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Oh! mihi præteritos referat si Jupiter annos.
    VIRGIL.

Ye scenes of my childhood, whose lov’d recollection
  Embitters the present, compar’d with the past;
Where science first dawn’d on the powers of reflection,
  And friendships were form’d, too romantic to last;

Where fancy, yet, joys to retrace the resemblance
  Of comrades, in friendship and mischief allied;
How welcome to me your ne’er fading remembrance,
  Which rests in the *****, though hope is deny’d!

Again I revisit the hills where we sported,
  The streams where we swam, and the fields where we fought;
The school where, loud warn’d by the bell, we resorted,
  To pore o’er the precepts by Pedagogues taught.

Again I behold where for hours I have ponder’d,
  As reclining, at eve, on yon tombstone I lay;
Or round the steep brow of the churchyard I wander’d,
  To catch the last gleam of the sun’s setting ray.

I once more view the room, with spectators surrounded,
  Where, as Zanga, I trod on Alonzo o’erthrown;
While, to swell my young pride, such applauses resounded,
  I fancied that Mossop himself was outshone.

Or, as Lear, I pour’d forth the deep imprecation,
  By my daughters, of kingdom and reason depriv’d;
Till, fir’d by loud plaudits and self-adulation,
  I regarded myself as a Garrick reviv’d.

Ye dreams of my boyhood, how much I regret you!
  Unfaded your memory dwells in my breast;
Though sad and deserted, I ne’er can forget you:
  Your pleasures may still be in fancy possest.

To Ida full oft may remembrance restore me,
  While Fate shall the shades of the future unroll!
Since Darkness o’ershadows the prospect before me,
  More dear is the beam of the past to my soul!

But if, through the course of the years which await me,
  Some new scene of pleasure should open to view,
I will say, while with rapture the thought shall elate me,
  “Oh! such were the days which my infancy knew.”
Fidgety Midget Feb 2015
She has a far away look
in her far away eyes

She's a girl that won't stay long
she has the need to always move on

Free spirits you cannot cage
that just embitters them with rage

Let her be
just set her free
Aisling O' L Aug 2013
Hesitation enveloped me in bubble wrap,
My every word was watched in case it led to a trap.
You were in a cell I couldn't and still can't understand,
I reached for you but I was bitten
by two midnight hounds by your sides.
My faith you earned and so it was given,
from golden memories over time.
How I longed to storm the barricades,
and surface you up to the world of air.
Hammer in hand, break you out of reverie your frozen cave,
That embitters your veins and hardens you like sandstone not to care.
Will you forever stay a Princess locked in your own palace?
Letting armies of thorns cascade from pillar to post,
and draw blood from with that defensive line of malice.
I know you as more than this, than a wisp, than this ghost.
Meant to leave more on this canvas than a hand print my dear.
A full scale portrait is more suited,
But you've become what you once so venomously despised and held in fear ,
Any whisper of a conscience muted.
"Do  you love me?", you whisper,
And I - most certainly do,
But the more you demand it of me
The more it becomes less true.
So take away your armour and lay it for aside for me.
So I know behind it all you are alive and I was right to believe.
Sara Jakke Oct 2013
There is a voice inside my head.
When I am trying my hardest to concentrate
I often lose track of attention
A voice,
Not my voice
Whispers
Nothing big or scary
It only plugs my attention
It resets
I forget what I was thinking, or talking about.
The voice stole my line of thought
Hid it in the treasure of a pirate map
Who we hypnotised by mermaids
It embitters me
Forms difficulties during arguments.
And it makes me feel less in control about myself
It is as if life has set limitations for me
That I feel I cannot cross
If I were a mermaid
I would leave the brave pirates from drowning
And swallowing their soul
I would remember and gently guide them to shoal
Remember
David Plantinga Mar 2022
According to astrology,
The stars arrange themselves to bind
The destinies of humankind
Born under their hegemony.  
What malice made those twinkling lights
****** my children, and yet spare
A father to forever bear
Grief that embitters, and ignites
A hatred for my very birth,  
And the cursed womb that gave me life.  
****** in this vale of loss and strife,
Pushed through that vile and ****** firth,
I live and suffer till I die.
Are the stars locked in crystal spheres
To trace their paths throughout the years,
Quite powerless to nullify,  
The ruin and the doom they chart?  
Or do they skip across the void,
Giddy, and cruel, and overjoyed
To wither a poor father’s heart?  
If they’re condemned to blight
The fate of any mortal born
Under their aegis, they must mourn
The sentences their glint must write.  
If merciful, those stars must share
The misery their shining brings,
And their own brittle glimmerings
Must lance their conscience with despair.  
Extinguishing those stars that ****
Unwillingly is clemency.
Annihilation sets them free.  
But if they’re vicious, it will thrill
My aching spirit to ***** out
Ill-omened and malignant stars,
Child-murderers, and the bêtes noires
Of fathers, even if devout.  
Such wicked lights disgrace the night,
So, emptied, let that banner shut.  
An expanse cleansed of glittery ****
Contracts so closely and so tight
No spirit banished from its rest
Can enter through that dismal gate,
Once happy, now disconsolate,
Dropped in a world they will detest.  
Into that gap, the day before
And the day afterward will close.  
So that cursed hour cannot expose
A naked child to famine, war,
Plague, and the agonies this world.
Inflicts upon the bad and good.  
If in the womb, I’d understood
The pain awaiting, I’d have curled
Up tighter and would lock my knees.
Shutting the door, I would return
To a green glade and gurgling bourn,
A haven from atrocities.
Job curses the day he was born.
Kìùra Kabiri Apr 2017
You said you will let us grow old
You said you will never let any
Be to grieves, sorrowfully sold
We will always be jolly as days sunny

You said you will let us hold dear our children
You said you will let us play with our grandchildren
What happened you returned earlier?
What happened you have broken the promise-the vow?

I look at this moment, melancholic
I remember my dear, I miss her much
It is sad and hard to believe these are our last moments
Soon the earths will open and her forever swallow
O! What happened to our oaths-together till forever?
Now I am standing here a haunted man, alone in trembling tears  

What happened you have visited us?
What didn’t we do well you have returned to us?
What happened that in my arms my lover will never feel?
In my laps my lover will never make her passionate pun
And in our cozy bed she will never let her warm morning yawn

Instead I see a casket as her carrier and a bier as her resting stool
The sight of this soggy and sordid soil-mould as her forever dark cold bed
It embitters me and I tremendously tears
O! What really went wrong with our consensus?  
And it said: you shall never return until it is tomorrow
When we are much older yesterday to tell apart from today

O! What really went wrong, death?
And we had a gentlemen agreement  
You will never revisit our love world
You said you will never let any alone go
If, together we will always go

Now I watch, hard to believe, I’m letting her go
How am I to let her go?
And we held each other so strong to let us part
With each day our bond getting even much stronger

My love I will never let you go
If, there will always be a haunting ghost of you
Hunting and hurting me for letting you alone go
It was just to be you and me
How then can I say goodbye and let you alone go?

I don’t say goodbye even in silences of my slaying sorrows
Even at this last time in my unending gravesides grieves
The priest and the peoples in piety performing their pastoral perpetual ritual
The last respect rite to human’s body on earth:
Body to dust, bones to ashes, soul to its Maker……!
Even though the song will be playing in my silent head’s mind
Live as on a stereo radio-the James Blunt sad sorrowful sweet song:

“Goodbye my lover; Goodbye my friend.
You have been the one; you have been the one for me......
You touched my heart, you touched my soul.
You changed my life and all my goals………
I've kissed your lips and held your head.
Shared your dreams and shared your bed.
I know you well, I know your smell, I've been addicted to you.
Goodbye my lover; Goodbye my friend……!”
And then follows his percussion humming trademarks hmm-hmm!

I won’t budge to the pressures of sad times
No, I won’t let you go; you have been the one for me!
You have been my lover, my partner-all these years,
How could I let you go, how could I let you go even though I want?
My love, why didn’t you wait a little bit longer for me?

I am your dreamer; I don’t want to wake to find naught you
I am haunted to leave or live, so let me just be
Just let me be, asleep with your eternal love
I won’t say goodbye, I won’t sing-goodbye my lover!
I will remain sandwiched to the oath: you’re mine-by eternal right

© Kìùra Kabiri. All rights reserved.
Dr Peter Lim Jul 2018
I write
because I feel-
more intensely
when wounds
I need to heal
life cares not
whether it embitters
agonises
or trips every heel

human tears
are mirrored
in words
the litany
of sorrowful years
adversity
spreads
like an epidemic
but to despair
and defeat
I'll never yield

my poems
shall be my shield
I know
living is never*
as easy as
walking through a field
* a Russian saying
Jedidiah Wolbaum Jan 2020
When the ripples of the past mar the image of today, and the fragrance of a past bloom embitters a current aromas broadcast.
Then what could have been, that never happened, can be blamed on nostalgia and fervent contrast.
For a new bloom will never perfectly reflect the past, neglect not this seasons bloom, searching for that of the last.
The past although sensual is intangible, cling to the present knowing it could leave you just as fast.
First attempt at poetry... honestly sounded cliché to me. Written as a reminder to let go of the past so you can grasp what you have now.
Dr Peter Lim Feb 2019
I had my chance
now it's too late
thr rain of time
has washed away
my footprints
'twas my fault
I can't blame fate--
the glory then
was mine--every inch-
all the way beauty  went
in search of my heart
but I stood apart
lost in binge*

and now left alone
with wrinkled ache
I could claim
nothing of my own
only regret
I have forgotten
the person I once was
in my pristine prime
when all was at my behest
the purest gems
sadly I did neglect
and what I have inherited
is but the meanest alms-

I don't wish
for a moment
to know my own name

self-pity embitters
and cries out in shame
* figure of speech, meaning 'an excess of indulgence' in this context
Michael Marchese Mar 2023
Every night is cold,
It eats my soul,
It lets me go
And though unknown to you
Embitters
As it withers
Me in woe
A freezing rain,
Unceasing pain,
An endless
Friendless
Winter day
An empty space,
Estranged embrace
Encased
In icy
Psyche
Wastes
T R S Oct 2019
I reckoned,
I picked apart a soggy brick building,

I second-guessed why toad-lickers
seemed to matter so much to me.

I beckoned an olive branch out of
folk who I really hate.

And had to stand against folks I can't stand.
And although their impatience debrides and embitters me
with scores and scores of confused self-conflagration,
I've found a way to abstain from immolation,
and make the best I can out of the friends I have, and who I am.
Don’t let it settle
The thoughts into place
Lest you linger too long
In contemplative space
And let dwelling
Impel you
To stay in suspension
Remain in a state
Of immense
Apprehension
A tension
That stretches
And pulls you
Apart
Discontentment
Embitters
And sours
Your heart
Until want for not
Need no companion
Engagement
Embrace your relationship
Sinking estrangement

— The End —