Epitaphium
by Alcuin (c. 735-804)
Hic Paulinus ovans toto requiescat in aevo,
Hocque cubile pater dignus dignetur habere.
Invidus hoc templum nunquam pertranseat hostis,
Ne caros animis subito disiungat amicos,
Quos Christi caritas caros coniunxit amicos.
Views: 34
Glosa de las vacas
by Cristóbal de Castillejo (1490-1550)
Guárdame las vacas,
carillejo y besarte he;
si no, bésame tú a mí,
que yo te las guardaré.
En el troque que te pido,
Gil, no recibes engaño;
no te muestres tan extraño
por ser de mí requerido.
Tan ventajoso partido
no sé yo quién te lo dé,
Si no, bésame tú a mí,
que yo te las guardaré.
Por un poco de cuidado
ganarás de parte mía
lo que a ninguno daría
si no por don señalado.
No vale tanto el ganado
como lo que te daré.
Si no, dámelo tú a mí,
que yo te las guardaré.
No tengo necesidad
de hacerte este favor,
sino sola la que amor
ha puesto en mi voluntad.
Y negarte la verdad
no lo consiente mi fe.
Si no, quiéreme tú a mí,
que yo te las guardaré.
Oh, cuántos me pidirían
lo que yo te pido a ti,
y en alcanzarlo de mí
por dichosos se tendrían.
Toma lo que ellos querrían,
haz lo que te mandaré.
Si no, mándame tú a mí,
que yo te las guardaré.
Mas si tú, Gil, por ventura
quieres ser tan perezoso,
que precies más tu reposo
que gozar de esta dulzura,
yo, por darte a ti holgura,
el cuidado tomaré.
Que tú me beses a mí,
que yo te las guardaré.
Yo seré más diligente
que tú sin darme pasión,
porque con el galardón
el trabajo no se siente;
y haré que se contente
mi pena con el porqué.
Que tú me beses a mí,
que yo te las guardaré.
Views: 59
How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix
by Robert Browning (1812-1889)
I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he;
I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three;
“Good speed!” cried the watch as the gate-bolts undrew;
“Speed!” echoed the wall to us galloping through;
Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest,
And into the midnight we galloped abreast.
Not a word to each other; we kept the great pace
Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place;
I turned in my saddle and made its girth tight,
Then shortened each stirrup, and set the pique right,
Rebuckled the cheek-strap, chained slacker the bit,
Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit.
’Twas moonset at starting; but while we drew near
Lokeren, the cocks crew and twilight dawned clear;
At Boom, a great yellow star came out to see;
At Düffeld, ’twas morning as plain as could be;
And from Mecheln church-steeple we heard the half-chime,
So Joris broke silence with, “Yet there is time!”
At Aershot, up leaped of a sudden the sun,
And against him the cattle stood black every one,
To stare through the mist at us galloping past,
And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last,
With resolute shoulders, each butting away
The haze, as some bluff river headland its spray:
And his low head and crest, just one sharp ear bent back
For my voice, and the other pricked out on his track;
And one eye’s black intelligence,—ever that glance
O’er its white edge at me, his own master, askance!
And the thick, heavy spume-flakes which aye and anon
His fierce lips shook upward in galloping on.
By Hasselt, Dirck groaned; and cried Joris, “Stav spur!
Your Roos galloped bravely, the fault’s not in her,
We’ll remember at Aix”—for one heard the quick wheeze
Of her chest, saw the stretched neck and staggering knees,
And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank,
As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank.
So, we were left galloping, Joris and I,
Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky;
The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh,
’Neath our feet broke the brittle bright stubble like chaff;
Till over by Dalhem a dome-spire sprang white,
And “Gallop,” gasped Joris, “for Aix is in sight!”
“How they’ll greet us!”—and all in a moment his roan
Rolled neck and croup over, lay dead as a stone;
And there was my Roland to bear the whole weight
Of the news which alone could save Aix from her fate,
With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim,
And with circles of red for his eye-sockets’ rim.
Then I cast loose my buff-coat, each holster let fall,
Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and all,
Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear,
Called my Roland his pet-name, my horse without peer;
Clapped my hands, laughed and sang, any noise, bad or good,
Till at length into Aix Roland galloped and stood.
And all I remember is—friends flocking round
As I sat with his head ’twixt my knees on the ground;
And no voice but was praising this Roland of mine,
As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine,
Which (the burgesses voting by common consent)
Was no more than his due who brought the good news from Ghent.
Views: 28
Vice Versa
by Christian Morgenstern (1871-1914)
Ein Hase sitzt auf einer Wiese,
des Glaubens, niemand sähe diese.
Doch im Besitze eines Zeißes
betrachtet voll gehaltnen Fleißes.
vom vis-à-vis gelegnen Berg
ein Mensch den kleinen Löffelzwerg.
Ihn aber blickt hinwiederum
ein Gott von fern an, mild und stumm.
Views: 26
Lament for Thomas MacDonagh
by Francis Ledwidge (1887-1917)
He shall not hear the bittern cry
In the wild sky where he is lain
Nor voices of the sweeter birds
Above the wailing of the rain.
Nor shall he know when loud March blows
Thro’ slanting snows her fanfare shrill
Blowing to flame the golden cup
Of many an upset daffodil.
And when the dark cow leaves the moor
And pastures poor with greedy weeds
Perhaps he’ll hear her low at morn
Lifting her horn in pleasant meads.
Views: 40
Tristesse
by Alfred de Musset (1810-1857)
J’ai perdu ma force et ma vie,
Et mes amis, et ma gaieté ;
J’ai perdu jusqu’à la fierté
Qui faisait croire à mon génie.
Quand j’ai connu la Vérité,
J’ai cru que c’était une amie ;
Quand je l’ai comprise et sentie,
J’en étais déjà dégoûté.
Et pourtant elle est éternelle,
Et ceux qui se sont passés d’elle
Ici-bas ont tout ignoré.
Dieu parle, il faut qu’on lui réponde.
Le seul bien qui me reste au monde
Est d’avoir quelquefois pleuré.
Views: 24
The Man With the Hoe
by Edwin Markham (1852-1940)
Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,
The emptiness of ages in his face,
And on his back the burden of the world.
Who made him dead to rapture and despair,
A thing that grieves not and that never hopes,
Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox?
Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw?
Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow?
Whose breath blew out the light within this brain?
Is this the Thing the Lord God made and gave
To have dominion over sea and land;
To trace the stars and search the heavens for power;
To feel the passion of Eternity?
Is this the Dream He dreamed who shaped the suns
And pillared the blue firmament with light?
Down all the stretch of Hell to its last gulf
There is no shape more terrible than this—
More tongued with censure of the world’s blind greed—
More filled with signs and portents for the soul—
More fraught with menace to the universe.
What gulfs between him and the seraphim!
Slave of the wheel of labor, what to him
Are Plato and the swing of Pleiades?
What the long reaches of the peaks of song,
The rift of dawn, the reddening of the rose?
Through this dread shape the suffering ages look;
Time’s tragedy is in that aching stoop;
Through this dread shape humanity betrayed,
Plundered, profaned and disinherited,
Cries protest to the Judges of the World,
A protest that is also prophecy.
O masters, lords, and rulers in all lands,
Is this the handiwork you give to God,
This monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched?
How will you ever straighten up this shape;
Touch it again with immortality;
Give back the upward looking and the light;
Rebuild in it the music and the dream;
Make right the immemorial infamies,
Perfidious wrongs, immedicable woes?
O masters, lords, and rulers in all lands,
How will the Future reckon with this Man?
How answer his brute question in that hour
When whirlwinds of rebellion shake the world?
How will it be with kingdoms and with kings—
With those who shaped him to the thing he is—–
When this dumb Terror shall reply to God,
After the silence of the centuries?
Views: 42
Piazza Piece
by John Crowe Ransom (1888-1974)
—I am a gentleman in a dustcoat trying
To make you hear. Your ears are soft and small
And listen to an old man not at all,
They want the young men’s whispering and sighing.
But see the roses on your trellis dying
And hear the spectral singing of the moon;
For I must have my lovely lady soon,
I am a gentleman in a dustcoat trying
—I am a lady young in beauty waiting
Until my truelove comes, and then we kiss.
But what grey man among the vines is this
Whose words are dry and faint as in a dream?
Back from my trellis, Sir, before I scream!
I am a lady young in beauty waiting.
Views: 28
Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot
by Alexander Pope (1688-1744)
Shut, shut the door, good John! fatigu’d, I said,
Tie up the knocker, say I’m sick, I’m dead.
The dog-star rages! nay ’tis past a doubt,
All Bedlam, or Parnassus, is let out:
Fire in each eye, and papers in each hand,
They rave, recite, and madden round the land.
What walls can guard me, or what shades can hide?
They pierce my thickets, through my grot they glide;
By land, by water, they renew the charge;
They stop the chariot, and they board the barge.
No place is sacred, not the church is free;
Ev’n Sunday shines no Sabbath-day to me:
Then from the Mint walks forth the man of rhyme,
Happy! to catch me just at dinner-time.
Is there a parson, much bemus’d in beer,
A maudlin poetess, a rhyming peer,
A clerk, foredoom’d his father’s soul to cross,
Who pens a stanza, when he should engross?
Is there, who, lock’d from ink and paper, scrawls
With desp’rate charcoal round his darken’d walls?
All fly to Twit’nam, and in humble strain
Apply to me, to keep them mad or vain.
Arthur, whose giddy son neglects the laws,
Imputes to me and my damn’d works the cause:
Poor Cornus sees his frantic wife elope,
And curses wit, and poetry, and Pope.
Views: 43
Chanson
by Clément Marot (1495-1544)
Dieu gard’ ma Maistresse, et regente,
Gente de corps, et de façon,
Son cœur tient le mien en sa tente
Tant et plus d’un ardant frisson.
S’on m’oit pousser sur ma chanson
Son de luth, ou harpes doulcettes,
C’est Espoir, qui sans marrisson
Songer me faict en amourettes.
La blanche Colombelle belle,
Souvent je vois priant, criant:
Mais dessous la cordelle d’elle
Me jette un œil friant riant,
En me consommant, et sommant
A douleur, qui ma face efface,
Dont suis le reclamant amant,
Qui pour l’outrepasse trespasse.
Dieu des amants, de mort me garde,
Me gardant, donne-moi bonheur,
En le me donnant, prens ta darde,
En la prenant, navre son cœur,
En le navrant, me tiendra seur,
En seurté, suivrai l’accointance,
En l’accointant, ton serviteur
En servant aura jouissance.
Views: 39