Columbia Granger's World of Poetry - Featured Poems

Nocturne at Bethesda by Arna Bontemps

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 23:27:47 -0500

     I thought I saw an angel flying low, 
    
     I thought I saw the flicker of a wing 
    
     Above the mulberry trees; but not again. 
    
     Bethesda sleeps. This ancient pool that healed 
    
     A host of bearded Jews does not awake.

     This pool that once the angels troubled does not move 
    
     No angel stirs it now, no Saviour comes 
    
     With healing in His hands to raise the sick 
    
     And bid the lame man leap upon the ground.

     The golden days are gone. Why do we wait 
    
     So long upon the marble steps, blood 
    
     Falling from our open wounds? and why 
    
     Do our black faces search the empty sky? 
    
     Is there something we have forgotten? some precious thing 
    
     We have lost, wandering in strange lands?

     There was a day, I remember now, 
    
     I beat my breast and cried, “Wash me God, 
    
     Wash me with a wave of wind upon 
    
     The barley; O quiet One, draw near, draw near! 
    
     Walk upon the hills with lovely feet 
    
     And in the waterfall stand and speak.

     “Dip white hands in the lily pool and mourn 
    
     Upon the harps still hanging in the trees 
    
     Near Babylon along the river's edge, 
    
     But oh, remember me, I pray, before 
    
     The summer goes and rose leaves lose their red.”

     The old terror takes my heart, the fear 
    
     Of quiet waters and of faint twilights. 
    
     There will be better days when I am gone 
    
     And healing pools where I cannot be healed. 
    
     Fragrant stars will gleam forever and ever 
    
     Above the place where I lie desolate.

     Yet I hope, still I long to live. 
    
     And if there can be returning after death 
    
     I shall come back. But it will not be here; 
    
     If you want me you must search for me 
    
     Beneath the palms of Africa. Or if 
    
     I am not there then you may call to me 
    
     Across the shining dunes, perhaps I shall 
    
     Be following a desert caravan.

     I may pass through centuries of death 
    
     With quiet eyes, but I'll remember still 
    
     A jungle tree with burning scarlet birds. 
    
     There is something I have forgotten, some precious thing. 
    
     I shall be seeking ornaments of ivory, 
    
     I shall be dying for a jungle fruit. 
    
     You do not hear, Bethesda. 
    
     O still green water in a stagnant pool! 
    
     Love abandoned you and me alike. 
    
     There was a day you held a rich full moon 
    
     Upon your heart and listened to the words 
    
     Of men now dead and saw the angels fly. 
    
     There is a simple story on your face; 
    
     Years have wrinkled you. I know, Bethesda! 
    
     You are sad. It is the same with me.

Lift Every [or Ev'ry] Voice and Sing by James Weldon Johnson

Tue, 21 Feb 2012 23:27:48 -0500

     Lift every voice and sing 
    
     Till earth and heaven ring, 
    
     Ring with the harmonies of Liberty; 
    
     Let our rejoicing rise 
    
     High as the listening skies, 
    
     Let it resound loud as the rolling sea. 
    
     Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us, 
    
     Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us, 
    
     Facing the rising sun of our new day begun 
    
     Let us march on till victory is won.

     Stony the road we trod, 
    
     Bitter the chastening rod, 
    
     Felt in the days when hope unborn had died; 
    
     Yet with a steady beat, 
    
     Have not our weary feet 
    
     Come to the place for which our fathers sighed? 
    
     We have come over a way that with tears has been watered, 
    
     We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered, 
    
     Out from the gloomy past, 
    
     Till now we stand at last 
    
     Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.

     God of our weary years, 
    
     God of our silent tears, 
    
     Thou who has brought us thus far on the way; 
    
     Thou who has by Thy might 
    
     Led us into the light, 
    
     Keep us forever in the path, we pray. 
    
     Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee, 
    
     Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee; 
    
     Shadowed beneath Thy hand, 
    
     May we forever stand. 
    
     True to our God, 
    
     True to our native land.

Dark Symphony by Melvin B. Tolson

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 23:27:48 -0500

     Black Crispus Attucks taught 
    
     Us how to die 
    
     Before white Patrick Henry's bugle breath 
    
     Uttered the vertical 
    
     Transmitting cry: 
    
     “Yea, give me liberty or give me death.”

     Waifs of the auction block, 
    
     Men black and strong 
    
     The juggernauts of despotism withstood, 
    
     Loin-girt with faith that worms 
    
     Equate the wrong 
    
     And dust is purged to create brotherhood.

     No Banquo's ghost can rise 
    
     Against us now, 
    
     Aver we hobnailed Man beneath the brute, 
    
     Squeezed down the thorns of greed 
    
     On Labor's brow, 
    
     Garroted lands and carted off the loot.

     The centuries-old pathos in our voices 
    
     Saddens the great white world, 
    
     And the wizardry of our dusky rhythms 
    
     Conjures up shadow-shapes of ante-bellum years:

     Black slaves singing  
    
     One More River to Cross 
    
     In the torture tombs of slave-ships, 
    
     Black slaves singing  
    
     Steal Away to Jesus 
    
     In jungle swamps, 
    
     Black slaves singing  
    
     The Crucifixion 
    
     In slave-pens at midnight, 
    
     Black slaves singing  
    
     Swing Low, Sweet Chariot 
    
     In cabins of death, 
    
     Black slaves singing  
    
     Go Down, Moses 
    
     In the canebrakes of the Southern Pharaohs.

     They tell us to forget 
    
     The Golgotha we tread . . . 
    
     We who are scourged with hate, 
    
     A price upon our head. 
    
     They who have shackled us 
    
     Require of us a song, 
    
     They who have wasted us 
    
     Bid us condone the wrong.

     They tell us to forget 
    
     Democracy is spurned. 
    
     They tell us to forget 
    
     The Bill of Rights is burned. 
    
     Three hundred years we slaved, 
    
     We slave and suffer yet: 
    
     Though flesh and bone rebel, 
    
     They tell us to forget!

     Oh, how can we forget 
    
     Our human rights denied? 
    
     Oh, how can we forget 
    
     Our manhood crucified? 
    
     When Justice is profaned 
    
     And plea with curse is met, 
    
     When Freedom's gates are barred, 
    
     Oh, how can we forget?

     The New Negro strides upon the continent 
    
     In seven-league boots . . . 
    
     The New Negro 
    
     Who sprang from the vigor-stout loins 
    
     Of Nat Turner, gallows-martyr for Freedom, 
    
     Of Joseph Cinquez, Black Moses of the Amistad Mutiny, 
    
     Of Frederick Douglass, oracle of the Catholic Man, 
    
     Of Sojourner Truth, eye and ear of Lincoln's legions, 
    
     Of Harriet Tubman, Saint Bernard of the Underground Railroad.

     The New Negro 
    
     Breaks the icons of his detractors, 
    
     Wipes out the conspiracy of silence, 
    
     Speaks to  
    
     his 
    
     America: 
    
     “My history-moulding ancestors 
    
     Planted the first crops of wheat on these shores, 
    
     Built ships to conquer the seven seas, 
    
     Erected the Cotton Empire, 
    
     Flung railroads across a hemisphere, 
    
     Disemboweled the earth's iron and coal, 
    
     Tunneled the mountains and bridged rivers, 
    
     Harvested the grain and hewed forests, 
    
     Sentineled the Thirteen Colonies, 
    
     Unfurled Old Glory at the North Pole, 
    
     Fought a hundred battles for the Republic.”

     The New Negro: 
    
     His giant hands fling murals upon high chambers, 
    
     His drama teaches a world to laugh and weep, 
    
     His voice thunders the Brotherhood of Labor, 
    
     His science creates seven wonders, 
    
     His Republic of Letters challenges the Negro-baiters.

     The New Negro, 
    
     Hard-muscled, Fascist-hating, Democracy-ensouled, 
    
     Strides in seven-league boots 
    
     Along the Highway of Today 
    
     Toward the Promised Land of Tomorrow!

     None in the Land can say 
    
     To us black men Today: 
    
     You send the tractors on their bloody path, 
    
     And create Okies for  
    
     The Grapes of Wrath 
    
    . 
    
     You breed the slum that breeds a  
    
     Native Son 
    
     To damn the good earth Pilgrim Fathers won.

     None in the Land can say 
    
     To us black men Today: 
    
     You dupe the poor with rags-to-riches tales, 
    
     And leave the workers empty dinner pails. 
    
     You stuff the ballot box, and honest men 
    
     Are muzzled by your demagogic din.

     None in the Land can say 
    
     To us black men Today: 
    
     You smash stock markets with your coined blitzkriegs, 
    
     And make a hundred million guinea pigs. 
    
     You counterfeit our Christianity, 
    
     And bring contempt upon Democracy.

     None in the Land can say 
    
     To us black men Today: 
    
     You prowl when citizens are fast asleep, 
    
     And hatch Fifth Column plots to blast the deep 
    
     Foundations of the State and leave the Land 
    
     A vast Sahara with a Fascist brand.

     Out of abysses of Illiteracy, 
    
     Through labyrinths of Lies, 
    
     Across waste lands of Disease . . . 
    
     We advance!

     Out of dead-ends of Poverty, 
    
     Through wildernesses of Superstition, 
    
     Across barricades of Jim Crowism . . . 
    
     We advance!

With the Peoples of the World . . .

We advance!

Of Robert Frost by Gwendolyn Brooks

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 23:27:48 -0500

    There is a little lightning in his eyes.
    
    Iron at the mouth.
    
    His brows ride neither too far up nor down.

Sympathy by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 23:27:48 -0500

    I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
    
    When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
    
    When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
    
    And the river flows like a stream of glass;
    
    When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
    
    And the faint perfume from its chalice steals--
    
    I know what the caged bird feels!

    I know why the caged bird beats his wing
    
    Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
    
    For he must fly back to his perch and cling
    
    When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
    
    And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
    
    And they pulse again with a keener sting--
    
    I know why he beats his wing!

    I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
    
    When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,--
    
    When he beats his bars and he would be free;

    It is not a  carol of joy or glee,
    
    But a  prayer that he sends from his  heart's deep core,
    
    But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings--
    
    I know why the caged bird sings!

Amour by Georgia Douglas Johnson

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 23:27:48 -0500

     Kiss me! 
    
     And let the hours bloom triumphantly 
    
     Before life's little sun has set 
    
     And I am old.

     Love me! 
    
     The day is fleet 
    
     And I … 
    
     Am far too passionate 
    
     To die!

Song of the Son by Jean Toomer

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 23:27:48 -0500

     Pour O pour that parting soul in song, 
    
     O pour it in the sawdust glow of night, 
    
     Into the velvet pine-smoke air to-night, 
    
     And let the valley carry it along. 
    
     And let the valley carry it along.

     O land and soil, red soil and sweet-gum tree, 
    
     So scant of grass, so profligate of pines, 
    
     Now just before an epoch's sun declines, 
    
     Thy son, in time, I have returned to thee, 
    
     Thy son, I have in time returned to thee.

     In time, for though the sun is setting on 
    
     A song-lit race of slaves, it has not set; 
    
     Though late, O soil, it is not too late yet 
    
     To catch thy plaintive soul, leaving, soon gone, 
    
     Leaving, to catch thy plaintive soul soon gone.

     O Negro slaves, dark purple ripened plums, 
    
     Squeezed, and bursting in the pine-wood air, 
    
     Passing, before they stripped the old tree bare 
    
     One plum was saved for me, one seed becomes

     An everlasting song, a singing tree, 
    
     Caroling softly souls of slavery, 
    
     What they were, and what they are to me, 
    
     Caroling softly souls of slavery.

Yet Do I Marvel by Countee Cullen

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 23:27:48 -0500

     I doubt not God is good, well-meaning, kind, 
    
     And did He stoop to quibble could tell why 
    
     The little buried mole continues blind, 
    
     Why flesh that mirrors Him must some day die, 
    
     Make plain the reason tortured Tantalus 
    
     Is baited by the fickle fruit, declare 
    
     If merely brute caprice dooms Sisyphus 
    
     To struggle up a never-ending stair. 
    
     Inscrutable His ways are, and immune 
    
     To catechism by a mind too strewn 
    
     With petty cares to slightly understand 
    
     What awful brain compels His awful hand. 
    
     Yet do I marvel at this curious thing: 
    
     To make a poet black, and bid him sing.

Here's a valentine nosegay for Mary by John Clare

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 23:27:48 -0500

     Here's a valentine nosegay for Mary, 
    
      Some of springs early flowers; 
    
     The ivy is green by the dairy, 
    
      And so are these laurels of ours.— 
    
     Though the snow fell so deep, and the winter was dreary, 
    
     The laurels are green, and the sparrows are cheery.

     The snowdrops in bunches grow under the rose; 
    
      And aconites under the lilac like fairies; 
    
     The best in the bunches for Mary I chose;— 
    
      Their looks are as sweet, and as simple as Mary's; 
    
     The one will make spring, in my verses so bare, 
    
     The other will set off, and braid thy dark hair.

     Red primroses too, at the old parlour end, 
    
      Have bloom'd all the winter, ‘mid’ snow's cold and dreary, 
    
     Where the lavender cotton kept off the cold wind 
    
      Now to shine in my Valentine nosegay for Mary. 
    
     And shine in my verses all summer and be, 
    
     A memento of fondness, and friendship for thee.

     Here's the crocus half opened, that spreads into gold; 
    
      Like branches of sunbeams left there by a fairy, 
    
     I pluck them as such, in these verses so cold, 
    
      But they'l bloom twice as bright, in the presence of Mary. 
    
     These garden flowers cropt, I will go to the fields, 
    
     And see what the valleys and pasture land yields.

     Here's the pale primrose, on the skirts of the wild wood, 
    
      And violet blue, 'neath the thorn on the green: 
    
     The wild flowers we pluck't, in the days of our childhood, 
    
      On the very same spot, as no changes had been! 
    
     In the very same place, where the sun kiss'd the leaves, 
    
     And the woodbine its branches, with thorns interweaves.

     And here in the pasture all swarming with rushes, 
    
      Is a cowslip, as blooming and forward as spring, 
    
     And the pilewort like sunshine, glows under the bushes 
    
      While the chaffinch there sitting is trying to sing. 
    
     And the daisies are comeing, called ‘stars of the earth’; 
    
     To bring to the school-boy his spring time of mirth.

     Here is the nosegay—how simple it shines, 
    
      It speaks without words, to the ear and the eye: 
    
     The flowers of the spring, are the best Valentines, 
    
      They are young, fair, and simple, and pleasingly shy. 
    
     That you may remain so, and ne'er act contrary, 
    
     I send you these flowers, as a Valentine Mary.

Poet, The by Paul Laurence Dunbar

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 23:27:48 -0500

    He sang of life, serenely sweet,
    
        With, now and then, a deeper note.
    
        From some high peak, nigh yet remote,
    
    He voiced the world's absorbing beat.

    He sang of love when earth was young,
    
        And Love, itself, was in his lays.
    
        But ah, the world, it turned to praise
    
    A jingle in a broken tongue.

From the Dark Tower by Countee Cullen

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 23:27:48 -0500

     We shall not always plant while others reap 
    
     The golden increment of bursting fruit, 
    
     Not always countenance, abject and mute, 
    
     That lesser men should hold their brothers cheap; 
    
     Not everlastingly while others sleep 
    
     Shall we beguile their limbs with mellow flute, 
    
     Not always bend to some more subtle brute; 
    
     We were not made eternally to weep.

     The night whose sable breast relieves the stark, 
    
     White stars is no less lovely being dark, 
    
     And there are buds that cannot bloom at all 
    
     In light, but crumple, piteous, and fall; 
    
     So in the dark we hide the heart that bleeds, 
    
     And wait, and tend our agonizing seeds.

If We Must Die by Claude McKay

Sat, 11 Feb 2012 23:27:48 -0500

     If we must die, let it not be like hogs 
    
     Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot, 
    
     While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs, 
    
     Making their mock at our accursed lot. 
    
     If we must die, O let us nobly die, 
    
     So that our precious blood may not be shed 
    
     In vain; then even the monsters we defy 
    
     Shall be constrained to honor us though dead! 
    
     O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe! 
    
     Though far outnumbered let us show us brave, 
    
     And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow! 
    
     What though before us lies the open grave? 
    
     Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack, 
    
     Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

Noisy Joys of Thoughtless Years are Spent, The by Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 23:27:48 -0500

      The noisy joys of thoughtless years are spent; 
    
     And all, like head confused with drink, is dulled. 
    
     But, as with wine, the woe of days gone by 
    
     With force more strong than newer woe torments. 
    
     A dreary path before me lies. Fresh toils 
    
     To drown me in a sea of trouble threat.

      And yet, dear friends of youth, I would not die! 
    
     I wish to live, that I may muse and toil; 
    
     I feel that joy shall mingle with my woe, 
    
     Relieve my care, and heal my doubtings sad 
    
     Once more, I'll drink the cup of harmony, 
    
     And drown my thoughts in flood of soothing tears; 
    
     And, haply, in the setting hour of life 
    
     Love's farewell smile shall lighten up the dark.

After a Storm by Amy Lowell

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 23:27:48 -0500

     You walk under the ice trees. 
    
     They sway, and crackle, 
    
     And arch themselves splendidly 
    
     To deck your going. 
    
     The white sun flips them into colour 
    
     Before you. 
    
     They are blue, 
    
     And mauve, 
    
     And emerald. 
    
     They are amber, 
    
     And jade, 
    
     And sardonyx. 
    
     They are silver fretted to flame 
    
     And startled to stillness, 
    
     Bunched, splintered, iridescent. 
    
     You walk under the ice trees 
    
     And the bright snow creaks as you step upon it. 
    
     My dogs leap about you, 
    
     And their barking strikes upon the air 
    
     Like sharp hammer-strokes on metal. 
    
     You walk under the ice trees 
    
     But you are more dazzling than the ice flowers, 
    
     And the dogs' barking 
    
     Is not so loud to me as your quietness.

You walk under the ice trees

At ten o'clock in the morning.

Sense of Place, A by Billy Collins

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 23:27:48 -0500

     If things had happened differently, 
    
     Maine or upper Michigan 
    
     might have given me a sense of place—

a topic that now consumes 87%

of all commentary on American literature.

I might have run naked by a bayou

or been beaten near a shrouded cove on a coastline.

     Arizona could have raised me. 
    
     Even New York's Westchester County 
    
     with its stone walls scurrying up into the woods 
    
     could have been the spot to drop a couple of roots.

     But as it is, the only thing that gives me 
    
     a sense of place is this upholstered chair 
    
     with its dark brown covers, 
    
     angled into a room near a corner window.

     I am the native son of only this wingback seat 
    
     standing dutifully on four squat legs, 
    
     its two arms open in welcome,

     illuminated by a swan-neck lamp 
    
     and accompanied by a dog-like hassock, 
    
     the closest thing a chair has to a pet.

     This is my landscape— 
    
     a tobacco-colored room, 
    
     the ceiling with its river-like crack, 
    
     the pond of a mirror on one wall 
    
     a pen and ink drawing of a snarling fish on another.

     And behind me, a long porch 
    
     from which the sky may be viewed. 
    
     sometimes stippled with high clouds, 
    
     and crossed now and then by a passing bird— 
    
     little courier with someplace to go—

     other days crowded with thunderheads, 
    
     the light turning an alarming green, 
    
     the air stirred by the nostrils of apocalyptic horses, 
    
     and me slumped in my chair, my back to it all. 
    
     From Poetry Magazine, Vol. 186, no. 4, July/August 2005. Used with permission.

Afternoon in February by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 23:27:48 -0500

     The day is ending, 
    
     The night is descending; 
    
     The marsh is frozen, 
    
      The river dead.

     Through clouds like ashes, 
    
     The red sun flashes 
    
     On village windows 
    
      That glimmer red.

     The snow recommences; 
    
     The buried fences 
    
     Mark no longer 
    
      The road o'er the plain;

     While through the meadows, 
    
     Like fearful shadows, 
    
     Slowly passes 
    
      A funeral train.

     The bell is pealing, 
    
     And every feeling 
    
     Within me responds 
    
      To the dismal knell;

     Shadows are trailing, 
    
     My heart is bewailing 
    
     And tolling within 
    
      Like a funeral bell.

Hero Feels the Shaft of Love by Christopher Marlowe

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 23:27:48 -0500

    "Gentle youth, forbear
    
    To touch the sacred garments which I wear.
    
    Upon a rock, and underneath a hill,
    
    Far from the town (where all is whist and still,
    
    Save that the sea playing on yellow sand,
    
    Sends forth a rattling murmur to the land,
    
    Whose sound allures the golden Morpheus
    
    In silence of the night to visit us)
    
    My turret stands, and there God knows I play
    
    With Venus' swans and sparrows all the day.
    
    A dwarfish beldame bears me company,
    
    That hops about the chamber where I lie,
    
    And spends the night (that might be better spent)
    
    In vain discourse, and apish merriment.
    
    Come thither.' As she spake this, her tongue tripped,
    
    For unawares "Come thither' from her slipped,
    
    And suddenly her former colour changed,
    
    And here and there her eyes through anger ranged.
    
    And like a planet, moving several ways,
    
    At one self instant, she poor soul assays,
    
    Loving, not to love at all, and every part
    
    Strove to resist the motions of her heart.
    
    And hands so pure, so innocent, nay such,
    
    As might have made heaven stoop to have a touch,
    
    Did she uphold to Venus, and again
    
    Vowed spotless chastity, but all in vain.
    
    Cupid beats down her prayers with his wings,
    
    His vows above the empty air he flings:
    
    All deep enraged, his sinewy bow he bent,
    
    And shot a shaft that burning from him went,
    
    Wherewith she strooken looked so dolefully,
    
    As made Love sigh, to see his tyranny.
    
    And as she wept, her tears to pearl he turned,
    
    And wound them on his arm, and for her mourned.

Harlem Dancer, The by Claude McKay

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 23:27:48 -0500

     Applauding youths laughed with young prostitutes 
    
     And watched her perfect, half-clothed body sway; 
    
     Her voice was like the sound of blended flutes 
    
     Blown by black players upon a picnic day. 
    
     She sang and danced on gracefully and calm, 
    
     The light gauze hanging loose about her form; 
    
     To me she seemed a proudly-swaying palm 
    
     Grown lovelier for passing through a storm. 
    
     Upon her swarthy neck black, shiny curls 
    
     Profusely fell; and, tossing coins in praise, 
    
     The wine-flushed, bold-eyed boys, and even the girls, 
    
     Devoured her with their eager, passionate gaze; 
    
     But, looking at her falsely-smiling face 
    
     I knew her self was not in that strange place.

Afro-American Fragment by Langston Hughes

Sat, 04 Feb 2012 23:27:48 -0500

     So long, 
    
     So far away 
    
     Is Africa. 
    
     Not even memories alive 
    
     Save those that history books create, 
    
     Save those that songs 
    
     Beat back into the blood— 
    
     Beat out of blood with words sad-sung 
    
     In strange un-Negro tongue— 
    
     So long, 
    
     So far away 
    
     Is Africa.

     Subdued and time-lost 
    
     Are the drums—and yet 
    
     Through some vast mist of race 
    
     There comes this song 
    
     I do not understand, 
    
     This song of atavistic land, 
    
     Of bitter yearnings lost 
    
     Without a place— 
    
     So long, 
    
     So far away 
    
     Is Africa's 
    
     Dark face.

Cézanne by Gertrude Stein

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 23:27:48 -0500

The Irish lady can say, that to-day is every day. Caesar can say that every day is to-day and they say that every day is as they say.

In this way we have a place to stay and he was not met because he was settled to stay. When I said settled I meant settled to stay. When I said settled to stay I meant settled to stay Saturday. In this way a mouth is a mouth. In this way if in as a mouth if in as a mouth where, if in as a mouth where and there. Believe they have water too. Believe they have that water too and blue when you see blue, is all blue precious too, is all that that is precious too is all that and they meant to absolve you. In this way Cezanne nearly did nearly in this way Cezanne nearly did nearly did and nearly did. And was I surprised. Was I very surprised. Was I surprised. I was surprised and in that patient, are you patient when you find bees. Bees in a garden make a specialty of honey and so does honey. Honey and prayer. Honey and there. There where the grass can grow nearly four times yearly.

I would in that sweet bosom be by James Joyce

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 23:27:48 -0500

    I would in that sweet bosom be
    
    (O sweet it is and fair it is!)
    
    Where no rude wind might visit me.
    
    Because of sad austerities
    
    I would in that sweet bosom be.

    I would be ever in that heart
    
    (O soft I knock and soft entreat her!)
    
    Where only peace might be my part.
    
    Austerities were all the sweeter
    
    So I were ever in that heart.

On Being Brought from Africa to America by Phillis Wheatley

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 23:27:48 -0500

    'Twas  mercy brought me from my Pagan land, 
    
     Taught my benighted soul to understand
    
    That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too:
    
    Once I  redemption neither sought nor knew. 
    
    Some view our sable race with scornful eye, 
    
    "Their  color is a diabolic die." 
    
    Remember, Christians,  Negroes, black as Cain, 
    
    May be refin'd, and  join th' angelic train.