The Height of the Ridiculous
by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. (1809-1899)

I wrote some lines once on a time
      In wondrous merry mood,
And though, as usual, men would say
      They were exceeding good.

They were so queer, so very queer,
      I laughed as I would die;
Albeit, in the general way,
      A sober man am I.

I called my servant, and he came;
      How kind it was of him
To mind a slender man like me,
      He of the mighty limb.

“These to the print,” I exclaimed,
      And, in my humorous way,
I added, (as a trifling jest,)
      “There’ll be the devil to pay.”

He took the paper, and I watched,
      And saw him peep within;
At the first line he read, his face
      Was all upon the grin.

He read the next, the grin grew broad,
      And shot from ear to ear;
He read the third; a chuckling noise
      I now began to hear.

The fourth; he broke into a roar;
      The fifth; his waistband split;
The sixth; he burst five buttons off,
      And tumbled in a fit.

Ten days and nights, with sleepless eye,
      I watched that wretched man,
And since, I never dare to write
      As funny as I can.

Views: 88

Erlkönig
by Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832)

Wer reitet so spät durch Nacht und Wind?
Es ist der Vater mit seinem Kind;
Er hat den Knaben wohl in dem Arm,
Er faßt ihn sicher, er hält ihn warm.

Mein Sohn, was birgst du so bang dein Gesicht? —
Siehst, Vater, du den Erlkönig nicht?
Den Erlenkönig mit Kron’ und Schweif? —
Mein Sohn, es ist ein Nebelstreif. —

„Du liebes Kind, komm, geh mit mir!
Gar schöne Spiele spiel’ ich mit dir;
Manch’ bunte Blumen sind an dem Strand,
Meine Mutter hat manch gülden Gewand.“ —

Mein Vater, mein Vater, und hörest du nicht,
Was Erlenkönig mir leise verspricht? —
Sei ruhig, bleibe ruhig, mein Kind;
In dürren Blättern säuselt der Wind. —

„Willst, feiner Knabe, du mit mir gehn?
Meine Töchter sollen dich warten schön;
Meine Töchter führen den nächtlichen Reihn
Und wiegen und tanzen und singen dich ein.“ —

Mein Vater, mein Vater, und siehst du nicht dort
Erlkönigs Töchter am düstern Ort? —
Mein Sohn, mein Sohn, ich seh’ es genau:
Es scheinen die alten Weiden so grau. —

„Ich liebe dich, mich reizt deine schöne Gestalt;
Und bist du nicht willig, so brauch’ ich Gewalt.“ —
Mein Vater, mein Vater, jetzt faßt er mich an!
Erlkönig hat mir ein Leids getan! —

Dem Vater grauset’s; er reitet geschwind,
Er hält in Armen das ächzende Kind,
Erreicht den Hof mit Mühe und Not;
In seinen Armen das Kind war tot.

Views: 34

The Purple Cow: Reflections on a Mythic Beast Who’s Quite Remarkable, at Least
by Gelett Burgess (1866-1951)

I never saw a Purple Cow,
I never hope to see one;
But I can tell you, anyhow,
I’d rather see than be one.

Views: 30

Les Colchiques
by Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918)

Le pré est vénéneux mais joli en automne
Les vaches y paissant
Lentement s’empoisonnent
Le colchique couleur de cerne et de lilas
Y fleurit tes yeux sont comme cette fleur-là
Violâtres comme leur cerne et comme cet automne
Et ma vie pour tes yeux lentement s’empoisonne

Les enfants de l’école viennent avec fracas
Vêtus de hoquetons et jouant de l’harmonica
Ils cueillent les colchiques qui sont comme des mères
Filles de leurs filles et sont couleur de tes paupières

Qui battent comme les fleurs battent au vent dément

Le gardien du troupeau chante tout doucement
Tandis que lentes et meuglant les vaches abandonnent
Pour toujours ce grand pré mal fleuri par l’automne

Views: 37

Bitte
by Nikolaus Lenau (1802-1850)

Weil’ auf mir, du dunkles Auge,
Uebe deine ganze Macht,
Ernste, milde, träumerische,
Unergründlich süße Nacht!

Nimm mit deinem Zauberdunkel
Diese Welt von hinnen mir,
Das du über meinem Leben
Einsam schwebest für und für.

Views: 41

To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time
by Robert Herrick (1591-1674)

Gather ye Rose-buds while ye may,
         Old Time is still a-flying:
And this same flower that smiles to day,
         To morrow will be dying.

The glorious Lamp of Heaven, the Sun,
         The higher he’s a getting;
The sooner will his Race be run,
         And neerer he’s to Setting.

That Age is best, which is the first,
         When Youth and Blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse, and worst
         Times, still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time;
         And while ye may, go marry:
For having lost but once your prime,
         You may forever tarry.

Views: 39

Resumé
by Dorothy Parker (1893-1967)

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren’t lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

Views: 38

If We Must Die
by Claude McKay (1889-1948)

If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accursèd lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
O kinsmen! we must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we’ll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!

Views: 26

Sausage
by Edgar Guest (1881-1959)

You may brag about your breakfast foods you eat at break of day,
Your crisp, delightful shavings and your stack of last year’s hay,
Your toasted flakes of rye and corn that fairly swim in cream,
Or rave about a sawdust mash, an epicurean dream.
But none of these appeals to me, though all of them I’ve tried—
The breakfast that I liked the best was sausage mother fried.

Old country sausage was its name; the kind, of course, you know,
The little links that seemed to be almost as white as snow,
But turned unto a ruddy brown, while sizzling in the pan;
Oh, they were made both to appease and charm the inner man.
All these new-fangled dishes make me blush and turn aside,
When I think about the sausage that for breakfast mother fried.

When they roused me from my slumbers and I left to do the chores,
It wasn’t long before I breathed a fragrance out of doors
That seemed to grip my spirit, and to thrill my body through,
For the spice of hunger tingled, and ’twas then I plainly knew
That the gnawing at my stomach would be quickly satisfied
By a plate of country sausage that my dear old mother fried.

There upon the kitchen table, with its cloth of turkey red,
Was a platter heaped with sausage and a plate of home-made bread,
And a cup of coffee waiting—not a puny demitasse
That can scarcely hold a mouthful, but a cup of greater class;
And I fell to eating largely, for I could not be denied—
Oh, I’m sure a king would relish the sausage mother fried.

Times have changed and so have breakfasts; now each morning when I see
A dish of shredded something or of flakes passed up to me,
All my thoughts go back to boyhood, to the days of long ago,
When the morning meal meant something more than vain and idle show.
And I hunger, Oh, I hunger, in a way I cannot hide,
For a plate of steaming sausage like the kind my mother fried.

Views: 49

Prologue to The Tempest
by John Dryden (1631-1700)

As when a tree’s cut down, he secret root
Lives under ground, and thence new branches shoot,
So, from old Shakespeare’s honoured dust, this day
Springs up and buds a new reviving play.
Shakespeare who (taught by none) did first impart
To Fletcher wit, to labouring Jonson art.
He monarch-like gave those his subjects law,
And is that nature which they paint and draw.
Fletcher reached that which on his heights did grow,
Whilst Jonson crept and gathered all below.
This did his love, and this his mirth digest:
One imitates him most, the other best.
If they have since outwrit all other men,
’Tis with the drops which fell from Shakespeare’s pen.
The storm which vanished on the neighbouring shore
Was taught by Shakespeare’s Tempest first to roar.
That innocence and beauty which did smile
In Fletcher, grew on this Enchanted Isle.
But Shakespeare’s magic could not copied be,
Within that circle none durst walk but he.
I must confess ’twas bold, nor would you now
That liberty to vulgar wits allow
Which works by magic supernatural things:
But Shakespeare’s power is sacred as a King’s
Those legends from old priesthood were received
And he then writ as people then believed.
But if for Shakespeare we your grace implore,
We for our theatre shall want it more:
Who by our dearth of youths are forced t’employ
One of our women to present a boy.
And that’s a transformation, you will say,
Exceeding all the magic in the play.
Let none expect in the last act to find
Her sex transformed from man to womankind.
Whate’er she was before the play began,
All you shall see of her is perfect man.
Or if your fancy will be farther led
To find her woman, it must be abed.

Views: 32