The wind rests its cheek upon the ground and feels the cool damp And lifts its head with twigs and small dead blades of grass Pressed into it as you might at the beach rise up and brush away The sand. The day is cool and says, “I’m just staying overnight.” The world is filled with music, and in between the music, silence And varying the silence all sorts of sounds, natural and man made: There goes a plane, some cars, geese that honk and, not here, but Not so far away, a scream so rending that to hear it is to be
“Since that day till now our life is one unbroken paradise. We live a true brotherly life. Every evening after supper we take a seat under the mighty oak and sing our songs.”Extract from a letter of a Russian refugee in Texas. Twilight is here, soft breezes bow the grass, Day's sounds of various toil break slowly off.
I was born in the century of the death of the rose when the motor had already driven out the angels. Quito watched as the last stagecoach rolled away, and at its passing the trees ran past in perfect order, and also the hedges and houses of new parishes, at the threshold of the countryside where cows were slowly chewing silence as wind spurred on its swift horses.
When he had suckled there, he began to grow: first, he was an infant in her arms, but soon, drinking and drinking at the sweet milk she could not keep from filling her, from pouring into his ravenous mouth, and filling again, miraculous pitcher, mercy feeding its own extinction . . . soon he was huge, towering above her, the landscape,
(As Distinguished by an Italian Person of Quality) Had I but plenty of money, money enough and to spare, The house for me, no doubt, were a house in the city-square;
Many a green isle needs must be In the deep wide sea of Misery, Or the mariner, worn and wan, Never thus could voyage on Day and night, and night and day, Drifting on his dreary way, With the solid darkness black Closing round his vessel's track; Whilst above, the sunless sky, Big with clouds, hangs heavily, And behind, the tempest fleet Hurries on with lightning feet, Riving sail, and cord, and plank, Till the ship has almost drank Death from the o'er-brimming deep;
I go separately The sweet knees of oxen have pressed a path for me ghosts with ingots have burned their bare hands it is the dungaree darkness with China stitched where the westerly winds and the traveler’s checks the evensong of salesmen the glistening paraphernalia of twin suitcases
To the Memory of the Household It Describes This Poem is Dedicated by the Author
“As the Spirits of Darkness be stronger in the dark, so Good Spirits, which be Angels of Light, are augmented not only by the Divine light of the Sun, but also by our common Wood Fire: and as the Celestial Fire drives away dark spirits, so also this our Fire of Wood doth the same.” —Cor. Agrippa, Occult Philosophy, Book I.ch. v.
“Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, Arrives the snow, and, driving o’er the fields, Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven, And veils the farm-house at the garden’s end. The sled and traveller stopped, the courier’s feet Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed In a tumultuous privacy of Storm.” EMERSON, The Snow Storm. The sun that brief December day Rose cheerless over hills of gray, And, darkly circled, gave at noon A sadder light than waning moon.
The wind may blow the snow about, For all I care, says Jack, And I don’t mind how cold it grows, For then the ice won’t crack. Old folks may shiver all day long, But I shall never freeze; What cares a jolly boy like me For winter days like these?
When first the apprizing eye and tongue that muttered (Banished from Eden’s air? Or pride of apes?) Sat clinking flint on flint, as they shattered Snatched with a grin what fell in craftier shapes, The law was move or die. Lively from tigers; Dainty on deer. As weather called the tune. Oxen, we learned, would bear us. So would rivers. And that was science. On the whole a boon.
the spiritual, Platonic old England … S. T. COLERIDGE, Anima Poetae
‘Your situation’, said Coningsby, looking up the green and silent valley, ‘is absolutely poetic.’ ‘I try sometimes to fancy’, said Mr Millbank, with a rather fierce smile, ‘that I am in the New World.’ BENJAMIN DISRAELI, Coningsby
Thus they in lowliest plight repentant stood Praying, for from the Mercie-seat above Prevenient Grace descending had remov'd The stonie from thir hearts, & made new flesh Regenerate grow instead, that sighs now breath'd Unutterable, which the Spirit of prayer Inspir'd, and wing'd for Heav'n with speedier flight Then loudest Oratorie: yet thir port
The Year’s twelve daughters had in turn gone by, Of measured pace tho’ varying mien all twelve, Some froward, some sedater, some adorn’d For festival, some reckless of attire. The snow had left the mountain-top; fresh flowers Had withered in the meadow; fig and prune Hung wrinkling; the last apple glow’d amid Its freckled leaves; and weary oxen blinkt Between the trodden corn and twisted vine, Under whose bunches stood the empty crate, To creak ere long beneath them carried home. This was the season when twelve months before, O gentle Hamadryad, true to love! Thy mansion, thy dim mansion in the wood Was blasted and laid desolate: but none
Where do you want ghosts to reside? In our wakeful hours there are flowers which produce nightmares We burned continents of silence the future of nations the breathing of the fighters got thicker became like oxen’s
there is in that breath sparkles of scorched flesh and the fainting of stars
we crucify Gilgamesh on a TANK Viking II reaches Mars Imam Ali dances over a nuclear blast cursed are the clouds which repel water
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