If – If Poem by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream- -and not make dreams your master;
If you can think- -and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build’em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on! ‘

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings- -nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And- -which is more- -you’ll be a Man, my son!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudyard_Kipling

Autumn, by Thomas Hood

I SAW old Autumn in the misty morn
Stand shadowless like Silence, listening
To silence, for no lonely bird would sing
Into his hollow ear from woods forlorn,
Nor lowly hedge nor solitary thorn;—
Shaking his languid locks all dewy bright
With tangled gossamer that fell by night,
    Pearling his coronet of golden corn.

Where are the songs of Summer?—With the sun,
Oping the dusky eyelids of the south,
Till shade and silence waken up as one,
And Morning sings with a warm odorous mouth.
Where are the merry birds?—Away, away,
On panting wings through the inclement skies,
            Lest owls should prey
            Undazzled at noonday,
And tear with horny beak their lustrous eyes.

Where are the blooms of Summer?—In the west,
Blushing their last to the last sunny hours,
When the mild Eve by sudden Night is prest
Like tearful Proserpine, snatch’d from her flow’rs
            To a most gloomy breast.
Where is the pride of Summer,—the green prime,—
The many, many leaves all twinkling?—Three
On the moss’d elm; three on the naked lime
Trembling,—and one upon the old oak-tree!
    Where is the Dryad’s immortality?—
Gone into mournful cypress and dark yew,
Or wearing the long gloomy Winter through
    In the smooth holly’s green eternity.

The squirrel gloats on his accomplish’d hoard,
The ants have brimm’d their garners with ripe grain,
        And honey bees have stored
The sweets of Summer in their luscious cells;
The swallows all have wing’d across the main;
But here the Autumn melancholy dwells,
        And sighs her tearful spells
Amongst the sunless shadows of the plain.
            Alone, alone,
            Upon a mossy stone,
She sits and reckons up the dead and gone
With the last leaves for a love-rosary,
Whilst all the wither’d world looks drearily,
Like a dim picture of the drowned past
In the hush’d mind’s mysterious far away,
Doubtful what ghostly thing will steal the last
Into that distance, gray upon the gray.

O go and sit with her, and be o’ershaded
Under the languid downfall of her hair:
She wears a coronal of flowers faded
Upon her forehead, and a face of care;—
There is enough of wither’d everywhere
To make her bower,—and enough of gloom;
There is enough of sadness to invite,
If only for the rose that died, whose doom
Is Beauty’s,—she that with the living bloom
Of conscious cheeks most beautifies the light:
There is enough of sorrowing, and quite
Enough of bitter fruits the earth doth bear,—
Enough of chilly droppings for her bowl;
Enough of fear and shadowy despair,
To frame her cloudy prison for the soul!

Do you want flowers, Do you want songs? by Castro Alves

DO YOU WANT FLOWERS? Do you want songs?

How one must give them to you if mourning

I only have them in my chest?

Do you want lights and harmonies?

In vain…just agonies

My lute wailed…

Damsel! Outside of madness

To ask the sweet typhoon,

To the dead happy song,

To search for the flower of the kiosks

Among the cypruses, the forests

Which overshadow the funereal floor.

However listen to my advice…

Ask for a mirror from Venice…

Gaze at your face…and you will see

One of the most beautiful paintings

Which — men would not know how to make,

Which — two alike God did not do.

In your beautiful mouth

You will see a pretty rose

Almost closed while smiling

And, like shining drops,

The pearls of your teeth

In the breast of the sparkling flower.

The Oriental perfume

— When you pray innocently —

One cradles in your lips.

And in your breast, one trembles,

You have the Poetry, one moans,

You have the harmony of the Heavens.

Do you want to see Paradise?

Reveal your lips…A laugh

Come show us Eden…

Sing!… And the sacred hymns

You will see in Heaven

Falling stars listen to you.

You have the night by the strings

Where the breeze in arguing themes

Howls… dies of slowness.

They are more than stars — shining

Your fascinating eyes,

— Beautiful verses of love…

………………………………………

                                   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castro_Alves

Image credit: Jeremy Lipking, Plen Air, 2013

When the Morning Stars Sings

The melodies of the Universe are created just for us. You can hear them every morning when the morning stars start singing in harmony and glorious beauty to celebrate the joy of life.

 

From A Distant World – Poem by Avraham Yitzchak Kook

 

From a distant world, full of illumination,

The suns there are as broad as the ocean,

And the stars, like the light of our sun,

On the face of the sapphire stone…..there.

______

The news reaches me,

Like dew full of overflowing delight,

Guiding me to the hidden Eden,

There the treasure is stored.

______

All the faces there are joyful,

Every mouth is singing songs of praise,

The highest feelings fill each heart,

And all the legs are dancing in jubilation.

______

The past and the future are scrolled into one,

Nothing is hidden, everything is known,

And every soul is full of love for all,

Feelings for the multitudes, and the light is sown.

______

All the pasts flow like rivers,

And purity, illumination, strength and light,

Life renewed, freedom and liberation,

Fills all our thoughts and activities.

_______

And without teachers, guides, judges or politicians,

Everything is good, everything is clear,

There is no crookedness or corruption, everything is with integrity,

And the night shines like the day.

_______

To a world such as this my soul longs,

In life such as this my spirit soars.

 

 

Source: https://haorotlightsofravkook.wordpress.com/page/2/

How important … by Lyudmila Vakula

It’s important …

Sometimes just keep quiet and listen …

Come when they do not invite,

But they are waiting for you …

Take your hand, warm it with your warmth …

And a look to give such a one,

In which there is confidence,

That everything is good or so will …

Be able to understand, forgive Everything

Not looking at the pain …

Do not offer a courtesy of help,

And just take help

To someone who needs

Let not be yours, but help …

And even if pride tells you to leave. To be

able to stay …

And smile to give

A little warmth, light …

And know that Difficult always because

You can survive …

Be able to be near and understand,

Forgive And support …

And just give everything that

you have today.

And without beautiful phrases,

Unnecessary promises

And unrealistic hopes … To be

able to love! …

Source: https://www.stihi.ru/2013/05/29/9053

 

 

Borisav Stanković – Pine Away Rose

I had you in my dream again! How I grieve that the dream gone and you with it!

How I would like that it was not just a dream, dream and nothing more. But thanks and the dream.

Dreaming is sweeter than face with the reality and strangle from swarm emotions, memories, and hard, lonely life… Yes, the dream is sweater, dream of childhood and youth…

Let´s dreaming:

We had been neighbours. Your mother had only you, my mother me only.

……..

My mother wished me to become what my father wasn´t: to restore lost property, raise and illuminate it with the more beautiful splendour our already darkened name.

I only knew this that you are not for me, that you are so below, lower, lower!

And that is even enough that we allow you to be with us, and to serve us, to please me as your brother and, looking at me, smiling soft and and put efforts to touch each of my desires, feeling yourself happy to fulfill them. I was God for you, idol and the most holly being.

Yes, we were children. But no! Only you was a child, but not me. I was already matured. But you was a real child. I will never forget our cuddlings that you get drowned so innocenly.

….

It was so! I knew that I will never found the more faithful, more persistent and slavery love than yours: I knew that you would take care of me and keep me as eyes sight… I knew all of this, but though…Yes, you had not been rich, from well known house, and you wasn´t higher than me. It torments me! Pains me! But it was not all my fault. For, how much time, tired and overcomed by doubt that I will my be not be the one that I yearn for, how much time, I am telling you, I would have give up of everything. And than, next to you, loved, sleeped through my own dream.

You never get married. Why not, all knew and the more they got revenge you than they had shown compassion for you. I did´t know what to do. I didn´t want to give you to someone else, so that this beauty of you, affection, love and happines possess. It was difficult and painfully in thought that another will hugging and kissing you; that another will drink love from you, that pure, still unflowed well…And here? Were not been your blind devotion, confidence and love, I would have not known what to do? But you? I didn´t regard you as higher then others, but still you were something else, something that prevented me to act like with others. I fought, tormented, had been break up, and melting looking at you so beautiful, gorgeous and well- built, just blooming…

…..

I love you, love…love!…And the more I squeezed you, hugging you, kissed you…And, embraced, completely tied with by myself, I hold you; I felt your slight friction and warmth of your body… Ah! And, the place of joy, happiness, passion, me insane and miserable, endless, huge, terrible sorrow overcome me… tears files my eyes.

-Will ever be such soul that will love me this way?

And you – no days, but nights! I can´t any more. I cry. Tears are in vain, everything is in vain! It´s gone, and went on! Can´t turn back! What can I do now, only tears?!

……..

And they gone. My mother high, lightly, proudly, and yours contorted and pushing aside.

I don’t know what was and with what they forced you to agree, only in my mother´s eye I saw still  not dried big tear, when she returned and told:

– It´s all over!

And me? At first as I feel myself free, feel relieved that I took you off from my neck, but later a felt a fear. I was afraid. Defeated by my own cowardice, I trembled lake a leaf. Tambourines, violins, started moaning, raised and began writing on illuminating and silent heights. Oh, and in them as were some devilish passionate pleasure; vengeance and malicious, mysterious happiness that they took you away by force from me. As if those voices took you along above with them, into heights…revenge to me, which in a moment was joyful that I put you away from me, and another moment I trembled and cried strongly, hiding myself someone not to see me and look at me!..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borisav_Stankovi%C4%87

 

In Vain I Wake Her – Song by Branko Miljković

I wake her for the sun that explains itself in plants

For sky stretched between the fingers

I wake her for words that burn my throat

I love her with my ears.

End of the world should be reached and drops of dew found in grass.

I wake her for some distant things that look like these here,

For people who, without forehead or name, go along the street,

For anonymous words, for squares I wake her,

For manufactured landscapes of public parks.

I wake her for this planet of ours which may become a mine

In bloodshed sky

For smiles in stones, friends fallen asleep between two battles

When sky was no longer a big birdcage but

An airport

My love full of others is a part of dawn,

I wake her for the dawn, for love, for myself, for others,

I wake her, even if it is more in vain than to call a bird

That landed forever

She must have said: let him look for me and see that I am gone

That woman with the hands of a child that I love

That child fallen asleep with tears still not wiped, which I wake

In vain in vain in vain

In vain I wake her

For she will wake up different and new

In vain I wake her

For her mouth will not be able to tell

In vain I wake her

You know the water runs through but says nothing

In vain I wake her

A lost name should be promised someone’s face in sand

If this is not so cut off my arms and turn me into stone

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Branko_Miljkovi%C4%87

The Morning Glory

Beyond the all sorrow of this world

There is the misty forest

Where the drop of waters in silence

Tender touch the leaves of rainbow trees

With the roots in the sparkling palace

Beyond this world.

And every morning the tiny ray of  light

Comes from the gate of upper palace

To wake up each and every creature there

And tells them grow!

And than all the lives refresh their strength

Playing with the water drops,

And the flowers petels

Sings in joy, and the birds

Spreads their wings rejocing the morning glory.

And this called the perfection that all

Human´s senses still cannot see or feel

For it awaits them for the days to come

Where the only low that will govern

Will be the low of love

That celebrate the beauty of life.