Kindly refer to Notes
.
Brahma
If the chicken thinks he’s egg,
Or if the egg as chicken think,
Why, hen is zen, and [s]tale is leg, -
The s[t]age [c]old question makes one wink.
Is man from monkey or from mouse
descended, (woman from the bear) ?
An answer lies within his house
Of cards - beware, the louse is there.
Brahma Revisited
I find I’m found the finder and the find,
The fine, the finer and the undefined;
I sign myself the signer and the signed,
Design and the designer, predesigned.
.
Mind profound minds nothing's stitch, naught notes
unfounded or unworthy of free votes,
which rocks the boat rocks founder to denote
'ceteris paribus' - quotes all things equal coat.
.
Audi alteram partem must prevail
behind the veil then ave atque vale !
from vale of tears depart, each part rescale
Way find unweighed by feather or by scale.
.
I AM the rose, the garden, rain,
in seasons which outreel again,
in ant nest outreach, country lane,
revealed in scent, lent healing pain.
I AM arose, the spade, the reign
of Nature whose unwinding skein
ignores conceptions such as Cain,
yet turns to, through, chain's hopes' refrain.
.
.
.
'The Quest' is all one needs to know
the Way where interplay may flow
both forwards, back, or silent stay
immobile through the noisy day.
The play, the act, the scene, prompt's pay,
rich everywise, poor anyway,
collide-o'scope and empty grey,
prismatic white, split light bright, fey.
I AM again, before, loss, gain,
the winds that wane, the plain explain,
n dimensions' subtle plane,
holistic overview whose reign
preceded all so seek in vain
for answers' glow which seem to sane
solutions, rules, to play life's game
for wild I was whose will will tame ...
Before starred worlds revolved, before Mankind evolved,
ere dust to dust dissolved sin punished, sin absolved,
Creation’s Eve had solved the Day of Judgement’s Doom.
Before first Eden grew, before its seed sin knew,
before vice or virtue distinguished false from true,
before Cain Abel slew, I was born from your tomb.
In orbit unresolved let chance-dance continue
for reasons still unsolved, from chaos to construe
some order linked into more chaos, - mould to mould.
Each spectral spectrum hue through prism travels to
split light as many few appear to overview.
Those, blinkered, trust not, must costume.
Tomorrow who shall see Death’s all consuming womb
give birth to fresh débuts ? - acts which themselves renew
as years lost years pursue in search of rendez-vous, -
self-circling as they woo mirror reflections through
conundrums. What else, who could thrust light through the gloom ?
Before both desert, flood, before tree, branch, bloom, bud,
ere creatures cold of blood crawled careless from the mud,
before cow chewed the cud, mine was the hand, the loom
that spun the thread fed through Past, Present, Old and New,
So certainty’s led through doubt’s trough to turn into
dark heresy ahead as values skin-deep mew.
Before the skies were blue, before the first bird flew,
before the first cock crew, I am that [s]he to whom
shadow and light the same are, as is flood and flame,
forgetfulness and fame, as is both praise and blame,
as pride is, as is shame ! Yet what is in a name
when player, rules and game in fission cloud mushroom ?
I’m crime, solution, clue, detection overdue,
release, detention too. Life’s melting pot abrew
evaporates into steam seamless sans ado.
Before the first breeze blew, before first sneeze, atchoo,
before love took its cue from life free from taboo,
until the last adieu I WAS who Self subsume.
Time eddies, all at sea, because causality
no difference need see twixt truth and fallacy.
Before prehistory, and after ‘what will be’
all sense of self in "WE" I lose - there lies the key –
for karmic mystery lends atoms energy,
vibrates Eternity as timeless echoes b[l]oom.
Naught is there I eschew from Mars to Timbuktu,
from thence to Xanadu, naught foreign is, naught new,
all’s shadow déjà-vu, kaleidoscopic view.
Ere Gentile, after Jew, ere ‘forests walked, fish flew’,
ere Echo did construe alternate I and You,
ere Noah’s ‘two by two’, I might thy Fate assume.
Once they’d been brought to be I thought earth, stars and sea,
dark empty spaces free between each galaxy,
attraction’s gravity, dwarf, giant, man and flea.
As truth is fallacy, both possibility
and probability existence owe to me.
In ALL I am, all through sweep, chimney, smoke and broom.
Before the first screw turned, before the first flame burned
to ashes hope enurned, before life Life concerned,
before Mankind discerned that Time was Heaven earned,
before the forest ferned, after chance ripples churned,
dust into dust returned bright galaxies to fume.
Ere « Fiat Lux ! » my weal, - and wheel in spinning wheel
which some would show, some seal, all open, all conceal, -
I’d blood and bone congeal from clay and stone to heal
the void, rules lend to spiel appearences of real
as Fortune tunes unreel - yet Earth is surf écume !
Before web spider knew, before its skeins with dew
were hung, I AM the glue which binds all things into
a senseless sense ! I drew, may undraw, play resume.
The fossils from the sea in Himalayas see
all layered in my See. What high seems, low shall be.
what’s great won’t last as we fast fade, made humble, flee
from temporality to temporality
tied to futility. Now IS Eternity -
yet what is Time to me ? ... frames in Fate’s dark dark-room.
Before first Jack and Jill went up and down the hill,
before the first drops’ spill from sky to sea to fill
the oceans and fulfill Life’s need to breed, instill,
from the first eve until last dawn I work my Will, -
through Cause/Effect yet still for parallels there’s room.
I captain am and crew, both horse and rider too,
combining we and you, Past, Future, and thereto
add Time itself which to itself must e’er accrue
until implosion will explosion launch anew
as cycles curlicue. Life’s bride I’m, yet Death’s groom.
I AM emotions’ heartbeats fast,
both love today, and that forecast,
through two souls stitched, man, maid, to last
pulse, impulse, to propulse at last
till cows moon jump, home, ne’er outcast,
hush, flush, lush crush, rush unsurpassed.
I’m voice for choice that can’t be classed
shall shatter false conventions, caste.
I AM emotions Death can’t pale,
and flag unfurled upon Life’s mast,
I'm deep commitment, dark betrayal.
I am rejections which aghast
leave both deceived, deceiver, frail.
I will not bend before storm’s blast,
submission – domination’s tale,
I'm detail, panorama vast.
I AM emotions, skin within
to swim, - the wing, to fly, - the fin,
beholder's eye which out and in
must seek before love may begin.
I am the outer mask whose sin
can be absolved within win/win
relationship where two can twin.
I'm both chagrin and violin.
I AM emotions pitter pat,
synaptical motions, wit, head, heart and hat,
neuronic, neurotic, won’t leave it at that
I am commotions, the mouse and the cat.
Romantic but rarely pacific I lack
any walls which might fall to an angst attack,
grow from seed subatomic to leading the pack.
With empathy flowing both forwards and back
I feed from my need, live from need to give back.
I AM emotions uncontrolled,
the oceans’ motions rocked and rolled,
the sirens’ po(r)tions, shipwrecked, shoaled,
the waves’ commotions thousandfold
recorded on a Dead Sea, scrolled.
The brine, the fresh, the deck, the hold,
the line, the flesh, its every fold.
the storm’s eye I fly unconsoled.
Some think through Nature’s course Death’s force returns
to an equation stable, as all burns
to nothingness, substantial pageant done -
yet nothingness from light experience learns !
Thus if within Eternity there be
subsegments which their own identity
- Time overspilling - somehow could prolong
therein may LIE their authenticity ...
Links in a chain skein, still vibrating scope,
Eternal are the atoms which comprise
The unique image of itself that prize
Trapped mortal peering through his periscope.
Heaven and Earth spin and kaleidoscope,
Ever commingle, yet naught verifies.
Right and wrong, truth, false, sloth, enterprise.
Each deifies himself to help him cope
Before those questions which, like bubbled soap,
Explode between his finger-thoughts. Replies
Held once self-evident, denied as lies,
Open Pandora’s box, - but where is Hope ?
Perhaps Mankind will make sense of the maze,
End ‘Why, Where, What and Whence ?", himself amaze ...
Why is Man here, if Man be here at all ?
What’s far and near, when Time spins cross toss call ?
Wherefore Man’s tale which tail has lost withal, -
Whither spring, gone whither sans recall ?
Maze which Man’s gaze consumes till end of days
is but a paraphrase for dance and daze,
hay’s harvest soon is garnered, and the sum
a passing phase on craze horizon’s haze.
I AM the henpecked and the scold,
the tease, the teaser, the cajoled,
the jail, the jailer, the paroled,
physician, cure and camisoled.
I am dreams granted, those fools’ gold,
freedom fair, fast stranglehold,
chrysanthemum and marigold:
WE is Eye most manifold.
I AM the stitch, the hem and fold,
the rich - the sable-stoled, -
the poor , in stable, cold,
unstable, pocket holed,
I ‘m larders empty, fires coaled.
'the bowler, bails, the ball that’s bowled’,
‘the potter, the pot, the clay and mould’
WE is I most manifold.
I AM the secret Past unrolled,
Present and Future still untold.
Before I AM, yet was foretold.
I am unseen, and yet, behold,
unbeholden, naught with-hold.
nor part nor whole, last, shoe and soled.
I am sole soul though manifold.
I AM Before: both babe and old,
Before: both hot and cold,
Before: both coward, bold,
Before: both dross and gold,
Before: both bought and sold,
I am before: both secret, told.
I am We, most manifold.
I AM the many and the 0ne, the Father, Holy Ghost, the Son,
I harlot am as well as nun. I am the race before its run,
Before chase scheduled or begun and After laurel leaves are won: -
I am all and yet am none.
Epitome of all thats done, remains to do, will be undone.
I am black hole, stars sundry spun, the target, bullet and the gun,
the interplay of mental pun, the memory - sense none should shun, -
in all I AM and yet am none.
Sophisticated and homespun, both everything and anyone,
I love the most where most I shun. I’m tears, I’m years, and weary fun.
No contradiction is there, none, as everything IS everyone.
What will be IS before begun,
Equation, fraction, all IS one.
I’m fiercest foe and closest chum, seed, bud, blossom, weed and plum,
string, the stringer and the strum, sting, the stinger and the stung,
the sing-song, singer, the unsung, the sin, the sinner's hand well wrung.
The lowest mean, the highest rung to me selfsame are, - bells once rung
wait not on time, still on time tongue.
I know not age, was never young,
I know not rage, through love ne’er clung,
- stage, set, cast, critic, critique, run.
Tweedledee and Tweedledum AM I, of everything the sum :
the Past, the Future yet to come - (or is it HAS BEEN’s martyrdom ?).
I am the beat of distant drum which, omnipresent, all must numb.
Styletes and the common scrum AM I, the bread loaf, missing crumb,
vein, blood’s flood, patient, leach, joy, glum,
the hermit’s hut, the meddlesome, heresy, sacerdotium.
I Lethe am, Life’s opium, - still for serenity all come ...
I’m early, late, from solid state through liquid to the gas that swirls,
both circle, straight, and pointless point which may anoint the wave that curls
as foam to reach the beach or strand, and, stranded, drains into the land.
I’m finger pointed out of hand, drop, strata, matter’s natter band,
unique, am standard flag which furls before the blast must silence skirls.
Imbalance, equilibrium, AM I, scaled heights, and depths to plumb.
Vacuum filled, life willed, undone, I am leaf, bough, bole, kernel, plum
degrees perceived between stone, scum. Prey, prayer, Way, error, moon and sun,
subtraction and addition, sum, blind imitation, rule of thumb,
creation, all the same are, hum as static on Time’s waves, become
soon silence, though, unheard not dumb, stuck onto all as chewing gum
awaiting some stochastic drum beat's heat, which, timeless,
may BECOME ...
(c) Jonathan Robin 22 May 1982, 20 November 2006
Author notes
Contest AODP
pic Buddha hits glass ceiling
http://flickr.com/photos/anua22a/2356738068/
EternalMemory spiritual meta meditation
audi alteram partem : latin - hear the other side
ave atque vale : latin - Hail and farewell !
ceteris paribus : latin "with other things equal"
___________
Brahma
Within the hindu trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, Brahma is the creator, Vishnu the preserver and Shiva the destroyer. Brahma grew in a lotus from Vishnu's navel. The daily alternation of light and dark is attributed to Brahma.
To create the world and the human race, Brahma made a goddess out of himself. One half was woman, Gayatri the other, man.
From Brahma's body sprung nine sons Daksa, Dharma, Karma, Anger, Greed, Delusion (Maya), Lust, Joy, Death and Bharata and one daughter called Angaja.
The Brahma introduction parodies Andrew Lang
Brahma
If the wild bowler thinks he bowls,
Or if the batsman thinks he's bowled,
They know not, poor misguided souls,
They too shall perish unconsoled.
I am the batsman and the bat,
I am the bowler and the ball,
The umpire, the pavilion cat,
The roller, pitch, and stumps, and all.
.
Andrew LANG 1844_1912
Parody Ralph Waldo EMERSON – Brahma
Brahma – Spin Bowl
Spin bowl Oh ball of fate, in parabole !
Ten thousand overs dare your drive in vain.
Man marks the earth with whitewash, his control
stops at the stumps and balls you soon shall gain.
The wickets are your prey, and it is plain
your shadow spins so fast that not a sole
batsman’s left before that drop of rain
calls the inning’s toss and sweeps each soul
back to the pavilion whence it came.
.
6 August 1991 Jonathan Robin
Brahma Revisited
The ear which hears is pre-attuned in heaven,
The eye which sees prevision hath ere birth.
‘Festus’ Philip James Bailey
« I am that which began;
of me the years roll
Out of me God and man;
I am equal and whole »
Algernon C. Swinburne Hertha
____________________
Brahma
If the red slayer think he slays,
or if the slain think he is slain,
they know not well the subtle ways
I keep, and pass, and turn again.
Far or forget to me is near;
Shadow and sunlight are the same;
The vanquished gods to me appear;
And one to me are shame and fame.
They reckon ill who leave me out;
When me they fly I am the wings;
I am the doubter and the doubt,
And I the hymn the Brahmin sings.
The strong gods pine for my abode,
And pine in vain the sacred Seven;
But thou, meek lover of the good !
Find me, and turn thy back on heaven.
Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803_1882
Brahma – after Emerson
Truth on logic seldom grows
Life’s curtain opens but to close,
each a poor player is who struts
on stage an hour, - age little shows
of infant promise, fizzles, phuts.
The dice are loaded that man throws, -
grim Destiny’s unkindest cuts, -
Time’s river ever onward flows,
as all slide through predestined ruts.
Life’ s whys and wherefores no-one knows,
save I : its ins and outs, ifs buts,
blind Reason never can disclose, - l
ife’s sacred secret sweet rebuts.
For truth on logic seldom grows,
its adepts oft are selfish scuts,
Love’s instincts only never close
the door to peace that all else shuts.
Jonathan Robin 22 May 1982
I'm garden, rose, green grass and bedrock earth,
grave gardener below, on high G mirth,
the worm that quirms its epiderm from birth
the rain, the clouds, the crowds who praise its girth, -
Beginning, in between, end margin's mirth ...
JR 20070124
_____________________
Brahma - The Reply
Some in ecstatic vision caught,
Of things together thrown,
Confound the thinker with the thought,
The knower with the known.
Borne upward on a timeless wing,
They seek the central sun,
Where anything is everything,
The Many are the One.
Thomas Thornley
________________
I am the Flute
I am the flute of the universe
Eternally waking
To ever more glorious music.
Yet I am not the flute of the universe
But the breath that moves through it
Evoking its song.
Yet I am not the breath,
But the breather.
Yet I am infinitely more than the breather
As sound is more than music
And music is more than one song.
So there I have lost myself
And yet have not ceased to be
Since I am both the lost and the loser.
Or perhaps I am neither.
Carol Hadley
______________________
Brahma's Mutton
If the fat butcher thinks he slays,
Or he – the mutton – thinks he’s slain,
Why, “troth is truth,” the eater says _
“I’ll come, and cut and come again.”
To hungry wolves that on him leer
Mutton is cheap, and sheep the same,
No famished god would at him sneer –
To famine, chops are more than fame.
Who hiss at him, him but assures
That they are geese, but wanting wings –
Your coat is his whose life is yours,
And baa ! the hymen the mutton sings
Ye curs, and gods of grander blood,
And you, ye Paddies fresh from Cork,
Come taste, ye lovers of the good –
Eat ! Stuff ! and turn your back on pork.
Uknown Author
_______________________
Penetralia I am a part of all you see
In Nature; part of all you feel:
I am the impact of the bee
Upon the blossom; in the tree
I am the sap, - that shall reveal
The leaf, the bloom, - that flows and flutes
Up from the darkness through its roots.
I am the vermeil of the rose,
The perfume breathing in its veins;
The gold within the mist that glows
Along the west and overflows
With light the heaven; the dew that rains
Its freshness down and strings with spheres
Of wet the webs and oaten ears.
I am the egg that folds the bird;
The song that beaks and breaks its shell;
The laughter and the wandering word
The water says; and, dimly heard,
The music of the blossom's bell
When soft winds swing it; and the sound
Of grass slow-creeping o'er the ground.
I am the warmth, the honey-scent
That throats with spice each lily-bud
That opens, white with wonderment,
Beneath the moon; or, downward bent,
Sleeps with a moth beneath its hood:
I am the dream that haunts it too,
That crystallizes into dew.
I am the seed within the pod;
The worm within its closed cocoon:
The wings within the circling clod,
The germ, that gropes through soil and sod
To beauty, radiant in the noon:
I am all these, behold ! and more -
I am the love at the world-heart's core.
Madison Julius CAWEIN 1865_1914
__________________
An American
The American Spirit speaks:
"If the Led Striker call it a strike,
Or the papers call it a war,
They know not much what I am like,
Nor what he is, my Avatar."
Through many roads, by me possessed,
He shambles forth in cosmic guise;
He is the Jester and the Jest,
And he the Text himself applies.
The Celt is in his heart and hand,
The Gaul is in his brain and nerve;
Where, cosmopolitanly planned,
He guards the Redskin's dry reserve.
His easy unswept hearth he lends
From Labrador to Guadeloupe;
Till, elbowed out by sloven friends,
He camps, at sufferance, on the stoop.
Calm-eyed he scoffs at sword and crown,
Or panic-blinded stabs and slays:
Blatant he bids the world bow down,
Or cringing begs a crust of praise;
Or, sombre-drunk, at mine and mart,
He dubs his dreary brethren Kings.
His hands are black with blood - his heart
Leaps, as a babe's, at little things.
But, through the shift of mood and mood,
Mine ancient humour saves him whole -
The cynic devil in his blood
That bids him mock his hurrying soul;
That bids him flout the Law he makes,
That bids him make the Law he flouts,
Till, dazed by many doubts, he wakes
The drumming guns that - have no doubts;
That checks him foolish - hot and fond,
That chuckles through his deepest ire,
That gilds the slough of his despond
But dims the goal of his desire;
Inopportune, shrill-accented,
The acrid Asiatic mirth
That leaves him, careless 'mid his dead,
The scandal of the elder earth.
How shall he clear himself, how reach
Your bar or weighed defence prefer ?
A brother hedged with alien speech
And lacking all interpreter.
Which knowledge vexes him a space;
But while Reproof around him rings,
He turns a keen untroubled face
Home, to the instant need of things.
Enslaved, illogical, elate,
He greets th' embarrassed Gods, nor fears
To shake the iron hand of Fate
Or match with Destiny for beers.
Lo, imperturbable he rules,
Unkempt, disreputable, vast -
And, in the teeth of all the schools,
I - I shall save him at the last !
Rudyard KIPLING Parody Ralph Waldo EMERSON - Brahma
_______
Out of the Silence
Lo ! in the vigils of the night, ere sped
The first bright arrows from the Orient shed,
The heart of Silence trembled into sound,
And out of Vastness came a Voice, which said:
I AM alone; thou only art in Me:
I am the stream of Life that flows through thee:
I comprehend all substance, fill all space:
I am pure Being, by whom all things be.
I am thy Dawn, from darkness to release:
I am the Deep, wherein thy sorrows cease:
Be still ! be still ! and know that I am God:
Acquaint thyself with Me, and be at peace !
I am the Silence that is more than sound:
If therewithin thou lose thee, thou art found:
The stormless, shoreless Ocean, which is I -
Thou canst not breathe, but in its bosom drowned.
I am all Love: there is naught else but I:
I am all Power: the rest is phantasy:
Evil, and anguish, sorrow, death, and hell -
These are the fear-flung shadows of a lie.
Arraign not Mine Omnipotence, to say
That aught beside in earth or heaven hath sway !
The powers of darkness are not: that which is
Abideth: these but vaunt them for a day.
Know thou thyself: as thou hast learned of Me,
I made thee three in one, and one in three -
Spirit and Mind and Form, immortal Whole,
Divine and undivided Trinity.
Seek not to break the triple bond assigned
Mind sees by Spirit: Body moves by Mind:
Divorced from Spirit, both way-wildered fall -
Leader and led, the blindfold and the blind.
Look not without thee: thou hast that within,
Makes whole thy sickness, impotent thy sin:
Survey thy forces, rally to thyself:
That which thou would’st not hath no power to win.
I, God, enfold thee like an atmosphere:
Thou to thyself wert never yet more near:
Think not to shun Me: whither would’st thou fly ?
Nor go not hence to seek Me: I am here.
RHOADES James 1841_1923
___________
The Ancient Elf
I am the maker,
The builder, the breaker,
The eagle-winged helper,
The speedy forsaker !
The lance and the lyre,
The water, the fire,
The tooth of oppression,
The lip of desire !
The snare and the wing,
The honey, the sting!
When you seek for me — look
For a different thing !
I, careless and gay,
Never mean what I say,
For my thoughts and my eyes
Look the opposite way !
James STEPHENS 1882_1950
_____________________
Hertha
I am that which began;
Out of me the years roll;
Out of me God and man;
I am equal and whole;
God changes, and man, and the form of them bodily; I am the soul.
Before ever land was,
Before ever the sea,
Or soft hair of the grass,
Or fair limbs of the tree,
Or the fresh-coloured fruit of my branches, I was, and thy soul was in me.
First life on my sources
First drifted and swam;
Out of me are the forces
That save it or damn;
Out of me man and woman, and wild -beast and bird; before God was, I am.
Beside or above me
Nought is there to go;
Love or unlove me,
Unknow me or know,
I am that which unloves me and loves; I am stricken, and I am the blow.
I the mark that is missed
And the arrows that miss,
I the mouth that is kissed
And the breath in the kiss,
The search, and the sought, and the seeker, the soul and the body that is
I am that thing which blesses
My spirit elate;
That which caresses
With hands uncreate
My limbs unbegotten that measure the length of the measure of fate.
But what thing dost thou now,
Looking Godward, to cry
"I am I, thou art thou,
I am low, thou art high" ?
I am thou, whom thou seekest to find him; find thou but thyself, thou art I.
I the grain and the furrow,
The plough-cloven clod
And the ploughshare drawn thorough,
The germ and the sod,
The deed and the doer, the seed and the sower, the dust which is God.
Hast thou known how I fashioned thee,
Child, underground ?
Fire that impassioned thee,
Iron that bound,
Dim changes of water,what thing of all these hast thou known of or found ?
Canst thou say in thine heart
Thou hast seen with thine eyes
With what cunning of art
Thou wast wrought in what wise,
By what force of what stuff thou wast shapen, and shown on my breast to the skies ?
Who hath given, who hath sold it thee,
Knowledge of me ?
Hath the wilderness told it thee ?
Hast thou learnt of the sea ?
Hast thou communed in spirit with night ? have the winds taken counsel with thee ?
Have I set such a star
To show light on thy brow
That thou sawest from afar
What I show to thee now ?
Have ye spoken as brethren together, the sun and the mountains and thou ?
What is here, dost thou know it ?
What was, hast thou known ?
Prophet nor poet
Nor tripod nor throne
Nor spirit nor flesh can make answer, but only thy mother alone.
Mother, not maker,
Born, and not made;
Though her children forsake her,
Allured or afraid,
Praying prayers to the God of their fashion, she stirs not for all that have prayed
A creed is a rod, And a crown is of night;
But this thing is God, To be man with thy might,
To grow straight in the strength of thy spirit, and live out thy life as the light.
I am in thee to save thee,
As my soul in thee saith;
Give thou as I gave thee,
Thy life-blood and breath,
Green leaves of thy labour, white flowers of thy thought, and red fruit of thy death
Be the ways of thy giving
As mine were to thee;
The free life of thy living,
Be the gift of it free;
Not as servant to lord, nor as master to slave, shalt thou give thee to me.
O children of banishment,
Souls overcast,
Were the lights ye see vanish meant
Alway to last,
Ye would know not the sun overshining the shadows and stars overpast.
I that saw where ye trod
The dim paths of the night
Set the shadow called God
In your skies to give light;
But the morning of manhood is risen, and the shadowless soul is in sight.
The tree many-rooted
That swells to the sky
With frondage red-fruited,
The life-tree am I;
In the buds of your lives is the sap of my leaves: ye shall live and not die.
But the Gods of your fashion
That take and that give,
In their pity and passion
That scourge and forgive,
They are worms that are bred in the bark that falls off; they
shall die and not live.
My own blood is what stanches
The wounds in my bark;
Stars caught in my branches
Make day of the dark,
And are worshipped as suns till the sunrise shall tread out their fires as a spark.
Where dead ages hide under The live roots of the tree,
In my darkness the thunder Makes utterance of me;
In the clash of my boughs with each other ye hear the waves sound of the sea
That noise is of Time,
As his feathers are spread
And his feet set to climb
Through the boughs overhead,
And my foliage rings round him and rustles, and branches are bent with his tread.
The storm-winds of ages
Blow through me and cease,
The war-wind that rages,
The spring-wind of peace,
Ere the breath of them roughen my tresses, ere one of my blossoms increase.
All sounds of all changes,
All shadows and lights
On the world's mountain-ranges
And stream-riven heights,
Whose tongue is the wind's tongue and language of storm-clouds on earth-shaking nights;
All forms of all faces,
All works of all hands
In unsearchable places
Of time-stricken lands,
All death and all life, and all reigns and all ruins, drop through me as sands.
Though sore be my burden
And more than ye know,
And my growth have no guerdon
But only to grow,
Yet I fail not of growing for lightnings above me or deathworms below.
These too have their part in me,
As I too in these;
Such fire is at heart in me,
Such sap is this tree's,
Which hath in it all sounds and all secrets of infinite lands and of seas.
In the spring-coloured hours
When my mind was as May's,
There brake forth of me flowers
By centuries of days,
Strong blossoms with perfume of manhood, shot out from my spirit as rays.
And the sound of them springing And smell of their shoots
Were as warmth and sweet singing And strength to my roots;
And the lives of my children made perfect with freedom of soul were my fruits
I bid you but be;
I have need not of prayer;
I have need of you free
As your mouths of mine air;
That my heart may be greater within me, beholding the fruits of me fair.
More fair than strange fruit is
Of faiths ye espouse;
In me only the root is
That blooms in your boughs;
Behold now your God that ye made you, to feed him with faith of your vows.
In the darkening and whitening
Abysses adored,
With dayspring and lightning
For lamp and for sword,
God thunders in heaven, and his angels are red with the wrath of the Lord.
O my sons, O too dutiful
Toward Gods not of me,
Was not I enough beautiful ?
Was it hard to be free ?
For behold, I am with you, am in you and of you; look forth now and see.
Lo, winged with world's wonders,
With miracles shod,
With the fires of his thunders
For raiment and rod,
God trembles in heaven, and his angels are white with the terror of God.
For his twilight is come on him,
His anguish is here;
And his spirits gaze dumb on him,
Grown grey from his fear;
And his hour taketh hold on him stricken, the last of his infinite year.
Thought made him and breaks him,
Truth slays and forgives;
But to you, as time takes him,
This new thing it gives,
Even love, the beloved Republic, that feeds upon freedom and lives.
For truth only is living,
Truth only is whole,
And the love of his giving,
Man's polestar and pole;
Man, pulse of my centre, and fruit of my body, and seed of my soul.
One birth of my bosom;
One beam of mine eye;
One topmost blossom
That scales the sky;
Man, equal and one with me, man that is made of me, man that is I.
Algernon Charles SWINBURNE 1837_1909
Songs before Sunrise, 1871.
In a list
A contest entry
- THE ULTIMATE CONTEST '07 Sponsered by The Poetic Bandits by Trueheartforlife.
7500 points, ended August 4, 2007, 20 entries
Gold trophy winner
• next poem in this contest,
remove from contest
- This is your contest not mine, no restriction what so ever. by nerd42189.
550 points, ended October 23, 2007, 62 entries
Gold trophy winner
• next poem in this contest,
remove from contest
- Want a Gold trophy? (Pre-writes) by B Tha Revolution.
300 points, ended March 19, 4 entries
Silver trophy winner
• next poem in this contest,
remove from contest
- THE PHILOSOPHY AND SPIRITUALITY OF INDIA by maa.
777 points, ended April 16, 10 entries
Gold trophy winner
• next poem in this contest,
remove from contest
- Your Absolute Best Prewrite by Heavens Child.
800 points, ended April 25, 48 entries
Silver trophy winner
• next poem in this contest,
remove from contest
Comments
Adding your comment:
Good job with this. Great rhyme and flow through out most of it.
me, too 
--ERIS--
I realized something. You are more than talented, you are gifted and blessed. I bow to your ability while not giving up on mine. We are all different and that my dear fellow poet, is what makes writing worth the time.
sp, what more can I say? I'm no great poem-critic, still... I truely love this piece. thank you so much for entering. Thank you.