Written by
Philip Larkin |
Once i am sure there's nothing going on
I step inside letting the door thud shut.
Another church: matting seats and stone
and little books; sprawlings of flowers cut
For Sunday brownish now; some brass and stuff
Up at the holy end; the small neat organ;
And a tense musty unignorable silence
Brewed God knows how long. Hatless I take off
My cylce-clips in awkward revrence
Move forward run my hand around the font.
From where i stand the roof looks almost new--
Cleaned or restored? someone would know: I don't.
Mounting the lectern I peruse a few
hectoring large-scale verses and pronouce
Here endeth much more loudly than I'd meant
The echoes snigger briefly. Back at the door
I sign the book donate an Irish sixpence
Reflect the place was not worth stopping for.
Yet stop I did: in fact I often do
And always end much at a loss like this
Wondering what to look for; wondering too
When churches fall completely out of use
What we shall turn them into if we shall keep
A few cathedrals chronically on show
Their parchment plate and pyx in locked cases
And let the rest rent-free to rain and sheep.
Shall we avoid them as unlucky places?
Or after dark will dubious women come
To make their children touvh a particular stone;
Pick simples for a cancer; or on some
Advised night see walking a dead one?
Power of some sort or other will go on
In games in riddles seemingly at random;
But superstition like belief must die
And what remains when disbelief has gone?
Grass weedy pavement brambles butress sky.
A shape less recognisable each week
A purpose more obscure. I wonder who
Will be the last the very last to seek
This place for whta it was; one of the crew
That tap and jot and know what rood-lofts were?
Some ruin-bibber randy for antique
Or Christmas-addict counting on a whiff
Of grown-and-bands and organ-pipes and myrrh?
Or will he be my representative
Bored uninformed knowing the ghostly silt
Dispersed yet tending to this cross of ground
Through suburb scrub because it held unspilt
So long and equably what since is found
Only in separation--marriage and birth
And death and thoughts of these--for which was built
This special shell? For though I've no idea
What this accoutred frowsty barn is worth
It pleases me to stand in silence here;
A serious house on serious earth it is
In whose blent air all our compulsions meet
Are recognisd and robed as destinies.
And that much never can be obsolete
Since someone will forever be surprising
A hunger in himself to be more serious
And gravitating with it to this ground
Which he once heard was proper to grow wise in
If only that so many dead lie round.
1955
|
Written by
William Topaz McGonagall |
Alas! the people now do sigh and moan
For the loss of Wm. Ewart Gladstone,
Who was a very great politician and a moral man,
And to gainsay it there's few people can.
'Twas in the year of 1898, and on the 19th of May,
When his soul took its flight for ever and aye,
And his body was interred in Westminster Abbey;
But I hope his soul has gone to that Heavenly shore,
Where all trials and troubles cease for evermore.
He was a man of great intellect and genius bright,
And ever faithful to his Queen by day and by night,
And always foremost in a political fight;
And for his services to mankind, God will him requite.
The funeral procession was affecting to see,
Thousands of people were assembled there, of every degree;
And it was almost eleven o'clock when the procession left Westminster Hall,
And the friends of the deceased were present- physicians and all.
A large force of police was also present there,
And in the faces of the spectators there was a pitiful air,
Yet they were orderly in every way,
And newspaper boys were selling publications without delay.
Present in the procession was Lord Playfair,
And Bailie Walcot was also there,
Also Mr Macpherson of Edinboro-
And all seemingly to be in profound sorrow.
The supporters of the coffin were the Earl Rosebery,
And the Right Honourable Earl of Kimberley,
And the Right Honourable Sir W. Vernon he was there,
And His Royal Highness the Duke of York, I do declare.
George Armitstead, Esq., was there also,
And Lord Rendal, with his heart full of woe;
And the Right Honourable Duke of Rutland,
And the Right Honourable Arthur J. Balfour, on the right hand;
Likewise the noble Marquis of Salisbury,
And His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, of high degree.
And immediately behind the coffin was Lord Pembroke,
The representative of Her Majesty, and the Duke of Norfolk,
Carrying aloft a beautiful short wand,
The insignia of his high, courtly office, which looked very grand.
And when the procession arrived at the grave,
Mrs Gladstone was there,
And in her countenance was depicted a very grave air;
And the dear, good lady seemed to sigh and moan
For her departed, loving husband, Wm. Ewart Gladstone.
And on the opposite side of her stood Lord Pembroke,
And Lord Salisbury, who wore a skull cap and cloak;
Also the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Rutland,
And Mr Balfour and Lord Spencer, all looking very bland.
And the clergy were gathered about the head of the grave,
And the attention of the spectators the Dean did crave;
Then he said, "Man that is born of woman hath a short time to live,
But, Oh, Heavenly Father! do thou our sins forgive."
Then Mrs Gladstone and her two sons knelt down by the grave,
Then the Dean did the Lord's blessing crave,
While Mrs Gladstone and her some knelt,
While the spectators for them great pity felt.
The scene was very touching and profound,
To see all the mourners bending their heads to the ground,
And, after a minute's most silent prayer,
The leave-taking at the grave was affecting, I do declare.
Then Mrs Gladstone called on little Dorothy Drew,
And immediately the little girl to her grandmamma flew,
And they both left the grave with their heads bowed down,
While tears from their relatives fell to the ground.
Immortal Wm. Ewart Gladstone! I must conclude my muse,
And to write in praise of thee my pen does not refuse-
To tell the world, fearlessly, without the least dismay,
You were the greatest politician in your day.
|
Written by
Walt Whitman |
1
NOW list to my morning’s romanza—I tell the signs of the Answerer;
To the cities and farms I sing, as they spread in the sunshine before me.
A young man comes to me bearing a message from his brother;
How shall the young man know the whether and when of his brother?
Tell him to send me the signs.
And I stand before the young man face to face, and take his right hand in my left hand,
and his
left
hand in my right hand,
And I answer for his brother, and for men, and I answer for him that answers for all, and
send
these
signs.
2
Him all wait for—him all yield up to—his word is decisive and final,
Him they accept, in him lave, in him perceive themselves, as amid light,
Him they immerse, and he immerses them.
Beautiful women, the haughtiest nations, laws, the landscape, people, animals,
The profound earth and its attributes, and the unquiet ocean, (so tell I my morning’s
romanza;)
All enjoyments and properties, and money, and whatever money will buy,
The best farms—others toiling and planting, and he unavoidably reaps,
The noblest and costliest cities—others grading and building, and he domiciles there;
Nothing for any one, but what is for him—near and far are for him, the ships in the
offing,
The perpetual shows and marches on land, are for him, if they are for any body.
He puts things in their attitudes;
He puts to-day out of himself, with plasticity and love;
He places his own city, times, reminiscences, parents, brothers and sisters, associations,
employment, politics, so that the rest never shame them afterward, nor assume to command
them.
He is the answerer:
What can be answer’d he answers—and what cannot be answer’d, he shows how
it
cannot
be answer’d.
3
A man is a summons and challenge;
(It is vain to skulk—Do you hear that mocking and laughter? Do you hear the ironical
echoes?)
Books, friendships, philosophers, priests, action, pleasure, pride, beat up and down,
seeking
to
give satisfaction;
He indicates the satisfaction, and indicates them that beat up and down also.
Whichever the sex, whatever the season or place, he may go freshly and gently and safely,
by
day or
by night;
He has the pass-key of hearts—to him the response of the prying of hands on the
knobs.
His welcome is universal—the flow of beauty is not more welcome or universal than he
is;
The person he favors by day, or sleeps with at night, is blessed.
4
Every existence has its idiom—everything has an idiom and tongue;
He resolves all tongues into his own, and bestows it upon men, and any man translates, and
any
man
translates himself also;
One part does not counteract another part—he is the joiner—he sees how they
join.
He says indifferently and alike, How are you, friend? to the President at his
levee,
And he says, Good-day, my brother! to Cudge that hoes in the sugar-field,
And both understand him, and know that his speech is right.
He walks with perfect ease in the Capitol,
He walks among the Congress, and one Representative says to another, Here is our equal,
appearing
and new.
Then the mechanics take him for a mechanic,
And the soldiers suppose him to be a soldier, and the sailors that he has follow’d
the
sea,
And the authors take him for an author, and the artists for an artist,
And the laborers perceive he could labor with them and love them;
No matter what the work is, that he is the one to follow it, or has follow’d it,
No matter what the nation, that he might find his brothers and sisters there.
The English believe he comes of their English stock,
A Jew to the Jew he seems—a Russ to the Russ—usual and near, removed from none.
Whoever he looks at in the traveler’s coffee-house claims him,
The Italian or Frenchman is sure, and the German is sure, and the Spaniard is sure, and
the
island
Cuban is sure;
The engineer, the deck-hand on the great lakes, or on the Mississippi, or St. Lawrence, or
Sacramento, or Hudson, or Paumanok Sound, claims him.
The gentleman of perfect blood acknowledges his perfect blood;
The insulter, the prostitute, the angry person, the beggar, see themselves in the ways of
him—he strangely transmutes them,
They are not vile any more—they hardly know themselves, they are so grown.
|
Written by
Derek Walcott |
As for that other thing
which comes when the eyelid is glazed
and the wax gleam
from the unwrinkled forehead
asks no more questions
of the dry mouth,
whether they open the heart like a shirt
to release a rage of swallows,
whether the brain
is a library for worms,
on the instant of that knowledge
of the moment
when everything became so stiff,
so formal with ironical adieux,
organ and choir,
and I must borrow a black tie,
and at what moment in the oration
shall I break down and weep -
there was the startle of wings
breaking from the closing cage
of your body, your fist unclenching
these pigeons circling serenely
over the page,
and,
as the parentheses lock like a gate
1917 to 1977,
the semicircles close to form a face,
a world, a wholeness,
an unbreakable O,
and something that once had a fearful name
walks from the thing that used to wear its name,
transparent, exact representative,
so that we can see through it
churches, cars, sunlight,
and the Boston Common,
not needing any book.
|
Written by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe |
I feel no small reluctance in venturing to give to the public a
work of the character of that indicated by the title-page to the
present volume; for, difficult as it must always be to render satisfactorily
into one's own tongue the writings of the bards of other lands,
the responsibility assumed by the translator is immeasurably increased
when he attempts to transfer the thoughts of those great men, who
have lived for all the world and for all ages, from the language
in which they were originally clothed, to one to which they may
as yet have been strangers. Preeminently is this the case with Goethe,
the most masterly of all the master minds of modern times, whose
name is already inscribed on the tablets of immortality, and whose
fame already extends over the earth, although as yet only in its
infancy. Scarcely have two decades passed away since he ceased to
dwell among men, yet he now stands before us, not as a mere individual,
like those whom the world is wont to call great, but as a type,
as an emblem--the recognised emblem and representative of the human
mind in its present stage of culture and advancement.
Among the infinitely varied effusions of Goethe's pen, perhaps
there are none which are of as general interest as his Poems, which
breathe the very spirit of Nature, and embody the real music of
the feelings. In Germany, they are universally known, and are considered
as the most delightful of his works. Yet in this country, this kindred
country, sprung from the same stem, and so strongly resembling her
sister in so many points, they are nearly unknown. Almost the only
poetical work of the greatest Poet that the world has seen for ages,
that is really and generally read in England, is Faust, the translations
of which are almost endless; while no single person has as yet appeared
to attempt to give, in an English dress, in any collective or systematic
manner, those smaller productions of the genius of Goethe which
it is the object of the present volume to lay before the reader,
whose indulgence is requested for its many imperfections. In addition
to the beauty of the language in which the Poet has given utterance
to his thoughts, there is a depth of meaning in those thoughts which
is not easily discoverable at first sight, and the translator incurs
great risk of overlooking it, and of giving a prosaic effect to
that which in the original contains the very essence of poetry.
It is probably this difficulty that has deterred others from undertaking
the task I have set myself, and in which I do not pretend to do
more than attempt to give an idea of the minstrelsy of one so unrivalled,
by as truthful an interpretation of it as lies in my power.
The principles which have guided me on the present occasion are
the same as those followed in the translation of Schiller's complete
Poems that was published by me in 1851, namely, as literal a rendering
of the original as is consistent with good English, and also a very
strict adherence to the metre of the original. Although translators
usually allow themselves great license in both these points, it
appears to me that by so doing they of necessity destroy the very
soul of the work they profess to translate. In fact, it is not a
translation, but a paraphrase that they give. It may perhaps be
thought that the present translations go almost to the other extreme,
and that a rendering of metre, line for line, and word for word,
makes it impossible to preserve the poetry of the original both
in substance and in sound. But experience has convinced me that
it is not so, and that great fidelity is even the most essential
element of success, whether in translating poetry or prose. It was
therefore very satisfactory to me to find that the principle laid
down by me to myself in translating Schiller met with the very general,
if not universal, approval of the reader. At the same time, I have
endeavoured to profit in the case of this, the younger born of the
two attempts made by me to transplant the muse of Germany to the
shores of Britain, by the criticisms, whether friendly or hostile,
that have been evoked or provoked by the appearance of its elder
brother.
As already mentioned, the latter contained the whole of the Poems
of Schiller. It is impossible, in anything like the same compass,
to give all the writings of Goethe comprised under the general title
of Gedichte, or poems. They contain between 30,000 and 40,000 verses,
exclusive of his plays. and similar works. Very many of these would
be absolutely without interest to the English reader,--such as those
having only a local application, those addressed to individuals,
and so on. Others again, from their extreme length, could only be
published in separate volumes. But the impossibility of giving all
need form no obstacle to giving as much as possible; and it so happens
that the real interest of Goethe's Poems centres in those classes
of them which are not too diffuse to run any risk when translated
of offending the reader by their too great number. Those by far
the more generally admired are the Songs and Ballads, which are
about 150 in number, and the whole of which are contained in this
volume (with the exception of one or two of the former, which have
been, on consideration, left out by me owing to their trifling and
uninteresting nature). The same may be said of the Odes, Sonnets,
Miscellaneous Poems, &c.
In addition to those portions of Goethe's poetical works which
are given in this complete form, specimens of the different other
classes of them, such as the Epigrams, Elegies, &c., are added,
as well as a collection of the various Songs found in his Plays,
making a total number of about 400 Poems, embraced in the present
volume.
A sketch of the life of Goethe is prefixed, in order that the
reader may have before him both the Poet himself and the Poet's
offspring, and that he may see that the two are but one--that Goethe
lives in his works, that his works lived in him.
The dates of the different Poems are appended throughout, that
of the first publication being given, when that of the composition
is unknown. The order of arrangement adopted is that of the authorized
German editions. As Goethe would never arrange them himself in the
chronological order of their composition, it has become impossible
to do so, now that he is dead. The plan adopted in the present volume
would therefore seem to be the best, as it facilitates reference
to the original. The circumstances attending or giving rise to the
production of any of the Poems will be found specified in those
cases in which they have been ascertained by me.
Having said thus much by way of explanation, I now leave the book
to speak for itself, and to testify to its own character. Whether
viewed with a charitable eye by the kindly reader, who will make
due allowance for the difficulties attending its execution, or received
by the critic, who will judge of it only by its own merits, with
the unfriendly welcome which it very probably deserves, I trust
that I shall at least be pardoned for making an attempt, a failure
in which does not necessarily imply disgrace, and which, by leading
the way, may perhaps become the means of inducing some abler and
more worthy (but not more earnest) labourer to enter upon the same
field, the riches of which will remain unaltered and undiminished
in value, even although they may be for the moment tarnished by
the hands of the less skilful workman who first endeavours to transplant
them to a foreign soil.
|
Written by
Emily Dickinson |
A science -- so the Savants say,
"Comparative Anatomy" --
By which a single bone --
Is made a secret to unfold
Of some rare tenant of the mold,
Else perished in the stone --
So to the eye prospective led,
This meekest flower of the mead
Upon a winter's day,
Stands representative in gold
Of Rose and Lily, manifold,
And countless Butterfly!
|
Written by
Robert Burns |
WHOM will you send to London town,
To Parliament and a’ that?
Or wha in a’ the country round
The best deserves to fa’ that?
For a’ that, and a’ that,
Thro’ Galloway and a’ that,
Where is the Laird or belted Knight
The best deserves to fa’ that?
Wha sees Kerroughtree’s open yett,
(And wha is’t never saw that?)
Wha ever wi’ Kerroughtree met,
And has a doubt of a’ that?
For a’ that, and a’ that,
Here’s Heron yet for a’ that!
The independent patriot,
The honest man, and a’ that.
Tho’ wit and worth, in either sex,
Saint Mary’s Isle can shaw that,
Wi’ Dukes and Lords let Selkirk mix,
And weel does Selkirk fa’ that.
For a’ that, and a’ that,
Here’s Heron yet for a’ that!
The independent commoner
Shall be the man for a’ that.
But why should we to Nobles jouk,
And is’t against the law, that?
For why, a Lord may be a gowk,
Wi’ ribband, star and a’ that,
For a’ that, and a’ that,
Here’s Heron yet for a’ that!
A Lord may be a lousy loun,
Wi’ ribband, star and a’ that.
A beardless boy comes o’er the hills,
Wi’ uncle’s purse and a’ that;
But we’ll hae ane frae mang oursels,
A man we ken, and a’ that.
For a’ that, and a’ that,
Here’s Heron yet for a’ that!
For we’re not to be bought and sold,
Like naigs, and nowt, and a’ that.
Then let us drink—The Stewartry,
Kerroughtree’s laird, and a’ that,
Our representative to be,
For weel he’s worthy a’ that.
For a’ that, and a’ that,
Here’s Heron yet for a’ that!
A House of Commons such as he,
They wad be blest that saw that.
|