Written by
Robert Frost |
What tree may not the fig be gathered from?
The grape may not be gathered from the birch?
It's all you know the grape, or know the birch.
As a girl gathered from the birch myself
Equally with my weight in grapes, one autumn,
I ought to know what tree the grape is fruit of.
I was born, I suppose, like anyone,
And grew to be a little boyish girl
My brother could not always leave at home.
But that beginning was wiped out in fear
The day I swung suspended with the grapes,
And was come after like Eurydice
And brought down safely from the upper regions;
And the life I live now's an extra life
I can waste as I please on whom I please.
So if you see me celebrate two birthdays,
And give myself out of two different ages,
One of them five years younger than I look-
One day my brother led me to a glade
Where a white birch he knew of stood alone,
Wearing a thin head-dress of pointed leaves,
And heavy on her heavy hair behind,
Against her neck, an ornament of grapes.
Grapes, I knew grapes from having seen them last year.
One bunch of them, and there began to be
Bunches all round me growing in white birches,
The way they grew round Leif the Lucky's German;
Mostly as much beyond my lifted hands, though,
As the moon used to seem when I was younger,
And only freely to be had for climbing.
My brother did the climbing; and at first
Threw me down grapes to miss and scatter
And have to hunt for in sweet fern and hardhack;
Which gave him some time to himself to eat,
But not so much, perhaps, as a boy needed.
So then, to make me wholly self-supporting,
He climbed still higher and bent the tree to earth
And put it in my hands to pick my own grapes.
"Here, take a tree-top, I'll get down another.
Hold on with all your might when I let go."
I said I had the tree. It wasn't true.
The opposite was true. The tree had me.
The minute it was left with me alone
It caught me up as if I were the fish
And it the fishpole. So I was translated
To loud cries from my brother of "Let go!
Don't you know anything, you girl? Let go!"
But I, with something of the baby grip
Acquired ancestrally in just such trees
When wilder mothers than our wildest now
Hung babies out on branches by the hands
To dry or wash or tan, I don't know which,
(You'll have to ask an evolutionist)-
I held on uncomplainingly for life.
My brother tried to make me laugh to help me.
"What are you doing up there in those grapes?
Don't be afraid. A few of them won't hurt you.
I mean, they won't pick you if you don't them."
Much danger of my picking anything!
By that time I was pretty well reduced
To a philosophy of hang-and-let-hang.
"Now you know how it feels," my brother said,
"To be a bunch of fox-grapes, as they call them,
That when it thinks it has escaped the fox
By growing where it shouldn't-on a birch,
Where a fox wouldn't think to look for it-
And if he looked and found it, couldn't reach it-
Just then come you and I to gather it.
Only you have the advantage of the grapes
In one way: you have one more stem to cling by,
And promise more resistance to the picker."
One by one I lost off my hat and shoes,
And still I clung. I let my head fall back,
And shut my eyes against the sun, my ears
Against my brother's nonsense; "Drop," he said,
"I'll catch you in my arms. It isn't far."
(Stated in lengths of him it might not be.)
"Drop or I'll shake the tree and shake you down."
Grim silence on my part as I sank lower,
My small wrists stretching till they showed the banjo strings.
"Why, if she isn't serious about it!
Hold tight awhile till I think what to do.
I'll bend the tree down and let you down by it."
I don't know much about the letting down;
But once I felt ground with my stocking feet
And the world came revolving back to me,
I know I looked long at my curled-up fingers,
Before I straightened them and brushed the bark off.
My brother said: "Don't you weigh anything?
Try to weigh something next time, so you won't
Be run off with by birch trees into space."
It wasn't my not weighing anything
So much as my not knowing anything-
My brother had been nearer right before.
I had not taken the first step in knowledge;
I had not learned to let go with the hands,
As still I have not learned to with the heart,
And have no wish to with the heart-nor need,
That I can see. The mind-is not the heart.
I may yet live, as I know others live,
To wish in vain to let go with the mind-
Of cares, at night, to sleep; but nothing tells me
That I need learn to let go with the heart.
|
Written by
Robert William Service |
Hark to the Sourdough story, told at sixty below,
When the pipes are lit and we smoke and spit
Into the campfire glow.
Rugged are we and hoary, and statin' a general rule,
A genooine Sourdough story
Ain't no yarn for the Sunday School.
A Sourdough came to stake his claim in Heav'n one morning early.
Saint Peter cried: "Who waits outside them gates so bright and pearly?"
"I'm recent dead," the Sourdough said, "and crave to visit Hades,
Where haply pine some pals o' mine, includin' certain ladies."
Said Peter: "Go, you old Sourdough, from life so crooly riven;
And if ye fail to find their trail, we'll have a snoop round Heaven."
He waved, and lo! that old Sourdough dropped down to Hell's red spaces;
But though 'twas hot he couldn't spot them old familiar faces.
The bedrock burned, and so he turned, and climbed with footsteps fleeter,
The stairway straight to Heaven's gate, and there, of course, was Peter.
"I cannot see my mates," sez he, "among those damned forever.
I have a hunch some of the bunch in Heaven I'll discover."
Said Peter: "True; and this I'll do (since Sourdoughs are my failing)
You see them guys in Paradise, lined up against the railing -
As bald as coots, in birthday suits, with beards below the middle . . .
Well, I'll allow you in right now, if you can solve a riddle:
Among that gang of stiffs who hang and dodder round the portals,
Is one whose name is know to Fame - it's Adam, first of mortals.
For quiet's sake he makes a break from Eve, which is his Madame. . . .
Well, there's the gate - To crash it straight, just spy the guy that's Adam."
The old Sourdough went down the row of greybeards ruminatin'
With optics dim they peered at him, and pressed agin the gratin'.
In every face he sought some trace of our ancestral father;
But though he stared, he soon despaired the faintest clue to gather.
Then suddenly he whooped with glee: "Ha! Ha! an inspiration."
And to and fro along the row he ran with animation.
To Peter, bold he cried: "Behold, all told there are eleven.
Suppose I fix on Number Six - say Boy! How's that for Heaven?"
"By gosh! you win," said Pete. "Step in. But tell me how you chose him.
They're like as pins; all might be twins. There's nothing to disclose him."
The Sourdough said: "'Twas hard; my head was seething with commotion.
I felt a dunce; then all at once I had a gorgeous notion.
I stooped and peered beneath each beard that drooped like fleece of mutton.
My search was crowned. . . . That bird I found - ain't got no belly button."
|
Written by
Amy Levy |
The lion remembers the forest,
The lion in chains;
To the bird that is captive a vision
Of woodland remains.
One strains with his strength at the fetter,
In impotent rage;
One flutters in flights of a moment,
And beats at the cage.
If the lion were loosed from the fetter,
To wander again;
He would seek the wide silence and shadow
Of his jungle in vain.
He would rage in his fury, destroying;
Let him rage, let him roam!
Shall he traverse the pitiless mountain,
Or swim through the foam?
If they opened the cage and the casement,
And the bird flew away;
He would come back at evening, heartbroken,
A captive for aye.
Would come if his kindred had spared him,
Free birds from afar--
There was wrought what is stronger than iron
In fetter and bar.
I cannot remember my country,
The land whence I came;
Whence they brought me and chained me and made me
Nor wild thing nor tame.
This only I know of my country,
This only repeat :--
It was free as the forest, and sweeter
Than woodland retreat.
When the chain shall at last be broken,
The window set wide;
And I step in the largeness and freedom
Of sunlight outside ;
Shall I wander in vain for my country?
Shall I seek and not find?
Shall I cry for the bars that encage me
The fetters that bind?
|
Written by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe |
[Goethe describes this much-admired Poem, which
he wrote in honour of his love Lily, as being "designed to change
his surrender of her into despair, by drolly-fretful images."]
THERE'S no menagerie, I vow,
Excels my Lily's at this minute;
She keeps the strangest creatures in it,
And catches them, she knows not how.
Oh, how they hop, and run, and rave,
And their clipp'd pinions wildly wave,--
Poor princes, who must all endure
The pangs of love that nought can cure.
What is the fairy's name?--Is't Lily?--Ask not me!
Give thanks to Heaven if she's unknown to thee.
Oh what a cackling, what a shrieking,
When near the door she takes her stand,
With her food-basket in her hand!
Oh what a croaking, what a squeaking!
Alive all the trees and the bushes appear,
While to her feet whole troops draw near;
The very fish within, the water clear
Splash with impatience and their heads protrude;
And then she throws around the food
With such a look!--the very gods delighting
(To say nought of beasts). There begins, then, a biting,
A picking, a pecking, a sipping,
And each o'er the legs of another is tripping,
And pushing, and pressing, and flapping,
And chasing, and fuming, and snapping,
And all for one small piece of bread,
To which, though dry, her fair hands give a taste,
As though it in ambrosia had been plac'd.
And then her look! the tone
With which she calls: Pipi! Pipi!
Would draw Jove's eagle from his throne;
Yes, Venus' turtle doves, I wean,
And the vain peacock e'en,
Would come, I swear,
Soon as that tone had reach'd them through the air.
E'en from a forest dark had she
Enticed a bear, unlick'd, ill-bred,
And, by her wiles alluring, led
To join the gentle company,
Until as tame as they was he:
(Up to a certain point, be't understood!)
How fair, and, ah, how good
She seem'd to be! I would have drain'd my blood
To water e'en her flow'rets sweet.
"Thou sayest: I! Who? How? And where?"--
Well, to be plain, good Sirs--I am the bear;
In a net-apron, caught, alas!
Chain'd by a silk-thread at her feet.
But how this wonder came to pass
I'll tell some day, if ye are curious;
Just now, my temper's much too furious.
Ah, when I'm in the corner plac'd,
And hear afar the creatures snapping,
And see the flipping and the flapping,
I turn around
With growling sound,
And backward run a step in haste,
And look around
With growling sound.
Then run again a step in haste,
And to my former post go round.
But suddenly my anger grows,
A mighty spirit fills my nose,
My inward feelings all revolt.
A creature such as thou! a dolt!
Pipi, a squirrel able nuts to crack!
I bristle up my shaggy back
Unused a slave to be.
I'm laughed at by each trim and upstart tree
To scorn. The bowling-green I fly,
With neatly-mown and well-kept grass:
The box makes faces as I pass,--
Into the darkest thicket hasten I,
Hoping to 'scape from the ring,
Over the palings to spring!
Vainly I leap and climb;
I feel a leaden spell.
That pinions me as well,
And when I'm fully wearied out in time,
I lay me down beside some mock-cascade,
And roll myself half dead, and foam, and cry,
And, ah! no Oreads hear my sigh,
Excepting those of china made!
But, ah, with sudden power
In all my members blissful feelings reign!
'Tis she who singeth yonder in her bower!
I hear that darling, darling voice again.
The air is warm, and teems with fragrance clear,
Sings she perchance for me alone to hear?
I haste, and trample down the shrubs amain;
The trees make way, the bushes all retreat,
And so--the beast is lying at her feet.
She looks at him: "The monster's droll enough!
He's, for a bear, too mild,
Yet, for a dog, too wild,
So shaggy, clumsy, rough!"
Upon his back she gently strokes her foot;
He thinks himself in Paradise.
What feelings through his seven senses shoot!
But she looks on with careless eyes.
I lick her soles, and kiss her shoes,
As gently as a bear well may;
Softly I rise, and with a clever ruse
Leap on her knee.--On a propitious day
She suffers it; my ears then tickles she,
And hits me a hard blow in wanton play;
I growl with new-born ecstasy;
Then speaks she in a sweet vain jest, I wot
"Allons lout doux! eh! la menotte!
Et faites serviteur
Comme un joli seigneur."
Thus she proceeds with sport and glee;
Hope fills the oft-deluded beast;
Yet if one moment he would lazy be,
Her fondness all at once hath ceas'd.
She doth a flask of balsam-fire possess,
Sweeter than honey bees can make,
One drop of which she'll on her finger take,
When soften'd by his love and faithfulness,
Wherewith her monster's raging thirst to slake;
Then leaves me to myself, and flies at last,
And I, unbound, yet prison'd fast
By magic, follow in her train,
Seek for her, tremble, fly again.
The hapless creature thus tormenteth she,
Regardless of his pleasure or his woe;
Ha! oft half-open'd does she leave the door for me,
And sideways looks to learn if I will fly or no.
And I--Oh gods! your hands alone
Can end the spell that's o'er me thrown;
Free me, and gratitude my heart will fill;
And yet from heaven ye send me down no aid--
Not quite in vain doth life my limbs pervade:
I feel it! Strength is left me still.
1775.
|
Written by
Ellis Parker Butler |
Love took chambers on our street
Opposite to mine;
On his door he tacked a neat,
Clearly lettered sign.
Straightway grew his custom great,
For his sign read so:
“Hearts united while you wait.
Step in. Love and Co.”
Much I wondered who was “Co.”
In Love’s partnership;
Thought across the street I’d go—
Learn from Love’s own lip.
So I went; and since that day
Life is hard for me.
I was buncoed! (By the way,
“Co.” is Jealousy.)
|
Written by
Henry Van Dyke |
Long, long, long the trail
Through the brooding forest-gloom,
Down the shadowy, lonely vale
Into silence, like a room
Where the light of life has fled,
And the jealous curtains close
Round the passionless repose
Of the silent dead.
Plod, plod, plod away,
Step by step in mouldering moss;
Thick branches bar the day
Over languid streams that cross
Softly, slowly, with a sound
In their aimless creeping
Like a smothered weeping,
Through the enchanted ground.
"Yield, yield, yield thy quest,"
Whispers through the woodland deep;
"Come to me and be at rest;
"I am slumber, I am sleep."
Then the weary feet would fail,
But the never-daunted will
Urges "Forward, forward still!
"Press along the trail!"
Breast, breast, breast the slope!
See, the path is growing steep.
Hark! a little song of hope
When the stream begins to leap.
Though the forest, far and wide,
Still shuts out the bending blue,
We shall finally win through,
Cross the long divide.
On, on, onward tramp!
Will the journey never end?
Over yonder lies the camp;
Welcome waits us there, my friend.
Can we reach it ere the night?
Upward, upward, never fear!
Look, the summit must be near;
See the line of light!
Red, red, red the shine
Of the splendour in the west,
Glowing through the ranks of pine,
Clear along the mountain-crest!
Long, long, long the trail
Out of sorrow's lonely vale;
But at last the traveller sees
Light between the trees!
|
Written by
Robert Creeley |
Comes the time when it's later
and onto your table the headwaiter
puts the bill, and very soon after
rings out the sound of lively laughter--
Picking up change, hands like a walrus,
and a face like a barndoor's,
and a head without any apparent size,
nothing but two eyes--
So that's you, man,
or me. I make it as I can,
I pick up, I go
faster than they know--
Out the door, the street like a night,
any night, and no one in sight,
but then, well, there she is,
old friend Liz--
And she opens the door of her cadillac,
I step in back,
and we're gone.
She turns me on--
There are very huge stars, man, in the sky,
and from somewhere very far off someone hands
me a slice of apple pie,
with a gob of white, white ice cream on top of it,
and I eat it--
Slowly. And while certainly
they are laughing at me, and all around me is racket
of these cats not making it, I make it
in my wicker basket.
|
Written by
Robert William Service |
In Mike Maloney's Nugget bar the hooch was flowin' free,
An' One-eyed Mike was shakin' dice wi' Montreal Maree,
An roarin' rageful warning when the boys got overwild,
When peekin' through the double door he spied a tiny child.
Then Mike Maloney muttered: "Hell! Now ain't that jest too bad;
It's Dud McClusky's orphen Nell a-lookin' for her dad.
An' him in back, a-lushin' wine wi' Violet de Vere-
Three times I've told the lousy swine to keep away from here."
"Pore leetle sing! He leaves her lone, so he go on ze spree:
I feex her yet, zat Violet," said Montreal Maree.
Now I'm accommodatin' when it comes to scented sin
But when I saw that innocent step in our drunken din,
I felt that I would like to crawl an' hide my head in shame.
An' judgin' by their features all them sourdoughs felt the same.
For there they stood like chunks o' wood, forgettin' how to swear,
An' every glass o' likker was suspended in the air.
For with her hair of sunny silk, and big, blue pansy eyes
She looked jest like an angel child stepped outa paradise.
So then Big Mike, paternal like, took her upon his knee.
"Ze pauv' petite! She ees so sweet," said Montreal Maree.
The kid was mighty scared, we saw, an' peaked an' pale an' sad;
She nestled up to One-eyed Mike jest like he was her dad.
Then he got strokin' of her hair an' she began to sob,
An' there was anger in the air of all that plastered mob,
When in a hush so stark an' strained it seemed to stab the ear,
We heard the lush, plunk-parlour laugh o' Violet de Vere.
Then Montreal Maree arose an' vanished from our sight,
An' soon we heard the sound o' blows suggestin' female fight.
An' when she joined the gang again dishevelly was she:
"Jeezecrize! I fix zat Violet," said Montreal Maree.
Then Barman Bill cam forward with what seemed a glass o' milk:
"It's jest an egg-nog Missy, but it's slick an' smooth as silk."
An' as the kiddy slowly sipped wi' gaze o' glad surprise,
Them fifty sozzled sourdoughs uttered fifty happy sighs.
Then Ragtime Joe swung on his stool an' soft began to play
A liltin' tune that made ye think o' daffydills in May;
An' Gumboot Jones in solemn tones said: "You should hear her sing;
They've got the cabin next to mine, an like a bird in Spring,
She fills that tumble-down old shack wi' simple melodee."
"Maybe she sing a song for us," said Montreal Maree.
Now I don't hold wi' mushy stuff, tear-jerkin' ain't my line,
Yet somehow that kid's singin' sent the shivers down my spine;
An' all them salted sourdoughs sighed, an' every eye was dim
For what she sang upon the bar was just a simple hymn;
Somethin' about "Abide with me, fast falls the eventide,"
My Mother used to sing it - say, I listened bleary-eyed.
That childish treble was so sweet, so clear, so tender true,
It seemed to grip you by the heart an' did ***** things to you.
It made me think o' childhood days from sin an' sorrow free:
"Zat child, she make me want to cry," said Montreal Maree.
Then up spoke One-eyed Mike: "What can't with us let her abide;
For her dear Mother's sake we gotta send that kid outside.
Ye know this camp's a den o' sin, ye know that Dud's no dice -
Let's stake her to a convent school, an' have her brought up nice."
An' so them bearded sourdoughs crowded round an' on an' all,
Dug down an' flung upon the bar their nuggets great and small.
"I guess we got a thousand bucks," exulted One-eyed Mike;
"You bastards are a credit to the camp of Lucky Strike."
"You see zis leetle silver cross my mozzaire give to me -
Look, boys, I hang it on zee gosse," said Montreal Maree.
Time marches on; that little Nell is now a famous star,
An' yet she got her singin' start on Mike Maloney's bar.
Aye it was back in ninety-eight she made her first dayboo,
An' of that audience to-day are left but only two.
For all them bibulous sourdoughs have bravely passed away.
An' Lucky Strike is jest another ghost town to-day.
But Nell now sings in opera, we saw her in Boheem;
'Twas at a high-toned matinay, an' say! she was a dream.
So also thought the white-haired dame a-sittin' down by me -
My lovin' spouse that once was known as Montreal Maree.
|
Written by
Eugene Field |
Young Lochinvar came in from the West,
With fringe on his trousers and fur on his vest;
The width of his hat-brim could nowhere be beat,
His No.
brogans were chuck full of feet,
His girdle was horrent with pistols and things,
And he flourished a handful of aces on kings.
The fair Mariana sate watching a star,
When who should turn up but the young Lochinvar!
Her pulchritude gave him a pectoral glow,
And he reined up his hoss with stentorian "Whoa!"
Then turned on the maiden a rapturous grin,
And modestly asked if he might n't step in.
With presence of mind that was marvellous quite,
The fair Mariana replied that he might;
So in through the portal rode young Lochinvar,
Pre-empted the claim, and cleaned out the bar.
Though the justice allowed he wa'n't wholly to blame,
He taxed him ten dollars and costs, just the same.
|
Written by
Friedrich von Schiller |
The foaming stream from out the rock
With thunder roar begins to rush,--
The oak falls prostrate at the shock,
And mountain-wrecks attend the gush.
With rapturous awe, in wonder lost,
The wanderer hearkens to the sound;
From cliff to cliff he hears it tossed,
Yet knows not whither it is bound:
'Tis thus that song's bright waters pour
From sources never known before.
In union with those dreaded ones
That spin life's thread all-silently,
Who can resist the singer's tones?
Who from his magic set him free?
With wand like that the gods bestow,
He guides the heaving bosom's chords,
He steeps it in the realms below,
He bears it, wondering, heavenward,
And rocks it, 'twixt the grave and gay,
On feeling's scales that trembling sway.
As when before the startled eyes
Of some glad throng, mysteriously,
With giant-step, in spirit-guise,
Appears a wondrous deity,
Then bows each greatness of the earth
Before the stranger heaven-born,
Mute are the thoughtless sounds of mirth,
While from each face the mask is torn,
And from the truth's triumphant might
Each work of falsehood takes to flight.
So from each idle burden free,
When summoned by the voice of song,
Man soars to spirit-dignity,
Receiving force divinely strong:
Among the gods is now his home,
Naught earthly ventures to approach--
All other powers must now be dumb,
No fate can on his realms encroach;
Care's gloomy wrinkles disappear,
Whilst music's charms still linger here,
As after long and hopeless yearning,
And separation's bitter smart,
A child, with tears repentant burning,
Clings fondly to his mother's heart--
So to his youthful happy dwelling,
To rapture pure and free from stain,
All strange and false conceits expelling,
Song guides the wanderer back again,
In faithful Nature's loving arm,
From chilling precepts to grow warm.
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