Po-mz

A Gorgeous Anitra Freeman Poem Collected And Shared By Tony Johansen

BELTANE FIRE 

If we had an ancient wood to play in
far away from obligations
and city-mall temptations

if I were draped in soft green,
if I swayed like a tender willow,
if I flirted from shadow to shadow

would you follow clad in hunter’s green?
Would you follow as a leaping hound?
Would you follow lightly as a hummingbird?

If I saunter by you in summer rose and velvet
trailing alluring flowers
will you serenade me, Apollo in the glade?

We could tag and twist across a maze of branches
plump and playful squirrels
twirl around each other, ever-falling leaves.

I would be a white doe skimming through enchanted woods
you would be the great white hound always belling after me
then I would turn and I would be

white as bone and sleek as weasel
fast as winter
after you

I’d pounce and pin you
to the breast
of ancient and relentless Gaia

your breast bare and open to me
I would lay tiny perfect teeth
softly

against the tender skin of your beating heart
and hold.
And after a thousand years

you’ll know I love you.

D. H. Lawrence Poetry Collected And Shared By Tony Johansen

DREAMS NASCENT

My world is a painted fresco, where coloured shapes
Of old, ineffectual lives linger blurred and warm;
An endless tapestry the past has women drapes
The halls of my life, compelling my soul to conform.

The surface of dreams is broken,
The picture of the past is shaken and scattered.
Fluent, active figures of men pass along the railway, and I am woken
From the dreams that the distance flattered.

Along the railway, active figures of men.
They have a secret that stirs in their limbs as they move
Out of the distance, nearer, commanding my dreamy world.

Here in the subtle, rounded flesh
Beats the active ecstasy.
In the sudden lifting my eyes, it is clearer,
The fascination of the quick, restless Creator moving through the mesh
Of men, vibrating in ecstasy through the rounded flesh.

Oh my boys, bending over your books,
In you is trembling and fusing
The creation of a new-patterned dream, dream of a generation:
And I watch to see the Creator, the power that patterns the dream.

The old dreams are beautiful, beloved, soft-toned, and sure,
But the dream-stuff is molten and moving mysteriously,
Alluring my eyes; for I, am I not also dream-stuff,
Am I not quickening, diffusing myself in the pattern, shaping and shapen?

Here in my class is the answer for the great yearning:
Eyes where I can watch the swim of old dreams reflected on the molten metal of dreams,
Watch the stir which is rhythmic and moves them all as a heart-beat moves the blood,
Here in the swelling flesh the great activity working,
Visible there in the change of eyes and the mobile features.

Oh the great mystery and fascination of the unseen Shaper,
The power of the melting, fusing Force—heat, light, all in one,
Everything great and mysterious in one, swelling and shaping the dream in the flesh,
As it swells and shapes a bud into blossom.

Oh the terrible ecstasy of the consciousness that I am life!
Oh the miracle of the whole, the widespread, labouring concentration
Swelling mankind like one bud to bring forth the fruit of a dream,
Oh the terror of lifting the innermost I out of the sweep of the impulse of life,
And watching the great Thing labouring through the whole round flesh of the world;
And striving to catch a glimpse of the shape of the coming dream,
As it quickens within the labouring, white-hot metal,
Catch the scent and the colour of the coming dream,
Then to fall back exhausted into the unconscious, molten life!

- D. H. Lawrence

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Dreams Nascent is significant because this is Lawrence’s first published poem. 

 .

DREAMS OLD

I have opened the window to warm my hands on the sill
Where the sunlight soaks in the stone: the afternoon
Is full of dreams, my love, the boys are all still
In a wistful dream of Lorna Doone.

The clink of the shunting engines is sharp and fine,
Like savage music striking far off, and there
On the great, uplifted blue palace, lights stir and shine
Where the glass is domed in the blue, soft air.

There lies the world, my darling, full of wonder and wistfulness and strange
Recognition and greetings of half-acquaint things, as I greet the cloud
Of blue palace aloft there, among misty indefinite dreams that range
At the back of my life’s horizon, where the dreamings of past lives crowd.

Over the nearness of Norwood Hill, through the mellow veil
Of the afternoon glows to me the old romance of David and Dora,
With the old, sweet, soothing tears, and laughter that shakes the sail
Of the ship of the soul over seas where dreamed dreams lure the unoceaned explorer.

All the bygone, hushèd years
Streaming back where the mist distils
Into forgetfulness: soft-sailing waters where fears
No longer shake, where the silk sail fills
With an unfelt breeze that ebbs over the seas, where the storm
Of living has passed, on and on
Through the coloured iridescence that swims in the warm
Wake of the tumult now spent and gone,
Drifts my boat, wistfully lapsing after
The mists of vanishing tears and the echo of laughter.

- D. H. Lawrence 

The Beauty Of Inokentii Fedorovich Annensky Poetry Collected And Shared By Tony Johansen

BOW AND STRINGS

- Inokentii Fedorovich Annensky

.

.

A GAS BUTTERFLY

Tell me what’s happening to me?
Why is my heart beating so fervently?
why has this madness, like a wave,
Broken through the rock of habit?

Is it my strength or just my torment
I’m too disturbed to tell:
From the shimmering lines of life
I extract a forgotten phrase…

Is it a thief who turns his lantern
Upon the crowd of dreary letters?
I can’t help reading the phrase,
But haven’t the strength to go back…

It really had to flare up,
But it only harries the darkness;
All night, like a gas-flame butterfly
It trembles, but cannot escape…

- Inokentii Federovich Annensky

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This poem is especially poignant considering Annensky’s great tragedy. He first wrote poetry as a child but had to eat and support his family and became an educator and so had little time for his artistry. His artistic output started to grow later in his life but his heart was weak. He petitioned to be retired from teaching due to his health but was turned down. He tried a final plea to be let go but on the day it was at last granted he died of a heart attack on the steps of a railway station. He had published several books of poetry but they had been ignored by the critics and public. He felt rejected yet soon after his death his last work was published and was given the recognition that he deserved. Paradoxically the acclaim for this posthumous book caused his earlier work to be reassessed and appreciated. It is sad that he never knew. Thank you to Ruth Duncan for sending me A Gas Butterfly.

A Beautiful Wislawa Szymborska Poem Collected And Shared By Tony Johansen

THE TURN OF THE CENTURY

It was supposed to be better than the others, our 20th century,

But it won’t have time to prove it.

Its years are numbered,

its step unsteady,

its breath short.

Already too much has happened

that was not supposed to happen.

What was to come about

has not.

Spring was to be on its way,

and happiness, among other things.

Fear was to leave the mountains and valleys.

The truth was supposed to finish before the lie.

Certain misfortunes

were never to happen again

such as war and hunger and so forth.

These were to be respected:

the defenselessness of the defenseless,

trust and the like.

Whoever wanted to enjoy the world

faces an impossible task.

Stupidity is not funny.

Wisdom isn’t jolly.

Hope

Is no longer the same young girl

et cetera. Alas.

God was at last to believe in man:

good and strong,

but good and strong

are still two different people.

How to live—someone asked me this in a letter,

someone I had wanted

to ask that very thing.

Again and as always,

and as seen above

there are no questions more urgent

than the naive ones.

- Wislawa Szymborska

A Memorable Emerson Poem Collected And Shared By Tony Johansen

CONCORD HYMN

By the rude bridge that arched the flood.
Their flag to April’s breeze unfurled,
Here once the embattled farmers stood
And fired the shot heard round the world.

The foe long since in silence slept;
Alike the conqueror silent sleeps;
And Time the ruined bridge has swept
Down the dark stream which seaward creeps.

On this green bank, by this soft stream,
We set to-day a votive stone;
That memory may their deed redeem,
When, like our sires, are sons are gone.

 Spirit, that made those heros dare
To die and leave their children free,
Bid Time and Nature gently spare
The shaft we raise to them and thee.

_ Ralph Waldo Emerson 

A Wonderful Longfellow Poem Collected And Shared By Tony Johansen

PAUL REVERE’S RIDE

Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, “If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,—
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm.”

Then he said “Good-night!” and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.

Meanwhile, his friend through alley and street
Wanders and watches, with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.

Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,—
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town
And the moonlight flowing over all.

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, “All is well!”
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,—
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide like a bridge of boats.

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse’s side,
Now he gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns.

A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.

It was twelve by the village clock
When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.
He heard the crowing of the cock,
And the barking of the farmer’s dog,
And felt the damp of the river fog,
That rises after the sun goes down.

It was one by the village clock,
When he galloped into Lexington.
He saw the gilded weathercock
Swim in the moonlight as he passed,
And the meeting-house windows, black and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,
As if they already stood aghast
At the bloody work they would look upon.

It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadow brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket ball.

You know the rest. In the books you have read
 How the British Regulars fired and fled,—-
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

 So through the night rode Paul Revere;
 And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,—-
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 

A Marvelous Oscar Wilde Poem Collected And Shared By Tony Johansen

THE BALLAD OF READING JAIL

I walked, with other souls in pain,
….Within another ring,
And was wondering if the man had done
….A great or little thing,
When a voice behind me whispered low,
….That fellows got to swing

Dear Christ! the very prison walls
….Suddenly seemed to reel,
And the sky above my head became
….Like a casque of scorching steel;
And, though I was a soul in pain,
….My pain I could not feel.

I only knew what hunted thought
….Quickened his step, and why
He looked upon the garish day
….With such a wistful eye;
The man had killed the thing he loved
….And so he had to die.



Yet each man kills the thing he loves,
….By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
….Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
….The brave man with a sword!

Some kill their love when they are young,
…..And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
….Some with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
….The dead so soon grow cold.

Some love too little, some too long,
….Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
….And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
….Yet each man does not die.

He does not die a death of shame
….On a day of dark disgrace,
Nor have a noose about his neck,
….Nor a cloth upon his face,
Nor drop feet foremost through the floor
….Into an empty space.

He does not sit with silent men
…..Who watch him night and day;
Who watch him when he tries to weep,
…..And when he tries to pray;
Who watch him lest himself should rob
….The prison of its prey.

He does not wake at dawn to see
….Dread figures throng his room,
The shivering Chaplain robed in white,
….The Sheriff stern with gloom,
And the Governor all in shiny black,
….With the yellow face of Doom.

He does not rise in piteous haste
….To put on convict-clothes,
While some coarse-mouthed Doctor gloats, and notes
….Each new and nerve-twitched pose,
Fingering a watch whose little ticks
….Are like horrible hammer-blows.

He does not know that sickening thirst
….That sands one’s throat, before
The hangman with his gardener’s gloves
….Slips through the padded door,
And binds one with three leathern thongs,
….That the throat may thirst no more.

He does not bend his head to hear
….The Burial Office read,
Nor, while the terror of his soul
….Tells him he is not dead,
Cross his own coffin, as he moves
….Into the hideous shed.

He does not stare upon the air
….Through a little roof of glass;
He does not pray with lips of clay
….For his agony to pass;
Nor feel upon his shuddering cheek
….The kiss of Caiaphas.

Six weeks our guardsman walked the yard,
….In the suit of shabby gray:
His cricket cap was on his head,
….And his step seemed light and gay,
But I never saw a man who looked
….So wistfully at the day.

I never saw a man who looked
….With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
….Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every wandering cloud that trailed
….Its ravelled fleeces by.

He did not wring his hands, as do
….Those witless men who dare
To try to rear the changeling Hope
….In the cave of black Despair:
He only looked upon the sun,
….And drank the morning air.

He did not wring his hands nor weep,
….Nor did he peek or pine,
But he drank the air as though it held
….Some healthful anodyne;
With open mouth he drank the sun
….As though it had been wine!

And I and all the souls in pain,
….Who tramped the other ring,
Forgot if we ourselves had done
….A great or little thing,
And watched with gaze of dull amaze
….The man who had to swing.

And strange it was to see him pass
….With a step so light and gay,
And strange it was to see him look
….So wistfully at the day,
And strange it was to think that he
….Had such a debt to pay.

For oak and elm have pleasant leaves
….That in the spring-time shoot:
But grim to see is the gallows-tree,
….With its adder-bitten root,
And, green or dry, a man must die
….Before it bears its fruit!

The loftiest place is that seat of grace
….For which all worldlings try:
But who would stand in hempen band
….Upon a scaffold high,
And through a murderer’s collar take
….His last look at the sky?

It is sweet to dance to violins
….When Love and Life are fair:
To dance to flutes, to dance to lutes
….Is delicate and rare:
But it is not sweet with nimble feet
….To dance upon the air!

So with curious eyes and sick surmise
….We watched him day by day,
And wondered if each one of us
….Would end the self-same way,
For none can tell to what red Hell
….His sightless soul may stray.

At last the dead man walked no more
….Amongst the Trial Men,
And I knew that he was standing up
….In the black dock’s dreadful pen,
And that never would I see his face
….In God’s sweet world again.

Like two doomed ships that pass in storm
….We had crossed each other’s way:
But we made no sign, we said no word,
….We had no word to say;
For we did not meet in the holy night,
….But in the shameful day.

A prison wall was round us both,
….Two outcast men were we:
The world had thrust us from its heart,
….And God from out His care:
And the iron gin that waits for Sin
….Had caught us in its snare.

In Debtors’ Yard the stones are hard,
….And the dripping wall is high,
So it was there he took the air
….Beneath the leaden sky,
And by each side a Warder walked,
….For fear the man might die.

Or else he sat with those who watched
….His anguish night and day;
Who watched him when he rose to weep,
….And when he crouched to pray;
Who watched him lest himself should rob
….Their scaffold of its prey.

The Governor was strong upon
….The Regulations Act:
The Doctor said that Death was but
….A scientific fact:
And twice a day the Chaplain called,
….And left a little tract.

And twice a day he smoked his pipe,
….And drank his quart of beer:
His soul was resolute, and held
….No hiding-place for fear;
He often said that he was glad
….The hangman’s hands were near.

But why he said so strange a thing
….No Warder dared to ask:
For he to whom a watcher’s doom
….Is given as his task,
Must set a lock upon his lips,
….And make his face a mask.

Or else he might be moved, and try
….To comfort or console:
And what should Human Pity do
….Pent up in Murderers’ Hole?
What word of grace in such a place
….Could help a brother’s soul?

With slouch and swing around the ring
….We trod the Fools’ Parade!
We did not care: we knew we were
….The Devil’s Own Brigade:
And shaven head and feet of lead
….Make a merry masquerade.

We tore the tarry rope to shreds
….With blunt and bleeding nails;
We rubbed the doors, and scrubbed the floors,
….And cleaned the shining rails:
And, rank by rank, we soaped the plank,
….And clattered with the pails.

We sewed the sacks, we broke the stones,
….We turned the dusty drill:
We banged the tins, and bawled the hymns,
….And sweated on the mill:
But in the heart of every man
….Terror was lying still.

So still it lay that every day
….Crawled like a weed-clogged wave:
And we forgot the bitter lot
….That waits for fool and knave,
Till once, as we tramped in from work,
….We passed an open grave.

With yawning mouth the yellow hole
….Gaped for a living thing;
The very mud cried out for blood
….To the thirsty asphalte ring:
And we knew that ere one dawn grew fair
….Some prisoner had to swing.

Right in we went, with soul intent
….On Death and Dread and Doom:
The hangman, with his little bag,
….Went shuffling through the gloom:
And each man trembled as he crept
….Into his numbered tomb.

That night the empty corridors
….Were full of forms of Fear,
And up and down the iron town
….Stole feet we could not hear,
And through the bars that hide the stars
….White faces seemed to peer.

He lay as one who lies and dreams
….In a pleasant meadow-land,
The watcher watched him as he slept,
….And could not understand
How one could sleep so sweet a sleep
….With a hangman close at hand.

But there is no sleep when men must weep
….Who never yet have wept:
So we ” the fool, the fraud, the knave “
….That endless vigil kept,
And through each brain on hands of pain
….Another’s terror crept.

Alas! it is a fearful thing
….To feel another’s guilt!
For, right within, the sword of Sin
….Pierced to its poisoned hilt,
And as molten lead were the tears we shed
….For the blood we had not spilt.

The Warders with their shoes of felt
….Crept by each padlocked door,
And peeped and saw, with eyes of awe,
….Gray figures on the floor,
And wondered why men knelt to pray
….Who never prayed before.

All through the night we knelt and prayed,
….Mad mourners of a corse!
The troubled plumes of midnight were
….The plumes upon a hearse:
And bitter wine upon a sponge
…Was the savour of Remorse.


The gray cock crew, the red cock crew,
….But never came the day:
And crooked shapes of Terror crouched,
…In the corners where we lay:
And each evil sprite that walks by night
….Before us seemed to play.

They glided past, they glided fast,
….Like travellers through a mist:
They mocked the moon in a rigadoon
….Of delicate turn and twist,
And with formal pace and loathsome grace
….The phantoms kept their tryst.

With mop and mow we saw them go,
….Slim shadows hand in hand:
About, about, in ghostly rout
….They trod a saraband:
And the damned grotesques made arabesques,
….Like the wind upon the sand!

With the pirouettes of marionettes,
….They tripped on pointed tread:
But with flutes of Fear they filled the ear,
….As their grisly masque they led,
And loud they sang, and long they sang,
….For they sang to wake the dead.

Oho! they cried, The world is wide,
….But fettered limbs go lame!
And once, or twice, to throw the dice
….Is a gentlemanly game,
But he does not win who plays with Sin
….In the secret House of Shame;

No things of air these antics were,
….That frolicked with such glee:
To men whose lives were held in gyves,
….And whose feet might not go free,
Ah! wounds of Christ! they were living things,
….Most terrible to see.

Around, around, they waltzed and wound;
….Some wheeled in smirking pairs;
With the mincing step of demirep
….Some sidled up the stairs:
And with subtle sneer, and fawning leer,
….Each helped us at our prayers.


The morning wind began to moan,
….But still the night went on:
Through its giant loom the web of gloom
….Crept till each thread was spun:
And, as we prayed, we grew afraid
….Of the Justice of the Sun.

The moaning wind went wandering round
….The weeping prison-wall:
Till like a wheel of turning steel
….We felt the minutes crawl:
O moaning wind! what had we done
….To have such a seneschal?

At last I saw the shadowed bars
….Like a lattice wrought in lead,
Move right across the whitewashed wall
….That faced my three-plank bed,
And I knew that somewhere in the world
….God’s dreadful dawn was red.


At six o’clock we cleaned our cells,
….At seven all was still,
But the sough and swing of a mighty wing
….The prison seemed to fill,
For the Lord of Death with icy breath
….Had entered in to kill.

He did not pass in purple pomp,
….Nor ride a moon-white steed.
Three yards of cord and a sliding board
….Are all the gallows’ need:
So with rope of shame the Herald came
….To do the secret deed.


We were as men who through a fen
….Of filthy darkness grope:
We did not dare to breathe a prayer,
….Or give our anguish scope:
Something was dead in each of us,
….And what was dead was Hope.

For Man’s grim Justice goes its way,
….And will not swerve aside:
It slays the weak, it slays the strong,
….It has a deadly stride:
With iron heel it slays the strong,
….The monstrous parricide!



We waited for the stroke of eight:
….Each tongue was thick with thirst:
For the stroke of eight is the stroke of Fate
….That makes a man accursed,
And Fate will use a running noose
….For the best man and the worst.

We had no other thing to do,
….Save to wait for the sign to come:
So, like things of stone in a valley lone,
….Quiet we sat and dumb:
But each man’s heart beat thick and quick,
….Like a madman on a drum!


With sudden shock the prison-clock
….Smote on the shivering air,
And from all the gaol rose up a wail
….Of impotent despair,
Like the sound that frightened marshes hear
….From a leper in his lair.

And as one sees most fearful things
….In the crystal of a dream,
We saw the greasy hempen rope
….Hooked to the blackened beam,
And heard the prayer the hangman’s snare
….Strangled into a scream.

And all the woe that moved him so
….That he gave that bitter cry,
And the wild regrets, and the bloody sweats,
….None knew so well as I:
For he who lives more lives than one
….More deaths than one must die.

There is no chapel on the day
….On which they hang a man:
The Chaplain’s heart is far too sick,
….Or his face is far to wan,
Or there is that written in his eyes
….Which none should look upon.

So they kept us close till nigh on noon,
….And then they rang the bell,
And the Warders with their jingling keys
….Opened each listening cell,
And down the iron stair we tramped,
….Each from his separate Hell.

Out into God’s sweet air we went,
….But not in wonted way,
For this man’s face was white with fear,
….And that man’s face was gray,
And I never saw sad men who looked
….So wistfully at the day.

I never saw sad men who looked
….With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
….We prisoners called the sky,
And at every careless cloud that passed
….In happy freedom by.

But there were those amongst us all
….Who walked with downcast head,
And knew that, had each got his due,
….They should have died instead:
He had but killed a thing that lived,
….Whilst they had killed the dead.

For he who sins a second time
….Wakes a dead soul to pain,
And draws it from its spotted shroud,
….And makes it bleed again,
And makes it bleed great gouts of blood,
….And makes it bleed in vain!


Like ape or clown, in monstrous garb
….With crooked arrows starred,
Silently we went round and round
….The slippery asphalte yard;
Silently we went round and round,
….And no man spoke a word.

Silently we went round and round,
….And through each hollow mind
The Memory of dreadful things
….Rushed like a dreadful wind,
And Horror stalked before each man,
….And Terror crept behind.


The Warders strutted up and down,
….And kept their herd of brutes,
Their uniforms were spick and span,
….And they wore their Sunday suits,
But we knew the work they had been at,
….By the quicklime on their boots.

For where a grave had opened wide,
….There was no grave at all:
Only a stretch of mud and sand
….By the hideous prison-wall,
And a little heap of burning lime,
….That the man should have his pall.

For he has a pall, this wretched man,
….Such as few men can claim:
Deep down below a prison-yard,
….Naked for greater shame,
He lies, with fetters on each foot,
….Wrapt in a sheet of flame!

And all the while the burning lime
….Eats flesh and bone away,
It eats the brittle bone by night,
….And the soft flesh by day,
It eats the flesh and bones by turns,
….But it eats the heart alway.


For three long years they will not sow
….Or root or seedling there:
For three long years the unblessed spot
….Will sterile be and bare,
And look upon the wondering sky
….With unreproachful stare.

They think a murderer’s heart would taint
….Each simple seed they sow.
It is not true!� God’s kindly earth
….Is kindlier than men know,
And the red rose would but blow more red,
….The white rose whiter blow.

Out of his mouth a red, red rose!
….Out of his heart a white!
For who can say by what strange way,
….Christ brings His will to light,
Since the barren staff the pilgrim bore
….Bloomed in the great Pope’s sight?


But neither milk-white rose nor red
….May bloom in prison air;
The shard, the pebble, and the flint,
….Are what they give us there:
For flowers have been known to heal
….A common man’s despair.

So never will wine-red rose or white,
….Petal by petal, fall
On that stretch of mud and sand that lies
….By the hideous prison-wall,
To tell the men who tramp the yard
….That God’s Son died for all.


Yet though the hideous prison-wall
….Still hems him round and round,
And a spirit man not walk by night
….That is with fetters bound,
And a spirit may but weep that lies
….In such unholy ground,

He is at peace � this wretched man �
….At peace, or will be soon:
There is no thing to make him mad,
….Nor does Terror walk at noon,
For the lampless Earth in which he lies
….Has neither Sun nor Moon.

They hanged him as a beast is hanged:
….They did not even toll
A requiem that might have brought
….Rest to his startled soul,
But hurriedly they took him out,
….And hid him in a hole.

They stripped him of his canvas clothes,
….And gave him to the flies:
They mocked the swollen purple throat
….And the stark and staring eyes:
And with laughter loud they heaped the shroud
….In which their convict lies.

The Chaplain would not kneel to pray
….By this dishonoured grave
Nor mark it with that blessed Cross
….That Christ for sinners gave
Because the man was one of those
….Whom Christ came down to save.

Yet all is well;he has but passed
….To lifes appointed bourne
And alien tears will fill for him
….Pity’s long-broken urn
For his mourner will be outcast men
….and outcast always mourn.

V I know not whether Laws be right,
….Or whether Laws be wrong;
All that we know who lie in goal
….Is that the wall is strong;
And that each day is like a year,
….A year whose days are long.

But this I know, that every Law
….That men have made for Man,
Since first Man took his brother’s life,
….And the sad world began,
But straws the wheat and saves the chaff
….With a most evil fan.

This too I know � and wise it were
….If each could know the same �
That every prison that men build
….Is built with bricks of shame,
And bound with bars lest Christ should see
….How men their brothers maim.

With bars they blur the gracious moon,
….And blind the goodly sun:
And they do well to hide their Hell,
….For in it things are done
That Son of God nor son of Man
….Ever should look upon!


The vilest deeds like poison weeds
….Bloom well in prison-air:
It is only what is good in Man
….That wastes and withers there:
Pale Anguish keeps the heavy gate,
….And the Warder is Despair.

For they starve the little frightened child
….Till it weeps both night and day:
And they scourge the weak, and flog the fool,
….And gibe the old and gray,
And some grow mad, and all grow bad,
….And none a word may say.

Each narrow cell in which we dwell
….Is a foul and dark latrine,
And the fetid breath of living Death
….Chokes up each grated screen,
And all, but Lust, is turned to dust
….In Humanity’s machine.

The brackish water that we drink
….Creeps with a loathsome slime,
And the bitter bread they weigh in scales
….Is full of chalk and lime,
And Sleep will not lie down, but walks
….Wild-eyed, and cries to Time.


But though lean Hunger and green Thirst
….Like asp with adder fight,
We have little care of prison fare,
….For what chills and kills outright
Is that every stone one lifts by day
….Becomes one’s heart by night.

With midnight always in one’s heart,
….And twilight in one’s cell,
We turn the crank, or tear the rope,
….Each in his separate Hell,
And the silence is more awful far
….Than the sound of a brazen bell.

And never a human voice comes near
….To speak a gentle word:
And the eye that watches through the door
….Is pitiless and hard:
And by all forgot, we rot and rot,
….With soul and body marred.

And thus we rust Life’s iron chain
….Degraded and alone:
And some men curse, and some men weep,
….And some men make no moan:
But God’s eternal Laws are kind
….And break the heart of stone.


And every human heart that breaks,
….In prison-cell or yard,
Is as that broken box that gave
….Its treasure to the Lord,
And filled the unclean leper’s house
….With the scent of costliest nard.

Ah! happy day they whose hearts can break
….And peace of pardon win!
How else may man make straight his plan
….And cleanse his soul from Sin?
How else but through a broken heart
….May Lord Christ enter in?


And he of the swollen purple throat,
….And the stark and staring eyes,
Waits for the holy hands that took
….The Thief to Paradise;
And a broken and a contrite heart
….The Lord will not despise.

The man in red who reads the Law
….Gave him three weeks of life,
Three little weeks in which to heal
….His soul of his soul’s strife,
And cleanse from every blot of blood
….The hand that held the knife.

And with tears of blood he cleansed the hand,
….The hand that held the steel:
For only blood can wipe out blood,
….And only tears can heal:
And the crimson stain that was of Cain

….Became Christ’s snow-white seal.

VI

In Reading gaol by Reading town
….There is a pit of shame,
And in it lies a wretched man
….Eaten by teeth of flame,
In burning winding-sheet he lies,
….And his grave has got no name.

And there, till Christ call forth the dead,
….In silence let him lie:
No need to waste the foolish tear,
….Or heave the windy sigh:
The man had killed the thing he loved,
….And so he had to die.

And all men kill the thing they love,
….By all let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
….Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
….The brave man with a sword!

- Oscar Wilde

This poem was first published under the pseudonym C33 which was Wilde’s cell number at the jail. it was some years before Wilde’s name appeared under the poem. The C. T. W. at the head of the poem was Charles Thomas Wooldridge.

This brilliant poem featured in a television episode of The Virginian in the late 1960’s. In it a school teacher reads a substantial portion of the poem to an educated criminal who has imprisoned some children. It was a anachronism as the poem had not been written yet in the time frame of the TV series but the poem was dramatically and superbly read and fitted well the complex emotions of the kidnapper. 

The Memorable Emma Lazarus Poem Collected And Shared By Tony Johansen

THE NEW COLOSSUS

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Exiles.
From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

- Emma Lazarus

.

Lazarus wrote this sonnet in 1883. She had been originally disinterested in the Statue Of Liberty but friends pointed out its significance to those seeking freedom from religious persecution (Lazarus was Jewish so this was important to her.) Even so the poem was ignored and forgotten until its rediscovery after her death among her papers. It was soon published in newspapers and its fame grew quickly. Its words about “…your tired, your poor, your huddled masses…” started to catch on among the migrant populations of New York and in 1903 the poem was inscibed on a tablet insde the Statue’s base. The poem changed completely the way people viewed the Statue. Its original purpose was nothing to do with immigration, it was intended to celebrate the republicanism that France and the United States shared. The Emma Lazarus poem, however, was a a simpler, less abstract, more welcoming concept that millions of Americans could relate to in a deeply meaningful way, especially since the statue was the first view ship board migrants would see of New York and it became their symbol of freedom and the French political connection was largely sidelined. In 1945 the poem was moved to pride of place above the main entrance to the Statue and the poem is now one of the most famous and loved poems in American history.

A Beautiful William Browne Poem Collected And Shared By Tony Johansen

A WELCOME

WELCOME, welcome! do I sing,
Far more welcome than the spring;
He that parteth from you never
Shall enjoy a spring for ever.

He that to the voice is near
Breaking from your iv’ry pale,
Need not walk abroad to hear
The delightful nightingale.
Welcome, welcome, then…

He that looks still on your eyes,
Though the winter have begun
To benumb our arteries,
Shall not want the summer’s sun.
Welcome, welcome, then…

He that still may see your cheeks,
Where all rareness still reposes,
Is a fool if e’er he seeks
Other lilies, other roses.
Welcome, welcome, then…

He to whom your soft lip yields,
And perceives your breath in kissing,
All the odours of the fields
Never, never shall be missing.
Welcome, welcome, then…

He that question would anew
What fair Eden was of old,
Let him rightly study you,
And a brief of that behold.
Welcome, welcome, then…

- William Browne 

An Inspirational Walt Whitman Poem Collected And Shared By Tony Johansen

I SING THE BODY ELECTRIC

1

I sing the body electric,
The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,
They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.

Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves?
And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead?
And if the body does not do fully as much as the soul?
And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul?

2

The love of the body of man or woman balks account, the body itself
balks account,
That of the male is perfect, and that of the female is perfect.

The expression of the face balks account,
But the expression of a well-made man appears not only in his face,
It is in his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the joints of
his hips and wrists,
It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist
and knees, dress does not hide him,
The strong sweet quality he has strikes through the cotton and broadcloth,
To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps more,
You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and shoulder-side.

The sprawl and fulness of babes, the bosoms and heads of women, the
folds of their dress, their style as we pass in the street, the
contour of their shape downwards,
The swimmer naked in the swimming-bath, seen as he swims through
the transparent green-shine, or lies with his face up and rolls
silently to and from the heave of the water,
The bending forward and backward of rowers in row-boats, the
horse-man in his saddle,
Girls, mothers, house-keepers, in all their performances,
The group of laborers seated at noon-time with their open
dinner-kettles, and their wives waiting,
The female soothing a child, the farmer’s daughter in the garden or
cow-yard,
The young fellow hosing corn, the sleigh-driver driving his six
horses through the crowd,
The wrestle of wrestlers, two apprentice-boys, quite grown, lusty,
good-natured, native-born, out on the vacant lot at sundown after work,
The coats and caps thrown down, the embrace of love and resistance,
The upper-hold and under-hold, the hair rumpled over and blinding the eyes;
The march of firemen in their own costumes, the play of masculine
muscle through clean-setting trowsers and waist-straps,
The slow return from the fire, the pause when the bell strikes
suddenly again, and the listening on the alert,
The natural, perfect, varied attitudes, the bent head, the curv’d
neck and the counting;
Such-like I love—I loosen myself, pass freely, am at the mother’s
breast with the little child,
Swim with the swimmers, wrestle with wrestlers, march in line with
the firemen, and pause, listen, count.

3

I knew a man, a common farmer, the father of five sons,
And in them the fathers of sons, and in them the fathers of sons.

This man was a wonderful vigor, calmness, beauty of person,
The shape of his head, the pale yellow and white of his hair and
beard, the immeasurable meaning of his black eyes, the richness
and breadth of his manners,
These I used to go and visit him to see, he was wise also,
He was six feet tall, he was over eighty years old, his sons were
massive, clean, bearded, tan-faced, handsome,
They and his daughters loved him, all who saw him loved him,
They did not love him by allowance, they loved him with personal love,
He drank water only, the blood show’d like scarlet through the
clear-brown skin of his face,
He was a frequent gunner and fisher, he sail’d his boat himself, he
had a fine one presented to him by a ship-joiner, he had
fowling-pieces presented to him by men that loved him,
When he went with his five sons and many grand-sons to hunt or fish,
you would pick him out as the most beautiful and vigorous of the gang,
You would wish long and long to be with him, you would wish to sit
by him in the boat that you and he might touch each other.

4

I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough,
To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,
To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough,
To pass among them or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly
round his or her neck for a moment, what is this then?
I do not ask any more delight, I swim in it as in a sea.

There is something in staying close to men and women and looking
on them, and in the contact and odor of them, that pleases the soul well,
All things please the soul, but these please the soul well.

5

This is the female form,
A divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot,
It attracts with fierce undeniable attraction,
I am drawn by its breath as if I were no more than a helpless vapor,
all falls aside but myself and it,
Books, art, religion, time, the visible and solid earth, and what
was expected of heaven or fear’d of hell, are now consumed,
Mad filaments, ungovernable shoots play out of it, the response
likewise ungovernable,
Hair, bosom, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling hands all
diffused, mine too diffused,
Ebb stung by the flow and flow stung by the ebb, love-flesh swelling
and deliciously aching,
Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly of
love, white-blow and delirious nice,
Bridegroom night of love working surely and softly into the prostrate dawn,
Undulating into the willing and yielding day,
Lost in the cleave of the clasping and sweet-flesh’d day.

This the nucleus—after the child is born of woman, man is born of woman,
This the bath of birth, this the merge of small and large, and the
outlet again.

Be not ashamed women, your privilege encloses the rest, and is the
exit of the rest,
You are the gates of the body, and you are the gates of the soul.

The female contains all qualities and tempers them,
She is in her place and moves with perfect balance,
She is all things duly veil’d, she is both passive and active,
She is to conceive daughters as well as sons, and sons as well as daughters.

As I see my soul reflected in Nature,
As I see through a mist, One with inexpressible completeness,
sanity, beauty,
See the bent head and arms folded over the breast, the Female I see.

6

The male is not less the soul nor more, he too is in his place,
He too is all qualities, he is action and power,
The flush of the known universe is in him,
Scorn becomes him well, and appetite and defiance become him well,
The wildest largest passions, bliss that is utmost, sorrow that is
utmost become him well, pride is for him,
The full-spread pride of man is calming and excellent to the soul,
Knowledge becomes him, he likes it always, he brings every thing to
the test of himself,
Whatever the survey, whatever the sea and the sail he strikes
soundings at last only here,
(Where else does he strike soundings except here?)

The man’s body is sacred and the woman’s body is sacred,
No matter who it is, it is sacred—is it the meanest one in the
laborers’ gang?
Is it one of the dull-faced immigrants just landed on the wharf?
Each belongs here or anywhere just as much as the well-off, just as
much as you,
Each has his or her place in the procession.

(All is a procession,
The universe is a procession with measured and perfect motion.)

Do you know so much yourself that you call the meanest ignorant?
Do you suppose you have a right to a good sight, and he or she has
no right to a sight?
Do you think matter has cohered together from its diffuse float, and
the soil is on the surface, and water runs and vegetation sprouts,
For you only, and not for him and her?

7

A man’s body at auction,
(For before the war I often go to the slave-mart and watch the sale,)
I help the auctioneer, the sloven does not half know his business.

Gentlemen look on this wonder,
Whatever the bids of the bidders they cannot be high enough for it,
For it the globe lay preparing quintillions of years without one
animal or plant,
For it the revolving cycles truly and steadily roll’d.

In this head the all-baffling brain,
In it and below it the makings of heroes.

Examine these limbs, red, black, or white, they are cunning in
tendon and nerve,
They shall be stript that you may see them.

Exquisite senses, life-lit eyes, pluck, volition,
Flakes of breast-muscle, pliant backbone and neck, flesh not flabby,
good-sized arms and legs,
And wonders within there yet.

Within there runs blood,
The same old blood! the same red-running blood!
There swells and jets a heart, there all passions, desires,
reachings, aspirations,
(Do you think they are not there because they are not express’d in
parlors and lecture-rooms?)

This is not only one man, this the father of those who shall be
fathers in their turns,
In him the start of populous states and rich republics,
Of him countless immortal lives with countless embodiments and enjoyments.

How do you know who shall come from the offspring of his offspring
through the centuries?
(Who might you find you have come from yourself, if you could trace
back through the centuries?)

8

A woman’s body at auction,
She too is not only herself, she is the teeming mother of mothers,
She is the bearer of them that shall grow and be mates to the mothers.

Have you ever loved the body of a woman?
Have you ever loved the body of a man?
Do you not see that these are exactly the same to all in all nations
and times all over the earth?

If any thing is sacred the human body is sacred,
And the glory and sweet of a man is the token of manhood untainted,
And in man or woman a clean, strong, firm-fibred body, is more
beautiful than the most beautiful face.

Have you seen the fool that corrupted his own live body? or the fool
that corrupted her own live body?
For they do not conceal themselves, and cannot conceal themselves.

9

O my body! I dare not desert the likes of you in other men and
women, nor the likes of the parts of you,
I believe the likes of you are to stand or fall with the likes of
the soul, (and that they are the soul,)
I believe the likes of you shall stand or fall with my poems, and
that they are my poems,
Man’s, woman’s, child, youth’s, wife’s, husband’s, mother’s,
father’s, young man’s, young woman’s poems,
Head, neck, hair, ears, drop and tympan of the ears,
Eyes, eye-fringes, iris of the eye, eyebrows, and the waking or
sleeping of the lids,
Mouth, tongue, lips, teeth, roof of the mouth, jaws, and the jaw-hinges,
Nose, nostrils of the nose, and the partition,
Cheeks, temples, forehead, chin, throat, back of the neck, neck-slue,
Strong shoulders, manly beard, scapula, hind-shoulders, and the
ample side-round of the chest,
Upper-arm, armpit, elbow-socket, lower-arm, arm-sinews, arm-bones,
Wrist and wrist-joints, hand, palm, knuckles, thumb, forefinger,
finger-joints, finger-nails,
Broad breast-front, curling hair of the breast, breast-bone, breast-side,
Ribs, belly, backbone, joints of the backbone,
Hips, hip-sockets, hip-strength, inward and outward round,
man-balls, man-root,
Strong set of thighs, well carrying the trunk above,
Leg-fibres, knee, knee-pan, upper-leg, under-leg,
Ankles, instep, foot-ball, toes, toe-joints, the heel;
All attitudes, all the shapeliness, all the belongings of my or your
body or of any one’s body, male or female,
The lung-sponges, the stomach-sac, the bowels sweet and clean,
The brain in its folds inside the skull-frame,
Sympathies, heart-valves, palate-valves, sexuality, maternity,
Womanhood, and all that is a woman, and the man that comes from woman,
The womb, the teats, nipples, breast-milk, tears, laughter, weeping,
love-looks, love-perturbations and risings,
The voice, articulation, language, whispering, shouting aloud,
Food, drink, pulse, digestion, sweat, sleep, walking, swimming,
Poise on the hips, leaping, reclining, embracing, arm-curving and tightening,
The continual changes of the flex of the mouth, and around the eyes,
The skin, the sunburnt shade, freckles, hair,
The curious sympathy one feels when feeling with the hand the naked
meat of the body,
The circling rivers the breath, and breathing it in and out,
The beauty of the waist, and thence of the hips, and thence downward
toward the knees,
The thin red jellies within you or within me, the bones and the
marrow in the bones,
The exquisite realization of health;
O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul,
O I say now these are the soul!

- Walt Whitman

.

Whitman published this poem in 1855. At first it did not have a title, the title only appearing after 1867. It is a curious title and first line. Electricity was not known to most people in the 1850’s and the word electric would have been considered by many to be an obscure scientific term. In the 20th century it is seen as very surreal and has been borrowed by many artists who have loved the poem, for example Ray Bradbury’s 1969 short story and book of the same name. It is my favorite Whitman poem.