Written by
Francesco Petrarch |
CANZONE XVIII. Qual più diversa e nova. HE COMPARES HIMSELF TO ALL THAT IS MOST STRANGE IN CREATION. Whate'er most wild and newWas ever found in any foreign land,If viewed and valued true,Most likens me 'neath Love's transforming hand.Whence the bright day breaks through,Alone and consortless, a bird there flies,Who voluntary dies,To live again regenerate and entire:So ever my desire,Alone, itself repairs, and on the crestOf its own lofty thoughts turns to our sun,There melts and is undone,And sinking to its first state of unrest,So burns and dies, yet still its strength resumes,And, Phœnix-like, afresh in force and beauty blooms. Where Indian billows sweep,A wondrous stone there is, before whose strengthStout navies, weak to keepTheir binding iron, sink engulf'd at length:So prove I, in this deepOf bitter grief, whom, with her own hard pride,That fair rock knew to guideWhere now my life in wreck and ruin drives:Thus too the soul deprives,By theft, my heart, which once so stonelike was,It kept my senses whole, now far dispersed:For mine, O fate accurst!A rock that lifeblood and not iron draws,Whom still i' the flesh a magnet living, sweet,Drags to the fatal shore a certain doom to meet. Neath the far Ethiop skiesA beast is found, most mild and meek of air,Which seems, yet in her eyesDanger and dool and death she still does bear:[Pg 134]Much needs he to be wiseTo look on hers whoever turns his mien:Although her eyes unseen,All else securely may be viewed at willBut I to mine own illRun ever in rash grief, though well I knowMy sufferings past and future, still my mindIts eager, deaf and blindDesire o'ermasters and unhinges so,That in her fine eyes and sweet sainted face,Fatal, angelic, pure, my cause of death I trace. In the rich South there flowsA fountain from the sun its name that wins,This marvel still that shows,Boiling at night, but chill when day begins;Cold, yet more cold it growsAs the sun's mounting car we nearer see:So happens it with me(Who am, alas! of tears the source and seat),When the bright light and sweet,My only sun retires, and lone and drearMy eyes are left, in night's obscurest reign,I burn, but if againThe gold rays of the living sun appear,My slow blood stiffens, instantaneous, strange;Within me and without I feel the frozen change! Another fount of fameSprings in Epirus, which, as bards have told,Kindles the lurking flame,And the live quenches, while itself is cold.My soul, that, uncontroll'd,And scathless from love's fire till now had pass'd,Carelessly left at lastNear the cold fair for whom I ceaseless sigh,Was kindled instantly:Like martyrdom, ne'er known by day or night,A heart of marble had to mercy shamed.Which first her charms inflamedHer fair and frozen virtue quenched the light;That thus she crushed and kindled my heart's fire,Well know I who have felt in long and useless ire. [Pg 135]Beyond our earth's known brinks,In the famed Islands of the Blest, there beTwo founts: of this who drinksDies smiling: who of that to live is free.A kindred fate Heaven linksTo my sad life, who, smilingly, could dieFor like o'erflowing joy,But soon such bliss new cries of anguish stay.Love! still who guidest my way,Where, dim and dark, the shade of fame invites,Not of that fount we speak, which, full each hour,Ever with larger powerO'erflows, when Taurus with the Sun unites;So are my eyes with constant sorrow wet,But in that season most when I my Lady met. Should any ask, my Song!Or how or where I am, to such reply:Where the tall mountain throwsIts shade, in the lone vale, whence Sorga flows,He roams, where never eyeSave Love's, who leaves him not a step, is by,And one dear image who his peace destroys,Alone with whom to muse all else in life he flies.
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Written by
Andrew Barton Paterson |
A man once read with mind surprised
Of the way that people were "hypnotised";
By waving hands you produced, forsooth,
A kind of trance where men told the truth!
His mind was filled with wond'ring doubt;
He grabbed his hat and he started out,
He walked the street and he made a "set"
At the first half-dozen folk he met.
He "tranced" them all, and without a joke
'Twas much as follows the subjects spoke:
First Man
"I am a doctor, London-made,
Listen to me and you'll hear displayed
A few of the tricks of the doctor's trade.
'Twill sometimes chance when a patient's ill
That a doae, or draught, or a lightning pill,
A little too strong or a little too hot,
Will work its way to a vital spot.
And then I watch with a sickly grin
While the patient 'passes his counters in'.
But when he has gone with his fleeting breath
I certify that the cause of death
Was something Latin, and something long,
And who is to say that the doctor's wrong!
So I go my way with a stately tread
While my patients sleep with the dreamless dead."
Next, Please
"I am a barrister, wigged and gowned;
Of stately presence and look profound.
Listen awhile till I show you round.
When courts are sitting and work is flush
I hurry about in a frantic rush.
I take your brief and I look to see
That the same is marked with a thumping fee;
But just as your case is drawing near
I bob serenely and disappear.
And away in another court I lurk
While a junior barrister does your work;
And I ask my fee with a courtly grace,
Although I never came near the case.
But the loss means ruin too you, maybe,
But nevertheless I must have my fee!
For the lawyer laughs in his cruel sport
While his clients march to the Bankrupt Court."
Third Man
"I am a banker, wealthy and bold --
A solid man, and I keep my hold
Over a pile of the public's gold.
I am as skilled as skilled can be
In every matter of ? s. d.
I count the money, and night by night
I balance it up to a farthing right:
In sooth, 'twould a stranger's soul perplex
My double entry and double checks.
Yet it sometimes happens by some strange crook
That a ledger-keeper will 'take his hook'
With a couple of hundred thousand 'quid',
And no one can tell how the thing was did!"
Fourth Man
"I am an editor, bold and free.
Behind the great impersonal 'We'
I hold the power of the Mystic Three.
What scoundrel ever would dare to hint
That anything crooked appears in print!
Perhaps an actor is all the rage,
He struts his hour on the mimic stage,
With skill he interprets all the scenes --
And yet next morning I give him beans.
I slate his show from the floats to flies,
Because the beggar won't advertise.
And sometimes columns of print appear
About a mine, and it makes it clear
That the same is all that one's heart could wish --
A dozen ounces to every dish.
But the reason we print those statements fine
Is -- the editor's uncle owns the mine."
The Last Straw
"A preacher I, and I take my stand
In pulpit decked with gown and band
To point the way to a better land.
With sanctimonious and reverent look
I read it out of the sacred book
That he who would open the golden door
Must give his all to the starving poor.
But I vary the practice to some extent
By investing money at twelve per cent,
And after I've preached for a decent while
I clear for 'home' with a lordly pile.
I frighten my congregation well
With fear of torment and threats of hell,
Although I know that the scientists
Can't find that any such place exists.
And when they prove it beyond mistake
That the world took millions of years to make,
And never was built by the seventh day
I say in a pained and insulted way
that 'Thomas also presumed to doubt',
And thus do I rub my opponents out.
For folks may widen their mental range,
But priest and parson, thay never change."
With dragging footsteps and downcast head
The hypnotiser went home to bed,
And since that very successful test
He has given the magic art a rest;
Had he tried the ladies, and worked it right,
What curious tales might have come to light!
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