Wie er wolle geküsset seyn
by Paul Fleming (1609-1640)
because today is International Kissing Day

Nirgends hin, als auf den Mund:
Da sinkts in des Herzen Grund.
Nicht zu frei, nicht zu gezwungen,
Nicht mit gar zu faulen Zungen.

Nicht zu wenig, nicht zu viel:
Beides wird sonst Kinderspiel.
Nicht zu laut und nicht zu leise:
Bei der Maß’ ist rechte Weise.

Nicht zu nahe, nicht zu weit:
Dies macht Kummer, jenes Leid.
Nicht zu trocken, nicht zu feuchte,
Wie Adonis Venus reichte.

Nicht zu harte, nicht zu weich,
Bald zugleich, bald nicht zugleich.
Nicht zu langsam, nicht zu schnelle,
Nicht ohn’ Unterschied der Stelle.

Halb gebissen, halb gehaucht,
Halb die Lippen eingetaucht,
Nicht ohn Unterschied der Zeiten,
Mehr alleine denn bei Leuten.

Küsse nun ein jedermann,
Wie er weiß, will, soll und kann!
Ich nur und die Liebste wissen,
Wie wir uns recht sollen küssen.

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“The Mountain Peaks and Gorges Sleep”
by Alcman (fl. 7th cent. B.C.)

Εὕδουσιν δ’ ὀρέων κορυφαί τε καὶ φάραγγες,
πρώονές τε καὶ χαράδραι,
φῦλά θ’ ἑρπετὰ τόσσᾱ τρέφει μέλαινα γαῖα,
θῆρές τ’ ὀρεσκῷοι καὶ γένος μελισσᾶν
καὶ κνώδαλ’ ἐν βένθεσσι πορφυρέᾱς ἁλός.
εὕδουσιν δ’ ὀϊωνῶν
φῦλα τανυπτερύγων.

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Binsley Poplars
felled 1879
by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889)

My aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled,
   Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun,
   All felled, felled, are all felled;
      Of a fresh and following folded rank
            Not spared, not one
            That dandled a sandalled
   Shadow that swam or sank
On meadow & river & wind-wandering weed-winding bank.

         
   O if we but knew what we do
         When we delve or hew —
       Hack and rack the growing green!
          Since country is so tender
       To touch, her being só slender,
       That, like this sleek and seeing ball
       But a prick will make no eye at all,
       Where we, even where we mean
             To mend her we end her,
            When we hew or delve:
After-comers cannot guess the beauty been.
   Ten or twelve, only ten or twelve
       Strokes of havoc unselve
           The sweet especial scene,
       Rural scene, a rural scene,
       Sweet especial rural scene.

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The Ebb and Flow
by Edward Taylor (c. 1642-1729)

When first thou on me, Lord, wrought’st thy sweet print,
      My heart was made thy tinder box.
      My ’ffections were thy tinder in’t:
            Where fell thy sparks by drops.
Those holy sparks of heavenly fire that came
Did ever catch and often out would flame.

But now my heart is made thy censer trim,
      Full of thy golden altar’s fire,
      To offer up sweet incense in
            Unto thyself entire:
I find my tinder scarce thy sparks can feel
That drop out from thy holy flint and steel.

Hence doubts out bud for fear thy fire in me
      ’S a mocking Ignis Fatuus;
   Or lest thine altars fire out be,
            It’s hid in ashes thus.
Yet when the bellows of thy spirit blow
Away mine ashes, then thy fire doth glow.

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Day and Night
by Edith Nesbit (1858-1924)

All day the glorious Sun caressed
      Wide meadows and white winding way,
And on the Earth’s soft heaving breast
      Heart-warm his royal kisses lay.
She looked up in his face and smiled,
      With mists of love her face seemed dim;
The golden Emperor was beguiled,
      To dream she would be true to him.

Yet was there, ‘neath his golden shower,
      No end of love for him astir;
She waited, dreaming, for the hour
      When Night, her love, should come to her;
When ‘neath Night’s mantle she should creep
      And feel his arms about her cling,
When the soft tears true lovers weep
      Should make amends for everything.

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The Haschish
by John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892)

Of all that Orient lands can vaunt
      Of marvels with our own competing,
The strangest is the Haschish plant,
      And what will follow on its eating.

What pictures to the taster rise,
      Of Dervish or of Almeh dances!
Of Eblis, or of Paradise,
      Set all aglow with Houri glances!

The poppy visions of Cathay,
      The heavy beer-trance of the Suabian;
The wizard lights and demon play
      Of nights Walpurgis and Arabian!

The Mollah and the Christian dog
      Change place in mad metempsychosis;
The Muezzin climbs the synagogue,
      The Rabbi shakes his beard at Moses!

The Arab by his desert well
      Sits choosing from some Caliph’s daughters,
And hears his single camel’s bell
      Sound welcome to his regal quarters.

The Koran’s reader makes complaint
      Of Shitan dancing on and off it;
The robber offers alms, the saint
      Drinks Tokay and blasphemes the Prophet.

Such scenes that Eastern plant awakes;
      But we have one ordained to beat it,
The Haschish of the West, which makes
      Or fools or knaves of all who eat it.

The preacher eats, and straight appears
      His Bible in a new translation;
Its angels negro overseers,
      And Heaven itself a snug plantation!

The man of peace, about whose dreams
      The sweet millennial angels cluster,
Tastes the mad weed, and plots and schemes,
      A raving Cuban filibuster!

The noisiest Democrat, with ease,
      It turns to Slavery’s parish beadle;
The shrewdest statesman eats and sees
      Due southward point the polar needle.

The Judge partakes, and sits erelong
      Upon his bench a railing blackguard;
Decides off-hand that right is wrong,
      And reads the ten commandments backward.

O potent plant! so rare a taste
      Has never Turk or Gentoo gotten;
The hempen Haschish of the East
      Is powerless to our Western Cotton!

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Vorfrühling
by Paul Heyse(1830-1914)

Stürme brausten über Nacht,
und die kahlen Wipfel troffen.
Frühe war mein Herz erwacht,
schüchtern zwischen Furcht und Hoffen.

Horch, ein trautgeschwätz’ger Ton
dringt zu mir vom Wald hernieder.
Nisten in den Zweigen schon
die geliebten Amseln wieder?

Dort am Weg der weiße Streif –
Zweifelnd frag’ ich mein Gemüte:
Ist’s ein später Winterreif
oder erste Schlehenblüte?

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L’Hyver
by Théodore-Agrippa D’Aubigne (1552-1630)

Mes volages humeurs, plus sterilles que belles,
S’en vont; et je leur dis: Vous sentez, irondelles,
S’esloigner la chaleur et le froid arriver.
Allez nicher ailleurs, pour ne tascher, impures,
Ma couche de babil et ma table d’ordures;
Laissez dormir en paix la nuict de mon hyver.

D’un seul poinct le soleil n’esloigne l’hemisphere;
Il jette moins d’ardeur, mais autant de lumière.
Je change sans regrets, lorsque je me repens
Des frivoles amours et de leur artifice.
J’ayme l’hyver qui vient purger mon cœur de vice,
Comme de peste l’air, la terre de serpens.

Mon chef blanchit dessous les neiges entassées,
Le soleil, qui reluit, les eschaulfe, glacées.
Mais ne les peut dissoudre, au plus court de ses mois.
Fondez, neiges; venez dessus mon cœur descendre,
Qu’encores il ne puisse allumer de ma cendre
Du brazier, comme il fit des flammes autrefois.

Mais quoi! serai-je esteint devant ma vie esteinte?
Ne luira plus sur moi la flamme vive et sainte,
Le zèle flamboyant de la sainte maison?
Je fais aux saints autels holocaustes des restes.
De glace aux feux impurs, et de naphte aux célestes:
Clair et sacré flambeau, non funèbre tison!

Voici moins de plaisirs, mais voici moins de peines.
Le rossignol se taist, se taisent les Sereines:
Nous ne voyons cueillir ni les fruits ni les fleurs;
L’espérance n’est plus bien souvent tromperesse;
L’hyver jouit de tout. Bienheureuse vieillesse,
La saison de l’usage, et non plus des labeurs!

Mais la mort n’est pas loin; cette mort est suivie
D’un vivre sans mourir, fin d’une fausse vie:
Vie de nostve vie, et mort de nostre mort.
Qui hait la seureté, pour aimer le naufrage?
Qui a jamais esté si friant de voyage.
Que la longueur en soit plus douce que le port?

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On the Beach at Fontana
by James Joyce (1882-1941)

Wind whines and whines the shingle,
The crazy pierstakes groan;
A senile sea numbers each single
Slimesilvered stone.

From whining wind and colder
Grey sea I wrap him warm
And touch his trembling fineboned shoulder
And boyish arm.

Around us fear, descending
Darkness of fear above
And in my heart how deep unending
Ache of love!

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“The time draws near the birth of Christ”
Section XXVIII of In Memoriam
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

The time draws near the birth of Christ:
      The moon is hid; the night is still;
      The Christmas bells from hill to hill
Answer each other in the mist.

Four voices of four hamlets round,
      From far and near, on mead and moor,
      Swell out and fail, as if a door
Were shut between me and the sound:

Each voice four changes on the wind,
      That now dilate, and now decrease,
      Peace and goodwill, goodwill and peace,
Peace and goodwill, to all mankind.

This year I slept and woke with pain,
      I almost wish’d no more to wake,
      And that my hold on life would break
Before I heard those bells again:

But they my troubled spirit rule,
      For they controll’d me when a boy;
      They bring me sorrow touch’d with joy,
The merry merry bells of Yule.

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