THE OLD ARM-CHAIR

Poems » william collins » the old arm chair

it, I love it; and who shall dare

To chide me for loving that old Arm-chair?

I've treasured it long as a sainted prize;

I've bedewed it with tears, and embalmed it with sighs.

'Tis bound by a thousand bands to my heart;

Not a tie will break, not a link will start.

Would ye learn the spell? -- a mother sat there;

And a sacred thing is that old Arm-chair.

In Childhood's hour I lingered near

The hallowed seat with listening ear;

And gentle words that mother would give;

To fit me to die, and teach me to live.

She told me shame would never betide,

With truth for my creed and God for my guide;

She taught me to lisp my earliest prayer;

As I knelt beside that old Arm-chair.

I sat and watched her many a day,

When her eye grew dim, and her locks were grey:

And I almost worshipped her when she smiled,

And turned from her Bible, to bless her child.

Years rolled on; but the last one sped--

My idol was shattered; my earth-star fled:

I learnt how much the heart can bear,

When I saw her die in that old Arm-chair.

'Tis past, 'tis past, but I gaze on it now

With quivering breath and throbbing brow:

'Twas there she nursed me; 'twas there she died:

And Memory flows with lava tide.

Say it is folly, and deem me weak,

While the scalding drops start down my cheek;

But I love it, I love it; and cannot tear

My soul from a mother's old Arm-chair.

THE GIVEN HEART

Poems » william johnson cory » the given heart

I wonder what those lovers mean, who say

They have giv'n their hearts away.

Some good kind lover tell me how;

For mine is but a torment to me now.

If so it be one place both hearts contain,

For what do they complain?

What courtesy can Love do more,

Than to join hearts that parted were before?

Woe to her stubborn heart, if once mine come

Into the self-same room;

'Twill tear and blow up all within,

Like a granado shot into a magazine.

Then shall Love keep the ashes, and torn parts,

Of both our broken hearts:

Shall out of both one new one make,

From hers, th' allay; from mine, the metal take.

For of her heart he from the flames will find

But little left behind:

Mine only will remain entire;

No dross was there, to perish in the fire.

SEX WITHOUT LOVE

Poems » thomas hoccleve » sex without love

How do they do it, the ones who make love

without love? Beautiful as dancers,

Gliding over each other like ice-skaters

over the ice, fingers hookedinside each other's bodies,

facesred as steak, wine, wet as the

children at birth, whose mothers are going to

give them away. How do they come to the

come to the come to the God come to the

still waters, and not love

the one who came there with them, light

rising slowly as steam off their joined

skin? These are the true religious,

the purists, the pros,

the ones who will not

accept a false Messiah,

love thepriest instead of the God.

They do not

mistake the lover for their own pleasure,

they are like great runners:

they know they are alone

with the road surface, the cold, the wind,

the fit of their shoes, their over-all cardio

vascular health--just factors, like the partner

in the bed, and not the truth, which is the

single body alone in the universe

against its own best time.

LOVE BADE ME WELCOME

Poems » walt whitman » love bade me welcome

Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back,

Guilty of dust and sin.

But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack

From my first entrance in,

Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning

If I lack'd anything."A guest,"

I answer'd, "worthy to be here";

Love said, "You shall be he.

""I, the unkind, the ungrateful? ah my dear,

I cannot look on thee.

"Love took my hand and smiling did reply,

"Who made the eyes but I?

""Truth, Lord, but I have marr'd them;

let my shameGo where it doth deserve.

""And know you not," says Love,

"who bore the blame?""My dear, then

I will serve.""You must sit down," says

Love, "and taste my meat.

"So I did sit and eat.

by Lost in lovee

In The Back Of My Mind *10.13.08*



It's in the back of my mind.
I'm trying to push it away,
But I still love him.
It's hurting me everyday.

You make me so happy.
That's why I want to be able to let him go,
But in the back of my mind I know
This just isn't so.

It's wrong, I know
But sometimes when you hold me tight,
In the back of my mind I wish
It was him making everything alright.

Yes I know he hurt me
But love has made me blind.
In the back of my mind I wish
Time could just rewind.

To when me and him were together.
When he made me feel like you make me feel.
In the back of my mind I know
What me and you have will never be real.

I know I told you I'm over him
But lately I've been seeing it's not true,
and in the back of my mind I know
I just can't love you.

TO THE HILLS!
Poems » govinda krishna chettur » to the hills!
TO THE HILLS!

'Tis eight miles out, and eight miles in,

Just at the break of morn.

'Tis ice without and flame within,

To gain a kiss at dawn!

Far, where the Lilac

Hills ariseSoft from the misty plain,

A lone, enchanted hollow lies

Where I at last draw rein.

Midwinter grips this lonely land,

This stony, treeless waste,

Where East, due East, across the sand,

We fly in fevered haste.

Pull up! the East will soon be red,

The wild duck westward fly,

And make above my anxious head,

Triangles in the sky.

Like wind we go; we both are still

So young ; all thanks to

Fate!(It cuts like knives, this air so chill,)

Dear God! if I am late!

Behind us, wrapped in mist and sleep

The Ruined City lies,

(Although we race, we seem to creep!)

While lighter grow the skies.

Eight miles out only, eight miles in,

Good going all the way;

But more and more the clouds begin

To redden into day.

A

nd every snow-tipped peak grows pink

An iridescent gem!

My heart beats quick, with joy, to think

How I am nearing them!

As mile on mile behind us falls,

Till, Oh, delight! I see,

My Heart's Desire, who softly calls

Across the gloom to me.

The utter joy of that

First LoveNo later love has given,

When, while the skies grew light above,

We entered into Heaven.

BY NIGHT WHEN OTHERS SOUNDLY SLEPT

Poems » algernon charles swinburne » by night when others soundly slept

By night when others soundly slept

And hath at once both ease and Rest,

My waking eyes were open kept

And so to lie I found it best.

I sought him whom my Soul did Love,

With tears I sought him earnestly.

He bow'd his ear down from Above.

In vain I did not seek or cry.

My hungry Soul he fill'd with Good;

He in his Bottle put my tears,

My smarting wounds washt in his blood,

And banisht thence my Doubts and fears.

What to my Saviour shall

I giveWho freely hath done this for me?

I'll serve him here whilst I shall live

And Loue him to Eternity.

LOVE THAT DOTH REIGN AND LIVE WITHIN MY THOUGHT

Poems » sir john suckling » love that doth reign and live within my thought

Love that doth reign and live within my thought

And built his seat within my captive breast,

Clad in the arms wherein with me he fought,

Oft in my face he doth his banner rest.

But she that taught me love and suffer pain,

My doubtful hope and eke my hot desire

With shamefast look to shadow and refrain,

Her smiling grace converteth straight to ire.

And coward Love then to the heart apace

Taketh his flight, where he doth lurk and plain

His purpose lost, and dare not show his face.

For my lord's guilt thus faultless bide I pain;

Yet from my lord shall not my foot remove:

Sweet is the death that taketh end by love.

TO A LITTLE INVISIBLE BEING WHO IS EXPECTED SOON TO BECOME VISIBLE

Poems » john keats » to a little invisible being who is expected soon to become visible

Germ of new life, whose powers expanding slow

For many a moon their full perfection wait,--

Haste, precious pledge of happy love, to go

Auspicious borne through life's mysterious gate.

What powers lie folded in thy curious frame,--

Senses from objects locked, and mind from thought!

How little canst thou guess thy lofty claim

To grasp at all the worlds the

Almighty wrought!

And see, the genial season's warmth to share,

Fresh younglings shoot, and opening roses glow!

Swarms of new life exulting fill the air,--

Haste, infant bud of being, haste to blow!

For thee the nurse prepares her lulling songs,

The eager matrons count the lingering day;

But far the most thy anxious parent longs

On thy soft cheek a mother's kiss to lay.

She only asks to lay her burden down,

That her glad arms that burden may resume;

And nature's sharpest pangs her wishes crown,

That free thee living from thy living tomb.

She longs to fold to her maternal breast

Part of herself, yet to herself unknown;

To see and to salute the stranger guest,

Fed with her life through many a tedious moon.

Come, reap thy rich inheritance of love!

Bask in the fondness of a Mother's eye!

Nor wit nor eloquence her heart shall move

Like the first accents of thy feeble cry.

Haste, little captive, burst thy prison doors!

Launch on the living world, and spring to light!

Nature for thee displays her various stores,

Opens her thousand inlets of delight.

If charmed verse or muttered prayers had power,

With favouring spells to speed thee on thy way,

Anxious I'd bid my beads each passing hour,

Till thy wished smile thy mother's pangs o'erpay.

BRIGHT STAR, WOULD I WERE STEADFAST AS THOU ART

Poems » john keats » bright star would i were steadfast as thou art

Bright star, would

I were stedfast as thou art--

Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night

And watching, with eternal lids apart,

Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,

The moving waters at their priestlike task

Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,

Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask

Of snow upon the mountains and the moors--

No--yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,

Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,

To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,

Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,

Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,

And so live ever--or else swoon to death.

MOTHER MIND

Poems » joseph howe » mother mind

I never made a poem, dear friend--

I never sat me down, and said,

This cunning brain and patient hand

Shall fashion something to be read.

Men often came to me, and prayed

I should indite a fitting verse

For fast, or festival, or in

Some stately pageant to rehearse.

(As if, than Balaam more endowed,

I of myself could bless or curse.)

Reluctantly I bade them go,

Ungladdened by my poet-mite;

My heart is not so churlish but

Its loves to minister delight.

But not a word I breathe is mine

To sing, in praise of man or God;

My Master calls, at noon or night,

I know his whisper and his nod.

Yet all my thoyghts to rhythms run,

To rhyme, my wisdom and my wit?True,

I consume my life in verse,

But wouldst thou know how that is writ?'

T is thus--through weary length of days,

I bear a thought within my breast

That greatens from my growth of soul,

And waits, and will not be expressed.

It greatens, till its hour has come,

Not without pain, it sees the light;

'Twixt smiles and tears I view it o'er,

And dare not deem it perfect, quite.

These children of my soul

I keepWhere scarce a mortal man may see,

Yet not unconsecrate, dear friend,

Baptismal rites they claim of thee.

THE LAST LEAF

Poems » thomas hoccleve » the last leaf
I saw him once before,

As he passed by the door,

And again

The pavement stones resound,

As he totters o'er the ground

With his cane.

They say that in his prime,

Ere the pruning-knife of

Time

Cut him down,

Not a better man was found

By the Crier on his round

Through the town.

But now he walks the streets,

And looks at all he meets

Sad and wan,

And he shakes his feeble head,

That it seems as if he said,

"They are gone.

"The mossy marbles rest

On the lips that he has prest

In their bloom,

And the names he loved to hear

Have been carved for many a year

On the tomb.

My grandmamma has said --

Poor old lady, she is dead

Long ago --

That he had a

Roman nose,

And his cheek was like a rose

In the snow;

But now his nose is thin,

And it rests upon his chin

Like a staff,

And a crook is in his back,

And a melancholy crack I

n his laugh.

I know it is a sin

For me to sit and grin

At him here;

But the old three-cornered hat,

And the breeches, and all that,

Are so queer!

And if I should live to be

The last leaf upon the tree

In the spring,

Let them smile, as

I do now,

At the old forsaken bough

Where I cling.