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Batuschka

[Author's Note: The title means "little father" or "dear little father", a term of endearment applied to the Tsar in Russian folk-song. --T.B.A.]

From yonder gilded minaret
Beside the steel-blue Neva set,
I faintly catch, from time to time,
The sweet, aerial midnight chime--
"God save the Tsar!"

Above the ravelins and the moats
Of the white citadel it floats;
And men in dungeons far beneath
Listen, and pray, and gnash their teeth--
"God save the Tsar!"

The soft reiterations sweep
Across the horrer of their sleep,
As if some dæmon in his glee
Were mocking at their misery--
"God save the Tsar!"

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poem by Thomas Bailey Aldrich
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To Prudence

HENCE, Prudence! bane of ev'ry virtuous deed,
Child of Cold Prejudice and selfish Fear,
Insensible to Sorrow's bitter tear,
Wrung from the heart thou bid'st unpitied bleed!

Oh, Innocence! compell'd to seek the shade,
And pine neglected in the cheerless wild,
Defam'd by Slander, Envy's fav'rite child,
Weep on, for Prudence shuns thee, wretched maid!

Poor Honesty! bend not thy steps this way,
Caution must scrutinize thy pale, wan face,
On every guileless feature stamp disgrace,
And shuddering at thy guilt turn quick away.

Oh, Want! thou breathing image of cold death!
By all forsaken, and by all forgot,
And in a loathsome jail condemn'd to rot;
Avaunt thee!--for contagion taints thy breath.

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poem by Charlotte Dacre
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Broken Rosalyn

Rosalyn is in misery, her heart is broken
writhing and wailing on her garden floor
watering the grasses with her pouring tears
crying mild and muttering wild - 'why me'
smacking and skelping the faultless grass
sniveling and cheering the harlequin-ed flowers

oh! this glory that shone before
is become the gloom of mourn
her flustered heart now cries tears of blood
her blissful life - woe betide
ever smiling face, wrung by hurting love
her days of leer are gone for good
and now she'll live ever in loving gloom

Rosalyn that glistered with the shining sun
is now married to the moonless night

her cry on the grass
it lingered a while

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poem by Mbanaso Samuel
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Vields by Watervalls

When our downcast looks be smileless,
Under others' wrongs an' slightens,
When our daily deeds be guileless,
An' do meet unkind requitens,
You can meake us zome amends
Vor wrongs o' foes, an' slights o' friends;-
O flow'ry-gleaded, timber-sheaded
Vields by flowen watervalls!

Here be softest airs a'blowen
Drough the boughs, wi'zingen drushes,
Up above the streams, a-flowen
Under willows, on by rushes.
Here below the bright-zunned sky
The dew-bespangled flow'rs do dry,
In woody-zided, stream-divided
Vields by flowen watervalls.

Waters, wi' their giddy rollens;
Breezes wi' their playsome wooens;

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poem by William Barnes
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A Frog And A Toad

A tiny frog on a lili-pad,
Was so depressed she felt so sad.
She wrung her hands and racked her brain,
And said to herself, I'm going insane.

I'm in love with the toad that lives next door,
When my dad finds out he'll go through the floor.
And I can't imagine what mom will do.
My black and green will be black and blue.

While she pondered on, the snake swam by,
And the little frog uttered a sigh.
She asked hey snake what would you do,
If you were in love with a toad like lou?

The snake replied, I'll tell you what,
You really put me on the spot.
A frog I could love, a toad too fat,
I'd rather be seen with a rat.

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poem by Juan Olivarez
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Drought And Potatoes

The rhythmic rise and fall of swinging hoe,
Red rising dust that coats his arms and legs
And all for spuds that without rain won't grow;
Each plant with wilted leaves to heaven begs
Here on this barren hilltop where the gaze
In all directions shows the blasted earth,
And from the sky, the scorching searing blaze
Of sun that robs the land of all its worth.

Like tombstones stand the forest giants now dead,
All strangled by the pioneer's ringing axe;
They cast no shade upon the digger's head
As from the dust, the stunted crop he sacks.
A fence is strung from one dead tree to next,
‘Tis all that says this patch of earth unique;
Around it lie the bones of death perplexed;
The logs and limbs - the past that cannot speak.

He stops to rest, his back to dead wood pressed;
A cooling drink, a humble meal of bread,

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poem by Dennis N. O'Brien
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0314 Executive Decision

‘Look! now briefly, mortal living head -
As severed from thy now so lifeless limbs
In brief and, who knows, truthful, godly view,
So solemn, oncely, rare - that fleshly instrument
That thou hath used, misused…
And learn this last of life’s live lessons, quick and dread
In these few seconds of a living death…’

So Dean John Donne might have wrung out
that detail, had he known it – tolled
his solemn, tortured, feargod, ringing knell
- had he but known this ‘metaphysical’ quaint fact:

that, when the executioner’s sharp axeblade
slices through your neck with such finality,
the head maintains its human faculties
for eight brief seconds after body falls;

the executioner, it’s said, with great formality, then
takes hold that still-life head by its warm hair,

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poem by Michael Shepherd
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Singapore

They grouped together about the chief
And each one looked at his mate,
Ashamed to think that Australian men
Should meet such bitter fate!
And black was the wrath in each hot heart
And savage oaths they swore
As they thought of how they had all been ditched
By "Impregnable" Singapore.

In her vaunted place she squatted the sea
On a base that was Maginot bred
Her startled face looked up at the skies
To the enemy planes o'erhead.
Enemy planes; while ours were - where?
That cry we had heard before
Our hearts were wrung as it rose this time
From beleaguered Singapore.

She brought forth death as her eldest child
With defeat as her second son.

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poem by Dame Mary Gilmore
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Living Lost, The

Matron! the children of whose love,
Each to his grave, in youth have passed,
And now the mould is heaped above
The dearest and the last!
Bride! who dost wear the widow's veil
Before the wedding flowers are pale!
Ye deem the human heart endures
No deeper, bitterer grief than yours.

Yet there are pangs of keener wo,
Of which the sufferers never speak,
Nor to the world's cold pity show
The tears that scald the cheek,
Wrung from their eyelids by the shame
And guilt of those they shrink to name,
Whom once they loved, with cheerful will,
And love, though fallen and branded, still.

Weep, ye who sorrow for the dead,
Thus breaking hearts their pain relieve;

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poem by William Cullen Bryant
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The Young Knight: A Parable

A gay young knight in Burley stood,
Beside him pawed his steed so good,
His hands he wrung as he were wood
With waiting for his love O!

'Oh, will she come, or will she stay,
Or will she waste the weary day
With fools who wish her far away,
And hate her for her love O?'

But by there came a mighty boar,
His jowl and tushes red with gore,
And on his curled snout he bore
A bracelet rich and rare O!

The knight he shrieked, he ran, he flew,
He searched the wild wood through and through,
But found nought save a mantle blue,
Low rolled within the brake O!

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poem by Charles Kingsley
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