“
I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror –
The wide brown land for me!
”
”
Dorothea Mackellar (The Poems of Dorothea Mackellar)
“
A bridge of silver wings stretches from the dead ashes of an unforgiving nightmare
to the jeweled vision of a life started anew.
”
”
Aberjhani (Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry)
“
Go into yourself. Find out the reason that commands you to write; see whether it has spread its roots into the very depths of your heart; confess to yourself whether you would have to die if you were forbidden to write.
This most of all: ask yourself in the most silent hour of your night: must I write? Dig into yourself for a deep answer. And if this answer rings out in assent, if you meet this solemn question with a strong, simple “I must,” then build your life in accordance with this necessity; your whole life, even into its humblest and most indifferent hour, must become a sign and witness to this impulse. Then come close to Nature. Then, as if no one had ever tried before, try to say what you see and feel and love and lose...
...Describe your sorrows and desires, the thoughts that pass through your mind and your belief in some kind of beauty - describe all these with heartfelt, silent, humble sincerity and, when you express yourself, use the Things around you, the images from your dreams, and the objects that you remember. If your everyday life seems poor, don’t blame it; blame yourself; admit to yourself that you are not enough of a poet to call forth its riches; because for the creator there is not poverty and no poor, indifferent place. And even if you found yourself in some prison, whose walls let in none of the world’s sounds – wouldn’t you still have your childhood, that jewel beyond all price, that treasure house of memories? Turn your attentions to it. Try to raise up the sunken feelings of this enormous past; your personality will grow stronger, your solitude will expand and become a place where you can live in the twilight, where the noise of other people passes by, far in the distance. - And if out of this turning-within, out of this immersion in your own world, poems come, then you will not think of asking anyone whether they are good or not. Nor will you try to interest magazines in these works: for you will see them as your dear natural possession, a piece of your life, a voice from it. A work of art is good if it has arisen out of necessity. That is the only way one can judge it.
”
”
Rainer Maria Rilke
“
Each in the most hidden sack kept
the lost jewels of memory,
intense love, secret nights and permanent kisses,
the fragment of public or private happiness.
A few, the wolves, collected thighs,
other men loved the dawn scratching
mountain ranges or ice floes, locomotives, numbers.
For me happiness was to share singing,
praising, cursing, crying with a thousand eyes.
I ask forgiveness for my bad ways:
my life had no use on earth.
”
”
Pablo Neruda (Still Another Day)
“
I held a jewel in my fingers
And went to sleep.
The day was warm, and winds were prosy;
I said: "'T will keep."
I woke and chid my honest fingers,—
The gem was gone;
And now an amethyst remembrance
Is all I own.
”
”
Emily Dickinson (The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson)
“
The Jewel
There is this cave
In the air behind my body
That nobody is going to touch:
A cloister, a silence
Closing around a blossom of fire.
When I stand upright in the wind,
My bones turn to dark emeralds.
”
”
James Wright (The Branch Will Not Break)
“
Ego Tripping
I was born in the congo
I walked to the fertile crescent and built
the sphinx
I designed a pyramid so tough that a star
that only glows every one hundred years falls
into the center giving divine perfect light
I am bad
I sat on the throne
drinking nectar with allah
I got hot and sent an ice age to europe
to cool my thirst
My oldest daughter is nefertiti
the tears from my birth pains
created the nile
I am a beautiful woman
I gazed on the forest and burned
out the sahara desert
with a packet of goat's meat
and a change of clothes
I crossed it in two hours
I am a gazelle so swift
so swift you can't catch me
For a birthday present when he was three
I gave my son hannibal an elephant
He gave me rome for mother's day
My strength flows ever on
My son noah built new/ark and
I stood proudly at the helm
as we sailed on a soft summer day
I turned myself into myself and was
jesus
men intone my loving name
All praises All praises
I am the one who would save
I sowed diamonds in my back yard
My bowels deliver uranium
the filings from my fingernails are
semi-precious jewels
On a trip north
I caught a cold and blew
My nose giving oil to the arab world
I am so hip even my errors are correct
I sailed west to reach east and had to round off
the earth as I went
The hair from my head thinned and gold was laid
across three continents
I am so perfect so divine so ethereal so surreal
I cannot be comprehended except by my permission
I mean...I...can fly
like a bird in the sky...
”
”
Nikki Giovanni
“
Well in case you failed to notice,
In case you failed to see,
This is my heart bleeding before you,
This is me down on my knees
These foolish games are tearing me apart
Your thoughtless words are breaking my heart
You're breaking my heart
”
”
Jewel (Pieces of You, Guitar/Vocal with Tablature Edition)
“
I didn’t look to the shore much after this first long and memorable glimpse. I looked up at Heaven and her court of mythical creatures fixed forever in the all powerful and inscrutable stars. Ink black was the night beyond them, and they so like jewels that old poetry came back to me, the sound even of hymns sung only by men.
”
”
Anne Rice (Pandora (New Tales of the Vampires, #1))
“
There was a war all over the world
and all over the world
was grief.
And yet I whispered into jewelled ears
verses of love.
It makes me feel ashamed.
But no, not really.
”
”
Jaroslav Seifert (Morový sloup / The Plague Monument)
“
The Lake
In spring of youth it was my lot
To haunt of the wide world a spot
The which I could not love the less-
So lovely was the loneliness
Of a wild lake, with black rock bound,
And the tall pines that towered around.
But when the Night had thrown her pall
Upon that spot, as upon all,
And the mystic wind went by
Murmuring in melody-
Then-ah then I would awake
To the terror of the lone lake.
Yet that terror was not fright,
But a tremulous delight-
A feeling not the jewelled mine
Could teach or bribe me to define-
Nor Love-although the Love were thine.
Death was in that poisonous wave,
And in its gulf a fitting grave
For him who thence could solace bring
To his lone imagining-
Whose solitary soul could make
An Eden of that dim lake.
”
”
Edgar Allan Poe (The Complete Stories and Poems)
“
The day you reached your pockets,
giving me broken shells that I cherished
as the most precious jewels,
I hoped that you, perhaps,
will find missing pieces of your broken heart in me.
I was wrong because you are still looking for them in someone else.
”
”
Tatjana Ostojic (Cacophony of My Soul: When Love Becomes Poetry)
“
Now we, if not in the spirit, have been caught up to see our earth, our mother, Gaia Mater, set like a jewel in space. We have no excuse now for supposing her riches inexhaustible nor the area we have to live on limitless because unbounded. We are the children of that great blue white jewel. Through our mother we are part of the solar system and part through that of the whole universe. In the blazing poetry of the fact we are children of the stars.
”
”
William Golding
“
No jewels, save my eyes, do I own, but I have a rose which is even softer than my rosy lips. And a quiet youth said: 'There is nothing softer than your heart.' And I lowered my gaze...
”
”
Vladimir Nabokov
“
Sake
The jewel which brightly shines at night
Is precious, but cannot measure up
To the delights of drinking sake,
Drowning one's troubles in the cup.
Otomo no Tabito
”
”
Reiko Chiba (Hiroshige's Tokaido in Prints and Poetry (Slipcase))
“
The child who is decked with prince’s robes and who has jewelled chains round his neck loses all pleasure in his play; his dress hampers him at every step.
In fear that it may be frayed, or stained with dust he keeps himself from the world, and is afraid even to move.
Mother, it is no gain, thy bondage of finery, if it keep one shut off from the healthful dust of the earth, if it rob one of the right of entrance to the great fair of common human life.
”
”
Rabindranath Tagore (Gitanjali)
“
Each Moment a White Bull Steps Shining into the World
If the gods bring to you
a strange and frightening creature,
accept the gift
as if it were one you had chosen.
Say the accustomed prayers,
oil the hooves well,
caress the small ears with praise.
Have the new halter of woven silver
embedded with jewels.
Spare no expense, pay what is asked,
when a gift arrives from the sea.
Treat it as you yourself
would be treated, brought speechless and naked
into the court of a king.
And when the request finally comes,
do not hesitate even an instant----
stroke the white throat,
the heavy trembling dewlaps
you'd come to believe were yours,
and plunge in the knife.
Not once
did you enter the pasture
without pause,
without yourself trembling,
that you came to love it, that was the gift.
Let the envious gods take back what they can.
”
”
Jane Hirshfield (The Lives of the Heart)
“
I know, 0 Caesar, that thou art awaiting my arrival with impatience, that thy true heart of a friend is yearning day and night for me. I know that thou art ready to cover me with gifts, make me prefect of the pretorian guards, and command Tigellinus to be that which the gods made him, a mule-driver in those lands which thou didst inherit after poisoning Domitius. Pardon me, however, for I swear to thee by Hades, and by the shades of thy mother, thy wife, thy brother, and Seneca, that I cannot go to thee. Life is a great treasure. I have taken the most precious jewels from that treasure, but in life there are many things which I cannot endure any longer. Do not suppose, I pray, that I am offended because thou didst kill thy mother, thy wife, and thy brother; that thou didst burn Eome and send to Erebus all the honest men in thy dominions. No, grandson of Chronos. Death is the inheritance of man; from thee other deeds could not have been expected. But to destroy one's ear for whole years with thy poetry, to see thy belly of a Domitius on slim legs whirled about in a Pyrrhic dance; to hear thy music, thy declamation, thy doggerel verses, wretched poet of the suburbs, — is a thing surpassing my power, and it has roused in me the wish to die. Eome stuffs its ears when it hears thee; the world reviles thee. I can blush for thee no longer, and I have no wish to do so. The howls of Cerberus, though resembling thy music, will be less offensive to me, for I have never been the friend of Cerberus, and I need not be ashamed of his howling. Farewell, but make no music; commit murder, but write no verses; poison people, but dance not; be an incendiary, but play not on a cithara. This is the wish and the last friendly counsel sent thee by the — Arbiter Elegantiae.
”
”
Henryk Sienkiewicz (Quo Vadis)
“
lord, decked with jewels, sitting at the head of a table. It is a poetry of assonance
”
”
Peter Ackroyd (Foundation: The History of England from Its Earliest Beginnings to the Tudors (History of England #1))
“
Not every line of Hamlet is a jewel. nor every square inch of the Sistine Chapel Ceiling worthy of admiring gasps.
”
”
Stephen Fry
“
Since brass, nor stone, nor earth, nor boundless sea
But sad mortality o’ersways their power,
How with this rage shall beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is no stronger than a flower?
O! how shall summer’s honey breath hold out
Against the wrackful siege of battering days,
When rocks impregnable are not so stout,
Nor gates of steel so strong, but Time decays?
O fearful meditation! where, alack,
Shall Time’s best jewel from Time’s chest lie hid?
Or what strong hand can hold his swift foot back?
Or who his spoil of beauty can forbid?
O! none, unless this miracle have might,
That in black ink my love may still shine bright.
”
”
William Shakespeare (Shakespeare's Sonnets)
“
No jewels, save my eyes, do I own, but I have a rose which is even softer than my rosy lips. And a quiet youth said: 'There is nothing softer than your heart.' And I lowered my gaze...”
I wrote back telling Liza that her poems were bad and she ought to stop composing. Sometime later I saw her in another cafe, sitting at a long table, abloom and ablaze among a dozen young Russian poets. She kept her sapphire glance on me with a mocking and mysterious persistence.
”
”
Vladimir Nabokov (Pnin)
“
1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy
2. Submissive to everything, open, listening
3. Try never get drunk outside yr own house
4. Be in love with yr life
5. Something that you feel will find its own form
6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
7. Blow as deep as you want to blow
8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind
9. The unspeakable visions of the individual
10. No time for poetry but exactly what is
11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest
12. In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you
13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
14. Like Proust be an old teahead of time
15. Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog
16. The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye
17. Write in recollection and amazement for yourself
18. Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea
19. Accept loss forever
20. Believe in the holy contour of life
21. Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind
22. Dont think of words when you stop but to see picture better
23. Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning
24. No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge
25. Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it
26. Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form
27. In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness
28. Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better
29. You're a Genius all the time
30. Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven
”
”
Jack Kerouac
“
The trick is to ride the wave,
Fast, wide-open and
in deep Now-magic.
Free, burning fear for fuel
Generous, knowing there is always more where that came from.
Cresting, spray of liquid jewels hanging, shining in the sun and wind.
Flying down the wave in graceful slices.
Rolling, tumbling under, over
Breathless falling, floating into the deep dark beneath.
Rising, face breaks the surface
Laughing
Kneeling, standing
Riding again.
Sunset waits behind the horizon
But daylight begs us to swim
Out beyond
Where our feet can’t touch bottom.
Into the deep wild
Where the next wave can
sweep us higher,
Show us what else is possible
In this marvelous place.
”
”
Jacob Nordby
“
Poetry Its door opens near. It’s a shrine by the road, it’s a flower in the parking lot of The Pentagon, it says, “Look around, listen. Feel the air.” It interrupts international telephone lines with a tune. When traffic lines jam, it gets out and dances on the bridge. If great people get distracted by fame they forget this essential kind of breathing and they die inside their gold shell. When caravans cross deserts it is the secret treasure hidden under the jewels.
”
”
William Stafford (Ask Me: 100 Essential Poems of William Stafford)
“
this is actualy a poem
we have been called
naive
as if it were a dirty word,
whe have been called
innocent
as though with shame
our cheeks should burn
so
we visit with
the careful idols
of cynisism
to learn to sneer
and pant and walk
so as not to feel the scales
of judgement rub wrongly
but we say
some things must
remain simple
some things must remain
untouched
and pure
lest we all forget
the legacy we begot us
the health of our origins
the poetry of our fundemental selves
”
”
Jewel
“
But usually not. Usually she thinks of the path to his house, whether deer had eaten the tops of the fiddleheads, why they don't eat the peppermint saprophytes sprouting along the creek; or she visualizes the approach to the cabin, its large windows, the fuchsias in front of it where Anna's hummingbirds always hover with dirty green plumage and jeweled throats. Sometimes she thinks about her dream, the one in which her mother wakes up with no hands. The cabin smells of oil paint, but also of pine. The painter's touch is sexual and not sexual, as she herself is....When the memory of that time came to her, it was touched by strangeness because it formed no pattern with the other events in her life. It lay in her memory like one piece of broken tile, salmon-coloured or the deep green of wet leaves, beautiful in itself but unusable in the design she was making
”
”
Robert Hass (Human Wishes (American Poetry Series))
“
The decision to be together should be unconditional. It should not be only if you love me, if you are sweet to me, if you are this and that to me – no. It is to be together whatsoever – sometimes sweet and sometimes very salty; sometimes very beautiful and sometimes a monster.
Once you understand that, you have come to a mature love, otherwise love is only baby love. Small school children fall in love. They think in poetry and romance, and write poems and beautiful letters, but that’s all childish.
They don’t know what life is going to be. It is a hard struggle.
Because love is one of the most precious jewels, the struggle is very very hard. Only very few people achieve it.
”
”
Osho (Beloved of my heart: A Darshan diary)
“
Prayer is the greatest
swiftest
ship my heart could sail upon.
”
”
Jewel Kilcher
“
Let go, let go, let go,
Just let it go,
Let the tears come out,
Stop fighting the tears back,
Stop wearing different masks,
Let yourself be seen,
Let yourself be the real you,
”
”
Julie Jewels Smoot
“
and all other modern inventions came? Your imagination is the treasure house of infinity, which releases to you all the precious jewels of music, art, poetry, and inventions.
”
”
Joseph Murphy (Believe in Yourself)
“
so spoil me baby,
give me everything i want
bc i am lost
w/out your leniency
i don’t wanna be a queen
i don’t wanna rule
i only wanna be a princess
&wear the jewels
”
”
Malab, The Komorébi (The Breast Mountains Of All Time (Are In Hargeisa))
“
The sixties began what many admirers of Eliot would consider a bleak period. The anxiety of influence of the profession at large seemed to inspire quick and increasingly uninformed dismissals of Eliot, and these repeated denigrations produced, predictably, a generation of students with vague and inaccurate impressions about his poetry and ideas. But there is a bright side to Eliot studies of the last quarter century. The general retreat from Eliot coincided with the beginning of basic and important work on his ideas, especially on his early philosophical writings.
”
”
Jewel Spears Brooker (Reading the Waste Land: Modernism and the Limits of Interpretation)
“
The decline of sustained close reading of Eliot is also related, ironically, to the emergence of historical scholarship regarding sources and allusions. The major figure here is Grover Smith, who in the midfifties published an encyclopedic study of Eliot's sources. 3 The mere existence of Smith's scholarly tome changed the shape of close readings of Eliot. The poet's allusions and sources moved to the foreground of concern, and although most readers of Eliot's poetry and plays benefited from Smith's work, others found themselves frustrated by the weight of the intellectual backgrounds.
”
”
Jewel Spears Brooker (Reading the Waste Land: Modernism and the Limits of Interpretation)
“
Anon his heart revives: her vespers done,
Of all its wreathed pearls her hair she frees;
Unclasps her warmed jewels one by one;
Loosens her fragrant boddice; by degrees
Her rich attire creeps rustling to her knees:
Half-hidden, like a mermaid in sea-weed,
Pensive awhile she dreams awake, and sees,
In fancy, fair St. Agnes in her bed,
But dares not look behind, or all the charm is fled.
”
”
John Keats
“
Even in the warm faelight of the foyer, the gown glittered and gleamed like a fresh-cut jewel.
We had taken my gown from Starfall and refashioned it, adding sheer silk panels to the back shoulders, the glittering material like woven starlight as it flowed behind me in lieu of a veil or cape. If Rhysand was Night Triumphant, I was the star that only glowed thanks to his darkness, the light only visible because of him.
I scowled up the stairs. That is, if he bothered to show up on time.
My hair, Nuala had swept into an ornate, elegant arc across my head, and in front of it...
I caught Cassian glancing at me for the third time in less than a minute and demanded, 'What?'
His lips twitched at the corners. 'You just look so...'
'Here we go,' Mor muttered from where she picked at her red-tinted nails against the stair banister. Rings glinted at every knuckle, on every finger; stacks of bracelets tinkled against each other on either wrist.
'Official,' Cassian said with an incredulous look in her direction. He waved a Siphon-topped hand to me. 'Fancy.'
'Over five hundred years old,' Mor said, shaking her head sadly, 'a skilled warrior and general, famous throughout territories, and complementing ladies is still something he finds next to impossible. Remind me why we bring you on diplomatic meetings?'
Azriel, wreathed in shadows by the front door, chuckled quietly. Cassian shot him a glare. 'I don't see you spouting poetry, brother.'
Azriel crossed his arms, still smiling faintly. 'I don't need to resort to it.
”
”
Sarah J. Maas (A Court of Wings and Ruin (A Court of Thorns and Roses, #3))
“
The period of general neglect of Eliot's poetry was one in which a revolution was occurring in the theory of interpretation. Existentialist, phenomenologist, structuralist, psychoanalytic, feminist, and poststructuralist theories appeared and stimulated dazzling conversations about how texts mean. Bloom, Miller, Poulet, Gadamer, Foucault, Lacan, Kristeva, and Derrida are just a few of the critics who have contributed to these conversations. These studies have enormous value for critics interested in Eliot. In the first place, they have popularized insights about language which are central in Eliot poetry from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" to Four Quartets. Anyone who doubts this should read Derrida "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences" and follow up with a reading of part 5 of each of Four Quartets. In the second place, the studies in theory have created an audience that will be able to appreciate Eliot's dissertation and early philosophical work, an audience unthinkable a generation ago.
”
”
Jewel Spears Brooker (Reading the Waste Land: Modernism and the Limits of Interpretation)
“
…She wanders with her sad mouth
And the grand mystery of amber eyes,
Across the night, toward forgetfulness
Like a star, fugitive and white.
Like a dethroned exotic queen
With comely gestures and rare utterings.
Her undereyes are violated horizons
And her irises–two stars of amber–
Open wet and weary and sad
Like ulcers of light that weep.
She is a grief which thrives and does not hope,
She is a gray aurora rising
From the shadowy bed of night,
Exhausted, without splendor, without anxiousness.
And her songs are like dolorous fairies
Jeweled in teardrops…
”
”
Delmira Agustini
“
Your Pride
I sit and beg beside the gate,
I watch and wait to see you pass,
You never pass the portals old,
The gate of gold like gleaming glass.
Yet you have often wandered by,
I've heard you sigh, I've seen you smile,
You never smile now as you stray-
You can but stay a little while.
And now you know your task is hard,
You must discard your jewelled gear,
You must not fear to crave a dole
From any soul that wats you here.
And you still have your regal pride
And you have sighed that I should see
Your gifts to me beside the gate,
Your pride, your great humility
”
”
Joseph Mary Plunkett (The Circle and the Sword (Classic Reprint))
“
Eliot's understanding of poetic epistemology is a version of Bradley's theory, outlined in our second chapter, that knowing involves immediate, relational, and transcendent stages or levels. The poetic mind, like the ordinary mind, has at least two types of experience: The first consists largely of feeling (falling in love, smelling the cooking, hearing the noise of the typewriter), the second largely of thought (reading Spinoza). The first type of experience is sensuous, and it is also to a great extent monistic or immediate, for it does not require mediation through the mind; it exists before intellectual analysis, before the falling apart of experience into experiencer and experienced. The second type of experience, in contrast, is intellectual (to be known at all, it must be mediated through the mind) and sharply dualistic, in that it involves a breaking down of experience into subject and object. In the mind of the ordinary person, these two types of experience are and remain disparate. In the mind of the poet, these disparate experiences are somehow transcended and amalgamated into a new whole, a whole beyond and yet including subject and object, mind and matter. Eliot illustrates his explanation of poetic epistemology by saying that John Donne did not simply feel his feelings and think his thoughts; he felt his thoughts and thought his feelings. He was able to "feel his thought as immediately as the odour of a rose." Immediately" in this famous simile is a technical term in philosophy, used with precision; it means unmediated through mind, unshattered into subject and object.
Falling in love and reading Spinoza typify Eliot's own experiences in the years in which he was writing The Waste Land. These were the exciting and exhausting years in which he met Vivien Haigh-Wood and consummated a disastrous marriage, the years in which he was deeply involved in reading F. H. Bradley, the years in which he was torn between the professions of philosophy and poetry and in which he was in close and frequent contact with such brilliant and stimulating figures as Bertrand Russell and Ezra Pound, the years of the break from his family and homeland, the years in which in every area of his life he seemed to be between broken worlds. The experiences of these years constitute the material of The Waste Land. The relevant biographical details need not be reviewed here, for they are presented in the introduction to The Waste Land Facsimile. For our purposes, it is only necessary to acknowledge what Eliot himself acknowledged: the material of art is always actual life. At the same time, it should also be noted that material in itself is not art. As Eliot argued in his review of Ulysses, "in creation you are responsible for what you can do with material which you must simply accept." For Eliot, the given material included relations with and observations of women, in particular, of his bright but seemingly incurably ill wife Vivien(ne).
”
”
Jewel Spears Brooker (Reading the Waste Land: Modernism and the Limits of Interpretation)
“
you're the fly on the wall hearing all, seeing all
ears of a wall hearing all the secrets
perhaps you're the vines creeping over
the old abandoned mansion walls
dusty, soulless and dead
bringing a certain curious life to rubble
and I think you're the jewel-eyed gecko
sneaking around the warm summer walls
between jasmine and olive branches
sticky pad toes, clinging to the walls
peeking in at lonely summer spicy love-making
through silk curtains from the bright orient
breathing in incense and tasting decadence
climbing the sharply barbed walls
the smooth cemented white-washed walls
because walls breathe too
”
”
Moonie
“
Against Fate
Hey, Fate! When you fail a man, you spend
all your time digging a well to trap him.
Then you untie the well's wheel rope so that it can roll.
And you keep the poor mortal struggling up, only to fall back.
You show him a bushel of means and say
"This is it. Worry about it, and dream."
Meanwhile you spin the wheel of fortune and fill
the house of the wicked with jewels,
while you force the just and scrupulous
to sweep up the pieces.
And the man who should not even tend pigs
rides a horse as a cavalier.
And without a shovel, you scoop ruin onto the house
of the honorable and the just.
Fate, if I speak evil of you, you'll claim
the man is jealous and confused
But why do you look crossly at the learned
and make the ignorant the landlord?
Hey, why toss the bread of the wise
so far down the valley?
And why should I believe in your justice
When you don't serve it to anyone important?
Not that you keep either oath or bargain, treacherous one.
Whomever you love today and who is raised to a golden throne,
tomorrow may be sitting in ashes.
How can such a fraudulent judge make a just decision?
Fate, friend of the deceitful and devious, you are harsh to the honest.
What more can I say except that someday I expect
you to mix up sky and earth and sea.
”
”
Frik
“
Yes...I love how the Irish are so comfortable with paradox that they revel in it. In fact, if you took it away from them, I suspect they would start gasping like fish out of water. No wonder their land's name, now removed from its Gaelic notions of abundance in 'eire,' evokes anger, or 'ire,' and yet also the rich, cooling green of a sea-colored jewel. A 'terrible beauty' indeed. They understand oppression and repression and explosion, but they remain a culture of faith-faith that creaks and groans and pulls, but is alive and never dull. And which urges them to art, to poetry, to song-these, too, are forms of action. Of passion. Of conviction. Yes, of love.
”
”
Carolyn Weber (Surprised by Oxford)
“
MICHAEL ROBARTES REMEMBERS FORGOTTEN BEAUTY When my arms wrap you round I press My heart upon the loveliness That has long faded from the world; The jewelled crowns that kings have hurled In shadowy pools, when armies fled; The love-tales wove with silken thread By dreaming ladies upon cloth That has made fat the murderous moth; The roses that of old time were Woven by ladies in their hair, The dew-cold lilies ladies bore Through many a sacred corridor Where such gray clouds of incense rose That only the gods’ eyes did not close: For that pale breast and lingering hand Come from a more dream-heavy land, A more dream-heavy hour than this; And when you sigh from kiss to kiss I hear white Beauty sighing, too, For hours when all must fade like dew But flame on flame, deep under deep, Throne over throne, where in half sleep Their swords upon their iron knees Brood her high lonely mysteries.
”
”
W.B. Yeats (Complete Poetry and Plays)
“
wonder if Mr. Alec Davis would come back and ha'nt me if I threw a stone at the urn on top of his tombstone," said Jerry. "Mrs. Davis would," giggled Faith. "She just watches us in church like a cat watching mice. Last Sunday I made a face at her nephew and he made one back at me and you should have seen her glare. I'll bet she boxed HIS ears when they got out. Mrs. Marshall Elliott told me we mustn't offend her on any account or I'd have made a face at her, too!" "They say Jem Blythe stuck out his tongue at her once and she would never have his father again, even when her husband was dying," said Jerry. "I wonder what the Blythe gang will be like." "I liked their looks," said Faith. The manse children had been at the station that afternoon when the Blythe small fry had arrived. "I liked Jem's looks ESPECIALLY." "They say in school that Walter's a sissy," said Jerry. "I don't believe it," said Una, who had thought Walter very handsome. "Well, he writes poetry, anyhow. He won the prize the teacher offered last year for writing a poem, Bertie Shakespeare Drew told me. Bertie's mother thought HE should have got the prize because of his name, but Bertie said he couldn't write poetry to save his soul, name or no name." "I suppose we'll get acquainted with them as soon as they begin going to school," mused Faith. "I hope the girls are nice. I don't like most of the girls round here. Even the nice ones are poky. But the Blythe twins look jolly. I thought twins always looked alike, but they don't. I think the red-haired one is the nicest." "I liked their mother's looks," said Una with a little sigh. Una envied all children their mothers. She had been only six when her mother died, but she had some very precious memories, treasured in her soul like jewels, of twilight cuddlings and morning frolics, of loving eyes, a tender voice, and the sweetest, gayest laugh. "They say she isn't like other people," said Jerry. "Mrs. Elliot says that is because she never really grew up," said Faith. "She's taller than Mrs. Elliott." "Yes, yes, but it is inside—Mrs. Elliot says Mrs. Blythe
”
”
L.M. Montgomery (Rainbow Valley (Anne of Green Gables #7))
“
Yorick's Used and Rare Books had a small storefront on Channing but a deep interior shaded by tall bookcases crammed with history, poetry, theology, antiquated anthologies. There was no open wall space to hang the framed prints for sale, so Hogarth's scenes of lust, pride, and debauchery leaned rakishly against piles of novels, folk tales, and literary theory. In the back room these piles were so tall and dusty that they took on a geological air, rising like stalagmites. Jess often felt her workplace was a secret mine or quarry where she could pry crystals from crevices and sweep precious jewels straight off the floor.
As she tended crowded shelves, she opened one volume and then another, turning pages on the history of gardens, perusing Edna St. Vincent Millay: "We were very tired, were very merry, / We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry..." dipping into Gibbon: "The decline of Rome was the natural and inevitable effect of immoderate greatness. Prosperity ripened the principle of decay..." and old translations of Grimm's Fairy Tales: "They walked the whole day over meadows, fields, and stony places. And when it rained, the little sister said, 'Heaven and our hearts are weeping together...
”
”
Allegra Goodman (The Cookbook Collector)
“
In the water-thickets, the path wound tortuously between umber iron-bogs, albescent quicksands of aluminum and magnesium oxides, and sumps of cuprous blue or permanganate mauve fed by slow, gelid streams and fringed by silver reeds and tall black grasses. The twisted, smooth-barked boles of the trees were yellow-ochre and burnt orange; through their tightly woven foliage filtered a gloomy, tinted light. At their roots grew great clumps of multifaceted translucent crystal like alien fungi.
Charcoal grey frogs with viridescent eyes croaked as the column floundered between the pools. Beneath the greasy surface of the water unidentifiable reptiles moved slowly and sinuously. Dragonflies whose webby wings spanned a foot or more hummed and hovered between the sedges: their long, wicked bodies glittered bold green and ultramarine; they took their prey on the wing, pouncing with an audible snap of jaws on whining, ephemeral mosquitoes and fluttering moths of april blue and chevrolet cerise.
Over everything hung the heavy, oppressive stench of rotting metal. After an hour, Cromis’ mouth was coated with a bitter deposit, and he tasted acids. He found it difficult to speak. While his horse stumbled and slithered beneath him, he gazed about in wonder, and poetry moved in his skull, swift as the jewelled mosquito-hawks over a dark slow current of ancient decay.
”
”
M. John Harrison (The Pastel City)
“
Awake ye muses nine, sing me a strain divine,
Unwind the solemn twine, and tie my Valentine!
Oh the Earth was made for lovers, for damsel, and hopeless swain,
For sighing, and gentle whispering, and unity made of twain.
All things do go a courting, in earth, or sea, or air,
God hath made nothing single but thee in His world so fair!
The bride, and then the bridegroom, the two, and then the one,
Adam, and Eve, his consort, the moon, and then the sun;
The life doth prove the precept, who obey shall happy be,
Who will not serve the sovereign, be hanged on fatal tree.
The high do seek the lowly, the great do seek the small,
None cannot find who seeketh, on this terrestrial ball;
The bee doth court the flower, the flower his suit receives,
And they make merry wedding, whose guests are hundred leaves;
The wind doth woo the branches, the branches they are won,
And the father fond demandeth the maiden for his son.
The storm doth walk the seashore humming a mournful tune,
The wave with eye so pensive, looketh to see the moon,
Their spirits meet together, they make their solemn vows,
No more he singeth mournful, her sadness she doth lose.
The worm doth woo the mortal, death claims a living bride,
Night unto day is married, morn unto eventide;
Earth is a merry damsel, and heaven a knight so true,
And Earth is quite coquettish, and beseemeth in vain to sue.
Now to the application, to the reading of the roll,
To bringing thee to justice, and marshalling thy soul:
Thou art a human solo, a being cold, and lone,
Wilt have no kind companion, thou reap'st what thou hast sown.
Hast never silent hours, and minutes all too long,
And a deal of sad reflection, and wailing instead of song?
There's Sarah, and Eliza, and Emeline so fair,
And Harriet, and Susan, and she with curling hair!
Thine eyes are sadly blinded, but yet thou mayest see
Six true, and comely maidens sitting upon the tree;
Approach that tree with caution, then up it boldly climb,
And seize the one thou lovest, nor care for space, or time!
Then bear her to the greenwood, and build for her a bower,
And give her what she asketh, jewel, or bird, or flower —
And bring the fife, and trumpet, and beat upon the drum —
And bid the world Goodmorrow, and go to glory home!
”
”
Emily Dickinson (The Complete Poems from Emily Dickinson: (Annotated Edition))
“
And though we plead for a love that will leave us whole, we secretly ache for someone to destroy us so deeply we cannot help but shine. We live to be broken, to unearth the jewels buried inside.
”
”
Andrea Michelle (Kalopsia: The Best Contemporary, Modern Poetry for Young People for Free!)
“
The prose-writer's art is an art that must conceal itself, and produce not a jewel that is looked at for its own beauty but a crystal in whose depths the thought can be seen without distortion or confusion ; and the philosophical writer in especial follows the trade not of a jeweller but of a lens-grinder. He must never use metaphors or imagery in such a way that they attract to themselves the attention due to his thought ;
if he does that he is writing not prose, but, whether well or ill, poetry; but he must avoid this not by rejecting all use of metaphors and imagery, but by using them, poetic things themselves, in the domestication of prose : using them just so far as to reveal thought, and no farther.
”
”
R.G. Collingwood (An Essay on Philosophical Method)
“
I don’t need poetry to know about love. My love for you has taught me plenty about heartache.
~Ai’sha
”
”
Sherry Jones (The Jewel of Medina)
“
Drop jewels from the top of these clouds, a drop top John F. Kennedy head shot. It's secrecy hidden in sight of these bars in hip-hop. A compass and square ruler, the pencil is the fueler, 33 degrees below and my mind is fire that keeps me cooler. It's a building of mind, a freezing of time, reverse history back to the garden, the story of the first Atom to be divine.
”
”
Jose R. Coronado (The Land Flowing With Milk And Honey)
“
With support from the women in Nia, I decided to take white belt and realized that I could come back into my body. That I did not have to stay out of my body, That I was safe coming back to myself,
That I could love my body again,
The connection was made
That it is safe for me to be in my body and to love myself, That I can express my true feelings
That I can sound and tell my truth
”
”
Julie Jewels Smoot
“
Oh you, the drizzle that falls at dawn. The cold that bites the bones. The light that hangs under the thick blanket. You, the hope of the rising sun. The beauty that rolls like dewdrops over the leaves, more brilliant than jewels.
How can my heart not be captivated by your cheerfulness when welcoming the morning? The blossoming petals of the flowers, the dainty stems of the roses blowing in the wind. Enchanted by your crisp laughter, by your personal warmth that shines from deep within.
How could I not fall for your graceful, understated beauty? How you spread happiness in ways I don't understand. You vibrate the strings of hope in my weary soul. And you make me think of you, day and night. You lull my restless sleep by reflecting your dazzling light like the neon lights across the street.
Your smile is imagined in my dreams like a kite flying in the blue sky in my childhood longing. You stir my heart like a boat tossing on the waves. Waiting for the tide to take me home.
Do not break my hope to reach your shores. Let me walk on your soft sand. Take shelter under your umbrella that covers me from the sun's scorching heat. You accept me into your small and simple yet well-organized cottage full of flowers.
You welcomed me joyfully at your solid teak door. And you will take care of me no longer as a stranger in your clean home but as my own. In love blossomed by waiting, praying and hoping. In the consolation of the heart in order to realize the eternal dreams.
”
”
Titon Rahmawan
“
Literature is More Powerful Than WORDS for It Creates WORLDS.
”
”
Sharon Esther Lampert (Poetry Jewels: Diamonds, Emeralds, Sapphires, Rubies, and Pearls: One of the World's Greatest Poets, The Greatest Poems Ever Written on Extraordinary ... Included Published Fan Mail, 5 Star Reviews!)
“
This poem inspired me to write my eBook.
The Miller's Daughter by Alfred Lord Tennyson
It is the miller’s daughter,
And she is grown so dear, so dear,
That I would be the jewel
That trembles in her ear;
For hid in ringlets day and night
I’d touch her neck so warm and white.
”
”
Ellen Read (Love The Gift)
“
You didn't know emotion could be used as a weapon? Have you not read the poetry of Jewel?
”
”
Liz Lemon
“
TO VICTOR HUGO OF MY CROW PLUTO
“Even when the bird is walking we know that it has wings.”—VICTOR HUGO
Of:
my crow
Pluto,
the true
Plato,
azzurronegro
green-blue rainbow
— Victor Hugo, it is true
we know that the crow
“has wings,” however pigeon-toe-
inturned on grass.
We do. (adagio)
Vivorosso
“corvo,”
although
con dizionario
io parlo
Italiano—
this pseudo
Esperanto
which, savio
ucello
you speak too
— my vow and motto
(botto e totto)
io giuro
è questo
credo:
lucro
è peso morto.
And so
dear crow—
gioièllo
mio— I have to
let you go;
a bel bosco
generoso,
tuttuto vagabondo, s
erafino uvaceo
Sunto,
oltremarino
verecondo
Plato, addio.
(((((Impromptu equivalents for esperanto madinusa (made in U.S.A.) for those who might not resent them. azzurro-negro: blue-black vivorosso: lively con dizionario: with dictionary savio ucello: knowing bird botto e totto: vow and motto io giuro: I swear è questo credo: is this credo lucro è peso morto: profit is a dead weight gioièllo mio: my jewel a bel bosco: to lovely woods tuttuto vagabondo: complete gypsy serafino uvaceo: grape-black seraph sunto: in short verecondo: modest))))
”
”
Marianne Moore (Complete Poems)
“
A diamond must be cut many times before it yields even a tiny jewel.
”
”
Malala Yousafzai
“
Benjamin’s aesthetic is dissectional, drawing on Baroque poetry, Baudelaire’s writing and fashion histories. The female body becomes ornament, and in such fetishistic fragmentation, body parts are likened to alabaster, snow, jewels, minerals, and the body can, of course, be made equivalent to – that is, bought for – the metal of exchange: money.
”
”
Beatrice Hanssen (Walter Benjamin and the Arcades Project (Walter Benjamin Studies))
“
And though we plead for a love that will leave us whole, we secretly ache for someone to destroy us so deeply we cannot help but shine. We live to be broken, to unearth the jewels buried inside.
”
”
Andrea Michelle (Kalopsia: The Best Contemporary, Modern Poetry for Young People for Free!)
Sharon Esther Lampert (Poetry Jewels: Diamonds, Emeralds, Sapphires, Rubies, and Pearls: One of the World's Greatest Poets, The Greatest Poems Ever Written on Extraordinary ... Included Published Fan Mail, 5 Star Reviews!)
“
There is electric light in the water,
There is a scorching fire in stones
Nature is such a mystic,
That water can burn and stone can jewel your bones
”
”
Ritu Negi (Ethereal)
“
THE MULADHARA PERSONALITY Someone ruled by the Muladhara chakra is often confronted with life lessons about security—or rather, the desire to be physically and financially secure. The behavior of these people is often compared to that of ants, which ardently work for their queen. Their sense of self is often based on gaining approval or following the laws. Thus, for these people, their lessons are often about confronting and freeing themselves from greed, lust, sensuality, and anger. Like the earth element, Muladhara personalities are physically strong and productive. They often win competitively because of their drive and strength. THE SVADHISTHANA PERSONALITY A Svadhisthana individual is most likely devoted to the higher things in life—art, music, poetry, and the jewels of creativity. While beautiful, this lushness also presents temptation away from the spiritual path, with the major diversions involving sexuality, sensuality, and indulgence. A second-chakra person is likely to experience mood swings or emotional inconsistency. Desire is rooted in the second chakra, and can lead to love and the enjoyment of pleasures, but also to frivolity or just plain selfishness. The Svadhisthana path is often called the way of the butterfly, for life is full of so many joys, it can be hard to remain in one place for long. It is important to develop discipline to balance the compulsion to experience. THE MANIPURA PERSONALITY This chakra embraces the planes of karma (the past), dharma (one’s purpose), and the celestial plane. Its focus is to atone for one’s past errors. Manipura is the fire chakra, and people who dwell here tend to be fiery; the key to joy lies in the application of the heat. Is it used to avoid the past—or to work toward a positive future? Third-chakra people tend to be temperamental but are also able to commit to their goals. They are often driven by the need to be recognized and to succeed. The chief issue to confront is ego. By confronting issues of pride and control, the Manipura person is able to embrace the best features of its major animal, the ram. The ram can walk nimbly into the highest of mountaintops; so can the third-chakra individual. THE ANAHATA PERSONALITY When the lotus unfolds, the twelve petals invite the movement of energy in twelve directions. This activates twelve mental capabilities: hope, anxiety, endeavor, possessiveness, arrogance, incompetence, discrimination, egoism, lustfulness, fraudulence, indecision, and repentance (as described in the Mahanirvana Tantra, a detailing of Tantric rituals and practices, edited for Western audiences by Arthur Avalon (pen name of Sir John Woodroffe) in 1913).25 Twelve divinities in the form of sound assist with the process involved in confronting, dealing with, and healing one’s way through these twelve qualities. A heart-based person might find him- or herself greatly challenged by the so-called negative qualities that stir in the heart. However,
”
”
Cyndi Dale (The Subtle Body: An Encyclopedia of Your Energetic Anatomy)
“
What follows is my best effort to shed as much light as possible on events that have not simply been forgotten or left in the dark, but relegated to the attic, or the ash can, or the metaphorical darkness of fear and shame, and to reignite Plath's fire in the parlor where her fans squint to read by flickering gaslight; above them, the man searches the attic for the jewels he hid too well.What follows is my best effort to shed as much light as possible on events that have not simply been forgotten or left in the dark, but relegated to the attic, or the ash can, or the metaphorical darkness of fear and shame, and to reignite Plath's fire in the parlor where her fans squint to read by flickering gaslight; above them, the man searches the attic for the jewels he hid too well.
”
”
Emily Van Duyne (Loving Sylvia Plath: A Reclamation)
“
The Glory Yet to Be
God called to us, His people
To be His holy bride
From out the rest of living souls
He calls us to His side
The way He calls is rugged
Steep
The way He knows
We are His sheep
By grand design, He has the goals
His love leads to the waterholes
Gives us this day our daily bread
And hitherto, He's always led
Though dark the way
The path is steep
He drives the wolves from us, His sheep
At times the clouds obscure His face
But, bless His name, supplies of grace
Can fortify against every shock
His wisdom plans for all the flock
Just now the skies seemed solid brass
For not, just think
It came to pass
The furnace, seven times hotter be
My grace sufficient is for thee
Your soul is riding out the gail
Your courage falters, and the tale
Is not yet told, but brighter gold
Comes from this long hostility
As Jesus calls, look unto Me
I've planned for thee eternal days
I've planned for thee a thousand ways
I went through my Gethsemany
Will you, my child, bear this for Me?
My back was stripped--I bore the rod
Will bear this for Me, your God?
I plan for thee a jeweled crown
Will you go through, or let me down?
Can you bear up a few more years
Or will you cause your master tears?
While Joseph's brothers made a pile
Joseph suffered for a while
That while did not seem a lengthy season
With no design, no rhyme or reason
The brothers did not care a bit
That Joseph languished in a pit
They showed no sorrow for his plight
They cared not for the wrong or right
But, God was there, behind the cloud
He does not shout His plan aloud
The path through pit and prison led
For Joseph to the nation's head
Not then did Joseph weep or groan
Each step was leading to a throne
The starving brothers soon behold
A ruler with a chain of gold
They wept, and each his breast did smite
Before one sold to Ishmalite
Their brother, with the power of death
Each man fell down with baited breath
Forgiving, Joseph understood
Yee meant for evil, God meant for good
He did not leave me, or forsake
He knew each step I had to take
My shepherd, led by pastures green
No other way could there have been
For me, I proved that He is God
Endured the dark, and kissed the rod
Take this example from His word
And follow on to know the Lord
Now, through darksome glass we see
But oh, the glory yet to be
”
”
Leonard Ravenhill (Revival God's Way)
“
On a collarbone,
I jewel every new epiphany—
My heart's pendant.
”
”
Ritu Negi (Cherry Blossoms: A Haiku Poetry Book)
“
The afternoon passes, the light fades, and evening is coming when are upon the cold, treeless ridges in austerity and awe, utterly removed from everyday life and everything we are used to in light and sound. As we top the last edge, we see below us Blue Lake. Bottomless, peacock blue, smooth as glass, it lies there like an uncut, shining jewel. Symmetrical pine trees, in thick succession, slope down to its shores. This Blue Lake is the most mysterious thing I have ever seen in nature, having an unknowing impenetrable life of its own, and a definite emanation that rises from it. Here is the source of most of the valley life. From this unending water supply that flows out of the east end and miles and miles of the stream to the Pueblo, fields are irrigated and winds down and feds all our fields and orchards. It has never been surprising to me that the Native Americans call Blue Lake a sacred lake and worship it…it is fitting to sleep beside it and try to draw what one could from its strong being. Most of us are used only to the awesome holiness of churches and lofty arches, cathedral where, with stained glass and brooding silences, priest try to emulate the religious atmosphere that is to be found in the living earth in some of her secret places.
1945
Collected in: Sisters of the Earth: Women's Prose and Poetry About Nature by Lorraine Anderson
”
”
Mabel Dodge Luhan
“
My Liberty (The Sonnet)
My liberty is not in luxury,
My liberty is on the blades of grass.
My liberty is not in the palace,
My liberty is in molecules of dust.
My liberty is not in fancy ceremonies,
My liberty is in alleys of the homeless.
My liberty is not in the crown jewels,
My liberty is at the feet of the pathless.
My liberty is not in murals of rigidity,
My liberty is across tradition’s torment.
My liberty is not in the habits of history,
My liberty is in building the present.
My liberty is in the destruction of destiny.
I am liberty incarnate and I write my own reality.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Earthquakin' Egalitarian: I Die Everyday So Your Children Can Live)
“
AKKA MAHADEVI Around nine hundred years ago in southern India, there lived a female mystic called Akka Mahadevi. Akka was a devotee of Shiva. Ever since her childhood, she had regarded Shiva as her beloved, her husband. It was not just a belief; for her it was a living reality. The king saw this beautiful young woman one day, and decided he wanted her as his wife. She refused. But the king was adamant and threatened her parents, so she yielded. She married the man, but she kept him at a physical distance. He tried to woo her, but her constant refrain was, “Shiva is my husband.” Time passed and the king’s patience wore thin. Infuriated, he tried to lay his hands upon her. She refused. “I have another husband. His name is Shiva. He visits me, and I am with him. I cannot be with you.” Because she claimed to have another husband, she was brought to court for prosecution. Akka is said to have announced to all present, “Being a queen doesn’t mean a thing to me. I will leave.” When the king saw the ease with which she was walking away from everything, he made a last futile effort to salvage his dignity. He said, “Everything on your person—your jewels, your garments—belongs to me. Leave it all here and go.” So, in the full assembly, Akka just dropped her jewelry, all her clothes, and walked away naked. From that day on, she refused to wear clothes even though many tried to convince her otherwise. It was unbelievable for a woman to be walking naked on the streets of India at the time—and this was a beautiful young woman. She lived out her life as a wandering mendicant and composed some exquisite poetry that lives on to this very day. In a poem (translated by A. K. Ramanujan), she says: People, male and female, blush when a cloth covering their shame comes loose. When the lord of lives lives drowned without a face in the world, how can you be modest? When all the world is the eye of the lord, onlooking everywhere, what can you cover and conceal? Devotees of this kind may be in this world but not of it. The power and passion with which they lived their lives make them inspirations for generations of humanity. Akka continues to be a living presence in the Indian collective consciousness, and her lyrical poems remain among the most prized works of South Indian literature to this very day. Embracing
”
”
Sadhguru (Inner Engineering: A Yogi’s Guide to Joy)
“
At the moon,
tonight I stared,
being aware not to glare,
while Satan lurked it around my family jewels,
and I don’t ever want him there!
”
”
Nicholas Arthur Purkheiser (The Basilica of Anneliese Michel)
“
Love's Great Adventure by Stewart Stafford
Look out for the wandering eye,
And the fervour that follows it,
A jewel clasped is the first part,
Guarding against theft is trickier.
Surreptitious teases acted out then,
The Rubicon crossed and drained,
Love, blind to impediment boundaries,
Prized contagion spread as lightning.
Rival houses intrude to spoil it,
To still the fluttering of butterflies,
And the bosom of Eros heaving,
Unstoppable to every homo sapien.
Here, I'll act as Cupid's emissary,
Whisper lovers' spells in my ear,
I'll parrot them to her to the letter,
So lured, she'll have me over you.
Groggy from humid moon nectar,
On summertime clouded visions,
A second an hour, as a day a year,
Arousal of fire in swelled chests.
Stallions of the Venus chariot,
Borne freely to the new Arcadia,
Feet skimming over terra firma,
The youthful mask smothers all.
© Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.
”
”
Stewart Stafford
“
To the veterans returning to Ohio after the battle, Lincoln made some brief remarks as they prepared to go west. No one knew when the war would end; no one knew if Lincoln, who was facing reelection in November, would even be president in a matter of months. He spoke not with the poetry of Gettysburg, but his words on that August day said much about why the salvation of the Union would repay any price in blood and toil and treasure. The tall, tired president, his face heavily lined, his burdens unimaginable, was straightforward. “It is,” he said, “in order that each one of you may have, through this free government which we have enjoyed, an open field, and a fair chance for your industry, enterprise, and intelligence; that you may all have equal privileges in the race of life with all its desirable human aspirations—it is for this that the struggle should be maintained, that we may not lose our birthrights—not only for one, but for two or three years, if necessary.” And, finally: “The nation is worth fighting for, to secure such an inestimable jewel.” For all of our darker impulses, for all of our shortcomings, and for all of the dreams denied and deferred, the experiment begun so long ago, carried out so imperfectly, is worth the fight. There is, in fact, no struggle more important, and none nobler, than the one we wage in the service of those better angels who, however besieged, are always ready for battle.
”
”
Jon Meacham (The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels)
“
My grandmother had pale hands
that looked like sturdy veins.
She wrote poetry, too, and sang.
Though she knew few lovers,
I hope here breasts were admired
as mine are
two silver deities
two shining steeples
giving testament to the sky.
— And So to Receive You
”
”
Jewel (A Night Without Armor)
“
Alice Wakes at Two and Looks Out the Window"
A gate, she thinks,
I'm the gate
of my breathing,
of this powdery chant,
and I'll always mistake stars
for dust exploding
white in the noon sun.
They dance, those jewels,
as will I,
dance to the zoo
with my blue feet on,
with a silver drum,
dance bad words and hard tunes,
dance the colors men blush to.
Once there
I'll climb the fences,
seduce the alarms,
I'll move from lion
to monkey to lamb
and kiss the small packets
of their hearts.
Then come home to bed,
to warm eternity,
to the wheel
that twines my flesh
and spins it to sleep.
So fall, star,
and meet your embrace.
I'll name you True Love
and lick you with wishes.
”
”
Bob Hicok (The Legend of Light (Volume 1995) (Wisconsin Poetry Series))