Drinking
by Abraham Cowley (1618-1667)

The thirsty earth soaks up the rain,
And drinks and gapes for drink again;
The plants suck in the earth, and are
With constant drinking fresh and fair;
The sea itself (which one would think
Should have but little need of drink)
Drinks twice ten thousand rivers up,
So fill’d that they o’erflow the cup.
The busy Sun (and one would guess
By ’s drunken fiery face no less)
Drinks up the sea, and when he’s done,
The Moon and Stars drink up the Sun:
They drink and dance by their own light,
They drink and revel all the night:
Nothing in Nature’s sober found,
But an eternal health goes round.
Fill up the bowl, then, fill it high,
Fill all the glasses there—for why
Should every creature drink but I?
Why, man of morals, tell me why?

Views: 33

The Last Man
by Thomas Campbell (1777-1844)

All worldly shapes shall melt in gloom,
The Sun himself must die,
Before this mortal shall assume
Its Immortality!
I saw a vision in my sleep
That gave my spirit strength to sweep
Adown the gulf of Time!
I saw the last of human mould,
That shall Creation’s death behold,
As Adam saw her prime!

The Sun’s eye had a sickly glare,
The Earth with age was wan,
The skeletons of nations were
Around that lonely man!
Some had expired in fight,–the brands
Still rested in their bony hands;
In plague and famine some!
Earth’s cities had no sound nor tread;
And ships were drifting with the dead
To shores where all was dumb!

Yet, prophet-like, that lone one stood
With dauntless words and high,
That shook the sere leaves from the wood
As if a storm passed by,
Saying, “We are twins in death, proud Sun,
Thy face is cold, thy race is run,
’Tis Mercy bids thee go.
For thou ten thousand thousand years
Hast seen the tide of human tears,
That shall no longer flow.

“What though beneath thee man put forth
His pomp, his pride, his skill;
And arts that made fire, floods, and earth,
The vassals of his will;–
Yet mourn not I thy parted sway,
Thou dim discrowned king of day:
For all those trophied arts
And triumphs that beneath thee sprang,
Healed not a passion or a pang
Entailed on human hearts.

“Go, let oblivion’s curtain fall
Upon the stage of men,
Nor with thy rising beams recall
Life’s tragedy again.
Its piteous pageants bring not back,
Nor waken flesh, upon the rack
Of pain anew to writhe;
Stretched in disease’s shapes abhorred,
Or mown in battle by the sword,
Like grass beneath the scythe.

“Ee’n I am weary in yon skies
To watch thy fading fire;
Test of all sumless agonies
Behold not me expire.
My lips that speak thy dirge of death–
Their rounded gasp and gurgling breath
To see thou shalt not boast.
The eclipse of Nature spreads my pall,–
The majesty of Darkness shall
Receive my parting ghost!

“This spirit shall return to Him
That gave its heavenly spark;
Yet think not, Sun, it shall be dim
When thou thyself art dark!
No! it shall live again, and shine
In bliss unknown to beams of thine,
By Him recalled to breath,
Who captive led captivity.
Who robbed the grave of Victory,–
And took the sting from Death!

“Go, Sun, while Mercy holds me up
On Nature’s awful waste
To drink this last and bitter cup
Of grief that man shall taste–
Go, tell the night that hides thy face,
Thou saw’st the last of Adam’s race,
On Earth’s sepulchral clod,
The darkening universe defy
To quench his Immortality,
Or shake his trust in God!”

Views: 58

Estas mi Esperantisto
by Julio Baghy (1891-1967)
because today is Esperanto Day

Verda stelo sur la brusto
Iom palas pro la rusto.
Mi ne estas purigisto
Estas mi esperantisto.

Kuŝas ie sub tegmento
Netuŝebla Fundamento. 
Tuŝu ĝin nur la Mefisto;
Estas mi esperantisto.

Polv-kovrite sur bretaro
Putras mia SAT-vortaro.
Tedas min la vorto-listo;
Estas mi esperantisto.

Gramatikon mi ne konas
Kaj gazetojn ne abonas.
Librojn legu la verkisto,
Estas mi esperantisto.

Mi parolas kun rapido:
“Bonan tagon, ĝis revido”
Ĝi sufiĉas por ekzisto,
Estas mi esperantisto.

Pionirojn mi kritikas, 
La gvidantojn dorne pikas 
Kaj konspiras kun persisto; 
Estas mi esperantisto.

Por la venko mi esperas,
Sed nenion mi oferas,
Mi ne estas ja bankisto,
Estas mi esperantisto.

Se baraktas en la krizo
La movado, organizo
Helpas mi nur per rezisto,
Estas mi esperantisto.

Flugas per facila vento
El la buŝo Nova Sento.
Ĝi sufiĉas por sofisto;
Estas mi esperantisto.

Post la mort’ ĉe tombo mia
Staros “rondo familia.”
Nekrologos ĵurnalisto:
“Estis li esperantisto.”

Views: 94

Hot Sun, Cool Fire
by George Peele (1556-1596)

Hot sun, cool fire, tempered with sweet air,
Black shade, fair nurse, shadow my white hair.
Shine, sun; burn, fire; breathe, air, and ease me;
Black shade, fair nurse, shroud me and please me.
Shadow, my sweet nurse, keep me from burning;
Make not my glad cause cause of mourning.
         Let not my beauty’s fire
         Inflame unstaid desire,
         Nor pierce any bright eye
         That wandereth lightly.

Views: 57

Rocky Acres
by Robert Graves (1895-1985)

This is a wild land, country of my choice,
With harsh craggy mountain, moor ample and bare.
Seldom in these acres is heard any voice
But voice of cold water that runs here and there
Through rocks and lank heather growing without care.
No mice in the heath run nor no birds cry
For fear of the dark speck that floats in the sky.

He soars and he hovers rocking on his wings,
He scans his wide parish with a sharp eye,
He catches the trembling of small hidden things,
He tears them in pieces, dropping from the sky:
Tenderness and pity the land will deny,
Where life is but nourished from water and rock
A hardy adventure, full of fear and shock.

Time has never journeyed to this lost land,
Crakeberries and heather bloom out of date,
The rocks jut, the streams flow singing on either hand,
Careless if the season be early or late.
The skies wander overhead, now blue, now slate:
Winter would be known by his cold cutting snow
If June did not borrow his armour also.

Yet this is my country be loved by me best,
The first land that rose from Chaos and the Flood,
Nursing no fat valleys for comfort and rest,
Trampled by no hard hooves, stained with no blood.
Bold immortal country whose hill tops have stood
Strongholds for the proud gods when on earth they go,
Terror for fat burghers in far plains below.

Views: 47

De Catullo et Martiale
by Thomas Campion (1567-1620)

Cantabat Veneres meras Catullus;
quasvis sed quasi silva Martialis
miscet materias suis libellis,
laudes, stigmata, gratulationes,
contemptus, ioca, seria, ima, summa;
multis magnus hic est, bene ille cultis.

Views: 51

Ultimately
by Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)

He tried to spit out the truth;
Dry mouthed at first,
He drooled and slobbed in the end;
Truth dribbling his chin.

Views: 30

Bonnie Dundee
by Walter Scott (1771-1832)

This poem, about a seventeenth-century Scottish nobleman, was set to an old traditional tune and has been recorded many times, for example by the Irish Rovers and Richard Dyer-Bennet.

Tae the lairds i’ convention ’twas Claverhouse spoke
E’er the Kings crown go down, there’ll be crowns to be broke;
Then let each cavalier who loves honour and me
Come follow the bonnet o’ bonnie Dundee.

Come fill up my cup, come fill up my can
Come saddle my horses and call out my men
Unhook the west port and let us gae free,
For it’s up wi’ the bonnets o’ bonnie Dundee!

Dundee he is mounted, he rides doon the street,
The bells they ring backwards, the drums they are beat,
But the Provost, douce man, says “Just e’en let him be
For the toon is well rid of that de’il o’ Dundee.”

Come fill up my cup, come fill up my can
Come saddle my horses and call out my men
Unhook the west port and let us gae free,
For it’s up wi’ the bonnets o’ bonnie Dundee!

There are hills beyond Pentland and lands beyond Forth,
Be there lairds i’ the south, there are chiefs i’ the north!
There are brave duniewassals, three thousand times three
Will cry “Hoy!” for the bonnets o’ bonnie Dundee.

Come fill up my cup, come fill up my can
Come saddle my horses and call out my men
Unhook the west port and let us gae free,
For it’s up wi’ the bonnets o’ bonnie Dundee!

Then awa’ to the hills, to the lea, to the rocks
E’er I own a usurper, I’ll couch wi’ the fox!
Then tremble, false Whigs, in the midst o’ your glee
Ye ha’ no seen the last o’ my bonnets and me.

Come fill up my cup, come fill up my can
Come saddle my horses and call out my men
Unhook the west port and let us gae free,
For it’s up wi’ the bonnets o’ bonnie Dundee!

Views: 42

I Sit and Sew
by Alice Dunbar-Nelson (1875-1935)

I sit and sew—a useless task it seems,
My hands grown tired, my head weighed down with dreams—
The panoply of war, the martial tred of men,
Grim-faced, stern-eyed, gazing beyond the ken
Of lesser souls, whose eyes have not seen Death,
Nor learned to hold their lives but as a breath—
But—I must sit and sew.

I sit and sew—my heart aches with desire—
That pageant terrible, that fiercely pouring fire
On wasted fields, and writhing grotesque things
Once men. My soul in pity flings
Appealing cries, yearning only to go
There in that holocaust of hell, those fields of woe—
But—I must sit and sew.

The little useless seam, the idle patch;
Why dream I here beneath my homely thatch,
When there they lie in sodden mud and rain,
Pitifully calling me, the quick ones and the slain?
You need me, Christ! It is no roseate dream
That beckons me—this pretty futile seam,
It stifles me—God, must I sit and sew?

Views: 60

The Sorrows of Werther
by William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863)

Werther had a love for Charlotte
      Such as words could never utter;
Would you know how first he met her?
      She was cutting bread and butter.

Charlotte was a married lady,
      And a moral man was Werther,
And, for all the wealth of Indies,
      Would do nothing for to hurt her.

So he sighed and pined and ogled,
      And his passion boiled and bubbled,
Till he blew his silly brains out,
      And no more was by it troubled.

Charlotte, having seen his body
      Borne before her on a shutter,
Like a well-conducted person,
      Went on cutting bread and butter.

Views: 78