Written by
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow |
INSCRIPTION FOR AN ANTIQUE PITCHER
Come, old friend! sit down and listen!
From the pitcher, placed between us,
How the waters laugh and glisten
In the head of old Silenus!
Old Silenus, bloated, drunken,
Led by his inebriate Satyrs;
On his breast his head is sunken,
Vacantly he leers and chatters.
Fauns with youthful Bacchus follow;
Ivy crowns that brow supernal
As the forehead of Apollo,
And possessing youth eternal.
Round about him, fair Bacchantes,
Bearing cymbals, flutes, and thyrses,
Wild from Naxian groves, or Zante's
Vineyards, sing delirious verses.
Thus he won, through all the nations,
Bloodless victories, and the farmer
Bore, as trophies and oblations,
Vines for banners, ploughs for armor.
Judged by no o'erzealous rigor,
Much this mystic throng expresses:
Bacchus was the type of vigor,
And Silenus of excesses.
These are ancient ethnic revels,
Of a faith long since forsaken;
Now the Satyrs, changed to devils,
Frighten mortals wine-o'ertaken.
Now to rivulets from the mountains
Point the rods of fortune-tellers;
Youth perpetual dwells in fountains,--
Not in flasks, and casks, and cellars.
Claudius, though he sang of flagons
And huge tankards filled with Rhenish,
From that fiery blood of dragons
Never would his own replenish.
Even Redi, though he chaunted
Bacchus in the Tuscan valleys,
Never drank the wine he vaunted
In his dithyrambic sallies.
Then with water fill the pitcher
Wreathed about with classic fables;
Ne'er Falernian threw a richer
Light upon Lucullus' tables.
Come, old friend, sit down and listen
As it passes thus between us,
How its wavelets laugh and glisten
In the head of old Silenus!
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Written by
Rudyard Kipling |
"And Gallio cared for none of these things."-- Acts xviii. 17 "Little Foxes"-- Actions and Reactions.
All day long to the judgment-seat
The crazed Provincials drew--
All day long at their ruler's feet
Howled for the blood of the Jew.
Insurrection with one accord
Banded itself and woke,
And Paul was about to open his mouth
When Achaia's Deputy spoke--
"Whether the God descend from above
Or the Man ascend upon high,
Whether this maker of tents be Jove
Or a younger deity--
I will be no judge between your gods
And your godless bickerings.
Lictor, drive them hence with rods--
I care for none of these things!
Were it a question of lawful due
Or Caesar's rule denied,
Reason would I should bear with you
And order it well to be tried;
But this is a question of words and names,
I know the strife it brings.
I will not pass upon any your claims.
I care for none of these things.
One thing only I see most clear,
As I pray you also see.
Claudius Caesar hath set me here
Rome's Deputy to be.
It is Her peace that ye go to break--
Not mine, nor any king's.
But, touching your clamour of 'Conscience sake,'
I care for none of these things.
Whether ye rise for the sake of a creed,
Or riot in hope of spoil,
Equally will I punish the deed,
Equally check the broil;
Nowise permitting injustice at all
From whatever doctrine it springs--
But--whether ye follow Priapus or Paul,
I care for none of these things!"
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Written by
Regina Derieva |
On the sea-shore, smell of iodine,
and square as in Sicily, and dancing.
An intellectual that came from the common people,
preparing himself to be Rosencrantz.
He decides to serve Claudius and therefore
spy on Prince Hamlet from the fountain.
All over the world — the prison. At the world's
end a certain John plays the piano.
Already darkness, and the end is in sight :
Ophelia crying in an empty hut.
And Hamlet walks to and fro with white headband,
in order to be recognized by the Ghost in the gloom.
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