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Over the Hills and Far Away -- Jimmy Page/Robert Plant

(Poem #19)Over the Hills and Far Away
 Hey lady– you got the love I need
 Maybe more than enough.
 Oh Darling... walk a while with me
 You’ve got so much
 
 Many have I loved – Many times been bitten
 Many times I’ve gazed along the open road.
 
 Many times I’ve lied – Many times I’ve listened
 Many times I’ve wondered how much there is to know.
 
 Many dreams come true and some have silver linings
 I live for my dream and a pocketful of gold.
 
 Mellow is the man who knows what he’s been missing
 Many many men can’t see the open road.
 
 Many is a word that only leaves you guessing
 Guessing ’bout a thing you really ought to know, ooh!
 You really ought to know
-- Jimmy Page/Robert Plant

I Will Make You Brooches -- Robert Louis Stevenson

(Poem #18)I Will Make You Brooches
 I will make you brooches and toys for your delight
 Of bird-song at morning and star-shine at night.
 I will make a palace fit for you and me
 Of green days in forests and blue days at sea.

 I will make my kitchen, and you shall keep your room,
 Where white flows the river and bright blows the broom, 
 And you shall wash your linen and keep your body white
 In rainfall at morning and dewfall at night.

 And this shall be for music when no one else is near,
 The fine song for singing, the rare song to hear
 That only I remember, that only you admire,
 Of the broad road that stretches and the roadside fire.
-- Robert Louis Stevenson

Concerto for Double Bass -- John Fuller

(Poem #17)Concerto for Double Bass
 He is a drunk leaning companionably
 Around a lamp post or doing up
 With intermittent concentration
 Another drunk's coat.

 He is a polite but devoted Valentino,
 Cheek to cheek, forgetting the next step.
 He is feeling the pulse of the fat lady
 Or cutting her in half.

 But close your eyes and it is sunset
 At the edge of the world. It is the language
 Of dolphins, the growth of tree-roots,
 The heart-beat slowing down.
-- John Fuller

Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night -- Dylan Thomas

(Poem #16)Do Not Go Gentle into that Good Night
 Do not go gentle into that good night,
 Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
 Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

 Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
 Because their words had forked no lightning they
 Do not go gentle into that good night.

 Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
 Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
 Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

 Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
 And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
 Do not go gentle into that good night.

 Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
 Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
 Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

 And you, my father, there on the sad height,
 Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
 Do not go gentle into that good night.
 Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
-- Dylan Thomas

Those Winter Sundays -- Robert Hayden

(Poem #15)Those Winter Sundays
 Sundays too my father got up early
 And put his clothes on in the blueback cold,
 then with cracked hands that ached
 from labor in the weekday weather made
 banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

 I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
 When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
 and slowly I would rise and dress,
 fearing the chronic angers of that house,

 Speaking indifferently to him,
 who had driven out the cold
 and polished my good shoes as well.
 What did I know, what did I know
 of love's austere and lonely offices?
-- Robert Hayden

The Day is Done -- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

(Poem #14)The Day is Done
 The day is done, and the darkness
 Falls from the wings of Night,
 As a feather is wafted downward
 From an eagle in his flight.

 I see the lights of the village
 Gleam through the rain and the mist,
 And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me
 That my soul cannot resist:

 A feeling of sadness and longing,
 That is not akin to pain,
 And resembles sorrow only
 As the mist resembles the rain.

 Come, read to me some poem,
 Some simple and heartfelt lay,
 That shall soothe this restless feeling,
 And banish the thoughts of day.

 Not from the grand old masters,
 Not from the bards sublime,
 Whose distant footsteps echo
 Through the corridors of Time,

 For, like strains of martial music,
 Their mighty thoughts suggest
 Life's endless toil and endeavor;
 And tonight I long for rest.

 Read from some humbler poet,
 Whose songs gushed from his heart,
 As showers from the clouds of summer,
 Or tears from the eyelids start;

 Who, through long days of labor,
 And nights devoid of ease,
 Still heard in his soul the music
 Of wonderful melodies.

 Such songs have a power to quiet
 The restless pulse of care,
 And comes like the benediction
 That follows after prayer.

 Then read from the treasured volume
 The poem of thy choice,
 And lend to the rhyme of the poet
 The beauty of thy voice.

 And the night shall be filled with music,
 And the cares, that infest the day,
 Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,
 And as silently steal away.
-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow