POEMS and VERSES I HAVE ENJOYED, HOPE YOU DO TOO..:).

O noble glow within my chest,
Once glorified, now fractured rest;
Within this cage, this gruesome hour,
O 'Love'! I say I hate thy power!

Of feelings cold, thou taught my soul.
An angel masked, yet evil role;
Emotions mine, I wrong thought tame,
O 'Love'! I say I hate thy name!

O stars that shine, with holy light,
Thou hold thy place, thoughout the night;
But yet, alas, my grief is much,
O 'Love'! I say I hate thy touch!

My infant life, to mine now old age,
Thou hast done naught, but filled with rage,
And stole of me my maiden bird,
O 'Love'! I say I hate thy word!
(Umair)





You have taught me laughter,
Joyousness and light,
How the day is rosy-wild,
Star-enthrilled the night;

Maybe God can teach me
After you are gone,
How to bear the blackened night
And the dreadful dawn.
(Margaret Widdemer)




(Submitted by someone who visited the site)
THE FACE IN THE GLASS


When you get what you want in your struggle for self
And the world makes you king for a day,
Just go to a mirror and look at yourself
And see what THAT face has to say.

For it isn't your father or mother or spouse
Whose judgment upon you must pass;
The person whose verdict counts most in your life
Is the one staring back from the glass.

Some people might think you are a straight-shootin' chum
And call you a wonderful guy or gal,
But the face in the glass says you're only a bum
If you can't look it straight in the eye.

That's the one you must please, never mind all the rest,
For that's the one with you clear up to the end.
And you know you have passed your most dangerous test
If the face in the glass is your friend.

You may fool the whole world down the pathway of life
And get pats on your back as you pass,
But your final reward will be heartaches and tears
If you've cheated the face in the glass.
(Dale Wimbrow)





HOW TO GO AND FORGET!


I know how to hold, 
As the lovers of old --
How to cling to you, sing to you, 
Let all the world know the song that I bring to you.
But I do not know yet,
How to go and forget!

I know how to call
To the God over all --
How to sigh for you, cry for you,
Fight down the terrible dark till I die for you.
But I do not know yet,
How to go and forget!
(Edwin Markham)




(Submitted by someone who visited the site)
IF

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 imposters 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 wornout 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 breath 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!
(Rudyard Kipling)





YOUR TEARS.


I dare not ask your very all:
I only ask a part.
Bring me - when dancers leave the hall -
Your aching heart.

Give other friends your lighted face,
The laughter of the years:
I come to crave a greater grace -
Bring me your tears!
(Edwin Markham)





A PRAYER


Tune me for for life again, O quiet Musician. 
Strive to adjust my loosened thoughts until, 
Made taut, they shall be yielding to Thy Fingers 
Gladly as trees to winds that touch this hill. 
Rhyme me with life once more, O silent Poet, 
Out of my weary, fluttering heartbeats make 
Cool rhythms, hushed, yet certain as the circling 
Water against the edges of this lake. 

Fit me for life again, O patient Artist 
Paint on my tired soul glad, vivid things;
Splash now upon its dullness beauty's pigments, 
Lovely as pansies and a bluebird's wings. 
(Alleyn Storey) 





Star of my life, to the stars your face is turned, 
Would I were the heavens, looking back at you with ten thousand eyes! 
(Plato) 





When I am old, 
And sadly steal apart, 
Into the dark and cold, 
Friend of my heart! Remember, if you can, 
Not him who lingers, but that other man, 
Who loved and sang, and had a beating heart, -- 
When I am old! 
When I am old, 
And all Love's ancient fire Be tremulous and cold: 
My soul's desire! Remember if you may, 
Nothing of you and me but yesterday, 
When heart on heart we bid the years conspire To make us old, 
And every star above Be pitiless and cold: 
My life's one love! Forbid me not to go: 
Remember, naught of us but long ago, 
And not at last, how love and pity strove 
When I grow old. 
(Ernest Dowson) 





TO THE INCONSTANT ONE



I loved thee once, I'll love no more, 
Thine be grief, as is the blame, 
Thou art not what thou wert before, 
What reason should I be the same? 
He that can love unloved again, 
Hath better store of love than brain. 
God send me love my debts to pay, 
While unthrifts fool their love away. 
Nothing could my love o'er thown, 
If thou had'st still continued mine, 
Nay, if thou had'st still remained thy own 
I might perchance have yet been thine. 
But thou thy freedom did recall, 
That it thou might elsewhere enthrall, 
And, then, how could I but disdain 
A captives' captive to remain? 
When new desires had conquered thee, 
And changed the object of thy will, 
It had been lethargy in me, 
Not constancy, to love thee still. 
Yea it had been a sin to go, 
And prostitute affection so, 
Since we are taught no prayers to say, 
To such as must to others pray. 
Yet do thou glory in thy choice-- 
Thy choice of his good fortune boast, 
I'll neither grieve, nor yet rejoice, 
To see him gain what I have lost. 
The height of my disdain shall be, 
To laugh at him, to blush for thee 
To love thee still, but go no more 
A-begging at a beggars door. 
(Sir Robert Ayton) 





When we two parted In silence and tears, 
Half-broken hearted To sever for years, 
Pale grew thy cheek and cold, Colder thy kiss; 
Truly that hour foretold Sorrow to this. 
The dew of the morning Sunk chill on my brow -- 
It felt like the warning Of what I feel now. 
Thy vows are all broken, 
And light is thy fame; 
I hear thy name spoken, 
And share in its shame. 
They name thee before me, 
A knell to mine ear; 
A shudder comes o'er me -- 
Why wert thou so dear? 
They know not I knew thee, 
Who knew thee too well: - 
Long, long shall I rue thee, 
Too deeply to tell. 
In secret we met -- 
In silence I grieve, 
That thy heart could forget, 
Thy spirit decieve. 
If I should meet thee 
After long years, 
How shall I greet thee? -- 
With silence and tears. 
(BYRON) 





Last night, ah yesternight, betwixt her lips and mine 
There fell a shadow, Cynara! thy breath was shed 
Upon my soul between the kisses and the wine; 
And I was desolate and sick of an old passion, 
Yea, I was desolate and bowed my head: 
I have been faithful to thee Cynara! after my fashion. 
All night upon mine heart I felt her warm heart beat, 
Night-long within mine arms in love and sleep she lay; 
Surely the kisses of her bought red mouth were sweet, 
But I was desolate and sick of an old passion, 
When I awoke and found the dawn was grey: 
I have been faithful to thee Cynara! in my fashion. 
I have forgot much, Cynara! gone with the wind, 
Flung roses, roses riotously with the throng, 
Dancing, to put thy pale, lost lillies out of mind; 
But I was desolate and sick of an old passion, 
Yea, all the time, because the dance was long: 
I have been faithful to thee Cynara! in my fashion. 
I cried for madder music and for stronger wine, 
But when the feast is finished and the lamps expire, 
Then falls thy shadow, Cynara! the night is thine. 
And I am desolate and sick of an old passion, 
Yea, hungry for the lips of my desire 
I have been faithful to thee Cynara! in my fashion. 
(Ernest Dowson) 





When two who love are parted, 
They talk, as friend to friend, 
Clasp hands and weep a little, 
And sigh without an end. 
We did not weep my darling, 
Nor sigh "Why this must be!" 
The tears, the sighs, the anguish, 
Come later --- and to me. 
(Heine) 





REMEMBERANCES


Cold in the earth - and the deep snow piled above thee, 
Far, far, removed, cold in the dreary grave! 
Have I forgot, my only Love, to love thee, 
Severed at last by Time's all-severing wave? 
Now when alone, do my thoughts no longer hover 
Over the mountains, on the northern shore, 
Resting their wings where heath and fern-leaves cover 
Thy noble heart for ever, ever more? 
Cold in the earth - and fifteen wild Decembers, 
From those brown hills, have melted into spring: 
Faithful, indeed, is the spirit that remembers 
After such years of change and suffering! 
Sweet Love of youth, forgive, if i forget thee; 
While the world's tide is bearing me along; 
Other desires and other hopes beset me, 
Hopes which obscure, but cannot do thee wrong! 
No later light has lightened up my heaven, 
No second morn has ever shone for me; 
All my life's bliss from thy dear life was given - 
All my life's bliss is in the grave with thee. 
But, when the days of golden dreams had perished 
And even Despair was powerless to destroy; 
Then did I learn how existence could be cherished, 
Strengthened, and fed, without the aid of joy. 
Then did I check the tears of useless passion - 
Weaned my young soul from yearning after thine; 
Sternly denied its burning wish to hasten 
Down to that tomb already more than mine. 
And, even yet, I dare not let it languish, 
Dare not indulge in memory's rapturous pain; 
Once drinking deep of that divinest anguish, 
How could I seek the empty world again? 
(Emily Bronte) 





The Puritan through life's sweet garden goes; 
To pluck the thorn and throw away the rose, 
And hopes to please by this peculiar whim 
The God that fashioned it and gave it him. 
(Kenneth Hare) 





By the time you swear you're his, shivering and sighing, 
And he vows his passion is infinite, undying --- 
Lady, make a note of this: One of you is lying! 
(Dorothy Parker) 





Lady, lady, should you meet 
One whose ways were all discreet, 
One who murmurs that his wife, 
Is the lodestar of his life, 
One who keeps assuring you 
That he never was untrue, 
Never loved another one --- 
Lady, lady, better run! 
(Dorothy Parker) 





Will you love me in December, As you do in May? 
Will you love me in the good old fashioned way? 
When my hair has all turned grey? 
Will you kiss me then and say, 
That you love me in December, As you did in May? 
(James J.Walker) 





For it so falls out 
That what we have we prize not to the worth 
Whiles we enjoy it, but being lack'd and lost, 
Why, then we rack and value, then we find 
The virtue that possession would not show us, 
Whiles it was ours. 
(W. Shakespeare in Much Ado About Nothing) 





I do not love thee! - no! I do not love thee; 
Yet, when thou art absent I am sad, 
And envy even the bright blue sky above thee, 
Whose quiet stars may see thee and be glad. 
I do not love thee! - Yet I know not why, 
Whate'er thou dost seems still well done, to me: 
And often in my solitude I sigh 
That those I do love are not more like thee! 
I do not love thee! - 
Yet, when thou art gone, I hate the sound (though those who speak be dear) 
Which breaks the lingering echo of the tone 
Thy voice of music leaves upon my ear. 
I do not love thee! - 
Yet, thy speaking eyes, With their deep bright and most expressive blue 
Between me and the midnight heavens arise 
Oftener than any eyes I ever knew. 
I know I do not love thee! - 
Yet, alas! Others will scarcely trust my candid heart; 
And oft I catch them smiling as they pass, 
Because they see me gazing where thou art. 
(Caroline.E.S.Norton) 





DESTINY


Why each is striving, from of old, 
To love more deeply then he can?
Still would be true, and still grows cold?
--Ask of the Powers that sport with man!
They yolked in him, for endless strife,
A heart of ice, a soul of fire;
And hurled him on the Field of Life,
An aimless unallayed Desire.
(Mathew Arnold)





Heart, we will forget him!
You and I, tonight!
You may forget the warmth he gave,
I will forget the light.
When you have done, pray tell me,
That I my thoughts may dim;
Haste! Lest while you're lagging,
I may remember him!
(Emily Dickenson)





When lovely Woman stoops to folly, 
And finds too late that men betray, 
What charm can soothe her melancholy 
What art can wash her guilt away? 
The only art her guilt to cover 
To hide her shame from every eye, 
To give repentance to her lover, 
And wring his bosom, is - to die. 
(O.Goldsmith) 





Two evils, monstrous, either one apart, 
Possessed me, and were long and loth at going: 
A cry of Absence, Absence in the heart, 
And in the wood, the furious winter blowing. 
(J.C.Ransome) 





When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down the glowing bars,
M