![[Book Of Words]](../../lilysmall.jpg)
"A poem points to nothing but itself." - E. M. Forster
An ego-maniac only points at himself as well.
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"A poem points to nothing but itself." - E. M. Forster An ego-maniac only points at himself as well. |
Whether it be for a mood it puts me in, the way the poet twisted the words or simply because I think it should be shared, the poems in this collection are those I have come across and liked enough to want to have handy wherever I travelled. Perhaps you'll find inspiration here as well. Enjoy.
You will find the the following poems here:
The Tyger - William Blake
In what distance deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
The Lamb - William Blake
Little Lamb I'll tell thee,
Little Lamb I'll tell thee!
He is called by thy name,
For he calls himself a Lamb:
He is meek & he is mild,
He became a little child:
I a child & thou a lamb,
We are called by his name.
Little Lamb God bless thee.
Little Lamb God bless thee.
The Sick Rose - William Blake
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy,
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.
Unfettered - Stephen Donaldson
Lone
Unfriended
Bondless
Lone -
Drink of the loss 'til it is done,
'Til solitude has come and gone,
And silence is communion -
And yet
Unfriended
Bondless
Lone.
Deep
Unbottomed
Endless
Deep -
Touch the true mysterious Keep
Where halls of fealty laugh and weep;
While treachers through the dooming creep
In blood
Unbottomed
Endless
Deep.
Oath of Peace - Stephen Donaldson
The Hollow Men - T.S. Elliot
Shape without form, shade without colour.
Paralysed force, gesture without motion:
Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us - if at all - not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.
II
Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.
Let me be no nearer
In death's dream Kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises -
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer -
Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom.
III
This is the dead land
This is the cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.
Is it like this
In death's other kingdom?
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness.
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.
IV
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.
V
Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.
Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long
Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom
For Thine is
Life is
For This is the
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
Ozymandias - Percy Bysshe Shelley
In Flanders Fields - John McCrae (born 1872, Canada - January 28, 1918, France)
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high,
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
Dulce et Decorum Est - Wilfred Owen (Born 1983, died November 4, 1918)
Gas! Gas! Quick boys! - An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime. -
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams before my helpless sight
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.
On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer - John Keats
The Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald - Gordon Lightfoot
The ship was the pride of the American side, comin' back from some mill in Wisconsin.
As the big freighters go it was bigger than most, with a crew and good captain well seasoned,
Concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms, when they left fully loaded for Cleveland,
And later that night when the ship's bell rang, could it be the north wind they's bin feelin'.
The wind is the wires made a tattletale sound and a wave broke over the railing,
And every man knew as the captain did too, 'twas the which of November come stealin'.
The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait, when the gales of November came slashin'.
When afternoon came it was freezin' rain, in the face of a hurricane west wind.
When suppertime came the old cook came on deck saying, "Fellas it's too rough to feed ya."
At seven p.m. a main hatchway caved in he said, "Fellas it's bin good to know ya."
The captain wired in he had water comin' in and the good ship and crew was in peril,
And later that night when its lights went out of sight came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the wave turn the minutes to hours?
The searchers all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay - if they'd put fifteen more miles behind 'em.
They might have split up or they might have capsized, they may have broke deep and took water,
And all that remains is the faces and names of the wives and the sons and the daughters.
Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings, in the rooms of her ice water mansion,
Old Michigan steams like a young man's dreams, the islands and bays are for sportsmen,
And farther below Lake Ontario takes in what Lake Erie can send her,
And the Iron boats go as the mariners all know, with the gales of November remembered.
In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed in the maritime sailor's cathedral,
The church bell chimed 'til it rang 29 times for each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald.
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down of the big lake they call Gitche Gumee.
Superior they say never gives up here dead when the gales of November come early.
Cats In The Cradle - Harry and Sandy Chapin
And the cats in cradle,
and the silver spoon
Little Boy Blue
And the Man in the Moon.
"When you comin' home, Dad?
"I don't know when, but we'll get together then, son.
You know we'll have a good time then."
Well, my son turned ten just the other day.
He said, "Thanks for the ball, Dad.
Come on, let's play.
Can you teach me to throw?"
I said, "Not today. I've got a lot to do."
He said, "That's okay."
And he walked away, but his smile never dimmed.
And he said, "I'm gonna be like him.
You know I'm gonna be like him."
And the cats in the cradle,
and the silver spoon
Little Boy Blue
And the Man in the Moon.
"When you comin' home, Dad?"
"I don't know when, but we'll get together then, son.
You know we'll have a good time then."
Well, he came from collage just the other day,
So much like a man I just had to say,
"Son, I'm proud of you.
Can you sit for a while?"
He shook his head
And he said with a smile,
"What I'd really like, Dad, is to borrow the car keys.
See you later.
Can I have them, please?"
And the cats in the cradle,
and the silver spoon
Little Boy Blue
And the Man in the Moon.
"When you comin' home, son?"
"I don't know when, but we'll get together then, Dad.
You know we'll have a good time then."
Well, I've long since retired.
My son's moved away.
I called him up just the other day.
I said, "I'd like to see you, if you don't mind."
He said, "I'd love to, Dad, if I can fond the time
You see, my new job's a hassle and the kids have the flu.
But it's sure nice talking to you, Dad
It's been sure nice talking to you."
As he hung up the phone, it occurred to me
He had grown up just like me.
My boy was just like me.
And the cats in the cradle,
and the silver spoon
Little Boy Blue
And the Man in the Moon.
"When you comin' home, son?"
"I don't know when, but we'll get together then, Dad.
You know we'll have a good time then."
The Highwayman - Alfred Noyes
The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
And the highwayman cam riding -
Riding - riding -
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.
He'd a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin,
A coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of brown doeskin:
They fitted with never a wrinkle; his boots were up to the thigh!
And he rode with a jewelled twinkle,
His pistol butts a-twinkle,
His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky.
Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard,
And he tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred:
He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Bess the landlord's daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.
And dark in the dark old inn-yard a stable-wicket creaked
Where Tim, the ostler, listened; his face was white and peaked.
His eyes were hollows of madness, his hair like moldy hay;
But he loved the landlord's daughter,
The landlord's red-lipped daughter:
Dumb as dog he listened, and he heard the robber say -
"One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I'm after a prize tonight,
But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light.
Yet if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day,
Then look for me by moonlight,
Watch for me by moonlight:
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though Hell should bar the way."
He rose upright in the stirrups, he scarce could reach her hand;
But she loosened her hair i' the casement! His face burnt like a brand
As the black cascade of perfume came tumbling over his breast;
And he kissed its waves in the moonlight,
(Oh, sweet black waves in the moonlight)
Then he tugged at his reins in the moonlight, and galloped away to the West.
Part 2
He did not come in the dawning; he did not come at noon;
And out of the tawny sunset, before the rise o' the moon,
When the road was a gypsy's ribbon, looping the purple moor,
A red-coat troop came marching -
Marching - marching -
King George's men came marching, up to the old inn-door.
They said no word to the landlord, they drank his ale instead;
But they gagged his daughter and bound her to the foot of here narrow bed.
Two of them knelt at her casement, with muskets at their side!
There was death at every window;
And Hell at one dark window;
For Bess could see, through her casement, the road that he would ride.
They had tied her up to attention, with many a sniggering jest:
They had bound a musket beside her, with the barrel beneath her breast!
"Now keep good watch!" and the kissed here.
She heard the dead man say -
Look for me by moonlight;
Watch for me by moonlight
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though Hell should bar the way!
She twisted her hands behind her; but all the knots held good!
She writhed her hands till her fingers were wet with sweat or blood!
They stretched and strained in the darkness, and the hours crawled by like years;
Till, now, on the stroke of midnight,
Cold, on the stroke of midnight,
The tip of one finger touched it! The trigger at least was hers!
The tip of one finger touched it; she strove no more for the rest!
Up, she stood up to attention, with the barrel beneath her breast,
She would not risk their hearing: she would not strive again;
For the road lay bare in the moonlight,
Blank and bare in the moonlight;
And the blood of her veins in the moonlight throbbed to her Love's refrain.
Tlot-tlot, tlot-tlot! Had they heard it? The horse-hoofs ringing clear -
Tlot-tlot, tlot-tlot, in the distance? Were they deaf that they did not hear?
Down the ribbon of moonlight, over the brow of the hill,
The highwayman came riding,
Riding, riding!
The red-coats looked to their priming! She stood up straight and still!
Tlot-tlot, in the frosty silence! Tlot-tlot in the echoing night!
Nearer he came and nearer! Her face was like a light!
Her eyes grew wide for a moment; she drew one last deep breath,
Then her finger moved in the moonlight,
Her musket shattered the moonlight,
Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him - with her death.
He turned; he spurred to the Westward; he did not know who stood
Bowed with her head o'er the musket, drenched with her own blood!
Not till the dawn he heard it, and slowly blanched to hear
How Bess, the landlord's daughter,
The landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Had watched for her Love in the moonlight; and died in the darkness there.
Back, he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky,
With the white road smoking behind him, and his rapier brandished high!
Blood-red were his spurs i' the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat;
When they shot him down on the highway,
Down like a dog on the highway,
And he lay in his blood on the highway, with a bunch of lace at his throat.
And still of a winter's night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,
When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
A highwayman comes riding -
Riding - riding -
A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.
Over the cobbles he clatters and clangs in the dark inn-yard,
And he taps with his whip on the shutters, but all is locked and barred:
He whistles a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Bess the landlord's daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.
The Wreck of the Hesperus - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Blue were her eyes as the fairy-flax,
Her cheeks like the dawn of the day,
And her bosom white as the hawthorn buds,
That ope in the month of May.
The skipper he stood beside the helm,
His pipe was in his mouth,
And he watched how the veering flaw did blow
The smoke now West, now South.
Then up and spake an old Sailor,
Had sailed to the Spanish Main,
"I pray thee, put into yonder port,
For I fear a hurricane.
"Last night, the moon had a golden ring,
And to-night no moon we see!"
The skipper, he blew a whiff from his pipe,
And a scornful laugh laughed he.
Colder and louder blew the wind,
A gale from the Northeast,
The snow fell hissing in the brine,
And the billows frothed like yeast.
Down came the storm, and smote again
The vessel in its strength;
She shuddered and paused, like a frighted steed.
Then leaped her cable's length.
"Come hither! come hither! my little daughter,
And do no tremble so:
For I can weather the roughest gale
That ever wind did blow."
He wrapped her warm in his seaman's coat
Against the stinging blast;
He cut a rope from a broken spar,
And bound her to the mast.
"O father! I hear the church-bells ring,
Oh say, what may it be?"
"'Tis a fog-bell on a rock-bound coast!"
And he steered for open sea.
"O father! I hear the sound of guns,
Oh say, what may it be?"
"Some ship in distress, that cannot live
In such an angry sea!"
"Oh father! I see a gleaming light,
Oh say, what may it be?"
But the father answered never a word,
A frozen corpse was he.
Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark,
With his face turned to the skies,
The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow
On his fixed and glassy eyes.
Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayed
That saved she might be;
And she thought of Christ, who stilled the wave,
On the lake of Galilee.
And fast through the midnight dark and drear,
Through the whistling sleet and snow,
Like a shattered ghost, the vessel swept
Tow'rds the reef of Norman's Woe.
And ever the fitful gusts between
A sound came from the land;
It was the sound of the trampling surf
On the rocks and the hard sea-sand.
The breakers were right beneath her bows,
She drifted a dreary wreck,
And a whooping billow swept the crew
Like icicles from her deck.
She struck where the white and fleecy waves
Looked soft as carded wool,
But the cruel rocks, they gored her side
Like the horns of an angry bull.
Her rattling shrouds, all sheathed in ice,
With the masts went by the board;
Like a vessel of glass, she stove and sank,
Ho! ho! the breakers roared!
At daybreak, on a bleak sea-beach,
A fisherman stood aghast,
To see the form of a maiden fair,
Lashed close to a drifting mast.
The salt sea was frozen on her breast,
The salt tears in her eyes;
And he saw her hair, like the brown sea-weed,
On the billows fall and rise.
Such was the wreck of the Hesperus,
In the midnight and the snow!
Christ save us all from a death like this,
On the reef of Norman's Woe.
The Ballad of Beautiful Words - John McCutcheon
Emerald, swallow, tawny, dawn,
Silvery, starling, lane,
Radiance, rosary, garland, fawn,
Pastoral, valley, vane.
Smouldering, sombre, tumbrel, tomb,
Indigo, ember, shorn,
Sonorous, sorrow, cloven, doom,
Pendulum, dirge, forlorn.
Charity, gloaming, garnering, grain,
Curfew, candle, loam,
Benison, mother, lassie, swain,
Children, evening, home.
The Music Of The Night - Charles Hart
Slowly, gently night unfurls its splendour... Grasp it, sense it - tremulous and tender... Turn your face away from the garish light of day, turn your thoughts away from cold, unfeeling light - and listen to the music of the night...
Close your eyes and surrender to your darkest dreams! Purge your thoughts of the life you knew before! Close your eyes, let your spirit start to soar! And you'll live as you've never lived before...
Softly, deftly, music shall surround you... Feel it, hear it, closing in around you... Open up your mind, let your fantasies unwind, in this darkness which you know you cannot fight - the darkness of the music of the night...
Let your mind start a journey through a strange, new world! Leave all thoughts of the world you knew before! Let your soul take you where you long to be! Only then can you belong to me...
Floating, falling, sweet intoxication! Touch me, trust me, savour each sensation! Let the dream begin, let your darker side give in to the power of the music that I write - the power of the music pf the night...
You alone can make my song take flight - Help me make the music of the night.
Ulysses - Alfred Lord Tennyson (born Aug 6, 1809; died October 6, 1892)
Charge Of The Light Brigade - Alfred Tennyson (born Aug 6, 1809; died October 6, 1892)
"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismayed?
Not tho' the soldiers knew
Someone had blundered:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
Cannon to the right of them,
Cannon to the left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volleyed and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell,
Rode the six hundred.
Flashed all their sabres bare,
Flashed as they turned in air,
Sab'ring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wondered:
Plunged in the battery smoke,
Right through the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reeled from the sabre-stroke
Shattered and sundered.
Then they rode back, but not -
Not the six hundred.
Cannon to the right of them,
Cannon to the left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volleyed and thundered;
Stormed at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.
When can their glory fade?
Oh the wild charge they made!
All the wondered.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble Six Hundred!
Sea Fever - John Masefield (born Ledbury, Hereforshire, June 1, 1878; England, died May 12, 1967)
I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.
I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way, where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.
The Night Has A Thousand Eyes - Francis William Bourdillon (born March 22, 1852; died January 13, 1921)
The mind has a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one;
Yet the light of a whole life dies
When love is done.
The House By The Side Of The Road - Sam Walter Foss (born June 1858; died February 26, 1911)
There are hermit souls that live withdrawn
In the place of their self content;
Ther are souls like stars, that dwell apart,
In a fellowless firmament;
There are pineer souls that blaze their paths
Where highways never ran -
But let me live by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.
Let me live in a house by the sode of the road,
Where the race of men goes by -
The men who are good and the men who are bad,
As good and bad as I.
I would not sit in the scorner's seat,
Or hurl the cynic's ban -
Let me live in a house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.
I see from my house by the side of the road,
By the side of the highway of life,
The men who press the ardor of hope,
The men who are faint with the strife.
But I do not turn away from their smiles nor thier tears,
Both parts of an infinite plan -
Let me live in a house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.
I know there are brook-gladded meadows ahead
And mountains of wearisome height;
That the road passes on through the long afternoon
And stretches away to the night.
But still I rejoice when the travelers rejoice,
And weep with the strangers that mourn,
Nor live in my house by the side of the road
Like a man who dwells alone.
Let me live in my house by the side of the road -
It's here the race of men go by.
They are good, they are bad, they are weak, they are strong,
Wise, foolish - so am I;
Then why should I sit in the scorner's seat,
Or hurl the cynic's ban?
Let me live alone in my house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.
Not In Vain - Emily Dickinson (born 1830; died 1886)
The Chariot (Because I Could Not Stop For Death) - Emily Dickinson (born 1830; died 1886)
We slowly drove, he knew no haste,
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.
We passed the school where children played,
Their lessons scarcely done;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.
We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.
Since then 'tis centuries; but each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses'heads
Were toward eternity.
Trees - Sergant Joyce Kilmer (born December 6 1886; KIA near Ourcy, July 30, 1918)
I think that I shall never see
A poem as lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
Hard Time - Marge Piercy
A diamond is coal that has suffered and burned and crystallized into a thing that takes light into itself. Do you know where diamonds come from? Whose suffering is this you wear glinting at your ear, winking from your finger? How many children's eyes shine in it?
There is something once soft that grows hard bright as the pressure crushes it. There is something once soft that burns harder than steel in the furnace of pain.
Call it a diamond. Call it the heart of a people. Call it the heart of pain crystallized to something that can gouge armour, something that stands in the ashes of the terrible fire.
Nothing is forever, not prison, not the pain of a people pressed down, not the eyes of children shining and then dimmed, not diamonds glinting like chips of frozen sun. This is not a jewel I would wear lightly. This is not a jewel I would wear.
Us and Them - Pink Floyd