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THOUGH old the thought and oft exprest,
'Tis his at last who says it best,
I'll try my fortune with the rest.
Life is a leaf of paper white
Whereon each one of us may write
His word or two, and then comes night.

'Lo, time and space enough,' we cry,
'To write an epic! ' so we try
Our nibs upon the edge, and die.
Muse not which way the pen to hold,
Luck hates the slow and loves the bold,
Soon come the darkness and the cold.

Greatly begin! though thou have time
But for a line, be that sublime,
Not failure, but low aim, is crime.
Ah, with what lofty hope we came!
But we forget it, dream of fame,
And scrawl, as I do here, a name.

poem by James Russell Lowell
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Related quotes

Greatly begin. Though thou have time, but for a line, be that sublime. Not failure, but low aim is crime.

quote by James Russell Lowell
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Onward

Have the blasts of sorrow worn thee,
Have the rocks of danger torn thee,
And thus shifted, wreck-like drifted,
Wouldst thou find a port in time?
Vain the quest! That word sublime—
God’s great one word,
Silent never, pealeth ever,
Onward!
Hast thou done all loving duty,
Hast thou clothed thy soul with beauty,
And wouldst rest then, wholly blest then,
In some sunny lapse of time?
Vain the hope! The word sublime—
God’s great one word,
Silent never, pealeth ever,
Onward!

Hast thou won the heart of glory,
Hast thou charmed the tongue of story,
And wouldst pause then for applause then,
Underneath the stars of time?
Vain the lure! That word sublime—
God’s great one word,
Silent never, pealeth ever,
Onward!

Truth and virtue hast thou wrought for,
Faith and freedom hast thou fought for,
And then shrinkest for thou thinkest
Paid is all thy debt in time?
Vain the thought! That word sublime—
God’s great one word,
Silent never, pealeth ever,
Onward!

From endeavour to endeavour,
Journeying with hours for ever,
Or aspiring, or acquiring
This, O man, is life in time,
Urged by that primal word sublime—
God’s great one word,
Silent never, pealeth ever,
Onward!

poem by Charles Harpur
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The Darkness Outside Is The Darkness Within

THE DARKNESS OUTSIDE IS THE DARKNESS WITHIN

The darkness outside is the darkness within
Night is the most frightening time
And winter the most difficult season
And old age the coldest and cruelest time of life.

And I now in winter in old age in the middle of the night
Write
A small poem of hope
Against the greater darkness to come
The night which does not end
And the cold which goes on forever.

poem by Shalom Freedman
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Scribbler's Stymie

Pen and paper in sight
I've got no poem to write

Staying up all night
I've got no poem to write

Although my mind is bright
I've got no poem to write

It's windy out tonight, should I go fly a kite?
I've got no poem to write

My ceiling, it is white
I've got no poem to write

It's 4: 59! Five, but not quite
I've got no poem to write

In your arms I'd feel so light
I've got no poem to write

I've had no sleep tonight
I've got no poem to write

Will you just hold me tight?
I've got no poem to write

Outside it's almost light
I've got no poem to write

It's late, off goes my light
I've got no poem to write

poem by Julia Grace
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Why Do I Write

I write from my sadness
I write from the madness
I write because I have something to say
I write to pass the day
I write only from the heart
I write for sometimes I am not that smart
Whatever is in head just comes out on paper (in this case a word document) , and I go with the flow
Write to let my mind go

I follow my hand to where ever it takes me
I write all the things that I can see
I write when I am happy, but not as much
I write from my heart that you can touch
I write because I’d go insane
I am driven to write quell my pain

At times I feel alone so I write what I am feeling
I write for it is self-healing
Confident not so I write it all away
I write and write to pass the day
I write to comfort my soul that cries out in the night
I write for love is always out of sight
I write so I don't have to cry any more
I write for I have no one to adore
I write so someone somewhere will hear my plea
I write for someone is out there for me
I am lost and I the clown
I write to turn my frown upside down

I write to embrace the sadness I hide inside
I write with my heart opened wide
I write to silence the ghost
I write for I’ve been let down by the one I loved the most
I write through the stormy weather
I write for I am light as a feather
I am not a writer nor am I a poet
I write for the grief I do know it

I will write until I draw my last breath
I write because I'll die a lonely death
I have to write for strangers delight
I write because I have to write
I write for my own happiness
I write to relieve my stress
I write because I have no other choice
I write as if I was writing a letter
I write because I can’t do any better
I write because I am afraid not to
I write for this is what I do
I write for I give a damn
I write just because I am

poem by Wilfred Mellers
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And then the paper is dirty

You start with a clean sheet of paper
Write some words, scribble, draw some lines
Some curves, sharp lines, tangent to bold
Lines, and rough sketches of faces and
Bodies, thin lines that get crooked from
End to end of this limited space,
You doodle, you get wild with so
Many lines unimaginable, senseless,
The paper finally looks dirty,
And you do not like it, you crumple
It and throw it in a waste basket,

You get another clean sheet,
And this time, you think what is
It really that you want to make
Out of this new clean sheet of paper.

You think, you ponder, and you need
More time this time not to waste
This clean, glossy sheet of paper.

I think you are doing well with your life.
You see you are supposed to be careful

Every word is delicate and every paper
Is actually accounted.

Never mind guilt, set it aside for a while.

poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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The Chronicles of A Criss Crossed and Broken Heart part 4 Poem after Poem

some written as medicine
some poems inveigh about consequence of sin
some don't rhyme
some i just don't have time
others negelected, just left to waste
away, like butter spread over too much bread making strange paste
i just write and write
to keep feelings to let them out without explosion
i just have to fight
myself, write myself all on a paper, hear implosion
going, going, coming to an end slow motion
not enough life to pass by
by through my eyes too much life withheld
i hope i havent begun to die
not yet not here...

poem by David Knox
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Loves On The Line

Tell me baby
Have we lost everything that we had before
What do you do in the day
When I walk out the door
I can see you made up your mind
And I know our loves on the line
Loves on the line, our loves on the line
Loves on the line, our loves on the line
Loves on the line, our loves on the line
With each passing day
I gotta watch more and more what I say to you
I can feel your eyes looking through me
As I sit at the table at dinnertime
I can feel our loves on the line
Loves on the line, our loves on the line
Loves on the line, our loves on the line
Loves on the line, our loves on the line
I watch our kids
Growin up, going to school
Is there anything else for us now
Are we both just fools
Wasting our precious time
At night we lay in bed
But its like youre not even there
Theres something real bad
Going wrong somewhere
Last night I heard you cry
And I know our loves on the line
Loves on the line, our loves on the line
Loves on the line, our loves on the line
Loves on the line, our loves on the line
Loves on the line

song performed by by Bruce Springsteen
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Love On The Run

I was wondering
All the time that I was waiting
When would I rise
From the years that Id been hating
For the first time
Living seemed to mean so much to me
Like the day time
Shining from the night that used to be
Just when it seemed like
My chances all had gone
I found a reason
To fight to carry on
Look back in anger
Look back in fun
But take what you want
Love on the run
Life hates a loser
Look what youve done
Hold up your head
Love on the run
So the page turned
Someone there to read my history
Understanding
Always wants to see the best in me
For the future
Looking just a little like a dream
Warm and hazy
Living everyday but more extreme
Just when it seemed like
My chances all had gone
I found a reason
To fight to carry on
Look what youve done
Look back in anger
Look back in fun
Write your own story
Love on the run
Life hates a loser
Look what youve done
Revel in glory
Love on the run
Look back in anger
Look back in fun
But take what you want
Love on the run
Life hates a loser
Look what youve done
Hold up your head
Love on the run
Hold your head up
Hold your head up
Hold your head up
Love on the run
Hold your head up
Hold your head up
Hold your head up
Look back in anger
Look back in fun
Write your own story
Love on the run
Life hates a loser
Look what youve done
Revel in glory
Love on the run

song performed by by Human League
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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0005 Letter to a Younger Poet

Thanks for your letter. Though
you’ve caught me at a rather awkward time –
I’m going into surgery tomorrow – a rather
risky op; so I’ll try to put all the answers that I’ve got
into this one letter;
I hope you'll understand...

and that helps me to make my first point to you:
write as if you, too, may not live
beyond tomorrow – write as if
it’s the last thing that you’ll ever write –
give it everything you’ve got,
hold nothing back;

or better still – write as if
the world will end for everyone tomorrow:
write so that in their last hours, too, this
will make them feel, will make them know
we’ve faced life fully, faced it so complete
that death is relatively unimportant now…

write as if it were only yesterday
that, in an air crash, all your family –
parents, wife or husband, partner, children, and best friend,
had lost their lives; write as if,
were you not to write,
your heart would break forever, or you would go mad...

write as if you’re writing somewhere
where there’s no such thing around, as ink;
you’ll have to use your own blood in the pen,
so use it carefully; so red, so living,
look at it… so beautiful, so precious,
and so solemn – use it carefully, don’t spill a drop…

write as if you’re borrowing every word
from the very centre of the universe, where suns and gods are made;
and need thus to account for every word
with your whole life, no less; know that every word
must be given back, cleaner, stronger, brighter
with your own power, than when you borrowed it;

write as if every poet that ever lived
is leaning over your shoulder, so that you
can feel their breath upon your neck as they say
‘Tell them all that we would tell,
but cannot now; tell them all of this’…
this, now, is how you must deeply be and speak;

write as if you are the only being on earth
who can tell them this; as if tomorrow, if tomorrow comes,
you shall visit them every one, at home,
and look them in the eye; write as if
you love them more than they will ever know;
write as if you were offering to live their lives with them;

write as if you were a force of nature in yourself:
as if whatever earthquake, hurricane or flood might do,
whatever law or love may greatly do,
whatever gods or men can speak, in fullest force,
this you may do, because the sound of poetry is such;
yes, write ‘as if’ – but know you really write ‘because’…

write as if – no, write because –
you know that only poetry can tell
all, that must be told, and must be known;
and as all hearts melt in the heat of your own love,
be in no doubt – and see that all are in no doubt too –
that life was never, never more serious,
never more glorious, than it is right now;

write all this.

poem by Michael Shepherd
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In The Manner Of Borges I Write Poems In My Old Age

IN THE MANNER OF BORGES I WRITE POEMS IN MY OLD AGE

In the manner of Borges I write poems in my old age
And dream that they are not only imitations
Of poems written by others
When we all were young.

Instead I go on now in the darkness of the night
Because the fear of what will be
Is always so deep in me
It does not need Poetry or Happiness or any other Meaning
Outside itself.

We are small sands drifting on the edge of stars
Lesser beings of a time we will never know
All that we have done comes back to us over and over again
As if we never were

I don’t believe I will ever write Borges lines
He wrote them in his own imagined words
And I must in my own little life
Suffer to the end of time
All I have not been
And never will be.

God Who is Good
God of Love
You gave me so much
You did not have to give me Poetry also.

poem by Shalom Freedman
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Life Essay

if life is multiple choice
maybe we can get a perfect score
but life is an essay
there is wide white space
and questions life running above
maybe we answer like theory
or find our own words
maybe we don't fill the blank
because we don't understand
or we write thousand flowery words
but we don't understand what we write
maybe the written is full of correction
or clean and planned carefully
maybe we use pen or pencil
maybe we torn the paper or blot it
maybe we cheat
maybe we work together
maybe we don't care
but when the time's finished
someone will read
and examine our result
do we respect the question
do we try hard
or play around
maybe we wrong, maybe right
maybe half of both, maybe none
so before we can't change it anymore
when there's time
before we regret it
just write your thought
because nobody in this world
who has the same handwriting

poem by Maria Sudibyo
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Is Hope Of

A word perhaps to me is hope
and hope you used to use a lot.
Without perhaps it being hope for naught.
A lot of hope about the things you are,
and you are all the things I hoped about.
You of hope at night the moon the light I write about.
And you write about the thoughts of hope,
and make them come to pass and write of that.
Ardently your mouth of hope, not going over there.
You who are without to be and I am crossing over.
Green bushes hold within my hope, blue open flowers.
Afterwards through fog or loam a stream flows slowly after.
I saw so bright the torch of hope from here to there beside us.
So there are we.
And are we there, for loving it sits about us.
Me I simply am, you and I, comes hope a certain thing.

poem by Is It Poetry
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The Poet And The Baby

How's a man to write a sonnet, can you tell,--
How's he going to weave the dim, poetic spell,--
When a-toddling on the floor
Is the muse he must adore,
And this muse he loves, not wisely, but too well?

Now, to write a sonnet, every one allows,
One must always be as quiet as a mouse;
But to write one seems to me
Quite superfluous to be,
When you 've got a little sonnet in the house.

Just a dainty little poem, true and fine,
That is full of love and life in every line,
Earnest, delicate, and sweet,
Altogether so complete
That I wonder what's the use of writing mine.

poem by Paul Laurence Dunbar
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Once Again I Write...

This pen, this paper is once again my savior.
I write to save my sanity.
I write to ease my heart.
I write to cleanse my soul.
I write to feel alive.
I write to keep my mind strong and my thoughts clear.
I write my words of sorrow, despair, pain, and love, as well as words of wisdom.
I write so that one day someone will truly know me.
This paper, this pen is once again my inspiration.
It is the inspiration to what I see.
It is the inspiration to what I hear.
It is the inspiration to what I feel.
It is the inspiration to the art I create.
It is the inspiration to what I draw.
It is the inspiration to the love for my daughter.
It is the inspiration to the love for my husband.
This pen, this paper is once again my savior.
Once again I write to say thank you my timeless friends.
Thank you for saving me time and time again.

poem by Sara Jo Andrews
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