Sommeil
by Pontus du Tyard (1521-1605)

Père du doux repos, Sommeil, père du Songe,
      Maintenant que la nuit, d’une grande ombre obscure,
      Fait à cet air serein humide couverture,
      Viens, Sommeil désiré et dans mes yeux te plonges.
Ton absence, Sommeil, languissamment allonge
      Et me fait plus sentir la peine que j’endure.
      Viens, Sommeil, l’assoupir et la rendre moins dure,
      Viens abuser mon mal de quelque doux mensonge.
Ja le muet silence un escadron conduit
      De fantômes ballants dessous l’aveugle nuit :
      Tu me dédaignes seul qui te suis tant dévot.
Viens, Sommeil désiré, m’environner la tête,
      Car, d’un voeu non menteur, un bouquet je t’apprête
      De ta chère morelle et de ton cher pavot.

Views: 58

Trees
by Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918)

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

Views: 25

In a Artist’s Studio
by Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

One face looks out from all his canvases,
One selfsame figure sits or walks or leans:
We found her hidden just behind those screens,
That mirror gave back all her loveliness.
A queen in opal or in ruby dress,
A nameless girl in freshest summer-greens,
A saint, an angel – every canvas means
The same one meaning, neither more nor less.
He feeds upon her face by day and night,
And she with true kind eyes looks back on him,
Fair as the moon and joyful as the light:
Not wan with waiting, not with sorrow dim;
Not as she is, but was when hope shone bright;
Not as she is, but as she fills his dream.

Views: 28

Die Engel
by Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)

Sie haben alle müde Münde
und helle Seelen ohne Saum.
Und eine Sehnsucht (wie nach Sünde)
geht ihnen manchmal durch den Traum.

Fast gleichen sie einander alle;
in Gottes Gärten schweigen sie,
wie viele, viele Intervalle
in seiner Macht und Melodie.

Nur wenn sie ihre Flügel breiten,
sind sie die Wecker eines Winds:
Als ginge Gott mit seinen weiten
Bildhauerhänden durch die Seiten
im dunklen Buch des Anbeginns.

Views: 33

Requiem
by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)

Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
      And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor; home from sea,
      And the hunter home from the hill.

Views: 32

Song Before Death
(From the French*)
                  1795
by Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909)

Sweet mother, in a minute’s span
      Death parts thee and my love of thee;
Sweet love, that yet art living man,
      Come back, true love, to comfort me.
Back, ah, come back! ah wellaway!
But my love comes not any day.

As roses, when the warm West blows,
      Break to full flower and sweeten spring,
My soul would break to a glorious rose
      In such wise at his whispering.
In vain I listen; wellaway!
My love says nothing any day.

You that will weep for pity of love
      On the low place where I am lain,
I pray you, having wept enough,
      Tell him for whom I bore such pain
That he was yet, ah! wellaway!
My true love to my dying day.

* of the Marquis de Sade

Views: 29

Apologia pro vita sua
by Sedulius Scottus (ninth century)

Aut lego vel scribo, doceo scrutorve sophiam:
      obsecro celsithronum nocte dieque meum.
Vescor, poto libens, rithmizans invoco Musas,
      dormisco stertens: oro deum vigilans.
Conscia mens scelerum deflet peccamina vitae;
      parcite vos misero, Christe Maria, viro.

Views: 46