In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in an clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth.
quote by Mahatma Gandhi
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Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Saviour of Society
Epigraph
Υδραν φονεύσας, μυρίων τ᾽ ἄλλων πόνων
διῆλθον ἀγέλας . . .
τὸ λοίσθιον δὲ τόνδ᾽ ἔτλην τάλας πόνον,
. . . δῶμα θριγκῶσαι κακοῖς.
I slew the Hydra, and from labour pass'd
To labour — tribes of labours! Till, at last,
Attempting one more labour, in a trice,
Alack, with ills I crowned the edifice.
You have seen better days, dear? So have I —
And worse too, for they brought no such bud-mouth
As yours to lisp "You wish you knew me!" Well,
Wise men, 't is said, have sometimes wished the same,
And wished and had their trouble for their pains.
Suppose my Œdipus should lurk at last
Under a pork-pie hat and crinoline,
And, latish, pounce on Sphynx in Leicester Square?
Or likelier, what if Sphynx in wise old age,
Grown sick of snapping foolish people's heads,
And jealous for her riddle's proper rede, —
Jealous that the good trick which served the turn
Have justice rendered it, nor class one day
With friend Home's stilts and tongs and medium-ware,—
What if the once redoubted Sphynx, I say,
(Because night draws on, and the sands increase,
And desert-whispers grow a prophecy)
Tell all to Corinth of her own accord.
Bright Corinth, not dull Thebes, for Lais' sake,
Who finds me hardly grey, and likes my nose,
And thinks a man of sixty at the prime?
Good! It shall be! Revealment of myself!
But listen, for we must co-operate;
I don't drink tea: permit me the cigar!
First, how to make the matter plain, of course —
What was the law by which I lived. Let 's see:
Ay, we must take one instant of my life
Spent sitting by your side in this neat room:
Watch well the way I use it, and don't laugh!
Here's paper on the table, pen and ink:
Give me the soiled bit — not the pretty rose!
See! having sat an hour, I'm rested now,
Therefore want work: and spy no better work
For eye and hand and mind that guides them both,
During this instant, than to draw my pen
From blot One — thus — up, up to blot Two — thus —
Which I at last reach, thus, and here's my line
Five inches long and tolerably straight:
[...] Read more
poem by Robert Browning (1871)
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XI. Guido
You are the Cardinal Acciaiuoli, and you,
Abate Panciatichi—two good Tuscan names:
Acciaiuoli—ah, your ancestor it was
Built the huge battlemented convent-block
Over the little forky flashing Greve
That takes the quick turn at the foot o' the hill
Just as one first sees Florence: oh those days!
'T is Ema, though, the other rivulet,
The one-arched brown brick bridge yawns over,—yes,
Gallop and go five minutes, and you gain
The Roman Gate from where the Ema's bridged:
Kingfishers fly there: how I see the bend
O'erturreted by Certosa which he built,
That Senescal (we styled him) of your House!
I do adjure you, help me, Sirs! My blood
Comes from as far a source: ought it to end
This way, by leakage through their scaffold-planks
Into Rome's sink where her red refuse runs?
Sirs, I beseech you by blood-sympathy,
If there be any vile experiment
In the air,—if this your visit simply prove,
When all's done, just a well-intentioned trick,
That tries for truth truer than truth itself,
By startling up a man, ere break of day,
To tell him he must die at sunset,—pshaw!
That man's a Franceschini; feel his pulse,
Laugh at your folly, and let's all go sleep!
You have my last word,—innocent am I
As Innocent my Pope and murderer,
Innocent as a babe, as Mary's own,
As Mary's self,—I said, say and repeat,—
And why, then, should I die twelve hours hence? I—
Whom, not twelve hours ago, the gaoler bade
Turn to my straw-truss, settle and sleep sound
That I might wake the sooner, promptlier pay
His due of meat-and-drink-indulgence, cross
His palm with fee of the good-hand, beside,
As gallants use who go at large again!
For why? All honest Rome approved my part;
Whoever owned wife, sister, daughter,—nay,
Mistress,—had any shadow of any right
That looks like right, and, all the more resolved,
Held it with tooth and nail,—these manly men
Approved! I being for Rome, Rome was for me.
Then, there's the point reserved, the subterfuge
My lawyers held by, kept for last resource,
Firm should all else,—the impossible fancy!—fail,
And sneaking burgess-spirit win the day.
The knaves! One plea at least would hold,—they laughed,—
One grappling-iron scratch the bottom-rock
[...] Read more
poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Truth Through Repetition
Truth through repetition Truth through repetition Truth through repetition
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through repetition Truth through repetition Truth through repetition Truth
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repetition Truth through repetition Truth through repetition Truth through
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petition Truth through repetition Truth through repetition Truth through re
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tition Truth through repetition Truth through repetition Truth through repe
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n Truth through repetition Truth through repetition Truth through repetitio
Truth through repetition Truth through repetition Truth through repetiion
Truth through repetition Truth through repetition Truth through repetition
ruth through repetition Truth through repetition Truth through repetition T
uth through repetition Truth through repetition Truth through repetition Tr
th through repetition Truth through repetition Truth through repetition Tru
h through repetition Truth through repetition Truth through repetition Trut
through repetition Truth through repetition Truth through repetition Truth
through repetition Truth through repetition Truth through repetition Truth
poem by David Keig
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Attitude Dancing
(carly simon/jacob brackman)
Theres a new kind of dancing
Thats gonna be the rage
You just leave yourself behind
Like an actor on a stage
Cop a different pose
>from the pose youre in
Shine a different attitude
>from underneath your skin
Attitude dancing
Strut around the floor in a different attitide
Attitude dancing
Any attitude is the proper attitude
Attitude dancing
Dont be afraid to change your attitude
Attitude dancing
Free up your spirit with a new attitude
It dont even matter
If you stretch or shake
And it dont really matter
What moves your body makes
And it dont really matter
What steps you choose to do
Only one thing matters:
Thats your attitude
Your attitude, attitude dancing
Attitude dancing
Strut around the floor in a different attitide
Attitude dancing
Learn to move in another attitude
Attitude dancing
Find the groove in a new attitude
Attitude dancing
Dont be afraid of a new attitude
It dont really matter
What steps you choose to do
Only one thing matters:
Is your attitude
Your attitude, attitude dancing
Strut around the floor in a new attitude
Do the locomotion in a new attitude
Do the mashed potato in a new attitude
Do the hully gully in a new attitude
Find a role you like
Capture it and freeze
Then turn it around
A hundred and eighty degrees
Or if youre at a loss
Observe some natural dude
And turn into a mirror of his attitude
[...] Read more
song performed by Carly Simon
Added by Lucian Velea
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[9] O, Moon, My Sweet-heart!
O, Moon, My Sweet-heart!
[LOVE POEMS]
POET: MAHENDRA BHATNAGAR
POEMS
1 Passion And Compassion / 1
2 Affection
3 Willing To Live
4 Passion And Compassion / 2
5 Boon
6 Remembrance
7 Pretext
8 To A Distant Person
9 Perception
10 Conclusion
10 You (1)
11 Symbol
12 You (2)
13 In Vain
14 One Night
15 Suddenly
16 Meeting
17 Touch
18 Face To Face
19 Co-Traveller
20 Once And Once only
21 Touchstone
22 In Chorus
23 Good Omens
24 Even Then
25 An Evening At ‘Tighiraa’ (1)
26 An Evening At ‘Tighiraa’ (2)
27 Life Aspirant
28 To The Condemned Woman
29 A Submission
30 At Midday
31 I Accept
32 Who Are You?
33 Solicitation
34 Accept Me
35 Again After Ages …
36 Day-Dreaming
37 Who Are You?
38 You Embellished In Song
[...] Read more
poem by Mahendra Bhatnagar
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The Loves of the Angels
'Twas when the world was in its prime,
When the fresh stars had just begun
Their race of glory and young Time
Told his first birth-days by the sun;
When in the light of Nature's dawn
Rejoicing, men and angels met
On the high hill and sunny lawn,-
Ere sorrow came or Sin had drawn
'Twixt man and heaven her curtain yet!
When earth lay nearer to the skies
Than in these days of crime and woe,
And mortals saw without surprise
In the mid-air angelic eyes
Gazing upon this world below.
Alas! that Passion should profane
Even then the morning of the earth!
That, sadder still, the fatal stain
Should fall on hearts of heavenly birth-
And that from Woman's love should fall
So dark a stain, most sad of all!
One evening, in that primal hour,
On a hill's side where hung the ray
Of sunset brightening rill and bower,
Three noble youths conversing lay;
And, as they lookt from time to time
To the far sky where Daylight furled
His radiant wing, their brows sublime
Bespoke them of that distant world-
Spirits who once in brotherhood
Of faith and bliss near ALLA stood,
And o'er whose cheeks full oft had blown
The wind that breathes from ALLA'S throne,
Creatures of light such as still play,
Like motes in sunshine, round the Lord,
And thro' their infinite array
Transmit each moment, night and day,
The echo of His luminous word!
Of Heaven they spoke and, still more oft,
Of the bright eyes that charmed them thence;
Till yielding gradual to the soft
And balmy evening's influence-
The silent breathing of the flowers-
The melting light that beamed above,
As on their first, fond, erring hours,-
Each told the story of his love,
The history of that hour unblest,
When like a bird from its high nest
[...] Read more
poem by Thomas Moore
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The Holy Grail
From noiseful arms, and acts of prowess done
In tournament or tilt, Sir Percivale,
Whom Arthur and his knighthood called The Pure,
Had passed into the silent life of prayer,
Praise, fast, and alms; and leaving for the cowl
The helmet in an abbey far away
From Camelot, there, and not long after, died.
And one, a fellow-monk among the rest,
Ambrosius, loved him much beyond the rest,
And honoured him, and wrought into his heart
A way by love that wakened love within,
To answer that which came: and as they sat
Beneath a world-old yew-tree, darkening half
The cloisters, on a gustful April morn
That puffed the swaying branches into smoke
Above them, ere the summer when he died
The monk Ambrosius questioned Percivale:
`O brother, I have seen this yew-tree smoke,
Spring after spring, for half a hundred years:
For never have I known the world without,
Nor ever strayed beyond the pale: but thee,
When first thou camest--such a courtesy
Spake through the limbs and in the voice--I knew
For one of those who eat in Arthur's hall;
For good ye are and bad, and like to coins,
Some true, some light, but every one of you
Stamped with the image of the King; and now
Tell me, what drove thee from the Table Round,
My brother? was it earthly passion crost?'
`Nay,' said the knight; `for no such passion mine.
But the sweet vision of the Holy Grail
Drove me from all vainglories, rivalries,
And earthly heats that spring and sparkle out
Among us in the jousts, while women watch
Who wins, who falls; and waste the spiritual strength
Within us, better offered up to Heaven.'
To whom the monk: `The Holy Grail!--I trust
We are green in Heaven's eyes; but here too much
We moulder--as to things without I mean--
Yet one of your own knights, a guest of ours,
Told us of this in our refectory,
But spake with such a sadness and so low
We heard not half of what he said. What is it?
The phantom of a cup that comes and goes?'
`Nay, monk! what phantom?' answered Percivale.
[...] Read more
poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson
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VII. Pompilia
I am just seventeen years and five months old,
And, if I lived one day more, three full weeks;
'T is writ so in the church's register,
Lorenzo in Lucina, all my names
At length, so many names for one poor child,
—Francesca Camilla Vittoria Angela
Pompilia Comparini,—laughable!
Also 't is writ that I was married there
Four years ago: and they will add, I hope,
When they insert my death, a word or two,—
Omitting all about the mode of death,—
This, in its place, this which one cares to know,
That I had been a mother of a son
Exactly two weeks. It will be through grace
O' the Curate, not through any claim I have;
Because the boy was born at, so baptized
Close to, the Villa, in the proper church:
A pretty church, I say no word against,
Yet stranger-like,—while this Lorenzo seems
My own particular place, I always say.
I used to wonder, when I stood scarce high
As the bed here, what the marble lion meant,
With half his body rushing from the wall,
Eating the figure of a prostrate man—
(To the right, it is, of entry by the door)
An ominous sign to one baptized like me,
Married, and to be buried there, I hope.
And they should add, to have my life complete,
He is a boy and Gaetan by name—
Gaetano, for a reason,—if the friar
Don Celestine will ask this grace for me
Of Curate Ottoboni: he it was
Baptized me: he remembers my whole life
As I do his grey hair.
All these few things
I know are true,—will you remember them?
Because time flies. The surgeon cared for me,
To count my wounds,—twenty-two dagger-wounds,
Five deadly, but I do not suffer much—
Or too much pain,—and am to die to-night.
Oh how good God is that my babe was born,
—Better than born, baptized and hid away
Before this happened, safe from being hurt!
That had been sin God could not well forgive:
He was too young to smile and save himself.
When they took two days after he was born,
My babe away from me to be baptized
And hidden awhile, for fear his foe should find,—
[...] Read more
poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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Z. Comments
CRYSTAL GLOW
Madhur Veena Comment: Who is she? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ....You write good!
Margaret Alice Comment: Beautiful, it stikes as heartfelt words and touches the heart, beautiful sentiments, sorry, I repeat myself, but I am delighted. Your poem is like the trinkets I collect to adorn my personal space, pure joy to read, wonderful! Only a beautiful mind can harbour such sentiments, you have a beautiful mind. I am glad you have found someone that inspires you to such heights and that you share it with us, you make the world a mroe wonderful place.
Margaret Alice Comment: Within the context set by the previous poem, “Cosmic Probe”, the description of a lover’s adoration for his beloved becomes a universal ode sung to the abstract values of love, joy and hope personified by light, colours, fragrance and beauty, qualities the poet assigns to his beloved, thus elevating her to the status of an uplifting force because she brings all these qualities to his attention. The poet recognises that these personified values brings him fulfilment and chose the image of a love relationship to illustrate how this comes about; thus a love poem becomes the vehicle to convey spiritual epiphany.
FRAGRANT JASMINE
Margaret Alice Comment: Your words seem to be directed to a divine entity, you seem to be addressing your adoration to a divinity, and it is wonderful to read of such sublime sentiments kindled in a human soul. Mankind is always lifted up by their vision and awareness of divinity, thank you for such pure, clear diction and sharing your awareness of the sublime with us, you have uplifted me so much by this vision you have created!
Margaret Alice Comment: The poet’s words seem to be directed to a divine entity, express adoration to a divinity who is the personification of wonderful qualities which awakens a sense of the sublime in the human soul. An uplifting vision and awareness of uplifting qualities of innocence represented by a beautiful person.
I WENT THERE TO BID HER ADIEU
Kente Lucy Comment: wow great writing, what a way to bid farewell
Margaret Alice Comment: Sensory experience is elevated by its symbolical meaning, your description of the scene shows two souls becoming one and your awareness of the importance of tempory experience as a symbol of the eternal duration of love and companionship - were temporary experience only valid for one moment in time, it would be a sad world, but once it is seen as a symbol of eternal things, it becomes enchanting.
I’M INCOMPLETE WITHOUT YOU
Margaret Alice Comment: You elevate the humnan experience of longing for love to a striving for sublimity in uniting with a beloved person, and this poem is stirring, your style of writing is effective, everything flows together perfectly.
Margaret Alice Comment:
'To a resplendent glow of celestial flow
And two split halves unite never to part.'
Reading your fluent poems is a delight, I have to tear myself away and return to the life of a drudge, but what a treasure trove of jewels you made for the weary soul who needs to contemplate higher ideals from time to time!
IN CELESTIAL WINGS
Margaret Alice Comment: When you describe how you are strengthened by your loved one, it is clear that your inner flame is so strong that you need not fear growing old, your spirit seems to become stronger, you manage to convey this impression by your striking poetry. It is a privilege to read your work.
Obed Dela Cruz Comment: wow.... i remembered will shakespeare.... nice poem!
Margaret Alice Comment: The poet has transcended the barriers of time and space by becoming an image of his beloved and being able to find peace in the joy he confers to his beloved.
'You transcend my limits, transcend my soul, I forget my distress in your thoughts And discover my peace in your joy, For, I’m mere image of you, my beloved.'
Margaret Alice Comment: You are my peace and solace, I know, I am, yours too; A mere flash of your thoughts Enlivens my tired soul And fills me with light, peace and solace, A giant in new world, I become, I rise to divine heights in celestial wings. How I desire to reciprocate To fill you with light and inner strength raise you to divine heights; I must cross over nd hold you in arms, light up your soul, Fill you with strength from my inner core, Wipe away your tears burst out in pure joy How I yearn to instill hope and confidence in you we never part And we shall wait, till time comes right. the flame in my soul always seeks you, you transcend my limits, transcend my soul, I forget my distress in your thoughts And discover my peace in your joy, For, I’m mere image of you, my beloved.
RAGING FIRE
[...] Read more
poem by Praveen Kumar
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VI. Giuseppe Caponsacchi
Answer you, Sirs? Do I understand aright?
Have patience! In this sudden smoke from hell,—
So things disguise themselves,—I cannot see
My own hand held thus broad before my face
And know it again. Answer you? Then that means
Tell over twice what I, the first time, told
Six months ago: 't was here, I do believe,
Fronting you same three in this very room,
I stood and told you: yet now no one laughs,
Who then … nay, dear my lords, but laugh you did,
As good as laugh, what in a judge we style
Laughter—no levity, nothing indecorous, lords!
Only,—I think I apprehend the mood:
There was the blameless shrug, permissible smirk,
The pen's pretence at play with the pursed mouth,
The titter stifled in the hollow palm
Which rubbed the eyebrow and caressed the nose,
When I first told my tale: they meant, you know,
"The sly one, all this we are bound believe!
"Well, he can say no other than what he says.
"We have been young, too,—come, there's greater guilt!
"Let him but decently disembroil himself,
"Scramble from out the scrape nor move the mud,—
"We solid ones may risk a finger-stretch!
And now you sit as grave, stare as aghast
As if I were a phantom: now 't is—"Friend,
"Collect yourself!"—no laughing matter more—
"Counsel the Court in this extremity,
"Tell us again!"—tell that, for telling which,
I got the jocular piece of punishment,
Was sent to lounge a little in the place
Whence now of a sudden here you summon me
To take the intelligence from just—your lips!
You, Judge Tommati, who then tittered most,—
That she I helped eight months since to escape
Her husband, was retaken by the same,
Three days ago, if I have seized your sense,—
(I being disallowed to interfere,
Meddle or make in a matter none of mine,
For you and law were guardians quite enough
O' the innocent, without a pert priest's help)—
And that he has butchered her accordingly,
As she foretold and as myself believed,—
And, so foretelling and believing so,
We were punished, both of us, the merry way:
Therefore, tell once again the tale! For what?
Pompilia is only dying while I speak!
Why does the mirth hang fire and miss the smile?
My masters, there's an old book, you should con
For strange adventures, applicable yet,
[...] Read more
poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Attitude
You go down the pub
You wear make up
And old dads trousers
Why dont you tidy up
You talk like a docker but you act like a queer
You drink champagne then complain its too dear
You try so hard not to follow any trends
Then you cry in your beer and say youve got no friends
But is it any wonder that youve got no friends
But its not the make up
Or the way you dress
Its not your appearance, that they all detest
Its not your manners, that you gotta improve
Ooooo--its your attitude.
Chorus
Attitude, oo oo oo
Your attitude
Attitude, oo oo oo
Your attitude
Take off your head phones
Hear whats going on
You cant live in a time zone
Youve gotta move on
But before you get there
Theres one thing youve gotta do
Oh change your attitude
Its your attitude
Its your attitude
Chorus
Attitude, oo oo oo
Your attitude
Attitude, oo oo oo
Your attitude
The 80s are here, I know cuz Im staring right at them
But youre still waiting for 1960 to happen
You might have the illness, but youve got the cure
Youve got the answer, you will endure
Youre the only person thats gonna pull you through
Ooh, with your attitude
Chorus
Attitude, oo oo oo
Your attitude
Attitude, oo oo oo
Your attitude
You gotta learn to be positive, its your only chance
You mustnt be so defensive, you gotta join in the dance
But it isnt your dancing that youve gotta improve
Ooh, its your attitude.
Chorus
Attitude, oo oo oo
[...] Read more
song performed by Kinks
Added by Lucian Velea
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The Idols
An Ode
Luce intellettual, piena d' amore
Prelude
Lo, the spirit of a pulsing star within a stone
Born of earth, sprung from night!
Prisoned with the profound fires of the light
That lives like all the tongues of eloquence
Locked in a speech unknown!
The crystal, cold and hard as innocence,
Immures the flame; and yet as if it knew
Raptures or pangs it could not but betray,
As if the light could feel changes of blood and breath
And all--but--human quiverings of the sense,
Throbs of a sudden rose, a frosty blue,
Shoot thrilling in its ray,
Like the far longings of the intellect
Restless in clouding clay.
Who has confined the Light? Who has held it a slave,
Sold and bought, bought and sold?
Who has made of it a mystery to be doled,
Or trophy, to awe with legendary fire,
Where regal banners wave?
And still into the dark it sends Desire.
In the heart's darkness it sows cruelties.
The bright jewel becomes a beacon to the vile,
A lodestar to corruption, envy's own:
Soiled with blood, fought for, clutched at; this world's prize,
Captive Authority. Oh, the star is stone
To all that outward sight,
Yet still, like truth that none has ever used,
Lives lost in its own light.
Troubled I fly. O let me wander again at will
(Far from cries, far from these
Hard blindnesses and frozen certainties!)
Where life proceeds in vastness unaware
And stirs profound and still:
Where leafing thoughts at shy touch of the air
Tremble, and gleams come seeking to be mine,
Or dart, like suddenly remembered youth,
Like the ache of love, a light, lost, found, and lost again.
Surely in the dusk some messenger was there!
But, haunted in the heart, I thirst, I pine.--
Oh, how can truth be truth
Except I taste it close and sweet and sharp
As an apple to the tooth?
[...] Read more
poem by Robert Laurence Binyon
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A poem on divine revelation
This is a day of happiness, sweet peace,
And heavenly sunshine; upon which conven'd
In full assembly fair, once more we view,
And hail with voice expressive of the heart,
Patrons and sons of this illustrious hall.
This hall more worthy of its rising fame
Than hall on mountain or romantic hill,
Where Druid bards sang to the hero's praise,
While round their woods and barren heaths was heard
The shrill calm echo of th' enchanting shell.
Than all those halls and lordly palaces
Where in the days of chivalry, each knight,
And baron brave in military pride
Shone in the brass and burning steel of war;
For in this hall more worthy of a strain
No envious sound forbidding peace is heard,
Fierce song of battle kindling martial rage
And desp'rate purpose in heroic minds:
But sacred truth fair science and each grace
Of virtue born; health, elegance and ease
And temp'rate mirth in social intercourse
Convey rich pleasure to the mind; and oft
The sacred muse in heaven-breathing song
Doth wrap the soul in extasy divine,
Inspiring joy and sentiment which not
The tale of war or song of Druids gave.
The song of Druids or the tale of war
With martial vigour every breast inspir'd,
With valour fierce and love of deathless fame;
But here a rich and splendid throng conven'd
From many a distant city and fair town,
Or rural seat by shore or mountain-stream,
Breathe joy and blessing to the human race,
Give countenance to arts themselves have known,
Inspire the love of heights themselves have reach'd,
Of noble science to enlarge the mind,
Of truth and virtue to adorn the soul,
And make the human nature grow divine.
Oh could the muse on this auspicious day
Begin a song of more majestic sound,
Or touch the lyre on some sublimer key,
Meet entertainment for the noble mind.
How shall the muse from this poetic bow'r
So long remov'd, and from this happy hill,
Where ev'ry grace and ev'ry virtue dwells,
And where the springs of knowledge and of thought
In riv'lets clear and gushing streams flow down
Attempt a strain? How sing in rapture high
[...] Read more
poem by Hugh Henry Brackenridge
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I. The Ring and the Book
Do you see this Ring?
'T is Rome-work, made to match
(By Castellani's imitative craft)
Etrurian circlets found, some happy morn,
After a dropping April; found alive
Spark-like 'mid unearthed slope-side figtree-roots
That roof old tombs at Chiusi: soft, you see,
Yet crisp as jewel-cutting. There's one trick,
(Craftsmen instruct me) one approved device
And but one, fits such slivers of pure gold
As this was,—such mere oozings from the mine,
Virgin as oval tawny pendent tear
At beehive-edge when ripened combs o'erflow,—
To bear the file's tooth and the hammer's tap:
Since hammer needs must widen out the round,
And file emboss it fine with lily-flowers,
Ere the stuff grow a ring-thing right to wear.
That trick is, the artificer melts up wax
With honey, so to speak; he mingles gold
With gold's alloy, and, duly tempering both,
Effects a manageable mass, then works:
But his work ended, once the thing a ring,
Oh, there's repristination! Just a spirt
O' the proper fiery acid o'er its face,
And forth the alloy unfastened flies in fume;
While, self-sufficient now, the shape remains,
The rondure brave, the lilied loveliness,
Gold as it was, is, shall be evermore:
Prime nature with an added artistry—
No carat lost, and you have gained a ring.
What of it? 'T is a figure, a symbol, say;
A thing's sign: now for the thing signified.
Do you see this square old yellow Book, I toss
I' the air, and catch again, and twirl about
By the crumpled vellum covers,—pure crude fact
Secreted from man's life when hearts beat hard,
And brains, high-blooded, ticked two centuries since?
Examine it yourselves! I found this book,
Gave a lira for it, eightpence English just,
(Mark the predestination!) when a Hand,
Always above my shoulder, pushed me once,
One day still fierce 'mid many a day struck calm,
Across a Square in Florence, crammed with booths,
Buzzing and blaze, noontide and market-time,
Toward Baccio's marble,—ay, the basement-ledge
O' the pedestal where sits and menaces
John of the Black Bands with the upright spear,
'Twixt palace and church,—Riccardi where they lived,
His race, and San Lorenzo where they lie.
[...] Read more
poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Satan Absolved
(In the antechamber of Heaven. Satan walks alone. Angels in groups conversing.)
Satan. To--day is the Lord's ``day.'' Once more on His good pleasure
I, the Heresiarch, wait and pace these halls at leisure
Among the Orthodox, the unfallen Sons of God.
How sweet in truth Heaven is, its floors of sandal wood,
Its old--world furniture, its linen long in press,
Its incense, mummeries, flowers, its scent of holiness!
Each house has its own smell. The smell of Heaven to me
Intoxicates and haunts,--and hurts. Who would not be
God's liveried servant here, the slave of His behest,
Rather than reign outside? I like good things the best,
Fair things, things innocent; and gladly, if He willed,
Would enter His Saints' kingdom--even as a little child.
[Laughs. I have come to make my peace, to crave a full amaun,
Peace, pardon, reconcilement, truce to our daggers--drawn,
Which have so long distraught the fair wise Universe,
An end to my rebellion and the mortal curse
Of always evil--doing. He will mayhap agree
I was less wholly wrong about Humanity
The day I dared to warn His wisdom of that flaw.
It was at least the truth, the whole truth, I foresaw
When He must needs create that simian ``in His own
Image and likeness.'' Faugh! the unseemly carrion!
I claim a new revision and with proofs in hand,
No Job now in my path to foil me and withstand.
Oh, I will serve Him well!
[Certain Angels approach. But who are these that come
With their grieved faces pale and eyes of martyrdom?
Not our good Sons of God? They stop, gesticulate,
Argue apart, some weep,--weep, here within Heaven's gate!
Sob almost in God's sight! ay, real salt human tears,
Such as no Spirit wept these thrice three thousand years.
The last shed were my own, that night of reprobation
When I unsheathed my sword and headed the lost nation.
Since then not one of them has spoken above his breath
Or whispered in these courts one word of life or death
Displeasing to the Lord. No Seraph of them all,
Save I this day each year, has dared to cross Heaven's hall
And give voice to ill news, an unwelcome truth to Him.
Not Michael's self hath dared, prince of the Seraphim.
Yet all now wail aloud.--What ails ye, brethren? Speak!
Are ye too in rebellion? Angels. Satan, no. But weak
With our long earthly toil, the unthankful care of Man.
Satan. Ye have in truth good cause.
Angels. And we would know God's plan,
His true thought for the world, the wherefore and the why
Of His long patience mocked, His name in jeopardy.
[...] Read more
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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Justin
DEDICATION
O POOR, sad hearts that struggle on and wait,
Like shipwrecked sailors on a spar at sea,
Through deepening glooms, if haply, soon or late,
Some day-dawn glimmer of what is to be,
Not knowing Christ, nor gladdened by His Love
5
And Life indwelling—to you I dedicate
These humble musings, praying that from above,
On you, being faithful found, the light may shine
Of Life incarnate and of Love divine.
Take, then, these thoughts, in loving memory
10
Of those dead hearts that brought it first to me.
DOWN by the sea, in infinite solitude
And wrapt in darkness, save when gleams of light
Broke from the moon aslant the hurrying clouds
That fled the wind, lay Justin, worn with grief,
And heart-sick with vain searching after God.
15
He heeded not the cold white foam that crept
In silence round his feet, nor the tall sedge
That sighed like lonely forest round his head;
His heart was weary of this weight of being,
Weary of all the mystery of life,
20
Weary of all the littleness of men,
And the dark riddle that he could not solve—
Why men should be, why pain and sin and death,
And where were hid the lineaments of God.
No voice was near. Behind, a lofty cape,
25
Whose iron face was scarred by many a storm,
Loomed threatening in the dark, and cleft the main,
And laid its giant hand upon the deep.
One grizzled oak tree crowned it, and the surf
Broke ever at its base, with ceaseless voice
30
Powerless to mar its silent majesty.
Sweet was the loneliness to Justin, sweet
Perturbèd nature, as in harmony
With the dark thoughts that beat upon his soul.
Nor speechless long he lay. The tide of grief,
35
[...] Read more
poem by Frederick George Scott
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The Dream
'TWAS summer eve; the changeful beams still play'd
On the fir-bark and through the beechen shade;
Still with soft crimson glow'd each floating cloud;
Still the stream glitter'd where the willow bow'd;
Still the pale moon sate silent and alone,
Nor yet the stars had rallied round her throne;
Those diamond courtiers, who, while yet the West
Wears the red shield above his dying breast,
Dare not assume the loss they all desire,
Nor pay their homage to the fainter fire,
But wait in trembling till the Sun's fair light
Fading, shall leave them free to welcome Night!
So when some Chief, whose name through realms afar
Was still the watchword of succesful war,
Met by the fatal hour which waits for all,
Is, on the field he rallied, forced to fall,
The conquerors pause to watch his parting breath,
Awed by the terrors of that mighty death;
Nor dare the meed of victory to claim,
Nor lift the standard to a meaner name,
Till every spark of soul hath ebb'd away,
And leaves what was a hero, common clay.
Oh! Twilight! Spirit that dost render birth
To dim enchantments; melting Heaven with Earth,
Leaving on craggy hills and rumning streams
A softness like the atmosphere of dreams;
Thy hour to all is welcome! Faint and sweet
Thy light falls round the peasant's homeward feet,
Who, slow returning from his task of toil,
Sees the low sunset gild the cultured soil,
And, tho' such radliance round him brightly glows,
Marks the small spark his cottage window throws.
Still as his heart forestals his weary pace,
Fondly he dreams of each familiar face,
Recalls the treasures of his narrow life,
His rosy children, and his sunburnt wife,
To whom his coming is the chief event
Of simple days in cheerful labour spent.
The rich man's chariot hath gone whirling past,
And those poor cottagers have only cast
One careless glance on all that show of pride,
Then to their tasks turn'd quietly aside;
But him they wait for, him they welcome home,
Fond sentinels look forth to see him come;
The fagot sent for when the fire grew dim,
The frugal meal prepared, are all for him;
For him the watching of that sturdy boy,
[...] Read more
poem by Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton
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OBIIT MDCCCXXXIII (Entire)
Strong Son of God, immortal Love,
Whom we, that have not seen thy face,
By faith, and faith alone, embrace,
Believing where we cannot prove;
Thine are these orbs of light and shade;
Thou madest Life in man and brute;
Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot
Is on the skull which thou hast made.
Thou wilt not leave us in the dust:
Thou madest man, he knows not why,
He thinks he was not made to die;
And thou hast made him: thou art just.
Thou seemest human and divine,
The highest, holiest manhood, thou:
Our wills are ours, we know not how;
Our wills are ours, to make them thine.
Our little systems have their day;
They have their day and cease to be:
They are but broken lights of thee,
And thou, O Lord, art more than they.
We have but faith: we cannot know;
For knowledge is of things we see;
And yet we trust it comes from thee,
A beam in darkness: let it grow.
Let knowledge grow from more to more,
But more of reverence in us dwell;
That mind and soul, according well,
May make one music as before,
But vaster. We are fools and slight;
We mock thee when we do not fear:
But help thy foolish ones to bear;
Help thy vain worlds to bear thy light.
Forgive what seem’d my sin in me;
What seem’d my worth since I began;
For merit lives from man to man,
And not from man, O Lord, to thee.
Forgive my grief for one removed,
Thy creature, whom I found so fair.
I trust he lives in thee, and there
I find him worthier to be loved.
Forgive these wild and wandering cries,
[...] Read more
poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson
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Lara. A Tale
The Serfs are glad through Lara's wide domain,
And slavery half forgets her feudal chain;
He, their unhoped, but unforgotten lord--
The long self-exiled chieftain is restored:
There be bright faces in the busy hall,
Bowls on the board, and banners on the wall;
Far chequering o'er the pictured window, plays
The unwonted fagots' hospitable blaze;
And gay retainers gather round the hearth,
With tongues all loudness, and with eyes all mirth.
II.
The chief of Lara is return'd again:
And why had Lara cross'd the bounding main?
Left by his sire, too young such loss to know,
Lord of himself;--that heritage of woe,
That fearful empire which the human breast
But holds to rob the heart within of rest!--
With none to check, and few to point in time
The thousand paths that slope the way to crime;
Then, when he most required commandment, then
Had Lara's daring boyhood govern'd men.
It skills not, boots not, step by step to trace
His youth through all the mazes of its race;
Short was the course his restlessness had run,
But long enough to leave him half undone.
III.
And Lara left in youth his fatherland;
But from the hour he waved his parting hand
Each trace wax'd fainter of his course, till all
Had nearly ceased his memory to recall.
His sire was dust, his vassals could declare,
'Twas all they knew, that Lara was not there;
Nor sent, nor came he, till conjecture grew
Cold in the many, anxious in the few.
His hall scarce echoes with his wonted name,
His portrait darkens in its fading frame,
Another chief consoled his destined bride,
The young forgot him, and the old had died;
'Yet doth he live!' exclaims the impatient heir,
And sighs for sables which he must not wear.
A hundred scutcheons deck with gloomy grace
The Laras' last and longest dwelling-place;
But one is absent from the mouldering file,
That now were welcome to that Gothic pile.
IV.
He comes at last in sudden loneliness,
And whence they know not, why they need not guess;
[...] Read more
Lara
LARA. [1]
CANTO THE FIRST.
I.
The Serfs are glad through Lara's wide domain, [2]
And slavery half forgets her feudal chain;
He, their unhoped, but unforgotten lord —
The long self-exiled chieftain is restored:
There be bright faces in the busy hall,
Bowls on the board, and banners on the wall;
Far chequering o'er the pictured window, plays
The unwonted fagots' hospitable blaze;
And gay retainers gather round the hearth,
With tongues all loudness, and with eyes all mirth.
II.
The chief of Lara is return'd again:
And why had Lara cross'd the bounding main?
Left by his sire, too young such loss to know,
Lord of himself; — that heritage of woe,
That fearful empire which the human breast
But holds to rob the heart within of rest! —
With none to check, and few to point in time
The thousand paths that slope the way to crime;
Then, when he most required commandment, then
Had Lara's daring boyhood govern'd men.
It skills not, boots not, step by step to trace
His youth through all the mazes of its race;
Short was the course his restlessness had run,
But long enough to leave him half undone.
III.
And Lara left in youth his fatherland;
But from the hour he waved his parting hand
Each trace wax'd fainter of his course, till all
Had nearly ceased his memory to recall.
His sire was dust, his vassals could declare,
'Twas all they knew, that Lara was not there;
Nor sent, nor came he, till conjecture grew
Cold in the many, anxious in the few.
His hall scarce echoes with his wonted name,
His portrait darkens in its fading frame,
Another chief consoled his destined bride,
The young forgot him, and the old had died;
"Yet doth he live!" exclaims the impatient heir,
And sighs for sables which he must not wear.
[...] Read more