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Best Famous Sufferings Poems

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Written by Sarojini Naidu | Create an image from this poem

Life

 CHILDREN, ye have not lived, to you it seems 
Life is a lovely stalactite of dreams, 
Or carnival of careless joys that leap 
About your hearts like billows on the deep 
In flames of amber and of amethyst.
Children, ye have not lived, ye but exist Till some resistless hour shall rise and move Your hearts to wake and hunger after love, And thirst with passionate longing for the things That burn your brows with blood-red sufferings.
Till ye have battled with great grief and fears, And borne the conflict of dream-shattering years, Wounded with fierce desire and worn with strife, Children, ye have not lived: for this is life.


Written by William Cullen Bryant | Create an image from this poem

Hymn To Death

 Oh! could I hope the wise and pure in heart
Might hear my song without a frown, nor deem
My voice unworthy of the theme it tries,--
I would take up the hymn to Death, and say
To the grim power, The world hath slandered thee
And mocked thee.
On thy dim and shadowy brow They place an iron crown, and call thee king Of terrors, and the spoiler of the world, Deadly assassin, that strik'st down the fair, The loved, the good--that breath'st upon the lights Of virtue set along the vale of life, And they go out in darkness.
I am come, Not with reproaches, not with cries and prayers, Such as have stormed thy stern insensible ear From the beginning.
I am come to speak Thy praises.
True it is, that I have wept Thy conquests, and may weep them yet again: And thou from some I love wilt take a life Dear to me as my own.
Yet while the spell Is on my spirit, and I talk with thee In sight of all thy trophies, face to face, Meet is it that my voice should utter forth Thy nobler triumphs: I will teach the world To thank thee.
--Who are thine accusers?--Who? The living!--they who never felt thy power, And know thee not.
The curses of the wretch Whose crimes are ripe, his sufferings when thy hand Is on him, and the hour he dreads is come, Are writ among thy praises.
But the good-- Does he whom thy kind hand dismissed to peace, Upbraid the gentle violence that took off His fetters, and unbarred his prison cell? Raise then the Hymn to Death.
Deliverer! God hath anointed thee to free the oppressed And crush the oppressor.
When the armed chief, The conqueror of nations, walks the world, And it is changed beneath his feet, and all Its kingdoms melt into one mighty realm-- Thou, while his head is loftiest, and his heart Blasphemes, imagining his own right hand Almighty, sett'st upon him thy stern grasp, And the strong links of that tremendous chain That bound mankind are crumbled; thou dost break Sceptre and crown, and beat his throne to dust.
Then the earth shouts with gladness, and her tribes Gather within their ancient bounds again.
Else had the mighty of the olden time, Nimrod, Sesostris, or the youth who feigned His birth from Lybian Ammon, smote even now The nations with a rod of iron, and driven Their chariot o'er our necks.
Thou dost avenge, In thy good time, the wrongs of those who know No other friend.
Nor dost thou interpose Only to lay the sufferer asleep, Where he who made him wretched troubles not His rest--thou dost strike down his tyrant too.
Oh, there is joy when hands that held the scourge Drop lifeless, and the pitiless heart is cold.
Thou too dost purge from earth its horrible And old idolatries; from the proud fanes Each to his grave their priests go out, till none Is left to teach their worship; then the fires Of sacrifice are chilled, and the green moss O'ercreeps their altars; the fallen images Cumber the weedy courts, and for loud hymns, Chanted by kneeling crowds, the chiding winds Shriek in the solitary aisles.
When he Who gives his life to guilt, and laughs at all The laws that God or man has made, and round Hedges his seat with power, and shines in wealth,-- Lifts up his atheist front to scoff at Heaven, And celebrates his shame in open day, Thou, in the pride of all his crimes, cutt'st off The horrible example.
Touched by thine, The extortioner's hard hand foregoes the gold Wrong from the o'er-worn poor.
The perjurer, Whose tongue was lithe, e'en now, and voluble Against his neighbour's life, and he who laughed And leaped for joy to see a spotless fame Blasted before his own foul calumnies, Are smit with deadly silence.
He, who sold His conscience to preserve a worthless life, Even while he hugs himself on his escape, Trembles, as, doubly terrible, at length, Thy steps o'ertake him, and there is no time For parley--nor will bribes unclench thy grasp.
Oft, too, dost thou reform thy victim, long Ere his last hour.
And when the reveller, Mad in the chase of pleasure, stretches on, And strains each nerve, and clears the path of life Like wind, thou point'st him to the dreadful goal, And shak'st thy hour-glass in his reeling eye, And check'st him in mid course.
Thy skeleton hand Shows to the faint of spirit the right path, And he is warned, and fears to step aside.
Thou sett'st between the ruffian and his crime Thy ghastly countenance, and his slack hand Drops the drawn knife.
But, oh, most fearfully Dost thou show forth Heaven's justice, when thy shafts Drink up the ebbing spirit--then the hard Of heart and violent of hand restores The treasure to the friendless wretch he wronged.
Then from the writhing bosom thou dost pluck The guilty secret; lips, for ages sealed, Are faithless to the dreadful trust at length, And give it up; the felon's latest breath Absolves the innocent man who bears his crime; The slanderer, horror smitten, and in tears, Recalls the deadly obloquy he forged To work his brother's ruin.
Thou dost make Thy penitent victim utter to the air The dark conspiracy that strikes at life, And aims to whelm the laws; ere yet the hour Is come, and the dread sign of murder given.
Thus, from the first of time, hast thou been found On virtue's side; the wicked, but for thee, Had been too strong for the good; the great of earth Had crushed the weak for ever.
Schooled in guile For ages, while each passing year had brought Its baneful lesson, they had filled the world With their abominations; while its tribes, Trodden to earth, imbruted, and despoiled, Had knelt to them in worship; sacrifice Had smoked on many an altar, temple roofs Had echoed with the blasphemous prayer and hymn: But thou, the great reformer of the world, Tak'st off the sons of violence and fraud In their green pupilage, their lore half learned-- Ere guilt has quite o'errun the simple heart God gave them at their birth, and blotted out His image.
Thou dost mark them, flushed with hope, As on the threshold of their vast designs Doubtful and loose they stand, and strik'st them down.
Alas, I little thought that the stern power Whose fearful praise I sung, would try me thus Before the strain was ended.
It must cease-- For he is in his grave who taught my youth The art of verse, and in the bud of life Offered me to the muses.
Oh, cut off Untimely! when thy reason in its strength, Ripened by years of toil and studious search And watch of Nature's silent lessons, taught Thy hand to practise best the lenient art To which thou gavest thy laborious days.
And, last, thy life.
And, therefore, when the earth Received thee, tears were in unyielding eyes And on hard cheeks, and they who deemed thy skill Delayed their death-hour, shuddered and turned pale When thou wert gone.
This faltering verse, which thou Shalt not, as wont, o'erlook, is all I have To offer at thy grave--this--and the hope To copy thy example, and to leave A name of which the wretched shall not think As of an enemy's, whom they forgive As all forgive the dead.
Rest, therefore, thou Whose early guidance trained my infant steps-- Rest, in the bosom of God, till the brief sleep Of death is over, and a happier life Shall dawn to waken thine insensible dust.
Now thou art not--and yet the men whose guilt Has wearied Heaven for vengeance--he who bears False witness--he who takes the orphan's bread, And robs the widow--he who spreads abroad Polluted hands in mockery of prayer, Are left to cumber earth.
Shuddering I look On what is written, yet I blot not out The desultory numbers--let them stand.
The record of an idle revery.
Written by Charlotte Bronte | Create an image from this poem

The Missionary

 Lough, vessel, plough the British main,
Seek the free ocean's wider plain; 
Leave English scenes and English skies,
Unbind, dissever English ties; 
Bear me to climes remote and strange, 
Where altered life, fast-following change,
Hot action, never-ceasing toil, 
Shall stir, turn, dig, the spirit's soil; 
Fresh roots shall plant, fresh seed shall sow, 
Till a new garden there shall grow, 
Cleared of the weeds that fill it now,­ 
Mere human love, mere selfish yearning, 
Which, cherished, would arrest me yet.
I grasp the plough, there's no returning, Let me, then, struggle to forget.
But England's shores are yet in view, And England's skies of tender blue Are arched above her guardian sea.
I cannot yet Remembrance flee; I must again, then, firmly face That task of anguish, to retrace.
Wedded to home­I home forsake, Fearful of change­I changes make; Too fond of ease­I plunge in toil; Lover of calm­I seek turmoil: Nature and hostile Destiny Stir in my heart a conflict wild; And long and fierce the war will be Ere duty both has reconciled.
What other tie yet holds me fast To the divorced, abandoned past? Smouldering, on my heart's altar lies The fire of some great sacrifice, Not yet half quenched.
The sacred steel But lately struck my carnal will, My life-long hope, first joy and last, What I loved well, and clung to fast; What I wished wildly to retain, What I renounced with soul-felt pain; What­when I saw it, axe-struck, perish­ Left me no joy on earth to cherish; A man bereft­yet sternly now I do confirm that Jephtha vow: Shall I retract, or fear, or flee ? Did Christ, when rose the fatal tree Before him, on Mount Calvary ? 'Twas a long fight, hard fought, but won, And what I did was justly done.
Yet, Helen ! from thy love I turned, When my heart most for thy heart burned; I dared thy tears, I dared thy scorn­ Easier the death-pang had been borne.
Helen ! thou mightst not go with me, I could not­dared not stay for thee ! I heard, afar, in bonds complain The savage from beyond the main; And that wild sound rose o'er the cry Wrung out by passion's agony; And even when, with the bitterest tear I ever shed, mine eyes were dim, Still, with the spirit's vision clear, I saw Hell's empire, vast and grim, Spread on each Indian river's shore, Each realm of Asia covering o'er.
There the weak, trampled by the strong, Live but to suffer­hopeless die; There pagan-priests, whose creed is Wrong, Extortion, Lust, and Cruelty, Crush our lost race­and brimming fill The bitter cup of human ill; And I­who have the healing creed, The faith benign of Mary's Son; Shall I behold my brother's need And selfishly to aid him shun ? I­who upon my mother's knees, In childhood, read Christ's written word, Received his legacy of peace, His holy rule of action heard; I­in whose heart the sacred sense Of Jesus' love was early felt; Of his pure full benevolence, His pitying tenderness for guilt; His shepherd-care for wandering sheep, For all weak, sorrowing, trembling things, His mercy vast, his passion deep Of anguish for man's sufferings; I­schooled from childhood in such lore­ Dared I draw back or hesitate, When called to heal the sickness sore Of those far off and desolate ? Dark, in the realm and shades of Death, Nations and tribes and empires lie, But even to them the light of Faith Is breaking on their sombre sky: And be it mine to bid them raise Their drooped heads to the kindling scene, And know and hail the sunrise blaze Which heralds Christ the Nazarene.
I know how Hell the veil will spread Over their brows and filmy eyes, And earthward crush the lifted head That would look up and seek the skies; I know what war the fiend will wage Against that soldier of the cross, Who comes to dare his demon-rage, And work his kingdom shame and loss.
Yes, hard and terrible the toil Of him who steps on foreign soil, Resolved to plant the gospel vine, Where tyrants rule and slaves repine; Eager to lift Religion's light Where thickest shades of mental night Screen the false god and fiendish rite; Reckless that missionary blood, Shed in wild wilderness and wood, Has left, upon the unblest air, The man's deep moan­the martyr's prayer.
I know my lot­I only ask Power to fulfil the glorious task; Willing the spirit, may the flesh Strength for the day receive afresh.
May burning sun or deadly wind Prevail not o'er an earnest mind; May torments strange or direst death Nor trample truth, nor baffle faith.
Though such blood-drops should fall from me As fell in old Gethsemane, Welcome the anguish, so it gave More strength to work­more skill to save.
And, oh ! if brief must be my time, If hostile hand or fatal clime Cut short my course­still o'er my grave, Lord, may thy harvest whitening wave.
So I the culture may begin, Let others thrust the sickle in; If but the seed will faster grow, May my blood water what I sow ! What ! have I ever trembling stood, And feared to give to God that blood ? What ! has the coward love of life Made me shrink from the righteous strife ? Have human passions, human fears Severed me from those Pioneers, Whose task is to march first, and trace Paths for the progress of our race ? It has been so; but grant me, Lord, Now to stand steadfast by thy word ! Protected by salvation's helm, Shielded by faith­with truth begirt, To smile when trials seek to whelm And stand 'mid testing fires unhurt ! Hurling hell's strongest bulwarks down, Even when the last pang thrills my breast, When Death bestows the Martyr's crown, And calls me into Jesus' rest.
Then for my ultimate reward­ Then for the world-rejoicing word­ The voice from Father­Spirit­Son: " Servant of God, well hast thou done !"
Written by Charlotte Bronte | Create an image from this poem

Frances

 SHE will not sleep, for fear of dreams, 
But, rising, quits her restless bed, 
And walks where some beclouded beams 
Of moonlight through the hall are shed.
Obedient to the goad of grief, Her steps, now fast, now lingering slow, In varying motion seek relief From the Eumenides of woe.
Wringing her hands, at intervals­ But long as mute as phantom dim­ She glides along the dusky walls, Under the black oak rafters, grim.
The close air of the grated tower Stifles a heart that scarce can beat, And, though so late and lone the hour, Forth pass her wandering, faltering feet; And on the pavement, spread before The long front of the mansion grey, Her steps imprint the night-frost hoar, Which pale on grass and granite lay.
Not long she stayed where misty moon And shimmering stars could on her look, But through the garden arch-way, soon Her strange and gloomy path she took.
Some firs, coeval with the tower, Their straight black boughs stretched o'er her head, Unseen, beneath this sable bower, Rustled her dress and rapid tread.
There was an alcove in that shade, Screening a rustic-seat and stand; Weary she sat her down and laid Her hot brow on her burning hand.
To solitude and to the night, Some words she now, in murmurs, said; And, trickling through her fingers white, Some tears of misery she shed.
' God help me, in my grievous need, God help me, in my inward pain; Which cannot ask for pity's meed, Which has no license to complain; Which must be borne, yet who can bear, Hours long, days long, a constant weight­ The yoke of absolute despair, A suffering wholly desolate ? Who can for ever crush the heart, Restrain its throbbing, curb its life ? Dissemble truth with ceaseless art, With outward calm, mask inward strife ?' She waited­as for some reply; The still and cloudy night gave none; Erelong, with deep-drawn, trembling sigh, Her heavy plaint again begun.
' Unloved­I love; unwept­I weep; Grief I restrain­hope I repress: Vain is this anguish­fixed and deep; Vainer, desires and dreams of bliss.
My love awakes no love again, My tears collect, and fall unfelt; My sorrow touches none with pain, My humble hopes to nothing melt.
For me the universe is dumb, Stone-deaf, and blank, and wholly blind; Life I must bound, existence sum In the strait limits of one mind; That mind my own.
Oh ! narrow cell; Dark­imageless­a living tomb ! There must I sleep, there wake and dwell Content, with palsy, pain, and gloom.
' Again she paused; a moan of pain, A stifled sob, alone was heard; Long silence followed­then again, Her voice the stagnant midnight stirred.
' Must it be so ? Is this my fate ? Can I nor struggle, nor contend ? And am I doomed for years to wait, Watching death's lingering axe descend ? And when it falls, and when I die, What follows ? Vacant nothingness ? The blank of lost identity ? Erasure both of pain and bliss ? I've heard of heaven­I would believe; For if this earth indeed be all, Who longest lives may deepest grieve, Most blest, whom sorrows soonest call.
Oh ! leaving disappointment here, Will man find hope on yonder coast ? Hope, which, on earth, shines never clear, And oft in clouds is wholly lost.
Will he hope's source of light behold, Fruition's spring, where doubts expire, And drink, in waves of living gold, Contentment, full, for long desire ? Will he find bliss, which here he dreamed ? Rest, which was weariness on earth ? Knowledge, which, if o'er life it beamed, Served but to prove it void of worth ? Will he find love without lust's leaven, Love fearless, tearless, perfect, pure, To all with equal bounty given, In all, unfeigned, unfailing, sure ? Will he, from penal sufferings free, Released from shroud and wormy clod, All calm and glorious, rise and see Creation's Sire­Existence' God ? Then, glancing back on Time's brief woes, Will he behold them, fading, fly; Swept from Eternity's repose, Like sullying cloud, from pure blue sky ? If so­endure, my weary frame; And when thy anguish strikes too deep, And when all troubled burns life's flame, Think of the quiet, final sleep; Think of the glorious waking-hour, Which will not dawn on grief and tears, But on a ransomed spirit's power, Certain, and free from mortal fears.
Seek now thy couch, and lie till morn, Then from thy chamber, calm, descend, With mind nor tossed, nor anguish-torn, But tranquil, fixed, to wait the end.
And when thy opening eyes shall see Mementos, on the chamber wall, Of one who has forgotten thee, Shed not the tear of acrid gall.
The tear which, welling from the heart, Burns where its drop corrosive falls, And makes each nerve, in torture, start, At feelings it too well recalls: When the sweet hope of being loved, Threw Eden sunshine on life's way; When every sense and feeling proved Expectancy of brightest day.
When the hand trembled to receive A thrilling clasp, which seemed so near, And the heart ventured to believe, Another heart esteemed it dear.
When words, half love, all tenderness, Were hourly heard, as hourly spoken, When the long, sunny days of bliss, Only by moonlight nights were broken.
Till drop by drop, the cup of joy Filled full, with purple light, was glowing, And Faith, which watched it, sparkling high, Still never dreamt the overflowing.
It fell not with a sudden crashing, It poured not out like open sluice; No, sparkling still, and redly flashing, Drained, drop by drop, the generous juice.
I saw it sink, and strove to taste it, My eager lips approached the brim; The movement only seemed to waste it, It sank to dregs, all harsh and dim.
These I have drank, and they for ever Have poisoned life and love for me; A draught from Sodom's lake could never More fiery, salt, and bitter, be.
Oh ! Love was all a thin illusion; Joy, but the desert's flying stream; And, glancing back on long delusion, My memory grasps a hollow dream.
Yet, whence that wondrous change of feeling, I never knew, and cannot learn, Nor why my lover's eye, congealing, Grew cold, and clouded, proud, and stern.
Nor wherefore, friendship's forms forgetting, He careless left, and cool withdrew; Nor spoke of grief, nor fond regretting, Nor even one glance of comfort threw.
And neither word nor token sending, Of kindness, since the parting day, His course, for distant regions bending, Went, self-contained and calm, away.
Oh, bitter, blighting, keen sensation, Which will not weaken, cannot die, Hasten thy work of desolation, And let my tortured spirit fly ! Vain as the passing gale, my crying; Though lightning-struck, I must live on; I know, at heart, there is no dying Of love, and ruined hope, alone.
Still strong, and young, and warm with vigour, Though scathed, I long shall greenly grow, And many a storm of wildest rigour Shall yet break o'er my shivered bough.
Rebellious now to blank inertion, My unused strength demands a task; Travel, and toil, and full exertion, Are the last, only boon I ask.
Whence, then, this vain and barren dreaming Of death, and dubious life to come ? I see a nearer beacon gleaming Over dejection's sea of gloom.
The very wildness of my sorrow Tells me I yet have innate force; My track of life has been too narrow, Effort shall trace a broader course.
The world is not in yonder tower, Earth is not prisoned in that room, 'Mid whose dark pannels, hour by hour, I've sat, the slave and prey of gloom.
One feeling­turned to utter anguish, Is not my being's only aim; When, lorn and loveless, life will languish, But courage can revive the flame.
He, when he left me, went a roving To sunny climes, beyond the sea; And I, the weight of woe removing, Am free and fetterless as he.
New scenes, new language, skies less clouded, May once more wake the wish to live; Strange, foreign towns, astir, and crowded, New pictures to the mind may give.
New forms and faces, passing ever, May hide the one I still retain, Defined, and fixed, and fading never, Stamped deep on vision, heart, and brain.
And we might meet­time may have changed him; Chance may reveal the mystery, The secret influence which estranged him; Love may restore him yet to me.
False thought­false hope­in scorn be banished ! I am not loved­nor loved have been; Recall not, then, the dreams scarce vanished, Traitors ! mislead me not again ! To words like yours I bid defiance, 'Tis such my mental wreck have made; Of God alone, and self-reliance, I ask for solace­hope for aid.
Morn comes­and ere meridian glory O'er these, my natal woods, shall smile, Both lonely wood and mansion hoary I'll leave behind, full many a mile.
Written by George (Lord) Byron | Create an image from this poem

Prometheus

 Titan! to whose immortal eyes 
The sufferings of mortality,
Seen in their sad reality,
Were not as things that gods despise;
What was thy pity's recompense?
A silent suffering, and intense;
The rock, the vulture, and the chain,
All that the proud can feel of pain,
The agony they do not show,
The suffocating sense of woe,
Which speaks but in its loneliness,
And then is jealous lest the sky
Should have a listener, nor will sigh
Until its voice is echoless.
Titan! to thee the strife was given Between the suffering and the will, Which torture where they cannot kill; And the inexorable Heaven, And the deaf tyranny of Fate, The ruling principle of Hate, Which for its pleasure doth create The things it may annihilate, Refus'd thee even the boon to die: The wretched gift Eternity Was thine--and thou hast borne it well.
All that the Thunderer wrung from thee Was but the menace which flung back On him the torments of thy rack; The fate thou didst so well foresee, But would not to appease him tell; And in thy Silence was his Sentence, And in his Soul a vain repentance, And evil dread so ill dissembled, That in his hand the lightnings trembled.
Thy Godlike crime was to be kind, To render with thy precepts less The sum of human wretchedness, And strengthen Man with his own mind; But baffled as thou wert from high, Still in thy patient energy, In the endurance, and repulse Of thine impenetrable Spirit, Which Earth and Heaven could not convulse, A mighty lesson we inherit: Thou art a symbol and a sign To Mortals of their fate and force; Like thee, Man is in part divine, A troubled stream from a pure source; And Man in portions can foresee His own funereal destiny; His wretchedness, and his resistance, And his sad unallied existence: To which his Spirit may oppose Itself--and equal to all woes, And a firm will, and a deep sense, Which even in torture can descry Its own concenter'd recompense, Triumphant where it dares defy, And making Death a Victory.


Written by Charlotte Bronte | Create an image from this poem

Pilates Wifes Dream

 I've quenched my lamp, I struck it in that start
Which every limb convulsed, I heard it fall­
The crash blent with my sleep, I saw depart
Its light, even as I woke, on yonder wall;
Over against my bed, there shone a gleam
Strange, faint, and mingling also with my dream.
It sunk, and I am wrapt in utter gloom; How far is night advanced, and when will day Retinge the dusk and livid air with bloom, And fill this void with warm, creative ray ? Would I could sleep again till, clear and red, Morning shall on the mountain-tops be spread! I'd call my women, but to break their sleep, Because my own is broken, were unjust; They've wrought all day, and well-earned slumbers steep Their labours in forgetfulness, I trust; Let me my feverish watch with patience bear, Thankful that none with me its sufferings share.
Yet, Oh, for light ! one ray would tranquilise My nerves, my pulses, more than effort can; I'll draw my curtain and consult the skies: These trembling stars at dead of night look wan, Wild, restless, strange, yet cannot be more drear Than this my couch, shared by a nameless fear.
All black­one great cloud, drawn from east to west, Conceals the heavens, but there are lights below; Torches burn in Jerusalem, and cast On yonder stony mount a lurid glow.
I see men stationed there, and gleaming spears; A sound, too, from afar, invades my ears.
Dull, measured, strokes of axe and hammer ring From street to street, not loud, but through the night Distinctly heard­and some strange spectral thing Is now upreared­and, fixed against the light Of the pale lamps; defined upon that sky, It stands up like a column, straight and high.
I see it all­I know the dusky sign­ A cross on Calvary, which Jews uprear While Romans watch; and when the dawn shall shine Pilate, to judge the victim will appear, Pass sentence­yield him up to crucify; And on that cross the spotless Christ must die.
Dreams, then, are true­for thus my vision ran; Surely some oracle has been with me, The gods have chosen me to reveal their plan, To warn an unjust judge of destiny: I, slumbering, heard and saw; awake I know, Christ's coming death, and Pilate's life of woe.
I do not weep for Pilate­who could prove Regret for him whose cold and crushing sway No prayer can soften, no appeal can move; Who tramples hearts as others trample clay, Yet with a faltering, an uncertain tread, That might stir up reprisal in the dead.
Forced to sit by his side and see his deeds; Forced to behold that visage, hour by hour, In whose gaunt lines, the abhorrent gazer reads A triple lust of gold, and blood, and power; A soul whom motives, fierce, yet abject, urge Rome's servile slave, and Judah's tyrant scourge.
How can I love, or mourn, or pity him ? I, who so long my fettered hands have wrung; I, who for grief have wept my eye-sight dim; Because, while life for me was bright and young, He robbed my youth­he quenched my life's fair ray­ He crushed my mind, and did my freedom slay.
And at this hour­although I be his wife­ He has no more of tenderness from me Than any other wretch of guilty life; Less, for I know his household privacy­ I see him as he is­without a screen; And, by the gods, my soul abhors his mien ! Has he not sought my presence, dyed in blood­ Innocent, righteous blood, shed shamelessly ? And have I not his red salute withstood ? Aye,­when, as erst, he plunged all Galilee In dark bereavement­in affliction sore, Mingling their very offerings with their gore.
Then came he­in his eyes a serpent-smile, Upon his lips some false, endearing word, And, through the streets of Salem, clanged the while, His slaughtering, hacking, sacrilegious sword­ And I, to see a man cause men such woe, Trembled with ire­I did not fear to show.
And now, the envious Jewish priests have brought Jesus­whom they in mockery call their king­ To have, by this grim power, their vengeance wrought; By this mean reptile, innocence to sting.
Oh ! could I but the purposed doom avert, And shield the blameless head from cruel hurt! Accessible is Pilate's heart to fear, Omens will shake his soul, like autumn leaf; Could he this night's appalling vision hear, This just man's bonds were loosed, his life were safe, Unless that bitter priesthood should prevail, And make even terror to their malice quail.
Yet if I tell the dream­but let me pause.
What dream ? Erewhile the characters were clear, Graved on my brain­at once some unknown cause Has dimmed and rased the thoughts, which now appear, Like a vague remnant of some by-past scene;­ Not what will be, but what, long since, has been.
I suffered many things, I heard foretold A dreadful doom for Pilate,­lingering woes, In far, barbarian climes, where mountains cold Built up a solitude of trackless snows, There, he and grisly wolves prowled side by side, There he lived famished­there methought he died; But not of hunger, nor by malady; I saw the snow around him, stained with gore; I said I had no tears for such as he, And, lo ! my cheek is wet­mine eyes run o'er; I weep for mortal suffering, mortal guilt, I weep the impious deed­the blood self-spilt.
More I recall not, yet the vision spread Into a world remote, an age to come­ And still the illumined name of Jesus shed A light, a clearness, through the enfolding gloom­ And still I saw that sign, which now I see, That cross on yonder brow of Calvary.
What is this Hebrew Christ ? To me unknown, His lineage­doctrine­mission­yet how clear, Is God-like goodness, in his actions shewn ! How straight and stainless is his life's career ! The ray of Deity that rests on him, In my eyes makes Olympian glory dim.
The world advances, Greek, or Roman rite Suffices not the inquiring mind to stay; The searching soul demands a purer light To guide it on its upward, onward way; Ashamed of sculptured gods­Religion turns To where the unseen Jehovah's altar burns.
Our faith is rotten­all our rites defiled, Our temples sullied, and methinks, this man, With his new ordinance, so wise and mild, Is come, even as he says, the chaff to fan And sever from the wheat; but will his faith Survive the terrors of to-morrow's death ? * * * * * I feel a firmer trust­a higher hope Rise in my soul­it dawns with dawning day; Lo ! on the Temple's roof­on Moriah's slope Appears at length that clear, and crimson ray, Which I so wished for when shut in by night; Oh, opening skies, I hail, I bless your light ! Part, clouds and shadows ! glorious Sun appear ! Part, mental gloom ! Come insight from on high ! Dusk dawn in heaven still strives with daylight clear, The longing soul, doth still uncertain sigh.
Oh ! to behold the truth­that sun divine, How doth my bosom pant, my spirit pine ! This day, time travails with a mighty birth, This day, Truth stoops from heaven and visits earth, Ere night descends, I shall more surely know What guide to follow, in what path to go; I wait in hope­I wait in solemn fear, The oracle of God­the sole­true God­to hear.
Written by Wystan Hugh (W H) Auden | Create an image from this poem

In Memory of W. B. Yeats

I


He disappeared in the dead of winter:
The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted,
And snow disfigured the public statues;
The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day.
What instruments we have agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.
Far from his illness
The wolves ran on through the evergreen forests,
The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays;
By mourning tongues
The death of the poet was kept from his poems.
But for him it was his last afternoon as himself,
An afternoon of nurses and rumours;
The provinces of his body revolted,
The squares of his mind were empty,
Silence invaded the suburbs,
The current of his feeling failed; he became his admirers.
Now he is scattered among a hundred cities
And wholly given over to unfamiliar affections,
To find his happiness in another kind of wood
And be punished under a foreign code of conscience.
The words of a dead man
Are modified in the guts of the living.
But in the importance and noise of to-morrow
When the brokers are roaring like beasts on the floor of the Bourse,
And the poor have the sufferings to which they are fairly accustomed,
And each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his freedom,
A few thousand will think of this day
As one thinks of a day when one did something slightly unusual.
What instruments we have agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.
 You were silly like us; your gift survived it all:
The parish of rich women, physical decay,
Yourself.
Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.
Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still,
For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives
In the valley of its making where executives
Would never want to tamper, flows on south
From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,
Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,
A way of happening, a mouth.

 Earth, receive an honoured guest:
William Yeats is laid to rest.
Let the Irish vessel lie
Emptied of its poetry.

In the nightmare of the dark
All the dogs of Europe bark,
And the living nations wait,
Each sequestered in its hate;
Intellectual disgrace
Stares from every human face,
And the seas of pity lie
Locked and frozen in each eye.

Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice;
With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress;
In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountain start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.
Written by William Topaz McGonagall | Create an image from this poem

Burning of the Exeter Theatre

 'Twas in the year of 1887, which many people will long remember,
The burning of the Theatre at Exeter on the 5th of September,
Alas! that ever-to-be-remembered and unlucky night,
When one hundred and fifty lost their lives, a most agonising sight.
The play on this night was called "Romany Rye," And at act four, scene third, Fire! Fire! was the cry; And all in a moment flames were seen issuing from the stage, Then the women screamed frantically, like wild beasts in a cage.
Then a panic ensued, and each one felt dismayed, And from the burning building a rush was made; And soon the theatre was filled with a blinding smoke, So that the people their way out had to grope.
The shrieks of those trying to escape were fearful to hear, Especially the cries of those who had lost their friends most dear; Oh, the scene was most painful in the London Inn Square, To see them wringing their hands and tearing their hair! And as the flames spread, great havoc they did make, And the poor souls fought heroically in trying to make their escape; Oh, it was horrible to see men and women trying to reach the door! But in many cases death claimed the victory, and their struggles were o'er.
Alas! 'twas pitiful the shrieks of the audience to hear, Especially as the flames to them drew near; Because on every face were depicted despair and woe, And many of them jumped from the windows into the street below.
The crushed and charred bodies were carried into London Hotel yard, And to alleviate their sufferings the doctors tried hard; But, alas! their attendance on many was thrown away, But those that survived were conveyed to Exeter Hospital without delay.
And all those that had their wounds dressed proceeded home, Accompanied by their friends, and making a loud moan; While the faces and necks of others were sickening to behold, Enough to chill one's blood, and make the heart turn cold.
Alas! words fail to describe the desolation, And in many homes it will cause great lamentation; Because human remains are beyond all identification, Which will cause the relatives of the sufferers to be in great tribulation.
Oh, Heaven! it must have been an awful sight, To see the poor souls struggling hard with all their might, Fighting hard their lives to save, While many in the smoke and burning flame did madly rave! It was the most sickening sight that ever anybody saw, Human remains, beyond recognition, covered with a heap of straw; And here and there a body might be seen, and a maimed hand, Oh, such a sight, that the most hard-hearted person could hardly withstand! The number of people in the theatre was between seven and eight thousand, But alas! one hundred and fifty by the fire have been found dead; And the most lives were lost on the stairs leading from the gallery, And these were roasted to death, which was sickening to see.
The funerals were conducted at the expense of the local authority, And two hours and more elapsed at the mournful ceremony; And at one grave there were two thousand people, a very great crowd, And most of the men were bareheaded ad weeping aloud.
Alas! many poor children have been bereft of their fathers and mothers, Who will be sorely missed by little sisters and brothers; But, alas! unto them they can ne'er return again, Therefore the poor little innocents must weep for them in vain.
I hope all kind Christian souls will help the friends of the dead, Especially those that have lost the winners of their bread; And if they do, God surely will them bless, Because pure Christianity is to help the widows and orphans in distress.
I am very glad to see Henry Irving has sent a hundred pounds, And I hope his brother actors will subscribe their mite all round; And if they do it will add honour to their name, Because whatever is given towards a good cause they will it regain.
Written by Rainer Maria Rilke | Create an image from this poem

Duino Elegies: The First Elegy

 Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels'
hierarchies? and even if one of them suddenly
pressed me against his heart, I would perish
in the embrace of his stronger existence.
For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror which we are barely able to endure and are awed because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
Each single angel is terrifying.
And so I force myself, swallow and hold back the surging call of my dark sobbing.
Oh, to whom can we turn for help? Not angels, not humans; and even the knowing animals are aware that we feel little secure and at home in our interpreted world.
There remains perhaps some tree on a hillside daily for us to see; yesterday's street remains for us stayed, moved in with us and showed no signs of leaving.
Oh, and the night, the night, when the wind full of cosmic space invades our frightened faces.
Whom would it not remain for -that longed-after, gently disenchanting night, painfully there for the solitary heart to achieve? Is it easier for lovers? Don't you know yet ? Fling out of your arms the emptiness into the spaces we breath -perhaps the birds will feel the expanded air in their more ferven flight.
Yes, the springtime were in need of you.
Often a star waited for you to espy it and sense its light.
A wave rolled toward you out of the distant past, or as you walked below an open window, a violin gave itself to your hearing.
All this was trust.
But could you manage it? Were you not always distraught by expectation, as if all this were announcing the arrival of a beloved? (Where would you find a place to hide her, with all your great strange thoughts coming and going and often staying for the night.
) When longing overcomes you, sing of women in love; for their famous passion is far from immortal enough.
Those whom you almost envy, the abandoned and desolate ones, whom you found so much more loving than those gratified.
Begin ever new again the praise you cannot attain; remember: the hero lives on and survives; even his downfall was for him only a pretext for achieving his final birth.
But nature, exhausted, takes lovers back into itself, as if such creative forces could never be achieved a second time.
Have you thought of Gaspara Stampa sufficiently: that any girl abandoned by her lover may feel from that far intenser example of loving: "Ah, might I become like her!" Should not their oldest sufferings finally become more fruitful for us? Is it not time that lovingly we freed ourselves from the beloved and, quivering, endured: as the arrow endures the bow-string's tension, and in this tense release becomes more than itself.
For staying is nowhere.
Voices, voices.
Listen my heart, as only saints have listened: until the gigantic call lifted them clear off the ground.
Yet they went on, impossibly, kneeling, completely unawares: so intense was their listening.
Not that you could endure the voice of God -far from it! But listen to the voice of the wind and the ceaseless message that forms itself out of silence.
They sweep toward you now from those who died young.
Whenever they entered a church in Rome or Naples, did not their fate quietly speak to you as recently as the tablet did in Santa Maria Formosa? What do they want of me? to quietly remove the appearance of suffered injustice that, at times, hinders a little their spirits from freely proceeding onward.
Of course, it is strange to inhabit the earth no longer, to no longer use skills on had barely time to acquire; not to observe roses and other things that promised so much in terms of a human future, no longer to be what one was in infinitely anxious hands; to even discard one's own name as easily as a child abandons a broken toy.
Strange, not to desire to continue wishing one's wishes.
Strange to notice all that was related, fluttering so loosely in space.
And being dead is hard work and full of retrieving before one can gradually feel a trace of eternity.
-Yes, but the liviing make the mistake of drawing too sharp a distinction.
Angels (they say) are often unable to distinguish between moving among the living or the dead.
The eternal torrent whirls all ages along with it, through both realms forever, and their voices are lost in its thunderous roar.
In the end the early departed have no longer need of us.
One is gently weaned from things of this world as a child outgrows the need of its mother's breast.
But we who have need of those great mysteries, we for whom grief is so often the source of spiritual growth, could we exist without them? Is the legend vain that tells of music's beginning in the midst of the mourning for Linos? the daring first sounds of song piercing the barren numbness, and how in that stunned space an almost godlike youth suddenly left forever, and the emptiness felt for the first time those harmonious vibrations which now enrapture and comfort and help us.
Written by Emily Brontë | Create an image from this poem

I see around me tombstones grey

 I see around me tombstones grey
Stretching their shadows far away.
Beneath the turf my footsteps tread Lie low and lone the silent dead - Beneath the turf - beneath the mould - Forever dark, forever cold - And my eyes cannot hold the tears That memory hoards from vanished years For Time and Death and Mortal pain Give wounds that will not heal again - Let me remember half the woe I've seen and heard and felt below, And Heaven itself - so pure and blest, Could never give my spirit rest - Sweet land of light! thy children fair Know nought akin to our despair - Nor have they felt, nor can they tell What tenants haunt each mortal cell, What gloomy guests we hold within - Torments and madness, tears and sin! Well - may they live in ectasy Their long eternity of joy; At least we would not bring them down With us to weep, with us to groan, No - Earth would wish no other sphere To taste her cup of sufferings drear; She turns from Heaven with a careless eye And only mourns that we must die! Ah mother, what shall comfort thee In all this boundless misery? To cheer our eager eyes a while We see thee smile; how fondly smile! But who reads not through that tender glow Thy deep, unutterable woe: Indeed no dazzling land above Can cheat thee of thy children's love.
We all, in life's departing shine, Our last dear longings blend with thine; And struggle still and strive to trace With clouded gaze, thy darling face.
We would not leave our native home For any world beyond the Tomb.
No - rather on thy kindly breast Let us be laid in lasting rest; Or waken but to share with thee A mutual immortality -

Book: Shattered Sighs