Written by
John Betjeman |
The sort of girl I like to see
Smiles down from her great height at me.
She stands in strong, athletic pose
And wrinkles her retrouss? nose.
Is it distaste that makes her frown,
So furious and freckled, down
On an unhealthy worm like me?
Or am I what she likes to see?
I do not know, though much I care,
xxxxxxxx.....would I were
(Forgive me, shade of Rupert Brooke)
An object fit to claim her look.
Oh! would I were her racket press'd
With hard excitement to her breast
And swished into the sunlit air
Arm-high above her tousled hair,
And banged against the bounding ball
"Oh! Plung!" my tauten'd strings would call,
"Oh! Plung! my darling, break my strings
For you I will do brilliant things."
And when the match is over, I
Would flop beside you, hear you sigh;
And then with what supreme caress,
You'd tuck me up into my press.
Fair tigress of the tennis courts,
So short in sleeve and strong in shorts,
Little, alas, to you I mean,
For I am bald and old and green.
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Written by
Joseph Freiherr Von Eichendorff |
Es war, als hätt' der Himmel
Die Erde still geküsst
Dass sie im Blütenschimmer
Von ihm nun träumen müsst
Die Luft ging durch die Felder
Die Ähren wogten sacht
Es rauschten leis die Wälder
So sternklar war die Nacht
Und meine Seele spannte
Weit ihre Flügel aus
Flog durch die stillen Lande
Als flöge sie nach Haus
It was as though the sky
had silently kissed the earth,
so that it now had to dream of sky
in shimmers of flowers.
The air went through the fields,
the corn-ears leaned heavy down
the woods swished softly—
so clear with stars was the night
And my soul stretched
its wings out wide,
flew through the silent lands
as though it were flying home.
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Written by
Robert William Service |
Six bulls I saw as black as jet,
With crimsoned horns and amber eyes
That chewed their cud without a fret,
And swished to brush away the flies,
Unwitting their soon sacrifice.
It is the Corpus Christi fête;
Processions crowd the bannered ways;
Before the alters women wait,
While men unite in hymns of praise,
And children look with angel gaze.
The bulls know naught of holiness,
To pious pomp their eyes are blind;
Their brutish brains will never guess
The sordid passions of mankind:
Poor innocents, they wait resigned.
Till in a black room each is penned,
While from above with cruel aim
Two torturers with lances bend
To goad their fieriness to flame,
To devil them to play the game.
The red with rage and mad with fear
They charge into the roaring ring;
Against the mockery most near
Of human might their hate they fling,
In futile, blind blood-boltering.
And so the day of unction ends;
Six bulls are dragged across the sand.
Ferocity and worship blends,
Religion and red thirst hold hands . . .
Dear Christ! 'Tis hard to understand!
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Written by
Robert William Service |
If fortune had not granted me
To suck the Muse's teats,
I think I would have liked to be
A sweeper of the streets;
And city gutters glad to groom,
Have heft a bonny broom.
There--as amid the crass and crush
The limousines swished by,
I would have leaned upon my brush
With visionary eye:
Deeming despite their loud allure
That I was rich, they poor.
Aye, though in garb terrestrial,
To Heaven I would pray,
And dream with broom celestial
I swept the Milky Way;
And golden chariots would ring,
And harps of Heaven sing.
And all the strumpets passing me,
And heelers of the Ward
Would glorified Madonnas be,
And angels of the Lord;
And all the brats in gutters grim
Be rosy cherubim.
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Written by
Badger Clark |
My tired hawse nickers for his own home bars;
A hoof clicks out a spark.
The dim creek flickers to the lonesome stars;
The trail twists down the dark.
The ridge pines whimper to the pines below.
The wind is blowin' and I want you so.
The birch has yellowed since I saw you last,
The Fall haze blued the creeks,
The big pine bellowed as the snow swished past,
But still, above the peaks,
The same stars twinkle that we used to know.
The wind is blowin' and I want you so.
The stars up yonder wait the end of time
But earth fires soon go black.
I trip and wander on the trail I climb--
A fool who will look back
To glimpse a fire dead a year ago.
The wind is blowin' and I want you so.
Who says the lover kills the man in me?
Beneath the day's hot blue
This thing hunts cover and my heart fights free
To laugh an hour or two.
But now it wavers like a wounded doe.
The wind is blowin' and I want you so.
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