Emily Dickinson – Success is counted sweetest (Poem 112)

Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.

Not one of all the purple Host
Who took the Flag today
Can tell the definition
So clear of victory

As he defeated – dying –
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Burst agonized and clear!

Edgar Allan Poe – To Helen - 1831

Helen, thy beauty is to me

Like those Nicean barks of yore,

That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,

The weary, wayworn wanderer bore

To his own native shore.

On desperate seas long wont to roam,

Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,

Thy Naiad airs have brought me home

To the glory that was Greece

And the grandeur that was Rome.

Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche

How statue-like I see thee stand,

The agate lamp within thy hand!

Ah, Psyche, from the regions which

Are Holy Land!

James Oppenheim – Assurance

Yea, there are as many stars under the Earth as over the Earth...

Plenty of room to roll around in has our planet...

And I, at the edge of the porch,

Hearing the crickets shrill in the star-thick armies of grass,

And beholding over the spread of Earth the spread of the heavens...

Drink this deep moment in my pilgrimage,

With a sense of how forever I have been alive,

With a conviction that I shall go on, ever safe, ever growing,

The stars to be included in my travels,

And the future sure before me.

Anne Brontë – Call Me Away

Call me away; there's nothing here,

That wins my soul to stay;

Then let me leave this prospect drear,

And hasten far away.

To our beloved land I'll flee,

Our land of thought and soul,

Where I have roved so oft with thee,

Beyond the world's control.

I'll sit and watch those ancient trees,

Those Scotch firs dark and high;

I'll listen to the eerie breeze,

Among their branches sigh.

The glorious moon shines far above;

How soft her radiance falls,

On snowy heights, and rock, and grove;

And yonder palace walls!

Who stands beneath yon fir trees high?

A youth both slight and fair,

Whose bright and restless azure eye

Proclaims him known to care,

Though fair that brow, it is not smooth;

Though small those features, yet in sooth

Stern passion has been there.

Now on the peaceful moon are fixed

Those eyes so glistening bright,

But trembling teardrops hang betwixt,

And dim the blessed light.

Though late the hour, and keen the blast,

That whistles round him now,

Those raven locks are backward cast,

To cool his burning brow.

His hands above his heaving breast

Are clasped in agony --

'O Father! Father! let me rest!

And call my soul to thee!

I know 'tis weakness thus to pray;

But all this cankering care --

This doubt tormenting night and day

Is more than I can bear!

With none to comfort, none to guide

And none to strengthen me.

Since thou my only friend hast died --

I've pined to follow thee!

Since thou hast died! And did he live

What comfort could his counsel give --

To one forlorn like me?

Would he my Idol's form adore --

Her soul, her glance, her tone?

And say, "Forget for ever more

Her kindred and thine own;

Let dreams of her thy peace destroy,

Leave every other hope and joy

And live for her alone"?'

He starts, he smiles, and dries the tears,

Still glistening on his cheek,

The lady of his soul appears,

And hark! I hear her speak --

'Aye, dry thy tears; thou wilt not weep --

While I am by thy side --

Our foes all day their watch may keep

But cannot thus divide

Such hearts as ours; and we tonight

Together in the clear moon's light

Their malice will deride.

No fear our present bliss shall blast

And sorrow we'll defy.

Do thou forget the dreary past,

The dreadful future I.'

Forget it? Yes, while thou art by

I think of nought but thee,

'Tis only when thou art not nigh

Remembrance tortures me.

But such a lofty soul to find,

And such a heart as thine,

In such a glorious form enshrined

And still to call thee mine --

Would be for earth too great a bliss,

Without a taint of woe like this,

Then why should I repine?

James Oppenheim – Tasting the Earth

In a dark hour, tasting the Earth.

As I lay on my couch in the muffled night, and the rain lashed at my window,

And my forsaken heart would give me no rest, no pause and no peace,

Though I turned my face far from the wailing of my bereavement...

Then I said: I will eat of this sorrow to its last shred,

I will take it unto me utterly,

I will see if I be not strong enough to contain it...

What do I fear? Discomfort?

How can it hurt me, this bitterness?

The miracle, then!

Turning toward it, and giving up to it,

I found it deeper than my own self...

O dark great mother-globe so close beneath me...

It was she with her inexhaustable grief,

Ages of blood-drenched jungles, and the smoking of craters, and the roar of tempests,

And moan of the forsaken seas,

It was she with the hills beginning to walk in the shapes of the dark-hearted animals,

It was she risen, dashing away tears and praying to dumb skies, in the pomp-crumbling tragedy of man...

It was she, container of all griefs, and the buried dust of broken hearts,

Cry of the christs and the lovers and the child-stripped mothers,

And ambition gone down to defeat, and the battle overborne,

And the dreams that have no waking...

My heart became her ancient heart:

On the food of the strong I fed, on dark strange life itself:

Wisdom-giving and sombre with the unremitting love of ages...

There was dank soil in my mouth,

And bitter sea on my lips,

In a dark hour, tasting the Earth.