Man -- > Poem

[Man]

Poem







Mama never forgets her birds


164

Mama never forgets her birds,
Though in another tree—
She looks down just as often
And just as tenderly
As when her little mortal nest
With cunning care she wove—
If either of her "sparrows fall,"
She "notices," above.






-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem







Many a phrase has the English language


276

Many a phrase has the English language—
I have heard but one—
Low as the laughter of the Cricket,
Loud, as the Thunder's Tongue—

Murmuring, like old Caspian Choirs,
When the Tide's a' lull—
Saying itself in new infection—
Like a Whippoorwill—

Breaking in bright Orthography
On my simple sleep—
Thundering its Prospective—
Till I stir, and weep—

Not for the Sorrow, done me—
But the push of Joy—
Say it again, Saxton!
Hush—Only to me!







-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem







Many cross the Rhine


123

Many cross the Rhine
In this cup of mine.
Sip old Frankfort air
From my brown Cigar.




-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem







Me from Myself—to banish


642

Me from Myself—to banish—
Had I Art—
Impregnable my Fortress
Unto All Heart—

But since Myself—assault Me—
How have I peace
Except by subjugating
Consciousness?

And since We're mutual Monarch
How this be
Except by Abdication—
Me—of Me?




-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






Me prove it now—Whoever doubt


537

Me prove it now—Whoever doubt
Me stop to prove it—now—
Make haste—the Scruple! Death be scant
For Opportunity—

The River reaches to my feet—
As yet—My Heart be dry—
Oh Lover—Life could not convince—
Might Death—enable Thee—

The River reaches to My Breast—
Still—still—My Hands above
Proclaim with their remaining Might—
Dost recognize the Love?

The River reaches to my Mouth—
Remember—when the Sea
Swept by my searching eyes—the last—
Themselves were quick—with Thee!







-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






Me! Come! My dazzled face


Me! Come! My dazzled face
In such a shining place!

Me! Hear! My foreign ear
The sounds of welcome near!

The saints shall meet
Our bashful feet.

My holiday shall be
That they remember me;

My paradise, the fame
That they pronounce my name.








-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






Me, change! Me, alter!


268

Me, change! Me, alter!
Then I will, when on the Everlasting Hill
A Smaller Purple grows—
At sunset, or a lesser glow
Flickers upon Cordillera—
At Day's superior close!










-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






Midsummer, was it, when They died


962

Midsummer, was it, when They died—
A full, and perfect time—
The Summer closed upon itself
In Consummated Bloom—

The Corn, her furthest kernel filled
Before the coming Flail—
When These—leaned unto Perfectness—
Through Haze of Burial—













-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






Mine—by the Right of the White Election!


528

Mine—by the Right of the White Election!
Mine—by the Royal Seal!
Mine—by the Sign in the Scarlet prison—
Bars—cannot conceal!

Mine—here—in Vision—and in Veto!
Mine—by the Grave's Repeal—
Tilted—Confirmed—
Delirious Charter!
Mine—long as Ages steal!














-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






More Life—went out—when He went


422

More Life—went out—when He went
Than Ordinary Breath—
Lit with a finer Phosphor—
Requiring in the Quench—

A Power of Renowned Cold,
The Climate of the Grave
A Temperature just adequate
So Anthracite, to live—

For some—an Ampler Zero—
A Frost more needle keen
Is necessary, to reduce
The Ethiop within.

Others—extinguish easier—
A Gnat's minutest Fan
Sufficient to obliterate
A Tract of Citizen—

Whose Peat lift—amply vivid—
Ignores the solemn News
That Popocatapel exists—
Or Etna's Scarlets, Choose—










-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






Morning—is the place for Dew


197

Morning—is the place for Dew—
Corn—is made at Noon—
After dinner light—for flowers—
Dukes—for Setting Sun!








-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






Morning—means


"Morning"—means "Milking"—to the Farmer—
Dawn—to the Teneriffe—
Dice—to the Maid—
Morning means just Risk—to the Lover—
Just revelation—to the Beloved—

Epicures—date a Breakfast—by it—
Brides—an Apocalypse—
Worlds—a Flood—
Faint-going Lives—Their Lapse from Sighing—
Faith—The Experiment of Our Lord










-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






Most she touched me by her muteness


760

Most she touched me by her muteness—
Most she won me by the way
She presented her small figure—
Plea itself—for Charity—

Were a Crumb my whole possession—
Were there famine in the land—
Were it my resource from starving—
Could I such a plea withstand—

Not upon her knee to thank me
Sank this Beggar from the Sky—
But the Crumb partook—departed—
And returned On High—

I supposed—when sudden
Such a Praise began
'Twas as Space sat singing
To herself—and men—

'Twas the Winged Beggar—
Afterward I learned
To her Benefactor
Making Gratitude








-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






Much Madness is divinest Sense


Much Madness is divinest Sense -
To a discerning Eye -
Much Sense - the starkest Madness -
`Tis the Majority
In this, as All, prevail -
Assent - and you are sane -
Demur - you`re straightaway dangerous -
And handled with a Chain -





-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






Musicians wrestle everywhere


157

Musicians wrestle everywhere—
All day—among the crowded air
I hear the silver strife—
And—walking—long before the morn—
Such transport breaks upon the town
I think it that "New Life"!

If is not Bird—it has no nest—
Nor "Band"—in brass and scarlet—drest—
Nor Tamborin—nor Man—
It is not Hymn from pulpit read—
The "Morning Stars" the Treble led
On Time's first Afternoon!

Some—say—it is "the Spheres"—at play!
Some say that bright Majority
Of vanished Dames—and Men!
Some—think it service in the place
Where we—with late—celestial face—
Please God—shall Ascertain!




-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






Must be a Woe


571

Must be a Woe—
A loss or so—
To bend the eye
Best Beauty's way—

But—once aslant
It notes Delight
As difficult
As Stalactite

A Common Bliss
Were had for less—
The price—is
Even as the Grace—

Our lord—thought no
Extravagance
To pay—a Cross—




-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






Mute thy Coronation


151

Mute thy Coronation—
Meek my Vive le roi,
Fold a tiny courtier
In thine Ermine, Sir,
There to rest revering
Till the pageant by,
I can murmur broken,
Master, It was I—







-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






My best Acquaintances are those


932

My best Acquaintances are those
With Whom I spoke no Word—
The Stars that stated come to Town
Esteemed Me never rude
Although to their Celestial Call
I failed to make reply—
My constant—reverential Face
Sufficient Courtesy.







-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






My Eye is fuller than my vase


202

My Eye is fuller than my vase—
Her Cargo—is of Dew—
And still—my Heart—my Eye outweighs—
East India—for you!







-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem







My Faith is larger than the Hills


766

My Faith is larger than the Hills—
So when the Hills decay—
My Faith must take the Purple Wheel
To show the Sun the way—

'Tis first He steps upon the Vane—
And then—upon the Hill—
And then abroad the World He go
To do His Golden Will—

And if His Yellow feet should miss—
The Bird would not arise—
The Flowers would slumber on their Stems—
No Bells have Paradise—

How dare I, therefore, stint a faith
On which so vast depends—
Lest Firmament should fail for me—
The Rivet in the Bands






-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem







My first well Day—since many ill


574

My first well Day—since many ill—
I asked to go abroad,
And take the Sunshine in my hands,
And see the things in Pod—

A 'blossom just when I went in
To take my Chance with pain—
Uncertain if myself, or He,
Should prove the strongest One.

The Summer deepened, while we strove—
She put some flowers away—
And Redder cheeked Ones—in their stead—
A fond—illusive way—

To cheat Herself, it seemed she tried—
As if before a child
To fade—Tomorrow—Rainbows held
The Sepulchre, could hide.

She dealt a fashion to the Nut—
She tied the Hoods to Seeds—
She dropped bright scraps of Tint, about—
And left Brazilian Threads

On every shoulder that she met—
Then both her Hands of Haze
Put up—to hide her parting Grace
From our unfitted eyes.

My loss, by sickness—Was it Loss?
Or that Ethereal Gain
One earns by measuring the Grave—
Then—measuring the Sun—







-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem







The Milking-Pail
[The following is another version of the preceding ditty, and is the one most commonly sung.]

Ye nymphs and sylvan gods,
That love green fields and woods,
When spring newly-born herself does adorn,
With flowers and blooming buds:
Come sing in the praise, while flocks do graze,
On yonder pleasant vale,
Of those that choose to milk their ewes,
And in cold dews, with clouted shoes,
To carry the milking-pail.

You goddess of the morn,
With blushes you adorn,
And take the fresh air, whilst linnets prepare
A concert on each green thorn;
The blackbird and thrush on every bush,
And the charming nightingale,
In merry vein, their throats do strain
To entertain, the jolly train
Of those of the milking-pail.

When cold bleak winds do roar,
And flowers will spring no more,
The fields that were seen so pleasant and green,
With winter all candied o'er,
See now the town lass, with her white face,
And her lips so deadly pale;
But it is not so, with those that go
Through frost and snow, with cheeks that glow,
And carry the milking-pail.

The country lad is free
From fears and jealousy,
Whilst upon the green he oft is seen,
With his lass upon his knee.
With kisses most sweet he doth her so treat,
And swears her charms won't fail;
But the London lass, in every place,
With brazen face, despises the grace
Of those of the milking-pail.






-- -- --



Ballads



--> Man

[Man]

Poem







The Miller and His Sons

[A miller, especially if he happen to be the owner of a soke-mill, has always been deemed fair game for the village satirist. Of the numerous songs written in ridicule of the calling of the 'rogues in grain,' the following is one of the best and most popular: its quaint humour will recommend it to our readers. For the tune, see Popular Music.]

There was a crafty miller, and he
Had lusty sons, one, two, and three:
He called them all, and asked their will,
If that to them he left his mill.

He called first to his eldest son,
Saying, 'My life is almost run;
If I to you this mill do make,
What toll do you intend to take?'

'Father,' said he, 'my name is Jack;
Out of a bushel I'll take a peck,
From every bushel that I grind,
That I may a good living find.'

'Thou art a fool!' the old man said,
'Thou hast not well learned thy trade;
This mill to thee I ne'er will give,
For by such toll no man can live.'

He called for his middlemost son,
Saying, 'My life is almost run;
If I to you this mill do make,
What toll do you intend to take?'

'Father,' says he, 'my name is Ralph;
Out of a bushel I'll take a half,
From every bushel that I grind,
That I may a good living find.'

'Thou art a fool!' the old man said,
'Thou hast not well learned thy trade;
This mill to thee I ne'er will give,
For by such toll no man can live.'

He called for his youngest son,
Saying, 'My life is almost run;
If I to you this mill do make,
What toll do you intend to take?'

'Father,' said he, 'I'm your only boy,
For taking toll is all my joy!
Before I will a good living lack,
I'll take it all, and forswear the sack!'

'Thou art my boy!' the old man said,
'For thou hast right well learned thy trade;
This mill to thee I give,' he cried, -
And then he turned up his toes and died.



-- -- --



Ballads



--> Man

[Man]

Poem







The Messenger of Mortality; or Life and Death Contrasted in a Dialogue Betwixt Death and a Lady
[One of Charles Lamb's most beautiful and plaintive poems was suggested by this old dialogue. The tune is given in Chappell's Popular Music, p. 167. In Carey's Musical Century, 1738, it is called the 'Old tune of Death and the Lady.' The four concluding lines of the present copy of Death and the Lady are found inscribed on tomb-stones in village church-yards in every part of England. They are not contained, however, in the broadside with which our reprint has been carefully collated.]

Death.

Fair lady, lay your costly robes aside,
No longer may you glory in your pride;
Take leave of all your carnal vain delight,
I'm come to summon you away this night!

Lady.

What bold attempt is this? pray let me know
From whence you come, and whither I must go?
Must I, who am a lady, stoop or bow
To such a pale-faced visage? Who art thou?


CONTINUED BELOW


-- -- --



Ballads



--> Man

[Man]

Poem







The Messenger of Mortality; or Life and Death Contrasted in a Dialogue Betwixt Death and a Lady
[One of Charles Lamb's most beautiful and plaintive poems was suggested by this old dialogue. The tune is given in Chappell's Popular Music, p. 167. In Carey's Musical Century, 1738, it is called the 'Old tune of Death and the Lady.' The four concluding lines of the present copy of Death and the Lady are found inscribed on tomb-stones in village church-yards in every part of England. They are not contained, however, in the broadside with which our reprint has been carefully collated.]


CONTINUATION


Death.

Do you not know me? well! I tell thee, then,
It's I that conquer all the sons of men!
No pitch of honour from my dart is free;
My name is Death! have you not heard of me?

Lady.

Yes! I have heard of thee time after time,
But being in the glory of my prime,
I did not think you would have called so soon.
Why must my morning sun go down at noon?


CONTINUED BELOW


-- -- --



Ballads



--> Man

[Man]

Poem







The Messenger of Mortality; or Life and Death Contrasted in a Dialogue Betwixt Death and a Lady

[One of Charles Lamb's most beautiful and plaintive poems was suggested by this old dialogue. The tune is given in Chappell's Popular Music, p. 167. In Carey's Musical Century, 1738, it is called the 'Old tune of Death and the Lady.' The four concluding lines of the present copy of Death and the Lady are found inscribed on tomb-stones in village church-yards in every part of England. They are not contained, however, in the broadside with which our reprint has been carefully collated.]


CONTINUATION


Death.

Talk not of noon! you may as well be mute;
This is no time at all for to dispute:
Your riches, garments, gold, and jewels brave,
Houses and lands must all new owners have;
Though thy vain heart to riches was inclined,
Yet thou must die and leave them all behind.

Lady.

My heart is cold; I tremble at the news;
There's bags of gold, if thou wilt me excuse,
And seize on them, and finish thou the strife
Of those that are aweary of their life.
Are there not many bound in prison strong,
In bitter grief of soul have languished long,
Who could but find the grave a place of rest,
From all the grief in which they are oppressed?
Besides, there's many with a hoary head,
And palsy joints, by which their joys are fled;
Release thou them whose sorrows are so great,
But spare my life to have a longer date.

CONTINUED BELOW


-- -- --



Ballads



--> Man

[Man]

Poem







The Messenger of Mortality; or Life and Death Contrasted in a Dialogue Betwixt Death and a Lady

[One of Charles Lamb's most beautiful and plaintive poems was suggested by this old dialogue. The tune is given in Chappell's Popular Music, p. 167. In Carey's Musical Century, 1738, it is called the 'Old tune of Death and the Lady.' The four concluding lines of the present copy of Death and the Lady are found inscribed on tomb-stones in village church-yards in every part of England. They are not contained, however, in the broadside with which our reprint has been carefully collated.]


CONTINUATION


Death.

Though some by age be full of grief and pain,
Yet their appointed time they must remain:
I come to none before their warrant's sealed,
And when it is, they must submit and yield.
I take no bribe, believe me, this is true;
Prepare yourself to go; I'm come for you.

Lady.

Death, be not so severe, let me obtain
A little longer time to live and reign!
Fain would I stay if thou my life will spare;
I have a daughter beautiful and fair,
I'd live to see her wed whom I adore:
Grant me but this and I will ask no more.



CONTINUED BELOW


-- -- --



Ballads



--> Man

[Man]

Poem







The Messenger of Mortality; or Life and Death Contrasted in a Dialogue Betwixt Death and a Lady

[One of Charles Lamb's most beautiful and plaintive poems was suggested by this old dialogue. The tune is given in Chappell's Popular Music, p. 167. In Carey's Musical Century, 1738, it is called the 'Old tune of Death and the Lady.' The four concluding lines of the present copy of Death and the Lady are found inscribed on tomb-stones in village church-yards in every part of England. They are not contained, however, in the broadside with which our reprint has been carefully collated.]


CONTINUATION


Death.

This is a slender frivolous excuse;
I have you fast, and will not let you loose;
Leave her to Providence, for you must go
Along with me, whether you will or no;
I, Death, command the King to leave his crown,
And at my feet he lays his sceptre down!
Then if to kings I don't this favour give,
But cut them off, can you expect to live
Beyond the limits of your time and space!
No! I must send you to another place.

Lady.

You learned doctors, now express your skill,
And let not Death of me obtain his will;
Prepare your cordials, let me comfort find,
My gold shall fly like chaff before the wind.



CONTINUED BELOW


-- -- --



Ballads



--> Man

[Man]

Poem







The Messenger of Mortality; or Life and Death Contrasted in a Dialogue Betwixt Death and a Lady

[One of Charles Lamb's most beautiful and plaintive poems was suggested by this old dialogue. The tune is given in Chappell's Popular Music, p. 167. In Carey's Musical Century, 1738, it is called the 'Old tune of Death and the Lady.' The four concluding lines of the present copy of Death and the Lady are found inscribed on tomb-stones in village church-yards in every part of England. They are not contained, however, in the broadside with which our reprint has been carefully collated.]


CONTINUATION


Death.

Forbear to call, their skill will never do,
They are but mortals here as well as you:
I give the fatal wound, my dart is sure,
And far beyond the doctor's skill to cure.
How freely can you let your riches fly
To purchase life, rather than yield to die!
But while you flourish here with all your store,
You will not give one penny to the poor;
Though in God's name their suit to you they make,
You would not spare one penny for His sake!
The Lord beheld wherein you did amiss,
And calls you hence to give account for this!

Lady.

Oh! heavy news! must I no longer stay?
How shall I stand in the great judgment-day?
(Down from her eyes the crystal tears did flow:
She said), None knows what I do undergo:
Upon my bed of sorrow here I lie;
My carnal life makes me afraid to die.
My sins, alas! are many, gross and foul,
Oh, righteous Lord! have mercy on my soul!
And though I do deserve thy righteous frown,
Yet pardon, Lord, and pour a blessing down.
(Then with a dying sigh her heart did break,
And did the pleasures of this world forsake.)

Thus may we see the high and mighty fall,
For cruel Death shows no respect at all
To any one of high or low degree
Great men submit to Death as well as we.
Though they are gay, their life is but a span -
A lump of clay - so vile a creature's man.
Then happy those whom Christ has made his care,
Who die in the Lord, and ever blessed are.
The grave's the market-place where all men meet,
Both rich and poor, as well as small and great.
If life were merchandise that gold could buy,
The rich would live, the poor alone would die.




-- -- --



Ballads



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






Mummers' Song; or, The Poor Old Horse.


As sung by the Mummers in the Neighbourhood of Richmond, Yorkshire, at the merrie time of Christmas.
[The rustic actor who sings the following song is dressed as an old horse, and at the end of every verse the jaws are snapped in chorus. It is a very old composition, and is now printed for the first time. The 'old horse' is, probably, of Scandinavian origin, - a reminiscence of Odin's Sleipnor.]


You gentlemen and sportsmen,
And men of courage bold,
All you that's got a good horse,
Take care of him when he is old;
Then put him in your stable,
And keep him there so warm;
Give him good corn and hay,
Pray let him take no harm.
Poor old horse! poor old horse!

Once I had my clothing
Of linsey-woolsey fine,
My tail and mane of length,
And my body it did shine;
But now I'm growing old,
And my nature does decay,
My master frowns upon me,
These words I heard him say, -
Poor old horse! poor old horse!

These pretty little shoulders,
That once were plump and round,
They are decayed and rotten, -
I'm afraid they are not sound.
Likewise these little nimble legs,
That have run many miles,
Over hedges, over ditches,
Over valleys, gates, and stiles.
Poor old horse! poor old horse!

I used to be kept
On the best corn and hay
That in fields could be grown,
Or in any meadows gay;
But now, alas! it's not so, -
There's no such food at all!
I'm forced to nip the short grass
That grows beneath your wall.
Poor old horse! poor old horse!

I used to be kept up
All in a stable warm,
To keep my tender body
From any cold or harm;
But now I'm turned out
In the open fields to go,
To face all kinds of weather,
The wind, cold, frost, and snow.
Poor old horse! poor old horse!

My hide unto the huntsman
So freely I would give,
My body to the hounds,
For I'd rather die than live:
So shoot him, whip him, strip him,
To the huntsman let him go;
For he's neither fit to ride upon,
Nor in any team to draw.
Poor old horse! you must die!

-- -- --



Ballads



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






The New-Mown Hay


[This song is a village-version of an incident which occurred in the Cecil family. The same English adventure has, strangely enough, been made the subject of one of the most romantic of Moore's Irish Melodies, viz., You Remember Helen, the Hamlet's Pride.]

As I walked forth one summer's morn,
Hard by a river's side,
Where yellow cowslips did adorn
The blushing field with pride;
I spied a damsel on the grass,
More blooming than the may;
Her looks the Queen of Love surpassed,
Among the new-mown hay.

I said, 'Good morning, pretty maid,
How came you here so soon?'
'To keep my father's sheep,' she said,
'The thing that must be done:
While they are feeding 'mong the dew,
To pass the time away,
I sit me down to knit or sew,
Among the new-mown hay.'

Delighted with her simple tale,
I sat down by her side;
With vows of love I did prevail
On her to be my bride:
In strains of simple melody,
She sung a rural lay;
The little lambs stood listening by,
Among the new-mown hay.

Then to the church they went with speed,
And Hymen joined them there;
No more her ewes and lambs to feed,
For she's a lady fair:
A lord he was that married her,
To town they came straightway:
She may bless the day he spied her there,
Among the new-mown hay.



-- -- --



Ballads



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






The Sweet Nightingale; or, Down in Those Valleys Below

An ancient Cornish song.


[This curious ditty, which may be confidently assigned to the seventeenth century, is said to be a translation from the ancient Cornish tongue. We first heard it in Germany, in the pleasure- gardens of the Marienberg, on the Moselle. The singers were four Cornish miners, who were at that time, 1854, employed at some lead mines near the town of Zell. The leader or 'Captain,' John Stocker, said that the song was an established favourite with the lead miners of Cornwall and Devonshire, and was always sung on the pay-days, and at the wakes; and that his grandfather, who died thirty years before, at the age of a hundred years, used to sing the song, and say that it was very old. Stocker promised to make a copy of it, but there was no opportunity of procuring it before we left Germany. The following version has been supplied by a gentleman in Plymouth, who writes:-

I have had a great deal of trouble about The Valley Below. It is not in print. I first met with one person who knew one part, then with another person who knew another part, but nobody could sing the whole. At last, chance directed me to an old man at work on the roads, and he sung and recited it throughout, not exactly, however, as I send it, for I was obliged to supply a little here and there, but only where a bad rhyme, or rather none at all, made it evident what the real rhyme was. I have read it over to a mining gentleman at Truro, and he says 'It is pretty near the way we sing it.'
The tune is plaintive and original.]

'My sweetheart, come along!
Don't you hear the fond song,
The sweet notes of the nightingale flow?
Don't you hear the fond tale
Of the sweet nightingale,
As she sings in those valleys below?
So be not afraid
To walk in the shade,
Nor yet in those valleys below,
Nor yet in those valleys below.

'Pretty Betsy, don't fail,
For I'll carry your pail,
Safe home to your cot as we go;
You shall hear the fond tale
Of the sweet nightingale,
As she sings in those valleys below.'
But she was afraid
To walk in the shade,
To walk in those valleys below,
To walk in those valleys below.

'Pray let me alone,
I have hands of my own;
Along with you I will not go,
To hear the fond tale
Of the sweet nightingale,
As she sings in those valleys below;
For I am afraid
To walk in the shade,
To walk in those valleys below,
To walk in those valleys below.'

'Pray sit yourself down
With me on the ground,
On this bank where sweet primroses grow;
You shall hear the fond tale
Of the sweet nightingale,
As she sings in those valleys below;
So be not afraid
To walk in the shade,
Nor yet in those valleys below,
Nor yet in those valleys below.'

This couple agreed;
They were married with speed,
And soon to the church they did go.
She was no more afraid
For to walk in the shade,
Nor yet in those valleys below:
Nor to hear the fond tale
Of the sweet nightingale,
As she sung in those valleys below,
As she sung in those valleys below.




-- -- --



Ballads



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






The Nobleman's Generous Kindness

Giving an account of a nobleman, who, taking notice of a poor man's industrious care and pains for the maintaining of his charge of seven small children, met him upon a day, and discoursing with him, invited him, and his wife and his children, home to his house, and bestowed upon them a farm of thirty acres of land, to be continued to him and his heirs for ever.
To the tune of The Two English Travellers.

[This still popular ballad is entitled in the modern copies, The Nobleman and Thraster; or, The Generous Gift. There is a copy preserved in the Roxburgh Collection, with which our version has been collated. It is taken from a broadside printed by Robert Marchbank, in the Custom-house Entry, Newcastle.]


A Nobleman lived in a village of late,
Hard by a poor thrasher, whose charge it was great;
For he had seven children, and most of them small,
And nought but his labour to support them withal.

He never was given to idle and lurk,
For this nobleman saw him go daily to work,
With his flail and his bag, and his bottle of beer,
As cheerful as those that have hundreds a year.

Thus careful, and constant, each morning he went,
Unto his daily labour with joy and content;
So jocular and jolly he'd whistle and sing,
As blithe and as brisk as the birds in the spring.

One morning, this nobleman taking a walk,
He met this poor man, and he freely did talk;
He asked him [at first] many questions at large,
And then began talking concerning his charge.

'Thou hast many children, I very well know,
Thy labour is hard, and thy wages are low,
And yet thou art cheerful; I pray tell me true,
How can you maintain them as well as you do?'

'I carefully carry home what I do earn,
My daily expenses by this I do learn;
And find it is possible, though we be poor,
To still keep the ravenous wolf from the door.


CONTINUED BELOW



-- -- --



Ballads



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






The Nobleman's Generous Kindness


Giving an account of a nobleman, who, taking notice of a poor man's industrious care and pains for the maintaining of his charge of seven small children, met him upon a day, and discoursing with him, invited him, and his wife and his children, home to his house, and bestowed upon them a farm of thirty acres of land, to be continued to him and his heirs for ever.
To the tune of The Two English Travellers.

[This still popular ballad is entitled in the modern copies, The Nobleman and Thraster; or, The Generous Gift. There is a copy preserved in the Roxburgh Collection, with which our version has been collated. It is taken from a broadside printed by Robert Marchbank, in the Custom-house Entry, Newcastle.]

CONTINUATION


'I reap and I mow, and I harrow and sow,
Sometimes a hedging and ditching I go;
No work comes amiss, for I thrash, and I plough,
Thus my bread I do earn by the sweat of my brow.

'My wife she is willing to pull in a yoke,
We live like two lambs, nor each other provoke;
We both of us strive, like the labouring ant,
And do our endeavours to keep us from want.

'And when I come home from my labour at night,
To my wife and my children, in whom I delight;
To see them come round me with prattling noise, -
Now these are the riches a poor man enjoys.

'Though I am as weary as weary may be,
The youngest I commonly dance on my knee;
I find that content is a moderate feast,
I never repine at my lot in the least.'

Now the nobleman hearing what he did say,
Was pleased, and invited him home the next day;
His wife and his children he charged him to bring;
In token of favour he gave him a ring.

He thanked his honour, and taking his leave,
He went to his wife, who would hardly believe
But this same story himself he might raise;
Yet seeing the ring she was [lost] in amaze.

Betimes in the morning the good wife she arose,
And made them all fine, in the best of their clothes;
The good man with his good wife, and children small,
They all went to dine at the nobleman's hall.

But when they came there, as truth does report,
All things were prepared in a plentiful sort;
And they at the nobleman's table did dine,
With all kinds of dainties, and plenty of wine.

The feast being over, he soon let them know,
That he then intended on them to bestow
A farm-house, with thirty good acres of land;
And gave them the writings then, with his own hand.

'Because thou art careful, and good to thy wife,
I'll make thy days happy the rest of thy life;
It shall be for ever, for thee and thy heirs,
Because I beheld thy industrious cares.'

No tongue then is able in full to express
The depth of their joy, and true thankfulness;
With many a curtsey, and bow to the ground, -
Such noblemen there are but few to be found.




-- -- --



Ballads



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






Old Adam


[We have had considerable trouble in procuring a copy of this old song, which used, in former days, to be very popular with aged people resident in the North of England. It has been long out of print, and handed down traditionally. By the kindness, however, of Mr. S. Swindells, printer, Manchester, we have been favoured with an ancient printed copy, which Mr. Swindells observes he had great difficulty in obtaining. Some improvements have been made in the present edition from the recital of Mr. Effingham Wilson, who was familiar with the song in his youth.]

Both sexes give ear to my fancy,
While in praise of dear woman I sing;
Confined not to Moll, Sue, or Nancy,
But mates from a beggar to king.

When old Adam first was created,
And lord of the universe crowned,
His happiness was not completed,
Until that an helpmate was found.

He'd all things in food that were wanting
To keep and support him through life;
He'd horses and foxes for hunting,
Which some men love better than wife.

He'd a garden so planted by nature,
Man cannot produce in his life;
But yet the all-wise great Creator
Still saw that he wanted a wife.

Then Adam he laid in a slumber,
And there he lost part of his side;
And when he awoke, with a wonder,
Beheld his most beautiful bride!

In transport he gazed upon her,
His happiness now was complete!
He praised his bountiful donor,
Who thus had bestowed him a mate.

She was not took out of his head, sir,
To reign and triumph over man;
Nor was she took out of his feet, sir,
By man to be trampled upon.

But she was took out of his side, sir,
His equal and partner to be;
But as they're united in one, sir,
The man is the top of the tree.

Then let not the fair be despised
By man, as she's part of himself;
For woman by Adam was prized
More than the whole globe full of wealth.

Man without a woman's a beggar,
Suppose the whole world he possessed;
And the beggar that's got a good woman,
With more than the world he is blest.



-- -- --



Ballads



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






There Was an Old Man Came Over the Lea
[This is a version of the Baillie of Berwick, which will be found in the Local Historian's Table-Book. It was originally obtained from Morpeth, and communicated by W. H. Longstaffe, Esq., of Darlington, who says, 'in many respects the Baillie of Berwick is the better edition - still mine may furnish an extra stanza or two, and the ha! ha! ha! is better than heigho, though the notes suit either version.']

There was an old man came over the Lea,
Ha-ha-ha-ha! but I won't have him.
He came over the Lea,
A-courting to me,
With his grey beard newly-shaven.

My mother she bid me open the door:
I opened the door,
And he fell on the floor.

My mother she bid me set him a stool:
I set him a stool,
And he looked like a fool.

My mother she bid me give him some beer:
I gave him some beer,
And he thought it good cheer.

My mother she bid me cut him some bread:
I cut him some bread,
And I threw't at his head.

My mother she bid me light him to bed.
I lit him to bed,
And wished he were dead.

My mother she bid me tell him to rise:
I told him to rise,
And he opened his eyes.

My mother she bid me take him to church:
I took him to church,
And left him in the lurch;
With his grey beard newly-shaven.


-- -- --



Ballads



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






Morning Song of Senlin
from Senlin, A Biography

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.




-- -- --



Conrad Aiken



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






Evening Song of Senlin
from The Charnel Rose: Senlin, A Biography

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.





-- -- --



Conrad Aiken



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






Discordants

I. Bread and Music

MUSIC I heard with you was more than music,
And bread I broke with you was more than bread;
Now that I am without you, all is desolate;
All that was once so beautiful is dead.

Your hands once touched this table and this silver,
And I have seen your fingers hold this glass.
These things do not remember you, belovèd,
And yet your touch upon them will not pass.

For it was in my heart you moved among them,
And blessed them with your hands and with your eyes;
And in my heart they will remember always,--
They knew you once, O beautiful and wise.


CONTINUED BELOW


-- -- --



Conrad Aiken



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






Discordants

I. Bread and Music

CONTINUATION


II

My heart has become as hard as a city street,
The horses trample upon it, it sings like iron,
All day long and all night long they beat,
They ring like the hooves of time.

My heart has become as drab as a city park,
The grass is worn with the feet of shameless lovers,
A match is struck, there is kissing in the dark,
The moon comes, pale with sleep.

My heart is torn with the sound of raucous voices,
They shout from the slums, from the streets, from the crowded places,
And tunes from the hurdy-gurdy that coldly rejoices
Shoot arrows into my heart.


CONTINUED BELOW


-- -- --



Conrad Aiken



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






Discordants

I. Bread and Music

CONTINUATION


III

Dead Cleopatra lies in a crystal casket,
Wrapped and spiced by the cunningest of hands.
Around her neck they have put a golden necklace,
Her tatbebs, it is said, are worn with sands.

Dead Cleopatra was once revered in Egypt,
Warm-eyed she was, this princess of the South.
Now she is old and dry and faded,
With black bitumen they have sealed up her mouth.

O sweet clean earth, from whom the green blade cometh!
When we are dead, my best belovèd and I,
Close well above us, that we may rest forever,
Sending up grass and blossoms to the sky.


CONTINUED BELOW


-- -- --



Conrad Aiken



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






Discordants

I. Bread and Music

CONTINUATION


IV

In the noisy street,
Where the sifted sunlight yellows the pallid faces,
Sudden I close my eyes, and on my eyelids
Feel from the far-off sea a cool faint spray,--

A breath on my cheek,
From the tumbling breakers and foam, the hard sand shattered,
Gulls in the high wind whistling, flashing waters,
Smoke from the flashing waters blown on rocks;

--And I know once more,
O dearly belovèd! that all these seas are between us,
Tumult and madness, desolate save for the sea-gulls,
You on the farther shore, and I in this street.


-- -- --



Conrad Aiken



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






All Lovely Things

ALL lovely things will have an ending,
All lovely things will fade and die,
And youth, that's now so bravely spending,
Will beg a penny by and by.

Fine ladies soon are all forgotten,
And goldenrod is dust when dead,
The sweetest flesh and flowers are rotten
And cobwebs tent the brightest head.

Come back, true love! Sweet youth, return!--
But time goes on, and will, unheeding,
Though hands will reach, and eyes will yearn,
And the wild days set true hearts bleeding.

Come back, true love! Sweet youth, remain!--
But goldenrod and daisies wither,
And over them blows autumn rain,
They pass, they pass, and know not whither.


-- -- --



Conrad Aiken



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






Selections from Turns and Movies

I. Rose and Murray

AFTER the movie, when the lights come up,
He takes her powdered hand behind the wings;
She, all in yellow, like a buttercup,
Lifts her white face, yearns up to him, and clings;
And with a silent, gliding step they move
Over the footlights, in familiar glare,
Panther-like in the Tango whirl of love,
He fawning close on her with idiot stare.
Swiftly they cross the stage. O lyric ease!
The drunken music follows the sure feet,
The swaying elbows, intergliding knees,
Moving with slow precision on the beat.
She was a waitress in a restaurant,
He picked her up and taught her how to dance.
She feels his arms, lifts an appealing glance,
But knows he spent last evening with Zudora;
And knows that certain changes are before her.

The brilliant spotlight circles them around,
Flashing the spangles on her weighted dress.
He mimics wooing her, without a sound,
Flatters her with a smoothly smiled caress.
He fears that she will someday queer his act;
Feeling his anger. He will quit her soon.
He nods for faster music. He will contract
Another partner, under another moon.
Meanwhile, 'smooth stuff.' He lets his dry eyes flit
Over the yellow faces there below;
Maybe he'll cut down on his drinks a bit,
Not to annoy her, and spoil the show. . .
Zudora, waiting for her turn to come,
Watches them from the wings and fatly leers
At the girl's younger face, so white and dumb,
And the fixed, anguished eyes, ready for tears.

She lies beside him, with a false wedding-ring,
In a cheap room, with moonlight on the floor;
The moonlit curtains remind her much of spring,
Of a spring evening on the Coney shore.
And while he sleeps, knowing she ought to hate,
She still clings to the lover that she knew,--
The one that, with a pencil on a plate,
Drew a heart and wrote, 'I'd die for you.'



-- -- --



Conrad Aiken



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






Selections from Turns and Movies

IV. Duval's Birds

The parrot, screeching, flew out into the darkness,
Circled three times above the upturned faces
With a great whir of brilliant outspread wings,
And then returned to stagger on her finger.
She bowed and smiled, eliciting applause. . .
The property man hated her dirty birds.
But it had taken years--yes, years--to train them,
To shoulder flags, strike bells by tweaking strings,
Or climb sedately little flights of stairs.
When they were stubborn, she tapped them with a wand,
And her eyes glittered a little under the eyebrows.
The red one flapped and flapped on a swinging wire;
The little white ones winked round yellow eyes.




-- -- --



Conrad Aiken



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






Selections from Turns and Movies

VI. Violet Moore and Bert Moore

He thinks her little feet should pass
Where dandelions star thickly grass;
Her hands should lift in sunlit air
Sea-wind should tangle up her hair.
Green leaves, he says, have never heard
A sweeter ragtime mockingbird,
Nor has the moon-man ever seen,
Or man in the spotlight, leering green,
Such a beguiling, smiling queen.

Her eyes, he says, are stars at dusk,
Her mouth as sweet as red-rose musk;
And when she dances his young heart swells
With flutes and viols and silver bells;
His brain is dizzy, his senses swim,
When she slants her ragtime eyes at him. . .

Moonlight shadows, he bids her see,
Move no more silently than she.
It was this way, he says, she came,
Into his cold heart, bearing flame.
And now that his heart is all on fire
Will she refuse his heart's desire?--
And O! has the Moon Man ever seen
(Or the spotlight devil, leering green)
A sweeter shadow upon a screen?



-- -- --



Conrad Aiken



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






Selections from Turns and Movies

VII. Zudora

Here on the pale beach, in the darkness;
With the full moon just to rise;
They sit alone, and look over the sea,
Or into each other's eyes. . .

She pokes her parasol into the sleepy sand,
Or sifts the lazy whiteness through her hand.

'A lovely night,' he says, 'the moon,
Comes up for you and me.
Just like a blind old spotlight there,
Fizzing across the sea!'

She pays no heed, nor even turns her head:
He slides his arm around her waist instead.

'Why don't we do a sketch together--
Those songs you sing are swell.
Where did you get them, anyway?
They suit you awfully well.'

She will not turn to him--will not resist.
Impassive, she submits to being kissed.

'My husband wrote all four of them.
You know,--my husband drowned.
He was always sickly, soon depressed. . .'
But still she hears the sound

Of a stateroom door shut hard, and footsteps going
Swiftly and steadily, and the dark sea flowing.

She hears the dark sea flowing, and sees his eyes
Hollow with disenchantment, sick surprise,--

And hate of her whom he had loved too well. . .
She lowers her eyes, demurely prods a shell.

'Yes. We might do an act together.
That would be very nice.'
He kisses her passionately, and thinks
She's carnal, but cold as ice.



-- -- --



Conrad Aiken



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






Selections from Turns and Movies


X. The Cornet

When she came out, that white little Russian dancer,
With her bright hair, and her eyes, so young, so young,
He suddenly lost his leader, and all the players,
And only heard an immortal music sung,--

Of dryads flashing in the green woods of April,
On cobwebs trembing over the deep, wet grass:
Fleeing their shadows with laughter, with hands uplifted,
Through the whirled sinister sun he saw them pass,--

Lovely immortals gone, yet existing somewhere,
Still somewhere laughing in woods of immortal green,
Young he had lived among fires, or dreamed of living,
Lovers in youth once seen, or dreamed he had seen. . .

And watched her knees flash up, and her young hands beckon,
And the hair that streamed behind, and the taunting eyes.
He felt this place dissolving in living darkness,
And through the darkness he felt his childhood rise.

Soft, and shining, and sweet, hands filled with petals. . .
And watching her dance, he was grateful to forget
The fiddlers, leaning and drawing their bows together,
And the tired fingers on the stops of his cornet.




-- -- --



Conrad Aiken



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






Selections from Turns and Movies


XIII.

How is it that I am now so softly awakened,
My leaves shaken down with music?--
Darling, I love you.

It is not your mouth, for I have known mouths before,--
Though your mouth is more alive than roses,
Roses singing softly
To green leaves after rain.

It is not your eyes, for I have dived often in eyes,--
Though your eyes, even in the yellow glare of footlights,
Are windows into eternal dusk.

Nor is it the live white flashing of your feet,
Nor your gay hands, catching at motes in the spotlight;
Nor the abrupt thick music of your laughter,
When, against the hideous backdrop,
With all its crudities brilliantly lighted,
Suddenly you catch sight of your alarming shadow,
Whirling and contracting.

How is it, then, that I am so keenly aware,
So sensitive to the surges of the wind, or the light,
Heaving silently under blue seas of air?--
Darling, I love you, I am immersed in you.

It is not the unraveled night-time of your hair,--
Though I grow drunk when you press it upon my face:
And though when you gloss its length with a golden brush
I am strings that tremble under a bow.

It was that night I saw you dancing,
The whirl and impalpable float of your garment,
Your throat lifted, your face aglow
(Like waterlilies in moonlight were your knees).

It was that night I heard you singing
In the green-room after your dance was over,
Faint and uneven through the thickness of walls.

(How shall I come to you through the dullness of walls,
Thrusting aside the hands of bitter opinion?)

It was that afternoon, early in June,
When, tired with a sleepless night, and my act performed,
Feeling as stale as streets,
We met under dropping boughs, and you smiled to me:
And we sat by a watery surface of clouds and sky.

I hear only the susurration of intimate leaves;
The stealthy gliding of branches upon slow air.

I see only the point of your chin in sunlight;
And the sinister blue of sunlight on your hair.

The sunlight settles downward upon us in silence.

Now we thrust up through grass blades and encounter,
Pushing white hands amid the green.
Your face flowers whitely among cold leaves.

Soil clings to you, bark falls from you,
You rouse and stretch upward, exhaling earth, inhaling sky,
I touch you, and we drift off together like moons.
Earth dips from under.

We are alone in an immensity of sunlight,
Specks in an infinite golden radiance,
Whirled and tossed upon silent cataracts and torrents.
Give me your hand darling! We float downward.




-- -- --



Conrad Aiken



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






Selections from Turns and Movies


XV. Dancing Adairs

Behold me, in my chiffon, gauze, and tinsel,
Flitting out of the shadow into the spotlight,
And into the shadow again, without a whisper!--
Firefly's my name, I am evanescent.

Firefly's your name. You are evanescent.
But I follow you as remorselessly as darkness,
And shut you in and enclose you, at last, and always,
Till you are lost,--as a voice is lost in silence.

Till I am lost, as a voice is lost in silence. . .
Are you the one who would close so cool about me?
My fire sheds into and through you and beyond you:
How can your fingers hold me? I am elusive.

How can my fingers hold you? You are elusive?
Yes, you are flame, but I surround and love you,
Always extend beyond you, cool, eternal,
To take you into my heart's great void of silence.

You shut me into your heart's great void of silence. . .
O sweet and soothing end for a life of whirling!
Now I am still, whose life was mazed with motion.
Now I sink into you, for love of sleep.




-- -- --



Conrad Aiken



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






Chiarascuro: Rose

He

FILL your bowl with roses: the bowl, too, have of crystal.
Sit at the western window. Take the sun
Between your hands like a ball of flaming crystal,
Poise it to let it fall, but hold it still,
And meditate on the beauty of your existence;
The beauty of this, that you exist at all.

She

The sun goes down, -- but without lamentation.
I close my eyes, and the stream of my sensation
In this, at least, grows clear to me:
Beauty is a word that has no meaning.
Beauty is naught to me.

He

The last blurred raindrops fall from the half-clear sky,
Eddying lightly, rose-tinged, in the windless wake of the sun.
The swallow ascending against cold waves of cloud
Seems winging upward over huge bleak stairs of stone.
The raindrop finds its way to the heart of the leaf-bud.
But no word finds its way to the heart of you.

She

This also is clear in the stream of my sensation:
That I am content, for the moment, Let me be.
How light the new grass looks with the rain-dust on it!
But heart is a word that has no meaning,
Heart means nothing to me.

He

To the end of the world I pass and back again
In flights of the mind; yet always find you here,
Remote, pale, unattached . . . O Circe-too-clear-eyed,
Watching amused your fawning tiger-thoughts,
Your wolves, your grotesque apes -- relent, relent!
Be less wary for once: it is the evening.

She

But if I close my eyes what howlings greet me!
Do not persuade. Be tranquil. Here is flesh
With all its demons. Take it, sate yourself.
But leave my thoughts to me.




-- -- --



Conrad Aiken



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






The Sale of Saint Thomas
A quay with vessels moored

Thomas
To India! Yea, here I may take ship;
From here the courses go over the seas,
Along which the intent prows wonderfully
Nose like lean hounds, and tack their journeys out,
Making for harbours as some sleuth was laid
For them to follow on their shifting road.
Again I front my appointed ministry. --
But why the Indian lot to me? Why mine
Such fearful gospelling? For the Lord knew
What a frail soul He gave me, and a heart
Lame and unlikely for the large events. --
And this is worse than Baghdad! though that was
A fearful brink of travel. But if the lots,
That gave to me the Indian duty, were
Shuffled by the unseen skill of Heaven, surely
That fear of mine in Baghdad was the same
Marvellous Hand working again, to guard
The landward gate of India from me. There
I stood, waiting in the weak early dawn
To start my journey; the great caravan's
Strange cattle with their snoring breaths made steam
Upon the air, and (as I thought) sadly
The beasts at market-booths and awnings gay
Of shops, the city's comfortable trade,
Lookt, and then into months of plodding lookt.
And swiftly on my brain there came a wind
Of vision; and I saw the road mapt out
Along the desert with a chalk of bones;
I saw a famine and the Afghan greed
Waiting for us, spears at our throats, all we
Made women by our hunger; and I saw
Gigantic thirst grieving our mouths with dust,
Scattering up against our breathing salt
Of blown dried dung, till the taste eat like fires
Of a wild vinegar into our sheathèd marrows;
And a sudden decay thicken'd all our bloods
As rotten leaves in fall will baulk a stream;
Then my kill'd life the muncht food of jackals. --
The wind of vision died in my brain; and lo,
The jangling of the caravan's long gait
Was small as the luting of a breeze in grass
Upon my ears. Into the waiting thirst
Camels and merchants all were gone, while I
Had been in my amazement. Was this not
A sign? God with a vision tript me, lest
Those tall fiends that ken for my approach
In middle Asia, Thirst and his grisly band
Of plagues, should with their brigand fingers stop
His message in my mouth. Therefore I said,
If India is the place where I must preach,
I am to go by ship, not overland.
And here my ship is berthed. But worse, far worse
Than Baghdad, is this roadstead, the brown sails,
All the enginery of going on sea,
The tackle and the rigging, tholes and sweeps,
The prows built to put by the waves, the masts
Stayed for a hurricane; and lo, that line
Of gilded water there! the sun has drawn
In a long narrow band of shining oil
His light over the sea; how evilly move
Ripples along that golden skin! -- the gleam
Works like a muscular thing! like the half-gorged
Sleepy swallowing of a serpent's neck.
The sea lives, surely! My eyes swear to it;
And, like a murderous smile that glimpses through
A villain's courtesy, that twitching dazzle
Parts the kind mood of weather to bewray
The feasted waters of the sea, stretched out
In lazy gluttony, expecting prey.
How fearful is this trade of sailing! Worse
Than all land-evils is the water-way
Before me now. -- What, cowardice? Nay, why
Trouble myself with ugly words? 'Tis prudence,
And prudence is an admirable thing.
Yet here's much cost -- these packages piled up,
Ivory doubless, emeralds, gums, and silks,
All these they trust on shipboard? Ah, but I,
I who have seen God, I to put myself
Amid the heathen outrage of the sea
In a deal-wood box! It were plain folly.
There is naught more precious in the world than I:
I carry God in me, to give to men.
And when has the sea been friendly unto man?
Let it but guess my errand, it will call
The dangers of the air to wreak upon me,
Winds to juggle the puny boat and pinch
The water into unbelievable creases.
And shall my soul, and God in my soul, drown?
Or venture drowning? -- But no, no; I am safe.
Smooth as believing souls over their deaths
And over agonies shall slide henceforth
To God, so shall my way be blest amid
The quiet crouching terrors of the sea,
Like panthers when a fire weakens their hearts;
Ay, this huge sin of nature, the salt sea,
Shall be afraid of me, and of the mind
Within me, that with gesture, speech and eyes
Of the Messiah flames. What element
Dare snarl against my going, what incubus dare
Remember to be fiendish, when I light
My whole being with memory of Him?
The malice of the sea will slink from me,
And the air be harmless as a muzzled wolf;
For I am a torch, and the flame of me is God.



CONTINUED BELOW



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[Man]

Poem






The Sale of Saint Thomas
A quay with vessels moored


CONTINUATION


A Ship's Captain
You are my man, my passenger?

Thomas I am.
I go to India with you.

Captain Well, I hope so.
There's threatening in the weather. Have you a mind
To hug your belly to the slanted deck,
Like a louse on a whip-top, when the boat
Spins on an axle in the hissing gales?

Thomas
Fear not. 'Tis likely indeed that storms are now
Plotting against our voyage; ay, no doubt
The very bottom of the sea prepares
To stand up mountainous or reach a limb
Out of his night of water and huge shingles,
That he and the waves may break our keel. Fear not;
Like those who manage horses, I've a word
Will fasten up within their evil natures
The meanings of the winds and waves and reefs.

CONTINUED BELOW



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[Man]

Poem






The Sale of Saint Thomas
A quay with vessels moored


CONTINUATION


Captain
You have a talisman? I have one too;
I know not if the storms think much of it.
I may be shark's meat yet. And would your spell
Be daunting to a cuttle, think you now?
We had a bout with one on our way here;
It had green lidless eyes like lanterns, arms
As many as the branches of a tree,
But limber, and each one of them wise as a snake.
It laid hold of our bulwarks, and with three
Long knowing arms, slimy, and of a flesh
So tough they'ld fool a hatchet, searcht the ship,
And stole out of the midst of us all a man;
Yes, and he the proudest man upon the seas
For the rare powerful talisman he'd got.
And would yours have done better?

Thomas I am one
Not easily frightened. I'm for India.
You will not put me from my way with talk.

Captain
My heart, I never thought of frightening you. --
Well, here's both tide and wind, and we may not start.

Thomas
Not start? I pray you, do.

Captain It's no use praying;
I dare not. I've not half my cargo yet.

Thomas
What do you wait for, then?

Captain A carpenter.

Thomas
You are talking strangely.




CONTINUED BELOW



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[Man]

Poem






The Sale of Saint Thomas
A quay with vessels moored


CONTINUATION


Captain But not idly.
I might as well broach all my blood at once,
Here as I stand, as sail to India back
Without a carpenter on board; -- O strangely
Wise are our kings in the killing of men!

Thomas
But does your king then need a carpenter?
Captain
Yes, for he dreamed a dream; and like a man
Who, having eaten poison, and with all
Force of his life turned out the crazing drug,
Has only a weak and wrestled nature left
That gives in foolishly to some bad desire
A healthy man would laught at; so our king
Is left desiring by his venomous dream.
But, being a king, the whole land aches with him.
Thomas
What dream was that?

Captain A palace made of souls; --
Ay, there's a folly for a man to dream!
He saw a palace covering all the land,
Big as the day itself, made of a stone
That answered with a better gleam than glass
To the sun's greeting, fashioned like the sound
Of laughter copied into shining shape:
So the king said. And with him in the dream
There was a voice that fleered upon the king:
'This is the man who makes much of himself
For filling the common eyes with palaces
Gorgeously bragging out his royalty:
Whereas he hath not one that seemeth not
In work, in height, in posture on the ground,
A hut, a peasant's dingy shed, to mine.
And all his excellent woods, metals, and stones,
The things he's filched out of the earth's old pockets
And hoisted up into walls and domes; the gold,
Ebony, agate stairs, wainscots of jade,
The windows of jargoon, and heavenly lofts
Of marble, all the stuff he takes to be wealth,
Reckons like savage mud and wattle against
The matter of my building.' -- And the king,
Gloating upon the white sheen of that palace,
And weeping like a girl ashamed, inquired
'What is that stone?' And the voice answered him,
'Soul.' 'But in my palaces too,' said he,
'There should be soul built: I have driven nations,
What with quarrying, what with craning, down
To death, and sure their souls stay in my work.'
And 'Mud and wattle' sneered the voice again;
But added, 'In the west there is a man,
A slave, a carpenter, whose heart has been
Apprenticed to the skill that built my reign,
This beauty; and were he master of your gangs,
He'ld build you a palace that would look like mine.' --
So now no ship may sail from India,
Since the king's scornful dream, unless it bring
A carpenter among its homeward lading:
And carpenters are getting hard to find.

Thomas
And have none made for the king his desire?



CONTINUED BELOW



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[Man]

Poem






The Sale of Saint Thomas
A quay with vessels moored


CONTINUATION


Captain
Many have tried, with roasting living men
In queer huge kilns, and other sleights, to found
A glass of human souls; and others seek
With marvellous stone to please our desperate king.
Always at last their own tormented bodies
Delight the cruelty of the king's heart.

Thomas
Well then, I hope you'll find your carpenter,
And soon. I would not that we wait too long;
I loathe a dallying journey. -- I should suppose
We'ld have good sailing at this season, now?

Captain
Why, you were looking, a few minutes gone,
For rare wild storms: I hope we'll have them too;
I want to see you work that talisman
You boast about: I've a great love for spells.

Thomas
Let it be storm or calm, so we be sailing.
I long have wished to voyage into mid sea,
To give my senses rest from wondering
On this preplexèd grammar of the land
Written in men and women, the strange trees,
Herbs, and those things so like to souls, the beasts.
My wilful senses will keep perilously
Employed with these my brain, and weary it
Still to be asking. But on the high seas
Such throng'd reality is left behind, --
Only vast air and water, and the hue
That always seems like special news of God.
Surely 'tis half way to eternity
To go where only size and colour live;
And I could purify my mind from all
Worldly amazement by imagining
Beyond my senses into God's great Heaven,
If I were in mid sea. I have dreamed of this.
Wondrous too, I think, to sail at night
While shoals of moonlight flickers dance beside,
Like swimming glee of fishes scaled in gold,
Curvetting in thwart bounds over the swell;
The perceiving flesh, in bliss of such a beauty,
Must sure feel fine as spiritual sight. --
Moods have been on me, too, when I would be
Sailing recklessly through wild darkness, where
Gigantic whispers of a harassed sea
Fill the whole world of air, and I stand up
To breast the danger of the loosen'd sky,
And feel my immortality like music, --
Yea, I alone in the broken world, firm things
All gone to monstrous flurry, knowing myself
An indestructible word spoken by God. --
This is a small, small boat?



CONTINUED BELOW



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--> Man

[Man]

Poem






The Sale of Saint Thomas
A quay with vessels moored


CONTINUATION


Captain Small is nothing,
A bucket will do, so it know how to ride
Top upward: cleverness is the thing in boats.
And I wish this were cleverer: she goes crank
At times just when she should go sober.
But what? Boats are but girls for whimsies: men
Must let them have their freaks.

Thomas Have you good skill
In seamanship?

Captain Well, I am not drowned yet,
Though I'm a grey man and have been at sea
Longer than you've been walking. My old sight
Can tell Mizar from Alcor still.

Thomas Ay, so;
Doubtless you'll bring me safe to India.
But being there -- tell me now of the land:
How use they strangers there?



CONTINUED BELOW



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[Man]

Poem






The Sale of Saint Thomas
A quay with vessels moored


CONTINUATION


Captain Queerly, sometimes
If the king's moody, and tired of feeling nerves
Mildly made happy with soft jewels of silk,
Odours and wines and slim lascivious girls,
And yearns for sharper thrills to pierce his brain,
He often finds a stranger handy then.

Thomas
Why, what do you mean?

Captain There was a merchant came
To Travancore, and could not speak our talk;
And, it chanced, he was brought before the throne
Just when the king was weary of sweet pleasures.
So, to better his tongue, a rope was bent
Beneath his oxters, up he was hauled, and fire
Let singe the soles of his feet, until his legs
Wriggled like frying eels; then the king's dogs
Were set to hunt the hirpling man. The king
Laught greatly and cried, 'But give the dogs words they know,
And they'll be tame.' -- Have you the Indian speech?

Thomas
Not yet: it will be given me, I trust.





CONTINUED BELOW



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--> Man

[Man]

Poem






The Sale of Saint Thomas
A quay with vessels moored


CONTINUATION


Captain
You'd best make sure of the gift. Another stranger,
Who swore he knew of better gods than ours,
Seemed to the king troubled with fleas, and slaves
Were told to groom him smartly, which they did
Thoroughly with steel combs, until at last
They curried the living flesh from his bones
And stript his face of gristle, till he was
Skull and half skeleton and yet alive.
You're not for dealing in new gods?

Thomas Not I.
Was the man killed?

Captain He lived a little while;
But the flies killed him.

Thomas Flies? I hope India
Is not a fly-plagued land? I abhor flies.




CONTINUED BELOW



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[Man]

Poem






The Sale of Saint Thomas
A quay with vessels moored


CONTINUATION


Captain
You will see strange ones, for our Indian life
Hath wonderful fierce breeding. Common earth
With us quickens to buzzing flights of wings
As readily as a week-old carcase here
Thrown in a sunny marsh. Why, we have wasps
That make your hornets seem like pretty midges;
And there be flies in India will drink
Not only blood of bulls, tigers, and bears,
But pierce the river-horses' creasy leather,
Ay, worry crocodiles through their cuirasses
And prick the metal fishes when they bask.
You'll feel them soon, with beaks like sturdy pins,
Treating their stinging thirsts with your best blood.
A man can't walk a mile in India
Without being the business of a throng'd
And moving town of flies; they hawk at a man
As bold as little eagles, and as wild.
And, I suppose, only a fool will blame them.
Flies have the right to sink wells in our skin
All as men to bore parcht earth for water.
But I must do a job on board, and then
Search the town afresh for a carpenter.

Thomas (alone)
Ay, loose tongue, I know how thou art prompted.
Satan's cunning device thou art, to sap
My heart with chatter'd fears. How easy it is
For a stiff mind to hold itself upright
Against the cords of devilish suggestion
Tackled about it, though kept downward strained
With sly, masterful winches made of fear.
Yea, when the mind is warned what engines mean
To ply it into grovelling, and thought set firm,
The tugging strings fail like a cobweb-stuff.
Not as in Baghdad is it with me now;
Nor canst thou, Satan, by a prating mouth,
Fell my tall purpose to a flatlong scorn.
I can divide the check of God's own hand
From tempting such as this: India is mine! --
Ay, fiend, and if thou utter thy storming heart
Into the ocean sea, as into mob
A rebel utters turbulence and rage,
And raise before my path swelling barriers
Of hatred soul'd in water, yet will I strike
My purpose, and God's purpose, clean through all
The ridges of thy power. And I will show
This mask that the devil wears, this old shipman,
A thing to make his proud heart of evil
Writhe like a trodden snake; yea, he shall see
How godly faith can go upon the huge Fury of forces bursting out of law,
Easily as a boy goes on windy grass. --
O marvel! that my little life of mind
Can by mere thinking the unsizeable
Creatures of sea enslave! I must believe it.
The mind hath many powers beyond name
Deep womb'd within it, and can shoot strange vigours:
Men there have been who could so grimly look
That soldiers' hearts went out like candle flames
Before their eyes, and the blood perisht in them. --
But I -- could I do that? Would I not feel
The power in me if 'twas there? And yet
'Twere a child's game to what I have to do,
For days and days with sleepless faith oppress
And terrorise the demon sea. I think
A man might, as I saw my Master once,
Pass unharmed through a storm of men, yet fail
At this that lies before me: men are mind,
And mind can conquer mind; but how can it quell
The unappointed purpose of great waters? --
Well, say the sea is past: why, then, I have
My feet but on the threshold of my task,
To gospel India, -- my single heart
To seize into the order of its beat
All the strange blood of India, my brain
To lord the dark thought of that tann'd mankind! --
O, horrible those sweltry places are,
Where the sun comes so close, it makes the earth
Burn in a frenzy of breeding, -- smoke and flame
Of lives burning up from agoniz'd loam!
Those monstrous sappy jungles of clutcht growth,
What can such fearful increase have to do
With prospering bounty? A rage works in the ground,
Incurably, like frantic lechery,
Pouring its passion out in crops and spawns.
'Tis as the mighty spirit of life, that here
Walketh beautifully praising, glad of God,
Should, stepping on the poison'd Indian shore,
Breathing the Indian air of fire and steams,
Fling herself into a craze of hideous dancing,
The green gown whipping her swift limbs, all her body
Writhen to speak inutterable desire,
Tormented by a glee of hating God.
Nay, it must be, to visit India,
That frantic pomp and hurrying forth of life,
As if a man should enter at unawares
The dreaming mind of Satan, gorgeously
Imagining his eternal hell of lust. --

They say the land is full of apes, which have
Their own gods and worship: how ghastly, this! --
That demons (for it must be so) should build,
In mockery of man's upward faith, the souls
Of monkeys, those lewd mammets of mankind,
Into a dreadful farce of adoration!
And flies! a land of flies! where the hot soil
Foul with ceaseless decay steams into flies!
So thick they pile themselves in the air above
Their meal of filth, they seem like breathing heaps
Of formless life mounded upon the earth;
And buzzing always like the pipes and strings
Of solemn music made for sorcerers. --
I abhor flies, -- to see them stare upon me
Out of their little faces of gibbous eyes;
To feel the dry cool skin of their bodies alight
Perching upon my lips! -- O yea, a dream,
A dream of impious obscene Satan, this
Monstrous frenzy of life, the Indian being!
And there are men in the dream! What men are they?
I've heard, naught relishes their brains so much
As to tie down a man and tease his flesh
Infamously, until a hundred pains
Hound the desiring life out of his body,
Filling his nerves with such a fearful zest
That the soul overstrained shatters beneath it.
Must I preach God to these murderous hearts?
I would my lot had fallen to go and dare
Death from the silent dealing of Northern cold! --

O, but I would face all these Indian fears,
The horror of the huge power of life,
The beasts all fierce and venomous, the men
With cruel souls, learned to invent pain,
All these and more, if I had any hope
That, braving them, Lord Christ prosper'd through me.
If Christ desired India, He had sent
The band of us, solder'd in one great purpose,
To strike His message through those dark vast tribes.
But one man! -- O surely it is folly,
And we misread the lot! One man, to thrust,
Even though in his soul the lamp was kindled
At God's own hands, one man's lit soul to thrust
The immense Indian darkness out of the world!
For human flesh there breeds as furiously
As the green things and the cattle; and it is all,
All this enormity of measureless folk,
Penn'd in a land so close to the devil's reign
The very apes have faith in him. -- No, no;
Impetuous brains mistake the signs of God
Too easily. God would not have me waste
My zeal for Him in this wild enterprise,
Of going alone to swarming India; -- one man,
One mortal voice, to charm those myriad ears
Away from the fiendish clamour of Indian gods,
One man preaching the truth against the huge
Bray of the gongs and horns of the Indian priests!
A cup of wine poured in the sea were not
More surely lost in the green and brackish depths,
Than the fire and fragrance of my doctrine poured
Into that multitudinous pond of men,
India. -- Shipman! Master of the ship! --
I have thought better of this journey; now
I find I am not meant to go.



CONTINUED BELOW



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--> Man

[Man]

Poem






The Sale of Saint Thomas
A quay with vessels moored


CONTINUATION


Captain Not meant?

Thomas
I would say, I had forgotten Indian air
Is full of fevers; and my health is bad
For holding out against fever.

Captain As you please.
I keep your fare, though.

Thomas O, 'tis yours. -- Good sailing!

As he makes to depart, a Noble Stranger is seen approaching along the quay.

Captain
Well, here's a marvel: 'Tis a king, for sure!
'Twould take the taxes of a world to dress
A man in that silken gold, and all those gems.
What a flash the light makes of him, nay, he burns;
And he's here on the quay all by himself,
Not even a slave to fan him! -- Man, you're ailing!
You look like death; is it the falling sickness?
Or has the mere thought of the Indian journey
Made your marrow quail with a cold fever?

The Stranger (to the Captain)
You are the master of this ship?

Captain I am.

Stranger
This huddled man belongs to me: a slave
Escaped my service.

Captain Lord, I knew not that.
But you are in good time.

Stranger And was the slave
For putting out with you? Where are your bound?

Captain
To India. First he would sail, and then
Again he would not. But, my Lord, I swear
I never guesst he was a runaway.

Stranger
Well, he shall have his mind and go with you
To India: a good slave he is, but bears
A restless thought. He has slipt off before,
And vexes me still to be watching him.
We'll make a bargain of him.

Captain I, my Lord?
I have no need of slaves: I am too poor.

Stranger
For twenty silver pieces he is yours.

Captain
That's cheap, if he has a skill. Yes, there might be
Profit in him at that. Has he a trade?

Stranger
He is a carpenter.

Captain A carpenter!
Why, for a good one I'ld give all my purse.

Stranger
No, twenty silver pieces is the price;
Though 'tis a slave a king might joy to own.
I've taught him to imagine palaces
So high, and tower'd so nobly, they might seem
The marvelling of a God-delighted heart
Escaping into ecstasy; he knows,
Moreover, of a stuff so rare it makes
Smaragdus and the dragon-stone despised;
And yet the quarries whereof he is wise
Would yield enough to house the tribes of the world
In palaces of beautiful shining work.

Captain
Lo there! why, that is it: the carpenter
I am to bring is needed for to build
The king's new palace.

Stranger Yea? He is your man.




CONTINUED BELOW



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--> Man

[Man]

Poem






The Sale of Saint Thomas
A quay with vessels moored


CONTINUATION


Captain
Come on, my man. I'll put your cunning heels
Where they'll not budge more than a shuffled inch.
My lord, if you'll bide with the rascal here
I'll get the irons ready. Here's your sum. --

Stranger
Now, Thomas, know thy sin. It was not fear;
Easily may a man crouch down for fear,
And yet rise up on firmer knees, and face
The hailing storm of the world with graver courage.
But prudence, prudence is the deadly sin,
And one that groweth deep into a life,
With hardening roots that clutch about the breast.
For this refuses faith in the unknown powers
Within man's nature; shrewdly bringeth all
Their inspiration of strange eagerness
To a judgment bought by safe experience;
Narrows desire into the scope of thought.
But it is written in the heart of man,
Thou shalt no larger be than thy desire.
Thou must not therefore stoop thy spirit's sight
To pore only within the candle-gleam
Of conscious wit and reasonable brain;
But search into the sacred darkness lying
Outside thy knowledge of thyself, the vast
Measureless fate, full of the power of stars,
The outer noiseless heavens of thy soul.
Keep thy desire closed in the room of light
The labouring fires of thy mind have made,
And thou shalt find the vision of thy spirit
Pitifully dazzled to so shrunk a ken,
There are no spacious puissances about it.
But send desire often forth to scan
The immense night which is thy greater soul;
Knowing the possible, see thou try beyond it
Into impossible things, unlikely ends;
And thou shalt find thy knowledgeable desire
Grow large as all the regions of thy soul,
Whose firmament doth cover the whole of Being,
And of created purpose reach the ends.



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[Man]

Poem






The End of the World
PERSONS

HUFF, the Farmer
SOLLERS, the Wainwright.
MERRICK, the Smith.
VINE, the Publician.
SHALE, the Labourer.
A DOWSER.
MRS HUFF.
WARP, the Molecatcher
Men and Women of the Village

ACT I

Scene: A public-house kitchen. HUFF the Farmer and SOLLERS the Wainwright talking; another man, a stranger, sitting silent.


Huff
Ay, you may think we're well off --

Sollers Now for croaks
Old toad! who's trodden on you now? -- Go on;
But if you can, croak us a new tune.

Huff Ay
You think you're well off -- and don't grab my words
Before they're spoken -- but some folks, I've heard,
Pity us, living quiet in the valley.

Sollers
Well, I suppose 'tis their affair.

Huff Is it?
But what I mean to say, -- if they think small
Of us that live in the valley, mayn't it show
That we aren't all so happy as we think?
MERRICK the smith comes in.

Merrick
Quick, cider! I believe I've swallowd a coal.

Sollers
Good evening. True, the heat's a wonder tonight. [Smith draws himself cider.

Huff
Haven't you brought your flute? We've all got room
For music in our minds to-night, I'll swear.
Working all day in the sun do seem to push
The thought out of your brain.

Sollers O, 'tis the sun
Had trodden on you? That's what makes you croak?
Ay, whistle him somewhat: put a tune in his brain;
He'll else croak us out of pleasure with drinking.

Merrick
'Tis quenching, I believe. -- A tune? Too hot?
You want a fiddler.

Huff Nay, I want your flute.
I like a piping sound, not scraping o' guts.

Merrick
This is no weather for a man to play
Flutes or music at all that asks him spend
His breath and spittle: you want both yourself
These oven days. Wait till a fiddler comes.

Huff
Who ever comes down here?

Sellers There's someone come.
[Pointing with his pipe to the stranger.

Merrick
Good evening, mister. Are you a man for tunes?

Stranger
And if I was I'ld give you none to-night.

Merrick
Well, no offence: there's no offence, I hope,
In taking a dummy for a tuneful man.
Is it for can't or won't you are?

Stranger
You wouldn't if you carried in your mind
What I've been carrying all day.

Sollers What's that?

Stranger
You wait; you'll know about it soon; O yes,
Soon enough it will find you and and rouse you.

Huff
Now ain't that just the way we go down here?
Here in the valley we're like dogs in a yard,
Chained to our kennels and wall'd in all round,
And not a sound of the world jumps over our hills.
And when there comes a passenger among us,
One who has heard what's stirring out beyond,
'Tis a grutchy mumchance fellow in the dismals!

Stranger
News, it it, you want? I could give you news! --
I wonder, did you ever hate to feel
The earth so fine and splendid?


CONTINUED BELOW



-- -- --



Lascelles Abercrombie



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






The End of the World
PERSONS

HUFF, the Farmer
SOLLERS, the Wainwright.
MERRICK, the Smith.
VINE, the Publician.
SHALE, the Labourer.
A DOWSER.
MRS HUFF.
WARP, the Molecatcher
Men and Women of the Village

ACT I

Scene: A public-house kitchen. HUFF the Farmer and SOLLERS the Wainwright talking; another man, a stranger, sitting silent.



CONTINUATION


Huff Oh, you're one
Has stood in the brunt of the world's wickedness,
Like me? But listen, and I'll give you a tale
Of wicked things done in this little valley,
Done against me, will surely make you think
The Devil here fetcht up his masterpiece.

Sollers
Ah, but it's hot enough without you talking
Your old hell fire about that pair of sinners.
Leave them alone and drink.

Huff I'll smell them grilling
One of these days.

Merrick But there'll be nought to drink
When that begins! Best keep your skin full now.

Stranger
What do I care for wickedness? Let those
Who've played with dirt, and thought the game was bold,
Make much of it while they can: there's a big thing
Coming down to us, ay, well on its road,
Will make their ploys seem mighty piddling sport.

Huff
This is a fool; or else it's what I think, --
The world now breeds such crowd that they've no crombie room
For well-grown sins: they hatch 'em small as flies.
But you stay here, out of the world awhile,
Here where a man's mind, and a woman's mind,
Can fling out large in wickedness: you'll see
Something monstrous here, something dreadful.

Strainger
I've seen enough of that. Though it was only
Fancying made me see it, it was enough;
I've seen the folk of the world yelling aghast,
Scurrying to hide themselves. I want nought else
Monstrous and dreadful. --

Merrick What had roused 'em so?
Some house fire?

Huff A huzzy flogged to death
For her hard-faced adultery?

Stranger (too intent to hear them)
Oh to think of it!
Talk, do, chatter some nonsense, else I'll think:
And then I'm feeling like a grub that crawls
All abroad in a dusty road; and high
Above me, and shaking the ground beneath me, come
Wheels of a thundering wain, right where I'm plodding.


CONTINUED BELOW



-- -- --



Lascelles Abercrombie



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






The End of the World
PERSONS

HUFF, the Farmer
SOLLERS, the Wainwright.
MERRICK, the Smith.
VINE, the Publician.
SHALE, the Labourer.
A DOWSER.
MRS HUFF.
WARP, the Molecatcher
Men and Women of the Village

ACT I

Scene: A public-house kitchen. HUFF the Farmer and SOLLERS the Wainwright talking; another man, a stranger, sitting silent.



CONTINUATION


Sollers Queer thinking, that.

Stranger And here's a queerer thing.
I have a sort of lust in me, pushing me still
Into that terrible way of thinking, like
Black men in India lie them down and long
To feel their holy wagon crack their spines.

Merrick
Do you mean beetles? I've driven over scores,
They sprawling on their backs, or standing mazed.
I never knew they liked it.

Sollers He means frogs.
I know what's in his mind. When I was young
My mother would catch us frogs and set them down,
Lapt in a screw of paper, in the ruts,
And carts going by would quash 'em; and I'ld laugh,
And yet be thinking, ' Suppose it was myself
Twisted stiff in huge paper, and wheels
Bit as the wall of a barn treading me flat! '

Huff
I know what's in his mind: just madness it is.
He's lookt too hard at his fellows in the world;
Sight of their monstrous hearts, like devils in cages,
Has jolted all the gearing of his wits.
It needs a tough brain, ay, a brain like mine,
To pore on ugly sin and not go mad.

Stranger
Madness! You're not far out. -- I came up here
To be alone and quiet in my thoughts
Alone in my own dreadful mind. The path,
Of red sand trodden hard, went up between
High hedges overgrown of hawthorn blowing
White as clouds; ay, it seemed burrowed through
A white sweet-smelling cloud, -- I walking there
Small as a hare that runs its tunnelled drove
Thro' the close heather. And beside my feet
Blue greygles drifted gleaming over the grass;
And up I climbed to sunlight green in birches,
And the path turned to daisies among grass
With bonfires of the broom beside, like flame
Of burning straw; and I lookt into your valley.
I could scarce look.
Anger was smarting in my eyes like grit.
O the fine earth and fine all for nothing!
Mazed I walkt, seeing and smelling and hearing:
The meadow lands all shining fearfully gold, --
Cruel as fire the sight of them toucht my mind;
Breathing was all a honey taste of clover
And bean flowers: I would have rather had it
Carrion, or the stink of smouldering brimstone.
And larks aloft, the happy piping fools,
And squealing swifts that slid on hissing wings,
And yellowhammers playing spry in hedges:
I never noted them before; but now --
Yes, I was mad, and crying mad, to see
The earth so fine, fine all for nothing!




CONTINUED BELOW



-- -- --



Lascelles Abercrombie



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






The End of the World
PERSONS

HUFF, the Farmer
SOLLERS, the Wainwright.
MERRICK, the Smith.
VINE, the Publician.
SHALE, the Labourer.
A DOWSER.
MRS HUFF.
WARP, the Molecatcher
Men and Women of the Village

ACT I

Scene: A public-house kitchen. HUFF the Farmer and SOLLERS the Wainwright talking; another man, a stranger, sitting silent.



CONTINUATION


Sollers (spits)
Pst! yellowhammers! He talks gentry talk.
That's worse than being mad.

Stranger
I tell you, you'll be feeling them to-morn
And hating them to be so wonderful.

Merrick
Let's have some sense. Where do you live?

Stranger Nowhere.
I'm always travelling.

Huff Why, what's your trade?

Stranger A dowser.

Huff You're the man for me!

Stranger Not I.

Huff
Ho, this is better than a fiddler now!
One of those fellows who have nerves so clever
That they can feel the waters of underground
Tingling in their fingers?
You find me a spring in my high grazing-field,
I'll give you what I save in trundling water.

Stranger
I find you water now! -- No, but I'll find you
Fire and fear and unbelievable death.
VINE the Publician comes in

Vine
Are ye all served? Ay, seems so; what's your score?

Merrick Two ciders.

Huff Three.

Sollers And two for me.

Vine (to Dowser) And you?

Dowser Naught. I was waiting on you.

Vine Will you drink?

Dowser
Ay! Drink! what else is left for a man to do
Who knows what I know?

Vine Good. What is't you know?
You tell it out and set my trade a-buzzing.





CONTINUED BELOW



-- -- --



Lascelles Abercrombie



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






The End of the World
PERSONS

HUFF, the Farmer
SOLLERS, the Wainwright.
MERRICK, the Smith.
VINE, the Publician.
SHALE, the Labourer.
A DOWSER.
MRS HUFF.
WARP, the Molecatcher
Men and Women of the Village

ACT I

Scene: A public-house kitchen. HUFF the Farmer and SOLLERS the Wainwright talking; another man, a stranger, sitting silent.



CONTINUATION


Sollers
He's queer. Give him his mug and ease his tongue.

Vine
I had to swill the pigs: else I'd been here;
But we've the old fashion in this house; you draw,
I keep the score. Well, what's the worry on you?

Sollers Oh he's in love.

Dowser You fleering grinning louts,
I'll give it you now; now have it in your faces!

Sollers Crimini, he's going to fight!

Dowser
You try and fight with the thing that's on my side!

Merrick A ranter!

Huff A boozy one then.

Dowser Open yon door;
'Tis dark enough by now. Open it, you.

Vine
Hold on. Have you got something fierce outside?

Merrick A Russian bear?

Sollers Dowsers can play strange games.

Huff No tricks!

Dowser This is a trick to rouse the world.
[He opens the door.
Look out! Between the elms! There's my fierce thing.


Merrick
He means the star with the tail like a feather of fire.

Sollers. Comet, it's called.

Huff Do you mean the comet, mister?

Dowser What do you think of it?

Huff Pretty enough.
But I saw a man loose off a rocket once;
It made more stir and flare of itself; though yon
Does better at steady burning.

Dowser Stir and flare!
You'll soon forget your rocket.

Merrick Tell you what
I thought last night, now, going home. Says I,
'Tis just like the look of a tadpole: if I saw
A tadpole silver as a dace that swam
Upside-down towards me through black water,
I'ld see the plain spit of that star and his tail.





CONTINUED BELOW



-- -- --



Lascelles Abercrombie



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






The End of the World
PERSONS

HUFF, the Farmer
SOLLERS, the Wainwright.
MERRICK, the Smith.
VINE, the Publician.
SHALE, the Labourer.
A DOWSER.
MRS HUFF.
WARP, the Molecatcher
Men and Women of the Village

ACT I

Scene: A public-house kitchen. HUFF the Farmer and SOLLERS the Wainwright talking; another man, a stranger, sitting silent.



CONTINUATION


Sollers
And how does your thought go?

Dowser It's what I know! --
A tadpole and a rocket! -- My dear God,
And I can still laugh out! -- What do you think
Your tadpole's made of? What lets your rocket fling
Those streaming sparks across the half of night,
Splashing the burning spray of its haste among
The quiet business of the other stars?
Ay, that's a fiery jet it leaves behind
In such enormous drift! What sort of fire
Is spouted so, spouted and never quenching? --
There is no name for that star's fire: it is
The fire that was before the world was made,
The fire that all the things we live among
Remember being; and whitest fire we know
Is its poor copy in their dreaming trance!

Huff
That would be hell fire.

Dowser Ay, if you like, hell fire,
Hell fire flying through the night! 'Twould be
A thing to blink about, a blast of it
Swept in your face, eh? and a thing to set
The whole stuff of the earth smoking rarely?
Which of you said ' the heat's a wonder to-night' ?
You have not done with marvelling. There'll come
A night when all your clothes are a pickle of sweat,
And, for all that, the sweat on your salty skin
Shall dry and crack, in the breathing of wind
That's like a draught come through an open'd furnace.
The leafage of the trees shall brown and faint,
All sappy growth turning to brittle rubbish
As the near heat of the star strokes the green earth;
And time shall brush the fields as visibly
As a rough hand brushes against the nap
Of gleaming cloth -- killing the season's colour,
Each hour charged with the wasting of a year;
And sailors panting on their warping ecks
Will watch the sea steam like broth about them.
You'll know what I know then! -- That towering star
Hangs like a fiery buzzard in the night
Intent over our earth -- Ay, now his journey
Points straight as a plummet's drop, down to us!

Huff Why, that's the end of the world!

Dowser You've said it now.





CONTINUED BELOW



-- -- --



Lascelles Abercrombie



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






The End of the World
PERSONS

HUFF, the Farmer
SOLLERS, the Wainwright.
MERRICK, the Smith.
VINE, the Publician.
SHALE, the Labourer.
A DOWSER.
MRS HUFF.
WARP, the Molecatcher
Men and Women of the Village

ACT I

Scene: A public-house kitchen. HUFF the Farmer and SOLLERS the Wainwright talking; another man, a stranger, sitting silent.



CONTINUATION


Sollers What, soon? In a day or two?

Merrick You can't mean that!

Vine
End of the World! Well now, I never thought
To hear the news of that. If you've the truth
In what you say, likely this is an evening
That we'll be talking over often and often.
'How was it, Sollers?' I'll say; ' or you, Merrick,
Do you mind clearly how he lookt? ' -- And then --
' " End of the world " he said, and drank -- like that,
Solemn! ' -- And right he was: he had it all
As sure as I have when my sow's to farrow.

Dowser
Are you making a joke of me? Keep your mind
For tippling while you can.

Vine Was that a joke?
I'm always bad at seeing 'em, even my own.

Dowser
A fool's! 'Twill cheer you when the earth blows up
Like as it were all gunpowder.

Vine You mean
The star will butt his burning head against us?
'Twill knock the world to flinders, I suppose?

Dowser
Ay, or with that wild, monstrous tail of his
Smash down upon the air, and make it bounce
Like water under the flukes of a harpooned whale,
And thrash it to a poisonous fire; and we
And all the life of the world drowned in blazing!

Vine
'Twill be a handsone sight. If my old wife
Were with me now! This would have suited her.
'I do like things to happen!' she would say;
Never shindy enough for her; and now
She's gone, and can't be seeing this!

Dowser You poor fool.
How will it be a sight to you, when your eyes
Are scorcht to little cinders in your head?

Vine
Whether or no, there must be folks outside
Willing to know of this. I'll scatter your news.
He goes.
A short pause: then SOLLERS breaks out.






CONTINUED BELOW



-- -- --



Lascelles Abercrombie



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






The End of the World
PERSONS

HUFF, the Farmer
SOLLERS, the Wainwright.
MERRICK, the Smith.
VINE, the Publician.
SHALE, the Labourer.
A DOWSER.
MRS HUFF.
WARP, the Molecatcher
Men and Women of the Village

ACT I

Scene: A public-house kitchen. HUFF the Farmer and SOLLERS the Wainwright talking; another man, a stranger, sitting silent.



CONTINUATION


Sollers
No, no; it woudn't do for me at all;
Nor for you neither, Merrick? End of the World?
Bogy! A parson's tale or a bairn's!

Merrick That's it.
Your trade's a gift, easy as playing tunes.
But Sollers here and I, we've had to drill
Sinew and muscle into their hard lesson,
Until they work in timber and flowing iron
As kindly as I pick up my pint: your work
Grows in your nature, like plain speech in a child,
But we have learnt to think in a foreign tongue;
And something must come out of all our skill!
We shan't go sliding down as glib as you
Into notions of the End of the World.






CONTINUED BELOW



-- -- --



Lascelles Abercrombie



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






The End of the World
PERSONS

HUFF, the Farmer
SOLLERS, the Wainwright.
MERRICK, the Smith.
VINE, the Publician.
SHALE, the Labourer.
A DOWSER.
MRS HUFF.
WARP, the Molecatcher
Men and Women of the Village

ACT I

Scene: A public-house kitchen. HUFF the Farmer and SOLLERS the Wainwright talking; another man, a stranger, sitting silent.



CONTINUATION


Sollers
Give me a tree, you may say, and give me steel,
And I'll put forth my shapely mind; I'll make,
Out of my head like telling a well-known tale,
A wain that goes as comely on the roads
As a ship sailing, the lines of it true as gospel.
Have I learnt that all for nothing? -- O no!
End of the World? It wouldn't do at all.
No more making of wains, after I've spent
My time in getting the right skill in my hands?

Dowser
Ay, you begin to feel it now, I think;
But you complain like boys for a game spoilt:
Shaping your carts, forging your iron! But Life,
Life, the mother who lets her children play
So seriously busy, trade and craft, --
Life with her skill of a million years' perfection
To make her heart's delighted glorying
Of sunlight, and of clouds about the moon,
Spring lighting her daffodils, and corn
Ripening gold to ruddy, and giant seas,
And mountains sitting in their purple clothes --
O life I am thinking of, life the wonder,
All blotcht out by a brutal thrust of fire
Like a midge that clumsy thumb squashes and smears.

Huff
Let me but see the show beginning, though!
You'ld mind me then! O I would like you all
To watch how I should figure, when the star
Brandishes over the whole air its flame
Of thundering fire; and naught but yellow rubbish
Parcht on the perishing ground, and there are tongues
Chapt with thirst, glad to lap stinking ponds,
And pale glaring faces spying about
On the earth withering, terror the only speech!
Look for me then, and see me stand alone
Easy and pleasant in the midst of it all.
Did you not make your merry scoff of me?
Was it your talk, that when you shameless pair
Threw their wantoning in my face like dirt,
I had no heart against them but to grumble?
You would be saying that, I know! But now,
Now I believe it's time for you to see
My patient heart at last taking its wages.





CONTINUED BELOW



-- -- --



Lascelles Abercrombie



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






The End of the World
PERSONS

HUFF, the Farmer
SOLLERS, the Wainwright.
MERRICK, the Smith.
VINE, the Publician.
SHALE, the Labourer.
A DOWSER.
MRS HUFF.
WARP, the Molecatcher
Men and Women of the Village

ACT I

Scene: A public-house kitchen. HUFF the Farmer and SOLLERS the Wainwright talking; another man, a stranger, sitting silent.



CONTINUATION


Sollers
Pull up, man! Screw the brake on your running tongue,
Else it will rattle you down the tumbling way
This fellow's gone.

Merrick And one man's enough
With brain quagged axle-deep in crazy mire.
We won't have you beside him in his puddles,
And calling out with him on the End of the World
To heave you out with a vengeance.

Huff What you want!
Have I not borne enough to make me know
I must be righted sometime? -- And what else
Would break the hardy sin in them, which lets
Their souls parade so daring and so tall
Under God's hate and mine? What else could pay
For all my wrong but a blow of blazing anger
Striking down to shiver the earth, and change
Their strutting wickedness to horror and crying?

Merrick
Be quiet, Huff! If you mean to believe
This dowser's stuff, and join in his bedlam,
By God, you'll have to reckon with my fist.
SHALE comes in. HUFF glares at him speechless, but with wrath evidently working.

Shale
Where's the joker? You, is it? Here's hot news
You've brought us; all the valley's hissing aloud,
And makes as much of you falling into it
As a pail of water would of a glowing coal.

Sollers
Don't you start burbling too, Shale.

Shale That's the word!
Burbling, simmering, ay, and bumpy-boiling :
All the women are mobbed together close
Under the witan-trees, and their full minds
Boil like so many pans slung on a fire.
Why starlings trooping in a copse in fall
Could make no scandal like it.

Merrick What is it, man?

Shale
End of the World! The flying star! End of the World!





CONTINUED BELOW



-- -- --



Lascelles Abercrombie



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






The End of the World
PERSONS

HUFF, the Farmer
SOLLERS, the Wainwright.
MERRICK, the Smith.
VINE, the Publician.
SHALE, the Labourer.
A DOWSER.
MRS HUFF.
WARP, the Molecatcher
Men and Women of the Village

ACT I

Scene: A public-house kitchen. HUFF the Farmer and SOLLERS the Wainwright talking; another man, a stranger, sitting silent.



CONTINUATION


Sollers They don't believe it though?

Shale What? the whole place
Has gone just randy over it!

Merrick Hold your noise!

Sollers I shall be daft if this goes on.

Shale Ay, so?
The End of the World's been here? You look as though
You'd startled lately. And there's the virtuous man!
How would End of the World suit our good Huff,
Our old crab-verjuice Huff?

HUFF (seizing the DOWSER and bring him up in front of Shale
Look at him there!
This is the man I told of when you
Were talking small of sin. You made it out,
Did you, a fool's mere nasty game, like dogs
That snuggle in muck, and grin and roll themselves
With snorting pleasure? Ah, but you are wrong.
'Tis something that goes thrusting dreadfully
Its wilful bravery of evil against
The worth and right of goodness in the world:
Ay, do you see how his face still brags at me?
And long it has been, the time he's had to walk
Lording about me with his wickedness.
Do you know what he dared? I had a wife,
A flighty pretty linnet-headed girl,
But mine: he practised on her with his eyes;
He knew of luring glances, and she went
After his calling lust: and all since then
They've lived together, fleering in my face,
Pleased in sight of the windows of my house
With doing wrong, and making my disgrace.
O but wait here with me; wait till your news
Is not to be mistaken, for the way
The earth buckles and singes like hot boards:
You'll surely see how dreadful sin can be
Then, when you mark these two running about,
With raging fear for what they did against me
Buzzing close to their souls, stinging their hearts,
And they like scampering beasts when clegs are fierce,
Or flinging themselves low as the ground to writhe,
Their arms hugging their desperate heads. And then
You'll see what 'tis to be an upright man,
Who keeps a patient anger for his wrongs
Thinking of judgment coming -- you will see that
When you mark how my looks hunt these wretches,
And smile upon their groans and posturing anguish.
O watch how calm I'll be, when the blazing air
Judges their wickedness; you watch me then
Looking delighted, like a nobleman
Who sees his horse winning an easy race.

Merrick
You fool, Huff, you believe it now!

Huff You fool,
Merrick, how should I not believe a thing
That calls aloud on my mind and spirit, and they
Answer to it like starving conquering soldiers
Told to break out and loot?

Shale You vile old wasp!





CONTINUED BELOW



-- -- --



Lascelles Abercrombie



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






The End of the World
PERSONS

HUFF, the Farmer
SOLLERS, the Wainwright.
MERRICK, the Smith.
VINE, the Publician.
SHALE, the Labourer.
A DOWSER.
MRS HUFF.
WARP, the Molecatcher
Men and Women of the Village

ACT I

Scene: A public-house kitchen. HUFF the Farmer and SOLLERS the Wainwright talking; another man, a stranger, sitting silent.



CONTINUATION


! Sollers
We've talkt enough: let's all go home and sleep;
There might be a fiend in the air about us, one
Who pours his will into our minds to see
How we can frighten one another.
Huff A fiend!
Shale will soon have the flapping wings of a fiend,
And flaming wings, beating about his head.
Ther'll be no air for Shale, very soon now,
But the breathing of a fiend: the star's coming!
The star that breathes a horrible fury of fire
Like glaring fog into the empty night;
And in the gust of its wrath the world will soon
Shrivel and spin like paper in a furnace.
I knew they both would have to pay me at last
With sight of their damned souls for all my wrong!

Shale Somebody stop his gab.

Merrick (seizing the DOWSER and shaking him)
Is it the truth we're in the way of the star?

A crowd of men and women burst in and shout confusedly.
1. Look out for the star!
2. 'Tis moving, moving.
3. Grows as you stare at it.
4. Bigger than ever.
1. Down it comes with a diving pounce,
As though it had lookt for us and at last found us.
2. O so near and coming so quick!
3. And how the buring hairs of its tail
Do seem surely to quiver for speed.
4. We saw its great tail gwitch behind it.
'Tis come so near, so gleaming near.
1. The tail is wagging!
2. Come out and see!
3. The star is wagging its tail and eyeing us --
4. Like a cat huncht to leap on a bird.

Merrick
Out of my way and let me see for myself.
[They all begin to hustle out:
HUFF speaks in midst of the turmoil.

Huff
Ay, now begins the just man's reward;
And hatred of the evil thing
Now is to be satisfied.
Wrong ventured out against me and braved:
And I'll be glad to see all breathing pleasure
Burn as foolishly to naught
As a moth in candle flame,
If I but have my will to watch over those
Who injured me bawling hoarse heartless fear.

They are all gone but HUFF, SHALE and the DOWSER.

Shale
As for you, let you and the women make
Your howling scare of this; I'll stand and laugh.
But if it truly were the End of the World,
I'ld be the man to face it out, not you:
I who have let life go delighted through me,
Not you, who've sulkt away your chance of life
In mumping about being paid for goodness.
[Going.

Huff (after him)
You wait, you wait!
[He follows the rest.

Dowser (alone) Naught but a plague of flies!
I cannot do with noises, and light fools
Terrified round me; I must go out and think
Where there is quiet and no one near. O, think!
Life that has done such wonders with its thinking,
And never daunted in imagining;
That has put on the sun and the shining night,
The flowering of the earth and tides of the sea,
And irresistible rage of fate itself,
All these as garments for its spirit's journey --
O now this life, in the brute chance of things,
Murder'd, uselessly murder'd! And naught else
For ever but senseless rounds of hurrying motion
That cannot glory in itself. O no!
I will not think of that; I'll blind my brain
With fancying the splendours of destruction;
When like a burr in the star's fiery mane
The crackling earth is caught and rusht along,
The forests on the mountains blazing so,
That from the rocks of ore beneath them come
White-hot rivers of smelted metal pouring
Across the plains to roar into the sea. . . .

The curtain is lowered for a few moments only.





CONTINUED BELOW ACT II



-- -- --



Lascelles Abercrombie



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






The End of the World
PERSONS

HUFF, the Farmer
SOLLERS, the Wainwright.
MERRICK, the Smith.
VINE, the Publician.
SHALE, the Labourer.
A DOWSER.
MRS HUFF.
WARP, the Molecatcher
Men and Women of the Village

ACT II



As before, a little while after. The room is empty when
the curtain goes up. SOLLERS runs in and paces
about, but stops short when he catches sight of a
pot dog on the mantlepiece.



CONTINUATION FROM ACT I


Sollers
The pace it is coming down! -- What to do now? --
My brain has stopt: it's like a clock that's fallen
Out of a window and broke all its cogs. --
Where's that old cider, Vine would have us pay
Twopence a glass for? Let's try how it smells:
Old Foxwhelp, and a humming stingo it is!
(To the pot dog)
Hullo, you! Whaty are you grinning at? --
I know!
There'll be no score against me for this drink!
Of that score! I've drunk it down for a week
With every gulp of cider, and every gulp
Was half the beauty it should have been, the score
So scratcht my swallowing throat, like a wasp in the drink!
And I need never have heeded it! --
Old grinning dog! You've seen me happy here;
And now, all's done! But do you know this too,
That I can break you now, and never called
To pay for you? [Throwing the dog on the floor.
I shall be savage soon!
We're leaving all this! -- O, and it was so pleasant
Here, in here, of an evening. -- Smash!
[He sweeps a lot of crockery on to the floor.
It's all no good! Let's make a wreck of it all!
[Picking up a chair and swinging it.
Damn me! Now I'm forgetting to drink, and soon
'Twill be too late. Where's there a mug not shivered?
[He goes to draw himself cider. MERRICK rushes in.

Merrick
You at the barrels, too? Out of the road!
[He pushes SOLLERS away and spills his mug.






CONTINUED BELOW


-- -- --



Lascelles Abercrombie



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






The End of the World
PERSONS

HUFF, the Farmer
SOLLERS, the Wainwright.
MERRICK, the Smith.
VINE, the Publician.
SHALE, the Labourer.
A DOWSER.
MRS HUFF.
WARP, the Molecatcher
Men and Women of the Village

ACT II



As before, a little while after. The room is empty when
the curtain goes up. SOLLERS runs in and paces
about, but stops short when he catches sight of a
pot dog on the mantlepiece.



CONTINUATION

Sollers
Go and kick out of door, you black donkey.

Merrick
Let me come at the vessel, will you?
[They wrestle savagely.

SOllers Keep off;
I'm the first here. Lap what you've spilt of mine.

Merrick
You with your chiselling and screw-driving,
Your wooden work, you bidding me, the man
Who hammers a meaning into red hot iron?
VINE comes in slowly. He is weeping; the two
wrestlers stop and stare at him, as he sits
down, and holds his head in his hands,
sobbing.

Vine O this is a cruel affair!

Sillers Here's Vine crying!

Vine I've seen the moon.

Merrick The moon? 'Tisn't the moon
That's tumbling on us, but yon raging star.
What notion now is clotted in your head?

Vine
I've seen the moon; it has nigh broke my heart.





CONTINUED BELOW


-- -- --



Lascelles Abercrombie



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






The End of the World
PERSONS

HUFF, the Farmer
SOLLERS, the Wainwright.
MERRICK, the Smith.
VINE, the Publician.
SHALE, the Labourer.
A DOWSER.
MRS HUFF.
WARP, the Molecatcher
Men and Women of the Village

ACT II



As before, a little while after. The room is empty when
the curtain goes up. SOLLERS runs in and paces
about, but stops short when he catches sight of a
pot dog on the mantlepiece.



CONTINUATION

Sollers
Not the moon too jumping out of her ways?

Vine
No, no; -- but going quietly and shining,
Pushing away a flimsy gentle cloud
That would drift smoky round her, fending it off
Wuth steady rounds of blue and yellow light.
It was not much to see. She was no more
Than a curved bit of silver rind. But I
Never before so noted her --

Sollers What he said,
The dowser!

Merrick Ay, about his yellowhammers.

Sollers
And there's a kind of stifle in the air
Already!

Merrick It seems to me, my breathing goes
All hot down my windpipe, but as cider
Mulled and steaming travels down my swallow.

Sollers
And a queer racing through my ears of blood.

Herrick
I wonder, is the star come closer still?

Sollers
O, close, I know, and viciously heading down.

Vine
She was so silver! and the sun had left
A kind of tawny red, a dust of fine
Thin light upon the blue where she was lying, --
Just a curled paring of the moon, amid
The faint grey cloud that set the gleaming wheel
Around the tilted slip of shining silver.
O it did seem to me so safe and homely,
The moon quietly going about the earth;
It's a rare place we have to live in, here;
And life is such a comfortable thing --
And what's the sense of it all? Naught but to make
Cruel as may be the slaughtering of it.

CONTINUED BELOW


-- -- --



Lascelles Abercrombie



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






The End of the World
PERSONS

HUFF, the Farmer
SOLLERS, the Wainwright.
MERRICK, the Smith.
VINE, the Publician.
SHALE, the Labourer.
A DOWSER.
MRS HUFF.
WARP, the Molecatcher
Men and Women of the Village

ACT II



As before, a little while after. The room is empty when
the curtain goes up. SOLLERS runs in and paces
about, but stops short when he catches sight of a
pot dog on the mantlepiece.



CONTINUATION

Sollers It beats my mind!
[He begins to walk up and down desparately.

Merrick 'Twas bound to come sometime,
Bound to come, I suppose. 'Tis a poor thing
For us, to fall plumb in the chance of it;
But, now or another time, 'twas bound to be. --
I have been thinking back. When I was a lad
I was delighted with my life: there seemed
Naught but things to enjoy. Say we were bathing:
There'ld be the cool smell of the water, and cool
The splashing under the trees: but I did loathe
The sinking mud slithering round my feet,
And I did love to loathe it so! And then
We'ld troop to kill a wasp's nest; and for sure
I would be stung; and if I liked the dusk
And singing and the game of it all, I loved
The smart of the stings, and fleeing the buzzing furies.
And sometimes I'ld be looking at myself
Making so much of everything; there'ld seem
A part of me speaking about myself:
' You know, this is much more than being happy.
'Tis hunger of some power in you, that lives
On your heart's welcome for all sorts of luck,
But always looks beyond you for its meaning. '
And that's the way the world's kept going on,
I believe now. Misery and delight
Have both had liking welcome from it, both
Have made the world keen to be glad and sorry.
For why? It felt the living power thrive
The more it made everything, good and bad,
Its own belonging, forged to its own affair, --
The living power that would do wonders some day.
I don't know if you take me?



CONTINUED BELOW


-- -- --



Lascelles Abercrombie



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






The End of the World
PERSONS

HUFF, the Farmer
SOLLERS, the Wainwright.
MERRICK, the Smith.
VINE, the Publician.
SHALE, the Labourer.
A DOWSER.
MRS HUFF.
WARP, the Molecatcher
Men and Women of the Village

ACT II



As before, a little while after. The room is empty when
the curtain goes up. SOLLERS runs in and paces
about, but stops short when he catches sight of a
pot dog on the mantlepiece.



CONTINUATION



Sollers I do, fine;
I've felt the very thought go through my mind
When I was at my wains; though 'twas a thing
Of such a flight I could not read its colour.--
Why was I like a man sworn to a thing
Working to have my wains in every curve,
Ay, every teneon, right and as they should be?
Not for myself, not even for those wains:
But to keep in me living at its best
The skill that must go forward and shape the world,
Helping it on to make some masterpiece.

Merrick
And never was there aught to come of it!
The world was always looking to use its life
In some great handsome way at last. And now --
We are just fooled. There never was any good
In the world going on or being at all.
The fine things life has plotted to do are worth
A rotten toadstool kickt to flying bits.
End of the World? Ay, and the end of a joke.

Vine Well, Huff's the man for this turn.

Merrick Ay, the good man!
He could but grunt when times were pleasant; now
There's misery enough to make him trumpet.
And yet, by God, he shan't come blowing his horn
Over my misery!
We are just fooled, did I say? -- We fooled ourselves,
Looking for worth in what was still to come;
And now there'a a stop to our innings. Well, that's fair:
I've been a living man, and might have been
Nothing at all! I've had the world about me,
And felt it as my own concern. What else
Should I be crying for? I've had my turn.
The world may be for the sake of naught at last,
But it has been for my sake: I've had that.
[He sits again, and broods.





CONTINUED BELOW


-- -- --



Lascelles Abercrombie



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






The End of the World
PERSONS

HUFF, the Farmer
SOLLERS, the Wainwright.
MERRICK, the Smith.
VINE, the Publician.
SHALE, the Labourer.
A DOWSER.
MRS HUFF.
WARP, the Molecatcher
Men and Women of the Village

ACT II



As before, a little while after. The room is empty when
the curtain goes up. SOLLERS runs in and paces
about, but stops short when he catches sight of a
pot dog on the mantlepiece.



CONTINUATION



Sollers
I can't stay here. I must be where my sight
May silence with its business all my thinking --
Though it will be the star plunged down so close
It puffs its flaming vengeance in my face.
[He goes.

Vine
I wish there were someone who had done me wrong,
Like Huff with his wife and Shale; I wish there were
Somebody I would like to see go crazed
With staring fright. I'ld have my pleasure then
Of living on into the End of the World.
But there is no one at all for me, no one
Now my poor wife is gone.

Merrick Why what did she
To harm you?

Vine Didn't she marry me? -- It's true
She made it come all right. She died at last.
Besides, it would be wasting wishes on her,
To be in hopes of her weeping at this.
She'ld have her hands on her hops and her tongue jumping
As nimble as a stoat, delighting round
The way the world's to be terrible and tormented. --
Ay, but I'll have a thing to tell her now
When she begins to ask the news! I'll say
' You've misst such a show as never was nor will be,
A roaring great affair of death and ruin;
And I was there -- the world smasht to sparkles! '
O, I can see her vext at that!
MERRICK has been sunk in thought
during this, but VINE seems to brighten
at this notion, and speaks quite cheerfully
to HUFF, who now comes in, looking
mopish, and sits down

Vine
We've all been envying you, Huff. You're well off,
You with your goodness and your enemies
Showing you how to relish it with their terror.
When do you mean the gibing is to start?

Huff There's time enough.

Vine O, do they still hold out?
If they should be for spiting you to the last!
You'ld best keep on at them: think out a list
Of frantic things for them to do, when air
Is scorching smother and the sin they did
Frightens their hearts. You'll shout them into fear,
I undertake, if you find breath enough.

Huff
You have the breath. What's all your pester for?
You leave me be.

Vine Why, you're to do for me
What I can't do myself. -- And yet it's hard
To make out where Shale hurt you. What's the sum
Of all he did to you? Got you quit of a marriage
Without the upset of a funeral.

Huff
Wyy need you blurt your rambling mind at me?
Let me bide quiet in my thought awhile,
And it's a little while we have for thought.

Merrick
I know your thought. Paddling round and around,
Like a squirrel working in a spinning cage
With his neck stretcht to have his chin poke up,
And silly feet busy and always going;
Paddling round the story of your good life,
Your small good life, and how the decent men
Have jeered at your wry antic.

Huff My good life!
And what good has my goodness been to me?
You show me that! Somebody show me that!
A caterpillar munching a cabbage-heart,
Always drudging further and further from
The sounds and lights of the world, never abroad
Nor flying free in warmth and air sweet-smelling:
A crawling caterpillar, eating his life
In a deaf dark -- that's my gain of goodness!
And it's too late to hatch out now! --
I can but fancy what I might have been;
I scarce know how to sin! -- But I believe
A long while back I did come near to it.

Merrick
Well done! -- O but I should have guesst all this!

Huff
I was in Droitwich; and the sight of the place
Is where they cook the brine: a long dark shed,
Hot as an oven, full of a grey steam
And ruddy light that leaks out of the furnace;
And stirring the troughs, ladling the brine that boils
As thick as treacle, a double standing row,
Women -- boldly talking in wicked jokes
All day long. I went to see 'em. It was
A wonderful rousing sight. Not one of them
Was really wearing clothes: half of a sack
Pinned in an apron was enough for most,
And here and there might be a petticoat;
But nothing in the way of bodices --
O, they knew words to shame a carter's face!

Merrick
This is the thought you would be quiet in!

Huff
Where else can I be quiet? Now there's an end
Of daring, 'tis the one place my life has made
Where I may try to dare in thought. I mind,
When I stood in the midst of those bare women,
All at once, outburst with a rising buzz,
A mob of flying thoughts was wild in me:
Things I might do swarmed in my brain pell-mell,
Like a heap of flies kickt into humming cloud.
I beat them down; and now I cannot tell
For certain what they were. I can call up
Naught venturesome and darting like their style;
Very tame braveries now! -- O Shale's the man
To smile upon the End of the World; 'tis Shale
Has lived the bold stiff fashion, and filled himself
With thinking pride in what a man may do. --
I wish I had seen those women more than once!

Vine
Well, here's an upside down! This is old Huff!
What have you been in your heart all these years?
The man you were or the new man you are?

Huff Just a dead flesh!

Merrick Nay, Huff the good man at least
Was something alive, though snarling like trapt vermin.
But this? What's this for the figure of a man?
'Tis a boy's smutty picture on a wall.

Huff
I was alive, was I? Like a blind bird
That flies and cannot see the flight it takes,
Feeling it with mere rowing of its wings.
But Shale -- he's had a stirring sense of what he is.
Shouting outside. Then SOLLERS walks in
again, very quiet and steady. He stands
in the middle, looking down on the floor

VineWhat do they holla for there?



CONTINUED BELOW


-- -- --



Lascelles Abercrombie



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






The End of the World
PERSONS

HUFF, the Farmer
SOLLERS, the Wainwright.
MERRICK, the Smith.
VINE, the Publician.
SHALE, the Labourer.
A DOWSER.
MRS HUFF.
WARP, the Molecatcher
Men and Women of the Village

ACT II



As before, a little while after. The room is empty when
the curtain goes up. SOLLERS runs in and paces
about, but stops short when he catches sight of a
pot dog on the mantlepiece.



CONTINUATION



Sollers The earth.

Merrick The earth?

Sollers The earth's afire.

Huff The earth blazing already?
[Shouts again.
O, not so soon as this?

Vine What sort of fire?

SOllers
The earth has caught the heat of the star, you fool.

Merrick
I know: there's come some dazzle in your eyes
From facing to the star; a lamp would do it.

Huff
It will be that. Your sight, being so strained,
Is flashing of itself.

Sollers Way what you like.
There's a red flare out of the land beyond
Looking over the hills into our valley.
The thing's begun, 'tis certain. Go and see.

Vine I won't see that. I will stay here.

Sollers Ay, creep
Into your oven. You'll be cooler there. --
O my God, we'll all be coals in an hour!
[Shouts again.

Huff
And I have naught to stand in my heart upright,
And vow it made my living time worth more
Than if my time had been death in a grave!
Several persons run in.

The Crown
1. The river's the place!
2. The only safe place now!
3. Best all charge down to the river!
4. For there's a blaze,
A travelling blaze comes racing along the earth




CONTINUED BELOW


-- -- --



Lascelles Abercrombie



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






The End of the World
PERSONS

HUFF, the Farmer
SOLLERS, the Wainwright.
MERRICK, the Smith.
VINE, the Publician.
SHALE, the Labourer.
A DOWSER.
MRS HUFF.
WARP, the Molecatcher
Men and Women of the Village

ACT II



As before, a little while after. The room is empty when
the curtain goes up. SOLLERS runs in and paces
about, but stops short when he catches sight of a
pot dog on the mantlepiece.



CONTINUATION



Sollers
'Tis true. The air's red-hot above the hills.

The Crown
1. Ay, but he burning now crests the hill-tops
In quiver of yellow flame.
2. And a great smoke
Waving and tumbling upward.
3. The river now!
4. The only place we have, not be be roasted!

Merrick
And what will make us water-rats or otters,
To keep our breath still living through a dive
That lasts until the earth's burnt out? Or how
Would that trick serve, when we stand up to gasp,
And find the star waiting for our plunged heads
To knock them into pummy?

Vine Scarce more dazed
I'ld be with that than now. I shall be bound,
When I'm to give my wife the tale of it all,
To be divising: more of this to-do
My mind won't carry.

Huff O ashamed I am,
Ashamed! -- It needn't have been downright fears,
Such as the braving men, the like of Shale,
Do easily, and smile, keeping them up.
If I could look back to one manful hour
Of romping in the face of all my goodness! --

SHALE comes in, dragging Mrs HUFF by the hand.

Shale
Huff! Where's Huff? -- Huff, you must take her back!
You'll take her back? She's yours: I give her up.

Merrick Belike here's something bold again.

Mrs Huff (to SHALE) Once more,
Listen.

Shale I will not listen. There's no time
For aught but giving you back where you belong;
And that's with you, Huff. Take her.

Huff Here is depth
I cannot see to. Is it your last fling? --
The dolt I am in these things! -- What's this way
You've found of living wickedly to the end?

Shale
Scorn as you please, but take her back, man, take her.

Huff
But she's my wife! Take her back now? What for?

Mrs Huff
What for? Have you not known of thieves that throw
Their robbery down, soon as they hear a step
Sounding behind them on the road, and run
A long way off, and pull an honest face?
Ay, see Shale's eyes practising baby-looks!
He never stole, not he!

Shale Don't hear her talk.

Mrs Huff
But he was a talker once! Love was the thing;
And love, he swore, would make the wrong go right,
And Huff was a kind of devil -- and that's true --

Huff
What? I've been devilish and never knew?

Mrs Huff
The devil in the world that hates all love.
But Shale said, he'd the love in him would hold
If the world's frame and the fate of men were crackt.

Shale What I said!
Whoever thought the world was going to crack?

Mrs Huff
And now he hears someone move behind him. --
They'll say, perhaps, ' You stole this! ' -- Down it goes,
Thrown to the ditry road -- thrown to Huff!

Shale
Yes, to the owner.

Mrs Huff It was not such brave thieving
You did not take me from my owner, Shale:
There's an old robber will do that some day,
Not you.

Vine Were you thinking of me then, missis?

Mrs Huff (still to SHALE)
You found me lost in the dirt: I was with Huff.
You lifted me from there; and there again,
Like a frightened urchin, you're for throwing me.

Shale Let it be that! I'm firm
Not to have you about me, when the thing,
Whatever it is, that's standing now behind
The burning of the world, comes out on us.

Huff
The way men cheat! This windle-stalk was he
Would hold a show of spirit for the world
To study while it ruined! -- Make what you please
Of your short wrangle here, but leave me out.
I have my thoughts -- O far enough from this.
[Turning away.

Shale (seizing him)
You shall not put me off. I tell you, Huff,
You are to take her back now.

Huff Take her back!
And what has she to do with what I want?

Shale
Isn't she yours? I must be quit of her;
I'll not be in the risk of keeping her.
She's yours!

Huff And what's the good of her now to me?
What's the good of a woman whom I've married?

During this, WARP the molecatcher has come in.

Warp
Shale and Huff at their old pother again!

Merrick The molecather!




CONTINUED BELOW


-- -- --



Lascelles Abercrombie



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






The End of the World
PERSONS

HUFF, the Farmer
SOLLERS, the Wainwright.
MERRICK, the Smith.
VINE, the Publician.
SHALE, the Labourer.
A DOWSER.
MRS HUFF.
WARP, the Molecatcher
Men and Women of the Village

ACT II



As before, a little while after. The room is empty when
the curtain goes up. SOLLERS runs in and paces
about, but stops short when he catches sight of a
pot dog on the mantlepiece.



CONTINUATION



Sollers Warp, have you travelled far?
Is it through frenzy and ghastly crowds you've come?

Vine
Have you got dreadful things to tell us, Warp?

Warp Why, no.
But seemingly you'ld have had news for me,
If I'd come later. Is Huff to murder Shale,
Or Shale for murdering Huff? One way or 'tother,
'Tis time 'twas settled surely. -- Mrs Huff
They're neither of them worth you: here's your health.

[Draws and drinks.

Huff
Where have you been? Are you not new from folk
That throng together in a pelting horror?

Warp
Do you think the whole land hearkens to the flurry
Of an old dog biting at a young dog's throat?

Merrick
No, no! Not their shrill yapping; you've not heard
The world's near to be blasted?

Warp No mutter of it.
I am from walking the whole ground I trap,
And there's no likeness of it, but the moles
I've turned up dead and dried out of three counties.




CONTINUED BELOW


-- -- --



Lascelles Abercrombie



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






The End of the World
PERSONS

HUFF, the Farmer
SOLLERS, the Wainwright.
MERRICK, the Smith.
VINE, the Publician.
SHALE, the Labourer.
A DOWSER.
MRS HUFF.
WARP, the Molecatcher
Men and Women of the Village

ACT II



As before, a little while after. The room is empty when
the curtain goes up. SOLLERS runs in and paces
about, but stops short when he catches sight of a
pot dog on the mantlepiece.



CONTINUATION



Sollers
Why, but the fire that's eating the whole earth;
The breath of it is scarlet in the sky!
You must have seen that?

Warp But what's taken you?
You are like boys that go to hunt for ghosts,
And turn the scuttle of rats to a roused demon
Crawling to shut the door of the barn they search.
Fire? Yes, fire is playing a pretty game
Yonder, and has its golden fun to itself,
Seemingly.






CONTINUED BELOW


-- -- --



Lascelles Abercrombie



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






The End of the World
PERSONS

HUFF, the Farmer
SOLLERS, the Wainwright.
MERRICK, the Smith.
VINE, the Publician.
SHALE, the Labourer.
A DOWSER.
MRS HUFF.
WARP, the Molecatcher
Men and Women of the Village

ACT II



As before, a little while after. The room is empty when
the curtain goes up. SOLLERS runs in and paces
about, but stops short when he catches sight of a
pot dog on the mantlepiece.



CONTINUATION



Sollers You don't know what 'tis that burns?

Warp
Call me a mole and not a molecatcher
If I do not. It is a rick that burns;
And a strange thing I'll count it if the rick
Be not old Huff's.

Sollers That flare a fired stack?

Huff
Only one of my ricks alight? O Glory?
There may be chance for me yet.

Merrick Best take the train
To Droitwich, Huff.

Vine (at the door) It would be like a stack,
But for the star.

Sollers (to WARP) Yes, as you're so clever,
You can talk down maybe yon brandishing star!

Warp
O, 'tis the star has flickt your brains? Indeed,
The tail swings long enough to-night for that.
Well, look your best at it; 'tis off again
To go its rounds, they tell me, from now on;
And the next time it swaggers in our sky,
The moles a long while will have tired themsleves
Of having their easy joke with me.

[A pause.

Merrick You mean
The flight of the star is from us?





CONTINUED BELOW


-- -- --



Lascelles Abercrombie



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






The End of the World
PERSONS

HUFF, the Farmer
SOLLERS, the Wainwright.
MERRICK, the Smith.
VINE, the Publician.
SHALE, the Labourer.
A DOWSER.
MRS HUFF.
WARP, the Molecatcher
Men and Women of the Village

ACT II



As before, a little while after. The room is empty when
the curtain goes up. SOLLERS runs in and paces
about, but stops short when he catches sight of a
pot dog on the mantlepiece.



CONTINUATION



Sollers But the world,
The whole world reckons on it battering us!

Warp
Who told you that?

Sollers A dowser.

Merrick Where's he gone?

Warp
A dowser! say a trampling conjurer.
You'll believe aught, if you believe a dowser.

Sollers
I had it in me to be doubting him.

Merrick
The noise you made was like that! But I knew
You'ld laugh at me, so sure you were the world
Would shiver like a bursting grindlestone:
Else I'ld have said out loud, 'twas a fool's whimsy.

Vine
Where are you now? What am I now to think?
Your minds run round in puzzles, like chased hares.
I cannot sight them.

Merrick Think of going to bed.

Sollers And dreaming prices for your pigs.

Merrick O Warp,
You should have seen Vine crying! The moon, he said,
The silver moon! Just like an onion 'twas
To stir the water in his eyes.

Sollers He's left
A puddle of his tears where he was droopt
Over the table.

Vine There's to be no ruin? --
But what's the word of a molecatcher, to crow
So ringing over a dowser's word?

Warp I'll tell you.
These dowsers live on lies: my trade's the truth.
I can read moles, and the way they've dug their journeys,
Where you'ld not see a wrinkle.

Vine And he knows
The buried water.

Warp There's always buried water,
If you prod deep enough. A dowser finds
Because the whole earth's floating, like a raft.
What does he know? A twitching in this thews;
A dog asleep knows that much. What I know
I've learnt, and if I'd learnt it wrong, I'ld starve.
And if I'm right about the grubbing moles,
Won't I be right for news of walking men?

Merrick
Of course you're right. Let's put the whole thing by,
And have a pleasant drink.

Shale (to Mrs HUFF) You must be tired
With all this story. Shall we be off for home?

Huff
You brass! You don't go now with her! She's mine!
You gave her up.

Shale And you made nothing of her.

(To Mrs Huff) Come on.

Mrs Huff Warp, will you do a thing for me?

Warp A hundred things.

Mrs Huff Then slap me these cur-dogs.

Warp
I will. Where will I slap them, and which first?

Mrs Huff
Maybe 'twill do if you but laugh at them.

Warp
I'll try for that; but they are not good jokes;
Though there's a kind of monkey-look about them.

Mrs Huff
They thinking I'ld be near one or the other
After this night! Will I be made no more
Than clay that children puddle to their minds,
Moulding it what they fancy? -- Shale was brave:
He made a bogy and defied it, till
He frightened of his work and ran away.
But Huff! -- Huff was for modelling wickedly.

Huff Who told you that?

Mrs Huff I need no one's telling.
I was your wife once. Don't I know your goodness?
A stupid heart gone sour with jealousy,
To feel its blood too dull and thick for sinning. --
Yes, Huff would figure a wicked thought, but had
No notion how, and flung the clay aside. --
O they were gaudy colours both! But now
Fear has bleacht their swagger and left them blank,
Fear of a loon that cried, End of the World!

Huff Shale, do you know what we're to do?

Shale I'ld like
To have the handling of that dowser-man.

Huff Just that, my lad, just that!

Warp And your fired rick?

Huff
Let it be blazes! Quick, Shale, after him!
I'll tramp the nght out, but I'll take the rogue.

Shale (to the others)
You wait, and see us haul him by the ears,
And swim the blatherer in Huff's farm-yard pond.
[As HUFF and SHALE go out, they see the comet before them.

Huff The devil's own star is tha!

Shale And floats as calm
As a pike basking.

Huff There shouldn't be such stars!

Shale
Neither such dowsers,and we'll learn him that.
[They go off together.

Sollers Why the star's dwindling now, surely.

Merrick O, small
And dull now to the glowing size it was.

Vine
But is it certain there'll be nothing smasht?
Not even a house knockt roaring down in crumbles?
-- And I did think, I'ld open my wife's mouth
With envy of the dreadful things I'd seen!

Curtain.

-- -- --



Lascelles Abercrombie



--> 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






Companions
A Tale of A Grandfather

I KNOW not of what we pondr'd
Or made pretty pretence to talk
As, her hand within mine, we wander'd
Tow'rd the pool by the limetree walk,
While the dew fell in showers from the passion flowers
And the blush-rose bent on her stalk.

I cannot recall her figure:
Was it regal as Juno's own?
Or only a trifle bigger
Than the elves who surround the throne
Of the Faery Queen, and are seen, I ween,
By mortals in dreams alone?

What her eyes were like, I know not;
Perhaps they were blurr'd with tears;
And perhaps in your skies there glow not
(On the contrary) clearer spheres.
No! as to her eyes I am just as wise
As you or the cat, my dears.

Her teeth, I presume, were 'pearly':
But which was she, brunette or blonde?
Her hair, was it quaintly curly,
Or as straight as a beadle's wand?
That I fail'd to remark;--it was rather dark
And shadowy round the pond.

Then the hand that reposed so snugly
In mine--was it plump or spare?
Was the countenance fair or ugly?
Nay, children, you have me there!
My eyes were p'haps blurr'd; and besides I'd heard
That it's horribly rude to stare.

And I--was I brusque and surly?
Or oppressively bland and fond?
Was I partial to rising early?
Or why did we twain abscond,
All breakfastless too, from the public view
To prowl by a misty pond?

What pass'd, what was felt or spoken--
Whether anything pass'd at all--
And whether the heart was broken
That beat under that shelt'ring shawl--
(If shawl she had on, which I doubt)--has gone,
Yes, gone from me past recall.

Was I haply the lady's suitor?
Or her uncle? I can't make out--
Ask your governess, dears, or tutor.
For myself, I'm in hopeless doubt
As to why we were there, who on earth we were,
And what this is all about.




-- -- --



Charles S. Calverley



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






Lovers and a Reflection

IN moss-prankt dells which the sunbeams flatter
(And heaven it knoweth what that may mean;
Meaning, however, is no great matter)
Where woods are a-tremble with words a-tween.

Thro' God's own heather we wonned together,
I and my Willie (O love my love):
I need hardly remark it was glorious weather,
And flitter-bats wavered alow, above;

Boats were curtseying, rising, bowing,
(Boats in that climate are so polite,)
And sands were a ribbon of green endowing,
And O the sun-dazzle on bark and bight!

Thro' the rare red heather we danced together
(O love my Willie,) and smelt for flowers:
I must mention again it was glorious weather,
Rhymes are so scarce in this world of ours:

By rises that flushed with their purple favors,
Thro' becks that brattled o'er grasses sheen,
We walked or waded, we two young shavers,
Thanking our stars we were both so green.

We journeyed in parallels, I and Willie,
In fortunate parallels! Butterflies,
Hid in weltering shadows of daffodilly
Or marjoram, kept making peacock eyes:

Song-birds darted about, some inky
As coal, some snowy (I ween) as curds;
Or rosy as pinks, or as roses pinky--
They reck of no eerie To-come, those birds!

But they skim over bents which the mill-stream washes,
Or hang in the lift 'neath a white cloud's hem;
They need no parasols, no goloshes;
And good Mrs. Trimmer she feedeth them.

Then we thrid God's cowslips (as erst His heather),
That endowed the wan grass with their golden blooms;
And snapt--(it was perfectly charming weather)--
Our fingers at Fate and her goddess-glooms:

And Willie 'gan sing--(Oh, his notes were fluty;
Wafts fluttered them out to the white-winged sea)--
Something made up of rhymes that have done much duty,
Rhymes (better to put it) of "ancientry":

Bowers of flowers encountered showers
In William's carol--(O love my Willie!)
Then he bade sorrow borrow from blithe tomorrow
I quite forget what--say a daffodilly.

A nest in a hollow, "with buds to follow,"
I think occurred next in his nimble strain;
And clay that was "kneaden" of course in "Eden"--
A rhyme most novel I do maintain:

Mists, bones, the singer himself, love-stories,
And all least furlable things got "furled";
Not with any design to conceal their glories,
But simply and solely to rhyme with "world."

O if "billows" and "pillows" and "hours" and "flowers,"
And all the brave rhymes of an elder day,
Could be furled together, this genial weather,
And carted or carried on wafts away,
Nor ever again trotted out--ah me!
How much fewer volumes of verse there'd be.



-- -- --



Charles S. Calverley



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






The Auld Wife

THE auld wife sat at her ivied door,
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
A thing she had frequently done before;
And her spectacles lay on her aproned knees.

The piper he piped on the hill-top high,
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
Till the cow said, "I die" and the goose asked "Why?"
And the dog said nothing, but searched for fleas.

The farmer he strode through the square farmyard;
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
His last brew of ale was a trifle hard,
The connection of which with the plot one sees.

The farmer's daughter hath frank blue eyes,
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
She hears the rooks caw in the windy skies,
As she sits at her lattice and shells her peas.

The farmer's daughter hath ripe red lips;
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
If you try to approach her, away she skips
Over tables and chairs with apparent ease.

The farmer's daughter hath soft brown hair;
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
And I met with a ballad I can't say where,
Which wholly consisted of lines like these.

She sat with her hands 'neath her dimpled cheeks;
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
And spake not a word. While a lady speaks
There is hope, but she didn't even sneeze.

She sat with her hands 'neath her crimson cheeks;
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
She gave up mending her father's breeks,
And let the cat roll in her best chemise.

She sat with her hands 'neath her burning cheeks
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
And gazed at the piper for thirteen weeks;
Then she followed him out o'er the misty leas.

Her sheep followed her as their tails did them
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese)
And this song is considered a perfect gem,
And as to the meaning, it's what you please.



-- -- --



Charles S. Calverley



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






"Forever"

"FOREVER": 'tis a single word!
Our rude forefathers deemed it two:
Can you imagine so absurd
A view?

"Forever"! What abysms of woe
The word reveals, what frenzy, what
Despair! "For ever" (printed so)
Did not.

It looks, ah me! how trite and tame!
It fails to sadden or appal
Or solace--it is not the same
At all.

O thou to whom it first occurred
To solder the disjoined, and dower
The native language with a word
Of power:

We bless thee! Whether far or near
Thy dwelling, whether dark or fair
Thy kingly brow, is neither here
Nor there.

But in men's hearts shall be thy throne,
While the great pulse of England beats.
Thou coiner of a word unknown
To Keats!

And nevermore must printer do
As men did long ago; but run
"For" into "ever," bidding two
Be one.

"Forever"! passion-fraught, it throws
O'er the dim page a gloom, a glamour:
It's sweet, it's strange; and I suppose
It's grammar.

"Forever"! 'Tis a single word!
And yet our fathers deemed it two:
Nor am I confident they erred;
Are you?



-- -- --



Charles S. Calverley



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






Changed

I KNOW not why my soul is racked:
Why I ne'er smile as was my wont:
I only know that, as a fact,
I don't.
I used to roam o'er glen and glade
Buoyant and blithe as other folk:
And not unfrequently I made
A joke.

A minstrel's fire within me burned.
I'd sing, as one whose heart must break,
Lay upon lay: I nearly learned
To shake.
All day I sang; of love, of fame,
Of fights our fathers fought of yore,
Until the thing almost became
A bore.

I cannot sing the old songs now!
It is not that I deem them low;
'Tis that I can't remember how
They go.
I could not range the hills till high
Above me stood the summer moon:
And as to dancing, I could fly
As soon.

The sports, to which with boyish glee
I sprang erewhile, attract no more;
Although I am but sixty-three
Or four.
Nay, worse than that, I've seemed of late
To shrink from happy boyhood--boys
Have grown so noisy, and I hate
A noise.

They fright me, when the beech is green,
By swarming up its stem for eggs:
They drive their horrid hoops between
My legs:--
It's idle to repine, I know;
I'll tell you what I'll do instead:
I'll drink my arrowroot, and go
To bed.


-- -- --



Charles S. Calverley



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






The Dromedary

IN dreams I see the Dromedary still,
As once in a gay park I saw him stand:
A thousand eyes in vulgar wonder scanned
His humps and hairy neck, and gazed their fill
At his lank shanks and mocked with laughter shrill.
He never moved: and if his Eastern land
Flashed on his eye with stretches of hot sand,
It wrung no mute appeal from his proud will.

He blinked upon the rabble lazily;
And still some trace of majesty forlorn
And a coarse grace remained: his head was high,
Though his gaunt flanks with a great mange were worn:
There was not any yearning in his eye,
But on his lips and nostril infinite scorn.


-- -- --



A.Y. Campbell



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






My friend attacks my friend!


118

My friend attacks my friend!
Oh Battle picturesque!
Then I turn Soldier too,
And he turns Satirist!
How martial is this place!
Had I a mighty gun
I think I'd shoot the human race
And then to glory run!






-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






My friend must be a Bird


92

My friend must be a Bird—
Because it flies!
Mortal, my friend must be,
Because it dies!
Barbs has it, like a Bee!
Ah, curious friend!
Thou puzzlest me!









-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






My Garden—like the Beach


484

My Garden—like the Beach—
Denotes there be—a Sea—
That's Summer—
Such as These—the Pearls
She fetches—such as Me











-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem





My life closed twice



My life closed twice before its close--
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me

So huge, so hopeless to conceive
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.













-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem





My life closed twice before its close;


My life closed twice before its close;
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me,

So huge, so hopeless to conceive,
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.







-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem





My life had stood


My life had stood--a Loaded Gun--
In Corners--till a Day
The Owner passed--identified--
And carried Me away--

And now We roam in Sovereign Woods--
And now We hunt the Doe--
And every time I speak for Him--
The Mountains straight reply--

And do I smile, such cordial light
Upon the Valley glow--
It is as a Vesuvian face
Had let its pleasure through--

And when at Night--Our good Day done--
I guard My Master's Head--
'Tis better than the Eider-Duck's
Deep Pillow--to have shared--

To foe of His--I'm deadly foe--
None stir the second time--
On whom I lay a Yellow Eye--
Or an emphatic Thumb--

Though I than He--may longer live
He longer must--than I--
For I have but the power to kill,
Without--the power to die--



-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem





My Life had stood—a Loaded Gun


754

My Life had stood—a Loaded Gun—
In Corners—till a Day
The Owner passed—identified—
And carried Me away—

And now We roam in Sovereign Woods—
And now We hunt the Doe—
And every time I speak for Him—
The Mountains straight reply—

And do I smile, such cordial light
Upon the Valley glow—
It is as a Vesuvian face
Had let its pleasure through—

And when at Night—Our good Day done—
I guard My Master's Head—
'Tis better than the Eider-Duck's
Deep Pillow—to have shared—

To foe of His—I'm deadly foe—
None stir the second time—
On whom I lay a Yellow Eye—
Or an emphatic Thumb—

Though I than He—may longer live
He longer must—than I—
For I have but the power to kill,
Without—the power to die—






-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem





My nosegays are for captives;


My nosegays are for captives;
Dim, long-expectant eyes,
Fingers denied the plucking,
Patient till paradise.

To such, if they should whisper
Of morning and the moor,
They bear no other errand,
And I, no other prayer.








-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem





My period had come for Prayer


564

My period had come for Prayer—
No other Art—would do—
My Tactics missed a rudiment—
Creator—Was it you?

God grows above—so those who pray
Horizons—must ascend—
And so I stepped upon the North
To see this Curious Friend—

His House was not—no sign had He—
By Chimney—nor by Door
Could I infer his Residence—
Vast Prairies of Air

Unbroken by a Settler—
Were all that I could see—
Infinitude—Had'st Thou no Face
That I might look on Thee?

The Silence condescended—
Creation stopped—for Me—
But awed beyond my errand—
I worshipped—did not "pray"—



-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






My Portion is Defeat—today


639

My Portion is Defeat—today—
A paler luck than Victory—
Less Paeans—fewer Bells—
The Drums don't follow Me—with tunes—
Defeat—a somewhat slower—means—
More Arduous than Balls—

'Tis populous with Bone and stain—
And Men too straight to stoop again—,
And Piles of solid Moan—
And Chips of Blank—in Boyish Eyes—
And scraps of Prayer—
And Death's surprise,
Stamped visible—in Stone—

There's somewhat prouder, over there—
The Trumpets tell it to the Air—
How different Victory
To Him who has it—and the One
Who to have had it, would have been
Contender—to die—





-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






My Reward for Being, was This


343

My Reward for Being, was This.
My premium—My Bliss—
An Admiralty, less—
A Sceptre—penniless—
And Realms—just Dross—

When Thrones accost my Hands—
With "Me, Miss, Me"—
I'll unroll Thee—
Dominions dowerless—beside this Grace—
Election—Vote—
The Ballots of Eternity, will show just that.




-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem







My River runs to thee


162

My River runs to thee—
Blue Sea! Wilt welcome me?
My River wait reply—
Oh Sea—look graciously—
I'll fetch thee Brooks
From spotted nooks—
Say—Sea—Take Me!








-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem







My Soul—accused me—And I quailed


753

My Soul—accused me—And I quailed—
As Tongue of Diamond had reviled
All else accused me—and I smiled—
My Soul—that Morning—was My friend—

Her favor—is the best Disdain
Toward Artifice of Time—or Men—
But Her Disdain—'twere lighter bear
A finger of Enamelled Fire—










-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem







My wheel is in the dark


10

My wheel is in the dark!
I cannot see a spoke
Yet know its dripping feet
Go round and round.

My foot is on the Tide!
An unfrequented road—
Yet have all roads
A clearing at the end—

Some have resigned the Loom—
Some in the busy tomb
Find quaint employ—

Some with new—stately feet—
Pass royal through the gate—
Flinging the problem back
At you and I!









-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem







My Worthiness is all my Doubt


751

My Worthiness is all my Doubt—
His Merit—all my fear—
Contrasting which, my quality
Do lowlier—appear—

Lest I should insufficient prove
For His beloved Need—
The Chiefest Apprehension
Upon my thronging Mind—

'Tis true—that Deity to stoop
Inherently incline—
For nothing higher than Itself
Itself can rest upon—

So I—the undivine abode
Of His Elect Content—
Conform my Soul—as 'twere a Church,
Unto Her Sacrament—









-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem







Myself was formed—a Carpenter


488

Myself was formed—a Carpenter—
An unpretending time
My Plane—and I, together wrought
Before a Builder came—

To measure our attainments—
Had we the Art of Boards
Sufficiently developed—He'd hire us
At Halves—

My Tools took Human—Faces—
The Bench, where we had toiled—
Against the Man—persuaded—
We—Temples build—I said—




-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem







Nature and God—I neither knew


835

Nature and God—I neither knew
Yet Both so well knew me
They startled, like Executors
Of My identity.

Yet Neither told—that I could learn—
My Secret as secure
As Herschel's private interest
Or Mercury's affair—







-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem








Nature is what we see—


"Nature" is what we see—
The Hill—the Afternoon—
Squirrel—Eclipse—the Bumble bee—
Nay—Nature is Heaven—
Nature is what we hear—
The Bobolink—the Sea—
Thunder—the Cricket—
Nay—Nature is Harmony—
Nature is what we know—
Yet have no art to say—
So impotent Our Wisdom is
To her Simplicity.




-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem








Nature rarer uses yellow


Nature rarer uses yellow
Than another hue;
Saves she all of that for sunsets,--
Prodigal of blue,

Spending scarlet like a woman,
Yellow she affords
Only scantly and selectly,
Like a lover's words.






-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem








Nature the gentlest mother is


Nature the gentlest mother is,
Impatient of no child,
The feeblest of the waywardest.
Her admonition mild

In forest and the hill
By traveller be heard,
Restraining rampant squirrel
Or too impetuous bird.

How fair her conversation
A summer afternoon,
Her household her assembly;
And when the sun go down,

Her voice among the aisles
Incite the timid prayer
Of the minutest cricket,
The most unworthy flower.

When all the children sleep,
She turns as long away
As will suffice tolight her lamps,
Then bending from the sky

With infinite affection
An infiniter care,
Her golden finger on her lip,
Wills silence everywhere.






-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






Nature—sometimes sears a Sapling


314

Nature—sometimes sears a Sapling—
Sometimes—scalps a Tree—
Her Green People recollect it
When they do not die—

Fainter Leaves—to Further Seasons—
Dumbly testify—
We—who have the Souls—
Die oftener—Not so vitally—







-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






Nature, the gentlest mother,


Nature, the gentlest mother,
Impatient of no child,
The feeblest or the waywardest,
Her admonition mild

In forest and the hill
By traveller is heard,
Restraining rampant squirrel
Or too impetuous bird.

How fair her conversation,
A summer afternoon,--
Her household, her assembly;
And when the sun goes down

Her voice among the aisles
Incites the timid prayer
Of the minutest cricket,
The most unworthy flower.

When all the children sleep
She turns as long away
As will suffice to light her lamps;
Then, bending from the sky

With infinite affection
And infiniter care,
Her golden finger on her lip,
Wills silence everywhere.









-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






Nature—sometimes sears a Sapling


314

Nature—sometimes sears a Sapling—
Sometimes—scalps a Tree—
Her Green People recollect it
When they do not die—

Fainter Leaves—to Further Seasons—
Dumbly testify—
We—who have the Souls—
Die oftener—Not so vitally—











-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






Never for Society


746

Never for Society
He shall seek in vain—
Who His own acquaintance
Cultivate—Of Men
Wiser Men may weary—
But the Man within

Never knew Satiety—
Better entertain
Than could Border Ballad—
Or Biscayan Hymn—
Neither introduction
Need You—unto Him—






-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






New feet within my garden go


99

New feet within my garden go—
New fingers stir the sod—
A Troubadour upon the Elm
Betrays the solitude.

New children play upon the green—
New Weary sleep below—
And still the pensive Spring returns—
And still the punctual snow!








-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






No Bobolink—reverse His Singing


755

No Bobolink—reverse His Singing
When the only Tree
Ever He minded occupying
By the Farmer be—

Clove to the Root—
His Spacious Future—
Best Horizon—gone—
Whose Music be His
Only Anodyne—
Brave Bobolink—







-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






No Crowd that has occurred


515

No Crowd that has occurred
Exhibit—I suppose
That General Attendance
That Resurrection—does—

Circumference be full—
The long restricted Grave
Assert her Vital Privilege—
The Dust—connect—and live—

On Atoms—features place—
All Multitudes that were
Efface in the Comparison—
As Suns—dissolve a star—

Solemnity—prevail—
Its Individual Doom
Possess each separate Consciousness—
August—Absorbed—Numb—

What Duplicate—exist—
What Parallel can be—
Of the Significance of This—
To Universe—and Me?







-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






No Man can compass a Despair


477

No Man can compass a Despair—
As round a Goalless Road
No faster than a Mile at once
The Traveller proceed—

Unconscious of the Width—
Unconscious that the Sun
Be setting on His progress—
So accurate the One

At estimating Pain—
Whose own—has just begun—
His ignorance—the Angel
That pilot Him along—






-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






No matter—now—Sweet


704

No matter—now—Sweet—
But when I'm Earl—
Won't you wish you'd spoken
To that dull Girl?

Trivial a Word—just—
Trivial—a Smile—
But won't you wish you'd spared one
When I'm Earl?

I shan't need it—then—
Crests—will do—
Eagles on my Buckles—
On my Belt—too—

Ermine—my familiar Gown—
Say—Sweet—then
Won't you wish you'd smiled—just—
Me upon?


-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






No Notice gave She, but a Change


804

No Notice gave She, but a Change—
No Message, but a Sigh—
For Whom, the Time did not suffice
That She should specify.

She was not warm, though Summer shone
Nor scrupulous of cold
Though Rime by Rime, the steady Frost
Upon Her Bosom piled—

Of shrinking ways—she did not fright
Though all the Village looked—
But held Her gravity aloft—
And met the gaze—direct—

And when adjusted like a Seed
In careful fitted Ground
Unto the Everlasting Spring
And hindered but a Mound

Her Warm return, if so she chose—
And We—imploring drew—
Removed our invitation by
As Some She never knew—



-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem






No Other can reduce


982

No Other can reduce
Our mortal Consequence
Like the remembering it be nought
A Period from hence
But Contemplation for
Contemporaneous Nought
Our Single Competition
Jehovah's Estimate.





-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem







No Prisoner be


720

No Prisoner be—
Where Liberty—
Himself—abide with Thee—








-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem








No Rack can torture me


384

No Rack can torture me—
My Soul—at Liberty—
Behind this mortal Bone
There knits a bolder One—

You cannot prick with saw—
Nor pierce with Scimitar—
Two Bodies—therefore be—
Bind One—The Other fly—

The Eagle of his Nest
No easier divest—
And gain the Sky
Than mayest Thou—

Except Thyself may be
Thine Enemy—
Captivity is Consciousness—
So's Liberty.









-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem








No Romance sold unto


669

No Romance sold unto
Could so enthrall a Man
As the perusal of
His Individual One—
'Tis Fiction's—When 'tis small enough
To Credit—'Tisn't true!










-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem








Nobody knows this little Rose


35

Nobody knows this little Rose—
It might a pilgrim be
Did I not take it from the ways
And lift it up to thee.
Only a Bee will miss it—
Only a Butterfly,
Hastening from far journey—
On its breast to lie—
Only a Bird will wonder—
Only a Breeze will sigh—
Ah Little Rose—how easy
For such as thee to die!






-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem









None can experience sting


771

None can experience sting
Who Bounty—have not known—
The fact of Famine—could not be
Except for Fact of Corn—

Want—is a meagre Art
Acquired by Reverse—
The Poverty that was not Wealth—
Cannot be Indigence.








-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem









Noon—is the Hinge of Day


931

Noon—is the Hinge of Day—
Evening—the Tissue Door—
Morning—the East compelling the sill
Till all the World is ajar—







-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem









Not


Not "Revelation"—'tis—that waits,
But our unfurnished eyes—










-- -- --



Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem









MAY "MAY DAY" MESSAGE ASSUAGE


The vast population of Mother India formed the strongest Union which could drive away the British regime out of our Mother country. I request the readers to read the following poem with a broad outlook which will go a long way in providing peace in all the aspects of life to a great extent by using the power of Unity.
THANK YOU.

Union knows how to analyse
And separate truth from lies
To achieve if Union tries
It will stop workers' cries
If an employee dies
To that spot Union flies
And brings a financial compromise
Union knows not what is cowardice
Union will make a sacrifice
And when bad things entice
Outwardly appearing to be nice
Union will calculate by being wise
And stop those bad things with enterprise
All policies it will often revise
And give a wonderful advice
It will make benefits materialise
And help all employees realise
Blessings of justice as prize
With deep love Union will surprise
Latest News it will apprise
And all schemes it will cautiously appraise
It will fight to reduce the price
And bring in wages a steep raise
By maintaining proper ties
Employees' tears, Union dries
Union is a lion, not a mice
Employees' minds it will synchronise
Union will never wrongly criticise
As union is giant in size
It will allow no force to victimize
Its employees will heap praise
Upon Union giving no extra paise
Employees' power Union will channelise
And will emerge always like sun-rise
Poor employees it will patronise
Union' strength if emplyoees rightly utilise
Upon them will fall God's eyes
All problems will melt like ice
As Union is simply God in disguise
Mainly to save all those innocent guys










-- -- --



M V Venkataraman




--> Man

[Man]

Poem








AM I A FISH IN A NET IN INTERNET ?


I have now an internet connection
About which I have now confusion
In the absence of proper clarification
I am unable to perform browsing action

Is e-mailing cost very prohibitive?
If internet is just open, is it expensive?
Can I boldly take the initiative
To utilize the internet by being active?

Will browsing hike telephone charges?
Is cost measured in terms of pages?
Will my purse suffer severe damages?
This kind of confusion really discourages.

A person's comment if I read
Too much money does it need?
If I review a person's poetic deed
Will meter run with a high speed.

When I press the button 'publish'
To send my poem written in English
Will my wealth that act diminish?
Financially will anyone punish?

Internet is an excellent mode
But it possesses in conducts certain code
If I give to it too much load
Do I have to walk on a costly road?

Is often opening internet wrong?
How long in internet can I prolong?
Really my doubts are very strong
Can I get answer for this song?

Will continued usage hike the cost?
Will huge money be by this lost?
Though scope of internet is vast
I must not regret at last

In case internet class I attend
My confusion may end
But is there any friend
Who will send suggestions that mend?

Great persons' superb articles
Will bring in life miracles
Monetary fears are acting like shackles
But every title wonderfully sparkles





-- -- --



M V Venkataraman




--> Man

[Man]

Poem








READER IS MY LEADER, COMMENTATOR IS MY MENTOR


My poems if you read
My life you will lead
Your attention I need
So I work with speed
To this if you have agreed
I will sow a poetic seed
To me you are great indeed
Can you do this small deed?
Or else mentally I will bleed
My hungry brain you only feed

I love your attention
It will help me in my ascension
Your comment is to me pension
It reduces my tension
My gratitude I now mention
My mind enjoys expansion
Only when you reveal your intention
To you I make a humble submission
To help me in my poetic mission
Open your eyes, forward me your vision

If my poems you ignore
Calling it a big bore
Such a rejection will bore
My heart with no bliss to score
How can I then write more and more?
As there will be none to adore
I want to write poems and explore
And in the poetic-Sky soar
Your encouragement will store
Peace into my mind and restore

Still if is not nice my poetry
I will feel terribly sorry
And make changes that are necessary
You only decide my glory
You only make me enter into History
My future only you really carry
To please you only I hurry
To get your attention I worry
All my ego I now totally bury
And await your glance to gain merry.





-- -- --



M V Venkataraman




--> Man

[Man]

Poem








CLIMB USING TIME TO CLAIM YOUR AIM


"Slow and steady wins the race"
Is undoubtedly a true adage
Take efforts in all the ways
To earn success as a wage
God will send His blessing rays
Then to succeed you can manage
Unite all and stop a fight
Ignite love which is right
LIght the World giving delight
If your efforts are true
God will become your servant
If kindness is your view
God makes you a savant
Every second is brand new
Says time the proud parent





-- -- --



M V Venkataraman




--> Man

[Man]

Poem






I PRAY FOR NOTHING BUT


I pray for

Neither more knowledge

Nor more wisdom



I pray neither more power to my

Arm

Nor more might to my
sword



I pray neither more creativity

To my pen!

Nor more divinity to my
soul



As all such virtues you lord

Already imparted on to me

By virtue of being your devote child



I only end up to pray

To imbibe the will power

To proceed further!



I only end up to pray

To imbibe that buoyancy

To rock the world further!



As I lost the same off late

Under the evils of Democracy!

In the depth of the confluence of

Decadent and debauched souls!



Under the influence of currency and crooked

Money power!



Salvage my lord!

As my self conviction half way down under

In the quick sand



Reach my hand to lift my ducked morale

Reach my heart to imbibe the will!






-- -- --



Krishna Baalu




--> Man

[Man]

Poem






Companion!



A GIRL

In teens her heart seeks a boy;

Not necessarily handsome!

But surely with a heart tender enough to love her for ever!

Bold enough to live life together!



That what she seeks from him

A cajole so warm but be strong

Never loosen it till end!



A BOY

In teens his heart seeks a girl;

Beside her beauty and charm

Seeks her grace as well



As
it is she through out life

Bears that hot cup forever but drops never!

The mental endurance that what she keeps

That what he seeks



Together;

That what maketh
the life.




-- -- --



Krishna Baalu




--> Man

[Man]

Poem






REGRET!



Regret!

Plenty and bountiful!

Every one has his own

Me, for missing my Blue Label in Mumbai

Despite bountiful



The shepherd boy

On the top of the mud hill

Staring at the setting sun

Had his own!

for not having taken birth in affluent lands!



At the middle age many regret

After having met a nice lady

Or a handsome man in a pub!

Our doses of regret pour in;



“I wish I met you earlier

Ha, a couple of decades ago”?



In the passing age of caste and creed

Our kids have their own

For having taken birth here! Not there!

Having lost something precious!

For having to work too hard on their brains!



The veteran political leaders in their 80’s

Longing for the elections to come

For not having taken birth a little late!



We console ourselves as

Destiny or fate!

Not realizing the transcendental truth!



If every wish and will is fulfilled

If every attempt is accomplished
if things fall in our marked places
Then;

God would have regretted

For failing the creation




-- -- --



Krishna Baalu




--> Man

[Man]

Poem






The airport hymn



May the lord smile on you

As you check-in with haste

For a flight is a chance

To sample and taste



Not the food on offer

That’s such a ponderous task

Can it be any less palatable?

One can just helplessly ask



With portions so small

They could plead a minority case

And ask for the reservation

Of being spared the human face



Save us the airhostess’s warmth

And spare us her ‘honest’ smile

She knows she has to put up with you

And it’s going to be quite a while



The in flight entertainment is a promise

Very few airlines can actually keep

In most cases it’s only the safety procedures

And those make you cower and weep



Turbulence is a constant companion

That usually stirs things on deck

And it doesn’t really help your case

If you happen to be a nervous wreck



The in flight magazine is immersed

With pointless ads till it spills over

The only content worth reading

Is usually the title on the cover




That brings you to the people

You rub elbows with during the flight

Usually your fate is so disgustingly rotten

That random selection can seem to do no right



The cell phone conversations are not put off

Until the release of the very last sound byte

You’d guess the world would stop on its axis

If that conversation didn’t turn out just right



They will plunder your books and shake your faith

In human nature for the rest of time

And drool so much on your shoulder in their sleep

That you pray it be made a punishable crime



They will bustle you when the flight lands

And rush off to make the door

Lining up with furious intent

Like there is an Olympic race in store



But enough slandering of our fellow passengers

Not all of them are so mortally bad

Some of them just might, just might

Be the most interesting company you’ve ever had



For nothing excites a human more

Than meeting an attractive stranger in the air

For this is what they call a flight of fancy

And then everything henceforth seems utterly fair



The food seems nice, the temperatures just right

And people develop halos around their head

Before long even the stoutest resolve will find

He will like the very things he did once dread



That’s why they have the seatbelt my lord

And now it has dawned on me

It’s to contain our generous paunches

When an angel comes to set us free



So help me suck in my stomach my lord

We don’t want to scare her now

It’s only an optical illusion I ask for

That will improve my chances and how



I have asked with great frugality, dear one

Whenever I have flown under your watch

All I ask is a seat next to an angel my lord

And that I prefer to vintage scotch



-- -- --



Vinay Kanchan




--> Man

[Man]

Poem



The curse of a clown


Tags: tragic humor unsung heroes painful smiles


I have had a gift, for a considerable while

The blessing of making others smile

It gives me joy to think this true

That your problems seem less, as I talk to you



It started early when I was at school

I was always bright, but more played the fool

When friends wanted to grieve a lesser mark

I was the most preferred shoulder in the park



My ebullient state led others believe

Nothing can happen, that this man shall grieve

When there were times myself, I needed to vent

Could anyone suffice? I was always the ‘angel sent’



So disappointment forgot to pause my face

Failures were buried without a trace

Making others laugh became my sole desire

And cheerful disposition overcame passionate fire




The lilt of your laugh still rings in my head

When your eyes sparkled, my blood turned red

Was it some cruel joke from up above?

That a clown wasn’t supposed to find love?



You went away; I could only sport a grin

Had to be a man and take it on the chin

But night past night, I frantically awoke

Not all that I had told you was a joke



I moved on in life, one had to play

This game on earth, it’s going to be a long stay

Everyone assumed ‘he is fine and merry’

The truth though was a touch more scary







When things go wrong I often ask?

How long can I keep up this theatric mask?

Tears seem to have forgotten their arduous way

And a perennial smile looks set for a long stay



The moods are down, they look at me

To say something that might set them free

Grief and sorrow are tenants that worry

And most people want to see them leave in a hurry



Making others smile sometimes makes it better

My own pent up emotion at times it does unfetter

But even a clown can’t live in the morbid fear

That’s things would change if he were to shed a tear



-- -- --



Vinay Kanchan




--> Man

[Man]

Poem



We're all magicians here!



Making things come alive

Seemingly out of thin air

Playing to the crowded house

Bowing to their applause



Painted face lit up with a smile

Un-flinching when there’s no response

Moving on deft to the next round

There are crates of tricks left to unfold



Song and dance and bright costumes

Pretty girls in nice lil skirts

Making the audience sit up and watch

When late in the night, they stifle their yawn



Doing a vanishing act

Making elephants come on stage

Slicing someone in two halves

Anything, anything for a glance



We’re all performers here

Playing to a gallery

It’s pure showmanship

What may seem not be true



It’s all just fun

A laugh or two at the end

It’s all there is to it

We’re all magicians here



Out of thin air, we appear

Like hot air balloons we rise up

Anything, anything for some praise

It’s all for applause, pure showmanship!




-- -- --



Bitter Sweet




--> Man

[Man]

Poem



Bitter-sweet!


Brevity




Some wise man said

It’s the soul of wit


I do agree

Whole-heartedly


Coz I’m plain lazy!




-- -- --



Bitter Sweet




--> Man

[Man]

Poem



Bitter-sweet!


Laziness



I would’ve composed

A fine love-song


I would’ve built

a Taj Mahal


For your love, anything, I'll say!



-- -- --



Bitter Sweet




--> Man

[Man]

Poem



Bitter-sweet!


Free Speech



I speak from my heart

For I know not how to read!


Serves you right too

Coz you didn’t use your head!


When with your fingers, you pushed me into power!









-- -- --



Bitter Sweet




--> Man

[Man]

Poem



Bitter-sweet!


Power



The more corrupt we are

The more powerful we become


Let’s all be corrupt

And make our nation the greatest


We’re well on our way!





-- -- --



Bitter Sweet




--> Man

[Man]

Poem



Bitter-sweet!


The Way



Give a man the earth

He’ll blow it apart in minutes


Billions of years of civilization

He’ll raze to dust in seconds


And he’ll call it progress!



-- -- --



Bitter Sweet




--> Man

[Man]

Poem





love and lie!

to my wife on her birthday!

Love and lie goes hand in hand!



When you came into my life,
I promised you a bunglow,
you knew, I lied,
and you cried!

Few years had passed ,
I promised you a car,
you knew ,I lied,
we really fought a war!

Then on your birthday,
I promised you a dress,
you knew, I lied,
you were not impressed.

On this valentine day,
I promised you a necklace,
you knew, I lied,
you made a wild face!

Your mysterious smile,
whenever I lied,
made me rejoice,
for I knew, you heard my inner voice!

This sweet lie in love,
is our world , my beloved.
whatever I said was a lie,
but I am yours forever,
even if I die !!



-- -- --



Ajit Nambiar




--> Man

Click On The Picture To Enlarge

[Man]

Poem





A Moon-Like Essence





The moon appears

And brings its cheer

to skies both dark and light.



It is not blue

So why should you

Wear a saddened face?



You have a moon-like essence

Where sun is always present.

Why not be always pleasant?

You are a moon, sweet soul.



Don't just know your dark side.

Always see your bright side.

Make your life a wild ride;

Hitch the light onto your heart.



Set your heart a riding.

Don't keep it in hiding.

In love remain abiding.

In love remain immersed.



Love's the call to action.

Nothing are you lacking.

No time left for slacking.

Reflect the glorious sun.





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

With love and respect,


Harry and Helen

-- -- --



Harry Kottler




--> Man

[Man]

Poem





Yesterday She Smiled!


Yesterday would have been long gone,

Forgotten, lost.

Filed away somewhere.

Never to be ever recalled.

Never to be ever remembered.

Till she smiled!



Yesterday I had almost buried.

Buried, banished

Within the pile of everydays,

It was almost dull.

It was almost dreary.

Till she smiled!



Yesterday is etched in my memory for eternity,

Cherished, treasured.

To be recollected over and over again.

It is most precious.

It is most prized.

For Yesterday she smiled!



Yesterday, her smile changed my world.

Toothless, guileless,

Warming my heart, bringing tears to my eyes.

It was Magic!

It was a Miracle,

To see my Child smile the very first time.



-- -- --



Rutuja Joshi




--> Man

[Man]

Poem





On the prospect of planting arts and learning in America

THE Muse, disgusted at an Age and Clime
Barren of every glorious Theme,
In distant Lands now waits a better Time,
Producing subjects worthy Fame;

In happy climes, where from the genial un
And virgin earth such scenes ensue,
The force of art by nature seems outdone,
And fancied beauties by the true:

There shall be sung another golden age,
The rise of empire and of arts,
The good and great inspiring epic rage,
The wisest heads and noblest hearts.

Not such as Europe breeds in her decay;
Such as she bred when fresh and young,
When heav'nly flame did animate her clay,
By future poets shall be sung.

Westward the course of empire takes its way;
The four first Acts already past,
A fifth shall close the drama with the day;
Time's noblest offspring is the last.



-- -- --



George Berkley, Bishop of Cloyne



--> Man

[Man]

Poem





Little Nell's Funeral
some reformatted paragraphs from The Old Curiosity Shop



And now the bell, -- the bell
She had so often heard by night and day
And listened to with solemn pleasure,
E'en as a living voice, --
Rung its remorseless toll for her,
So young, so beautiful, so good.

Decrepit age, and vigorous life,
And blooming youth, and helpless infancy,
Poured forth, -- on crutches, in the pride of strength
And health, in the full blush
Of promise, the mere dawn of life, --
To gather round her tomb. Old men were there,
Whose eyes were dim
And senses failing, --
Grandames, who might have died ten years ago,
And still been old, -- the deaf, the blind, the lame,
The palsied,
The living dead in many shapes and forms,
To see the closing of this early grave.
What was the death it would shut in,
To that which still could crawl and keep above it!

Along the crowded path they bore her now;
Pure as the new fallen snow
That covered it; whose day on earth
Had been as fleeting.
Under that porch, where she had sat when Heaven
In mercy brought her to that peaceful spot,
She passed again, and the old church
Received her in its quiet shade.

They carried her to one old nook,
Where she had many and many a time sat musing,
And laid their burden softly on the pavement.
The light streamed on it through
The colored window, -- a window where the boughs
Of trees were ever rustling
In the summer, and where the birds
Sang sweetly all day long.



-- -- --



Charles Dickens



--> Man

[Man]

Poem





Rhymes (?)

MY life -- to Discontent a prey --
Is in the sere and yellow leaf.
'Tis vain for happiness to pray:
No solace brings my heart relief.
My pulse is weak, my spirit low;
I cannot think, I cannot write.
I strive to spin a verse -- but lo!
My rhymes are very rarely right.

I sit within my lowly cell,
And strive to court the comic Muse;
But how can Poesy excel,
With such a row from yonder mews?
In accents passionately high
The carter chides the stubborn horse;
And shouts a 'Gee!' or yells a 'Hi!'
In tones objectionably hoarse.

In vain for Poesy I wait;
No comic Muse my call obeys.
My brains are loaded with a weight
That mocks the laurels and the bays.
I wish my brains could only be
Inspired with industry anew;
And labour like the busy bee,
In strains no Genius ever knew.

Although I strive with all my might,
Alas, my efforts all are vain!
I've no afflatus -- not a mite;
I cannot work the comic vein.
The Tragic Muse may hear my pleas,
And waft me to a purer clime.
Melpomene! assist me, please,
To somewhat higher heights to climb.




-- -- --



Henry S. Leigh



--> Man

[Man]

Poem





Early Morning Rush


A sense of urgency in the air

People getting ready hastily

To become a part and parcel

Of the early morning rush

A river of humanity suddenly

Converging towards the trains

Underground and the buses above

And cars and taxicabs all rushing

A myriad of faces and colors

Forging variegated patterns

In a frenzy in the sun

Different hues merging and parting

All seeking their own destinations

Kaleidoscope like forming patterns

First of hodge-podge confusion

And then a kind of sense.



When patterns are broken, new worlds can emerge.
Tuli Kupferberg

A cloud does not know why it moves in just such a
direction and at such a speed, it feels an impulsion...
.this is the place to go now. But the sky knows the reason
and the patterns behind all clouds, and you will know, too,
when you lift yourself high enough to see beyond horizons.
Source Unknown






-- -- --



Bina Gupta


--> Man

[Man]

Poem





Where do I belong

I do not know,

Where do I belong?

Though this is the land

Where I was born.

Without ant prior notice

In any form.

Mobility is in my nature

And so I keep on moving.

From one place to another

Without any stopping.

From structure to structure

I jump and fly

From emotions to pain

I run and gain

I keep on moving in search of truth

Without any fooding or any fruit.

But still I move on in my self discovery

Of fining the origin of such a maverick

And still I am lost

And alone in this world

And still I do not know:

Who am I?

Or

Where do I belong?




-- -- --



Souryeya


--> Man

[Man]

Poem





Gatherings


Gatherings increases -

As the train submerged below the earth proceeds ahead.

Every now and again it reaches a stop,

People board and leave the train,

Many reach their destination,

But the train never reaches its destiny.

Racing at a jet speed,

Making its way ahead, and

Cutting the air like a blade.

It reaches its terminal again and again,

Never stopping to take a breath.

Its journey never ends nor stops,

Nor does it ever get exhausted.

The only thing that bothers him a lot:

That whether he has a destination at all?



-- -- --



Souryeya


--> Man

[Man]

Poem





TERRIBLE FIGHT



The drunkard entered the bar
And shouted to bar tender:
“Give me a double shot, quick”
“What is the matter” asked bar tender.
Drunkard said :“I will tell you. I am
Going to get into the bloodiest fight
You have ever seen.”

Drink was given
And the drunkard gulped it down.
“Can I use your phone?”asked the drunkard.
“Go ahead”, said bar tender.
Drunkard called out on phone:
“Doctor, stay in your clinic
And be ready for an emergency.
There is going to be a terrible fight in the bar.”

Hanging up, he asked bar tender
For another double shot.
“O what a terrible battle
You are going to see “ he added.
Bar tender asked him
With whom he was going to fight.
Drunkard replied:
“You ! I am not going to pay
For the drinks”


-- -- --



K V A Kutty



--> Man

[Man]

Poem





AT THE ZOO



The zoo had many different
Kinds of animals, birds, reptiles
And other strange species
In abundance.

Large number of visitors
Mostly families with children
Were moving excitedly
From one enclosure to another.

A child saw a deer, but could
Not recall its name.
Child asked the keeper
What animal it was.

Keeper told child:
“What does your mother
Call your father
Every morning?”

Child said:
“Don’t tell me
That animal is
A skunk”

-- -- --



K V A Kutty


--> Man

[Man]

Poem





WRITER


In the writers club
Members were discussing.

A stranger, middle aged,
With unkempt hair
Walked in.
He introduced himself
As a great writer.

He was asked:
“What have you written?”
He replied:
“I have just completed
Writing Hamlet.”

They asked him
Did you ever hear of a guy
Called William Shakespeare?

Visitor replied:
“Is it not strange!
They asked me the same question
When I completed
Writing Macbeth”



-- -- --



K V A kutty


--> Man

[Man]

Poem





MODEL EMPLOYEE




The model employee
Has been with company
For over twenty years
Never late, never absent,
Never complaining.

One day for first time
He reached office late
Scratched and bruised,
Clothes torn and soiled.

“How come, you are late”
Asked the boss. He said:
"When I was crossing road,
I was knocked down by a bus
Run over by a two wheeler
And dragged twenty feet."

Boss remarked without
Change in facial expression:
“And that took two hours!”


-- -- --



K V A kutty


--> Man

[Man]

Poem





WHAT DO YOU SEE?



Sherlock Holmes and Dr.Watson
Went on a camping tour.

After supper they drank a bottle
Of wine each to beat the cold.
Both went to sleep

Two hours later Holmes
Called Watson and said
“Watson , Look up and
Tell me what you see”

Watson said “ I see
A clear sky with millions
Of little stars twinkling,
Indicating we will have
A bright day tomorrow.

Holmes said “Dr. Watson!
And you never noticed
That it is because
Our tent has been stolen”


-- -- --



K V A Kutty



--> Man

[Man]

Poem





Hug of Life

A hug is just a way to say,
I love you in a special way,
To tell that someone special,
I care about you in every way.

When you shed a tender tear
a hug is sure to be near.
When you're trembling in fear
a hug will come from someone dear.

Wrap your arms around someone near
for in your hug is the circle of life.
A new beginning to an endless day
A ray of hope to light your way.

Take a hug and pass it on
Don't save them up - it can't be done.
Share them with family and friends,
share them whenever you can.



-- -- --



~Stephanie Shawer




--> Man

[Man]

Poem




If One Sees This Beauty


if one sees this beauty -
the beauty not in one object
but in all things seen and unseen;
if one can see this beauty
and not make a memory of it
and not make a symbol of it;
then what need is there for all our
divisions and systems
religions and philosophies
and ideologies?


for this living beauty,
this presence
this beauty that is renewed every
minute in oneself;
this beauty self-contained
and yet in all things
and nameless, formless and unconditioned
not seized with hands or heart or mind or words;
that is what is

everything else but a symbol,
a finger pointing to what is;
this beauty one sees


-- -- --



~Raj Arumugam




--> Man

Click On The Picture To Enlarge

[Man]

Poem




THE HAPPY GENES PRAYER


dedicated to caregivers - everywhere!





Dear Lord, she begged,

with a worn-out sigh -

Please grant me a

happy gene pair.



My store’s depleted

I’m down to the dregs

I just have no

fresh ones to wear.



Some are stretched,

to the limit, of patience;

Some are frayed, at the

tempers, see the tear?



Some moan-washed,

some whine stained, some

frazzled beyond repair -

When I wear these,

the neighbours do stare.



I have patched some,

with remnants, of humour.

I have steam pressed,

The wrinkles, with care.



But they wilt oh-so fast,

under heavy-duty stress,

I seem to have

run out, of spares.



“Why so broody,

why so glum?

Put the smiling face again,”

So easy for them to declare –



They know not my fears

They know not the strains

that have ravaged

my smiles into glares.



Being calm and serene

Is all that I seek;

To serve with a smile

Is my prayer --



I beg thee my Lord,

my cells to recharge;

Please grant me

that happy gene pair!





-- -- --



~Anjalambal




--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Mothers & Daughters -1



(Mother has dropped in to visit daughter, a busy, software professional )





Must you, Mother?





Mother, dear mother!

At times, not-so-dear, mother.



Mother, have you come,

to inspect the grills?

…Again?



You wait for me, mother,

In the drawing-room balcony

While I finish my bath –



Admiring, I hope,

my plants? The view?



And as I come,

Towards you,

Toweling my hair,

Smiling a welcome,



I see you -

running a finger

over the grills,

twice.



You turn the finger

towards the light.

Did you smile mother?

Smugly? I wonder.



You aren’t even furtive!

You have forgotten, mother,

The French window-

glass is clear, one way.



I love you mother!

But… must you?





-- -- --



~Anjalambal




--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Angel Eyes 'n Sweethearts

thoughts black eyes love romance




I have never seen the sunlight so bright;
To loose myself to you, a wish, I might!

I have hardly felt the thorn in the rose;
To merge into the magic black of ye'r eyes, so close!

I have never melted in a glance, so subtle;
To look into you, you can make me, little-by-little!

Of angel eyes and sweethearts, I have bled in black;
To look into you, I have found a soul, a shine, for me to come back!

A black that hides, that's sad, yet that reflects;
Every colour, every shade, every smile, a life that deflects!

You have infused life, inspired the heavenly blue,
Although life had made me a retard, to whisper to you, I never needed a clue!

Of setting suns, and sweet lies, I had let the full moon burn,
I just let my heart drown, in your melting eyes, and left the memories that churn!

No lies, no truth, no hidden faces, with emotions unmasked,
You came to me in this falll, just like a ruby in the dust!!

-- -- --



~Dream Pedlar




--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Not "Revelation"—'tis—that waits


685

Not "Revelation"—'tis—that waits,
But our unfurnished eyes—




-- -- --



~Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Not all die early, dying young


990

Not all die early, dying young—
Maturity of Fate
Is consummated equally
In Ages, or a Night—

A Hoary Boy, I've known to drop
Whole statured—by the side
Of Junior of Fourscore—'twas Act
Not Period—that died.







-- -- --



~Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Not in this world to see his face


Not in this world to see his face
Sounds long, until I read the place
Where this is said to be
But just the primer to a life
Unopened, rare, upon the shelf,
Clasped yet to him and me.

And yet, my primer suits me so
I would not choose a book to know
Than that, be sweeter wise;
Might some one else so learned be.
And leave me just my A B C,
Himself could have the skies.








-- -- --



~Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Not probable—The barest Chance


346

Not probable—The barest Chance—
A smile too few—a word too much
And far from Heaven as the Rest—
The Soul so close on Paradise—

What if the Bird from journey far—
Confused by Sweets—as Mortals—are—
Forget the secret of His wing
And perish—but a Bough between—
Oh, Groping feet—
Oh Phantom Queen!











-- -- --



~Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Not that We did, shall be the test


823

Not that We did, shall be the test
When Act and Will are done
But what Our Lord infers We would
Had We diviner been—






-- -- --



~Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Of all the souls that stand create


Of all the souls that stand create
I have elected one.
When sense from spirit files away,
And subterfuge is done;

When that which is and that which was
Apart, intrinsic, stand,
And this brief tragedy of flesh
Is shifted like a sand;

When figures show their royal front
And mists are carved sway,--
Behold the atom I Feferred
To all the lists of clay!





-- -- --



~Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Of all the Sounds despatched abroad


321

Of all the Sounds despatched abroad,
There's not a Charge to me
Like that old measure in the Boughs—
That phraseless Melody—
The Wind does—working like a Hand,
Whose fingers Comb the Sky—
Then quiver down—with tufts of Tune—
Permitted Gods, and me—

Inheritance, it is, to us—
Beyond the Art to Earn—
Beyond the trait to take away
By Robber, since the Gain
Is gotten not of fingers—
And inner than the Bone—
Hid golden, for the whole of Days,
And even in the Urn,
I cannot vouch the merry Dust
Do not arise and play
In some odd fashion of its own,
Some quainter Holiday,
When Winds go round and round in Bands—
And thrum upon the door,
And Birds take places, overhead,
To bear them Orchestra.

I crave Him grace of Summer Boughs,
If such an Outcast be—
Who never heard that fleshless Chant—
Rise—solemn—on the Tree,
As if some Caravan of Sound
Off Deserts, in the Sky,
Had parted Rank,
Then knit, and swept—
In Seamless Company—





-- -- --



~Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Of Being is a Bird


653

Of Being is a Bird
The likest to the Down
An Easy Breeze do put afloat
The General Heavens—upon—

It soars—and shifts—and whirls—
And measures with the Clouds
In easy—even—dazzling pace—
No different the Birds—

Except a Wake of Music
Accompany their feet—
As did the Down emit a Tune—
For Ecstasy—of it




-- -- --



~Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem





Of Bronze—and Blaze


290

Of Bronze—and Blaze—
The North—Tonight—
So adequate—it forms—
So preconcerted with itself—
So distant—to alarms—
And Unconcern so sovereign
To Universe, or me—
Infects my simple spirit
With Taints of Majesty—
Till I take vaster attitudes—
And strut upon my stem—
Disdaining Men, and Oxygen,
For Arrogance of them—

My Splendors, are Menagerie—
But their Completeless Show
Will entertain the Centuries
When I, am long ago,
An Island in dishonored Grass—
Whom none but Beetles—know.




-- -- --



~Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem





Of Brussels—it was not


602

Of Brussels—it was not—
Of Kidderminster? Nay—
The Winds did buy it of the Woods—
They—sold it unto me

It was a gentle price—
The poorest—could afford—
It was within the frugal purse
Of Beggar—or of Bird—

Of small and spicy Yards—
In hue—a mellow Dun—
Of Sunshine—and of Sere—Composed—
But, principally—of Sun—

The Wind—unrolled it fast—
And spread it on the Ground—
Upholsterer of the Pines—is He—
Upholsterer—of the Pond—








-- -- --



~Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem





Of Consciousness, her awful Mate


894

Of Consciousness, her awful Mate
The Soul cannot be rid—
As easy the secreting her
Behind the Eyes of God.

The deepest hid is sighted first
And scant to Him the Crowd—
What triple Lenses burn upon
The Escapade from God—








-- -- --



~Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem



Of Course—I prayed

To leave me in the Atom's Tomb—
Merry, and Nought, and gay, and numb—
Than this smart Misery.





-- -- --



~Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem



Of nearness to her sundered Things


607

Of nearness to her sundered Things
The Soul has special times—
When Dimness—looks the Oddity—
Distinctness—easy—seems—

The Shapes we buried, dwell about,
Familiar, in the Rooms—
Untarnished by the Sepulchre,
The Mouldering Playmate comes—

In just the Jacket that he wore—
Long buttoned in the Mold
Since we—old mornings, Children—played—
Divided—by a world—

The Grave yields back her Robberies—
The Years, our pilfered Things—
Bright Knots of Apparitions
Salute us, with their wings—

As we—it were—that perished—
Themself—had just remained till we rejoin them—
And 'twas they, and not ourself
That mourned.







-- -- --



~Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem



Of Silken Speech and Specious Shoe


896

Of Silken Speech and Specious Shoe
A Traitor is the Bee
His service to the newest Grace
Present continually

His Suit a chance
His Troth a Term
Protracted as the Breeze
Continual Ban propoundeth He
Continual Divorce.




-- -- --



~Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Of Tolling Bell I ask the cause?


947

Of Tolling Bell I ask the cause?
"A Soul has gone to Heaven"
I'm answered in a lonesome tone—
Is Heaven then a Prison?

That Bells should ring till all should know
A Soul had gone to Heaven
Would seem to me the more the way
A Good News should be given.



-- -- --



~Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Of Tribulation, these are They


325

Of Tribulation, These are They,
Denoted by the White—
The Spangled Gowns, a lesser Rank
Of Victors—designate—

All these—did conquer—
But the ones who overcame most times—
Wear nothing commoner than Snow—
No Ornament, but Palms—

Surrender—is a sort unknown—
On this superior soil—
Defeat—an outgrown Anguish—
Remembered, as the Mile

Our panting Ankle barely passed—
When Night devoured the Road—
But we—stood whispering in the House—
And all we said—was "Saved"!





-- -- --



~Emily Dickinson



--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Rose


One petal falls
I am sad
Another finds refuge amongst the thorns
Two petals fall
I am glad
They have fulfilled their destiny
One rose wilts
is gone forever more
Another rose grows
Bright and tall.




-- -- --



~BenJarmin



--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Supermum


She's a modern day wonder, her family’s delight.
She takes pride in ensuring that everything's right.
Her dishes all sparkle, her furniture gleams,
Her walls and her floors are all spotlessly clean.
Her lawn is cut neatly, her garden's a treat.
She bakes cakes superbly, her meals can't be beat.
Her husband is thoughtful, her children are dears,
Who never give way to those tantrums and tears.
She dresses so smartly and always looks neat,
You'd never find slippers or thongs on her feet.
She's a modern day wonder - now why can't I be
Just like that woman I see on T.V




-- -- --



~Tristeagan



--> Man

[Man]

Poem




The 8 Second Ride

The dust has settled on another rodeo
But there's soon another one on the go
He packs his spurs, his vest and his chaps
And his well worn cowboy hat
We travel from dawn to dusk
Always getting lost and in a rut
We arrive at the grounds
The entry tent is found

The bulls are drawn
The cowboys name is called out
He's focusing on the 8 seconds without a doubt
The bull's in the ****e
He's got his spurs on his dusty boots

They pull his rope
And he leans back
and calls, "Lets out boys"
That's what rodeos are all about
The bull bucks and spins
The cowboy is focussed on a win
He hangs on tight
And puts up a fair fight

He loses his grip, and begins to slip
And it's over just 7 seconds out
He may not have made it, but he's still alive
But the cowboy knows one thing
He's grateful for the chance of the 8 second ride.

I wrote this for my boyfriend - he loves competing in the rodeos.




-- -- --



~MELLYR2



--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Have a Nice Day


How was your rushed toast today?
Nice and blackened like your ashtray?
And that smoke you're having in your car
You know that each one contains Nicotine and Tar?
Just like the road which your car's driving on
It's pretty much the same as what's going into your lungs
Beep! Beep! Hey! That guy just cut you off!
You swear words at him as your smoke makes you cough
It falls from your mouth and onto your knee
Help! Fire! It's burning me!
You're angered with rage
Your face is bright red
That guy should not have messed with your head
And with one last thought your foot hits pedal
That guy's gotta pay!
Crash! Metal hits metal
The rage has now gone as you look at the damage you've done
The guy you just hit, gets out of his car and now here he comes!
You realise that the guy is your boss and he looks very mad
You say, "Have a nice day," and speed off as fast as you can!



-- -- --



~ Simplyme



--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Love


I only see you now and then
And it's not enough for me
I want to be with only you
Is that so hard to see?

I think about you constantly
You're always on my mind
You are the very best
I will ever find

I think of all the things you do
And all the things you say
I love every little thing about you
In every little way

I hope by reading this
You will finally see
Just how much I love you
And how much you mean to me.



-- -- --



~ Tashcat



--> Man

[Man]

Poem




True Love


I’ll travel the desert sands,
And swim through all the seas.
I’ll fly to the heavens above,
And climb the highest trees.

You are the sweetest of them all,
And I’ll always cherish the way you are.
I’ll run all the roads,
No matter how long or far.

I’ll climb the highest mountains,
And break through the hardest wall,
I’ll do all this for you,
And so much



-- -- --



~ Kizzababe



--> Man

[Man]

Poem




A Fraction of My Love


A is for always being there whenever I needed you
N is for never forgetting to call
T is for teaching me what it feels like to really be loved
H is for hugging me with love, warmth and tenderness
O is for only loving you
N is for noodles
Y is for yesterday's memories
And Anthony is the man who has my heart and devotion.



-- -- --



~ Paulette



--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Tuppy


My name is Tuppy
And I'm not a puppy.
I'm a cat, who's not fat
And that's a fact.
I like to purr
And clean my fur.
I like to play
If possible all day.
I like to run
And have lots of fun.
I try to be good like I know I should.
I like to knit
But my owner has a fit.
I like to type
But my owner gets uptight.
I like to paint
But my owner faints.
I like to read
But my owner gets peeved.
I'm told I'm bad
When my owner gets mad.
But that's not sad
I was born to be bad!



-- -- --



~ Tuppy1957



--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Yellow


Look at the stars,

Don’t say they don’t shine for you

Trust in everything you do

So yellow



Look at the sun,

Just a big round pool of gold, no, don’t burn

No, don’t run

Just watch it turn

So yellow



I come around

At every instance, at every sound

I search for the shape of your face

Stole you something of a grace

Drink it in,

So yellow



I sang a song

I wrote a rhyme for you

And for everything you do

So yellow



And you skin, and your skin and bones

And you’re here, and now you are gone

Like a touch, I feel

For you I bleed

Myself dry



No, don’t ask me to stop

No, don’t ask me why

Because I’ll bleed myself dry

I jump across even when I’ll die

For you I’ll bleed myself dry

Don’t cry

I’ll still bleed myself dry



So yellow



-- -- --



~ Supriya D.,



--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Pause, Hit Rewind

Find me a lonely corner

Let me lie there blank eyed

Borrow my dreams,

I will part with them with enviable ease

Still born in one such moment

Let me build me some reprieve;

Talking endlessly now I’m tired whoring with words

Playing so many roles, I’m disgusted with my acts

In consummate sin of wanting more

I saw me perish in some stellar glory

Pause, hit rewind,

Just make me forget this story.



In inimitable grandeur

I have seen some lives turn asunder

In twisted discernment I have taken some leaps

And landed on a heap

Of unmerciful shadows of haunting promises

I failed to keep to myself;

Stood so tall sometimes, that stooping as low

In equal measure

Turned into a dream

I couldn’t dare to dream

Empty eyed, rankling of a dogged belief

Still pursuing a certain death in my suicidal leaps



Why, what, where and who

Sometimes in love with me, sometimes in love with you

Not understanding but never hesitant

In a threadbare dress of vulnerability;

Not letting me ease and jumping into the grind

Trusting in my innate ability

To foresee and forestall

Angry lashes, cruel strokes

Irreversible decisions, pure myths, broke

Made noise around me, as they fell

Finally

The thing I never dared to say

Cast in the deep water of my own ire

Dumbly I hear me mumble, I tire



Just a lonely corner to sit and forget

All the things I attempted, all lame words I said

All the dangers I whored, all the backlog of regret

All the need to posture, at being perfect

Steeling my back, all the hurt I tried to deflect



No remembrance, no glory

Pause, hit rewind

Just make me forget this story.



-- -- --



~ Supriya D.,



--> Man

[Man]

Poem




The Truth is...



I lie

Most times to you

And at all times to me

And I know I see

And I know you see

How two lying eyes

Can never make us believe

That there isn’t some spark

That makes me come alive

Even when you have never been at my side



Unspeakable, this crime of the heart

Staying within me like a venom

Waking me up with a start

Madness, such sweet extreme

Ruining my sense of discretion;

You think I can ever weed you out?

Just look at me once, and make me doubt

In everything that I choose

To strike out my wayward muse

From my bones and my breath;

Longing for your just one kiss

I kiss you full and I catch my death



Truth is...

I have made peace

In loving you

And I have sought a redeeming grace

In searching for me in the lines on your face

And blotting you on the tip of my fingers;



I have called you, love

In distant memories I found your traces

Some benign dilemma;



Truth is...

You’re enough






-- -- --



~ Supriya D.,



--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Stages of Man



The new-born babe helplessly lies

In mother’s lap, most of the time;

For nursing, care and love, it cries –

Before slumber, ‘lullaby’ rhyme.



Like frisking lambs, all children play,

And wear a smile on face always,

And jump about with joy all day,

And cry in sympathetic ways.



The adolescent questions much,

Disobeying and works with fuss,

Refusing house-hold chores to touch,

And does most things under duress.



The adult stands on his own feet;

None can advise him/ her with ease;

Deciding what and when to eat,

As trials come, to spoil the peace.



But old-age mellows everyone!

The hunch-backed frame is slow and weak;

While daily jobs are left half-done,

For help, they always others seek!



From womb to tomb, this is what’s man;

Even the mighty ones turn calm,

Whatever be their earthly span;

They turn to God for heart’s-soul’s balm!








-- -- --



~ Dr John Celes



--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Our Mother Dear



Most lovely mother, you had been,

Whose love, unfailing, world had seen;

And duty-bound wife to father;

How lucky, we were all, rather!



Now old and wizened in life’s ways,

You pass your few remaining days;

With accomplished, still bright, a face –

A role-model for us, always!



Lord Jesus Christ awaits you, mom –

A righteous, precious, soul belov’d;

With gifts, rewards, priceless, handsome;

True Marian, Christian, you have proved.



Your prayers have gone to heaven –

You have children of grand-children;

The Lord is calling you from nigh;

That day, you’ll wish to earth, ‘Good-bye!’



“But that will be for just awhile!

We will all meet again, in style!”



Fondly dedicated to our loving mother,

Mrs. Stella Antoniswami, ‘Old Chungam’, CBE.




-- -- --



~ Dr John Celes



--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Ballad: Pope Benedict XVI in US, 2008



The Apostle of peace had come:

Pope Benedict by name;

To US, where he was welcome,

With missionary aim.



‘Let faith in earthly life, God find;

Christ is the only hope,

For modern world, and all mankind,’

Said Benedict, the Pope.



In doldrums lies, world of today;

Man’s faith in God is weak;

Most think that science has final say;

So, God, most men don’t seek.



‘Let faith in earthly life, God find;

Christ is the only hope,

For modern world, and all mankind,’

Said Benedict, the Pope.



The family in danger lies;

Now love does not prevail;

As virtues are replaced by vice;

And freedom blows like gale.



‘Let faith in earthly life, God find;

Christ is the only hope,

For modern world, and all mankind,’

Said Benedict, the Pope.



The quest for God is dying fast;

Rely men in own toil;

‘The mole is mound’- all sins of past!

Man’s soul is on the spoil.



‘Let faith in earthly life, God find;

Christ is the only hope,

For modern world, and all mankind,’

Said Benedict, the Pope.



With fervent prayers, send your pleas,

To God who is above;

The caring God will surely ease

Your problems, with great love.



‘Let faith in earthly life, God find;

Christ is the only hope,

For modern world, and all mankind,’

Said Benedict, the Pope.



Encounter living God in life;

Blessings will follow then;

God cares for you in any strife;

Keep eyes upon Heaven.



‘Let faith in earthly life, God find;

Christ is the only hope,

For modern world, and all mankind,’

Said Benedict, the Pope.



Though holy is matrimony,

And sacrosanct is sex,

Man sins for sake of more money,

In ways that all can vex!



‘Let faith in earthly life, God find;

Christ is the only hope,

For modern world, and all mankind,’

Said Benedict, the Pope.



Like love of God that radiates,

Let man’s heart do like-wise;

Let’s take the narrow road to Gates

Of Heaven; Be soul-wise!



‘Let faith in earthly life, God find;

Christ is the only hope,

For modern world, and all mankind,’

Said Benedict, the Pope





-- -- --



~ Dr John Celes



--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Earth Day, 2008



Save planet earth;

Save earth from man;

Save all species,

Including man!



Man spills the oil

Upon the seas,

And kills the fish,

Birds, ruthlessly!



Man steals the shelf

Of coral reef,

And ruins grounds

Where fishes breed.



Man flattens hills,

Breaks mountains whole,

For granite stones:

So climes vary.



Man warms the earth

In many ways,

And makes the hole

In ozone sky.



Man shifts the weight

On earth’s surface,

By sky-scrapers:

And born are quakes



Man deforests

For farming lands;

Wild beasts come out

To eat his crops.



Man poaches beasts

For skin and bones,

And builds reserves

To save species.



Man sinks bore-wells

For raising crops,

And drought occurs

As trees are cut.



Man pollutes air

And water, soil;

Diseases come

New, unheard of.



Man makes genes too,

And clones some beasts;

But can’t breathe life

To things he makes.



Man kills his own

Through abortions,

And brags he does

For Eugenics.



Man wastes money

And resources,

While people starve

To death, in crowds.



Man spoils Nature

In many ways,

But takes not blame

For blunders made.



Man does most things

In stupid ways,

Quite hazardous

To human race.



Man acts like God

In every field

But cannot ape

The Maker’s feat.



Man boasts with pride

The things he makes;

Not one seems good

Like how God made.



Mother Nature

Has her balance;

Let man align

To her, sweet ways.



No man can beat

The Maker’s feat;

No creature can

Surpass the Lord!



Save planet earth;

Save earth from man;

Save all species,

Including man!






-- -- --



~ Dr John Celes



--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Sonnet: Our Family-Carriage to Heaven



God drives our family-carriage with four wheels-

Love, harmony, forbearance, piety;

His whip of grace goads parent horses’ heels;

Their faith in Jesus sees eternity.



All children act as passengers at first;

Some take their turn as horses very soon;

They run with crosses on footsteps of Christ;

The Bible’s words are Manna-like food- boon.



God-Driver guides the carriage in His lanes-

Narrow and straight, and guarded by angels,

As light of heaven, Holy Spirit rains;

God’s mercy-mantle has Lord’s safety-bells!



The carriage moves on swiftly, by prayers;

Of siblings, saints, prophets and soothsayers!






-- -- --



~ Dr John Celes



--> Man

[Man]

Poem




The Beauty of Love



I am the water
You are the shore
I am the tiny planet
You are the sun ...my energy ..my magnet
Your wafts and weaves defining me
In various colours of your dreams
Your love urging me to flow free
I savour the dew drops of your sweet nothings
Your passion soaking me like the monsoon rains
Your eyes subsiding my fears making me insanely sane
Your unconditional acceptance my gravitational world
Like the deep sea your tapestry of touch drowns me
I reflect the beauty of your oceanic fantasy
The heavens, the stars, the entire cosmos witness our rhapsody



With You in my heart and soul
Darkness and sadness exist no more
I radiate your glow..an infinite sew
And I bask comfortably in the warmth called you
I coloured in the myriad hues of your smile
I discovering a whole new world inside
Pink, red, blue and green
Your words paint my Being
The soft rainbows of your throaty laughter
Ring in happiness....make my existence brighter
Turning my nights and days into twilight zones
I dwell in nowhere lands...no cell in me I can call my own
No road seems tiring and long
I feel your presence in everything... as I walk along
There is nothing of Me in anything..anymore
It is You in all I say or do
And I consider it a sin
To put in words the meaning you bring
To define you is an impossible thing
I surrender to the enchantment of your fragrant yearnings
As black turns into various hues of success, happiness and soulful stirrings
And wrapped in your worship I revel
The shades you see they are the magic of your vibrant spell on Me



-- -- --



~ Reflector



--> Man

Click On The Pictures To Enlarge

[Man]

Poem




Paying Tribute to My Ailing Mother


How old is my mother?
How many light years is she far away
From the devilish night of the rising sun?
I know she has seen many moons deep down the hill
Her wrinkled face has stood the bursts of tears and cheers
Days in and days out she has weaved her way
Spinning the yarns of fairy tales of ages
The sky has kissed the fire of death many times
Many times she has melted me in her grave
And she has died to pay homage to my graying life
Unfurling her bosoms in twitterng lullaby
To burn the midnight sun in my days and nights

Days and nights I have grown larger in her shadows
Her pains have wiped off my wells of tears
When the sun has burnt down the gray horizon
When the clouds have stormed into her lonely heart
She has climbed upon the precipiece of the heavenly blue
To burn the candle lights in the wind for me
For me she has been the sceptre of the worldly empress
To ostracise the haunting spectres of my days and nights
Still I count the ailing moments of her bowl of life
Still I count the footsteps of her long walking bow
Trickling in drops of anguished blood and dying sweats
I never know the God who has kept her destiny in store for me
For me nothing is more precious than her ages in tow
To die in soft feathers of noose around the time arrow

The time arrow not knows
When she will die around my neck
Her soft kisses no more rain
Her limbs no more speak sweet nothings
I gaze upon the gruelling sunshine
I chase the squeezing shadows
Silence keeps the river flowing yellow
Echoing words reverate in nothing
Language of life seems to be perishing
As if to call it a day of days and nights

If she dies
If she forsakes me in this ailing world
All alone I will die in life
In her shroud of love and pains
I willl carry the burden of this world
Like Anteus touching his feet on the land
If she dies leaving me all alone
I will melt into the millions
To let her rest in peace
In sacred fire of life's last rejoice
And I will remain hugged in her soft bosoms
To suck the nectar of life and death
And I will dance like the great Shiva
To hold aloft her name in the sun
The moon will never cast her shadow
In blood and sweats of the reverened soul

And when she will be no more
I will be no more all alone
In this mortal reign of eternity.







-- -- --



~ Kayzzaman



--> Man

[Man]

Poem




She Flew



She flew right across me,

In a matter of moments.



She had appeared out of the blue,

And now she has disappeared into the same blue.



There was she,

With her fluttering eyelids,

Eyelids which me took me along into the skies,

The sky’s of my imagination,

An imagination gifted by her,

Gifted by her to dream of her.



And here she was now,

Flying into the sky’s of her own creation,

Leaving me on the ground below,

To wait for her return,

Return to the same ground,

Which once belonged to us,

And now to me alone.



But she flew,

She flew to the land and dreams she has flown to.







-- -- --



~ Love Stuck Romeo



--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Locked Within


Busy was I at that part of the night

when even fireflies had gone to rest,

as I tried to locate the traces of his foot



I sat down indiscreetly – I don’t know where!

I have no clue as to how long I should wait.

Maybe even indefinitely.



I am sure he has gone and will never return

Will he ever recall his silence-

his silence of word and action?



Shamelessly I proclaimed my love for him

Neither did I know how to discern

between shame and pride in true love.



I covered my pale face with my palm and cried

My world seemed bleak behind those closed eyes

I have lost him! I have lost him!



My tryst with him has ended

It has come to a nasty finish

How could he let me go through this pain?



The entire episode was like a hallucination

A brief period of boundless joy followed by

a never ending path of failure and distress



I envisaged myriad images of his eyes.

He is physically not present with me but

is he dwelling in my stellar world?



Dear, do not come back to me

out of mercy or pity. Come to me

if you love me, else prolong your endless silence.



But he will continue to remain within me

until I shed my last drop of blood.

Trust this to be a painless punishment for him.








-- -- --



~ Dreams



--> Man

[Man]

Poem




The Blood Stanied Blade


I grab that blood stained blade.
The mistakes I made are on my mind.

I bow my head low and begin to cry.
And try to understand why.

Why did she go? Bye was all she said.
What went wrong? I can't be strong anymore.

That crimson liquid pours as
the blade slits and spreads the skin

I fell no pain as the skin peels away.
I say its not to deep I can go deeper.

Then the darkness comes.
And no more sleepless nights.






-- -- --



~ Dark Reaper



--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Get over me.....

Do you really think i take you back after all the things you said to me.
Do you think i did not care about you.
But i had told you would be back asking me to be your girl.
But i gave you two many chances i gave you my heart to many times.
But know i have moved on so you can now go find a norther girl who will take your yelling and un great-full ASS.
You just kept on saying (but.......but but baby i love you) shut up with but but and that you love me you can not fool me again with that any more.
Im tired of your ASS coming back to me asking for another chance
get over me its time for you to move on and find a girl who will make all your dreams come true because i am not going to be that girl.
So now im saying good bye for ever
or am i just scared to say how i rely feel about you?
....Get Over Me or don't....




-- -- --



~ Nicole



--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Some one like you

- this was just a fun one


When i look into the stars a sometime wonder who u are someone sexy someone fine love u forever if you'll always be mine





-- -- --



~ Xxdarkxheartedxx




--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Why I hate you

I hated you a lil bit when you made me smile.
i hated you when you wanted to merge our lives.
i hated you more when you watch tears fall from my eyes.
i hated you even more when you left me with goodbye.
but most of all, i hate you more than ever cause you're still alive.






-- -- --



~ Kakzkie




--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Blowing kisses

-- Another fun one

Kisses blown are kisses wasted kisses, kisses arnt kisses unless there tasted, kisses spred jearms and jearm are hated so kiss me








-- -- --



~ Xxdarkxheartedxx




--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Most love


Loving you is all i need get on my knees and let my hands meet start to cry n begin to prey wishing for you to love me in anyway way Bringing your love back into my heart hopin that we'll never be apart so baby I'll put it der for u to know that my fellings for you are here to show because without you my life would end!









-- -- --



~ Xxdarkxheartedxx




--> Man

[Man]

Poem





On a Columnar Self


789

On a Columnar Self—
How ample to rely
In Tumult—or Extremity—
How good the Certainty

That Lever cannot pry—
And Wedge cannot divide
Conviction—That Granitic Base—
Though None be on our Side—

Suffice Us—for a Crowd—
Ourself—and Rectitude—
And that Assembly—not far off
From furthest Spirit—God—




-- -- --



~ Emily Dickinson




--> Man

[Man]

Poem





On such a night, or such a night


146

On such a night, or such a night,
Would anybody care
If such a little figure
Slipped quiet from its chair—

So quiet—Oh how quiet,
That nobody might know
But that the little figure
Rocked softer—to and fro—

On such a dawn, or such a dawn—
Would anybody sigh
That such a little figure
Too sound asleep did lie

For Chanticleer to wake it—
Or stirring house below—
Or giddy bird in orchard—
Or early task to do?

There was a little figure plump
For every little knoll—
Busy needles, and spools of thread—
And trudging feet from school—

Playmates, and holidays, and nuts—
And visions vast and small—
Strange that the feet so precious charged
Should reach so small a goal!




-- -- --



~ Emily Dickinson




--> Man

[Man]

Poem





On that dear Frame the Years had worn


940

On that dear Frame the Years had worn
Yet precious as the House
In which We first experienced Light
The Witnessing, to Us—

Precious! It was conceiveless fair
As Hands the Grave had grimed
Should softly place within our own
Denying that they died.




-- -- --



~ Emily Dickinson




--> Man

[Man]

Poem





On this long storm the Rainbow rose


194

On this long storm the Rainbow rose—
On this late Morn—the Sun—
The clouds—like listless Elephants—
Horizons—straggled down—

The Birds rose smiling, in their nests—
The gales—indeed—were done—
Alas, how heedless were the eyes—
On whom the summer shone!

The quiet nonchalance of death—
No Daybreak—can bestir—
The slow—Archangel's syllables
Must awaken her!








-- -- --



~ Emily Dickinson




--> Man

[Man]

Poem





On this wondrous sea


4

On this wondrous sea
Sailing silently,
Ho! Pilot, ho!
Knowest thou the shore
Where no breakers roar—
Where the storm is o'er?

In the peaceful west
Many the sails at rest—
The anchors fast—
Thither I pilot thee—
Land Ho! Eternity!
Ashore at last!








-- -- --



~ Emily Dickinson




--> Man

[Man]

Poem





Once more, my now bewildered Dove


48

Once more, my now bewildered Dove
Bestirs her puzzled wings
Once more her mistress, on the deep
Her troubled question flings—

Thrice to the floating casement
The Patriarch's bird returned,
Courage! My brave Columba!
There may yet be Land!






-- -- --



~ Emily Dickinson




--> Man

[Man]

Poem





One and One—are One


769

One and One—are One—
Two—be finished using—
Well enough for Schools—
But for Minor Choosing—

Life—just—or Death—
Or the Everlasting—
More—would be too vast
For the Soul's Comprising—




-- -- --



~ Emily Dickinson




--> Man

[Man]

Poem





One Anguish—in a Crowd


565

One Anguish—in a Crowd—
A Minor thing—it sounds—
And yet, unto the single Doe
Attempted of the Hounds

'Tis Terror as consummate
As Legions of Alarm
Did leap, full flanked, upon the Host—
'Tis Units—make the Swarm—

A Small Leech—on the Vitals—
The sliver, in the Lung—
The Bung out—of an Artery—
Are scarce accounted—Harms—

Yet might—by relation
To that Repealless thing—
A Being—impotent to end—
When once it has begun—




-- -- --



~ Emily Dickinson




--> Man

[Man]

Poem





One Blessing had I than the rest


756

One Blessing had I than the rest
So larger to my Eyes
That I stopped gauging—satisfied—
For this enchanted size—

It was the limit of my Dream—
The focus of my Prayer—
A perfect—paralyzing Bliss—
Contented as Despair—

I knew no more of Want—or Cold—
Phantasms both become
For this new Value in the Soul—
Supremest Earthly Sum—

The Heaven below the Heaven above—
Obscured with ruddier Blue—
Life's Latitudes leant over—full—
The Judgment perished—too—

Why Bliss so scantily disburse—
Why Paradise defer—
Why Floods be served to Us—in Bowls—
I speculate no more—





-- -- --



~ Emily Dickinson




--> Man

[Man]

Poem





One Crucifixion is recorded—only


553

One Crucifixion is recorded—only—
How many be
Is not affirmed of Mathematics—
Or History—

One Calvary—exhibited to Stranger—
As many be
As persons—or Peninsulas—
Gethsemane—

Is but a Province—in the Being's Centre—
Judea—
For Journey—or Crusade's Achieving—
Too near—

Our Lord—indeed—made Compound Witness—
And yet—
There's newer—nearer Crucifixion
Than That—




-- -- --



~ Emily Dickinson




--> Man

[Man]

Poem





One dignity delays for all


98

One dignity delays for all—
One mitred Afternoon—
None can avoid this purple—
None evade this Crown!

Coach, it insures, and footmen—
Chamber, and state, and throng—
Bells, also, in the village
As we ride grand along!

What dignified Attendants!
What service when we pause!
How loyally at parting
Their hundred hats they raise!

Her pomp surpassing ermine
When simple You, and I,
Present our meek escutheon
And claim the rank to die!




-- -- --



~ Emily Dickinson




--> Man

[Man]

Poem





One Life of so much Consequence!


270

One Life of so much Consequence!
Yet I—for it—would pay—
My Soul's entire income—
In ceaseless—salary—

One Pearl—to me—so signal—
That I would instant dive—
Although—I knew—to take it—
Would cost me—just a life!

The Sea is full—I know it!
That—does not blur my Gem!
It burns—distinct from all the row—
Intact—in Diadem!

The life is thick—I know it!
Yet—not so dense a crowd—
But Monarchs—are perceptible—
Far down the dustiest Road!




-- -- --



~ Emily Dickinson




--> Man

[Man]

Poem





One need not be a chamber to be haunted,


One need not be a chamber to be haunted,
One need not be a house;
The brain has corridors surpassing
Material place.

Far safer, of a midnight meeting
External ghost,
Than an interior confronting
That whiter host.

Far safer through an Abbey gallop,
The stones achase,
Than, moonless, one's own self encounter
In lonesome place.

Ourself, behind ourself concealed,
Should startle most;
Assassin, hid in our apartment,
Be horror's least.

The prudent carries a revolver,
He bolts the door,
O'erlooking a superior spectre
More near.





-- -- --



~ Emily Dickinson




--> Man

[Man]

Poem





One Sister have I in our house


14

One Sister have I in our house,
And one, a hedge away.
There's only one recorded,
But both belong to me.

One came the road that I came—
And wore my last year's gown—
The other, as a bird her nest,
Builded our hearts among.

She did not sing as we did—
It was a different tune—
Herself to her a music
As Bumble bee of June.

Today is far from Childhood—
But up and down the hills
I held her hand the tighter—
Which shortened all the miles—

And still her hum
The years among,
Deceives the Butterfly;
Still in her Eye
The Violets lie
Mouldered this many May.

I spilt the dew—
But took the morn—
I chose this single star
From out the wide night's numbers—
Sue - forevermore!




-- -- --



~ Emily Dickinson




--> Man

[Man]

Poem





One Year ago—jots what?


296

One Year ago—jots what?
God—spell the word! I—can't—
Was't Grace? Not that—
Was't Glory? That—will do—
Spell slower—Glory—

Such Anniversary shall be—
Sometimes—not often—in Eternity—
When farther Parted, than the Common Woe—
Look—feed upon each other's faces—so—
In doubtful meal, if it be possible
Their Banquet's true—

I tasted—careless—then—
I did not know the Wine
Came once a World—Did you?
Oh, had you told me so—
This Thirst would blister—easier—now—
You said it hurt you—most—
Mine—was an Acorn's Breast—
And could not know how fondness grew
In Shaggier Vest—
Perhaps—I couldn't—
But, had you looked in—
A Giant—eye to eye with you, had been—
No Acorn—then—

So—Twelve months ago—
We breathed—
Then dropped the Air—
Which bore it best?
Was this—the patientest—
Because it was a Child, you know—
And could not value—Air?

If to be "Elder"—mean most pain—
I'm old enough, today, I'm certain—then—
As old as thee—how soon?
One—Birthday more—or Ten?
Let me—choose!
Ah, Sir, None!





-- -- --



~ Emily Dickinson




--> Man

[Man]

Poem





Only a Shrine, but Mine


918

Only a Shrine, but Mine—
I made the Taper shine—
Madonna dim, to whom all Feet may come,
Regard a Nun—

Thou knowest every Woe—
Needless to tell thee—so—
But can'st thou do
The Grace next to it—heal?
That looks a harder skill to us—
Still—just as easy, if it be thy Will
To thee—Grant me—
Thou knowest, though, so Why tell thee?





-- -- --



~ Emily Dickinson




--> Man

[Man]

Poem






Only God—detect the Sorrow


626

Only God—detect the Sorrow—
Only God—
The Jehovahs—are no Babblers—
Unto God—
God the Son—Confide it—
Still secure—
God the Spirit's Honor—
Just as sure—








-- -- --



~ Emily Dickinson




--> Man

[Man]

Poem







Our journey had advanced;


Our journey had advanced;
Our feet were almost come
To that odd fork in Being's road,
Eternity by term.

Our pace took sudden awe,
Our feet reluctant led.
Before were cities, but between,
The forest of the dead.

Retreat was out of hope,--
Behind, a sealed route,
Eternity's white flag before,
And God at every gate.









-- -- --



~ Emily Dickinson




--> Man

[Man]

Poem







Our little Kinsmen—after Rain


885

Our little Kinsmen—after Rain
In plenty may be seen,
A Pink and Pulpy multitude
The tepid Ground upon.

A needless life, it seemed to me
Until a little Bird
As to a Hospitality
Advanced and breakfasted.

As I of He, so God of Me
I pondered, may have judged,
And left the little Angle Worm
With Modesties enlarged.





-- -- --



~ Emily Dickinson




--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Our Lives Are Swiss


Our lives are Swiss --
So still -- so Cool --
Till some odd afternoon
The Alps neglect their Curtains
And we look farther on!

Italy stands the other side!
While like a guard between --
The solemn Alps --
The siren Alps
Forever intervene!





-- -- --



~ Emily Dickinson




--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Our share of night to bear


113

Our share of night to bear—
Our share of morning—
Our blank in bliss to fill
Our blank in scorning—

Here a star, and there a star,
Some lose their way!
Here a mist, and there a mist,
Afterwards—Day!





-- -- --



~ Emily Dickinson




--> Man

[Man]

Poem





Ourselves were wed one summer—dear


631

Ourselves were wed one summer—dear—
Your Vision—was in June—
And when Your little Lifetime failed,
I wearied—too—of mine—

And overtaken in the Dark—
Where You had put me down—
By Some one carrying a Light—
I—too—received the Sign.

'Tis true—Our Futures different lay—
Your Cottage—faced the sun—
While Oceans—and the North must be—
On every side of mine

'Tis true, Your Garden led the Bloom,
For mine—in Frosts—was sown—
And yet, one Summer, we were Queens—
But You—were crowned in June—



-- -- --



~ Emily Dickinson




--> Man

[Man]

Poem





Out of sight? What of that?


703

Out of sight? What of that?
See the Bird—reach it!
Curve by Curve—Sweep by Sweep—
Round the Steep Air—
Danger! What is that to Her?
Better 'tis to fail—there—
Than debate—here—

Blue is Blue—the World through—
Amber—Amber—Dew—Dew—
Seek—Friend—and see—
Heaven is shy of Earth—that's all—
Bashful Heaven—thy Lovers small—
Hide—too—from thee—



-- -- --



~ Emily Dickinson




--> Man

[Man]

Poem





Over and over, like a Tune


367

Over and over, like a Tune—
The Recollection plays—
Drums off the Phantom Battlements
Cornets of Paradise—

Snatches, from Baptized Generations—
Cadences too grand
But for the Justified Processions
At the Lord's Right hand.





-- -- --



~ Emily Dickinson




--> Man

[Man]

Poem





Over the fence


251

Over the fence—
Strawberries—grow—
Over the fence—
I could climb—if I tried, I know—
Berries are nice!

But—if I stained my Apron—
God would certainly scold!
Oh, dear,—I guess if He were a Boy—
He'd—climb—if He could!





-- -- --



~ Emily Dickinson




--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Pain Has An Element


Pain has an element of blank;
It cannot recollect
When it began, or if there were
A day when it was not.

It has no future but itself,
Its infinite realms contain
Its past, enlightened to perceive
New periods of pain.








-- -- --



~ Emily Dickinson




--> Man

[Man]

Poem





Pain


Pain--has an Element of Blank--
It cannot recollect
When it begun--or if there were
A time when it was not--

It has no Future--but itself--
Its Infinite Contain
Its Past--enlightened to perceive
New Periods--of Pain.









-- -- --



~ Emily Dickinson




--> Man

[Man]

Poem





Pain has an element of blank;


Pain has an element of blank;
It cannot recollect
When it began, or if there were
A day when it was not.

It has no future but itself,
Its infinite realms contain
Its past, enlightened to perceive
New periods of pain.










-- -- --



~ Emily Dickinson




--> Man

[Man]

Poem





Pain—expands the Time


967

Pain—expands the Time—
Ages coil within
The minute Circumference
Of a single Brain—

Pain contracts—the Time—
Occupied with Shot
Gamuts of Eternities
Are as they were not—







-- -- --



~ Emily Dickinson




--> Man

[Man]

Poem





Pain—has an Element of Blank


650

Pain—has an Element of Blank—
It cannot recollect
When it begun—or if there were
A time when it was not—

It has no Future—but itself—
Its Infinite contain
Its Past—enlightened to perceive
New Periods—of Pain.




-- -- --



~ Emily Dickinson




--> Man

[Man]

Poem







Pain—expands the Time


967

Pain—expands the Time—
Ages coil within
The minute Circumference
Of a single Brain—

Pain contracts—the Time—
Occupied with Shot
Gamuts of Eternities
Are as they were not—






-- -- --



~ Emily Dickinson




--> Man

[Man]

Poem







Pain--has an Element of Blank--


Pain--has an Element of Blank--
It cannot recollect
When it begun--or if there were
A time when it was not--

It has no Future--but itself--
Its Infinite Contain
Its Past--enlightened to perceive
New Periods--of Pain.





-- -- --



~ Emily Dickinson




--> Man

[Man]

Poem






Papa above!


61

Papa above!
Regard a Mouse
O'erpowered by the Cat!
Reserve within thy kingdom
A "Mansion" for the Rat!

Snug in seraphic Cupboards
To nibble all the day
While unsuspecting Cycles
Wheel solemnly away!




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~ Emily Dickinson




--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Partake as doth the Bee


994

Partake as doth the Bee,
Abstemiously.
The Rose is an Estate—
In Sicily.






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~ Emily Dickinson




--> Man

[Man]

Poem




Patience—has a quiet Outer


926

Patience—has a quiet Outer—
Patience—Look within—
Is an Insect's futile forces
Infinites—between—

'Scaping one—against the other
Fruitlesser to fling—
Patience—is the Smile's exertion
Through the quivering—







-- -- --



~ Emily Dickinson




--> Man

[Man]

Poem





Peace is a fiction of our Faith


912

Peace is a fiction of our Faith—
The Bells a Winter Night
Bearing the Neighbor out of Sound
That never did alight.










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~ Emily Dickinson




--> Man

[Man]

Poem





Perhaps I Asked Too Large


Perhaps I asked too large --
I take -- no less than skies --
For Earths, grow thick as
Berries, in my native town --

My Basked holds -- just -- Firmaments --
Those -- dangle easy -- on my arm,
But smaller bundles -- Cram.












-- -- --



~ Emily Dickinson




--> Man

[Man]

Poem





Perhaps you think me stooping


833

Perhaps you think me stooping
I'm not ashamed of that
Christ—stooped until He touched the Grave—
Do those at Sacrament

Commemorative Dishonor
Or love annealed of love
Until it bend as low as Death
Redignified, above?







-- -- --



~ Emily Dickinson




--> Man

[Man]

Poem





Perhaps you'd like to buy a flower


134

Perhaps you'd like to buy a flower,
But I could never sell—
If you would like to borrow,
Until the Daffodil

Unties her yellow Bonnet
Beneath the village door,
Until the Bees, from Clover rows
Their Hock, and Sherry, draw,

Why, I will lend until just then,
But not an hour more!






-- -- --



~ Emily Dickinson




--> Man

[Man]

Poem





The Tyrants


The tyrants are loose again;
They hate all but their own.
They give their lives to kill us,
To scatter our blood and bone.


They care not whom they murder,
Whether woman, man or child;
Their minds are full of fury;
Their sickness has gone wild.


To rule the world with violence
Is their one and only goal;
Terror is their method;
They want complete control.


We’ve seen it all before,
And we could not let it be;
We gave our lives for freedom,
For the world, and for you and me.


We fight all forms of oppression,
Helping victims far and near,
To keep the world from chaos,
To protect what we hold dear.


America’s the only country
That gives with its whole heart,
And asks so very little;
We always do our part.


So let’s unite again
To subdue our newest foe,
Whatever we must do,
Wherever we must go.


Let’s show the world once more
That America is blessed
With people who are heroes,
Who meet each and every test.





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~ By Joanna Fuchs



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[Man]

Poem



They Did Their Share


On Veteran’s Day we honor
Soldiers who protect our nation.
For their service as our warriors,
They deserve our admiration.


Some of them were drafted;
Some were volunteers;
For some it was just yesterday;
For some it’s been many years;


In the jungle or the desert,
On land or on the sea,
They did whatever was assigned
To produce a victory.


Some came back; some didn’t.
They defended us everywhere.
Some saw combat; some rode a desk;
All of them did their share.


No matter what the duty,
For low pay and little glory,
These soldiers gave up normal lives,
For duties mundane and gory.


Let every veteran be honored;
Don’t let politics get in the way.
Without them, freedom would have died;
What they did, we can’t repay.


We owe so much to them,
Who kept us safe from terror,
So when we see a uniform,
Let’s say "thank you" to every wearer.






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~ By Joanna Fuchs



--> Man

[Man]

Poem



Veteran’s Day Tribute


When America had an urgent need,
These brave ones raised a hand;
No hesitation held them back;
They were proud to take a stand.


They left their friends and family;
They gave up normal life;
To serve their country and their God,
They plowed into the strife.


They fought for freedom and for peace
On strange and foreign shores;
Some lost new friends; some lost their lives
In long and brutal wars.


Other veterans answered a call
To support the ones who fought;
Their country had requirements for
The essential skills they brought.


We salute each and every one of them,
The noble and the brave,
The ones still with us here today,
And those who rest in a grave.


So here’s to our country’s heroes;
They’re a cut above the rest;
Let’s give the honor that is due
To our country’s very best.



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~ By Joanna Fuchs



--> Man

[Man]

Poem



Take A Moment To Thank A Veteran


When you see someone in a uniform
Someone who serves us all,
Doing military duty,
Answering their country’s call,


Take a moment to thank them
For protecting what you hold dear;
Tell them you are proud of them;
Make it very clear.


Just tap them on the shoulder,
Give a smile, and say,
"Thanks for what you’re doing;
To keep us safe in the USA!"




-- -- --



~ By Joanna Fuchs



--> Man