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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: 41

Wonder and Joy
by Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962)

The things that one grows tired of—O, be sure
They are only foolish artificial things!
Can a bird ever tire of having wings?
And I, so long as life and sense endure,
(Or brief be they!) shall nevermore inure
My heart to the recurrence of the springs,
Of gray dawns, the gracious evenings,
The infinite wheeling stars. A wonder pure
Must ever well within me to behold
Venus decline; or great Orion, whose belt
Is studded with three nails of burning gold,
Ascend the winter heaven. Who never felt
This wondering joy may yet be good or great:
But envy him not: he is not fortunate.

Views: 49

To the River Lodon
by Thomas Warton (1728-1790)

Ah! what a weary race my feet have run
   Since first I trod thy banks with alders crowned,
   And thought my way was all thro’ fairy ground,
Beneath thy azure sky and golden sun;
Where first my muse to lisp her notes begun!
   While pensive Memory traces back the round,
Which fills the varied interval between;
Much pleasure, more of sorrow, marks the scene.
Sweet native stream! those skies and suns so pure
   No more return, to cheer my evening road!
Yet still one joy remains, that, not obscure,
   Nor useless, all my vacant days have flowed,
From youth’s gay dawn to manhood’s prime mature;
   Nor with the muse’s laurel unbestowed.

Views: 32

Himna slobodi
by Ivan Gundulić (1589-1638)

O lijepa, o draga, o slatka slobodo,
dar u kôm sva blaga višnji nam Bog je dô,
uzroče istini od naše sve slave,
uresu jedini od ove Dubrave,
sva srebra, sva zlata, svi ljudcki životi
ne mogu bit plata tvôj čistoj ljepoti!

Views: 40

The Sick Child’s Dream
by Robert Nicoll (1814-1837)

O! mither, mither, my head was sair,
   And my een wi’ tears were weet;
But the pain has gane for evermair,
   Sae, mither, dinna greet:
And I ha’e had sic a bonnie dream,
   Since last asleep I fell,
O’ a’ that is holy an’ guid to name,
   That I’ve wauken’d my dream to tell.

I thought on the morn o’ a simmer day
   That awa’ through the clouds I flew,
While my silken hair did wavin’ play
   ’Mang breezes steep’d in dew;
And the happy things o’ life and light
   Were around my gowden way,
As they stood in their parent Heaven’s sight
   In the hames o’ nightless day.

An’ sangs o’ love that nae tongue may tell,
   Frae their hearts cam’ flowin’ free,
Till the starns stood still, while alang did swell
   The plaintive melodie;
And ane o’ them sang wi’ my mither’s voice,
   Till through my heart did gae
That chanted hymn o’ my bairnhood’s choice
   Sae dowie, saft, an’ wae.

Thae happy things o’ the glorious sky
   Did lead me far away,
Where the stream o’ life rins never dry,
   Where naething kens decay;
And they laid me down in a mossy bed,
   Wi’ curtains o’ spring leaves green,
And the name o’ God they praying said,
   And a light came o’er my een.

And I saw the earth that I had left,
   And I saw my mither there;
And I saw her grieve that she was bereft
   O’ the bairn she thought sae fair;
And I saw her pine till her spirit fled—
   Like a bird to its young one’s nest—
To that land of love; and my head was laid
   Again on my mither’s breast.

And, mither, ye took me by the hand,
   As ye were wont to do;
And your loof, sae saft and white, I fand
   Laid on my caller brow;
And my lips you kiss’d, and my curling hair
   You round your fingers wreath’d;
And I kent that a happy mither’s prayer
   Was o’er me silent breath’d—

And we wander’d through that happy land,
   That was gladly glorious a’;
The dwellers there were an angel-band,
   And their voices o’ love did fa’
On our ravish’d ears like the deein’ tones
   O’ an anthem far away,
In a starn-lit hour, when the woodland moans
   That its green is turn’d to grey.

And, mither, amang the sorrowless there,
   We met my brithers three,
And your bonnie May, my sister fair,
   And a happy bairn was she;
And she led me awa’ ’mang living flowers,
   As on earth she aft has done;
And thegither we sat in the holy bowers
   Where the blessed rest aboon;—

And she tauld me I was in paradise,
   Where God in love doth dwell—
Where the weary rest, and the mourner’s voice
   Forgets its warld-wail;
And she tauld me they kent na dule nor care:
   And bade me be glad to dee,
That yon sinless land and the dwellers there
   Might be hame and kin to me.

Then sweetly a voice came on my ears,
   And it sounded sae holily,
That my heart grew saft, and blabs o’ tears
   Sprung up in my sleepin’ e’e;
And my inmost soul was sairly moved
   Wi’ its mair than mortal joy;—
’Twas the voice o’ Him who bairnies loved
   That wauken’d your dreamin’ boy!

Views: 52

Fog
by Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

Views: 39

Medusa
by Humbert Wolfe (1885-1940)

In your black hair are there not nightingales
   Singing in the dark, and when you let it down
Is there no stir in the air of tiniest sails
   That ever on lost seas of song were blown?

In your black hair the heart of Hyacinth
   Laments the daylight he shall see no more,
And flowers are red as in the labyrinth
   The red eyes of the crazy Minotaur.

In your black hair, Medusa, there are snakes
   That twine themselves about Laocoon,
How soft, how warm! and how the poor heart breaks
   Before they strike and turn it into stone.

Views: 32

Today is World Braille Day.

On His Blindness
by John Milton (1608-1674)

When I consider how my light is spent,
   Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,
   And that one Talent which is death to hide
Lodged with me useless, though my Soul more bent
To serve therewith my Maker, and present
   My true account, lest he returning chide;
   “Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”
I fondly ask. But patience, to prevent
That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need
   Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best
   Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state
Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed
   And post o’er Land and Ocean without rest:
   They also serve who only stand and wait.”

Views: 31

Goblin Feet
by J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973)

I am off down the road
Where the fairy lanterns glowed
And the little pretty flitter-mice are flying;
A slender band of gray
It runs creepily away
And the hedges and the grasses are a-sighing.
The air is full of wings,
And of blundery beetle-things
That warn you with their whirring and their humming.
O! I hear the tiny horns
Of enchanted leprechauns
And the padded feet of many gnomes a-coming!
O! the lights! O! the gleams! O! the little twinkly sounds!
O! the rustle of their noiseless little robes!
O! the echo of their feet — of their happy little feet!
O! the swinging lamps in the starlit globes.

I must follow in their train
Down the crooked fairy lane
Where the coney-rabbits long ago have gone.
And where silvery they sing
In a moving moonlit ring
All a twinkle with the jewels they have on.
They are fading round the turn
Where the glow worms palely burn
And the echo of their padding feet is dying!
O! it’s knocking at my heart—

Let me go! let me start!
For the little magic hours are all a-flying.

O! the warmth! O! the hum! O! the colors in the dark!
O! the gauzy wings of golden honey-flies!
O! the music of their feet — of their dancing goblin feet!
O! the magic! O! the sorrow when it dies.

Views: 37

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening
by Robert Frost (1874-1963)

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Views: 33