Here They Trysted, And Here They Strayed
Here they trysted, here they strayed,
In the leafage dewy and boon,
Many a man and many a maid,
And the morn was merry June.
'Death is fleet, Life is sweet,'
Sang the blackbird in the may;
And the hour with flying feet,
While they dreamed, was yesterday.
Many a maid and many a man
Found the leafage close and boon;
Many a destiny began -
O, the morn was merry June!
Dead and gone, dead and gone,
(Hark the blackbird in the may!),
Life and Death went hurrying on,
Cheek on cheek--and where were they?
Dust on dust engendering dust
In the leafage fresh and boon,
Man and maid fulfil their trust -
Still the morn turns merry June.
Mother Life, Father Death
(O, the blackbird in the may!),
Each the other's breath for breath,
Fleet the times of the world away.
poem by William Ernest Henley
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Related quotes
Forever Starts at the End (A Sonnet)
Eternal life will start in my late last.
But who knows death began ere I was born?
A christian needs to die, as it's a must,
Before he could have seen the coming morn.
The day I went out from my mother's womb,
Is just as my death anniversary.
A dead child risen from a woman's tomb,
And breathing dust that lives for vanity.
I'm now alive but died with Him; and then,
Will die to live a life, and will not die
Again of death that doubled-killed the men
Born dead, although, alive, yet passers-by...
The residents of deathless fire where dwell
Those who died dead to die a death in Hell.
poem by Ray Remalig
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Is Life a Boon
Is life a boon?
If so, it must befall
That Death, whene'er he call,
Must call too soon.
Though fourscore years he give
Yet one would pray to live
Another moon!
What kind of plaint have I,
Who perish in July?
I might have had to die
Perchance in June!
Is life a thorn?
Then count it not a whit!
Man is well done with it;
Soon as he's born
He should all means essay
To put the plague away;
And I, war-worn,
Poor captured fugitive,
My life most gladly give -
I might have had to live
Another morn!
poem by William Schwenck Gilbert
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Vespers
O blackbird, what a boy you are!
How you do go it!
Blowing your bugle to that one sweet star -
How you do blow it!
And does she hear you, blackbird boy, so far?
or is it wasted breath?
'good Lord! she is so bright
To-night!'
The blackbird saith.
poem by Thomas Edward Brown
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The Blackbird Metaphor
the Beatles had it
as the struggle for freedom of the blacks
that blackbird singing in the dark
wanting to be free
the Americans
had that blackbird swirling in Vietnam
that chopper that saved lives
that war that caused them humiliation
in the world's opinion
that lie of Nixon
Steven Wallace had eight ways of seeing
that blackbird
Noah sent that blackbird
that did not come back since it was happy
picking on the rotten flesh
of the remains of the dead
the ninth way
of seeing
disobedience
One writes again about the blackbird
that lives singing the songs of neurosis
in his mind
at winter time
The poet commits suicide
His colleagues bury him
with eulogies and ' what ifs'
One sleeps with a blackbird
The other sings with a blackbird
Someone flew away with a blackbird
and did not come back
since then
So many stories
So many poems are written
Now i have to write about this blackbird too
But there shall be no disturbance
No unhappy ending
I swear to you.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Somewhere Inside Of You!
Every life, shall meet death.
Every breath crosses that bridge
Every autumn leaf falls bereft.
See all in its burning leafage.
Oh diamond sparks burn inside
…Blue, with rage, behind iron-bars.
Oh there's a heart of a flower
And, somewhere inside of you!
Inside of you, child there's a Houdini…
Honeycombed with green-envying eyes
Somewhere inside of you, child, there's
A queen, that, that, that, never dies…
Oh, look, child how she just swans…
Seductively easy across the skies
Ah, seduction… in ivory,
Seduction… in ivory,
Seduction… in ivory blossom
Into a million crimson dyes,
But—no she'll never, ever, ever, die.
Nor be cast down into that dead leafage.
Ghostly; she's like some spiders webbing,
Webbed; across deaths ebony warring face.
Every life is like a stillborn, thought!
Just waiting, wondering, and rippling out of breath.
Inside of you, child there's a Houdini…
Honeycombed with green envying eyes
Somewhere inside of you, child, there's
A queen, that, that, that, never dies…
Oh, look child she just swans…
Seductively, easy across the skies
Ah, seductively into ivory,
Seduction… into ivory,
Seduction… in ivory blossom
Oh, into a million crimson dyes,
But—no she'll never, ever, ever, die.
Nor be cast down into that dead leafage.
poem by Mark Heathcote
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All Things will Die
All Things will Die
Clearly the blue river chimes in its flowing
Under my eye;
Warmly and broadly the south winds are blowing
Over the sky.
One after another the white clouds are fleeting;
Every heart this May morning in joyance is beating
Full merrily;
Yet all things must die.
The stream will cease to flow;
The wind will cease to blow;
The clouds will cease to fleet;
The heart will cease to beat;
For all things must die.
All things must die.
Spring will come never more.
O, vanity!
Death waits at the door.
See! our friends are all forsaking
The wine and the merrymaking.
We are call’d–we must go.
Laid low, very low,
In the dark we must lie.
The merry glees are still;
The voice of the bird
Shall no more be heard,
Nor the wind on the hill.
O, misery!
Hark! death is calling
While I speak to ye,
The jaw is falling,
The red cheek paling,
The strong limbs failing;
Ice with the warm blood mixing;
The eyeballs fixing.
Nine times goes the passing bell:
Ye merry souls, farewell.
The old earth
Had a birth,
As all men know,
Long ago.
And the old earth must die.
So let the warm winds range,
And the blue wave beat the shore;
For even and morn
Ye will never see
Thro’ eternity.
All things were born.
Ye will come never more,
For all things must die.
poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson
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A June-Tide Echo
(After a Richter Concert.)
In the long, sad time, when the sky was grey,
And the keen blast blew through the city drear,
When delight had fled from the night and the day,
My chill heart whispered, " June will be here!
" June with its roses a-sway in the sun,
Its glory of green on mead and tree."
Lo, now the sweet June-tide is nearly done,
June-tide, and never a joy for me
Is it so much of the gods that I pray?
Sure craved man never so slight a boon!
To be glad and glad in my heart one day--
One perfect day of the perfect June.
Sweet sounds to-night rose up, wave upon wave;
Sweet dreams were afloat in the balmy air.
This is the boon of the gods that I crave--
To be glad, as the music and night were fair.
For once, for one fleeting hour, to hold
The fair shape the music that rose and fell
Revealed and concealed like a veiling fold;
To catch for an instant the sweet June spell.
For once, for one hour, to catch and keep
The sweet June secret that mocks my heart;
Now lurking calm, like a thing asleep,
Now hither and thither with start and dart.
Then the sick, slow grief of the weary years,
The slow, sick grief and the sudden pain;
The long days of labour, the nights of tears--
No more these things would I hold in vain.
I would hold my life as a thing of worth;
Pour praise to the gods for a precious thing.
Lo, June in her fairness is on earth,
And never a joy does the niggard bring.
A New England Valentine
O, SWEET little maid of a Puritan line,
O, dear little maid of a Puritan town,
On the morn of that saint whom they name Valentine,
I am asking a boon,—and I pray do not frown;
For, coy little Puritan maid of to-day,
I ask but a quaint little Puritan "Yea."
Look around on the walls of your Puritan home,
Where your prim lady ancestors hang in a row,
In quaint little kerchiefs, in cap and in comb;
Take counsel by them, dear, for well do you know
You would not be here, little maiden, to-day
If they had not spoken that Purtian "Yea."
Your pride is in them, and your faith and your love;
Ah, is there not some overflowing for me?
They lived long ago, and they hang far above,
I am nearer and younger,—Ah, cannot it be?
Then send me an answer this Valentine's day,
But pray it be not that cold Puritan "Nay!"
poem by Abbie Farwell Brown from The New England Magazine / Volume 21, Issue 6 (1897)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Elizabeth Childers
Dust of my dust,
And dust with my dust,
O, child who died as you entered the world,
Dead with my death!
Not knowing Breath, though you tried so hard,
With a heart that beat when you lived with me,
And stopped when you left me for Life.
It is well, my child. For you never traveled
The long, long way that begins with school days,
When little fingers blur under the tears
That fall on the crooked letters.
And the earliest wound, when a little mate
Leaves you alone for another;
And sickness, and the face of Fear by the bed;
The death of a father or mother;
Or shame for them, or poverty;
The maiden sorrow of school days ended;
And eyeless Nature that makes you drink
From the cup of Love, though you know it’s poisoned;
To whom would your flower-face have been lifted?
Botanist, weakling? Cry of what blood to yours?—
Pure or foul, for it makes no matter,
It’s blood that calls to our blood.
And then your children—oh, what might they be?
And what your sorrow? Child! Child!
Death is better than Life!
poem by Edgar Lee Masters from Spoon River Anthology
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.
II
I was of three minds,
Like a tree
In which there are three blackbirds.
III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.
IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.
V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
VI
Icicles filled the long window
With barbaric glass.
The shadow of the blackbird
Crossed it, to and fro.
The mood
Traced in the shadow
An indecipherable cause.
VII
O thin men of Haddam,
Why do you imagine golden birds?
Do you not see how the blackbird
Walks around the feet
Of the women about you?
VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.
IX
When the blackbird flew out of sight,
It marked the edge
Of one of many circles.
X
At the sight of blackbirds
Flying in a green light,
Even the bawds of euphony
Would cry out sharply.
XI
He rode over Connecticut
In a glass coach.
Once, a fear pierced him,
In that he mistook
The shadow of his equipage
For blackbirds.
XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.
XIII
It was evening all afternoon.
It was snowing
And it was going to snow.
The blackbird sat
In the cedar-limbs.
poem by Wallace Stevens
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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Spring Dirge
A child came singing through the dusty town
A song so sweet that all men stayed to hear,
Forgetting for a space their ancient fear
Of evil days and death and fortune’s frown.
She sang of Winter dead and Spring new-born
In the green fields beyond the far hills’ bound;
And how this fair Spring, coming blossom-crowned,
Would cross the city’s threshold on the morn.
And each caged bird in every house anigh,
Even as she sang, caught up the glad refrain
Of Love and Hope and fair days come again,
Till all who heard forgot they had to die.
And all the ghosts of buried woes were laid
That heard the song of this sweet sorceress;
The Past grew to a dream of old distress,
And merry were the hearts of man and maid.
So, at the first faint blush of tender dawn,
Spring stole with noiseless steps through the gray gloom,
And men knew only by a strange perfume
That she had softly entered and withdrawn.
But ah! the lustre of her violet eyes
Was dimmed with tears for her sweet singing maid,
Whose voice would sound no more in shine or shade
To charm men’s souls at set of sun or rise.
For there, with dews of dawn upon her hair,
Like a fair flower plucked and flung away,
Dead in the street the little maiden lay
Who gave new life to hearts nigh dead of care.
Alas! must this be still the bitter doom
Awaiting those, the finer-souled of earth,
Who make for men a morning song of mirth
While yet the birds are dumb amid the gloom?
They walk on thorny ways with feet unshod,
Sing one last song, and die as that song dies.
There is no human hand to close their eyes,
And very heavy is the hand of God.
poem by Victor James Daley
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Campaign Song
Boom boom boom
Boon boon boon
Bane bane bane
Your campaign song
Is too loud, bane
I am riding on boon
Good and fine days
Ignorant of intended ways
Boom your campaign song
It was too loud, bane
I barely could manage
To hear your message
I voted for the other candidate
Your Boom song was too loud
It was good in our ears in June
But you sang it till December
That even kids should remember
I choose otherwise, voted you out
Is Campaign song bane or boon?
poem by Benjamin Paa Willie
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Sweet Thing
(van morrison, john lennon)
And I will stroll the merry way and jump the hedges first
And I will drink the clear clean water for to quench my thirst
And I shall watch the ferry-boats and theyll get high
On a blue ocean, against tomorrows sky
And I will walk and talk in gardens all wet with rain
And I will never grow so old again
Oh sweet thing, sweet thing
My, my, my, my, my sweet thing
And I will stroll the merry ways and jump the hedges first
And I will drink the clear clean water for to quench my thirst
And I shall watch the ferry-boats and theyll get high
On a blue ocean against tomorrows sky
And I will walk and talk in gardens all wet with rain
And never ever ever ever ever get so old again
Ooh...
Sweet thing
My my my...
And I shall drive my chariot down your streets and cry
Hey, its me! Im dynamite and I dont know why
And you shall take me warm in your arms again
And I will not remember that I ever felt the pain
And I will walk and talk in gardens all wet with rain
And never ever ever ever ever get so old again
Ooh
Sweet thing
Yeah yeah yeah...
Sweet thing
My my my...
And I will raise my hand up into the night time sky
And count the stars there shining in your eyes
Just to dig it all an not to wonder, thats just fine
And Ill be satisfied not to read in between the lines
And I will walk and talk in gardens all wet with rain
And never ever ever ever ever get so old again
Sugar-baby with your champagne eyes
And your saint-like smile....
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take this broken wing and learn to fly
All your life you were just waiting for this moment to arrive
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take your sunken eyes, learn to see
All your life you were only waiting for this moment to be free...
song performed by by Waterboys
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Blackbird
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting
For this moment to arise
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
All your life
You were only waiting
For this moment to be free
Blackbird fly
Blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night
Blackbird fly
Blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting
For this moment to arise
You were only waiting
For this moment to arise
song performed by by Marillion
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Life Or Death?
Every day we live, we always face death
We get closer to it, every time we take a breath
Life is special but death brings peace
Life brings reality and things you believe
Death is hard for everyone around
Death is quiet, no more bad sounds
Life is also hard, all the things we go through
Life can never be easy, no matter what you do
Death is sad, for those who cry
Death is meaningful, for those who die
Life is a work of art, it's nice to look
Life is full of teachings, like an open book
Death is the new life, might as well be dead
Death is a lot more, for what's up ahead
Life brings new things, always something new
Life brings surprises, something out the blue
Death is scary, nothing we want to see
Death is negative, a place we don't want to be
Life is full of love, with the ones close to you
Life is full of money, for those who sue
Death is empty, nothing compared to this
Death is a lot of things, too long of a list
But life is everything; don't wait till there's nothing left
Death can wait, so don't waste your last breath
So just pick your choice, which one? Life or death?
poem by Triauna Hall
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Blackbird
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise.
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to be free.
Blackbird fly Blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night.
Blackbird fly Blackbird fly
Into the light of the dark black night.
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
song performed by by Beatles
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Blue Moon Of Kentucky
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these sunken eyes and learn to see
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to be free
Blackbird fly
Blackbird fly
Into the light of a dark black night
Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
You were only waiting for this moment to arise
song performed by by Paul McCartney
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Died
Not by the death that kills the body. Nay,
By that which even Christ bade us to fear
Hath died my dead.
Ah, me! if on a bier
I could but see him lifeless stretched to-day,
I 'd bathe his face with tears of joy, and lay
My cheek to his in anguish which were near
To ecstasy, if I could hold him dear
In death as life. Mere separations weigh
As dust in balances of love. The death
That kills comes only by dishonor. Vain
To chide me! vain! And weaker to implore,
O thou once loved so well, loved now no more!
There is no resurrection for such slain,
No miracle of God could give thee breath!
poem by Helen Hunt Jackson
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The Rover's Adieu
weary lot is thine, fair maid,
A weary lot is thine!
To pull the thorn thy brow to braid,
And press the rue for wine.
A lightsome eye, a soldier's mien,
A feather of the blue,
A doublet of the Lincoln green—
No more of me ye knew,
My Love!
No more of me ye knew.
'This morn is merry June, I trow,
The rose is budding fain;
But she shall bloom in winter snow
Ere we two meet again.'
—He turn'd his charger as he spake
Upon the river shore,
He gave the bridle-reins a shake,
Said 'Adieu for evermore,
My Love!
And adieu for evermore.'
poem by Sir Walter Scott
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The Mocking-Bird
Superb and sole, upon a plumed spray
That o'er the general leafage boldly grew,
He summ'd the woods in song; or typic drew
The watch of hungry hawks, the lone dismay
Of languid doves when long their lovers stray,
And all birds' passion-plays that sprinkle dew
At morn in brake or bosky avenue.
Whate'er birds did or dreamed, this bird could say.
Then down he shot, bounced airily along
The sward, twitched in a grasshopper, made song
Midflight, perched, prinked, and to his art again.
Sweet Science, this large riddle read me plain:
How may the death of that dull insect be
The life of yon trim Shakespeare on the tree?
poem by Sidney Lanier
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