Anthony’s Funeral Oration
by William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones:
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault;
And grievously hath Caesar answer’d it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest,—
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honorable men,—
Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.
You all did love him once,—not without cause:
What cause withholds you, then, to mourn for him?—
O judgment, thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason!—Bear with me;
My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.

Views: 52

Ode
by Arthur O’Shaughnessy (1844-1881)

We are the music makers,
   And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
   And sitting by desolate streams;—
World-losers and world-forsakers,
   On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
   Of the world for ever, it seems.

With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world’s great cities,
   And out of a fabulous story
   We fashion an empire’s glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
   Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song’s measure
   Can trample a kingdom down.

We, in the ages lying
   In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
   And Babel itself in our mirth;
And o’erthrew them with prophesying
   To the old of the new world’s worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
   Or one that is coming to birth.

A breath of our inspiration
Is the life of each generation;
   A wondrous thing of our dreaming
   Unearthly, impossible seeming—
The soldier, the king, and the peasant
   Are working together in one,
Till our dream shall become their present,
   And their work in the world be done.

They had no vision amazing
Of the goodly house they are raising;
   They had no divine foreshowing
   Of the land to which they are going:
But on one man’s soul it hath broken,
   A light that doth not depart;
And his look, or a word he hath spoken,
   Wrought flame in another man’s heart.

And therefore to-day is thrilling
With a past day’s late fulfilling;
   And the multitudes are enlisted
   In the faith that their fathers resisted,
And, scorning the dream of to-morrow,
   Are bringing to pass, as they may,
In the world, for its joy or its sorrow,
   The dream that was scorned yesterday.

But we, with our dreaming and singing,
   Ceaseless and sorrowless we!
The glory about us clinging
   Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing:
   O men! it must ever be
That we dwell, in our dreaming and singing,
   A little apart from ye.

For we are afar with the dawning
   And the suns that are not yet high,
And out of the infinite morning
   Intrepid you hear us cry—
How, spite of your human scorning,
   Once more God’s future draws nigh,
And already goes forth the warning
   That ye of the past must die.

Great hail! we cry to the comers
   From the dazzling unknown shore;
Bring us hither your sun and your summers;
   And renew our world as of yore;
You shall teach us your song’s new numbers,
   And things that we dreamed not before:
Yea, in spite of a dreamer who slumbers,
   And a singer who sings no more.

Views: 34

Reunited
by Gilbert Parker (1862-1932)

When you and I have play’d the little hour,
   Have seen the tall subaltern Life to Death
   Yield up his sword; and, smiling, draw the breath,
The first long breath of freedom; when the flower
Of Recompense hath flutter’d to our feet,
   As to an actor’s; and, the curtain down,
   We turn to face each other all alone—
Alone, we two, who never yet did meet,
Alone, and absolute, and free: O then,
   O then, most dear, how shall be told the tale?
Clasp’d hands, press’d lips, and so clasp’d hands again;
   No words. But as the proud wind fills the sail,
      My love to yours shall reach, then one deep moan
      Of joy, and then our infinite. Alone.

Views: 41

Auld Robin Gray
by Anne Lindsay (1750-1825)

When the sheep are in the fauld, and the kye a’ at hame,
When a’ the weary world to sleep are gane,
The waes o’ my heart fa’ in showers frae my e’e,
While my gudeman lies sound by me.

Young Jamie lo’ed me weel, and sought me for his bride;
But saving a crown he had naething else beside.
To make the crown a pound, my Jamie gaed to sea;
And the crown and the pound, they were baith for me!

He hadna been awa’ a week but only twa,
When my mither she fell sick, and the cow was stown awa;
My father brak his arm—my Jamie at the sea—
And Auld Robin Gray came a-courting me.

My father couldna work—my mither couldna spin;
I toil’d day and night, but their bread I couldna win;
Auld Rob maintain’d them baith, and, wi’ tears in his e’e,
Said, “Jenny, for their sakes, will you marry me?”

My heart it said na, and I look’d for Jamie back;
But hard blew the winds, and his ship was a wrack:
His ship it was a wrack! Why didna Jenny dee?
And wherefore was I spar’d to cry, Wae is me!

My father argued sair—my mither didna speak,
But she look’d in my face till my heart was like to break;
They gied him my hand, but my heart was in the sea;
And so Auld Robin Gray, he was gudeman to me.

I hadna been his wife, a week but only four,
When mournfu’ as I sat on the stane at the door,
I saw my Jamie’s ghaist—I couldna think it he,
Till he said, “I’m come hame, my love, to marry thee!”

O sair, sair did we greet, and mickle did we say:
Ae kiss we took—nae mair—I bad him gang away.
I wish that I were dead, but I’m no like to dee;
And why do I live to say, Wae is me!

I gang like a ghaist, and I carena to spin;
I darena think o’ Jamie, for that wad be a sin.
But I will do my best a gude wife aye to be,
For Auld Robin Gray, he is kind to me.

Views: 41

Madrigale
by Torquato Tasso (1544-1595)

Qual rugiada o qual pianto,
   quai lagrime eran quelle
   che sparger vidi dal notturno manto
   e dal candido volto de le stelle?
E perché seminò la bianca luna
   di cristalline stille un puro nembo
   a l’erba fresca in grembo?
   Perché ne l’aria bruna
   s’udian, quasi dolendo, intorno intorno
   gir l’aure insino al giorno?
Fur segni forse de la tua partita,
   vita de la mia vita?

Views: 40

The Fair Hills of Ireland
(from the Irish)
by Samuel Ferguson (1820-1886)

A plenteous place is Ireland for hospitable cheer,
            Uileacan dubh O!*
Where the wholesome fruit is bursting from the yellow barley ear;
            Uileacan dubh O!
There is honey in the trees where her misty vales expand,
And her forest paths in summer are by falling waters fann’d,
There is dew at high noontide there, and springs i’ the yellow sand,
      On the fair hills of holy Ireland.

Curl’d he is and ringleted, and plaited to the knee—
            Uileacan dubh O!
Each captain who comes sailing across the Irish Sea;
            Uileacan dubh O!
And I will make my journey, if life and health but stand,
Unto that pleasant country, that fresh and fragrant strand,
And leave your boasted braveries, your wealth and high command,
      For the fair hills of holy Ireland.

Large and profitable are the stacks upon the ground,
            Uileacan dubh O!
The butter and the cream do wondrously abound;
            Uileacan dubh O!
The cresses on the water and the sorrels are at hand,
And the cuckoo’s calling daily his note of music bland,
And the bold thrush sings so bravely his song i’ the forests grand,
      On the fair hills of holy Ireland.

* Uileacan Dubh O!” literally means a black-haired head of a round shape,or form;and we have frequently heard it so applied by the Munster peasantry, with whom it is a favourite phrase, when speaking of the head, particularly that of a female. Some writers are of opinion that “Uileacan Dubh O!”allegorically means Ireland; but we cannot concur in this opinion,for it is evidently a love expression.

Views: 46

Colour
by Victoria Sackville-West (1892-1962)

In the last orgy of Creation’s hour,
—That fabled day, when all to sudden birth
Sprang,—as the toy of his redundant mirth
God tossed in bounty Colour to the earth.
He held the exquisite and pallid flower,
Spoke new strange words, and in his hands there blushed
The great white rose to crimson slowly flushed.

Views: 44

La Pequeña Llama
by Juana de Ibarbourou (1892-1979)

Yo siento por la luz un amor de salvaje.
Cada pequeña llama me encanta y sobrecoge.
¿No será, cada lumbre, un cáliz que recoge
El calor de las almas que pasan en su viaje?

Hay unas pequeñitas, azules, temblorosas,
Lo mismo que las almas taciturnas y buenas.
Hay otras casi blancas: fulgores de azucenas.
Hay otras casi rojas: espíritus de rosas.

Yo respeto y adoro la luz como si fuera
Una cosa que vive, que siente, que medita,
Un ser que nos contempla transformado en hoguera.

Así, cuando yo muera, he de ser a tu lado
Una pequeña llama de dulzura infinita
Para tus largas noches de amante desolado.

Views: 32

A Musical Instrument
by Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)

What was he doing, the great god Pan,
      Down in the reeds by the river?
Spreading ruin and scattering ban,
Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat,
And breaking the golden lilies afloat
      With the dragon-fly on the river.

He tore out a reed, the great god Pan,
      From the deep cool bed of the river:
The limpid water turbidly ran,
And the broken lilies a-dying lay,
And the dragon-fly had fled away,
      Ere he brought it out of the river.

High on the shore sate the great god Pan,
      While turbidly flowed the river;
And hacked and hewed as a great god can,
With his hard bleak steel at the patient reed,
Till there was not a sign of a leaf indeed
      To prove it fresh from the river.

He cut it short, did the great god Pan,
      (How tall it stood in the river!)
Then drew the pith, like the heart of a man,
Steadily from the outside ring,
And notched the poor dry empty thing
      In holes, as he sate by the river.

‛This is the way,’ laughed the great god Pan,
      Laughed while he sate by the river,)
‛The only way, since gods began
To make sweet music, they could succeed.’
Then, dropping his mouth to a hole in the reed,
      He blew in power by the river.

Sweet, sweet, sweet, O Pan!
      Piercing sweet by the river!
Blinding sweet, O great god Pan!
The sun on the hill forgot to die,
And the lilies revived, and the dragon-fly
      Came back to dream on the river.

Yet half a beast is the great god Pan,
      To laugh as he sits by the river,
Making a poet out of a man:
The true gods sigh for the cost and pain, —
For the reed which grows nevermore again
      As a reed with the reeds in the river.

Views: 36

Komm, falsche Dirne!
by Georg Friedrich Daumer (1800-1875)

Komm, falsche Dirne, lass dich küssen!
So falsch du bist, – du bist doch süss;
Dein Mund hat all an sich gerissen
Den Honig aus dem Paradies.

Ich herze dich, und sollte hassen;
Ich hasse dich, doch ach, wie mild!
Ich sollte dich auf ewig lassen,
Und fasse dich, so wild, so wild!

Und ist in alle diese Wonnen
Mein Leben und mein Geist getaucht –
Was mir dein Herz für Qual ersonnen,
Ist alles in den Wind gehaucht!

Views: 27