#longfellow
“Haunted Houses” (1858)
All houses wherein men have lived and died
__Are haunted houses. Through the open doors
The harmless phantoms on their errands glide,
__With feet that make no sound upon the floors.
We meet them at the doorway, on the stair,
__Along the passages they come and go,
Impalpable impressions on the air,
__A sense of something moving to and fro.
There are more guests at table, than the hosts
__Invited; the illuminated hall
Is thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts,
__As silent as the pictures on the wall.
The stranger at my fireside cannot see
__The forms I see, nor hear the sounds I hear;
He but perceives what is; while unto me
__All that has been is visible and clear.
We have no title-deeds to house or lands;
__Owners and occupants of earlier dates
From graves forgotten stretch their dusty hands,
__And hold in mortmain still their old estates.
The spirit-world around this world of sense
__Floats like an atmosphere, and everywhere
Wafts through these earthly mists and vapors dense
__A vital breath of more ethereal air.
Our little lives are kept in equipoise
__By opposite attractions and desires;
The struggle of the instinct that enjoys,
__And the more noble instinct that aspires.
These perturbations, this perpetual jar
__Of earthly wants and aspirations high,
Come from the influence of an unseen star,
__An undiscovered planet in our sky.
And as the moon from some dark gate of cloud
__Throws o’er the sea a floating bridge of light,
Across whose trembling planks our fancies crowd
__Into the realm of mystery and night,–
So from the world of spirits there descends
__A bridge of light, connecting it with this,
O’er whose unsteady floor, that sways and bends,
__Wander our thoughts above the dark abyss.
Oct 14, 2020
Oct 14, 2020 at 10:08 AM UTC
"A Psalm of Life" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
What the heart of the young man said to the Psalmist
Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each tomorrow
Find us farther than today.
Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.
In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!A_Psalm_of_Life
Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,—act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o’erhead!
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;—
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
Oct 2, 2018
Oct 2, 2018 at 5:23 PM UTC
Emptying memory:
The sun does not block out
The stars,
The soul did not absorb them
The water vanishes the fire,
Petrified light,
Executed dust of old flesh
In a tomb of earthly thoughts;
The Sol centrally corners the eye,
Blinded by the word
In a litany of days,
Crushed hopes fall on nocturnal
Flesh,
Old as Cain and Abel
As smooth as assassin pagans,
Kissing the eclipses
In a fit of rage on a wounded bird,
Theatre of peoples
In a cosmic garden
Impaling moons
And guillotining the planets,
Eating fire on burning lips,
A thirst for living water
And a wisp of gentle air,
A swarm of deities with
Overgrown origins in a circus
Of faithful,
The sanctum was exploded
With idealistic dogs licking
Their own *****
The amphitheater of man
Stained with repetitive slow thoughts,
Drunk with light
Hidden in shadows.
Jan 30, 2016
Jan 30, 2016 at 7:00 PM UTC
On the box of Midwest Butter,
in the verdant dairy pastures,
sat the smiling Indian maiden,
daughter of her tribe, the maiden.
Holding forth a golden offering;
from the box her yellow treasure
for the yet unbuttered buyer.
Gently her sweet knees protruded
from her humble beaded buckskin,
from her beaded buckskin garment
each supported by a letter;
full twin globes upon an altar.
As mammalians, when they’re nursing
seek the rounded gifts of nature
while their hands, abreast and lifted
grasping, find the source of plenty,
swallow fast that milky manna
swallow down that flowing liquid
with a smile upon their features,
so my soul rejoiced to meet her
in the grasslands of a daydream
in the pastures of my daydream,
holding forth divine recurrence:
gift within a gift forever
churning, and imploding inwards
infinite, receding backwards
into endless Indian maidens
spreading myth upon my table
on my toast upon my table
till her tribe returns in glory…
(etc, etc... with apologies to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
Sep 10, 2015
Sep 10, 2015 at 9:32 PM UTC
Clouded days,
Snow in sight .
Darkest night,
The moon's a light.
Quiet frost like crystal- glows,
Burning fire makes warmth flow.
As branches feel the weight,
we learn this winters fate.
Do we let our hearts freeze along?
or learn to sing winters song?
We can only sing together-
to make warm this cold wicked weather,
and I wish for this good to come true
And find warmth in others, in You.
Clean and white canvas anew.
Is it easier to leave it or create in hues?
Winters ice freezing many of them all,
and we hope their cold Hearts might come around next fall.
Jan 8, 2015
Jan 8, 2015 at 9:24 PM UTC