The dead swans lay in the stagnent pool.
They lay. They rotted. They turned
Around occassionally.
Bits of flesh dropped off them from
Time to time.
And sank into the pool’s mire.
They also smelt a great deal.
- Paul Neil Milne Johnstone
Archive for the 'Poets' Category
“Think as I think,” said a man,
“Or you are abominably wicked;
You are a toad.”And after I had thought of it,
I said, “I will, then, be a toad.”
- Stephen Crane, The Black Riders and Other Lines
I was in the darkness;
I could not see my words
Nor the wishes of my heart.
Then suddenly there was a great light –“Let me into the darkness again.”
- Stephen Crane, The Black Riders and Other Lines
There was one I met upon the road
Who looked at me with kind eyes.
Her said, “Show me of your wares.”
And this I did,
Holding forth one.
He said, “It is a sin.”
Then held I forth another;
He said, “It is a sin.”
Then held I forth another;
He said, “It is a sin.”
And so to the end;
Always he said, “It is a sin.”
And, finally, I cried out,
“But I have none other.”
Then did he look at me
With kinder eyes.
“Poor soul!” he said.
- Stephen Crane, The Black Riders and Other Lines
I stood upon a high place,
And saw, below, many devils
Running, leaping,
and carousing in sin.
One looked up, grinning,
And said, “Comrade! Brother!”
- Stephen Crane, The Black Riders and Other Lines
I walked in a desert.
And I cried,
“Ah, God, take me from this place!”
A voice said, “It is no desert.”
I cried, “Well, But –
The sand, the heat, the vacant horizon.”
A voice said, “It is no desert.”
- Stephen Crane, The Black Riders and Other Lines
I saw a man pursuing the horizon;
Round and round they sped.
I was disturbed at this;
I accosted the man.
“It is futile,” I said,
“You can never — ”“You lie,” he cried,
And ran on.
- Stephen Crane, The Black Riders and Other Lines
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same:
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools;If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
- Rudyard Kipling, If
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
- Ozymandias of Egypt, Percy Bysshe Shelley
There’s gold, and it’s haunting and haunting;
It’s luring me on as of old;
Yet it isn’t the gold that I’m wanting
So much as just finding the gold.
It’s the great, big, broad land ‘way up yonder,
It’s the forests where silence has lease;
It’s the beauty that thrills me with wonder,
It’s the stillness that fills me with peace.
- Robert W. Service, The Spell of the Yukon
A man said to the universe:
“Sir, I exist!”
“However,” replied the universe,
“The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation.”
- Stephen Crane, War Is Kind and Other Lines
RSS feed