Poem-ables

The Rose of Battle

	Rose of all Roses, Rose of all the World!
	The tall thought-woven sails, that flap unfurled
	Above the tide of hours, trouble the air,
	And God's bell buoyed to be the water's care;
5	While hushed from fear, or loud with hope, a band
	With blown, spray-dabbled hair gather at hand.
	Turn if you may from battles never done,
	I call, as they go by me one by one,
	Danger no refuge holds, and war no peace,
10	For him who hears love sing and never cease,
	Beside her clean-swept hearth, her quiet shade:
	But gather all for whom no love hath made
	A woven silence, or but came to cast
	A song into the air, and singing passed
15	To smile on the pale dawn; and gather you
	Who have sougft more than is in rain or dew,
	Or in the sun and moon, or on the earth,
	Or sighs amid the wandering, starry mirth,
	Or comes in laughter from the sea's sad lips,
20	And wage God's battles in the long grey ships.
	The sad, the lonely, the insatiable,
	To these Old Night shall all her mystery tell;
	God's bell has claimed them by the little cry
	Of their sad hearts, that may not live nor die.
25	Rose of all Roses, Rose of all the World!
	You, too, have come where the dim tides are hurled
	Upon the wharves of sorrow, and heard ring
	The bell that calls us on; the sweet far thing.
	Beauty grown sad with its eternity
30	Made you of us, and of the dim grey sea.
	Our long ships loose thought-woven sails and wait,
	For God has bid them share an equal fate;
	And when at last, defeated in His wars,
	They have gone down under the same white stars,
35	We shall no longer hear the little cry
	Of our sad hearts, that may not live nor die.

Quick now, here, now, always---

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

(From "Little Gidding" by T.S. Eliot)

Thanks for the picture Peony

Poem-ables

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet,
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams

W.B. Yeats

Poem-ables

If you are a dreamer, come in
If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,
A Hope-er, a Pray-er, a Magic Bean buyer,
If you're a pretender, come sit by my fire
For we have some flax-golden tales to spin
Come in!
Come in!
~Shel Silverstein