Multicultural Melbourne
Melbourne Immigration Museum
I stroll,
Past history,
Past lives,
Past stories.
I see for the first time MY nation’s history,
My nations courage,
My nations suffering,
My eyes glaze over
And realisation creeps up on me.
I see stories of the past and present,
Played out before me,
The lives of Australia’s people,
Australia’s history
poem by Katie Anne
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Related quotes
Captured Memories
Captured memories from the past
At the Oklahoma History Center
You’ll be surprised and impressed
The very moment you enter
It’s such a treasured museum
One you will truly enjoy
Early railroad pictures
That has so many stories
A one room school house
Really takes you back
Railroad in the early stages
So different from the Amtrak
Teepees from the past as well
Oil once called Black gold
An oh, the stories and the tales
So many to be told
So take some time and visit
The Oklahoma History Center
You’ll be so glad you did, folks
The very moment that you enter!
poem by Marilyn Lott
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Joy In The Present
I never want to go back
Dwell in the past no more
Another has come I would rather cherish it
I love who I am now
There is no glory in my history
Full of misery
It’s a new dawn
Though my heart trembles with fear
Some great touch of he who is above
Do not panic
I will dread not
I will fear not
He is with me, he’s on the throne
The one who truly loves me
Accepts my past
Joy of the present
History shredded no agony of the trials of the past
Joy of the present with you
poem by Chanda Lena Mondoka
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Nations without a past are contradictions in terms. What makes a nation is the past, what justifies one nation against others is the past, and historians are the people who produce it.
quote by Eric Hobsbawm
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The History of Now
The recording of culture is history;
but our culture is more than that.
It's the world of human action,
and the myths we make of the fact.
The recording of history is culture,
but our history is more than that.
It informs a hidden agenda.
Unconscious of motive we act.
It's the history of now, the history of now.
It's only the present that exists as endowed.
It's the history of now. The moment - KAPOW!
That knocks you right over and muddies your brow.
Through the prism of language, we know what we know.
We carry our baggage and stories of woe.
Victor and vanquished pride cannot budge,
the dead weight of hatred and ancestral grudge.
We fight our good fights with our hand on our heart;
the music is swelling as loved ones depart.
As sheep to the slaughter, the script cannot chart,
a course more ignoble: the propagandist's art.
The recording of history is culture,
but our culture is more than that.
More than the great individuals,
the scholars so love in their tracts.
The recording of culture is history;
but our history is more than that.
Not simple dates or statistics,
the full horror and gore still attracts.
It's the history of now, the history of now.
A strange contradiction that makes sense somehow.
It's the history of now, a mystery and shroud.
The past and the future: best fiction allowed.
poem by David SmithWhite
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Tales of my past
Don't write me down in history,
In reference to my past deeds,
Works I derived no joy from,
Or mistakes of those years.
Don't write me down in history,
The ages gone show little of what I am,
That part of me is truly done,
My dreams now can say it all.
Don't write me down in history,
The lessons of life flows in my blood,
My blunders are now my teachers,
The scars now my daily pledge.
Don't write me down in history,
I am yet to achieve perfection,
Still I strive for redemption,
Searching the soil for my lost glory,
Don't write me down in history,
The tales of my past I recall,
That was then, this is me,
Woes to your judgment.
poem by Venessa Ambrose
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All About History
History is the past
What do we need it for?
Time runs out real fast
Who cares what happened before? !
Princes who were wed
Forget what your teacher said
No need to fill your head
With people who are dead
Why do we need to know
Let them rest in peace
They died and we will so
From books their lives release
i wrote this one in a history exam (i didnt have anything else to do)
Past
Past is past.
It never comes.
It helps us something to learn.
Past lives may hurt us.
But It never ruins us.
Don't fight the past.
Let it go, always be simple, always be inspired.
There is no point going with the past.
There is the point going with present.
Past determines nothing.
Present determines something.
poem by Yash Pradhan
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History Will Teach Us Nothing
If we seek solace in the prisons of the distant past
Security in human systems were told will always always last
Emotions are the sail and blind faith is the mast
Without a breath of real freedom were getting nowhere fast
If God is dead and an actor plays his part
His words of fear will find their way to a place in your heart
Without the voice of reason every faith is its own curse
Without freedom from the past things can only get worse
Sooner or later just like the world first day
Sooner or later we learn to throw the past away
Sooner or later just like the world first day
Sooner or later we learn to throw the past away
Sooner or later we learn to throw the past away
History will teach us nothing
History will teach us nothing
Our written history is a catalogue of crime
The sordid and the powerful, the architects of time
The mother of invention, the oppression of the mild
The constant fear of scarcity, aggression as its child
Sooner or later
Sooner or later
Sooner or later
Sooner or later
Convince an enemy, convince him that hes wrong
Is to win a bloodless battle where victory is long
A simple act of faith
In reason over might
To blow up his children will only prove him right
History will teach us nothing
Sooner or later the world first day
Sooner or later we learn to throw the past away
Sooner or later the world first day
Sooner or later we learn to throw the past away
Sooner or later we learn to throw the past away
History will teach us nothing
History will teach us nothing
Know you human rights
Be what you come here for
Know your human rights
Be what you come here for
Know your human rights
Be what you come here for
Know your human rights
Be what you come here for
song performed by by Sting
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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One Blue Buffalo (Sestina)
Snow swirled and blew over the plain
the minutes melted into hours
the frosted buffalo stood still
solid against the breath of time
it faced life and death with scotch
colored eyes, affected by nothing and no one
each winter struggle the buffalo won
illustrated mastery of blue sky and plain—
wicked winds and flying ice could not scotch
survival that desperately depended on each hour
it was the buffalo’s time—the natives’ time
and without hesitation it remained still
history remembers lost time, still
it is accepted by most and accurate to no one
misrepresentations are drawn by this time—
what happened on the buffalo’s plain
or in the blue of each pond, each hour
history changes—reality is scotched
wicked truths, told through fifths of Scotch
through the gaze of the present hold time still,
moments disregard the buffalo to becomes ours,
the blue past of many is unwillingly chained to one—
ancient sunsets over purple and yellow plains
are prisoners of industry, technology, history and time
ancient senses remain unaffected by lavender, sage or thyme
they cannot revive what books have done to scotch
the blue buffalo that dotted the wicked plain
the petrified past is bound to remain still,
years, days, faces, herds, species become one—
books have the inability to retrieve a single hour
or a history that is the buffalo’s, the natives’, ours
when books are replaced by computers, in time,
history will be reborn, all of our days will become one
technology will distort this time, scotch
our truths, a hundred thousand sunsets will remain still
billions of blue lives will paint a picture that’s plain
our truths and a past we’ll never know become scotched
time is irrelevant when lives mesh to singular sights—everything’s still
one blue buffalo stands on a museum wall in the whirl of winter winds, silent against time’s plain
poem by Jane L. Carman
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The Future Of The Past
New times are now old ones,
Old ones are now history,
History becomes ancient,
Ancient becomes unknown,
Unknown shifts though time,
Shaping and molding in every which way,
Unknown times become myths,
Myths become religions,
False becomes truth,
Truths move to morals,
Morals are now what we live by,
Now has just become then,
The past has once been the future,
The future will soon become the past,
You were once born in the future of the past,
But the past has caught up,
And taken you with it.
Like a deadly arrow the past pierces life,
The future itself becomes victim to its strike.
As if to be Bonnie and Clyde,
Hand in hand the two opposites collide,
Together bringing everything to their long awaited fate.
Doing what they do best toward their ever most passions,
The future and the past are, and were, the two deadliest assassins,
Today,
Tomorrow,
And yesterday...
poem by Justin MonacoBarnes
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Sing Austrailia
I come to Australia as many people do, to see the old koala, hitch a ride on a kangaroo.
To hear somebody call me "Mate" and call somebody "Blue,"
to hear an Aborigine play a didgeridoo.
Some of you came as prisoners two centuries ago,
some of you come as kings and queens your blessing to bestow.
Some of you stand all swelled with pride, some with shattered wings,
but all of us come with open hearts to hear Australia sing.
In the desert, in the city, in the mountains and in the sea.
In the stories and in the people I can hear Australia sing.
Waltzing Matilda, the men of Gallipoli, Clancy of the Overflow and Crocodile Dundee.
The myth of all creation, the teaching of Baiame, the legends of the Dreamtime for all eternity.
And in this celebration, a brief two hundred years,
the cost to build a nation in blood and sweat and tears.
And if we stand divided, divided we shall fall. But if we stand together, we shall conquer all.
In the desert, in the city, in the mountains and in the sea.
In the stories and in the people I can hear Australia sing..
Sing Australia, sing Australia, sing Australia, sing Australia.
In the sails on Sydney Harbour I can hear Australia sing.
song performed by by John Denver
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I Was Looking A Long While
I WAS looking a long while for a clue to the history of the past for
myself, and for these chants--and now I have found it;
It is not in those paged fables in the libraries, (them I neither
accept nor reject;)
It is no more in the legends than in all else;
It is in the present--it is this earth to-day;
It is in Democracy--(the purport and aim of all the past;)
It is the life of one man or one woman to-day--the average man of
to-day;
It is in languages, social customs, literatures, arts;
It is in the broad show of artificial things, ships, machinery,
politics, creeds, modern improvements, and the interchange of
nations,
All for the average man of to-day.
poem by Walt Whitman
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Past paved way for the future
Past paved way
For the present
Shall become past
To pave way for future
The cycle never stops
Present always
Compared to past
A better future
Wished by all
What will come?
Nobody knows
Hope and desire
Never ends
Brings light in eyes
And smile on face
Light or darkness?
Is a question
Answer to which
Nobody knows
One thing is certain
If one lives
Shall become old
Perish with time
Become memory
Of the past
poem by Nirantar Dr.Rajendra Tela
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Conventionally, one looks at history as something of the past. But after Einstein, who knows what is in the past and what is in the present?
quote by Roland Joffe
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The history of the past interests us only in so far as it illuminates the history of the present.
quote by Ernest Dimnet
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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For My History Teacher
I’m sitting in class,
My eyes about to close,
I hope teacher don’t see,
I hope she don’t see me.
Bored out of my mind,
Falling so behind,
Cannot concentrate,
I came to class too late.
Although I was on time,
My body was I mean,
My mind is still outside,
From class trying to hide.
What does all this mean?
I haven’t used it yet,
How can I retain it,
When already I forget?
And then she walks over,
That teacher of mine,
A smile in her eyes,
A gentle one at that,
She puts her hand on me,
And sets me kind of free.
Now here I am in class,
Learning about the past,
About history,
And what it did for me.
How we can learn,
From mistakes of old,
Of people so different,
Some so very bold.
Some stood against oppression,
Some stood against the wrong,
Some said it with dignity,
Some said it with a song.
I owe it to them,
And teacher here to hear,
What they did for us,
And no longer fear.
That knowledge is so dull,
No longer hurts my brain,
No longer hurts my skull,
It will surely keep me sane.
The past is the future,
Unless I stay awake,
So I can benefit,
There’s much more at stake.
Than I thought before,
Before I got to class,
Thank you History teacher,
For bringing to life the past.
I never got bored in History class, because I had a wonderful History Teacher. This is for her.
poem by Aisha Sherazi
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History’s merit
History is not recreation of the past events.
It is new creation in the past model.
We are doing it in our imagination.
so are the enactment of the past
25.09.2006
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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Creative Nonfiction
Let us
now speak
about our
history:
The past as
it was, no longer
to be.
Let us
remember
the nostalgic things
Retarding
in residual
glory.
The past l-o-s-e-s
the luster o f
meaning
Af ter sev
ralrepeetd
list
en
ings,
But that
doesn't pre
vent
how we forget
Our om
nipre
sent
state of now being.
If our time together
were a cassette,
Re cording
our interlocking
du et,
Let us
spittle hymns
almost
mindlessly
With un
restrained
sentiment
ality.
Let us
be persuasive
in our pi
ty
As the present passes past
you and me.
poem by Tim Stensloff
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A Time Machine Mind!
Human mind, dreams, vision and imagination
Can transport one forward and backward in time.
Mind is the time machine to go to past and future
But time never goes backward but only forward;
Also, time never goes in circle but only straight!
Recollection of past is possible in the present;
Visualization of future is possible in the present;
But one cannot go to the past or future ever now!
Hour glass can show the time like clock of today
But it cannot bring back the past to reality now
Or bring to our vision the future of world now!
Mind is the time machine that can read history;
Mind is the same machine to see the future too;
But time never goes to the past but only to future!
poem by Ramesh T A
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Forget About The Future
I know we got some history
We got some issues that we need to solve
But is it really such a mystery?
It's just the way that the world evolves
Let me ask your forgiveness baby
My heart is ever full of sorrow
We got to move into the future maybe
And think about a new tomorrow
She said you know I used to love you baby
But you're thinking way too fast
So forget about the future
And let's get on with the past
So they called a 'nited nations summit
To negotiate for peace on earth
And it may be idealistic baby
But I know what peace of mind is worth
Everybody aired their grievances
And they threw away the suture
They opened up all the wounds of the past
As they failed to find their way to the future
They said we'd better check the weather chart
Before we tie our colors to this mast
It's just too hard thinking about the future baby
So let's just get on with the past
She said we'd better check the horoscope honey
Just in case this feeling wasn't meant to last
It's just too hard thinking about the future
So let's just get on with the past
How many times you ever hear me say
I'm as flawed as any other human being?
There simply has to be a different way
And a whole new way of seeing
Are we doomed by all our history?
Is our love really beyond repair?
It's getting close to midnight baby
And we ain't got time to spare
Just when I think I'm home and dry
And she's given up the fight
There's an unmistakable optimism
In romantic music and candlelight
There's this lingering perfume
The merest ghost of the past
She says wait a minute baby
You're moving way too fast
Wec1
song performed by by Sting
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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