Tract
by William Carlos Williams (1883-1963)

I will teach you my townspeople
how to perform a funeral—
for you have it over a troop
of artists—
unless one should scour the world—
you have the ground sense necessary.

See! the hearse leads.
I begin with a design for a hearse.
For Christ’s sake not black—
nor white either— and not polished!
Let it be weathered— like a farm wagon—
with gilt wheels (this could be
applied fresh at small expense)
or no wheels at all:
a rough day to drag over the ground.

Knock the glass out!
My God—glass, my townspeople!
For what purpose? Is it for the dead
to look out or for us to see
how well he is housed or to see
the flowers or the lack of them—
or what?
To keep the rain and snow from him?
He will have a heavier rain soon:
pebbles and dirt and what not.
Let there be no glass—
and no upholstery phew!
and no little brass rollers
and small easy wheels on the bottom—
my townspeople what are you thinking of?

A rough plain hearse then
with gilt wheels and no top at all.
On this the coffin lies
by its own weight.
            No wreathes please—
especially no hot house flowers.
Some common memento is better,
something he prized and is known by:
his old clothes— a few books perhaps—
God knows what! You realize
how we are about these things
my townspeople—
something will be found— anything
even flowers if he had come to that.

So much for the hearse.

For heaven’s sake though see to the driver!
Take off the silk hat! In fact
that’s no place at all for him—
up there unceremoniously
dragging our friend out to his own dignity!
Bring him down— bring him down !
Low and inconspicuous! I’d not have him ride
on the wagon at all— damn him—
the undertaker’s understrapper!
Let him hold the reins
and walk at the side
and inconspicuously too!

Then briefly as to yourselves:
Walk behind— as they do in France,
seventh class, or if you ride
Hell take curtains! Go with some show
of inconvenience; sit openly—
to the weather as to grief.
Or do you think you can shut grief in?
What—from us? We who have perhaps
nothing to lose? Share with us
share with us— it will be money
in your pockets.
            Go now
I think you are ready.

Views: 30

Život
by Miloš Crnjanski (1893-1977)

Sve to ne zavisi od mene.

Setim se kako beše lep,
nad vodama dubokim nekim,
      kao mesec beo,
sa lukom tankim
      jedan most.

I vidiš, to uteši me.

Ne zavisi od mene.

Dosta je da toga dana,
zemlja oko mene zamiriše preorana, ili da oblaci prolete,
malo niže,
pa da me to potrese.

Ne, ne od mene.

Dosta će biti ako, jedne zime,
iz vrta jednog zavejanog
istrči neko ozeblo, tuđe dete, i zagrli me.

Views: 34

The Agincourt Carol
Anonymous 15th century folk song

Our king went forth to Normandy
With grace and might of chivalry,
There God for him wrought marvellously,
Wherefore England may call and cry
   Deo gratias Anglia
   Redde pro victoria.

He set a siege, for sooth to say,
To Harfleur town with royal array,
That town he won and made a fray
That France shall rue till doomesday.
   Deo gratias Anglia
   Redde pro victoria.

Then went him forth our king comely,
In Agincourt field he fought manly,
Through grace of God most marvellously
He had the field and victory.
   Deo gratias Anglia
   Redde pro victoria.

There many a Lord, Earl, and Baron
Were slain and taken and that full soon
And some were brought into London
With joy and bliss and great renown.
   Deo gratias Anglia
   Redde pro victoria.

Almighty God, O keep our king,
His people and all those well willing,
And give them grace without ending;
Then may we call and safely sing
   Deo gratias Anglia
   Redde pro victoria.

Views: 37

The Sphinx
by Ralph Waldo Emerson (1802-1882)

The Sphinx is drowsy,
            The wings are furled;
Her ear is heavy,
            She broods on the world.
“Who’ll tell me my secret,
            The ages have kept?—
I awaited the seer,
            While they slumbered and slept;—

“The fate of the man-child;
            The meaning of man;
Known fruit of the unknown;
            Daedalian plan;
Out of sleeping a waking,
            Out of waking a sleep;
Life death overtaking;
            Deep underneath deep?

“Erect as a sunbeam,
            Upspringeth the palm;
The elephant browses,
            Undaunted and calm;
In beautiful motion
            The thrush plies his wings;
Kind leaves of his covert,
            Your silence he sings.

“The waves, unashamed,
            In difference sweet,
Play glad with the breezes,
            Old playfellows meet;
The journeying atoms,
            Primordial wholes,
Firmly draw, firmly drive,
            By their animate poles.

“Sea, earth, air, sound, silence,
            Plant, quadruped, bird,
By one music enchanted,
            One deity stirred,—
Each the other adorning,
            Accompany still;
Night veileth the morning,
            The vapor the hill.

“The babe by its mother
            Lies bathed in joy;
Glide its hours uncounted,—
            The sun is its toy;
Shines the peace of all being,
            Without cloud, in its eyes;
And the sum of the world
            In soft miniature lies.

“But man crouches and blushes,
            Absconds and conceals;
He creepeth and peepeth,
            He palters and steals;
Infirm, melancholy,
            Jealous glancing around,
An oaf, an accomplice,
            He poisons the ground.

“Outspoke the great mother,
            Beholding his fear;—
At the sound of her accents
            Cold shuddered the sphere:—
‘Who has drugged my boy’s cup?
            Who has mixed my boy’s bread?
Who, with sadness and madness,
            Has turned the man-child’s head?”

I heard a poet answer,
            Aloud and cheerfully,
“Say on, sweet Sphinx! thy dirges
            Are pleasant songs to me.
Deep love lieth under
            These pictures of time;
They fad in the light of
            Their meaning sublime.

“The fiend that man harries
            Is love of the Best;
Yawns the pit of the Dragon,
            Lit by rays from the Blest.
The Lethe of nature
            Can’t trace him again,
Whose soul sees the perfect,
            Which his eyes seek in vain.

“Profounder, profounder,
            Man’s spirit must dive;
To his aye-rolling orbit
            No goal will arrive;
The heavens that now draw him
            With sweetness untold,
Once found,—for new heavens
            He spurneth the old.

“Pride ruined the angels,
            Their shame them restores;
And the joy that is sweetest
            Lurks in stings of remorse.
Have I a lover
            Who is noble and free?—
I would he were nobler
            Than to love me.

“Eterne alternation
            Now follows, now flied;
And under pain, pleasure,—
            Under pleasure, pain lies.
Love works at the centre,
            Heart-heaving alway;
Forth speed the strong pulses
            To the borders of day.

“Dull Sphinx, Jove keep thy five wits!
            Thy sight is growing blear;
Rue, myrrh, and cummin for the Sphinx—
            Her muddy eyes to clear!”—
The old Sphinx bit her thick lip,—
            Said, “Who taught thee me to name?
I am thy spirit, yoke-fellow,
            Of thine eye I am eyebeam.

“Thou art the unanswered question;
            Couldst see they proper eye,
Alway it asketh, asketh;
            And each answer is a lie.
So take thy quest through nature,
            It through thousand natures ply;
Ask on, thou clothed eternity;
            Time is the false reply.”

Uprose the merry Sphinx,
            And crouched no more in stone;
She melted into purple cloud,
            She silvered in the moon;
She spired into a yellow flame;
            She flowered in blossoms red;
She flowed into a foaming wave;
            She stood Monadnoc’s head.

Through a thousand voices
            Spoke the universal dame:
“Who telleth one of my meanings,
            Is master of all I am.”

Views: 35

Eros
by Robert Bridges (1844-1930)

Why hast thou nothing in thy face?
Thou idol of the human race,
Thou tyrant of the human heart,
The flower of lovely youth that art;
Yea, and that standest in thy youth
An image of eternal Truth,
With thy exuberant flesh so fair,
That only Pheidias might compare,
Ere from his chaste marmoreal form
Time had decayed the colours warm;
Like to his gods in thy proud dress,
Thy starry sheen of nakedness.

Surely thy body is thy mind,
For in thy face is nought to find,
Only thy soft unchristen’d smile,
That shadows neither love nor guile,
But shameless will and power immense,
In secret sensuous innocence.

O king of joy, what is thy thought?
I dream thou knowest it is nought,
And wouldst in darkness come, but thou
Makest the light where’er thou go.
Ah yet no victim of thy grace,
None who e’er long’d for thy embrace,
Hath cared to look upon thy face.

Views: 37

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

Le vert colibri, le roi des collines,
Voyant la rosée et le soleil clair
Luire dans son nid tissé d’herbes fines,
Comme un frais rayon s’échappe dans l’air.

Il se hâte et vole aux sources voisines
Où les bambous font le bruit de la mer,
Où l’açoka rouge, aux odeurs divines,
S’ouvre et porte au cœur un humide éclair.

Vers la fleur dorée il descend, se pose,
Et boit tant d’amour dans la coupe rose,
Qu’il meurt, ne sachant s’il l’a pu tarir.

Sur ta lèvre pure, ô ma bien-aimée,
Telle aussi mon âme eût voulu mourir
Du premier baiser qui l’a parfumée!

Views: 32

Kubla Khan
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced;
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
And ‘mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And ‘mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight ‘twould win me
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Views: 120

Ô saisons, Ô chateaux
by Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891)

Ô saisons, ô châteaux,
Quelle âme est sans défauts?

Ô saisons, ô châteaux,

J’ai fait la magique étude
Du Bonheur, que nul n’élude.

Ô vive lui, chaque fois
Que chante son coq gaulois.

Mais! je n’aurai plus d’envie,
Il s’est chargé de ma vie.

Ce Charme! il prit âme et corps,
Et dispersa tous efforts.

Que comprendre à ma parole?
Il fait qu’elle fuie et vole!

Ô saisons, ô châteaux!

Et, si le malheur m’entraîne,
Sa disgrâce m’est certaine.

Il faut que son dédain, las!
Me livre au plus prompt trépas!

Ô Saisons, ô Châteaux!

Views: 30

The Nile
by Leigh Hunt (1784-1859)

It flows through old hush’d Egypt and its sands,
Like some grave mighty thought threading a dream;
And times and things, as in that vision, seem
Keeping along it their eternal stands, —
Caves, pillars, pyramids, the shepherd bands
That roam’d through the young earth, the glory extreme
Of high Sesostris, and that southern beam.
The laughing queen that caught the world’s great hands.
Then comes a mightier silence, stern and strong,
As of a world left empty of its throng,
And the void weighs on us; and then we wake,
And hear the fruitful stream lapsing along
‘Twixt villages, and think how we shall take
Our own calm journey on for human sake.

Views: 33

The War-Song of Dinas Vawr
by Thomas Love Peacock (1785-1866)

The mountain sheep are sweeter,
But the valley sheep are fatter;
We therefore deemed it meeter
To carry off the latter.
We made an expedition;
We met a host, and quelled it;
We forced a strong position,
And killed the men who held it.

On Dyfed’s richest valley,
Where herds of kine were browsing,
We made a mighty sally,
To furnish our carousing.
Fierce warriors rushed to meet us;
We met them, and o’erthrew them:
They struggled hard to beat us;
But we conquered them, and slew them.

As we drove our prize at leisure,
The king marched forth to catch us:
His rage surpassed all measure,
But his people could not match us.
He fled to his hall-pillars;
And, ere our force we led off,
Some sacked his house and cellars,
While others cut his head off.

We there, in strife bewild’ring,
Spilt blood enough to swim in:
We orphaned many children,
And widowed many women.
The eagles and the ravens
We glutted with our foemen;
The heroes and the cravens,
The spearmen and the bowmen.

We brought away from battle,
And much their land bemoaned them,
Two thousand head of cattle,
And the head of him who owned them:
Ednyfed, king of Dyfed,
His head was borne before us;
His wine and beasts supplied our feasts,
And his overthrow, our chorus.

Views: 27