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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 12:53:00 GMT -5
The Unforgivable Sin by G.K. Chesterton
I do not cry, beloved, neither curse. Silence and strength, these two at least are good. He gave me sun and stars and aught He could, But not a woman's love; for that is hers.
He sealed her heart from sage and questioner— Yea, with seven seals, as he has sealed the grave. And if she give it to a drunken slave, The Day of Judgment shall not challenge her.
Only this much: if one, deserving well, Touching your thin young hands and making suit, Feel not himself a crawling thing, a brute, Buried and bricked in a forgotten hell;
Prophet and poet be he over sod, Prince among angels in the highest place, God help me, I will smite him on the face, Before the glory of the face of God.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 12:54:18 GMT -5
Suffering by G.K. Chesterton
Though pain be stark and bitter And days in darkness creep Not to that depth I sink me That asks the world to weep.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 12:55:11 GMT -5
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Sonnets from the Portuguese, XIV If thou must love me, let it be for nought Except for love's sake only. Do not say "I love her for her smile--her look--her way Of speaking gently,--for a trick of thought That falls in well with mine, and certes brought A sense of pleasant ease on such a day" --For these things in themselves, Beloved, may Be changed, or change for thee,--and love, so wrought, May be unwrought so. Neither love me for Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry, --A creature might forget to weep, who bore Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby! But love me for love's sake, that evermore Thou may'st love on, through love's eternity.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 12:55:59 GMT -5
Thy Voice is Heard by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Thy voice is heard through rolling drums That beat to battle where he stands; Thy face across his fancy comes And gives the battle to his hands. A moment, whilst the trumpets blow, He sees his brood about thy knee; The next, like fire he meets the foe And strikes him dead for thine and thee.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 12:57:53 GMT -5
Enid's Song by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (from The Marriage of Geraint)
Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel and lower the proud; Turn thy wild wheel through sunshine, storm, and cloud; Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate.
Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel with smile or frown; With that wild wheel we go not up or down; Our hoard is little, but our hearts are great.
Smile and we smile, the lords of many lands; Frown and we smile, the lords of our own hands; For man is man and master of his fate.
Turn, turn thy wheel above the staring crowd; Thy wheel and thou are shadows in the cloud; Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 12:58:16 GMT -5
Swallow, Swallow by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (from The Princess)
O Swallow, Swallow, flying, flying South, Fly to her, and fall upon her gilded eaves, And tell her, tell her, what I tell to thee.
O tell her, Swallow, thou that knowest each, That bright and fierce and fickle is the South, And dark and true and tender is the North.
O Swallow, Swallow, if I could follow, and light Upon her lattice, I would pipe and trill, And cheep and twitter twenty million loves.
O were I thou that she might take me in, And lay me on her bosom, and her heart Would rock the snowy cradle till I died.
Why lingereth she to clothe her heart with love, Delaying as the tender ash delays To clothe herself, when all the woods are green?
O tell her, Swallow, that thy brood is flown: Say to her, I do but wanton in the South, But in the North long since my nest is made.
O tell her, brief is life but love is long, And brief the sun of summer in the North, And brief the moon of beauty in the South.
O Swallow, flying from the golden woods, Fly to her, and pipe and woo her, and make her mine, And tell her, tell her, that I follow thee.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 12:58:43 GMT -5
Sonnets from the Portuguese XXXVI by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
When we met first and loved, I did not build Upon the event with marble. Could it mean To last, a love set pendulous between Sorrow and sorrow? Nay, I rather thrilled, Distrusting every light that seemed to gild The onward path, and feared to over-lean A finger even. And, though I have grown serene And strong since then, I think that God has willed A still renewable fear . . . O love, O troth . . . Lest these enclasped hands should never hold, This mutual kiss drop down bewteen us both As an unowned thing, once the lips being cold. And Love, be false! if he, to keep one oath Must lose one joy, by his life's star foretold.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 12:59:13 GMT -5
A Confession by C. S. Lewis
I am so coarse, the things the poets see Are obstinately invisible to me. For twenty years I've stared my level best To see if evening--any evening--would suggest A patient etherized upon a table; In vain. I simply wasn't able. To me each evening looked far more LIke the departure from a silent, yet a crowded, shore Of a ship whose freight was everything, leaving behind Gracefully, finally, without farewells, marooned mankind.
Red dawn behind a hedgerow in the east Never, for me, resembled in the least A chilblain on a cocktail-shaker's nose; Waterfalls don't remind me of torn underclothes, Nor glaciers of tin-cans. I've never known The moon look like a hump-backed crone-- Rather, a prodigy, even now Not naturalized, a riddle glaring from the Cyclops' brow Of the cold world, reminding me on what a place I crawl and cling, a planet with no bulwarks, out in space.
Never the white sun of the wintriest day Struck me as un crachat d'estaminet. I'm like that odd man Wordsworth knew, to whom A primrose was a yellow primrose, one whose doom Keeps him forever in the list of dunces, Compelled to live on stock responses, Making the poor best that I can Of dull things . . . peacocks, honey, the Great Wall, Aldebaran, Silver weirs, new-cut grass, wave on the beach, hard gem, The shapes of horse and woman, Athens, Troy, Jerusalem.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 12:59:42 GMT -5
The Foggy Dew by Father Charles O'Neill
'Twas down the glen one Easter morn To a city fair rode I. When Ireland's line of marching men In squadrons passed me by. No pipe did hum, no battle drum Did sound its dread tattoo, But the Angelus bell o'er the Liffey's swell Rang out in the foggy dew.
Right proudly high over Dublin town They flung out a flag of war. 'Twas better to die 'neath an Irish sky Than at Suvla or Sud el Bar. And from the plains of Royal Meath Strong men came hurrying through; While Britannia's Huns with their long-range guns Sailed in through the foggy dew.
Oh, the night fell black and the rifles crack Made Perfidious Albion reel 'Mid the leaden rail, seven tongues of flame Did shine o'er the lines of steel. By each shining blade, a prayer was said That to Ireland her sons be true And when morning broke, still the war flag shook Out its fold in the Foggy Dew.
'Twas England bade our Wild Geese go That small nations might be free But their lonely graves are by Suvla's waves Or the fringe of the grey North Sea Oh had they died by Pearse's side, Or had fought with Cathal Brugha Their graves we'd keep where the Fenians sleep, 'Neath the shroud of the Foggy Dew.
But the bravest fell, and the requiem bell Rang mournfully and clear For those who died that Eastertide In the springing of the year; And the world did gaze, with deep amaze, At those fearless men and true Who bore the fight that freedom's light Might shine through the Foggy Dew.
Ah, back through the glen I rode again, And my heart with grief was sore For I parted then with valiant men Whom I never shall see more But to and fro in my dreams I go And I'd kneel and pray for you For slavery fed, for freedom dead, When you fell in the Foggy Dew.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 13:00:08 GMT -5
Home thoughts, from abroad by Robert Browning
O, TO be in England Now that April 's there, And whoever wakes in England Sees, some morning, unaware, That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf, While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough In England—now!
And after April, when May follows, And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows! Hark, where my blossom'd pear-tree in the hedge Leans to the field and scatters on the clover Blossoms and dewdrops—at the bent spray's edge— That 's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over, Lest you should think he never could recapture The first fine careless rapture! And though the fields look rough with hoary dew, All will be gay when noontide wakes anew The buttercups, the little children's dower —Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 13:00:23 GMT -5
Holy Sonnet by John Donne
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow, Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me. From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be, Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow, And soonest our best men with thee do go, Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery. Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men, And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell; And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then? One short sleep past, we wake eternally, And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 13:00:50 GMT -5
A Moment by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge
The clouds had made a crimson crown About the mountains high. The stormy sun was going down In a stormy sky.
Why did you let your eyes so rest on me, And hold your breath between? In all the ages this can never be As if it had not been.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 13:01:17 GMT -5
O Beautiful Cross! by Fr. Marcial Maciel (translated from the Spanish)
O blessed Cross, that you, Lord have given me! With her on my shoulders I walk the days of my exile, through the sorrowful way of my great suffering. And with my head upon her I sleep in the black nights of the solitude of my pain. O Cross! my inseparable companion during these sweet years of my suffering for God!
First I suffered you with patience. Later I carried you with joy. Today I embrace you with love . . .
O beautiful cross! You brought yourself so far down and nailed yourself to my body; you have taken me to the greatest depth of my soul . . . Is it possible that someday you could be separated from me? And when you leave me, O my cross! how could I live without you?
Thank you Lord, because you have given me the cross. And the cross you have given me is already upon my shoulders. And I want to follow you below this weight in order to be worthy of you, for the spirit is strong but the flesh is weak. But you know, Lord, that everything is possible for him who believes; and I trust that you will not deny me the strength that I need in order not to weaken in following your path.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 13:01:49 GMT -5
Am I a stone by Christina Rossetti
Am I a stone, and not a sheep, That I can stand, O Christ, beneath Thy cross, To number drop by drop Thy Blood's slow loss, And yet not weep?
Not so those women loved Who with exceeding grief lamented Thee; Not so fallen Peter weeping bitterly; Not so the thief was moved;
Not so the Sun and Moon Which hid their faces in a starless sky, A horror of great darkness at broad noon-- I, only I.
Yet give not o'er, But seek Thy sheep, true Shepherd of the flock; Greater than Moses, turn and look once more And smite a rock.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 13:03:59 GMT -5
Tears, Idle Tears by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (from The Princess)
Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Tears from the depth of some divine despair Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes In looking on the happy Autumn-fields And thinking of the days that are no more.
Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail, That brings our friends up from the underworld, Sad as the last which reddens over one That sinks with all we love below the verge; So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.
Ay, sad and strange as in dark summer dawns The earliest pipe of half-awaken'd birds To dying ears, when unto dying eyes The casement slowly grows a glimmering square; So sad, so strange, the days that are no more.
Dear as remember'd kisses after death, And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign'd On lips that are for others: deep as love, Deep as first love, and wild with all regret; O Death in Life, the days that are no more.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 13:08:33 GMT -5
The Starlight Night by Gerard Manley Hopkins
LOOK at the stars! look, look up at the skies! O look at all the fire-folk sitting in the air! The bright boroughs, the circle-citadels there! Down in dim woods the diamond delves! the elves’-eyes! The grey lawns cold where gold, where quickgold lies! Wind-beat whitebeam! airy abeles set on a flare! Flake-doves sent floating forth at a farmyard scare!— Ah well! it is all a purchase, all is a prize.
Buy then! bid then!—What?—Prayer, patience, aims, vows. Look, look: a May-mess, like on orchard boughs! Look! March-bloom, like on mealed-with-yellow sallows! These are indeed the barn; withindoors house The shocks. This piece-bright paling shuts the spouse Christ home, Christ and his mother and all his hallows.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 13:08:49 GMT -5
Inversnaid by Gerard Manley Hopkins
This darksome burn, horseback brown, His rollrock highroad roaring down, In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam Flutes and low to the lake falls home.
A windpuff-bonnet of fáwn-fróth Turns and twindles over the broth Of a pool so pitchblack, féll-frówning, It rounds and rounds Despair to drowning.
Degged with dew, dappled with dew Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through, Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern, And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn.
What would the world be, once bereft Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left, O let them be left, wildness and wet; Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 13:09:26 GMT -5
Gifts by Mary Elizabeth Coleridge
I tossed my friend a wreath of roses, wet With early dew, the garland of the morn. He lifted it--and on his brow he set A crackling crown of thorn.
Against my foe I hurled a murderous dart. He caught it in his hand--I heard him laugh-- I saw the thing that should have pierced his heart Turn to a golden staff.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 13:09:46 GMT -5
Mariana by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
WITH blackest moss the flower-plots Were thickly crusted, one and all: The rusted nails fell from the knots That held the pear to the gable-wall. The broken sheds look'd sad and strange: Unlifted was the clinking latch; Weeded and worn the ancient thatch Upon the lonely moated grange. She only said, 'My life is dreary, He cometh not,' she said; She said, 'I am aweary, aweary, I would that I were dead!'
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 13:10:23 GMT -5
No Worst by Gerard Manley Hopkins
No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief, More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring. Comforter, where, where is your comforting? Mary, mother of us, where is your relief?
My cries heave, herds-long; huddle in a main, a chief- woe, world-sorrow; on an age-old anvil wince and sing Then lull, then leave off. Fury had shrieked 'No ling- ering! Let me be fell: force I must be brief'.
O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap May who never hung there. Nor does long our small
Durance deal with that steep or deep. Here! creep, Wretch, under a comfort serves in a whirlwind: all Life death does end and each day dies with sleep.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 13:10:49 GMT -5
A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning by John Donne
As virtuous men pass mildly away, And whisper to their souls, to go, Whilst some of their sad friends do say, Their breath goes now, and some say no;
So let us melt, and make no noise, No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move, 'Twere profanation of our joys To tell the laity our love.
Moving of the earth brings harms and fears, Men reckon what it did and meant, But trepidation of the spheres, Though greater far, is innocent.
Dull sublunary lovers' love (Whose soul is sense) cannot admit Absence, because it doth remove Those things which elemented it.
But we by a love so much refined, That our selves know not what it is, Interassured of the mind, Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.
Our two souls therefore, which are one, Though I must go, endure not yet A breach, but an expansion, Like gold to airy thinness beat.
If they be two, they two are so As stiff twin compasses are two: Thy soul the fixed foot, makes no show To move, but doth, if th' other do.
And though it in the centre sit, Yet when the other far doth roam, It leans, and hearkens after it, And grows erect, as that comes home.
So wilt thou be to me, who must Like the other foot, obliquely run; Thy firmness draws my circle just, And makes me end, where I begun.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 13:11:16 GMT -5
To Marguerite--Continued by Matthew Arnold
Yes! in the sea of life enisled, With echoing straits between us thrown, Dotting the shoreless watery wild, We mortal millions live alone. The islands feel the enclasping flow, And then their endless bounds they know.
But when the moon their hollows lights, And they are swept by balms of spring, And in their glens, on starry nights, The nightingales divinely sing; And lovely notes, from shore to shore, Across the sounds and channels pour—
Oh! then a longing like despair Is to their farthest caverns sent; For surely once, they feel, we were Parts of a single continent! Now round us spreads the watery plain— Oh might our marges meet again!
Who ordered, that their longing's fire Should be, as soon as kindled, cooled? Who renders vain their deep desire?— A God, a God their severance ruled! And bade betwixt their shores to be The unplumbed, salt, estranging sea.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 13:11:33 GMT -5
Sonnets from the Portuguese, VI by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore Alone upon the threshold of my door Of individual life, I shall command The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand Serenely in the sunshine as before, Without the sense of that which I forebore--- Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine With pulses that beat double. What I do And what I dream include thee, as the wine Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue God for myself, He hears that name of thine, And sees within my eyes the tears of two.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 13:12:08 GMT -5
Farewell to Lórien by J.R.R. Tolkien, from The Fellowship of the Ring
'Tell me, Legolas, why did I come on this Quest? Little did I know where the chief peril lay! Truly Elrond spoke, saying that we could not foresee what we might meet upon our road. Torment in the dark was the danger that I feared, and it did not hold me back. But I would not have come, had I known the danger of light and joy. Now I have taken my worst wound in this parting, even if I were to go this night straight to the Dark Lord. Alas for Gimli son of Glóin!'
'Nay!' said Legolas. 'Alas for us all! And for all that walk the world in these after-days. For such is the way of it: to find and lose, as it seems to those whose boat is on the running stream. But I count you blessed, Gimli son of Glóin: for your loss you suffer of your own free will, and you might have chosen otherwise. But you have not forsaken your companions, and the least reward that you shall have is that the memory of Lothlórien shall remain ever clear and unstained in your heart, and shall neither fade nor grow stale.'
'Maybe,' said Gimli, 'and I thank you for your words. True words doubtless; yet all such comfort is cold. Memory is not what the heart desires. This is only a mirror, be it clear as Kheled-zâram. Or so says the heart of Gimli the Dwarf. Elves may see things otherwise. Indeed I have heard that for them memory is more like to the waking world than to a dream. Not so for Dwarves.'
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 13:12:29 GMT -5
I sit beside the fire by J.R.R. Tolkien
I sit beside the fire and think of all that I have seen, of meadow-flowers and butterflies in summers that have been;
Of yellow leaves and gossamer in autumns that there were, with morning mist and silver sun and wind upon my hair.
I sit beside the the fire and think of how the world will be when winter comes without a spring that I shall ever see.
For still there are so many things that I have never seen: in every wood in every spring there is a different green.
I sit beside the fire and think of people long ago, and people who will see a world that I shall never know.
But all the while I sit and think of times there were before, I listen for returning feet and voices at the door.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 13:12:54 GMT -5
To Charles Williams by C.S. Lewis
Your death blows a strange bugle call, friend, and all is hard To see plainly or record truly. The new light imposes change, Re-adjusts all a life-landscape as it thrusts down its probe from the sky, To create shadows, to reveal waters, to erect hills and deepen glens. The slant alters. I can't see the old contours. It's a larger world Than I once thought it. I wince, caught in the bleak air that blows on the ridge. Is it the first sting of a great winter, the world-waning? Or the cold air of spring?
A hard question and worth talking a whole night on. But with whom? Of whom now can I ask guidance? With what friend concerning your death Is it worth while to exchange thoughts unless--oh, unless it were you?
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 13:15:15 GMT -5
As the Ruin Falls by C.S. Lewis
All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you. I never had a selfless thought since I was born. I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through: I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.
Peace, re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek, I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin: I talk of love--a scholar's parrot may talk Greek-- But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.
Only that now you have taught me (but how late) my lack. I see the chasm. And everything you are was making My heart into a bridge by which I might get back From exile, and grow man. And now the bridge is breaking.
For this I bless you as the ruin falls. The pains You give me are more precious than all other gains.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 13:16:41 GMT -5
On this day I complete my thirty-sixth year by George Gordon, Lord Byron
’TIS time this heart should be unmoved, Since others it hath ceased to move: Yet, though I cannot be beloved, Still let me love!
My days are in the yellow leaf; The flowers and fruits of love are gone; The worm, the canker, and the grief Are mine alone!
The fire that on my bosom preys Is lone as some volcanic isle; No torch is kindled at its blaze— A funeral pile.
The hope, the fear, the jealous care, The exalted portion of the pain And power of love, I cannot share, But wear the chain.
But ’tis not thus—and ’tis not here— Such thoughts should shake my soul, nor now, Where glory decks the hero’s bier, Or binds his brow.
The sword, the banner, and the field, Glory and Greece, around me see! The Spartan, borne upon his shield, Was not more free.
Awake! (not Greece—she is awake!) Awake, my spirit! Think through whom Thy life-blood tracks its parent lake, And then strike home!
Tread those reviving passions down, Unworthy manhood!—unto thee Indifferent should the smile or frown Of beauty be.
If thou regret’st thy youth, why live? The land of honourable death Is here:—up to the field, and give Away thy breath!
Seek out—less often sought than found— A soldier’s grave, for thee the best; Then look around, and choose thy ground, And take thy rest.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 13:17:10 GMT -5
Untitled by C.S. Lewis
No; the world will not break, Time will not stop. Do not for the dregs mistake The first bitter drop.
When first the collar galls Tired horses know Stable's not near. Still falls The whip. There's far to go.
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Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 13:17:42 GMT -5
The Seafarer, part I Anonymous, translated from Anglo-Saxon
This tale is true, and mine. It tells How the sea took me, swept me back And forth in sorrow and fear and pain, Showed me suffering in a hundred ships, In a thousand ports, and in me. It tells Of smashing surf when I sweated in the cold Of an anxious watch, perched in the bow As it dashed under cliffs. My feet were cast In icy bands, bound with frost, With frozen chains, and hardship groaned Around my heart. Hunger tore At my sea-weary soul. No man sheltered On the quiet fairness of earth can feel How wretched I was, drifting through winter On an ice-cold sea, whirled in sorrow, Alone in a world blown clear of love, Hung with icicles. The hailstorms flew. The only sound was the roaring sea, The freezing waves. The song of the swan Might serve for pleasure, the cry of the sea-fowl, The death-noise of birds instead of laughter, The mewing of gulls instead of mead. Storms beat on the rocky cliffs and were echoed By ice-feathered terns and the eagles screams; No kinsman could offer comfort there, To a soul left drowning in desolation.
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