Poems

Constancy to an Ideal Object

Since all that beat about in Nature's range,
Or veer or vanish; why should'st thou remain
The only constant in a world of change,
O yearning Thought! that liv'st but in the brain?
Call to the Hours, that in the distance play,
The faery people of the future day--
Fond Thought! not one of all that shining swarm
Will breathe on thee with life-enkindling breath,
Till when, like strangers shelt'ring from a storm,
Hope and Despair meet in the porch of Death!
Yet still thou haunt'st me; and though well I see,
She is not thou, and only thou are she,
Still, still as though some dear embodied Good,
Some living Love before my eyes there stood
With answering look a ready ear to lend,
I mourn to thee and say--'Ah! loveliest friend!
That this the meed of all my toils might be,
To have a home, an English home, and thee!'
Vain repetition! Home and Thou are one.
The peacefull'st cot, the moon shall shine upon,
Lulled by the thrush and wakened by the lark,
Without thee were but a becalm{'e}d bark,
Whose Helmsman on an ocean waste and wide
Sits mute and pale his mouldering helm beside.

And art thou nothing? Such thou art, as when
The woodman winding westward up the glen
At wintry dawn, where o'er the sheep-track's maze
The viewless snow-mist weaves a glist'ning haze,
Sees full before him, gliding without tread,
An image with a glory round its head;
The enamoured rustic worships its fair hues,
Nor knows he makes the shadow, he pursues!

poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Added by Lucian Velea
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If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

poem by Rudyard Kipling

Added by Silvia Velea
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The tame bird was in a cage, the free bird was in the forest.
They met when the time came, it was a decree of fate.
The free bird cries, "O my love, let us fly to wood."
The cage bird whispers, "Come hither, let us both live in the
cage."
Says the free bird, "Among bars, where is there room to spread
one's wings?"
"Alas," cries the cage bird, "I should not know where to sit
perched in the sky."

The free bird cries, "My darling, sing the songs of the
woodlands."
The cage bird says, "Sit by my side, I'll teach you the speech of
the learned."
The forest bird cries, "No, ah no! songs can never be taught."
The cage bird says, "Alas for me, I know not the songs of the
woodlands."

Their love is intense with longing, but they never can fly wing
to wing.
Through the bars of the cage they look, and vain is their wish to
know each other.
They flutter their wings in yearning, and sing, "Come closer, my
love!"
The free bird cries, "It cannot be, I fear the closed doors of
the cage."
The cage bird whispers, "Alas, my wings are powerless and dead."

poem by Rabindranath Tagore from The Gardener (1913)

Added by Silvia Velea
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XXXI

My heart, the bird of the wilderness, has found its sky in your eyes.
They are the cradle of the morning, they are the kingdom of the stars.
My songs are lost in their depths.
Let me but soar in that sky, in its lonely immensity.
Let me but cleave its clouds and spread wings in its sunshine.

poem by Rabindranath Tagore from The Gardener (1913)

Added by Silvia Velea
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Life of my life, I shall ever try to keep my body pure, knowing that
thy living touch is upon all my limbs.
I shall ever try to keep all untruths out from my thoughts,
knowing that thou art that truth which has kindled the light of reason
in my mind.
I shall ever try to drive all evils away from my heart and keep my
love in flower, knowing that thou hast thy seat in the inmost shrine
of my heart.
And it shall be my endeavour to reveal thee in my actions,
knowing it is thy power gives me strength to act.

poem by Rabindranath Tagore from Gitanjali (1912)

Added by Silvia Velea
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"Ah, poet, the evening draws near; your hair is turning grey.
Do you in your lonely musing hear the message of the hereafter?"

"It is evening, the poet said, and I am listening because some
one may call from the village, late though it be.
I watch if young straying hearts meet together, and two pairs of
eager eyes beg for music to break their silence and speak for
them.
Who is there to weave their passionate songs, if I sit on the
shore of life and contemplate death and the beyond?

The early evening star disappears.
The glow of a funeral pyre slowly dies by the silent river.
Jackals cry in chorus from the courtyard of the deserted house
in the light of the worn-out moon.
If some wanderer, leaving home, come here to watch the night and
with bowed head listen to the murmur of the darkness, who is
there to whisper the secrets of life into his ears if I,
shutting my doors, should try to free myself from mortal bonds?

It is a trifle that my hair is turning grey.
I am ever as young or as old as the youngest and the oldest of
this village.
Some have smiles, sweet and simple, and some a sly twinkle in
their eyes.
Some have tears that well up in the daylight, and others tears
that are hidden in the gloom.
They all have need for me, and I have no time to brood over the
afterlife.
I am of an age with each, what matter if my hair turns grey?"

poem by Rabindranath Tagore from The Gardener (1913)

Added by Silvia Velea
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Bid me and I shall gather my fruits to bring them in full baskets
into your courtyard, though some are lost and some not ripe.
For the season grows heavy with its fulness, and there is a
plaintive shepherd's pipe in the shade.
Bid me and I shall set sail on the river.
The March wind is fretful, fretting the languid waves into
murmurs.
The garden has yielded its all, and in the weary hour of evening
the call comes from your house on the shore in the sunset.

poem by Rabindranath Tagore from Fruit-Gathering (1916)

Added by Silvia Velea
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LXXXV

Who are you, reader, reading my poems an hundred years hence?
I cannot send you one single flower from this wealth of the
spring, one single streak of gold from yonder clouds.
Open your doors and look abroad.
From your blossoming garden gather fragrant memories of the
vanished flowers of an hundred years before.
In the joy of your heart may you feel the living joy that sang
one spring morning, sending its glad voice across an hundred
years.

poem by Rabindranath Tagore from The Gardener (1913)

Added by Silvia Velea
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Thou hast made me endless, such is thy pleasure. This frail vessel
thou emptiest again and again, and fillest it ever with fresh life.
This little flute of a reed thou hast carried over hills and dales,
and hast breathed through it melodies eternally new.
At the immortal touch of thy hands my little heart loses its limits
in joy and gives birth to utterance ineffable.
Thy infinite gifts come to me only on these very small hands of
mine. Ages pass, and still thou pourest, and still there is room to fill.

poem by Rabindranath Tagore from Gitanjali (1912)

Added by Silvia Velea
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When thou commandest me to sing it seems that my heart
would break with pride; and I look to thy face, and tears come to my
eyes.
All that is harsh and dissonant in my life melts into one sweet
harmony—and my adoration spreads wings like a glad bird on its
flight across the sea.
I know thou takest pleasure in my singing. I know that only as a
singer I come before thy presence.
I touch by the edge of the far-spreading wing of my song thy feet
which I could never aspire to reach.
Drunk with the joy of singing I forget myself and call thee friend
who art my lord.

poem by Rabindranath Tagore from Gitanjali (1912)

Added by Silvia Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy! | In Romanian

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