..poetry's most powerful lines ever written...

seribulan

On getting lost in a book.

Set adrift
A life unknown
Connections form
Love is sewn

Patty Wiseman, An Unlikely Arrangement (Velvet Shoe Collection, #1)

arya2609

poem by rumi

arya2609

Love is reckless; not reason.
Reason seeks a profit.
Love comes on strong,
consuming herself, unabashed.

Yet, in the midst of suffering,
Love proceeds like a millstone,
hard surfaced and straightforward.

Having died of self-interest,
she risks everything and asks for nothing.
Love gambles away every gift God bestows.

Without cause God gave us Being;
without cause, give it back again.

Rumi

Mathnawi VI, 1967-1974

catwoman91

"Hope is the thing with feathers / That perches in the soul, / And sings the tune without the words, / And never stops at all,"

Hope Is The Thing With Feathers, Emily Dickinson

catwoman91

Do not go gentle into that good night
Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

catwoman91

The caged bird sings with a fearful trill/ Of things unknown but longed for still/ And his tune is heard on the distant hill/ For the caged bird sings of freedom
'I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings', Maya Angelou

catwoman91

Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds, / Or bends with the remover to remove: / O no; it is an ever-fixed mark, / That looks on tempests, and is never shake
'Sonnet 116', William Shakespeare

catwoman91

catwoman91

Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountain-side,
And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year’s bitter loving must remain.
~Edna St. Vincent Millay

catwoman91

to live in this world
you must be able
to do three things
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go
~Mary Oliver

catwoman91

As it has been said:
Love and a cough
cannot be concealed.
Even a small cough.
Even a small love.
~Anne Sexton

catwoman91

We were so wholly one I had not thought
That we could die apart. I had not thought
That I could move,—and you be stiff and still!
That I could speak,—and you perforce be dumb!
I think our heart-strings were, like warp and woof
In some firm fabric, woven in and out;
Your golden filaments in fair design
Across my duller fibre.
~Edna St. Vincent Millay

catwoman91

“The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

seribulan

Far-Far-Away
by Alfred Lord Tennyson
(For Music)

What sight so lured him thro' the fields he knew
As where earth's green stole into heaven's own hue,
Far-far-away?

What sound was dearest in his native dells?
The mellow lin-lan-lone of evening bells
Far-far-away.

What vague world-whisper, mystic pain or joy,
Thro' those three words would haunt him when a boy,
Far-far-away?

A whisper from his dawn of life? a breath
From some fair dawn beyond the doors of death
Far-far-away?

Far, far, how far? from o'er the gates of birth,
The faint horizons, all the bounds of earth,
Far-far-away?

What charm in words, a charm no words could give?
O dying words, can Music make you live
Far-far-away

arya2609

Tell all the truth but tell it slant — (1263)
BY EMILY DICKINSON

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —

arya2609

I'm Nobody! Who are you?

I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there's a pair of us!
Don't tell! they'd advertise – you know!

How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog –
To tell one's name – the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog!

Emily Dickinson

arya2609

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,

BY EMILY DICKINSON

I felt a Funeral, in my Brain,
And Mourners to and fro
Kept treading - treading - till it seemed
That Sense was breaking through -

And when they all were seated,
A Service, like a Drum -
Kept beating - beating - till I thought
My mind was going numb -

And then I heard them lift a Box
And creak across my Soul
With those same Boots of Lead, again,
Then Space - began to toll,

As all the Heavens were a Bell,
And Being, but an Ear,
And I, and Silence, some strange Race,
Wrecked, solitary, here -

And then a Plank in Reason, broke,
And I dropped down, and down -
And hit a World, at every plunge,
And Finished knowing - then -

shiuji

Gelap — T. Alias Taib

aku selalu didatangi
seorang teman
yang hitam
di tengah malam
jauh yang sepi

ia tak punyai
wajah atau bentuk
apalagi suara
selain kepekatan
mendatar seperti dinding

kami berbicara
bukan dengan bahasanya
bukan dengan bahasaku
tapi bahasa lampu
yang padam

aku selalu didatangi
seorang teman
yang hitam
kemudian memakan tidurku
hingga pagi

shiuji

Perempuan Kesepian — T. Alias Taib

perempuan yang sepi
hatinya adalah secawan kopi

sekawan angin di jendela
tak berkepak
tak beriak

ia bersandar pada nasibnya
disaksi dinding bisu
dipukuli nestapa biru

sinar bulan di langsir
tak berombak
tak berkocak

perempuan yang sepi
ia minum hatinya sendiri

shiuji

Sebuku Kemenyan — T. Alias Taib

malam mengalir
dan basah
oleh sebuah kematian

suasana cair
dan resah
oleh sebuah kehilangan

sebuku kemenyan
perlahan-lahan terbakar
di tengah kamar
asapnya
mengapung

seorang anak
tiba-tiba menggelepar
di sudut kamar
suaranya
meraung

malam mengalir
dan basah
suasana cair
dan resah