What the Birds Said
by John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892)

The birds against the April wind
      Flew northward, singing as they flew;
They sang, “The land we leave behind
      Has swords for corn-blades, blood for dew.”

“O wild-birds, flying from the South,
      What saw and heard ye, gazing down?”
“We saw the mortar’s upturned mouth,
      The sickened camp, the blazing town!

“Beneath the bivouac’s starry lamps,
      We saw your march-worn children die;
In shrouds of moss, in cypress swamps,
      We saw your dead uncoffined lie.

“We heard the starving prisoner’s sighs
      And saw, from line and trench, your sons
Follow our flight with home-sick eyes
      Beyond the battery’s smoking guns.”

“And heard and saw ye only wrong
      And pain,” I cried, “O wing-worn flocks?”
“We heard,” they sang, “the freedman’s song,
      The crash of Slavery’s broken locks!

“We saw from new, uprising States
      The treason-nursing mischief spurned,
As, crowding Freedom’s ample gates,
      The long-estranged and lost returned.

“O’er dusky faces, seamed and old,
      And hands horn-hard with unpaid toil,
With hope in every rustling fold,
      We saw your star-dropt flag uncoil.

“And struggling up through sounds accursed,
      A grateful murmur clomb the air;
A whisper scarcely heard at first,
      It filled the listening heavens with prayer.

“And sweet and far, as from a star,
      Replied a voice which shall not cease,
Till, drowning all the noise of war,
      It sings the blessed song of peace!”

So to me, in a doubtful day
      Of chill and slowly greening spring,
Low stooping from the cloudy gray,
      The wild-birds sang or seemed to sing.

They vanished in the misty air,
      The song went with them in their flight;
But lo! they left the sunset fair,
      And in the evening there was light.

Views: 40

Everlasting Flowers
by David Herbert Lawrence (1885-1930)

Who do you think stands watching
      The snow-tops shining rosy
In heaven, now that the darkness
      Takes all but the tallest posy?

Who then sees the two-winged
      Boat down there, all alone
And asleep on the snow’s last shadow,
      Like a moth on a stone?

The olive-leaves, light as gad-flies,
      Have all gone dark, gone black.
And now in the dark my soul to you
      Turns back.

To you, my little darling,
      To you, out of Italy.
For what is loveliness, my love,
      Save you have it with me!

So, there’s an oxen wagon
      Comes darkly into sight:
A man with a lantern, swinging
      A little light.

What does he see, my darling
      Here by the darkened lake?
Here, in the sloping shadow
      The mountains make?

He says not a word, but passes,
      Staring at what he sees.
What ghost of us both do you think he saw
      Under the olive trees?

All the things that are lovely—
      The things you never knew—
I wanted to gather them one by one
      And bring them to you.

But never now, my darling
      Can I gather the mountain-tips
From the twilight like half-shut lilies
      To hold to your lips.

And never the two-winged vessel
      That sleeps below on the lake
Can I catch like a moth between my hands
      For you to take.

But hush, I am not regretting:
      It is far more perfect now.
I’ll whisper the ghostly truth to the world
      And tell them how

I know you here in the darkness,
      How you sit in the throne of my eyes
At peace, and look out of the windows
      In glad surprise.

Views: 41

Solution
by Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

I am the Muse who sung alway
By Jove, at dawn of the first day.
Star-crowned, sole-sitting, long I wrought
To fire the stagnant earth with thought:
On spawning slime my song prevails,
Wolves shed their fangs, and dragons scales;
Flushed in the sky the sweet May-morn,
Earth smiled with flowers, and man was born.
Then Asia yeaned her shepherd race,
And Nile substructs her granite base,—
Tented Tartary, columned Nile,—
And, under vines, on rocky isle,
Or on wind-blown sea-marge bleak,
Forward stepped the perfect Greek:
That wit and joy might find a tongue,
And earth grow civil, HOMER sung.

   Flown to Italy from Greece,
I brooded long and held my peace,
For I am wont to sing uncalled,
And in days of evil plight
Unlock doors of new delight;
And sometimes mankind I appalled
With a bitter horoscope,
With spasms of terror for balm of hope.
Then by better thought I lead
Bards to speak what nations need;
So I folded me in fears,
And DANTE searched the triple spheres,
Moulding Nature at his will,
So shaped, so colored, swift or still,
And, sculptor-like, his large design
Etched on Alp and Apennine.

   Seethed in mists of Penmanmaur,
Taught by Plinlimmon’s Druid power,
England’s genius filled all measure
Of heart and soul, of strength and pleasure,
Gave to the mind its emperor,
And life was larger than before:
Nor sequent centuries could hit
Orbit and sum of SHAKSPEARE’s wit.
The men who lived with him became
Poets, for the air was fame.

   Far in the North, where polar night
Holds in check the frolic light,
In trance upborne past mortal goal
The Swede EMANUEL leads the soul.
Through snows above, mines underground,
The inks of Erebus he found;
Rehearsed to men the damnèd wails
On which the seraph music sails.
In spirit-worlds he trod alone,
But walked the earth unmarked, unknown.
The near bystander caught no sound,—
Yet they who listened far aloof
Heard rendings of the skyey roof,
And felt, beneath, the quaking ground;
And his air-sown, unheeded words,
In the next age, are flaming swords.

   In newer days of war and trade,
Romance forgot, and faith decayed,
When Science armed and guided war,
And clerks the Janus-gates unbar,
When France, where poet never grew,
Halved and dealt the globe anew,
GOETHE, raised o’er joy and strife,
Drew the firm lines of Fate and Life
And brought Olympian wisdom down
To court and mart, to gown and town.
Stooping, his finger wrote in clay
The open secret of to-day.

   So bloom the unfading petals five,
And verses that all verse outlive.

Views: 64

Septembermorgen
by Eduard Mörike (1804-1875)

Im Nebel ruhet noch die Welt,
Noch träumen Wald und Wiesen:
Bald siehst du, wenn der Schleier fällt,
Den blauen Himmel unverstellt,
Herbstkräftig die gedämpfte Welt
Im warmen Golde fließen.

Views: 35

Simon Gerty
by Elinor Wylie (1885-1928)

By what appalling dim upheaval
      Demolishing some kinder plan,
Did you become incarnate evil
      Wearing the livery of man?

Perhaps you hated cheeks of tallow,
      Dead eyes, and lineaments of chalk,
Until a beauty came to hallow
      Even the bloodiest tomahawk.

Perhaps you loathed your brothers’ features
      Pallid and pinched, or greasy-fat;
Perhaps you loved these alien creatures
      Clean muscled as a panther cat.

Did you believe that being cruel
      Was that which made their foreheads lift
So proudly, gave their eyes a jewel,
      And turned their padding footsteps swift?

As one by one our faiths are shaken
      Our hatreds fall; so mine for you.
Of course I think you were mistaken;
      But still, I see your point of view.

Views: 35

The Pole Star
by George Leveson-Gower (1858-1951)

All moonless is the night of that bright day
Which gave her birth;
Through sorrow’s night how can I find my way
O’er this dark earth?

Though pathless be the world and winds be loud,
One silver star
Gleams steadfast through the rack of driving cloud:
—There memories are.

Views: 27

Sonnet on a Family Picture
by Thomas Edwards (1699-1757)

When pensive on that portraiture I gaze,
   Where my four brothers round about me stand,
   And four fair sisters smile with graces bland,
The goodly monument of happier days;
And think how soon insatiate death, who preys
   On all, has cropped the rest with ruthless hand,
   While only I survive of all that band,
Which one chaste bed did to my father raise;
It seems that, like a column left alone,
   The tott’ring remnant of some splendid fane,
      Scaped from the fury of the barb’rous Gaul
And wasting time, which has the rest o’erthrown,
   Amidst our house’s ruins I remain,
      Single, unpropped, and nodding to my fall.

Views: 36

Presentation de Paris à Notre Dame
by Charles Péguy (1873-1914)

Étoile de la mer, voici la lourde nef
Où nous ramons tout nuds sous vos commandements ;
Voici notre détresse et nos désarmements ;
Voici le quai du Louvre, et l’écluse, et le bief.

Voici notre appareil et voici notre chef.
C’est un gars de chez nous qui siffle par moments.
Il n’a pas son pareil pour les gouvernements.
Il a la tête dure et le geste un peu bref.

Reine qui vous levez sur tous les océans,
Vous penserez à nous quand nous serons au large.
Aujourd’hui c’est le jour d’embarquer notre charge.
Voici l’énorme grue et les longs meuglements.

S’il fallait le charger de nos pauvre vertus,
Ce vaisseau s’en irait vers votre auguste seuil
Plus creux que la noisette après que l’écureuil
L’a laissée retomber de ses ongles pointus.

Nuls ballots n’entreraient par les panneaux béants,
Et nous arriverions dans la mer de Sargasse
Traînant cette inutile et grotesque carcasse
Et les Anglais diraient : ils n’ont rien mis dedans.

Mais nous saurons l’emplir et nous vous le jurons
Il sera le plus beau dans cet illustre port
La cargaison ira jusque sur le plat-bord
Et quand il sera plein nous le couronnerons.

Nous n’y chargerons pas notre pauvre maïs,
Mais de l’or et du blé que nous emporterons.
Et il tiendra la mer : car nous le chargerons
Du poids de nos péchés payés par votre Fils.

Views: 26

Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802
by William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

Earth has not any thing to shew more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth like a garment wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendor valley, rock, or hill;
Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

Views: 36

The Little Peach
by Eugene Field (1850-1895)

A little peach in the orchard grew,
A little peach of emerald hue;
Warmed by the sun and wet by the dew,
⁠                                    It grew.

One day, passing that orchard through,
That little peach dawned on the view
Of Johnny Jones and his Sister Sue —
⁠                                    Those two.

Up at that peach a club they threw;
Down from the stem on which it grew
Fell that peach of emerald hue —
⁠                                    Too true!

John took a bite and Sue a chew,
And then the trouble began to brew, —
Trouble the doctor couldn’t subdue, —
⁠                                    Paregoric too.

Under the turf where the daisies grew
They planted John and his Sister Sue,
And their little souls to the angels flew,—
⁠                                    Boo-hoo!

What of that peach of the emerald hue,
Warmed by the sun, and wet by the dew?
Ah, well! its mission on earth is through —
⁠                                    Adieu!

Views: 39