10 Best Famous Bear Witness Poems

Here is a collection of the top 10 all-time best famous Bear Witness poems. This is a select list of the best famous Bear Witness poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Bear Witness poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of bear witness poems.

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Written by Adrienne Rich | Create an image from this poem

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

Written by Alfred Lord Tennyson | Create an image from this poem

To The Queen

 O loyal to the royal in thyself, 
And loyal to thy land, as this to thee-- 
Bear witness, that rememberable day, 
When, pale as yet, and fever-worn, the Prince 
Who scarce had plucked his flickering life again 
From halfway down the shadow of the grave, 
Past with thee through thy people and their love, 
And London rolled one tide of joy through all 
Her trebled millions, and loud leagues of man 
And welcome! witness, too, the silent cry, 
The prayer of many a race and creed, and clime-- 
Thunderless lightnings striking under sea 
From sunset and sunrise of all thy realm, 
And that true North, whereof we lately heard 
A strain to shame us 'keep you to yourselves; 
So loyal is too costly! friends--your love 
Is but a burthen: loose the bond, and go.' 
Is this the tone of empire? here the faith 
That made us rulers? this, indeed, her voice 
And meaning, whom the roar of Hougoumont 
Left mightiest of all peoples under heaven? 
What shock has fooled her since, that she should speak 
So feebly? wealthier--wealthier--hour by hour! 
The voice of Britain, or a sinking land, 
Some third-rate isle half-lost among her seas? 
THERE rang her voice, when the full city pealed 
Thee and thy Prince! The loyal to their crown 
Are loyal to their own far sons, who love 
Our ocean-empire with her boundless homes 
For ever-broadening England, and her throne 
In our vast Orient, and one isle, one isle, 
That knows not her own greatness: if she knows 
And dreads it we are fallen. --But thou, my Queen, 
Not for itself, but through thy living love 
For one to whom I made it o'er his grave 
Sacred, accept this old imperfect tale, 
New-old, and shadowing Sense at war with Soul, 
Ideal manhood closed in real man, 
Rather than that gray king, whose name, a ghost, 
Streams like a cloud, man-shaped, from mountain peak, 
And cleaves to cairn and cromlech still; or him 
Of Geoffrey's book, or him of Malleor's, one 
Touched by the adulterous finger of a time 
That hovered between war and wantonness, 
And crownings and dethronements: take withal 
Thy poet's blessing, and his trust that Heaven 
Will blow the tempest in the distance back 
From thine and ours: for some are sacred, who mark, 
Or wisely or unwisely, signs of storm, 
Waverings of every vane with every wind, 
And wordy trucklings to the transient hour, 
And fierce or careless looseners of the faith, 
And Softness breeding scorn of simple life, 
Or Cowardice, the child of lust for gold, 
Or Labour, with a groan and not a voice, 
Or Art with poisonous honey stolen from France, 
And that which knows, but careful for itself, 
And that which knows not, ruling that which knows 
To its own harm: the goal of this great world 
Lies beyond sight: yet--if our slowly-grown 
And crowned Republic's crowning common-sense, 
That saved her many times, not fail--their fears 
Are morning shadows huger than the shapes 
That cast them, not those gloomier which forego 
The darkness of that battle in the West, 
Where all of high and holy dies away.
Written by Rudyard Kipling | Create an image from this poem

The Song of the Dead

 Hear now the Song of the Dead -- in the North by the torn berg-edges --
They that look still to the Pole, asleep by their hide-stripped sledges.
Song of the Dead in the South -- in the sun by their skeleton horses,
Where the warrigal whimpers and bays through the dust of the sere river-courses.

Song of the Dead in the East -- in the heat-rotted jungle-hollows,
Where the dog-ape barks in the kloof -- in the brake of the buffalo-wallows.

Song of the Dead in the West in the Barrens, the pass that betrayed them,
Where the wolverine tumbles their packs from the camp and the grave-rnound they made them;
 Hear now the Song of the Dead!

 I
We were dreamers, dreaming greatly, in the man-stifled town;
We yearned beyond the sky-line where the strange roads go down.
Came the Whisper, came the Vision, came the Power with the Need,
Till the Soul that is not man's soul was lent us to lead.
As the deer breaks -- as the steer breaks -- from the herd where they graze,
In the faith of little children we went on our ways.
Then the wood failed -- then the food failed -- then the last water dried.
In the faith of little children we lay down and died.
On the sand-drift -- on the veldt-side -- in the fern-scrub we lay,
That our sons might follow after by the bones on the way.
Follow after-follow after! We have watered the root,
And the bud has come to blossom that ripens for fruit!
Follow after -- we are waiting, by the trails that we lost,
For the sounds of many footsteps, for the tread of a host.
Follow after-follow after -- for the harvest is sown:
By the bones about the wayside ye shall come to your own!

 When Drake went down to the Horn
 And England was crowned thereby,
 'Twixt seas unsailed and shores unhailed
 Our Lodge -- our Lodge was born
 (And England was crowned thereby!)

 Which never shall close again
 By day nor yet by night,
 While man shall take his ife to stake
 At risk of shoal or main
 (By day nor yet by night)

 But standeth even so
 As now we witness here,
 While men depart, of joyful heart,
 Adventure for to know
 (As now bear witness here!)

 II
We have fed our sea for a thousand years
 And she calls us, still unfed,
Tbough there's never a wave of all her waves
 But marks our English dead:
We have strawed our best to the weed's unrest,
 To the shark and the sheering gull.
If blood be the price of admiralty,
 Lord God, we ha' paid in tull!

There's never a flood goes shoreward now
 But lifts a keel we manned;
There's never an ebb goes seaward now
 But drops our dead on the sand --
But slinks our dead on the sands forlore,
 From the Ducies to the Swin.
If blood be the price of admiralty,
If blood be the price of admiralty,
 Lord God, we ha' paid it in!

We must feed our sea for a thousand years,
 For that is our doom and pride,
As it was when they sailed with the Golden Hind,
 Or tbe wreck that struck last tide --
Or the wreck that lies on the spouting reef
 Where the ghastly blue-lights flare
If blood be tbe price of admiralty,
If blood be tbe price of admiralty,
If blood be the price of admiralty,
 Lord God, we ha' bought it fair!
Written by Rudyard Kipling | Create an image from this poem

Mowglis Song

 The Song of Mowgli -- I, Mowgli, am singing. Let
 the jungle listen to the things I have done.
Shere Khan said he would kill -- would kill! At the
 gates in the twilight he would kill Mowgli, the
 Frog!
He ate and he drank. Drink deep, Shere Khan, for
 when wilt thou drink again? Sleep and dream
 of the kill.
I am alone on the grazing-grounds. Gray Brother,
 come to me! Come to me, Lone Wolf, for there
 is big game afoot.
Bring up the great bull-buffaloes, the blue-skinned
 herd-bulls with the angry eyes. Drive them to
 and fro as I order.
Sleepest thou still, Shere Khan? Wake, O wake!
 Here come I, and the bulls are behind.
Rama, the King of the Buffaloes, stamped with his
 foot. Waters of the Waingunga, whither went
 Shere Khan?
He is not Ikki to dig holes, nor Mao, the Peacock, that
 he should fly. He is not Mang, the Bat, to hang
 in the branches. Little bamboos that creak to-
 gether, tell me where he ran?
Ow! He is there. Ahoo! He is there. Under the
 feet of Rama lies the Lame One! Up, Shere
 Khan! Up and kill! Here is meat; break the
 necks of the bulls!
Hsh! He is asleep. We will not wake him, for his
 strength is very great. The kites have come down
 to see it. The black ants have come up to know
 it. There is a great assembly in his honour.
Alala! I have no cloth to wrap me. The kites will
 see that I am naked. I am ashamed to meet all
 these people.
Lend me thy coat, Shere Khan. Lend me thy gay
 striped coat that I may go to the Council Rock.
By the Bull that bought me I have made a promise -- 
 a little promise. Only thy coat is lacking before I
 keep my word.
With the knife -- with the knife that men use -- with
 the knife of the hunter, the man, I will stoop down
 for my gift.
Waters of the Waingunga, bear witness that Shere
 Khan gives me his coat for the love that he bears
 me. Pull, Gray Brother! Pull, Akela! Heavy is
 the hide of Shere Khan.
The Man Pack are angry. They throw stones and talk
 child's talk. My mouth is bleeding. Let us run
 away.
Through the night, through the hot night, run swiftly
 with me, my brothers. We will leave the lights
 of the village and go to the low moon.
Waters of the Waingunga, the Man Pack have cast me
 out. I did them no harm, but they were afraid of
 me. Why?
Wolf Pack, ye have cast me out too. The jungle is
 shut to me and the village gates are shut. Why?
As Mang flies between the beasts and the birds so fly
 I between the village and the jungle. Why?
I dance on the hide of Shere Khan, but my heart is
 very heavy. My mouth is cut and wounded with
 the stones from the village, but my heart is very
 light because I have come back to the jungle.
 Why?
These two things fight together in me as the snakes
 fight in the spring. The water comes out of my
 eyes; yet I laugh while it falls. Why?
I am two Mowglis, but the hide of Shere Khan is under
 my feet.
All the jungle knows that I have killed Shere Khan.
 Look -- look well, O Wolves!
Ahae! My heart is heavy with the things that I do
 not understand.

Oh! hush thee, my baby, the night is behind us,
 And black are the waters that sparkled so green.
The moon, o'er the combers, looks downward to find us
 At rest in the hollows that rustle between.
Where billow meets billow, there soft be thy pillow;
 Ah, weary wee flipperling, curl at thy ease!
The storm shall not wake thee, nor shark overtake thee,
 Asleep in the arms of the slow-swinging seas.
Written by Rudyard Kipling | Create an image from this poem

Cleared

 Help for a patriot distressed, a spotless spirit hurt,
Help for an honourable clan sore trampled in the dirt!
From Queenstown Bay to Donegal, O listen to my song,
The honourable gentlemen have suffered grievous wrong.

Their noble names were mentioned -- O the burning black disgrace! --
By a brutal Saxon paper in an Irish shooting-case;
They sat upon it for a year, then steeled their heart to brave it,
And "coruscating innocence" the learned Judges gave it.

Bear witness, Heaven, of that grim crime beneath the surgeon's knife,
The honourable gentlemen deplored the loss of life!
Bear witness of those chanting choirs that burk and shirk and snigger,
No man laid hand upon the knife or finger to the trigger!

Cleared in the face of all mankind beneath the winking skies,
Like ph]oenixes from Ph]oenix Park (and what lay there) they rise!
Go shout it to the emerald seas -- give word to Erin now,
Her honourable gentlemen are cleared -- and this is how: --

They only paid the Moonlighter his cattle-hocking price,
They only helped the murderer with counsel's best advice,
But -- sure it keeps their honour white -- the learned Court believes
They never gave a piece of plate to murderers and thieves.

They never told the ramping crowd to card a woman's hide,
They never marked a man for death -- what fault of theirs he died? --
They only said "intimidate", and talked and went away --
By God, the boys that did the work were braver men than they!

Their sin it was that fed the fire -- small blame to them that heard --
The "bhoys" get drunk on rhetoric, and madden at a word --
They knew whom they were talking at, if they were Irish too,
The gentlemen that lied in Court, they knew, and well they knew.

They only took the Judas-gold from Fenians out of jail,
They only fawned for dollars on the blood-dyed Clanna-Gael.
If black is black or white is white, in black and white it's down,
They're only traitors to the Queen and rebels to the Crown.

"Cleared", honourable gentlemen! Be thankful it's no more: --
The widow's curse is on your house, the dead are at your door.
On you the shame of open shame, on you from North to South
The hand of every honest man flat-heeled across your mouth.

"Less black than we were painted"? -- Faith, no word of black was said;
The lightest touch was human blood, and that, you know, runs red.
It's sticking to your fist to-day for all your sneer and scoff,
And by the Judge's well-weighed word you cannot wipe it off.

Hold up those hands of innocence -- go, scare your sheep together,
The blundering, tripping tups that bleat behind the old bell-wether;
And if they snuff the taint and break to find another pen,
Tell them it's tar that glistens so, and daub them yours again!

"The charge is old"? -- As old as Cain -- as fresh as yesterday;
Old as the Ten Commandments -- have ye talked those laws away?
If words are words, or death is death, or powder sends the ball,
You spoke the words that sped the shot -- the curse be on you all.

"Our friends believe"? -- Of course they do -- as sheltered women may;
But have they seen the shrieking soul ripped from the quivering clay?
They! -- If their own front door is shut,
 they'll swear the whole world's warm;
What do they know of dread of death or hanging fear of harm?

The secret half a county keeps, the whisper in the lane,
The shriek that tells the shot went home behind the broken pane,
The dry blood crisping in the sun that scares the honest bees,
And shows the "bhoys" have heard your talk -- what do they know of these?

But you -- you know -- ay, ten times more; the secrets of the dead,
Black terror on the country-side by word and whisper bred,
The mangled stallion's scream at night, the tail-cropped heifer's low.
Who set the whisper going first? You know, and well you know!

My soul! I'd sooner lie in jail for murder plain and straight,
Pure crime I'd done with my own hand for money, lust, or hate,
Than take a seat in Parliament by fellow-felons cheered,
While one of those "not provens" proved me cleared as you are cleared.

Cleared -- you that "lost" the League accounts -- go, guard our honour still,
Go, help to make our country's laws that broke God's law at will --
One hand stuck out behind the back, to signal "strike again";
The other on your dress-shirt-front to show your heart is clane.

If black is black or white is white, in black and white it's down,
You're only traitors to the Queen and rebels to the Crown.
If print is print or words are words, the learned Court perpends: --
We are not ruled by murderers, but only -- by their friends.

Written by Sara Teasdale | Create an image from this poem

On A March Day

 Here in the teeth of this triumphant wind 
 That shakes the naked shadows on the ground, 
Making a key-board of the earth to strike 
 From clattering tree and hedge a separate sound, 

Bear witness for me that I loved my life, 
 All things that hurt me and all things that healed, 
And that I swore it this day in March, 
 Here at the edge of this new-broken field. 

You only knew me, tell them I was glad 
 For every hour since my hour of birth, 
And that I ceased to fear, as once I feared, 
 The last complete reunion with the earth.
Written by Robert Southey | Create an image from this poem

Sappho - A Monodrama

 Argument.

To leap from the promontory of LEUCADIA was believed by the Greeks to be
a remedy for hopeless love, if the self-devoted victim escaped with
life. Artemisia lost her life in the dangerous experiment: and Sappho is
said thus to have perished, in attempting to cure her passion for Phaon.


SAPPHO

(Scene the promontory of Leucadia.)

This is the spot:--'tis here Tradition says
That hopeless Love from this high towering rock
Leaps headlong to Oblivion or to Death.
Oh 'tis a giddy height! my dizzy head
Swims at the precipice--'tis death to fall!

Lie still, thou coward heart! this is no time
To shake with thy strong throbs the frame convuls'd.
To die,--to be at rest--oh pleasant thought!
Perchance to leap and live; the soul all still,
And the wild tempest of the passions husht
In one deep calm; the heart, no more diseas'd
By the quick ague fits of hope and fear,
Quietly cold!
Presiding Powers look down!
In vain to you I pour'd my earnest prayers,
In vain I sung your praises: chiefly thou
VENUS! ungrateful Goddess, whom my lyre
Hymn'd with such full devotion! Lesbian groves,
Witness how often at the languid hour
Of summer twilight, to the melting song
Ye gave your choral echoes! Grecian Maids
Who hear with downcast look and flushing cheek
That lay of love bear witness! and ye Youths,
Who hang enraptur'd on the empassion'd strain
Gazing with eloquent eye, even till the heart
Sinks in the deep delirium! and ye too
Shall witness, unborn Ages! to that song
Of warmest zeal; ah witness ye, how hard,
Her fate who hymn'd the votive hymn in vain!
Ungrateful Goddess! I have hung my lute
In yonder holy pile: my hand no more
Shall wake the melodies that fail'd to move
The heart of Phaon--yet when Rumour tells
How from Leucadia Sappho hurl'd her down
A self-devoted victim--he may melt
Too late in pity, obstinate to love.

Oh haunt his midnight dreams, black NEMESIS!
Whom, self-conceiving in the inmost depths
Of CHAOS, blackest NIGHT long-labouring bore,
When the stern DESTINIES, her elder brood.
And shapeless DEATH, from that more monstrous birth
Leapt shuddering! haunt his slumbers, Nemesis,
Scorch with the fires of Phlegethon his heart,
Till helpless, hopeless, heaven-abandon'd wretch
He too shall seek beneath the unfathom'd deep
To hide him from thy fury.

How the sea
Far distant glitters as the sun-beams smile,
And gayly wanton o'er its heaving breast
Phoebus shines forth, nor wears one cloud to mourn
His votary's sorrows! God of Day shine on--
By Man despis'd, forsaken by the Gods,
I supplicate no more.

How many a day,
O pleasant Lesbos! in thy secret streams
Delighted have I plung'd, from the hot sun
Screen'd by the o'er-arching groves delightful shade,
And pillowed on the waters: now the waves
Shall chill me to repose.

Tremendous height!
Scarce to the brink will these rebellious limbs
Support me. Hark! how the rude deep below
Roars round the rugged base, as if it called
Its long-reluctant victim! I will come.
One leap, and all is over! The deep rest
Of Death, or tranquil Apathy's dead calm
Welcome alike to me. Away vain fears!
Phaon is cold, and why should Sappho live?
Phaon is cold, or with some fairer one--
Thought worse than death!

(She throws herself from the precipice.)
Written by Robert Browning | Create an image from this poem

The Englishman In Italy

 (PIANO DI SORRENTO.)

Fortu, Frotu, my beloved one,
Sit here by my side,
On my knees put up both little feet!
I was sure, if I tried,
I could make you laugh spite of Scirocco;
Now, open your eyes— 
Let me keep you amused till he vanish
In black from the skies,
With telling my memories over
As you tell your beads;
All the memories plucked at Sorrento
—The flowers, or the weeds,
Time for rain! for your long hot dry Autumn
Had net-worked with brown
The white skin of each grape on the bunches,
Marked like a quail's crown,
Those creatures you make such account of,
Whose heads,—specked with white
Over brown like a great spider's back,
As I told you last night,— 
Your mother bites off for her supper;
Red-ripe as could be.
Pomegranates were chapping and splitting
In halves on the tree:
And betwixt the loose walls of great flintstone,
Or in the thick dust
On the path, or straight out of the rock side,
Wherever could thrust
Some burnt sprig of bold hardy rock-flower
Its yellow face up,
For the prize were great butterflies fighting,
Some five for one cup.
So, I guessed, ere I got up this morning,
What change was in store,
By the quick rustle-down of the quail-nets
Which woke me before
I could open my shutter, made fast
With a bough and a stone,
And look through the twisted dead vine-twigs,
Sole lattice that's known!
Quick and sharp rang the rings down the net-poles,
While, busy beneath,
Your priest and his brother tugged at them,
The rain in their teeth:
And out upon all the flat house-roofs
Where split figs lay drying,
The girls took the frails under cover:
Nor use seemed in trying
To get out the boats and go fishing,
For, under the cliff,
Fierce the black water frothed o'er the blind-rock
No seeing our skiff
Arrive about noon from Amalfi,
—Our fisher arrive,
And pitch down his basket before us,
All trembling alive
With pink and grey jellies, your sea-fruit,
—You touch the strange lumps,
And mouths gape there, eyes open, all manner
Of horns and of humps.
Which only the fisher looks grave at,
While round him like imps
Cling screaming the children as naked
And brown as his shrimps;
Himself too as bare to the middle— 
—You see round his neck
The string and its brass coin suspended,
That saves him from wreck.
But today not a boat reached Salerno,
So back to a man
Came our friends, with whose help in the vineyards
Grape-harvest began:
In the vat, half-way up in our house-side,
Like blood the juice spins,
While your brother all bare-legged is dancing
Till breathless he grins
Dead-beaten, in effort on effort
To keep the grapes under,
Since still when he seems all but master,
In pours the fresh plunder
From girls who keep coming and going
With basket on shoulder,
And eyes shut against the rain's driving,
Your girls that are older,— 
For under the hedges of aloe,
And where, on its bed
Of the orchard's black mould, the love-apple
Lies pulpy and red,
All the young ones are kneeling and filling
Their laps with the snails
Tempted out by this first rainy weather,— 
Your best of regales,
As tonight will be proved to my sorrow,
When, supping in state,
We shall feast our grape-gleaners (two dozen,
Three over one plate)
With lasagne so tempting to swallow
In slippery ropes,
And gourds fried in great purple slices,
That colour of popes.
Meantime, see the grape-bunch they've brought you,— 
The rain-water slips
O'er the heavy blue bloom on each globe
Which the wasp to your lips
Still follows with fretful persistence— 
Nay, taste, while awake,
This half of a curd-white smooth cheese-ball,
That peels, flake by flake,
Like an onion's, each smoother and whiter;
Next, sip this weak wine
From the thin green glass flask, with its stopper,
A leaf of the vine,— 
And end with the prickly-pear's red flesh
That leaves through its juice
The stony black seeds on your pearl-teeth
...Scirocco is loose!
Hark! the quick, whistling pelt of the olives
Which, thick in one's track,
Tempt the stranger to pick up and bite them,
Though not yet half black!
How the old twisted olive trunks shudder!
The medlars let fall
Their hard fruit, and the brittle great fig-trees
Snap off, figs and all,— 
For here comes the whole of the tempest
No refuge, but creep
Back again to my side and my shoulder,
And listen or sleep.

O how will your country show next week
When all the vine-boughs
Have been stripped of their foliage to pasture
The mules and the cows?
Last eve, I rode over the mountains;
Your brother, my guide,
Soon left me, to feast on the myrtles
That offered, each side,
Their fruit-balls, black, glossy and luscious,— 
Or strip from the sorbs
A treasure, so rosy and wondrous,
Of hairy gold orbs!
But my mule picked his sure, sober path out,
Just stopping to neigh
When he recognized down in the valley
His mates on their way
With the faggots, and barrels of water;
And soon we emerged
From the plain, where the woods could scarce follow
And still as we urged
Our way, the woods wondered, and left us,
As up still we trudged
Though the wild path grew wilder each instant,
And place was e'en grudged
'Mid the rock-chasms, and piles of loose stones
(Like the loose broken teeth
Of some monster, which climbed there to die
From the ocean beneath)
Place was grudged to the silver-grey fume-weed
That clung to the path,
And dark rosemary, ever a-dying,
That, 'spite the wind's wrath,
So loves the salt rock's face to seaward,— 
And lentisks as staunch
To the stone where they root and bear berries,— 
And... what shows a branch
Coral-coloured, transparent, with circlets
Of pale seagreen leaves— 
Over all trod my mule with the caution
Of gleaners o'er sheaves,
Still, foot after foot like a lady— 
So, round after round,
He climbed to the top of Calvano,
And God's own profound
Was above me, and round me the mountains,
And under, the sea,
And within me, my heart to bear witness
What was and shall be!
Oh Heaven, and the terrible crystal!
No rampart excludes
Your eye from the life to be lived
In the blue solitudes!
Oh, those mountains, their infinite movement!
Still moving with you— 
For, ever some new head and breast of them
Thrusts into view
To observe the intruder—you see it
If quickly you turn
And, before they escape you, surprise them— 
They grudge you should learn
How the soft plains they look on, lean over,
And love (they pretend)
-Cower beneath them; the flat sea-pine crouches
The wild fruit-trees bend,
E'en the myrtle-leaves curl, shrink and shut— 
All is silent and grave— 
'Tis a sensual and timorous beauty— 
How fair, but a slave!
So, I turned to the sea,—and there slumbered
As greenly as ever
Those isles of the siren, your Galli;
No ages can sever
The Three, nor enable their sister
To join them,—half-way
On the voyage, she looked at Ulysses— 
No farther today;
Though the small one, just launched in the wave,
Watches breast-high and steady
From under the rock, her bold sister
Swum half-way already.
Fortu, shall we sail there together
And see from the sides
Quite new rocks show their faces—new haunts
Where the siren abides?
Shall we sail round and round them, close over
The rocks, though unseen,
That ruffle the grey glassy water
To glorious green?
Then scramble from splinter to splinter,
Reach land and explore,
On the largest, the strange square black turret
With never a door,
Just a loop to admit the quick lizards;
Then, stand there and hear
The birds' quiet singing, that tells us
What life is, so clear!
The secret they sang to Ulysses,
When, ages ago,
He heard and he knew this life's secret,
I hear and I know!

Ah, see! The sun breaks o'er Calvano— 
He strikes the great gloom
And flutters it o'er the mount's summit
In airy gold fume!
All is over! Look out, see the gipsy,
Our tinker and smith,
Has arrived, set up bellows and forge,
And down-squatted forthwith
To his hammering, under the wall there;
One eye keeps aloof
The urchins that itch to be putting
His jews'-harps to proof,
While the other, through locks of curled wire,
Is watching how sleek
Shines the hog, come to share in the windfalls
—An abbot's own cheek!
All is over! Wake up and come out now,
And down let us go,
And see the fine things got in order
At Church for the show
Of the Sacrament, set forth this evening;
Tomorrow's the Feast
Of the Rosary's Virgin, by no means
Of Virgins the least— 
As you'll hear in the off-hand discourse
Which (all nature, no art)
The Dominican brother, these three weeks,
Was getting by heart.
Not a post nor a pillar but's dizened
With red and blue papers;
All the roof waves with ribbons, each altar
A-blaze with long tapers;
But the great masterpiece is the scaffold
Rigged glorious to hold
All the fiddlers and fifers and drummers
And trumpeters bold,
Not afraid of Bellini nor Auber,
Who, when the priest's hoarse,
Will strike us up something that's brisk
For the feast's second course.
And then will the flaxen-wigged Image
Be carried in pomp
Through the plain, while in gallant procession
The priests mean to stomp.
And all round the glad church lie old bottles
With gunpowder stopped,
Which will be, when the Image re-enters,
Religiously popped.
And at night from the crest of Calvano
Great bonfires will hang,
On the plain will the trumpets join chorus,
And more poppers bang!
At all events, come—to the garden,
As far as the wall,
See me tap with a hoe on the plaster
Till out there shall fall
A scorpion with wide angry nippers!

..."Such trifles"—you say?
Fortu, in my England at home,
Men meet gravely today
And debate, if abolishing Corn-laws
Is righteous and wise
—If 'tis proper, Scirocco should vanish
In black from the skies!
Written by Rudyard Kipling | Create an image from this poem

A Song of the White Men

 1899

Now, this is the cup the White Men drink
 When they go to right a wrong,
And that is the cup of the old world's hate--
 Cruel and strained and strong.
We have drunk that cup--and a bitter, bitter cup--
 And tossed the dregs away.
But well for the world when the White Men drink
 To the dawn of the White Man's day!


Now, this is the road that the White Men tread
 When they go to clean a land--
Iron underfoot and levin overhead
 And the deep on either hand.
We have trod that road--and a wet and windy road--
 Our chosen star for guide.
Oh, well for the world when the White Men tread
 Their highway side by side!


Now, this is the faith that the White Men hold--
 When they build their homes afar--
"Freedom for ourselves and freedom for our sons
 And, failing freedom, War."
We have proved our faith--bear witness to our faith,
 Dear souls of freemen slain!
Oh, well for the world when the White Men join
 To prove their faith again!
Written by Joyce Kilmer | Create an image from this poem

The White Ships and the Red

 (For Alden March)

With drooping sail and pennant
That never a wind may reach,
They float in sunless waters
Beside a sunless beach.
Their mighty masts and funnels
Are white as driven snow,
And with a pallid radiance
Their ghostly bulwarks glow.
Here is a Spanish galleon
That once with gold was gay,
Here is a Roman trireme
Whose hues outshone the day.
But Tyrian dyes have faded,
And prows that once were bright
With rainbow stains wear only
Death's livid, dreadful white.
White as the ice that clove her
That unforgotten day,
Among her pallid sisters
The grim Titanic lay.
And through the leagues above her
She looked aghast, and said:
"What is this living ship that comes
Where every ship is dead?"
The ghostly vessels trembled
From ruined stern to prow;
What was this thing of terror
That broke their vigil now?
Down through the startled ocean
A mighty vessel came,
Not white, as all dead ships must be,
But red, like living flame!
The pale green waves about her
Were swiftly, strangely dyed,
By the great scarlet stream that flowed
From out her wounded side.
And all her decks were scarlet
And all her shattered crew.
She sank among the white ghost ships
And stained them through and through.
The grim Titanic greeted her
"And who art thou?" she said;
"Why dost thou join our ghostly fleet
Arrayed in living red?
We are the ships of sorrow
Who spend the weary night,
Until the dawn of Judgment Day,
Obscure and still and white."
"Nay," said the scarlet visitor,
"Though I sink through the sea,
A ruined thing that was a ship,
I sink not as did ye.
For ye met with your destiny
By storm or rock or fight,
So through the lagging centuries
Ye wear your robes of white.
"But never crashing iceberg
Nor honest shot of foe,
Nor hidden reef has sent me
The way that I must go.
My wound that stains the waters,
My blood that is like flame,
Bear witness to a loathly deed,
A deed without a name.
"I went not forth to battle,
I carried friendly men,
The children played about my decks,
The women sang -- and then --
And then -- the sun blushed scarlet
And Heaven hid its face,
The world that God created
Became a shameful place!
"My wrong cries out for vengeance,
The blow that sent me here
Was aimed in Hell. My dying scream
Has reached Jehovah's ear.
Not all the seven oceans
Shall wash away that stain;
Upon a brow that wears a crown
I am the brand of Cain."
When God's great voice assembles
The fleet on Judgment Day,
The ghosts of ruined ships will rise
In sea and strait and bay.
Though they have lain for ages
Beneath the changeless flood,
They shall be white as silver,
But one -- shall be like blood.
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