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Best Famous Hideously Poems

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Written by Edgar Allan Poe | Create an image from this poem

The City In the Sea

Lo! Death has reared himself a throne
In a strange city lying alone
Far down within the dim West 
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best
Have gone to their eternal rest.
There shrines and palaces and towers (Time-eaten towers that tremble not!) Resemble nothing that is ours.
Around by lifting winds forgot Resignedly beneath the sky The melancholy waters lie.
No rays from the holy heaven come down On the long night-time of that town; But light from out the lurid sea Streams up the turrets silently- Gleams up the pinnacles far and free- Up domes- up spires- up kingly halls- Up fanes- up Babylon-like walls- Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers- Up many and many a marvellous shrine Whose wreathed friezes intertwine The viol the violet and the vine.
Resignedly beneath the sky The melancholy waters lie.
So blend the turrets and shadows there That all seem pendulous in air While from a proud tower in the town Death looks gigantically down.
There open fanes and gaping graves Yawn level with the luminous waves; But not the riches there that lie In each idol's diamond eye- Not the gaily-jewelled dead Tempt the waters from their bed; For no ripples curl alas! Along that wilderness of glass- No swellings tell that winds may be Upon some far-off happier sea- No heavings hint that winds have been On seas less hideously serene.
But lo a stir is in the air! The wave- there is a movement there! As if the towers had thrust aside In slightly sinking the dull tide- As if their tops had feebly given A void within the filmy Heaven.
The waves have now a redder glow- The hours are breathing faint and low- And when amid no earthly moans Down down that town shall settle hence Hell rising from a thousand thrones Shall do it reverence.


Written by Percy Bysshe Shelley | Create an image from this poem

Mont Blanc

 (Lines written in the Vale of Chamouni)

1

The everlasting universe of things
Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves,
Now dark - now glittering - now reflecting gloom -
Now lending splendor, where from secret springs
The source of human thought its tribute brings
Of waters, - with a sound but half its own,
Such as a feeble brook will oft assume
In the wild woods, amon the mountains lone,
Where waterfalls around it leap for ever,
Where woods and winds contend, and a vast river
Over its rocks ceaselessly bursts and raves.
2 Thus thou, Ravine of Arve - dark, deep Ravine- Thou many-colored, many voiced vale, Over whose pines, and crags, and caverns sail Fast cloud-shadows and sunbeams: awful scene, Where Power in likeness of the Arve comes down From the ice-gulfs that gird his secret throne, Bursting through these dark mountains like the flame Of lightning through the tempest; -thou dost lie, Thy giant brood of pines around thee clinging, Children of elder time, in whose devotion The chainless winds still come and ever came To drink their odors, and their mighty swinging To hear - an old and solemn harmony; Thine earthly rainbows stretched across the sweep Of the ethereal waterfall, whose veil Robes some unsculptured image; the strange sleep Which when the voices of the desert fail Wraps all in its own deep eternity;- Thy caverns echoing to the Arve's commotion, A loud, lone sound no other sound can tame; Thou art pervaded with that ceaseless motion, Thou art the path of that unresting sound- Dizzy Ravine! and when I gaze on thee I seem as in a trance sublime and strange To muse on my own separate fantasy, My own, my human mind, which passively Now renders and receives fast influencings, Holding an unremitting interchange With the clear universe of things around; One legion of wild thoughts, whose wandering wings Now float above thy darkness, and now rest Where that or thou art no unbidden guest, In the still cave of the witch Poesy, Seeking among the shadows that pass by Ghosts of all things that are, some shade of thee, Some phantom, some faint image; till the breast From which they fled recalls them, thou art there! 3 Some say that gleams of a remoter world Visit the soul in sleep,-that death is slumber, And that its shapes the busy thoughts outnumber Of those who wake and live.
-I look on high; Has some unknown omnipotence unfurled The veil of life and death? or do I lie In dream, and does the mightier world of sleep Spread far and round and inaccessibly Its circles? For the very spirit fails, Driven like a homeless cloud from steep to steep That vanishes amon the viewless gales! Far, far above, piercing the infinite sky, Mont Blanc appears,-still snowy and serene- Its subject mountains their unearthly forms Pile around it, ice and rock; broad vales between Of frozen floods, unfathomable deeps, Blue as the overhanging heaven, that spread And wind among the accumulated steeps; A desert peopled by the storms alone, Save when the eagle brings some hunter's bone, And the wolf tracks her there - how hideously Its shapes are heaped around! rude, bare, and high, Ghastly, and scarred, and riven.
-Is this the scene Where the old Earthquake-demon taught her young Ruin? Were these their toys? or did a sea Of fire envelop once this silent snow? None can reply - all seems eternal now.
The wilderness has a mysterious tongue Which teaches awful doubt, or faith so mild, So solemn, so serene, that man may be, But for such faith, with nature reconciled; Thou hast a voice, great Mountain, to repeal Large codes of fraud and woe; not understood By all, but which the wise, and great, and good Interpret, or make felt, or deeply feel.
4 The fields, the lakes, the forests, and the streams, Ocean, and all the living things that dwell Within the daedal earth; lightning, and rain, Earthquake, and fiery flood, and hurricane, The torpor of the year when feeble dreams Visit the hidden buds, or dreamless sleep Holds every future leaf and flower; -the bound With which from that detested trance they leap; The works and ways of man, their death and birth, And that of him, and all that his may be; All things that move and breathe with toil and sound Are born and die; revolve, subside, and swell.
Power dwells apart in its tranquility, Remote, serene, and inaccessible: And this, the naked countenance of earth, On which I gaze, even these primeval mountains Teach the adverting mind.
The glaciers creep Like snakes that watch their prey, from their far fountains, Slow rolling on; there, many a precipice, Frost and the Sun in scorn of mortal power Have piled: dome, pyramid, and pinnacle, A city of death, distinct with many a tower And wall impregnable of beaming ice.
Yet not a city, but a flood of ruin Is there, that from the boundaries of the sky Rolls its perpetual stream; vast pines are strewing Its destined path, or in the mangled soil Branchless and shattered stand; the rocks, drawn down From yon remotest waste, have overthrown The limits of the dead and living world, Never to be reclaimed.
The dwelling-place Of insects, beasts, and birds, becomes its spoil Their food and their retreat for ever gone, So much of life and joy is lost.
The race Of man flies far in dread; his work and dwelling Vanish, like smoke before the tempest's stream, And their place is not known.
Below, vast caves Shine in the rushing torrents' restless gleam, Which from those secret chasms in tumult welling Meet in the vale, and one majestic River, The breath and blood of distant lands , for ever Rolls its loud waters to the ocean-waves, Breathes its swift vapors to the circling air.
5 Mont Blanc yet gleams on high:-the power is there, The still and solemn power of many sights, And many sounds, and much of life and death.
In the calm darkness of the moonless nights, In the lone glare of day, the snows descend Upon that mountain; none beholds them there, Nor when the flakes burn in the sinking sun, Or the star-beams dart through them:-Winds contend Silently there, and heap the snow with breath Rapid and strong, but silently! Its home The voiceless lightning in these solitudes Keeps innocently, and like vapor broods Over the snow.
The secret Strength of things Which governs thought, and to the infinite dome Of Heaven is as a law, inhabits thee! And what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea, If to the human mind's imaginings Silence and solitude were vacancy?
Written by Edna St. Vincent Millay | Create an image from this poem

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 D. H. Lawrence | Create an image from this poem

Discord in Childhood

 Outside the house an ash-tree hung its terrible whips,
And at night when the wind arose, the lash of the tree 
Shrieked and slashed the wind, as a ship’s 
Weird rigging in a storm shrieks hideously.
Within the house two voices arose in anger, a slender lash Whistling delirious rage, and the dreadful sound Of a thick lash booming and bruising, until it drowned The other voice in a silence of blood, ’neath the noise of the ash.
Written by Mark Van Doren | Create an image from this poem

Born Brothers

 Equality is absolute or no.
Nothing between can stand.
We are the sons Of the same sire, or madness breaks and runs Through the rude world.
Ridiculous our woe If single pity does not love it.
So Our separate fathers love us.
No man shuns His poorest child's embrace.
We are the sons Of such, or ground and sky are soon to go.
Nor do born brothers judge, as good or ill, Their being.
Each consents and is the same, Or suddenly sweet winds turn into flame And floods are on us--fire, earth, water, air All hideously parted, as his will Withdraws, no longer fatherly and there.


Written by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe | Create an image from this poem

Thoughts On Jesus Christs Descent Into Hell

 THOUGHTS ON JESUS CHRIST'S DESCENT INTO HELL.
[THE remarkable Poem of which this is a literal but faint representation, was written when Goethe was only sixteen years old.
It derives additional interest from the fact of its being the very earliest piece of his that is preserved.
The few other pieces included by Goethe under the title of Religion and Church are polemical, and devoid of interest to the English reader.
] WHAT wondrous noise is heard around! Through heaven exulting voices sound, A mighty army marches on By thousand millions follow'd, lo, To yon dark place makes haste to go God's Son, descending from His throne! He goes--the tempests round Him break, As Judge and Hero cometh He; He goes--the constellations quake, The sun, the world quake fearfully.
I see Him in His victor-car, On fiery axles borne afar, Who on the cross for us expired.
The triumph to yon realms He shows,-- Remote from earth, where star ne'er glows, The triumph He for us acquired.
He cometh, Hell to extirpate, Whom He, by dying, wellnigh kill'd; He shall pronounce her fearful fate Hark! now the curse is straight fulfill'd.
Hell sees the victor come at last, She feels that now her reign is past, She quakes and fears to meet His sight; She knows His thunders' terrors dread, In vain she seeks to hide her head, Attempts to fly, but vain is flight; Vainly she hastes to 'scape pursuit And to avoid her Judge's eye; The Lord's fierce wrath restrains her foot Like brazen chains,--she cannot fly.
Here lies the Dragon, trampled down, He lies, and feels God's angry frown, He feels, and grinneth hideously; He feels Hell's speechless agonies, A thousand times he howls and sighs: "Oh, burning flames! quick, swallow me!" There lies he in the fiery waves, By torments rack'd and pangs infernal, Instant annihilation craves, And hears, those pangs will be eternal.
Those mighty squadrons, too, are here, The partners of his cursed career, Yet far less bad than he were they.
Here lies the countless throng combined, In black and fearful crowds entwined, While round him fiery tempests play; He sees how they the Judge avoid, He sees the storm upon them feed, Yet is not at the sight o'erjoy'd, Because his pangs e'en theirs exceed.
The Son of Man in triumph passes Down to Hell's wild and black morasses, And there unfolds His majesty.
Hell cannot bear the bright array, For, since her first created day.
Darkness alone e'er govern'd she.
She lay remote from ev'ry light With torments fill'd in Chaos here; God turn'd for ever from her sight His radiant features' glory clear.
Within the realms she calls her own, She sees the splendour of the Son, His dreaded glories shining forth; She sees Him clad in rolling thunder, She sees the rocks all quake with wonder, When God before her stands in wrath.
She sees He comes her Judge to be, She feels the awful pangs inside her, Herself to slay endeavours she, But e'en this comfort is denied her.
Now looks she back, with pains untold, Upon those happy times of old, When those glories gave her joy; When yet her heart revered the truth, When her glad soul, in endless youth And rapture dwelt, without alloy.
She calls to mind with madden'd thought How over man her wiles prevail'd; To take revenge on God she sought, And feels the vengeance it entail'd.
God was made man, and came to earth.
Then Satan cried with fearful mirth: "E'en He my victim now shall be!" He sought to slay the Lord Most High, The world's Creator now must die; But, Satan, endless woe to thee! Thou thought'st to overcome Him then, Rejoicing in His suffering; But he in triumph comes again To bind thee: Death! where is thy sting? Speak, Hell! where is thy victory? Thy power destroy'd and scatter'd see! Know'st thou not now the Highest's might? See, Satan, see thy rule o'erthrown! By thousand-varying pangs weigh'd down, Thou dwell'st in dark and endless night.
As though by lightning struck thou liest, No gleam of rapture far or wide; In vain! no hope thou there decriest,-- For me alone Messiah died! A howling rises through the air, A trembling fills each dark vault there, When Christ to Hell is seen to come.
She snarls with rage, but needs must cower Before our mighty hero's power; He signs--and Hell is straightway dumb.
Before his voice the thunders break, On high His victor-banner blows; E'en angels at His fury quake, When Christ to the dread judgment goes.
Now speaks He, and His voice is thunder, He speaks, the rocks are rent in sunder, His breath is like devouring flames.
Thus speaks He: "Tremble, ye accurs'd! He who from Eden hurl'd you erst, Your kingdom's overthrow proclaims.
Look up! My children once were ye, Your arms against Me then ye turn'd, Ye fell, that ye might sinners be, Ye've now the wages that ye earn'd.
"My greatest foeman from that day, Ye led my dearest friends astray,-- As ye had fallen, man must fall.
To kill him evermore ye sought, 'They all shall die the death,' ye thought; But howl! for Me I won them all.
For them alone did I descend, For them pray'd, suffer'd, perish'd I.
Ye ne'er shall gain your wicked end; Who trusts in Me shall never die.
"In endless chains here lie ye now, Nothing can save you from the slough.
Not boldness, not regret for crime.
Lie, then, and writhe in brimstone fire! 'Twas ye yourselves drew down Mine ire, Lie and lament throughout all time! And also ye, whom I selected, E'en ye forever I disown, For ye My saving grace rejected Ye murmur? blame yourselves alone! "Ye might have lived with Me in bliss, For I of yore had promis'd this; Ye sinn'd, and all My precepts slighted Wrapp'd in the sleep of sin ye dwelt, Now is My fearful judgment felt, By a just doom your guilt requited.
"-- Thus spake He, and a fearful storm From Him proceeds, the lightnings glow, The thunders seize each wicked form, And hurl them in the gulf below.
The God-man closeth Hell's sad doors, In all His majesty He soars From those dark regions back to light.
He sitteth at the Father's side; Oh, friends, what joy doth this betide! For us, for us He still will fight! The angels sacred quire around Rejoice before the mighty Lord, So that all creatures hear the sound: "Zebaoth's God be aye ador'd!" 1765.
-----
Written by Percy Bysshe Shelley | Create an image from this poem

Mont Blanc: Lines Written in the Vale of Chamouni

 I
The everlasting universe of things 
Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves,
Now dark--now glittering--now reflecting gloom--
Now lending splendour, where from secret springs
The source of human thought its tribute brings
Of waters--with a sound but half its own,
Such as a feeble brook will oft assume,
In the wild woods, among the mountains lone,
Where waterfalls around it leap for ever,
Where woods and winds contend, and a vast river
Over its rocks ceaselessly bursts and raves.
II Thus thou, Ravine of Arve--dark, deep Ravine-- Thou many-colour'd, many-voiced vale, Over whose pines, and crags, and caverns sail Fast cloud-shadows and sunbeams: awful scene, Where Power in likeness of the Arve comes down From the ice-gulfs that gird his secret throne, Bursting through these dark mountains like the flame Of lightning through the tempest;--thou dost lie, Thy giant brood of pines around thee clinging, Children of elder time, in whose devotion The chainless winds still come and ever came To drink their odours, and their mighty swinging To hear--an old and solemn harmony; Thine earthly rainbows stretch'd across the sweep Of the aethereal waterfall, whose veil Robes some unsculptur'd image; the strange sleep Which when the voices of the desert fail Wraps all in its own deep eternity; Thy caverns echoing to the Arve's commotion, A loud, lone sound no other sound can tame; Thou art pervaded with that ceaseless motion, Thou art the path of that unresting sound-- Dizzy Ravine! and when I gaze on thee I seem as in a trance sublime and strange To muse on my own separate fantasy, My own, my human mind, which passively Now renders and receives fast influencings, Holding an unremitting interchange With the clear universe of things around; One legion of wild thoughts, whose wandering wings Now float above thy darkness, and now rest Where that or thou art no unbidden guest, In the still cave of the witch Poesy, Seeking among the shadows that pass by Ghosts of all things that are, some shade of thee, Some phantom, some faint image; till the breast From which they fled recalls them, thou art there! III Some say that gleams of a remoter world Visit the soul in sleep, that death is slumber, And that its shapes the busy thoughts outnumber Of those who wake and live.
--I look on high; Has some unknown omnipotence unfurl'd The veil of life and death? or do I lie In dream, and does the mightier world of sleep Spread far around and inaccessibly Its circles? For the very spirit fails, Driven like a homeless cloud from steep to steep That vanishes among the viewless gales! Far, far above, piercing the infinite sky, Mont Blanc appears--still, snowy, and serene; Its subject mountains their unearthly forms Pile around it, ice and rock; broad vales between Of frozen floods, unfathomable deeps, Blue as the overhanging heaven, that spread And wind among the accumulated steeps; A desert peopled by the storms alone, Save when the eagle brings some hunter's bone, And the wolf tracks her there--how hideously Its shapes are heap'd around! rude, bare, and high, Ghastly, and scarr'd, and riven.
--Is this the scene Where the old Earthquake-daemon taught her young Ruin? Were these their toys? or did a sea Of fire envelop once this silent snow? None can reply--all seems eternal now.
The wilderness has a mysterious tongue Which teaches awful doubt, or faith so mild, So solemn, so serene, that man may be, But for such faith, with Nature reconcil'd; Thou hast a voice, great Mountain, to repeal Large codes of fraud and woe; not understood By all, but which the wise, and great, and good Interpret, or make felt, or deeply feel.
IV The fields, the lakes, the forests, and the streams, Ocean, and all the living things that dwell Within the daedal earth; lightning, and rain, Earthquake, and fiery flood, and hurricane, The torpor of the year when feeble dreams Visit the hidden buds, or dreamless sleep Holds every future leaf and flower; the bound With which from that detested trance they leap; The works and ways of man, their death and birth, And that of him and all that his may be; All things that move and breathe with toil and sound Are born and die; revolve, subside, and swell.
Power dwells apart in its tranquillity, Remote, serene, and inaccessible: And this, the naked countenance of earth, On which I gaze, even these primeval mountains Teach the adverting mind.
The glaciers creep Like snakes that watch their prey, from their far fountains, Slow rolling on; there, many a precipice Frost and the Sun in scorn of mortal power Have pil'd: dome, pyramid, and pinnacle, A city of death, distinct with many a tower And wall impregnable of beaming ice.
Yet not a city, but a flood of ruin Is there, that from the boundaries of the sky Rolls its perpetual stream; vast pines are strewing Its destin'd path, or in the mangled soil Branchless and shatter'd stand; the rocks, drawn down From yon remotest waste, have overthrown The limits of the dead and living world, Never to be reclaim'd.
The dwelling-place Of insects, beasts, and birds, becomes its spoil; Their food and their retreat for ever gone, So much of life and joy is lost.
The race Of man flies far in dread; his work and dwelling Vanish, like smoke before the tempest's stream, And their place is not known.
Below, vast caves Shine in the rushing torrents' restless gleam, Which from those secret chasms in tumult welling Meet in the vale, and one majestic River, The breath and blood of distant lands, for ever Rolls its loud waters to the ocean-waves, Breathes its swift vapours to the circling air.
V Mont Blanc yet gleams on high:--the power is there, The still and solemn power of many sights, And many sounds, and much of life and death.
In the calm darkness of the moonless nights, In the lone glare of day, the snows descend Upon that Mountain; none beholds them there, Nor when the flakes burn in the sinking sun, Or the star-beams dart through them.
Winds contend Silently there, and heap the snow with breath Rapid and strong, but silently! Its home The voiceless lightning in these solitudes Keeps innocently, and like vapour broods Over the snow.
The secret Strength of things Which governs thought, and to the infinite dome Of Heaven is as a law, inhabits thee! And what were thou, and earth, and stars, and sea, If to the human mind's imaginings Silence and solitude were vacancy?
Written by Rudyard Kipling | Create an image from this poem

The Undertakers Horse

 The eldest son bestrides him,
And the pretty daughter rides him,
And I meet him oft o' mornings on the Course;
And there kindles in my bosom
An emotion chill and gruesome
As I canter past the Undertaker's Horse.
Neither shies he nor is restive, But a hideously suggestive Trot, professional and placid, he affects; And the cadence of his hoof-beats To my mind this grim reproof beats: -- "Mend your pace, my friend, I'm coming.
Who's the next?" Ah! stud-bred of ill-omen, I have watched the strongest go -- men Of pith and might and muscle -- at your heels, Down the plantain-bordered highway, (Heaven send it ne'er be my way!) In a lacquered box and jetty upon wheels.
Answer, sombre beast and dreary, Where is Brown, the young, the cheery, Smith, the pride of all his friends and half the Force? You were at that last dread dak We must cover at a walk, Bring them back to me, O Undertaker's Horse! With your mane unhogged and flowing, And your curious way of going, And that businesslike black crimping of your tail, E'en with Beauty on your back, Sir, Pacing as a lady's hack, Sir, What wonder when I meet you I turn pale? It may be you wait your time, Beast, Till I write my last bad rhyme, Beast -- Quit the sunlight, cut the rhyming, drop the glass -- Follow after with the others, Where some dusky heathen smothers Us with marigolds in lieu of English grass.
Or, perchance, in years to follow, I shall watch your plump sides hollow, See Carnifex (gone lame) become a corse -- See old age at last o'erpower you, And the Station Pack devour you, I shall chuckle then, O Undertaker's Horse! But to insult, jibe, and quest, I've Still the hideously suggestive Trot that hammers out the unrelenting text, And I hear it hard behind me In what place soe'er I find me: -- "'Sure to catch you sooner or later.
Who's the next?"
Written by Robert William Service | Create an image from this poem

On The Wire

 O God, take the sun from the sky!
 It's burning me, scorching me up.
God, can't You hear my cry? Water! A poor, little cup! It's laughing, the cursed sun! See how it swells and swells Fierce as a hundred hells! God, will it never have done? It's searing the flesh on my bones; It's beating with hammers red My eyeballs into my head; It's parching my very moans.
See! It's the size of the sky, And the sky is a torrent of fire, Foaming on me as I lie Here on the wire .
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the wire.
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Of the thousands that wheeze and hum Heedlessly over my head, Why can't a bullet come, Pierce to my brain instead, Blacken forever my brain, Finish forever my pain? Here in the hellish glare Why must I suffer so? Is it God doesn't care? Is it God doesn't know? Oh, to be killed outright, Clean in the clash of the fight! That is a golden death, That is a boon; but this .
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Drawing an anguished breath Under a hot abyss, Under a stooping sky Of seething, sulphurous fire, Scorching me up as I lie Here on the wire .
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the wire.
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Hasten, O God, Thy night! Hide from my eyes the sight Of the body I stare and see Shattered so hideously.
I can't believe that it's mine.
My body was white and sweet, Flawless and fair and fine, Shapely from head to feet; Oh no, I can never be The thing of horror I see Under the rifle fire, Trussed on the wire .
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the wire.
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Of night and of death I dream; Night that will bring me peace, Coolness and starry gleam, Stillness and death's release: Ages and ages have passed, -- Lo! it is night at last.
Night! but the guns roar out.
Night! but the hosts attack.
Red and yellow and black Geysers of doom upspout.
Silver and green and red Star-shells hover and spread.
Yonder off to the right Fiercely kindles the fight; Roaring near and more near, Thundering now in my ear; Close to me, close .
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Oh, hark! Someone moans in the dark.
I hear, but I cannot see, I hear as the rest retire, Someone is caught like me, Caught on the wire .
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the wire.
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Again the shuddering dawn, Weird and wicked and wan; Again, and I've not yet gone.
The man whom I heard is dead.
Now I can understand: A bullet hole in his head, A pistol gripped in his hand.
Well, he knew what to do, -- Yes, and now I know too.
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Hark the resentful guns! Oh , how thankful am I To think my beloved ones Will never know how I die! I've suffered more than my share; I'm shattered beyond repair; I've fought like a man the fight, And now I demand the right (God! how his fingers cling!) To do without shame this thing.
Good! there's a bullet still; Now I'm ready to fire; Blame me, God, if You will, Here on the wire .
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the wire.
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Written by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe | Create an image from this poem

The Misanthrope

 AT first awhile sits he,

With calm, unruffled brow;
His features then I see,
Distorted hideously,--

An owl's they might be now.
What is it, askest thou? Is't love, or is't ennui? 'Tis both at once, I vow.
1767-9.

Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry