Written by
Sylvia Plath |
You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot
For thirty years, poor and white,
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.
Daddy, I have had to kill you.
You died before I had time---
Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
Ghastly statue with one gray toe
Big as a Frisco seal
And a head in the freakish Atlantic
Where it pours bean green over blue
In the waters off the beautiful Nauset.
I used to pray to recover you.
Ach, du.
In the German tongue, in the Polish town
Scraped flat by the roller
Of wars, wars, wars.
But the name of the town is common.
My Polack friend
Says there are a dozen or two.
So I never could tell where you
Put your foot, your root,
I never could talk to you.
The tongue stuck in my jaw.
It stuck in a barb wire snare.
Ich, ich, ich, ich,
I could hardly speak.
I thought every German was you.
And the language obscene
An engine, an engine,
Chuffing me off like a Jew.
A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.
I began to talk like a Jew.
I think I may well be a Jew.
The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna
Are not very pure or true.
With my gypsy ancestress and my weird luck
And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack
I may be a bit of a Jew.
I have always been sacred of you,
With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.
And your neat mustache
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You----
Not God but a swastika
So black no sky could squeak through.
Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.
You stand at the blackboard, daddy,
In the picture I have of you,
A cleft in your chin instead of your foot
But no less a devil for that, no not
Any less the black man who
Bit my pretty red heart in two.
I was ten when they buried you.
At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do.
But they pulled me out of the sack,
And they stuck me together with glue.
And then I knew what to do.
I made a model of you,
A man in black with a Meinkampf look
And a love of the rack and the screw.
And I said I do, I do.
So daddy, I'm finally through.
The black telephone's off at the root,
The voices just can't worm through.
If I've killed one man, I've killed two---
The vampire who said he was you
And drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.
Daddy, you can lie back now.
There's a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.
(1962)
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Written by
William Butler Yeats |
I lived among great houses,
Riches drove out rank,
Base drove out the better blood,
And mind and body shrank.
No Oscar ruled the table,
But I'd a troop of friends
That knowing better talk had gone
Talked of odds and ends.
Some knew what ailed the world
But never said a thing,
So I have picked a better trade
And night and morning sing:
Tall dames go walking in grass-green Avalon.
Am I a great Lord Chancellor
That slept upon the Sack?
Commanding officer that tore
The khaki from his back?
Or am I de Valera,
Or the King of Greece,
Or the man that made the motors?
Ach, call me what you please!
Here's a Montenegrin lute,
And its old sole string
Makes me sweet music
And I delight to sing:
Tall dames go walking in grass-green Avalon.
With boys and girls about him.
With any sort of clothes,
With a hat out of fashion,
With Old patched shoes,
With a ragged bandit cloak,
With an eye like a hawk,
With a stiff straight back,
With a strutting turkey walk.
With a bag full of pennies,
With a monkey on a chain,
With a great cock's feather,
With an old foul tune.
Tall dames go walking in grass-green Avalon.
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Written by
Edgar Lee Masters |
If the excursion train to Peoria
Had just been wrecked, I might have escaped with my life --
Certainly I should have escaped this place.
But as it was burned as well, they mistook me
For John Allen who was sent to the Hebrew Cemetery
At Chicago,
And John for me, so I lie here.
It was bad enough to run a clothing store in this town,
But to be buried here -- ach!
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Written by
Calvin Ziegler |
AM GRISCHTDAAG
Sis Grischtdaag.
Die ganz Welt iwwer
Frei die Leit sich sehr,
Un alles is harrlich, as wann der Daag
Vom Himmel gelosse waer.
Ich hock allee in mei Zimmer
Un denk so iwwer die Zeit -
Wie der Geischt vun Grischt sich immer
Weider un weider ausbreid:
Un wie heit in yeder Famillye
Frehlich un gutes Mut
In die liewi aldi Heemet
Sich widder versammle dutt.
Ach widder deheem! Ach, Yammer! -
Net all! Deel sin yo heit
Zu weit vun uns ab zu kumme -
Fatt in de Ewichkeit.
Net all deheem! Verleicht awwer -
Unich behaap's kann sei -
Im Geischt sin mir all beisamme
Un griesse enanner uff's nei!
So sin mir vereenicht widder -
Loss die Zeit vergeb wiesie will;
Ich drink eich ein Gruss, ihr Brieder!
Verwas sitzt dir all so schtill?
Weit ab - iwwer Barig un Valley,
Un iwwer die Ewichkeit's Brick -
Vun eich Brieder all, wie Geischdeschall
Kummt mir Eier Gruss zerick.
AT CHRISTMAS
It's Christmas.
The whole world over
Everyone's filled with love,
And everything's joyful, as if the day
Was given from above.
I sit alone in my room
Thinking about the times -
How the spirit of Christ always
Wider and wider shines.
And how today all families
With much happiness embrace
As they gather once again
In the dear old home place.
All home again! Oh, not so! -
Not all! Some today in reality
Are far from us below -
Away in eternity!
Not all at home! Perhaps though -
And I insist I knew -
In the spirit we're all together
And greet each other anew.
So we are together again -
May the time go as it will,
I drink to you a toast, brothers!
Why do you all sit so still?
Far away - over valley and ridge,
And over the eternal bridge -
From you brothers, like a spiritual echo
Your greeting returns below.
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Written by
William Strode |
You that affright with lamentable notes
The servants from their beef, whose hungry throats
Vex the grume porter's surly conscience:
That blesse the mint for coyning lesse than pence:
You whose unknown and meanly payd desarts
Begge silently within, and knocke at hearts:
You whose commanding worth makes men beleeve
That you a kindnesse give when you receave:
All sorts of them that want, your tears now lend:
A House-keeper, a Patron, and a Friend
Is lodged in clay.
The man whose table fedde
So many while he lived, since hee is dead,
Himselfe is turn'd to food: whose chimney burn'd
So freely then, is now to ashes turn'd.
The man which life unto the Muses gave
Seeks life of them, a lasting Epitaph:
And hee from whose esteeme all vertues found
A just reward, now prostrate in the ground,
(Like some huge ancient oake, that ere it fell,
Could not be measur'd by the rule so well)
Desires a faythfull comment on his dayes,
Such as shall neither lye to wrong or prayse:
But oh! what Muse is halfe so pure, so strong,
What marble sheets can keepe his name so long
As onely hee hath lived? then who can tell
A perfect story of his living well?
The noble fire that spur'd and whetted on
His bravely vertuous resolution
Could not so soone be quencht as weaker soules
Whose feebler sparke an ach or thought controuls.
His life burnt to the snuffe; a snuffe that needs
No socket to conceale the stench, but feeds
Our sence like costly fumes: his manly breath
Felt no disease but age; and call'd for Death
Before it durst intrude, or thought to try
That strength of limbs, that soules integrity.
Looke on his silver hayres, his graceful browe,
And Gravity itselfe might Lea avowe
Her father: Time, his schoolmate.
Fifty years
Once wedlocke he embrac't: a date that bears
Fayre scope, if Soule and Body chance to bee
So long a couple as his wife and hee.
But number you his deeds, they so outpasse
The largest size of any mortal glasse,
That though hee liv'd a thousand, some would crye
Alas! he dyde in his minority.
His dayes and deeds would nere be counted even
Without Eternity, which now is given.
Such descants poore men make; who miss him more
Than sixe great men, that keeping house before
After a spurt unconstantly are fledd
Away to London.
But the man that's dead
Is gone unto a place more populous,
And tarries longer there, and waites for us.
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