Citatepedia^®.com

Tomb Of Life

Forgetfulness
by the flames
of embrace
and the departure
of child development
The only day in existence
when It's not
a snow day
I shall cross paths
on the iron bridge
not to be deleted
but to frolic away
in confidence

poem by Shai Cherry
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Song Of The Evergreens

Listen to the briskly whistling winter evergreen
Whispering through the frozen morning light
And tell me whats to come
Saying my time is near
Never fear
I close each year
Im winter
Reminding me to trade my t-shirts for my woven wools
Trade my sandals for my skis
Whispered warnings in the wind
Saying soon come the dancing snowflakes
Theyre kissing every tree
Theyre kissing you and me
Please hurry
Falling
Dazzling dancing diamonds from the sky
Prisms
Rainbow sparkled flurries in our eyes
Whipping across the frozen crystal meadow
Pond of ice
Race the snow
Well build a warming fire there
And cuddle close and wine and dine
The setting sun
The morning light will find us high
Shooting down the glistening mountain side
Screaming through the whispering pines
The freedom of each day
Will cleanse our minds
I can hardly wait for winter
I can hardly wait for the snow
I can hardly hardly wait for winter
I can hardly wait for the snow
Snow snow snow snow snow snow snow snow
Snow snow snow snow snow snow snow snow
Snow snow snow snow snow snow snow snow
Snow snow snow snow snow snow snow snow
Snow snow snow snow snow snow snow snow
Snow snow snow snow snow snow snow snow
Snow snow snow snow snow snow snow snow
Snow snow snow snow snow snow snow snow
Snow snow snow snow snow snow snow snow
Snow snow snow snow snow snow snow snow
Snow snow snow snow snow snow snow snow
Snow snow snow snow snow snow snow snow
Snow snow snow snow snow snow snow snow
Snow snow snow snow snow snow snow snow

song performed by Chicago
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Song of Wink Star

The Song of Wink Star
a happy story for children of all ages
story and text © Raj Arumugam, June 2008

☼ ☼

☼ Preamble

Come…children all, children of all ages…sit close and listen…
Come and listen to this happy story of the stars and of life…
Come children of the universe, children of all nations and of all races, and of all climates and of all kinds of space and dimensions and universes…
Come, dearest children of all beings of the living universe, come and listen to The Song of Wink Star…

Come and listen to this story, this happy story…listen, as the story itself sings to you…

Sit close then, and listen to the story that was not made by any, or written by a poet, or fashioned by grandfathers and grandmothers warming themselves at the fire of burning stars…

O dearest children all, come and listen to the story that lives
of itself, and that glows bright and happy….

Come…children all, children of all ages, come and listen to this happy story, the story so natural and smooth as life, as it sings itself to you….

☼ The Song of Wink Star
a happy story for children of all ages

☼ 1

Night Child, always so light and gentle, slept on a flower.
And every night, before he went to sleep, he would look up at the sky.
He would look at the eastern corner, five o’clock.

And there he would see all the stars in near and distant galaxies that were only visible to the People of Star Eyes.

Night Child was one of the People of Star Eyes. And so he could see the stars. And of all the stars he could see, he loved to watch Wink Star.

Wink Star twinkled and winked and laughed.
Every night Wink Star did that. Winked and laughed.

[...] Read more

poem by Raj Arumugam
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

The mother and the artist

A mother might bear just a single child in 9 months; but an artist blossoms
into an infinite children of wonderfully emollient freshness; every
unfurling instant of impregnably magnificent existence,

A mother might bear just a single child in 9 months; but an artist blossoms
into an infinite children of spellbindingly undefeated innocence; every
unfurling instant of symbiotically pristine existence,

A mother might bear just a single child in 9 months; but an artist blossoms
into an infinite children of timelessly unconquerable truth; every unfurling
instant of bounteously magnanimous existence,

A mother might bear just a single child in 9 months; but an artist blossoms
into an infinite children of unfathomably unfettered creativity; every
unfurling instant of timelessly burgeoning existence,

A mother might bear just a single child in 9 months; but an artist blossoms
into an infinite children of royally triumphant resplendence; every
unfurling instant of unconquerably majestic existence,

A mother might bear just a single child in 9 months; but an artist blossoms
into an infinite children of eternally exhilarating vivaciousness; every
unfurling instant of redolently insuperable existence,

A mother might bear just a single child in 9 months; but an artist blossoms
into an infinite children of unbelievably ameliorating optimism; every
unfurling instant of marvelously benign existence,

A mother might bear just a single child in 9 months; but an artist blossoms
into an infinite children of brilliantly liberated camaraderie; every
unfurling instant of iridescently inscrutable existence,

A mother might bear just a single child in 9 months; but an artist blossoms
into an infinite children of unshakably virgin righteousness; every
unfurling instant of beautifully untainted existence,

A mother might bear just a single child in 9 months; but an artist blossoms
into an infinite children of uninhibitedly heavenly frolic; every unfurling
instant of tantalizingly sensuous existence,

A mother might bear just a single child in 9 months; but an artist blossoms
into an infinite children of compassionately humanitarian friendship; every
unfurling instant of magically mitigating existence,

A mother might bear just a single child in 9 months; but an artist blossoms
into an infinite children of miraculously everlasting freshness; every
unfurling instant of invincibly coalescing existence,

A mother might bear just a single child in 9 months; but an artist blossoms
into an infinite children of pricelessly ubiquitous oneness; every unfurling

[...] Read more

poem by Nikhil Parekh
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

On A Path Of Least Resistance

I'm on a path of least resistance.
And its existence.
On a path of least resistance.

I'm on a path of least resistance,
And its existence.
On a path of least resistance.

Pain,
And its existence.
Felt,
And its existence.
Hurts,
In this existence...
And I need to get away.

Pain,
And its existence.
Felt,
And its existence.
Hurts,
In this existence...
And I need to get away.

I'm on a path of least resistance.
And its existence.
On a path of least resistance,
And I need to get away.

I'm on a path of least resistance.
And its existence.
On a path of least resistance,
And I need to get away.
Oh!
Pain,
And its existence.
Oh.
Felt,
And its existence.
Oh.
Hurts,
In this existence...
And I need to get away.

Oh pain,
And its existence.
Oh.
Felt,
And its existence.
Oh.

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Song Of Being A Child

When the child was a child
It walked with arms hanging
Wanted the stream to be a river and the river a torrent
And this puddle, the sea
When the child was a child, it didnt know
It was a child
Everything for it was filled with life and all life was one
Saw the horizon without trying to reach it
Couldnt rush itself and think on command
Was often terribly bored
And couldnt wait
Passed up greeting the moments
And prayed only with its lips
When the child was a child
It didnt have an opinion about a thing
Had no habits
Often sat crossed-legged, took off running
Had a cow lick in its hair
And didnt put on a face when photographed
When the child was a child
It was the time of the following questions
Why am I me and why not you
Why am I here and why not there
Why did time begin and where does space end
Isnt what I see and hear and smell
Just the appearance of the world in front of the world
Isnt life under the sun just a dream
Does evil actually exist in people
Who really are evil
Why cant it be that I who am
Wasnt before I was
And that sometime i, the i, I am
No longer will be the i, I am
When the child was a child
It gagged on spinach, on peas, on rice pudding
And on steamed cauliflower
And now eats all of it and not just because it has to
When the child was a child
It woke up once in a strange bed
And now time and time again
Many people seem beautiful to it
And now not so many and now only if its lucky
It had a precise picture of paradise
And now can only vaguely conceive of it at best
It couldnt imagine nothingness
And today shudders in the face of it
Go for the ball
Which today rolls between its legs
With its Im here it came
Into the house which now is empty

[...] Read more

song performed by Van Morrison
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

On Hand Held Screens

Have I survived to realize,
Technology has taken over...
All of our lives.

Few talk but they text.
And...
Bloggers tweet to speak.
And...
Many don't suspect,
Their twitterings have been breached..

Video games can now be played,
Between those who are far away.
And do not have to be seen,
In person but on hand held screens.

Few talk but they text.
And...
Bloggers tweet to speak.
And...
Have I survived to realize,
Technology has taken over...
All of our lives.
And...
Friendships can be deleted,
Before these people meet.

Few talk but they text.
And...
Bloggers tweet to speak.
And...
Many don't suspect,
Their twitterings have been breached..

Video games can now be played,
Between those who are far away.
And don't have to be seen,
In person but on hand held screens.

And...
Deleted,
Before they meet.
And...
Deleted,
Before they speak.
And...
Many don't suspect,
Their twitterings have been breached.
And don't have to be seen,
In person but on hand held screens.

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Annus Mirabilis, The Year Of Wonders, 1666

1
In thriving arts long time had Holland grown,
Crouching at home and cruel when abroad:
Scarce leaving us the means to claim our own;
Our King they courted, and our merchants awed.

2
Trade, which, like blood, should circularly flow,
Stopp'd in their channels, found its freedom lost:
Thither the wealth of all the world did go,
And seem'd but shipwreck'd on so base a coast.

3
For them alone the heavens had kindly heat;
In eastern quarries ripening precious dew:
For them the Idumaean balm did sweat,
And in hot Ceylon spicy forests grew.

4
The sun but seem'd the labourer of the year;
Each waxing moon supplied her watery store,
To swell those tides, which from the line did bear
Their brimful vessels to the Belgian shore.

5
Thus mighty in her ships, stood Carthage long,
And swept the riches of the world from far;
Yet stoop'd to Rome, less wealthy, but more strong:
And this may prove our second Punic war.

6
What peace can be, where both to one pretend?
(But they more diligent, and we more strong)
Or if a peace, it soon must have an end;
For they would grow too powerful, were it long.

7
Behold two nations, then, engaged so far
That each seven years the fit must shake each land:
Where France will side to weaken us by war,
Who only can his vast designs withstand.

8
See how he feeds the Iberian with delays,
To render us his timely friendship vain:
And while his secret soul on Flanders preys,
He rocks the cradle of the babe of Spain.

9
Such deep designs of empire does he lay

[...] Read more

poem by John Dryden
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

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
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Sixth Book

THE English have a scornful insular way
Of calling the French light. The levity
Is in the judgment only, which yet stands;
For say a foolish thing but oft enough,
(And here's the secret of a hundred creeds,–
Men get opinions as boys learn to spell,
By re-iteration chiefly) the same thing
Shall pass at least for absolutely wise,
And not with fools exclusively. And so,
We say the French are light, as if we said
The cat mews, or the milch-cow gives us milk:
Say rather, cats are milked, and milch cows mew,
For what is lightness but inconsequence,
Vague fluctuation 'twixt effect and cause,
Compelled by neither? Is a bullet light,
That dashes from the gun-mouth, while the eye
Winks, and the heart beats one, to flatten itself
To a wafer on the white speck on a wall
A hundred paces off? Even so direct,
So sternly undivertible of aim,
Is this French people.
All idealists
Too absolute and earnest, with them all
The idea of a knife cuts real flesh;
And still, devouring the safe interval
Which Nature placed between the thought and act,
They threaten conflagration to the world
And rush with most unscrupulous logic on
Impossible practice. Set your orators
To blow upon them with loud windy mouths
Through watchword phrases, jest or sentiment,
Which drive our burley brutal English mobs
Like so much chaff, whichever way they blow,–
This light French people will not thus be driven.
They turn indeed; but then they turn upon
Some central pivot of their thought and choice,
And veer out by the force of holding fast.
–That's hard to understand, for Englishmen
Unused to abstract questions, and untrained
To trace the involutions, valve by valve,
In each orbed bulb-root of a general truth,
And mark what subtly fine integument
Divides opposed compartments. Freedom's self
Comes concrete to us, to be understood,
Fixed in a feudal form incarnately
To suit our ways of thought and reverence,
The special form, with us, being still the thing.
With us, I say, though I'm of Italy
My mother's birth and grave, by father's grave
And memory; let it be,–a poet's heart

[...] Read more

poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning from Aurora Leigh (1856)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Child Molester

Note- I wanted to write something something darker and deeper then what I currently have been.

This is what came out.

Dark Rewrite of Britney Spear's Womanizer

Storyline-One woman takes the stand that no one else will to save her street from the unthinkable

Perverted neighbor
I know where you're from
I think it's best you get your twisted... going
Got more then just a clue what you're up to
You can play squeaky clean tp all the others gathered here
But I know what you really are, what you really are sickie

Look at you
Tryin' to act so on the up and up
Sickie, you
Got everyone else here fooled
But not me, oh no, not me
Fakin' like deep down you're a good one
Let's just lay our cards out on the table
Get it all out now
Call 'em like we both know 'em

Child molester, child-child molester
You're a child molester
Oh, child molester, oh you're a child molester, sickie
You-you know-you know you are
You-you know-you know you are
Child molester, child molester, child molester

Sicko, don't try stage that front
Oh no, no, not with me
Cos I know just-just what you are, ah, ah, what you are
Sicko, don't try to stage that front
Oh no, no, not with me
Cos I know just-just what you are, ah, ah, what you are
(Spoken) You got some kind of twisted game goin'
You got them all believin' you're so charmin'
But I won't let you keep on doin' it
You child molester

Sicko, don't try stage that front
Oh no, no, not with me
Cos I know just-just what you are, ah, ah, what you are
Sicko, don't try to stage that front
Oh no, no, not with me
Cos I know just-just what you are, ah, ah, what you are
(Spoken) You say I'm crazy

[...] Read more

poem by Ramona Thompson
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

The Book of Urizen

PRELUDIUM TO THE [FIRST] BOOK OF URIZEN

Of the primeval Priests assum'd power,
When Eternals spurn'd back his religion;
And gave him a place in the north,
Obscure, shadowy, void, solitary.
Eternals I hear your call gladly,
Dictate swift winged words, & fear not
To unfold your dark visions of torment.

Chap: I

1. Lo, a shadow of horror is risen
In Eternity! Unknown, unprolific!
Self-closd, all-repelling: what Demon
Hath form'd this abominable void
This soul-shudd'ring vacuum? — Some said
"It is Urizen", But unknown, abstracted
Brooding secret, the dark power hid.

2. Times on times he divided, & measur'd
Space by space in his ninefold darkness
Unseen, unknown! changes appeard
In his desolate mountains rifted furious
By the black winds of perturbation

3. For he strove in battles dire
In unseen conflictions with shapes
Bred from his forsaken wilderness,
Of beast, bird, fish, serpent & element
Combustion, blast, vapour and cloud.

4. Dark revolving in silent activity:
Unseen in tormenting passions;
An activity unknown and horrible;
A self-contemplating shadow,
In enormous labours occupied

5. But Eternals beheld his vast forests
Age on ages he lay, clos'd, unknown
Brooding shut in the deep; all avoid
The petrific abominable chaos

6. His cold horrors silent, dark Urizen
Prepar'd: his ten thousands of thunders
Rang'd in gloom'd array stretch out across
The dread world, & the rolling of wheels
As of swelling seas, sound in his clouds
In his hills of stor'd snows, in his mountains

[...] Read more

poem by William Blake (1794)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Rags & Old Iron

Norman curtis, oscar brown jr
Rags old iron rags old iron
All he was buying was just rags and old iron
I heard that old rag man now making his rounds
He came right to my alley lord with sorrowful sounds
Crying rags old iron and pulling his cart
Ask him how much hed give me for my broken heart
Rags old iron rags old iron
All he was buying was just rags and old iron
So I asked that old rag man how much he would pay
For a heart that was broken baby when you went away
For a burnt out old love light that no longer beams
And a couple of slightly used second hand dreams
Rags old iron rags old iron
All he was buying was just rags and old iron
For those big empty promises you used to make
For those memories of you that are no longer sweet
I wish he could haul them off down the street
Rags old iron rags old iron
All he was buying was just rags and old iron
When love doesnt last tell me what is it worth
It was once mamas most precious possession on earth
When I asked that old rag man if hed like to buy
He just shook his head and continued to cry
Rags old iron rags old iron
All he was buying was just rags and old iron
Rags old iron rags old iron
Rags old iron rags old iron rags old iron

song performed by Nina Simone
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

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
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

The Impact Of Poverty On Education

THE IMPACT OF POVERTY ON EDUCATION.

INTRODUCTION

There are so many different tools that have been thought relevant in people’s developmental projects both at individual and societal levels. Education is one of such practical tools. Importantly to note, there are also various meanings that denote the broad term ‘education’. In this essay, however, we are mainly interested in defining formal education since our discussion will dwell much on it. According to Nwomonoh (1998) , formal education is the process of gaining knowledge, attitudes, information and skills during the course of life especially at school.

Though education is said to be so instrumental in human development but also in the revamping of world economies, it is very unfortunate that education systems, world wide, are being held to ransom all because of poverty at both governmental and household levels. According to Thibault (2009) , poverty means the shortage of common things such as food, clothing, shelter and safe drinking water, all of which determine our quality of life. It may also include lack of access to opportunities like education and employment which aid the escape of poverty.

Problems in our society are interconnected in one way or the other, just like poverty and personal family problems affect a student’s capability to learn. Improving education entails improving the living conditions of students. Having in mind that education is basically responsible for the development of many countries including Malawi, as the back ground suggests, we cannot afford to bypass such a vital element without a mention. Considering also the fact that poverty is one of the forces that come in the way; blocking the success of education, we feel it rational to look at how the two realities, education and poverty, affect each other both positively and negatively. That is also why we are convinced that this topic is worth studying. Our awareness of this source, poverty, and its impact on education will enable us devise some proper measures of intervention with the hope of minimizing the negative impact of poverty on education. This point, in short, explains the purpose of our investigation and why we are so passionate in getting into this research. During the whole discussion we are being guided by two questions thus, ‘does poverty really affect education? And if it does, what points do we have on the positive and negative impacts of poverty on education? ’

METHODOLOGY

The study was basically qualitative in approach because of the nature of the issue that was being addressed. This was the case because the issue of how poverty affects education, both positively and negatively is particularly very difficult to predict the conclusions without penetrating into the core of the issue. For instance, one may unreasonably rush into concluding that poverty affects education negatively only and we cannot even dare to speak of poverty affecting education positively. The study was conducted in three schools namely; Mulunguzi, Masongola and Chirunga Private Secondary schools in Zomba district between 24th April and 3rd May. In this research we used both government and private funded schools to have a more balanced result on how poverty affects formal education in these different institutions. The information required for the study was collected through group interviews of form three students and individual interviews with teachers using semi-structured interview schedules. We opted to use these interviews in the first place because we felt books are more theoretical whereas a field research is practical and it involves real life experiences. Nevertheless, we still used desk research as a supplementary source of information and for clarity in some areas.

RESULTS

Positive impacts of poverty on education
To begin with, poverty encourages one to get educated and of course work hard in class. This is because the problems faced due to poverty are very serious and therefore students who are from poverty stricken families strive to end the problems and one of the best solutions is through education. That is to say, if a person, for instance, due to poverty, is taking just a meal in a day instead of three meals, and again if he/she is sometimes sleeping on an empty stomach, he/she will resort to education bearing in mind that if he/she gets educated they will secure formal employment and eventually be able to make ends meet for themselves as well as fending for their families.

Not only does poverty encourage one to get educated, but also it helped in the introduction of free primary education. In Malawi, for instance, when Bakili Muluzi became president, he introduced free primary education and he had eliminated the requirements for school uniform forthwith (Kadzamira & Rose,2001) . This had increased the access to education dramatically as those pupils who were coming from less privileged families were also given access to this free primary education. It should also be noted that the free primary education system was not only implemented to fulfill an electoral pledge but also bearing in mind that some families were not able to send their children to school due to poverty. Free primary education was there to deal with illiteracy by reducing families’ direct costs of education. Again due to the influx in the number of pupils in primary schools; there was a lack of teachers. Sonani (2002) , testifies that the Ministry of Education re-employed all retired teachers below the age of 65. This also meant that the once retired teachers got back to their source of income which helped them support their families as well as hauling the economy of the country. The implementation of free primary education system in Malawi forced the government to provide infrastructures so as to accommodate the large number of pupils in these schools. Simply put, poverty had led to the introduction of free primary education which means that more children are going to school, and again more teachers are being trained and getting employed and finally the construction of school blocks culminating into infrastructural development, all these branching from poverty.

We may also look at poverty from a positive angle bearing in mind that when a country is poor more funds and donations come into it. These funds and donations are also given to the education sector to build new infrastructures and in the maintenance of already existing ones in the sector. These privileged countries also provide learning materials to schools that are poor as a result students in these less privileged schools perform well in accordance with the amount and quality of the learning materials that they have been provided with. For instance, a United States based non governmental organization known as “Water for People” handed over 44 water toilets they built to Chimwankhunda primary school. The school toilet facilities had been vandalized 11 years ago but because of poverty the school could not renovate them (Gausi,2007) .

In addition, these funds and donations help more people to get educated. This is so because people can use funds as school fees, pocket money and buy stationery. The donations may include library books, chairs and writing materials. These can make a conducive environment for one to learn since there will be enough facilities at the school. For instance, with funding from the “United States Agency for International Development” (USAID) ,3,300 needy Malawian primary school girls are being funded. They are being provided with food, clothing, school supplies and hygienic products like soap and body lotion (Muhaliwa,2005) . Likewise,500 pupils at Katoto primary school in Mzuzu no longer sit on the floors during lessons courtesy of Southern Bottlers Limited and Lions Club of Limbe. Before these funds and donations, pupils used to sit on the floor due to scarcity of desks. These donations improved the pupils’ school attendance in such a way that pupils have started going to school regularly.

In the same line, a needy student can be given a scholarship to go further with his/her education. In this case the scholarship is given to the person just because he/she cannot manage to pay school fees on her own. This in turn benefits the needy person and the community at large. In this situation poverty has assisted in the development of education in an area by beckoning funds and donations from rich countries and organisations.

Further more; in most cases poverty facilitates one’s ambitions to attain formal education. It becomes easier for a poor child to put much of his concentration on education as compared to a rich child. This is because a poverty stricken student will have less destructive materials for entertainment. He/she will also have less or no money to indulge him/herself in activities that require spending a lot of money for instance, drinking beer. Sometimes even if the child can find money he/she can buy basic needs and not just spending it anyhow. Contrast to this a rich child may obtain things like ipods, mp3s, games for entertainment. These things in most cases destruct the concentration of students in their studies. As a result, one’s class performance is negatively affected since most of his/her time is being spent on entertainment.

Negative impacts of poverty on education

Just as a coin has got two sides, a head and a tail, poverty also, apart from having positive impacts on education, it does have negative impacts on the same. We have talked much about the positive face of poverty on education. We shall surely do ourselves injustice if we do not look at the negative part. In spite of the fact that poverty has an impact on education that is worth complimenting, we cannot afford in this discussion to overlook the point that so many students have been forced to leave the corridors of learning institutions due to the same poverty. One of the reasons that force some students leave the learning institutions prematurely is pregnancy, which in most cases, come because of poverty. It is almost common knowledge that a good number of students who come from poor families wish they could be sailing in the same boat with those who come from well to do families as far as luxurious life is concerned. The poor students constantly feel that there is something missing at the core psychologically. With this feeling in their minds, they tend to regard themselves as incomplete and not accepted socially. Consequently, they envy the rich students and squarely want to posses the things that are associated with the rich students. Very unfortunate that the poor students’ parents cannot afford to fulfill their children’s desires like what the rich parents would provide. Because the pull towards recognition is too strong for the poor students to resist, they end up in indulging themselves into prostitution in their search for money. Pity indeed that instead of recreating, as anticipated, their promiscuous behavior sees most of them getting pregnant and for some very unfortunate ones get even HIV and other STIs. From this discussion, commonsense convinces us that this school dropp out due to pregnancy is one of the negative impacts of poverty on education.

Adding more flesh to this discussion, we can also appreciate that hunger has been so instrumental in bringing down the standards of education world wide, in general, and Malawi, in particular. Frankly speaking, there are very few students if not none, who concentrate on their studies on empty stomachs. Food is one of the basic needs that every person is obliged to have if he/she is to survive. It is not surprising, therefore, to see some students performing miserably in class simply because they have not taken enough food or they have taken none altogether. The question of hunger finds its way into the education system because the government has failed to provide adequate food in most of its boarding schools. This is poverty at governmental level. There are also some students who are not boarders but still endure the hostile reality of hunger right in their homes. This is due to poverty at household level. It is sad that poverty, both at governmental and household level, has helped in engineering the deteriorating of education standards in Malawi.

Bearing in mind that it is only the eagle that can tell us the real whisper of a cloud, we visited Masongola Secondary school with the hope of getting first hand information from the students and their teachers since they are the ones who mostly benefit or get destructed by poverty. The Masongola secondary school students and their teacher, Mr. Enock Abraham, testified to us during an interview that government’s inability to provide extra food, apart from the usual beans that the institution offers, has seen many students developing ulcers. It would sound bizarre to reason that one can attend classes whilst he/she is on a hospital bed battling with ulcers. The Masongola students further testified that most poor students who have ulcers just bow down out of the race of learning because they cannot afford to buy extra food whenever the institution is serving the students beans.

This pitiful development goes beyond the boundaries of Masongola secondary school. Mulunguzi secondary school as Mr……the head teacher at the institution testifies, has not been spared from the scourge of school dropp outs simply because the school has not been able to provide extra or adequate food to students who cannot take what their friends take on health grounds. Needless to say this leaves the education standards in Malawi vacillating. It is a pity that though we have wrestled with this question of poverty a dozen times, we have not been successful in the battle. At one point in time, the government attempted to minimize the chances of school dropout in primary schools through its provision of porridge to pupils in the junior section. This attempt was in itself a good gesture but the government has failed to implement the initiative further in other schools that up to now have not benefited from the program.

It may not sound an exaggeration if we may say poverty has also forced a good number of students to give up their hopes of getting educated simply because they find it so difficult traveling to and from their respective schools. Lack of transport means, in short, has pushed them well towards the blink of despair as far as attaining formal education is concerned. This point speaks for itself how poverty can sometimes work on the education’s disadvantage.

As we go further with this discussion, we also appreciate the fact that the problem that mostly hinders a student’s success is inadequate resources that include; few teachers and learning materials. It must be highlighted that these problems are not only in developing countries but they may also find their way in reasonably developed countries like South Africa. In a developing country like Malawi, the education system encounters these problems because of the government’s failure to look into problems of infrastructure, capacity and availability of teaching and learning materials (Nkawike,2005) . The Muluzi government did a little if any; in as far as infrastructure is concerned. Lack of school blocks facilitated by a large number of pupils due to the introduction of the free primary education in 1994, forced pupils to have lessons under trees. In 2003, for example, lack of school blocks resulted in a tragedy at Nkomachi in Lilongwe when a tree fell onto an outdoor class, resulting in injury and deaths of pupils (Mvula & Chanika,2004) . This problem of learning materials continues till date, in all levels of the education system. According to Abraham (2009) , the school has always had shortage of learning blocks to an extent that the Physical Science and Biology laboratories are used as classrooms. There is also great shortage of books in all departments, and some departments like the technical department needs new equipment and current books which are very expensive. With this unfortunate situation we cannot anticipate good performance from Masongola secondary school.

In order to deal with these issues, the Muluzi government thought it wise to disregard the provision of learning materials in schools. Instead the Malawi School Certificate of Education (MSCE) pass mark was reduced to ensure the success of students in their examinations. Even the director of Basic Education, Nelson Kaperemera admitted that funds intended for learning materials were servicing the debts of government at the expense of improving quality education. Instead of reducing the pass mark, the government and other stake holders should strive to improve quality of education, improve teacher salaries, and provide adequate materials and train teachers properly (Malawi News,2006) .

In developing countries like Malawi, the schools are understaffed (teaching personnel) and they tend to be handling a large number of students for long hours. Furthermore, the teachers are subjected to meager salaries, which are even made late. The government does not seem to have the welfare of teachers at heart, for instance the education Manager for Phalombe, Enoch Ali says the district is facing a dire shortage of teachers, a situation that is contributing to low education standards. The teacher pupil ratio in Phalombe is 1: 120, whilst the recommended ratio is 1: 60 (The Nation,2006) . Due to low pay teachers resort to organizing part time classes, which demand an extra amount of money on top of the normal fees. These changes clearly affect those students who come from very poor families, as they do not receive adequate studies because of lack of money.
This does not only occur in secondary schools, but it also happens in universities. As the academic staff of the Universities go on strike because of the government’s reluctance to increase their salaries. One considers how this is supposed to retain staff in the University. As a result lecturers spend more time doing consultancies; instead of preparing lectures and doing University mandated research. If we are serious about fighting poverty, formal education is the hub of ideas to fight these problems by improving its standards (Kapasula,2008) .
Child labour is one of the major problems that contribute to school dropp out. The majority of child labour victims are children who are living in poverty. This is so because they lack basic needs, for this reason they are forced even against their will to do any kind of work in order to gain financial wealth. This, therefore, affects school attendance. Evidence of school dropp out due to child labour is found in central region where most children are being employed in estates. This region has high tobacco production. Since this crop demands a lot of work, children are at high demand because they do not claim high wages compared to adults. Research, therefore, showed that the percentage of children attending schools is lower compared to that of northern and southern region (Nyirongo,2004) . We have the case of two brothers aged between 12 and 15 who were forced to work at a tobacco farm at Mpherembe in Kasungu district, where they were receiving 150 kwacha a day due to poverty (Namangale,2005) . We can see that child labour has a great impact on education because through it, a lot of children are being deprived of their right to education as they spend most of their time working.

In addition to that, Chirwa (2003) found out that child labour is also taking place in people’s houses. In this case children are forced to dropp out of school either by parents or on their own, to work in neighbouring homes. Here one of the victims is a 12 year old girl Elizabeth Chalimba, who left school when she was in standard six to work as a nanny in order to support her siblings. Children from low income families are at risk because though school is their only hope for a better future, they dropp out because their parents are failing to provide them with basic needs. Apart from child labour, psychological problems due to poverty is also another cause of school dropp outs. Research shows that the impact of poverty is greater on children as opposed to adults. Firstly, the problem arises due to the environment in which these children are raised. These environments being impoverished, they are intellectually unstimulating, and lack of stimulation results in impaired intellectual development of a child. This in turn contributes to failure in class which can later on lead to school dropp out.

[...] Read more

poem by Innocent Masina Nkhonyo
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Cabinessence

Light the lamp and fire mellow,
Cabin essence timely hello,
Welcomes the time for a change.
Lost and found, you still remain there.
Youll find a meadow filled with grain there.
Ill give you a home on the range.
Who ran the iron horse?
Who ran the iron horse?
Who ran the iron horse?
Who ran the iron horse?
Who ran the iron horse?
Who ran the iron horse?
Who ran the iron horse?
Who ran the iron horse?
Who ran the iron horse?
Who ran the iron horse?
I want to watch you windblown facing
Waves of wheat for your embracing.
Folks sing a song of the grange.
Nestle in a kiss below there.
The constellations ebb and flow there.
And witness our home on the range.
Who ran the iron horse?
(truck driving man do what you can)
Who ran the iron horse?
(high-tail your load off the road)
Who ran the iron horse?
(out of night-life-its a gas man)
Who ran the iron horse?
(I dont believe I gotta grieve)
Who ran the iron horse?
(in and out of luck)
Who ran the iron horse?
(with a buck and a booth)
Who ran the iron horse?
(catchin on to the truth)
Who ran the iron horse?
(in the vast past, the last gasp)
Who ran the iron horse?
(in the land, in the dust, trust that you must)
Who ran the iron horse?
(catch as catch can)
Have you seen the grand coolie workin on the railroad?
Have you seen the grand coolie workin on the railroad?
Have you seen the grand coolie workin on the railroad?
Over and over,
The crow cries uncover the cornfield.
Over and over,
The thresher and hover the wheat field.
Over and over,

[...] Read more

song performed by Beach Boys
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Gareth And Lynette

The last tall son of Lot and Bellicent,
And tallest, Gareth, in a showerful spring
Stared at the spate. A slender-shafted Pine
Lost footing, fell, and so was whirled away.
'How he went down,' said Gareth, 'as a false knight
Or evil king before my lance if lance
Were mine to use--O senseless cataract,
Bearing all down in thy precipitancy--
And yet thou art but swollen with cold snows
And mine is living blood: thou dost His will,
The Maker's, and not knowest, and I that know,
Have strength and wit, in my good mother's hall
Linger with vacillating obedience,
Prisoned, and kept and coaxed and whistled to--
Since the good mother holds me still a child!
Good mother is bad mother unto me!
A worse were better; yet no worse would I.
Heaven yield her for it, but in me put force
To weary her ears with one continuous prayer,
Until she let me fly discaged to sweep
In ever-highering eagle-circles up
To the great Sun of Glory, and thence swoop
Down upon all things base, and dash them dead,
A knight of Arthur, working out his will,
To cleanse the world. Why, Gawain, when he came
With Modred hither in the summertime,
Asked me to tilt with him, the proven knight.
Modred for want of worthier was the judge.
Then I so shook him in the saddle, he said,
"Thou hast half prevailed against me," said so--he--
Though Modred biting his thin lips was mute,
For he is alway sullen: what care I?'

And Gareth went, and hovering round her chair
Asked, 'Mother, though ye count me still the child,
Sweet mother, do ye love the child?' She laughed,
'Thou art but a wild-goose to question it.'
'Then, mother, an ye love the child,' he said,
'Being a goose and rather tame than wild,
Hear the child's story.' 'Yea, my well-beloved,
An 'twere but of the goose and golden eggs.'

And Gareth answered her with kindling eyes,
'Nay, nay, good mother, but this egg of mine
Was finer gold than any goose can lay;
For this an Eagle, a royal Eagle, laid
Almost beyond eye-reach, on such a palm
As glitters gilded in thy Book of Hours.
And there was ever haunting round the palm
A lusty youth, but poor, who often saw

[...] Read more

poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

The Aeneid of Virgil: Book 2

ALL were attentive to the godlike man,
When from his lofty couch he thus began:
“Great queen, what you command me to relate
Renews the sad remembrance of our fate:
An empire from its old foundations rent, 5
And ev’ry woe the Trojans underwent;
A peopled city made a desart place;
All that I saw, and part of which I was:
Not ev’n the hardest of our foes could hear,
Nor stern Ulysses tell without a tear. 10
And now the latter watch of wasting night,
And setting stars, to kindly rest invite;
But, since you take such int’rest in our woe,
And Troy’s disastrous end desire to know,
I will restrain my tears, and briefly tell 15
What in our last and fatal night befell.
“By destiny compell’d, and in despair,
The Greeks grew weary of the tedious war,
And by Minerva’s aid a fabric rear’d,
Which like a steed of monstrous height appear’d: 20
The sides were plank’d with pine; they feign’d it made
For their return, and this the vow they paid.
Thus they pretend, but in the hollow side
Selected numbers of their soldiers hide:
With inward arms the dire machine they load, 25
And iron bowels stuff the dark abode.
In sight of Troy lies Tenedos, an isle
(While Fortune did on Priam’s empire smile)
Renown’d for wealth; but, since, a faithless bay,
Where ships expos’d to wind and weather lay. 30
There was their fleet conceal’d. We thought, for Greece
Their sails were hoisted, and our fears release.
The Trojans, coop’d within their walls so long,
Unbar their gates, and issue in a throng,
Like swarming bees, and with delight survey 35
The camp deserted, where the Grecians lay:
The quarters of the sev’ral chiefs they show’d;
Here Phœnix, here Achilles, made abode;
Here join’d the battles; there the navy rode.
Part on the pile their wond’ring eyes employ: 40
The pile by Pallas rais’d to ruin Troy.
Thymoetes first (’t is doubtful whether hir’d,
Or so the Trojan destiny requir’d)
Mov’d that the ramparts might be broken down,
To lodge the monster fabric in the town. 45
But Capys, and the rest of sounder mind,
The fatal present to the flames designed,
Or to the wat’ry deep; at least to bore
The hollow sides, and hidden frauds explore.
The giddy vulgar, as their fancies guide, 50

[...] Read more

poem by Publius Vergilius Maro
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Orlando Furioso Canto 18

ARGUMENT
Gryphon is venged. Sir Mandricardo goes
In search of Argier's king. Charles wins the fight.
Marphisa Norandino's men o'erthrows.
Due pains Martano's cowardice requite.
A favouring wind Marphisa's gallery blows,
For France with Gryphon bound and many a knight.
The field Medoro and Cloridano tread,
And find their monarch Dardinello dead.

I
High minded lord! your actions evermore
I have with reason lauded, and still laud;
Though I with style inapt, and rustic lore,
You of large portion of your praise defraud:
But, of your many virtues, one before
All others I with heart and tongue applaud,
- That, if each man a gracious audience finds,
No easy faith your equal judgment blinds.

II
Often, to shield the absent one from blame,
I hear you this, or other, thing adduce;
Or him you let, at least, an audience claim,
Where still one ear is open to excuse:
And before dooming men to scaith and shame,
To see and hear them ever is your use;
And ere you judge another, many a day,
And month, and year, your sentence to delay.

III
Had Norandine been with your care endued,
What he by Gryphon did, he had not done.
Profit and fame have from your rule accrued:
A stain more black than pitch he cast upon
His name: through him, his people were pursued
And put to death by Olivero's son;
Who at ten cuts or thrusts, in fury made,
Some thirty dead about the waggon laid.

IV
Whither fear drives, in rout, the others all,
Some scattered here, some there, on every side,
Fill road and field; to gain the city-wall
Some strive, and smothered in the mighty tide,
One on another, in the gateway fall.
Gryphon, all thought of pity laid aside,
Threats not nor speaks, but whirls his sword about,
Well venging on the crowd their every flout.

[...] Read more

poem by Ludovico Ariosto
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Sophia

Sophia:
Affirmations and Meditations for a Positive and Meaningful Life

By Uriah Lee Hamilton

1. The universe seeks to treat you kindly like a friend. The stars shine for you in the dreamy midnight air. Doors are opening to you to enter in and find the love of your life, the joy of your being. Garden paths are beneath your feet to gaze affectionately upon every flower. The fountains of wine flow abundantly for you to imbibe the spirits of desire and happiness. Accept your destiny as gods and goddesses in the mystical realm of innocence.
2. Your eyes are open and there is nothing you cannot see or perceive with translucent vision of understanding. Every mystery is discernible and arrayed in magnificent and colorful robes of light. Every day is a magical journey of discovery and especially self-discovery. Find your important place in the happy scheme of this life, your intricate functioning with every other soul.
3. Your song is being played and you’re invited to sing along and join the dance. No longer think in terms of withdrawal and alienation. Think in terms of participation. There is nothing to fear and no one to impress. Just enjoy your every experience, they’re yours to possess. When you open yourself to joy, joy finds you and reminds you life is beautiful and brief.
4. More people love you than you will ever know. Prayers congregate in the heart of God for you like stars swimming in the night. People you have nearly forgotten have not forgotten you. Your impression continues to linger and leave a kind feeling in the hearts of those you’ve touched and they are every moment sending you powerful karma that rushes to your aid in the hour of need. Trust the thoughts that seek to uplift you.
5. You have the power to overcome any difficult situation. With every stressful development in your life there is an equal reserve of strength and determination to resist and conquer the armies of the negative and harmful. The human will is boundless and will not accept defeat but will lift you up until you are the victor over every power of darkness that assaults you.
6. Every mistake you have made is in the past. To linger on any mistake with regret or judgment serves no purpose. Today is a clean slate, a new beginning. Forgive yourself, accept forgiveness, and never judge yourself or anyone else unkindly. Every moment you become more enlightened.
7. If you can remember love when you’re abandoned in the rain and the universe is in tears, you can pull yourself through any sadness. Love is the reality of the soul and the desire of everyone’s inner being. Love is the strength that sustains us when we're weary and seemingly at the end of our rope, dangling at the edge of the cliff of despair. Love is the nature of divinity shared with humanity and will not leave us to wither like waterless flowers. Remember love when you have forgotten everything else.
8. Forget the sound of unkind words and don’t repeat them. Remember how you felt when someone hurt you or treated you insensitively and be determined to never make anyone feel that way. The smile you leave on someone’s face will fill your own heart with joy and return your own smile back to you.
9. The best way to appreciate your own unique godliness is to appreciate and praise the unique godliness of others. When you perceive others as special and angelic, you will understand you have arrived at the shore of humanity from the same sea of divinity. We are here at this stage of our journey to find God in others and offer others the kindness of God that exists within ourselves.
10. Respect the dignity of everyone. This is enlightenment. Never suppose that you are superior or inferior to anyone. You are unique and your neighbor is unique. Our differences make the human experience beautiful and mysterious. Learn to appreciate the differences in everyone and the glorious variety this offers. Everyone compliments everyone and when any soul departs this plane we have all lost someone and something precious.
11. Live the power of kindness. When you’re kind, you respect yourself. When you know that you have helped someone else, you feel the presence of angels and God surrounding you. You can live without an abundance of money and possessions but you cannot live without confronting yourself as a human. If someone judges you unjustly and negatively, that hurts but never as much as judging yourself and knowing the truth about whom you are if you’re not a good and kind person. Jesus said if someone asks you to walk one mile, walk two. Go the added distance to know you are a compassionate human being. If by chance there is no God and no final judgment, if the last judgment is nothing more than the last time you look yourself in the mirror, don’t fail that judgment.
12. You are eternal in spirit. Your essence is from the beginning and is unending. You originate in the heartbeat of God and eventually were sent to earth as a hopeful song. Sing your song to every receptive ear. Allow the universe to partake in your melody of joy. You can make your life a gift to everyone; you are a flower in the human bouquet. One day, you will return happily to God. Let the world know today you’re here and partake of your bliss and happiness.
13. Godliness is your nature, divinity your true personality. Maybe the world has labeled you a prostitute or a thief, a police officer or a lawyer, but your real soul is the essence of God, the substance of eternity, the DNA of spiritual greatness. Never accept restricting labels, never define your dreams with other people’s language of defeat. Birth has opened every possibility, and every second is a new rebirth. Begin now whatever dream and path you choose.
14. Live in the moment. Experience the present. Breathe in the perfume of freshly bloomed flowers. Be conscious of the poetry of existence all around you. Compose your poems on trees and rocks and flower petals. Be the poem, be the flower. Compose your poems on human souls that will live in the heart of God for eternity. You’ve never had anything but this moment, perceive it as beautiful and make it more beautiful.
15. Never live in the past. The past is only a collection of memories that become sad overtime even if they were happy memories to begin with. The past is either defeat or forgotten glories. The present is your opportunity to shape the future in a positive manner. A few souls have lived their lives in such joy and kindness as to become spirits of the future. The future is about joy, acceptance, dreams accomplished, ideas realized, and the end of suffering. Every positive thought and action of today will transform tomorrow. Believe.
16. Celebrate the music of existence. The sparrow dawns, the symphonic engine hum of the highway, the locust afternoons of high summer, the angelic chatter of beautiful conversations, church bell Sunday mornings, the autumn chimes carried in by a cool breeze. Everything is music if you’re willing to listen and to rejoice.
17. In your life show kindness, express friendliness, make others feel comfortable in your presence and in their own. The karmic return for being a positive human being is receiving the eternal and universal goodwill of the divine; it is reaching that place where you see yourself in a beautiful and self-accepting mirror.
18. Find the true religion. The true religion is happiness, the welcoming, friendly smile, the exuberant heart. Most religious people throughout the human experience have embraced religion with a sad face for the purposes of judgment and condemnation, but hatred and cruelty must no longer have any place at the spiritual table, punishing one’s self for being human must cease. Love is the true religion and it is expressed with joy. Make laughing and dancing your greatest rituals.
19. Learn perspective and endurance. If you fail today, you are stronger tomorrow. If you fall today, you will soar tomorrow. A boxer has lost every round to eventually win the fight. He throws his bruised body into the pummeling of the opponent, his eyes are closed with blood and sweat but still looking for his opportunity until he lands the knockout punch. Life is a struggle but your heart must never be vanquished. Push forward in everything you do to make your existence meaningful. A hundred falls and a thousand mistakes will never define your being but your dogged determination to resist and succeed.
20. The past is a casket of despair, a realm of old ideas that embraced sadness and toil and dreams defeated. If you linger in the valley of regrets, there is only a bleak future of hopelessness to discover. If you abandon the unhappiness of history and embrace your child-like hopefulness, then the future is the home of ever unfolding potential where love is always waiting around the corner. In fact, you are love and you are no longer waiting, you have arrived. Your love is emanating like spring flowers in the sunlit day and you can waft your perfume for the world to breathe in and rejoice.
21. The life you are given at this moment should be heaven and can be heaven. If you accept unhappiness and loneliness and suffering to place your bet on the next lifetime, you will miss your opportunity to appreciate this lifetime. If the life you are living is hell, exchange it for heaven and exchange it now while you are breathing and not as a promise for the grave or reincarnation. Accept this life as your garden, as your paradise, as your heaven. Find something small in your life to appreciate until you can appreciate everything about your life. Do not practice rejection. Do not call the world evil or your life evil or believe that anything is evil. Practice acceptance and believe in the good. Accept everything as good and as a means to the eventual actualization of your real and lasting happiness.
22. You are god-like when you accept yourself, the qualities and tendencies that make up your unique personality. You are angry and pleasant, sad and happy, beautiful and ugly. You cannot divorce yourself anymore than God can divide or divorce himself. If you try to abandon or throw away half of yourself, you will lose all of yourself. Self-acceptance and self-love is the way of godliness and the means to loving and appreciating the beauty and uniqueness of others. It takes one lifetime at least if not innumerable lifetimes to learn who you are and it will never happen if you do not accept yourself for the entire all-encompassing creation you are.
23. Become everything and understand everything. Absorb the laughter of a child, the excitement of a bride, the sadness of a funereal, the love of a mother giving birth, the pride of a father at a child’s graduation, the fear of death, the pain of loneliness. Feel everything. Understand everything. Celebrate and commiserate with the world you live in as a human being and become life-positive and not life-negative. There is not joy without sadness; there is not laughter without tears. You will have them both. Learn from them both and then embrace your life with gratitude.
24. When a truly happy, dancing spirit ventures upon the scene, it attracts love and affection. Joy and happiness are magnets drawing our attention, our interests, and our passionate desire. The world has been so sad with terrible suffering and unhappiness and so many teachers have arisen to manipulate the fears and disappointments of the masses to instill hatred and judgment. The genuine happy person is rare, almost unheard of. The world is yours if you can harness your happiness and spiritual and psychological well-being. What do you have to lose? If you become happy and dancing and you’re happy and dancing alone in the world, you still have achieved more than every other soul. Claim your happiness, it is not selfish to do so because your happiness can only expand and become contagious. May your happiness become an ecstatic epidemic.
25. Be whole in all your thoughts and completely embrace all the various facets of your life. Don’t try to deny the child within who wants to play beneath the sun, to laugh and to run rather than be sequestered into some adult room where you’re not allowed to smile. There’s a place for responsibility and sacrifice, for noble thoughts and placing others first but if you try to occupy this place consistently and permanently, you will wither away like an autumn leaf, you will be a shell of the human promise that was given to you at birth. Enjoy your body, relish your desires, and laugh with ecstasy when the spirit moves you. Don’t be sad or stoic forever, return to the merry-go-round you loved in your youth.
26. When you depart your mother’s body to begin your own journey, the path begins with your initial tears, the cry that accompanies existence. It then becomes easy to cry for a lifetime, to feel fear and abandonment, to know nothing but sorrow and despair, but there is joy and the goal is to learn to laugh. Laugh from the heart and make your way through the world cheerfully. It won’t happen in a moment or a single day, but you can turn your life into a dance that sways to the rhythm of laughter and happiness.
27. Enjoy lazy afternoons. Sit in the cricket grass in the summer sunlight. Gaze at the pattern of the leaves beneath shaded trees. One only finds his soul in stillness, not in much activity. When people are too busy, they are hiding from themselves. You have to find your real self before you cease to exist else you may have to wait a prolonged time before your next incarnation allows you a new opportunity of self-discovery. When you find yourself, then you learn what the heart needs for true happiness and communion with the eternal.
28. Life is a dream and the future unfolds in the hands of imagination. Dream your future in bright beautiful colors; make your landscapes lavish and rich and dazzling. Don’t be timid with your dreams, your aspirations, and your hopes of self-realization. With a single thought you may revolutionize all thinking; you may touch hundreds or thousands of lives and leave a lasting and meaningful impression. The power to transcend becoming a statistic is yours. You are not required to be an unknown entity or live in shadows. Walk out into the sunlight of a positive life that is waiting like a circus clown’s balloon for you to form it into a lovely shape that brings a smile.
29. In a time of war, one is taught to suppress his desires and his needs, to sacrifice for the cause until the victory is won. The battle now is for the soul of your happiness, and the battle will not be won by sacrifice and suppression, it will not be gained by self-coercion and intense rejection. Only by realizing what you want in the core of your being and granting yourself permission to pursue it unhindered by guilt will you win this victory. Grant yourself the right to be yourself, appreciate yourself, and pursue your joy. The long sleep will endure forever for the happy and the sad; it is your time to be happy if you choose it.
30. If you have followed a path or a plan that has led you to a loveless place, then take stock of yourself, evaluate your life-choices and begin anew. If your hands are empty, there is nothing to be lost in opening them and turning them over. To remain on the path you’re on and refuse to make any changes can only reinforce the status quo of your loneliness and unhappiness. You have been a stunted tree too long. Become a new person and begin to flower. At whatever age you are it is not too late to experience rebirth. Become a stranger to the alienated person you were in the past when you find your destiny in joyfulness. You can become a new creation in the blink of an eye.
31. Attain God in your own room where the candles pray in the moonlight that seeps through the window blinds at night. God is the silent compassion that ever surrounds you and finds you when you’re sad. You’re success in perceiving the presence of God is not dependent upon rules of religion or great moral feats and ascetic accomplishments but on your child-like desire to perceive that reality of love. God is your heartbeat when your kind to others and to yourself. Listen to your heartbeat and you will find God. Most of the world never finds God because they’re looking under every religious rock instead of looking inwardly for the God within.
32. Beginning today, I’ve become my ally and no longer my opponent. I will trust my instincts and my desires and no longer view them as separate from my spiritual being, my eternal soul. When I tell myself yes and no, I pursue my own personal civil war. For now on there is only yes. Yes to self-love, yes to confidence, yes to friendship, yes to health, yes to joy, yes to success. To everything positive and life-affirming there is nothing but yes. Denial and suppression and negative opinion has ceased. The doubting and judgmental man has vanished and will not be seen again.
33. To become a happy human being dancing in the soft summer moonlight is not easily done in the world of manipulative guilt. You may have to dance alone if everyone you know will only sing a dirge. If everyone has a sad face and a melancholy heart, resort to friendship with scattered roadside flowers and happy stray dogs. Eventually your joy will become infectious and pleasantly contaminate existence with the smile they’ve been waiting to express. It is never wrong to offer someone your cheerfulness. Practice charity of the spirit.
34. The soul is deathless and enters the spirit world where every fear has vanished in the sunlight of love. There is a heavenly wine creating communion with the divine. Everyone is a psychic essence connected to each other. The secrets of non-violence are intuitively imparted and the heart will not be wounded again. The meaning of God is the embrace of all existence in joyous celebration.
35. The bright light illuminating true happiness flickers through time from ancient corridors of spiritual history and revelation. Some sainted madman playing a flute in the moonlight in the background hush of lakeside and the tune drifted into all future souls. Everyone has the melody of joy and tranquility encoded mystically into their DNA. Learn to access the songbook of your higher self that has all the answers to every difficult question pressing the spirit at the perfect time when you need them most.
36. It is difficult but meaningful to live life in the beauty of contradiction. To have a peaceful mind in the midst of turmoil and upheaval; to have an innocent heart engaged in romantic and intricate relationships of desire, to have a pure soul in the midst of thieves and cutthroats, to have the candlelight of your spiritual awareness burn steady amidst the storm of everyday confusion and societal manipulation. One can passionately embrace all of the world’s creatures both gentle and wild without ever forsaking his higher self of elevated ideals and inner truths.
37. Thousands of years of history, of wars and plagues and famines document the human will to survive and thrive and ever evolve to higher emotional and spiritual enlightenment. Poets and prophets slowly teach the way of joy and gentleness, the path to becoming a passionate soul that completely embraces his existence to the maximum potential of happiness. The day has arrived to believe in one’s own strength to completely express and possess his compassion and love under all circumstances. Completely loving on the battlefield or in the work place, at home or walking summer city streets, never separating the spiritual from the physical, the soul from the body, ever maintaining the highest goals of self-realization during all moments of his being.
38. The source of life and all knowledge of spiritual perfection emanates from your hidden God within. Every soul is an essence fragment of the One Soul. We live and move and find our destiny in eventually attaining communion with the One. The bliss is real and the ecstasy is true and indescribable. There is no death and our true self is ever peaceful. Find yourself in the tranquility of the God within.
39. The bondage of the soul by the chains of unhappiness is a delusion of false perceptions. No liberation movement is required. The soul is free and true reality is the awareness of bliss. Abandon false perceptions and definitions of unhappiness and accept the natural state of being one with everything positive and powerful. The true nature of the human spirit is divine with all the attributes and characteristics of divinity to lay claim to. Tranquility and joyfulness is always present and all one needs to do is open the eyes of the mind and perceive reality in the cosmic design of the eternal good.
40. Discard vain books outside the window, toss the directionless compass into the trash, abandon every previous form of knowledge and trust your intuition. Within your soul knowledge supreme is kept, you are part and parcel of the Over-Soul, the one truth established in eternity. Intuition is imperishable and not restricted by boundaries of time. Intuition is the instant flash of insight that dawns without hesitation or explanation. Intuition is your God within guiding your steps into the light. Trust the light that surrounds you, the light that comes from you and belongs to you.
41. There is no knowledge greater than the knowledge of the self. Most people remain alienated strangers from whom they really are. A lifetime of not knowing their own spiritual personality and then the grave. Too busy to quietly sit in the summer grass and gaze calmly into the mirror of their soul. Only in meditation is intuition discovered and realized. Not knowing yourself is the cause of loneliness and the sense of immense meaninglessness. No real connection with another human being can ever be made until a connection is made with the self. Find yourself in meditation and intuition.
42. As the spiritual life increases, the appetite for strife and struggle decreases, an inner sweetness is manifested and lovely new music is heard. As you recede into your true self, the desire for objects of unhappiness and lust for possessions of discontent fall away and leave a genuine beauty behind. This beauty is love and it must first be planted and nurtured before harvested. You are the seed, the sewer, and the harvest. Indeed, you are the love you have always sought.
43. Attain awareness through non-concern, gain knowledge by not seeking it, find trust by trusting yourself; everything worthwhile already belongs to you when you cease to pursue that which is outside yourself, when you find the quiet place within your soul and allow all doubts and fears to subside. God provides for every sparrow and arrays the flowers of the fields with immense beauty. God will also seek your good if you believe you are part and parcel of the compassionate heart of God.
44. There is no becoming; there is no fulfilled desire waiting to dawn; there is no completed destination at the end of the journey. You have become and are divine; you are the realization of beautiful desire at this very moment and forever; the journey and the destination are one in the same: you have arrived and always were present in your mystical soul reality.
45. One day, love will carry the heart to God. Love to love will be united, mystical soul will embrace sacred spiritual destination. Friendships never cease but find expression on eternal shores where there is no suffering or disease nor accidental cruelty by otherwise gentle and compassionate people. We live in beauty and offer the world beauty and finally become nothing but beauty. We are the hands of love, the clothes of love, the agents of love, the heart of love and love transports us to God to rest forever in his sanctuary of love.

[...] Read more

poem by Uriah Hamilton
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

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,

[...] Read more

poem by Sir Walter Scott
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!