He who humbles himself too much gets trampled upon.
Yugoslavian proverbs
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Above All
Verse 1
Above all powers above all kings
Above all kingdoms
Above all nature and all created things
Above all thrones
Above all wisdom and all the ways of man
Above all wonders
You were here before the world began
The world has ever known
Above all wealth
Above all kingdoms above all thrones
And treasures of the earth
Above all wonders the world has ever known
There's no way to measure
Above all wealth and treasures of the earth
What You're worth
There's no way to measure what You're worth
Verse 2
Crucified laid behind the stone
Above all powers
You lived to die rejected and alone
Above all kings
Like a Rose trampled on the ground
Above all nature
You took the fall and thought of me
And all created things
Above all
Above all wisdom
And all the ways of man
Above all powers above all kings
You were here
Above all nature and all created things
Before the world began
Above all wisdom and all the ways of man
You were here before the world began
CHORUS
Crucified
Above all kingdoms above all thrones
Laid behind the stone
Above all wonders the world has ever known
You lived to die
Above all wealth and treasures of the earth
Rejected and alone
There's no way to measure what You're worth
Like a rose
Trampled on the ground
Crucified laid behind the stone
You took the fall
You lived to die rejected and alone
And thought of me
[...] Read more
song performed by Michael W. Smith
Added by Lucian Velea
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Above All
Above all kingdoms
Above all thrones
Above all wonders
The world has ever known
Above all wealth
And treasures of the earth
There's no way to measure
What You're worth.
Above all powers
Above all kings
Above all nature
And all created things
Above all wisdom
And all the ways of man
You were here
Before the world began.
Crucified
Laid behind the stone
You lived to die
Rejected and alone
Like a rose
Trampled on the ground
You took the fall
And thought of me
Above all.
Crucified
Laid behind the stone
You lived to die
Rejected and alone
Like a rose
Trampled on the ground
You took the fall
And thought of me
Above all.
Crucified
Laid behind the stone
You lived to die
Rejected and alone
Like a rose
Trampled on the ground
You took the fall
And thought of me
Above all.
Like the rose
Trampled on the ground
You took the fall
And thought of me
Above all.
song performed by Randy Travis
Added by Lucian Velea
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Rosalind and Helen: a Modern Eclogue
ROSALIND, HELEN, and her Child.
SCENE. The Shore of the Lake of Como.
HELEN
Come hither, my sweet Rosalind.
'T is long since thou and I have met;
And yet methinks it were unkind
Those moments to forget.
Come, sit by me. I see thee stand
By this lone lake, in this far land,
Thy loose hair in the light wind flying,
Thy sweet voice to each tone of even
United, and thine eyes replying
To the hues of yon fair heaven.
Come, gentle friend! wilt sit by me?
And be as thou wert wont to be
Ere we were disunited?
None doth behold us now; the power
That led us forth at this lone hour
Will be but ill requited
If thou depart in scorn. Oh, come,
And talk of our abandoned home!
Remember, this is Italy,
And we are exiles. Talk with me
Of that our land, whose wilds and floods,
Barren and dark although they be,
Were dearer than these chestnut woods;
Those heathy paths, that inland stream,
And the blue mountains, shapes which seem
Like wrecks of childhood's sunny dream;
Which that we have abandoned now,
Weighs on the heart like that remorse
Which altered friendship leaves. I seek
No more our youthful intercourse.
That cannot be! Rosalind, speak,
Speak to me! Leave me not! When morn did come,
When evening fell upon our common home,
When for one hour we parted,--do not frown;
I would not chide thee, though thy faith is broken;
But turn to me. Oh! by this cherished token
Of woven hair, which thou wilt not disown,
Turn, as 't were but the memory of me,
And not my scornèd self who prayed to thee!
ROSALIND
Is it a dream, or do I see
And hear frail Helen? I would flee
Thy tainting touch; but former years
Arise, and bring forbidden tears;
[...] Read more
poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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The Field of Waterloo
I.
Fair Brussels, thou art far behind,
Though, lingering on the morning wind,
We yet may hear the hour
Pealed over orchard and canal,
With voice prolonged and measured fall,
From proud St. Michael's tower;
Thy wood, dark Soignies, holds us now,
Where the tall beeches' glossy bough
For many a league around,
With birch and darksome oak between,
Spreads deep and far a pathless screen,
Of tangled forest ground.
Stems planted close by stems defy
The adventurous foot-the curious eye
For access seeks in vain;
And the brown tapestry of leaves,
Strewed on the blighted ground, receives
Nor sun, nor air, nor rain.
No opening glade dawns on our way,
No streamlet, glancing to the ray,
Our woodland path has crossed;
And the straight causeway which we tread
Prolongs a line of dull arcade,
Unvarying through the unvaried shade
Until in distance lost.
II.
A brighter, livelier scene succeeds;
In groups the scattering wood recedes,
Hedge-rows, and huts, and sunny meads,
And corn-fields glance between;
The peasant, at his labour blithe,
Plies the hooked staff and shortened scythe:-
But when these ears were green,
Placed close within destruction's scope,
Full little was that rustic's hope
Their ripening to have seen!
And, lo, a hamlet and its fane:-
Let not the gazer with disdain
Their architecture view;
For yonder rude ungraceful shrine,
And disproportioned spire, are thine,
Immortal WATERLOO!
III.
Fear not the heat, though full and high
The sun has scorched the autumn sky,
And scarce a forest straggler now
To shade us spreads a greenwood bough;
[...] Read more
poem by Sir Walter Scott
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A Matter Of Privacy
Ben Bowyang spluttered with rage suppressed, 'Hi, there!' And his brow was black,
As two by two and three by three the tourists left the track,
Climbing the fence to his 'tater' patch, and down thro' his orchard land,
Flannelled or fashioned in strides and shorts - a saucy suburban band -
Giggling gambolling into his yard calling inane 'Cooees'
While Bowyang frothed at the mouth and fumed. But his voice was a futile wheeze,
And, heading the horde, in a blazer bright, monarch of all he surveyed,
Strode little Fitzmickle, the martinet, a Don in the drapery trade.
'You've trampled me taters,' Bowyang roared. 'Pinched bloom from me orchard bough!
You've pelted me poddies an' dished me fence! Look at that nettin' now!
Ain't you no respeck for a privit home, you towerist coots from town?'
But Mr Fitzmickle, he turned on his heel with a very superior frown.
'Come, ladies,' he said, 'come, gentlemen. Unmannerly rustic brute!
My card, with name and address, my man, if you wish to prosecute.'
Then back they trampled thro' the 'tater' patch, back o'er the orchard land,
While Bowyang gaped like a stranded fish, with the pasteboard cluthed in his hand.
Mr Fitzmickle, the martinet, sat in his smug retreat -
A very respectable villa set in a very respectable street.
For Mr Fitzmickle found harbor here when the contry boors came down
To dawdle about for their Show-week spree and clutter the streets in town.
Then in to him rushed his terrified wife, eyes wide, and breathing hard.
'Come quick!' she gasped. 'There's a mob of roughs gone crazy in our back yard!
They've trampled herbaceous borders down, they've kicked the canary's cage -'
'Enough!' cried Fitzmickle, all pink with wrath; and his rage was a ratepayer's rage.
Poker in hand, he rushed without; but paused by the scullery door
For there, on his seedlings, trodden and tossed, stood one whom he'd seen before.
And, gathered about in the burgeoning beds, were strangely silent men;
Till one with a beard spoke up and said, 'Explain to the gentleman, Ben.'
Ben Bowyang smiled, and his voice was bland as he said, 'Aw, well; we're 'ere
Jist sorta returnin' yer social call as you made on us last year.
My card!' And he bounced a clod from the face of the proud Fitzmicklian cat
But Mr Fitzmickle oblivious lay. He was having a fit on the mat.
poem by Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis
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The Troubadour. Canto 2
THE first, the very first; oh! none
Can feel again as they have done;
In love, in war, in pride, in all
The planets of life's coronal,
However beautiful or bright,--
What can be like their first sweet light?
When will the youth feel as he felt,
When first at beauty's feet he knelt?
As if her least smile could confer
A kingdom on its worshipper;
Or ever care, or ever fear
Had cross'd love's morning hemisphere.
And the young bard, the first time praise
Sheds its spring sunlight o'er his lays,
Though loftier laurel, higher name,
May crown the minstrel's noontide fame,
They will not bring the deep content
Of his lure's first encouragement.
And where the glory that will yield
The flush and glow of his first field
To the young chief? Will RAYMOND ever
Feel as he now is feeling?--Never.
The sun wept down or ere they gain'd
The glen where the chief band remain'd.
It was a lone and secret shade,
As nature form'd an ambuscade
For the bird's nest and the deer's lair,
Though now less quiet guests were there.
On one side like a fortress stood
A mingled pine and chesnut wood;
Autumn was falling, but the pine
Seem'd as it mock'd all change; no sign
Of season on its leaf was seen,
The same dark gloom of changeless green.
But like the gorgeous Persian bands
'Mid the stern race of northern lands,
The chesnut boughs were bright with all
That gilds and mocks the autumn's fall.
Like stragglers from an army's rear
Gradual they grew, near and less near,
Till ample space was left to raise,
Amid the trees, the watch-fire's blaze;
And there, wrapt in their cloaks around,
The soldiers scatter'd o'er the ground.
[...] Read more
poem by Letitia Elizabeth Landon
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Gettysburg
Though the winds be strong that lash along the steeds of the charging sea,
With lunge and urge of assaulting surge yet seeking a further goal,
God in His pleasure hath set a measure, the bound of their boast to be,
Where, pile upon pile, and mile on mile, are the cliffs of calm control.
But the Lord of Hosts who guardeth the coasts yet loveth each sieging swell,
And He who is Brother to surge and smother is Brother to cliff as well:
He giveth the word if the shore be stirred, He biddeth the sea subside,
And this is our trust, that His will is just, however He turn the tide!
As night went gray at the touch of day and the slow dawn mounted higher,
On the Federal right the third day’s fight was born in a sheet of fire:
Gun upon gun to the front was run, and each in its turn spoke forth
From fevered mouth to the waiting South the word of the watching North:
And the wraith of Death with withering breath o’er the wide arena played,
As across the large swept on the charge of the old Stonewall brigade;
But the first great wave on a sudden gave, retreating across the slain—
Gave and broke, as the rifles spoke from the long blue line of Kane!
Then silence sank on the double rank deployed on the sullen hill,
And, across the plain of the early slain, the hosts of the South were still,
Waiting, each, till further speech from the guns should dart and din—
Sign to the brave that the final wave of the tide was rolling in.
Adown the line like a draught of wine the presence of Hancock came,
And eyes grew bright in the steadfast light of his own that blazed to flame;
For the Federals knew, where his banner blew—and they saw their leader ride,
That a righteous God on that sea of sod had decreed a turn of tide!
So came one, when a signal gun awoke on the Southern side,
And Hunt’s brigade with a cannonade to the challenge of Lee replied,
Like arrows sent from a bow well bent to the heart of a distant targe,
Virginia’s hope rode down the slope, with Pickett leading the charge!
Steady and slow, as soldiers go in some serried dress parade,
With flags a-dance in their cool advance came the gallant gray brigade,
And steady and slow, as if no foe on the frowning heights abode,
To the cannon’s breath, to the scythe of Death, Pickett, their leader, rode.
God! what a mile he led them! From the slope they sought to scale,
Sullen and hot, the swingeing shot was hurling its awful hail:
Where a long ravine ploughed through the green they halted, anew to form,
And then, with a cheer, to the ridge’s sheer they swept like a summer storm.
Hand to hand at the guns they manned, the Federals fought and fell,
Where Armistead his regiment led up the cannister-harrowed swell,
He touched a gun—for a breath he won the crest of the Union’s pride—
Then over the hill Jehovah’s will decreed the turn of the tide!
Taken in flank each gallant rank of Pickett’s battalions gave,
Trampled and tossed, since hope was lost, there was left but life to save;
Beaten back on the travelled track, they faltered, and broke, and fled,
And, swinging his scythe, Death claimed his tithe in the pale and patient dead!
For the arm of the Lord had raised the sword that man may not gainsay,
[...] Read more
poem by Guy Wetmore Carryl from The Garden of Years and Other Poems (1898)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Witch of Hebron
A Rabbinical Legend
Part I.
From morn until the setting of the sun
The rabbi Joseph on his knees had prayed,
And, as he rose with spirit meek and strong,
An Indian page his presence sought, and bowed
Before him, saying that a lady lay
Sick unto death, tormented grievously,
Who begged the comfort of his holy prayers.
The rabbi, ever to the call of grief
Open as day, arose; and girding straight
His robe about him, with the page went forth;
Who swiftly led him deep into the woods
That hung, heap over heap, like broken clouds
On Hebron’s southern terraces; when lo!
Across a glade a stately pile he saw,
With gleaming front, and many-pillared porch
Fretted with sculptured vinage, flowers and fruit,
And carven figures wrought with wondrous art
As by some Phidian hand.
But interposed
For a wide space in front, and belting all
The splendid structure with a finer grace,
A glowing garden smiled; its breezes bore
Airs as from paradise, so rich the scent
That breathed from shrubs and flowers; and fair the growths
Of higher verdure, gemm’d with silver blooms,
Which glassed themselves in fountains gleaming light
Each like a shield of pearl.
Within the halls
Strange splendour met the rabbi’s careless eyes,
Halls wonderful in their magnificance,
With pictured walls, and columns gleaming white
Like Carmel’s snow, or blue-veined as with life;
Through corridors he passed with tissues hung
Inwrought with threaded gold by Sidon’s art,
Or rich as sunset clouds with Tyrian dye;
Past lofty chambers, where the gorgeous gleam
Of jewels, and the stainèd radiance
Of golden lamps, showed many a treasure rare
Of Indian and Armenian workmanship
Which might have seemed a wonder of the world:
And trains of servitors of every clime,
Greeks, Persians, Indians, Ethiopians,
In richest raiment thronged the spacious halls.
[...] Read more
poem by Charles Harpur
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The Peterloo Massacre
The people marched to St. Peter's Field
On a fair and a sunny day,
They'd gone to listen to Henry Hunt
A radical, in his way,
For Manchester was a ruin then,
The people could beg or starve,
For the looms were sitting in silence there
With the wages more than halved.
The government passed the Corn Laws
To protect the growers at home,
But the British corn was inferior,
And the price quite overblown,
The people, faced with a famine sought
To reform the parliament,
A million folk in Manchester,
With just two to represent.
And only a hundred and fifty were
Electors, here I quote,
Not like the rotten boroughs that
Survived on a single vote,
The people marched on St. Peter's Field
While the government sent Hussars,
Fearing the spread of dissidence,
After Napoleon's wars.
The police were there and the yeomanry
As they came from near and far,
And William Hulton, magistrate,
The head of the Northern Bar,
His name was writ on a plaque of blood
In the nether depths of hell,
When he signed the letters to start the charge
On a people that just meant well.
There was no honour or glory there
But a cry of endless shame,
When Lieutenant Colonel Guy L'Estrange
Blackened his soldiers name,
For the horses trampled the people
And the sabres flashed in the air,
While many a woman was trampled to death
By the horses hooves out there.
Margaret Downes was sabred, Mary
Heys was trampled and crushed,
William Bradshaw shot in the head,
They died, it was so unjust,
Martha Partington died on the spot,
[...] Read more
poem by David Lewis Paget
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The Fields Of Flanders
Last year the fields were all glad and gay
With silver daisies and silver may;
There were kingcups gold by the river's edge
And primrose stars under every hedge.
This year the fields are trampled and brown,
The hedges are broken and beaten down,
And where the primroses used to grow
Are little black crosses set in a row.
And the flower of hopes, and the flowers of dreams,
The noble, fruitful, beautiful schemes,
The tree of life with its fruit and bud,
Are trampled down in the mud and the blood.
The changing seasons will bring again
The magic of Spring to our wood and plain;
Though the Spring be so green as never was seen
The crosses will still be black in the green.
The God of battles shall judge the foe
Who trampled our country and laid her low. . . .
God! hold our hands on the reckoning day,
Lest all we owe them we should repay
poem by Edith Nesbit
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Any political party that undertakes to do it will, in God's name, be trampled, as it ought to be trampled, into the dust of condemnation, now and in the future.
quote by Richard Parks Bland
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The Corsair
'O'er the glad waters of the dark blue sea,
Our thoughts as boundless, and our soul's as free
Far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam,
Survey our empire, and behold our home!
These are our realms, no limits to their sway-
Our flag the sceptre all who meet obey.
Ours the wild life in tumult still to range
From toil to rest, and joy in every change.
Oh, who can tell? not thou, luxurious slave!
Whose soul would sicken o'er the heaving wave;
Not thou, vain lord of wantonness and ease!
whom slumber soothes not - pleasure cannot please -
Oh, who can tell, save he whose heart hath tried,
And danced in triumph o'er the waters wide,
The exulting sense - the pulse's maddening play,
That thrills the wanderer of that trackless way?
That for itself can woo the approaching fight,
And turn what some deem danger to delight;
That seeks what cravens shun with more than zeal,
And where the feebler faint can only feel -
Feel - to the rising bosom's inmost core,
Its hope awaken and Its spirit soar?
No dread of death if with us die our foes -
Save that it seems even duller than repose:
Come when it will - we snatch the life of life -
When lost - what recks it but disease or strife?
Let him who crawls enamour'd of decay,
Cling to his couch, and sicken years away:
Heave his thick breath, and shake his palsied head;
Ours - the fresh turf; and not the feverish bed.
While gasp by gasp he falters forth his soul,
Ours with one pang - one bound - escapes control.
His corse may boast its urn and narrow cave,
And they who loath'd his life may gild his grave:
Ours are the tears, though few, sincerely shed,
When Ocean shrouds and sepulchres our dead.
For us, even banquets fond regret supply
In the red cup that crowns our memory;
And the brief epitaph in danger's day,
When those who win at length divide the prey,
And cry, Remembrance saddening o'er each brow,
How had the brave who fell exulted now!'
II.
Such were the notes that from the Pirate's isle
Around the kindling watch-fire rang the while:
Such were the sounds that thrill'd the rocks along,
And unto ears as rugged seem'd a song!
In scatter'd groups upon the golden sand,
They game-carouse-converse-or whet the brand:
[...] Read more
Alsace-Lorraine
I
The sister Hours in circles linked,
Daughters of men, of men the mates,
Are gone on flow with the day that winked,
With the night that spanned at golden gates.
Mothers, they leave us, quickening seed;
They bear us grain or flower or weed,
As we have sown; is nought extinct
For them we fill to be our Fates.
Life of the breath is but the loan;
Passing death what we have sown.
Pearly are they till the pale inherited stain
Deepens in us, and the mirrors they form on their flow
Darken to feature and nature: a volumed chain,
Sequent of issue, in various eddies they show.
Theirs is the Book of the River of Life, to read
Leaf by leaf by reapers of long-sown seed:
There doth our shoot up to light from a spiriting sane
Stand as a tree whereon numberless clusters grow:
Legible there how the heart, with its one false move
Cast Eurydice pallor on all we love.
Our fervid heart has filled that Book in chief;
Our fitful heart a wild reflection views;
Our craving heart of passion suckling grief
Disowns the author's work it must peruse;
Inconscient in its leap to wreak the deed,
A round of harvests red from crimson seed,
It marks the current Hours show leaf by leaf,
And rails at Destiny; nor traces clues;
Though sometimes it may think what novel light
Will strike their faces when the mind shall write.
II
Succourful daughters of men are the rosed and starred
Revolving Twelves in their fluent germinal rings,
Despite the burden to chasten, abase, depose.
Fallen on France, as the sweep of scythe over sward,
They breathed in her ear their voice of the crystal springs,
That run from a twilight rise, from a twilight close,
Through alternate beams and glooms, rejoicingly young.
Only to Earth's best loved, at the breathless turns
Where Life in fold of the Shadow reclines unstrung,
And a ghostly lamp of their moment's union burns,
Will such pure notes from the fountain-head be sung.
Voice of Earth's very soul to the soul she would see renewed:
[...] Read more
poem by George Meredith
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The Iliad: Book 4
Now the gods were sitting with Jove in council upon the golden floor
while Hebe went round pouring out nectar for them to drink, and as
they pledged one another in their cups of gold they looked down upon
the town of Troy. The son of Saturn then began to tease Juno,
talking at her so as to provoke her. "Menelaus," said he, "has two
good friends among the goddesses, Juno of Argos, and Minerva of
Alalcomene, but they only sit still and look on, while Venus keeps
ever by Alexandrus' side to defend him in any danger; indeed she has
just rescued him when he made sure that it was all over with him-
for the victory really did lie with Menelaus. We must consider what we
shall do about all this; shall we set them fighting anew or make peace
between them? If you will agree to this last Menelaus can take back
Helen and the city of Priam may remain still inhabited."
Minerva and Juno muttered their discontent as they sat side by
side hatching mischief for the Trojans. Minerva scowled at her father,
for she was in a furious passion with him, and said nothing, but
Juno could not contain herself. "Dread son of Saturn," said she,
"what, pray, is the meaning of all this? Is my trouble, then, to go
for nothing, and the sweat that I have sweated, to say nothing of my
horses, while getting the people together against Priam and his
children? Do as you will, but we other gods shall not all of us
approve your counsel."
Jove was angry and answered, "My dear, what harm have Priam and
his sons done you that you are so hotly bent on sacking the city of
Ilius? Will nothing do for you but you must within their walls and eat
Priam raw, with his sons and all the other Trojans to boot? Have it
your own way then; for I would not have this matter become a bone of
contention between us. I say further, and lay my saying to your heart,
if ever I want to sack a city belonging to friends of yours, you
must not try to stop me; you will have to let me do it, for I am
giving in to you sorely against my will. Of all inhabited cities under
the sun and stars of heaven, there was none that I so much respected
as Ilius with Priam and his whole people. Equitable feasts were
never wanting about my altar, nor the savour of burning fat, which
is honour due to ourselves."
"My own three favourite cities," answered Juno, "are Argos,
Sparta, and Mycenae. Sack them whenever you may be displeased with
them. I shall not defend them and I shall not care. Even if I did, and
tried to stay you, I should take nothing by it, for you are much
stronger than I am, but I will not have my own work wasted. I too am a
god and of the same race with yourself. I am Saturn's eldest daughter,
and am honourable not on this ground only, but also because I am
your wife, and you are king over the gods. Let it be a case, then,
of give-and-take between us, and the rest of the gods will follow
our lead. Tell Minerva to go and take part in the fight at once, and
let her contrive that the Trojans shall be the first to break their
oaths and set upon the Achaeans."
The sire of gods and men heeded her words, and said to Minerva,
"Go at once into the Trojan and Achaean hosts, and contrive that the
Trojans shall be the first to break their oaths and set upon the
[...] Read more
poem by Homer, translated by Samuel Butler
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Cyder: Book II
O Harcourt, Whom th' ingenuous Love of Arts
Has carry'd from Thy native Soil, beyond
Th' eternal Alpine Snows, and now detains
In Italy's waste Realms, how long must we
Lament Thy Absence? Whilst in sweet Sojourn
Thou view'st the Reliques of old Rome; or what,
Unrival'd Authors by their Presence, made
For ever venerable, rural Seats,
Tibur, and Tusculum, or Virgil's Urn
Green with immortal Bays, which haply Thou,
Respecting his great Name, dost now approach
With bended Knee, and strow with purple Flow'rs;
Unmindful of Thy Friends, that ill can brook
This long Delay. At length, Dear Youth, return,
Of Wit, and Judgement ripe in blooming Years,
And Britain's Isle with Latian Knowledge grace.
Return, and let Thy Father's Worth excite
Thirst of Preeminence; see! how the Cause
Of Widows, and of Orphans He asserts
With winning Rhetoric, and well argu'd Law!
Mark well His Footsteps, and, like Him, deserve
Thy Prince's Favour, and Thy Country's Love.
Mean while (altho' the Massic Grape delights
Pregnant of racy Juice, and Formian Hills
Temper Thy Cups, yet) wilt not Thou reject
Thy native Liquors: Lo! for Thee my Mill
Now grinds choice Apples, and the British Vats
O'erflow with generous Cyder; far remote
Accept this Labour, nor despise the Muse,
That, passing Lands, and Seas, on Thee attends.
Thus far of Trees: The pleasing Task remains,
To sing of Wines, and Autumn's blest Increase.
Th' Effects of Art are shewn, yet what avails
'Gainst Heav'n? Oft, notwithstanding all thy Care
To help thy Plants, when the small Fruit'ry seems
Exempt from Ills, an oriental Blast
Disastrous flies, soon as the Hind, fatigu'd,
Unyokes his Team; the tender Freight, unskill'd
To bear the hot Disease, distemper'd pines
In the Year's Prime, the deadly Plague annoys
The wide Inclosure; think not vainly now
To treat thy Neighbours with mellifluous Cups,
Thus disappointed: If the former Years
Exhibit no Supplies, alas! thou must,
With tastless Water wash thy droughty Throat.
A thousand Accidents the Farmer's Hopes
Subvert, or checque; uncertain all his Toil,
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poem by John Arthur Phillips
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Poetry: A Metrical Essay, Read Before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, Harvard
To Charles Wentworth Upham, the Following Metrical Essay is Affectionately Inscribed.
Scenes of my youth! awake its slumbering fire!
Ye winds of Memory, sweep the silent lyre!
Ray of the past, if yet thou canst appear,
Break through the clouds of Fancy’s waning year;
Chase from her breast the thin autumnal snow,
If leaf or blossom still is fresh below!
Long have I wandered; the returning tide
Brought back an exile to his cradle’s side;
And as my bark her time-worn flag unrolled,
To greet the land-breeze with its faded fold,
So, in remembrance of my boyhood’s time,
I lift these ensigns of neglected rhyme;
Oh, more than blest, that, all my wanderings through,
My anchor falls where first my pennons flew!
-----------------
The morning light, which rains its quivering beams
Wide o’er the plains, the summits, and the streams,
In one broad blaze expands its golden glow
On all that answers to its glance below;
Yet, changed on earth, each far reflected ray
Braids with fresh hues the shining brow of day;
Now, clothed in blushes by the painted flowers,
Tracks on their cheeks the rosy-fingered hours;
Now, lost in shades, whose dark entangled leaves
Drip at the noontide from their pendent eaves,
Fades into gloom, or gleams in light again
From every dew-drop on the jewelled plain.
We, like the leaf, the summit, or the wave,
Reflect the light our common nature gave,
But every sunbeam, falling from her throne,
Wears on our hearts some coloring of our own
Chilled in the slave, and burning in the free,
Like the sealed cavern by the sparkling sea;
Lost, like the lightning in the sullen clod,
Or shedding radiance, like the smiles of God;
Pure, pale in Virtue, as the star above,
Or quivering roseate on the leaves of Love;
Glaring like noontide, where it glows upon
Ambition’s sands,—Âthe desert in the sun,—Â
Or soft suffusing o’er the varied scene
Life’s common coloring,—Âintellectual green.
Thus Heaven, repeating its material plan,
Arched over all the rainbow mind of man;
But he who, blind to universal laws,
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poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
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The Burden Of Itys
THIS English Thames is holier far than Rome,
Those harebells like a sudden flush of sea
Breaking across the woodland, with the foam
Of meadow-sweet and white anemone
To fleck their blue waves,--God is likelier there,
Than hidden in that crystal-hearted star the pale monks bear!
Those violet-gleaming butterflies that take
Yon creamy lily for their pavilion
Are monsignores, and where the rushes shake
A lazy pike lies basking in the sun
His eyes half-shut,--He is some mitred old
Bishop in partibus! look at those gaudy scales all green and gold.
The wind the restless prisoner of the trees
Does well for Palæstrina, one would say
The mighty master's hands were on the keys
Of the Maria organ, which they play
When early on some sapphire Easter morn
In a high litter red as blood or sin the Pope is borne
From his dark House out to the Balcony
Above the bronze gates and the crowded square,
Whose very fountains seem for ecstasy
To toss their silver lances in the air,
And stretching out weak hands to East and West
In vain sends peace to peaceless lands, to restless nations rest.
Is not yon lingering orange afterglow
That stays to vex the moon more fair than all
Rome's lordliest pageants! strange, a year ago
I knelt before some crimson Cardinal
Who bare the Host across the Esquiline,
And now--those common poppies in the wheat seem twice as fine.
The blue-green beanfields yonder, tremulous
With the last shower, sweeter perfume bring
Through this cool evening than the odorous
Flame-jewelled censers the young deacons swing,
When the grey priest unlocks the curtained shrine,
And makes God's body from the common fruit of corn and vine.
Poor Fra Giovanni bawling at the mass
Were out of tune now, for a small brown bird
Sings overhead, and through the long cool grass
I see that throbbing throat which once I heard
On starlit hills of flower-starred Arcady,
Once where the white and crescent sand of Salamis meets sea.
Sweet is the swallow twittering on the eaves
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poem by Oscar Wilde
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The Lay of the Last Minstrel: Canto II.
I.
If thou would'st view fair Melrose aright,
Go visit it by the pale moonlight;
For the gay beams of lightsome day
Gild, but to flout, the ruins grey.
When the broken arches are black in night,
And each shafted oriel glimmers white;
When the cold light's uncertain shower
Streams on the ruin'd central tower;
When buttress and buttress, alternately,
Seem framed of ebon and ivory;
When silver edges the imagery,
And the scrolls that teach thee to live and die;
When distant Tweed is heard to rave,
And the owlet to hoot o'er the dead man's grave,
Then go-but go alone the while-
Then view St. David's ruin'd pile;
And, home returning, soothly swear,
Was never scene so sad and fair!
II
Short halt did Deloraine make there;
Little reck'd he of the scene so fair;
With dagger's hilt, on the wicket strong,
He struck full loud, and struck full long.
The porter hurried to the gate-
'Who knocks so loud, and knocks so late?'
'From Branksome I,' the warrior cried;
And straight the wicket open'd wide:
For Branksome's Chiefs had in battle stood,
To fence the rights of fair Melrose;
And lands and livings, many a rood,
Had gifted the shrine for their souls' repose.
III
Bold Deloraine his errand said;
The porter bent his humble head;
With torch in hand, and feet unshod,
And noiseless step, the path he trod,
The arched cloister, far and wide,
Rang to the warrior's clanking stride,
Till, stooping low his lofty crest,
He enter'd the cell of the ancient priest,
And lifted his barred aventayle,
To hail the Monk of St Mary's aisle.
IV
'The Ladye of Branksome greets thee by me,
Says, that the fated hour is come,
And that to-night I shall watch with thee,
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poem by Sir Walter Scott
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The Ride to Melrose, from The Lay of the Last Minstrel.
CANTO I.XIX.
The Lady sought the lofty hall,
Where many a bold retainer lay,
And with jocund din among them all,
Her son pursued his infant play.
A fancied moss-trooper, the boy
The truncheon of a spear bestrode,
And round the hall right merrily
In mimic foray rode.
Even bearded knights, in arms grown old,
Share in his frolic gambols bore,
Albeit their hearts of rugged mould
Were stubborn as the steel they wore.
For the gray warriors prophesied
How the brave boy, in future war,
Should tame the Unicorn's pride,
Exalt the Crescent and the Star.XX.
The Ladye forgot her purpose high
One moment and no more;
One moment gazed with a mother's eye,
As she paused at the arched door:
Then from amid the armed train,
She called to her William of Deloraine.XXI.
A stark moss-trooping Scott was he
As e'er couch'd Border lance by knee:
Through Solway sands, through Tarras moss,
Blindfold he knew the paths to cross;
By wily turns, by desperate bounds,
Had baffled Percy's best blood-hounds;
In Eske or Liddel, fords were none,
But he would ride them, one by one;
Alike to him was time or tide,
December's snow or July's pride;
Alike to him was tide or time,
Moonless midnight or matin prime:
Steady of heart and stout of hand
As ever drove prey from Cumberland;
Five times outlawed had he been
By England's King and Scotland's Queen.XXII.
'Sir William of Deloraine, good at need,
Mount thee on the wightest steed;
Spare not to spur, nor stint to ride,
Until thou come to fair Tweedside;
And in Melrose's holy pile
Seek thou the Monk of St. Mary's aisle.
Greet the father well from me;
Say that the fated hour is come,
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poem by Sir Walter Scott
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The Tale of the Tiger-Tree
A Fantasy, dedicated to the little poet Alice Oliver Henderson, ten years old.
The Fantasy shows how tiger-hearts are the cause of war in all ages. It shows how the mammoth forces may be either friends or enemies of the struggle for peace. It shows how the dream of peace is unconquerable and eternal.
I
Peace-of-the-Hea rt, my own for long,
Whose shining hair the May-winds fan,
Making it tangled as they can,
A mystery still, star-shining yet,
Through ancient ages known to me
And now once more reborn with me: —
This is the tale of the Tiger Tree
A hundred times the height of a man,
Lord of the race since the world began.
This is my city Springfield,
My home on the breast of the plain.
The state house towers to heaven,
By an arsenal gray as the rain...
And suddenly all is mist,
And I walk in a world apart,
In the forest-age when I first knelt down
At your feet, O Peace-of-the-Heart.
This is the wonder of twilight:
Three times as high as the dome
Tiger-striped trees encircle the town,
Golden geysers of foam.
While giant white parrots sail past in their pride.
The roofs now are clouds and storms that they ride.
And there with the huntsmen of mound-builder days
Through jungle and meadow I stride.
And the Tiger Tree leaf is falling around
As it fell when the world began:
Like a monstrous tiger-skin, stretched on the ground,
Or the cloak of a medicine man.
A deep-crumpled gossamer web,
Fringed with the fangs of a snake.
The wind swirls it down from the leperous boughs.
It shimmers on clay-hill and lake,
With the gleam of great bubbles of blood,
Or coiled like a rainbow shell....
I feast on the stem of the Leaf as I march.
I am burning with Heaven and Hell.
II
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poem by Vachel Lindsay
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