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..................................==================== A C R O S T I C ===================== sample poems. [1] KLING BERG =========== Knowledgeable Loves computers Internet webmistress Norwegian viking Green eyed lady Biker or sailor, but always in the wind Environmental protector Reads science fiction Gardening grows my spirit =========================== [2] PRAVINCHANDRA SHAH ====================== Partly no. Rarely yes. Approximately no. Vividly yes. Intermittently no. Never never. Casually yes. Hardly no. Accidentally yes Nonsenses no. Deservingly yes Reservedly no. Artistically yes, yes. Surely yes Heartily yes Always yes Hears yes. ======================= Next ======================= ======== Ballad ======== sample poem. [1] The Young Man's Wish =================== IF I could but attain my wish, I'd have each day one wholesome dish, Of plain meat, or fowl, or fish. A glass of port, with good old beer, In winter time a fire burnt clear, Tobacco, pipes, an easy chair. In some clean town a snug retreat, A little garden 'fore my gate, With thousand pounds a year estate. After my house expense was clear, Whatever I could have to spare, The neighbouring poor should freely share. To keep content and peace through life, I'd have a prudent cleanly wife, Stranger to noise, and eke to strife. Then I, when blest with such estate, With such a house, and such a mate, Would envy not the worldly great. Let them for noisy honours try, Let them seek worldly praise, while I Unnoticed would live and die. But since dame Fortune's not thought fit To place me in affluence, yet I'll be content with what I get. He's happiest far whose humble mind, Is unto Providence resigned, And thinketh fortune always kind. Then I will strive to bound my wish, And take, instead of fowl and fish, Whate'er is thrown into my dish. Instead of wealth and fortune great, Garden and house and loving mate, I'll rest content in servile state. I'll from each folly strive to fly, Each virtue to attain I'll try, And live as I would wish to die ======================= Next ========================= ========== Cinquain ========== sample poem. [1]Death anniversary ========================================= (For Lucy, March 4, 1930-August 13, 2004) By: Victor P. Gendrano ========================================== Bluish petals cover our jacaranda lane where last year we watched the last gasp of spring ========================= Next ========================== =================== Clarity Pyramid =================== sample poem.(don’t worry ! only one sample) --------------------------------------------- (Be brave; don't be frightened by the length of poem;I have saved you from more lengthy poems; You may thank me . Thank you !) --------------------------------------------- :):):):):) ---------------------------- [1] Alastor: or, the Spirit of Solitude Earth, Ocean, Air, belovèd brotherhood! If our great Mother has imbued my soul With aught of natural piety to feel Your love, and recompense the boon with mine; If dewy morn, and odorous noon, and even, With sunset and its gorgeous ministers, And solemn midnight's tingling silentness; If Autumn's hollow sighs in the sere wood, And Winter robing with pure snow and crowns Of starry ice the gray grass and bare boughs; If Spring's voluptuous pantings when she breathes Her first sweet kisses,--have been dear to me; If no bright bird, insect, or gentle beast I consciously have injured, but still loved And cherished these my kindred; then forgive This boast, belovèd brethren, and withdraw No portion of your wonted favor now! Mother of this unfathomable world! Favor my solemn song, for I have loved Thee ever, and thee only; I have watched Thy shadow, and the darkness of thy steps, And my heart ever gazes on the depth Of thy deep mysteries. I have made my bed In charnels and on coffins, where black death Keeps record of the trophies won from thee, Hoping to still these obstinate questionings Of thee and thine, by forcing some lone ghost, Thy messenger, to render up the tale Of what we are. In lone and silent hours, When night makes a weird sound of its own stillness, Like an inspired and desperate alchemist Staking his very life on some dark hope, Have I mixed awful talk and asking looks With my most innocent love, until strange tears, Uniting with those breathless kisses, made Such magic as compels the charmèd night To render up thy charge; and, though ne'er yet Thou hast unveiled thy inmost sanctuary, Enough from incommunicable dream, And twilight phantasms, and deep noonday thought, Has shone within me, that serenely now And moveless, as a long-forgotten lyre Suspended in the solitary dome Of some mysterious and deserted fane, I wait thy breath, Great Parent, that my strain May modulate with murmurs of the air, And motions of the forests and the sea, And voice of living beings, and woven hymns Of night and day, and the deep heart of man. There was a Poet whose untimely tomb No human hands with pious reverence reared, But the charmed eddies of autumnal winds Built o'er his mouldering bones a pyramid Of mouldering leaves in the waste wilderness: A lovely youth,--no mourning maiden decked With weeping flowers, or votive cypress wreath, The lone couch of his everlasting sleep: Gentle, and brave, and generous,--no lorn bard Breathed o'er his dark fate one melodious sigh: He lived, he died, he sung in solitude. Strangers have wept to hear his passionate notes, And virgins, as unknown he passed, have pined And wasted for fond love of his wild eyes. The fire of those soft orbs has ceased to burn, And Silence, too enamoured of that voice, Locks its mute music in her rugged cell. By solemn vision and bright silver dream His infancy was nurtured. Every sight And sound from the vast earth and ambient air Sent to his heart its choicest impulses. The fountains of divine philosophy Fled not his thirsting lips, and all of great, Or good, or lovely, which the sacred past In truth or fable consecrates, he felt And knew. When early youth had passed, he left His cold fireside and alienated home To seek strange truths in undiscovered lands. Many a wide waste and tangled wilderness Has lured his fearless steps; and he has bought With his sweet voice and eyes, from savage men, His rest and food. Nature's most secret steps He like her shadow has pursued, where'er The red volcano overcanopies Its fields of snow and pinnacles of ice With burning smoke, or where bitumen lakes On black bare pointed islets ever beat With sluggish surge, or where the secret caves, Rugged and dark, winding among the springs Of fire and poison, inaccessible To avarice or pride, their starry domes Of diamond and of gold expand above Numberless and immeasurable halls, Frequent with crystal column, and clear shrines Of pearl, and thrones radiant with chrysolite. Nor had that scene of ampler majesty Than gems or gold, the varying roof of heaven And the green earth, lost in his heart its claims To love and wonder; he would linger long In lonesome vales, making the wild his home, Until the doves and squirrels would partake From his innocuous band his bloodless food, Lured by the gentle meaning of his looks, And the wild antelope, that starts whene'er The dry leaf rustles in the brake, suspend Her timid steps, to gaze upon a form More graceful than her own. His wandering step, Obedient to high thoughts, has visited The awful ruins of the days of old: Athens, and Tyre, and Balbec, and the waste Where stood Jerusalem, the fallen towers Of Babylon, the eternal pyramids, Memphis and Thebes, and whatsoe'er of strange, Sculptured on alabaster obelisk Or jasper tomb or mutilated sphinx, Dark Æthiopia in her desert hills Conceals. Among the ruined temples there, Stupendous columns, and wild images Of more than man, where marble daemons watch The Zodiac's brazen mystery, and dead men Hang their mute thoughts on the mute walls around, He lingered, poring on memorials Of the world's youth: through the long burning day Gazed on those speechless shapes; nor, when the moon Filled the mysterious halls with floating shades Suspended he that task, but ever gazed And gazed, till meaning on his vacant mind Flashed like strong inspiration, and he saw The thrilling secrets of the birth of time. Meanwhile an Arab maiden brought his food, Her daily portion, from her father's tent, And spread her matting for his couch, and stole From duties and repose to tend his steps, Enamoured, yet not daring for deep awe To speak her love, and watched his nightly sleep, Sleepless herself, to gaze upon his lips Parted in slumber, whence the regular breath Of innocent dreams arose; then, when red morn Made paler the pale moon, to her cold home Wildered, and wan, and panting, she returned. The Poet, wandering on, through Arabie, And Persia, and the wild Carmanian waste, And o'er the aërial mountains which pour down Indus and Oxus from their icy caves, In joy and exultation held his way; Till in the vale of Cashmire, far within Its loneliest dell, where odorous plants entwine Beneath the hollow rocks a natural bower, Beside a sparkling rivulet he stretched His languid limbs. A vision on his sleep There came, a dream of hopes that never yet Had flushed his cheek. He dreamed a veilèd maid Sate near him, talking in low solemn tones. Her voice was like the voice of his own soul Heard in the calm of thought; its music long, Like woven sounds of streams and breezes, held His inmost sense suspended in its web Of many-colored woof and shifting hues. Knowledge and truth and virtue were her theme, And lofty hopes of divine liberty, Thoughts the most dear to him, and poesy, Herself a poet. Soon the solemn mood Of her pure mind kindled through all her frame A permeating fire; wild numbers then She raised, with voice stifled in tremulous sobs Subdued by its own pathos; her fair hands Were bare alone, sweeping from some strange harp Strange symphony, and in their branching veins The eloquent blood told an ineffable tale. The beating of her heart was heard to fill The pauses of her music, and her breath Tumultuously accorded with those fits Of intermitted song. Sudden she rose, As if her heart impatiently endured Its bursting burden; at the sound he turned, And saw by the warm light of their own life Her glowing limbs beneath the sinuous veil Of woven wind, her outspread arms now bare, Her dark locks floating in the breath of night, Her beamy bending eyes, her parted lips Outstretched, and pale, and quivering eagerly. His strong heart sunk and sickened with excess Of love. He reared his shuddering limbs, and quelled His gasping breath, and spread his arms to meet Her panting bosom:--she drew back awhile, Then, yielding to the irresistible joy, With frantic gesture and short breathless cry Folded his frame in her dissolving arms. Now blackness veiled his dizzy eyes, and night Involved and swallowed up the vision; sleep, Like a dark flood suspended in its course, Rolled back its impulse on his vacant brain. Roused by the shock, he started from his trance-- The cold white light of morning, the blue moon Low in the west, the clear and garish hills, The distinct valley and the vacant woods, Spread round him where he stood. Whither have fled The hues of heaven that canopied his bower Of yesternight? The sounds that soothed his sleep, The mystery and the majesty of Earth, The joy, the exultation? His wan eyes Gaze on the empty scene as vacantly As ocean's moon looks on the moon in heaven. The spirit of sweet human love has sent A vision to the sleep of him who spurned Her choicest gifts. He eagerly pursues Beyond the realms of dream that fleeting shade; He overleaps the bounds. Alas! alas! Were limbs and breath and being intertwined Thus treacherously? Lost, lost, forever lost In the wide pathless desert of dim sleep, That beautiful shape! Does the dark gate of death Conduct to thy mysterious paradise, O Sleep? Does the bright arch of rainbow clouds And pendent mountains seen in the calm lake Lead only to a black and watery depth, While death's blue vault with loathliest vapors hung, Where every shade which the foul grave exhales Hides its dead eye from the detested day, Conducts, O Sleep, to thy delightful realms? This doubt with sudden tide flowed on his heart; The insatiate hope which it awakened stung His brain even like despair. While daylight held The sky, the Poet kept mute conference With his still soul. At night the passion came, Like the fierce fiend of a distempered dream, And shook him from his rest, and led him forth Into the darkness. As an eagle, grasped In folds of the green serpent, feels her breast Burn with the poison, and precipitates Through night and day, tempest, and calm, and cloud, Frantic with dizzying anguish, her blind flight O'er the wide aëry wilderness: thus driven By the bright shadow of that lovely dream, Beneath the cold glare of the desolate night, Through tangled swamps and deep precipitous dells, Startling with careless step the moon-light snake, He fled. Red morning dawned upon his flight, Shedding the mockery of its vital hues Upon his cheek of death. He wandered on Till vast Aornos seen from Petra's steep Hung o'er the low horizon like a cloud; Through Balk, and where the desolated tombs Of Parthian kings scatter to every wind Their wasting dust, wildly he wandered on, Day after day, a weary waste of hours, Bearing within his life the brooding care That ever fed on its decaying flame. And now his limbs were lean; his scattered hair, Sered by the autumn of strange suffering, Sung dirges in the wind; his listless hand Hung like dead bone within its withered skin; Life, and the lustre that consumed it, shone, As in a furnace burning secretly, From his dark eyes alone. The cottagers, Who ministered with human charity His human wants, beheld with wondering awe Their fleeting visitant. The mountaineer, Encountering on some dizzy precipice That spectral form, deemed that the Spirit of Wind, With lightning eyes, and eager breath, and feet Disturbing not the drifted snow, had paused In its career; the infant would conceal His troubled visage in his mother's robe In terror at the glare of those wild eyes, To remember their strange light in many a dream Of after times; but youthful maidens, taught By nature, would interpret half the woe That wasted him, would call him with false names Brother and friend, would press his pallid hand At parting, and watch, dim through tears, the path Of his departure from their father's door. At length upon the lone Chorasmian shore He paused, a wide and melancholy waste Of putrid marshes. A strong impulse urged His steps to the sea-shore. A swan was there, Beside a sluggish stream among the reeds. It rose as he approached, and, with strong wings Scaling the upward sky, bent its bright course High over the immeasurable main. His eyes pursued its flight:--'Thou hast a home, Beautiful bird! thou voyagest to thine home, Where thy sweet mate will twine her downy neck With thine, and welcome thy return with eyes Bright in the lustre of their own fond joy. And what am I that I should linger here, With voice far sweeter than thy dying notes, Spirit more vast than thine, frame more attuned To beauty, wasting these surpassing powers In the deaf air, to the blind earth, and heaven That echoes not my thoughts?' A gloomy smile Of desperate hope wrinkled his quivering lips. For sleep, he knew, kept most relentlessly Its precious charge, and silent death exposed, Faithless perhaps as sleep, a shadowy lure, With doubtful smile mocking its own strange charms. Startled by his own thoughts, he looked around. There was no fair fiend near him, not a sight Or sound of awe but in his own deep mind. A little shallop floating near the shore Caught the impatient wandering of his gaze. It had been long abandoned, for its sides Gaped wide with many a rift, and its frail joints Swayed with the undulations of the tide. A restless impulse urged him to embark And meet lone Death on the drear ocean's waste; For well he knew that mighty Shadow loves The slimy caverns of the populous deep. The day was fair and sunny; sea and sky Drank its inspiring radiance, and the wind Swept strongly from the shore, blackening the waves. Following his eager soul, the wanderer Leaped in the boat; he spread his cloak aloft On the bare mast, and took his lonely seat, And felt the boat speed o'er the tranquil sea Like a torn cloud before the hurricane. As one that in a silver vision floats Obedient to the sweep of odorous winds Upon resplendent clouds, so rapidly Along the dark and ruffled waters fled The straining boat. A whirlwind swept it on, With fierce gusts and precipitating force, Through the white ridges of the chafèd sea. The waves arose. Higher and higher still Their fierce necks writhed beneath the tempest's scourge Like serpents struggling in a vulture's grasp. Calm and rejoicing in the fearful war Of wave ruining on wave, and blast on blast Descending, and black flood on whirlpool driven With dark obliterating course, he sate: As if their genii were the ministers Appointed to conduct him to the light Of those belovèd eyes, the Poet sate, Holding the steady helm. Evening came on; The beams of sunset hung their rainbow hues High 'mid the shifting domes of sheeted spray That canopied his path o'er the waste deep; Twilight, ascending slowly from the east, Entwined in duskier wreaths her braided locks O'er the fair front and radiant eyes of Day; Night followed, clad with stars. On every side More horribly the multitudinous streams Of ocean's mountainous waste to mutual war Rushed in dark tumult thundering, as to mock The calm and spangled sky. The little boat Still fled before the storm; still fled, like foam Down the steep cataract of a wintry river; Now pausing on the edge of the riven wave; Now leaving far behind the bursting mass That fell, convulsing ocean; safely fled-- As if that frail and wasted human form Had been an elemental god. At midnight The moon arose; and lo! the ethereal cliffs Of Caucasus, whose icy summits shone Among the stars like sunlight, and around Whose caverned base the whirlpools and the waves Bursting and eddying irresistibly Rage and resound forever.--Who shall save?-- The boat fled on,--the boiling torrent drove,-- The crags closed round with black and jagged arms, The shattered mountain overhung the sea, And faster still, beyond all human speed, Suspended on the sweep of the smooth wave, The little boat was driven. A cavern there Yawned, and amid its slant and winding depths Ingulfed the rushing sea. The boat fled on With unrelaxing speed.--'Vision and Love!' The Poet cried aloud, 'I have beheld The path of thy departure. Sleep and death Shall not divide us long.' The boat pursued The windings of the cavern. Daylight shone At length upon that gloomy river's flow; Now, where the fiercest war among the waves Is calm, on the unfathomable stream The boat moved slowly. Where the mountain, riven, Exposed those black depths to the azure sky, Ere yet the flood's enormous volume fell Even to the base of Caucasus, with sound That shook the everlasting rocks, the mass Filled with one whirlpool all that ample chasm; Stair above stair the eddying waters rose, Circling immeasurably fast, and laved With alternating dash the gnarlèd roots Of mighty trees, that stretched their giant arms In darkness over it. I' the midst was left, Reflecting yet distorting every cloud, A pool of treacherous and tremendous calm. Seized by the sway of the ascending stream, With dizzy swiftness, round and round and round, Ridge after ridge the straining boat arose, Till on the verge of the extremest curve, Where through an opening of the rocky bank The waters overflow, and a smooth spot Of glassy quiet 'mid those battling tides Is left, the boat paused shuddering.--Shall it sink Down the abyss? Shall the reverting stress Of that resistless gulf embosom it? Now shall it fall?--A wandering stream of wind Breathed from the west, has caught the expanded sail, And, lo! with gentle motion between banks Of mossy slope, and on a placid stream, Beneath a woven grove, it sails, and, hark! The ghastly torrent mingles its far roar With the breeze murmuring in the musical woods. Where the embowering trees recede, and leave A little space of green expanse, the cove Is closed by meeting banks, whose yellow flowers Forever gaze on their own drooping eyes, Reflected in the crystal calm. The wave Of the boat's motion marred their pensive task, Which naught but vagrant bird, or wanton wind, Or falling spear-grass, or their own decay Had e'er disturbed before. The Poet longed To deck with their bright hues his withered hair, But on his heart its solitude returned, And he forbore. Not the strong impulse hid In those flushed cheeks, bent eyes, and shadowy frame, Had yet performed its ministry; it hung Upon his life, as lightning in a cloud Gleams, hovering ere it vanish, ere the floods Of night close over it. The noonday sun Now shone upon the forest, one vast mass Of mingling shade, whose brown magnificence A narrow vale embosoms. There, huge caves, Scooped in the dark base of their aëry rocks, Mocking its moans, respond and roar forever. The meeting boughs and implicated leaves Wove twilight o'er the Poet's path, as, led By love, or dream, or god, or mightier Death, He sought in Nature's dearest haunt some bank, Her cradle and his sepulchre. More dark And dark the shades accumulate. The oak, Expanding its immense and knotty arms, Embraces the light beech. The pyramids Of the tall cedar overarching frame Most solemn domes within, and far below, Like clouds suspended in an emerald sky, The ash and the acacia floating hang Tremulous and pale. Like restless serpents, clothed In rainbow and in fire, the parasites, Starred with ten thousand blossoms, flow around The gray trunks, and, as gamesome infants' eyes, With gentle meanings, and most innocent wiles, Fold their beams round the hearts of those that love, These twine their tendrils with the wedded boughs, Uniting their close union; the woven leaves Make network of the dark blue light of day And the night's noontide clearness, mutable As shapes in the weird clouds. Soft mossy lawns Beneath these canopies extend their swells, Fragrant with perfumed herbs, and eyed with blooms Minute yet beautiful. One darkest glen Sends from its woods of musk-rose twined with jasmine A soul-dissolving odor to invite To some more lovely mystery. Through the dell Silence and Twilight here, twin-sisters, keep Their noonday watch, and sail among the shades, Like vaporous shapes half-seen; beyond, a well, Dark, gleaming, and of most translucent wave, Images all the woven boughs above, And each depending leaf, and every speck Of azure sky darting between their chasms; Nor aught else in the liquid mirror laves Its portraiture, but some inconstant star, Between one foliaged lattice twinkling fair, Or painted bird, sleeping beneath the moon, Or gorgeous insect floating motionless, Unconscious of the day, ere yet his wings Have spread their glories to the gaze of noon. Hither the Poet came. His eyes beheld Their own wan light through the reflected lines Of his thin hair, distinct in the dark depth Of that still fountain; as the human heart, Gazing in dreams over the gloomy grave, Sees its own treacherous likeness there. He heard The motion of the leaves--the grass that sprung Startled and glanced and trembled even to feel An unaccustomed presence--and the sound Of the sweet brook that from the secret springs Of that dark fountain rose. A Spirit seemed To stand beside him--clothed in no bright robes Of shadowy silver or enshrining light, Borrowed from aught the visible world affords Of grace, or majesty, or mystery; But undulating woods, and silent well, And leaping rivulet, and evening gloom Now deepening the dark shades, for speech assuming, Held commune with him, as if he and it Were all that was; only--when his regard Was raised by intense pensiveness--two eyes, Two starry eyes, hung in the gloom of thought, And seemed with their serene and azure smiles To beckon him. Obedient to the light That shone within his soul, he went, pursuing The windings of the dell. The rivulet, Wanton and wild, through many a green ravine Beneath the forest flowed. Sometimes it fell Among the moss with hollow harmony Dark and profound. Now on the polished stones It danced, like childhood laughing as it went; Then, through the plain in tranquil wanderings crept, Reflecting every herb and drooping bud That overhung its quietness.--'O stream! Whose source is inaccessibly profound, Whither do thy mysterious waters tend? Thou imagest my life. Thy darksome stillness, Thy dazzling waves, thy loud and hollow gulfs, Thy searchless fountain and invisible course, Have each their type in me; and the wide sky And measureless ocean may declare as soon What oozy cavern or what wandering cloud Contains thy waters, as the universe Tell where these living thoughts reside, when stretched Upon thy flowers my bloodless limbs shall waste I' the passing wind!' Beside the grassy shore Of the small stream he went; he did impress On the green moss his tremulous step, that caught Strong shuddering from his burning limbs. As one Roused by some joyous madness from the couch Of fever, he did move; yet not like him Forgetful of the grave, where, when the flame Of his frail exultation shall be spent, He must descend. With rapid steps he went Beneath the shade of trees, beside the flow Of the wild babbling rivulet; and now The forest's solemn canopies were changed For the uniform and lightsome evening sky. Gray rocks did peep from the spare moss, and stemmed The struggling brook; tall spires of windlestrae Threw their thin shadows down the rugged slope, And nought but gnarlèd roots of ancient pines Branchless and blasted, clenched with grasping roots The unwilling soil. A gradual change was here Yet ghastly. For, as fast years flow away, The smooth brow gathers, and the hair grows thin And white, and where irradiate dewy eyes Had shone, gleam stony orbs:--so from his steps Bright flowers departed, and the beautiful shade Of the green groves, with all their odorous winds And musical motions. Calm he still pursued The stream, that with a larger volume now Rolled through the labyrinthine dell; and there Fretted a path through its descending curves With its wintry speed. On every side now rose Rocks, which, in unimaginable forms, Lifted their black and barren pinnacles In the light of evening, and its precipice Obscuring the ravine, disclosed above, 'Mid toppling stones, black gulfs and yawning caves, Whose windings gave ten thousand various tongues To the loud stream. Lo! where the pass expands Its stony jaws, the abrupt mountain breaks, And seems with its accumulated crags To overhang the world; for wide expand Beneath the wan stars and descending moon Islanded seas, blue mountains, mighty streams, Dim tracts and vast, robed in the lustrous gloom Of leaden-colored even, and fiery hills Mingling their flames with twilight, on the verge Of the remote horizon. The near scene, In naked and severe simplicity, Made contrast with the universe. A pine, Rock-rooted, stretched athwart the vacancy Its swinging boughs, to each inconstant blast Yielding one only response at each pause In most familiar cadence, with the howl, The thunder and the hiss of homeless streams Mingling its solemn song, whilst the broad river Foaming and hurrying o'er its rugged path, Fell into that immeasurable void, Scattering its waters to the passing winds. Yet the gray precipice and solemn pine And torrent were not all;--one silent nook Was there. Even on the edge of that vast mountain, Upheld by knotty roots and fallen rocks, It overlooked in its serenity The dark earth and the bending vault of stars. It was a tranquil spot that seemed to smile Even in the lap of horror. Ivy clasped The fissured stones with its entwining arms, And did embower with leaves forever green And berries dark the smooth and even space Of its inviolated floor; and here The children of the autumnal whirlwind bore In wanton sport those bright leaves whose decay, Red, yellow, or ethereally pale, Rivals the pride of summer. 'T is the haunt Of every gentle wind whose breath can teach The wilds to love tranquillity. One step, One human step alone, has ever broken The stillness of its solitude; one voice Alone inspired its echoes;--even that voice Which hither came, floating among the winds, And led the loveliest among human forms To make their wild haunts the depository Of all the grace and beauty that endued Its motions, render up its majesty, Scatter its music on the unfeeling storm, And to the damp leaves and blue cavern mould, Nurses of rainbow flowers and branching moss, Commit the colors of that varying cheek, That snowy breast, those dark and drooping eyes. The dim and hornèd moon hung low, and poured A sea of lustre on the horizon's verge That overflowed its mountains. Yellow mist Filled the unbounded atmosphere, and drank Wan moonlight even to fulness; not a star Shone, not a sound was heard; the very winds, Danger's grim playmates, on that precipice Slept, clasped in his embrace.--O storm of death, Whose sightless speed divides this sullen night! And thou, colossal Skeleton, that, still Guiding its irresistible career In thy devastating omnipotence, Art king of this frail world! from the red field Of slaughter, from the reeking hospital, The patriot's sacred couch, the snowy bed Of innocence, the scaffold and the throne, A mighty voice invokes thee! Ruin calls His brother Death! A rare and regal prey He hath prepared, prowling around the world; Glutted with which thou mayst repose, and men Go to their graves like flowers or creeping worms, Nor ever more offer at thy dark shrine The unheeded tribute of a broken heart. When on the threshold of the green recess The wanderer's footsteps fell, he knew that death Was on him. Yet a little, ere it fled, Did he resign his high and holy soul To images of the majestic past, That paused within his passive being now, Like winds that bear sweet music, when they breathe Through some dim latticed chamber. He did place His pale lean hand upon the rugged trunk Of the old pine; upon an ivied stone Reclined his languid head; his limbs did rest, Diffused and motionless, on the smooth brink Of that obscurest chasm;--and thus he lay, Surrendering to their final impulses The hovering powers of life. Hope and Despair, The torturers, slept; no mortal pain or fear Marred his repose; the influxes of sense And his own being, unalloyed by pain, Yet feebler and more feeble, calmly fed The stream of thought, till he lay breathing there At peace, and faintly smiling. His last sight Was the great moon, which o'er the western line Of the wide world her mighty horn suspended, With whose dun beams inwoven darkness seemed To mingle. Now upon the jagged hills It rests; and still as the divided frame Of the vast meteor sunk, the Poet's blood, That ever beat in mystic sympathy With Nature's ebb and flow, grew feebler still; And when two lessening points of light alone Gleamed through the darkness, the alternate gasp Of his faint respiration scarce did stir The stagnate night:--till the minutest ray Was quenched, the pulse yet lingered in his heart. It paused--it fluttered. But when heaven remained Utterly black, the murky shades involved An image silent, cold, and motionless, As their own voiceless earth and vacant air. Even as a vapor fed with golden beams That ministered on sunlight, ere the west Eclipses it, was now that wondrous frame-- No sense, no motion, no divinity-- A fragile lute, on whose harmonious strings The breath of heaven did wander--a bright stream Once fed with many-voicèd waves--a dream Of youth, which night and time have quenched forever-- Still, dark, and dry, and unremembered now. Oh, for Medea's wondrous alchemy, Which wheresoe'er it fell made the earth gleam With bright flowers, and the wintry boughs exhale From vernal blooms fresh fragrance! Oh, that God, Profuse of poisons, would concede the chalice Which but one living man has drained, who now, Vessel of deathless wrath, a slave that feels No proud exemption in the blighting curse He bears, over the world wanders forever, Lone as incarnate death! Oh, that the dream Of dark magician in his visioned cave, Raking the cinders of a crucible For life and power, even when his feeble hand Shakes in its last decay, were the true law Of this so lovely world! But thou art fled, Like some frail exhalation, which the dawn Robes in its golden beams,--ah! thou hast fled! The brave, the gentle and the beautiful, The child of grace and genius. Heartless things Are done and said i' the world, and many worms And beasts and men live on, and mighty Earth From sea and mountain, city and wilderness, In vesper low or joyous orison, Lifts still its solemn voice:--but thou art fled-- Thou canst no longer know or love the shapes Of this phantasmal scene, who have to thee Been purest ministers, who are, alas! Now thou art not! Upon those pallid lips So sweet even in their silence, on those eyes That image sleep in death, upon that form Yet safe from the worm's outrage, let no tear Be shed--not even in thought. Nor, when those hues Are gone, and those divinest lineaments, Worn by the senseless wind, shall live alone In the frail pauses of this simple strain, Let not high verse, mourning the memory Of that which is no more, or painting's woe Or sculpture, speak in feeble imagery Their own cold powers. Art and eloquence, And all the shows o' the world, are frail and vain To weep a loss that turns their lights to shade. It is a woe "too deep for tears," when all Is reft at once, when some surpassing Spirit, Whose light adorned the world around it, leaves Those who remain behind, not sobs or groans, The passionate tumult of a clinging hope; But pale despair and cold tranquillity, Nature's vast frame, the web of human things, Birth and the grave, that are not as they were. Percy Bysshe Shelley ====== Next ===== ========= Clerihew ======== ========================== The clerihew is named after Clerihew Bentley who began writing this simple form as a diversion to the lectures of his professors. ======== First Clerihew ever written : Sir Humphry Davy ======== Detested gravy. He lived in the odium Of having discovered Sodium. -- Clerihew Bentley ============== ====== Next ======= ========= Diamante ========= Sample poem. By:Robyn L ========== NEXT ========= Didactic Sample poem with a copy of full fledged article with due respect and thanks to the writer.The Poems in Alice in Wonderland by Florence Milner published in 'Bookman', 1903 This article is reproduced with the addition of the full verses from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Fifty years ago the child world was made glad by the appearance of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. It is a univeral story and so belongs to all time. It has never gone out of fashion and never will as long as children love wonder-stories and grown-ups have young hearts. But those who read the book when it was first published found in it a delight which the child of today misses. Fifty years ago certain poems appeared in every reader and were read over and over again until the child was stupid indeed who did not unconciously learn them by heart. Today there is a new fashion in literature. Children are whirled from one supplementary reader to another, conning graceful rhymes and pretty stories all illustrated with artistic pictures, but the old things have passed away. All the poems in Alice in Wonderland are parodies upon these once familiar rhymes. Scattered lines of the poems cling to the minds of older people; they remember being once familiar with them; they recognize the metre and can sometimes repeat two or three opening lines, but the complete poem eludes them, and the author they probably never did know. The children of today do not know the verses at all, and as a parody ceases to be a parody without the original poem as a background, the trouble of gathering these originals seems worth while. After Alice had fallen down the rabbit-hole and had passded through her first transformation, when she shut up like a telescope until she was only ten inches high and then grew bigger and bigger until 'her head struck the roof of the hall', she became confused as to her identity. To make sure of it, she tried to repeat a little poem which everybody in those days knew by heart, and to such children is was very funny when it cam out all wrong and she says, How Doth The Little Crocodile Lewis Carroll How doth the little crocodile Improve his shining tail, And pour the waters of the Nile On every golden scale! How cheerfully he seems to grin, How neatly spread his claws, And welcome little fishes in With gently smiling jaws! when she though she was repeating that highly moral poem by Isaac Watts, Against Idleness And Mischief Isaac Watts How doth the little busy bee Improve each shining hour, And gather honey all the day From every opening flower! How skillfully she builds her cell! How neat she spreads the wax! And labours hard to store it well With the sweet food she makes. In works of labour or of skill, I would be busy too; For Satan finds some mischief still For idle hands to do. In books, or work, or healthy play, Let my first years be passed That I may give for every day Some good account at last. Again, in her conversation with the Caterpillar, Alice told him that being so many different sizes in a day was very confusing, as he would find when he changed into a chrysalis and then into a butterfly. She confessed that she could not remember things and told her experience with 'How doth the little busy bee'. The Caterpillar, wishing to test the matter, ordered her to say, 'You are old, Father William'. How well she succeeded will appear from comparing what she said with what she though she was going to say. You are old, Father William Lewis Carroll 'You are old, Father William,' the young man said, 'And your hair has become very white;And yet you incessantly stand on your head - Do you think, at your age, it is right?' 'In my youth,' Father William replied to his son, 'I feared it might injure the brain; But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none, Why, I do it again and again.' 'You are old,' said the youth, 'as I mentioned before, And have grown most uncommonly fat; Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door - Pray, what is the reason of that?' 'In my youth,' said the sage, as he shook his grey locks, 'I kept all my limbs very supple By the use of this ointment - one shilling the box - Allow me to sell you a couple?' 'You are old,' said the youth, 'and your jaws are too weak For anything tougher than suet; Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak - Pray how did you manage to do it?' 'In my youth,' said his father, 'I took to the law, And argued each case with my wife; And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw, Has lasted the rest of my life.' 'You are old,' said the youth, 'one would hardly suppose That your eye was as steady as ever; Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose - What made you so awfully clever?' 'I have answered three questions, and that is enough,' Said his father; 'don't give yourself airs! Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff? Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs!' The Old Man's Comforts And How He Gained Them Robert Southey 'You are old, father William,' the young man cried, 'The few locks which are left you are grey; You are hale, father William, a hearty old man; Now tell me the reason, I pray.' 'In the days of my youth,' father William replied, 'I remember'd that youth would fly fast, And Abus'd not my health and my vigour at first, That I never might need them at last.' 'You are old, father William,' the young man cried, 'And pleasures with youth pass away. And yet you lament not the days that are gone; Now tell me the reason, I pray.' 'In the days of my youth,' father William replied, 'I remember'd that youth could not last; I thought of the future, whatever I did, That I never might grieve for the past.' 'You are old, father William,' the young man cried, 'And life must be hast'ning away; You are cheerful and love to converse upon death; Now tell me the reason, I pray.' 'I am cheeful, young man,' father William replied, 'Let the cause thy attention engage; In the days of my youth I remember's my God. And He hath not forgotten my age.' The Duchess's song to the pig baby. Speak Roughly Lewis Carroll Speak roughly to your little boy, And beat him when he sneezes: He only does it to annoy, Because he knows it teases. Chorus Wow! wow! wow! I speak severely to my boy, I beat him when he sneezes; For he can thoroughly enjoy The pepper when he pleases! is an absurdity in itself, but a much greater one when contrasted with its serious parallel. There is evidently some uncertainty as to the author of this poem, for it occasionally appears as anonymous, but is generally credited as below. Speak Gently G. W. Langford Speak gently! it is better far To rule by love than fear Speak gently; let no harsh word mar The good we may do here! Speak gently to the little child! Its love be sure to gain; Teach it in accents soft and mild; It may not long remain. Speak gently to the young, for they Will have enough to bear; Pass through this life as best they may, 'Tis full of anxious care! Speak gently to the aged one, Grieve not the care-worn heart; Whose sands of life are nearly run, Let such in peace depart! Speak gently, kindly to the poor; Let no harsh tone be heard; They have enough they must endure, Without an unkind word! Speak gently to the erring; know The must have toiled in vain; Pechance unkindness made them so; Oh, win them back again. Speak gently; Love doth whisper low The vows that true hearts bind; And gently Friendship's accents flow; Affection's voice is kind. Speak gently; 'tis a little thing Dropped in the heart's deep well; The good, the joy, that it may bring, Eternity shall tell. 'Twinkle, twinkle, little bat' which the Hatter said that he sang at the concert given by the Queen of Hearts, is the most familiarly suggestive of them all. The Bat Lewis Carroll Twinkle, twinkle, little bat How I wonder what you're at! Up above the world you fly Like a tea-tray in the sky. Jane and Ann Taylor were two English sisters who wrote together, publishing their poems under such titles as Original Poems for Infant Minds and Hymns for Infant Minds. Jane was supposed to have written most of them, and this one carries her signature. The Star Jane Taylor Twinkle, twinkle, little star, How I wonder what you are! Up above the world so high, Like a diamond in the sky. When the blazing sun is gone, When he nothing shines upon, Then you show your little light, Twinkle, twinkle, all the night. Then the traveller in the dark, Thanks you for your tiny spark: He could not see which way to go, If you did not twinkle so. In the dark blue sky you keep, And often through my curtains peep, For you never shut your eye Till the sun is in the sky. As your bright and tiny spark Lights the traveller in the dark, Though I know not what you are, Twinkle, twinkle, little star. Mary Howitt wrote 'The Spider and the Fly', the first stanza of which originally read, The Spider And The Fly Mary Howitt 'Will you walk into my parlour?' said the spider to the fly, ''Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy, The way into my parlour is up a winding stair, And I've got many curious things to show when you are there.' 'Oh, no, no,' said the little fly, 'to ask me is in vain, For whoever goes up your winding stair can ne'er come down again.' This poem has suffered various modifications and several versions appear in print, but the quoted stanza is doubtless from the original one. The beat of the metre is very perfectly kept in the Mock Turtle's A Whiting And A Snail Lewis Carroll 'Will you walk a little faster?' said a whiting to a snail. 'There's a porpoise close behind us, and he's treading on my tail. See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance! They are waiting on the shingle - will you come and join the dance? Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance? Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the dance? 'You can really have no notion how delightful it will be When they take us up and throw us, with the lobsters, out to sea!' But the snail replied 'Too far, too far!' and gave a look askance - Said he thanked the whiting kindly, but he would not join the dance. Would not, could not, would not, could not, would not join the dance. Would not, could not, would not, could not, could not join the dance. 'What matters it how far we go?' his scaly friend replied. 'There is another shore, you know, upon the other side. The further off from England the nearer is to France - Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance. Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance? Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the dance?' ''Tis the voice of the lobster', which Alice repeats at the gruff order of the Gryphon, returns to Isaac Watts. Probably no poem in the book is further removed from modern thought and modern literary ideals than this one. The Lobster Lewis Carroll 'Tis the voice of the Lobster; I heard him declare, 'You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair.' As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes. When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark, And will talk in contemptuous tones of the Shark, But, when the tide rises and sharks are around, His voice has a timid and tremulous sound. The Sluggard Isaac Watts 'Tis the voice of the sluggard; I heard him complain, 'You have wak'd me too soon, I must slumber again.' As the door on its hinges, so he on his bed, Turns his sides and his shoulders and his heavy head. 'A little more sleep, and a little more slumber;' Thus he wastes half his days, and his hours without number, And when he gets up, he sits folding his hands, Or walks about sauntering, or trifling he stands. I pass'd by his garden, and saw the wild brier, The thorn and the thistle grow broader and higher; The clothes that hang on him are turning to rags; And his money still wastes thill he starves or he begs. I made him a visit, still hoping to find That he took better care for improving his mind; He told me his dreams, talked of eating and drinking; But he scarce reads his Bible and never loves thinking. Said I then to my heart, 'Here's a lesson for me, This man's but a picture of what I might be; But thanks to my friends for their care in my breeding, Who taught be betimes to love working and reading.' 'Beautiful Soup' is a very funny parody upon a popular song of the time that runs as follows: Star Of The Evening James M. Sayle Beautiful star in heav'n so bright, Softly falls thy silb'ry light, As thou movest from earth afar, Star of the evening, beautiful star. Chorus Beautiful star, Beautiful star, Star of the evening, beautiful star. In fancy's eye thou seem'st to say, Follow me, come from earth away. Upward thy spirit's pinions try, To realms of love beyond the sky. Shine on, oh star of love diving, And may our soul's affection twine Around thee as thou movest afar, Star of the twilight, beautiful star. The most delightful part of the parody is the division of the words in the refrain in imitation of the approved method of singing the song, with its holds and its sentimental stress on the last word. Soup Of The Evening Lewis Carroll Beautiful Soup, so rich and green, Waiting in a hot tureen! Who for such dainties would not stoop? Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup! Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup! Beau - ootiful Soo - oop! Beau - ootiful Soo - oop! Soo - oop of the e - e - evening, Beautiful, beautiful Soup! Beautiful Soup! Who cares for fish, Game, or any other dish? Who would not give all else for two p ennyworth only of beautiful Soup? Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup? Beau - ootiful Soo - oop! Beau - ootiful Soo - oop! Soo - oop of the e - e - evening, Beautiful, beautiful Soup! The poem upon which the last parody is based is not as well known as most of the other, the first two lines being the only ones often quoted. Alice Gray William Mee She's all my fancy painted her, she's lovely, she's divine, But her heart it is another's, she never can be mine. Yet loved I as man never loved, a love without decay, Oh, my heart, my heart is breaking for the love of Alice Gray. Her dark brown hair is braided o'er a brow of spotless white, Her soft blue eye now languishes, now flashes with delight; Her hair is braided not for me, the eye is turned away, Yet my heart, my heart is breaking for the love of Alice Gray. I've sunk beneath the summer's sun, and trembled in the blast. But my pilgrimage is nearly done, the weary conflict's past; And when the green sod wraps my grave, may pity haply say, Oh, his heart, his heart is broken for the love of Alice Gray! Carroll's first writing followed the wording in the original first version: She's all my fancy painted him (I make no idle boast); If he or you had lost a limb, Which would have suffered most? They told me you had been to her, And mentioned me to him: She gave me a good character, But said I could not swim. He sent them word I had not gone (We know it to be true): If she should push the matter on, What would become of you? I gave her one, they gave him two, You gave us three or more; They all returned from him to you, Though they were mine before. If I or she should chance to be Involved in this affair, He trusts to you to set them free, Exactly as we were. My notion was that you had been (Before she had this fit) An obstacle that came between Him, and ourselves, and it. Don't let him know she liked them best, For this must ever be A secret, kept from all the rest, Between yourself and me. But for some unknown reason he dropped the first stanza, beginning with the second, thus obliterating all evident resemblance between parody and original. The parody is not the highest form of art and not the most skillful form of verse, but Lewis Carroll has done these eight so well that doubtless some of them will live after the originals are forgotten. Even now, in order to search them out, it has been necessary to beat the dust from many a forgotten volume in a library's unmolested corners, but the nonsense rhymes they suggested are jingling upon the tounges of children the wide world over and mingling with their happy laughter ====================== [The heart is emptying all its treasure full of ‘THANKS” to you all,the best authors,of all generations to come.] ====================== An epic poem is a long poem narrating the heroic exploits of an individual in a way central to the beliefs and culture of his society. Typical elements are fabulous adventures, superhuman deeds, polyphonic composition, majestic language and a craftsmanship deploying the full range of literary devices, from lyrical to dramatic. Nonetheless, the first epics —Iliad, Odyssey, Mahabharata, Ramayana — were created and transmitted orally ====================== Epigram Epitaph Ethere Fable Free Verse Haiku Kyrielle Kyrielle Sonnet Lanturne Limerick Minute Poetry Mirrored Refrain Monody Monorhyme Monotetra Naani Nonet Ode Ottava Rima Palindrome Pantoum Paradelle Quatern Quatrain Quinzaine Rictameter Rondeau Rondel Rondelet Sedoka Senryu Septolet Sestina Shape Poetry Song Sonnet Swap Quatrain Tanka Terza Rima Terzanelle Tetractys Tongue... Triolet Tyburn Villanelle ================================ Epic Epigram Epitaph Ethere Fable Free Verse Haiku Kyrielle Kyrielle Sonnet Lanturne Limerick Minute Poetry Mirrored Refrain Monody Monorhyme Monotetra Naani Nonet Ode Ottava Rima Palindrome Pantoum Paradelle Quatern Quatrain Quinzaine Rictameter Rondeau Rondel Rondelet Sedoka Senryu Septolet Sestina Shape Poetry Song Sonnet Swap Quatrain Tanka Terza Rima Terzanelle Tetractys Tongue... Triolet Tyburn Villanelle ================================ =============== Mechanics of Poetry =============== broken rhyme--(split rhyme) ----------------------------------- result of dividing a word at the end of a line to force a rhyme. Example: in order to rhyme stain with raincoat one must end a line with "rain-" and carry "coat" to the next line of verse. chain rhyme --------------- rhyming scheme where the line of the first stanza is linked to a rhyme in the next stanza, (aba bcb cdc..., aaba bbcb ccdc..., etc.), ending stanza loops back to the first stanza or ends with the last rhyme repeated (aba bcb cdc dad, aaba bbcb ccdc dddd, etc.) Iamb ------- a metrical foot consisting of two syllables, a short or unaccented syllable followed by a long accented syllable. Iambic Pentameter ------------------------ made up of two syllables repeated five times in succession where an unstressed syllable is followed by a stressed syllable within a line of verse. Meter -------- a measure of rhyme; (the unit of meter is the foot) Metrical lines are named for the number of feet in a line. (1) monometer, (2) dimeter, (3) trimeter, (4) tetrameter, (5) pentameter, (6) hexameter, (7) heptameter (8) octameter Pause -------- intervals between syllables of verse. Stress -------- special emphasis on a word, syllable, or phrase with a line of verse Versification -------------- in regard to meter and rhyme, versification is the art of writing verses ============================= ========= Verse Forms* ---------------- *A verse can be one line of poetry or a stanza. ================== Alexandrian -------------- a line of poetry 12 syllables (or 13 if the last syllable is unstressed) consisting 6 iambic feet. Blank Verse --------------- poetry written without rhymes usually in iambic pentameterin English verse Chain Verse --------------- like chain rhyme, but instead of linking rhymes, words, phrases or lines are repeated in succeeding stanzas. envoy (envoi) ----------------- a short final stanza of a poem Free Verse ------------- a verse form free of traditional rules of versification, (freedom from fixed meter or rhyme) Open Form -------------- created through shifts, leaps, hesitations, and fragmentations in lines. It conforms to no set form, structure,or rhythmic patterns. Refrain (chorus) --------------------- a repeated verse within a poem or song pertaining to a central topic Stanza Forms ----------------- names describing the number of lines is an stanzaic unit, (2) couplet, (3) tercet, (4) quatrain, (5) quintet (6) sestet, (7) septet, (8) octave ============================ ============= Figures of Speech ============= Imagery--to evoke a mental image (sometimes emotional), figurative language Irony-- expression of words used to convey an opposite meaning from the usual sense. Metaphor--a term used to treat two things that are not the same as equals such as "The universe is God's playground." Oxymoron--the joining of two words that seem to be contradictory (opposites), but offer a unique effect such as living deaths, freezing fires, deafening silence, and pretty ugly. Personification--a form of metaphor where an inanimate object, animal, or idea is given human-like characteristics such as "Night swallowed the sun's last ray of light" Prose--ordinary or plain everyday language used in speech or writing with no patterns or rhymes. Pun--a play on words that sound similar for a humorous effect Repetition--a repeating sound, line, syllable, etc. bring reinforcement to the meaning of a poem, fulfillment. Rhyme--a recurrence of similar ending sounds at the ends of a poetic line/verse. Simile--a comparison between two unlike things using like or as, etc. such as "Your eyes are like sparkling diamonds." =================================
Shah Pravinchandra Kasturchand
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J.D.Patel_gujukavita.
The American POETS Society
SAWF.
sifynews.
The Hindu.
Indian Express.
Deccan Chronicle.
Times of India.
Deccanherald.
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