Written by
William Shakespeare |
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
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Written by
Ogden Nash |
Isabel met an enormous bear,
Isabel, Isabel, didn't care;
The bear was hungry, the bear was ravenous,
The bear's big mouth was cruel and cavernous.
The bear said, Isabel, glad to meet you,
How do, Isabel, now I'll eat you!
Isabel, Isabel, didn't worry.
Isabel didn't scream or scurry.
She washed her hands and she straightened her hair up,
Then Isabel quietly ate the bear up.
Once in a night as black as pitch
Isabel met a wicked old witch.
the witch's face was cross and wrinkled,
The witch's gums with teeth were sprinkled.
Ho, ho, Isabel! the old witch crowed,
I'll turn you into an ugly toad!
Isabel, Isabel, didn't worry,
Isabel didn't scream or scurry,
She showed no rage and she showed no rancor,
But she turned the witch into milk and drank her.
Isabel met a hideous giant,
Isabel continued self reliant.
The giant was hairy, the giant was horrid,
He had one eye in the middle of his forhead.
Good morning, Isabel, the giant said,
I'll grind your bones to make my bread.
Isabel, Isabel, didn't worry,
Isabel didn't scream or scurry.
She nibled the zwieback that she always fed off,
And when it was gone, she cut the giant's head off.
Isabel met a troublesome doctor,
He punched and he poked till he really shocked her.
The doctor's talk was of coughs and chills
And the doctor's satchel bulged with pills.
The doctor said unto Isabel,
Swallow this, it will make you well.
Isabel, Isabel, didn't worry,
Isabel didn't scream or scurry.
She took those pills from the pill concocter,
And Isabel calmly cured the doctor.
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Written by
Marilyn Hacker |
After Joseph Roth
Parce que c'était lui; parce que c'était moi.
Montaigne, De L'amitië
The dream's forfeit was a night in jail
and now the slant light is crepuscular.
Papers or not, you are a foreigner
whose name is always difficult to spell.
You pack your one valise. You ring the bell.
Might it not be prudent to disappear
beneath that mauve-blue sky above the square
fronting your cosmopolitan hotel?
You know two short-cuts to the train station
which could get you there, on foot, in time.
The person who's apprised of your intention
and seems to be your traveling companion
is merely the detritus of a dream.
You cross the lobby and go out alone.
You crossed the lobby and went out alone
through the square, where two red-headed girls played
hopscotch on a chalk grid, now in the shade,
of a broad-leafed plane tree, now in the sun.
The lively, lovely, widowed afternoon
disarmed, uncoupled, shuffled and disarrayed
itself; despite itself, dismayed
you with your certainties, your visa, gone
from your breast-pocket, or perhaps expired.
At the reception desk, no one inquired
if you'd be returning. Now you wonder why.
When the stout conductor comes down the aisle
mustached, red-faced, at first jovial,
and asks for your passport, what will you say?
When they ask for your passport, will you say
that town's name they'd find unpronounceable
which resonates, when uttered, like a bell
in your mind's tower, as it did the day
you carried your green schoolbag down the gray
fog-cobbled street, past church, bakery, shul
past farm women setting up market stalls
it was so early. "I am on my way
to school in ." You were part of the town
now, not the furnished rooms you shared
with Mutti, since the others disappeared.
Your knees were red with cold; your itchy wool
socks had inched down, so you stooped to pull
them up, a student and a citizen.
You are a student and a citizen
of whatever state is transient.
You are no more or less the resident
of a hotel than you were of that town
whose borders were disputed and redrawn.
A prince conceded to a president.
Another language became relevant
to merchants on that street a child walked down
whom you remember, in the corridors
of cities you inhabit, polyglot
as the distinguished scholar you were not
to be. A slight accent sets you apart,
but it would mark you on that peddlers'-cart
street now. Which language, after all, is yours?
Which language, after all these streets, is yours,
and why are you here, waiting for a train?
You could have run a hot bath, read Montaigne.
But would footsteps beyond the bathroom door's
bolt have disturbed the nondescript interior's
familiarity, shadowed the plain
blue draperies? You reflect, you know no one
who would, of you, echo your author's
"Because it was he; because it was I,"
as a unique friendship's non sequitur.
No footsteps and no friend: that makes you free.
The train approaches, wreathed in smoke like fur
around the shoulders of a dowager
with no time for sentimentality.
With no time for sentimentality,
mulling a twice-postponed book-review,
you take an empty seat. Opposite you
a voluble immigrant family
is already unwrapping garlicky
sausages—an unshaven man and his two
red-eared sons.
You once wrote: it is true,
awful, and unimportant, finally
that if the opportunity occurs
some of the exiles become storm-troopers;
and you try, culpably, to project these three
into some torch-lit future, filtering out
their wrangling (one of your languages) about
the next canto in their short odyssey.
The next canto in your short odyssey
will open, you know this, in yet another
hotel room. They have become your mother
country: benevolent anonymity
of rough starched sheets, dim lamp, rickety
escritoire, one window. Your neighbors gather
up their crusts and rinds. Out of a leather
satchel, the man takes their frayed identity
cards, examines them. The sons watch, pale
and less talkative. A border, passport control,
draw near: rubber stamp or interrogation?
You hope the customs officer lunched well;
reflect on the recurrent implication
of the dream's forfeit. One night in jail?
|
Written by
Francois Villon |
Who's that I hear?—It's me—Who?—Your heart
Hanging on by the thinnest thread
I lose all my strength, substance, and fluid
When I see you withdrawn this way all alone
Like a whipped cur sulking in the corner
Is it due to your mad hedonism?—
What's it to you?—I have to suffer for it—
Leave me alone—Why?—I'll think about it—
When will you do that?—When I've grown up—
I've nothing more to tell you—I'll survive without it—
What's your idea?—To be a good man—
You're thirty, for a mule that's a lifetime
You call that childhood?—No—Madness
Must have hold of you—By what, the halter?—
You don't know a thing—Yes I do—What?—Flies in milk
One's white, one's black, they're opposites—
That's all?—How can I say it better?
If that doesn't suit you I'll start over—
You're lost—Well I'll go down fighting—
I've nothing more to tell you—I'll survive without it—
I get the heartache, you the injury and pain
If you were just some poor crazy idiot
I'd be able to make excuses for you
You don't even care, all's one to you, foul or fair
Either your head's harder than a rock
Or you actually prefer misery to honor
Now what do you say to that?—
Once I'm dead I'll rise above it—
God, what comfort—What wise eloquence—
I've nothing more to tell you—I'll survive without it—
Why are you miserable?—Because of my miseries
When Saturn packed my satchel I think
He put in these troubles—That's mad
You're his lord and you talk like his slave
Look what Solomon wrote in his book
"A wise man" he says "has authority
Over the planets and their influence"—
I don't believe it, as they made me I'll be—
What are you saying?—Yes that's what I think—
I've nothing more to tell you—I'll survive without it—
Want to live?—God give me the strength—
It's necessary...—What is?—To feel remorse
Lots of reading—What kind?—Read for knowledge
Leave fools alone—I'll take your advice—
Or will you forget?—I've got it fixed in mind—
Now act before things go from bad to worse
I've nothing more to tell you—I'll survive without it.
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Written by
Marilyn Hacker |
Cherry-ripe: dark sweet burlats, scarlet reverchons
firm-fleshed and tart in the mouth
bigarreaux, peach-and-white napoléons
as the harvest moves north
from Provence to the banks of the Yonne
(they grow napoléons in Washington
State now). Before that, garriguettes,
from Périgord, in wooden punnets
afterwards, peaches: yellow-fleshed, white,
moss-skinned ruby pêches de vigne.
The vendors cry out "Taste," my appetite
does, too.. Birdsong, from an unseen
source on this street-island, too close for the trees:
it’s a young woman with a tin basin
of plastic whistles moulded like canaries.
– which children warbled on in Claremont Park
one spring day in my third year. Gísela
my father’s mother, took
me there. I spent the days with her
now that my mother had gone back to work.
In her brocade satchel, crochet-work, a picture-book
for me. But overnight the yellow bird
whistles had appeared
and I wanted one passionately.
Watching big girls play hopscotch at curb’s edge
or telling stories to V.J
under the shiny leaves of privet hedge
were pale pastimes compared to my desire
Did I hector one of the privileged
warblers to tell us where they were acquired?
– the candy store on Tremont Avenue
Of course I don’t call her Gísela.
I call her Grandma.. "Grandma will buy it for you,"
– does she add "mammele "
not letting her annoyance filter through
as an old-world friend moves into view?
The toddler and the stout
grey-haired woman walk out
of the small park toward the shopping streets
into a present tense
where what’s ineffaceable repeats
itself. Accidents.
I dash ahead, new whistle in my hand
She runs behind. The car. The almost-silent
thud. Gísela, prone, also silent, on the ground.
Death is the scandal that was always hidden.
I never saw my grandmother again
Who took me home? Somebody did. In
the next few days (because that afternoon
and night are blank) I don’t think I cried, I didn’t
know what to ask (I wasn’t three), and then I did, and
"She’s gone to live in Florida" they said
and I knew she was dead.
A black woman, to whom I wasn’t nice,
was hired to look after me.
Her name was Josephine – and that made twice
I’d heard that name: my grandmother’s park crony
was Josephine. Where was Grandma; where was Gísela ?
she called me to her bench to ask one day.
I say, "She’s gone to live in Florida."
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Written by
Paul Laurence Dunbar |
O'ER fallow plains and fertile meads,
AURORA lifts the torch of day;
The shad'wy brow of Night recedes,
Cold dew-drops fall from every spray;
Now o'er the thistle's rugged head,
Thin veils of filmy vapour fly,
On ev'ry violet's perfum'd bed
The sparkling gems of Nature lie.
The hill's tall brow is crown'd with gold,
The Milk-maid trills her jocund lay,
The Shepherd-boy unpens his fold,
The Lambs along the meadows play;
The pilf'ring LARK, with speckled breast,
From the ripe sheaf's rich banquet flies;
And lifting high his plumy crest,
Soars the proud tenant of the skies.
The PEASANT steals with timid feet,
And gently taps the cottage door;
Or on the green sod takes his seat,
And chaunts some well-known ditty o'er;
Wak'd by the strain, the blushing MAID,
Unpractis'd in Love's mazy wiles,
In clean, but homely garb array'd,
From the small casement peepsand smiles.
Proud CHANTICLEER unfolds his wing,
And flutt'ring struts in plumage gay;
The glades with vocal echoes ring,
Soft odours deck the hawthorn spray;
The SCHOOL-BOY saunters o'er the green,
With satchel, fill'd with Learning's store;
While with dejected, sullen mien,
He cons his tedious lesson o'er.
When WINTER spreads her banner chill,
And sweeps the vale with freezing pow'r;
And binds in spells the vagrant rill,
And shrivels ev'ry ling'ring flow'r;
When NATURE quits her verdant dress,
And drops to earth her icy tears;
E'EN THEN thy tardy glance can bless,
And soft thy weeping eye appears.
Then at the Horn's enliv'ning peal,
Keen Sportsmen for the chase prepare;
Thro' the young Copse shrill echoes steal,
Swift flies the tim'rous, panting hare;
From ev'ry straw-thatch'd cottage soars
Blue curling smoke in many a cloud;
Around the Barn's expanded doors,
The feather'd throng impatient crowd.
Such are thy charms! health-breathing scene!
Where Nature's children revel gay;
Where Plenty smiles with radiant mien,
And Labour crowns the circling day;
Where Peace, in conscious Virtue blest,
Invites the Heart to joy supreme;
While polish'd Splendour pants for rest
And pines in Fashion's fev'rish dream.
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Written by
Vachel Lindsay |
Two statesmen met by moonlight.
Their ease was partly feigned.
They glanced about the prairie.
Their faces were constrained.
In various ways aforetime
They had misled the state,
Yet did it so politely
Their henchmen thought them great.
They sat beneath a hedge and spake
No word, but had a smoke.
A satchel passed from hand to hand.
Next day, the deadlock broke.
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