Written by
Nazim Hikmet |
I have no silver-saddled horse to ride,
no inheritance to live on,
neither riches no real-estate --
a pot of honey is all I own.
A pot of honey
red as fire!
My honey is my everything.
I guard
my riches and my real-estate
-- my honey pot, I mean --
from pests of every species,
Brother, just wait.
.
.
As long as I've got
honey in my pot,
bees will come to it
from Timbuktu.
.
.
|
Written by
Thomas Moore |
"What! still those two infernal questions,
That with our meals our slumbers mix --
That spoil our tempers and digestions --
Eternal Corn and Catholics!
Gods! were there ever two such bores?
Nothing else talk'd of night or morn --
Nothing in doors, or out of doors,
But endless Catholics and Corn!
Never was such a brace of pests --
While Ministers, still worse than either,
Skill'd but in feathering their nests,
Plague us with both, and settle neither.
So addled in my cranium meet
Popery and Corn, that oft I doubt,
Whether this year, 'twas bonded Wheat
Or bonded Papists, they let out.
Here, landlords, here, polemics nail you,
Arm'd with all rubbish they can rake up;
Prices and Texts at once assail you --
From Daniel these, and those from Jacob.
And when you sleep, with head still torn
Between the two, their shapes you mix,
Till sometimes Catholics seem Corn --
Then Corn again seems Catholics.
Now, Dantzic wheat before you floats --
Now, Jesuits from California --
Now, Ceres, link'd with Titus Oats,
Comes dancing through the "Porta Cornea.
"
Oft, too, the Corn grows animate,
And a whole crop of heads appears,
Like Papists, bearding Church and State --
Themselves, together by the ears!
In short, these torments never cease;
And oft I wish myself transferr'd off
To some far, lonely land of peace,
Where Corn or Papists ne'er were heard of.
Yes, waft me, Parry, to the Pole,
For -- if my fate is to be chosen
'Twixt bores and icebergs -- on my soul,
I'd rather, of the two, be frozen!
|
Written by
Seamus Heaney |
I was six when I first saw kittens drown.
Dan Taggart pitched them, 'the scraggy wee shits',
Into a bucket; a frail metal sound,
Soft paws scraping like mad.
But their tiny din
Was soon soused.
They were slung on the snout
Of the pump and the water pumped in.
'Sure, isn't it better for them now?' Dan said.
Like wet gloves they bobbed and shone till he sluiced
Them out on the dunghill, glossy and dead.
Suddenly frightened, for days I sadly hung
Round the yard, watching the three sogged remains
Turn mealy and crisp as old summer dung
Until I forgot them.
But the fear came back
When Dan trapped big rats, snared rabbits, shot crows
Or, with a sickening tug, pulled old hens' necks.
Still, living displaces false sentiments
And now, when shrill pups are prodded to drown
I just shrug, 'Bloody pups'.
It makes sense:
'Prevention of cruelty' talk cuts ice in town
Where they consider death unnatural
But on well-run farms pests have to be kept down.
|
Written by
Anonymous |
"He saith to the snow, Be thou on the earth.
"
God's works are very great, but still
His hands do not ap-pear:
Though hea-ven and earth o-bey His will,
His voice we can-not hear.
And yet we know that it is He
Who moves and governs all,
Who stills the rag-ing of the sea,
And makes the showers to fall.
Alike in mer-cy He be-stows
The sun-shine and the rain;
That which is best for us He knows,
And we must not com-plain,
Whe-ther He makes His winds to blow,
And gives His tem-pests birth,
Or sends His frost, or bids the snow—
"Be thou up-on the earth.
"
|