Poem Hunter: Poems - Poets - Poetry

FREEDOM’S first champion in our fettered land!
Nor politician nor base citizen
Could gibbet thee, nor silence, nor withstand.
Thy trenchant and emancipating pen
The patriot Lincoln snatched with steady hand,
Writing his name and thine on parchment white,
’Midst war’s resistless and ensanguined flood;
Then held that proclamation high in sight
Before his fratricidal country men,—
“Freedom henceforth throughout the land for all,”—
And sealed the instrument with his own blood,
Bowing his mighty strength for slavery’s fall;
Whilst thou, stanch friend of largest liberty,
Survived,—its ruin and our peace to see.
...

Come to me in my dreams, and then
By day I shall be well again!
For so the night will more than pay
The hopeless longing of the day.

Come, as thou cam'st a thousand times,
A messenger from radiant climes,
And smile on thy new world, and be
As kind to others as to me!


...

John is a composer of idioms,
a mixer of phrases,
a painter of poems.
John is not insane—
he is an orator,
a weaver of rhyme,
figurative in speech.

John does not like silly nicknames,
nor insults,

...

With my Beloved I alone have been,
When secrets tenderer than evening airs
Passed, and the Vision blest
Was granted to my prayers,
That crowned me, else obscure, with endless fame;
The while amazed between
His Beauty and His Majesty
I stood in silent ecstasy
Revealing that which o'er my spirit went and came.
Lo, in His face commingled
Is every charm and grace;
The whole of Beauty singled
Into a perfect face
Beholding Him would cry,
'There is no God but He, and He is the most High.'
...

Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that a spring was breaking
out in my heart.
I said: Along which secret aqueduct,
Oh water, are you coming to me,
water of a new life
that I have never drunk?

Last night as I was sleeping,

...

Do not forget me:
I, the slain casualty of Time,
The game of pandemic violence;
The hunters prowl, the game restless
But an undead fears no mortal.

Mortals breathe, I moreso;
I whoosh, I whisper, I woof,
Lone bursts of wilful death spurt;
Cast me not into the earth; I am

...

Oh friend, I love you, think this over
carefully! If you are in love,
then why are you asleep?

If you have found him,
give yourself to him, take him.

Why do you lose track of him again and again?

If you are about to fall into heavy sleep anyway,
why waste time smoothing the bed
and arranging the pillows?

Kabir will tell you the truth: this is what love is like:
suppose you had to cut your head off
and give it to someone else,
what difference would that make?
...

There is heard a hymn when the panes are dim,
And never before or again,
When the nights are strong with a darkness long,
And the dark is alive with rain.

Never we know but in sleet and in snow,
The place where the great fires are,
That the midst of the earth is a raging mirth
And the heart of the earth a star.


...

I find in my wounds the story of
how resentment led me to this.
The summer I forgot, I can't find the pills.
Each day it's harder to carry the leftovers.
Everything will stay in the place where the helpers obey.

The reunion is our deadliest ally.
The dark desire to feel this sensation again.
The disturbing desire to experience happiness.
There are no words to describe this awakening.

...