Poetry quotes

Poor Heart, so weary with thy bitter grief!

So thou art dead at last, silent and chill! The longed-for death-dart came to thy relief, And there thou liest, Heart, forever still.

For out of sorrow joy comes uppermost; Where breaks the thunder soon the sky smiles blue;

A better love replaces what is lost,

And phantom sunlight pales before the true!

The seed must burst before the germ unfolds, The stars must fade before the morning wakes; Down in her depths the mine the diamond holds;

A new heart pulses when the old heart breaks.

And now, Humanity, I turn to you; I consecrate my service to the world! Perish the old love, welcome to the new— Broad as the space-aisles where the stars are whirled!

The seed must burst before the germ unfolds, The stars must fade before the morning wakes;

Down in her depths the mine the diamond holds;

A new heart pulses when the old heart breaks.

And still through all the darkness and the gloom Its voice will not be stilled, its hopes be quenched; It cries, it screams, it struggles in its chains, And bleeds upon the altar of the mind— Unwilling sacrifice to thought misled.

The soul that knows no God can know no peace.

Thus speaketh light, the herald of our God!

And gladder is the carol of a bird Than all the anthems that were ever heard To steal in somber chanting from the tone Of master voices praising the Unknown. In the great wild, where foot of man ne’er trod,

There find we Nature’s church and Nature’s God!

Here are no fetters! though is free as air; Its flight may spread far as its wings may dare; And through it all one voice cries, “God is love, And love is God!”

Ev’n as the sunlight chases far the shade And shadows chase the light in turn again, So every life is fraught with joy and pain;

The stinging thorn lies hid beside the rose;

The bud is blighted ere its leave unclose; So pleasure born of Hope may oft-time yield A stinging smart of thorns, a barren field! But let it be: the buds will bloom again, The fields will freshen in the summer rain;

Thus do all Nature’s tongues in chorus speak: “Think not, O man, that thou canst e’er escape One jot of Justice’s law, nor turn thy fate By yielding sacrifice to the Unseen!

Purged by thyself alone canst thou be clean.

One guide to happiness thou mayst learn: Love toward the world begets love in return. And if to others you the measure mete Of love, be sure your harvest will be sweet;

“Think not, O man, that thou canst e’er escape One jot of Justice’s law, nor turn thy fate By yielding sacrifice to the Unseen! Purged by thyself alone canst thou be clean. One guide to happiness thou mayst learn:

Love toward the world begets love in return.

And if to others you the measure mete Of love, be sure your harvest will be sweet; But if ye sow broadcast the seed of hate, Ye’ll reap again, albeit ye reap it late.

So shall ye brave the howling of the blast, And smile triumphant o’er the storm at last. Nor dream these trials are without their use; Between your joys and griefs ye cannot choose, And say your life with either is complete:

Ever the bitter mingles with the sweet.

The dews must press the petals down at night, If in the dawning they would glisten bright; If sunbeams needs must ripen out the grain Not less the early blades must woo the rain:

No other law or guidance do we need;

The world’s our church, to do good is our creed.

Some souls there are which never live their life; Some suns there are which never pierce their cloud; Some hearts there are which cup their perfume in, And yield no incense to the outer air. Cloud-shrouded, flower-cupped heart: such is thine own:

They are all dry now! They say I’m hard, because I never weep or moan!

You can’t draw blood when the heart’s bled out! you can’t find tears or sound in a stone!

And I don’t know why I should be mild and meek: no one has been very mild to me. You say that Jesus would be—perhaps! but Heaven’s a long way off, you see.

That will do; I know what you’re going to say: “I can have it right here in this narrow cell.”

The soul is slow to accept Christ’s heav’n when his followers chain the body in hell.

Not but I’m just as well off here—better, perhaps, than I was outside. The world was a prison-house to me, where I dwelt, defying and defied.

Still that was useless: it didn’t bring a single mouthful for me to eat, Nor work to get it, nor sheltering from the dreary wind and the howling street.

Heavenly pity won’t pass as coin, and earthly shame brings a higher pay.

Sometimes I was tempted to give it up, and go, like others, the easier way; But I didn’t; no, sir, I kept my oath, though my baby lay in my arms and cried, And at last, to spare it—I poisoned it;

Oh, nothing. They hunted me, and with virtuous lawyers’ virtuous tears To a virtuous jury, convicted me; and I’m sentenced to stay here for twenty years. Do I repent? Yes, I do; but wait till I tell you of what I repent, and why.

I repent that I ever believed a man could be anything but a living lie!

I repent because every noble thought, or hope, or ambition, or earthly trust, Is as dead as dungeon-bleached bones in me—as dead as my child in its murdered dust! Do I repent that I killed the babe? Am I repentant for that, you ask?

For that I love Thy heart of stone! From the heights above To the depths below, Where dread things move, There is naught can show A life so trustless! Proud be thy crown! Ruthless, like none, save the Sea, alone!

Why do you clothe me with scarlet of shame?

Why do you point with your finger of scorn? What is the crime that you hissingly name When you sneer in my ears, “Thou bastard born?”

And those still hands that are folded now Have touched my sorrows for years away! Would you have me question her whence and how The love-light streamed from her heart’s deep ray?

Do you question the sun that it gives its gold?

Do you scowl at the cloud when it pours its rain Till the fields that were withered and burnt and old Are fresh and tender and young again?

Do you search the source of the breeze that sweeps The rush of the fever from tortured brain? Do you ask whence the perfume that round you creeps When your soul is wrought to the quick with pain?

She was my Sun, my Dew, my Air,

The highest, the purest, the holiest; Peace—was the shade of her beautiful hair, Love—was all that I knew on her breast!

Touch me not! These hands of mine Despise your fairness—the leper’s white! Tanned and hardened and black with grime, They are clean beside your souls to-night!

Basely born! ’Tis ye are base!

Ye who would guerdon holy trust With slavish law to a tyrant race, To sow the earth with the seed of lust.

I am the Stone that slept; down deep in me That old, old sleep has left its centurine trace; I am the Plant that dreamed; and lo! still see That dream-life dwelling on the Human Face.

I slept, I dreamed, I wakened: I am Man!

The hut grows Palaces; the depths breed light; Still on! Forms pass; but Form yields kinglier Might! The singer, dying where his song began, In Me yet lives; and yet again shall he Unseal the lips of greater songs To Be;

We know it now, and we care no more; What matters life or death? We tiny insects emerge from earth, Suffer, and yield our breath.

Like ants we crawl on our brief sand-hill,

Dreaming of “mighty things,”— Lo, they crunch, like shells in the ocean’s wrath, In the rush of Time’s awful wings.

Your voice is there, there in the great life-sound— Your eyes are there, out there, within the light; Your heart, within the pulsing Race-heart drowned, Beats in the immortality of Right.

O Life, I love you for the love of him

Who showed me all your glory and your pain! “Unto Nirvana”—so the deep tones sing— And there—and there—we—shall—be—one—again.

Greensburg, PA, April 9th, 1893.

Who am I? Only one of the commonest common people,

Only a worked-out body, a shriveled and withered soul, What right have I to sing then? None; and I do not, I cannot. Why ruin the rhythm and rhyme of the great world’s songs with moaning?

O you, up there, I have heard you; I am “God’s image defaced,” “In heaven reward awaits me,” “hereafter I shall be perfect”;

Ages you’ve sung that song, but what is it to me, think you?

If you heard down here in the smoke and the smut, in the smear and the offal, In the dust, in the mire, in the grime and in the slime, in the hideous darkness, How the wheels turn your song into sounds of horror and …

… in high words of the glory of Man universal, The beauty of sacrifice, debt of the future, the present immortal, The glory of use, absorption by Death of the being in Being, You, if you knew what jargon it makes, down here, would be quiet.

Oh, is there no one to find or to speak a meaning to me,

To me as I am—the hard, the ignorant, withered-souled worker?

And why? Because I hate you! Every drop Of blood that circles in your plethoric veins Was wrung from out the gaunt and sapless trunks Of men like me, who in your cursed mills Were crushed like grapes within the wine-press ground.

To us ye leave the empty skin of life;

The heart of it, the sweet of it, ye pour To fête your dogs and mistresses withal! Your mistresses! Our daughters! Bought, for bread, To grace the flesh that once was father’s arms!

To us ye leave the empty skin of life; The heart of it, the sweet of it, ye pour To fête your dogs and mistresses withal! Your mistresses! Our daughters! Bought, for bread, To grace the flesh that once was father’s arms!

Yes, I accuse you that ye murdered me!

Ye killed the Man—and this that speaks to you Is but the beast that ye have made of me! What! Is it life to creep and crawl and beg, And slink for shelter where rats congregate? And for one’s ideal dream of a fat meal?

Think that for this, this common thing, The Road, A human creature died; ’tis a blood gift, To an o’erreaching world that does not thank. Ignorant, mean and soulless was he? Well—

Still human; and you drive upon his corpse.

We are the souls that crept and cried in the days when they tortured men; His was the spirit that walked erect, and met the beast in its den.

For each of his plenty shall freely share And take at another’s hand:

Equals breathing the Common Air

And toiling the Common Land.

A dream? A vision? Aye, what you will; Let it be to you as it seems:

Of this Nightmare Real we have our fill;

To-night is for “pleasant dreams.”

Are we not they who delve and blast And hammer and build and burn?

Without us not a nail made fast!

Not a wheel in the world should turn!