Written by
Galway Kinnell |
Goodbye, lady in Bangor, who sent me
snapshots of yourself, after definitely hinting
you were beautiful; goodbye,
Miami Beach urologist, who enclosed plain
brown envelopes for the return of your very
Clinical Sonnet; goodbye, manufacturer
of brassieres on the Coast, whose eclogues
give the fullest treatment in literature yet
to the sagging-breast motif; goodbye, you in San Quentin,
who wrote, "Being German my hero is Hitler,"
instead of "Sincerely yours," at the end of long,
neat-scripted letter demolishing
the pre-Raphaelites:
I swear to you, it was just my way
of cheering myself up, as I licked
the stamped, self-addressed envelopes,
the game I had
of trying to guess which one of you, this time,
had poisoned his glue. I did care.
I did read each poem entire.
I did say what I thought was the truth
in the mildest words I know. And now,
in this poem, or chopped prose, not any better,
I realize, than those troubled lines
I kept sending back to you,
I have to say I am relieved it is over:
at the end I could feel only pity
for that urge toward more life
your poems kept smothering in words, the smell
of which, days later, would tingle
in your nostrils as new, God-given impulses
to write.
Goodbye,
you who are, for me, the postmarks again
of shattered towns-Xenia, Burnt Cabins, Hornell-
their loneliness
given away in poems, only their solitude kept.
|
Written by
Fannie Isabelle Sherrick |
O crimson-tined flowers
That live when others die,
What thoughtless hand unloving
Could ever pass you by?
You are the last bright blossoms,
The summer's after-glow,
When all her early children
Have faded long ago.
Sweet golden-rod and xenia
And crimson marigold,
What dreams of autumn splendor
Your velvet leaves unfold.
Long, long ago the violets
Have closed their sweet blue eyes,
And lain with pale, dead faces
Beneath the summer skies.
And on their graves you blossom
With leaves of gold and red,
And yet—how soon forever
Your beauty will be fled.
The frost will come to kill you
The snows will wrap you round;
And you will sleep forgotten
Upon the frozen ground.
Your tints are like the beauty
The sunlight leaves behind,
And deep and full of sadness
The thoughts you bring to mind.
Dear memories of the summer!
Sweet tokens of the past!
You are the fairest flowers
Because you are the last.
|
Written by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe |
THE Epigrams bearing the title of XENIA were written
by Goethe and Schiller together, having been first occasioned by
some violent attacks made on them by some insignificant writers.
They are extremely numerous, but scarcely any of them could be translated
into English. Those here given are merely presented as a specimen.
GOD gave to mortals birth,
In his own image too;
Then came Himself to earth,
A mortal kind and true.
1821.*
BARBARIANS oft endeavour
Gods for themselves to make
But they're more hideous ever
Than dragon or than snake.
1821.*
WHAT shall I teach thee, the very first thing?--
Fain would I learn o'er my shadow to spring!
1827.*
"WHAT is science, rightly known?
'Tis the strength of life alone.
Life canst thou engender never,
Life must be life's parent ever.
1827.*
It matters not, I ween,
Where worms our friends consume,
Beneath the turf so green,
Or 'neath a marble tomb.
Remember, ye who live,
Though frowns the fleeting day,
That to your friends ye give
What never will decay.
1827.*
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