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

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: 40

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: 29

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: 41

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: 30

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: 31