Category: Poetry

Must the Morning Always Return?

Must the morning always return? Will the despotism of the earthly never cease? Unholy activity consumes the angel-visit of the Night. Will the time never come when Love’s hidden sacrifice shall burn eternally? To the Light a season was set; but everlasting and boundless is the dominion of the Night. Endless is the duration of sleep. Holy Sleep—gladden not too seldom in this earthly day-labor, the devoted servant of the Night. Fools alone mistake thee, knowing nought of sleep but the shadow which, in the twilight of the real Night, thou pitifully castest over us. They feel thee not in the golden flood of the grapes—in the magic oil of the almond tree—and the brown juice of the poppy. They know not that it is thou who hauntest the bosom of the tender maiden, and makest a heaven of her lap—never suspect it is thou, opening the doors to Heaven, that steppest to meet them out of ancient stories, bearing the key to the dwellings of the blessed, silent messenger of secrets infinite.

Novalis, Hymns to the Night

Sessions of Sweet Silent Thought

When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past,
I sigh the lack of many a thing I sought,
And with old woes new wail my dear time’s waste:
Then can I drown an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night,
And weep afresh love’s long since cancell’d woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanish’d sight:
Then can I grieve at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o’er
The sad account of fore-bemoanèd moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All losses are restored and sorrows end.

William Shakespeare, Sonnet 30

Tom O’ Bedlam

With a host of furious fancies,
Whereof I am commander,
With a burning spear and a horse of air
To the wilderness I wander.

By a knight of ghosts and shadows
I summon’d am to tourney
Ten leagues beyond the wide world’s end-
Methinks it is no journey.

While I doe sing “any foode, any feeding,
Feedinge, drinke or clothing,”
Come dame or maid, be not afraid,
Poor Tom will injure nothing.

Of thirty years have I
Twice twenty been enragéd
And of forty been three times fifteen
In durance soundly cagéd

On the lordly lofts of Bedlam
With stubble soft and dainty,
Brave bracelets strong, sweet whips, ding-dong,
With wholesome hunger plenty.

While I doe sing “any foode, any feeding,
Feedinge, drinke or clothing,”
Come dame or maid, be not afraid,
Poor Tom will injure nothing.

Unknown

O My Beloved!

MY body and my mind are grieved for the want of Thee;
O my Beloved! come to my house.
When people say I am Thy bride, I am ashamed; for I have not touched Thy heart with my heart.
Then what is this love of mine? I have no taste for food, I have no sleep; my heart is ever restless within doors and without.
As water is to the thirsty, so is the lover to the bride. Who is there that will carry my news to my Beloved?
Kabîr is restless: he is dying for sight of Him.

Kabir, Songs of Kabir

Dance, My Heart!

DANCE, my heart! dance to-day with joy.
The strains of love fill the days and the nights with music, and the world is listening to its melodies:
Mad with joy, life and death dance to the rhythm of this music. The hills and the sea and the earth dance. The world of man dances in laughter and tears.
Why put on the robe of the monk, and live aloof from the world in lonely pride?
Behold! my heart dances in the delight of a hundred arts; and the Creator is well pleased.

Kabir, Songs of Kabir

I’ll Go On…

Extinguish my eyes, I’ll go on seeing you.
Seal my ears, I’ll go on hearing you.
And without feet I can make my way to you,
without a mouth I can swear your name.

Break off my arms, I’ll take hold of you
with my heart as with a hand.
Stop my heart, and my brain will start to beat.
And if you consume my brain with fire,
I’ll feel you burn in every drop of my blood.

Rilke

The Night

You, darkness, of whom I am born–

I love you more that the flame
that limits the world
to the circle it illuminates
and excludes all the rest.

But the dark embraces everything:
shapes and shadows, creatures and me,
people, nations–just as they are.

It let’s me imagine
a great presence stirring beside me.

I believe in the night.

Rilke

Invocation

Oh you who appeared to me in this desert of a world,
Inhabitant of the sky, passenger in these parts!
O you who made this dark night shine
A ray of love in my eyes.

To my astonished eyes, show yourself all whole,
Tell me your name, your country, your destiny.
Were you cradled here on earth?
Or are you but a divine breath?

Will you see the eternal light again tomorrow?
Or in this place of exile, of mourning, of misery,
Must you still follow your troublesome path?
Ah! Whatever be your name, your destiny, your land,
Daughter of the earth, or of divine dwelling,
Ah! Let me, all my life,
Offer you my devotion or my love.

If you must, like us, complete your course,
Be my support, my guide, and suffer that in all places,
I kiss the dust of your worshipped feet,
But if you take your flight, and if, far from our eyes,
Sister of the angels, soon you will rise back up to them.
Having loved me some time upon the earth,
Remember me in heaven.

Alphonse De Lamartine

More Strong Than Time

Since I have set my lips to your full cup, my sweet,
Since I my pallid face between your hands have laid,
Since I have known your soul, and all the bloom of it,
And all the perfume rare, now buried in the shade;

Since it was given to me to hear one happy while,
The words wherein your heart spoke all its mysteries,
Since I have seen you weep, and since I have seen you smile,
Your lips upon my lips, and your eyes upon my eyes;

Since I have known above my forehead glance and gleam,
A ray, a single ray, of your star, veiled always,
Since I have felt the fall, upon my lifetime’s stream,
Of one rose petal plucked from the roses of your days;

I now am bold to say to the swift changing hours,
Pass, pass upon your way, for I grow never old,
Fleet to the dark abysm with all your fading flowers,
One rose that none may pluck, within my heart I hold.

Your flying wings may smite, but they can never spill
The cup fulfilled of love, from which my lips are wet;
My heart has far more fire than you have frost to chill,
My soul more love than you can make my soul forget.

Victor Hugo