poems of peace and love

Love and a Question
by Robert Frost

A stranger came to the door at eve,

And he spoke the bridegroom fair.

He bore a green-white stick in his hand,

And, for all burden, care.

He asked with the eyes more than the lips

For a shelter for the night,

And he turned and looked at the road afar

Without a window light.

The bridegroom came forth into the porch

With, ‘Let us look at the sky,

And question what of the night to be,

Stranger, you and I.’

The woodbine leaves littered the yard,

The woodbine berries were blue,

Autumn, yes, winter was in the wind;

‘Stranger, I wish I knew.’

Within, the bride in the dusk alone

Bent over the open fire,

Her face rose-red with the glowing coal

And the thought of the heart’s desire.

The bridegroom looked at the weary road,

Yet saw but her within,

And wished her heart in a case of gold

And pinned with a silver pin.

The bridegroom thought it little to give

A dole of bread, a purse,

A heartfelt prayer for the poor of God,

Or for the rich a curse;

But whether or not a man was asked

To mar the love of two

By harboring woe in the bridal house,

The bridegroom wished he knew.

The New Poetry Handbook
by Mark Strand

1 If a man understands a poem,

he shall have troubles.

2 If a man lives with a poem,

he shall die lonely.

3 If a man lives with two poems,

he shall be unfaithful to one.

4 If a man conceives of a poem,

he shall have one less child.

5 If a man conceives of two poems,

he shall have two children less.

6 If a man wears a crown on his head as he writes,

he shall be found out.

7 If a man wears no crown on his head as he writes,

he shall deceive no one but himself.

8 If a man gets angry at a poem,

he shall be scorned by men.

9 If a man continues to be angry at a poem,

he shall be scorned by women.

10 If a man publicly denounces poetry,

his shoes will fill with urine.

11 If a man gives up poetry for power,

he shall have lots of power.

12 If a man brags about his poems,

he shall be loved by fools.

13 If a man brags about his poems and loves fools,

he shall write no more.

14 If a man craves attention because of his poems,

he shall be like a jackass in moonlight.

15 If a man writes a poem and praises the poem of a fellow,

he shall have a beautiful mistress.

16 If a man writes a poem and praises the poem of a fellow overly,

he shall drive his mistress away.

17 If a man claims the poem of another,

his heart shall double in size.

18 If a man lets his poems go naked,

he shall fear death.

19 If a man fears death,

he shall be saved by his poems.

20 If a man does not fear death,

he may or may not be saved by his poems.

21 If a man finishes a poem,

he shall bathe in the blank wake of his passion

and be kissed by white paper.

Still I Rise
by Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,

You may trod me in the very dirt

But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?

Why are you beset with gloom?

‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells

Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,

With the certainty of tides,

Just like hopes springing high,

Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?

Bowed head and lowered eyes?

Shoulders falling down like teardrops.

Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?

Don’t you take it awful hard

‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines

Diggin’ in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I’ve got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame

I rise

Up from a past that’s rooted in pain

I rise

I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise.

The Broken Heart
by William Barnes

News o’ grief had overteaken

Dark-eyed Fanny, now vorseaken;

There she zot, wi’ breast a-heaven,

While vrom zide to zide, wi’ grieven,

Vell her head, wi’ tears a-creepen

Down her cheaks, in bitter weepen.

There wer still the ribbon-bow

She tied avore her hour ov woe,

An’ there wer still the hans that tied it

Hangen white,

Or wringen tight,

In ceare that drowned all ceare bezide it.

When a man, wi’ heartless slighten,

Mid become a maiden’s blighten,

He mid cearelessly vorseake her,

But must answer to her Meaker;

He mid slight, wi’ selfish blindness,

All her deeds o’ loven-kindness,

God wull waigh ’em wi’ the slighten

That mid be her love’s requiten;

He do look on each deceiver,

He do know

What weight o’ woe

Do break the heart ov ev’ry griever.

Those Winter Sundays
by Robert Hayden

Sundays too my father got up early

And put his clothes on in the blueback cold,

then with cracked hands that ached

from labor in the weekday weather made

banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.

When the rooms were warm, he’d call,

and slowly I would rise and dress,

fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,

who had driven out the cold

and polished my good shoes as well.

What did I know, what did I know

of love’s austere and lonely offices?

The Lady of the Lake (excerpt)
by Sir Walter Scott

CANTO SECOND – THE ISLAND (Part II)

Hail to the chief who in triumph advances!

Honoured and blessed be the ever-green pine!

Long may the tree in his banner that glances,

Flourish the shelter and grace of our line!

Heaven send it happy dew,

Earth lend it sap anew;

Gaily to burgeon, and broadly to grow,

While every Highland glen

Sends our shout back agen,

Roderigh Vich Alpine dhu, ho! ieroe!

Ours is no sapling, chance-sown by the fountain,

Blooming at Beltane, *** in winter to fade;

When the whirlwind has stripped every leaf on the mountain,

The more shall Clan Alpine exult in her shade.

Moored on the rifted rock,

Proof to the tempest’s shock,

Firmer he roots him the ruder it blow;

Menteith and Breadalbane, then

Echo his praise agen,

Roderigh Vich Alpine dhu, ho! ieroe!

Proudly our pibroch has thrilled in Glen Fruin,

And Banochar’s groans to our slogan replied:

Glen Luss and Ross-dhu, they are smoking in ruin,

And the best of Loch-Lomond lie dead on her side.

Widow and Saxon maid,

Long shall lament our raid,

Think of Glen-Alpine with fear and with woe;

Lennox and Leven-glen

Shake when they hear agen,

Roderigh Vich Alpine dhu, ho! ieroe!

Row, vassals, row, for the pride of the Highlands!

Stretch to your oars, for the ever-green pine!

O! that the rosebud that graces yon islands,

Were wreathed in a garland around him to twine!

O that some seedling gem

Worthy such noble stem,

Honoured and blessed in their shadow might grow!

Loud should Clan Alpine then

Ring from her deepmost glen,

Roderigh Vich Alpine dhu, ho! ieroe!

CANTO THIRD – THE GATHERING (Part II)

The heath this night must be my bed,

The bracken curtain for my head,

My lullaby the warder’s tread,

Far, far from love and thee, Mary

To-morrow eve, more stilly laid,

My couch may be my bloody plaid,

My vesper song, thy wail, sweet maid!

It will not waken me, Mary!

I may not, dare not, fancy now

The grief that clouds thy lovely brow;

I dare not think upon thy vow,

And all it promised me, Mary.

No fond regret must Norman know;

When bursts Clan Alpine on the foe,

His heart must be like bended bow,

His foot like arrow free, Mary.

A time will come with feeling fraught!

For, if I fall in battle fought,

Thy hapless lover’s dying thought

Shall be a thought on thee, Mary

And if returned from conquered foes,

How blithely will the evening close,

How sweet the linnet sing repose

To my young bride and me, Mary.

CANTO SIXTH – THE GUARD ROOM (Part II) – LAMENT

“And art thou cold and lowly laid,

Thy foeman’s dread, thy people’s aid,

Breadalbane’s boast, Clan Alpine’s shade!

For thee shall none a requiem say?

For thee, who loved the minstrel’s lay,

For thee, of Bothwell’s house the stay,

The shelter of her exiled line,

E’en in this prison-house of thine,

I’ll wail for Alpine’s honoured pine!

“What groans shall yonder valleys fill!

What shrieks of grief shall rend yon hill!

What tears of burning rage shall thrill,

When mourns thy tribe thy battles done,

Thy fall before the race was won,

Thy sword ungirt ere set of sun!

There breathes not clansman of thy line,

But would have given his life for thine!

But, woe for Alpine’s honoured pine!

“Sad was thy lot on mortal stage!

The captive thrush may brook the cage,

The prisoned eagle dies for rage.

Brave spirit, do not scorn my strain!

And, when its notes awake again,

Even she, so long beloved in vain,

Shall with my harp her voice combine,

And mix her woe and tears with mine,

To wail Clan Alpine’s honoured pine!”

We Are Made One with What We Touch and See
by Oscar Wilde

We are resolved into the supreme air,

We are made one with what we touch and see,

With our heart’s blood each crimson sun is fair,

With our young lives each spring-impassioned tree

Flames into green, the wildest beasts that range

The moor our kinsmen are, all life is one, and all is change.

With beat of systole and of diastole

One grand great life throbs through earth’s giant heart,

And mighty waves of single Being roll

From nerve-less germ to man, for we are part

Of every rock and bird and beast and hill,

One with the things that prey on us, and one with what we kill. . . .

Not we alone hath passions hymeneal,

The yellow buttercups that shake for mirth

At daybreak know a pleasure not less real

Than we do, when in some fresh-blossoming wood

We draw the spring into our hearts, and feel that life is good. . . .

Is the light vanished from our golden sun,

Or is this daedal-fashioned earth less fair,

That we are nature’s heritors, and one

With every pulse of life that beats the air?

Rather new suns across the sky shall pass,

New splendour come unto the flower, new glory to the grass.

And we two lovers shall not sit afar,

Critics of nature, but the joyous sea

Shall be our raiment, and the bearded star

Shoot arrows at our pleasure! We shall be

Part of the mighty universal whole,

And through all Aeons mix and mingle with the Kosmic Soul!

We shall be notes in that great Symphony

Whose cadence circles through the rhythmic spheres,

And all the live World’s throbbing heart shall be

One with our heart, the stealthy creeping years

Have lost their terrors now, we shall not die,

The Universe itself shall be our Immortality!