Three Songs from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
1. Certain Things
Oh threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise!
One thing at least is certain--This life flies;
One thing is certain and the rest is Lies--
The Flower that once has blown forever dies.
2. Dust, sans...
Ah, make the most of what we may spend!
Before we too into the Dust descend;
Dust into Dust, and under Dust to lie,
Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer and... sans End!
3. Hereafter
Yon rising moon that looks for us again--
How oft hereafter will she wax and wane;
How oft hereafter rising look for us
Through this same garden--and for one in vain!
And when like her, O Saki, you shall pass
Among the Guests Star-scattered on the Grass,
And in your joyous errand reach the spot
Where I made One--turn down an empty Glass!
Stanzas: Two Poems by John Keats
1. Stanzas
In a drear-nighted December
Too happy, happy tree,
Thy branches ne'er remember
Their green felicity!
The north cannot undo them,
With a sleety whistle through them;
Nor frozen thawings glue them
From budding at the prime.
In a drear-nighted December,
Too happy, happy, brook,
Thy bubblings ne'er remember
Apollo's summer look;
But with a sweet forgetting,
They stay their crystal fretting,
Never, never petting
About the frozen time.
Ah! would 'twere so with many
A gentle girl and boy!
But were there ever any
Writhed not at passed joy?
To know the change and feel it,
When there is none to heal it,
Nor numbed sense to steel it,
Was never said in rhyme.
2. O Solitude!
O Solitude! if I must with thee dwell,
Let it not be among the jumbled heap
Of murky buildings; climb with me the steep,--
Nature's observatory--whence the dell,
Its flowery slopes, it's river's crystal swell,
May seem a span; let me thy vigils keep
'Mongst boughs pavillion'd, where the deer's swift leap
Startles the wild bee from the fox-glove bell.
But though I'll gladly trace these scenes with thee,
Yet the sweet converse of an innocent mind,
Whose words are images of thoughts refin'd,
Is my soul's pleasure; and it sure must be
Almost the highest bliss of human-kind,
When to thy haunts two kindred spirits flee.