Inspirational Poems

     SALT CROSS  INSPIRATIONAL POETRY   IN DEUTSCH UND ENGLISCH

 

    

LISTEN TO THE SONG OF YOUR SOUL   by Daphne Gulland

    

Listen to the song of your soul,

Listen to the message you’ve never been told.

Days do come and days do go

Nights are long

And full of dreams.

Reality is nothing

Like what it seems.

Your soul is there

To make you aware

Of another world

Seemingly far away

But yet

In a marvellous way

Close to you.

You just have to

Listen to the song of your soul

Listen to the message you’ve never been told.  

             THE SALT CROSS TOP FIVE FAVOURITE POEMS

 

Look to this day, for it is life

Do not stand at my grave and weep

Our Children 

Desiderata  

Our Greatest Fear  from: A Return to Love by Marianne Williamson. Also known as the Nelson Mandela poem).

                          Seek and you shall find them, here or elsewhere!

 

LOOK TO THIS DAY FOR IT IS LIFE  by Kalidasa

 

Look to this day, for it is life,

The very life of life

In its brief course lie all the varieties

and melodies of existence.

&nb The bliss of growth

The glory of action

The splendour of beauty.

For yesterday is but a dream.

And tomorrow is only a vision.

 

But today – well-lived – makes every

Yesterday a dream of happiness,

And every tomorrow a vision of hope.

Look well, therefore, to this day –

Such is the Salutation of the Dawn.

 

 Kalidasa was an Indian poet who wrote in Sanskrit and probably lived around AD 400.

 

Wenden Sie sich an diesem Tag

Für sie ist das Leben,

das Leben des Lebens.

In der kurzen Kurs

Liegen alle Wahrheiten

Und Wirklichkeiten deiner Existenz,

die Glückseligkeit des Wachstums,

die Herrlichkeit der Maßnahmen,

die Pracht der Schönheit.

Für gestern ist nur ein Traum

Und morgen ist nur eine Vision,

aber heute gut gelebt

macht jeder gestern

ein Traum von Glück

und alle Morgen

eine Vision der Hoffnung.

Kalidasa, ein Sanskrit Pöet

   

 

 

DO NOT STAND AT MY GRAVE AND WEEP

 

Do not stand at my grave and weep

I am not there.  I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow

I am the diamond glints on snow.

I am the sunlight on ripened grain.

I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken in the morning’s hush

I am the swift uplifting rush of quiet birds in circled flight.

I am the soft stars that shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry

I am not there; I did not die.

 

                  Of unknown Native American origin or written by Mary Frye.

 

 

Steht nicht an meinem Grab und weint,

ich bin hier nicht, ich schlafe nicht.

Ich bin die tausend Winde,

das Diamantglitzern auf dem Schnee.

Ich bin der Sonnenschein auf reifem Korn,

ich bin der sanfte Herbstregen.

Wenn ihr aufwacht in der Morgenstille,

bin ich der schnelle Flügelschlag

stiller Vögel in dreisendem Flug.

Ich bin der Stern, sein mildes Licht in der Nacht.

Steht nicht an meinem Grab und weint,

Ich bin hier nicht... ich bin nicht tot.

 

        Unbekannter Nordamerikanischer Ureinwohner oder von Mary Frye.

                        

         

 

 

CHILDREN by Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts.

 For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

 For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and he bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

 Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;

For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

                          From The Prophet, Chapter 4 by Kahlil Gibran, 1923

 

 

From the Talmud

“Watch your thoughts, for they become words.

Watch your words, for they become actions.

Watch your actions, for they become habits.

Watch your habits, for they become character.

Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.

 

 

 Achte auf deine Gedanken, denn sie werden deine Worte.

Achte auf deine Worte, denn sie werden deine Taten.

Achte auf deine Taten, denn sie werden zu deinem Charakter.

Achte auf deinen Charakter, denn er wird zu deinem Schicksal.

                                                  Aus dem Talmud

 

 

 

 

THE SONG OF AMERGIN  

(popular modernised version by Robert Graves)

 

God speaks and says:

I am a stag of seven tines,

Over the flooded world,

I am borne by the wind,

I descend in tears like dew, I lie glittering.

I fly aloft like a griffon to my nest on the cliff,

I bloom among the loveliest flowers,

I am both the oak and the lightning that blasts it,

I embolden the spearsman,

I teach the councillors their wisdom,

I inspire the poets,

I rove the hills like a conquering boar,

I roar like the winter sea,

I return like the receding wave,

Who but I can unfold the secrets of the unhewen dolmen?

I am the womb of every holt,

I am the blaze on every hill,

I am the queen of every hive,

I am the shield to every head,

I am the tomb to every hope.

 

Reproduced from The White Goddess, 1948, by Robert Graves, edited by Grevel Lindip, under licensed permission from APWatt Ltd. on behalf of the Trustees of the Robert Graves Copyright Trust.  Publication of The Song of Amergin is not allowed without permission from APWatt Ltd.

   

  

 

 

Sobald wir lernen, uns selbst zu vertrauen, fangen wir an zu leben.

                                          

                                                  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

 

 

 PSALM  137   By the Rivers of Babylon, from the Bible

 

By the rivers of Babylon,

There we sat down,

Yea, we wept

When we remembered Zion.

 

We hanged our harps upon the willows

In the midst thereof.

 

For there they that carried us away captive

Required of us a song;

And they that wasted us

Required of us mirth, saying,

Sing us one of the songs of Zion.

 

How shall we sing the Lord’s song

In a strange land?

                                      

Dry those tears, my daughters, and look upon your Father.

Your Father is the least of all things in size,

Just as He is the greatest of all things in excellence;

And since he is very small He is within everything,

See, I am here with you, both within and without,

The greatest smallness and the smallest greatness.

Behold, I say, do you not see?

I fill Heaven and earth.

I penetrate and contain them.

                                                      Marsilio Ficino

   

 All Things Great and Beautiful  by Cecil F. Alexander,

Hymns for Little Children, 1848

 

All things great and beautiful,

All creatures great and small,

All things wise and wonderful:

The Lord God made them all.

 

Each little flower that opens,

Each little bird that sings,

He made their glowing colours,

He made their tiny wings.

 

The purple headed mountains,

The river running by,

The sunset and the morning

That brightens up the sky.

 

The cold wind in the winter,

The pleasant summer sun,

The ripe fruits in the garden,

He made them every one.

 

The tall trees in the greenwood,

The meadows where we play,

The rushes by the water

To gather every day.

 

He gave us eyes to see them,

And lips that we might tell

How great is God Almighty,

Who has made all things well.

 

   

  TO EVERY THING THERE IS A SEASON  

Ecclesiastes, II, Chapter 3  The Bible

 

To every thing there is a season,

And a time to every purpose under the heaven:

 

A time to be born, and a time to die;

A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

 

A time to kill, and a time to heal;

A time to break down, and a time to build up;

 

A time to weep, and a time to laugh;

A time to mourn, and a time to dance;

 

A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;

A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

 

A time to get, and a time to lose;

A time to keep, and a time to cast away;

 

A time to rend, and a time to sew;

A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

 

A time to love, and a time to hate;

A time of war, and a time of peace.

 

 

 

                           What is Life?

It is the flash of a firefly in the night.

It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime.

It is the little shadow which runs across the grass

And loses itself in the sunset.

 

                                           Crowfoot, a Native American Indian.

 

This we know.

The earth does not belong to man;

Man belongs to the earth.

This we know.

All things are connected,

Like the blood which unites one family

All things are connected.

Whatever befalls the earth,

Befalls the sons of the earth.

Man did not weave the web of life;

He is merely a strand in it.

Whatever he does to the web,

He does to himself.

 

                                   Chief Seattle, a Native American Indian.

 

Dear Friends,

          “When the Earth has been ravaged and the animals are dying, a tribe of people from all races, creeds and colours will put their faith in deeds, not words, to make the land green again.  They will be called “Warriors of the Rainbow”, protectors of the environment.”

 

     Greenpeace was inspired by this Native American prophecy to call its flagship “Rainbow Warrior.”

 

 

Erst wenn der letzte Baum gerodet,

der letzte Fisch gefangen,

der letzte Fluss vergiftet ist,

werdet ihr feststellen,

dass man Geld nicht essen kann.“

 

                                    Indianische Weisheit.