Man -- > Poem

[Man]

Poem





These Seven Words



When I'm with you,
eternity is a step away,
my love continues to grow,
with each passing day.

This treasure of love,
I cherish within my soul,
how much I love you,
you'll never really know.

You bring a joy to my heart,
I've never felt before,
with each touch of your heart,
I love you more and more.

Whenever we say goodbye,
whenever we part,
know I hold you dearly,
deep inside my heart.

So these seven words,
I pray you hold true,
"Forever and Always,
I Will Love You."






BY Zehierarch









--> Man

[Man]

Poem




I'm sorry I hurt you


A lover without love is just an er
And that’s all you were to me
I’m sorry if I broke you heart
But that’s the way it is unfortunately

I tried my hardest I really did
To feel a feeling that wasn’t going to happen
But I had to be true to me and to you
You need a spark to build a fire.

You would thrust on top of me and I pretended to enjoy
When in fact I didn’t want this at all.
I’m sorry I lied
I couldn’t keep it inside
There was no love
Just an er.




BY Unknown









--> Man

[Man]

Poem




To you From me


I wish I could hold you, here in my arms.
I hate the fact that you and I are so far apart.
You live in my dreams and in my being.
I miss you though we have never met.

I long for the cheek I have never touched
And the lips I have never kissed.
To look into those eyes of brilliant blue.
That I see trough my heart and not my head.

I lay in my bed and see you there.
Lying next to me, together.
I reach out my hand you are so close
And then, good bye, you disappear.

One day I’ll make the trip.
By land or by air.
I’ll walk all the way if need be.
We’ll be as one together at last.




BY Unknown









--> Man

[Man]

Poem




The Sea Of Love

As, We walking alone on bleach in hands and hands,
Deep blue water flashing on ours feet,
Feeling the warm sun touching ours face,
Watching the seagull fly free in the light blue sky,
Singing theirs song to sea,

Feeling the warm breeze blowing threw ours hairs,
We will make love under dessert shield,
Kisses and Roll on white bezel sand, while the tile wavy washing away the sand off ours bodies,

Watching the sun going down the water,
Laugh and runs,
Feeling free as sea breeze,
I enjoy smelling the salty water in the air,




BY Unknown









--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Lady Of Darkness

I live the darkness and beyond the night,
I heard the night calling me to come,
Had un-embraces me out of my glasses case,
I dress in black lace, tight Glovers, and
Black highs heel shoes,

I stand in the dark desert corner,
With my eyes glowing in the dark,
Like a wild animal ready for a attend,
I am only drink the warm blood out after thing,
I lured and ambush and bring them into my lair,
I will make love to you,
Feast you; drink the blood off your body,
And I will make you mine, forever.
My youth and my beauty with steak with me forever,
I will in an eternal life,
Along if I steak away from sunrise,





BY Unknown









--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Kiss Of Forever Night

I lay here in my bed in dark,
The strong singing of the wind blowing light blue window cover on the window,
It means he is here,
Without no protest to guard me from him,
He hides away from the sunlight,
And he rises at night.

Un-brace me threw the power threw my dark dream,
Feeling his dark shadow of his hand flirting on my body,
Like a angry wind,
Feeling his dark present had blow out candle right next to me,

He had gave me a deeply powerful kiss,
The Kiss that holds all eternally of life,
The “Kiss Of Forever Night,”





BY Unknown









--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Dance With The Devil

He was use his charms to lured you in his trade,
He will dances around your heart for amusement,
While your soul will be loss in during the harmony of the music,
He will rip your heart out at the same time,
See his deception smiles and along with his malevolence eyes fade away into darkness,
His way of ecstasy is to sent your soul to hell as lie with along his,
He will touch you so sexual that I will drive you into sin,
He will leave me as you wanting him for some more,
His charms and devilish sexy look will un-embrace you,
He wills keep you dancing until you are loss the melody of the music;




BY Unknown









--> Man

[Man]

Poem




A Lovely Kiss

I felt weak from his lovely kiss,
He rubbing my waistline so gentle likes a cat tale,
Feeling his cold hand like ice touches to my face,
I get the cheer,
In huge tub he held me back against the rail,
Drinking my blood out of my chest
Kiss me, slowly,
Carry me, up stair to my chain per,
And laid your soul body around me,
Take me under your wing, and made me your,
Take me from this sickness and death,
That wrinkly shall never touch my face,
Give me the taste of your blood into my vein,
Give me “A Lovely Kiss” the life of eternal.



BY Unknown









--> Man

[Man]

Poem




True Ecstasy

My true Ecstasy,
Your love is a drug to me,
I couldn’t get an enough of you,
The way you had touch,
Had put my soul in easy,
Every time I make love to you,
I feel like I am flowing on heavy clouds,
Your sex is a like addiction to me,
I keep coming back for more,
Your looks and your charms what made me high,
Feasting mine soul with your fat long manhood squeezing inside of me,
Had bring out lust in my eyes,
Rubbing my hand so gentle on your chest,
I couldn’t resist smell your strong sweet body mist had bring essence in me,
You will feel my hot kisses, kissing on chest,
Night and Day, I couldn’t stop thinking about you,




BY Unknown









--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Heart of Passion Burning

It takes time, it takes time,
Once you fall in love, you will never rise again,
One you fall in love, you will never receive me,
You will be a totally loss angel,
Loss your way from heavens’ light,

The Fire is red, and Flame is blossomy,
A fire of your kiss is what burning mine heart of desire,
Touch me, baby, just kiss me deadly,
Feeling ours naked body rubbing against each else,
Making love to you, made my heart contend,
I like to feel your warm lip kissing all over my body,

It takes time, it takes time,
Once you fall in love, you will never rise again,
One you fall in love, you will never receive me,



BY Unknown









--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Embrace By The Night

In the summer of night,
The night had embrace my soul
I had find myself saturating at the huge silvery full moon,
How it is Embrace by silvery light,
Watching the ways the royal blue could pass by the moon like a huge dark anger shadow,
The stars sparkle like small diamonds,
The ways the cool breeze blowing against my body,
I was so captivated by the clear blue night,
Watching the full moon I felt like a werewolf,
Sexuality spells release from in me,
I kept watching the dark beauty of the night as if it had put a spell over me,
I felt the night had take over my soul,
My mind is willful with hunger lust,





BY Unknown









--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Sweet Dream

Some delightful dreams are from in you,
And made you loss touch from in reality,
As I lay down in the confront of my bed,
It was a delightful dream,
I had dreaming of sweet vision was so sweet, it almost tasteful to me,
I dreamed of an angel, he was fine as wine, with the sweetness in him,
In a peaceful forest, nothing but beautiful flowers and trees,
His skin is like deep chocolate that I love to taste him,
With bright white wings sticky out of his back like a white dove,
Wearing a thin white satin pant,
He held out his warm hand to reach out to me,




BY Unknown









--> Man

[Man]

Poem




My Longing

It is you i long for
through every hour of every waking day
It is you i call for in the long dark nights
It is you i dream of
when i sleep
For my love for you can move the tide
And for you my love must provide
For you my longing knows no bounds
But in you my heart is found.



BY G T Rina









--> Man

[Man]

Poem




What I am

Perfect that I am not others say I have to many flaws

Light skinned with slanted eye and yes I have big thighs

And so what Im not thin

Big and voluptuous is what I am

Superficial I rather not try
Get Lipo,Silicon and face lifts to be accepted

In the glamour world
Well Im not that girl

Im happy with the body god has given me
That plastic surgery is not for me
Big and voluptuous is what I am

They cant stand to see a full figured woman as pretty as me

Baby girl you may be small and have a face like Halle

So don't be mad cause your man is watching me
.



BY Unknown









--> Man

[Man]

Poem




One Hit

I woke up this morning with you on my mind
While struggling to get out of bed
It’s was hard for me to follow the time
My vision is so blurry and I got this pownding in my head
I’ve got this habit I cant seem to kick
Oh just give me something to ease the pain

Just let me get one hit
Taking puffs of your herbal tree I feel so high

Just like a first crush my heart beats fast in different patterns

As I reminisce on the first time and how good it felt

When I have you nothing else matters



BY Unknown









--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Lost Love



Summertime is warm they say and it's cold in the Winter
Springtime showers come in May and Autumn breeze in September
I used to think of life this way until last December
Seasons, years, months and days, matter to me no longer

Each dawn is just another day, full of clouds no laughter
Each night only another way, to lose myself in slumber
Sometimes it's so hard to contain,this longing, this hunger
Love goes hand in hand with pain,I have come to discover

Each time Cupid's bow is raised he really should consider
Love is not a simple game heartbreak scars forever
If I could start my life again there's so much I'd change over





BY Aruns









--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Far Away Song


The sun is shining through the morning dew
Warm color reflections remind me of you
Warm air moves over the ground
Not even the birds have made a sound
I wonder if you are singing
Maybe that’s what the sun is bringing
A gentle song from far away
Now I know this is a special day
For the song you sing makes the day less gray
And now the birds have heard your call
The day has started for us all
I am happy but can’t explain
But who am I to complain
For I am grateful to have this friend
A gift of love is what I send
To the gentle heart that lives far away, at the other end.



BY Mully









--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Caressing you with my words


Can you feel them, my love,
Softly touching your cheek
Tracing the lines of your mouth
Trailing down your neck
Can you feel them slowly
Unbuttoning your shirt
And tip toeing across your chest
With teasing nails and warm fingers
Leaving fingerprints of fire
Can you feel the silk of my hair
Falling against your bare skin
Do you feel the pleasure of hot lips
Kissing you deeply
Tongue dancing with tongue
Twirling in passion's
Tingling tango
The scent and taste of my passion now
Satisfies your heated desire
The sweet wine of my love
Quenches your thirst
My words are caressing you





BY Natasha









--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Love is a Compound



You tell me you love me
And I’m certain you do
love is but a compound
Of feelings and truth

I show you my feelings
I tell you the truth
Your beautiful eyes
Show you care for me too

Though its only the beginning
Growing longer each day
Ill continue to love you
Till truth fades away








BY ~Andy Smith








--> Man

[Man]

Poem




I am tired


im tired
i cant take it anymore
i waited too long
and i cant keep it in,no longer
i still have feelings for you
but i dont want them just take them back
im tired of thinking about you
i stil cant believe
the time i thought you'd be mine
i felt guilty
because i thought i'd hurt her, so i thought i'd say no to you but when you asked her she said yes and no one knows but it hurt
it hurt so bad i didnt tell o one because i didnt want no one to see my tears
there are so many nights that i cried for something i never had.
its like i want something but someone else has it
i wanna fo




BY ~nellya









--> Man

[Man]

Poem




letting go

it hurts me alot knowing i can never
be with you
does it hurt you as much as it hurts me?

the 1 person that you want more thatn anything in the whole world is the 1 person you can never have
but why?
why does it hurt so much?
why does the pain get worse?
i have alot of anger in me
so called friends dont even notice
i think im in love with you
but does the love come from the mind
or the heart?
how are you ever to know?
you said lets just be friends
but friends is such a lonely word
now our love only exists in our memories
even our friendship is gone....but a new one anbe born





BY ~nellya









--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Stranger



this wasnt the guy i knew, but yet strangely it was
people always told me that ill see it for myself
i dont know whats been happening to him hes different something is holding me back from believing all of this
hes lie a stranger
when he used to touch me, chils went down my spine but now when he touches me i feel like a total stranger has laid his hands on me
i used to feel so warm when i thought of him now when i think of him i feel like a stranger is running through my mind
why do i feel like this?
i dont like feeling like this
i want to erase this from my mind, my body, and my soul




BY ~nellya









--> Man

[Man]

Poem




I told you so


i cant understand why im sinking so low
i dont want to love you
i dont want to need you
i just want it to be over
its like i hate that i love you
you used to want to be with me
but now you dont care anymore
you dont even try anymore
what went wrong?
you left me so confused
love really is like a game
but why do you find yourswlf the blame?
one time i convinced myself that i was over you
i even tried to convince those around me
but they knew better and now i do too
i still care for you
honestly...i know its silly of me to want you but keep it consealed
its not that i want to let you go, i have to let you go




BY ~nellya









--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Maybe



i just cant accept the possibility we werent made for each others arms
maybe he still want me but keeps it to himself
maybe he doesnt want to hurt me but i wish he knew hes causing me more pain
or maybe hes moved on
he wanted to be free so i let him fly
what else was i supposed to do?
as i sit and think of him i wonder maybe hes thinking of me
but times i think he erased me
its like i never existed
why cant i forget about him the way he forgot about me
can you make a heart love you?
and i thought of everything ive been through
the pain...
the tears...
the sudden urges of wanting to be with him....




BY ~nellya









--> Man

[Man]

Poem




I CAN NOT LIVE WITHOUT



If you were my obsession,
Was my only doubt
And if I was yours,
That’s all I think about
You made feel like water,
Lost in ocean, trapped in your eyes
Every moment I feel passion
Every moment a new sunrise

It was your worth possession
That heaven made me proud
Now look at me without you
I’m just a part of the crowd
You made me feel like feather
Float in wind rapt in your voice
Every moment I feel lonely
Every moment a new hope dies

Your choice left me no option
No matter how harder I shout
There are things I can not live with
There are people I can not live without
You made me feel like pebble




BY CHIRAG









--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Love Comes Love Go's


Love comes Love Go's,
Love stays love hurts,
so many crul heart's outther and i dont know what to do,
so many hurt and so many fall,
U taken me for granted,
u billed me up and let me way way down.
All this is becouse of you.
U take u get,u leave me,
You think u got the best of me,
u think u rule me,
maybe u wernt the one for me,
i need better
i can get
i need love
not poor love
so i say it's time to move on
without u.
So i say Bye forever,
hope u fall down and know what i feel like inside.
one day in time u will see how crul hearts are outther and u are one of them,
to break down and just throw away like it was nofthing.





BY Unknown Sparklez









--> Man

[Man]

Poem




A Kiss Divine


Come to me sweet valentine,
And we shall share a kiss divine.
A kiss like there never was before,
A kiss that will heat you straight down to the core.
Kiss me like it will your last,
Show me a love that’s endless and vast.
Place your lips upon mine, and we will see,
Just how amazing true love can be.
One simple kiss and we’ll know that its fate.
So kiss me now I can no longer wait.
Release all the passion you hold inside.
And be prepared for a breathtaking ride.
My world starts to blur, my senses overload,
My heartbeats so fast, I fear it might explode.
Strong, sensual, and oh so sweet,






BY Unknown Sparklez









--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Love Rememered


Time after time I look at it all,
And see so much unhappiness that I cannot recall,
The last time I saw love in away that is was meant to be,
Or the last time I felt love in all the ways that it should be.

Love Remembered,
Love Refined,
Love Envisioned,
Love by Your Side.

To many maybe's to always have doubts,
To many uncertainties that leave love fading with doubt.

I ask myself questions about what it all means,
Do I give up or continue to seek.

That feeling of elation,
When the world spins in two.
That feeling in your belly when you know love is true.

Love Remembered I have this still.





BY R J Shere









--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Breathe


He speaks his words so sweetly,
Can he ever do any wrong?

Reaching for you in the distance,
He continues to always call.

Awaiting your every movement,
Sending you roses today.

You just keep telling yourself,
All I have to do is Breathe.

Breathe for in the future,
Roses may be far in between.
Breathe for it gives you reality,
When so little can mean anything.

Get a grip on all that surrounds you and remember to always look twice,
For sometimes when ones not looking heartache is at ones side.

Just Breathe cause you know that you can,
And continue to do so today.





BY R J Shere









--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Joy in Loneliness


A tiny walk in a snow filled lanes
With fray of memories in senses
A perception of the radiant avis
Beatitude beyond ceased sonnets

In isle, with full of tinted blossoms
Loneliness shaping fanciful hopes
Wishes that overtake the tiny tots
Craving to stay down there forever

Tender thoughts role our years back
That packs impaired heart with passion
A split moment lapses recalling the loved
Bestows affable smile on our candy lips

A happiness without any barrage
That brings delight with a mirage love
A classical song in a pleasant eve
That bestows a naive grin on face



BY Suren









--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Because of You


Each day I wake and see you there, I watch you breathe and stroke your hair.
You rustle oh so peacefully, for somehow you can sense it's me.
Slip out of bed, and have my cup, of coffee trying to wake up.
Out to the garage to my old chair, and ponder while I'm sitting there.
Why has my life so changed with you? My every thought, my dream come true.
Simple fate? Or just pure chance? I don't believe in happenstance.
A greater power, much stronger than, any reason known to man.
Has brought me you, down from the sky. And to this day I don't know why.
But "Because of You" I feel complete, a happiness I can't retreat.




BY Juz Jon









--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Warmth from a Candle


I lay in bed, I can hardly see
The candle flickers,
Not nearly enought to see.
I want to dream.

I imagine you're here with me,
Holding me the way I need to be held,
The light glows brighter,
Touching, Loving, Security.

Fingers exploring hands roaming,
Warmth rising, Tenderness, passion,
I want to feel, feel loved.
The light flickers.

Closing my eyes I imagine,
Flesh touching flesh, skin interwined to be one.
The smell, the taste.
Sweat glissing in the candlelight.

Passionately loving one another,
Fullfilling each and every desire,
Exploring, leaving nothing untouched.



BY Meves









--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Still Standing


Now that I've been said and done
Fallen in the name of fun
I know I'm not the only one
But I'm still all by myself.
You overlooked my times of need
Laughed away thoughts of helping me.
I guess you thought I'd be all right
When I was the one on top.
Today I refuse to live in a hole
But a time not quite too long ago
I was wasting thoughts with my mind closed.
My heart was dead.
My soul was broke.
You put off tragedy for another day.
Well, my friend, that day's today.
I hit ground with outstretched hands.
And now I see you weren't my friends
Cuz the ones who'd helped
Had been there all along




BY Ali









--> Man

[Man]

Poem




My lady's presence makes the roses red


My lady's presence makes the roses red,
Because to see her lips they blush for shame.
The lily's leaves, for envy, pale became,
And her white hands in them this envy bred.
The marigold the leaves abroad doth spread,
Because the sun's and her power is the same.
The violet of purple colour came.
Dyed in the blood she made my heart to shed.
In brief: all flowers from her their virtue take;
From her sweet breath their sweet smells do proceed;
The living heat which her eyebeams doth make
Warmeth the ground and quickeneth the seed.
The rain, wherewith she watereth the flowers,
Falls from mine eyes, which she dissolves in showers.






BY Henry Constable 1562-1613









--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Her sweet weight on my Heart a Night

Her sweet weight on my Heart a Night
Had scarcely deigned to lie -
When, stirring, for Beliefs delight,
My bride had slipped away - If `twas a Dream - made solid - just
The Heaven to confirm -
Or if Myself were dreamed of Her -
The power to presume - With Him remain - who unto Me -
Gave - even as to All -
A Fiction superseding Faith -
By so much - as `twas real -







BY Emily Dickinson 1830-1886









--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Her breast is fit for pearls


Her breast is fit for pearls,
But I was not a `Diver' -
Her brow is fit for thrones
But I have not a crest.
Her heart is fit for home -
I - a Sparrow - build there
Sweet twigs and twine
My perennial nest.






BY Emily Dickinson 1830-1886









--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Wild Nights! Wild Nights!



Wild Nights! Wild Nights!
Were I with thee
Wild Nights should be
Our luxury!

Futile the Winds
To a Heart in port,
Done with the Compass,
Done with the Chart!

Rowing in Eden!
Ah, the Sea!
Might I but moor
Tonight in thee!



BY Emily Dickinson 1830-1886









--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Goblin Market



Golden head by golden head,
Like two pigeons in one nest
Folded in each other's wings,
They lay down their curtained bed:
Like two blossoms on one stem
Like two flakes of new-fall'n snow,
Like two wands of ivory
Tipped with gold for awful kings.
Moon and stars gazed in at them,
Wind sang to them lullaby,
Lumbering owls forbore to fly,
Not a bat flapped to and fro
Round their nest:
Cheek to cheek and breast to breast
Locked together in one nest.





BY Christina Rossetti 1830-1894









--> Man

[Man]

Poem




In Excelsis



You -- you --
Your shadow is sunlight on a plate of silver;
Your footsteps, the seeding-place of lilies;
Your hands moving, a chime of bells across a windless air.





BY Amy Lowell









--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Maundy Thursday


Between the brown hands of a server-lad
The silver cross was offered to be kissed.
The men came up, lugubrious, but not sad,
And knelt reluctantly, half-prejudiced.
(And kissing, kissed the emblem of a creed.)
Then mourning women knelt; meek mouths they had,
(And kissed the Body of the Christ indeed.)
Young children came, with eager lips and glad.
(These kissed a silver doll, immensely bright.)
Then I, too, knelt before that acolyte.
Above the crucifix I bent my head:
The Christ was thin, and cold, and very dead:
And yet I bowed, yea, kissed - my lips did cling.
(I kissed the warm live hand that held the thing.)







BY Wilfred Owen 1893-1918









--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Be Quiet, Sir!



Be quiet, Sir! Begone, I say!
Lord bless us! How you romp and tear!
There!
I swear!
Now you left my bosom bare!
I do not like such boisterous play,
So take that saucy hand away -
Why now, you're ruder than before!
Nay, I'll be hanged if I comply -
Fie!
I'll cry!
Oh - I can't bear it - I shall die!
I vow I'll never see you more!
But - are you sure you've shut the door?



BY Anonymous









--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Between Your Sheets



Between your sheets you soundly sleep
Nor dreams of vigils that we lovers keep
While all the night, I waking sign your name,
The tender sound does every nerve inflame,
Imagination shows me all your charms,
The plenteous silken hair, and waxen arms,
The well turned neck, and snowy rising breast
And all the beauties that supinely rest
between your sheets.



BY Lady Mary Wortley Montagu









--> Man

[Man]

Poem




The Vine



I dreamed this mortal part of mine
Was metamorphosed to a vine,
Which crawling one and every way
Enthralled my dainty Lucia.
Methought her long small legs and thighs
I with my tendrils did surprise;
Her belly, buttocks, and her waist
By my soft nervelets were embraced.
About her head I writhing hung,
And with rich clusters (hid among
The leaves) her temples I behung,
So that my Lucia seemed to me
Young Bacchus ravished by his tree.
My curls about her neck did crawl,
And arms and hands they did enthrall,
So that she could not freely stir
(All parts there made one prisoner).
But when I crept with leaves to hide
Those parts which maids keep unespied,
Such fleeting pleasures there I took
That with the fancy I awoke;
And found (ah me!) this flesh of mine
More like a stock than like a vine.



BY Robert Herrick 1591-1674











--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Upon Julia's Clothes


Whenas in silks my Julia goes,
Then, then, methinks, how sweetly flows
That liquefaction of her clothes.




BY Robert Herrick 1591-1674











--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Upon Scobble


Scobble for whoredom whips his wife and cries
He'll slit her nose; but blubbering she replies,
"Good sir, make no more cuts I' th' outward skin,
One slit's enough to let adultery in."







BY Robert Herrick 1591-1674











--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Delight in Disorder


A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness.
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction;
An erring lace, which here and there
Enthralls the crimson stomacher;
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribbons to flow confusedly;
A winning wave, deserving note,
In the tempestuous petticoat;
A careless shoestring, in whose tie
I see a wild civility;
Do more bewitch me than when art
Is too precise in every part.








BY Robert Herrick 1591-1674











--> Man

[Man]

Poem




The Harlot's House


We caught the tread of dancing feet,
We loitered down the moonlit street,
And stopped beneath the harlot's house.





BY Oscar Wilde











--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Sonnet


I AM most lovely, fair beyond desire;
My breasts are sweet, my hair is soft and bright,
And every movement flows by instinct right:
Full well I know my touch doth burn like fire,
That my voice stings the sense like smitten lyre;
I am the queen of sensuous delight;
Past years are sealed with the signet of my might;
And at my feet pale present kneels a buyer.





BY George Moore. From Flowers of Passion












--> Man

[Man]

Poem




A Woman Waits for Me-From Leaves of the Grass-


A woman waits for me, she contains all, nothing is lacking,
Yet all were lacking if sex were lacking, or if the moisture
of the right man were lacking.






BY Walt Whitman












--> Man

[Man]

Poem




The Kiss


What smouldering senses in death's sick delay
Or seizure of malign vicissitude
Can rob this body of honour, or denude
This soul of wedding-raiment worn to-day?
For lo! even now my lady's lips did play
With these my lips such consonant interlude
As laurelled Orpheus longed for when he wooed
The half-drawn hungering face with that last lay.






BY Dante Gabriel Rosetti












--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Roman Elegies


SPEAK, ye stones, I entreat! Oh speak, ye palaces lofty!

Utter a word, oh ye streets! Wilt thou not, Genius, awake?
All that thy sacred walls, eternal Rome, hold within them

Teemeth with life; but to me, all is still silent and dead.
Oh, who will whisper unto me,--when shall I see at the casement

That one beauteous form, which, while it scorcheth, revives?
Can I as yet not discern the road, on which I for ever

To her and from her shall go, heeding not time as it flies?
Still do I mark the churches, palaces, ruins, and columns,

As a wise traveller should, would he his journey improve.
Soon all this will be past; and then will there be but one temple,

Amor's temple alone, where the Initiate may go.
Thou art indeed a world, oh Rome; and yet, were Love absent,

Then would the world be no world, then would e'en Rome be no Rome.







BY Goethe












--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Venetian Epigrams





URN and sarcophagus erst were with life adorn'd by the heathen

Fauns are dancing around, while with the Bacchanal troop
Chequerd circles they trace; and the goat-footed, puffy-cheekd player

Wildly produceth hoarse tones out of the clamorous horn.
Cymbals and drums resound; we see and we hear, too, the marble.

Fluttering bird! oh how sweet tastes the ripe fruit to thy bill!
Noise there is none to disturb thee, still less to scare away Amor,

Who, in the midst of the throng, learns to delight in his torch.
Thus doth fullness overcome death; and the ashes there cover'd

Seem, in that silent domain, still to be gladdend with life.
Thus may the minstrel's sarcophagus be hereafter surrounded

With such a scroll, which himself richly with life has adorn'd.








BY Goethe












--> Man

[Man]

Poem




*WAITING FOR YOU*

Days drag on and the nights go by
And I still think I see you with a corner of my eye,
As on my pillow and on my bed
An imprint of you just stays in my head.
Dreaming of that day when we`ll always be together
Dreaming of good things from now until forever.
Knowing just one thing, I just want you by my side,
You know how I feel I have no need to hide.

Everytime I see you girl I love you more and more,
Everytime I feel you near I know that I adore
Every lil` thing about you in every lil` way,
You` re my lil` angel and thats how its gonna stay.






BY Gemini












--> Man

[Man]

Poem




LAST EMBRACE



Embrace me one last time
Let me feel
The warmth of your body
And the freshness of your breath.
Let me be yours
As you will be mine
Let us fuse our bodies
One last time.

A love so strong like ours
Betrayed
By destiny and time
Who would expect
For us to meet again
In this life
When I
Could no longer be yours
And you
Could never be mine.

Present situation
This is but pain.
Seeing you my loved one
With another someone.
My heart bleeds
No one could heal
Only you
Who caused
My love in vain.

Seeing you happy
With your preferred one
Makes me happy.
But, knowing
You are hurt inside
Makes me terribly in pain.

I wish
I could mend your broken heart
With my heart that is broken.
Hearts with missing pieces
That exactly fit each other.
Put these two together
And create a new heart
With a love
Felt by two hearts once hurt.

But, not all wishes come true
Like this wish
I have
For me and you.
All I can do
Is but wait for you
When your day is done
Follow where I am
Let us make our two hearts one.

I am grateful
Sunset is about to come
I got to wrap up
My love for you
I leave behind.
The breeze now cold
It touches
My skin so light
Come
Embrace me
One last time.







BY Unknown Lost Soul












--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Life . . .

there is so much to lose and so much to gain
i have no idea how do people stay sane
at time i get frustrated, at times i just wanna cry
without you by my side, my life is full of pain

some people are so blessed yet are so cursed
my heart cant take this any longer,
i just want to burst talk about similarities, talk about irony
we all feel the same pain yet are so diverse
life is suppose to be personal, it is suppose to be unique
then why is full of hardship, why does it make hearts bleed
everyone standing for themselves, full of greed
how am i suppose to live .. how am i suppose to breathe ?
life is full of choices but the ones i cant grasp
as i look ahead in this journey i cant help but gasp
its so hard to let go and even harder to keep
life is suppose to be beautiful, then why do we grieve?





BY Aarya











--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Love Lost

What happened to the man I knew
Where did he go?
The one who said he loved me
And desired me so.

He is still there in body
But he just isn’t the same,
Somehow something happened,
Something somehow changed.

Gone is the man I knew
Who claimed to love me true
Who used to think of me every day
All the whole day through.

Here now is a man of coldness
Who took it all away,
Leaving me to feel misplaced
In every single way.

Wish someone would bring him back,
The man I knew and admired
Instead of this man before me
Who`s love is uninspired.

Bring back the man I want
The one that made me smile,
The one who kept me warm at night
And lay with me a while.

The one who made me glow inside
Who made me so content,
The man who made me think of him
And all our moments spent.

The one I fell in love with
Who was always so warm hearted,
Instead of the one before me now,
Who is cold, and so departed.




BY Nikoshiana Flowerday











--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Kiss Cross


You have been carving the corners of my spoon fed inhibitions,
its has stopped hurting aroundthe edges of my lips
and as i break out in honeyed droplets of sweat
to you - i kneel and kiss cross with the ghost of my smile
now that i've garlanded the moist sins of our ancesters
i bury my face in the brittle folds of your testament screeching
and grating your flesh for attention
but you are occupied with dead sea scrolls and will soon bring
to show me who you are




BY Ravi












--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Better tomorrow


I never knew there would be a better tomorrow
But you've come into my life and taken away all my sorrow

My days of sadness are a thing of the past
Because I have found true love at last

My days of emptiness are gone for good
Because you fill a void in my heart that you should

You've opened a window
You've shown me the light
And my love for you will continue to burn bright



BY Saki












--> Man

[Man]

Poem




My love angel



love you so much that words can't explain
this joy that I have for you.

When I am at the weakest point of my life
you are there encouraging me to run this race
because I am not only cause you are there with me.

You are on my mind day and night.

When we are apart I picture you gracious smile and gentle hug.

I can let my feelings out to you and won't regret it
because no matter what is you are always on my side.

I thank God for sending me someone like you who is precious and loving.

So I can truly say that you are the Angel of My Life!



BY Saki












--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Valentine’s Day



It’s the Valentine’s Day,

And Love is in the air,

But I have a complaint to make,

You ‘homo Sapiens’ are so unfair



Cupid’s quiver is empty,

He has to steal, beg or borrow,

Neither for ‘love’ nor for money,

Can he get a single arrow



The human males send to their lady-love,

Cards, chocolates, a scented love-letter,

Red roses and heart-shaped balloons,

They don’t know anything better



We ‘Felis Domesticus’ are a noble breed,

So we ignore these ignoble practices,

We only Serenade our lady-loves,

Wooing differs from species to species



However, when male cats,

Are singing a love-poem,

Should you say ‘Drat those cats!’,

And throw an old shoe at them?



Should you add insult to injury,

By erroneously calling,

Their sweet, melodious music,

As ‘caterwauling’?



So my dear humans

When cats Serenade in neighborhood

Don’t throw stones at them

Show some fortitude.



BY Charuavi












--> Man

[Man]

Poem




The Charge of the Light Brigade



Men are born equal, but their training differs

Hence the different meanings this phrase offers



To those who know their military history,

‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ is no mystery

They know the poetic tribute Tennyson paid,

To the brave soldiers six hundred.



However, to the Physicist in the University,

‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ is Verbosity.

His heart fills with indignation to the brim,

when this phrase is applied to a simple photon stream.



Any red-blooded Average Joe will tell

‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ is the Euphoria he felt,

On seeing a bevy of girls, those creatures of light,

Who invade his peaceful dreams at night.



The only meaning the Constable made,

Out of ‘The Charge of the light (fingered) Brigade’

Was the Offense under which to book,

the petty larceny of a crook.



So, you see my friend,

The words ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’

Have different meanings to different people,

because their upbringing and vocations are unequal.




BY Charuavi












--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Helen and I are very proud of our daughter, Emily.
This poem is a valentine for her from both of us.


How Fortunate We've Been




In America, first rock and roll

divided young folks from the old.

Then, rap made things even worse;

young people now began to curse.



Some teenagers say words obscene

while Emily says words quite clean.

Some teenagers court popularity

while Emily courts purity.



Some teenager hate schoolwork chores

while Emily is never bored.

Some teenagers procrastinate

while Emily is never late.



Some teenagers always complain

while Emily is always sane.

Some teenagers hate folks who have aged

while Emily to all is sage.



Pardon us for being proud,

but as parents we're allowed

to note how fortunate we've been

in a world where kin shun kin.



..............



With love and respect,



Harry and Helen







BY Harry Kottler












--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Love At First Sight ..........



I saw you
it was love at first sight
Amazing grace such as I've never seen
my breath was easily taken away
your beauty ridiculously obscene

I never thought
someone can make me feel this way

Makes me look forward to each and every day

For you there’s no price I wouldn’t pay

I saw you

You made me smile without saying a word

You helped me without uttering a sound

My life has done a turn around

I know that

You know just what you do
By the way you show off your assets
I sense that it gives you great pleasure
To treat all men as your pets

I saw you

It was love at first sight
Somehow I had to make you aware
that of all the guys hitting on you
I was the best one there

I knew that

What was in store for me
I knew you could cast me aside
But I had confidence in myself
I let my heart be my guide

I saw you
I said hello and asked your name
and brazenly told you mine
you smiled and nodded your head
And I knew now was the time

i knew that

Two loving hearts together
that’s what GOD wanted all the time
and so I ask you darling
will you be my Valentine
I will love and care for you always!






BY Woman's Love











--> Man

Click On The Picture And On The Ensuing Icon To Enlarge

[Man]

Poem




I Do Say



What can I say when I think about you?
I fear you yet I care so much of you that
you are all I want to be with.
I wish, I do say, that I do desire
every moment of your attention.
I do wish that you could see into my eyes as
I see into yours.
Every slight glance to every long gaze;
I want to be known, for myself, and to be
wanted, just to feel the sensation.
The sensation of knowing, within one's self,
that you are a part of this wonderful thing called life.
To be given the right to live life with another
can only give one a doorway to happiness.
To experience love and loss, the way life is meant to be.
One can't love without being lost
and can't loose without once being loved.
I do say, what harm can be done in being lost?
If all it takes is having to be lost here and feel
loved then in the end it is well worth it.







BY Deeplyfelt











--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Juliet's First Love


Everything was perfect
Like a relationship should be
Time spent together
Honesty trust till
Eternity

I never knew how much one day could mean to me
I guess I was blind
Not willing to see

My love of my life had to leave
Face to Face he slowly, patiently
Explained everything to me

Full of pain, shock
Not wanting him to leave
Was the hardest part that I did not want to believe

Silence, grieving
My heart could not take
I wanted to fall in a deep sleep and never awake

For the last time I look deep in his big blue eyes
And all I could see
Was a heart broken lover
Because of me

My Romeo has gone
But maybe he will return
To behold me his Juliet
Without saying one word

I need to move on
That is what I tried to remind myself
But it's hard for I could never love
anyone else.


BY Linze











--> Man

[Man]

Poem




A Love Once Lived


Upon the dusk of love
Beyond the pinnacle of happiness
There is a love once lived

The songbirds once sang a melody
The sky bathed in seemingly endless light
There are but visions of the past
Dreams of a love once lived

Love was endless it was thought
Never ending, full and true
Now it's enveloped in endless rue
Never to be felt again

The sky is now dark, grey clouds looming
No dreams of love again blooming
Life not lonely and desolate
Now just memories of a love once lived



BY Nick











--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Me?



I look in the mirror and I see,
A person who never stops crying
A person that is not me
A person that hurts
A person in pain
A person who lost it
A person who is insane
A person that worries
All day and all night
A person who is scared
A person in fright
A person I don't like
A person I don't want to be
A person who knows -
You will never love me.




BY Megan H.











--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Buddha and Brahma

THE Buddha, known to men by many names --
Siddartha, Sakya, Muni, Blessed One,--
Sat in the forest, as had been his wont
These many years since he attained perfection;
In silent thought, abstraction, purity,
His eyes fixed on the Lotus in his hand,
He meditated on the perfect Life,
While his disciples, sitting round him, waited
His words of teaching, every syllable
More and more precious as the Master gently
Warned them how near was come his day of parting.
In silence , as the Master gave example,
They meditated on the Path and Law,
Till one, Malunka, looking up and speaking,
Said to the Buddha: "O Omniscient One,
Teach us, if such be in the Perfect Way,
Whether the World exists eternally."


Continued Below



BY Henry Adams -- Written in 1891 aboard ship while on trip with John La Farge. On 26 April 1895 Adams sent the above to his friend John Jay. It was published in the Yale Law Review in Oct. 1915.












--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Buddha and Brahma


Continuation


The Buddha made no answer, and in silence
All the disciples bent their contemplation
On the perfection of the Eight-fold Way,
Until Malunka spoke again: "O Master,
What answer shall we offer to the Brahman
Who asks us if our Master holds the World
To be, or not, Eternal?"
Still the Buddha sat
As though he heard not, contemplating
The pure white Lotus in his sacred hand,
Till a third time Malunka questioned him:
"Lord of the World, we know not what we ask;
We fear to teach what thou hast not made pure."

Then gently, still in silence, lost in thought,
The Buddha raised the Lotus in his hand,
His eyes bent downward, fixed upon the flower.
No more! A moment so he held it only,
Then his hand sank into its former rest.


Continued Below



BY Henry Adams -- Written in 1891 aboard ship while on trip with John La Farge. On 26 April 1895 Adams sent the above to his friend John Jay. It was published in the Yale Law Review in Oct. 1915.












--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Buddha and Brahma


Continuation


Long the disciples pondered on the lesson
Much they discussed its mystery and meaning,
Each finding something he could make his own,
Some hope or danger in the Noble Way,
Some guide or warning to the Perfect Life.
Among them sat the last of the disciples,
Listening and pondering, silently and still;
And when the scholars found no certain meaning
In Buddha's answer to Malunka's prayer,
The young man pondered: I will seek my father,
The wisest man of all men in the world,
And he with one word will reveal the secret,
And make me in an instant reach the light
Which these in many years have not attained
Though guided by the Buddha and the Law.


Continued Below



BY Henry Adams -- Written in 1891 aboard ship while on trip with John La Farge. On 26 April 1895 Adams sent the above to his friend John Jay. It was published in the Yale Law Review in Oct. 1915.












--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Buddha and Brahma


Continuation


So the boy sought his father - an old man
Famous for human wisdom, subtle counsel,
Boldness in action, recklessness in war -
Gautama's friend, the Rajah of Mogadha.
No follower of Buddha, but a Brahman,
Devoted first to Vishnu, then to caste,
He made no sign of anger or remonstrance
When his son left him at Siddartha's bidding
To take the vows of poverty and prayer -
If Vishnu willed it, let his will be done!


Continued Below



BY Henry Adams -- Written in 1891 aboard ship while on trip with John La Farge. On 26 April 1895 Adams sent the above to his friend John Jay. It was published in the Yale Law Review in Oct. 1915.












--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Buddha and Brahma


Continuation


The Rajah sat at evening in his palace,
Deep in solitude of his own thought,
When silently the young man entering
Crouched at a distance, waiting till his father
Should give some sign of favor. Then he spoke:
"Father, you are wise! I come to ask you
A secret meaning none of us can read;
For, when Malunka three times asked the Master
Whether the world was or was not eternal,
Siddartha for a moment lifted up
The Lotus, and kept silence."


Continued Below



BY Henry Adams -- Written in 1891 aboard ship while on trip with John La Farge. On 26 April 1895 Adams sent the above to his friend John Jay. It was published in the Yale Law Review in Oct. 1915.












--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Buddha and Brahma


Continuation


The Rajah pondered long, with darkened features,
As though in doubt increasing. Then he said:
"Reflect, my son! The Master had not meant
This last and deepest lesson to be learned
From any but himself - by any means
But silent thought, abstraction, purity,
The living spirit of his Eight-fold Way,
The jewels of his Lotus. Least of all
Had he, whose first and easiest lesson taught
The nothingness of caste, intended you
To seek out me, a Warrior, Kshatriya,
Knowing no duties but to caste and sword,
To teach the Buddha and unveil his shrine.
My teaching is not his; mine not his way;
You quit your Master when you question me."




Continued Below



BY Henry Adams -- Written in 1891 aboard ship while on trip with John La Farge. On 26 April 1895 Adams sent the above to his friend John Jay. It was published in the Yale Law Review in Oct. 1915.












--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Buddha and Brahma


Continuation


Silent they say, and long. The slowly spoke
The younger: "Father, you are wise.
I must have Wisdom." "Not so, my son.
Old men are often fools, but young men always.
Your duty is to act; leave thought to us."
The youngest sat in patience, eyes, cast down,
Voice low and gentle as the Master taught;
But still repeated the same prayer: "You are wise;
I must have wisdom. Life for me is thought,
But, were it action, how, in youth or age,
Can man act wisely, leaving thought aside?"




Continued Below



BY Henry Adams -- Written in 1891 aboard ship while on trip with John La Farge. On 26 April 1895 Adams sent the above to his friend John Jay. It was published in the Yale Law Review in Oct. 1915.












--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Buddha and Brahma


Continuation


The Rajah made no answer, but almost
His mouth seemed curving to a sudden smile
That hardened to a frown; and then he spoke:
"If Vishnu wills it, let his will be done!
The child sees jewels on his father's sword,
And cries until he gets it for a plaything.
He cannot use it but to wound himself;
Its perfect workmanship wakes no delight;
Its jewels are for him but common glass;
The sword means nothing that the child can know;
But when at last the child has grown to man,
Has learned the beauty of the weapon's art,
And proved its purpose on the necks of men,
Still must he tell himself, as I tell you:
Use it, but ask no questions! Think not! Strike!
This counsel you reject, for you want wisdom.
So be it! I swear to you in truth
That all my wisdom lies in these three words.




Continued Below



BY Henry Adams -- Written in 1891 aboard ship while on trip with John La Farge. On 26 April 1895 Adams sent the above to his friend John Jay. It was published in the Yale Law Review in Oct. 1915.












--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Buddha and Brahma


Continuation


"You ask Gautama's meaning, for you know
That since his birth, his thoughts and acts alike
Have been to me a mirror, clearer far
Than to himself, for no man sees himself.
With the solemnity of youth, you ask
Of me, on whom the charm of childhood still
Works greater miracles than magicians know,
To tell, as though it were a juggler's trick
The secret meaning which himself but now
Could tell you only by a mystic sign,
The symbol of a symbol - so far-thought,
So vagues and vast and intricate its scope.
And I, whom you compel to speak for him,
Must give his thought through mine, for his
Passes your powers -- yours and all your school.



Continued Below



BY Henry Adams -- Written in 1891 aboard ship while on trip with John La Farge. On 26 April 1895 Adams sent the above to his friend John Jay. It was published in the Yale Law Review in Oct. 1915.












--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Buddha and Brahma


Continuation


"Your Master, Sakya, Muni, Gautama,
Is, like myself and you, a Kshatriya,
And in our youths we both, like you, rebelled
Against the priesthood and their laws of caste.
We sought new paths, deperate to find escape
Out of the jungle that the priest had made.
Gautama found a path. You follow it.
I found none, and I stay here, in the jungle,
Content to tolerate what I cannot mend.
I blame not him or you, but would you know
Gautama's meaning, you must fathom mine.
He failed to cope with life; renounced its cares;
Fled to the forest, and attained the End,
Reaching the End by sacrificing life.
You know both End and Path. You, too, attain.
I could not. Ten years older, I;
Already trained to rule, to fight, to scheme,
To strive for objects that I dared not tell,
Not for myself alone, but for us all;
Had I thrown down my sword, and fled my throne,
Not all the hermits, priests, and saints of Ind,
Buddhist or Brahman, could have saved our heads
From rolling in the dirt; for Rajahs know
A quicker that the Eight - fold Noble Way
To help their scholars to attain the End.
Renounce I could not, and could not reform.
How could I battle with the Brahman priests,
Or free the people from the yoke of caste,
When, with the utmost aid that priests could give,
And willing service from each caste in turn,
I saved but barely both my throne and them.



Continued Below



BY Henry Adams -- Written in 1891 aboard ship while on trip with John La Farge. On 26 April 1895 Adams sent the above to his friend John Jay. It was published in the Yale Law Review in Oct. 1915.












--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Buddha and Brahma


Continuation


So came it that our paths were separate,
And his led up to so supreme a height
That from its summit he can now look down
And see where still the jungle stifles me.
Yet was our starting-point the same, and though
We now seem worlds apart - hold fast to this! --
The Starting-point must be the End-point too!
You know the Veda, and need not be taught
The first and last idea of all true knowledge:
One single spirit from which all things spring;
One thought containing all thoughts possible;
Not merely those that we, in our thin reason,
Hold to be true, but all their opposites;
For Brahma is Beginning, Middle, End,
Matter and Mind, Time, Space, Form, Life and Death.
The Universal has no time limit. Thought
Travelling in constant circles, round and round,
Muist ever pass through endless contradictions,
Returning on itself at last, till lost
In silence.



Continued Below



BY Henry Adams -- Written in 1891 aboard ship while on trip with John La Farge. On 26 April 1895 Adams sent the above to his friend John Jay. It was published in the Yale Law Review in Oct. 1915.












--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Buddha and Brahma


Continuation


"This is the Veda, as you know,
The alphabet of all philosophy,
For he who cannot or who dares not grasp
And follow this necessity of Brahma,
Is but a fool and weakling; and must perish
Among the follies of his own reflection.

"Your Master, you and I, and all wise men,
Have one sole purpose which we never lose:
Through different paths we each seek to attain,
Sooner or later, as your paths allow,
A perfect union with the single Spirit.
Gautama's way is best, but all are good.
He breaks a path at once to what he seeks.
By silence and absorption he unites
His soul with the great sould from which it started.
But we, who cannot fly the world, must seek
To live two separate lives; one, in the world
Which we must ever seem to treat as real;
The other in ourselves, behind a veil
Not to be raised without disturbing both.


Continued Below



BY Henry Adams -- Written in 1891 aboard ship while on trip with John La Farge. On 26 April 1895 Adams sent the above to his friend John Jay. It was published in the Yale Law Review in Oct. 1915.












--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Buddha and Brahma


Continuation


"The Rajah is an instrument of Brahma,
No more, no less, than sunshine, lightning, rain;
And when he meets resistance in his path,
And when his sword falls on a victim's neck,
It strikes as strikes the lightning -- as it must;
Rending it way through darkness to the point
It needs must seek, by no choice of its own.
Thus in the life of the Ruler, Warrior, Master,
The wise man knows his wisdom has no place,
And when most wise, we act by rule and law,
Talk to conceal our thought, and think
Only within the range of daily need,
Ruling our subjects while ourselves rebel,
Death always on our lips and in our act.


Continued Below



BY Henry Adams -- Written in 1891 aboard ship while on trip with John La Farge. On 26 April 1895 Adams sent the above to his friend John Jay. It was published in the Yale Law Review in Oct. 1915.












--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Buddha and Brahma


Continuation


"This is the jungle in which we must stay,
According to the teachings of the Master,
Never can we attain the Perfect Life.
Yet in this world of selfishness and striving
The wise man lives as deeply sunk in silence,
As conscious of the Perfect Life he covets,
As the recluse in his forest shadows,
As any Yogi in his mystic trances.
We need no Noble Way to teach us Freedom
Amid the clamor of a world of slaves.
We need no Lotus to love purity
Where life is else corruption.


Continued Below



BY Henry Adams -- Written in 1891 aboard ship while on trip with John La Farge. On 26 April 1895 Adams sent the above to his friend John Jay. It was published in the Yale Law Review in Oct. 1915.












--> Man

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Poem




Buddha and Brahma


Continuation


So read Siddartha's secret! He has taught
A certain pathway to attain the End;
And best and simplest yet devised by man,
Yet still so hard that every energy
Must be devoted to its sacred law.
Then, when Malunka turns to ask for knowledge,
Would seek what lies beyond the Path he teaches,
What distant horizon transcends his own,
He bids you look in silence on the Lotus.
For you, he means no more. For me, this meaning
Points back and forward to that common goal
From which all paths diverge; to which,
All paths must tend -- Brahma, the only Truth!

"Gautama tells me my way too is good;
Life, Time, Space, Thought, the World, the Universe
End where they first begin, in one sole Thought
Of Purity in Silence."



BY Henry Adams -- Written in 1891 aboard ship while on trip with John La Farge. On 26 April 1895 Adams sent the above to his friend John Jay. It was published in the Yale Law Review in Oct. 1915.












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[Man]

Poem




To The Sun-Dial

UNDER the Window of the Hall of the House
of Representatives of the United States


Thou silent herald of Time's silent flight!
Say, could'st thou speak, what warning voice were thine?
Shade, who canst only show how others shine!
Dark, sullen witness of resplendent light
In day's broad glare, and when the noontide bright
Of laughing fortune sheds the ray divine,
Thy ready favors cheer us--but decline
The clouds of morning and the gloom of night.
Yet are thy counsels faithful, just, and wise;
They bid us seize the moments as they pass--
Snatch the retrieveless sunbeam as it flies,
Nor lose one sand of life's revolving glass--
Aspiring still, with energy sublime,
By virtuous deeds to give eternity to Time.




John Quincy Adams











--> Man

[Man]

Poem




The Wants of Man

"MAN wants but little here below,
Nor wants that little long."
'Tis not with me exactly so;
But 'tis so in the song.
My wants are many and, if told,
Would muster many a score;
And were each wish a mint of gold,
I still should long for more.

What first I want is daily bread --
And canvas-backs, -- and wine --
And all the realms of nature spread
Before me, when I dine.
Four courses scarcely can provide
My appetite to quell;
With four choice cooks from France beside,
To dress my dinner well.

What next I want, at princely cost,
Is elegant attire :
Black sable furs for winter's frost,
And silks for summer's fire,
And Cashmere shawls, and Brussels lace
My bosom's front to deck, --
And diamond rings my hands to grace,
And rubies for my neck.

I want (who does not want?) a wife, --
Affectionate and fair;
To solace all the woes of life,
And all its joys to share.
Of temper sweet, of yielding will,
Of firm, yet placid mind, --
With all my faults to love me still
With sentiment refined.

And as Time's car incessant runs,
And Fortune fills my store,
I want of daughters and of sons
From eight to half a score.
I want (alas! can mortal dare
Such bliss on earth to crave?)
That all the girls be chaste and fair, --
The boys all wise and brave.

I want a warm and faithful friend,
To cheer the adverse hour,
Who ne'er to flatter will descend,
Nor bend the knee to power, --
A friend to chide me when I'm wrong,
My inmost soul to see;
And that my friendship prove as strong
For him as his for me.

I want the seals of power and place,
The ensigns of command;
Charged by the People's unbought grace
To rule my native land.
Nor crown nor sceptre would I ask
But from my country's will,
By day, by night, to ply the task
Her cup of bliss to fill.

I want the voice of honest praise
To follow me behind,
And to be thought in future days
The friend of human-kind,
That after ages, as they rise,
Exulting may proclaim
In choral union to the skies
Their blessings on my name.

These are the Wants of mortal Man, --
I cannot want them long,
For life itself is but a span,
And earthly bliss -- a song.
My last great Want -- absorbing all --
Is, when beneath the sod,
And summoned to my final call,
The Mercy of my God.


John Quincy Adams

Washington, August 31, 1841.









--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Nearer My God to Thee

NEARER, my God, to Thee,
Nearer to Thee!
E'en though it be a cross
That raiseth me;
Still all my song shall be,
Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer to Thee!

Though like the wanderer,
The sun gone down,
Darkness be over me,
My rest a stone;
Yet in my dreams I'd be
Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer to Thee!

There let the way appear
Steps unto Heaven,
All that Thou send'st me
In mercy given;
Angels to beckon me
Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer to Thee!

Than, with my waking thoughts
Bright with Thy praise,
Out of my stony griefs,
Bethel I'll raise;
So by my woes to be
Nearer, my God, to Thee,
Nearer to Thee!

Sarah Flower Adams










--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Ode

THE spacious firmament on high,
With all the blue ethereal sky,
And spangled heav'ns, a shining frame,
Their great Original proclaim.
Th'unwearied sun from day to day
Does his Creator's pow'r display,
And publishes to every land
The work of an almighty hand.

Soon as the ev'ning shades prevail,
The moon takes up the wondrous tale,
And nightly to the list'ning earth
Repeats the story of her birth;
Whilst all the stars that round her burn,
And all the planets in their turn,
Confirm the tidings as they roll,
And spread the truth from pole to pole.

What though in solemn silence, all
Move round this dark terrestrial ball?
What though nor real voice nor sound
Amidst their radiant orbs be found?
In Reason's ear, they all rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious voice,
Forever singing as they shine:
"The hand that made us is divine!"



Joseph Addison







--> Man

[Man]

Poem




By the Margins of the Great Deep

When the breath of twilight blows to flame the misty skies,
All its vaporous sapphire, violet glow and silver gleam
With their magic flood me through the gateway of the eyes;
I am one with the twilight's dream.

When the trees and skies and fields are one in dusky mood,
Every heart of man is rapt within the mother's breast;
Full of peace and sleep and dreams in the vasty quietude,
I am one with their hearts at rest.

From our immemorial joys of hearth and home and love
Strayed away along the margin of the unknown tide,
All its reach of soundless calm can thrill me far above
Word or touch from the lips beside.

Aye, and deep and deep and deeper let me drink and draw
From the olden fountain more than light or peace or dream,
Such primeval being as o'erfills the heart with awe,
Growing one with its silent stream.





George William Russell ("A.E.")






--> Man

[Man]

Poem




The Hermit

Now the quietude of earth
Nestles deep my heart within;
Friendships new and strange have birth
Since I left the city's din.

Here the tempest stays its guile,
Like a big kind brother plays,
Romps and pauses here awhile
From its immemorial ways.

Now the silver light of dawn
Slipping through the leaves that fleck
My one window, hurries on,
Throws its arms around my neck.

Darkness to my doorway hies,
Lays her chin upon the roof,
And her burning seraph eyes
Now no longer keep aloof.

And the ancient mystery
Holds its hands out day by day,
Takes a chair and croons with me
By my cabin built of clay.

When the dusky shadow flits,
By the chimney nook I see
Where the old enchanter sits,
Smiles and waves and beckons me.





George William Russell ("A.E.")






--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Inheritance

As flow the rivers to the sea
Adown from rocky hill or plain,
A thousand ages toiled for thee
And gave thee harvest of their gain;
And weary myriads of yore
Dug out for thee earth's buried ore.

The shadowy toilers for thee fought
In chaos of primeval day
Blind battles with they knew not what;
And each before he passed away
Gave clear articulate cries of woe --
Your pain is theirs of long ago.

And all the old heart sweetness sung,
The joyous life of man and maid
In forests when the earth was young,
In rumors round your childhood strayed,
The careless sweetness of your mind
Comes from the buried years behind.

And not alone unto your birth
Their gifts the weeping ages bore,
The old descents of God on earth
Have dowered thee with celestial lore;
So, wise, and filled with sad and gay
You pass into the further day.



George William Russell ("A.E.")






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[Man]

Poem




Parting

As from our dream we died away
Far off I felt the outer things;
Your wind-blown tresses round me play,
Your bosom's gentle murmurings.

And far away our faces met
As on the verge of the vast spheres;
And in the night our cheeks were wet,
I could not say with dew or tears.

O gate by which I entered in!
O face and hair! O lips and eyes!
Through you again the world I win,
How far away from Paradise!



George William Russell ("A.E.")






--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Reconciliation

I begin through the grass once again to be bound to the Lord;
I can see, through a face that has faded, the face full of rest
Of the earth, of the mother, my heart with her heart in accord,
As I lie 'mid the cool green tresses that mantle her breast.
I begin with the grass once again to be found to the Lord.

By the hand of a child I am led to the throne of the King,
For a touch that now fevers me not is forgotten and far,
And His infinite sceptered hands that sway us can bring
Me in dreams from the laugh of a child to the song of a star.
On the laugh of a child I am borne to the joy of the King.


George William Russell ("A.E.")






--> Man

[Man]

Poem


Senlin: A Biography


I. HIS DARK ORIGINS

1

Senlin sits before us, and we see him.
He smokes his pipe before us, and we hear him.
Is he small, with reddish hair,
Does he light his pipe with meditative stare,
And a pointed flame reflected in both eyes?
Is he sad and happy and foolish and wise?
Did no one see him enter the doors of the city,
Looking above him at the roofs and trees and skies?
'I stepped from a cloud', he says, 'as evening fell;
I walked on the sound of a bell;
I ran with winged heels along a gust;
Or is it true that I laughed and sprang from dust? . . .
Has no one, in a great autumnal forest,
When the wind bares the trees,
Heard the sad horn of Senlin slowly blown?
Has no one, on a mountain in the spring,
Heard Senlin sing?
Perhaps I came alone on a snow-white horse,--
Riding alone from the deep-starred night.
Perhaps I came on a ship whose sails were music,--
Sailing from moon or sun on a river of light.'

He lights his pipe with a pointed flame.
'Yet, there were many autumns before I came,
And many springs. And more will come, long after
There is no horn for me, or song, or laughter.

The city dissolves about us, and its walls
Become an ancient forest. There is no sound
Except where an old twig tires and falls;
Or a lizard among the dead leaves crawls;
Or a flutter is heard in darkness along the ground.

Has Senlin become a forest? Do we walk in Senlin?
Is Senlin the wood we walk in, --ourselves,--the world?
Senlin! we cry . . . Senlin! again . . . No answer,
Only soft broken echoes backward whirled . . .

Yet we would say: this is no wood at all,
But a small white room with a lamp upon the wall;
And Senlin, before us, pale, with reddish hair,
Lights his pipe with a meditative stare.


Continued Below


Conrad Aiken






--> Man

[Man]

Poem


Senlin: A Biography


I. HIS DARK ORIGINS


Continuation


2

Senlin, walking beside us, swings his arms
And turns his head to look at walls and trees.
The wind comes whistling from shrill stars of winter,
The lights are jewels, black roots freeze.
'Did I, then, stretch from the bitter earth like these,
Reaching upward with slow and rigid pain
To seek, in another air, myself again?'

(Immense and solitary in a desert of rocks
Behold a bewildered oak
With white clouds screaming through its leafy brain.)
'Or was I the single ant, or tinier thing,
That crept from the rocks of buried time
And dedicated its holy life to climb
From atom to beetling atom, jagged grain to grain,
Patiently out of the darkness we call sleep
Into a hollow gigantic world of light
Thinking the sky to be its destined shell,
Hoping to fit it well!--'

The city dissolves about us, and its walls
Are mountains of rock cruelly carved by wind.
Sand streams down their wasting sides, sand
Mounts upward slowly about them: foot and hand
We crawl and bleed among them! Is this Senlin?

In the desert of Senlin must we live and die?
We hear the decay of rocks, the crash of boulders,
Snarling of sand on sand. 'Senlin!' we cry.
'Senlin!' again . . . Our shadows revolve in silence
Under the soulless brilliance of blue sky.

Yet we would say: there are no rocks at all,
Nor desert of sand . . . here by a city wall
White lights jewell the evening, black roots freeze,
And Senlin turns his head to look at trees..


Continued Below


Conrad Aiken






--> Man

[Man]

Poem


Senlin: A Biography


I. HIS DARK ORIGINS


Continuation


3

It is evening, Senlin says, and in the evening,
By a silent shore, by a far distant sea,
White unicorns come gravely down to the water.
In the lilac dusk they come, they are white and stately,
Stars hang over the purple waveless sea;
A sea on which no sail was ever lifted,
Where a human voice was never heard.
The shadows of vague hills are dark on the water,
The silent stars seem silently to sing.
And gravely come white unicorns down to the water,
One by one they come and drink their fill;
And daisies burn like stars on the darkened hill.

It is evening Senlin says, and in the evening
The leaves on the trees, abandoned by the light,
Look to the earth, and whisper, and are still.
The bat with horned wings, tumbling through the darkness,
Breaks the web, and the spider falls to the ground.
The starry dewdrop gathers upon the oakleaf,
Clings to the edge, and falls without a sound.
Do maidens spread their white palms to the starlight
And walk three steps to the east and clearly sing?
Do dewdrops fall like a shower of stars from willows?
Has the small moon a ghostly ring? . . .
White skeletons dance on the moonlit grass,
Singing maidens are buried in deep graves,
The stars hang over a sea like polished glass . . .
And solemnly one by one in the darkness there
Neighing far off on the haunted air
White unicorns come gravely down to the water.

No silver bells are heard. The westering moon
Lights the pale floors of caverns by the sea.
Wet weed hangs on the rock. In shimmering pools
Left on the rocks by the receding sea
Starfish slowly turn their white and brown
Or writhe on the naked rocks and drown.
Do sea-girls haunt these caves--do we hear faint singing?
Do we hear from under the sea a faint bell ringing?
Was that a white hand lifted among the bubbles
And fallen softly back?
No, these shores and caverns are all silent,
Dead in the moonlight; only, far above,
On the smooth contours of these headlands,
White amid the eternal black,
One by one in the moonlight there
Neighing far off on the haunted air
The unicorns come down to the sea.



Continued Below


Conrad Aiken






--> Man

[Man]

Poem


Senlin: A Biography


I. HIS DARK ORIGINS


Continuation


4

Senlin, walking before us in the sunlight,
Bending his small legs in a peculiar way,
Goes to his work with thoughts of the universe.
His hands are in his pockets, he smokes his pipe,
He is happily conscious of roofs and skies;
And, without turning his head, he turns his eyes
To regard white horses drawing a small white hearse.
The sky is brilliant between the roofs,
The windows flash in the yellow sun,
On the hard pavement ring the hoofs,
The light wheels softly run.
Bright particles of sunlight fall,
Quiver and flash, gyrate and burn,
Honey-like heat flows down the wall,
The white spokes dazzle and turn.

Senlin, walking before us in the sunlight,
Regards the hearse with an introspective eye.
'Is it my childhood there,' he asks,
'Sealed in a hearse and hurrying by?'
He taps his trowel against a stone;
The trowel sings with a silver tone.

'Nevertheless I know this well.
Bury it deep and toll a bell,
Bury it under land or sea,
You cannot bury it save in me.'

It is as if his soul had become a city,
With noisily peopled streets, and through these streets
Senlin himself comes driving a small white hearse . . .
'Senlin!' we cry. He does not turn his head.
But is that Senlin?--Or is this city Senlin,--
Quietly watching the burial of the dead?
Dumbly observing the cortège of its dead?
Yet we would say that all this is but madness:
Around a distant corner trots the hearse.
And Senlin walks before us in the sunlight
Happily conscious of his universe.




Continued Below


Conrad Aiken






--> Man

[Man]

Poem


Senlin: A Biography


I. HIS DARK ORIGINS


Continuation


5

In the hot noon, in an old and savage garden,
The peach-tree grows. Its cruel and ugly roots
Rend and rifle the silent earth for moisture.
Above, in the blue, hang warm and golden fruits.
Look, how the cancerous roots crack mould and stone!
Earth, if she had a voice, would wail her pain.
Is she the victim, or is the tree the victim?
Delicate blossoms opened in the rain,
Black bees flew among them in the sunlight,
And sacked them ruthlessly; and no a bird
Hangs, sharp-eyed, in the leaves, and pecks the fruit;
And the peach-tree dreams, and does not say a word.
. . . Senlin, tapping his trowel against a stone,
Observes this tree he planted: it is his own.

'You will think it strange,' says Senlin, 'but this tree
Utters profound things in this garden;
And in its silence speaks to me.
I have sensations, when I stand beneath it,
As if its leaves looked at me, and could see;
And those thin leaves, even in windless air,
Seem to be whispering me a choral music,
Insubstantial but debonair.

"Regard," they seem to say,
"Our idiot root, which going its brutal way
Has cracked your garden wall!
Ugly, is it not?
A desecration of this place . . .
And yet, without it, could we exist at all?"
Thus, rustling with importance, they seem to me
To make their apology;
Yet, while they apologize,
Ask me a wary question with their eyes.
Yes, it is true their origin is low--
Brutish and dull and cruel . . . and it is true
Their roots have cracked the wall. But do we know
The leaves less cruel--the root less beautiful?
Sometimes it seems as if there grew
In the dull garden of my mind
A tree like this, which, singing with delicate leaves,
Yet cracks the wall with cruel roots and blind.
Sometimes, indeed, it appears to me
That I myself am such a tree . . .'

. . . And as we hear from Senlin these strange words
So, slowly, in the sunlight, he becomes this tree:
And among the pleasant leaves hang sharp-eyed birds
While cruel roots dig downward secretly.




Continued Below


Conrad Aiken






--> Man

[Man]

Poem


Senlin: A Biography


I. HIS DARK ORIGINS


Continuation


6

Rustling among his odds and ends of knowledge
Suddenly, to his wonder, Senlin finds
How Cleopatra and Senebtisi
Were dug by many hands from ancient tombs.
Cloth after scented cloth the sage unwinds:
Delicious to see our futile modern sunlight
Dance like a harlot among these Dogs and Dooms!

First, the huge pyramid, with rock on rock
Bloodily piled to heaven; and under this
A gilded cavern, bat festooned;
And here in rows on rows, with gods about them,
Cloudily lustrous, dim, the sacred coffins,
Silver starred and crimson mooned.

What holy secret shall we now uncover?
Inside the outer coffin is a second;
Inside the second, smaller, lies a third.
This one is carved, and like a human body;
And painted over with fish and bull and bird.
Here are men walking stiffly in procession,
Blowing horns or lifting spears.
Where do they march to? Where do they come from?
Soft whine of horns is in our ears.

Inside, the third, a fourth . . . and this the artist,--
A priest, perhaps--did most to make resemble
The flesh of her who lies within.
The brown eyes widely stare at the bat-hung ceiling.
The hair is black, The mouth is thin.
Princess! Secret of life! We come to praise you!
The torch is lowered, this coffin too we open,
And the dark air is drunk with musk and myrrh.
Here are the thousand white and scented wrappings,
The gilded mask, and jeweled eyes, of her.

And now the body itself, brown, gaunt, and ugly,
And the hollow scull, in which the brains are withered,
Lie bare before us. Princess, is this all?
Something there was we asked that is not answered.
Soft bats, in rows, hang on the lustered wall.

And all we hear is a whisper sound of music,
Of brass horns dustily raised and briefly blown,
And a cry of grief; and men in a stiff procession
Marching away and softly gone.





Continued Below


Conrad Aiken






--> Man

[Man]

Poem


Senlin: A Biography


I. HIS DARK ORIGINS


Continuation


7

'And am I then a pyramid?' says Senlin,
'In which are caves and coffins, where lies hidden
Some old and mocking hieroglyph of flesh?
Or am I rather the moonlight, spreading subtly
Above those stones and times?
Or the green blade of grass that bravely grows
Between to massive boulders of black basalt
Year after year, and fades and blows?

Senlin, sitting before us in the lamplight,
Laughs, and lights his pipe. The yellow flame
Minutely flares in his eyes, minutely dwindles.
Does a blade of grass have Senlin for a name?
Yet we would say that we have seen him somewhere,
A tiny spear of green beneath the blue,
Playing his destiny in a sun-warmed crevice
With the gigantic fates of frost and dew.

Does a spider come and spin his gossamer ladder
Rung by silver rung,
Chaining it fast to Senlin? Its faint shadow
Flung, waveringly, where his is flung?
Does a raindrop dazzle starlike down his length
Trying his futile strength?
A snowflake startle him? The stars defeat him?
Through aeons of dusk have birds above him sung?
Time is a wind, says Senlin; time, like music,
Blows over us its mournful beauty, passes,
And leaves behind a shadowy reflection,--
A helpless gesture of mist above the grasses.





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Conrad Aiken






--> Man

[Man]

Poem


Senlin: A Biography


I. HIS DARK ORIGINS


Continuation



8

In cold blue lucid dusk before the sunrise,
One yellow star sings over a peak of snow,
And melts and vanishes in a light like roses.
Through slanting mist, black rocks appear and glow.

The clouds flow downward, slowly as grey glaciers,
Or up to a pale rose-azure pass.
Blue streams tinkle down from snow to boulders,
From boulders to white grass.

Icicles on the pine tree melt
And softly flash in the sun:
In long straight lines the star-drops fall
One by one.

Is a voice heard while the shadows still are long,
Borne slowly down on the sparkling air?
Is a thin bell heard from the peak of silence?
Is someone among the high snows there?

Where the blue stream flows coldly among the meadows
And mist still clings to rock and tree
Senlin walks alone; and from that twilight
Looks darkly up, to see

The calm unmoving peak of snow-white silence,
The rocks aflame with ice, the rose-blue sky . . .
Ghost-like, a cloud descends from twinkling ledges,
To nod before the dwindling sun and die.

'Something there is,' says Senlin, 'in that mountain,
Something forgotten now, that once I knew . . .'
We walk before a sun-tipped peak in silence,
Our shadows descend before us, long and blue.



Part - II. HIS FUTILE PREOCCUPATIONS


Continued Below


Conrad Aiken






--> Man

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Poem


Senlin: A Biography


II. HIS FUTILE PREOCCUPATIONS




1

I am a house, says Senlin, locked and darkened,
Sealed from the sun with wall and door and blind.
Summon me loudly, and you'll hear slow footsteps
Ring far and faint in the galleries of my mind.
You'll hear soft steps on an old and dusty stairway;
Peer darkly through some corner of a pane,
You'll see me with a faint light coming slowly,
Pausing above some gallery of the brain . . .

I am a city . . . In the blue light of evening
Wind wanders among my streets and makes them fair;
I am a room of rock . . . a maiden dances
Lifting her hands, tossing her golden hair.
She combs her hair, the room of rock is darkened,
She extends herself in me, and I am sleep.
It is my pride that starlight is above me;
I dream amid waves of air, my walls are deep.

I am a door . . . before me roils the darkness,
Behind me ring clear waves of sound and light.
Stand in the shadowy street outside, and listen--
The crying of violins assails the night . . .
My walls are deep, but the cries of music pierce them;
They shake with the sound of drums . . . yet it is strange
That I should know so little what means this music,
Hearing it always within me change and change.

Knock on the door,--and you shall have an answer.
Open the heavy walls to set me free,
And blow a horn to call me into the sunlight,--
And startled, then, what a strange thing you will see!
Nuns, murderers, and drunkards, saints and sinners,
Lover and dancing girl and sage and clown
Will laugh upon you, and you will find me nowhere.
I am a room, a house, a street, a town.


Continued Below


Conrad Aiken






--> Man

[Man]

Poem


Senlin: A Biography


II. HIS FUTILE PREOCCUPATIONS


Continuation


2

It is morning, Senlin says, and in the morning
When the light drips through the shutters like the dew,
I arise, I face the sunrise,
And do the things my fathers learned to do.
Stars in the purple dusk above the rooftops
Pale in a saffron mist and seem to die,
And I myself on a swiftly tilting planet
Stand before a glass and tie my tie.

Vine leaves tap my window,
Dew-drops sing to the garden stones,
The robin chips in the chinaberry tree
Repeating three clear tones.

It is morning. I stand by the mirror
And tie my tie once more.
While waves far off in a pale rose twilight
Crash on a white sand shore.
I stand by a mirror and comb my hair:
How small and white my face!--
The green earth tilts through a sphere of air
And bathes in a flame of space.
There are houses hanging above the stars
And stars hung under a sea . . .
And a sun far off in a shell of silence
Dapples my walls for me . . .

It is morning, Senlin says, and in the morning
Should I not pause in the light to remember God?
Upright and firm I stand on a star unstable,
He is immense and lonely as a cloud.
I will dedicate this moment before my mirror
To him alone, and for him I will comb my hair.
Accept these humble offerings, cloud of silence!
I will think of you as I descend the stair.

Vine leaves tap my window,
The snail-track shines on the stones,
Dew-drops flash from the chinaberry tree
Repeating two clear tones.

It is morning, I awake from a bed of silence,
Shining I rise from the starless waters of sleep.
The walls are about me still as in the evening,
I am the same, and the same name still I keep.
The earth revolves with me, yet makes no motion,
The stars pale silently in a coral sky.
In a whistling void I stand before my mirror,
Unconcerned, I tie my tie.

There are horses neighing on far-off hills
Tossing their long white manes,
And mountains flash in the rose-white dusk,
Their shoulders black with rains . . .

It is morning. I stand by the mirror
And surprise my soul once more;
The blue air rushes above my ceiling,
There are suns beneath my floor . . .

. . . It is morning, Senlin says, I ascend from darkness
And depart on the winds of space for I know not where,
My watch is wound, a key is in my pocket,
And the sky is darkened as I descend the stair.
There are shadows across the windows, clouds in heaven,
And a god among the stars; and I will go
Thinking of him as I might think of daybreak
And humming a tune I know . . .

Vine-leaves tap at the window,
Dew-drops sing to the garden stones,
The robin chirps in the chinaberry tree
Repeating three clear tones.


Continued Below


Conrad Aiken






--> Man

[Man]

Poem


Senlin: A Biography


II. HIS FUTILE PREOCCUPATIONS


Continuation


3

I walk to my work, says Senlin, along a street
Superbly hung in space.
I lift these mortal stones, and with my trowel
I tap them into place.
But is god, perhaps, a giant who ties his tie
Grimacing before a colossal glass of sky?

These stones are heavy, these stones decay,
These stones are wet with rain,
I build them into a wall today,
Tomorrow they fall again.

Does god arise from a chaos of starless sleep,
Rise from the dark and stretch his arms and yawn;
And drowsily look from the window at his garden;
And rejoice at the dewdrop sparkeling on his lawn?

Does he remember, suddenly, with amazement,
The yesterday he left in sleep,--his name,--
Or the glittering street superbly hung in wind
Along which, in the dusk, he slowly came?

I devise new patterns for laying stones
And build a stronger wall.
One drop of rain astonishes me
And I let my trowel fall.

The flashing of leaves delights my eyes,
Blue air delights my face;
I will dedicate this stone to god
And tap it into its place.




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Conrad Aiken






--> Man

[Man]

Poem


Senlin: A Biography


II. HIS FUTILE PREOCCUPATIONS


Continuation


4

That woman--did she try to attract my attention?
Is it true I saw her smile and nod?
She turned her head and smiled . . . was it for me?
It is better to think of work or god.
The clouds pile coldly above the houses
Slow wind revolves the leaves:
It begins to rain, and the first long drops
Are slantingly blown from eaves.

But it is true she tried to attract my attention!
She pressed a rose to her chin and smiled.
Her hand was white by the richness of her hair,
Her eyes were those of a child.
It is true she looked at me as if she liked me.
And turned away, afraid to look too long!
She watched me out of the corners of her eyes;
And, tapping time with fingers, hummed a song.

. . . Nevertheless, I will think of work,
With a trowel in my hands;
Or the vague god who blows like clouds
Above these dripping lands . . .

But . . . is it sure she tried to attract my attention?
She leaned her elbow in a peculiar way
There in the crowded room . . . she touched my hand . . .
She must have known, and yet,--she let it stay.
Music of flesh! Music of root and sod!
Leaf touching leaf in the rain!
Impalpable clouds of red ascend,
Red clouds blow over my brain.

Did she await from me some sign of acceptance?
I smoothed my hair with a faltering hand.
I started a feeble smile, but the smile was frozen:
Perhaps, I thought, I misunderstood.
Is it to be conceived that I could attract her--
This dull and futile flesh attract such fire?
I,--with a trowel's dullness in hand and brain!--
Take on some godlike aspect, rouse desire?
Incredible! . . . delicious! . . . I will wear
A brighter color of tie, arranged with care,
I will delight in god as I comb my hair.

And the conquests of my bolder past return
Like strains of music, some lost tune
Recalled from youth and a happier time.
I take my sweetheart's arm in the dusk once more;
One more we climb

Up the forbidden stairway,
Under the flickering light, along the railing:
I catch her hand in the dark, we laugh once more,
I hear the rustle of silk, and follow swiftly,
And softly at last we close the door.

Yes, it is true that woman tried to attract me:
It is true she came out of time for me,
Came from the swirling and savage forest of earth,
The cruel eternity of the sea.
She parted the leaves of waves and rose from silence
Shining with secrets she did not know.
Music of dust! Music of web and web!
And I, bewildered, let her go.

I light my pipe. The flame is yellow,
Edged underneath with blue.
These thoughts are truer of god, perhaps,
Than thoughts of god are true.



Continued Below


Conrad Aiken






--> Man

[Man]

Poem


Senlin: A Biography


II. HIS FUTILE PREOCCUPATIONS


Continuation


5

It is noontime, Senlin says, and a street piano
Strikes sharply against the sunshine a harsh chord,
And the universe is suddenly agitated,
And pain to my heart goes glittering like a sword.
Do I imagine it? The dust is shaken,
The sunlight quivers, the brittle oak-leaves tremble.
The world, disturbed, conceals its agitation;
And I, too, will dissemble.

Yet it is sorrow has found my heart,
Sorrow for beauty, sorrow for death;
And pain twirls slowly among the trees.

The street-piano revolves its glittering music,
The sharp notes flash and dazzle and turn,
Memory's knives are in this sunlit silence,
They ripple and lazily burn.
The star on which my shadow falls is frightened,--
It does not move; my trowel taps a stone,
The sweet note wavers amid derisive music;
And I, in horror of sunlight, stand alone.

Do not recall my weakness, savage music!
Let the knives rest!
Impersonal, harsh, the music revolves and glitters,
And the notes like poniards pierce my breast.
And I remember the shadows of webs on stones,
And the sound or rain on withered grass,
And a sorrowful face that looked without illusions
At its image in the glass.

Do not recall my childhood, pitiless music!
The green blades flicker and gleam,
The red bee bends the clover, deeply humming;
In the blue sea above me lazily stream
Cloud upon thin-brown cloud, revolving, scattering;
The mulberry tree rakes heaven and drops its fruit;
Amazing sunlight sings in the opened vault
On dust and bones, and I am mute.

It is noon; the bells let fall soft flowers of sound.
They turn on the air, they shrink in the flare of noon.
It is night; and I lie alone, and watch through the window
The terrible ice-white emptiness of the moon.
Small bells, far off, spill jewels of sound like rain,
A long wind hurries them whirled and far,
A cloud creeps over the moon, my bed is darkened,
I hold my breath and watch a star.

Do not disturb my memories, heartless music!
I stand once more by a vine-dark moonlit wall,
The sound of my footsteps dies in a void of moonlight,
And I watch white jasmine fall.
Is it my heart that falls? Does earth itself
Drift, a white petal, down the sky?
One bell-note goes to the stars in the blue-white silence,
Solitary and mournful, a somnolent cry.





Continued Below



Conrad Aiken






--> Man

[Man]

Poem


Senlin: A Biography


II. HIS FUTILE PREOCCUPATIONS


Continuation


6

Death himself in the rain . . . death himself . . .
Death in the savage sunlight . . . skeletal death . . .
I hear the clack of his feet,
Clearly on stones, softly in dust;
He hurries among the trees
Whirling the leaves, tossing he hands from waves.
Listen! the immortal footsteps beat.

Death himself in the grass, death himself,
Gyrating invisibly in the sun,
Scatters the grass-blades, whips the wind,
Tears at boughs with malignant laughter:
On the long echoing air I hear him run.

Death himself in the dusk, gathering lilacs,
Breaking a white-fleshed bough,
Strewing purple on a cobwebbed lawn,
Dancing, dancing,
The long red sun-rays glancing
On flailing arms, skipping with hideous knees
Cavorting grotesque ecstasies:
I do not see him, but I see the lilacs fall,
I hear the scrape of knuckles against the wall,
The leaves are tossed and tremble where he plunges among them,
And I hear the sound of his breath,
Sharp and whistling, the rythm of death.

It is evening: the lights on a long street balance and sway.
In the purple ether they swing and silently sing,
The street is a gossamer swung in space,
And death himself in the wind comes dancing along it,
And the lights, like raindrops, tremble and swing.
Hurry, spider, and spread your glistening web,
For death approaches!
Hurry, rose, and open your heart to the bee,
For death approaches!
Maiden, let down your hair for the hands of your lover,
Comb it with moonlight and wreathe it with leaves,
For death approaches!

Death, huge in the star; small in the sand-grain;
Death himself in the rain,
Drawing the rain about him like a garment of jewels:
I hear the sound of his feet
On the stairs of the wind, in the sun,
In the forests of the sea . . .
Listen! the immortal footsteps beat!






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Conrad Aiken






--> Man

[Man]

Poem


Senlin: A Biography


II. HIS FUTILE PREOCCUPATIONS


Continuation


7

It is noontime, Senlin says. The sky is brilliant
Above a green and dreaming hill.
I lay my trowel down. The pool is cloudless,
The grass, the wall, the peach-tree, all are still.

It appears to me that I am one with these:
A hill, upon whose back are a wall and trees.
It is noontime: all seems still
Upon this green and flowering hill.

Yet suddenly out of nowhere in the sky,
A cloud comes whirling, and flings
A lazily coiled vortex of shade on the hill.
It crosses the hill, and a bird in the peach-tree sings.
Amazing! Is there a change?
The hill seems somehow strange.
It is noontime. And in the tree
The leaves are delicately disturbed
Where the bird descends invisibly.
It is noontime. And in the pool
The sky is blue and cool.

Yet suddenly out of nowhere,
Something flings itself at the hill,
Tears with claws at the earth,
Lunges and hisses and softly recoils,
Crashing against the green.
The peach-tree braces itself, the pool is frightened,
The grass-blades quiver, the bird is still;
The wall silently struggles against the sunlight;
A terror stiffens the hill.
The trees turn rigidly, to face
Something that circles with slow pace:
The blue pool seems to shrink
From something that slides above its brink.
What struggle is this, ferocious and still--
What war in sunlight on this hill?
What is it creeping to dart
Like a knife-blade at my heart?

It is noontime, Senlin says, and all is tranquil:
The brilliant sky burns over a greenbright earth.
The peach-tree dreams in the sun, the wall is contented.
A bird in the peach-leaves, moving from sun to shadow,
Phrases again his unremembering mirth,
His lazily beautiful, foolish, mechanical mirth.





Continued Below



Conrad Aiken






--> Man

[Man]

Poem


Senlin: A Biography


II. HIS FUTILE PREOCCUPATIONS


Continuation


8

The pale blue gloom of evening comes
Among the phantom forests and walls
With a mournful and rythmic sound of drums.
My heart is disturbed with a sound of myriad throbbing,
Persuasive and sinister, near and far:
In the blue evening of my heart
I hear the thrum of the evening star.

My work is uncompleted; and yet I hurry,--
Hearing the whispered pulsing of those drums,--
To enter the luminous walls and woods of night.
It is the eternal mistress of the world
Who shakes these drums for my delight.
Listen! the drums of the leaves, the drums of the dust,
The delicious quivering of this air!

I will leave my work unfinished, and I will go
With ringing and certain step through the laughter of chaos
To the one small room in the void I know.
Yesterday it was there,--
Will I find it tonight once more when I climb the stair?
The drums of the street beat swift and soft:
In the blue evening of my heart
I hear the throb of the bridal star.
It weaves deliciously in my brain
A tyrannous melody of her:
Hands in sunlight, threads of rain
Against a weeping face that fades,
Snow on a blackened window-pane;
Fire, in a dusk of hair entangled;
Flesh, more delicate than fruit;
And a voice that searches quivering nerves
For a string to mute.

My life is uncompleted: and yet I hurry
Among the tinkling forests and walls of evening
To a certain fragrant room.
Who is it that dances there, to a beating of drums,
While stars on a grey sea bud and bloom?
She stands at the top of the stair,
With the lamplight on her hair.
I will walk through the snarling of streams of space
And climb the long steps carved from wind
And rise once more towards her face.
Listen! the drums of the drowsy trees
Beating our nuptial ecstasies!

Music spins from the heart of silence
And twirls me softly upon the air:
It takes my hand and whispers to me:
It draws the web of the moonlight down.
There are hands, it says, as cool as snow,
The hands of the Venus of the sea;
There are waves of sound in a mermaid-cave;--
Come--then--come with me!
The flesh of the sea-rose new and cool,
The wavering image of her who comes
At dusk by a blue sea-pool.

Whispers upon the haunted air--
Whisper of foam-white arm and thigh;
And a shower of delicate lights blown down
Fro the laughing sky! . . .
Music spins from a far-off room.
Do you remember,--it seems to say,--
The mouth that smiled, beneath your mouth,
And kissed you . . . yesterday?
It is your own flesh waits for you.
Come! you are incomplete! . . .
The drums of the universe once more
Morosely beat.
It is the harlot of the world
Who clashes the leaves like ghostly drums
And disturbs the solitude of my heart
As evening comes!

I leave my work once more and walk
Along a street that sways in the wind.
I leave these stones, and walk once more
Along infinity's shore.
I climb the golden-laddered stair;
Among the stars in the void I climb:
I ascend the golden-laddered hair
Of the harlot-queen of time:
She laughs from a window in the sky,
Her white arms downward reach to me!
We are the universe that spins
In a dim ethereal sea.






Continued Below



Conrad Aiken






--> Man

[Man]

Poem


Senlin: A Biography


II. HIS FUTILE PREOCCUPATIONS


Continuation


9

It is evening, Senlin says, and in the evening
The throbbing of drums has languidly died away.
Forest and sea are still. We breathe in silence
And strive to say the things flesh cannot say.
The soulless wind falls slowly about the earth
And finds no rest.
The lover stares at the setting star,--the wakeful lover
Who finds no peace on his lover's breast.
The snare of desire that bound us in is broken;
Softly, in sorrow, we draw apart, and see,
Far off, the beauty we thought our flesh had captured,--
The star we longed to be but could not be.
Come back! We will laugh once more at the words we said!
We say them slowly again, but the words are dead.
Come back beloved! . . . The blue void falls between,
We cry to each other: alone; unknown; unseen.

We are the grains of sand that run and rustle
In the dry wind,
We are the grains of sand who thought ourselves
Immortal.
You touch my hand, time bears you away,--
An alien star for whom I have no word.
What are the meaningless things you say?
I answer you, but am not heard.

It is evening, Senlin says;
And a dream in ruin falls.
Once more we turn in pain, bewildered,
Among our finite walls:
The walls we built ourselves with patient hands;
For the god who sealed a question in our flesh.





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Conrad Aiken






--> Man

[Man]

Poem


Senlin: A Biography


II. HIS FUTILE PREOCCUPATIONS


Continuation


10

It is moonlight. Alone in the silence
I ascend my stairs once more,
While waves, remote in a pale blue starlight,
Crash on a white sand shore.
It is moonlight. The garden is silent.
I stand in my room alone.
Across my wall, from the far-off moon,
A rain of fire is thrown . . .

There are houses hanging above the stars,
And stars hung under a sea:
And a wind from the long blue vault of time
Waves my curtain for me . . .

I wait in the dark once more,
Swung between space and space:
Before my mirror I lift my hands
And face my remembered face.

Is it I who stand in a question here,
Asking to know my name? . . .
It is I, yet I know not whither I go,
Nor why, nor whence I came.

It is I, who awoke at dawn
And arose and descended the stair,
Conceiving a god in the eye of the sun,--
In a woman's hands and hair.
It is I whose flesh is gray with the stones
I builded into a wall:
With a mournful melody in my brain
Of a tune I cannot recall . . .

There are roses to kiss: and mouths to kiss;
And the sharp-pained shadow of death.
I remember a rain-drop on my cheek,--
A wind like a fragrant breath . . .
And the star I laugh on tilts through heaven;
And the heavens are dark and steep . . .
I will forget these things once more
In the silence of sleep.


Part Three: His Cloudy Destiny


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Conrad Aiken






--> Man

[Man]

Poem


Senlin: A Biography


III : His Cloudy Destiny





1

Senlin sat before us and we heard him.
He smoked his pipe before us and we saw him.
Was he small, with reddish hair,
Did he light his pipe with a meditative stare
And a twinkling flame reflected in blue eyes?
'I am alone': said Senlin; 'in a forest of leaves
The single leaf that creeps and falls.
The single blade of grass in a desert of grass
That none foresaw and none recalls.
The single shell that a green wave shatters
In tiny specks of whiteness on brown sands . . .
How shall you understand me with your hearts,
Who cannot reach me with your hands? . . .'

The city dissolves about us, and its walls
Are the sands beside a sea.
We plunge in a chaos of dunes, white waves before us
Crash on kelp tumultuously,
Gulls wheel over foam, the clouds blow tattered,
The sun is swallowed . . . Has Senlin become a shore?
Is Senlin a grain of sand beneath our footsteps,
A speck of shell upon which waves will roar? . . .
Senlin! we cry . . . Senlin! again . . . no answer,
Only the crash of sea on a shell-white shore.

Yet, we would say, this is no shore at all,
But a small bright room with lamplight on the wall;
And the familiar chair
Where Senlin sat, with lamplight on his hair.



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Conrad Aiken






--> Man

[Man]

Poem


Senlin: A Biography


III : His Cloudy Destiny


Continuation



2

Senlin, alone before us, played a music.
Was it himself he played? . . . We sat and listened,
Perplexed and pleased and tired.
'Listen!' he said, 'and you will learn a secret--
Though it is not the secret you desired.
I have not found a meaning that will praise you!
Out of the heart of silence comes this music,
Quietly speaks and dies.
Look! there is one white star above black houses!
And a tiny man who climbs toward the skies!
Where does he walk to? What does he leave behind him?
What was his foolish name?
What did he stop to say, before he left you
As simply as he came?
"Death?" did it sound like, "love and god, and laughter,
Sunlight, and work, and pain . . .?"
No--it appears to me that these were symbols
Of simple truths he found no way to explain.
He spoke, but found you could not understand him--
You were alone, and he was alone.

"He sought to touch you, and found he could not reach you,--
He sought to understand you, and could not hear you.
And so this music, which I play before you,--
Does it mean only what it seems to mean?
Or is it a dance of foolish waves in sunlight
Above a desperate depth of things unseen?
Listen! Do you not hear the singing voices
Out of the darkness of this sea?
But no: you cannot hear them; for if you heard them
You would have heard and captured me.
Yet I am here, talking of laughter.
Laughter and love and work and god;
As I shall talk of these same things hereafter
In wave and sod.
Walk on a hill and call me: "Senlin! . . . Senlin! . . ."
Will I not answer you as clearly as now?
Listen to rain, and you will hear me speaking.
Look for my heart in the breaking of a bough . . .'





Conrad Aiken






--> Man

[Man]

Poem




The Tragedienne

A STORM is riding on the tide;
Grey is the day and grey the tide,
Far-off the sea-gulls wheel and cry--
A storm draws near upon the tide.

A city lifts its minarets
To winds that from the desert sweep;
And prisoned Arab women weep
Below the domes and minarets.

Upon a hill in Thessaly
Stand broken columns in a line
About a cold forgoten shrine,
Beneath a moon in Thessaly

But in the world there is no place
So desolate as your tragic face.



Zoë Akins






--> Man

[Man]

Poem




I am the Wind



I AM the wind that wavers,
You are the certain land;
I am the shadow that passes
Over the sand.

I am the leaf that quivers,
You, the unshaken tree;
You are the stars that are steadfast,
I am the sea.

You are the light eternal--
Like a torch I shall die.
You are the surge of deep music,
I but a cry!




Zoë Akins






--> Man

[Man]

Poem




The Wanderer

THE ships are lying in the bay,
The gulls are swinging round their spars;
My soul as eagerly as they
Desires the margin of the stars.

So much do I love wandering,
So much I love the sea and sky,
That it will be a piteous thing
In one small grave to lie.



Zoë Akins






--> Man

[Man]

Poem




The Lay of the Golden Goose



LONG ago in a poultry yard
One dull November morn,
Beneath a motherly soft wing
A little goose was born.

Who straightway peeped out of the shell
To view the world beyond,
Longing at once to sally forth
And paddle on the pond.

'Oh! be not rash,' her father said,
A mild Socratic bird;
Her mother begged her not to stray
With many a warning word.

But little goosey was perverse,
And eagerly did cry,
I've got a lovely pair of wings,
Of course I ought to fly.'

In vain parental cacklings,
In vain the cold sky's frown,
Ambitious goosey tried to soar,
But always tumbled down.

The farm-yard jeered at her attempts,
The peacocks screamed, 'Oh fie!
You're only a domestic goose,
So don't pretend to fly.'

Great cock-a-doodle from his perch
Crowed daily loud and clear,
'Stay in the puddle, foolish bird,
That is your proper sphere.'

The ducks and hens said, one and all,
In gossip by the pool,
'Our children never play such pranks;
My dear, that fowl's a fool.'

The owls came out and flew about,
Hooting above the rest,
'No useful egg was ever hatched
From trancendental nest.'

Good little goslings at their play
And well-conducted chicks
Were taught to think poor goosey's flights
Were naughty, ill-bred tricks.

They were content to swim and scratch,
And not at all inclinded
For any wild-goose chase in search
Of something undefined.

Hard times she had as one may guess,
That young aspiring bird,
Who still from every fall arose
Saddened but undeterred.

She knew she was not nightingale,
Yet spite of much abuse,
She longed to help and cheer the world,
Although a plain gray goose.

She could not sing, she could not fly,
Nor even walk with grace,
And all the farm-yard had declared
A puddle was her place.

But something stronger than herself
Would cry, 'Go on, go on!'
Remember, though an humble fowl,
You're cousin to a swan.'

So up and down poor goosey went,
A busy, hopeful bird.
Searched many wide unfruitful fields,
And many waters stirred.

At length she came unto a stream
Most fertile of all Niles,
Where tuneful birds might soar and sing
Among the leafy isles.

Here did she build a little nest
Beside the waters still,
Where the parental goose could rest
Unvexed by any bill.

And here she paused to smooth her plumes,
Ruffled by many plagues;
When suddenly arose the cry,
'This goose lays golden eggs.'

At once the farm-yard was agog;
The ducks began to quack;
Prim Guinea fowls relenting called,
'Come back, come back, come back.'

Great chanticleer was pleased to give
A patronizing crow,
And the contemptuous biddies chuckled,
'I wish my chicks did so.'

The peacocks spread their shining tails,
And cried in accents soft,
'We want to know you, gifted one,
Come up and sit aloft.'

Wise owls awoke and gravely said,
With proudly swelling breasts,
'Rare birds have always been evoked
From transcendental nests!'

News-hunting turkeys from afar
Now ran with all thin legs
To gobble facts and fictions of
The goose with golden eggs.

But best of all the little fowls
Still playing on the shore,
Soft downy chicks and goslings gay,
Chirped out, 'Dear Goose, lay more.'

But goosey all these weary years
Had toiled like any ant,
And wearied out she now replied,
'My little dears, I can't.

'When I was starving, half this corn
Had been of vital use,
Now I am surfeited with food
Like any Strasbourg goose.'

So to escape too many friends,
Without uncivil strife,
She ran to the Atlantic pond
And paddled for her life.

Soon up among the grand old Alps
She found two blessed things:
The health she had so nearly lost,
And rest for weary limbs.

But still across the briny deep
Couched in most friendly words,
Came prayers for letters, tales, or verse,
From literary birds.

Whereat the renovated fowl
With grateful thanks profuse,
Took from her wing a quill and wrote
This lay of a Golden Goose.



Louisa May Alcott





--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Our Little Ghost



OFT, in the silence of the night,
When the lonely moon rides high,
When wintry winds are whistling,
And we hear the owl's shrill cry,
In the quiet, dusky chamber,
By the flickering firelight,
Rising up between two sleepers,
Comes a spirit all in white.

A winsome little ghost it is,
Rosy-cheeked, and bright of eye;
With yellow curls all breaking loose
From the small cap pushed awry.
Up it climbs among the pillows,
For the "big dark" brings no dread,
And a baby's boundless fancy
Makes a kingdom of a bed.

A fearless little ghost it is;
Safe the night seems as the day;
The moon is but a gentle face,
And the sighing winds are gay.
The solitude is full of friends,
And the hour brings no regrets;
For, in this happy little soul,
Shines a sun that never sets.

A merry little ghost it is,
Dancing gayly by itself,
On the flowery counterpane,
Like a tricksy household elf;
Nodding to the fitful shadows,
As they flicker on the wall;
Talking to familiar pictures,
Mimicking the owl's shrill call.

A thoughtful little ghost if is;
And, when lonely gambols tire,
With chubby hands on chubby knees,
It sits winking at the fire.
Fancies innocent and lovely
Shine before those baby-eyes, --
Endless fields of dandelions,
Brooks, and birds, and butterflies.

A loving little ghost it is:
When crept into its nest,
Its hand on father's shoulder laid,
Its head on mother's breast,
It watches each familiar face,
With a tranquil, trusting eye;
And, like a sleepy little bird,
Sings its own soft lullaby.

Then those who feigned to sleep before,
Lest baby play till dawn,
Wake and watch their folded flower --
Little rose without a thorn.
And, in the silence of the night,
The hearts that love it most
Pray tenderly above its sleep,
"God bless our little ghost!"



Louisa May Alcott





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Poem




Dartmouth Harbor

Year after year the morning light soft lies
Along Cornwall on wave-beat cliff and scar;
Year after year the evening sun afar
Casts lingering sheen where warring breakers rise.
Untiring, on swift wing the sea-bird flies,
While calmly, constant as the gleaming star,
The river Dart rolls to the harbor bar,
And mirrors clouds in over-smiling skies.

Crusaders gathered here in time of old,
And hence sailed vaunting barks to far Calais,
Or toward the western world. Hearts that were bold
Are silent now, while cliff and tower decay.
The spirit of the fathers is not cold;
But lives the olden faith in us to-day.




Fredric James Alden





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Poem




Goodbye!



COME, thrust your hands in the warm earth
And feel her strength through all your veins;
Breathe her full odors, taste her mouth,
Which laughs away imagined pains;
Touch her life's womb, yet know
This substance makes your grave also.

Shrink not; your flesh is no more sweet
Than flowers which daily blow and die;
Nor are your mein and dress so neat,
Nor half so pure your lucid eye;
And, yet, by flowers and earth I swear
You're neat and pure and sweet and fair.



Richard Aldington





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Poem




Recollection



HOW can it be that I forget
The way he phrased my doom,
When I recall the arabesques
That carpeted the room?

How can it be that I forget
His look and mein that hour,
When I recall I wore a rose,
And still can smell the flower?

How can it be that I forget
Those words that were his last,
When I recall the tune a man
Was whistling as he passed?

These things are what we keep from life's
Supremest joy or pain;
For memory locks her chaff in bins
And throws away the grain.



Anne Reeve Aldrich





--> Man

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Memory



MY mind lets go a thousand things,
Like dates of wars and deaths of kings,
And yet recalls the very hour--
'Twas noon by yonder village tower,
And on the last blue noon in May--
The wind came briskly up this way,
Crisping the brook beside the road;
Then, pausing here, set down its load
Of pine-scents, and shook listlessly
Two petals from that wild-rose tree.



Thomas Bailey Aldrich




--> Man

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Poem





Miracles

SICK of myself and all that keeps the light
Of the blue skies away from me and mine,
I climb this ledge, and by this wind-swept pine
Lingering, watch the coming of the night.
'T is ever a new wonder to my sight.
Men look to God for some mysterious sign,
For other stars than those that nightly shine,
For some unnatural symbol of His might:--
Wouldst see a miracle as grand as those
The prophets wrought of old in Palestine?
Come watch with me the shaft of fire that glows
In yonder West; the fair, frail palaces,
The fading alps and archipelagoes,
And great cloud-continents of sunset-seas.



Thomas Bailey Aldrich




--> Man

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Poem




Enamored Architect of Airy Rhyme



ENAMORED architect of airy rhyme,
Build as thou wilt; heed not what each man says:
Good souls, but innocent of dreamers' ways,
Will come, and marvel why thou wastest time;
Others, beholding how thy turrets climb
'Twixt theirs and heaven, will hate thee all thy days;
But most beware of those who come to praise.
O Wondersmith, O worker in sublime
And heaven-sent dreams, let art be all in all;
Build as thou wilt, unspoiled by praise or blame,
Build as thou wilt, and as thy light is given:
Then, if at last the airy structure fall,
Dissolve, and vanish--take thyself no shame.
They fail, and they alone, who have not striven. .



Thomas Bailey Aldrich




--> Man

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Reminiscence

THOUGH I am native to this frozen zone
That half the twelvemonth torpid lies, or dead;
Though the cold azure arching overhead
And the Atlantic's never-ending moan
Are mine by heritage, I must have known
Life otherwise in epochs long since fled;
For in my veins some Orient blood is red,
And through my thought are lotus blossoms blown,
I do remember . . . it was just at dusk,
Near a walled garden at the river's turn
(A thousand summers seem but yesterday!),
A Nubian girl, more sweet than Khoorja musk,
Came to the water-tank to fill her urn,
And, with the urn, she bore my heart away!




Thomas Bailey Aldrich




--> Man

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Poem




Heredity



A SOLDIER of the Cromwell stamp,
With sword and psalm-book by his side,
At home alike in church and camp:
Austere he lived, and smileless died.

But she, a creature soft and fine--
From Spain, some say, some say from France;
Within her veins leapt blood like wine--
She led her Roundhead lord a dance!

In Grantham church they lie asleep;
Just where, the verger may not know.
Strange that two hundred years should keep
The old ancestral fires aglow!

In me these two have met again;
To each my nature owes a part:
To one, the cool and reasoning brain;
To one, the quick, unreasoning heart.




Thomas Bailey Aldrich




--> Man

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Sonnets


Invita Minerva



NOT of desire alone is music born,
Not till the Muse wills is our passion crowned;
Unsought she comes; if sought, but seldom found,
Repaying thus our longing with her scorn.
Hence is it poets often are forlorn,
In super-subtle chains of silence bound,
And mid the crowds that compass them around
Still dwell in isolation night and morn,
With knitted brow and cheek all passion-pale
Showing the baffled purpose of the mind.
Hence is it I, that find no prayers avail
To move my Lyric mistress to be kind,
Have stolen away into this leafy dale
Drawn by the flutings of the silvery wind.




Thomas Bailey Aldrich




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Sonnets


Fredericksburg

THE increasing moonlight drifts across my bed,
And on the churchyard by the road, I know
It falls as white and noiselessly as snow . . . .
'Twas such a night two weary summers fled;
The stars, as now, were waning overhead.
Listen! Again the shrill-lipped bugles blow
Where the swift currents of the river flow
Past Fredericksburg; far off the heavens are red
With sudden conflagration; on yon height,
Linstock in hand, the gunners hold their breath;
A signal rocket pierces the dense night,
Flings its spent stars upon the town beneath;
Hark! -- the artillery massing on the right,
Hark! -- the black squadrons wheeling down to Death!




Thomas Bailey Aldrich




--> Man

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Poem



Sonnets


By the Potomac




THE soft new grass is creeping o'er the graves
By the Potomac; and the crisp ground-flower
Tilts its blue cup to catch the passing shower;
The pine-cone ripens, and the long moss waves
Its tangled gonfalons above our braves.
Hark, what a burst of music from yon bower! --
The Southern nightingale that hour by hour
In its melodious summer madness raves.
Ah, with what delicate touches of her hand,
With what sweet voice of bird and rivulet
And drowsy murmur of the rustling leaf
Would Nature soothe us, bidding us forget
The awful crime of this distracted land
And all our heavy heritage of grief.




Thomas Bailey Aldrich




--> Man

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Sonnets


Pursuit and Possession



WHEN I behold what pleasure is pursuit,
What life, what glorious eagerness it is;
Then mark how full possession falls from this,
How fairer seems the blossom than the fruit --
I am perplexed, and often stricken mute
Wondering which attained the higher bliss,
The wingèd insect, or the chrysalis
It thrust aside with unreluctant foot.
Spirit of verse, that still elud'st my art,
Thou uncaught rapture, thou swift-fleeting fire,
O let me follow thee with hungry heart
If beauty's full possession kill desire!
Still flit away in moonlight, rain, and dew,
Will-of-the-wisp, that I may still pursue!




Thomas Bailey Aldrich




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Eidolons



THOSE forms we fancy shadows, those strange lights
That flash on lone morasses, the quick wind
That smites us by the roadside are the Night's
Innumerable children. Unconfined
By shroud or coffin, disembodied souls,
Still on probation, steal into the air
From ancient battlefields and churchyard knolls
At the day's ending. Pestilence and despair
Fly with the startled bats at set of sun;
And wheresoever murders have been done,
In crowded palaces or lonely woods,
Where'er a soul has sold itself and lost
Its high inheritance, there, hovering, broods
Some mute, invisible, accursèd ghost.



Thomas Bailey Aldrich




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Sonnets


At Bay Ridge, Long Island



PLEASANT it is to lie amid the grass
Under these shady locusts, half the day,
Watching the ships reflected on the Bay,
Topmast and shroud, as in a wizard's glass;
To note the swift and meagre swallow pass,
Brushing the dewdrops from the lilac spray;
Or else to sit and while the noon away
With some old love-tale; or to muse, alas!
On Dante in his exile, sorrow-worn;
On Milton, blind, with inward-seeing eyes
That made their own deep midnight and rich morn;
To think that now, beneath Italian skies,
In such clear air as this, by Tiber's wave,
Daisies are trembling over Keats's grave.




Thomas Bailey Aldrich




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"Even This Will Pass Away"

TOUCHED with the delicate green of early May,
Or later, when the rose uplifts her face,
The world hangs glittering in starry space,
Fresh as a jewel found but yesterday.
And yet 'tis very old; what tongue may say
How old it is? Race follows upon race,
Forgetting and forgotten; in their place
Sink tower and temple; nothing long may stay.
We build on tombs, and live our day, and die;
From out our dust new towers and temples start;
Our very name becomes a mystery.
What cities no man ever heard of lie
Under the glacier, in the mountain's heart,
In violet glooms beneath the moaning sea!




Thomas Bailey Aldrich




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Egypt



FANTASTIC sleep is busy with my eyes;
I seem in some waste solitude to stand
Once ruled of Cheops; upon either hand
A dark illimitable desert lies,
Sultry and still -- a zone of mysteries.
A wide-browed Sphinx, half buried in the sand,
With orbless sockets stares across the land,
The wofulest thing beneath these brooding skies
Save that loose heap of bleachèd bones, that lie
Where haply some poor Bedouin crawled to die.
Lo! while I gaze, beyond the vast sand-sea
The nebulous clouds are downward slowly drawn,
And one bleared star, faint glimmering like a bee,
Is shut in the rosy outstretched hand of Dawn.



Thomas Bailey Aldrich




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At Stratford-Upon-Avon



THUS spake his dust (so seemed it as I read
The words): Good friend, for Jesus' sake forbeare
(Poor ghost!) To digg the dust enclosèd heare --
Then came the malediction on the head
Of whoso dare disturb the sacred dead.
Outside the mavis whistled strong and clear,
The winding Avon murmured in its bed,
But in the solemn Stratford church the air
Was chill and dank, and on the foot-worn tomb
The evening shadows deepened momently.
Then a great awe fell on me, standing there,
As if some speechless presence in the gloom
Was hovering, and fain would speak with me.



Thomas Bailey Aldrich




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With Three Flowers




HEREWITH I send you three pressed withered flowers:
This one was white, with golden star; this, blue
As Capri's cave; that, purple and shot through
With sunset-orange. Where the Duomo towers
In diamond air, and under pendent bowers
The Arno glides, this faded violet grew
On Landor's grave; from Landor's heart it drew
Its clouded azure in the long spring hours.
Within the shadow of the Pyramid
Of Cais Cestius was the daisy found,
White as the soul of Keats in Paradise.
The pansy -- there were hundreds of them hid
In the thick grass that folded Shelley's mound,
Guarding his ashes with most lovely eyes.



Thomas Bailey Aldrich




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The Lorelei



YONDER we see it from the steamer's deck,
The haunted Mountain of the Lorelei --
The hanging crags sharp-cut against a sky
Clear as a sapphire without flaw or fleck.
'Twas here the Siren lay in wait to wreck
The fisher-lad. At dusk, as he rowed by,
Perchance he heard her tender amorous cry,
And, seeing the wondrous whiteness of her neck,
Perchance would halt, and lean towards the shore;
Then she by that soft magic which she had
Would lure him, and in gossamers of her hair,
Gold upon gold, would wrap him o'er and o'er,
Wrap him, and sing to him, and drive him mad,
Then drag him down to no man knoweth where.





Thomas Bailey Aldrich




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Sleep

WHEN to oft sleep we give ourselves away,
And in a dream as in a fairy bark
Drift on and on through the enchanted dark
To purple daybreak -- little thought we pay
To that sweet bitter world we know by day.
We are clean quit of it, as is a lark
So high in heaven no human eye can mark
The thin swift pinion cleaving through the gray.
Till we awake ill fate can do no ill,
The resting heart shall not take up again
The heavy load that yet must make it bleed;
For this brief space the loud world's voice is still,
No faintest echo of it brings us pain.
How will it be when we shall sleep indeed?





Thomas Bailey Aldrich




--> Man

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Thorwaldsen




NOT in the fabled influence of some star,
Benign or evil, do our fortunes lie;
We are the arbiters of destiny,
Lords of the life we either make or mar.
We are our own impediment and bar
To noble endings. With distracted eye
We let the golden moment pass us by,
Time's foolish spendthrifts, searching wide and far
For what lies close at hand. To serve our turn
We ask fair wind and favorable tide.
From the dead Danish sculptor let us learn
To make Occasion, not to be denied:
Against the sheer precipitous mountain-side
Thorwaldsen carved his Lion at Lucerne.






Thomas Bailey Aldrich




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An Alpine Picture



STAND here and look, and softly draw your breath
Lest the dread avalanche come crashing down!
How many leagues away is yonder town
Set flower-wise in the valley? Far beneath
Out feet lies summer; here a realm of death,
Where never flower has blossomed nor bird flown.
The ancient water-courses are all strown
With drifts of snow, fantastic wreath on wreath;
And peak on peak against the stainless blue
The Alps like towering campanili stand,
Wondrous, with pinnacles of frozen rain,
Silvery, crystal, like the prism in hue.
O tell me, love, if this be Switzerland --
Or is it but the frost-work on the pane?




Thomas Bailey Aldrich




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To L.T. in Florence



YOU by the Arno shape your marble dream,
Under the cypress and the olive trees,
While I, this side the wild wind-beaten seas,
Unrestful by the Charles's placid stream,
Long once again to catch the golden gleam
Of Brunelleschi's dome, and lounge at ease
In those pleached gardens and fair galleries.
And yet perchance you envy me, and deem
My star the happier, since it holds me here.
Even so one time, beneath the cypresses,
My heart turned longingly across the sea
To these familiar fields and woodlands dear,
And I had given all Titian's goddesses
For one poor cowslip or anemone.





Thomas Bailey Aldrich




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Henry Howard Brownell

THEY never crowned him, never dreamed his worth,
And let him go unlaurelled to the grave:
Hereafter there are guerdons for the brave,
Roses for martyrs who wear thorns on earth,
Balms for bruised hearts that languish in the dearth
Of human love. So let the grasses wave
Above him nameless. Little did he crave
Men's praises: modestly, with kindly mirth,
Not sad nor bitter, he accepted fate --
Drank deep of life, knew books, and hearts of men,
Cities and camps, and war's immortal woe,
Yet bore through all (such virtue in him sate
His spirit is not whiter now than then)
A simple, loyal nature, pure as snow.






Thomas Bailey Aldrich




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Sonnets



The Rarity of Genius




WHILE yet my lip was breathing youth's first breath,
I all too young to know their deepest spell,
I saw Medea and Phædra in Rachel;
Later I saw the great Elizabeth.
Rachel, Ristori -- we shall speak with death
Ere we meet souls like these. In one age dwell
Not many such: a century shall tell
Its hundred beads before it braid a wreath
For two so queenly foreheads. If it take
Æons to form a diamond, grain on grain,
Æons to crystallize its fire and dew,
By what slow processes must Nature make
Her Shakespeares and her Raffaels? Great the gain
If she spoil millions making one or two.





Thomas Bailey Aldrich




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Sonnets



Books and Seasons



BECAUSE the sky is blue; because blithe May
Masks in the wren's note and the lilac's hue;
Because -- in fine, because the sky is blue
I will read none but piteous tales to-day.
Keep happy laughter till the skies be gray,
And the sad season cypress wears, and rue;
Then, when the wind is moaning in the flue,
And ways are dark, bid Chaucer make us gay.
But now a little sadness! All too sweet
This springtide riot, this most poignant air,
This sensuous world of color and perfume.
So listen, love, while I the woes repeat
Of Hamlet and Ophelia, and that pair
Whose bridal bed was builded in a tomb.




Thomas Bailey Aldrich




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Outward Bound




I LEAVE behind me the elm-shadowed square
And carven portals of the silent street,
And wander on with listless, vagrant feet
Through seaward-leading alleys, till the air
Smells of the sea, and straightway then the care
Slips from my heart, and life once more is sweet.
At the lane's ending lie the white-winged fleet.
O restless Fancy, whither wouldst thou fare?
Here are brave pinions that shall take thee far --
Gaunt hulks of Norway; ships of red Ceylon;
Slim-masted lovers of the blue Azores!
'Tis but an instant hence to Zanzibar,
Or to the regions of the Midnight Sun;
Ionian isles are thine, and all the fairy shores!




Thomas Bailey Aldrich




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Sonnets


Ellen Terry in "The Merchant of Venice"



AS there she lives and moves upon the scene,
So lived and moved this radiant womanhood
In Shakespeare's vision; in such wise she stood
Smiling upon Bassanio; such her mien
When pity dimmed her eyelids' golden sheen,
Hearing Antonio's story, and the blood
Paled on her cheek, and all her lightsome mood
Was gone. This shape in Shakespeare's thought has been!
Thus dreamt he of her in gray London town;
Such were her eyes; on such gold-colored hair
The grave young judge's velvet cap was set;
So stood she lovely in her crimson gown.
Mine were a happy cast, could I but snare
Her beauty in a sonnet's fragile net.




Thomas Bailey Aldrich




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The Poets


WHEN this young Land has reached its wrinkled prime,
And we are gone and all our songs are done,
And naught is left unchanged beneath the sun,
What other singers shall the womb of Time
Bring forth to reap the sunny slopes of rhyme?
For surely till the thread of life be spun
The world shall not lack poets, though but one
Make lonely music like a vesper chime
Above the heedless turmoil of the street.
What new strange voices shall be given to these,
What richer accents of melodious breath?
Yet shall they, baffled, lie at Nature's feet
Searching the volume of her mysteries,
And vainly question the fixed eyes of Death.





Thomas Bailey Aldrich




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The Undiscovered Country



FOREVER am I conscious, moving here,
That should I step a little space aside
I pass the boundary of some glorified
Invisible domain -- it lies so near!
Yet nothing know we of that dim frontier
Which each must cross, whatever fate betide,
To reach the heavenly cities where abide
(Thus Sorrow whispers) those that were most dear,
Now all transfigured in celestial light!
Shall we indeed behold them, thine and mine,
Whose going hence made black the noonday sun? --
Strange is it that across the narrow night
They fling us not some token, or make sign
That all beyond is not Oblivion.





Thomas Bailey Aldrich




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Andromeda


THE smooth-worn coin and threadbare classic phrase
Of Grecian myths that did beguile my youth,
Beguile me not as in the olden days:
I think more grief and beauty dwell with truth.
Andromeda, in fetters by the sea,
Star-pale with anguish till young Perseus came,
Less moves me with her suffering than she,
The slim girl figure fettered to dark shame,
That nightly haunts the park, there, like a shade,
Trailing her wretchedness from street to street.
See where she passes -- neither wife nor maid;
How all mere fiction crumbles at her feet!
Here is woe's self, and not the mask of woe:





Thomas Bailey Aldrich




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On Reading William Watson's Sonnet Entitled "The Purple East"



RESTLESS the Northern Bear amid his snows
Crouched by the Neva; menacing is France,
That sees the shadow of the Uhlan's lance
On her clipped borders; struggling in the throes
Of wanton war lies Spain, and deathward goes.
And thou, O England, how the time's mischance
Hath fettered thee, that with averted glance
Thou standest, marble to Armenia's woes!
If 'twas thy haughty Dauther of the West
That stayed thy hand,, a word had driven away
Her sudden ire, and brought her to thy breast!
Thy blood makes quick her pulses, and some day,
Not now, yet some day, at thy soft behest
She by thy side shall hold the world at bay.




Thomas Bailey Aldrich




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"I Vex Me Not with Brooding on the Years"



I VEX me not with brooding on the years
That were ere I drew breath: why should I then
Distrust the darkness that may fall again
When life is done? Perchance in other spheres --
Dead planets -- I once tasted mortal tears,
And walked as now amid a throng of men,
Pondering things that lay beyond my ken,
Questioning death, and solacing my fears.
Ofttimes indeed strange sense have I of this,
Vague memories that hold me with a spell,
Touches of unseen lips upon my brow,
Breathing some incommunicable bliss!
In years foregone, O Soul, was all not well?
Still lovelier life awaits thee. Fear not thou!




Thomas Bailey Aldrich




--> Man

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THE SISTERS' TRAGEDY
A.D. 1670


AGLÄE, a widow.

MURIEL, her unmarried sister.



IT happened once, in that brave land that lies
For half the twelvemonth wrapt in sombre skies,
Two sisters loved one man. He being dead,
Grief loosed the lips of her he had not wed,
And all the passion that through heavy years
Had masked in smiles unmasked itself in tears.
No purer love may mortals know than this,
The hidden love that guards another's bliss.
High in a turret's westward-facing room,
Whose painted window held the sunset's bloom,
The two together grieving, each to each
Unveiled her soul with sobs and broken speech.

Both were young, in life's rich summer yet;
And one was dark, with tints of violet
In hair and eyes, and one was blond as she
Who rose--a second daybreak--from the sea,
Gold-tressed and azure-eyed. In that lone place,
Like dusk and dawn, they sat there face to face.

She spoke the first whose strangely silvering hair
No wreath had worn, nor widow's weed might wear,
And told her blameless love, and knew no shame--
Her holy love that, like a vestal flame
Beside the body of some queen
Within a guarded crypt, had burned unseen
From weary year to year. And she who heard
Smiled proudly through her tears and said no word,
But, drawing closer, on the troubled brow
Laid one long kiss, and that was words enow!

MURIEL.

Be still, my heart! Grown patient with thine ache,
Thou shouldst be dumb, yet needs must speak, or break.
The world is empty now that he is gone.

AGLÄE.

Ay, sweetheart!

MURIEL.

None was like him, no, not one.
From other men he stood apart, alone
In honor spotless as unfallen snow.
Nothing all evil was it his to know;
His charity still found some germ, some spark
Of light in natures that seemed wholly dark.
He read men's souls; the lowly and the high
Moved on the self-same level in his eye.
Gracious to all, to none subservient,
Without offence he spake the word he meant--
His word no trick of tact or courtly art,
But the white flowering of the noble heart.
Careless he was of much the world counts gain,
Careless of self, too simple to be vain,
Yet strung so finely that for conscience-sake
He would have gone like Cranmer to the stake.
I saw--how could I help but love? And you--

AGLÄE.

At this perfection did I worship too . . .
'T was this that stabbed me. Heed not what I say!
I meant it not, my wits are gone astray,
With all that is and has been. No, I lie--
Had he been less perfection, happier I!

MURIEL.

Strange words and wild! 'T is the distracted mind
Breathes them, not you, and I no meaning find.

AGLÄE.

Yet 't were as plain as writing on a scroll
had you but eyes to read within my soul.--
How a grief hidden feeds on its own mood,
Poison's the healthful currents of the blood
With bitterness, and turns the heart to stone!
I think, in truth, 't were better to make moan,
And so be done with it. This many a year,
Sweetheart, have I laughed lightly and made cheer,
Pierced through with sorrow!

Then the widowed one
With sorrowfullest eyes beneath the sun,
Faltered, irresolute, and bending low
Her head, half whispered,

Dear, how could you know?
What masks are faces!--yours, unread by me
These seven long summers; mine, so placidly
Shielding my woe! No tremble of the lip,
No cheek's quick pallor let our secret slip!
Mere players we, and she that played the queen,
Now in her homespun, looks how poor and mean!
How shall I say it, how find words to tell
What thing it was for me made earth a hell
That else had been my heaven! 'T would blanch your cheek
Were I to speak it. Nay, but I will speak,
Since like two souls at compt we seem to stand,
Where nothing may be hidden. Hold my hand,
But look not at me! Noble 't was, and meet,
To hide your heart, nor fling it at his feet
To lie despised there. Thus saved you our pride
And that white honor for which earls have died.
You were not all unhappy, loving so!
I with a difference wore my weight of woe.
My lord was he. It was my cruel lot,
My hell, to love him--for he loved me not!

Then came a silence. Suddenly like death
The truth flashed on them, and each held her breath--
A flash of light whereby they both were slain,
She that was loved and she that loved in vain!


Thomas Bailey Aldrich




--> Man

[Man]

Poem



THE LAST CÆSAR
1851 - 1870

I

NOW there was one who came in later days
To play at Emperor: in the dead of night
Stole crown and sceptre, and stood forth to light
In sudden purple. The dawn's straggling rays
Showed Paris fettered, murmuring in amaze,
With red hands at her throat--a piteous sight.
Then the new Cæsar, stricken with affright
At his own daring, shrunk from public gaze

In the Elysée, and had lost the day
But that around him flocked his birds of prey,
Sharp-beaked, voracious, hungry for the deed.
'Twixt hope and fear beheld great Cæsar hang!
Meanwhile, methinks, a ghostly laughter rang
Through the rotunda of the Invalides.

II

What if the boulevards, at set of sun,
Reddened, but not with the sunset's kindly glow?
What if from quai and square the murmured woe
Swept heavenward, pleadingly? The prize was won,
A kingling made and Liberty undone.
No Emperor, this, like him awhile ago,
But his Name's shadow; that one struck the blow
Himself, the street-sweeping gun!

This was a man of tortuous heart and brain,
So warped he knew not his own point of view--
The master of a dark, mysterious smile.

And there he plotted, by the storied Seine
And in the fairy gardens of St. Cloud,
The Sphinx that puzzled Europe, for awhile.

III

I see him as men saw him once--a face
Of true Napoleon pallor; round the eyes
The wrinkled care; mustache spread pinion-wise,
Pointing his smile with odd sardonic grace
As wearily he turns him in his place,
And bends before the hoarse Parisian cries--
Then vanishes, with glitter of gold-lace
And trumpets blaring to the patient skies.

Not thus he vanished later! On his path
The Furies waited for the hour and man,
Foreknowing that they waited not in vain.

Then fell the day, o day of dreadful wrath!
Bow-down in shame, O crimson-girt Sedan!
Weep fair Alsace! weep, loveliest Lorainne!

So mused I, sitting underneath the trees
In that old garden of the Tuileries,
Watching the dust of twilight sifting down
Through chestnut boughs just touched with autumn's brown--

Not twilight yet, but that illusive bloom
Which holds before the deep-edged shadows come;
For still the garden stood in golden mist,
Still, like a river of golden amethyst,
The Seine slipt through its pans of fretted stone,
And, near the grille that once fenced in a throne,
The fountains still unbraided to the day
The unsubstantial silver of their spray.

A spot to dream in, love in, waste one's hours!
Temples and palaces, and gilded towers,
And fairy terraces!--and yet, and yet
Here in her woe came Marie Antoinette,
Came sweet Corday, Du Barry with shrill cry,
Not learning from her betters how to die!
Here, while the nations watched with bated breath,
Was held the saturnalia of Red Death!

For where that slim Egyptian shaft uplifts
Its point to catch the dawn's and sunset's drifts
Of various gold, the busy Headsman stood. . . .
Place de la Concorde--no, the Place of Blood!

And all so peaceful now, one cannot bring
Imagination to accept the thing.
Lies, all of it! some dreamer's wild romance--
High-hearted, witty, laughter-loving France!
In whose brain was it that the legend grew
Of Mænads shrieking in this avenue,
Of watch-fires burning, Famine standing guard,
Of long-speared Uhlans in that palace-yard!
What ruder sound this soft air ever smote
Than a bird's twitter, or a bugle's note?
What darker crimson ever splashed these walks
Than that of rose-leaves dropping from the stalks?
And yet--what means that charred and broken wall,
That sculptured marble, splintered, like to fall,
Looming among the trees there? . . . And you say
This happened, as it were, but yesterday?
And here the commune stretched a barricade,
And there the final desperate stand was made?
Such things have been? How all things change and fade!
How little lasts in this brave world below!
Love dies; hate cools; the Cæsars come and go;
Gaunt Hunger fattens, and the weak grow strong.
Even Republics are not here for long!

Ah, who can tell what hour may bring the doom,
The lighted torch, the tocsin's heavy boom!





Thomas Bailey Aldrich




--> Man

[Man]

Poem



IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY

"The Southern Transept, hardly known by any other name but Poets' Corner"
DEAN STANLEY


TREAD softly here; the sacredest of tombs
Are those that hold your poets. Kings and queens
Are facile accidents of Time and Chance.
Chance sets them on the heights, they climb not there!
But he who from the darkling mass of men
Is on the wing of heavenly thought upborne
To finer ether, and becomes a voice
For all the voiceless, God annointed him:
His name shall be a star, his grave a shrine.

Tread softly here, in silent reverence tread.
Beneath those marble cenotaphs and urns
Lies richer dust than ever nature hid
Packed in the mountain's adamantine heart,
Or slyly wrapt in unsuspected sand--
The dross men toil for, and oft stain the soul.
How vain and all ignoble seems that greed
To him who stands in this dim claustral air
With these most sacred ashes at his feet!
This dust was Chaucer, Spenser, Dryden this--
The spark that once illumed it lingers still.
O ever-hallowed spot of English earth!
If the unleashed and unhappy spirit of man
Have option to visit our dull globe,
What august Shades at midnight here convene
In the miraculous sessions of the moon,
When the great pulse of London faintly throbs,
And one by one the stars in heaven pale!





Thomas Bailey Aldrich




--> Man

[Man]

Poem



ALEC YEATON'S SON
GLOUCESTER, AUGUST, 1720


THE wind it wailed, the wind it moaned,
And the white caps flecked the sea;
"An' I would to God," the skipper groaned,
"I had not my boy with me!

Snug in the stern-sheets, little John
Laughed as the scud swept by;
But the skipper's sunburnt cheeks grew wan
As he watched the wicked sky.

"Would he were at his mother's side!"
And the skipper's eyes were dim.
"Good Lord in heaven, if ill betide,
What would become of him!

"For me--my muscles are as steel,
For me let hap what may;
I might make shift upon the keel
Until the break o' day.

"But he, he is so weak and small,
So young, scarce learned to stand--
O pitying Father of us all,
I trust him in Thy hand!

"For Thou, who makest from on high
A sparrow's fall--each one!--
Surely, O Lord, thou'lt have an eye
On Alec Yeaton's son!"

Then, helm hard-port; right straight he sailed
Towards the headland light:
The wind it moaned, the wind it wailed,
And black, black fell the night.

Then burst a storm to make one quail
Though housed from winds and waves--
They who could tell about that gale
Must rise from watery graves!

Sudden it came, as sudden went;
Ere half the night was sped,
The winds were hushed, the waves were spent,
And the stars shone overhead.

Now, as the morning mist grew thin,
The folk on Gloucester shore
Saw a little figure floating in
Secure, on a broken oar!

Up rose the cry, "A wreck! a wreck!
Pull, mates, and waste no breath!"--
They knew it, though 't was but a speck
Upon the edge of death!

Long did they marvel in the town
At God his strange decree,
That let the stalwart skipper drown
And the little child go free!




Thomas Bailey Aldrich




--> Man

[Man]

Poem




AT THE FUNERAL OF A MINOR POET


[One of the Bearers Soliloquizes:]



. . . ROOM in your heart for him, O Mother Earth,
Who loved each flower and leaf that made you fair,
And sang your praises in verses manifold
And delicate, with here and there a line
From end to end in blossom like a bough
The May breathes on, so rich it was. Some thought
The workmanship more costly than the thing
Moulded or carved, as in those ornaments
Found at Mycæne. And yet Nature's self
Works in this wise; upon a blade of grass,
Or what small note she lends the woodland thrush,
Lavishing endless patience. He was born
Artist, not artisan, which some few saw
And many dreamed not. As he wrote no odes
When Croesus wedded or Mæcenas died,
And gave no breath to civic feasts and shows,
He missed the glare that gilds more facile men--
A twilight poet, groping quite alone,
Belated, in a sphere where every nest
Is emptied of its music and its wings.
Not great his gift; yet we can poorly spare
Even his slight perfection in an age
Of limping triolets and tame rondeaux.
He had at least ideals, though unreached,
And heard, far off, immortal harmonies,
Such as fall coldly on our ear to-day.
The mighty Zolastic Movement now
Engrosses us--a miasmatic breath
Blown from the slums. We paint life as it is,
The hideous side of it, with careful pains,
Making a god of the dull Commonplace.
For have we not the old gods overthrown
And set up strangest idols? We would clip
Imagination's wing and kill delight,
Our sole art being to leave nothing out
That renders art offensive. Not for us
Madonnas leaning from their starry thrones
Ineffable, nor any heaven-wrought dream
Of sculptor or of poet; we prefer
Such nightmare visions as in morbid brains
Take shape and substance, thoughts that taint the air
And make all life unlovely. Will it last?
Beauty alone endures from age to age,
From age to age endures, handmaid of God.
Poets who walk with her on earth go hence
Bearing a talisman. You bury one,
With his hushed music, in some Potter's Field;
The snows and rains blot out his very name,
As he from life seems blotted; through Time's glass
Slip the invisible and magic sands
That mark the century, then falls a day
The world is suddenly conscious of a flower,
Imperishable, ever to be prized,
Sprung from the mould of a forgotten grave.
'T is said the seeds wrapt up among the balms
And hieroglyphics of Egyptian kings
old strange vitality, and, planted, grow
After the lapse of thrice a thousand years.
Some day, perchance, some unregarded note
Of our poor friend here--some sweet minor chord
That failed to lure our more accustomed ear--
Way witch the fancy of an unborn age.
Who knows, since seeds have such tenacity?
Meanwhile he's dead, with scantiest laurel won
And little of our Ninteenth Century gold.
So, take him, Earth, and this his mortal part,
With that shrewd alchemy thou hast, transmute
To flower and leaf in thine unending springs!



Thomas Bailey Aldrich




--> Man

[Man]

Poem




THE SHIPMAN'S TALE



LISTEN my masters! I speak naught but truth.
From dawn to dawn they drifted on and on,
Not knowing wither nor to what dark end.
Now the North froze them, now the hot South scorched.
Some called to God, and found great comfort so;
Some gnashed their teeth with curses, some laughed
An empty laughter, seeing they yet lived,
So sweet was breath between their foolish lips.
Day after day the same relentless sun,
Night after night the same unpitying stars.
At intervals fierce lightning tore the clouds,
Showing vast hollow spaces, and the sleet
Hissed, and the torrents of the sky were loosed.
From time to time a hand relaxed its grip,
And some pale wretch slid down into the dark
With stifled moan, and transient horror seized
The rest who waited, knowing what must be.
At every turn strange shapes reached up and clutched
The whirling wreck, held on awhile, and then
Slipt back into that blackness whence they came.
Ah, hapless folk, to be so tost and torn,
So racked by hunger, fever, fire, and wave,
And swept at last into the nameless void--
Frail girls, strong men, and mothers with their babes!

And was none saved?
My masters, not a soul!

O shipman, woful, woful is thy tale!
Our hearts are heavy and our eyes are dimmed.
What ship is this that suffered such ill fate?

What ship, my masters? Know ye not?--The World!




Thomas Bailey Aldrich




--> Man

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"I VEX ME NOT WITH BROODING ON THE YEARS"



I VEX me not with brooding on the years
That were ere I drew breath; why should I then
Distrust the darkness that may fall again
When life is done? Perchance in other spheres--
Dead planets--I once tasted mortal tears,
And walked as now among a throng of men,
Pondering things that lay beyond my ken,
Questioning death, and solacing my fears.
Offtimes indeed strange sense I have of this,
Vague memories that hold me with a spell,
Touches of unseen lips upon my brow,
Breathing some incommunicable bliss!
In years foregone, O soul, was all not well?
Still lovelier life awaits thee. Fear not thou!



Thomas Bailey Aldrich




--> Man

[Man]

Poem




MONODY ON THE DEATH OF WENDELL PHILLIPS

I

ONE by one they go
Into the unknown dark--
Star-lit brows of the brave,
Voices that drew men's souls.
Rich is the land, O Death!
Can give you dead like our dead!--
Such as he from whose hand
The magic web of romance
Slipt, and the art was lost!
Such as he who erewhile--
The last of the Titan brood--
With his thunder the Senate shook;
Or he who, beside the Charles,
Untoucht of envy or hate,
Tranced the world with his song;
Or that other, that grey-eyed seer
Who in pastoral Concord ways
With Plato and Hâfiz walked.

II

Not of these was the man
Whose wraith, through the mists of night,
Through the shuddering wintry stars,
Has passed to eternal morn.
Fit were the moan of the sea
And the clashing of cloud on cloud
For the passing of that soul!

Ever he faced the storm!
No weaver of rare romance,
No patient framer of laws,
No maker of wondrous rhyme,
No bookman wrapt in his dream.

His was the voice that rang
In the fight like a bugle-call,
And yet could be tender and low
As when, on a night in June,
The hushed wind sobs in the pines.
His was the eye that flashed
With a sabre's azure gleam,
Pointing to heights unwon!

III

Not for him were these days
Of clerky and sluggish calm--
To the petrel the swooping gale!
Austere he seemed, but the hearts
Of all men beat in his breast;
No fetter but galled his wrist,
No wrong that was not his own.
What if those eloquent lips
Curled with the old-time scorn?
What if in needless hours
His quick hand closed on the hilt?
'T was the smoke from the well-won fields
That clouded the vetran's eyes.
A fighter this to the end.

Ah, if in coming times
Some giant evil arise,
And Honor falter and pale,
His were a name to conjure with!
God send his like again!


Thomas Bailey Aldrich




--> Man

[Man]

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"Love is not a thing to understand.
Love is not a thing to feel.
Love is not a thing to give and receive.
Love is a thing only to become
And eternally be. ."



- Sri Chinmoy





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They Follow the Way


When mortals are alive, they worry about death.
When they’re full, they worry about hunger.
Theirs is the Great Uncertainty.

But sages don’t consider the past.
And they don’t worry about the future.
Nor do they cling to the present.
And from moment to moment they follow the Way.

By: Bodhidharma






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It Was Not Death




It was not death, for I stood up,
And all the dead lie down.
It was not night, for all the bells
Put out their tongues for noon.

It was not frost, for on my flesh
I felt siroccos crawl,
Nor fire, for just my marble feet
Could keep a chancel cool.

And yet it tasted like them all,
The figures I have seen
Set orderly for burial
Reminded me of mine,

As if my life were shaven
And fitted to a frame
And could not breathe without a key,
And ’twas like midnight, some,

When everything that ticked has stopped
And space stares all around,
Or grisly frosts, first autumn morns,
Repeal the beating ground;

But most like chaos, stopless, cool,
Without a chance, or spar,
Or even a report of land
To justify despair.


- Emily Dickinson







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Nirvana -


All is abolished but the mute Alone.
The mind from thought released, the heart from grief,
Grow inexistent now beyond belief;
There is no I, no Nature, known-unknown.
The city, a shadow picture without tone,
Floats, quivers unreal; forms without relief
Flow, a cinema’s vacant shapes; like a reef
Foundering in shoreless gulfs the world is done.

Only the illimitable Permanent
Is here. A Peace stupendous, featureless, still.
Replaces all, - what once was I, in It
A silent unnamed emptiness content
Either to fade in the Unknowable
Or thrill with the luminous seas of the Infinite.

- Sri Aurobindo







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Bright Star


Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art-
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors;
No-yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever-or else swoon to death.


- John Keats








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O Romeo, Romeo


O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo
Deny thy father and refuse thy name;
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.

Romeo.
[Aside.] Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?

Juliet.
‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy;–
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.
What’s Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,
Retain that dear perfection which he owes
Without that title:–Romeo, doff thy name;
And for that name, which is no part of thee,
Take all myself.



- William Shakespeare










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No Longer Mourn for Me


No longer mourn for me when I am dead
Then you shall hear the surly sullen bell
Give warning to the world that I am fled
From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell:
Nay, if you read this line, remember not
The hand that writ it; for I love you so
That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot
If thinking on me then should make you woe.
O, if, I say, you look upon this verse
When I perhaps compounded am with clay,
Do not so much as my poor name rehearse.
But let your love even with my life decay,
Lest the wise world should look into your moan
And mock you with me after I am gone.





- William Shakespeare










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Proof - Kabir


O friend! hope for Him whilst you live, know whilst you live,
understand whilst you live: for in life deliverance abides.
If your bonds be not broken whilst living, what hope of
deliverance in death?
It is but an empty dream, that the soul shall have union with Him
because it has passed from the body:
If He is found now, He is found then,
If not, we do but go to dwell in the City of Death.
If you have union now, you shall have it hereafter.
Bathe in the truth, know the true Guru, have faith in the true
Name!
Kabîr says: “It is the Spirit of the quest which helps; I am the slave of this Spirit of the quest.



From: Songs Of Kabir

Translated by Rabindranath Tagore











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Why Is Mother Kali so Radiantly Black?


Why is Mother Kali so radiantly black?
Because she is so powerful,
that even mentioning her name destroys delusion.
Because she is so beautiful,
Lord Shiva, Conquerer of death,
lies blissfully vanquished,
beneath the red soled feet.
There are subtle hues of blackness,
But her bright complexion
is the mystery that is utterly black,
overwhelmingly black, wonderfully black.
When she awakens in the lotus shrine
within the heart’s secret cave,
her blackness becomes the mystic illumination
that causes the twelve petal blossom there
to glow more intensely than golden embers.
Her lovely form is the incomparable
Kali- black blacker than the King of Death.
Whoever gazes upon this radiant blackness falls eternally in love
and feels no attraction to any other,
discovering everywhere only her.
This poet sighs deeply,
“Where is this brilliant lady, this black light beyond luminosity?
Though I have never seen her, simply hearing her name,
the mind becomes absorbed completely in her astonishing reality.Om Kali! Om Kali! Om Kali!

- Ramprasad Sen

Version by: Lex Hixon From Mother of the Universe “Visions of the Goddess and Tantric Hymns of Enlightenment”












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Alone and Drinking Under the Moon - Li Po


Amongst the flowers I
am alone with my pot of wine
drinking by myself; then lifting
my cup I asked the moon
to drink with me, its reflection
and mine in the wine cup, just
the three of us; then I sigh
for the moon cannot drink,

and my shadow goes emptily along
with me never saying a word;
with no other friends here, I can
but use these two for company;
in the time of happiness, I
too must be happy with all
around me; I sit and sing
and it is as if the moon



Amongst the flowers I
am alone with my pot of wine
drinking by myself; then lifting
my cup I asked the moon
to drink with me, its reflection
and mine in the wine cup, just
the three of us; then I sigh
for the moon cannot drink,

and my shadow goes emptily along
with me never saying a word;
with no other friends here, I can
but use these two for company;
in the time of happiness, I
too must be happy with all
around me; I sit and sing
and it is as if the moon


accompanies me; then if I
dance, it is my shadow that
dances along with me; while
still not drunk, I am glad
to make the moon and my shadow
into friends, but then when
I have drunk too much, we
all part; yet these are

friends I can always count on
these who have no emotion
whatsoever; I hope that one day
we three will meet again,
deep in the Milky Way.


By Li Po







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God tells me
That He treasures
My happy heart’s
Gratitude-blossoms.



Gratitude
Never takes anything
For granted,
But ingratitude does.

- Sri Chinmoy













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Hope is the Thing with Feathers
By: Emily Dickinson


"Hope" is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land
And on the strangest sea,
Yet never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.













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The Hope of Loving
by: Meister Eckhart
Transl. Daniel Ladinksky


What keeps us alive, what allows us to endure?

I think it is the hope of loving,
or being loved.

I heard a fable once about the sun going on a journey
to find its source, and how the moon wept
without her lover’s
warm gaze.

We weep when light does not reach our hearts. We wither
like fields if someone close
does not rain their
kindness
upon
us.














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Hope
By: Sri Chinmoy



Sweet is my hope.
Pure is the life of my hope.
With my sweet hope
I try to reach the higher worlds.
With my pure hope
I try to fathom my inner worlds.
But alas,
In neither way do I succeed.
I fail,
I miserably fail.















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Gitanjali
By: Rabindranath Tagore



In desperate hope I go and search for her in all the corners of
my room; I find her not.

My house is small and what once has gone from it can never be
regained.

But infinite is thy mansion, my lord, and seeking her I have to
come to thy door.

I stand under the golden canopy of thine evening sky and I lift
my eager eyes to thy face.

I have come to the brink of eternity from which nothing can
vanish--no hope, no happiness, no vision of a face seen through
tears.

Oh, dip my emptied life into that ocean, plunge it into the
deepest fullness. Let me for once feel that lost sweet touch in
the allness of the universe.















--> Man

[Man]

Poem





By: Rabindranath Tagore



Love adorns itself;
it seeks to prove inward joy by outward beauty.





Love's gift cannot be given,
it waits to be accepted.















--> Man

[Man]

Poem





The hands of
Power
Are often destructive.
The hands of
Love
Are always creative.


Sri Chinmoy




















--> Man

[Man]

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When
You talk about
Your wasted love,
You just increase
Your blind ignorance.
Love
Is never wasted.
Love
Can never be wasted,
For love is Infinity's Life.


Sri Chinmoy



















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[Man]

Poem


The most effective medicine
Here on earth
Is love unconditional.



Those who can live without love
Are not ready
For the world of aspiration.




Sri Chinmoy







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Love is an endless mystery,
for it has nothing else to explain it.




Love's gift cannot be given,
it waits to be accepted.




- Rabindranath Tagore






--> Man

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Love is a yearning
Of the One
For the One.



My God is will and triumphs in his paths,
My God is love and sweetly suffers all.




- Sri Aurobindo







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If we really want to love
we must learn how to forgive.



The success of love is in the loving
- it is not in the result of loving.




- Mother Teresa










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What is the nature of love? True Love is at once inexpressible and to speak of love is to lose its essence. Yet the great poets have sought tirelessly to give expression to the deepest yearning of the Soul. Poetry more than any other medium seems capable of giving form to the highest ideals of love and the immortality of our soul’s loftiest consciousness.

I am stronger than death and greater than my fate;
My love shall outlast the world, doom falls from me
Helpless against my immortality.



Sri Aurobindo, Savitri









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True love is unconditional, it does not seek to influence or guide others. True love is free from expectation and demand.

To live of love, it is to know no fear;
No memory of past faults can I recall;
No imprint of my sins remaineth here;
The fire of Love divine effaces all.



- St Teresa Avila “To Live of Love”










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The power of love to elevate our consciousness is limitless. The Seers suggest that it is love that is our true essence. When we experience love in its purest form we revel in its indescribable transformative power.

“A burning Love from white spiritual founts
Annulled the sorrow of the ignorant depths;
Suffering was lost in her immortal smile.

Savitri by Sri Aurobindo From Adoration of Divine Mother











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[Man]

Poem




Love captures the heart and soul. The desire and fulfilment of love leads to rapture. The pangs of separation and loss tear at the heart of the lover. Human love seems subject to the whims of fate; inexpressible joy intermingled with unimaginable pain. The classical search for love - a roller coaster of emotions.



Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

- Shakespeare .Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds











--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Divine Love.

Whilst human love so often brings frustration and suffering, divine Love brings real and abiding satisfaction. In divine Love we have a feeling of oneness with the entirety of God’s creation. Our Soul is consciously or unconsciously seeking union with the highest transcendental consciousness. When we love the source, we at the same time see God in all. Nothing can be kept away from our divine love. We understand at heart there is no separation only an unbreakable bond of unity and oneness.



In secrecy supreme I see You.
You live in my eyes, in my sleep,
In my dreams, in my sweet wakefulness.
In the stupendous mirth of life,
In the abysmal lap of death,
You I behold.
Your Love-Play is my world.

From “My Flute” by Sri Chinmoy










--> Man

[Man]

Poem




A MAN OF WISDOM-DELIGHT


If you are a man of knowledge-light,
You will know what the world has.
If you are a man of wisdom-delight, You will know who God is
And where God is.



-- Sri Chinmoy










--> Man

[Man]

Poem




THE REAL WISDOM-LIGHT

What is the real wisdom-light?
The real wisdom-light
Is to help Truth regain
Its lost throne.




-- Sri Chinmoy










--> Man

[Man]

Poem




THE INNER PROBLEM

All the world's problems
Can be solved only when
The inner problem is solved.
What is the inner problem?
The inner problem is:
Who am I?




-- Sri Chinmoy










--> Man

[Man]

Poem




YOUR HOLY STEPS


Your holy steps
Have saved my fettered life.
Your holy steps
Have released my encaged soul.





-- Sri Chinmoy










--> Man

[Man]

Poem




MY HEART


O heart, my heart,
You are sovereignty ancient,
You are beauty imperishable.






-- Sri Chinmoy










--> Man

[Man]

Poem




... to sow the seeds

Of ten thousand flaming flower-poems
Which at long last I shall place
Devotedly, unreservedly and unconditionally
At the Compassion-Feet
Of my Beloved-Supreme. (1)





-- Sri Chinmoy










--> Man

[Man]

Poem




O God, sharpen my mind, like the edge of iron.
Whatever I now may utter, longing for Thee,
do Thou accept it; make me possessed of God!





-- Sri Chinmoy










--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Lead me from the unreal to the Real.
Lead me from darkness to Light.
Lead me from death to Immortality





-- Sri Chinmoy










--> Man

[Man]

Poem




THE DEFEAT OF MY LIFE


There is a defeat
That is more glorious
Than victory.
And that defeat
Is the defeat
Of my entire life
By Truth.






-- Sri Chinmoy










--> Man

[Man]

Poem




GOD'S FORGIVENESS-LIGHT


If you are bathed
In God's Forgiveness-Light,
Then no dust of earth
Will be able to cling to you.







-- Sri Chinmoy










--> Man

[Man]

Poem




A REALITY OUT OF DATE


Unless you dare to be
Your real and transcendental Self, No matter what you do,
No matter what you say,
No matter what you become,
You will still remain
A reality completely out of date.








-- Sri Chinmoy










--> Man

[Man]

Poem




ONE STEP


From the quick magic
Of my heart's surrender To the abiding magic
Of my life's transformation
Is but one step.









-- Sri Chinmoy










--> Man

[Man]

Poem




THE IDEA-FLAMES



Everything started,
Starts
And will start
With the idea-flames
For life-perfection
And self-transcendence.










-- Sri Chinmoy










--> Man

[Man]

Poem




I LOVE THE PRISTINE BEAUTY


I love the pristine beauty
Of a flower-flame.
I love the pristine purity
Of a flower-lamp.
I love the pristine reality
Of a flower-life.












-- Sri Chinmoy










--> Man

[Man]

Poem




HAPPINESS WILL FOLLOW YOU


Happiness will follow you
If you follow the footsteps
Of the purity-sages
Who sing sleeplessly
For your heart's illumination And your life's perfection. Where do they sing?
They sing inside the silence-haunted heart
Of your unconscious universality.













-- Sri Chinmoy










--> Man

[Man]

Poem




EACH UNCOMELY THOUGHT


Each uncomely thought
Eventually throws the mind
Into a chasm of bleeding despair.













-- Sri Chinmoy










--> Man

[Man]

Poem




TODAY'S PURE THOUGHTS


Today's pure thoughts
Are resources
For tomorrow's inner emergencies














-- Sri Chinmoy










--> Man

[Man]

Poem




If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.



- Emily Dickinson










--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Because I Could not Stop for Death



Because I could not stop for Death—
He kindly stopped for me—
The Carriage held but just Ourselves—
And Immortality.

We slowly drove—He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For His Civility—

We passed the School, where Children strove
At Recess—in the Ring—
We passed the fields of Gazing Grain—
We passed the Setting Sun—

Or rather—He passed Us—
The Dews drew quivering and chill—
For only Gossamer, my Gown—
My Tippet—only Tulle—

We paused before a House that seemed
A Swelling of the Ground—
The Roof was scarcely visible—
The Cornice—in the Ground—

Since then—'tis Centuries—and yet
Feels shorter than the Day
I first surmised the Horses' Heads
Were toward Eternity—



- Emily Dickinson










--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Death Sets A Thing Of SigniFicant




Death sets a thing significant
The eye had hurried by,
Except a perished creature
Entreat us tenderly

To ponder little workmanships
In crayon or in wool,
With "This was last her fingers did,"
Industrious until

The thimble weighed too heavy,
The stitches stopped themselves,
And then 't was put among the dust
Upon the closet shelves.

A book I have, a friend gave,
Whose pencil, here and there,
Had notched the place that pleased him,--
At rest his fingers are.

Now, when I read, I read not,
For interrupting tears
Obliterate the etchings
Too costly for repairs.






- Emily Dickinson










--> Man

[Man]

Poem




For Each Ecstatic Instant


For each ecstatic instant
We must an anguish pay
In keen and quivering ratio
To the ecstasy.

For each beloved hour
Sharp pittances of years,
Bitter contested farthings
And coffers heaped with tears.






- Emily Dickinson










--> Man

[Man]

Poem




I Felt A Funeral In My Brain



I felt a funeral in my brain,
And mourners, to and fro,
Kept treading, treading, till it seemed
That sense was breaking through.

And when they all were seated,
A service like a drum
Kept beating, beating, till I thought
My mind was going numb

And then I heard them lift a box,
And creak across my soul
With those same boots of lead, again.
Then space began to toll

As all the heavens were a bell,
And being, but an ear,
And I and Silence some strange Race
Wrecked, solitary, here.






- Emily Dickinson










--> Man

[Man]

Poem




I Cannot Live With You



I cannot live with you,
It would be life,
And life is over there
Behind the shelf

The sexton keeps the key to,
Putting up
Our life, his porcelain,
Like a cup

Discarded of the housewife,
Quaint or broken;
A newer Sevres pleases,
Old ones crack.

I could not die with you,
For one must wait
To shut the other's gaze down,
You could not.

And I, could I stand by
And see you freeze,
Without my right of frost,
Death's privilege?

Nor could I rise with you,
Because your face
Would put out Jesus'.
That new grace

Glow plain and foreign
On my homesick eye,
Except that you, than he
Shone closer by.







- Emily Dickinson










--> Man

[Man]

Poem




I Died For Beauty But Was Scarce



I died for beauty but was scarce
Adjusted in the tomb,
When one who died for truth was lain
In an adjoining room.

He questioned softly why I failed?
"For beauty," I replied.
"And I for truth, the two are one;
We brethren are," he said.

And so, as kinsmen met a night,
We talked between the rooms,
Until the moss had reached our lips,
And covered up our names.








- Emily Dickinson










--> Man

[Man]

Poem




I Measure Every Grief I Meet



I measure every grief I meet
With analytic eyes;
I wonder if it weighs like mine,
Or has an easier size.

I wonder if they bore it long,
Or did it just begin?
I could not tell the date of mine,
It feels so old a pain.

I wonder if it hurts to live,
And if they have to try,
And whether, could they choose between,
They would not rather die.

I wonder if when years have piled--
Some thousands--on the cause
Of early hurt, if such a lapse
Could give them any pause;

Or would they go on aching still
Through centuries above,
Enlightened to a larger pain
By contrast with the love.








- Emily Dickinson










--> Man

[Man]

Poem




I Taste A Liquor Never Brewed




I taste a liquor never brewed,
From tankards scooped in pearl;
Not all the vats upon the Rhine
Yield such an alcohol!

Inebriate of air am I,
And debauchee of dew,
Reeling, through endless summer days,
From inns of molten blue.

When the landlord turn the drunken bee
Out of the foxglove's door,
When butterflies renounce their drams,
I shall but drink the more!

Till seraphs swing their snowy hats,
And saints to windows run,
To see the little tippler
Leaning against the sun!










- Emily Dickinson










--> Man

[Man]

Poem




It Was Not Death




It was not death, for I stood up,
And all the dead lie down.
It was not night, for all the bells
Put out their tongues for noon.

It was not frost, for on my flesh
I felt siroccos crawl,
Nor fire, for just my marble feet
Could keep a chancel cool.

And yet it tasted like them all,
The figures I have seen
Set orderly for burial
Reminded me of mine,

As if my life were shaven
And fitted to a frame
And could not breathe without a key,
And 'twas like midnight, some,

When everything that ticked has stopped
And space stares all around,
Or grisly frosts, first autumn morns,
Repeal the beating ground;

But most like chaos, stopless, cool,
Without a chance, or spar,
Or even a report of land
To justify despair.










- Emily Dickinson










--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Hope is the Thing with Feathers




"Hope" is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I've heard it in the chillest land
And on the strangest sea,
Yet never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.









- Emily Dickinson










--> Man

[Man]

Poem




T'is So Much Joy


’T is so much joy! ’T is so much joy!
If I should fail, what poverty!
And yet, as poor as I
Have ventured all upon a throw;
Have gained! Yes! Hesitated so
This side the victory!

Life is but life, and death but death!
Bliss is but bliss, and breath but breath!
And if, indeed, I fail,
At least to know the worst is sweet.
Defeat means nothing but defeat,
No drearier can prevail!

And if I gain,—oh, gun at sea,
Oh, bells that in the steeples be,
At first repeat it slow!
For heaven is a different thing
Conjectured, and waked sudden in,
And might o’erwhelm me so!









- Emily Dickinson










--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Success Is Counted Sweetest




Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.

Not one of all the purple Host
Who took the Flag today
Can tell the definition
So clear of Victory

As he defeated-dying
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Burst agonized and clear!










- Emily Dickinson










--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Much Madness




Much madness is divinest sense
To a discerning eye;
Much sense the starkest madness.
’T is the majority
In this, as all, prevails.
Assent, and you are sane;
Demur,—you ’re straightway dangerous,
And handled with a chain











- Emily Dickinson










--> Man

[Man]

Poem




I Had No Time To Hate, Because



I had no time to hate, because
The grave would hinder me,
And life was not so ample I
Could finish enmity.

Nor had I time to love, but since
Some industry must be,
The little toil of love, I thought,
Was large enough for me.












- Emily Dickinson










--> Man

[Man]

Poem




I Had Been Hungry All The Years




I had been hungry all the years-
My noon had come, to dine-
I, trembling, drew the table near
And touched the curious wine.

'T was this on tables I had seen
When turning, hungry, lone,
I looked in windows, for the wealth
I could not hope to own.

I did not know the ample bread,
'T was so unlike the crumb
The birds and I had often shared
In Nature's dining-room.

The plenty hurt me, 't was so new,--
Myself felt ill and odd,
As berry of a mountain bush
Transplanted to the road.

Nor was I hungry; so I found
That hunger was a way
Of persons outside windows,
The entering takes away.









- Emily Dickinson










--> Man

[Man]

Poem




I Heard A Fly Buzz When I Died


I heard a fly buzz when I died;
The stillness round my form
Was like the stillness in the air
Between the heaves of storm.

The eyes beside had wrung them dry,
And breaths were gathering sure
For that last onset, when the king
Be witnessed in his power.

I willed my keepsakes, signed away
What portion of me I
Could make assignable, and then
There interposed a fly,

With blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz,
Between the light and me;
And then the windows failed, and then
I could not see to see.










- Emily Dickinson










--> Man

[Man]

Poem




God Gave A Loaf To Every Bird


God gave a loaf to every bird,
But just a crumb to me;
I dare not eat it, though I starve,--
My poignant luxury
To own it, touch it, prove the feat
That made the pellet mine,--
Too happy in my sparrow chance
For ampler coveting.

It might be famine all around,
I could not miss an ear,
Such plenty smiles upon my board,
My garner shows so fair.
I wonder how the rich may feel,--
An Indiaman--an Earl?
I deem that I with but a crumb
Am sovereign of them all.









- Emily Dickinson










--> Man

[Man]

Poem





I'm Nobody! Who Are You?


I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us - don't tell!
They'd advertise - you know!

How dreary to be somebody!
How public like a frog
To tell one's name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!












- Emily Dickinson










--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Bodhi originally has no tree
The mirror also has no stand.
Buddha nature is always clear and pure;
Where is there room for dust?



By: Huineng

Tr. Philip Yampolsky











--> Man

[Man]

Poem




What is this mind?
Who is hearing these sounds?
Do not mistake any state for
Self-realization, but continue
To ask yourself even more intensely,
What is it that hears?


By: Bassui












--> Man

[Man]

Poem




When all thoughts
Are exhausted
I slip into the woods
And gather
A pile of shepherd’s purse.


Blending with the wind,
Snow falls;
Blending with the snow,
The wind blows.
By the hearth
I stretch out my legs,
Idling my time away
Confined in this hut.
Counting the days,
I find that February, too,
Has come and gone
Like a dream.

Like the little stream
Making its way
Through the mossy crevices
I, too, quietly
Turn clear and transparent.



By: Ryokan














--> Man

[Man]

Poem




My Hovel


The world before my eyes is wan and wasted, just like me.
The earth is decrepit, the sky stormy, all the grass withered.
No spring breeze even at this late date,
Just winter clouds swallowing up my tiny reed hut.




By: Ikkyu - From Wild Ways: Zen Poems of Ikkyu, translated by John Stevens













--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Summer grasses:

All that remains of great soldiers’
imperial dreams

On the white poppy,
a butterfly’s torn wing
is a keepsake

The bee emerging
from deep within the peony
departs reluctantly



From The Essential Basho, Translated by Sam Hamill.













--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Sitting alone on an Autumn Night
I sit alone sad at my whitening hair
Waiting for ten o’clock in my empty house
In the rain the hill fruits fall
Under the lamp grasshoppers sound
White hairs will never be transformed
That elixir is beyond creation
To eliminate decrepitude
Study the absolute.



By: Wang Wei

Tr. G.W.Robinson
.













--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Passing the Temple

Tonight he walks with his light stick,
Stops by the Tiger Stream’s source,
Asks us to listen to the mountain sound,
Goes home again by clear waters.
Endless blossoms in the stillness.
Bird-cries deep in the valleys.
Now he’ll sit in empty hills.
In pine-winds, feel the touch of autumn.





By: Wang Wei

Tr. G.W.Robinson
.













--> Man

[Man]

Poem




A View on Buddhism

Zen Poems and Haiku - A selection from a 'non-zennist'



SOME CLASSICS


Enlightenment is like the moon reflected on the water.
The moon does not get wet, nor is the water broken.
Although its light is wide and great,
The moon is reflected even in a puddle an inch wide.
The whole moon and the entire sky
Are reflected in one dewdrop on the grass.
Dogen





.













--> Man

[Man]

Poem




A View on Buddhism

Zen Poems and Haiku - A selection from a 'non-zennist'



SOME CLASSICS


Those who see worldly life as an obstacle to Dharma
see no Dharma in everyday actions.
They have not yet discovered that
there are no everyday actions outside of Dharma.
Dogen





.













--> Man

[Man]

Poem




A View on Buddhism

Zen Poems and Haiku - A selection from a 'non-zennist'



SOME CLASSICS


It is as though you have an eye
That sees all forms
But does not see itself.
This is how your mind is.
Its light penetrates everywhere
And engulfs everything,
So why does it not know itself?
Foyan




.













--> Man

[Man]

Poem




A View on Buddhism

Zen Poems and Haiku - A selection from a 'non-zennist'



SOME CLASSICS


Who is hearing?
Your physical being doesn’t hear,
Nor does the void.
Then what does?
Strive to find out.
Put aside your rational Intellect,
Give up all techniques.
Just get rid of the notion of self.
Bassui




.













--> Man

[Man]

Poem




A View on Buddhism

Zen Poems and Haiku - A selection from a 'non-zennist'



SOME CLASSICS


What is this mind?
Who is hearing these sounds?
Do not mistake any state for
Self-realization, but continue
To ask yourself even more intensely,
What is it that hears?
Bassui





.













--> Man

[Man]

Poem




A View on Buddhism

Zen Poems and Haiku - A selection from a 'non-zennist'



SOME CLASSICS


Few people believe their
Inherent mind is Buddha.
Most will not take this seriously,
And therefore are cramped.
They are wrapped up in illusions, cravings,
Resentments, and other afflictions,
All because they love the cave of ignorance.
Fenyang





.













--> Man

[Man]

Poem




A View on Buddhism

Zen Poems and Haiku - A selection from a 'non-zennist'



SOME CLASSICS


Hell is not punishment,
it's training.
Shunryu Suzuki



The most important thing is to find out
what is the most important thing.
Shunryu Suzuki






.













--> Man

[Man]

Poem




A View on Buddhism

Zen Poems and Haiku - A selection from a 'non-zennist'



SOME CLASSICS


If you want to be free,
Get to know your real self.
It has no form, no appearance,
No root, no basis, no abode,
But is lively and buoyant.
It responds with versatile facility,
But its function cannot be located.
Therefore when you look for it,
You become further from it;
When you seek it,
You turn away from it all the more.


- Linji





.













--> Man

[Man]

Poem




A View on Buddhism

Zen Poems and Haiku - A selection from a 'non-zennist'



SOME CLASSICS


Well versed in the Buddha way,
I go the non-Way
Without abandoning my
Ordinary person’s affairs.

The conditioned and
Name-and-form,
All are flowers in the sky.

Nameless and formless,
I leave birth-and-death.


Layman P’ang 740-808





.













--> Man

[Man]

Poem




A View on Buddhism

Zen Poems and Haiku - A selection from a 'non-zennist'



SOME CLASSICS


Beauty is, then there is ugliness;
where right is, also there is wrong.
Knowledge and ignorance are interdependent;
delusion and enlightenment condition each other.
Since olden times it has been so.
How could it be otherwise now?
Wanting to get rid of one and grab the other
is merely realizing a scene of stupidity.
Even if you speak of the wonder of it all,
how do you deal with each thing changing?


-Ryokan-





.













--> Man

[Man]

Poem




A View on Buddhism

Zen Poems and Haiku - A selection from a 'non-zennist'



SOME CLASSICS


Though I think not
To think about it,
I do think about it
And shed tears
Thinking about it.




-Ryokan-





.













--> Man

[Man]

Poem




A View on Buddhism

Zen Poems and Haiku - A selection from a 'non-zennist'



SOME CLASSICS


Food and clothes sustain
Body and life;
I advise you to learn
Being as is.
When it’s time,
I move my hermitage and go,
And there’s nothing
To be left behind.


Layman P’ang





.













--> Man

[Man]

Poem




A View on Buddhism

Zen Poems and Haiku - A selection from a 'non-zennist'



SOME CLASSICS


A world of dew,
and within every dewdrop
a world of struggle


Issa





.













--> Man

[Man]

Poem




A View on Buddhism

Zen Poems and Haiku - A selection from a 'non-zennist'



SOME CLASSICS


The monkey is reaching
For the moon in the water.
Until death overtakes him
He'll never give up.
If he'd let go the branch and
Disappear in the deep pool,
The whole world would shine
With dazzling pureness.


Hakuin





.













--> Man

[Man]

Poem




A View on Buddhism

Zen Poems and Haiku - A selection from a 'non-zennist'



SOME CLASSICS


Look for Buddha outside your own mind,
and Buddha becomes the devil.


Dogen





.













--> Man

[Man]

Poem




A View on Buddhism

Zen Poems and Haiku - A selection from a 'non-zennist'



SOME CLASSICS


Old pond,
frog jumps in
- splash


Basho





.













--> Man

[Man]

Poem




A View on Buddhism

Zen Poems and Haiku - A selection from a 'non-zennist'



SOME CLASSICS


Just stop your wandering,
Look penetratingly into your inherent nature,
And, concentrating your spiritual energy,
Sit in zazen
And break through.



Bassui





.













--> Man

[Man]

Poem




A View on Buddhism

Zen Poems and Haiku - A selection from a 'non-zennist'



SOME CLASSICS


How reluctantly
the bee emerges from deep
within the peony


Basho




.













--> Man

[Man]

Poem




A View on Buddhism

Zen Poems and Haiku - A selection from a 'non-zennist'



SOME CLASSICS


Lightning:
Heron's cry
Stabs the darkness


Basho




.













--> Man

[Man]

Poem




A View on Buddhism

Zen Poems and Haiku - A selection from a 'non-zennist'



SOME CLASSICS


The past is already past.
Don’t try to regain it.
The present does not stay.
Don’t try to touch it.

From moment to moment.
The future has not come;
Don’t think about it
Beforehand.

Whatever comes to the eye,
Leave it be.
There are no commandments
To be kept;
There’s no filth to be cleansed.

With empty mind really
Penetrated, the dharmas
Have no life.

When you can be like this,
You’ve completed
The ultimate attainment.


Layman P’ang 740-808





.













--> Man

[Man]

Poem




A View on Buddhism

Zen Poems and Haiku - A selection from a 'non-zennist'



SOME CLASSICS


Look directly!
What is this?
Look in this manner
And you won’t be fooled!


Bassui








--> Man

[Man]

Poem




A View on Buddhism

Zen Poems and Haiku - A selection from a 'non-zennist'



SOME CLASSICS


Cast off what has been realized.
Turn back to the subject
That realizes
To the root bottom
And resolutely
Go on.


Bassui








--> Man

[Man]

Poem




A View on Buddhism

Zen Poems and Haiku - A selection from a 'non-zennist'



SOME CLASSICS


How reluctantly
the bee emerges from deep
within the peony



Basho








--> Man