Category: Lead Poems

On His Blindness -John Milton

WHEN I consider how my light is spent E’re half my days, in this dark world and wide, And that one Talent which is death to hide, Lodg’d with me useless, though my Soul more bent To serve therewith my Maker, and present My true account, least he returning chide,...

The Message of Dawn -Allama Muhammad Iqbal

When the sparkling of the night’s forehead’s decoration disappeared The zephyr of life with the news of the happy morning appeared It awakened the nightingale of flowery song in its nest It shook the shoulder of the farmer on the field’s edge It broke the spell of darkness of night’s...

Lead Poem

Lead Poem

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,...

Wallace Stevens- The Snow Man 

Wallace Stevens- The Snow Man 

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...

Lead Poem

Lead Poem

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...

Ted Hughes The Seven Sorrows

Ted Hughes The Seven Sorrows

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...

The Morning Star Venus -Allama Muhammad Iqbal

The Morning Star Venus -Allama Muhammad Iqbal

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 -Walt Whitman

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 -Jalaluddin Rumi

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...

Lead Poem

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...

Lead Poem

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...

T S Eliot- Morning At The Window

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 -Jalaluddin Rumi

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...

Lead Poem

Lead Poem

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...

Lead Poem

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...

Lead Poem

Lead Poem

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...

Jalaluddin Rumi Moving Water

Jalaluddin Rumi Moving Water

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....

Lead Poem

Lead Poem

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...