Quotes about wizened, page 6
The Shore Temple in Mahaballipuram
The mirtangist may never willingly hear
may not want to hear
the multaiyam announcing his cue
nor the melodist aware of the flautist's right
to the change in the raga
the plucking of the yal strings
to the goatskin drummed bleats
and pleas
of mindless fingers
for out there
on the receding promontary's rising granite mounds
of three-tiered edifices
held up
by the Pallava's view
of the Descent into the Ganges:
rishis crosslegged contemplate yakshis or apsaras' unharnessed
thighs
attenuated waists commodious backs buxom breasts
where mantra-chanting brahmins bathe drink and contort themselves
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poem by T. Wignesan
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The Weakling
I AM a weakling. God, who made
The still, strong man, made also me.
The God who could the tiger plan,
In his lithe splendour unafraid—
A thing of flame and poetry—
That Puissance made of me—a Man!
The One who reared His vast design—
Star, atom, system, germ, and soul—
Could fashion forth this tremulous
And paltry little heart of mine!
The God who could conceive the Whole,
Himself blasphemed in building thus.
When I dare look the glass within,
The ‘Mene Tekel’ mark I see.
God made this slinking, stunted thing,
This narrowed face, this futile chin,
Prisoned a soul deliberately
’Neath these blunt nerves unanswering?
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poem by Arthur Henry Adams
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Emmaline Conner room 101(contest winner writing.com)
Lids slowly closing, aged eyes rimmed with red
Blue veined hands clutching sheets to her chin
Fond memories, old boyfriends, gaily dance in her head
A Time traveler, scanning archives, sequestered within
My knock brings her back to this time, here and now
With a start she awakens, closes softly memory’s door
With a smile I approach, place a hand on her brow
Gently bringing her back to the present once more
Tucking a bib beneath her chin like an infant
Huge Breakfast tray pulled close to her breast
Eyes mockingly wide in jesting amazement
Solemnly promises to give it her best
I sit by her side, uncapping and helping
With the soft pureed breakfast I provided
A few birdlike bites, her resolve quickly melting
She’s really quite full now, she’s decided
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poem by David Whalen
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Sister's cake
I'd not complain of Sister Jane, for she was good and kind,
Combining with rare comeliness distinctive gifts of mind;
Nay, I'll admit it were most fit that, worn by social cares,
She'd crave a change from parlor life to that below the stairs,
And that, eschewing needlework and music, she should take
Herself to the substantial art of manufacturing cake.
At breakfast, then, it would befall that Sister Jane would say:
"Mother, if you have got the things, I'll make some cake to-day!"
Poor mother'd cast a timid glance at father, like as not--
For father hinted sister's cooking cost a frightful lot--
But neither she nor he presumed to signify dissent,
Accepting it for gospel truth that what she wanted went!
No matter what the rest of 'em might chance to have in hand,
The whole machinery of the house came to a sudden stand;
The pots were hustled off the stove, the fire built up anew,
With every damper set just so to heat the oven through;
The kitchen-table was relieved of everything, to make
That ample space which Jane required when she compounded cake.
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poem by Eugene Field
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Christmas Creek
Phantom streams were in the distance - mocking lights of lake and pool -
Ghosts of trees of soft green lustre - groves of shadows deep and cool!
Yea, some devil ran before them changing skies of brass to blue,
Setting bloom where curse is planted, where a grass-blade never grew.
Six there were, and high above them glared a wild and wizened sun,
Ninety leagues from where the waters of the singing valleys run.
There before them, there behind them, was the great, stark, stubborn plain,
Where the dry winds hiss for ever, and the blind earth moans for rain!
Ringed about by tracks of furnace, ninety leagues from stream and tree,
Six there were, with wasted faces, working northwards to the sea!
Ah, the bitter, hopeless desert! Here these broken human wrecks
Trod the wilds where sand of fire is with the spiteful spinifex,
Toiled through spheres that no bird knows of, where with fiery emphasis
Hell hath stamped its awful mint-mark deep on every thing that is!
Toiled and thirsted, strove and suffered! ~This~ was where December's breath
As a wind of smiting flame is on weird, haggard wastes of death!
This was where a withered moan is, and the gleam of weak, wan star,
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poem by Henry Kendall
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Bereavement of the Fields
1 Soft fall the February snows, and soft
2 Falls on my heart the snow of wintry pain;
3 For never more, by wood or field or croft,
4 Will he we knew walk with his loved again;
5 No more, with eyes adream and soul aloft,
6 In those high moods where love and beauty reign,
7 Greet his familiar fields, his skies without a stain.
8 Soft fall the February snows, and deep,
9 Like downy pinions from the moulting breast
10 Of all the mothering sky, round his hushed sleep,
11 Flutter a million loves upon his rest,
12 Where once his well-loved flowers were fain to peep,
13 With adder-tongue and waxen petals prest,
14 In young spring evenings reddening down the west.
15 Soft fall the February snows, and hushed
16 Seems life's loud action, all its strife removed,
17 Afar, remote, where grief itself seems crushed,
18 And even hope and sorrow are reproved;
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poem by William Wilfred Campbell
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The Curse of Mother Flood
Wizened the wood is, and wan is the way through it;
White as a corpse is the face of the fen;
Only blue adders abide in and stray through it—
Adders and venom and horrors to men.
Here is the “ghost of a garden” whose minister
Fosters strange blossoms that startle and scare.
Red as man’s blood is the sun that, with sinister
Flame, is a menace of hell in the air.
Wrinkled and haggard the hills are—the jags of them
Gape like to living and ominous things:
Storm and dry thunder cry out in the crags of them—
Fire, and the wind with a woe in its wings.
Never a moon without clammy-cold shroud on it
Hitherward comes, or a flower-like star!
Only the hiss of the tempest is loud on it—
Hiss, and the moan of a bitter sea bar.
Here on this waste, and to left and to right of it,
Never is lisp or the ripple of rain:
Fierce is the daytime and wild is the night of it,
Flame without limit and frost without wane!
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poem by Henry Kendall
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Beyond Kerguelen
DOWN in the South, by the waste without sail on it—
Far from the zone of the blossom and tree—
Lieth, with winter and whirlwind and wail on it,
Ghost of a land by the ghost of a sea.
Weird is the mist from the summit to base of it;
Sun of its heaven is wizened and grey;
Phantom of light is the light on the face of it—
Never is night on it, never is day!
Here is the shore without flower or bird on it;
Here is no litany sweet of the springs—
Only the haughty, harsh thunder is heard on it,
Only the storm, with a roar in its wings!
Shadow of moon is the moon in the sky of it—
Wan as the face of a wizard, and far!
Never there shines from the firmament high of it
Grace of the planet or glory of star.
All the year round, in the place of white days on it—
All the year round where there never is night—
Lies a great sinister, bitter, blind haze on it:
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poem by Henry Kendall
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Investigating Flora
'Twas in scientific circles
That the great Professor Brown
Had a world-wide reputation
As a writer of renown.
He had striven finer feelings
In our natures to implant
By his Treatise on the Morals
Of the Red-eyed Bulldog Ant.
He had hoisted an opponent
Who had trodden unawares
On his "Reasons for Bare Patches
On the Female Native Bears".
So they gave him an appointment
As instructor to a band
Of the most attractive females
To be gathered in the land.
'Twas a "Ladies' Science Circle" --
Just the latest social fad
For the Nicest People only,
And to make their rivals mad.
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poem by Andrew Barton Paterson
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The Daisy Bree
I stood back on the quay and watched them
Raise the anchor, trim the sail,
Haul the spinnaker up to catch
The gusting breeze once under way;
They slipped out past the Harbour gates
And with them went my heart, my dreams,
As bitter fortune made it plain
That life is never all it seems.
My friend from childhood, Roger Cain,
My childhood sweetheart, Alice Drew,
They'd tied the knot an hour before
In secrecy, I never knew!
I'd thought that we had time enough
To sort it out, she'd made it plain:
'You either marry me, or else...'
She'd patted down the counterpane.
I didn't see her then for days,
She'd said that she was overdue,
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poem by David Lewis Paget
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