Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art -- Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night And watching, with eternal lids apart, Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite, The moving waters at their priestlike task Of pure ablution round earth's human shores, Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask Of snow upon the mountains and the moors -- No -- yet still stedfast, still unchangeable, Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast, To feel for ever its soft fall and swell, Awake for ever in a sweet unrest, Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath, And so live ever -- or else swoon to death.
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert... Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
I ventured beyond civilization,
and (by man's definition) I was lost.
I knew no near city, state, or nation.
Who knows what backwoods borders I'd crossed?
I'd drifted down streams: still and rapid tossed,
and when boat filled faster than I could bale,
I took to foot. Onward at any cost!
I passed over mountains and through their vales,
and trudged the badlands, unparted by trails.
But he who's lost is often he who finds,
and I learned history's forfeit details
in form of ruins in a sheltered blind.
Oh! What novel and beautiful sights
are had by lost souls in eternal nights!
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd:
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st,
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st;
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
The rains have arrived, pouring steadily.
I watch from windows - high above the street,
and see some stand in doorframes, tentatively,
watching the droplets splat on the concrete,
drops slip off curbs and into the gutters.
You'd think the water would scour the world clean:
that it'd sweep away the dirt and the clutter,
and wash the leaves to a clean shade of green.
But, instead, it deposits grit and trash
in piles and sandbars that're spaced randomly,
and befouls all the walls with muddy splash -
that paints with red clay, less than handsomely.
But, while it may make the man-made world meaner,
the rain does make the trees' world much greener.
The evening winds are blowing out to sea,
and carry away all the woes of day.
You see the sway up in the waving trees
that give a sendoff to what's blown away.
The sea grows dark, and darkness envelops.
And sandy scents and fishy scents blossom.
And sounds of crashing waves seem to swell up,
as vision decides it will play possum.
Then stars - in veins - do shimmer between clouds,
the clouds one cannot see but can induce.
Now free from both the light and noise of crowds,
and all the human chaos and abuse.
Midst drifting shapes my mind is lulled to peace,
then all that is - both sea and wind - does cease...
My days are out of joint and shuffled up,
and memories are pictures cast upon
the floor, and rummaged through 'til chaos reigns,
and I pick random recollections out
of all the events ever to transpire.
They seem no more my life than another's:
a glance, a glimpse, a blank firing of mind,
a wicked hope that truth will come to me.
But all I see are monochrome mindscapes
that could've been wrenched out of another mind,
or made from AI's collage artistry
to serve some distant master's deep wish to
learn what hot-injected time does to a soul,
and if shuffled scene stacks can make one whole?
I saw the lips move, but no sound came out.
The message could not cross from air to brain.
With reddened face, next an attempted shout,
but silence suggests words weren't true but feigned.
You'll think me deaf, but I heard other sounds:
a ticking clock, a fan, and distant horns.
Maybe, barrier glass made unseen bounds?
Perhaps, but what bars only sound that mourns?
I know of nothing that would fit the bill,
but start to suspect nothing stopped the scream
from reaching me, but rather force of will
did stick that voiceless face within my dream.
But am I sure I'm having a nightmare?
I can't say for sure that I'm even here.
Tiger Riding for Beginners 