Poems

Infinite These solitary hills have always been dear to me. Seated here, this sweet hedge, which blocks the distant horizon opening inner silences and interminable distances. I plunge in thought to where my heart, frightened, pulls back. Like the wind which I hear tossing the trembling plants which surround me, a voice from the inner depths of spirit shakes the certitudes of thought. Eternity breaks through time, past and present intermingle in her image. In the inner shadows I lose myself, drowning in the sea-depths of timeless love.

Giacomo Leopardi

Spirits Of The Dead Thy soul shall find itself alone 'Mid dark thoughts of the grey tomb-stone; Not one, of all the crowd, to pry Into thine hour of secrecy. Be silent in that solitude, Which is not loneliness- for then The spirits of the dead, who stood In life before thee, are again In death around thee, and their will Shall overshadow thee; be still. The night, though clear, shall frown, And the stars shall not look down From their high thrones in the Heaven With light like hope to mortals given, But their red orbs, without beam, To thy weariness shall seem As a burning and a fever Which would cling to thee for ever. Now are thoughts thou shalt not banish, Now are visions ne'er to vanish; From thy spirit shall they pass No more, like dew-drop from the grass.

The breeze, the breath of God, is still, And the mist upon the hill Shadowy, shadowy, yet unbroken, Is a symbol and a token. How it hangs upon the trees, A mystery of mysteries!

Edgar Allan Poe

Ozymandias I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: `Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed. And on the pedestal these words appear -"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.'

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Amidst the Flowers a Jug of Wine Amidst the flowers a jug of wine, I pour alone lacking companionship. So raising the cup I invite the Moon, Then turn to my shadow which makes three of us. Because the Moon does not know how to drink, My shadow merely follows the movement of my body. The moon has brought the shadow to keep me company a while, The practice of mirth should keep pace with spring. I start a song and the moon begins to reel, I rise and dance and the shadow moves grotesquely.

While I'm still conscious let's rejoice with one another, After I'm drunk let each one go his way. Let us bind ourselves for ever for passionless journeyings. Let us swear to meet again far in the Milky Way.

Li Po

Echo Come to me in the silence of the night; Come in the speaking silence of a dream; Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright As sunlight on a stream; Come back in tears, O memory, hope, love of finished years. O dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet, Whose wakening should have been in Paradise, Where souls brimfull of love abide and meet; Where thirsting longing eyes Watch the slow door That opening, letting in, lets out no more. Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live My very life again though cold in death: Come back to me in dreams, that I may give Pulse for pulse, breath for breath: Speak low, lean low As long ago, my love, how long ago.

Christina Georgina Rossetti

A Grain Of Sand If starry space no limit knows And sun succeeds to sun, There is no reason to suppose Our earth the only one. 'Mid countless constellations cast A million worlds may be, With each a God to bless or blast

And steer to destiny. Just think! A million gods or so To guide each vital stream, With over all to boss the show A Deity supreme. Such magnitudes oppress my mind; From cosmic space it swings; So ultimately glad to find Relief in little things. For look! Within my hollow hand, While round the earth careens, I hold a single grain of sand And wonder what it means. Ah! If I had the eyes to see, And brain to understand, I think Life's mystery might be Solved in this grain of sand.

Robert W. Service

Childhood Childhood, sweet and sunny childhood, With its careless, thoughtless air, Like the verdant, tangled wildwood, Wants the training hand of care. See it springing all around us -Glad to know, and quick to learn; Asking questions that confound us; Teaching lessons in its turn. Who loves not its joyous revel, Leaping lightly on the lawn, Up the knoll, along the level, Free and graceful as a fawn? Let it revel; it is nature Giving to the little dears

Strength of limb, and healthful features, For the toil of coming years. He who checks a child with terror, Stops its play, and stills its song, Not alone commits an error, But a great and moral wrong. Give it play, and never fear it -Active life is no defect; Never, never break its spirit -Curb it only to direct. Would you dam the flowing river, Thinking it would cease to flow? Onward it must go forever -Better teach it where to go. Childhood is a fountain welling, Trace its channel in the sand, And its currents, spreading, swelling, Will revive the withered land. Childhood is the vernal season; Trim and train the tender shoot; Love is to the coming reason, As the blossom to the fruit. Tender twigs are bent and folded -Art to nature beauty lends; Childhood easily is moulded; Manhood breaks, but seldom bends.

David Bates

"I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. The waves beside them danced; but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company: I gazed---and gazed---but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought: For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.

William Wordsworth

A Fairy Song Over hill, over dale, Thorough bush, thorough brier, Over park, over pale, Thorough flood, thorough fire! I do wander everywhere, Swifter than the moon's sphere; And I serve the Fairy Queen, To dew her orbs upon the green; The cowslips tall her pensioners be; In their gold coats spots you see; Those be rubies, fairy favours; In those freckles live their savours; I must go seek some dewdrops here,

And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.

William Shakespeare

"I Am Not Yours" I am not yours, not lost in you, Not lost, although I long to be Lost as a candle lit at noon, Lost as a snowflake in the sea. You love me, and I find you still A spirit beautiful and bright, Yet I am I, who long to be Lost as a light is lost in light. Oh plunge me deep in love -- put out My senses, leave me deaf and blind, Swept by the tempest of your love, A taper in a rushing wind.

Sarah Teasdale

A Clear Midnight THIS is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless, Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done, Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou lovest best. Night, sleep, and the stars.

Walt Whitman

Children Come to me, O ye children! For I hear you at your play, And the questions that perplexed me Have vanished quite away. Ye open the eastern windows,

That look towards the sun, Where thoughts are singing swallows And the brooks of morning run. In your hearts are the birds and the sunshine, In your thoughts the brooklet's flow, But in mine is the wind of Autumn And the first fall of the snow. Ah! what would the world be to us If the children were no more? We should dread the desert behind us Worse than the dark before. What the leaves are to the forest, With light and air for food, Ere their sweet and tender juices Have been hardened into wood, -That to the world are children; Through them it feels the glow Of a brighter and sunnier climate Than reaches the trunks below. Come to me, O ye children! And whisper in my ear What the birds and the winds are singing In your sunny atmosphere. For what are all our contrivings, And the wisdom of our books, When compared with your caresses, And the gladness of your looks? Ye are better than all the ballads That ever were sung or said; For ye are living poems, And all the rest are dead.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Jabberwocky 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe. 'Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch!' He took his vorpal sword in hand: Long time the manxome foe he sought -So rested he by the Tumtum tree, And stood a while in thought. And, as in uffish thought he stood, The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, Came whiffling through the tulgey wood, And burbled as it came! One two! One two! And through and through The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead, and with its head He went galumphing back. 'And hast thou slain the Jabberwock? Come to my arms, my beamish boy! Oh frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!' He chortled in his joy. 'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe: All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe.

Lewis Carroll

"The Dreams of My Heart"

The dreams of my heart and my mind pass, Nothing stays with me long, But I have had from a child The deep solace of song; If that should ever leave me, Let me find death and stay With things whose tunes are played out and forgotten Like the rain of yesterday.

Sarah Teasdale

"?" If you had the choice of two women to wed, (Though of course the idea is quite absurd) And the first from her heels to her dainty head Was charming in every sense of the word: And yet in the past (I grieve to state), She never had been exactly "straight". And the second -- she was beyond all cavil, A model of virtue, I must confess; And yet, alas! she was dull as the devil, And rather a dowd in the way of dress; Though what she was lacking in wit and beauty, She more than made up for in "sense of duty". Now, suppose you must wed, and make no blunder, And either would love you, and let you win her -Which of the two would you choose, I wonder, The stolid saint or the sparkling sinner?

Robert W. Service