Reflections for New year:Inspirational New year Poems:The year by Ella Wheeler Wilcox***LIFE by Henry Van dyke

Music:>
La Vie En Rose - Richard Clayderman

The year
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

What can be said in New Year rhymes,
That’s not been said a thousand times?

The new years come, the old years go,
We know we dream, we dream we know.

We rise up laughing with the light,
We lie down weeping with the night.

We hug the world until it stings,
We curse it then and sigh for wings.

We live, we love, we woo, we wed,
We wreathe our brides, we sheet our dead.

We laugh, we weep, we hope, we fear,
And that’s the burden of the year.

The shadow by my finger cast
Divides the future from the past:
Before it, sleeps the unborn hour
In darkness, and beyond thy power:
Behind its unreturning line,
The vanished hour, no longer thine:
One hour alone is in thy hands,--
The NOW on which the shadow stands.
Henry Van Dyke

Time
Henry Van Dyke

Time is
Too Slow for those who Wait,
Too Swift for those who Fear,
Too Long for those who Grieve,
Too Short for those who Rejoice;
But for those who Love,
Time is not.

Life
Henry Van Dyke

Let me but live my life from year to year,
With forward face and unreluctant soul,
Not hastening to, nor turning from the goal;
Nor mourning things that disappear
In the dim past, nor holding back in fear
From what the future veils; but with a whole
And happy heart, that pays its toll
To youth and age, and travels on with cheer.

So let the way wind up the hill or down,
Through rough or smooth, the journey will be joy,
Still seeking what I sought when but a boy --
New friendship, high adventure, and a crown,
I shall grow old, but never lose life's zest,
Because the road's last turn will be the best.

One World
Henry Van Dyke

The worlds in which we live are two
The world 'I am' and the world 'I do.'

The worlds in which we live at heart are one,
The world "I am," the fruit of "I have done";

And underneath these worlds of flower and fruit,
The world "I love,"--the only living root.

Excerpts From Jesus,The Son Of Man BY Khalil Gibran

Music:
Andre Rider-The Nightingale's Prayer

Excerpts from Jesus,The son Of man
Khalil Gibran

Jesus As told and recorded by
Pilate's wife to a Roman lady

I was walking with my maidens in the groves outside of Jerusalem
when I saw Him with a few men and women sitting about Him;
and He was speaking to them in a language which I only half understood.

But one needs not a language to perceive a pillar of light
or a mountain of crystal. The heart knows what the tongue
may never utter and the ears may never hear.

He was speaking to His friends of love and srength.
I know He spoke of love because there was melody in His voice;
and I know He spoke of strength because there were armies in
His gestures.

When He saw me passing by He stopped speaking
for a moment and looked kindly upon me.

After that day His image visited my privacy when I would
not be visited by man or woman; and His eyes searched
my soul when my own eyes were closed.
And His voice governs the stillness of my nights.
I am held fast forevermore; and there is peace in my pain,
and freedom in my tears.

Beloved friend, you have never seen that man,
and you will never see Him.
He is gone beyond our senses,
but of all men He is now the nearest to me.

Joseph surnamed Justus On
Jesus the Wayfarer

He sang a song and none shall arrest that melody.
It shall hover from generation to generation and it shall rise
from sphere to sphere remembering the lips that gave it birth
and the ears that cradled it.

He was a stranger. Aye, He was a stranger,
a wayfarer on His way to a shrine,
a visitor who knocked at our door,
a guest from a far country.
And because He found not a gracious host,
He has returned to His own place.

John at Patmos On
Jesus the Gracious

Once more I would speak of Him.
God gave me the voice and the burning lips
though not the speech.
And unworthy am I for the fuller word,
yet I would summon my heart to my lips.

Jesus loved me and I knew not why.
And I loved Him because He quickened my spirit to heights
beyond my stature, and to depths beyond my sounding.

Love is a sacred mystery.
To those who love, it remains forever wordless;
But to those who do not love, it may be but a heartless jest.

I was young then and only the voice of dawn had visited my ears.
But His voice and the trumpet of His voice was the end of my labor
and the beginning of my passion.

And there were naught for me then but to walk in the sun
and worship the loveliness of the hour.
Could you conceive a majesty too kind to be majestic?
And a beauty too radiant to seem beautiful?
Could you hear in your dreams a voice shy of its own rapture?
He called me and I followed Him.

His fragrance called me and commanded me, but only to release me.
Love is a gracious host to his guests though to the unbidden
his house is a mirage and a mockery.

John the son of Zebedee
On the various apellations of Jesus

He is the first Word, which would speak with our voice and
live in our ear that we may heed and understand.

And the Word of the Lord our God builded a house of flesh
and bones, and was man like unto you and myself.

For we could not hear the song of the bodiless wind nor see
our greater self walking in the mist...

Yet the sound of His voice descended never to emptiness,
for the memory of man keeps that which his mind takes no care to keep.

This is the Christ, the innermost and the height,
who walks with man towards eternity.

In my heart dwells Jesus of Galilee, the Man above men,
the Poet who makes poets of us all, the Spirit who knocks
at our door that we may wake and rise and walk out to meet
truth naked and unencumbered.

Inspirational Christmas Poems :Christmas Tears by Henry Van Dyke /Christmas Fancies by ella Wheeler Wilcox

Music:
HAUSER - Adagio (Albinoni)

Who seeks for heaven alone to save his soul,
May keep the path, but will not reach the goal;
While he who walks in love may wander far,
Yet God will bring him where the blessed are.
Henry Van Dyke, The Other Wise Man

CHRISTMAS TEARS
Henry Van Dyke

The day returns by which we date our years:
Day of the joy of giving,—­that means love;
Day of the joy of living,—­that means hope;
Day of the Royal Child,—­and day that brings
To older hearts the gift of Christmas tears!

Look, how the candles twinkle through the tree,
The children shout when baby claps his hands,
The room is full of laughter and of song!
Your lips are smiling, dearest,—­tell me why
Your eyes are brimming full of Christmas tears?

Was it a silent voice that joined the song?
A vanished face that glimmered once again
Among the happy circle round the tree?
Was it an unseen hand that touched your cheek
And brought the secret gift of Christmas tears?

Not dark and angry like the winter storm
Of selfish grief,—­but full of starry gleams,
And soft and still that others may not weep,—­
Dews of remembered happiness descend
To bless us with the gift of Christmas tears.

Ah, lose them not, dear heart,—­life has no pearls
More pure than memories of joy love-shared.
See, while we count them one by one with prayer,
The Heavenly hope that lights the Christmas tree
Has made a rainbow in our Christmas tears!

Christmas Fancies
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

When Christmas bells are swinging above the fields of snow,
We hear sweet voices ringing from lands of long ago.
And etched on vacant places,
Are half forgotten faces
Of friends we used to cherish, and loves we used to know –

When Christmas bells are swinging above the fields of snow.
Uprising from the ocean of the present surging near,
We see, with strange emotion that is not free from fear,
That continent Elysian
Long vanished from our vision,
Youth’s lovely lost Atlantis, so mourned for and so dear,
Uprising from the ocean of the present surging near.

When gloomy gray Decembers are roused to Christmas mirth,
The dullest life remembers there once was joy on earth,
And draws from youth’s recesses
Some memory it possesses,
And, gazing through the lens of time, exaggerates its worth,
When gloomy gray December is roused to Christmas mirth.

When hanging up the holly or mistletoe, I wis
Each heart recalls some folly that lit the world with bliss.
Not all the seers and sages
With wisdom of the ages
Can give the mind such pleasure as memories of that kiss
When hanging up the holly or mistletoe, I wis.

For life was made for loving, and love alone repays,
As passing years are proving for all of Time’s sad ways.
There lies a sting in pleasure,
And fame gives shallow measure,
And wealth is but a phantom that mocks the restless days,
For life was made for loving, and only loving pays.

When Christmas bells are pelting the air with silver chimes,
And silences are melting to soft, melodious rhymes,
Let Love, the worlds beginning,
End fear and hate and sinning;
Let Love, the God Eternal, be worshipped in all climes
When Christmas bells are pelting the air with silver chimes.

What Child Is This & Away In A Manger - Naina Jinga

Hallelujah by Roy & Rosemary

Happy Christmas! by Charles Dickens

Happy, happy Christmas,
that can win us back to the delusions of our childish days;
that can recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth;
that can transport the sailor and the traveller,
thousands of miles away, back to his own fire-side and his quiet home!
Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers

I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old, familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

A child again at Christmastime BY Laura Ingalls Wilder

Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories and love
of kindred, and we are better throughout the year for having,
in spirit, become a child again at Christmastime.
Laura Ingalls Wilder

Christmas waves a magic wand over this world,
and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful.
Norman Vincent Peale

Molded by Love & Friendship by François Mauriac

We are all molded and remolded by those who have loved us and,
though that love may pass, we remain, none the less, their work.
No love, no friendship can ever cross the path of our destiny
without leaving some mark upon it forever.
François Mauriac

Remaining Alive by Edith Wharton

In spite of illness, in spite of the arch enemy sorrow,
one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration
if one is unafraid of change, insatiable of intellectual curiosity,
interested in big things, and happy in small ways.
Edith Wharton

The power of Nature by William Wordsworth

And hence this Tale, while I was yet a Boy.
Careless of books, yet having felt the power
Of Nature, by the gentle agency
Of natural objects, led me on to feel
For passions that were not my own, and think
(At random and imperfectly indeed)
On man, the heart of man, and human life.
William Wordsworth

To Each His Dulcinea (To Every Man His Dream) lyrics

To Each His Dulcinea (To Every Man His Dream) lyrics
From"Man of La Mancha (Don Quixote)"

To each his Dulcinea
That he alone can name...
Where he can find the haunting face
To light his secret flame.

For with his Dulcinea Beside him so to stand,
A man can do quite anything,
Outfly the bird upon the wing,
Hold moonlight in his hand.
Yet if you build your life on dreams
It's prudent to recall,
A man with moonlight in his hand
Has nothing there at all.

There is no Dulcinea,
She's made of flame and air,
And yet how lovely life would seem
If ev'ry man could weave a dream
To keep him from despair.
To each his Dulcinea...
Though she's naught but flame and air!

love Lives Always by Marcel Proust

When the heartstrings, which contentment has silenced,
like a harp laid by, yearn to be plucked and sounded
again by some hand, however rough, even if it should
break them.
Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time

Love, ever unsatisfied, lives always
in the moment that is about to come.
Marcel Proust

keep a patch of sky above your life by Marcel Proust

Always try to keep a patch of sky above your life.
Marcel Proust, Swann's Way

My destination is no longer a place,
rather a new way of seeing.

Even though our lives wander,
our memories remain in one place.
Marcel Proust

Normality Road by Vincent van Gogh

Normality is a paved road:
It’s comfortable to walk,
but no flowers grow on it.
Vincent van Gogh

Happiness is a journey, not a destination by Alfred D. Souza

Happiness is a journey, not a destination.

For a long time it seemed to me that life was about to begin—real life.
But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten
through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served,
a debt to be paid. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life.

This perspective has helped me to see there is no way to happiness.
Happiness is the way. So treasure every moment you have and remember
that time waits for no one.
Alfred D. Souza

Love & The seasons by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Music:
Pavel Panin-October

LOVE AND THE SEASONS
Ella Wheeler Wilcox

SPRING

A sudden softness in the wind;
A glint of song, a-wing;
A fragrant sound that trails behind,
And joy in everything.

A sudden flush upon the cheek,
The teardrop quick to start;
A hope too delicate to speak,
And heaven within the heart.

SUMMER

A riotous dawn and the sea’s great wonder;
The red, red heart of a rose uncurled;
And beauty tearing her veil asunder,
In sight of a swooning world.

A call of the soul, and the senses blended;
The Springtime lost in the glow of the sun,
And two lives rushing, as God intended,
To meet and mingle as one.

AUTUMN

The world is out in gala dress;
And yet it is not gay.
Its splendour hides a loneliness
For something gone away.

(Laughter and music on the air;
A shower of rice and bloom.
Smiles for the fond departing pair—
And then the empty room.)

WINTER

Two trees swayed in the winter wind; and dreamed
The snowflakes falling about them were bees
Singing among the leaves.And they were glad,
Knowing the dream would soon come true.

Beside the hearth an aged couple rocked,
And dozed; and dreamed the friends long passed from sight
Were with them once again.They woke and smiled,
Knowing the dream would soon come true.

"You Can't Go Home Again" by Thomas Wolfe

Excerpts from"You Can't Go Home Again"
Thomas Wolfe

Child, child, have patience and belief,for life is many days,
and each present hour will pass away. Son, son, you have been
mad and drunken, furious and wild, filled with hatred and despair,
and all the dark confusions of the soul - but so have we.

You found the earth too great for your one life, you found your
brain and sinew smaller than the hunger and desire that fed on them -
but it has been this way with all men. You have stumbled on in darkness,
you have been pulled in opposite directions, you have faltered,
you have missed the way, but, child, this is the chronicle of the earth.

And now, because you have known madness and despair, and because you will
grow desperate again before you come to evening, we who have stormed
the ramparts of the furious earth and been hurled back, we who have been
maddened by the unknowable and bitter mystery of love, we who have hungered
after fame and savored all of life, the tumult, pain, and frenzy, and now
sit quietly by our windows watching all that henceforth never more shall
touch us - we call upon you to take heart, for we can swear to you that
these things pass.

You can't go back home to your family, back home to your childhood,
back home to romantic love, back home to a young man's dreams of glory
and of fame, back home to exile, to escape to Europe and some foreign land,
back home to lyricism, to singing just for singing's sake, back home
to aestheticism, to one's youthful idea of 'the artist' and
the all-sufficiency of 'art' and 'beauty' and 'love,' back home to
the ivory tower, back home to places in the country, to the cottage
in Bermude, away from all the strife and conflict of the world,

back home to the father you have lost and have been looking for,
back home to someone who can help you, save you, ease the burden
for you, back home to the old forms and systems of things which
once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time--back
home to the escapes of Time and Memory.
Thomas Wolfe,You can't go home again

Grateful by John Greenleaf Whittier

No longer forward or behind I look in hope or fear,
But grateful, take the good I find, The best of now and here.
John Greenleaf Whittier

The final answers by R. A. Lafferty

All the final answers were given in the beginning.
They stand shining, above and beyond us, but
they are always there to be seen.
They may be too bright for us,
they may be too clear for us.
Well then, we must clarify our own eyes.
Our task is to grow out until we reach them.
R. A. Lafferty

Nature: Noble inclinations by Washington Irving

There is a serene and settled majesty to woodland scenery
that enters into the soul and delights and elevates it,
and fills it with noble inclinations.
Washington Irving

The power of love by Miguel de Cervantes

Love is influenced by no consideration,
recognizes no restraints of reason,
and is of the same nature as death,
that assails alike the lofty palaces
of kings and the humble cabins of shepherds;
and when it takes entire possession of a heart,
the first thing it does is to banish
fear and shame from it.

'Tis said of love that it sometimes goes, sometimes flies;
runs with one, walks gravely with another; turns a third
into ice, and sets a fourth in a flame: it wounds one,
another it kills: like lightning it begins
and ends in the same moment: it makes that fort yield
at night which it besieged but in the morning;
for there is no force able to resist it.
Miguel de Cervantes

The universe in Wild dance by Max Born

We have sought for firm ground and found none.
The deeper we penetrate, the more restless becomes the universe;
all is rushing about and vibrating in a wild dance.

I believe there is no philosophical high-road in science,
with epistemological signposts.
No, we are in a jungle and find our way by trial and error,
building our road behind us as we proceed.

Intellect distinguishes between the possible and the impossible;
reason distinguishes between the sensible and the senseless.
Even the possible can be senseless.
Max Born

The road of Science by Max Born

I have tried to read philosophers of all ages and have found many
illuminating ideas but no steady progress toward deeper
knowledge and understanding.

Science, however, gives me the feeling of steady progress:
I am convinced that theoretical physics is actual philosophy.
It has revolutionized fundamental concepts,e.g., about space and time
(relativity), about causality (quantum theory), and about substance
and matter (atomistics), and it has taught us new methods of thinking
(complementarity) which are applicable far beyond physics.

I believe that ideas such as absolute certitude, absolute exactness,
final truth, etc.are figments of the imagination which should not
be admissible in any field of science.
This loosening of thinking seems to me to be the greatest blessing
which modern science has given to us. For the belief in a single truth
and in being the possessor thereof is the root cause of all evil in the world.

My advice to those who which to learn the art of scientific prophesy
is not to rely on abstract reason, but to decipher the secret language
of Nature from Nature's documents: the facts of experience.
Max Born

Holding on & letting go by Rumi/ & inspirational rumi life quotes

Life is a balance between
holding on and letting go.
Rumi

Maybe you are searching among the branches,
for what only appears in the roots.
Rumi

Purify your eyes,
and see the pure world.
Your life will fill
with radiant forms.
rumi

And my heart rocked its babe of bliss by Gerald Massey

And my heart rocked its babe of bliss,
And soothed its child of air,
With something 'twixt a song and kiss,
To keep it nestling there.
Gerald Massey

A grateful loving heart by John Greenleaf Whittier

A grateful loving heart carries with it, under every
parallel of latitude,the warmth and light of the tropics.
It plants its Eden in the wilderness and solitary place,
and sows with flowers the gray desolation of rock and mosses.
John Greenleaf Whittier

Golden Lines/Vers Dorés by Gérard de Nerval

Golden Lines
Gérard de Nerval

Well, then! All is sentient!
Pythagoras

Free-thinker, Man, do you think you alone
Think, while life explodes everywhere?
Your freedom employs the powers you own,
But world is absent from all your affairs.

Respect an active spirit in the creature:
Each flower is a soul open to Nature;
In metal a mystery of love is sleeping;
‘All is sentient!’ Has power over your being.

Fear the gaze in the blind wall that watches:
There is a verb attached to matter itself…
Do not let it serve some impious purpose!

Often a hidden god inhabits obscure being;
And like an eye, born, covered by its eyelids,
Pure spirit grows beneath the surface of stones!

The original french poem

VERS DORÉS
Gérard de Nerval

Eh quoi ! tout est sensible !
Pythagore.

Homme, libre penseur ! te crois-tu seul pensant
Dans ce monde où la vie éclate en toute chose ?
Des forces que tu tiens ta liberté dispose,
Mais de tous tes conseils l’univers est absent.

Respecte dans la bête un esprit agissant :
Chaque fleur est une âme à la Nature éclose ;
Un mystère d’amour dans le métal repose ;
« Tout est sensible ! » Et tout sur ton être est puissant.

Crains, dans le mur aveugle, un regard qui t’épie :
À la matière même un verbe est attaché…
Ne le fais pas servir à quelque usage impie !

Souvent dans l’être obscur habite un Dieu caché ;
Et comme un œil naissant couvert par ses paupières,
Un pur esprit s’accroît sous l’écorce des pierres !

This is Love By Rumi /Best and inspirational selection of Rumi love poems

Music:
Soft Hands-Ali Ismael

Rumi & The Way of Spiritual Lover

This is Love
Rumi

This is love: to fly toward a secret sky,
to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment.
First, to let go of life.
In the end, to take a step without feet;
to regard this world as invisible,
and to disregard what appears to be the self.

Heart, I said, what a gift it has been
to enter this circle of lovers,
to see beyond seeing itself,
to reach and feel within the breast.

I am sculptor
Rumi

I am a sculptor, a molder of form.
In every moment I shape an idol.
But then, in front of you, I melt them down
I can rouse a hundred forms
and fill them with spirit,
but when I look into your face,
I want to throw them in the fire.
My souls spills into yours and is blended.

Because my soul has absorbed your fragrance,
I cherish it.
Every drop of blood I spill
informs the earth,
I merge with my Beloved
when I participate in love.
In this house of mud and water,
my heart has fallen to ruins.
Enter this house, my Love, or let me leave.

When the rose is gone
Rumi

When the rose is gone and the garden faded
you will no longer hear the nightingale's song.
The Beloved is all; the lover just a veil.
The Beloved is living; the lover a dead thing.

If love withholds its strengthening care,
the lover is left like a bird without care,
the lover is left like a bird without wings.

How will I be awake and aware
if the light of the Beloved is absent?
Love wills that this Word be brought forth.

Because I cannot sleep
Rumi

Because I cannot sleep
I make music at night.
I am troubled by the one
whose face has the color of spring flowers.
I have neither sleep nor patience,
neither a god reputation nor disgrace.
A thousand robes of wisdom are gone.
All my good manners have moved a thousand miles away.
The heart and the mind are left angry with each other.
The starts and the moon are envious of each other.

Because of this alienation the physical universe
is getting tighter and tighter.
The moon says, "How long will I remain
suspended without a sun?"
Without Love's jewel inside of me,
let the bazaar of my existence by destroyed stone by stone.

O Love, You who have been called by a thousand names,
You who know how to pour the wine
into the chalice of the body,
You who give culture to a thousand cultures,

You who are faceless but have a thousand faces,
O Love, You who shape the faces
of Turks, Europeans, and Zanzibaris,
give me a glass from Your bottle,
or a handful of bheng from Your Branch.
Remove the cork once more.

Then we'll see a thousand chiefs prostrate themselves,
and a circle of ecstatic troubadours will play.
Then the addict will be freed of craving.
and will be resurrected,
and stand in awe till Judgement Day.