Life and Other Horrors
I measure every grief I meet With narrow probing eyes I wonder if It weighs like mine Or has an easier size I wonder if they bore it long Or did it just begin? I could not tell the date of mine It feels so old a pain I wonder if it hurts to live And if they have to try And whether could they choose between It would not be to die I wonder if when years have piled Some thousands on the harm That hurt them early, such a lapsе Could give them any balm Or would they go on aching still Through cеnturies of nerve? Enlightened to a larger pain In contrast with the love The grieved are many I am told There is the various cause There's grief of want and grief of cold A sort they call despair And though I may not guess the kind Correctly yet to me a piercing comfort it affords In passing Calvary
Submitted by Iron_Wraith — Jun 14, 2026
In spring the narciss shows its head Nor withers till the rose has flamed to red In the autumn purple violets blow And the slim crocus stirs the winter snow Wherefore yon leafless trees will bloom again And this grey land grow green with summer rain But what of life whose bitter hungry sea Flows at our heels, and gloom of sunless night Covers the days which nevermore return? Ambition, love and all the thoughts that burn We lose too soon, and only find delight In withered husks of some dead memory
Submitted by Iron_Wraith — Jun 14, 2026
Thy soul shall find itself alone 'Mid dark thoughts of the grey tombstone Not one of all the crowd to pry Into thine hour of secrecy Be silent in that solitude Which is not loneliness For then, the spirits of the dead, who stood in life before thee Are again in death around thee And their will shall overshadow thee Be still The night though clear shall frown and the stars shall not look down From their high thrones in Heaven with light like hope to mortals given But their red orbs without beam To thy weariness shall seem As a burning and a fever Which would cling to thee forever Now are thoughts thou shalt not banish Now are visions ne'er to vanish From thy spirit shall they pass No more like dew-drop from the grass The breeze is still And the mist upon the hill Shadowy yet unbroken Is a symbol and a token How it hangs upon the trees A mystery of mysteries And the stars shall not look down
Submitted by Iron_Wraith — Jun 14, 2026
You are not wrong, who deem That my days have been a dream Yet if hope has flown away In a night, or in a day In a vision, or in none Is it therefore the less gone? All that we see or seem Is but a dream within a dream
Submitted by Iron_Wraith — Jun 14, 2026
Day, you have bruised and beaten me As rain beats down the bright proud sea Beaten my body, bruised my soul Left me nothing lovely or whole Yet I have wrested a gift from you Day that dies in dusky blue For suddenly over the factories I saw a moon in the cloudy seas A wisp of beauty all alone In a world as hard and gray as stone Oh, who could be bitter and want to die When a maiden moon wakes up in the sky? I stood beside a hill Smooth with new-laid snow A single star looked out From the cold evening glow There was no other creature That saw what I could see I stood and watched the evening star As long as it watched me
Submitted by Iron_Wraith — Jun 14, 2026
I went out at night alone The young blood flowing beyond the sea Seemed to have drenched my spirit's wings I bore my sorrow heavily But when I lifted up my head From shadows shaken on the snow I saw Orion in the east Burn steadily as long ago From windows in my father's house Dreaming my dreams on winter nights I watched Orion as a boy Above another city's lights Years go, dreams go, and youth goes too The world's heart breaks beneath its wars All things are changed, save in the east The faithful beauty of the stars
Submitted by Iron_Wraith — Jun 14, 2026
The sky is laced with fitful red The circling mists and shadows flee The dawn is rising from the sea Like a white lady from her bed And jagged brazen arrows fall Athwart the feathers of the night And a long wave of yellow light Breaks silently on tower and hall And spreading wide across the wold Wakes into flight some fluttering bird And all the chestnut tops are stirred And all the branches streaked with gold
Submitted by Iron_Wraith — Jun 14, 2026