Quotes about relics, page 18
An Old-Country Drive
On a cloudy gray
Late fall day,
I spontaneously decide
To take an old-country drive...
Trees without leaves
Line the roadside,
Dark and shadowy
Like rigid statues that see nothing nearby.
Paintless wood frame houses archaic stand
Scattered here to there,
Relics of a long past day
Lost to something, somewhere.
Like abandoned old friends of former lives
Along the way they lie,
Quietly calling out
To each passer-by.
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poem by Smoky Hoss
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Ode--Shell the Old City! Shell!
I.
Shell the old city I shell!
Ye myrmidons of Hell;
Ye serve your master well,
With hellish arts!
Hurl down, with bolt and fire,
The grand old shrines, the spire;
But know, your demon ire
Subdues no hearts!
II.
There, we defy ye still,
With sworn and resolute will;
Courage ye cannot kill
While we have breath!
Stone walls your bolts may break,
But, ere our souls ye shake,
Of the whole land we'll make
One realm of death!
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poem by William Gilmore Simms
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The Dream
I stood in a princely hall, and where
Round me gather'd the brave and fair,
Music in softest strains flew by,
Flashing like gems was each radiant eye;
Joining the fair in the festal dance,
Now the proud warrior lays down his lance,
And the hand which but lately the sword had grasp'd
In love's fond pressure was gently clasp'd.
But who of such lofty stature there,
Comes to unite in the revels fair,
Beauty and grace, in his movements are,
Born but to rule, 'tis the Czar, the Czar!
See the blush deepen on beauty's cheek,
As that eagle eye to the heart doth speak,
For the softest glance, yet how fierce in war,
Is the eye of the proud Imperial Czar!
The dance has ceased, and he stands alone,
Far from the scene has his spirit flown,
That spirit proud which no more can see,
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poem by Caroline Hayward
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The Fall Of The Temple In 70 A.D.!
back across centuries
century after century
to the fall of Jerusalem
in 70AD Josephus says
claims that 1,100,000
Jews died most slain
were peaceful citizens
weak starving unarmed
butchered where caught
heaps of Jewish corpses
mounted higher higher
about God’s own altar
blood in streams flowed
down the Temple's steps
Roman supreme command
passion cruelly unleashed
detestation of Jews rage
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poem by Terence George Craddock
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If You Don't Take The Risk, Jump The Abyss Like A Firefly
If you don't take the risk, jump the abyss like a firefly
between two polarities, how are you ever going
to release your potential as the stem cell of a bridge of light
from one hemisphere of your brain of starmud
to the other side of your shining? Whenever
there are two eyes it's crucial that you make a third.
And if you haven't got the courage to jump from your artificial paradise
without knowing whether you've got a parachute on or not,
go ask the dandelions gone to seed how to take a fall
like the free radical of a kiss on the breeze, touch life
lightly as if you were feeling the weave of the silk mist
rising like someone's last breath off the morning lake
or ask the seasoned helicopter pilots of the dragonflies
and maple keys about doing double wheelies like dna helices
when you've driven way past the end of the road like Thelma and Louise
and your animation's been suspended trying to cling
to the wind like a rafter of air you can hang from
like the larva of a caterpillar repelling down a Dutch elm
on a thread of fate you've got to pull like a rip cord
if you want to be a skydiver instead of a half-baked butterfly
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poem by Patrick White
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Elegy XXI. Taking a View of the Country From His Retirement
Thus Damon sung-What though unknown to praise,
Umbrageous coverts hide my Muse and me,
Or mid the rural shepherds flow my days?
Amid the rural shepherds, I am free.
To view sleek vassals crowd a stately hall,
Say, should I grow myself a solemn slave?
To find thy tints, O Titian! grace my wall,
Forego the flowery fields my fortune gave?
Lord of my time, my devious path I bend
Through fringy woodland, or smooth-shaven lawn,
Or pensile grove, or airy cliff ascend,
And hail the scene by Nature's pencil drawn.
Thanks be to Fate-though nor the racy vine,
Nor fattening olive, clothe the fields I rove,
Sequester'd shades and gurgling founts are mine,
And every sylvan grot the Muses love.
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poem by William Shenstone
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Our Willie
'T was merry Christmas when he came,
Our little boy beneath the sod;
And brighter burned the Christmas flame,
And merrier sped the Christmas game,
Because within the house there lay
A shape as tiny as a fay --
The Christmas gift of God!
In wreaths and garlands on the walls
The holly hung its ruby balls,
The mistletoe its pearls;
And a Christmas tree's fantastic fruits
Woke laughter like a choir of flutes
From happy boys and girls.
For the mirth, which else had swelled as shrill
As a school let loose to its errant will,
Was softened by the thought,
That in a dim hushed room above
A mother's pains in a mother's love
Were only just forgot.
The jest, the tale, the toast, the glee,
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poem by Henry Timrod
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The Country Clergyman's Trip To Cambridge -- An Election Ballad
As I sate down to breakfast in state,
At my living of Tithing-cum-Boring,
With Betty beside me to wait,
Came a rap that almost beat the door in.
I laid down my basin of tea,
And Betty ceased spreading the toast,
'As sure as a gun, sir,' said she,
'That must be the knock of the post.'
A letter-and free-bring it here-
I have no correspondent who franks.
No! Yes! Can it be? Why, my dear,
'Tis our glorious, our Protestant Bankes.
'Dear sir, as I know you desire
That the Church should receive due protection,
I humbly presume to require
Your aid at the Cambridge election.
'It has lately been brought to my knowledge,
That the Ministers fully design
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poem by Thomas Babbington Macaulay
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An Election Ballad
As I sate down to breakfast in state,
At my living of Tithing-cum-Boring,
With Betty beside me to wait,
Came a rap that almost beat the door in.
I laid down my basin of tea,
And Betty ceased spreading the toast,
"As sure as a gun, sir," said she,
"That must be the knock of the post."
A letter--and free--bring it here--
I have no correspondent who franks.
No! Yes! Can it be? Why, my dear,
'Tis our glorious, our Protestant Bankes.
"Dear sir, as I know you desire
That the Church should receive due protection,
I humbly presume to require
Your aid at the Cambridge election.
"It has lately been brought to my knowledge,
That the Ministers fully design
[...] Read more
poem by Thomas Babbington Macaulay
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Polonius and the Ballad Singers
A gaunt built woman and her son-in-law—
A broad-faced fellow, with such flesh as shows
Nothing but easy nature—and his wife,
The woman’s daughter, who spills all her talk
Out of a wide mouth, but who has eyes as gray
As Connemara, where the mountain-ash
Shows berries red indeed: they enter now—
Our country singers!
“Sing, my good woman, sing us some romance
That has been round your chimney-nooks so long
’Tis nearly native; something blown here
And since made racy—like yon tree, I might say,
Native by influence if not by species,
Shaped by our winds. You understand, I think?”
“I’ll sing the song, sir.”
To-night you see my face—
Maybe nevermore you’ll gaze
On the one that for you left his friends and kin;
For by the hard commands
Of the lord that rules these lands
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poem by Padraic Colum
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