Monody to the Sound of Zithers by Kay Boyle

I have wanted other things more than lovers ...

I have desired peace, intimately to know

The secret curves of deep-bosomed contentment,

To learn by heart things beautiful and slow.

 

Cities at night, and cloudful skies, I've wanted; 

And open cottage doors, old colors and smells a part;

All dim things, layers of river-mist on river--

To capture Beauty's hands and lay them on my heart.

 

I have wanted clean rain to kiss my eyelids,

Sea-spray and silver foam to kiss my mouth. 

I have wanted strong winds to flay me with passion;

And, to soothe me, tired winds from the south.

 

These things have I wanted more than lovers...

Jewels in my hands, and dew on morning grass--

Familiar things, while lovers have been strangers. 

Friended thus, I have let nothing pass.

Be Drunk by Charles Baudelaire

One must be for ever drunken: that is the sole question of importance. If you would not feel the horrible burden of Time that bruises your shoulders and bends you to the earth, you must be drunken without cease. But how? With wine, with poetry, with virtue, with what you please. But be drunken. And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace, on the green grass by a moat, or in the dull loneliness of your chamber, you should waken up, your intoxication already lessened or gone, ask of the wind, of the wave, of the star, of the bird, of the timepiece; ask of all that flees, all that sighs, all that revolves, all that sings, all that speaks, ask of these the hour; and wind and wave and star and bird and timepiece will answer you:

“It is the hour to be drunken! Lest you be the martyred slaves of Time, intoxicate yourselves, be drunken without cease!

With wine, with poetry, with virtue, or with what you will.”

(from Petits Poèmes en Prose, 1869, translated by James Huneker, 1919)

Roll the Dice by Charles Bukowsky

If you’re going to try, go all the
way.
otherwise, don’t even start.
If you’re going to try, go all the
way.
This could mean losing girlfriends,
wives, relatives, jobs and
maybe your mind.
Go all the way.
It could mean not eating for 3 or 4 days.
It could mean freezing on a
park bench.
It could mean jail,
it could mean derision,
mockery,
isolation.
isolation is the gift,
all the others are a test of your
endurance, of
how much you really want to
do it.
and you’ll do it
despite rejection and the worst odds
and it will be better than
anything else
you can imagine.

If you’re going to try,
go all the way.
there is no other feeling like
that.
you will be alone with the gods
and the nights will flame with
fire.

Do it, do it, do it.
do it.

All the way
All the way.

You will ride life straight to
perfect laughter, its
the only good fight
there is.

( The most Inspiring Poems edited by Abhay K)

Vagabond by RL Stevenson

Give to me the life I love,
Let the lave go by me,
Give the jolly heaven above
And the byway nigh me.
Bed in the bush with stars to see,
Bread I dip in the river -
There's the life for a man like me,
There's the life for ever.

Let the blow fall soon or late,
Let what will be o'er me;
Give the face of earth around
And the road before me.
Wealth I seek not, hope nor love,
Nor a friend to know me;
All I seek, the heaven above
And the road below me.

Or let autumn fall on me
Where afield I linger,
Silencing the bird on tree,
Biting the blue finger.
White as meal the frosty field -
Warm the fireside haven -
Not to autumn will I yield,
Not to winter even!

Let the blow fall soon or late,
Let what will be o'er me;
Give the face of earth around,
And the road before me.
Wealth I ask not, hope nor love,
Nor a friend to know me;
All I ask, the heaven above
And the road below me. 

 (The most Inspiring Poems edited by Abhay K)

Follow Your Dream by Amanda Bradley

Follow your dream.
Take one step at a time and don't settle for less,
Just continue to climb.
Follow your dream.
If you stumble, don't stop and lose sight of your goal
Press to the top.
For only on top can we see the whole view,
Can we see what we've done and what we can do;
Can we then have the vision to seek something new,
Press on.
Follow your dream.

(The most Inspiring Poems edited by Abhay K)

If by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son! 

(The most Inspiring Poems edited by Abhay K)

Make me an instrument of your peace by St. Francis of Assisi

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love.

Where there is injury, pardon.

Where there is doubt, faith.

Where there is despair, hope.

Where there is darkness, light.

Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive.

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.

The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For the time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Come whoever you are by Rumi

Come, come whoever you are!

Wanderer, worshipper, lover of leaving.

It doesn't matter.

Ours is not a caravan

 of despair.

Come,

come even if you have

broken your vows

a thousand times.

Come,

come yet again,

come!

(The most Inspiring Poems edited by Abhay K)

Now is the time by Hafiz

Now is the time

Now is the time to know

That all that you do is sacred.

Now, why not consider

A lasting truce with yourself and God?

Now is the time to understand

That all your ideas of right and wrong

Were just a child’s training wheels

To be laid aside

When you can finally live

with veracity and love.

Now is the time for the world to know

That every thought and action is sacred.

That this is the time

For you to compute the impossibility

That there is anything

But Grace.

Now is the season to know

That everything you do

Is Sacred.

(The most Inspiring Poems edited by Abhay K)

Given to the Dying by Thich Nat Hahn

 

This body is not me; I am not caught in this body,

 

I am life without boundaries,

 

I have never been born and I have never died.

 

Over there the wide ocean and the sky with many galaxies

 

All manifests from the basis of consciousness.

 

Since beginningless time I have always been free.

 

Birth and death are only a door through which we go in and out.

 

Birth and death are only a game of hide-and-seek.

 

So smile to me and take my hand and wave good-bye.

 

Tomorrow we shall meet again or even before.

 

We shall always be meeting again at the true source,

 

Always meeting again on the myriad paths of life.

( The most Inspiring Poems edited by Abhay K)

What you do is what you are by Lao Tzu

It is part of the cosmic law that what you say and do determines

what happens in your life.

The ordinary person thinks that this law is external to himself

and he feels confined and controlled by it.

So his desires trouble his mind, his mind troubles his spirit,

and he lives in constant turmoil with himself and the world.

His whole life is spent in struggling.

 

The superior person recognizes that he and the subtle law are one.

Therefore he cultivates himself to accord with it, bringing

moderation to his actions and clarity to his mind.

Doing this, he finds himself at one with all that is divine and enlightened.

This is the profound, simple truth:

You are the master of your life and death.

What you do is what you are.

(The most Inspiring Poems edited by Abhay K)

Always we hope someone else has the answer by Lao Tzu

Always we hope

someone else has the answer.

some other place will be better,

some other time it will all turn out.

 

This is it.

no one else has the answer.

no other place will be better,

and it has already turned out.

 

At the center of your being

you have the answer;

you know who you are

and you know what you want.

 

There is no need

to run outside

for better seeing.

 

Nor to peer from a window.

 

Rather abide at the center of your being;

for the more you leave it, the less you learn.

 

Search your heart

and see

the way to do

is to be.

(The most Inspiring Poems edited by Abhay K)

We are what we think by Lao Tzu

         All that we are arises with our thoughts.

         With our thoughts we make the world.

         Speak or act with an impure mind

         And Trouble will follow you

         As the wheel follows the ox that draws the cart.

        

         We are what we think.

         All that we are arises with our thoughts.

         With our thoughts we make the world.

         Speak or act with a pure mind

         and happiness will follow you

         As your shadow, unshakable.        

         "Look how he abused me and beat me,

         How he threw me down and robbed me."

         Live with such thoughts and you live in hate.    

         "Look how he abused me and beat me,

         How he threw me down and robbed me."

         Abandon such thoughts, and live in love.

 

         You do not see me out here.

         I am an image projected on the back of your own retina.

         You do not hear me outside of yourself.

        The sounds are simply vibrations on your own eardrum.

 

         This is the profound, simple truth:

         You are the master of your life and death.

         What you do is what you are. 

     
      (The most Inspiring Poems edited by Abhay K)

Do not go by revelation or tradition by Buddha

"Do not go by revelation or tradition,

do not go by rumor, or the sacred scriptures,

do not go by hearsay or mere logic,

do not go by bias towards a notion or

by another person's seeming ability

and do not go by the idea 'He is our teacher'.

 

But when you yourself know that a thing is good,

that it is not blamable,

that is praised by the wise

and when practiced and observed

that it leads to happiness,

then follow that thing."

( The most Inspiring Poems edited by Abhay K)

                             

The same stream of life by Rabindranath Tagore

 

The same stream of life

that runs through my veins

runs through the world

and dances in rhythmic measure.

 

It is the same life

that shoots in joy

through the dust of the earth

into numberless blades of grass,

and breaks into tumultuous waves

of leaves and flowers.

 

It is the same life that is rocked

in the ocean cradle

of birth and death,

in ebb and in flow.

 

My limbs are made glorious

by the touch of this world of life;

and my pride is from

the life throb of ages

dancing in my blood this moment.

(The most Inspiring Poems: edited by Abhay K)

The most inspiring poems of the world...

Here I want to take you through the most inspiring poems of the world in all languages...hope you'll join the journey with me...