Grave
St. Margaret's bells,
Quiring their innocent, old-world canticles,
Sing in the storied air,
All rosy-and-golden, as with memories
Of woods at evensong, and sands and seas
Disconsolate for that the night is nigh.
O, the low, lingering lights! The large last gleam
(Hark! how those brazen choristers cry and call!)
Touching these solemn ancientries, and there,
The silent River ranging tide-mark high
And the callow, grey-faced Hospital,
With the strange glimmer and glamour of a dream!
The Sabbath peace is in the slumbrous trees,
And from the wistful, the fast-widowing sky
(Hark! how those plangent comforters call and cry!)
Falls as in August plots late roseleaves fall.
The sober Sabbath stir -
Leisurely voices, desultory feet! -
Comes from the dry, dust-coloured street,
Where in their summer frocks the girls go by,
And sweethearts lean and loiter and confer,
Just as they did an hundred years ago,
Just as an hundred years to come they will:-
When you and I, Dear Love, lie lost and low,
And sweet-throats none our welkin shall fulfil,
Nor any sunset fade serene and slow;
But, being dead, we shall not grieve to die.
poem by William Ernest Henley
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Related quotes
Positivity
Yes,yes,yes,yes,yes
Positivity yes
Have u had your plus sign 2 day?
Positivity yes
Do we mark u present, or do we mark u late?
Is that a good man
Walking down that street with that money in his hand
Is that a good man?
Why do u dog him
If that was yo father, tell me, would u dog him then
Would u dog him?
Positivity yes
Have u had your plus sign 2 day?
Positivity yes
Do we mark u present, or do we mark u late?
Is that all your gold?
Where did it come from? what did u have 2 do? (did u have 2 do)
Can u sleep nights?
Do u dream straight up or do u dream in ws?
Positivity yes
Have u had your plus sign 2 day?
Positivity yes
Do we mark u present, or do we mark u late?
Na na na na na na, so slow
Positivity yes
Na na na na na na, so slow
Can a boy who drops out at school
At 13 years of age
Answer the 2 of life and death
When it slaps him in the face?
Whos 2 blame when hes got no place 2 go
And all hes got is the sense 2 know
That a life of crimell help him beat u in the race
Help him beat u in the race (help him beat u in the race)
Positivity
Positivity yes
Have u had your plus sign 2 day?
Positivity yes
Do we mark u present, or do we mark u late?
Na na na na na na, so slow (na na na na na na, so slow)
Chorus
Na na na na na na, so slow (say it again - na na na na na na, so slow)
Positivity yes
Na na na na na na, so slow
Wave your hands 4 positivity yall!
All the boys and all the girls (all the boys and all the girls)
U r the new kings of the world!
Shall the court sing together
In every mans life there will be a hang-up
A whirlwind designed 2 slow u down
It cuts like a knife and tries 2 get in u
This spooky electric sound
Give up if u want 2 and all is lost
Spooky electric will be your boss
Call people magazine, rolling stone
Call your next of kin, cuz your ass is gone
Hes got a 57 mag with the price tag still on the side
Cuzzin when spooky say dead, u better say died
Or u can fly high right by spooky and all that he crawls 4
Spooky and all that he crawls 4
Dont kiss the beast
We need love & honesty, peace & harmony
Positivity
Love & honesty, peace & harmony
I said, hold on 2 your soul, u got a long way 2 go
Sho nuff, sho nuff, sho nuff
Dont kiss the beast
Be superior at least
Hold on 2 your soul, yall, court, sing
Hold on 2 your soul, we got a long way 2 go
Hold on 2 your soul
song performed by by Prince
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Call
(France, August first, 1914)
Far and near, high and clear,
Hark to the call of War!
Over the gorse and the golden dells,
Ringing and swinging of clamorous bells,
Praying and saying of wild farewells:
War! War! War!
High and low, all must go:
Hark to the shout of War!
Leave to the women the harvest yield;
Gird ye, men, for the sinister field;
A sabre instead of a scythe to wield:
War! Red War!
Rich and poor, lord and boor,
Hark to the blast of War!
Tinker and tailor and millionaire,
Actor in triumph and priest in prayer,
Comrades now in the hell out there,
Sweep to the fire of War!
Prince and page, sot and sage,
Hark to the roar of War!
Poet, professor and circus clown,
Chimney-sweeper and fop o' the town,
Into the pot and be melted down:
Into the pot of War!
Women all, hear the call,
The pitiless call of War!
Look your last on your dearest ones,
Brothers and husbands, fathers, sons:
Swift they go to the ravenous guns,
The gluttonous guns of War.
Everywhere thrill the air
The maniac bells of War.
There will be little of sleeping to-night;
There will be wailing and weeping to-night;
Death's red sickle is reaping to-night:
War! War! War!
poem by Robert William Service
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Parting Hour
Not yet, dear love, not yet: the sun is high;
You said last night, 'At sunset I will go.'
Come to the garden, where when blossoms die
No word is spoken; it is better so:
Ah! bitter word 'Farewell.'
Hark! how the birds sing sunny songs of spring!
Soon they will build, and work will silence them;
So we grow less light-hearted as years bring
Life's grave responsibilities - and then
The bitter word 'Farewell.'
The violets fret to fragrance 'neath your feet,
Heaven's gold sunlight dreams aslant your hair:
No flower for me! your mouth is far more sweet.
O, let my lips forget, while lingering there,
Love's bitter word 'Farewell.'
Sunset already! have we sat so long?
The parting hour, and so much left unsaid!
The garden has grown silent - void of song,
Our sorrow shakes us with a sudden dread!
Ah! bitter word 'Farewell.'
poem by Olive Custance
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Brave New World
One spoke: "Come, let us gaily go
With laughter, love and lust,
Since in a century or so
We'll all be boneyard dust.
When unborn shadows hold the screen,
(Our betters, I'll allow)
'Twill be as if we'd never been,
A hundred years from now.
When we have played life's lively game
Right royally we'll rot,
And not a soul will care a damn
The why or how we fought;
To grub for gold or grab for fame
Or raise a holy row,
It will be all the bloody same
A hundred years from now."
Said I: "Look! I have built a tower
Upon you lonely hill,
Designed to be a daughter's dower,
Yet when my heart is still,
The stone I set with horny hand
And salty sweat of brow,
A record of my strength will sand
A hundred years from now.
"There's nothing lost and nothing vain
In all this world so wide;
The ocean hoards each drop of rain
To swell its sweeping tide;
The desert seeks each grain of sand
It's empire to endow,
And we a bright brave world have planned
A hundred years from now.
And all we are and all we do
Will bring that world to be;
Our strain and pain let us not rue,
Though other eyes shall see;
For other hearts will bravely beat
And lips will sing of how
We strove to make life sane and sweet
A hundred years from now.
poem by Robert William Service
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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A-Roving
WHEN the sap runs up the tree.
And the vine runs o’er the wall,
When the blossom draws the bee,
From the forest comes a call,
Wild, and clear, and sweet, and strange,
Many-tongued and murmuring
Like the river in the range—
’Tis the joyous voice of Spring!
On the boles of grey, old trees,
See the flying sunbeams play
Mystic, soundless melodies—
A fantastic march and gay;
But the young leaves hear them—hark
How they rustle, every one!—
And the sap beneath the bark
Hearing, leaps to meet the sun.
Oh, the world is wondrous fair
When the tide of life’s at flood!
There is magic in the air,
There is music in the blood;
And a glamour draws us on
To the distance, rainbow-spanned,
And the road we tread upon
Is the road to Fairyland.
Lo! the elders hear the sweet
Voice, and know the wondrous song;
And their ancient pulses beat
To a tune forgotten long;
And they talk in whispers low,
With a smile and with a sigh,
Of the years of long ago,
And the roving days gone by.
poem by Victor James Daley
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Barrel-Organ
There's a barrel-organ carolling across a golden street
In the City as the sun sinks low;
And the music's not immortal; but the world has made it sweet
And fulfilled it with the sunset glow;
And it pulses through the pleasures of the City and the pain
That surround the singing organ like a large eternal light;
And they've given it a glory and a part to play again
In the Symphony that rules the day and night.
And now it's marching onward through the realms of old romance,
And trolling out a fond familiar tune,
And now it's roaring cannon down to fight the King of France,
And now it's prattling softly to the moon.
And all around the organ there's a sea without a shore
Of human joys and wonders and regrets;
To remember and to recompense the music evermore
For what the cold machinery forgets...
Yes; as the music changes,
Like a prismatic glass,
It takes the light and ranges
Through all the moods that pass;
Dissects the common carnival
Of passions and regrets,
And gives the world a glimpse of all
The colours it forgets.
And there La Traviata sighs
Another sadder song;
And there Il Trovatore cries
A tale of deeper wrong;
And bolder knights to battle go
With sword and shield and lance,
Than ever here on earth below
Have whirled into--a dance!--
Go down to Kew in lilac-time, in lilac-time, in lilac-time;
Go down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!)
And you shall wander hand in hand with love in summer's wonderland;
Go down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!)
The cherry-trees are seas of bloom and soft perfume and sweet perfume,
The cherry-trees are seas of bloom (and oh, so near to London!)
And there they say, when dawn is high and all the world's a blaze of sky
The cuckoo, though he's very shy, will sing a song for London.
The nightingale is rather rare and yet they say you'll hear him there
At Kew, at Kew in lilac-time (and oh, so near to London!)
The linnet and the throstle, too, and after dark the long halloo
And golden-eyed tu-whit, tu-whoo of owls that ogle London.
For Noah hardly knew a bird of any kind that isn't heard
At Kew, at Kew in lilac-time (and oh, so near to London!)
And when the rose begins to pout and all the chestnut spires are out
You'll hear the rest without a doubt, all chorusing for London:--
Come down to Kew in lilac-time, in lilac-time, in lilac-time;
Come down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!)
And you shall wander hand in hand with love in summer's wonderland;
Come down to Kew in lilac-time (is isn't far from London!)
And then the troubadour begins to thrill the golden street,
In the city as the sun sinks low;
And in all the gaudy busses there are scores of weary feet
Marking time, sweet time, with a dull mechanic beat,
And a thousand hearts are plunging to a love they'll never meet,
Through the meadows of the sunset, through the poppies and the wheat,
In the land where the dead dreams go.
Verdi, Verdi, when you wrote Il Trovatore did you dream
Of the City when the sun sinks low,
Of the organ and the monkey and the many-coloured stream
On the Piccadilly pavement, of the myriad eyes that seem
To be litten for a moment with a wild Italian gleam
As A che la morte parodies the world's eternal theme
And pulses with the sunset-glow?
There's a thief, perhaps, that listens with a face of frozen stone
In the City as the sun sinks low;
There's a portly man of business with a balance of his own,
There's a clerk and there's a butcher of a soft reposeful tone,
And they're all of them returning to the heavens they have known:
They are crammed and jammed in busses and--they're each of them alone
In the land where the dead dreams go.
There's a labourer that listens to the voices of the dead
In the City as the sun sinks low;
And his hand begins to tremble and his face is rather red
As he sees a loafer watching him and--there he turns his head
And stares into the sunset where his April love is fled,
For he hears her softly singing and his lonely soul is led
Through the land where the dead dreams go...
There's a barrel-organ carolling across a golden street
In the City as the sun sinks low;
Though the music's only Verdi there's a world to make it sweet
Just as yonder yellow sunset where the earth and heaven meet
Mellows all the sooty City! Hark, a hundred thousand feet
Are marching on to glory through the poppies and the wheat
In the land where the dead dreams go.
So it's Jeremiah, Jeremiah,
What have you to say
When you meet the garland girls
Tripping on their way?
All around my gala hat
I wear a wreath of roses
(A long and lonely year it is
I've waited for the May!)
If any one should ask you,
The reason why I wear it is--
My own love, my true love is coming home to-day.
And it's buy a bunch of violets for the lady
(It's lilac-time in London; it's lilac-time in London!)
Buy a bunch of violets for the lady;
While the sky burns blue above:
On the other side the street you'll find it shady
(It's lilac-time in London; it's lilac-time in London!)
But buy a bunch of violets for the lady,
And tell her she's your own true love.
There's a barrel-organ carolling across a golden street
In the City as the sun sinks glittering and slow;
And the music's not immortal; but the world has made it sweet
And enriched it with the harmonies that make a song complete
In the deeper heavens of music where the night and morning meet,
As it dies into the sunset glow;
And it pulses through the pleasures of the City and the pain
That surround the singing organ like a large eternal light,
And they've given it a glory and a part to play again
In the Symphony that rules the day and night.
And there, as the music changes,
The song runs round again;
Once more it turns and ranges
Through all its joy and pain:
Dissects the common carnival
Of passions and regrets;
And the wheeling world remembers all
The wheeling song forgets.
Once more La Traviata sighs
Another sadder song:
Once more Il Trovatore cries
A tale of deeper wrong;
Once more the knights to battle go
With sword and shield and lance
Till once, once more, the shattered foe
Has whirled into--a dance!
Come down to Kew in lilac-time, in lilac-time, in lilac-time;
Come down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!)
And you shall wander hand in hand with Love in summer's wonderland,
Come down to Kew in lilac-time (it isn't far from London!)
poem by Alfred Noyes
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Boy Out Of Church
As Jesus and his followers
Upon a Sabbath morn
Were walking by a wheat field
They plucked the ears of corn.
They plucked it, they rubbed it,
They blew the husks away,
Which grieved the pious pharisees
Upon the Sabbath day.
And Jesus said, 'A riddle
Answer if you can,
Was man made for the Sabbath
Or Sabbath made for man?'
I do not love the Sabbath,
The soapsuds and the starch,
The troops of solemn people
Who to Salvation march.
I take my book, I take my stick
On the Sabbath day,
In woody nooks and valleys
I hide myself away.
To ponder there in quiet
God's Universal Plan,
Resolved that church and Sabbath
Were never made for man.
poem by Robert Graves
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The Four Princesses At Wilna. A Photograph
Sweet faces, that from pictured casements lean
As from a castle window, looking down
On some gay pageant passing through a town,
Yourselves the fairest figures in the scene;
With what a gentle grace, with what serene
Unconsciousness ye wear the triple crown
Of youth and beauty and the fair renown
Of a great name, that ne'er hath tarnished been!
From your soft eyes, so innocent and sweet,
Four spirits, sweet and innocent as they,
Gaze on the world below, the sky above;
Hark! there is some one singing in the street;
'Faith, Hope, and Love! these three,' he seems to say;
'These three; and greatest of the three is Love.'
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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The Shepherd's Sabbath Song
Schäfers Sonntagslied
Ich bin so hold den sanften Tagen,
Das ist der Tag des Herrn!
Ich bin allein auf weiter Flur;
Noch eine Morgenglocke nur,
Nun Stille nah und fern.
Anbetend knie ich hier.
O süßes Graun! geheimes Wehn!
Als knieten viele ungesehn
Und beteten mit mir.
Der Himmel nah und fern,
Er ist so klar und feierlich,
So ganz, als wollt’ er öffnen sich.
Das ist der Tag des Herrn!
This is the Sabbath day!
The Shepherd's Sabbath Song
In the wide field I am alone.
Hark! now one morning bell's sweet tone--
Now it has died away.
Kneeling, I worship Thee:
Sweet dread doth o'er my spirit steal,
From whispering sounds of those who kneel,
Unseen, to pray with me.
Around and far away
So clear and solemn is the sky,
It seems all opening to my eye:
This is the Sabbath day!
poem by Johann Ludwig Uhland
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Sabbath, My Love
greet my love with wine and gladsome lay;
Welcome, thrice welcome, joyous Seventh Day!
Six slaves the weekdays are; I share
With them a round of toil and care,
Yet light the burdens seem, I bear
For your sweet sake, Sabbath, my love!
On the First-day to the accustomed task
I go content, nor reward ask,
Save in your smile, at length, to bask --
Day blessed of God, Sabbath, my love!
Is the Second-day dull, the Third-day unbright?
Hide sun and stars from the Fourth-day's sight?
What need I care, who have your light,
Orb of my life, Sabbath, my love!
The Fifth-day, joyful tidings ring:
"The morrow shall your freedom bring!"
At dawn a slave, at eve a king --
God's table waits, Sabbath, my love!
On the Sixth-day does my cup overflow,
What blissful rest the night shall know,
When, in your arms, my toil and woe
Are all forgotten, Sabbath, my love!
Now it's dusk. With sudden light distilled
From one sweet face, the world is filled;
The tumult of my heart is stilled --
For you have arrived, Sabbath, my love!
Bring fruits and wine, and sing a cheerful lay,
Chant: "Come in peace, O blissful Seventh Day!"
poem by Yehudah HaLevi
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Melting Pot
Take a pinch of white man
Wrap him up in black skin
Add a touch of blue blood
And a little bitty bit of red indian boy
Oh like a curly latin kinkies
Oh lordy, lordy, mixed with yellow chinkees, yeah
You know you lump it all together
And you got a recipe for a get along scene
Oh what a beautiful dream
If it could only come true, you know, you know
What we need is a great big melting pot
Big enough enough enough to take
The world and all its got
And keep it stirring for
A hundred years or more
And turn out coffee coloured people by the score
Rabbis and the friars
Vishnus and the gurus
We got the beatles or the sun god
Well it really doesnt matter
What religion you choose
And be thankful little mrs. graceful
You know that livin could be tasteful
We should all get together in a lovin machine
I think Ill call up the queen
It s only fair that she knows, you know, you know
What we need is a great big melting pot
Big enough enough enough to take
The world and all its got
And keep it stirring for
A hundred years or more
And turn out coffee coloured people by the score
Coffee coloured people
Coffee coloured people
Coffee coloured people by the score
song performed by by Culture Club
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Sunset Redness
In the sunset redness
When the twilight
With its red color
The color of blood and red roses
The rustic color where romance of years
Has receded in rust
Of the old mans hedge
Or balcony
Or the love of a fighter
When he suddenly discovers
That his long cherished gun
Has gone rustic
Or that small dog
When we watched his movie
Years ago
And the laughter in our small lounge
The sweet memories of the past
And the sunset redness
When it gathers itself from the face of earth
And then in the form of a ball
Rolls itself down the sea
The most beautiful sunset of the earth
Like a huge red drop
Or in desert
The sunset
Going down into the dust
The dark blue night
To cover it
Where were you
Where was the strength of your memory
Why I did not catch wings
To bring you closer to me
Why I did not realize
That this moment today
Will die for ever
Except in my memories
On those dusty roads and clean beaches
In my amazement
And as I was lost
Why you did not call me
Tell me
Why you did not call me
Through the air
And your eyes
Having fixed on me
Why did not I hear your whispers
Why did not you tell me
That this moment is so precious
That sunset redness
In the sea and the desert
This time
Remember
Call me and call me again
For these beauties on earth
These beauties
And ones like you
Torment me
And then haunt me in my dreams
poem by Sadiqullah Khan
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The Hidden Tide
WITHIN the world a second world
That circles ceaselessly:
Stars in the sky and sister stars—
Turn in your eyes and see!
Tides of the sea that rise and fall,
Aheave from Pole to Pole—
And kindred swayings, veiled but felt,
That noise along the soul.
Yon moon, noon-rich, high-throned, remote,
And pale with pride extreme,
Draws up the sea, but what white moon
Exalts the tide of Dream?
The Fisher-Folk who cast their nets
In Vision’s golden tide
Oft bring to light misshapen shells,
And nothing worth beside.
And so their worn hands droop adown,
Their singing throats are dumb;
The Inner-Deep withholds its pearls
Till turn of tide be come.
But patience! wait—the good tide turns,
The waters inward set;
And lo, behold! aleap, alive
With glowing fish the net!
O Toilers of the Hidden Seas!
Ye have strange gain and loss,
Dragging the Deeps of Soul for pearls,
And ofttimes netting dross.
Flushed to the lips with golden light,
And dark with sable gloom;
Thrilled by a thousand melodies,
And silent like a tomb.
Fierce are the winds across your realm,
As though some Demon veiled
Had loosed the gales of Spirit-land
To ravage ways unsailed.
But still sweet hours befall at times,
Rich-lit and full of ease;
The afterglow is like the light
Of sunset on tired seas.
And worse, perhaps, may be the lot
Of those whose fate is sleep;
The sodden souls without a tide,
Dense as a rotten deep.
Pain paves the way for keener joy,
And wondrous thoughts uproll
When the large moon of Peace looks down
On high tide in the soul.
poem by Roderic Quinn
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The Knight's Return
Hark! hark! hark!
The lark sings high in the dark.
The were wolves mutter, the night hawks moan,
The raven croaks from the Raven-stone;
What care I for his boding groan,
Riding the moorland to come to mine own?
Hark! hark! hark!
The lark sings high in the dark.
Hark! hark! hark!
The lark sings high in the dark.
Long have I wander'd by land and by sea,
Long have I ridden by moorland and lea;
Yonder she sits with my babe on her knee,
Sits at the window and watches for me!
Hark! hark! hark!
The lark sings high in the dark.
Written for music, 1857.
poem by Charles Kingsley
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Air Of Diabelli's
CALL it to mind, O my love.
Dear were your eyes as the day,
Bright as the day and the sky;
Like the stream of gold and the sky above,
Dear were your eyes in the grey.
We have lived, my love, O, we have lived, my love!
Now along the silent river, azure
Through the sky's inverted image,
Softly swam the boat that bore our love,
Swiftly ran the shallow of our love
Through the heaven's inverted image,
In the reedy mazes round the river.
See along the silent river,
See of old the lover's shallop steer.
Berried brake and reedy island,
Heaven below and only heaven above.
Through the sky's inverted image
Swiftly swam the boat that bore our love.
Berried brake and reedy island,
Mirrored flower and shallop gliding by.
All the earth and all the sky were ours,
Silent sat the wafted lovers,
Bound with grain and watched by all the sky,
Hand to hand and eye to . . . eye.
Days of April, airs of Eden,
Call to mind how bright the vanished angel hours,
Golden hours of evening,
When our boat drew homeward filled with flowers.
O darling, call them to mind; love the past, my love.
Days of April, airs of Eden.
How the glory died through golden hours,
And the shining moon arising;
How the boat drew homeward filled with flowers.
Age and winter close us slowly in.
Level river, cloudless heaven,
Islanded reed mazes, silver weirs;
How the silent boat with silver
Threads the inverted forest as she goes,
Broke the trembling green of mirrored trees.
O, remember, and remember
How the berries hung in garlands.
Still in the river see the shallop floats.
Hark! Chimes the falling oar.
Still in the mind
Hark to the song of the past!
Dream, and they pass in their dreams.
Those that loved of yore, O those that loved of yore!
Hark through the stillness, O darling, hark!
Through it all the ear of the mind
Knows the boat of love. Hark!
Chimes the falling oar.
O half in vain they grew old.
Now the halcyon days are over,
Age and winter close us slowly round,
And these sounds at fall of even
Dim the sight and muffle all the sound.
And at the married fireside, sleep of soul and sleep of fancy,
Joan and Darby.
Silence of the world without a sound;
And beside the winter faggot
Joan and Darby sit and dose and dream and wake -
Dream they hear the flowing, singing river,
See the berries in the island brake;
Dream they hear the weir,
See the gliding shallop mar the stream.
Hark! in your dreams do you hear?
Snow has filled the drifted forest;
Ice has bound the . . . stream.
Frost has bound our flowing river;
Snow has whitened all our island brake.
Berried brake and reedy island,
Heaven below and only heaven above azure
Through the sky's inverted image
Safely swam the boat that bore our love.
Dear were your eyes as the day,
Bright ran the stream, bright hung the sky above.
Days of April, airs of Eden.
How the glory died through golden hours,
And the shining moon arising,
How the boat drew homeward filled with flowers.
Bright were your eyes in the night:
We have lived, my love;
O, we have loved, my love.
Now the . . . days are over,
Age and winter close us slowly round.
Vainly time departs, and vainly
Age and winter come and close us round.
Hark the river's long continuous sound.
Hear the river ripples in the reeds.
Lo, in dreams they see their shallop
Run the lilies down and drown the weeds
Mid the sound of crackling faggots.
So in dreams the new created
Happy past returns, to-day recedes,
And they hear once more,
From the old years,
Yesterday returns, to-day recedes,
And they hear with aged hearing warbles
Love's own river ripple in the weeds.
And again the lover's shallop;
Lo, the shallop sheds the streaming weeds;
And afar in foreign countries
In the ears of aged lovers.
And again in winter evens
Starred with lilies . . . with stirring weeds.
In these ears of aged lovers
Love's own river ripples in the reeds.
poem by Robert Louis Stevenson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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New Year's Eve
It's cruel cold on the water-front, silent and dark and drear;
Only the black tide weltering, only the hissing snow;
And I, alone, like a storm-tossed wreck, on this night of the glad New Year,
Shuffling along in the icy wind, ghastly and gaunt and slow.
They're playing a tune in McGuffy's saloon, and it's cheery and bright in there
(God! but I'm weak -- since the bitter dawn, and never a bite of food);
I'll just go over and slip inside -- I mustn't give way to despair --
Perhaps I can bum a little booze if the boys are feeling good.
They'll jeer at me, and they'll sneer at me, and they'll call me a whiskey soak;
("Have a drink? Well, thankee kindly, sir, I don't mind if I do.")
A drivelling, dirty, gin-joint fiend, the butt of the bar-room joke;
Sunk and sodden and hopeless -- "Another? Well, here's to you!"
McGuffy is showing a bunch of the boys how Bob Fitzsimmons hit;
The barman is talking of Tammany Hall, and why the ward boss got fired.
I'll just sneak into a corner and they'll let me alone a bit;
The room is reeling round and round . . .O God! but I'm tired, I'm tired. . . .
* * * * *
Roses she wore on her breast that night. Oh, but their scent was sweet!
Alone we sat on the balcony, and the fan-palms arched above;
The witching strain of a waltz by Strauss came up to our cool retreat,
And I prisoned her little hand in mine, and I whispered my plea of love.
Then sudden the laughter died on her lips, and lowly she bent her head;
And oh, there came in the deep, dark eyes a look that was heaven to see;
And the moments went, and I waited there, and never a word was said,
And she plucked from her bosom a rose of red and shyly gave it to me.
Then the music swelled to a crash of joy, and the lights blazed up like day,
And I held her fast to my throbbing heart, and I kissed her bonny brow.
"She is mine, she is mine for evermore!" the violins seemed to say,
And the bells were ringing the New Year in -- O God! I can hear them now.
Don't you remember that long, last waltz, with its sobbing, sad refrain?
Don't you remember that last good-by, and the dear eyes dim with tears?
Don't you remember that golden dream, with never a hint of pain,
Of lives that would blend like an angel-song in the bliss of the coming years?
Oh, what have I lost! What have I lost! Ethel, forgive, forgive!
The red, red rose is faded now, and it's fifty years ago.
'Twere better to die a thousand deaths than live each day as I live!
I have sinned, I have sunk to the lowest depths -- but oh, I have suffered so!
Hark! Oh, hark! I can hear the bells! . . . Look! I can see her there,
Fair as a dream . . . but it fades . . . And now -- I can hear the dreadful hum
Of the crowded court . . . See! the Judge looks down . . .
NOT GUILTY, my Lord, I swear . . .
The bells -- I can hear the bells again! . . . Ethel, I come, I come! . . .
* * * * *
"Rouse up, old man, it's twelve o'clock. You can't sleep here, you know.
Say! ain't you got no sentiment? Lift up your muddled head;
Have a drink to the glad New Year, a drop before you go --
You darned old dirty hobo . . . My God! Here, boys! He's DEAD!"
poem by Robert William Service
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Midnight
They put away the DDT now
But gave metal to the sea
A hundred years can't wait
A hundred years can't wait another day
The only eagle, only tree
Within a desert that was green
A hundred years can't wait
A hundred years can't wait another day
Midnight
Draws ever near
Daylight
Is fading so fast
It's so close to midnight
Midnight
The melting ice will fuel the sea
By burning gold from ancient tree
A hundred years can't wait
A hundred years can't wait another day
This is progress, this is sin
Injecting poison in her skin
A hundred years can't wait
A hundred years can't wait another day
Midnight
Draws ever near
Daylight
Is fading so fast
It's so close to midnight
Midnight
song performed by by Asia
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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One Hundred Years From Now
One hundred years from now when I am long gone
And there is not one mention of my name
Life it will carry on as it has always
And people will enjoy their weekend game
Of golf or tennis, bowls, football or cricket
Or whatever work free leisure they enjoy
And birds will sing on bush and tree and hedgerow
And lark to sing up to the clouds will fly.
One hundred years from now when I'm forgotten
The migratory waders will fly to the Northern Spring
And raise their families by the Artic waters
The call of Nature is a marvellous thing.
One hundred years from now the crimson lory
Will lay her eggs in cavity in tree
And little blue penguins will nest in their burrows
On grassy heights above the southern sea.
One hundred years from now there will be roses
And wildflowers in the Spring will come to bloom
And despite the high increase in the human population
For Nature's beauty there will still be room.
One hundred years from now you'll have the rich and famous
And the forgotten millions living in poverty
And there will be wars and rumours of destruction
And things won't have changed much in a century.
poem by Francis Duggan
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Forsaken Merman
Come, dear children, let us away;
Down and away below!
Now my brothers call from the bay,
Now the great winds shoreward blow,
Now the salt tides seaward flow;
Now the wild white horses play,
Champ and chafe and toss in the spray.
Children dear, let us away!
This way, this way!
Call her once before you go--
Call once yet!
In a voice that she will know:
"Margaret! Margaret!"
Children's voices should be dear
(Call once more) to a mother's ear;
Children's voices, wild with pain--
Surely she will come again!
Call her once and come away;
This way, this way!
"Mother dear, we cannot stay!
The wild white horses foam and fret."
Margaret! Margaret!
Come, dear children, come away down;
Call no more!
One last look at the white-wall'd town,
And the little gray church on the windy shore;
Then come down!
She will not come though you call all day;
Come away, come away!
Children dear, was it yesterday
We heard the sweet bells over the bay?
In the caverns where we lay,
Through the surf and through the swell,
The far-off sound of a silver bell?
Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep,
Where the winds are all asleep;
Where the spent lights quiver and gleam,
Where the salt weed sways in the stream,
Where the sea-beasts, ranged all round,
Feed in the ooze of their pasture-ground;
Where the sea-snakes coil and twine,
Dry their mail and bask in the brine;
Where great whales come sailing by,
Sail and sail, with unshut eye,
Round the world forever and aye?
When did music come this way?
Children dear, was it yesterday?
Children dear, was it yesterday
(Call yet once) that she went away?
Once she sate with you and me,
On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea,
And the youngest sate on her knee.
She comb'd its bright hair, and she tended it well,
When down swung the sound of a far-off bell.
She sigh'd, she look'd up through the clear green sea;
She said: "I must go, for my kinsfolk pray
In the little gray church on the shore to-day.
'Twill be Easter-time in the world--ah me!
And I lose my poor soul, Merman! here with thee."
I said: "Go up, dear heart, through the waves;
Say thy prayer, and come back to the kind sea-caves!"
She smil'd, she went up through the surf in the bay.
Children dear, was it yesterday?
Children dear, were we long alone?
"The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan;
Long prayers," I said, "in the world they say;
Come!" I said; and we rose through the surf in the bay.
We went up the beach, by the sandy down
Where the sea-stocks bloom, to the white-wall'd town;
Through the narrow pav'd streets, where all was still,
To the little gray church on the windy hill.
From the church came a murmur of folk at their prayers,
But we stood without in the cold blowing airs.
We climb'd on the graves, on the stones worn with rains,
And we gaz'd up the aisle through the small leaded panes.
She sate by the pillar; we saw her clear:
"Margaret, hist! come quick, we are here!
Dear heart," I said, "we are long alone;
The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan."
But, ah, she gave me never a look,
For her eyes were seal'd to the holy book!
Loud prays the priest: shut stands the door.
Come away, children, call no more!
Come away, come down, call no more!
Down, down, down!
Down to the depths of the sea!
She sits at her wheel in the humming town,
Singing most joyfully.
Hark what she sings: "O joy, O joy,
For the humming street, and the child with its toy!
For the priest, and the bell, and the holy well;
For the wheel where I spun,
And the blessèd light of the sun!"
And so she sings her fill,
Singing most joyfully,
Till the spindle drops from her hand,
And the whizzing wheel stands still.
She steals to the window, and looks at the sand,
And over the sand at the sea;
And her eyes are set in a stare;
And anon there breaks a sigh,
And anon there drops a tear,
From a sorrow-clouded eye,
And a heart sorrow-laden,
A long, long sigh;
For the cold strange eyes of a little Mermaiden,
And the gleam of her golden hair.
Come away, away, children;
Come, children, come down!
The hoarse wind blows colder;
Lights shine in the town.
She will start from her slumber
When gusts shake the door;
She will hear the winds howling,
Will hear the waves roar.
We shall see, while above us
The waves roar and whirl,
A ceiling of amber,
A pavement of pearl.
Singing: "Here came a mortal,
But faithless was she!
And alone dwell forever
The kings of the sea."
But, children, at midnight,
When soft the winds blow,
When clear falls the moonlight,
When spring-tides are low;
When sweet airs come seaward
From heaths starr'd with broom,
And high rocks throw mildly
On the blanch'd sands a gloom;
Up the still, glistening beaches,
Up the creeks we will hie,
Over banks of bright seaweed
The ebb-tide leaves dry.
We will gaze, from the sand-hills,
At the white, sleeping town;
At the church on the hill-side--
And then come back down.
Singing: "There dwells a lov'd one,
But cruel is she!
She left lonely forever
The kings of the sea."
poem by Matthew Arnold (1849)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Between The Rapids
The point is turned; the twilight shadow fills
The wheeling stream, the soft receding shore,
And on our ears from deep among the hills
Breaks now the rapid's sudden quickening roar.
Ah yet the same, or have they changed their face,
The fair green fields, and can it still be seen,
The white log cottage near the mountain's base,
So bright and quiet, so home-like and serene?
Ah, well I question, for as five years go,
How many blessings fall, and how much woe.
Aye there they are, nor have they changed their cheer,
The fields, the hut, the leafy mountain brows;
Across the lonely dusk again I hear
The loitering bells, the lowing of the cows,
The bleat of many sheep, the stilly rush
Of the low whispering river, and through all,
Soft human tongues that break the deepening hush
With faint-heard song or desultory call:
Oh comrades hold; the longest reach is past;
The stream runs swift, and we are flying fast.
The shore, the fields, the cottage just the same,
But how with them whose memory makes them sweet?
Oh if I called them, hailing name by name,
Would the same lifts the same old shouts repeat?
Have the rough years, so big with death and ill,
Gone lightly by and left them smiling yet?
Wild black-eyed Jeanne whose tongue was never still,
Old wrinkled Picaud, Pierre and pale Lisette,
The homely hearts that never cared to range,
While life's wide fields were filled with rush and change.
And where is Jacques, and where is Verginie?
I cannot tell; the fields are all a blur.
The lowing cows whose shapes I scarcely see,
Oh do they wait and do they call for her?
And is she changed, or is her heart still clear
As wind or morning, light as river foam?
Or have life's changes borne her far from here,
And far from rest, and far from help and home?
Ah comrades, soft, and let us rest awhile,
For arms grow tired with paddling many a mile.
The woods grow wild, and from the rising shore
The cool wind creeps, the faint wood odours steal;
Like ghosts down the rivers blackening floor
The misty fumes begin to creep and reel.
Once more I leave you, wandering toward the night,
Sweet home, sweet heart, that would have held me in;
Whither I go I know not, and the light
Is faint before, and rest is hard to win.
Ah sweet ye were and near to heaven's gate;
But youth is blind and wisdom comes too late.
Blacker and loftier grow the woods, and hark!
The freshening roar! The chute is near us now,
And dim the canyon grows, and inky dark
The water whispering from the birchen prow.
One long last look, and many a sad adieu,
While eyes can see and heart can feel you yet,
I leave sweet home and sweeter hearts to you,
A prayer for Picaud, one for pale Lisette,
A kiss for Pierre, my little Jacques, and thee,
A sigh for Jeanne, a sob for Verginie.
Oh, does she still remember? Is the dream
Now dead, or has she found another mate?
So near, so dear; and ah, so swift the stream;
Even now perhaps it were not yet too late.
But oh, what matter; for before the night
Has reached its middle, we have far to go:
Bend to your paddles, comrades; see, the light
Ebbs off apace; we must not linger so.
Aye thus it is! Heaven gleams and then is gone
Once, twice, it smiles, and still we wander on.
poem by Archibald Lampman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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