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Best Famous Carriage Poems

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

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Written by Emily Dickinson | Create an image from this poem

Because I could not stop for Death

Because I could not stop for Death-- 
He kindly stopped for me-- 
The Carriage held but just Ourselves-- 
And Immortality.
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 strove At Recess--in the Ring-- We passed the Fields of Gazing Grain-- We passed the Setting Sun-- Or rather--He passed us-- The Dews drew quivering and chill-- For only Gossamer, my Gown-- My Tippet--only Tulle-- We paused before a House that seemed A Swelling of the Ground-- The Roof was scarcely visible-- The Cornice--in the Ground-- Since then--'tis Centuries--and yet Feels shorter than the Day I first surmised the Horses' Heads Were toward Eternity--


Written by Sara Teasdale | Create an image from this poem

A November Night

 There! See the line of lights,
A chain of stars down either side the street --
Why can't you lift the chain and give it to me,
A necklace for my throat? I'd twist it round
And you could play with it.
You smile at me As though I were a little dreamy child Behind whose eyes the fairies live.
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And see, The people on the street look up at us All envious.
We are a king and queen, Our royal carriage is a motor bus, We watch our subjects with a haughty joy.
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How still you are! Have you been hard at work And are you tired to-night? It is so long Since I have seen you -- four whole days, I think.
My heart is crowded full of foolish thoughts Like early flowers in an April meadow, And I must give them to you, all of them, Before they fade.
The people I have met, The play I saw, the trivial, shifting things That loom too big or shrink too little, shadows That hurry, gesturing along a wall, Haunting or gay -- and yet they all grow real And take their proper size here in my heart When you have seen them.
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There's the Plaza now, A lake of light! To-night it almost seems That all the lights are gathered in your eyes, Drawn somehow toward you.
See the open park Lying below us with a million lamps Scattered in wise disorder like the stars.
We look down on them as God must look down On constellations floating under Him Tangled in clouds.
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Come, then, and let us walk Since we have reached the park.
It is our garden, All black and blossomless this winter night, But we bring April with us, you and I; We set the whole world on the trail of spring.
I think that every path we ever took Has marked our footprints in mysterious fire, Delicate gold that only fairies see.
When they wake up at dawn in hollow tree-trunks And come out on the drowsy park, they look Along the empty paths and say, "Oh, here They went, and here, and here, and here! Come, see, Here is their bench, take hands and let us dance About it in a windy ring and make A circle round it only they can cross When they come back again!" .
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Look at the lake -- Do you remember how we watched the swans That night in late October while they slept? Swans must have stately dreams, I think.
But now The lake bears only thin reflected lights That shake a little.
How I long to take One from the cold black water -- new-made gold To give you in your hand! And see, and see, There is a star, deep in the lake, a star! Oh, dimmer than a pearl -- if you stoop down Your hand could almost reach it up to me.
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There was a new frail yellow moon to-night -- I wish you could have had it for a cup With stars like dew to fill it to the brim.
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How cold it is! Even the lights are cold; They have put shawls of fog around them, see! What if the air should grow so dimly white That we would lose our way along the paths Made new by walls of moving mist receding The more we follow.
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What a silver night! That was our bench the time you said to me The long new poem -- but how different now, How eerie with the curtain of the fog Making it strange to all the friendly trees! There is no wind, and yet great curving scrolls Carve themselves, ever changing, in the mist.
Walk on a little, let me stand here watching To see you, too, grown strange to me and far.
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I used to wonder how the park would be If one night we could have it all alone -- No lovers with close arm-encircled waists To whisper and break in upon our dreams.
And now we have it! Every wish comes true! We are alone now in a fleecy world; Even the stars have gone.
We two alone!
Written by Ogden Nash | Create an image from this poem

I Do I Will I Have

 How wise I am to have instructed the butler
to instruct the first footman to instruct the second
footman to instruct the doorman to order my carriage;
I am about to volunteer a definition of marriage.
Just as I know that there are two Hagens, Walter and Copen, I know that marriage is a legal and religious alliance entered into by a man who can't sleep with the window shut and a woman who can't sleep with the window open.
Moreover, just as I am unsure of the difference between flora and fauna and flotsam and jetsam, I am quite sure that marriage is the alliance of two people one of whom never remembers birthdays and the other never forgetsam, And he refuses to believe there is a leak in the water pipe or the gas pipe and she is convinced she is about to asphyxiate or drown, And she says Quick get up and get my hairbrushes off the windowsill, it's raining in, and he replies Oh they're all right, it's only raining straight down.
That is why marriage is so much more interesting than divorce, Because it's the only known example of the happy meeting of the immovable object and the irresistible force.
So I hope husbands and wives will continue to debate and combat over everything debatable and combatable, Because I believe a little incompatibility is the spice of life, particularly if he has income and she is pattable.
Written by Robert Frost | Create an image from this poem

Pauls Wife

 To drive Paul out of any lumber camp
All that was needed was to say to him,
"How is the wife, Paul?"--and he'd disappear.
Some said it was because be bad no wife, And hated to be twitted on the subject; Others because he'd come within a day Or so of having one, and then been Jilted; Others because he'd had one once, a good one, Who'd run away with someone else and left him; And others still because he had one now He only had to be reminded of-- He was all duty to her in a minute: He had to run right off to look her up, As if to say, "That's so, how is my wife? I hope she isn't getting into mischief.
" No one was anxious to get rid of Paul.
He'd been the hero of the mountain camps Ever since, just to show them, he bad slipped The bark of a whole tamarack off whole As clean as boys do off a willow twig To make a willow whistle on a Sunday April by subsiding meadow brooks.
They seemed to ask him just to see him go, "How is the wife, Paul?" and he always went.
He never stopped to murder anyone Who asked the question.
He just disappeared-- Nobody knew in what direction, Although it wasn't usually long Before they beard of him in some new camp, The same Paul at the same old feats of logging.
The question everywhere was why should Paul Object to being asked a civil question-- A man you could say almost anything to Short of a fighting word.
You have the answers.
And there was one more not so fair to Paul: That Paul had married a wife not his equal.
Paul was ashamed of her.
To match a hero She would have had to be a heroine; Instead of which she was some half-breed squaw.
But if the story Murphy told was true, She wasn't anything to be ashamed of.
You know Paul could do wonders.
Everyone's Heard how he thrashed the horses on a load That wouldn't budge, until they simply stretched Their rawhide harness from the load to camp.
Paul told the boss the load would be all right, "The sun will bring your load in"--and it did-- By shrinking the rawhide to natural length.
That's what is called a stretcher.
But I guess The one about his jumping so's to land With both his feet at once against the ceiling, And then land safely right side up again, Back on the floor, is fact or pretty near fact.
Well, this is such a yarn.
Paul sawed his wife Out of a white-pine log.
Murphy was there And, as you might say, saw the lady born.
Paul worked at anything in lumbering.
He'd been bard at it taking boards away For--I forget--the last ambitious sawyer To want to find out if he couldn't pile The lumber on Paul till Paul begged for mercy.
They'd sliced the first slab off a big butt log, And the sawyer had slammed the carriage back To slam end-on again against the saw teeth.
To judge them by the way they caught themselves When they saw what had happened to the log, They must have had a guilty expectation Something was going to go with their slambanging.
Something bad left a broad black streak of grease On the new wood the whole length of the log Except, perhaps, a foot at either end.
But when Paul put his finger in the grease, It wasn't grease at all, but a long slot.
The log was hollow.
They were sawing pine.
"First time I ever saw a hollow pine.
That comes of having Paul around the place.
Take it to bell for me," the sawyer said.
Everyone had to have a look at it And tell Paul what he ought to do about it.
(They treated it as his.
) "You take a jackknife, And spread the opening, and you've got a dugout All dug to go a-fishing in.
" To Paul The hollow looked too sound and clean and empty Ever to have housed birds or beasts or bees.
There was no entrance for them to get in by.
It looked to him like some new kind of hollow He thought he'd better take his jackknife to.
So after work that evening be came back And let enough light into it by cutting To see if it was empty.
He made out in there A slender length of pith, or was it pith? It might have been the skin a snake had cast And left stood up on end inside the tree The hundred years the tree must have been growing.
More cutting and he bad this in both hands, And looking from it to the pond nearby, Paul wondered how it would respond to water.
Not a breeze stirred, but just the breath of air He made in walking slowly to the beach Blew it once off his hands and almost broke it.
He laid it at the edge, where it could drink.
At the first drink it rustled and grew limp.
At the next drink it grew invisible.
Paul dragged the shallows for it with his fingers, And thought it must have melted.
It was gone.
And then beyond the open water, dim with midges, Where the log drive lay pressed against the boom, It slowly rose a person, rose a girl, Her wet hair heavy on her like a helmet, Who, leaning on a log, looked back at Paul.
And that made Paul in turn look back To see if it was anyone behind him That she was looking at instead of him.
(Murphy had been there watching all the time, But from a shed where neither of them could see him.
) There was a moment of suspense in birth When the girl seemed too waterlogged to live, Before she caught her first breath with a gasp And laughed.
Then she climbed slowly to her feet, And walked off, talking to herself or Paul, Across the logs like backs of alligators, Paul taking after her around the pond.
Next evening Murphy and some other fellows Got drunk, and tracked the pair up Catamount, From the bare top of which there is a view TO other hills across a kettle valley.
And there, well after dark, let Murphy tell it, They saw Paul and his creature keeping house.
It was the only glimpse that anyone Has had of Paul and her since Murphy saw them Falling in love across the twilight millpond.
More than a mile across the wilderness They sat together halfway up a cliff In a small niche let into it, the girl Brightly, as if a star played on the place, Paul darkly, like her shadow.
All the light Was from the girl herself, though, not from a star, As was apparent from what happened next.
All those great ruffians put their throats together, And let out a loud yell, and threw a bottle, As a brute tribute of respect to beauty.
Of course the bottle fell short by a mile, But the shout reached the girl and put her light out.
She went out like a firefly, and that was all.
So there were witnesses that Paul was married And not to anyone to be ashamed of Everyone had been wrong in judging Paul.
Murphy told me Paul put on all those airs About his wife to keep her to himself.
Paul was what's called a terrible possessor.
Owning a wife with him meant owning her.
She wasn't anybody else's business, Either to praise her or much as name her, And he'd thank people not to think of her.
Murphy's idea was that a man like Paul Wouldn't be spoken to about a wife In any way the world knew how to speak.
Written by Emily Dickinson | Create an image from this poem

A Bee his burnished Carriage

 A Bee his burnished Carriage
Drove boldly to a Rose --
Combinedly alighting --
Himself -- his Carriage was --
The Rose received his visit
With frank tranquillity
Withholding not a Crescent
To his Cupidity --
Their Moment consummated --
Remained for him -- to flee --
Remained for her -- of rapture
But the humility.


Written by Rudyard Kipling | Create an image from this poem

The Broken Men

 For things we never mention,
 For Art misunderstood --
For excellent intention
 That did not turn to good;
From ancient tales' renewing,
 From clouds we would not clear --
Beyond the Law's pursuing
 We fled, and settled here.
We took no tearful leaving, We bade no long good-byes; Men talked of crime and thieving, Men wrote of fraud and lies.
To save our injured feelings 'T was time and time to go -- Behind was dock and Dartmoor, Ahead lay Callao! The widow and the orphan That pray for ten per cent, They clapped their trailers on us To spy the road we went.
They watched the foreign sailings (They scan the shipping still), And that's your Christian people Returning good for ill! God bless the thoughtfull islands Where never warrants come; God bless the just Republics That give a man a home, That ask no foolish questions, But set him on his feet; And save his wife and daughters From the workhouse and the street! On church and square and market The noonday silence falls; You'll hear the drowsy mutter Of the fountain in our halls.
Asleep amid the yuccas The city takes her ease -- Till twilight brings the land-wind To the clicking jalousies.
Day long the diamond weather, The high, unaltered blue -- The smell of goats and incense And the mule-bells tinkling through.
Day long the warder ocean That keeps us from our kin, And once a month our levee When the English mail comes in.
You'll find us up and waiting To treat you at the bar; You'll find us less exclusive Than the average English are.
We'll meet you with a carriage, Too glad to show you round, But -- we do not lunch on steamers, For they are English ground.
We sail o' nights to England And join our smiling Boards -- Our wives go in with Viscounts And our daughters dance with Lords, But behind our princely doings, And behind each coup we make, We feel there's Something Waiting, And -- we meet It when we wake.
Ah God! One sniff of England -- To greet our flesh and blood -- To hear the traffic slurring Once more through London mud! Our towns of wasted honour -- Our streets of lost delight! How stands the old Lord Warden? Are Dover's cliffs still white?
Written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow | Create an image from this poem

TO A CHILD

 Dear child! how radiant on thy mother's knee,
With merry-making eyes and jocund smiles,
Thou gazest at the painted tiles,
Whose figures grace,
With many a grotesque form and face.
The ancient chimney of thy nursery! The lady with the gay macaw, The dancing girl, the grave bashaw With bearded lip and chin; And, leaning idly o'er his gate, Beneath the imperial fan of state, The Chinese mandarin.
With what a look of proud command Thou shakest in thy little hand The coral rattle with its silver bells, Making a merry tune! Thousands of years in Indian seas That coral grew, by slow degrees, Until some deadly and wild monsoon Dashed it on Coromandel's sand! Those silver bells Reposed of yore, As shapeless ore, Far down in the deep-sunken wells Of darksome mines, In some obscure and sunless place, Beneath huge Chimborazo's base, Or Potosi's o'erhanging pines And thus for thee, O little child, Through many a danger and escape, The tall ships passed the stormy cape; For thee in foreign lands remote, Beneath a burning, tropic clime, The Indian peasant, chasing the wild goat, Himself as swift and wild, In falling, clutched the frail arbute, The fibres of whose shallow root, Uplifted from the soil, betrayed The silver veins beneath it laid, The buried treasures of the miser, Time.
But, lo! thy door is left ajar! Thou hearest footsteps from afar! And, at the sound, Thou turnest round With quick and questioning eyes, Like one, who, in a foreign land, Beholds on every hand Some source of wonder and surprise! And, restlessly, impatiently, Thou strivest, strugglest, to be free, The four walls of thy nursery Are now like prison walls to thee.
No more thy mother's smiles, No more the painted tiles, Delight thee, nor the playthings on the floor, That won thy little, beating heart before; Thou strugglest for the open door.
Through these once solitary halls Thy pattering footstep falls.
The sound of thy merry voice Makes the old walls Jubilant, and they rejoice With the joy of thy young heart, O'er the light of whose gladness No shadows of sadness From the sombre background of memory start.
Once, ah, once, within these walls, One whom memory oft recalls, The Father of his Country, dwelt.
And yonder meadows broad and damp The fires of the besieging camp Encircled with a burning belt.
Up and down these echoing stairs, Heavy with the weight of cares, Sounded his majestic tread; Yes, within this very room Sat he in those hours of gloom, Weary both in heart and head.
But what are these grave thoughts to thee? Out, out! into the open air! Thy only dream is liberty, Thou carest little how or where.
I see thee eager at thy play, Now shouting to the apples on the tree, With cheeks as round and red as they; And now among the yellow stalks, Among the flowering shrubs and plants, As restless as the bee.
Along the garden walks, The tracks of thy small carriage-wheels I trace; And see at every turn how they efface Whole villages of sand-roofed tents, That rise like golden domes Above the cavernous and secret homes Of wandering and nomadic tribes of ants.
Ah, cruel little Tamerlane, Who, with thy dreadful reign, Dost persecute and overwhelm These hapless Troglodytes of thy realm! What! tired already! with those suppliant looks, And voice more beautiful than a poet's books, Or murmuring sound of water as it flows.
Thou comest back to parley with repose; This rustic seat in the old apple-tree, With its o'erhanging golden canopy Of leaves illuminate with autumnal hues, And shining with the argent light of dews, Shall for a season be our place of rest.
Beneath us, like an oriole's pendent nest, From which the laughing birds have taken wing, By thee abandoned, hangs thy vacant swing.
Dream-like the waters of the river gleam; A sailless vessel drops adown the stream, And like it, to a sea as wide and deep, Thou driftest gently down the tides of sleep.
O child! O new-born denizen Of life's great city! on thy head The glory of the morn is shed, Like a celestial benison! Here at the portal thou dost stand, And with thy little hand Thou openest the mysterious gate Into the future's undiscovered land.
I see its valves expand, As at the touch of Fate! Into those realms of love and hate, Into that darkness blank and drear, By some prophetic feeling taught, I launch the bold, adventurous thought, Freighted with hope and fear; As upon subterranean streams, In caverns unexplored and dark, Men sometimes launch a fragile bark, Laden with flickering fire, And watch its swift-receding beams, Until at length they disappear, And in the distant dark expire.
By what astrology of fear or hope Dare I to cast thy horoscope! Like the new moon thy life appears; A little strip of silver light, And widening outward into night The shadowy disk of future years; And yet upon its outer rim, A luminous circle, faint and dim, And scarcely visible to us here, Rounds and completes the perfect sphere; A prophecy and intimation, A pale and feeble adumbration, Of the great world of light, that lies Behind all human destinies.
Ah! if thy fate, with anguish fraught, Should be to wet the dusty soil With the hot tears and sweat of toil,-- To struggle with imperious thought, Until the overburdened brain, Weary with labor, faint with pain, Like a jarred pendulum, retain Only its motion, not its power,-- Remember, in that perilous hour, When most afflicted and oppressed, From labor there shall come forth rest.
And if a more auspicious fate On thy advancing steps await Still let it ever be thy pride To linger by the laborer's side; With words of sympathy or song To cheer the dreary march along Of the great army of the poor, O'er desert sand, o'er dangerous moor.
Nor to thyself the task shall be Without reward; for thou shalt learn The wisdom early to discern True beauty in utility; As great Pythagoras of yore, Standing beside the blacksmith's door, And hearing the hammers, as they smote The anvils with a different note, Stole from the varying tones, that hung Vibrant on every iron tongue, The secret of the sounding wire.
And formed the seven-chorded lyre.
Enough! I will not play the Seer; I will no longer strive to ope The mystic volume, where appear The herald Hope, forerunning Fear, And Fear, the pursuivant of Hope.
Thy destiny remains untold; For, like Acestes' shaft of old, The swift thought kindles as it flies, And burns to ashes in the skies.
Written by Ann Taylor | Create an image from this poem

A True Story

 Little Ann and her mother were walking one day
Through London's wide city so fair,
And business obliged them to go by the way
That led them through Cavendish Square.
And as they pass'd by the great house of a Lord, A beautiful chariot there came, To take some most elegant ladies abroad, Who straightway got into the same.
The ladies in feathers and jewels were seen, The chariot was painted all o'er, The footmen behind were in silver and green, The horses were prancing before.
Little Ann by her mother walk'd silent and sad, A tear trickled down from her eye, Till her mother said, "Ann, I should be very glad To know what it is makes you cry.
" "Mamma," said the child, "see that carriage so fair, All cover'd with varnish and gold, Those ladies are riding so charmingly there While we have to walk in the cold.
"You say GOD is kind to the folks that are good, But surely it cannot be true; Or else I am certain, almost, that He would Give such a fine carriage to you.
" "Look there, little girl," said her mother, "and see What stands at that very coach door; A poor ragged beggar, and listen how she A halfpenny tries to implore.
"All pale is her face, and deep sunk is her eye, And her hands look like skeleton's bones; She has got a few rags, just about her to tie, And her naked feet bleed on the stones.
" 'Dear ladies,' she cries, and the tears trickle down, 'Relieve a poor beggar, I pray; I've wander'd all hungry about this wide town, And not ate a morsel to-day.
'My father and mother are long ago dead, My brother sails over the sea, And I've scarcely a rag, or a morsel of bread, As plainly, I'm sure, you may see.
'A fever I caught, which was terrible bad, But no nurse or physic had I; An old dirty shed was the house that I had, And only on straw could I lie.
'And now that I'm better, yet feeble and faint, And famish'd, and naked, and cold, I wander about with my grievous complaint, And seldom get aught but a scold.
'Some will not attend to my pitiful call, Some think me a vagabond cheat; And scarcely a creature relieves me, of all The thousands that traverse the street.
'Then ladies, dear ladies, your pity bestow:'­ Just then a tall footman came round, And asking the ladies which way they would go, The chariot turn'd off with a bound.
"Ah! see, little girl," then her mother replied, "How foolish those murmurs have been; You have but to look on the contrary side, To learn both your folly and sin.
"This poor little beggar is hungry and cold, No mother awaits her return; And while such an object as this you behold, Your heart should with gratitude burn.
"Your house and its comforts, your food and your friends, 'Tis favour in GOD to confer, Have you any claim to the bounty He sends, Who makes you to differ from her? "A coach, and a footman, and gaudy attire, Give little true joy to the breast; To be good is the thing you should chiefly desire, And then leave to GOD all the rest.
"
Written by Conrad Aiken | Create an image from this poem

Improvisations: Light And Snow

 I

The girl in the room beneath 
Before going to bed 
Strums on a mandolin 
The three simple tunes she knows.
How inadequate they are to tell how her heart feels! When she has finished them several times She thrums the strings aimlessly with her finger-nails And smiles, and thinks happily of many things.
II I stood for a long while before the shop window Looking at the blue butterflies embroidered on tawny silk.
The building was a tower before me, Time was loud behind me, Sun went over the housetops and dusty trees; And there they were, glistening, brilliant, motionless, Stitched in a golden sky By yellow patient fingers long since turned to dust.
III The first bell is silver, And breathing darkness I think only of the long scythe of time.
The second bell is crimson, And I think of a holiday night, with rockets Furrowing the sky with red, and a soft shatter of stars.
The third bell is saffron and slow, And I behold a long sunset over the sea With wall on wall of castled cloud and glittering balustrades.
The fourth bell is color of bronze, I walk by a frozen lake in the dun light of dusk: Muffled crackings run in the ice, Trees creak, birds fly.
The fifth bell is cold clear azure, Delicately tinged with green: One golden star hangs melting in it, And towards this, sleepily, I go.
The sixth bell is as if a pebble Had been dropped into a deep sea far above me .
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Rings of sound ebb slowly into the silence.
IV On the day when my uncle and I drove to the cemetery, Rain rattled on the roof of the carriage; And talkng constrainedly of this and that We refrained from looking at the child's coffin on the seat before us.
When we reached the cemetery We found that the thin snow on the grass Was already transparent with rain; And boards had been laid upon it That we might walk without wetting our feet.
V When I was a boy, and saw bright rows of icicles In many lengths along a wall I was dissappointed to find That I could not play music upon them: I ran my hand lightly across them And they fell, tinkling.
I tell you this, young man, so that your expectations of life Will not be too great.
VI It is now two hours since I left you, And the perfume of your hands is still on my hands.
And though since then I have looked at the stars, walked in the cold blue streets, And heard the dead leaves blowing over the ground Under the trees, I still remember the sound of your laughter.
How will it be, lady, when there is none left to remember you Even as long as this? Will the dust braid your hair? VII The day opens with the brown light of snowfall And past the window snowflakes fall and fall.
I sit in my chair all day and work and work Measuring words against each other.
I open the piano and play a tune But find it does not say what I feel, I grow tired of measuring words against each other, I grow tired of these four walls, And I think of you, who write me that you have just had a daughter And named her after your first sweetheart, And you, who break your heart, far away, In the confusion and savagery of a long war, And you who, worn by the bitterness of winter, Will soon go south.
The snowflakes fall almost straight in the brown light Past my window, And a sparrow finds refuge on my window-ledge.
This alone comes to me out of the world outside As I measure word with word.
VIII Many things perplex me and leave me troubled, Many things are locked away in the white book of stars Never to be opened by me.
The starr'd leaves are silently turned, And the mooned leaves; And as they are turned, fall the shadows of life and death.
Perplexed and troubled, I light a small light in a small room, The lighted walls come closer to me, The familiar pictures are clear.
I sit in my favourite chair and turn in my mind The tiny pages of my own life, whereon so little is written, And hear at the eastern window the pressure of a long wind, coming From I know not where.
How many times have I sat here, How many times will I sit here again, Thinking these same things over and over in solitude As a child says over and over The first word he has learned to say.
IX This girl gave her heart to me, And this, and this.
This one looked at me as if she loved me, And silently walked away.
This one I saw once and loved, and never saw her again.
Shall I count them for you upon my fingers? Or like a priest solemnly sliding beads? Or pretend they are roses, pale pink, yellow, and white, And arrange them for you in a wide bowl To be set in sunlight? See how nicely it sounds as I count them for you— 'This girl gave her heart to me And this, and this, .
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! And nevertheless, my heart breaks when I think of them, When I think their names, And how, like leaves, they have changed and blown And will lie, at last, forgotten, Under the snow.
X It is night time, and cold, and snow is falling, And no wind grieves the walls.
In the small world of light around the arc-lamp A swarm of snowflakes falls and falls.
The street grows silent.
The last stranger passes.
The sound of his feet, in the snow, is indistinct.
What forgotten sadness is it, on a night like this, Takes possession of my heart? Why do I think of a camellia tree in a southern garden, With pink blossoms among dark leaves, Standing, surprised, in the snow? Why do I think of spring? The snowflakes, helplessly veering,, Fall silently past my window; They come from darkness and enter darkness.
What is it in my heart is surprised and bewildered Like that camellia tree, Beautiful still in its glittering anguish? And spring so far away! XI As I walked through the lamplit gardens, On the thin white crust of snow, So intensely was I thinking of my misfortune, So clearly were my eyes fixed On the face of this grief which has come to me, That I did not notice the beautiful pale colouring Of lamplight on the snow; Nor the interlaced long blue shadows of trees; And yet these things were there, And the white lamps, and the orange lamps, and the lamps of lilac were there, As I have seen them so often before; As they will be so often again Long after my grief is forgotten.
And still, though I know this, and say this, it cannot console me.
XII How many times have we been interrupted Just as I was about to make up a story for you! One time it was because we suddenly saw a firefly Lighting his green lantern among the boughs of a fir-tree.
Marvellous! Marvellous! He is making for himself A little tent of light in the darkness! And one time it was because we saw a lilac lightning flash Run wrinkling into the blue top of the mountain,— We heard boulders of thunder rolling down upon us And the plat-plat of drops on the window, And we ran to watch the rain Charging in wavering clouds across the long grass of the field! Or at other times it was because we saw a star Slipping easily out of the sky and falling, far off, Among pine-dark hills; Or because we found a crimson eft Darting in the cold grass! These things interrupted us and left us wondering; And the stories, whatever they might have been, Were never told.
A fairy, binding a daisy down and laughing? A golden-haired princess caught in a cobweb? A love-story of long ago? Some day, just as we are beginning again, Just as we blow the first sweet note, Death itself will interrupt us.
XIII My heart is an old house, and in that forlorn old house, In the very centre, dark and forgotten, Is a locked room where an enchanted princess Lies sleeping.
But sometimes, in that dark house, As if almost from the stars, far away, Sounds whisper in that secret room— Faint voices, music, a dying trill of laughter? And suddenly, from her long sleep, The beautiful princess awakes and dances.
Who is she? I do not know.
Why does she dance? Do not ask me!— Yet to-day, when I saw you, When I saw your eyes troubled with the trouble of happiness, And your mouth trembling into a smile, And your fingers pull shyly forward,— Softly, in that room, The little princess arose And danced; And as she danced the old house gravely trembled With its vague and delicious secret.
XIV Like an old tree uprooted by the wind And flung down cruelly With roots bared to the sun and stars And limp leaves brought to earth— Torn from its house— So do I seem to myself When you have left me.
XV The music of the morning is red and warm; Snow lies against the walls; And on the sloping roof in the yellow sunlight Pigeons huddle against the wind.
The music of evening is attenuated and thin— The moon seen through a wave by a mermaid; The crying of a violin.
Far down there, far down where the river turns to the west, The delicate lights begin to twinkle On the dusky arches of the bridge: In the green sky a long cloud, A smouldering wave of smoky crimson, Breaks in the freezing wind: and above it, unabashed, Remote, untouched, fierly palpitant, Sings the first star.
Written by William Allingham | Create an image from this poem

Lepracaun or Fairy Shoemaker The

 Little Cowboy, what have you heard,
Up on the lonely rath's green mound?
Only the plaintive yellow bird
Sighing in sultry fields around,
Chary, chary, chary, chee-ee! -
Only the grasshopper and the bee? -
"Tip-tap, rip-rap,
Tick-a-tack-too!
Scarlet leather, sewn together,
This will make a shoe.
Left, right, pull it tight; Summer days are warm; Underground in winter, Laughing at the storm!" Lay your ear close to the hill.
Do you not catch th etiny clamour, Busy click of an elfin hammer.
Voice of the Lepracaun singing shrill As he merrily plies his trade? He's a span And a quarter in height, Get him in sight, hold him tight, And you're a made Man! You watch your cattle the summerday, Sup on potatoes, sleep in the hay; how would you like to roll in your carriage, Look for a duchess's daughter in marriage? Seize the shoemaker - then you may! "Big boots a -hunting, Sandals in the hall, White for a wedding feast, Pink for a ball.
This way, that way, So we makea shoe; Getting rich every stitch, Tick-a-tack too!" Nine and ninety treasure crocks This keen miser fairy hath, Hid in the mountains, woods and rocks, Ruin and round-tow'r, cave and rath, And where cormorants build; From times of old Guarded by him; Each of them fill'd Full to the brim With gold! I caught him at work one day, myself, In the castle ditch where fox-glove grows, - A wrinkled, wizen'd and bearded Elf, Spectacles stuck on his pointed nose, Silver buckles to his hose, Leather apron - shoe in his lap - 'Rip-rap, tip-tap, Tick-tack-too! (A grasshopper on my cap! Away the moth flew!) Buskins for a fairy prince, Brogues for his son - Pay me well, pay me well, When the job is done!" The rogue was mine, beyond a doubt.
I stared at him, he stared at me; "Servant Sir!" "Humph" says he, And pull'd a snuff-box out.
He took a long pinch, look'd better pleased, The ***** little Lepracaun; Offer'd the box with a whimsical grace, - Pouf! He flung the dust in my face, And while I sneezed, Was gone!

Book: Reflection on the Important Things