|
Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 13:53:18 GMT -5
Dr. Seuss – Green Eggs & Ham
I do not like them in a box I do not like them with a fox I do not like them in a house I do not like them with a mouse I do not like them here or there I do not like them anywhere I do not like green eggs and ham I do not like them Sam I am
|
|
|
Poems
Apr 17, 2024 13:53:50 GMT -5
Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 13:53:50 GMT -5
Pablo Neruda – If You Forget Me
I want you to know one thing. You know how this is: if I look at the crystal moon, at the red branch of the slow autumn at my window, if I touch near the fire the impalpable ash or the wrinkled body of the log, everything carries me to you, as if everything that exists, aromas, light, metals, were little boats that sail toward those isles of yours that wait for me. Well, now, if little by little you stop loving me I shall stop loving you little by little. If suddenly you forget me do not look for me, for I shall already have forgotten you. If you think it long and mad, the wind of banners that passes through my life, and you decide to leave me at the shore of the heart where I have roots, remember that on that day, at that hour, I shall lift my arms and my roots will set off to seek another land. But if each day, each hour, you feel that you are destined for me with implacable sweetness, if each day a flower climbs up to your lips to seek me, ah my love, ah my own, in me all that fire is repeated, in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten, my love feeds on your love, beloved, and as long as you live it will be in your arms without leaving mine.
|
|
|
Poems
Apr 17, 2024 13:55:56 GMT -5
Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 13:55:56 GMT -5
Joyce Kilmer – Trees
I think that I shall never see A poem lovely as a tree. A tree whose hungry mouth is prest Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast; A tree that looks at God all day, And lifts her leafy arms to pray; A tree that may in summer wear A nest of robins in her hair; Upon whose bosom snow has lain; Who intimately lives with rain. Poems are made by fools like me, But only God can make a tree.
|
|
|
Poems
Apr 17, 2024 13:56:25 GMT -5
Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 13:56:25 GMT -5
Derek Walcott – Love After Love
The time come when, with elation you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror and each will smile at the other’s welcome, and say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was your self. Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you all your life, whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart. Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, the photographs, the desperate notes, peel your own image from the mirror. Sit. Feast on your life.
|
|
|
Poems
Apr 17, 2024 13:56:52 GMT -5
Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 13:56:52 GMT -5
Robert Burn – A Red, Red, Rose
O my Luve is like a red, red rose That’s newly sprung in June; O my Luve is like the melody That’s sweetly played in tune.
So fair art thou, my bonnie lass, So deep in luve am I; And I will luve thee still, my dear, Till a’ the seas gang dry.
Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear, And the rocks melt wi’ the sun; I will love thee still, my dear, While the sands o’ life shall run.
And fare thee weel, my only luve! And fare thee weel awhile! And I will come again, my luve, Though it were ten thousand mile.
|
|
|
Poems
Apr 17, 2024 13:57:27 GMT -5
Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 13:57:27 GMT -5
Leunig – How To Get There
Go to the end of the path until you get to the gate. Go through the gate and head straight out towards the horizon. Keep going towards the horizon. Sit down and have a rest every now and again, But keep on going, just keep on with it. Keep on going as far as you can. That’s how you get there.
|
|
|
Poems
Apr 17, 2024 13:57:47 GMT -5
Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 13:57:47 GMT -5
Sylvia Plath – Metaphors
I’m a riddle in nine syllables, An elephant, a ponderous house, A melon strolling on two tendrils. O red fruit, ivory, fine timbers! This loaf’s big with its yeasty rising. Money’s new-minted in this fat purse. I’m a means, a stage, a cow in calf. I’ve eaten a bag of green apples, Boarded the train there’s no getting off.
|
|
|
Poems
Apr 17, 2024 13:58:09 GMT -5
Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 13:58:09 GMT -5
Anais Nin – Risk
And then the day came, when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
|
|
|
Poems
Apr 17, 2024 13:58:33 GMT -5
Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 13:58:33 GMT -5
Maya Angelou – Awaking in New York
Curtains forcing their will against the wind, children sleep, exchanging dreams with seraphim. The city drags itself awake on subway straps; and I, an alarm, awake as a rumor of war, lie stretching into dawn, unasked and unheeded.
|
|
|
Poems
Apr 17, 2024 13:58:54 GMT -5
Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 13:58:54 GMT -5
William Butler Yeats – Death
Nor dread nor hope attend A dying animal; A man awaits his end Dreading and hoping all; Many times he died, Many times rose again. A great man in his pride Confronting murderous men Casts derision upon Supersession of breath; He knows death to the bone – Man has created death.
|
|
|
Poems
Apr 17, 2024 14:00:04 GMT -5
Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 14:00:04 GMT -5
Thomas Hardy – How Great My Grief
How great my grief, my joys how few, Since first it was my fate to know thee! Have the slow years not brought to view How great my grief, my joys how few, Nor memory shaped old times anew, Nor loving-kindness helped to show thee How great my grief, my joys how few, Since first it was my fate to know thee?
|
|
|
Poems
Apr 17, 2024 14:02:06 GMT -5
Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 14:02:06 GMT -5
Emily Dickinson- How Happy is the Little stone
How happy is the little stone
That rambles in the road alone,
And doesn’t care about careers,
And exigencies never fears;
Whose coat of elemental brown
A passing universe put on;
And independent as the sun,
Associates or glows alone,
Fulfilling absolute decree
In casual simplicity.
|
|
|
Poems
Apr 17, 2024 14:03:30 GMT -5
Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 14:03:30 GMT -5
I wake and feel the fell... by Gerard Manley Hopkins
I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day. What hours, O what black hoürs we have spent This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went! And more must, in yet longer light’s delay. With witness I speak this. But where I say Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent To dearest him that lives alas! away.
I am gall, I am heartburn. God’s most deep decree Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me; Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse. Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours. I see The lost are like this, and their scourge to be As I am mine, their sweating selves; but worse.
|
|
|
Poems
Apr 17, 2024 14:05:05 GMT -5
Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 14:05:05 GMT -5
To a Louse by Robert Burns
On Seeing One on a Lady's Bonnet at Church
Ha! whare ye gaun' ye crowlin ferlie? Your impudence protects you sairly; I canna say but ye strunt rarely Owre gauze and lace, Tho faith! I fear ye dine but sparely On sic a place.
Ye ugly, creepin, blastit wonner, Detested, shunn'd by saunt an sinner, How daur ye set your fit upon her-- Sae fine a lady! Gae somewhere else and seek your dinner On some poor body.
Swith! in some beggar's hauffet squattle; There ye may creep, and sprawl, and sprattle; Wi' ither kindred, jumping cattle; In shoals and nations; Whare horn nor bane ne'er daur unsettle Your thick plantations.
Now haud you there! ye're out o' sight, Below the fatt'rils, snug an tight, Na, faith ye yet! ye'll no be right, Till ye've got on it-- The vera tapmost, tow'rin height O' Miss's bonnet.
My sooth! right bauld ye set your nose out, As plump an grey as onie grozet: O for some rank, mercurial rozet, Or fell, red smeddum, I'd gie you sic a hearty dose o't, Wad dress your droddum!
I wad na been surpris'd to spy You on an auld wife's flainen toy Or aiblins some bit duddie boy, On's wyliecoat; But Miss's fine Lunardi! fye! How daur ye do't?
O Jeany, dinna toss your head, An set your beauties a' abread! Ye little ken what cursed speed The blastie's makin! Thae winks an finger-ends, I dread, Are notice takin!
O wad some Power the giftie gie us To see oursels as ithers see us! It wad frae monie a blunder free us An foolish notion: What airs in dress an gait wad lea'es us, An ev'n devotion!
|
|
|
Poems
Apr 17, 2024 14:05:28 GMT -5
Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 14:05:28 GMT -5
Thou art indeed just by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Justus quidem tu es, Domine, si disputem tecum; verumtamen justa loquar ad te: Quare via impiorum prosperatur? &c.
Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just. Why do sinners' ways prosper? and why must Disappointment all I endeavour end?
Wert thou my enemy, O thou my friend, How wouldst thou worse, I wonder, than thou dost Defeat, thwart me? Oh, the sots and thralls of lust Do in spare hours more thrive than I that spend,
Sir, life upon thy cause. See, banks and brakes Now, leavèd how thick! lacèd they are again With fretty chervil, look, and fresh wind shakes
Them; birds build -- but not I build; no, but strain, Time's eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes. Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain.
|
|
|
Poems
Apr 17, 2024 14:15:08 GMT -5
Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 14:15:08 GMT -5
Heaven-Haven by Gerard Manley Hopkins
A nun takes the veil
I have desired to go Where springs not fail, To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail And a few lilies blow.
And I have asked to be Where no storms come, Where the green swell is in the havens dumb, And out of the swing of the sea.
|
|
|
Poems
Apr 17, 2024 14:15:30 GMT -5
Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 14:15:30 GMT -5
Vivien's Song by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
‘In Love, if Love be Love, if Love be ours, Faith and unfaith can ne’er be equal powers: Unfaith in aught is want of faith in all.
‘It is the little rift within the lute, That by and by will make the music mute, And ever widening slowly silence all.
‘The little rift within the lover’s lute Or little pitted speck in garnered fruit, That rotting inward slowly moulders all.
‘It is not worth the keeping: let it go: But shall it? answer, darling, answer, no. And trust me not at all or all in all.’
|
|
|
Poems
Apr 17, 2024 14:15:50 GMT -5
Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 14:15:50 GMT -5
By the Babe Unborn by G.K. Chesterton
If trees were tall and grasses short, As in some crazy tale, If here and there a sea were blue Beyond the breaking pale,
If a fixed fire hung in the air To warm me one day through, If deep green hair grew on great hills, I know what I should do.
In dark I lie: dreaming that there Are great eyes cold or kind, And twisted streets and silent doors, And living men behind.
Let storm-clouds come: better an hour, And leave to weep and fight, Than all the ages I have ruled The empires of the night.
I think that if they gave me leave Within the world to stand, I would be good through all the day I spent in fairyland.
They should not hear a word from me Of selfishness or scorn, If only I could find the door, If only I were born.
|
|
|
Poems
Apr 17, 2024 14:16:06 GMT -5
Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 14:16:06 GMT -5
Sonnets from the Portuguese: XXI by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Say over again, and yet once over again, That thou dost love me. Though the word repeated Should seem a "cuckoo-song," as dost treat it, Remember, never to the hill or plain, Valley and wood, without her cuckoo-strain Comes the fresh Spring in all her green completed. Beloved, I, amid the darkness greeted By a doubtful spirit-voice, in that doubt's pain Cry, "Speak once more--thou lovest!" Who can fear Too many stars, though each in heaven shall roll, Too many flowers, though each shall crown the year? Say thou dost love me, love me, love me--toll The silver iterance!--only minding, Dear, To love me also in silence with thy soul.
|
|
|
Poems
Apr 17, 2024 14:16:59 GMT -5
Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 14:16:59 GMT -5
Love by George Herbert
Love bade me welcome: yet my soul drew back, Guilty of dust and sin. But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack From my first entrance in, Drew near to me, sweetly questioning, If I lack'd anything.
A guest, I answer'd, worthy to be here: Love said, You shall be he. I the unkind, ungrateful? Ah my dear, I cannot look on thee. Love took my hand, and smiling did reply, Who made the eyes but I?
Truth, Lord, but I have marr'd them: let my shame Go where it doth deserve. And know you not, says Love, who bore the blame? My dear, then I will serve. You must sit down, says Love, and taste my meat: So I did sit and eat.
|
|
|
Poems
Apr 17, 2024 14:17:24 GMT -5
Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 14:17:24 GMT -5
Acquainted with the Night by Robert Frost
I have been one acquainted with the night. I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain. I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane. I have passed by the watchman on his beat And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.
I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet When far away an interrupted cry Came over houses from another street,
But not to call me back or say good-bye; And further still at an unearthly height, One luminary clock against the sky
Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right. I have been one acquainted with the night.
|
|
|
Poems
Apr 17, 2024 14:18:23 GMT -5
Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 14:18:23 GMT -5
A Christmas Carol by G.K. Chesterton
(The Chief Constable has issued a statement declaring that carol singing in the streets by children is illegal, and morally and physically injurious. He appeals to the public to discourage the practice.--Daily Paper.)
God rest you merry gentlemen, Let nothing you dismay; The Herald Angels cannot sing, The cops arrest them on the wing, And warn them of the docketing Of anything they say.
God rest you merry gentlemen May nothing you dismay: On your reposeful cities lie Deep silence, broken only by The motor horn's melodious cry, The hooter's happy bray.
So, when the song of children ceased And Herod was obeyed, In his high hall Corinthian With purple and with peacock fan, Rested that merry gentleman; And nothing him dismayed.
|
|
|
Poems
Apr 17, 2024 14:18:47 GMT -5
Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 14:18:47 GMT -5
From "In Memoriam" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Oh yet we trust that somehow good Will be the final goal of ill, To pangs of nature, sins of will, Defects of doubt, and taints of blood;
That nothing walks with aimless feet; That not one life will be destroy’d, Or cast as rubbish to the void, When God hath made the pile complete;
That not a worm is cloven in vain; That not a moth with vain desire Is shrivell’d in a fruitless fire, Or but subserves another gain.
Behold, we know not anything; I can but trust that good shall fall At last – far off – at last to all, And every winter change to spring.
So runs my dream; but what am I? An infant crying in the night; An infant crying for the light, And with no language, but a cry.
|
|
|
Poems
Apr 17, 2024 14:21:35 GMT -5
Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 14:21:35 GMT -5
Sonnets from the Portuguese: XLIII by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight For the ends of Being and ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of everyday's Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light. I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints,--I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life!--and, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death.
|
|
|
Poems
Apr 17, 2024 14:21:56 GMT -5
Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 14:21:56 GMT -5
The Strange Music by G.K. Chesterton
Other loves may sink and settle, other loves may loose and slack, But I wander like a minstrel with a harp upon his back; Though the harp be on my bosom, though I finger and I fret, Still, my hope is all before me, for I cannot play it yet.
In your strings is hid a music that no hand hath e'er let fall, In your soul is sealed a pleasure that you have not known at all, Pleasure subtle as your spirit, strange and slender as your frame, Fiercer than the pain that folds you, softer than your sorrows' name.
Not as mine, my soul's anointed, not as mine the rude and light Easy mirth of many faces, swaggering pride of song and fight; Something stranger, something sweeter, something waiting you afar, Secret as your stricken senses, magic as your sorrows are.
But on this, God's harp supernal, stretched but to be stricken once, Hoary time is a beginner, Life a bungler, Death a dunce, But I will not fear to match them; no, by God, I will not fear, I will learn you, I will play you and the stars stand still to hear.
|
|
|
Poems
Apr 17, 2024 14:33:04 GMT -5
Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 14:33:04 GMT -5
The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter by Rikahu, translated by Ezra Pound (old Chinese poem)
While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead Played I about the front gate, pulling flowers. You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse, You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums. And we went on living in the village of Chokan: Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.
At fourteen I married My Lord you, I never laughed, being bashful. Lowering my head, I looked at the wall. Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.
At fifteen I stopped scowling, I desired my dust to be mingled with yours Forever and forever and forever. Why should I climb the look out?
At sixteen you departed, You went into far Ku-to-yen, by the river of swirling eddies, And you have been gone five months. The monkeys make sorrowful noises overhead.
You dragged your feet when you went out. By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses, Too deep to clear them away! The leaves fall early in autumn, in wind. The paired butterflies are already yellow with August Over the grass in the West garden; They hurt me. I grow older. If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang, Please let me know beforehand, And I will come out to meet you As far as Cho-fu-Sa.
|
|
|
Poems
Apr 17, 2024 14:34:51 GMT -5
Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 14:34:51 GMT -5
The Marshes of Glynn by Sidney Lanier
Glooms of the live-oaks, beautiful-braided and woven With intricate shades of the vines that myriad-cloven Clamber the forks of the multiform boughs,-- Emerald twilights, --Virginal shy lights, Wrought of the leaves to allure to the whisper of vows, When lovers pace timidly down through the green colonnades Of the dim sweet woods, of the dear dark woods, Of the heavenly woods and glades, That run to the radiant marginal sand-beach within The wide sea-marshes of Glynn;--
Beautiful glooms, soft dusks in the noonday fire,-- Wildwood privacies, closets of lone desire, Chamber from chamber parted with wavering arras of leaves,-- Cells for the passionate pleasure of prayer to the soul that grieves, Pure with a sense of the passing of saints through the wood, Cool for the dutiful weighing of ill with good;--
O braided dusks of the oak and woven shades of the vine, While the riotous noon-day sun of the June-day long did shine Ye held me fast in your heart and I held you fast in mine; But now when the noon is no more, and riot is rest, And the sun is a-wait at the ponderous gate of the West, And the slant yellow beam down the wood-aisle doth seem Like a lane into heaven that leads from a dream,-- Ay, now, when my soul all day hath drunken the soul of the oak, And my heart is at ease from men, and the wearisome sound of the stroke Of the scythe of time and the trowel of trade is low, And belief overmasters doubt, and I know that I know, And my spirit is grown to a lordly great compass within, That the length and the breadth and the sweep of the marshes of Glynn Will work me no fear like the fear they have wrought me of yore When length was fatigue, and when breadth was but bitterness sore, And when terror and shrinking and dreary unnamable pain Drew over me out of the merciless miles of the plain,--
Oh, now, unafraid, I am fain to face The vast sweet visage of space. To the edge of the wood I am drawn, I am drawn, Where the gray beach glimmering runs, as a belt of the dawn, For a mete and a mark To the forest-dark:-- So: Affable live-oak, leaning low,-- Thus--with your favor--soft, with a reverent hand, (Not lightly touching your person, Lord of the land!) Bending your beauty aside, with a step I stand On the firm-packed sand, Free By a world of marsh that borders a world of sea. Sinuous southward and sinuous northward the shimmering band Of the sand-beach fastens the fringe of the marsh to the folds of the land. Inward and outward to northward and southward the beach-lines linger and curl As a silver-wrought garment that clings to and follows the firm sweet limbs of a girl. Vanishing, swerving, evermore curving again into sight, Softly the sand-beach wavers away to a dim gray looping of light. And what if behind me to westward the wall of the woods stands high? The world lies east: how ample, the marsh and the sea and the sky! A league and a league of marsh-grass, waist-high, broad in the blade, Green, and all of a height, and unflecked with a light or a shade, Stretch leisurely off, in a pleasant plain, To the terminal blue of the main.
Oh, what is abroad in the marsh and the terminal sea? Somehow my soul seems suddenly free From the weighing of fate and the sad discussion of sin, By the length and the breadth and the sweep of the marshes of Glynn.
Ye marshes, how candid and simple and nothing-withholding and free Ye publish yourselves to the sky and offer yourselves to the sea! Tolerant plains, that suffer the sea and the rains and the sun, Ye spread and span like the catholic man who hath mightily won God out of knowledge and good out of infinite pain And sight out of blindness and purity out of a stain.
As the marsh-hen secretly builds on the watery sod, Behold I will build me a nest on the greatness of God: I will fly in the greatness of God as the marsh-hen flies In the freedom that fills all the space 'twixt the marsh and the skies: By so many roots as the marsh-grass sends in the sod I will heartily lay me a-hold on the greatness of God: Oh, like to the greatness of God is the greatness within The range of the marshes, the liberal marshes of Glynn.
And the sea lends large, as the marsh: lo, out of his plenty the sea Pours fast: full soon the time of the flood-tide must be: Look how the grace of the sea doth go About and about through the intricate channels that flow Here and there, Everywhere, Till his waters have flooded the uttermost creeks and the low-lying lanes, And the marsh is meshed with a million veins, That like as with rosy and silvery essences flow In the rose-and-silver evening glow. Farewell, my lord Sun! The creeks overflow: a thousand rivulets run 'Twixt the roots of the sod; the blades of the marsh-grass stir; Passeth a hurrying sound of wings that westward whirr; Passeth, and all is still; and the currents cease to run; And the sea and the marsh are one.
How still the plains of the waters be! The tide is in his ecstasy. The tide is at his highest height: And it is night.
And now from the Vast of the Lord will the waters of sleep Roll in on the souls of men, But who will reveal to our waking ken The forms that swim and the shapes that creep Under the waters of sleep? And I would I could know what swimmeth below when the tide comes in On the length and the breadth of the marvellous marshes of Glynn.
|
|
|
Poems
Apr 17, 2024 14:35:27 GMT -5
Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 14:35:27 GMT -5
A Ballad of Trees and the Master by Sidney Lanier
Into the woods my Master went, Clean forspent, forspent. Into the woods my Master came, Forspent with love and shame. But the olives they were not blind to Him, The little gray leaves were kind to Him: The thorn-tree had a mind to Him When into the woods He came.
Out of the woods my Master went, And He was well content. Out of the woods my Master came, Content with death and shame. When Death and Shame would woo Him last, From under the trees they drew Him last: 'Twas on a tree they slew Him -- last When out of the woods He came.
|
|
|
Poems
Apr 17, 2024 14:35:50 GMT -5
Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 14:35:50 GMT -5
As Kingfishers Catch Fire . . . by Gerard Manley Hopkins
As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies dráw fláme; As tumbled over rim in roundy wells Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name; Each mortal thing does one thing and the same: Deals out that being indoors each one dwells; Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells, Crying Whát I do is me: for that I came.
Í say móre: the just man justices; Kéeps gráce: thát keeps all his goings graces; Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is— Chríst—for Christ plays in ten thousand places, Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his To the Father through the features of men’s faces.
|
|
|
Poems
Apr 17, 2024 14:36:16 GMT -5
Post by The Perilous Dreamer on Apr 17, 2024 14:36:16 GMT -5
Ash-Wednesday I by T.S. Eliot
Because I do not hope to turn again Because I do not hope Because I do not hope to turn Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope I no longer strive to strive towards such things (Why should the aged eagle stretch its wings?) Why should I mourn The vanished power of the usual reign?
Because I do not hope to know again The infirm glory of the positive hour Because I do not think Because I know I shall not know The one veritable transitory power Because I cannot drink There, where trees flower, and springs flow, for there is nothing again
Because I know that time is always time And place is always and only place And what is actual is actual only for one time And only for one place I rejoice that things are as they are and I renounce the blessed face And renounce the voice Because I cannot hope to turn again Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something Upon which to rejoice
And pray to God to have mercy upon us And pray that I may forget These matters that with myself I too much discuss Too much explain Because I do not hope to turn again Let these words answer For what is done, not to be done again May the judgement not be too heavy upon us
Because these wings are no longer wings to fly But merely vans to beat the air The air which is now thoroughly small and dry Smaller and dryer than the will Teach us to care and not to care Teach us to sit still.
Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.
|
|