Written by
Dejan Stojanovic |
Trying too hard to be too good,
Even when trying to be bad,
Is too good for the bad
Too bad for the good.
Perfection seems sterile;
It is final, no mystery in it;
It's a product of an assembly line.
To accomplish the perfect perfection,
A little imperfection helps.
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Written by
Robert William Service |
Of Poetry I've been accused,
But much more often I have not;
Oh, I have been so much amused
By those who've put me on the spot,
And measured me by rules above
Those I observe with equal love.
An artisan of verse am I,
Of simple sense and humble tone;
My Thesaurus is handy by,
A rhyming lexicon I own;
Without them I am ill at ease -
What bards would use such aids as these?
Bad poets make good verse, they say;
The Great have not distained to woo
The modest muse of every day;
Read Longfellow and Byron through,
The fabric test - much verse you'll see
Compared with what is poetry.
Small blame; one cannot always soar
To heights of hyaline sublime;
Melodious prose one must deplore,
And fetters of rebellious rhyme:
Keats, Browning - that's another tale,
But even Giants fail and fail.
I've worshipped Ryley, Harte and Field,
And though their minstrelsy I lack,
To them heart-homage here I yield,
And follow with my verseman's pack:
To them with gratitude I look,
For briefing me to make this book.
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Written by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe |
NOBLE be man,
Helpful and good!
For that alone
Distinguisheth him
From all the beings
Unto us known.
Hail to the beings,
Unknown and glorious,
Whom we forebode!
From his example
Learn we to know them!
For unfeeling
Nature is ever:
On bad and on good
The sun alike shineth;
And on the wicked,
As on the best,
The moon and stars gleam.
Tempest and torrent,
Thunder and hail,
Roar on their path,
Seizing the while,
As they haste onward,
One after another.
Even so, fortune
Gropes 'mid the throng--
Innocent boyhood's
Curly head seizing,--
Seizing the hoary
Head of the sinner.
After laws mighty,
Brazen, eternal,
Must all we mortals
Finish the circuit
Of our existence.
Man, and man only
Can do the impossible;
He 'tis distinguisheth,
Chooseth and judgeth;
He to the moment
Endurance can lend.
He and he only
The good can reward,
The bad can he punish,
Can heal and can save;
All that wanders and strays
Can usefully blend.
And we pay homage
To the immortals
As though they were men,
And did in the great,
What the best, in the small,
Does or might do.
Be the man that is noble,
Both helpful and good.
Unweariedly forming
The right and the useful,
A type of those beings
Our mind hath foreshadow'd!
1782.
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