Faith poems
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After A Parting
© Alice Meynell
Farewell has long been said; I have forgone thee;
I never name thee even.
But how shall I learn virtues and yet shun thee?
For thou art so near Heaven
That Heavenward meditations pause upon thee.
Love Inthron'd. Ode
© Richard Lovelace
I.
Introth, I do my self perswade,
That the wilde boy is grown a man,
And all his childishnesse off laid,
Ballade Of Cleopatra's Needle
© Andrew Lang
Prince, the stone's shade on your divan
Falls; it is longer than ye wist:
It preaches, as Time's gnomon can,
This monument in London mist!
Masnawi
© Mewlana Jalaluddin Rumi
In the prologue to the Masnavi Rumi hailed Love and its sweet madness that heals all infirmities, and he exhorted the reader to burst the bonds to silver and gold to be free. The Beloved is all in all and is only veiled by the lover. Rumi identified the first cause of all things as God and considered all second causes subordinate to that. Human minds recognize the second causes, but only prophets perceive the action of the first cause. One story tells of a clever rabbit who warned the lion about another lion and showed the lion his own image in a well, causing him to attack it and drown. After delivering his companions from the tyrannical lion, the rabbit urges them to engage in the more difficult warfare against their own inward lusts. In a debate between trusting God and human exertion, Rumi quoted the prophet Muhammad as saying, "Trust in God, yet tie the camel's leg."8 He also mentioned the adage that the worker is the friend of God; so in trusting in providence one need not neglect to use means. Exerting oneself can be giving thanks for God's blessings; but he asked if fatalism shows gratitude.
God is hidden and has no opposite, not seen by us yet seeing us. Form is born of the formless but ultimately returns to the formless. An arrow shot by God cannot remain in the air but must return to God. Rumi reconciled God's agency with human free will and found the divine voice in the inward voice. Those in close communion with God are free, but the one who does not love is fettered by compulsion. God is the agency and first cause of our actions, but human will as the second cause finds recompense in hell or with the Friend. God is like the soul, and the world is like the body. The good and evil of bodies comes from souls. When the sanctuary of true prayer is revealed to one, it is shameful to turn back to mere formal religion. Rumi confirmed Muhammad's view that women hold dominion over the wise and men of heart; but violent fools, lacking tenderness, gentleness, and friendship, try to hold the upper hand over women, because they are swayed by their animal nature. The human qualities of love and tenderness can control the animal passions. Rumi concluded that woman is a ray of God and the Creator's self.
The Triumph of Dead : Chap. 2
© Mary Sidney Herbert
That night, which did the dreadful hap ensue
That quite eclips'd, nay, rather did replace
Cromwell
© Albert Durrant Watson
This too remember well
I learned it late: None but a tyrant makes
That good prevail that is not in men's hearts,
And tyranny is questionable good.
Therefore must all men learn by liberty,
And with what pain their doings on them bring.
English Bards and Scotch Reviewers: A Satire
© George Gordon Byron
These are the themes that claim our plaudits now;
These are the bards to whom the muse must bow;
While Milton, Dryden, Pope, alike forgot,
Resign their hallow'd bays to Walter Scott.
An Acknowledgment
© Henry King
My best of friends! what needs a chain to tie
One by your merit bound a Votarie?
Think you I have some plot upon my peace,
I would this bondage change for a release?
Shakuntala Act 1
© Kalidasa
King Dushyant in a chariot, pursuing an antelope, with a bow and quiver, attended by his Charioteer.
Suta (Charioteer). [Looking at the antelope, and then at the king]
When I cast my eye on that black antelope, and on thee, O king, with thy braced bow, I see before me, as it were, the God Mahésa chasing a hart (male deer), with his bow, named Pináca, braced in his left hand.
Valediction to his Book
© John Donne
I'LL tell thee now (dear love) what thou shalt do
To anger destiny, as she doth us ;
O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing
© Charles Wesley
O for a thousand tongues to sing
My great Redeemer's praise,
The glories of my God and King,
The triumphs of his grace!
Come Si Quando
© Robert Seymour Bridges
How thickly the far fields of heaven are strewn with stars !
Tho* the open eye of day shendeth them with its glare
As A Strong Bird On Pinious Free
© Walt Whitman
. As a strong bird on pinions free,
Joyous, the amplest spaces heavenward cleaving,
Such be the thought I'd think to-day of thee, America,
Such be the recitative I'd bring to-day for thee.
A Poetical Version Of A Letter From Facob Behmen
© John Byrom
TIS Mans own Nature, which in its own Life,
Or Centre, stands in Enmity and Strife,
Two Gentlemen That Broke Their Promise
© James Shirley
There is no faith in claret, and it shall
Henceforth with me be held apocryphal.
To The Queen Of England
© Edith Nesbit
COME forth! the world's aflame with flags and flowers,
The shout of bells fills full the shattered air,
Dedication
© Algernon Charles Swinburne
THE SEA gives her shells to the shingle,
The earth gives her streams to the sea;
To An Infant
© Samuel Taylor Coleridge
To anger rapid and as soon appeased,
For trifles mourning and by trifles pleased;
Break friendship's mirror with a tetchy blow,
Yet snatch what coals of fire on pleasure's altar glow!
The Bakchesarian Fountain
© Alexander Pushkin
Has treason scaled the harem's wall,
Whose height might treason's self appal,
And slavery's daughter fled his power,
To yield her to the daring Giaour?
