Chanson (“Qui veult avoir liesse”)
by Clément Marot (1496-1544)
Qui veult avoir liesse
Seulement d’un regard,
Vienne veoir ma maistresse,
Que Dieu maintienne, et gard:
Elle a si bonne grace,
Que celluy qui la veoit,
Mille douleurs efface,
Et plus, s’il en avoit.
Les vertus de la Belle
Me font esmerveiller.
La souvenance d’elle
Faict mon cueur esveiller.
Sa beaulté tant exquise
Me faict la mort sentir;
Mais sa grace requise
M’en peult bien garantir.
Views: 45
Roses
by George Eliot (née Mary Ann Evans) (1819-1880)
You love the roses–so do I. I wish
The sky would rain down roses, as they rain
From off the shaken bush. Why will it not?
Then all the valley would be pink and white
And soft to tread on. They would fall as light
As feathers, smelling sweet; and it would be
Like sleeping and like waking, all at once!
Views: 31
Les Vous et les Tu
by François-Marie Arouet de Voltaire (1694-1778)
Philis, qu’est devenu ce temps
Où, dans un fiacre promenée,
Sans laquais, sans ajustements,
De tes grâces seules ornée,
Contente d’un mauvais soupé
Que tu changeais en ambroisie,
Tu te livrais, dans ta folie,
A l’amant heureux et trompé
Qui t’avait consacré sa vie?
Le ciel ne te donnait alors,
Pour tout rang et pour tous trésors,
Que les agréments de ton âge,
Un coeur tendre, un esprit volage,
Un sein d’albâtre, et de beaux yeux.
Avec tant d’attraits précieux,
Hélas! qui n’eût été friponne?
Tu le fus, objet gracieux!
Et (que l’Amour me le pardonne!)
Tu sais que je t’en aimais mieux.
Ah! madame! que votre vie
D’honneurs aujourd’hui si remplie,
Diffère de ces doux instants!
Ce large suisse à cheveux blancs,
Qui ment sans cesse à votre porte,
Philis, est l’image du Temps;
On dirait qu’il chasse l’escorte
Des tendres Amours et des Ris;
Sous vos magnifiques lambris
Ces enfants tremblent de paraître.
Hélas! je les ai vus jadis
Entrer chez toi par la fenêtre,
Et se jouer dans ton taudis.
Non, madame, tous ces tapis
Qu’a tissus la Savonnerie,
Ceux que les Persans ont ourdis,
Et toute votre orfèvrerie,
Et ces plats si chers que Germain
A gravés de sa main divine,
Et ces cabinets où Martin
A surpassé l’art de la Chine;
Vos vases japonais et blancs,
Toutes ces fragiles merveilles;
Ces deux lustres de diamants
Qui pendent à vos deux oreilles;
Ces riches carcans, ces colliers,
Et cette pompe enchanteresse,
Ne valent pas un des baisers
Que tu donnais dans ta jeunesse.
Views: 32
Song from Ælla
by Thomas Chatterton (1752-1770)
O sing unto my roundelay,
O drop the briny tear with me;
Dance no more at holyday,
Like a running river be:
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed
All under the willow-tree.
Black his cryne as the winter night,
White his rode as the summer snow,
Red his face as the morning light
Cold he lies in the grave below:
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed
All under the willow-tree.
Sweet his tongue as the throstle’s note,
Quick in dance as thought can be,
Deft his tabor, cudgel stout;
O he lies by the willow-tree!
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed
All under the willow-tree.
Hark! the raven flaps his wing
In the brier’d dell below;
Hark! the death-owl loud doth sing
To the nightmares, as they go:
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed
All under the willow-tree.
See! the white moon shines on high;
Whiter is my true-love’s shroud:
Whiter than the morning sky,
Whiter than the evening cloud:
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed
All under the willow-tree.
Here upon my true-love’s grave
Shall the barren flowers be laid;
Not one holy saint to save
All the coldness of a maid:
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed
All under the willow-tree.
With my hands I’ll dent the briers
Round his holy corse to gre:
Ouph and fairy, light your fires,
Here my body still shall be:
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed
All under the willow-tree.
Come, with acorn-cup and thorn,
Drain my heartès blood away;
Life and all its good I scorn,
Dance by night, or feast by day:
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed
All under the willow-tree.
Views: 42
The Sun Is Set
by Robert Sidney (1563-1625)
The sun is set, and masked night
Veils heaven’s fair eyes:
Ah what trust is there to a light
That so swift flies?
A new world doth his flames enjoy,
New hearts rejoice:
In other eyes is now his joy,
In other choice.
Views: 42
The Englishman
by W.S. Gilbert (1836-1911)
He is an Englishman!
For he himself has said it,
And it’s greatly to his credit,
That he is an Englishman!
For he might have been a Roosian,
A French, or Turk, or Proosian,
Or perhaps Itali-an!
But in spite of all temptations,
To belong to other nations,
He remains an Englishman!
Hurrah!
For the true-born Englishman!
Views: 32
Fire and Ice
by Robert Frost (1874-1963)
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great,
And would suffice.
Views: 34
Le Cap Éternité
by Louis Honoré Frechette (1839-1908)
C’est un bloc écrasant dont la crête surplombe
Au-dessus des flots noirs, et dont le front puissant
Domine le brouillard, et défie en passant
L’aile de la tempête ou le choc de la trombe.
Énorme pan de roc, colosse menaçant
Dont le flanc narguerait le boulet et la bombe,
Qui monte d’un seul jet dans la rue, et retombe
Dans le gouffre insondable où sa base descend!
Quel caprice a dressé cette sombre muraille?
Caprice! qui le sait? Hardi celui qui raille
Ces aveugles efforts de la fécondité!
Cette masse nourrit mille plantes vivaces;
L’hirondelle des monts niche dans ses crevasses;
Et ce monstre farouche a sa paternité!
Views: 31
The Labors of Hercules
by Marianne Moore (1887-1972)
To popularize the mule, its neat exterior
expressing the principle of accommodation reduced to a minimum:
to persuade one of austere taste, proud in the possession of home, and a musician—
that the piano is a free field for etching; that his ‛charming tadpole notes’
belong to the past when one had time to play them:
to persuade those self-wrought Midases of brains
whose fourteen-carat ignorance aspires to rise in value, augurs disappointment,
that one must not borrow a long white beard and tie it on
and threaten with the scythe of time the casually curious:
to teach the bard with too elastic a selectiveness
that one detects creative power by its capacity to conquer one’s detachment,
that while it may have more elasticity than logic;
it flies along in a straight line like electricity,
depopulating areas that boast of their remoteness,
to prove to the high priests of caste
that snobbishness is a stupidity,
the best side out, of age-old toadyism,
kissing the feet of the man above,
kicking the face of the man below;
to teach the patron-saints-to-atheists
that we are sick of the earth,
sick of the pig-sty, wild geese and wild men;
to convince snake-charming controversialists
that one keeps on knowing
‛that the Negro is not brutal,
that the Jew is not greedy,
that the Oriental is not immoral,
That the German is not a Hun.’
Views: 36
Balade
by Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343-1894)
Hide, Absalom, thy guilty tresses clear;
Esther, lay thou thy meekness all a-down;
Hide Jonathan, all thy friendly mannér;
Penelope, and Marcia Catóun.
Make of your wifehood no comparisón;
Hide ye your beauties, Isoud and Elaine.
My lady com’th, that all this may distain.
The fairé body, let it not appear,
Lavine; and thou, Lucrece of Romé town,
And Polixene, that broughten love so dear;
And Cleopatre will all thy passión,
Hide ye your truth of love and your renown;
And thou, Thisbe, that hast of love such pain:
My lady com’th, that all this may distain.
Hero, Dido, Laodámia, all y-fere,
And Phyllis, hanging for thy Demophon,
And Cánacé, espièd by thy chere,
Hysíphilé, betraysèd with Jasón,
Make of your truthé neither boast ne soun;
Nor Hypermestre or Adriane, ye twain.
My lady com’th, that all this may distain.
Views: 44