word of the day.

Lugubrious
Lugubrious adj. Looking or sounding sad and dismal; mournful. “The lugubrious country song reminded her of an ex-boyfriend.”

my morning poem,,,

Autumn in the Garden by Henry Van Dyke

When the frosty kiss of Autumn in the dark
Makes its mark
On the flowers, and the misty morning grieves
Over fallen leaves;
Then my olden garden, where the golden soil
Through the toil
Of a hundred years is mellow, rich, and deep,
Whispers in its sleep.

'Mid the crumpled beds of marigold and phlox,
Where the box
Borders with its glossy green the ancient walks,
There's a voice that talks
Of the human hopes that bloomed and withered here
Year by year,--
Dreams of joy, that brightened all the labouring hours,
Fading as the flowers.

Yet the whispered story does not deepen grief;
But relief
For the loneliness of sorrow seems to flow
From the Long-Ago,
When I think of other lives that learned, like mine,
To resign,
And remember that the sadness of the fall
Comes alike to all.

What regrets, what longings for the lost were theirs!
And what prayers
For the silent strength that nerves us to endure
Things we cannot cure!
Pacing up and down the garden where they paced,
I have traced
All their well-worn paths of patience, till I find
Comfort in my mind.

Faint and far away their ancient griefs appear:
Yet how near
Is the tender voice, the careworn, kindly face,
Of the human race!
Let us walk together in the garden, dearest heart,
Not apart!
They who know the sorrows other lives have known
Never walk alone

word of the day,,,
one we all know well from our politicians,

Pontificate
Pontificate v. To speak or behave in a pompous or dogmatic manner. “He pontificates at great length in political matters.”

my morning poem,,,

The Door
by Charles Tomlinson

Too little
has been said
of the door, its one
face turned to the night’s
downpour and its other
to the shift and glisten of firelight.
 
Air, clasped
by this cover
into the room’s book,
is filled by the turning
pages of dark and fire
as the wind shoulders the panels, or unsteadies that burning
 
Not only
the storm’s
breakwater, but the sudden
frontier to our concurrences, appearances,
and as the full of the offer of space
as the view through a cromlech is.
 
For doors
are both frame and monument
to our spent time,
and too little
has been said
of our coming through and leaving by them.

word of the day,,,

Corpulent
Corpulent adj. Physically bulky; fat. “The once corpulent woman is now trim and fit.”

my morning poem,,,

the painter chap.

He gives me such a bold and curious look,
That young American across the way,
As if he'd like to put me in a book
(Fancies himself a poet, so they say.)
Ah well! He'll make no "document" of me.
I lock my door. Ha! ha! Now none shall see. . . .

Pictures, just pictures piled from roof to floor,
Each one a bit of me, a dream fulfilled,
A vision of the beauty I adore,
My own poor glimpse of glory, passion-thrilled . . .
But now my money's gone, I paint no more.

For three days past I have not tasted food;
The jeweled colors run . . . I reel, I faint;
They tell me that my pictures are no good,
Just crude and childish daubs, a waste of paint.
I burned to throw on canvas all I saw --
Twilight on water, tenderness of trees,
Wet sands at sunset and the smoking seas,
The peace of valleys and the mountain's awe:
Emotion swayed me at the thought of these.
I sought to paint ere I had learned to draw,
And that's the trouble. . . .
Ah well! here am I,
Facing my failure after struggle long;
And there they are, my croutes that none will buy
(And doubtless they are right and I am wrong);
Well, when one's lost one's faith it's time to die. . . .

This knife will do . . . and now to slash and slash;
Rip them to ribands, rend them every one,
My dreams and visions -- tear and stab and gash,
So that their crudeness may be known to none;
Poor, miserable daubs! Ah! there, it's done. . . .

And now to close my little window tight.
Lo! in the dusking sky, serenely set,
The evening star is like a beacon bright.
And see! to keep her tender tryst with night
How Paris veils herself in violet. . . .

Oh, why does God create such men as I? --
All pride and passion and divine desire,
Raw, quivering nerve-stuff and devouring fire,
Foredoomed to failure though they try and try;
Abortive, blindly to destruction hurled;
Unfound, unfit to grapple with the world. . . .

And now to light my wheezy jet of gas;
Chink up the window-crannies and the door,
So that no single breath of air may pass;
So that I'm sealed air-tight from roof to floor.
There, there, that's done; and now there's nothing more. . . .

Look at the city's myriad lamps a-shine;
See, the calm moon is launching into space . . .
There will be darkness in these eyes of mine
Ere it can climb to shine upon my face.
Oh, it will find such peace upon my face! . . .

City of Beauty, I have loved you well,
A laugh or two I've had, but many a sigh;
I've run with you the scale from Heav'n to Hell.
Paris, I love you still . . . good-by, good-by.
Thus it all ends -- unhappily, alas!
It's time to sleep, and now . . . blow out the gas. . . .

Now there's that little midinette
Who goes to work each morning daily;
I choose to call her Blithe Babette,
Because she's always humming gaily;
And though the Goddess "Comme-il-faut"
May look on her with prim expression,
It's Pagan Paris where, you know,
The queen of virtues is Discretion.

Robert William Service

word of the day,,,

Dubious
Dubious adj. Hesitating or doubting. Not to be relied upon; suspect. “He seemed dubious about the idea.”

my morning poem,,,

this one struck a chord this morning, thinking of all the refugees,

Wilfred Owen

The Show

My soul looked down from a vague height with Death,
As unremembering how I rose or why,
And saw a sad land, weak with sweats of dearth,
Gray, cratered like the moon with hollow woe,
And fitted with great pocks and scabs of plaques.
Across its beard, that horror of harsh wire,
There moved thin caterpillars, slowly uncoiled.
It seemed they pushed themselves to be as plugs
Of ditches, where they writhed and shrivelled, killed.

By them had slimy paths been trailed and scraped
Round myriad warts that might be little hills.

From gloom's last dregs these long-strung creatures crept,
And vanished out of dawn down hidden holes.

(And smell came up from those foul openings
As out of mouths, or deep wounds deepening.)

On dithering feet upgathered, more and more,
Brown strings towards strings of gray, with bristling spines,
All migrants from green fields, intent on mire.

Those that were gray, of more abundant spawns,
Ramped on the rest and ate them and were eaten.

I saw their bitten backs curve, loop, and straighten,
I watched those agonies curl, lift, and flatten.

Whereat, in terror what that sight might mean,
I reeled and shivered earthward like a feather.

And Death fell with me, like a deepening moan.
And He, picking a manner of worm, which half had hid
Its bruises in the earth, but crawled no further,
Showed me its feet, the feet of many men,
And the fresh-severed head of it, my head.

Slavish

Slavish adj. Showing no originality; blindly imitative: “A slavish copy of the original work.”

my morning poem,,,

what we all try to do,, but nothing ever comes close to repaying our mother.
billy collins lays it straight on a plate for us,,
enjoy

The Lanyard - Billy Collins

The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly-
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that's what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-clothes on my forehead,
and then led me out into the air light

and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift - not the worn truth

that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-toned lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

Kyle Eastwood - From Rio To Havana

Marrakech by Kyle Eastwood

Paul Rose - Hughes & Kettner - Summertime (Gershwin)

my morning poem,,,

health

Four miles at a leap, over the dark hollow land,
To the frosted steep of the down and its junipers black,
Travels my eye with equal ease and delight:
And scarce could my body leap four yards.

This is the best and the worst of it -
Never to know,
Yet to imagine gloriously, pure health.

To-day, had I suddenly health,
I could not satisfy the desire of my heart
Unless health abated it,
So beautiful is the air in its softness and clearness, while
Spring
Promises all and fails in nothing as yet;
And what blue and what white is I never knew
Before I saw this sky blessing the land.

For had I health I could not ride or run or fly
So far or so rapidly over the land
As I desire: I should reach Wiltshire tired;
I should have changed my mind before I could be in Wales.
I could not love; I could not command love.
beauty would still be far off
However many hills I climbed over;
Peace would still be farther.
Maybe I should not count it anything
To leap these four miles with the eye;
And either I should not be filled almost to bursting with desire,
Or with my power desire would still keep pace.

Yet I am not satisfied
Even with knowing I never could be satisfied.
With health and all the power that lies
In maiden beauty, poet and warrior,
In Caesar, Shakespeare, Alcibiades,
Mazeppa, Leonardo, Michelangelo,
In any maiden whose smile is lovelier
Than sunlight upon dew,
I could not be as the wagtail running up and down
The warm tiles of the roof slope, twittering
Happily and sweetly as if the sun itself
Extracted the song
As the hand makes sparks from the fur of a cat:

I could not be as the sun.
Nor should I be content to be
As little as the bird or as mighty as the sun.
For the bird knows not the sun,
And the sun regards not the bird.
But I am almost proud to love both bird and sun,
Though scarce this Spring could my body leap four yards.

Edward Thomas

my morning poem,,,
a lovely colourful poem,,,

Ode To The West Wind - Poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
I

O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow

Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odors plain and hill:

Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear!

II

Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion,
Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,

Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread
On the blue surface of thine aery surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head

Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge
Of the horizon to the zenith's height,
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge

Of the dying year, to which this closing night
Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre,
Vaulted with all thy congregated might

Of vapors, from whose solid atmosphere
Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: oh, hear!

III

Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams,

Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave's intenser day,

All overgrown with azure moss and flowers
So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou
For whose path the Atlantic's level powers

Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know

Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves: oh, hear!

IV

If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share

The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou, O uncontrollable! If even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be

The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven,
As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed
Scarce seemed a vision; I would ne'er have striven

As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed
One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.

V

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!
And, by the incantation of this verse,

Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawakened earth

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

Percy Bysshe Shelley

my morning poem,,,
another beauty from this famed poet,,,

i find these poems paint a wonderful image, i read it slowly to let it be absorbed,,

The Owl

With quiet step and careful breath
we rubbered over grass and stone,
seeking that soft light-feathered bird
among the trees where it had flown.
The twisting road ran down beside
a straggling wood of ash and beech;
between us and the shadowed trees
a wire fence topped the whin-spiked ditch.
We stood and gazed: the only stir
of dry leaves in the topmost boughs;
the only noise now, far away,
the cawing of the roosting crows.
And as we watched in waning light,
our clenched attention pinned upon
that empty corner of the wood,
it seemed the quiet bird had gone.
Then when the light had ebbed to dusk
you moved a hand and signalled me:
I saw the little pointed ears
beside a tall and narrow tree.
A further signal, and I moved
in wide half-circle to surprise
that little feathered sheaf of life
that watched you watch with steady eyes.
But when I came by easy stealth,
at last, within a yard or two
the brown bird spread enormous wings
and rose and quietly withdrew.
And we were left to carry home
a sense no mortal will devised,
that, for one instant out of time,
we had been seen and recognised.

john hewitt.

my morning poem,,,

the wake,

The Wake, 1953

We snicked the latch where one was dead,
constrained by ancient courtesy;
the open coffin on the bed
shewed us the man we’d come to see.

We gave our greetings to the gloom;
I found a seat against the wall;
my wife was hustled to ‘the room’
where women were foregathered all.

Since turf and wick gave feeble light,
the crouching shapes seemed much the same;
with anxious ear and questing sight
I sought to join each shape and name.

Of stock and weather was the talk,
of harvests fabulously great –
the distances men used to walk –
the dangers of our pampered state.

The one would rise and say good night,
and one who stood would take his chair;
the smoking turf would flicker bright
with each fresh gust of chilly air.

The suddenly the only sound
would be of crickets at the grate;
and James would reach and hand around
tobacco on a dinner plate.

john hewitt

I was here from the moment of the
Beginning, and here I am still. And
I shall remain here until the end
Of the world, for there is no
Ending to my grief-stricken being.


I roamed the infinite sky, and
Soared in the ideal world, and
Floated through the firmament. But
Here I am, prisoner of measurement.


I heard the teachings of Confucius;
I listened to Brahma's wisdom;
I sat by Buddha under the Tree of Knowledge.
Yet here I am, existing with ignorance
And heresy.


I was on Sinai when Jehovah approached Moses;
I saw the Nazarene's miracles at the Jordan;
I was in Medina when Mohammed visited.
Yet I here I am, prisoner of bewilderment.


Then I witnessed the might of Babylon;
I learned of the glory of Egypt;
I viewed the warring greatness of Rome.
Yet my earlier teachings showed the
Weakness and sorrow of those achievements.


I conversed with the magicians of Ain Dour;
I debated with the priests of Assyria;
I gleaned depth from the prophets of Palestine.
Yet, I am still seeking truth.


I gathered wisdom from quiet India;
I probed the antiquity of Arabia;
I heard all that can be heard.
Yet, my heart is deaf and blind.


I suffered at the hands of despotic rulers;
I suffered slavery under insane invaders;
I suffered hunger imposed by tyranny;
Yet, I still possess some inner power
With which I struggle to greet each day.


My mind is filled, but my heart is empty;
My body is old, but my heart is an infant.
Perhaps in youth my heart will grow, but I
Pray to grow old and reach the moment of
My return to God. Only then will my heart fill!


I was here from the moment of the
Beginning, and here I am still. And
I shall remain here until the end
Of of world, for there is no
Ending to my grief-stricken being. 

Kahlil Gibran

my morning poem,,,

Festubert, 1916

BY EDMUND BLUNDEN

Tired with dull grief, grown old before my day,
I sit in solitude and only hear
Long silent laughters, murmurings of dismay,
The lost intensities of hope and fear;
In those old marshes yet the rifles lie,
On the thin breastwork flutter the grey rags,
The very books I read are there—and I
Dead as the men I loved, wait while life drags

Its wounded length from those sad streets of war
Into green places here, that were my own;
But now what once was mine is mine no more,
I seek such neighbours here and I find none.
With such strong gentleness and tireless will
Those ruined houses seared themselves in me,
Passionate I look for their dumb story still,
And the charred stub outspeaks the living tree.

I rise up at the singing of a bird
And scarcely knowing slink along the lane,
I dare not give a soul a look or word
For all have homes and none's at home in vain:
Deep red the rose burned in the grim redoubt,
The self-sown wheat around was like a flood,
In the hot path the lizards lolled time out,
The saints in broken shrines were bright as blood.

Sweet Mary's shrine between the sycamores!
There we would go, my friend of friends and I,
And snatch long moments from the grudging wars;
Whose dark made light intense to see them by ...
Shrewd bit the morning fog, the whining shots
Spun from the wrangling wire; then in warm swoon
The sun hushed all but the cool orchard plots,
We crept in the tall grass and slept till noon.

my morning poem,,,

a psalm of life.

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,— act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o’erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait
.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Playing For Change - United

Trenchtown Rock | Playing For Change | Live outside

my morning poem,,,
for my loving wife,

your laughter.

Take bread away from me, if you wish,
take air away, but
do not take from me your laughter.

Do not take away the rose,
the lance flower that you pluck,
the water that suddenly
bursts forth in joy,
the sudden wave
of silver born in you.

My struggle is harsh and I come back
with eyes tired
at times from having seen
the unchanging earth,
but when your laughter enters
it rises to the sky seeking me
and it opens for me all
the doors of life.

My love, in the darkest
hour your laughter
opens, and if suddenly
you see my blood staining
the stones of the street,
laugh, because your laughter
will be for my hands
like a fresh sword.

Next to the sea in the autumn,
your laughter must raise
its foamy cascade,
and in the spring, love,
I want your laughter like
the flower I was waiting for,
the blue flower, the rose
of my echoing country.

Laugh at the night,
at the day, at the moon,
laugh at the twisted
streets of the island,
laugh at this clumsy
boy who loves you,
but when I open
my eyes and close them,
when my steps go,
when my steps return,
deny me bread, air,
light, spring,
but never your laughter
for I would die.

Pablo Neruda

another nice poem,, for the weekend

the painter chap.

He gives me such a bold and curious look,
That young American across the way,
As if he'd like to put me in a book
(Fancies himself a poet, so they say.)
Ah well! He'll make no "document" of me.
I lock my door. Ha! ha! Now none shall see. . . .

Pictures, just pictures piled from roof to floor,
Each one a bit of me, a dream fulfilled,
A vision of the beauty I adore,
My own poor glimpse of glory, passion-thrilled . . .
But now my money's gone, I paint no more.

For three days past I have not tasted food;
The jeweled colors run . . . I reel, I faint;
They tell me that my pictures are no good,
Just crude and childish daubs, a waste of paint.
I burned to throw on canvas all I saw --
Twilight on water, tenderness of trees,
Wet sands at sunset and the smoking seas,
The peace of valleys and the mountain's awe:
Emotion swayed me at the thought of these.
I sought to paint ere I had learned to draw,
And that's the trouble. . . .
Ah well! here am I,
Facing my failure after struggle long;
And there they are, my croutes that none will buy
(And doubtless they are right and I am wrong);
Well, when one's lost one's faith it's time to die. . . .

This knife will do . . . and now to slash and slash;
Rip them to ribands, rend them every one,
My dreams and visions -- tear and stab and gash,
So that their crudeness may be known to none;
Poor, miserable daubs! Ah! there, it's done. . . .

And now to close my little window tight.
Lo! in the dusking sky, serenely set,
The evening star is like a beacon bright.
And see! to keep her tender tryst with night
How Paris veils herself in violet. . . .

Oh, why does God create such men as I? --
All pride and passion and divine desire,
Raw, quivering nerve-stuff and devouring fire,
Foredoomed to failure though they try and try;
Abortive, blindly to destruction hurled;
Unfound, unfit to grapple with the world. . . .

And now to light my wheezy jet of gas;
Chink up the window-crannies and the door,
So that no single breath of air may pass;
So that I'm sealed air-tight from roof to floor.
There, there, that's done; and now there's nothing more. . . .

Look at the city's myriad lamps a-shine;
See, the calm moon is launching into space . . .
There will be darkness in these eyes of mine
Ere it can climb to shine upon my face.
Oh, it will find such peace upon my face! . . .

City of Beauty, I have loved you well,
A laugh or two I've had, but many a sigh;
I've run with you the scale from Heav'n to Hell.
Paris, I love you still . . . good-by, good-by.
Thus it all ends -- unhappily, alas!
It's time to sleep, and now . . . blow out the gas. . . .

Now there's that little midinette
Who goes to work each morning daily;
I choose to call her Blithe Babette,
Because she's always humming gaily;
And though the Goddess "Comme-il-faut"
May look on her with prim expression,
It's Pagan Paris where, you know,
The queen of virtues is Discretion.

Robert William Service

THE HOUND OF HEAVEN

Francis Thompson

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;    I fled Him, down the arches of the years; I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways    Of my own mind; and in the midst of tears I hid from Him, and under running laughter.              Up vistaed hopes I sped;              And shot, precipitated, Adown Titanic glooms of chasmed fears,    From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.              But with unhurrying chase,              And unperturbèd pace,      Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,              They beat—and a Voice beat              More instant than the Feet—      'All things betray thee, who betrayest Me'.             I pleaded, outlaw-wise, By many a hearted casement, curtained red,    Trellised with intertwining charities; (For, though I knew His love Who followed,              Yet was I sore adread Lest, having Him, I must have naught beside.) But, if one little casement parted wide,    The gust of His approach would clash it to:    Fear wist not to evade, as Love wist to pursue. Across the margent of the world I fled,    And troubled the gold gateway of the stars,    Smiting for shelter on their clanged bars;              Fretted to dulcet jars And silvern chatter the pale ports o' the moon. I said to Dawn: Be sudden—to Eve: Be soon;    With thy young skiey blossom heap me over              From this tremendous Lover— Float thy vague veil about me, lest He see!    I tempted all His servitors, but to find My own betrayal in their constancy, In faith to Him their fickleness to me,    Their traitorous trueness, and their loyal deceit. To all swift things for swiftness did I sue;    Clung to the whistling mane of every wind.           But whether they swept, smoothly fleet,      The long savannahs of the blue;             Or, whether, Thunder-driven,           They clanged his chariot 'thwart a heaven, Plashy with flying lightnings round the spurn o' their feet:—    Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue.              Still with unhurrying chase,              And unperturbed pace,       Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,              Came on the following Feet,              And a Voice above their beat— 'Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me.' I sought no more after that which I strayed           In face of man or maid; But still within the little children's eyes           Seems something, something that replies, They at least are for me, surely for me! I turned me to them very wistfully; But just as their young eyes grew sudden fair          With dawning answers there, Their angel plucked them from me by the hair. Come then, ye other children, Nature's—share With me’ (said I) 'your delicate fellowship;           Let me greet you lip to lip,           Let me twine with you caresses,               Wantoning           With our Lady-Mother's vagrant tresses,              Banqueting           With her in her wind-walled palace,           Underneath her azured dais,           Quaffing, as your taintless way is,              From a chalice Lucent-weeping out of the dayspring.’              So it was done: I in their delicate fellowship was one— Drew the bolt of Nature's secrecies.           I knew all the swift importings           On the wilful face of skies;            I knew how the clouds arise           Spumèd of the wild sea-snortings;              All that's born or dies           Rose and drooped with; made them shapers Of mine own moods, or wailful divine;           With them joyed and was bereaven.           I was heavy with the even,           When she lit her glimmering tapers           Round the day's dead sanctities.           I laughed in the morning's eyes. I triumphed and I saddened with all weather,           Heaven and I wept together, And its sweet tears were salt with mortal mine: Against the red throb of its sunset-heart           I laid my own to beat,           And share commingling heat; But not by that, by that, was eased my human smart. In vain my tears were wet on Heaven's grey cheek. For ah! we know not what each other says,           These things and I; in sound I speak— Their sound is but their stir, they speak by silences. Nature, poor stepdame, cannot slake my drouth;           Let her, if she would owe me, Drop yon blue bosom-veil of sky, and show me           The breasts o’ her tenderness: Never did any milk of hers once bless              My thirsting mouth.              Nigh and nigh draws the chase,              With unperturbed pace, Deliberate speed, majestic instancy;              And past those noisèd Feet              A voice comes yet more fleet—           'Lo! naught contents thee, who content'st not Me.' Naked I wait Thy love's uplifted stroke! My harness piece by piece Thou has hewn from me,              And smitten me to my knee;           I am defenceless utterly.           I slept, methinks, and woke, And, slowly gazing, find me stripped in sleep. In the rash lustihead of my young powers,           I shook the pillaring hours And pulled my life upon me; grimed with smears, I stand amidst the dust o' the mounded years—My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap. My days have crackled and gone up in smoke, Have puffed and burst as sun-starts on a stream.           Yea, faileth now even dream The dreamer, and the lute the lutanist; Even the linked fantasies, in whose blossomy twist I swung the earth a trinket at my wrist, Are yielding; cords of all too weak account For earth with heavy griefs so overplussed.           Ah! is Thy love indeed A weed, albeit an amarinthine weed, Suffering no flowers except its own to mount?           Ah! must—           Designer infinite!—Ah! must Thou char the wood ere Thou canst limn with it? My freshness spent its wavering shower i' the dust; And now my heart is as a broken fount, Wherein tear-drippings stagnate, spilt down ever           From the dank thoughts that shiver Upon the sighful branches of my mind.           Such is; what is to be? The pulp so bitter, how shall taste the rind? I dimly guess what Time in mists confounds; Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds From the hid battlements of Eternity; Those shaken mists a space unsettle, then Round the half-glimpsed turrets slowly wash again.           But not ere him who summoneth           I first have seen, enwound With glooming robes purpureal, cypress-crowned; His name I know and what his trumpet saith. Whether man's heart or life it be which yields           Thee harvest, must Thy harvest-fields           Be dunged with rotten death?              Now of that long pursuit              Comes on at hand the bruit;           That Voice is round me like a bursting sea:           'And is thy earth so marred,           Shattered in shard on shard?           Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest Me!           'Strange, piteous, futile thing! Wherefore should any set thee love apart? Seeing none but I makes much of naught' (He said), 'And human love needs human meriting:           How hast thou merited—Of all man's clotted clay the dingiest clot?           Alack, thou knowest not How little worthy of any love thou art! Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee,           Save Me, save only Me? All which I took from thee I did but take,           Not for thy harms, But just that thou might'st seek it in My arms.           All which thy child's mistake Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home:           Rise, clasp My hand, and come!'    Halts by me that footfall:    Is my gloom, after all, Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly?    'Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,    I am He Whom thou seekest! Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me.'

my morning poem,,,

Sonnet 73

by William Shakespeare (1609)


That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see’st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the deathbed whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourished by.
This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

The Don't Quit Poem

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest, if you must, but don't you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about,
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don't give up though the pace seems slow--
You may succeed with another blow.

Often the goal is nearer than,
It seems to a faint and faltering man,
Often the struggler has given up,
When he might have captured the victor's cup,
And he learned too late when the night slipped down,
How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out--
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far,
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit--
It's when things seem worst that you must not quit.

- Author unknown –

my morning poem,,,

nice words from dylan thomas.

 It was my thirtieth
Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon
Though the town below lay leaved with October blood.

Poem In October

 It was my thirtieth year to heaven
Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood
 And the mussel pooled and the heron
 Priested shore
 The morning beckon
With water praying and call of seagull and rook
And the knock of sailing boats on the net webbed wall
 Myself to set foot
 That second
 In the still sleeping town and set forth.


 My birthday began with the water-
Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name
 Above the farms and the white horses
 And I rose
 In rainy autumn
And walked abroad in a shower of all my days.

High tide and the heron dived when I took the road
 Over the border
 And the gates
 Of the town closed as the town awoke.


 A springful of larks in a rolling
Cloud and the roadside bushes brimming with whistling
 Blackbirds and the sun of October
 Summery
 On the hill's shoulder,
Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly
Come in the morning where I wandered and listened
 To the rain wringing
 Wind blow cold
 In the wood faraway under me.


 Pale rain over the dwindling harbour
And over the sea wet church the size of a snail
 With its horns through mist and the castle
 Brown as owls
 But all the gardens
Of spring and summer were blooming in the tall tales
Beyond the border and under the lark full cloud.

 There could I marvel
 My birthday
 Away but the weather turned around.


 It turned away from the blithe country
And down the other air and the blue altered sky
 Streamed again a wonder of summer
 With apples
 Pears and red currants
And I saw in the turning so clearly a child's
Forgotten mornings when he walked with his mother
 Through the parables
 Of sun light
 And the legends of the green chapels

 And the twice told fields of infancy
That his tears burned my cheeks and his heart moved in mine.

 These were the woods the river and sea
 Where a boy
 In the listening
Summertime of the dead whispered the truth of his joy
To the trees and the stones and the fish in the tide.

 And the mystery
 Sang alive
 Still in the water and singingbirds.


 And there could I marvel my birthday
Away but the weather turned around.
 And the true
 Joy of the long dead child sang burning
 In the sun.

 It was my thirtieth
Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon
Though the town below lay leaved with October blood.

 O may my heart's truth
 Still be sung
 On this high hill in a year's turning.

A Stranger

"The Reverence Poem"

A Stranger stood by the old Church door,
His clothes were old and worn;
His shoes were scuffed and the soles were loose,
His coat was ragged and torn.

I paused as I saw him standing there,
His hair was thin and gray,
And I wondered, "Should I ask this man
To come with me to pray?"

So I went to his side and softly asked,
"Old man, what is your name?"
Then he answered me and turned around
And I noticed he was lame.

His foot was red and swollen
And I thought of the pain he bore,
But he said not a word of his worry or pain
As together we stepped through the door.

We sat in the back of the old white Church
And bowed our heads to pray,
But he rose after staying less than an hour,
Explaining he could not stay.

I quickly rose to follow my friend,
But when I reached the door
The man gone, He'd vanished from sight,
And I thought I would see him no more.

But there he was on the step of the Church
So I went to him and said,
"Old man, why can you linger not?"
And I watched as he bowed his head.

"This is a house of worship.
It's God's own house you say:
You teach that He is with you all,
That He listens while you pray.

"We love Thy House, O Lord," you sing
In loud and joyous strains,
But His sweet spirit does not dwell
Where such irreverence reigns.

"Folks giggle, whisper, laugh and talk
In God's own house of prayer,
And when the people act this way
His spirit is not there."

He rose and left me all alone,
And I watched as he walked the road,
And realized he'd come to Church
To ease his heavy load.

But once again he'd left unhelped
His sorrow even more,
And I thought how right that man had been
As I listened at the door.

The noise and whispers from within
Now reached my opened ears,
And suddenly I realized that
I hadn't listened in years.

I'll never forget that way that I felt
As I stood at the door on that day
And listened, while unknown to them
Through irreverence they drove God away.

Since that day forth I've asked this prayer
And maybe you should too,
"Dear Father in Heaven, please help us all
To show more reverence to you."

-Unknown

"After the Rain"

*Whatever your cross, whatever your pain,
There will always be sunshine after the rain
Perhaps you may stumble, perhaps even fall,
But God's always ready to answer your call

He knows every heartache, sees every tear,
A word from His lips can calm every fear
Your sorrows may linger throughout the night,
But suddenly vanish at dawn's early light

The Savior is waiting somewhere above,
To give you His grace and send you His love
Whatever your cross, whatever your pain,
God always sends rainbows after the rain

my morning poem,,,

The Song of the Modern Mars
By Herbert Cadett

Three miles of trench and a mile of men,
  In a rough-hewn, slop-shop grave;
Spades and a volley for one in ten –
  Heres a hip! hurrah! for the brave.
A flash from the front that shames the sun,
  The crash of a bursting shell,
And the rat-tat-tat of the Maxim gun –
  A machine-made funeral knell...

Thrice twenty men in a bomb-proof pit,
  A flash and a sudden roar;
Thrice twenty dead – and their blood has writ
  The story of modern war.
Scarlet spray on the rugged stones,
  And salty spume in the air;
Fragments of flesh and splinters of bones,
  But never a whole man there.

Infantry dodging from rock to rock,
  And gunners from peak to peak,
Rifle-shots playing at postman’s knock,
  And soldiers at hide and seek.
Crimson flecks on a sand-coloured mound,
  Like rays of the rosy morn,
And splashes of red on a khaki ground,
  Like poppies in fields of corn....

I hope you read the verses above rather than skipping to the main part of the blog. If you did, did you assume they were written about the First World War? The iconography of that hideous conflict is observable in the poem: the trenches, shells, machine guns, the appalling number of dead – and most resonant of all, the blood-red poppies. In fact, the conflict depicted is the Boer War,

my morning poem,,,
some advice from hemingway.

advice to a son,

Never trust a white man,
Never kill a Jew,
Never sign a contract,
Never rent a pew.
Don't enlist in armies;
Nor marry many wives;
Never write for magazines;
Never scratch your hives.
Always put paper on the seat,
Don't believe in wars,
Keep yourself both clean and neat,
Never marry whores.
Never pay a blackmailer,
Never go to law,
Never trust a publisher,
Or you'll sleep on straw.
All your friends will leave you
All your friends will die
So lead a clean and wholesome life
And join them in the sky.

Ernest Hemingway

my morning poem,,,

comfort,

Say! You've struck a heap of trouble --
Bust in business, lost your wife;
No one cares a cent about you,
You don't care a cent for life;
Hard luck has of hope bereft you,
Health is failing, wish you'd die --
Why, you've still the sunshine left you
And the big, blue sky.

Sky so blue it makes you wonder
If it's heaven shining through;
Earth so smiling 'way out yonder,
Sun so bright it dazzles you;
Birds a-singing, flowers a-flinging
All their fragrance on the breeze;
Dancing shadows, green, still meadows --
Don't you mope, you've still got these.

These, and none can take them from you;
These, and none can weigh their worth.
What! you're tired and broke and beaten? --
Why, you're rich -- you've got the earth!
Yes, if you're a tramp in tatters,
While the blue sky bends above
You've got nearly all that matters --
You've got God, and God is love.

Robert William Service

For What Died the Sons of Róisín

(By Luke Kelly)
For What Died the Sons of Róisín, was it fame?
For What Died the Sons of Róisín, was it fame?
For what flowed Ireland’s blood in rivers,
That began when Brian chased the Dane,
And did not cease nor has not ceased,
With the brave sons of ´16,
For what died the sons of Róisín, was it fame?
For What Died the Sons of Róisín, was it greed?
For What Died the Sons of Róisín, was it greed?
Was it greed that drove Wolfe Tone to a paupers death in a cell of cold wet stone?
Will German, French or Dutch inscribe the epitaph of Emmet?
When we have sold enough of Ireland to be but strangers in it.
For What Died the Sons of Róisín, was it greed?
To whom do we owe our allegiance today?
To whom do we owe our allegiance today?
To those brave men who fought and died that Róisín live again with pride?
Her sons at home to work and sing,
Her youth to dance and make her valleys ring,
Or the faceless men who for Mark and Dollar,
Betray her to the highest bidder,
To whom do we owe our allegiance today?
For what suffer our patriots today?
For what suffer our patriots today?
They have a language problem, so they say,
How to write “No Trespass” must grieve their heart full sore,
We got rid of one strange language now we are faced with many, many more,
For what suffer our patriots today?

my morning poem,,,
bit of me in here,

beauty,

WHAT does it mean? Tired, angry, and ill at ease,
No man, woman, or child alive could please
Me now. And yet I almost dare to laugh
Because I sit and frame an epitaph-
'Here lies all that no one loved of him
And that loved no one.' Then in a trice that whim
Has wearied. But, though I am like a river
At fall of evening when it seems that never
Has the sun lighted it or warmed it, while
Cross breezes cut the surface to a file,
This heart, some fraction of me, hapily
Floats through a window even now to a tree
Down in the misting, dim-lit, quiet vale;
Not like a pewit that returns to wail
For something it has lost, but like a dove
That slants unanswering to its home and love.
There I find my rest, and through the dusk air
Flies what yet lives in me. Beauty is there

Edward Thomas

on pain

Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses
your understanding.

Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its
heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.

And could you keep your heart in wonder at the
daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem
less wondrous than your joy;

And you would accept the seasons of your heart,
even as you have always accepted the seasons that
pass over your fields.

And you would watch with serenity through the
winters of your grief.

Much of your pain is self-chosen.

It is the bitter potion by which the physician within
you heals your sick self.

Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy
in silence and tranquillity:

For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by
the tender hand of the Unseen,

And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has
been fashioned of the clay which the Potter has
moistened with His own sacred tears. 

Kahlil Gibran