“He asked life of thee, and thou gavest him a long life, even for ever and ever.”
Life-length of days-the time to work and strive
In his Lord’s vineyard; to bring heavenly light
Into the drear, dark places of the earth,
And make them fair and fruitful in His sight.
Life-it seem’d all so bright and beautiful once!
It lay spread out before his kindling eyes,
A land of sunny hills, in white mist veil’d,
Of sweet green valleys under summer skies.
Such tender light and tender shadows there!
No dazzling blaze, no savage blots of gloom,
No keen-cut outline of the barren cliff,
No glaring waste,-but all one gentle bloom
Of happy, innocent hope,-a morning tint
Of pearly grey and gold, with just a shade
Of bright cloud-colour, giving life to it,-
He saw not then the havoc death had made.
But soon the white mist melted in the heat
Of noonday, and the wasted fields lay bare-
Vineyard of Eden-like a bright face, scarred
With sin and shame and weariness and care.
And his vague aspiration took a shape.
“Grant me, dear Lord, if it seem good to Thee,
To labour here, with manhood’s utter strength,-
O Lord, good Lord, intrust this work to me!
“Let me have time to toil-a long, long day-
To dig and delve and root out wasteful weeds,
To cut down briars and thorns, and help to plough
Furrows where angels may sow heavenly seeds.
“Give me to foster, with my faith and love,
Frail, early flowers, that fear to droop and fade!
Father, I will not shrink for bleeding hands,
For heat nor cold-I do not feel afraid!”
His voice was heard-his will accepted. God
Gave deep and true fulfilment to his prayer,-
Life-life eternal, which should nevermore
The taint of death, or sin, or sorrow bear!
Oh pray, ye blind ones, as the beggar pray’d
When He of Nazareth pass’d by! Oh pray
With simple faith and worship,-fear ye not
God’s gracious ear will deafly turn away.
Ye know He bids us to tell out our wants,
Knowing them all; give up to Him your will,
And trust Him-trust Him. In his wondrous love
He deigns the lowliest longing to fulfil.
Ay, and with that fulfilment which we ne’er
Shall grasp or fathom-till we come to see
Our strange, mysterious human life unveil’d
In the clear daylight of eternity.
The beggar ask’d for sight-Christ answer’d him,
For his faith’s sake, and gave him sight indeed.
Just so his silent hands and darken’d eyes
Were lifted once, for grace of “life” to plead.
And God fulfilled his prayer as utterly!
He gave him life-the life of saints above,
Beyond all earthly dreaming sweet and glad-
An endless life in His eternal love!
A few random poems:
- Counting by Philip Larkin
- Verses Faiz Ulla
- Verses Printed By Himself On A Flood At Olney by William Cowper
- The Song of the Garden-Toad by Vachel Lindsay
- Conjugal by Russell Edson
- The Eve Of St. Agnes poem – John Keats poems
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Скажите
- One Viceroy Resigns by Rudyard Kipling
- Владимир Высоцкий – Все ушли на фронт
- Ольга Седакова – Легенда шестая
- To a Lady with an Unruly and Ill-mannered Dog Who Bit several Persons of Importance by Sir Walter Raleigh
- Matter For Gratitude poem – Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- Hobbinol; or The Rural Games – Canto 3 by William Somervile
- Welcome To My World © by Shannen Wrass
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Бивак
External links
Bat’s Poetry Page – more poetry by Fledermaus
Talking Writing Monster’s Page –
Batty Writing – the bat’s idle chatter, thoughts, ideas and observations, all original, all fresh
Poems in English
- Streets Of Teal by Vaishnavi Prakash
- Shining Armour by Vaishnavi Prakash
- Shallow Valley by Vaishnavi Prakash
- Shadow Overhead by Vaishnavi Prakash
- Rusty Folks by Vaishnavi Prakash
- Quest for Thee by Vanessa Perkins
- Precious Pearl by Vaishnavi Prakash
- Power Of Love by Valentine Mbagu
- Parallel Lies by Vaishnavi Prakash
- Mauve Mittens by Vaishnavi Prakash
- Innocent Steps by Vaishnavi Prakash
- Vaishnavi Prakash – Vaishnavi Prakash
- Gimmick In A Geisha by Vaishnavi Prakash
- False Intimacy by Vaishnavi Prakash
- Eternal Love by Vaishnavi Prakash
- Esteemed Bliss by Vaishnavi Prakash
- Empty Pages by Vaishnavi Prakash
- Daffodil Dreams by Vaishnavi Prakash
- Curse of Righteousness by Vaishnavi Prakash
- Crawling At Sea by Vaishnavi Prakash
More external links (open in a new tab):
Doska or the Board – write anything
Search engines:
Yandex – the best search engine for searches in Russian (and the best overall image search engine, in any language, anywhere)
Qwant – the best search engine for searches in French, German as well as Romance and Germanic languages.
Ecosia – a search engine that supposedly… plants trees
Duckduckgo – the real alternative and a search engine that actually works. Without much censorship or partisan politics.
Yahoo– yes, it’s still around, amazingly, miraculously, incredibly, but now it seems to be powered by Bing.
Parallel Translations of Poetry
The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works
Ada Cambridge (1844 – 1926), also known as Ada Cross, was an English-born Australian author and poetess. She wrote more than 25 works of fiction, three volumes of poetry and two autobiographical works.