James Agee
Sure on this shining night
Of star made shadows round,
Kindness must watch for me
This side the ground.
The late year lies down the north.
All is healed, all is health.
High summer holds the earth.
Hearts all whole.
Sure on this shining night I weep for wonder wand’ring far
alone
Of shadows on the stars.
Robert Frost
As I came to the edge of the woods,
Thrush music — hark!
Now if it was dusk outside,
Inside it was dark.
Too dark in the woods for a bird
By sleight of wing
To better its perch for the night,
Though it still could sing.
The last of the light of the sun
That had died in the west
Still lived for one song more
In a thrush’s breast.
Far in the pillared dark
Thrush music went —
Almost like a call to come in
To the dark and lament.
But no, I was out for stars;
I would not come in.
I meant not even if asked;
And I hadn’t been.
Marcus Mosiah Garvey
There’s music in my soul today,
A joy of heart not there before:
This state of conscience I relay
To rich and proud and meek and poor.
There’s music in my happy Soul:
From Heaven’s realm doth truly flow
This music in my happy Soul,
My conscience tells me riglitly so.
My song of joy I sing to you:
Let peace and love forever be
Among ye men of every hue,
Of every land and charted sea.
I crave no other fortune great,
But joy to live in peace with God;
My hopes are fixed on His Estate,
In faith so true as prophets had.
This music in my soul today
I spread in truth with love unfurled;
On waves of cheer it goes, I pray,
To reach around the belted world.
Christopher Morley
IT was the House of Quietness
To which I came at dusk;
The garth was lit with roses
And heavy with their musk.
The tremulous tall poplar trees
Stood whispering around,
The gentle flicker of their plumes
More quiet than no sound.
And as I wondered at the door
What magic might be there,
The Lady of Sweet Silences
Came softly down the stair.
Santoka Taneda
flowing with water
I walked down to the village
++
the sunlight freely reflects off
my freshly shaven head
++
within life and death
snow falls ceaselessly
++
I walk in the winds
brightness and darkness
++
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Where true Love burns Desire is Love’s pure flame ;
It is the reflex of our earthly frame,
That takes its meaning from the nobler part,
And but translates the language of the heart.
Rumi
What will
our children do in the morning?
Will they wake with their hearts wanting to play,
the way wings
should?
Will they have dreamed the needed flights and gathered
the strength from the planets that all
men and women need to balance
the wonderful charms of
the earth
so that her power and beauty does not make us forget our own?
I know all about the ways of the heart – how it wants to be alive.
Love so needs to love
that it will endure almost anything, even abuse,
just to flicker for a moment. But the sky’s mouth is kind,
its song will never hurt you, for I sing those words.
What will our children do in the morning
if they do not see us
fly?
Shel Silverstein
I’ve discovered a way to stay friends forever–
There’s really nothing to it.
I simply tell you what to do
And you do it!!
A Dog’s View
C. J. Dennis
I’m only just a common racing dog,
Simple in habit, and my diet’s plain.
I have never had a longing for the grog
That some men seem to need, more vim to gain.
And I have heard it said of such a one,
Who in his swilling emulates the hogs:
“He’s boozing day and night: he’s getting done.
Poor man,” they say: “he’s going to the dogs.”
But now ’tis threatened that a dog should win
A newer culture and a swifter pace
By taking to the whisky and the gin,
That he may wax more reckless in the race.
And we, who hitherto have been content
With just a lap of water and a rub,
Will soon enough contract that human bent
Of knocking off and going to the pub.
And then, who knows? Some badly balanced pup,
Weak-willed, and too intent on hectic joys,
Will learn too soon the way to liquor up
And have a jolly evening with the boys.
And we shall say of such a one, in blame:
“It’s quite all right to have one new and then;
But he has overdone this drinkning game.
Poor dog,” we’ll say: “He’s going to the men.”
D. H. Lawrence
All people dream, but not equally.
Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their mind,
Wake in the morning to find that it was vanity.
But the dreamers of the day are dangerous people,
For they dream their dreams with open eyes,
And make them come true.
