Grief by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless;
That only men incredulous of despair,
…Half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air
Beat upward to God’s throne in loud access
Of shrieking and reproach. Full desertness
…In souls as countries lieth silent-bare
…Under the blanching, vertical eye-glare
Of the absolute Heavens. Deep-hearted man, express
Grief for thy Dead in silence like to death –
…Most like a monumental statue set
In everlasting watching and moveless woe
Till itself crumble to the dusts beneath.
…Touch it; the marble eyelids are not wet:
If it could weep, it could arise and go.

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Hymn Of Trust by Oliver Wendell Holmes

O Love Divine, that stooped to share
…Our sharpest pang, our bitterest tear,
On Thee we cast each earth-born care,
…We smile at pain while Thou art near!

Though long the weary way we tread,
…And sorrow crown each lingering year,
No path we shun, no darkness dread,
…Our hearts still whispering, Thou art near! 

When drooping pleasure turns to grief,
…And trembling faith is changed to fear,
The murmuring wind, the quivering leaf,
…Shall softly tell us, Thou art near! 

On Thee we fling our burdening woe,
…O Love Divine, forever dear,
Content to suffer while we know,
…Living and dying, Thou art near!

 

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Things Are Looking Brighter – haiku by Dennis Allen Lange

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The way out
Of a dark hole’s oft
A way up.

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photo by Javier Gonzalezat
http://www.rgbstock.com/photo/moyLDa8/Mysterious+stairs

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* The haiku I write are lines of 3-5-3 syllables instead of 5-7-5.

See Haiku article here for explanation, if needed: https://thebardonthehill.wordpress.com/2011/08/08/haiku/

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© Dennis Allen Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2017.

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Kissing The Rod by James Whitcomb Riley

O heart of mine, we shouldn’t
…Worry so!
What we’ve missed of calm we couldn’t
…Have you know!
What we’ve met of stormy pain
And of sorrow’s driving rain,
We can better meet again,
…If it blow!

We have erred in that dark hour
…We have known,
When our tears fell with the shower,
…All alone! –
Were not shine and shower blent
As the gracious Master meant? –
Let us temper our content
…With His own.

For, we know not every morrow
…Can be sad;
So, forgetting all the sorrow
…We have had,
Let us fold away our fears,
And put by our foolish tears,
And through all the coming years
…Just be glad.

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London by William Blake

……………London

I wander thro’ each charter’d street,
Near where the charter’d Thames does flow
And mark in every face I meet
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every Man,
In every Infant’s cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forg’d manacles I hear.

How the chimney-sweeper’s cry
Every black’ning church appals’
And the hapless soldier’s sigh
Runs in blood down palace walls.

But most thro’ midnight streets I hear
How the youthful harlot’s curse
Blasts the new-born infant’s tear,
And blights with plagues the marriage hearse.

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Sonnet 2 – When Trouble Tills Our Garden by Dennis Lange

When trouble tills our garden with a woe
And rakes to rubbled ruin this earthly life,
It gives us no escape, no place to go,
And never asks permission for the strife.

The hand we’re dealt is never shuffled o’er;
The cards, when black, are still our cards to play.
They fall upon us till the light’s no more,
And in our blackened days we have no say.

Like Job, we’re urged to curse our God and die
For that which came our way without our will.
But greater than the greatest blight or cry,
There is a more important choice still –

Not in the bearing that which we endure,
But if we bear for God, remaining pure.

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© Dennis Lange and thebardonthehill.wordpress.com, 2011.

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