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1013

Too scanty ’twas to die for you,
The merest Greek could that.
The living, Sweet, is costlier—
I offer even that—

The Dying, is a trifle, past,
But living, this include
The dying multifold—without
The Respite to be dead.
Thousand minstrels woke within me,
"Our music's in the hills; "—
Gayest pictures rose to win me,
Leopard-colored rills.
Up!—If thou knew'st who calls
To twilight parks of beech and pine,
High over the river intervals,
Above the ploughman's highest line,
Over the owner's farthest walls;—
Up!—where the airy citadel
O'erlooks the purging landscape's swell.
Let not unto the stones the day
Her lily and rose, her sea and land display;
Read the celestial sign!
Lo! the South answers to the North;
Bookworm, break this sloth urbane;
A greater Spirit bids thee forth,
Than the gray dreams which thee detain.

Mark how the climbing Oreads
Beckon thee to their arcades;
Youth, for a moment free as they,
Teach thy feet to feel the ground,
Ere yet arrive the wintry day
When Time thy feet has bound.
Accept the bounty of thy birth;
Taste the lordship of the earth.

I heard and I obeyed,
Assured that he who pressed the claim,
Well-known, but loving not a name,
Was not to be gainsaid.

Ere yet the summoning voice was still,
I turned to Cheshire's haughty hill.
From the fixed cone the cloud-rack flowed
Like ample banner flung abroad
Round about, a hundred miles,
With invitation to the sea, and to the bordering isles.

In his own loom's garment drest,
By his own bounty blest,
Fast abides this constant giver,
Pouring many a cheerful river;
To far eyes, an aërial isle,
Unploughed, which finer spirits pile,
Which morn and crimson evening paint
For bard, for lover, and for saint;
The country's core,
Inspirer, prophet evermore,
Pillar which God aloft had set
So that men might it not forget,
It should be their life's ornament,
And mix itself with each event;
Their calendar and dial,
Barometer, and chemic phial,
Garden of berries, perch of birds,
Pasture of pool-haunting herds,
Graced by each change of sum untold,
Earth-baking heat, stone-cleaving cold.

The Titan minds his sky-affairs,
Rich rents and wide alliance shares;
Mysteries of color daily laid
By the great sun in light and shade,
And, sweet varieties of chance,
And the mystic seasons' dance,
And thief-like step of liberal hours
Which thawed the snow-drift into flowers.
O wondrous craft of plant and stone
By eldest science done and shown!
Happy, I said, whose home is here,
Fair fortunes to the mountaineer!
Boon nature to his poorest shed
Has royal pleasure-grounds outspread.
Intent I searched the region round,
And in low hut my monarch found.
He was no eagle and no earl,
Alas! my foundling was a churl,
With heart of cat, and eyes of bug,
Dull victim of his pipe and mug;
Woe is me for my hopes' downfall!
Lord! is yon squalid peasant all
That this proud nursery could breed
For God's vicegerency and stead?
Time out of mind this forge of ores,
Quarry of spars in mountain pores,
Old cradle, hunting ground, and bier
Of wolf and otter, bear, and deer;
Well-built abode of many a race;
Tower of observance searching space;
Factory of river, and of rain;
Link in the alps' globe-girding chain;
By million changes skilled to tell
What in the Eternal standeth well,
And what obedient nature can,—
Is this colossal talisman
Kindly to creature, blood, and kind,
And speechless to the master's mind?

I thought to find the patriots
In whom the stock of freedom roots.
To myself I oft recount
Tales of many a famous mount.—
Wales, Scotland, Uri, Hungary's dells,
Roys, and Scanderbegs, and Tells.
Here now shall nature crowd her powers,
Her music, and her meteors,
And, lifting man to the blue deep
Where stars their perfect courses keep,
Like wise preceptor lure his eye
To sound the science of the sky,
And carry learning to its height
Of untried power and sane delight;
The Indian cheer, the frosty skies
Breed purer wits, inventive eyes,
Eyes that frame cities where none be,
And hands that stablish what these see:
And, by the moral of his place,
Hint summits of heroic grace;
Man in these crags a fastness find
To fight pollution of the mind;
In the wide thaw and ooze of wrong,
Adhere like this foundation strong,
The insanity of towns to stem
With simpleness for stratagem.
But if the brave old mould is broke,
And end in clowns the mountain-folk,
In tavern cheer and tavern joke,—
Sink, O mountain! in the swamp,
Hide in thy skies, O sovereign lap!
Perish like leaves the highland breed!
No sire survive, no son succeed!

Soft! let not the offended muse
Toil's hard hap with scorn accuse.
Many hamlets sought I then,
Many farms of mountain men;—
Found I not a minstrel seed,
But men of bone, and good at need.
Rallying round a parish steeple
Nestle warm the highland people,
Coarse and boisterous, yet mild,
Strong as giant, slow as child,
Smoking in a squalid room,
Where yet the westland breezes come.
Close hid in those rough guises lurk
Western magians, here they work;
Sweat and season are their arts,
Their talismans are ploughs and carts;
And well the youngest can command
Honey from the frozen land,
With sweet hay the swamp adorn,
Change the running sand to corn,
For wolves and foxes, lowing herds,
And for cold mosses, cream and curds;
Weave wood to canisters and mats,
Drain sweet maple-juice in vats.
No bird is safe that cuts the air,
From their rifle or their snare;
No fish in river or in lake,
But their long hands it thence will take;
And the country's iron face
Like wax their fashioning skill betrays,
To fill the hollows, sink the hills,
Bridge gulfs, drain swamps, build dams and mills,
And fit the bleak and howling place
For gardens of a finer race,
The world-soul knows his own affair,
Fore-looking when his hands prepare
For the next ages men of mould,
Well embodied, well ensouled,
He cools the present's fiery glow,
Sets the life pulse strong, but slow.
Bitter winds and fasts austere.
His quarantines and grottos, where
He slowly cures decrepit flesh,
And brings it infantile and fresh.
These exercises are the toys
And games with which he breathes his boys.
They bide their time, and well can prove,
If need were, their line from Jove,
Of the same stuff, and so allayed,
As that whereof the sun is made;
And of that fibre quick and strong
Whose throbs are love, whose thrills are song.
Now in sordid weeds they sleep,
Their secret now in dulness keep.
Yet, will you learn our ancient speech,
These the masters who can teach,
Fourscore or a hundred words
All their vocal muse affords,
These they turn in other fashion
Than the writer or the parson.
I can spare the college-bell,
And the learned lecture well.
Spare the clergy and libraries,
Institutes and dictionaries,
For the hardy English root
Thrives here unvalued underfoot.
Rude poets of the tavern hearth,
Squandering your unquoted mirth,
Which keeps the ground and never soars,
While Jake retorts and Reuben roars,
Tough and screaming as birch-bark,
Goes like bullet to its mark,
While the solid curse and jeer
Never balk the waiting ear:
To student ears keen-relished jokes
On truck, and stock, and farming-folks,—
Nought the mountain yields thereof
But savage health and sinews tough.

On the summit as I stood,
O'er the wide floor of plain and flood,
Seemed to me the towering hill
Was not altogether still,
But a quiet sense conveyed;
If I err not, thus it said:

Many feet in summer seek
Betimes my far-appearing peak;
In the dreaded winter-time,
None save dappling shadows climb
Under clouds my lonely head,
Old as the sun, old almost as the shade.
And comest thou
To see strange forests and new snow,
And tread uplifted land?
And leavest thou thy lowland race,
Here amid clouds to stand,
And would'st be my companion,
Where I gaze
And shall gaze
When forests fall, and man is gone,
Over tribes and over times
As the burning Lyre
Nearing me,
With its stars of northern fire,
In many a thousand years.

Ah! welcome, if thou bring
My secret in thy brain;
To mountain-top may muse's wing
With good allowance strain.
Gentle pilgrim, if thou know
The gamut old of Pan,
And how the hills began,
The frank blessings of the hill
Fall on thee, as fall they will.
'Tis the law of bush and stone—
Each can only take his own.
Let him heed who can and will,—
Enchantment fixed me here
To stand the hurts of time, until
In mightier chant I disappear.
If thou trowest
How the chemic eddies play
Pole to pole, and what they say,
And that these gray crags
Not on crags are hung,
But beads are of a rosary
On prayer and music strung;
And, credulous, through the granite seeming
Seest the smile of Reason beaming;
Can thy style-discerning eye
The hidden-working Builder spy,
Who builds, yet makes no chips, no din,
With hammer soft as snow-flake's flight;
Knowest thou this?
O pilgrim, wandering not amiss!
Already my rocks lie light,
And soon my cone will spin.
For the world was built in order,
And the atoms march in tune,
Rhyme the pipe, and time the warder,
Cannot forget the sun, the moon.
Orb and atom forth they prance,
When they hear from far the rune,
None so backward in the troop,
When the music and the dance
Reach his place and circumstance,
But knows the sun-creating sound,
And, though a pyramid, will bound.

Monadnoc is a mountain strong,
Tall and good my kind among,
But well I know, no mountain can
Measure with a perfect man;
For it is on Zodiack's writ,
Adamant is soft to wit;
And when the greater comes again,
With my music in his brain,
I shall pass as glides my shadow
Daily over hill and meadow.

Through all time
I hear the approaching feet
Along the flinty pathway beat
Of him that cometh, and shall come,—
Of him who shall as lightly bear
My daily load of woods and streams,
As now the round sky-cleaving boat
Which never strains its rocky beams,
Whose timbers, as they silent float,
Alps and Caucasus uprear,
And the long Alleghanies here,
And all town-sprinkled lands that be,
Sailing through stars with all their history.

Every morn I lift my head,
Gaze o'er New England underspread
South from Saint Lawrence to the Sound,
From Katshill east to the sea-bound.
Anchored fast for many an age,
I await the bard and sage,
Who in large thoughts, like fair pearl-seed,
Shall string Monadnoc like a bead.
Comes that cheerful troubadour,
This mound shall throb his face before,
As when with inward fires and pain
It rose a bubble from the plain.
When he cometh, I shall shed
From this well-spring in my head
Fountain drop of spicier worth
Than all vintage of the earth.
There's fruit upon my barren soil
Costlier far than wine or oil;
There's a berry blue and gold,—
Autumn-ripe its juices hold,
Sparta's stoutness, Bethlehem's heart,
Asia's rancor, Athens' art,
Slowsure Britain's secular might,
And the German's inward sight;
I will give my son to eat
Best of Pan's immortal meat,
Bread to eat and juice to drink,
So the thoughts that he shall think
Shall not be forms of stars, but stars,
Nor pictures pale, but Jove and Mars.

He comes, but not of that race bred
Who daily climb my specular head.
Oft as morning wreathes my scarf,
Fled the last plumule of the dark,
Pants up hither the spruce clerk
From South-Cove and City-wharf;
I take him up my rugged sides,
Half-repentant, scant of breath,—
Bead-eyes my granite chaos show,
And my midsummer snow;
Open the daunting map beneath,—
All his county, sea and land,
Dwarfed to measure of his hand;
His day's ride is a furlong space,
His city tops a glimmering haze:
I plant his eyes on the sky-hoop bounding;—
See there the grim gray rounding
Of the bullet of the earth
Whereon ye sail,
Tumbling steep
In the uncontinented deep;—
He looks on that, and he turns pale:
'Tis even so, this treacherous kite,
Farm-furrowed, town-incrusted sphere,
Thoughtless of its anxious freight,
Plunges eyeless on for ever,
And he, poor parasite,—
Cooped in a ship he cannot steer,
Who is the captain he knows not,
Port or pilot trows not,—
Risk or ruin he must share.
I scowl on him with my cloud,
With my north wind chill his blood,
I lame him clattering down the rocks,
And to live he is in fear.
Then, at last, I let him down
Once more into his dapper town,
To chatter frightened to his clan,
And forget me, if he can.
As in the old poetic fame
The gods are blind and lame,
And the simular despite
Betrays the more abounding might,
So call not waste that barren cone
Above the floral zone,
Where forests starve:
It is pure use;
What sheaves like those which here we glean and bind,
Of a celestial Ceres, and the Muse?

Ages are thy days,
Thou grand expressor of the present tense,
And type of permanence,
Firm ensign of the fatal Being,
Amid these coward shapes of joy and grief
That will not bide the seeing.
Hither we bring
Our insect miseries to the rocks,
And the whole flight with pestering wing
Vanish and end their murmuring,
Vanish beside these dedicated blocks,
Which, who can tell what mason laid?
Spoils of a front none need restore,
Replacing frieze and architrave;
Yet flowers each stone rosette and metope brave,
Still is the haughty pile *****
Of the old building Intellect.
Complement of human kind,
Having us at vantage still,
Our sumptuous indigence,
O barren mound! thy plenties fill.
We fool and prate,—
Thou art silent and sedate.
To million kinds and times one sense
The constant mountain doth dispense,
Shedding on all its snows and leaves,
One joy it joys, one grief it grieves.
Thou seest, O watchman tall!
Our towns and races grow and fall,
And imagest the stable Good
For which we all our lifetime *****,
In shifting form the formless mind;
And though the substance us elude,
We in thee the shadow find.
Thou in our astronomy
An opaker star,
Seen, haply, from afar,
Above the horizon's hoop.
A moment by the railway troop,
As o'er some bolder height they speed,—
By circumspect ambition,
By errant Gain,
By feasters, and the frivolous,—
Recallest us,
And makest sane.
Mute orator! well-skilled to plead,
And send conviction without phrase,
Thou dost supply
The shortness of our days,
And promise, on thy Founder's truth,
Long morrow to this mortal youth.
Chiori Mathew Jul 2018
I was about running for safety
when she said she love me
what is love?
on this my empty pockets
her onkempt hair and hungry eyes
i knew she was a spider

though my heart is deaf
Igbo love is costlier in the market
how-come this Yoruba lady
money in the morning, money clockwise
there is no juice left in me lady,
your web had caught nothing
and your tricks I've known.
Dear son I am dying
So you may live!
I couldn't pay for your son's school fees,
The deepawali sweets and crackers
And your wife's saree,
Nor could I buy you the500cc
Enfield Bullet.I had promised.
My revised pension hasn't yet come.
They have told me to wait,
But I know you can't.
Deepawali crackers are costlier this year
With the boycott of Chinese goods
A big price for patriotism.
My friends tell me that if I die
They will turn me
Into a symbol,
Something very big and important.
Somewhere elections are just round the corner,
There will be a statue
And money and job for you.
They say.
I must die for you to live.
I have lived my life.
Sorry son, I had much to say
But they tell me to hurry.
The facilitator has another appointment to keep
If only I could go with a bullet in my heart
And a few pakis at my feet
And not a sip from the hemlock tree!
Do not gamble with the money you get,
This Deepawali, pay Dipu's fees,
Buy a plot of land,
Take mother to Haridwar.
And yes, get the money and the job
Immediately after I die,  least they forget.
They will promise the world.
They will come, don't worry, make them pay,
Insects always do when there is light.

They call me

I must go

You live..
Notes (optional)
Bina Mukherjee May 2020
The world has turned into a global village
No one can deny on that...

But..remember the phone we had placed on that beautiful table mat?
Yes...it was a matter of pride to have one..

The only fastest medium of communication we had at that time
It too had models...the rotary phone, the keypad and many fancy ones

We talked, laughed and sobbed sitting at one place as we were tied with the corded set with everyone.

It was safe.....no fear of radiation or loss of eye sight .

Though it was much too costlier than what it is today....people still communicated and talked their heart out

Now...every hand has a cell phone which comes with many features overcoming the limitation of the old one
People can connect anywhere in no time
Then why...?
We are so disconnected.....!

May be we mastered the art of telepathy?...or we are blessed with a magical wand...?

We talk no more
We only make groups
We love forwarding messages

We have become mute.....

So can we again move to landline?
Come out of the virtual world by talking to our dear ones at this time?
Can we try and understand what they are hiding behind their smiling whatsapp profiles?

Let's do things one at a time...rather than multitasking with phone on one hand and laptop on the other...
Let's give them the love and respect when one needs from your side.
So ..... sit back and dial a number of your loved one...and help the world again to become one if not through landline but may be your heartline!!

Bina Mukherjee
This is the feast of heavenly wine,
And God invites to sup;
The juices of the living Vine
Were press'd to fill the cup.

Oh! bless the Saviour, ye that eat,
With royal dainties fed;
Not heaven affords a costlier treat,
For Jesus is the bread.

The vile, the lost, He calls to them;
Ye trembling souls, appear!
The righteous in their own esteem
Have no acceptance here.

Approach, ye poor, nor dare refuse
The banquet spread for you;
Dear Saviour, this is welcome news,
Then I may venture too.

If guilt and sin afford a plea,
And may obtain a place,
Surely the Lord will welcome me,
And I shall see his face.
877

Each Scar I’ll keep for Him
Instead I’ll say of Gem
In His long Absence worn
A Costlier one

But every Tear I bore
Were He to count them o’er
His own would fall so more
I’ll mis sum them.
Kuvar Jun 2018
I am living in a house
Made of fleshy blocks
Costlier than golds
Not because it is cost
But this man in the building
refuses to be bought
His choice of substantive intake
Rotten tomatoes or fresh tomatoes
it is the shelter of slaves
It is the guile of the law
©️Kuvar
Babu kandula Jul 2014
Stones and pebbles
Gifted by you
Those remind me
Olden days in beach
I spent with you
Still those are in
My collections
Those are
Costlier than
Diamonds
Precious than
Gold
Friend's gifts are
Priceless
We cannot
Compare them
with Money
Because it's
replica of
Their Heart
Given for us
To be with us
L Scott Jan 2014
I’ve escaped into Summer’s Eclipse,
Where the frost flows continuously from your frozen lips.
It’s numbed my bones and pierced my skin,
and ceased every knock from the vessel within.

They say if you tame the body, you’ll tame the soul,
So, there’s hope that I’ll gain some kind of control.
You question why but don’t ask me,
They tell me I’ve traded my brain for a pea.
For the mind is a grave we bury ourselves in,
I tell you, who we are, where we’ve been,
All’s the same once you’re dead,
Your life’s a sweater you’ve worn to a thread.

I’m clouding two thoughts and producing no rain,
Give me a moment, I’ll try to explain:
Consideration, admiration,
I’m not really getting anywhere with this presentation,
of who I should be and who I am,
I’ve chosen to be cordial rather than condemn.

That’s not to say sincerity is vain,
(I’d argue that ego is what we should blame),
But I’d imagine silence would prove me more bold,
And keep me upright in this freezing cold.

Now, to address the former, I say this,
I would have taken the Winter in your kiss,
But time, it ages, and so it goes:
Pride is costlier than a rose.
JP Nov 2015
In a garment shop,
was admiring a
woman advice
her teenage daughter
(whose on diet program)
to take
a costlier one to
one size less
So, she can
reduce her weight
psychologically
first…..
Mark May 2020
I)

Our precious months have none for charity,
Yet isolation; do by months donate
My waning form, for solidarity;
Absent of sickness, nearer distant fate.
My end seems meek and much less horrible,
Than if your eyes did scorn what time does crease
Upon my skin, less white adorable,
For yours of beauty stilled, mourn my decrease?
No! Worry not, for sweet your sweetheart's eye:
Abundant in immortal glory's stage,
When paired with you no longer I am I
But us! Now five years more, ten gone my age.

Yet that decrease fear covids added
much;
Corona's law: times two without your touch.

(II)

Law bid's my better self from me to part,
Across the sick laid world in viral war,
If wonder where's my best? Let check your heart;
Where all my vibrancy and ferver store,
Albeit are my eyes that make the artist,
And art is love when beauty forms the muse;
Is you that map my beauty true; sweet chartist!
But you had only mapped your own infuse.
When this abundance has your dearests seen;
True mind's deduction knows what bears without;
A kingdom ruled in vigil for a queen;
Steadfast a lesser king, still king devout.

My love - my best you have and best to know:
Pity my least, when most without your glow.

(III)

Oh lovely one, tho' time's unsavory,
Your privilege from it's change and creasing blade;
Deprives from time: decay's own slavery,
From your sweet youth that sweetest form has stayed.
What deity does guard your beauty's jewel?
Whom favored graces do continue more;
In time that sweeter mood will turn to cruel:
An infamy well known from those whom wore.
Ah! When that fearsome wand does show your wear,
Never me fooled; yes grey would hue your white
And happen all the while before my stare;
But love shan't change, nor day appear as night

Nor heart could grey nor love turn older stale'd.
If proved these false; mere proved my pulse had failed.

(IV)

I tend this lockdown'd day in unmade bed,
Then greet the icy morn with bitter brew
But drown in distant news of many dead;
I gasp for foreign lives I never knew.
How near to you! Thus near my sacred stone;
Beholder of my love what love there bears,
If comfort's found beneath your chested bone,
Is mine revealed; a love when all else tears.
Ah! Meager seems my loneliest of lines,
When other loves have costlier of loss,
For ours shall turn when 'rona's force resigns;
Back to our hearted bridge at lover's cross,

But thought the pain if you succumbed the worse
Does think my end by body, soul, in hearse!
Anjali Oct 2019
When you are there to hold my hands,
I don't require anybody else to take my stand.

When you are there to hold my hands,
My just wish is stop the time to expand.

When you are there to hold my hands,
Earth seems to be a wonderland.

Hold my hands,
Hold,
Till we together get old,
Let's turn in a love mould,
Gathering memories is  costlier ..
Maria Cruz Mar 2021
There are many things a woman sacrifices in life some for freedom from familial ties, others abandon love for a costlier way of life.
Whether it be religion, generations of corrupt traditions, or simply the desperation for survival.
Whatever the reason, in some eyes its treason to stand for oneself and what we believe in, to not give all or to keep a little piece of what we created to them is an abomination.
People will say women have come a long way, the ability to vote or possess an opinion in what we in prior years were not able to meddle in.
Now we have a woman vice president! I cant wait to see the difference she will make, allot on her plate and with all eyes on her the sacrifice will be great. The easy part was the election now its living up to the words that gained her, her position.
In truth us woman have a lot to live up to, at the end of the day we feel responsible for others accomplishments, we want the best for our children so much so sometimes we spend a lifetime being miserable, just to make sure they have an opportunity to have opportunities, and to live life with the best possibilities.
I say now is the time for the Moms and Grandmas to take a stand and sever the delusion that because we believe and sacrificed for them to succeed that they will appreciate it and pass up all the mess, and choose life instead of slow death.
The truth is free will was a gift that sadly turned into a curse, not for all but for some, the choices they make are there's and do not in no way reflect your mommy skills or rate the love you give.
It is time to sacrifice for self and break the viscous cycle of hopeless, hope!
I'm not saying don't believe in them and offer the best you can to them, I'm saying stop being a sacrifice over and over for things you have no control over. You are worth the sacrifice someone else took for you to be happy and at peace, to find the true you!
Bekah Halle Sep 12
What are our lives for? But to reveal our maker,
If we try too hard, we end up highlighting the faker.
Taken off path and into uncertainty, we copy
Others to fit in and minimise the ill feelings of being a nobody.
But it's not too late; turn back around and seek,
Another vision; your authentic self, even if she is meek.
For, one day she will grow tall; into herself once more,
She will be stronger, as she releases the angst from her ankles and pain from her core.
Masterpieces take time, discovery and delight,
Open your eyes and welcome new sight.
The path may not be what you dreamed - but it may be better;
Sweeter, freer, costlier.
But Yours.

— The End —