The Human Seasons
John Keats
Four Seasons fill the measure of the year;
There are four seasons in the mind of man:
He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear
Takes in all beauty with an easy span:
He has his Summer, when luxuriously
Spring’s honied cud of youthful thought he loves
To ruminate, and by such dreaming high
Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves
His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings
He furleth close; contented so to look
On mists in idleness—to let fair things
Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook.
He has his Winter too of pale misfeature,
Or else he would forego his mortal nature.
poet
Tie Your Heart To Mine ~ Pablo Neruda
Tie Your Heart at Night to Mine
Pablo Neruda
Tie your heart at night to mine, love,
and both will defeat the darkness
like twin drums beating in the forest
against the heavy wall of wet leaves.
Night crossing: black coal of dream
that cuts the thread of earthly orbs
with the punctuality of a headlong train
that pulls cold stone and shadow endlessly.
Love, because of it, tie me to a purer movement,
to the grip on life that beats in your breast,
with the wings of a submerged swan,
So that our dream might reply
to the sky’s questioning stars
I ~ Tagore
I
Tagore
I wonder if I know him
In whose speech is my voice,
In whose movement is my being,
Whose skill is in my lines,
Whose melody is in my songs
In joy and sorrow.
I thought he was chained within me,
Contained by tears and laughter,
Work and play.
I thought he was my very self
Coming to an end with my death.
Why then in a flood of joy do I feel him
In the sight and touch of my beloved?
This ‘I’ beyond self I found
On the shores of the shining sea.
Therefore I know
This’I’ is not imprisoned within my bounds.
Losing myself, I find him
Beyond the borders of time and space.
Through the Ages
I come to know his Shining Self
In the Iffe of the seeker,
In the voice of the poet.
From the dark clouds pour the rains.
I sit and think:
Bearing so many forms, so many names,
I come down, crossing the threshold
Of countless births and deaths.
The Supreme undivided, complete in himself,
Embracing past and present,
Dwells in Man.
Within Him I shall find myself –
The ‘I’ that reaches everywhere.
Hope ~ Czeslaw Milosz
Hope
Czeslaw Milosz
Hope is with you when you believe
The earth is not a dream but living flesh,
that sight, touch, and hearing do not lie,
That all thing you have ever seen here
Are like a garden looked at from a gate.
You cannot enter. But you’re sure it’s there.
Could we but look more clearly and wisely
We might discover somewhere in the garden
A strange new flower and an unnamed star.
Some people say that we should not trust our eyes,
That there is nothing, just a seeming,
There are the ones who have no hope.
They think the moment we turn away,
The world, behind our backs, ceases to exist,
As if snatched up by the hand of thieves.
Pass ~ Edmund Vance Cooke
Pass
Edmund Vance Cooke
Did somebody give you a pat on the back?
Pass it on!
Let somebody else have a taste of the snack,
Pass it on!
If it heightens your courage, or lightens your pack,
If it kisses your soul, with a song in the smack,
Maybe somebody else has been dressing in black;
Pass it on!
God gives you a smile, not to make it a yawn;
Pass it on!
Did somebody show you a slanderous mess?
Pass it by!
When a brook's flowing by, will you drink at the cess?
Pass it by!
Dame Gossip's a wanton, whatever her dress;
Her sire was a lie and her dam was a guess,
And a poison is in her polluting caress;
Pass it by!
Unless you're a porker, keep out of the sty.
Pass it by!
Did somebody give you an insolent word?
Pass it up!
'T is the creak of a cricket, the pwit of a bird;
Pass it up!
Shake your fist at the sea! Is its majesty blurred?
Blow your breath at the sky! Is its purity slurred?
But the shallowest puddle, how easily stirred!
Pass it up!
Does the puddle invite you to dip in your cup?
Pass it up!
The Song of Hiawatha ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Excerpt from "The Song of Hiawatha"
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
"O my children! my poor children!
Listen to the words of wisdom,
Listen to the words of warning,
From the lips of the Great Spirit,
From the Master of Life, who made you!
"I have given you lands to hunt in,
I have given you streams to fish in,
I have given you bear and bison,
I have given you roe and reindeer,
I have given you brant and beaver,
Filled the marshes full of wild-fowl,
Filled the rivers full of fishes:
Why then are you not contented?
Why then will you hunt each other?
"I am weary of your quarrels,
Weary of your wars and bloodshed,
Weary of your prayers for vengeance,
Of your wranglings and dissensions;
All your strength is in your union,
All your danger is in discord;
Therefore be at peace henceforward,
And as brothers live together.
Time ~ Henry Van Dyke
Time
Henry Van Dyke
Time is
Too Slow for those who Wait,
Too Swift for those who Fear,
Too Long for those who Grieve,
Too Short for those who Rejoice;
But for those who Love,
Time is not
I Have Learned So Much ~ Hafiz
I Have Learned So Much
Hafiz
I
Have
Learned
So much from God
That I can no longer
Call
Myself
A Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim,
A Buddhist, a Jew.
The Truth has shared so much of Itself
With me
That I can no longer call myself
A man, a woman, an angel,
Or even pure
Soul.
Love has
Befriended Hafiz so completely
It has turned to ash
And freed
Me
Of every concept and image
My mind has ever known.
But Not Forgotten ~ Dorothy Parker
But Not Forgotten
Dorothy Parker
I think, no matter where you stray,
That I shall go with you a way.
Though you may wander sweeter lands,
You will not soon forget my hands,
Nor yet the way I held my head,
Nor all the tremulous things I said.
You still will see me, small and white
And smiling, in the secret night,
And feel my arms about you when
The day comes fluttering back again.
I think, no matter where you be,
You'll hold me in your memory
And keep my image, there without me,
By telling later loves about me.
Sunshine & Shadow ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Sunshine and Shadow
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Life has its shadows, as well as its sun;
Its lights and its shades, all twined together.
I tried to single them out, one by one,
Single and count them, determining whether
There was less blue than there was grey,
And more of the deep night than of the day.
But dear me, dear me, my task’s but begun,
And I am not half way into the sun.
For the longer I look on the bright side of earth,
The more of the beautiful do I discover;
And really, I never knew what life was worth
Till I searched the wide storehouse of happiness over.
It is filled from the cellar well up to the skies,
With things meant to gladden the heart and the eyes.
The doors are unlocked, you can enter each room,
That lies like a beautiful garden in bloom.
Yet life has its shadow, as well as its sun;
Earth has its storehouse of joy and sorrow.
But the first is so wide – and my task’s but begun –
That the last must be left for a far-distant morrow.
I will count up the blessings God gave in a row,
But dear me! When I get through them, I know
I shall have little tine left for the rest,
For life is a swift-flowing river at best.
