The Arrow and the Song
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Sir Philip Sidney’s Astrophil and Stella
With how sad steps, O moon, thou climb’st the skies;
How silently, and with how wan a face.
What, may it be that even in heavenly place
That busy archer his sharp arrows tries?
Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes
Can judge of love, thou feel’st a lover’s case;
I read it in thy looks; thy languished grace
To me, that feel the like, thy state descries.
Then, even of fellowship, O moon, tell me,
Is constant love deemed there but want of wit?
Are beauties there as proud as here they be?
Do they above love to be loved, and yet
Those lovers scorn whom that love doth possess?
Do they call virtue there ungratefulness?
P B Shelley , The Moon
Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth,
And ever changing, like a joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?
Valuable Time of Maturity – Poem by Mário de Andrade
” I counted my years and discovered that I have
less time to live going forward than I have lived until now.
I have more past than future.
I feel like the boy who received a bowl of candies.
The first ones, he ate ungracious,
but when he realized there were only a few left,
he began to taste them deeply.
I do not have time to deal with mediocrity.
I do not want to be in meetings where parade inflamed egos.
I am bothered by the envious, who seek to discredit
the most able, to usurp their places,
coveting their seats, talent, achievements and luck.
I do not have time for endless conversations,
useless to discuss about the lives of others
who are not part of mine.
I do not have time to manage sensitivities of people
who despite their chronological age, are immature.
I cannot stand the result that generates
from those struggling for power.
People do not discuss content, only the labels.
My time has become scarce to discuss labels,
I want the essence, my soul is in a hurry…
Not many candies in the bowl…
I want to live close to human people,
very human, who laugh of their own stumbles,
and away from those turned smug and overconfident
with their triumphs,
away from those filled with self-importance,
Who does not run away from their responsibilities ..
Who defends human dignity.
And who only want to walk on the side of truth
and honesty.
The essential is what makes
life worthwhile.
I want to surround myself with people,
who knows how to touch the hearts of people ….
People to whom the hard knocks of life,
taught them to grow with softness in their soul.
Yes …. I am in a hurry … to live with intensity,
that only maturity can bring.
I intend not to waste any part of the goodies
I have left …
I’m sure they will be more exquisite,
that most of which so far I’ve eaten.
My goal is to arrive to the end satisfied and in peace
with my loved ones and my conscience.
I hope that your goal is the same,
because either way you will get there too .. “
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How many pounds does baby weigh —
Baby who came but a month ago?
How many pounds from her crowning curl
To the rosy tip of her tiny toe?
Grandfather puts her on the scale,
Tenderly guides the swinging weight,
And carefully over his glasses peers
To read the dial. ” ‘Tis only eight.”
Softly the echo goes around.
The father laughs at the tiny girl;
The fair young mother croons to her,
While grandmother smoothes her golden curl.
And leaning down to the precious child,
Nestles a kiss, within a prayer.
Murmuring softly, “Little one,
Grandfather didn’t weigh you fair.”
He couldn’t weigh your winsome smile,
Or the joy you bring, dear helpless one;
He couldn’t weigh the threads of love,
From which your newborn life was spun …
He couldn’t weigh your lovely soul
For here on earth, no scale there be
That can avail. God only knows
Your value in eternity …
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I saw two clouds at morning…..- John Gardiner Brainard
I saw two clouds at morning,
Tinged with the rising sun,
And in the dawn they floated on,
And mingled into one;
I thought that morning cloud was blest,
It moved so sweetly to the west.
I saw two summer currents
Flow smoothly to their meeting,
And join their course, with silent force,
In peace each other greeting:
Calm was their course through banks of green,
While dimpling eddies played between.
Such be your gentle motion,
Till life’s last pulse shall beat;
Like summer’s beam, and summer’s stream,
Float on, in joy, to meet
A calmer sea, where storms shall cease –
A purer sky, where all is peace.
JOY AND PLEASURE …..W H Davies
Now Joy is born of parents poor
And Pleasure of our richer kind
Though Pleasure’s free ,she cannot sing
As sweet a song as Joy confined.
Pleasure is a moth that sleeps by day
And dances by the false glare at night
But Joy is a butterfly that loves
To spread its wings in nature’s light.
Joy is like a bee that gently sucks
Away on blossoms in his sweet hour
But Pleasure is like a greedy wasp
That plums and cherries would devour.
Joy is like a lark that lives alone
Whose ties are very strong ,though few
But Pleasure like a cuckoo roams
Makes much acquaintance ,no friends true.
Joy from her heart doth sing at home
With little care if others hear
But then Pleasure is cold and dumb
And sings and laughs with strangers near.
**
City Roofs…By Charles Hanson Towne
Roof-tops, roof-tops, what do you cover?
Sad folk, bad folk, and many a glowing lover;
Wise people, simple people, children of despair –
Roof-tops, roof-tops, hiding pain and care.
Roof-tops, roof-tops, O what sin you’re knowing,
While above you in the sky the white clouds are blowing;
While beneath you, agony and dolor and grim strife
Fight the olden battle, the olden war of Life.
Roof-tops, roof-tops, cover up their shame –
Wretched souls, prisoned souls too piteous to name;
Man himself hath built you all to hide away the stars –
Roof-tops, roof-tops, you hide ten million scars.
Roof-tops, roof-tops, well I know you cover
Many solemn tragedies and many a lonely lover;
But ah, you hide the good that lives in the throbbing city –
Patient wives, and tenderness, forgiveness, faith, and pity.
Roof-tops, roof-tops, this is what I wonder:
You are thick as poisonous plants, thick the people under;
Yet roofless, and homeless, and shelterless they roam,
The driftwood of the town who have no roof-top and no home!
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Silence
By Edgar Lee Masters 1869-1950
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I have known the silence of the stars and of the sea,
And the silence of the city when it pauses,
And the silence of a man and a maid,
And the silence of the sick
When their eyes roam about the room.
And I ask: For the depths,
Of what use is language?
A beast of the field moans a few times
When death takes its young.
And we are voiceless in the presence of realities –
We cannot speak.
A curious boy asks an old soldier
Sitting in front of the grocery store,
“How did you lose your leg?”
And the old soldier is struck with silence,
Or his mind flies away
Because he cannot concentrate it on Gettysburg.
It comes back jocosely
And he says, “A bear bit it off.”
And the boy wonders, while the old soldier
Dumbly, feebly lives over
The flashes of guns, the thunder of cannon,
The shrieks of the slain,
And himself lying on the ground,
And the hospital surgeons, the knives,
And the long days in bed.
But if he could describe it all
He would be an artist.
But if he were an artist there would be deeper wounds
Which he could not describe.
There is the silence of a great hatred,
And the silence of a great love,
And the silence of an embittered friendship.
There is the silence of a spiritual crisis,
Through which your soul, exquisitely tortured,
Comes with visions not to be uttered
Into a realm of higher life.
There is the silence of defeat.
There is the silence of those unjustly punished;
And the silence of the dying whose hand
Suddenly grips yours.
There is the silence between father and son,
When the father cannot explain his life,
Even though he be misunderstood for it.
There is the silence that comes between husband and wife.
There is the silence of those who have failed;
And the vast silence that covers
Broken nations and vanquished leaders.
There is the silence of Lincoln,
Thinking of the poverty of his youth.
And the silence of Napoleon
After Waterloo.
And the silence of Jeanne d’Arc
Saying amid the flames, “Blessed Jesus” –
Revealing in two words all sorrows, all hope.
And there is the silence of age,
Too full of wisdom for the tongue to utter it
In words intelligible to those who have not lived
The great range of life.
And there is the silence of the dead.
If we who are in life cannot speak
Of profound experiences,
Why do you marvel that the dead
Do not tell you of death?
Their silence shall be interpreted
As we approach them.
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A Psalm Of life …..H.W.Longfellow
Tell Me not in mournful numbers
“Life is but an empty dream!”
For the soul is dead that slumbers
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real ! Life is earnest !
And the grave is not its goal ;
“Dust thou art ,to dust returnest”
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment , and not sorrow
Is our destined end or way;
But to act that each tomorrow
Finds us farther from today.
Art is long and Time is fleeting
And our hearts though stout and brave
Still like muffled dreams , are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
In the World’s broad field of battle
In the bivouac of Life
Be not like dumb driven cattle
Be a hero in the strife !
Trust no Future ,however pleasant
Let the dead past bury its dead
Act , Act in the living present
Heart within and God overhead.
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime
And departing ,leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of Time.
Footprints ,that perhaps another ,
Sailing over Life’s solemn main
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother
Seeing , shall take heart again.
Let us then , be up and doing
With a heart for any fate
Still achieving ,Still pursuing
Learn to labor , and to wait.
****
My Lost Youth ….HW Longfellow
Often I think of the beautiful town
That is seated by the sea;
Often in thought I go up and down
The pleasant streets of that dear old town.
And my youth comes back to me
And a verse of Lapland song
Is haunting my memory still:
A boys’ will is the Wind’s will ,
And the thoughts of youth are long long thoughts”.
I remember the gleams and glooms that dart
Across the schoolboy’s brain
The song and silence in the heart
That in part are prophesies
Are longings wild and vain
And the voice of that fitful song
Sings on , and is never still:
“A boys’ will is the Wind’s will,
And the thoughts of youth are long long thoughts”.
There are things of which I may not speak
There are dreams that cannot die
There are thoughts that make strong hearts weak
And bring a pallor into the cheek
And a mist before the eye
And the words of that fateful song
Come over me like a chill
A boys’ will is the Wind’s will,
And the thoughts of youth are long long thoughts”.
Strange to me now are the forms I meet
When I visit the dear old town
But the native air is pure and sweet
And the trees that overshadow each well-known street
As they balance up and down
Are singing that beautiful song
Are sighing and whispering stillA boys’ will is the Wind’s will,
And the thoughts of youth are long long
***
The wind on the chimney …..H.W.Longfellow
See ,the fire is sinking low
Dusky red ,the embers glow
While above them I still cower
While a moment more I linger
Though the clock with lifted finger
Points beyond the midnight hour.
Sings the blackened log a tune
Learned in some forgotten June
From a schoolboy at his play
When they both were young together
Heart of youth and summer weather
Making all their holiday.
And the night wind rising ,hark !
How above there in the dark
In the midnight and the snow
Ever wilder fiercer grander
Like the trumpets of Iskander
All the noisy chimneys blow.
Every quivering tongue of flame
Seems to murmur some great name
Seems to say to me “ Aspire !”
But the night wind answers ,hollow
Are the visions that you follow
Into darkness sinks your fire.
Then the flicker of the blaze
Gleams on volumes of old days
Written by masters of the art
Loud through whose majestic pages
Rolls the melody of the ages
Throb the harp strings of the heart.
And again the tongues of flame
Start exulting and exclaim
These are prophets bards and seers
In the horoscope of nations
Like ascendant constellations
They control the coming years.
But the night wind cries : Despair
Those who walk with feet of air
Leave no long enduring marks
At God’s forges incandescent
Mighty hammers beat incessant
These are but flying sparks.
Dust are all the hands that wrought
Books are sepulchers of thought
The dead laurels of the dead
Rustle for a moment only
Like the withered leaves in a lonely
Churchyard at some passing tread.
Suddenly the flame sinks down
Sink the rumors of renown
And alone the night wind drear
Clamors louder, wilder, vaguer,
T’is the brand of Meleager
Dying on the hearthstone here.
And I answer – Though it be
Why should that discomfort me ?
No endeavor is in vain
Its reward is in the doing
And the rapture of pursuing
Is the prize the vanquished gain.
***
Hymn to the night …..H.W.Longfellow
I heard the trailing garments of the night
Sweep through her marble halls !
I saw her sable skirts all fringed with light
From the celestial walls !
I felt her presence ,by its spell of might
Stoop over me from above
The calm majestic presence of the night
As of the one I love.
I heard the sounds of sorrow and delight
The manifold soft chimes
That fill the haunted chambers of the night
Like some old poet’s rhymes.
From the cool cisterns of the midnight air
My spirit drank repose
The fountain of perpetual peace flows there
From those deep cisterns flows.
O Holy night ! From thee I learn to bear
What man has borne before
Thou layest thy finger on the lips of care
And they complain no more.
Peace ! Peace ! Orestes like I breath this prayer
Descend with broad winged flight
The welcome ,the thrice prayed for,the most fair
The best beloved night !
***
Musings …..H.W.Longfellow
I sat by my window one night
And watched how the stars grew high
And the earth and skies were a splendid sight
To a sober and musing eye.
From Heaven the silver moon shone down
I With gentle and mellow ray
And beneath the crowded roofs of the town
In broad light and shadow lay.
A glory was on the silent sea
And mainland and island too
Till a haze came over the lowland sea
And shrouded that beautiful blue.
Bright in the moon the autumn wood
Its crimson scarf unrolled
And the trees like a splendid army stood
In a panoply of gold.
I saw them waving their banners high
As their crests to the night wind bowed
And a distant sound on the air went by
Like the whispering of the crowd.
Then I watched from my window ,how fast
The lights all around me fled
As the wearied man to his slumber passed
And the sick one to his bed.
All faded save one ,that burned
With distant and steady light
But that ,too,went out –and I turned
Where my own lamp within shone bright.
Thus,thought I ,our joys must die
Yes , the brightest from earth we win
Till each turns away with a sigh
To the lamp that burns brightly within.
****
THE MEETING ….HW Longfellow
After so long an absence
At last we meet again
Does the meeting give us pleasure
Or does it give us pain ?
The tree of life has been shaken
And but few of us linger now
Like the prophets two or three berries
In the top of the uppermost bough.
We cordially greet each other
In the old familiar tone
And we think though we do not say it
How old and gray he has grown !
We speak of a merry Christmas
And many a happy new Year
But each in his heart is thinking
Of those that are not there.
We speak of friends and their fortunes
And of what they did and said,
Till the dead alone seem living
And the living alone seem dead.
And at last we hardly distinguish
Between the ghosts and the guests
And a mist and shadow of sadness
Steals over our merriest jests.
****
Children ……..HW Longfellow.
Come to me, O Ye children
For I hear you at your play
And the questions that perplexed me
Have vanished quite away.
Ye open the eastern windows
That look toward the sun
Where thoughts are singing swallows
And the brooks of morning run.
In your hearts are the birds and the sunshine
In your thoughts brooklets flow
But in mine is wind of autumn
And the first fall of snow.
What the leaves are to the forest
With light and air for food
Ere their sweet and tender juices
Have been hardened into wood.
That to the world are children
Through them it feels the glow
Of a brighter and sunnier climate
Than reaches the trunks below.
Come to me , O Ye children
And whisper in my ear
What the birds and the winds are singing
In your sunny atmosphere.
For what are all our contrivings
And the wisdom of our books
When compared with your caresses
And the gladness of your looks.
Ye are better than all the ballads
That ever were sung or said
For you are the living poems
And all the rest are dead !
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The Road Not taken …. By Robert Frost
TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference
‘THOUGH logic-choppers rule the town,
And every man and maid and boy
Has marked a distant object down,
An aimless joy is a pure joy,’
Or so did Tom O’Roughley say
That saw the surges running by.
‘And wisdom is a butterfly
And not a gloomy bird of prey.
‘If little planned is little sinned
But little need the grave distress.
What’s dying but a second wind?
How but in zig-zag wantonness
Could trumpeter Michael be so brave?’
Or something of that sort he said,
‘And if my dearest friend were dead
I’d dance a measure on his grave.’
Drinking From The Saucer !
– John Paul Moore
I’ve never made a fortune,
And I’ll never make one now.
But it really doesn’t matter,
‘Cause I’m happy anyhow.
As I go along my journey,
I’m reaping better than I’ve sowed.
I’m drinking from the saucer,
‘Cause my cup has overflowed.
I don’t have a lot of riches,
And sometimes the going’s tough.
But with kin and friends to love me,
I think I’m rich enough.
I thank God for the blessings,
That His mercy has bestowed.
I’m drinking from the saucer,
‘Cause my cup has overflowed.
Sahela re aa mil gaaye
Sapta suron ke ved sunaaye
Janam janam ko sang na bhoole
Ab ke miley to bichhur naa jaaye
Earth teach me stillness
as the grasses are stilled with light.
Earth teach me suffering
as the old stones suffer with memory.
Earth teach me humility
as blossoms are humble with beginning.
Earth teach me caring
as the mother who succors her young.
Earth teach me courage
as the tree which stands all alone.
Earth teach me limitation
as the ant which crawls on the ground.
Earth teach me freedom
as the eagle which soars in the sky.
Earth teach me resignation
as the leaves which die in the fall.
Earth teach me generation
as the seed which rises in the spring.
Earth teach me to forget myself
as melted snow forgets its life.
Earth teach me to remember kindness
as dry fields weep with rain.
UTE Prayer
rasAyana 