Evening Music
Here comes the moment of the shimmering hour
When praise like incense trembles from each leaf.
The evening air is redolent with grief
And waltzes gush with melancholic power.
When praise like incense trembles from each leaf,
Only the notes of violins are sour
And waltzes gush with melancholic power;
The sky is vast with beauty and with grief.
Only the notes of violins are sour;
Each heart avoids its pit of unbelief.
The sky is vast with beauty and with grief;
The sun's blood hazes in a chilly shower.
Each heart avoids its pit of unbelief,
Gathering its flecks of light into a bower;
The sun's blood hazes in a chilly shower -
Only your shining image brings relief!
poem by Martin TURNER
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Harmonic Du Soir
Voici venir le temps
Now is the hour when, swinging in the breeze,
Each flower, like a censer, sheds its sweet.
The air is full of scents and melodies,
O languorous waltz ! O swoon of dancing feet!
Each flower, like a censer, sheds its sweet,
The violins are like sad souls that cry,
O languorous waltz ! O swoon of dancing feet!
A shrine of Death and Beauty is the sky.
The violins are like sad souls that cry,
Poor souls that hate the vast. black night of Death ;
A shrine of Death and Beauty is the sky.
Drowned in red blood, the Sun gives up his breath.
This soul that hates the vast black night of Death
Takes all the luminous past back tenderly,
Drowned in red blood, the Sun gives up his breath.
Thine image like a monstrance shines in me.
poem by Lord Alfred Douglas
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A Swinburnian Interlude
Short space shall be hereafter
Ere April brings the hour
Of weeping and of laughter,
Of sunshine and of shower,
Of groaning and of gladness,
Of singing and of sadness,
Of melody and madness,
Of all sweet things and sour.
Sweet to the blithe bucolic
Who knows nor cribs nor crams,
Who sees the frisky frolic
Of lanky little lambs;
But sour beyond expression
To one in deep depression
Who sees the closing session
And imminent exams.
He cannot hear the singing
Of birds upon the bents,
Nor watch the wildflowers springing,
Nor smell the April scents.
He gathers grief with grinding,
Foul food of sorrow finding
In books of dreary binding
And drearier contents.
One hope alone sustains him,
And no more hopes beside,
One trust alone restrains him
From shocking suicide;
He will not play nor palter
With hemlock or with halter,
He will not fear nor falter,
Whatever chance betide.
He knows examinations
Like all things else have ends,
And then come vast vacations
And visits to his friends,
And youth with pleasure yoking,
And joyfulness and joking,
And smilingness and smoking,
For grief to make amends.
poem by Robert Fuller Murray
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Villanelle on a Proverb
The heart once broken is a heart no more.
—Edna St. Vincent Millay
The proverb says that time confers relief,
heals a crimson gash or knits whole a bone
and years unlock a knuckled fist of grief
that clenches emptiness in disbelief
to keep one's wits from being overthrown,
while time, the proverb says, confers relief
from cleaving wounds, paradoxical thief,
that also tears apart fused hearts grown
beyond the lock of knuckled-fisted grief
half-hearts collapsed empty in unbelief
at finalities beneath lids of stone,
while time, proverbially, confers relief
by bleaching wounds to scars—its chief
repair—but cannot heal a heart left alone
although the years unlock the fist of grief,
proclaiming the proverbial motif
that all wounds heal, time cannot atone
for vacancy. The proverb lies. Relief
unlocks a fist, but not the archived grief.
poem by William F Dougherty
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Softly, O! dropp mine eyes
Softly, O! dropp mine eyes, lest you be dry,
And make my heart with grief to melt and die.
Now pour out tears apace,
Now stay, O heavy case!
O sour sweet woe!
Alas! O grief! O joy! Why strive you so?
Can griefs and joys at once in one poor heart consent?
Then sigh and sing, rejoice, lament.
Ah me! O passions strange and violent!
Was never poor wretch so tormented:
Nor joy, nor grief can make my heart contented.
For while with joy I look on high,
Down, down I fall with grief, and die.
poem by John Wilbye
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Good Friday
O my chief good,
How shall I measure out thy blood?
How shall I count what thee befell,
And each grief tell?
Shall I thy woes
Number according to thy foes?
Or, since one star show'd thy first breath,
Shall all thy death?
Or shall each leaf,
Which falls in Autumn, score a grief?
Or cannot leaves, but fruit be sign
Of the true vine?
Then let each hour
Of my whole life one grief devour:
That thy distress through all may run,
And be my sun.
Or rather let
My several sins their sorrows get;
That as each beast his cure doth know,
Each sin may so.
Since blood is fittest, Lord to write
Thy sorrows in, and bloody fight;
My heart hath store, write there, where in
One box doth lie both ink and sin:
That when sin spies so many foes,
Thy whips, thy nails, thy wounds, thy woes
All come to lodge there, sin may say,
'No room for me', and fly away.
Sin being gone, oh fill the place,
And keep possession with thy grace;
Lest sin take courage and return,
And all the writings blot or burn.
poem by George Herbert
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Faith makes all evil good to us, and all good better; unbelief makes all good evil, and all evil worse. Faith laughs at the shaking of the spear; unbelief trembles at the shaking of a leaf.
quote by Robert Cecil
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Up In The Tree
What would you see, if I took you up
My little aerie-stair?
You would see the sky like a clear blue cup
Turned upside down in the air.
What would you do, up my aerie-stair
In my little nest on the tree?
With cry upon cry you would ripple the air
To get at what you would see.
And what would you reach in the top of the tree
To still your grasping grief?
Not a star would you clutch of all you would see,
You would gather just one green leaf.
But when you had lost your greedy grief,
Content to see from afar,
Your hand it would hold a withering leaf,
But your heart a shining star.
poem by George MacDonald
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Crying
he says he likes to cry when
everyone is asleep when no one hears his sound
of grief anymore
he wants to keep this grief alone
thinking that no one understands anyway
no one wants a sorrow that will be shared
or a grief to be feasted upon
sometimes he says he cries when he is bathing
under a cold shower to cool his eyes
to appease his heart and when he steps out
of the bathroom
when someone notices how red his eyes are
he tells them that his shampoo has caused it all
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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O Child Beside The Waterfall
O Child beside the Waterfall
what songs without a word
rise from those waters like the call
only a heart has heard-
the Joy, the Joy in all things
rise whistling like a bird.
O Child beside the Waterfall
I hear them too, the brief
heavenly notes, the harp of dawn,
the nightingale on the leaf,
all, all dispel the darkness and
the silence of our grief.
O Child beside the Waterfall
I see you standing there
with waterdrops and fireflies
and hummingbirds in the air,
all singing praise of paradise,
paradise everywhere.
poem by George Barker
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I'll come when thou art saddest
I'll come when thuo art saddest,
Bring light to the darkened room,
When the rude day's mirth has vanished,
And the smile of joy is banished
From evening's chilly gloom.
I'll come when the heart's worst feeling
Has enitre, unbiassed sway,
And my influence o'er thee stealing,
Grief deepening, joy congealing,
Shall bear thy soul away.
Listen! 'tis just the hour,
The awful time for thee.
Dost thou not feel upon thy soul
A flood of strange sensations roll,
Forerunners of a sterner power,
Heralds of me?
poem by Emily Brontë from The Complete Poems of Emily Brontë (1908)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Grief Is Never Having To Say I Grieve
Your grief has been too heavy
I don’t know how much grief buries you down
Please let me weep with you
Please let me weep with you
Like the others, I adore you for keeping up with life
I could imagine how you cry in your thoughts
How like blade, grief cuts your heart, your throat,
the top of your skull - slowly
Like wars in history, there are no exits
and there are no choices
If you were there, you had to face those rattling guns
Plead, please plead
Remember “Our Lady of Sorrows'
Mary carried part of the grief Jesus has
been carrying to save us, during the crucifixion
Mary had no one with her
She was helpless, yet in those moments
God’s strength kept her unmovable and brave
How long does grief stay?
People are not things
How long does grief stay?
If you lost something, you can always build it again
How long does grief stay?
If you lost someone, and someone, and someone
again, in any way – they are part of you
For as long as you live, grief changes into
remembering happy days with each other
Grief becomes faithfulness
Grief changes unto faith
Those drops of blood, while Jesus prayed in the garden
Is grief
Grief is never having to say “I grieve, ”
but “I love, ”
This is how long grief stays.
poem by Rosalinda Flores Martinez
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To The River
Fair river! in thy bright, clear flow
Of crystal, wandering water,
Thou art an emblem of the glow
Of beauty- the unhidden heart-
The playful maziness of art
In old Alberto's daughter;
But when within thy wave she looks-
Which glistens then, and trembles-
Why, then, the prettiest of brooks
Her worshipper resembles;
For in his heart, as in thy stream,
Her image deeply lies-
His heart which trembles at the beam
Of her soul-searching eyes.
poem by Edgar Allan Poe
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The German Legion
In the cot beside the water,
In the white cot by the water,
The white cot by the white water,
There they laid the German maid.
There they wound her, singing round her,
Deftly wound her, singing round her,
Softly wound her, singing round her,
In a shroud like a cloud.
And they decked her as they wound her,
With a wreath of leaves they bound her,
Lornest leaves they scattered round her,
Singing grief with every leaf.
Singing grief with every leaf.
Sadder grief with sadder leaf,
Sweeter leaf with sweeter grief,
So't was sung in a dark tongue.
Like a latter lily lying,
O'er whom falling leaves are sighing,
And Autumn vapours crying,
Pale and cold on misty mould,
So I saw her sweet and lowly,
Shining shining pale and holy,
Thro' the dim woe slowly slowly,
Said and sung in that dark tongue.
Such an awe her beauty lent her,
While they sang I dared not enter
That charmed ring where she was centre,
But I stood with stirring blood
Till the song fell like a billow,
And I saw them leave her pillow,
And go forth to the far willow,
For the wreath of virgin death.
And I stood beside her pillow,
While they plucked the distant willow,
And my heart rose like a billow
As I said to the pale dead-
'Oh, thou most fair and sweet virginity,
Of whom this heart that beats for thee doth know
Nor name nor story, that these limbs can be
For no man evermore, that thou must go
Cold to the cold, and that no eye shall see
That which thine unsolved womanhood doth owe
Of the incommunicable mystery
Shakes me with tears. I could kneel down by thee,
And o'er thy chill unmarriageable rest
Cry, 'Thou who shalt no more at all be prest
To any heart, one moment come to this!
And feel me weeping with thy want of bliss,
And all the unpraisèd beauties of thy breast-
Thy breast which never shall a lover kiss!''
Then I slowly left her pillow,
For they came back with the willow,
And my heart sinks as a billow
Doth implore towards the shore,
As I see the crown they weave her,
And I know that I must leave her,
And I feel that I could grieve her
Sad and sore for evermore.
And again they sang around her,
In a richer robe they wound her,
With the willow wreath they bound her,
And the loud song like a cloud
Of golden obscuration,
With the strange tongue of her nation,
Filled the house of lamentation,
Till she lay in melody,
Like a latter lily lying,
O'er whom falling leaves are sighing,
And the Autumn vapours crying,
In a dream of evening gleam.
And I saw her sweet and lowly,
Shining shining pale and holy,
Thro' the dim woe slowly slowly
Said and sung in a dark tongue.
In the cot beside the water,
The white cot by the white water,
English cot by English water
That shall see the German sea.
poem by Sydney Thompson Dobell
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Nothing Gold Can Stay
Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf,
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day
Nothing gold can stay.
poem by Robert Frost
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Alankar (Decor) -18
Oh Bare, How Dare She Stands....
(A Tribute To The Tree Golden Shower)
Oh bare, how dare she stands sole in her space
Shedding one by one all her green, lo, nude
Bearing pain over pain leaf by leaf crude
Oh there, why pares but fate this way her grace
But friends wait and watch just where goes her race
cited march pregnant her ilk to allude
Just trends trait straight golden showers so prude
Lighted torchlike blossoms to bloom her space
Sooner sunny racemes golden flower
Haloed circle enriched enshrine our hearts
Lordess shelters us herds in blest shower
Silent diction in praise of godly arts
Succumb we in 'Sarakondrai's'power
Tributes line up, what else then from our hearts
Golden Shower-Casia Fistula(Sarakondrai)
poem by Indira Renganathan
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Spider Web
I meander in ponderous roads
with my tarantula feet -
a forthrightly crowd
that these silver ribbons
sang like violins
with melancholic notes
descanting oblivion
Because the roads
slithered perfidiously
into a coiled writhing circle
but no one recognizes
the superfluous threats
imposed by blitheness
The lambent steps
ruptured from a lambaste
ricocheting to rue
until the terse sound
dissected its own echoes
and the circle is nothing
but a nebulous limbo.
poem by Norman Santos
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Prayer
At life's most testing moment, when
the grieving heart's replete,
a prayer that is most potent then
I call up and repeat.
There is a power, suffused with grace,
when living words combine,
a breath beyond the commonplace,
that holds a joy divine.
Like dead-weight slipping from the brain
now fades my unbelief -
I trust again, shed tears again,
and such relief, relief…
poem by Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov
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By the Potomac
The soft new grass is creeping o'er the graves
By the Potomac; and the crisp ground-flower
Tilts its blue cup to catch the passing shower;
The pine-cone ripens, and the long moss waves
Its tangled gonfalons above our braves.
Hark, what a burst of music from yon bower! --
The Southern nightingale that hour by hour
In its melodious summer madness raves.
Ah, with what delicate touches of her hand,
With what sweet voice of bird and rivulet
And drowsy murmur of the rustling leaf
Would Nature soothe us, bidding us forget
The awful crime of this distracted land
And all our heavy heritage of grief.
poem by Thomas Bailey Aldrich
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Not With These Eyes
Let me not see your grief!
O, let not any see
That grief,
Nor how your heart still rocks
Like a temple with long earthquake shocks.
Let me not see
Your grief.
These eyes have seen such wrong,
Yet remained cold:
Ills grown strong,
Corruption's many-headed worm
Destroying feet that moved so firm--
Shall these eyes see
Your grief?
And that black worm has crawled
Into the brain
Where thought had walked
Nobly, and love and honour moved as one,
And brave things bravely were begun....
Now, can thought see
Unabashed your grief?
Into that brain your grief
Has run like cleansing fire:
Your grief
Through these unfaithful eyes has leapt
And touched honour where it lightly slept.
Now when I see
In memory your grief
There is no thought that's not
Yours, yours,
No love that sleeps,
No spiritual door that opens not
In the green quiet village of thought
Shining with light,
And silent to your silence.
poem by John Freeman
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Morning Hymn
Christ, whose glory fills the skies,
Christ, the true, the only light,
Sun of Righteousness, arise,
Triumph o'er the shades of night:
Day-spring from on high, be near:
Day-star, in my heart appear.
Dark and cheerless is the morn
Unaccompanied by thee,
Joyless is the day's return,
Till thy mercy's beams I see;
Till thy inward light impart,
Glad my eyes, and warm my heart.
Visit then this soul of mine,
Pierce the gloom of sin, and grief,
Fill me, Radiancy Divine,
Scatter all my unbelief,
More and more thyself display,
Shining to the perfect day.
poem by Charles Wesley
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