Peace poems
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Gitanjali
© Rabindranath Tagore
1.
Thou hast made me endless, such is thy pleasure. This frail vessel thou emptiest again and again, and fillest it ever with fresh life.
Washington and Lincoln
© Henry Clay Work
Come, happy people! Oh come let us tell
The story of Washington and Lincoln!
A Hero's Grave
© Sydney Thompson Dobell
Why should I weep? The grass is grass, the weeds
Are weeds. The emmet hath done thus ere now.
I tear a leaf; the green blood that it bleeds
Is cold. What have I here? Where, where, art thou,
My son, my son?
The Better Day
© Archibald Lampman
Harsh thoughts, blind angers, and fierce hands,
That keep this restless world at strife,
Mean passions that, like choking sands,
Perplex the stream of life,
The Stealing Of The Mare - II
© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
Said the Narrator:
And when Abu Zeyd had made an end of speaking, and the Kadi Diab and the Sultan and Rih, and all had happened as hath been said, then the Emir Abu Zeyd mounted his running camel and bade farewell to the Arabs and was gone; and all they who remained behind were in fear thinking of his journey. But Abu Zeyd went on alone, nor stayed he before he came to the pastures of the Agheylat. And behold, in the first of their vallies as he journeyed onward the slaves of the Agheylat saw him and came upon him, threatening him with their spears, and they said to him, ``O Sheykh, who and what art thou, and what is thy story, and the reason of thy coming?'' And he said to them, ``O worthy men of the Arabs, I am a poet, of them that sing the praise of the generous and the blame of the niggardly.'' And they answered him, ``A thousand welcomes, O poet.'' And they made him alight and treated him with honour until night came upon their feasting, nor did he depart from among them until the night had advanced to a third, but remained with them, singing songs of praise, and reciting lettered phrases, until they were stirred by his words and astonished at his eloquence. And at the end of all he arrived at the praise of the Agheyli Jaber. Then stopped they him and said: ``He of whom thou speakest is the chieftain of our people, and he is a prince of the generous. Go thou, therefore, to him, and he shall give thee all, even thy heart's desire.'' And he answered them, ``Take ye care of my camel and keep her for me while I go forward to recite his praises, and on my return we will divide the gifts.'' And he left them. And as he went he set himself to devise a plan by which he might enter into the camp and entrap the Agheyli Jaber.
And the Narrator singeth of Abu Zeyd and of the herdsmen thus:
On A Music Box
© Frances Anne Kemble
Poor little sprite! in that dark, narrow cell
Caged by the law of man's resistless might!
Paradise Lost : Book VI.
© John Milton
All night the dreadless Angel, unpursued,
Through Heaven's wide champain held his way; till Morn,
The Angel's Song
© Robert Wadsworth Lowry
Rolling downward, through the midnight,
Comes a glorious burst of heavnly song;
Tis a chorus full of sweetness
And the singers are an angel throng.
Grandmother Tenterden
© Francis Bret Harte
I mind it was but yesterday:
The sun was dim, the air was chill;
Below the town, below the hill,
The sails of my son's ship did fill,--
My Jacob, who was cast away.
Her Going
© Eleanor Agnes Lee
The Wife
Child, why do you linger beside her portal?
None shall hear you now if you knock or clamor*
All is dark, hidden in heaviest leafage.
None shall behold you.
This Is The Horror That, Night After Night
© Gerald Gould
For God's sake, if you sin, take pleasure in it,
And do it for the pleasure. Do not say:
'Behold the spirit's liberty! -- a minute
Will see the earthly vesture break away
And God shine through.' Say: 'Here's a sin -- I'll sin it;
And there's the price of sinning -- and I'll pay.'
A Book of Wordsworth
© Leon Gellert
Thy talks on God, and glories of His fields
Are woven into my unworthy past.
The Loves of the Angels
© Thomas Moore
Alas! that Passion should profane
Even then the morning of the earth!
That, sadder still, the fatal stain
Should fall on hearts of heavenly birth-
And that from Woman's love should fall
So dark a stain, most sad of all!
Liberty, Equality, Fraternity
© Victor Marie Hugo
For centuries past this war-madness
Has laid hold of each combative race,
While our God takes but heed of the flower,
And that sun, moon, and stars keep their place.
Fifth Sunday After Trinity
© John Keble
"The livelong night we've toiled in vain,
But at Thy gracious word
I will let down the net again:-
Do Thou Thy will, O Lord!"
American Academy Centennial Celebration
© Oliver Wendell Holmes
SIRE, son, and grandson; so the century glides;
Three lives, three strides, three foot-prints in the sand;
Silent as midnight's falling meteor slides
Into the stillness of the far-off land;
How dim the space its little arc has spanned!
Columbus
© James Russell Lowell
One poor day!--
Remember whose and not how short it is!
It is God's day, it is Columbus's.
A lavish day! One day, with life and heart,
Is more than time enough to find a world.
