Always the same, when on a fated night
At last the gathered snow lets down as white
As may be in dark woods, and with a song
It shall not make again all winter long
Of hissing on the yet uncovered ground,
I almost stumble looking up and round,
As one who overtaken by the end
Gives up his errand, and lets death descend
Upon him where he is, with nothing done
To evil, no important triumph won,
More than if life had never been begun.

Yet all the precedent is on my side:
I know that winter death has never tried
The earth but it has failed: the snow may heap
In long storms an undrifted four feet deep
As measured again maple, birch, and oak,
It cannot check the peeper’s silver croak;
And I shall see the snow all go down hill
In water of a slender April rill
That flashes tail through last year’s withered brake
And dead weeds, like a disappearing snake.
Nothing will be left white but here a birch,
And there a clump of houses with a church.

By Robert Frost

Has any one supposed it lucky to be born?
I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know it.
I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash’d babe, and am not contain’d between my hat and boots,
And peruse manifold objects, no two alike and every one good,
The earth good and the stars good, and their adjuncts all good.
I am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth,
I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal and fathomless as myself,
(They do not know how immortal, but I know.)
Every kind for itself and its own, for me mine male and female,
For me those that have been boys and that love women,
For me the man that is proud and feels how it stings to be slighted,
For me the sweet-heart and the old maid, for me mothers and the mothers of mothers,
For me lips that have smiled, eyes that have shed tears,
For me children and the begetters of children.
Undrape! you are not guilty to me, nor stale nor discarded,
I see through the broadcloth and gingham whether or no,
And am around, tenacious, acquisitive, tireless, and cannot be shaken away.

Walt Whitman

From Songs of Myself verse 7

Eternal Trinity,
Godhead,
mystery deep as the sea,
you could give me no greater gift
than the gift of
yourself.

For you are a fire ever burning and never consumed,
which itself consumes all the selfish love
that fills my being.
Yes, you are a fire that takes away the coldness,
illuminates the mind with its light,
and causes me to know your
truth.

And I know that
you are beauty and wisdom itself.
The food of angels,
you gave yourself to man
in the fire of your
love.

-from On Divine Providence
by Saint Catherine of Siena

Ma Tara, you are truly the exalted one,
the essence of awareness.
But are you aware of the foolish poet
who sings this song?
You are indeed the radiant truth,
the sun that dissolves like morning mist
the illusory suffering of conscious beings.
But what about my persistent misery?

Revelatory experience flows to devout practitioners
from the Mother of the Universe,
but consider what Mother bestows on me.
During morning meditation, I worry about livelihood.
At noon prayer, I think about delicious food.
While practicing contemplation in the evening,
my mind wanders at random among events of the day.

Goddess Tara, I ask you frankly,
will you ever allow this distracted consciousness
any sustained vision of your reality?
The only visionary gift granted me
is the viewpoint of arbitrary convention.
In this fascinating vision, I am constantly absorbed.

The deeper I plunge into thought,
the more I realize I cannot know you by thinking,
0 blissful Mother, beyond speech and mind.

This desperate seeker of truth cries out:
“Ma! Ma! Ma!
Daughter of the mystic mountain!
You dance, holding the brilliant gem of realization.
But when I try to grasp
the diamond essence of awareness,
it appears to turn back into common stone.”

By: Ramprasad Sen

there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too tough for him,
I say, stay in there, I’m not going
to let anybody see
you.

there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I pur whiskey on him and inhale
cigarette smoke
and the whores and the bartenders
and the grocery clerks
never know that
he’s
in there.

there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too tough for him,
I say,
stay down, do you want to mess
me up?
you want to screw up the
works?
you want to blow my book sales in
Europe?

there’s a bluebird in my heart that
wants to get out
but I’m too clever, I only let him out
at night sometimes
when everybody’s asleep.
I say, I know that you’re there,
so don’t be
sad.
then I put him back,
but he’s singing a little
in there, I haven’t quite let him
die
and we sleep together like
that
with our
secret pact
and it’s nice enough to
make a man
weep, but I don’t
weep, do
you?

- Charles Bukowski

Oh, will that day arrive
When I shall ceaselessly ask – yea, drive
Eternal questions into Thine ear,
O Eternity ! and have solution
How weak weeds grow and stand unbent,
Unshaken ‘neath the trampling current.
How the storm wrecks titanic things;
Uproots the trees,
And quick disturbs the mighty seas.
How the first spark blinked; how the first tree,
The first goldfish, the first bluebird so free,
And the first crooning baby,
Into this wonder-house to visit,
Made their grand entry.
They come, I see;
Their growth alone I watch.

Thy cosmic moulding Hand,
That secret works on land and sea,
I wish to seize,
O Eternity

- Paramahansa Yogananda

I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions.
Whatever I see I swallow immediately
Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike.
I am not cruel, only truthful –
The eye of a little god, four-cornered.
Most of the time I meditate on the opposite wall.
It is pink, with speckles. I have looked at it so long
I think it is part of my heart. But it flickers.
Faces and darkness separate us over and over.

Now I am a lake. A woman bends over me,
Searching my reaches for what she really is.
Then she turns to those liars, the candles or the moon.
I see her back, and reflect it faithfully.
She rewards me with tears and an agitation of hands.
I am important to her. She comes and goes.
Each morning it is her face that replaces the darkness.
In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman
Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish.

Sylvia Plath

A single word can brighten the face
of one who knows the value of words.
Ripened in silence, a single word
acquires a great energy for work.

War is cut short by a word,
and a word heals the wounds,
and there’s a word that changes
poison into butter and honey.

Let a word mature inside yourself.
Withhold the unripened thought.
Come and understand the kind of word
that reduces money and riches to dust.

Know when to speak a word
and when not to speak at all.
A single word turns the universe of hell
into eight paradises.

Follow the Way. Don’t be fooled
by what you already know. Be watchful.
Reflect before you speak.
A foolish mouth can brand your soul.

Yunus, say one last thing
about the power of words –
Only the word “I”
divides me from God.

- Yunus Emre

I went looking for Him
And lost myself;
The drop merged with the Sea –
Who can find it now?

Looking and looking for Him
I lost myself;
The Sea merged with the drop –
Who can find it now?

- Kabir

Leave me alone, leave me alone.
I need my rest in my soaring nest.
My bleeding heart for God’s bending Ears.
His Heart my host, His Soul my guest.

Leave me alone, my play is done.
O world, no more shall I stab your pride.
Your lessons wild are harrows of death
I shall unlearn-in God to hide.

Leave me alone, leave me alone.
I have now seen my goal’s highest Soul.
In the glow and flow of Silence-Sea
My life of cries has found its role.

By Sri Chinmoy