Heart

A Paslm 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

Autumn Spiral

To Autumn

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twinèd flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barrèd clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

~John Keats

Willow Tree

Weeping Willow Tree
Reaching arms to the earths floor
Branches sway in time
Call of bird song from afar
Water flows ever on
Weeping willow drinks it down
Breeze shifts the branches
Birds, continuing their song.

Fragmented

A Line-Storm Song

The line-storm clouds fly tattered and swift,
The road is forlorn all day,
Where a myriad snowy quartz stones lift,
And the hoof-prints vanish away.
The roadside flowers, too wet for the bee,
Expend their bloom in vain.
Come over the hills and far with me,
And be my love in the rain.

The birds have less to say for themselves
In the wood-world’s torn despair
Than now these numberless years the elves,
Although they are no less there:
All song of the woods is crushed like some
Wild, easily shattered rose.
Come, be my love in the wet woods; come,
Where the boughs rain when it blows.

There is the gale to urge behind
And bruit our singing down,
And the shallow waters aflutter with wind
From which to gather your gown.
What matter if we go clear to the west,
And come not through dry-shod?
For wilding brooch shall wet your breast
The rain-fresh goldenrod.

Oh, never this whelming east wind swells
But it seems like the sea’s return
To the ancient lands where it left the shells
Before the age of the fern;
And it seems like the time when after doubt
Our love came back amain.
Oh, come forth into the storm and rout
And be my love in the rain.

~Robert Frost

Rusted Flower

I have loved

I have loved flowers that fade,

Within whose magic tents

Rich hues have marriage made

With sweet unmemoried scents:

A honeymoon delight--

A joy of love at sight,

That ages in an hour--

My song be like a flower!

I have loved airs that die

Before their charm is writ

Along a liquid sky

Trembling to welcome it.

Notes, that with pulse of fire

Proclaim the spirit's desire,

Then die, and are nowhere--

My song be like an air!

Die, song, die like a breath,

And wither as a bloom;

Fear not a flowery death,

Dread not an airy tomb!

Fly with delight, fly hence!

'Twas thine love's tender sense

To feast; now on thy bier

Beauty shall shed a tear.

~ Robert Bridges

Reflection

Promised Land Valley, June '73 ~ Alfred Corn

The lake at nightfall is less a lake,

but more, with reflection added, so

this giant inkblot lies on its side,

a bristling zone of black pine and fir

at the dark fold of the revealed world.

Interpret this fallen symmetry,

scan this water and these water lights,

and follow a golden scribble toward

the lantern, the guessed boat, the voices

that skip across sky to where we stand.

You are vanishing and so am I

as everything surrenders color,

falling silent to vision. Darkness

rises to drown out the sky and silence

names us to the asking boat.

Who echoes who in the black mirror?

Riddles are answers here at the edge.

And still, we can imagine some clear call,

a spoken brilliance blazing the trail . . .

ourselves moving out across the sky.

Moon

"Every one is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anybody"~ Mark Twain

Poem 6

Alone I walk,
Head held high.
Others pass, stare, talk.
Not about me.
But, about trivial things.
Books, tv, music, who's dating who.
What's it really matter?
All that is, superficial exterior.
Don't they know there's more to life
then what's in front of their eyes?
Don't they know the world is changing.
Spinning faster and faster.
Time passing by.
Don't they see it?
It's everywhere.
Time, seasons, people.
We're all changing.
Even me.