Poem Hunter: Poems - Poets - Poetry

BEFORE I trust my fate to thee,
Or place my hand in thine,
Before I let thy future give
Color and form to mine,
Before I peril all for thee, question thy soul to-night for me.

I break all slighter bonds, nor feel
A shadow of regret:
Is there one link within the Past
That holds thy spirit yet?
Or is thy faith as clear and free as that which I can pledge to thee?

Does there within thy dimmest dreams
A possible future shine,
Wherein thy life could henceforth breathe,
Untouch’d, unshar’d by mine?
If so, at any pain or cost, O, tell me before all is lost.

Look deeper still. If thou canst feel,
Within thy inmost soul,
That thou hast kept a portion back,
While I have stak’d the whole;
Let no false pity spare the blow, but in true mercy tell me so.

Is there within thy heart a need
That mine cannot fulfil?
One chord that any other hand
Could better wake or still?
Speak now—lest at some future day my whole life wither and decay.


...

This girlchild was born as usual
and presented dolls that did pee-pee
and miniature GE stoves and irons
and wee lipsticks the color of cherry candy.
Then in the magic of puberty, a classmate said:
You have a great big nose and fat legs.

She was healthy, tested intelligent,
possessed strong arms and back,
abundant sexual drive and manual dexterity.

...

Thought I was free
of passion, so this melancholy
comes as surprise:
a woodcock shoots up from the marsh
where autumn's twilight falls.
...

All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.
...

Hear now the tale that the storm has sung,
When skies were heavy and the earth was young.
Upon the glass, the rain did write,
A thousand runes in the fading light.

From drops that fell like tears of fate,
Rose dreams of mortals who dared create.
Through shadowed halls and tempest's roar,
They sought the truth on a distant shore.


...

If a person holds oneself dear,
let one watch oneself carefully.
The wise should be watchful
during at least one of the three watches.

Let each person first direct oneself to what is right;
then let one teach others; thus the wise will not suffer.
If a person makes oneself as one teaches others to be,
then being well-controlled, that one might guide others,
since self-control is difficult.

Self is the master of self;
who else could be the master?
With self well-controlled
a person finds a master such as few can find.

The wrong done by oneself, born of oneself,
produced by oneself, crushes the fool,
just as a diamond breaks even a precious stone.
The one whose vice is great brings oneself down
to that condition where one's enemy wishes one to be,
just as a creeper overpowers the entangled sala tree.
Bad actions and actions harmful to ourselves are easy to do;
what is beneficial and good, that is very difficult to do.

The fool who scorns the teaching of the saintly,
the noble, and the virtuous, and follows wrong ideas,
bears fruit to one's own destruction,
like the fruits of the katthaka reed.


...

When you're up against a trouble,
Meet it squarely, face to face;
Lift your chin and set your shoulders,
Plant your feet and take a brace.
When it's vain to try to dodge it,
Do the best that you can do;
You may fail, but you may conquer,
See it through!
Black may be the clouds about you
And your future may seem grim,

...

As empty as the future
So is a soaked page
Whose ink has run off.
I hope to be the author;
A new and boundless decade
Awaits my pen's touch.
...