Gathered

These are poems and sayings which have particular meaning for me. The ones without titles are, well, untitled. (Dickinson poems are generally referred to by their first line, so I thought it would be a waste of space to include it twice.) The unattributed ones are anonymous. NOTE: I did not write any of the poems on this page.

My life closed twice before its close-
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me.

So huge, so hopeless to conceive
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven.
And all we need of hell.

-Emily Dickinson

Do not stand by my grave and weep
I am not there I do not sleep
I am a thousand winds that blow
I am a diamond glint on snow
I am the sunlight ripened grain
I am the gentle autumn rain
When you awake in the morning rush
I am the swift upflinging rush
Of quiet birds encircling flight
I am the soft starshine at night
Do not stand by my grave and cry
I am not there
I did not die

To Daffodils

Fair daffodils, we weep to see
You haste away so soon;
As yet the early-rising sun
Has not attain'd his noon.
Stay, stay
Until the hasting day
Has run
But to the evensong;
And, having pray'd together, we
Will go with you along

We have short time to stay, as you,
We have as short a spring;
As quick a growth to meet decay,
As you, or anything.
We die
As your hours do, and dry
Away
Like to the summer's rain;
Or as the pearls of morning's dew
Ne'er to be found again

-Robert Herrick

Realize your Uniqueness in the Entire Universe.
No one will ever have your song to sing.
Through all eternity it is yours alone.
Your primary task in life is to learn that song, and sing it perfectly.

Pride

I tell you, even rocks crack,
and not because of age.
For years they lie on their backs
in the heat and the cold,
so many years,
it almost seems peaceful.
They don't move, so the cracks stay hidden.
A kind of pride.
Years pass over them, waiting.
Whoever is going to shatter them
hasn't come yet.
And so the moss flourishes, the seaweed
whips around,
the sea pushes through and rolls back-
the rocks seem motionless.
Till a little seal comes to rub against them,
comes and goes away.
And suddenly the rock has an open wound.
I told you, when rocks break, it happens by surprise.
And people, too.

-Dahlia Ravikovitch

Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand.

-From "The Stolen Child" by William Butler Yeats

Light one candle for the strength that we need
To never become our own foe
Light one candle for those who are suffering
Pain we learned so long ago
Light one candle for all we believe in
Let anger not tear us apart
And light one candle to find us together
With peace as the song in our hearts

-From "Light One Candle" by Peter, Paul, & Mary

"Hope" is the thing with feathers-
That perches in the soul-
And sings the tune without the words-
And never stops- at all-

And sweetest- in the Gale- is heard-
And sore must be the storm-
That could abash the little Bird-
That kept so many warm-

I've heard it in the chillest land-
And on the strangest Sea-
Yet, never, in Extremity-
It asked a crumb- of me.

-Emily Dickinson

A Hymn to God the Father

Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun,
Which is my sin though it were done before?
Wilt thou forgive those sins through which I run,
And do them still, though still I do deplore?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
For I have more

Wilt thou forgive that sin by which I won
Others to sin, and made my sin their door?
Wilt thou forgive that sin which I did shun
A year or two, but wallowed in a score?
When thou hast done, thou has not done,
For I have more.

I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun
My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;
Swear by thyself that at my death thy Sun
Shall shine as it shines now, and heretofore;
And having done that, thou hast done.
I have no more.

--John Donne

A Child's Catechism

When they ask to see your gods
your book of prayers
show them lines
drawn delicately with veins
on the underside of a bird's wing
tell them you believe
in giant sycamores mottled
and stark against a winter sky
and in nights so frozen
stars crack open
spilling streams of molten ice to earth
and tell them how you drank
the holy wine of honeysuckle
on a warm spring day
and of the softness
of your mother
who never taught you
death was life's reward
but who believed in
the earth and the sun
and a million, million light years of being

--J.L. Stanley

Sea-Fever

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a gray mist on the sea's face and a gray dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

--John Masefield

First Fig

My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But ah my foes and oh my friends,
It gives a lovely light!

--Edna St. Vincent Millay

On the wing of my fancy I can fly anywhere...

-From the musical Cinderella

Updated 2-22-01