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Poetry
not in vain
emily dickinson
if i can stop one heart from breaking
i shall not live in vain:
if i can ease one life the aching,
or cool one pain,
or help one fainting robin
unto his nest again
i shall not live in vain.
do not go gentle into that good night
dylan thomas
do not go gentle into that good night,
old age should burn and rave at close of day;
rage, rage agaisnt the dying of the light.
though wise men at their end know dark is right,
because their words had forked no lightning they
do not go gentle into that good night.
good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
rage, rage against the dying of the light.
wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
and learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
do not go gentle into that good night.
grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
rage, rage against the dying of the light.
and you, my father, there on the sad height,
curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, i pray.
do not go gentle into that good night.
rage, rage against the dying of the light.
the garden of love
william blake
i laid me down upon a bank
where Love lay sleeping;
i heard among the rushes dank
weeping, weeping
then i went to the heath and the wild,
to the thistles and thorns of the waste;
and they told me how they were beguiled,
driven out and compelled to the chaste
i went to the Garden of Love.
and saw what I never had seen:
a Chapel was built in the midst,
where I used to play on the green.
and the gates of this Chapel were shut,
and "Thou Shalt Not", writ over the door;
so I turn'd to the Garden of Love,
that so many sweet flowers bore,
and I saw it filled with graves,
and tomb-stones where flowers should be:
and Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds,
and binding with briars, my joys & desires.
after great pain, a formal feeling comes --
the Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs --
the stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore
and Yesterday, or Centuries before?
the Feet, mechanical, go round --
of Ground, or Air, or Ought --
a Wooden way
regardless grown,
a Quartz contentment, like a stone --
this is the Hour of Lead --
remembered, if outlived
as Freezing persons, recollect the Snow --
first -- Chill -- then Stupor -- then the letting go --
stop all the clocks
w. h. auden
stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
silence the pianos and with muffled drum
bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
he was my North, my South, my East and West,
my working week and my Sunday rest,
my noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
i thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.
the stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
for nothing now can ever come to any good.
remember
christina rossetti
remember me when I am gone away,
gone far away into the silent land;
when you can no more hold me by the hand,
nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
remember me when no more day by day
you tell me of our future that you plann'd:
only remember me; you understand
it will be late to counsel then or pray.
yet if you should forget me for a while
and afterwards remember, do not grieve:
for if the darkness and corruption leave
a vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
better by far you should forget and smile
than that you should remember and be sad.
somewhere
e.e. cummings |
somewhere i have never traveled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near
your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skillfully, mysteriously) her first rose
or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing
(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands. |
if
rudyard kipling
if you can keep your head when all about you
are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
but make allowance for their doubting too;
if you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
and yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
if you can dream--and not make dreams your master;
if you can think--and make thoughts your aim;
if you can meet with triumph and disaster
and treat those two impostors just the same;
if you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
twisted by knaves to made a trap for fools,
or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
and stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;
if you can make one heap of all your winning
and risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
and lose, and start again at your beginnings
and never breathe a word about your loss;
if you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
to serve your turn long after they are gone,
and so hold on when there is nothing in you
except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";
if you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch;
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
if all men count with you, but none too much;
if you can fill the unforgiving minute
with sixty seconds' worth of distance run--
yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
and which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!
farewell but whenever (scent of the roses)
thomas moore
farewell but whenever you welcome the hour
that awakens the night song of mirth in your bower,
then think of the friend who once welcomed it too
and forgot his own grief to be happy with you.
his grief may return, not a hope may remain
of the few that have brightened his pathway of pain
but he ne'er will forget the short vision which threw
its enchantment around him, while lingering with you.
and still on that evening when pleasure fills up
to the highest top sparkle each heart and each cup.
wher'er my path lies, be it gloomy or bright
my soul, happy friends, shall be with you that night.
shall join in your revels, your sports and your wiles
and return to me beaming; all o'er with your smiles
too blest if it tells me that 'mid the gay cheer
some kind voice had murmured: "I wish he were here".
let fate do her worst, there are relics of joy,
bright dreams of the past which she cannot destroy;
that come in the night-time of sorrow and care
and bring back the features that joy use to wear.
long, long be my heart with such memories filled
as the vase in which roses have once been distilled.
you may break, you may shatter the vase if you will
but the scent of the roses will hang 'round it still.
(an excerpt from the lord of the rings)
j.r.r. tolkien
i sit beside the fire and think of all that I have seen,
of meadow flowers and butterflies in summers that have been;
of yellow leaves and gossamer in autumns that there were,
with morning mist and silver sun and wind upon my hair.
I sit beside the fire and think of how the world will be,
when winter comes without a spring that I shall ever see.
for still there are so many things that I have never seen;
in every wood in every spring there is a different green.
I sit beside the fire and think of people long ago,
and people who will see a world that I shall never know.
but all the while I sit and think of times there were before,
I listen for returning feet and voices at the door.
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