Quotes about sere, page 12
The Christmas Of 1888
Low in the east, against a white, cold dawn,
The black-lined silhouette of the woods was drawn,
And on a wintry waste
Of frosted streams and hillsides bare and brown,
Through thin cloud-films, a pallid ghost looked down,
The waning moon half-faced!
In that pale sky and sere, snow-waiting earth,
What sign was there of the immortal birth?
What herald of the One?
Lo! swift as thought the heavenly radiance came,
A rose-red splendor swept the sky like flame,
Up rolled the round, bright sun!
And all was changed. From a transfigured world
The moon's ghost fled, the smoke of home-hearths curled
Up the still air unblown.
In Orient warmth and brightness, did that morn
O'er Nain and Nazareth, when the Christ was born,
Break fairer than our own?
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poem by John Greenleaf Whittier
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Are We Better Now Than Then (stand naked in front of a full length mirror)
Better Now Than Then?
(stand naked in front of a full length mirror and try not to giggle or gag)
We were then:
Small wiry bipeds on dry plains of Serengeti
Stringy, tight muscles, strong hands, with long slender fingers
Low, beetled brow over dark eyes, seeing distant
Long pointed nails, ridged and discolored, tip slender delicate digits
We are now:
Tall upright bipeds, on dry, sere, parking lot at Walmart
Folds of flaccid fat, fallow, loose, hanging over belts
Squeaky-clean, sausage-like, weak, fat fingers
Skin stretched tight over pudgy, pillow-like hands
We were then:
Hardy travelers, to distant mist shrouded mountains
Feet naked, soles hardened, over plains of rock, sand and gravel
Long slender bows, slung over lean shoulders and arrows in hide pouches,
Obsidian knives, tucked in scant leather loincloths
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poem by David Whalen
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Sustenance for Friend Penny
Across the valley echoing
I hear a sound like distant drums.
It is the day of reckoning.
The storm god comes, the storm god comes.
His silver lances pierce the ground
and lightning streaks across the sky.
The thunder growls a fearsome sound.
The sun seared earth no longer dry.
The pouring rain is merciless,
the earth absorbs it thirstily
Its needs appears to be endless
The downpour stops quite suddenly.
The sun resumes his reign again.
There is no water to be seen,
it is as if there’d been no rain
but now the land is turning green.
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poem by Ivor Or Ivor.e Hogg
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Psalm 02
Done Aug. 8. 1653. Terzetti.
Why do the Gentiles tumult, and the Nations
Muse a vain thing, the Kings of th'earth upstand
With power, and Princes in their Congregations
Lay deep their plots together through each Land,
Against the Lord and his Messiah dear.
Let us break off; say they, by strength of hand
Their bonds, and cast from us, no more to wear,
Their twisted cords: he who in Heaven doth dwell
Shall laugh, the Lord shall scoff them, then severe
Speak to them in his wrath, and in his fell
And fierce ire trouble them; but I saith hee
Anointed have my King (though ye rebell)
On Sion my holi' hill. A firm decree
I will declare; the Lord to me hath say'd
Thou art my Son I have begotten thee
This day, ask of me, and the grant is made;
As thy possession I on thee bestow
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poem by John Milton
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Many Are Called
Many are called, dear heart, to happiness,
But few are chosen, even for a wild short year.
Love calls us from our sleep, and we make stress
To rise and greet him in a world austere
With a sweet dawn, while blithe as chanticleer
He carols his brave message, and we loosen
The shutters of our grief to find him near.
Many are called by Love, but few are chosen.
Love's voice is truth. He speaks his messages
In tones we dare not doubt, and we give ear
As to a prophet of our wilderness,
The glorious lord of a new hemisphere.
And we run, we too, glorious, without fear,
Like children on bright ice too thinly frozen,
Gay to our doom. Ah me! The plunge was sheer.
Many are called by Love, but few are chosen.
Love chooses whom he will to ban or bless.
My fate was a wild shepherd's on the drear
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poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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Ballad of Autumn
DOWN harvest headlands the fairy host
Of the poppy banners have flashed and fled,
The lilies have faded like ghost and ghost,
The ripe rose rots in the garden bed.
The grain is garnered, the blooms are shed,
Convolvulus springs on the snowdrop’s bier,
In her stranded gold is the silver thread
Of the first grey hair i’ the head o’ the year.
Like an arrant knave from a bootless boast,
The fire-wind back to his North has sped
To harry the manes of a haunted coast
On a far sea-rim where the stars are dead.
Wistful the welkin with wordless dread,
Mournful the uplands, all ashen sere—
Sad for the snow on a beauteous head—
For the first grey hair i’ the head o’ the year.
Time trysts with Death at the finger-post,
Where the broken issues of life are wed—
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poem by Marie E J Pitt
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The Island Hunting-Song
No more the summer floweret charms,
The leaves will soon be sere,
And Autumn folds his jewelled arms
Around the dying year;
So, ere the waning seasons claim
Our leafless groves awhile,
With golden wine and glowing flame
We ’ll crown our lonely isle.
Once more the merry voices sound
Within the antlered hall,
And long and loud the baying hounds
Return the hunter’s call;
And through the woods, and o’er the hill,
And far along the bay,
The driver’s horn is sounding shrill,—Â
Up, sportsmen, and away!
No bars of steel or walls of stone
Our little empire bound,
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poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
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Pessimism
I
WHILE baby Spring sticks daisies in her hair,
Or Summer laughs with flushed triumphant face
We crush our heart rebellious at earth's grace,
And smile 'How, like the season, life is fair!'
But when the last leaf falls in the dull air,
And skies grow pale, and fields lie lost a space,
Ere their first furrow ploughs begin to trace,
And pastures shiver desolate and bare--
Oh, then one breathes; at last free from the sway
Of selfish spring--from summer's insolent reign,
One dares to speak the truth--how all life's way
Is blank as autumn skies made grey with rain,
Most blank when most the glad year bade forbear
To mar her grace with our unveiled despair.
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poem by Edith Nesbit
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How one Winter Came in the Lake Region
1 For weeks and weeks the autumn world stood still,
2 Clothed in the shadow of a smoky haze;
3 The fields were dead, the wind had lost its will,
4 And all the lands were hushed by wood and hill,
5 In those grey, withered days.
6 Behind a mist the blear sun rose and set,
7 At night the moon would nestle in a cloud;
8 The fisherman, a ghost, did cast his net;
9 The lake its shores forgot to chafe and fret,
10 And hushed its caverns loud.
11 Far in the smoky woods the birds were mute,
12 Save that from blackened tree a jay would scream,
13 Or far in swamps the lizard's lonesome lute
14 Would pipe in thirst, or by some gnarlèd root
15 The tree-toad trilled his dream.
16 From day to day still hushed the season's mood,
17 The streams stayed in their runnels shrunk and dry;
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poem by William Wilfred Campbell
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The Grief Of Love
Love, I am sick for thee, sick with an absolute grief,
Sick with the thought of thy eyes and lips and bosom.
All the beauty I saw, I see to my hurt revealed.
All that I felt I feel to--day for my pain and sorrow.
Love, I would fain forget thee, hide thee in deeper night,
Shut thee where no thought is, in the grave with tears.
Love, I would turn my face to the wall and, if needs be, die;
Death less cruel were than thy eyes which have blinded me.
Since thou art gone from me, glory is gone from my life;
Dumb are the woods and streams, and dumb the voice of my soul;
Dead are the flowers we loved, blackened and sere with blight;
Earth is frost--bound under my foot where our footsteps trod.
Give me back for my sorrow the days of senseless peace,
Days when I thought not of thee, or thought in wisdom;
Let me see thee once more as thou to my folly wert,
A woman senseless as sounding brass or as tinkling cymbal.
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poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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