Best Famous Characters Poems

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Written by Walt Whitman | American Feuillage AMERICA always! Always our own feuillage! Always Florida’s green peninsula! Always the priceless delta of Louisiana! Always the cotton-fields of Alabama and Texas! Always California’s golden hills and hollows—and the silver mountains of New Mexico! Always soft-breath’d Cuba! Always the vast slope drain’d by the Southern Sea—inseparable with the slopes drain’d by the Eastern and Western Seas; The area the eighty-third year of These States—the three and a half millions of square miles; The eighteen thousand miles of sea-coast and bay-coast on the main—the thirty thousand miles of river navigation, The seven millions of distinct families, and the same number of dwellings—Always these, and more, branching forth into numberless branches; Always the free range and diversity! always the continent of Democracy! Always the prairies, pastures, forests, vast cities, travelers, Kanada, the snows; Always these compact lands—lands tied at the hips with the belt stringing the huge oval lakes; Always the West, with strong native persons—the increasing density there—the habitans, friendly, threatening, ironical, scorning invaders; All sights, South, North, East—all deeds, promiscuously done at all times, All characters, movements, growths—a few noticed, myriads unnoticed, Through Mannahatta’s streets I walking, these things gathering; On interior rivers, by night, in the glare of pine knots, steamboats wooding up; Sunlight by day on the valley of the Susquehanna, and on the valleys of the Potomac and Rappahannock, and the valleys of the Roanoke and Delaware; In their northerly wilds, beasts of prey haunting the Adirondacks, the hills—or lapping the Saginaw waters to drink; In a lonesome inlet, a sheldrake, lost from the flock, sitting on the water, rocking silently; In farmers’ barns, oxen in the stable, their harvest labor done—they rest standing—they are too tired; Afar on arctic ice, the she-walrus lying drowsily, while her cubs play around; The hawk sailing where men have not yet sail’d—the farthest polar sea, ripply, crystalline, open, beyond the floes; White drift spooning ahead, where the ship in the tempest dashes; On solid land, what is done in cities, as the bells all strike midnight together; In primitive woods, the sounds there also sounding—the howl of the wolf, the scream of the panther, and the hoarse bellow of the elk; In winter beneath the hard blue ice of Moosehead Lake—in summer visible through the clear waters, the great trout swimming; In lower latitudes, in warmer air, in the Carolinas, the large black buzzard floating slowly, high beyond the tree tops, Below, the red cedar, festoon’d with tylandria—the pines and cypresses, growing out of the white sand that spreads far and flat; Rude boats descending the big Pedee—climbing plants, parasites, with color’d flowers and berries, enveloping huge trees, The waving drapery on the live oak, trailing long and low, noiselessly waved by the wind; The camp of Georgia wagoners, just after dark—the supper-fires, and the cooking and eating by whites and *******, Thirty or forty great wagons—the mules, cattle, horses, feeding from troughs, The shadows, gleams, up under the leaves of the old sycamore-trees—the flames—with the black smoke from the pitch-pine, curling and rising; Southern fishermen fishing—the sounds and inlets of North Carolina’s coast—the shad-fishery and the herring-fishery—the large sweep-seines—the windlasses on shore work’d by horses—the clearing, curing, and packing-houses; Deep in the forest, in piney woods, turpentine dropping from the incisions in the trees—There are the turpentine works, There are the ******* at work, in good health—the ground in all directions is cover’d with pine straw: —In Tennessee and Kentucky, slaves busy in the coalings, at the forge, by the furnace-blaze, or at the corn-shucking; In Virginia, the planter’s son returning after a long absence, joyfully welcom’d and kiss’d by the aged mulatto nurse; On rivers, boatmen safely moor’d at night-fall, in their boats, under shelter of high banks, Some of the younger men dance to the sound of the banjo or fiddle—others sit on the gunwale, smoking and talking; Late in the afternoon, the mocking-bird, the American mimic, singing in the Great Dismal Swamp—there are the greenish waters, the resinous odor, the plenteous moss, the cypress tree, and the juniper tree; —Northward, young men of Mannahatta—the target company from an excursion returning home at evening—the musket-muzzles all bear bunches of flowers presented by women; Children at play—or on his father’s lap a young boy fallen asleep, (how his lips move! how he smiles in his sleep!) The scout riding on horseback over the plains west of the Mississippi—he ascends a knoll and sweeps his eye around; California life—the miner, bearded, dress’d in his rude costume—the stanch California friendship—the sweet air—the graves one, in passing, meets, solitary, just aside the horsepath; Down in Texas, the cotton-field, the *****-cabins—drivers driving mules or oxen before rude carts—cotton bales piled on banks and wharves; Encircling all, vast-darting, up and wide, the American Soul, with equal hemispheres—one Love, one Dilation or Pride; —In arriere, the peace-talk with the Iroquois, the aborigines—the calumet, the pipe of good-will, arbitration, and indorsement, The sachem blowing the smoke first toward the sun and then toward the earth, The drama of the scalp-dance enacted with painted faces and guttural exclamations, The setting out of the war-party—the long and stealthy march, The single-file—the swinging hatchets—the surprise and slaughter of enemies; —All the acts, scenes, ways, persons, attitudes of These States—reminiscences, all institutions, All These States, compact—Every square mile of These States, without excepting a particle—you also—me also, Me pleas’d, rambling in lanes and country fields, Paumanok’s fields, Me, observing the spiral flight of two little yellow butterflies, shuffling between each other, ascending high in the air; The darting swallow, the destroyer of insects—the fall traveler southward, but returning northward early in the spring; The country boy at the close of the day, driving the herd of cows, and shouting to them as they loiter to browse by the road-side; The city wharf—Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, New Orleans, San Francisco, The departing ships, when the sailors heave at the capstan; —Evening—me in my room—the setting sun, The setting summer sun shining in my open window, showing the swarm of flies, suspended, balancing in the air in the centre of the room, darting athwart, up and down, casting swift shadows in specks on the opposite wall, where the shine is; The athletic American matron speaking in public to crowds of listeners; Males, females, immigrants, combinations—the copiousness—the individuality of The States, each for itself—the money-makers; Factories, machinery, the mechanical forces—the windlass, lever, pulley—All certainties, The certainty of space, increase, freedom, futurity, In space, the sporades, the scatter’d islands, the stars—on the firm earth, the lands, my lands; O lands! all so dear to me—what you are, (whatever it is,) I become a part of that, whatever it is; Southward there, I screaming, with wings slowly flapping, with the myriads of gulls wintering along the coasts of Florida—or in Louisiana, with pelicans breeding; Otherways, there, atwixt the banks of the Arkansaw, the Rio Grande, the Nueces, the Brazos, the Tombigbee, the Red River, the Saskatchawan, or the Osage, I with the spring waters laughing and skipping and running; Northward, on the sands, on some shallow bay of Paumanok, I, with parties of snowy herons wading in the wet to seek worms and aquatic plants; Retreating, triumphantly twittering, the king-bird, from piercing the crow with its bill, for amusement—And I triumphantly twittering; The migrating flock of wild geese alighting in autumn to refresh themselves—the body of the flock feed—the sentinels outside move around with erect heads watching, and are from time to time reliev’d by other sentinels—And I feeding and taking turns with the rest; In Kanadian forests, the moose, large as an ox, corner’d by hunters, rising desperately on his hind-feet, and plunging with his fore-feet, the hoofs as sharp as knives—And I, plunging at the hunters, corner’d and desperate; In the Mannahatta, streets, piers, shipping, store-houses, and the countless workmen working in the shops, And I too of the Mannahatta, singing thereof—and no less in myself than the whole of the Mannahatta in itself, Singing the song of These, my ever united lands—my body no more inevitably united, part to part, and made one identity, any more than my lands are inevitably united, and made ONE IDENTITY; Nativities, climates, the grass of the great Pastoral Plains; Cities, labors, death, animals, products, war, good and evil—these me, These affording, in all their particulars, endless feuillage to me and to America, how can I do less than pass the clew of the union of them, to afford the like to you? Whoever you are! how can I but offer you divine leaves, that you also be eligible as I am? How can I but, as here, chanting, invite you for yourself to collect bouquets of the incomparable feuillage of These States?

Written by Raymond Carver | Stupid It's what the kids nowadays call weed. And it drifts like clouds from his lips. He hopes no one comes along tonight, or calls to ask for help. Help is what he's most short on tonight. A storm thrashes outside. Heavy seas with gale winds from the west. The table he sits at is, say, two cubits long and one wide. The darkness in the room teems with insight. Could be he'll write an adventure novel. Or else a children's story. A play for two female characters, one of whom is blind. Cutthroat should be coming into the river. One thing he'll do is learn to tie his own flies. Maybe he should give more money to each of his surviving family members. The ones who already expect a little something in the mail first of each month. Every time they write they tell him they're coming up short. He counts heads on his fingers and finds they're all survivng. So what if he'd rather be remembered in the dreams of strangers? He raises his eyes to the skylights where rain hammers on. After a while -- who knows how long? -- his eyes ask that they be closed. And he closes them. But the rain keeps hammering. Is this a cloudburst? Should he do something? Secure the house in some way? Uncle Bo stayed married to Aunt Ruby for 47 years. Then hanged himself. He opens his eyes again. Nothing adds up. It all adds up. How long will this storm go on?

Written by Robert Frost | A Servant to Servants I didn't make you know how glad I was To have you come and camp here on our land. I promised myself to get down some day And see the way you lived, but I don't know! With a houseful of hungry men to feed I guess you'd find. . . . It seems to me I can't express my feelings any more Than I can raise my voice or want to lift My hand (oh, I can lift it when I have to). Did ever you feel so? I hope you never. It's got so I don't even know for sure Whether I am glad, sorry, or anything. There's nothing but a voice-like left inside That seems to tell me how I ought to feel, And would feel if I wasn't all gone wrong. You take the lake. I look and look at it. I see it's a fair, pretty sheet of water. I stand and make myself repeat out loud The advantages it has, so long and narrow, Like a deep piece of some old running river Cut short off at both ends. It lies five miles Straight away through the mountain notch From the sink window where I wash the plates, And all our storms come up toward the house, Drawing the slow waves whiter and whiter and whiter. It took my mind off doughnuts and soda biscuit To step outdoors and take the water dazzle A sunny morning, or take the rising wind About my face and body and through my wrapper, When a storm threatened from the Dragon's Den, And a cold chill shivered across the lake. I see it's a fair, pretty sheet of water, Our Willoughby! How did you hear of it? I expect, though, everyone's heard of it. In a book about ferns? Listen to that! You let things more like feathers regulate Your going and coming. And you like it here? I can see how you might. But I don't know! It would be different if more people came, For then there would be business. As it is, The cottages Len built, sometimes we rent them, Sometimes we don't. We've a good piece of shore That ought to be worth something, and may yet. But I don't count on it as much as Len. He looks on the bright side of everything, Including me. He thinks I'll be all right With doctoring. But it's not medicine-- Lowe is the only doctor's dared to say so-- It's rest I want--there, I have said it out-- From cooking meals for hungry hired men And washing dishes after them--from doing Things over and over that just won't stay done. By good rights I ought not to have so much Put on me, but there seems no other way. Len says one steady pull more ought to do it. He says the best way out is always through. And I agree to that, or in so far As that I can see no way out but through-- Leastways for me--and then they'll be convinced. It's not that Len don't want the best for me. It was his plan our moving over in Beside the lake from where that day I showed you We used to live--ten miles from anywhere. We didn't change without some sacrifice, But Len went at it to make up the loss. His work's a man's, of course, from sun to sun, But he works when he works as hard as I do-- Though there's small profit in comparisons. (Women and men will make them all the same. ) But work ain't all. Len undertakes too much. He's into everything in town. This year It's highways, and he's got too many men Around him to look after that make waste. They take advantage of him shamefully, And proud, too, of themselves for doing so. We have four here to board, great good-for-nothings, Sprawling about the kitchen with their talk While I fry their bacon. Much they care! No more put out in what they do or say Than if I wasn't in the room at all. Coming and going all the time, they are: I don't learn what their names are, let alone Their characters, or whether they are safe To have inside the house with doors unlocked. I'm not afraid of them, though, if they're not Afraid of me. There's two can play at that. I have my fancies: it runs in the family. My father's brother wasn't right. They kept him Locked up for years back there at the old farm. I've been away once--yes, I've been away. The State Asylum. I was prejudiced; I wouldn't have sent anyone of mine there; You know the old idea--the only asylum Was the poorhouse, and those who could afford, Rather than send their folks to such a place, Kept them at home; and it does seem more human. But it's not so: the place is the asylum. There they have every means proper to do with, And you aren't darkening other people's lives-- Worse than no good to them, and they no good To you in your condition; you can't know Affection or the want of it in that state. I've heard too much of the old-fashioned way. My father's brother, he went mad quite young. Some thought he had been bitten by a dog, Because his violence took on the form Of carrying his pillow in his teeth; But it's more likely he was crossed in love, Or so the story goes. It was some girl. Anyway all he talked about was love. They soon saw he would do someone a mischief If he wa'n't kept strict watch of, and it ended In father's building him a sort of cage, Or room within a room, of hickory poles, Like stanchions in the barn, from floor to ceiling,-- A narrow passage all the way around. Anything they put in for furniture He'd tear to pieces, even a bed to lie on. So they made the place comfortable with straw, Like a beast's stall, to ease their consciences. Of course they had to feed him without dishes. They tried to keep him clothed, but he paraded With his clothes on his arm--all of his clothes. Cruel--it sounds. I 'spose they did the best They knew. And just when he was at the height, Father and mother married, and mother came, A bride, to help take care of such a creature, And accommodate her young life to his. That was what marrying father meant to her. She had to lie and hear love things made dreadful By his shouts in the night. He'd shout and shout Until the strength was shouted out of him, And his voice died down slowly from exhaustion. He'd pull his bars apart like bow and bow-string, And let them go and make them twang until His hands had worn them smooth as any ox-bow. And then he'd crow as if he thought that child's play-- The only fun he had. I've heard them say, though, They found a way to put a stop to it. He was before my time--I never saw him; But the pen stayed exactly as it was There in the upper chamber in the ell, A sort of catch-all full of attic clutter. I often think of the smooth hickory bars. It got so I would say--you know, half fooling-- "It's time I took my turn upstairs in jail"-- Just as you will till it becomes a habit. No wonder I was glad to get away. Mind you, I waited till Len said the word. I didn't want the blame if things went wrong. I was glad though, no end, when we moved out, And I looked to be happy, and I was, As I said, for a while--but I don't know! Somehow the change wore out like a prescription. And there's more to it than just window-views And living by a lake. I'm past such help-- Unless Len took the notion, which he won't, And I won't ask him--it's not sure enough. I 'spose I've got to go the road I'm going: Other folks have to, and why shouldn't I? I almost think if I could do like you, Drop everything and live out on the ground-- But it might be, come night, I shouldn't like it, Or a long rain. I should soon get enough, And be glad of a good roof overhead. I've lain awake thinking of you, I'll warrant, More than you have yourself, some of these nights. The wonder was the tents weren't snatched away From over you as you lay in your beds. I haven't courage for a risk like that. Bless you, of course, you're keeping me from work, But the thing of it is, I need to be kept. There's work enough to do--there's always that; But behind's behind. The worst that you can do Is set me back a little more behind. I sha'n't catch up in this world, anyway. I'd rather you'd not go unless you must.

Written by Edna St Vincent Millay | Interim The room is full of you!—As I came in And closed the door behind me, all at once A something in the air, intangible, Yet stiff with meaning, struck my senses sick!— Sharp, unfamiliar odors have destroyed Each other room's dear personality. The heavy scent of damp, funereal flowers,— The very essence, hush-distilled, of Death— Has strangled that habitual breath of home Whose expiration leaves all houses dead; And wheresoe'er I look is hideous change. Save here. Here 'twas as if a weed-choked gate Had opened at my touch, and I had stepped Into some long-forgot, enchanted, strange, Sweet garden of a thousand years ago And suddenly thought, "I have been here before!" You are not here. I know that you are gone, And will not ever enter here again. And yet it seems to me, if I should speak, Your silent step must wake across the hall; If I should turn my head, that your sweet eyes Would kiss me from the door. —So short a time To teach my life its transposition to This difficult and unaccustomed key!— The room is as you left it; your last touch— A thoughtless pressure, knowing not itself As saintly—hallows now each simple thing; Hallows and glorifies, and glows between The dust's grey fingers like a shielded light. There is your book, just as you laid it down, Face to the table,—I cannot believe That you are gone!—Just then it seemed to me You must be here. I almost laughed to think How like reality the dream had been; Yet knew before I laughed, and so was still. That book, outspread, just as you laid it down! Perhaps you thought, "I wonder what comes next, And whether this or this will be the end"; So rose, and left it, thinking to return. Perhaps that chair, when you arose and passed Out of the room, rocked silently a while Ere it again was still. When you were gone Forever from the room, perhaps that chair, Stirred by your movement, rocked a little while, Silently, to and fro. . . And here are the last words your fingers wrote, Scrawled in broad characters across a page In this brown book I gave you. Here your hand, Guiding your rapid pen, moved up and down. Here with a looping knot you crossed a "t," And here another like it, just beyond These two eccentric "e's. " You were so small, And wrote so brave a hand! How strange it seems That of all words these are the words you chose! And yet a simple choice; you did not know You would not write again. If you had known— But then, it does not matter,—and indeed If you had known there was so little time You would have dropped your pen and come to me And this page would be empty, and some phrase Other than this would hold my wonder now. Yet, since you could not know, and it befell That these are the last words your fingers wrote, There is a dignity some might not see In this, "I picked the first sweet-pea to-day. " To-day! Was there an opening bud beside it You left until to-morrow?—O my love, The things that withered,—and you came not back That day you filled this circle of my arms That now is empty. (O my empty life!) That day—that day you picked the first sweet-pea,— And brought it in to show me! I recall With terrible distinctness how the smell Of your cool gardens drifted in with you. I know, you held it up for me to see And flushed because I looked not at the flower, But at your face; and when behind my look You saw such unmistakable intent You laughed and brushed your flower against my lips. (You were the fairest thing God ever made, I think. ) And then your hands above my heart Drew down its stem into a fastening, And while your head was bent I kissed your hair. I wonder if you knew. (Beloved hands! Somehow I cannot seem to see them still. Somehow I cannot seem to see the dust In your bright hair. ) What is the need of Heaven When earth can be so sweet?—If only God Had let us love,—and show the world the way! Strange cancellings must ink th' eternal books When love-crossed-out will bring the answer right! That first sweet-pea! I wonder where it is. It seems to me I laid it down somewhere, And yet,—I am not sure. I am not sure, Even, if it was white or pink; for then 'Twas much like any other flower to me Save that it was the first. I did not know Then, that it was the last. If I had known— But then, it does not matter. Strange how few, After all's said and done, the things that are Of moment. Few indeed! When I can make Of ten small words a rope to hang the world! "I had you and I have you now no more. " There, there it dangles,—where's the little truth That can for long keep footing under that When its slack syllables tighten to a thought? Here, let me write it down! I wish to see Just how a thing like that will look on paper! "I had you and I have you now no more. " O little words, how can you run so straight Across the page, beneath the weight you bear? How can you fall apart, whom such a theme Has bound together, and hereafter aid In trivial expression, that have been So hideously dignified?—Would God That tearing you apart would tear the thread I strung you on! Would God—O God, my mind Stretches asunder on this merciless rack Of imagery! O, let me sleep a while! Would I could sleep, and wake to find me back In that sweet summer afternoon with you. Summer? Tis summer still by the calendar! How easily could God, if He so willed, Set back the world a little turn or two! Correct its griefs, and bring its joys again! We were so wholly one I had not thought That we could die apart. I had not thought That I could move,—and you be stiff and still! That I could speak,—and you perforce be dumb! I think our heart-strings were, like warp and woof In some firm fabric, woven in and out; Your golden filaments in fair design Across my duller fibre. And to-day The shining strip is rent; the exquisite Fine pattern is destroyed; part of your heart Aches in my breast; part of my heart lies chilled In the damp earth with you. I have been tom In two, and suffer for the rest of me. What is my life to me? And what am I To life,—a ship whose star has guttered out? A Fear that in the deep night starts awake Perpetually, to find its senses strained Against the taut strings of the quivering air, Awaiting the return of some dread chord? Dark, Dark, is all I find for metaphor; All else were contrast,—save that contrast's wall Is down, and all opposed things flow together Into a vast monotony, where night And day, and frost and thaw, and death and life, Are synonyms. What now—what now to me Are all the jabbering birds and foolish flowers That clutter up the world? You were my song! Now, let discord scream! You were my flower! Now let the world grow weeds! For I shall not Plant things above your grave—(the common balm Of the conventional woe for its own wound!) Amid sensations rendered negative By your elimination stands to-day, Certain, unmixed, the element of grief; I sorrow; and I shall not mock my truth With travesties of suffering, nor seek To effigy its incorporeal bulk In little wry-faced images of woe. I cannot call you back; and I desire No utterance of my immaterial voice. I cannot even turn my face this way Or that, and say, "My face is turned to you"; I know not where you are, I do not know If Heaven hold you or if earth transmute, Body and soul, you into earth again; But this I know:—not for one second's space Shall I insult my sight with visionings Such as the credulous crowd so eager-eyed Beholds, self-conjured, in the empty air. Let the world wail! Let drip its easy tears! My sorrow shall be dumb! —What do I say? God! God!—God pity me! Am I gone mad That I should spit upon a rosary? Am I become so shrunken? Would to God I too might feel that frenzied faith whose touch Makes temporal the most enduring grief; Though it must walk a while, as is its wont, With wild lamenting! Would I too might weep Where weeps the world and hangs its piteous wreaths For its new dead! Not Truth, but Faith, it is That keeps the world alive. If all at once Faith were to slacken,—that unconscious faith Which must, I know, yet be the corner-stone Of all believing,—birds now flying fearless Across would drop in terror to the earth; Fishes would drown; and the all-governing reins Would tangle in the frantic hands of God And the worlds gallop headlong to destruction! O God, I see it now, and my sick brain Staggers and swoons! How often over me Flashes this breathlessness of sudden sight In which I see the universe unrolled Before me like a scroll and read thereon Chaos and Doom, where helpless planets whirl Dizzily round and round and round and round, Like tops across a table, gathering speed With every spin, to waver on the edge One instant—looking over—and the next To shudder and lurch forward out of sight— * * * * * * * Ah, I am worn out—I am wearied out— It is too much—I am but flesh and blood, And I must sleep. Though you were dead again, I am but flesh and blood and I must sleep.

Written by Phillis Wheatley | To S. M. a young African Painter on seeing his Works To show the lab'ring bosom's deep intent, And thought in living characters to paint, When first thy pencil did those beauties give, And breathing figures learnt from thee to live, How did those prospects give my soul delight, A new creation rushing on my sight? Still, wond'rous youth! each noble path pursue, On deathless glories fix thine ardent view: Still may the painter's and the poet's fire To aid thy pencil, and thy verse conspire! And may the charms of each seraphic theme Conduct thy footsteps to immortal fame! High to the blissful wonders of the skies Elate thy soul, and raise thy wishful eyes. Thrice happy, when exalted to survey That splendid city, crown'd with endless day, Whose twice six gates on radiant hinges ring: Celestial Salem blooms in endless spring. Calm and serene thy moments glide along, And may the muse inspire each future song! Still, with the sweets of contemplation bless'd, May peace with balmy wings your soul invest! But when these shades of time are chas'd away, And darkness ends in everlasting day, On what seraphic pinions shall we move, And view the landscapes in the realms above? There shall thy tongue in heav'nly murmurs flow, And there my muse with heav'nly transport glow: No more to tell of Damon's tender sighs, Or rising radiance of Aurora's eyes, For nobler themes demand a nobler strain, And purer language on th' ethereal plain. Cease, gentle muse! the solemn gloom of night Now seals the fair creation from my sight.

Written by Charlotte Bronte | Pilates Wifes Dream I've quenched my lamp, I struck it in that start Which every limb convulsed, I heard it fall­ The crash blent with my sleep, I saw depart Its light, even as I woke, on yonder wall; Over against my bed, there shone a gleam Strange, faint, and mingling also with my dream. It sunk, and I am wrapt in utter gloom; How far is night advanced, and when will day Retinge the dusk and livid air with bloom, And fill this void with warm, creative ray ? Would I could sleep again till, clear and red, Morning shall on the mountain-tops be spread! I'd call my women, but to break their sleep, Because my own is broken, were unjust; They've wrought all day, and well-earned slumbers steep Their labours in forgetfulness, I trust; Let me my feverish watch with patience bear, Thankful that none with me its sufferings share. Yet, Oh, for light ! one ray would tranquilise My nerves, my pulses, more than effort can; I'll draw my curtain and consult the skies: These trembling stars at dead of night look wan, Wild, restless, strange, yet cannot be more drear Than this my couch, shared by a nameless fear. All black­one great cloud, drawn from east to west, Conceals the heavens, but there are lights below; Torches burn in Jerusalem, and cast On yonder stony mount a lurid glow. I see men stationed there, and gleaming spears; A sound, too, from afar, invades my ears. Dull, measured, strokes of axe and hammer ring From street to street, not loud, but through the night Distinctly heard­and some strange spectral thing Is now upreared­and, fixed against the light Of the pale lamps; defined upon that sky, It stands up like a column, straight and high. I see it all­I know the dusky sign­ A cross on Calvary, which Jews uprear While Romans watch; and when the dawn shall shine Pilate, to judge the victim will appear, Pass sentence­yield him up to crucify; And on that cross the spotless Christ must die. Dreams, then, are true­for thus my vision ran; Surely some oracle has been with me, The gods have chosen me to reveal their plan, To warn an unjust judge of destiny: I, slumbering, heard and saw; awake I know, Christ's coming death, and Pilate's life of woe. I do not weep for Pilate­who could prove Regret for him whose cold and crushing sway No prayer can soften, no appeal can move; Who tramples hearts as others trample clay, Yet with a faltering, an uncertain tread, That might stir up reprisal in the dead. Forced to sit by his side and see his deeds; Forced to behold that visage, hour by hour, In whose gaunt lines, the abhorrent gazer reads A triple lust of gold, and blood, and power; A soul whom motives, fierce, yet abject, urge Rome's servile slave, and Judah's tyrant scourge. How can I love, or mourn, or pity him ? I, who so long my fettered hands have wrung; I, who for grief have wept my eye-sight dim; Because, while life for me was bright and young, He robbed my youth­he quenched my life's fair ray­ He crushed my mind, and did my freedom slay. And at this hour­although I be his wife­ He has no more of tenderness from me Than any other wretch of guilty life; Less, for I know his household privacy­ I see him as he is­without a screen; And, by the gods, my soul abhors his mien ! Has he not sought my presence, dyed in blood­ Innocent, righteous blood, shed shamelessly ? And have I not his red salute withstood ? Aye,­when, as erst, he plunged all Galilee In dark bereavement­in affliction sore, Mingling their very offerings with their gore. Then came he­in his eyes a serpent-smile, Upon his lips some false, endearing word, And, through the streets of Salem, clanged the while, His slaughtering, hacking, sacrilegious sword­ And I, to see a man cause men such woe, Trembled with ire­I did not fear to show. And now, the envious Jewish priests have brought Jesus­whom they in mockery call their king­ To have, by this grim power, their vengeance wrought; By this mean reptile, innocence to sting. Oh ! could I but the purposed doom avert, And shield the blameless head from cruel hurt! Accessible is Pilate's heart to fear, Omens will shake his soul, like autumn leaf; Could he this night's appalling vision hear, This just man's bonds were loosed, his life were safe, Unless that bitter priesthood should prevail, And make even terror to their malice quail. Yet if I tell the dream­but let me pause. What dream ? Erewhile the characters were clear, Graved on my brain­at once some unknown cause Has dimmed and rased the thoughts, which now appear, Like a vague remnant of some by-past scene;­ Not what will be, but what, long since, has been. I suffered many things, I heard foretold A dreadful doom for Pilate,­lingering woes, In far, barbarian climes, where mountains cold Built up a solitude of trackless snows, There, he and grisly wolves prowled side by side, There he lived famished­there methought he died; But not of hunger, nor by malady; I saw the snow around him, stained with gore; I said I had no tears for such as he, And, lo ! my cheek is wet­mine eyes run o'er; I weep for mortal suffering, mortal guilt, I weep the impious deed­the blood self-spilt. More I recall not, yet the vision spread Into a world remote, an age to come­ And still the illumined name of Jesus shed A light, a clearness, through the enfolding gloom­ And still I saw that sign, which now I see, That cross on yonder brow of Calvary. What is this Hebrew Christ ? To me unknown, His lineage­doctrine­mission­yet how clear, Is God-like goodness, in his actions shewn ! How straight and stainless is his life's career ! The ray of Deity that rests on him, In my eyes makes Olympian glory dim. The world advances, Greek, or Roman rite Suffices not the inquiring mind to stay; The searching soul demands a purer light To guide it on its upward, onward way; Ashamed of sculptured gods­Religion turns To where the unseen Jehovah's altar burns. Our faith is rotten­all our rites defiled, Our temples sullied, and methinks, this man, With his new ordinance, so wise and mild, Is come, even as he says, the chaff to fan And sever from the wheat; but will his faith Survive the terrors of to-morrow's death ? * * * * * I feel a firmer trust­a higher hope Rise in my soul­it dawns with dawning day; Lo ! on the Temple's roof­on Moriah's slope Appears at length that clear, and crimson ray, Which I so wished for when shut in by night; Oh, opening skies, I hail, I bless your light ! Part, clouds and shadows ! glorious Sun appear ! Part, mental gloom ! Come insight from on high ! Dusk dawn in heaven still strives with daylight clear, The longing soul, doth still uncertain sigh. Oh ! to behold the truth­that sun divine, How doth my bosom pant, my spirit pine ! This day, time travails with a mighty birth, This day, Truth stoops from heaven and visits earth, Ere night descends, I shall more surely know What guide to follow, in what path to go; I wait in hope­I wait in solemn fear, The oracle of God­the sole­true God­to hear.

Written by Sir Walter Scott | The Truth of Woman Woman's faith, and woman's trust - Write the characters in the dust; Stamp them on the running stream, Print them on the moon's pale beam, And each evanescent letter Shall be clearer, firmer, better, And more permanent, I ween, Than the thing those letters mean. I have strain'd the spider's thread 'Gainst the promise of a maid; I have weigh'd a grain of sand 'Gainst her plight of heart and hand; I told my true love of the token, How her faith proved light, and her word was broken: Again her word and truth she plight, And I believed them again ere night.

Written by Billy Collins | By A Swimming Pool Outside Syracusa All afternoon I have been struggling to communicate in Italian with Roberto and Giuseppe, who have begun to resemble the two male characters in my Italian for Beginners, the ones who are always shopping or inquiring about the times of trains, and now I can hardly speak or write English. I have made important pronouncements in this remote limestone valley with its trickle of a river, stating that it seems hotter today even than it was yesterday and that swimming is very good for you, very beneficial, you might say. I also posed burning questions about the hours of the archaeological museum and the location of the local necropolis. But now I am alone in the evening light which has softened the white cliffs, and I have had a little gin in a glass with ice which has softened my mood or— how would you say in English— has allowed my thoughts to traverse my brain with greater gentleness, shall we say, or, to put it less literally, this drink has extended permission to my mind to feel—what's the word?— a friendship with the vast sky which is very—give me a minute—very blue but with much great paleness at this special time of day, or as we say in America, now.

Written by John Trumbull | To Ladies Of A Certain Age Ye ancient Maids, who ne'er must prove The early joys of youth and love, Whose names grim Fate (to whom 'twas given, When marriages were made in heaven) Survey'd with unrelenting scowl, And struck them from the muster-roll; Or set you by, in dismal sort, For wintry bachelors to court; Or doom'd to lead your faded lives, Heirs to the joys of former wives; Attend! nor fear in state forlorn, To shun the pointing hand of scorn, Attend, if lonely age you dread, And wish to please, or wish to wed. When beauties lose their gay appearance, And lovers fall from perseverance, When eyes grow dim and charms decay, And all your roses fade away, First know yourselves; lay by those airs, Which well might suit your former years, Nor ape in vain the childish mien, And airy follies of sixteen. We pardon faults in youth's gay flow, While beauty prompts the cheek to glow, While every glance has power to warm, And every turn displays a charm, Nor view a spot in that fair face, Which smiles inimitable grace. But who, unmoved with scorn, can see The grey coquette's affected glee, Her ambuscading tricks of art To catch the beau's unthinking heart, To check th' assuming fopling's vows, The bridling frown of wrinkled brows; Those haughty airs of face and mind, Departed beauty leaves behind. Nor let your sullen temper show Spleen louring on the envious brow, The jealous glance of rival rage, The sourness and the rust of age. With graceful ease, avoid to wear The gloom of disappointed care: And oh, avoid the sland'rous tongue, By malice tuned, with venom hung, That blast of virtue and of fame, That herald to the court of shame; Less dire the croaking raven's throat, Though death's dire omens swell the note. Contented tread the vale of years, Devoid of malice, guilt and fears; Let soft good humour, mildly gay, Gild the calm evening of your day, And virtue, cheerful and serene, In every word and act be seen. Virtue alone with lasting grace, Embalms the beauties of the face, Instructs the speaking eye to glow, Illumes the cheek and smooths the brow, Bids every look the heart engage, Nor fears the wane of wasting age. Nor think these charms of face and air, The eye so bright, the form so fair, This light that on the surface plays, Each coxcomb fluttering round its blaze, Whose spell enchants the wits of beaux, The only charms, that heaven bestows. Within the mind a glory lies, O'erlook'd and dim to vulgar eyes; Immortal charms, the source of love, Which time and lengthen'd years improve, Which beam, with still increasing power, Serene to life's declining hour; Then rise, released from earthly cares, To heaven, and shine above the stars. Thus might I still these thoughts pursue, The counsel wise, and good, and true, In rhymes well meant and serious lay, While through the verse in sad array, Grave truths in moral garb succeed: Yet who would mend, for who would read? But when the force of precept fails, A sad example oft prevails. Beyond the rules a sage exhibits, Thieves heed the arguments of gibbets, And for a villain's quick conversion, A pillory can outpreach a parson. To thee, Eliza, first of all, But with no friendly voice I call. Advance with all thine airs sublime, Thou remnant left of ancient time! Poor mimic of thy former days, Vain shade of beauty, once in blaze! We view thee, must'ring forth to arms The veteran relics of thy charms; The artful leer, the rolling eye, The trip genteel, the heaving sigh, The labour'd smile, of force too weak, Low dimpling in th' autumnal cheek, The sad, funereal frown, that still Survives its power to wound or kill; Or from thy looks, with desperate rage, Chafing the sallow hue of age, And cursing dire with rueful faces, The repartees of looking-glasses. Now at tea-table take thy station, Those shambles vile of reputation, Where butcher'd characters and stale Are day by day exposed for sale: Then raise the floodgates of thy tongue, And be the peal of scandal rung; While malice tunes thy voice to rail, And whispering demons prompt the tale-- Yet hold thy hand, restrain thy passion, Thou cankerworm of reputation; Bid slander, rage and envy cease, For one short interval of peace; Let other's faults and crimes alone, Survey thyself and view thine own; Search the dark caverns of thy mind, Or turn thine eyes and look behind: For there to meet thy trembling view, With ghastly form and grisly hue, And shrivel'd hand, that lifts sublime The wasting glass and scythe of Time, A phantom stands: his name is Age; Ill-nature following as his page. While bitter taunts and scoffs and jeers, And vexing cares and torturing fears, Contempt that lifts the haughty eye, And unblest solitude are nigh; While conscious pride no more sustains, Nor art conceals thine inward pains, And haggard vengeance haunts thy name, And guilt consigns thee o'er to shame, Avenging furies round thee wait, And e'en thy foes bewail thy fate. But see, with gentler looks and air, Sophia comes. Ye youths beware! Her fancy paints her still in prime, Nor sees the moving hand of time; To all her imperfections blind, Hears lovers sigh in every wind, And thinks her fully ripen'd charms, Like Helen's, set the world in arms. Oh, save it but from ridicule, How blest the state, to be a fool! The bedlam-king in triumph shares The bliss of crowns, without the cares; He views with pride-elated mind, His robe of tatters trail behind; With strutting mien and lofty eye, He lifts his crabtree sceptre high; Of king's prerogative he raves, And rules in realms of fancied slaves. In her soft brain, with madness warm, Thus airy throngs of lovers swarm. She takes her glass; before her eyes Imaginary beauties rise; Stranger till now, a vivid ray Illumes each glance and beams like day; Till furbish'd every charm anew, An angel steps abroad to view; She swells her pride, assumes her power, And bids the vassal world adore. Indulge thy dream. The pictured joy No ruder breath should dare destroy; No tongue should hint, the lover's mind Was ne'er of virtuoso-kind, Through all antiquity to roam For what much fairer springs at home. No wish should blast thy proud design; The bliss of vanity be thine. But while the subject world obey, Obsequious to thy sovereign sway, Thy foes so feeble and so few, With slander what hadst thou to do? What demon bade thine anger rise? What demon glibb'd thy tongue with lies? What demon urged thee to provoke Avenging satire's deadly stroke? Go, sink unnoticed and unseen, Forgot, as though thou ne'er hadst been. Oblivion's long projected shade In clouds hangs dismal o'er thy head. Fill the short circle of thy day, Then fade from all the world away; Nor leave one fainting trace behind, Of all that flutter'd once and shined; The vapoury meteor's dancing light Deep sunk and quench'd in endless night

Written by William Butler Yeats | Ego Dominus Tuus Hic. On the grey sand beside the shallow stream Under your old wind-beaten tower, where still A lamp burns on beside the open book That Michael Robartes left, you walk in the moon, And, though you have passed the best of life, still trace, Enthralled by the unconquerable delusion, Magical shapes. Ille. By the help of an image I call to my own opposite, summon all That I have handled least, least looked upon. Hic. And I would find myself and not an image. Ille. That is our modern hope, and by its light We have lit upon the gentle, sensitive mind And lost the old nonchalance of the hand; Whether we have chosen chisel, pen or brush, We are but critics, or but half create, Timid, entangled, empty and abashed, Lacking the countenance of our friends. Hic. And yet The chief imagination of Christendom, Dante Alighieri, so utterly found himself That he has made that hollow face of his More plain to the mind's eye than any face But that of Christ. Ille. And did he find himself Or was the hunger that had made it hollow A hunger for the apple on the bough Most out of reach? and is that spectral image The man that Lapo and that Guido knew? I think he fashioned from his opposite An image that might have been a stony face Staring upon a Bedouin's horse-hair roof From doored and windowed cliff, or half upturned Among the coarse grass and the camel-dung. He set his chisel to the hardest stone. Being mocked by Guido for his lecherous life, Derided and deriding, driven out To climb that stair and eat that bitter bread, He found the unpersuadable justice, he found The most exalted lady loved by a man. Hic. Yet surely there are men who have made their art Out of no tragic war, lovers of life, Impulsive men that look for happiness And sing when t"hey have found it. Ille. No, not sing, For those that love the world serve it in action, Grow rich, popular and full of influence, And should they paint or write, still it is action: The struggle of the fly in marmalade. The rhetorician would deceive his neighbours, The sentimentalist himself; while art Is but a vision of reality. What portion in the world can the artist have Who has awakened from the common dream But dissipation and despair? Hic. And yet No one denies to Keats love of the world; Remember his deliberate happiness. Ille. His art is happy, but who knows his mind? I see a schoolboy when I think of him, With face and nose pressed to a sweet-shop window, For certainly he sank into his grave His senses and his heart unsatisfied, And made - being poor, ailing and ignorant, Shut out from all the luxury of the world, The coarse-bred son of a livery-stable keeper -- Luxuriant song. Hic. Why should you leave the lamp Burning alone beside an open book, And trace these characters upon the sands? A style is found by sedentary toil And by the imitation of great masters. Ille. Because I seek an image, not a book. Those men that in their writings are most wise, Own nothing but their blind, stupefied hearts. I call to the mysterious one who yet Shall walk the wet sands by the edge of the stream And look most like me, being indeed my double, And prove of all imaginable things The most unlike, being my anti-self, And, standing by these characters, disclose All that I seek; and whisper it as though He were afraid the birds, who cry aloud Their momentary cries before it is dawn, Would carry it away to blasphemous men.