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Best Famous Urns Poems

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Written by Edna St Vincent Millay | Create an image from this poem

Ode To Silence

 Aye, but she?
Your other sister and my other soul
Grave Silence, lovelier
Than the three loveliest maidens, what of her?
Clio, not you,
Not you, Calliope,
Nor all your wanton line,
Not Beauty's perfect self shall comfort me
For Silence once departed,
For her the cool-tongued, her the tranquil-hearted,
Whom evermore I follow wistfully,
Wandering Heaven and Earth and Hell and the four seasons through;
Thalia, not you,
Not you, Melpomene,
Not your incomparable feet, O thin Terpsichore, I seek in this great hall,
But one more pale, more pensive, most beloved of you all.
I seek her from afar, I come from temples where her altars are, From groves that bear her name, Noisy with stricken victims now and sacrificial flame, And cymbals struck on high and strident faces Obstreperous in her praise They neither love nor know, A goddess of gone days, Departed long ago, Abandoning the invaded shrines and fanes Of her old sanctuary, A deity obscure and legendary, Of whom there now remains, For sages to decipher and priests to garble, Only and for a little while her letters wedged in marble, Which even now, behold, the friendly mumbling rain erases, And the inarticulate snow, Leaving at last of her least signs and traces None whatsoever, nor whither she is vanished from these places.
"She will love well," I said, "If love be of that heart inhabiter, The flowers of the dead; The red anemone that with no sound Moves in the wind, and from another wound That sprang, the heavily-sweet blue hyacinth, That blossoms underground, And sallow poppies, will be dear to her.
And will not Silence know In the black shade of what obsidian steep Stiffens the white narcissus numb with sleep? (Seed which Demeter's daughter bore from home, Uptorn by desperate fingers long ago, Reluctant even as she, Undone Persephone, And even as she set out again to grow In twilight, in perdition's lean and inauspicious loam).
She will love well," I said, "The flowers of the dead; Where dark Persephone the winter round, Uncomforted for home, uncomforted, Lacking a sunny southern slope in northern Sicily, With sullen pupils focussed on a dream, Stares on the stagnant stream That moats the unequivocable battlements of Hell, There, there will she be found, She that is Beauty veiled from men and Music in a swound.
" "I long for Silence as they long for breath Whose helpless nostrils drink the bitter sea; What thing can be So stout, what so redoubtable, in Death What fury, what considerable rage, if only she, Upon whose icy breast, Unquestioned, uncaressed, One time I lay, And whom always I lack, Even to this day, Being by no means from that frigid bosom weaned away, If only she therewith be given me back?" I sought her down that dolorous labyrinth, Wherein no shaft of sunlight ever fell, And in among the bloodless everywhere I sought her, but the air, Breathed many times and spent, Was fretful with a whispering discontent, And questioning me, importuning me to tell Some slightest tidings of the light of day they know no more, Plucking my sleeve, the eager shades were with me where I went.
I paused at every grievous door, And harked a moment, holding up my hand,—and for a space A hush was on them, while they watched my face; And then they fell a-whispering as before; So that I smiled at them and left them, seeing she was not there.
I sought her, too, Among the upper gods, although I knew She was not like to be where feasting is, Nor near to Heaven's lord, Being a thing abhorred And shunned of him, although a child of his, (Not yours, not yours; to you she owes not breath, Mother of Song, being sown of Zeus upon a dream of Death).
Fearing to pass unvisited some place And later learn, too late, how all the while, With her still face, She had been standing there and seen me pass, without a smile, I sought her even to the sagging board whereat The stout immortals sat; But such a laughter shook the mighty hall No one could hear me say: Had she been seen upon the Hill that day? And no one knew at all How long I stood, or when at last I sighed and went away.
There is a garden lying in a lull Between the mountains and the mountainous sea, I know not where, but which a dream diurnal Paints on my lids a moment till the hull Be lifted from the kernel And Slumber fed to me.
Your foot-print is not there, Mnemosene, Though it would seem a ruined place and after Your lichenous heart, being full Of broken columns, caryatides Thrown to the earth and fallen forward on their jointless knees, And urns funereal altered into dust Minuter than the ashes of the dead, And Psyche's lamp out of the earth up-thrust, Dripping itself in marble wax on what was once the bed Of Love, and his young body asleep, but now is dust instead.
There twists the bitter-sweet, the white wisteria Fastens its fingers in the strangling wall, And the wide crannies quicken with bright weeds; There dumbly like a worm all day the still white orchid feeds; But never an echo of your daughters' laughter Is there, nor any sign of you at all Swells fungous from the rotten bough, grey mother of Pieria! Only her shadow once upon a stone I saw,—and, lo, the shadow and the garden, too, were gone.
I tell you you have done her body an ill, You chatterers, you noisy crew! She is not anywhere! I sought her in deep Hell; And through the world as well; I thought of Heaven and I sought her there; Above nor under ground Is Silence to be found, That was the very warp and woof of you, Lovely before your songs began and after they were through! Oh, say if on this hill Somewhere your sister's body lies in death, So I may follow there, and make a wreath Of my locked hands, that on her quiet breast Shall lie till age has withered them! (Ah, sweetly from the rest I see Turn and consider me Compassionate Euterpe!) "There is a gate beyond the gate of Death, Beyond the gate of everlasting Life, Beyond the gates of Heaven and Hell," she saith, "Whereon but to believe is horror! Whereon to meditate engendereth Even in deathless spirits such as I A tumult in the breath, A chilling of the inexhaustible blood Even in my veins that never will be dry, And in the austere, divine monotony That is my being, the madness of an unaccustomed mood.
This is her province whom you lack and seek; And seek her not elsewhere.
Hell is a thoroughfare For pilgrims,—Herakles, And he that loved Euridice too well, Have walked therein; and many more than these; And witnessed the desire and the despair Of souls that passed reluctantly and sicken for the air; You, too, have entered Hell, And issued thence; but thence whereof I speak None has returned;—for thither fury brings Only the driven ghosts of them that flee before all things.
Oblivion is the name of this abode: and she is there.
" Oh, radiant Song! Oh, gracious Memory! Be long upon this height I shall not climb again! I know the way you mean,—the little night, And the long empty day,—never to see Again the angry light, Or hear the hungry noises cry my brain! Ah, but she, Your other sister and my other soul, She shall again be mine; And I shall drink her from a silver bowl, A chilly thin green wine, Not bitter to the taste, Not sweet, Not of your press, oh, restless, clamorous nine,— To foam beneath the frantic hoofs of mirth— But savoring faintly of the acid earth, And trod by pensive feet From perfect clusters ripened without haste Out of the urgent heat In some clear glimmering vaulted twilight under the odorous vine .
Lift up your lyres! Sing on! But as for me, I seek your sister whither she is gone.


Written by Charles Baudelaire | Create an image from this poem

The Sick Muse

 My impoverished muse, alas! What have you for me this morning? 
Your empty eyes are stocked with nocturnal visions, 
In your cheek's cold and taciturn reflection, 
I see insanity and horror forming.
The green succubus and the red urchin, Have they poured you fear and love from their urns? The nightmare of a mutinous fist that despotically turns, Does it drown you at the bottom of a loch beyond searching? I wish that your breast exhaled the scent of sanity, That your womb of thought was not a tomb more frequently And that your Christian blood flowed around a buoy that was rhythmical, Like the numberless sounds of antique syllables, Where reigns in turn the father of songs, Phoebus, and the great Pan, the harvest sovereign.
Written by William Shakespeare | Create an image from this poem

Dirge of the Three Queens

 URNS and odours bring away! 
 Vapours, sighs, darken the day! 
Our dole more deadly looks than dying; 
 Balms and gums and heavy cheers, 
 Sacred vials fill'd with tears, 
And clamours through the wild air flying! 

 Come, all sad and solemn shows, 
 That are quick-eyed Pleasure's foes! 
 We convent naught else but woes.
Written by Jorge Luis Borges | Create an image from this poem

Limits

 Of all the streets that blur in to the sunset,
There must be one (which, I am not sure)
That I by now have walked for the last time
Without guessing it, the pawn of that Someone

Who fixes in advance omnipotent laws,
Sets up a secret and unwavering scale
for all the shadows, dreams, and forms
Woven into the texture of this life.
If there is a limit to all things and a measure And a last time and nothing more and forgetfulness, Who will tell us to whom in this house We without knowing it have said farewell? Through the dawning window night withdraws And among the stacked books which throw Irregular shadows on the dim table, There must be one which I will never read.
There is in the South more than one worn gate, With its cement urns and planted cactus, Which is already forbidden to my entry, Inaccessible, as in a lithograph.
There is a door you have closed forever And some mirror is expecting you in vain; To you the crossroads seem wide open, Yet watching you, four-faced, is a Janus.
There is among all your memories one Which has now been lost beyond recall.
You will not be seen going down to that fountain Neither by white sun nor by yellow moon.
You will never recapture what the Persian Said in his language woven with birds and roses, When, in the sunset, before the light disperses, You wish to give words to unforgettable things.
And the steadily flowing Rhone and the lake, All that vast yesterday over which today I bend? They will be as lost as Carthage, Scourged by the Romans with fire and salt.
At dawn I seem to hear the turbulent Murmur of crowds milling and fading away; They are all I have been loved by, forgotten by; Space, time, and Borges now are leaving me.
Written by Charles Bukowski | Create an image from this poem

Something For The Touts The Nuns The Grocery Clerks And You . .

 we have everything and we have nothing
and some men do it in churches
and some men do it by tearing butterflies
in half
and some men do it in Palm Springs
laying it into butterblondes
with Cadillac souls
Cadillacs and butterflies
nothing and everything,
the face melting down to the last puff
in a cellar in Corpus Christi.
there's something for the touts, the nuns, the grocery clerks and you .
.
.
something at 8 a.
m.
, something in the library something in the river, everything and nothing.
in the slaughterhouse it comes running along the ceiling on a hook, and you swing it -- one two three and then you've got it, $200 worth of dead meat, its bones against your bones something and nothing.
it's always early enough to die and it's always too late, and the drill of blood in the basin white it tells you nothing at all and the gravediggers playing poker over 5 a.
m.
coffee, waiting for the grass to dismiss the frost .
.
.
they tell you nothing at all.
we have everything and we have nothing -- days with glass edges and the impossible stink of river moss -- worse than ****; checkerboard days of moves and countermoves, fagged interest, with as much sense in defeat as in victory; slow days like mules humping it slagged and sullen and sun-glazed up a road where a madman sits waiting among bluejays and wrens netted in and sucked a flakey grey.
good days too of wine and shouting, fights in alleys, fat legs of women striving around your bowels buried in moans, the signs in bullrings like diamonds hollering Mother Capri, violets coming out of the ground telling you to forget the dead armies and the loves that robbed you.
days when children say funny and brilliant things like savages trying to send you a message through their bodies while their bodies are still alive enough to transmit and feel and run up and down without locks and paychecks and ideals and possessions and beetle-like opinions.
days when you can cry all day long in a green room with the door locked, days when you can laugh at the breadman because his legs are too long, days of looking at hedges .
.
.
and nothing, and nothing, the days of the bosses, yellow men with bad breath and big feet, men who look like frogs, hyenas, men who walk as if melody had never been invented, men who think it is intelligent to hire and fire and profit, men with expensive wives they possess like 60 acres of ground to be drilled or shown-off or to be walled away from the incompetent, men who'd kill you because they're crazy and justify it because it's the law, men who stand in front of windows 30 feet wide and see nothing, men with luxury yachts who can sail around the world and yet never get out of their vest pockets, men like snails, men like eels, men like slugs, and not as good .
.
.
and nothing, getting your last paycheck at a harbor, at a factory, at a hospital, at an aircraft plant, at a penny arcade, at a barbershop, at a job you didn't want anyway.
income tax, sickness, servility, broken arms, broken heads -- all the stuffing come out like an old pillow.
we have everything and we have nothing.
some do it well enough for a while and then give way.
fame gets them or disgust or age or lack of proper diet or ink across the eyes or children in college or new cars or broken backs while skiing in Switzerland or new politics or new wives or just natural change and decay -- the man you knew yesterday hooking for ten rounds or drinking for three days and three nights by the Sawtooth mountains now just something under a sheet or a cross or a stone or under an easy delusion, or packing a bible or a golf bag or a briefcase: how they go, how they go! -- all the ones you thought would never go.
days like this.
like your day today.
maybe the rain on the window trying to get through to you.
what do you see today? what is it? where are you? the best days are sometimes the first, sometimes the middle and even sometimes the last.
the vacant lots are not bad, churches in Europe on postcards are not bad.
people in wax museums frozen into their best sterility are not bad, horrible but not bad.
the cannon, think of the cannon, and toast for breakfast the coffee hot enough you know your tongue is still there, three geraniums outside a window, trying to be red and trying to be pink and trying to be geraniums, no wonder sometimes the women cry, no wonder the mules don't want to go up the hill.
are you in a hotel room in Detroit looking for a cigarette? one more good day.
a little bit of it.
and as the nurses come out of the building after their shift, having had enough, eight nurses with different names and different places to go -- walking across the lawn, some of them want cocoa and a paper, some of them want a hot bath, some of them want a man, some of them are hardly thinking at all.
enough and not enough.
arcs and pilgrims, oranges gutters, ferns, antibodies, boxes of tissue paper.
in the most decent sometimes sun there is the softsmoke feeling from urns and the canned sound of old battleplanes and if you go inside and run your finger along the window ledge you'll find dirt, maybe even earth.
and if you look out the window there will be the day, and as you get older you'll keep looking keep looking sucking your tongue in a little ah ah no no maybe some do it naturally some obscenely everywhere.


Written by Algernon Charles Swinburne | Create an image from this poem

Ave atque Vale (In memory of Charles Baudelaire)

 SHALL I strew on thee rose or rue or laurel, 
 Brother, on this that was the veil of thee? 
 Or quiet sea-flower moulded by the sea, 
Or simplest growth of meadow-sweet or sorrel, 
 Such as the summer-sleepy Dryads weave, 
 Waked up by snow-soft sudden rains at eve? 
Or wilt thou rather, as on earth before, 
 Half-faded fiery blossoms, pale with heat 
 And full of bitter summer, but more sweet 
To thee than gleanings of a northern shore 
 Trod by no tropic feet? 

For always thee the fervid languid glories 
 Allured of heavier suns in mightier skies; 
 Thine ears knew all the wandering watery sighs 
Where the sea sobs round Lesbian promontories, 
 The barren kiss of piteous wave to wave 
 That knows not where is that Leucadian grave 
Which hides too deep the supreme head of song.
Ah, salt and sterile as her kisses were, The wild sea winds her and the green gulfs bear Hither and thither, and vex and work her wrong, Blind gods that cannot spare.
Thou sawest, in thine old singing season, brother, Secrets and sorrows unbeheld of us: Fierce loves, and lovely leaf-buds poisonous, Bare to thy subtler eye, but for none other Blowing by night in some unbreathed-in clime; The hidden harvest of luxurious time, Sin without shape, and pleasure without speech; And where strange dreams in a tumultuous sleep Make the shut eyes of stricken spirits weep; And with each face thou sawest the shadow on each, Seeing as men sow men reap.
O sleepless heart and sombre soul unsleeping, That were athirst for sleep and no more life And no more love, for peace and no more strife! Now the dim gods of death have in their keeping Spirit and body and all the springs of song, Is it well now where love can do no wrong, Where stingless pleasure has no foam or fang Behind the unopening closure of her lips? Is it not well where soul from body slips And flesh from bone divides without a pang As dew from flower-bell drips? It is enough; the end and the beginning Are one thing to thee, who art past the end.
O hand unclasp'd of unbeholden friend, For thee no fruits to pluck, no palms for winning, No triumph and no labour and no lust, Only dead yew-leaves and a little dust.
O quiet eyes wherein the light saith naught, Whereto the day is dumb, nor any night With obscure finger silences your sight, Nor in your speech the sudden soul speaks thought, Sleep, and have sleep for light.
Now all strange hours and all strange loves are over, Dreams and desires and sombre songs and sweet, Hast thou found place at the great knees and feet Of some pale Titan-woman like a lover, Such as thy vision here solicited, Under the shadow of her fair vast head, The deep division of prodigious breasts, The solemn slope of mighty limbs asleep, The weight of awful tresses that still keep The savour and shade of old-world pine-forests Where the wet hill-winds weep? Hast thou found any likeness for thy vision? O gardener of strange flowers, what bud, what bloom, Hast thou found sown, what gather'd in the gloom? What of despair, of rapture, of derision, What of life is there, what of ill or good? Are the fruits gray like dust or bright like blood? Does the dim ground grow any seed of ours, The faint fields quicken any terrene root, In low lands where the sun and moon are mute And all the stars keep silence? Are there flowers At all, or any fruit? Alas, but though my flying song flies after, O sweet strange elder singer, thy more fleet Singing, and footprints of thy fleeter feet, Some dim derision of mysterious laughter From the blind tongueless warders of the dead, Some gainless glimpse of Proserpine's veil'd head, Some little sound of unregarded tears Wept by effaced unprofitable eyes, And from pale mouths some cadence of dead sighs-- These only, these the hearkening spirit hears, Sees only such things rise.
Thou art far too far for wings of words to follow, Far too far off for thought or any prayer.
What ails us with thee, who art wind and air? What ails us gazing where all seen is hollow? Yet with some fancy, yet with some desire, Dreams pursue death as winds a flying fire, Our dreams pursue our dead and do not find.
Still, and more swift than they, the thin flame flies, The low light fails us in elusive skies, Still the foil'd earnest ear is deaf, and blind Are still the eluded eyes.
Not thee, O never thee, in all time's changes, Not thee, but this the sound of thy sad soul, The shadow of thy swift spirit, this shut scroll I lay my hand on, and not death estranges My spirit from communion of thy song-- These memories and these melodies that throng Veil'd porches of a Muse funereal-- These I salute, these touch, these clasp and fold As though a hand were in my hand to hold, Or through mine ears a mourning musical Of many mourners roll'd.
I among these, I also, in such station As when the pyre was charr'd, and piled the sods.
And offering to the dead made, and their gods, The old mourners had, standing to make libation, I stand, and to the Gods and to the dead Do reverence without prayer or praise, and shed Offering to these unknown, the gods of gloom, And what of honey and spice my seed-lands bear, And what I may of fruits in this chill'd air, And lay, Orestes-like, across the tomb A curl of sever'd hair.
But by no hand nor any treason stricken, Not like the low-lying head of Him, the King, The flame that made of Troy a ruinous thing, Thou liest and on this dust no tears could quicken.
There fall no tears like theirs that all men hear Fall tear by sweet imperishable tear Down the opening leaves of holy poets' pages.
Thee not Orestes, not Electra mourns; But bending us-ward with memorial urns The most high Muses that fulfil all ages Weep, and our God's heart yearns.
For, sparing of his sacred strength, not often Among us darkling here the lord of light Makes manifest his music and his might In hearts that open and in lips that soften With the soft flame and heat of songs that shine.
Thy lips indeed he touch'd with bitter wine, And nourish'd them indeed with bitter bread; Yet surely from his hand thy soul's food came, The fire that scarr'd thy spirit at his flame Was lighted, and thine hungering heart he fed Who feeds our hearts with fame.
Therefore he too now at thy soul's sunsetting, God of all suns and songs, he too bends down To mix his laurel with thy cypress crown, And save thy dust from blame and from forgetting.
Therefore he too, seeing all thou wert and art, Compassionate, with sad and sacred heart, Mourns thee of many his children the last dead, And hollows with strange tears and alien sighs Thine unmelodious mouth and sunless eyes, And over thine irrevocable head Sheds light from the under skies.
And one weeps with him in the ways Lethean, And stains with tears her changing bosom chill; That obscure Venus of the hollow hill, That thing transform'd which was the Cytherean, With lips that lost their Grecian laugh divine Long since, and face no more call'd Erycine-- A ghost, a bitter and luxurious god.
Thee also with fair flesh and singing spell Did she, a sad and second prey, compel Into the footless places once more trod, And shadows hot from hell.
And now no sacred staff shall break in blossom, No choral salutation lure to light A spirit sick with perfume and sweet night And love's tired eyes and hands and barren bosom.
There is no help for these things; none to mend, And none to mar; not all our songs, O friend, Will make death clear or make life durable.
Howbeit with rose and ivy and wild vine And with wild notes about this dust of thine At least I fill the place where white dreams dwell And wreathe an unseen shrine.
Sleep; and if life was bitter to thee, pardon, If sweet, give thanks; thou hast no more to live; And to give thanks is good, and to forgive.
Out of the mystic and the mournful garden Where all day through thine hands in barren braid Wove the sick flowers of secrecy and shade, Green buds of sorrow and sin, and remnants gray, Sweet-smelling, pale with poison, sanguine-hearted, Passions that sprang from sleep and thoughts that started, Shall death not bring us all as thee one day Among the days departed? For thee, O now a silent soul, my brother, Take at my hands this garland, and farewell.
Thin is the leaf, and chill the wintry smell, And chill the solemn earth, a fatal mother, With sadder than the Niobean womb, And in the hollow of her breasts a tomb.
Content thee, howsoe'er, whose days are done; There lies not any troublous thing before, Nor sight nor sound to war against thee more, For whom all winds are quiet as the sun, All waters as the shore.
Written by John Milton | Create an image from this poem

The Hymn

 I

It was the Winter wilde,
While the Heav'n-born-childe, 
All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;
Nature in aw to him
Had doff't her gawdy trim,
With her great Master so to sympathize:
It was no season then for her
To wanton with the Sun her lusty Paramour.
II Only with speeches fair She woo'd the gentle Air To hide her guilty front with innocent Snow, And on her naked shame, Pollute with sinfull blame, The Saintly Vail of Maiden white to throw, Confounded, that her Makers eyes Should look so near upon her foul deformities.
III But he her fears to cease, Sent down the meek-eyd Peace, She crown'd with Olive green, came softly sliding Down through the turning sphear His ready Harbinger, With Turtle wing the amorous clouds dividing, And waving wide her mirtle wand, She strikes a universall Peace through Sea and Land.
IV No War, or Battails sound Was heard the World around, The idle spear and shield were high up hung; The hooked Chariot stood Unstain'd with hostile blood, The Trumpet spake not to the armed throng, And Kings sate still with awfull eye, As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by.
V But peacefull was the night Wherin the Prince of light His raign of peace upon the earth began: The Windes with wonder whist, Smoothly the waters kist, Whispering new joyes to the milde Ocean, Who now hath quite forgot to rave, While Birds of Calm sit brooding on the charmed wave.
VI The Stars with deep amaze Stand fit in steadfast gaze, Bending one way their pretious influence, And will not take their flight, For all the morning light, Or Lucifer that often warned them thence; But in their glimmering Orbs did glow, Until their Lord himself bespake, and bid them go.
VII And though the shady gloom Had given day her room, The Sun himself with-held his wonted speed, And hid his head for shame, As his inferior flame, The new enlightened world no more should need; He saw a greater Sun appear Then his bright Throne, or burning Axletree could bear.
VIII The Shepherds on the Lawn, Or ere the point of dawn, Sate simply chatting in a rustic row; Full little thought they than, That the mighty Pan Was kindly com to live with them below; Perhaps their loves, or els their sheep, Was all that did their silly thoughts so busie keep.
IX When such Musick sweet Their hearts and ears did greet, As never was by mortal finger strook, Divinely-warbled voice Answering the stringed noise, As all their souls in blisfull rapture took: The Air such pleasure loth to lose, With thousand echo's still prolongs each heav'nly close.
X Nature that heard such sound Beneath the hollow round of Cynthia's seat the Airy region thrilling, Now was almost won To think her part was don And that her raign had here its last fulfilling; She knew such harmony alone Could hold all Heav'n and Earth in happier union.
XI At last surrounds their sight A globe of circular light, That with long beams the shame faced night arrayed The helmed Cherubim And sworded Seraphim, Are seen in glittering ranks with wings displaid, Harping in loud and solemn quire, With unexpressive notes to Heav'ns new-born Heir.
XII Such Musick (as 'tis said) Before was never made, But when of old the sons of morning sung, While the Creator Great His constellations set, And the well-ballanc't world on hinges hung, And cast the dark foundations deep, And bid the weltring waves their oozy channel keep.
XIII Ring out ye Crystall sphears, Once bless our human ears, (If ye have power to touch our senses so) And let your silver chime Move in melodious time; And let the Base of Heav'ns deep Organ blow, And with your ninefold harmony Make up full consort to th'Angelike symphony.
XIV For if such holy Song Enwrap our fancy long, Time will run back, and fetch the age of gold, And speckl'd vanity Will sicken soon and die, And leprous sin will melt from earthly mould, And Hell it self will pass away And leave her dolorous mansions to the peering day.
XV Yea Truth, and Justice then Will down return to men, Th'enameld Arras of the Rain-bow wearing, And Mercy set between Thron'd in Celestiall sheen, With radiant feet the tissued clouds down stearing, And Heav'n as at som festivall, Will open wide the gates of her high Palace Hall.
XVI But wisest Fate sayes no, This must not yet be so, The Babe lies yet in smiling Infancy, That on the bitter cross Must redeem our loss; So both himself and us to glorifie: Yet first to those ychain'd in sleep, The Wakeful trump of doom must thunder through the deep, XVII With such a horrid clang As on Mount Sinai rang While the red fire, and smouldring clouds out brake: The aged Earth agast With terrour of that blast, Shall from the surface to the center shake; When at the worlds last session, The dreadfull Judge in middle Air shall spread his throne.
XVIII And then at last our bliss Full and perfect is, But now begins; for from this happy day Th'old Dragon under ground In straiter limits bound, Not half so far casts his usurped sway, And wrath to see his Kingdom fail, Swindges the scaly Horrour of his foulded tail.
XIX The Oracles are dumm, No voice or hideous humm Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving.
Apollo from his shrine Can no more divine, With hollow shreik the steep of Delphos leaving.
No nightly trance, or breathed spell, Inspire's the pale-ey'd Priest from the prophetic cell.
XX The lonely mountains o're, And the resounding shore, A voice of weeping heard, and loud lament; From haunted spring, and dale Edg'd with poplar pale The parting Genius is with sighing sent, With flowre-inwov'n tresses torn The Nimphs in twilight shade of tangled thickets mourn.
XXI In consecrated Earth, And on the holy Hearth, The Lars, and Lemures moan with midnight plaint, In Urns, and Altars round, A drear, and dying sound Affrights the Flamins at their service quaint; And the chill Marble seems to sweat, While each peculiar power forgoes his wonted seat.
XXII Peor, and Baalim, Forsake their Temples dim, With that twise-batter'd god of Palestine, And mooned Ashtaroth, Heav'ns Queen and Mother both, Now sits not girt with Tapers holy shine, The Libyc Hammon shrinks his horn, In vain the Tyrian Maids their wounded Thamuz mourn.
XXIII And sullen Moloch fled, Hath left in shadows dred, His burning Idol all of blackest hue, In vain with Cymbals ring, They call the grisly king, In dismall dance about the furnace Blue; And Brutish gods of Nile as fast, lsis and Orus, and the Dog Anubis hast.
Written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow | Create an image from this poem

Woods in Winter

 When winter winds are piercing chill,
And through the hawthorn blows the gale,
With solemn feet I tread the hill,
That overbrows the lonely vale.
O'er the bare upland, and away Through the long reach of desert woods, The embracing sunbeams chastely play, And gladden these deep solitudes.
Where, twisted round the barren oak, The summer vine in beauty clung, And summer winds the stillness broke, The crystal icicle is hung.
Where, from their frozen urns, mute springs Pour out the river's gradual tide, Shrilly the skater's iron rings, And voices fill the woodland side.
Alas! how changed from the fair scene, When birds sang out their mellow lay, And winds were soft, and woods were green, And the song ceased not with the day! But still wild music is abroad, Pale, desert woods! within your crowd; And gathering winds, in hoarse accord, Amid the vocal reeds pipe loud.
Chill airs and wintry winds! my ear Has grown familiar with your song; I hear it in the opening year, I listen, and it cheers me long.
Written by Rudyard Kipling | Create an image from this poem

The Naulahka

 There was a strife 'twixt man and maid--
Oh, that was at the birth of time!
But what befell 'twixt man and maid,
Oh, that's beyond the grip of rhyme.
'Twas "Sweet, I must not bide with you," And, "Love, I cannot bide alone"; For both were young and both were true.
And both were hard as the nether stone.
Beware the man who's crossed in love; For pent-up steam must find its vent.
Stand back when he is on the move, And lend him all the Continent.
Your patience, Sirs.
The Devil took me up To the burned mountain over Sicily (Fit place for me) and thence I saw my Earth-- (Not all Earth's splendour, 'twas beyond my need--) And that one spot I love--all Earth to me, And her I love, my Heaven.
What said I? My love was safe from all the powers of Hell- For you--e'en you--acquit her of my guilt-- But Sula, nestling by our sail--specked sea, My city, child of mine, my heart, my home-- Mine and my pride--evil might visit there! It was for Sula and her naked port, Prey to the galleys of the Algerine, Our city Sula, that I drove my price-- For love of Sula and for love of her.
The twain were woven--gold on sackcloth--twined Past any sundering till God shall judge The evil and the good.
Now it is not good for the Christian's health to hustle the Aryan brown, For the Christian riles, and the Aryan smiles and he weareth the Christian down; And the end of the fight is a tombstone white with the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear: "A Fool lies here who tried to hustle the East.
" There is pleasure in the wet, wet clay When the artist's hand is potting it.
There is pleasure in the wet, wet lay -- When the poet's pad is blotting it.
There is pleasure in the shine of your picture on the line At the Royal Acade-my; But the pleasure felt in these is as chalk to Cheddar cheese When it comes to a well-made Lie-- To a quite unwreckable Lie, To a most impeccable Lie! To a water-right, fire-proof, angle-iron, sunk-hinge, time-lock, steel-faced Lie! Not a private handsome Lie, But a pair-and-brougham Lie, Not a little-place-at-Tooting, but a country-house-with-shooting And a ring-fence-deer-park Lie.
When a lover hies abroad Looking for his love, Azrael smiling sheathes his sword, Heaven smiles above.
Earth and sea His servants be, And to lesser compass round, That his love be sooner found! We meet in an evil land That is near to the gates of Hell.
I wait for thy command To serve, to speed or withstand.
And thou sayest I do not well? Oh Love, the flowers so red Are only tongues of flame, The earth is full of the dead, The new-killed, restless dead.
There is danger beneath and o'erhead, And I guard thy gates in fear Of words thou canst not hear, Of peril and jeopardy, Of signs thou canst not see-- .
And thou sayest 'tis ill that I came? This I saw when the rites were done, And the lamps were dead and the Gods alone, And the grey snake coiled on the altar stone-- Ere I fled from a Fear that I could not see, And the Gods of the East made mouths at me.
Beat off in our last fight were we? The greater need to seek the sea.
For Fortune changeth as the moon To caravel and picaroon.
Then Eastward Ho! or Westward Ho! Whichever wind may meetest blow.
Our quarry sails on either sea, Fat prey for such bold lads as we, And every sun-dried buccaneer Must hand and reef and watch and steer, And bear great wrath of sea and sky Before the plate-ships wallow by.
Now, as our tall bows take the foam, Let no man turn his heart to home, Save to desire plunder more And larger warehouse for his store, When treasure won from Santos Bay Shall make our sea-washed village gay.
Because I sought it far from men, In deserts and alone, I found it burning overhead, The jewel of a Throne.
Because I sought--I sought it so And spent my days to find-- It blazed one moment ere it left The blacker night behind.
We be the Gods of the East-- Older than all-- Masters of Mourning and Feast-- How shall we fall? Will they gape for the husks that ye proffer Or yearn to your song And we--have we nothing to offer Who ruled them so long-- In the fume of incense, the clash of the cymbals, the blare of the conch and the gong? Over the strife of the schools Low the day burns-- Back with the kine from the pools Each one returns To the life that he knows where the altar-flame glows and the tulsi is trimmed in the urns.
Written by Anne Killigrew | Create an image from this poem

To the Queen

 AS those who pass the Alps do say, 
The Rocks which first oppose their way, 
And so amazing-High do show, 
By fresh Accents appear but low, 
And when they come unto the last, 
They scorn the dwarfish Hills th'ave past.
So though my Muse at her first flight, Thought she had chose the greatest height, And (imp'd with Alexander's Name) Believ'd there was no further Fame: Behold an Eye wholly Divine Vouchsaf'd upon my Verse to Shine! And from that time I'gan to treat With Pitty him the World call'd Great; To smile at his exalted Fate, Unequal (though Gigantick) State.
I saw that Pitch was not sublime, Compar'd with this which now I climb; His Glories sunk, and were unseen, When once appear'd the Heav'n-born Queen: Victories, Laurels, Conquer'd Kings, Took place among inferiour things.
Now surely I shall reach the Clouds, For none besides such Vertue shrouds: Having scal'd this with holy Strains, Nought higher but the Heaven remains! No more I'll Praise on them bestow, Who to ill Deeds their Glories owe; Who build their Babels of Renown, Upon the poor oppressed Crown, Whole Kingdoms do depopulate, To raise a Proud and short-Liv'd State: I prize no more such Frantick Might, Than his that did with Wind-Mills Fight: No, give me Prowess, that with Charms Of Grace and Goodness, not with Harms, Erects a Throne i'th' inward Parts, And Rules mens Wills, but with their Hearts; Who with Piety and Vertue thus Propitiates God, and Conquers us.
O that now like Araunah here, Altars of Praises I could rear, Suiting her worth, which might be seen Like a Queens Present, to a Queen! 'Alone she stands for Vertues Cause, 'When all decry, upholds her Laws: 'When to Banish her is the Strife, 'Keeps her unexil'd in her Life; 'Guarding her matchless Innocence 'From Storms of boldest Impudence; 'In spight of all the Scoffs and Rage, 'And Persecutions of the Age, 'Owns Vertues Altar, feeds the Flame, 'Adores her much-derided Name; 'While impiously her hands they tie, 'Loves her in her Captivity; 'Like Perseus saves her, when she stands 'Expos'd to the Leviathans.
'So did bright Lamps once live in Urns, 'So Camphire in the water burns, 'So Ætna's Flames do ne'er go out, 'Though Snows do freeze its head without.
How dares bold Vice unmasked walk, And like a Giant proudly stalk? When Vertue's so exalted seen, Arm'd and Triumphant in the Queen? How dares its Ulcerous Face appear, When Heavenly Beauty is so near? But so when God was close at hand, And the bright Cloud did threatning stand (In sight of Israel ) on the Tent, They on in their Rebellion went.
O that I once so happy were, To find a nearer Shelter there! Till then poor Dove, I wandering fly Between the Deluge and the Skie: Till then I Mourn, but do not sing, And oft shall plunge my wearied wing: If her bless'd hand vouchsafe the Grace, I'th' Ark with her to give a place, I safe from danger shall be found, When Vice and Folly others drown'd.