Written by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe |
[A satire on his own Sorrows of Werther.
]
ON bridges small and bridges great
Stands Nepomucks in ev'ry state,
Of bronze, wood, painted, or of stone,
Some small as dolls, some giants grown;
Each passer must worship before Nepomuck,
Who to die on a bridge chanced to have the ill luck,
When once a man with head and ears
A saint in people's eyes appears,
Or has been sentenced piteously
Beneath the hangman's hand to die,
He's as a noted person prized,
In portrait is immortalized.
Engravings, woodcuts, are supplied,
And through the world spread far and wide.
Upon them all is seen his name,
And ev'ry one admits his claim;
Even the image of the Lord
Is not with greater zeal ador'd.
Strange fancy of the human race!
Half sinner frail, half child of grace
We see HERR WERTHER of the story
In all the pomp of woodcut glory.
His worth is first made duly known,
By having his sad features shown
At ev'ry fair the country round;
In ev'ry alehouse too they're found.
His stick is pointed by each dunce
"The ball would reach his brain at once!"
And each says, o'er his beer and bread:
"Thank Heav'n that 'tis not we are dead!"
1815.
*
|
Written by
Vernon Scannell |
THE SENTENCE
Perhaps I can make it plain by analogy.
Imagine a machine, not yet assembled,
Each part being quite necessary
To the functioning of the whole: if the job is fumbled
And a vital piece mislaid
The machine is quite valueless,
The workers will not be paid.
It is just the same when constructing a sentence
But here we must be very careful
And lay stress on the extreme importance
Of defining our terms: nothing is as simple
As it seems at first regard.
"Sentence" might well mean to you
The amorous rope or twelve years" hard.
No, by "sentence" we mean, quite simply, words
Put together like the parts of a machine.
Now remember we must have a verb: verbs
Are words of action like Murder, Love, or Sin.
But these might be nouns, depending
On how you use them –
Already the plot is thickening.
Except when the mood is imperative; that is to say
A command is given like Pray, Repent, or Forgive
(Dear me, these lessons get gloomier every day)
Except, as I was saying, when the mood is gloomy –
I mean imperative
We need nouns, or else of course
Pronouns; words like Maid,
Man, Wedding or Divorce.
A sentence must make sense.
Sometimes I believe
Our lives are ungrammatical.
I guess that some of
you
Have misplaced the direct object: the longer I live
The less certain I feel of anything I do.
But now I begin
To digress.
Write down these simple sentences:--
I am sentenced: I love: I murder: I sin.
|
Written by
Leonard Cohen |
They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
For trying to change the system from within
I'm coming now, I'm coming to reward them
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin.
I'm guided by a signal in the heavens
I'm guided by this birthmark on my skin
I'm guided by the beauty of our weapons
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin.
I'd really like to live beside you, baby
I love your body and your spirit and your clothes
But you see that line there moving through the station?
I told you, I told you, told you, I was one of those
Ah you loved me as a loser, but now you're worried that I
just might win
You know the way to stop me, but you don't have the
discipline
How many nights I prayed for this, to let my work begin
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin
I don't like your fashion business mister
And I don't like these drugs that keep you thin
I don't like what happened to my sister
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin
I'd really like to live beside you, baby
I love your body and your spirit and your clothes
But you see that line there moving through the station?
I told you, I told you, told you, I was one of those
And I thank you for those items that you sent me
The monkey and the plywood violin
I practiced every night, now I'm ready
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin
Remember me? I used to live for music
Remember me? I brought your groceries in
Well it's Father's Day and everybody's wounded
First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin
|
Written by
Spike Milligan |
Unaware of my crime
they stood me in the dock.
I was sentenced to life.
.
.
.
without her.
Strange trial.
No judge.
No jury.
I wonder who my visitors will be.
|
Written by
Leonard Cohen |
(After Lorca)
Now in Vienna there are ten pretty women.
There's a shoulder where death comes to cry.
There's a lobby with nine hundred windows.
There's a tree where the doves go to die.
There's a piece that was torn from the morning,
and it hangs in the Gallery of Frost—
Ay, ay ay ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz,
take this waltz with the clamp on its jaws.
I want you, I want you, I want you
on a chair with a dead magazine.
In the cave at the tip of the lily,
in some hallway where love's never been.
On a bed where the moon has been sweating,
in a cry filled with footsteps and sand—
Ay, ay ay ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz,
take its broken waist in your hand.
This waltz, this waltz, this waltz, this waltz
with its very own breath
of brandy and death,
dragging its tail in the sea.
There's a concert hall in Vienna
where your mouth had a thousand reviews.
There's a bar where the boys have stopped talking,
they've been sentenced to death by the blues.
Ah, but who is it climbs to your picture
with a garland of freshly cut tears?
Ay, ay ay ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz,
take this waltz, it's been dying for years.
There's an attic where children are playing,
where I've got to lie down with you soon,
in a dream of Hungarian lanterns,
in the mist of some sweet afternoon.
And I'll see what you've chained to your sorrow,
all your sheep and your lilies of snow—
Ay, ay ay ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz
with its "I'll never forget you, you know!"
And I'll dance with you in Vienna,
I'll be wearing a river's disguise.
The hyacinth wild on my shoulder
my mouth on the dew of your thighs.
And I'll bury my soul in a scrapbook,
with the photographs there and the moss.
And I'll yield to the flood of your beauty,
my cheap violin and my cross.
And you'll carry me down on your dancing
to the pools that you lift on your wrist—
O my love, O my love
Take this waltz, take this waltz,
it's yours now.
It's all that there is.
|
Written by
Vernon Scannell |
And now another autumn morning finds me
With chalk dust on my sleeve and in my breath,
Preoccupied with vague, habitual speculation
On the huge inevitability of death.
Not wholly wretched, yet knowing absolutely
That I shall never reacquaint myself with joy,
I sniff the smell of ink and chalk and my mortality
And think of when I rolled, a gormless boy,
And rollicked round the playground of my hours,
And wonder when precisely tolled the bell
Which summoned me from summer liberties
And brought me to this chill autumnal cell
From which I gaze upon the april faces
That gleam before me, like apples ranged on shelves,
And yet I feel no pinch or prick of envy
Nor would I have them know their sentenced selves.
With careful effort I can separate the faces,
The dull, the clever, the various shapes and sizes,
But in the autumn shades I find I only
Brood upon death, who carries off all the prizes.
|
Written by
Thomas Hood |
Tim Turpin he was gravel-blind,
And ne'er had seen the skies :
For Nature, when his head was made,
Forgot to dot his eyes.
So, like a Christmas pedagogue,
Poor Tim was forced to do -
Look out for pupils; for he had
A vacancy for two.
There's some have specs to help their sight
Of objects dim and small :
But Tim had specks within his eyes,
And could not see at all.
Now Tim he wooed a servant maid,
And took her to his arms;
For he, like Pyramus, had cast
A wall-eye on her charms.
By day she led him up and down.
Where'er he wished to jog,
A happy wife, altho' she led
The life of any dog.
But just when Tim had lived a month
In honey with his wife,
A surgeon ope'd his Milton eyes,
Like oysters, with a knife.
But when his eyes were opened thus,
He wished them dark again :
For when he looked upon his wife,
He saw her very plain.
Her face was bad, her figure worse,
He couldn't bear to eat :
For she was anything but like
A grace before his meat.
Now Tim he was a feeling man :
For when his sight was thick
It made him feel for everything -
But that was with a stick.
So, with a cudgel in his hand
It was not light or slim -
He knocked at his wife's head until
It opened unto him.
And when the corpse was stiff and cold,
He took his slaughtered spouse,
And laid her in a heap with all
The ashes of her house.
But like a wicked murderer,
He lived in constant fear
From day to day, and so he cut
His throat from ear to ear.
The neighbours fetched a doctor in :
Said he, "'This wound I dread
Can hardly be sewed up -
his life Is hanging on a thread.
"
But when another week was gone,
He gave him stronger hope -
Instead of hanging on a thread,
Of hanging on a rope.
Ah ! when he hid his bloody work
In ashes round about,
How little he supposed the truth
Would soon be sifted out.
But when the parish dustman came,
His rubbish to withdraw,
He found more dust within the heap
Than he contracted for !
A dozen men to try the fact
Were sworn that very day ;
But though they all were jurors, yet
No conjurors were they.
Said Tim unto those jurymen,
You need not waste your breath,
For I confess myself at once
The author of her death.
And, oh ! when I refect upon
The blood that I have spilt,
Just like a button is my soul,
Inscribed with double guilt !
Then turning round his head again,
He saw before his eyes,
A great judge, and a little judge,
The judges of a-size !
The great judge took his judgment cap,
And put it on his head,
And sentenced Tim by law to hang
Till he was three times dead.
So he was tried, and he was hung
(Fit punishment for such)
On Horsham-drop, and none can say
It was a drop too much.
|
Written by
A E Housman |
The chestnut casts his flambeaux, and the flowers
Stream from the hawthorn on the wind away,
The doors clap to, the pane is blind with showers.
Pass me the can, lad; there's an end of May.
There's one spoilt spring to scant our mortal lot,
One season ruined of your little store.
May will be fine next year as like as not:
But ay, but then we shall be twenty-four.
We for a certainty are not the first
Have sat in taverns while the tempest hurled
Their hopeful plans to emptiness, and cursed
Whatever brute and blackguard made the world.
It is in truth iniquity on high
To cheat our sentenced souls of aught they crave,
And mar the merriment as you and I
Fare on our long fool's-errand to the grave.
Iniquity it is; but pass the can.
My lad, no pair of kings our mothers bore;
Our only portion is the estate of man:
We want the moon, but we shall get no more.
If here to-day the cloud of thunder lours
To-morrow it will hie on far behests;
The flesh will grieve on other bones than ours
Soon, and the soul will mourn in other breasts.
The troubles of our proud and angry dust
Are from eternity, and shall not fail.
Bear them we can, and if we can we must.
Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.
|
Written by
Walt Whitman |
YOU felons on trial in courts;
You convicts in prison-cells—you sentenced assassins, chain’d and
hand-cuff’d
with
iron;
Who am I, too, that I am not on trial, or in prison?
Me, ruthless and devilish as any, that my wrists are not chain’d with iron, or my
ankles
with
iron?
You prostitutes flaunting over the trottoirs, or obscene in your rooms,
Who am I, that I should call you more obscene than myself?
O culpable!
I acknowledge—I exposé!
(O admirers! praise not me! compliment not me! you make me wince,
I see what you do not—I know what you do not.
)
Inside these breast-bones I lie smutch’d and choked;
Beneath this face that appears so impassive, hell’s tides continually run;
Lusts and wickedness are acceptable to me;
I walk with delinquents with passionate love;
I feel I am of them—I belong to those convicts and prostitutes myself,
And henceforth I will not deny them—for how can I deny myself?
|
Written by
Emily Dickinson |
Wert Thou but ill -- that I might show thee
How long a Day I could endure
Though thine attention stop not on me
Nor the least signal, Me assure --
Wert Thou but Stranger in ungracious country --
And Mine -- the Door
Thou paused at, for a passing bounty --
No More --
Accused -- wert Thou -- and Myself -- Tribunal --
Convicted -- Sentenced -- Ermine -- not to Me
Half the Condition, thy Reverse -- to follow --
Just to partake -- the infamy --
The Tenant of the Narrow Cottage, wert Thou --
Permit to be
The Housewife in thy low attendance
Contenteth Me --
No Service hast Thou, I would not achieve it --
To die -- or live --
The first -- Sweet, proved I, ere I saw thee --
For Life -- be Love --
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