Written by
John Ashbery |
Far from the Rappahannock, the silent
Danube moves along toward the sea.
The brown and green Nile rolls slowly
Like the Niagara's welling descent.
Tractors stood on the green banks of the Loire
Near where it joined the Cher.
The St.
Lawrence prods among black stones
And mud.
But the Arno is all stones.
Wind ruffles the Hudson's
Surface.
The Irawaddy is overflowing.
But the yellowish, gray Tiber
Is contained within steep banks.
The Isar
Flows too fast to swim in, the Jordan's water
Courses over the flat land.
The Allegheny and its boats
Were dark blue.
The Moskowa is
Gray boats.
The Amstel flows slowly.
Leaves fall into the Connecticut as it passes
Underneath.
The Liffey is full of sewage,
Like the Seine, but unlike
The brownish-yellow Dordogne.
Mountains hem in the Colorado
And the Oder is very deep, almost
As deep as the Congo is wide.
The plain banks of the Neva are
Gray.
The dark Saône flows silently.
And the Volga is long and wide
As it flows across the brownish land.
The Ebro
Is blue, and slow.
The Shannon flows
Swiftly between its banks.
The Mississippi
Is one of the world's longest rivers, like the Amazon.
It has the Missouri for a tributary.
The Harlem flows amid factories
And buildings.
The Nelson is in Canada,
Flowing.
Through hard banks the Dubawnt
Forces its way.
People walk near the Trent.
The landscape around the Mohawk stretches away;
The Rubicon is merely a brook.
In winter the Main
Surges; the Rhine sings its eternal song.
The Rhône slogs along through whitish banks
And the Rio Grande spins tales of the past.
The Loir bursts its frozen shackles
But the Moldau's wet mud ensnares it.
The East catches the light.
Near the Escaut the noise of factories echoes
And the sinuous Humboldt gurgles wildly.
The Po too flows, and the many-colored
Thames.
Into the Atlantic Ocean
Pours the Garonne.
Few ships navigate
On the Housatonic, but quite a few can be seen
On the Elbe.
For centuries
The Afton has flowed.
If the Rio *****
Could abandon its song, and the Magdalena
The jungle flowers, the Tagus
Would still flow serenely, and the Ohio
Abrade its slate banks.
The tan Euphrates would
Sidle silently across the world.
The Yukon
Was choked with ice, but the Susquehanna still pushed
Bravely along.
The Dee caught the day's last flares
Like the Pilcomayo's carrion rose.
The Peace offered eternal fragrance
Perhaps, but the Mackenzie churned livid mud
Like tan chalk-marks.
Near where
The Brahmaputra slapped swollen dikes
And the Pechora? The São Francisco
Skulks amid gray, rubbery nettles.
The Liard's
Reflexes are slow, and the Arkansas erodes
Anthracite hummocks.
The Paraná stinks.
The Ottawa is light emerald green
Among grays.
Better that the Indus fade
In steaming sands! Let the Brazos
Freeze solid! And the Wabash turn to a leaden
Cinder of ice! The Marañón is too tepid, we must
Find a way to freeze it hard.
The Ural
Is freezing slowly in the blasts.
The black Yonne
Congeals nicely.
And the Petit-Morin
Curls up on the solid earth.
The Inn
Does not remember better times, and the Merrimack's
Galvanized.
The Ganges is liquid snow by now;
The Vyatka's ice-gray.
The once-molten Tennessee s
Curdled.
The Japurá is a pack of ice.
Gelid
The Columbia's gray loam banks.
The Don's merely
A giant icicle.
The Niger freezes, slowly.
The interminable Lena plods on
But the Purus' mercurial waters are icy, grim
With cold.
The Loing is choked with fragments of ice.
The Weser is frozen, like liquid air.
And so is the Kama.
And the beige, thickly flowing
Tocantins.
The rivers bask in the cold.
The stern Uruguay chafes its banks,
A mass of ice.
The Hooghly is solid
Ice.
The Adour is silent, motionless.
The lovely Tigris is nothing but scratchy ice
Like the Yellowstone, with its osier-clustered banks.
The Mekong is beginning to thaw out a little
And the Donets gurgles beneath the
Huge blocks of ice.
The Manzanares gushes free.
The Illinois darts through the sunny air again.
But the Dnieper is still ice-bound.
Somewhere
The Salado propels irs floes, but the Roosevelt's
Frozen.
The Oka is frozen solider
Than the Somme.
The Minho slumbers
In winter, nor does the Snake
Remember August.
Hilarious, the Canadian
Is solid ice.
The Madeira slavers
Across the thawing fields, and the Plata laughs.
The Dvina soaks up the snow.
The Sava's
Temperature is above freezing.
The Avon
Carols noiselessly.
The Drôme presses
Grass banks; the Adige's frozen
Surface is like gray pebbles.
Birds circle the Ticino.
In winter
The Var was dark blue, unfrozen.
The
Thwaite, cold, is choked with sandy ice;
The Ardèche glistens feebly through the freezing rain.
|
Written by
Bliss Carman |
O all the little rivers that run to Hudson's Bay,
They call me and call me to follow them away.
Missinaibi, Abitibi, Little Current--where they run
Dancing and sparkling I see them in the sun.
I hear the brawling rapid, the thunder of the fall,
And when I think upon them I cannot stay at all.
At the far end of the carry, where the wilderness begins,
Set me down with my canoe-load--and forgiveness of my sins.
O all the mighty rivers beneath the Polar Star,
They call me and call me to follow them afar.
Peace and Athabasca and Coppermine and Slave,
And Yukon and Mackenzie--the highroads of the brave.
Saskatchewan, Assiniboine, the Bow and the Qu'Appelle,
And many a prairie river whose name is like a spell.
They rumor through the twilight at the edge of the unknown,
"There's a message waiting for you, and a kingdom all your own.
"The wilderness shall feed you, her gleam shall be your guide.
Come out from desolations, our path of hope is wide.
"
O all the headlong rivers that hurry to the West,
They call me and lure me with the joy of their unrest.
Columbia and Fraser and Bear and Kootenay,
I love their fearless reaches where winds untarnished play--
The rush of glacial water across the pebbly bar
To polished pools of azure where the hidden boulders are.
Just there, with heaven smiling, any morning I would be,
Where all the silver rivers go racing to the sea.
O well remembered rivers that sing of long ago,
Ajourneying through summer or dreaming under snow.
Among their meadow islands through placid days they glide,
And where the peaceful orchards are diked against the tide.
Tobique and Madawaska and shining Gaspereaux,
St.
Croix and Nashwaak and St.
John whose haunts I used to know.
And all the pleasant rivers that seek the Fundy foam,
They call me and call me to follow them home.
|
Written by
Robert Burns |
FRIDAY first’s the day appointed
By the Right Worshipful anointed,
To hold our grand procession;
To get a blad o’ Johnie’s morals,
And taste a swatch o’ Manson’s barrels
I’ the way of our profession.
The Master and the Brotherhood
Would a’ be glad to see you;
For me I would be mair than proud
To share the mercies wi’ you.
If Death, then, wi’ skaith, then,
Some mortal heart is hechtin,
Inform him, and storm him,
That Saturday you’ll fecht him.
ROBERT BURNS.
Mossgiel, An.
M.
5790.
|
Written by
Robert Burns |
AULD chuckie Reekie’s 1 sair distrest,
Down droops her ance weel burnish’d crest,
Nae joy her bonie buskit nest
Can yield ava,
Her darling bird that she lo’es best—
Willie’s awa!
O Willie was a witty wight,
And had o’ things an unco’ sleight,
Auld Reekie aye he keepit tight,
And trig an’ braw:
But now they’ll busk her like a fright,—
Willie’s awa!
The stiffest o’ them a’ he bow’d,
The bauldest o’ them a’ he cow’d;
They durst nae mair than he allow’d,
That was a law:
We’ve lost a birkie weel worth gowd;
Willie’s awa!
Now gawkies, tawpies, gowks and fools,
Frae colleges and boarding schools,
May sprout like simmer puddock-stools
In glen or shaw;
He wha could brush them down to mools—
Willie’s awa!
The brethren o’ the Commerce-chaumer
May mourn their loss wi’ doolfu’ clamour;
He was a dictionar and grammar
Among them a’;
I fear they’ll now mak mony a stammer;
Willie’s awa!
Nae mair we see his levee door
Philosophers and poets pour,
And toothy critics by the score,
In bloody raw!
The adjutant o’ a’ the core—
Willie’s awa!
Now worthy Gregory’s Latin face,
Tytler’s and Greenfield’s modest grace;
Mackenzie, Stewart, such a brace
As Rome ne’er saw;
They a’ maun meet some ither place,
Willie’s awa!
Poor Burns ev’n Scotch Drink canna quicken,
He cheeps like some bewilder’d chicken
Scar’d frae it’s minnie and the cleckin,
By hoodie-craw;
Grieg’s gien his heart an unco kickin,
Willie’s awa!
Now ev’ry sour-mou’d girnin blellum,
And Calvin’s folk, are fit to fell him;
Ilk self-conceited critic skellum
His quill may draw;
He wha could brawlie ward their bellum—
Willie’s awa!
Up wimpling stately Tweed I’ve sped,
And Eden scenes on crystal Jed,
And Ettrick banks, now roaring red,
While tempests blaw;
But every joy and pleasure’s fled,
Willie’s awa!
May I be Slander’s common speech;
A text for Infamy to preach;
And lastly, streekit out to bleach
In winter snaw;
When I forget thee, Willie Creech,
Tho’ far awa!
May never wicked Fortune touzle him!
May never wicked men bamboozle him!
Until a pow as auld’s Methusalem
He canty claw!
Then to the blessed new Jerusalem,
Fleet wing awa!
Note 1.
Edinburgh.
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