Quotes about relics, page 20
Studies By The Sea
AH ! wherefore do the incurious say,
That this stupendous ocean wide,
No change presents from day to day,
Save only the alternate tide;
Or save when gales of summer glide
Across the lightly crisped wave;
Or, when against the cliff's rough side,
As equinoctial tempests rave,
It wildly bursts; o'erwhelms the deluged strand,
Tears down its bounds, and desolates the land ?
He who with more enquiring eyes
Doth this extensive scene survey,
Beholds innumerous changes rise,
As various winds its surface sway;
Now o'er its heaving bosom play
Small sparkling waves of silver gleam,
And as they lightly glide away
Illume with fluctuating beam
The deepening surge; green as the dewy corn
[...] Read more
poem by Charlotte Smith
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
The Obliterate Tomb
'More than half my life long
Did they weigh me falsely, to my bitter wrong,
But they all have shrunk away into the silence
Like a lost song.
'And the day has dawned and come
For forgiveness, when the past may hold it dumb
On the once reverberate words of hatred uttered
Half in delirium….
'With folded lips and hands
They lie and wait what next the Will commands,
And doubtless think, if think they can: 'Let discord
Sink with Life's sands!'
'By these late years their names,
Their virtues, their hereditary claims,
[...] Read more
poem by Thomas Hardy
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
I Don't Care If You Remember Me Or Not
I don't care if you remember me or not.
I'm not going anywhere. I'll still be here.
But I'm going to disappear soon enough
and you can have the mirror all to yourself.
I can't imagine dying alone is any deeper
than this solitude I've been living on my own.
Take that chisel of a tongue and chip
my cartouche off that gravestone I'm not under yet
as if you just discovered a new talent
for pecking away at death as if you were married to it.
I'm out of here. This is my grand exit. Like Keats
I make it with an awkward bow, the way the deer do
when they come down to the river to drink.
I don't make it in anger. I'm not judging a mirage
because it doesn't slake my thirst for real water.
I'm not bitter, vicious, or proud. I see myself
in you, especially when you're crying without
a knife in your hand you wield like a paper cut
of the last crescent of the moon. It makes me sad
[...] Read more
poem by Patrick White
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Slickens
DRAMATIS PERSONAE.
HAYSEED _a Granger_
NOZZLE _a Miner_
RINGDIVVY _a Statesman_
FEEGOBBLE _a Lawyer_
JUNKET _a Committee_
_Scene_-Yuba Dam.
_Feegobble, Ringdivvy, Nozzle_.
NOZZLE:
My friends, since '51 I have pursued
The evil tenor of my watery way,
Removing hills as by an act of faith
RINGDIVVY:
[...] Read more
poem by Ambrose Bierce
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
An Ode - Presented To The King, On His Majesty's Arrival In Holland, After The Queen's Death
At Mary's tomb (sad sacred place!)
The Virtues shall their vigils keep,
And every Muse and every Grace
In solemn state shall ever weep.
The future pious mournful fair,
Oft as the rolling years return,
With fragrant wreaths and flowering hair
Shall visit her distinguish'd urn.
For her the wise and great shall mourn,
When late records her deeds repeat;
Ages to come and men unborn
Shall bless her name and sigh her fate.
Fair Albion shall, with faithful trust,
Her holy Queen's sad relics guard,
Till Heaven awakes the precious dust,
And gives the saint her full reward.
[...] Read more
poem by Matthew Prior
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Galactic Darkness
Galactic darkness. Luna moths
drawn in by the zircon oases of
candles on the coffee-table
burning behind plate-glass
like the muses of consumer longing,
given how far it is to fly to the stars,
though nothing blocks the way,
their wings spread on the windows
like death masks and decals on a suitcase,
stamps on forlorn loveletters
that can labour over every sacred syllable
for effect, but still eat
the ashes of neglect for real.
But, then, again, how can you fail
if you're mad, if you can feel
in your blood, how the stars
can start fires here on earth
using the fireflies for chemical fuses?
Or the moon, her moths, for proxies?
[...] Read more
poem by Patrick White
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Patronym
And relieved to be vast again, stepping through the backdoor
of the murdered house where I left my heart
inscribed on the studio floor
in a rosary of chalk, martyr to a rage of freedom,
I fathered a gentle nation in the eyes of bellicose stars
humbled by the failures of the wise.
Venus in Virgo and eras of birds in the trees, my blood
proclaimed propitious omens of a thriving solitude
to the knife of light that candled in my hand.
The ghosts of dead wolves padded through me like a pulse
and as far as the night could see into the blind water
of the flowing clock that aged like the moon
on a pilgrimage of tears, I was saved by the bleeding bell
of my own sorrow, a lifeboat in the desert,
the colossus of the sky bridge in my brain
that spanned two hemispheres with owls of inquisitive light.
And though I’ve agreed to disagree with fate
and account my eloquent wounds
the restless graves of dark angels buried in sacred mirrors,
there’s no point in desecrating the obvious,
[...] Read more
poem by Patrick White
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Lost Love Deliria
AWAKENING
Sleep and slumber, dreams of wonder... weaving,
morning's vacuum broke the spell
Pitted pillow, note of parting... leaving,
'from your friend, a fond farewell'
Sunrise throbbing, twilight aching... grieving,
daydreams, flashbacks, nightmares knell
Pale phantasms, visions sneaking... thieving,
plot to fill the empty shell
12 DELIRIA
1st Delirium: Collapses
Fractured sky bolts, billows bursting... rumbling,
heavens tighten, turn the vise
Horsemen saddle shafts of lightning... tumbling,
jagged highways must suffice
Ruptured skyways, hailstones crackling... crumbling,
naked pearls of paradise
[...] Read more
poem by Terry O'Leary
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Eclogue 8: To Pollio Damon Alphesiboeus
Of Damon and Alphesiboeus now,
Those shepherd-singers at whose rival strains
The heifer wondering forgot to graze,
The lynx stood awe-struck, and the flowing streams,
Unwonted loiterers, stayed their course to hear-
How Damon and Alphesiboeus sang
Their pastoral ditties, will I tell the tale.
Thou, whether broad Timavus' rocky banks
Thou now art passing, or dost skirt the shore
Of the Illyrian main,- will ever dawn
That day when I thy deeds may celebrate,
Ever that day when through the whole wide world
I may renown thy verse- that verse alone
Of Sophoclean buskin worthy found?
With thee began, to thee shall end, the strain.
Take thou these songs that owe their birth to thee,
And deign around thy temples to let creep
This ivy-chaplet 'twixt the conquering bays.
[...] Read more
poem by Publius Vergilius Maro
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
Eclogue VIII
TO POLLIO, DAMON, ALPHESIBOEUS
Of Damon and Alphesiboeus now,
Those shepherd-singers at whose rival strains
The heifer wondering forgot to graze,
The lynx stood awe-struck, and the flowing streams,
Unwonted loiterers, stayed their course to hear-
How Damon and Alphesiboeus sang
Their pastoral ditties, will I tell the tale.
Thou, whether broad Timavus' rocky banks
Thou now art passing, or dost skirt the shore
Of the Illyrian main,- will ever dawn
That day when I thy deeds may celebrate,
Ever that day when through the whole wide world
I may renown thy verse- that verse alone
Of Sophoclean buskin worthy found?
With thee began, to thee shall end, the strain.
Take thou these songs that owe their birth to thee,
And deign around thy temples to let creep
This ivy-chaplet 'twixt the conquering bays.
[...] Read more