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Best Famous Loved And Lost Poems

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Written by Tupac Shakur | Create an image from this poem

So I Say GOODBYE

Im going in 2 this not knowing what i"ll find
but I've decided 2 follow my heart and abandon my mind
and if there be pain i know that at least i gave my all
and it's better to have loved and lost than 2 not love at all
in the morning i may wake 2 smile or maybe 2 cry
but first to those of my past i must say goodbye 


Written by Pablo Neruda | Create an image from this poem

A Song Of Despair

 The memory of you emerges from the night around me.
The river mingles its stubborn lament with the sea.

Deserted like the dwarves at dawn.
It is the hour of departure, oh deserted one!

Cold flower heads are raining over my heart.
Oh pit of debris, fierce cave of the shipwrecked.

In you the wars and the flights accumulated.
From you the wings of the song birds rose.

You swallowed everything, like distance.
Like the sea, like time. In you everything sank!

It was the happy hour of assault and the kiss.
The hour of the spell that blazed like a lighthouse.

Pilot's dread, fury of blind driver,
turbulent drunkenness of love, in you everything sank!

In the childhood of mist my soul, winged and wounded.
Lost discoverer, in you everything sank!

You girdled sorrow, you clung to desire,
sadness stunned you, in you everything sank!

I made the wall of shadow draw back,
beyond desire and act, I walked on.

Oh flesh, my own flesh, woman whom I loved and lost,
I summon you in the moist hour, I raise my song to you.

Like a jar you housed infinite tenderness.
and the infinite oblivion shattered you like a jar.

There was the black solitude of the islands,
and there, woman of love, your arms took me in.

There was thirst and hunger, and you were the fruit.
There were grief and ruins, and you were the miracle.

Ah woman, I do not know how you could contain me
in the earth of your soul, in the cross of your arms!

How terrible and brief my desire was to you!
How difficult and drunken, how tensed and avid.

Cemetery of kisses, there is still fire in your tombs,
still the fruited boughs burn, pecked at by birds.

Oh the bitten mouth, oh the kissed limbs,
oh the hungering teeth, oh the entwined bodies.

Oh the mad coupling of hope and force
in which we merged and despaired.

And the tenderness, light as water and as flour.
And the word scarcely begun on the lips.

This was my destiny and in it was my voyage of my longing,
and in it my longing fell, in you everything sank!

Oh pit of debris, everything fell into you,
what sorrow did you not express, in what sorrow are you not drowned!

From billow to billow you still called and sang.
Standing like a sailor in the prow of a vessel.

You still flowered in songs, you still brike the currents.
Oh pit of debris, open and bitter well.

Pale blind diver, luckless slinger,
lost discoverer, in you everything sank!

It is the hour of departure, the hard cold hour
which the night fastens to all the timetables.

The rustling belt of the sea girdles the shore.
Cold stars heave up, black birds migrate.

Deserted like the wharves at dawn.
Only tremulous shadow twists in my hands.

Oh farther than everything. Oh farther than everything.

It is the hour of departure. Oh abandoned one!
Written by Imamu Amiri Baraka | Create an image from this poem

In Memory of Radio

Who has ever stopped to think of the divinity of Lamont Cranston?
(Only jack Kerouac, that I know of: & me.
The rest of you probably had on WCBS and Kate Smith,
Or something equally unattractive.)

What can I say?
It is better to haved loved and lost
Than to put linoleum in your living rooms?

Am I a sage or something?
Mandrake's hypnotic gesture of the week?
(Remember, I do not have the healing powers of Oral Roberts...
I cannot, like F. J. Sheen, tell you how to get saved & rich!
I cannot even order you to the gaschamber satori like Hitler or Goddy Knight)

& love is an evil word.
Turn it backwards/see, see what I mean?
An evol word. & besides
who understands it?
I certainly wouldn't like to go out on that kind of limb.

Saturday mornings we listened to the Red Lantern & his undersea folk.
At 11, Let's Pretend
& we did
& I, the poet, still do. Thank God!

What was it he used to say (after the transformation when he was safe
& invisible & the unbelievers couldn't throw stones?) "Heh, heh, heh.
Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows."

O, yes he does
O, yes he does
An evil word it is,
This Love.
Written by Alfred Lord Tennyson | Create an image from this poem

In Memoriam A. H. H.

Strong Son of God, immortal Love,
   Whom we, that have not seen thy face,
   By faith, and faith alone, embrace,
Believing where we cannot prove;
 
Thine are these orbs of light and shade;
   Thou madest Life in man and brute;
   Thou madest Death; and lo, thy foot
Is on the skull which thou hast made.
 
Thou wilt not leave us in the dust:
Thou madest man, he knows not why,
He thinks he was not made to die;
And thou hast made him: thou art just.
 
Thou seemest human and divine,
   The highest, holiest manhood, thou.
   Our wills are ours, we know not how;
Our wills are ours, to make them thine.
 
Our little systems have their day;
   They have their day and cease to be:
   They are but broken lights of thee,
And thou, O Lord, art more than they.
 
We have but faith: we cannot know;
   For knowledge is of things we see
   And yet we trust it comes from thee,
A beam in darkness: let it grow.
 
Let knowledge grow from more to more,
   But more of reverence in us dwell;
   That mind and soul, according well,
May make one music as before,
 
But vaster. We are fools and slight;
   We mock thee when we do not fear:
   But help thy foolish ones to bear;
Help thy vain worlds to bear thy light.
 
Forgive what seem'd my sin in me;
   What seem'd my worth since I began;
   For merit lives from man to man,
And not from man, O Lord, to thee.
 
Forgive my grief for one removed,
   Thy creature, whom I found so fair.
   I trust he lives in thee, and there
I find him worthier to be loved.
 
Forgive these wild and wandering cries,
   Confusions of a wasted youth;
   Forgive them where they fail in truth,
And in thy wisdom make me wise.
 
I
I held it truth, with him who sings
   To one clear harp in divers tones,
   That men may rise on stepping-stones
Of their dead selves to higher things.
 
But who shall so forecast the years
   And find in loss a gain to match?
   Or reach a hand thro' time to catch
The far-off interest of tears?
 
Let Love clasp Grief lest both be drown'd,
   Let darkness keep her raven gloss:
   Ah, sweeter to be drunk with loss,
To dance with death, to beat the ground,
 
Than that the victor Hours should scorn
   The long result of love, and boast,
   `Behold the man that loved and lost,
But all he was is overworn.'
 
II
Old Yew, which graspest at the stones
   That name the under-lying dead,
   Thy fibres net the dreamless head,
Thy roots are wrapt about the bones.
 
The seasons bring the flower again,
   And bring the firstling to the flock;
   And in the dusk of thee, the clock
Beats out the little lives of men.
 
O, not for thee the glow, the bloom,
   Who changest not in any gale,
   Nor branding summer suns avail
To touch thy thousand years of gloom:
 
And gazing on thee, sullen tree,
   Sick for thy stubborn hardihood,
   I seem to fail from out my blood
And grow incorporate into thee.
 
III
O Sorrow, cruel fellowship,
   O Priestess in the vaults of Death,
   O sweet and bitter in a breath,
What whispers from thy lying lip?
 
'The stars,' she whispers, `blindly run;
   A web is wov'n across the sky;
   From out waste places comes a cry,
And murmurs from the dying sun:
 
'And all the phantom, Nature, stands—
   With all the music in her tone,
   A hollow echo of my own,—
A hollow form with empty hands.'
 
And shall I take a thing so blind,
   Embrace her as my natural good;
   Or crush her, like a vice of blood,
Upon the threshold of the mind?
 
IV
To Sleep I give my powers away;
   My will is bondsman to the dark;
   I sit within a helmless bark,
And with my heart I muse and say:
 
O heart, how fares it with thee now,
   That thou should'st fail from thy desire,
   Who scarcely darest to inquire,
'What is it makes me beat so low?'
 
Something it is which thou hast lost,
   Some pleasure from thine early years.
   Break, thou deep vase of chilling tears,
That grief hath shaken into frost!
 
Such clouds of nameless trouble cross
   All night below the darken'd eyes;
   With morning wakes the will, and cries, 
'Thou shalt not be the fool of loss.'
 
V
I sometimes hold it half a sin
   To put in words the grief I feel;
   For words, like Nature, half reveal
And half conceal the Soul within.
 
But, for the unquiet heart and brain,
   A use in measured language lies;
   The sad mechanic exercise,
Like dull narcotics, numbing pain.
 
In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er,
   Like coarsest clothes against the cold:
   But that large grief which these enfold
Is given in outline and no more.
 
VI
One writes, that `Other friends remain,'
   That `Loss is common to the race'—
   And common is the commonplace,
And vacant chaff well meant for grain.
 
That loss is common would not make
   My own less bitter, rather more:
   Too common! Never morning wore
To evening, but some heart did break.
 
O father, wheresoe'er thou be,
   Who pledgest now thy gallant son;
   A shot, ere half thy draught be done,
Hath still'd the life that beat from thee.
 
O mother, praying God will save
   Thy sailor,—while thy head is bow'd,
   His heavy-shotted hammock-shroud
Drops in his vast and wandering grave.
 
Ye know no more than I who wrought
   At that last hour to please him well;
   Who mused on all I had to tell,
And something written, something thought;
 
Expecting still his advent home;
   And ever met him on his way
   With wishes, thinking, `here to-day,'
Or `here to-morrow will he come.'
 
O somewhere, meek, unconscious dove,
   That sittest ranging golden hair;
   And glad to find thyself so fair,
Poor child, that waitest for thy love!
 
For now her father's chimney glows
   In expectation of a guest;
   And thinking `this will please him best,'
She takes a riband or a rose;
 
For he will see them on to-night;
   And with the thought her colour burns;
   And, having left the glass, she turns
Once more to set a ringlet right;
 
And, even when she turn'd, the curse
   Had fallen, and her future Lord
   Was drown'd in passing thro' the ford,
Or kill'd in falling from his horse.
 
O what to her shall be the end?
   And what to me remains of good?
   To her, perpetual maidenhood,
And unto me no second friend.
 
VII
Dark house, by which once more I stand
   Here in the long unlovely street,
   Doors, where my heart was used to beat
So quickly, waiting for a hand,
 
A hand that can be clasp'd no more—
   Behold me, for I cannot sleep,
   And like a guilty thing I creep
At earliest morning to the door.
 
He is not here; but far away
   The noise of life begins again,
   And ghastly thro' the drizzling rain
On the bald street breaks the blank day.
 
VIII
A happy lover who has come
   To look on her that loves him well,
   Who 'lights and rings the gateway bell,
And learns her gone and far from home;
 
He saddens, all the magic light
   Dies off at once from bower and hall,
   And all the place is dark, and all
The chambers emptied of delight:
 
So find I every pleasant spot
   In which we two were wont to meet,
   The field, the chamber, and the street,
For all is dark where thou art not.
 
Yet as that other, wandering there
   In those deserted walks, may find
   A flower beat with rain and wind,
Which once she foster'd up with care;
 
So seems it in my deep regret,
   O my forsaken heart, with thee
   And this poor flower of poesy
Which little cared for fades not yet.
 
But since it pleased a vanish'd eye,
   I go to plant it on his tomb,
   That if it can it there may bloom,
Or, dying, there at least may die.
 
IX
Fair ship, that from the Italian shore
   Sailest the placid ocean-plains
   With my lost Arthur's loved remains,
Spread thy full wings, and waft him o'er.
 
So draw him home to those that mourn
   In vain; a favourable speed
   Ruffle thy mirror'd mast, and lead
Thro' prosperous floods his holy urn.
 
All night no ruder air perplex
   Thy sliding keel, till Phosphor, bright
   As our pure love, thro' early light
Shall glimmer on the dewy decks.
 
Sphere all your lights around, above;
   Sleep, gentle heavens, before the prow;
   Sleep, gentle winds, as he sleeps now,
My friend, the brother of my love;
 
My Arthur, whom I shall not see
   Till all my widow'd race be run;
   Dear as the mother to the son,
More than my brothers are to me.
 
X
I hear the noise about thy keel;
   I hear the bell struck in the night:
   I see the cabin-window bright;
I see the sailor at the wheel.
 
Thou bring'st the sailor to his wife,
   And travell'd men from foreign lands;
   And letters unto trembling hands;
And, thy dark freight, a vanish'd life.
 
So bring him; we have idle dreams:
   This look of quiet flatters thus
   Our home-bred fancies. O to us,
The fools of habit, sweeter seems
 
To rest beneath the clover sod,
   That takes the sunshine and the rains,
   Or where the kneeling hamlet drains
The chalice of the grapes of God;
 
Than if with thee the roaring wells
   Should gulf him fathom-deep in brine;
   And hands so often clasp'd in mine,
Should toss with tangle and with shells.
 
XI
Calm is the morn without a sound,
   Calm as to suit a calmer grief,
   And only thro' the faded leaf
The chestnut pattering to the ground:
 
Calm and deep peace on this high world,
   And on these dews that drench the furze,
   And all the silvery gossamers
That twinkle into green and gold:
 
Calm and still light on yon great plain
   That sweeps with all its autumn bowers,
   And crowded farms and lessening towers,
To mingle with the bounding main:
 
Calm and deep peace in this wide air,
   These leaves that redden to the fall;
   And in my heart, if calm at all,
If any calm, a calm despair:
 
Calm on the seas, and silver sleep,
   And waves that sway themselves in rest,
   And dead calm in that noble breast
Which heaves but with the heaving deep.
 
XII
Lo, as a dove when up she springs
   To bear thro' Heaven a tale of woe,
   Some dolorous message knit below
The wild pulsation of her wings;
 
Like her I go; I cannot stay;
   I leave this mortal ark behind,
   A weight of nerves without a mind,
And leave the cliffs, and haste away
 
O'er ocean-mirrors rounded large,
   And reach the glow of southern skies,
   And see the sails at distance rise,
And linger weeping on the marge,
 
And saying; `Comes he thus, my friend?
   Is this the end of all my care?'
   And circle moaning in the air:
'Is this the end? Is this the end?'
 
And forward dart again, and play
   About the prow, and back return
   To where the body sits, and learn
That I have been an hour away.
 
XIII
Tears of the widower, when he sees
   A late-lost form that sleep reveals,
   And moves his doubtful arms, and feels
Her place is empty, fall like these;
 
Which weep a loss for ever new,
   A void where heart on heart reposed;
   And, where warm hands have prest and closed,
Silence, till I be silent too.
 
Which weep the comrade of my choice,
   An awful thought, a life removed,
   The human-hearted man I loved,
A Spirit, not a breathing voice.
 
Come, Time, and teach me, many years,
   I do not suffer in a dream;
   For now so strange do these things seem,
Mine eyes have leisure for their tears;
 
My fancies time to rise on wing,
   And glance about the approaching sails,
   As tho' they brought but merchants' bales,
And not the burthen that they bring.
 
XIV
If one should bring me this report,
   That thou hadst touch'd the land to-day,
   And I went down unto the quay,
And found thee lying in the port;
 
And standing, muffled round with woe,
   Should see thy passengers in rank
   Come stepping lightly down the plank,
And beckoning unto those they know;
 
And if along with these should come
   The man I held as half-divine;
   Should strike a sudden hand in mine,
And ask a thousand things of home;
 
And I should tell him all my pain,
   And how my life had droop'd of late,
   And he should sorrow o'er my state
And marvel what possess'd my brain;
 
And I perceived no touch of change,
   No hint of death in all his frame,
   But found him all in all the same,
I should not feel it to be strange.
 
XV
To-night the winds begin to rise
   And roar from yonder dropping day:
   The last red leaf is whirl'd away,
The rooks are blown about the skies;
 
The forest crack'd, the waters curl'd,
   The cattle huddled on the lea;
   And wildly dash'd on tower and tree
The sunbeam strikes along the world:
 
And but for fancies, which aver
   That all thy motions gently pass
   Athwart a plane of molten glass,
I scarce could brook the strain and stir
 
That makes the barren branches loud;
   And but for fear it is not so,
   The wild unrest that lives in woe
Would dote and pore on yonder cloud
 
That rises upward always higher,
   And onward drags a labouring breast,
   And topples round the dreary west,
A looming bastion fringed with fire.
 
XVI
What words are these have falle'n from me?
   Can calm despair and wild unrest
   Be tenants of a single breast,
Or sorrow such a changeling be?
 
Or cloth she only seem to take
   The touch of change in calm or storm;
   But knows no more of transient form
In her deep self, than some dead lake
 
That holds the shadow of a lark
   Hung in the shadow of a heaven?
   Or has the shock, so harshly given,
Confused me like the unhappy bark
 
That strikes by night a craggy shelf,
   And staggers blindly ere she sink?
   And stunn'd me from my power to think
And all my knowledge of myself;
 
And made me that delirious man
   Whose fancy fuses old and new,
   And flashes into false and true,
And mingles all without a plan?
 
XVII
Thou comest, much wept for: such a breeze
   Compell'd thy canvas, and my prayer
   Was as the whisper of an air
To breathe thee over lonely seas.
 
For I in spirit saw thee move
   Thro' circles of the bounding sky,
   Week after week: the days go by:
Come quick, thou bringest all I love.
 
Henceforth, wherever thou may'st roam,
   My blessing, like a line of light,
   Is on the waters day and night,
And like a beacon guards thee home.
 
So may whatever tempest mars
   Mid-ocean, spare thee, sacred bark;
   And balmy drops in summer dark
Slide from the bosom of the stars.
 
So kind an office hath been done,
   Such precious relics brought by thee;
   The dust of him I shall not see
Till all my widow'd race be run.
 
XVIII
'Tis well; 'tis something; we may stand
   Where he in English earth is laid,
   And from his ashes may be made
The violet of his native land.
 
'Tis little; but it looks in truth
   As if the quiet bones were blest
   Among familiar names to rest
And in the places of his youth.
 
Come then, pure hands, and bear the head
   That sleeps or wears the mask of sleep,
   And come, whatever loves to weep,
And hear the ritual of the dead.
 
Ah yet, ev'n yet, if this might be,
   I, falling on his faithful heart,
   Would breathing thro' his lips impart
The life that almost dies in me;
 
That dies not, but endures with pain,
   And slowly forms the firmer mind,
   Treasuring the look it cannot find,
The words that are not heard again.
 
XIX
The Danube to the Severn gave
   The darken'd heart that beat no more;
   They laid him by the pleasant shore,
And in the hearing of the wave.
 
There twice a day the Severn fills;
   The salt sea-water passes by,
   And hushes half the babbling Wye,
And makes a silence in the hills.
 
The Wye is hush'd nor moved along,
   And hush'd my deepest grief of all,
   When fill'd with tears that cannot fall,
I brim with sorrow drowning song.
 
The tide flows down, the wave again
   Is vocal in its wooded walls;
   My deeper anguish also falls,
And I can speak a little then.
 
XX
The lesser griefs that may be said,
   That breathe a thousand tender vows,
   Are but as servants in a house
Where lies the master newly dead;
 
Who speak their feeling as it is,
   And weep the fulness from the mind:
   `It will be hard,' they say, `to find
Another service such as this.'
 
My lighter moods are like to these,
   That out of words a comfort win;
   But there are other griefs within,
And tears that at their fountain freeze;
 
For by the hearth the children sit
   Cold in that atmosphere of Death,
   And scarce endure to draw the breath,
Or like to noiseless phantoms flit;
 
But open converse is there none,
   So much the vital spirits sink
   To see the vacant chair, and think,
'How good! how kind! and he is gone.'
 
XXI
I sing to him that rests below,
   And, since the grasses round me wave,
   I take the grasses of the grave,
And make them pipes whereon to blow.
 
The traveller hears me now and then,
   And sometimes harshly will he speak:
   `This fellow would make weakness weak,
And melt the waxen hearts of men.'
 
Another answers, `Let him be,
   He loves to make parade of pain
   That with his piping he may gain
The praise that comes to constancy.'
 
A third is wroth: `Is this an hour
   For private sorrow's barren song,
   When more and more the people throng
The chairs and thrones of civil power?
 
'A time to sicken and to swoon,
   When Science reaches forth her arms
   To feel from world to world, and charms
Her secret from the latest moon?'
 
Behold, ye speak an idle thing:
   Ye never knew the sacred dust:
   I do but sing because I must,
And pipe but as the linnets sing:
 
And one is glad; her note is gay,
   For now her little ones have ranged;
   And one is sad; her note is changed,
Because her brood is stol'n away.
 
XXII
The path by which we twain did go,
   Which led by tracts that pleased us well,
   Thro' four sweet years arose and fell,
From flower to flower, from snow to snow:
 
And we with singing cheer'd the way,
   And, crown'd with all the season lent,
   From April on to April went,
And glad at heart from May to May:
 
But where the path we walk'd began
   To slant the fifth autumnal slope,
   As we descended following Hope,
There sat the Shadow fear'd of man;
 
Who broke our fair companionship,
   And spread his mantle dark and cold,
   And wrapt thee formless in the fold,
And dull'd the murmur on thy lip,
 
And bore thee where I could not see
   Nor follow, tho' I walk in haste,
   And think, that somewhere in the waste
The Shadow sits and waits for me.
 
XXIII
Now, sometimes in my sorrow shut,
   Or breaking into song by fits,
   Alone, alone, to where he sits,
The Shadow cloak'd from head to foot,
 
Who keeps the keys of all the creeds,
   I wander, often falling lame,
   And looking back to whence I came,
Or on to where the pathway leads;
 
And crying, How changed from where it ran
   Thro' lands where not a leaf was dumb;
   But all the lavish hills would hum
The murmur of a happy Pan:
 
When each by turns was guide to each,
   And Fancy light from Fancy caught,
   And Thought leapt out to wed with Thought
Ere Thought could wed itself with Speech;
 
And all we met was fair and good,
   And all was good that Time could bring,
   And all the secret of the Spring
Moved in the chambers of the blood;
 
And many an old philosophy
   On Argive heights divinely sang,
   And round us all the thicket rang
To many a flute of Arcady.
 
XXIV
And was the day of my delight
   As pure and perfect as I say?
   The very source and fount of Day
Is dash'd with wandering isles of night.
 
If all was good and fair we met,
   This earth had been the Paradise
   It never look'd to human eyes
Since our first Sun arose and set.
 
And is it that the haze of grief
   Makes former gladness loom so great?
   The lowness of the present state,
That sets the past in this relief?
 
Or that the past will always win
   A glory from its being far;
   And orb into the perfect star
We saw not, when we moved therein?
 
XXV
I know that this was Life,—the track
   Whereon with equal feet we fared;
   And then, as now, the day prepared
The daily burden for the back.
 
But this it was that made me move
   As light as carrier-birds in air;
   I loved the weight I had to bear,
Because it needed help of Love:
 
Nor could I weary, heart or limb,
   When mighty Love would cleave in twain
   The lading of a single pain,
And part it, giving half to him.
 
XXVI
Still onward winds the dreary way;
   I with it; for I long to prove
   No lapse of moons can canker Love,
Whatever fickle tongues may say.
 
And if that eye which watches guilt
   And goodness, and hath power to see
   Within the green the moulder'd tree,
And towers fall'n as soon as built—
 
Oh, if indeed that eye foresee
   Or see (in Him is no before)
   In more of life true life no more
And Love the indifference to be,
 
Then might I find, ere yet the morn
   Breaks hither over Indian seas,
   That Shadow waiting with the keys,
To shroud me from my proper scorn.
 
XXVII
I envy not in any moods
   The captive void of noble rage,
   The linnet born within the cage,
That never knew the summer woods:
 
I envy not the beast that takes
   His license in the field of time,
   Unfetter'd by the sense of crime,
To whom a conscience never wakes;
 
Nor, what may count itself as blest,
   The heart that never plighted troth
   But stagnates in the weeds of sloth;
Nor any want-begotten rest.
 
I hold it true, whate'er befall;
   I feel it, when I sorrow most;
   'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
Written by Alfred Lord Tennyson | Create an image from this poem

In Memoriam 16: I envy not in any moods

 I envy not in any moods
The captive void of noble rage,
The linnet born within the cage,
That never knew the summer woods:

I envy not the beast that takes
His license in the field of time,
Unfetter'd by the sense of crime,
To whom a conscience never wakes;

Nor, what may count itself as blest,
The heart that never plighted troth
But stagnates in the weeds of sloth;
Nor any want-begotten rest.

I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.


Written by Charles Baudelaire | Create an image from this poem

The Flask

 THERE are some powerful odours that can pass 
Out of the stoppard flagon; even glass 
To them is porous. Oft when some old box 
Brought from the East is opened and the locks 
And hinges creak and cry; or in a press 
In some deserted house, where the sharp stress 
Of odours old and dusty fills the brain; 
An ancient flask is brought to light again, 
And forth the ghosts of long-dead odours creep. 
There, softly trembling in the shadows, sleep 
A thousand thoughts, funereal chrysalides, 
Phantoms of old the folding darkness hides, 
Who make faint flutterings as their wings unfold, 
Rose-washed and azure-tinted, shot with gold. 

A memory that brings languor flutters here: 
The fainting eyelids droop, and giddy Fear 
Thrusts with both hands the soul towards the pit 
Where, like a Lazarus from his winding-sheet, 
Arises from the gulf of sleep a ghost 
Of an old passion, long since loved and lost. 

So I, when vanished from man's memory 
Deep in some dark and sombre chest I lie, 
An empty flagon they have cast aside, 
Broken and soiled, the dust upon my pride, 
Will be your shroud, beloved pestilence! 
The witness of your might and virulence, 
Sweet poison mixed by angels; bitter cup 
Of life and death my heart has drunken up!
Written by Charles Baudelaire | Create an image from this poem

The Flask

 THERE are some powerful odours that can pass 
Out of the stoppard flagon; even glass 
To them is porous. Oft when some old box 
Brought from the East is opened and the locks 
And hinges creak and cry; or in a press 
In some deserted house, where the sharp stress 
Of odours old and dusty fills the brain; 
An ancient flask is brought to light again, 
And forth the ghosts of long-dead odours creep. 
There, softly trembling in the shadows, sleep 
A thousand thoughts, funereal chrysalides, 
Phantoms of old the folding darkness hides, 
Who make faint flutterings as their wings unfold, 
Rose-washed and azure-tinted, shot with gold. 

A memory that brings languor flutters here: 
The fainting eyelids droop, and giddy Fear 
Thrusts with both hands the soul towards the pit 
Where, like a Lazarus from his winding-sheet, 
Arises from the gulf of sleep a ghost 
Of an old passion, long since loved and lost. 

So I, when vanished from man's memory 
Deep in some dark and sombre chest I lie, 
An empty flagon they have cast aside, 
Broken and soiled, the dust upon my pride, 
Will be your shroud, beloved pestilence! 
The witness of your might and virulence, 
Sweet poison mixed by angels; bitter cup 
Of life and death my heart has drunken up!
Written by Emily Dickinson | Create an image from this poem

If those I loved were lost

 If those I loved were lost
The Crier's voice would tell me --
If those I loved were found
The bells of Ghent would ring --

Did those I loved repose
The Daisy would impel me.
Philip -- when bewildered
Bore his riddle in!
Written by Friedrich von Schiller | Create an image from this poem

The Complaint Of Ceres

 Does pleasant spring return once more?
Does earth her happy youth regain?
Sweet suns green hills are shining o'er;
Soft brooklets burst their icy chain:
Upon the blue translucent river
Laughs down an all-unclouded day,
The winged west winds gently quiver,
The buds are bursting from the spray;
While birds are blithe on every tree;
The Oread from the mountain-shore
Sighs, "Lo! thy flowers come back to thee--
Thy child, sad mother, comes no more!"

Alas! how long an age it seems
Since all the earth I wandered over,
And vainly, Titan, tasked thy beams
The loved--the lost one--to discover!
Though all may seek--yet none can call
Her tender presence back to me
The sun, with eyes detecting all,
Is blind one vanished form to see.
Hast thou, O Zeus! hast thou away
From these sad arms my daughter torn?
Has Pluto, from the realms of day,
Enamored--to dark rivers borne?

Who to the dismal phantom-strand
The herald of my grief will venture?
The boat forever leaves the land,
But only shadows there may enter.--
Veiled from each holier eye repose
The realms where midnight wraps the dead,
And, while the Stygian river flows,
No living footstep there may tread!
A thousand pathways wind the drear
Descent;--none upward lead to-day;--
No witness to the mother's ear
The daughter's sorrows can betray.

Mothers of happy human clay
Can share at least their children's doom;
And when the loved ones pass away,
Can track--can join them--in the tomb!
The race alone of heavenly birth
Are banished from the darksome portals;
The Fates have mercy on the earth,
And death is only kind to mortals! [30]
Oh, plunge me in the night of nights,
From heaven's ambrosial halls exiled!
Oh, let the goddess lose the rights
That shut the mother from the child!

Where sits the dark king's joyless bride,
Where midst the dead her home is made;
Oh that my noiseless steps might glide,
Amidst the shades, myself a shade!
I see her eyes, that search through tears,
In vain the golden light to greet;
That yearn for yonder distant spheres,
That pine the mother's face to meet!
Till some bright moment shall renew
The severed hearts' familiar ties;
And softened pity steal in dew,
From Pluto's slow-relenting eyes!

Ah, vain the wish, the sorrows are!
Calm in the changeless paths above
Rolls on the day-god's golden car--
Fast are the fixed decrees of Jove!
Far from the ever-gloomy plain,
He turns his blissful looks away.
Alas! night never gives again
What once it seizes as its prey!
Till over Lethe's sullen swell,
Aurora's rosy hues shall glow;
And arching through the midmost hell
Shine forth the lovely Iris-bow!

And is there naught of her; no token--
No pledge from that beloved hand?
To tell how love remains unbroken,
How far soever be the land?
Has love no link, no lightest thread,
The mother to the child to bind?
Between the living and the dead,
Can hope no holy compact find?
No! every bond is not yet riven;
We are not yet divided wholly;
To us the eternal powers have given
A symbol language, sweet and holy.

When Spring's fair children pass away,
When, in the north wind's icy air,
The leaf and flower alike decay,
And leave the rivelled branches bare,
Then from Vertumnus' lavish horn
I take life's seeds to strew below--
And bid the gold that germs the corn
An offering to the Styx to go!
Sad in the earth the seeds I lay--
Laid at thy heart, my child--to be
The mournful tokens which convey
My sorrow and my love to thee!

But, when the hours, in measured dance,
The happy smile of spring restore,
Rife in the sun-god's golden glance
The buried dead revive once more!
The germs that perished to thine eyes,
Within the cold breast of the earth,
Spring up to bloom in gentler skies,
The brighter for the second birth!
The stem its blossom rears above--
Its roots in night's dark womb repose--
The plant but by the equal love
Of light and darkness fostered--grows!

If half with death the germs may sleep,
Yet half with life they share the beams;
My heralds from the dreary deep,
Soft voices from the solemn streams,--
Like her, so them, awhile entombs,
Stern Orcus, in his dismal reign,
Yet spring sends forth their tender blooms
With such sweet messages again,
To tell,--how far from light above,
Where only mournful shadows meet,
Memory is still alive to love,
And still the faithful heart can beat!

Joy to ye children of the field!
Whose life each coming year renews,
To your sweet cups the heaven shall yield
The purest of its nectar-dews!
Steeped in the light's resplendent streams,
The hues that streak the Iris-bow
Shall trim your blooms as with the beams
The looks of young Aurora know.
The budding life of happy spring,
The yellow autumn's faded leaf,
Alike to gentle hearts shall bring
The symbols of my joy and grief.
Written by Adela Florence Cory Nicolson | Create an image from this poem

Unforgotten

   Do you ever think of me? you who died
       Ere our Youth's first fervour chilled,
   With your soft eyes and your pulses stilled
       Lying alone, aside,
   Do you ever think of me, left in the light,
   From the endless calm of your dawnless night?

   I am faithful always: I do not say
       That the lips which thrilled to your lips of old
   To lesser kisses are always cold;
       Had you wished for this in its narrow sense
       Our love perhaps had been less intense;
   But as we held faithfulness, you and I,
       I am faithful always, as you who lie,
       Asleep for ever, beneath the grass,
       While the days and nights and the seasons pass,—
           Pass away.

   I keep your memory near my heart,
       My brilliant, beautiful guiding Star,
   Till long live over, I too depart
       To the infinite night where perhaps you are.

   Oh, are you anywhere?  Loved so well!
   I would rather know you alive in Hell
   Than think your beauty is nothing now,
   With its deep dark eyes and tranquil brow
   Where the hair fell softly.  Can this be true
   That nothing, nowhere, exists of you?
   Nothing, nowhere, oh, loved so well
       I have never forgotten.
                        Do you still keep
   Thoughts of me through your dreamless sleep?

   Oh, gone from me! lost in Eternal Night,
       Lost Star of light,
   Risen splendidly, set so soon,
       Through the weariness of life's afternoon
             I dream of your memory yet.
   My loved and lost, whom I could not save,
   My youth went down with you to the grave,
   Though other planets and stars may rise,
   I dream of your soft and sorrowful eyes
           And I cannot forget.

Book: Reflection on the Important Things