Maya Angelou The Lesson I keep on dying again. Veins collapse, opening like the Small fists of sleeping Children. Memory of old tombs, Rotting flesh and worms do Not convince me against The challenge. The years And cold defeat live deep in Lines along my face. They dull my eyes,...
One must have a mind of winter To regard the frost and the boughs Of the pine-trees crusted with snow; And have been cold a long time To behold the junipers shagged with ice, The spruces rough in the distant glitter Of the January sun; and not to think Of...
Hafiz Lifts Beyond Conception Independent Of this body is my mind When the call from the Golden Nightingale Lifts and pours my being throughout The Sky. Independent of this mind is my Heart When God unfurls even a shadow of His tress Upon my bare shoulder. Sovereign of my illumined...
The first sorrow of autumn Is the slow goodbye Of the garden who stands so long in the evening- A brown poppy head, / The stalk of a lily, And still cannot go. The second sorrow / Is the empty feet Of a pheasant who hangs from a hook with...
Should I abandon the pleasure of sun’s and moon’s company? And should I abandon this service of conveying dawn’s message ? For me the height of the world of stars is not good For me lowliness of earth’s denizens is better than this height What is the sky? Is the uninhabited...
A glimpse through an interstice caught, Of a crowd of workmen and drivers in a bar-room around the stove late of a winter night, and I unremark’d seated in a corner, Of a youth who loves me and whom I love, silently approaching and seating himself near, that he may...
Every day I bear a burden, and I bear this calamity for a purpose: I bear the discomfort of cold and December’s snow in hope of spring. Before the fattener-up of all who are lean, I drag this so emaciated body; Though they expel me from two hundred cities, I...
E. E. Cummings but the other but the other day i was passing a certain gate rain fell as it will in spring ropes of silver gliding from sunny thunder into freshness as if god’s flowers were pulling upon bells of gold i looked up and thought to myself death...
Hafiz Bring Perfumes Sweet to Me FROM out the street of So-and-So, Oh wind, bring perfumes sweet to me For I am sick and pale with woe; Oh bring me rest from misery! The dust that lies before her door, Love’s long desired elixir, pour Upon this wasted heart of...
They are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens, And along the trampled edges of the street I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids Sprouting despondently at area gates. The brown waves of fog toss up to me Twisted faces from the bottom of the street, And tear from...
All through eternity Beauty unveils His exquisite form in the solitude of nothingness; He holds a mirror to His Face and beholds His own beauty. he is the knower and the known, the seer and the seen; No eye but His own has ever looked upon this Universe. His every...
Walt Whitman Beat! Beat! Drums! Beat! beat! drums!—blow! bugles! blow! Through the windows—through doors—burst like a ruthless force, Into the solemn church, and scatter the congregation, Into the school where the scholar is studying, Leave not the bridegroom quiet—no happiness must he have now with his bride, Nor the peaceful...
Jalaluddin Rumi The Interest Without the Capital The lover’s food is the love of the bread; no bread need be at hand: no one who is sincere in his love is a slave to existence. Lovers have nothing to do with existence; lovers have the interest without the capital. Without...
John Keats On the Grasshopper and Cricket The poetry of earth is never dead: When all the birds are faint with the hot sun, And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead; That is the Grasshopper’s–he takes the lead In summer...
When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy. When actions come from another section, the feeling disappears. Don’t let others lead you. They may be blind or, worse, vultures. Reach for the rope of God. And what is that? Putting aside self-will....
Sylvia Plath The Moon And The Yew Tree This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary The trees of the mind are black. The light is blue. The grasses unload their griefs on my feet as if I were God Prickling my ankles and murmuring of their humility...
Jalaluddin Rumi Sweetly Parading You Go My Soul Of Soul Sweetly parading you go my soul of soul, go not without me; life of your friends, enter not the garden without me. Sky, revolve not without me; moon, shine not without me; earth travel not without me, and time, go...
From childhood’s hour I have not been As others were — I have not seen As others saw — I could not bring My passions from a common spring — From the same source I have not taken My sorrow — I could not awaken My heart to joy at...
The bulbul’s care is naught but the rose is his mate dear The rose’s care is naught but to bring grace to her cheer Not all lure is what brings the lover’s heart to its fall Master is he who bears compassion to his thrall. Now comes the time when...
The art of losing isn’t hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster. Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn’t hard to master. Then practice...
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