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'Tis so appalling—it exhilarates—
So over Horror, it half Captivates—
The Soul stares after it, secure—
A Sepulchre, fears frost, no more—
To scan a Ghost, is faint—
But grappling, conquers it—
How easy, Torment, now—
......
from Memories of President Lincoln
1
When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd,
And the great star early droop'd in the western sky in the night,
I mourn'd, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.
Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring,
Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west,
......
When the Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride,
He shouts to scare the monster who will often turn aside.
But the she-bear thus accosted rends the peasant tooth and nail,
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.
When Nag, the wayside cobra, hears the careless foot of man,
He will sometimes wriggle sideways and avoid it if he can,
But his mate makes no such motion where she camps beside the trail -
For the female of the species is more deadly than the male.
......
Remember Me:
To the living, I am gone.
To the sorrowful, I will never return.
To the angry, I was cheated,
But to the happy, I am at peace,
And to the faithful, I have never left.
I cannot be seen, but I can be heard.
So as you stand upon a shore, gazing at a beautiful sea - remember me.
As you look in awe at a mighty forest and its grand majesty - remember me.
As you look upon a flower and admire its simplicity - remember me.
......
Out of the cradle endlessly rocking,
Out of the mocking-bird's throat, the musical shuttle,
Out of the Ninth-month midnight,
Over the sterile sands and the fields beyond, where the child
leaving his bed wander'd alone, bareheaded, barefoot,
Down from the shower'd halo,
Up from the mystic play of shadows twining and twisting as
if they were alive,
Out from the patches of briers and blackberries,
From the memories of the bird that chanted to me,
......
Not an end,
but an opening,
a silence too vast
for language.
It does not knock,
it simply arrives,
like dusk
folding over a field
already grown still.
......
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"The more in science we advance,
The more do we grow," you say;
Still, Nature's love, abundance
Forgive us all in every way.
She lessons us to endure
Just like the green grasses do;
We, humans, can't all ensure;
We fail to remain pure and true.
......
There is a stillness
that arrives before the end-
not loud,not cruel,
just the quiet slipping of breath
from the body's old ritual.
The clock does not stop.
It keeps ticking for the world,
while one heart
folds its final rhythm
......
There is a stillness
that arrives before the end-
not loud,not cruel,
just the quiet slipping of breath
from the body's old ritual.
The clock does not stop.
It keeps ticking for the world,
while one heart
folds its final rhythm
......