Written by
Marianne Moore |
This institution,
perhaps one should say enterprise
out of respect for which
one says one need not change one's mind
about a thing one has believed in,
requiring public promises
of one's intention
to fulfill a private obligation:
I wonder what Adam and Eve
think of it by this time,
this firegilt steel
alive with goldenness;
how bright it shows --
"of circular traditions and impostures,
committing many spoils,"
requiring all one's criminal ingenuity
to avoid!
Psychology which explains everything
explains nothing
and we are still in doubt.
Eve: beautiful woman --
I have seen her
when she was so handsome
she gave me a start,
able to write simultaneously
in three languages --
English, German and French
and talk in the meantime;
equally positive in demanding a commotion
and in stipulating quiet:
"I should like to be alone;"
to which the visitor replies,
"I should like to be alone;
why not be alone together?"
Below the incandescent stars
below the incandescent fruit,
the strange experience of beauty;
its existence is too much;
it tears one to pieces
and each fresh wave of consciousness
is poison.
"See her, see her in this common world,"
the central flaw
in that first crystal-fine experiment,
this amalgamation which can never be more
than an interesting possibility,
describing it
as "that strange paradise
unlike flesh, gold, or stately buildings,
the choicest piece of my life:
the heart rising
in its estate of peace
as a boat rises
with the rising of the water;"
constrained in speaking of the serpent --
that shed snakeskin in the history of politeness
not to be returned to again --
that invaluable accident
exonerating Adam.
And he has beauty also;
it's distressing -- the O thou
to whom, from whom,
without whom nothing -- Adam;
"something feline,
something colubrine" -- how true!
a crouching mythological monster
in that Persian miniature of emerald mines,
raw silk -- ivory white, snow white,
oyster white and six others --
that paddock full of leopards and giraffes --
long lemonyellow bodies
sown with trapezoids of blue.
Alive with words,
vibrating like a cymbal
touched before it has been struck,
he has prophesied correctly --
the industrious waterfall,
"the speedy stream
which violently bears all before it,
at one time silent as the air
and now as powerful as the wind."
"Treading chasms
on the uncertain footing of a spear,"
forgetting that there is in woman
a quality of mind
which is an instinctive manifestation
is unsafe,
he goes on speaking
in a formal, customary strain
of "past states," the present state,
seals, promises,
the evil one suffered,
the good one enjoys,
hell, heaven,
everything convenient
to promote one's joy."
There is in him a state of mind
by force of which,
perceiving what it was not
intended that he should,
"he experiences a solemn joy
in seeing that he has become an idol."
Plagued by the nightingale
in the new leaves,
with its silence --
not its silence but its silences,
he says of it:
"It clothes me with a shirt of fire."
"He dares not clap his hands
to make it go on
lest it should fly off;
if he does nothing, it will sleep;
if he cries out, it will not understand."
Unnerved by the nightingale
and dazzled by the apple,
impelled by "the illusion of a fire
effectual to extinguish fire,"
compared with which
the shining of the earth
is but deformity -- a fire
"as high as deep as bright as broad
as long as life itself,"
he stumbles over marriage,
"a very trivial object indeed"
to have destroyed the attitude
in which he stood --
the ease of the philosopher
unfathered by a woman.
Unhelpful Hymen!
"a kind of overgrown cupid"
reduced to insignificance
by the mechanical advertising
parading as involuntary comment,
by that experiment of Adam's
with ways out but no way in --
the ritual of marriage,
augmenting all its lavishness;
its fiddle-head ferns,
lotus flowers, opuntias, white dromedaries,
its hippopotamus --
nose and mouth combined
in one magnificent hopper,
"the crested screamer --
that huge bird almost a lizard,"
its snake and the potent apple.
He tells us
that "for love
that will gaze an eagle blind,
that is like a Hercules
climbing the trees
in the garden of the Hesperides,
from forty-five to seventy
is the best age,"
commending it
as a fine art, as an experiment,
a duty or as merely recreation.
One must not call him ruffian
nor friction a calamity --
the fight to be affectionate:
"no truth can be fully known
until it has been tried
by the tooth of disputation."
The blue panther with black eyes,
the basalt panther with blue eyes,
entirely graceful --
one must give them the path --
the black obsidian Diana
who "darkeneth her countenance
as a bear doth,
causing her husband to sigh,"
the spiked hand
that has an affection for one
and proves it to the bone,
impatient to assure you
that impatience is the mark of independence
not of bondage.
"Married people often look that way" --
"seldom and cold, up and down,
mixed and malarial
with a good day and bad."
"When do we feed?"
We occidentals are so unemotional,
we quarrel as we feed;
one's self is quite lost,
the irony preserved
in "the Ahasuerus t?te ? t?te banquet"
with its "good monster, lead the way,"
with little laughter
and munificence of humor
in that quixotic atmosphere of frankness
in which "Four o'clock does not exist
but at five o'clock
the ladies in their imperious humility
are ready to receive you";
in which experience attests
that men have power
and sometimes one is made to feel it.
He says, "what monarch would not blush
to have a wife
with hair like a shaving-brush?
The fact of woman
is not `the sound of the flute
but every poison.'"
She says, "`Men are monopolists
of stars, garters, buttons
and other shining baubles' --
unfit to be the guardians
of another person's happiness."
He says, "These mummies
must be handled carefully --
`the crumbs from a lion's meal,
a couple of shins and the bit of an ear';
turn to the letter M
and you will find
that `a wife is a coffin,'
that severe object
with the pleasing geometry
stipulating space and not people,
refusing to be buried
and uniquely disappointing,
revengefully wrought in the attitude
of an adoring child
to a distinguished parent."
She says, "This butterfly,
this waterfly, this nomad
that has `proposed
to settle on my hand for life.' --
What can one do with it?
There must have been more time
in Shakespeare's day
to sit and watch a play.
You know so many artists are fools."
He says, "You know so many fools
who are not artists."
The fact forgot
that "some have merely rights
while some have obligations,"
he loves himself so much,
he can permit himself
no rival in that love.
She loves herself so much,
she cannot see herself enough --
a statuette of ivory on ivory,
the logical last touch
to an expansive splendor
earned as wages for work done:
one is not rich but poor
when one can always seem so right.
What can one do for them --
these savages
condemned to disaffect
all those who are not visionaries
alert to undertake the silly task
of making people noble?
This model of petrine fidelity
who "leaves her peaceful husband
only because she has seen enough of him" --
that orator reminding you,
"I am yours to command."
"Everything to do with love is mystery;
it is more than a day's work
to investigate this science."
One sees that it is rare --
that striking grasp of opposites
opposed each to the other, not to unity,
which in cycloid inclusiveness
has dwarfed the demonstration
of Columbus with the egg --
a triumph of simplicity --
that charitive Euroclydon
of frightening disinterestedness
which the world hates,
admitting:
"I am such a cow,
if I had a sorrow,
I should feel it a long time;
I am not one of those
who have a great sorrow
in the morning
and a great joy at noon;"
which says: "I have encountered it
among those unpretentious
proteg?s of wisdom,
where seeming to parade
as the debater and the Roman,
the statesmanship
of an archaic Daniel Webster
persists to their simplicity of temper
as the essence of the matter:
`Liberty and union
now and forever;'
the book on the writing-table;
the hand in the breast-pocket."
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Written by
Sir Walter Raleigh |
Go, Soul, the body's guest,
Upon a thankless errand;
Fear not to touch the best;
The truth shall be thy warrant:
Go, since I needs must die,
And give the world the lie.
Say to the court, it glows
And shines like rotten wood;
Say to the church, it shows
What's good, and doth no good:
If church and court reply,
Then give them both the lie.
Tell potentates, they live
Acting by others' action;
Not loved unless they give,
Not strong but by a faction.
If potentates reply,
Give potentates the lie.
Tell men of high condition,
That manage the estate,
Their purpose is ambition,
Their practice only hate:
And if they once reply,
Then give them all the lie.
Tell them that brave it most,
They beg for more by spending,
Who, in their greatest cost,
Seek nothing but commending.
And if they make reply,
Then give them all the lie.
Tell zeal it wants devotion;
Tell love it is but lust;
Tell time it is but motion;
Tell flesh it is but dust:
And wish them not reply,
For thou must give the lie.
Tell age it daily wasteth;
Tell honour how it alters;
Tell beauty how she blasteth;
Tell favour how it falters:
And as they shall reply,
Give every one the lie.
Tell wit how much it wrangles
In tickle points of niceness;
Tell wisdom she entangles
Herself in overwiseness:
And when they do reply,
Straight give them both the lie.
Tell physic of her boldness;
Tell skill it is pretension;
Tell charity of coldness;
Tell law it is contention:
And as they do reply,
So give them still the lie.
Tell fortune of her blindness;
Tell nature of decay;
Tell friendship of unkindness;
Tell justice of delay:
And if they will reply,
Then give them all the lie.
Tell arts they have no soundness,
But vary by esteeming;
Tell schools they want profoundness,
And stand too much on seeming:
If arts and schools reply,
Give arts and schools the lie.
Tell faith it's fled the city;
Tell how the country erreth;
Tell manhood shakes off pity
And virtue least preferreth:
And if they do reply,
Spare not to give the lie.
So when thou hast, as I
Commanded thee, done blabbing—
Although to give the lie
Deserves no less than stabbing—
Stab at thee he that will,
No stab the soul can kill.
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Written by
Francois Villon |
WRITTEN FOR HIS MOTHER
Dame du ciel, regents terrienne,
Emperiere des infemaux palus....
Lady of Heaven and earth, and therewithal
Crowned Empress of the nether clefts of Hell,—
I, thy poor Christian, on thy name do call,
Commending me to thee, with thee to dwell,
Albeit in nought I be commendable.
But all mine undeserving may not mar
Such mercies as thy sovereign mercies are;
Without the which (as true words testify)
No soul can reach thy Heaven so fair and far.
Even in this faith I choose to live and die.
Unto thy Son say thou that I am His,
And to me graceless make Him gracious.
Said Mary of Egypt lacked not of that bliss,
Nor yet the sorrowful clerk Theopbilus,
Whose bitter sins were set aside even thus
Though to the Fiend his bounden service was.
Oh help me, lest in vain for me should pass
(Sweet Virgin that shalt have no loss thereby!)
The blessed Host and sacring of the Mass
Even in this faith I choose to live and die.
A pitiful poor woman, shrunk and old,
I am, and nothing learn'd in letter-lore.
Within my parish-cloister I behold
A painted Heaven where harps and lutes adore,
And eke an Hell whose damned folk seethe full sore:
One bringeth fear, the other joy to me.
That joy, great Goddess, make thou mine to be,—
Thou of whom all must ask it even as I;
And that which faith desires, that let it see.
For in this faith I choose to live and die.
O excellent Virgin Princess! thou didst bear
King Jesus, the most excellent comforter,
Who even of this our weakness craved a share
And for our sake stooped to us from on high,
Offering to death His young life sweet and fair.
Such as He is, Our Lord, I Him declare,
And in this faith I choose to live and die.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, trans.
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Written by
Ben Jonson |
X. ? PRÆLUDIUM. For the more countenance to my active muse? Hercules ? Alas his bones are yet sore, With his old earthly labors : t' exact more, Of his dull godhead, were sin. I'll implore Phoebus. No, tend thy cart still. Envious day Shall not give out that I have made thee stay, And founder'd thy hot team, to tune my lay. Nor will I beg of thee, Lord of the vine, To raise my spirits with thy conjuring wine, In the green circle of thy ivy twine. Pallas, nor thee I call on, mankind maid, That at thy birth, mad'st the poor smith afraid, Who with his axe, thy father's midwife plaid. Go, cramp dull Mars, light Venus, when he snorts, Or, with thy tribade trine, invent new sports ; Thou nor thy looseness with my making sorts. Let the old boy, your son, ply his old task, Turn the stale prologue to some painted mask ; His absence in my verse, is all I ask. Hermes, the cheater, shall not mix with us, Though he would steal his sisters' Pegasus, And rifle him : or pawn his petasus. THE PHOENIX ANALYSED. Now, after all, let no man Receive it for a fable, If a bird so amiable Do turn into a woman. Or, by our Turtle's augure, That nature's fairest creature Prove of his mistress' feature But a bare type and figure. Nor all the ladies of the Thespian lake, (Though they were crushed into one form) could make A beauty of that merit, that should take.  Splendor ! O more than mortal For other forms come short all, Of her illustrious brightness As far as sin's from lightness. Her wit as quick and sprightful As fire, and more delightful Than the stolen sports of lovers, When night their meeting covers. Judgment, adorn'd with learning, Doth shine in her discerning, Clear as a naked vestal Closed in an orb of crystal. Her breath for sweet exceeding The phoenix' place of breeding, But mix'd with sound, transcending All nature of commending. Alas then whither wade I In thought to praise this lady, When seeking her renowning My self am so near drowning? Retire, and say her graces Are deeper than their faces, Yet she's not nice to show them, Nor takes she pride to know them. My muse up by commission ; no, I bring My own true fire : now my thought takes wing, And now an EPODE to deep ears I sing.
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Written by
Mary Darby Robinson |
Crops like hedgehogs, high-crown'd hats,
Whispers like Jew MOSES ;
Padded collars, thick cravats,
And cheeks as red as roses.
Faces painted pink and brown ;
Waistcoats strip'd and gaudy ;
Sleeves thrice doubled thick with down,
And straps to brace the body.
Short great-coats that reach the knees,
Boots like French postillion ;
Worn the G----- race to please,
But laugh'd at by the million.
Square-toed shoes, with silken strings,
Pantaloons not fitting ;
Finger deck'd with wedding rings,
And small-clothes made of knitting.
Curricles so low, that they
Along the ground seem dragging ;
Hacks that weary half the day
In Rotten-row are fagging.
Bull-dogs grim, and boxers bold,
In noble trains attending ;
Science which is bought with gold,
And flatt'rers vice commending.
Hair-cords, and plain rings, to shew
Many a LADY's favour,
BOUGHT by ev'ry vaunting beau,
With mischievous endeavour.
Such is giddy FASHION's son !
Such a MODERN LOVER!
Oh ! wou'd their reign had ne'er begun !
And may it soon BE OVER!
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Written by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe |
MANY a guest I'd see to-day,
Met to taste my dishes!
Food in plenty is prepar'd,
Birds, and game, and fishes.
Invitations all have had,
All proposed attending.
Johnny, go and look around!
Are they hither wending?
Pretty girls I hope to see,
Dear and guileless misses,
Ignorant how sweet it is
Giving tender kisses.
Invitations all have had,
All proposed attending.
Johnny, go and look around!
Are they hither wending?
Women also I expect,
Loving tow'rd their spouses,
Whose rude grumbling in their breasts
Greater love but rouses.
Invitations they've had too,
All proposed attending!
Johnny, go and look around!
Are they hither wending?
I've too ask'd young gentlemen,
Who are far from haughty,
And whose purses are well-stock'd,
Well-behaved, not haughty.
These especially I ask'd,
All proposed attending.
Johnny, go and look around!
Are they hither wending?
Men I summon'd with respect,
Who their own wives treasure;
Who in ogling other Fair
Never take a pleasure.
To my greetings they replied,
All proposed attending.
Johnny, go and look around!
Are they hither wending?
Then to make our joy complete,
Poets I invited,
Who love other's songs far more
Than what they've indited.
All acceded to my wish,
All proposed attending.
Johnny, go and look around!
Are they hither wending?
Not a single one appears,
None seem this way posting.
All the soup boils fast away,
Joints are over-roasting.
Ah, I fear that we have been
Rather too unbending!
Johnny, tell me what you think!
None are hither wending.
Johnny, run and quickly bring
Other guests to me now!
Each arriving as he is--
That's the plan, I see now.
In the town at once 'tis known,
Every one's commending.
Johnny, open all the doors:
All are hither wending!
1815.*
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