Faith poems
/ page 227 of 262 /The House Of Dust: Part 03: 10: Letter
© Conrad Aiken
From time to time, lifting his eyes, he sees
The soft blue starlight through the one small window,
The moon above black trees, and clouds, and Venus,
And turns to write . . . The clock, behind ticks softly.
The House Of Dust: Part 03: 03: Haunted Chambers
© Conrad Aiken
The lamplit page is turned, the dream forgotten;
The music changes tone, you wake, remember
Deep worlds you lived before,deep worlds hereafter
Of leaf on falling leaf, music on music,
Rain and sorrow and wind and dust and laughter.
A Widow's Hymn
© George Wither
How near me came the hand of Death,
When at my side he struck my dear,
The House Of Dust: Complete (Long)
© Conrad Aiken
. . . Parts of this poem have been printed in "The North American
Review, Others, Poetry, Youth, Coterie, The Yale Review". . . . I am
indebted to Lafcadio Hearn for the episode called "The Screen Maiden"
in Part II.
The Deserted Palace
© Robert Laurence Binyon
``My feet are dead, the cold rain beats my face!''
``Courage, sweet love, this tempest is our friend!''
``Yet oh, shall we not rest a little space?
This city sleeps; some corner may defend
A Letter From Li Po
© Conrad Aiken
Fanfare of northwest wind, a bluejay wind
announces autumn, and the equinox
rolls back blue bays to a far afternoon.
Somewhere beyond the Gorge Li Po is gone,
The Stranger
© John Clare
When trouble haunts me, need I sigh?
No, rather smile away despair;
For those have been more sad than I,
With burthens more than I could bear;
Aye, gone rejoicing under care
Where I had sunk in black despair.
An Answer
© George Frederick Cameron
So, say:It must be good to die, my friend!
It must be good and more than good, I deem;
'Tis all the replication I may send
For deeper swimming seek a deeper stream.
The Eternal Goodness
© John Greenleaf Whittier
O Friends! with whom my feet have trod
The quiet aisles of prayer,
Glad witness to your zeal for God
And love of man I bear.
To Mr. Rowland Woodward
© John Donne
LIKE one who in her third widowhood doth profess
Herself a nun, tied to retiredness,
So affects my Muse, now, a chaste fallowness.
Snowbound, a Winter Idyl
© John Greenleaf Whittier
To the Memory of the Household It DescribesThis Poem is Dedicated by the Author"As the Spirit of Darkness be stronger in the dark, so Good Spirits, which be Angels of Light, are augmented not only by the Divine light of the Sun, but also by our common Wood Fire: and as the Celestial Fire drives away dark spirits, so also this our fire of Wood doth the same."
Cor. Agrippa, Occult Philosophy, Book I, ch. v.
"Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
Our Limitations
© Oliver Wendell Holmes
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.
Randolph Of Roanoke
© John Greenleaf Whittier
O Mother Earth! upon thy lap
Thy weary ones receiving,
And o'er them, silent as a dream,
Thy grassy mantle weaving,
My Triumph
© John Greenleaf Whittier
The autumn-time has come;
On woods that dream of bloom,
And over purpling vines,
The low sun fainter shines.
Massachusetts To Virginia
© John Greenleaf Whittier
The blast from Freedom's Northern hills, upon its Southern way,
Bears greeting to Virginia from Massachusetts Bay:
No word of haughty challenging, nor battle bugle's peal,
Nor steady tread of marching files, nor clang of horsemen's steel,
To A Buddha Seated On A Lotus
© Sarojini Naidu
LORD BUDDHA, on thy Lotus-throne,
With praying eyes and hands elate,
What mystic rapture dost thou own,
Immutable and ultimate?
What peace, unravished of our ken,
Annihilate from the world of men?
Immortal love, forever full
© John Greenleaf Whittier
Immortal love, forever full,
Forever flowing free,
Forever shared, forever whole,
A never ebbing sea!
The Soudanese
© William Watson
They wrong'd not us, nor sought 'gainst us to wage
The bitter battle. On their God they cried
Ichabod
© John Greenleaf Whittier
So fallen! so lost! the light withdrawn
Which once he wore!
The glory from his gray hairs gone
Forevermore!
By Their Works
© John Greenleaf Whittier
Call him not heretic whose works attest
His faith in goodness by no creed confessed.
Whatever in love's name is truly done
To free the bound and lift the fallen one