Braid Claith
by Robert Fergusson (1750-1774)

Ye wha are fain to hae your name
Wrote i’ the bonny book o’ fame,
Let merit nae pretension claim
   To laurel’d wreath,
But hap ye weel, baith back and wame,
   In gude Braid Claith.

He that some ells o’ this may fa’,
An’ slae-black hat on pow like snaw,
Bids bauld to bear the gree awa’,
   Wi a’ this graith,
Whan bienly clad wi’ shell fu’ braw
   O’ gude Braid Claith.

Waesuck for him wha has na fek o’t!
For he’s a gowk they’re sure to geck at,
A chiel that ne’er will be respekit
   While he draws breath,
Till his four quarters are bedeckit
   Wi’ gude Braid Claith.

On Sabbath-days the barber spark,
When he has done wi’ scrapin wark,
Wi’ siller broachie in his sark,
   Gangs trigly, faith!
Or to the Meadow, or the Park,
   In gude Braid Claith.

Weel might ye trow, to see them there,
That they to shave your haffits bare,
Or curl an’ sleek a pickle hair,
   Would be right laith,
Whan pacing wi’ a gawsy air
   In gude Braid Claith.

If ony mettl’d stirrah grien
For favour frae a lady’s een,
He maunna care for bein’ seen
   Before he sheath
His body in a scabbard clean
   O’ gude Braid Claith.

For, gin he come wi’ coat thread-bare,
A feg for him she winna care,
But crook her bonny mou’ fu’ sair,
   And scald him baith.
Wooers shou’d ay their travel spare
   Without Braid Claith.

Braid Claith lends fock an unco heese,
Makes mony kail-worms butter-flees,
Gies mony a doctor his degrees
   For little skaith:
In short, you may be what you please
   Wi’ gude Braid Claith.

For tho’ ye had as wise a snout on
As Shakespeare or Sir Isaac Newton,
Your judgment fock would hae a doubt on,
   I’ll tak my aith,
Till they cou’d see ye wi’ a suit on
   O’ gude Braid Claith.

hap: cover, wrap; wame: belly; fa’: posess, deserve; pow: head; bauld: bold; gree: prize; graith: accoutrements; beinly: comfortably; waesuck for: woe betide; feck: plenty; gowk: fool; geck: scoff; sark: shirt; trigly: trimly; haffits: cheeks; a pickle: a little; laith: loath; gawsy: trim and portly; stirrah: young fellow; grien: yearn; maunna: must not; gin: if; feg: fig; travel: trouble; fock: folk; unco: uncouth, great; heese: hoist, lift; skaith: pains; aith: oath.

Views: 92

Walden
by Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

In my garden three ways meet,
⁠Thrice the spot is blest;
Hermit-thrush comes there to build,
⁠Carrier-doves to nest.

There broad-armed oaks, the copses’ maze,
⁠ The cold sea-wind detain;
Here sultry Summer overstays
⁠ When Autumn chills the plain.

Self-sown my stately garden grows;
⁠The winds and wind-blown seed,
Cold April rain and colder snows
⁠ My hedges plant and feed.

From mountains far and valleys near
⁠The harvests sown to-day
Thrive in all weathers without fear,—
⁠ Wild planters, plant away!

In cities high the careful crowds
⁠Of woe-worn mortals darkling go,
But in these sunny solitudes
⁠My quiet roses blow.

Methought the sky looked scornful down
⁠ On all was base in man,
And airy tongues did taunt the town,
‘Achieve our peace who can!’

What need I holier dew
⁠ Than Walden’s haunted wave,
Distilled from heaven’s alembic blue,
⁠ Steeped in each forest cave?

If Thought unlock her mysteries,
⁠If Friendship on me smile,
I walk in marble galleries,
⁠I talk with kings the while.

How drearily in College hall
⁠The Doctor stretched the hours,
But in each pause we heard the call
⁠ Of robins out of doors.

The air is wise, the wind thinks well,
⁠And all through which it blows,
If plants or brain, if egg or shell,
⁠Or bird or biped knows;

And oft at home ‘mid tasks I heed,
⁠ I heed how wears the day;
We must not halt while fiercely speed
⁠The spans of life away.

What boots it here of Thebes or Rome
⁠Or lands of Eastern day?
In forests I am still at home
⁠And there I cannot stray.

Views: 26

The Old Fisherman
by Robert Huntington (1958-)

Once an old fisherman dwelt by the ocean
   Remote where few men might see,
Early each dawn with cautious devotion
   He’d put his dory to sea.

He fishes over the sunken ledges
   And always patiently
He lets his line out, waits and pledges
   Fidelity to the sea.

He reclines unmindful of the slaughter
   Endemic upon the land;
One hand on the line, one dipped in the water
   As if to hold its hand.

And after long hours when his gaze (like his boat) is
   Fixed on the changing sea’s gray,
The neap tide ebbs from beneath his notice,
   Silently slipping away.

And all at once he finds himself stranded
   On a ledge wind-swept and bleak,
But his simple thoughts remain guileless and candid;
   He takes in the line and speaks:

“As I, O Sea, am your wave-worn minion
   (Likewise this shelterless stone),
You too are under another’s dominion;
   By the moon’s decree you lie prone.”

He spends the night awake on his prison
   And endures the cold without shock;
By daybreak the waters have rearisen
   And again he’s released from his rock.

One imagines him in a strange vision
   At the end of earth’s given span,
Inattentive to apocalyptic fission;
   The last judgment of God or man.

As the solitary exile once viewed it
   While, watching the triremes pass by
His lonely Aegean island, he brooded,
   Of a sudden the sea burns dry.

And again he sits on his rock forsaken
   Without cursing his current state
Whose duration he can not know, but unshaken
   He just takes in the line and waits.

Views: 33

The Soul of the Sunflower
by Sarah Orne Jewett (1849-1909)

The warm sun kissed the earth
To consecrate thy birth,
And from his close embrace
Thy radiant face
Sprang into sight,
A blossoming delight.

Through the long summer days
Thy lover’s burning rays
Shone hot upon thy heart.
Thy life was part
Of his desire,
Thou passion-flower of fire!

And, turning toward his love,
Lifting thy head above
The earth that nurtured thee,
Thy majesty
And stately mien
Proclaims thee sun-crowned queen.

Views: 24

Nunc Est Bibendum (Odes, I, 37)
by Quintus Horatius Flaccus (“Horace”) (65 BCE-8 BCE)

Nunc est bibendum, nunc pede libero
pulsanda tellus, nunc Saliaribus
   ornare pulvinar deorum
   tempus erat dapibus, sodales.

Antehac nefas depromere Caecubum
cellis avitis, dum Capitolio
   regina dementis ruinas
   funus et imperio parabat

contaminato cum grege turpium
morbo virorum, quidlibet impotens
   sperare fortunaque dulci
   ebria. Sed minuit furorem

vix una sospes navis ab ignibus,
mentemque lymphatam Mareotico
   redegit in veros timores
   Caesar, ab Italia volantem

remis adurgens, accipiter velut
mollis columbas aut leporem citus
   venator in campis nivalis
   Haemoniae, daret ut catenis

fatale monstrum. Quae generosius
perire quaerens nec muliebriter
   expavit ensem nec latentis
   classe cita reparavit oras,

ausa et iacentem visere regiam 
voltu sereno, fortis et asperas
   tractare serpentes, ut atrum
   corpore conbiberet venenum,

deliberata morte ferocior:
saevis Liburnis scilicet invidens
   privata deduci superbo,
   non humilis mulier, triumpho.

Views: 28

Suicide in the Trenches
by Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967)

I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you’ll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.

Views: 28