Trees
by Joyce Kilmer (1886-1918)

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

Views: 27

In a Artist’s Studio
by Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

One face looks out from all his canvases,
One selfsame figure sits or walks or leans:
We found her hidden just behind those screens,
That mirror gave back all her loveliness.
A queen in opal or in ruby dress,
A nameless girl in freshest summer-greens,
A saint, an angel – every canvas means
The same one meaning, neither more nor less.
He feeds upon her face by day and night,
And she with true kind eyes looks back on him,
Fair as the moon and joyful as the light:
Not wan with waiting, not with sorrow dim;
Not as she is, but was when hope shone bright;
Not as she is, but as she fills his dream.

Views: 28

Die Engel
by Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926)

Sie haben alle müde Münde
und helle Seelen ohne Saum.
Und eine Sehnsucht (wie nach Sünde)
geht ihnen manchmal durch den Traum.

Fast gleichen sie einander alle;
in Gottes Gärten schweigen sie,
wie viele, viele Intervalle
in seiner Macht und Melodie.

Nur wenn sie ihre Flügel breiten,
sind sie die Wecker eines Winds:
Als ginge Gott mit seinen weiten
Bildhauerhänden durch die Seiten
im dunklen Buch des Anbeginns.

Views: 39

Requiem
by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)

Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
      And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor; home from sea,
      And the hunter home from the hill.

Views: 32

Song Before Death
(From the French*)
                  1795
by Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909)

Sweet mother, in a minute’s span
      Death parts thee and my love of thee;
Sweet love, that yet art living man,
      Come back, true love, to comfort me.
Back, ah, come back! ah wellaway!
But my love comes not any day.

As roses, when the warm West blows,
      Break to full flower and sweeten spring,
My soul would break to a glorious rose
      In such wise at his whispering.
In vain I listen; wellaway!
My love says nothing any day.

You that will weep for pity of love
      On the low place where I am lain,
I pray you, having wept enough,
      Tell him for whom I bore such pain
That he was yet, ah! wellaway!
My true love to my dying day.

* of the Marquis de Sade

Views: 29

Apologia pro vita sua
by Sedulius Scottus (ninth century)

Aut lego vel scribo, doceo scrutorve sophiam:
      obsecro celsithronum nocte dieque meum.
Vescor, poto libens, rithmizans invoco Musas,
      dormisco stertens: oro deum vigilans.
Conscia mens scelerum deflet peccamina vitae;
      parcite vos misero, Christe Maria, viro.

Views: 47

A Description of a City Shower
by Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)

Careful observers may foretell the hour,
(By sure prognosticks) when to dread a shower.
While rain depends, the pensive cat gives o’er
Her frolicks, and pursues her tail no more.
Returning home at night, you’ll find the sink
Strike your offended sense with double stink.
If you be wise, then go not far to dine;
You’ll spend in coach-hire more than save in wine.
A coming showier your shooting corns presage,
Old aches will throb, your hollow tooth will rage;
Sauntering in coffeehouse is Dulman seen;
He damns the climate, and complains of spleen.
⁠      Meanwhile the south, rising with dabbled wings,
A sable cloud athwart the welkin flings,
That swill’d more liquor than it could contain,
And, like a drunkard, gives it up again.
Brisk Susan whips her linen from the rope,
While the first drizzling shower is born aslope:
Such is that sprinkling which some careless quean
Flirts on you from her mop, but not so clean:
You fly, invoke the gods; then, turning, stop
To rail; she, singing, still whirls on her mop.
Not yet the dust had shunn’d th’ unequal strife,
But, aided by the wind, fought still for life,
And, wafted with its foe by violent gust,
‘Twas doubtful which was rain, and which was dust.
Ah! where must needy poet seek for aid,
When dust and rain at once his coat invade?
Sole coat! where dust, cemented by the rain,
Erects the nap, and leaves a cloudy stain!
      Now in contiguous drops the flood comes down,
Threatening with deluge this devoted town.
To shops in crowds the daggled females fly,
Pretend to cheapen goods, but nothing buy.
The templar spruce, while every spout’s abroach,
Stays till ’tis fair, yet seems to call a coach.
The tuck’d-up semstress walks with hasty strides,
While streams run down her oil’d umbrella’s sides.
Here various kinds, by various fortunes led,
Commence acquaintance underneath a shed.
Triumphant tories, and desponding whigs,
Forget their feuds, and join to save their wigs.
Box’d in a chair, the beau impatient sits,
While spouts run clattering o’er the roof by fits,
And ever and anon with frightful din
The leather sounds; he trembles from within.
So when Troy chairmen bore the wooden steed,
Pregnant with Greeks impatient to be freed,
(Those bully Greeks, who, as the moderns do,
Instead of paying chairmen, ran them through)
Laocoon struck the outside with his spear,
And each imprison’d hero quak’d for fear.
      Now from all parts the swelling kennels flow,
And bear their trophies with them as they go:
Filths of all hues and odour, seem to tell
What street they sail’d from, by their sight and smell.
They, as each torrent drives, with rapid force,
From Smithfield to St ‘Pulchre’s shape their course,
And in huge confluence join’d at Snowhill ridge,
Fall from the conduit prone to Holbourn bridge.
Sweepings from butchers’ stalls, dung, guts, and blood,
Drown’d puppies, stinking sprats, all drench’d in mud,
Dead cats, and turnip-tops come tumbling down the flood.

Views: 37

Our Little Ghost
by Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888)

Oft, in the silence of the night,
      When the lonely moon rides high,
When wintry winds are whistling,
      And we hear the owl’s shrill cry,
In the quiet, dusky chamber,
      By the flickering firelight,
Rising up between two sleepers,
      Comes a spirit all in white.

A winsome little ghost it is,
      Rosy-cheeked, and bright of eye;
With yellow curls all breaking loose
      From the small cap pushed awry.
Up it climbs among the pillows,
      For the “big dark” brings no dread,
And a baby’s boundless fancy
      Makes a kingdom of a bed.

A fearless little ghost it is;
      Safe the night seems as the day;
The moon is but a gentle face,
      And the sighing winds are gay.
The solitude is full of friends,
      And the hour brings no regrets;
For, in this happy little soul,
      Shines a sun that never sets.

A merry little ghost it is,
      Dancing gayly by itself,
On the flowery counterpane,
      Like a tricksy household elf;
Nodding to the fitful shadows,
      As they flicker on the wall;
Talking to familiar pictures,
      Mimicking the owl’s shrill call.

A thoughtful little ghost if is;
      And, when lonely gambols tire,
With chubby hands on chubby knees,
      It sits winking at the fire.
Fancies innocent and lovely
      Shine before those baby-eyes, —
Endless fields of dandelions,
      Brooks, and birds, and butterflies.

A loving little ghost it is:
      When crept into its nest,
Its hand on father’s shoulder laid,
      Its head on mother’s breast,
It watches each familiar face,
      With a tranquil, trusting eye;
And, like a sleepy little bird,
      Sings its own soft lullaby.

Then those who feigned to sleep before,
      Lest baby play till dawn,
Wake and watch their folded flower —
      Little rose without a thorn.
And, in the silence of the night,
      The hearts that love it most
Pray tenderly above its sleep,
      “God bless our little ghost!”

Views: 36

London
by William Blake (1757-1827)

I wander thro’ each charter’d street,
Near where the charter’d Thames does flow,
And mark in every face I meet,
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every Man,
In every Infant’s cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forg’d manacles I hear.

How the Chimney-sweeper’s cry
Every black’ning Church appalls;
And the hapless Soldier’s sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls.

But most, thro’ midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlot’s curse
Blasts the new born Infant’s tear,
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.

Views: 38

Non Omnis Moriar
by Quintus Horatius Flaccus (“Horace”) (65-8 BCE)

Exegi monumentum aere perennius
regalique situ pyramidum altius,
quod non imber edax, non Aquilo inpotens
possit diruere aut innumerabilis
annorum series et fuga temporum.
Non omnis moriar multaque pars mei
vitabit Libitinam; usque ego postera
crescam laude recens, dum Capitolium
scandet cum tacita virgine pontifex.
Dicar, qua violens obstrepit Aufidus
et qua pauper aquae Daunus agrestium
regnavit populorum, ex humili potens
princeps Aeolium carmen ad Italos
deduxisse modos. Sume superbiam
quaesitam meritis et mihi Delphica
lauro cinge volens, Melpomene, comam.

Views: 42