The Lamp of Life

Related poetry:

1. When The Lamp Is Shattered When the lamp is shattered The light in the dust lies dead When the cloud is scattered, The rainbow’s glory is shed. When the lute is broken, Sweet tones are remembered not; When the lips have spoken, Loved accents are soon forgot. As music and splendour Survive not the lamp and the lute, The heart’s […]...
2. Advance is Life's condition Advance is Life’s condition The Grave but a Relay Supposed to be a terminus That makes it hated so The Tunnel is not lighted Existence with a wall Is better we consider Than not exist at all...
3. This Life Is All Chequer'd With Pleasures and Woes This life is all chequer’d with pleasures and woes, That chase one another like waves of the deep Each brightly or darkly, as onward it flows, Reflecting our eyes, as they sparkle or weep. So closely our whims on our miseries tread, That the laugh is awaked ere the tear can be dried; And, as […]...
4. In the Old Age of the Soul I do not choose to dream; there cometh on me Some strange old lust for deeds. As to the nerveless hand of some old warrior The sword-hilt or the war-worn wonted helmet Brings momentary life and long-fled cunning, So to my soul grown old – Grown old with many a jousting, many a foray, Grown […]...
5. The Lamp burns sure within The Lamp burns sure within Tho’ Serfs supply the Oil It matters not the busy Wick At her phosphoric toil! The Slave forgets to fill The Lamp burns golden on Unconscious that the oil is out As that the Slave is gone....
6. The Furious Gun The furious gun in his raging ire, When that the bowl is rammed in too sore And that the flame cannot part from the fire, Cracketh in sunder, and in the air doth roar The shivered pieces; right so doth my desire, Whose flame increaseth from more to more, Which to let out I dare […]...
7. LIFE IS THE BODY'S LIGHT Life is the body’s light; which, once declining, Those crimson clouds i’ th’ cheeks and lips leave shining:- Those counter-changed tabbies in the air, The sun once set, all of one colour are: So, when death comes, fresh tinctures lose their place, And dismal darkness then doth smutch the face....
8. A Psalm of Life WHAT THE HEART OF THE YOUNG MAN SAID TO THE PSALMIST. Tell me not, in mournful numbers, Life is but an empty dream! For the soul is dead that slumbers, And things are not what they seem. Life is real! Life is earnest! And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou art, to dust […]...
9. The Ideal And The Actual Life Forever fair, forever calm and bright, Life flies on plumage, zephyr-light, For those who on the Olympian hill rejoice Moons wane, and races wither to the tomb, And ‘mid the universal ruin, bloom The rosy days of Gods With man, the choice, Timid and anxious, hesitates between The sense’s pleasure and the soul’s content; While […]...
10. This Life Which Seems So Fair This Life, which seems so fair, Is like a bubble blown up in the air By sporting children’s breath, Who chase it everywhere And strive who can most motion it bequeath. And though it sometimes seem of its own might Like to an eye of gold to be fixed there, And firm to hover in […]...
11. THE SHEPHERD'S LAMENT ON yonder lofty mountain A thousand times I stand, And on my staff reclining, Look down on the smiling land. My grazing flocks then I follow, My dog protecting them well; I find myself in the valley, But how, I scarcely can tell. The whole of the meadow is cover’d With flowers of beauty rare; […]...
12. Foreign Lands Up into the cherry tree Who should climb but little me? I held the trunk with both my hands And looked abroad in foreign lands. I saw the next door garden lie, Adorned with flowers, before my eye, And many pleasant places more That I had never seen before. I saw the dimpling river pass […]...
13. The Dover Bitch: A Criticism Of Life So there stood Matthew Arnold and this girl With the cliffs of England crumbling away behind them, And he said to her, “Try to be true to me, And I’ll do the same for you, for things are bad All over, etc., etc.” Well now, I knew this girl. It’s true she had read Sophocles […]...
14. The Life that tied too tight escapes The Life that tied too tight escapes Will ever after run With a prudential look behind And spectres of the Rein The Horse that scents the living Grass And sees the Pastures smile Will be retaken with a shot If he is caught at all...
15. In Midnight Sleep 1 IN midnight sleep, of many a face of anguish, Of the look at first of the mortally wounded-of that indescribable look; Of the dead on their backs, with arms extended wide, I dream, I dream, I dream. 2 Of scenes of nature, fields and mountains; Of skies, so beauteous after a storm-and at night […]...
16. Sonnet XLIII: Why Should Your Fair Eyes Why should your fair eyes with such sovereign grace Disperse their rays on every vulgar spirit, Whilst I in darkness, in the self-same place, Get not one glance to recompense my merit? So doth the plowman gaze the wand’ring star, And only rest contented with the light, That never learn’d what constellations are Beyond the […]...
17. Sonnet XLVII Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took, And each doth good turns now unto the other: When that mine eye is famish’d for a look, Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother, With my love’s picture then my eye doth feast And to the painted banquet bids my heart; Another time […]...
18. Sonnet 47: Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took, And each doth good turns now unto the other, When that mine eye is famished for a look, Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother, With my love’s picture then my eye doth feast And to the painted banquet bids my heart; Another time […]...
19. THE LIVING FLAME THEY pass before me, these Eyes full of light, Eyes made magnetic by some angel wise; The holy brothers pass before my sight, And cast their diamond fires in my dim eyes. They keep me from all sin and error grave, They set me in the path whence Beauty came; They are my servants, and […]...
20. On The Life Of Man What is our life? a play of passion; Our mirth the musick of division: Our mother’s wombes the tyring houses bee Where wee are drest for tyme’s short comedy: The earth’s the stage, heaven the spectator is, Who marketh still whoere doth act amisse: Our graves that hide us from the burning sunne Are but […]...
21. The Witch's Life When I was a child There was an old woman in our neighborhood whom we called The Witch. All day she peered from her second story Window From behind the wrinkled curtains And sometimes she would open the window And yell: Get out of my life! She had hair like kelp And a voice like […]...
22. Moving Forward The deep parts of my life pour onward, As if the river shores were opening out. It seems that things are more like me now, That I can see farther into paintings. I feel closer to what language can’t reach. With my senses, as with birds, I climb Into the windy heaven, out of the […]...
23. The Triumph of Life Swift as a spirit hastening to his task Of glory & of good, the Sun sprang forth Rejoicing in his splendour, & the mask Of darkness fell from the awakened Earth. The smokeless altars of the mountain snows Flamed above crimson clouds, & at the birth Of light, the Ocean’s orison arose To which the […]...
24. Life What is our life? A play of passion, Our mirth the music of division, Our mother’s wombs the tiring-houses be, Where we are dressed for this short comedy. Heaven the judicious sharp spectator is, That sits and marks still who doth act amiss. Our graves that hide us from the setting sun Are like drawn […]...
25. Time And Life I. Time, thy name is sorrow, says the stricken Heart of life, laid waste with wasting flame Ere the change of things and thoughts requicken, Time, thy name. Girt about with shadow, blind and lame, Ghosts of things that smite and thoughts that sicken Hunt and hound thee down to death and shame. Eyes of […]...
26. Break Of Day ‘Tis true, ’tis day; what though it be? O wilt thou therefore rise from me? Why should we rise? because ’tis light? Did we lie down, because ’twas night? Love which in spite of darkness brought us hither, Should in despite of light keep us together. Light hath no tongue, but is all eye; If […]...
27. Sonnet: Oh! Death will find me, long before I tire Oh! Death will find me, long before I tire Of watching you; and swing me suddenly Into the shade and loneliness and mire Of the last land! There, waiting patiently, One day, I think, I’ll feel a cool wind blowing, See a slow light across the Stygian tide, And hear the Dead about me stir, […]...
28. The Buried Life Light flows our war of mocking words, and yet, Behold, with tears mine eyes are wet! I feel a nameless sadness o’er me roll. Yes, yes, we know that we can jest, We know, we know that we can smile! But there’s a something in this breast, To which thy light words bring no rest, […]...
29. A Plain Life No idle gold since this fine sun, my friend, Is no mean miser, but doth freely spend. No prescious stones since these green mornings show, Without a charge, their pearls where’er I go. No lifeless books since birds with their sweet tongues Will read aloud to me their happier songs. No painted scenes since clouds […]...
30. The Dream Called Life From the Spanish of Pedro Calderon de la Barca A dream it was in which I found myself. And you that hail me now, then hailed me king, In a brave palace that was all my own, Within, and all without it, mine; until, Drunk with excess of majesty and pride, Methought I towered so […]...
31. My Philosophy of Life Just when I thought there wasn’t room enough For another thought in my head, I had this great idea Call it a philosophy of life, if you will. Briefly, It involved living the way philosophers live, According to a set of principles. OK, but which ones? That was the hardest part, I admit, but I […]...
32. The Parting of Ways THE SKIES from black to pearly grey Had veered without a star or sun; Only a burning opal ray Fell on your brow when all was done. Aye, after victory, the crown; Yet through the fight no word of cheer; And what would win and what go down No word could help, no light make […]...
33. Song: Eternity of Love Protested How ill doth he deserve a lover’s name, Whose pale weak flame Cannot retain His heat, in spite of absence or disdain; But doth at once, like paper set on fire, Burn and expire; True love can never change his seat, Nor did her ever love, that could retreat. That noble flame which my breast […]...
34. Fire-Caught The gold moth did not love him So, gorgeous, she flew away. But the gray moth circled the flame Until the break of day. And then, with wings like a dead desire, She fell, fire-caught, into the flame....
35. The End Of Your Life First light. This misted field is the world, that man slipping the greased bolt Back and forth, that man tunneled with blood the dark smudges of whose eyes Call for sleep, calls for quiet, and the woman down your line, The woman who screamed the loudest, will be quiet. The rushes, the grassless shale, The […]...
36. Sonnet IX: As Other Men As other men, so I myself do muse Why in this sort I wrest invention so, And why these giddy metaphors I use, Leaving the path the greater part do go. I will resolve you: I am lunatic, And ever this in madmen you shall find, What they last thought of when the brain grew […]...
37. My Inner Life ‘Tis true my garments threadbare are, And sorry poor I seem; But inly I am richer far Than any poet’s dream. For I’ve a hidden life no one Can ever hope to see; A sacred sanctuary none May share with me. Aloof I stand from out the strife, Within my heart a song; By virtue […]...
38. Life and Art Not while the fever of the blood is strong, The heart throbs loud, the eyes are veiled, no less With passion than with tears, the Muse shall bless The poet-sould to help and soothe with song. Not then she bids his trembling lips express The aching gladness, the voluptuous pain. Life is his poem then; […]...
39. Of Death & Resurrection Like to the rowling of an eye, Or like a starre shott from the skye, Or like a hand upon a clock, Or like a wave upon a rock, Or like a winde, or like a flame, Or like false newes which people frame, Even such is man, of equall stay, Whose very growth leades […]...
40. Life All in the dark we grope along, And if we go amiss We learn at least which path is wrong, And there is gain in this. We do not always win the race, By only running right, We have to tread the mountain’s base Before we reach its height. The Christs alone no errors made; […]...