Borrowed Verses

ALTER? When the hills do. Falter? When the sun Question if his glory Be the perfect one. Surfeit? When the daffodil Doth of the dew: Even as herself, O friend! I will of you! ~Emily Dickinson ________________________________ Much madness is divinest sense To a discerning eye; Much sense the starkest madness. 'T is the majority In this, as all, prevails Assent, and you are sane; Demur—you're straightway dangerous, And handled with a chain. ~ Emily Dickinson ________________________________ Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village, though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year. He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound's the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake. The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep. ~Robert Frost ________________________________ All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken, A light from the shadows shall spring; Renewed shall be blade that was broken, The crownless again shall be king. ~John Ronald Reuel Tolkien ________________________________ O my Luve's like a red, red rose That’s newly sprung in June; O my Luve's like the melodie That’s sweetly play'd in tune. As fair art thou, my bonnie lass, So deep in luve am I: And I will luve thee still, my dear, Till a’ the seas gang dry: Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear, And the rocks melt wi’ the sun: I will luve thee still, my dear, While the sands o’ life shall run. And fare thee weel, my only Luve And fare thee weel, a while! And I will come again, my Luve, Tho’ it were ten thousand mile. ~Robert Burns ________________________________ Fire and Ice Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice. ~Robert Frost ________________________________ Phenomenal Woman Now you understand Just why my head's not bowed. I don't shout or jump about Or have to talk real loud. When you see me passing It ought to make you proud. I say, It's in the click of my heels, The bend of my hair, the palm of my hand, The need of my care, 'Cause I'm a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That's me. ~Maya Angelou ________________________________ A Dream Within A Dream Take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you now, Thus much let me avow- You are not wrong, who deem That my days have been a dream; Yet if hope has flown away In a night, or in a day, In a vision, or in none, Is it therefore the less gone? All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream. I stand amid the roar Of a surf-tormented shore, And I hold within my hand Grains of the golden sand- How few! yet how they creep Through my fingers to the deep, While I weep- while I weep! O God! can I not grasp Them with a tighter clasp? O God! can I not save One from the pitiless wave? Is all that we see or seem But a dream within a dream? ~Edgar Allan Poe We Real Cool We real cool. We Left school. We Lurk late. We Strike straight. We Sing sin. We Thin gin. We Jazz June. We Die soon. ~ Gwendolyn Brooks ________________________________ Invictus Out of the night that covers me, Black as the pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds and shall find me unafraid. It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul. ~ William Ernest Henley (1849–1903) ________________________________

Dreams Differed What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up Like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore-- And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over-- like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode? ~Langston Hughes ________________________________ Wherever God erects a house of prayer the Devil always builds a chapel there; And 't will be found, upon examination, the latter has the largest congregation. ~ Daniel Defoe (From 'The True-Born Englishman') ________________________________ Heart, we will forget him! You an I, tonight! You may forget the warmth he gave, I will forget the light. When you have done, pray tell me That I my thoughts may dim; Haste! lest while you're lagging. I may remember him! ~ Emily Dickinson ________________________________ A Gleam of Sunshine But now, alas! the place seems changed; Thou art no longer here: Part of the sunshine of the scene With thee did disappear. Though thoughts, deep-rooted in my heart, Like pine-trees dark and high, Subdue the light of noon, and breathe A low and ceaseless sigh; This memory brightens o'er the past, As when the sun, concealed Behind some cloud that near us hangs Shines on a distant field. ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow ________________________________ One Inch Tall If you were only one inch tall, you'd ride a worm to school. The teardrop of a crying ant  would be your swimming pool. A crumb of cake would be a feast And last you seven days at least, A flea would be a frightening beast If you were one inch tall. If you were only one inch tall,  you'd walk beneath the door, And it would take about a month  to get down to the store. A bit of fluff would be your bed, You'd swing upon a spider's thread, And wear a thimble on your head If you were one inch tall. You'd surf across the kitchen sink  upon a stick of gum. You couldn't hug your mama,  you'd just have to hug her thumb. You'd run from people's feet in fright, To move a pen would take all night, (This poem took fourteen years to write-- 'Cause I'm just one inch tall). ~Shel Silverstein ______________________________ This is just to say I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold ~William Carlos William ________________________________ Beauty XXV All these things have you said of beauty. Yet in truth you spoke not of her but of needs unsatisfied, And beauty is not a need but  an ecstasy. It is not a mouth thirsting nor  an empty hand stretched forth, But rather a heart enflamed  and a soul enchanted. ~ Khalil Gibran (Complete poem) ____________________________________ Still I Rise You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise. Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? 'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells Pumping in my living room. Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I'll rise. Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops. Weakened by my soulful cries. ~Maya Angelou ________________________________ Love, What Is Love LOVE - what is love? A great and aching heart; Wrung hands; and silence; and a long despair. Life - what is life? Upon a moorland bare To see love coming and see love depart. ~Robert Louis Stevenson _______________________________ I will meet you yet again (Mein tainu pher milan gi) I will meet you yet again How and where? I know not. Perhaps I will become a figment of your imagination and maybe, spreading myself in a mysterious line on your canvas, I will keep gazing at you. Perhaps I will become a ray of sunshine, to be embraced by your colours. I will paint myself on your canvas I know not how and where – but I will meet you for sure. Maybe I will turn into a spring, and rub the foaming drops of water on your body, and rest my coolness on your burning chest. I know nothing else but that this life will walk along with me. When the body perishes, all perishes; but the threads of memory are woven with enduring specks. I will pick these particles, weave the threads, and I will meet you yet again. ~Amrita Pritam. ________________________________ All You who Sleep Tonight All you who sleep tonight Far from the ones you love, No hand to left or right And emptiness above - Know that you aren't alone The whole world shares your tears, Some for two nights or one, And some for all their years. ~Vikram Seth ________________________________

I'm Nobody! Who are you? Are you – Nobody – too? Then there's a pair of us? Don't tell! they'd advertise – you know! How dreary – to be – Somebody! How public – like a Frog – To tell one's name – the livelong June – To an admiring Bog! ~Emily Dickinson ________________________________ A Character I marvel how Nature could ever find space For so many strange contrasts in one human face: There's thought and no thought, and there's paleness and bloom And bustle and sluggishness, pleasure and gloom. There's weakness, and strength both redundant and vain; Such strength as, if ever affliction and pain Could pierce through a temper that's soft to disease, Would be rational peace--a philosopher's ease. There's indifference, alike when he fails or succeeds, And attention full ten times as much as there needs; Pride where there's no envy, there's so much of joy; And mildness, and spirit both forward and coy. There's freedom, and sometimes a diffident stare Of shame scarcely seeming to know that she's there, There's virtue, the title it surely may claim, Yet wants heaven knows what to be worthy the name. This picture from nature may seem to depart, Yet the Man would at once run away with your heart; And I for five centuries right gladly would be Such an odd such a kind happy creature as he. ~ William Wordsworth ________________________________ A Word to Husbands To keep your marriage brimming With love in the loving cup, Whenever you’re wrong, admit it; Whenever you’re right, shut up. ~Ogden Nash ________________________________ I Cry Sometimes when I'm alone I Cry, Cause I am on my own. The tears I cry are bitter and warm. They flow with life but take no form I Cry because my heart is torn. I find it difficult to carry on. If I had an ear to confide in, I would cry among my treasured friend, but who do you know that stops that long, to help another carry on. The world moves fast and it would rather pass by. Then to stop and see what makes one cry, so painful and sad. And sometimes... I Cry and no one cares about why. ~Tupac Shakur ______________________________________ I Thought of You I thought of you and how you love this beauty, And walking up the long beach all alone I heard the waves breaking in measured thunder As you and I once heard their monotone. Around me were the echoing dunes, beyond me The cold and sparkling silver of the sea -- We two will pass through death and ages lengthen Before you hear that sound again with me. ~ Sarah Teasdale _______________________________ One Art I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or next-to-last, of three beloved houses went. The art of losing isn't hard to master. I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster. -- Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident the art of losing's not too hard to master though it may look like (Write it!) a disaster. ~ Elizabeth Bishop ________________________________ i carry your heart with me i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart) i am never without it (anywhere i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling) i fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true) and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will always sing is you here is the deepest secret nobody knows (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide) and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart) ~ e e cummings ___________________________________ Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, Or bends with the remover to remove: O no! it is an ever-fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose Worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within his bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom: If this be error and upon me proved, I never writ, nor no man ever loved. ~William Shakespeare _________________________________________ When I Have Fears When I have fears that I may cease to be Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain, Before high-piled books, in charactery, Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain; When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face, Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance, And think that I may never live to trace Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance; And when I feel, fair creature of an hour, That I shall never look upon thee more, Never have relish in the faery power Of unreflecting love;--then on the shore Of the wide world I stand alone, and think Till love and fame to nothingness do sink. ~John Keats _____________________________________ The Arrow and the Song I shot an arrow into the air, It fell to earth, I knew not where; For, so swiftly it flew, the sight Could not follow it in its flight. I breathed a song into the air, It fell to earth, I knew not where; For who has sight so keen and strong, That it can follow the flight of song? Long, long afterward, in an oak I found the arrow, still unbroke; And the song, from beginning to end, I found again in the heart of a friend. ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow _____________________________________