Morning poems
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Lover's Gifts LXX: Take Back Your Coins
© Rabindranath Tagore
Take back your coins, King's Councillor. I am of those women you
sent to the forest shrine to decoy the young ascetic who had never
seen a women. I failed in your bidding.
Dimly day was breaking when the hermit boy came to bathe in
Lost Time
© Rabindranath Tagore
On many an idle day have I grieved over lost time.
But it is never lost, my lord.
Thou hast taken every moment of my life in thine own hands.
Last Curtain
© Rabindranath Tagore
I know that the day will come
when my sight of this earth shall be lost,
and life will take its leave in silence,
drawing the last curtain over my eyes.
Distant Time
© Rabindranath Tagore
I know not from what distant time
thou art ever coming nearer to meet me.
Thy sun and stars can never keep thee hidden from me for aye.
Defamation
© Rabindranath Tagore
Whey are those tears in your eyes, my child?
How horrid of them to be always scolding you for nothing!
You have stained your fingers and face with ink while writing-
is that why they call you dirty?
Colored Toys
© Rabindranath Tagore
When I bring to you colored toys, my child,
I understand why there is such a play of colors on clouds, on water,
and why flowers are painted in tints
---when I give colored toys to you, my child.
Clouds and Waves
© Rabindranath Tagore
Mother, the folk who live up in the clouds call out to me-
"We play from the time we wake till the day ends.
We play with the golden dawn, we play with the silver moon."
I ask, "But how am I to get up to you ?"
Battle Hymn of the Republic
© Julia Ward Howe
He has sounded out the trumpet that shall never call retreat,
He has waked the earth's dull sorrow with a high ecstatic beat,
Oh! be swift my soul to answer him, be jubilant my feet
Our God is marching on.
Quarantine
© Eavan Boland
In the worst hour of the worst season
of the worst year of a whole people
a man set out from the workhouse with his wife.
He was walking-they were both walking-north.
The Black Lace Fan My Mother Gave Me
© Eavan Boland
It was the first gift he ever gave her,
buying it for five five francs in the Galeries
in pre-war Paris. It was stifling.
A starless drought made the nights stormy.
The Growth of Love
© Robert Seymour Bridges
So in despite of sorrow lately learn'd
I still hold true to truth since thou art true,
Nor wail the woe which thou to joy hast turn'd
Nor come the heavenly sun and bathing blue
To my life's need more splendid and unearn'd
Than hath thy gift outmatch'd desire and due.
Pater Filio
© Robert Seymour Bridges
Sense with keenest edge unusèd,
Yet unsteel'd by scathing fire;
Lovely feet as yet unbruisèd
On the ways of dark desire;
Sweetest hope that lookest smiling
O'er the wilderness defiling!
Going
© Liam Wilkinson
I spent the morning off
like an antiquated fax machine.
You prodded me occasionally,
Psalm 05
© John Milton
Aug. 12. 1653.
Jehovah to my words give ear
My meditation waigh
The voyce of my complaining hear
Paradise Regained: The Fourth Book
© John Milton
Perplexed and troubled at his bad success
The Tempter stood, nor had what to reply,
Discovered in his fraud, thrown from his hope
So oft, and the persuasive rhetoric
Hymn on the Morning of Christ's Nativity
© John Milton
IT was the Winter wilde,
While the Heav'n-born-childe,
All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;
Nature in aw to him
Paradise Lost: Book 08
© John Milton
The Angel ended, and in Adam's ear
So charming left his voice, that he a while
Thought him still speaking, still stood fixed to hear;
Then, as new waked, thus gratefully replied.
The Hymn
© John Milton
IIt was the Winter wilde,
While the Heav'n-born-childe,
All meanly wrapt in the rude manger lies;
Nature in aw to him
Paradise Lost: Book 07
© John Milton
Descend from Heaven, Urania, by that name
If rightly thou art called, whose voice divine
Following, above the Olympian hill I soar,
Above the flight of Pegasean wing!
From 'Arcades'
© John Milton
O'RE the smooth enameld green
Where no print of step hath been,
Follow me as I sing,
And touch the warbled string.
