And this same flower that smiles today
The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The sooner will his race be run,
That age is best which is the first,
But being spent, the worse, and worst
Then be not coy, but use your time,
For, having lost but once your prime,
Thoughts to Ponder
- Don't part with your illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist, but you have ceased to live.
-Mark Twain
I need only fall asleep
to return
where only I believe I left
I and the dogs
who sense my approach
and fill the dream
with their rushing joy
I need only sleep
to smell almost impudic green
tall inviting grass to
sleep inside sleep
light fading inside light
inside the sensual omniscient
yelping of the dogs
on the very edge of your eyelashes
where the landscape is flattened out thin
and is all
yours
Kenneth Rexroth
Song for a Dancer
I dream my love goes riding out
Upon a coal black mare.
A cloud of dark all about
Her - her floating hair.
She wears a short green velvet coat.
Her blouse is of red silk,
Open to her swan like throat,
Her breasts white as milk.
Her skirt is of green velvet, too,
And shows her silken thigh,
Purple leather for her shoe,
Dark as her blue eye.
From her saddle grows a rose.
She rides in scented shade.
Silver birds sing as she goes
This song that she made:
'My father was a nightingale,
My mother was a mermaid.
Honeyed notes that never fail
Upon my lips they laid.'
Thoughts to Ponder
- Commander, have you been able to determine the cause of the warp breach?
-Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Star Trek
No, sir. Everything was normal, and then, suddenly, it's like the laws of physics went right out the window.
-Lt. Cmdr. Geordi LaForge, Star Trek
And why shouldn't they? They're so inconvenient.
-Q, Star Trek
You see them vanish in their speeding cars,
The many people hastening through the world,
And wonder what they would have done before
This time of time speed distance, random streams
Of molecules hastened by what rising heat?
Was there never a world where people just sat still?
Yet they might be all of them contemplatives
Of a timeless now, drivers and passengers
In the moving cars all facing to the front
Which is the future, which is destiny,
Which is desire and desire's end -
What are they doing but just sitting still?
And still at speed they fly away, as still
As the road paid out beneath them as it flows
Moment by moment into the mirrored past;
They spread in their wake the parading fields of food,
The windowless works where who is making what,
The grey towns where the wishes and the fears are done.
With how sad steps, O moon, thou climb'st the skies!
How silently, and with how wan a face!
What! may it be that even in heavenly place
That busy archer his sharp arrows tries?
Sure, if that long-with-love-acquainted eyes
Can judge of love, thou feel'st a lover's case:
I read it in thy looks; thy languished grace
To me, that feel the like, thy state descries.
Then, even of fellowship, O Moon, tell me,
Is constant love deemed there but want of wit?
Are beauties there as proud as here they be?
Do they above love to be loved, and yet
Those lovers scorn whoom that love doth possess?
Do they call 'virtue' there - ungratefulness?
Thoughts to Ponder
- Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character give him power.
Henry David Thoreau
What's the Railroad to Me?
What's the railroad to me?
I never go to see
Where it ends.
It fills a few hollows,
And makes banks for the swallows,
It sets the sand a-blowing,
And the blackberries a-growing.
Woof of the Sun, Ethereal Gauze
Woof of the sun, ethereal gauze,
Woven of Nature's richest stuffs,
Visible heat, air-water, and dry sea,
Last conquest of the eye;
Toil of the day displayed, sun-dust,
Aerial surf upon the shores of earth,
Ethereal estuary, frith of light,
Breakers of air, billows of heat,
Fine summer spray on inland seas;
Bird of the sun, transparent-winged
Owlet of noon, soft-pinioned,
From heath or stubble rising without song;
Establish thy serenity o'er the fields.
Else Lasker-Schuler
Jacob and Esau
Rebecca's maid: a girl come from afar,
an angel, lovely, in a shift of roses
and on her face she seemed to wear a star.
Her eyes modestly lowered to her feet,
her soft hands sorted golden lentils,
baked bread and pottage with the meat.
The brothers thrived near her. They could
not quarrel over the sweets
that her sweet lap offered as food.
So Esau leaves the land for good,
leaves home and birthright for this meal.
The cloak he wears around his shoulders is the woods.
Thoughts to Ponder
- Don't swap horses in the middle of the stream.
-1864 Abraham Lincoln Re-Election Slogan
Wislawa Szymborska
I Am Too Near
I am too near to be dreamt of by him.
I do not fly over him, do not escape from him
under the roots of a tree. I am too near.
Not in my voice sings the fish in the net,
not from my finger rolls the ring.
I am too near. A big house is on fire
without me, calling for help. Too near
for a bell dangling from my hair to chime.
Too near to enter as a guest
before whom walls glide apart by themselves.
Never again will I die so lightly,
so much beyond my flesh, so inadvertently
as once in his dream. Too near.
I taste the sound, I see the glittering husk of this word
as I lie immobile in his embrace. He sleeps,
more accessible now to her, seen but once,
a cashier of a wandering circus with one lion,
than to me, who am at his side.
For her now in him a valley grows,
rusty-leaved, closed by a snowy mountain
in the dark blue air. I am too near
to fall to him from the sky. My scream
could wake him up. Poor thing
I am, limited to my shape,
I who was a birch, who was a lizard,
who would come out of my cocoons
shimmering the colors of my skins. Who possessed
the grace of disappearing from astonished eyes,
which is a wealth of wealths. I am near,
too near for him to dream of me.
I slide my arm from under the sleeper's head
and it is numb, full of swarming pins,
on the tip of each, waiting to be counted,
the fallen angels sit.
Charlotte Mew
The Farmer's Bride
Three summers since I chose a maid,
Too young maybe - but more's to do
At harvest-time than bide and woo.
When us was wed she turned afraid
Of love and me and all things human;
Like the shut of a winter's day
Her smile went out, and 'twadn't a woman -
More like a little frightened fay.
One night, in the Fall, she runned away.
'Out 'mong the sheep, her be,' they said,
'Should properly have been abed;
But sure enough she wadn't there
Lying awake with her wide brown stare.
Over seven-acre field and up-along across the down
We chased her, flying like a hare
Before our lanterns. To Church-Town
All in a shiver and a scare
We caught her, fetched her home at last
And turned the key upon her, fast.
She does the work around the house
As well as most, but like a mouse:
Happy enough to chat and play
With birds and rabbits and such as they,
So long as men-folk keep away.
'Not near, not near!' her eyes beseech
When one of us comes within reach.
The women say that beasts in stall
Look round like children at her call.
I've hardly heard her speak at all.
Shy as a leveret, swift as he,
Straight and slight as a young larch tree,
Sweet as the first wild violets, she,
To her wild self. But what to me?
The short days shorten and the oaks are brown,
The blue smoke rises to the low grey sky,
One leaf in the still air falls slowly down,
A magpie's spotted feathers lie
On the black earth spread white with rime,
The berries redden up to Christmas-time.
What's Christmas-time without there be
Some other in the house than we!
She sleeps up in the attic there
Alone, poor maid. 'Tis but a stair
Betwixt us. Oh! my God! the down
The soft young down of her, the brown,
The brown of her - her eyes, her hair, her hair!
Thoughts to Ponder
- A ship in harbor is safe -- but that is not what ships are for.
-John A. Shedd
William Spencer
Too Late I Stayed
Too late I stayed, -- forgive the crime!
Unheeded flew the hours:
How noiseless falls the foot of Time
That only treads on flowers!
And who, with clear account, remarks
The ebbings of his glass,
When all its sands are diamond sparks,
That dazzle as they pass?
O, who to sober measurement
Time's happy swiftness brings,
When birds of paradise have lent
Their plumage to his wings?
She lay all naked in her bed,
And I myself lay by;
No veil but curtains about her spread,
No covering but I:
Her head upon her shoulders seeks
To hang in careless wise,
And full of blushes was her cheeks,
And of wishes were her eyes.
Her blood still fresh into her face,
As on a message came,
To say that in another place
It meant another game;
Her cherry lip moist, plump, and fair,
Millions of kisses crown,
Which ripe and uncropped dangled there,
And weigh the branches down.
Her breasts, that welled so plump and high
Bred pleasant pain in me,
For all the world I do defy
The like felicity;
Her thighs and belly, soft and fair,
To me were only shown:
To have seen such meat, and not to have eat,
Would have angered any stone.
Her knees lay upward gently bent,
And all lay hollow under,
As if on easy terms, they meant
To fall unforced asunder;
Just so the Cyprian Queen did lie,
Expecting in her bower;
When too long stay had kept the boy
Beyond his promised hour.
'Dull clown,' quoth she, 'why dost delay
Such proffered bliss to take?
Canst thou find out no other way
Similitudes to make?'
Mad with delight I thundering
Throw my arms about her,
But pox upon't 'twas but a dream.
And so I lay without her.
Thoughts to Ponder
- It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others.
-John Andrew Holmes
Fitz-Greene Halleck
Marco Bozzaris
MARCO BOZZARIS, THE EPAMINODAS OF MODERN GREECE, FELL IN A NIGHT ATTACK UPON THE TURKISH CAMP AT LASPI, THE SITE OF THE ANCIENT PLATAEA, AUGUST 20, 1823, AND EXPIRED IN THE MOMENT OF VICTORY. HIS LAST WORDS WERE: 'TO DIE FOR LIBERTY IS A PLEASURE, AND NOT A PAIN.'
At midnight, in his guarded tent,
The Turk was dreaming of the hour
When Greece, her knee in suppliance bent,
Should tremble at his power.
In dreams, through camp and court, he bore
The trophies of a conqueror;
In dreams, his song of triumph heard;
Then wore his monarch's signet-ring,
Then pressed that monarch's throne - a king;
As wild his thoughts, and gay of wing,
As Eden's garden bird.
At midnight, in the forest shades,
Bozzaris ranged his Suliote band, -
True as the steel of their tried blades,
Heroes in heart and hand.
There had the Persian's thousands stood,
There had the glad earth drunk their blood,
On old Plataea's day;
And now there breathed that haunted air
The sons of sires who conquered there,
with arms to strike, and soul to dare,
As quick, as far, as they.
An hour passed on, the Turk awoke:
That bright dream was his last;
He woke - to hear his sentries shriek,
'To arms! they come! the Greek! the Greek!'
He woke - to die midst flame, and smoke,
And shout, and groan, and sabre-stroke,
And death-shots falling thick and fast
As lightnings from the mountain-cloud;
And heard, with voice as trumpet loud,
Bozzaris cheer his band:
'Strike - till the last armed foe expires;
Strike - for your altars and your fires;
Strike - for the green graves of your sires,
God, and your native land!'
They fought - like brave men, long and well;
They piled that ground with Moslem slain:
They conquered - but Bozzaris fell,
Bleeding at every vein.
His few surviving comrades saw
His smile when rang their proud hurrah,
And the red field was won;
Then saw in death his eyelids close
Calmly, as to a night's repose.
Like flowers at set of sun.
Come to the bridal chamber, death,
Come to the mother's, when she feels,
For the first time, her first-born's breath;
Come when the blessed seals
That close the pestilence are broke,
And crowded cities wail its stroke;
Come in consumption's ghastly form,
The earthquake shock, the ocean storm;
Come when the heart beats high and warm,
With banquet song and dance and wine, -
And thou art terrible; the tear,
The groan, the knell, the pall, the bier,
And all we know, or dream, or fear
Of agony, are thine.
But to the hero, when his sword
Has won the battle for the free,
Thy voice sounds like a prophet's word,
And in its hollow tones are heard
The thanks of millions yet to be.
Come when his task of fame is wrought;
Come with her laurel-leaf, blood-bought;
Come in her crowning hour, - and then
Thy sunken eye's unearthly light
To him is welcome as the sight
Of sky and stars to prisoned men;
Thy grasp is welcome as the hand
Of brother in a foreign land;
Thy summons welcome as the cry
That told the Indian isles were nigh
To the world-seeking Genoese,
When the land-wind, from woods of palm,
And orange-groves, and fields of balm,
Blew o'er the Haytian seas.
Bozzaris! with the storied brave
Greece nurtured in her glory's time,
Rest thee; there is no prouder grave,
Even in her own proud clime.
She wore no funeral weeds for thee,
Nor bade the dark hearse wave its plume,
Like torn branch from death's leafless tree,
In sorrow's pomp and pageantry,
The heartless luxury of the tomb.
But she remembers thee as one
Long loved, and for a season gone.
For thee her poet's lyre is wreathed,
Her marble wrought, her music breathed;
For thee she rings the birthday bells;
Of thee her babe's first lisping tells;
For thine her evening prayer is said
At palace couch and cottage bed.
Her soldier, closing with the foe,
Gives for thy sake a deadlier blow;
His plighted maiden, when she fears
For him, the joy of her young years,
Thinks of thy fate, and checks her tears.
And she, the mother of thy boys,
Though in her eye and faded cheek
Is read the grief she will not speak,
The memory of her buried joys, -
And even she who gave thee birth, -
Will, by her pilgrim-circled hearth,
Talk of thy doom without a sigh;
For thou art freedom's now, and fame's, -
One of the few, the immortal names
That were not born to die.
I have watched your fingers drum
Against each other: thumb against
The fore- and middle-finger. When
Tension leaves your hand alone,
Your face slides back its screen, I see
Such streams begin, such gardens grow
That you must hide more than you hide,
And I must know more than I know.
By the fierce flames of Love I'm in a sad taking,
I'm singed like a pig that is hung up for bacon,
My stomach is scorched like an over-done mutton-chop,
That for want of gravy wont afford a single drop.
Love, love, love is like a dizziness,
Wont let a poor man go about his business.
My great toes and little toes are burnt to a cinder,
As a hot burning-glass burns a dish-cloth to tinder,
As cheese by a hot salamander is roasted,
By beauty that's red-hot, like a cheese am I toasted.
Love, love, love is like a dizziness,
Wont let a poor man go about his business.
Attend all young lovers, who after ladies dandle,
I'm singed like a duck's foot over a candle,
By this that and t'other, I'm treated uncivil,
Like a gizzard I'm peppered, and then made a devil.
Love, love, love is like a dizziness,
Wont let a poor man go about his business.
Thoughts to Ponder
- He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice.
-Albert Einstein
Many workmen
Built a huge ball of masonry
Upon a mountaintop.
Then they went to the valley below,
And turned to behold their work.
'It is grand,' they said;
They loved the thing.
Of a sudden, it moved:
It came upon them swiftly;
It crushed them all to blood.
But some had opportunity to squeal.
A Man Said to the Universe
A man said to the universe:
'Sir, I exist!'
'However,' replied the universe,
'The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation.'
Many Red Devils
Many red devils ran from my heart
And out upon the page.
They were so tiny
The pen could mash them.
And many struggled in the ink.
It was strange
To write in this red muck
Of things from my heart.
A God in Wrath
A god in wrath
WAs beating a man;
He cuffed him loudly
With thunderous blows
That rang and rolled over the earth.
All people came running.
The man screamed and struggled,
And bit madly at the feet of the god.
The people cried,
'Ah, what a wicked man!'
And -
'Ah, what a redoubtable god!'
Annette Von Droste-Hulshoff
The Last Day of the Year (New Year's Eve)
The year at its turn,
the whirring thread unrolls.
One hour more, the last today,
and what was living time is scrolls
of dust dropping into a grave.
I wait in stern
silence. O deep night!
Is there an open eye?
Time, your flowing passage shakes
these walls. I shiver, my
one need is to observe. Night wakes
in solitude. I light
my eyes to all
that I have done and thought.
All that was in my head and heart
now stands like sullen rot
at Heaven's door. Victory in part -
the rest a fall
into dark wind
whipping my house! Yes, this year
will shatter and ride on the wings
of storm; not breathe under the clear
light of stars like quiet things.
You, child of sin,
has there not been
a hollow, secret quiver each
day in your savage chest,
as the polar winds reach
across the stones, breaking, possessed
with slow and in-
sistent rage? Now my lamp
is about to die; the wick
greedily sucks the last drop of oil.
Is my life like smoke lick-
ing the oil? Will death's cave uncoil
before me black, damp?
My life breaks down
somewhere in the circle of
this year. Long have I known
decay. Yet my heart in love
glows under the huge stone
of passion. I frown,
sweating in deep
fear, my hands, forehead wet.
Why? Is there a moist star
burning through clouds? Is it
the star of love, with far
light, dim from fear, a steep
booming note. Do you hear?
Again! Song for the dead!
The bell shakes in its mouth.
O Lord, on my knees I spread
my arms, and from my drouth
beg mercy. Dead is the year!
Thoughts to Ponder
- Philosophical habits of mind do not come quicker through fiber optics. Clear thinking is not aided by better dot resolution. Understanding ourselves and feeling for others does not come with a software upgrade.
-Linda Ray Pratt, Academe, Nov,Dec 1994
back to Home Page