Written by
Anonymous |
Wild and fearful in his cavern
Hid the naked troglodyte,
And the homeless nomad wandered
Laying waste the fertile plain.
Menacing with spear and arrow
In the woods the hunter strayed .
.
.
Woe to all poor wreteches stranded
On those cruel and hostile shores!
From the peak of high Olympus
Came the mother Ceres down,
Seeeking in those savage regions
Her lost daughter Prosperine.
But the Goddess found no refuge,
Found no kindly welcome there,
And no temple bearing witness
To the worship of the gods.
From the fields and from the vineyards
Came no fruit to deck the feasts,
Only flesh of blood-stained victims
Smouldered on the alter-fires,
And where'er the grieving goddess
Turns her melancholy gaze,
Sunk in vilest degradation
Man his loathsomeness displays.
Would he purge his soul from vileness
And attain to light and worth,
He must turn and cling forever
To his ancient Mother Earth.
Joy everlasting fostereth
The soul of all creation,
It is her secret ferment fires
The cup of life with flame.
'Tis at her beck the grass hath turned
Each blade toward the light
and solar systems have evolved
From chaos and dark night,
Filling the realms of boundless space
Beyond the sage's sight.
At bounteous nature's kindly breast,
All things that breath drink Joy,
And bird and beasts and creaping things
All follow where she leads.
Her gifts to man are friends in need,
The wreath, the foaming must,
To angels -- visions of God's throne,
To insects -- sensual lust.
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Written by
Jonathan Swift |
As, when a lofty pile is raised,
We never hear the workmen praised,
Who bring the lime, or place the stones;
But all admire Inigo Jones:
So, if this pile of scattered rhymes
Should be approved in aftertimes;
If it both pleases and endures,
The merit and the praise are yours.
Thou, Stella, wert no longer young,
When first for thee my harp was strung,
Without one word of Cupid's darts,
Of killing eyes, or bleeding hearts;
With friendship and esteem possest,
I ne'er admitted Love a guest.
In all the habitudes of life,
The friend, the mistress, and the wife,
Variety we still pursue,
In pleasure seek for something new;
Or else, comparing with the rest,
Take comfort that our own is best;
The best we value by the worst,
As tradesmen show their trash at first;
But his pursuits are at an end,
Whom Stella chooses for a friend.
A poet starving in a garret,
Invokes his mistress and his Muse,
And stays at home for want of shoes:
Should but his Muse descending drop
A slice of bread and mutton-chop;
Or kindly, when his credit's out,
Surprise him with a pint of stout;
Or patch his broken stocking soles;
Or send him in a peck of coals;
Exalted in his mighty mind,
He flies and leaves the stars behind;
Counts all his labours amply paid,
Adores her for the timely aid.
Or, should a porter make inquiries
For Chloe, Sylvia, Phillis, Iris;
Be told the lodging, lane, and sign,
The bowers that hold those nymphs divine;
Fair Chloe would perhaps be found
With footmen tippling under ground;
The charming Sylvia beating flax,
Her shoulders marked with bloody tracks;
Bright Phyllis mending ragged smocks:
And radiant Iris in the pox.
These are the goddesses enrolled
In Curll's collection, new and old,
Whose scoundrel fathers would not know 'em,
If they should meet them in a poem.
True poets can depress and raise,
Are lords of infamy and praise;
They are not scurrilous in satire,
Nor will in panegyric flatter.
Unjustly poets we asperse;
Truth shines the brighter clad in verse,
And all the fictions they pursue
Do but insinuate what is true.
Now, should my praises owe their truth
To beauty, dress, or paint, or youth,
What stoics call without our power,
They could not be ensured an hour;
'Twere grafting on an annual stock,
That must our expectation mock,
And, making one luxuriant shoot,
Die the next year for want of root:
Before I could my verses bring,
Perhaps you're quite another thing.
So Maevius, when he drained his skull
To celebrate some suburb trull,
His similes in order set,
And every crambo he could get;
Had gone through all the common-places
Worn out by wits, who rhyme on faces;
Before he could his poem close,
The lovely nymph had lost her nose.
Your virtues safely I commend;
They on no accidents depend:
Let malice look with all her eyes,
She dare not say the poet lies.
Stella, when you these lines transcribe,
Lest you should take them for a bribe,
Resolved to mortify your pride,
I'll here expose your weaker side.
Your spirits kindle to a flame,
Moved by the lightest touch of blame;
And when a friend in kindness tries
To show you where your error lies,
Conviction does but more incense;
Perverseness is your whole defence;
Truth, judgment, wit, give place to spite,
Regardless both of wrong and right;
Your virtues all suspended wait,
Till time has opened reason's gate;
And, what is worse, your passion bends
Its force against your nearest friends,
Which manners, decency, and pride,
Have taught from you the world to hide;
In vain; for see, your friend has brought
To public light your only fault;
And yet a fault we often find
Mixed in a noble, generous mind:
And may compare to Etna's fire,
Which, though with trembling, all admire;
The heat that makes the summit glow,
Enriching all the vales below.
Those who, in warmer climes, complain
From Phoebus' rays they suffer pain,
Must own that pain is largely paid
By generous wines beneath a shade.
Yet, when I find your passions rise,
And anger sparkling in your eyes,
I grieve those spirits should be spent,
For nobler ends by nature meant.
One passion, with a different turn,
Makes wit inflame, or anger burn:
So the sun's heat, with different powers,
Ripens the grape, the liquor sours:
Thus Ajax, when with rage possest,
By Pallas breathed into his breast,
His valour would no more employ,
Which might alone have conquered Troy;
But, blinded be resentment, seeks
For vengeance on his friends the Greeks.
You think this turbulence of blood
From stagnating preserves the flood,
Which, thus fermenting by degrees,
Exalts the spirits, sinks the lees.
Stella, for once your reason wrong;
For, should this ferment last too long,
By time subsiding, you may find
Nothing but acid left behind;
From passion you may then be freed,
When peevishness and spleen succeed.
Say, Stella, when you copy next,
Will you keep strictly to the text?
Dare you let these reproaches stand,
And to your failing set your hand?
Or, if these lines your anger fire,
Shall they in baser flames expire?
Whene'er they burn, if burn they must,
They'll prove my accusation just.
|
Written by
Amy Lowell |
Now what in the name of the sun and the stars
Is the meaning of this most unholy of wars?
Do men find life so full of humour and joy
That for want of excitement they smash up the toy?
Fifteen millions of soldiers with popguns and horses
All bent upon killing, because their "of courses"
Are not quite the same.
All these men by the ears,
And nine nations of women choking with tears.
It is folly to think that the will of a king
Can force men to make ducks and drakes of a thing
They value, and life is, at least one supposes,
Of some little interest, even if roses
Have not grown up between one foot and the other.
What a marvel bureaucracy is, which can smother
Such quite elementary feelings, and tag
A man with a number, and set him to wag
His legs and his arms at the word of command
Or the blow of a whistle! He's certainly damned,
Fit only for mince-meat, if a little gold lace
And an upturned moustache can set him to face
Bullets, and bayonets, and death, and diseases,
Because some one he calls his Emperor, pleases.
If each man were to lay down his weapon, and say,
With a click of his heels, "I wish you Good-day,"
Now what, may I ask, could the Emperor do?
A king and his minions are really so few.
Angry? Oh, of course, a most furious Emperor!
But the men are so many they need not mind his temper, or
The dire results which could not be inflicted.
With no one to execute sentence, convicted
Is just the weak wind from an old, broken bellows.
What lackeys men are, who might be such fine fellows!
To be killing each other, unmercifully,
At an order, as though one said, "Bring up the tea.
"
Or is it that tasting the blood on their jaws
They lap at it, drunk with its ferment, and laws
So patiently builded, are nothing to drinking
More blood, any blood.
They don't notice its stinking.
I don't suppose tigers do, fighting cocks, sparrows,
And, as to men -- what are men, when their marrows
Are running with blood they have gulped; it is plain
Such excellent sport does not recollect pain.
Toll the bells in the steeples left standing.
Half-mast
The flags which meant order, for order is past.
Take the dust of the streets and sprinkle your head,
The civilization we've worked for is dead.
Squeeze into this archway, the head of the line
Has just swung round the corner to `Die Wacht am Rhein'.
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Written by
Alan Seeger |
In that fair capital where Pleasure, crowned
Amidst her myriad courtiers, riots and rules,
I too have been a suitor.
Radiant eyes
Were my life's warmth and sunshine, outspread arms
My gilded deep horizons.
I rejoiced
In yielding to all amorous influence
And multiple impulsion of the flesh,
To feel within my being surge and sway
The force that all the stars acknowledge too.
Amid the nebulous humanity
Where I an atom crawled and cleaved and sundered,
I saw a million motions, but one law;
And from the city's splendor to my eyes
The vapors passed and there was nought but Love,
A ferment turbulent, intensely fair,
Where Beauty beckoned and where Strength pursued.
II
There was a time when I thought much of Fame,
And laid the golden edifice to be
That in the clear light of eternity
Should fitly house the glory of my name.
But swifter than my fingers pushed their plan,
Over the fair foundation scarce begun,
While I with lovers dallied in the sun,
The ivy clambered and the rose-vine ran.
And now, too late to see my vision, rise,
In place of golden pinnacles and towers,
Only some sunny mounds of leaves and flowers,
Only beloved of birds and butterflies.
My friends were duped, my favorers deceived;
But sometimes, musing sorrowfully there,
That flowered wreck has seemed to me so fair
I scarce regret the temple unachieved.
III
For there were nights .
.
.
my love to him whose brow
Has glistened with the spoils of nights like those,
Home turning as a conqueror turns home,
What time green dawn down every street uprears
Arches of triumph! He has drained as well
Joy's perfumed bowl and cried as I have cried:
Be Fame their mistress whom Love passes by.
This only matters: from some flowery bed,
Laden with sweetness like a homing bee,
If one have known what bliss it is to come,
Bearing on hands and breast and laughing lips
The fragrance of his youth's dear rose.
To him
The hills have bared their treasure, the far clouds
Unveiled the vision that o'er summer seas
Drew on his thirsting arms.
This last thing known,
He can court danger, laugh at perilous odds,
And, pillowed on a memory so sweet,
Unto oblivious eternity
Without regret yield his victorious soul,
The blessed pilgrim of a vow fulfilled.
IV
What is Success? Out of the endless ore
Of deep desire to coin the utmost gold
Of passionate memory; to have lived so well
That the fifth moon, when it swims up once more
Through orchard boughs where mating orioles build
And apple flowers unfold,
Find not of that dear need that all things tell
The heart unburdened nor the arms unfilled.
O Love, whereof my boyhood was the dream,
My youth the beautiful novitiate,
Life was so slight a thing and thou so great,
How could I make thee less than all-supreme!
In thy sweet transports not alone I thought
Mingled the twain that panted breast to breast.
The sun and stars throbbed with them; they were caught
Into the pulse of Nature and possessed
By the same light that consecrates it so.
Love! -- 'tis the payment of the debt we owe
The beauty of the world, and whensoe'er
In silks and perfume and unloosened hair
The loveliness of lovers, face to face,
Lies folded in the adorable embrace,
Doubt not as of a perfect sacrifice
That soul partakes whose inspiration fills
The springtime and the depth of summer skies,
The rainbow and the clouds behind the hills,
That excellence in earth and air and sea
That makes things as they are the real divinity.
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Written by
Alan Seeger |
I have sought Happiness, but it has been
A lovely rainbow, baffling all pursuit,
And tasted Pleasure, but it was a fruit
More fair of outward hue than sweet within.
Renouncing both, a flake in the ferment
Of battling hosts that conquer or recoil,
There only, chastened by fatigue and toil,
I knew what came the nearest to content.
For there at least my troubled flesh was free
From the gadfly Desire that plagued it so;
Discord and Strife were what I used to know,
Heartaches, deception, murderous jealousy;
By War transported far from all of these,
Amid the clash of arms I was at peace.
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Written by
Victor Hugo |
("Souvent quand mon esprit riche.")
{VII., May 18, 1828.}
When my mind, on the ocean of poesy hurled,
Floats on in repose round this wonderful world,
Oft the sacred fire from heaven—
Mysterious sun, that gives light to the soul—
Strikes mine with its ray, and above the pole
Its upward course is driven,
Like a wandering cloud, then, my eager thought
Capriciously flies, to no guidance brought,
With every quarter's wind;
It regards from those radiant vaults on high,
Earth's cities below, and again doth fly,
And leaves but its shadow behind.
In the glistening gold of the morning bright,
It shines, detaching some lance of light,
Or, as warrior's armor rings;
It forages forests that ferment around,
Or bathed in the sun-red gleams is found,
Where the west its radiance flings.
Or, on mountain peak, that rears its head
Where snow-clad Alps around are spread,
By furious gale 'tis thrown.
From the yawning abyss see the cloud scud away,
And the glacier appears, with its multiform ray,
The giant mountain's crown!
Like Parnassian pinnacle yet to be scaled,
In its form from afar, by the aspirant hailed;
On its side the rainbow plays,
And at eve, when the shadow sinks sleeping below,
The last slanting ray on its crest of snow
Makes its cap like a crater to blaze.
In the darkness, its front seems some pale orb of light,
The chamois with fear flashes on in its flight,
The eagle afar is driven;
The deluge but roars in despair to its feet,
And scarce dare the eye its aspect to meet,
So near doth it rise to heaven.
Alone on these altitudes, feeling no fear,
Forgetful of earth, my spirit draws near;
On the starry vault to gaze,
And nearer, to gaze on those glories of night,
On th' horizon high heaving, like arches of light,
Till again the sun shall blaze.
For then will the glacier with glory be graced,
On its prisms will light streaked with darkness be placed,
The morn its echoes greet;
Like a torrent it falls on the ocean of life,
Like Chaos unformed, with the sea-stormy strife,
When waters on waters meet.
As the spirit of poesy touches my thought,
It is thus my ideas in a circle are brought,
From earth, with the waters of pain.
As under a sunbeam a cloud ascends,
These fly to the heavens—their course never ends,
But descend to the ocean again.
Author of "Critical Essays."
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Written by
Alfred Austin |
SHE wanders in the April woods,
That glisten with the fallen shower;
She leans her face against the buds,
She stops, she stoops, she plucks a flower.
She feels the ferment of the hour:
She broodeth when the ringdove broods;
The sun and flying clouds have power
Upon her cheek and changing moods.
She cannot think she is alone,
As o’er her senses warmly steal
Floods of unrest she fears to own,
And almost dreads to feel.
Among the summer woodlands wide
Anew she roams, no more alone;
The joy she fear’d is at her side,
Spring’s blushing secret now is known.
The primrose and its mates have flown,
The thrush’s ringing note hath died;
But glancing eye and glowing tone
Fall on her from her god, her guide.
She knows not, asks not, what the goal,
She only feels she moves towards bliss,
And yields her pure unquestioning soul
To touch and fondling kiss.
And still she haunts those woodland ways,
Though all fond fancy finds there now
To mind of spring or summer days,
Are sodden trunk and songless bough.
The past sits widow’d on her brow,
Homeward she wends with wintry gaze,
To walls that house a hollow vow,
To hearth where love hath ceas’d to blaze:
Watches the clammy twilight wane,
With grief too fix’d for woe or tear;
And, with her forehead ’gainst the pane,
Envies the dying year.
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Written by
Andree Chedid |
Where is the distant voice
That speaks like my soul?
Buried beneath daylight's clamor
Gold and the seasons
Beneath groaning streets
And the ferment of cities
In my grave of care
And blond laughter
In what bare tomb must I lie
To summon the voice
That speaks like my soul?
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Written by
Emile Verhaeren |
Opening the mists on a sudden through,
An Avenue!
Then, all one ferment of varied gold,
With foam of plumes where the chamfrom bends
Round his horse's head, that no bit doth hold,
St. George descends!
The diamond-rayed caparison,
Makes of his flight one declining path
From Heaven's pity down upon
Our waiting earth.
Hero and Lord
Of the joyous, helpful virtues all.
Sonorous, pure and crystalline!
Let his radiance fall
On my heart nocturnal and make it shine
In the wheeling aureole of his sword!
Let the wind's soft silvern whispers sound
And ring his coat of mail around,
His battle-spurs amid the fight!
—He—the St. George—who shines so bright
And comes, 'mid the wailings of my desire.
To seize and lift my poor hands higher
Toward his dauntless valour's fire!
Like a cry great with faith, to God
His lance St. George upraised doth hold;
Crossing athwart my glance he trod.
As 'twere one tumult of haggard gold.
The chrism's glow on his forehead shone,
The great St. George of duty high!
Beautiful by his heart, and by
Himself alone!
Ring, all my voices of hope, ring on!
Ring forth in me
Beneath fresh boughs of greenery,
Down radiant pathways, full of sun;
Ye glints of silvery mica, be
Bright joy amid my stones—and ye
White pebbles that the waters strew.
Open your eyes in my brooklets, through
The watery lids that cover you;
Landscape of gushing springs and sun,
With gold that quivers on misty blue,
Landscape that dwells in me, hold thou
The mirror now
To the fiery flights, that flaming roll,
Of the great St. George toward my soul!
'Gainst the black Dragon's teeth and claws,
Against the armour of leprous sores,
The miracle and sword is he;
On his breast-plate burneth Charity,
And his gentleness sends hurtling back.
In dire defeat, the Instinct black.
Fires flecked with gold, that flashing turn,
Whirlwinds of stars, those glories meet,
About his galloping horse's feet.
Deep into my remembrance burn
Their lightnings fleet!
He comes, a fair ambassador,
From white lands built with marble o'er.
Where grows, in glades beside the sea,
Upon the tree
Of goodness, fragrant gentleness.
That haven, too, he knows no less
Where wondrous ships rock, calm and still.
That freights of sleeping angels fill;
And those vast evenings, when below
Upon the water, 'mid the skies'
Reflected eyes.
Islands flash sudden forth and glow.
That kingdom fair
Whereof the Virgin ariseth Queen,
Its lowly, ardent joy is he;
And his flaming sword in the ambient air
Vibrates like an ostensory—
The suddenly flashing St. George! behold,
He strikes through my soul like a fire of gold!
He knows from what far wanderings
I come: what mists obscure my brain;
What dagger marks have deeply scarred
My thought, and with black crosses marred:
With what spent force, what anger vain.
What petty scorn of better things,
—Yea, and with what a mask I came,
Folly upon the lees of shame!
A coward was I; the world I fled
To hide my head
Within a huge and futile Me;
I builded, beneath domes of Night,
The blocks of marble, gold be-starred,
Of a hostile science, endlessly
Towards a height
By oracles of blackness barred.
For Death alone is Queen of night.
And human effort is brightest born
Only at dawn.
With opening flowers would prayer fain bloom,
And their sweet lips hold the same perfume.
The sunbeams shimmering white that fall
On pearly water, are for all
Like a caress
Upon our life: the dawn unfolds
A counsel fair of trustfulness;
And whoso hearkens thereto is saved
From his slough, where never a sin was laved.
St. George in radiant armour came
Speeding along in leaps of flame
'Mid the sweet morning, through my soul.
Young, beautiful by faith was he;
He leaned the lower down toward me
Even as I the lowlier knelt;
Like some pure, golden cordial
In secret felt.
He filled me with his soaring strength,
And with sweet fear most tenderly.
Before that vision's dignity,
Into his pale, proud hand at length
I cast the blood my pain had spent.
Then, laying upon me as he went
A charge of valour, and the sign
Of the cross on my brow from his lance divine,
He sped upon his shining road
Straight, with my heart, towards his God.
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Written by
Emile Verhaeren |
So soon as our lips touch, we feel so much more luminous together that it would seem as though two Gods loved and united in us.
We feel our hearts to be so divinely fresh and so renewed by their virgin light that, in their brightness, the universe is made manifest to us.
In our eyes, joy is the only ferment of the world that ripens and becomes fruitful innumerably on our roads here below; as in clusters spring up among the silken lakes on which sails travel the myriad blossoms of the stars above.
Order dazzles us as fire embers, everything bathes us in its light and appears a torch to us: our simple words have a sense so lovely that we repeat them to hear them without end.
We are the sublime conquerors who vanquish eternity without pride and without a thought of trifling time: and our love seems to us always to have been.
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