Encore un livre
by Jules Laforgue (1860-1887)
Encore un livre; ô nostalgies
Loin de ces très-goujates gens,
Loin des saluts et des argents,
Loin de nos phraséologies!
Encore un de mes pierrots mort;
Mort d’un chronique orphelinisme;
C’était un coeur plein de dandysme
Lunaire, en un drôle de corps.
Les dieux s’en vont; plus que des hures
Ah! ça devient tous les jours pis;
J’ai fait mon temps, je déguerpis
Vers l’Inclusive Sinécure!
Views: 38
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow
by William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more; it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
Views: 31
A Child Screening a Dove From a Hawk
after a painting by Thomas Stewardson (1781-1859)
by Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802-1838)
Ay, screen thy favourite dove, fair child,
Ay, screen it if you may,—
Yet I misdoubt thy trembling hand
Will scare the hawk away.
That dove will die, that child will weep,—
Is this their destinie?
Ever amid the sweets of life
Some evil thing must be.
Ay, moralize,—is it not thus
We’ve mourn’d our hope and love?
Alas! there’s tears for every eye,
A hawk for every dove!
Views: 25
The Battle of Blenheim
by Robert Southey (1774-1843)
It was a summer’s evening,
Old Kaspar’s work was done,
And he before his cottage door
Was sitting in the sun;
And by him sported on the green
His little grandchild Wilhelmine.
She saw her brother Peterkin
Roll something large and round,
Which he, beside the rivulet,
In playing there, had found.
He came to ask what he had found,
That was so large, and smooth, and round.
Old Kaspar took it from the boy,
Who stood expectant by;
And then the old man shook his head,
And, with a natural sigh,
“’Tis some poor fellow’s skull,” said he,
“Who fell in the great victory!
“I find them in the garden,
For there’s many hereabout;
And often when I go to plow,
The plowshare turns them out;
For many thousand men,” said he,
“Were slain in that great victory!”
“Now tell us what ’twas all about,”
Young Peterkin he cries;
And little Wilhelmine looks up
With wonder-waiting eyes;
“Now tell us all about the war,
And what they killed each other for.”
“It was the English,” Kaspar cried,
“Who put the French to rout;
But what they killed each other for
I could not well make out.
But everybody said,” quoth he,
“That ’twas a famous victory!
“My father lived at Blenheim then,
Yon little stream hard by:
They burned his dwelling to the ground
And he was forced to fly;
So with his wife and child he fled,
Nor had he where to rest his head.
“With fire and sword the country round
Was wasted far and wide;
And many a childing mother then
And new-born baby died.
But things like that, you know, must be
At every famous victory.
“They say it was a shocking sight
After the field was won;
For many thousand bodies here
Lay rotting in the sun.
But things like that, you know, must be
After a famous victory.
“Great praise the Duke of Marlborough won,
And our good Prince Eugene.”
“Why, ’twas a very wicked thing!”
Said little Wilhelmine.
“Nay, nay, my little girl,” quoth he,
“It was a famous victory!
“And everybody praised the Duke
Who this great fight did win.”
“But what good came of it at last?”
Quoth little Peterkin.
“Why, that I cannot tell,” said he,
“But ’twas a famous victory.”
Views: 33
His Books
by Robert Southey (1774-1843)
My days among the Dead are past;
Around me I behold,
Where’er these casual eyes are cast,
The mighty minds of old;
My never-failing friends are they,
With whom I converse day by day.
With them I take delight in weal,
And seek relief in woe;
And while I understand and feel
How much to them I owe,
My cheeks have often been bedew’d
With tears of thoughtful gratitude.
My thoughts are with the Dead, with them
I live in long-past years,
Their virtues love, their faults condemn,
Partake their hopes and fears,
And from their lessons seek and find
Instruction with an humble mind.
My hopes are with the Dead, anon
My place with them will be,
And I with them shall travel on
Through all Futurity;
Yet leaving here a name, I trust,
That will not perish in the dust.
Views: 29
Women
by Louise Bogan (1897-1970)
Women have no wilderness in them,
They are provident instead,
Content in the tight hot cell of their hearts
To eat dusty bread.
They do not see cattle cropping red winter grass,
They do not hear
Snow water going down under culverts
Shallow and clear.
They wait, when they should turn to journeys,
They stiffen, when they should bend.
They use against themselves that benevolence
To which no man is friend.
They cannot think of so many crops to a field
Or of clean wood cleft by an axe.
Their love is an eager meaninglessness
Too tense, or too lax.
They hear in every whisper that speaks to them
A shout and a cry.
As like as not, when they take life over their door-sills
They should let it go by.
Views: 28
For the Fallen
by Laurence Binyon (1869-1943)
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.
Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.
They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old,
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
They mingle not with laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England’s foam.
But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;
As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.
Views: 24
Im Nebel
by Hermann Hesse (1887-1962)
Seltsam, im Nebel zu wandern!
Einsam ist jeder Busch und Stein,
Kein Baum sieht den anderen,
Jeder ist allein.
Voll von Freunden war mir die Welt,
Als noch mein Leben Licht war,
Nun, da der Nebel fällt,
Ist keiner mehr sichtbar.
Wahrlich, keiner ist weise,
Der nicht das Dunkle kennt,
Das unentrinnbar und leise
Von allen ihn trennt.
Seltsam, im Nebel zu wandern!
Leben ist einsam sein.
Kein Mensch kennt den anderen,
Jeder ist allein.
Views: 29
Moonlight
by Sara Teasdale (1884-1933)
It will not hurt me when I am old,
A running tide where moonlight burned
Will not sting me like silver snakes;
The years will make me sad and cold,
It is the happy heart that breaks.
The heart asks more than life can give,
When that is learned, then all is learned;
The waves break fold on jewelled fold,
But beauty itself is fugitive,
It will not hurt me when I am old.
Views: 32
Dulce et Decorum Est
by Callinus (7th cent. BCE)
μέχρις τεῦ κατάκεισθε; κότ᾽ ἄλκιμον ἕξετε θυμόν,
ὦ νέοι; οὐδ᾽ αἰδεῖσθ᾽ ἀμφιπερικτίονας
ὧδε λίην μεθιέντες; ἐν εἰρήνῃ δὲ δοκεῖτε
ἧσθαι, ἀτὰρ πόλεμος γαῖαν ἅπασαν ἔχει;
καί τις ἀποθνῄσκων ὕστατ᾽ ἀκοντισάτω.
τιμῆέν τε γάρ ἐστι καὶ ἀγλαὸν ἀνδρὶ μάχεσθαι
γῆς πέρι καὶ παίδων κουριδίης τ᾽ ἀλόχου
δυσμενέσιν: θάνατος δὲ τότ᾽ ἔσσεται, ὁππότε κεν δὴ
Μοῖραι ἐπικλώσωσ᾽: ἀλλά τις ἰθὺς ἴτω
ἔγχος ἀνασχόμενος καὶ ὑπ᾽ ἀσπίδος ἄλκιμον ἦτορ
ἔλσας τὸ πρῶτον μειγνυμένου πολέμου:
οὐ γάρ κως θάνατόν γε φυγεῖν εἱμαρμένον ἐστὶν
ἄνδρ᾽, οὐδ᾽ εἰ προγόνων ᾖ γένος ἀθανάτων.
πολλάκι δηϊοτῆτα φυγὼν καὶ δοῦπον ἀκόντων
ἔρχεται, ἐν δ᾽ οἴκῳ μοῖρα κίχεν θανάτου:
ἀλλ᾽ ὁ μὲν οὐκ ἔμπης δήμῳ φίλος οὐδὲ ποθεινός,
τὸν δ᾽ ὀλίγος στενάχει καὶ μέγας, ἤν τι πάθῃ:
λαῷ γὰρ σύμπαντι πόθος κρατερόφρονος ἀνδρὸς
θνῄσκοντος, ζώων δ᾽ ἄξιος ἡμιθέων:
ὥσπερ γὰρ πύργον μιν ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖσιν ὁρῶσιν:
ἕρδει γὰρ πολλῶν ἄξια μοῦνος ἐών.
Views: 22