PROMISE
Bhaskar Roy Barman
The scene lacked for the manifestation
Characteristic of a scene.
Though the scene was promised a revealing
A plethora of manifestations that remained over.
In other scenes manifestations reveal themselves
Of necessity when called for.
No messenger from on high did descend
To bestow upon it an afflatus for creation.
It was pining away for its halcyon days
When it got high on the effulgence of kaleidoscope.
Steeped in the varicoloured manifestations of its glory,
It visualized phantoms of youths chanting their way
Up the path of the valley and through the landscape,
Chorusing hymns of love and happiness.
The trees wished the youths had carved the hymns
On their trunks.
Gradually human beings encroached upon the loneliness
And on the precincts of the scene
And bereaved the scene of many of its manifestations.
The plethora of manifestations that remained over promised the scene
They would reveal themselves
If human beings stopped encroaching
On its precincts.
Related poetry:
- THE AMARANTH Bhaskar Roy Barman The kaleidoscope stood befrilled with splendour; No messenger from on high did descend to hand It blessings, though. The rassling trees coruscated in an interplay of light and dark, The sun dipping down the western horizon. Exuding a unisonant desire to search for the amaranth, A group of youths were chanting their […]...
- Ballad by the Fire Slowly I smoke and hug my knee, The while a witless masquerade Of things that only children see Floats in a mist of light and shade: They pass, a flimsy cavalcade, And with a weak, remindful glow, The falling embers break and fade, As one by one the phantoms go. Then, with a melancholy glee […]...
- Promise This When You be Dying Promise This When You be Dying Some shall summon Me Mine belong Your latest Sighing Mine to Belt Your Eye Not with Coins though they be Minted From an Emperor’s Hand Be my lips the only Buckle Your low Eyes demand Mine to stay when all have wandered To devise once more If the Life […]...
- A Promise to California A PROMISE to California, Also to the great Pastoral Plains, and for Oregon: Sojourning east a while longer, soon I travel toward you, to remain, to teach robust American love; For I know very well that I and robust love belong among you, inland, and along the Western Sea; For These States tend inland, and […]...
- To Promise Is One Thing To Keep It, Another JOHN courts Perrette; but all in vain; Love’s sweetest oaths, and tears, and sighs All potent spells her heart to gain The ardent lover vainly tries: Fruitless his arts to make her waver, She will not grant the smallest favour: A ruse our youth resolved to try The cruel air to mollify: Holding his fingers […]...
- The Promise of Sleep Put the sweet thoughts from out thy mind, The dreams from out thy breast; No joy for thee but thou shalt find Thy rest All day I could not work for woe, I could not work nor rest; The trouble drove me to and fro, Like a leaf on the storm’s breast. Night came and […]...
- Promise Of Peace The heads of strong old age are beautiful Beyond all grace of youth. They have strange quiet, Integrity, health, soundness, to the full They’ve dealt with life and been tempered by it. A young man must not sleep; his years are war, Civil and foreign but the former’s worse; But the old can breathe in […]...
- The Promise of the Morning Star Thou father of the children of my brain By thee engendered in my willing heart, How can I thank thee for this gift of art Poured out so lavishly, and not in vain. What thou created never more can die, Thy fructifying power lives in me And I conceive, knowing it is by thee, Dear […]...
- Sonnet 34: Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day Why didst thou promise such a beauteous day And make me travel forth without my cloak, To let base clouds o’ertake me in my way, Hiding thy brav’ry in their rotten smoke? ‘Tis not enough that through the cloud thou break, To dry the rain on my storm-beaten face, For no man well of such […]...
- The Methodist Says Tom to Jack, ’tis very odd, These representatives of God, In color, way of life and evil, Should be so very like the devil. Jack, understand, was one of those, Who mould religion in the rose, A red hot methodist; his face Was full of puritanic grace, His loose lank hair, his slow gradation, […]...
- Cacoethes Scribendi If all the trees in all the woods were men; And each and every blade of grass a pen; If every leaf on every shrub and tree Turned to a sheet of foolscap; every sea Were changed to ink, and all earth’s living tribes Had nothing else to do but act as scribes, And for […]...
- Nilsson A rose of perfect red, embossed With silver sheens of crystal frost, Yet warm, nor life nor fragrance lost. High passion throbbing in a sphere That Art hath wrought of diamond clear, A great heart beating in a tear. The listening soul is full of dreams That shape the wondrous-varying themes As cries of men […]...
- The Annunciation (For Helen Parry Eden) “Hail Mary, full of grace,” the Angel saith. Our Lady bows her head, and is ashamed; She has a Bridegroom Who may not be named, Her mortal flesh bears Him Who conquers death. Now in the dust her spirit grovelleth; Too bright a Sun before her eyes has flamed, Too fair […]...
- AN EPITAPH UPON A CHILD Virgins promised when I died, That they would each primrose-tide Duly, morn and evening, come, And with flowers dress my tomb. Having promised, pay your debts Maids, and here strew violets....
- My Child Wafts Peace My child wafts peace. When I lean over him, It is not just the smell of soap. All the people were children wafting peace. (And in the whole land, not even one Millstone remained that still turned). Oh, the land torn like clothes That can’t be mended. Hard, lonely fathers even in the cave of […]...
- A Bee his burnished Carriage A Bee his burnished Carriage Drove boldly to a Rose Combinedly alighting Himself his Carriage was The Rose received his visit With frank tranquillity Withholding not a Crescent To his Cupidity Their Moment consummated Remained for him to flee Remained for her of rapture But the humility....
- Clouds to find the origin, Trace back the manifestations. Tao Between being and non-being Barely there These sails of water, ice, air – Indifferent drifters, wandering High on freedom Of the homeless Restlessly swithering Like ghosts, slithering through substance In puffs and wisps Lending an enchanting or ominous air Luminous or casting shadows, Ambivalent filters of […]...
- Narcissus, Photographer “…a frozen memory, like any photo, Where nothing is missing, not even, And especially, nothingness…” Julio Cortázar, “Blow Up” Mirror-mad, He photographed reflections: Sunstorms in puddles, Cities in canals, Double portraits framed In sunglasses, The fat phantoms who dance On the flanks of cars. Nothing caught his eye Unless it bent Or glistered Over something […]...
- THE GODLIKE NOBLE be man, Helpful and good! For that alone Distinguisheth him From all the beings Unto us known. Hail to the beings, Unknown and glorious, Whom we forebode! From his example Learn we to know them! For unfeeling Nature is ever: On bad and on good The sun alike shineth; And on the wicked, As […]...
- Unlyric Love Song It is time to give that-of-myself which I could not at first: To offer you now at last my least and my worst: Minor, absurd preserves, The shell’s end-curves, A document kept at the back of a drawer, A tin hidden under the floor, Recalcitrant prides and hesitations: To pile them carefully in a desparate […]...
- Of the Visage of Things OF the visages of things-And of piercing through to the accepted hells beneath; Of ugliness-To me there is just as much in it as there is in beauty-And now the ugliness of human beings is acceptable to me; Of detected persons-To me, detected persons are not, in any respect, worse than undetected persons-and are not […]...
- A Revocation WHAT should I say? Since Faith is dead, And Truth away From you is fled? Should I be led With doubleness? Nay! nay! mistress. I promised you, And you promised me, To be as true As I would be. But since I see Your double heart, Farewell my part! Thought for to take ‘Tis not […]...
- Sonnet LXVII: On Passing over a Dreary Tract Swift fleet the billowy clouds along the sky, Earth seems to shudder at the storm aghast; While only beings as forlorn as I, Court the chill horrors of the howling blast. Even round yon crumbling walls, in search of food, The ravenous Owl foregoes his evening flight, And in his cave, within the deepest wood, […]...
- Interruption We interrupt the work of the gods, Hasty and inexperienced beings of the moment. In the palaces of Eleusis and Phthia Demeter and Thetis start good works Amid high flames and dense smoke. But Always Metaneira rushes from the king’s Chambers, disheveled and scared, And always Peleus is fearful and interferes....
- 298. Prologue spoken at the Theatre of Dumfries NO song nor dance I bring from yon great city, That queens it o’er our taste-the more’s the pity: Tho’ by the bye, abroad why will you roam? Good sense and taste are natives here at home: But not for panegyric I appear, I come to wish you all a good New Year! Old Father […]...
- Giorno dei Morti Along the avenue of cypresses, All in their scarlet cloaks and surplices Of linen, go the chanting choristers, The priests in gold and black, the villagers. . . And all along the path to the cemetery The round dark heads of men crowd silently, And black-scarved faces of womenfolk, wistfully Watch at the banner of […]...
- She She who ever had remained in the depth of my being, In the twilight of gleams and of glimpses; She who never opened her veils in the morning light, Will be my last gift to thee, my God, folded in my final song. Words have wooed yet failed to win her; Persuasion has stretched to […]...
- Ante Aram Before thy shrine I kneel, an unknown worshipper, Chanting strange hymns to thee and sorrowful litanies, Incense of dirges, prayers that are as holy myrrh. Ah, goddess, on thy throne of tears and faint low sighs, Weary at last to theeward come the feet that err, And empty hearts grown tired of the world’s vanities. […]...
- A Man Young And Old: II. Human Dignity Like the moon her kindness is, If kindness I may call What has no comprehension in’t, But is the same for all As though my sorrow were a scene Upon a painted wall. So like a bit of stone I lie Under a broken tree. I could recover if I shrieked My heart’s agony To […]...
- Promises Like Pie-Crust Promise me no promises, So will I not promise you: Keep we both our liberties, Never false and never true: Let us hold the die uncast, Free to come as free to go: For I cannot know your past, And of mine what can you know? You, so warm, may once have been Warmer towards […]...
- LOVE DISLIKES NOTHING Whatsoever thing I see, Rich or poor although it be, ‘Tis a mistress unto me. Be my girl or fair or brown, Does she smile, or does she frown; Still I write a sweet-heart down. Be she rough, or smooth of skin; When I touch, I then begin For to let affection in. Be she […]...
- THE SPIRIT'S SALUTE THE hero’s noble shade stands high On yonder turret grey; And as the ship is sailing by, He speeds it on his way. “See with what strength these sinews thrill’d! This heart, how firm and wild! These bones, what knightly marrow fill’d! This cup, how bright it smil’d! “Half of my life I strove and […]...
- The Argument Of His Book I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers, Of April, May, of June, and July-flowers. I sing of May-poles, hock-carts, wassails, wakes, Of bridegrooms, brides, and of their bridal-cakes. I write of youth, of love, and have access By these to sing of cleanly wantonness. I sing of dews, of rains, and piece by […]...
- George Crabbe Give him the darkest inch your shelf allows, Hide him in lonely garrets, if you will,- But his hard, human pulse is throbbing still With the sure strength that fearless truth endows. In spite of all fine science disavows, Of his plain excellence and stubborn skill There yet remains what fashion cannot kill, Though years […]...
- In Praise of Songs that Die AFTER HAVING READ A GREAT DEAL OF GOOD CURRENT POETRY IN THE MAGAZINES AND NEWSPAPERS Ah, they are passing, passing by, Wonderful songs, but born to die! Cries from the infinite human seas, Waves thrice-winged with harmonies. Here I stand on a pier in the foam Seeing the songs to the beach go home, Dying […]...
- Hymn 1 A new song to the Lamb that was slain. Rev. 5:6-12 Behold the glories of the Lamb Amidst his Father’s throne; Prepare new honors for his name, And songs before unknown. Let elders worship at his feet, The church adore around, With vials full of odors sweet, And harps of sweeter sound. Those are the […]...
- Song of the Soul XXII In the depth of my soul there is A wordless song – a song that lives In the seed of my heart. It refuses to melt with ink on Parchment; it engulfs my affection In a transparent cloak and flows, But not upon my lips. How can I sigh it? I fear it may Mingle […]...
- Poetry it Takes A lot of Desperation Dissatisfaction And Disillusion To Write A Few Good Poems. It’s not For Everybody Either to Write It Or even to Read It....
- A Confession To A Friend In Trouble Your troubles shrink not, though I feel them less Here, far away, than when I tarried near; I even smile old smiles with listlessness Yet smiles they are, not ghastly mockeries mere. A thought too strange to house within my brain Haunting its outer precincts I discern: That I will not show zeal again to […]...
- The Breath Of Night The moon rises. The red cubs rolling In the ferns by the rotten oak Stare over a marsh and a meadow To the farm’s white wisp of smoke. A spark burns, high in heaven. Deer thread the blossoming rows Of the old orchard, rabbits Hop by the well-curb. The cock crows From the tree by […]...