En.Citatepedia^®.ro

A Coast View

High 'mid the shelves of a grey cliff, that yet
Riseth in Babylonian mass above,
In a benched cleft, as in the mouldered chair
Of grey-beard Time himself, I sit alone,
And gaze with a keen wondering happiness
Out o'er the sea. Unto the circling bend
That verges Heaven, a vast luminous plain
It stretches, changeful as a lover's dream --
Into great spaces mapped by light and shade
In constant interchange -- either 'neath clouds
The billows darken, or they shimmer bright
In sunny scopes of measureless expanse.
'Tis Ocean dreamless of a stormy hour,
Calm, or but gently heaving; -- yet, O God!
What a blind fate-like mightiness lies coiled
In slumber, under that wide-shining face!
While o'er the watery gleam -- there where its edge
Banks the dim vacancy, the topmost sails
Of some tall ship, whose hull is yet unseen,
Hang as if clinging to a cloud that still
Comes rising with them from the void beyond,
Like to a heavenly net, drawn from the deep
And carried upward by ethereal hands.

poem by William Charles Wentworth
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A Coast View

High ’mid the shelves of a grey cliff, that yet
Riseth in Babylonian mass above,
In a benched cleft, as in the mouldered chair
Of grey-beard Time himself, I sit alone,
And gaze with a keen wondering happiness
Out o’er the sea. Unto the circling bend
That verges Heaven, a vast luminous plain
It stretches, changeful as a lover’s dream—
Into great spaces mapped by light and shade
In constant interchange—either ‘neath clouds
The billows darken, or they shimmer bright
In sunny scopes of measureless expanse.
’Tis Ocean dreamless of a stormy hour,
Calm, or but gently heaving;—yet, O God!
What a blind fate-like mightiness lies coiled
In slumber, under that wide-shining face!
While o’er the watery gleam—there where its edge
Banks the dim vacancy, the topmost sails
Of some tall ship, whose hull is yet unseen,
Hang as if clinging to a cloud that still
Comes rising with them from the void beyond,
Like to a heavenly net, drawn from the deep
And carried upward by ethereal hands

poem by Charles Harpur
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The Great Grey Plain

Out West, where the stars are brightest,
Where the scorching north wind blows,
And the bones of the dead gleam whitest,
And the sun on a desert glows --
Yet within the selfish kingdom
Where man starves man for gain,
Where white men tramp for existence --
Wide lies the Great Grey Plain.

No break in its awful horizon,
No blur in the dazzling haze,
Save where by the bordering timber
The fierce, white heat-waves blaze,
And out where the tank-heap rises
Or looms when the sunlights wane,
Till it seems like a distant mountain
Low down on the Great Grey Plain.

No sign of a stream or fountain,
No spring on its dry, hot breast,
No shade from the blazing noontide
Where a weary man might rest.
Whole years go by when the glowing
Sky never clouds for rain --
Only the shrubs of the desert
Grow on the Great Grey Plain.

From the camp, while the rich man's dreaming,
Come the `traveller' and his mate,
In the ghastly dawnlight seeming
Like a swagman's ghost out late;
And the horseman blurs in the distance,
While still the stars remain,
A low, faint dust-cloud haunting
His track on the Great Grey Plain.

And all day long from before them
The mirage smokes away --
That daylight ghost of an ocean
Creeps close behind all day
With an evil, snake-like motion,
As the waves of a madman's brain:
'Tis a phantom NOT like water
Out there on the Great Grey Plain.

There's a run on the Western limit
Where a man lives like a beast,
And a shanty in the mulga
That stretches to the East;
And the hopeless men who carry
Their swags and tramp in pain --
The footmen must not tarry
Out there on the Great Grey Plain.

Out West, where the stars are brightest,
Where the scorching north wind blows,
And the bones of the dead seem whitest,
And the sun on a desert glows --
Out back in the hungry distance
That brave hearts dare in vain --
Where beggars tramp for existence --
There lies the Great Grey Plain.

'Tis a desert not more barren
Than the Great Grey Plain of years,
Where a fierce fire burns the hearts of men --
Dries up the fount of tears:
Where the victims of a greed insane
Are crushed in a hell-born strife --
Where the souls of a race are murdered
On the Great Grey Plain of Life!

poem by Henry Lawson
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Grey, Grey Sky

Someday I will ride the great bird
Into the sky, into the grey
And will take a bright secret of mine
Into the grey, grey sky.

And the light will come, piercing my eyes
Out of the sky, out of the grey
Come blinding and searing these eyes
Out of the grey, grey sky.

And I will find comfort in this
In the wide sky, in the wide grey
In the painful dark brightness of light
Light of the grey, grey sky.

My secret will fly away home
Into the sky, into the grey
And the great bird will follow it there
Into the grey, grey sky.

And I will be riding that bird
Bird of the sky, bird of the grey
And I will come home once again
Home to the grey, grey sky.

But for now I am weighted, earthbound
One of the mud, one of the ground
And I write this sad song to sad sound
Girl of the pavement sighs.

poem by Grace Hutton
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The Grey Road

A sun-flash on his mounting wing,
A wild note soaring high—
The lark is up, the minstrel king,
The poet of the sky.
To thrill, to sing of Youth and Spring
Those golden numbers flowed.
What message then
Has he for men
Who tread the long grey road?
Knee-deep in grass the cattle stand,
The river winds along,
And chants through sunny meadow land
A low mysterious song.
Ah! sunlit vale and lover’s tale
Youth’s day is quickly gone—
Past current-beat
And meadow-sweet
The grey road stretches on!

Grim bastions frowning down below—
And rising, tier on tier,
Sublime, and crowned with ageless snow
The awful peaks appear.
The heights belong unto the strong
Who scale, by crags untried,
The great cliffs face—
But at its base
The grey road turns aside!

No hope in Heaven, no minstrel strain,
No vales where summer shone
A leaden sky, a silent plain,
The grey road stretching on.
O Christ, who trod the thorny path,
And bore the bitter load,
Have mercy then
On weary men
Who tread the long grey road!

poem by George Essex Evans
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A Parable

BETWEEN the sandhills and the sea
A narrow strip of silver sand,
Whereon a little maid doth stand,
Who picks up shells continually
Between the sandhills and the sea.

Far as her wondering eyes can reach
A Vastness, heaving grey in grey
To the frayed edges where the day
Furls his red standard on the breach,
Between the skyline and the beach.

The waters of the flowing tide
Cast up the seapink shells and weed;
She toys with shells, and doth not heed
The ocean, which on every side
Is closing round her vast and wide.

It creeps her way as if in play,
Pink shells at her pink feet to cast;
But now the wild waves hold her fast,
And bear her off and melt away
A Vastness heaving gray in gray.

poem by Mathilde Blind
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An Ocean above the Ocean

My ship sailing motionless -
I felt that I'm blessed with a notion
of being placed in a divine place,
an ocean high above the earthly ocean
on which cruising clouds crowded as
hyacinths floating on a windy surface.

Icebergs peaking high, their snowcaps
threatening a tremendous wreck, yet
I found that foamy type froth - smooth
to trade through, palpable and so near
still untouchable, my wishes remained
unquenched. I remained in a motionless ship.

This gateway to the galaxy opened
an ecstatic horizon - dream to reach
that ethereal level, sun grinning, beaming
on floating aquatics, I marveled the wonder
of finding a hovering fantasy so real, so high
above the ocean to find my ocean of clouds;

So near to God, this Godly attire the sky
wore with a floor of heavenly mosaic
on a nautical platform of billows of plumes,
an entity being hidden from the terrain below.
So elated, blissfully engulfed and domain of peace
prevailed upon my engrossed mind and soul apiece.

Enchantment soon was over, back again to my haven
I often take repose; still swim in that oceanic heaven.

poem by Gautam Sen
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Rainbow

I live at one of those Grey Clouds
Not really know that I am lifeless

I heard people talking about rainbow,
They’d met each other, always in a happy occasion
I wish I met the rainbow myself
Then perhaps I would know,
What the people say is not true
That there is no thing such rainbow,
That could make people’s eyes glittering
In Blue color of the sky
In Green color of the valley
In Red color of the blood
In Yellow color of the sun

I am belongs to the Grey Clouds
I Love Grey, as it is all the color I have in life

Then one day, at the ticking time of my ordinary Grey-day
I see something really bright,
With the scent of a precious flower I’d lost in the mist
For a moment I’m overwhelmed
Then I took a step further…
Away from something so beautiful, that wasn’t Grey
But the figure reveal and I stranded there
I Never learn that there are many color one’s could posses

Day goes by,
The Grey Cloud is the latest place I’d like to be
It was the rainbow…
Holding me and warm me
With a lot of bunch of dream in my empty mind
Dream I never knew
Dream I never dare to explore
The forbidden dream for my Grey outfit
I’m content with joys,
The first time I ever feel grand to face my life
My heart reflecting the color of rainbow
Blue for the peace soul
Green for the new beginning
Red for the faith
Yellow for a bright hope

Not very long
The thunder strikes,
The lightning burned my rainbow
All was Grey again
The rainbow gone away
Prefer to have a quite-smooth journey with all its color

While the thunder sent me here
Back to the Grey Clouds

poem by Niken Kusuma Wardani
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The Future

A wanderer is man from his birth.
He was born in a ship
On the breast of the river of Time;
Brimming with wonder and joy
He spreads out his arms to the light,
Rivets his gaze on the banks of the stream.

As what he sees is, so have his thoughts been.
Whether he wakes,
Where the snowy mountainous pass,
Echoing the screams of the eagles,
Hems in its gorges the bed
Of the new-born clear-flowing stream;
Whether he first sees light
Where the river in gleaming rings
Sluggishly winds through the plain;
Whether in sound of the swallowing sea--
As is the world on the banks,
So is the mind of the man.

Vainly does each, as he glides,
Fable and dream
Of the lands which the river of Time
Had left ere he woke on its breast,
Or shall reach when his eyes have been closed.
Only the tract where he sails
He wots of; only the thoughts,
Raised by the objects he passes, are his.

Who can see the green earth any more
As she was by the sources of Time?
Who imagines her fields as they lay
In the sunshine, unworn by the plough?
Who thinks as they thought,
The tribes who then roam'd on her breast,
Her vigorous, primitive sons?

What girl
Now reads in her bosom as clear
As Rebekah read, when she sate
At eve by the palm-shaded well?
Who guards in her breast
As deep, as pellucid a spring
Of feeling, as tranquil, as sure?

What bard,
At the height of his vision, can deem
Of God, of the world, of the soul,
With a plainness as near,
As flashing as Moses felt
When he lay in the night by his flock
On the starlit Arabian waste?
Can rise and obey
The beck of the Spirit like him?

This tract which the river of Time
Now flows through with us, is the plain.
Gone is the calm of its earlier shore.
Border'd by cities and hoarse
With a thousand cries is its stream.
And we on its breast, our minds
Are confused as the cries which we hear,
Changing and shot as the sights which we see.

And we say that repose has fled
For ever the course of the river of Time.
That cities will crowd to its edge
In a blacker, incessanter line;
That the din will be more on its banks,
Denser the trade on its stream,
Flatter the plain where it flows,
Fiercer the sun overhead.
That never will those on its breast
See an ennobling sight,
Drink of the feeling of quiet again.

But what was before us we know not,
And we know not what shall succeed.

Haply, the river of Time--
As it grows, as the towns on its marge
Fling their wavering lights
On a wider, statelier stream--
May acquire, if not the calm
Of its early mountainous shore,
Yet a solemn peace of its own.

And the width of the waters, the hush
Of the grey expanse where he floats,
Freshening its current and spotted with foam
As it draws to the Ocean, may strike
Peace to the soul of the man on its breast--
As the pale waste widens around him,
As the banks fade dimmer away,
As the stars come out, and the night-wind
Brings up the stream
Murmurs and scents of the infinite sea.

poem by Matthew Arnold
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Luna

Deep slumber hung o'er sea and hill and plain;
With pale pink cheek fresh from her watery caves
Slow rose the moon out of the midnight waves,
Like Venus out of ocean born again.
Olympian blazed she on the dark blue main;
'So shall, ye gods,' — hark how my weak hope raves! —
'My happy star ascend the sea that laves
Its shores with grief, and silence all my pain!'
With that there sighed a wandering midnight breeze
High up among the topmost tufted trees,
And o'er the moon's face blew a veil of cloud;
And in the breeze my genius spake, and said,
'While thy heart stirred, thy glimmering hope has fled,
And like the moon lies muffled in a shroud.'

poem by Erik Johan Stagnelius
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In Memoriam A. H. H.: 11. Calm is the morn without a sound

Calm is the morn without a sound,
Calm as to suit a calmer grief,
And only thro' the faded leaf
The chestnut pattering to the ground:
Calm and deep peace on this high wold,
And on these dews that drench the furze.
And all the silvery gossamers
That twinkle into green and gold:
Calm and still light on yon great plain
That sweeps with all its autumn bowers,
And crowded farms and lessening towers,
To mingle with the bounding main:

Calm and deep peace in this wide air,
These leaves that redden to the fall;
And in my heart, if calm at all,
If any calm, a calm despair:

Calm on the seas, and silver sleep,
And waves that sway themselves in rest,
And dead calm in that noble breast
Which heaves but with the heaving deep.

poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson
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Lines

I hied me to the ocean-side;
Its waves rolled bright and high;
Upon its waters, spreading wide,
I gazed with beaming eye.
At last, at last, I said, is found
A charm to banish pain,--
Here, where the sprightly billows bound
Athwart the heaving main.

The pebbly beach I wandered o'er
At morn and evening's hour,
Or listening to the breakers' roar,
Or wondering at their power.
Beneath their din I madly sought,
With ev'ry nerve bestirred,
To drown for aye the demon, thought,--
But, ah! he _would be heard_.

He found a voice my ear to reach,
To pierce my aching breast,
In every wave that swept the beach
With proud, defiant crest.
And when the moon, with silver light,
Smiled o'er the waters blue,
It seemed to say 'There's nothing bright
O'er all this earth for you.'

Scarce half a moon have I been here,
Beside the sounding sea,
In hope its echoings in my ear
Might drown out memory;
Or might instil some vital life
Into this feeble frame,
Long spent and wasted by the strife
Wide-wrought against my name.

In vain, in vain!--nor sea, nor shore,
Nor any mortal thing,
Can to my cheek health's bloom restore,
Or clear my life's well-spring.
And yet there is a sea whose waves
Will roll above us all,--
Within its vasty depths are graves
Beyond all mortal call.

With what an awful note of dirge
This shoreless ocean rolls--
Bearing on its tremendous surge
The wealth of human souls!
----The Ocean of Eternity,--
O, let its billows sweep
O'er one that longeth to be free,
And sleep the dreamless sleep!

poem by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
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The Beds of Fleur-de-Lys

HIGH-LYING, sea-blown stretches of green turf,
Wind-bitten close, salt-colored by the sea,
Low curve on curve spread far to the cool sky,
And, curving over them as long they lie,
Beds of wild fleur-de-lys.

Wide-flowing, self-sown, stealing near and far,
Breaking the green like islands in the sea;
Great stretches at your feet, and spots that bend
Dwindling over the horizon’s end,—
Wild beds of fleur-de-lys.

The light keen wind streams on across the lifts,
Their wind of western springtime by the sea;
The close turf smiles unmoved, but over her
Is the far-flying rustle and sweet stir
In beds of fleur-de-lys.

And here and there across the smooth, low grass
Tall maidens wander, thinking of the sea;
And bend, and bend, with light robes blown aside,
For the blue lily-flowers that bloom so wide,—
The beds of fleur-de-lys.

poem by Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
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Sailing

Maybe tomorrow with the wind on my side
I will sail across the ocean
To the island of white, the sea is pink
Only one star in sight
Thats where Ill be going
Because Im searching for the light
There goes my mind again
It just cant stop its wondering around
Cause it wants to know everything that is going on
Sailing across the ocean
Sailing across the sea of time
Could be Id find promotion
Maybe I can be what my teacher was to me
He was a man giving the truth to me
Let me see for myself whats going on
Maybe soon I will see the great horizon
The velvet sails of my ship in the night
Give away the colors of the faces delight
Land ho was the cry of the day
As I turned to face the captain
When I heard a voice say
There goes my mind again
It just cant stop this wondering around
Cause he wants to know everything thats going on
Sailing across the ocean
Sailing across the sea of time
Sailing across the ocean
Sailing across the sea of time
Sailing across the ocean
Sailing across the sea of time

song performed by by Rick Springfield
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Wild Wild Sea

I saw it again this evening,
Black sail in a pale yellow sky
And just as before in a moment,
It was gone where the grey gulls fly
If it should happen again I shall worry
That only a strange ship could fly
And my sanity scans the horizon
In the light of a darkening sky
That night as I walked in my slumber
I walked into the sea strand
And I swam with the moon and her lover
Until I lost sight of the land
I swam till the night became morning
Black sea in the reddening sky
Found myself on the deck on a rolling ship
So far where no grey gulls fly
All around me was silence
As if mocking my frail human hopes
And a question mark hung in the canvas
For the wind that had died in the ropes
I may have slept for an hour
I may have slept for a day
For a woke in a bed of white linen
And the sky was the colour of clay
At first just a rustle of canvas
And the gentlest breath on my face
But a galloping line of white horses
Said that soon we were in for a race
The gentle sigh turned to a howling
And the grey sky she angered to black
And my anxious eyes searched the horizon
With the gathering sea at my back
Did I see the shade of a sailor
On the bridge through the wheelhouse pane
Held fast to the wheel of the rocking ship
As I squinted my eyes in the rain
For the ship had turned into the wind
Against the storm to brace
And underneath the sailors hat
I saw my fathers face
If a prayer today is spoken
Please offer it for me
When the bridge to heaven is broken
And youve lost on the wild wild sea
Lost on the wild wild sea...

song performed by by Sting
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Southampton Castle

INSCRIBED TO THE MARQUIS OF LANSDOWNE.

The moonlight is without; and I could lose
An hour to gaze, though Taste and Splendour here,
As in a lustrous fairy palace, reign!
Regardless of the lights that blaze within,
I look upon the wide and silent sea,
That in the shadowy moonbeam sleeps:
How still,
Nor heard to murmur, or to move, it lies;
Shining in Fancy's eye, like the soft gleam,
The eve of pleasant yesterdays!
The clouds
Have all sunk westward, and the host of stars
Seem in their watches set, as gazing on;
While night's fair empress, sole and beautiful,
Holds her illustrious course through the mid heavens
Supreme, the spectacle, for such she looks,
Of gazing worlds!
How different is the scene
That lies beneath this arched window's height!
The town, that murmured through the busy day,
Is hushed; the roofs one solemn breadth of shade
Veils; but the towers, and taper spires above,
The pinnets, and the gray embattled walls,
And masts that throng around the southern pier,
Shine all distinct in light; and mark, remote,
O'er yonder elms, St Mary's modest fane.
Oh! if such views may please, to me they shine
How more attractive! but few years have passed,
Since there I saw youth, health, and happiness,
All circling round an aged sire, whose hairs
Are now in peace gone down; he was to me
A friend, and almost with a father's smile
Hung o'er my infant Muse. The cheerful voice
Of fellowship, the song of harmony,
And mirth, and wit, were there.
That scene is passed:
Cold death and separation have dissolved
The evening circle of once-happy friends!
So has it ever fared, and so must fare,
With all! I see the moonlight watery tract
That shines far off, beneath the forest-shades:
What seems it, but the mirror of that tide,
Which noiseless, 'mid the changes of the world,
Holds its inevitable course, the tide
Of years departing; to the distant eye
Still seeming motionless, though hurrying on
From morn till midnight, bearing, as it flows,
The sails of pleasurable barks! These gleam
To-day, to-morrow other passing sails
Catch the like sunshine of the vernal morn.
Our pleasant days are as the moon's brief light
On the pale ripple, passing as it shines!
But shall the pensive bard for this lament,
Who knows how transitory are all worlds
Before His eye who made them!
Cease the strain;
And welcome still the social intercourse
That soothes the world's loud jarring, till the hour
When, universal darkness wrapping all
This nether scene, a light from heaven shall stream
Through clouds dividing, and a voice be heard:
Here only pure and lasting bliss is found!

poem by William Lisle Bowles
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The Dreamers

HAVE courage, O my comradry of dreamers!
All things, except mere Earth, are ours.
We pluck its passions for our flowers.
Dawn-dyed our great cloud-banners toss their streamers
Above its quaking tyrant-towers!
Making this stern grey planet shine with jewel-showers.

Our lives are mantled in forgotten glory,
Like trees that fringe yon dark hill-crest
Alight against the molten west.
The great night shuddering yields her stress of story—
The dreams that stir the past’s long rest—
Strange, scented night-winds sighing on our naked breast.

Through all the spirit’s spacious, secret regions—
By pathways we believed unknown—
Still thoughts immortal meet our own.
Ideas!—In innumerable legions!
Like summer’s stir in forests lone
Their various music merges in time’s monotone.

The dreamer sees the deep-drawn ore-veins brightening
Through all the huge blind bulk of Earth;
He led the ship around its girth;
He plays, as on the pulses of the lightning,
The song that gives its workings worth,
The song foredained to bring man’s morrow to the birth.

Base, base mere doers, blind and dreamless;
Whose bodies engines are of toil!
Greasy with greed and lust they moil;
They cast lots for the dreamer’s garment seamless,
To rot among their useless spoil;
The fathomless infinity their breath does soil.

Hail to the dream that roused the sleeping savage,
And let him from his bloody lair,
Across light’s bridge, that single hair,
Above th’ unpurposed, eyeless hell of ravage
That, beasts and men, the soulless share,
And left him, waking in thought’s temple, Heaven’s heir!

Our souls, in these vast Heavens unbeholden
Of eyes, our angel-hopes embrance;
Or being’s shining trail retrace,
Through pregnant skies about our forms enfolden
In rapture of our kindred race,
Until the gaze of God consume us, face to face.

Ah, God! In what undying dream of beauty
Wrought Thou our world, so strange and fair,
Afloat in Thy illusive air?—
Aye me! We know that dreaming is our duty!
These dreams more intimate than prayer;
For in Thy dream divine our laureate spirits share.

poem by Sydney Wheeler Jephcott
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The Desolate Field

Vast and grey, the sky
is a simulacrum
to all but him whose days
are vast and grey and --
In the tall, dried grasses
a goat stirs
with nozzle searching the ground.
My head is in the air
but who am I . . . ?
-- and my heart stops amazed
at the thought of love
vast and grey
yearning silently over me.

poem by William Carlos Williams
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Rising With The Morning

Colour me bright yellow, so I reflect the sun,
Let me sink down gently when the day is done,
Rising with the morning, summer's warmth inbue,
Shining with the happiness of always loving you.

Colour me bright amber, like the autumn's glow,
Let me sink down gently, onto falling leaves below,
Rising with the morning, misty with the dew,
Enveloped with the happiness of truly loving you.

Colour me bright silver, as in the sparkling snow,
Let me sink down gently when the cold winds blow,
Rising with the morning, winter's ice to strew,
Trembling with the happiness of warmly loving you.

Colour me bright emerald, now spring's on the way,
Let me sink down gently on our soft duvet,
Rising with the morning, seeing things brand new,
Sighing with the happiness of me just loving you.

poem by Ernestine Northover
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Where does the Winter go?

There goes the Winter, sulkily slinking
Somewhere behind the trees on the hill.
He caught a vision of sweet Spring prinking
In green before her mirror---the rill.
And he turned away
With his face quite grey,
And he went without ever a glance behind him
But I want to know
Which way does he go,
And does anyone ever try to find him?
Is he caught to the sky in a burst of thunder
And tucked away in the clouds to sleep?
Or does he go down to the sea, I wonder,
And fling himself out where the waves roll deep?
Is he washed ashore
After tossings sore,
And found by some fisherman, pale and dying?
On some lonely beach
Beyond human reach
Still and stark is poor Winter lying?
Or climbs he up, with his grey head drooping,
Yon purple mountain that hides the sun,
And stooping and rising, rising and stooping,
Digs a grave where never was one?
And then lies down
In his grey, pale gown
A prayer on his lips, and his hands together?
"What tears will they shed
Because I am dead?
They will dance on my grave all the bright Spring weather."
Oh! Winter, Winter, my tears are falling,
Are you glad of the tears of a little child?
Though Spring is abroad and calling, calling,
I cling to the edge of your cloak so wild.
And I kiss your hand
And I understand,
And I smooth your proor grey head, low-lying,
Ah! I cannot sing
Just yet with the Spring
While Winter, Winter, is pale and dying.

poem by Ethel Turner
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Malade

The sick grapes on the chair by the bed lie prone; at the window
The tassel of the blind swings gently, tapping the pane,
As a little wind comes in.
The room is the hollow rind of a fruit, a gourd
Scooped out and dry, where a spider,
Folded in its legs as in a bed,
Lies on the dust, watching where is nothing to see but twilight and walls.

And if the day outside were mine! What is the day
But a grey cave, with great grey spider-cloths hanging
Low from the roof, and the wet dust falling softly from them
Over the wet dark rocks, the houses, and over
The spiders with white faces, that scuttle on the floor of the cave!
I am choking with creeping, grey confinedness.

But somewhere birds, beside a lake of light, spread wings
Larger than the largest fans, and rise in a stream upwards
And upwards on the sunlight that rains invisible,
So that the birds are like one wafted feather,
Small and ecstatic suspended over a vast spread country.

poem by David Herbert Lawrence
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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