Mary Elizabeth Coleridge – Good Friday in my Heart

Good friday in my heart! Fear and affright!

My thoughts are the Disciples when they fled,

My words the words that priest and soldier said,

My deed the spear to desecrate the dead.

And day, Thy death therein, is changed to night.

Then Easter in my heart sends up the sun.

My thoughts are Mary, when she turned to see.

My words are Peter, answering, ‘Lov’st thou Me?’

My deeds are all Thine own drawn close to Thee,

And night and day, since Thou dost rise, are one.

Mary Elizabeth Coleridge – Blue and White

Blue is Our Lady’s colour,

White is Our Lord’s.

To-morrow I will wear a knot

Of blue and white cords,

That you may see it, where you ride

Among the flashing swords.

O banner, white and sunny blue,

With prayer I wove thee!

For love the white, for faith the heavenly hue,

And both for him, so tender-true,

Him that doth love me!

Mary Elizabeth Coleridge – Affection

The earth that made the rose,

She also is thy mother, and not I.

The flame wherewith thy maiden spirit glows

Was lighted at no hearth that I sit by.

I am as far below as heaven above thee.

Were I thine angel, more I could not love thee.

Bid me defend thee!

Thy danger over-human strength shall lend me,

A hand of iron and a heart of steel,

To strike, to wound, to slay, and not to feel.

But if you chide me,

I am a weak, defenceless child beside thee

Kahlil Gibran – Self-Knowledge XVII

And a man said, "Speak to us of Self-Knowledge."

And he answered, saying:

Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights.

But your ears thirst for the sound of your heart's knowledge.

You would know in words that which you have always know in thought.

You would touch with your fingers the naked body of your dreams.

And it is well you should.

The hidden well-spring of your soul must needs rise and run murmuring to the sea;

And the treasure of your infinite depths would be revealed to your eyes.

But let there be no scales to weigh your unknown treasure;

And seek not the depths of your knowledge with staff or sounding line.

For self is a sea boundless and measureless.

Say not, "I have found the truth," but rather, "I have found a truth."

Say not, "I have found the path of the soul." Say rather, "I have met the soul walking upon my path."

For the soul walks upon all paths.

The soul walks not upon a line, neither does it grow like a reed.

The soul unfolds itself, like a lotus of countless petals.

Sylvia Plath – Apprehensions

There is this white wall, above which the sky creates itself-

Infinite, green, utterly untouchable.

Angels swim in it, and the stars, in indifference also.

They are my medium.

The sun dissolves on this wall, bleeding its lights.

A grey wall now, clawed and bloody.

Is there no way out of the mind?

Steps at my back spiral into a well.

There are no trees or birds in this world,

There is only sourness.

This red wall winces continually:

A red fist, opening and closing,

Two grey, papery bags-

This is what i am made of, this, and a terror

Of being wheeled off under crosses and rain of pieties.

On a black wall, unidentifiable birds

Swivel their heads and cry.

There is no talk of immorality amoun these!

Cold blanks approach us:

They move in a hurry.