Written by
Sandra Cisneros |
December 24th and we’re through again.
This time for good I know because I didn’t
throw you out — and anyway we waved.
No shoes. No angry doors.
We folded clothes and went
our separate ways.
You left behind that flannel shirt
of yours I liked but remembered to take
your toothbrush. Where are you tonight?
Richard, it’s Christmas Eve again
and old ghosts come back home.
I’m sitting by the Christmas tree
wondering where did we go wrong.
Okay, we didn’t work, and all
memories to tell you the truth aren’t good.
But sometimes there were good times.
Love was good. I loved your crooked sleep
beside me and never dreamed afraid.
There should be stars for great wars
like ours. There ought to be awards
and plenty of champagne for the survivors.
After all the years of degradations,
the several holidays of failure,
there should be something
to commemorate the pain.
Someday we’ll forget that great Brazil disaster.
Till then, Richard, I wish you well.
I wish you love affairs and plenty of hot water,
and women kinder than I treated you.
I forget the reason, but I loved you once,
remember?
Maybe in this season, drunk
and sentimental, I’m willing to admit
a part of me, crazed and kamikaze,
ripe for anarchy, loves still.
|
Written by
T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot |
There's a whisper down the line at 11.39
When the Night Mail's ready to depart,
Saying "Skimble where is Skimble has he gone to hunt the thimble?
We must find him or the train can't start."
All the guards and all the porters and the stationmaster's daughters
They are searching high and low,
Saying "Skimble where is Skimble for unless he's very nimble
Then the Night Mail just can't go."
At 11.42 then the signal's nearly due
And the passengers are frantic to a man—
Then Skimble will appear and he'll saunter to the rear:
He's been busy in the luggage van!
He gives one flash of his glass-green eyes
And the signal goes "All Clear!"
And we're off at last for the northern part
Of the Northern Hemisphere!
You may say that by and large it is Skimble who's in charge
Of the Sleeping Car Express.
From the driver and the guards to the bagmen playing cards
He will supervise them all, more or less.
Down the corridor he paces and examines all the faces
Of the travellers in the First and the Third;
He establishes control by a regular patrol
And he'd know at once if anything occurred.
He will watch you without winking and he sees what you are thinking
And it's certain that he doesn't approve
Of hilarity and riot, so the folk are very quiet
When Skimble is about and on the move.
You can play no pranks with Skimbleshanks!
He's a Cat that cannot be ignored;
So nothing goes wrong on the Northern Mail
When Skimbleshanks is aboard.
Oh, it's very pleasant when you have found your little den
With your name written up on the door.
And the berth is very neat with a newly folded sheet
And there's not a speck of dust on the floor.
There is every sort of light-you can make it dark or bright;
There's a handle that you turn to make a breeze.
There's a funny little basin you're supposed to wash your face in
And a crank to shut the window if you sneeze.
Then the guard looks in politely and will ask you very brightly
"Do you like your morning tea weak or strong?"
But Skimble's just behind him and was ready to remind him,
For Skimble won't let anything go wrong.
And when you creep into your cosy berth
And pull up the counterpane,
You ought to reflect that it's very nice
To know that you won't be bothered by mice—
You can leave all that to the Railway Cat,
The Cat of the Railway Train!
In the watches of the night he is always fresh and bright;
Every now and then he has a cup of tea
With perhaps a drop of Scotch while he's keeping on the watch,
Only stopping here and there to catch a flea.
You were fast asleep at Crewe and so you never knew
That he was walking up and down the station;
You were sleeping all the while he was busy at Carlisle,
Where he greets the stationmaster with elation.
But you saw him at Dumfries, where he speaks to the police
If there's anything they ought to know about:
When you get to Gallowgate there you do not have to wait—
For Skimbleshanks will help you to get out!
He gives you a wave of his long brown tail
Which says: "I'll see you again!
You'll meet without fail on the Midnight Mail
The Cat of the Railway Train."
|
Written by
Rudyard Kipling |
When the 'arf-made recruity goes out to the East
'E acts like a babe an' 'e drinks like a beast,
An' 'e wonders because 'e is frequent deceased
Ere 'e's fit for to serve as a soldier.
Serve, serve, serve as a soldier,
Serve, serve, serve as a soldier,
Serve, serve, serve as a soldier,
So-oldier OF the Queen!
Now all you recruities what's drafted to-day,
You shut up your rag-box an' 'ark to my lay,
An' I'll sing you a soldier as far as I may:
A soldier what's fit for a soldier.
Fit, fit, fit for a soldier . . .
First mind you steer clear o' the grog-sellers' huts,
For they sell you Fixed Bay'nets that rots out your guts --
Ay, drink that 'ud eat the live steel from your butts --
An' it's bad for the young British soldier.
Bad, bad, bad for the soldier . . .
When the cholera comes -- as it will past a doubt --
Keep out of the wet and don't go on the shout,
For the sickness gets in as the liquor dies out,
An' it crumples the young British soldier.
Crum-, crum-, crumples the soldier . . .
But the worst o' your foes is the sun over'ead:
You must wear your 'elmet for all that is said:
If 'e finds you uncovered 'e'll knock you down dead,
An' you'll die like a fool of a soldier.
Fool, fool, fool of a soldier . . .
If you're cast for fatigue by a sergeant unkind,
Don't grouse like a woman nor crack on nor blind;
Be handy and civil, and then you will find
That it's beer for the young British soldier.
Beer, beer, beer for the soldier . . .
Now, if you must marry, take care she is old --
A troop-sergeant's widow's the nicest I'm told,
For beauty won't help if your rations is cold,
Nor love ain't enough for a soldier.
'Nough, 'nough, 'nough for a soldier . . .
If the wife should go wrong with a comrade, be loath
To shoot when you catch 'em -- you'll swing, on my oath! --
Make 'im take 'er and keep 'er: that's Hell for them both,
An' you're shut o' the curse of a soldier.
Curse, curse, curse of a soldier . . .
When first under fire an' you're wishful to duck,
Don't look nor take 'eed at the man that is struck,
Be thankful you're livin', and trust to your luck
And march to your front like a soldier.
Front, front, front like a soldier . . .
When 'arf of your bullets fly wide in the ditch,
Don't call your Martini a cross-eyed old *****;
She's human as you are -- you treat her as sich,
An' she'll fight for the young British soldier.
Fight, fight, fight for the soldier . . .
When shakin' their bustles like ladies so fine,
The guns o' the enemy wheel into line,
Shoot low at the limbers an' don't mind the shine,
For noise never startles the soldier.
Start-, start-, startles the soldier . . .
If your officer's dead and the sergeants look white,
Remember it's ruin to run from a fight:
So take open order, lie down, and sit tight,
And wait for supports like a soldier.
Wait, wait, wait like a soldier . . .
When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
Go, go, go like a soldier,
So-oldier of the Queen!
|
Written by
Dorothy Parker |
Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Roumania.
|
Written by
Ella Wheeler Wilcox |
Don’t look for the flaws as you go through life;
And even when you find them,
It is wise and kind to be somewhat blind
And look for the virtue behind them.
For the cloudiest night has a hint of light
Somewhere in its shadows hiding;
It is better by far to hunt for a star,
Than the spots on the sun abiding.
The current of life runs ever away
To the bosom of God’s great ocean.
Don’t set your force ‘gainst the river’s course
And think to alter its motion.
Don’t waste a curse on the universe –
Remember it lived before you.
Don’t butt at the storm with your puny form,
But bend and let it go o’er you.
The world will never adjust itself
To suit your whims to the letter.
Some things must go wrong your whole life long,
And the sooner you know it the better.
It is folly to fight with the Infinite,
And go under at last in the wrestle;
The wiser man shapes into God’s plan
As water shapes into a vessel.
|
Written by
Edgar Albert Guest |
Ain't no use as I can see
In sittin' underneath a tree
An' growlin' that your luck is bad,
An' that your life is extry sad;
Your life ain't sadder than your neighbor's
Nor any harder are your labors;
It rains on him the same as you,
An' he has work he hates to do;
An' he gits tired an' he gits cross,
An' he has trouble with the boss;
You take his whole life, through an' through,
Why, he's no better off than you.
If whinin' brushed the clouds away
I wouldn't have a word to say;
If it made good friends out o' foes
I'd whine a bit, too, I suppose;
But when I look around an' see
A lot o' men resemblin' me,
An' see 'em sad, an' see 'em gay
With work t' do most every day,
Some full o' fun, some bent with care,
Some havin' troubles hard to bear,
I reckon, as I count my woes,
They're 'bout what everybody knows.
The day I find a man who'll say
He's never known a rainy day,
Who'll raise his right hand up an' swear
In forty years he's had no care,
Has never had a single blow,
An' never known one touch o' woe,
Has never seen a loved one die,
Has never wept or heaved a sigh,
Has never had a plan go wrong,
But allas laughed his way along;
Then I'll sit down an' start to whine
That all the hard luck here is mine.
|
Written by
Robert Burns |
HOW wisdom and Folly meet, mix, and unite,
How Virtue and Vice blend their black and their white,
How Genius, th’ illustrious father of fiction,
Confounds rule and law, reconciles contradiction,
I sing: If these mortals, the critics, should bustle,
I care not, not I—let the Critics go whistle!
But now for a Patron whose name and whose glory,
At once may illustrate and honour my story.
Thou first of our orators, first of our wits;
Yet whose parts and acquirements seem just lucky hits;
With knowledge so vast, and with judgment so strong,
No man with the half of ’em e’er could go wrong;
With passions so potent, and fancies so bright,
No man with the half of ’em e’er could go right;
A sorry, poor, misbegot son of the Muses,
For using thy name, offers fifty excuses.
Good L—d, what is Man! for as simple he looks,
Do but try to develop his hooks and his crooks;
With his depths and his shallows, his good and his evil,
All in all he’s a problem must puzzle the devil.
On his one ruling passion Sir Pope hugely labours,
That, like th’ old Hebrew walking-switch, eats up its neighbours:
Mankind are his show-box—a friend, would you know him?
Pull the string, Ruling Passion the picture will show him,
What pity, in rearing so beauteous a system,
One trifling particular, Truth, should have miss’d him;
For, spite of his fine theoretic positions,
Mankind is a science defies definitions.
Some sort all our qualities each to its tribe,
And think human nature they truly describe;
Have you found this, or t’other? There’s more in the wind;
As by one drunken fellow his comrades you’ll find.
But such is the flaw, or the depth of the plan,
In the make of that wonderful creature called Man,
No two virtues, whatever relation they claim.
Nor even two different shades of the same,
Though like as was ever twin brother to brother,
Possessing the one shall imply you’ve the other.
But truce with abstraction, and truce with a Muse
Whose rhymes you’ll perhaps, Sir, ne’er deign to peruse:
Will you leave your justings, your jars, and your quarrels,
Contending with Billy for proud-nodding laurels?
My much-honour’d Patron, believe your poor poet,
Your courage, much more than your prudence, you show it:
In vain with Squire Billy for laurels you struggle:
He’ll have them by fair trade, if not, he will smuggle:
Not cabinets even of kings would conceal ’em,
He’d up the back stairs, and by G—, he would steal ’em,
Then feats like Squire Billy’s you ne’er can achieve ’em;
It is not, out-do him—the task is, out-thieve him!
|
Written by
Andrew Barton Paterson |
Now look, you see, it’s this way like,
You cross the broken bridge
And run the crick down till you strike
The second right-hand ridge.
The track is hard to see in parts,
But still it’s pretty clear;
There’s been two Injin hawkers’ carts
Along that road this year.
Well, run that right-hand ridge along—
It ain’t, to say, too steep—
There’s two fresh tracks might put you wrong
Where blokes went out with sheep.
But keep the crick upon your right,
And follow pretty straight
Along the spur, until you sight
A wire and sapling gate.
Well, that’s where Hogan’s old grey mare
Fell off and broke her back;
You’ll see her carcase layin’ there,
Jist down below the track.
And then you drop two mile, or three,
It’s pretty steep and blind;
You want to go and fall a tree
And tie it on behind.
And then you pass a broken cart
Below a granite bluff;
And that is where you strike the part
They reckon pretty rough.
But by the time you’ve got that far
It’s either cure or kill,
So turn your horses round the spur
And face ’em up the hill.
For look, if you should miss the slope
And get below the track,
You haven’t got the whitest hope
Of ever gettin’ back.
An’ half way up you’ll see the hide
Of Hogan’s brindled bull;
Well, mind and keep the right-hand side,
The left’s too steep a pull.
And both the banks is full of cracks;
An’ just about at dark
You’ll see the last year’s bullock tracks
Where Hogan drew the bark.
The marks is old and pretty faint—
And grown with scrub and such;
Of course the track to Hogan’s ain’t
A road that’s travelled much.
But turn and run the tracks along
For half a mile or more,
And then, of course, you can’t go wrong—
You’re right at Hogan’s door.
When first you come to Hogan’s gate
He mightn’t show, perhaps;
He’s pretty sure to plant and wait
To see it ain’t the traps.
I wouldn’t call it good enough
To let your horses out;
There’s some that’s pretty extra rough
Is livin’ round about.
It’s likely if your horses did
Get feedin’ near the track,
It’s goin’ to cost at least a quid
Or more to get them back.
So, if you find they’re off the place,
It’s up to you to go
And flash a quid in Hogan’s face—
He’ll know the blokes that know.
But listen—if you’re feelin’ dry,
Just see there’s no one near,
And go and wink the other eye
And ask for ginger beer.
The blokes come in from near and far
To sample Hogan’s pop;
They reckon once they breast the bar
They stay there till they drop.
On Sundays you can see them spread
Like flies around the tap.
It’s like that song “The Livin’ Dead”
Up there at Hogan’s Gap.
They like to make it pretty strong
Whenever there’s a charnce;
So when a stranger comes along
They always holds a dance.
There’s recitations, songs, and fights—
A willin’ lot you’ll meet.
There’s one long bloke up there recites,
I tell you—he’s a treat.
They’re lively blokes all right up there,
It’s never dull a day.
I’d go meself if I could spare
The time to get away.
. . . . .
The stranger turned his horses quick.
He didn’t cross the bridge;
He didn’t go along the crick
To strike the second ridge;
He didn’t make the trip, because
He wasn’t feeling fit.
His business up at Hogan’s was
To serve him with a writ.
He reckoned if he faced the pull
And climbed the rocky stair,
The next to come might find his hide
A land-mark on the mountain side,
Along with Hogan’s brindled bull
And Hogan’s old grey mare!
|
Written by
John Berryman |
Filling her compact & delicious body
with chicken páprika, she glanced at me
twice.
Fainting with interest, I hungered back
and only the fact of her husband & four other people
kept me from springing on her
or falling at her little feet and crying
'You are the hottest one for years of night
Henry's dazed eyes
have enjoyed, Brilliance.' I advanced upon
(despairing) my spumoni.—Sir Bones: is stuffed,
de world, wif feeding girls.
—Black hair, complexion Latin, jewelled eyes
downcast ... The slob beside her feasts ... What wonders is
she sitting on, over there?
The restaurant buzzes. She might as well be on Mars.
Where did it all go wrong? There ought to be a law against Henry.
—Mr. Bones: there is.
|
Written by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe |
I HAVE loved; for the first time with passion I rave!
I then was the servant, but now am the slave;
I then was the servant of
all:
By this creature so charming I now am fast bound,
To love and love's guerdon she turns all around,
And her my sole mistress
I call.
l've had faith; for the first time my faith is now strong!
And though matters go strangely, though matters go wrong,
To the ranks of the faithful
I'm true:
Though ofttimes 'twas dark and though ofttimes 'twas drear,
In the pressure of need, and when danger was near,
Yet the dawning of light
I now view.
I have eaten; but ne'er have thus relish'd my food!
For when glad are the senses, and joyous the blood,
At table all else is effaced
As for youth, it but swallows, then whistles an air;
As for me, to a jovial resort I'd repair,
Where to eat, and enjoy what
I taste.
I have drunk; but have never thus relish'd the bowl!
For wine makes us lords, and enlivens the soul,
And loosens the trembling
slave's tongue.
Let's not seek to spare then the heart-stirring drink,
For though in the barrel the old wine may sink,
In its place will fast mellow
the young.
I have danced, and to dancing am pledged by a vow!
Though no caper or waltz may be raved about now,
In a dance that's becoming,
whirl round.
And he who a nosegay of flowers has dress'd,
And cares not for one any more than the rest,
With a garland of mirth is
aye crown'd.
Then once more be merry, and banish all woes!
For he who but gathers the blossoming rose.
By its thorns will be tickled
alone.
To-day still, as yesterday, glimmers the star;
Take care from all heads that hang down to keep far,
And make but the future thine
own.
1813.
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