March on

"March on. Do not tarry. To go forward is to move toward perfection. March on, and fear not the thorns, or the sharp stones on life's path."

Kahlil Gibran

Book Of Suleika - Hatem 01

NOT occasion makes the thief;

She's the greatest of the whole;

For Love's relics, to my grief,

From my aching heart she stole.

She hath given it to thee,--

All the joy my life had known,

So that, in my poverty,

Life I seek from thee alone.

Yet compassion greets me straight

In the lustre of thine eye,

And I bless my newborn fate,

As within thine arms I lie.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

De Profundis

Oh, is it, then, Utopian

To hope that I may meet a man

Who'll not relate, in accents suave,

The tales of girls he used to have?

Dorothy Parker

To Age

Welcome, old friend! These many years

Have we lived door by door;

The fates have laid aside their shears

Perhaps for some few more.

I was indocile at an age

When better boys were taught,

But thou at length hast made me sage,

If I am sage in aught.

Little I know from other men,

Too little they know from me,

But thou hast pointed well the pen

That writes these lines to thee.

Thanks for expelling Fear and Hope,

One vile, the other vain;

One's scourge, the other's telescope,

I shall not see again.

Rather what lies before my feet

My notice shall engage--

He who hath braved Youth's dizzy heat

Dreads not the frost of Age.

Walter Savage Landor

An Inspiration

However the battle is ended,

Though proudly the victor comes

With fluttering flags and prancing nags

And echoing roll of drums.

Still truth proclaims this motto,

In letters of living light, -

No Question is ever settled,

Until it is settled right.

Though the heel of the strong oppressor

May grind the weak to dust,

And the voices of fame with one acclaim

May call him great and just,

Let those who applaud take warning,

And keep this motto in sight, -

No question is ever settled

Until it is settled right.

Let those who have failed take courage;

Tho' the enemy seems to have won,

Tho' his ranks are strong, if he be in the wrong

The battle is not yet done;

For, as sure as the morning follows

The darkest hour of the night,

No question is ever settled

Until it is settled right.

O man bowed down with labor!

O woman, young, yet old!

O heart oppressed in the toiler's breast

And crushed by the power of gold!

Keep on with your weary battle

Against triumphant might;

No question is ever settled

Until it is settled right.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Specimen Of An Induction To A Poem

Lo! I must tell a tale of chivalry;

For large white plumes are dancing in mine eye.

Not like the formal crest of latter days:

But bending in a thousand graceful ways;

So graceful, that it seems no mortal hand,

Or e’en the touch of Archimago’s wand,

Could charm them into such an attitude.

We must think rather, that in playful mood,

Some mountain breeze had turned its chief delight,

To show this wonder of its gentle might.

Lo! I must tell a tale of chivalry;

For while I muse, the lance points slantingly

Athwart the morning air: some lady sweet,

Who cannot feel for cold her tender feet,

From the worn top of some old battlement

Hails it with tears, her stout defender sent:

And from her own pure self no joy dissembling,

Wraps round her ample robe with happy trembling.

Sometimes, when the good Knight his rest would take,

It is reflected, clearly, in a lake,

With the young ashen boughs, ’gainst which it rests,

And th’ half seen mossiness of linnets’ nests.

Ah! shall I ever tell its cruelty,

When the fire flashes from a warrior’s eye,

And his tremendous hand is grasping it,

And his dark brow for very wrath is knit?

Or when his spirit, with more calm intent,

Leaps to the honors of a tournament,

And makes the gazers round about the ring

Stare at the grandeur of the ballancing?

No, no! this is far off:—then how shall I

Revive the dying tones of minstrelsy,

Which linger yet about lone gothic arches,

In dark green ivy, and among wild larches?

How sing the splendour of the revelries,

When but[t]s of wine are drunk off to the lees?

And that bright lance, against the fretted wall,

Beneath the shade of stately banneral,

Is slung with shining cuirass, sword, and shield?

Where ye may see a spur in bloody field.

Light-footed damsels move with gentle paces

Round the wide hall, and show their happy faces;

Or stand in courtly talk by fives and sevens:

Like those fair stars that twinkle in the heavens.

Yet must I tell a tale of chivalry:

Or wherefore comes that knight so proudly by?

Wherefore more proudly does the gentle knight,

Rein in the swelling of his ample might?

Spenser! thy brows are arched, open, kind,

And come like a clear sun-rise to my mind;

And always does my heart with pleasure dance,

When I think on thy noble countenance:

Where never yet was ought more earthly seen

Than the pure freshness of thy laurels green.

Therefore, great bard, I not so fearfully

Call on thy gentle spirit to hover nigh

My daring steps: or if thy tender care,

Thus startled unaware,

Be jealous that the foot of other wight

Should madly follow that bright path of light

Trac’d by thy lov’d Libertas; he will speak,

And tell thee that my prayer is very meek;

That I will follow with due reverence,

And start with awe at mine own strange pretence.

Him thou wilt hear; so I will rest in hope

To see wide plains, fair trees and lawny slope:

The morn, the eve, the light, the shade, the flowers;

Clear streams, smooth lakes, and overlooking towers.

John Keats

Besides this May

Besides this May

We know

There is Another—

How fair

Our Speculations of the Foreigner!

Some know Him whom We knew—

Sweet Wonder—

A Nature be

Where Saints, and our plain going Neighbor

Keep May!

Emily Dickinson

Natalia’s Resurrection: Sonnet XVI

Among the rest ('twas thus his dream went on

While Adrian slept) in more than courteous mood

And smiling welcome, fairer scarce was none,

That noble knight Natalia's husband stood,

A gentle man whom of a truth in life,

Alas for jealous youth and wit too keen!

Adrian loved little though he loved his wife,

But now beheld as the most blest of men,--

Because Natalia was not dead, he thought,

Seeing him thus unconscious of all grief,--

And in that cloudless face where pain was not

Adrian found omen to his soul's relief,

And looked beyond if haply he should see

Her face too following fixed in constancy.

Wilfrid Scawen Blunt

from Awake, my Heart, to be loved

Awake, my heart, to be loved, awake, awake;

The darkness silvers away, the morn doth break,

It leaps in the sky: unrisen lustres slake

The o'ertaken moon. Awake, O heart, awake!

She too that loveth awaketh and hopes for thee;

Her eyes already have sped the shades that flee,

Already they watch the path thy feet shall take:

Awake, O heart, to be loved, awake, awake!

Robert Bridges

Ill wind

'Tis an ill wind that blows no minds.

Malaclypse the Younger

Can I?

Can I ever know you Or you know me?

Sara Teasdale

Garlic

Tomatoes and oregano make it Italian; wine and tarragon make it French. Sour cream makes it Russian; lemon and cinnamon make it Greek. Soy sauce makes it Chinese; garlic makes it good.

Alice May Brock

Best

Only the mediocre are always at their best

Bob Monkhouse

Speak honestly or else be silent

Vain, boastful talk repels acts of kindness and tears the branch of mercy from the trunk of the tree. Speak honestly or else be silent, and then behold grace and delight in it.

Rumi

Suffering

One does not love a place the less for having suffered in it, unless it has been all suffering, nothing but suffering.

Austen, Jane

Oh senseless man

Oh senseless man, who cannot possibly make a worm, and yet will make Gods by dozens.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

When I see your face

When I see your face

I shut my eyes to others.

I am drunk with your presence.

To earn Solomon's seal

I have become supple as wax.

When I see your face

I surrender my will and

become a sigh on your lips.

You were in my hand but I kept reaching out

like a blind man.

I was in your hand but kept asking questions

from those who are ignorant.

I must have been very drunk or naïve

to steal my own gold,

I must have been mad to sneak in

and rob my own jasmine garden.

I've been twisted long enough by your might,

Shams of Tabriz!

But even in my sorrow I am joyous

like the crescent moon

at the beginning of the festival.

Rumi

Rainy day

I do pity unlearned people on a rainy day.

Falkland, Lucius C.

Distant lamps

We see but dimly through the mists and vapors;
Amid these earthly damps
What seem to us but sad, funeral tapers
May be heaven's distant lamps.

Henry W. Longfellow

To be the thing

To be the name uttered, but not to have the burden to be

To be the name said, but not heard

To not breathe anymore, to be the thing

To be the thing being breathed

To not be about to die, to be already dead

To not have to disappoint

To not have the burden of being late

Or punctual

To not eat, to not have to eat

To not feel anything

To not be the one whose affect is criticized

To not pick up the fallen over boxes

To be everywhere but the boxes or plates

To not break the plates

To be beyond breaking

To have been broken

To not bear the burden of not being present

To not have to feel the pain of being hurt

To have transferred that pain over

So that hurt is only part of the imagination

And the imagination is everywhere, is every color

To not contain color, to be color

To not make sound, to be sound

To not have language, to echo, to plan language

To be the stream of words

To not be sad for

To not have those to be sad for

To not eat alone

To not fuck those who do not find your corpse attractive

To not fuck

Or stuff

To be ashes and non-placed

Not displaced, but to not be in any place

To enter the ocean on not a whim, but a physical force

Where there is no center

Where there is no safety

There never was

There was never any anger

There was never anything to look at

I never looked at anything

I just went and walked

I tried to love

But love is hopeless

And I have lost all hope, so bleak I am beyond

I am beyond what might be considered low

There is low nor high, space or time, I have

Gone away from that which is uttered

I have not burdened to be spoken of or spoken for

To croak everyday to the livelong bog

I do not speak a thing

I exist

No, no I don't

I never did

And you may have

But I never did

And you may have called out for me

But I was already gone

And I am already there

That which you speak of

I am already spoken for

In a world of light and ashes

They all call my name

They have waited for me

And now I know

I was always

Already there

With them

Dorothea Lasky