On the Grasshopper and Cricket
by John Keats (1795-1821)

The poetry of earth is never dead:
      When all the birds are faint with the hot sun,
      And hide in cooling trees, a voice will run
From hedge to hedge about the new-mown mead;
That is the Grasshopper’s — he takes the lead
      In summer luxury, — he has never done
      With his delights; for when tired out with fun
He rests at ease beneath some pleasant weed.
The poetry of earth is ceasing never:
      On a lone winter evening, when the frost
            Has wrought a silence, from the stove there shrills
The Cricket’s song, in warmth increasing ever,
      And seems to one in drowsiness half lost,
             The Grasshopper’s among some grassy hills.

Views: 31

The Commission
bu Ezra Pound (1885-1972)

Go, my songs, to the lonely and the unsatisfied,
Go also to the nerve-wracked, go to the enslaved-by-convention,
Bear to them my contempt for their oppressors.
Go as a great wave of cool water,
Bear my contempt of oppressors.

Speak against unconscious oppression,
Speak against the tyranny of the unimaginative,
Speak against bonds.

Go to the bourgeoise who is dying of her ennuis,
Go to the women in suburbs.

Go to the hideously wedded,
Go to them whose failure is concealed,
Go to the unluckily mated,
Go to the bought wife,
Go to the woman entailed.

Go to those who have delicate lust,
Go to those whose delicate desires are thwarted.

Go like a blight upon the dulness of the world;
Go with your edge against this,
Strengthen the subtle cords,
Bring confidence upon the algae and the tentacles of the soul.

Go in a friendly manner,
Go with an open speech.
Be eager to find new evils and new good,
Be against all forms of oppression.
Go to those who are thickened with middle age,
To those who have lost their interest.

Go to the adolescent who are smothered in family—
Oh how hideous it is
To see three generations of one house gathered together!
It is like an old tree with shoots,
And with some branches rotted and falling.

Go out and defy opinion,
Go against this vegetable bondage of the blood.
Be against all sorts of mortmain.

Views: 29

Cupid and My Campasbe
by John Lyly (1554-1606)

Cupid and my Campasbe played
At cards for kisses. Cupid paid.
He stakes his quiver, bow and arrows,
His mother’s doves and team of sparrows.
Loses them, too; then down he throws
The coral of his lips, the rose
Growing on his cheek, but none knows how;
With them the crystal of his brow,
And then the dimple of his chin.
All these did my Campasbe win.
At last he set her both his eyes;
She won and Cupid blind did rise.
      Oh, Love, hath she done this to thee!
      What shall, alas, become of me!

Views: 35

Tract
by William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)

I will teach you my townspeople
how to perform a funeral—
for you have it over a troop
of artists—
unless one should scour the world—
you have the ground sense necessary.

See! the hearse leads.
I begin with a design for a hearse.
For Christ’s sake not black—
nor white either— and not polished!
Let it be weathered— like a farm wagon—
with gilt wheels (this could be
applied fresh at small expense)
or no wheels at all:
a rough day to drag over the ground.

Knock the glass out!
My God—glass, my townspeople!
For what purpose? Is it for the dead
to look out or for us to see
how well he is housed or to see
the flowers or the lack of them—
or what?
To keep the rain and snow from him?
He will have a heavier rain soon:
pebbles and dirt and what not.
Let there be no glass—
and no upholstery phew!
and no little brass rollers
and small easy wheels on the bottom—
my townspeople what are you thinking of?

A rough plain hearse then
with gilt wheels and no top at all.
On this the coffin lies
by its own weight.
            No wreathes please—
especially no hot house flowers.
Some common memento is better,
something he prized and is known by:
his old clothes— a few books perhaps—
God knows what! You realize
how we are about these things
my townspeople—
something will be found— anything
even flowers if he had come to that.

So much for the hearse.

For heaven’s sake though see to the driver!
Take off the silk hat! In fact
that’s no place at all for him—
up there unceremoniously
dragging our friend out to his own dignity!
Bring him down— bring him down !
Low and inconspicuous! I’d not have him ride
on the wagon at all— damn him—
the undertaker’s understrapper!
Let him hold the reins
and walk at the side
and inconspicuously too!

Then briefly as to yourselves:
Walk behind— as they do in France,
seventh class, or if you ride
Hell take curtains! Go with some show
of inconvenience; sit openly—
to the weather as to grief.
Or do you think you can shut grief in?
What—from us? We who have perhaps
nothing to lose? Share with us
share with us— it will be money
in your pockets.
            Go now
I think you are ready.

Views: 30

Život
by Miloš Crnjanski (1893-1977)

Sve to ne zavisi od mene.

Setim se kako beše lep,
nad vodama dubokim nekim,
      kao mesec beo,
sa lukom tankim
      jedan most.

I vidiš, to uteši me.

Ne zavisi od mene.

Dosta je da toga dana,
zemlja oko mene zamiriše preorana, ili da oblaci prolete,
malo niže,
pa da me to potrese.

Ne, ne od mene.

Dosta će biti ako, jedne zime,
iz vrta jednog zavejanog
istrči neko ozeblo, tuđe dete, i zagrli me.

Views: 34

The Agincourt Carol
Anonymous 15th century folk song

Our king went forth to Normandy
With grace and might of chivalry,
There God for him wrought marvellously,
Wherefore England may call and cry
   Deo gratias Anglia
   Redde pro victoria.

He set a siege, for sooth to say,
To Harfleur town with royal array,
That town he won and made a fray
That France shall rue till doomesday.
   Deo gratias Anglia
   Redde pro victoria.

Then went him forth our king comely,
In Agincourt field he fought manly,
Through grace of God most marvellously
He had the field and victory.
   Deo gratias Anglia
   Redde pro victoria.

There many a Lord, Earl, and Baron
Were slain and taken and that full soon
And some were brought into London
With joy and bliss and great renown.
   Deo gratias Anglia
   Redde pro victoria.

Almighty God, O keep our king,
His people and all those well willing,
And give them grace without ending;
Then may we call and safely sing
   Deo gratias Anglia
   Redde pro victoria.

Views: 37

The Sphinx
by Ralph Waldo Emerson (1802-1882)

The Sphinx is drowsy,
            The wings are furled;
Her ear is heavy,
            She broods on the world.
“Who’ll tell me my secret,
            The ages have kept?—
I awaited the seer,
            While they slumbered and slept;—

“The fate of the man-child;
            The meaning of man;
Known fruit of the unknown;
            Daedalian plan;
Out of sleeping a waking,
            Out of waking a sleep;
Life death overtaking;
            Deep underneath deep?

“Erect as a sunbeam,
            Upspringeth the palm;
The elephant browses,
            Undaunted and calm;
In beautiful motion
            The thrush plies his wings;
Kind leaves of his covert,
            Your silence he sings.

“The waves, unashamed,
            In difference sweet,
Play glad with the breezes,
            Old playfellows meet;
The journeying atoms,
            Primordial wholes,
Firmly draw, firmly drive,
            By their animate poles.

“Sea, earth, air, sound, silence,
            Plant, quadruped, bird,
By one music enchanted,
            One deity stirred,—
Each the other adorning,
            Accompany still;
Night veileth the morning,
            The vapor the hill.

“The babe by its mother
            Lies bathed in joy;
Glide its hours uncounted,—
            The sun is its toy;
Shines the peace of all being,
            Without cloud, in its eyes;
And the sum of the world
            In soft miniature lies.

“But man crouches and blushes,
            Absconds and conceals;
He creepeth and peepeth,
            He palters and steals;
Infirm, melancholy,
            Jealous glancing around,
An oaf, an accomplice,
            He poisons the ground.

“Outspoke the great mother,
            Beholding his fear;—
At the sound of her accents
            Cold shuddered the sphere:—
‘Who has drugged my boy’s cup?
            Who has mixed my boy’s bread?
Who, with sadness and madness,
            Has turned the man-child’s head?”

I heard a poet answer,
            Aloud and cheerfully,
“Say on, sweet Sphinx! thy dirges
            Are pleasant songs to me.
Deep love lieth under
            These pictures of time;
They fad in the light of
            Their meaning sublime.

“The fiend that man harries
            Is love of the Best;
Yawns the pit of the Dragon,
            Lit by rays from the Blest.
The Lethe of nature
            Can’t trace him again,
Whose soul sees the perfect,
            Which his eyes seek in vain.

“Profounder, profounder,
            Man’s spirit must dive;
To his aye-rolling orbit
            No goal will arrive;
The heavens that now draw him
            With sweetness untold,
Once found,—for new heavens
            He spurneth the old.

“Pride ruined the angels,
            Their shame them restores;
And the joy that is sweetest
            Lurks in stings of remorse.
Have I a lover
            Who is noble and free?—
I would he were nobler
            Than to love me.

“Eterne alternation
            Now follows, now flied;
And under pain, pleasure,—
            Under pleasure, pain lies.
Love works at the centre,
            Heart-heaving alway;
Forth speed the strong pulses
            To the borders of day.

“Dull Sphinx, Jove keep thy five wits!
            Thy sight is growing blear;
Rue, myrrh, and cummin for the Sphinx—
            Her muddy eyes to clear!”—
The old Sphinx bit her thick lip,—
            Said, “Who taught thee me to name?
I am thy spirit, yoke-fellow,
            Of thine eye I am eyebeam.

“Thou art the unanswered question;
            Couldst see they proper eye,
Alway it asketh, asketh;
            And each answer is a lie.
So take thy quest through nature,
            It through thousand natures ply;
Ask on, thou clothed eternity;
            Time is the false reply.”

Uprose the merry Sphinx,
            And crouched no more in stone;
She melted into purple cloud,
            She silvered in the moon;
She spired into a yellow flame;
            She flowered in blossoms red;
She flowed into a foaming wave;
            She stood Monadnoc’s head.

Through a thousand voices
            Spoke the universal dame:
“Who telleth one of my meanings,
            Is master of all I am.”

Views: 35