The Wake of William Orr
by William Drennan (1754-1820)

Here our murdered brother lies;
Wake him not with women’s cries;
Mourn the way that manhood ought—
Sit in silent trance of thought.

Write his merits on your mind;
Morals pure and manners kind;
In his head, as on a hill,
Virtue placed her citadel.

Why cut off in palmy youth?
Truth he spoke, and acted truth –
‛Countrymen, UNITE!’ he cried,
And died for what our Saviour died.

God of Peace, and God of Love!
Let it not thy vengeance move—
Let it not thy lightnings draw—
A Nation guillotined by law!

Hapless nation! rent and torn,
Thou wert early taught to mourn;
Warfare of six hundred years!
Epochs marked with blood and tears!

Hunted thro’ thy native grounds,
Or flung reward to human hounds,
Each one pulled and tore his share,
Heedless of thy deep despair.

Hapless Nation! hapless Land!
Heap of uncementing sand!
Crumbled by a foreign weight,
And, by worse, domestic hate.

God of Mercy! God of Peace!
Make the mad confusion cease;
O’er the mental chaos move,
Through it SPEAK the light of love.

Monstrous and unhappy sight,
Brothers’ blood will not unite;
Holy oil and holy water,
Mix, and fill the world with slaughter.

Who is she with aspect wild?
The widow’d mother with her child—
Child new stirring in the womb!
Husband waiting for the tomb!

Angel of this sacred place,
Calm her soul and whisper peace—
Cord, or axe, or guillotine,
Make the sentence—not the sin.

Here we watch our brother’s sleep;
Watch with us, but do not weep;
Watch with us thro’ dead of night—
But expect the morning light.

Views: 49

Gebet
by Eduard Mörike (1804-1875)

Herr! schicke, was du willt,
Ein Liebes oder Leides;
Ich bin vergnügt, daß Beides
Aus Deinen Händen quillt.

Wollest mit Freuden
Und wollest mit Leiden
Mich nicht überschütten!
Doch in der Mitten
Liegt holdes Bescheiden.

Views: 34

Ballade des dames du temps jadis
by François Villon (c. 1431-c. 1463)

Dictes moy où, n’en quel pays,
Est Flora, la belle Romaine;
Archipiada, ne Thaïs,
Qui fut sa cousine germaine;
Echo, parlant quand bruyt on maine
Dessus rivière ou sus estan,
Qui beauté eut trop plus qu’humaine?
Mais où sont les neiges d’antan!

Où est la très sage Heloïs,
Pour qui fut chastré et puis moyne
Pierre Esbaillart à Sainct-Denys?
Pour son amour eut cest essoyne.
Semblablement, où est la royne
Qui commanda que Buridan
Fust jetté en ung sac en Seine?
Mais où sont les neiges d’antan!

La royne Blanche comme ung lys,
Qui chantoit à voix de sereine;
Berthe au grand pied, Bietris, Allys;
Harembourges qui tint le Mayne,
Et Jehanne, la bonne Lorraine,
Qu’Anglois bruslerent à Rouen;
Où sont-ilz, Vierge souveraine?
Mais où sont les neiges d’antan!

Prince, n’enquerez de sepmaine
Où elles sont, ne de cest an,
Qu’à ce refrain ne vous remaine:
Mais où sont les neiges d’antan!

Views: 28

At Castle Boterel
by Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

As I drive to the junction of lane and highway,
      And the drizzle bedrenches the waggonette,
I look behind at the fading byway,
      And see on its slope, now glistening wet,
            Distinctly yet,

Myself and a girlish form benighted
      In dry March weather. We climb the road
Beside a chaise. We had just alighted
      To ease the sturdy pony’s load
            When he sighed and slowed.

What we did as we climbed, and what we talked of
      Matters not much, nor to what it led, ―
Something that life will not be balked of
      Without rude reason till hope is dead,
            And feeling fled.

It filled but a minute. But was there ever
      A time of such quality, since or before,
In that hill’s story ? To one mind never,
      Though it has been climbed, foot-swift, foot-sore,
            By thousands more.

Primaeval rocks form the road’s steep border,
      And much have they faced there, first and last,
Of the transitory in Earth’s long order ;
      But what they record in colour and cast
            Is—that we two passed.

And to me, though Time’s unflinching rigour,
      In mindless rote, has ruled from sight
The substance now, one phantom figure
      Remains on the slope, as when that night
            Saw us alight.

I look and see it there, shrinking, shrinking,
      I look back at it amid the rain
For the very last time; for my sand is sinking,
      And I shall traverse old love’s domain
            Never again.

Views: 47

Epitaph
by Alexander Pope (1688-1744)

Well then, poor G—— lies under ground!
⁠      So there’s an end of honest Jack.
So little justice here he found,
⁠      ’Tis ten to one he’ll ne’er come back.

Views: 118

A Ballad of Abbreviations
by Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936)

The American’s a hustler, for he says so,
         And surely the American must know.
He will prove to you with figures why it pays so
         Beginning with his boyhood long ago.
When the slow-maturing anecdote is ripest,
         He’ll dictate it like a Board of Trade Report,
And because he has no time to call a typist,
         He calls her a Stenographer for short.

He is never known to loiter or malinger,
         He rushes, for he knows he has ‛a date’;
He is always on the spot and full of ginger,
         Which is why he is invariably late.
When he guesses that it’s getting even later,
         His vocabulary’s vehement and swift,
And he yells for what he calls the Elevator,
         A slang abbreviation for a lift.

Then nothing can be nattier or nicer
         For those who like a light and rapid style.
Than to trifle with a work of Mr Dreiser
         As it comes along in waggons by the mile.
He has taught us what a swift selective art meant
         By description of his dinners and all that,
And his dwelling, which he says is an Apartment,
         Because he cannot stop to say a flat.

We may whisper of his wild precipitation,
         That it’s speed in rather longer than a span,
But there really is a definite occasion
         When he does not use the longest word he can.
When he substitutes, I freely make admission,
         One shorter and much easier to spell;
If you ask him what he thinks of Prohibition,
         He may tell you quite succinctly it is Hell.

Views: 44

Last Words
by Anne Brontë (1820-1849)

A dreadful darkness closes in
               On my bewildered mind;
O let me suffer and not sin,
               Be tortured yet resigned.

Through all this world of whelming mist
               Still let me look to Thee,
And give me courage to resist
               The Tempter till he flee.

Weary I am — O give me strength
               And leave me not to faint;
Say Thou wilt comfort me at length
               And pity my complaint.

I’ve begged to serve Thee heart and soul,
               To sacrifice to Thee
No niggard portion, but the whole
               Of my identity.

I hoped amid the brave and strong
               My portioned task might lie,
To toil amid the labouring throng
               With purpose pure and high.

But Thou hast fixed another part,
               And Thou hast fixed it well;
I said so with my breaking heart
               When first the anguish fell.

For Thou hast taken my delight
               And hope of life away,
And bid me watch the painful night
               And wait the weary day.

The hope and the delight were Thine;
               I bless Thee for their loan;
I gave Thee while I deemed them mine
               Too little thanks, I own.

Shall I with joy Thy blessings share
               And not endure their loss?
Or hope the martyr’s crown to wear
               And cast away the cross?

These weary hours will not be lost,
               These days of passive misery,
These nights of darkness anguish tost
               If I can fix my heart on Thee.

Weak and weary though I lie,
               Crushed with sorrow, worn with pain,
Still I may lift to Heaven mine eyes
               And strive and labour not in vain,

That inward strife against the sins
               That ever wait on suffering;
To watch and strike where first begins
               Each ill that would corruption bring,

That secret labour to sustain
               With humble patience every blow,
To gather fortitude from pain
               And hope and holiness from woe.

Thus let me serve Thee from my heart
               Whatever be my written fate,
Whether thus early to depart
               Or yet awhile to wait.

If Thou shouldst bring me back to life
               More humbled I should be;
More wise, more strengthened for the strife,
               More apt to lean on Thee.

Should Death be standing at the gate
               Thus should I keep my vow;
But, Lord, whate’er my future fate
               So let me serve Thee now.

Views: 37

Battle Hymn of the Republic
by Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910)
This have been, of course, numerous recordings of this. My favorite is Odetta’s

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:
            His truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
            His day is marching on.

I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
“As ye deal with my contemners, so with you My grace shall deal;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
            Since God is marching on.”

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat:
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!
            Our God is marching on.

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me:
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
            While God is marching on.

Views: 38

Serranilha
by Gil Vicente (c. 1470-c. 1540)

A serra é alta, fria e nevosa;
vi venir serrana gentil, graciosa.

Vi venir serrana, gentil, graciosa,
cheguei-me per’ela com grã cortesia.

Cheguei-me per’ela de grã cortesia,
disse-lhe: senhora, quereis companhia?

Disse-lhe: senhora, quereis companhia?
Disse-me: escudeiro, segui vossa via.

Views: 37

Fable
by Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)

The mountain and the squirrel
Had a quarrel,
And the former called the latter Little Prig;
Bun replied,
“You are doubtless very big;
But all sorts of things and weather
Must be taken in together,
To make up a year
And a sphere.
And I think it no disgrace
To occupy my place.
If I’m not so large as you,
You are not so small as I,
And not half so spry.
I’ll not deny you make
A very pretty squirrel track;
Talents differ; all is well and wisely put;
If I cannot carry forests on my back,
Neither can you crack a nut.”

Views: 42