Skiivy.

O CAPTAIN , MY CAPTAIN

Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done;

The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won;

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:

But O heart! heart! heart!

O the bleeding drops of red,

Where on the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;

Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills;

For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding;

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

O captain! dear father!

This arm beneath your head;

It is some dream that on the deck,

You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;

My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;

The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;

From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;

Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!

But I, with mournful tread,

Walk the deck my captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

Fruitful.

TWO THINGS

Life is mostly froth and bubble,

Two things stand like stone:

Kindess in another's trouble,

Courage in your own.

Adam Lindsay Gordon 

Pick.

        

      HOURS fly

       Flowers die.
     New days,
      New ways,
  Pass by.
       Love Stays
         
  Time is
Too Slow for those who Wait,
Too Swift for those who Fear,
Too Long for those who Grieve,
Too Short for those who Rejoice;
      But for those who Love,
         Time is Not.

     Henry Van Dyke

Between.

A word is dead

When it said,

Some say.

I say it just begins to live

That day.

Emily Dickinson. 

Chime.

To a Skylark.

Hail to thee, blithe spirit!

Bird thou never wert,

That from heaven or near it

Pourest thy full heart

In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher

from the earth thou springest,

Like a cloud of fire

The blue deep thou widgets,

And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

Teach us, sprite or bird,

What sweet thoughts are thine.

I have never heard

Praise of love or wine

That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.

Waking or asleep,

Thou of death must deem

Things more true and deep

Than we mortals dream,

Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?

We look before and after,

And pine for what is not:

Our sincerest laughter 

With some pain is fraught;

Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.

Yet, if we could scorn

Hate and pride and fear,

If we were things born

Not to shed a tear,

I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.

Better than all measures 

Of delightful sound,

Better than all treasures

That in books are found,

Thy skill to poet were, though sorter of ground!

Teach me half the gladness

That thy brain must know;

Such harmonious madness

From my lips would flow,

The world should listen then, as I am listening now. 

 from Shelley's Ode to a Skylark