The Flaming Heart
Upon the Book and Picture of the Seraphical Saint Teresa
by Richard Crashaw (1612 or 1613-1649)

O thou undaunted daughter of desires!
By all thy dower of lights and fires;
By all the eagle in thee, all the dove;
By all thy lives and deaths of love;
By thy large draughts of intellectual day,
And by thy thirsts of love more large than they;
By all thy brim-filled bowls of fierce desire,
By thy last morning’s draught of liquid fire;
By the full kingdom of that final kiss
That seized thy parting soul, and sealed thee His,
By all the Heavens thou hast in him,
(Fair sister of the seraphim!)
By all of Him we have in thee;
Leave nothing of my self in me.
Let me so read thy life, that I
Unto all life of mine may die!

Views: 51

A Dream Within a Dream
by Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow—
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand—
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep—while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

Views: 68

Sat est Scriptisse
by Henry Austin Dobson (1840-1921)

When you and I have wandered beyond the reach of call,
And all our works immortal are scattered on the Stall,
It may be some new Reader, in that remoter age,
Will find this present volume, and listless turn the page.

For him I write these Verses. And “Sir” (I say to him),
“This little Book you see here—this masterpiece of Whim,
Of Wisdom, Learning, Fancy (if you will, please, attend),
Was written by its Author, who gave it to his Friend.

“For they had worked together, been Comrades of the Pen;
They had their points at issue, they differed now and then;
But both loved Song and Letters, and each had close at heart
The dreams, the aspirations, the ‛dear delays’ of Art.

“And much they talk’d of Metre, and more they talked of Style,
Of Form and ‛lucid Order’, of labour of the File;
And he who wrote the writing, as sheet by sheet was penned,
(This all was long ago, Sir!) would read it to his Friend.

“They knew not, nor cared greatly, if they were spark or star,
They knew to move is somewhat, although the goal be far;
And larger light or lesser, this thing at least is clear,—
They served the Muses truly, their service was sincere.

“This tattered page you see, Sir, is all that now remains
(Yes, fourpence is the lowest!) of all those pleasant pains;
And as for him that read it, and as for him that wrote,—
No Golden Book enrolls them among its ‛Names of Note.’

“And yet they had their office. Though they to-day are passed,
They marched in that procession where is no first or last;
Though cold is now their hoping, though they no more aspire,
They, too, had once their ardour:—they handed on the fire.”

Views: 56

Meine Liebe
by Johann Elias Schlegel (1719-1749)

Meine Liebe gleicht der Schwalbe,
Die zwar ihre Wohnung flieht,
Aber immer wiederkehret
Und von neuem ungestöret.
Ihr gewohntes Nest bezieht.

Meine Liebe gleicht der Bäume
Unbeständig grünem Haupt;
Hat der Frost es gleich entblättert,
Wenn im Mai der Lenzsturm wettert,
Steht es wiederum belaubt.

Meine Liebe gleicht dem Schatten,
Der sich auf dem Boden malt,
Mit des Lichtes Scheine schwindet,
Mit dem Licht sich wiederfindet,
Wenn sein Glanz von neuem strahlt.

Views: 53

The Spell of the Yukon
by Robert Service (1874-1958)

I wanted the gold, and I sought it;
⁠      I scrabbled and mucked like a slave.
Was it famine or scurvy—I fought it;
⁠      I hurled my youth into a grave.
I wanted the gold, and I got it—
⁠      Came out with a fortune last fall,—
Yet somehow life’s not what I thought it,
⁠      And somehow the gold isn’t all.

No! There’s the land. (Have you seen it?)
⁠      It’s the cussedest land that I know,
From the big, dizzy mountains that screen it
⁠      To the deep, deathlike valleys below.
Some say God was tired when He made it;
⁠      Some say it’s a fine land to shun;
Maybe; but there’s some as would trade it
⁠      For no land on earth—and I’m one.

You come to get rich (damned good reason);
⁠      You feel like an exile at first;
You hate it like hell for a season,
⁠      And then you are worse than the worst.
It grips you like some kinds of sinning;
⁠      It twists you from foe to a friend;
It seems it’s been since the beginning;
⁠      It seems it will be to the end.

I’ve stood in some mighty-mouthed hollow
⁠      That’s plumb-full of hush to the brim;
I’ve watched the big, husky sun wallow
⁠      In crimson and gold, and grow dim,
Till the moon set the pearly peaks gleaming,
⁠      And the stars tumbled out, neck and crop;
And I’ve thought that I surely was dreaming,
⁠      With the peace o’ the world piled on top.

The summer—no sweeter was ever;
⁠      The sunshiny woods all athrill;
The grayling aleap in the river,
⁠      The bighorn asleep on the hill.
The strong life that never knows harness;
⁠      The wilds where the caribou call;
The freshness, the freedom, the farness—
⁠      O God! how I’m stuck on it all.

The winter! the brightness that blinds you,
⁠      The white land locked tight as a drum,
The cold fear that follows and finds you,
⁠      The silence that bludgeons you dumb.
The snows that are older than history,
⁠      The woods where the weird shadows slant;
The stillness, the moonlight, the mystery,
⁠      I’ve bade ’em good-by—but I can’t.

There’s a land where the mountains are nameless,
⁠      And the rivers all run God knows where;
There are lives that are erring and aimless,
⁠      And deaths that just hang by a hair;
There are hardships that nobody reckons;
⁠      There are valleys unpeopled and still;
There’s a land—oh, it beckons and beckons,
⁠      And I want to go back—and I will.

They’re making my money diminish;
⁠      I’m sick of the taste of champagne.
Thank God! when I’m skinned to a finish
⁠      I’ll pike to the Yukon again.
I’ll fight—and you bet it’s no sham-fight;
⁠      It’s hell!—but I’ve been there before;
And it’s better than this by a damsite—
⁠      So me for the Yukon once more.

There’s gold, and it’s haunting and haunting;
⁠      It’s luring me on as of old;
Yet it isn’t the gold that I’m wanting
⁠      So much as just finding the gold.
It’s the great, big, broad land ’way up yonder,
⁠      It’s the forests where silence has lease;
It’s the beauty that thrills me with wonder,
⁠      It’s the stillness that fills me with peace.

Views: 60

The Man With the Hoe
by Edwin Markham (1852-1940)

Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,
The emptiness of ages in his face,
And on his back the burden of the world.
Who made him dead to rapture and despair,
A thing that grieves not and that never hopes.
Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox?
Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw?
Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow?
Whose breath blew out the light within this brain?

Is this the Thing the Lord God made and gave
To have dominion over sea and land;
To trace the stars and search the heavens for power;
To feel the passion of Eternity?
Is this the Dream He dreamed who shaped the suns
And marked their ways upon the ancient deep?
Down all the stretch of Hell to its last gulf
There is no shape more terrible than this—
More tongued with censure of the world’s blind greed—
More filled with signs and portents for the soul—
More fraught with menace to the universe.

What gulfs between him and the seraphim!
Slave of the wheel of labor, what to him
Are Plato and the swing of Pleiades?
What the long reaches of the peaks of song,
The rift of dawn, the reddening of the rose?
Through this dread shape the suffering ages look;
Time’s tragedy is in the aching stoop;
Through this dread shape humanity betrayed,
Plundered, profaned, and disinherited,
Cries protest to the Powers that made the world.
A protest that is also a prophecy.

O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,
Is this the handiwork you give to God,
This monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched?
How will you ever straighten up this shape;
Touch it again with immortality;
Give back the upward looking and the light;
Rebuild in it the music and the dream,
Make right the immemorial infamies,
Perfidious wrongs, immedicable woes?

O masters, lords and rulers in all lands
How will the Future reckon with this Man?
How answer his brute question in that hour
When whirlwinds of rebellion shake all shores?
How will it be with kingdoms and with kings—
With those who shaped him to the thing he is—
When this dumb Terror shall rise to judge the world.
After the silence of the centuries?

Views: 63

Sonnet of Venus and Cupid
by Mark Alexander Boyd (1562-1601)

Fra banc to banc, fra wod to wod, I rin
Ourhailit with my feble fantasie,
Lyk til a leif that fallis from a trie
Or til a reid ourblawin with the wind.
Twa gods gyds me: the ane of tham is blind,
Ye, and a bairn brocht up in vanitie;
The nixt a wyf ingenrit of the se,
And lichter nor a dauphin with hir fin.

Unhappie is the man for evirmair
That teils the sand and sawis in the aire;
Bot twyse unhappier is he, I lairn,
That feidis in his hairt a mad desyre,
And follows on a woman throw the fyre,
Led be a blind and teichit be a bairn.

Views: 63

The Gift of God
by Jack London (1876-1916)

         I

“Name me the gift of God!”
A man commanded.
His brow was furrowed
With thought.
He wished to know all things.

         II

There was a clamor among the peoples;
Many strove to answer,
And many were silent.
Some did not care,
Yet none were too busy to listen.
At first,
They named all things,
In loud voices,
Till the weak were hushed.

         III

Then the strong ones became as one:
“Life is the gift of God!” they cried,
In a mighty chant,
Which shook the heavens.
But in time,
They became tired,
And no longer outraged the sky.

         IV

Then a graybeard,
Doddering on the edge of his grave,
Raised a thin voice.
He had seen three generations
Come and go;
He knew all tricks;
He said. “Death is the gift of God.”
He knew.
But the people were angry,
And in a great clamor,
Drowned his thin voice.

Views: 70

The Song in Camp
by Bayard Taylor (1825-1878)

“Give us a song!” the soldiers cried,
⁠      The outer trenches guarding,
When the heated guns of the camps allied
⁠      Grew weary of bombarding.

The dark Redan, in silent scoff,
⁠      Lay, grim and threatening, under;
And the tawny mound of the Malakoff
⁠      No longer belched its thunder.

There was a pause. A guardsman said,
⁠      “We storm the forts to-morrow;
Sing while we may, another day
⁠      Will bring enough of sorrow.”

They lay along the battery’s side,
⁠      Below the smoking cannon:
Brave hearts, from Severn and from Clyde,
⁠      And from the banks of Shannon.

They sang of love, and not of fame;
⁠      Forgot was Britain’s glory:
Each heart recalled a different name,
⁠      But all sang “Annie Laurie.”

Voice after voice caught up the song,
⁠      Until its tender passion
Rose like an anthem, rich and strong,—
⁠      Their battle-eve confession.

Dear girl, her name he dared not speak,
⁠      But, as the song grew louder,
Something upon the soldier’s cheek
⁠      Washed off the stains of powder.

Beyond the darkening ocean burned
⁠      The bloody sunset’s embers,
While the Crimean valleys learned
⁠      How English love remembers.

And once again a fire of hell
⁠      Rained on the Russian quarters,
With scream of shot, and burst of shell,
⁠      And bellowing of the mortars!

And Irish Nora’s eyes are dim
⁠      For a singer, dumb and gory;
And English Mary mourns for him
⁠      Who sang of “Annie Laurie.”

Sleep, soldiers! still in honoured rest
⁠      Your truth and valour wearing:
The bravest are the tenderest,—
⁠      The loving are the daring.

Views: 45

Cambrai and Marne
by Charles G.D. Roberts (1860-1943)

Before our trenches at Cambrai
We saw their columns cringe away.’
We saw their masses melt and reel
Before our line of leaping steel.

A handful to their storming hordes
We scourged them with the scourge of swords,
And still, the more we slew, the more
Came up, for every slain a score.

Between the hedges and the town
Their cursing squadrons we rode down.
To stay them we outpoured our blood
Between the beetfields and the wood.

In that red hell of shrieking shell
Unfaltering our gunners fell.
They fell, or ere the day was done,
Beside the last unshattered gun.

But still we held them, like a wall
On which the breakers vainly fall—
Till came the word, and we obeyed,
Reluctant, bleeding, undismayed.

Our feet, astonished, learned retreat,
Our souls rejected still defeat.
Unbroken still, a lion at bay,
We drew back grimly from Cambrai.

In blood and sweat, with slaughter spent,
They thought us beaten as we went;
Till suddenly we turned and smote
The shout of triumph in their throat.

At last, at last we turned and stood—
And Marne’s fair water ran with blood.
We stood by trench and steel and gun,
For now the indignant flight was done.

We ploughed their shaken ranks with fire.
We trod their masses into mire.
Our sabres drove through their retreat,
As drives the whirlwind through young wheat.

At last, at last we flung them back
Along their drenched and smoking track.
We hurled them back, in blood and flame,
The reeking ways by which they came.

By cumbered road and desperate ford,
How fled their shamed and harassed horde!
Shout, Sons of Freemen, for the day
When Marne so well avenged Cambrai.

Views: 44