fate

An Irish Airman Foresees his Death

Gill Washington Death, Life, Poems, Spirituality, William Butler Yeats , , , 0 Comment

By W. B. Yeats

I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

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A Psalm of Life

Gill Washington God, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Life, Poems, Spirituality , , 0 Comment

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Tell me not in mournful numbers,
“Life is but an empty dream!”
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
“Dust thou art, to dust returnest,”
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us further than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act — act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o’erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour and to wait.

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Endymion

Gill Washington Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Love, Poems, Spirituality , , , 0 Comment

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

THE RISING moon has hid the stars;   
Her level rays, like golden bars,   
    Lie on the landscape green,   
    With shadows brown between.   
   
And silver white the river gleams,           
As if Diana, in her dreams,   
    Had dropt her silver bow   
    Upon the meadows low.   
   
On such a tranquil night as this,   
She woke Endymion with a kiss,   
    When, sleeping in the grove,   
    He dreamed not of her love.   
   
Like Dian's kiss, unasked, unsought,   
Love gives itself, but is not bought;   
    Nor voice, nor sound betrays    
    Its deep, impassioned gaze.   
   
It comes, - the beautiful, the free,   
The crown of all humanity, -   
    In silence and alone   
    To seek the elected one.  
   
It lifts the boughs, whose shadows deep   
Are Life's oblivion, the soul's sleep,   
    And kisses the closed eyes   
    Of him who slumbering lies.   
   
O weary hearts! O slumbering eyes!   
O drooping souls, whose destinies   
    Are fraught with fear and pain,   
    Ye shall be loved again!   
   
No one is so accursed by fate,   
No one so utterly desolate,   
    But some heart, though unknown,   
    Responds unto his own.   
   
Responds, - as if with unseen wings,   
An angel touched its quivering strings;   
    And whispers, in its song,    
    "Where hast thou stayed so long?"

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