.
poem by Randy McClave
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What is Life?
And what is Life? An hour-glass on the run,
A mist retreating from the morning sun,
A busy, bustling, still-repeated dream.
Its length? A minute's pause, a moment's thought.
And Happiness? A bubble on the stream,
That in the act of seizing shrinks to nought.
And what is Hope? The puffing gale of morn,
That of its charms divests the dewy lawn,
And robs each flow'ret of its gem -and dies;
A cobweb, hiding disappointment's thorn,
Which stings more keenly through the thin disguise.
And what is Death? Is still the cause unfound?
That dark mysterious name of horrid sound?
A long and lingering sleep the weary crave.
And Peace? Where can its happiness abound?
Nowhere at all, save heaven and the grave.
Then what is Life? When stripped of its disguise,
A thing to be desired it cannot be;
Since everything that meets our foolish eyes
Gives proof sufficient of its vanity.
'Tis but a trial all must undergo,
To teach unthankful mortals how to prize
That happiness vain man's denied to know,
Until he's called to claim it in the skies.
poem by John Clare
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To Caroline
Think'st thou I saw thy beauteous eyes,
Suffus'd in tears, implore to stay;
And heard unmov'd thy plenteous sighs,
Which said far more than words can say?
Though keen the grief thy tears exprest,
When love and hope lay both o'erthrown;
Yet still, my girl, this bleeding breast
Throbb'd, with deep sorrow, as thine own.
But, when our cheeks with anguish glow'd,
When thy sweet lips were join'd to mine;
The tears that from my eyelids flow'd
Were lost in those which fell from thine.
Thou could'st not feel my burning cheek,
Thy gushing tears had quench'd its flame,
And, as thy tongue essay'd to speak,
In sighs alone it breath'd my name.
And yet, my girl, we weep in vain,
In vain our fate in sighs deplore;
Remembrance only can remain,
But that, will make us weep the more.
Again, thou best belov'd, adieu!
Ah! if thou canst, o'ercome regret,
Nor let thy mind past joys review,
Our only hope is, to forget!
On The Way To Church
There is one I know. I see her sometimes pass
In the morning streets upon her way to Mass,
A calm sweet woman with unearthly eyes.
Men turn to look at her, but ever stop,
Reading in those blue depths the death of hope
And a wise chastisement for thoughts unwise.
Pure is her brow as of a marble Saint.
Her brown hair pencils it with ripples faint.
There is no shadow on it and no light.
Her cheeks are pale like lilies in eclipse.
Hardly a little redness on her lips
Paints the sad smile where all the rest is white.
Tall is she and bent forward like a reed
Which the wind toys with as she walks with speed:
Girl--like her limbs and virginal her waist.
Of the world's wonders there is none so sweet
As this, the summer lightning of her feet,
Speeding her onward like a fawn in haste.
What is her secret? All the world has tried
To guess it. One I knew in guessing died
And was no wiser for his mortal pain.
Each has turned sadder from the thankless quest,
And gone back silent, even if he guessed,
Knowing all answer would be counted vain.
I knew her once. I know her not to--day.
Our eyes meet sometimes, but hers turn away
Quicker from mine than from the rest that look.
Her pale cheek quivers, a flush comes and goes,
As in the presence of a soul that knows,
And her hands tighten on her missal book.
Men have done evil yet have won to Heaven,
Lived in blood guiltiness yet died forgiven.
May I not, I too, one day win my grace?
Ah no. The sacrilege of this worst sin
Outweighs all grace. I dare not enter in
Nor kneel, God's robber, near that angel face.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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Epitaph [To This Grave Is Committed]
I was a friend, On this sad stone a pious look bestow,
Nor uninstructed read this tale of woe;
And while the sigh of sorrow heaves thy breast,
Let each rebellious murmur be supprest;
Heaven's hidden ways to trace, for us, how vain!
Heaven's wise decrees, how impious, to arraign!
Pure from the stains of a polluted age,
In early bloom of life, they left the stage:
Not doom'd in lingering woe to waste their breath
One moment snatch'd Them from the power of Death:
They liv'd united, and united died;
Happy the friends, whom Death cannot divi
O man, to thee, to all.
poem by James Beattie
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Love's Apparition and Evanishment: An Allegoric Romance
Like a lone Arab, old and blind,
Some caravan had left behind,
Who sits beside a ruin'd well,
Where the shy sand-asps bask and swell;
And now he hangs his ag{'e}d head aslant,
And listens for a human sound--in vain!
And now the aid, which Heaven alone can grant,
Upturns his eyeless face from Heaven to gain;--
Even thus, in vacant mood, one sultry hour,
Resting my eye upon a drooping plant,
With brow low-bent, within my garden-bower,
I sate upon the couch of camomile;
And--whether 'twas a transient sleep, perchance,
Flitted across the idle brain, the while
I watch'd the sickly calm with aimless scope,
In my own heart; or that, indeed a trance,
Turn'd my eye inward--thee, O genial Hope,
Love's elder sister! thee did I behold
Drest as a bridesmaid, but all pale and cold,
With roseless cheek, all pale and cold and dim,
Lie lifeless at my feet!
And then came Love, a sylph in bridal trim,
And stood beside my seat;
She bent, and kiss'd her sister's lips,
As she was wont to do;--
Alas! 'twas but a chilling breath
Woke just enough of life in death
To make Hope die anew.
poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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Epitaph On Two Young Men Of The Name Of Leitch, Who Were Drowned In Crossing The River Southesk
O thou! whose steps in sacred reverence tread
These lone dominions of the silent dead;
On this sad stone a pious look bestow,
Nor uninstructed read this tale of woe;
And while the sigh of sorrow heaves thy breast,
Let each rebellious murmur be suppress'd;
Heaven's hidden ways to trace, for us how vain!
Heaven's wise decrees, how impious to arraign!
Pure from the stains of a polluted age,
In early bloom of life they left the stage:
Not doom'd in lingering woe to waste their breath,
One moment snatch'd them from the power of Death:
They lived united, and united died;
Happy the friends whom Death cannot divide!
poem by James Beattie
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Died
Not by the death that kills the body. Nay,
By that which even Christ bade us to fear
Hath died my dead.
Ah, me! if on a bier
I could but see him lifeless stretched to-day,
I 'd bathe his face with tears of joy, and lay
My cheek to his in anguish which were near
To ecstasy, if I could hold him dear
In death as life. Mere separations weigh
As dust in balances of love. The death
That kills comes only by dishonor. Vain
To chide me! vain! And weaker to implore,
O thou once loved so well, loved now no more!
There is no resurrection for such slain,
No miracle of God could give thee breath!
poem by Helen Hunt Jackson
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In Vain
The stars in the sky
In vain
The tragedy of Hamlet
In vain
The key in the lock
In vain
The sleeping mother
In vain
The lamp in the corner
In vain
The lamp in the corner unlit
In vain
Abraham Lincoln
In vain
The Aztec empire
In vain
The writing hand: in vain
(The shoetrees in the shoes
In vain
The windowshade string upon
the hand bible
In vain—
The glitter of the greenglass
ashtray
In vain
The bear in the woods
In vain
The Life of Buddha
In vain)
poem by Jack Kerouac
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Reptiles And Roses
So crystal clear it is to me
That when I die I cease to be,
All else seems sheer stupidity.
All promises of Paradise
Are wishful thinking, preacher's lies,
Dogmatic dust flung in our eyes.
Yea, life's immortal, swift it flows
Alike in reptile and in rose,
But as it comes, so too it goes.
Dead roses will not bloom again;
The lifeless lizard writhes in vain;
Cups shattered will not hold champagne.
Our breath is brief, and being so
Let's make our heaven here below,
And lavish kindness as we go.
For when dour Death shall close the door
There will be darkness evermore;
So let us kneel in prayer before
Each day and let our duty be
To fight that mankind may be free . . .
There is our Immortality.
poem by Robert William Service
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Last Night, I Died
Last night, I died
And there was no one there
There was no one for me to speak to
Except for GOD; who I did in prayer.
I asked GOD then to forgive me
And please, erase the sins of this man
Then I asked him to watch over my family and friends
And then I asked him please; hold my hand.
And as I lay there dying
Unto GOD I freely spoke
I thanked him for all the gifts he gave me,
I thanked him for all the words I wrote.
Then I closed my eyes and had memories
But not of the bad times, only the good,
Then I thought of the people I loved and trusted,
Not because I had to, but because I should.
And while I was there still alone
Awaiting for death to take my life,
I began to cry, but not for me
But for my son, and the woman I call wife.
Then I thought in Heaven who would walk with me
When I arrived, in my new home,
Then I thought who would be with me
Or in Heaven I thought, Would I walk alone.
And as I awaited For my life to end
I worried as I began to think of everyone else,
The sting of death really didn't bother me,
But only knowing, I would die by myself.
And then at last death it came,
And there for me, no one had cried
Because no one knew that I left this world
Because no one knew, last night I had died.
Randy L. McClave
poem by Randy McClave
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Psalm 102 part 2
v.13-21
C. M.
Prayer heard, and Zion restored.
Let Zion and her sons rejoice,
Behold the promised hour;
Her God hath heard her mourning voice,
And comes t' exalt his power.
Her dust and ruins that remain
Are precious in our eyes;
Those ruins shall be built again,
And all that dust shall rise.
The Lord will raise Jerusalem
And stand in glory there;
Nations shall bow before his name,
And kings attend with fear.
He sits a sovereign on his throne,
With pity in his eyes;
He hears the dying pris'ners' groan,
And sees their sighs arise.
He frees the souls condemned to death,
And when his saints complain,
It shan't be said, "That praying breath
Was ever spent in vain."
This shall be known when we are dead,
And left on long record;
That ages yet unborn may read,
And trust, and praise the Lord.
poem by Isaac Watts
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Going Home
Going home sure sounds good, to be at home with the brotherhood.
Home with those who went before, now in the presence of The Lord.
Whether through that veil of death, when I take that very last breath,
Or at that time we upward abound, when we hear the trumpet sound.
A Christian’s death from this sod, is truly precious in the eyes of God.
As He takes you where you died, to bring you to Heaven by His side.
But the Rapture is a special hope, which gives men an eternal scope.
A hope that goes beyond this earth; a hope given to us by New Birth.
I do know that my Redeemer lives, and New Life to all men He gives.
God, who lives in Heaven up above, came to earth to show His love.
He sent His Only Son Jesus Christ, who died for all, to give men life.
Christ then returned to prepare a place, up in Heaven, by His Grace.
A place in Heaven for me and you, so where Christ is we will be too.
Christ has for us an Eternal Home, right beside His Glorious Throne.
Whether the rapture or death friend, this temporal world isn’t the end.
Our end on the earth is only a start, of the hope we have in our heart.
We’re passing by this temporal place, heading home by God’s Grace,
And we’re headed for a Mansion high, prepared for us above the sky.
My friend, home for us is in Eternity, where with God we’ll forever be,
For when we see the face of Christ, we’ll truly begin our Eternal Life.
(Copyright ©03/2006)
Hope Has A Son (II)
For every sickness
you have to bear
For every song
you cannot hear
Hope has a son
For every angel
with a broken wing
For every dove
that cannot fly
Hope has a son
For every sea
you cannot see
For every ocean
you have to sail
Hope has a son
For every victory
that died in vain
For every game
you lost again
Hope has a son
For every favor
you have to kneel
For every love you grip that frailed
Hope has a son
For every weep
that make you weak
For every snow
that makes you weary
Hope has a son
poem by Abdullah Musa
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To a Beautiful Quaker
Sweet girl! though only once we met,
That meeting I shall ne'er forget;
And though we may ne'er meet again,
Rememberance will thy form retain.
I would not say, "I love", but still
My senses struggle with my will:
In vain, to drive thee from my breast,
My thoughts are more and more represt;
In vain I check the rising sighs,
Another to the last replies:
Perhaps this is not love, but yet
Our meeting I can ne'er forget.
What though we never silence broke,
Our eyes a sweeter language spoke;
The tongue in flattering falsehood deals,
And tells a tale it never feels:
Deceit the guilty lips impart,
And hush the mandates of the heart;
But soul's interpreters, the eyes,
Spurns such restraint, and scorn disguise.
As thus our glances oft conversed,
And all our bosoms felt rehearsed,
No spirit, from within, reproved us,
Say rather, "'twas the spirit moved us."
Though what they utter'd I repress,
Yet I conceive thou'lt partly guess;
For as on thee my memory ponders,
Perchance to me thine also wanders,
This, for myself, at least, I'll say,
Thy form appears through night, through day;
Awake, with it my fancy teems;
In sleep, it smiles in fleeting dreams;
The vision charms the hours away,
And bids me curse Aurora's ray
For breaking slumbers of delight
Which make me wish for endless night.
Since, oh! whate'er my future fate,
Shall joy or woe my steps await,
Tempted by love, by storms beset,
Thine image I can ne'er forget.
Alas! again no more we meet,
No more our former looks repeat;
Then let me breathe this parting prayer,
The dictate of my bosom's care:
"May Heaven so guard my lovely quaker,
That anguish never can o'ertake her;
That peace and virture ne'er forsake her
But bliss be aye her heart's partaker!
Oh! may the happy mortal fated
To be, by dearest ties, related,
For her each hour new joys discover,
And lose the husband in the lover!
May that fair bosom never know
What 'tis to feel the restless woe
Which stings the soul, whith vain regret,
Of him who never can forget!"
poem by Byron (1806)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Visionary Hope
Sad lot, to have no Hope! Though lowly kneeling
He fain would frame a prayer within his breast,
Would fain entreat for some sweet breath of healing,
That his sick body might have ease and rest;
He strove in vain! the dull sighs from his chest
Against his will the stifling load revealing,
Though Nature forced; though like some captive guest,
Some royal prisoner at his conqueror's feast,
An alien's restless mood but half concealing,
The sternness on his gentle brow confessed,
Sickness within and miserable feeling:
Though obscure pangs made curses of his dreams,
And dreaded sleep, each night repelled in vain,
Each night was scattered by its own loud screams:
Yet never could his heart command, though fain,
One deep full wish to be no more in pain.
That Hope, which was his inward bliss and boast,
Which waned and died, yet ever near him stood,
Though changed in nature, wander where he would--
For Love's Despair is but Hope's pining Ghost!
For this one hope he makes his hourly moan,
He wishes and can wish for this alone!
Pierced, as with light from Heaven, before its gleams
(So the love-stricken visionary deems)
Disease would vanish, like a summer shower,
Whose dews fling sunshine from the noon-tide bower!
Or let it stay! yet this one Hope should give
Such strength that he would bless his pains and live.
poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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Botticelli's Madonna in the Louvre
WHAT strange presentiment, O Mother, lies
On thy waste brow and sadly-folded lips,
Forefeeling the Light's terrible eclipse
On Calvary, as if love made thee wise,
And thou couldst read in those dear infant eyes
The sorrow that beneath their smiling sleeps,
And guess what bitter tears a mother weeps
When the cross darkens her unclouded skies?
Sad Lady, if some mother, passing thee,
Should feel a throb of thy foreboding pain,
And think - 'My child at home clings so to me,
With the same smile . . . and yet in vain, in vain,
Since even this Jesus died on Calvary' -
Say to her then: 'He also rose again.'
poem by Edith Wharton
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The Wish Of To-Day
I ask not now for gold to gild
With mocking shine a weary frame;
The yearning of the mind is stilled,
I ask not now for Fame.
A rose-cloud, dimly seen above,
Melting in heaven's blue depths away;
Oh, sweet, fond dream of human Love
For thee I may not pray.
But, bowed in lowliness of mind,
I make my humble wishes known;
I only ask a will resigned,
O Father, to Thine own!
To-day, beneath Thy chastening eye
I crave alone for peace and rest,
Submissive in Thy hand to lie,
And feel that it is best.
A marvel seems the Universe,
A miracle our Life and Death;
A mystery which I cannot pierce,
Around, above, beneath.
In vain I task my aching brain,
In vain the sage's thought I scan,
I only feel how weak and vain,
How poor and blind, is man.
And now my spirit sighs for home,
And longs for light whereby to see,
And, like a weary child, would come,
O Father, unto Thee!
Though oft, like letters traced on sand,
My weak resolves have passed away,
In mercy lend Thy helping hand
Unto my prayer to-day!
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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Quieta Ne Movete II
IF one should wake one's frozen faith
In sunlight of her radiant eyes,
Bid it forget its dream of death,
In this new dream of Paradise,
Bid it forget the long, slow pain,
The agony when, all in vain,
It fought for life, and how one swore,
Once cold, it should not waken more;
If hope one buried long ago
Should thrill beneath those smiles of hers,
Should in one's sere life stir and grow,
As in brown woods the young spring stirs;
If, breaking icy bonds of grief,
One's soul should start to bud and leaf,
It might forget in that springtide
How last year's leaves fell off and died.
If from warm faith and hope set high
A lovely living child was born,
With lips more pure than starlit sky,
And eyes as clear as summer morn,
Child-love might grow till one forgot
Old love, that was and now is not--
Forgot that far-off time of tears,
And all these desolated years.
And yet of faith, hope, love, one knows
So well what end the years will make,
If one should dig beneath Time's snows
And wake them now for her sweet sake.
New life may mean new joy; but then,
What lives again may die again,
And to that second death there may
Be no new resurrection-day.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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At Even-Tide
C. N.--Died April, 1857.
What spirit is it that doth pervade
The silence of this empty room?
And as I lift my eyes, what shade
Glides off and vanishes in gloom?
I could believe this moment gone,
A known form filled that vacant chair,
That those kind eyes upon me shone
I never shall see anywhere!
The living are so far away:
But thou--thou seemest strangely near;
Knowest all my silent heart would say,
Its peace, its pain, its hope, its fear.
And from thy calm supernal height,
And wondrous wisdom newly won,
Smilest on all our poor delight,
And petty woe beneath the sun.
From all this coil thou hast slipped away,
As softly as a cloud departs
Along the hillside purple gray--
Into the heaven of patient hearts.
Nothing here suffered, nothing missed,
Will ever stir from its repose
The death-smile on her lips unkissed,
Who all things loves and all things knows.
And I, who, ignorant and weak,
Of love so helpless--quick to pain,
With restless longing ever seek
The unattainable in vain,
Find it strange comfort thus to sit
While the loud world unheeded rolls,
And clasp, ere yet the fancy flit,
A friend's hand from the land of souls.
poem by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
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