Dark brown is the river,
Golden is the sand.
It flows along for ever,
With trees on either hand.

Green leaves a-floating,
Castles of the foam,
Boats of mine a-boating -
Where will all come home?

On goes the river
And out past the mill,
Away down the valley,
Away down the hill.

Away down the river,
A hundred miles or more,
Other little children
Shall bring my boats ashore.

When you were born in this world
Everyone laughed while you cried
Conduct NOT yourself in manner such
That they laugh when you are gone

Kabir's mind got cleansed like the holy Ganges water
Now everyone follows, saying Kabir Kabir

Guru the washer man, disciple is the cloth
The name of God liken to the soap
Wash the mind on foundation firm
To realize the glow of Truth

Alive one sees, alive one knows
Thus crave for salvation when full of life
Alive you did not cut the noose of binding actions

When the rose is faded,
Memory may still dwell on
Her beauty shadowed,
And the sweet smell gone.

That vanishing loveliness,
That burdening breath,
No bond of life hath then,
Nor grief of death.

'Tis the immortal thought
Whose passion still
Makes the changing
The unchangeable.

Oh, thus thy beauty,
Loveliest on earth to me,
Dark with no sorrow, shines
And burns, with thee.

The morning was fearful at sea--
The voyagers weary and pale;
Their steamer a wreck, from keel to deck,
Before an Autumnal gale.
Old Neptune came forth in power--
He wore on his features a frown;
And many a guest he took to rest,
When the "Evening Star" went down.

They sleep in a fathomless grave,
The guest and the mariner brave;
They pillow their heads on coral beds,
Beneath the blue ocean waves,
Beneath the blue ocean waves.

Sail'd ever a ship from her quay,
So heavily laden as she,

When the dark comes down, oh, the wind is on the sea
With lisping laugh and whimper to the red reef's threnody,
The boats are sailing homeward now across the harbor bar
With many a jest and many a shout from fishing grounds afar.
So furl your sails and take your rest, ye fisher folk so brown,
For task and quest are ended when the dark comes down.

When the dark comes down, oh, the landward valleys fill
Like brimming cups of purple, and on every landward hill
There shines a star of twilight that is watching evermore

There's a happy time coming,
When the boys come home.
There's a glorious day coming,
When the boys come home.
We will end the dreadful story
Of this treason dark and gory
In a sunburst of glory,
When the boys come home.

The day will seem brighter
When the boys come home,
For our hearts will be lighter
When the boys come home.
Wives and sweethearts will press them
In their arms and caress them,
And pray God to bless them,
When the boys come home.

The thinned ranks will be proudest

When someone says: "Alexandria,"
I see the white walls of a house,
a small garden row of gillyflowers,
an autumn evening's pale sunlight
and hear the music of distant flutes.

When someone says: "Alexandria,"
I see stars above the hushed city,
drunken sailors in dark quarters,
a dancing girl performing the "wasp,"
and hear tambourines and the noise of fights.

When someone says "Alexandria,"
I see a pale purple sunset above the green sea,
the flickering of furry stars
and the light grey eyes beneath thick brows

poem in the ancient mode for you
that was musical and had old words

in it such as would never do in
the academies you loved it and you

said you did not know how to thank
me and in truth this is a problem

for who can ever be grateful enough
for poetry but i said you thank me

every day and every night wordlessly
which you really do although again

in truth it is a problem for how can
life ever be consonant with spirit

yet we are human and are naturally
hungry for gratitude yes we need it

When I too long have looked upon your face,
Wherein for me a brightness unobscured
Save by the mists of brightness has its place,
And terrible beauty not to be endured,
I turn away reluctant from your light,
And stand irresolute, a mind undone,
A silly, dazzled thing deprived of sight
From having looked too long upon the sun.
Then is my daily life a narrow room
In which a little while, uncertainly,
Surrounded by impenetrable gloom,
Among familiar things grown strange to me
Making my way, I pause, and feel, and hark,

The tired cars go grumbling by,
The moaning, groaning cars,
And the old milk carts go rumbling by
Under the same dull stars.
Out of the tenements, cold as stone,
Dark figures start for work;
I watch them sadly shuffle on,
'Tis dawn, dawn in New York.

But I would be on the island of the sea,
In the heart of the island of the sea,
Where the cocks are crowing, crowing, crowing,
And the hens are cackling in the rose-apple tree,
Where the old draft-horse is neighing, neighing, neighing,
Out on the brown dew-silvered lawn,