Poems for the Spirit

by thinker 4 Replies latest social entertainment

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  thinker

  Have you ever wondered why we "connect" with music and poetry? It's an interesting subject to research.
  I thought I'd post some poems of a spiritual nature and I invite others to do the same.
  Earth. [John Hall Wheelock]

  Grasshopper, your fairy song
  And my poem alike belong
  To the dark and silent earth
  From which all poetry has birth;
  All we say and all we sing
  Is but as the murmuring
  Of that drowsy heart of hers
  When from her deep dream she stirs:
  If we sorrow, or rejoice,
  You and I are but her voice.

  Deftly does the dust express
  In mind her hidden loveliness,
  And from her cool silence stream
  The cricket's cry and Dante's dream;
  For the earth that breeds the trees
  Breeds cities too, and symphonies.
  Equally her beauty flows
  Into a savior, or a rose --
  Looks down in dream, and from above
  Smiles at herself in Jesus' love.
  Christ's love and Homer's art
  Are but the workings of her heart;
  Through Leonardo's hand she seeks
  Herself, and through Beethoven speaks
  In holy thunderings around
  The awful message of the ground.

  The serene and humble mold
  Does in herself all selves enfold --
  Kingdoms, destinies, and creeds,
  Great dreams, and dauntless deeds,
  Science that metes the firmament,
  The high, inflexible intent
  Of one for many sacrificed --
  Plato's brain, the heart of Christ:
  All love, all legend, and all lore
  Are in the dust forevermore.

  Even as the growing grass
  Up from the soil religions pass,
  And the field that bears the rye
  Bears parables and prophecy.
  Out of the earth the poem grows
  Like the lily, or the rose;
  And all man is, or yet may be,
  Is but herself in agony
  Toiling up the steep ascent
  Toward the complete accomplishment
  When all dust shall be, the whole
  Universe, one conscious soul.
  Yea, the quiet and cool sod
  Bears in her breast the dream of God.

  If you would know what earth is, scan
  The intricate, proud heart of man,
  Which is the earth articulate,
  And learn how holy and how great,
  How limitless and how profound
  Is the nature of the ground --
  How without terror or demur
  We may entrust ourselves to her
  When we are wearied out, and lay
  Our faces in the common clay.

  For she is pity, she is love,
  All wisdom she, all thoughts that move
  About her everlasting breast
  Till she gathers them to rest:
  All tenderness of all the ages,
  Seraphic secrets of the sages,
  Vision and hope of all the seers,
  All prayer, all anguish, and all tears
  Are but the dust, that from her dream
  Awakes, and knows herself supreme --
  Are but earth when she reveals
  All that her secret heart conceals
  Down in the dark and silent loam,
  Which is ourselves, asleep, at home.

  Yea, and this, my poem, too,
  Is part of her as dust and dew,
  Wherein herself she doth declare
  Through my lips, and say her prayer.
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  thinker

  Little Things. [Orrick Johns]

  There's nothing very beautiful and nothing very gay
  About the rush of faces in the town by day,
  But a light tan cow in a pale green mead,
  That is very beautiful, beautiful indeed . . .
  And the soft March wind and the low March mist
  Are better than kisses in a dark street kissed . . .
  The fragrance of the forest when it wakes at dawn,
  The fragrance of a trim green village lawn,
  The hearing of the murmur of the rain at play --
  These things are beautiful, beautiful as day!
  And I shan't stand waiting for love or scorn
  When the feast is laid for a day new-born . . .
  Oh, better let the little things I loved when little
  Return when the heart finds the great things brittle;
  And better is a temple made of bark and thong
  Than a tall stone temple that may stand too long.
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  thinker

  Compensation. [William Ellery Leonard]

  I know the sorrows of the last abyss:
  I walked the cold black pools without a star;
  I lay on rock of unseen flint and spar;
  I heard the execrable serpent hiss;
  I dreamed of sun, fruit-tree, and virgin's kiss;
  I woke alone with midnight near and far,
  And everlasting hunger, keen to mar;
  But I arose, and my reward is this:
  I am no more one more amid the throng:
  Though name be naught, and lips forever weak,
  I seem to know at last of mighty song;
  And with no blush, no tremor on the cheek,
  I do claim consort with the great and strong
  Who suffered ill and had the gift to speak.
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  thinker

  The Path that leads to Nowhere. [Corinne Roosevelt Robinson]

  There's a path that leads to Nowhere
  In a meadow that I know,
  Where an inland island rises
  And the stream is still and slow;
  There it wanders under willows
  And beneath the silver green
  Of the birches' silent shadows
  Where the early violets lean.

  Other pathways lead to Somewhere,
  But the one I love so well
  Had no end and no beginning --
  Just the beauty of the dell,
  Just the windflowers and the lilies
  Yellow striped as adder's tongue,
  Seem to satisfy my pathway
  As it winds their sweets among.

  There I go to meet the Springtime,
  When the meadow is aglow,
  Marigolds amid the marshes, --
  And the stream is still and slow. --
  There I find my fair oasis,
  And with care-free feet I tread
  For the pathway leads to Nowhere,
  And the blue is overhead!

  All the ways that lead to Somewhere
  Echo with the hurrying feet
  Of the Struggling and the Striving,
  But the way I find so sweet
  Bids me dream and bids me linger,
  Joy and Beauty are its goal, --
  On the path that leads to Nowhere
  I have sometimes found my soul!
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  thinker

  Old Manuscript. [Alfred Kreymborg]

  The sky
  Is that beautiful old parchment
  In which the sun
  And the moon
  Keep their diary.
  To read it all,
  One must be a linguist
  More learned than Father Wisdom;
  And a visionary
  More clairvoyant than Mother Dream.
  But to feel it,
  One must be an apostle:
  One who is more than intimate
  In having been, always,
  The only confidant --
  Like the earth
  Or the sky.