End of the Comedy
by Louis Untermeyer (1885-1977)

Eleven o’clock, and the curtain falls.
The cold wind tears the strands of illusion;
The delicate music is lost
In the blare of home-going crowds
And a midnight paper.

The night has grown martial;
It meets us with blows and disaster.
Even the stars have turned shrapnel,
Fixed in silent explosions.
And here at our door
The moonlight is laid
Like a drawn sword.

Views: 33

Tithonus
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)

The woods decay, the woods decay and fall,
The vapours weep their burthen to the ground,
Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath,
And after many a summer dies the swan.
Me only cruel immortality
Consumes; I wither slowly in thine arms,
Here at the quiet limit of the world,
A white-hair’d shadow roaming like a dream
The ever-silent spaces of the East,
Far-folded mists, and gleaming halls of morn.
Alas! for this gray shadow, once a man—
So glorious in his beauty and thy choice,
Who madest him thy chosen, that he seem’d
To his great heart none other than a God!
I ask’d thee, “Give me immortality.”
Then didst thou grant mine asking with a smile,
Like wealthy men who care not how they give.
But thy strong Hours indignant work’d their wills,
And beat me down and marr’d and wasted me,
And tho’ they could not end me left me maim’d
To dwell in presence of immortal youth,
Immortal age beside immortal youth,
And all I was in ashes. Can thy love
Thy beauty, make amends, tho’ even now,
Close over us, the silver star, thy guide,
Shines in those tremulous eyes that fill with tears
To hear me? Let me go: take back thy gift:
Why should a man desire in any way
To vary from the kindly race of men,
Or pass beyond the goal of ordinance
Where all should pause, as if most meet for all?

A soft air fans the cloud apart; there comes
A glimpse of that dark world where I was born.
Once more the old mysterious glimmer steals
From thy pure brows, and from thy shoulders pure,
And bosom beating with a heart renew’d.
Thy cheek begins to redden thro’ the gloom,
Thy sweet eyes brighten slowly close to mine,
Ere yet they blind the stars, and the wild team
Which love thee, yearning for thy yoke, arise,
And shake the darkness from their loosen’d manes,
And beat the twilight into flakes of fire.
Lo! ever thus thou growest beautiful
In silence, then before thine answer given
Departest, and thy tears are on my cheek.

Why wilt thou ever scare me with thy tears,
And make me tremble lest a saying learnt,
In days far-off, on that dark earth, be true?
“The Gods themselves cannot recall their gifts.”

Ay me! ay me! with what another heart
In days far-off, and with what other eyes
I used to watch (if I be he that watch’d)
The lucid outline forming round thee; saw
The dim curls kindle into sunny rings;
Changed with thy mystic change, and felt my blood
Glow with the glow that slowly crimson’d all
Thy presence and thy portals, while I lay,
Mouth, forehead, eyelids, growing dewy-warm
With kisses balmier than half-opening buds
Of April, and could hear the lips that kiss’d
Whispering I knew not what of wild and sweet,
Like that strange song I heard Apollo sing,
While Ilion like a mist rose into towers.

Yet hold me not for ever in thine East;
How can my nature longer mix with thine?
Coldly thy rosy shadows bathe me, cold
Are all thy lights, and cold my wrinkled feet
Upon thy glimmering thresholds, when the steam
Floats up from those dim fields about the homes
Of happy men that have the power to die,
And grassy barrows of the happier dead.
Release me, and restore me to the ground;
Thou seest all things, thou wilt see my grave:
Thou wilt renew thy beauty morn by morn;
I earth in earth forget these empty courts,
And thee returning on thy silver wheels.

Views: 53

Soneto de Galatea
by Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616)

   Afuera el fuego, el lazo, el yelo y flecha
de amor, que abrasa, aprieta, enfría y hiere;
que tal llama mi alma no la quiere,
ni queda de tal ñudo satisfecha.

   Consuma, ciña, yele, mate; estrecha
tenga otra la voluntad cuanto quisiere,
que por dardo, o por nieve, o red no’spere
tener la mía en su calor deshecha.

   Su fuego enfriará mi casto intento,
el ñudo romperé por fuerza o arte,
la nieve deshará mi ardiente celo,

   la flecha embotará mi pensamiento;
y así no temeré en segura parte
de amor el fuego, el lazo, el dardo, el yelo.

Views: 50

A Song of Spring and Autumn
by Francis Turner Palgrave (1824-1897)

In the season of white wild roses
   We two went hand in hand:
But now in the ruddy autumn
   Together already we stand.

O pale pearl-necklace that wandered
   O’er the white-thorn’s tangled head!
The white-thorn is turned to russet,
   The pearls to purple and red!

On the topmost orchard branches
   It then was crimson and snow,
Where now the gold-red apples
   Burn on the turf below.

And between the trees the children
   In and out run hand in hand;
And, with smiles that answer their smiling,
   We two together stand.

Views: 48

Tichborne’s Elegy
by Chidiock Tichborne (1562-1586)

My prime of youth is but a frost of cares,
My feast of joy is but a dish of pain,
My crop of corn is but a field of tares,
And all my good is but vain hope of gain.
The day is gone and yet I saw no sun,
And now I live, and now my life is done.

The spring is past, and yet it hath not sprung,
The fruit is dead, and yet the leaves are green,
My youth is gone, and yet I am but young,
I saw the world, and yet I was not seen,
My thread is cut, and yet it was not spun,
And now I live, and now my life is done.

I sought my death, and found it in my womb,
I looked for life, and saw it was a shade,
I trod the earth, and knew it was my tomb,
And now I die, and now I was but made;
The glass is full, and now the glass is run,
And now I live, and now my life is done.

Views: 39

Dans le Restaurant
by Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965)

Le garçon délabré qui n’a rien à faire
Que de se gratter les doigts et se pencher sur mon épaule:
   “Dans mon pays il fera temps pluvieux,
   Du vent, du grand soleil, et de la pluie;
   C’est ce qu’on appelle le jour de lessive des gueux.”
(Bavard, baveux, à la croupe arrondie,
Je te prie, au moins, ne bave pas dans la soupe).
   “Les saules trempés, et des bourgeons sur les ronces—
   C’est là, dans une averse, qu’on s’abrite.
J’avais sept ans, elle était plus petite.
   Elle était toute mouillée, je lui ai donné des primevères.”
Les taches de son gilet montent au chiffre de trentehuit.
   “Je la chatouillais, pour la faire rire.
   J’éprouvais un instant de puissance et de délire.”

   Mais alors, vieux lubrique, à cet âge…
“Monsieur, le fait est dur.
   Il est venu, nous peloter, un gros chien;
   Moi j’avais peur, je l’ai quittée à mi-chemin.
   C’est dommage.”
      Mais alors, tu as ton vautour!

Va t’en te décrotter les rides du visage;
Tiens, ma fourchette, décrasse-toi le crâne.
De quel droit payes-tu des expériences comme moi?
Tiens, voilà dix sous, pour la salle-de-bains.

Phlébas, le Phénicien, pendant quinze jours noyé,
Oubliait les cris des mouettes et la houle de Cornouaille,
Et les profits et les pertes, et la cargaison d’étain:
Un courant de sous-mer l’emporta très loin,
Le repassant aux étapes de sa vie antérieure.
Figurez-vous donc, c’était un sort pénible;
Cependant, ce fut jadis un bel homme, de haute taille.

Views: 357

The Cloud
by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
       From the seas and the streams;
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
       In their noonday dreams.
From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
      The sweet buds every one,
When rocked to rest on their mother’s breast,
      As she dances about the sun.
I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
      And whiten the green plains under,
And then again I dissolve it in rain,
      And laugh as I pass in thunder.

I sift the snow on the mountains below,
      And their great pines groan aghast;
And all the night ’tis my pillow white,
      While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers,
      Lightning, my pilot, sits;
In a cavern under is fettered the thunder,
      It struggles and howls at fits;
Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,
      This pilot is guiding me,
Lured by the love of the genii that move
       In the depths of the purple sea;
Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills,
      Over the lakes and the plains,
Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream,
      The spirit he loves remains;
And I all the while bask in Heaven’s blue smile,
      Whilst he is dissolving in rains.

The sanguine Sunrise, with his meteor eyes,
      And his burning plumes outspread,
Leaps on the back of my sailing rack,
      When the morning star shines dead;
As on the jag of a mountain crag,
      Which an earthquake rocks and swings,
An eagle alit one moment may sit
      In the light of its golden wings.
And when Sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath,
       Its ardors of rest and of love,
And the crimson pall of eve may fall
      From the depth of Heaven above,
With wings folded I rest, on mine aery nest,
      As still as a brooding dove.

That orbed maiden with white fire laden,
      Whom mortals call the Moon,
Glides glimmering o’er my fleece-like floor,
      By the midnight breezes strewn;
And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,
      Which only the angels hear,
May have broken the woof of my tent’s thin roof,
      The stars peep behind her and peer;
And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,
      Like a swarm of golden bees,
When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,
      Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,
Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,
      Are each paved with the moon and these.

I bind the Sun’s throne with a burning zone,
      And the Moon’s with a girdle of pearl;
The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim
      When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl.
From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,
      Over a torrent sea,
Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof,–
      The mountains its columns be.
The triumphal arch through which I march
      With hurricane, fire, and snow,
When the Powers of the air are chained to my chair,
      Is the million-colored bow;
The sphere-fire above its soft colors wove,
      While the moist Earth was laughing below.

I am the daughter of Earth and Water,
      And the nursling of the Sky;
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;
       I change, but I cannot die.
For after the rain when with never a stain
      The pavilion of Heaven is bare,
And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams
      Build up the blue dome of air,
I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,
       And out of the caverns of rain,
Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,
      I arise and unbuild it again.

Views: 44

The Withered Rose
by Mary Ann Browne (1812-1845)

I saw at eve a wither’d rose—
   The sun’s warm ray had curl’d it;
Its powerless leaves it could not close,
   And dewy tears impearl’d it:

I saw a moon beam gently rest—
   The withered flower it lighten’d
And though it could not dry its breast,
   Those crystal drops it brighten’d.

I looked again—that moon beam fair
   Had gilded o er its weeping,
And that sweet flow’ret calmly there
   Beneath its ray was sleeping.

So when Misfortune’s night blast sears
   Fair Friendship’s smile we borrow
And, tho’ it cannot dry our tears,
   ’Twill chase the gloom of sorrow.

Views: 57

Jolly Good Ale and Old
by William Stevenson (1530-1575)

I cannot eat but little meat,
   My stomach is not good;
But sure I think that I can drink
   With him that wears a hood.
Though I go bare, take ye no care,
   I nothing am a-cold;
I stuff my skin so full within
   Of jolly good ale and old.
Back and side go bare, go bare,
   Both foot and hand go cold;
But, belly, God send thee good ale enough,
   Whether it be new or old.

I love no roast but a nut-brown toast,
   And a crab laid in the fire;
A little bread shall do me stead;
   Much bread I not desire.
No frost nor snow, no wind, I trow,
   Can hurt me if it would,
I am so wrapped and throughly lapped
   Of jolly good ale and old.
Back and side go bare, go bare,
   Both foot and hand go cold;
But, belly, God send thee good ale enough,
   Whether it be new or old.

And Tib, my wife, that as her life
   Loveth well good ale to seek,
Full oft drinks she till ye may see
   The tears run down her cheek.
Then doth she troll to me the bowl,
   Even as a maltworm should,
And saith, “Sweetheart, I took my part
   Of this jolly good ale and old.”
Back and side go bare, go bare,
   Both foot and hand go cold;
But, belly, God send thee good ale enough,
   Whether it be new or old.

Now let them drink till they nod and wink,
   Even as good fellows should do;
They shall not miss to have the bliss
   Good ale doth bring men to.
And all poor souls that have scoured bowls
   Or have them lustily trolled—
God save the lives of them and their wives,
   Whether they be young or old.
Back and side go bare, go bare,
   Both foot and hand go cold;
But, belly, God send thee good ale enough,
   Whether it be new or old.

Views: 45

Kirschblüte bei der Nacht
by Brockes Barthold Heinrich (1680-1747)

Ich sahe mit betrachtendem Gemüte
Jüngst einen Kirschbaum, welcher blühte,
In kühler Nacht beim Mondenschein;
Ich glaubt, es könne nichts von größrer Weiße sein.
Es schien, ob wär ein Schnee gefallen.
Ein jeder, auch der kleinste Ast
Trug gleichsam eine schwere Last
Von zierlich weißen, runden Ballen.
Es ist kein Schwan so weiß, da nämlich jedes Blatt,
–Indem daselbst des Mondes sanftes Licht
Selbst durch die zarten Blätter bricht–
Sogar den Schatten weiß und sonder Schwärze hat.
Unmöglich, dacht ich, kann auf Erden
Was Weißers angetroffen werden.

Indem ich nun bald hin, bald her
Im Schatten dieses Baumes gehe,
Sah ich von ungefähr
Durch alle Blumen in die Höhe
Und ward noch einen weißern Schein,
Der tausendmal so weiß, der tausendmal so klar,
Fast halb darob erstaunt, gewahr.
Der Blüte Schnee schien schwarz zu sein
Bei diesem weißen Glanz. Es fiel mir ins Gesicht
Von einem hellen Stern ein weißes Licht,
Das mir recht in die Seele strahlte.

Wie sehr ich mich am Irdischen ergetze,
Dacht ich, hat Gott dennoch weit größre Schätze.
Die größte Schönheit dieser Erden
Kann mit der himmlischen doch nicht verglichen werden.

Views: 35