Written by
Robert Browning |
A PICTURE AT FANO.
I.
Dear and great Angel, wouldst thou only leave
That child, when thou hast done with him, for me!
Let me sit all the day here, that when eve
Shall find performed thy special ministry,
And time come for departure, thou, suspending
Thy flight, mayst see another child for tending,
Another still, to quiet and retrieve.
II.
Then I shall feel thee step one step, no more,
From where thou standest now, to where I gaze,
---And suddenly my head is covered o'er
With those wings, white above the child who prays
Now on that tomb---and I shall feel thee guarding
Me, out of all the world; for me, discarding
Yon heaven thy home, that waits and opes its door.
III.
I would not look up thither past thy head
Because the door opes, like that child, I know,
For I should have thy gracious face instead,
Thou bird of God! And wilt thou bend me low
Like him, and lay, like his, my hands together,
And lift them up to pray, and gently tether
Me, as thy lamb there, with thy garment's spread?
IV.
If this was ever granted, I would rest
My bead beneath thine, while thy healing hands
Close-covered both my eyes beside thy breast,
Pressing the brain, which too much thought expands,
Back to its proper size again, and smoothing
Distortion down till every nerve had soothing,
And all lay quiet, happy and suppressed.
V.
How soon all worldly wrong would be repaired!
I think how I should view the earth and skies
And sea, when once again my brow was bared
After thy healing, with such different eyes.
O world, as God has made it! All is beauty:
And knowing this, is love, and love is duty.
What further may be sought for or declared?
VI.
Guercino drew this angel I saw teach
(Alfred, dear friend!)---that little child to pray,
Holding the little hands up, each to each
Pressed gently,---with his own head turned away
Over the earth where so much lay before him
Of work to do, though heaven was opening o'er him,
And he was left at Fano by the beach.
VII.
We were at Fano, and three times we went
To sit and see him in his chapel there,
And drink his beauty to our soul's content
---My angel with me too: and since I care
For dear Guercino's fame (to which in power
And glory comes this picture for a dower,
Fraught with a pathos so magnificent)---
VIII.
And since he did not work thus earnestly
At all times, and has else endured some wrong---
I took one thought his picture struck from me,
And spread it out, translating it to song.
My love is here.
Where are you, dear old friend?
How rolls the Wairoa at your world's far end?
This is Ancona, yonder is the sea.
|
Written by
Anne Bronte |
She's gone -- and twice the summer's sun
Has gilt Regina's towers,
And melted wild Angora's snows,
And warmed Exina's bowers.
The flowerets twice on hill and dale
Have bloomed and died away,
And twice the rustling forest leaves
Have fallen to decay,
And thrice stern winter's icy hand
Has checked the river's flow,
And three times o'er the mountains thrown
His spotless robe of snow.
Two summers springs and autumns sad
Three winters cold and grey --
And is it then so long ago
That wild November day!
They say such tears as children weep
Will soon be dried away,
That childish grief however strong
Is only for a day,
And parted friends how dear soe'er
Will soon forgotten be;
It may be so with other hearts,
It is not thus with me.
My mother, thou wilt weep no more
For thou art gone above,
But can I ever cease to mourn
Thy good and fervent love?
While that was mine the world to me
Was sunshine bright and fair;
No feeling rose within my heart
But thou couldst read it there.
And thou couldst feel for all my joys
And all my childish cares
And never weary of my play
Or scorn my foolish fears.
Beneath thy sweet maternal smile
All pain and sorrow fled,
And even the very tears were sweet
Upon thy bosom shed.
Thy loss can never be repaired;
I shall not know again
While life remains, the peaceful joy
That filled my spirit then.
Where shall I find a heart like thine
While life remains to me,
And where shall I bestow the love
I ever bore for thee?
|
Written by
John Gould Fletcher |
I
Like a gaunt, scraggly pine
Which lifts its head above the mournful sandhills;
And patiently, through dull years of bitter silence,
Untended and uncared for, starts to grow.
Ungainly, labouring, huge,
The wind of the north has twisted and gnarled its branches;
Yet in the heat of midsummer days, when thunderclouds ring the horizon,
A nation of men shall rest beneath its shade.
And it shall protect them all,
Hold everyone safe there, watching aloof in silence;
Until at last one mad stray bolt from the zenith
Shall strike it in an instant down to earth.
II
There was a darkness in this man; an immense and hollow darkness,
Of which we may not speak, nor share with him, nor enter;
A darkness through which strong roots stretched downwards into the earth
Towards old things:
Towards the herdman-kings who walked the earth and spoke with God,
Towards the wanderers who sought for they knew not what, and found their goal
at last;
Towards the men who waited, only waited patiently when all seemed lost,
Many bitter winters of defeat;
Down to the granite of patience
These roots swept, knotted fibrous roots, prying, piercing, seeking,
And drew from the living rock and the living waters about it
The red sap to carry upwards to the sun.
Not proud, but humble,
Only to serve and pass on, to endure to the end through service;
For the ax is laid at the roots of the trees, and all that bring not forth
good fruit
Shall be cut down on the day to come and cast into the fire.
III
There is a silence abroad in the land to-day,
And in the hearts of men, a deep and anxious silence;
And, because we are still at last, those bronze lips slowly open,
Those hollow and weary eyes take on a gleam of light.
Slowly a patient, firm-syllabled voice cuts through the endless silence
Like labouring oxen that drag a plow through the chaos of rude clay-fields:
"I went forward as the light goes forward in early spring,
But there were also many things which I left behind.
"Tombs that were quiet;
One, of a mother, whose brief light went out in the darkness,
One, of a loved one, the snow on whose grave is long falling,
One, only of a child, but it was mine.
"Have you forgot your graves? Go, question them in anguish,
Listen long to their unstirred lips.
From your hostages to silence,
Learn there is no life without death, no dawn without sun-setting,
No victory but to him who has given all.
"
IV
The clamour of cannon dies down, the furnace-mouth of the battle is silent.
The midwinter sun dips and descends, the earth takes on afresh
its bright colours.
But he whom we mocked and obeyed not, he whom we scorned and mistrusted,
He has descended, like a god, to his rest.
Over the uproar of cities,
Over the million intricate threads of life wavering and crossing,
In the midst of problems we know not, tangling, perplexing, ensnaring,
Rises one white tomb alone.
Beam over it, stars,
Wrap it round, stripes -- stripes red for the pain that he bore for you --
Enfold it forever, O flag, rent, soiled, but repaired through your anguish;
Long as you keep him there safe, the nations shall bow to your law.
Strew over him flowers:
Blue forget-me-nots from the north, and the bright pink arbutus
From the east, and from the west rich orange blossom,
And from the heart of the land take the passion-flower;
Rayed, violet, dim,
With the nails that pierced, the cross that he bore and the circlet,
And beside it there lay also one lonely snow-white magnolia,
Bitter for remembrance of the healing which has passed.
|
Written by
Thomas Carew |
We read of kings and gods that kindly took
A pitcher fill'd with water from the brook ;
But I have daily tender'd without thanks
Rivers of tears that overflow their banks.
A slaughter'd bull will appease angry Jove,
A horse the Sun, a lamb the god of love,
But she disdains the spotless sacrifice
Of a pure heart, that at her altar lies.
Vesta is not displeased, if her chaste urn
Do with repaired fuel ever burn ;
But my saint frowns, though to her honour'd name
I consecrate a never-dying flame.
Th' Assyrian king did none i' th' furnace throw
But those that to his image did not bow ;
With bended knees I daily worship her,
Yet she consumes her own idolater.
Of such a goddess no times leave record,
That burnt the temple where she was adored.
|
Written by
Emily Dickinson |
The Snow that never drifts --
The transient, fragrant snow
That comes a single time a Year
Is softly driving now --
So thorough in the Tree
At night beneath the star
That it was February's Foot
Experience would swear --
Like Winter as a Face
We stern and former knew
Repaired of all but Loneliness
By Nature's Alibit --
Were every storm so spice
The Value could not be --
We buy with contrast -- Pang is good
As near as memory --
|
Written by
W S Merwin |
This is a place on the way after the distances
can no longer be kept straight here in this dark corner
of the barn a mound of wheels has convened along
raveling courses to stop in a single moment
and lie down as still as the chariots of the Pharaohs
some in pairs that rolled as one over the same roads
to the end and never touched each other until they
arrived here some that broke by themselves and were left
until they could be repaired some that went only
to occasions before my time and some that have spun
across other countries through uncounted summers
now they go all the way back together the tall
cobweb-hung models of galaxies in their rings
of rust leaning against the stone hail from Rene's
manure cart the year he wanted to store them here
because there was nobody left who could make them like that
in case he should need them and there are the carriage wheels
that Merot said would be worth a lot some day
and the rim of the spare from bald Bleret's green Samson
that rose like Borobudur out of the high grass
behind the old house by the river where he stuffed
mattresses in the morning sunlight and the hens
scavenged around his shoes in the days when the black
top-hat sedan still towered outside Sandeau's cow barn
with velvet upholstery and sconces for flowers and room
for two calves instead of the back seat when their time came
|
Written by
Emily Dickinson |
All but Death, can be Adjusted --
Dynasties repaired --
Systems -- settled in their Sockets --
Citadels -- dissolved --
Wastes of Lives -- resown with Colors
By Succeeding Springs --
Death -- unto itself -- Exception --
Is exempt from Change --
|
Written by
Katherine Philips |
If I could ever write a lasting verse,
It should be laid, deare Sainte, upon thy herse.
But Sorrow is no muse, and doth confesse
That it least can what most it would expresse.
Yet, that I may some bounds to griefe allow,
I'le try if I can weepe in numbers now.
Ah beauteous blossom! too untimely dead!
Whither, ah whither is thy sweetness fled?
Where are the charmes that allwayes did arise
From the prevailing languadge [sic] of thine eyes?
Where is thy modest aire and lovely meen,
And all the wonders that in these were seen?
Alas! in vaine! In vaine on three I rave;
There is no pitty in the stupid grave .
.
.
Never, ah never let glad parents guesse
At one remove of future happinesse,
But reckon children 'mong those passing joys,
Which one hour gives, and the next hour destroyes.
Alas! we were secure of our content,
But find too late that it was onely lent,
To be a mirrour wherein we might see
How fraile we are, how innocent should be.
But if to thy blest soule my griefe appeares,
Forgive and pitty these injurious teares;
Impute them to affection's sad excesse,
Which will not yeild to nature's tendernesse,
Since 'twas through dearest tyes and highest trust
Continu'd from thy cradle to thy dust;
And so rewarded and confirm'd by thine,
(wo is me!) I thought thee too much mine.
But I'le resigne, and follow thee as fast
As my unhappy minutes will make hast.
Till when, the fresh remembrances of thee
Shall be my emblem of mortalitie.
For such a loss as thine, bright soule, is not
Ever to be repaired, or forgot.
|
Written by
Paul Laurence Dunbar |
Prometheus stole from Heaven the sacred fire
And swept to earth with it o'er land and sea.
He lit the vestal flames of poesy,
Content, for this, to brave celestial ire.
Wroth were the gods, and with eternal hate
Pursued the fearless one who ravished Heaven
That earth might hold in fee the perfect leaven
To lift men's souls above their low estate.
But judge you now, when poets wield the pen,
Think you not well the wrong has been repaired?
'Twas all in vain that ill Prometheus fared:
The fire has been returned to Heaven again!
We have no singers like the ones whose note
Gave challenge to the noblest warbler's song.
We have no voice so mellow, sweet, and strong
As that which broke from Shelley's golden throat.
The measure of our songs is our desires:
We tinkle where old poets used to storm.
We lack their substance tho' we keep their form:
We strum our banjo-strings and call them lyres.
|
Written by
Omar Khayyam |
Once in the tavern, one can make his ablutions only
with wine. There, when a name is soiled, it cannot be
restored. Bring, then, some wine, since the veil of our
shame is torn in such a manner that it cannot be repaired.
|