L’Envoi (“When Earth’s last picture is painted”)
by Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

When Earth’s last picture is painted and the tubes are twisted and dried,
When the oldest colours have faded, and the youngest critic has died,
We shall rest, and, faith, we shall need it—lie down for an æon or two,
Till the Master of All Good Workmen shall put us to work anew!

And those that were good shall be happy: they shall sit in a golden chair;
They shall splash at a ten-league canvas with brushes of comets’ hair;
They shall find real saints to draw from—Magdalene, Peter, and Paul;
They shall work for an age at a sitting and never be tired at all!

And only the Master shall praise us, and only the Master shall blame;
And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame,
But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star,
Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things as They Are!

Views: 13

Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood
by William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878)

Stranger, if thou hast learned a truth which needs
No school of long experience, that the world
Is full of guilt and misery, and hast seen
Enough of all its sorrows, crimes, and cares,
To tire thee of it, enter this wild wood
And view the haunts of nature. The calm shade
Shall bring a kindred calm, and the sweet breeze
That makes the green leaves dance, shall waft a balm
To thy sick heart. Thou wilt find nothing here
Of all that pained thee in the haunts of men,
And made thee loathe thy life. The primal curse
Fell, it is true, upon the unsinning earth,
But not in vengance. God hath yoked to guilt
Her pale tormentor, Misery. Hence these shades
Are still the abode of gladness; the thick roof
Of green and stirring branches is alive
And musical with birds, that sing and sport
In wantonness of spirit; while below
The squirrel, with raised paws and form erect,
Chirps merrily. Throngs of insects in the shade
Try their thin wings and dance in the warm beam.
That waked them into life. Even the green trees
Partake the deep contentment; as they bend
To the soft winds, the sun from the blue sky
Looks in and sheds a blessing on the scene.
Scarce less the cleft-born wildflower seems to enjoy
Existence, than the winged plunderer
That sucks its sweets. The mossy rocks themselves,
And the old and ponderous trunks of prostrate trees
That lead from knoll to knoll a causeway rude,
Or bridge the sunken brook, and their dark roots,
With all their roots upon them, twisting high,
Breathe fixed tranquility. The rivulet
Sends forth glad sounds, and tripping o’er its bed
Of pebbly sands, or leaping down the rocks
Seems, with continuous laughter, to rejoice
In its own being. Softly tread the marge,
Lest from her midway perch thou scare the wren
That dips her bill in water. The cool wind,
That stirs the stream in play, shall come to thee,
Like one that loves thee nor will let thee pass
Ungreeted, and shall give its light embrace.

Views: 38

Requiem
by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)

Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live, and gladly die,
   And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me;
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from the sea,
   And the hunter home from the hill.

Views: 14

To the Body
by Coventry Patmore (1823-1896)

Creation’s and Creator’s crowning good;
Wall of infinitude;
Foundation of the sky,
In Heaven forecast
And long’d for from eternity,
Though laid the last;
Reverberating dome,
Of music cunningly built home
Against the void and indolent disgrace
Of unresponsive space;
Little, sequester’d pleasure-house
For God and for His Spouse;
Elaborately, yea, past conceiving, fair,
Since, from the graced decorum of the hair,
Ev’n to the tingling, sweet
Soles of the simple, earth-confiding feet,
And from the inmost heart
Outwards unto the thin
Silk curtains of the skin,
Every least part
Astonish’d hears
And sweet replies to some like region of the spheres;
Form’d for a dignity prophets but darkly name,
Lest shameless men cry “Shame!”
So rich with wealth conceal’d
That Heaven and Hell fight chiefly for this field;
Clinging to everything that pleases thee
With indefectible fidelity;
Alas, so true
To all thy friendships that no grace
Thee from thy sin can wholly disembrace;
Which thus ‘bides with thee as the Jebusite,
That, maugre all God’s promises could do,
The chosen People never conquer’d quite,
Who therefore lived with them,
And that by formal truce and as of right,
In metropolitan Jerusalem,
For which false fealty
Thou needs must, for a season, lie
In the grave’s arms, foul and unshriven,
Albeit, in Heaven,
Thy; crimson-throbbing Glow
Into its old abode aye pants to go,
And does with envy see
Enoch, Elijah, and the Lady, she
Who left the lilies in her body’s lieu.
O, if the pleasures I have known in thee
But my poor faith’s poor first-fruits be,
What quintessential, keen, ethereal bliss
Then shall be his
Who has thy birth-time’s consecrating dew
For death’s sweet chrism retain’d,
Quick, tender, virginal, and unprofaned!

Views: 16

Upon a Spider Catching a Fly
by Edward Taylor (1642-1729)

Thou sorrow, venom Elfe:
      Is this thy play,
To spin a web out of thyselfe
      To Catch a Fly?
            For Why?

I saw a pettish wasp
      Fall foule therein:
Whom yet thy Whorle pins did not clasp
      Lest he should fling
            His sting.

But as affraid, remote
      Didst stand hereat,
And with thy little fingers stroke
      And gently tap
            His back.

Thus gently him didst treate
      Lest he should pet,
And in a froppish, aspish heate
      Should greatly fret
            Thy net.

Whereas the silly Fly,
      Caught by its leg
Thou by the throate tookst hastily
      And ‘hinde the head
            Bite Dead.

This goes to pot, that not
      Nature doth call.
Strive not above what strength hath got,
      Lest in the brawle
            Thou fall.

This Frey seems thus to us.
      Hells Spider gets
His intrails spun to whip Cords thus
      And wove to nets
            And sets.

To tangle Adams race
      In’s stratigems
To their Destructions, spoil’d, made base
      By venom things,
            Damn’d Sins.

But mighty, Gracious Lord
      Communicate
Thy Grace to breake the Cord, afford
      Us Glorys Gate
            And State.

We’l Nightingaile sing like
      When pearcht on high
In Glories Cage, thy glory, bright,
      And thankfully,
            For joy.

Views: 12

Les Oiseaux de neige
by Louis-Honoré Fréchette (1839-1908)

Quand le rude Équinoxe, avec son froid cortège,
Quitte nos horizons moins inhospitaliers,
Sur nos champs de frimas s’abattent par milliers
Ces visiteurs ailés qu’on nomme oiseaux de neige.

De graines nulle part, nul feuillage aux halliers.
Contre la giboulée et nos vents de Norvège,
Seul le regard d’en haut les abrite, et protège
Ces courriers du soleil en butte aux oiseliers.

Chers petits voyageurs, sous le givre et la grêle,
Vous voltigez gaîment, et l’on voit sur votre aile
Luire un premier rayon du printemps attardé.

Allez, tourbillonnez autour des avalanches ;
Sans peur, aux flocons blancs mêlez vos plumes blanches :
Le faible que Dieu garde est toujours bien gardé.

Views: 14

Silence
by Marianne Moore (1887-1972)

My father used to say,
“Superior people never make long visits,
have to be shown Longfellow’s grave
or the glass flowers at Harvard.
Self-reliant like the cat—
that takes its prey to privacy,
the mouse’s limp tail hanging like a shoelace from its mouth—
they sometimes enjoy solitude,
and can be robbed of speech
by speech which has delighted them.
The deepest feeling always shows itself in silence;
not in silence, but restraint.”
Nor was he insincere in saying, “Make my house your inn.”
Inns are not residences.

Views: 11

Not I
by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)

Some like drink
      In a pint pot,
Some like to think;
      Some not.

Strong Dutch cheese,
      Old Kentucky Rye,
Some like these;
      Not I.

Some like Poe,
      And others like Scott,
Some like Mrs. Stowe;
      Some not.

Some like to laugh,
      Some like to cry,
Some like chaff;
      Not I.

Views: 13

Detente sombra
by Juaa Inés de la Cruz (1651-1695)

Detente, sombra de mi bien esquivo,
imagen del hechizo que más quiero,
bella ilusión por quien alegre muero,
dulce ficción por quien penosa vivo.

Si al imán de tus gracias, atractivo,
sirve mi pecho de obediente acero,
¿para qué me enamoras lisonjero
si has de burlarme luego fugitivo?

Mas blasonar no puedes, satisfecho,
de que triunfa de mí tu tiranía:
que aunque dejas burlado el lazo estrecho

que tu forma fantástica ceñía,
poco importa burlar brazos y pecho
si te labra prisión mi fantasía.

Views: 13

Channel Fiting
by Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

That night your great guns, unawares,
Shook all our coffins as we lay,
And broke the chancel window-squares,
We thought it was the Judgment-day

And sat upright. While drearisome
Arose the howl of wakened hounds:
The mouse let fall the altar-crumb,
The worms drew back into the mounds,

The glebe cow drooled. Till God called, “No;
It’s gunnery practice out at sea
Just as before you went below;
The world is as it used to be:

“All nations striving strong to make
Red war yet redder. Mad as hatters
They do no more for Christés sake
Than you who are helpless in such matters.

“That this is not the judgment-hour
For some of them’s a blessed thing,
For if it were they’d have to scour
Hell’s floor for so much threatening….

“Ha, ha. It will be warmer when
I blow the trumpet (if indeed
I ever do; for you are men,
And rest eternal sorely need).”

So down we lay again. “I wonder,
Will the world ever saner be,”
Said one, “than when He sent us under
In our indifferent century!”

And many a skeleton shook his head.
“Instead of preaching forty year,”
My neighbour Parson Thirdly said,
“I wish I had stuck to pipes and beer.”

Again the guns disturbed the hour,
Roaring their readiness to avenge,
As far inland as Stourton Tower,
And Camelot, and starlit Stonehenge.

Views: 10