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by
Derek Walcott
The Sea Is History
The Sea Is History
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by
Dimitris P Kraniotis
Ideals
Snow-covered mountains,
ancient monuments,
a north wind that nods to us,
a thought that flows,
images imbued
with hymns of history,
words on signs
with ideals of geometry.
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by
Emily Dickinson
Yesterday is History,
Yesterday is History,
'Tis so far away --
Yesterday is Poetry --
'Tis Philosophy --
Yesterday is mystery --
Where it is Today
While we shrewdly speculate
Flutter both away
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by
Walt Whitman
This Dust was Once the Man.
THIS dust was once the Man,
Gentle, plain, just and resolute—under whose cautious hand,
Against the foulest crime in history known in any land or age,
Was saved the Union of These States.
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by
Dimitris P Kraniotis
Illusions
Noiseless wrinkles
on our forehead
the frontiers of history,
shed oblique glances
at Homer’s verses.
Illusions
full of guilt
redeem
wounded whispers
that became echoes
in lighted caves
of the fools and the innocent.
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by
Emily Dickinson
How the Waters closed above Him
How the Waters closed above Him
We shall never know --
How He stretched His Anguish to us
That -- is covered too --
Spreads the Pond Her Base of Lilies
Bold above the Boy
Whose unclaimed Hat and Jacket
Sum the History --
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by
Emily Dickinson
Witchcraft was hung, in History,
'Twas such a little -- little boat
That toddled down the bay!
'Twas such a gallant -- gallant sea
That beckoned it away!
'Twas such a greedy, greedy wave
That licked it from the Coast --
Nor ever guessed the stately sails
My little craft was lost!
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by
Robert Herrick
LOVE LIGHTLY PLEASED
Let fair or foul my mistress be,
Or low, or tall, she pleaseth me;
Or let her walk, or stand, or sit,
The posture her's, I'm pleased with it;
Or let her tongue be still, or stir
Graceful is every thing from her;
Or let her grant, or else deny,
My love will fit each history.
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by
Emily Dickinson
The Battle fought between the Soul
The Battle fought between the Soul
And No Man -- is the One
Of all the Battles prevalent --
By far the Greater One --
No News of it is had abroad --
Its Bodiless Campaign
Establishes, and terminates --
Invisible -- Unknown --
Nor History -- record it --
As Legions of a Night
The Sunrise scatters -- These endure --
Enact -- and terminate --
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by
Emily Dickinson
Dust is the only Secret
Dust is the only Secret --
Death, the only One
You cannot find out all about
In his "native town."
Nobody know "his Father" --
Never was a Boy --
Hadn't any playmates,
Or "Early history" --
Industrious! Laconic!
Punctual! Sedate!
Bold as a Brigand!
Stiller than a Fleet!
Builds, like a Bird, too!
Christ robs the Nest --
Robin after Robin
Smuggled to Rest!
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by
Emily Dickinson
As far from pity, as complaint
As far from pity, as complaint --
As cool to speech -- as stone --
As numb to Revelation
As if my Trade were Bone --
As far from time -- as History --
As near yourself -- Today --
As Children, to the Rainbow's scarf --
Or Sunset's Yellow play
To eyelids in the Sepulchre --
How dumb the Dancer lies --
While Color's Revelations break --
And blaze -- the Butterflies!
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by
Friedrich von Schiller
Carthage
Oh thou degenerate child of the great and glorious mother,
Who with the Romans' strong might couplest the Tyrians' deceit!
But those ever governed with vigor the earth they had conquered,--
These instructed the world that they with cunning had won.
Say! what renown does history grant thee? Thou, Roman-like, gained'st
That with the steel, which with gold, Tyrian-like, then thou didst rule!
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by
Dorothy Parker
Song Of One Of The Girls
Here in my heart I am Helen;
I'm Aspasia and Hero, at least.
I'm Judith, and Jael, and Madame de Stael;
I'm Salome, moon of the East.
Here in my soul I am Sappho;
Lady Hamilton am I, as well.
In me Recamier vies with Kitty O'Shea,
With Dido, and Eve, and poor Nell.
I'm of the glamorous ladies
At whose beckoning history shook.
But you are a man, and see only my pan,
So I stay at home with a book.
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by
Emily Dickinson
One Crucifixion is recorded -- only --
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 --
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by
Lewis Carroll
Acrostic
Little maidens, when you look
On this little story-book,
Reading with attentive eye
Its enticing history,
Never think that hours of play
Are your only HOLIDAY,
And that in a HOUSE of joy
Lessons serve but to annoy:
If in any HOUSE you find
Children of a gentle mind,
Each the others pleasing ever--
Each the others vexing never--
Daily work and pastime daily
In their order taking gaily--
Then be very sure that they
Have a life of HOLIDAY.
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by
Adrienne Rich
In Those Years
In those years, people will say, we lost track
of the meaning of we, of you
we found ourselves
reduced to I
and the whole thing became
silly, ironic, terrible:
we were trying to live a personal life
and yes, that was the only life
we could bear witness to
But the great dark birds of history screamed and plunged
into our personal weather
They were headed somewhere else but their beaks and pinions drove
along the shore, through the rags of fog
where we stood, saying I
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by
Sylvia Plath
The Times Are Tidy
Unlucky the hero born
In this province of the stuck record
Where the most watchful cooks go jobless
And the mayor's rôtisserie turns
Round of its own accord.
There's no career in the venture
Of riding against the lizard,
Himself withered these latter-days
To leaf-size from lack of action:
History's beaten the hazard.
The last crone got burnt up
More than eight decades back
With the love-hot herb, the talking cat,
But the children are better for it,
The cow milks cream an inch thick.
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by
Thomas Hardy
Mute Opinion
I
I traversed a dominion
Whose spokesmen spake out strong
Their purpose and opinion
Through pulpit, press, and song.
I scarce had means to note there
A large-eyed few, and dumb,
Who thought not as those thought there
That stirred the heat and hum.
II
When, grown a Shade, beholding
That land in lifetime trode,
To learn if its unfolding
Fulfilled its clamoured code,
I saw, in web unbroken,
Its history outwrought
Not as the loud had spoken,
But as the mute had thought.
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by
Walt Whitman
To a Historian.
YOU who celebrate bygones!
Who have explored the outward, the surfaces of the races—the life that has
exhibited itself;
Who have treated of man as the creature of politics, aggregates, rulers and
priests;
I, habitan of the Alleghanies, treating of him as he is in himself, in his own
rights,
Pressing the pulse of the life that has seldom exhibited itself, (the great
pride of man in himself;)
Chanter of Personality, outlining what is yet to be,
I project the history of the future.
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by
Lisa Zaran
Love Is Believable
love is believable
in every moment of exhaustion
in every heartbroken home
in every dark spirit,
the meaning unfolds...
...in every night that sings
of tomorrow. in every suicide
i carry deep inside my head.
in every lonely smile
that plays across my lips.
love is believable i tell you,
in every scrap of history,
in every sheen of want.
what can be wrong
that some days i have a tough time
believing.
and in each chamber of my heart
i pray.
Copyright © Lisa Zaran, 2006
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