The shell

Look what a beautiful shell of ivory white
Recently thrown at the sands by the rushing tide
See what a lovely shell a pad of a soft sloth snail
Small and pure without the notoriety of a pearl

Lying on the back of sand hill so nigh to my foot
Brittle, frail spared by the violent breakers loot
Oh what mind what hand has made it so fairly well
Ah, empty, vacant from the creature that within it dwells

Its delicate spire and whorl
How exquisitely are weaved its stripes of colors in whole
A miracle of design, that lives through ancient time
No less in beauty and charm than a poet rhyme

A piece of beauty is called a 'shell' by man
Not a pearl, not a jewel but unmoving dull clumsy name
A 'shell' which does not recall any treasure or historical fame

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poem by Isaac Ziv
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You turned from me

Remember me as I was back then
As a precious memory of comfort in time of agony and pain
You have turned from me; but I always see
The beautiful maid laughing by a flowering spring tree

With the slaying eyes that made the air around so bright
Under shaking, flickering stars of warm hazy summer night
Hands were touching hands
Love grew slowly in such timid shy trend

You have turned from me; but I always remember
The bursting laugh against the night dew of early November
That one careless night of youth and laugh
While outside the spangled reeds in the silver moon did bath

For me, that night is the only night I have
Such a precious jewel against hard times in my heart I save

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poem by Isaac Ziv
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Moth's love

You have loved me one whole day
A sweet short summer dream season
Tomorrow when you leave, what will you say?
What will be your reason?
Will you then antedate our love’s vow?
Or say in disdain
That our love was in vain
And now we are no longer those persons who we were?
Or that oath made in reverential fear
Of love, by love own wrath may be foreswear?

You have loved me whole life of a moth
To abandon me to throw me into a dungeon of loath
Was it me? Was you?
Can anything be done or undo?
Or as true death does true marriage untie
So lovers knots be by time unchained unloose?
Or is it your own mortal end fear to justify
Having your course and your purpose change
Leaving me out of your circle and your chance

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poem by Isaac Ziv
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The gloom of an hour

I have at times gnawing fears that my days may soon cease to be
Before my quill has exhausted itself in teeming my brain,
Before my high-piled books, in character, and in gallantry
Hold like rich wheat, the full ripened grain;

When I behold, upon the night's vault starred face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high youthful and fresh romance,
This blessed moon lending its sheen where I shall never trace
Its shadows, with the magic hand of zeal, rapture and chance;

And when I feel the air of a fair creature in the gloom of an hour,
That I shall never look upon or company my kinsmen more,
Never have relish in the fiery power and emotional tower
Of unreflecting love; youth on echoing dunes of an isolated shore

Of this stage wide world a human stands alone, and thinks
Where are all love moments and banners of praise
The human soul they try to cherish and to raise
No answer; his love collapses forgotten; his fame to nothingness sinks.

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poem by Isaac Ziv
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Who would be there to tell me

Who would be there to tell me
When I catch my falling star
where all my past years are
Many friends of mine in owe and plea
The ones I stirred for love like industrious bee

Here rests his head upon the lap of earth
A man to fortune and to fame is unknown
Fair science frowned not in his humble birth
And misfortune with melancholy marked him for their own

Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere
Heaven did a recommence as largely said
He gave to misery all he had, a tear
He gained from Heaven, it was all he wished, he never fret

No further seek his merits to disclose
Or draw his frailties from their clear abode
There they alike in trembling hope repose
The bosom of his soul believes and God

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poem by Isaac Ziv
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I dread the calm

I dread the calm in the morning of a mourn without a sound
It is a calm that comes to foster a greater grief
It is a calm light of dusk before ever dew was falling from leaves
It is a calm sinking in calm pattering to the ground

I fear the calm and scudding winds in the high wold
And on the dews the drench the gorse
And all the silvery gossamer
Shaken into gilded gold

Is it calm and still in the dusky light over great plains
That sweeps late and swiftly in autumn bowers
Of secluded farms and solitary towers
To merge with the bounding and the saint

Is it calm on the vast sea under the spangled silver sleep
The waves that sway in colossus to lull themselves to rest
And the dead calm in the deepening breast
Which heaves with the heaving deep

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poem by Isaac Ziv
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God or nature?

I do often wonder God or nature
Which is my soul nurturer?
Nature; everything in you moves me in awe
The fruitful orchards, the roseate echo
Of pastorals in midday summer bowers
The grandeur of dawns welcomed by birds’ choirs
The solemn ruefulness of sunsets at dusk
The summer’s haze canopies the forest foliage tops

I used to laugh at art
Scorn songs debase verse
Ancient temples and spiraled towers
Cathedrals spread across empty skies
Arrogance and ignorance led me
To see good men and evil ones with identical eyes

I must admit the guilt
That nature is my guide
I do not believe in God
I deny and abjure all thought

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poem by Isaac Ziv
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There will come

There will come upon the earth, calm spring time
When soft rains fall and raise the adores of wet ground
And flowers leap and bloom into their prime
As the swallows circle and bounce in vast meadows, shimmering sound

And no one will know of my time under the sun
And no one will reflect or contemplate of my days, not one
Not even one would mind, neither happy bird on a bough tree
That I have perished; erased diminished with no memory utterly

Come red black Robins and wear your feathery fire,
Whistling your whims on a low summer wind stirring fence-wire
And fat oily frogs in a garden pool, sing your rhythm all night
And tree heavy with late season foliage play the wind that turn you white

The world will go on as we do when an acquaintance dies
We hurry to burry and move as if it never concerns our fates; blinding our eyes
Oh that first Spring after death, herself when she wakes at dawn
Minding her course would scarcely notice that we were gone.

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poem by Isaac Ziv
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For you woman I shall not die

For you woman I shall not die
You woman of notorious name and high fame
Only foolish men with piercing eyes you may slay
But I and they are not the same

Why should I expire
for your eyes' fire
Ha slender waist? So what?
And for your swanlike limbs? I say tat

But I run from your round breast
the fresh skin, the crimson checks
hair like a waterfall, long and rich
Indeed, Indeed I shall hold
through sturdy high walls and wide moat
Please God! Not me for any such

yet the golden hair my eyes enthralled
the forehead thin, the gracious ears

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poem by Isaac Ziv
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An Old nymph

Old nymph guarding your gracious mirror you may find
And by this taunting picture learn to dress your mind
None of your frowns can make a tender lover afraid
Soft looks of memory grace your unfortunate shade

And while your gaze at what your prime used to appear
Waning passion forbid; locking your tears
Like narcissus has a different fate to prove
Even your walk and your gait are out of your past moves

And my verse has not this powerful rhyme
That outlives marble and gilded monuments
Of kings and knights to let you shine in these contents
When lying beneath unswept tomb besmeared with sluttish time

For against death and other all oblivious enmity
It offers no pace forth where your praise can find room
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wears and tares our world down to doom

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poem by Isaac Ziv
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