Written by
Edwin Arlington Robinson |
When he protested, not too solemnly,
That for a world’s achieving maintenance
The crust of overdone divinity
Lacked aliment, they called it recreance;
And when he chose through his own glass to scan
Sick Europe, and reduced, unyieldingly,
The monk within the cassock to the man
Within the monk, they called it heresy.
And when he made so perilously bold
As to be scattered forth in black and white,
Good fathers looked askance at him and rolled
Their inward eyes in anguish and affright;
There were some of them did shake at what was told,
And they shook best who knew that he was right.
|
Written by
Walt Whitman |
THE world below the brine;
Forests at the bottom of the sea—the branches and leaves,
Sea-lettuce, vast lichens, strange flowers and seeds—the thick tangle, the openings,
and
the pink turf,
Different colors, pale gray and green, purple, white, and gold—the play of light
through
the water,
Dumb swimmers there among the rocks—coral, gluten, grass, rushes—and the aliment
of
the swimmers,
Sluggish existences grazing there, suspended, or slowly crawling close to the bottom,
The sperm-whale at the surface, blowing air and spray, or disporting with his flukes,
The leaden-eyed shark, the walrus, the turtle, the hairy sea-leopard, and the sting-ray;
Passions there—wars, pursuits, tribes—sight in those ocean-depths—breathing
that
thick-breathing air, as so many do;
The change thence to the sight here, and to the subtle air breathed by beings like us, who
walk
this sphere;
The change onward from ours, to that of beings who walk other spheres.
|
Written by
Emily Dickinson |
Delight is as the flight --
Or in the Ratio of it,
As the Schools would say --
The Rainbow's way --
A Skein
Flung colored, after Rain,
Would suit as bright,
Except that flight
Were Aliment --
"If it would last"
I asked the East,
When that Bent Stripe
Struck up my childish
Firmament --
And I, for glee,
Took Rainbows, as the common way,
And empty Skies
The Eccentricity --
And so with Lives --
And so with Butterflies --
Seen magic -- through the fright
That they will cheat the sight --
And Dower latitudes far on --
Some sudden morn --
Our portion -- in the fashion --
Done --
|
Written by
Walt Whitman |
ROOTS and leaves themselves alone are these;
Scents brought to men and women from the wild woods, and from the pond-side,
Breast-sorrel and pinks of love—fingers that wind around tighter than vines,
Gushes from the throats of birds, hid in the foliage of trees, as the sun is risen;
Breezes of land and love—breezes set from living shores out to you on the living
sea—to
you, O sailors!
Frost-mellow’d berries, and Third-month twigs, offer’d fresh to young persons
wandering
out in the fields when the winter breaks up,
Love-buds, put before you and within you, whoever you are,
Buds to be unfolded on the old terms;
If you bring the warmth of the sun to them, they will open, and bring form, color,
perfume, to
you;
If you become the aliment and the wet, they will become flowers, fruits, tall blanches and
trees.
|
Written by
Francesco Petrarch |
[Pg 175] SONNET CLX. Pasco la mente d' un sì nobil cibo. TO SEE AND HEAR HER IS HIS GREATEST BLISS. I feed my fancy on such noble food,That Jove I envy not his godlike meal;I see her—joy invades me like a flood,And lethe of all other bliss I feel;I hear her—instantly that music rareBids from my captive heart the fond sigh flow;Borne by the hand of Love I know not where,A double pleasure in one draught I know.Even in heaven that dear voice pleaseth well,So winning are its words, its sound so sweet,None can conceive, save who had heard, their spell;Thus, in the same small space, visibly, meetAll charms of eye and ear wherewith our raceArt, Genius, Nature, Heaven have join'd to grace. Macgregor. Such noble aliment sustains my soul,That Jove I envy not his godlike food;I gaze on her—and feel each other goodEngulph'd in that blest draught at Lethe's bowl:Her every word I in my heart enrol,That on its grief it still may constant brood;Prostrate by Love—my doom not understoodFrom that one form, I feel a twin control.My spirit drinks the music of her voice,Whose speaking harmony (to heaven so dear)They only feel who in its tone partake:Again within her face my eyes rejoice,For in its gentle lineaments appearWhat Genius, Nature, Art, and Heaven can wake.
|
Written by
Emily Dickinson |
The Mind lives on the Heart
Like any Parasite --
If that is full of Meat
The Mind is fat.
But if the Heart omit
Emaciate the Wit --
The Aliment of it
So absolute.
|