Written by
Pablo Neruda |
Don't go far off, not even for a day
Don't go far off, not even for a day,
Because I don't know how to say it - a day is long
And I will be waiting for you, as in
An empty station when the trains are
Parked off somewhere else, asleep.
Don't leave me, even for an hour, because then
The little drops of anguish will all run together,
The smoke that roams looking for a home will drift
Into me, choking my lost heart.
Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve
On the beach, may your eyelids never flutter
Into the empty distance.
Don't LEAVE me for
A second, my dearest, because in that moment you'll
Have gone so far I'll wander mazily
Over all the earth, asking, will you
Come back? Will you leave me here, dying?
|
Written by
Anne Sexton |
1.
Old Man
Old man, it's four flights up and for what?
Your room is hardly bigger than your bed.
Puffing as you climb, you are a brown woodcut
stooped over the thin tail and the wornout tread.
The room will do.
All that's left of the old life
is jampacked on shelves from floor to ceiling
like a supermarket: your books, your dead wife
generously fat in her polished frame, the congealing
bowl of cornflakes sagging in their instant milk,
your hot plate and your one luxury, a telephone.
You leave your door open, lounging in maroon silk
and smiling at the other roomers who live alone.
Well, almost alone.
Through the old-fashioned wall
the fellow next door has a girl who comes to call.
Twice a week at noon during their lunch hour
they puase by your door to peer into your world.
They speak sadly as if the wine they carry would sour
or as if the mattress would not keep them curled
together, extravagantly young in their tight lock.
Old man, you are their father holding court
in the dingy hall until their alarm clock
rings and unwinds them.
You unstopper the quart
of brandy you've saved, examining the small print
in the telephone book.
The phone in your lap is all
that's left of your family name.
Like a Romanoff prince
you stay the same in your small alcove off the hall.
Castaway, your time is a flat sea that doesn't stop,
with no new land to make for and no new stories to swap.
2.
Seamstress
I'm at pains to know what else I could have done
but move him out of his parish, him being my son;
him being the only one at home since his Pa
left us to beat the Japs at Okinawa.
I put the gold star up in the front window
beside the flag.
Alterations is what I know
and what I did: hems, gussets and seams.
When my boy had the fever and the bad dreams
I paid for the clinic exam and a pack of lies.
As a youngster his private parts were undersize.
I thought of his Pa, that muscly old laugh he had
and the boy was thin as a moth, but never once bad,
as smart as a rooster! To hear some neighbors tell,
Your kid! He'll go far.
He'll marry well.
So when he talked of taking the cloth, I thought
I'd talk him out of it.
You're all I got,
I told him.
For six years he studied up.
I prayed
against God Himself for my boy.
But he stayed.
Christ was a hornet inside his head.
I guess
I'd better stitch the zipper in this dress.
I guess I'll get along.
I always did.
Across the hall from me's an old invalid,
aside of him, a young one -- he carries on
with a girl who pretends she comes to use the john.
The old one with the bad breath and his bed all mussed,
he smiles and talks to them.
He's got some crust.
Sure as hell, what else could I have done
but pack up and move in here, him being my son?
3.
Young Girl
Dear love, as simple as some distant evil
we walk a little drunk up these three flughts
where you tacked a Dufy print above your army cot.
The thin apartment doors on the way up will
not tell us.
We are saying, we have our rights
and let them see the sandwiches and wine we bought
for we do not explain my husband's insane abuse
and we do not say why your wild-haired wife has fled
or that my father opened like a walnut and then was dead.
Your palms fold over me like knees.
Love is the only use.
Both a little drunk in the afternoon
with the forgotten smart of August on our skin
we hold hands as if we were still children who trudge
up the wooden tower, on up past that close platoon
of doors, past the dear old man who always asks us in
and the one who sews like a wasp and will not budge.
Climbing the dark halls, I ignore their papers and pails,
the twelve coats of rubbish of someone else's dim life.
Tell them need is an excuse for love.
Tell them need prevails.
Tell them I remake and smooth your bed and am your wife.
|
Written by
Pablo Neruda |
Don't go far off, not even for a day, because --
because -- I don't know how to say it: a day is long
and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station
when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep.
Don't leave me, even for an hour, because
then the little drops of anguish will all run together,
the smoke that roams looking for a home will drift
into me, choking my lost heart.
Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve on the beach;
may your eyelids never flutter into the empty distance.
Don't leave me for a second, my dearest,
because in that moment you'll have gone so far
I'll wander mazily over all the earth, asking,
Will you come back? Will you leave me here, dying?
|
Written by
Ben Jonson |
FALSE world good night! since thou hast brought
That hour upon my morn of age;
Henceforth I quit thee from my thought
My part is ended on thy stage.
Yes threaten do.
Alas! I fear 5
As little as I hope from thee:
I know thou canst not show nor bear
More hatred than thou hast to me.
My tender first and simple years
Thou didst abuse and then betray; 10
Since stir'd'st up jealousies and fears
When all the causes were away.
Then in a soil hast planted me
Where breathe the basest of thy fools;
Where envious arts profess¨¨d be 15
And pride and ignorance the schools;
Where nothing is examined weigh'd
But as 'tis rumour'd so believed;
Where every freedom is betray'd
And every goodness tax'd or grieved.
20
But what we're born for we must bear:
Our frail condition it is such
That what to all may happen here
If 't chance to me I must not grutch.
Else I my state should much mistake 25
To harbour a divided thought
From all my kind¡ªthat for my sake
There should a miracle be wrought.
No I do know that I was born
To age misfortune sickness grief: 30
But I will bear these with that scorn
As shall not need thy false relief.
Nor for my peace will I go far
As wanderers do that still do roam;
But make my strengths such as they are 35
Here in my bosom and at home.
|
Written by
Robert William Service |
There's a race of men that don't fit in,
A race that can't stay still;
So they break the hearts of kith and kin,
And they roam the world at will.
They range the field and they rove the flood,
And they climb the mountain's crest;
Theirs is the curse of the gypsy blood,
And they don't know how to rest.
If they just went straight they might go far;
They are strong and brave and true;
But they're always tired of the things that are,
And they want the strange and new.
They say: "Could I find my proper groove,
What a deep mark I would make!"
So they chop and change, and each fresh move
Is only a fresh mistake.
And each forgets, as he strips and runs
With a brilliant, fitful pace,
It's the steady, quiet, plodding ones
Who win in the lifelong race.
And each forgets that his youth has fled,
Forgets that his prime is past,
Till he stands one day, with a hope that's dead,
In the glare of the truth at last.
He has failed, he has failed; he has missed his chance;
He has just done things by half.
Life's been a jolly good joke on him,
And now is the time to laugh.
Ha, ha! He is one of the Legion Lost;
He was never meant to win;
He's a rolling stone, and it's bred in the bone;
He's a man who won't fit in.
|
Written by
Ben Jonson |
IV.
— TO THE WORLD.
A Farewell for a Gentlewoman, virtuous and noble.
My part is ended on thy stage.
Do not once hope that thou canst tempt
A spirit so resolv'd to tread
Upon thy throat, and live exempt
From all the nets that thou canst spread.
I know thy forms are studied arts,
Thy subtle ways be narrow straits ;
I know too, though thou strut and paint,
Yet art thou both shrunk up, and old,
That only fools make thee a saint,
And all thy good is to be sold.
I know thou whole are but a shop
Of toys and trifles, traps and snares,
To take the weak, or make them stop :
Yet art thou falser than thy wares.
And, knowing this, should I yet stay,
Like such as blow away their lives,
And never will redeem a day,
Enamour'd of their golden gyves ?
Or having 'scaped shall I return,
And thrust my neck into the noose,
From whence so lately, I did burn,
With all my powers, myself to loose ?
What bird, or beast is known so dull,
That fled his cage, or broke his chain,
If these who have but sense, can shun
The engines, that have them annoy'd ;
Little for me had reason done,
If I could not thy gins avoid.
Yes, threaten, do.
Alas, I fear
As little, as I hope from thee :
I know thou canst nor shew, nor bear
More hatred, than thou hast to me.
My tender, first, and simple years
Thou didst abuse, and then betray ;
Since stirr'dst up jealousies and fears,
When all the causes were away.
Then in a soil hast planted me,
Where breathe the basest of thy fools,
Where envious arts professed be,
And pride and ignorance the schools :
Where nothing is examin'd, weigh'd,
But as 'tis rumour'd, so believed ;
But what we're born for, we must bear :
Our frail condition it is such,
That what to all may happen here,
If't chance to me, I must not grutch.
Else I my state should much mistake,
To harbor a divided thought
From all my kind ; that for my sake,
There should a miracle be wrought.
No, I do know that I was born
To age, misfortune, sickness, grief :
But I will bear these with that scorn,
As shall not need thy false relief.
Nor for my peace will I go far,
As wanderers do, that still do roam ;
But make my strengths, such as they are,
Here in my bosom, and at home.
That hour upon any morn of age,
Henceforth I quit thee from my thought,
My part is ended on thy stage.
Do not once hope that thou canst tempt
A spirit so resolv'd to tread
Upon thy throat, and live exempt
From all the nets that thou canst spread.
I know thy forms are studied arts,
Thy subtle ways be narrow straits ;
|
Written by
Robert William Service |
My daughter Susie, aged two,
Apes me in every way,
For as my household chores I do
With brooms she loves to play.
A scrubbing brush to her is dear;
Ah! Though my soul it vex,
My bunch of cuteness has, I fear,
Kitchen complex.
My dream was that she might go far,
And play or sing or dance;
Aye, even be a movie star
Of glamour and romance.
But no more with such hope I think,
For now her fondest wish is
To draw a chair up to the sink
And wash the dishes.
Yet when you put it to a test
In ups and downs of life,
A maiden's mission may be best
To make a good house-wife;
To bake, to cook, to knit, to lave:
And so I pray that Sue
Will keep a happy hearth and have
A baby too.
|
Written by
Edgar Lee Masters |
Silent before the jury,
Returning no word to the judge when he asked me
If I had aught to say against the sentence,
Only shaking my head.
What could I say to people who thought
That a woman of thirty-five was at fault
When her lover of nineteen killed her husband?
Even though she had said to him over and over,
"Go away, Elmer, go far away,
I have maddened your brain with the gift of my body:
You will do some terrible thing.
"
And just as I feared, he killed my husband;
With which I had nothing to do, before God!
Silent for thirty years in prison!
And the iron gates of Joliet
Swung as the gray and silent trusties
Carried me out in a coffin.
|
Written by
Emile Verhaeren |
When you have closed my eyes to the light, kiss them with a long kiss, for they will have given you in the last look of their last fervour the utmost passionate love.
Beneath the still radiance of the funeral torch, bend down towards the farewell in them your sad and beautiful face, so that the only image they will keep in the tomb may be imprinted on them and may endure.
And let me feel, before the coffin is nailed up, our hands meet once again on the pure, white bed, and your cheek rest one last time against my forehead on the pale cushions.
And let me afterwards go far away with my heart, which will preserve so fiery a love for you that the other dead will feel its glow even through the compact, dead earth!
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