Love and Death
by Lord Byron (1788-1824) (his last poem)

I watched thee when the foe was at our side,
      Ready to strike at him—or thee and me.
Were safety hopeless—rather than divide
      Aught with one loved save love and liberty:

I watched thee on the breakers, when the rock
      Received our prow and all was storm and fear,
And bade thee cling to me through every shock;
      This arm would be thy bark, or breast thy bier.

I watched thee when the fever glazed thine eyes,
      Yielding my couch and stretched me on the ground,
When overworn with watching, ne’er to rise
      From thence if thou an early grave hadst found.

The earthquake came, and rocked the quivering wall,
      And men and nature reeled as if with wine.
Whom did I seek around the tottering hall?
      For thee. Whose safety first provide for? Thine.

And when convulsive throes denied my breath
      The faintest utterance to my fading thought,
To thee—to thee—e’en in the gasp of death
      My spirit turned, oh! oftener than it ought.

Thus much and more; and yet thou lov’st me not,
      And never wilt! Love dwells not in our will.
Nor can I blame thee, though it be my lot
      To strongly, wrongly, vainly love thee still.

Views: 2

Ars Poetica
by Archibald MacLeish (1892-1982)

A poem should be palpable and mute
As a globed fruit

Dumb
As old medallions to the thumb

Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
Of casement ledges where the moss has grown—

A poem should be wordless
As the flight of birds

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs

Leaving, as the moon releases
Twig by twig the night-entangled trees,

Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves,
Memory by memory the mind—

A poem should be motionless in time
As the moon climbs

A poem should be equal to:
Not true.

For all the history of grief
An empty doorway and a maple leaf

For love
The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea—

A poem should not mean
But be.

Views: 2

Épilogue
by Albert Lozeau (1878-1924)

J’ai versé tout le sang de mon coeur dans mes vers.
Ma fatigue a laissé souvent la page blanche.
Ma vie intérieure en poèmes s’épanche
Aux rythmes variés des sentiments divers.

Sur ma profonde nuit mes yeux se sont ouverts;
J’ai dit ce que j’ai vu d’une voix simple et franche.
Si j’ai menti d’un mot douteux, je le retranche:
J’errais en des sentiers de ténèbres couverts.

Et maintenant, Seigneur, de ces heures passées
A traduire mon âme en strophes cadencées,
Me tiendrez-vous rigueur au jour du jugement?

Ai-je perdu le temps précieux de la vie?
Si je n’ai jamais su vous chanter autrement,
Votre gloire n’a-t-elle été par moi servie?

Views: 3

Maria
by Novalis (Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg) (1772-1801)

Ich sehe dich in tausend Bildern,
Maria, lieblich ausgedrückt,
Doch keins von allen kann dich schildern,
Wie meine Seele dich erblickt.

Ich weiß nur, daß der Welt Getümmel
Seitdem mir wie ein Traum verweht
Und ein unnennbar süßer Himmel
Mir ewig im Gemüte steht.

Views: 6

La Vie C’est la Vie
by Jessie Redmon Fauset (1882-1961)

On summer afternoons I sit
Quiescent by you in the park,
And idly watch the sunbeams gild
And tint the ash-trees’ bark.

Or else I watch the squirrels frisk
And chaffer in the grassy lane;
And all the while I mark your voice
Breaking with love and pain.

I know a woman who would give
Her chance of heaven to take my place;
To see the love-light in your eyes,
The love-glow on your face!

And there’s a man whose lightest word
Can set my chilly blood afire;
Fulfilment of his least behest
Defines my life’s desire.

But he will none of me, Nor I
Of you. Nor you of her. ‘Tis said
The world is full of jests like these.—
I wish that I were dead.

Views: 4

A Ballad of Life
by Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909)

IN HONOREM D. LUCRETIAE ESTENSIS BORGIAE

I found in dreams a place of wind and flowers,
      Full of sweet trees and colour of glad grass,
      In midst whereof there was
A lady clothed like summer with sweet hours.
Her beauty, fervent as a fiery moon,
      Made my blood burn and swoon
            Like a flame rained upon.
Sorrow had filled her shaken eyelids’ blue,
And her mouth’s sad red heavy rose all through
            Seemed sad with glad things gone.

She held a little cithern by the strings,
      Shaped heartwise, strung with subtle-coloured hair
      Of some dead lute-player
That in dead years had done delicious things.
The seven strings were named accordingly;
      The first string charity,
            The second tenderness,
The rest were pleasure, sorrow, sleep, and sin,
And loving kindness, that is pity’s kin
            And is most pitiless.

There were three men with her, each garmented
      With gold and shod with gold upon the feet;
      And with plucked ears of wheat.
The first man’s hair was wound upon his head:
His face was red, and his mouth curled and sad;
      All his gold garment had
            Pale stains of dust and rust.
A riven hood was pulled across his eyes;
The token of him being upon this wise
            Made for a sign of Lust.

The next was Shame, with hollow heavy face
      Coloured like green wood when flame kindles it.
      He hath such feeble feet
They may not well endure in any place.
His face was full of grey old miseries,
      And all his blood’s increase
            Was even increase of pain.
The last was Fear, that is akin to Death;
He is Shame’s friend, and always as Shame saith
            Fear answers him again.

My soul said in me; This is marvellous,
      Seeing the air’s face is not so delicate
      Nor the sun’s grace so great,
If sin and she be kin or amorous.
And seeing where maidens served her on their knees,
      I bade one crave of these
            To know the cause thereof.
Then Fear said: I am Pity that was dead.
And Shame said: I am Sorrow comforted.
            And Lust said: I am Love.

Thereat her hands began a lute-playing
      And her sweet mouth a song in a strange tongue;
      And all the while she sung
There was no sound but long tears following
Long tears upon men’s faces waxen white
      With extreme sad delight.
            But those three following men
Became as men raised up among the dead;
Great glad mouths open and fair cheeks made red
            With child’s blood come again.

Then I said: Now assuredly I see
      My lady is perfect, and transfigureth
      All sin and sorrow and death,
Making them fair as her own eyelids be,
Or lips wherein my whole soul’s life abides;
      Or as her sweet white sides
            And bosom carved to kiss.
Now therefore, if her pity further me,
Doubtless for her sake all my days shall be
            As righteous as she is.

Forth, ballad, and take roses in both arms,
      Even till the top rose touch thee in the throat
Where the least thornprick harms;
      And girdled in thy golden singing-coat,
Come thou before my lady and say this;
      Borgia, thy gold hair’s colour burns in me,
            Thy mouth makes beat my blood in feverish rhymes;
      Therefore so many as these roses be,
            Kiss me so many times.
Then it may be, seeing how sweet she is,
      That she will stoop herself none otherwise
            Than a blown vine-branch doth,
      And kiss thee with soft laughter on thine eyes,
            Ballad, and on thy mouth.

Views: 4

Non Dolet
by Oliver St. John Gogarty (1878-1957)

Our friends go with us as we go
      Down the long path where Beauty wends,
Where all we love forgathers, so
      Why should we fear to join our friends?

Who would survive them to outlast
      His children; to outwear his fame—
Left when the Triumph has gone past—
      To win from Age, not Time, a name?

Then do not shudder at the knife
      That Death’s indifferent hand drives home,
But with the Strivers leave the Strife,
      Nor, after Caesar, skulk in Rome.

Views: 6

A Song
by Laurence Binyon (1869-1943)

For Mercy, Courage, Kindness, Mirth,
There is no measure upon earth.
Nay, they wither, root and stem,
If an end be set to them,

Overbrim and overflow,
If your own heart you would know;
For the spirit born to bless
Lives but in its own excess.

Views: 3

Dirge
by Felicia Hemans (1793-1835)

Calm on the bosom of thy God,
      Fair spirit, rest thee now!
Even while with ours thy footsteps trod,
      His seal was on thy brow.

Dust, to its narrow house beneath!
      Soul, to its place on high!
They that have seen thy look in death
      No more may fear to die.

Views: 3

Address to the Wood-Lark
by Robert Burns (1759-1796)

O stay, sweet warbling wood-lark, stay,
Nor quit for me the trembling spray,
A hapless lover courts thy lay,
      Thy soothing fond complaining.

Again, again that tender part,
That I may catch thy melting art;
For surely that wad touch her heart,
      Wha kills me wi’ disdaining.

Say, was thy little mate unkind,
And heard thee as the careless wind?
Oh, nocht but love and sorrow join’d
      Sic notes o’ wae could wauken.

Thou tells o never-ending care;
O’ speechless grief, and dark despair;
For pity’s sake, sweet bird, nae mair!
      Or my poor heart is broken!

Views: 8