Written by
Les Murray |
I starred that night, I shone:
I was footwork and firework in one,
a rocket that wriggled up and shot
darkness with a parasol of brilliants
and a peewee descant on a flung bit;
I was blusters of glitter-bombs expanding
to mantle and aurora from a crown,
I was fouéttes, falls of blazing paint,
para-flares spot-welding cloudy heaven,
loose gold off fierce toeholds of white,
a finale red-tongued as a haka leap:
that too was a butt of all right!
As usual after any triumph, I was
of course, inconsolable.
|
Written by
Robert Frost |
As I went down the hill along the wall
There was a gate I had leaned at for the view
And had just turned from when I first saw you
As you came up the hill. We met. But all
We did that day was mingle great and small
Footprints in summer dust as if we drew
The figure of our being less that two
But more than one as yet. Your parasol
Pointed the decimal off with one deep thrust.
And all the time we talked you seemed to see
Something down there to smile at in the dust.
(Oh, it was without prejudice to me!)
Afterward I went past what you had passed
Before we met and you what I had passed.
|
Written by
Henry Lawson |
A day of seeming innocence,
A glorious sun and sky,
And, just above my picket fence,
Black Bonnet passing by.
In knitted gloves and quaint old dress,
Without a spot or smirch,
Her worn face lit with peacefulness,
Old Granny goes to church.
Her hair is richly white, like milk,
That long ago was fair --
And glossy still the old black silk
She keeps for "chapel wear";
Her bonnet, of a bygone style,
That long has passed away,
She must have kept a weary while
Just as it is to-day.
The parasol of days gone by --
Old days that seemed the best --
The hymn and prayer books carried high
Against her warm, thin breast;
As she had clasped -- come smiles come tears,
Come hardship, aye, and worse --
On market days, through faded years,
The slender household purse.
Although the road is rough and steep,
She takes it with a will,
For, since she hushed her first to sleep
Her way has been uphill.
Instinctively I bare my head
(A sinful one, alas!)
Whene'er I see, by church bells led,
Brave Old Black Bonnet pass.
For she has known the cold and heat
And dangers of the Track:
Has fought bush-fires to save the wheat
And little home Out Back.
By barren creeks the Bushman loves,
By stockyard, hut, and pen,
The withered hands in those old gloves
Have done the work of men.
.....
They called it "Service" long ago
When Granny yet was young,
And in the chapel, sweet and low,
As girls her daughters sung.
And when in church she bends her head
(But not as others do)
She sees her loved ones, and her dead
And hears their voices too.
Fair as the Saxons in her youth,
Not forward, and not shy;
And strong in healthy life and truth
As after years went by:
She often laughed with sinners vain,
Yet passed from faith to sight --
God gave her beauty back again
The more her hair grew white.
She came out in the Early Days,
(Green seas, and blue -- and grey) --
The village fair, and English ways,
Seemed worlds and worlds away.
She fought the haunting loneliness
Where brooding gum trees stood;
And won through sickness and distress
As Englishwomen could.
.....
By verdant swath and ivied wall
The congregation's seen --
White nothings where the shadows fall,
Black blots against the green.
The dull, suburban people meet
And buzz in little groups,
While down the white steps to the street
A quaint old figure stoops.
And then along my picket fence
Where staring wallflowers grow --
World-wise Old Age, and Common-sense! --
Black Bonnet, nodding slow.
But not alone; for on each side
A little dot attends
In snowy frock and sash of pride,
And these are Granny's friends.
To them her mind is clear and bright,
Her old ideas are new;
They know her "real talk" is right,
Her "fairy talk" is true.
And they converse as grown-ups may,
When all the news is told;
The one so wisely young to-day,
The two so wisely old.
At home, with dinner waiting there,
She smooths her hair and face,
And puts her bonnet by with care
And dons a cap of lace.
The table minds its p's and q's
Lest one perchance be hit
By some rare dart which is a part
Of her old-fashioned wit.
.....
Her son and son's wife are asleep,
She puts her apron on --
The quiet house is hers to keep,
With all the youngsters gone.
There's scarce a sound of dish on dish
Or cup slipped into cup,
When left alone, as is her wish,
Black Bonnet "washes up."
|
Written by
Federico García Lorca |
The men kept to themselves:
they were waiting for the swiftness of the last cyclists.
The women kept to themselves:
they were expecting the death of a boy on a Japanese schooner.
They all kept to themselves-
dreaming of the open beaks of dying birds,
the sharp parasol that punctures
a recently flattened toad,
beneath silence with a thousand ears
and tiny mouths of water
in the canyons that resist
the violent attack on the moon.
The boy on the schooner was crying and hearts were breaking
in anguish for the witness and vigilance of all things,
and because of the sky blue ground of black footprints,
obscure names, saliva, and chrome radios were still crying.
It doesn't matter if the boy grows silent when stuck with the last pin,
or if the breeze is defeated in cupped cotton flowers,
because there is a world of death whose perpetual sailors will appear in the arches and
freeze you from behind the trees.
It's useless to look for the bend
where night loses its way
and to wait in ambush for a silence that has no
torn clothes, no shells, and no tears,
because even the tiny banquet of a spider
is enough to upset the entire equilibrium of the sky.
There is no cure for the moaning from a Japanese schooner,
nor for those shadowy people who stumble on the curbs.
The countryside bites its own tail in order to gather a bunch of roots
and a ball of yarn looks anxiously in the grass for unrealized longitude.
The Moon! The police. The foghorns of the ocean liners!
Facades of urine, of smoke, anemones, rubber gloves.
Everything is shattered in the night
that spread its legs on the terraces.
Everything is shatter in the tepid faucets
of a terrible silent fountain.
Oh, crowds! Loose women! Soldiers!
We will have to journey through the eyes of idiots,
open country where the docile cobras, coiled like wire, hiss,
landscapes full of graves that yield the freshest apples,
so that uncontrollable light will arrive
to frighten the rich behind their magnifying glasses-
the odor of a single corpse from the double source of lily and rat-
and so that fire will consume those crowds still able to piss around a moan
or on the crystals in which each inimitable wave is understood.
|
Written by
Emily Dickinson |
From Cocoon forth a Butterfly
As Lady from her Door
Emerged -- a Summer Afternoon --
Repairing Everywhere --
Without Design -- that I could trace
Except to stray abroad
On Miscellaneous Enterprise
The Clovers -- understood --
Her pretty Parasol be seen
Contracting in a Field
Where Men made Hay --
Then struggling hard
With an opposing Cloud --
Where Parties -- Phantom as Herself --
To Nowhere -- seemed to go
In purposeless Circumference --
As 'twere a Tropic Show --
And notwithstanding Bee -- that worked --
And Flower -- that zealous blew --
This Audience of Idleness
Disdained them, from the Sky --
Till Sundown crept -- a steady Tide --
And Men that made the Hay --
And Afternoon -- and Butterfly --
Extinguished -- in the Sea --
|
Written by
Conrad Aiken |
Here on the pale beach, in the darkness;
With the full moon just to rise;
They sit alone, and look over the sea,
Or into each other's eyes. . .
She pokes her parasol into the sleepy sand,
Or sifts the lazy whiteness through her hand.
'A lovely night,' he says, 'the moon,
Comes up for you and me.
Just like a blind old spotlight there,
Fizzing across the sea!'
She pays no heed, nor even turns her head:
He slides his arm around her waist instead.
'Why don't we do a sketch together--
Those songs you sing are swell.
Where did you get them, anyway?
They suit you awfully well.'
She will not turn to him--will not resist.
Impassive, she submits to being kissed.
'My husband wrote all four of them.
You know,--my husband drowned.
He was always sickly, soon depressed. . .'
But still she hears the sound
Of a stateroom door shut hard, and footsteps going
Swiftly and steadily, and the dark sea flowing.
She hears the dark sea flowing, and sees his eyes
Hollow with disenchantment, sick surprise,--
And hate of her whom he had loved too well. . .
She lowers her eyes, demurely prods a shell.
'Yes. We might do an act together.
That would be very nice.'
He kisses her passionately, and thinks
She's carnal, but cold as ice.
|
Written by
Federico García Lorca |
Oranges
do not grow in the sea
neither is there love in Sevilla.
You in Dark and the I the sun that's hot,
loan me your parasol.
I'll wear my jealous reflection,
juice of lemon and lime-
and your words,
your sinful little words-
will swim around awhile.
Oranges
do not grow in the sea,
Ay, love!
And there is no love in Sevilla!
|
Written by
Emily Dickinson |
Her little Parasol to lift
And once to let it down
Her whole Responsibility --
To imitate be Mine.
A Summer further I must wear,
Content if Nature's Drawer
Present me from sepulchral Crease
As blemishless, as Her.
|
Written by
Conrad Aiken |
Here on the pale beach, in the darkness;
With the full moon just to rise;
They sit alone, and look over the sea,
Or into each other's eyes. . .
She pokes her parasol into the sleepy sand,
Or sifts the lazy whiteness through her hand.
'A lovely night,' he says, 'the moon,
Comes up for you and me.
Just like a blind old spotlight there,
Fizzing across the sea!'
She pays no heed, nor even turns her head:
He slides his arm around her waist instead.
'Why don't we do a sketch together—
Those songs you sing are swell.
Where did you get them, anyway?
They suit you awfully well.'
She will not turn to him—will not resist.
Impassive, she submits to being kissed.
'My husband wrote all four of them.
You know,—my husband drowned.
He was always sickly, soon depressed. . .'
But still she hears the sound
Of a stateroom door shut hard, and footsteps going
Swiftly and steadily, and the dark sea flowing.
She hears the dark sea flowing, and sees his eyes
Hollow with disenchantment, sick surprise,—
And hate of her whom he had loved too well. . .
She lowers her eyes, demurely prods a shell.
'Yes. We might do an act together.
That would be very nice.'
He kisses her passionately, and thinks
She's carnal, but cold as ice.
|
Written by
Emily Dickinson |
The parasol is the umbrella's daughter,
And associates with a fan
While her father abuts the tempest
And abridges the rain.
The former assists a siren
In her serene display;
But her father is borne and honored,
And borrowed to this day.
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