Written by
Robert William Service |
The sky is like an envelope,
One of those blue official things;
And, sealing it, to mock our hope,
The moon, a silver wafer, clings.
What shall we find when death gives leave
To read--our sentence or reprieve?
I'm holding it down on God's scrap-pile, up on the ***-end of earth;
O'er me a menace of mountains, a river that grits at my feet;
Face to face with my soul-self, weighing my life at its worth;
Wondering what I was made for, here in my last retreat.
Last! Ah, yes, it's the finish. Have ever you heard a man cry?
(Sobs that rake him and rend him, right from the base of the chest.)
That's how I've cried, oh, so often; and now that my tears are dry,
I sit in the desolate quiet and wait for the infinite Rest.
Rest! Well, it's restful around me; it's quiet clean to the core.
The mountains pose in their ermine, in golden the hills are clad;
The big, blue, silt-freighted Yukon seethes by my cabin door,
And I think it's only the river that keeps me from going mad.
By day it's a ruthless monster, a callous, insatiate thing,
With oily bubble and eddy, with sudden swirling of breast;
By night it's a writhing Titan, sullenly murmuring,
Ever and ever goaded, and ever crying for rest.
It cries for its human tribute, but me it will never drown.
I've learned the lore of my river; my river obeys me well.
I hew and I launch my cordwood, and raft it to Dawson town,
Where wood means wine and women, and, incidentally, hell.
Hell and the anguish thereafter. Here as I sit alone
I'd give the life I have left me to lighten some load of care:
(The bitterest part of the bitter is being denied to atone;
Lips that have mocked at Heaven lend themselves ill to prayer.)
Impotent as a beetle pierced on the needle of Fate;
A wretch in a cosmic death-cell, peaks for my prison bars;
'Whelmed by a world stupendous, lonely and listless I wait,
Drowned in a sea of silence, strewn with confetti of stars.
See! from far up the valley a rapier pierces the night,
The white search-ray of a steamer. Swiftly, serenely it nears;
A proud, white, alien presence, a glittering galley of light,
Confident-poised, triumphant, freighted with hopes and fears.
I look as one looks on a vision; I see it pulsating by;
I glimpse joy-radiant faces; I hear the thresh of the wheel.
Hoof-like my heart beats a moment; then silence swoops from the sky.
Darkness is piled upon darkness. God only knows how I feel.
Maybe you've seen me sometimes; maybe you've pitied me then--
The lonely waif of the wood-camp, here by my cabin door.
Some day you'll look and see not; futile and outcast of men,
I shall be far from your pity, resting forevermore.
My life was a problem in ciphers, a weary and profitless sum.
Slipshod and stupid I worked it, dazed by negation and doubt.
Ciphers the total confronts me. Oh, Death, with thy moistened thumb,
Stoop like a petulant schoolboy, wipe me forever out!
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Written by
Robert Burns |
WITH Pegasus upon a day,
Apollo, weary flying,
Through frosty hills the journey lay,
On foot the way was plying.
Poor slipshod giddy Pegasus
Was but a sorry walker;
To Vulcan then Apollo goes,
To get a frosty caulker.
Obliging Vulcan fell to work,
Threw by his coat and bonnet,
And did Sol’s business in a crack;
Sol paid him with a sonnet.
Ye Vulcan’s sons of Wanlockhead,
Pity my sad disaster;
My Pegasus is poorly shod,
I’ll pay you like my master.
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Written by
Francesco Petrarch |
SONNET XXVI. Già fiammeggiava l' amorosa stella. LAURA, WHO IS ILL, APPEARS TO HIM IN A DREAM, AND ASSURES HIM THAT SHE STILL LIVES. Throughout the orient now began to flameThe star of love; while o'er the northern skyThat, which has oft raised Juno's jealousy,Pour'd forth its beauteous scintillating beam:Beside her kindled hearth the housewife dame,Half-dress'd, and slipshod, 'gan her distaff ply:And now the wonted hour of woe drew nigh,That wakes to tears the lover from his dream:When my sweet hope unto my mind appear'd,Not in the custom'd way unto my sight;For grief had bathed my lids, and sleep had weigh'd;Ah me, how changed that form by love endear'd!"Why lose thy fortitude?" methought she said,"These eyes not yet from thee withdraw their light." Nott. Already in the east the amorous starIllumined heaven, while from her northern heightGreat Juno's rival through the dusky nightHer beamy radiance shot. Returning careHad roused th' industrious hag, with footstep bare,And loins ungirt, the sleeping fire to light;And lovers thrill'd that season of despight,Which wont renew their tears, and wake despair.[Pg 37]When my soul's hope, now on the verge of fate,(Not by th' accustomed way; for that in sleepWas closed, and moist with griefs,) attain'd my heart.Alas, how changed! "Servant, no longer weep,"She seem'd to say; "resume thy wonted state:Not yet thine eyes from mine are doom'd to part." Charlemont. Already, in the east, the star of loveWas flaming, and that other in the north,Which Juno's jealousy is wont to move,Its beautiful and lustrous rays shot forth;Barefooted and half clad, the housewife oldHad stirr'd her fire, and set herself to weave;Each tender heart the thoughtful time controll'dWhich evermore the lover wakes to grieve,When my fond hope, already at life's last,Came to my heart, not by the wonted way,Where sleep its seal, its dew where sorrow cast—Alas! how changed—and said, or seem'd to say,"Sight of these eyes not yet does Heaven refuse,Then wherefore should thy tost heart courage lose?" Macgregor.
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