Time to Live

Category: Poetry

  • The World is Too Much with Us

    The world is too much with us; late and soon,
    Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—
    Little we see in Nature that is ours;
    We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
    This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
    The winds that will be howling at all hours,
    And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
    For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
    It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be
    A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
    So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
    Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
    Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
    Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

  • I wandered lonely as a Cloud

    I wandered lonely as a Cloud
    That floats on high o’er Vales and Hills,
    When all at once I saw a crowd,
    A host of golden Daffodils;
    Beside the Lake, beneath the trees,
    Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

    (more…)

  • Cold Mountain

    A Buddhist monk named Han Shan got tired of life in the monastery and moved off to the wilderness. He wrote verses on rocks and trees to express his thoughts about life – these were collected and assembled in a text called Cold Mountain.

    The clear water sparkles like crystal,
    you can see through it easily, right to the bottom.
    My mind is free from every thought,
    nothing in the myriad realms can move it.

    Since it cannot be wantonly roused,
    forever and forever it will stay unchanged.
    When you have learned to know in this way,
    you’ll know there is no inside or out.

    Talking about food won’t make you full,
    babbling of clothes won’t keep out the cold.
    A bowl of rice is what fills the belly;
    it takes a suit of clothing to make you warm.

    And yet, without stopping to consider this,
    you complain that Buddha is hard to find.
    Turn your mind within! There he is!
    Why look for him outside?

    High, high from the summit of the peak,
    whatever way I look, no limit in sight!
    No one knows I am sitting here alone.
    A solitary moon shines in the cold spring.

    Here in the spring – this is not the moon.
    The moon is where it always is – in the sky above.
    And though I sing this one little song,
    in the song there is no Zen.

    Have I a body or have I none?
    Am I who I am or am I not?
    Pondering these questions,
    I sit leaning against the cliff while the years go by,

    till the green grass grows between my feet
    and the red dust settles on my head,
    and the men of the world, thinking me dead,
    come with offerings of wine and fruit to lay by my corpse.

    Yes, there are stingy people,
    but I’m not one of the stingy kind.
    The robe I wear is flimsy? The better to dance in.
    Wine gone? It went with a toast and a song.

    Just so you keep your belly full –
    never let those two legs go weary.
    When the weeds are poking through your skull,
    That’s the day you’ll have regrets!

    Today I sat before the cliff,
    sat a long time till mists had cleared.
    A single thread, the clear stream runs cold;
    a thousand yards the green peaks lift their heads.

    White clouds – the morning light is still.
    Moonrise – the lamp of night drifts upward.
    Body free from dust and stain,
    What cares could trouble my mind?

  • Emily Dickinson

    Much Madness is divinest Sense –
    To a discerning Eye –
    Much Sense – the starkest Madness –

    ‘Tis the Majority
    In this, as All, prevail –

    Assent – and you are sane –
    Demur – you’re straightway dangerous –
    And handled with a Chain –

     

    I’m Nobody! Who are you?
    Are you – Nobody – Too?
    Then there’s a pair of us?
    Don’t tell! they’d advertise – you know!

    How dreary – to be – Somebody!
    How public – like a Frog –
    To tell one’s name – the livelong June –
    To an admiring Bog!

     

    Some keep the Sabbath going to Church –
    I keep it, staying at Home –
    With a Bobolink for a Chorister –
    And an Orchard, for a Dome –

    Some keep the Sabbath in Surplice –
    I, just wear my Wings –
    And instead of tolling the Bell, for Church,
    Our little Sexton – sings.

    God preaches, a noted Clergyman –
    And the sermon is never long,
    So instead of getting to Heaven, at last –
    I’m going, all along.

  • Walt Whitman

    Wisdom is not finally tested in schools;
    Wisdom cannot be pass’d from one having it, to another not having it;
    Wisdom is of the Soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own proof,
    Applies to all stages and objects and qualities, and is content…

  • Sylvia Plath

    Biography
    Take Me to the Edge

    Out here there are no hearthstones,
    Hot grains, simply. It is dry, dry.
    And the air dangerous. Noonday acts queerly
    On the mind’s eye, erecting a line
    Of poplars in the middle distance, the only
    Object beside the mad, straight road
    One can remember men and houses by.
    A cool wind should inhabit those leaves
    And a dew collect on them, dearer than money,
    In the blue hour before sunup.
    Yet they recede, untouchable as tomorrow,
    Or those glittery fictions of spilt water
    That glide ahead of the very thirsty.

    I think of the lizards airing their tongues
    In the crevice of an extremely small shadow
    And the toad guarding his heart’s droplet.
    The desert is white as a blind man’s eye,
    Comfortless as salt. Snake and bird
    Doze behind the old masks of fury.
    We swelter like firedogs in the wind.
    The sun puts its cinder out. Where we lie
    The heat-cracked crickets congregate
    In their black armorplate and cry.
    The day-moon lights up like a sorry mother,
    And the crickets come creeping into our hair
    To fiddle the short night away.

  • Rumi

    Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad Rūmī, commonly known as Rumi (30 September 1207 – 17 December 1273), was a Sufi mystic, poet, and founder of the Islamic brotherhood known as the Mevlevi Order. Rumi is an influential figure in Sufism, and his thought and works loom large both in Persian literature and mystic poetry in general. Today, his translated works are enjoyed all over the world.

     

    Travelers, it is late.
    Life’s sun is going to set.
    During these brief days that you have strength,
    be quick and spare no effort of your wings.

     

    All day and night, music,
    a quiet, bright
    reedsong. If it
    fades, we fade.

     

    Pale sunlight,
    pale the wall.

    Love moves away.
    The light changes.

    I need more grace
    than I thought.

     

    Gamble everything for love,
    if you’re a true human being.
    If not, leave
    this gathering.

    Half-heartedness doesn’t reach
    into majesty. You set out
    to find God, but then you keep
    stopping for long periods
    at mean-spirited roadhouses.

     

    In a boat down a fast-running creek,
    it feels like trees on the bank
    are rushing by. What seems
    to be changing around us
    is rather the speed of our craft
    leaving this world.

     

    Which is worth more, a crowd of thousands,
    or your own genuine solitude?
    Freedom, or power over an entire nation?
    A little while alone in your room
    will prove more valuable than anything else
    that could ever be given you.

     

    Forget safety.
    Live where you fear to live.
    Destroy your reputation.
    Be notorious.

     

  • Emily Bronte

    Often rebuked, yet always back returning
    To those first feelings that were born with me,
    And leaving busy chase of wealth and learning
    For idle dreams of things that cannot be:

    Today, I will seek not the shadowy region;
    Its unsustaining vastness waxes drear;
    And visions rising, legion after legion,
    Bring the unreal world too strangely near.

    I’ll walk, but not in old heroic traces,
    And not in paths of high morality,
    And not among the half-distinguished faces,
    The clouded forms of long-past history.

    I’ll walk where my own nature would be leading:
    It vexes me to choose another guide:
    Where the gray flocks in ferny glens are feeding;
    Where the wild wind blows on the mountain side.

    What have those lonely mountains worth revealing?
    More glory and more grief than I can tell:
    The earth that wakes one human heart to feeling;
    Can center both the worlds of Heaven and Hell.

     

    When days of Beauty deck the earth
    Or stormy nights descend
    How well my spirit knows the path
    On which it ought to wend

    It seeks the consecrated spot
    Beloved in childhood’s years
    The space between is all forgot
    Its suffering and its tears.

     

    No coward soul is mine
    No trembler in the world’s storm-troubled sphere
    I see Heaven’s glories shine
    And Faith shines equal arming me from Fear
    O God within my breast
    Almighty ever-present Deity
    Life, that in me hast rest,
    As I Undying Life, have power in Thee
    Vain are the thousand creeds
    That move men’s hearts, unutterably vain,
    Worthless as withered weeds
    Or idlest froth amid the boundless main
    To waken doubt in one
    Holding so fast by thy infinity,
    So surely anchored on
    The steadfast rock of Immortality.
    With wide-embracing love
    Thy spirit animates eternal years
    Pervades and broods above,
    Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates and rears
    Though earth and moon were gone
    And suns and universes ceased to be
    And Thou wert left alone
    Every Existence would exist in thee
    There is not room for Death
    Nor atom that his might could render void
    Since thou art Being and Breath
    And what thou art may never be destroyed.

     

    All day I’ve toiled but not with pain
         In learning’s golden mine
    And now at eventide again
         The moonbeams softly shine
    There is no snow upon the ground
         No frost on wind or wave
    The south wind blew with gentlest sound
         And broke their icy grave
    Tis sweet to wander here at night
         To watch the winter die
    With heart as summer sunshine light
         And warm as summer’s sky
    O may I never lose the peace
         That lulls me gently now
    Though time should change my youthful face
         And years should shade my brow
    True to myself and true to all
         May I be healthful still
    And turn away from passion’s call
         And curb my own wild will

     
     

    I know not how it falls on me,
    This summer evening hushed and lone;
    Yet the faint wind comes soothingly
    With something of an olden tone.

     

    Forgive me if I’ve shunned so long
    Your gentle greeting, earth and air!
    But sorrow withers e’en the strong,
    And who can fight against despair?