Ode
by James Thomson (1700-1748)

Tell me, thou soul of her I love,
      Ah! tell me, whither art thou fled;
To what delightful world above,
      Appointed for the happy dead?

Or dost thou, free, at pleasure, roam
      And sometimes share thy lover’s woe;
Where, void of thee, his cheerless home
      Can now, alas! no comfort know?

Oh! if thou hover’st round my walk,
      While, under every well-known tree,
I to thy fancied shadow talk,
      And every tear is full of thee,

Should then the weary eye of grief,
      Beside some sympathetic stream,
In slumber find a short relief,
      Oh visit thou my soothing dream!

Views: 36

L’Adieu du Cavalier
by Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918)

Ah Dieu! que la guerre est jolie
Avec ses chants ses longs loisirs
Cette bague je l’ai polie
Le vent se mêle à vos soupirs

Adieu! voici le boute-selle
Il disparut dans un tournant
Et mourut là-bas tandis qu’elle
Riait au destin surprenant

Views: 31

Miré los muros de la patria mía
by Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas (1580-1645)

Miré los muros de la patria mía,
si un tiempo fuertes, ya desmoronados,
de la carrera de la edad cansados,
por quien caduca ya su valentía.

Salime al campo, ví que el sol bebía
los arroyos del hielo desatados,
y del monte quejosos los ganados,
que con sombras hurtó su luz al día.

Entré en mi casa, ví que amancillada
de anciana habitación era ya despojos;
mi báculo más corvo y menos fuerte.

Vencida por la edad sentí mi espada
y no hallé cosa en que poner los ojos
que no fuese recuerdo de la muerte.

Views: 35

Delight in Disorder
by Robert Herrick (1591-1674)

A sweet disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantonness:
A lawn about the shoulders thrown
Into a fine distraction:
An erring lace which here and there
Enthralls the crimson stomacher:
A cuff neglectful, and thereby
Ribbons to flow confusedly:
A winning wave, deserving note,
In the tempestuous petticoat:
A careless shoe-string, in whose tie
I see a wild civility:
Do more bewitch me than when art
Is too precise in every part.

Views: 26

Invictus
by William Ernest Henley (1849-1903)

Out of the night that covers me,
   Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
   For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
   I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
   My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
   Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
   Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
   How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
   I am the captain of my soul.

Views: 32

Cassandra Drops Into Verse
by Dorothy Parker (1893-1967)

We’d break the city’s unfeeling clutch
      And back to good Mother Earth we’d go,
With Birds and blossoms and such-and-such,
      And love and kisses and so-and-so.
We’d build a bungalow, white and green,
      With rows of hollyhocks, all sedate.
And you’d come out on the five-eighteen
      And meet me down at the garden gate.
We’d leave the city completely flat
      And dwell with chickens and cows and bees,
‘Mid brooks and bowers and this and that,
      And joys and blisses and those and these.
We’d greet together the golden days,
      And hail the sun in the morning sky.
We’d find an Eden—to coin a phrase—
      The sole inhabitants, you and I.
With sweet simplicity all our aim,
      We’d fare together to start anew
In peace and quiet and what’s-its-name,
      And soul communion, or what have you?
But oh, my love, if we made the flight,
      I see the end of our pastoral plan . . .
Why, you’d be staying in town each night,
      And I’d elope with the furnace man.

Views: 32

In the Gloaming
by Charles Stuart Calverley (1831-188e)

In the Gloaming to be roaming, where the crested waves are foaming,
      And the shy mermaidens combing locks that ripple to their feet;
When the Gloaming is, I never made the ghost of an endeavour
      To discover—but whatever were the hour, it would be sweet.

“To their feet,” I say, for Leech’s sketch indisputably teaches
      That the mermaids of our beaches do not end in ugly tails,
Nor have homes among the corals; but are shod with neat balmorals,
      An arrangement no one quarrels with, as many might with scales.

Sweet to roam beneath a shady cliff, of course with some young lady,
      Lalage, Neaera, Haidee, or Elaine, or Mary Ann:
Love, you dear delusive dream, you! Very sweet your victims deem you,
      When, heard only by the seamew, they talk all the stuff one can.

Sweet to haste, a licensed lover, to Miss Pinkerton the glover,
      Having managed to discover what is dear Neaera’s “size”:
P’raps to touch that wrist so slender, as your tiny gift you tender,
      And to read you’re no offender, in those laughing hazel eyes.

Then to hear her call you “Harry,” when she makes you fetch and carry—
      O young men about to marry, what a blessed thing it is!
To be photograph’d—together—cased in pretty Russia leather –
      Hear her gravely doubting whether they have spoilt your honest phiz!

Then to bring your plighted fair one first a ring—a rich and rare one—
      Next a bracelet, if she’ll wear one, and a heap of things beside;
And serenely bending o’er her, to inquire if it would bore her
      To say when her own adorer may aspire to call her bride!

Then, the days of courtship over, with your WIFE to start for Dover
      Or Dieppe—and live in clover evermore, whate’er befalls:
For I’ve read in many a novel that, unless they’ve souls that grovel,
      Folks prefer in fact a hovel to your dreary marble halls:

To sit, happy married lovers; Phillis trifling with a plover’s
      Egg, while Corydon uncovers with a grace the Sally Lunn,
Or dissects the lucky pheasant—that, I think, were passing pleasant;
      As I sit alone at present, dreaming darkly of a Dun.

Views: 35

Complainte sur certains ennuis
by Jules Laforgue (1860-1887)

Un couchant des Cosmogonies!
Ah! que la Vie est quotidienne…
Et, du plus vrai qu’on se souvienne,
Comme on fut piètre et sans génie…

On voudrait s’avouer des choses,
Dont on s’étonnerait en route,
Qui feraient une fois pour toutes!
Qu’on s’entendrait à travers poses.

On voudrait saigner le Silence,
Secouer l’exil des causeries;
Et non! ces dames sont aigries
Par des questions de préséance.

Elles boudent là, l’air capable.
Et, sous le ciel, plus d’un s’explique,
Par quel gâchis suresthétiques
Ces êtres-là sont adorables.

Justement, une nous appelle,
Pour l’aider à chercher sa bague,
Perdue (où dans ce terrain vague?)
Un souvenir d’amour, dit-elle!

Ces êtres-là sont adorables!

Views: 29

One Happy Moment
by John Dryden (1631-1700)

No, no poor suff’ring Heart, no Change endeavour,
Choose to sustain the smart, rather than leave her;
My ravish’d eyes behold such charms about her,
I can die with her, but not live without her:
One tender Sigh of hers to see me languish,
Will more than pay the price of my past anguish:
Beware, O cruel Fair, how you smile on me,
’Twas a kind look of yours that has undone me.

Love has in store for me one happy minute,
And She will end my pain who did begin it;
Then no day void of bliss, or pleasure leaving,
Ages shall slide away without perceiving:
Cupid shall guard the door the more to please us,
And keep out Time and Death, when they would seize us:
Time and Death shall depart, and say in flying,
Love has found out a way to live, by dying.

Views: 26

Dem unbekannten Gott
by Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

Noch einmal, eh’ ich weiterziehe
Und meine Blicke vorwärts sende,
Heb’ ich vereinsamt meine Hände
Zu Dir empor, zu Dem ich fliehe,
Dem ich in tiefster Herzenstiefe
Altäre feierlich geweiht,
Daß allezeit
Mich seine Stimme wieder riefe.

Darauf erglüht tief eingeschrieben
Das Wort: Dem unbekannten Gotte.
Sein bin ich, ob ich in der Frevler Rotte
Auch bis zur Stunde bin geblieben:
Sein bin ich—und ich fühl’ die Schlingen,
Die mich im Kampf darniederziehn
Und, mag ich fliehn,
Mich doch zu seinem Dienste zwingen.

Ich will Dich kennen, Unbekannter,
Du tief in meine Seele Greifender,
Mein Leben wie ein Sturm Durchschweifender,
Du Unfaßbarer, mir Verwandter!
Ich will Dich kennen, selbst Dir dienen.

Views: 26