Home ⇒ 📌Czeslaw Milosz ⇒ Study Of Loneliness
Study Of Loneliness
A guardian of long-distance conduits in the desert?
A one-man crew of a fortress in the sand?
Whoever he was. At dawn he saw furrowed mountains
The color of ashes, above the melting darkness,
Saturated with violet, breaking into fluid rouge,
Till they stood, immense, in the orange light.
Day after day. And, before he noticed, year after year.
For whom, he thought, that splendor? For me alone?
Yet it will be here long after I perish.
What is it in the eye of a lizard? Or when seen by a migrant bird?
If I am all mankind, are they themselves without me?
And he knew there was no use crying out, for none of them would save him.
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Related poetry:
- The Loneliness One dare not sound The Loneliness One dare not sound And would as soon surmise As in its Grave go plumbing To ascertain the size The Loneliness whose worst alarm Is lest itself should see And perish from before itself For just a scrutiny The Horror not to be surveyed But skirted in the Dark With Consciousness suspended And […]...
- Loneliness The last year’s leaves are on the beech: The twigs are black; the cold is dry; To deeps byond the deepest reach The Easter bells enlarge the sky. O ordered metal clatter-clang! Is yours the song the angels sang? You fill my heart with joy and grief – Belief! Belief! And unbelief… And, though you […]...
- Plaster “I KNEW a real man once,” says Agatha in the splendor of a shagbark hickory tree. Did a man touch his lips to Agatha? Did a man hold her in his arms? Did a man only look at her and pass by? Agatha, far past forty in a splendor of remembrance, says, “I knew a […]...
- Study In Orange And White I knew that James Whistler was part of the Paris scene, But I was still surprised when I found the painting Of his mother at the Musée d’Orsay Among all the colored dots and mobile brushstrokes Of the French Impressionists. And I was surprised to notice After a few minutes of benign staring, How that […]...
- There is another Loneliness There is another Loneliness That many die without Not want of friend occasions it Or circumstances of Lot But nature, sometimes, sometimes thought And whoso it befall Is richer than could be revealed By mortal numeral...
- Loneliness I pause midway in the in the whirl, Of deadlines, things undone, And average the sadness and joys – There remains only loneliness, Of which I see no cure, No bitter palliatives, no anodyne. We remain in life’s journey, Like loners sitting depressed, On solitary park benches, or, Standing in balconies, staring, Loneliness gnawing at […]...
- Loneliness Now it is Loneliness who comes at night Instead of Sleep, to sit beside my bed. Like a tired child I lie and wait her tread, I watch her softly blowing out the light. Motionless sitting, neither left or right She turns, and weary, weary droops her head. She, too, is old; she, too, has […]...
- Loneliness Being apart and lonely is like rain. It climbs toward evening from the ocean plains; From flat places, rolling and remote, it climbs To heaven, which is its old abode. And only when leaving heaven drops upon the city. It rains down on us in those twittering Hours when the streets turn their faces to […]...
- Love's Loneliness Old fathers, great-grandfathers, Rise as kindred should. If ever lover’s loneliness Came where you stood, Pray that Heaven protect us That protect your blood. The mountain throws a shadow, Thin is the moon’s horn; What did we remember Under the ragged thorn? Dread has followed longing, And our hearts are torn....
- The right to perish might be thought The right to perish might be thought An undisputed right Attempt it, and the Universe Upon the opposite Will concentrate its officers You cannot even die But nature and mankind must pause To pay you scrutiny....
- Inscription 04 – For The Apartment In Chepstow-Castle For thirty years secluded from mankind, Here Marten linger’d. Often have these walls Echoed his footsteps, as with even tread He paced around his prison: not to him Did Nature’s fair varieties exist; He never saw the Sun’s delightful beams, Save when thro’ yon high bars it pour’d a sad And broken splendor. Dost thou […]...
- It Was Not Necessary To Study It was not necessary to study The language Of a strange country; Anyway, it would be of no help. It was not necessary to know Where Italy or England Is located; Travel was obviously Out of question. It was not necessary to live Among the wild beasts Of Noah’s ark, Which had just devoured The […]...
- Nature Study (for Rona, Jeremy, Sam & Grace) All the lizards are asleep Perched pagodas with tiny triangular tiles, Each milky lid a steamed-up window. Inside, the heart repeats itself like a sleepy gong, Summoning nothing to nothing. In winter time, the zoo reverts to metaphor, God’s poetry of boredom: The cobra knits her Fair-Isle skin, Rattlers […]...
- Study Somewhere the long mellow note of the blackbird Quickens the unclasping hands of hazel, Somewhere the wind-flowers fling their heads back, Stirred by an impetuous wind. Some ways’ll All be sweet with white and blue violet. (Hush now, hush. Where am I?-Biuret-) On the green wood’s edge a shy girl hovers From out of the […]...
- A Study In Feeling To be a great musician you must be a man of moods, You have to be, to understand sonatas and etudes. To execute pianos and to fiddle with success, With sympathy and feeling you must fairly effervesce; It was so with Paganini, Remenzi and Cho-pang, And so it was with Peterkin Von Gabriel O’Lang. Monsieur […]...
- Ballad of a Ship Down by the flash of the restless water The dim White Ship like a white bird lay; Laughing at life and the world they sought her, And out she swung to the silvering bay. Then off they flew on their roystering way, And the keen moon fired the light foam flying Up from the flood […]...
- A Study (A Soul) She stands as pale as Parian statues stand; Like Cleopatra when she turned at bay, And felt her strength above the Roman sway, And felt the aspic writhing in her hand. Her face is steadfast toward the shadowy land, For dim beyond it looms the light of day; Her feet are steadfast; all the arduous […]...
- A Study Light cloud pavilion light rain Dark yard day weary open Sit look green moss colour About to on person clothes come There’s light cloud, and drizzle round the pavilion, In the dark yard, I wearily open a gate. I sit and look at the colour of green moss, Ready for people’s clothing to pick up....
- Study of an Elevation, In Indian Ink Potiphar Gubbins, C. E. Stands at the top of the tree; And I muse in my bed on the reasons that led To the hoisting of Potiphar G. Potiphar Gubbins, C. E., Is seven years junior to Me; Each bridge that he makes either buckles or breaks, And his work is as rough as he. […]...
- A Study Of Reading Habits When getting my nose in a book Cured most things short of school, It was worth ruining my eyes To know I could still keep cool, And deal out the old right hook To dirty dogs twice my size. Later, with inch-thick specs, Evil was just my lark: Me and my coat and fangs Had […]...
- The Congo: A Study of the Negro Race I. THEIR BASIC SAVAGERY Fat black bucks in a wine-barrel room, Barrel-house kings, with feet unstable, Sagged and reeled and pounded on the table, A deep rolling bass. Pounded on the table, Beat an empty barrel with the handle of a broom, Hard as they were able, Boom, boom, BOOM, With a silk umbrella and […]...
- The Waradgery Tribe Harried we were, and spent, Broken and falling, Ere as the cranes we went, Crying and calling. Summer shall see the bird Backward returning; Never shall there be heard Those, who went yearning. Emptied of us the land; Ghostly our going; Fallen like spears the hand Dropped in the throwing. We are the lost who […]...
- The Bird of Paradise Here comes Kate Summers, who, for gold, Takes any man to bed: “You knew my friend, Nell Barnes,” she said; “You knew Nell Barnes she’s dead. “Nell Barnes was bad on all you men, Unclean, a thief as well; Yet all my life I have not found A better friend than Nell. “So I sat […]...
- Merry Autumn It’s all a farce,-these tales they tell About the breezes sighing, And moans astir o’er field and dell, Because the year is dying. Such principles are most absurd,- I care not who first taught ’em; There’s nothing known to beast or bird To make a solemn autumn. In solemn times, when grief holds sway With […]...
- Snow In the gloom of whiteness, In the great silence of snow, A child was sighing And bitterly saying: “Oh, They have killed a white bird up there on her nest, The down is fluttering from her breast!” And still it fell through that dusky brightness On the child crying for the bird of the snow....
- Reptiles And Roses So crystal clear it is to me That when I die I cease to be, All else seems sheer stupidity. All promises of Paradise Are wishful thinking, preacher’s lies, Dogmatic dust flung in our eyes. Yea, life’s immortal, swift it flows Alike in reptile and in rose, But as it comes, so too it goes. […]...
- My Guardian Angel When looking back I dimly see The trails my feet have trod, Some hand divine, it seems to me, Has pulled the strings with God; Some angel form has lifeward leaned When hope for me was past; Some love sublime has intervened To save me at the last. For look you! I was born a […]...
- The Wreck of the Steamer Mohegan Good people of high and low degree, I pray ye all to list to me, And I’ll relate a terrible tale of the sea Concerning the unfortunate steamer, Mohegan, That against the Manacles Rocks, ran. ‘Twas on Friday, the 14th of October, in the year of ninety-eight, Which alas! must have been a dreadful sight; […]...
- The Source There in the fringe of trees between The upper field and the edge of the one Below it that runs above the valley One time I heard in the early Days of summer the clear ringing Six notes that I knew were the opening Of the Fingal’s Cave Overture I heard them again and again […]...
- A Hillside Thaw To think to know the country and now know The hillside on the day the sun lets go Ten million silver lizards out of snow! As often as I’ve seen it done before I can’t pretend to tell the way it’s done. It looks as if some magic of the sun Lifted the rug that […]...
- September Lo! a ripe sheaf of many golden days Gleaned by the year in autumn’s harvest ways, With here and there, blood-tinted as an ember, Some crimson poppy of a late delight Atoning in its splendor for the flight Of summer blooms and joys This is September....
- The Corridor It may have been the pride in me for aught I know, or just a patronizing whim; But call it freak of fancy, or what not, I cannot hide the hungry face of him. I keep a scant half-dozen words he said, And every now and then I lose his name; He may be living […]...
- A Meditation In Time Of War For one throb of the artery, While on that old grey stone I Sat Under the old wind-broken tree, I knew that One is animate, Mankind inanimate phantasy....
- The Quesion Brethren, how shall it fare with me When the war is laid aside, If it be proven that I am he For whom a world has died? If it be proven that all my good, And the greater good I will make, Were purchased me by a multitude Who suffered for my sake? That I […]...
- What care the Dead, for Chanticleer What care the Dead, for Chanticleer What care the Dead for Day? ‘Tis late your Sunrise vex their face And Purple Ribaldry of Morning Pour as blank on them As on the Tier of Wall The Mason builded, yesterday, And equally as cool What care the Dead for Summer? The Solstice had no Sun Could […]...
- In heaven In heaven, Some little blades of grass Stood before God. “What did you do?” Then all save one of the little blades Began eagerly to relate The merits of their lives. This one stayed a small way behind, Ashamed. Presently, God said, “And what did you do?” The little blade answered, “Oh my Lord, Memory […]...
- A Refusal To Mourn The Death, By Fire, Of A Child In London Never until the mankind making Bird beast and flower Fathering and all humbling darkness Tells with silence the last light breaking And the still hour Is come of the sea tumbling in harness And I must enter again the round Zion of the water bead And the synagogue of the ear of corn Shall I […]...
- The Hypermarket history is a hurried Checklist of the goods Mankind wishes To unforget Poetry is a soft whisper Against the bads Mankind wishes To unregret (04/06/99 – 08/2001)...
- Why I Voted the Socialist Ticket I am unjust, but I can strive for justice. My life’s unkind, but I can vote for kindness. I, the unloving, say life should be lovely. I, that am blind, cry out against my blindness. Man is a curious brute – he pets his fancies – Fighting mankind, to win sweet luxury. So he will […]...
- Not probable The barest Chance Not probable The barest Chance A smile too few a word too much And far from Heaven as the Rest The Soul so close on Paradise What if the Bird from journey far Confused by Sweets as Mortals are Forget the secret of His wing And perish but a Bough between Oh, Groping feet Oh […]...