Citatepedia^®.com

A Voice On The Wind

I

She walks with the wind on the windy height
When the rocks are loud and the waves are white,
And all night long she calls through the night,
'O my children, come home!'
Her bleak gown, torn as a tattered cloud,
Tosses around her like a shroud,
While over the deep her voice rings loud,-
'O my children, come home, come home!
O my children, come home!'

II

Who is she who wanders alone,
When the wind drives sheer and the rain is blown?
Who walks all night and makes her moan,
'O my children, come home!'
Whose face is raised to the blinding gale;
Whose hair blows black and whose eyes are pale,

[...] Read more

poem by Madison Julius Cawein
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

At a Life's End

COME here, rekindle the old fire,
This last night leave no lamp unlit!
In later days we twain shall sit,
Remembering the joys of it,--
The warmth and sweetness of desire.

Here, ere we part, again live o'er
The way we went,--the hour,--the kiss;
Let Love with magic hand of his
Rebuild the mirage of our bliss
In desert days that wend before.

Swart night of August! when we stood
Heart-locked beside the window-pane!
The thunder quickening again
The laggard pulses of the rain,
Wrung a few drops as hot as blood.

Outside we heard the passionate tune
That wooing wind and water keep;

[...] Read more

poem by Muriel Stuart
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Leffingwell

I—THE LURE

No, no,—forget your Cricket and your Ant,
For I shall never set my name to theirs
That now bespeak the very sons and heirs
Incarnate of Queen Gossip and King Cant.
The case of Leffingwell is mixed, I grant,
And futile Seems the burden that he bears;
But are we sounding his forlorn affairs
Who brand him parasite and sycophant?

I tell you, Leffingwell was more than these;
And if he prove a rather sorry knight,
What quiverings in the distance of what light
May not have lured him with high promises,
And then gone down?—He may have been deceived;
He may have lied,—he did; and he believed.

II—THE QUICKSTEP

[...] Read more

poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

The Father

The evening found us whom the day had fled,
Once more in bitter anger, you and I,
Over some small, some foolish, trivial thing
Our anger would not decently let die,
But dragged between us, shamed and shivering
Until each other's taunts we scarcely heard,
Until we lost the sense of all we said,
And knew not who first spoke the fatal word.
It seemed that even every kiss we wrung
We killed at birth with shuddering and hate,
As if we feared a thing too passionate.
However close we clung
One hour the next hour found us separate,
Estranged, and Love most bitter on our tongue.

To-night we quarrelled over one small head,
Our fruit of last year's maying, the white bud
Blown from our stormy kisses and the dead
First rapture of our wild, estranging blood.
You clutched him: there was panther in your eyes,

[...] Read more

poem by Muriel Stuart
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

In the Jewish Synagogue at Newport

Here, where the noises of the busy town,
The ocean's plunge and roar can enter not,
We stand and gaze around with tearful awe,
And muse upon the consecrated spot.

No signs of life are here: the very prayers
Inscribed around are in a language dead;
The light of the "perpetual lamp" is spent
That an undying radiance was to shed.

What prayers were in this temple offered up,
Wrung from sad hearts that knew no joy on earth,
By these lone exiles of a thousand years,
From the fair sunrise land that gave them birth!

How as we gaze, in this new world of light,
Upon this relic of the days of old,
The present vanishes, and tropic bloom
And Eastern towns and temples we behold.

[...] Read more

poem by Emma Lazarus
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

How beautiful the Earth is still

How beautiful the Earth is still
To thee–how full of Happiness;
How little fraught with real ill
Or shadowy phantoms of distress;
How Spring can bring thee glory yet
And Summer win thee to forget
December's sullen time!
Why dost thou hold the treasure fast
Of youth's delight, when youth is past
And thou art near thy prime?

When those who were thy own compeers,
Equal in fortunes and in years,
Have seen their morning melt in tears,
To dull unlovely day;
Blest, had they died unproved and young
Before their hearts were wildly wrung,
Poor slaves, subdued by passions strong,
A weak and helpless prey!

[...] Read more

poem by Emily Jane Brontë
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

A Bird on the Road

I watched as a baby bird fell from a tree,
Trying to flap its youthful wings,
So that it may fly so elegantly.
Perhaps like his soaring father
Or perhaps like his gliding mother
Or perhaps just to feel
The wind coursing
In between his new
Feathers.

The bird landed on an empty street on the other side
Of the library parking lot where I was.
I watched it stumble up, struggling
To stand on its barely-born feet.
I heard it chirping—as if to call
For someone someplace, distant,
Someone who had left it
Not so long ago
On the road.

[...] Read more

poem by Tim Stensloff
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Stabat Mater

Nigh the cross with sorrow laden,
Weeping stood the Mother-maiden
While her Son in torment hung:
Sadly moaning, deeply wailing,
Now the cruel sword prevailing
Pierced her soul with anguish wrung.

Oh how sad that spirit lowly,
Blessèd Virgin, pure and holy,
Mother of the Only-born.
She with bitter grief and sighing,
Piteous Mother of the dying,
Saw her son with anguish torn.

Who could, tearless, thus behold her,
While such agonies enfold her,
Mother of the Crucified?
Who could see the Christ before him
See his Mother grieving o'er Him,
And unpitying turn aside?

[...] Read more

poem by James Brunton Stephens
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

The Queen Of Prussia's Tomb

In sweet pride upon that insult keen
She smiled; then drooping mute and broken-hearted,
To the cold comfort of the grave departed. ~ Milman.

It stands where northern willows weep,
A temple fair and lone;
Soft shadows o'er its marble sweep,
From cypress-branches thrown;
While silently around it spread,
Thou feel'st the presence of the dead.

And what within is richly shrined?
A sculptur'd woman's form,
Lovely in perfect rest reclined,
As one beyond the storm:
Yet not of death, but slumber, lies
The solemn sweetness on those eyes.

The folded hands, the calm pure face,
The mantle's quiet flow,

[...] Read more

poem by Felicia Dorothea Hemans
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Making Cider

I saw within the wheelwright’s shed
The big round cartwheels, blue and red;
A plough with blunted share;
A blue tin jug; a broken chair;
And paint in trial patchwork square
Slapping up against the wall;
The lumber of the wheelwright’s trade,
And tools on benches neatly laid,
The brace, the adze, the awl;

And framed within the latticed-panes,
Above the cluttered sill,
Saw rooks upon the stubble hill
Seeking forgotten grains;

And all the air was sweet and shrill
With juice of apples heaped in skips,
Fermenting, rotten, soft and bruise,
And all the yard was strewn with pips,
Discarded pulp, and wrung-out ooze

[...] Read more

poem by Victoria Sackville-West
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!