History Poem by Robert Lowell
History has to live with what was here,
clutching and close to fumbling all we had–
it is so dull and gruesome how we die,
unlike writing, life never finishes.
Abel was finished; death is not remote,
a flash-in-the-pan electrifies the skeptic,
his cows crowding like skulls against high-voltage wire,
his baby crying all night like a new machine.
As in our Bibles, white-faced, predatory,
the beautiful, mist-drunken hunter’s moon ascends–
a child could give it a face: two holes, two holes,
my eyes, my mouth, between them a skull’s no-nose–
O there’s a terrifying innocence in my face
drenched with the silver salvage of the mornfrost.
. Walking Wounded Poem by Mary Havran
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
When another toddler refused to return the toy you readily shared
Or by the mean girl who broke your favorite colored crayon
Or the bully who pushed you on the playground
Or perhaps it happened that first time
Someone more sophisticated, though lacking empathy,
Assailed your ears with a course laughter,
Aimed at you like a lethal weapon
Contrasting the cheerful chorus of joy laughter had always been
Maybe it happened the day you ran home crying
Mother revealed a secret: “Not everyone you meet will like you”
Unwelcome words that wounded and wound their way
Like strangling ivy around your core
Taking root in your heart of hearts
Passing years provide a scale of scar
Yet you are Wounded still
Somewhere, sometime, your Innocence was lost
Maybe it happened when your missing bicycle
Was spotted in the driveway on the next block
Or the day that special pebble found on the playground
Mysteriously vanished from your backpack
Maybe it was the first time you witnessed another’s tears
And yet perceived no evidence of physical injury
Perhaps it was the initial instance when you caught someone in a lie
Betrayal became a biting sting instead of just a word
Maybe it was on the day the friendly neighbor invited you in for a visit
Closed the door, pulled down the shades
And the most sacred shelter of innocence was shattered
At the unworthy hands of one of life’s lowest thieves
You learned another bitter truth
The knowledge of good and evil force-fed like bitter fruit
Time having done all it can to repair or bury
Yet Innocence is lost still
Whatever time, whatever place, or in whatever manner
Those who contributed to your loss of Innocence
Or at whose hands you were first Wounded
Do not hold the power to heal you
And they never will.
Even should they acknowledge and repent
You would still be walking through life wounded
Your initial Innocence still lost
Only you can sooth the hurts,
Bind the wounds, reclaim your rightful share of Innocence
Only Your Indomitable Spirit Can Prevail
Yours the choice to reject surrender and to overcome
You, accepting the role of Hero of your own life,
Who, in casting off from the past,
Becomes the Captain of all future voyages
Becoming one with the rest of us
We, the “Walking Wounded”
Cleared Poem by Rudyard Kipling
Help for a patriot distressed, a spotless spirit hurt,
Help for an honourable clan sore trampled in the dirt!
From Queenstown Bay to Donegal, O listen to my song,
The honourable gentlemen have suffered grievous wrong.
Their noble names were mentioned — O the burning black disgrace! —
By a brutal Saxon paper in an Irish shooting-case;
They sat upon it for a year, then steeled their heart to brave it,
And ‘coruscating innocence’ the learned Judges gave it.
Bear witness, Heaven, of that grim crime beneath the surgeon’s knife,
The honourable gentlemen deplored the loss of life!
Bear witness of those chanting choirs that burk and shirk and snigger,
No man laid hand upon the knife or finger to the trigger!
Cleared in the face of all mankind beneath the winking skies,
Like ph]oenixes from Ph]oenix Park (and what lay there) they rise!
Go shout it to the emerald seas — give word to Erin now,
Her honourable gentlemen are cleared — and this is how: —
They only paid the Moonlighter his cattle-hocking price,
They only helped the murderer with counsel’s best advice,
But — sure it keeps their honour white — the learned Court believes
They never gave a piece of plate to murderers and thieves.
They never told the ramping crowd to card a woman’s hide,
They never marked a man for death — what fault of theirs he died? —
They only said ‘intimidate’, and talked and went away —
By God, the boys that did the work were braver men than they!
Their sin it was that fed the fire — small blame to them that heard —
The ‘bhoys’ get drunk on rhetoric, and madden at a word —
They knew whom they were talking at, if they were Irish too,
The gentlemen that lied in Court, they knew, and well they knew.
They only took the Judas-gold from Fenians out of jail,
They only fawned for dollars on the blood-dyed Clanna-Gael.
If black is black or white is white, in black and white it’s down,
They’re only traitors to the Queen and rebels to the Crown.
‘Cleared’, honourable gentlemen! Be thankful it’s no more: —
The widow’s curse is on your house, the dead are at your door.
On you the shame of open shame, on you from North to South
The hand of every honest man flat-heeled across your mouth.
‘Less black than we were painted’? — Faith, no word of black was said;
The lightest touch was human blood, and that, you know, runs red.
It’s sticking to your fist to-day for all your sneer and scoff,
And by the Judge’s well-weighed word you cannot wipe it off.
Hold up those hands of innocence — go, scare your sheep together,
The blundering, tripping tups that bleat behind the old bell-wether;
And if they snuff the taint and break to find another pen,
Tell them it’s tar that glistens so, and daub them yours again!
‘The charge is old’? — As old as Cain — as fresh as yesterday;
Old as the Ten Commandments — have ye talked those laws away?
If words are words, or death is death, or powder sends the ball,
You spoke the words that sped the shot — the curse be on you all.
‘Our friends believe’? — Of course they do — as sheltered women may;
But have they seen the shrieking soul ripped from the quivering clay?
They! — If their own front door is shut,
they’ll swear the whole world’s warm;
What do they know of dread of death or hanging fear of harm?
The secret half a county keeps, the whisper in the lane,
The shriek that tells the shot went home behind the broken pane,
The dry blood crisping in the sun that scares the honest bees,
And shows the ‘bhoys’ have heard your talk — what do they know of these?
But you — you know — ay, ten times more; the secrets of the dead,
Black terror on the country-side by word and whisper bred,
The mangled stallion’s scream at night, the tail-cropped heifer’s low.
Who set the whisper going first? You know, and well you know!
My soul! I’d sooner lie in jail for murder plain and straight,
Pure crime I’d done with my own hand for money, lust, or hate,
Than take a seat in Parliament by fellow-felons cheered,
While one of those ‘not provens’ proved me cleared as you are cleared.
Cleared — you that ‘lost’ the League accounts — go, guard our honour still,
Go, help to make our country’s laws that broke God’s law at will —
One hand stuck out behind the back, to signal ‘strike again’;
The other on your dress-shirt-front to show your heart is clane.
If black is black or white is white, in black and white it’s down,
You’re only traitors to the Queen and rebels to the Crown.
If print is print or words are words, the learned Court perpends: —
We are not ruled by murderers, but only — by their friends.
Magellanic Penguin Poem by Pablo Neruda
Neither clown nor child nor black
nor white but verticle
and a questioning innocence
dressed in night and snow:
The mother smiles at the sailor,
the fisherman at the astronaunt,
but the child child does not smile
when he looks at the bird child,
and from the disorderly ocean
the immaculate passenger
emerges in snowy mourning.
I was without doubt the child bird
there in the cold archipelagoes
when it looked at me with its eyes,
with its ancient ocean eyes:
it had neither arms nor wings
but hard little oars
on its sides:
it was as old as the salt;
the age of moving water,
and it looked at me from its age:
since then I know I do not exist;
I am a worm in the sand.
the reasons for my respect
remained in the sand:
the religious bird
did not need to fly,
did not need to sing,
and through its form was visible
its wild soul bled salt:
as if a vein from the bitter sea
had been broken.
Penguin, static traveler,
deliberate priest of the cold,
I salute your vertical salt
and envy your plumed pride.
Love And Harmony Poem by William Blake
Love and harmony combine,
And round our souls entwine
While thy branches mix with mine,
And our roots together join.
Joys upon our branches sit,
Chirping loud and singing sweet;
Like gentle streams beneath our feet
Innocence and virtue meet.
Thou the golden fruit dost bear,
I am clad in flowers fair;
Thy sweet boughs perfume the air,
And the turtle buildeth there.
There she sits and feeds her young,
Sweet I hear her mournful song;
And thy lovely leaves among,
There is love, I hear his tongue.
There his charming nest doth lay,
There he sleeps the night away;
There he sports along the day,
And doth among our branches play.
Lenore Poem by Edgar Allan Poe
Ah, broken is the golden bowl! the spirit flown forever!
Let the bell toll!- a saintly soul floats on the Stygian river;
And, Guy de Vere, hast thou no tear?- weep now or nevermore!
See! on yon drear and rigid bier low lies thy love, Lenore!
Come! let the burial rite be read- the funeral song be sung!-
An anthem for the queenliest dead that ever died so young-
A dirge for her the doubly dead in that she died so young.
“Wretches! ye loved her for her wealth and hated her for her pride,
And when she fell in feeble health, ye blessed her- that she died!
How shall the ritual, then, be read?- the requiem how be sung
By you- by yours, the evil eye,- by yours, the slanderous tongue
That did to death the innocence that died, and died so young?”
Peccavimus; but rave not thus! and let a Sabbath song
Go up to God so solemnly the dead may feel no wrong.
The sweet Lenore hath “gone before,” with Hope, that flew beside,
Leaving thee wild for the dear child that should have been thy
bride.
For her, the fair and debonair, that now so lowly lies,
The life upon her yellow hair but not within her eyes
The life still there, upon her hair- the death upon her eyes.
“Avaunt! avaunt! from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven-
From Hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven-
From grief and groan, to a golden throne, beside the King of
Heaven!
Let no bell toll, then,- lest her soul, amid its hallowed mirth,
Should catch the note as it doth float up from the damned Earth!
And I!- to-night my heart is light!- no dirge will I upraise,
But waft the angel on her flight with a Paean of old days!”
Ode On Solitude Poem by Alexander Pope
Happy the man, whose wish and care
A few paternal acres bound,
Content to breathe his native air,
In his own ground.
Whose heards with milk, whose fields with bread,
Whose flocks supply him with attire,
Whose trees in summer yield him shade,
In winter fire.
Blest! who can unconcern’dly find
Hours, days, and years slide soft away,
In health of body, peace of mind,
Quiet by day,
Sound sleep by night; study and ease
Together mix’d; sweet recreation,
And innocence, which most does please,
With meditation.
Thus let me live, unseen, unknown;
Thus unlamented let me dye;
Steal from the world, and not a stone
Tell where I lye.
The Suicide’s Argument Poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Ere the birth of my life, if I wished it or no
No question was asked me–it could not be so !
If the life was the question, a thing sent to try
And to live on be YES; what can NO be ? to die.
NATURE’S ANSWER
Is’t returned, as ’twas sent ? Is’t no worse for the wear ?
Think first, what you ARE ! Call to mind what you WERE !
I gave you innocence, I gave you hope,
Gave health, and genius, and an ample scope,
Return you me guilt, lethargy, despair ?
Make out the invent’ry ; inspect, compare !
Then die–if die you dare !
A Refusal To Mourn The Death, By Fire, Of A Child In London Poem by Dylan Thomas
Never until the mankind making
Bird beast and flower
Fathering and all humbling darkness
Tells with silence the last light breaking
And the still hour
Is come of the sea tumbling in harness
And I must enter again the round
Zion of the water bead
And the synagogue of the ear of corn
Shall I let pray the shadow of a sound
Or sow my salt seed
In the least valley of sackcloth to mourn
The majesty and burning of the child’s death.
I shall not murder
The mankind of her going with a grave truth
Nor blaspheme down the stations of the breath
With any further
Elegy of innocence and youth.
Deep with the first dead lies London’s daughter,
Robed in the long friends,
The grains beyond age, the dark veins of her mother,
Secret by the unmourning water
Of the riding Thames.
After the first death, there is no other.
The Second Coming Poem by William Butler Yeats
TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of i{Spiritus Mundi}
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at laSt,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
