"forbore" poems
"While I sit at the door
Sick to gaze within
Mine eye weepeth sore
For sorrow and sin:
As a tree my sin stands
To darken all lands;
Death is the fruit it bore.
"How have Eden bowers grown
Without Adam to bend them!
How have Eden flowers blown
Squandering their sweet breath
Without me to tend them!
The Tree of Life was ours,
Tree twelvefold-fruited,
Most lofty tree that flowers,
Most deeply rooted:
I chose the tree of death.
"Hadst thou but said me nay,
Adam, my brother,
I might have pined away;
I, but none other:
God might have let thee stay
Safe in our garden,
By putting me away
Beyond all pardon.
"I, Eve, sad mother
Of all who must live,
I, not another,
Plucked bitterest fruit to give
My friend, husband, lover;--
O wanton eyes, run over;
Who but I should grieve?--
Cain hath slain his brother:
Of all who must die mother,
Miserable Eve!"
Thus she sat weeping,
Thus Eve our mother,
Where one lay sleeping
Slain by his brother.
Greatest and least
Each piteous beast
To hear her voice
Forgot his joys
And set aside his feast.
The mouse paused in his walk
And dropped his wheaten stalk;
Grave cattle wagged their heads
In rumination;
The eagle gave a cry
From his cloud station;
Larks on thyme beds
Forbore to mount or sing;
Bees drooped upon the wing;
The raven perched on high
Forgot his ration;
The conies in their rock,
A feeble nation,
Quaked sympathetical;
The mocking-bird left off to mock;
Huge camels knelt as if
In deprecation;
The kind hart's tears were falling;
Chattered the wistful stork;
Dove-voices with a dying fall
Cooed desolation
Answering grief by grief.
Only the serpent in the dust
Wriggling and crawling,
Grinned an evil grin and ******
His tongue out with its fork.
13.4k
I sat beneath a willow tree,
Where water falls and calls;
While fancies upon fancies solaced me,
Some true, and some were false.
Who set their heart upon a hope
That never comes to pass,
Droop in the end like fading heliotrope,
The sun's wan looking-glass.
Who set their will upon a whim
Clung to through good and ill,
Are wrecked alike whether they sink or swim,
Or hit or miss their will.
All things are vain that wax and wane,
For which we waste our breath;
Love only doth not wane and is not vain,
Love only outlives death.
A singing lark rose toward the sky,
Circling he sang amain;
He sang, a speck scarce visible sky-high,
And then he sank again.
A second like a sunlit spark
Flashed singing up his track;
But never overtook that foremost lark,
And songless fluttered back.
A hovering melody of birds
Haunted the air above;
They clearly sang contentment without words,
And youth and joy and love.
O silvery weeping willow tree
With all leaves shivering,
Have you no purpose but to shadow me
Beside this rippled spring?
On this first fleeting day of Spring,
For Winter is gone by,
And every bird on every quivering wing
Floats in a sunny sky;
On this first Summer-like soft day,
While sunshine steeps the air,
And every cloud has gat itself away,
And birds sing everywhere.
Have you no purpose in the world
But thus to shadow me
With all your tender drooping twigs unfurled,
O weeping willow tree?
With all your tremulous leaves outspread
Betwixt me and the sun,
While here I loiter on a mossy bed
With half my work undone;
My work undone, that should be done
At once with all my might;
For after the long day and lingering sun
Comes the unworking night.
This day is lapsing on its way,
Is lapsing out of sight;
And after all the chances of the day
Comes the resourceless night.
The weeping-willow shook its head
And stretched its shadow long;
The west grew crimson, the sun smouldered red,
The birds forbore a song.
Slow wind sighed through the willow leaves,
The ripple made a moan,
The world drooped murmuring like a thing that grieves;
And then I felt alone.
I rose to go, and felt the chill,
And shivered as I went;
Yet shivering wondered, and I wonder still,
What more that willow meant;
That silvery weeping-willow tree
With all leaves shivering,
Which spent one long day overshadowing me
Beside a spring in Spring.
2.4k
Fear death?—to feel the fog in my throat,
The mist in my face,
When the snows begin, and the blasts denote
I am nearing the place,
The power of the night, the press of the storm,
The post of the foe;
Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form,
Yet the strong man must go:
For the journey is done and the summit attained,
And the barriers fall,
Though a battle’s to fight ere the guerdon be gained,
The reward of it all.
I was ever a fighter, so—one fight more,
The best and the last!
I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forbore,
And bade me creep past.
No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers
The heroes of old,
Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life’s arrears
Of pain, darkness and cold.
For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,
The black minute’s at end,
And the elements’ rage, the fiend-voices that rave,
Shall dwindle, shall blend,
Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain,
Then a light, then thy breast,
O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again,
And with God be the rest!
1.9k
VI
Go from me. Yet I feel that I shall stand
Henceforward in thy shadow. Nevermore
Alone upon the threshold of my door
Of individual life, I shall command
The uses of my soul, nor lift my hand
Serenely in the sunshine as before,
Without the sense of that which I forbore—
Thy touch upon the palm. The widest land
Doom takes to part us, leaves thy heart in mine
With pulses that beat double. What I do
And what I dream include thee, as the wine
Must taste of its own grapes. And when I sue
God for myself, He hears that name of thine,
And sees within my eyes the tears of two.
1.7k
Where has the time gone;
Why aren’t the days as long;
Where did all the laughter go;
Why do memories seem sweet from long ago,
Wherewith shorter time passed are not so?
Why did the dreams become so lecherous;
Where are the days that were adventurous;
Why has innocence lost its allure;
Where is the field of flowers so pure,
Why, nothing could give hope an aperture?
Where has the sunshine gone so bright;
Why has the moon forgotten my night;
Where has my innocence been taken;
Why must time left me forsaken,
Where a Dead Boy can never awaken?
Why do we yearn for a silent cry;
Where is the child with the spark his eye;
Why has all the magic died for me;
Where is the awe of curiosity,
Why has the world grown bleak to see?
Where can I find all I miss once more;
Why is it lost, so quickly been forbore;
Where comes that blissful echo;
Why is it so familiar, shall I never know,
Where it comes and the happiness it show?
Once passed, never to return;
Oh, how I wish to relearn,
And I try to see and feel,
I try to keep alive the unreal,
But with every day it slips further away,
As days cross over, closer to the Ferryman, and a penny to pay.
Jan 12, 2014
Jan 12, 2014 at 9:09 PM UTC
Over hill on a golden afternoon,
Down thro’ the wooden dales, where lights succumb,
Wondered when Stars wink at the Moon,
To shame the Sun and hearts benumb.
At last, the night! Alas
The peep of owls, so flash,
The squeal of ghosts, so brash,
And shadows gather mass.
Old whispers stir, unkind,
Through mist and hollow wind...
Avaunt! Wild beast deform’d…
In silence loud, the former praises sound.
Nola, lone, she forbore beneath the Stars,
With timeless strength on cold playground,
Glanced swiftly at their Wiles, and roars
Reverberate… While the storm
Came dancing in the frame of Flurry East,
When deep into her pools so brilliant, prowl
A chilling sight of restless beast,
Screaming, each on hill, sad jovial howl
At Moon, aboon the norm.
Premeditatio Malorum
Feb 11, 2025
Feb 11, 2025 at 10:02 AM UTC
He wanted to be minister
And pass laws quite sinister
But nobody would ever elect him.
So, he stood for the seat
And risked his defeat
And let all the people reject him.
But he was the very one
Who in the end won
When the opposition underestimated.
So, the county was undone
When the mountebank won
And the country ended up decimated.
The minister made a war
That was tried once before
And it came to a much worse end.
The country went broke
Except for any bloke
That could be called the minister’s friend.
As always is with war
The few that forbore
And stayed back home made billions.
They country suffered loss
And bore all of war’s cost.
But not so the minister’s minions.
The way politics plays out
Even when there is no doubt
And a minister is a total disaster.
The party he commanded then
Refused to abandon him
And used lies to help bear him out.
When the ruckus was done
The country was undone
But somehow the minister escaped jail.
It’s a sad tale to relate
That although he wasn’t great
His county ended up making his bail.
Apr 27, 2015
Apr 27, 2015 at 6:30 PM UTC