Written by
T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot |
Tra-la-la-la-la-la-laire—nil nisi divinum stabile est; caetera fumus—the gondola
stopped, the old palace was there, how charming its grey and pink—goats and
monkeys, with such hair too!—so the countess passed on until she came through the
little park, where Niobe presented her with a cabinet, and so departed.
BURBANK crossed a little bridge
Descending at a small hotel;
Princess Volupine arrived,
They were together, and he fell.
Defunctive music under sea
Passed seaward with the passing bell
Slowly: the God Hercules
Had left him, that had loved him well.
The horses, under the axletree
Beat up the dawn from Istria
With even feet. Her shuttered barge
Burned on the water all the day.
But this or such was Bleistein’s way:
A saggy bending of the knees
And elbows, with the palms turned out,
Chicago Semite Viennese.
A lustreless protrusive eye
Stares from the protozoic slime
At a perspective of Canaletto.
The smoky candle end of time
Declines. On the Rialto once.
The rats are underneath the piles.
The jew is underneath the lot.
Money in furs. The boatman smiles,
Princess Volupine extends
A meagre, blue-nailed, phthisic hand
To climb the waterstair. Lights, lights,
She entertains Sir Ferdinand
Klein. Who clipped the lion’s wings
And flea’d his rump and pared his claws?
Thought Burbank, meditating on
Time’s ruins, and the seven laws.
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Written by
Marge Piercy |
Man stomping over my bed in boots
carrying a large bronze church bell
which you occasionally drop:
gross man with iron heels
who drags coffins to and fro at four in the morning,
who hammers on scaffolding all night long,
who entertains sumo wrestlers and fat acrobats--
I pass you on the steps, we smile and nod.
Rage swells in me like gas.
Now rage too keeps me awake.
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Written by
Dorothy Parker |
I. The Minor Poet
His little trills and chirpings were his best.
No music like the nightingale's was born
Within his throat; but he, too, laid his breast
Upon a thorn.
II. The Pretty Lady
She hated bleak and wintry things alone.
All that was warm and quick, she loved too well-
A light, a flame, a heart against her own;
It is forever bitter cold, in Hell.
III. The Very Rich Man
He'd have the best, and that was none too good;
No barrier could hold, before his terms.
He lies below, correct in cypress wood,
And entertains the most exclusive worms.
IV. The Fisherwoman
The man she had was kind and clean
And well enough for every day,
But, oh, dear friends, you should have seen
The one that got away!
V. The Crusader
Arrived in Heaven, when his sands were run,
He seized a quill, and sat him down to tell
The local press that something should be done
About that noisy nuisance, Gabriel.
VI. The Actress
Her name, cut clear upon this marble cross,
Shines, as it shone when she was still on earth;
While tenderly the mild, agreeable moss
Obscures the figures of her date of birth.
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Written by
Emily Dickinson |
The Sun and Moon must make their haste --
The Stars express around
For in the Zones of Paradise
The Lord alone is burned --
His Eye, it is the East and West --
The North and South when He
Do concentrate His Countenance
Like Glow Worms, flee away --
Oh Poor and Far --
Oh Hindred Eye
That hunted for the Day --
The Lord a Candle entertains
Entirely for Thee --
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Written by
Omar Khayyam |
While I was drawing a horoscope in the book of love,
suddenly, from the burning heart of a wise man came
these words. Happy is he who entertains in his dwelling
a friend as beautiful as the moon, and who has in prospect
a night as long as a year!
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Written by
Emily Dickinson |
To tell the Beauty would decrease
To state the Spell demean --
There is a syllable-less Sea
Of which it is the sign --
My will endeavors for its word
And fails, but entertains
A Rapture as of Legacies --
Of introspective Mines --
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