An October Evening
1 The woods are haggard and lonely,
2 The skies are hooded for snow,
3 The moon is cold in Heaven,
4 And the grasses are sere below.
5 The bearded swamps are breathing
6 A mist from meres afar,
7 And grimly the Great Bear circles
8 Under the pale Pole Star.
9 There is never a voice in Heaven,
10 Nor ever a sound on earth,
11 Where the spectres of winter are rising
12 Over the night's wan girth.
13 There is slumber and death in the silence,
14 There is hate in the winds so keen;
15 And the flash of the north's great sword-blade
16 Circles its cruel sheen.
17 The world grows agèd and wintry,
18 Love's face peakèd and white;
19 And death is kind to the tired ones
20 Who sleep in the north to-night.
poem by William Wilfred Campbell
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The Winter Lakes
Out in a world of death far to the northward lying,
Under the sun and the moon, under the dusk and the day;
Under the glimmer of stars and the purple of sunsets dying,
Wan and waste and white, stretch the great lakes away.
Never a bud of spring, never a laugh of summer,
Never a dream of love, never a song of bird;
But only the silence and white, the shores that grow chiller and dumber,
Wherever the ice winds sob, and the griefs of winter are heard.
Crags that are black and wet out of the grey lake looming,
Under the sunset's flush and the pallid, faint glimmer of dawn;
Shadowy, ghost-like shores, where midnight surfs are booming
Thunders of wintry woe over the spaces wan.
Lands that loom like spectres, whited regions of winter,
Wastes of desolate woods, deserts of water and shore;
A world of winter and death, within these regions who enter,
Lost to summer and life, go to return no more.
Moons that glimmer above, waters that lie white under,
Miles and miles of lake far out under the night;
Foaming crests of waves, surfs that shoreward thunder,
Shadowy shapes that flee, haunting the spaces white.
Lonely hidden bays, moon-lit, ice-rimmed, winding,
Fringed by forests and crags, haunted by shadowy shores;
Hushed from the outward strife, where the mighty surf is grinding
Death and hate on the rocks, as sandward and landward it roars.
poem by William Wilfred Campbell
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Cold winter night
It was a cold winter night.
All was deadly still.
My guts so tight
I must kill!
The cry of a wolf enters my head
Like a train whistle that echoes far away.
Can it be…something lives on this winter night?
Follow the sound and pray
It does not go away.
My hunger juices flowing; I go.
I and the wolf both now know
Neither is alone in the land of snow.
Oh, how I wish I had his sight
On this cold winter night
The north wind moved in the night before.
The ground all snow and bitter cold…so bitter cold.
The sky filled with stars.
The snow grows old.
My guts so tight
What a cold, cold winter night!
The wolf stays hidden from my sight
With it’s furry coat of gray and white.
He glides across the snow without sound
Like a ballerina tiptoeing over the ground.
My guts so tight
On this bitter cold winter night
I with my blood running slow
My hands burning cold; my face red glow
Driven by the pain in my gut
On this cold-cold bitter winter night
I must kill
To make the night still
So the hunger pains
Will be gone again
I hear nothing on this cold winter night
My hair stands up on the back of my neck
I fear the wolf knows
I turn
Crutch to spring
His fangs showing white; my knife in my hand
We circle like two roosters in a pen.
For one this will be the end.
The pain in my gut is still tight
I will kill but not for the trill
On such a killing bitter cold winter night
With the grace of a cat he springs to flight
My throat his aim on this cold winter night
My knife hits his heart…he hunches in pain;
His fangs rip my throat cutting the jugular vein.
The snows now stain on this cold winter night.
Blood and flesh flung upon the snow
Cries of pain, moans of death…soon will go
From this bitter cold ground
All is still on winter’s playground.
The wolf dances no more
My lips move but there is no sound.
My gut is still tight
I feel alright
No more time to fight
On this bitter cold winter night
Wind and snow now fill the air.
The wolf has an empty den.
The snow will be tracked no more.
Twinkle, twinkle little star
Genocide complete
In a galaxy so far
poem by Ronald Brissette
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90 North
At home, in my flannel gown, like a bear to its floe,
I clambered to bed; up the globe's impossible sides
I sailed all night—till at last, with my black beard,
My furs and my dogs, I stood at the northern pole.
There in the childish night my companions lay frozen,
The stiff fur knocked at my starveling throat,
And I gave my great sigh: the flakes came huddling,
Were they really my end? In the darkness I turned to my rest.
—Here, the flag snaps in the glare and silence
Of the unbroken ice. I stand here,
The dogs bark, my beard is black, and I stare
At the North Pole . . .
And now what? Why, go back.
Turn as I please, my step is to the south.
The world—my world spins on this final point
Of cold and wretchedness: all lines, all winds
End in this whirlpool I at last discover.
And it is meaningless. In the child's bed
After the night's voyage, in that warm world
Where people work and suffer for the end
That crowns the pain—in that Cloud-Cuckoo-Land
I reached my North and it had meaning.
Here at the actual pole of my existence,
Where all that I have done is meaningless,
Where I die or live by accident alone—
Where, living or dying, I am still alone;
Here where North, the night, the berg of death
Crowd me out of the ignorant darkness,
I see at last that all the knowledge
I wrung from the darkness—that the darkness flung me—
Is worthless as ignorance: nothing comes from nothing,
The darkness from the darkness. Pain comes from the darkness
And we call it wisdom. It is pain.
Anonymous submission.
poem by Randall Jarrell
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How Wide The Dawn
How wide the Dawn
Is smiling!
How silent-new
The air is breathing!
How raw the sea
Without a wave
Is looking!
And in the night –
Id est last night
How strange
The owl chanteth!
How far, how far
Its cry did seem
And yet
It was so near!
How thrilled the tree
Below my lighted window
And in the night
The solemn night
The owl was still a-calling
To spirits wild
Perhaps
Or long white ghosts
Perhaps!
And in the eyes
Of the pale moon
The lake nearby glistened:
How white
How thin
The rays that fall
In midst of the dark waters!
And from the lake
A soundless sound
Is coming:
For in the waves
And from the waves
There comes a little gurgling
And in the night
In the long night
The owl is speaking, speaking!
Ah! this night – in the night
The people in the house
Are all a-sleeping
I – only I
The vigil, the night-vigil
Am making:
And I
And only I
Will my reward receive
For I
And only I
Am seeing
For I
And only I
Am hearing
And I
And only I
Am feeling!
How strange how sere
The feeling!
How from the clear night
The mist of sudden riseth!
And from afar
Past ten long fields
The cemetery is burning
With the pale light
Of the swift moon
That fall
On every wall
This long, long night!
It seems
It seems
That the cemetery’s open:
And yet
And yet
There is no noise
No sound
But from the yews
A soundless sound
Is coming:
A restless sound
Like souls
This night all-aching
And restless
Restless
At some thing
I am not hearing!
Ha! We on earth
Make prisons
And lodge
Bodies – human bodies in them:
And we on earth
Make cemeteries
And lodge
Bodies – human bodies in them
And the long night
Under the light
Of heaven
How waning-blue
And tight
Is coming!
So:
At long last
We fall into a prison
If not the one
In fine to the other
And at the last
And in the last
We enter our last prison:
And in the night
The long and lonely night
The cemetery is shining!
poem by Emmanuel George Cefai
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The Power Of Thy Sword
Lord of battle I pray on bended knee conquest by the rising sun
I'll wait for thy command with flame and blood at hand
glory and a broken sword.
I'm the master of the world I have no fear of man or beast
Born inside the soul of the world
Riding hard breaking bone with steel and stone
Eternal might I was born to wield.
Let us drink to the battles we've lived and we've fought
Celebrate the pain and havoc we have wrought
Great heroes charge into the fight
From the north to the south in the black of night
The clash of honor calls to stand when others fall
Gods of war feel the power of my sword
Drink to the battles we've lived and we've fought
Celebrate the pain and havoc we have wrought
Great heroes charge into the fight
From the north to the south in the black of night
Fierce is my blade fierce is my hate born to die in battle
I laugh at my fate
Now pay in blood when your blood has been spilled
You're never forgiven death is fulfilled !
The clash of honor calls to stand when others fall
Gods of war feel the power of my sword
The clash of honor calls
I will stand when others fall
Open magic doors
The will know the power of my sword
There is blood in my hands there is blood in my eyes
With blood in my voice I scream as you die
Thirsting for vengeance and mounds of the slain
Shaking the forest onto the plain
Fierce is my blade fierce is my hate born to die in battle
I laugh at my fate
Now pay in blood when your blood has been spilled
You're never forgiven death is fulfilled !
The clash of honor calls to stand when others fall
Gods of war feel the power of my sword
Know the power of my sword
Know the power of my sword
Know the power of my sword
Know the power of my sword
They will know the power of my sword
song performed by by Manowar from The Triumph Of Steel
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Snow
Down out of heaven,
Frost-kissed
And wind driven,
Flake upon flake,
Over forest and lake,
Cometh the snow.
Folding the forest,
Folding the farms,
In a mantle of white;
And the river’s great arms,
Kissed by the chill night
From clamor to rest,
Lie all white and shrouded
Upon the world’s breast.
Falling so slowly
Down from above,
So white, hushed, and holy,
Folding the city
Like the great pity
Of God in His love; 20
Sent down out of heaven
On its sorrow and crime,
Blotting them, folding them
Under its rime.
Fluttering, rustling,
Soft as a breath,
The whisper of leaves,
The low pinions of death,
Or the voice of the dawning,
When day has its birth,
Is the music of silence
It makes to the earth.
Thus down out of heaven,
Frost-kissed
And wind driven,
Flake upon flake,
Over forest and lake,
Cometh the snow.
poem by William Wilfred Campbell
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The Sky Watcher
Black rolls the phantom chimney-smoke
Beneath the wintry moon;
For miles on miles, by sound unbroke,
The world lies wrapt in its ermine cloak,
And the night's icy swoon
Sways earthward in great brimming wells
Of luminous, frosty particles.
Far up the roadway, drifted deep,
Where frost-etched fences gleam;
Beneath the sky's wan, shimmering sleep
My solitary way I keep
Across the world's white dream;
The only living moving thing
In all this mighty slumbering.
Up in the eastern range of hill,
The thin wood spectrally
Stirs in its sleep and then is still
(Like querulous age) at the wind's will.
My shadow doggedly
Follows my footsteps where I go,
A grotesque giant on the snow.
Out where the river's arms are wound,
And icy sedges cling,
There comes to me as in a swound
A far-off clear, thin, vibrant sound,--
The distant hammering
Of frost-elves as they come and go,
Forging, in silver chains, his woe.
I stand upon the hill's bleak crest
And note the far night world:
The mighty lake whose passionate breast,
Manacled into arctic rest,
In shrouded sleep is furled:
The steely heavens whose wondrous host
Wheel white from flaming coast to coast.
Then down the night's dim luminous ways,
Meseems they come once more,
Those great star-watchers of old days
The lonely, calm-ones, whose still gaze,
On old-time, orient shore,
Dreamed in the wheeling sons of light,
The awful secrets of earth's night.
They come, those lofty ones of old,
And take me by the hand,
And call me brother; ages rolled
Are but a smoke-mist; kindred-souled,
They lift me to their band;
Like lights that from pale starbeams shine,
Their clear eyes look with peace on mine.
In language of no common kind
These watchers speak to me;
Their thoughts the depths of heaven find
Like plummets true. It were a kind
Of immortality
To spend with them one holy hour,
And know their love and grasp their power.
And wrapt around with glad content,
I learn with soul serene,
Caught from the beauty that is blent
In earth, the heaven's luminous tent,
The frost-lit dreams between,
And something holier out of sight,
Glad visions of the infinite.
Then backward past the sere hill's breast,
The spectral moaning wood,
With great peace brooding in my breast,
I turn me toward the common rest
Of earth's worn brotherhood;
But as I pass, a sacred sign,
Each lays his holy lips on mine:--
Gives me the golden chrism of song,
Tips my hushed heart with fire;
Till high in heaven I hear that throng
Who march in mystic paths along,
Great Pleiades, The Lyre,
The Te-Deum of the ages swell,
To earth-tuned ear inaudible.
poem by William Wilfred Campbell
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The Mother
I
IT was April, blossoming spring,
They buried me, when the birds did sing;
Earth, in clammy wedging earth,
They banked my bed with a black, damp girth.
Under the damp and under the mould,
I kenned my breasts were clammy and cold.
Out from the red beams, slanting and bright,
I kenned my cheeks were sunken and white.
I was a dream, and the world was a dream,
And yet I kenned all things that seem.
I was a dream, and the world was a dream,
But you cannot bury a red sunbeam.
For though in the under-grave's doom-night
I lay all silent and stark and white,
Yet over my head I seemed to know
The murmurous moods of wind and snow,
The snows that wasted, the winds that blew,
The rays that slanted, the clouds that drew
The water-ghosts up from lakes below,
And the little flower-souls in earth that grow.
Under earth, in the grave's stark night,
I felt the stars and the moon's pale light.
I felt the winds of ocean and land
That whispered the blossoms soft and bland.
Though they had buried me dark and low,
My soul with the season's seemed to grow.
II
From throes of pain they buried me low,
For death had finished a mother's woe.
But under the sod, in the grave's dread doom,
I dreamed of my baby in glimmer and gloom.
I dreamed of my babe, and I kenned that his rest
Was broken in wailings on my dead breast.
I dreamed that a rose-leaf hand did cling;
Oh, you cannot bury a mother in spring!
When the winds are soft and the blossoms are red
She could not sleep in her cold earth-bed.
I dreamed of my babe for a day and a night,
And then I rose in my grave-clothes white.
I rose like a flower from my damp earth-bed
To the world of sorrowing overhead.
Men would have called me a thing of harm,
But dreams of my babe made me rosy and warm.
I felt my breasts swell under my shroud;
No star shone white, no winds were loud;
But I stole me past the graveyard wall,
For the voice of my baby seemed to call;
And I kenned me a voice, though my lips were dumb:
Hush, baby, hush! for mother is come.
I passed the streets to my husband's home;
The chamber stairs in a dream I clomb;
I heard the sound of each sleeper's breath,
Light waves that break on the shores of death.
I listened a space at my chamber door,
Then stole like a moon-ray over its floor.
My babe was asleep on a stranger's arm,
'O baby, my baby, the grave is so warm,
'Though dark and so deep, for mother is there!
O come with me from the pain and care!
'O come with me from the anguish of earth,
Where the bed is banked with a blossoming girth,
'Where the pillow is soft and the rest is long,
And mother will croon you a slumber-song–
'A slumber-song that will charm your eyes
To a sleep that never in earth-song lies!
'The loves of earth your being can spare,
But never the grave, for mother is there.'
I nestled him soft to my throbbing breast,
And stole me back to my long, long rest.
And here I lie with him under the stars,
Dead to earth, its peace and its wars;
Dead to its hates, its hopes, and its harms,
So long as he cradles up soft in my arms.
And heaven may open its shimmering doors,
And saints make music on pearly floors,
And hell may yawn to its infinite sea,
But they never can take my baby from me.
For so much a part of my soul he hath grown
That God doth know of it high on His throne.
And here I lie with him under the flowers
That sun-winds rock through the billowy hours,
With the night-airs that steal from the murmuring sea,
Bringing sweet peace to my baby and me.
poem by William Wilfred Campbell
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The Open Road
THE roads of the Sea
Are thronged with merchantmen;
East and West, North and South
They go and come again.
All precious merchandise
They bear in their hold:
Lest the people be starving
In the night and cold.
Now tell me, good merchants,
How this thing can be
That the white ships are thronging
The roads of the sea?
For there's death in the skies
And there's death on the earth;
And men talked of famine
And a frozen hearth.
Yet the ships they go crowding
The roads of the sea;
They bring home their treasures
To you and to me.
O listen, good people,
And hearing, praise God,
That the watch-dogs are keeping
The ships on their road!
They sit watchful and steady
Where the North winds blow;
Sleepless they are keeping
The roads the ships go.
In the day, in the hour,
They will spring--until then,
Their eyes keep the courses
Of the merchantmen.
Forget not, good people,
When ye heap the white board,
When ye draw to the hearth-fire,
To praise the Lord,
That the watch-dogs unsleeping
Keep the roads of the Sea,
Up by the Northern Lights
Where the great ships be.
poem by Katharine Tynan
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Minnie And Santa
(Cyndi Lauper, Jan Pulsford)
Worked with a woman named Minnie
One Christmas eve long ago
When I asked "What you doing this evening ?"
Minnie took on a seasonal glow
She said she'd be waiting for Santa
She'd be wearing a bright red bow
Chorus:
Minnie And Santa
Minnie And Santa
What they're up to only
Heaven knows she wrote on a card
"Don't take it so hard we're headed for the North Pole"
Now Minnie could not be persuaded
That Santa just did not exist
She swore if she put up some mistletoe
Santa'd come give her a kiss
And there where she'd hung up her stockings
All in their silky, soft, sheen
She'd be laying in wait on a bear skin rug
Where the cookies and milk could be seen
Chorus:
Minnie And Santa
Minnie And Santa
What they're up to only
Heaven knows she wrote on a card
"Don't take it so hard we're headed for the North Pole"
(musical interlude)
Now Minnie was older and wiser
Like a dear old Auntie to me
But the night that she ran off with Santa
Was a real epiphany
Chorus:
Minnie And Santa
Minnie And Santa
What they're up to only
Heaven knows she wrote on a card
"Don't take it so hard we're headed for the North Pole"
Next Xmas I passed by the bakery
Staring out from on top of a cake
Was jolly old Santa with a big silly grin
And a gal in silk stockings and lace
Oh, Minnie and Santa...
song performed by by Cyndi Lauper
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Cruel Winds of Winter
Got up this morning, no sun in my eyes,
The house is so cold, no warmth to the fire,
My love is gone, he took all my desire,
And cruel winds of winter howled all night.
My love could warm me in the coldest time,
Bring the light of day to the darkest night,
As tears of my sorrow fall from my eyes,
The cruel winds of winter cry in delight.
Pull on my coat, keep the chill from my side,
I walk by the sea, the salt stings my eye,
The caps are all gray, like clouds in the sky,
And with those cruel winds of winter, I cry.
As tears of my sorrow fall to the sand,
My love is not here to warn my cold hand,
He’s gone like the sun from this harsh, gray land,
And only the wind seems to understand.
This endless winter has replaced his light,
My sweet love gone, no warmth in my sight,
I drift lost and lonely, no sleep I find,
Still those winds cry with me deep in the night.
My heart so heavy, life has no delight,
And the cruel winds of winter, torment my night.
poem by Teresa Dearing
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Twilight In The North
O THE long northern twilight between the day and the night,
When the heat and the weariness of the world are ended quite:
When the hills grow dim as dreams, and the crystal river seems
Like that River of Life from out the Throne where the blessèd walk in white.
O the weird northern twilight, which is neither night nor day,
When the amber wake of the long-set sun still marks his western way:
And but one great golden star in the deep blue east afar
Warns of sleep, and dark, and midnight--of oblivion and decay.
O the calm northern twilight, when labor is all done,
And the birds in drowsy twitter have dropped silent one by one:
And nothing stirs or sighs in mountains, waters, skies,--
Earth sleeps--but her heart waketh, till the rising of the sun.
O the sweet, sweet twilight, just before the time of rest,
When the black clouds are driven away, and the stormy winds suppressed:
And the dead day smiles so bright, filling earth and heaven with light,--
You would think 't was dawn come back again--but the light is in the west.
O the grand solemn twilight, spreading peace from pole to pole!--
Ere the rains sweep o'er the hillsides, and the waters rise and roll,
In the lull and the calm, come, O angel with the palm--
In the still norther twilight, Azrael, take my soul.
poem by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
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The Death Of Richard Wagner
Mourning on earth, as when dark hours descend,
Wide-winged with plagues, from heaven; when hope and mirth
Wane, and no lips rebuke or reprehend
Mourning on earth.
The soul wherein her songs of death and birth,
Darkness and light, were wont to sound and blend,
Now silent, leaves the whole world less in worth.
Winds that make moan and triumph, skies that bend,
Thunders, and sound of tides in gulf and firth,
Spake through his spirit of speech, whose death should send
Mourning on earth.
The world's great heart, whence all things strange and rare
Take form and sound, that each inseparate part
May bear its burden in all tuned thoughts that share
The world's great heart -
The fountain forces, whence like steeds that start
Leap forth the powers of earth and fire and air,
Seas that revolve and rivers that depart -
Spake, and were turned to song: yea, all they were,
With all their works, found in his mastering art
Speech as of powers whose uttered word laid bare
The world's great heart.
From the depths of the sea, from the wellsprings of earth, from the wastes of the midmost night,
From the fountains of darkness and tempest and thunder, from heights where the soul would be,
The spell of the mage of music evoked their sense, as an unknown light
From the depths of the sea.
As a vision of heaven from the hollows of ocean, that none but a god might see,
Rose out of the silence of things unknown of a presence, a form, a might,
And we heard as a prophet that hears God's message against him, and may not flee.
Eye might not endure it, but ear and heart with a rapture of dark delight,
With a terror and wonder whose core was joy, and a passion of thought set free,
Felt inly the rising of doom divine as a sundawn risen to sight
From the depths of the sea.
poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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North Woods
The teeming black waters
Of a wooded creek
Run amuck
To the waterfalls calling -
There is a pragmatic hubris
To the North woods
Set so far from social expectancy,
An un-self-concerned amalgam
Of accepting and being accepted by
Simply living, being, and even dying -
The scent is intoxicating
The sound symphonic
The sight luminous;
Here, these North woods
Home to so much
And community to so few -
Jays sit entwined
Within a bevy of birch branches
Voicing the folly
Of an eastern wind,
In a furry fit of contentment
A squirrel dances with a maple leaf,
And a dropp of dew
Gives itself to a colony of working ants -
Supple, and turbulent
Are the irresistable ways
Of the seasons up here!
Nights and days
Swamps and hills
Frogs and flies
Deer and bear,
All a part
Of the heart and blood of
The great North woods -
poem by Smoky Hoss
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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In the Land of Zephyr...
The wind scooped out the snow,
twirl, splashing the rowan in slumber,
shook its boughs of snow;
to emerald green rife with crimson.
The wind like a sot,
'twixt through woods;
In the woods, spruces of snow,
hailed the wind to mystique umber,
here, with rubble rills row;
here, wild lives in unison.
The wind like a sot,
'twixt through lea, afar woods;
Lea, where near crystal brooks, cows mow,
here, in meadows, mouse grows cucumber,
here, merlins, as I know;
swirls with wind to horizon.
The wind like a sot,
'twixt, aloft heaven, afar woods, afar lea...
poem by Aparna Veeyou
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My Winter Freedom
Freedom across all oceans and skies
Looking through a window into white
Into a glassy, cold terrain
I see my winter freedom
Into the mountains and pass the bare trees
I see my winter freedom
Pass the snow white roads and trees full of mysteries
Comes the joy of the first snow
The innocent breeze across your face
The endless walk into the night
Gazing across the sky at the night’s moon
To the morning sun across the horizon
Reflecting off the glassy ice and foggy mountain tops
Seeing and breathing in the first days of winter
But mostly…
Believing
In the wonders and joys of
Your Winter Freedom
poem by Rachel Pedroza
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To
The Day was dying; his breath
Wavered away in a hectic gleam;
And I said, if Life's a dream, and Death
And Love and all are dreams -- I'll dream.
A mist came over the bay
Like as a dream would over an eye.
The mist was white and the dream was grey
And both contained a human cry,
The burthen whereof was "Love",
And it filled both mist and dream with pain,
And the hills below and the skies above
Were touched and uttered it back again.
The mist broke: down the rift
A kind ray shot from a holy star.
Then my dream did waver and break and lift --
Through it, O Love, shone thy face, afar.
So Boyhood sets: comes Youth,
A painful night of mists and dreams;
That broods till Love's exquisite truth,
The star of a morn-clear manhood, beams.
poem by Sidney Lanier
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Go Down, Death
Weep not, weep not,
She is not dead;
She's resting in the bosom of Jesus.
Heart-broken husband--weep no more;
Grief-stricken son--weep no more;
Left-lonesome daughter --weep no more;
She only just gone home.
Day before yesterday morning,
God was looking down from his great, high heaven,
Looking down on all his children,
And his eye fell of Sister Caroline,
Tossing on her bed of pain.
And God's big heart was touched with pity,
With the everlasting pity.
And God sat back on his throne,
And he commanded that tall, bright angel standing at his right hand:
Call me Death!
And that tall, bright angel cried in a voice
That broke like a clap of thunder:
Call Death!--Call Death!
And the echo sounded down the streets of heaven
Till it reached away back to that shadowy place,
Where Death waits with his pale, white horses.
And Death heard the summons,
And he leaped on his fastest horse,
Pale as a sheet in the moonlight.
Up the golden street Death galloped,
And the hooves of his horses struck fire from the gold,
But they didn't make no sound.
Up Death rode to the Great White Throne,
And waited for God's command.
And God said: Go down, Death, go down,
Go down to Savannah, Georgia,
Down in Yamacraw,
And find Sister Caroline.
She's borne the burden and heat of the day,
She's labored long in my vineyard,
And she's tired--
She's weary--
Do down, Death, and bring her to me.
And Death didn't say a word,
But he loosed the reins on his pale, white horse,
And he clamped the spurs to his bloodless sides,
And out and down he rode,
Through heaven's pearly gates,
Past suns and moons and stars;
on Death rode,
Leaving the lightning's flash behind;
Straight down he came.
While we were watching round her bed,
She turned her eyes and looked away,
She saw what we couldn't see;
She saw Old Death.She saw Old Death
Coming like a falling star.
But Death didn't frighten Sister Caroline;
He looked to her like a welcome friend.
And she whispered to us: I'm going home,
And she smiled and closed her eyes.
And Death took her up like a baby,
And she lay in his icy arms,
But she didn't feel no chill.
And death began to ride again--
Up beyond the evening star,
Into the glittering light of glory,
On to the Great White Throne.
And there he laid Sister Caroline
On the loving breast of Jesus.
And Jesus took his own hand and wiped away her tears,
And he smoothed the furrows from her face,
And the angels sang a little song,
And Jesus rocked her in his arms,
And kept a-saying: Take your rest,
Take your rest.
Weep not--weep not,
She is not dead;
She's resting in the bosom of Jesus.
poem by James Weldon Johnson
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The Avenging Angel
1 When the last faint red of the day is dead,
2 And the dim, far heaven is lit
3 With the silvern cars
4 Of the orient stars,
5 And the winged winds whimper and flit;
6 Then I rise through the dome of my aerodrome,
7 Like a giant eagle in flight;
8 And I take my place
9 In the vengeful race
10 With the sinister fleets of night.
11 As I rise and rise in the cloudy skies,
12 No sound in the silence is heard,
13 Save the lonesome whirr
14 Of my engine's purr,
15 Like the wings of a monster bird.
16 And naught is seen save the vault, serene,
17 Of the vasty realms of night,
18 That vanish, aloof,
19 To eternity's roof,
20 As I mount in my ominous flight.
21 And I float and pause in the fleecy gauze,
22 Like a bird in a nest of down;
23 While 'neath me in deeps
24 Of blackness, sleeps
25 The far, vast London town.
26 But I am not here, like a silvern sphere,
27 To glory the deeps of space,
28 But a sentinel, I,
29 In this tower of the sky,
30 Scanning the dim deep's face.
31 For, sudden, afar, like a luminous star,
32 Or a golden horn of the moon,
33 Or a yellow leaf
34 Of the forest's grief,
35 When the autumn winds are atune;
36 There is borne on my sight, down the spaces of night,
37 By the engines of evilment sped,
38 That wonderful, rare,
39 Vast ship of the air,
40 Beautiful, ominous, dread.
41 One instant she floats, most magic of boats,
42 Illusive, implacable, there;
43 Throned angel of ill,
44 On her crystal-built hill,
45 O'er a people's defenceless despair.
46 Then sudden, I rise, like a bolt through the skies,
47 To the very dim roofs of the world;
48 Till down in the grey,
49 I see my grim prey,
50 Like a pallid gold leaf, uncurled.
51 And I hover and swing, until swiftly I spring,
52 And drop like a falling star;
53 And again and again,
54 My death-dealing rain,
55 Hurl to the deeps afar.
56 Then I hover and listen, till I see the far glisten
57 Of a flame-flash blanching the night;
58 And I know that my hate,
59 That has lain in wait,
60 Has won in the grim air-fight.
61 Then I curve and slant, while my engines pant,
62 And the wings of my great bird tame;
63 While the sinister Hun,
64 In his ill, undone,
65 Goes out in a blinding flame.
poem by William Wilfred Campbell
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To Jane: The Keen Stars Were Twinkling
I.
The keen stars were twinkling,
And the fair moon was rising among them,
Dear Jane.
The guitar was tinkling,
But the notes were not sweet till you sung them
Again.
II.
As the moon's soft splendour
O'er the faint cold starlight of Heaven
Is thrown,
So your voice most tender
To the strings without soul had then given
Its own.
III.
The stars will awaken,
Though the moon sleep a full hour later
To-night;
No leaf will be shaken
Whilst the dews of your melody scatter
Delight.
IV.
Though the sound overpowers,
Sing again, with your dear voice revealing
A tone
Of some world far from ours,
Where music and moonlight and feeling
Are one.
poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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