Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
...
HALF a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
...
We will be what we could be. Do not say,
'It might have been, had not this, or that, or this.'
No fate can keep us from the chosen way;
He only might who is.
...
He is more than a hero
he is a god in my eyes-
the man who is allowed
to sit beside you - he
...
Lo! 'tis a gala night
Within the lonesome latter years!
An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
In veils, and drowned in tears,
...
Type of the antique Rome! Rich reliquary
Of lofty contemplation left to Time
By buried centuries of pomp and power!
At length- at length- after so many days
...
Somewhere, sometime, you were Wounded
Maybe as early as infancy when you were denied
All the essentials of the bonding experience
Perhaps the wounds were inflicted
...
'A soldier of the Union mustered out,'
Is the inscription on an unknown grave
At Newport News, beside the salt-sea wave,
...
I.
A bird delicious to the taste,
On which an army once did feast,
...
On Hellespont, guilty of true-love's blood,
In view and opposite two cities stood,
Sea-borderers, disjoined by Neptune's might;
The one Abydos, the other Sestos hight.
...
If my name was Cinderella
You could be the prince
I could wear my sparkling prom dress
We could fall in love the moment our eyes meet
...
AY, 'twas here, on this spot,
In that summer of yore,
Atalanta did not
Vote my presence a bore,
...
The Mother's heart, the hero's will,
The softest flowers' sweetest feel;
...
When the swordsman fell in Kurosawa's Seven Samurai
in the gray rain,
in Cinemascope and the Tokugawa dynasty,
he fell straight as a pine, he fell
...
No living atom comes at last to naught!
Active in each is still the eternal Thought:
Hold fast to Being if thou wouldst be blest.
...
SAMUEL, Chap. xvii.
YE martial pow'rs, and all ye tuneful nine,
Inspire my song, and aid my high design.
...
Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
...
My hero bares his nerves along my wrist
That rules from wrist to shoulder,
Unpacks the head that, like a sleepy ghost,
Leans on my mortal ruler,
...
Reason will not decide at last; the sword will decide.
The sword: an obsolete instrument of bronze or steel,
formerly used to kill men, but here
In the sense of a symbol. The sword: that is: the storms
...
lonely as a dry and used orchard
spread over the earth
for use and surrender.
...
In 1936, a child
in Hitler's Germany,
what did I know about the war in Spain?
Andalusia was a tango
...
I set out to write this poem and I had a simple plan.
I'd avoid all things prosaic and I'd do the best I can
To optimize the content and the grammar and the rhyme
And of course I'd tell a story that would echo for all time
...
I will not cry for satisfaction if I could get my choice,
Among the divine beautiful virgins of heaven, I want only you.
...
I.
Winters know
Easily to shed the snow,
And the untaught Spring is wise
...
Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought
countless ills upon the Achaeans. Many a brave soul did it send
hurrying down to Hades, and many a hero did it yield a prey to dogs
and vultures, for so were the counsels of Jove fulfilled from the
...
THE Danish Conqueror, on his royal chair,
Mustering a face of haughty sovereignty,
To aid a covert purpose, cried--'O ye
...
The seed-at-zero shall not storm
That town of ghosts, the trodden womb,
With her rampart to his tapping,
No god-in-hero tumble down
...
Wimbledon fortnight is here once again,
Whether the sun shines, or whether there's rain,
Out come the nets, the white court lines are drawn,
Another great tennis championship has been born.
...
War is no longer declared,
only continued. The monstrous
has become everyday. The hero
...
Heav'n from all creatures hides the book of fate,
All but the page prescrib'd, their present state:
From brutes what men, from men what spirits know:
Or who could suffer being here below?
...
Himself it was who wrote
His rank, and quartered his own coat.
There is no king nor sovereign state
That can fix a hero's rate;
...
They preferred death to honor
Never said yes for life to dishonor
To die for the nation and holy cause
Constant move with no let or pause
...
The Vanishing
They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;
They pursued it with forks and hope;
...
Thin is in, thin is in
Bodies like paper, thin as fin
Thin as pencil, anemic skin
Portfolio of ribs, crying within
...
I want to be number one poet
But how to remain calm quiet
Something more important to write
Ideas clash and make simple fight
...
Here in my heart I am Helen;
I'm Aspasia and Hero, at least.
I'm Judith, and Jael, and Madame de Stael;
I'm Salome, moon of the East.
...
AH, that Time could touch a form
That could show what Homer's age
Bred to be a hero's wage.
...
I
I want a hero: an uncommon want,
When every year and month sends forth a new one,
Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant,
...
Awake, of Muse, the echoes of a day
Long past, the ghosts of mem'ries manifold --
Youth's memories that once were green and gold
But now, alas, are grim and ashen grey.
...
All of the Indians must have tragic features: tragic noses, eyes, and arms.
Their hands and fingers must be tragic when they reach for tragic food.
The hero must be a half-breed, half white and half Indian, preferably
...
Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans. Many a brave soul did it send hurrying down to Hades, and many a hero did it yield a prey to dogs and vultures, for so were the counsels of Jove fulfilled from the day on which the son of Atreus, king of men, and great Achilles, first fell out with one another.
And which of the gods was it that set them on to quarrel? It was the son of Jove and Leto; for he was angry with the king and sent a pestilence upon the host to plague the people, because the son of Atreus had dishonoured Chryses his priest. Now Chryses had come to the ships of the Achaeans to free his daughter, and had brought with him a great ransom: moreover he bore in his hand the sceptre of Apollo wreathed with a suppliant's wreath and he besought the Achaeans, but most of all the two sons of Atreus, who were their chiefs.
...
HUMAN SHIELD
the order of the day with every cadre
BATTLE FIELD
brought into the habitant world
...
When, like a running grave, time tracks you down,
Your calm and cuddled is a scythe of hairs,
Love in her gear is slowly through the house,
Up naked stairs, a turtle in a hearse,
...
When Abraham Lincoln was shoveled into the tombs he forgot
the copperheads and the assassin . . . in the dust, in the
cool tombs.
...
Let us sit by a hissing steam radiator a winter's day, gray wind pattering frozen raindrops on the window,
And let us talk about milk wagon drivers and grocery delivery boys.
Let us keep our feet in wool slippers and mix hot punches--and talk about mail carriers and
...
The night is come, but not too soon;
And sinking silently,
All silently, the little moon
Drops down behind the sky.
...
Now that our hero has come back to us
in his white pants and we know his nose
trembling like a flag under fire,
we see the calm cold river is supporting
...
You came in my life,
When I was a teen,
A girl with a dream,
A girlwitha heart,
...
The Yangtze flows east
Washing away
A thousand ages of great men
West of the ramparts --
...
‘Fall in, that awkward squad, and strike no more
Attractive attitudes! Dress by the right!
The luminous rich colours that you wore
Have changed to hueless khaki in the night.
...
FACING west, from California's shores,
Inquiring, tireless, seeking what is yet unfound,
I, a child, very old, over waves, towards the house of maternity, the
...
Sure, you're tough and resilient -
able to keep your feelings
under control,
when everyone around you
...
being the German kid in the 20's in Los Angeles
was difficult.
there was much anti-German feeling then,
a carry-over from World War 1.
...
There was three kings unto the east,
Three kings both great and high,
And they hae sworn a solemn oath
...
'Twas at the royal feast for Persia won
By Philip's warlike son—
Aloft in awful state
The godlike hero sate
...
Would you hear a Wild tale of adventure
Of a hero who tackled the sea,
A super-man swimming the ocean,
Then hark to the tale of Joe Lee.
...
. "With sacrifice before the rising morn
Vows have I made by fruitless hope inspired;
And from the infernal Gods, 'mid shades forlorn
Of night, my slaughtered Lord have I required:
...
I had a friend very honest but poor,
Luck did not favour and blessings not shower,
Hardly you may find or class fewer,
I wondered but had no answer,
...
'Sweetheart, take this,' a soldier said,
'And bid me brave good-by;
It may befall we ne'er shall wed,
But love can never die.
...
When you wear a cloudy collar and a shirt that isn't white,
And you cannot sleep for thinking how you'll reach to-morrow night,
You may be a man of sorrows, and on speaking terms with Care,
And as yet be unacquainted with the Demon of Despair;
...
By the hope within us springing,
Herald of to-morrow's strife;
By that sun, whose light is bringing
Chains or freedom, death or life --
...
What the heart of the young man said to the psalmist
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!--
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
...
With beasts and gods, above, the wall is bright.
The child's head, bent to the book-colored shelves,
Is slow and sidelong and food-gathering,
Moving in blind grace ... yet from the mural, Care
...
It isn't the foe that we fear;
It isn't the bullets that whine;
It isn't the business career
Of a shell, or the bust of a mine;
...
I was shocked and almost remained frozen
When saw reflection in mirror with faces in dozens
All bore deserted look remained barren
It frightened me as if I had descended from foreign
...
All night the army came up from Gilgal
To get to the killing field, and that's all.
In the ground, warf and woof, lay the dead.
I want to die in My own bed.
...
Not a drum was heard, nor a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O'er the grave where our hero we buried.
...
Tell me, o muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide
after he had sacked the famous town of Troy. Many cities did he visit,
and many were the nations with whose manners and customs he was
acquainted; moreover he suffered much by sea while trying to save
...
When you are standing at your hero’s grave,
Or near some homeless village where he died,
Remember, through your heart’s rekindling pride,
The German soldiers who were loyal and brave.
...
Oh, my belovèd, have you thought of this:
How in the years to come unscrupulous Time,
More cruel than Death, will tear you from my kiss,
And make you old, and leave me in my prime?
...
A hero thinks of others before they think of themselves
A hero will die to protect
A hero can be of any age, any colour
A hero can be man, woman or child
...
It is December in Wicklow:
Alders dripping, birches
Inheriting the last light,
The ash tree cold to look at.
...
He never made a fortune, or a noise
In the world where men are seeking after fame;
But he had a healthy brood of girls and boys
Who loved the very ground on which he trod.
...
So many words have been spoken
Yet things remain unexpressed
So many words have been spoken
Yet things remain unheard.
...
My Hero is Many,
My Hero is One.
My Hero Proudly Holds a Gun.
My Hero Fights,
...
your sun won't descend
from now till the end
come on great poet
teach us poetry
...
I've now concluded
after giving it much thought;
For all people a hero is sought.
...
Flaubert wanted to write a novel
About nothing. It was to have no subject
And be sustained upon the style alone,
Like the Holy Ghost cruising above
...
In courage-you find
no fear
and in courage-no weakness
does appear
...
She has little money to enjoy or spend
But to other people she is a good friend
To help out her poverty line neighbours she goes out of her way
And for her assistance she never asks for pay.
...
Elvis he's a hero he's a superstar
And I hear that Paul McCartney drives a Rolls Royse car
And Dylan sings for millions
And I just sing for free
...
To know the impossible to be impossible
and yet to love the attempt;
to demonstrate that beauty is eternal, yet
seen only in that moment now,
...
'Tis time the heart should be unmoved,
Since others it hath ceased to move:
Yet, though I cannot be beloved,
Still let me love!
...
Oh, my beloved, have you thought of this:
How in the years to come unscrupulous Time,
More cruel than Death, will tear you from my kiss,
And make you old, and leave me in my prime?
...
The hulk of a man with a beer in his hand looked like a drunk old fool,
And I knew that if I hit him right, I could knock him off that stool.
...
I.
Twas not for some calm blessing to deceive,
Thou didst thy polish'd hands in shagg'd furs weave;
It were no blessing thus obtain'd;
...
A face seen passing in a crowded street,
A voice heard singing music, large and free;
And from that moment life is changed, and we
Become of more heroic temper, meet
...
BOOK I
Tell me, O muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide
...
Here death, killing, violence and hunger
Round the clock play the game of doom;
Snatching, hijacking, injustice and inconvenience
Grow the grass of sorrow in the field of life.
...
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream! -
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
...
Away, ye gay landscapes, ye garden of roses!
In you let the minions of luxury rove;
Restore me to the rocks, where the snowflake reposes,
Though still they are sacred to freedom and love:
...
CLOUD-MAIDENS that float on forever,
Dew-sprinkled, fleet bodies, and fair,
Let us rise from our Sire's loud river,
Great Ocean, and soar through the air
...
I much admire, I must admit,
The man who robs a Bank;
It takes a lot of guts and grit,
For lack of which I thank
...
I am Draupadi,
The human incarnation
...
Lay his sword by his side -- it hath served him too well
Not to rest near his pillow below;
To the last moment true, from his hand ere it fell,
Its point was still turn'd to a flying foe.
...
SAY, muse divine, can hostile scenes delight
The warrior's bosom in the fields of fight?
Lo! here the christian and the hero join
With mutual grace to form the man divine.
...
The goodness in bad will never die
The bad in goodness dormantly lies
Everything bad is good it means
Or do i need to hate even the good deeds? ?
...
Now I was hangin' round Nashville writin' songs and playin' 'em for all of the stars
Watchin' 'em laugh and hand 'em back livin' on hope and
...
A child is blessed every day
A child is innocent
A child is beautiful gift of god
So never ever hate them for who they are or how they are
...