Place des Invalides
by Jean Cocteau (1889-1963)

Écoute Dieu ronronne dans son beau ciel vide
Rouet d’Omphale Les Nations
Une remise triomphale de décorations
Place des Invalides

Dôme d’or
Le bilan se dépêche, carde un nuage
Les cocardes tricolores

Nasse la tour Eiffel pendue
Elle attrape en silence
Toutes les dépêches du monde

Views: 33

Of a Wild White Bird
by Louise Mack (1870-1935)

To soar as a wild white bird,
      With a song unbound and fetterless!
With a gush of song in the throat,
      Loosened and loud and letterless,
And the wind its only accompaniment.

To sing and soar and look down
      On a world one leaves when one tires of it:
With a glancing wing for a sail,
      Dashing, when one desires of it,
Through the spray of the great sea-wilderness.

Or sweeping with mighty curves
      From land to sky, and to land again:
To cast off Time, and to stay
      Where one’s will alone lays hand on one:
Not to own or owe in the universe.

Sudden and swift some day
      Meet Death, and know no fear of Him,
But close the eyes and have done.
      . . . When a wild bird dies none hear of him.
He has sung and ceased, and is happiest.

Views: 56

“That Love is all there is”
by Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

That Love is all there is,
Is all we know of Love;
It is enough, the freight should be
Proportioned to the groove.

Views: 37

When the Frost is on the Punkin
by James Whitcomb Riley(1849-1916)

When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock,
And you hear the kyouck and the gobble of the struttin’ turkey-cock,
And the clackin’; of the guineys and the cluckin’ of the hens
And the rooster’s hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence;
O it’s then the times a feller is a-feelin’ at his best,
With the risin’ sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest,
As he leaves the house, bareheaded, and goes out to feed the stock,
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock.

They’s somethin kindo’ harty-like about the atmusfere
When the heat of summer’s over and the coolin’ fall is here —
Of course we miss the flowers, and the blossums on the trees
And the mumble of the hummin’-birds and buzzin’ of the bees;
But the air’s so appetizin’; and the landscape through the haze
Of a crisp and sunny morning of the airly autumn days
Is a pictur’ that no painter has the colorin’ to mock —
When the frost is on the punkin and fodder’s in the shock.

The husky, rusty russel of the tossels of the corn,
And the raspin’ of the tangled leaves, as golden as the morn;
The stubble in the furries — kindo’ lonesome—like, but still
A preachin’ sermons to us of the barns they growed to fill;
The strawstack in the medder, and the reaper in the shed;
The hosses in theyr stalls below — the clover overhead! —
O, it sets my hart a-clickin’ like the tickin’ of a clock,
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock!

Then your apples all is gethered, and the ones a feller keeps
Is poured around the celler-floor in red and yeller heaps;
And your cider-makin’s over, and your wimmern-folks is through
With their mince and apple-butter, and theyr souse and saussage, too!
I don’t know how to tell it — but if sich a thing could be
As the Angels wantin’ boardin’, and they’d call around on me —
I’d want to ’commodate ’em — all the whole-indurin’ flock —
When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder’s in the shock!

Views: 37

Crossing the Bar
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

Sunset and evening star,
      And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
      When I put out to sea,

But such a tide as moving seems asleep,
      Too full for sound and foam,
When that which drew from out the boundless deep
      Turns again home.

Twilight and evening bell,
      And after that the dark!
And may there be no sadness of farewell,
      When I embark;

For tho’ from out our bourne of Time and Place
      The flood may bear me far,
I hope to see my Pilot face to face
      When I have crossed the bar.

Views: 35

Ein getreues Herze wissen
by Paul Fleming (1609-1640)

Ein getreues Herze wissen
hat des höchsten Schatzes Preis.
Der ist selig zu begrüßen,
der ein treues Herze weiß.
Mir ist wohl bei höchstem Schmerze;
denn ich weiß ein treues Herze.

Läuft das Glücke gleich zuzeiten
anders, als man will und meint,
ein getreues Herz hilft streiten
wider alles, was ist feind.
Mir ist wohl bei höchstem Schmerze;
denn ich weiß ein treues Herze.

Sein vergnügen steht alleine
in des andern Redlichkeit.
Hält des andern Not für seine.
Weicht nicht auch bei böser Zeit.
Mir ist wohl bei höchstem Schmerze
denn ich weiß ein treues Herze.

Gunst, die kehrt sich nach dem Glücke,
Geld und Reichtum, das zerstäubt,
Schönheit läßt uns bald zurücke;
ein getreues Herze bleibt.
Mir ist wohl bei höchstem Schmerze;
denn ich weiß ein treues Herze.

Eins ist da sein und geschieden.
Ein getreues Hertze hält.
Giebt sich allezeit zu frieden.
Steht auf, wenn es nieder fällt.
Ich bin froh bei höchstem Schmerze
denn ich weiß ein treues Herze.

Nichts ist Süßers als zwei Treue,
wenn sie eines worden sein.
Dies ist’s, des ich mich erfreue,
und sie gibt ihr Ja auch drein.
Mir ist wohl bei höchstem Schmerze;
denn ich weiß ein treues Herze.

Views: 180

Thirty Bob a Week
by John Davidson (1857-1909)

I couldn’t touch a stop and turn a screw,
   And set the blooming world a-work for me,
Like such as cut their teeth—I hope, like you—
   On the handle of a skeleton gold key;
I cut mine on a leek, which I eat it every week:
   I’m a clerk at thirty bob as you can see.

But I don’t allow it’s luck and all a toss;
   There’s no such thing as being starred and crossed;
It’s just the power of some to be a boss,
   And the bally power of others to be bossed:
I face the music, sir; you bet I ain’t a cur;
   Strike me lucky if I don’t believe I’m lost!

For like a mole I journey in the dark,
   A-travelling along the underground
From my Pillar’d Halls and broad Suburbean Park,
   To come the daily dull official round;
And home again at night with my pipe all alight,
   A-scheming how to count ten bob a pound.

And it’s often very cold and very wet,
   And my missus stitches towels for a hunks;
And the Pillar’d Halls is half of it to let—
   Three rooms about the size of travelling trunks.
And we cough, my wife and I, to dislocate a sigh,
   When the noisy little kids are in their bunks.

But you never hear her do a growl or whine,
   For she’s made of flint and roses, very odd;
And I’ve got to cut my meaning rather fine,
   Or I’d blubber, for I’m made of greens and sod:
So p’r’haps we are in Hell for all that I can tell,
   And lost and damn’d and served up hot to God.

I ain’t blaspheming, Mr. Silver-tongue;
   I’m saying things a bit beyond your art:
Of all the rummy starts you ever sprung,
   Thirty bob a week’s the rummiest start!
With your science and your books and your the’ries about spooks,
   Did you ever hear of looking in your heart?

I didn’t mean your pocket, Mr., no:
   I mean that having children and a wife,
With thirty bob on which to come and go,
   Isn’t dancing to the tabor and the fife:
When it doesn’t make you drink, by Heaven! it makes you think,
   And notice curious items about life.

I step into my heart and there I meet
   A god-almighty devil singing small,
Who would like to shout and whistle in the street,
   And squelch the passers flat against the wall;
If the whole world was a cake he had the power to take,
   He would take it, ask for more, and eat them all.

And I meet a sort of simpleton beside,
   The kind that life is always giving beans;
With thirty bob a week to keep a bride
   He fell in love and married in his teens:
At thirty bob he stuck; but he knows it isn’t luck:
   He knows the seas are deeper than tureens.

And the god-almighty devil and the fool
   That meet me in the High Street on the strike,
When I walk about my heart a-gathering wool,
   Are my good and evil angels if you like.
And both of them together in every kind of weather
   Ride me like a double-seated bike.

That’s rough a bit and needs its meaning curled.
   But I have a high old hot un in my mind—
A most engrugious notion of the world,
   That leaves your lightning ’rithmetic behind:
I give it at a glance when I say ‛There ain’t no chance,
   Nor nothing of the lucky-lottery kind.’

And it’s this way that I make it out to be:
   No fathers, mothers, countres, climates—none;
Not Adam was responsible for me,
   Nor society, nor systems, nary one:
A little sleeping seed, I woke—I did, indeed—
   A million years before the blooming sun.

I woke because I thought the time had come;
   Beyond my will there was no other cause;
And everywhere I found myself at home,
   Because I chose to be the thing I was;
And in whatever shape of mollusc or of ape
   I always went according to the laws.

I was the love that chose my mother out;
   I joined two lives and from the union burst;
My weakness and my strength without a doubt
   Are mine alone for ever from the first:
It’s just the very same with a difference in the name
   As ‛Thy will be done.’ You say it if you durst!

They say it daily up and down the land
   As easy as you take a drink, it’s true;
But the difficultest go to understand,
   And the difficultest job a man can do,
Is to come it brave and meek with thirty bob a week,
   And feel that that’s the proper thing for you.

It’s a naked child against a hungry wolf;
   It’s playing bowls upon a splitting wreck;
It’s walking on a string across a gulf
   With millstones fore-and-aft about your neck;
But the thing is daily done by many and many a one;
   And we fall, face forward, fighting, on the deck.

Views: 35

Chorus from Atalanta in Calydon
by Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909)

We have seen thee, O Love, thou art fair, thou art goodly, O Love,
Thy wings make light in the air as the wings of a dove.
Thy feet are as winds that divide the stream of the sea;
Earth is thy covering to hide thee, the garment of thee.
Thou art swift and subtle and blind as a flame of fire;
Before thee the laughter, behind thee the tears of desire;
And twain go forth beside thee, a man with a maid;
Her eyes are the eyes of a bride whom delight makes afraid;
As the breath in the buds that stir is her bridal breath:
But Fate is the name of her; and his name is Death.

Continue reading …

Views: 44

The Emperor of Ice-Cream
by Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)

Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month’s newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Views: 41