Immured in Heaven!
Immured in Heaven!
What a Cell!
Let every Bondage be,
Thou sweetest of the Universe,
Like that which ravished thee!
by Emily Dickinson.
Walking In The Sky,
Walking in the sky,
A man in strange black garb
Encountered a radiant form.
Then his steps were eager;
Bowed he devoutly.
"My Lord," said he.
But the spirit knew him not.
by Stephen Crane.
Of Yellow was the outer Sky
Nature rarer uses Yellow
Than another Hue.
Saves she all of that for Sunsets
Prodigal of Blue
Spending Scarlet, like a Woman
Yellow she affords
Only scantly and selectly
Like a Lover's Words.
by Emily Dickinson.
A Man Saw A Ball Of Gold In The Sky;
A man saw a ball of gold in the sky;
He climbed for it,
And eventually he achieved it --
It was clay.
Now this is the strange part:
When the man went to the earth
And looked again,
Lo, there was the ball of gold.
Now this is the strange part:
It was a ball of gold.
Aye, by the heavens, it was a ball of gold.
by Stephen Crane.
I Would To Heaven That I Were So Much Clay
I would to heaven that I were so much clay,
As I am blood, bone, marrow, passion, feeling -
Because at least the past were passed away -
And for the future - (but I write this reeling,
Having got drunk exceedingly today,
So that I seem to stand upon the ceiling)
I say - the future is a serious matter -
And so - for God's sake - hock and soda water!
The Ebb Of Day
The ebb of day has now begun;
The waters to the low west crowd;
But one forgotten wisp of cloud
Glows like a fragment of the sun,
And stranded on the shores of Night,
Where ‘gainst the sky the telegraph
Stretching his dim, audacious path
Defiantly to heaven aspires,
There lies a maiden, drowned and white—
The torn Moon tangled in the wires!
So much of Heaven has gone from Earth
So much of Heaven has gone from Earth
That there must be a Heaven
If only to enclose the Saints
To Affidavit given.
The Missionary to the Mole
Must prove there is a Sky
Location doubtless he would plead
But what excuse have I?
Too much of Proof affronts Belief
The Turtle will not try
Unless you leave him - then return
And he has hauled away.
by Emily Dickinson.
To The Baron Destonne,
WITH AIKIN'S ESSAY ON SONG-WRITING
To Gallia's gay and gallant coast
Haste, little volume, speed thy flight;
And proudly there go make thy boast
How Britons love—how Britons write.
Say, Love can hold his torch as high
Beneath our heaven deformed with showers,
As in her pure and brilliant sky,
By vine-clad hills or myrtle bowers:
Ask if her damsels bloom more fair;
Ask if her swains can love as true;
And urge her poets' tuneful care
To sing their praise in numbers due.
God Lay Dead In Heaven;
God lay dead in heaven;
Angels sang the hymn of the end;
Purple winds went moaning,
Their wings drip-dripping
With blood
That fell upon the earth.
It, groaning thing,
Turned black and sank.
Then from the far caverns
Of dead sins
Came monsters, livid with desire.
They fought,
Wrangled over the world,
A morsel.
But of all sadness this was sad -
A woman's arms tried to shield
The head of a sleeping man
From the jaws of the final beast.
by Stephen Crane.
Stoneman In Heaven
The Seraphs came to Christ, and said: 'Behold!
The man, presumptuous and overbold,
Who boasted that his mercy could excel
Thine own, is dead and on his way to Hell.'
Gravely the Saviour asked: 'What did he do
To make his impious assertion true?'
'He was a Governor, releasing all
The vilest felons ever held in thrall.
No other mortal, since the dawn of time,
Has ever pardoned such a mass of crime!'
Christ smiled benignly on the Seraphim:
'Yet I am victor, for I pardon _him_.'
by Ambrose Bierce.
It Is The Hour
It is the hour when from the boughs
The nightingale's high note is heard;
It is the hour -- when lover's vows
Seem sweet in every whisper'd word;
And gentle winds and waters near,
Make music to the lonely ear.
Each flower the dews have lightly wet,
And in the sky the stars are met,
And on the wave is deeper blue,
And on the leaf a browner hue,
And in the Heaven that clear obscure
So softly dark, and darkly pure,
That follows the decline of day
As twilight melts beneath the moon away.
Lines
On observing the light of two lamps in the
Town form a Triangle with a conspicuous
Star in the Evening Sky.
Two lights below and one above—
Two lights that lead astray,
And one that points to blissful rest
After life’s feverish day.
False Lights of Earth! that shine to lure
The wayworn traveller on,
Till in some lonely wild he sinks
And lies in darkness down.
Fair star of night! thy friendly ray,
To erring man is given,
The finger-post of Deity
Marking the road to Heaven!
The Old Man's Funeral
Ye sigh not when the sun, his course fulfilled,
His glorious course, rejoicing earth and sky,
In the soft evening, when the winds are stilled,
Sinks where his islands of departure spread
O'er the warm-colored heaven and ruddy mountain head.
Why weep ye then for him, who, having won
The bound of man's appointed years, at last.
Life's blessings all enjoyed, life's labors done,
Serenely to his final rest has passed;
While the soft memory of his virtues yet
Lingers like twilight hues, when the bright sun is set?
The Heaven Vests For Each
694
The Heaven vests for Each
In that small Deity
It craved the grace to worship
Some bashful Summer's Day—
Half shrinking from the Glory
It importuned to see
Till these faint Tabernacles drop
In full Eternity—
How imminent the Venture—
As one should sue a Star—
For His mean sake to leave the Row
And entertain Despair—
A Clemency so common—
We almost cease to fear—
Enabling the minutest—
And furthest—to adore—
by Emily Dickinson.
In Heaven,
In heaven,
Some little blades of grass
Stood before God.
"What did you do?"
Then all save one of the little blades
Began eagerly to relate
The merits of their lives.
This one stayed a small way behind,
Ashamed.
Presently, God said,
"And what did you do?"
The little blade answered, "Oh my Lord,
Memory is bitter to me,
For, if I did good deeds,
I know not of them."
Then God, in all His splendor,
Arose from His throne.
"Oh, best little blade of grass!" He said.
by Stephen Crane.
Under A Sky Of Uncreated Mud
Under a sky of uncreated mud
or sunk beneath the accursed streets, my life
is added up of cupboard-musty weeks
and ring'd about with walls of ugliness:
some narrow world of ever-streaming air.
My days of azure have forgotten me.
Nought stirs, in garret-chambers of my brain,
except the squirming brood of miseries
older than memory, while, far out of sight
behind the dun blind of the rain, my dreams
of sun on leaves and waters drip thro' years
nor stir the slumbers of some sullen well,
beneath whose corpse-fed weeds I too shall sink.
The Hurricane
Lo, Lord, Thou ridest!
Lord, Lord, Thy swifting heart
Nought stayeth, nought now bideth
But's smithereened apart!
Ay! Scripture flee'th stone!
Milk-bright, Thy chisel wind
Rescindeth flesh from bone
To quivering whittlings thinned—
Swept, whistling straw! Battered,
Lord, e'en boulders now outleap
Rock sockets, levin-lathered!
Nor, Lord, may worm outdeep
Thy drum's gambade, its plunge abscond!
Lord God, while summits crashing
Whip sea-kelp screaming on blond
Sky-seethe, dense heaven dashing—
Thou ridest to the door, Lord!
Thou bidest wall nor floor, Lord!
Mariposa Lily, The
Insect or blossom? Fragile, fairy thing,
Poised upon slender tip, and quivering
To flight! a flower of the fields of air;
A jewelled moth; a butterfly, with rare
And tender tints upon his downy wing,
A moment resting in our happy sight;
A flower held captive by a thread so slight
Its petal-wings of broidered gossamer
Are, light as the wind, with every wind astir, —
Wafting sweet odor, faint and exquisite.
O dainty nursling of the field and sky,
What fairer thing looks up to heaven’s blue
And drinks the noontide sun, the dawning’s dew?
Thou wingëd bloom! thou blossom-butterfly!
by Ina D. Coolbrith.
No Man Knoweth His Sepulchre
When he, who, from the scourge of wrong,
Aroused the Hebrew tribes to fly,
Saw the fair region, promised long,
And bowed him on the hills to die;
God made his grave, to men unknown,
Where Moab's rocks a vale infold,
And laid the aged seer alone
To slumber while the world grows old.
Thus still, whene'er the good and just
Close the dim eye on life and pain,
Heaven watches o'er their sleeping dust
Till the pure spirit comes again.
Though nameless, trampled, and forgot,
His servant's humble ashes lie,
Yet God has marked and sealed the spot,
To call its inmate to the sky.
The Massacre At Scio
Weep not for Scio's children slain;
Their blood, by Turkish falchions shed,
Sends not its cry to Heaven in vain
For vengeance on the murderer's head.
Though high the warm red torrent ran
Between the flames that lit the sky,
Yet, for each drop, an armed man
Shall rise, to free the land, or die.
And for each corpse, that in the sea
Was thrown, to feast the scaly herds,
A hundred of the foe shall be
A banquet for the mountain birds.
Stern rites and sad, shall Greece ordain
To keep that day, along her shore,
Till the last link of slavery's chain
Is shivered, to be worn no more.
The Rising Of The Moon
THE Day brims high its ewer
Of blue with starry light,
And crowns as King that hewer
Of clouds (which take their flight
Across the sky) old Night.
And Tempest there, who houses
Within them, like a cave,
Lies down and dreams and drowses
Upon the Earth's huge grave,
With wandering wind and wave.
The storm moves on; and winging
From out the east — a bird,
The moon drifts, calmly bringing
A message and a word
Of peace, in Heaven it heard.
Of peace and times called golden,
Whose beauty makes it glow
With love, like that of olden,
Which mortals used to know
There in the long-ago.
Song: Why Does Azure Deck The Sky?
Why does azure deck the sky?
'Tis to be like thy looks of blue.
Why is red the rose's dye?
Because it is thy blushes' hue.
All that's fair, by Love's decree,
Has been made resembling thee!
Why is falling snow so white,
But to be like thy bosom fair!
Why are solar beams so bright?
That they may seem thy golden hair!
All that's bright, by Love's decree,
Has been made resembling thee!
Why are nature's beauties felt?
Oh! 'tis thine in her we see!
Why has music power to melt?
Oh! because it speaks like thee.
All that's sweet, by Love's decree,
Has been made resembling thee!
by Thomas Moore.
The Touch Of Time
Time, who with soft pale ashes veils the brand
Of many a hope that flared against the sky
To plant its heaven-storming banners high,
Has touched you with no desecrating hand;
Your beauty wins a ripeness sweet and bland
As opulent summer, and your glancing eye
Glows with a deeper lustre, and your sigh
Of love is still my clamouring heart's command.
Yet what if all your fairness were defaced,
Wilted by passionate whirlwinds, battle-scarred,
Your skin of delicate satin hard and dry?
Still you would be the laughing girl who graced
A gloomy manhood, by forebodings marred,
In the deep wood where still we love to lie.
They Know Not My Heart
They know not my heart, who believe there can be
One stain of this earth in its feelings for thee;
Who think, while I see thee in beauty's young hour,
As pure as the morning's first dew on the flower,
I could harm what I love, -- as the sun's wanton ray
But smiles on the dew-drop to waste it away.
No -- beaming with light as those young features are,
There's a light round thy heart which is lovelier far:
It is not that cheek -- 'tis the soul dawning clear
Through its innocent blush makes thy beauty so dear:
As the sky we look up to, though glorious and fair,
Is look'd up to the more, because Heaven lies there!
by Thomas Moore.
When Allah Spoke
Was I not thine when Allah spoke the word
Which formed from smoke the sky?
Were not our two hearts one
When heaven heard the stars,
The first faint stars reply?
Were not our twin hearts one,
When heaven heard the stars,
The first faint stars reply?
Canst thou then doubt that while the ages roll
Our being one shall be?
As flame and light are one, so is my soul
One, o my love, with thee,
As flame and light are one, so is my soul with thee,
One with thee, One with thee.
The ebbing star floods of the Judgment day
Shall leave my heart still thine
And Paradise itself shall fade away
Ere I thy love resign.
by Arlo Bates.
Corn-colored clouds upon a sky of gold,
And 'mid their sheaves,-where, like a daisy-bloom
Left by the reapers to the gathering gloom,
The star of twilight glows,-as Ruth, 'tis told,
Dreamed homesick 'mid the harvest fields of old,
The Dusk goes gleaning color and perfume
From Bible slopes of heaven, that illume
Her pensive beauty deep in shadows stoled.
Hushed is the forest; and blue vale and hill
Are still, save for the brooklet, sleepily
Stumbling the stone with one foam-fluttering foot:
Save for the note of one far whippoorwill,
And in my heart
her
name,-like some sweet bee
Within a rose,-blowing a faery flute.
The Sky-Lark
THE Sky-lark, when the dews of morn
Hang tremulous on flower and thorn,
And violets round his nest exhale
Their fragrance on the early gale,
To the first sunbeam spreads his wings,
Buoyant with joy, and soars, and sings.
He rests not on the leafy spray,
To warble his exulting lay,
But high above the morning cloud
Mounts in triumphant freedom proud,
And swells, when nearest to the sky,
His notes of sweetest ecstacy.
Thus, my Creator! thus the more
My spirit's wing to Thee can soar,
The more she triumphs to behold
Thy love in all thy works unfold,
And bids her hymns of rapture be
Most glad, when rising most to Thee!
A Boat Beneath A Sunny Sky
A BOAT beneath a sunny sky,
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July --
Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Pleased a simple tale to hear --
Long has paled that sunny sky:
Echoes fade and memories die:
Autumn frosts have slain July.
Still she haunts me, phantomwise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.
Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.
In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:
Ever drifting down the stream --
Lingering in the golden dream --
Life, what is it but a dream?
THE END
by Lewis Carroll.
The Blue Jay
No brigadier throughout the year
So civic as the jay.
A neighbor and a warrior too,
With shrill felicity
Pursuing winds that censure us
A February day,
The brother of the universe
Was never blown away.
The snow and he are intimate;
I 've often seen them play
When heaven looked upon us all
With such severity,
I felt apology were due
To an insulted sky,
Whose pompous frown was nutriment
To their temerity.
The pillow of this daring head
Is pungent evergreens;
His larder — terse and militant —
Unknown, refreshing things;
His character a tonic,
His future a dispute;
Unfair an immortality
That leaves this neighbor out.
by Emily Dickinson.
George Moses Horton, Myself
I feel myself in need
Of the inspiring strains of ancient lore,
My heart to lift, my empty mind to feed,
And all the world explore.
I know that I am old
And never can recover what is past,
But for the future may some light unfold
And soar from ages blast.
I feel resolved to try,
My wish to prove, my calling to pursue,
Or mount up from the earth into the sky,
To show what Heaven can do.
My genius from a boy,
Has fluttered like a bird within my heart;
But could not thus confined her powers employ,
Impatient to depart.
She like a restless bird,
Would spread her wings, her power to be unfurl’d
And let her songs be loudly heard,
And dart from world to world.
Hymn 26
Hope of heaven by the resurrection of Christ.
1 Pet. 1:3-5.
Blest be the everlasting God,
The Father of our Lord;
Be his abounding mercy praised,
His majesty adored.
When from the dead he raised his Son,
And called him to the sky,
He gave our souls a lively hope
That they should never die.
What though our inbred sins require
Our flesh to see the dust,
Yet as the Lord our Savior rose,
So all his followers must.
There's an inheritance divine
Reserved against that day;
'Tis uncorrupted, undefiled,
And cannot waste away.
Saints by the power of God are kept
Till the salvation come;
We walk by faith as strangers here,
Till Christ shall call us home.
by Isaac Watts.
Hymn 105
Heaven invisible and holy.
1 Cor. 2:9,10; Rev. 21:27.
Nor eye hath seen, nor ear hath heard,
Nor sense nor reason known,
What joys the Father hath prepared
For those that love the Son.
But the good Spirit of the Lord
Reveals a heav'n to come;
The beams of glory in his word
Allure and guide us home.
Pure are the joys above the sky,
And all the region peace;
No wanton lips nor envious eye
Can see or taste the bliss.
Those holy gates for ever bar
Polution, sin, and shame
None shall obtain admittance there
But followers of the Lamb.
He keeps the Father's book of life,
There all their names are found;
The hypocrite in vain shall strive
To tread the heav'nly ground
by Isaac Watts.
Oh Fairest Of The Rural Maids
Oh fairest of the rural maids!
Thy birth was in the forest shades;
Green boughs, and glimpses of the sky,
Were all that met thy infant eye.
Thy sports, thy wanderings, when a child,
Were ever in the sylvan wild;
And all the beauty of the place
Is in thy heart and on thy face.
The twilight of the trees and rocks
Is in the light shade of thy locks;
Thy step is as the wind, that weaves
Its playful way among the leaves.
Thine eyes are springs, in whose serene
And silent waters heaven is seen;
Their lashes are the herbs that look
On their young figures in the brook.
The forest depths, by foot unpressed,
Are not more sinless than thy breast;
The holy peace, that fills the air
Of those calm solitudes, is there.
A Lancashire Doxology
"PRAISE God from whom all blessings flow."
Praise Him who sendeth joy and woe.
The Lord who takes, -- the Lord who gives, --
O praise Him, all that dies, and lives.
He opens and He shuts his hand,
But why, we cannot understand:
Pours and dries up his mercies' flood,
And yet is still All-perfect Good.
We fathom not the mighty plan,
The mystery of God and man;
We women, when afflictions come,
We only suffer and are dumb.
And when, the tempest passing by,
He gleams out, sun-like, through our sky,
We look up, and through black clouds riven,
We recognize the smile of Heaven.
Ours is not wisdom of the wise,
We have no deep philosophies:
Childlike we take both kiss and rod,
For he who loveth knoweth God.
To The Fringed Gentian
Thou blossom bright with autumn dew,
And colored with the heaven's own blue,
That openest when the quiet light
Succeeds the keen and frosty night.
Thou comest not when violets lean
O'er wandering brooks and springs unseen,
Or columbines, in purple dressed,
Nod o'er the ground-bird's hidden nest.
Thou waitest late and com'st alone,
When woods are bare and birds are flown,
And frosts and shortening days portend
The aged year is near his end.
Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye
Look through its fringes to the sky,
Blue--blue--as if that sky let fall
A flower from its cerulean wall.
I would that thus, when I shall see
The hour of death draw near to me,
Hope, blossoming within my heart,
May look to heaven as I depart.
Instruction
From heaven descend the drops of dew,
From heaven the gracious showers,
Earth's winter aspect to renew,
And clothe the spring with flowers;
From heaven the beams of morning flow,
That melt the gloom of night;
From heaven the evening breezes blow
Health, fragrance, and delight.
Like genial dew, like fertile showers,
The words of wisdom fall,
Awaken man's unconscious powers,
Like morning beams, they strike the mind,
Its loveliness reveals;
And softly then the evening wind
The wounded spirit heals.
As dew and rain, as light and air,
From heaven instruction came;
The waste of nature to repair,
Kindle a sacred flame;
A flame to purify the earth,
Exalt her sons on high,
And train them for their second birth,
Their birth beyond the sky.
by James Montgomery.
Greek Lyrics
O WORDS as clear as are the dawn sky-rifts
Between the still cloud-layers, and eke as sweet
As violets are, looking through crystal dew,
And with such melody as birds may have
That sing the morning notes where peace and joy
Are mingled all, and every thought is still —
O Words, ye come to me, a toiler here
With life-blood hurrying thro' imperilled veins,
Ye come as from a heaven, a heaven on earth,
Wherein (I know not when) ye were mine too!
Ah me, clear Words, sweet Words melodious,
Too long an unknown tongue are ye to me,
A tongue unknown too long for peace and joy.
No heaven on earth, but ever earth on heaven
I pile and dwindle piling. Pass away;
For I can linger not, nor ease my toil —
Away, and leave me with the dreadful night
And all the sadness of the voiceless stars!
Blustering God,
i
Blustering God,
Stamping across the sky
With loud swagger,
I fear You not.
No, though from Your highest heaven
You plunge Your spear at my heart,
I fear You not.
No, not if the blow
Is as the lightning blasting a tree,
I fear You not, puffing braggart.
ii
If Thou canst see into my heart
That I fear Thee not,
Thou wilt see why I fear Thee not,
And why it is right.
So threaten not, Thou, with Thy bloody spears,
Else Thy sublime ears shall hear curses.
iii
Withal, there is One whom I fear:
I fear to see grief upon that face.
Perchance, friend, He is not your God;
If so, spit upon Him.
By it you will do no profanity.
But I --
Ah, sooner would I die
Than see tears in those eyes of my soul.
by Stephen Crane.
'Yes, Holy Be Thy Resting Place'
Yes, holy be thy resting place
Wherever thou may'st lie;
The sweetest winds breathe on thy face,
The softest of the sky.
And will not guardian Angles send
Kind dreams and thoughts of love,
Though I no more may watchful bend
Thy longed repose above?
And will not heaven itself bestow
A beam of glory there
That summer's grass more green may grow,
And summer's flowers more fair?
Farewell, farewell, 'tis hard to part
Yet, loved one, it must be:
I would not rend another heart
Not even by blessing thee.
Go! We must break affection's chain,
Forget the hopes of years:
Nay, grieve not - willest thou remain
To waken wilder tears
This herald breeze with thee and me,
Roved in the dawning day:
And thou shouldest be where it shall be
Ere evening, far away.
L'Audace
Daughter of God! Audacity divine
Of clowns the terror and of brains the sign
Not thou the inspirer of the rushing fool,
Not thine of idiots the vocal drool:
Thy bastard sister of the brow of brass,
Presumption, actuates the charging ass.
Sky-born Audacity! of thee who sings
Should strike with freer hand than mine the strings;
The notes should mount on pinions true and strong,
For thou, the subject shouldst sustain the song,
Till angels lean from Heaven, a breathless throng!
Alas! with reeling heads and wavering tails,
They (notes, not angels) dropp and the hymn fails;
The minstrel's tender fingers and his thumbs
Are torn to rags upon the lyre he strums.
Have done! the lofty thesis makes demand
For stronger voices and a harder hand:
Night-howling apes to make the notes aspire,
And Poet Riley's fist to slug the rebel wire!
by Ambrose Bierce.
