10 Best Famous Unceasing Poems

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

• All Famous Unceasing Poems

 Children running into izba,
Calling father, dripping sweat:
"Daddy, daddy! come -- there is a
Deadman caught inside our net."
"Fancy, fancy fabrication..."
Grumbled off their weary Pa,
"Have these imps imagination!
Deadman, really! ya-ha-ha...

"Well... the court may come to bother -
What'll I say before the judge?
Hey you brats, go have your mother
Bring my coat; I better trudge...
Show me, where?" -- "Right there, Dad, farther!"
On the sand where netting ropes
Lay spread out, the peasant father
Saw the veritable corpse.

Badly mangled, ugly, frightening,
Blue and swollen on each side...
Has he fished in storm and lightning,
Or committed suicide?
Could this be a careless drunkard,
Or a mermaid-seeking monk,
Or a merchandizer, conquered
By some bandits, robbed and sunk?

To the peasant, what's it matter!
Quick: he grabs the dead man's hair,
Drags his body to the water,
Looks around: nobody's there:
Good... relieved of the concern he
Shoves his paddle at a loss,
While the stiff resumes his journey
Down the stream for grave and cross.

Long the dead man as one living
Rocked on waves amid the foam...
Surly as he watched him leaving,
Soon our peasant headed home.
"Come you pups! let's go, don't scatter.
Each of you will get his bun.
But remember: just you chatter --
And I'll whip you, every one."

Dark and stormy it was turning.
High the river ran in gloom.
Now the torch has finished burning
In the peasant's smoky room.
Kids asleep, the wife aslumber,
He lies listening to the rain...
Bang! he hears a sudden comer
Knocking on the window-pane.

"What the..." -- "Let me in there, master!"
"Damn, you found the time to roam!
Well, what is it, your disaster?
Let you in? It's dark at home,
Dark and crowded... What a pest you are!
Where'd I put you in my cot..."
Slowly, with a lazy gesture,
He lifts up the pane and - what?

Through the clouds, the moon was showing...
Well? the naked man was there,
Down his hair the water flowing,
Wide his eyes, unmoved the stare;
Numb the dreadful-looking body,
Arms were hanging feeble, thin;
Crabs and cancers, black and bloody,
Sucked into the swollen skin.

As the peasant slammed the shutter
(Recognized his visitant)
Horror-struck he could but mutter
"Blast you!" and began to pant.
He was shuddering, awful chaos
All night through stirred in his brain,
While the knocking shook the house
By the gates and at the pane.

People tell a dreadful rumor:
Every year the peasant, say,
Waiting in the worst of humor
For his visitor that day;
As the rainstorm is increasing,
Nightfall brings a hurricane -
And the drowned man knocks, unceasing,
By the gates and at the pane.


Translated by: Genia Gurarie, 11/95
Copyright retained by Genia Gurarie.
email: [email protected]
http://www.princeton.edu/~egurarie/
For permission to reproduce, write personally to the translator.

 1
SAUNTERING the pavement, or riding the country by-road—lo! such faces! 
Faces of friendship, precision, caution, suavity, ideality; 
The spiritual, prescient face—the always welcome, common, benevolent face, 
The face of the singing of music—the grand faces of natural lawyers and judges, broad
 at
 the
 back-top; 
The faces of hunters and fishers, bulged at the brows—the shaved blanch’d faces
 of
 orthodox citizens;
The pure, extravagant, yearning, questioning artist’s face; 
The ugly face of some beautiful Soul, the handsome detested or despised face; 
The sacred faces of infants, the illuminated face of the mother of many children; 
The face of an amour, the face of veneration; 
The face as of a dream, the face of an immobile rock;
The face withdrawn of its good and bad, a castrated face; 
A wild hawk, his wings clipp’d by the clipper; 
A stallion that yielded at last to the thongs and knife of the gelder. 

Sauntering the pavement, thus, or crossing the ceaseless ferry, faces, and faces, and
 faces: 
I see them, and complain not, and am content with all.

2
Do you suppose I could be content with all, if I thought them their own finale? 

This now is too lamentable a face for a man; 
Some abject louse, asking leave to be—cringing for it; 
Some milk-nosed maggot, blessing what lets it wrig to its hole. 

This face is a dog’s snout, sniffing for garbage;
Snakes nest in that mouth—I hear the sibilant threat. 

This face is a haze more chill than the arctic sea; 
Its sleepy and wobbling icebergs crunch as they go. 

This is a face of bitter herbs—this an emetic—they need no label; 
And more of the drug-shelf, laudanum, caoutchouc, or hog’s-lard.

This face is an epilepsy, its wordless tongue gives out the unearthly cry, 
Its veins down the neck distended, its eyes roll till they show nothing but their whites, 
Its teeth grit, the palms of the hands are cut by the turn’d-in nails, 
The man falls struggling and foaming to the ground while he speculates well. 

This face is bitten by vermin and worms,
And this is some murderer’s knife, with a half-pull’d scabbard. 

This face owes to the sexton his dismalest fee; 
An unceasing death-bell tolls there. 

3
Those then are really men—the bosses and tufts of the great round globe! 

Features of my equals, would you trick me with your creas’d and cadaverous march?
Well, you cannot trick me. 

I see your rounded, never-erased flow; 
I see neath the rims of your haggard and mean disguises. 

Splay and twist as you like—poke with the tangling fores of fishes or rats; 
You’ll be unmuzzled, you certainly will.

I saw the face of the most smear’d and slobbering idiot they had at the asylum; 
And I knew for my consolation what they knew not; 
I knew of the agents that emptied and broke my brother, 
The same wait to clear the rubbish from the fallen tenement; 
And I shall look again in a score or two of ages,
And I shall meet the real landlord, perfect and unharm’d, every inch as good as
 myself. 

4
The Lord advances, and yet advances; 
Always the shadow in front—always the reach’d hand bringing up the laggards. 

Out of this face emerge banners and horses—O superb! I see what is coming; 
I see the high pioneer-caps—I see the staves of runners clearing the way,
I hear victorious drums. 

This face is a life-boat; 
This is the face commanding and bearded, it asks no odds of the rest; 
This face is flavor’d fruit, ready for eating; 
This face of a healthy honest boy is the programme of all good.

These faces bear testimony, slumbering or awake; 
They show their descent from the Master himself. 

Off the word I have spoken, I except not one—red, white, black, are all deific; 
In each house is the ovum—it comes forth after a thousand years. 

Spots or cracks at the windows do not disturb me;
Tall and sufficient stand behind, and make signs to me; 
I read the promise, and patiently wait. 

This is a full-grown lily’s face, 
She speaks to the limber-hipp’d man near the garden pickets, 
Come here, she blushingly cries—Come nigh to me, limber-hipp’d
 man,
Stand at my side till I lean as high as I can upon you, 
Fill me with albescent honey, bend down to me, 
Rub to me with your chafing beard, rub to my breast and shoulders. 

5
The old face of the mother of many children! 
Whist! I am fully content.

Lull’d and late is the smoke of the First-day morning, 
It hangs low over the rows of trees by the fences, 
It hangs thin by the sassafras, the wild-cherry, and the cat-brier under them. 

I saw the rich ladies in full dress at the soiree, 
I heard what the singers were singing so long,
Heard who sprang in crimson youth from the white froth and the water-blue, 

Behold a woman! 
She looks out from her quaker cap—her face is clearer and more beautiful than the
 sky. 

She sits in an arm-chair, under the shaded porch of the farmhouse, 
The sun just shines on her old white head.

Her ample gown is of cream-hued linen, 
Her grandsons raised the flax, and her granddaughters spun it with the distaff and the
 wheel. 

The melodious character of the earth, 
The finish beyond which philosophy cannot go, and does not wish to go, 
The justified mother of men.

 In my youth's years, she loved me, I am sure.
The flute of seven pipes she gave in my tenure
And harked to me with smile -- without speed,
Along the ringing holes of the reed,
I got to play with my non-artful fingers
The peaceful songs of Phrygian village singers,
And the important hymns, that gods to mortals bade.
>From morn till night in oaks' silent shade
I diligently harked to the mysterious virgin;
Rewarding me, by chance, for any good decision,
And taking locks aside of the enchanting face,
She sometimes took from me the flute, such commonplace.
The reed became alive in consecrated breathing
And filled the heart with holiness unceasing.

 Filled is Life's goblet to the brim;
And though my eyes with tears are dim,
I see its sparkling bubbles swim,
And chant a melancholy hymn
With solemn voice and slow.

No purple flowers,--no garlands green,
Conceal the goblet's shade or sheen,
Nor maddening draughts of Hippocrene,
Like gleams of sunshine, flash between
Thick leaves of mistletoe.

This goblet, wrought with curious art,
Is filled with waters, that upstart,
When the deep fountains of the heart,
By strong convulsions rent apart,
Are running all to waste.

And as it mantling passes round,
With fennel is it wreathed and crowned,
Whose seed and foliage sun-imbrowned
Are in its waters steeped and drowned,
And give a bitter taste.

Above the lowly plants it towers,
The fennel, with its yellow flowers,
And in an earlier age than ours
Was gifted with the wondrous powers,
Lost vision to restore.

It gave new strength, and fearless mood;
And gladiators, fierce and rude,
Mingled it in their daily food;
And he who battled and subdued,
A wreath of fennel wore.

Then in Life's goblet freely press,
The leaves that give it bitterness,
Nor prize the colored waters less,
For in thy darkness and distress
New light and strength they give!

And he who has not learned to know
How false its sparkling buhbles show,
How bitter are the drops of woe,
With which its brim may overflow,
He has not learned to live.

The prayer of Ajax was for light;
Through all that dark and desperate fight
The blackness of that noonday night
He asked but the return of sight,
To see his foeman's face.

Let our unceasing, earnest prayer
Be, too, for light,--for strength to bear
Our portion of the weight of care,
That crushes into dumb despair
One half the human race.

O suffering, sad humanity!
O ye afflicted one; who lie
Steeped to the lips in misery,
Longing, and yet afraid to die,
Patient, though sorely tried !

I pledge you in this cup of grief,
Where floats the fennel's bitter leaf !
The Battle of our Life is briet
The alarm,--the struggle,--the relief,
Then sleep we side by side.

 When the creation was new and all the stars shone in their first 
splendor, the gods held their assembly in the sky and sang 
`Oh, the picture of perfection! the joy unalloyed!' 

But one cried of a sudden 
---`It seems that somewhere there is a break in the chain of light 
and one of the stars has been lost.' 

The golden string of their harp snapped, 
their song stopped, and they cried in dismay 
---`Yes, that lost star was the best, 
she was the glory of all heavens!' 

From that day the search is unceasing for her, 
and the cry goes on from one to the other 
that in her the world has lost its one joy! 

Only in the deepest silence of night the stars smile 
and whisper among themselves 
---`Vain is this seeking! unbroken perfection is over all!'

 (This fine poem is given by Goethe amongst a 
small collection of what he calls Loge (Lodge), meaning thereby 
Masonic pieces.)

THE mason's trade 
Observe them well,

Resembles life, And 
watch them revealing

With all its strife,-- How 
solemn feeling
Is like the stir made And 
wonderment swell

By man on earth's face. The 
hearts of the brave.

Though weal and woe The 
voice of the blest,

The future may hide, And 
of spirits on high

Unterrified Seems 
loudly to cry:
We onward go 
"To do what is best,

In ne'er changing race. Unceasing 
endeavour!

A veil of dread 
"In silence eterne

Hangs heavier still. Here 
chaplets are twin'd,

Deep slumbers fill 
That each noble mind
The stars over-head, Its 
guerdon may earn.--

And the foot-trodden grave. 
Then hope ye for ever!"


1827.*

 Oh, not the loss of the accomplished thing! 
Not dumb farewells, nor long relinquishment 
Of beauty had, and golden summer spent, 
And savage glory of the fluttering 
Torn banners of the rain, and frosty ring 
Of moon-white winters, and the imminent 
Long-lunging seas, and glowing students bent 
To race on some smooth beach the gull's wing:

Not these, nor all we've been, nor all we've loved, 
The pitiful familiar names, had moved 
Our hearts to weep for them; but oh, the star 
The future is! Eternity's too wan 
To give again that undefeated, far, 
All-possible irradiance of dawn.

Like moon-dark, like brown water you escape, 
O laughing mouth, O sweet uplifted lips. 
Within the peering brain old ghosts take shape; 
You flame and wither as the white foam slips 
Back from the broken wave: sometimes a start, 
A gesture of the hands, a way you own 
Of bending that smooth head above your heart,-- 
Then these are varied, then the dream is gone.

Oh, you are too much mine and flesh of me 
To seal upon the brain, who in the blood 
Are so intense a pulse, so swift a flood 
Of beauty, such unceasing instancy. 
Dear unimagined brow, unvisioned face, 
All beauty has become your dwelling place.

 Just over the horizon a great machine of death is roaring and

 rearing.
One can hear it always. Earthquake, starvation, the ever-

 renewing field of corpse-flesh.
In this valley the snow falls silently all day and out our window
We see the curtain of it shifting and folding, hiding us away in

 our little house,
We see earth smoothened and beautified, made like a fantasy, the

 snow-clad trees
So graceful in a dream of peace. In our new bed, which is big

 enough to seem like the north pasture almost
With our two cats, Cooker and Smudgins, lying undisturbed in

 the southeastern and southwestern corners,
We lie loving and warm, looking out from time to time.

 "Snowbound," we say. We speak of the poet
Who lived with his young housekeeper long ago in the

 mountains of the western province, the kingdom
Of complete cruelty, where heads fell like wilted flowers and

 snow fell for many months across the mouth
Of the pass and drifted deep in the vale. In our kitchen the

 maple-fire murmurs
In our stove. We eat cheese and new-made bread and jumbo

 Spanish olives
That have been steeped in our special brine of jalapeños and

 garlic and dill and thyme.
We have a nip or two from the small inexpensive cognac that

 makes us smile and sigh.
For a while we close the immense index of images

 which is
Our lives--for instance, the child on the Mescalero reservation

 in New Mexico in 1966
Sitting naked in the dirt outside his family's hut of tin and

 cardboard,
Covered with sores, unable to speak. But of course the child is

 here with us now,
We cannot close the index. How will we survive? We don't and

 cannot know.
Beyond the horizon a great unceasing noise is undeniable. The

 machine
May break through and come lurching into our valley at any

 moment, at any moment.
Cheers, baby. Here's to us. See how the curtain of snow wavers

 and falls back.

Credit: Copyright © 1995 by Hayden Carruth. Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, www.coppercanyonpress.org

 When twenty-one I loved to dream,
 And was to loafing well inclined;
Somehow I couldn't get up steam
 To welcome work of any kind.
While students burned the midnight lamp,
 With dour ambition as their goad,
I longed to be a gayful tramp
 And greet adventure on the road.

But now that sixty years have sped,
 Behold! I toil from morn to night.
The thoughts that teem into my head
 I pray: God give me time to write.
With eager and unflagging pen
 No drudgery of desk I shirk,
And preach to all retiring men
 The gospel of unceasing work.

And yet I do not sadly grieve
 Such squandering of golden days;
For from my dreaming I believe
 Have stemmed my least unworthy lays.
Aye, toil is best when all is said,
 As age has made me understand . . .
So fitly fold, when I am dead,
 A pencil in my hand.

 THAT music always round me, unceasing, unbeginning—yet long untaught I did not hear; 
But now the chorus I hear, and am elated; 
A tenor, strong, ascending, with power and health, with glad notes of day-break I hear, 
A soprano, at intervals, sailing buoyantly over the tops of immense waves, 
A transparent bass, shuddering lusciously under and through the universe,
The triumphant tutti—the funeral wailings, with sweet flutes and violins—all
 these I
 fill myself with; 
I hear not the volumes of sound merely—I am moved by the exquisite meanings, 
I listen to the different voices winding in and out, striving, contending with fiery
 vehemence
 to excel each other in emotion; 
I do not think the performers know themselves—but now I think I begin to know them.