Written by
Lewis Carroll |
With saddest music all day long
She soothed her secret sorrow:
At night she sighed "I fear 'twas wrong
Such cheerful words to borrow.
Dearest, a sweeter, sadder song
I'll sing to thee to-morrow.
"
I thanked her, but I could not say
That I was glad to hear it:
I left the house at break of day,
And did not venture near it
Till time, I hoped, had worn away
Her grief, for nought could cheer it!
My dismal sister! Couldst thou know
The wretched home thou keepest!
Thy brother, drowned in daily woe,
Is thankful when thou sleepest;
For if I laugh, however low,
When thou'rt awake, thou weepest!
I took my sister t'other day
(Excuse the slang expression)
To Sadler's Wells to see the play
In hopes the new impression
Might in her thoughts, from grave to gay
Effect some slight digression.
I asked three gay young dogs from town
To join us in our folly,
Whose mirth, I thought, might serve to drown
My sister's melancholy:
The lively Jones, the sportive Brown,
And Robinson the jolly.
The maid announced the meal in tones
That I myself had taught her,
Meant to allay my sister's moans
Like oil on troubled water:
I rushed to Jones, the lively Jones,
And begged him to escort her.
Vainly he strove, with ready wit,
To joke about the weather -
To ventilate the last 'ON DIT' -
To quote the price of leather -
She groaned "Here I and Sorrow sit:
Let us lament together!"
I urged "You're wasting time, you know:
Delay will spoil the venison.
"
"My heart is wasted with my woe!
There is no rest - in Venice, on
The Bridge of Sighs!" she quoted low
From Byron and from Tennyson.
I need not tell of soup and fish
In solemn silence swallowed,
The sobs that ushered in each dish,
And its departure followed,
Nor yet my suicidal wish
To BE the cheese I hollowed.
Some desperate attempts were made
To start a conversation;
"Madam," the sportive Brown essayed,
"Which kind of recreation,
Hunting or fishing, have you made
Your special occupation?"
Her lips curved downwards instantly,
As if of india-rubber.
"Hounds IN FULL CRY I like," said she:
(Oh how I longed to snub her!)
"Of fish, a whale's the one for me,
IT IS SO FULL OF BLUBBER!"
The night's performance was "King John.
"
"It's dull," she wept, "and so-so!"
Awhile I let her tears flow on,
She said they soothed her woe so!
At length the curtain rose upon
'Bombastes Furioso.
'
In vain we roared; in vain we tried
To rouse her into laughter:
Her pensive glances wandered wide
From orchestra to rafter -
"TIER UPON TIER!" she said, and sighed;
And silence followed after.
|
Written by
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow |
L'eternite est une pendule, dont le balancier dit et redit sans
cesse ces deux mots seulement dans le silence des tombeaux:
"Toujours! jamais! Jamais! toujours!"--JACQUES BRIDAINE.
Somewhat back from the village street
Stands the old-fashioned country-seat.
Across its antique portico
Tall poplar-trees their shadows throw;
And from its station in the hall
An ancient timepiece says to all,--
"Forever--never!
Never--forever!"
Half-way up the stairs it stands,
And points and beckons with its hands
From its case of massive oak,
Like a monk, who, under his cloak,
Crosses himself, and sighs, alas!
With sorrowful voice to all who pass,--
"Forever--never!
Never--forever!"
By day its voice is low and light;
But in the silent dead of night,
Distinct as a passing footstep's fall,
It echoes along the vacant hall,
Along the ceiling, along the floor,
And seems to say, at each chamber-door,--
"Forever--never!
Never--forever!"
Through days of sorrow and of mirth,
Through days of death and days of birth,
Through every swift vicissitude
Of changeful time, unchanged it has stood,
And as if, like God, it all things saw,
It calmly repeats those words of awe,--
"Forever--never!
Never--forever!"
In that mansion used to be
Free-hearted Hospitality;
His great fires up the chimney roared;
The stranger feasted at his board;
But, like the skeleton at the feast,
That warning timepiece never ceased,--
"Forever--never!
Never--forever!"
There groups of merry children played,
There youths and maidens dreaming strayed;
O precious hours! O golden prime,
And affluence of love and time!
Even as a Miser counts his gold,
Those hours the ancient timepiece told,--
"Forever--never!
Never--forever!"
From that chamber, clothed in white,
The bride came forth on her wedding night;
There, in that silent room below,
The dead lay in his shroud of snow;
And in the hush that followed the prayer,
Was heard the old clock on the stair,--
"Forever--never!
Never--forever!"
All are scattered now and fled,
Some are married, some are dead;
And when I ask, with throbs of pain.
"Ah! when shall they all meet again?"
As in the days long since gone by,
The ancient timepiece makes reply,--
"Forever--never!
Never--forever!
Never here, forever there,
Where all parting, pain, and care,
And death, and time shall disappear,--
Forever there, but never here!
The horologe of Eternity
Sayeth this incessantly,--
"Forever--never!
Never--forever!"
|
Written by
Victor Hugo |
("Qui leur eût dit l'austère destineé?")
{II. v., November, 1836.}
Who then, to them{1} had told the Future's story?
Or said that France, low bowed before their glory,
One day would mindful be
Of them and of their mournful fate no more,
Than of the wrecks its waters have swept o'er
The unremembering sea?
That their old Tuileries should see the fall
Of blazons from its high heraldic hall,
Dismantled, crumbling, prone;{2}
Or that, o'er yon dark Louvre's architrave{3}
A Corsican, as yet unborn, should grave
An eagle, then unknown?
That gay St. Cloud another lord awaited,
Or that in scenes Le Nôtre's art created
For princely sport and ease,
Crimean steeds, trampling the velvet glade,
Should browse the bark beneath the stately shade
Of the great Louis' trees?
Fraser's Magazine.
{Footnote 1: The young princes, afterwards Louis XVIII. and Charles X.}
{Footnote 2: The Tuileries, several times stormed by mobs, was so
irreparably injured by the Communists that, in 1882, the Paris Town
Council decided that the ruins should be cleared away.}
{Footnote 3: After the Eagle and the Bee superseded the Lily-flowers,
the Third Napoleon's initial "N" flourished for two decades, but has
been excised or plastered over, the words "National Property" or
"Liberty, Equality, Fraternity" being cut in the stone profusely.}
|
Written by
Charles Baudelaire |
Rappelez-vous l'objet que nous vîmes, mon âme,
Ce beau matin d'été si doux :
Au détour d'un sentier une charogne infame
Sur un lit semé de cailloux,
Les jambes en l'air, comme une femme lubrique,
Brûlante et suant les poisons,
Ouvrait d'une façon nonchalante et cynique
Son ventre plein d'exhalaisons.
Le soleil rayonnait sur cette pourriture,
Comme afin de la cuire à point,
Et de rendre au centuple à la grande nature
Tout ce qu'ensemble elle avait joint ;
Et le ciel regardait la carcasse superbe
Comme une fleur s'épanouir.
La puanteur etait si forte, que sur l'herbe
Vous crûtes vous évanouir.
Les mouches bourdonnaient sur ce ventre putride,
D'ou sortaient de noirs bataillons
De larves, qui coulaient comme un épais liquide
Le long de ces vivants haillons.
Tout cela descendait, montait comme une vague,
Ou s'élançait en pétillant ;
On eût dit que le corps, enflé d'un souffle vague,
Vivait en se multipliant.
Et ce monde rendait une étrange musique,
Comme l'eau courante et le vent,
Ou le grain qu'un vanneur d'un mouvement rythmique
Agite et tourne dans son van.
Les formes s'effaçaient et n'étaient plus qu'un rêve,
Une ébauche lente à venir,
Sur la toile oubliée, et que l'artiste achève
Seulement par le souvenir.
Derrière les rochers une chienne inquiete
Nous regardait d'un oeil fâché,
Épiant le moment de reprendre au squelette
Le morceau qu'elle avait lâché.
--Et poutant vous serez semblable à cette ordure,
A cette horrible infection,
Étoile de mes yeux, soleil de ma nature,
Vous, mon ange et ma passion!
Oui! telle vous serez, ô reine des grâces,
Apres les derniers sacrements,
Quand vous irez, sous l'herbe et les floraisons grasses.
Moisir parmi les ossements.
Alors, ô ma beauté! dites à la vermine
Qui vous mangera de baisers,
Que j'ai gardé la forme et l'essence divine
De mes amours décomposés !
|
Written by
Victor Hugo |
("Il s'est dit tant de fois.")
{III., May, 1830.}
How often have the people said: "What's power?"
Who reigns soon is dethroned? each fleeting hour
Has onward borne, as in a fevered dream,
Such quick reverses, like a judge supreme—
Austere but just, they contemplate the end
To which the current of events must tend.
Self-confidence has taught them to forbear,
And in the vastness of their strength, they spare.
Armed with impunity, for one in vain
Resists a nation, they let others reign.
G.W.M. REYNOLDS.
|
Written by
Ellis Parker Butler |
Upon Bottle Miche the autre day
While yet the nuit was early,
Je met a homme whose barbe was grey,
Whose cheveaux long and curly.
“Je am a poete, sir,” dit he,
“Je live where tres grande want teems—
I’m faim, sir.
Sil vous plait give me
Un franc or cinquatite centimes.
”
I donne him vingt big copper sous
But dit, “You moderne rhymers
The sacre poet name abuse—
Les poets were old timers.
”
“Je know! I know!” he wept, contrite;
“The bards no more suis mighty:
Ils rise no more in eleve flight,
Though some are beaucoup flighty.
“Vous wonder why Je weep this way,
Pour quoi these tears and blubbers?
It is mon fault les bards today
Helas! suis mere earth-grubbers.
“There was a time when tout might see
My grande flights dans the saddle;
Crowned rois, indeed, applauded me
Le Pegasus astraddle.
“Le winged horse avec acclaim
Was voted mon possession;
Je rode him tous les jours to fame;
Je led the whole procession.
“Then arrivee the Prussian war—
The siege—the sacre famine—
Then some had but a crust encore,
We mange the last least ham-an’
“Helas! Mon noble winged steed
Went oft avec no dinner;
On epics il refusee feed
And maigre grew, and thinner!
“Tout food was gone, and dans the street
Each homme sought crusts to sate him—
Joyeux were those with horse’s meat,
And Pegasus! Je ate him!”
My anger then Je could not hide—
To parler scarcely able
“Oh! curses dans you, sir!” Je cried;
“Vous human livery stable!”
He fled! But vous who read this know
Why mon pauvre verse is beaten
By that of cinquante years ago
‘Vant Pegasus fut eaten!
|
Written by
Victor Hugo |
("La tombe dit à la rose.")
{XXXI., June 3, 1837}
The Grave said to the rose
"What of the dews of dawn,
Love's flower, what end is theirs?"
"And what of spirits flown,
The souls whereon doth close
The tomb's mouth unawares?"
The Rose said to the Grave.
The Rose said: "In the shade
From the dawn's tears is made
A perfume faint and strange,
Amber and honey sweet."
"And all the spirits fleet
Do suffer a sky-change,
More strangely than the dew,
To God's own angels new,"
The Grave said to the Rose.
A. LANG.
|
Written by
Richard Brautigan |
La voyageuse qui traverse les Halles à la tombée de l'été
Marchait sur la pointe des pieds
Le désespoir roulait au ciel ses grands arums si beaux
Et dans le sac à main il y avait mon rêve ce flacon de sels
Que seule a respiré la marraine de Dieu
Les torpeurs se déployaient comme la buée
Au Chien qui fume
Ou venaient d'entrer le pour et le contre
La jeune femme ne pouvait être vue d'eux que mal et de biais
Avais-je affaire à l'ambassadrice du salpêtre
Ou de la courbe blanche sur fond noir que nous appelons pensée
Les lampions prenaient feu lentement dans les marronniers
La dame sans ombre s'agenouilla sur le Pont-au-Change
Rue Git-le-Coeur les timbres n'étaient plus les mêmes
Les promesses de nuits étaient enfin tenues
Les pigeons voyageurs les baisers de secours
Se joignaient aux seins de la belle inconnue
Dardés sous le crêpe des significations parfaites
Une ferme prospérait en plein Paris
Et ses fenêtres donnaient sur la voie lactée
Mais personne ne l'habitait encore à cause des survenants
Des survenants qu'on sait plus devoués que les revenants
Les uns comme cette femme ont l'air de nager
Et dans l'amour il entre un peu de leur substance
Elle les interiorise
Je ne suis le jouet d'aucune puissance sensorielle
Et pourtant le grillon qui chantait dans les cheveux de cendres
Un soir près de la statue d'Etienne Marcel
M'a jeté un coup d'oeil d'intelligence
a-t-il dit passe
|
Written by
Dimitris P Kraniotis |
Le goût des fruits
ne part pas
de ma bouche,
mais la tristesse des mots
détruit les nuages
et presse la neige
comptant les cailloux.
Mais toi,
tu m’as pas dit
pourquoi tu m’as trompe,
pourquoi avec la peine
et l’injuste tu voudrais
dire, que la fin
se brûle toujours
avec des larmes.
|
Written by
Victor Hugo |
("Oh! vous aurez trop dit.")
{Bk. III. xiv., April, 1843.}
Ah, you said too often to your angel
There are other angels in the sky—
There, where nothing changes, nothing suffers,
Sweet it were to enter in on high.
To that dome on marvellous pilasters,
To that tent roofed o'er with colored bars,
That blue garden full of stars like lilies,
And of lilies beautiful as stars.
And you said it was a place most joyous,
All our poor imaginings above,
With the wingèd cherubim for playmates,
And the good God evermore to love.
Sweet it were to dwell there in all seasons,
Like a taper burning day and night,
Near to the child Jesus and the Virgin,
In that home so beautiful and bright.
But you should have told him, hapless mother,
Told your child so frail and gentle too,
That you were all his in life's beginning,
But that also he belonged to you.
For the mother watches o'er the infant,
He must rise up in her latter days,
She will need the man that was her baby
To stand by her when her strength decays.
Ah, you did not tell enough your darling
That God made us in this lower life,
Woman for the man, and man for woman,
In our pains, our pleasures and our strife.
So that one sad day, O loss, O sorrow!
The sweet creature left you all alone;
'Twas your own hand hung the cage door open,
Mother, and your pretty bird is flown.
BP. ALEXANDER.
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