To Some I Have Talked With By The Fire
WHILE I wrought out these fitful Danaan rhymes,
My heart would brim with dreams about the times
When we bent down above the fading coals
And talked of the dark folk who live in souls
Of passionate men, like bats in the dead trees;
And of the wayward twilight companies
Who sigh with mingled sorrow and content,
Because their blossoming dreams have never bent
Under the fruit of evil and of good:
And of the embattled flaming multitude
Who rise, wing above wing, flame above flame,
And, like a storm, cry the Ineffable Name,
And with the clashing of their sword-blades make
A rapturous music, till the morning break
And the white hush end all but the loud beat
Of their long wings, the flash of their white feet.
poem by William Butler Yeats
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In The Forest
HERE, O my heart, let us burn the dear dreams that are dead,
Here in this wood let us fashion a funeral pyre
Of fallen white petals and leaves that are mellow and red,
Here let us burn them in noon's flaming torches of fire.
We are weary, my heart, we are weary, so long we have borne
The heavy loved burden of dreams that are dead, let us rest,
Let us scatter their ashes away, for a while let us mourn;
We will rest, O my heart, till the shadows are gray in the west.
But soon we must rise, O my heart, we must wander again
Into the war of the world and the strife of the throng;
Let us rise, O my heart, let us gather the dreams that remain,
We will conquer the sorrow of life with the sorrow of song.
poem by Sarojini Naidu
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The Countess Cathleen In Paradise
ALL the heavy days are over;
Leave the body's coloured pride
Underneath the grass and clover,
With the feet laid side by side.
Bathed in flaming founts of duty
She'll not ask a haughty dress;
Carry all that mournful beauty
To the scented oaken press.
Did the kiss of Mother Mary
Put that music in her face?
Yet she goes with footstep wary,
Full of earth's old timid grace.
'Mong the feet of angels seven
What a dancer glimmering!
All the heavens bow down to Heaven,
Flame to flame and wing to wing.
poem by William Butler Yeats
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The White Birds
I WOULD that we were, my beloved, white birds on the foam of the sea!
We tire of the flame of the meteor, before it can fade and flee;
And the flame of the blue star of twilight, hung low on the rim of the sky,
Has awaked in our hearts, my beloved, a sadness that may not die.
A weariness comes from those dreamers, dew-dabbled, the lily and rose;
Ah, dream not of them, my beloved, the flame of the meteor that goes,
Or the flame of the blue star that lingers hung low in the fall of the dew:
For I would we were changed to white birds on the wandering foam: I and you!
I am haunted by numberless islands, and many a Danaan shore,
Where Time would surely forget us, and Sorrow come near us no more;
Soon far from the rose and the lily and fret of the flames would we be,
Were we only white birds, my beloved, buoyed out on the foam of the sea!
poem by William Butler Yeats
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Broken Wing
She loved like he was the last man on earth. gave him everything she ever had.
Hed break her spirit down, then come lovin up on her. give a little, then
Take it back. shed tell him about her dreams - hed just shoot em down. lord,
He loved to make her cry. youre crazy for believin youll ever leave the
Ground. he said only angels know how to fly.
And with a broken wing, she still sings. she keeps an eye on the sky. with a
Broken wing, she carries her dreams. man, you ought to see her fly.
One sunday mornin, she didnt go to church. he wondered why she didnt leave.
He went up to her bedroom, found a note by the window, with the curtains
Blowin in the breeze, and with a broken wing, she still sings. she keeps an
Eye on the sky. with a broken wing, she carries her dreams. man, you ought to
See her fly. with a broken wing, she carries her dreams. man, you ought to see
Her fly. (with a broken wing oooooh)
song performed by by Martina Mcbride
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Four Places Of Sorrow
There is sorrow for me in the North, where the black wind blows,
(Hush, O Wind of the dirges, O Voice of the restless dead!)
The ache of its cruel keening thro' my heart like an arrow goes,
I see in the tossing waters the sheen of a dear bright head.
There is sorrow for me in the South, where the white wind sings,
(Hush, O Wind of all lovers, crooning a laugh and a cry!)
On the pain of a dream love-haunted breaks the music of wings,
Seagulls, sweeping and swaying, saw ye my dead drift by?
There is sorrow for me in the East, where the red wind burns,
(Hush, O Wind of remorse, O Wind of the scourging flame!)
Under its slow cold dawning the soul of the drowned returns
And wan, in the startled daybreak, a ghost from the sea he came.
There is sorrow for me in the West, where the brown wind raves,
(Hush, O Wind from the bogs, O memory-freighted Wind!)
He is spindrift hither and thither, sport of unweary waves:
Would that my heart were close on his heart, my eyes on his eyes were blind!
poem by Anna Johnston MacManus
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The Butterfly (The Mirror Sestet Poetry)
Delight adorns butterfly’s fluttering wings in flight,
Flight is his beauty for anemones to delight.
Wing flitters freely and his fragile moods can swing,
Swing dances he teaches the white flowers with his wing.
Breeze finds him out among the blooming buckeye red trees,
Trees push his innocent virgin spirit in the breeze.
Dance nurtures the flower to put her into deep trance,
Trance is his way to gather pollen for her life dance.
Dreams fiery rise in crimson, when the flower gleams,
Gleams of dawn in the east are his love powerful dreams.
Charms are her powers to spread fragrances in his arms
Arms are his wings when he flies to search for other charms.
poem by Marieta Maglas
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The Awakening
The Soul, of late a lovely sleeping child,
Spreads sudden wings and stands in radiant guise,
Eyed like the morn and bent upon the skies;
Her the blue gulf dismays not, nor the wild
Horizons with the wrecks of thunder piled;
Storm has she known, and how its murmur dies
Starlike through stainless heavens she would rise
And be no more with cloudy dreams beguiled.
Was sleep not sweet?--sweet till on sleeping ears
Earth's voices broke in discord. Now she hears
Far, far away diviner music move;
Nor shall her wing be sated of its flight,
Nor shall her eyes be weary of the night,
While round her sweep the singing stars of Love.
poem by Enid Derham
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Hell Bent For Leather
Seek him here, seek him on the highway
Never knowing when hell appear
All await, engines ticking over
Hear the roar as they sense the fear
Wheels! a glint of steel and a flash of light!
Screams! from a streak of fire as he strikes!
Hell bent, hell bent for leather
Hell bent, hell bent for leather
Black as night, faster than a shadowcrimson flare from a raging sun
An exhibition, of sheer precision
Yet no one knows from where he comes
Fools! self destruct cannot take that crown
Dreams! crash one by one to the ground
Hell bent, hell bent for leather
Hell bent, hell bent for leather
Theres many who tried to prove that theyre faster
But they didnt last and they died as they tried
Theres many who tried to prove that theyre faster
But they didnt last and they died as they tried
Hell bent, hell bent for leather
Hell bent, hell bent for leather
Hell bent, hell bent for leather
Hell bent, hell bent for leather
song performed by by Judas Priest
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Two Angels
God called the nearest angels who dwell with Him above:
The tenderest one was Pity, the dearest one was Love.
'Arise,' He said, 'my angels! a wail of woe and sin
Steals through the gates of heaven, and saddens all within.
'My harps take up the mournful strain that from a lost world swells,
The smoke of torment clouds the light and blights the asphodels.
'Fly downward to that under world, and on its souls of pain,
Let Love drop smiles like sunshine, and Pity tears like rain!'
Two faces bowed before the Throne, veiled in their golden hair;
Four white wings lessened swiftly down the dark abyss of air.
The way was strange, the flight was long; at last the angels came
Where swung the lost and nether world, red-wrapped in rayless flame.
There Pity, shuddering, wept; but Love, with faith too strong for fear,
Took heart from God's almightiness and smiled a smile of cheer.
And lo! that tear of Pity quenched the flame whereon it fell,
And, with the sunshine of that smile, hope entered into hell!
Two unveiled faces full of joy looked upward to the Throne,
Four white wings folded at the feet of Him who sat thereon!
And deeper than the sound of seas, more soft than falling flake,
Amidst the hush of wing and song the Voice Eternal spake:
'Welcome, my angels! ye have brought a holier joy to heaven;
Henceforth its sweetest song shall be the song of sin forgiven!'
poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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A Far Cry
In the dead of night
On the wings of the wind
I hear the ocean bell
With a flash of light
In the beat of the dark
The sound I know so well
I shall never forget you
It's been so long
I should never have left you
The call so strong
[chorus]
It's a far cry from a wild world
It want to get back to you
Such a long road, to the homeland
I must make my way to a far cry
From the chords of the earth
To the depths of the sea
I will return
As I look to the hill
Through the eyes of the storm
I touch the flame
I shall never forget you
It's been so long
I should never have left you
The call so strong
[chorus]
It's such a far cry
song performed by by Asia
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Venetian Night
Her eyes in the darkness shone, in the twilight shed
By the gondola bent like the darkness over her head.
Softly the gondola rocked, lights came and went;
A white glove shone as her black fan lifted and leant
Where the silk of her dress, the blue of a bittern's wing,
Rustled against my knee, and, murmuring
The sweet slow hesitant English of a child,
Her voice was articulate laughter, her soul smiled.
Softly the gondola rocked, lights came and went;
From the sleeping houses a shadow of slumber leant
Over our heads like a wing, and the dim lagoon,
Rustling with silence, slumbered under the moon.
Softly the gondola rocked, and a pale light came
Over the waters, mild as a silver flame;
She lay back, thrilling with smiles, in the twilight shed
By the gondola bend like the darkness over her head;
I saw her eyes shine subtly, then close awhile:
I remember her silence, and, in the night, her smile.
poem by Arthur Symons
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A Distant Kind Of Love
A dove calls her mate in the moon
But a sea wind calls, go not to soon...
For the night is young in circles new
The waves are rolling deep and blue.
So' it is for you; the world was made
To lift your feathers above the wave!
So dip your wing tips in salt rock air
Brave a poles ivory stair; if you dare!
For it's here your true loves heart lies
Anchored beneath the lustrous skies
Wave over wave- wing on wing!
The dove white creature clung, curing...
Until the sun in past shadows flame
Up and blessed the birds dead name
For the night is young in circles new
The waves are rolling deep and blue.
Wave over wave- wing on wing!
That dove white creature sort to cling...
Curing... deeper and deeper
Rolling... deeper and deeper
The little dove flew
To the heart of the moon,
To that part of the moon,
That could be you...
poem by Mark Heathcote
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Love Motives
To You.
SO you have come at last!
And we nestle, each in each,
As leans the pliant sea in the clean-curved limbs of her lover the beach;
Merged in each other quite,
Clinging, as in the tresses of trees dallies the troubadour night;
Faint as a perfume, soft as wine,
Yielding as moonlight—mine, all mine—
So I have found you at last!
I dreamed; we dare not meet:
The time is yet too soon;
Swept with the tumult of perfect love, our souls from this life would swoon—
For the fusion of our lives
Is the sole great goal to which the vast creation vaguely drives;
And only when I kiss your face
Shall the last great trumpet shatter Space—
I dreamed; we dare not meet!
Yet somewhere, hungry-eyed,
You lie and listen with tears,
Clogged with the flesh, and dulled with the sodden heritage of the years.
And I am alien, lone,
Hedged with the palisades of self, shut in—a soul unknown.
You, fashioned for me from Time's first day,
I, moulded for you ere that dawn was grey,
Wait hidden, hungry-eyed!
I lie in the lonely night;
And you?—perhaps so near
That if I should whisper your sweet soul-name you would joyously leap and hear!
And yet perhaps so far,
Drowned in the cosmic mist beyond the swirl of the farthest star;
But over the universe yawning between,
With wistful eyes you listen and lean,
Alone in the lonely night!
Perhaps your thirsty arms
Some stranger youth entwine,
And you will yield him thin, faint kisses, thinking his lips are mine;
He thinking that unawares
He has caught, as once in a dream he caught, that miracle-glance of hers.
The pathos of the thing that seems!
Each clasping memories, kissing dreams.
In passionate-thirsty arms!
So you will yearn through life,
Or maybe you did not wait:
You married him, and his neutral smile you learnt to sullenly hate;
Or you have lived a lie,
And drank the mockery of his lips, believing that he was I.
You dreamed, content that you loved him true,
But the soul of your soul was dead to you—
So I must yearn through life!
Or, starving and passionate still,
To your dreams you were bravely true;
You told the Night your secrets drear, and he laughed back at you;
And even when you dreamed
You heard his merciless laughter ring, and you sprang awake and screamed;
Till Age kissed you with a kiss that sears,
And you faded and withered with the years,
Starving and passionate still!
But, hush! I had almost heard:
Last night I dreamed your name;
Like the soft, white tread of a faint, cool cloud to my desolate sky it came;
Like a moth it drifted away,
And into the flame of the dawn it fluttered, dying into the day.
Yet the wind in the whispering leaves
The moan of your sobbing weaves—
Hush! I had almost heard.
Yet I should know your face!
As mine, all mine, I claim
That coil of hair that over your bosom smoulders— a yellow flame;
And the cool, dim-curtained eyes,
The crescent of your imperious chin, and the little moist mouth that cries.
I have heard through the din of the years
Your voice, with its tincture of tears—
Yes, I remember your face!
Once in the drifting crowd
I thought I had found a clue—
A pale face pealed like an organ-note, and yet— oh! my heart—not you!
She had your look, the same
Ineffable sorrow of glad young eyes; but all the rest was shame.
Perhaps she saw—for her eyes were wet—
In me the soul she had one time met
In eternity's drifting crowd!
Perhaps 't is the desert of years
That severs each from each,
And out of the cavernous centuries to each other we blindly reach.
You blossomed so long ago
That only the Dawn and the Spring remember, and little, so little, they know!
You wait on the hill of the first white morn,
Straining dead eyes to me, unborn,
Across the desert of years.
Or when I am dead at last,
And my sovereignty have won,
As merged in the dust of the gradual Past, unliving, I live on,
You will rise with some far-off Spring,
And back to the drear, dead days that were mine your piteous glance will fling.
But, hush! I shall come in the rain-kissed night
And whisper the words of our marriage-rite—
So I shall find you at last!
Yet if we met.…
I dreamed; we dare not meet.
poem by Arthur Henry Adams
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Born On A Natural Wing
Love born on a natural wing,
young hearts that sing
springs song of joy
effects the heart of the sly and coy.
Breeze cool, crisp and clean,
ruffles leaves on trees where lovers lean.
Lanes of a million feet before,
fill again with lover’s lore.
Sleepy hollows feel springs touch;
awaken beauty from the sleepy hush.
The sun spreads warmth from the sky,
looking down with its yellow eye.
Birds fly south on the wing,
now winter has kissed everything.
My, my how times does fly,
hear the wedding bells of June and July.
Again, we wake to an autumn morn;
winds are harsh and full of scorn.
Snow again will adorn our eyes.
A blanket of white before us lies,
Oh we ode for again the spring,
and love born on a natural wing.
1976
poem by David Harris
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With The Quandongs
IF you happen to visit the Western Plains
When the summer is young and green,
You can see the green of the quandong leaves
With the quandong fruit between.
The fruit is the size of a plum, perhaps,
And red as your own blood's hue;
And it falls to the ground at the touch of the wind
Like a drop of crimson dew.
The wide plains lie with half-shut eyes
At peace in a golden swoon,
And the lizards drink their full of rest
Abask in the drowsy noon.
There is only the whir of a wing, perchance,
To startle the sleeping lands;
But the quandong trees, all green and red,
Are a-twinkle with little hands.
Oh, many a tress has turned to grey,
And many a song grown mute
Since Rita and Meg and Trixie and I
Went gathering quandong fruit.
And there we were on the plains alone
In the hush of a drowsy air —
Rita and Meg with roguish eyes
And Trixie with wayward hair.
A far mirage of mingled sun and dream
Was born of the noontide sleep,
And the rifled fruit of the quandongs lay
At our feet in a ruddy heap.
I know that the quandong's burning fruit
Still reddens the drowsy air;
That Trixie is grown and sometime wed,
And Rita is grave and fair.
I know that Meg of the roguish eyes,
Though ten long years be sped,
Still plucks the fruit of the quandong trees
When the quandong fruit is red.
I know — and I know to my loss, alas! —
That I stand where the winds blow cold,
And search, with others, another tree
For its scanty fruit of gold.
poem by Roderic Quinn
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The Old Magic
Gray is the sea, and the skies are gray;
They are ghosts of our blue, bright yesterday;
And gray are the breasts of the gulls that scream
Like tortured souls in an evil dream.
There is white on the wings of the sea and sky,
And white are the gulls' wings wheeling by,
And white, like snow, is the pall that lies
Where love weeps over his memories.
For the dead is dead, and its shroud is wrought
Of good unfound and of wrong unsought;
Yet from God's good magic there ever springs
The resurrection of holy things.
See--the gold and blue of our yesterday
In the eyes and the hair of a child at play;
And the spell of joy that our youth beguiled
Is woven anew in the laugh of the child.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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The Swamp
FOR one whole day and a long night through
We made our camp
In a she-oak grove by a coastal swamp.
Our tent gleamed white in the she-oak trees,
Whose falling hair
Made a soft, brown mist in the sweet blue air.
A sound subdued from their tresses rose —
A moan, a sigh
As of unseen seas, when the breeze went by.
'Twas wattle-time, and the scented bloom,
New lit and young,
In a mass of gold from the still trees hung.
There music dwelt, and a splendour moved
Through all the day
From the green of dawn to the twilight gray.
For careless ever, like one who goes
Where Joyance leads,
Sang the little reed-bird in the tall, green reeds.
Blue, swift and slender the dragonflies
A-hawking flew,
And a hawk hung poised in the burning blue.
A crane, slow-flapping its great wings, passed
Across the scene,
And a parrot jewelled the leafy screen.
In twos and threes from the hills around
The peewits came,
And the brush-flower burnt like a crimson flame.
On ti-tree trunk and on frond and log
The lizards slept,
While the sun moved west, and the shadows crept.
The sun moved west, and the tall hills sent
Broad shadows east,
And the reed-bird's song in the reed-beds ceased.
Then fell a hush, and within that hush
Rose, clear and shrill,
A cicada note on a distant hill.
A note of farewell, it seemed to us,
Its singing bore;
And the night came down, and it sang no more.
Night came with shadows and fitful gleams
And mist and damp,
And our fire burned red by the coastal swamp.
Then life not known of the daytime woke —
That life that preys
On the feathered things of the leafy ways.
We heard feet moving, and velvet wings
On swamp and height,
And a dingo howling across the night.
As, faces lit by the red camp-fire,
We mused enthralled.
Like a lone, lost spirit a curlew called;
Brown crickets sang in the moisty mould,
And every breeze
Drew a moaning note from the she-oak trees.
And all night long, as they swayed and moaned,
Strange fancies woke,
And we could not rest for the things they spoke.
Thus much and more through the hours we saw;
Thus much we heard
In that place of blossom and tree and bird.
Since then gold wattles have bloomed and bloomed,
And moons aloft
In the sky have wizened and waned full oft.
And yet, at times, when the night is still,
In dreams I tramp
Through the white sand-dunes to that coastal camp.
poem by Roderic Quinn
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Airs for the Lute
I
When the sobbing lute complains,
Grieving for an ancient sorrow,
This poor sorrow that remains
Fain would borrow,
To give pleading unto sorrow,
Those uncapturable strains.
All, that hands upon the lute
Helped the voices to declare,
Voices mute
But for this, might I not share,
If, alas, I could but suit
Hand and voice unto the lute?
II
If time so sweetly
On true according viols make
Her own completely
The lawless laws of turn and shake;
How should I doubt then
Love, being tuned unto your mood,
Should bring about then
True time and measure of your blood?
III
Why are you sorrowful in dreams?
I am sad in the night;
The hours till morning are white,
I hear the hours' flight
All night in dreams.
Why do you send me your dreams?
For an old love's sake;
I dream if I sleep or wake,
And shall but one heart ache,
For the sake of dreams?
Pray that we sleep without dreams!
Ah, love, the only way
To put sorrow away,
Night or day, night or day,
From the way of dreams!
IV
Strange, to remember tears!
Yet I know that I wept;
And those hopes and those fears,
Strange, were as real as tears!
What's this delicate pain,
Twilight-coloured and grey?
Odour-like through my brain
Steals a shadowy pain.
What's this joy in the air?
Musical as the leaves,
When the white winds are there,
Faint joy breathes in the air.
poem by Arthur Symons
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The Return
The grass was gray with the moonlit dew,
The stones were white as I came through;
I came down the path by the thirteen yews,
Through the blocks of shade that the moonlight hews.
And when I came to the high lych-gate
I waited awhile where the corpses wait;
Then I came down the road where the moonlight lay
Like the fallen ghost of the light of day.
The bats shrieked high in their zigzag flight,
The owls' spread wings were quiet and white,
The wind and the poplar gave sigh for sigh,
And all about were the rustling shy
Little live creatures that love the night -
Little wild creatures timid and free.
I passed, and they were not afraid of me.
It was over the meadow and down the lane
The way to come to my house again:
Through the wood where the lovers talk,
And the ghosts, they say, get leave to walk.
I wore the clothes that we all must wear,
And no one saw me walking there,
No one saw my pale feet pass
By my garden path to my garden grass.
My garden was hung with the veil of spring -
Plum-tree and pear-tree blossoming;
It lay in the moon's cold sheet of light
In garlands and silence, wondrous and white
As a dead bride decked for her burying.
Then I saw the face of my house
Held close in the arms of the blossomed boughs:
I leaned my face to the window bright
To feel if the heart of my house beat right.
The firelight hung it with fitful gold;
It was warm as the house of the dead is cold.
I saw the settles, the candles tall,
The black-faced presses against the wall,
Polished beechwood and shining brass,
The gleam of china, the glitter of glass,
All the little things that were home to me -
Everything as it used to be.
Then I said, 'The fire of life still burns,
And I have returned whence none returns:
I will warm my hands where the fire is lit,
I will warm my heart in the heart of it!'
So I called aloud to the one within:
'Open, open, and let me in!
Let me in to the fire and the light -
It is very cold out here in the night!'
There was never a stir or an answering breath -
Only a silence as deep as death.
Then I beat on the window, and called, and cried.
No one heard me, and none replied.
The golden silence lay warm and deep,
And I wept as the dead, forgotten, weep;
And there was no one to hear or see -
To comfort me, to have pity on me.
But deep in the silence something stirred -
Something that had not seen or heard -
And two drew near to the window-pane,
Kissed in the moonlight and kissed again,
And looked, through my face, to the moon-shroud, spread
Over the garlanded garden bed;
And--'How ghostly the moonlight is!' she said.
Back through the garden, the wood, the lane,
I came to mine own place again.
I wore the garments we all must wear,
And no one saw me walking there.
No one heard my thin feet pass
Through the white of the stones and the gray of the grass,
Along the path where the moonlight hews
Slabs of shadow for thirteen yews.
In the hollow where drifted dreams lie deep
It is good to sleep: it was good to sleep:
But my bed has grown cold with the drip of the dew,
And I cannot sleep as I used to do.
poem by Edith Nesbit
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Pain
Pain. Pain in the body.
Pain in the mind.
Pain. Feel the pain.
Go to the centre of it.
In the centre, a flame.
A cool, warm, steady, white, white flame
so white, that
it is more light than white.
Cool as detachment.
Warm as love.
Bright as enlightenment;
burning the unnecessary.
The flame of healing,
as old as the world.
As old as olive trees and oil and sacred lamps,
as old as wisdom.
In the flame, an angel.
That is what the angel said.
poem by Michael Shepherd
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