Love Me At Last

Love me at last, or if you will not,
Leave me;
Hard words could never, as these half-words,
Grieve me:
Love me at last---or leave me.

Love me at last, or let the last word uttered
Be but your own;
Love me, or leave me---as a cloud, a vapor,
Or a bird flown.
Love me at last---I am but sliding water
Over a stone.

Alice Corbin

By the Rivers of Babylon We Sat Down and Wept

We sat down and wept by the waters
Of Babel, and thought of the day
When our foe, in the hue of his slaughters,
Made Salem's high places his prey;
And ye, oh her desolate daughters!
Were scattered all weeping away.

While sadly we gazed on the river
Which rolled on in freedom below,
They demanded the song; but, oh never
That triumph the stranger shall know!
May this right hand be withered for ever,
Ere it string our high harp for the foe!

On the willow that harp is suspended,
Oh Salem! its sound should be free;
And the hour when thy glories were
ended
But left me that token of thee:
And ne'er shall its soft tones be blended
With the voice of the spoiler by me!

George Gordon Byron

And Wilt Thou Weep When I Am Low?

And wilt thou weep when I am low?
Sweet lady! speak those words again:
Yet if they grieve thee, say not so---
I would not give that bosom pain.

My heart is sad, my hopes are gone,
My blood runs coldly through my breast;
And when I perish, thou alone
Wilt sigh above my place of rest.

And yet, methinks, a gleam of peace
Doth through my cloud of anguish shine:
And for a while my sorrows cease,
To know thy heart hath felt for mine.

Oh lady! blessd be that tear---
It falls for one who cannot weep;
Such precious drops are doubly dear
To those whose eyes no tear may steep.

Sweet lady! once my heart was warm
With every feeling soft as thine;
But Beauty's self hath ceased to charm
A wretch created to repine.

Yet wilt thou weep when I am low?
Sweet lady! speak those words again:
Yet if they grieve thee, say not so---
I would not give that bosom pain.

George Gordon Byron

A Spirit Passed Before Me

A spirit passed before me: I beheld
The face of immortality unveiled—
Deep sleep came down on every eye save mine—
And there it stood,—all formless—but divine:
Along my bones the creeping flesh did quake;
And as my damp hair stiffened, thus it spake:

"Is man more just than God? Is man more pure
Than He who deems even Seraphs insecure?
Creatures of clay—vain dwellers in the dust!
The moth survives you, and are ye more just?
Things of a day! you wither ere the night,
Heedless and blind to Wisdom's wasted light!"

George Gordon Byron

"I Thought of You"

I thought of you and how you love this beauty,
And walking up the long beach all alone
I heard the waves breaking in measured thunder
As you and I once heard their monotone.

Around me were the echoing dunes, beyond me
The cold and sparkling silver of the sea--
We two will pass through death and ages lengthen
Before you hear that sound again with me.

Sara Teasdale

"Let It Be Forgotten"

Let it be forgotten, as a flower is forgotten,
Forgotten as a fire that once was singing gold,
Let it be forgotten for ever and ever,
Time is a kind friend, he will make us old.

If anyone asks, say it was forgotten
Long and long ago,
As a flower, as a fire, as a hushed footfall
In a long forgotten snow.

Sara Teasdale

The Nights Remember

The days remember and the nights remember
The kingly hours that once you made so great,
Deep in my heart they lie, hidden in their splendor,
Buried like sovereigns in their robes of state.

Let them not wake again, better to lie there,
Wrapped in memories, jewelled and arrayed--
Many a ghostly king has waked from death-sleep
And found his crown stolen and his throne decayed.

Sara Teasdale

Two families

My grandma (rest her soul) used to say, There were but two families in the world, have-much and have-little.

Cervantes, Miguel De

Desires

Desires are the pulses of the soul; as physicians judge by the appetite, so may you by desires.

Manton

Treasure

How we treasure (and admire) the people who acknowledge us!

Julie Morgenstern

Easier

It's easier to put on slippers than to carpet the whole world.

Al Franken

Meekness

Meekness: Uncommon patience in planning a revenge that is worth while.

Ambrose Bierce

Looking out

Who sees inside from outside?
Who finds hundreds of mysteries
even where minds are deranged?

See through his eyes what he sees.
Who then is looking out from his eyes?

Rumi

Misfortunes

It is wrong to think that misfortunes come from the east or from the west; they originate within one's own mind. Therefore, it is foolish to guard against misfortunes from the external world and leave the inner mind uncontrolled.

Gotama Buddha

Di due mali...

" Di due mali, sempre si scelga il minore."

Tommaso da Kempis

Deep

Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal.

Ralph Vaull Starr

Sonnet VIII

If your eyes were not the color of the moon,
of a day full of clay, and work, and fire,
if even held-in you did not move in agile grace like the air,
if you were not an amber week,

not the yellow moment
when autumn climbs up through the vines;
if you were not that bread the fragrant moon
kneads, sprinkling its flour across the sky,

oh, my dearest, I could not love you so!
But when I hold you I hold everything that is --
sand, time, the tree of the rain,

everything is alive so that I can be alive:
without moving I can see it all:
in your life I see everything that lives.

Pablo Neruda

Ruth

She stood breast-high amid the corn,
Clasp'd by the golden light of morn,
Like the sweetheart of the sun,
Who many a glowing kiss had won.

On her cheek an autumn flush,
Deeply ripen'd;--such a blush
In the midst of brown was born,
Like red poppies grown with corn.

Round her eyes her tresses fell,
Which were blackest none could tell,
But long lashes veil'd a light,
That had else been all too bright.

And her hat, with shady brim,
Made her tressy forehead dim;
Thus she stood amid the stooks,
Praising God with sweetest looks:--

Sure, I said, Heav'n did not mean,
Where I reap thou shouldst but glean,
Lay thy sheaf adown and come,
Share my harvest and my home.

Thomas Hood (1798-1845)

"Oh Day of Fire and Sun"

Oh day of fire and sun,
Pure as a naked flame,
Blue sea, blue sky and dun
Sands where he spoke my name;

Laughter and hearts so high
That the spirit flew off free,
Lifting into the sky
Diving into the sea;

Oh day of fire and sun
Like a crystal burning,
Slow days go one by one,
But you have no returning.

Sara Teasdale

"My Heart Is Heavy"

My heart is heavy with many a song
Like ripe fruit bearing down the tree,
But I can never give you one--
My songs do not belong to me.

Yet in the evening, in the dusk
When moths go to and fro,
In the gray hour if the fruit has fallen,
Take it, no one will know.

Sara Teasdale

Nightfall

We will never walk again
As we used to walk at night,
Watching our shadows lengthen
Under the gold street-light
When the snow was new and white.

We will never walk again
Slowly, we two,
In spring when the park is sweet
With midnight and with dew,
And the passers-by are few.

I sit and think of it all,
And the blue June twilight dies,--
Down in the clanging square
A street-piano cries
And stars come out in the skies.

Sara Teasdale

Two things

In love there are two things : bodies and words.

Alan Watts

I can

"I can, therefore I am.

Simone Weil

Free

You can only be free if I am free.

Darrow, Clarence

Last resort

What then in the last resort are the truths of mankind? They are the irrefutable errors of mankind.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

Contagious

Life is a fatal complaint, and an eminently contagious one.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Anguish

Every composer knows the anguish and despair occasioned by forgetting ideas which one had no time to write down.

Hector Berlioz

Map

How we remember, what we remember and why we remember form the most personal map of our individuality.

Christina Baldwin

Hours

It's not the hours you put in your work that counts, it's the work you put in the hours.

Sam Ewing

Leisure

It is in his pleasure that a man really lives; it is from his leisure that he constructs the true fabric of self.

Agnes Repplier

Writable

Everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt

Sylvia Plath

Demon thought

The blight of life- the demon Thought.

Lord Byron 1788-1824, Childe Harold, Canto I (1812 -1818)

Two kinds of light

There are two kinds of light - the glow that illumines, and the glare that obscures.

James Thurber 1894-1961

Lady Greensleeves

Alas, my love, ye do me wrong,
...To cast me off disc'urteously:
And I have loved you so long,
...Delighting in your company.

I have been ready at your hand,
....To grant what ever you would crave.
I have both waged life and land,
...Your love and good will for to have.

Greensleeves was all my joy,
...Greensleeves was my delight:
Greensleeves was my heart of gold,
...And who but Lady Greensleeves.

Anonymous

Homer´s Hymn to Minerva

I sing the glorious Power with azure eyes,
Athenian Pallas! tameless, chaste, and wise,
Tritogenia, town-preserving Maid,
Revered and mighty; from his awful head
Whom Jove brought forth, in warlike armour dressed, _5
Golden, all radiant! wonder strange possessed
The everlasting Gods that Shape to see,
Shaking a javelin keen, impetuously
Rush from the crest of Aegis-bearing Jove;
Fearfully Heaven was shaken, and did move _10
Beneath the might of the Cerulean-eyed;
Earth dreadfully resounded, far and wide;
And, lifted from its depths, the sea swelled high
In purple billows, the tide suddenly
Stood still, and great Hyperion's son long time _15
Checked his swift steeds, till, where she stood sublime,
Pallas from her immortal shoulders threw
The arms divine; wise Jove rejoiced to view.
Child of the Aegis-bearer, hail to thee,
Nor thine nor others' praise shall unremembered be.

P.B. Shelley

Homer´s Hymn to Earth

O universal Mother, who dost keep
From everlasting thy foundations deep,
Eldest of things, Great Earth, I sing of thee!
All shapes that have their dwelling in the sea,
All things that fly, or on the ground divine _5
Live, move, and there are nourished--these are thine;
These from thy wealth thou dost sustain; from thee
Fair babes are born, and fruits on every tree
Hang ripe and large, revered Divinity!

The life of mortal men beneath thy sway _10
Is held; thy power both gives and takes away!
Happy are they whom thy mild favours nourish;
All things unstinted round them grow and flourish.
For them, endures the life-sustaining field
Its load of harvest, and their cattle yield _15
Large increase, and their house with wealth is filled.
Such honoured dwell in cities fair and free,
The homes of lovely women, prosperously;
Their sons exult in youth's new budding gladness,
And their fresh daughters free from care or sadness, _20
With bloom-inwoven dance and happy song,
On the soft flowers the meadow-grass among,
Leap round them sporting--such delights by thee
Are given, rich Power, revered Divinity.

Mother of gods, thou Wife of starry Heaven, _25
Farewell! be thou propitious, and be given
A happy life for this brief melody,
Nor thou nor other songs shall unremembered be.

P.B. Shelley

Lovely Chance

O lovely chance, what can I do
To give my gratefulness to you?
You rise between myself and me
With a wise persistency;
I would have broken body and soul,
But by your grace, still I am whole.
Many a thing you did to save me,
Many a holy gift you gave me,
Music and friends and happy love
More than my dearest dreaming of;
And now in this wide twilight hour
With earth and heaven a dark, blue flower,
In a humble mood I bless
Your wisdom--and your waywardness.
You brought me even here, where I
Live on a hill against the sky
And look on mountains and the sea
And a thin white moon in the pepper tree.

Sara Teasdale

Understanding

I understood the rest too well,
And all their thoughts have come to be
Clear as grey sea-weed in the swell
Of a sunny shallow sea.

But you I never understood,
Your spirit's secret hides like gold
Sunk in a Spanish galleon
Ages ago in waters cold.

Sara Teasdale

Spring Torrents

Will it always be like this until I am dead,
Every spring must I bear it all again
With the first red haze of the budding maple boughs,
And the first sweet-smelling rain?

Oh I am like a rock in the rising river
Where the flooded water breaks with a low call--
Like a rock that knows the cry of the waters
And cannot answer at all.

Sara Teasdale

Quiet waters

"Only in quiet waters things mirror themselves undistorted. Only in a quiet mind is adequate perception of the world."

Hans Margolius

Change

"When we are no longer able to change a situation – just think of an incurable disease such as inoperable cancer – we are challenged to change ourselves."

Viktor E. Frankl

Like a seal

"Set me like a seal upon thy heart, love is as strong as death."

Song of Solomon 8:6

Between stimulus and response

"Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."

Viktor E. Frankl

Unprepared

"We were not hoping for happiness –
And yet we were not prepared for unhappiness."

Viktor E. Frankl

Mad

I teach that all men are mad.

Horace

Write with a smile

Write with a smile, even when it's horrible or tragic

Henry Miller

How should a bird fly

When two people have come into touch with each other, without any doubt, they have something in common. How should a bird fly except with its own kind?

Rumi

Fire, fire!

Fire, fire! Fire, fire!
Lo, here I burn in such desire
That all the tears that I can strain
Out of mine idle empty brain
Cannot allay my scorching pain.

Come Trent and Humber and fair Thames;
Dread ocean, haste with all thy streams,
And if you cannot quench my fire,
Oh, drown both me and my desire.

Fire, fire! Fire, fire!
There is no help for my desire.
See, all the rivers backward fly
And th'ocean doth his waves deny
For fear my heart should drink them dry.

Come heavenly showers then pouring down;
Come you that once the world did drown;
Some then you spared, but now save all,
That else must burn, and with me fall.

Thomas Campion

LIKE brooms of steel

LIKE brooms of steel
The Snow and Wind
Had swept the Winter Street,
The House was hooked,
The Sun sent out
Faint Deputies of heat�
Where rode the Bird
The Silence tied
His ample, plodding Steed,
The Apple in the cellar snug
Was all the one that played.


Emily Dickinson

In a Garden

The world is resting without sound or motion,
Behind the apple tree the sun goes down
Painting with fire the spires and the windows
In the elm-shaded town.

Beyond the calm Connecticut the hills lie
Silvered with haze as fruits still fresh with bloom,
The swallows weave in flight across the zenith
On an aerial loom.

Into the garden peace comes back with twilight,
Peace that since noon had left the purple phlox,
The heavy-headed asters, the late roses
And swaying hollyhocks.

For at high-noon I heard from this same garden
The far-off murmur as when many come;
Up from the village surged the blind and beating
Red music of a drum;

And the hysterical sharp fife that shattered
The brittle autumn air,
While they came, the young men marching
Past the village square. . . .

Across the calm Connecticut the hills change
To violet, the veils of dusk are deep--
Earth takes her children's many sorrows calmly
And stills herself to sleep.


Sara Teasdale