Religion poems
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The Bride Of The Nile - Act I
© Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
Act I Governor's Palace at Alexandria.
Act II Garden House of the Makawkas at On.
Act III On the Banks of the Nile. Time, th Century, A.D.
Prologue To Faulkener
© Charles Lamb
The genius who conceived that magic tale
Was skilled by native pathos to prevail.
His stories, though rough-drawn and framed in haste,
Had that which pleased our homely grandsires' taste.
The Two Lovers Of Heaven: Chrysanthus And Daria - Act I
© Denis Florence MacCarthy
Chrysanthus is seen seated near a writing table on which are several
books: he is reading a small volume with deep attention.
Prejudice
© Jane Taylor
It is not worth our while, but if it were,
We all could undertake to laugh at her ;
Since vulgar prejudice, the lowest kind,
Of course, has full possession of her mind ;
Here, therefore, let us leave her, and inquire
Wherein it differs as it rises higher.
Poets Corner
© Alfred Austin
I stand within the Abbey walls,
Where soft the slanting sunlight falls
In gleams of mellow grace:
The organ swells, the anthem soars,
And waves of prayerful music pours
Throughout the solemn space.
The Second Booke Of Qvodlibets
© Robert Hayman
Epigrams are much like to Oxymell,
Hony and Vineger compounded well:
Hony, and sweet in their inuention,
Vineger in their reprehension.
As sowre, sweet Oxymell, doth purge though fleagme:
These are to purge Vice, take them as they meane.
Queen Mab: Part VI.
© Percy Bysshe Shelley
All touch, all eye, all ear,
The Spirit felt the Fairy's burning speech.
The Ruined Abbey, or, The Affects of Superstition
© William Shenstone
At length fair Peace, with olive crown'd, regains
Her lawful throne, and to the sacred haunts
Ballad
© Jonathan Swift
A WONDERFUL age
Is now on the stage:
I'll sing you a song, if I can,
How modern Whigs,
Dance forty-one jigs,
But God bless our gracious Queen Anne.
The Ring And The Book - Chapter XI - Guido
© Robert Browning
YOU ARE the Cardinal Acciaiuoli, and you,
Abate Panciatichitwo good Tuscan names:
The Calls [unfinished]
© Wilfred Owen
A dismal fog-hoarse siren howls at dawn.
I watch the man it calls for, pushed and drawn
Backwards and forwards, helpless as a pawn.
But I'm lazy, and his work's crazy.
The Visionary Boy
© William Lisle Bowles
Oh! lend that lute, sweet Archimage, to me!
Enough of care and heaviness
Friendship
© William Cowper
What virtue, or what mental grace
But men unqualified and base
Will boast it their possession?
Profusion apes the noble part
Of liberality of heart,
And dulness of discretion.
The Task: Book IV. -- The Winter Evening
© William Cowper
Hark! tis the twanging horn oer yonder bridge,
That with its wearisome but needful length
The Change
© Henry King
Il sabio mude conseio: Il loco persevera.
We lov'd as friends now twenty years and more:
Is't time or reason think you to give o're?
When though two prentiships set Jacob free,
Prosopopoia : or, Mother Hubbards Tale
© Edmund Spenser
Yet he the name on him would rashly take,
Maugre the sacred Muses, and it make
A servant to the vile affection
Of such, as he depended most upon;
And with the sugrie sweete thereof allure
Chast Ladies eares to fantasies impure.
Love Inthron'd. Ode
© Richard Lovelace
I.
Introth, I do my self perswade,
That the wilde boy is grown a man,
And all his childishnesse off laid,
Masnawi
© Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi
In the prologue to the Masnavi Rumi hailed Love and its sweet madness that heals all infirmities, and he exhorted the reader to burst the bonds to silver and gold to be free. The Beloved is all in all and is only veiled by the lover. Rumi identified the first cause of all things as God and considered all second causes subordinate to that. Human minds recognize the second causes, but only prophets perceive the action of the first cause. One story tells of a clever rabbit who warned the lion about another lion and showed the lion his own image in a well, causing him to attack it and drown. After delivering his companions from the tyrannical lion, the rabbit urges them to engage in the more difficult warfare against their own inward lusts. In a debate between trusting God and human exertion, Rumi quoted the prophet Muhammad as saying, "Trust in God, yet tie the camel's leg."8 He also mentioned the adage that the worker is the friend of God; so in trusting in providence one need not neglect to use means. Exerting oneself can be giving thanks for God's blessings; but he asked if fatalism shows gratitude.
God is hidden and has no opposite, not seen by us yet seeing us. Form is born of the formless but ultimately returns to the formless. An arrow shot by God cannot remain in the air but must return to God. Rumi reconciled God's agency with human free will and found the divine voice in the inward voice. Those in close communion with God are free, but the one who does not love is fettered by compulsion. God is the agency and first cause of our actions, but human will as the second cause finds recompense in hell or with the Friend. God is like the soul, and the world is like the body. The good and evil of bodies comes from souls. When the sanctuary of true prayer is revealed to one, it is shameful to turn back to mere formal religion. Rumi confirmed Muhammad's view that women hold dominion over the wise and men of heart; but violent fools, lacking tenderness, gentleness, and friendship, try to hold the upper hand over women, because they are swayed by their animal nature. The human qualities of love and tenderness can control the animal passions. Rumi concluded that woman is a ray of God and the Creator's self.
