Written by
Randall Jarrell |
It was not dying: everybody died.
It was not dying: we had died before
In the routine crashes-- and our fields
Called up the papers, wrote home to our folks,
And the rates rose, all because of us.
We died on the wrong page of the almanac,
Scattered on mountains fifty miles away;
Diving on haystacks, fighting with a friend,
We blazed up on the lines we never saw.
We died like aunts or pets or foreigners.
(When we left high school nothing else had died
For us to figure we had died like.)
In our new planes, with our new crews, we bombed
The ranges by the desert or the shore,
Fired at towed targets, waited for our scores--
And turned into replacements and worke up
One morning, over England, operational.
It wasn't different: but if we died
It was not an accident but a mistake
(But an easy one for anyone to make.)
We read our mail and counted up our missions--
In bombers named for girls, we burned
The cities we had learned about in school--
Till our lives wore out; our bodies lay among
The people we had killed and never seen.
When we lasted long enough they gave us medals;
When we died they said, "Our casualties were low."
The said, "Here are the maps"; we burned the cities.
It was not dying --no, not ever dying;
But the night I died I dreamed that I was dead,
And the cities said to me: "Why are you dying?
We are satisfied, if you are; but why did I die?"
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Written by
Rudyard Kipling |
There's no sense in going further -- it's the edge of cultivation,"
So they said, and I believed it -- broke my land and sowed my crop --
Built my barns and strung my fences in the little border station
Tucked away below the foothills where the trails run out and stop.
Till a voice, as bad as Conscience, rang interminable changes
On one everlasting Whisper day and night repeated -- so:
"Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges --
"Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost in wating for you. Go!"
So I went, worn out of patience; never told my nearest neighbours --
Stole away with pack and ponies -- left 'em drinking in the town;
And the faith that moveth mountains didn't seem to help my labours
As I faced the sheer main-ranges, whipping up and leading down.
March by march I puzzled through 'em, turning flanks and dodging shoulders,
Hurried on in hope of water, headed back for lack of grass;
Till I camped above the tree-line -- drifted snow and naked boulders --
Felt free air astir to windward -- knew I'd stumbled on the Pass.
'Thought to name it for the finder: but that night the Norther found me --
Froze and killed the plains-bred ponies; so I called the camp Despair
(It's the Railway Gap to-day, though). Then my Whisper waked to hound me: --
"Something lost behind the Ranges. Over yonder! Go you there!"
Then I knew, the while I doubted -- knew His Hand was certain o'er me.
Still -- it might be self-delusion -- scores of better men had died --
I could reach the township living, but. . . He knows what terror tore me . . .
But I didn't . . . but I didn't. I went down the other side,
Till the snow ran out in flowers, and the flowers turned to aloes,
And the aloes sprung to thickets and a brimming stream ran by;
But the thickets dwined to thorn-scrub, and the water drained to shallows,
And I dropped again on desert -- blasterd earth, and blasting sky. . . .
I remember lighting fires; I remember sitting by 'em;
I remember seeing faces, hearing voices, through the smoke;
I remember they were fancy -- for I threw a stone to try 'em.
"Something lost behind the Ranges" was the only word they spoke.
But at last the country altered -- White Man's country past disputing --
Rolling grass and open timber, with a hint of hills behind --
There I found me food and water, and I lay a week recruiting.
Got my strength and lost my nightmares. Then I entered on my find.
Thence I ran my first rough survey -- chose my trees and blazed and ringed 'em --
Week by week I pried and smhampled -- week by week my findings grew.
Saul he went to look for donkeys, and by God he found a kingdom!
But by God, who sent His Whisper, I had struck the worth of two!
Up along the hostile mountains, where the hair-poised snowslide shivers --
Down and through the big fat marshes that the virgin ore-bed stains,
Till I heard the mile-wide mutterings of unimagined rivers,
And beyond the nameless timber saw illimitable plains!
'Plotted sites of future cities, traced the easy grades between 'em;
Watched unharnessed rapids wasting fifty thousand head an hour;
Counted leagues of water-frontage through the axe-ripe woods that screen 'em --
Saw the plant to feed a people -- up and waiting for the power!
Well, I know who'll take the credit -- all the clever chaps that followed --
Came, a dozen men together -- never knew my desert-fears;
Tracked me by the camps I'd quitted, used the water-holes I hollowed.
They'll go back and do the talking. They'll be called the Pioneers!
They will find my sites of townships -- not the cities that I set there.
They will rediscover rivers -- not my rivers heard at night.
By my own old marks and bearings they will show me how to get there,
By the lonely cairns I builded they will guide my feet aright.
Have I named one single river? Have I claimed one single acre?
Have I kept one single nugget -- (barring samples)? No, not I!
Because my price was paid me ten times over by my Maker.
But you wouldn't understand it. You go up and occupy.
Ores you'll find there; wood and cattle; water-transit sure and steady
(That should keep the railway rates down), coal and iron at your doors.
God took care to hide that country till He judged His people ready,
Then He chose me for His Whisper, and I've found it, and it's yours!
Yes, your "Never-never country" -- yes, your "edge of cultivation"
And "no sense in going further" -- till I crossed the range to see.
God forgive me! No, I didn't. It's God's present to our nation.
Anybody might have found it but -- His Whisper came to Me!
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Written by
Marriott Edgar |
Henry the Seventh of England
Wasn't out of the Royal top drawer,
The only connection of which he could boast,
He were King's nephew's brother-in-law.
It were after the Wars of the Roses
That he came to the front, as it were,
When on strength of his having slain Richard the Third
He put himself up as his heir.
T'were a bit of a blow to the Barons
When Henry aspired to the Throne,
And some who'd been nursing imperial hopes
Started pushing out claims of their own.
But they didn't get far with their scheming,
For the moment the matter were pressed
A stroke of the pen took them off to the Tower,
Where a stroke of the axe did the rest.
A feller they called Perkin Warbeck
Was the one who led Henry a dance,
To make sure that nowt awkward should happen to him
He worked from an office in France.
He claimed to be one of the Princes
As were smothered to death in the Tower.
His tale was that only his brother was killed
And that he had escaped the seas ower.
Henry knew the appeal of the Princes
Was a strong one for Perkin to make,
And he reckoned he'd best have a chat with the lad
And find out the least he would take.
In reply to his kind invitation
Perkin said he'd he happy to call,
But he'd bring his own escort of ten thousand men
And a hundred pipers an' all.
This reply put the King in a passion
He swore as he'd stop Perkin's fun,
Then he offered a fortune per annum to him
As could tell him how his could be done.
Then up spoke the bold Lambert Simne
The King's private scullion he were,
He said: "Just one word in thy ear 'ole, O King,
I've a plan as will stop all this 'ere."
Then he took the King up in a corner,
Where no one could hear what they said,
He hadn't got far when King started to laff
And he laffed till he had to he bled.
T 'were a plan to anticipate Perkin,
By getting in first with these tales,
Start another rebellion before he arrived
And take the wind out of his sails.
And so Lambert Simnel's rebellion
Made its fateful debut in the North
Experts disagree who he made out to be,
John the Second or Richard the Fourth.
T 'was surprising how many believed him
They flocked to his flag like one man,
For in them days the folk would do owt for a change,
And their motto was, " San fairy ann."
It were quite a success this rebellion
Till t'were routed by Henry at Stoke,
And Lambert were taken and made to confess
That his parents was working class folk.
The public forgave this deception,
The thing that made them proper mad
Was a twopenny increase on every one's rates
To pay for the fun they had had.
And so when Peter Warbeck came over
Expecting his praise to be sung,
He was greeted, defeated, escheated, unseated,
Maltreated and finally hung.
And the Baron went back to his castle,
The Peasant went back to his herd,
Lambert Simnel went back to his scullion's job
Because Henry went back on his word.
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Written by
Matthew Arnold |
Even in a palace, life may be led well!
So spake the imperial sage, purest of men,
Marcus Aurelius. But the stifling den
Of common life, where, crowded up pell-mell,
Our freedom for a little bread we sell,
And drudge under some foolish master's ken
Who rates us if we peer outside our pen--
Match'd with a palace, is not this a hell?
Even in a palace! On his truth sincere,
Who spoke these words, no shadow ever came;
And when my ill-school'd spirit is aflame
Some nobler, ampler stage of life to win,
I'll stop, and say: 'There were no succour here!
The aids to noble life are all within.'
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Written by
Rg Gregory |
we say blame the teachers
don't we send our young to school
to be taught the simple rules
for decent public-spirited behaviour
do we pay such crushing rates
to have our children turned to louts
we're sick of all this fuss
we say blame the teachers
or the preachers
they're all the same to us
we say blame the preachers
what right have they to shake
their moral fingers every week
at us and call us pharisees and sinners
let them wave their holy book
where these thugs can take a look
we're sick of all this fuss
we say blame the preachers
or the police
they're all the same to us
we say blame the police
they're very quick to chase us
when we speed in the wrong places
or accidentally cross the lights at red
but don't they take their time
when there's really been a crime
we're sick of all this fuss
we say blame the police
or politicians
they're all the same to us
we say blame the politicians
they promise and they promise
when election time is on us
sterner measures to prevent delinquency
yet when they win their phoney war
they do nothing as before
we're sick of all this fuss
we say blame the politicians
or society
they're all the same to us
we say blame society
blame the bosses blame the workers
blame the bankers blame the forces
blame the doctors dentists papers - blame tv
blame the jews united nations
blame our neighbours friends relations
we're sick of all this fuss
we say blame society
or the world
but don't blame us
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Written by
Eugene Field |
There are two phrases, you must know,
So potent (yet so small)
That wheresoe'er a man may go
He needs none else at all;
No servile guide to lead the way
Nor lackey at his heel,
If he be learned enough to say
"Comme bien" and "Wie viel."
The sleek, pomaded Parleyvoo
Will air his sweetest airs
And quote the highest rates when you
"Comme bien" for his wares;
And, though the German stolid be,
His so-called heart of steel
Becomes as soft as wax when he
Detects the words "Wie viel."
Go, search the boulevards and rues
From Havre to Marseilles--
You'll find all eloquence you use
Except "Comme bien" fails;
Or in the country auf der Rhine
Essay a business deal
And all your art is good fuhr nein
Beyond the point--"Wie viel."
It matters not what game or prey
Attracts your greedy eyes--
You must pursue the good old way
If you would win the prize;
It is to get a titled mate
All run down at the heel,
If you inquire of stock effete,
"Comme bien" or "Wie viel."
So he is wise who envieth not
A wealth of foreign speech,
Since with two phrases may be got
Whatever's in his reach;
For Europe is a soulless shrine
In which all classes kneel
Before twin idols, deemed divine--
"Comme bien" and "Wie viel."
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Written by
Andrew Barton Paterson |
So, the bank has bust it's boiler! And in six or seven year
It will pay me all my money back -- of course!
But the horse will perish waiting while the grass is germinating,
And I reckon I'll be something like the horse.
There's the ploughing to be finished and the ploughmen want their pay,
And I'd like to wire the fence and sink a tank;
But I own I'm fairly beat how I'm going to make ends meet
With my money in a reconstructed bank.
"It's a safe and sure investment!" But it's one I can't afford,
For I've got to meet my bills and bay the rent,
And the cash I had provided (so these meetings have decided)
Shall be collared by the bank at three per cent.
I can draw out half my money, so they tell me, from the Crown;
But -- it's just enough to drive a fellow daft --
My landlord's quite distressed, by this very bank he's pressed,
And he'll sell me up, to pay his overdraft.
There's my nearest neighbour, Johnson, owed this self-same bank a debt,
Every feather off his poor old back they pluck't,
For they set to work to shove him, and they sold his house above him,
Lord! They never gave him time to reconstruct.
And their profits from the business have been twenty-five per cent,
Which, I reckon, is a pretty tidy whack,
And I think it's only proper, now the thing has come a cropper,
That they ought to pay a little of it back.
I have read about "reserve funds", "banking freeholds", and the like,
Till I thought the bank had thousands of assets,
And it strikes me very funny that they take a fellow's money
When they haven't got enough to pay their debts.
And they say they've lent my money, and they can't get paid it back.
I know their rates per cent were tens and twelves;
And if they've made a blunder after scooping all this plunder,
Why, they ought to fork the money out themselves.
So all you bank shareholders, if you won't pay what you owe,
You will find that on your bank will fall a blight;
And the reason is because it's simply certain that deposits
Will be stopped, the bank will bust, and serve you right!
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Written by
Edgar Lee Masters |
You never marveled, dullards of Spoon River,
When Chase Henry voted against the saloons
To revenge himself for being shut off.
But none of you was keen enough
To follow my steps, or trace me home
As Chase's spiritual brother.
Do you remember when I fought
The bank and the courthouse ring,
For pocketing the interest on public funds?
And when I fought our leading citizens
For making the poor the pack-horses of the taxes?
And when I fought the water-works
For stealing streets and raising rates?
And when I fought the business men
Who fought me in these fights?
Then do you remember:
That staggering up from the wreck of defeat,
And the wreck of a ruined career,
I slipped from my cloak my last ideal,
Hidden from all eyes until then,
Like the cherished jawbone of an ass,
And smote the bank and the water works,
And the business men with prohibition,
And made Spoon River pay the cost
Of the fights that I had lost?
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Written by
Ambrose Bierce |
Thou shalt no God but me adore:
'Twere too expensive to have more.
No images nor idols make
For Roger Ingersoll to break.
Take not God's name in vain: select
A time when it will have effect.
Work not on Sabbath days at all,
But go to see the teams play ball.
Honor thy parents. That creates
For life insurance lower rates.
Kill not, abet not those who kill;
Thou shalt not pay thy butcher's bill.
Kiss not thy neighbor's wife, unless
Thine own thy neighbor doth caress.
Don't steal; thou'lt never thus compete
Successfully in business. Cheat.
Bear not false witness--that is low--
But "hear 'tis rumored so and so."
Covet thou naught that thou hast got
By hook or crook, or somehow, got.
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Written by
Emily Dickinson |
For Death -- or rather
For the Things 'twould buy --
This -- put away
Life's Opportunity --
The Things that Death will buy
Are Room --
Escape from Circumstances --
And a Name --
With Gifts of Life
How Death's Gifts may compare --
We know not --
For the Rates -- lie Here --
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