Pace non trovo
by Francesco Petrarch (1304-1374)

Pace non trovo, et non ò da far guerra;
e temo, et spero; et ardo, et son un ghiaccio;
et volo sopra ’l cielo, et giaccio in terra;
et nulla stringo, et tutto ’l mondo abbraccio.

Tal m’à in pregion, che non m’apre né serra,
né per suo mi riten né scioglie il laccio;
et non m’ancide Amore, et non mi sferra,
né mi vuol vivo, né mi trae d’impaccio.

Veggio senza occhi, et non ò lingua et grido;
et bramo di perir, et cheggio aita;
et ò in odio me stesso, et amo altrui.

Pascomi di dolor, piangendo rido;
egualmente mi spiace morte et vita:
in questo stato son, donna, per voi.

Views: 32

“Aura che quelle chiome bionde et crespe” (Sonnet 127)
by Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) (1304-1374)

Aura che quelle chiome bionde et crespe
cercondi et movi, et se’ mossa da loro,
soavemente, et spargi quel dolce oro,
et poi ’l raccogli, e ’n bei nodi il rincrespe,

tu stai nelli occhi ond’amorose vespe
mi pungon sí, che ’nfin qua il sento et ploro,
et vacillando cerco il mio tesoro,
come animal che spesso adombre e ’ncespe:

ch’or me ’l par ritrovar, et or m’accorgo
ch’i’ ne son lunge, or mi sollievo or caggio,
ch’or quel ch’i’ bramo, or quel ch’è vero scorgo.

Aër felice, col bel vivo raggio
rimanti; et tu corrente et chiaro gorgo,
ché non poss’io cangiar teco vïaggio?

Views: 28

Midi
by Charles Marie René Leconte de Lisle (1818-1894)

Midi, roi des étés, épandu sur la plaine,
Tombe en nappes d’argent des hauteurs du ciel bleu.
Tout se tait. L’air flamboie et brûle sans haleine;
La terre est assoupie en sa robe de feu.

L’étendue est immense et les champs n’ont point d’ombre,
Et la source est tarie où buvaient les troupeaux;
La lointaine forêt, dont la lisière est sombre,
Dort là-bas, immobile, en un pesant repos.

Seuls, les grands blés mûris, tels qu’une mer dorée,
Se déroulent au loin, dédaigneux du sommeil;
Pacifiques enfants de la terre sacrée,
Ils épuisent sans peur la coupe du soleil.

Parfois, comme un soupir de leur âme brûlante,
Du sein des épis lourds qui murmurent entre eux,
Une ondulation majestueuse et lente
S’éveille, et va mourir à l’horizon poudreux.

Non loin, quelques bœufs blancs, couchés parmi les herbes,
Bavent avec lenteur sur leurs fanons épais,
Et suivent de leurs yeux languissants et superbes
Le songe intérieur qu’ils n’achèvent jamais.

Homme, si, le cœur plein de joie ou d’amertume,
Tu passais vers midi dans les champs radieux,
Fuis! la nature est vide et le soleil consume:
Rien n’est vivant ici, rien n’est triste ou joyeux.

Mais si, désabusé des larmes et du rire,
Altéré de l’oubli de ce monde agité,
Tu veux, ne sachant plus pardonner ou maudire,
Goûter une suprême et morne volupté,

Viens! Le soleil te parle en paroles sublimes;
Dans sa flamme implacable absorbe-toi sans fin;
Et retourne à pas lents vers les cités infimes,
Le cœur trempé sept fois dans le néant divin.

Views: 40

The Talented Man
by Winthrop Mackworth Praed (1802-1839)

Dear Alice! you’ll laugh when you know it, —
      Last week, at the Duchess’s ball,
I danced with the clever new poet, —
      You’ve heard of him, — Tully St. Paul.
Miss Jonquil was perfectly frantic;
      I wish you had seen Lady Anne!
It really was very romantic,
      He is such a talanted man!

He came up from Brazenose College,
      Just caught, as they call it, this spring;
And his head, love, is stuffed full of knowledge
      Of every conceivable thing.
Of science and logic he chatters,
      As fine and as fast as he can;
Though I am no judge of such matters,
      I’m sure he’s a talented man.

His stories and jests are delightful; —
      Not stories or jests, dear, for you;
The jests are exceedingly spiteful,
      The stories not always quite true.
Perhaps to be kind and veracious
      May do pretty well at Lausanne;
But it never would answer, — good gracious!
      Chez nous — in a talented man.

He sneers, — how my Alice would scold him! —
      At the bliss of a sigh or a tear;
He laughed — only think! — when I told him
      How we cried o’er Trevelyan last year;
I vow I was quite in a passion;
      I broke all the sticks of my fan;
But sentiment’s quite out of fashion,
      It seems, in a talented man.

Lady Bab, who is terribly moral,
      Has told me that Tully is vain,
And apt — which is silly — to quarrel,
      And fond — which is sad — of champagne.
I listened, and doubted, dear Alice,
      For I saw, when my Lady began,
It was only the Dowager’s malice; —
      She does hate a talented man!

He’s hideous, I own it. But fame, love,
      Is all that these eyes can adore;
He’s lame, — but Lord Byron was lame, love,
      And dumpy, — but so is Tom Moore.
Then his voice, — such a voice! my sweet creature,
      It’s like your Aunt Lucy’s toucan:
But oh! what’s a tone or a feature,
      When once one’s a talented man?

My mother, you know, all the season,
      Has talked of Sir Geoffrey’s estate;
And truly, to do the fool reason,
      He has been less horrid of late.
But today, when we drive in the carriage,
      I’ll tell her to lay down her plan; —
If ever I venture on marriage,
      It must be a talented man!

P.S. — I have found, on reflection,
      One fault in my friend, — entre nous;
Without it, he’d just be perfection; —
      Poor fellow, he has not a sou!
And so, when he comes in September
      To shoot with my uncle, Sir Dan,
I’ve promised mamma to remember
      He’s only a talented man!

Views: 31

Prayer
by Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)

Great God! I ask thee for no meaner pelf
Than that I may not disappoint myself;
That in my action I may soar as high
As I can now discern with this clear eye.

And next in value, which thy kindness lends,
That I may greatly disappoint my friends,
Howe’er they think or hope it that may be,
They may not dream how thou ‘st distinguished me.

That my weak hand may equal my firm faith,
And my life practice more than my tongue saith;
That my low conduct may not show,
Nor my relenting lines,
That I thy purpose did not know,
Or overrated thy designs.

Views: 29

“¡Oh claro honor del líquido elemento”
by Luis de Góngora y Argote (1561-1627)

¡Oh claro honor del líquido elemento,
dulce arroyuelo de corriente plata
cuya agua entre la hierba se dilata
con regalado son, con paso lento!

Pues la por quien helar y arder me siento,
mientras en ti se mira, Amor retrata
de su rostro la nieve y la escarlata
en tu tranquilo y blando movimiento,

véte como te vas; no dejes floja
la undosa rienda al cristalino freno
con que gobiernas tu veloz corriente;

que no es bien que confusamente acoja
tanta belleza en su profundo seno
el gran señor del húmido tridente.

Views: 41

Merlin
by Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

Thy trivial harp will never please
Or fill my craving ear;
Its chords should ring as blows the breeze,
Free, peremptory, clear.
No jingling serenader’s art,
Nor tinkle of piano strings,
Can make the wild blood start
In its mystic springs.
The kingly bard
Must smite the chords rudely and hard,
As with hammer or with mace;
That they may render back
Artful thunder, which conveys
Secrets of the solar track,
Sparks of the supersolar blaze.
Merlin’s blows are strokes of fate,
Chiming with the forest tone,
When boughs buffet boughs in the wood;
Chiming with the gasp and moan
Of the ice-imprisoned flood;
With the pulse of manly hearts;
With the voice of orators;
With the din of city arts;
With the cannonade of wars;
With the marches of the brave;
And prayers of might from martyrs’ cave.

Great is the art,
Great be the manners, of the bard.
He shall not his brain encumber
With the coil of rhythm and number;
But, leaving rule and pale forethought,
He shall aye climb
For his rhyme.
“Pass in, pass in,” the angels say,
“In to the upper doors,
Nor count compartments of the floors,
But mount to paradise
By the stairway of surprise.”

Blameless master of the games,
King of sport that never shames,
He shall daily joy dispense
Hid in song’s sweet influence.
Things more cheerly live and go,
What time the subtle mind
Sings aloud the tune whereto
Their pulses beat,
And march their feet,
And their members are combined.

By Sybarites beguiled,
He shall no task decline;
Merlin’s mighty line
Extremes of nature reconciled,—
Bereaved a tyrant of his will,
And made the lion mild.
Songs can the tempest still,
Scattered on the stormy air,
Mould the year to fair increase,
And bring in poetic peace.

He shall not seek to weave,
In weak, unhappy times,
Efficacious rhymes;
Wait his returning strength.
Bird, that from the nadir’s floor
To the zenith’s top can soar,—
The soaring orbit of the muse exceeds that journey’s length.
Nor profane affect to hit
Or compass that, by meddling wit,
Which only the propitious mind
Publishes when ’tis inclined.
There are open hours
When the God’s will sallies free,
And the dull idiot might see
The flowing fortunes of a thousand years;—
Sudden, at unawares,
Self-moved, fly-to the doors
Nor sword of angels could reveal
What they conceal.

Views: 42

The Solitary Woodsman
by Charles G.D. Roberts (1860-1944)

When the gray lake-water rushes
Past the dripping alder-bushes,
      And the bodeful autumn wind
In the fir-tree weeps and hushes,—

When the air is sharply damp
Round the solitary camp,
      And the moose-bush in the thicket
Glimmers like a scarlet lamp,—

When the birches twinkle yellow,
And the cornel bunches mellow,
      And the owl across the twilight
Trumpets to his downy fellow,—

When the nut-fed chipmunks romp
Through the maples’ crimson pomp,
      And the slim viburnum flashes
In the darkness of the swamp,—

When the blueberries are dead,
When the rowan clusters red,
      And the shy bear, summer-sleekened,
In the bracken makes his bed,—

On a day there comes once more
To the latched and lonely door,
      Down the wood-road striding silent,
One who has been here before.

Green spruce branches for his head,
Here he makes his simple bed,
      Crouching with the sun, and rising
When the dawn is frosty red.

All day long he wanders wide
With the gray moss for his guide,
      And his lonely axe-stroke startles
The expectant forest-side.

Toward the quiet close of day
Back to camp he takes his way,
      And about his sober footsteps
Unafraid the squirrels play.

On his roof the red leaf falls,
At his door the blue jay calls,
      And he hears the wood-mice hurry
Up and down his rough log walls;

Hears the laughter of the loon
Thrill the dying afternoon,—
      Hears the calling of the moose
Echo to the early moon.

And he hears the partridge drumming,
The belated hornet humming,—
      All the faint, prophetic sounds
That foretell the winter’s coming.

And the wind about his eaves
Through the chilly night-wet grieves,
      And the earth’s dumb patience fills him,
Fellow to the falling leaves.

Views: 37

Choricos
by Richard Aldington (1892-1962)

The ancient songs
Pass deathward mournfully.

Cold lips that sing no more, and withered wreaths,
Regretful eyes, and drooping breasts and wings—
Symbols of ancient songs
Mournfully passing
Down to the great white surges,
Watched of none—
Save the frail sea-birds
And the lithe pale girls,
Daughters of Okeanos.

And the songs pass
From the green land
Which lies upon the waves as a leaf
On the flowers of hyacinth;
And they pass from the waters,
The manifold winds and the dim moon,
And they come,
Silently winging through soft Kimmerian dusk,
To the quiet level lands
That she keeps for us all,
That she wrought for us all for sleep
In the silver days of the earth’s dawning—
Proserpine, daughter of Zeus.

And we turn from the Kuprian’s breasts,
And we turn from thee,
Phoibos Apollon,
And we turn from the music of old
And the hills that we loved and the meads,
And we turn from the fiery day,
And the lips that were over-sweet;
For silently
Brushing the fields with red-shod feet,
With purple robe
Searing the flowers as with a sudden flame,
Death,
Thou hast come upon us.

And of all the ancient songs
Passing to the swallow-blue halls
By the dark streams of Persephone,
This only remains:
That in the end we turn to thee,
Death,
That we turn to thee, singing
One last song.

O Death,
Thou art an healing wind
That blowest over white flowers
A-tremble with dew;
Thou art a wind flowing
Over long leagues of lonely sea;
Thou art the dusk and the fragrance;
Thou art the lips of love mournfully smiling;
Thou art the pale peace of one
Satiate with old desires;
Thou art the silence of beauty,
And we look no more for the morning;
We yearn no more for the sun,
Since with thy white hands,
Death,
Thou crownest us with the pallid chaplets,
The slim colorless poppies
Which in thy garden alone
Softly thou gatherest.

And silently;
And with slow feet approaching;
And with bowed head and unlit eyes,
We kneel before thee:
And thou, leaning towards us,
Caressingly layest upon us
Flowers from thy thin cold hands,
And, smiling as a chaste woman Knowing love in her heart,
Thou sealest our eyes
And the illimitable quietude
Comes gently upon us.

Views: 29

Jim
Who ran away from his nurse and was eaten by a lion
by Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953)

There was a Boy whose name was Jim;
His Friends were very good to him.
They gave him Tea, and Cakes, and Jam,
And slices of delicious Ham,
And Chocolate with pink inside
And little Tricycles to ride,
And read him Stories through and through,
And even took him to the Zoo—
But there it was the dreadful Fate
Befell him, which I now relate.

You know—at least you ought to know,
For I have often told you so—
That Children never are allowed
To leave their Nurses in a Crowd;
Now this was Jim’s especial Foible,
He ran away when he was able,
And on this inauspicious day
He slipped his hand and ran away!

He hadn’t gone a yard when—Bang!
With open Jaws, a lion sprang,
And hungrily began to eat
The Boy: beginning at his feet.
Now, just imagine how it feels
When first your toes and then your heels,
And then by gradual degrees,
Your shins and ankles, calves and knees,
Are slowly eaten, bit by bit.
No wonder Jim detested it!
No wonder that he shouted “Hi!”

The Honest Keeper heard his cry,
Though very fat he almost ran
To help the little gentleman.
“Ponto!” he ordered as he came
(For Ponto was the Lion’s name),
“Ponto!” he cried, with angry Frown,
“Let go, Sir! Down, Sir! Put it down!”
The Lion made a sudden stop,
He let the Dainty Morsel drop,
And slunk reluctant to his Cage,
Snarling with Disappointed Rage.
But when he bent him over Jim,
The Honest Keeper’s Eyes were dim.
The Lion having reached his Head,
The Miserable Boy was dead!

When Nurse informed his Parents, they
Were more Concerned than I can say:–
His Mother, as She dried her eyes,
Said, “Well—it gives me no surprise,
He would not do as he was told!”
His Father, who was self-controlled,
Bade all the children round attend
To James’s miserable end,
And always keep a-hold of Nurse
For fear of finding something worse.

Views: 35