I Wish Upon a Starless Sky (Daily Poems Book 5)
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She was so small. I held her and she made sweet noises. The pioneers sang songs and the wagons rocked the babies to sleep, but it was a desperate life with desperation all around. They navigated by the stars while the country changed around them. There was danger just beyond the visible perimeter. You called to tell me the sky was pink. Are you seeing this, you said. I was out in the world and felt like crying. I was overwhelmed by the traffic. I wanted you to look at the moon, and you said, I have a window.
I can see it. There I was in the forest, shouting into the ground. Human equality is overwhelmingly true. Tell me about your life. There was a face. We learned we were stardust, and I relayed that message. Someone singing to themselves. If we ran it back again, it would turn out different. Seth Landman was born in Boston. It's disorienting and emotional. In their shots, people are alone with you.
Life feels like that sometimes. You are alone, but something might be watching. I love the way poetry—because its images are not beholden to the realities of what can be seen—can make a person visible even framed by the entire history of the universe. When I wrote this poem, I was falling apart. I felt lonely wherever I went and whatever I did. My life felt enormous to me, but also pathetic and small. I was rehashing a conversation, blaming and apologizing, trying to get back something I lost.
I was trying out different angles, different ways of looking at my life. I was trying to find out how I was. I know three things. A man is four winds and three fires. And the fires are seeing, hearing, touching, dreaming, thinking. I remember three things. The wind with a voice. And me talking to no one. In he received the Writer's Award from the Mrs. He is also featured in Katja Esson's documentary, Poetry of Resilience. In my yard, you are not, nor in my crab apple tree, which I also claim, and so too the raccoons nesting in the black oak across from where last winter, the old picket fence was crushed by that enormous stag who stood off-center for as long as he liked, pawing the snow for as long as he liked, until the snow turned into mud and the mud into daffodils, which he ate until love turned into water and the water into wine and the wine — how I miss you there, among the lepers, earning your sainthood daily, fevered and fervent.
See the papaya tree, its heavy fruit hinting at the visible? Pluck this world from our vision of love. Pour out the vinegar. He is currently offering seminars and workshops in poetry and publishing , as well as in-depth manuscript reviews. Follow his posts on his website: Let me begin again as a speck of dust caught in the night winds sweeping out to sea. Let me begin this time knowing the world is salt water and dark clouds, the world is grinding and sighing all night, and dawn comes slowly and changes nothing. Let me go back to land after a lifetime of going nowhere.
This time lodged in the feathers of some scavenging gull white above the black ship that docks and broods upon the oily waters of your harbor. The sailors have stumbled off toward the bars of the bright houses. The captain closes his log and falls asleep. Tonight I shall enter my life after being at sea for ages, quietly, in a hospital named for an automobile. The one child of millions of children who has flown alone by the stars above the black wastes of moonless waters that stretched forever, who has turned golden in the full sun of a new day.
A tiny wise child who this time will love his life because it is like no other. Most recently, he was the recipient of the Wallace Stevens Award for proven mastery in the art of poetry by the Academy of American Poets. In he joined the English department at California State University in Fresno , where he taught until his retirement in Let me wear your jacket for the longest time after I cut my bangs too short and pin a flower in your pocket.
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I tell you if I could do anything I would grow the longest arms to scratch the moon because the moon is my favorite mosquito bite. You just stand and chew stand and chew and I suddenly wish I had a sleigh of geese to nip my ankles pink and make the ground smell of half bitten apples. As they huddle together like eggs in a carton, lazy and watching you tell me about the people we will grow into. Your breath on my neck like a music raising my arms into the air like two skinny kites searching for a gallop of wind.
Fences come and fences go, it is the way with fences. In the middle of nowhere, an idea rises between us, fixed and sturdy. Rains come, fence posts settle, mud dries. No thought of selling out, no thought of dust to dust.
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Cedar planks reverberate with cries of Longhorn cows. And we are sitting on the fence, both sides. From High Lonesome , a book of poems published by Hedgerow Books She is the author of two books of poems: Patricia was born and raised in Texas and has lived for many years on a little mountain in Westhampton, MA. She leads creative writing workshops and retreats in western Massachusetts, throughout the US and internationally, including this year in New Zealand and Puerto Rico. White cyclamens bruise their imaginations. Mountains blacken above the water.
Time for spring cleaning. They fashion the word moon to describe their hallucinatory loneliness.
They loosen the belts on their woolen bathrobes. Now they have to live in their bodies. A small crucifix opens to become a knife. They see that the only reason they survived the first snake was their youth. They consider how many times they have been loved. Eve remarks, waiters are so much nicer than people. Time falls upon them like an ox.
What need is there for me to tell you about the dry anguish in the evenings. Sandra Lim is the author of The Wilderness W. She teaches literature and writing at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. One clump at a time the dog fur abandons the dog. Next go the toenails, tail-tip, abundantly tickled. Next go her sepia teeth and the five dry kibbles that crust her dish, next the trash bag that carries them out,.
Her work appears in Best American Poetry She is the winner in poetry of The Missouri Review Prize. She is widely published. To the America I know from songs— the America of plains amassed with corn and wheat. Of amazing purple mountains majestic, a mirror of each passing cloud. The America of songs from my childhood. Seven houses amidst a former apple orchard—our house at the end and then, a field, the woods, Mill River. No end of trees to climb. Pine needles amassed upon the forest floor. We swept them into squares to form the rooms of the houses of our dreams.
Summer evenings when our dad got home, he pitched, we learned to hit, we tried to catch ground balls, fly balls, all those amazing fireflies.
Coldly, bleakly, dreamily Evening died on Elbe's shore; Winds were in the cloudy sky, Sighing, mourning ever more. The train brought the world to town at least for five minutes when the Omaha World Herald plopped on to the platform, headline up. The Reaper in Me. So like him to face his desk to the wall. We made the Evening News even in Lincoln. She has had numerous residencies, including recent ones at the Cill Rialaig Project in Co. Nor shape—nor shade—the mountain flocks Quietly fed in grassy dells; Nor sound, except the distant rocks Echoing to their bells.
We looked for them. We ran with them. Andy, the big kid in the neighborhood, taught us to stone them. And so by chance. Like those three turtles that lumbered into our yard the day our dad had white paint on a brush. I never saw them again, though I knew they were out there, crawling,. A match that still enflames, a mecca a masterpiece, a mouthpiece, a must-read.
After careers as a high school English teacher and an administrator in high tech and academic settings, Linehan now writes full-time and occasionally leads poetry writing workshops. She has had numerous residencies, including recent ones at the Cill Rialaig Project in Co. She lives in Winchester, MA. Diane Lockward is the author of four poetry books, most recently The Uneaten Carrots of Atonement She is the editor and publisher of Terrapin Books.
From to he hosted and produced Poems to a Listener, a nationally distributed radio series of readings and conversation with poets. He lives in Northampton, Massachusetts. The Geese that Fly South in Your Dreams Each night you sleep in your freshly washed undershirt whose sleeves have torn from your shoulder blades. I wondered how you did it—to rip each new shirt as if birds attacked you in your sleep. Then I saw how your restless muscles grew, how they writhed with a muted fury until the shirt stretched tight, it stretched to bursting— Perhaps it was merely a trick of the eye: I know how the moon transfigures with its rush of white feathers that can catch and channel the light down your back like water.
Yet now as I watch you struggle, your shoulder blades twitching, trying to plow up the air, I can't help but think of my father. He said the shoulder blades were where the wings began, that muscles pushed them out of your back like cotton out of a plowed field.
Each year he felt my small nubs of bone waiting for the first pin-feather that never came. When I wake, the shade clacks against the window, curtains buffet the room. Here , says the wind, come. I step, and freeze— The distant light of an airplane moves, impossibly high.
Yet you soar under the moon's influence over rooftops, mountains, and cold streams, your wings glittering with frost. She previously worked in publishing and taught writing courses at UNH. She lives in Boston with six plants and one wicked awesome husband. More of her writing can be found at laurinbeckermacios. Jacquelyn Malone has been a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship grant in poetry. Two of her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. One was featured on the website Poetry Daily. I think of the way doctors unpack a body.
Primary colors and cold metal joined just right. This is not the scar I show— my love for surgery porn at 1am, orthopedic serpents that re-break bones and muscle memory. Heaven is the sound of tiny mallets, metacarpals piling on top of each other. Tiny galaxies formed in their mouths a gathering of tongues, souls, and rubble. Dirt that said I eat you to live. I question those souls and scavengers. I want to be the dark animal that roots the ground for peaches, bones, and stars. Originally appeared in Passages North.
Recently someone said that art is the place where we reflect on who we are, where we have failed or triumphed, who we want to become, followed by action. I think poetry embodies that journey and more. I discovered poetry in high school but it took years to join craft, imagination, and a sense of self.
But beneath all was the love of language. Like a base melody, words rub against one another, hem an image in, or open an emotion. The desire to explore those connections through language keeps me writing and hopefully someone else reading. I just discovered the word snaggletooth and think everyone needs to put that in a poem. She can be found at http: I woke to more rain, and felt in the dark for how wet the sill was, then rolled back to my radio, and a midnight preacher in my earphone teaching about sin. I learned that punishment would come like lightning that surprises an innocent shore.
Thunder would follow me all my days, stern reminder and sharp rebuke. The long, sleek, and pointed call that rose, as if in response, out of the estuary of night and storm, said it knew well what the given world gave, and wanted more. From The Looking House. Reprinted by permission of the author. Fred Marchant is editor of the Another World Instead: His other collections include: He also teaches in the Colrain Poetry Manuscript Conferences.
Red bird in the pine, a small thing, considering. Over the low hill whiff of Owl Diner bacon— they sell oatmeal, too. The full empty pool— acres of after-effects in the open field. Who has not looked up and seen the long white jet trails that fade in seconds?
Glimpse of half-court one-on-none through the diamond fence. Paul Marion is the author of several collections of poetry, including What is the City? He lives in Lowell and works at UMass Lowell. How quickly they shut it down— three men, a garbage truck, cars backed up, leaves blowing wild. A gust sends stink: The men haul bags, heave bales, bassinette, oven door.
They laugh and shrug, step up, jump down while we turn to look behind like befuddled owls, no way out. A driver leans out the window, cusses. The truck labors down the road past rows of triple-deckers, cracked retaining walls. Someone pounds the horn, and the men slow down, smile as they swing the barrels like dance partners. I wanted to write an elegy for the trees, that old comforting wood. A few plots over, a mower buzzes in the heat like a bee working the flowers for its queen.
How in her life she had to flee the Old Testament wrath of her father and leave the garden hive of her innocence. I try to whisper a few words. I was adopted at an early age but later, as a teen, came to live with my birth mother before she committed suicide two years later. The sun, slug-gummed, slid down our careful pre-evening irises which clutched at everything. The glints of its slick trail oil slip and combine, mercury, into stars.
Rat eyes white-violet from a thicket. They let off more light the farther we move into night. We grind our calluses until they join, knit an over-skin. The time we have after work. We weed the wild from their hiding. We pry and pluck. We go fishing every night attaching to our hooks the scaly crickets we find.
It is not all wrong. And we are always. Day done the sun inhales and collects its light into a slow ball,. Her poems and essays are widely published and anthologized.
We laugh, now, about the time we were almost murdered on Christmas Eve, the night the sky barely wept any snow as the T. The fuzzy colors illuminated his features, but were absent in deep forever running wrinkles hoarded on his untanned skin. And you, my mother, leapt from the tattered goodwill couch in a speed that defined science; your torso a mountain and pool-noodle arms flailing at the sight of a sharp dagger nestled tightly in his fist, eyes as vacant as a hole.
All three of us careened to that place-- face against face against face, spit sputtered in all directions like acid rain, heat radiating from skin as lips receded to show animal like teeth. And then, as we pulled on the black road gifts tumbling against my shaken body, cold sores tingling on my lips, I knew the measurement of a rumor, untamed and raw and that what they say about parents is true:. They brought you into this world. They can certainly take you out. Sara McClory is inspired by life, the good, the bad, the abandon places overtaken by nature, our differences, or similarities. She believes everything can bring inspiration if one is open to it.
I stopped at a red light on Mass. Like, cranked her wheel, rammed right into my side. I drove a Chevy pickup truck. It being Boston, I got out of the car yelling, swearing at this woman, a little woman, whose first language was not English. What the fuck is going on?
Sun in the Night: The Poems of Art Poems & Assemblage // Sample Chapter - Ashlee Craft's World
So we swore at each other with perfect posture, unnaturally angled chins. I threw my arms around, sudden jerking motions with my whole arms, the backs of my hands toward where she had hit my truck. She hit the tire; no damage done. Her car was fine, too. We saw this while we were yelling, and then we were stuck. The next line in our little drama should have been Look at this fucking dent! But there was no fucking dent.
There was nothing else for us to do. She nodded, and started to cry, so I put my arms around her and I held her, middle of the street, Mass. Shovel after shovel, digging and digging, and the hole getting deeper and him having to throw the sand up because the hole was that deep. He digs and digs deeper into the shadow of his hole. Friends splash in the surf, stretch in the sun. My friend divorced, moved south to Asheville away from his ex, his kids, his friends, away from me — to dig for his roots, he said. He sat on a bar stool and read with a glass of good wine.
Listened to music with a glass of good wine. Sometimes he just sat with his wine. A good bar customer, the stool became his. No one else sat there. Then no one sat near it. The man in the sand cries out because the soft, shoveled sand collapses, fills to his shoulders and continues to sift down on him.
Sun in the Night: The Poems of Art Poems & Assemblage // Sample Chapter
Explore the Home Gift Guide. Amazon Music Stream millions of songs. Amazon Advertising Find, attract, and engage customers. Amazon Drive Cloud storage from Amazon. Alexa Actionable Analytics for the Web. AmazonGlobal Ship Orders Internationally. Amazon Inspire Digital Educational Resources. Amazon Rapids Fun stories for kids on the go. The inspiring music's thrilling sound, The glory of the festal day, The glittering splendour rising round, Have passed like all earth's joys away.
Forsaken by that lady fair, She glides unheeding through them all; Covering her brow to hide the tear That still, though checked, trembles to fall. She hurries through the outer hall, And up the stairs through galleries dim, That murmur to the breezes' call The night-wind's lonely vesper hymn. High waving heather 'neath stormy blasts bending, Midnight and moonlight and bright shining stars; Darkness and glory rejoicingly blending, Each rising to heaven and heaven descending; Man's spirit away from the drear dungeon sending, Bursting the fetters and breaking the bars.
All down the mountain-sides wild forests lending The mighty voice to the life-giving wind; Rivers their banks in the jubilee bending, Fast through the valleys a reckless course wending, Wilder and deeper their waters extending, Leaving a desolate desert behind. Shining and lowering, and swelling and dying, Changing for ever from midnight to noon; Roaring like thunder, like soft music sighing, Shadows on shadows advancing and flying; Lightning-bright flashes the deep gloom defying, Coming as swiftly and fading as soon.
Woods, you need not frown on me; Spectral trees, that so dolefully Shake your heads in the dreary sky, You need not mock so bitterly. The night of storms has past; The sunshine bright and clear Gives glory to the verdant waste, And warms the breezy air. And I would leave my bed, Its cheering smile to see, To chase the visions from my head, Whose forms have toubled me.
In all the hours of gloom My soul was rapt away; I stood by a marble tomb Where royal corpses lay. It was just the time of eve, When parted ghosts might come, Above their prisoned dust to grieve And wail their woeful doom. And truly at my side I saw a shadowy thing, Most dim, and yet its presence there Curdled my blood with ghastly fear And ghastlier wondering. My breath I could not draw, The air seemed uncanny; But still my eyes with maddening gaze Were fixed upon its fearful face, And its were fixed on me.
I fell down on the stone, But could [not] turn away; My words died a voiceless moan When I began to pray. And still it bent above, Its features full in view; It seemed close by and yet more far Than this world from the farthest star That tracks the boundless blue. Indeed 'twas not the space Of earth or time between, But the sea of deep eternity, The gulf o'er which mortality Has never, never been.
Oh, bring not back again The horror of that hour! When its lips opened and a sound Awoke the stillness reigning round, Faint as a dream, but the earth shrank, And heaven's lights shivered 'neath its power. Woe for the day! Regina's pride, Regina's hope is in the grave; And who shall rule my land beside, And who shall save?
June 10, , E. I saw thee, child, one summer day Suddenly leave thy cheerful play, And in the green grass lowly lying I listened to thy mournful sighing. I knew the wish that waked that wail, I knew the source whence sprung those tears; You longed for fate to raise the veil That darkened over coming years. The anxious prayer was heard, and power Was given me in that silent hour To open to an infant's eye The portals of futurity.
But, child of dust, the fragrant flowers, The bright blue flowers and velvet sod, Were strange conductors to the bowers Thy daring footsteps must have trod. I watched my time, and summer passed, And autumn waning fleeted by, And doleful winter nights at last In cloudy morning clothed the sky.
And now it's come. This evening fell Not stormily, but stilly drear; A sound sweeps o'er thee like a knell To banish joy and welcome care. A fluttering blast that shakes the leaves And whistles round the gloomy wall, And lingering long, and thinking grieves, For 'tis the spectre's call. Those tiny hands in vain essay To brush the shadowy fiend away; There is a horror on his brow, An anguish in his bosom now;.
A fearful anguish in his eyes, Fixed strainedly on the vacant air; Hoarsely bursts in long-drawn sighs, His panting breath enchained by fear. But it is doomed, and Morning's light Must image forth the scowl of night, And childhood's flower must waste its bloom Beneath the shadow of the tomb. The battle had passed from the height, And still did evening fall; While heaven with its restful night Gloriously canopied all. The dead around were sleeping On heath and granite grey, And the dying their last watch were keeping In the closing of the day.
How golden bright from earth and heaven The summer day declines! How gloriously o'er land and sea The parting sunbeam shines! There is a voice in the wind that waves Those bright rejoicing trees. Not a vapour had stained the breezeless blue, Not a cloud had dimmed the sun, From the time of morning's earliest dew Till the summer day was done. And all as pure and all as bright The sun of evening died, And purer still its parting light Shone on Lake Elnor's tide. Waveless and calm lies that silent deep In its wilderness of moors, Solemn and soft the moonbeams sleep Upon its heathy shores.
The sun has set, and the long grass now Waves dreamily in the evening wind; And the wild bird has flown from that old grey stone, In some warm nook a couch to find. In all the lonely landscape round I see no light and hear no sound, Except the wind that far away Comes sighing o'er the healthy sea. Lady, in thy palace hall, Once perchance thy face was seen; Can no memory now recall Thought again to what has been?
Alone I sat; the summer day Had died in smiling light away; I saw it die, I watched it fade From the misty hill and breezeless glade. And thoughts in my soul were rushing, And my heart bowed beneath their power; And tears within my eyes were gushing Because I could not speak the feeling, The solemn joy around me stealing, In that divine, untroubled hour. I asked myself, O why has Heaven Denied the precious gift to me, The glorious gift to many given, To speak their thoughts in poetry? Dreams have encircled me, I said, From careless childhood's sunny time; Visions by ardent fancy fed Since life was in its morning prime.
But now, when I had hoped to sing, My fingers strike a tuneless string; And still the burden of the strain— I strive no more, 'tis all in vain. I'll come when thou art saddest, Bring light to the darkened room, When the rude day's mirth has vanished, And the smile of joy is banished From evening's chilly gloom. I'll come when the heart's worst feeling Has entire, unbiassed sway, And my influence o'er thee stealing, Grief deepening, joy congealing, Shall bear thy soul away. Dost thou not feel upon thy soul A flood of strange sensations roll, Forerunners of a sterner power, Heralds of me?
I would have touched the heavenly key That spoke alike of bliss and thee; I would have woke the evening song, But its words died upon my tongue. But then I knew that he stood free, Would never speak of joy again, And then I felt. Now trust a heart that trusts in you, And firmly say the word adieu; Be sure, wherever I may roam, My heart is with your heart at home;. Unless there be no truth on earth, And vows most true are nothing worth, And mortal man have no control Over his own unhappy soul;.
Unless I change in every thought, And memory will restore me nought, And all I have of virtue die Beneath far Gondal's foreign sky. The mountain peasant loves the heath Better than richest plains beneath; He would not give one moorland wild For all the fields that ever smiled. And whiter brows than yours may be, And rosier cheeks my eyes may see, And lightning looks from orbs divine About my pathway burn and shine.
But that pure light, changeless and strong, Cherished and watched and nursed so long; That love that first its glory gave, Shall be my pole-star to the grave. Strong I stand, though I have borne Anger, hate, and bitter scorn; Strong I stand, and laugh to see How mankind have fought with me. Shade of history, I condemn All the puny ways of men; Free my heart, my spirit free, Beckon, and I'll follow thee.
False and foolish mortal know, If you scorn the world's disdain, Your mean soul is far below Other worms, however vain. Thing of Dust, with boundless pride, Dare you ask me for a guide? With the humble I will be; Haughty men are naught to me. I am not regretting To leave this wretched world below, If there be nothing but forgetting In that dark land to which I go. Yet though 'tis wretched now to languish, Deceived and tired and hopeless here, No heart can quite repress the anguish Of leaving things that once were dear. Twice twelve short years and all is over, And day and night to rise no more, And never more to be a rover Along the fields, the woods, the shore.
I Wish Upon a Starless Sky: Daily Poems from January [Kenneth A O' Shaughnessy] on www.farmersmarketmusic.com *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. January was a. Starless Sky [Paige Agnew] on www.farmersmarketmusic.com *FREE* shipping She has enjoyed being her school newspaper editor and writing the theme poem for her graduation. Her compassion out of 5 stars She does not look for comfort from anyone around her, because she does not want to be pitied. .. on Everyday Items.
And never more at early dawning To watch the stars of midnight wane, To breathe the breath of summer morning, And see its sunshine ne'er again. I hear the abbey bells are ringing; Methinks their chime sounds faint and drear, Or else the wind is adverse winging, And wafts its music from my ear. The wind the winter night is speaking Of thoughts and things that should not stay: Mother, come near, my heart is breaking; I cannot bear to go away.
And I must go whence no returning To soothe your grief or calm your care; Nay, do not weep; that bitter mourning Tortures my soul with wild despair. No; tell me that when I am lying In the old church beneath the stone, You'll dry your tears and check your sighing, And soon forget the spirit gone. You've asked me long to tell what sorrow Has blanched my cheek and quenched my eye; And we shall never cry to-morrow, So I'll confess before I die.
Ten years ago in last September Fernando left his home and you, And still I think you must remember The anguish of that last adieu. And well you know how wildly pining I longed to see his face again, Through all the Autumn drear deceiving Its stormy nights and days of rain. Down on the skirts of Areon's Forest There lies a lone and lovely glade, And there the hearts together nourished, Their first, their fatal parting made. The afternoon in softened glory Bathed each green swell and waving tree, And the broad park spread before me Stretched towards the boundless sea.
And there I stood when he had left me, With ashy cheek and tearless eye, Watching the ship whose sail bereft me Of life and hope, and love and joy. Yet smiling bright in recollection One blissful hour returns to me; The letter told of firm affection, Of safe deliverance from the sea. But not another; fearing, hoping, Spring, winter, harvest glided o'er; And time at length brought power for coping With thoughts I could not once endure. And I would seek in summer evening The place that saw our last farewell, And there a chain of visions weaving, I'd linger till the curfew bell.
This poem in the original manuscript is entitled 'Song by Julius Angora. O wander not so far away! Why do I hate that lone green dell? I forgot I was not the same. Tell me, whether is it winter? Say how long my sleep has been? Have the woods, I left so lovely, Lost their robes of tender green? Is the morning slow in coming? Is the night-time loth to go? Tell me, are the dreary mountains Drearier still with drifted snow? Watching in this lonely prison, Shut from joy and kindly air, Heaven, descending in a vision, Taught my soul to do and bear.
It was night, a night of winter; I lay on the dungeon floor, And all other sounds were silent, All, except the river's roar. Over Death, and Desolation, Fireless hearths, and lifeless homes; Over orphans' heartsick sorrows, Patriot fathers' bloody tombs;. Over friends, that my arms never Might embrace in love again; Memory pondered until madness Struck its poniard in my brain.
Deepest slumbers followed raving, Yet, methought, I brooded still; Still I saw my country bleeding, Dying for a tyrant's will. Not because my bliss was blasted, Burned within the avenging flame: Not because my scattered kindred Died in woe, or lived in shame. God doth know I would have given Every bosom dear to me, Could that sacrifice have purchased Tortured Gondal's liberty!
But that at Ambition's bidding, All her cherished hopes should wane, That her noblest sons should muster, Strive and fight and fall in vain;. Hut and castle, hall and cottage, Roofless, crumbling to the ground; Mighty heaven, a glad avenger Thy eternal Justice found! Yes, the arm that once would shudder, Even to grieve a wounded deer, I beheld it, unrelenting, Clothe in blood its sovereign's prayer.
I saw the city, Blazing in imperial shine; And among adoring thousands Stood a man of form divine. None need point the princely victim, Now he smiles with royal pride! Now his glance is bright as lightning, Now the knife is in his side! I saw how death could darken, Darken that triumphant eye! His red heart's blood drenched my dagger; My ear drank his dying sigh. O my God, I know it all! Know the fever-dream is over, Unavenged, the Avenger's fall!
It's over now; I've known it all; I'll hide it in my heart no more, But back again that night recall, And think the fearful vision o'er. The evening sun in cloudless shine Has passed from summer's heaven divine, And dark the shades of twilight grew, And stars were in the depth of blue, And in the heath or mountain far From human eye and human care, With thoughtful thought and tearful eye, I sadly watched that solemn sky. The wide cathedral Isles are lone, The vast crowds vanished every one; There can be naught beneath that dome But the cold tenants of the tomb.
O look again, for still on high The lamps are burning gloriously; And look again, for still beneath A thousand thousand live and breathe. All mute as death beyond the shrine That gleams in lustre so divine Were Gondal's monarchs bending low, After the hour of silent prayer, Take in heaven's sight their awful vow, And never-dying union swear.
King Julius lifts his impious eye From the dark marble to the sky, Blasts with that oath his perjured soul, And changeless is his cheek the while, Though burning thoughts that spurn control, Kindle a short and bitter smile, As face to face the King's men stand, His false hand clasped in Gerald's hand. This shall be thy lullaby, Rocking on the stormy sea; Though it roar in thunder wild, Sleep, stilly sleep, thou bright-haired child.
When our shuddering boat was crossing Eldern's lake so rudely tossing, Then 'twas first my nursling smiled; Sleep, softly sleep, my fair-browed child. Waves above thy cradle break, Foamy tears are on thy cheek, Yet the ocean's self grows mild When it bears my slumbering child. Lonely at her window sitting While the evening steals away, Fitful winds foreboding, flitting Through a sky of cloudy grey.
There are two trees in a lonely field, They breathe a spell to me; A dreary thought their dark boughs yield, All waving solemnly. Still as she spoke the ebon clouds Would part and sunlight shone between, But dreary, strange, and pale and cold. Away, away, resign thee now To scenes of gloom and thoughts of fear; I trace the figure on thy brow, Welcome at last, though once so drear. It will not shine again, Its sad course is done; I have seen the last ray wane Of the cold, bright sun. None but me beheld him dying, Parting with the parting day; Wind of evening, sadly sighing, Bore his soul from earth away.
Coldly, bleakly, dreamily Evening died on Elbe's shore; Winds were in the cloudy sky, Sighing, mourning ever more. Old hall of Elbe, ruined, lonely now, Home to which the voice of life shall never more return; Chambers roofless, desolate, where weeds and ivy grow; Windows through whose broken panes the night-winds coldly mourn— Home of the departed, the long-departed dead. Well narrower draw the circle round, And hush that music's solemn sound, And quench the lamp and stir the fire, To rouse its flickering radiance higher; Toss up the window's velvet veil, That we may hear the night-wind wail, For wild those gusts, and well their chimes Blend with a song of troubled times.
Roared thunder loud from that pitchy cloud? Where were ye all? I saw an eye that shone like thine, But dark curls waved around his brow, And his star-glance was strange to mine. And yet a dreamlike comfort came Into my heart and anxious eye, And trembling yet to hear his name, I bent to listen watchfully. This voice, though never heard before, Still spoke to me of years gone by; It seemed a vision to restore, That brought the hot tears to my eye. I paused on the threshold, I turned to the sky; I looked to the heaven and the dark mountains round; The full moon sailed bright through that ocean on high, And the wind murmured past with a wild eerie sound.
O come with me, thus ran the song, The moon is bright in Autumn's sky, And thou hast toiled and laboured long, With aching head and weary eye. Light up thy halls! Cold blows on my breast the Northwind's bitter sigh, And, oh! The desert moor is dark, there is tempest in the air; I have breathed my only wish in one last, one burning prayer; A prayer that would come forth altho' it lingered long; That set on fire my heart, but froze upon my tongue.
And now, it shall be done before the morning rise; I will not watch the sun arise in yonder skies. One task alone remains—thy pictured face to view, And then I go to prove if God, at least, be true! Do I not see thee now? Thy black resplendent hair; The glory-beaming brow; and smile how heavenly fair! Thine eyes are turned away—those eyes I would not see; Their dark, their deadly ray would more than madden me. Then, go, deceiver, go!
My hair is streaming wet; My heart's blood flows to buy the blessing—to forget! How gloomy grows the night! I feel it on my face— Where, wild blast! What do we, wanderer! I do not need thy breath to cool my death-cold brow; But go to that far land, where she is shining now; Tell her my latest wish, tell her my dreary doom; Say that my pangs are past, but hers are yet to come. Vain words, vain, frenzied thoughts! No ear can hear my call. Lost in the desert air my frantic curses fall.