Poems

Read also: A great Winning Poem by Denis Waitley

The Winning Helix contains many poems and quotations. We would like to delight you with the most beautiful of them:

Emily Dickinson We never know We never know how high we are till we are called to rise and then if we are true to plan our statures touch the skies The heroism we recite would be a normal thing did not ourselves the cubits warp for fear to be the King.

The Networking world is fantastic! In the net I met Galib Mammadov, a great Azerbaidjanese-Norwegian musician and composer. Galib composed this poem for me and my voice. One day I will sing the song to the entire world in the web to thank all my great www friends!

Rainer Maria Rilke

A Walk

My eyes already touch the sunny hill

going far ahead of the road I have begun.

So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp,

it has inner light, even from a distance

and charges us, even if we don’t reach it,

into something else, which, hardly sensing it,

we already are, a gesture waves us on

answering our own wave…

but what we feel is the wind in our faces

William Blake

The fourfold vision

Now I a fourfold vision see,

and a fourfold vision is given to me;

‘tis fourfold my supreme delight

and threefold in soft Beulah’s night

and twofold Always. May God us keep

from single vision & Newton’s sleep

D.H. Lawrence

Phoenix

Are you willing to be sponged out, erased, cancelled,

made nothing?

Are you willing to be made nothing?

Dipped into oblivion?

If not, you will never really change.

The Phoenix renews her youth

only when she is burnt, burnt alive, burnt down

to hot and flocculent ash.

Then the small stirring of a new small bub in the nest

with strands of down like floating ash

shows that she is renewing her youth like the eagle,

immortal bird.

Emily Dickinson

Soto! Explore thyself!

Soto! Explore thyself!

Therein thyself shalt find

The “Undiscovered Continent” –

No Settler had the Mind.

William Collins

The Passions

An Ode for Music

When Music, heavenly maid, was young,
While yet in early Greece she sung,
The Passions oft, to hear her shell,
Thronged around her magic cell,
Exulting, trembling, raging, fainting,
Possest beyond the Muse's painting:
By turns they felt the glowing mind
Disturbed, delighted, raised, refined;
Till once, 'tis said, when all were fired,
Filled with fury, rapt, inspired,
From the supporting myrtles round
They snatched her instruments of sound,
And, as they oft had heard apart
Sweet lessons of her forceful art,
Each (for Madness ruled the hour)
Would prove his own expressive power.

First Fear his hand, its skill to try,
Amid the chords bewildered laid,
And back recoiled, he knew not why,
E'en at the sound himself had made.

Next Anger rushed, his eyes on fire,
In lightnings owned his secret stings:
In one rude clash he struck the lyre,
And swept with hurried hand the strings.

With woful measures wan Despair
Low sullen sounds his grief beguiled;
A solemn, strange, and mingled air,
'Twas sad by fits, by starts 'twas wild.

But thou, O Hope, with eyes so fair,
What was thy delighted measure?
Still it whispered promised pleasure,
And bade the lovely scenes at distance hail!
Still would her touch the strain prolong;
And from the rocks, the woods, the vale,
She called on Echo still, through all the song,
And, where her sweetest theme she chose,
A soft responsive voice was heard at every close;
And Hope enchanted smiled, and waved her golden hair.
And longer had she sung; -but, with a frown,
Revenge impatient rose:
He threw his blood-stained sword in thunder down;
And, with a withering look,
The war-denouncing trumpet took,
And blew a blast so loud and dread,
Were ne'er prophetic sounds so full of woe!
And ever and anon he beat
The doubling drum with furious heat;
And though sometimes each dreary pause between
Dejected Pity, at his side,
Her soul-subduing voice applied,
Yet still he kept his wild unaltered mien,
While each strained ball of sight seemed bursting from his head.
Thy numbers, Jealousy, to nought were fixed:
Sad proof of thy distressful state!
Of differing themes the veering song was mixed;
And now it courted Love, now raving called on Hate.
With eyes up-raised, as one inspired,
Pale Melancholy sat retired;
And from her wild sequestered seat,
In notes, by distance made more sweet,
Poured through the mellow horn her pensive soul;
And, dashing soft from rocks around,
Bubbling runnels joined the sound;
Through glades and glooms the mingled measure stole,
Or, o'er some haunted stream, with fond delay,
Round an holy calm diffusing,
Love of Peace, and lonely musing,
In hollow murmurs died away.
But Oh! how altered was its sprightlier tone
When Cheerfulness, a nymph of healthiest hue,
Her bow across her shoulder flung,
Her buskins gemmed with morning dew,
Blew an inspiring air that dale and thicket rung
The hunter's call, to Faun and Dryad known!
The oak-crowned Sisters, and their chaste-eyed Queen,
Satyrs and Sylvan Boys, were seen
Peeping from forth their alleys green:
Brown Exercise rejoiced to hear;
And Sport leapt up, and seized his beechen spear.
Last came Joy's ecstatic trial:
He, with viny crown advancing,
First to the lively pipe his hand addrest;
But soon he saw the brisk awakening viol,
Whose sweet entrancing voice he loved the best:
They would have thought who heard the strain
They saw, in Tempe's vale, her native maids
Amidst the festal-sounding shades
To some unwearied minstrel dancing,
While, as his flying fingers kissed the strings,
Love framed with Mirth a gay fantastic round:
Loose were her tresses seen, her zone unbound;
And he, amidst his frolic play,
As if he would the charming air repay,
Shook thousand odours from his dewy wings.

O Music, sphere-descended maid,
Friend of Pleasure, Wisdom's aid!
Why, goddess, why, to us denied,
Lay'st thou thy ancient lyre aside?
As, in that loved Athenian bower,
You learned an all-commanding power,
Thy mimic soul, O Nymph endeared,
Can well recall what then it heard;
Where is thy native simple heart,
Devote to Virtue, Fancy, Art?
Arise, as in that elder time,
Warm, energetic, chaste, sublime!
Thy wonders, in that godlike age,
Fill thy recording Sister's page -
'Tis said, and I believe the tale,
Thy humblest reed could more prevail,
Had more of strength, diviner rage,
Than all which charms this laggard age;
E'en all at once together found
Cecilia's mingled world of sound -
O! bid our vain endeavours cease:
Revive the just designs of Greece:
Return in all thy simple state!
Confirm the tales her sons relate!

(only a short part of this wonderful poem is quoted in the book)

Emily Dickinson

To be alive – is Power

To be alive – is Power –

Existence – in itself –

Without a further function –

omnipotence – enough –

To be alive -- and will!

‘tis able as God –

the Maker -- of Ourselves -- be what

Such being finitude!

Richard Wagner

Parsifal

And finally; the words of the mighty composer Richard Wagner. A quotation from the spiritual opera Parsifal, a young man’s journey into enlightenment. With these words we would like to remind you of the importance of being present – fully, here and now – life happens now!

Parsifal:

Ich schreite kaum, doch wähn’ ich mich schon weit.

Gurnemanz:

Du siehst, mein Sohn, zum Raum wird hier die Zeit

Richard Wagner: Parsifal 1st act