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Best Famous Pass By Poems

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Written by Tupac Shakur | Create an image from this poem

I Cry

Sometimes when I'm alone
I Cry,
Cause I am on my own.
The tears I cry are bitter and warm.
They flow with life but take no form
I Cry because my heart is torn.
I find it difficult to carry on.
If I had an ear to confide in,
I would cry among my treasured friend,
but who do you know that stops that long,
to help another carry on.
The world moves fast and it would rather pass by.
Then to stop and see what makes one cry,
so painful and sad.
And sometimes...
I Cry
and no one cares about why. 


Written by Charlotte Bronte | Create an image from this poem

Mementos

 ARRANGING long-locked drawers and shelves 
Of cabinets, shut up for years, 
What a strange task we've set ourselves ! 
How still the lonely room appears ! 
How strange this mass of ancient treasures, 
Mementos of past pains and pleasures; 
These volumes, clasped with costly stone, 
With print all faded, gilding gone; 

These fans of leaves, from Indian trees­ 
These crimson shells, from Indian seas­ 
These tiny portraits, set in rings­ 
Once, doubtless, deemed such precious things; 
Keepsakes bestowed by Love on Faith, 
And worn till the receiver's death, 
Now stored with cameos, china, shells, 
In this old closet's dusty cells. 

I scarcely think, for ten long years, 
A hand has touched these relics old; 
And, coating each, slow-formed, appears, 
The growth of green and antique mould. 

All in this house is mossing over; 
All is unused, and dim, and damp; 
Nor light, nor warmth, the rooms discover­ 
Bereft for years of fire and lamp. 

The sun, sometimes in summer, enters 
The casements, with reviving ray; 
But the long rains of many winters 
Moulder the very walls away. 

And outside all is ivy, clinging 
To chimney, lattice, gable grey; 
Scarcely one little red rose springing 
Through the green moss can force its way. 

Unscared, the daw, and starling nestle, 
Where the tall turret rises high, 
And winds alone come near to rustle 
The thick leaves where their cradles lie. 

I sometimes think, when late at even 
I climb the stair reluctantly, 
Some shape that should be well in heaven, 
Or ill elsewhere, will pass by me. 

I fear to see the very faces, 
Familiar thirty years ago, 
Even in the old accustomed places 
Which look so cold and gloomy now. 

I've come, to close the window, hither, 
At twilight, when the sun was down, 
And Fear, my very soul would wither, 
Lest something should be dimly shown. 

Too much the buried form resembling, 
Of her who once was mistress here; 
Lest doubtful shade, or moonbeam trembling, 
Might take her aspect, once so dear. 

Hers was this chamber; in her time 
It seemed to me a pleasant room, 
For then no cloud of grief or crime 
Had cursed it with a settled gloom; 

I had not seen death's image laid 
In shroud and sheet, on yonder bed. 
Before she married, she was blest­ 
Blest in her youth, blest in her worth; 
Her mind was calm, its sunny rest 
Shone in her eyes more clear than mirth. 

And when attired in rich array, 
Light, lustrous hair about her brow, 
She yonder sat­a kind of day 
Lit up­what seems so gloomy now. 
These grim oak walls, even then were grim; 
That old carved chair, was then antique; 
But what around looked dusk and dim 
Served as a foil to her fresh cheek; 
Her neck, and arms, of hue so fair, 
Eyes of unclouded, smiling, light; 
Her soft, and curled, and floating hair, 
Gems and attire, as rainbow bright. 

Reclined in yonder deep recess, 
Ofttimes she would, at evening, lie 
Watching the sun; she seemed to bless 
With happy glance the glorious sky. 
She loved such scenes, and as she gazed, 
Her face evinced her spirit's mood; 
Beauty or grandeur ever raised 
In her, a deep-felt gratitude. 

But of all lovely things, she loved 
A cloudless moon, on summer night; 
Full oft have I impatience proved 
To see how long, her still delight 
Would find a theme in reverie. 
Out on the lawn, or where the trees 
Let in the lustre fitfully, 
As their boughs parted momently, 
To the soft, languid, summer breeze. 
Alas ! that she should e'er have flung 
Those pure, though lonely joys away­ 
Deceived by false and guileful tongue, 
She gave her hand, then suffered wrong; 
Oppressed, ill-used, she faded young, 
And died of grief by slow decay. 

Open that casket­look how bright 
Those jewels flash upon the sight; 
The brilliants have not lost a ray 
Of lustre, since her wedding day. 
But see­upon that pearly chain­ 
How dim lies time's discolouring stain ! 
I've seen that by her daughter worn: 
For, e'er she died, a child was born; 
A child that ne'er its mother knew, 
That lone, and almost friendless grew; 
For, ever, when its step drew nigh, 
Averted was the father's eye; 
And then, a life impure and wild 
Made him a stranger to his child; 
Absorbed in vice, he little cared 
On what she did, or how she fared. 
The love withheld, she never sought, 
She grew uncherished­learnt untaught; 
To her the inward life of thought 
Full soon was open laid. 
I know not if her friendlessness 
Did sometimes on her spirit press, 
But plaint she never made. 

The book-shelves were her darling treasure, 
She rarely seemed the time to measure 
While she could read alone. 
And she too loved the twilight wood, 
And often, in her mother's mood, 
Away to yonder hill would hie, 
Like her, to watch the setting sun, 
Or see the stars born, one by one, 
Out of the darkening sky. 
Nor would she leave that hill till night 
Trembled from pole to pole with light; 
Even then, upon her homeward way, 
Long­long her wandering steps delayed 
To quit the sombre forest shade, 
Through which her eerie pathway lay. 

You ask if she had beauty's grace ? 
I know not­but a nobler face 
My eyes have seldom seen; 
A keen and fine intelligence, 
And, better still, the truest sense 
Were in her speaking mien. 
But bloom or lustre was there none, 
Only at moments, fitful shone 
An ardour in her eye, 
That kindled on her cheek a flush, 
Warm as a red sky's passing blush 
And quick with energy. 
Her speech, too, was not common speech, 
No wish to shine, or aim to teach, 
Was in her words displayed: 
She still began with quiet sense, 
But oft the force of eloquence 
Came to her lips in aid; 
Language and voice unconscious changed, 
And thoughts, in other words arranged, 
Her fervid soul transfused 
Into the hearts of those who heard, 
And transient strength and ardour stirred, 
In minds to strength unused. 
Yet in gay crowd or festal glare, 
Grave and retiring was her air; 
'Twas seldom, save with me alone, 
That fire of feeling freely shone; 
She loved not awe's nor wonder's gaze, 
Nor even exaggerated praise, 
Nor even notice, if too keen 
The curious gazer searched her mien. 
Nature's own green expanse revealed 
The world, the pleasures, she could prize; 
On free hill-side, in sunny field, 
In quiet spots by woods concealed, 
Grew wild and fresh her chosen joys, 
Yet Nature's feelings deeply lay 
In that endowed and youthful frame; 
Shrined in her heart and hid from day, 
They burned unseen with silent flame; 
In youth's first search for mental light, 
She lived but to reflect and learn, 
But soon her mind's maturer might 
For stronger task did pant and yearn; 
And stronger task did fate assign, 
Task that a giant's strength might strain; 
To suffer long and ne'er repine, 
Be calm in frenzy, smile at pain. 

Pale with the secret war of feeling, 
Sustained with courage, mute, yet high; 
The wounds at which she bled, revealing 
Only by altered cheek and eye; 

She bore in silence­but when passion 
Surged in her soul with ceaseless foam, 
The storm at last brought desolation, 
And drove her exiled from her home. 

And silent still, she straight assembled 
The wrecks of strength her soul retained; 
For though the wasted body trembled, 
The unconquered mind, to quail, disdained. 

She crossed the sea­now lone she wanders 
By Seine's, or Rhine's, or Arno's flow; 
Fain would I know if distance renders 
Relief or comfort to her woe. 

Fain would I know if, henceforth, ever, 
These eyes shall read in hers again, 
That light of love which faded never, 
Though dimmed so long with secret pain. 

She will return, but cold and altered, 
Like all whose hopes too soon depart; 
Like all on whom have beat, unsheltered, 
The bitter blasts that blight the heart. 

No more shall I behold her lying 
Calm on a pillow, smoothed by me; 
No more that spirit, worn with sighing, 
Will know the rest of infancy. 

If still the paths of lore she follow, 
'Twill be with tired and goaded will; 
She'll only toil, the aching hollow, 
The joyless blank of life to fill. 

And oh ! full oft, quite spent and weary, 
Her hand will pause, her head decline; 
That labour seems so hard and dreary, 
On which no ray of hope may shine. 

Thus the pale blight of time and sorrow 
Will shade with grey her soft, dark hair 
Then comes the day that knows no morrow, 
And death succeeds to long despair. 

So speaks experience, sage and hoary; 
I see it plainly, know it well, 
Like one who, having read a story, 
Each incident therein can tell. 

Touch not that ring, 'twas his, the sire 
Of that forsaken child; 
And nought his relics can inspire 
Save memories, sin-defiled. 

I, who sat by his wife's death-bed, 
I, who his daughter loved, 
Could almost curse the guilty dead, 
For woes, the guiltless proved. 

And heaven did curse­they found him laid, 
When crime for wrath was rife, 
Cold­with the suicidal blade 
Clutched in his desperate gripe. 

'Twas near that long deserted hut, 
Which in the wood decays, 
Death's axe, self-wielded, struck his root, 
And lopped his desperate days. 

You know the spot, where three black trees, 
Lift up their branches fell, 
And moaning, ceaseless as the seas, 
Still seem, in every passing breeze, 
The deed of blood to tell. 

They named him mad, and laid his bones 
Where holier ashes lie; 
Yet doubt not that his spirit groans, 
In hell's eternity. 

But, lo ! night, closing o'er the earth, 
Infects our thoughts with gloom; 
Come, let us strive to rally mirth, 
Where glows a clear and tranquil hearth 
In some more cheerful room.
Written by William Wordsworth | Create an image from this poem

Composed Upon Westminster Bridge

 Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth like a garment wear
The beauty of the morning; silent , bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky,
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did the sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!
Written by Rabindranath Tagore | Create an image from this poem

The Boat

 I must launch out my boat. 
The languid hours pass by on the 
shore---Alas for me! 

The spring has done its flowering and taken leave. 
And now with the burden of faded futile flowers I wait and linger. 

The waves have become clamorous, and upon the bank in the shady lane 
the yellow leaves flutter and fall. 

What emptiness do you gaze upon! 
Do you not feel a thrill passing through the air 
with the notes of the far-away song 
floating from the other shore?
Written by George (Lord) Byron | Create an image from this poem

The Tear

 When Friendship or Love
Our sympathies move;
When Truth, in a glance, should appear,
The lips may beguile,
With a dimple or smile,
But the test of affection's a Tear:

Too oft is a smile
But the hypocrite's wile,
To mask detestation, or fear;
Give me the soft sigh,
Whilst the soultelling eye
Is dimm'd, for a time, with a Tear:

Mild Charity's glow,
To us mortals below,
Shows the soul from barbarity clear;
Compassion will melt,
Where this virtue is felt,
And its dew is diffused in a Tear:

The man, doom'd to sail
With the blast of the gale,
Through billows Atlantic to steer,
As he bends o'er the wave
Which may soon be his grave,
The green sparkles bright with a Tear;

The Soldier braves death
For a fanciful wreath
In Glory's romantic career;
But he raises the foe
When in battle laid low,
And bathes every wound with a Tear.

If, with high-bounding pride,
He return to his bride!
Renouncing the gore-crimson'd spear;
All his toils are repaid
When, embracing the maid,
From her eyelid he kisses the Tear.

Sweet scene of my youth!
Seat of Friendship and Truth,
Where Love chas'd each fast-fleeting year
Loth to leave thee, I mourn'd,
For a last look I turn'd,
But thy spire was scarce seen through a Tear:

Though my vows I can pour,
To my Mary no more,
My Mary, to Love once so dear,
In the shade of her bow'r,
I remember the hour,
She rewarded those vows with a Tear.

By another possest,
May she live ever blest!
Her name still my heart must revere:
With a sigh I resign,
What I once thought was mine,
And forgive her deceit with a Tear.

Ye friends of my heart,
Ere from you I depart,
This hope to my breast is most near:
If again we shall meet,
In this rural retreat,
May we meet, as we part, with a Tear.

When my soul wings her flight
To the regions of night,
And my corse shall recline on its bier;
As ye pass by the tomb,
Where my ashes consume,
Oh! moisten their dust with a Tear.


Written by Marge Piercy | Create an image from this poem

My Mothers Body

 1. 

The dark socket of the year 
the pit, the cave where the sun lies down 
and threatens never to rise, 
when despair descends softly as the snow 
covering all paths and choking roads: 

then hawkfaced pain seized you 
threw you so you fell with a sharp 
cry, a knife tearing a bolt of silk. 
My father heard the crash but paid 
no mind, napping after lunch 

yet fifteen hundred miles north 
I heard and dropped a dish. 
Your pain sunk talons in my skull 
and crouched there cawing, heavy 
as a great vessel filled with water, 

oil or blood, till suddenly next day 
the weight lifted and I knew your mind 
had guttered out like the Chanukah 
candles that burn so fast, weeping 
veils of wax down the chanukiya. 

Those candles were laid out, 
friends invited, ingredients bought 
for latkes and apple pancakes, 
that holiday for liberation 
and the winter solstice 

when tops turn like little planets. 
Shall you have all or nothing 
take half or pass by untouched? 
Nothing you got, Nun said the dreydl
as the room stopped spinning. 

The angel folded you up like laundry 
your body thin as an empty dress. 
Your clothes were curtains 
hanging on the window of what had 
been your flesh and now was glass. 

Outside in Florida shopping plazas 
loudspeakers blared Christmas carols 
and palm trees were decked with blinking 
lights. Except by the tourist 
hotels, the beaches were empty. 

Pelicans with pregnant pouches 
flapped overhead like pterodactyls. 
In my mind I felt you die. 
First the pain lifted and then 
you flickered and went out. 


2.

I walk through the rooms of memory. 
Sometimes everything is shrouded in dropcloths, 
every chair ghostly and muted. 

Other times memory lights up from within 
bustling scenes acted just the other side 
of a scrim through which surely I could reach 

my fingers tearing at the flimsy curtain 
of time which is and isn't and will be 
the stuff of which we're made and unmade. 

In sleep the other night I met you, seventeen 
your first nasty marriage just annulled, 
thin from your abortion, clutching a book 

against your cheek and trying to look 
older, trying to took middle class, 
trying for a job at Wanamaker's, 

dressing for parties in cast off 
stage costumes of your sisters. Your eyes 
were hazy with dreams. You did not 

notice me waving as you wandered 
past and I saw your slip was showing. 
You stood still while I fixed your clothes, 

as if I were your mother. Remember me 
combing your springy black hair, ringlets 
that seemed metallic, glittering; 

remember me dressing you, my seventy year 
old mother who was my last dollbaby, 
giving you too late what your youth had wanted. 


3.

What is this mask of skin we wear, 
what is this dress of flesh, 
this coat of few colors and little hair? 

This voluptuous seething heap of desires 
and fears, squeaking mice turned up 
in a steaming haystack with their babies? 

This coat has been handed down, an heirloom 
this coat of black hair and ample flesh,
this coat of pale slightly ruddy skin.

This set of hips and thighs, these buttocks 
they provided cushioning for my grandmother 
Hannah, for my mother Bert and for me 

and we all sat on them in turn, those major 
muscles on which we walk and walk and walk 
over the earth in search of peace and plenty. 

My mother is my mirror and I am hers. 
What do we see? Our face grown young again, 
our breasts grown firm, legs lean and elegant. 

Our arms quivering with fat, eyes 
set in the bark of wrinkles, hands puffy, 
our belly seamed with childbearing, 

Give me your dress that I might try it on. 
Oh it will not fit you mother, you are too fat. 
I will not fit you mother. 

I will not be the bride you can dress, 
the obedient dutiful daughter you would chew, 
a dog's leather bone to sharpen your teeth. 

You strike me sometimes just to hear the sound. 
Loneliness turns your fingers into hooks 
barbed and drawing blood with their caress. 

My twin, my sister, my lost love, 
I carry you in me like an embryo 
as once you carried me. 


4. 

What is it we turn from, what is it we fear? 
Did I truly think you could put me back inside? 
Did I think I would fall into you as into a molten 
furnace and be recast, that I would become you? 

What did you fear in me, the child who wore 
your hair, the woman who let that black hair 
grow long as a banner of darkness, when you
a proper flapper wore yours cropped?

You pushed and you pulled on my rubbery
flesh, you kneaded me like a ball of dough. 
Rise, rise, and then you pounded me flat. 
Secretly the bones formed in the bread.

I became willful, private as a cat. 
You never knew what alleys I had wandered. 
You called me bad and I posed like a gutter 
queen in a dress sewn of knives. 

All I feared was being stuck in a box 
with a lid. A good woman appeared to me 
indistinguishable from a dead one 
except that she worked all the time. 

Your payday never came. Your dreams ran 
with bright colors like Mexican cottons 
that bled onto the drab sheets of the day 
and would not bleach with scrubbing. 

My dear, what you said was one thing 
but what you sang was another, sweetly 
subversive and dark as blackberries 
and I became the daughter of your dream. 

This body is your body, ashes now 
and roses, but alive in my eyes, my breasts, 
my throat, my thighs. You run in me 
a tang of salt in the creek waters of my blood, 

you sing in my mind like wine. What you 
did not dare in your life you dare in mine.
Written by John Keats | Create an image from this poem

The Human Seasons

 Four Seasons fill the measure of the year;
 There are four seasons in the mind of man:
He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear
 Takes in all beauty with an easy span:
He has his Summer, when luxuriously
 Spring's honied cud of youthful thought he loves
To ruminate, and by such dreaming high
 Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves
His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings
 He furleth close; contented so to look
On mists in idleness--to let fair things
 Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook.
He has his Winter too of pale misfeature,
Or else he would forego his mortal nature.
Written by Rabindranath Tagore | Create an image from this poem

Clouds and Waves

 Mother, the folk who live up in the clouds call out to me-
"We play from the time we wake till the day ends.
We play with the golden dawn, we play with the silver moon."
I ask, "But how am I to get up to you ?"
They answer, "Come to the edge of the earth, lift up your
hands to the sky, and you will be taken up into the clouds."
"My mother is waiting for me at home, "I say, "How can I leave
her and come?"
Then they smile and float away.
But I know a nicer game than that, mother.
I shall be the cloud and you the moon.
I shall cover you with both my hands, and our house-top will
be the blue sky.
The folk who live in the waves call out to me-
"We sing from morning till night; on and on we travel and know
not where we pass."
I ask, "But how am I to join you?"
They tell me, "Come to the edge of the shore and stand with
your eyes tight shut, and you will be carried out upon the waves."
I say, "My mother always wants me at home in the everything-
how can I leave her and go?"
They smile, dance and pass by.
But I know a better game than that.
I will be the waves and you will be a strange shore.
I shall roll on and on and on, and break upon your lap with
laughter.
And no one in the world will know where we both are.
Written by Gabriela Mistral | Create an image from this poem

Pine Forest

 Let us go now into the forest.
Trees will pass by your face,
and I will stop and offer you to them,
but they cannot bend down.
The night watches over its creatures,
except for the pine trees that never change:
the old wounded springs that spring
blessed gum, eternal afternoons.
If they could, the trees would lift you
and carry you from valley to valley,
and you would pass from arm to arm,
a child running
from father to father.
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?

Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry