Don't Quit
by John Greenleaf Whittier
When things go wrong as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all up hill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest if you must, but don't you quit.
Life is strange with its twists and turns
As every one of us sometimes learns
And many a failure comes about
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don't give up though the pace seems slow—
You may succeed with another blow.
Success is failure turned inside out—
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell just how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far;
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit—
It's when things seem worst that you must not quit.
Showing posts with label poem. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poem. Show all posts
Thursday, September 26, 2019
Wednesday, February 06, 2019
Rumi Quotes
http://wisdomquotes.com/rumi-quotes/
Let silence take you to the core of life.
My soul is from elsewhere, I’m sure of that, and I intend to end up there.
There is a candle in your heart, ready to be kindled. There is a void in your soul, ready to be filled. You feel it, don’t you?
Be like a tree and let the dead leaves drop.
It’s your road and yours alone. Others may walk it with you, but no one can walk it for you.
The spirit is so near that you can’t see it! But reach for it… don’t be a jar, full of water, whose rim is always dry. Don’t be the rider who gallops all night and never sees the horse that is beneath him.
I want to sing like the birds sing, not worrying about who hears or what they think.
These pains you feel are messengers. Listen to them.
When the world pushes you to your knees, you’re in the perfect position to pray.
I am not this hair, I am not this skin, I am the soul that lives within.
Very little grows on jagged rock. Be ground. Be crumbled, so wild flowers will come up where you are.
Raise your words, not voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.
As you start to walk on the way, the way appears.
I know you’re tired but come, this is the way.
You were born with wings. Why prefer to crawl through life?
You are not meant for crawling, so don’t. You have wings. Learn to use them and fly.
Look at the moon in the sky, not the one in the lake.
There is a life-force within your soul, seek that life. There is a gem in the mountain of your body, seek that mine. O traveller, if you are in search of that, don’t look outside, look inside yourself and seek that.
Don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.
Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder. Help someone’s soul heal. Walk out of your house like a shepherd.
Love sometimes wants to do us a great favor: hold us upside down and shake all the nonsense out.
If you are irritated by every rub, how will your mirror be polished?
When someone beats a rug, the blows are not against the rug, but against the dust in it.
Concentrate on the Essence, concentrate on the light.
Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open?
The soul has been given its own ears to hear things mind does not understand.
Ignore those that make you fearful and sad, that degrade you back towards disease and death.
Anything which is more than our necessity is Poison. It may be power, wealth, hunger, ego, greed, laziness, love, ambition, hate or anything.
O, happy the soul that saw its own faults.
Do not worry if all the candles in the world flicker and die. We have the spark that starts the fire.
When I run after what I think I want, my days are a furnace of distress and anxiety; If I sit in my own place of patience, what I need flows to me, and without any pain. From this I understand that what I want also wants me, is looking for me and attracting me. There is a great secret in this for anyone who can grasp it.
To me nothing in the world is as precious as a genuine smile, especially from a child.
Whenever sorrow comes, be kind to it. For God has placed a pearl in sorrow’s hand.
Don’t be sad! Because God sends hope in the most desperate moments. Don’t forget, the heaviest rain comes out of the darkest clouds.
Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place.
Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place.
Sorrow… It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place.
The wound is the place where the light enters you.
Don’t get lost in your pain, know that one day your pain will become your cure.
Be patient where you sit in the dark. The dawn is coming.
Prayer clears the mist and brings back peace to the soul.
Do good to the people for the sake of God or for the peace of your own soul that you may always see what is pure and save your heart from the darkness of hate.
Whatever happens to you, don’t fall in despair. Even if all the doors are closed, a secret path will be there for you that no one knows. You can’t see it yet but so many paradises are at the end of this path…Be grateful! It is easy to thank after obtaining what you want, thank before having what you want.
On a day when the wind is perfect, the sail just needs to open and the world is full of beauty. Today is such a day.
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep.
Be like the sun for grace and mercy. Be like the night to cover others’ faults. Be like running water for generosity. Be like death for rage and anger. Be like the Earth for modesty. Appear as you are. Be as you appear.
You have no need to travel anywhere – journey within yourself. Enter a mine of rubies and bathe in the splendor of your own light.
Wherever water flows, life flourishes: wherever tears fall, divine mercy is shown.
How do I know who I am or where I am? How could a single wave locate itself in an ocean.
The Prophets accept all agony and trust it. For the water has never feared the fire.
On what is fear: Non-acceptance of uncertainty. If we accept that uncertainty, it becomes an adventure!
When you go through a hard period, when everything seems to oppose you, when you feel you cannot even bear one more minute, never give up! Because it is the time and place that the course will divert!
Those who don’t feel this love pulling them like a river, those who don’t drink dawn like a cup of springwater or take in sunset like a supper, those who don’t want to change, let them sleep.
Why are you so enchanted by this world, when a mine of gold lies within you?
Let silence take you to the core of life.
My soul is from elsewhere, I’m sure of that, and I intend to end up there.
There is a candle in your heart, ready to be kindled. There is a void in your soul, ready to be filled. You feel it, don’t you?
Be like a tree and let the dead leaves drop.
It’s your road and yours alone. Others may walk it with you, but no one can walk it for you.
The spirit is so near that you can’t see it! But reach for it… don’t be a jar, full of water, whose rim is always dry. Don’t be the rider who gallops all night and never sees the horse that is beneath him.
I want to sing like the birds sing, not worrying about who hears or what they think.
These pains you feel are messengers. Listen to them.
When the world pushes you to your knees, you’re in the perfect position to pray.
I am not this hair, I am not this skin, I am the soul that lives within.
Very little grows on jagged rock. Be ground. Be crumbled, so wild flowers will come up where you are.
Raise your words, not voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.
As you start to walk on the way, the way appears.
I know you’re tired but come, this is the way.
You were born with wings. Why prefer to crawl through life?
You are not meant for crawling, so don’t. You have wings. Learn to use them and fly.
Look at the moon in the sky, not the one in the lake.
There is a life-force within your soul, seek that life. There is a gem in the mountain of your body, seek that mine. O traveller, if you are in search of that, don’t look outside, look inside yourself and seek that.
Don’t be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth.
Be a lamp, or a lifeboat, or a ladder. Help someone’s soul heal. Walk out of your house like a shepherd.
Love sometimes wants to do us a great favor: hold us upside down and shake all the nonsense out.
If you are irritated by every rub, how will your mirror be polished?
When someone beats a rug, the blows are not against the rug, but against the dust in it.
Concentrate on the Essence, concentrate on the light.
Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open?
The soul has been given its own ears to hear things mind does not understand.
Ignore those that make you fearful and sad, that degrade you back towards disease and death.
Anything which is more than our necessity is Poison. It may be power, wealth, hunger, ego, greed, laziness, love, ambition, hate or anything.
O, happy the soul that saw its own faults.
Do not worry if all the candles in the world flicker and die. We have the spark that starts the fire.
When I run after what I think I want, my days are a furnace of distress and anxiety; If I sit in my own place of patience, what I need flows to me, and without any pain. From this I understand that what I want also wants me, is looking for me and attracting me. There is a great secret in this for anyone who can grasp it.
To me nothing in the world is as precious as a genuine smile, especially from a child.
Whenever sorrow comes, be kind to it. For God has placed a pearl in sorrow’s hand.
Don’t be sad! Because God sends hope in the most desperate moments. Don’t forget, the heaviest rain comes out of the darkest clouds.
Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place.
Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place.
Sorrow… It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place.
The wound is the place where the light enters you.
Don’t get lost in your pain, know that one day your pain will become your cure.
Be patient where you sit in the dark. The dawn is coming.
Prayer clears the mist and brings back peace to the soul.
Do good to the people for the sake of God or for the peace of your own soul that you may always see what is pure and save your heart from the darkness of hate.
Whatever happens to you, don’t fall in despair. Even if all the doors are closed, a secret path will be there for you that no one knows. You can’t see it yet but so many paradises are at the end of this path…Be grateful! It is easy to thank after obtaining what you want, thank before having what you want.
On a day when the wind is perfect, the sail just needs to open and the world is full of beauty. Today is such a day.
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep.
Be like the sun for grace and mercy. Be like the night to cover others’ faults. Be like running water for generosity. Be like death for rage and anger. Be like the Earth for modesty. Appear as you are. Be as you appear.
You have no need to travel anywhere – journey within yourself. Enter a mine of rubies and bathe in the splendor of your own light.
Wherever water flows, life flourishes: wherever tears fall, divine mercy is shown.
How do I know who I am or where I am? How could a single wave locate itself in an ocean.
The Prophets accept all agony and trust it. For the water has never feared the fire.
On what is fear: Non-acceptance of uncertainty. If we accept that uncertainty, it becomes an adventure!
When you go through a hard period, when everything seems to oppose you, when you feel you cannot even bear one more minute, never give up! Because it is the time and place that the course will divert!
Those who don’t feel this love pulling them like a river, those who don’t drink dawn like a cup of springwater or take in sunset like a supper, those who don’t want to change, let them sleep.
Why are you so enchanted by this world, when a mine of gold lies within you?
Saturday, December 01, 2018
Poem: Along the Road
Along the Road
By Robert Browning Hamilton
I walked a mile with Pleasure;
She chattered all the way,
But left me none the wiser
For all she had to say.
I walked a mile with Sorrow
And ne'er a word said she;
But oh, the things I learned from her
When Sorrow walked with me!
https://www.poetrynook.com/poem/along-road
Saturday, June 23, 2018
Wednesday, May 30, 2018
Poem: Sympathy
Sympathy
I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
And the river flows like a stream of glass;
When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals—
I know what the caged bird feels!
I know why the caged bird beats his wing
Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
For he must fly back to his perch and cling
When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
And they pulse again with a keener sting—
I know why he beats his wing!
I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore,—
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart’s deep core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings—
I know why the caged bird sings!
Tuesday, May 29, 2018
Poem - I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings
I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou
The free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wings
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.
But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.
The caged bird sings
with fearful trill
of the things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill for the caged bird
sings of freedom
The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn
and he names the sky his own.
But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing
The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wings
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.
But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.
The caged bird sings
with fearful trill
of the things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill for the caged bird
sings of freedom
The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn
and he names the sky his own.
But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing
The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.
Monday, May 28, 2018
Poem: The Road Not Taken
The Road Not Taken - Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
In a 1926 letter to Cristine Yates of Dickson, Tennessee, asking about the line "I shall be telling this with a sigh" Frost wrote, "It was my rather private jest at the expense of those who might think I would yet live to be sorry for the way I had taken in life."
Saturday, May 26, 2018
Poem: There is a life force within your soul
There is a life-force within your soul
There is a life-force within your soul, seek that life.
There is a gem in the mountain of your body, seek that
mine.
O traveler, if you are in search of That
Don't look outside, look inside yourself and seek That.
There is a gem in the mountain of your body, seek that
mine.
O traveler, if you are in search of That
Don't look outside, look inside yourself and seek That.
Excerpt from Rumi, 'Thief of Sleep' translated by by Shahram Shiva
Friday, May 25, 2018
Poem - There is a Way, Rumi
There is a Way - Rumi
There is a way between voice and presence
where information flows.
In disciplined silence it opens.
With wandering talk it closes.
where information flows.
In disciplined silence it opens.
With wandering talk it closes.
Excerpt from the translations of Rumi by Coleman Barks
Thursday, May 24, 2018
Poem: This We Have Now, Rumi
This we Have Now - Rumi
This we have now
is not imagination.
This is not
grief or joy.
Not a judging state,
or an elation,
or sadness.
Those come and go.
This is the presence that doesn't.
is not imagination.
This is not
grief or joy.
Not a judging state,
or an elation,
or sadness.
Those come and go.
This is the presence that doesn't.
Excerpt from the translation of Rumi by Coleman Barks.
Wednesday, May 23, 2018
Poem: Moving Water, Rumi
Moving Water - Rumi
When you do things from your soul, you feel a river
moving in you, a joy.
When actions come from another section, the feeling
disappears.
Don't let others lead you. They may be blind or, worse, vultures.
Reach for the rope of God. And what is that? Putting aside self-will.
Because of willfulness people sit in jail, the trapped bird's wings are tied,
fish sizzle in the skillet.
The anger of police is willfulness. You've seen a magistrate
inflict visible punishment.
Now see the invisible. If you could leave your selfishness, you
would see how you've been torturing your soul. We are born and live inside black water in a well.
How could we know what an open field of sunlight is?
Don't insist on going where you think you want to go. Ask the way to the spring. Your living pieces will form a harmony.
There is a moving palace that floats in the air with balconies and clear water flowing through, infinity everywhere, yet contained under a single tent.
moving in you, a joy.
When actions come from another section, the feeling
disappears.
Don't let others lead you. They may be blind or, worse, vultures.
Reach for the rope of God. And what is that? Putting aside self-will.
Because of willfulness people sit in jail, the trapped bird's wings are tied,
fish sizzle in the skillet.
The anger of police is willfulness. You've seen a magistrate
inflict visible punishment.
Now see the invisible. If you could leave your selfishness, you
would see how you've been torturing your soul. We are born and live inside black water in a well.
How could we know what an open field of sunlight is?
Don't insist on going where you think you want to go. Ask the way to the spring. Your living pieces will form a harmony.
There is a moving palace that floats in the air with balconies and clear water flowing through, infinity everywhere, yet contained under a single tent.
Excerpt from the translations of Coleman Barks
Tuesday, May 22, 2018
Poem: The Breeze at Dawn, Rumi
The Breeze at Dawn - Rumi
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don't go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don't go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don't go back to sleep.
Don't go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don't go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don't go back to sleep.
Monday, May 21, 2018
Poem - Two Kinds of Intelligence - Rumi
Two Kinds of Intelligence - Rumi
There are two kinds of intelligence: one acquired,
as a child in school memorizes facts and concepts
from books and from what the teacher says,
collecting information from the traditional sciences
as well as from the new sciences.
With such intelligence you rise in the world.
You get ranked ahead or behind others
in regard to your competence in retaining
information. You stroll with this intelligence
in and out of fields of knowledge, getting always more
marks on your preserving tablets.
There is another kind of tablet, one
already completed and preserved inside you.
A spring overflowing its springbox. A freshness
in the center of the chest. This other intelligence
does not turn yellow or stagnate. It's fluid,
and it doesn't move from outside to inside
through conduits of plumbing-learning.
This second knowing is a fountainhead
from within you, moving out.
as a child in school memorizes facts and concepts
from books and from what the teacher says,
collecting information from the traditional sciences
as well as from the new sciences.
With such intelligence you rise in the world.
You get ranked ahead or behind others
in regard to your competence in retaining
information. You stroll with this intelligence
in and out of fields of knowledge, getting always more
marks on your preserving tablets.
There is another kind of tablet, one
already completed and preserved inside you.
A spring overflowing its springbox. A freshness
in the center of the chest. This other intelligence
does not turn yellow or stagnate. It's fluid,
and it doesn't move from outside to inside
through conduits of plumbing-learning.
This second knowing is a fountainhead
from within you, moving out.
Monday, March 05, 2018
Sunday, February 11, 2018
Poem: Night on call
night on call :: rita iovino
There are sometimes such moments of magic,
when the sky and mountains melt into the dawn
when the blue-purple horizon yields to the sun,
and the trek home
becomes a moment of epiphany.
Everything is still
and only the faint noise of sparrows
permeates the air.
The exhaustion and sweat and scrubs
become an exclamation of rebirth.
The gift of being a doctor
is magnified like dandelions blowing in the wind,
and one knows the skill of giving life,
the gift of alleviating pain;
the long night suturing becomes a dream
because now one more person
becomes whole by your latex gloves.
The sun breaks into a million bright lights
as you go home to sleep.
https://poetrying.wordpress.com/2015/03/24/night-on-call-rita-iovino/
Wednesday, November 22, 2017
Poem: When Day Is Done
http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poetry/poems/when-day-done
When Day Is Done
Sorrow remembers us when day is done. It sits in its old chair gently rocking and singing tenderly in the evening. It welcomes us home again after the day. It is so old in its black silken dress, its stick beside it carved with legends. It tells its stories over and over again. After a while we have to stop listening.
Tuesday, November 21, 2017
Poem: Beannact/Blessing
http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poetry/poems/beannacht-blessing
Beannacht / Blessing
For Josie, my mother On the day when the weight deadens on your shoulders and you stumble, may the clay dance to balance you. And when your eyes freeze behind the grey window and the ghost of loss gets into you, may a flock of colours, indigo, red, green and azure blue, come to awaken in you a meadow of delight. When the canvas frays in the currach of thought and a stain of ocean blackens beneath you, may there come across the waters a path of yellow moonlight to bring you safely home. May the nourishment of the earth be yours, may the clarity of light be yours, may the fluency of the ocean be yours, may the protection of the ancestors be yours. And so may a slow wind work these words of love around you, an invisible cloak to mind your life.
Monday, November 20, 2017
Poem: This Is Bad Enough
http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poetry/poems/bad-enough
This Is Bad Enough
This is bad enough So please … Don’t give me gobbledegook. Don’t give me pages and dense pages and “this leaflet aims to explain … ” Don’t give me really dodgy photocopying and “DO NOT REMOVE FOR REFERENCE ONLY.” Don’t give me “drafted in collaboration with a multidisciplinary stakeholder partnership consultation short-life project working group.” I mean is this about you guys or me? This is hard enough So please: Don’t leave me oddly none the wiser or listening till my eyes are glazing over. Don’t leave me wondering what on earth that was about, feeling like it’s rude to ask or consenting to goodness knows what. Don’t leave me lost in another language adrift in bad translation. Don’t leave me chucking it in the bin Don’t leave me leaving in the state I’m in. Don’t leave me feeling even more clueless than I did before any of this happened. This is tough enough So please: Make it relevant, understandable – or reasonably readable at least. Why not put in pictures or sketches, or something to guide me through? I mean how hard can it be for the people who are steeped in this stuff to keep it up-to-date? And you know what I’d appreciate? A little time to take it in a little time to show them at home a little time to ask “What’s that?” a little time to talk on the phone. So give us the clarity, right from the start the contacts, there at the end. Give us the info you know we need to know. Show us the facts, some figures And don’t forget our feelings. Because this is bad and hard and tough enough so please speak like a human make it better not worse.
Sunday, November 19, 2017
Poem: - Nothing
http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poetry/poems/nothing
Nothing
Because she is exhausted and confused, and doesn’t want to argue, and can’t speak, she dreams of nothing for a thousand years, or what the nurses cheerfully call a week.
Tuesday, May 16, 2017
Poem: Around the Corner
Around the Corner
Around the corner I have a friend,
In this great city that has no end;
Yet the days go by, and weeks rush on,
And before I know it a year is gone,
And I never see my old friend's face,
For Life is a swift and terrible race.
He knows I like him just as well,
As in the days when I rang his bell,
And he rang mine. We were younger then,
And now we are busy, tired men:
Tired with playing a foolish game,
Tired with trying to make a name.
"To-morrow," I say, "I will call on Jim
"Just to show that I'm thinking of him."
But to-morrow comes -- and to-morrow goes,
And distance between us grows and grows.
Around the corner -- yet miles away,...
"Here's a telegram sir,..."
"Jim died today."
And that's what we get, and deserve in the end:
Around the corner, a vanished friend.
_A WORLD OF WINDOWS AND OTHER POEMS_, p66
by Charles Hanson Towne
George H. Doran Company, New York, 1919.
https://www.classe.cornell.edu/~seb/around_the_corner.html
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