Oh Heart, Why Is It That You Cry (Javed Akhtar)

“When clouds of pain loom in the sky
When a shadow of sadness flickers by
When a tear finds its way to the eye
When fear keeps the loneliness alive
I try and console my heart
Why is it that you cry? I ask

This is only what life imparts
These deep silences within
Have been handed out to all by time
Everyone’s story has a little sorrow
Everyone’s share has a little sunshine

No need for water in your eyes
Every moment can be a new life
Why do you let them pass you by?
Oh heart, why is it that you cry?”

The Road Not Taken (Robert Frost)

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”

Tread Softy On My Dreams (W B Yeats)

Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet.

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

Being Peace (Thick Nhat Hanh)

My well-being, my happiness depends very much on you,
And your well-being, and your happiness depends on me.

I am responsible for you, and you are responsible for me.
Anything I do wrong, you will suffer and
Anything you do wrong, I have to suffer.

Therefore, in order to take care of you,
I have started taking care of myself. 

Absence (Ella Wheeler Wilcox)

After you went away, our lovely room
    Seemed like a casket whence the soul had fled.
I stood in awful and appalling gloom,
    The world was empty and all joy seemed dead.

I think I felt as one might feel who knew
    That Death had left him on the earth alone.
For "all the world" to my fond heart means you;
    And there is nothing left when you are gone.

Each way I turned my sad, tear-blinded gaze,
    I found fresh torture to augment my grief;
Some new reminder of the perfect days
    We passed together, beautiful as brief.

There lay a pleasing book that we had read---
    And there your latest gift; and everywhere
Some tender act, some loving word you said,
    Seemed to take form and mock at my despair.

All happiness that human heart may know
    I find with you; and when you go away,
Those hours become a winding-sheet of woe,
    And make a ghastly phantom of To-day.

A Red Flower (Claude McKay)

Your lips are like a southern lily red,
Wet with the soft rain-kisses of the night,
In which the brown bee buries deep its head,
When still the dawn's a silver sea of light.

Your lips betray the secret of your soul,
The dark delicious essence that is you,
A mystery of life, the flaming goal
I seek through mazy pathways strange and new.

Your lips are the red symbol of a dream.
What visions of warm lilies they impart,
That line the green bank of a fair blue stream,
With butterflies and bees close to each heart!

Brown bees that murmur sounds of music rare,
That softly fall upon the languorous breeze,
Wafting them gently on the quiet air
Among untended avenues of trees.

O were I hovering, a bee, to probe
Deep down within your scented heart, fair flower,
Enfolded by your soft vermilion robe,
Amorous of sweets, bur but one perfect hour! 

If ... (Rudyard Kipling)

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream---and not make dreams your master;
If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings---nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And---which is more---you'll be a Man, my son!