Walden
by Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

In my garden three ways meet,
⁠Thrice the spot is blest;
Hermit-thrush comes there to build,
⁠Carrier-doves to nest.

There broad-armed oaks, the copses’ maze,
⁠ The cold sea-wind detain;
Here sultry Summer overstays
⁠ When Autumn chills the plain.

Self-sown my stately garden grows;
⁠The winds and wind-blown seed,
Cold April rain and colder snows
⁠ My hedges plant and feed.

From mountains far and valleys near
⁠The harvests sown to-day
Thrive in all weathers without fear,—
⁠ Wild planters, plant away!

In cities high the careful crowds
⁠Of woe-worn mortals darkling go,
But in these sunny solitudes
⁠My quiet roses blow.

Methought the sky looked scornful down
⁠ On all was base in man,
And airy tongues did taunt the town,
‘Achieve our peace who can!’

What need I holier dew
⁠ Than Walden’s haunted wave,
Distilled from heaven’s alembic blue,
⁠ Steeped in each forest cave?

If Thought unlock her mysteries,
⁠If Friendship on me smile,
I walk in marble galleries,
⁠I talk with kings the while.

How drearily in College hall
⁠The Doctor stretched the hours,
But in each pause we heard the call
⁠ Of robins out of doors.

The air is wise, the wind thinks well,
⁠And all through which it blows,
If plants or brain, if egg or shell,
⁠Or bird or biped knows;

And oft at home ‘mid tasks I heed,
⁠ I heed how wears the day;
We must not halt while fiercely speed
⁠The spans of life away.

What boots it here of Thebes or Rome
⁠Or lands of Eastern day?
In forests I am still at home
⁠And there I cannot stray.

Views: 30

The Old Fisherman
by Robert Huntington (1958-)

Once an old fisherman dwelt by the ocean
   Remote where few men might see,
Early each dawn with cautious devotion
   He’d put his dory to sea.

He fishes over the sunken ledges
   And always patiently
He lets his line out, waits and pledges
   Fidelity to the sea.

He reclines unmindful of the slaughter
   Endemic upon the land;
One hand on the line, one dipped in the water
   As if to hold its hand.

And after long hours when his gaze (like his boat) is
   Fixed on the changing sea’s gray,
The neap tide ebbs from beneath his notice,
   Silently slipping away.

And all at once he finds himself stranded
   On a ledge wind-swept and bleak,
But his simple thoughts remain guileless and candid;
   He takes in the line and speaks:

“As I, O Sea, am your wave-worn minion
   (Likewise this shelterless stone),
You too are under another’s dominion;
   By the moon’s decree you lie prone.”

He spends the night awake on his prison
   And endures the cold without shock;
By daybreak the waters have rearisen
   And again he’s released from his rock.

One imagines him in a strange vision
   At the end of earth’s given span,
Inattentive to apocalyptic fission;
   The last judgment of God or man.

As the solitary exile once viewed it
   While, watching the triremes pass by
His lonely Aegean island, he brooded,
   Of a sudden the sea burns dry.

And again he sits on his rock forsaken
   Without cursing his current state
Whose duration he can not know, but unshaken
   He just takes in the line and waits.

Views: 39

The Soul of the Sunflower
by Sarah Orne Jewett (1849-1909)

The warm sun kissed the earth
To consecrate thy birth,
And from his close embrace
Thy radiant face
Sprang into sight,
A blossoming delight.

Through the long summer days
Thy lover’s burning rays
Shone hot upon thy heart.
Thy life was part
Of his desire,
Thou passion-flower of fire!

And, turning toward his love,
Lifting thy head above
The earth that nurtured thee,
Thy majesty
And stately mien
Proclaims thee sun-crowned queen.

Views: 26

Nunc Est Bibendum (Odes, I, 37)
by Quintus Horatius Flaccus (“Horace”) (65 BCE-8 BCE)

Nunc est bibendum, nunc pede libero
pulsanda tellus, nunc Saliaribus
   ornare pulvinar deorum
   tempus erat dapibus, sodales.

Antehac nefas depromere Caecubum
cellis avitis, dum Capitolio
   regina dementis ruinas
   funus et imperio parabat

contaminato cum grege turpium
morbo virorum, quidlibet impotens
   sperare fortunaque dulci
   ebria. Sed minuit furorem

vix una sospes navis ab ignibus,
mentemque lymphatam Mareotico
   redegit in veros timores
   Caesar, ab Italia volantem

remis adurgens, accipiter velut
mollis columbas aut leporem citus
   venator in campis nivalis
   Haemoniae, daret ut catenis

fatale monstrum. Quae generosius
perire quaerens nec muliebriter
   expavit ensem nec latentis
   classe cita reparavit oras,

ausa et iacentem visere regiam 
voltu sereno, fortis et asperas
   tractare serpentes, ut atrum
   corpore conbiberet venenum,

deliberata morte ferocior:
saevis Liburnis scilicet invidens
   privata deduci superbo,
   non humilis mulier, triumpho.

Views: 31

Suicide in the Trenches
by Siegfried Sassoon (1886-1967)

I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you’ll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.

Views: 31

Ave Atque Vale
by Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909)

In Memory of Charles Baudelaire

            I

Shall I strew on thee rose or rue or laurel,
   Brother, on this that was the veil of thee?
   Or quiet sea-flower moulded by the sea,
Or simplest growth of meadow-sweet or sorrel,
   Such as the summer-sleepy Dryads weave,
   Waked up by snow-soft sudden rains at eve?
Or wilt thou rather, as on earth before,
   Half-faded fiery blossoms, pale with heat
   And full of bitter summer, but more sweet
To thee than gleanings of a northern shore
   Trod by no tropic feet?

Continue reading …

Views: 605

Dirge
by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (1797-1851)

This morn thy gallant bark, love,
Sailed on a sunny sea;
‘Tis noon, and tempests dark, love,
Have wrecked it on the lee.
Ah woe! Ah woe! Ah woe!
By spirits of the deep
He’s cradled on the billow
To his unwaking sleep.

Thou liest upon the shore, love,
Beside the knelling surge,
But sea-nymphs evermore, love,
Shall sadly chaunt thy dirge.
Oh come! Oh come! Oh come!
Ye spirits of the deep,
While near his seaweed pillow
My lonely watch I keep.

From far across the sea, love,
I hear a wild lament,
By Echo’s voice for thee, love,
From ocean’s caverns sent:
Oh list! Oh list! Oh list!
The spirits of the deep —
Loud sounds their wail of sorrow,
While I for ever weep.

Views: 67

The Last Reader
by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr (1809-1894)

I sometimes sit beneath a tree
   And read my own sweet songs;
Though naught they may to others be,
   Each humble line prolongs
A tone that might have passed away,
But for that scarce remembered lay.

I keep them like a lock or leaf
   That some dear girl has given;
Frail record of an hour, as brief
   As sunset clouds in heaven,
But spreading purple twilight still
High over memory’s shadowed hill.

They lie upon my pathway bleak,
   Those flowers that once ran wild,
As on a father’s careworn cheek
   The ringlets of his child;
The golden mingling with the gray,
And stealing half its snows away.

What care I though the dust is spread
   Around these yellow leaves,
Or o’er them his sarcastic thread
   Oblivion’s insect weaves?
Though weeds are tangled on the stream,
It still reflects my morning’s beam.

And therefore love I such as smile
   On these neglected songs,
Nor deem that flattery’s needless wile
   My opening bosom wrongs;
For who would trample, at my side,
A few pale buds, my garden’s pride?

It may be that my scanty ore
   Long years have washed away,
And where were golden sands before
   Is naught but common clay;
Still something sparkles in the sun
For memory to look back upon.

And when my name no more is heard,
   My lyre no more is known,
Still let me, like a winter’s bird,
   In silence and alone,
Fold over them the weary wing
Once flashing through the dews of spring.

Yes, let my fancy fondly wrap
   My youth in its decline,
And riot in the rosy lap
   Of thoughts that once were mine,
And give the worm my little store
When the last reader reads no more!

Views: 60

Die wahre Liebe
by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

Das ist die wahre Liebe, die immer und immer sich gleich bleibt,
   Wenn man ihr alles gewährt, wenn man ihr alles versagt.

Views: 83

For a Moment the Wind Died
by Theodore Dreiser (1871-1945)

For a moment the wind died,
And then came the sense of quieting leaves;
And then came the great stillness of the landscape;
And then the chorus of unheard insects;
And then the perfect sky, pouring a blaze
of light through mottled leaves.
And then the wind sprang up again—
And there was coolness in the air,
And for the face,
And the tired heart.

Views: 67