Written by
Andrei Voznesensky |
My doc announced yesterday :
"You may have talent, though it's hidden,
your beak, however, is frost-bitten,
so stick at home on a cold day".
The nose, eh?
As irretrievable as time,
conforming to the laws of medicine,
your nose, like that of any person,
keep growing
steadily,
with triumph!
The noses of celebrities,
of guards
and ministers of ours
grow, snoring restlessly like owls
at night, along with plants and trees.
They're cool and crooked, resembling bills,
they're squeezed in doors,
get hurt by boxers,
however, our neighbour's noses
screw into keyholes, just like drills!
(Great Gogol felt by intuition
the role they play in man's ambition.
)
My friend Bukashkin who was boozy
dreamed of a nose
that grew like crazy:
above him, coming like a bore,
upsetting pans and chandeliers,
a nose
was piercing
the ceilings
and threading
floor upon the floor!
"What's that? -- he thought, when out of bed.
"A sign of Judgement Day -- I said --
And the inspection of the debtors!"
He was imprisoned on the 30th.
Perpetual motion of the nose!
It's long, while life is getting shorter.
At night on faces, pale as blotter,
like a black hawk, or pumping hose,
the nose absorbs us, I suppose.
They say, the Northern Eskimos
kiss one another with the nose
It hasn't caught on here, of course.
© Copyright Alec Vagapov's translation
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Written by
Rudyard Kipling |
1917
They shall not return to us, the resolute, the young,
The eager and whole-hearted whom we gave:
But the men who left them thriftily to die in their own dung,
Shall they come with years and honour to the grave?
They shall not return to us; the strong men coldly slain
In sight of help denied from day to day:
But the men who edged their agonies and chid them in their pain,
Are they too strong and wise to put away?
Our dead shall not return to us while Day and Night divide--
Never while the bars of sunset hold.
But the idle-minded overlings who quibbled while they died,
Shall they thrust for high employments as of old?
Shall we only threaten and be angry for an hour:
When the storm is ended shall we find
How softly but how swiftly they have sidled back to power
By the favour and contrivance of their kind?
Even while they soothe us, while they promise large amends,
Even while they make a show of fear,
Do they call upon their debtors, and take counsel with their
friends,
To conform and re-establish each career?
Their lives cannot repay us--their death could not undo--
The shame that they have laid upon our race.
But the slothfulness that wasted and the arrogance that slew,
Shell we leave it unabated in its place?
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Written by
Edwin Arlington Robinson |
There were faces to remember in the Valley of the Shadow,
There were faces unregarded, there were faces to forget;
There were fires of grief and fear that are a few forgotten ashes,
There were sparks of recognition that are not forgotten yet.
For at first, with an amazed and overwhelming indignation
At a measureless malfeasance that obscurely willed it thus,
They were lost and unacquainted—till they found themselves in others,
Who had groped as they were groping where dim ways were perilous.
There were lives that were as dark as are the fears and intuitions
Of a child who knows himself and is alone with what he knows;
There were pensioners of dreams and there were debtors of illusions,
All to fail before the triumph of a weed that only grows.
There were thirsting heirs of golden sieves that held not wine or water,
And had no names in traffic or more value there than toys:
There were blighted sons of wonder in the Valley of the Shadow,
Where they suffered and still wondered why their wonder made no noise.
There were slaves who dragged the shackles of a precedent unbroken,
Demonstrating the fulfilment of unalterable schemes,
Which had been, before the cradle, Time’s inexorable tenants
Of what were now the dusty ruins of their father’s dreams.
There were these, and there were many who had stumbled up to manhood,
Where they saw too late the road they should have taken long ago:
There were thwarted clerks and fiddlers in the Valley of the Shadow,
The commemorative wreckage of what others did not know.
And there were daughters older than the mothers who had borne them,
Being older in their wisdom, which is older than the earth;
And they were going forward only farther into darkness,
Unrelieved as were the blasting obligations of their birth;
And among them, giving always what was not for their possession,
There were maidens, very quiet, with no quiet in their eyes;
There were daughters of the silence in the Valley of the Shadow,
Each an isolated item in the family sacrifice.
There were creepers among catacombs where dull regrets were torches,
Giving light enough to show them what was there upon the shelves—
Where there was more for them to see than pleasure would remember
Of something that had been alive and once had been themselves.
There were some who stirred the ruins with a solid imprecation,
While as many fled repentance for the promise of despair:
There were drinkers of wrong waters in the Valley of the Shadow,
And all the sparkling ways were dust that once had led them there.
There were some who knew the steps of Age incredibly beside them,
And his fingers upon shoulders that had never felt the wheel;
And their last of empty trophies was a gilded cup of nothing,
Which a contemplating vagabond would not have come to steal.
Long and often had they figured for a larger valuation,
But the size of their addition was the balance of a doubt:
There were gentlemen of leisure in the Valley of the Shadow,
Not allured by retrospection, disenchanted, and played out.
And among the dark endurances of unavowed reprisals
There were silent eyes of envy that saw little but saw well;
And over beauty’s aftermath of hazardous ambitions
There were tears for what had vanished as they vanished where they fell.
Not assured of what was theirs, and always hungry for the nameless,
There were some whose only passion was for Time who made them cold:
There were numerous fair women in the Valley of the Shadow,
Dreaming rather less of heaven than of hell when they were old.
Now and then, as if to scorn the common touch of common sorrow,
There were some who gave a few the distant pity of a smile;
And another cloaked a soul as with an ash of human embers,
Having covered thus a treasure that would last him for a while.
There were many by the presence of the many disaffected,
Whose exemption was included in the weight that others bore:
There were seekers after darkness in the Valley of the Shadow,
And they alone were there to find what they were looking for.
So they were, and so they are; and as they came are coming others,
And among them are the fearless and the meek and the unborn;
And a question that has held us heretofore without an answer
May abide without an answer until all have ceased to mourn.
For the children of the dark are more to name than are the wretched,
Or the broken, or the weary, or the baffled, or the shamed:
There are builders of new mansions in the Valley of the Shadow,
And among them are the dying and the blinded and the maimed.
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Written by
Robert Burns |
DEAR SMITH, the slee’st, pawkie thief,
That e’er attempted stealth or rief!
Ye surely hae some warlock-brief
Owre human hearts;
For ne’er a bosom yet was prief
Against your arts.
For me, I swear by sun an’ moon,
An’ ev’ry star that blinks aboon,
Ye’ve cost me twenty pair o’ shoon,
Just gaun to see you;
An’ ev’ry ither pair that’s done,
Mair taen I’m wi’ you.
That auld, capricious carlin, Nature,
To mak amends for scrimpit stature,
She’s turn’d you off, a human creature
On her first plan,
And in her freaks, on ev’ry feature
She’s wrote the Man.
Just now I’ve ta’en the fit o’ rhyme,
My barmie noddle’s working prime.
My fancy yerkit up sublime,
Wi’ hasty summon;
Hae ye a leisure-moment’s time
To hear what’s comin?
Some rhyme a neibor’s name to lash;
Some rhyme (vain thought!) for needfu’ cash;
Some rhyme to court the countra clash,
An’ raise a din;
For me, an aim I never fash;
I rhyme for fun.
The star that rules my luckless lot,
Has fated me the russet coat,
An’ damn’d my fortune to the groat;
But, in requit,
Has blest me with a random-shot
O’countra wit.
This while my notion’s taen a sklent,
To try my fate in guid, black prent;
But still the mair I’m that way bent,
Something cries “Hooklie!”
I red you, honest man, tak tent?
Ye’ll shaw your folly;
“There’s ither poets, much your betters,
Far seen in Greek, deep men o’ letters,
Hae thought they had ensur’d their debtors,
A’ future ages;
Now moths deform, in shapeless tatters,
Their unknown pages.
”
Then farewell hopes of laurel-boughs,
To garland my poetic brows!
Henceforth I’ll rove where busy ploughs
Are whistlin’ thrang,
An’ teach the lanely heights an’ howes
My rustic sang.
I’ll wander on, wi’ tentless heed
How never-halting moments speed,
Till fate shall snap the brittle thread;
Then, all unknown,
I’ll lay me with th’ inglorious dead
Forgot and gone!
But why o’ death being a tale?
Just now we’re living sound and hale;
Then top and maintop crowd the sail,
Heave Care o’er-side!
And large, before Enjoyment’s gale,
Let’s tak the tide.
This life, sae far’s I understand,
Is a’ enchanted fairy-land,
Where Pleasure is the magic-wand,
That, wielded right,
Maks hours like minutes, hand in hand,
Dance by fu’ light.
The magic-wand then let us wield;
For ance that five-an’-forty’s speel’d,
See, crazy, weary, joyless eild,
Wi’ wrinkl’d face,
Comes hostin, hirplin owre the field,
We’ creepin pace.
When ance life’s day draws near the gloamin,
Then fareweel vacant, careless roamin;
An’ fareweel cheerfu’ tankards foamin,
An’ social noise:
An’ fareweel dear, deluding woman,
The Joy of joys!
O Life! how pleasant, in thy morning,
Young Fancy’s rays the hills adorning!
Cold-pausing Caution’s lesson scorning,
We frisk away,
Like school-boys, at th’ expected warning,
To joy an’ play.
We wander there, we wander here,
We eye the rose upon the brier,
Unmindful that the thorn is near,
Among the leaves;
And tho’ the puny wound appear,
Short while it grieves.
Some, lucky, find a flow’ry spot,
For which they never toil’d nor swat;
They drink the sweet and eat the fat,
But care or pain;
And haply eye the barren hut
With high disdain.
With steady aim, some Fortune chase;
Keen hope does ev’ry sinew brace;
Thro’ fair, thro’ foul, they urge the race,
An’ seize the prey:
Then cannie, in some cozie place,
They close the day.
And others, like your humble servan’,
Poor wights! nae rules nor roads observin,
To right or left eternal swervin,
They zig-zag on;
Till, curst with age, obscure an’ starvin,
They aften groan.
Alas! what bitter toil an’ straining—
But truce with peevish, poor complaining!
Is fortune’s fickle Luna waning?
E’n let her gang!
Beneath what light she has remaining,
Let’s sing our sang.
My pen I here fling to the door,
And kneel, ye Pow’rs! and warm implore,
“Tho’ I should wander Terra o’er,
In all her climes,
Grant me but this, I ask no more,
Aye rowth o’ rhymes.
“Gie dreepin roasts to countra lairds,
Till icicles hing frae their beards;
Gie fine braw claes to fine life-guards,
And maids of honour;
An’ yill an’ whisky gie to cairds,
Until they sconner.
“A title, Dempster 1 merits it;
A garter gie to Willie Pitt;
Gie wealth to some be-ledger’d cit,
In cent.
per cent.
;
But give me real, sterling wit,
And I’m content.
“While ye are pleas’d to keep me hale,
I’ll sit down o’er my scanty meal,
Be’t water-brose or muslin-kail,
Wi’ cheerfu’ face,
As lang’s the Muses dinna fail
To say the grace.
”
An anxious e’e I never throws
Behint my lug, or by my nose;
I jouk beneath Misfortune’s blows
As weel’s I may;
Sworn foe to sorrow, care, and prose,
I rhyme away.
O ye douce folk that live by rule,
Grave, tideless-blooded, calm an’cool,
Compar’d wi’ you—O fool! fool! fool!
How much unlike!
Your hearts are just a standing pool,
Your lives, a dyke!
Nae hair-brain’d, sentimental traces
In your unletter’d, nameless faces!
In arioso trills and graces
Ye never stray;
But gravissimo, solemn basses
Ye hum away.
Ye are sae grave, nae doubt ye’re wise;
Nae ferly tho’ ye do despise
The hairum-scairum, ram-stam boys,
The rattling squad:
I see ye upward cast your eyes—
Ye ken the road!
Whilst I—but I shall haud me there,
Wi’ you I’ll scarce gang ony where—
Then, Jamie, I shall say nae mair,
But quat my sang,
Content wi’ you to mak a pair.
Whare’er I gang.
Note 1.
George Dempster of Dunnichen, M.
P.
[back]
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Written by
William Topaz McGonagall |
Alas! now o'er the civilised world there hangs a gloom
For brave General Gordon, that was killed in Khartoum,
He was a Christian hero, and a soldier of the Cross,
And to England his death will be a very great loss.
He was very cool in temper, generous and brave,
The friend of the poor, the sick, and the slave;
And many a poor boy he did educate,
And laboured hard to do so early and late.
He was a man that did not care for worldly gear,
Because the living and true God he did fear;
And the hearts of the poor he liked to cheer,
And by his companions in arms he was loved most dear.
He always took the Bible for his guide,
And he liked little boys to walk by his side;
He preferred their company more so than men,
Because he knew there was less guile in them.
And in his conversation he was modest and plain,
Denouncing all pleasures he considered sinful and vain,
And in battle he carried no weapon but a small cane,
Whilst the bullets fell around him like a shower of rain.
He burnt the debtors' books that were imprisoned in Khartoum,
And freed them from a dismal prison gloom,
Those that were imprisoned for debt they couldn't pay,
And sent them rejoicing on their way.
While engaged in the Russian war, in the midst of the fight,
He stood upon a rising ground and viewed them left and right,
But for their shot and shell he didn't care a jot,
While the officers cried, Gordon, come down, or else you'll be shot.
His cane was christened by the soldiers Gordon's wand of victory
And when he waved it the soldiers' hearts were filled with glee
While with voice and gesture he encouraged them in the strife,
And he himself appeared to possess a charmed life.
Once when leading a storming party the soldiers drew back,
But he quickly observed that courage they did lack,
Then he calmly lighted a cigar, and turned cheerfully found,
And the soldiers rushed boldly on with a bound.
And they carried the position without delay,
And the Chinese rebels soon gave way,
Because God was with him during the day,
And with those that trust Him for ever and aye.
He was always willing to conduct meetings for the poor,
Also meat and clothing for them he tried to procure,
And he always had little humorous speeches at command,
And to hear him deliver them it must have been grand.
In military life his equal couldn't he found,
No! if you were to search the wide world around,
And 'tis pitiful to think he has met with such a doom
By a base traitor knave while in Khartoum.
Yes, the black-hearted traitor opened the gates of Khartoum,
And through that the Christian hero has met his doom,
For when the gates were opened the Arabs rushed madly in,
And foully murdered him while they laughingly did grin.
But he defended himself nobly with axe and sword in hand,
But, alas! he was soon overpowered by that savage band,
And his body received a hundred spear wounds and more,
While his murderers exultingly did loudly shriek and roar.
But heaven's will,'tis said, must be done,
And according to his own opinion his time was come;
But I hope he is now in heaven reaping his reward.
Although his fate on earth was really very hard.
I hope the people will his memory revere,
And take an example from him, and worship God in fear,
And never be too fond of worldly gear,
And walk in General Gordon's footsteps, while they are here.
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Written by
William Strode |
Though after Death, Thanks lessen into Praise,
And Worthies be not crown'd with gold, but bayes;
Shall we not thank? To praise Thee all agree;
We Debtors must out doe it, heartily.
Deserved Nobility of True Descent,
Though not so old in Thee grew Ancient:
We number not the Tree of Branched Birth,
But genealogie of Vertue, spreading forth
To many Births in value.
Piety,
True Valour, Bounty, Meeknesse, Modesty,
These noble off-springs swell Thy Name as much,
As Richards, Edwards, three, foure, twenty such:
For in thy Person's linage surnam'd are
The great, the good, the wise, the just, the faire.
One of these stiles innobles a whole stemme;
If all be found in One, what race like him!
Long stayres of birth, unlesse they likewise grow
To higher vertue, must descend more low.
When water comes through numerous veins of lead,
'Tis water still; Thy blood, from One pipe's head,
Grew Aqua-vit? streight, with spirits fill'd,
As not traduc'd, but rais'd, sublim'd, distill'd.
Nobility farre spread, I may behold,
Like the expanded skie, or dissolv'd gold,
Much rarified; I see't contracted here
Into a starre, the strength of all the spheare;
Extracted like the Elixir from the mine,
And highten'd so that 'tis too soone divine.
Divinity continues not beneath;
Alas nor He; but though He passe by death,
He that for many liv'd, gaines many lives
After hee's dead: Each friend and servant strives
To give him breath in praise; this Hospital,
That Prison, Colledge, Church, must needs recall
To mind their Patron; whose rich legacies
In forreigne lands, and under other skies
To them assign'd, shew that his heart did even
In France love England, as in England Heaven:
Heav'n well perceiv'd this double pious love,
Both to his Country here, and that above:
Therefore the day, that saw Him landed here,
Hath seen him landed in his Haven there;
The selfe-same day (but two yeares interpos'd)
Saw Sun and Him round shining twice & clos'd.
No Citizen so covetous could be
Of getting wealth, as of bestowing, He;
His Body and Estate went as they came,
Stript of Appendix Both, and left the same
But in th' Originall; Necessity
Devested one, the other Charity.
It cost him more to clothe his soule in death,
Than e're to cloth his flesh for short-liv'd breath;
And whereas Lawes exact from Niggards dead
A Portion for the Poore, they now are said
To moderate His Bounty; never such
Was known but once, that men should give too much:
A Tabernacle then was built, and now
The like in heav'n is purchas'd: Learn you how;
Partly by building Men, and partly by
Erecting walls, by new-found Chymistry,
Turning of Gold to Stones.
Our Christ-Church Pile,
Great Henrie's Monument, shall grow awhile
With Bayning's Treasure; who a way hath took.
Like those at Westminster, to fill a nook
'Mongst beds of Kings.
Thus speak, speak while we may
For Stones will speak when We are hush'd in Clay.
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