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Best Famous Garrulous Poems

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Written by Frank Bidart | Create an image from this poem

California Plush

 The only thing I miss about Los Angeles

is the Hollywood Freeway at midnight, windows down and
radio blaring
bearing right into the center of the city, the Capitol Tower
on the right, and beyond it, Hollywood Boulevard
blazing

--pimps, surplus stores, footprints of the stars

--descending through the city
 fast as the law would allow

through the lights, then rising to the stack
out of the city
to the stack where lanes are stacked six deep

 and you on top; the air
 now clean, for a moment weightless

 without memories, or
 need for a past.



The need for the past

is so much at the center of my life
I write this poem to record my discovery of it,
my reconciliation.

 It was in Bishop, the room was done
in California plush: we had gone into the coffee shop, were told
you could only get a steak in the bar:
 I hesitated,
not wanting to be an occasion of temptation for my father

but he wanted to, so we entered

a dark room, with amber water glasses, walnut
tables, captain's chairs,
plastic doilies, papier-mâché bas-relief wall ballerinas,
German memorial plates "bought on a trip to Europe,"
Puritan crosshatch green-yellow wallpaper,
frilly shades, cowhide 
booths--

I thought of Cambridge:

 the lovely congruent elegance
 of Revolutionary architecture, even of

ersatz thirties Georgian

seemed alien, a threat, sign
of all I was not--

to bode order and lucidity

as an ideal, if not reality--

not this California plush, which

 also

I was not.

And so I made myself an Easterner,
finding it, after all, more like me
than I had let myself hope.

 And now, staring into the embittered face of 
 my father,

again, for two weeks, as twice a year,
 I was back.

 The waitress asked us if we wanted a drink.
Grimly, I waited until he said no...



Before the tribunal of the world I submit the following
document:

 Nancy showed it to us,
in her apartment at the model,
as she waited month by month
for the property settlement, her children grown
and working for their father,
at fifty-three now alone, 
a drink in her hand:

 as my father said,
"They keep a drink in her hand":

 Name Wallace du Bois
 Box No 128 Chino, Calif.
 Date July 25 ,19 54

Mr Howard Arturian
 I am writing a letter to you this afternoon while I'm in the
mood of writing. How is everything getting along with you these
fine days, as for me everything is just fine and I feel great except for 
the heat I think its lot warmer then it is up there but I don't mind
it so much. I work at the dairy half day and I go to trade school the
other half day Body & Fender, now I am learning how to spray
paint cars I've already painted one and now I got another car to
paint. So now I think I've learned all I want after I have learned all
this. I know how to straighten metals and all that. I forgot to say
"Hello" to you. The reason why I am writing to you is about a job,
my Parole Officer told me that he got letter from and that you want
me to go to work for you. So I wanted to know if its truth. When
I go to the Board in Feb. I'll tell them what I want to do and where
I would like to go, so if you want me to work for you I'd rather have
you sent me to your brother John in Tonapah and place to stay for
my family. The Old Lady says the same thing in her last letter that 
she would be some place else then in Bishop, thats the way I feel
too.and another thing is my drinking problem. I made up my mind
to quit my drinking, after all what it did to me and what happen.
 This is one thing I'll never forget as longs as I live I never want
to go through all this mess again. This sure did teach me lot of things
that I never knew before. So Howard you can let me know soon
as possible. I sure would appreciate it.

P.S From Your Friend
I hope you can read my Wally Du Bois
writing. I am a little nervous yet

--He and his wife had given a party, and
one of the guests was walking away
just as Wallace started backing up his car.
He hit him, so put the body in the back seat
and drove to a deserted road.
There he put it before the tires, and
ran back and forth over it several times.

When he got out of Chino, he did,
indeed, never do that again:
but one child was dead, his only son,
found with the rest of the family
immobile in their beds with typhoid,
next to the mother, the child having been
dead two days:

he continued to drink, and as if it were the Old West
shot up the town a couple of Saturday nights.

"So now I think I've learned all I want
after I have learned all this: this sure did teach me a lot of things
that I never knew before.
I am a little nervous yet."

It seems to me
an emblem of Bishop--



For watching the room, as the waitresses in their
back-combed, Parisian, peroxided, bouffant hairdos,
and plastic belts,
moved back and forth

I thought of Wallace, and
the room suddenly seemed to me
 not uninteresting at all:

 they were the same. Every plate and chair

 had its congruence with

 all the choices creating

 these people, created

 by them--by me,

for this is my father's chosen country, my origin.

Before, I had merely been anxious, bored; now,
I began to ask a thousand questions...




He was, of course, mistrustful, knowing I was bored,
knowing he had dragged me up here from Bakersfield

after five years

of almost managing to forget Bishop existed.

But he soon became loquacious, ordered a drink,
and settled down for 
an afternoon of talk...

He liked Bishop: somehow, it was to his taste, this
hard-drinking, loud, visited-by-movie-stars town.
"Better to be a big fish in a little pond."

And he was: when they came to shoot a film,
he entertained them; Miss A--, who wore
nothing at all under her mink coat; Mr. M--,
good horseman, good shot.

"But when your mother 
let me down" (for alcoholism and
infidelity, she divorced him)
"and Los Angeles wouldn't give us water any more,
I had to leave.

We were the first people to grow potatoes in this valley."

When he began to tell me
that he lost control of the business
because of the settlement he gave my mother,

because I had heard it 
many times,

in revenge, I asked why people up here drank so much.

He hesitated. "Bored, I guess.
--Not much to do."

And why had Nancy's husband left her?

In bitterness, all he said was:
"People up here drink too damn much."

And that was how experience
had informed his life.

"So now I think I've learned all I want
after I have learned all this: this sure did teach me a lot of things
that I never knew before.
I am a little nervous yet."



Yet, as my mother said,
returning, as always, to the past,

"I wouldn't change any of it.
It taught me so much. Gladys
is such an innocent creature: you look into her face
and somehow it's empty, all she worries about
are sales and the baby.
her husband's too good!"

It's quite pointless to call this rationalization:
my mother, for uncertain reasons, has had her
bout with insanity, but she's right:

the past in maiming us,
makes us,
fruition
 is also
destruction:

 I think of Proust, dying
in a cork-linked room, because he refuses to eat
because he thinks that he cannot write if he eats
because he wills to write, to finish his novel

--his novel which recaptures the past, and
with a kind of joy, because
in the debris
of the past, he has found the sources of the necessities

which have led him to this room, writing

--in this strange harmony, does he will
for it to have been different?

 And I can't not think of the remorse of Oedipus,

who tries to escape, to expiate the past
by blinding himself, and
then, when he is dying, sees that he has become a Daimon

--does he, discovering, at last, this cruel
coherence created by 
 "the order of the universe"

--does he will 
anything reversed?



 I look at my father:
as he drinks his way into garrulous, shaky
defensiveness, the debris of the past
is just debris--; whatever I reason, it is a desolation
to watch...

must I watch?
He will not change; he does not want to change;

every defeated gesture implies
the past is useless, irretrievable...
--I want to change: I want to stop fear's subtle

guidance of my life--; but, how can I do that
if I am still
afraid of its source?


Written by Robert Burns | Create an image from this poem

83. The Cotter's Saturday Night

 MY lov’d, my honour’d, much respected friend!
 No mercenary bard his homage pays;
With honest pride, I scorn each selfish end,
 My dearest meed, a friend’s esteem and praise:
 To you I sing, in simple Scottish lays,
The lowly train in life’s sequester’d scene,
 The native feelings strong, the guileless ways,
What Aiken in a cottage would have been;
Ah! tho’ his worth unknown, far happier there I ween!


November chill blaws loud wi’ angry sugh;
 The short’ning winter-day is near a close;
The miry beasts retreating frae the pleugh;
 The black’ning trains o’ craws to their repose:
 The toil-worn Cotter frae his labour goes,—
This night his weekly moil is at an end,
 Collects his spades, his mattocks, and his hoes,
Hoping the morn in ease and rest to spend,
And weary, o’er the moor, his course does hameward bend.


At length his lonely cot appears in view,
 Beneath the shelter of an aged tree;
Th’ expectant wee-things, toddlin, stacher through
 To meet their dead, wi’ flichterin noise and glee.
 His wee bit ingle, blinkin bonilie,
His clean hearth-stane, his thrifty wifie’s smile,
 The lisping infant, prattling on his knee,
Does a’ his weary kiaugh and care beguile,
And makes him quite forget his labour and his toil.


Belyve, the elder bairns come drapping in,
 At service out, amang the farmers roun’;
Some ca’ the pleugh, some herd, some tentie rin
 A cannie errand to a neibor town:
 Their eldest hope, their Jenny, woman-grown,
In youthfu’ bloom-love sparkling in her e’e—
 Comes hame, perhaps to shew a braw new gown,
Or deposite her sair-won penny-fee,
To help her parents dear, if they in hardship be.


With joy unfeign’d, brothers and sisters meet,
 And each for other’s weelfare kindly speirs:
The social hours, swift-wing’d, unnotic’d fleet:
 Each tells the uncos that he sees or hears.
 The parents, partial, eye their hopeful years;
Anticipation forward points the view;
 The mother, wi’ her needle and her shears,
Gars auld claes look amaist as weel’s the new;
The father mixes a’ wi’ admonition due.


Their master’s and their mistress’ command,
 The younkers a’ are warned to obey;
And mind their labours wi’ an eydent hand,
 And ne’er, tho’ out o’ sight, to jauk or play;
 “And O! be sure to fear the Lord alway,
And mind your duty, duly, morn and night;
 Lest in temptation’s path ye gang astray,
Implore His counsel and assisting might:
They never sought in vain that sought the Lord aright.”


But hark! a rap comes gently to the door;
 Jenny, wha kens the meaning o’ the same,
Tells how a neibor lad came o’er the moor,
 To do some errands, and convoy her hame.
 The wily mother sees the conscious flame
Sparkle in Jenny’s e’e, and flush her cheek;
 With heart-struck anxious care, enquires his name,
While Jenny hafflins is afraid to speak;
Weel-pleased the mother hears, it’s nae wild, worthless rake.


Wi’ kindly welcome, Jenny brings him ben;
 A strappin youth, he takes the mother’s eye;
Blythe Jenny sees the visit’s no ill ta’en;
 The father cracks of horses, pleughs, and kye.
 The youngster’s artless heart o’erflows wi’ joy,
But blate an’ laithfu’, scarce can weel behave;
 The mother, wi’ a woman’s wiles, can spy
What makes the youth sae bashfu’ and sae grave,
Weel-pleas’d to think her bairn’s respected like the lave.


O happy love! where love like this is found:
 O heart-felt raptures! bliss beyond compare!
I’ve paced much this weary, mortal round,
 And sage experience bids me this declare,—
 “If Heaven a draught of heavenly pleasure spare—
One cordial in this melancholy vale,
 ’Tis when a youthful, loving, modest pair
In other’sarms, breathe out the tender tale,
Beneath the milk-white thorn that scents the evening gale.”


Is there, in human form, that bears a heart,
 A wretch! a villain! lost to love and truth!
That can, with studied, sly, ensnaring art,
 Betray sweet Jenny’s unsuspecting youth?
 Curse on his perjur’d arts! dissembling smooth!
Are honour, virtue, conscience, all exil’d?
 Is there no pity, no relenting ruth,
Points to the parents fondling o’er their child?
Then paints the ruin’d maid, and their distraction wild?


But now the supper crowns their simple board,
 The halesome parritch, chief of Scotia’s food;
The sowp their only hawkie does afford,
 That, ’yont the hallan snugly chows her cood:
 The dame brings forth, in complimental mood,
To grace the lad, her weel-hain’d kebbuck, fell;
 And aft he’s prest, and aft he ca’s it guid:
The frugal wifie, garrulous, will tell
How t’was a towmond auld, sin’ lint was i’ the bell.


The cheerfu’ supper done, wi’ serious face,
 They, round the ingle, form a circle wide;
The sire turns o’er, with patriarchal grace,
 The big ha’bible, ance his father’s pride:
 His bonnet rev’rently is laid aside,
His lyart haffets wearing thin and bare;
 Those strains that once did sweet in Zion glide,
He wales a portion with judicious care;
And “Let us worship God!” he says with solemn air.


They chant their artless notes in simple guise,
 They tune their hearts, by far the noblest aim;
Perhaps Dundee’s wild-warbling measures rise;
 Or plaintive Martyrs, worthy of the name;
 Or noble Elgin beets the heaven-ward flame;
The sweetest far of Scotia’s holy lays:
 Compar’d with these, Italian trills are tame;
The tickl’d ears no heart-felt raptures raise;
Nae unison hae they with our Creator’s praise.


The priest-like father reads the sacred page,
 How Abram was the friend of God on high;
Or Moses bade eternal warfare wage
 With Amalek’s ungracious progeny;
 Or how the royal bard did groaning lie
Beneath the stroke of Heaven’s avenging ire;
 Or Job’s pathetic plaint, and wailing cry;
Or rapt Isaiah’s wild, seraphic fire;
Or other holy seers that tune the sacred lyre.


Perhaps the Christian volume is the theme,
 How guiltless blood for guilty man was shed;
How He, who bore in Heaven the second name,
 Had not on earth whereon to lay His head:
 How His first followers and servants sped;
The precepts sage they wrote to many a land:
 How he, who lone in Patmos banished,
Saw in the sun a mighty angel stand,
And heard great Bab’lon’s doom pronounc’d by Heaven’s command.


Then, kneeling down to Heaven’s Eternal King,
 The saint, the father, and the husband prays:
Hope “springs exulting on triumphant wing,” 1
 That thus they all shall meet in future days,
 There, ever bask in uncreated rays,
No more to sigh, or shed the bitter tear,
 Together hymning their Creator’s praise,
In such society, yet still more dear;
While circling Time moves round in an eternal sphere


Compar’d with this, how poor Religion’s pride,
 In all the pomp of method, and of art;
When men display to congregations wide
 Devotion’s ev’ry grace, except the heart!
 The Power, incens’d, the pageant will desert,
The pompous strain, the sacerdotal stole;
 But haply, in some cottage far apart,
May hear, well-pleas’d, the language of the soul;
And in His Book of Life the inmates poor enroll.


Then homeward all take off their sev’ral way;
 The youngling cottagers retire to rest:
The parent-pair their secret homage pay,
 And proffer up to Heaven the warm request,
 That he who stills the raven’s clam’rous nest,
And decks the lily fair in flow’ry pride,
 Would, in the way His wisdom sees the best,
For them and for their little ones provide;
But chiefly, in their hearts with grace divine preside.


From scenes like these, old Scotia’s grandeur springs,
 That makes her lov’d at home, rever’d abroad:
Princes and lords are but the breath of kings,
 “An honest man’s the noblest work of God;”
 And certes, in fair virtue’s heavenly road,
The cottage leaves the palace far behind;
 What is a lordling’s pomp? a cumbrous load,
Disguising oft the wretch of human kind,
Studied in arts of hell, in wickedness refin’d!


O Scotia! my dear, my native soil!
 For whom my warmest wish to Heaven is sent,
Long may thy hardy sons of rustic toil
 Be blest with health, and peace, and sweet content!
 And O! may Heaven their simple lives prevent
From luxury’s contagion, weak and vile!
 Then howe’er crowns and coronets be rent,
A virtuous populace may rise the while,
And stand a wall of fire around their much-lov’d isle.


O Thou! who pour’d the patriotic tide,
 That stream’d thro’ Wallace’s undaunted heart,
Who dar’d to nobly stem tyrannic pride,
 Or nobly die, the second glorious part:
 (The patriot’s God peculiarly thou art,
His friend, inspirer, guardian, and reward!)
 O never, never Scotia’s realm desert;
But still the patriot, and the patriot-bard
In bright succession raise, her ornament and guard!


 Note 1. Pope’s “Windsor Forest.”—R. B. [back]
Written by William Vaughn Moody | Create an image from this poem

The Quarry

 Between the rice swamps and the fields of tea
I met a sacred elephant, snow-white.
Upon his back a huge pagoda towered
Full of brass gods and food of sacrifice.
Upon his forehead sat a golden throne,
The massy metal twisted into shapes
Grotesque, antediluvian, such as move
In myth or have their broken images
Sealed in the stony middle of the hills.
A peacock spread his thousand dyes to screen
The yellow sunlight from the head of one
Who sat upon the throne, clad stiff with gems,
Heirlooms of dynasties of buried kings,--
Himself the likeness of a buried king,
With frozen gesture and unfocused eyes.
The trappings of the beast were over-scrawled
With broideries--sea-shapes and flying things,
Fan-trees and dwarfed nodosities of pine,
Mixed with old alphabets, and faded lore
Fallen from ecstatic mouths before the Flood,
Or gathered by the daughters when they walked
Eastward in Eden with the Sons of God
Whom love and the deep moon made garrulous
Between the carven tusks his trunk hung dead;
Blind as the eyes of pearl in Buddha's brow
His beaded eyes stared thwart upon the road;
And feebler than the doting knees of eid,
His joints, of size to swing the builder's crane
Across the war-walls of the Anakim,
Made vain and shaken haste. Good need was his
To hasten: panting, foaming, on the slot
Came many brutes of prey, their several hates
Laid by until the sharing of the spoil.
Just as they gathered stomach for the leap,
The sun was darkened, and wide-balanced wings
Beat downward on the trade-wind from the sea.
A wheel of shadow sped along the fields
And o'er the dreaming cities. Suddenly
My heart misgave me, and I cried aloud,
"Alas! What dost thou here? What dost thou here? "
The great beasts and the little halted sharp,
Eyed the grand circler, doubting his intent.
Straightway the wind flawed and he came about,
Stooping to take the vanward of the pack;
Then turned, between the chasers and the chased,
Crying a word I could not understand,--
But stiller-tongued, with eyes somewhat askance,
They settled to the slot and disappeared.
Written by Robert William Service | Create an image from this poem

A Song Of Sixty-Five

 Brave Thackeray has trolled of days when he was twenty-one,
And bounded up five flights of stairs, a gallant garreteer;
And yet again in mellow vein when youth was gaily run,
Has dipped his nose in Gascon wine, and told of Forty Year.
But if I worthy were to sing a richer, rarer time,
I'd tune my pipes before the fire and merrily I'd strive
To praise that age when prose again has given way to rhyme,
The Indian Summer days of life when I'll be Sixty-five;

For then my work will all be done, my voyaging be past,
And I'll have earned the right to rest where folding hills are green;
So in some glassy anchorage I'll make my cable fast, --
Oh, let the seas show all their teeth, I'll sit and smile serene.
The storm may bellow round the roof, I'll bide beside the fire,
And many a scene of sail and trail within the flame I'll see;
For I'll have worn away the spur of passion and desire. . . .
Oh yes, when I am Sixty-five, what peace will come to me.

I'll take my breakfast in my bed, I'll rise at half-past ten,
When all the world is nicely groomed and full of golden song;
I'll smoke a bit and joke a bit, and read the news, and then
I'll potter round my peach-trees till I hear the luncheon gong.
And after that I think I'll doze an hour, well, maybe two,
And then I'll show some kindred soul how well my roses thrive;
I'll do the things I never yet have found the time to do. . . .
Oh, won't I be the busy man when I am Sixty-five.

I'll revel in my library; I'll read De Morgan's books;
I'll grow so garrulous I fear you'll write me down a bore;
I'll watch the ways of ants and bees in quiet sunny nooks,
I'll understand Creation as I never did before.
When gossips round the tea-cups talk I'll listen to it all;
On smiling days some kindly friend will take me for a drive:
I'll own a shaggy collie dog that dashes to my call:
I'll celebrate my second youth when I am Sixty-five.

Ah, though I've twenty years to go, I see myself quite plain,
A wrinkling, twinkling, rosy-cheeked, benevolent old chap;
I think I'll wear a tartan shawl and lean upon a cane.
I hope that I'll have silver hair beneath a velvet cap.
I see my little grandchildren a-romping round my knee;
So gay the scene, I almost wish 'twould hasten to arrive.
Let others sing of Youth and Spring, still will it seem to me
The golden time's the olden time, some time round Sixty-five.
Written by Rupert Brooke | Create an image from this poem

Menelaus and Helen

 I

Hot through Troy's ruin Menelaus broke
To Priam's palace, sword in hand, to sate
On that adulterous whore a ten years' hate
And a king's honour. Through red death, and smoke,
And cries, and then by quieter ways he strode,
Till the still innermost chamber fronted him.
He swung his sword, and crashed into the dim
Luxurious bower, flaming like a god.

High sat white Helen, lonely and serene.
He had not remembered that she was so fair,
And that her neck curved down in such a way;
And he felt tired. He flung the sword away,
And kissed her feet, and knelt before her there,
The perfect Knight before the perfect Queen.


II

So far the poet. How should he behold
That journey home, the long connubial years?
He does not tell you how white Helen bears
Child on legitimate child, becomes a scold,
Haggard with virtue. Menelaus bold
Waxed garrulous, and sacked a hundred Troys
'Twixt noon and supper. And her golden voice
Got shrill as he grew deafer. And both were old.

Often he wonders why on earth he went
Troyward, or why poor Paris ever came.
Oft she weeps, gummy-eyed and impotent;
Her dry shanks twitch at Paris' mumbled name.
So Menelaus nagged; and Helen cried;
And Paris slept on by Scamander side.


Written by Robert Southey | Create an image from this poem

Botany Bay Eclogues 05 - Frederic

 (Time Night. Scene the woods.)


Where shall I turn me? whither shall I bend
My weary way? thus worn with toil and faint
How thro' the thorny mazes of this wood
Attain my distant dwelling? that deep cry
That rings along the forest seems to sound
My parting knell: it is the midnight howl
Of hungry monsters prowling for their prey!
Again! oh save me--save me gracious Heaven!
I am not fit to die!
Thou coward wretch
Why heaves thy trembling heart? why shake thy limbs
Beneath their palsied burden? is there ought
So lovely in existence? would'st thou drain
Even to its dregs the bitter draught of life?
Dash down the loathly bowl! poor outcast slave
Stamp'd with the brand of Vice and Infamy
Why should the villain Frederic shrink from Death?

Death! where the magic in that empty name
That chills my inmost heart? why at the thought
Starts the cold dew of fear on every limb?
There are no terrors to surround the Grave,
When the calm Mind collected in itself
Surveys that narrow house: the ghastly train
That haunt the midnight of delirious Guilt
Then vanish; in that home of endless rest
All sorrows cease.--Would I might slumber there!

Why then this panting of the fearful heart?
This miser love of Life that dreads to lose
Its cherish'd torment? shall the diseased man
Yield up his members to the surgeon's knife,
Doubtful of succour, but to ease his frame
Of fleshly anguish, and the coward wretch,
Whose ulcered soul can know no human help
Shrink from the best Physician's certain aid?
Oh it were better far to lay me down
Here on this cold damp earth, till some wild beast
Seize on his willing victim!

If to die
Were all, it were most sweet to rest my head
On the cold clod, and sleep the sleep of Death.
But if the Archangel's trump at the last hour
Startle the ear of Death and wake the soul
To frenzy!--dreams of infancy! fit tales
For garrulous beldames to affrighten babes!
I have been guilty, yet my mind can bear
The retrospect of guilt, yet in the hour
Of deep contrition to THE ETERNAL look
For mercy! for the child of Poverty,
And "disinherited of happiness,"

What if I warr'd upon the world? the world
Had wrong'd me first: I had endur'd the ills
Of hard injustice; all this goodly earth
Was but to me one wild waste wilderness;
I had no share in Nature's patrimony,
Blasted were all my morning hopes of Youth,
Dark DISAPPOINTMENT follow'd on my ways,
CARE was my bosom inmate, and keen WANT
Gnaw'd at my heart. ETERNAL ONE thou know'st
How that poor heart even in the bitter hour
Of lewdest revelry has inly yearn'd
For peace!

My FATHER! I will call on thee,
Pour to thy mercy seat my earnest prayer,
And wait thy peace in bowedness of soul.
Oh thoughts of comfort! how the afflicted heart,
Tired with the tempest of its passions, rests
On you with holy hope! the hollow howl
Of yonder harmless tenant of the woods
Bursts not with terror on the sober'd sense.
If I have sinn'd against mankind, on them
Be that past sin; they made me what I was.
In these extremest climes can Want no more
Urge to the deeds of darkness, and at length
Here shall I rest. What tho' my hut be poor--
The rains descend not thro' its humble roof:
Would I were there again! the night is cold;
And what if in my wanderings I should rouse
The savage from his thicket!

Hark! the gun!
And lo--the fire of safety! I shall reach
My little hut again! again by toil
Force from the stubborn earth my sustenance,
And quick-ear'd guilt will never start alarm'd
Amid the well-earn'd meal. This felon's garb--
Will it not shield me from the winds of Heaven?
And what could purple more? Oh strengthen me
Eternal One in this serener state!
Cleanse thou mine heart, so PENITENCE and FAITH
Shall heal my soul and my last days be peace.
Written by Louis MacNeice | Create an image from this poem

House On A Cliff

 Indoors the tang of a tiny oil lamp. Outdoors
The winking signal on the waste of sea.
Indoors the sound of the wind. Outdoors the wind.
Indoors the locked heart and the lost key.


Outdoors the chill, the void, the siren. Indoors
The strong man pained to find his red blood cools,
While the blind clock grows louder, faster. Outdoors
The silent moon, the garrulous tides she rules.


Indoors ancestral curse-cum-blessing. Outdoors
The empty bowl of heaven, the empty deep.
Indoors a purposeful man who talks at cross
Purposes, to himself, in a broken sleep.
Written by Ella Wheeler Wilcox | Create an image from this poem

Go Plant a Tree

 God, what a joy it is to plant a tree, 
And from the sallow earth to watch it rise, 
Lifting its emerald branches to the skies 
In silent adoration; and to see 
Its strength and glory waxing with each spring. 
Yes, 'tis a goodly, and a gladsome thing 
To plant a tree. 

Nature has many marvels; but a tree 
Seems more than marvellous. It is divine. 
So generous, so tender, so benign. 
Not garrulous like the rivers; and yet free 
In pleasant converse with the winds and birds; 
Oh! privilege beyond explaining words, 
To plant a tree. 

Rocks are majestic; but, unlike a tree, 
They stand aloof, and silent. In the roar 
Of ocean billows breaking on the shore 
There sounds the voice of turmoil. But a tree 
Speaks ever of companionship and rest. 
Yea, of all righteous acts, this, this is best, 
To plant a tree. 

There is an oak (oh! how I love that tree) 
Which has been thriving for a hundred years; 
Each day I send my blessing through the spheres 
To one who gave this triple boon to me, 
Of growing beauty, singing birds, and shade. 
Wouldst thou win laurels that shall never fade?
Written by Rabindranath Tagore | Create an image from this poem

The Gardener LXXXIII: She Dwelt on the Hillside

 She dwelt on the hillside by edge
of a maize-field, near the spring that
flows in laughing rills through the
solemn shadows of ancient trees. The
women came there to fill their jars,
and travellers would sit there to rest
and talk. She worked and dreamed 
daily to the tune of the bubbling
stream.
One evening the stranger came down
from the cloud-hidden peak; his locks
were tangled like drowsy snakes. We
asked in wonder, "Who are you?"
He answered not but sat by the
garrulous stream and silently gazed at
the hut where she dwelt. Our hearts 
quaked in fear and we came back home
when it was night.
Next morning when the women
came to fetch water at the spring by
the deodar trees, they found the doors 
open in her hut, but her voice was gone
and where was her smiling face?
The empty jar lay on the floor and her
lamp had burnt itself out in the
corner. No one knew where she had
fled to before it was morning--and the
stranger had gone.
In the month of May the sun grew
strong and the snow melted, and we
sat by the spring and wept. We 
wondered in our mind, "Is there a
spring in the land where she has gone
and where she can fill her vessel in
these hot thirsty days?" And we
asked each other in dismay, "Is there
a land beyond these hills where we
live?"
It was a summer night; the breeze
blew from the south; and I sat in her
deserted room where the lamp stood
still unlit. When suddenly from
before my eyes the hills vanished like
curtains drawn aside. "Ah, it is
she who comes. How are you, my
child? Are you happy? But where
can you shelter under this open sky?
And, alas! our spring is not here to
allay your thirst."
"Here is the same sky," she said,
"only free from the fencing hills,--
this is the same stream grown into a
river,--the same earth widened into
a plain." "Everything is here," I
sighed, "only we are not." She
smiled sadly and said, "You are in
my heart." I woke up and heard the
babbling of the stream and the rustling
of the deodars at night.

Book: Reflection on the Important Things