Poetry quotes

or, as they put it, the way to get there and be it—from a mundane point of view, of course. It has been observed, however, that the spots of a leopard are irremovable; and so is the lethargy of an Oriental.

The writer has found the strenuous life to be as depressing and dwarfing as prison life itself; and so he has fallen back to the habit of dreaming, and singing, and taking things easy, even in restless and dreamless America.

This sounds paradoxical; it is like going from the country of Trusts and Equality to establish a trolley-car system in the Lebanons. Even this might be possible fifty years hence, despite the opposition of those ancient hills.

Thou seest the busy elements Dissolving one by one The souls that are acquitted, For the all-absorbing sun.

Let’s sing the song of darkness then; Thy prison is the Whole;⁠— What canst thou do, where wilt thou go, What wilt thou be, my Soul?

Thou wouldst not be the air that weighs Upon the rising dust; Thou wouldst not be the fog that chokes The air in savage lust.

The corn-crake grinned and said in tone sublime: “Where wert thou hidden in the harvest time, Thou dinning drone? Why didst thou not come with us to the fields To gather something for thy winter meals Of what had grown?”

“O, I was entertaining with my rhymes The vineyards, and the fig trees, and the thymes The summer long.”

“No then,” replied the corn-crake, “not a seed Have I for such as thou; go home and feed Upon thy Song.”

… though hounded, outlawed we may be— Though Slander, dagger-drawn, be on our trail— Though Hatred with her hydra tongues should rail At us, and though left sinking in the sea Of ostracism, ay, never will I quail, But will now and forever cling to thee.

The ghost of Winter stalks amidst the boughs Of Spring and drags along his icy shroud; The corn flowers and the wheat, with broken vows, Are now beneath the storm untimely bowed.

O Winter, thou wert buried on the hills; Thine epitaph was written with melted snow; Thy skeleton is in the barren rills, Where once thy silvery life-blood used to flow.

The ghost of Winter stalks amidst the boughs Of Spring and drags along his icy shroud; The corn flowers and the wheat, with broken vows, Are now beneath the storm untimely bowed.

O Winter, thou wert buried on the hills; Thine epitaph was written with melted snow; Thy skeleton is in the barren rills, Where once thy silvery life-blood used to flow.

Why visitest the glimpses of the sun So soon, what message bring’st thou from the dead? Why rudely interrupt the children’s fun And havoc among the Guests of Summer spread?

Behold, the branches shiver, the blossoms fall; The lilac in the leaves a shelter seeks; Thy savage winds the Queen of May appal— They pale with summer’s dust her rosy cheeks.

Withhold the solemn music of thy gale Until the golden notes of Spring are spun; The opera in the trees is but begun, O, drown it not with thy benighted wail.

For thee May’s winged madonnas will not sing, Nor in thy presence will they now appear: Begone, that their sweet voices we may hear— Begone, the world today belongs to Spring.

Yet how I wish, yet how I shrink, when I Behold thee—ah, she’s ever in mine eye!

If thy pink, blue and golden hues disclose The secret, might not that undo the rose?

Thou sister to the dumb hydrangea, when Will all thy sombre musings rise again?

Spare me the vacant moment yet—O just awhile;

Expectancy, thy sweetest daughter, will beguile My yearning hours; the shades reflected by her smile Are now my haunts, O sweet Sometime.

The waiting while, O sweet Sometime, I can enjoy; Thy heralding shadows every beating pang destroy, And with their breath of musk and myrrh my soul they cloy, O, sweet Sometime!

I saw this and my soul, long silent, cried: “Would that I were the whiff of smoke Now sleeping with the sun!

In beds of flame, how often was I tried⁠— How often have I ’neath the stroke Of God or Satan shone!

”

The bliss that generous nature gives, that man denies— A bliss that’s chained in idle words and damned codes And creeds and customs creeping in their dark abodes— The bliss that’s lost within an endless maze of lies.

Pray, tell me, must the North Wind blow and sweep by rule? Must he the virgin ponds and springs and rills avoid?

See how the ocean, panting, rising, overjoyed, Holds out her arms to him—why not the limpid pool?

And thou, O human Ocean—would that I could give In equal measure, when beneath me thou art parting! O, generous, fiery soul, in love though I am wanting, My flesh, within thy passion’s hearth, will glow and live.

Thou art the twilight; I’m the dawn; yet we shall meet And flood the firmament with fire and rainbow beauty.

No unfed sun or moon shall rob us of our booty, And if the gods should frown—is not rebellion sweet?

Thou art the twilight; I’m the dawn; yet we shall meet And flood the firmament with fire and rainbow beauty.

No unfed sun or moon shall rob us of our booty, And if the gods should frown⁠—is not rebellion sweet?

But ah, live Twilight! why cannot the Dawn be true? Why can’t I quaff from thy sad lips, as thou, from mine? Why can’t this heart, forgetting once, as well be thine? How can I my most holy passion tame, subdue?

Of paths as smooth, as shining as thy limbs; Of scenes as exquisite as thy coils; Of nooks as warm as thine hospitable bosom, As cool and as refreshing as thy veinless naked arms, I dream of all beneath thy soothing mantle.

But O, I love my dreams much more than thee, And one sad soul much more than all my dreams.

If thou hadst but an eye to see, To look upon the guest that lay upon thy floor Beneath thy silken ceiling! O, hadst thou but an ear to hear The plaintive chirpings of this swallow-soul.

Our lords are the birds. And they love not in words; They sing when we smile And sob when we fall; Her lord is the liar— The thief or the buyer— Who smells her the while She lives, and that’s all.

The old gods and their slaves I’ve deserted; The new gods I’ve shunned at first sight; And my god is the god of the goddess That presides at my feast of delight.

But once, when the dark moment lingered, I questioned the god she adores; To his throne I implored her to lead me, And, behold! I’m the god she implores.

Upon the face of darkness beams my soul— Nearby, behind the curtains of my sight; And ’round it weary waves of wonder roll— Sad seas of color o’er dead seas of light:

Here is no Space, no Time⁠—nor day nor night⁠— Here is the boundless, undiminished Whole⁠— Here is my soul.

Here is no love that hides beneath its shoal The sandix that can redden a sea of years; Here is no lust that lies to Beauty’s mole And draws from eyes of flint a flood of tears;

And no power can deliver thee, Mortal, from activity. In thy life as in thy death, In thy heart as in thy breath, On the earth as in the skies Restless Motion never dies. Always raging, always spinning, Endless and without beginning.

Death, like me, is seeking Rest.

And all the seas are in her quest; But ah, poor souls, she is beyond Our grasp; we must go on and on. No, nor even the grave is free From the laws that shackle me;

To the “Flatiron” the Ruins thus replied across the sea:

“We were like thee yesterday. To-morrow thou wilt like us be.”

I strolled upon the Brooklyn Bridge one day, Beneath the storm; None but a lad in rags upon the way I saw;—there on a bench he lay Heedless of form.

He seemingly was reading what the Shower Was publishing upon the Bridge and down the Bay; Yet he was writing, writing at this hour— Writing in a careless sort of way.

Upon a pad he scribbled and as fast the rain Retouched, effaced, corrected and revised.

Was he recording Nature’s solemn strain, Or sketching choristers therein disguised?

Whatever it be, I found myself quite by his side; My nod and smile he pocketed and wrote again; “Read me your drizzling stuff,” I said, and he replied:

“I’ve written a check in payment for this shower of rain.”

When tears wash tears and soul upon soul leaps, When clasped in arms of anguish and of pain, When love beneath the feet of passion creeps, Ah me, what do we gain?

We trust thee, O God, though thy token Be the desert, thy promise, the sun. Forever the Distances call us— The Distances veiled of the Dream; And we come, whatsoever befall us, Our pledges and thine to redeem.

We come; and though often we altered Our course at the gates of dismay, We never looked backward or faltered, Never regretted our way.

God of the Distances, hear us— Hear us and guide us today.

your forebodings allay.” But thousands of cycles we told, Millions of leagues we unrolled, Heedless of Time and his sway. God of the visions of old, Hear us and guide us today.

We sailed all the Seas of the Mind, We rounded the Capes of the Soul, We crossed all the Channels that roll Over the dead of our kind.

And on many a beckoning strand, Furrowed with silvery streams, We lingered, but lo, in the land Were the desolate gardens of dreams.— Onward!

For your sake we have come In the shape of a jar from the Sea; For your sake we have come as Disgrace, But glory incarnate are we.

For the sake of the world we dance O’er the flame, on the point of the lance.

O, think us not mortal, for we Are the light on the foam of the sea.

We shall interpret the Truth, We shall the Secret unveil; For naked we come, like the dew, Like the zephyr, we come, and the gale: Naked, through thorn-bush and grass, We speak and we pass.

Our garments were burned in the fire of the Mind, In the world where the Deaf still dispute with the Blind.

We are the Truth, And into the world From the Universe of Secrets we’re hurled. We are are the Truth, And into the skies From the Mists of Arcana we rise.

We are not of Iran or of Ind, We are not of Arabia or Sind: We are free.

We are not of the East or the West; No boundaries exist in our breast: We are free.

We are not made of dust or of dew; We are not of the earth or the blue: We are free.

Awake, O ye Pilgrims, awake! O Lovers, arise and prepare! The drum of departure we hear; The Driver is come for the fare.

The camels are ready; their bells Are decking with silver the air.

Awake, O ye Pilgrims, awake! O Lovers, arise and prepare!

Come, but come empty of heart and empty of mind; Who travel with us shall not carry a thought or a care;

For they who all things abandon, everything find, And they who are drawn to the loved One, escape every snare.

He is our care, Our goal and our snare; Of our grief and our joy, The bequeather and heir.