10 Best Famous Sweeps Poems

Here is a collection of the top 10 all-time best famous Sweeps poems. This is a select list of the best famous Sweeps poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Sweeps poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of sweeps poems.

• All Famous Sweeps Poems

Written by Lawrence Ferlinghetti | Wild Dreams Of A New Beginning There's a breathless hush on the freeway tonight Beyond the ledges of concrete restaurants fall into dreams with candlelight couples Lost Alexandria still burns in a billion lightbulbs Lives cross lives idling at stoplights Beyond the cloverleaf turnoffs 'Souls eat souls in the general emptiness' A piano concerto comes out a kitchen window A yogi speaks at Ojai 'It's all taking pace in one mind' On the lawn among the trees lovers are listening for the master to tell them they are one with the universe Eyes smell flowers and become them There's a deathless hush on the freeway tonight as a Pacific tidal wave a mile high sweeps in Los Angeles breathes its last gas and sinks into the sea like the Titanic all lights lit Nine minutes later Willa Cather's Nebraska sinks with it The sea comes over in Utah Mormon tabernacles washed away like barnacles Coyotes are confounded & swim nowhere An orchestra onstage in Omaha keeps on playing Handel's Water Music Horns fill with water ans bass players float away on their instruments clutching them like lovers horizontal Chicago's Loop becomes a rollercoaster Skyscrapers filled like water glasses Great Lakes mixed with Buddhist brine Great Books watered down in Evanston Milwaukee beer topped with sea foam Beau Fleuve of Buffalo suddenly become salt Manhatten Island swept clean in sixteen seconds buried masts of Amsterdam arise as the great wave sweeps on Eastward to wash away over-age Camembert Europe manhatta steaming in sea-vines the washed land awakes again to wilderness the only sound a vast thrumming of crickets a cry of seabirds high over in empty eternity as the Hudson retakes its thickets and Indians reclaim their canoes

Written by Walt Whitman | American Feuillage AMERICA always! Always our own feuillage! Always Florida’s green peninsula! Always the priceless delta of Louisiana! Always the cotton-fields of Alabama and Texas! Always California’s golden hills and hollows—and the silver mountains of New Mexico! Always soft-breath’d Cuba! Always the vast slope drain’d by the Southern Sea—inseparable with the slopes drain’d by the Eastern and Western Seas; The area the eighty-third year of These States—the three and a half millions of square miles; The eighteen thousand miles of sea-coast and bay-coast on the main—the thirty thousand miles of river navigation, The seven millions of distinct families, and the same number of dwellings—Always these, and more, branching forth into numberless branches; Always the free range and diversity! always the continent of Democracy! Always the prairies, pastures, forests, vast cities, travelers, Kanada, the snows; Always these compact lands—lands tied at the hips with the belt stringing the huge oval lakes; Always the West, with strong native persons—the increasing density there—the habitans, friendly, threatening, ironical, scorning invaders; All sights, South, North, East—all deeds, promiscuously done at all times, All characters, movements, growths—a few noticed, myriads unnoticed, Through Mannahatta’s streets I walking, these things gathering; On interior rivers, by night, in the glare of pine knots, steamboats wooding up; Sunlight by day on the valley of the Susquehanna, and on the valleys of the Potomac and Rappahannock, and the valleys of the Roanoke and Delaware; In their northerly wilds, beasts of prey haunting the Adirondacks, the hills—or lapping the Saginaw waters to drink; In a lonesome inlet, a sheldrake, lost from the flock, sitting on the water, rocking silently; In farmers’ barns, oxen in the stable, their harvest labor done—they rest standing—they are too tired; Afar on arctic ice, the she-walrus lying drowsily, while her cubs play around; The hawk sailing where men have not yet sail’d—the farthest polar sea, ripply, crystalline, open, beyond the floes; White drift spooning ahead, where the ship in the tempest dashes; On solid land, what is done in cities, as the bells all strike midnight together; In primitive woods, the sounds there also sounding—the howl of the wolf, the scream of the panther, and the hoarse bellow of the elk; In winter beneath the hard blue ice of Moosehead Lake—in summer visible through the clear waters, the great trout swimming; In lower latitudes, in warmer air, in the Carolinas, the large black buzzard floating slowly, high beyond the tree tops, Below, the red cedar, festoon’d with tylandria—the pines and cypresses, growing out of the white sand that spreads far and flat; Rude boats descending the big Pedee—climbing plants, parasites, with color’d flowers and berries, enveloping huge trees, The waving drapery on the live oak, trailing long and low, noiselessly waved by the wind; The camp of Georgia wagoners, just after dark—the supper-fires, and the cooking and eating by whites and *******, Thirty or forty great wagons—the mules, cattle, horses, feeding from troughs, The shadows, gleams, up under the leaves of the old sycamore-trees—the flames—with the black smoke from the pitch-pine, curling and rising; Southern fishermen fishing—the sounds and inlets of North Carolina’s coast—the shad-fishery and the herring-fishery—the large sweep-seines—the windlasses on shore work’d by horses—the clearing, curing, and packing-houses; Deep in the forest, in piney woods, turpentine dropping from the incisions in the trees—There are the turpentine works, There are the ******* at work, in good health—the ground in all directions is cover’d with pine straw: —In Tennessee and Kentucky, slaves busy in the coalings, at the forge, by the furnace-blaze, or at the corn-shucking; In Virginia, the planter’s son returning after a long absence, joyfully welcom’d and kiss’d by the aged mulatto nurse; On rivers, boatmen safely moor’d at night-fall, in their boats, under shelter of high banks, Some of the younger men dance to the sound of the banjo or fiddle—others sit on the gunwale, smoking and talking; Late in the afternoon, the mocking-bird, the American mimic, singing in the Great Dismal Swamp—there are the greenish waters, the resinous odor, the plenteous moss, the cypress tree, and the juniper tree; —Northward, young men of Mannahatta—the target company from an excursion returning home at evening—the musket-muzzles all bear bunches of flowers presented by women; Children at play—or on his father’s lap a young boy fallen asleep, (how his lips move! how he smiles in his sleep!) The scout riding on horseback over the plains west of the Mississippi—he ascends a knoll and sweeps his eye around; California life—the miner, bearded, dress’d in his rude costume—the stanch California friendship—the sweet air—the graves one, in passing, meets, solitary, just aside the horsepath; Down in Texas, the cotton-field, the *****-cabins—drivers driving mules or oxen before rude carts—cotton bales piled on banks and wharves; Encircling all, vast-darting, up and wide, the American Soul, with equal hemispheres—one Love, one Dilation or Pride; —In arriere, the peace-talk with the Iroquois, the aborigines—the calumet, the pipe of good-will, arbitration, and indorsement, The sachem blowing the smoke first toward the sun and then toward the earth, The drama of the scalp-dance enacted with painted faces and guttural exclamations, The setting out of the war-party—the long and stealthy march, The single-file—the swinging hatchets—the surprise and slaughter of enemies; —All the acts, scenes, ways, persons, attitudes of These States—reminiscences, all institutions, All These States, compact—Every square mile of These States, without excepting a particle—you also—me also, Me pleas’d, rambling in lanes and country fields, Paumanok’s fields, Me, observing the spiral flight of two little yellow butterflies, shuffling between each other, ascending high in the air; The darting swallow, the destroyer of insects—the fall traveler southward, but returning northward early in the spring; The country boy at the close of the day, driving the herd of cows, and shouting to them as they loiter to browse by the road-side; The city wharf—Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Charleston, New Orleans, San Francisco, The departing ships, when the sailors heave at the capstan; —Evening—me in my room—the setting sun, The setting summer sun shining in my open window, showing the swarm of flies, suspended, balancing in the air in the centre of the room, darting athwart, up and down, casting swift shadows in specks on the opposite wall, where the shine is; The athletic American matron speaking in public to crowds of listeners; Males, females, immigrants, combinations—the copiousness—the individuality of The States, each for itself—the money-makers; Factories, machinery, the mechanical forces—the windlass, lever, pulley—All certainties, The certainty of space, increase, freedom, futurity, In space, the sporades, the scatter’d islands, the stars—on the firm earth, the lands, my lands; O lands! all so dear to me—what you are, (whatever it is,) I become a part of that, whatever it is; Southward there, I screaming, with wings slowly flapping, with the myriads of gulls wintering along the coasts of Florida—or in Louisiana, with pelicans breeding; Otherways, there, atwixt the banks of the Arkansaw, the Rio Grande, the Nueces, the Brazos, the Tombigbee, the Red River, the Saskatchawan, or the Osage, I with the spring waters laughing and skipping and running; Northward, on the sands, on some shallow bay of Paumanok, I, with parties of snowy herons wading in the wet to seek worms and aquatic plants; Retreating, triumphantly twittering, the king-bird, from piercing the crow with its bill, for amusement—And I triumphantly twittering; The migrating flock of wild geese alighting in autumn to refresh themselves—the body of the flock feed—the sentinels outside move around with erect heads watching, and are from time to time reliev’d by other sentinels—And I feeding and taking turns with the rest; In Kanadian forests, the moose, large as an ox, corner’d by hunters, rising desperately on his hind-feet, and plunging with his fore-feet, the hoofs as sharp as knives—And I, plunging at the hunters, corner’d and desperate; In the Mannahatta, streets, piers, shipping, store-houses, and the countless workmen working in the shops, And I too of the Mannahatta, singing thereof—and no less in myself than the whole of the Mannahatta in itself, Singing the song of These, my ever united lands—my body no more inevitably united, part to part, and made one identity, any more than my lands are inevitably united, and made ONE IDENTITY; Nativities, climates, the grass of the great Pastoral Plains; Cities, labors, death, animals, products, war, good and evil—these me, These affording, in all their particulars, endless feuillage to me and to America, how can I do less than pass the clew of the union of them, to afford the like to you? Whoever you are! how can I but offer you divine leaves, that you also be eligible as I am? How can I but, as here, chanting, invite you for yourself to collect bouquets of the incomparable feuillage of These States?

Written by T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot | Four Quartets 1: Burnt Norton I Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future, And time future contained in time past. If all time is eternally present All time is unredeemable. What might have been is an abstraction Remaining a perpetual possibility Only in a world of speculation. What might have been and what has been Point to one end, which is always present. Footfalls echo in the memory Down the passage which we did not take Towards the door we never opened Into the rose-garden. My words echo Thus, in your mind. But to what purpose Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves I do not know. Other echoes Inhabit the garden. Shall we follow? Quick, said the bird, find them, find them, Round the corner. Through the first gate, Into our first world, shall we follow The deception of the thrush? Into our first world. There they were, dignified, invisible, Moving without pressure, over the dead leaves, In the autumn heat, through the vibrant air, And the bird called, in response to The unheard music hidden in the shrubbery, And the unseen eyebeam crossed, for the roses Had the look of flowers that are looked at. There they were as our guests, accepted and accepting. So we moved, and they, in a formal pattern, Along the empty alley, into the box circle, To look down into the drained pool. Dry the pool, dry concrete, brown edged, And the pool was filled with water out of sunlight, And the lotos rose, quietly, quietly, The surface glittered out of heart of light, And they were behind us, reflected in the pool. Then a cloud passed, and the pool was empty. Go, said the bird, for the leaves were full of children, Hidden excitedly, containing laughter. Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind Cannot bear very much reality. Time past and time future What might have been and what has been Point to one end, which is always present. II Garlic and sapphires in the mud Clot the bedded axle-tree. The trilling wire in the blood Sings below inveterate scars Appeasing long forgotten wars. The dance along the artery The circulation of the lymph Are figured in the drift of stars Ascend to summer in the tree We move above the moving tree In light upon the figured leaf And hear upon the sodden floor Below, the boarhound and the boar Pursue their pattern as before But reconciled among the stars. At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is, But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity, Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards, Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point, There would be no dance, and there is only the dance. I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where. And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time. The inner freedom from the practical desire, The release from action and suffering, release from the inner And the outer compulsion, yet surrounded By a grace of sense, a white light still and moving, Erhebung without motion, concentration Without elimination, both a new world And the old made explicit, understood In the completion of its partial ecstasy, The resolution of its partial horror. Yet the enchainment of past and future Woven in the weakness of the changing body, Protects mankind from heaven and damnation Which flesh cannot endure. Time past and time future Allow but a little consciousness. To be conscious is not to be in time But only in time can the moment in the rose-garden, The moment in the arbour where the rain beat, The moment in the draughty church at smokefall Be remembered; involved with past and future. Only through time time is conquered. III Here is a place of disaffection Time before and time after In a dim light: neither daylight Investing form with lucid stillness Turning shadow into transient beauty With slow rotation suggesting permanence Nor darkness to purify the soul Emptying the sensual with deprivation Cleansing affection from the temporal. Neither plenitude nor vacancy. Only a flicker Over the strained time-ridden faces Distracted from distraction by distraction Filled with fancies and empty of meaning Tumid apathy with no concentration Men and bits of paper, whirled by the cold wind That blows before and after time, Wind in and out of unwholesome lungs Time before and time after. Eructation of unhealthy souls Into the faded air, the torpid Driven on the wind that sweeps the gloomy hills of London, Hampstead and Clerkenwell, Campden and Putney, Highgate, Primrose and Ludgate. Not here Not here the darkness, in this twittering world. Descend lower, descend only Into the world of perpetual solitude, World not world, but that which is not world, Internal darkness, deprivation And destitution of all property, Desiccation of the world of sense, Evacuation of the world of fancy, Inoperancy of the world of spirit; This is the one way, and the other Is the same, not in movement But abstention from movement; while the world moves In appetency, on its metalled ways Of time past and time future. IV Time and the bell have buried the day, The black cloud carries the sun away. Will the sunflower turn to us, will the clematis Stray down, bend to us; tendril and spray Clutch and cling? Chill Fingers of yew be curled Down on us? After the kingfisher's wing Has answered light to light, and is silent, the light is still At the still point of the turning world. V Words move, music moves Only in time; but that which is only living Can only die. Words, after speech, reach Into the silence. Only by the form, the pattern, Can words or music reach The stillness, as a Chinese jar still Moves perpetually in its stillness. Not the stillness of the violin, while the note lasts, Not that only, but the co-existence, Or say that the end precedes the beginning, And the end and the beginning were always there Before the beginning and after the end. And all is always now. Words strain, Crack and sometimes break, under the burden, Under the tension, slip, slide, perish, Decay with imprecision, will not stay in place, Will not stay still. Shrieking voices Scolding, mocking, or merely chattering, Always assail them. The Word in the desert Is most attacked by voices of temptation, The crying shadow in the funeral dance, The loud lament of the disconsolate chimera. The detail of the pattern is movement, As in the figure of the ten stairs. Desire itself is movement Not in itself desirable; Love is itself unmoving, Only the cause and end of movement, Timeless, and undesiring Except in the aspect of time Caught in the form of limitation Between un-being and being. Sudden in a shaft of sunlight Even while the dust moves There rises the hidden laughter Of children in the foliage Quick now, here, now, always— Ridiculous the waste sad time Stretching before and after.

Written by Siegfried Sassoon | The Old Huntsman I’ve never ceased to curse the day I signed A seven years’ bargain for the Golden Fleece. ’Twas a bad deal all round; and dear enough It cost me, what with my daft management, And the mean folk as owed and never paid me, And backing losers; and the local bucks Egging me on with whiskys while I bragged The man I was when huntsman to the Squire. I’d have been prosperous if I’d took a farm Of fifty acres, drove my gig and haggled At Monday markets; now I’ve squandered all My savings; nigh three hundred pound I got As testimonial when I’d grown too stiff And slow to press a beaten fox. The Fleece! ’Twas the damned Fleece that wore my Emily out, The wife of thirty years who served me well; (Not like this beldam clattering in the kitchen, That never trims a lamp nor sweeps the floor, And brings me greasy soup in a foul crock.) Blast the old harridan! What’s fetched her now, Leaving me in the dark, and short of fire? And where’s my pipe? ’Tis lucky I’ve a turn For thinking, and remembering all that’s past. And now’s my hour, before I hobble to bed, To set the works a-wheezing, wind the clock That keeps the time of life with feeble tick Behind my bleared old face that stares and wonders. . . . . It’s ***** how, in the dark, comes back to mind Some morning of September. We’ve been digging In a steep sandy warren, riddled with holes, And I’ve just pulled the terrier out and left A sharp-nosed cub-face blinking there and snapping, Then in a moment seen him mobbed and torn To strips in the baying hurly of the pack. I picture it so clear: the dusty sunshine On bracken, and the men with spades, that wipe Red faces: one tilts up a mug of ale. And, having stopped to clean my gory hands, I whistle the jostling beauties out of the wood. I’m but a daft old fool! I often wish The Squire were back again—ah! he was a man! They don’t breed men like him these days; he’d come For sure, and sit and talk and suck his briar Till the old wife brings up a dish of tea. Ay, those were days, when I was serving Squire! I never knowed such sport as ’85, The winter afore the one that snowed us silly. . . . . Once in a way the parson will drop in And read a bit o’ the Bible, if I’m bad, And pray the Lord to make my spirit whole In faith: he leaves some ’baccy on the shelf, And wonders I don’t keep a dog to cheer me Because he knows I’m mortal fond of dogs! I ask you, what’s a gent like that to me As wouldn’t know Elijah if I saw him, Nor have the wit to keep him on the talk? ’Tis kind of parson to be troubling still With such as me; but he’s a town-bred chap, Full of his college notions and Christmas hymns. Religion beats me. I’m amazed at folk Drinking the gospels in and never scratching Their heads for questions. When I was a lad I learned a bit from mother, and never thought To educate myself for prayers and psalms. But now I’m old and bald and serious-minded, With days to sit and ponder. I’d no chance When young and gay to get the hang of all This Hell and Heaven: and when the clergy hoick And holloa from their pulpits, I’m asleep, However hard I listen; and when they pray It seems we’re all like children sucking sweets In school, and wondering whether master sees. I used to dream of Hell when I was first Promoted to a huntsman’s job, and scent Was rotten, and all the foxes disappeared, And hounds were short of blood; and officers From barracks over-rode ’em all day long On weedy, whistling nags that knocked a hole In every fence; good sportsmen to a man And brigadiers by now, but dreadful hard On a young huntsman keen to show some sport. Ay, Hell was thick with captains, and I rode The lumbering brute that’s beat in half a mile, And blunders into every blind old ditch. Hell was the coldest scenting land I’ve known, And both my whips were always lost, and hounds Would never get their heads down; and a man On a great yawing chestnut trying to cast ’em While I was in a corner pounded by The ugliest hog-backed stile you’ve clapped your eyes on. There was an iron-spiked fence round all the coverts, And civil-spoken keepers I couldn’t trust, And the main earth unstopp’d. The fox I found Was always a three-legged ’un from a bag, Who reeked of aniseed and wouldn’t run. The farmers were all ploughing their old pasture And bellowing at me when I rode their beans To cast for beaten fox, or galloped on With hounds to a lucky view. I’d lost my voice Although I shouted fit to burst my guts, And couldn’t blow my horn. And when I woke, Emily snored, and barn-cocks started crowing, And morn was at the window; and I was glad To be alive because I heard the cry Of hounds like church-bells chiming on a Sunday. Ay, that’s the song I’d wish to hear in Heaven! The cry of hounds was Heaven for me: I know Parson would call me crazed and wrong to say it, But where’s the use of life and being glad If God’s not in your gladness? I’ve no brains For book-learned studies; but I’ve heard men say There’s much in print that clergy have to wink at: Though many I’ve met were jolly chaps, and rode To hounds, and walked me puppies; and could pick Good legs and loins and necks and shoulders, ay, And feet—’twas necks and feet I looked at first. Some hounds I’ve known were wise as half your saints, And better hunters. That old dog of the Duke’s, Harlequin; what a dog he was to draw! And what a note he had, and what a nose When foxes ran down wind and scent was catchy! And that light lemon ***** of the Squire’s, old Dorcas— She were a marvellous hunter, were old Dorcas! Ay, oft I’ve thought, ‘If there were hounds in Heaven, With God as master, taking no subscription; And all His bless?d country farmed by tenants, And a straight-necked old fox in every gorse!’ But when I came to work it out, I found There’d be too many huntsmen wanting places, Though some I’ve known might get a job with Nick! . . . . I’ve come to think of God as something like The figure of a man the old Duke was When I was turning hounds to Nimrod King, Before his Grace was took so bad with gout And had to quit the saddle. Tall and spare, Clean-shaved and grey, with shrewd, kind eyes, that twinkled, And easy walk; who, when he gave good words, Gave them whole-hearted; and would never blame Without just cause. Lord God might be like that, Sitting alone in a great room of books Some evening after hunting. Now I’m tired With hearkening to the tick-tack on the shelf; And pondering makes me doubtful. Riding home On a moonless night of cloud that feels like frost Though stars are hidden (hold your feet up, horse!) And thinking what a task I had to draw A pack with all those lame ’uns, and the lot Wanting a rest from all this open weather; That’s what I’m doing now. And likely, too, The frost’ll be a long ’un, and the night One sleep. The parsons say we’ll wake to find A country blinding-white with dazzle of snow. The naked stars make men feel lonely, wheeling And glinting on the puddles in the road. And then you listen to the wind, and wonder If folk are quite such bucks as they appear When dressed by London tailors, looking down Their boots at covert side, and thinking big. . . . . This world’s a funny place to live in. Soon I’ll need to change my country; but I know ’Tis little enough I’ve understood my life, And a power of sights I’ve missed, and foreign marvels. I used to feel it, riding on spring days In meadows pied with sun and chasing clouds, And half forget how I was there to catch The foxes; lose the angry, eager feeling A huntsman ought to have, that’s out for blood, And means his hounds to get it! Now I know It’s God that speaks to us when we’re bewitched, Smelling the hay in June and smiling quiet; Or when there’s been a spell of summer drought, Lying awake and listening to the rain. . . . . I’d like to be the simpleton I was In the old days when I was whipping-in To a little harrier-pack in Worcestershire, And loved a dairymaid, but never knew it Until she’d wed another. So I’ve loved My life; and when the good years are gone down, Discover what I’ve lost. I never broke Out of my blundering self into the world, But let it all go past me, like a man Half asleep in a land that’s full of wars. What a grand thing ’twould be if I could go Back to the kennels now and take my hounds For summer exercise; be riding out With forty couple when the quiet skies Are streaked with sunrise, and the silly birds Grown hoarse with singing; cobwebs on the furze Up on the hill, and all the country strange, With no one stirring; and the horses fresh, Sniffing the air I’ll never breathe again. . . . . You’ve brought the lamp, then, Martha? I’ve no mind For newspaper to-night, nor bread and cheese. Give me the candle, and I’ll get to bed.

Written by Billy Collins | Picnic Lightning It is possible to be struck by a meteor or a single-engine plane while reading in a chair at home. Pedestrians are flattened by safes falling from rooftops mostly within the panels of the comics, but still, we know it is possible, as well as the flash of summer lightning, the thermos toppling over, spilling out on the grass. And we know the message can be delivered from within. The heart, no valentine, decides to quit after lunch, the power shut off like a switch, or a tiny dark ship is unmoored into the flow of the body's rivers, the brain a monastery, defenseless on the shore. This is what I think about when I shovel compost into a wheelbarrow, and when I fill the long flower boxes, then press into rows the limp roots of red impatiens -- the instant hand of Death always ready to burst forth from the sleeve of his voluminous cloak. Then the soil is full of marvels, bits of leaf like flakes off a fresco, red-brown pine needles, a beetle quick to burrow back under the loam. Then the wheelbarrow is a wilder blue, the clouds a brighter white, and all I hear is the rasp of the steel edge against a round stone, the small plants singing with lifted faces, and the click of the sundial as one hour sweeps into the next.

Written by Rabindranath Tagore | Fairyland If people came to know where my king's palace is, it would vanish into the air. The walls are of white silver and the roof of shining gold. The queen lives in a palace with seven courtyards, and she wears a jewel that cost all the wealth of seven kingdoms. But let me tell you, mother, in a whisper, where my king's palace is. It is at the corner of our terrace where the pot of the tulsi plant stands. The princess lies sleeping on the far-away shore of the seven impassable seas. There is none in the world who can find her but myself. She has bracelets on her arms and pearl drops in her ears; her hair sweeps down upon the floor. She will wake when I touch her with my magic wand and jewels will fall from her lips when she smiles. But let me whisper in your ear, mother; she is there in the corner of our terrace where the pot of the tulsi plant stands. When it is time for you to go to the river for your bath, step up to that terrace on the roof. I sit in the corner where the shadow of the walls meet together. Only puss is allowed to come with me, for she know where the barber in the story lives. But let me whisper, mother, in your ear where the barber in the story lives. It is at the corner of the terrace where the pot of the tulsi plant stands.

Written by Philip Larkin | Faith Healing Slowly the women file to where he stands Upright in rimless glasses, silver hair, Dark suit, white collar. Stewards tirelessly Persuade them onwards to his voice and hands, Within whose warm spring rain of loving care Each dwells some twenty seconds. Now, dear child, What's wrong, the deep American voice demands, And, scarcely pausing, goes into a prayer Directing God about this eye, that knee. Their heads are clasped abruptly; then, exiled Like losing thoughts, they go in silence; some Sheepishly stray, not back into their lives Just yet; but some stay stiff, twitching and loud With deep hoarse tears, as if a kind of dumb And idiot child within them still survives To re-awake at kindness, thinking a voice At last calls them alone, that hands have come To lift and lighten; and such joy arrives Their thick tongues blort, their eyes squeeze grief, a crowd Of huge unheard answers jam and rejoice - What's wrong! Moustached in flowered frocks they shake: By now, all's wrong. In everyone there sleeps A sense of life lived according to love. To some it means the difference they could make By loving others, but across most it sweeps As all they might have done had they been loved. That nothing cures. An immense slackening ache, As when, thawing, the rigid landscape weeps, Spreads slowly through them - that, and the voice above Saying Dear child, and all time has disproved.

Written by Ella Wheeler Wilcox | Loves Language How does Love speak? In the faint flush upon the tell-tale cheek, And in the pallor that succeeds it; by The quivering lid of an averted eye – The smile that proves the parent to a sigh – Thus doth Love speak. How does Love speak? By the uneven heart-throbs, and the freak Of bounding pulses that stand still and ache, While new emotions, like strange barques, make Along vein-channels their disturbing course; Still as the dawn, and with the dawn’s swift force – Thus doth Love speak. How does Love speak? In the avoidance of that which we seek – The sudden silence and reserve when near – The eye that glistens with an unshed tear – The joy that seems the counterpart of fear, As the alarmed heart leaps in the breast, And knows, and names, the greets its god-like guest – Thus doth Love speak. How doth Love speak? In the proud spirit suddenly grown meek – The haughty heart grown humble; in the tender And unnamed light that floods the world with splendour, In the resemblance which the fond eyes trace In all things to one beloved face; In the shy touch of hands that thrill and tremble; In looks and lips that can no more dissemble – Thus doth Love speak. How doth Love speak? In the wild words that uttered seem so weak They shrink ashamed to silence; in the fire Glance strikes with glance, swift flashing high and higher, Like lightnings that precede the mighty storm; In the deep, soulful stillness; in the warm, Impassioned tide that sweeps through throbbing veins, Between the shores of keen delights and pains; In the embrace where madness melts in bliss, And in convulsive rapture of a kiss – Thus doth Love speak.

Written by William Butler Yeats | A Bronze Head Here at right of the entrance this bronze head, Human, superhuman, a bird's round eye, Everything else withered and mummy-dead. What great tomb-haunter sweeps the distant sky (Something may linger there though all else die;) And finds there nothing to make its tetror less Hysterica passio of its own emptiness? No dark tomb-haunter once; her form all full As though with magnanimity of light, Yet a most gentle woman; who can tell Which of her forms has shown her substance right? Or maybe substance can be composite, profound McTaggart thought so, and in a breath A mouthful held the extreme of life and death. But even at the starting-post, all sleek and new, I saw the wildness in her and I thought A vision of terror that it must live through Had shattered her soul. Propinquity had brought Imagiation to that pitch where it casts out All that is not itself: I had grown wild And wandered murmuring everywhere, 'My child, my child.' Or else I thought her supernatural; As though a sterner eye looked through her eye On this foul world in its decline and fall; On gangling stocks grown great, great stocks run dry, Ancestral pearls all pitched into a sty, Heroic reverie mocked by clown and knave, And wondered what was left for massacre to save.

Written by Hilaire Belloc | Hanacker Mill Sally is gone that was so kindly, Sally is gone from Ha'nacker Hill And the Briar grows ever since then so blindly; And ever since then the clapper is still... And the sweeps have fallen from Ha'nacker Mill. Ha'nacker Hill is in Desolation: Ruin a-top and a field unploughed. And Spirits that call on a fallen nation, Spirits that loved her calling aloud, Spirits abroad in a windy cloud. Spirits that call and no one answers -- Ha'nacker's down and England's done. Wind and Thistle for pipe and dancers, And never a ploughman under the Sun: Never a ploughman. Never a one.