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Best Famous Hells Poems

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

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Written by Sylvia Plath | Create an image from this poem

Love Is A Parallax

 'Perspective betrays with its dichotomy:
train tracks always meet, not here, but only
 in the impossible mind's eye;
horizons beat a retreat as we embark
on sophist seas to overtake that mark
 where wave pretends to drench real sky.
' 'Well then, if we agree, it is not odd that one man's devil is another's god or that the solar spectrum is a multitude of shaded grays; suspense on the quicksands of ambivalence is our life's whole nemesis.
So we could rave on, darling, you and I, until the stars tick out a lullaby about each cosmic pro and con; nothing changes, for all the blazing of our drastic jargon, but clock hands that move implacably from twelve to one.
We raise our arguments like sitting ducks to knock them down with logic or with luck and contradict ourselves for fun; the waitress holds our coats and we put on the raw wind like a scarf; love is a faun who insists his playmates run.
Now you, my intellectual leprechaun, would have me swallow the entire sun like an enormous oyster, down the ocean in one gulp: you say a mark of comet hara-kiri through the dark should inflame the sleeping town.
So kiss: the drunks upon the curb and dames in dubious doorways forget their monday names, caper with candles in their heads; the leaves applaud, and santa claus flies in scattering candy from a zeppelin, playing his prodigal charades.
The moon leans down to took; the tilting fish in the rare river wink and laugh; we lavish blessings right and left and cry hello, and then hello again in deaf churchyard ears until the starlit stiff graves all carol in reply.
Now kiss again: till our strict father leans to call for curtain on our thousand scenes; brazen actors mock at him, multiply pink harlequins and sing in gay ventriloquy from wing to wing while footlights flare and houselights dim.
Tell now, we taunq where black or white begins and separate the flutes from violins: the algebra of absolutes explodes in a kaleidoscope of shapes that jar, while each polemic jackanapes joins his enemies' recruits.
The paradox is that 'the play's the thing': though prima donna pouts and critic stings, there burns throughout the line of words, the cultivated act, a fierce brief fusion which dreamers call real, and realists, illusion: an insight like the flight of birds: Arrows that lacerate the sky, while knowing the secret of their ecstasy's in going; some day, moving, one will drop, and, dropping, die, to trace a wound that heals only to reopen as flesh congeals: cycling phoenix never stops.
So we shall walk barefoot on walnut shells of withered worlds, and stamp out puny hells and heavens till the spirits squeak surrender: to build our bed as high as jack's bold beanstalk; lie and love till sharp scythe hacks away our rationed days and weeks.
Then jet the blue tent topple, stars rain down, and god or void appall us till we drown in our own tears: today we start to pay the piper with each breath, yet love knows not of death nor calculus above the simple sum of heart plus heart.


Written by Maya Angelou | Create an image from this poem

Million Man March Poem

The night has been long,
The wound has been deep,
The pit has been dark,
And the walls have been steep.
Under a dead blue sky on a distant beach, I was dragged by my braids just beyond your reach.
Your hands were tied, your mouth was bound, You couldn't even call out my name.
You were helpless and so was I, But unfortunately throughout history You've worn a badge of shame.
I say, the night has been long, The wound has been deep, The pit has been dark And the walls have been steep.
But today, voices of old spirit sound Speak to us in words profound, Across the years, across the centuries, Across the oceans, and across the seas.
They say, draw near to one another, Save your race.
You have been paid for in a distant place, The old ones remind us that slavery's chains Have paid for our freedom again and again.
The night has been long, The pit has been deep, The night has been dark, And the walls have been steep.
The hells we have lived through and live through still, Have sharpened our senses and toughened our will.
The night has been long.
This morning I look through your anguish Right down to your soul.
I know that with each other we can make ourselves whole.
I look through the posture and past your disguise, And see your love for family in your big brown eyes.
I say, clap hands and let's come together in this meeting ground, I say, clap hands and let's deal with each other with love, I say, clap hands and let us get from the low road of indifference, Clap hands, let us come together and reveal our hearts, Let us come together and revise our spirits, Let us come together and cleanse our souls, Clap hands, let's leave the preening And stop impostering our own history.
Clap hands, call the spirits back from the ledge, Clap hands, let us invite joy into our conversation, Courtesy into our bedrooms, Gentleness into our kitchen, Care into our nursery.
The ancestors remind us, despite the history of pain We are a going-on people who will rise again.
And still we rise.
Poem read at the Million Man March
Written by Allen Ginsberg | Create an image from this poem

Sunflower Sutra

I walked on the banks of the tincan banana dock and sat down under the huge shade of a Southern Pacific locomotive to look for the sunset over the box house hills and cry.
Jack Kerouac sat beside me on a busted rusty iron pole, companion, we thought the same thoughts of the soul, bleak and blue and sad-eyed, surrounded by the gnarled steel roots of trees of machinery.
The only water on the river mirrored the red sky, sun sank on top of final Frisco peaks, no fish in that stream, no hermit in those mounts, just ourselves rheumy-eyed and hung-over like old bums on the riverbank, tired and wily.
Look at the Sunflower, he said, there was a dead gray shadow against the sky, big as a man, sitting dry on top of a pile of ancient sawdust-- --I rushed up enchanted--it was my first sunflower, memories of Blake--my visions--Harlem and Hells of the Eastern rivers, bridges clanking Joes greasy Sandwiches, dead baby carriages, black treadless tires forgotten and unretreaded, the poem of the riverbank, condoms & pots, steel knives, nothing stainless, only the dank muck and the razor-sharp artifacts passing into the past-- and the gray Sunflower poised against the sunset, crackly bleak and dusty with the smut and smog and smoke of olden locomotives in its eye-- corolla of bleary spikes pushed down and broken like a battered crown, seeds fallen out of its face, soon-to-be-toothless mouth of sunny air, sunrays obliterated on its hairy head like a dried wire spiderweb, leaves stuck out like arms out of the stem, gestures from the sawdust root, broke pieces of plaster fallen out of the black twigs, a dead fly in its ear, Unholy battered old thing you were, my sunflower O my soul, I loved you then! The grime was no man's grime but death and human locomotives, all that dress of dust, that veil of darkened railroad skin, that smog of cheek, that eyelid of black mis'ry, that sooty hand or phallus or protuberance of artificial worse-than-dirt--industrial-- modern--all that civilization spotting your crazy golden crown-- and those blear thoughts of death and dusty loveless eyes and ends and withered roots below, in the home-pile of sand and sawdust, rubber dollar bills, skin of machinery, the guts and innards of the weeping coughing car, the empty lonely tincans with their rusty tongues alack, what more could I name, the smoked ashes of some cock cigar, the cunts of wheelbarrows and the milky breasts of cars, wornout asses out of chairs & sphincters of dynamos--all these entangled in your mummied roots--and you standing before me in the sunset, all your glory in your form! A perfect beauty of a sunflower! a perfect excellent lovely sunflower existence! a sweet natural eye to the new hip moon, woke up alive and excited grasping in the sunset shadow sunrise golden monthly breeze! How many flies buzzed round you innocent of your grime, while you cursed the heavens of your railroad and your flower soul? Poor dead flower? when did you forget you were a flower? when did you look at your skin and decide you were an impotent dirty old locomotive? the ghost of a locomotive? the specter and shade of a once powerful mad American locomotive? You were never no locomotive, Sunflower, you were a sunflower! And you Locomotive, you are a locomotive, forget me not! So I grabbed up the skeleton thick sunflower and stuck it at my side like a scepter, and deliver my sermon to my soul, and Jack's soul too, and anyone who'll listen, --We're not our skin of grime, we're not our dread bleak dusty imageless locomotive, we're all golden sunflowers inside, blessed by our own seed & hairy naked accomplishment-bodies growing into mad black formal sunflowers in the sunset, spied on by our eyes under the shadow of the mad locomotive riverbank sunset Frisco hilly tincan evening sitdown vision.
Written by Aleister Crowley | Create an image from this poem

The Wizard Way

 [Dedicated to General J.
C.
F.
Fuller] Velvet soft the night-star glowed Over the untrodden road, Through the giant glades of yew Where its ray fell light as dew Lighting up the shimmering veil Maiden pure and aery frail That the spiders wove to hide Blushes of the sylvan bride Earth, that trembled with delight At the male caress of Night.
Velvet soft the wizard trod To the Sabbath of his God.
With his naked feet he made Starry blossoms in the glade, Softly, softly, as he went To the sombre sacrament, Stealthy stepping to the tryst In his gown of amethyst.
Earlier yet his soul had come To the Hill of Martyrdom, Where the charred and crooked stake Like a black envenomed snake By the hangman's hands is thrust Through the wet and writhing dust, Never black and never dried Heart's blood of a suicide.
He had plucked the hazel rod From the rude and goatish god, Even as the curved moon's waning ray Stolen from the King of Day.
He had learnt the elvish sign; Given the Token of the Nine: Once to rave, and once to revel, Once to bow before the devil, Once to swing the thurible, Once to kiss the goat of hell, Once to dance the aspen spring, Once to croak, and once to sing, Once to oil the savoury thighs Of the witch with sea-green eyes With the unguents magical.
Oh the honey and the gall Of that black enchanter's lips As he croons to the eclipse Mingling that most puissant spell Of the giant gods of hell With the four ingredients Of the evil elements; Ambergris from golden spar, Musk of ox from Mongol jar, Civet from a box of jade, Mixed with fat of many a maid Slain by the inchauntments cold Of the witches wild and old.
He had crucified a toad In the basilisk abode, Muttering the Runes averse Mad with many a mocking curse.
He had traced the serpent sigil In his ghastly virgin vigil.
Sursum cor! the elfin hill, Where the wind blows deadly chill From the world that wails beneath Death's black throat and lipless teeth.
There he had stood - his bosom bare - Tracing Life upon the Air With the crook and with the flail Lashing forward on the gale, Till its blade that wavereth Like the flickering of Death Sank before his subtle fence To the starless sea of sense.
Now at last the man is come Haply to his halidom.
Surely as he waves his rod In a circle on the sod Springs the emerald chaste and clean From the duller paler green.
Surely in the circle millions Of immaculate pavilions Flash upon the trembling turf Like the sea-stars in the surf - Millions of bejewelled tents For the warrior sacraments.
Vaster, vaster, vaster, vaster, Grows the stature of the master; All the ringed encampment vies With the infinite galaxies.
In the midst a cubic stone With the Devil set thereon; Hath a lamb's virginal throat; Hath the body of a stoat; Hath the buttocks of a goat; Hath the sanguine face and rod Of a goddess and a god! Spell by spell and pace by pace! Mystic flashes swing and trace Velvet soft the sigils stepped By the silver-starred adept.
Back and front, and to and fro, Soul and body sway and flow In vertiginous caresses To imponderable recesses, Till at last the spell is woven, And the faery veil is cloven That was Sequence, Space, and Stress Of the soul-sick consciousness.
"Give thy body to the beasts! Give thy spirit to the priests! Break in twain the hazel rod On the virgin lips of God! Tear the Rosy Cross asunder! Shatter the black bolt of thunder! Suck the swart ensanguine kiss Of the resolute abyss!" Wonder-weft the wizard heard This intolerable word.
Smote the blasting hazel rod On the scarlet lips of God; Trampled Cross and rosy core; Brake the thunder-tool of Thor; Meek and holy acolyte Of the priestly hells of spite, Sleek and shameless catamite Of the beasts that prowl the night! Like a star that streams from heaven Through the virgin airs light-riven, From the lift there shot and fell An admirable miracle.
Carved minute and clean, a key Of purest lapis-lazuli More blue than the blind sky that aches (Wreathed with the stars, her torturing snakes), For the dead god's kiss that never wakes; Shot with golden specks of fire Like a virgin with desire.
Look, the levers! fern-frail fronds Of fantastic diamonds, Glimmering with ethereal azure In each exquisite embrasure.
On the shaft the letters laced, As if dryads lunar-chaste With the satyrs were embraced, Spelled the secret of the key: Sic pervenias.
And he Went his wizard way, inweaving Dreams of things beyond believing.
When he will, the weary world Of the senses closely curled Like a serpent round his heart Shakes herself and stands apart.
So the heart's blood flames, expanding, Strenuous, urgent, and commanding; And the key unlocks the door Where his love lives evermore.
She is of the faery blood; All smaragdine flows its flood.
Glowing in the amber sky To ensorcelled porphyry She hath eyes of glittering flake Like a cold grey water-snake.
She hath naked breasts of amber Jetting wine in her bed-chamber, Whereof whoso stoops and drinks Rees the riddle of the Sphinx.
She hath naked limbs of amber Whereupon her children clamber.
She hath five navels rosy-red From the five wounds of God that bled; Each wound that mothered her still bleeding, And on that blood her babes are feeding.
Oh! like a rose-winged pelican She hath bred blessed babes to Pan! Oh! like a lion-hued nightingale She hath torn her breast on thorns to avail The barren rose-tree to renew Her life with that disastrous dew, Building the rose o' the world alight With music out of the pale moonlight! O She is like the river of blood That broke from the lips of the bastard god, When he saw the sacred mother smile On the ibis that flew up the foam of Nile Bearing the limbs unblessed, unborn, That the lurking beast of Nile had torn! So (for the world is weary) I These dreadful souls of sense lay by.
I sacrifice these impure shoon To the cold ray of the waning moon.
I take the forked hazel staff, And the rose of no terrene graff, And the lamp of no olive oil With heart's blood that alone may boil.
With naked breast and feet unshod I follow the wizard way to God.
Wherever he leads my foot shall follow; Over the height, into the hollow, Up to the caves of pure cold breath, Down to the deeps of foul hot death, Across the seas, through the fires, Past the palace of desires; Where he will, whether he will or no, If I go, I care not whither I go.
For in me is the taint of the faery blood.
Fast, fast its emerald flood Leaps within me, violent rude Like a bestial faun's beatitude.
In me the faery blood runs hard: My sires were a druid, a devil, a bard, A beast, a wizard, a snake and a satyr; For - as my mother said - what does it matter? She was a fay, pure of the faery; Queen Morgan's daughter by an aery Demon that came to Orkney once To pay the Beetle his orisons.
So, it is I that writhe with the twitch Of the faery blood, and the wizard itch To attain a matter one may not utter Rather than sink in the greasy splutter Of Britons munching their bread and butter; Ailing boys and coarse-grained girls Grown to sloppy women and brutal churls.
So, I am off with staff in hand To the endless light of the nameless land.
Darkness spreads its sombre streams, Blotting out the elfin dreams.
I might haply be afraid, Were it not the Feather-maid Leads me softly by the hand, Whispers me to understand.
Now (when through the world of weeping Light at last starrily creeping Steals upon my babe-new sight, Light - O light that is not light!) On my mouth the lips of her Like a stone on my sepulchre Seal my speech with ecstasy, Till a babe is born of me That is silent more than I; For its inarticulate cry Hushes as its mouth is pressed To the pearl, her honey breast; While its breath divinely ripples The rose-petals of her nipples, And the jetted milk he laps From the soft delicious paps, Sweeter than the bee-sweet showers In the chalice of the flowers, More intoxicating than All the purple grapes of Pan.
Ah! my proper lips are stilled.
Only, all the world is filled With the Echo, that drips over Like the honey from the clover.
Passion, penitence, and pain Seek their mother's womb again, And are born the triple treasure, Peace and purity and pleasure.
- Hush, my child, and come aloft Where the stars are velvet soft!
Written by Sidney Lanier | Create an image from this poem

The Crystal

 At midnight, death's and truth's unlocking time,
When far within the spirit's hearing rolls
The great soft rumble of the course of things --
A bulk of silence in a mask of sound, --
When darkness clears our vision that by day
Is sun-blind, and the soul's a ravening owl
For truth and flitteth here and there about
Low-lying woody tracts of time and oft
Is minded for to sit upon a bough,
Dry-dead and sharp, of some long-stricken tree
And muse in that gaunt place, -- 'twas then my heart,
Deep in the meditative dark, cried out:

"Ye companies of governor-spirits grave,
Bards, and old bringers-down of flaming news
From steep-wall'd heavens, holy malcontents,
Sweet seers, and stellar visionaries, all
That brood about the skies of poesy,
Full bright ye shine, insuperable stars;
Yet, if a man look hard upon you, none
With total lustre blazeth, no, not one
But hath some heinous freckle of the flesh
Upon his shining cheek, not one but winks
His ray, opaqued with intermittent mist
Of defect; yea, you masters all must ask
Some sweet forgiveness, which we leap to give,
We lovers of you, heavenly-glad to meet
Your largesse so with love, and interplight
Your geniuses with our mortalities.
Thus unto thee, O sweetest Shakespeare sole, A hundred hurts a day I do forgive ('Tis little, but, enchantment! 'tis for thee): Small curious quibble; Juliet's prurient pun In the poor, pale face of Romeo's fancied death; Cold rant of Richard; Henry's fustian roar Which frights away that sleep he invocates; Wronged Valentine's unnatural haste to yield; Too-silly shifts of maids that mask as men In faint disguises that could ne'er disguise -- Viola, Julia, Portia, Rosalind; Fatigues most drear, and needless overtax Of speech obscure that had as lief be plain; Last I forgive (with more delight, because 'Tis more to do) the labored-lewd discourse That e'en thy young invention's youngest heir Besmirched the world with.
Father Homer, thee, Thee also I forgive thy sandy wastes Of prose and catalogue, thy drear harangues That tease the patience of the centuries, Thy sleazy scrap of story, -- but a rogue's Rape of a light-o'-love, -- too soiled a patch To broider with the gods.
Thee, Socrates, Thou dear and very strong one, I forgive Thy year-worn cloak, thine iron stringencies That were but dandy upside-down, thy words Of truth that, mildlier spoke, had mainlier wrought.
So, Buddha, beautiful! I pardon thee That all the All thou hadst for needy man Was Nothing, and thy Best of being was But not to be.
Worn Dante, I forgive The implacable hates that in thy horrid hells Or burn or freeze thy fellows, never loosed By death, nor time, nor love.
And I forgive Thee, Milton, those thy comic-dreadful wars Where, armed with gross and inconclusive steel, Immortals smite immortals mortalwise And fill all heaven with folly.
Also thee, Brave Aeschylus, thee I forgive, for that Thine eye, by bare bright justice basilisked, Turned not, nor ever learned to look where Love Stands shining.
So, unto thee, Lucretius mine (For oh, what heart hath loved thee like to this That's now complaining?), freely I forgive Thy logic poor, thine error rich, thine earth Whose graves eat souls and all.
Yea, all you hearts Of beauty, and sweet righteous lovers large: Aurelius fine, oft superfine; mild Saint A Kempis, overmild; Epictetus, Whiles low in thought, still with old slavery tinct; Rapt Behmen, rapt too far; high Swedenborg, O'ertoppling; Langley, that with but a touch Of art hadst sung Piers Plowman to the top Of English songs, whereof 'tis dearest, now, And most adorable; Caedmon, in the morn A-calling angels with the cow-herd's call That late brought up the cattle; Emerson, Most wise, that yet, in finding Wisdom, lost Thy Self, sometimes; tense Keats, with angels' nerves Where men's were better; Tennyson, largest voice Since Milton, yet some register of wit Wanting; -- all, all, I pardon, ere 'tis asked, Your more or less, your little mole that marks You brother and your kinship seals to man.
But Thee, but Thee, O sovereign Seer of time, But Thee, O poets' Poet, Wisdom's Tongue, But Thee, O man's best Man, O love's best Love, O perfect life in perfect labor writ, O all men's Comrade, Servant, King, or Priest, -- What `if' or `yet', what mole, what flaw, what lapse, What least defect or shadow of defect, What rumor, tattled by an enemy, Of inference loose, what lack of grace Even in torture's grasp, or sleep's, or death's, -- Oh, what amiss may I forgive in Thee, Jesus, good Paragon, thou Crystal Christ?"


Written by G K Chesterton | Create an image from this poem

Lepanto

 White founts falling in the Courts of the sun, 
And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run; 
There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared, 
It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard; 
It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips; 
For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships.
They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy, They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea, And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss, And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross.
The cold queen of England is looking in the glass; The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass; From evening isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun, And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.
Dim drums throbbing, in the hills half heard, Where only on a nameless throne a crownless prince has stirred, Where, risen from a doubtful seat and half attainted stall, The last knight of Europe takes weapons from the wall, The last and lingering troubadour to whom the bird has sung, That once went singing southward when all the world was young.
In that enormous silence, tiny and unafraid, Comes up along a winding road the noise of the Crusade.
Strong gongs groaning as the guns boom far, Don John of Austria is going to the war, Stiff flags straining in the night-blasts cold In the gloom black-purple, in the glint old-gold, Torchlight crimson on the copper kettle-drums, Then the tuckets, then the trumpets, then the cannon, and he comes.
Don John laughing in the brave beard curled, Spurning of his stirrups like the thrones of all the world, Holding his head up for a flag of all the free.
Love-light of Spain--hurrah! Death-light of Africa! Don John of Austria Is riding to the sea.
Mahound is in his paradise above the evening star, (Don John of Austria is going to the war.
) He moves a mighty turban on the timeless houri's knees, His turban that is woven of the sunsets and the seas.
He shakes the peacock gardens as he rises from his ease, And he strides among the tree-tops and is taller than the trees; And his voice through all the garden is a thunder sent to bring Black Azrael and Ariel and Ammon on the wing.
Giants and the Genii, Multiplex of wing and eye, Whose strong obedience broke the sky When Solomon was king.
They rush in red and purple from the red clouds of the morn, From the temples where the yellow gods shut up their eyes in scorn; They rise in green robes roaring from the green hells of the sea Where fallen skies and evil hues and eyeless creatures be, On them the sea-valves cluster and the grey sea-forests curl, Splashed with a splendid sickness, the sickness of the pearl; They swell in sapphire smoke out of the blue cracks of the ground,-- They gather and they wonder and give worship to Mahound.
And he saith, "Break up the mountains where the hermit-folk can hide, And sift the red and silver sands lest bone of saint abide, And chase the Giaours flying night and day, not giving rest, For that which was our trouble comes again out of the west.
We have set the seal of Solomon on all things under sun, Of knowledge and of sorrow and endurance of things done.
But a noise is in the mountains, in the mountains, and I know The voice that shook our palaces--four hundred years ago: It is he that saith not 'Kismet'; it is he that knows not Fate; It is Richard, it is Raymond, it is Godfrey at the gate! It is he whose loss is laughter when he counts the wager worth, Put down your feet upon him, that our peace be on the earth.
" For he heard drums groaning and he heard guns jar, (Don John of Austria is going to the war.
) Sudden and still--hurrah! Bolt from Iberia! Don John of Austria Is gone by Alcalar.
St.
Michaels on his Mountain in the sea-roads of the north (Don John of Austria is girt and going forth.
) Where the grey seas glitter and the sharp tides shift And the sea-folk labour and the red sails lift.
He shakes his lance of iron and he claps his wings of stone; The noise is gone through Normandy; the noise is gone alone; The North is full of tangled things and texts and aching eyes, And dead is all the innocence of anger and surprise, And Christian killeth Christian in a narrow dusty room, And Christian dreadeth Christ that hath a newer face of doom, And Christian hateth Mary that God kissed in Galilee,-- But Don John of Austria is riding to the sea.
Don John calling through the blast and the eclipse Crying with the trumpet, with the trumpet of his lips, Trumpet that sayeth ha! Domino gloria! Don John of Austria Is shouting to the ships.
King Philip's in his closet with the Fleece about his neck (Don John of Austria is armed upon the deck.
) The walls are hung with velvet that is black and soft as sin, And little dwarfs creep out of it and little dwarfs creep in.
He holds a crystal phial that has colours like the moon, He touches, and it tingles, and he trembles very soon, And his face is as a fungus of a leprous white and grey Like plants in the high houses that are shuttered from the day, And death is in the phial and the end of noble work, But Don John of Austria has fired upon the Turk.
Don John's hunting, and his hounds have bayed-- Booms away past Italy the rumour of his raid.
Gun upon gun, ha! ha! Gun upon gun, hurrah! Don John of Austria Has loosed the cannonade.
The Pope was in his chapel before day or battle broke, (Don John of Austria is hidden in the smoke.
) The hidden room in man's house where God sits all the year, The secret window whence the world looks small and very dear.
He sees as in a mirror on the monstrous twilight sea The crescent of his cruel ships whose name is mystery; They fling great shadows foe-wards, making Cross and Castle dark, They veil the plum?d lions on the galleys of St.
Mark; And above the ships are palaces of brown, black-bearded chiefs, And below the ships are prisons, where with multitudinous griefs, Christian captives sick and sunless, all a labouring race repines Like a race in sunken cities, like a nation in the mines.
They are lost like slaves that sweat, and in the skies of morning hung The stair-ways of the tallest gods when tyranny was young.
They are countless, voiceless, hopeless as those fallen or fleeing on Before the high Kings' horses in the granite of Babylon.
And many a one grows witless in his quiet room in hell Where a yellow face looks inward through the lattice of his cell, And he finds his God forgotten, and he seeks no more a sign-- (But Don John of Austria has burst the battle-line!) Don John pounding from the slaughter-painted poop, Purpling all the ocean like a bloody pirate's sloop, Scarlet running over on the silvers and the golds, Breaking of the hatches up and bursting of the holds, Thronging of the thousands up that labour under sea White for bliss and blind for sun and stunned for liberty.
Vivat Hispania! Domino Gloria! Don John of Austria Has set his people free! Cervantes on his galley sets the sword back in the sheath (Don John of Austria rides homeward with a wreath.
) And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain, Up which a lean and foolish knight for ever rides in vain, And he smiles, but not as Sultans smile, and settles back the blade.
.
.
.
(But Don John of Austria rides home from the Crusade.
)
Written by Robert William Service | Create an image from this poem

Compassion

 What puts me in a rage is
The sight of cursed cages
Where singers of the sky
Perch hop instead of fly;
Where lions to and fro
Pace seven yards or so:
I who love space of stars
Have hate of bars.
I wince to see dogs chained, Or horses bit restrained; Or men of feeble mind In straight-jackets confined; Or convicts in black cells Enduring earthly hells: To me not to be free Is fiendish cruelty.
To me not to be kind Is evil of the mind.
No need to pray or preach, Let us our children teach With every fond caress Pity and gentleness: So in the end may we God's Kingdom bring to be.
Written by Rudyard Kipling | Create an image from this poem

The Peace Of Dives

 The Word came down to Dives in Torment where he lay:
"Our World is full of wickedness, My Children maim and slay,
 "And the Saint and Seer and Prophet
 "Can make no better of it
"Than to sanctify and prophesy and pray.
"Rise up, rise up, thou Dives, and take again thy gold, "And thy women and thy housen as they were to thee of old.
"It may be grace hath found thee "In the furnace where We bound thee, "And that thou shalt bring the peace My Son foretold.
" Then merrily rose Dives and leaped from out his fire, And walked abroad with diligence to do the Lord's desire; And anon the battles ceased, And the captives were released, And Earth had rest from Goshen to Gadire.
The Word came down to Satan that raged and roared alone, 'Mid rhe shouring of the peoples by the cannon overthrown (But the Prophets, Saints, and Seers Set each other by the ears, For each would claim the marvel as his own): "Rise up, rise up, thou Satan, upon the Earth to go, "And prove the Peace of Dives if it be good or no: "For all that he hath planned "We deliver to thy hand, "As thy skill shall serve, to break it or bring low.
" Then mightily rose Satan, and about the Earth he hied, And breathed on Kings in idleness and Princes drunk with pride.
But for all the wrong he breathed There was never sword unsheathed, And the fires he lighted flickered out and died.
Then terribly 'rose Satan, and darkened Earth afar, Till he came on cunning Dives where the money-changers are; And he saw men pledge their gear For the bold that buys the spear, And the helmet and the habergeon of war.
Yea, to Dives came the Persian and the Syrian and the Mede -- And their hearts were nothing altered, nor their cunning nor their greed -- And they pledged their flocks and farms For the King-compelling arms, And Dives lent according to their need.
Then Satan said to Dives: -- "Return again with me, "Who hast broken His Commandment in the day He set thee free, "Who grindest for thy greed "Man's belly-pinch and need, "And the blood of Man to filthy usury!" Then softly answered Dives where the money-changers sit: -- "My Refuge is Our Master, O My Master in the Pit.
"But behold all Earth is laid "In the Peace which I have made, "And behold I wait on thee to trouble it!" Then angrily turned Satan, and about the Seas he fled, To shake the new-sown peoples with insult, doubt, and dread; But, for all the sleight he used, There was never squadron loosed, And the brands he flung flew dying and fell dead.
But to Dives came Atlantis and the Captains of the West -- And their hates were nothing weakened nor their angers unrest -- And they pawned their utmost trade For the dry, decreeing blade; And Dives lent and took of them their best.
Then Satan said to Dives: -- "Declare thou by The Name, "The secret of thy subtlety that turneth mine to shame.
"It is knowvn through all the Hells "How my peoples mocked my spells, "And my faithless Kings denied me ere I came.
" Then answvered cunning Dives: "Do not gold and hate abide "At the heart of every Magic, yea, and senseless fear beside? "With gold and fear and hate "I have harnessed state to state, "And by hate and fear and gold their hates are tied.
"For hate men seek a weapon, for fear they seek a shield -- "Keener blades and broader targes than their frantic neighbours wield -- "For gold I arm their hands, "And for gold I buy their lands, "And for gold I sell their enemies the yield.
"Their nearest foes may purchase, or their furthest friends may lease, "One by one from Ancient Accad to the Islands of the Seas.
"And their covenants they make "For the naked iron's sake, "But I -- I trap them armoured into peace.
"The flocks that Egypt pledged me to Assyria I drave, "And Pharaoh hath the increase of the herds that Sargon gave.
"Not for Ashdod overthrown "Will the Kings destroy their own, "Or their peoples wake the strife they feign to brave.
"Is not Carchemish like Calno? For the steeds of their desire "They have sold me seven harvests that I sell to Crowning Tyre; "And the Tyrian sweeps the plains "With a thousand hired wains, "And the Cities keep the peace and -- share the hire.
"Hast thou seen the pride of Moab? For the swords about his path, "His bond is to Philistia, in half of all he hath.
"And he dare not draw the sword "Till Gaza give the word, "And he show release from Askalon and Gath.
"Wilt thou call again thy peoples, wilt thou craze anew thy Kings? "Lo! my lightnings pass before thee, and their whistling servant brings, "Ere the drowsy street hath stirred, "Every masked and midnight word, "And the nations break their fast upon these things.
"So I make a jest of Wonder, and a mock of Time and Space, "The roofless Seas an hostel, and the Earth a market-place, "Where the anxious traders know "Each is surety for his foe, "And none may thrive without his fellows' grace.
"Now this is all my subtlety and this is all my Wit, "God give thee good enlightenment.
My Master in the Pit.
"But behold all Earth is laid "In the Peace which I have made, "And behold I wait on thee to trouble it!"
Written by Sidney Lanier | Create an image from this poem

A Florida Sunday

 From cold Norse caves or buccaneer Southern seas
Oft come repenting tempests here to die;
Bewailing old-time wrecks and robberies,
They shrive to priestly pines with many a sigh,
Breathe salutary balms through lank-lock'd hair
Of sick men's heads, and soon -- this world outworn --
Sink into saintly heavens of stirless air,
Clean from confessional.
One died, this morn, And willed the world to wise Queen Tranquil: she, Sweet sovereign Lady of all souls that bide In contemplation, tames the too bright skies Like that faint agate film, far down descried, Restraining suns in sudden thoughtful eyes Which flashed but now.
Blest distillation rare Of o'er-rank brightness filtered waterwise Through all the earths in heaven -- thou always fair, Still virgin bride of e'er-creating thought -- Dream-worker, in whose dream the Future's wrought -- Healer of hurts, free balm for bitter wrongs -- Most silent mother of all sounding songs -- Thou that dissolvest hells to make thy heaven -- Thou tempest's heir, that keep'st no tempest leaven -- But after winds' and thunders' wide mischance Dost brood, and better thine inheritance -- Thou privacy of space, where each grave Star As in his own still chamber sits afar To meditate, yet, by thy walls unpent, Shines to his fellows o'er the firmament -- Oh! as thou liv'st in all this sky and sea That likewise lovingly do live in thee, So melt my soul in thee, and thine in me, Divine Tranquillity! Gray Pelican, poised where yon broad shallows shine, Know'st thou, that finny foison all is mine In the bag below thy beak -- yet thine, not less? For God, of His most gracious friendliness, Hath wrought that every soul, this loving morn, Into all things may be new-corporate born, And each live whole in all: I sail with thee, Thy Pelican's self is mine; yea, silver Sea, In this large moment all thy fishes, ripples, bights, Pale in-shore greens and distant blue delights, White visionary sails, long reaches fair By moon-horn'd strands that film the far-off air, Bright sparkle-revelations, secret majesties, Shells, wrecks and wealths, are mine; yea, Orange-trees, That lift your small world-systems in the light, Rich sets of round green heavens studded bright With globes of fruit that like still planets shine, Mine is your green-gold universe; yea, mine, White slender Lighthouse fainting to the eye That wait'st on yon keen cape-point wistfully, Like to some maiden spirit pausing pale, New-wing'd, yet fain to sail Above the serene Gulf to where a bridegroom soul Calls o'er the soft horizon -- mine thy dole Of shut undaring wings and wan desire -- Mine, too, thy later hope and heavenly fire Of kindling expectation; yea, all sights, All sounds, that make this morn -- quick flights Of pea-green paroquets 'twixt neighbor trees, Like missives and sweet morning inquiries From green to green, in green -- live oaks' round heads, Busy with jays for thoughts -- grays, whites and reds Of pranked woodpeckers that ne'er gossip out, But alway tap at doors and gad about -- Robins and mocking-birds that all day long Athwart straight sunshine weave cross-threads of song, Shuttles of music -- clouds of mosses gray That rain me rains of pleasant thoughts alway From a low sky of leaves -- faint yearning psalms Of endless metre breathing through the palms That crowd and lean and gaze from off the shore Ever for one that cometh nevermore -- Palmettos ranked, with childish spear-points set Against no enemy -- rich cones that fret High roofs of temples shafted tall with pines -- Green, grateful mangroves where the sand-beach shines -- Long lissome coast that in and outward swerves, The grace of God made manifest in curves -- All riches, goods and braveries never told Of earth, sun, air and heaven -- now I hold Your being in my being; I am ye, And ye myself; yea, lastly, Thee, God, whom my roads all reach, howe'er they run, My Father, Friend, Beloved, dear All-One, Thee in my soul, my soul in Thee, I feel, Self of my self.
Lo, through my sense doth steal Clear cognizance of all selves and qualities, Of all existence that hath been or is, Of all strange haps that men miscall of chance, And all the works of tireless circumstance: Each borders each, like mutual sea and shore, Nor aught misfits his neighbor that's before, Nor him that's after -- nay, through this still air, Out of the North come quarrels, and keen blare Of challenge by the hot-breath'd parties blown; Yet break they not this peace with alien tone, Fray not my heart, nor fright me for my land, -- I hear from all-wards, allwise understand, The great bird Purpose bears me twixt her wings, And I am one with all the kinsmen things That e'er my Father fathered.
Oh, to me All questions solve in this tranquillity: E'en this dark matter, once so dim, so drear, Now shines upon my spirit heavenly-clear: Thou, Father, without logic, tellest me How this divine denial true may be, -- How `All's in each, yet every one of all Maintains his Self complete and several.
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Written by Robert William Service | Create an image from this poem

The Monster

 When we might make with happy heart
 This world a paradise,
With bombs we blast brave men apart,
 With napalm carbonize.
Where we might till the sunny soil, And sing for joy of life, We spend our treasure and our toil In bloody strife.
The fields of wheat are sheening gold, The flocks have silver fleece; The signs are sweetly manifold Of plenty, praise and peace.
Yet see! The sky is like a cowl Where grimy toilers bore The shards of steel that feed the foul Red maw of War.
Instead of butter give us guns; Instead of sugur, shells.
Devoted mothers, bear your sons To glut still hotter hells.
Alas! When will mad mankind wake To banish evermore, And damn for God in Heaven's sake Mass Murder--WAR?

Book: Reflection on the Important Things