The House by the Side of the Road
by Sam Walter Foss (1858-1911)

There are hermit souls that live withdrawn
In the place of their self-content;
There are souls like stars, that dwell apart,
In a fellowless firmament;
There are pioneer souls that blaze the paths
Where highways never ran—
But let me live by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.

Let me live in a house by the side of the road
Where the race of men go by-
The men who are good and the men who are bad,
As good and as bad as I.
I would not sit in the scorner’s seat
Nor hurl the cynic’s ban—
Let me live in a house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.

I see from my house by the side of the road
By the side of the highway of life,
The men who press with the ardor of hope,
The men who are faint with the strife,
But I turn not away from their smiles and tears,
Both parts of an infinite plan-
Let me live in a house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.

I know there are brook-gladdened meadows ahead,
And mountains of wearisome height;
That the road passes on through the long afternoon
And stretches away to the night.
And still I rejoice when the travelers rejoice
And weep with the strangers that moan,
Nor live in my house by the side of the road
Like a man who dwells alone.

Let me live in my house by the side of the road,
Where the race of men go by-
They are good, they are bad, they are weak, they are strong,
Wise, foolish,—so am I.
Then why should I sit in the scorner’s seat,
Or hurl the cynic’s ban?
Let me live in my house by the side of the road
And be a friend to man.

Views: 38

Ae Fond Kiss
by Robert Burns (1759-1796)

Ae fond kiss, and then we sever;
Ae fareweel, alas, for ever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I’ll pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans I’ll wage thee!

Who shall say that Fortune grieves him
While the star of hope she leaves him?
Me, nae cheerfu’ twinkle lights me,
Dark despair around benights me.

I’ll ne’er blame my partial fancy;
Naething could resist my Nancy;
But to see her was to love her,
Love but her, and love for ever.

Had we never loved sae kindly,
Had we never loved sae blindly,
Never met—or never parted,
We had ne’er been broken-hearted.

Fare thee weel, thou first and fairest!
Fare thee weel, thou best and dearest!
Thine be ilka joy and treasure,
Peace, enjoyment, love, and pleasure!

Ae fond kiss, and then we sever!
Ae fareweel, alas, for ever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I’ll pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans I’ll wage thee!

Views: 34

Ode to Evening
by William Collins (1721-1759)

If aught of oaten stop or pastoral song
May hope, chaste EVE, to soothe thy modest ear,
         Like thy own solemn springs,
         Thy springs, and dying gales,
O NYMPH reserved, while now the bright-haired sun
Sits in yon western tent, whose cloudy skirts,
         With brede ethereal wove,
         O’erhang his wavy bed:
Now air is hushed, save where the weak-eyed bat
With short shrill shriek flits by on leathern wing,
         Or where the beetle winds
         His small but sullen horn,
As oft he rises ’midst the twilight path,
Against the pilgrim borne in heedless hum:
         Now teach me, Maid composed,
         To breathe some softened strain,
Whose numbers stealing through thy dark’ning vale
May not unseemly with its stillness suit,
         As, musing slow, I hail
         Thy genial loved return!
For when thy folding-star arising shows
His paly circlet, at his warning lamp
         The fragrant Hours, and Elves
         Who slept in flow’rs the day,
And many a Nymph who wreathes her brows with sedge
And sheds the fresh’ning dew, and lovelier still,
         The PENSIVE PLEASURES sweet
         Prepare thy shadowy car.
Then lead, calm Vot’ress, where some sheety lake
Cheers the lone heath, or some time-hallow’d pile,
         Or upland fallows grey
         Reflect it’s last cool gleam.
But when chill blust’ring winds, or driving rain
Forbid my willing feet, be mine the hut
         That from the mountain’s side
         Views wilds, and swelling floods
And hamlets brown and dim-discover’d spires,
And hears their simple bell, and marks o’er all
         Thy dewy fingers draw
         The gradual dusky veil.
While Spring shall pour his show’rs, as oft he wont,
And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve;
         While Summer loves to sport
         Beneath thy lingering light;
While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves;
Or Winter, yelling thro’ the troublous air,
         Affrights thy shrinking train
         And rudely rends thy robes;
So long, sure-footed beneath the Sylvan shed,
Shall FANCY, FRIENDSHIP, SCIENCE, rose-lip’d HEALTH,
         Thy gentlest influence own,
         And love thy favourite name!

Views: 35

El Retorno Maléfico
by Ramón López Velarde (1888-1921)

Mejor será no regresar al pueblo,
al edén subvertido que se calla
en la mutilación de la metralla.

Hasta los fresnos mancos,
los dignatarios de cúpula oronda,
han de rodar las quejas de la torre
acribillada en los vientos de fronda.

Y la fusilería grabó en la cal
de todas las paredes
de la aldea espectral,
negros y aciagos mapas,
porque en ellos leyese el hijo pródigo
al volver a su umbral
en un anochecer de maleficio,
a la luz del petróleo de una mecha
su esperanza deshecha.

Cuando la tosca llave enmohecida
tuerza la chirriante cerradura
en la añeja clausura
del zaguán, los dos púdicos
medallones de yeso,
entornando los párpados narcóticos,
se mirarán y se dirán: “¿Qué es eso?”

Y yo entraré con pies advenedizos
hasta el patio agorero
en que hay un brocal ensimismado,
con un cubo de cuero
goteando su gota categórica
como un estribillo plañidero.

Si el sol inexorable, alegre y tónico,
hace hervir a las fuentes catecúmenas
en que bañábase mi sueño crónico
si se afana la hormiga;
si en los techos resuena y se fatiga
de los buches de tórtola el reclamo
que entre las telarañas zumba y zumba;
mi sed de amar será como una argolla;
empotrada en la losa de una tumba.

Las golondrinas nuevas, renovando
con sus noveles picos alfareros
los nidos tempraneros;
bajo el ópalo insigne
de los atardeceres monacales,
el lloro de recientes recentales
por la ubérrima ubre prohibida
de la vaca, rumiante y faraónica,
que al párvulo intimida;
campanario de timbre novedoso;
remozados altares;
el amor amoroso
de las parejas pares;
noviazgos de muchachas
frescas y humildes, como humildes coles,
y que la mano dan por el postigo
a la luz de dramáticos faroles;
alguna señorita
que canta en algún piano
alguna vieja aria;
el gendarme que pita. …
…Y una íntima tristeza reaccionaria.

Views: 48

To a Mouse
On turning her up in her nest with his plough, November 1785
by Robert Burns(1759-1796)

Wee, sleekit, cow’rin’, tim’rous beastie,
Oh, what a panic’s in thy breastie!
Thou needna start awa’ sae hasty,
⁠               Wi’ bickering brattle!
I wad be laith to rin and chase thee,
⁠               Wi’ murd’ring pattle!

I’m truly sorry man’s dominion
Has broken Nature’s social union,
And justifies that ill opinion,
⁠               Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor earth-born companion
⁠               And fellow-mortal!

I doubtna, whiles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
A daimen icker in a thrave
⁠               ’S a sma’ request:
I’ll get a blessin’ wi’ the lave,
⁠               And never miss ’t!

Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin!
Its silly wa’s the win’s are strewin’!
And naething now to big a new ane
⁠               O’ foggage green,
And bleak December’s winds ensuin’,
⁠               Baith snell and keen!

Thou saw the fields laid bare and waste,
And weary winter comin’ fast,
And cozie here, beneath the blast,
⁠               Thou thought to dwell,
Till, crash! the cruel coulter passed
⁠               Out through thy cell.

That wee bit heap o’ leaves and stibble
Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!
Now thou’s turned out for a’ thy trouble,
⁠               But house or hald,
To thole the winter’s sleety dribble,
⁠               And cranreuch cauld!

But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best-laid schemes o’ mice and men
⁠               Gang aft a-gley,
And lea’e us naught but grief and pain,
⁠               For promised joy.

Still thou art blest, compared wi’ me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But, och! I backward cast my e’e
⁠               On prospects drear!
And forward, though I canna see,
⁠               I guess and fear.

Views: 35

The Lake Isle of Innisfree
by William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’ s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’ s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’ s core.

Views: 40

The Chimney Sweeper
Two poems today (because it’s World Day Against Child Labour)
by William Blake (1757-1827)

from Songs of Innocence

When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue,
Could scarcely cry weep weep weep weep.
So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep.

There’s little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head
That curl’d like a lambs back, was shav’d, so I said.
Hush Tom never mind it, for when your head’s bare,
You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair.

And so he was quiet, & that very night,
As Tom was a sleeping he had such a sight,
That thousands of sweepers Dick, Joe, Ned & Jack
Were all of them lock’d up in coffins of black,

And by came an Angel who had a bright key,
And he open’d the coffins & set them all free.
Then down a green plain leaping laughing they run
And wash in a river and shine in the Sun.

Then naked & white, all their bags left behind,
They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind.
And the Angel told Tom, if he’d be a good boy,
He’d have God for his father & never want joy.

And so Tom awoke and we rose in the dark
And got with our bags & our brushes to work.
Tho’ the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm,
So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.

from Songs of Experience

A little black thing among the snow:
Crying weep, weep, in notes of woe!
Where are thy father & mother? say?
They are both gone up to the church to pray.

Because I was happy upon the heath,
And smil’d among the winters snow:
They clothed me in the clothes of death,
And taught me to sing the notes of woe.

And because I am happy, & dance and sing,
They think they have done me no injury:
And are gone to praise God & his Priest & King
Who make up a heaven of our misery.

Views: 31

Simplex Munditiis
by Ben Jonson (1572-1637)

Still to be neat, still to be drest,
As you were going to a feast;
Still to be powder’d, still perfumed:
Lady, it is to be presumed,
Though art’s hid causes are not found,
All is not sweet, all is not sound.

Give me a look, give me a face
That makes simplicity a grace;
Robes loosely flowing, hair as free:
Such sweet neglect more taketh me
Than all th’ adulteries of art;
They strike mine eyes, but not my heart.

Views: 31

“Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing” (Sonnet 87)
by William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Farewell! thou art too dear for my possessing,
And like enough thou know’st thy estimate:
The charter of thy worth gives thee releasing;
My bonds in thee are all determinate.
For how do I hold thee but by thy granting?
And for that riches where is my deserving?
The cause of this fair gift in me is wanting,
And so my patent back again is swerving.
Thyself thou gav’st, thy own worth then not knowing,
Or me, to whom thou gav’st it, else mistaking;
So thy great gift, upon misprision growing,
Comes home again, on better judgment making.
⁠      Thus have I had thee, as a dream doth flatter,
⁠      In sleep a king, but, waking, no such matter.

Views: 27

To Music, To Becalm His Fever
by Robert Herrick (1591-1674)

Charm me asleep and melt me so
      With thy delicious numbers,
That, being ravished, hence I go
      Away in easy slumbers.
            Ease my sick head
            And make my bed,
      Thou power that canst sever
            From me this ill;
            And quickly still,
            Though thou not kill,
                  My fever.

Thou sweetly canst convert the same
      From a consuming fire
Into a gentle-licking flame,
      And make it thus expire.
            Then make me weep
            My pains asleep;
      And give me such reposes
            That I, poor I,
            May think thereby
            I live and die
                  ’Mongst roses.

Fall on me like a silent dew,
      Or like those maiden showers
Which, by the peep of day, do strew
      A baptism o’er the flowers.
            Melt, melt my pains
            With thy soft strains;
      That, having ease me given,
            With full delight
            I leave this light,
            And take my flight
                  For heaven.

Views: 37