Quotes about scoured, page 5
I Turn Out The Lights
I turn out the lights and lie down to sleep
and you open up within me like a lotus of fire
blooming in the darkness of a vast inner space
that has become my only skin, tattooed with stars
as I play solitaire with destiny, using your Tarot
of chameleonic constellations as a firing squad.
Little threads of joy and fear shudder through me,
revelation and lightning, fireflies going off,
the blasting caps of greater detonations yet to come,
and your face is before me, apparition and aurora,
the moon reflected on undulant water,
a jewel turning in the light of itself, blue eyes, full lips,
the blonde smoke of your hair on your cheek
disappearing somewhere as if a match had just been put out,
and your smile, your beautiful, wide, forgiving smile
that seems to flow from the warmest sugars
of an abundant heart; what dawn over a lake
has ever touched me silently like that?
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poem by Patrick White
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Rag & Reed
John lived down in Haywood Lane
Beside the wood, the river's course
And walked each day to see Bernice
His dark-haired lady, for discourse.
She had a melancholy air
A sad and gloomy way with her
And questioned why life wasn't fair,
John never had much sway with her.
He'd argue through the early hours
And speak his love, implicitly,
But she would snap in anger then,
'Your love won't buy the bread for me.'
For seven years they'd to and fro'd
For she would leave, then ask him back,
While he would sit alone and grieve
At every trait that she'd attack.
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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Briar Rose (Sleeping Beauty)
Consider
a girl who keeps slipping off,
arms limp as old carrots,
into the hypnotist's trance,
into a spirit world
speaking with the gift of tongues.
She is stuck in the time machine,
suddenly two years old sucking her thumb,
as inward as a snail,
learning to talk again.
She's on a voyage.
She is swimming further and further back,
up like a salmon,
struggling into her mother's pocketbook.
Little doll child,
come here to Papa.
Sit on my knee.
I have kisses for the back of your neck.
A penny for your thoughts, Princess.
I will hunt them like an emerald.
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poem by Anne Sexton
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The Speeding Of The King's Spite
A king--estranged from his loving Queen
By a foolish royal whim--
Tired and sick of the dull routine
Of matters surrounding him--
Issued a mandate in this wise.--
'THE DOWER OF MY DAUGHTER'S HAND
I WILL GIVE TO HIM WHO HOLDS THIS PRIZE,
THE STRANGEST THING IN THE LAND.'
But the King, sad sooth! in this grim decree
Had a motive low and mean;--
'Twas a royal piece of chicanery
To harry and spite the Queen;
For King though he was, and beyond compare,
He had ruled all things save one--
Then blamed the Queen that his only heir
Was a daughter--not a son.
The girl had grown, in the mother's care,
Like a bud in the shine and shower
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poem by James Whitcomb Riley
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How McDougal Topped The Score
A peaceful spot is Piper's Flat. The folk that live around -
They keep themselves by keeping sheep and turning up the ground;
But the climate is erratic, and the consequences are
The struggle with the elements is everlasting war.
We plough, and sow, and harrow - then sit down and pray for rain;
And then we get all flooded out and have to start again.
But the folk are now rejoicing as they ne'er rejoiced before,
For we've played Molongo cricket, and M'Dougal topped the score!
Molongo had a head on it, and challenged us to play
A single-innings match for lunch - the losing team to pay.
We were not great guns at cricket, but we couldn't well say, "No!"
So we all began to practise, and we let the reaping go.
We scoured the Flat for ten miles round to muster up our men,
But when the list was totalled we could only number ten.
Then up spoke big Tim Brady: he was always slow to speak,
And he said - "What price M'Dougal, who lives down at Cooper's Creek?"
So we sent for old M'Dougal, and he stated in reply
That he'd never played at cricket, but he'd half a mind to try.
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poem by Thomas E. Spencer
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Forest History
I.
Beneath the vans of doom did men pass in.
Heroic who came out; for round them hung
A wavering phantom's red volcano tongue,
With league-long lizard tail and fishy fin:
II.
Old Earth's original Dragon; there retired
To his last fastness; overthrown by few.
Him a laborious thrust of roadway slew.
Then man to play devorant straight was fired.
III.
More intimate became the forest fear
While pillared darkness hatched malicious life
At either elbow, wolf or gnome or knife
And wary slid the glance from ear to ear.
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poem by George Meredith
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The Lover’s Secret
WHAT ailed young Lucius? Art had vainly tried
To guess his ill, and found herself defied.
The Augur plied his legendary skill;
Useless; the fair young Roman languished still.
His chariot took him every cloudless day
Along the Pincian Hill or Appian Way;
They rubbed his wasted limbs with sulphurous oil,
Oozed from the far-off Orient's heated soil;
They led him tottering down the steamy path
Where bubbling fountains filled the thermal bath;
Borne in his litter to Egeria's cave,
They washed him, shivering, in her icy wave.
They sought all curious herbs and costly stones,
They scraped the moss that grew on dead men's bones,
They tried all cures the votive tablets taught,
Scoured every place whence healing drugs were brought,
O'er Thracian hills his breathless couriers ran,
His slaves waylaid the Syrian caravan.
At last a servant heard a stranger speak
A new chirurgeon's name; a clever Greek,
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poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
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Sainte-Nitouche
Though not for common praise of him,
Nor yet for pride or charity,
Still would I make to Vanderberg
One tribute for his memory:
One honest warrant of a friend
Who found with him that flesh was grass—
Who neither blamed him in defect
Nor marveled how it came to pass;
Or why it ever was that he—
That Vanderberg, of all good men,
Should lose himself to find himself,
Straightway to lose himself again.
For we had buried Sainte-Nitouche,
And he had said to me that night:
“Yes, we have laid her in the earth,
But what of that?” And he was right.
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poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson
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The Death of Daphnis
THYRSIS.
Sweet are the whispers of yon pine that makes
Low music o'er the spring, and, Goatherd, sweet
Thy piping; second thou to Pan alone.
Is his the horned ram? then thine the goat.
Is his the goat? to thee shall fall the kid;
And toothsome is the flesh of unmilked kids.
GOATHERD.
Shepherd, thy lay is as the noise of streams
Falling and falling aye from yon tall crag.
If for their meed the Muses claim the ewe,
Be thine the stall-fed lamb; or if they choose
The lamb, take thou the scarce less-valued ewe.
THYRSIS.
Pray, by the Nymphs, pray, Goatherd, seat thee here
Against this hill-slope in the tamarisk shade,
And pipe me somewhat, while I guard thy goats.
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poem by Theocritus
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Rural Morning
Soon as the twilight through the distant mist
In silver hemmings skirts the purple east,
Ere yet the sun unveils his smiles to view
And dries the morning's chilly robes of dew,
Young Hodge the horse-boy, with a soodly gait,
Slow climbs the stile, or opes the creaky gate,
With willow switch and halter by his side
Prepared for Dobbin, whom he means to ride;
The only tune he knows still whistling oer,
And humming scraps his father sung before,
As 'Wantley Dragon,' and the 'Magic Rose,'
The whole of music that his village knows,
Which wild remembrance, in each little town,
From mouth to mouth through ages handles down.
Onward he jolls, nor can the minstrel-throngs
Entice him once to listen to their songs;
Nor marks he once a blossom on his way;
A senseless lump of animated clay--
With weather-beaten hat of rusty brown,
Stranger to brinks, and often to a crown;
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poem by John Clare
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