Written by
Robert Burns |
IS there a whim-inspirèd fool,
Owre fast for thought, owre hot for rule,
Owre blate to seek, owre proud to snool,
Let him draw near;
And owre this grassy heap sing dool,
And drap a tear.
Is there a bard of rustic song,
Who, noteless, steals the crowds among,
That weekly this area throng,
O, pass not by!
But, with a frater-feeling strong,
Here, heave a sigh.
Is there a man, whose judgment clear
Can others teach the course to steer,
Yet runs, himself, life’s mad career,
Wild as the wave,
Here pause—and, thro’ the starting tear,
Survey this grave.
The poor inhabitant below
Was quick to learn the wise to know,
And keenly felt the friendly glow,
And softer flame;
But thoughtless follies laid him low,
And stain’d his name!
Reader, attend! whether thy soul
Soars fancy’s flights beyond the pole,
Or darkling grubs this earthly hole,
In low pursuit:
Know, prudent, cautious, self-control
Is wisdom’s root.
|
Written by
T S (Thomas Stearns) Eliot |
Old Deuteronomy's lived a long time;
He's a Cat who has lived many lives in succession.
He was famous in proverb and famous in rhyme
A long while before Queen Victoria's accession.
Old Deuteronomy's buried nine wives
And more--I am tempted to say, ninety-nine;
And his numerous progeny prospers and thrives
And the village is proud of him in his decline.
At the sight of that placid and bland physiognomy,
When he sits in the sun on the vicarage wall,
The Oldest Inhabitant croaks: "Well, of all .
.
.
Things.
.
.
Can it be .
.
.
really! .
.
.
No!.
.
.
Yes!.
.
.
Ho! hi!
Oh, my eye!
My mind may be wandering, but I confess
I believe it is Old Deuteronomy!"
Old Deuteronomy sits in the street,
He sits in the High Street on market day;
The bullocks may bellow, the sheep they may bleat,
But the dogs and the herdsmen will turn them away.
The cars and the lorries run over the kerb,
And the villagers put up a notice: ROAD CLOSED--
So that nothing untoward may chance to distrub
Deuteronomy's rest when he feels so disposed
Or when he's engaged in domestic economy:
And the Oldest Inhabitant croaks: "Well, of all .
.
.
Things.
.
.
Can it be .
.
.
really! .
.
.
No!.
.
.
Yes!.
.
.
Ho! hi!
Oh, my eye!
My sight's unreliable, but I can guess
That the cause of the trouble is Old Deuteronomy!"
Old Deuteronomy lies on the floor
Of the Fox and French Horn for his afternoon sleep;
And when the men say: "There's just time for one more,"
Then the landlady from her back parlour will peep
And say: "New then, out you go, by the back door,
For Old Deuteronomy mustn't be woken--
I'll have the police if there's any uproar"--
And out they all shuffle, without a word spoken.
The digestive repose of that feline's gastronomy
Must never be broken, whatever befall:
And the Oldest Inhabitant croaks: "Well, of all .
.
.
Things.
.
.
Can it be .
.
.
really! .
.
.
No!.
.
.
Yes!.
.
.
Ho! hi!
Oh, my eye!
My legs may be tottery, I must go slow
And be careful of Old Deuteronomy!"
Of the awefull battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles:
together with some account of the participation of the
Pugs and the Poms, and the intervention of the Great
Rumpuscat
The Pekes and the Pollicles, everyone knows,
Are proud and implacable passionate foes;
It is always the same, wherever one goes.
And the Pugs and the Poms, although most people say
That they do not like fighting, yet once in a way,
They will now and again join in to the fray
And they
Bark bark bark bark
Bark bark BARK BARK
Until you can hear them all over the Park.
Now on the occasion of which I shall speak
Almost nothing had happened for nearly a week
(And that's a long time for a Pol or a Peke).
The big Police Dog was away from his beat--
I don't know the reason, but most people think
He'd slipped into the Wellington Arms for a drink--
And no one at all was about on the street
When a Peke and a Pollicle happened to meet.
They did not advance, or exactly retreat,
But they glared at each other, and scraped their hind
feet,
And they started to
Bark bark bark bark
Bark bark BARK BARK
Until you can hear them all over the Park.
Now the Peke, although people may say what they please,
Is no British Dog, but a Heathen Chinese.
And so all the Pekes, when they heard the uproar,
Some came to the window, some came to the door;
There were surely a dozen, more likely a score.
And together they started to grumble and wheeze
In their huffery-snuffery Heathen Chinese.
But a terrible din is what Pollicles like,
For your Pollicle Dog is a dour Yorkshire tyke,
And his braw Scottish cousins are snappers and biters,
And every dog-jack of them notable fighters;
And so they stepped out, with their pipers in order,
Playing When the Blue Bonnets Came Over the Border.
Then the Pugs and the Poms held no longer aloof,
But some from the balcony, some from the roof,
Joined in
To the din
With a
Bark bark bark bark
Bark bark BARK BARK
Until you can hear them all over the Park.
Now when these bold heroes together assembled,
That traffic all stopped, and the Underground trembled,
And some of the neighbours were so much afraid
That they started to ring up the Fire Brigade.
When suddenly, up from a small basement flat,
Why who should stalk out but the GREAT RUMPUSCAT.
His eyes were like fireballs fearfully blazing,
He gave a great yawn, and his jaws were amazing;
And when he looked out through the bars of the area,
You never saw anything fiercer or hairier.
And what with the glare of his eyes and his yawning,
The Pekes and the Pollicles quickly took warning.
He looked at the sky and he gave a great leap--
And they every last one of them scattered like sheep.
And when the Police Dog returned to his beat,
There wasn't a single one left in the street.
|
Written by
William Butler Yeats |
Overcome -- O bitter sweetness,
Inhabitant of the soft cheek of a girl --
The rich man and his affairs,
The fat flocks and the fields' fatness,
Mariners, rough harvesters;
Overcome Gods upon Parnassus;
Overcome the Empyrean; hurl
Heaven and Earth out of their places,
That in the Same calamity
Brother and brother, friend and friend,
Family and family,
City and city may contend,
By that great glory driven wild.
Pray I will and sing I must,
And yet I weep -- Oedipus' child
Descends into the loveless dust.
|
Written by
Robert Burns |
STRAIT is the spot and green the sod
From whence my sorrows flow;
And soundly sleeps the ever dear
Inhabitant below.
Pardon my transport, gentle shade,
While o’er the turf I bow;
Thy earthy house is circumscrib’d,
And solitary now.
Not one poor stone to tell thy name,
Or make thy virtues known:
But what avails to me-to thee,
The sculpture of a stone?
I’ll sit me down upon this turf,
And wipe the rising tear:
The chill blast passes swiftly by,
And flits around thy bier.
Dark is the dwelling of the Dead,
And sad their house of rest:
Low lies the head, by Death’s cold arms
In awful fold embrac’d.
I saw the grim Avenger stand
Incessant by thy side;
Unseen by thee, his deadly breath
Thy lingering frame destroy’d.
Pale grew the roses on thy cheek,
And wither’d was thy bloom,
Till the slow poison brought thy youth
Untimely to the tomb.
Thus wasted are the ranks of men—
Youth, Health, and Beauty fall;
The ruthless ruin spreads around,
And overwhelms us all.
Behold where, round thy narrow house,
The graves unnumber’d lie;
The multitude that sleep below
Existed but to die.
Some, with the tottering steps of Age,
Trod down the darksome way;
And some, in youth’s lamented prime,
Like thee were torn away:
Yet these, however hard their fate,
Their native earth receives;
Amid their weeping friends they died,
And fill their fathers’ graves.
From thy lov’d friends, when first thy heart
Was taught by Heav’n to glow,
Far, far remov’d, the ruthless stroke
Surpris’d and laid thee low.
At the last limits of our isle,
Wash’d by the western wave,
Touch’d by thy face, a thoughtful bard
Sits lonely by thy grave.
Pensive he eyes, before him spread
The deep, outstretch’d and vast;
His mourning notes are borne away
Along the rapid blast.
And while, amid the silent Dead
Thy hapless fate he mourns,
His own long sorrows freshly bleed,
And all his grief returns:
Like thee, cut off in early youth,
And flower of beauty’s pride,
His friend, his first and only joy,
His much lov’d Stella, died.
Him, too, the stern impulse of Fate
Resistless bears along;
And the same rapid tide shall whelm
The Poet and the Song.
The tear of pity which he sheds,
He asks not to receive;
Let but his poor remains be laid
Obscurely in the grave.
His grief-worn heart, with truest joy,
Shall meet he welcome shock:
His airy harp shall lie unstrung,
And silent on the rock.
O, my dear maid, my Stella, when
Shall this sick period close,
And lead the solitary bard
To his belov’d repose?
|
Written by
Emily Dickinson |
Too little way the House must lie
From every Human Heart
That holds in undisputed Lease
A white inhabitant --
Too narrow is the Right between --
Too imminent the chance --
Each Consciousness must emigrate
And lose its neighbor once --
|
Written by
Omar Khayyam |
Naught is thy body but a tent, Khayyam, thy soul is
its inhabitant, and its last, long home annihilation is.
When thy soul leaves the tent, the slaves arise and
strike it ere they pitch it for the oncoming soul.
299
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