Written by
John Keats |
SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees 5
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more
And still more later flowers for the bees
Until they think warm days will never cease 10
For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; 15
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep
Drowsed with the fume of poppies while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twin¨¨d flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook; 20
Or by a cider-press with patient look
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay where are they?
Think not of them thou hast thy music too ¡ª
While barr¨¨d clouds bloom the soft-dying day 25
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; 30
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
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Written by
John Keats |
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'er-brimmed their clammy cell.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,---
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir, the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
|
Written by
John Keats |
'O WHAT can ail thee knight-at-arms
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge is wither'd from the lake
And no birds sing.
'O what can ail thee knight-at-arms 5
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel's granary is full
And the harvest 's done.
'I see a lily on thy brow
With anguish moist and fever dew; 10
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.
'
'I met a lady in the meads
Full beautiful¡ªa faery's child
Her hair was long her foot was light 15
And her eyes were wild.
'I made a garland for her head
And bracelets too and fragrant zone;
She look'd at me as she did love
And made sweet moan.
20
'I set her on my pacing steed
And nothing else saw all day long
For sideways would she lean and sing
A faery's song.
'She found me roots of relish sweet 25
And honey wild and manna dew
And sure in language strange she said
I love thee true!
'She took me to her elfin grot
And there she wept and sigh'd fill sore; 30
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.
'And there she lull¨¨d me asleep
And there I dream'd¡ªAh! woe betide!
The latest dream I ever dream'd 35
On the cold hill's side.
'I saw pale kings and princes too
Pale warriors death-pale were they all;
They cried¡ª"La belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!" 40
'I saw their starved lips in the gloam
With horrid warning gap¨¨d wide
And I awoke and found me here
On the cold hill's side.
'And this is why I sojourn here 45
Alone and palely loitering
Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake
And no birds sing.
'
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Written by
Yves Bonnefoy |
And then life; and once again
A house where I was born.
Around us
The granary above what once had been a church,
The gentle play of shadow from the dawn clouds,
And in us that smell of the dry straw
That had seemed to be waiting for us
From the moment the last sack, of wheat or rye,
Had been brought in so long ago,
In the eternity of former summers
Whose light was filtered through the warm tiles.
I could sense that day was about to break,
I was waking, and now I turn once more
Toward the one who dreamed beside me
In the lonely house.
To her silence
I dedicate, at night,
The words that only seem to be speaking of something else.
(I was waking,
I loved those days we had, days preserved
The way a river flows slowly, though already
Caught in the vaulting rumbling of the sea.
They were passing through us, with the majesty of simple things,
The mighty sails of what is were kind enough to take
Precarious human life on board the ship
That the mountain spread out around us.
O memory,
They covered with the flapping of their silence
The sound, of water on the stones, of our voices,
And up ahead, there might well be death,
But with that milky color you find at the end of beaches
In the evening, when far off
The children still touch bottom, and laugh in the peaceful water,
And keep on playing.
)
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Written by
Sarojini Naidu |
O little mouse, why dost thou cry
While merry stars laugh in the sky?
Alas! alas! my lord is dead!
Ah, who will ease my bitter pain?
He went to seek a millet-grain
In the rich farmer's granary shed;
They caught him in a baited snare,
And slew my lover unaware:
Alas! alas! my lord is dead.
O little deer, why dost thou moan,
Hid in thy forest-bower alone?
Alas! alas! my lord is dead!
Ah! who will quiet my lament?
At fall of eventide he went
To drink beside the river-head;
A waiting hunter threw his dart,
And struck my lover through the heart.
Alas! alas! my lord is dead.
O little bride, why dost thou weep
With all the happy world asleep?
Alas! alas! my lord is dead!
Ah, who will stay these hungry tears,
Or still the want of famished years,
And crown with love my marriage-bed?
My soul burns with the quenchless fire
That lit my lover's funeral pyre:
Alas! alas! my lord is dead.
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Written by
G K Chesterton |
‘Elder father, though thine eyes
Shine with hoary mysteries,
Canst thou tell what in the heart
Of a cowslip blossom lies?
‘Smaller than all lives that be,
Secret as the deepest sea,
Stands a little house of seeds,
Like an elfin’s granary.
‘Speller of the stones and weeds,
Skilled in Nature’s crafts and creeds,
Tell me what is in the heart
Of the smallest of the seeds.
’
‘God Almighty, and with Him
Cherubim and Seraphim,
Filling all eternity—
Adonai Elohim.
’
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Written by
Horace |
Maecenas, born of monarch ancestors,
The shield at once and glory of my life!
There are who joy them in the Olympic strife
And love the dust they gather in the course;
The goal by hot wheels shunn'd, the famous prize,
Exalt them to the gods that rule mankind;
This joys, if rabbles fickle as the wind
Through triple grade of honours bid him rise,
That, if his granary has stored away
Of Libya's thousand floors the yield entire;
The man who digs his field as did his sire,
With honest pride, no Attalus may sway
By proffer'd wealth to tempt Myrtoan seas,
The timorous captain of a Cyprian bark.
The winds that make Icarian billows dark
The merchant fears, and hugs the rural ease
Of his own village home; but soon, ashamed
Of penury, he refits his batter'd craft.
There is, who thinks no scorn of Massic draught,
Who robs the daylight of an hour unblamed,
Now stretch'd beneath the arbute on the sward,
Now by some gentle river's sacred spring;
Some love the camp, the clarion's joyous ring,
And battle, by the mother's soul abhorr'd.
See, patient waiting in the clear keen air,
The hunter, thoughtless of his delicate bride,
Whether the trusty hounds a stag have eyed,
Or the fierce Marsian boar has burst the snare.
To me the artist's meed, the ivy wreath
Is very heaven: me the sweet cool of woods,
Where Satyrs frolic with the Nymphs, secludes
From rabble rout, so but Euterpe's breath
Fail not the flute, nor Polyhymnia fly
Averse from stringing new the Lesbian lyre.
O, write my name among that minstrel choir,
And my proud head shall strike upon the sky!
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Written by
Edgar Lee Masters |
Well, don't you see this was the way of it:
We bought the farm with what he inherited,
And his brothers and sisters accused him of poisoning
His fathers mind against the rest of them.
And we never had any peace with our treasure.
The murrain took the cattle, and the crops failed.
And lightning struck the granary.
So we mortgaged the farm to keep going.
And he grew silent and was worried all the time.
Then some of the neighbors refused to speak to us,
And took sides with his brothers and sisters.
And I had no place to turn, as one may say to himself,
At an earlier time in life; "No matter,
So and so is my friend, or I can shake this off
With a little trip to Decatur.
"
Then the dreadfulest smells infested the rooms.
So I set fire to the beds and the old witch-house
Went up in a roar of flame,
As I danced in the yard with waving arms,
While he wept like a freezing steer.
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