Ancient Music
by Ezra Pound (1885-1972)
Winter is icummen in,
Lhude sing Goddamm.
Raineth drop and staineth slop,
And how the wind doth ramm!
Sing: Goddamm.
Skiddeth bus and sloppeth us,
An ague hath my ham.
Freezeth river, turneth liver,
Damn you, sing: Goddamm.
Goddamm, Goddamm, ’tis why I am, Goddamm,
So ’gainst the winter’s balm.
Sing goddamm, damm, sing Goddamm.
Sing goddamm, sing goddamm, DAMM.
Views: 51
In Tenebris
by Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)
Wintertime nighs;
But my bereavement-pain
It cannot bring again:
Twice no one dies.
Flower-petals flee;
But, since it once hath been,
No more that severing scene
Can harrow me.
Birds faint in dread:
I shall not lose old strength
In the lone frost’s black length:
Strength long since fled!
Leaves freeze to dun;
But friends can not turn cold
This season as of old
For him with none.
Tempests may scath;
But love can not make smart
Again this year his heart
Who no heart hath.
Black is night’s cope;
But death will not appal
One who, past doubtings all,
Waits in unhope.
Views: 55
Il Filo
by Guido Gozzano (1883-1916)
Ma questo filo… tutto questo filo!…
In pensieri non dolci e non amari
il Vecchio stava chino sulli alari
con le molle, così, come uno stilo.
“Scrivi? Bruci? Miei versi? I sillabari?
Il nome dell’Amata e dell’Asilo!”
(nel Vecchio riconobbi il mio profilo)
“Lettere? Buste? Annunzi funerari?
Un nome, un nome! Quello della Mamma!”
E caddi singhiozzando sulli alari.
Il Vecchio tacque. M’additò la fiamma.
“Da trent’anni?! Perdute le più tenere
mani! Ma resta il sogno! I sogni cari…”
Il Vecchio tacque. M’additò la cenere.
Views: 36
If Death My Friend and Me Divide
by Charles Wesley (1707-1788)
If death my friend and me divide,
Thou dost not, Lord, my sorrow chide,
Or frown my tears to see;
Restrained from passionate excess,
Thou bidst me mourn in calm distress
For them that rest in Thee.
I feel a strong immortal hope,
Which bears my mournful spirit up
Beneath its mountain load;
Redeemed from death, and grief, and pain,
I soon shall find my friend again
Within the arms of God.
Pass a few fleeting moments more
And death the blessing shall restore
Which death has snatched away;
For me Thou wilt the summons send,
And give me back my parted friend
In that eternal day.
Views: 35
Proem
by John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892)
I love the old melodious lays
Which softly melt the ages through,
The songs of Spenser’s golden days,
Arcadian Sidney’s silvery phrase,
Sprinkling our noon of time with freshest morning dew.
Yet, vainly in my quiet hours
To breathe their marvellous notes I try;
I feel them, as the leaves and flowers
In silence feel the dewy showers,
And drink with glad, still lips the blessing of the sky.
The rigor of a frozen clime,
The harshness of an untaught ear,
The jarring words of one whose rhyme
Beat often Labor’s hurried time,
Or Duty’s rugged march through storm and strife, are here.
Of mystic beauty, dreamy grace,
No rounded art the lack supplies;
Unskilled the subtle lines to trace,
Or softer shades of Nature’s face,
I view her common forms with unanointed eyes.
Nor mine the seer-like power to show
The secrets of the hear and mind;
To drop the plummet-line below
Our common world of joy and woe,
A more intense despair or brighter hope to find.
Yet here at least an earnest sense
Of human right and weal is shown;
A hate of tyranny intense,
And hearty in its vehemence,
As if my brother’s pain and sorrow were my own.
O Freedom! if to me belong
Nor mighty Milton’s gift divine,
Nor Marvell’s wit and graceful song,
Still with a love as deep and strong
As theirs, I lay, like them, my best gifts on thy shrine!
Views: 38
Ode to Wisdom
by Elizabeth Carter (1717-1806)
The solitary bird of night
Thro’ the pale shades now wings his flight,
And quits the time-shook tow’r;
Where, shelter’d from the blaze of day,
In philosophic gloom he lay
Beneath his ivy bow’r.
With joy I hear the solemn sound,
Which midnight echoes waft around,
And sighing gales repeat.
Fav’rite of PALLAS! I attend,
And faithful to thy summons, bend
At WISDOM’S awful seat.
She loves the cool, the silent eve,
Where no false shows of life deceive,
Beneath the lunar ray:
Here folly drops each vain disguise,
Nor sport her gayly-colour’d dyes,
As in the glare of day.
O PALLAS! queen of every art
That glads the sense, or mends the heart,
Blest source of purer joys:
In ev’ry form of beauty bright,
That captivates the mental sight
With pleasure and surprize!
To thy unspotted shrine I bow,
Assist thy modest suppliant’s vow,
That breathes no wild desires:
But taught by thy unerring rules,
To shun the fruitless wish of fools,
To nobler views aspires.
Not FORTUNE’S gem, AMBITION’S plume,
Nor CYTHEREA’S fading bloom,
Be objects of my pray’r:
Let AV’RICE, VANITY, and PRIDE,
These glitt’ring envy’d toys, divide
The dull rewards of care.
To me thy better gifts impart,
Each moral beauty of the heart
By studious thought refin’d:
For WEALTH, the smiles of glad content,
For POW’R, it’s amplest, best extent,
An empire o’er my mind.
When FORTUNE drops her gay parade,
When PLEASURE’S transient roses fade,
And wither in the tomb;
Unchang’d is thy immortal prize,
Thy ever-verdant laurels rise
In undecaying bloom.
By thee protected, I defy.
The coxcomb’s sneer, the stupid lie
Of ignorance and spite:
Alike contemn the leaden fool,
And all the pointed ridicule
Of undiscerning wit.
From envy, hurry, noise, and strife,
The dull impertinence of life,
In thy retreat I rest:
Pursue thee to the peaceful groves,
Where PLATO’S sacred spirit roves,
In all thy graces drest.
He bade ILYSSUS’ tuneful stream
Convey thy philosophic theme
Of perfect, fair, and good:
Attentive ATHENS caught the sound,
And all her list’ning sons around,
In awful silence stood.
Reclaim’d, her wild licentious youth
Confest the potent voice of TRUTH,
And felt it’s just controul:
The passions ceas’d their loud alarms,
And virtue’s soft persuasive charms
O’er all their senses stole.
Thy breath inspires the POET’S song,
The PATRIOT’S free, unbiass’d tongue,
The HERO’S gen’rous strife:
Thine are retirement’s silent joys,
And all the sweet endearing ties
Of still, domestic life.
No more to fabled names confin’d,
To Thee! supreme, all-perfect Mind,
My thoughts direct their flight:
WISDOM’S thy gift, and all her force
From Thee deriv’d, unchanging source
Of intellectual light!
O send her sure, her steady, ray,
To regulate my doubtful way,
Thro’ life’s perplexing road:
The mists of error to controul,
And thro’ it’s gloom direct my soul
To happiness and good.
Beneath her clear discerning eye,
The visionary shadows fly
Of folly’s painted show:
She sees, thro’ ev’ry fair disguise,
That all, but VIRTUE’S solid joys,
Is vanity and woe.
Views: 45
La Vojo
by Ludwik Lejzer Zamenhof (1859-1917)
Tra densa mallumo, briletas la celo
al kiu kuraĝe ni iras.
Simile al stelo, en nokta ĉielo,
al ni la direkton ĝi diras.
Kaj nin ne timigas la noktaj fantomoj,
nek batoj de l’ sortoj,
nek mokoj de l’ homoj,
Ĉar klara, kaj rekta, kaj tre difinita,
ĝi estas la voj’ elektita.
Nur rekte, kuraĝe, kaj ne flankiĝante,
ni iru la vojon celitan.
Eĉ guto malgranda konstante frapante,
traboras la monton granitan.
L’ espero, l’ obstino,
kaj la pacienco,
jen estas la signo per kies potenco
ni, paŝo post paŝo, post longa laboro,
atingos la celon en gloro.
Ni semas kaj semas, neniam laciĝas
pri l’ tempoj estontaj pensante.
Cent semoj perdiĝas, mil semoj perdiĝas,
ni semas kaj semas konstante.
Ho ĉesu, mokante
la homoj admonas,
Ne ĉesu, ne cesu! En kor’ al ni sonas.
Obstine antaŭen, la nepoj vin benos,
se vi pacience eltenos.
Se longa sekeco, aŭ ventoj subitaj,
velkantajn foliojn deŝiras,
ni dankas la venton, kaj repurigitaj,
ni forton pli freŝan akiras.
Ne mortos jam nia
bravega anaro.
Ĝin jam ne timigos la vento, nek staro.
Obstine ĝi paŝas, provita, hardita
al cel’ unufoje signita.
Views: 36
Fidèle
by Paul Éluard (1895-1952)
Vivant dans un village calme
D’où la route part longue et dure
Pour un lieu de sang et de larmes
Nous sommes purs.
Les nuits sont chaudes et tranquilles
Et nous gardons aux amoureuses
Cette fidélité précieuse
Entre toutes: l’es poir de vivre.
Views: 33
Die Lorelei
by Heinrich Heine (1797-1856)
Ich weiß nicht, was soll das bedeuten,
Daß ich so traurig bin.
Ein Märchen aus alten Zeiten,
Das kommt mir nicht aus dem Sinn.
Die Luft ist kühl und es dunkelt,
Und ruhig fließt der Rhein;
Der Gipfel des Berges funkelt
Im Abendsonnenschein.
Die schönste Jungfrau sitzet
Dort oben wunderbar;
Ihr goldnes Geschmeide blitzet,
Sie kämmt ihr goldenes Haar.
Sie kämmt es mit goldnem Kamme,
Und singt ein Lied dabei,
Das hat eine wundersame,
Gewaltige Melodei.
Den Schiffer im kleinen Schiffe
Ergreift es mit wildem Weh;
Er schaut nicht die Felsenriffe,
Er schaut nur hinauf in die Höh’.
Ich glaube, die Wellen verschlingen
Am Ende Schiffer und Kahn;
Und das hat mit ihrem Singen
Die Lorelei gethan.
Views: 37
Prospice
by Robert Browning (1812-1889)
Fear death?—to feel the fog in my throat,
The mist in my face,
When the snows begin, and the blasts denote
I am nearing the place,
The power of the night, the press of the storm,
The post of the foe;
Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form,
Yet the strong man must go:
For the journey is done and the summit attained,
And the barriers fall,
Though a battle’s to fight ere a guerdon be gained,
The reward of it all.
I was ever a fighter, so—one fight more.
The best and the last!
I would hate that death bandaged my eyes, and forebore,
And bade me creep past.
No! let me taste the whole of it, fare like my peers
The heroes of old,
Bear the brunt, in a minute pay glad life’s arrears
Of pain, darkness, and cold.
For sudden the worst turns the best to the brave,
The black minute’s at end.
And the elements’ rage, the fiend-voices that rave
Shall dwindle, shall blend,
Shall change, shall become first a peace out of pain,
Then a light, then thy breast,
O thou soul of my soul! I shall clasp thee again,
And with God be the rest!
Views: 33