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

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: 51

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: 40

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: 46