Category: Lead Poems

Hafiz -My Friend has fled

Hafiz -My Friend has fled

My friend has fled! alas, my friend has fled, And left me nought but tears and pain behind! Like smoke above a flame caught by the wind, So rose she from my breast and forth she sped. Drunk with desire, I seized Love’s cup divine, But she that held it...

Autumn Within -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Autumn Within -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

It is autumn; not without, But within me is the cold. Youth and spring are all about; It is I that have grown old. Birds are darting through the air, Singing, building without rest; Life is stirring everywhere, Save within my lonely breast. There is silence: the dead leaves Fall...

Tidings of Union -Hafiz

WHERE are the tidings of union? that I may arise– Forth from the dust I will rise up to welcome thee! My soul, like a homing bird, yearning for Paradise, Shall arise and soar, from the snares of the world set free. When the voice of thy love shall call...

Of Beauty and Duty -Dante Alighieri

TWO ladies to the summit of my mind Have clomb, to hold an argument of love. The one has wisdom with her from above, For every noblest virtue well designed: The other, beauty’s tempting power refined And the high charm of perfect grace approve: And I, as my sweet Master’s...

My Beloved -Rabia al Basri

My peace, O my brothers and sisters, is my solitude, And my Beloved is with me always, For His love I can find no substitute, And His love is the test for me among mortal beings, Whenever His Beauty I may contemplate, He is my “mihrab”, towards Him is my...

Lead Poem

Lead Poem

He Is Calm, and I Am Too He is calm, And I am too. He drinks lemon tea, And I drink coffee. (this is the only thing different about us) He, like me, wears a loose striped shirt, And I stare, like him, in a monthly magazine. He does not...

Lead Poem

Lead Poem

Mahmoud Darwish (13 March 1941 – 9 August 2008) was the national Palestinian poet and author who won numerous awards for his literary output. In his work, Palestine became a metaphor for the loss of Eden, birth and resurrection, and the anguish of dispossession and exile. The poet Naomi Shihab...

The Valley of Unrest -Edgar Allan Poe

_Once_ it smiled a silent dell Where the people did not dwell; They had gone unto the wars, Trusting to the mild-eyed stars, Nightly, from their azure towers, To keep watch above the flowers, In the midst of which all day The red sun-light lazily lay, _Now_ each visitor shall...

Awakening -Amjid Yaseen

I sail to you in the ocean of my dreams To a far away distant place Of great beauty and tranquility Where pain and suffering do not exist, Where we give praise for our joy and happiness, Where our love intertwines with a love for all things O beloved keeper...

A Cradle Song -William Blake

A Cradle Song -William Blake

Sweet dreams form a shade, O’er my lovely infants head. Sweet dreams of pleasant streams, By happy silent moony beams Sweet sleep with soft down. Weave thy brows an infant crown. Sweet sleep Angel mild, Hover o’er my happy child. Sweet smiles in the night, Hover over my delight. Sweet...

Bird -Pablo Neruda

Bird -Pablo Neruda

It was passed from one bird to another, the whole gift of the day. The day went from flute to flute, went dressed in vegetation, in flights which opened a tunnel through the wind would pass to where birds were breaking open the dense blue air – and there, night...

I Heard an Angel -William Blake

I Heard an Angel -William Blake

I heard an Angel singing When the day was springing, “Mercy, Pity, Peace Is the world’s release.” Thus he sung all day Over the new mown hay, Till the sun went down And haycocks looked brown. I heard a Devil curse Over the heath and the furze, “Mercy could be...

The Spirit of the Saints -Rumi

There is a Water that flows down from Heaven To cleanse the world of sin by grace Divine. At last, its whole stock spent, its virtue gone. Dark with pollution not its own, it speeds Back to the Fountain of all purities; Whence, freshly bathed, earthward it sweeps again, Trailing...

Tears, Idle Tears -Alfred Lord Tennyson

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean, Tears from the depth of some divine despair Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, In looking on the happy autumn-fields, And thinking of the days that are no more. Fresh as the first beam glittering on a sail,...

A Divine Image -William Blake

Cruelty has a human heart, And Jealousy a human face; Terror the human form divine, And Secresy the human dress. The human dress is forged iron, The human form a fiery forge, The human face a furnace sealed, The human heart its hungry gorge.

Dream Variation -Langston Hughes

To fling my arms wide In some place of the sun, To whirl and to dance Till the white day is done. Then rest at cool evening Beneath a tall tree While night comes on gently, Dark like me– That is my dream! To fling my arms wide In the...

Who Has Bid Thee Ask No More -Hafiz

Beloved, who has bid thee ask no more How fares my life? to play the enemy And ask not where he dwells that was thy friend? Thou art the breath of mercy passing over The whole wide world, and the offender I; Ah, let the rift my tears have channelled...