19th Century Post

How happy is the little Stone

How happy is the little Stone

That rambles in the Road alone,

And doesn't care about Careers

And Exigencies never fears --

Whose Coat of elemental Brown

A passing Universe put on,

And independent as the Sun

Associates or glows alone,

Fulfilling absolute Decree

In casual simplicity --

                                                                    ~Emily Dickinson

I'm Nobody! Who are you?

I'm Nobody! Who are you?

Are you -- Nobody -- Too?

Then there's a pair of us!

Don't tell! they'd advertise -- you know!

How dreary -- to be -- Somebody!

How public -- like a Frog --

To tell one's name -- the livelong June --

To an admiring Bog!

                                                            ~Emily Dickinson

Madness 

(For Sara Teasdale)

The lonely farm, the crowded street,

The palace and the slum,

Give welcome to my silent feet

As, bearing gifts, I come.

Last night a beggar crouched alone,

A ragged helpless thing;

I set him on a moonbeam throne --

Today he is a king.

Last night a king in orb and crown

Held court with splendid cheer;

Today he tears his purple gown

And moans and shrieks in fear.

Not iron bars, nor flashing spears,

Not land, nor sky, nor sea,

Nor love's artillery of tears

Can keep mine own from me.

Serene, unchanging, ever fair,

I smile with secret mirth

And in a net of mine own hair

I swing the captive earth. 

                                                                                           ~Joyce Kilmer

THE TEMPTATION

THE Demon, in my chamber high,

This morning came to visit me,

And, thinking he would find some fault,

He whispered: "I would know of thee

Among the many lovely things

That make the magic of her face,

Among the beauties, black and rose,

That make her body's charm and grace,

Which is most fair?" Thou didst reply

To the Abhorred, O soul of mine:

"No single beauty is the best

When she is all one flower divine.

When all things charm me I ignore

Which one alone brings most delight;

She shines before me like the dawn,

And she consoles me like the night.

The harmony is far too great,

That governs all her body fair,

For impotence to analyse

And say which note is sweetest there.

O mystic metamorphosis!

My senses into one sense flow--

Her voice makes perfume when she speaks,

Her breath is music faint and low!"

                                                              ~Charles Baudelaire

Ballad of Broken Flutes

In dreams I crossed a barren land,

A land of ruin, far away;

Around me hung on every hand

A deathful stillness of decay;

And silent, as in bleak dismay

That song should thus forsaken be,

On that forgotten ground there lay

The broken flutes of Arcady.

The forest that was all so grand

When pipes and tabors had their sway

Stood leafless now, a ghostly band

Of skeletons in cold array.

A lonely surge of ancient spray

Told of an unforgetful sea,

But iron blows had hushed for aye

The broken flutes of Arcady.

No more by summer breezes fanned,

The place was desolate and gray;

But still my dream was to command

New life into that shrunken clay.

I tried it. Yes, you scan to-day,

With uncommiserating glee,

The songs of one who strove to play

The broken flutes of Arcady.

ENVOY

So, Rock, I join the common fray,

To fight where Mammon may decree;

And leave, to crumble as they may,

The broken flutes of Arcady.

                                                      ~Edwin Arlington Robinson

Imagination

There is a dish to hold the sea,

A brazier to contain the sun,

A compass for the galaxy,

A voice to wake the dead and done!

That minister of ministers,

Imagination, gathers up

The undiscovered Universe,

Like jewels in a jasper cup.

Its flame can mingle north and south;

Its accent with the thunder strive;

The ruddy sentence of its mouth

Can make the ancient dead alive.

The mart of power, the fount of will,

The form and mould of every star,

The source and bound of good and ill,

The key of all the things that are,

Imagination, new and strange

In every age, can turn the year;

Can shift the poles and lightly change

The mood of men, the world's career.

                                                                               ~John Davidson

Valentine

Too high, too high to pluck

My heart shall swing.

A fruit no bee shall suck,

No wasp shall sting.

If on some night of cold

It falls to ground

In apple-leaves of gold

I'll wrap it round.

And I shall seal it up

With spice and salt,

In a carven silver cup,

In a deep vault.

Before my eyes are blind

And my lips mute,

I must eat core and rind

Of that same fruit.

Before my heart is dust

By the end of all,

Eat it I must, I must

Were it bitter gall.

But I shall keep it sweet

By some strange art;

Wild honey I shall eat

When I eat my heart.

O honey cool and chaste

As clover's breath!

Sweet Heaven I shall taste

Before my death.

                                                         ~Elinor Wylie

Life's Scars

They say the world is round, and yet

I often think it square,

So many little hurts we get

From corners here and there.

But one great truth in life I've found,

While journeying to the West-

The only folks who really wound

Are those we love the best.

The man you thoroughly despise

Can rouse your wrath, 'tis true;

Annoyance in your heart will rise

At things mere strangers do;

But those are only passing ills;

This rule all lives will prove;

The rankling wound which aches and thrills

Is dealt by hands we love.

The choicest garb, the sweetest grace,

Are oft to strangers shown;

The careless mien, the frowning face,

Are given to our own.

We flatter those we scarcely know,

We please the fleeting guest,

And deal full many a thoughtless blow

To those who love us best.

Love does not grow on every tree,

Nor true hearts yearly bloom.

Alas for those who only see

This cut across a tomb!

But, soon or late, the fact grows plain

To all through sorrow's test:

The only folks who give us pain

Are those we love the best.

                                                            ~Ella Wheeler Wilcox

THE SADNESS OF THE MOON

THE Moon more indolently dreams to-night

Than a fair woman on her couch at rest,

Caressing, with a hand distraught and light,

Before she sleeps, the contour of her breast.

Upon her silken avalanche of down,

Dying she breathes a long and swooning sigh;

And watches the white visions past her flown,

Which rise like blossoms to the azure sky.

And when, at times, wrapped in her languor deep,

Earthward she lets a furtive tear-drop flow,

Some pious poet, enemy of sleep,

Takes in his hollow hand the tear of snow

Whence gleams of iris and of opal start,

And hides it from the Sun, deep in his heart.

                                                    ~Charles Baudelaire

Candles

The days of our future stand in front of us

like a row of little lit candles --

golden, warm, and lively little candles.

The days past remain behind us,

a mournful line of extinguished candles;

the ones nearest are still smoking,

cold candles, melted, and bent.

I do not want to look at them; their form saddens me,

and it saddens me to recall their first light.

I look ahead at my lit candles.

I do not want to turn back, lest I see and shudder

at how fast the dark line lengthens,

at how fast the extinguished candles multiply.

                                                                          ~Constantine P. Cavafy