Midnight Mass for the Dying Year

Yes, the Year is growing old,

And his eye is pale and bleared!

Death, with frosty hand and cold,

Plucks the old man by the beard,

Sorely, sorely!

The leaves are falling, falling,

Solemnly and slow;

Caw! caw! the rooks are calling,

It is a sound of woe,

A sound of woe!

Through woods and mountain passes

The winds, like anthems, roll;

They are chanting solemn masses,

Singing, "Pray for

The Gift of His Presence

May we never be so focused on getting fits and presents that we forget to receive the gift of His presence.

Blind Bartimeus

Blind Bartimeus at the gates

Of Jericho in darkness waits;

He hears the crowd;--he hears a breath

Say, "It is Christ of Nazareth!"

And calls, in tones of agony,



The thronging multitudes increase;

Blind Bartimeus, hold thy peace!

But still, above the noisy crowd,

The beggar's cry is shrill and loud;

Until they say, "He calleth thee!"



Then saith the Christ, as silent stands

The crowd

Sonnet 41: I thank all who have loved me in their hearts

XLI


I thank all who have loved me in their hearts,

With thanks and love from mine. Deep thanks to all

Who paused a little near the prison-wall

To hear my music in its louder parts

Ere they went onward, each one to the mart's

Or temple's occupation, beyond call.

But thou, who, in my voice's sink and fall

When the sob took it, thy divinest Art's

Own instrument didst drop down at thy foot

Sonnet 27: My own Beloved, who hast lifted me

My own Beloved, who hast lifted me

From this drear flat of earth where I was thrown,

And, in betwixt the languid ringlets, blown

A life-breath, till the forehead hopefully

Shines out again, as all the angels see,

Before thy saving kiss! My own, my own,

Who camest to me when the world was gone,

And I who looked for only God, found thee!

I find thee; I am safe, and strong, and glad.

As one

Sonnet 18: I never gave a lock of hair away

I never gave a lock of hair away

To a man, Dearest, except this to thee,

Which now upon my fingers thoughtfully,

I ring out to the full brown length and say

'Take it.' My day of youth went yesterday;

My hair no longer bounds to my foot's glee,

Nor plant I it from rose or myrtle-tree,

As girls do, any more: it only may

Now shade on two pale cheeks the mark of tears,

Taught drooping from

Sonnet 29: I think of thee! my thoughts do twine and bud

I think of thee! my thoughts do twine and bud

About thee, as wild vines, about a tree,

Put out broad leaves, and soon there 's nought to see

Except the straggling green which hides the wood.

Yet, O my palm-tree, be it understood

I will not have my thoughts instead of thee

Who art dearer, better! Rather, instantly

Renew thy presence; as a strong tree should,

Rustle thy boughs and set thy

A Dead Rose

O Rose! who dares to name thee?

No longer roseate now, nor soft, nor sweet;

But pale, and hard, and dry, as stubble-wheat,---

Kept seven years in a drawer---thy titles shame thee.

The breeze that used to blow thee

Between the hedgerow thorns, and take away

An odour up the lane to last all day,---

If breathing now,---unsweetened would forego thee.

The sun that used to smite thee,

And mix

Sonnet 32: The first time that the sun rose on thine oath

The first time that the sun rose on thine oath

To love me, I looked forward to the moon

To slacken all those bonds which seemed too soon

And quickly tied to make a lasting troth.

Quick-loving hearts, I thought, may quickly loathe;

And, looking on myself, I seemed not one

For such man's love! more like an out-of-tune

Worn viol, a good singer would be wroth

To spoil his song with, and which

Sonnet 07: The face of all the world is changed, I think

The face of all the world is changed, I think,

Since first I heard the footsteps of thy soul

Move still, oh, still, beside me, as they stole

Betwixt me and the dreadful outer brink

Of obvious death, where I, who thought to sink,

Was caught up into love, and taught the whole

Of life in a new rhythm. The cup of dole

God gave for baptism, I am fain to drink,

And praise its sweetness, Sweet,

Sonnet 09: Can it be right to give what I can give?

Can it be right to give what I can give?

To let thee sit beneath the fall of tears

As salt as mine, and hear the sighing years

Re-sighing on my lips renunciative

Through those infrequent smiles which fail to live

For all thy adjurations? O my fears,

That this can scarce be right! We are not peers,

So to be lovers; and I own, and grieve,

That givers of such gifts as mine are, must

Be

Sonnet 42: 'My future will not copy fair my past'

'My future will not copy fair my past'

I wrote that once; and thinking at my side

My ministering life-angel justified

The word by his appealing look upcast

To the white throne of God, I turned at last,

And there, instead, saw thee, not unallied

To angels in thy soul! Then I, long tried

By natural ills, received the comfort fast,

While budding, at thy sight, my pilgrim's staff

Gave out

Sonnet 01: I thought once how Theocritus had sung

I thought once how Theocritus had sung

Of the sweet years, the dear and wished-for years,

Who each one in a gracious hand appears

To bear a gift for mortals, old or young:

And, as I mused it in his antique tongue,

I saw, in gradual vision through my tears,

The sweet, sad years, the melancholy years,

Those of my own life, who by turns had flung

A shadow across me. Straightway I was 'ware,

The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim's Point

I.


I stand on the mark beside the shore

Of the first white pilgrim's bended knee,

Where exile turned to ancestor,

And God was thanked for liberty.

I have run through the night, my skin is as dark,

I bend my knee down on this mark . . .

I look on the sky and the sea.


II.


O pilgrim-souls, I speak to you!

I see you come out proud and slow

From the land of the spirits pale as dew. . .

A Child Asleep

How he sleepeth! having drunken

Weary childhood's mandragore,

From his pretty eyes have sunken

Pleasures, to make room for more---

Sleeping near the withered nosegay, which he pulled the day before.

Nosegays! leave them for the waking:

Throw them earthward where they grew.

Dim are such, beside the breaking

Amaranths he looks unto---

Folded eyes see brighter colours than the open ever do.

My Heart and I

I.


ENOUGH ! we're tired, my heart and I.

We sit beside the headstone thus,

And wish that name were carved for us.

The moss reprints more tenderly

The hard types of the mason's knife,

As heaven's sweet life renews earth's life

With which we're tired, my heart and I.


II.


You see we're tired, my heart and I.

We dealt with books, we trusted men,

And in our own blood drenched the pen,

Sonnet 11: And therefore if to love can be desert

And therefore if to love can be desert,

I am not all unworthy. Cheeks as pale

As these you see, and trembling knees that fail

To bear the burden of a heavy heart,

This weary minstrel-life that once was girt

To climb Aornus, and can scarce avail

To pipe now 'gainst the valley nightingale

A melancholy music, 'why advert

To these things? O Beloved, it is plain

I am not of thy worth nor for

Sonnet 33: Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear

Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear

The name I used to run at, when a child,

From innocent play, and leave the cowslips piled,

To glance up in some face that proved me dear

With the look of its eyes. I miss the clear

Fond voices which, being drawn and reconciled

Into the music of Heaven's undefiled,

Call me no longer. Silence on the bier,

While I call God 'call God! So let thy mouth

The Autumn

Go, sit upon the lofty hill,

And turn your eyes around,

Where waving woods and waters wild

Do hymn an autumn sound.

The summer sun is faint on them --

The summer flowers depart --

Sit still -- as all transform'd to stone,

Except your musing heart.

How there you sat in summer-time,

May yet be in your mind;

And how you heard the green woods sing

Beneath the freshening wind.

Though the

Sonnet 13: And wilt thou have me fashion into speech

And wilt thou have me fashion into speech

The love I bear thee, finding words enough,

And hold the torch out, while the winds are rough,

Between our faces, to cast light on each?

I drop it at thy feet. I cannot teach

My hand to hold my spirit so far off

From myself 'me' that I should bring thee proof

In words, of love hid in me out of reach.

Nay, let the silence of my womanhood

Commend

Comfort

SPEAK low to me, my Saviour, low and sweet

From out the hallelujahs, sweet and low

Lest I should fear and fall, and miss Thee so

Who art not missed by any that entreat.

Speak to mo as to Mary at thy feet !

And if no precious gums my hands bestow,

Let my tears drop like amber while I go

In reach of thy divinest voice complete

In humanest affection -- thus, in sooth,

To lose the sense of

Sonnet 28: My letters! all dead paper, mute and white!

My letters! all dead paper, mute and white!

And yet they seem alive and quivering

Against my tremulous hands which loose the string

And let them drop down on my knee to-night.

This said, 'he wished to have me in his sight

Once, as a friend: this fixed a day in spring

To come and touch my hand . . . a simple thing,

Yet I wept for it! 'this, . . . the paper's light . . .

Said, Dear, I love

Sonnet 05: I lift my heavy heart up solemnly

I lift my heavy heart up solemnly,

As once Electra her sepulchral urn,

And, looking in thine eyes, I overturn

The ashes at thy feet. Behold and see

What a great heap of grief lay hid in me,

And how the red wild sparkles dimly burn

Through the ashen grayness. If thy foot in scorn

Could tread them out to darkness utterly,

It might be well perhaps. But if instead

Thou wait beside me for the

Sonnet 35: If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange

If I leave all for thee, wilt thou exchange

And be all to me? Shall I never miss

Home-talk and blessing and the common kiss

That comes to each in turn, nor count it strange,

When I look up, to drop on a new range

Of walls and floors, another home than this?

Nay, wilt thou fill that place by me which is

Filled by dead eyes too tender to know change?

That 's hardest. If to conquer love, has

Tears

THANK God, bless God, all ye who suffer not

More grief than ye can weep for. That is well--

That is light grieving ! lighter, none befell

Since Adam forfeited the primal lot.

Tears ! what are tears ? The babe weeps in its cot,

The mother singing, at her marriage-bell

The bride weeps, and before the oracle

Of high-faned hills the poet has forgot

Such moisture on his cheeks. Thank God for

Sonnet 23: Is it indeed so? If I lay here dead

Is it indeed so? If I lay here dead,

Wouldst thou miss any life in losing mine?

And would the sun for thee more coldly shine

Because of grave-damps falling round my head?

I marvelled, my Beloved, when I read

Thy thought so in the letter. I am thine

But . . . so much to thee? Can I pour thy wine

While my hands tremble ? Then my soul, instead

Of dreams of death, resumes life's lower range.

Jabed Meeker (Humorist)

Twain? Oh, yes, I've heard Mark Twain
Heard him down to Pleasant Plain;
Funny? Yes, I guess so. Folks
Seemed to laugh loud at his jokes!
Laughed to beat the band; but I
Couldn't rightly make out why.
Guess his humor ain't refined.
Quite enough to suit my mind.
Mark's all right'right clever speaker'
But he can't touch Jabed Meeker;
And one thing that makes it queer
Is that Jabed lives right here.

Still the Light

twas' 11 days before Christmas, around 9:38
when 20 beautiful children stormed through heaven's gate.
their smiles were contagious, their laughter filled the air.
they could hardly believe all the beauty they saw there.
they were filled with such joy, they didn't know what to say.

they remembered nothing of what had happened earlier that day.
"where are we?" asked a little girl, as quiet as a mouse.
"this is heaven." declared a small boy. "we're spending Christmas at God's house."
when what to their wondering eyes did appear,
but Jesus, their savior, the children gathered near.
He looked at them and smiled, and they smiled just the same.
then He opened His arms and He called them by name.
and in that moment was joy, that only heaven can bring
those children all flew into the arms of their King
and as they lingered in the warmth of His embrace,
one small girl turned and looked at Jesus' face.
and as if He could read all the questions she had
He gently whispered to her, "I'll take care of mom and dad."
then He looked down on earth, the world far below
He saw all of the hurt, the sorrow, and woe
then He closed His eyes and He outstretched His hand,
"Let My power and presence re-enter this land!"
"may this country be delivered from the hands of fools"
"I'm taking back my nation. I'm taking back my schools!"
then He and the children stood up without a sound.
"come now my children, let me show you around."
excitement filled the space, some skipped and some ran.
all displaying enthusiasm that only a small child can.
and i heard Him proclaim as He walked out of sight,
"in the midst of this darkness, I AM STILL THE LIGHT."

Written by Cameo Smith, Mt. Wolf, PA

Road of Discipleship

“Wherever you now find yourself on the road of discipleship, you are on the right road, the road toward eternal life. Together we can lift and strengthen one another in the great days ahead. Whatever the difficulties confronting us, the weaknesses confining us, or the impossibilities surrounding us, let us have faith in the Son of God, who declared, 'All things are possible to him that believeth.'” –Neil L. Andersen

Someone Else's Middle

Kneel

A Health to Mark Twain

At his Birthday Feast

With memories old and wishes new

We crown our cups again,

And here's to you, and here's to you

With love that ne'er shall wane!

And may you keep, at sixty-seven,

The joy of earth, the hope of heaven,

And fame well-earned, and friendship true,

And peace that comforts every pain,

And faith that fights the battle through,

And all your heart's unbounded wealth,

And

Silent Night: The Spirit of Christmas

God Grant Me

Barren Woman, Sylvia Plath

Empty, I echo to the least footfall,
Museum without statues, grand with pillars,
porticoes, rotundas.
In my courtyard a fountain leaps and sinks
back into itself,
Nun-hearted and blind to the world. Marble lilies
Exhale their pallor like scent.

I imagine myself with a great public,
Mother of a white Nike and several bald-eyed Apollos.
Insread, the dead injure me attentions, and nothing
can

A Birthday Present

What is this, behind this veil, is it ugly, is it beautiful?It is shimmering, has it breasts, has it edges?I am sure it is unique, I am sure it is what I want.When I am quiet at my cooking I feel it looking, I feel it thinking'Is this the one I am too appear for,Is this the elect one, the one with black eye-pits and a scar?Measuring the flour, cutting off the surplus,Adhering to rules, to rules,

Alicante Lullaby, by Sylvia Plath

In Alicante they bowl the barrels
Bumblingly over the nubs of the cobbles
Past the yellow-paella eateries,
Below the ramshackle back-alley balconies,
While the cocks and hens
In the roofgardens
Scuttle repose with crowns and cackles.

Kumquat-colored trolleys ding as they trundle
Passengers under an indigo fizzle
Needling spumily down from the wires:
Alongside the sibliant narhor the lovers
Hear

Buddha at Kamakura

O ye who tread the Narrow WayBy Tophet-flare to Judgment Day,Be gentle when "the heathen" pray To Buddha at Kamakura!To him the Way, the Law, apart,Whom Maya held beneath her heart,Ananda's Lord, the Bodhisat, The Buddha of Kamakura.For though he neither burns nor sees,Nor hears ye thank your Deities,Ye have not sinned with such as these, His children at Kamakura,Yet spare us still the Western

The Children's Song

Puck of Pook's Hills

Land of our Birth, we pledge to thee
Our love and toil in the years to be;
When we are grown and take our place
As men and women with our race.

Father in Heaven who lovest all,
Oh, help Thy children when they call;
That they may build from age to age
An undefiled heritage.

Teach us to bear the yoke in youth,
With steadfastness and careful truth;
That, in our time, Thy

A Christmas Memory

Pa he bringed me here to stay'Til my Ma she's well.--An' nenHe's go' hitch up, Chris'mus-day,An' come take me back againWher' my Ma's at! Won't I beTickled when he comes fer me!My Ma an' my A'nty they'Uz each-uvver's sisters. Pa--A'nty telled me, th' other day,--He comed here an' married Ma....A'nty said nen, 'Go run play,I must work now!' ... An' I saw,When she turn' her face away,She 'uz cryin'

A Bride

'O I am weary!' she sighed, as her billowyHair she unloosed in a torrent of goldThat rippled and fell o'er a figure as willowy,Graceful and fair as a goddess of old:Over her jewels she flung herself drearily,Crumpled the laces that snowed on her breast,Crushed with her fingers the lily that wearilyClung in her hair like a dove in its nest--.And naught but her shadowy form in the mirrorTo kneel in

A Poet's Wooing

I woo'd a woman once,But she was sharper than an eastern wind.Tennyson"What may I do to make you glad,To make you glad and free,Till your light smiles glanceAnd your bright eyes danceLike sunbeams on the sea?Read some rhyme that is blithe and gayOf a bright May morn and a marriage day?"And she sighed in a listless way she had,--"Do not read--it will make me sad!""What shall I do to make you glad-

The Old Times Were the Best

Friends, my heart is half awearyOf its happiness to-night:Though your songs are gay and cheery,And your spirits feather-light,There's a ghostly music hauntingStill the heart of every guestAnd a voiceless chorus chantingThat the Old Times were the best.CHORUSAll about is bright and pleasantWith the sound of song and jest,Yet a feeling's ever presentThat the Old Times were the best.

The Song of Yesterday

I

But yesterday
I looked away
O'er happy lands, where sunshine lay
In golden blots,
Inlaid with spots
Of shade and wild forget-me-nots.

My head was fair
With flaxen hair,
And fragrant breezes, faint and rare,
And, warm with drouth
From out the south,
Blew all my curls across my mouth.

And, cool and sweet,
My naked feet
Found dewy pathways through the wheat;
And out again
Where

A Child-World

_The Child-World--long and long since lost to view--A Fairy Paradise!--How always fair it was and fresh and new--How every affluent hour heaped heart and eyesWith treasures of surprise!Enchantments tangible: The under-brinkOf dawns that launched the sightUp seas of gold: The dewdrop on the pink,With all the green earth in it and blue heightOf heavens infinite:The liquid, dripping songs of

Birds Of Passage

Black shadows fallFrom the lindens tall,That lift aloft their massive wallAgainst the southern sky;And from the realmsOf the shadowy elmsA tide-like darkness overwhelmsThe fields that round us lie.But the night is fair,And everywhereA warm, soft vapor fills the air,And distant sounds seem near,And above, in the lightOf the star-lit night,Swift birds of passage wing their flightThrough the dewy

A Psalm Of Life

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and

Wind Song

LONG ago I learned how to sleep,

In an old apple orchard where the wind swept by counting its money and throwing it away,

In a wind-gaunt orchard where the limbs forked out and listened or never listened at all,

In a passel of trees where the branches trapped the wind into whistling,  'Who, who are you?'

I slept with my head in an elbow on a summer afternoon and there I took a sleep lesson.

Work Gangs, poem by Carl Sandburg

BOX cars run by a mile long.

And I wonder what they say to each other

When they stop a mile long on a sidetrack.

Maybe their chatter goes:

I came from Fargo with a load of wheat up to the danger line.

I came from Omaha with a load of shorthorns and they splintered my boards.

I came from Detroit heavy with a load of flivvers.

I carried apples from the Hood river last year and this year

Under the Harvest Moon

Under the harvest moon,When the soft silverDrips shimmeringOver the garden nights,Death, the gray mocker,Comes and whispers to youAs a beautiful friendWho remembers.Under the summer rosesWhen the flagrant crimsonLurks in the duskOf the wild red leaves,Love, with little hands,Comes and touches youWith a thousand memories,And asks youBeautiful, unanswerable questions.

White Hands

FOR the second time in a year this lady with the white hands is brought to the west room second floor of a famous sanatorium.Her husband is a cornice manufacturer in an Iowa town and the lady has often read papers on Victorian poets before the local literary club.Yesterday she washed her hands forty seven times during her waking hours and in her sleep moaned restlessly attempting to clean

Whitelight

YOUR whitelight flashes the frost to-nightMoon of the purple and silent west.Remember me one of your lovers of dreams.

Wilderness

THERE is a wolf in me
fangs pointed for tearing gashes
a red tongue for raw meat
and the hot lapping of blood

I keep this wolf because the wilderness gave it
to me and the wilderness will not let it go.


There is a fox in me
a silver-gray fox
I sniff and guess
I pick things out of the wind and air
I nose in the dark night and take sleepers and eat them and hide the feathers
I circle and loop

The Reaper And The Flowers

There is a Reaper, whose name is Death,And, with his sickle keen,He reaps the bearded grain at a breath,And the flowers that grow between."Shall I have naught that is fair?" saith he;"Have naught but the bearded grain?Though the breath of these flowers is sweet to me,I will give them all back again."He gazed at the flowers with tearful eyes,He kissed their drooping leaves;It was for the Lord of

Hymn To The Night, poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I heard the trailing garments of the Night
Sweep through her marble halls!
I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light
From the celestial walls!

I felt her presence, by its spell of might,
Stoop o'er me from above;
The calm, majestic presence of the Night,
As of the one I love.

I heard the sounds of sorrow and delight,
The manifold, soft chimes,
That fill the haunted chambers of the Night

To a Dead Man

Over the dead line we have called to you
To come across with a word to us,
Some beaten whisper of what happens
Where you are over the dead line
Deaf to our calls and voiceless.


The flickering shadows have not answered
Nor your lips sent a signal
Whether love talks and roses grow
And the sun breaks at morning
Splattering the sea with crimson.

Under a Hat Rim

WHILE the hum and the hurry

Of passing footfalls

Beat in my ear like the restless surf

Of a wind-blown sea,

A soul came to me

Out of the look on a face.


Eyes like a lake

Where a storm-wind roams

Caught me from under

The rim of a hat.

I thought of a midsea wreck

and bruised fingers clinging

to a broken state-room door.

A child said, What is the grass, poem by Walt Whitman

A child said, What is the grass? fetching it to me with full
hands;
How could I answer the child?. . . .I do not know what it
is any more than he.

I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful
green stuff woven.

Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropped,
Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we
may see and

Adieu to a Soldier

ADIEU, O soldier!
You of the rude campaigning, (which we shared,)
The rapid march, the life of the camp,
The hot contention of opposing fronts 'the long manoeuver,
Red battles with their slaughter, 'the stimulus 'the strong, terrific game,
Spell of all brave and manly hearts 'the trains of Time through you, and like of you,
all
filled,
With war, and war's expression.

Adieu, dear comrade!
Your

Why do I love You, Sir?

"Why do I love" You, Sir?
Because --
The Wind does not require the Grass
To answer -- Wherefore when He pass
She cannot keep Her place.

Because He knows -- and
Do not You --
And We know not --
Enough for Us
The Wisdom it be so --

The Lightning -- never asked an Eye
Wherefore it shut -- when He was by --
Because He knows it cannot speak --
And reasons not contained --
-- Of Talk --
There be --

A Prison gets to be a friend

A Prison gets to be a friend --Between its Ponderous faceAnd Ours -- a Kinsmanship express --And in its narrow Eyes --We come to look with gratitudeFor the appointed BeamIt deal us -- stated as our food --And hungered for -- the same --We learn to know the Planks --That answer to Our feet --So miserable a sound -- at first --Nor ever now -- so sweet --As plashing in the Pools --When Memory was a

Where I have lost, I softer tread

Where I have lost, I softer tread --I sow sweet flower from garden bed --I pause above that vanished headAnd mourn.Whom I have lost, I pious guardFrom accent harsh, or ruthless word --Feeling as if their pillow heard,Though stone!When I have lost, you'll know by this --A Bonnet black -- A dusk surplice --A little tremor in my voice Like this!Why, I have lost, the people knowWho dressed in flocks

Forever at His side to walk

Forever at His side to walk --The smaller of the two!Brain of His Brain --Blood of His Blood --Two lives -- One Being -- now --Forever of His fate to taste --If grief -- the largest part --If joy -- to put my piece awayFor that beloved Heart --All life -- to know each other --Whom we can never learn --And bye and bye -- a Change --Called Heaven --Rapt Neighborhoods of Men --Just finding out --

Many a phrase has the English language

Many a phrase has the English language --I have heard but one --Low as the laughter of the Cricket,Loud, as the Thunder's Tongue --Murmuring, like old Caspian Choirs,When the Tide's a' lull --Saying itself in new inflection --Like a Whippoorwill --Breaking in bright OrthographyOn my simple sleep --Thundering its Prospective --Till I stir, and weep --Not for the Sorrow, done me --But the push of

Her -- "last Poems"

Her -- "last Poems" --
Poets -- ended --
Silver -- perished -- with her Tongue --
Not on Record -- bubbled other,
Flute -- or Woman --
So divine --
Not unto its Summer -- Morning
Robin -- uttered Half the Tune --
Gushed too free for the Adoring --
From the Anglo-Florentine --
Late -- the Praise --
'Tis dull -- conferring
On the Head too High to Crown --
Diadem -- or Ducal Showing --
Be its Grave

I know that He exists

I know that He exists.Somewhere -- in Silence --He has hid his rare lifeFrom our gross eyes.'Tis an instant's play.'Tis a fond Ambush --Just to make BlissEarn her own surprise!But -- should the playProve piercing earnest --Should the glee -- glaze --In Death's -- stiff -- stare --Would not the funLook too expensive!Would not the jest --Have crawled too far!

I have a King, who does not speak

I have a King, who does not speak --So -- wondering -- thro' the hours meekI trudge the day away --Half glad when it is night, and sleep,If, haply, thro' a dream, to peepIn parlors, shut by day.And if I do -- when morning comes --It is as if a hundred drumsDid round my pillow roll,And shouts fill all my Childish sky,And Bells keep saying "Victory"From steeples in my soul!And if I don't -- the

I'm sorry for the Dead -- Today

I'm sorry for the Dead -- Today --
It's such congenial times
Old Neighbors have at fences --
It's time o' year for Hay.

And Broad -- Sunburned Acquaintance
Discourse between the Toil --
And laugh, a homely species
That makes the Fences smile --

It seems so straight to lie away
From all of the noise of Fields --
The Busy Carts -- the fragrant Cocks --
The Mower's Metre -- Steals --

A Trouble

No Notice gave She, but a Change

No Notice gave She, but a Change --No Message, but a Sigh --For Whom, the Time did not sufficeThat She should specify.She was not warm, though Summer shoneNor scrupulous of coldThough Rime by Rime, the steady FrostUpon Her Bosom piled --Of shrinking ways -- she did not frightThough all the Village looked --But held Her gravity aloft --And met the gaze -- direct --And when adjusted like a SeedIn

Musicians wrestle everywhere

Musicians wrestle everywhere --All day -- among the crowded airI hear the silver strife --And -- walking -- long before the morn --Such transport breaks upon the townI think it that "New Life"!If is not Bird -- it has no nest --Nor "Band" -- in brass and scarlet -- drest --Nor Tamborin -- nor Man --It is not Hymn from pulpit read --The "Morning Stars" the Treble ledOn Time's first Afternoon!Some

Rearrange a "Wife's" affection!

Rearrange a "Wife's" affection!
When they dislocate my Brain!
Amputate my freckled Bosom!
Make me bearded like a man!

Blush, my spirit, in thy Fastness --
Blush, my unacknowledged clay --
Seven years of troth have taught thee
More than Wifehood every may!

Love that never leaped its socket --
Trust entrenched in narrow pain --
Constancy thro' fire -- awarded --
Anguish -- bare of anodyne!

'Tis One by One -- the Father counts

'Tis One by One -- the Father counts --
And then a Tract between
Set Cypherless -- to teach the Eye
The Value of its Ten --

Until the peevish Student
Acquire the Quick of Skill --
Then Numerals are dowered back --
Adorning all the Rule --

'Tis mostly Slate and Pencil --
And Darkness on the School
Distracts the Children's fingers --
Still the Eternal Rule

Regards least Cypherer alike
With

Twas Love -- not me, poem by Emily Dickinson

'Twas Love -- not me --
Oh punish -- pray --
The Real one died for Thee --
Just Him -- not me --

Such Guilt -- to love Thee -- most!
Doom it beyond the Rest --
Forgive it -- last --
'Twas base as Jesus -- most!

Let Justice not mistake --
We Two -- looked so alike --
Which was the Guilty Sake --
'Twas Love's -- Now Strike!

A Wife -- at daybreak I shall be

A Wife -- at daybreak I shall be --Sunrise -- Hast thou a Flag for me?At Midnight, I am but a Maid,How short it takes to make a Bride --Then -- Midnight, I have passed from theeUnto the East, and Victory --Midnight -- Good Night! I hear them call,The Angels bustle in the Hall --Softly my Future climbs the Stair,I fumble at my Childhood's prayerSo soon to be a Child no more --Eternity, I'm coming

Because He loves Her, by Emily Dickinson

Because He loves Her
We will pry and see if she is fair
What difference is on her Face
From Features others wear.

It will not harm her magic pace
That we so far behind --
Her Distances propitiate
As Forests touch the Wind

Not hoping for his notice vast
But nearer to adore
'Tis Glory's far sufficiency
That makes our trying poor.

Million Man March Poem

The night has been long,The wound has been deep,The pit has been dark,And the walls have been steep.Under a dead blue sky on a distant beach,I was dragged by my braids just beyond your reach.Your hands were tied, your mouth was bound,You couldn't even call out my name.You were helpless and so was I,But unfortunately throughout historyYou've worn a badge of shame.I say, the night has been long,The

Television

The most important thing we've learned,
So far as children are concerned,
Is never, NEVER, NEVER let
Them near your television set --
Or better still, just don't install
The idiotic thing at all.
In almost every house we've been,
We've watched them gaping at the screen.
They loll and slop and lounge about,
And stare until their eyes pop out.
(Last week in someone's place we saw
A dozen eyeballs

Dear friends, we surely all agree

'Dear friends, we surely all agree
There's almost nothing worse to see
Than some repulsive little bum
Who's always chewing chewing gum.
(It's very near as bad as those
Who sit around and pick the nose).
So please believe us when we say
That chewing gum will never pay;
This sticky habit's bound to send
The chewer to a sticky end.
Did any of you ever know
A person called Miss Bigelow?
This dreadful

One Inch Tall

If you were only one inch tall, you'd ride a worm to school.The teardrop of a crying ant would be your swimming pool.A crumb of cake would be a feastAnd last you seven days at least,A flea would be a frightening beastIf you were one inch tall.If you were only one inch tall, you'd walk beneath the door,And it would take about a month to get down to the store.A bit of fluff would be your bed,You'd

I Crave Your Mouth, Your Voice, Your Hair

DON'T GO FAR OFF, NOT EVEN FOR A DAYDon't go far off, not even for a day, because --because -- I don't know how to say it: a day is longand I will be waiting for you, as in an empty stationwhen the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep.Don't leave me, even for an hour, becausethen the little drops of anguish will all run together,the smoke that roams looking for a home will driftinto me,

The Dead Woman

If suddenly you do not exist,if suddenly you are not living,I shall go on living.I do not dare,I do not dare to write it,if you die.I shall go on living.Because where a man has no voice,there, my voiceWhere blacks are beaten,I can not be dead.When my brothers go to jailI shall go with them.When victory,not my victory,but the great victoryarrives,even though I am mute I must speak:I shall see it

I Want It Now

Gooses, geesesI want my geese to lay gold eggs for easterAt least a hundred a dayAnd by the wayI want a feastI want a bean feastCream buns and doughnutsAnd fruitcake with no nutsSo good you could go nutsNo, nowI want a ballI want a partyPink macaroonsAnd a million balloonsAnd performing baboons andGive it to me nowI want the worldI want the whole worldI want to lock itAll up in my pocketIt's my

Attention please! Attention please!

'Attention please! Attention please!
Don't dare to talk! Don't dare to sneeze!
Don't doze or daydream! Stay awake!
Your health, your very life's at stake!
Ho'ho, you say, they can't mean me.
Ha'ha, we answer, wait and see.

Did any of you ever meet
A child called Goldie Pinklesweet?
Who on her seventh birthday went
To stay with Granny down in Kent.
At lunchtime on the second day
Of dearest

The Telephone

'When I was just as far as I could walk From here today, There was an hour All still When leaning with my head again a flower I heard you talk. Don't say I didn't, for I heard you say-- You spoke from that flower on the window sill- Do you remember what it was you said?' 'First tell me what it was you thought you heard.' 'Having found the flower and driven a bee away, I leaned on my head And

Petals

Life is a streamOn which we strewPetal by petal the flower of our heart;The end lost in dream,They float past our view,We only watch their glad, early start.Freighted with hope,Crimsoned with joy,We scatter the leaves of our opening rose;Their widening scope,Their distant employ,We never shall know. And the stream as it flowsSweeps them away,Each one is goneEver beyond into infinite ways.We alone

A Fairy Tale, poem by Amy Lowell

On winter nights beside the nursery fire

We read the fairy tale, while glowing coals

Builded its pictures. There before our eyes

We saw the vaulted hall of traceried stone

Uprear itself, the distant ceiling hung

With pendent stalactites like frozen vines;

And all along the walls at intervals,

Curled upwards into pillars, roses climbed,

And ramped and were confined, and clustered leaves

And because Love battles, poem by Pablo Neruda

And because love battles
not only in its burning agricultures
but also in the mouth of men and women,
I will finish off by taking the path away
to those who between my chest and your fragrance
want to interpose their obscure plant.

About me, nothing worse
they will tell you, my love,
than what I told you.

I lived in the prairies
before I got to know you
and I did not wait love but I was

Me And The Mule

My old mule,
He's gota grin on his face.
He's been a mule so long
He's forgotten about his race.

I'm like that old mule --
Black -- and don't give a damn!
You got to take me
Like I am.

The Distinguishing Characteristic of Christmas

Seek Him