Sur Job
by Isaac de Benserade (1613-1691)

Job, de mille tourments atteint,
Vous rendra sa douleur connuë,
Et raisonnablement il craint
Que vous n’en soyez point émuë.

Vous verrez sa misère nuë,
Il s’est luy-même icy dépeint :
Acoûtumez-vous à la vuë
D’un homme qui souffre et se plaint.

Bien qu’il eût d’extrêmes souffrances.
On voit aller des patiences
Plus loin que la sienne n’alla.

Il souffrit des maux incroyables ;
Il s’en plaignit, il en parla ;
J’en connois de plus misérables.

Views: 24

Whilst Alexis Lay Prest
by John Dryden (1631-1700)

Whilst Alexis lay prest
In her arms he lov’d best,
With his hands round her neck, and his head on her breast,
He found the fierce pleasure too hasty to stay,
And his soul in the tempest just flying away.

When Celia saw this,
With a sigh and a kiss,
She cry’d, O my dear, I am robb’d of my bliss!
‘Tis unkind to your love, and unfaithfully done,
To leave me behind you, and die all alone.

The youth, though in haste,
And breathing his last,
In pity died slowly, while she died more fast;
Till at length she cry’d, Now, my dear, now let us go;
Now die, my Alexis, and I will die too!

Thus intranc’d they did lie,
Till Alexis did try
To recover new breath, that again he might die:
Then often they died; but the more they did so,
The nymph died more quick, and the shepherd more slow.

Views: 28

I Must Have Wanton Poets
by Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593)

I must have wanton poets, pleasant wits,
Musicians, that with touching of a string
May draw the pliant king which way I please:
Music and poetry is his delight;
Therefore I’ll have Italian masks by night,
Sweet speeches, comedies, and pleasing shows;
And in the day, when he shall walk abroad,
Like sylvan nymphs my pages shall be clad;
My men, like satyrs grazing on the lawns,
Shall with their goat-feet dance the antic hay;
Sometime a lovely boy in Dian’s shape,
With hair that gilds the water as it glides,
Crownets of pearl about his naked arms,
And in his sportful hands an olive-tree,
To hide those parts which men delight to see,
Shall bathe him in a spring; and there, hard by,
One like Actæon, peeping through the grove,
Shall by the angry goddess be transform’d,
And running in the likeness of an hart,
By yelping hounds pull’d down, shall seem to die:
Such things as these best please his majesty.

Views: 71

Rondeau
by Vincent Voiture (1597-1648)

Vous parlez comme un Scipion,
Et si vous n’êtes qu’un pion,
D’un mot je vous pourrais défaire;
Mais une palme si vulgaire
N’est pas pour un tel champion.

Je vous le dis sans passion,
N’ayez point de présomption,
Et songez de quelle manière
         Vous parlez.

Eussiez-vous le corps d’Orion,
Avecque la voix d’Arion,
Devant moi vous vous devez taire;
Ne craignez-vous point ma colère?
Qu’est-ce-là, petit embrion?
         Vous parlez!

Views: 34

Stand Whoso List
by Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542)

Stand whoso list upon the slipper top
Of court’s estates, and let me here rejoice
And use me quiet without let or stop,
Unknown in court, that hath such brackish joys.
In hidden place so let my days forth pass
That when my years be done withouten noise,
I may die aged after the common trace.
For him death grippeth right hard by the crop
That is much known of other, and of himself, alas,
Doth die unknown, dazed, with dreadful face.

Views: 30

When I Have Fears
by John Keats (1795-1821)

When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,
Before high piled books, in charactry,
Hold like rich garners the full ripen’d grain;
When I behold, upon the night’s starr’d face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the fairy power
Of unreflecting love;—then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

Views: 26

The Boss
by James Russell Lowell (1819-1891)

Skilled to pull wires, he baffles Nature’s hope,
Who sure intended him to stratch a rope.

Views: 28

Le Cap Trinité
byCharles Gill (1871-1918)

Ce rocher qui de Dieu montre la majesté,
Qui dresse sur le ciel ses trois gradins énormes,
Et verticalement divise en trois ses formes,
Il mérite trois fois son nom de Trinité.

Son flanc vertigineux, creusé de cicatrices
Et plein d’âpres reliefs qu’effleure le soleil,
Aux grimoires sacrés de l’Égypte est pareil,
Quand l’ombre et la lumière y mêlent leurs caprices.

Les bruns, les gris, les ors, les tendres violets,
À ces signes précis joignent des traits plus vagues,
Et le céleste azur y flotte au gré des vagues,
Qui dans les plis profonds dardent leurs gais reflets.

Est-ce quelque Titan, est-ce plutôt la foudre,
Qui voulut imprimer ici le mot “toujours”?
Quels sens recèlent donc ces étranges contours?
Pour la postérité quel problème à résoudre!

Ô Cap! en confiant au vertige des cieux
Notre globe éperdu dans la nuit séculaire,
Le Seigneur s’est penché sur ta page de pierre,
Digne de relater des faits prodigieux.

Il a mis sur ton front l’obscur secret des causes,
Les lois de la nature et ses frémissements,
Pendant qu’elle assignait leur forme aux éléments
Dans l’infini creuset de ses métamorphoses;

Et, scellant à jamais les arrêts du destin
Avec l’ardent burin de la foudre qui gronde,
Il a, dans ton granit, gravé le sort du monde,
En symboles trop grands pour le génie humain.

En signes trop profonds, pour que notre œil pénètre
La simple vérité des terrestres secrets,
Pendant que nous osons forger des mots abstraits
Et sonder le mystère insondable de l’être.

La Nature nous parle et nous l’interrompons!
Aveugles aux rayons de la sainte lumière,
Sourds aux enseignements antiques de la terre,
Nous ne connaissons pas le sol où nous rampons.

Nous n’avons pas assez contemplé les aurores,
Nous n’avons pas assez frémi devant la nuit,
Mornes vivants dont l’âme est en proie au vain bruit
Des savantes erreurs et des longs mots sonores!

En vain la Vérité s’offre à notre compas
Et la Création ouvre pour nous son livre:
Avides des secrets radieux qu’il nous livre,
Nous les cherchons ailleurs et ne les trouvons pas.

Nous n’avons pas appris le langage des cimes:
Nous ne comprenons pas ce que clament leur voix,
Quand les cris de l’enfer et du ciel à la fois
Semblent venir à nous dans l’écho des abîmes.

Et l’ange qui régit l’or, le rose et le bleu.
Pour nos yeux sans regard n’écarte pas ses voiles,
Quand le roi des rochers et le roi des étoiles
Nous parlent à midi dans le style de Dieu.

Views: 33

Hillcrest
(To Mrs. Edward MacDowell)
by Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935)

No sound of any storm that shakes
Old island walls with older seas
Comes here where now September makes
An island in a sea of trees.

Between the sunlight and the shade
A man may learn till he forgets
The roaring of a world remade,
And all his ruins and regrets;

And if he still remembers here
Poor fights he may have won or lost,—
If he be ridden with the fear
Of what some other fight may cost,—

If, eager to confuse too soon,
What he has known with what may be,
He reads a planet out of tune
For cause of his jarred harmony,—

If here he venture to unroll
His index of adagios,
And he be given to console
Humanity with what he knows,—

He may by contemplation learn
A little more than what he knew,
And even see great oaks return
To acorns out of which they grew.

He may, if he but listen well,
Through twilight and the silence here,
Be told what there are none may tell
To vanity’s impatient ear;

And he may never dare again
Say what awaits him, or be sure
What sunlit labyrinth of pain
He may not enter and endure.

Who knows to-day from yesterday
May learn to count no thing too strange:
Love builds of what Time takes away,
Till Death itself is less than Change.

Who sees enough in his duress
May go as far as dreams have gone;
Who sees a little may do less
Than many who are blind have done;

Who sees unchastened here the soul
Triumphant has no other sight
Than has a child who sees the whole
World radiant with his own delight.

Far journeys and hard wandering
Await him in whose crude surmise
Peace, like a mask, hides everything
That is and has been from his eyes;

And all his wisdom is unfound,
Or like a web that error weaves
On airy looms that have a sound
No louder now than falling leaves.

Views: 49