Written by
Jack Gilbert |
How astonishing it is that language can almost mean,
and frightening that it does not quite. Love, we say,
God, we say, Rome and Michiko, we write, and the words
get it all wrong. We say bread and it means according
to which nation. French has no word for home,
and we have no word for strict pleasure. A people
in northern India is dying out because their ancient
tongue has no words for endearment. I dream of lost
vocabularies that might express some of what
we no longer can. Maybe the Etruscan texts would
finally explain why the couples on their tombs
are smiling. And maybe not. When the thousands
of mysterious Sumerian tablets were translated,
they seemed to be business records. But what if they
are poems or psalms? My joy is the same as twelve
Ethiopian goats standing silent in the morning light.
O Lord, thou art slabs of salt and ingots of copper,
as grand as ripe barley lithe under the wind's labor.
Her breasts are six white oxen loaded with bolts
of long-fibered Egyptian cotton. My love is a hundred
pitchers of honey. Shiploads of thuya are what
my body wants to say to your body. Giraffes are this
desire in the dark. Perhaps the spiral Minoan script
is not laguage but a map. What we feel most has
no name but amber, archers, cinnamon, horses, and birds.
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Written by
Robert Francis |
Lingo of birds was easier than lingo of peasants-
they were elusive, though, the birds, for excellent reasons.
He thought of Virgil, Virgil who wasn't there to chat with.
History he never forgave for letting Latin
lapse into Italian, a renegade jabbering
musical enough but not enough to call music
So he conversed with stones, imperial and papal.
Even the preposterous popes he could condone
a moment for the clean arrogance of their inscriptions.
He asked the Italians only to leave him in the past
alone, but this was what they emphatically never did.
Being the present, they never ceased to celebrate it.
Something was always brushing him on the street, satyr
or saint-impossible to say which the more foreign.
At home he was called touchy; here he knew he was.
Impossible to say. The dazzling nude with sex
lovingly displayed like carven fruit, the black
robe sweeping a holy and unholy dust.
Always the flesh whether to lacerate of kiss-
Conspiracy of fauns and clerics smiling back
and forth at each other acquiescently through leaves.
Caught between wan monastic mountains wearing the tonsure
and the all-siren, ever-dimpling sea, he saw
(how could he fail?) at heart geography to blame.
So home to Concord where (as he might have known he would)
he found the Italy he wanted to remember.
Why had he sailed if not for the savour of returning?
An Italy distilled of all extreme, conflict,
Collusion-an Italy without the Italians-
in whose green context he could con again his Virgil.
In cedar he read cypress, in the wild apple, olive.
His hills would stand up favorably to the hills of Rome.
His arrowheads could hold their own with are Etruscan.
And Walden clearly was his Mediterranean
whose infinite colors were his picture gallery.
How far his little boat transported him-how far.
He coughed discreetly and we likewise coughed;
we waited and we heard him clear his throat.
How to be perfect prisoners of the past
this was the thing but now he too is past.
Shall we go sit beside the Mississippi
and watch the riffraft driftwood floating by?
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Written by
Richard Wilbur |
Dream fluently, still brothers, who when young
Took with your mother's milk the mother tongue,
In which pure matrix, joining world and mind,
You strove to leave some line of verse behind
Like still fresh tracks across a field of snow,
Not reckoning that all could melt and go.
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Written by
Horace |
Enough of snow and hail at last
The Sire has sent in vengeance down:
His bolts, at His own temple cast,
Appall'd the town,
Appall'd the lands, lest Pyrrha's time
Return, with all its monstrous sights,
When Proteus led his flocks to climb
The flatten'd heights,
When fish were in the elm-tops caught,
Where once the stock-dove wont to bide,
And does were floating, all distraught,
Adown the tide.
Old Tiber, hurl'd in tumult back
From mingling with the Etruscan main,
Has threaten'd Numa's court with wrack
And Vesta's fane.
Roused by his Ilia's plaintive woes,
He vows revenge for guiltless blood,
And, spite of Jove, his banks o'erflows,
Uxorious flood.
Yes, Fame shall tell of civic steel
That better Persian lives had spilt,
To youths, whose minish'd numbers feel
Their parents' guilt.
What god shall Rome invoke to stay
Her fall? Can suppliance overbear
The ear of Vesta, turn'd away
From chant and prayer?
Who comes, commission'd to atone
For crime like ours? at length appear,
A cloud round thy bright shoulders thrown,
Apollo seer!
Or Venus, laughter-loving dame,
Round whom gay Loves and Pleasures fly;
Or thou, if slighted sons may claim
A parent's eye,
O weary—with thy long, long game,
Who lov'st fierce shouts and helmets bright,
And Moorish warrior's glance of flame
Or e'er he smite!
Or Maia's son, if now awhile
In youthful guise we see thee here,
Caesar's avenger—such the style
Thou deign'st to bear;
Late be thy journey home, and long
Thy sojourn with Rome's family;
Nor let thy wrath at our great wrong
Lend wings to fly.
Here take our homage, Chief and Sire;
Here wreathe with bay thy conquering brow,
And bid the prancing Mede retire,
Our Caesar thou!
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Written by
Friedrich von Schiller |
What wonder this?--we ask the lympid well,
O earth! of thee--and from thy solemn womb
What yieldest thou?--is there life in the abyss--
Doth a new race beneath the lava dwell?
Returns the past, awakening from the tomb?
Rome--Greece!--Oh, come!--Behold--behold! for this!
Our living world--the old Pompeii sees;
And built anew the town of Dorian Hercules!
House upon house--its silent halls once more
Opes the broad portico!--Oh, haste and fill
Again those halls with life!--Oh, pour along
Through the seven-vista'd theatre the throng!
Where are ye, mimes?--Come forth, the steel prepare
For crowned Atrides, or Orestes haunt,
Ye choral Furies, with your dismal chant!
The arch of triumph!--whither leads it?--still
Behold the forum!--on the curule chair
Where the majestic image? Lictors, where
Your solemn fasces?--Place upon his throne
The Praetor--here the witness lead, and there
Bid the accuser stand
--O God! how lone
The clear streets glitter in the quiet day--
The footpath by the doors winding its lifeless way!
The roofs arise in shelter, and around
The desolate Atrium--every gentle room
Wears still the dear familiar smile of home!
Open the doors--the shops--on dreary night
Let lusty day laugh down in jocund light!
See the trim benches ranged in order!--See
The marble-tesselated floor--and there
The very walls are glittering livingly
With their clear colors. But the artist, where!
Sure but this instant he hath laid aside
Pencil and colors!--Glittering on the eye
Swell the rich fruits, and bloom the flowers!--See all
Art's gentle wreaths still fresh upon the wall!
Here the arch Cupid slyly seems to glide
By with bloom-laden basket. There the shapes
Of genii press with purpling feet the grapes,
Here springs the wild Bacchante to the dance,
And there she sleeps [while that voluptuous trance
Eyes the sly faun with never-sated glance]
Now on one knee upon the centaur-steeds
Hovering--the Thyrsus plies.--Hurrah!--away she speeds!
Come--come, why loiter ye?--Here, here, how fair
The goodly vessels still! Girls, hither turn,
Fill from the fountain the Etruscan urn!
On the winged sphinxes see the tripod.-- Ho!
Quick--quick, ye slaves, come--fire!--the hearth prepare!
Ha! wilt thou sell?--this coin shall pay thee--this,
Fresh from the mint of mighty Titus!--Lo!
Here lie the scales, and not a weight we miss
So--bring the light! The delicate lamp!--what toil
Shaped thy minutest grace!--quick pour the oil!
Yonder the fairy chest!--come, maid, behold
The bridegroom's gifts--the armlets--they are gold,
And paste out-feigning jewels!--lead the bride
Into the odorous bath--lo! unguents still--
And still the crystal vase the arts for beauty fill!
But where the men of old--perchance a prize
More precious yet in yon papyrus lies,
And see ev'n still the tokens of their toil--
The waxen tablets--the recording style.
The earth, with faithful watch, has hoarded all!
Still stand the mute penates in the hall;
Back to his haunts returns each ancient god.
Why absent only from their ancient stand
The priests?--waves Hermes his Caducean rod,
And the winged victory struggles from the hand.
Kindle the flame--behold the altar there!
Long hath the god been worshipless--to prayer.
|
Written by
Emily Dickinson |
Unto like Story -- Trouble has enticed me --
How Kinsmen fell --
Brothers and Sister -- who preferred the Glory --
And their young will
Bent to the Scaffold, or in Dungeons -- chanted --
Till God's full time --
When they let go the ignominy -- smiling --
And Shame went still --
Unto guessed Crests, my moaning fancy, leads me,
Worn fair
By Heads rejected -- in the lower country --
Of honors there --
Such spirit makes her perpetual mention,
That I -- grown bold --
Step martial -- at my Crucifixion --
As Trumpets -- rolled --
Feet, small as mine -- have marched in Revolution
Firm to the Drum --
Hands -- not so stout -- hoisted them -- in witness --
When Speech went numb --
Let me not shame their sublime deportments --
Drilled bright --
Beckoning -- Etruscan invitation --
Toward Light --
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Written by
Jorie Graham |
In this blue light
I can take you there,
snow having made me
a world of bone
seen through to. This
is my house,
my section of Etruscan
wall, my neighbor's
lemontrees, and, just below
the lower church,
the airplane factory.
A rooster
crows all day from mist
outside the walls.
There's milk on the air,
ice on the oily
lemonskins. How clean
the mind is,
holy grave. It is this girl
by Piero
della Francesca, unbuttoning
her blue dress,
her mantle of weather,
to go into
labor. Come, we can go in.
It is before
the birth of god. No one
has risen yet
to the museums, to the assembly
line--bodies
and wings--to the open air
market. This is
what the living do: go in.
It's a long way.
And the dress keeps opening
from eternity
to privacy, quickening.
Inside, at the heart,
is tragedy, the present moment
forever stillborn,
but going in, each breath
is a button
coming undone, something terribly
nimble-fingered
finding all of the stops.
|
Written by
Emily Dickinson |
The Moon upon her fluent Route
Defiant of a Road --
The Star's Etruscan Argument
Substantiate a God --
If Aims impel these Astral Ones
The ones allowed to know
Know that which makes them as forgot
As Dawn forgets them -- now --
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