Written by
Edith Wharton |
I
Immense, august, like some Titanic bloom,
The mighty choir unfolds its lithic core,
Petalled with panes of azure, gules and or,
Splendidly lambent in the Gothic gloom,
And stamened with keen flamelets that illume
The pale high-alter. On the prayer-worn floor,
By worshippers innumerous thronged of yore,
A few brown crones, familiars of the tomb,
The stranded driftwood of Faith's ebbing sea--
For these alone the finials fret the skies,
The topmost bosses shake their blossoms free,
While from the triple portals, with grave eyes,
Tranquil, and fixed upon eternity,
The cloud of witnesses still testifies.
II
The crimson panes like blood-drops stigmatise
The western floor. The aisles are mute and cold.
A rigid fetich in her robe of gold,
The Virgin of the Pillar, with blank eyes,
Enthroned beneath her votive canopies,
Gathers a meagre remnant to her fold.
The rest is solitude; the church, grown old,
Stands stark and grey beneath the burning skies.
Well-nigh again its mighty framework grows
To be a part of nature's self, withdrawn
From hot humanity's impatient woes;
The floor is ridged like some rude mountain lawn,
And in the east one giant window shows
The roseate coldness of an Alp at dawn.
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Written by
William Shakespeare |
The quality of mercy is not strain'd.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes.
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown.
His scepter shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptered sway;
It is enthroned in the heart of kings;
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice.
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Written by
Rudyard Kipling |
1903
After Boer War
Duly with knees that feign to quake--
Bent head and shaded brow,--
Yet once again, for my father's sake,
In Rimmon's House I bow.
The curtains part, the trumpet blares,
And the eunuchs howl aloud;
And the gilt, swag-bellied idol glares
Insolent over the crowd.
"This is Rimmon, Lord of the Earth--
"Fear Him and bow the knee!"
And I watch my comrades hide their mirth
That rode to the wars with me.
For we remember the sun and the sand
And the rocks whereon we trod,
Ere we came to a scorched and a scornful land
That did not know our God;
As we remember the sacrifice,
Dead men an hundred laid--
Slain while they served His mysteries,
And that He would not aid--
Not though we gashed ourselves and wept,
For the high-priest bade us wait;
Saying He went on a journey or slept,
Or was drunk or had taken a mate.
(Praise ye Rimmon, King of Kings,
Who ruleth Earth and Sky!
And again I bow as the censer swings
And the God Enthroned goes by.)
Ay, we remember His sacred ark
And the virtuous men that knelt
To the dark and the hush behind the dark
Wherein we dreamed He dwelt;
Until we entered to hale Him out
And found no more than an old
Uncleanly image girded about
The loins with scarlet and gold.
Him we o'erset with the butts of our spears--
Him and his vast designs--
To be scorn of our muleteers
And the jest of our halted line.
By the picket-pins that the dogs defile,
In the dung and the dust He lay,
Till the priests ran and chattered awhile
And we wiped Him and took Him away.
Hushing the matter before it was known,
They returned to our fathers afar,
And hastily set Him afresh on His throne
Because he had won us the war.
Wherefore with knees that feign to quake--
Bent head and shaded brow--
To this dog, for my father's sake,
In the Rimmon's House I bow!
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Written by
Friedrich von Schiller |
By love are blest the gods on high,
Frail man becomes a deity
When love to him is given;
'Tis love that makes the heavens shine
With hues more radiant, more divine,
And turns dull earth to heaven!
In Pyrrha's rear (so poets sang
In ages past and gone),
The world from rocky fragments sprang--
Mankind from lifeless stone.
Their soul was but a thing of night,
Like stone and rock their heart;
The flaming torch of heaven so bright
Its glow could ne'er impart.
Young loves, all gently hovering round,
Their souls as yet had never bound
In soft and rosy chains;
No feeling muse had sought to raise
Their bosoms with ennobling lays,
Or sweet, harmonious strains.
Around each other lovingly
No garlands then entwined;
The sorrowing springs fled toward the sky,
And left the earth behind.
From out the sea Aurora rose
With none to hail her then;
The sun unhailed, at daylight's close,
In ocean sank again.
In forests wild, man went astray,
Misled by Luna's cloudy ray--
He bore an iron yoke;
He pined not for the stars on high,
With yearning for a deity
No tears in torrents broke.
.....
But see! from out the deep-blue ocean
Fair Venus springs with gentle motion
The graceful Naiad's smiling band
Conveys her to the gladdened strand,
A May-like, youthful, magic power
Entwines, like morning's twilight hour,
Around that form of godlike birth,
The charms of air, sea, heaven, and earth.
The day's sweet eye begins to bloom
Across the forest's midnight gloom;
Narcissuses, their balm distilling,
The path her footstep treads are filling.
A song of love, sweet Philomel,
Soon carolled through the grove;
The streamlet, as it murmuring fell,
Discoursed of naught but love,
Pygmalion! Happy one! Behold!
Life's glow pervades thy marble cold!
Oh, LOVE, thou conqueror all-divine,
Embrace each happy child of thine!
.....
By love are blest the gods on high,--
Frail man becomes a deity
When love to him is given;
'Tis love that makes the heavens shine
With hues more radiant, more divine,
And turns dull earth to heaven!
.....
The gods their days forever spend
In banquets bright that have no end,
In one voluptuous morning-dream,
And quaff the nectar's golden stream.
Enthroned in awful majesty
Kronion wields the bolt on high:
In abject fear Olympus rocks
When wrathfully he shakes his locks.
To other gods he leaves his throne,
And fills, disguised as earth's frail son,
The grove with mournful numbers;
The thunders rest beneath his feet,
And lulled by Leda's kisses sweet,
The Giant-Slayer slumbers.
Through the boundless realms of light
Phoebus' golden reins, so bright,
Guide his horses white as snow,
While his darts lay nations low.
But when love and harmony
Fill his breast, how willingly
Ceases Phoebus then to heed
Rattling dart and snow-white steed!
See! Before Kronion's spouse
Every great immortal bows;
Proudly soar the peacock pair
As her chariot throne they bear,
While she decks with crown of might
Her ambrosial tresses bright,
Beauteous princess, ah! with fear
Quakes before thy splendor, love,
Seeking, as he ventures near,
With his power thy breast to move!
Soon from her immortal throne
Heaven's great queen must fain descend,
And in prayer for beauty's zone,
To the heart-enchainer bend!
.....
By love are blest the gods on high,
Frail man becomes a deity
When love to him is given;
'Tis love that makes the heavens shine
With hues more radiant, more divine,
And turns dull earth to heaven!
.....
'Tis love illumes the realms of night,
For Orcus dark obeys his might,
And bows before his magic spell
All-kindly looks the king of hell
At Ceres' daughter's smile so bright,--
Yes--love illumes the realms of night!
In hell were heard, with heavenly sound,
Holding in chains its warder bound,
Thy lays, O Thracian one!
A gentler doom dread Minos passed,
While down his cheeks the tears coursed fast
And e'en around Megaera's face
The serpents twined in fond embrace,
The lashes' work seemed done.
Driven by Orpheus' lyre away,
The vulture left his giant-prey [8];
With gentler motion rolled along
Dark Lethe and Cocytus' river,
Enraptured Thracian, by thy song,--
And love its burden was forever!
By love are blest the gods on high,
Frail man becomes a deity
When love to him is given;
'Tis love that makes the heavens shine
With hues more radiant, more divine,
And turns dull earth to heaven!
.....
Wherever Nature's sway extends,
The fragrant balm of love descends,
His golden pinions quiver;
If 'twere not Venus' eye that gleams
Upon me in the moon's soft beams,
In sunlit hill or river,--
If 'twere not Venus smiles on me
From yonder bright and starry sea,
Not stars, not sun, not moonbeams sweet,
Could make my heart with rapture beat.
'Tis love alone that smilingly
Peers forth from Nature's blissful eye,
As from a mirror ever!
Love bids the silvery streamlet roll
More gently as it sighs along,
And breathes a living, feeling soul
In Philomel's sweet plaintive song;
'Tis love alone that fills the air
With streams from Nature's lute so fair.
Thou wisdom with the glance of fire,
Thou mighty goddess, now retire,
Love's power thou now must feel!
To victor proud, to monarch high,
Thou ne'er hast knelt in slavery,--
To love thou now must kneel!
Who taught thee boldly how to climb
The steep, but starry path sublime,
And reach the seats immortal?
Who rent the mystic veil in twain,
And showed thee the Elysian plain
Beyond death's gloomy portal?
If love had beckoned not from high,
Had we gained immortality?
If love had not inflamed each thought,
Had we the master spirit sought?
'Tis love that guides the soul along
To Nature's Father's heavenly throne
By love are blest the gods on high,
Frail man becomes a deity
When love to him is given;
'Tis love that makes the heavens shine
With hues more radiant, more divine,
And turns dull earth to heaven!
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Written by
Mark Doty |
The priest never used blueprints, but worked all
the many designs out of his head.
Father Wilerus,
transplanted Alsatian,
built around
this plain Wisconsin
redbrick church
a coral-reef en-
crustation--meant,
the brochure says,
to glorify America
and heaven simul-
taneously. Thus:
Mary and Columbus
and the Sacred Heart
equally enthroned
in a fantasia of quartz
and seashells, broken
dishes, stalactites
and stick-shift knobs--
no separation
of nature and art
for Father Wilerus!
He's built fabulous blooms
--bristling mosaic tiles
bunched into chipped,
permanent roses---
and more glisteny
stuff than I can catalogue,
which seems to he the point:
a spectacle, saints
and Stars and Stripes
billowing in hillocks
of concrete. Stubborn
insistence on rendering
invisibles solid. What's
more frankly actual
than cement? Surfaced,
here, in pure decor:
even the railings
curlicued with rows
of identical whelks,
even the lampposts
and birdhouses,
and big encrusted urns
wagging with lunar flowers!
A little dizzy,
the world he's made,
and completely
unapologetic, high
on a hill in Dickeyville
so the wind whips
around like crazy.
A bit pigheaded,
yet full of love
for glitter qua glitter,
sheer materiality;
a bit foolhardy
and yet -- sly sparkle --
he's made matter giddy.
Exactly what he wanted,
I'd guess: the very stones
gone lacy and beaded,
an airy intricacy
of froth and glimmer.
For God? Country?
Lucky man:
his purpose pales
beside the fizzy,
weightless fact of rock.
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Written by
George William Russell |
BY many a dream of God and man my thoughts in shining flocks were led:
But as I went through Patrick Street the hopes and prophecies were dead.
The hopes and prophecies were dead: they could not blossom where the feet
Walked amid rottenness, or where the brawling shouters stamped the street.
Where was the beauty that the Lord gave men when first they towered in pride?
But one came by me at whose word the bitter condemnation died.
His brows were crowned with thorns of light: his eyes were bright as one who sees
The starry palaces shine o’er the sparkle of the heavenly seas.
“Is it not beautiful?” he cried. “Our Faery Land of Hearts’ Desire
Is mingled through the mire and mist, yet stainless keeps its lovely fire.
The pearly phantoms with blown hair are dancing where the drunkards reel:
The cloud frail daffodils shine out where filth is splashing from the heel.
O sweet, and sweet, and sweet to hear, the melodies in rivers run:
The rapture of their crowded notes is yet the myriad voice of One.
Those who are lost and fallen here, to-night in sleep shall pass the gate,
Put on the purples of the King, and know them masters of their fate.
Each wrinkled hag shall reassume the plumes and hues of paradise:
Each brawler be enthroned in calm among the Children of the Wise.
Yet in the council with the gods no one will falter to pursue
His lofty purpose, but come forth the cyclic labours to renew;
And take the burden of the world and veil his beauty in a shroud,
And wrestle with the chaos till the anarch to the light be bowed.
We cannot for forgetfulness forego the reverence due to them
Who wear at times they do not guess the sceptre and the diadem.
As bright a crown as this was theirs when first they from the Father sped;
Yet look with deeper eyes and still the ancient beauty is not dead.”
He mingled with the multitude. I saw their brows were crowned and bright,
A light around the shadowy heads, a shadow round the head of light.
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Written by
Robert William Service |
I dreamed I saw three demi-gods who in a cafe sat,
And one was small and crapulous, and one was large and fat;
And one was eaten up with vice and verminous at that.
The first he spoke of secret sins, and gems and perfumes rare;
And velvet cats and courtesans voluptuously fair:
"Who is the Sybarite?" I asked. They answered: "Baudelaire."
The second talked in tapestries, by fantasy beguiled;
As frail as bubbles, hard as gems, his pageantries he piled;
"This Lord of Language, who is he?" They whispered "Oscar Wilde."
The third was staring at his glass from out abysmal pain;
With tears his eyes were bitten in beneath his bulbous brain.
"Who is the sodden wretch?" I said. They told me: "Paul Verlaine."
Oh, Wilde, Verlaine and Baudelaire, their lips were wet with wine;
Oh poseur, pimp and libertine! Oh cynic, sot and swine!
Oh votaries of velvet vice! . . . Oh gods of light divine!
Oh Baudelaire, Verlaine and Wilde, they knew the sinks of shame;
Their sun-aspiring wings they scorched at passion's altar flame;
Yet lo! enthroned, enskied they stand, Immortal Sons of Fame.
I dreamed I saw three demi-gods who walked with feet of clay,
With cruel crosses on their backs, along a miry way;
Who climbed and climbed the bitter steep to which men turn and pray.
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Written by
Francesco Petrarch |
[Pg 74] CANZONE IX. Gentil mia donna, i' veggio. IN PRAISE OF LAURA'S EYES: THEY LEAD HIM TO CONTEMPLATE THE PATH OF LIFE. Lady, in your bright eyesSoft glancing round, I mark a holy light,Pointing the arduous way that heavenward lies;And to my practised sight,From thence, where Love enthroned, asserts his might,Visibly, palpably, the soul beams forth.This is the beacon guides to deeds of worth,And urges me to seek the glorious goal;This bids me leave behind the vulgar throng,Nor can the human tongueTell how those orbs divine o'er all my soulExert their sweet control,Both when hoar winter's frosts around are flung,And when the year puts on his youth again,Jocund, as when this bosom first knew pain. Oh! if in that high sphere,From whence the Eternal Ruler of the starsIn this excelling work declared his might,All be as fair and bright,Loose me from forth my darksome prison here,That to so glorious life the passage bars;Then, in the wonted tumult of my breast,I hail boon Nature, and the genial dayThat gave me being, and a fate so blest,And her who bade hope beamUpon my soul; for till then burthensomeWas life itself become:But now, elate with touch of self-esteem,High thoughts and sweet within that heart arise,Of which the warders are those beauteous eyes. No joy so exquisiteDid Love or fickle Fortune ere devise,In partial mood, for favour'd votaries,But I would barter itFor one dear glance of those angelic eyes,Whence springs my peace as from its living root.O vivid lustre! of power absolute[Pg 75]O'er all my being—source of that delight,By which consumed I sink, a willing prey.As fades each lesser rayBefore your splendour more intense and bright,So to my raptured heart,When your surpassing sweetness you impart,No other thought of feeling may remainWhere you, with Love himself, despotic reign. All sweet emotions e'erBy happy lovers felt in every clime,Together all, may not with mine compare,When, as from time to time,I catch from that dark radiance rich and deepA ray in which, disporting, Love is seen;And I believe that from my cradled sleep,By Heaven provided this resource hath been,'Gainst adverse fortune, and my nature frail.Wrong'd am I by that veil,And the fair hand which oft the light eclipse,That all my bliss hath wrought;And whence the passion struggling on my lips,Both day and night, to vent the breast o'erfraught,Still varying as I read her varying thought. For that (with pain I find)Not Nature's poor endowments may aloneRender me worthy of a look so kind,I strive to raise my mindTo match with the exalted hopes I own,And fires, though all engrossing, pure as mine.If prone to good, averse to all things base,Contemner of what worldlings covet most,I may become by long self-discipline.Haply this humble boastMay win me in her fair esteem a place;For sure the end and aimOf all my tears, my sorrowing heart's sole claim,Were the soft trembling of relenting eyes,The generous lover's last, best, dearest prize. My lay, thy sister-song is gone before.And now another in my teeming brainPrepares itself: whence I resume the strain. Dacre.
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Written by
George William Russell |
IT was the fairy of the place,
Moving within a little light,
Who touched with dim and shadowy grace
The conflict at its fever height.
It seemed to whisper “Quietness,”
Then quietly itself was gone:
Yet echoes of its mute caress
Were with me as the years went on.
It was the warrior within
Who called “Awake, prepare for fight:
Yet lose not memory in the din:
Make of thy gentleness thy might:
“Make of thy silence words to shake
The long-enthroned kings of earth:
Make of thy will the force to break
Their towers of wantonness and mirth.”
It was the wise all-seeing soul
Who counselled neither war nor peace:
“Only be thou thyself that goal
In which the wars of time shall cease.”
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Written by
Isaac Watts |
Pleading with submission.
O thou whose grace and justice reign
Enthroned above the skies,
To thee our hearts would tell their pain,
To thee we lift our eyes.
As servants watch their master's hand,
And fear the angry stroke;
Or maids before their mistress stand,
And wait a peaceful look;
So for our sins we justly feel
Thy discipline, O God;
Yet wait the gracious moment still,
Till thou remove thy rod.
Those that in wealth and pleasure live,
Our daily groans deride,
And thy delays of mercy give
Fresh courage to their pride.
Our foes insult us, but our hope
In thy compassion lies;
This thought shall bear our spirits up,
That God will not despise.
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