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Best Famous Beyond Belief Poems

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Written by Robinson Jeffers | Create an image from this poem

The Great Explosion

 The universe expands and contracts like a great heart.
It is expanding, the farthest nebulae Rush with the speed of light into empty space.
It will contract, the immense navies of stars and galaxies, dust clouds and nebulae Are recalled home, they crush against each other in one harbor, they stick in one lump And then explode it, nothing can hold them down; there is no way to express that explosion; all that exists Roars into flame, the tortured fragments rush away from each other into all the sky, new universes Jewel the black breast of night; and far off the outer nebulae like charging spearmen again Invade emptiness.
No wonder we are so fascinated with fireworks And our huge bombs: it is a kind of homesickness perhaps for the howling fireblast that we were born from.
But the whole sum of the energies That made and contain the giant atom survives.
It will gather again and pile up, the power and the glory-- And no doubt it will burst again; diastole and systole: the whole universe beats like a heart.
Peace in our time was never one of God's promises; but back and forth, live and die, burn and be damned, The great heart beating, pumping into our arteries His terrible life.
He is beautiful beyond belief.
And we, God's apes--or tragic children--share in the beauty.
We see it above our torment, that's what life's for.
He is no God of love, no justice of a little city like Dante's Florence, no anthropoid God Making commandments,: this is the God who does not care and will never cease.
Look at the seas there Flashing against this rock in the darkness--look at the tide-stream stars--and the fall of nations--and dawn Wandering with wet white feet down the Caramel Valley to meet the sea.
These are real and we see their beauty.
The great explosion is probably only a metaphor--I know not --of faceless violence, the root of all things.


Written by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz | Create an image from this poem

You Men

(Español)
Hombres necios que acusáis
a la mujer sin razón,
sin ver que sois la ocasión
de lo mismo que culpáis:

si con ansia sin igual
solicitáis su desdén,
¿por qué quereis que obren bien
si las incitáis al mal?

Combatís su resistencia
y luego, con gravedad,
decís que fue liviandad
lo que hizo la diligencia.

Parecer quiere el denuedo
de vuestro parecer loco,
al niño que pone el coco
y luego le tiene miedo.

Queréis, con presunción necia,
hallar a la que buscáis,
para pretendida, Thais,
y en la posesión, Lucrecia

¿Qué humor puede ser más raro
que el que, falto de consejo,
el mismo empaña el espejo
y siente que no esté claro?

Con el favor y el desdén
tenéis condición igual,
quejándoos, si os tratan mal,
burlándoos, si os quieren bien.

Opinión, ninguna gana:
pues la que más se recata,
si no os admite, es ingrata,
y si os admite, es liviana

Siempre tan necios andáis
que, con desigual nivel,
a una culpáis por crüel
y a otra por fácil culpáis.

¿Pues cómo ha de estar templada
la que vuestro amor pretende,
si la que es ingrata, ofende,
y la que es fácil, enfada?

Mas, entre el enfado y pena
que vuestro gusto refiere,
bien haya la que no os quiere
y quejaos en hora buena.

Dan vuestras amantes penas
a sus libertades alas,
y después de hacerlas malas
las queréis hallar muy buenas.

¿Cuál mayor culpa ha tenido
en una pasión errada:
la que cae de rogada
o el que ruega de caído?

¿O cuál es más de culpar,
aunque cualquiera mal haga:
la que peca por la paga
o el que paga por pecar?

Pues ¿para quée os espantáis
de la culpa que tenéis?
Queredlas cual las hacéis
o hacedlas cual las buscáis.

Dejad de solicitar,
y después, con más razón,
acusaréis la afición
de la que os fuere a rogar.

Bien con muchas armas fundo
que lidia vuestra arrogancia,
pues en promesa e instancia
juntáis diablo, carne y mundo.

(English)
Silly, you men-so very adept
at wrongly faulting womankind,
not seeing you're alone to blame
for faults you plant in woman's mind.

After you've won by urgent plea
the right to tarnish her good name,
you still expect her to behave--
you, that coaxed her into shame.

You batter her resistance down
and then, all righteousness, proclaim
that feminine frivolity,
not your persistence, is to blame.

When it comes to bravely posturing,
your witlessness must take the prize:
you're the child that makes a bogeyman,
and then recoils in fear and cries.

Presumptuous beyond belief,
you'd have the woman you pursue
be Thais when you're courting her,
Lucretia once she falls to you.

For plain default of common sense,
could any action be so *****
as oneself to cloud the mirror,
then complain that it's not clear?

Whether you're favored or disdained,
nothing can leave you satisfied.
You whimper if you're turned away,
you sneer if you've been gratified.

With you, no woman can hope to score;
whichever way, she's bound to lose;
spurning you, she's ungrateful--
succumbing, you call her lewd.

Your folly is always the same:
you apply a single rule
to the one you accuse of looseness
and the one you brand as cruel.

What happy mean could there be
for the woman who catches your eye,
if, unresponsive, she offends,
yet whose complaisance you decry?

Still, whether it's torment or anger--
and both ways you've yourselves to blame--
God bless the woman who won't have you,
no matter how loud you complain.

It's your persistent entreaties
that change her from timid to bold.
Having made her thereby naughty,
you would have her good as gold.

So where does the greater guilt lie
for a passion that should not be:
with the man who pleads out of baseness
or the woman debased by his plea?

Or which is more to be blamed--
though both will have cause for chagrin:
the woman who sins for money
or the man who pays money to sin?

So why are you men all so stunned
at the thought you're all guilty alike?
Either like them for what you've made them
or make of them what you can like.

If you'd give up pursuing them,
you'd discover, without a doubt,
you've a stronger case to make
against those who seek you out.

I well know what powerful arms
you wield in pressing for evil:
your arrogance is allied
with the world, the flesh, and the devil! 
Written by Aleister Crowley | Create an image from this poem

The Titanic

 Forth flashed the serpent streak of steel,
Consummate crown of man's device;
Down crashed upon an immobile
And brainless barrier of ice.
Courage! The grey gods shoot a laughing lip: - Let not faith founder with the ship! We reel before the blows of fate; Our stout souls stagger at the shock.
Oh! there is Something ultimate Fixed faster than the living rock.
Courage! Catastrophe beyond belief Harden our hearts to fear and grief! The gods upon the Titans shower Their high intolerable scorn; But no god knoweth in what hour A new Prometheus may be born.
Courage! Man to his doom goes driving down; A crown of thorns is still a crown! No power of nature shall withstand At last the spirit of mankind: It is not built upon the sand; It is not wastrel to the wind.
Courage! Disaster and destruction tend To taller triumph in the end.
Written by Andrew Barton Paterson | Create an image from this poem

A Dogs Mistake

 He had drifted in among us as a straw drifts with the tide, 
He was just a wand'ring mongrel from the weary world outside; 
He was not aristocratic, being mostly ribs and hair, 
With a hint of spaniel parents and a touch of native bear.
He was very poor and humble and content with what he got, So we fed him bones and biscuits, till he heartened up a lot; Then he growled and grew aggressive, treating orders with disdain, Till at last he bit the butcher, which would argue want of brain.
Now the butcher, noble fellow, was a sport beyond belief, And instead of bringing actions he brought half a shin of beef, Which he handed on to Fido, who received it as a right And removed it to the garden, where he buried it at night.
'Twas the means of his undoing, for my wife, who'd stood his friend, To adopt a slang expression, "went in off the deepest end", For among the pinks and pansies, the gloxinias and the gorse He had made an excavation like a graveyard for a horse.
Then we held a consultation which decided on his fate: 'Twas in anger more than sorrow that we led him to the gate, And we handed him the beef-bone as provision for the day, Then we opened wide the portal and we told him, "On your way.
"
Written by Robert William Service | Create an image from this poem

The Pencil Seller

 A pencil, sir; a penny -- won't you buy?
I'm cold and wet and tired, a sorry plight;
Don't turn your back, sir; take one just to try;
I haven't made a single sale to-night.
Oh, thank you, sir; but take the pencil too; I'm not a beggar, I'm a business man.
Pencils I deal in, red and black and blue; It's hard, but still I do the best I can.
Most days I make enough to pay for bread, A cup o' coffee, stretching room at night.
One needs so little -- to be warm and fed, A hole to kennel in -- oh, one's all right .
.
.
Excuse me, you're a painter, are you not? I saw you looking at that dealer's show, The croûtes he has for sale, a shabby lot -- What do I know of Art? What do I know .
.
.
Well, look! That David Strong so well displayed, "White Sorcery" it's called, all gossamer, And pale moon-magic and a dancing maid (You like the little elfin face of her?) -- That's good; but still, the picture as a whole, The values, -- Pah! He never painted worse; Perhaps because his fire was lacking coal, His cupboard bare, no money in his purse.
Perhaps .
.
.
they say he labored hard and long, And see now, in the harvest of his fame, When round his pictures people gape and throng, A scurvy dealer sells this on his name.
A wretched rag, wrung out of want and woe; A soulless daub, not David Strong a bit, Unworthy of his art.
.
.
.
How should I know? How should I know? I'm Strong -- I painted it.
There now, I didn't mean to let that out.
It came in spite of me -- aye, stare and stare.
You think I'm lying, crazy, drunk, no doubt -- Think what you like, it's neither here nor there.
It's hard to tell so terrible a truth, To gain to glory, yet be such as I.
It's true; that picture's mine, done in my youth, Up in a garret near the Paris sky.
The child's my daughter; aye, she posed for me.
That's why I come and sit here every night.
The painting's bad, but still -- oh, still I see Her little face all laughing in the light.
So now you understand.
-- I live in fear Lest one like you should carry it away; A poor, pot-boiling thing, but oh, how dear! "Don't let them buy it, pitying God!" I pray! And hark ye, sir -- sometimes my brain's awhirl.
Some night I'll crash into that window pane And snatch my picture back, my little girl, And run and run.
.
.
.
I'm talking wild again; A crab can't run.
I'm crippled, withered, lame, Palsied, as good as dead all down one side.
No warning had I when the evil came: It struck me down in all my strength and pride.
Triumph was mine, I thrilled with perfect power; Honor was mine, Fame's laurel touched my brow; Glory was mine -- within a little hour I was a god and .
.
.
what you find me now.
My child, that little, laughing girl you see, She was my nurse for all ten weary years; Her joy, her hope, her youth she gave for me; Her very smiles were masks to hide her tears.
And I, my precious art, so rich, so rare, Lost, lost to me -- what could my heart but break! Oh, as I lay and wrestled with despair, I would have killed myself but for her sake.
.
.
.
By luck I had some pictures I could sell, And so we fought the wolf back from the door; She painted too, aye, wonderfully well.
We often dreamed of brighter days in store.
And then quite suddenly she seemed to fail; I saw the shadows darken round her eyes.
So tired she was, so sorrowful, so pale, And oh, there came a day she could not rise.
The doctor looked at her; he shook his head, And spoke of wine and grapes and Southern air: "If you can get her out of this," he said, "She'll have a fighting chance with proper care.
" "With proper care!" When he had gone away, I sat there, trembling, twitching, dazed with grief.
Under my old and ragged coat she lay, Our room was bare and cold beyond belief.
"Maybe," I thought, "I still can paint a bit, Some lilies, landscape, anything at all.
" Alas! My brush, I could not steady it.
Down from my fumbling hand I let it fall.
"With proper care" -- how could I give her that, Half of me dead? .
.
.
I crawled down to the street.
Cowering beside the wall, I held my hat And begged of every one I chanced to meet.
I got some pennies, bought her milk and bread, And so I fought to keep the Doom away; And yet I saw with agony of dread My dear one sinking, sinking day by day.
And then I was awakened in the night: "Please take my hands, I'm cold," I heard her sigh; And soft she whispered, as she held me tight: "Oh daddy, we've been happy, you and I!" I do not think she suffered any pain, She breathed so quietly .
.
.
but though I tried, I could not warm her little hands again: And so there in the icy dark she died.
.
.
.
The dawn came groping in with fingers gray And touched me, sitting silent as a stone; I kissed those piteous lips, as cold as clay -- I did not cry, I did not even moan.
At last I rose, groped down the narrow stair; An evil fog was oozing from the sky; Half-crazed I stumbled on, I knew not where, Like phantoms were the folks that passed me by.
How long I wandered thus I do not know, But suddenly I halted, stood stock-still -- Beside a door that spilled a golden glow I saw a name, my name, upon a bill.
"A Sale of Famous Pictures," so it read, "A Notable Collection, each a gem, Distinguished Works of Art by painters dead.
" The folks were going in, I followed them.
I stood upon the outskirts of the crowd, I only hoped that none might notice me.
Soon, soon I heard them call my name aloud: "A `David Strong', his Fete in Brittany.
" (A brave big picture that, the best I've done, It glowed and kindled half the hall away, With all its memories of sea and sun, Of pipe and bowl, of joyous work and play.
I saw the sardine nets blue as the sky, I saw the nut-brown fisher-boats put out.
) "Five hundred pounds!" rapped out a voice near by; "Six hundred!" "Seven!" "Eight!" And then a shout: "A thousand pounds!" Oh, how I thrilled to hear! Oh, how the bids went up by leaps, by bounds! And then a silence; then the auctioneer: "It's going! Going! Gone! Three thousand pounds!" Three thousand pounds! A frenzy leapt in me.
"That picture's mine," I cried; "I'm David Strong.
I painted it, this famished wretch you see; I did it, I, and sold it for a song.
And in a garret three small hours ago My daughter died for want of Christian care.
Look, look at me! .
.
.
Is it to mock my woe You pay three thousand for my picture there?" .
.
.
O God! I stumbled blindly from the hall; The city crashed on me, the fiendish sounds Of cruelty and strife, but over all "Three thousand pounds!" I heard; "Three thousand pounds!" There, that's my story, sir; it isn't gay.
Tales of the Poor are never very bright .
.
.
You'll look for me next time you pass this way .
.
.
I hope you'll find me, sir; good-night, good-night.


Written by James Merrill | Create an image from this poem

The Victor Dog

 Bix to Buxtehude to Boulez,
The little white dog on the Victor label
Listens long and hard as he is able.
It's all in a day's work, whatever plays.
From judgment, it would seem, he has refrained.
He even listens earnestly to Bloch, Then builds a church upon our acid rock.
He's man's--no--he's the Leiermann's best friend, Or would be if hearing and listening were the same.
Does he hear?I fancy he rather smells Those lemon-gold arpeggios in Ravel's "Les jets d'eau du palais de ceux qui s'aiment.
" He ponders the Schumann Concerto's tall willow hit By lightning, and stays put.
When he surmises Through one of Bach's eternal boxwood mazes The oboe pungent as a ***** in heat, Or when the calypso decants its raw bay rum Or the moon in Wozzeck reddens ripe for murder, He doesn't sneeze or howl; just listens harder.
Adamant needles bear down on him from Whirling of outer space, too black, too near-- But he was taught as a puppy not to flinch, Much less to imitate his bête noire Blanche Who barked, fat foolish creature, at King Lear.
Still others fought in the road's filth over Jezebel, Slavered on hearths of horned and pelted barons.
His forebears lacked, to say the least, forebearance.
Can nature change in him?Nothing's impossible.
The last chord fades.
The night is cold and fine.
His master's voice rasps through the grooves' bare groves.
Obediently, in silence like the grave's He sleeps there on the still-warm gramophone Only to dream he is at the première of a Handel Opera long thought lost--Il Cane Minore.
Its allegorical subject is his story! A little dog revolving round a spindle Gives rise to harmonies beyond belief, A cast of stars .
.
.
.
Is there in Victor's heart No honey for the vanquished?Art is art.
The life it asks of us is a dog's life.
Written by Randall Jarrell | Create an image from this poem

The Orient Express

 One looks from the train
Almost as one looked as a child.
In the sunlight What I see still seems to me plain, I am safe; but at evening As the lands darken, a questioning Precariousness comes over everything.
Once after a day of rain I lay longing to be cold; after a while I was cold again, and hunched shivering Under the quilt's many colors, gray With the dull ending of the winter day, Outside me there were a few shapes Of chairs and tables, things from a primer; Outside the window There were the chairs and tables of the world .
.
.
I saw that the world That had seemed to me the plain Gray mask of all that was strange Behind it -- of all that was -- was all.
But it is beyond belief.
One thinks, "Behind everything An unforced joy, an unwilling Sadness (a willing sadness, a forced joy) Moves changelessly"; one looks from the train And there is something, the same thing Behind everything: all these little villages, A passing woman, a field of grain, The man who says good-bye to his wife -- A path through a wood all full of lives, and the train Passing, after all unchangeable And not now ever to stop, like a heart -- It is like any other work of art, It is and never can be changed.
Behind everything there is always The unknown unwanted life.
Written by Robert William Service | Create an image from this poem

Wonder

 For failure I was well equipped
 And should have come to grief,
By atavism grimly gripped,
 A fool beyond belief.
But lo! the Lord was good to me, And with a heart to sing, He gave me to a rare degree The Gift of Wondering.
I could not play a stalwart part My shoddy soul to save, And should have gone with broken heart A begger to the grave; But praise to my anointed sight As wandering I went, I sang of living with delight In terms of Wonderment.
Aye, starry-eyed did I rejoice With marvel of a child, And there were those who heard my voice Although my words were wild: So as I go my wistful way, With worship let me sing, A treasure to my farewell day God's Gift of Wondering.
Written by Robert William Service | Create an image from this poem

My Friends

 The man above was a murderer, the man below was a thief;
And I lay there in the bunk between, ailing beyond belief;
A weary armful of skin and bone, wasted with pain and grief.
My feet were froze, and the lifeless toes were purple and green and gray; The little flesh that clung to my bones, you could punch it in holes like clay; The skin on my gums was a sullen black, and slowly peeling away.
I was sure enough in a direful fix, and often I wondered why They did not take the chance that was left and leave me alone to die, Or finish me off with a dose of dope--so utterly lost was I.
But no; they brewed me the green-spruce tea, and nursed me there like a child; And the homicide he was good to me, and bathed my sores and smiled; And the thief he starved that I might be fed, and his eyes were kind and mild.
Yet they were woefully wicked men, and often at night in pain I heard the murderer speak of his deed and dream it over again; I heard the poor thief sorrowing for the dead self he had slain.
I'll never forget that bitter dawn, so evil, askew and gray, When they wrapped me round in the skins of beasts and they bore me to a sleigh, And we started out with the nearest post an hundred miles away.
I'll never forget the trail they broke, with its tense, unuttered woe; And the crunch, crunch, crunch as their snowshoes sank through the crust of the hollow snow; And my breath would fail, and every beat of my heart was like a blow.
And oftentimes I would die the death, yet wake up to life anew; The sun would be all ablaze on the waste, and the sky a blighting blue, And the tears would rise in my snow-blind eyes and furrow my cheeks like dew.
And the camps we made when their strength outplayed and the day was pinched and wan; And oh, the joy of that blessed halt, and how I did dread the dawn; And how I hated the weary men who rose and dragged me on.
And oh, how I begged to rest, to rest--the snow was so sweet a shroud; And oh, how I cried when they urged me on, cried and cursed them aloud; Yet on they strained, all racked and pained, and sorely their backs were bowed.
And then it was all like a lurid dream, and I prayed for a swift release From the ruthless ones who would not leave me to die alone in peace; Till I wakened up and I found myself at the post of the Mounted Police.
And there was my friend the murderer, and there was my friend the thief, With bracelets of steel around their wrists, and wicked beyond belief: But when they come to God's judgment seat--may I be allowed the brief.
Written by Robert William Service | Create an image from this poem

The Mourners

 I look into the aching womb of night;
 I look across the mist that masks the dead;
The moon is tired and gives but little light,
 The stars have gone to bed.
The earth is sick and seems to breathe with pain; A lost wind whimpers in a mangled tree; I do not see the foul, corpse-cluttered plain, The dead I do not see.
The slain I would not see .
.
.
and so I lift My eyes from out the shambles where they lie; When lo! a million woman-faces drift Like pale leaves through the sky.
The cheeks of some are channelled deep with tears; But some are tearless, with wild eyes that stare Into the shadow of the coming years Of fathomless despair.
And some are young, and some are very old; And some are rich, some poor beyond belief; Yet all are strangely like, set in the mould Of everlasting grief.
They fill the vast of Heaven, face on face; And then I see one weeping with the rest, Whose eyes beseech me for a moment's space.
.
.
.
Oh eyes I love the best! Nay, I but dream.
The sky is all forlorn, And there's the plain of battle writhing red: God pity them, the women-folk who mourn! How happy are the dead!

Book: Reflection on the Important Things