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Best Famous Amaranth Poems

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Bereavement

 How stern are the woes of the desolate mourner
As he bends in still grief o'er the hallowed bier,
As enanguished he turns from the laugh of the scorner,
And drops to perfection's remembrance a tear;
When floods of despair down his pale cheeks are streaming,
When no blissful hope on his bosom is beaming,
Or, if lulled for a while, soon he starts from his dreaming,
And finds torn the soft ties to affection so dear.

Ah, when shall day dawn on the night of the grave,
Or summer succeed to the winter of death?
Rest awhle, hapless victim! and Heaven will save
The spirit that hath faded away with the breath.

Eternity points, in its amaranth bower
Where no clouds of fate o'er the sweet prospect lour,
Unspeakable pleasure, of goodness the dower,
When woe fades away like the mist of the heath.

Written by Alfred Lord Tennyson |

And ask ye why these sad tears stream?

 ‘Te somnia nostra reducunt.
’
OVID.


And ask ye why these sad tears stream?
Why these wan eyes are dim with weeping?
I had a dream–a lovely dream,
Of her that in the grave is sleeping.


I saw her as ’twas yesterday,
The bloom upon her cheek still glowing;
And round her play’d a golden ray,
And on her brows were gay flowers blowing.


With angel-hand she swept a lyre,
A garland red with roses bound it;
Its strings were wreath’d with lambent fire
And amaranth was woven round it.


I saw her mid the realms of light,
In everlasting radiance gleaming;
Co-equal with the seraphs bright,
Mid thousand thousand angels beaming.


I strove to reach her, when, behold,
Those fairy forms of bliss Elysian,
And all that rich scene wrapt in gold,
Faded in air–a lovely vision!

And I awoke, but oh! to me
That waking hour was doubly weary;
And yet I could not envy thee,
Although so blest, and I so dreary.

Written by Alfred Lord Tennyson |

Song of the Lotos-Eaters

THERE is sweet music here that softer falls 
Than petals from blown roses on the grass, 
Or night-dews on still waters between walls 
Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass; 
Music that gentlier on the spirit lies, 5 
Than tired eyelids upon tired eyes; 
Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies.
 
Here are cool mosses deep, 
And thro' the moss the ivies creep, 
And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep, 10 
And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep.
 

Why are we weigh'd upon with heaviness, 
And utterly consumed with sharp distress, 
While all things else have rest from weariness? 
All things have rest: why should we toil alone, 15 
We only toil, who are the first of things, 
And make perpetual moan, 
Still from one sorrow to another thrown: 
Nor ever fold our wings, 
And cease from wanderings, 20 
Nor steep our brows in slumber's holy balm; 
Nor harken what the inner spirit sings, 
'There is no joy but calm!'¡ª 
Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things? 

Lo! in the middle of the wood, 25 
The folded leaf is woo'd from out the bud 
With winds upon the branch, and there 
Grows green and broad, and takes no care, 
Sun-steep'd at noon, and in the moon 
Nightly dew-fed; and turning yellow 30 
Falls, and floats adown the air.
 
Lo! sweeten'd with the summer light, 
The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow, 
Drops in a silent autumn night.
 
All its allotted length of days, 35 
The flower ripens in its place, 
Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil, 
Fast-rooted in the fruitful soil.
 

Hateful is the dark-blue sky, 
Vaulted o'er the dark-blue sea.
 40 
Death is the end of life; ah, why 
Should life all labour be? 
Let us alone.
 Time driveth onward fast, 
And in a little while our lips are dumb.
 
Let us alone.
 What is it that will last? 45 
All things are taken from us, and become 
Portions and parcels of the dreadful Past.
 
Let us alone.
 What pleasure can we have 
To war with evil? Is there any peace 
In ever climbing up the climbing wave? 50 
All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave 
In silence; ripen, fall and cease: 
Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease.
 

How sweet it were, hearing the downward stream, 
With half-shut eyes ever to seem 55 
Falling asleep in a half-dream! 
To dream and dream, like yonder amber light, 
Which will not leave the myrrh-bush on the height; 
To hear each other's whisper'd speech; 
Eating the Lotos day by day, 60 
To watch the crisping ripples on the beach, 
And tender curving lines of creamy spray; 
To lend our hearts and spirits wholly 
To the influence of mild-minded melancholy; 
To muse and brood and live again in memory, 65 
With those old faces of our infancy 
Heap'd over with a mound of grass, 
Two handfuls of white dust, shut in an urn of brass! 

Dear is the memory of our wedded lives, 
And dear the last embraces of our wives 70 
And their warm tears: but all hath suffer'd change; 
For surely now our household hearts are cold: 
Our sons inherit us: our looks are strange: 
And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy.
 
Or else the island princes over-bold 75 
Have eat our substance, and the minstrel sings 
Before them of the ten years' war in Troy, 
And our great deeds, as half-forgotten things.
 
Is there confusion in the little isle? 
Let what is broken so remain.
 80 
The Gods are hard to reconcile: 
'Tis hard to settle order once again.
 
There is confusion worse than death, 
Trouble on trouble, pain on pain, 
Long labour unto ag¨¨d breath, 85 
Sore task to hearts worn out with many wars 
And eyes grown dim with gazing on the pilot-stars.
 

But, propt on beds of amaranth and moly, 
How sweet (while warm airs lull us, blowing lowly) 
With half-dropt eyelids still, 90 
Beneath a heaven dark and holy, 
To watch the long bright river drawing slowly 
His waters from the purple hill¡ª 
To hear the dewy echoes calling 
From cave to cave thro' the thick-twin¨¨d vine¡ª 95 
To watch the emerald-colour'd water falling 
Thro' many a wov'n acanthus-wreath divine! 
Only to hear and see the far-off sparkling brine, 
Only to hear were sweet, stretch'd out beneath the pine.
 

The Lotos blooms below the barren peak: 100 
The Lotos blows by every winding creek: 
All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone: 
Thro' every hollow cave and alley lone 
Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotos-dust is blown.
 
We have had enough of action, and of motion we, 105 
Roll'd to starboard, roll'd to larboard, when the surge was seething free, 
Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam-fountains in the sea.
 
Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind, 
In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie relined 
On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind.
 110 
For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurl'd 
Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curl'd 
Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world: 
Where the smile in secret, looking over wasted lands, 
Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands, 115 
Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying hands.
 
But they smile, they find a music centred in a doleful song 
Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong, 
Like a tale of little meaning tho' the words are strong; 
Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil, 120 
Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil, 
Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil; 
Till they perish and they suffer¡ªsome, 'tis whisper'd¡ªdown in hell 
Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell, 
Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel.
 125 
Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore 
Than labour in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar; 
O rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more.

Written by Alfred Lord Tennyson |

The Lotos-eaters

"Courage!" he said, and pointed toward the land,
"This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon.
"
In the afternoon they came unto a land
In which it seemed always afternoon.

All round the coast the languid air did swoon,
Breathing like one that hath a weary dream.

Full-faced above the valley stood the moon;
And like a downward smoke, the slender stream
Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem.

A land of streams! some, like a downward smoke,
Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go;
And some thro' wavering lights and shadows broke,
Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below.

They saw the gleaming river seaward flow
From the inner land: far off, three mountain-tops,
Three silent pinnacles of aged snow,
Stood sunset-flush'd: and, dew'd with showery drops,
Up-clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse.

The charmed sunset linger'd low adown
In the red West: thro' mountain clefts the dale
Was seen far inland, and the yellow down
Border'd with palm, and many a winding vale
And meadow, set with slender galingale;
A land where all things always seem'd the same!
And round about the keel with faces pale,
Dark faces pale against that rosy flame,
The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came.

Branches they bore of that enchanted stem,
Laden with flower and fruit, whereof they gave
To each, but whoso did receive of them,
And taste, to him the gushing of the wave
Far far away did seem to mourn and rave
On alien shores; and if his fellow spake,
His voice was thin, as voices from the grave;
And deep-asleep he seem'd, yet all awake,
And music in his ears his beating heart did make.

They sat them down upon the yellow sand,
Between the sun and moon upon the shore;
And sweet it was to dream of Fatherland,
Of child, and wife, and slave; but evermore
Most weary seem'd the sea, weary the oar,
Weary the wandering fields of barren foam.

Then some one said, "We will return no more";
And all at once they sang, "Our island home
Is far beyond the wave; we will no longer roam.
"CHORIC SONGI

There is sweet music here that softer falls
Than petals from blown roses on the grass,
Or night-dews on still waters between walls
Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass;
Music that gentlier on the spirit lies,
Than tir'd eyelids upon tir'd eyes;
Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies.

Here are cool mosses deep,
And thro' the moss the ivies creep,
And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep,
And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep.
"II

Why are we weigh'd upon with heaviness,
And utterly consumed with sharp distress,
While all things else have rest from weariness?
All things have rest: why should we toil alone,
We only toil, who are the first of things,
And make perpetual moan,
Still from one sorrow to another thrown:
Nor ever fold our wings,
And cease from wanderings,
Nor steep our brows in slumber's holy balm;
Nor harken what the inner spirit sings,
"There is no joy but calm!"
Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things?III

Lo! in the middle of the wood,
The folded leaf is woo'd from out the bud
With winds upon the branch, and there
Grows green and broad, and takes no care,
Sun-steep'd at noon, and in the moon
Nightly dew-fed; and turning yellow
Falls, and floats adown the air.

Lo! sweeten'd with the summer light,
The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow,
Drops in a silent autumn night.

All its allotted length of days
The flower ripens in its place,
Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil,
Fast-rooted in the fruitful soil.
IV

Hateful is the dark-blue sky,
Vaulted o'er the dark-blue sea.

Death is the end of life; ah, why
Should life all labour be?
Let us alone.
Time driveth onward fast,
And in a little while our lips are dumb.

Let us alone.
What is it that will last?
All things are taken from us, and become
Portions and parcels of the dreadful past.

Let us alone.
What pleasure can we have
To war with evil? Is there any peace
In ever climbing up the climbing wave?
All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave
In silence; ripen, fall and cease:
Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease.
V

How sweet it were, hearing the downward stream,
With half-shut eyes ever to seem
Falling asleep in a half-dream!
To dream and dream, like yonder amber light,
Which will not leave the myrrh-bush on the height;
To hear each other's whisper'd speech;
Eating the Lotos day by day,
To watch the crisping ripples on the beach,
And tender curving lines of creamy spray;
To lend our hearts and spirits wholly
To the influence of mild-minded melancholy;
To muse and brood and live again in memory,
With those old faces of our infancy
Heap'd over with a mound of grass,
Two handfuls of white dust, shut in an urn of brass!VI

Dear is the memory of our wedded lives,
And dear the last embraces of our wives
And their warm tears: but all hath suffer'd change:
For surely now our household hearths are cold,
Our sons inherit us: our looks are strange:
And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy.

Or else the island princes over-bold
Have eat our substance, and the minstrel sings
Before them of the ten years' war in Troy,
And our great deeds, as half-forgotten things.

Is there confusion in the little isle?
Let what is broken so remain.

The Gods are hard to reconcile:
'Tis hard to settle order once again.

There is confusion worse than death,
Trouble on trouble, pain on pain,
Long labour unto aged breath,
Sore task to hearts worn out by many wars
And eyes grown dim with gazing on the pilot-stars.
VII

But, propt on beds of amaranth and moly,
How sweet (while warm airs lull us, blowing lowly)
With half-dropt eyelid still,
Beneath a heaven dark and holy,
To watch the long bright river drawing slowly
His waters from the purple hill--
To hear the dewy echoes calling
From cave to cave thro' the thick-twined vine--
To watch the emerald-colour'd water falling
Thro' many a wov'n acanthus-wreath divine!
Only to hear and see the far-off sparkling brine,
Only to hear were sweet, stretch'd out beneath the pine.
VIII

The Lotos blooms below the barren peak:
The Lotos blows by every winding creek:
All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone:
Thro' every hollow cave and alley lone
Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotos-dust is blown.

We have had enough of action, and of motion we,
Roll'd to starboard, roll'd to larboard, when the surge was seething free,
Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam-fountains in the sea.

Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind,
In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined
On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind.

For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurl'd
Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curl'd
Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world:
Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands,
Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands,
Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying hands.

But they smile, they find a music centred in a doleful song
Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong,
Like a tale of little meaning tho' the words are strong;
Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil,
Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil,
Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil;
Till they perish and they suffer--some, 'tis whisper'd--down in hell
Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell,
Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel.

Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore
Than labour in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar;
O, rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more.
Credits and CopyrightTogether with the editors, the Department ofEnglish (University of Toronto), and the University of Toronto Press,the following individuals share copyright for the work that wentinto this edition:Screen Design (Electronic Edition): Sian Meikle (University ofToronto Library)Scanning: Sharine Leung (Centre for Computing in the Humanities)

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Information about The Lotos-eaters
Poet: Alfred Lord Tennyson
Poem: The Lotos-eaters

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Poem Info
The Lotos-eaters

Last read:
2006-04-22 00:21:55
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Added Mar 11 2005.

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Written by Walter de la Mare |

All Thats Past

 Very old are the woods; 
And the buds that break 
Out of the brier's boughs, 
When March winds wake, 
So old with their beauty are-- 
Oh, no man knows 
Through what wild centuries 
Roves back the rose.
 
Very old are the brooks; 
And the rills that rise 
Where snow sleeps cold beneath 
The azure skies 
Sing such a history 
Of come and gone, 
Their every drop is as wise 
As Solomon.
 

Very old are we men; 
Our dreams are tales 
Told in dim Eden 
By Eve's nightingales; 
We wake and whisper awhile, 
But, the day gone by, 
Silence and sleep like fields 
Of amaranth lie.

Written by Vachel Lindsay |

Our Guardian Angels and Their Children

 Where a river roars in rapids
And doves in maples fret,
Where peace has decked the pastures
Our guardian angels met.


Long they had sought each other
In God's mysterious name,
Had climbed the solemn chaos tides
Alone, with hope aflame:

Amid the demon deeps had wound
By many a fearful way.

As they beheld each other
Their shout made glad the day.


No need of purse delayed them,
No hand of friend or kin —
Nor menace of the bell and book,
Nor fear of mortal sin.


You did not speak, my girl,
At this, our parting hour.

Long we held each other
And watched their deeds of power.


They made a curious Eden.

We saw that it was good.

We thought with them in unison.

We proudly understood

Their amaranth eternal,
Their roses strange and fair,
The asphodels they scattered
Upon the living air.


They built a house of clouds
With skilled immortal hands.

They entered through the silver doors.

Their wings were wedded brands.


I labored up the valley
To granite mountains free.

You hurried down the river
To Zidon by the sea.


But at their place of meeting
They keep a home and shrine.

Your angel twists a purple flax,
Then weaves a mantle fine.


My angel, her defender
Upstanding, spreads the light
On painted clouds of fancy
And mists that touch the height.


Their sturdy babes speak kindly
And fly and run with joy,
Shepherding the helpless lambs —
A Grecian girl and boy.


These children visit Heaven
Each year and make of worth
All we planned and wrought in youth
And all our tears on earth.


From books our God has written
They sing of high desire.

They turn the leaves in gentleness.

Their wings are folded fire.

Written by William Cullen Bryant |

The Conquerors Grave

WITHIN this lowly grave a Conqueror lies  
And yet the monument proclaims it not  
Nor round the sleeper's name hath chisel wrought 
The emblems of a fame that never dies ¡ª 
Ivy and amaranth in a graceful sheaf 5 
Twined with the laurel's fair imperial leaf.
 
A simple name alone  
To the great world unknown  
Is graven here and wild-flowers rising round  
Meek meadow-sweet and violets of the ground 10 
Lean lovingly against the humble stone.
 

Here in the quiet earth they laid apart 
No man of iron mould and bloody hands  
Who sought to wreak upon the cowering lands 
The passions that consumed his restless heart; 15 
But one of tender spirit and delicate frame  
Gentlest in mien and mind  
Of gentle womankind  
Timidly shrinking from the breath of blame: 
One in whose eyes the smile of kindness made 20 
Its haunt like flowers by sunny brooks in May  
Yet at the thought of others' pain a shade 
Of sweeter sadness chased the smile away.
 

Nor deem that when the hand that moulders here 
Was raised in menace realms were chilled with fear 25 
And armies mustered at the sign as when 
Clouds rise on clouds before the rainy East¡ª 
Gray captains leading bands of veteran men 
And fiery youths to be the vulture's feast.
 
Not thus were waged the mighty wars that gave 30 
The victory to her who fills this grave; 
Alone her task was wrought  
Alone the battle fought; 
Through that long strife her constant hope was staid 
On God alone nor looked for other aid.
 35 

She met the hosts of Sorrow with a look 
That altered not beneath the frown they wore  
And soon the lowering brood were tamed and took  
Meekly her gentle rule and frowned no more.
 
Her soft hand put aside the assaults of wrath 40 
And calmly broke in twain 
The fiery shafts of pain  
And rent the nets of passion from her path.
 
By that victorious hand despair was slain.
 
With love she vanquished hate and overcame 45 
Evil with good in her Great Master's name.
 

Her glory is not of this shadowy state  
Glory that with the fleeting season dies; 
But when she entered at the sapphire gate 
What joy was radiant in celestial eyes! 50 
How heaven's bright depths with sounding welcomes rung  
And flowers of heaven by shining hands were flung! 
And He who long before  
Pain scorn and sorrow bore  
The Mighty Sufferer with aspect sweet 55 
Smiled on the timid stranger from his seat; 
He who returning glorious from the grave  
Dragged Death disarmed in chains a crouching slave.
 

See as I linger here the sun grows low; 
Cool airs are murmuring that the night is near.
 60 
O gentle sleeper from thy grave I go 
Consoled though sad in hope and yet in fear.
 
Brief is the time I know  
The warfare scarce begun; 
Yet all may win the triumphs thou hast won.
 65 
Still flows the fount whose waters strengthened thee  
The victors' names are yet too few to fill 
Heaven's mighty roll; the glorious armory  
That ministered to thee is open still.

Written by Vachel Lindsay |

The Amaranth

 Ah, in the night, all music haunts me here.
 .
 .
 .

Is it for naught high Heaven cracks and yawns
And the tremendous Amaranth descends
Sweet with the glory of ten thousand dawns?

Does it not mean my God would have me say: — 
"Whether you will or no, O city young, 
Heaven will bloom like one great flower for you, 
Flash and loom greatly all your marts among?"

Friends, I will not cease hoping though you weep.
 
Such things I see, and some of them shall come 
Though now our streets are harsh and ashen-gray,
Though our strong youths are strident now, or dumb.

Friends, that sweet town, that wonder-town, shall rise.

Naught can delay it.
 Though it may not be
Just as I dream, it comes at last I know
With streets like channels of an incense-sea.