"wrapt" poems
How do you know that the pilgrim track
Along the belting zodiac
Swept by the sun in his seeming rounds
Is traced by now to the Fishes’ bounds
And into the Ram, when weeks of cloud
Have wrapt the sky in a clammy shroud,
And never as yet a tinct of spring
Has shown in the Earth’s apparelling;
O vespering bird, how do you know,
How do you know?
How do you know, deep underground,
Hid in your bed from sight and sound,
Without a turn in temperature,
With weather life can scarce endure,
That light has won a fraction’s strength,
And day put on some moments’ length,
Whereof in merest rote will come,
Weeks hence, mild airs that do not numb;
O crocus root, how do you know,
How do you know?
15.9k
Similiter et omnes revereantur Diaconos, ut
mandatum Jesu Christi; et Episcopum, ut Jesum
Christum, existentem filium Patris; Presbyteros
autem, ut concilium Dei et conjunctionem
Apostolorum. Sine his Ecclesia non vocatur; de
quibus suadeo vos sic habeo.
S. Ignatii Ad Trallianos.
And when this epistle is read among you, cause that
it be read also in the church of the Laodiceans.
The broad-backed hippopotamus
Rests on his belly in the mud;
Although he seems so firm to us
He is merely flesh and blood.
Flesh and blood is weak and frail,
Susceptible to nervous shock;
While the True Church can never fail
For it is based upon a rock.
The hippo’s feeble steps may err
In compassing material ends,
While the True Church need never stir
To gather in its dividends.
The ‘potamus can never reach
The mango on the mango-tree;
But fruits of pomegranate and peach
Refresh the Church from over sea.
At mating time the hippo’s voice
Betrays inflexions hoarse and odd,
But every week we hear rejoice
The Church, at being one with God.
The hippopotamus’s day
Is passed in sleep; at night he hunts;
God works in a mysterious way—
The Church can sleep and feed at once.
I saw the ‘potamus take wing
Ascending from the damp savannas,
And quiring angels round him sing
The praise of God, in loud hosannas.
Blood of the Lamb shall wash him clean
And him shall heavenly arms enfold,
Among the saints he shall be seen
Performing on a harp of gold.
He shall be washed as white as snow,
By all the martyr’d virgins kist,
While the True Church remains below
Wrapt in the old miasmal mist.
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The roses of Love glad the garden of life,
Though nurtur’d ’mid weeds dropping pestilent dew,
Till Time crops the leaves with unmerciful knife,
Or prunes them for ever, in Love’s last adieu!
In vain, with endearments, we soothe the sad heart,
In vain do we vow for an age to be true;
The chance of an hour may command us to part,
Or Death disunite us, in Love’s last adieu!
Still Hope, breathing peace, through the grief-swollen breast,
Will whisper, “Our meeting we yet may renew:”
With this dream of deceit, half our sorrow’s represt,
Nor taste we the poison, of Love’s last adieu!
Oh! mark you yon pair, in the sunshine of youth,
Love twin’d round their childhood his flow’rs as they grew;
They flourish awhile, in the season of truth,
Till chill’d by the winter of Love’s last adieu!
Sweet lady! why thus doth a tear steal its way,
Down a cheek which outrivals thy ***** in hue?
Yet why do I ask?—to distraction a prey,
Thy reason has perish’d, with Love’s last adieu!
Oh! who is yon Misanthrope, shunning mankind?
From cities to caves of the forest he flew:
There, raving, he howls his complaint to the wind;
The mountains reverberate Love’s last adieu!
Now Hate rules a heart which in Love’s easy chains,
Once Passion’s tumultuous blandishments knew;
Despair now inflames the dark tide of his veins,
He ponders, in frenzy, on Love’s last adieu!
How he envies the wretch, with a soul wrapt in steel!
His pleasures are scarce, yet his troubles are few,
Who laughs at the pang that he never can feel,
And dreads not the anguish of Love’s last adieu!
Youth flies, life decays, even hope is o’ercast;
No more, with Love’s former devotion, we sue:
He spreads his young wing, he retires with the blast;
The shroud of affection is Love’s last adieu!
In this life of probation, for rapture divine,
Astrea declares that some penance is due;
From him, who has worshipp’d at Love’s gentle shrine,
The atonement is ample, in Love’s last adieu!
Who kneels to the God, on his altar of light
Must myrtle and cypress alternately strew:
His myrtle, an emblem of purest delight,
His cypress, the garland of Love’s last adieu!
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Pillowy clouds sheet the sidewalk
And sew the hue of rain. In patches
A beautiful blanket - transparent and grey.
All wrapt round, her ruffled bleached flax
All over her lambent crossed legs.
In her hand is an open bag
Of Classic, Potato Chip, Lays.
They taste so sweet,
The sharp salty flakes,
As she breaks them tongue and teeth.
She sits with glossy sunflower lips.
Swaying her hair with a turn and a twist.
Letting the breeze direct cerulean eyes.
Following linear passersby.
And taking a chip from her bag,
Into her mouth,
She feels the time drag.
Mar 2, 2011
Mar 2, 2011 at 1:56 PM UTC
Spot of my youth! whose hoary branches sigh,
Swept by the breeze that fans thy cloudless sky;
Where now alone I muse, who oft have trod,
With those I loved, thy soft and verdant sod;
With those who, scatter’d far, perchance deplore,
Like me, the happy scenes they knew before:
Oh! as I trace again thy winding hill,
Mine eyes admire, my heart adores thee still,
Thou drooping Elm! beneath whose boughs I lay,
And frequent mus’d the twilight hours away;
Where, as they once were wont, my limbs recline,
But, ah! without the thoughts which then were mine:
How do thy branches, moaning to the blast,
Invite the ***** to recall the past,
And seem to whisper, as they gently swell,
“Take, while thou canst, a lingering, last farewell!”
When Fate shall chill, at length, this fever’d breast,
And calm its cares and passions into rest,
Oft have I thought, ’twould soothe my dying hour,—
If aught may soothe, when Life resigns her power,—
To know some humbler grave, some narrow cell,
Would hide my ***** where it lov’d to dwell;
With this fond dream, methinks ’twere sweet to die—
And here it linger’d, here my heart might lie;
Here might I sleep where all my hopes arose,
Scene of my youth, and couch of my repose;
For ever stretch’d beneath this mantling shade,
Press’d by the turf where once my childhood play’d;
Wrapt by the soil that veils the spot I lov’d,
Mix’d with the earth o’er which my footsteps mov’d;
Blest by the tongues that charm’d my youthful ear,
Mourn’d by the few my soul acknowledged here;
Deplor’d by those in early days allied,
And unremember’d by the world beside.
2.2k
Take the dead Christ to my chamber,
The Christ I brought from Rome;
Over all the tossing ocean,
He has reached his western home;
Bear him as in procession,
And lay him solemnly
Where, through weary night and morning,
He shall bear me company.
The name I bear is other
Than that I bore by birth,
And I've given life to children
Who'll grow and dwell on earth;
But the time comes swiftly towards me
(Nor do I bid it stay),
When the dead Christ will be more to me
Than all I hold to-day.
Lay the dead Christ beside me,
Oh, press him on my heart,
I would hold him long and painfully
Till the weary tears should start;
Till the divine contagion
Heal me of self and sin,
And the cold weight press wholly down
The pulse that chokes within.
Reproof and frost, they fret me,
Towards the free, the sunny lands,
From the chaos of existence
I stretch these feeble hands;
And, penitential, kneeling,
Pray God would not be wroth,
Who gave not the strength of feeling,
And strength of labor both.
Thou'rt but a wooden carving,
Defaced of worms, and old;
Yet more to me thou couldst not be
Wert thou all wrapt in gold,
Like the gem-bedizened baby
Which, at the Twelth-day noon,
They show from the Ara Coeli's steps,
To a merry dancing tune.
I ask of thee no wonders,
No changing white or red;
I dream not thou art living,
I love and prize thee dead.
That salutary deadness
I seek, through want and pain,
From which God's own high power can bid
Our virtue rise again.
1.9k
There was a time when I was sane
when I used to walk among daffodils.
When they used to open up and sing
their unadorned song from hill to hill.
There was a time when I was sane
when the trees used to sway
and the leaves used to rustle
just to lay their flowers in my way.
When I was sane,the eagles
from their eyries,used to fly high
and block the sun with their wings.
Just so it wouldn't be in my eyes.
The clouds would come at my call.
And the rain would fall only for me.
The diamond drops would break
and bedeck the ground at my feet.
Looking at the night sky,
at the star studded lanes,
I would see the moon smile at me
and know that I was sane.
I used to create new worlds
with living words from my pen.
Full of marvels they used to be.
But that was all then...
Wrapt I was in fantasy
while the world moved on.
It has moved away from me
while,impassive,I looked on.
People said I was not sane,
told me that where I lived
there were no daffodils;
No promise in how I lived.
Now that I'm cured,I see
that I'd been but a fool
who believed Horton really lived
in the Jungle of Nool.
No magic rings in reality.
No wonderland or wicked witches.
No Elves nor dragons.
Not even Quidditch and snitches.
Now cured,I see reason.
The flowers never did sing.
Nor did any eagle fly for me.
Reason came but relief did not bring.
All those words I created,
All those worlds I cherished,
All too soon yea all too soon
All have but perished.
Now I see people toiling away
in richness,poverty and ignorance.
I see children bent with age;
In their eyes,everything but innocence.
Reluctantly now moves my pen
as I try to make new worlds.
Stringing letters together it desponds.
As lacking life,they are but words.
Everything used to be wonderful
when I knew I was sane.
Now that I've seen reality,
I know I must be insane.
Oct 18, 2013
Oct 18, 2013 at 10:52 AM UTC
After all pleasures as I rid one day,
My horse and I, both tired, body and mind,
With full cry of affections, quite astray;
I took up the next inn I could find.
There when I came, whom found I but my dear,
My dearest Lord, expecting till the grief
Of pleasures brought me to Him, ready there
To be all passengers’ most sweet relief?
Oh Thou, whose glorious, yet contracted light,
Wrapt in night’s mantle, stole into a manger;
Since my dark soul and brutish is Thy right,
To man of all beasts be not Thou a stranger:
Furnish and deck my soul, that Thou mayst have
A better lodging, than a rack, or grave.
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Old Yew, which graspest at the stones
That name the under-lying dead,
Thy fibres net the dreamless head,
Thy roots are wrapt about the bones.
The seasons bring the flower again,
And bring the firstling to the flock;
And in the dusk of thee, the clock
Beats out the little lives of men.
O not for thee the glow, the bloom,
Who changest not in any gale,
Nor branding summer suns avail
To touch thy thousand years of gloom:
And gazing on thee, sullen tree,
Sick for thy stubborn hardihood,
I seem to fail from out my blood
And grow incorporate into thee.
1.6k
Oh drat! Oh heck!
The paper just got wrapped
around my printers neck!
"I'm guilty M'lord."
I have to say.
For I kept it plugged in
when I boxed it away.
But counsel speaks!
There are, it seems,
rare mitigating circumstances!
I listen wrapt and all confused.
Not fancying my chances.
He proceeds to eulogise my life.
And makes such a meal of my piteous tale,
that I intevene and plead with the judge
to please stop the trial and throw me in jail!
Oct 2, 2010
Oct 2, 2010 at 12:31 PM UTC
Old Yew, which graspest at the stones
That name the under-lying dead,
Thy fibres net the dreamless head,
Thy roots are wrapt about the bones.
The seasons bring the flower again,
And bring the firstling to the flock;
And in the dusk of thee, the clock
Beats out the little lives of men.
O not for thee the glow, the bloom,
Who changest not in any gale,
Nor branding summer suns avail
To touch thy thousand years of gloom:
And gazing on thee, sullen tree,
Sick for thy stubborn hardihood,
I seem to fail from out my blood
And grow incorporate into thee.
1.4k
tin cup flowers
and cars slurring by
a broken man touch the earth,
sad bandana wrapt around his hand,
God gives him road.
the dirt believes in what his hand reminds
i feel the moon,
and taste the sky.
you're wind in the washboard,
swallows dipped in silver and *** sweep in and out of-
sparrows sparkling and-
kicking stones to the side.
********* pockets.
i fell off the whole universe just for a moment.
no apologies
Dec 31, 2012
Dec 31, 2012 at 2:23 PM UTC
Thrilled, wrapt, beguiled,
bruised, broken, lost,
tempest toss’d
or star-sky smitten,
it’s your heart we love alone
even if it feels so,
you never are x
Feb 14, 2022
Feb 14, 2022 at 5:30 AM UTC
The path by which we twain did go,
Which led by tracts that pleased us well,
Thro' four sweet years arose and fell,
From flower to flower, from snow to snow:
And we with singing cheer'd the way,
And, crown'd with all the season lent,
From April on to April went,
And glad at heart from May to May:
But where the path we walk'd began
To slant the fifth autumnal slope,
As we descended following Hope,
There sat the Shadow fear'd of man;
Who broke our fair companionship,
And spread his mantle dark and cold,
And wrapt thee formless in the fold,
And dull'd the murmur on thy lip,
And bore thee where I could not see
Nor follow, tho' I walk in haste,
And think, that somewhere in the waste
The Shadow sits and waits for me.
1.3k
Away you go paper plane,
Bring my presence to her.
Wrapt in this missive is pain
In each my mile goest my sane.
Travel safe my love,
Every inside contains pathos.
Health thy wings spread free,
And let winds take you to her with glee.
I do not know your return,
Or would you ever shalt be.
If ever you return a reply,
I'll be here waiting for your paper to fly.
Feb 12, 2015
Feb 12, 2015 at 11:45 AM UTC
all the lines drawn down your arms-
the skin on your lips
desperate and parted for pine-needles and paper-dolls,
tear me around you
pass up opportunities in favor of numbness
shuffle around me like the wet stones under your feet,
you barefoot rain catcher-
moody making idols from chewing gum and string-
we've got you.
you've showed me the flesh under your fingernails
and we've got you pinned.
you scrape out paint from cracks in your hands under a two-skinned sun
and you're burning.
burning like a furnace full of hand-made nails-
like a black-tar roof-
like a ***** wrapt up in hot white sheets
what of it then,
your head, your hands, your hair in your face-
what of it for the fire that
need not, know not, will not what you want,
we will not
we.
rain in the shame of me
she ran after me
she drilled small pilot holes in my rib-cage and left me to fall asleep on the floor
Jul 14, 2013
Jul 14, 2013 at 11:46 AM UTC