Written by
Mark Doty |
When I heard he had entered the harbor,
and circled the wharf for days,
I expected the worst: shallow water,
confusion, some accident to bring
the young humpback to grief.
Don't they depend on a compass
lodged in the salt-flooded folds
of the brain, some delicate
musical mechanism to navigate
their true course? How many ways,
in our century's late iron hours,
might we have led him to disaster?
That, in those days, was how
I'd come to see the world:
dark upon dark, any sense
of spirit an embattled flame
sparked against wind-driven rain
till pain snuffed it out. I thought,
This is what experience gives us ,
and I moved carefully through my life
while I waited. . . Enough,
it wasn't that way at all. The whale
—exuberant, proud maybe, playful,
like the early music of Beethoven—
cruised the footings for smelts
clustered near the pylons
in mercury flocks. He
(do I have the gender right?)
would negotiate the rusty hulls
of the Portuguese fishing boats
—Holy Infant, Little Marie—
with what could only be read
as pleasure, coming close
then diving, trailing on the surface
big spreading circles
until he'd breach, thrilling us
with the release of pressured breath,
and the bulk of his sleek young head
—a wet black leather sofa
already barnacled with ghostly lice—
and his elegant and unlikely mouth,
and the marvelous afterthought of the flukes,
and the way his broad flippers
resembled a pair of clownish gloves
or puppet hands, looming greenish white
beneath the bay's clouded sheen.
When he had consumed his pleasure
of the shimmering swarm, his pleasure, perhaps,
in his own admired performance,
he swam out the harbor mouth,
into the Atlantic. And though grief
has seemed to me itself a dim,
salt suspension in which I've moved,
blind thing, day by day,
through the wreckage, barely aware
of what I stumbled toward, even I
couldn't help but look
at the way this immense figure
graces the dark medium,
and shines so: heaviness
which is no burden to itself.
What did you think, that joy
was some slight thing?
|
Written by
Dante Alighieri |
I have come, alas, to the great circle of shadow,
to the short day and to the whitening hills,
when the colour is all lost from the grass,
though my desire will not lose its green,
so rooted is it in this hardest stone,
that speaks and feels as though it were a woman.
And likewise this heaven-born woman
stays frozen, like the snow in shadow,
and is unmoved, or moved like a stone,
by the sweet season that warms all the hills,
and makes them alter from pure white to green,
so as to clothe them with the flowers and grass.
When her head wears a crown of grass
she draws the mind from any other woman,
because she blends her gold hair with the green
so well that Amor lingers in their shadow,
he who fastens me in these low hills,
more certainly than lime fastens stone.
Her beauty has more virtue than rare stone.
The wound she gives cannot be healed with grass,
since I have travelled, through the plains and hills,
to find my release from such a woman,
yet from her light had never a shadow
thrown on me, by hill, wall, or leaves’ green.
I have seen her walk all dressed in green,
so formed she would have sparked love in a stone,
that love I bear for her very shadow,
so that I wished her, in those fields of grass,
as much in love as ever yet was woman,
closed around by all the highest hills.
The rivers will flow upwards to the hills
before this wood, that is so soft and green,
takes fire, as might ever lovely woman,
for me, who would choose to sleep on stone,
all my life, and go eating grass,
only to gaze at where her clothes cast shadow.
Whenever the hills cast blackest shadow,
with her sweet green, the lovely woman
hides it, as a man hides stone in grass.
|
Written by
Amy Lowell |
Cross-ribboned shoes; a muslin gown,
High-waisted, girdled with bright blue;
A straw poke bonnet which hid the frown
She pluckered her little brows into
As she picked her dainty passage through
The dusty street. "Ah, Mademoiselle,
A dirty pathway, we need rain,
My poor fruits suffer, and the shell
Of this nut's too big for its kernel, lain
Here in the sun it has shrunk again.
The baker down at the corner says
We need a battle to shake the clouds;
But I am a man of peace, my ways
Don't look to the killing of men in crowds.
Poor fellows with guns and bayonets for shrouds!
Pray, Mademoiselle, come out of the sun.
Let me dust off that wicker chair. It's cool
In here, for the green leaves I have run
In a curtain over the door, make a pool
Of shade. You see the pears on that stool --
The shadow keeps them plump and fair."
Over the fruiterer's door, the leaves
Held back the sun, a greenish flare
Quivered and sparked the shop, the sheaves
Of sunbeams, glanced from the sign on the eaves,
Shot from the golden letters, broke
And splintered to little scattered lights.
Jeanne Tourmont entered the shop, her poke
Bonnet tilted itself to rights,
And her face looked out like the moon on nights
Of flickering clouds. "Monsieur Popain, I
Want gooseberries, an apple or two,
Or excellent plums, but not if they're high;
Haven't you some which a strong wind blew?
I've only a couple of francs for you."
Monsieur Popain shrugged and rubbed his hands.
What could he do, the times were sad.
A couple of francs and such demands!
And asking for fruits a little bad.
Wind-blown indeed! He never had
Anything else than the very best.
He pointed to baskets of blunted pears
With the thin skin tight like a bursting vest,
All yellow, and red, and brown, in smears.
Monsieur Popain's voice denoted tears.
He took up a pear with tender care,
And pressed it with his hardened thumb.
"Smell it, Mademoiselle, the perfume there
Is like lavender, and sweet thoughts come
Only from having a dish at home.
And those grapes! They melt in the mouth like wine,
Just a click of the tongue, and they burst to honey.
They're only this morning off the vine,
And I paid for them down in silver money.
The Corporal's widow is witness, her pony
Brought them in at sunrise to-day.
Those oranges -- Gold! They're almost red.
They seem little chips just broken away
From the sun itself. Or perhaps instead
You'd like a pomegranate, they're rarely gay,
When you split them the seeds are like crimson spray.
Yes, they're high, they're high, and those Turkey figs,
They all come from the South, and Nelson's ships
Make it a little hard for our rigs.
They must be forever giving the slips
To the cursed English, and when men clips
Through powder to bring them, why dainties mounts
A bit in price. Those almonds now,
I'll strip off that husk, when one discounts
A life or two in a ****** row
With the man who grew them, it does seem how
They would come dear; and then the fight
At sea perhaps, our boats have heels
And mostly they sail along at night,
But once in a way they're caught; one feels
Ivory's not better nor finer -- why peels
From an almond kernel are worth two sous.
It's hard to sell them now," he sighed.
"Purses are tight, but I shall not lose.
There's plenty of cheaper things to choose."
He picked some currants out of a wide
Earthen bowl. "They make the tongue
Almost fly out to suck them, bride
Currants they are, they were planted long
Ago for some new Marquise, among
Other great beauties, before the Chateau
Was left to rot. Now the Gardener's wife,
He that marched off to his death at Marengo,
Sells them to me; she keeps her life
From snuffing out, with her pruning knife.
She's a poor old thing, but she learnt the trade
When her man was young, and the young Marquis
Couldn't have enough garden. The flowers he made
All new! And the fruits! But 'twas said that
he
Was no friend to the people, and so they laid
Some charge against him, a cavalcade
Of citizens took him away; they meant
Well, but I think there was some mistake.
He just pottered round in his garden, bent
On growing things; we were so awake
In those days for the New Republic's sake.
He's gone, and the garden is all that's left
Not in ruin, but the currants and apricots,
And peaches, furred and sweet, with a cleft
Full of morning dew, in those green-glazed pots,
Why, Mademoiselle, there is never an eft
Or worm among them, and as for theft,
How the old woman keeps them I cannot say,
But they're finer than any grown this way."
Jeanne Tourmont drew back the filigree ring
Of her striped silk purse, tipped it upside down
And shook it, two coins fell with a ding
Of striking silver, beneath her gown
One rolled, the other lay, a thing
Sparked white and sharply glistening,
In a drop of sunlight between two shades.
She jerked the purse, took its empty ends
And crumpled them toward the centre braids.
The whole collapsed to a mass of blends
Of colours and stripes. "Monsieur Popain, friends
We have always been. In the days before
The Great Revolution my aunt was kind
When you needed help. You need no more;
'Tis we now who must beg at your door,
And will you refuse?" The little man
Bustled, denied, his heart was good,
But times were hard. He went to a pan
And poured upon the counter a flood
Of pungent raspberries, tanged like wood.
He took a melon with rough green rind
And rubbed it well with his apron tip.
Then he hunted over the shop to find
Some walnuts cracking at the lip,
And added to these a barberry slip
Whose acrid, oval berries hung
Like fringe and trembled. He reached a round
Basket, with handles, from where it swung
Against the wall, laid it on the ground
And filled it, then he searched and found
The francs Jeanne Tourmont had let fall.
"You'll return the basket, Mademoiselle?"
She smiled, "The next time that I call,
Monsieur. You know that very well."
'Twas lightly said, but meant to tell.
Monsieur Popain bowed, somewhat abashed.
She took her basket and stepped out.
The sunlight was so bright it flashed
Her eyes to blindness, and the rout
Of the little street was all about.
Through glare and noise she stumbled, dazed.
The heavy basket was a care.
She heard a shout and almost grazed
The panels of a chaise and pair.
The postboy yelled, and an amazed
Face from the carriage window gazed.
She jumped back just in time, her heart
Beating with fear. Through whirling light
The chaise departed, but her smart
Was keen and bitter. In the white
Dust of the street she saw a bright
Streak of colours, wet and gay,
Red like blood. Crushed but fair,
Her fruit stained the cobbles of the way.
Monsieur Popain joined her there.
"Tiens, Mademoiselle,
c'est le General Bonaparte,
partant pour la Guerre!"
|
Written by
George Meredith |
Pitch here the tent, while the old horse grazes:
By the old hedge-side we'll halt a stage.
It's nigh my last above the daisies:
My next leaf'll be man's blank page.
Yes, my old girl! and it's no use crying:
Juggler, constable, king, must bow.
One that outjuggles all's been spying
Long to have me, and he has me now.
We've travelled times to this old common:
Often we've hung our pots in the gorse.
We've had a stirring life, old woman!
You, and I, and the old grey horse.
Races, and fairs, and royal occasions,
Found us coming to their call:
Now they'll miss us at our stations:
There's a Juggler outjuggles all!
Up goes the lark, as if all were jolly!
Over the duck-pond the willow shakes.
Easy to think that grieving's folly,
When the hand's firm as driven stakes!
Ay, when we're strong, and braced, and manful,
Life's a sweet fiddle: but we're a batch
Born to become the Great Juggler's han'ful:
Balls he shies up, and is safe to catch.
Here's where the lads of the village cricket:
I was a lad not wide from here:
Couldn't I whip off the bale from the wicket?
Like an old world those days appear!
Donkey, sheep, geese, and thatch'd ale-house--I know them!
They are old friends of my halts, and seem,
Somehow, as if kind thanks I owe them:
Juggling don't hinder the heart's esteem.
Juggling's no sin, for we must have victual:
Nature allows us to bait for the fool.
Holding one's own makes us juggle no little;
But, to increase it, hard juggling's the rule.
You that are sneering at my profession,
Haven't you juggled a vast amount?
There's the Prime Minister, in one Session,
Juggles more games than my sins'll count.
I've murdered insects with mock thunder:
Conscience, for that, in men don't quail.
I've made bread from the bump of wonder:
That's my business, and there's my tale.
Fashion and rank all praised the professor:
Ay! and I've had my smile from the Queen:
Bravo, Jerry! she meant: God bless her!
Ain't this a sermon on that scene?
I've studied men from my topsy-turvy
Close, and, I reckon, rather true.
Some are fine fellows: some, right scurvy:
Most, a dash between the two.
But it's a woman, old girl, that makes me
Think more kindly of the race:
And it's a woman, old girl, that shakes me
When the Great Juggler I must face.
We two were married, due and legal:
Honest we've lived since we've been one.
Lord! I could then jump like an eagle:
You danced bright as a bit o' the sun.
Birds in a May-bush we were! right merry!
All night we kiss'd, we juggled all day.
Joy was the heart of Juggling Jerry!
Now from his old girl he's juggled away.
It's past parsons to console us:
No, nor no doctor fetch for me:
I can die without my bolus;
Two of a trade, lass, never agree!
Parson and Doctor!--don't they love rarely
Fighting the devil in other men's fields!
Stand up yourself and match him fairly:
Then see how the rascal yields!
I, lass, have lived no gipsy, flaunting
Finery while his poor helpmate grubs:
Coin I've stored, and you won't be wanting:
You shan't beg from the troughs and tubs.
Nobly you've stuck to me, though in his kitchen
Many a Marquis would hail you Cook!
Palaces you could have ruled and grown rich in,
But your old Jerry you never forsook.
Hand up the chirper! ripe ale winks in it;
Let's have comfort and be at peace.
Once a stout draught made me light as a linnet.
Cheer up! the Lord must have his lease.
May be--for none see in that black hollow--
It's just a place where we're held in pawn,
And, when the Great Juggler makes as to swallow,
It's just the sword-trick--I ain't quite gone!
Yonder came smells of the gorse, so nutty,
Gold-like and warm: it's the prime of May.
Better than mortar, brick and putty
Is God's house on a blowing day.
Lean me more up the mound; now I feel it:
All the old heath-smells! Ain't it strange?
There's the world laughing, as if to conceal it,
But He's by us, juggling the change.
I mind it well, by the sea-beach lying,
Once--it's long gone--when two gulls we beheld,
Which, as the moon got up, were flying
Down a big wave that sparked and swell'd.
Crack, went a gun: one fell: the second
Wheeled round him twice, and was off for new luck:
There in the dark her white wing beckon'd:--
Drop me a kiss--I'm the bird dead-struck!
|
Written by
Robert William Service |
They told to Marie Antoinette:
"The beggers at your gate
Have eyes too sad for tears to wet,
And for your pity wait."
But Marie only laughed and said:
"My heart they will not ache:
If people starve for want of bread
Let them eat cake."
The Court re-echoed her bon mot;
It rang around the land,
Till masses wakened from their woe
With scyth and pick in hand.
It took a careless, callous phrase
To rouse the folk forlorn:
A million roared the Marseillaise:
Freedom was born.
And so to Marie Antoinette
Let's pay a tribute due;
Humanity owes her a debt,
(Ironical, it's true).
She sparked world revolution red,
And as with glee they bore
Upon a pike her lovely head
--Her curls dripped gore.
|
Written by
Amy Lowell |
The little boy pressed his face against the window-pane
and looked out
at the bright sunshiny morning. The cobble-stones of
the square
glistened like mica. In the trees, a breeze danced and
pranced,
and shook drops of sunlight like falling golden coins into the brown
water
of the canal. Down stream slowly drifted a long string
of galliots
piled with crimson cheeses. The little boy thought they
looked as if
they were roc's eggs, blocks of big ruby eggs. He said,
"Oh!" with delight,
and pressed against the window with all his might.
The golden cock on the top of the `Stadhuis' gleamed. His
beak was open
like a pair of scissors and a narrow piece of blue sky was wedged
in it.
"Cock-a-doodle-do," cried the little boy. "Can't you
hear me
through the window, Gold Cocky? Cock-a-doodle-do! You
should crow
when you see the eggs of your cousin, the great roc." But
the golden cock
stood stock still, with his fine tail blowing in the wind.
He could not understand the little boy, for he said "Cocorico"
when he said anything. But he was hung in the air to
swing, not to sing.
His eyes glittered to the bright West wind, and the crimson cheeses
drifted away down the canal.
It was very dull there in the big room. Outside in the
square, the wind
was playing tag with some fallen leaves. A man passed,
with a dogcart
beside him full of smart, new milkcans. They rattled
out a gay tune:
"Tiddity-tum-ti-ti. Have some milk for your tea. Cream
for your coffee
to drink to-night, thick, and smooth, and sweet, and white,"
and the man's sabots beat an accompaniment: "Plop! trop!
milk for your tea.
Plop! trop! drink it to-night." It was very pleasant
out there,
but it was lonely here in the big room. The little boy
gulped at a tear.
It was ***** how dull all his toys were. They were so
still.
Nothing was still in the square. If he took his eyes
away a moment
it had changed. The milkman had disappeared round the
corner,
there was only an old woman with a basket of green stuff on her
head,
picking her way over the shiny stones. But the wind pulled
the leaves
in the basket this way and that, and displayed them to beautiful
advantage.
The sun patted them condescendingly on their flat surfaces, and
they seemed
sprinkled with silver. The little boy sighed as he looked
at his disordered
toys on the floor. They were motionless, and their colours
were dull.
The dark wainscoting absorbed the sun. There was none
left for toys.
The square was quite empty now. Only the wind ran round
and round it,
spinning. Away over in the corner where a street opened
into the square,
the wind had stopped. Stopped running, that is, for it
never
stopped spinning. It whirred, and whirled, and gyrated,
and turned.
It burned like a great coloured sun. It hummed, and buzzed,
and sparked,
and darted. There were flashes of blue, and long smearing
lines of saffron,
and quick jabs of green. And over it all was a sheen
like a myriad
cut diamonds. Round and round it went, the huge wind-wheel,
and the little boy's head reeled with watching it. The
whole square
was filled with its rays, blazing and leaping round after one another,
faster and faster. The little boy could not speak, he
could only gaze,
staring in amaze.
The wind-wheel was coming down the square. Nearer and
nearer it came,
a great disk of spinning flame. It was opposite the window
now,
and the little boy could see it plainly, but it was something more
than the wind which he saw. A man was carrying a huge
fan-shaped frame
on his shoulder, and stuck in it were many little painted paper
windmills,
each one scurrying round in the breeze. They were bright
and beautiful,
and the sight was one to please anybody, and how much more a little
boy
who had only stupid, motionless toys to enjoy.
The little boy clapped his hands, and his eyes danced and whizzed,
for the circling windmills made him dizzy. Closer and
closer
came the windmill man, and held up his big fan to the little boy
in the window of the Ambassador's house. Only a pane
of glass
between the boy and the windmills. They slid round before
his eyes
in rapidly revolving splendour. There were wheels and
wheels of colours --
big, little, thick, thin -- all one clear, perfect spin. The
windmill vendor
dipped and raised them again, and the little boy's face was glued
to the window-pane. Oh! What a glorious, wonderful
plaything!
Rings and rings of windy colour always moving! How had
any one ever preferred
those other toys which never stirred. "Nursie, come quickly. Look!
I want a windmill. See! It is never still. You
will buy me one, won't you?
I want that silver one, with the big ring of blue."
So a servant was sent to buy that one: silver, ringed
with blue,
and smartly it twirled about in the servant's hands as he stood
a moment
to pay the vendor. Then he entered the house, and in
another minute
he was standing in the nursery door, with some crumpled paper on
the end
of a stick which he held out to the little boy. "But
I wanted a windmill
which went round," cried the little boy. "That is the
one you asked for,
Master Charles," Nursie was a bit impatient, she had mending to
do.
"See, it is silver, and here is the blue." "But it is
only a blue streak,"
sobbed the little boy. "I wanted a blue ring, and this
silver
doesn't sparkle." "Well, Master Charles, that is what
you wanted,
now run away and play with it, for I am very busy."
The little boy hid his tears against the friendly window-pane. On
the floor
lay the motionless, crumpled bit of paper on the end of its stick.
But far away across the square was the windmill vendor, with his
big wheel
of whirring splendour. It spun round in a blaze like
a whirling rainbow,
and the sun gleamed upon it, and the wind whipped it, until it seemed
a maze of spattering diamonds. "Cocorico!" crowed the
golden cock
on the top of the `Stadhuis'. "That is something worth
crowing for."
But the little boy did not hear him, he was sobbing over the crumpled
bit of paper on the floor.
|
Written by
Philip Larkin |
About twenty years ago
Two girls came in where I worked -
A bosomy English rose
And her friend in specs I could talk to.
Faces in those days sparked
The whole shooting-match off, and I doubt
If ever one had like hers:
But it was the friend I took out,
And in seven years after that
Wrote over four hundred letters,
Gave a ten-guinea ring
I got back in the end, and met
At numerous cathedral cities
Unknown to the clergy. I believe
I met beautiful twice. She was trying
Both times (so I thought) not to laugh.
Parting, after about five
Rehearsals, was an agreement
That I was too selfish, withdrawn
And easily bored to love.
Well, useful to get that learnt,
In my wallet are still two snaps,
Of bosomy rose with fur gloves on.
Unlucky charms, perhaps.
|
Written by
Paul Laurence Dunbar |
'Tis an old deserted homestead
On the outskirts of the town,
Where the roof is all moss-covered,
And the walls are tumbling down;
But around that little cottage
Do my brightest mem'ries cling,
For 'twas there I spent the moments
Of my youth,—life's happy spring.
I remember how I used to
Swing upon the old front gate,
While the robin in the tree tops
Sung a night song to his mate;
And how later in the evening,
As the beaux were wont to do,
Mr. Perkins, in the parlor,
Sat and sparked my sister Sue.
There my mother—heaven bless her!—
Kissed or spanked as was our need,
And by smile or stroke implanted
In our hearts fair virtue's seed;
While my father, man of wisdom,
Lawyer keen, and farmer stout,
Argued long with neighbor Dobbins
How the corn crops would turn out.
Then the quiltings and the dances—
How my feet were wont to fly,
While the moon peeped through the barn chinks
From her stately place on high.
Oh, those days, so sweet, so happy,
Ever backward o'er me roll;
Still the music of that farm life
Rings an echo in my soul.
Now the old place is deserted,
And the walls are falling down;
All who made the home life cheerful,
Now have died or moved to town.
But about that dear old cottage
Shall my mem'ries ever cling,
For 'twas there I spent the moments
[Pg 284]Of my, youth,—life's happy spring.
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