Our Limitations by Oliver Wendell Holmes

We trust and fear, we question and believe,
From life’s dark threads a trembling faith to weave,
Frail as the web that misty night has spun,
Whose dew-gemmed awnings glitter in the sun.
While the calm centuries spell their lessons out,
Each truth we conquer spreads the realm of doubt;
When Sinai’s summit was Jehovah’s throne,
The chosen Prophet knew his voice alone;
When Pilate’s hall that awful question heard,
The Heavenly Captive answered not a word.

Eternal Truth! beyond our hopes and fears
Sweep the vast orbits of thy myriad spheres!
From age to age, while History carves sublime
On her waste rock the flaming curves of time,
How the wild swayings of our planet show
That worlds unseen surround the world we know.

 

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Psalm 46 by Dennis Allen Lange

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*See note below the poem after reading it.

2 We shall not fear though earth should shake and shift,
…And though the mountains slide into the sea.
3 The waves may foam and stars, of sudden, drift,
5 But we shall dwell immoveable and free.

6 The kingdoms totter and the nations roar;
9 The bow and spear advance with chariots.
7 But we shall be secure forevermore,
…E’en if we had no walls and lived in huts.

4 The city of God’s dwelling place is fed
…By waters from His river flowing pure.
8 He rains just desolations on the head
…Of sinful men, but makes our safety sure.

1 God is our refuge, strength, to whom we plead;
…A very present help in time of need.

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I’ve written all of Psalms and Proverbs in poetry that rhymes and has rhythm.  The book will be available at Amazon before Christmas.  If you’re interested (and have not already said so),  let me know in the comments.

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© Dennis Allen Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2018.

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Renouncement by Alice Meynell

I must not think of thee; and, tired yet strong,
I shun the thought that lurks in all delight—
…The thought of thee—and in the blue heaven’s height,
And in the sweetest passage of a song.
Oh, just beyond the fairest thoughts that throng
…This breast, the thought of thee waits hidden yet bright;
But it must never, never come in sight;
I must stop short of thee the whole day long.
But when sleep comes to close each difficult day,
…When night gives pause to the long watch I keep,
And all my bonds I needs must loose apart,
Must doff my will as raiment laid away,—
…With the first dream that comes with the first sleep
I run, I run, I am gathered to thy heart.

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To The Autumnal Night by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Mild Splendor of the various-vested Night!
…Mother of wildly-working visions! hail!
I watch thy gliding, while with watery light
…Thy weak eye glimmers through a fleecy veil;
And when thou lovest thy pale orb to shroud
…Behind the gather’d blackness lost on high;
And when thou dartest from the wind-rent cloud
…Thy placid lightning o’er th’ awakened sky.

Ah, such is Hope! As changeful and as fair!
…Now dimly peering on the wistful sight;
Now hid behind the dragon-wing’d Despair:
…But soon emerging in her radiant might
She o’er the sorrow-clouded breast of Care
…Sails, like a meteor kindling in its flight.

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Enslaved by Claude McKay

Oh when I think of my long-suffering race,
For weary centuries, despised, oppressed
Enslaved and lynched, denied a human place
In the great life line of the Christian West;
And in the Black Land disinherited,
Robbed in the ancient country of its birth,
My heart grows sick with hate, becomes as lead,
For this my race that has no home on earth.
Then from the dark depth of my soul I cry
To the avenging angel to consume
The white man’s world of wonders utterly:
Let it be swallowed up in earth’s vast womb,
Or upward roll as sacrificial smoke
To liberate my people from its yoke!

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Why Did I Laugh Tonight? by John Keats

Why did I laugh tonight?  No voice will tell:
No god, nor demon of severe response,
Deigns to reply from heaven or from hell.
Then to my human heart I turn at once –
Heart! thou and I are here sad and alone;
Say, wherefore did I laugh? O mortal pain!
O darkness! darkness! ever must I moan,
To question heaven and hell and heart in vain!
Why did I laugh? I know this being’s lease –
My fancy to its utmost blisses spreads:
Yet could I on this very midnight cease,
And the world’s gaudy ensigns see in shreds.
Verse, fame, and beauty are intense indeed,
But death intenser – death is life’s high meed.

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To The Cricket by James Whitcomb Riley

The chiming seas may clang; and Tubal Cain
…May clink his tinkling metals as he may;
…Or Pan may sit and pipe his breath away;
Or Orpheus wake his most entrancing strain
Till not a note of melody remain! –
…But thou, O cricket, with thy roundelay,
…Shalt laugh them all to scorn!  So wilt thou, pray
Trill me thy glad song o’er and o’er again:
…I shall not weary; there is purest worth
In thy sweet prattle, since it sings the lone
…Heart home again.  Thy warbling hath no dearth
Of childish memories – no harsher tone
…Than we might listen to in gentlest mirth,
…Thou poor plebeian minstrel of the hearth.

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Sonnet 7 (VII) by William Shakespeare

Lo, in the Orient when the gracious light
Lifts up his burning head, each under eye
Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,
Serving with looks his sacred majesty;
And having climb’d the steep-up heavenly hill,
Resembling strong youth in his middle age,
Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,
Attending on his golden pilgrimage;
But when from highmost pitch, with weary car,
Like feeble age he reeleth from the day,
The eyes (fore duteous) now converted are
From his low tract and look another way.
…So thou, thyself outgoing in thy noon,
…Unlook’d on diest unless thou get a son.

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Sonnet 24 – Dirty Little Thieves by Dennis Lange

Some shriek and stand on chairs at sight of mice
The furry little creatures who are pests.
They sneak into a house by rude device
And make themselves at home, unwelcomed guests.

They make their visits known by leaving trails,
By nasty nibbles gnawed from stolen snacks
And both, when found, provoke small bitter wails
Because invaders made their vile attacks.

They may be mice, but morals like a rat
Make thieves the mate of the barbarian.
They, selfish, leave you lean while getting fat.
A thoughtless animal that steals from man.

A human thief is somewhat like a mouse;
He likewise thinks free lunch is on the house.

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© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2016.

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Crucifying by John Donne

By miracles exceeding power of man,
He faith in some, envy in some begat,
For, what weak spirits admire, ambitions, hate,
In both affections many to him ran,
But Oh! the worst are most, they will and can,
Alas, and do, unto the immaculate,
Whose creature fate is, now prescribe a fate,
Measuring self-life’s infinity to a span
Nay to an inch. Lo, where condemned he
Bears his own cross, with pain, yet by and by
When it bears him, he must bear more and die.
Now thou art lifted up, draw me to thee,
And at thy death giving such liberal dole,
Moist, with one drop of thy blood, my dry soul.

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