Written by
John Ashbery |
Far from the Rappahannock, the silent
Danube moves along toward the sea.
The brown and green Nile rolls slowly
Like the Niagara's welling descent.
Tractors stood on the green banks of the Loire
Near where it joined the Cher.
The St.
Lawrence prods among black stones
And mud.
But the Arno is all stones.
Wind ruffles the Hudson's
Surface.
The Irawaddy is overflowing.
But the yellowish, gray Tiber
Is contained within steep banks.
The Isar
Flows too fast to swim in, the Jordan's water
Courses over the flat land.
The Allegheny and its boats
Were dark blue.
The Moskowa is
Gray boats.
The Amstel flows slowly.
Leaves fall into the Connecticut as it passes
Underneath.
The Liffey is full of sewage,
Like the Seine, but unlike
The brownish-yellow Dordogne.
Mountains hem in the Colorado
And the Oder is very deep, almost
As deep as the Congo is wide.
The plain banks of the Neva are
Gray.
The dark Saône flows silently.
And the Volga is long and wide
As it flows across the brownish land.
The Ebro
Is blue, and slow.
The Shannon flows
Swiftly between its banks.
The Mississippi
Is one of the world's longest rivers, like the Amazon.
It has the Missouri for a tributary.
The Harlem flows amid factories
And buildings.
The Nelson is in Canada,
Flowing.
Through hard banks the Dubawnt
Forces its way.
People walk near the Trent.
The landscape around the Mohawk stretches away;
The Rubicon is merely a brook.
In winter the Main
Surges; the Rhine sings its eternal song.
The Rhône slogs along through whitish banks
And the Rio Grande spins tales of the past.
The Loir bursts its frozen shackles
But the Moldau's wet mud ensnares it.
The East catches the light.
Near the Escaut the noise of factories echoes
And the sinuous Humboldt gurgles wildly.
The Po too flows, and the many-colored
Thames.
Into the Atlantic Ocean
Pours the Garonne.
Few ships navigate
On the Housatonic, but quite a few can be seen
On the Elbe.
For centuries
The Afton has flowed.
If the Rio *****
Could abandon its song, and the Magdalena
The jungle flowers, the Tagus
Would still flow serenely, and the Ohio
Abrade its slate banks.
The tan Euphrates would
Sidle silently across the world.
The Yukon
Was choked with ice, but the Susquehanna still pushed
Bravely along.
The Dee caught the day's last flares
Like the Pilcomayo's carrion rose.
The Peace offered eternal fragrance
Perhaps, but the Mackenzie churned livid mud
Like tan chalk-marks.
Near where
The Brahmaputra slapped swollen dikes
And the Pechora? The São Francisco
Skulks amid gray, rubbery nettles.
The Liard's
Reflexes are slow, and the Arkansas erodes
Anthracite hummocks.
The Paraná stinks.
The Ottawa is light emerald green
Among grays.
Better that the Indus fade
In steaming sands! Let the Brazos
Freeze solid! And the Wabash turn to a leaden
Cinder of ice! The Marañón is too tepid, we must
Find a way to freeze it hard.
The Ural
Is freezing slowly in the blasts.
The black Yonne
Congeals nicely.
And the Petit-Morin
Curls up on the solid earth.
The Inn
Does not remember better times, and the Merrimack's
Galvanized.
The Ganges is liquid snow by now;
The Vyatka's ice-gray.
The once-molten Tennessee s
Curdled.
The Japurá is a pack of ice.
Gelid
The Columbia's gray loam banks.
The Don's merely
A giant icicle.
The Niger freezes, slowly.
The interminable Lena plods on
But the Purus' mercurial waters are icy, grim
With cold.
The Loing is choked with fragments of ice.
The Weser is frozen, like liquid air.
And so is the Kama.
And the beige, thickly flowing
Tocantins.
The rivers bask in the cold.
The stern Uruguay chafes its banks,
A mass of ice.
The Hooghly is solid
Ice.
The Adour is silent, motionless.
The lovely Tigris is nothing but scratchy ice
Like the Yellowstone, with its osier-clustered banks.
The Mekong is beginning to thaw out a little
And the Donets gurgles beneath the
Huge blocks of ice.
The Manzanares gushes free.
The Illinois darts through the sunny air again.
But the Dnieper is still ice-bound.
Somewhere
The Salado propels irs floes, but the Roosevelt's
Frozen.
The Oka is frozen solider
Than the Somme.
The Minho slumbers
In winter, nor does the Snake
Remember August.
Hilarious, the Canadian
Is solid ice.
The Madeira slavers
Across the thawing fields, and the Plata laughs.
The Dvina soaks up the snow.
The Sava's
Temperature is above freezing.
The Avon
Carols noiselessly.
The Drôme presses
Grass banks; the Adige's frozen
Surface is like gray pebbles.
Birds circle the Ticino.
In winter
The Var was dark blue, unfrozen.
The
Thwaite, cold, is choked with sandy ice;
The Ardèche glistens feebly through the freezing rain.
|
Written by
Robert Burns |
I GAT your letter, winsome Willie;
Wi’ gratefu’ heart I thank you brawlie;
Tho’ I maun say’t, I wad be silly,
And unco vain,
Should I believe, my coaxin billie
Your flatterin strain.
But I’se believe ye kindly meant it:
I sud be laith to think ye hinted
Ironic satire, sidelins sklented
On my poor Musie;
Tho’ in sic phraisin terms ye’ve penn’d it,
I scarce excuse ye.
My senses wad be in a creel,
Should I but dare a hope to speel
Wi’ Allan, or wi’ Gilbertfield,
The braes o’ fame;
Or Fergusson, the writer-chiel,
A deathless name.
(O Fergusson! thy glorious parts
Ill suited law’s dry, musty arts!
My curse upon your whunstane hearts,
Ye E’nbrugh gentry!
The tithe o’ what ye waste at cartes
Wad stow’d his pantry!)
Yet when a tale comes i’ my head,
Or lassies gie my heart a screed—
As whiles they’re like to be my dead,
(O sad disease!)
I kittle up my rustic reed;
It gies me ease.
Auld Coila now may fidge fu’ fain,
She’s gotten poets o’ her ain;
Chiels wha their chanters winna hain,
But tune their lays,
Till echoes a’ resound again
Her weel-sung praise.
Nae poet thought her worth his while,
To set her name in measur’d style;
She lay like some unkenn’d-of-isle
Beside New Holland,
Or whare wild-meeting oceans boil
Besouth Magellan.
Ramsay an’ famous Fergusson
Gied Forth an’ Tay a lift aboon;
Yarrow an’ Tweed, to monie a tune,
Owre Scotland rings;
While Irwin, Lugar, Ayr, an’ Doon
Naebody sings.
Th’ Illissus, Tiber, Thames, an’ Seine,
Glide sweet in monie a tunefu’ line:
But Willie, set your fit to mine,
An’ cock your crest;
We’ll gar our streams an’ burnies shine
Up wi’ the best!
We’ll sing auld Coila’s plains an’ fells,
Her moors red-brown wi’ heather bells,
Her banks an’ braes, her dens and dells,
Whare glorious Wallace
Aft bure the gree, as story tells,
Frae Suthron billies.
At Wallace’ name, what Scottish blood
But boils up in a spring-tide flood!
Oft have our fearless fathers strode
By Wallace’ side,
Still pressing onward, red-wat-shod,
Or glorious died!
O, sweet are Coila’s haughs an’ woods,
When lintwhites chant amang the buds,
And jinkin hares, in amorous whids,
Their loves enjoy;
While thro’ the braes the cushat croods
With wailfu’ cry!
Ev’n winter bleak has charms to me,
When winds rave thro’ the naked tree;
Or frosts on hills of Ochiltree
Are hoary gray;
Or blinding drifts wild-furious flee,
Dark’ning the day!
O Nature! a’ thy shews an’ forms
To feeling, pensive hearts hae charms!
Whether the summer kindly warms,
Wi’ life an light;
Or winter howls, in gusty storms,
The lang, dark night!
The muse, nae poet ever fand her,
Till by himsel he learn’d to wander,
Adown some trottin burn’s meander,
An’ no think lang:
O sweet to stray, an’ pensive ponder
A heart-felt sang!
The war’ly race may drudge an’ drive,
Hog-shouther, jundie, stretch, an’ strive;
Let me fair Nature’s face descrive,
And I, wi’ pleasure,
Shall let the busy, grumbling hive
Bum owre their treasure.
Fareweel, “my rhyme-composing” brither!
We’ve been owre lang unkenn’d to ither:
Now let us lay our heads thegither,
In love fraternal:
May envy wallop in a tether,
Black fiend, infernal!
While Highlandmen hate tools an’ taxes;
While moorlan’s herds like guid, fat braxies;
While terra firma, on her axis,
Diurnal turns;
Count on a friend, in faith an’ practice,
In Robert Burns.
POSTCRIPTMY memory’s no worth a preen;
I had amaist forgotten clean,
Ye bade me write you what they mean
By this “new-light,”
’Bout which our herds sae aft hae been
Maist like to fight.
In days when mankind were but callans
At grammar, logic, an’ sic talents,
They took nae pains their speech to balance,
Or rules to gie;
But spak their thoughts in plain, braid lallans,
Like you or me.
In thae auld times, they thought the moon,
Just like a sark, or pair o’ shoon,
Wore by degrees, till her last roon
Gaed past their viewin;
An’ shortly after she was done
They gat a new ane.
This passed for certain, undisputed;
It ne’er cam i’ their heads to doubt it,
Till chiels gat up an’ wad confute it,
An’ ca’d it wrang;
An’ muckle din there was about it,
Baith loud an’ lang.
Some herds, weel learn’d upo’ the beuk,
Wad threap auld folk the thing misteuk;
For ’twas the auld moon turn’d a neuk
An’ out of’ sight,
An’ backlins-comin to the leuk
She grew mair bright.
This was deny’d, it was affirm’d;
The herds and hissels were alarm’d
The rev’rend gray-beards rav’d an’ storm’d,
That beardless laddies
Should think they better wer inform’d,
Than their auld daddies.
Frae less to mair, it gaed to sticks;
Frae words an’ aiths to clours an’ nicks;
An monie a fallow gat his licks,
Wi’ hearty crunt;
An’ some, to learn them for their tricks,
Were hang’d an’ brunt.
This game was play’d in mony lands,
An’ auld-light caddies bure sic hands,
That faith, the youngsters took the sands
Wi’ nimble shanks;
Till lairds forbad, by strict commands,
Sic bluidy pranks.
But new-light herds gat sic a cowe,
Folk thought them ruin’d stick-an-stowe;
Till now, amaist on ev’ry knowe
Ye’ll find ane plac’d;
An’ some their new-light fair avow,
Just quite barefac’d.
Nae doubt the auld-light flocks are bleatin;
Their zealous herds are vex’d an’ sweatin;
Mysel’, I’ve even seen them greetin
Wi’ girnin spite,
To hear the moon sae sadly lied on
By word an’ write.
But shortly they will cowe the louns!
Some auld-light herds in neebor touns
Are mind’t, in things they ca’ balloons,
To tak a flight;
An’ stay ae month amang the moons
An’ see them right.
Guid observation they will gie them;
An’ when the auld moon’s gaun to lea’e them,
The hindmaist shaird, they’ll fetch it wi’ them
Just i’ their pouch;
An’ when the new-light billies see them,
I think they’ll crouch!
Sae, ye observe that a’ this clatter
Is naething but a “moonshine matter”;
But tho’ dull prose-folk Latin splatter
In logic tulyie,
I hope we bardies ken some better
Than mind sic brulyie.
|
Written by
Horace |
Enough of snow and hail at last
The Sire has sent in vengeance down:
His bolts, at His own temple cast,
Appall'd the town,
Appall'd the lands, lest Pyrrha's time
Return, with all its monstrous sights,
When Proteus led his flocks to climb
The flatten'd heights,
When fish were in the elm-tops caught,
Where once the stock-dove wont to bide,
And does were floating, all distraught,
Adown the tide.
Old Tiber, hurl'd in tumult back
From mingling with the Etruscan main,
Has threaten'd Numa's court with wrack
And Vesta's fane.
Roused by his Ilia's plaintive woes,
He vows revenge for guiltless blood,
And, spite of Jove, his banks o'erflows,
Uxorious flood.
Yes, Fame shall tell of civic steel
That better Persian lives had spilt,
To youths, whose minish'd numbers feel
Their parents' guilt.
What god shall Rome invoke to stay
Her fall? Can suppliance overbear
The ear of Vesta, turn'd away
From chant and prayer?
Who comes, commission'd to atone
For crime like ours? at length appear,
A cloud round thy bright shoulders thrown,
Apollo seer!
Or Venus, laughter-loving dame,
Round whom gay Loves and Pleasures fly;
Or thou, if slighted sons may claim
A parent's eye,
O weary—with thy long, long game,
Who lov'st fierce shouts and helmets bright,
And Moorish warrior's glance of flame
Or e'er he smite!
Or Maia's son, if now awhile
In youthful guise we see thee here,
Caesar's avenger—such the style
Thou deign'st to bear;
Late be thy journey home, and long
Thy sojourn with Rome's family;
Nor let thy wrath at our great wrong
Lend wings to fly.
Here take our homage, Chief and Sire;
Here wreathe with bay thy conquering brow,
And bid the prancing Mede retire,
Our Caesar thou!
|
Written by
Thomas Chatterton |
On Tiber's banks, Tiber, whose waters glide
In slow meanders down to Gaigra's side;
And circling all the horrid mountain round,
Rushes impetuous to the deep profound;
Rolls o'er the ragged rocks with hideous yell;
Collects its waves beneath the earth's vast shell;
There for a while in loud confusion hurl'd,
It crumbles mountains down and shakes the world.
Till borne upon the pinions of the air,
Through the rent earth the bursting waves appear;
Fiercely propell'd the whiten'd billows rise,
Break from the cavern, and ascend the skies;
Then lost and conquered by superior force,
Through hot Arabia holds its rapid coursel
On Tiber's banks where scarlet jas'mines bloom,
And purple aloes shed a rich perfume;
Where, when the sun is melting in his heat,
The reeking tygers find a cool retreat;
Bask in the sedges, lose the sultry beam,
And wanton with their shadows in the stream;
On Tiber's banks, by sacred priests rever'd,
Where in the days of old a god appear'd;
'Twas in the dead of night, at Chalma's feast,
The tribe of Alra slept around the priest.
He spoke; as evening thunders bursting near,
His horrid accents broke upon the ear;
Attend, Alraddas, with your sacred priest!
This day the sun is rising in the east;
The sun, which shall illumine all the earth,
Now, now is rising, in a mortal birth.
He vanish'd like a vapour of the night,
And sunk away in a faint blaze of light.
Swift from the branches of the holy oak,
Horror, confusion, fear, and torment brake;
And still when midnight trims her mazy lamp,
They take their way through Tiber's wat'ry swamp.
On Tiber's banks, close ranked, a warring train,
Stretch'd to the distant edge of Galca's plain;
So when arrived at Gaigra's highest steep,
We view the wide expansion of the deep;
See in the gilding of her wat'ry robe,
The quick declension of the circling globe;
From the blue sea a chain of mountains rise,
Blended at once with water and with skies;
Beyond our sight in vast extension curl'd,
The check of waves, the guardians of the world.
Strong were the warriors, as the ghost of Cawn,
Who threw the Hill-of-archers to the lawn;
When the soft earth at his appearance fled;
And rising billows play'd around his head;
When a strong tempest rising from the main,
Dashed the full clouds, unbroken on the plain.
Nicou, immortal in the sacred song,
Held the red sword of war, and led the strong;
From his own tribe the sable warriors came,
Well try'd in battle, and well known in fame.
Nicou, descended from the god of war,
Who lived coeval with the morning star;
Narada was his name; who cannot tell
How all the world through great Narada fell!
Vichon, the god who ruled above the skies,
Look'd, on Narada, but with envious eyes;
The warrior dared him, ridiculed his might,
Bent his white bow, and summon'd him to fight.
Vichon, disdainful, bade his lightnings fly,
And scatter'd burning arrows in the sky;
Threw down a star the armour of his feet,
To burn the air with supernat'ral heat;
Bid a loud tempes roar beneath the ground;
Lifted him up, and bore him thro' the sea.
The waters still ascending fierce and high,
He tower'd into the chambers of the sky;
There Vichon sat, his armour on his bed,
He thought Narada with the mighty dead.
Before his seat the heavenly warrior stands,
The lightning quiv'ring in his yellow hands.
The god astonish'd dropt; hurl'd from the shore,
He dropt to torments, and to rise no more.
Head-long he falls; 'tis his own arms compel.
Condemn'd in ever-burning fires to dwell.
From this Narada, mighty Nicou sprung;
The mighty Nicou, furious, wild and young.
Who led th'embattled archers to the field,
And more a thunderbolt upon his shield;
That shield his glorious father died to gain,
When the white warriors fled along the plain,
When the full sails could not provoke the flood,
Till Nicou came and swell'd the seas with blood.
Slow at the end of his robust array,
The mighty warrior pensive took his way;
Against the son of Nair, the young Rorest,
Once the companion of his youthful breast.
Strong were the passions of the son of Nair,
Strong, as the tempest of the evening air.
Insatiate in desire; fierce as the boar;
Firm in resolve as Cannie's rocky shore.
Long had the gods endeavour'd to destroy,
All Nicou's friendship, happiness, and joy:
They sought in vain, 'till Vicat, Vichon's son,
Never in feats of wickedness outdone,
Saw Nica, sister to the Mountain king,
Drest beautiful, with all the flow'rs of spring;
He saw, and scatter'd poison in her eyes;
From limb to limb in varied forms he flies;
Dwelt on her crimson lip, and added grace
To every glossy feature of her face.
Rorest was fir'd with passion at the sight.
Friendship and honor, sunk to Vicat's right;
He saw, he lov'd, and burning with desire,
Bore the soft maid from brother, sister, sire.
Pining with sorrow, Nica faded, died,
Like a fair alow, in its morning pride.
This brought the warrior to the bloody mead,
And sent to young Rorest the threat'ning reed.
He drew his army forth: Oh, need I tell!
That Nicou conquer'd, and the lover fell;
His breathless army mantled all the plain;
And Death sat smiling on the heaps of slain.
The battle ended, with his reeking dart,
The pensive Nicou pierc'd his beating heart;
And to his mourning valiant warriors cry'd,
I, and my sister's ghost are satisfy'd.
|
Written by
Rudyard Kipling |
Oh, little did the Wolf-Child care--
When first he planned his home,
What City should arise and bear
The weight and state of Rome.
A shiftless, westward-wandering tramp,
Checked by the Tiber flood,
He reared a wall around his camp
Of uninspired mud.
But when his brother leaped the Wall
And mocked its height and make,
He guessed the future of it all
And slew him for its sake.
Swift was the blow--swift as the thought
Which showed him in that hour
How unbelief may bring to naught
The early steps of Power.
Foreseeing Time's imperilled hopes
Of Glory, Grace, and Love--
All singers, Caesars, artists, Popes--
Would fail if Remus throve,
He sent his brother to the Gods,
And, when the fit was o'er,
Went on collecting turves and clods
To build the Wall once more!
|
Written by
Robert William Service |
Within a pub that's off the Strand and handy to the bar,
With pipe in mouth and mug in hand sat Jobson of the Star.
"Come, sit ye down, ye wond'ring wight, and have a yarn," says he.
"I can't," says I, "because to-night I'm off to Tripoli;
To Tripoli and Trebizond and Timbuctoo mayhap,
Or any magic name beyond I find upon the map.
I go errant trail to try, to clutch the skirts of Chance,
To make once more before I die the gesture of Romance.
"
The Jobson yawned above his jug, and rumbled: "Is that so?
Well, anyway, sit down, you mug, and have a drink before you go.
"
Now Jobson is a chum of mine, and in a dusty den,
Within the street that's known as Fleet, he wields a wicked pen.
And every night it's his delight, above the fleeting show,
To castigate the living Great, and keep the lowly low.
And all there is to know he knows, for unto him is spurred
The knowledge of the knowledge of the Thing That Has Occurred.
And all that is to hear he hears, for to his ear is whirled
The echo of the echo of the Sound That Shocks The World.
Let Revolutions rage and rend, and Kingdoms rise and fall,
There Jobson sits and smokes and spits, and writes about it all.
And so we jawed a little while on matters small and great;
He told me his cynic smile of graves affairs of state.
Of princes, peers and presidents, and folks beyond my ken,
He spoke as you and I might speak of ordinary men.
For Jobson is a scribe of worth, and has respect for none,
And all the mighty ones of earth are targets for his fun.
So when I said good-bye, says he, with his satyric leer:
"Too bad to go, when life is so damned interesting here.
The Government rides for a fall, and things are getting hot.
You'd better stick around, old pal; you'll miss an awful lot.
"
Yet still I went and wandered far, by secret ways and wide.
Adventure was the shining star I took to be my guide.
For fifty moons I followed on, and every moon was sweet,
And lit as if for me alone the trail before my feet.
From cities desolate with doom my moons swam up and set,
On tower and temple, tent and tomb, on mosque and minaret.
To heights that hailed the dawn I scaled, by cliff and chasm sheer;
To far Cathy I found my way, and fabolous Kashmir.
From camel-back I traced the track that bars the barren bled,
And leads to hell-and-blazes, and I followed where it led.
Like emeralds in sapphire set, and ripe for human rape,
I passed with passionate regret the Islands of Escape.
With death I clinched a time or two, and gave the brute a fall.
Hunger and cold and thirst I knew, yet.
.
.
how I loved it all!
Then suddenly I seemed to tire of trecking up and town,
And longed for some domestic fire, and sailed for London Town.
And in a pub that's off the Strand, and handy to the bar,
With pipe in mouth and mug in hand sat Jobson of the Star.
"Hullo!" says he, "come, take a pew, and tell me where you've been.
It seems to me that lately you have vanished from the scene.
"
"I've been," says I, "to Kordovan and Kong and Calabar,
To Sarawak and Samarkand, to Ghat and Bolivar;
To Caracas and Guayaquil, to Lhasa and Pekin,
To Brahmapurta and Brazil, to Bagdad and Benin.
I've sailed the Black Sea and the White, The Yellow and the Red,
The Sula and the Celebes, the Bering and the Dead.
I've climbed on Chimborazo, and I've wandered in Peru;
I've camped on Kinchinjunga, and I've crossed the Great Karoo.
I've drifted on the Hoang-ho, the Nile and Amazon;
I've swam the Tiber and the Po.
.
" thus I was going on,
When Jobson yawned above his beer, and rumbled: "Is that so?.
.
.
It's been so damned exciting here, too bad you had to go.
We've had the devil of a slump; the market's gone to pot;
You should have stuck around, you chump, you've missed an awful lot.
"
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
In haggard lands where ages brood, on plains burnt out and dim,
I broke the bread of brotherhood with ruthless men and grim.
By ways untrod I walked with God, by parched and bitter path;
In deserts dim I talked with Him, and learned to know His Wrath.
But in a pub that's off the Strand, sits Jobson every night,
And tells me what a fool I am, and maybe he is right.
For Jobson is a man of stamp, and proud of him am I;
And I am just a bloody tramp, and will be till I die.
|
Written by
Emma Lazarus |
So, Calchas, on the sacred Palatine,
You thought of Mopsus, and o'er wastes of sea
A flower brought your message.
I divine
(Through my deep art) the kindly mockery
That played about your lips and in your eyes,
Plucking the frail leaf, while you dreamed of home.
Thanks for the silent greeting! I shall prize,
Beyond June's rose, the scentless flower of Rome.
All the Campagna spreads before my sight,
The mouldering wall, the Caesars' tombs unwreathed,
Rome and the Tiber, and the yellow light,
Wherein the honey-colored blossom breathed.
But most I thank it--egoists that we be!
For proving then and there you thought of me.
|
Written by
Victor Hugo |
("Amis! ennui nous tue.")
{Bk. IV. xv., March, 1825.}
Aweary unto death, my friends, a mood by wise abhorred,
Come to the novel feast I spread, thrice-consul, Nero, lord,
The Caesar, master of the world, and eke of harmony,
Who plays the harp of many strings, a chief of minstrelsy.
My joyful call should instantly bring all who love me most,—
For ne'er were seen such arch delights from Greek or Roman host;
Nor at the free, control-less jousts, where, spite of cynic vaunts,
Austere but lenient Seneca no "Ercles" bumper daunts;
Nor where upon the Tiber floats Aglae in galley gay,
'Neath Asian tent of brilliant stripes, in gorgeous array;
Nor when to lutes and tambourines the wealthy prefect flings
A score of slaves, their fetters wreathed, to feed grim, greedy
things.
I vow to show ye Rome aflame, the whole town in a mass;
Upon this tower we'll take our stand to watch the 'wildered pass;
How paltry fights of men and beasts! here be my combatants,—
The Seven Hills my circus form, and fiends shall lead the dance.
This is more meet for him who rules to drive away his stress—
He, being god, should lightnings hurl and make a wilderness—
But, haste! for night is darkling—soon, the festival it brings;
Already see the hydra show its tongues and sombre wings,
And mark upon a shrinking prey the rush of kindling breaths;
They tap and sap the threatened walls, and bear uncounted deaths;
And 'neath caresses scorching hot the palaces decay—
Oh, that I, too, could thus caress, and burn, and blight, and slay!
Hark to the hubbub! scent the fumes! Are those real men or ghosts?
The stillness spreads of Death abroad—down come the temple posts,
Their molten bronze is coursing fast and joins with silver waves
To leap with hiss of thousand snakes where Tiber writhes and raves.
All's lost! in jasper, marble, gold, the statues totter—crash!
Spite of the names divine engraved, they are but dust and ash.
The victor-scourge sweeps swollen on, whilst north winds sound the horn
To goad the flies of fire yet beyond the flight forlorn.
Proud capital! farewell for e'er! these flames nought can subdue—
The Aqueduct of Sylla gleams, a bridge o'er hellish brew.
'Tis Nero's whim! how good to see Rome brought the lowest down;
Yet, Queen of all the earth, give thanks for such a splendrous crown!
When I was young, the Sybils pledged eternal rule to thee;
That Time himself would lay his bones before thy unbent knee.
Ha! ha! how brief indeed the space ere this "immortal star"
Shall be consumed in its own glow, and vanished—oh, how far!
How lovely conflagrations look when night is utter dark!
The youth who fired Ephesus' fane falls low beneath my mark.
The pangs of people—when I sport, what matters?—See them whirl
About, as salamanders frisk and in the brazier curl.
Take from my brow this poor rose-crown—the flames have made it pine;
If blood rains on your festive gowns, wash off with Cretan wine!
I like not overmuch that red—good taste says "gild a crime?"
"To stifle shrieks by drinking-songs" is—thanks! a hint sublime!
I punish Rome, I am avenged; did she not offer prayers
Erst unto Jove, late unto Christ?—to e'en a Jew, she dares!
Now, in thy terror, own my right to rule above them all;
Alone I rest—except this pile, I leave no single hall.
Yet I destroy to build anew, and Rome shall fairer shine—
But out, my guards, and slay the dolts who thought me not divine.
The stiffnecks, haste! annihilate! make ruin all complete—
And, slaves, bring in fresh roses—what odor is more sweet?
H.L. WILLIAMS
|
Written by
John Masefield |
Night is on the downland, on the lonely moorland,
On the hills where the wind goes over sheep-bitten turf,
Where the bent grass beats upon the unplowed poorland
And the pine-woods roar like the surf.
Here the Roman lived on the wind-barren lonely,
Dark now and haunted by the moorland fowl;
None comes here now but the peewit only,
And moth-like death in the owl.
Beauty was here in on this beetle-droning downland;
The thought of a Caesar in the purple came
From the palace by the Tiber in the Roman townland
To this wind-swept hill with no name.
Lonely Beauty came here and was here in sadness,
Brave as a thought on the frontier of the mind,
In the camp of the wild upon the march of madness,
The bright-eyed Queen of the Blind.
Now where Beauty was are the wind-withered gorses,
Moaning like old men in the hill-wind's blast;
The flying sky is dark with running horses,
And the night is full of the past.
|
Written by
Algernon Charles Swinburne |
By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept,
Remembering thee,
That for ages of agony hast endured, and slept,
And wouldst not see.
By the waters of Babylon we stood up and sang,
Considering thee,
That a blast of deliverance in the darkness rang,
To set thee free.
And with trumpets and thunderings and with morning song
Came up the light;
And thy spirit uplifted thee to forget thy wrong
As day doth night.
And thy sons were dejected not any more, as then
When thou wast shamed;
When thy lovers went heavily without heart, as men
Whose life was maimed.
In the desolate distances, with a great desire,
For thy love's sake,
With our hearts going back to thee, they were filled with fire,
Were nigh to break.
It was said to us: "Verily ye are great of heart,
But ye shall bend;
Ye are bondmen and bondwomen, to be scourged and smart,
To toil and tend.
"
And with harrows men harrowed us, and subdued with spears,
And crushed with shame;
And the summer and winter was, and the length of years,
And no change came.
By the rivers of Italy, by the sacred streams,
By town, by tower,
There was feasting with revelling, there was sleep with dreams,
Until thine hour.
And they slept and they rioted on their rose-hung beds,
With mouths on flame,
And with love-locks vine-chapleted, and with rose-crowned heads
And robes of shame.
And they knew not their forefathers, nor the hills and streams
And words of power,
Nor the gods that were good to them, but with songs and dreams
Filled up their hour.
By the rivers of Italy, by the dry streams' beds,
When thy time came,
There was casting of crowns from them, from their young men's heads,
The crowns of shame.
By the horn of Eridanus, by the Tiber mouth,
As thy day rose,
They arose up and girded them to the north and south,
By seas, by snows.
As a water in January the frost confines,
Thy kings bound thee;
As a water in April is, in the new-blown vines,
Thy sons made free.
And thy lovers that looked for thee, and that mourned from far,
For thy sake dead,
We rejoiced in the light of thee, in the signal star
Above thine head.
In thy grief had we followed thee, in thy passion loved,
Loved in thy loss;
In thy shame we stood fast to thee, with thy pangs were moved,
Clung to thy cross.
By the hillside of Calvary we beheld thy blood,
Thy bloodred tears,
As a mother's in bitterness, an unebbing flood,
Years upon years.
And the north was Gethsemane, without leaf or bloom,
A garden sealed;
And the south was Aceldama, for a sanguine fume
Hid all the field.
By the stone of the sepulchre we returned to weep,
From far, from prison;
And the guards by it keeping it we beheld asleep,
But thou wast risen.
And an angel's similitude by the unsealed grave,
And by the stone:
And the voice was angelical, to whose words God gave
Strength like his own.
"Lo, the graveclothes of Italy that are folded up
In the grave's gloom!
And the guards as men wrought upon with a charmed cup,
By the open tomb.
"And her body most beautiful, and her shining head,
These are not here;
For your mother, for Italy, is not surely dead:
Have ye no fear.
"As of old time she spake to you, and you hardly heard,
Hardly took heed,
So now also she saith to you, yet another word,
Who is risen indeed.
"By my saying she saith to you, in your ears she saith,
Who hear these things,
Put no trust in men's royalties, nor in great men's breath,
Nor words of kings.
"For the life of them vanishes and is no more seen,
Nor no more known;
Nor shall any remember him if a crown hath been,
Or where a throne.
"Unto each man his handiwork, unto each his crown,
The just Fate gives;
Whoso takes the world's life on him and his own lays down,
He, dying so, lives.
"Whoso bears the whole heaviness of the wronged world's weight
And puts it by,
It is well with him suffering, though he face man's fate;
How should he die?
"Seeing death has no part in him any more, no power
Upon his head;
He has bought his eternity with a little hour,
And is not dead.
"For an hour, if ye look for him, he is no more found,
For one hour's space;
Then ye lift up your eyes to him and behold him crowned,
A deathless face.
"On the mountains of memory, by the world's wellsprings,
In all men's eyes,
Where the light of the life of him is on all past things,
Death only dies.
"Not the light that was quenched for us, nor the deeds that were,
Nor the ancient days,
Nor the sorrows not sorrowful, nor the face most fair
Of perfect praise.
"
So the angel of Italy's resurrection said,
So yet he saith;
So the son of her suffering, that from breasts nigh dead
Drew life, not death.
That the pavement of Golgotha should be white as snow,
Not red, but white;
That the waters of Babylon should no longer flow,
And men see light.
|