Watchman, what of the night?
See you a streak of light?
Whither, O Captain of the quest,
The course we steer for Port of Rest?
How shall he answer-he
Who never put to sea?
Within his tabernacle wall
He cannot even hear us call.
Behind the jealous door
That he must pass no more,
And whence he scarcely dares to look,
He keeps his eyes upon his book.
The little candles, lit
Where the disciples sit,
Light their small refuge round about,
But show no gleam to those without-
Spirits that cannot dwell
In such an airless cell,
Sniffing the sea-winds from afar,
Glimpsing the light of moon and star.
We must fare forth, unsped,
From homely board and bed;
We must set sail for port unknown,
On an uncharted course, alone.
Push off. We have to go,
Whether we choose or no.
The Call, though faint and far away,
Has reached us, and we must obey.
O but the night is dark
Beyond that only ark!
The salt sea-winds blow keen and cold
Outside the shelter of the fold!
Boom of the deep-sea swell,
Solemn as funeral bell-
Silence transcending sound, to make
High courage falter and heart quake . . . . .
What will the voyage cost?
We are already lost
Who turn from land and love, to face
This blank immensity of space.
Push out. We have to go,
Whether we fear or no.
And why stand shivering and appalled?
We go because the Voice has called.
Noah’s inspired dove
Took wing to find her love.
The sea is His-safe as the land
Within the hollow of His hand.
Here are the breakers-pull
Before the boat is full!
‘Ware the sharp reefs that line the shore!
Row for the open evermore!
O but the night is dark!
Never the faintest spark
Where surf and shore and cities were!
And not a whisper in the air.
The open-heart of grace,
It is a lonely place!
No light on any onward track!
Too far-too late-for turning back!
Where is that little ark-
Those candles in the dark-
The Rock of Ages cleft for me-
The Cross uprising in the sea-
Whereto the drowning grope
With yearning faith and hope,
And cling as to their mother’s breast,
And find safe shelter and sweet rest?
Gone, gone-for ever gone!
And still we must press on.
Steady, true soul, too brave to fret!
Press on-we are not drowning yet.
The night is soft and still
That was so wild and chill;
The bosom of the mighty deep
Breathes like a tired child asleep.
So peaceful, so profound,
The silence spread around!
The very breakers of the shore
Moan to the listening ear no more.
Night-but the stars are out.
Darkness of dread and doubt,
The way so lonely and so rough,
Have cleared a little, but enough.
We know not where we are-
Light cannot reach so far,
But show us we have lost and gained
As the compelling Voice ordained.
Gone, gone beyond recall,
Candle and prisoning wall,
Last echo of the hue and cry,
Last glint of an accusing eye.
Too late for looking back
Over the darkening track.
How should the life-taught soul return
That cannot unlive or unlearn?
Changed, changed, for ever changed,
Since hitherward we ranged,
To vision in a space so vast,
All the perspectives of the past.
How infinitely small
The once so broad and tall-
The aims, the pursuit and the strife
Shut in the sheltered grooves of life!
Those terrifying laws,
The wrangles and the wars
Of church with church and state with state-
The things men love, the things men hate-
Money and gauds and fame,
And neighbours’ scorn and blame-
The passion of desire and haste
To gather, to possess, to waste . . . . . .
How infinitely high,
Broad as the sea and sky,
The loyalty of man to man,
Once almost missing from the plan-
The elemental law
That codes and creeds ignore,
Of duty to the trust we hold
For heirs unborn and years untold . . . . . .
Night-and the drifting soul
Still without path or goal.
Yet was the voyage worth the cost.
We are not drowned. We are not lost.
‘T’is I. Be not afraid.
Moonlight and stars may fade.
One walks the ocean and the night.
We have no further need of light.
What matters where we go?
We do not ask to know.
He called us, and we came. The quest
For us is ended, and we rest.
A few random poems:
- Lyonnesse by Sylvia Plath
- Fly Fly Butterfly
- Владимир Высоцкий – Песня про белого слона
- Factors Affecting the Labor Market – Determination of Wages and The Activities of Trade Unions
- Crossing Brooklyn Ferry. by Walt Whitman
- Disdain Returned by Thomas Carew
- Thought. by Walt Whitman
- Be Not a War Poet by Tomás Ó Cárthaigh
- Bloodstains from Iraq poem – Yuyutsu Sharma poems | Poetry Monster
- When that I was and a little tiny boy by William Shakespeare
- Beach Glass poem – Amy Clampitt poems | Poems and Poetry
- “When the reaper lays the sickle by ” poem – Alfred Austin
- Sonnet 120: That you were once unkind befriends me now by William Shakespeare
- A Spot by Thomas Hardy
- Mother, I cannot mind my Wheel by Walter Savage Landor
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
- Considering The Snail by Thom Gunn
- Broken Love by Talha Jafri
- Black Market Love by Taisha Destin
- Attention please! Attention please! by Roald Dahl
- An Act of Faith by Talha Jafri
- After Years by Ted Kooser
- Abd el-Hadi Fights a Superpower by Taha Muhammad Ali
- A Ghost in the Shell by Talha Jafri
- 10 Things I Do Every Day by Ted Berrigan
- Zermatt To The Matterhorn. by Thomas Hardy
- A Woman’s Fancy by Thomas Hardy
- The Woman In The Rye by Thomas Hardy
- A Week by Thomas Hardy
- The Year’s Awakening by Thomas Hardy
- The Workbox by Thomas Hardy
- The Wistful Lady by Thomas Hardy
- The Puzzled Game-Birds by Thomas Hardy
- A Spot by Thomas Hardy
- A Sign-Seeker by Thomas Hardy
- “The Curtains Now Are Drawn” by Thomas Hardy
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.