Retrospection
I turn these leaves with thronging thoughts, and say,
Alas! how many friends of youth are dead;
How many visions of fair hope have fled,
Since first, my Muse, we met.--So speeds away
Life, and its shadows; yet we sit and sing,
Stretched in the noontide bower, as if the day
Declined not, and we yet might trill our lay
Beneath the pleasant morning's purple wing
That fans us; while aloft the gay clouds shine!
Oh, ere the coming of the long cold night,
Religion, may we bless thy purer light,
That still shall warm us, when the tints decline
O'er earth's dim hemisphere; and sad we gaze
On the vain visions of our passing days!
poem by William Lisle Bowles
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Related quotes
Turn To Gold
SHINE!
I don't know why
all the fiction of your sleeping
doesn't visit you awake
I don't know how to get your storybook sunrise
to follow you above your cloudy day
all these gifts you left on you
with heaven painted on you
i wish this now with all my soul
may all your visions turn to gold
to have and hold
may all your visions turn to gold
may all your visions turn to gold
to have and hold
may all your visions turn to gold
terrified the world will never turn to look at you
and the sun won't see you shine
she'll resign for rose cooked blush just from your smiling
let the water form a cry
only better luck should greet you
the road should rise to meet you
i wish this now with all i know
may all your visions turn to gold
to have and hold
may all your visions turn to gold
may all your visions turn to gold
to have and hold
may all your visions turn to gold
loose inside your winter
feel the cold wind blowing
cutting through your head and through your ears
feel the fire growing
no more frozen danger
no more wrteched ice storm fear
may all your visions turn to gold
to have and hold
may all your visions turn to gold
may all your visions turn to gold
to have and hold
may all your visions turn to gold
song performed by by Audioslave
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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In Memoriam Matris
IN my hot youth I rashly penned
A Sonnet of the After-life.
It was the time of stress and strife
Through which the ardent soul must wend.
It was the Spring-time of my days,
When Doubt, like an inspired sage,
With creeds did eager warfare wage,
And looked with scorn on ancient ways.
But gazing back across the years
That separate my youth from me,
These words and thoughts now seem to be
All dim, as through a mist of tears.
For then I saw, with eager eyes,
A coming world where joy would reign,
And evil pass away, and pain,
When man was rid of priestly ties.
While now I turn a backward gaze
On visions fled, and vanished hours,
On dead dry leaves and perished flow'rs,
That make the story of my days.
And midway on that dreary track
I see a grave-stone, standing white —
Far off. I see it in the night;
It says, “Thy mother comes not back.”
We brought her from the Austral land,
To this the land that gave her birth;
We laid her cold, in English earth,
My sire and I — and now we stand,
Like aliens, on a dreary shore,
Though once he fondly called it “Home.”
Now, old and mateless, he would roam
Back to that southern land once more.
For there her spirit seems to be,
There lie her babes beneath the sod;
And there, but for the hand of God,
Her grandchild would have climbed her knee.
* * * * *
These verses of the heedless Past,
They echo not my saddened thought,
— I held that after death came nought:
The earth was not then on her cast.
Denial now is dumb within,
Without I can but grope my way,
And trust that in some brighter day
Man's soul shall live — absolved of sin.
poem by Arthur Patchett Martin
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The Despair
Beneath this gloomy shade,
By Nature only for my sorrows made,
I'll spend this voyce in crys,
In tears I'll waste these eyes
By Love so vainly fed;
So Lust of old the Deluge punished.
Ah wretched youth! said I,
'Ah, wretched youth!' twice did I sadly cry:
'Ah, wretched youth!' the fields and floods reply.
When thoughts of Love I entertain,
I meet no words but 'Never,' and 'In vain.'
'Never' alas that dreadful name
Which fuels the infernal flame:
'Never,' My time to come must waste;
'In vain,' torments the present and the past.
'In vain, in vain!' said I;
'In vain, in vain!' twice did I sadly cry;
'In vain, in vain!' the fields and floods reply.
No more shall fields or floods do so;
For I to shades more dark and silent go:
All this world's noise appears to me
A dull ill-acted comedy:
No comfort to my wounded sight,
In the suns busy and imperti'nent Light.
Then down I laid my head;
Down on cold earth; and for a while was dead,
And my freed soul to a strange somewhere fled.
'Ah, sottish Soul' said I,
When back to its cage again I saw it fly;
'Fool to resume her broken chain!
And row her galley here again!'
'Fool, to that body to return
Where it condemn'd and destin'd is to burn!
Once dead, how can it be,
Death should a thing so pleasant seem to thee,
That thou should'st come to live it o're again in me?'
poem by Abraham Cowley
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The Fugitive Ideal
As some most pure and noble face,
Seen in the thronged and hurrying street,
Sheds o'er the world a sudden grace,
A flying odour sweet,
Then, passing, leaves the cheated sense
Baulked with a phantom excellence;
So, on our soul the visions rise
Of that fair life we never led:
They flash a splendour past our eyes,
We start, and they are fled:
They pass, and leave us with blank gaze,
Resigned to our ignoble days.
poem by William Watson
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Golden Visions
GOLDEN VISIONS
Written by Chris Cornell
Studio Demo
(Lyrics transcribed by Will Haines)
Shame
I don't know why
All the fiction of your sleeping
Doesn't visit you awake
I don't know how
To get your storybook sunrise
To follow you above your cloudy day
All these gifts should lay upon you
With heaven painted on you
I wish this now with all my soul
(chorus)
May all your visions turn to gold
To have and hold
May all your visions turn to gold
May all your visions turn to gold
To have and hold
May all your visions turn to gold
Terrified
The world will never turn to look at you
And the sun won't see you shine
Children's lives
For rose could bless just from your smilin'
And the water form a crown
Only better luck should greet you
The road should rise to meet you
I wish this now with all I know
(chorus)
Mmmmmmmm. . .
Lives inside your winter
Feel the cold wind blowing
Cutting through your head and your ears
Feel the fire growing
No more frozen danger
No more wretched
I stumbled
Fear
(chorus)
song performed by by Audioslave
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Fair Ines
O saw ye not fair Ines?
She 's gone into the West,
To dazzle when the sun is down,
And rob the world of rest:
She took our daylight with her,
The smiles that we love best,
With morning blushes on her cheek,
And pearls upon her breast.
O turn again, fair Ines,
Before the fall of night,
For fear the Moon should shine alone,
And stars unrivall'd bright;
And blessèd will the lover be
That walks beneath their light,
And breathes the love against thy cheek
I dare not even write!
Would I had been, fair Ines,
That gallant cavalier,
Who rode so gaily by thy side,
And whisper'd thee so near!
Were there no bonny dames at home,
Or no true lovers here,
That he should cross the seas to win
The dearest of the dear?
I saw thee, lovely Ines,
Descend along the shore,
With bands of noble gentlemen,
And banners waved before;
And gentle youth and maidens gay,
And snowy plumes they wore:
It would have been a beauteous dream,—
If it had been no more!
Alas, alas! fair Ines,
She went away with song,
With Music waiting on her steps,
And shoutings of the throng;
But some were sad, and felt no mirth,
But only Music's wrong,
In sounds that sang Farewell, farewell,
To her you've loved so long.
Farewell, farewell, fair Ines!
That vessel never bore
So fair a lady on its deck,
Nor danced so light before,—
Alas for pleasure on the sea,
And sorrow on the shore!
The smile that bless'd one lover's heart
Has broken many more!
poem by Thomas Hood
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To aasmund olafsen vinje (sung at his wife's grave)
Your house to guests has shelter lent,
While you with pen were seated.
In silent quest they came and went,
You saw them not, nor greeted.
But when now they
Were gone away,
Your babe without a mother lay,
And you had lost your helpmate.
The home you built but yesterday
In death to-day is sinking,
And you stand sick and worn and gray
On ruins of your thinking.
Your way lay bare
Since child you were,
The shelter that you first could share
Was this that now is shattered.
But know, the guests that to you came
In sorrow's waste will meet you;
Though shy you shrink, they still will claim
The right with love to treat you.
For where you go
To you they show
The world in radiant light aglow
Of great and wondrous visions.
What once you saw, now passing o'er,
Will but be made the clearer;
It is the far eternal shore,
That on your way draws nearer.
Your poet-sight
Will see in light
All that the clouds have wrapped in night;-
Great doubts will find an answer.
And later when you leave again
The waste of woe thought-pregnant,
Whom you have met shall teach us then.
Your pen in power regnant.
From sorrow's weal
With purer zeal,
Inspiring light, and pain's appeal
Shall shine your wondrous visions.
poem by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
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Waiting
A YOUNG fair girl among her flowers,
And, as to blossoms born in May,
Her morrows still brought sunnier hours
Than made up sunny yesterday.
She did but wait: 'Hope is so sweet;
We love so well, my love and I;
The hours that come, the hours that fleet,
End all in one glad by and by.'
A pale worn woman, scarcely sad,
But tired, like those who, too long pent,
Forget the joy they have not had
Of the free winds, and droop content.
She did but wait: 'Ah, no, to me
The silent hope is never dead;
What are the days that are to be
But part of the dear days long fled?'
He came: 'The wealth we need is mine;
And now?' 'Alas!' she said, 'in vain.
The love I love is noway thine,
I wait who never comes again.
Oh, for my lover of old days,
We two from all the world apart!
I must go lone on earth's bleak ways,
He is not now save in my heart.'
He wed another. She, alone,
Patient and weary, toiled for bread.
And bygone still was never gone,
The silent hope was never dead.
She did but wait: 'I have the past;
The new days live the old days o'er,
And there abides until the last
The by and by that was before.'
poem by Augusta Davies Webster
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Drifting Sun
Music :ulrich roth
Lyrics:ulrich roth
Well, Im sitting on a stone
Sitting all alone
Daisies are rolling down the mountain
Well see the lonesome tramp
Whos living in the damp
Nobodys in the valley
Shine on, shine on sun
Oh its so cold right here
Shine on, shine on sun
Shine on all night long
All night long
Baby doll, Im sad and blue
Glossy wings will carry you
Well, midnight sun will never shine
These ravings of a fool
Youre thinking all about him all the time
Shine on, shine on sun
Oh its so cold right here
Shine on, shine on sun
Shine on all night long, all night long
All night long, yeah
One day baby told you sun just fades away
Forgot your life is fading, now hes in the grave
Some days like drifting haze
Some days like glowing blaze
Some days like tides of light
Some days like tides of night
One day baby told you sun just fades away
Forgot your life is fading, now hes in the grave
Some days like drifting haze
Some days like glowing blaze
Some days like tides of light
Some days like tides of night
Travelling along a tropic highway
Crazy as the world goes round and round
Hallowed heaven, night or day
Burning thing has putting the sun away
Shine on, shine on sun
Let it shine on all night long
Shine on, shine on sun
Let it shine on all night long
song performed by by Scorpions
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Thoughts and Visions
Thoughts and visions pass my way
in the twilight of my years.
I hold tightly to all of them
and try to hold back tears.
I long for them to never leave
and escape my memory.
I take great pleasure in them all
and never want to be
unable to keep them tucked away
and faced with vacant space.
Thoughts and visions are what I need.
They're like a warm embrace.
Memories of days that brought me you
and love was there for the taking.
Memories of nights that lingered
when love was in the making.
Memories of birthing both my sons
and experiencing the pain of joy.
Memories of the lyrical sounds
that were infused inside my soul.
And memories of sun filled days
to take away the cold.
I could go on and on with these
as my years do pass.
And express my thanks for all of them
and pray they always last.
poem by Edwina Reizer
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Shine
Put on your blindfold
And a dress that's tight
And come with me
On a mystery night
Open your eyes
Follow our stars under a painted sky
We'll leave the world behind
We're learning to fly
We used to get by
Forget the pictures on your TV screen
We'll steal the visions
That you keep for your dreams
You can turn me on
I was blind and I saw the light
My angel coming
In a brilliant white
Shine for me
You've been hanging from a rope of mediocrity
Strung up by your insecurities
You can shine for me
Somebody has to
Shine for me
It's difficult not to
Shine for me
Follow our stars under a painted sky
We'll leave the world behind
We're learning to fly
We used to get by
Forget the pictures on your TV screen
We'll steal the visions
That you keep for your dreams
You can turn me on
You've been hanging from a rope of mediocrity
Strung up by your insecurities
You can shine for me
Somebody has to
Shine for me
It's difficult not to
Shine for me
Somebody has to
Shine for me
It's difficult not to
Shine for me
song performed by by Depeche Mode from Exciter
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Love's Young Dream
Oh! the days are gone, when Beauty bright
My heart's chain wove;
When my dream of life, from morn till night,
Was love, still love.
New hope may bloom,
And days may come,
Of milder calmer beam,
But there's nothing half so sweet in life
As love's young dream:
No, there's nothing half so sweet in life
As love's young dream.
Though the bard to purer fame may soar,
When wild youth's past;
Though he win the wise, who frown'd before,
To smile at last;
He'll never meet
A joy so sweet,
In all his noon of fame,
As when first he sung to woman's ear
His soul-felt flame,
And, at every close, she blush'd to hear
The one loved name.
No, -- that hallow'd form is ne'er forgot
Which first love traced;
Still it lingering haunts the greenest spot
On memory's waste.
'Twas odour fled
As soon as shed;
'Twas morning's winged dream;
'Twas a light, tht ne'er can shine again
On life's dull stream:
Oh! 'twas light that n'er can shine again
On life's dull stream.
poem by Thomas Moore
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Obsession
We sit in your room
So dark and strange
With yellow candles
Burning straight
Outside it rains
So silver and bright
A glaring light
Crashed into the sky
Its just the way it should be
Its so right as rain
Its just the way it should be
Its so right as rain
We stayed awake at night
With vision so unreal
We stayed awake at night
With visions so ideal
Its got a hold on me
Its got a hold on me
Smiles and voices suddenly changed
Eyes and shadows on a distance too short
Is there someone who I know ?
Is there someone at all ?
Is there someone who I know ?
Is there someone I called ?
Its just the way it should be
Its so right as rain
Its just the way it should be
Its so right as rain
We stayed awake at night
With vision so unreal
We stayed awake at night
With visions so ideal
So when the rain comes running in your eyes
And the wind shakes the forest leaves
We stayed awake at night
With visions so unreal
We stayed awake at night
With visions so ideal
Its got a hold on me
song performed by by Xymox
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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January
Start wooing with all the clocks chiming,
Slip the slippery seconds around earth,
And dance with the skies in celebration,
All from pulse to breathe, and to new birth.
January, the first light of another year,
And the glory of that maiden orbit,
Wake silently from golden dust to appear,
A long time coming; we had known it.
After taking down the decorations,
Give chances for the changing course,
To breathe New Year’s resolutions,
And as it grows, given hope a chance.
A brimful of dreams watches all doors opens,
Letting hope in and visions lets out more,
But so long as January defines what begins,
It has the key to mingle with pleasure.
January stands steep in splendor passing by,
Spectra of the seasons towering head,
And hung the gem of lights to guide the sky,
With stars bright and glittering away they fled.
And float midway in opportunity abound,
To such deep measure on thrushes of rapture,
Upon fair winds January is known in all the land,
From drifts to snowy clefts and sunny sphere.
The wakening realm will come back again,
And life begins new through cold and death,
January is the beginning of the end,
Round the islands it goes in triumphant rebirth.
poem by Gerry Legister
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I Think I See The Light
I used to trust nobody, trusting even less their words,
Until I found somebody, there was no one I preferred,
My heart was made of stone, my eyes saw only misty grey,
Until you came into my life girl, I saw everyone that way.
Until I found the one I needed at my side,
I think I would have been a sad man all my life.
I think I see the light coming to me,
Coming through me giving me a second sight.
So shine, shine, shine,
Shine, shine, shine,
Shine, shine, shine.
I used to walk alone, every step seemed the same.
This world was not my home, so there was nothing much to gain.
Look up and see the clouds, look down and see the cold floor.
Until you came into my life girl, I saw nothing, nothing more.
Until I found the one I needed at my side,
I think I would have been a sad man all my life.
I think I see the light coming to me,
Coming through me giving me a second sight.
So shine, shine, shine,
Shine, shine, shine,
Shine, shine, shine.
song performed by by Cat Stevens
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Farewell, Life! My Senses Swim
Farewell, Life! My senses swim,
And the world is growing dim;
Thronging shadows cloud the light,
Like the advent of the night,—
Colder, colder, colder still,
Upward steals a vapor chill—
Strong the earthy odor grows—
I smell the mould above the rose!
Welcome, Life! the Spirit strives!
Strength returns, and hope revives;
Cloudy fears and shapes forlorn
Fly like shadows at the morn,—
O'er the earth there comes a bloom—
Sunny light for sullen gloom,
Warm perfume for vapor cold—
I smell the rose above the mould!
poem by Thomas Hood
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Exile
I
At dead of night about the dying fire
They told a story how the dead appear;
And men, grown still with fear,
Forgot their old desire
For those who once were dear,
And shook and trembled lest their dead be near.
Alas, poor dead who were so sweet and human!
How are you grown a menace and a blight
A thing to shun, a thing of evil omen,
Stealing unwelcome through the halls of night?,
Who knows? perhaps yourselves are much affrighted,
And struggle back, remote and bodiless,
Fearful of sounds unheard, visions unsighted,
Black echoes, and the bitter loneliness.
But for me, in my heart is no dread
Of the coming again of the dead,
But a terror of life, without one
Who made life to be life - and is gone.
II
Yes, at these tales of how the dead return,
Hope stirs within my spirit more than fear.
So strange, so strange it seems, you are not here,
And so unnatural to me 'tis to learn
The trick of life without you, year by year,
That not so strange could any specter be
Or fall of footsteps on the empty stair,
Or shapes discerned upon the shadowy air,
As is this haunting sense of vacancy,
And your persisting absence everywhere.
Ah, could I see, as in the tranquil past,
The form I long for - always and in vain, -
Should I not cry, like one released from pain:
'Dear and long absent, you return at last,
And life its natural aspect wears again!'
poem by Alice Duer Miller
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Monody On Henry Headley
To every gentle Muse in vain allied,
In youth's full early morning HEADLEY died!
Too long had sickness left her pining trace,
With slow, still touch, on each decaying grace:
Untimely sorrow marked his thoughtful mien!
Despair upon his languid smile was seen!
Yet Resignation, musing on the grave,
(When now no hope could cheer, no pity save),
And Virtue, that scarce felt its fate severe,
And pale Affection, dropping soft a tear
For friends beloved, from whom she soon must part,
Breathed a sad solace on his aching heart.
Nor ceased he yet to stray, where, winding wild,
The Muse's path his drooping steps beguiled,
Intent to rescue some neglected rhyme,
Lone-blooming, from the mournful waste of time;
And cull each scattered sweet, that seemed to smile
Like flowers upon some long-forsaken pile.
Far from the murmuring crowd, unseen, he sought
Each charm congenial to his saddened thought.
When the gray morn illumed the mountain's side,
To hear the sweet birds' earliest song he hied;
When meekest eve to the fold's distant bell
Listened, and bade the woods and vales farewell,
Musing in tearful mood, he oft was seen
The last that lingered on the fading green.
The waving wood high o'er the cliff reclined,
The murmuring waterfall, the winter's wind,
His temper's trembling texture seemed to suit;
As airs of sadness the responsive lute.
Yet deem not hence the social spirit dead,
Though from the world's hard gaze his feelings fled:
Firm was his friendship, and his faith sincere,
And warm as Pity's his unheeded tear,
That wept the ruthless deed, the poor man's fate,
By fortune's storms left cold and desolate.
Farewell! yet be this humble tribute paid
To all his virtues, from that social shade
Where once we sojourned. I, alas! remain
To mourn the hours of youth, yet mourn in vain,
That fled neglected. Wisely thou hast trod
The better path; and that High Meed, which GOD
Ordained for Virtue towering from the dust,
Shall bless thy labours, spirit pure and just!
poem by William Lisle Bowles
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Summer Song
The meadow lark’s trill and the brown thrush’s whistle
From morning to evening fill all the sweet air,
And my heart is as light as the down of a thistle –
The world is so bright and the earth is so fair.
There is life in the wood, there is bloom on the meadow;
The air drops with songs that the merry birds sing.
The sunshine has won, in the battle with shadow,
And she’s dressed the glad earth with robes of the spring.
The bee leaves his hive for the field of red clover
And the vale where the daisies bloom white as the snow,
And a mantle of warm yellow sunshine hangs over
The calm little pond, where the pale lillies grow.
In the woodland beyond it, a thousand gay voices
Are singing in chorus some jubilant air.
The bird and the bee and all nature rejoices,
The world is so bright, and the earth is so fair.
I am glad as a child, in this beautiful weather;
I have tossed all my burdens and trials away;
My heart is as light – yes, as light as a feather; -
I am care-free, and careless, and happy to-day.
Can it be there approaches a dark, dreary to-morrow?
Can shadows e’er fall on this beautiful earth?
Ah! To-day is my own! No forebodings of sorrow
Shall darken my skies, or shall dampen my mirth.
poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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To Hope
Oh! take, young Seraph, take thy harp,
And play to me so cheerily;
For grief is dark, and care is sharp,
And life wears on so wearily.
Oh! take thy harp!
Oh! sing as thou wert wont to do,
When, all youth's sunny season long,
I sat and listened to thy song,
And yet 'twas ever, ever new,
With magic in its heaven-tuned string—
The future bliss thy constant theme.
Oh! then each little woe took wing
Away, like phantoms of a dream;
As if each sound
That flutter'd round,
Had floated over Lethe's stream!
By all those bright and happy hours
We spent in life's sweet eastern bow'rs,
Where thou wouldst sit and smile, and show,
Ere buds were come, where flowers would blow,
And oft anticipate the rise
Of life's warm sun that scaled the skies;
By many a story of love and glory,
And friendships promised oft to me;
By all the faith I lent to thee,—
Oh! take, young Seraph, take thy harp,
And play to me so cheerily;
For grief is dark, and care is sharp,
And life wears on so wearily.
Oh! take thy harp!
Perchance the strings will sound less clear,
That long have lain neglected by
In sorrow's misty atmosphere;
It ne'er may speak as it hath spoken
Such joyous notes so brisk and high;
But are its golden chords all broken?
Are there not some, though weak and low,
To play a lullaby to woe?
But thou canst sing of love no more,
For Celia show'd that dream was vain;
And many a fancied bliss is o'er,
That comes not e'en in dreams again.
Alas! alas!
How pleasures pass,
And leave thee now no subject, save
The peace and bliss beyond the grave!
Then be thy flight among the skies:
Take, then, oh! take the skylark's wing,
And leave dull earth, and heavenward rise
O'er all its tearful clouds, and sing
On skylark's wing!
Another life-spring there adorns
Another youth—without the dread
Of cruel care, whose crown of thorns
Is here for manhood's aching head.
Oh! there are realms of welcome day,
A world where tears are wiped away!
Then be thy flight among the skies:
Take, then, oh! take the skylark's wing,
And leave dull earth, and heavenward rise
O'er all its tearful clouds, and sing
On skylark's wing!
poem by Thomas Hood
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