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by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
AN INDIAN LEGEND.
[This very fine Ballad was also first given in the Horen.]
(MAHADEVA is one of the numerous names of Seeva, the destroyer,--
the great god of the Brahmins.)
MAHADEVA,* Lord of earth
For the sixth time comes below,
As a man of mortal birth,--
Like him, feeling joy and woe.
Hither loves he to repair,
And his power behind to leave;
If to punish or to spare,
Men as man he'd fain perceive.
And when he the town as a trav'ller hath seen,
Observing the mighty, regarding the mean,
He quits it, to go on his journey, at eve.
He was leaving now the place,
When an outcast met his eyes,--
Fair in form, with painted face,--
Where some straggling dwellings rise.
"Maiden, hail!"--"Thanks! welcome here!
Stay!--I'll join thee in the road.'
"Who art thou?"--"A Bayadere,
And this house is love's abode."
The cymbal she hastens to play for the dance,
Well skill'd in its mazes the sight to entrance,
Then by her with grace is the nosegay bestow'd.
Then she draws him, as in play,
O'er the threshold eagerly:
"Beauteous stranger, light as day
Thou shalt soon this cottage see.
I'll refresh thee, if thou'rt tired,
And will bathe thy weary feet;
Take whate'er by thee's desired,
Toying, rest, or rapture sweet."--
She busily seeks his feign'd suff'rings to ease;
Then smiles the Immortal; with pleasure he sees
That with kindness...
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by
Algernon Charles Swinburne
Fire and wild light of hope and doubt and fear,
Wind of swift change, and clouds and hours that veer
As the storm shifts of the tempestuous year;
Cry wellaway, but well befall the right.
Hope sits yet hiding her war-wearied eyes,
Doubt sets her forehead earthward and denies,
But fear brought hand to hand with danger dies,
Dies and is burnt up in the fire of fight.
Hearts bruised with loss and eaten through with shame
Turn at the time's touch to devouring flame;
Grief stands as one that knows not her own name,
Nor if the star she sees bring day or night.
No song breaks with it on the violent air,
But shrieks of shame, defeat, and brute despair;
Yet something at the star's heart far up there
Burns as a beacon in our shipwrecked sight.
O strange fierce light of presage, unknown star,
Whose tongue shall tell us what thy secrets are,
What message trembles in thee from so far?
Cry wellaway. but well befall the right.
From shores laid waste across an iron sea
Where the waifs drift of hopes that were to be,
Across the red rolled foam we look for thee,
Across the fire we look up for the light.
From days laid waste across disastrous years,
From hopes cut down across a world of fears,
We gaze...
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by
J R R Tolkien
Far over the Misty Mountains cold,
To dungeons deep and caverns old,
We must away, ere break of day,
To seek our pale enchanted gold.
The dwarves of yore made mighty spells,
While hammers fell like ringing bells,
In places deep, where dark things sleep,
In hollow halls beneath the fells.
For ancient king and elvish lord
There many a gleaming golden hoard
They shaped and wrought, and light they caught,
To hide in gems on hilt of sword.
On silver necklaces they strung
The flowering stars, on crowns they hung
The dragon-fire, on twisted wire
They meshed the light of moon and sun.
Far over the Misty Mountains cold,
To dungeons deep and caverns old,
We must away, ere break of day,
To claim our long-forgotten gold.
Goblets they carved there for themselves,
And harps of gold, where no man delves
There lay they long, and many a song
Was sung unheard by men or elves.
The pines were roaring on the heights,
The wind was moaning in the night,
The fire was red, it flaming spread,
The trees like torches blazed with light.
The bells were ringing in the dale,
And men looked up with faces pale.
The dragon's ire, more fierce than fire,
Laid low their towers and houses frail.
The mountain smoked beneath the moon.
The dwarves, they heard the tramp of doom.
They fled the hall to dying...
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by
Rudyard Kipling
We've drunk to the Queen -- God bless her! --
We've drunk to our mothers' land;
We've drunk to our English brother,
(But he does not understand);
We've drunk to the wide creation,
And the Cross swings low for the mom,
Last toast, and of Obligation,
A health to the Native-born!
They change their skies above them,
But not their hearts that roam!
We learned from our wistful mothers
To call old England "home";
We read of the English skylark,
Of the spring in the English lanes,
But we screamed with the painted lories
As we rode on the dusty plains!
They passed with their old-world legends --
Their tales of wrong and dearth --
Our fathers held by purchase,
But we by the right of birth;
Our heart's where they rocked our cradle,
Our love where we spent our toil,
And our faith and our hope and our honour
We pledge to our native soil!
I charge you charge your glasses --
I charge you drink with me
To the men of the Four New Nations,
And the Islands of the Sea --
To the last least lump of coral
That none may stand outside,
And our own good pride shall teach us
To praise our comrade's pride,
To the hush of the breathless...
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by
W. E. B. Du Bois
I was a little boy, at home with strangers.
I liked my playmates, and knew well,
Whence all their parents came;
From England, Scotland, royal France
From Germany and oft by chance
The humble Emerald Isle.
But my brown skin and close-curled hair
Was alien, and how it grew, none knew;
Few tried to say, some dropped a wonderful word or stray;
Some laughed and stared.
And then it came: I dreamed.
I placed together all I knew
All hints and slurs together drew.
I dreamed.
I made one picture of what nothing seemed
I shuddered in dumb terror
In silence screamed,
For now it seemed this I had dreamed;
How up from Hell, a land had leaped
A wretched land, all scorched and seamed
Covered with ashes, chained with pain
Streaming with blood, in horror lain
Its very air a shriek of death
And agony of hurt.
Anon I woke, but in one corner of my soul
I stayed asleep.
Forget I could not,
But never would I remember
That hell-hoist ghost
Of slavery and...
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by
Mark Doty
Over the terminal,
the arms and chest
of the god
brightened by snow.
Formerly mercury,
formerly silver,
surface yellowed
by atmospheric sulphurs
acid exhalations,
and now the shining
thing's descendant.
Obscure passages,
dim apertures:
these clouded windows
show a few faces
or some empty car's
filmstrip of lit flames
--remember them
from school,
how they were supposed
to teach us something?--
waxy light hurrying
inches away from the phantom
smudge of us, vague
in spattered glass. Then
daylight's soft charcoal
lusters stone walls
and we ascend to what
passes for brightness,
this February,
scumbled sky
above graduated zones
of decline:
dead rowhouses,
charred windows'
wet frames
around empty space,
a few chipboard polemics
nailed over the gaps,
speeches too long
and obsessive for anyone
on this train to read,
sealing the hollowed interiors
--some of them grand once,
you can tell by
the fillips of decoration,
stone leaves, the frieze
of sunflowers.
Desolate fields--open spaces,
in a city where you
can hardly turn around!--
seem to center
on little flames,
something always burning
in a barrel or can
As if to represent
inextinguishable,
dogged persistence?
Though whether what burns
is will or rage or
harsh amalgam
I couldn't say.
But I can tell you this,
what I've seen that
won my allegiance most,
though it was also
the hallmark of our...
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by
G K Chesterton
Under what withering leprous light
The very grass as hair is grey,
Grass in the cracks of the paven courts
Of gods we graved but yesterday.
Senate, republic, empire, all
We leaned our backs on like a wall
And blessed as stron as strong and blamed as stolid--
Can it be these that waver and fall?
And what is this like a ghost returning,
A dream grown strong in the strong daylight?
The all-forsaken, the unforgotten,
The ever-behind and out of sight.
We turned our backs and our blind flesh felt it
Growing and growing, a tower in height.
Ah, not alone the evil splendour
And not the insolent arms alone
Break with the ramrod, stiff and brittle,
The sceptre of the nordic throne;
But things of manlier renown
Reel in the wreck of throne and crown,
With tyrannous tyranny, tyrannous loyalty
Tyrannous liberty, all gone down.
(There is never a crack in the ivory tower
Or a hinge to groan in the house of gold
Or a leaf of the rose in the wind to wither
And she grows young as the world grows old.
A Woman clothed with the sun returning
to clothe the sun when the sun is cold.)
Ah, who had guessed that in a moment
Great Liberty that loosed the tribes,
the Republic of the young men's battles
Grew stale and stank of old men's...
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by
Isaac Watts
Now I 'm convinced the Lord is kind
To men of heart sincere;
Yet once my foolish thoughts repined,
And bordered on despair.
I grieved to see the wicked thrive,
And spoke with angry breath,
"How pleasant and profane they live !
How peaceful is their death !
"With well-fed flesh and haughty eyes,
They lay their fears to sleep;
Against the heav'ns their slanders rise,
While saints in silence weep.
"In vain I lift my hands to pray,
And cleanse my heart in vain;
For I am chastened all the day,
The night renews my pain."
Yet while my tongue indulged complaints,
I felt my heart reprove,
"Sure I shall thus offend thy saints,
And grieve the men I love."
But still I found my doubts too hard,
The conflict too severe,
Till I retired to search thy word,
And learn thy secrets there.
There, as in some prophetic glass,
I saw the sinner's feet
High mounted on a slipp'ry place,
Beside a fiery pit.
I heard the wretch profanely boast,
Till at thy frown he fell;
His honors in a dream were lost,
And he awakes in hell.
Lord, what an envious fool I was!
How like a thoughtless beast
Thus to suspect thy promised grace,
And think the wicked blessed.
Yet I was kept from full despair,
Upheld by power unknown;
That blessed hand that broke the snare
Shall guide me to thy throne.
God,...
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by
Andrew Marvell
song Fauc1
First.
[Chorus. Endymion. Luna.]
Chorus.
Th' Astrologers own Eyes are set,
And even Wolves the Sheep forget;
Only this Shepherd, late and soon,
Upon this Hill outwakes the Moon.
Heark how he sings, with sad delight,
Thorough the clear and silent Night.
Endymion
Cynthia, O Cynthia, turn thine Ear,
nor scorn Endymions plaints to hear.
As we our Flocks, so you command
The fleecy Clouds with silver wand.
Cynthia
If thou a Mortal, rather sleep;
Or if a Shepherd, watch thy Sheep.
Endmymion
The Shepherd, since he saw thine Eyes,
And Sheep are both thy Sacrifice.
Nor merits he a Mortal's name,
That burns with an immortal Flame.
Cynthia
I have enough for me to do,
Ruling the Waves that Ebb and Flow.
Endymion
Since thou disdain'st not then to share
On Sublunary things thy Care;
Rather restrain these double Seas,
Mine Eyes uncessant deluges.
Cynthia
My wakeful Lamp all night must move,
Securing their Repose above.
Endymion
If therefore thy resplendent Ray
Can make a Night more bright then Day;
Shine thorough this obscurer Brest,
With shades of deep Despair opprest.
Chorus.
Courage, Endymion, boldly Woo,
Anchises was a Shepheard too:
Yet is her younger Sister laid
Sporting with him in Ida's shade:
And Cynthia, though the strongest,
Seeks but the honour to have held out longest.
Endymion
Here unto Latmos Top I climbe:
How far below thine Orbe sublime?
O why, as well as Eyes to see,
Have I not Armes that reach to thee?
Cynthia
'Tis...
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by
Kenneth Koch
(sign at a railroad crossing in Kenya)
In a poem, one line may hide another line,
As at a crossing, one train may hide another train.
That is, if you are waiting to cross
The tracks, wait to do it for one moment at
Least after the first train is gone. And so when you read
Wait until you have read the next line—
Then it is safe to go on reading.
In a family one sister may conceal another,
So, when you are courting, it's best to have them all in view
Otherwise in coming to find one you may love another.
One father or one brother may hide the man,
If you are a woman, whom you have been waiting to love.
So always standing in front of something the other
As words stand in front of objects, feelings, and ideas.
One wish may hide another. And one person's reputation may hide
The reputation of another. One dog may conceal another
On a lawn, so if you escape the first one you're not necessarily safe;
One lilac may hide another and then a lot of lilacs and on the Appia
Antica one tomb
May hide a number of other tombs. In love, one reproach may hide another,
One small complaint may hide a great one.
One injustice may...
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by
Anais Nin
"Am I, at bottom, that fervent little Spanish Catholic child who chastised herself for loving toys, who forbade herself the enjoyment of sweet foods, who practiced silence, who humiliated her pride, who adored symbols, statues, burning candles, incense, the caress of nuns, organ music, for whom Communion was a great event? I was so exalted by the idea of eating Jesus's flesh and drinking His blood that I couldn't swallow the host well, and I dreaded harming the it. I visualized Christ descending into my heart so realistically (I was a realist then!) that I could see Him walking down the stairs and entering the room of my heart like a sacred Visitor. That state of this room was a subject of great preoccupation for me. . . At the ages of nine, ten, eleven, I believe I approximated sainthood. And then, at sixteen, resentful of controls, disillusioned with a God who had not granted my prayers (the return of my father), who performed no miracles, who left me fatherless in a strange country, I rejected all Catholicism with exaggeration. Goodness, virtue, charity, submission, stifled me. I took up the words of Lawrence: "They stress only pain, sacrifice, suffering...
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by
Carl Sandburg
WHO knows what I know
when I have asked the night questions
and the night has answered nothing
only the old answers?
Who picked a crimson cryptogram,
the tail light of a motor car turning a corner,
or the midnight sign of a chile con carne place,
or a man out of the ashes of false dawn muttering “hot-dog” to the night watchmen:
Is there a spieler who has spoken the word or taken the number of night’s nothings? am I the spieler? or you?
Is there a tired head
the night has not fed and rested
and kept on its neck and shoulders?
Is there a wish
of man to woman
and woman to man
the night has not written
and signed its name under?
Does the night forget
as a woman forgets?
and remember
as a woman remembers?
Who gave the night
this head of hair,
this gipsy head
calling: Come-on?
Who gave the night anything at all
and asked the night questions
and was laughed at?
Who asked the night
for a long soft kiss
and lost the half-way lips?
who picked a red lamp in a mist?
Who saw the night
fold its Mona Lisa hands
and sit half-smiling, half-sad,
nothing at all,
and everything,
all the world ?
Who saw the night
let down its hair
and shake its bare shoulders
and blow out the candles of the moon,
whispering, snickering,
cutting off the snicker .. and...
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by
Barry Tebb
Here is a silence I had not hoped for
This side of paradise, I am an old believer
In nature’s bounty as God’s grace
To us poor mortals, fretting and fuming
At frustrated lust or the scent of fame
Coming too late to make a difference
Blue with white vertebrae of cloud forms
Riming the spectrum of green dark of poplars
Lined like soldiers, paler the hue of hawthorn
With the heather beginning to bud blue
Before September purple, yellow ragwort
Sways in the wind as distantly a plane hums
And a lazy bee bumbles by.
A day in Brenda’s flat, mostly play with Eydie,
My favourite of her seven cats, they soothe better
Than Diazepan for panic
Seroxat for grief
Zopiclone to make me sleep.
I smoke my pipe and sip blackcurrant tea
Aware of the ticking clock: I have to be back
To talk to my son’s key nurse when she comes on
For the night shift. Always there are things to sort,
Misapprehensions to untangle, delusions to decipher,
Lies to expose, statistics to disclose, Trust Boards
And team meetings to attend, ‘Mental Health Monthly’
To peruse, funds for my press to raise – the only one
I ever got will leave me out of pocket.
A couple sat on the next bench
Are earnestly discussing child custody, broken marriages,
Failed affairs, social...
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by
Philip Levine
"I've been where it hurts." the Kid
He becomes Sierra Kid
I passed Slimgullion, Morgan Mine,
Camp Seco, and the rotting Lode.
Dark walls of sugar pine --,
And where I left the road
I left myself behind;
Talked to no one, thought
Of nothing. When my luck ran out
Lived on berries, nuts, bleached grass.
Driven by the wind
Through great Sonora pass,
I found an Indian's teeth;
Turned and climbed again
Without direction, compass, path,
Without a way of coming down,
Until I stopped somewhere
And gave the place a name.
I called the forests mine;
Whatever I could hear
I took to be a voice: a man
Was something I would never hear.
He faces his second winter in the Sierra
A hard brown bug, maybe a beetle,
Packing a ball of sparrow shit --
What shall I call it?
Shit beetle? Why's it pushing here
At this great height in the thin air
With its ridiculous waddle
Up the hard side of Hard Luck Hill?
And the furred thing that...
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by
Friedrich von Schiller
Ah! happy he, upon whose birth each god
Looks down in love, whose earliest sleep the bright
Idalia cradles, whose young lips the rod
Of eloquent Hermes kindles--to whose eyes,
Scarce wakened yet, Apollo steals in light,
While on imperial brows Jove sets the seal of might!
Godlike the lot ordained for him to share,
He wins the garland ere he runs the race;
He learns life's wisdom ere he knows life's care,
And, without labor vanquished, smiles the grace.
Great is the man, I grant, whose strength of mind,
Self-shapes its objects and subdues the fates--
Virtue subdues the fates, but cannot blind
The fickle happiness, whose smile awaits
Those who scarce seek it; nor can courage earn
What the grace showers not from her own free urn!
From aught unworthy, the determined will
Can guard the watchful spirit--there it ends
The all that's glorious from the heaven descends;
As some sweet mistress loves us, freely still
Come the spontaneous gifts of heaven!--Above
Favor rules Jove, as it below rules love!
The immortals have their bias!--Kindly they
See the bright locks of youth enamored play,
And where the glad one goes, shed gladness round the way.
It is not they who boast the best to see,
Whose eyes the holy apparitions bless;
The stately light of their divinity
Hath oft but shone the brightest on the...
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