DayPoems: A Seven-Century Poetry Slam
93,142 lines of verse * www.daypoems.net
Timothy Bovee, editor
ON parent knees, a naked new-born child,
Weeping thou sat'st while all around thee smiled:
So live, that sinking to thy life's last sleep,
Calm thou may'st smile, whilst all around thee weep.
I'm taken to another world when i hear music.
I hear the guitars, the drums, the singing
Love stories, happy stories, sad stories,
Different problems from different people,
How families are broken up,
How people's relationships have been broken up,
How people's feelings have been hurt.
I think of friends, what we did together,
What fun we had together,
What trouble we've caused together!
I think of the past, the present, the future
But most of all
I hear some sort of message being brought out by the band and how their feeling.
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 forbore--
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.
I HAVE had playmates, I have had companions,
In my days of childhood, in my joyful school-days--
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
I have been laughing, I have been carousing,
Drinking late, sitting late, with my bosom cronies--
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
I loved a Love once, fairest among women:
Closed are her doors on me, I must not see her--
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
I have a friend, a kinder friend has no man:
Like an ingrate, I left my friend abruptly;
Left him, to muse on the old familiar faces.
Ghost-like I paced round the haunts of my childhood,
Earth seem'd a desert I was bound to traverse,
Seeking to find the old familiar faces.
Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother,
Why wert not thou born in my father's dwelling?
So might we talk of the old familiar faces--
How some they have died, and some they have left me,
And some are taken from me; all are departed--
All, all are gone, the old familiar faces.
HAPPY those early days, when I
Shin'd in my Angel-infancy!
Before I understood this place
Appointed for my second race,
Or taught my soul to fancy aught
But a white celestial thought:
When yet I had not walk'd above
A mile or two from my first Love,
And looking back--at that short space--
Could see a glimpse of His bright face:
When on some gilded cloud, or flow'r,
My gazing soul would dwell an hour,
And in those weaker glories spy
Some shadows of eternity:
Before I taught my tongue to wound
My Conscience with a sinful sound,
Or had the black art to dispense
A several sin to ev'ry sense,
But felt through all this fleshly dress
Bright shoots of everlastingness.
O how I long to travel back,
And tread again that ancient track!
That I might once more reach that plain
Where first I left my glorious train;
From whence th' enlightned spirit sees
That shady City of Palm-trees.
But ah! my soul with too much stay
Is drunk, and staggers in the way!
Some men a forward motion love,
But I by backward steps would move;
And when this dust falls to the urn,
In that state I came, return.
HELEN, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean barks of yore
That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,
The weary way-worn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.
On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece,
And the grandeur that was Rome.
Lo, in yon brilliant window-niche
How statue-like I see thee stand,
The agate lamp within thy hand,
Ah! Psyche, from the regions which
Are holy land!
THE spacious firmament on high,
With all the blue ethereal sky,
And spangled heavens, a shining frame,
Their great Original proclaim.
Th' unwearied Sun from day to day
Does his Creator's power display;
And publishes to every land
The work of an Almighty hand.
Soon as the evening shades prevail,
The Moon takes up the wondrous tale;
And nightly to the listening Earth
Repeats the story of her birth:
Whilst all the stars that round her burn,
And all the planets in their turn,
Confirm the tidings as they roll,
And spread the truth from pole to pole.
What though in solemn silence all
Move round the dark terrestrial ball;
What though nor real voice nor sound
Amidst their radiant orbs be found?
In Reason's ear they all rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious voice;
For ever singing as they shine,
'The Hand that made us is divine.'
Pan, blow your pipes and I will be
Your fern, your pool, your dream, your tree!
I heard you play, caught your swift eye,
"A pretty melody!" called I,
"Hail, Pan!" And sought to pass you by.
Now blow your pipes and I will sing
To your sure lips' accompanying!
Wild God, who lifted me from earth,
Who taught me freedom, wisdom, mirth,
Immortalized my body's worth, --
Blow, blow your pipes! And from afar
I'll come -- I'll be your bird, your star,
Your wood, your nymph, your kiss, your rhyme,
And all your godlike summer-time!
No other month
Is welcomed more than thee:
The furious blast
That hurries past
Is but the winter freed.
The ice-bound lake
Its fetters break
when though again art near;
The waters foam
Where fishes roam
When Spring with thee is here
The ocean's wave
Where many a brave
as stemmed the current wild,
Is tossed and rolled
Like mountins bold
Before the furious tide.
The fields which seem
No life to them
Are wakened by the blast,
And grains arise,
Such as we prize
Now that the winter's past.
Thrice welcome, then,
We'll prize thee when
The cold cold days are o'er,
though winds may blow
Where e'er we go,
On lake or distant shore.
March the 4th 1864 while on Picket
Hail! Stormy March!
I AM! yet what I am who cares, or knows?
My friends forsake me like a memory lost.
I am the self-consumer of my woes;
They rise and vanish, an oblivious host,
Shadows of life, whose very soul is lost.
And yet I am--I live--though I am toss'd
Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dream,
Where there is neither sense of life, nor joys,
But the huge shipwreck of my own esteem
And all that 's dear. Even those I loved the best
Are strange--nay, they are stranger than the rest.
I long for scenes where man has never trod--
For scenes where woman never smiled or wept--
There to abide with my Creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,
Full of high thoughts, unborn. So let me lie,--
The grass below; above, the vaulted sky.
Softly at dawn a whisper stole
Down from the Green House on the Hill,
Enchanting many a ghostly bole
And wood-song with the ancient thrill.
Gossiping on the country-side,
Spring and the wandering breezes say,
God has thrown Heaven open wide
And let the thrushes out to-day.
I still love you at the end of time
Even after the last rose have wither and died
And the only fragrance, that fades away,
Even after the blackbird has sing his last song
And the only thing you hear, is silence,
Even after the last butterfly lost its wings
And only remembrance, exists.
Even after the blue sky have disappeared,
And only the darkness, above.
Even after the last white clouds have gone,
And the only thing left, emptiness,
Even after the last grass have turned brown,
And the only desolate, appear,
Even after the last beautiful tree have burned down
And only black ashes, is there,
Even after the last mountains have turned to sand,
And rolling hills, are no more,
Even after the wide ocean have turn to mud.
And only a desert, remains,
Even after the last river is memory alone,
And only a line, in the sand,
Even after the moonlight have gone to sleep,
And only the nights, appear,
Even after our sun have turned itself off,
And only darkness, is all we see,
Yes, even at the end of time, I will love you.
My love will be stronger, than time.
And at the end of time,
I will still love you with all of my heart.