As a lover of words, I really think we should have a thread dedicated to poetry, prose and quotes. (If there is one already, I must have missed it) Post your favorite poems, passages, quotes, song lyrics, or even your own work. I'll start ;D
From The Raven~ Edgar Allan Poe~ One of my favorite poets....
And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;
And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,
And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor
Shall be lifted - nevermore!
For me this poem is very visual and the cadence hypnotic. I'm convinced Dr. Seuss borrowed his rhythmic style from Poe. :P
Perhaps next time I'll post one of my own works. In the meantime, I'd love to hear what everyone else enjoys word wise. ;D
Reena
Quote from: Erinofskye on December 17, 2011, 10:36:52 PM
As a lover of words, I really think we should have a thread dedicated to poetry, prose and quotes. (If there is one already, I must have missed it)
There is one but it's been dormant for more than a year. Antoine tried to revive it last February but failed. Here it is:
http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,6213.msg149085.html#msg149085
Quote from: Erinofskye on December 17, 2011, 10:36:52 PM
Perhaps next time I'll post one of my own works.
Please do. Several of us have been brave enough to post original stuff. Here's one of mine:
http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,6213.msg406495.html#msg406495
Sarge
Quote from: Sergeant Rock on December 18, 2011, 01:51:04 AM
Please do. Several of us have been brave enough to post original stuff. Here's one of mine:
http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,6213.msg406495.html#msg406495
Thank you for sharing Sarge! Your poem is beautiful and full of feeling which translates to the reader. :)
My turn to be brave. My writings are deeply emotional as I'm sure every writers are. This particular poem was written some time ago, during a very hard time in my life. It's one of my favorites. The focus was the feeling rather than form....
The Pit
Swirling black
Hungry
For me
Once I am in
There's no going back
I reach out
But there's no one there
To save me from myself
Strength to save myself
I am at a lack
But in this Pit there is light
Light I can feel
But cannot yet see
As I careen into this Pit
Falling like a stone
I find my reason
I find it and take it back
The Pit is my constant companion
Always at my side
Taunting and threatening
This ride I am on
Seems to never end
Yet somehow I arise again
To face the darkness
Looking for the light
Feeling it
Yet never seeing
But I will go on
Arising from the Pit like the Phoenix
From these ashes I will find the light
~Reena
There was a young man from Nantucket
Quote from: eyeresist on December 18, 2011, 04:07:15 PM
There was a young man from Nantucket
:o :o I see you like the classics.... :P
Invictus is a poem I discovered only recently. A fine poem to declaim whilst stalking the wind-swept moors in the midst of a clamorous storm.
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
Quote from: Erinofskye on December 18, 2011, 10:49:42 AM
Thank you for sharing Sarge! Your poem is beautiful and full of feeling which translates to the reader. :)
My turn to be brave. My writings are deeply emotional as I'm sure every writers are. This particular poem was written some time ago, during a very hard time in my life. It's one of my favorites. The focus was the feeling rather than form....
The Pit
Swirling black
Hungry
For me
Once I am in
There's no going back
I reach out
But there's no one there
To save me from myself
Strength to save myself
I am at a lack
But in this Pit there is light
Light I can feel
But cannot yet see
As I careen into this Pit
Falling like a stone
I find my reason
I find it and take it back
The Pit is my constant companion
Always at my side
Taunting and threatening
This ride I am on
Seems to never end
Yet somehow I arise again
To face the darkness
Looking for the light
Feeling it
Yet never seeing
But I will go on
Arising from the Pit like the Phoenix
From these ashes I will find the light
~Reena
I'm not usually a poetry person, but that is really quite good.
Quote from: mc ukrneal on December 21, 2011, 12:18:00 AM
I'm not usually a poetry person, but that is really quite good.
;D Why thank you!
It's a beautiful idea, I'm a great lover of literature and poetry :)
I particularly like this poem by W. Wordsworth, very evocative and powerfully emotional, showing all the beauty of nature:
I wandered lonely as a Cloud
That floats on high o'er Vales and Hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd
A host of dancing Daffodils;
Along the Lake, beneath the trees,
Ten thousand dancing in the breeze.
The waves beside them danced, but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee: --
A poet could not but be gay
In such a laughing company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude,
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the Daffodils.
Abraham Lincoln was wise man:
"Allow the president to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose - and you allow him to make war at pleasure."
As for poetry, some of my favourites: Frost's "Mending Wall", Stevie Smith's "Not Waving but Drowning", Shelley's "Ozymandias", Yeats's "The Lake Isle Of Innisfree", "The Second Coming"
Oliver Goldsmith:
(from The Deserted Village, 1770)
Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay;
Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade;
A breath can make them, as a breath has made;
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroyed, can never be supplied.
Quote from: North Star on December 29, 2011, 03:09:18 PM
Abraham Lincoln was wise man:
"Allow the president to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose - and you allow him to make war at pleasure."
Wise words, then and now. It's a shame such wisdom is seldom taken to heart by those in power. Thanks for sharing! :)
This poem was one of those things that just kinda happened. My daughter came to me and said she felt like a dragon. These words tumbled out of me. Of course she gave me one of those "What are you talking about" looks :P
I Feel Like a Dragon
I feel like a dragon has tracked me down
Chased me till I'm weary to the bone
I feel like a dragon has pinned me to the earth
With his shiny black talons
I feel like a dragon has scorched my soul
With his fetid, flaming breath
I feel like a dragon has plucked me up
To gnaw upon my bones
I feel like a dragon has spit me out
Unhappy with my bitter taste
I feel like a dragon has, with one final torment
Covered me in a reign of fire
:-* Reena
My favourite poem would probably be 'Porphyria's Lover' by Robert Browning.
The rain set early in tonight,
The sullen wind was soon awake,
It tore the elm-tops down for spite,
and did its worst to vex the lake:
I listened with heart fit to break.
When glided in Porphyria; straight
She shut the cold out and the storm,
And kneeled and made the cheerless grate
Blaze up, and all the cottage warm;
Which done, she rose, and from her form
Withdrew the dripping cloak and shawl,
And laid her soiled gloves by, untied
Her hat and let the damp hair fall,
And, last, she sat down by my side
And called me. When no voice replied,
She put my arm about her waist,
And made her smooth white shoulder bare,
And all her yellow hair displaced,
And, stooping, made my cheek lie there,
And spread, o'er all, her yellow hair,
Murmuring how she loved me—she
Too weak, for all her heart's endeavor,
To set its struggling passion free
From pride, and vainer ties dissever,
And give herself to me forever.
But passion sometimes would prevail,
Nor could tonight's gay feast restrain
A sudden thought of one so pale
For love of her, and all in vain:
So, she was come through wind and rain.
Be sure I looked up at her eyes
Happy and proud; at last I knew
Porphyria worshiped me: surprise
Made my heart swell, and still it grew
While I debated what to do.
That moment she was mine, mine, fair,
Perfectly pure and good: I found
A thing to do, and all her hair
In one long yellow string I wound
Three times her little throat around,
And strangled her. No pain felt she;
I am quite sure she felt no pain.
As a shut bud that holds a bee,
I warily oped her lids: again
Laughed the blue eyes without a stain.
And I untightened next the tress
About her neck; her cheek once more
Blushed bright beneath my burning kiss:
I propped her head up as before
Only, this time my shoulder bore
Her head, which droops upon it still:
The smiling rosy little head,
So glad it has its utmost will,
That all it scorned at once is fled,
And I, its love, am gained instead!
Porphyria's love: she guessed not how
Her darling one wish would be heard.
And thus we sit together now,
And all night long we have not stirred,
And yet God has not said a word!
This poem had such an impact on me when I first heard it, while studying it in English class at school, that I instantly started to write a musical depiction of it. Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htPirbptKt4 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htPirbptKt4)
And Reena, I have read the poems of yours you have posted here, they are excellent! :)
Quote from: Lisztianwagner on December 29, 2011, 02:56:35 PM
I wandered lonely as a Cloud
That floats on high o'er Vales and Hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd
A host of dancing Daffodils;
Along the Lake, beneath the trees,
Ten thousand dancing in the breeze.
The waves beside them danced, but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee: --
A poet could not but be gay
In such a laughing company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude,
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the Daffodils.
One of my Wordsworth's faves as well, together with We Are Seven (http://www.bartleby.com/41/394.html) and The Solitary Reaper (http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww240.html).
Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner (http://www.online-literature.com/coleridge/646/) is full of poetic gems. I am very surprised that no composer wrote a tone poem based on it.
Yeats'
When You Are Old is stunningly beautiful too.
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
For those of you who can read French here is a great one by François COPPÉE (1842-1908)
AdagioLa rue était déserte et donnait sur les champs.
Quand j'allais voir l'été les beaux soleils couchants
Avec le rêve aimé qui partout m'accompagne,
Je la suivais toujours pour gagner la campagne,
Et j'avais remarqué que, dans une maison
Qui fait l'angle et qui tient, ainsi qu'une prison,
Fermée au vent du soir son étroite persienne,
Toujours à la même heure, une musicienne
Mystérieuse, et qui sans doute habitait là,
Jouait l'adagio de la sonate en la.
Le ciel se nuançait de vert tendre et de rose.
La rue était déserte ; et le flâneur morose
Et triste, comme sont souvent les amoureux,
Qui passait, l'oeil fixé sur les gazons poudreux,
Toujours à la même heure, avait pris l'habitude
D'entendre ce vieil air dans cette solitude.
Le piano chantait sourd, doux, attendrissant,
Rempli du souvenir douloureux de l'absent
Et reprochant tout bas les anciennes extases.
Et moi, je devinais des fleurs dans de grands vases,
Des parfums, un profond et funèbre miroir,
Un portrait d'homme à l'oeil fier, magnétique et noir,
Des plis majestueux dans les tentures sombres,
Une lampe d'argent, discrète, sous les ombres,
Le vieux clavier s'offrant dans sa froide pâleur,
Et, dans cette atmosphère émue, une douleur
Épanouie au charme ineffable et physique
Du silence, de la fraîcheur, de la musique.
Le piano chantait toujours plus bas, plus bas.
Puis, un certain soir d'août, je ne l'entendis pas.
Depuis, je mène ailleurs mes promenades lentes.
Moi qui hais et qui fuis les foules turbulentes,
Je regrette parfois ce vieux coin négligé.
Mais la vieille ruelle a, dit-on, bien changé :
Les enfants d'alentour y vont jouer aux billes,
Et d'autres pianos l'emplissent de quadrilles.
Quote from: Florestan on January 03, 2012, 06:33:01 AM
Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner (http://www.online-literature.com/coleridge/646/) is full of poetic gems. I am very surprised that no composer wrote a tone poem based on it.
That greatly astonishes me, too.
Indeed, indeed.
Quote from: Florestan on January 03, 2012, 06:33:01 AM
Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner (http://www.online-literature.com/coleridge/646/) is full of poetic gems. I am very surprised that no composer wrote a tone poem based on it.
I agree, Coleridge's poem is truly beautiful and deeply passionate; well, in a certain sense there are some similitudes between
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Wagner's
Der Fliegende Holländer, like the presence of a Ghost Ship condemned to wander on the sea, and love as main theme (for love and human creatures in Coleridge, instead as a way to Redemption in Wagner).
Quote from: Florestan on January 03, 2012, 06:33:01 AM
Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner (http://www.online-literature.com/coleridge/646/) is full of poetic gems. I am very surprised that no composer wrote a tone poem based on it.
Dude! :(
http://www.youtube.com/v/t7zk4as9kzA
;)
Quote from: Lisztianwagner on December 29, 2011, 02:56:35 PM
It's a beautiful idea, I'm a great lover of literature and poetry :)
I particularly like this poem by W. Wordsworth, very evocative and powerfully emotional, showing all the beauty of nature:
I love Wordsworth too! Thanks for posting this, I hadn't read it in quite awhile. ;D
Quote from: Florestan on January 03, 2012, 06:33:01 AM
One of my Wordsworth's faves as well, together with We Are Seven (http://www.bartleby.com/41/394.html) and The Solitary Reaper (http://www.bartleby.com/145/ww240.html).
Coleridge's Rime of the Ancient Mariner (http://www.online-literature.com/coleridge/646/) is full of poetic gems. I am very surprised that no composer wrote a tone poem based on it.
Yeats' When You Are Old is stunningly beautiful too.
I love this! The Solitary Reaper is one of my favorites ;D
Quote from: madaboutmahler on January 03, 2012, 03:16:30 AM
My favourite poem would probably be 'Porphyria's Lover' by Robert Browning.
This poem had such an impact on me when I first heard it, while studying it in English class at school, that I instantly started to write a musical depiction of it. Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htPirbptKt4 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htPirbptKt4)
And Reena, I have read the poems of yours you have posted here, they are excellent! :)
Daniel, your composition and interpretation is just lovely! Thank you for sharing, and thank you for the kind words :)
Quote from: Il Furioso on January 03, 2012, 01:13:30 PM
Dude! :(
http://www.youtube.com/v/t7zk4as9kzA
;)
I stopped it at 2:54. Poor Coleridge must be rolling in his grave: the lyrics look like "Rime of the Ancient Mariner for Dummies". As for the "music", it has no trace whatsoever of poetry, mystery and passion. That would have been a Liszt or Sibelius thing; instead we get the monotonous screaming & strumming & drumming of Iron Maiden. Thanks, but no thanks. ;D
EDIT: If you are an Iron Maiden fan, please don't take it personally. I like some of their songs but really do think that tackling such a poem is far beyond their scope and style.
Quote from: Florestan on January 04, 2012, 12:08:19 AM
I stopped it at 2:54. Poor Coleridge must be rolling in his grave: the lyrics look like "Rime of the Ancient Mariner for Dummies". As for the "music", it has no trace whatsoever of poetry, mystery and passion. That would have been a Liszt or Sibelius thing; instead we get the monotonous screaming & strumming & drumming of Iron Maiden. Thanks, but no thanks. ;D
EDIT: If you are an Iron Maiden fan, please don't take it personally. I like some of their songs but really do think that tackling such a poem is far beyond their scope and style.
No great fan, I just remembered this from my teenage years.
Quote from: Erinofskye on January 03, 2012, 01:19:00 PM
Daniel, your composition and interpretation is just lovely! Thank you for sharing, and thank you for the kind words :)
Thank you for your kind words, Reena! :)
(http://www.johnwilliamwaterhouse.com/assets/images/content/waterhouse/med/waterhouse176.jpg)
JW Waterhouse "Ophelia" 1889
Here is one of my poems, along with one of my favorite paintings.
The Heather
Cold and darkness all around
I'm lying in the heather
The warmth of my lover cannot be found
To shield me from the weather
I cry out in fear and alarm
I beg you to come back to me
I fear you've come to harm
I hope you've heard my plea
As I arise sunlight begins to seep
Through the mist destroying the night
And now I see the keep
My love stands there upon the wall shining like a light
His smile is like a beacon
Burning through the night
Oh what joy to awaken
To such a glorious sight
~Reena~
That's a splendid canvas, Reena.
Indeed, a good poem and an excellent example of the Pre-Raphaelite style.
One of my favorites...
She Walks in Beauty ~Lord Byron~
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express,
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!
Don't get me started on Byron... :)
When We Two Parted (http://www.bartleby.com/101/597.html)
The Prisoner of Chillon (http://www.bartleby.com/41/479.html)
So We'll Go No More A-Roving (http://www.bartleby.com/101/599.html)
There are some poems that ask a question about the world and our place in it, and attempt to answer it (like Walter De la Mare's Fare Well); but I'm more drawn to those poems that pose a question and, without explicitly saying so, are themselves an answer to it - the most notable example that springs to my mind being Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach. And then there are poems whose existence is an answer to a question that isn't explicitly asked at all. Like this one, by Ted Hughes, about a moment in the evening with his young daughter, which suddenly becomes loaded with unexpected meaning that bursts outside the confines of the poem:
Full Moon and Little Frieda
A cool small evening shrunk to a dog bark and the clank of a bucket -
And you listening.
A spider's web, tense for the dew's touch.
A pail lifted, still and brimming - mirror
To tempt a first star to a tremor.
Cows are going home in the lane there, looping the hedges with their warm
wreaths of breath -
A dark river of blood, many boulders,
Balancing unspilled milk.
'Moon!' you cry suddenly, 'Moon! Moon!'
The moon has stepped back like an artist gazing amazed at a work
That points at him amazed.
The Austrian poet Georg Trakl (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georg_Trakl) wrote some of the most hauntingly beautiful poems I've ever read.
Among my favorites:
Winter Abend
Wenn der Schnee ans Fenster fällt,
Lang die Abendglocke läutet,
Vielen ist der Tisch bereitet
Und das Haus ist wohlbestellt.
Mancher auf der Wanderschaft
Kommt ans Tor auf dunklen Pfaden.
Golden blüht der Baum der Gnaden
Aus der Erde kühlem Saft.
Wanderer tritt still herein;
Schmerz versteinert die Schwelle.
Da erglänzt in reiner Helle
Auf dem Tische Brot und Wein.
Winter Evening
At the window, the fall of snow.
It tolls long now, the evening bell.
The table is set for many, as well,
The house well-ordered, aglow.
And many from their wanderings
Arrive by dark paths at the gate.
The Tree of Grace blooms gold, if late;
From out of earth's chill sap it springs.
Traveler, enter with silent tread.
Pain has petrified the door.
Yet clean and bright on the table before
You gleam the wine, the bread.
(translated by William Ruleman)
Sommer
Am Abend schweigt die Klage
des Kuckucks im Wald.
Tiefer neigt sich das Korn,
der rote Mohn.
Schwarzes Gewitter droht
über dem Hügel.
Das alte Lied der Grille
erstirbt im Feld.
Nimmer regt sich das Laub
der Kastanie,
auf der Wendeltreppe
rauscht dein Kleid.
Stille leuchtet die Kerze
im dunkeln Zimmer.
Eine silberne Hand
löschte sie aus.
Windstille, sternlose Nacht.
Summer
At evening the complaint of the cuckoo
Grows still in the wood.
The grain bends its head deeper,
The red poppy.
Darkening thunder drives
Over the hill.
The old song of the cricket
Dies in the field.
The leaves of the chestnut tree
Stir no more.
Your clothes rustle
On the winding stair.
The candle gleams silently
In the dark room;
A silver hand
Puts the light out;
Windless, starless night.
(translated by James Wright and Robert Bly)
Musik im Mirabell
Ein Brunnen singt. Die Wolken stehn
Im klaren Blau, die weißen, zarten.
Bedächtig stille Menschen gehn
Am Abend durch den alten Garten.
Der Ahnen Marmor ist ergraut.
Ein Vogelzug streift in die Weiten.
Ein Faun mit toten Augen schaut
Nach Schatten, die ins Dunkel gleiten.
Das Laub fällt rot vom alten Baum
Und kreist herein durchs offne Fenster.
Ein Feuerschein glüht auf im Raum
Und malet trübe Angstgespenster.
Ein weißer Fremdling tritt ins Haus.
Ein Hund stürzt durch verfallene Gänge.
Die Magd löscht eine Lampe aus,
Das Ohr hört nachts Sonatenklänge.
Music in Mirabell
A fountain sings. Clouds stand
In clear blueness, white, delicate.
Silent people wander thoughtfully
Through the old garden in the evening.
The ancestors' marble has turned grey.
A line of birds streaks into the distance.
A faun with dead eyes looks
On shadows that glide into darkness.
Leaves fall red from the old tree
And rotate inside through the open window.
Firelight glows in the room
And paints dim specters of anxiety.
A white stranger enters the house.
A dog leaps through decayed lanes.
The maid extinguishes a lamp.
At night the ear hears the sounds of sonatas.
(translator unknown to me - but I think this rhymeless translation does hardly any justice to the amazing musicality of the German original)
This one impressed me.
Acquainted with the Night by Robert Frost
I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.
I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,
But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
A luminary clock against the sky
Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.
This somehow seems appropriate:
"An apt quotation is like a lamp which flings its light over the whole sentence."
LEL
Thought I would share this original work. This started out as a poem and ended up as song lyrics. Perhaps someday I'll post the music ;D
Game of Fools
I see the way you look at me
To you it's all a game
I've wondered if you'd care for me
If you'd ever feel the same
With your eyes you lead me on
Keep me guessing with you smile
Do you think I'll keep loving you
My heart breaking all the while
Go ahead and smile
That smile of yours so sweet
In time I'll find another
To make my life complete
When you finally realize
We weren't just playing a game
You'll know how much you needed me
You'll have yourself to blame
So go ahead and smile
That smile so sweet and cruel
Go ahead and play your game
The lonely game of fools
~Reena~
You talk about civilization, and that it shouldn't be,
Or shouldn't be the way it is.
You say everybody suffers, or the majority of everybody,
And it's because humans make things that way.
You say if things were different, we'd suffer less.
You say if things were like you want them, it would be better.
I hear you without listening.
Why should I want to listen to you?
Listening to you won't make me know any better.
If things were different, they'd be different: that's all.
If things were like you want them, they'd only be like you want them.
Oh, you and everybody else going through life
Wanting to invent a machine for making happiness!
Alberto Caeiro (Fernando Pessoa) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Pessoa#Alberto_Caeiro) (Translator unknown)
William Wordsworth, The Solitary Reaper:
Behold her, single in the field,
Yon solitary Highland lass!
Reaping and singing by herself;
Stop here, or gently pass!
Alone she cuts and binds the grain,
And sings a melancholy strain;
O listen! for the vale profound
Is overflowing with the sound.
No nightingale did ever chant
More welcome notes to weary bands
Of travelers in some shady haunt,
Among Arabian sands;
A voice so thrilling ne'er heard
In springtime from the cuckoo-bird,
Breaking the silence of the seas
Among the farthest Hebrides.
Will no one tell me what she sings?--
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago;
Or is it some more humble lay,
Familiar matter of today?
Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,
That has been, and may be again?
Whate'er the theme, the maiden sang
As if her song could have no ending;
I saw her singing at her work,
And o'er the sickle bending;
I listened, motionless and still;
And, as I mounted up the hill,
The music in my heart I bore,
Long after it was heard no more.
Here is an excerpt from one of my own long poems (over 50,000 words) as yet unpublished,
Working title: Zebra Manual (and will probably be the official title)
PLACEMENT OF TEMPERATURE MONITORS Where monitors are placed within the package is important since temperatures vary inside the box. Placing monitors next to the "cold" packs does not give an accurate measure of the temperature of the vaccines that are farther from the "cold" packs. Color-change monitors have adhesive backs and may be attached to vaccine cartons, or walls of the box to prevent them from moving. A heat monitor (e.g., 3M time-temperature tag), placed at the point of greatest heat exposure (usually near a side, away from cold packs) may have up to, but no more than, four windows blue at the time of unpacking. A freezing temperature indicator (e.g., ColdMark 32°F monitor), placed with vaccines near cold packs in summer and, also, near a side but away from "cold" packs in winter, should remain clear. (See Appendices 2A and 2B for instructions for how to use and read temperature monitors.) Analog recording monitors are relatively large, and "best judgement" must be used regarding where they should be placed (e.g., in the center or on the outside of the vaccines in a large shipment). Temperature Chart Fahrenheit Celsius - 20 - 29 - 15 - 26 - 10 - 23 - 5 - 21 0 - 18 5 - 15 10 - 12 15 - 9 20 - 7 25 - 4 30 - 1 32 0 34 1 36 2 38 3 40 4 42 6 44 7 46 8 48 9 50 10 52 11 54 12 56 13 58 14 60 16 65 18 70 21 75 24 80 27 85 29 90 32 95 35 100 38 105 41 110 43 115 46 120 49 15
5. APPENDICES APPENDIX 1 SMALLPOX VACCINE DO'S FOR DISTRIBUTION FACILITIES . Do prevent freezing of Smallpox vaccine and its diluent. Keep them at 2°– 8°C (36°– 46°F). . Do check the refrigerator unit monitor at least twice daily to be sure the temperature stays between 2° – 8°C (36° – 46°F). . Do change the graph paper in the refrigerator monitors as needed (usually weekly). Also check the ink! . Do ensure the cold facility and refrigerator are locked. . Do get a security system for the cold facility and train everyone on its use. . Do have a written plan in case of an emergency power outage. . Do have a back-up generator and test it regularly. . Do let the temperature in a new, or newly repaired refrigerator stabilize (~72 hours) before putting vaccines in it. . Do have standard operating procedures covering the use of every item of equipment and all steps for receipt, storage, and distribution in place; train staff in their use; and continually check for compliance. . Do have phone numbers of key people available for handling emergencies. 16
APPENDIX 2A — INFORMATION FOR SHIPPERS HOW TO USE TEMPERATURE MONITORS Time/temperature tags must be kept refrigerated until the moment of use. Pull the tab to activate the monitor. As the temperature inside the package rises to warmer than 10°C (50°F), the windows in the monitor turn blue. The more windows that have turned blue, the higher the temperatures reached inside the box or the longer the time warmer than 10°C. If no windows are blue, then check whether the monitor was activated. If all five windows are blue, then contact the manufacturer. The ColdMark Freeze Indicators detects exposure to temperatures under 0°C by releasing a red dye marker into a visible bulb. These are usually placed adjacent to cold packs in the summer, and also near a wall in the winter. If the bulb is red, smallpox vaccine may not be usable. Contact the manufacturer. Analog disposable recording temperature monitors are available which produce linear strip charts over a 4 day period. They may be appropriate for large, expensive shipments. They should be kept refrigerated until used. To start the temperature monitor: fill out the tag with a ball point pen, press hard; peel off the top tag; pull up on the start tab and remove completely. Confirm the unit is ticking. To remove the chart: cut the tamper evident seal; press end and pry up on cassette; remove chart. All monitors have adhesive backs which can be used to prevent them from moving. 17 Figure 27 Time/temperature monitor (far left) has not been activated. The monitor (far right) with all five windows blue, means the vaccine manufacturer should be contacted. (See text for more information.) Figure 28 The top indicator is clear, the bottom indicator means the vaccines have been too cold at some point during shipping. (See accompanying text for more information.) Figure 29 The box must be broken open and the strip chart removed to determine the temperatures reached during shipping. (See accompanying text.)
I like "Lady Lazarus" (23-29 October 1962) by Sylvia Plath. It's basically a suicide note:
I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it--
A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot
A paperweight,
My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen.
Peel off the napkin
O my enemy.
Do I terrify?--
The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.
Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me
And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.
This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.
What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see
Them unwrap me hand and foot--
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies
These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,
Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.
The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut
As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.
Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.
I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.
It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical
Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:
'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge
For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart--
It really goes.
And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood
Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.
I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby
That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.
Ash, ash--
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there--
A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.
Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.
Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.
Quote from: Leo K. on January 07, 2013, 01:26:26 PM
Here is an excerpt from one of my own long poems (over 50,000 words) as yet unpublished,
Working title: Zebra Manual (and will probably be the official title)
Give up Shakespeare, you have Leo K now. ;D
(sorry, couldn't resist)
Here is an excerpt from my (now out of print) novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finnegan:
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/510goESjOML._SL500_AA300_.jpg)
Well, next day they found out the Huckleberry was gone; they found out he hadn't ben seen sence ten o'clock the night the murder was done. So then they put it on him, you see; and while they was full of it, next day, back comes old Finnegan, and went boohooing to Judge Thatcher to get money to hunt for the Huckleberry all over Illinois with. The judge gave him some, and that evening he got drunk, and was around till after midnight with a couple of mighty hardlooking strangers, and then went off with them. Well, he hain't come back sence, and they ain't looking for him back till this thing blows over a little, for people thinks now that he killed his boy and fixed things so folks would think robbers done it, and then he'd get Huck's money without having to bother a long time with a lawsuit. People do say he warn't any too good to do it. Oh, he's sly, I reckon. If he don't come back for a year he'll be all right. You can't prove anything on him, you know; everything will be quieted down then, and he'll walk in Huck's money as easy as nothing." "Yes, I reckon so, 'm. I don't see nothing in the way of it. Has everybody quit thinking the Huckleberry done it?" "Oh, no, not everybody. A good many thinks he done it. But they'll get the Huckleberry pretty soon now, and maybe they can scare it out of him." "Why, are they after him yet?"
Hohohoho, Mister Finn, in it. And she took you're going to be Mister Finnagain! snuff, too; of course that was all Comeday morm and, O, you're vine! right, because she done it herself. Her Sendday's eve and, ah, you're vinegar! sister, Miss Watson, a tolerable slim Hahahaha, Mister Funn, you're going to old maid, with goggles on, had just be fined again! come to live with her, and What then agentlike brought about took a set at me now that tragoady thundersday this municipal sin with a spellingbook. She worked me middling business? Our cubehouse still rocks as hard for about an hour, and earwitness to the thunder of then the widow made her ease
I couldn't stood it much through successive ages that shebby choruysh longer. Then for an hour it of unkalified muzzlenimiissilehims that would blackguardise was deadly dull, and I was the whitestone ever hurtleturtled out of fidgety. Miss Watson would say, "Don't heaven. Stay us wherefore in our put your feet there, Huckleberry;" search for tighteousness, O Sus tainer, and "Don't scrunch like that, Huckleberry set what time we rise and when straight;" and pretty soon she we take
to toothmick and would say, "Don't gap and stretch like before we lump down upown our that, Huckleberrywhy don't you try to behave?" leatherbed and in the night and Then she told me all at the fading of the stars! about the bad place, and I For a nod to the nabir said I wished I was there. She is better than wink to the got mad then, but I didn't wabsanti. Otherways wesways like that provost mean no harm. All I scoffing bedoueen the jebel and wanted was to go somewheres; all I the jpysian sea. Cropherb the crunch wanted was a change, I warn't bracken shall decide. Then we'll know particular. She said it was wicked if the feast is a flyday. to say what I said; said She has a gift of seek she wouldn't say it for the whole on site and she allcasually ansars world; she was going to live helpers, the dreamydeary. Heed! Heed! It so as to go to the may half been a missfired brick, good place. Well, I couldn't see as some say, or it mought no advantage in going where she have been due to a collupsus was going, so I made
of his back promises, as others my mind I wouldn't try for it. looked at it. (There extand by But I never said so, now one thou sand and one because it would only make trouble, and stories, all told, of the same). wouldn't do no good. Now she had But so sore did abe got a start, and she went ite ivvy's holired abbles, (what with on and told me all about the wallhall's horrors of rolls rights, the good place. She said all carhacks, stonengens, kisstvanes, tramtrees, fargobawlers, autokinotons, a body would have to do hippohobbilies, streetfleets, tournintaxes, mega phoggs, circuses there was to go around all day and wardsmoats and basilikerks and aeropagods long with a harp and sing, and the hoyse and the forever and ever. So I jollybrool and the peeler in the didn't think much of it. But I coat and the mecklenburk bitch bite never said so. I asked at his ear and the merlinburrow her if she reckoned Tom Sawyer bur rocks and his fore old would go there, and she said not porecourts, the bore the more, and by a considerable sight.
The only poem I've ever written in English.
On Hearing Schubert's String Quartet in A minor "Rosamunde"
1. Allegro ma non troppo
Long, long ago, when I was young,
My days were filled with joy and song.
Their memory still lives in me,
Like a sweet Mozart melody.
Dark have been my days of late,
Pain and misery my fate,
And yet, away from me, o Death!
For as long as I still can breath'
My youth, though gone, will sing to me
That happy Mozart melody.
2. Andante
I loved a maid from distant lands,
The Heaven whole was in her hands,
But Time went by mercilessly
And took away my love from me.
Where art thou now, my fair Lenore?
Quoth the Raven: - Nevermore.
3. Menuetto, allegro
"You broken soul, can you still dance?"
Thus asked me Death, and I said: "Yes!
My poor soul is dancing still,
What's really broken is my will."
"Then come with me and have no fear",
said she, "your final rest is near."
"Not yet!, for broken is my will,
But my poor soul is breathing still!"
4. Allegro moderato
Let's go now, Death, but not too fast!
This journey here is my last,
Allow me then farewell to take
From things that life worth living make.
For neither song, nor love, nor men
I'll hear, or feel, or see again.
To my youth's tune I take a bow,
And... here's my hand! I'm all yours now.
It's an age since I thought of this one:
The Blind Men and the Elephant
John Godfry Saxe (1816 – 1887)
It was six men of Indostan
To learning much inclined,
Who went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
Might satisfy his mind.
The First approached the Elephant,
And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side,
At once began to bawl:
"God bless me! but the Elephant
Is very like a wall!"
The Second, feeling of the tusk,
Cried, "Ho! what have we here
So very round and smooth and sharp?
To me 'tis mighty clear
This wonder of an Elephant
Is very like a spear!"
The Third approached the animal,
And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands,
Thus boldly up and spake:
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a snake!"
The Fourth reached out an eager hand,
And felt about the knee.
"What most this wondrous beast is like
Is mighty plain," quoth he;
"'Tis clear enough the Elephant
Is very like a tree!"
The Fifth who chanced to touch the ear,
Said: "E'en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most;
Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an Elephant
Is very like a fan!"
The Sixth no sooner had begun
About the beast to grope,
Than, seizing on the swinging tail
That fell within his scope,
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant
Is very like a rope!"
And so these men of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!
Moral
So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!
Quote from: karlhenning on March 26, 2013, 04:27:00 AM
It's an age since I thought of this one:
The Blind Men and the Elephant
John Godfry Saxe (1816 – 1887)
...
Moral
So oft in theologic wars,
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
Of what each other mean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!
I haven't actually seen this poem before, let alone read it, but I certainly have heard the metaphor, probably in some senior high religion or philosophy class. Good stuff.
The poem, of course, ignores possibility that there might have been some people who didn't even find the elephant, and that there maybe was no elephant, and they all touched each other instead...
William Butler Yeats, The Fiddler of Dooney:
When I play on my fiddle in Dooney,
Folk dance like a wave of the sea;
My cousin is priest in Kilvarnet,
My brother in Moharabuiee.
I passed my brother and cousin:
They read in their books of prayer;
I read in my book of songs
I bought at the Sligo fair.
When we come at the end of time,
To Peter sitting in state,
He will smile on the three old spirits,
But call me first through the gate;
For the good are always the merry,
Save by an evil chance,
And the merry love the fiddle
And the merry love to dance:
And when the folk there spy me,
They will all come up to me,
With 'Here is the fiddler of Dooney!'
And dance like a wave of the sea.
Robert Frost:
Nothing Gold Can Stay
Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf,
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
Waiting, waiting. 'Tis so far
To the day that is to come :
One by one the days that axe
All to tell their countless sum ;
Each to dawn and each to die —
What so far as by and by?
Waiting, waiting. 'Tis not ours.
This to-day that flies so fast :
Let them go, the shadowy hours.
Floating, floated, into Past
Our day wears to-morrow's sky —
What so near as by and by?
From Yu-Pe-Ya's Lute.
Florentine May
STILL, still is the Night ; still as the pause after pain ;
Still and as dear ;
Deep, solemn, immense ; veiling the stars in the clear
Thrilling and luminous blue of the moon-shot atmosphere;
Ah, could the Night remain !
Who, truly, shall say thou art sullen or dark or unseen,
Thou, O heavenly Night,
Clear o'er the valley of olives asleep in the quivering
light,
Clear o'er the pale-red hedge of the rose, and the lilies
all white
Down at my feet in the green ?
Nay, not as the Day, thou art light, O Night, with a
beam
Far more dear and divine ;
Never the noon was blue as these tremulous heavens or
thine,
Pulsing with stars half seen, and vague, in a pallid shine,
Vague as a dream.
Night, clear with the moon, filled with the dreamy fire
Shining in thicket and close,
Fire from the lamp in his breast that the luminous firefly
throws ;
Night, full of wandering light and of song, and the
blossoming rose,
Night, be thou my desire !
Night, Angel of Night, hold me and cover me so
Open thy wings !
Ah, bend above and embrace ! till I hear in the one
bird that sings
The throb of thy musical heart in the dusk, and the
magical things
Only the Night can know.
A. Mary Robinson (from An Italian Garden)
FOR MUSIC.
Thou art looking on the face of night, my love !
Is not yon evening star bright, my love .'
Methinks it is
A world of bliss
For spirits all softness and light, my love !
This earth is so chilled with care, my dear !
Would we might wing our flight there, my dear!
For love to blaze
With the cloudless rays
It would have in a world so fair, my dear !
But my wish to visit that star, dear love !
Is vain as my other hopes are, dear love!
For my heart's wild sigh
Of idolatry
Breathes with thee like that planet afar, dear love!
L. E. L.
I've been thinking about this quote a lot recently:
"Everyone is a leader
But no one leads."
--Yevgeny Yevtushenko, "The Loss" (written in English, not Russian as you might expect)
This is a poem about voyages - voyages into memory and voyages into the imagination.
CAPTAIN COOK
Do you recall the fancies of many years ago,
When the pulse danced those light measures that again it cannot know
Ah ! we both of us are altered, and now we talk no more
Of all the old creations that haunted us of yore.
Then any favourite volume was a mine of long delight,
From whence we took our future, to fashion as we might.
We lived again its pages, we were its chiefs and kings,
As actual, but more pleasant, than what the day now brings.
It was an August evening, with sunset in the trees,
When home you brought his Voyages who found the fair South Seas.
We read it till the sunset amid the boughs grew dim ;
All other favourite heroes were nothing beside him.
For weeks he was our idol, we sailed with him at sea,
And the pond amid the willows the ocean seemed to be.
The water-lilies growing beneath the morning smile,
We call'd the South Sea islands, each flower a different isle.
No golden let that fortune could draw for human life,
To us seemed like a sailor's, 'mid the storm and strife.
Our talk was of fair vessels that swept before the breeze,
And new discovered countries amid the Southern Seas.
Within that lonely garden what happy hours went by,
While we fancied that around us spread foreign sea and sky.
Ah ! the dreaming and the distant no longer haunt the mind;
We leave, in leaving childhood, life's fairy land behind.
There is not of that garden a single tree or flower ;
They have ploughed its long green grasses, and cut down the lime tree bower.
Where are the Guelder roses, whose silver used to bring,
With the gold of the laburnums, their tribute to the Spring !
They have vanished with the childhood that with their treasures played ;
The life that cometh after dwells in a darker shade.
Yet the name of that sea captain, it cannot but recall
How much we loved his dangers, and how we mourned his fall.
L. E. L.
Two of my favorites:
Ozymandias
I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."
Percy Bysshe Shelley
The Second Coming
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
W. B. Yeats
My favourite Yeats..
The Lake Isle of Innisfree
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.
This here's the wattle,
The emblem of our land:
You can stick it in a bottle,
You can hold it in your hand.
Amen.
(Sorry . . . the word always reminds me of the Bruces!)
There were no blossoming shrubs, but sweeping pines
Guarded the solitude; and laurel boughs
Made fitting mirrors for the lovely moon,
With their bright shining leaves; the ivy lay
And trail'd upon the ground; and in the midst
A large old cypress stood, beneath whose shade
There was a sculptured form; the feet were placed
Upon a finely-carved rose wreath; the arms
Were raised to Heaven, as if to clasp the stars
EULALIA leant beside; 'twas hard to say
Which was the actual marble: when she spoke,
You started, scarce it seem'd a human sound;
But the eyes' lustre told life linger'd still;
And now the moonlight seem'd to fill their depths.
"You see," she said, "my cemetery here:—
Here, only here, shall be my quiet grave.
Yon statue is my emblem: see, its grasp
Is raised to Heaven, forgetful that the while
Its step has crush'd the fairest of earth's flowers
With its neglect."——
Her prophecy was sooth:
No change of leaf had that green valley known,
When EULALIE lay there in her last sleep.
Okay, you amateur psychologists out there, here's one of mine:
I must go in and take her
not knowing why
Her lips and limbs raise me
to heights the dreamtime knows
Why then does my hand feel--bones?
My last was published in 1829, so instead of Eulalie breathing her last, one could remember Schubert.
The Colour of His Hair
Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrists?
And what has he been after, that they groan and shake their fists?
And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience-stricken air?
Oh they're taking him to prison for the colour of his hair.
'Tis a shame to human nature, such a head of hair as his;
In the good old time 'twas hanging for the colour that it is;
Though hanging isn't bad enough and flaying would be fair
For the nameless and abominable colour of his hair.
Oh a deal of pains he's taken and a pretty price he's paid
To hide his poll or dye it of a mentionable shade;
But they've pulled the beggar's hat off for the world to see and stare,
And they're haling him to justice for the colour of his hair.
Now 'tis oakum for his fingers and the treadmill for his feet,
And the quarry-gang on Portland in the cold and in the heat,
And between his spells of labour in the time he has to spare
He can curse the God that made him for the colour of his hair.
A. E. Housman (1859 – 1936)
From the poem
The Deserted VillageQuote from: Oliver GoldsmithIll fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay:
Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade;
A breath can make them, as a breath has made;
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroyed can never be supplied.
The mosquito knows
The mosquite knows full well, smart as he is
he's a beast of prey.
But after all
he only takes his bellyful,
he doesn't put my blood in the bank.
-D. H. Lawrence
Archilochus (c. 680 – c. 645 BC)
The fox knows many things; the hedgehog one big thing.
Πόλλ᾽ οἶδ᾽ ἀλώπηξ, ἀλλ' ἐχῖνος ἕν μέγα
I don't know Greek, but it's an aesthetic pleasure to see it written. :)
On the Circuit
Among pelagian travelers,
Lost on their lewd conceited way
To Massachusetts, Michigan,
Miami or L.A.,
An airborne instrument I sit,
Predestined nightly to fulfill
Columbia-Giesen-Management's
Unfathomable will,
By whose election justified,
I bring my gospel of the Muse
To fundamentalists, to nuns,
to Gentiles and to Jews,
And daily, seven days a week,
Before a local sense has jelled,
From talking-site to talking-site
Am jet-or-prop-propelled.
Though warm my welcome everywhere,
I shift so frequently, so fast,
I cannot now say where I was
The evening before last,
Unless some singular event
Should intervene to save the place,
A truly asinine remark,
A soul-bewitching face,
Or blessed encounter, full of joy,
Unscheduled on the Giesen Plan,
With, here, an addict of Tolkien,
There, a Charles Williams fan.
Since Merit but a dunghill is,
I mount the rostrum unafraid:
Indeed, 'twere damnable to ask
If I am overpaid.
Spirit is willing to repeat
Without a qualm the same old talk,
But Flesh is homesick for our snug
Apartment in New York.
A sulky fifty-six, he finds
A change of mealtime utter hell,
Grown far too crotchety to like
A luxury hotel.
The Bible is a goodly book
I always can peruse with zest,
But really cannot say the same
For Hilton's Be My Guest,
Nor bear with equanimity
The radio in students' cars,
Muzak at breakfast, or--dear God!--
Girl-organists in bars.
Then, worst of all, the anxious thought,
Each time my plane begins to sink
And the No Smoking sign comes on:
What will there be to drink?
Is this ma milieu where I must
How grahamgreeneish! How infra dig!
Snatch from the bottle in my bag
An analeptic swig?
Another morning comes: I see,
Dwindling below me on the plane,
The roofs of one more audience
I shall not see again.
God bless the lot of them, although
I don't remember which was which:
God bless the U.S.A., so large,
So friendly, and so rich.
-W. H. Auden (? June 1963)
Quote from: J. H. Motley (Rise of the Dutch Republic), of William the SilentWhen he died the little children cried in the sreets
Epitaph on a TyrantPerfection, of a kind, was what he was after,
And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;
He knew human folly like the back of his hand,
And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;
When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,
And when he cried the little children died in the streets.
-
W. H. Auden, Jan '39.
Elizabeth
Catch, my Uncle Jack said
and oh I caught this huge apple
red as Mrs Kelly's bum.
It's red as Mrs Kelly's bum, I said
and Daddy roared
and swung me on his stomach with a heave.
Then I hid the apple in my room
till it shrunk like a face
growing eyes and teeth ribs.
Then Daddy took me to the zoo
he knew the man there
they put a snake around my neck
and it crawled down the front of my dress
I felt its flicking tongue
dripping onto me like a shower.
Daddy laughed and said Smart Snake
and Mrs Kelly with us scowled.
In the pond where they kept the goldfish
Philip and I broke the ice with spades
and tried to spear the fishes;
we killed one and Philip ate it,
then he kissed me
with the raw saltless fish in his mouth.
My sister Mary's got bad teeth
and said I was lucky, then she said
I had big teeth, but Philip said I was pretty.
He had big hands that smelled.
I would speak of Tom', soft laughing,
who danced in the mornings round the sundial
teaching me the steps of France, turning
with the rhythm of the sun on the warped branches,
who'd hold my breast and watch it move like a snail
leaving his quick urgent love in my palm.
And I kept his love in my palm till it blistered.
When they axed his shoulders and neck
the blood moved like a branch into the crowd.
And he staggered with his hanging shoulder
cursing their thrilled cry, wheeling,
waltzing in the French style to his knees
holding his head with the ground,
blood settling on his clothes like a blush;
this way
when they aimed the thud into his back.
And I find cool entertainment now
with white young Essex, and my nimble rhymes.
Michael Ondaatje
For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.
For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.
For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.
For this is done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.
For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer.
For he rolls upon prank to work it in.
For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself.
For this he performs in ten degrees.
For first he looks upon his forepaws to see if they are clean.
For secondly he kicks up behind to clear away there.
For thirdly he works it upon stretch with the forepaws extended.
For fourthly he sharpens his paws by wood.
For fifthly he washes himself.
For sixthly he rolls upon wash.
For seventhly he fleas himself, that he may not be interrupted upon the beat.
For eighthly he rubs himself against a post.
For ninthly he looks up for his instructions.
For tenthly he goes in quest of food.
For having consider'd God and himself he will consider his neighbour.
For if he meets another cat he will kiss her in kindness.
For when he takes his prey he plays with it to give it a chance.
For one mouse in seven escapes by his dallying.
For when his day's work is done his business more properly begins.
For he keeps the Lord's watch in the night against the adversary.
For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes.
For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life.
For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him.
For he is of the tribe of Tiger.
For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger.
For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses.
For he will not do destruction, if he is well-fed, neither will he spit without provocation.
For he purrs in thankfulness, when God tells him he's a good Cat.
For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.
For every house is incomplete without him and a blessing is lacking in the spirit.
For the Lord commanded Moses concerning the cats at the departure of the Children of Israel from Egypt.
For every family had one cat at least in the bag.
For the English Cats are the best in Europe.
For he is the cleanest in the use of his forepaws of any quadruped.
For the dexterity of his defence is an instance of the love of God to him exceedingly.
For he is the quickest to his mark of any creature.
For he is tenacious of his point.
For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery.
For he knows that God is his Saviour.
For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest.
For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion.
For he is of the Lord's poor and so indeed is he called by benevolence perpetually—Poor Jeoffry! poor Jeoffry! the rat has bit thy throat.
For I bless the name of the Lord Jesus that Jeoffry is better.
For the divine spirit comes about his body to sustain it in complete cat.
For his tongue is exceeding pure so that it has in purity what it wants in music.
For he is docile and can learn certain things.
For he can set up with gravity which is patience upon approbation.
For he can fetch and carry, which is patience in employment.
For he can jump over a stick which is patience upon proof positive.
For he can spraggle upon waggle at the word of command.
For he can jump from an eminence into his master's bosom.
For he can catch the cork and toss it again.
For he is hated by the hypocrite and miser.
For the former is afraid of detection.
For the latter refuses the charge.
For he camels his back to bear the first notion of business.
For he is good to think on, if a man would express himself neatly.
For he made a great figure in Egypt for his signal services.
For he killed the Ichneumon-rat very pernicious by land.
For his ears are so acute that they sting again.
For from this proceeds the passing quickness of his attention.
For by stroking of him I have found out electricity.
For I perceived God's light about him both wax and fire.
For the Electrical fire is the spiritual substance, which God sends from heaven to sustain the bodies both of man and beast.
For God has blessed him in the variety of his movements.
For, tho he cannot fly, he is an excellent clamberer.
For his motions upon the face of the earth are more than any other quadruped.
For he can tread to all the measures upon the music.
For he can swim for life.
For he can creep.
Christopher Smart, from Jubilate Agno
A poet's word, a painter's touch, will reach
The innermost recesses of the heart,
Making the pulses throb in unison
With joy or grief, which we can analyse;
There is the cause for pleasure and for pain:
But music moves us, and we know not why;
We feel the tears, but cannot trace their source.
Is it the language of some other state,
Born of its memory ? For what can wake
The soul's strong instinct of another world,
Like music? Well with sadness doth it suit
To hear the melancholy sounds decay,
And think (for thoughts are life's great human links,
And mingle with our feelings) even so
Will the heart's wildest pulses sink to rest.
From that great outpouring of words: Erinna by Letitia Landon
(Whitman)
AS I lay with my head in your lap, Camerado,
The confession I made I resume—what I said to you in the open air I resume:
I know I am restless, and make others so;
I know my words are weapons, full of danger, full of death;
For I confront peace, security, and all the settled laws, to unsettle them;
I am more resolute because all have denied me, than I could ever have been had all accepted me;
I heed not, and have never heeded, either experience, cautions, majorities, nor ridicule;
And the threat of what is call'd hell is little or nothing to me;
And the lure of what is call'd heaven is little or nothing to me;
Dear camerado! I confess I have urged you onward with me, and still urge you, without the least idea what is our destination,
Or whether we shall be victorious, or utterly quell'd and defeated.
This is the sort of interconnected mystical, subtlely stuff that inspired Bax.
Quote from: NJ Joe on June 12, 2014, 04:34:34 PM
The Second Coming
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
W. B. Yeats
Where'er the Catholic sun doth shine,
There's music and laughter and good red wine.
At least I've always found it so.
Benedicamus Domino!
Hilaire Belloc
I am - yet what I am none cares or knows;
My friends forsake me like a memory lost: -
I am the self-consumer of my woes; -
They rise and vanish in oblivion's host,
Like shadows in love's frenzied stifled throes: -
And yet I am, and live - like vapours tost
Into the nothingness of scorn and noise, -
Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life or joys,
But the vast shipwreck of my lifes esteems;
Even the dearest, that I love the best
Are strange - nay, rather stranger than the rest.
I long for scenes, where man hath never trod
A place where woman never smiled or wept
There to abide with my Creator, God;
And sleep as I in childhood, sweetly slept,
Untroubling, and untroubled where I lie,
The grass below - above the vaulted sky.
John Clare
she being Brand... (XIX) by e.e. Cummings
she being Brand
-new;and you
know consequently a
little stiff I was
careful of her and (having
thoroughly oiled the universal
joint tested my gas felt of
her radiator made sure her springs were O.
K.)i went right to it flooded-the-carburetor cranked her
up,slipped the
clutch (and then somehow got into reverse she
kicked what
the hell) next
minute i was back in neutral tried and
again slo-wly;bare,ly nudg. ing(my
lev-er Right-
oh and her gears being in
A 1 shape passed
from low through
second-in-to-high like
greasedlightning) just as we turned the corner of Divinity
avenue i touched the accelerator and give
her the juice,good
(it
was the first ride and believe i we was
happy to see how nice she acted right up to
the last minute coming back down by the Public
Gardens i slammed on
the
internalexpanding
&
externalcontracting
breaks Bothatonce and
brought allofher tremB
-ling
to a:dead.
stand-
;Still)
REMORSE FOR INTEMPERATE SPEECH
I ranted to the knave and fool,
But outgrew that school,
Would transform the part,
Fit audience found, but cannot rule
My fanatic heart.
I sought my betters: though in each
Fine manners, liberal speech,
Turn hatred into sport,
Nothing said or done can reach
My fanatic heart
Out of Ireland have we come.
Great hatred, little room,
Maimed us at the start.
I carry from my mother's womb
A fanatic heart.
W.B. Yeats, August 28, 1931
Money
Quarterly, is it, money reproaches me:
'Why do you let me lie here wastefully?
I am all you never had of goods and sex.
You could get them still by writing a few cheques.'
So I look at others, what they do with theirs:
They certainly don't keep it upstairs.
By now they've a second house and car and wife:
Clearly money has something to do with life
- In fact, they've a lot in common, if you enquire:
You can't put off being young until you retire,
And however you bank your screw, the money you save
Won't in the end buy you more than a shave.
I listen to money singing. It's like looking down
From long french windows at a provincial town,
The slums, the canal, the churches ornate and mad
In the evening sun. It is intensely sad.
-Philip Larkin
Quote from: Gordo on October 12, 2014, 07:35:54 AM
Archilochus (c. 680 – c. 645 BC)
The fox knows many things; the hedgehog one big thing.
Πόλλ᾽ οἶδ᾽ ἀλώπηξ, ἀλλ' ἐχῖνος ἕν μέγα
I don't know Greek, but it's an aesthetic pleasure to see it written. :)
It would be pronounced roughly (there are several pronounciations for Ancient Greek, the "received" ones often fairly different from the reconstructed ones but the verse does not contain any of the really disputed sounds) as follows and the words can be but in one-to-one-correspondence as well. Note the "chiasmus" with the corresponding terms "many" and "one" at the beginning and end, respectively.
Póll oid alóhpex all ekhínos hen méga
(many knows fox but hedgehog one big)
Snow (excerpted)
I
'Who affirms that crystals are alive?'
I affirm it, let who will deny:
Crystals are engendered, wax and thrive,
Wane and wither; I have seen them die.
Trust me, masters, crystals have their day,
Eager to attain the perfect norm,
Lit with purpose, potent to display
Facet, angle, colour, beauty, form.
II
Water-crystals need for flower and root
Sixty clear degrees, no less, no more;
Snow, so fickle, still in this acute
Angle thinks, and learns no other lore:
Such its life, and such its pleasure is,
Such its art and traffic, such its gain,
Evermore in new conjunctions this
Admirable angle to maintain.
Crystalcraft in every flower and flake
Snow exhibits, of the welkin free:
Crystalline are crystals for the sake,
All and singular, of crystalry.
Yet does every crystal of the snow
Individualize, a seedling sown
Broadcast, but instinct with power to grow
Beautiful in beauty of its own.
Every flake with all its prongs and dints
Burns ecstatic as a new-lit star:
Men are not more diverse, finger prints
More dissimilar than snow-flakes are.
Worlds of men and snow endure, increase,
Woven of power and passion to defy
Time and travail: only races cease,
Individual men and crystals die.
John Davison, 1909
'Nuptial Sleep'
At length their long kiss severed, with sweet smart:
And as the last slow sudden drops are shed
From sparkling eaves when all the storm has fled,
So singly flagged the pulses of each heart.
Their bosoms sundered, with the opening start
Of married flowers to either side outspread
From the knit stem; yet still their mouths, burnt red,
Fawned on each other where they lay apart.
Sleep sank them lower than the tide of dreams,
And their dreams watched them sink, and slid away.
Slowly their souls swam up again, through gleams
Of watered light and dull drowned waifs of day;
Till from some wonder of new woods and streams
He woke, and wondered more: for there she lay.
- Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Quote from: NikF on March 11, 2015, 03:03:39 AM
she being Brand... (XIX) by e.e. Cummings....
;D :D ;D
I've been a Cummings' fan for 40+ years but I've never read that one (or if I did, it's slipped my senile mind). In any case, thanks for posting it.
Sarge
Quote from: Sergeant Rock on April 02, 2015, 12:41:14 PM
;D :D ;D
I've been a Cummings' fan for 40+ years but I've never read that one (or if I did, it's slipped my senile mind). In any case, thanks for posting it.
Sarge
You're welcome, Sarge. Hahaha, yeah, it's something else!
I was first made aware of that poem when it was in a scene (https://youtu.be/QxGaXN1CvUE) of a film titled 'Plain Clothes'. And the thing is, while I'd never have used it an attempt to seduce women (certainly not from the outset - that would be as creepy as hell) with certain types of young woman who were already interested there have been a few occasions it has definitely closed the deal for me - "Well, I don't know much about poetry, but there's one poem I can recite heart..."
From 'The tale of Kamar al-Zaman'
'She hath wrists which, did her bangles not contain,
Would run from out her sleeves in silvern rain.'
Exactly.
Patrick Kavanagh - Epic (1960)
I have lived in important places, times
When great events were decided, who owned
That half a rood of rock, a no-man's land
Surrounded by our pitchfork-armed claims.
I heard the Duffys shouting 'Damn your soul!'
And old McCabe stripped to the waist, seen
Step the plot defying blue cast-steel -
'Here is the march along these iron stones.'
That was the year of the Munich bother. Which
Was more important? I inclined
To lose my faith in Ballyrush and Gortin
Till Homer's ghost came whispering to my mind.
He said: I made the Iliad from such
A local row. Gods make their own importance.
Quote from: North Star on April 01, 2015, 08:21:45 AM
Snow (excerpted)
John Davison, 1909
Some more poems of snows,
before all of it away goes.
Robert Frost - "
Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" (1923)
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
the darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Louis MacNeice, "Snow" (1935)
The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was
Spawning snow and pink roses against it
Soundlessly collateral and incompatible:
World is suddener than we fancy it.
World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion
A tangerine and spit the pips and feel
The drunkenness of things being various.
And the fire flames with a bubbling sound for world
Is more spiteful and gay than one supposes –
On the tongue on the eyes on the ears in the palms of one's hands –
There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses.
Richard Wilbur, "First Snow in Alsace" (1947)
The snow came down last night like moths
Burned on the moon; it fell till dawn,
Covered the town with simple cloths.
Absolute snow lies rumpled on
What shellbursts scattered and deranged,
Entangled railings, crevassed lawn.
As if it did not know they'd changed,
Snow smoothly clasps the roofs of homes
Fear-gutted, trustless and estranged.
The ration stacks are milky domes;
Across the ammunition pile
The snow has climbed in sparkling combs.
You think: beyond the town a mile
Or two, this snowfall fills the eyes
Of soldiers dead a little while.
Persons and persons in disguise,
Walking the new air white and fine,
Trade glances quick with shared surprise.
At children's windows, heaped, benign,
As always, winter shines the most,
And frost makes marvelous designs.
The night guard coming from his post,
Ten first-snows back in thought, walks slow
And warms him with a boyish boast:
He was the first to see the snow.
Derek Mahon, "The Snow Party" (1975)
(for Louis Asekoff)
Bashō, coming
To the city of Nagoya,
Is asked to a snow party.
There is a tinkling of china
And tea into china;
There are introductions.
Then everyone
Crowds to the window
To watch the falling snow.
Snow is falling on Nagoya
And farther south
On the tiles of Kyōto;
Eastward, beyond Irago,
It is falling
Like leaves on the cold sea.
Elsewhere they are burning
Witches and heretics
In the boiling squares,
Thousands have died since dawn
In the service
Of barbarous kings;
But there is silence
In the houses of Nagoya
And the hills of Ise.
I taught that Robert Frost poem, "Stopping by Woods..." for high-school Year 11 (15/16y/o). It's an enigmatic little poem and very sensual - you can feel the cold and see the ice and snowflakes and hear the bells of the horse's harness. Those repeated last lines "But I have miles to go before I sleep" are extremely ambiguous. Why does Frost repeat them and what do they mean? For some people the poem is an invocation of death; that the poet is drawn to the "deep" and "dark", isolated woods and could be seduced by that - but he is on a journey and cannot stop. It has a quite melancholy tone. And the horse thinking "it queer"? Shaking the head and bells in 'answer'. Wonderful stuff from a great poet.
My favourite by Frost is a narrative poem, "Out, out" about a boy who dies in a sawmill accident and Frost uses Macbeth's famous speech, "Out, brief candle, out" as his inspiration for the title. I used to read it to the kids acting out speaking part/s and they went still and quiet because they found it so disturbing!! (One of those great teaching moments.) It reminded me of that terribly distressing scene in "Walk The Line" - the Johnny Cash biopic - where his brother is killed in a sawmill.
'Out, Out—'
BY ROBERT FROST
The buzz saw snarled and rattled in the yard
And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood,
Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it.
And from there those that lifted eyes could count
Five mountain ranges one behind the other
Under the sunset far into Vermont.
And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled,
As it ran light, or had to bear a load.
And nothing happened: day was all but done.
Call it a day, I wish they might have said
To please the boy by giving him the half hour
That a boy counts so much when saved from work.
His sister stood beside him in her apron
To tell them 'Supper.' At the word, the saw,
As if to prove saws knew what supper meant,
Leaped out at the boy's hand, or seemed to leap—
He must have given the hand. However it was,
Neither refused the meeting. But the hand!
The boy's first outcry was a rueful laugh,
As he swung toward them holding up the hand
Half in appeal, but half as if to keep
The life from spilling. Then the boy saw all—
Since he was old enough to know, big boy
Doing a man's work, though a child at heart—
He saw all spoiled. 'Don't let him cut my hand off—
The doctor, when he comes. Don't let him, sister!'
So. But the hand was gone already.
The doctor put him in the dark of ether.
He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath.
And then—the watcher at his pulse took fright.
No one believed. They listened at his heart.
Little—less—nothing!—and that ended it.
No more to build on there. And they, since they
Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.
The following is spoken by a character in a novel, and in no way represents my opinion: the character has just received a poem in a mysterious way, and then offers an opinion on poetry in general, after a very frustrating day and night!
Quote
The Circle
Behold the circle
And its perfect symmetry!
And the willow tree
is chaos.
Behold the circle
And its perfect loneliness!
And the lioness
is terror.
Behold the circle
And its lovely mystery!
And the honey bee
is purple.
Behold the circle
And its uncrowned agony
Born from the terror
And the chaos
Of its purple perfection!
To a person barely adequate for Life's challenges, nothing was more galling, more maddening, more mentally crushing, and more screamingly soul-grinding than poetry! Allusions and elisions, rhythm and symbolism, assonance and consonance, alliteration and alloteration, and onomatopoeia and whattaloadacrappa! I always dreaded English class, whenever it was time for "The Poetry Hour," because I could never understand why the poet refused just to tell us plainly what his point was. Why did we have to figure out the meaning behind all the symbols and all the -isms and -tions and -ances? Why not use clear and unambiguous prose? Yes, yes, I know: if the poet writes clear and unambiguous prose then he is no poet! Yet it all just seemed so...evil, especially when poems were used to torture children in those large brick-and-concrete boxes warehousing the next generation for six to eight hours per day.
On the other hand, girls seemed to like poetry, and even seemed to write poetry! In such a case poetry became the very definition and embodiment of a "necessary evil."
Quote. . . the very definition and embodiment of a "necessary evil."
(* chortle *)
A propos snow and winter, here is one of the top 3 Romanian poems dealing with them.
George Bacovia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Bacovia)
Decembre
Te uită cum ninge decembre...
Spre geamuri, iubito, priveşte -
Mai spune s-aducă jăratec
Şi focul s-aud cum trosneşte.
Şi mână fotoliul spre sobă,
La horn să ascult vijelia,
Sau zilele mele - totuna -
Aş vrea să le-nvăţ simfonia.
Mai spune s-aducă şi ceaiul,
Şi vino şi tu mai aproape, -
Citeşte-mi ceva de la poluri,
Şi ningă... zăpada ne-ngroape.
Ce cald e aicea la tine,
Şi toate din casă mi-s sfinte, -
Te uită cum ninge decembre...
Nu râde... citeşte nainte.
E ziuă şi ce întuneric...
Mai spune s-aducă şi lampa -
Te uită, zăpada-i cât gardul,
Şi-a prins promoroacă şi clampa.
Eu nu mă mai duc azi acasă...
Potop e-napoi şi nainte,
Te uită cum ninge decembre...
Nu râde... citeşte nainte.
My translation (rhyme and rythm lost, unfortunately)
December
Look how December is snowing...
Look towards the windows, my love -
Order more embers
So that I can hear the fire clacking.
And move the armchair towards the stove,
Let me hear the blizzard in the chimney,
Or my days - the same -
I´d like to learn their symphony.
And order the tea,
And come closer yourself,
Read me something of the poles,
And let it snow... let the snow bury us.
How warm is your home here,
And all things in this house are sacred to me, -
Look how December is snowing...
Don´t laugh... read on...
´Tis daytime yet what darkness...
Order the lamp, too -
Look, the snow´s as high as the paling,
And the door handle´s covered in white frost
I won´t go home today anymore...
There´s flood behind and ahead,
Look how December is snowing...
Don´t laugh... read on.
If you wonder how it sounds, here it is set to music by one of the greatest Romanian folk singers and composers, Nicu Alifantis .
https://www.youtube.com/v/C5eusmEqeb0
(http://jurnalul.ro/thumbs/big/2013/05/14/omul-zilei-nicu-alifantis-18452355.jpg)
Alright, here's my very quick translation of Eino Leino's Sydämeni Talvi
The Winter of my Heart
Winter is no time of songs,
winter is the time of work
of sitting in the cabin,
of long nights' merriments,
Winter is time of night.
Winter is no time of rush,
winter is the time of slow work,
winter is the time of slow speech,
singing of old songs,
out of the boss's reach.
Frosted are the pinetrees,
Frozen are the windowsills.
Folk stares at the fireplace,
slowly moving chars -
moving the graves of memories
Winter is no time of worry,
Winter is the time of snow,
Of watching beautiful memories
Merries old rejoiced,
Dreaming of summer
Sparrows freeze on their branches,
thick is the snow-cover of ground,
people go and do their chores --
in their mind the song of birds,
the ringing of bells in the stable.
Indoors is the sky clean,
flower the beds an fields,
sing the larks and birds --
outside are the pinetrees,
howling forest beasts
Dead is faith and love,
Frozen are the poor roses.
But when at night shines
At the window the moon or a star,
Beautiful are even the flowers of frost
Grief is bridges of sisters,
Pity is the flower of frost.
Winter is the time of pity,
Self-pity and pity of others:
Friend, poor friend!
O thine mad heart,
O thine mad head,
I know not which was more mad,
but mad they were both,
in need of winter's ice.
Did you wish your wishes true,
did you dream of happiness?
In the snow lie the buried dreams.
We all have but one road.
At winter, there is snow
Quote from: North Star on April 16, 2015, 07:40:25 AM
Alright, here's my very quick translation of Eino Leino's Sydämeni Talvi
Great poem, thanks for sharing! Could you please post the Finnish original?
Quote from: Florestan on April 16, 2015, 07:42:38 AM
Great poem, thanks for sharing! Could you please post the Finnish original?
Thanks, there is undoubtedly something lost in translation, and something added, for good or bad.
I knew I forgot something. . . Here it is.
http://standardlibrary.com/authors/l/eino_leino/00014649_sata_ja_yksi_laulua_hiihtjn_virsi_pyh_kevt/00014649_finnish_iso88591_p008.htm
SYDÄMENI TALVI.
Talvella lauluja tehdä ei,
talvella tehdään työtä,
talvella tuvassa istutaan,
iltoja pitkiä iloitaan,
talvella paljon on yötä.
Talvella talossa kiirettä ei,
talvell' on pitkät puhteet,
talvella hiljaa haastellaan,
lauluja vanhoja lauletaan,
kuulu ei isännän nuhteet.
Huurtehessa on honkapuut,
hyyteessä ikkunalaudat.
Ihmiset takkahan tuijottaa,
hiljaa hiiliä liikuttaa--
liikkuvi muistojen haudat.
Talvella murheita muisteta ei,
talvella paljon on lunta,
muistoja kauniita katsellaan,
riemuja vanhoja riemuitaan,
nähdähän kesästä unta.
Varpuset jäätyvät oksillaan,
paksu on hanki maassa,
ihmiset kulkee ja askaroi--
mielessä lintujen laulut soi,
kellojen kilke haassa.
Sisällä siintävi taivas sees,
kukkivat kummut ja kedot,
laulavi leivot ja linnut muut--
ulkona huojuvat honkapuut,
ulvovat metsien pedot.
Kuollut on usko ja rakkaus,
jäässä on ruusurukat.
Mutta kun illalla ikkunaan
loistavi kuu tahi tähti vaan,
kauniit on hallankin kukat.
Suru on siltoja siskojen,
sääli on hallan kukka.
Talvella toistansa säälitään,
itseään sekä ystäviään:
Ystävä, ystävä rukka!
Voi sinun hullua sydäntäs,
voi sinun hullua päätäs,
tiedä en, kump' oli hullumpi,
hullut ne vaan oli kummatki,
tarvis ol' talven jäätäs.
Tahdoitko toivoja toteuttaa,
näitkö sä onnesta unta?
Hangessa toivojen hauta lie.
Kaikilla meillä on yksi tie.
Talvella paljon on lunta.
Quote from: North Star on April 16, 2015, 07:45:15 AM
Thanks, there is undoubtedly something lost in translation, and something added, for good or bad.
I knew I forgot something. . . Here it is.
Thanks a lot. I like to "read" poetry in languages I don´t understand anything of. It´s a visual pleasure not unlike that of looking at a pàinting. The rhymes and rythms are of course absent sonically, but vividly present visually. I have always thought that a poem which doesn´t look great on paper is worthless aurally as well. :D
EDIT: could you please post a link to this poem (or any other with rhyme and rythm) being recited or sung? I´d really like to hear the inner music of your language.
I should add that Leino (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eino_Leino) (1878-1926) was a journalist and poet, widely considered the best Finnish poet to have lived, albeit for a much too short time. In addition to writing a large amount of poetry, plays, prose fiction, a movie script, and texts on Finnish literature and history, he translated Dante's Comedia, with his version of 'Abandon all hope — Ye Who Enter Here' entering everyday language, Topelius, Runeberg, Racine, Schiller, Goethe and others' work.
Peace
by Eino Leino
What is this fragrance around me?
What is this quietness?
What is this knowledge of peace in my heart?
What strange, great, new thing is this?
I can hear the flowers growing
and the talk of the trees in the wood.
I think all my old dreams are ripening,
all the hopes and the wishes I sowed.
Everything's quiet around me,
Everything's gentle and sweet.
Great flowers are opening up in my heart
with a fragrance of deepest peace.
(1898)
translated by Lola Rogers
Original:
Rauha
Mitä on nää touksut mun ympärilläin?
Mitä on tämä hiljaisuus?
Mitä tietävi rauha mun sydämessäin,
tää suuri ja outo ja uus?
Minä kuulen, kuink' kukkaset kasvavat
ja metsässä puhuvat puut.
Minä luulen, nyt kypsyvät unelmat
ja toivot ja toou'ot muut.
Kaikk' on niin hiljaa mun ympärilläin,
kaikk' on niin hellää ja hyvää.
Kukat suuret mun aukeevat sydämessäin
ja touksuvat rauhaa syvää.
http://www.magdalenabiela.com/?cat=12
Quote from: Florestan on April 16, 2015, 07:52:46 AM
Thanks a lot. I like to "read" poetry in languages I don´t understand anything of. It´s a visual pleasure not unlike that of looking at a pàinting. The rhymes and rythms are of course absent sonically, but vividly present visually. I have always thought that a poem which doesn´t look great on paper is worthless aurally as well. :D
Just remember that everything is pronounced as it reads - j as the consonant y of English, and 'ng' as in 'English'.
Quote from: North Star on April 16, 2015, 07:58:17 AM
Just remember that everything is pronounced as it reads
Well, this is quite tricky! :D
1. I am aware of the Finnish pronunciation of
j, but in Romanian it is pronounced as in the French
Je, or the Russian
Zhdanov. Correct me if I´m wrong, there is no equivalent sound in Finnish.
2. There is no
ä in Romanian. Does it sound like in German?
Could you please post a link to a poem recited in Finnish? I´d really like to hear the inner music of your Language.
Quote from: Florestan on April 16, 2015, 08:21:47 AM
2. There is no ä in Romanian. Does it sound like in German?
Not that this will necessarily aid you, but it is a bit similar to the a in
cat.
En anglais, I mean 8)
Quote from: karlhenning on April 16, 2015, 08:28:44 AM
Not that this will necessarily aid you, but it is a bit similar to the a in cat. En anglais, I mean 8)
Which is quite different from the German one. ;D
Aye, just so.
Quote from: Florestan on April 16, 2015, 08:21:47 AM
Well, this is quite tricky! :D
1. I am aware of the Finnish pronunciation of j, but in Romanian it is pronounced as in the French Je, or the Russian Zhdanov. Correct me if I´m wrong, there is no equivalent sound in Finnish.
2. There is no ä in Romanian. Does it sound like in German?
Could you please post a link to a poem recited in Finnish? I´d really like to hear the inner music of your Language.
Vesa-Matti Loiri singing Leino's
Nocturnehttps://www.youtube.com/v/YNlBrJkvzg0
Pronunciation guide:
https://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/finnish.pronunciation.html
Quote from: North Star on April 16, 2015, 08:47:11 AM
Vesa-Matti Loiri singing Leino's Nocturne
https://www.youtube.com/v/YNlBrJkvzg0
Lovely! Thanks!
Quote
Pronunciation guide:
https://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/finnish.pronunciation.html
Thanks again!
Quote from: Florestan on April 16, 2015, 08:56:26 AM
Lovely! Thanks!
Thanks again!
You're most welcome. Loiri's Leino recording is quite popular (among my parents, and me, anyway)
Lapin Kesä (Summer of Lapland)
https://www.youtube.com/v/-aSxSUy34HU
words & translation (http://matti.naskali.net/fin/einoleino/lapinkesa.htm)
Quote from: North Star on April 16, 2015, 09:01:49 AM
Lapin Kesä (Summer of Lapland)
https://www.youtube.com/v/-aSxSUy34HU
Love it!
Quote from: Florestan on April 16, 2015, 09:16:09 AM
Love it!
Excellent. :)
Here's something I scribbled this afternoon:
The SoundThe sound of heart, beating
The rushing blood, streaming
The scratching needle, dropping
Silently in the agonizing
Body, in the veins flowing
Soothing pain, and killing
All sensation, and being.
Muscles relenting,
Body dropping
In silence.
Quote from: North Star on April 18, 2015, 04:31:50 AM
Here's something I scribbled this afternoon:
The Sound
The sound of heart, beating
The rushing blood, streaming
The scratching needle, dropping
Silently in the agonizing
Body, in the veins flowing
Soothing pain, and killing
All sensation, and being.
Muscles relenting,
Body dropping
In silence.
Pidän siitä (Blame it on Google Translate, if need be...)
My one and only poem written in English thus far is this.
Schubert - String Quartet in A minor D 804 "Rosamunde"1. Allegro ma non troppoLong, long ago, when I was young,
My days were filled with joy and song.
Their memory still lives in me,
Like a sweet Mozart melody.
Dark have been my days of late,
Pain and misery my fate,
And yet, away from me, o Death!
For as long as I still can breath'
My youth, though gone, will sing to me
That happy Mozart melody.
2. AndanteI loved a maid from distant lands,
The Heaven whole was in her hands,
But Time went by mercilessly
And took away my love from me.
Where art thou now, my fair Lenore?
Quoth the Raven: - Nevermore.
3. Menuetto, Allegro"You broken soul, can you still dance?"
Thus asked me Death, and I said: "Yes!
My poor soul is dancing still,
What's really broken is my will."
"Then come with me and have no fear",
said she, "your final rest is near."
"Not yet!, for broken is my will,
But my poor soul is dancing still!"
4. Allegro moderatoLet's go now, Death, but not too fast!
This journey here is my last,
Allow me then farewell to take
From things that life worth living make.
For neither song, nor love, nor men
I'll hear, or feel, or see again.
To my youth's tune I take a bow,
And... here's my hand! I'm all yours now.
Quote from: Florestan on April 18, 2015, 06:35:16 AM
Pidän siitä (Blame it on Google Translate, if need be...)
My one and only poem written in English thus far is this.
Schubert - String Quartet in A minor D 804 "Rosamunde"
Thanks. GT got it right, too.
I remember seeing that poem before. Very nice.
Another one I wrote this afternoon:
A little speck
on the screen
wiped away
All our lives
and the Earth
one day.
Enjoying your posts, lads.
THE MERMAID
Blow on, ye death-fraught whirlwinds! blow,
Around the rocks, and rifted caves;
Ye demons of the gulf below!
I hear you, in the troubled waves.
High on this cliff, which darknes shrouds
In night's impenetrable clouds,
My solitary watch I keep,
And listen, while the turbid deep
Groans to the raging tempests, as they roll
Their desolating force, to thunder at the pole.
Eternal world of waters, hail!
Within thy caves my Lover lies;
And day and night alike shall fail,
Ere slumber lock my streaming eyes.
Along this wild untrodden coast,
Heap'd by the gelid hand of frost;
Thro' this unbounded waste of seas,
Where never sigh'd the vernal breeze;
Mine was the choice, in this terrific form,
To brave the icy surge, to shiver in the storm.
Yes! I am chang'd.—My heart, my soul,
Retain no more their former glow.
Hence, ere the black'ning tempests roll,
I watch the bark, in murmurs low,
(While darker low'rs the thick'ning gloom)
To lure the sailor to his doom;
Soft from some pile of frozen snow
I pour the syren-song of woe;
Like the sad mariner's expiring cry,
As, faint and worn with toil, he lays him down to die.
Then, while the dark and angry deep
Hangs his huge billows high in air;
And the wild wind with awful sweep,
Howls in each fitful swell—beware!
Firm on the rent and crashing mast,
I lend new fury to the blast;
I mark each hardy cheek grow pale,
And the proud sons of courage fail;
Till the torn vessel drinks the surging waves,
Yawns the disparted main, and opes its shelving graves.
When Vengeance bears along the wave
The spell, which heav'n and earth appals;
Alone, by night, in darksome cave,
On me the gifted wizard calls.
Above the ocean's boiling flood
Thro' vapour glares the moon in blood:
Low sound. along the waters die,
And shrieks of anguish fill the sky;
Convulsive powers the solid rocks divide,
While, o'er the heaving surge, the embodied spirits glide.
Thrice welcome to my weary sight,
Avenging ministers of wrath!
Ye heard, amid the realms of night,
The spell that wakes the sleep of death.
Where Hecla's flames the snows dissolve,
Or storms, the polar skies involve;
Where, o'er the tempest-beaten wreck,
The raging winds and billows break;
On the sad earth, and in the stormy sea,
All, all shall shudd'ring own your potent agency.
To aid your toils, to scatter death,
Swift, as the sheeted lightning's force,
When the keen north-wind's freezing breath
Spreads desolation in its course,
My soul within this icy sea,
Fulfils her fearful destiny.
Thro' Time's long ages I shall wait
To lead the victims to their fate;
With callous heart, to hidden rocks decoy,
And lure, in seraph-strains, unpitying, to destroy.
Anne Bannerman, 1800
I am not a painter, I am a poet.
Why? I think I would rather be
a painter, but I am not. Well,
for instance, Mike Goldberg
is starting a painting. I drop in.
"Sit down and have a drink" he
says. I drink; we drink. I look
up. "You have SARDINES in it."
"Yes, it needed something there."
"Oh." I go and the days go by
and I drop in again. The painting
is going on, and I go, and the days
go by. I drop in. The painting is
finished. "Where's SARDINES?"
All that's left is just
letters, "It was too much," Mike says.
But me? One day I am thinking of
a color: orange. I write a line
about orange. Pretty soon it is a
whole page of words, not lines.
Then another page. There should be
so much more, not of orange, of
words, of how terrible orange is
and life. Days go by. It is even in
prose, I am a real poet. My poem
is finished and I haven't mentioned
orange yet. It's twelve poems, I call
it ORANGES. And one day in a gallery
I see Mike's painting, called SARDINES.
-Frank O'Hara
At the first cursory glance I read SADNESS instead of SARDINES. :D
Katherine, Lady Dyer: [Epitaph on Sir William Dyer] (1621)
My dearest dust could not thy hasty day
Afford thy drowzy patience leave to stay
One hower longer; so that we might either
Sate up, or gone to bedd together?
But since thy finisht labor hath possest
Thy weary limbs with early rest,
Enjoy it sweetly; and thy widdowe bride
Shall soone repose her by thy slumbering side;
Whose business, now is only to prepare
My nightly dress, and call to prayre:
Mine eyes wax heavy and the day growes old
The dew falls thick, my bloud growes cold;
Draw, draw the closed curtaynes: and make room;
My deare, my dearest dust; I come, I come.
Robert Herrick - Hesperides (1648)
The Argument of His Book
I sing of Brooks, of Blossomes, Birds, and Bowers:
Of April, May, of June, and July-Flowers.
I sing of May-poles, Hock-carts, Wassails, Wakes,
Of Bride-grooms, Brides, and of their Bridall-cakes.
I write of Youth, of Love;—and have Accesse
By these, to sing of cleanly-Wantonnesse.
I sing of Dewes, of Raines, and, piece by piece
Of Balme, of Oyle, of Spice, and Amber-Greece.
I sing of Times trans-shifting; and I write
How Roses first came Red, and Lilies White.
I write of Groves, of Twilights, and I sing
The Court of Mab, and of the Fairie-King.
I write of Hell; I sing (and ever shall)
Of Heaven, and hope to have it after all.
Job 3, KJV
Let the day perish, wherein I was borne, and the night in which it was said, There is a man-childe conceiued.
Let that day bee darkenesse, let not God regard it from aboue, neither let the light shine vpon it.
Let darkenes and the shadowe of death staine it, let a cloud dwell vpon it, let the blacknes of the day terrifie it.
As for that night, let darkenesse seaze vpon it, let it not be ioyned vnto the dayes of the yeere, let it not come into the number of the moneths.
Loe, let that night be solitarie, let no ioyfull voice come therein.
Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to raise vp their mourning.
Let the starres of the twilight thereof be darke, let it looke for light, but haue none, neither let it see the dawning of the day:
Because it shut not vp the doores of my mothers wombe, nor hid sorrowe from mine eyes.
Why died I not from the wombe? why did I not giue vp the ghost when I came out of the bellie?
Why did the knees preuent mee? or why the breasts, that I should sucke?
For now should I haue lien still and beene quiet, I should haue slept; then had I bene at rest,
With Kings and counsellers of the earth, which built desolate places for themselues,
Or with Princes that had golde, who filled their houses with siluer:
Or as an hidden vntimely birth, I had not bene; as infants which neuer saw light.
There the wicked cease from troubling: and there the wearie be at rest.
There the prisoners rest together, they heare not the voice of the oppressour.
The small and great are there, and the seruant is free from his master.
Wherefore is light giuen to him that is in misery, and life vnto the bitter in soule?
Which long for death, but it commeth not, and dig for it more then for hid treasures:
Which reioice exceedingly, and are glad when they can finde the graue?
Why is light giuen to a man, whose way is hid, and whom God hath hedged in?
For my sighing commeth before I eate, and my roarings are powred out like the waters.
For the thing which I greatly feared is come vpon me, and that which I was afraid of, is come vnto me.
I was not in safetie, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet: yet trouble came.
Quote from: North Star on April 30, 2015, 10:03:54 AM
Job 3, KJV
Let the day perish, wherein I was borne, and the night in which it was said, There is a man-childe conceiued.
Let that day bee darkenesse, let not God regard it from aboue, neither let the light shine vpon it.
Let darkenes and the shadowe of death staine it, let a cloud dwell vpon it, let the blacknes of the day terrifie it.
As for that night, let darkenesse seaze vpon it, let it not be ioyned vnto the dayes of the yeere, let it not come into the number of the moneths.
Loe, let that night be solitarie, let no ioyfull voice come therein.
Let them curse it that curse the day, who are ready to raise vp their mourning.
Let the starres of the twilight thereof be darke, let it looke for light, but haue none, neither let it see the dawning of the day:
Because it shut not vp the doores of my mothers wombe, nor hid sorrowe from mine eyes.
Why died I not from the wombe? why did I not giue vp the ghost when I came out of the bellie?
Why did the knees preuent mee? or why the breasts, that I should sucke?
For now should I haue lien still and beene quiet, I should haue slept; then had I bene at rest,
With Kings and counsellers of the earth, which built desolate places for themselues,
Or with Princes that had golde, who filled their houses with siluer:
Or as an hidden vntimely birth, I had not bene; as infants which neuer saw light.
There the wicked cease from troubling: and there the wearie be at rest.
There the prisoners rest together, they heare not the voice of the oppressour.
The small and great are there, and the seruant is free from his master.
Wherefore is light giuen to him that is in misery, and life vnto the bitter in soule?
Which long for death, but it commeth not, and dig for it more then for hid treasures:
Which reioice exceedingly, and are glad when they can finde the graue?
Why is light giuen to a man, whose way is hid, and whom God hath hedged in?
For my sighing commeth before I eate, and my roarings are powred out like the waters.
For the thing which I greatly feared is come vpon me, and that which I was afraid of, is come vnto me.
I was not in safetie, neither had I rest, neither was I quiet: yet trouble came.
Beautiful stuff. (And IIRC the Book of Job is one of the very oldest of the documents of the OT.)
Job 38
Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said,
Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?
Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me.
Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.
Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it?
Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof;
When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb?
When I made the cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness a swaddlingband for it,
And brake up for it my decreed place, and set bars and doors,
And said, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further: and here shall thy proud waves be stayed?
Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days; and caused the dayspring to know his place;
That it might take hold of the ends of the earth, that the wicked might be shaken out of it?
It is turned as clay to the seal; and they stand as a garment.
And from the wicked their light is withholden, and the high arm shall be broken.
Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? or hast thou walked in the search of the depth?
Have the gates of death been opened unto thee? or hast thou seen the doors of the shadow of death?
Hast thou perceived the breadth of the earth? declare if thou knowest it all.
Where is the way where light dwelleth? and as for darkness, where is the place thereof,
That thou shouldest take it to the bound thereof, and that thou shouldest know the paths to the house thereof?
Knowest thou it, because thou wast then born? or because the number of thy days is great?
Hast thou entered into the treasures of the snow? or hast thou seen the treasures of the hail,
Which I have reserved against the time of trouble, against the day of battle and war?
By what way is the light parted, which scattereth the east wind upon the earth?
Who hath divided a watercourse for the overflowing of waters, or a way for the lightning of thunder;
To cause it to rain on the earth, where no man is; on the wilderness, wherein there is no man;
To satisfy the desolate and waste ground; and to cause the bud of the tender herb to spring forth?
Hath the rain a father? or who hath begotten the drops of dew?
Out of whose womb came the ice? and the hoary frost of heaven, who hath gendered it?
The waters are hid as with a stone, and the face of the deep is frozen.
Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?
Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season? or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons?
Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth?
Canst thou lift up thy voice to the clouds, that abundance of waters may cover thee?
Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go and say unto thee, Here we are?
Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts? or who hath given understanding to the heart?
Who can number the clouds in wisdom? or who can stay the bottles of heaven,
When the dust groweth into hardness, and the clods cleave fast together?
Wilt thou hunt the prey for the lion? or fill the appetite of the young lions,
When they couch in their dens, and abide in the covert to lie in wait?
Who provideth for the raven his food? when his young ones cry unto God, they wander for lack of meat.
Hence a certain Henning piece, When the morning stars sang together, and the sons of God shouted for joy.
Quote from: karlhenning on April 30, 2015, 11:52:56 AM
Hence a certain Henning piece, When the morning stars sang together, and the sons of God shouted for joy.
:D
BTW, can hardly wait for
Henning´s
Miserere.
Quote from: karlhenning on April 30, 2015, 10:35:18 AM
Beautiful stuff. (And IIRC the Book of Job is one of the very oldest of the documents of the OT.)
Or possibly one of the last, except for Daniel and Esther. I have seen theories that it was modelled on Greek tragedy. And it is the only book of the Bible which the Talmudic Sages were prepared to consider as a work of fiction.
I think Bible critics label the Song of the Sea [Exodus 15:1-18] as one of the oldest texts in the Bible.
Quote from: karlhenning on April 30, 2015, 11:52:56 AM
Hence a certain Henning piece, When the morning stars sang together, and the sons of God shouted for joy.
I'm waiting for the companion piece
Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb? :laugh:
Quote from: Jeffrey Smith on April 30, 2015, 07:20:00 PM
I have seen theories that it was modelled on Greek tragedy.
Or the other way around, maybe? :D
Quote from: North Star on April 30, 2015, 07:39:34 PM
I'm waiting for the companion piece Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth, as if it had issued out of the womb? :laugh:
Much rich material therein!
Quote from: Florestan on April 30, 2015, 11:42:28 AM
Job 38 ...
"I was looking for a Job and then I found a Job. And heaven knows I'm miserable now."
Morrissey (Smiths)
KEATS: On First Looking into Chapman's Homer
Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star'd at the Pacific - and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise -
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
Quote from: Jeffrey Smith on April 30, 2015, 07:20:00 PM
I think Bible critics label the Song of the Sea [Exodus 15:1-18] as one of the oldest texts in the Bible.
Most or all of this is set to music in Handel's Israel in Egypt (and at least the beginning on many other occasions, I guess).
Quote from: North Star on May 01, 2015, 03:41:34 AM
KEATS: On First Looking into Chapman's Homer
Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star'd at the Pacific - and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise -
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
Redounding in fame thanks, in part, to the occasional allusion in
Wodehouse 8)
Quote from: karlhenning on May 01, 2015, 03:43:51 AM
Redounding in fame thanks, in part, to the occasional allusion in Wodehouse 8)
Where would poor
Keats be without him and
G. K. Chesterton . . .
The Logical Vegetarian You will find me drinking rum,
Like a sailor in a slum,
You will find me drinking beer like a Bavarian.
You will find me drinking gin
In the lowest kind of inn,
Because I am a rigid Vegetarian.
So I cleared the inn of wine,
And I tried to climb the sign,
And I tried to hail the constable as “Marion.”
But he said I couldn’t speak,
And he bowled me to the Beak
Because I was a Happy Vegetarian.
Oh, I knew a Doctor Gluck,
And his nose it had a hook,
And his attitudes were anything but Aryan;
So I gave him all the pork
That I had, upon a fork;
Because I am myself a Vegetarian.
I am silent in the Club,
I am silent in the pub,
I am silent on a bally peak in Darien;
For I stuff away for life
Shoving peas in with a knife,
Because I am at heart a Vegetarian.
No more the milk of cows
Shall pollute my private house
Than the milk of the wild mares of the Barbarian;
I will stick to port and sherry,
For they are so very, very
So very, very, very Vegetarian.
Oh, Keats would likely do all right ;)
. . . silent, upon a peevish vegetarian . . . .
Quote from: karlhenning on May 01, 2015, 03:52:55 AM
Oh, Keats would likely do all right ;)
For all we know, he might have lived longer. :laugh:
"Man needs difficulties; they are necessary for health."
"If one does not understand a person, one tends to regard him as a fool."
"All depends on how we look at things, and not on how they are in themselves. The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it."
"Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves."
"If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves."
- Carl Gustav Jung
Quote from: North Star on May 01, 2015, 06:10:32 AM
“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”
- Carl Gustav Jung
This, in particular.
Quote from: karlhenning on May 01, 2015, 06:15:35 AM
This, in particular.
"GMG as a voyage of self-discovery."
Quote from: North Star on May 01, 2015, 06:10:32 AM
"Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves."
- Carl Gustav Jung
Quote from: karlhenning on May 01, 2015, 06:15:35 AM
This, in particular.
A variation: What will appall you most about your children, is that moment when you recognize that their worst traits are also your worst traits! 0:)
Quote from: Ken B on May 01, 2015, 06:18:46 AM
"GMG as a voyage of self-discovery."
(* munches popcorn *)
Quote from: Cato on May 01, 2015, 06:34:02 AM
A variation: What will appall you most about your children, is that moment when you recognize that their worst traits are also your worst traits! 0:)
... every man is at every moment everything that has been and all what will be. :(
Walter de la Mare
Music
When music sounds, gone is the earth I know,
And all her lovely things even lovelier grow;
Her flowers in vision flame, her forest trees
Lift burdened branches, stilled with ecstasies.
When music sounds, out of the water rise
Naiads whose beauty dims my waking eyes,
Rapt in strange dreams burns each enchanted face,
With solemn echoing stirs their dwelling-place.
When music sounds, all that I was I am
Ere to this haunt of brooding dust I came;
And from Time's woods break into distant song
The swift-winged hours, as I hasten along.
Quote from: Florestan on May 01, 2015, 10:45:37 AM
"but how I agree with you, Florestan!"
There's one in every crowd!
>:D :P :laugh:
Quote from: Ken B on May 01, 2015, 11:03:09 AM
There's one in every crowd!
>:D :P :laugh:
Well, he´s
Raro after all... :D
TD
Ralph HodgsonTIME, You Old Gipsy Man
TIME, you old gipsy man,
Will you not stay,
Put up your caravan
Just for one day?
All things I'll give you
Will you be my guest,
Bells for your jennet
Of silver the best,
Goldsmiths shall beat you
A great golden ring,
Peacocks shall bow to you,
Little boys sing.
Oh, and sweet girls will
Festoon you with may,
Time, you old gipsy,
Why hasten away?
Last week in Babylon,
Last night in Rome,
Morning, and in the crush
Under Paul's dome;
Under Paul's dial
You tighten your rein--
Only a moment,
And off once again;
Off to some city
Now blind in the womb,
Off to another
Ere that's in the tomb.
Time, you old gipsy man,
Will you not stay,
Put up your caravan
Just for one day ?
William Henry Davies
The Inquest
I took my oath I would inquire,
Without affection, hate, or wrath,
Into the death of Ada Wright --
So help me God! I took that oath.
When I went out to see the corpse,
The four months' babe that died so young,
I judged it was seven pounds in weight,
And little more than one foot long.
One eye, that had a yellow lid,
Was shut -- so was the mouth, that smiled;
The left eye open, shining bright --
It seemed a knowing little child.
For as I looked at that one eye,
It seemed to laugh, and say with glee:
'What caused my death you'll never know --
Perhaps my mother murdered me.'
When I went into court again,
To hear the mother's evidence --
It was a love-child, she explained.
And smiled, for our intelligence.
'Now, Gentlemen of the Jury,' said
The coroner -- 'this woman's child
By misadventure met its death.'
'Aye, aye,' said we. The mother smiled.
And I could see that child's one eye
Which seemed to laugh, and say with glee:
'What caused my death you'll never know --
Perhaps my mother murdered me.'
Siegfried Sassoon
Strangeness of Heart
When I have lost the power to feel the pang
Which first I felt in childhood when I woke
And heard the unheeding garden bird who sang
Strangeness of heart for me while morning broke;
Or when in latening twilight sure with spring,
Pausing on homeward paths along the wood,
No sadness thrills my thought while thrushes sing,
And I'm no more the listening child who stood
So many sunsets past and could not say
What wandering voices called from far away:
When I have lost those simple spells that stirred
My being with an untranslated song,
Let me go home for ever; I shall have heard
Death; I shall know that I have lived too long.
Tomas Tranströmer
Allegro
I play Haydn after a black day
and feel a simple warmth in my hands.
The keys are willing. Soft hammers strike.
The resonance green, lively, and calm.
The music says freedom exists
and someone doesn't pay the emperor tax.
I push down my hands in my Haydnpockets
and imitate a person looking on world calmly.
I hoist the Haydnflag––it signifies:
"We don't give in. But want peace."
The music is a glass-house on the slope
where the stones fly, the stones roll.
And the stones roll right through
but each pane stays whole.
Quote from: North Star on May 03, 2015, 06:50:33 AM
Tomas Tranströmer
Allegro
I play Haydn after a black day
and feel a simple warmth in my hands.
The keys are willing. Soft hammers strike.
The resonance green, lively, and calm.
The music says freedom exists
and someone doesn't pay the emperor tax.
I push down my hands in my Haydnpockets
and imitate a person looking on world calmly.
I hoist the Haydnflag––it signifies:
"We don't give in. But want peace."
The music is a glass-house on the slope
where the stones fly, the stones roll.
And the stones roll right through
but each pane stays whole.
Sounds more like Gandhi than Haydn. ;D ;D ;D
Something I wrote a while ago, the first line is a quotation from Plath's Resolve (http://allpoetry.com/Resolve).
Mourners at an empty throne
No glory descends
When a life ends
- It is but a loan.
There are two kinds of people: those who try to win, and those who try to win arguments. They are never the same.
Skills that transfer: Street fights, off-path hiking, seduction, and broad erudition. Skills that don't: school, sports, games, laboratory--what's reduced and organized
The twentieth century was the bankruptcy of the social utopia; the twenty first will be that of the technological one.
Sports feminize men and masculinize women.
- Nassim Taleb
John Masefield
LAUGH AND BE MERRY
Laugh and be merry, remember, better the world with a song,
Better the world with a blow in the teeth of a wrong.
Laugh, for the time is brief, a thread the length of a span.
Laugh and be proud to belong to the old proud pageant of man.
Laugh and be merry: remember, in olden time.
God made Heaven and Earth for joy He took in a rhyme,
Made them, and filled them full with the strong red wine of His mirth
The splendid joy of the stars: the joy of the earth.
So we must laugh and drink from the deep blue cup of the sky,
Join the jubilant song of the great stars sweeping by,
Laugh, and battle, and work, and drink of the wine outpoured
In the dear green earth, the sign of the joy of the Lord.
Laugh and be merry together, like brothers akin,
Guesting awhile in the rooms of a beautiful inn,
Glad till the dancing stops, and the lilt of the music ends.
Laugh till the game is played; and be you merry, my friends.
ROADWAYS
One road leads to London,
One road leads to Wales,
My road leads me seawards
To the white dipping sails.
One road leads to the river,
And it goes singing slow;
My road leads to shipping,
Where the bronzed sailors go.
Leads me, lures me, calls me
To salt green tossing sea;
A road without earth's road-dust
Is the right road for me.
A wet road heaving, shining,
And wild with seagull's cries,
A mad salt sea-wind blowing
The salt spray in my eyes.
My road calls me, lures me
West, east, south, and north;
Most roads lead men homewards,
My road leads me forth.
To add more miles to the tally
Of grey miles left behind,
In quest of that one beauty
God put me here to find.
A WANDERER´S SONG
A wind's in the heart of me, a fire's in my heels,
I am tired of brick and stone and rumbling wagon-wheels;
I hunger for the sea's edge, the limit of the land,
Where the wild old Atlantic is shouting on the sand.
Oh I'll be going, leaving the noises of the street,
To where a lifting foresail-foot is yanking at the sheet;
To a windy, tossing anchorage where yawls and ketches ride,
Oh I'll be going, going, until I meet the tide.
And first I'll hear the sea-wind, the mewing of the gulls,
The clucking, sucking of the sea about the rusty hulls,
The songs at the capstan at the hooker warping out,
And then the heart of me'll know I'm there or thereabout.
Oh I am sick of brick and stone, the heart of me is sick,
For windy green, unquiet sea, the realm of Moby Dick;
And I'll be going, going, from the roaring of the wheels,
For a wind's in the heart of me, a fire's in my heels.
BEAUTY
I have seen dawn and sunset on moors and windy hills
Coming in solemn beauty like slow old tunes of Spain:
I have seen the lady April bringing the daffodils,
Bringing the springing grass and the soft warm April rain.
I have heard the song of the blossoms and the old chant of the sea,
And seen strange lands from under the arched white sails of ships;
But the loveliest thing of beauty God ever has shown to me,
Are her voice, and her hair, and eyes, and the dear red curve of her lips.
THE WORD
My friend, my bonny friend, when we are old,
And hand in hand go tottering down the hill,
May we be rich in love's refined gold,
May love's gold coin be current with us still.
May love be sweeter for the vanished days,
And your most perfect beauty still as dear
As when your troubled singer stood at gaze
In that dear March of a most sacred year.
May what we are be all we might have been
And that potential, perfect, O my friend,
And may there still be many sheafs to glean
In our love's acre, comrade, till the end.
And may we find when ended is the page
Death but a tavern on our pilgrimage.
"I did not conquer London — I merely incensed it."
— Geo. Antheil
"What you suggest may be all very well in practice, but it will never work in theory." - an apocryphal French philosopher
"The writer is someone who arranges quotes and removes the quotation marks." - Roland Barthes
"The most stimulating source for a solution to a problem comes from the problem itself. This is the real source—the problem defines the solution. It is when you look at what other people are doing that you are liable to come up with a stereotyped answer to your problem. Each problem contains unique elements. No problem is exactly like any other. The only way you can find a good answer is to clearly understand the question. You can't find the answer by using somebody else's answer to another question. I am not even saying this is bad. It is merely untrue. It is not so much a moral issue. It just doesn't work!" Saul Bass
"I can recognize any one by the teeth, with whom I have talked. I always watch the lips and mouth: they tell what the tongue and eyes try to conceal." Byron at the funeral of PB Shelley, according to E.J. Trelawny
"Classics are books which, the more we think we know them through hearsay, the more original, unexpected and innovative we find them when we actually read them." - Italo Calvino
"Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things." Degas
"If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or objects." Einstein
"It is harder to fight against pleasure than against anger." Heraclitus
The Salutation
These little limbs,
These eyes and hands which here I find,
These rosy cheeks wherewith my life begins,
Where have ye been? behind
What curtain were ye from me hid so long?
Where was, in what abyss, my speaking tongue?
When silent I
So many thousand, thousand years
Beneath the dust did in a chaos lie,
How could I smiles or tears,
Or lips or hands or eyes or ears perceive?
Welcome ye treasures which I now receive.
I that so long
Was nothing from eternity,
Did little think such joys as ear or tongue
To celebrate or see:
Such sounds to hear, such hands to feel, such feet,
Beneath the skies on such a ground to meet.
New burnished joys,
Which yellow gold and pearls excel!
Such sacred treasures are the limbs in boys,
In which a soul doth dwell;
Their organizèd joints and azure veins
More wealth include than all the world contains.
From dust I rise,
And out of nothing now awake;
These brighter regions which salute mine eyes,
A gift from God I take.
The earth, the seas, the light, the day, the skies,
The sun and stars are mine if those I prize.
Long time before
I in my mother’s womb was born,
A God, preparing, did this glorious store,
The world, for me adorn.
Into this Eden so divine and fair,
So wide and bright, I come His son and heir.
A stranger here
Strange things doth meet, strange glories see;
Strange treasures lodged in this fair world appear,
Strange all and new to me;
But that they mine should be, who nothing was,
That strangest is of all, yet brought to pass.
-Thomas Traherne (1636/7–1674)
"I would like to take this opportunity to say that the practice of calling Lord Voldemort 'Voldie' must stop, as must the insistence that with a bit of therapy 'Voldie' would be a real sweetheart." J.K.Rowling
Let us know how that works out for you.
Quote from: North Star on May 05, 2015, 05:42:31 AM
The Salutation
Excellent. A poet new to me, which I must explore further. Thanks for sharing.
I wrote this very deep (Dutch) poem for my secondary school exam's poetry list:
In het donker, ongezien,
kneep ik in een bil van Mien.
Ik kreeg een klap, ze zei:
zo werkt dat niet voor mij!
Toen gaf ik haar een zoen;
zo moest ik het dus doen.
Het duurde ruim een week
voor ze naar een ander keek.
More or less translated:
In the darkness, quite unseen,
I squeezed the buttocks of Mien.
I recieved a blow, whilst she said:
boy, you are behaving very bad!
Then I gave her a sweet kiss,
she seemed very pleased with this.
It took her about a week or so
Before she said: I have to go.
My teacher refused to dig deep into this masterpiece during my Viva Voce.
In fact, he did not ask any question about it at all, the blatant fool.
Quote from: Marc on May 05, 2015, 10:55:35 AM
I wrote this very deep (Dutch) poem for my secondary school exam's poetry list:
In het donker, ongezien,
kneep ik in een bil van Mien.
Ik kreeg een klap, ze zei:
zo werkt dat niet voor mij!
Toen gaf ik haar een zoen;
zo moest ik het dus doen.
Het duurde ruim een week
voor ze naar een ander keek.
More or less translated:
In the darkness, quite unseen,
I squeezed the buttocks of Mien.
I recieved a blow, whilst she said:
boy, you are behaving very bad!
Then I gave her a sweet kiss,
she seemed very pleased with this.
It took her about a week or so
Before she said: I have to go.
My teacher refused to dig deep into this masterpiece during my Viva Voce.
In fact, he did not ask any question about it at all, the blatant fool.
Had I been your teacher, I´d have given you an A-Okay and I´d have liked to meet that Mien muse. :D
Quote from: Florestan on May 05, 2015, 11:02:00 AM
Had I been your teacher, I´d have given you an A-Okay and I´d have liked to meet that Mien muse. :D
Who knows, maybe she would have stayed with you a month or so.
:D
Here's a short (quotable?) poem by my favourite Dutch poet Rutger Kopland (1934-2012):
Ga nu maar liggen liefste in de tuin,
de lege plekken in het hoge gras, ik heb
altijd gewild dat ik dat was, een lege
plek voor iemand, om te blijven.(More or less) translated:
Now lay yourself down, love, in the yard,
the empty spots in the high-grown grass, I have
always wished to be just that, an empty
spot for someone, to stay.
Quote from: Marc on May 05, 2015, 11:15:10 AM
Who knows, maybe she would have stayed with you a month or so.
:D
Here's a short (quotable?) poem by my favourite Dutch poet Rutger Kopland (1934-2012):
Ga nu maar liggen liefste in de tuin,
de lege plekken in het hoge gras, ik heb
altijd gewild dat ik dat was, een lege
plek voor iemand, om te blijven.
(More or less) translated:
Now lay yourself down, love, in the yard,
the empty spots in the high-grown grass, I have
always wished to be just that, an empty
spot for someone, to stay.
That´s very good, too. Fortunately, I can read Dutch and feel the rythm that is lost in translation. Another one I should explore deeper. Any website featuring his poems?
Quote from: Florestan on May 05, 2015, 11:28:28 AM
That´s very good, too. Fortunately, I can read Dutch and feel the rythm that is lost in translation. Another one I should explore deeper. Any website featuring his poems?
http://www.poezie-leestafel.info/rutger-kopland
http://www.poetryinternationalweb.net/pi/site/poet/item/4035
His main translator:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Brockway
A collection (in Dutch and English):
http://www.amazon.com/Memories-The-Unknown-Rutger-Kopland/dp/1860468950
Here's my own favourite, translated by Brockway, who was a personal friend of Kopland.
I've posted this one before on GMG, I think. Probably in the 'what are you currently reading' thread.
Zoals de pagina's van een krant
in het gras langzaam om
slaan in de wind, en het is de wind
niet, die dit doet,
zoals wanneer een deken in de avond,
buiten, ligt alsof hij ligt
te slapen, en het is de deken
niet, zo
niets is het, niets dan de verdrietige
beweging van een hand, de weerloze
houding van een lichaam,
en er is geen hand, er is
geen lichaam, terwijl ik toch
zo dichtbij ben. ...
Like the pages of a newspaper
flapping slowly to and fro in the grass
and it is not the wind
that is doing this,
as when of an evening, a blanket,
left outdoors, lies as though it lay
asleep, and it is not the blanket,
so near it is
to being nothing, nothing but the grieving
gesture of a hand, the vulnerable
attitude of a body,
and there is no hand, there is
no body, while I, after all,
am so close.Taken from the above mentioned collection: Rutger Kopland,
Memories of the Unknown. London, Harvill Press, 2001.
Dank je wel!
Quote from: Florestan on May 05, 2015, 10:55:28 AM
Excellent. A poet new to me, which I must explore further. Thanks for sharing.
Yes,
Traherne is quite obscure compared to
Donne,
George Herbert, or
Marvell, the other greats of metaphysical poetry.
Another from him:
EdenA learned and a happy ignorance
Divided me
From all the vanity,
From all the sloth, care, pain, and sorrow that advance
The madness and the misery
Of men. No error, no distraction I
Saw soil the earth, or overcloud the sky.
I knew not that there was a serpent's sting,
Whose poison shed
On men, did overspread
The world; nor did I dream of such a thing
As sin, in which mankind lay dead.
They all were brisk and living wights to me,
Yea, pure and full of immortality.
Joy, pleasure, beauty, kindness, glory, love,
Sleep, day, life, light,
Peace, melody, my sight,
My ears and heart did fill and freely move.
All that I saw did me delight.
The Universe was then a world of treasure,
To me an universal world of pleasure.
Unwelcome penitence was then unknown,
Vain costly toys,
Swearing and roaring boys,
Shops, markets, taverns, coaches, were unshown;
So all things were that drown'd my joys:
No thorns chok'd up my path, nor hid the face
Of bliss and beauty, nor eclips'd the place.
Only what Adam in his first estate,
Did I behold;
Hard silver and dry gold
As yet lay under ground; my blessed fate
Was more acquainted with the old
And innocent delights which he did see
In his original simplicity.
Those things which first his Eden did adorn,
My infancy
Did crown. Simplicity
Was my protection when I first was born.
Mine eyes those treasures first did see
Which God first made. The first effects of love
My first enjoyments upon earth did prove;
And were so great, and so divine, so pure;
So fair and sweet,
So true; when I did meet
Them here at first, they did my soul allure,
And drew away my infant feet
Quite from the works of men; that I might see
The glorious wonders of the Deity.
(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KNiv8eeoYZQ/U_ifjThRHWI/AAAAAAAAB68/d1yFYlUnppY/s1600/Buenos_Aires_-_San_Nicol%C3%A1s_-_Ni%C3%B1as_saltando_a_la_soga_en_el_Asilo_de_Hu%C3%A9rfanas.jpg)
Edades
by José Emilio Pacheco
Llega un triste momento de la edad
en que somos tan viejos como los padres.
Y entonces se descubre en un cajón olvidado
la foto de la abuela a los catorce años.
¿En dónde queda el tiempo, en dónde estamos?
Esa niña
que habita en el recuerdo como una anciana,
muerta hace medio siglo,
es en la foto nieta de su nieto,
la vida no vivida, el futuro total,
la juventud que siempre se renueva en los otros.
La historia no ha pasado por este instante.
Aún no existen las guerras ni las catástrofes
y la palabra muerte es impensable.
Nada se vive antes ni después.
No hay conjugación en la existencia
más que el tiempo presente.
En él yo soy el viejo
y mi abuela es la niña.
Source:
Los días que no se nombran, 1a ed., México, D. F. Asociación Nacional del Libro, A. C., 2011
I love this poem, but I'm unable to translate it in a poetic form, so here is the original. :)
A poem, animated and read by the author.
http://youtu.be/HhGuXCuDb1U
Quote from: Gordo on May 08, 2015, 12:12:52 PM
(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-KNiv8eeoYZQ/U_ifjThRHWI/AAAAAAAAB68/d1yFYlUnppY/s1600/Buenos_Aires_-_San_Nicol%C3%A1s_-_Ni%C3%B1as_saltando_a_la_soga_en_el_Asilo_de_Hu%C3%A9rfanas.jpg)
Edades
by José Emilio Pacheco
Llega un triste momento de la edad
en que somos tan viejos como los padres.
Y entonces se descubre en un cajón olvidado
la foto de la abuela a los catorce años.
¿En dónde queda el tiempo, en dónde estamos?
Esa niña
que habita en el recuerdo como una anciana,
muerta hace medio siglo,
es en la foto nieta de su nieto,
la vida no vivida, el futuro total,
la juventud que siempre se renueva en los otros.
La historia no ha pasado por este instante.
Aún no existen las guerras ni las catástrofes
y la palabra muerte es impensable.
Nada se vive antes ni después.
No hay conjugación en la existencia
más que el tiempo presente.
En él yo soy el viejo
y mi abuela es la niña.
Source:
Los días que no se nombran, 1a ed., México, D. F. Asociación Nacional del Libro, A. C., 2011
I love this poem, but I'm unable to translate it in a poetic form, so here is the original. :)
Great poem --- and great photo too.
As ugly as Caifacaratadaddera.
Edgeworth uses this expression and subsequently a pedigree racehorse was so named, which horse hogs internet entries, but who was she that was so ugly?
Anyone know anything of this?
Meditation on Terza Rima, written in a dozen minutes last night.
Remember old Dante?
His work in poetry
really upped the ante.
No matter how hard you try,
you will not do it as well
in English, barely a far cry.
As anyone to you will tell -
if they studied Italian by
a candlelight - there are, well,
More rhymes in it than
there are flies in a bar
or cinemas in Cannes,
Allowing you to go far
further and more naturally
into the depths of lunar
Exploration, searching each valley
Of the mind in the darkened alley.
Quote from: North Star on May 12, 2015, 04:20:27 AM
Meditation on Terza Rima, written in a dozen minutes last night.
Very nice.
serious work was begun
at about the times
my voice straggled back
I learned the Estonian
flag flew upside-down
in Barcelona
my girlfriend chucked me
I found Kingisepp
on strange-lettered maps
and night grew shorter
serious work will die
when her eyes rise on
six-week-long daylight
(... agenda)
Something I wrote about 20 years ago. Funny what you find, combing through old shelves . . . .
Quote from: karlhenning on May 12, 2015, 10:13:12 AM
Something I wrote about 20 years ago. Funny what you find, combing through old shelves . . . .
Very true!
A Zen Koan: Trading Dialogue for Lodging
Provided he makes and wins an argument about Buddhism with those who live there, any wondering monk can remain in a Zen temple. If he is defeated, he has to move on.
In a temple in the northern part of Japan two brother monks were dwelling together. The elder one was learned, but the younger one was stupid and had but one eye.
A wandering monk came and asked for lodging, properly challenging them to a debate about the sublime teachings. The elder brother, tired that day from much studying, told the younger one to take his place. "Go and request the dialogue in silence," he cautioned.
So the young monk and the stranger went to the shrine and sat down.
Shortly afterwards the traveler rose and went in to the elder brother and said: "Your young brother is a wonderful fellow. He defeated me."
"Relate the dialogue to me," said the elder one.
"Well," explained the traveler, "first I held up one finger, representing Buddha, the enlightened one. So he held up two fingers, signifying Buddha and his teaching. I held up three fingers, representing Buddha, his teaching, and his followers, living the harmonious life. Then he shook his clenched fist in my face, indicating that all three come from one realization. Thus he won and so I have no right to remain here." With this, the traveler left.
"Where is that fellow?" asked the younger one, running in to his elder brother.
"I understand you won the debate."
"Won nothing. I'm going to beat him up."
"Tell me the subject of the debate," asked the elder one.
"Why, the minute he saw me he held up one finger, insulting me by insinuating that I have only one eye. Since he was a stranger I thought I would be polite to him, so I held up two fingers, congratulating him that he has two eyes. Then the impolite wretch held up three fingers, suggesting that between us we only have three eyes. So I got mad and started to punch him, but he ran out and that ended it!"
sleep took me — I was seeking asylum
driven out of the world of waking
women I once loved ringed me round
bandying the edges of undullable disappointments
they bade me adieu with smiles & kisses
H.P. Lovecraft checked my coat & I raced up
the stairs to catch the last bars of sleep's
sweet overture
sleep dragged me into a plush
velvet seat and I smiled knowing it would be
hours before the fat lady would ring but
before I lapsed fully into the first act
I stepped up to read a little Dostoevsky
while listening to Dire Straits
I slept
but my ambitions fidgeted & climbed off
my shoulders they reached up to caress
the windowpane to feel the imprint of
moonlight (I dreamt I & my love saw Venus
shining over the Lunacharsky Prospect) as my
ambition rested its cheek against the cooling glass
night shattered the window with political ambiguities
and the claws gripping the sill were commas
changing the meaning of love-letter sentences
(... pillow-talk)
3 Oct 93
Quote from: North Star on May 13, 2015, 07:42:33 AM
A Zen Koan: Trading Dialogue for Lodging
Provided he makes and wins an argument about Buddhism with those who live there, any wondering monk can remain in a Zen temple. If he is defeated, he has to move on.
In a temple in the northern part of Japan two brother monks were dwelling together. The elder one was learned, but the younger one was stupid and had but one eye.
A wandering monk came and asked for lodging, properly challenging them to a debate about the sublime teachings. The elder brother, tired that day from much studying, told the younger one to take his place. "Go and request the dialogue in silence," he cautioned.
So the young monk and the stranger went to the shrine and sat down.
Shortly afterwards the traveler rose and went in to the elder brother and said: "Your young brother is a wonderful fellow. He defeated me."
"Relate the dialogue to me," said the elder one.
"Well," explained the traveler, "first I held up one finger, representing Buddha, the enlightened one. So he held up two fingers, signifying Buddha and his teaching. I held up three fingers, representing Buddha, his teaching, and his followers, living the harmonious life. Then he shook his clenched fist in my face, indicating that all three come fromone realization. Thus he won and so I have no right to remain here." With this, the traveler left.
"Where is that fellow?" asked the younger one, running in to his elder brother.
"I understand you won the debate."
"Won nothing. I'm going to beat him up."
"Tell me the subject of the debate," asked the elder one.
"Why, the minute he saw me he held up one finger, insulting me by insinuating that I have only one eye. Since he was a stranger I thought I would be polite to him, so I held up two fingers, congratulating him that he has two eyes. Then the impolite wretch held up three fingers, suggesting that between us we only have three eyes. So I got mad and started to punch him, but he ran out and that ended it!"
Very much enjoyed this, BTW
Quote from: North Star on May 13, 2015, 07:42:33 AM
A Zen Koan: Trading Dialogue for Lodging
Provided he makes and wins an argument about Buddhism with those who live there, any wondering monk can remain in a Zen temple. If he is defeated, he has to move on.
In a temple in the northern part of Japan two brother monks were dwelling together. The elder one was learned, but the younger one was stupid and had but one eye.
A wandering monk came and asked for lodging, properly challenging them to a debate about the sublime teachings. The elder brother, tired that day from much studying, told the younger one to take his place. "Go and request the dialogue in silence," he cautioned.
So the young monk and the stranger went to the shrine and sat down.
Shortly afterwards the traveler rose and went in to the elder brother and said: "Your young brother is a wonderful fellow. He defeated me."
"Relate the dialogue to me," said the elder one.
"Well," explained the traveler, "first I held up one finger, representing Buddha, the enlightened one. So he held up two fingers, signifying Buddha and his teaching. I held up three fingers, representing Buddha, his teaching, and his followers, living the harmonious life. Then he shook his clenched fist in my face, indicating that all three come from one realization. Thus he won and so I have no right to remain here." With this, the traveler left.
"Where is that fellow?" asked the younger one, running in to his elder brother.
"I understand you won the debate."
"Won nothing. I'm going to beat him up."
"Tell me the subject of the debate," asked the elder one.
"Why, the minute he saw me he held up one finger, insulting me by insinuating that I have only one eye. Since he was a stranger I thought I would be polite to him, so I held up two fingers, congratulating him that he has two eyes. Then the impolite wretch held up three fingers, suggesting that between us we only have three eyes. So I got mad and started to punch him, but he ran out and that ended it!"
(http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2010/12/3/1291397560720/fingers-006.jpg)
Quote from: karlhenning on February 27, 2015, 10:24:29 AM
(Whitman)
AS I lay with my head in your lap, Camerado,
The confession I made I resume—what I said to you in the open air I resume:
I know I am restless, and make others so;
I know my words are weapons, full of danger, full of death;
For I confront peace, security, and all the settled laws, to unsettle them;
I am more resolute because all have denied me, than I could ever have been had all accepted me;
I heed not, and have never heeded, either experience, cautions, majorities, nor ridicule;
And the threat of what is call'd hell is little or nothing to me;
And the lure of what is call'd heaven is little or nothing to me;
Dear camerado! I confess I have urged you onward with me, and still urge you, without the least idea what is our destination,
Or whether we shall be victorious, or utterly quell'd and defeated.
;D :) 8) ;D
Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey (1517 – 19 January 1547 / Norfolk)
The soote season, that bud and bloom forth bringes,
With green hath clad the hill and eke the vale:
The nightingale with fethers new she singes:
The turtle to her make hath told her tale:
Somer is come, for every spray nowe springes,
The hart hath hong his olde hed on the pale:
The buck in brake his winter cote he flinges:
The fishes flote with newe repaired scale:
The adder all her sloughe away she slinges:
The swift swallow pursueth the flyes smale:
The busy bee her honye now she minges:
Winter is worne that was the flowers bale:
And thus I see, among these pleasant things
Eche care decayes, and yet my sorow springes.
[4] from Certain Sonnets - Sir Philip Sidney
The Nightingale as soone as Aprill bringeth
Unto her rested sense a perfect waking,
While late bare earth, proud of new clothing springeth,
Sings out her woes, a thorne her song-booke making:
And mournfully bewailing,
Her throate in tunes expresseth
What griefe her breast opresseth,
For Theseus force on her chaste will prevailing.
O Philomela faire, ô take some gladnesse,
That here is juster cause of plaintfull sadnesse:
Thine earth now springs, mine fadeth,
Thy thorne without, my thorne my thorne my heart invadeth.
Alas she hath no other cause of anguish
But Theseus love, on her by strong hand wrokne,
Wherein she suffring all her spirits languish,
Full womanlike complaines her will was brokne.
But I who dayly craving,
Cannot have to content me,
Have more cause to lament me,
Since wanting is more woe then too much having.
O Philomela faire, ô take some gladnesse,
That here is juster cause of plaintfull sadnesse:
Thine earth now springs, mine fadeth,
Thy thorne without, my thorne my thorne my heart invadeth.
Katherine Philips: EPITAPH. On her Son H.P. at St. Syth's Church where her body also lies Interred
What on Earth deserves our trust?
Youth and Beauty both are dust.
Long we gathering are with pain,
What one moment calls again.
Seven years childless marriage past,
A Son, a son is born at last:
So exactly lim'd and fair,
Full of good Spirits, Meen, and Air,
As a long life promised,
Yet, in less than six weeks dead.
Too promising, too great a mind
In so small room to be confin'd:
Therfore, as fit in Heav'n to dwell,
He quickly broke the Prison shell.
So the subtle Alchimist,
Can't with Hermes Seal resist
The powerful spirit's subtler fight,
But t'will bid him long good night.
And so the Sun if it arise
Half so glorious as his Eyes,
Like this Infant, takes a shrowd,
Buried in a morning Cloud.
MATRIMONIAL CREED.
He must be rich whom I could love,
His fortune clear must be,
Whether in land or in the funds,
'Tis all the same to me.
He must be old whom I could love,
Then he'll not plague me long ;
In sooth 'twill he a pleasant sight.
To see him borne along
To where the croaking ravens lurk.
And where the earth worms dwell :
A widow's hood will suit my face.
And black becomes me well.
And he must make a settlement,
I'll have no man without ;
And when he writes his testament,
He must not leave me out.
Oh ! such a man as this would suit
Each wish I here express ;
If he should say,— Will you have me?
I'll very soon say— Yes !
Mihai Eminescu
Şi dacă...
Şi dacă ramuri bat în geam
Şi se cutremur plopii,
E ca în minte să te am
Şi-ncet să te apropii.
Şi dacă stele bat în lac
Adâncu-i luminându-l,
E ca durerea mea s-o-mpac
Înseninându-mi gândul.
Şi dacă norii deşi se duc
De iese-n luciu luna,
E ca aminte să-mi aduc
De tine-ntotdeauna.
Quote from: Florestan on May 31, 2015, 10:56:50 AM
Mihai Eminescu
Şi dacă...
Şi dacă ramuri bat în geam
Şi se cutremur plopii,
E ca în minte să te am
Şi-ncet să te apropii.
Şi dacă stele bat în lac
Adâncu-i luminându-l,
E ca durerea mea s-o-mpac
Înseninându-mi gândul.
Şi dacă norii deşi se duc
De iese-n luciu luna,
E ca aminte să-mi aduc
De tine-ntotdeauna.
Well, it looks lovely! But I can't read Romanian... :)
Quote from: Allen MendenhallThe school of resentment and amateurish cultural studies, appropriate targets of Bloom's learned animus, will die an inglorious death, as dogmatic political hermeneutics cannot withstand the test of time.
From
this interesting review.
Quote from: jochanaan on June 01, 2015, 08:45:40 AM
Well, it looks lovely!
Ain´t it? :)
Quote
But I can't read Romanian... :)
Oooops, I forgot to post the translation. Here it is. (not by me)
And If...
And if the branches tap my pane
And the poplars whisper nightly,
It is to make me dream again
I hold you to me tightly.
And if the stars shine on the pond
And light its sombre shoal,
It is to quench my mind's despond
And flood with peace my soul.
And if the clouds their tresses part
And does the moon outblaze,
It is but to remind my heart
I long for you always.
Scribbled a few weeks ago:
Music
Harmony, melody and rhythm,
All dissipate into nothingness,
Vibrations of the ear
Are all you hear -
Nothing more, nothing less.
Architecture of the mind
Walls of silence and sound
In which you will find
Yourself forever bound.
The first line is from Yeats's The Heart of the Woman (http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/heart-woman-0):
My heart upon his warm heart lies,
His heart still beating cries
Apart from its body.
My mind better him dead abides
In the gutter, knife still bloody.
A. Mary Robinson, 1888
Darwinism
WHEN first the unflowering Fern-forest
Shadowed the dim lagoons of old,
A vague, unconscious, long unrest
Swayed the great fronds of green and gold.
Until the flexible stem grew rude,
The fronds began to branch and bower,
And lo ! upon the unblossoming wood
There breaks a dawn of apple-flower.
Then on the fruitful forest-boughs
For ages long the unquiet ape
Swung happy in his airy house
And plucked the apple, and sucked the grape.
Until at length in him there stirred
The old, unchanged, remote distress,
That pierced his world of wind and bird
With some divine unhappiness.
Not love, nor the wild fruits he sought,
Nor the fierce battles of his clan
Could still the unborn and aching thought,
Until the brute became the man.
Long since ; and now the same unrest
Goads to the same invisible goal,
Till some new gift, undream'd, unguess'd,
End the new travail of the soul.
Recent scribblings:
The Ballad of the Woodsman
Long ago, on a cold summer night
Walking in the woods, dark and mossed
I met a dryad and at the first sight
My heart to her was forever lost.
Her hair was green, and so her eyes
That, meeting mine, imprisoned me.
My nymph and I, intertwined at thighs
I told her: like this I want forever be.
But she vanished to her forest home
And I was doomed by that one tryst,
To wondering under the green dome
With the memory of the lips I but once kissed.
O where are you, green dryad?
All my days and all my nights I spent
In your search, but I am now tired
And realize: to you it nothing meant.
Summer Nights
Endless light
Shining bright
over the land
Touching the trees,
and kissing the lips
of the misty lake
holding your hand
caressing your knees
bonding our hips
All through the night
so bright, awake
Sea Pictures
The waves hit the coast
time and again, but most
of the shore stays afloat
As returns the fishing boat
Generations, like ripples
following each other,
suckling the nipples
of their mother
On the shore, the two fishermen
drink from the sea
and one asks the other:
'which are you drinking, the water or the wave?'
After a while, the other replies:
'when the sea hits the beach,
the wave has hit its reach,
and only water remains -
the sea never drains'
("which are you drinking, the water or the wave" quoted from John Fowles' "The Magus")
I was recalled of Parra, Nicanor Parra, who turned 100 last September, because of a post by Brian, talking about Neruda.
Parra is, IMO, the greatest alive poet in Spanish and probably, sorry Pablo, our rightful national poet.
(http://eldinamo.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/nicanor-parra1.jpg)
Epitaph
Of medium height,
With a voice neither shrill nor low,
The oldest son of an elementary school teacher
And a piecework seamstress,
Naturally thin
Though fond of good eating,
With drawn cheeks
And oversize ears,
A square face,
And slits for eyes,
And the nose of a mulatto boxer
Over an Aztec idol's mouth
-All this bathed
In a light halfway between irony and perfidy -
Neither too bright nor totally stupid,
I was what I was: a mixture
Of vinegar and olive oil,
A sausage of angel and beast!
Epitafio
De estatura mediana,
Con una voz ni delgada ni gruesa,
Hijo mayor de profesor primario
Y de una modista de trastienda;
Flaco de nacimiento
Aunque devoto de la buena mesa;
De mejillas escuálidas
Y de más bien abundantes orejas;
Con un rostro cuadrado
En que los ojos se abren apenas
Y una nariz de boxeador mulato
Baja a la boca de ídolo azteca
-Todo esto bañado
Por una luz entre irónica y pérfida-
Ni muy listo ni tonto de remate
Fui lo que fui: una mezcla
De vinagre y aceite de comer
¡Un embutido de ángel y bestia!
_______________
Test
What is an antipoet
Someone who deals in coffins and urns?
A general who's not sure of himself?
A priest who believes in nothing?
A drifter who finds everything funny
Even old age and death?
A speaker you can't trust?
A dancer at the edge of a cliff?
A narcissist who loves everyone?
A joker who goes for the jugular
And is mean just for the hell of it?
A poet who sleeps in a chair?
A modern-day alchemist?
An armchair revolutionary?
A petit-bourgeois?
A fake?
a god?
a naive person?
A peasant from Santiago, Chile?
Underline the right answer.
What is antipoetry
A tempest in a teapot?
A spot of snow on a rock?
A tray piled high with human shit
As Father Salvatierra believes?
A mirror that doesn't lie?
A slap in the face
Of the president of the Writers' Society?
(God save his soul)
A warning to young poets?
A jet-propelled coffin?
A coffin in centrifugal orbit?
A coffin run on kerosene?
A funeral parlor without a corpse?
Put an X
Next to the right answer.
Test
Qué es un antipoeta:
Un comerciante en urnas y ataúdes?
Un sacerdote que no cree en nada?
Un general que duda de sí mismo?
Un vagabundo que se ríe de todo
Hasta de la vejez y de la muerte?
Un interlocutor de mal carácter?
Un bailarín al borde del abismo?
Un narciso que ama a todo el mundo?
Un bromista sangriento
Deliberadamente miserable
Un poeta que duerme en una silla?
Un alquimista de los tiempos modernos?
Un revolucionario de bolsillo?
Un pequeño burgués?
Un charlatán?
un dios?
un inocente?
Un aldeano de Santiago de Chile?
Subraye la frase que considere correcta.
Qué es la antipoesía:
Un temporal en una taza de té?
Una mancha de nieve en una roca?
Un azafate lleno de excrementos humanos
Como lo cree el padre Salvatierra?
Un espejo que dice la verdad?
Un bofetón al rostro
Del Presidente de la Sociedad de Escritores?
(Dios lo tenga en su santo reino)
Una advertencia a los poetas jóvenes?
Un ataúd a chorro?
Un ataúd a fuerza centrífuga?
Un ataúd a gas de parafina?
Una capilla ardiente sin difunto?
Marque con una cruz
La definición que considere correcta.
http://www.nicanorparra.uchile.cl/english/
Easy 'tis advice to give,
Hard it is advice to take
Years that lived--and years to live,
Wide and weary difference make.
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
A bit of fun with the opening of Blake's Auguries of Innocence:
To see a Grain of Sand in a World
And a Wild Flower in a Heaven
Hold the palm of your hand in infinity
And an hour in Eternity
A Cage in a Robin Red breast
Puts all Rage in a Heaven
Doves & Pigeons filled with A Dove house
Shudders regions thr' all their Hells
A Master starved at his dogs Gate
States the ruin of the Prediction
A Road misused upon the Horse
Calls to Mankind for Heavenly blood.
Quote from: Jorge Luis Borges
Argumentum Ornithologicum
I close my eyes and see a flock of birds. The vision lasts a second or perhaps less; I don’t know how many birds I saw. Were they a definite or an indefinite number? This problem involves the question of the existence of God. If God exists, the number is definite, because how many birds I saw is known to God. If God does not exist, the number is indefinite, because nobody was able to take count. In this case, I saw fewer than ten birds (let’s say) and more than one; but I did not see nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, or two birds. I saw a number between ten and one, but not nine, eight, seven, six, five, etc. That integer-not-nine, but not-eight, but not-seven, but not-six, but not-five, etc. - is inconceivable. Ergo, God exists.
Red Letters
On his way to school,
Donny's walk stopped
As he saw in the pool
A man, shot dead.
Written on the board
In runny, red letters
Was 'Meet thy Lord'
At which Donny stares
Still during the night,
When there is no light.
The favored ones, the loved of Heaven,
God sends to roam the world at will;
His wonders to their gaze are given
By field and forest, stream and hill.
The dullards who at home are staying
Are not refreshed by morning's ray;
They grovel, earth-born calls obeying,
And petty cares beset their day.
The little brooks o'er rocks are springing,
The lark's gay carol fills the air;
Why should not I with them be singing
A joyous anthem free from care?
I wander on, in God confiding,
For all are His, wood, field, and fell;
O'er earth and skies He, still presiding,
For me will order all things well.
Joseph von Eichendorff - excerpt from From the Life of a Good-for-Nothing (1826)
This poem/song used to have (or still has) folk-song-like popularity in Germany, search for "Wem Gott will rechte Gunst erweisen" for examples
http://www.zeit.de/kultur/musik/2011-08/noten-wem-gott-will.pdf
Quote from: Florestan on June 03, 2015, 12:16:09 AM
Ain´t it? :)
Oooops, I forgot to post the translation. Here it is. (not by me)
And If...
And if the branches tap my pane
And the poplars whisper nightly,
It is to make me dream again
I hold you to me tightly.
And if the stars shine on the pond
And light its sombre shoal,
It is to quench my mind's despond
And flood with peace my soul.
And if the clouds their tresses part
And does the moon outblaze,
It is but to remind my heart
I long for you always.
That
is lovely. ;D
as to some rare concert
we listened to the rainfall
at first it tapped out
the march of time
until she took her mother's clock away
smothering time in blankets
the rainfall said
i know i got up late and all
is it really still just today
or a brighter tomorrow already
i could listen more closely
after she trimmed my beard
i thought i heard the rain say
how about some tea
seems it might have been
my wife
for all the flowers on the table
i couldn't get to the kettle
helpless i watched it boil
steam falling up to the sky
(... chopin on majorca)
without asking whether i deserved it
i found myself writing
a song to the dawn
without opening the backdoor
i knew there would be peanut shells
on the back landing
and i thought of my wife's easel
and the canvas resting on it
the canvas a living thing
in the way that it would change
and grow in response to the love
she applies to it through brush and paint
i put the kettle on
knowing i would need to turn the flame
quickly down
lest its whistle awake my love from her dreams
dream on my sweet
dream that we are walking along the pond's edge
dream that the bread falls from our hands
towards the impatient geese
dream of the wisps of cloud
reflected in the pond's surface
my song to dawn is a song
of my beloved's rest
as i knot my necktie
and patiently await
the pouring of hot water over teabag
joy at the work she has done
at her easel yesterday
joy at the work she will give
herself to later this day
a song of thanks to dawn
for the new day
and more peanuts tossed gladly
to the jays and squirrels
a song of the play of glancing sunlight
falling among the new leaves
as though light were a thing
newly invented by boyish laughter
a song
of the proud tall birch's shimmering leaves
trembling in the gentle morning breeze
a song of thanksgiving
a holiday to be celebrated
at all times and in all seasons
and always outdoors
did i think all these things
when i opened the backdoor
baring my soul and opening my eyes
to spring in the yard
or did all these beautiful things
think me?
my heart stirs at the whispered sounds
of morning quiet
dare i drown it out with my oafish noise?
i put the flame out
underneath the readied kettle
the steam-scent of jasmine tea
rose
it seemed i smelt it with my eyes
did i think these things
or did they come to me
rising from the painted ceramic mug?
shall i drink this tea?
and should i not strive to become
one of spring's finer thoughts?
i breathed in
great draughts of the morning air
and the rich scent of fresh grass
and the second flush of maple blossom
answered
yes
(... aubade)
Quote from: Jo498 on November 27, 2015, 02:57:48 AM
This poem/song used to have (or still has) folk-song-like popularity in Germany, search for "Wem Gott will rechte Gunst erweisen" for examples
http://www.zeit.de/kultur/musik/2011-08/noten-wem-gott-will.pdf
My German IV students used to translate the novel, and I used to have a cassette tape of a children's choir singing this and other
Wanderlieder. That version was very lively: this one is a little slower.
https://www.youtube.com/v/bnhzRI_XrKs
Myfanwy.
Kind o'er the kinderbank leans my Myfanwy,
White o'er the playpen the sheen of her dress,
Fresh from the bathroom and soft in the nursery
Soap scented fingers I long to caress.
Were you a prefect and head of your dormit'ry?
Were you a hockey girl, tennis or gym?
Who was your favourite? Who had a crush on you?
Which were the baths where they taught you to swim?
Smooth down the Avenue glitters the bicycle,
Black-stockinged legs under navy blue serge,
Home and Colonial, Star, International,
Balancing bicycle leant on the verge.
Trace me your wheel-tracks, you fortunate bicycle,
Out of the shopping and into the dark,
Back down the avenue, back to the pottingshed,
Back to the house on the fringe of the park.
Golden the light on the locks of Myfanwy,
Golden the light on the book on her knee,
Finger marked pages of Rackham's Hans Anderson,
Time for the children to come down to tea.
Oh! Fullers angel-cake, Robertson's marmalade,
Liberty lampshade, come shine on us all,
My! what a spread for the friends of Myfanwy,
Some in the alcove and some in the hall.
Then what sardines in half-lighted passages!
Locking of fingers in long hide-and-seek.
You will protect me, my silken Myfanwy,
Ring leader, tom-boy, and chum to the weak.
By John Betjeman.
Words
by Franz Wright
I don't know where they come from.
I can summon them
(sometimes I can)
into my mind,
into my fingers,
I don't know why. Or I'll suddenly hear them
walking, sometimes
waking—
they don't often come when I need them.
When I need them most terribly,
never.
I am not wise, and, to feed your spite, I shall never be so. And so demand of me, not that I should be equal to the best, but that I should be better than the wicked: I am satisfied if each day I make some reduction in the number of my vices and find fault with my mistakes. - Seneca.
Quote from: karlhenning on December 07, 2015, 01:44:40 AM
as to some rare concert
we listened to the rainfall
at first it tapped out
the march of time
until she took her mother's clock away
smothering time in blankets
the rainfall said
i know i got up late and all
is it really still just today
or a brighter tomorrow already
i could listen more closely
after she trimmed my beard
i thought i heard the rain say
how about some tea
seems it might have been
my wife
for all the flowers on the table
i couldn't get to the kettle
helpless i watched it boil
steam falling up to the sky
(... chopin on majorca)
Not bad, but I think I like the Prelude better. :)
Quote from: jochanaan on February 05, 2016, 07:08:51 PM
Not bad, but I think I like the Prelude better. :)
Why? Does it say the same things in a better way?
The rhyming translation I saw of this classic by
Eino Leino online was just bad... and so I translated the whole poem myself.
The Smiling ApolloThus did I sing to my dead mother
And mother understood me there
She pressed a kiss on my forehead
And pulled me in her arms:
"Who believe in truth, who in dream -
Whichever, as long as you believe!
Your belief is the root to your truth.
Believe, my boy, in your dream!"
How I would have liked to stay
With her, so much to stay I wished
Along Tuonela's streams so cool,
But the Faiths decided otherwise.
For one last time she pointed me
As she alone knew how to point.
Again stood I by the shore of life,
But this time I was another man.
Now come you sorrows and strifes,
And you'll get it right on your mouth!
Now of iron are my tendons,
Now my bones are all one bone.
Look, Apollo, who smiles,
He's not defeated by Olymp and its gods,
Not Tartarus, Pluto, nor Poseidon.
The power of a smile is unbeaten.
Seas are foaming, skies thundering,
Apollo arrives, smiling.
And look! Thunder silences,
Wind stops still, waves hide.
He with his smile rules the world,
He with his song brings under his rule,
And his song high, loving is.
Love's strength is unbeaten.
When ghosts trouble your mind,
Make love! - and ghosts vanquish.
When sorrws your soul have blackene,
Make love! - and they turn to joy.
And if you are ashamed by an enemy,
With Love break the strife's root
And look, he turns his face away,
As if he himself was ashamed.
Who among us can resist love?
Who is not won by love's tongue?
It is heard in heaven and in earth
And in air and in human mind.
And hearts stone cold it heats
Fallen, decayed tree trunks it lifts
And woves in them leaves, flowers,
And new dreams.
No man is bad in themselves,
But weaker some than others.
Much good is in breast of each,
Not always does it shine through.
Smile itself already half a virtue is,
And who is mean, cries not;
Where men feel with their hearts,
There close to them is also God.
O, give me, Lord, our Sun's strings,
To me your grace's golden tongues,
And I'd play the song of reconcile
So we'd together bring different minds.
No judgement passes him who understands.
But song also explains hearts,
And brings people cloers together.
Along it goes God's path.
Oh, happy one, who wake
Up these forces could!
Oh people, understand each other,
So you would not be so hard!
Why cannot we all be one?
And if one broke, others would support.
Oh, people, accept each other
So great, great is the earth.
Here is room for everyone,
Farms to be turned by plow,
Fields for the maids' singing
And woods for lads' fighting.
Look, love opens the world.
Oh, people - love one another.
And towards the heavens reach!
So small, small is the earth.
So small, small are the rounds of earth,
But heaven is great and wide
And heaven is glowing in it height
And heaven is sky-filled, tight.
One is there of heavens, just on God,
Each of us has in their soul,
And heaven is peace after work done.
It stops ghosts of the night.
Your mind if turns to sadness
In life's long country paths,
Fence a farm or two
And happiness you find there.
And world, however it changes,
If to day or clouds your life goes,
One thing, one is sure all the time:
Work's happiness is the true one.
O, echo, harp, thoughout the earth,
Ring, my play from house to house,
Into the cabin as to king's castle
Calling all to join in the great war!
Oh, echo, ringing beautifully, harp,
Oh, tingle gently, my heart,
Oh, beat for once for the day
The joys of works praising!
That house, whose gate's sign reads
"This house is a house of work"
That house is sacred and safe,
And fears not the night.
Let your work be great or small,
As long as it's the right kind of work
And as long it's not done for the pay!
Work with pleasure rewards.
The toiler with joy it does reward
And worker with a sound health,
Work tempers ill desires
With a heart entirely pure.
Oh, the peace after the workday.
Good angels guard the worker's night
And young, strong, rises he
Again to a new-born day.
Oh, give, Lord, a loving weather,
As the worker's day turns to night!
Good angels, smile upon him,
When the worker's grave is ready!
Oh, let it shine bright, the new day,
As ends the worker's restlessness
And stops the long daywork!
Lord, lighten our trouble's night!
Many faiths there are on the Earth
And one another thanks,
But for the singer there is one
And enough it is for him:
The love there is in ourselves,
That much in us is eternal
And that much also remains of us,
As ends this day of ours.
And one thing I know for sure,
When there is no path to be found
Everyone must work.
Trees are shaken for its fruits.
A faith that doesn't teach this,
That faith we don't need here,
It's the faith of wraiths, of ghosts,
Not the faith of men.
Who knows where we come from
And where our journey ends?
Good it is to study these, too.
The study is not wrong.
But one thing we know for sure alone:
We are once here now on this earth
And here wer are to live,
However we best can.
We are all aboard a ship now
And we plow the great ocean.
We were born with trouble
And we will die with trouble.
But that, that in their between,
May it been of warmth, of love!
When in snowstorm pair two in one,
The going is that much lighter.
But we do not go in snowstorm,
When we really think of it.
Though we all live on the earth,
We surely aren't bound to the earth.
So much more there is here than
Soil, there's beauty, gold even,
When we really, really look for it.
So beautiful, beatiful is earth.
Oh, look how the waves do
So beautifully the shores snuggle!
Oh, hear, how the birds
So beautifully in the grove sing!
Oh, have you seen the evening moon
And heard whispers of the forest tree
Over whom white cotton clouds
In the summer sky sail?
Or have you ever pressed your
Head against summer's grass,
As the cricket were chirping
And the thrushes were singing?
Bluebells, I doubt that they were swinging,
Shrikes, I doubt that they were floating,
And did the flowers scent in their thousands?
That scent you won't forget.
And have you ever gone to the
Shore of the lake in the morn,
As the sun has risen from its waves
And shone to the white sands?
Did the water glimmer calmly mirroring,
Amids the fog did there rise, clearing
Fairytale islands, capes mist-covered?
That haze you forget will not.
Oh, have you then sensed
In earth's nature the world's Creator?
Oh, have you then found
Shelter from the night's ghosts?
And have you then cried
And been good and smiled,
Oh, have you then loved?
That love you won't forget.
Oh, have you then loved
The girl dark-haired
And have you then loved
Every tree and every flower?
And was each man a brother?
Did joy glimmer in eyes of all?
And did each face shine on it:
So beautiful, beautiful is earth.
They who love one person,
They love everyone.
Who once can forget themselves,
Their dreams shall joyful be.
Who once is happy themselves,
Wishes each man to be happy
And gives and gives and gives more
From their joy's treasures.
What of it, if she loves you not,
Tto whom you your love gave!
She did give you life, and a picture
Most beautiful did you carry.
And even if she did claim your life
Back, you would go merrily to
Your death, praising God in hymns,
As so beautiful beautiful was earth.
Oh, thank you Lord graceful,
For each moment I lived,
For giving me a healthy body,
And a heart that beated,
For giving two healthy hands,
Two eyes as windows for my soul,
And a spirit senstive and open,
Which sleeps in the wind.
Thee I thank mercyful God,
For givng me a good home,
A mother so gentle and sweet,
And a dad so deep in guts,
For giving two friends, too
And good ones, too, I ask no more.
And you gave me a dear fatherland,
To plow and love.
And thanks last and finally,
For giving the gift of song,
When joys and sorrows of a child
Thus on wings of music you carried,
That from you, you alone I received
And for you for that I answer alone
And for my bread I make my living,
How did I employ my harp
Ring, sparkle, wanderer's harp!
Split the waves for the singer's path!
Blow the sails full and puffy,
Leave a glimmering behind you!
And though waves took me young,
They didn't sink him who sung,
Whim who sunk in waves of song,
And in his love's dreams.
It rows on the back of dolphins
And of its love do the waves sing
And with Nereids and naiads
It rides on the waves of time.
Oh, start your song, young man!
For soon the shores freeze
And old age, leaning on a cane, comes.
Let your harp-strings ring out loud!a reading in Finnish:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3Bsh8EYijc
The original:
QuoteHymyilevä apollo
Näin lauloin ma kuolleelle äidillein
ja äiti mun ymmärsi heti.
Hän painoi suukkosen otsallein
ja sylihinsä mun veti:
"Ken uskovi toteen, ken unelmaan, -
sama se, kun täysin sa uskot vaan!
Sun uskos se juuri on totuutes.
Usko poikani unehes!"
Miten mielelläin, niin mielelläin
hänen luoksensa jäänyt oisin
luo Tuonen virtojen viileäin,
mut kohtalot päätti toisin.
Vielä viimeisen kerran viittasi hän
kuin hän vain viitata tiesi.
Taas seisoin ma rannalla elämän,
mut nyt olin toinen miesi.
Nyt tulkaa te murheet ja vastukset,
niin saatte te vasten suuta!
Nyt raudasta mulla on jänteret,
nyt luuni on yhtä luuta.
Kas, Apolloa, joka hymyilee,
sitä voita ei Olympo jumalineen,
ei Tartarus, Pluto, ei Poseidon.
Hymyn voima on voittamaton.
Meri pauhaa, ukkonen jylisee,
Apollo saapuu ja hymyy.
Ja katso! Ukkonen vaikenee,
tuul' laantuu, lainehet lymyy.
Hän hymyllä maailman hallitsee,
hän laululla valtansa vallitsee,
ja laulunsa korkea, lempeä on.
Lemmen voima on voittamaton.
Kun aavehet mieltäsi ahdistaa,
niin lemmi! - ja aavehet haihtuu.
Kun murheet sun sielusi mustaks saa,
niin lemmi! - ja iloks ne vaihtuu.
Ja jos sua häpäisee vihamies,
niin lemmellä katko sen kaunan ies
ja katso, hän kasvonsa kääntää pois
kuin itse hän hävennyt ois.
Kuka taitavi lempeä vastustaa?
Ketä voita ei lemmen kieli?
Sitä kuulee taivas ja kuulee maa
ja ilma ja ihmismieli.
Kas, povet se aukovi paatuneet,
se rungot nostavi maatuneet
ja kutovi lehtihin, kukkasiin
ja uusihin unelmiin.
Ei paha ole kenkään ihminen,
vaan toinen on heikompi toista.
Paljon hyvää on rinnassa jokaisen,
vaikk' ei aina esille loista.
Kas, hymy jo puoli on hyvettä
ja itkeä ei voi ilkeä;
miss' ihmiset tuntevat tuntehin,
siellä lähell' on Jumalakin.
Oi, antaos, Herra sa auringon,
mulle armosi kultaiset kielet,
niin soittaisin laulua sovinnon,
ett' yhtehen sais eri mielet.
Ei tuomitse se, joka ymmärtää.
Mut laulukin syömiä selittää
ja ihmiset toistansa lähemmä vie.
Sen kautta käy Jumalan tie.
Oi, onnellinen, joka herättää
niitä voimia hyviä voisi!
Oi, ihmiset toistanne ymmärtäkää,
niin ette niin kovat oisi!
Miks emme me kaikki yhtyä vois?
Ja yksi jos murtuis, muut tukena ois.
Oi, ihmiset toistanne suvaitkaa!
Niin suuri, suuri on maa.
Tääll' on toki tilaa kaikillen.
On ketoja auran kääntää,
on lehtoja laulella neitojen
ja saloja sulhojen vääntää.
Kas, lempi se maailman levittää.
Oi, ihmiset toistanne lempikää
ja kohti taivasta tavoittakaa!
Niin pieni, pieni on maa.
Niin pienet, pienet on piirit maan,
mut taivas on suuri ja laaja
ja taivas on kuultava korkeuttaan
ja taivas on tähtinen, taaja.
Yks vaan on taivas, yks Jumala vaan,
on jokaisella se sielussaan,
ja taivas on rauha täytetyn työn.
Se estävi aavehet yön.
Sun mieles jos kääntyvi murheisaks
elon pitkillä pientaroilla,
niin aitaa sarka ja aitaa kaks
ja onnes sa löydät noilla.
Ja maailma kuinka se muuttuukin,
käy elosi päivään tai pilvihin,
niin yksi, yksi on varma ain:
työn onni on oikea vain.
Oi, kaikuos kantelo kautta maan,
soi soittoni kodasta kotaan,
niin mökkiin kuin linnahan kuninkaan
kaikk' kutsuen suurehen sotaan!
Oi, kaikuos kauniisti kantelein,
oi, helise hellästi sydämein,
oi, sykkiös kerrankin päivähän päin
työn onnea ylistäin!
Se talo, min portilla kilpi on:
"Tässä talossa tehdään työtä"
Se talo on pyhä ja pelvoton
ja pelkää ei se yötä.
Työs olkoon se suurta tai pientä vaan,
kun vaan se työtä on oikeaa
ja kun sitä palkan et tähden tee!
Työ riemulla palkitsee.
Se raatajan riemulla palkitsee
ja tekijän terveydellä,
työ himoja huonoja hillitsee
niin puhtaalla sydämellä.
Oi, rauhaa päätetyn päivätyön!
Hyvät enkelit suojaavat työmiehen yön
ja nuorena, vankkana nousevi hän
taas uutehen päivähän.
Oi, antaos Herra sa armas sää,
kun raatajan ilta raukee!
Hyvät enkelit kauniisti hymyilkää,
kun työmiehen hauta aukee!
Oi, nouskosi kirkasna päivyt uus,
kun loppuvi raatajan rauhattomuus
ja päättyvi pitkä päivätyö!
Herra, valkase vaivamme yö!
On monta uskoa päällä maan
ja toinen toista kiittää,
mut laulajalla yks usko on vaan
ja hälle se saapi riittää:
Min verran meissä on lempeä,
sen verran meissä on ijäistä
ja sen verran meistä myös jälelle jää,
kun päättyvi päivä tää.
Ja yhden ma varman tiedän sen,
kun löydy ei tietä mistään:
On työtä tehtävä jokaisen.
Puu tutaan hedelmistään.
Se usko, ken sitä ei opeta,
sitä uskoa täällä ei tarvita,
se on uskoa usmien, haamujen,
ei uskoa ihmisten.
Kuka tietävi, mistä me tulemme
ja missä on matkamme määrä?
Hyvä että me sitäkin tutkimme.
Ei tutkimus ole väärä.
Mut yhden me tiedämme varmaan vaan:
Me olemme kerran nyt päällä maan
ja täällä meidän on eläminen,
miten taidamme parhaiten.
Me olemme kaikki nyt laivalla
ja kynnämme suurta merta.
Me synnytettiin vaivalla
ja vaivalla kuolemme kerta.
Mut se, mikä siinä on välillä,
se olkohon lämpöä, lempeä!
Kas, tuiskussa yhteen kun yhtyvi kaks,
käy kulkukin helpommaks.
Mut emmehän tuiskussa kuljekaan,
kun oikein me aattelemme.
Vaikk' elämme kaikki me päällä maan,
niin maassa tok' kiini emme.
Tääll' onhan niin paljon muutakin
kuin multaa, on kaunista, kultaakin,
kun oikein, oikein me etsimme vaan.
Niin kaunis, kaunis on maa.
Oi, katsokaa, miten lainehet
niin kauniisti rantoja kaulaa!
Oi, kuunnelkaa, miten lintuset
niin kauniisti lehdossa laulaa!
Oi, ootteko nähnehet illan kuun
ja kuullehet kuisketta metsän puun,
min ylitse valkeat hattarat
suvitaivaalla vaeltavat?
Tai ootteko koskaan te painaneet
pään kesäistä nurmea vastaan,
kun heinäsirkat on helisseet
ja raikunut laulu rastaan?
Sinikellot tokko ne keinuivat,
lepinkäiset tokko ne leijuivat,
ja tuoksuiko kukkaset tuhannet? -
Sitä tuoksua unhota et.
Ja ootteko mennehet milloinkaan
te aamulla järven rantaan,
kun aurinko noussut on aalloistaan
ja paistanut valkosantaan?
Vesi välkkyikö tyynenä heijastuin,
sumun keskeltä nousiko seijastuin
sadun saaret, niemet ne terheniset? -
Sitä utua unhota et.
Oi, ootteko silloin te tunteneet
maan luonnossa maailman Luojan?
Oi, ootteko silloin te löytäneet
yön aaveilta armahan suojan?
Ja ootteko silloin te itkeneet
ja hyviä olleet ja hymyilleet,
oi, ootteko silloin te lempinehet? -
Sitä lempeä unhota et.
Oi, ootteko silloin te lempineet
sitä tyttöä tummatukkaa
ja ootteko silloin te rakastaneet
joka puuta ja joka kukkaa?
Ja oliko veli joka ihminen?
Ilo loistiko silmistä jokaisen?
Ja oliko kaikilla kasvoillaan:
Niin kaunis, kaunis on maa.
Ken yhtä ihmistä rakastaa,
se kaikkia rakastaapi.
Ken kerran voi itsensä unhoittaa,
se unten onnen saapi.
Ken kerran itse on onnellinen,
se tahtois onnehen jokaisen
ja antaa ja antaa ja antaa vaan
oman onnensa aarteistaan.
Mitä siitä jos hän sua lemmi ei,
sa jolle lempesi annoit!
Hän antoihan sulle elämän
ja kuvaa sa kaunista kannoit.
Ja vaikka hän vaatisi elämäs taas,
niin kulkeos riemulla kuolemaas
ja julista virsillä Jumalaa,
kun kaunis niin oli maa.
Oi, kiitos sa Luojani armollinen
joka hetkestä, jonka ma elin,
kun annoit sa ruumihin tervehen
ja syömen mi sykähteli,
kun annoit sa tervettä kättä kaks,
kaks silmää sieluni ikkunaks,
ja hengen herkän ja avoimen
joka tuutia tuulosen.
Sua kiitän mä Luojani armollinen,
kun annoit sa kodin hyvän,
soit äidin niin hellän ja herttaisen
ja taaton niin tarmoa syvän,
kun annoit sa myös pari ystävää
ja ne hyvää, en pyydä ma enempää,
ja annoit sa armahan isäinmaan,
jota kyntää ja rakastaa.
Ja kiitospa vihdoin viimeinen,
kun laulun lahjan sa annoit,
kun riemut ja murheet lapsosen
näin sävelten siivillä kannoit,
sen sulta, sulta ma yksin sain
ja sulle siitä mä vastaan vain
ja leiviskästäni tilin teen,
miten käytin mä kanteleen.
Soi, helise kulkijan kannel vain!
Halo aaltoja laulajan haaksi!
Käy purjehin täysin ja pullistuvain,
jätä välkkyvä jälki taaksi!
Ja vaikka mun nuorena laineet vei,
niin eipä se hukkahan vaipunut, ei,
joka upposi laulujen laineisiin
ja lempensä unelmiin.
Se soutavi seljässä delfiinein
ja sen lempeä lainehet laulaa
ja kanssa Vellamon impyein
se aikojen aalloilla kaulaa.
Oi, viritä virtesi, nuori mies!
Voi, pian se riittyvi rinnan lies
ja vanhuus jo sauvoilla hoippuen saa.
Anna kanteles kajahtaa!
Oh, and this hit a nerve as I happened upon it around the time of the UK vote...
Henry Carey: A Lilliputian Ode on Their Majesties' Accession (1727)
Smile , smile,
Blest isle!
Grief past,
At last,
Halcyon
Comes on.
New King,
Bells ring;
New Queen,
Blest scene!
Britain
Again
Revives
And thrives.
Fear flies,
Stocks rise;
Wealth flows,
Art grows.
Strange pack
Sent back;
Own folks
Crack jokes.
Those out
May pout;
Those in
Will grin.
Great, small,
Pleased all.
God send
No end
To line
Divine
Of George and Caroline!
"We would know a good many things better if we did not want to know them too precisely. After all, an object becomes comprehensible to us only at an angle of less than forty-five degrees."
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/55909 (https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/55909)
"Sight is the noblest of the senses: the other four instruct us only through the organs of touch: we hear, we perceive, smell, and feel everything by way of contact. Sight, however, stands infinitely higher, rises above matter, and approaches the capabilities of mind." Goethe
Quote from: Alberich on January 12, 2017, 07:37:26 AM
"Sight is the noblest of the senses: the other four instruct us only through the organs of touch: we hear, we perceive, smell, and feel everything by way of contact. Sight, however, stands infinitely higher, rises above matter, and approaches the capabilities of mind." Goethe
What contact is needed for hearing, I wonder?
I dunno, though we have to remember this was written at the latest in the beginning of the 19th century when many facts how human body works, were still unknown. This could have been a mistake on Goethe's part. :P
Quote from: Alberich on January 12, 2017, 07:43:22 AM
I dunno, though we have to remember this was written at the latest in the beginning of the 19th century when many facts how human body works, were still unknown. This could have been a mistake on Goethe's part. :P
It´s a rather strange assertion of his. The only senses that need some contact are taste and feel and I doubt he wasn´t aware of that. :)
Or maybe he was getting senile?
Quote from: Florestan on January 12, 2017, 07:40:32 AM
What contact is needed for hearing, I wonder?
Contact with the vibrating
medium, usually air...
Goethe didn't know about photons. ::)
Quote from: North Star on January 12, 2017, 08:00:01 AM
Contact with the vibrating medium, usually air... Goethe didn't know about photons. ::)
I
knew you were going to come in with that answer. 8) ;D
Quote from: North Star on January 12, 2017, 08:00:01 AM
Contact with the vibrating medium, usually air... Goethe didn't know about photons. ::)
Photons not, but visible light beams were everywhere in his time as in ours, and they were usually carried and refracted by the same air. Even in the light (pun) of the contemporary level of knowledge the quiote makes no sense. ;D
Not the first time Goethe messed up. His Theory of Colours is fascinating, but not exactly scientifically accurate. IIRC, even during his lifetime his views about that were questioned but he was of the opinion that Theory of Colours was his magnum opus.
Quote from: Alberich on January 12, 2017, 08:15:08 AM
Not the first time Goethe messed up. His Theory of Colours is fascinating, but not exactly scientifically accurate. IIRC, even during his lifetime his views about that were questioned but he was of the opinion that Theory of Colours was his magnum opus.
http://www.webexhibits.org/colorart/ch.html (http://www.webexhibits.org/colorart/ch.html)
Goethe's theory of the constitution of colours of the spectrum has not proved to be an unsatisfactory theory, rather it really isn't a theory at all. Nothing can be predicted with it. It is, rather a vague schematic outline of the sort we find in James's psychology. Nor is there any experimentum crucis which could decide for or against the theory.—
Ludwig Wittgenstein :laugh:
The Farbenlehre was not meant to be a scientific theory in the narrower sense. The elevation of sight as the most important sense is prevalent in Western thought since Plato's Cave and Sun metaphors and Aristotle (on the first page of the Metaphysics he takes as anecdotal evidence for the thesis that humans are striving for knowledge by their nature the joy even children exhibit when visually perceiving colorful forms). To see and to know has the same root in many indoeuropean languages: *vid*: videre, visio, wissen, eidos, idea, wisdom, wit, evident etc. (Granted, there is also a similar important field of knowledge words based on variants meaning grasp or some other tactile interaction.)
This has often been contrasted with the focus on *hearing/listening* in the Old Testament and the Jewish religion.
So Goethe belongs to a long tradition which is probably more important for this passage than scientific precision.
"This is the battle between day and night... I see black light." Allegedly Victor Hugo's last words.
The observer is a prince enjoying his incognito wherever he goes. The lover of life makes the whole world into his family, just as the lover of the fair sex creates his from all the lovely women he has found, from those that could not be found, and those who are impossible to find, just as the picture-lover lives in an enchanted world of dreams painted on canvas.
Baudelaire.
"He might not have respected my life. But he did what none of my own countrymen had ever done, in all my experience of them — he respected my time."
Wilkie Collins
Quote from: NikF on March 17, 2017, 03:17:49 PMjust as the lover of the fair sex creates his [world] from all the lovely women he has found, from those that could not be found, and those who are impossible to find...
Oh yeah...
Sarge
Quote from: NikF on March 17, 2017, 03:17:49 PM
The observer is a prince enjoying his incognito wherever he goes. The lover of life makes the whole world into his family, just as the lover of the fair sex creates his from all the lovely women he has found, from those that could not be found, and those who are impossible to find, just as the picture-lover lives in an enchanted world of dreams painted on canvas.
Baudelaire.
I first thought that it wasnt a good translation. In fact, what makes it a bit awkward is that it is out of its context.
with the full text it becomes clear
http://classes.bnf.fr/atget/antho/30.htm (http://classes.bnf.fr/atget/antho/30.htm)
"The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven." John Milton
Cliché to pick this one but I just can't help it: it's too awesome to resist.
Another Goethe quote:
"It is true symbolism when the particular represents the more general."
Been on a Joyce kick over the past couple of days
A corpse is meat gone bad. Well and what's cheese? Corpse of milk.
'The trouble with practical jokes is that very often they get elected.' - Will Rogers
Quote from: North Star on May 02, 2017, 10:30:03 AM
'The trouble with practical jokes is that very often they get elected.' - Will Rogers
Including this most horribly impractical of practical jokes.
Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk
Yet another Victor Hugo quote from me, but I couldn't resist, finding this most excellent one from Ninety-Three. Cannot wait to read the book itself.
"Whatever causes night in our souls may leave stars."
My Wife wrote a poem on Chris Cornell's death pieced together from fan comments on YouTube
LAST SHOW
Such a waste
So sad
Being held down
By some intense pressure
Jaws grinding hard and eyes pinned
Going through the motions
Strangely inconsistent
The pain that caused the noose
Why great people fall to Earth
Enter into glory
Clearly something is wrong
Holy shit
Rest in peace
Too soon for me to watch
Maybe next week
http://unlostjournal.com/last-show/
Where the mountain meets the sea
Where the bird flies to its nest with a bee
Where the flowers grow on beaches
Where the snowfall seldom reaches
There I wish you'd live with me
discovering together how happy life can be.
~ ~ ~
Throughout the day, sunlight traces
The shapes in this room, and faces
Run through my mind – they all answer to your name:
Smiling, crying, silly faces, all of them the same,
And all of them changing, as the room in sunlight:
soft smiles of dawn change to laughter, shining bright
in the afternoon, lingering, softening before the night,
And disappearing in the dark – but your shadow is light.
Oh my. Heartfelt indeed.
Good on ya and thanks for posting that, North Star.
Michael Crichton
Quote
Like a bearded nut in robes on the sidewalk proclaiming the end of the world is near, the media is just doing what makes it feel good, not reporting hard facts. We need to start seeing the media as a bearded nut on the sidewalk, shouting out false fears. It's not sensible to listen to it.
From
2002
Child of the pure unclouded brow
And dreaming eyes of wonder!
Though time be fleet, and I and thou
Are half a life asunder,
Thy loving smile will surely hail
The love-gift of a fairy-tale.
I have not seen thy sunny face,
Nor heard thy silver laughter;
No thought of me shall find a place
In thy young life's hereafter——
Enough that now thou wilt not fail
To listen to my fairy-tale.
A tale begun in other days,
When summer suns were glowing——
A simple chime, that served to time
The rhythm of our rowing——
Whose echoes live in memory yet,
Though envious years would say 'forget.'
Come, hearken then, ere voice of dread,
With bitter tidings laden,
Shall summon to unwelcome bed
A melancholy maiden!
We are but older children, dear,
Who fret to find our bedtime near.
Without, the frost, the blinding snow.
The storm-wind's moody madness——
Within, the firelight's ruddy glow.
And childhood's nest of gladness.
The magic words shall hold thee fast:
Thou shalt not heed the raving blast.
And though the shadow of a sigh
May tremble through the story,
For 'happy summer days' gone by,
And vanish'd summer glory——
It shall not touch with breath of bale
The pleasance of our fairy-tale.
Lewis Carroll - Preface to Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There
Quote from: Ken B on June 25, 2017, 02:19:38 PM
Michael Crichton
From 2002
Similar criticisms were in the air in the early '70s.
"...the media is just doing what makes it feel good" is a peculiar pathetic fallacy, isn't it? Maybe Crichton just wrote that to make himself feel good 0:)
In a world of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
- Orwell.
Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.
- Orwell.
The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.
- Orwell.
Alas, that these are so very timely in the US.
Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on August 14, 2017, 06:41:16 AM
Alas, that these are so very timely in the US.
Hopefully enough citizens are waking up to the dangers of the path commenced upon; and can respond accordingly.
Freddie DeBoer
QuoteContemporary political culture is an autoimmune disorder.
Freddie DeBoer
QuoteYou simply cannot say, in polite society, "basic fairness requires us to avoid a rush to judgment and to give people the right to respond to accusations." To do so gets you lumped in with the criminals. Like a friend of mine said, "the only acceptable reaction to an accusation is enthusiastic and unqualified acceptance."
Usually I find DeBoer over the top. Not feeling that way today.
Both quotes from https://medium.com/@freddiedeboer/planet-of-cops-8917cfc01fc9 (https://medium.com/@freddiedeboer/planet-of-cops-8917cfc01fc9)
"It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but that you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it." Arthur Conan Doyle
"I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity." - Edgar Allan Poe
Quote from: Florestan on January 12, 2017, 08:21:10 AM
http://www.webexhibits.org/colorart/ch.html (http://www.webexhibits.org/colorart/ch.html)
Goethe's theory of the constitution of colours of the spectrum has not proved to be an unsatisfactory theory, rather it really isn't a theory at all. Nothing can be predicted with it. It is, rather a vague schematic outline of the sort we find in James's psychology. Nor is there any experimentum crucis which could decide for or against the theory.
— Ludwig Wittgenstein
:laugh:
I know this is an old post but I have to point out that "Theory of colours" is bit of a mistranslation, the word "Lehre" translates in english more correctly as "doctrine" rather than "theory". Although the point still stands that the entire work is complete (well-written) nonsense.
QuoteYou gotta feel for the Pope, tripping over all those abused kids as he lunges for a mic to talk about U.S. border policy.
Anonymous
Thanks to immersing myself in Nikolai Medtner's music and thoughts I discovered this marvelous poem by Mikhail Lermontov.
The Angel
Across the dark sky came the angel in flight
Who sang a soft song through the night.
And stars and the moon and the clouds in their throng
Gave ear to that heavenly song.
He sang of immaculate spirits that move
In bliss in the Heavenly Grove,
He sang of the Lord of All Things, every phrase
Unfeigned in that purest of praise.
He bore in his arms a young soul toward its birth,
To sorrow and tears of this earth.
And in that young soul the great sound of his song
Remained without words now, but strong.
And long did it languish on earth in its time
Replete with a yearning sublime,
A soul that knew tones of the heavenly race
No dull tune of earth could replace.
(Transl. by A. Z. Foreman)
Herman's Hermits laid the groundwork, prepared the foundation, carried the bricks and mortar, measured (twice) and cut (once) the woodwork, painted the walls, planted the landscaping, cut the grass, shoveled the snow, and did all of the heavy lifting for all of the other pop stars who followed in their tracks...
No Herman's Hermits - No Frank Sinatra
No Herman's Hermits - No Maria Callas
No Herman's Hermits - No Elvis Presley
No Herman's Hermits - No Bob Dylan
No Herman's Hermits - No Beatles
No Herman's Hermits - No Madonna
No Herman's Hermits - No Dexys Midnight Runners - No Culture Club - No Nena (99 Luftballons)
Now that I've settled that to everyone's satisfaction, let's move on, eh?
End of story...
The following lines are by Shakespeare (in case the name "Iago" doesn't make that obvious ::))
Brabantio: "Thou art a villain."
Iago: You are--a senator.
Quote from: Erinofskye on December 18, 2011, 10:49:42 AM
My turn to be brave. My writings are deeply emotional as I'm sure every writers are. This particular poem was written some time ago, during a very hard time in my life. It's one of my favorites. The focus was the feeling rather than form....
The Pit
Swirling black
Hungry
For me
Once I am in
There's no going back
I reach out
But there's no one there
To save me from myself
Strength to save myself
I am at a lack
But in this Pit there is light
Light I can feel
But cannot yet see
As I careen into this Pit
Falling like a stone
I find my reason
I find it and take it back
The Pit is my constant companion
Always at my side
Taunting and threatening
This ride I am on
Seems to never end
Yet somehow I arise again
To face the darkness
Looking for the light
Feeling it
Yet never seeing
But I will go on
Arising from the Pit like the Phoenix
From these ashes I will find the light
~Reena
Sorry you've left the forum, Erinofskye. I found that stirring. :)
Here's a poem by Philip Larkin that I like very much.
The Whitsun Weddings (1958)
That Whitsun, I was late getting away:
Not till about
One-twenty on the sunlit Saturday
Did my three-quarters-empty train pull out,
All windows down, all cushions hot, all sense
Of being in a hurry gone. We ran
Behind the backs of houses, crossed a street
Of blinding windscreens, smelt the fish-dock; thence
The river's level drifting breadth began,
Where sky and Lincolnshire and water meet.
All afternoon, through the tall heat that slept
For miles inland,
A slow and stopping curve southwards we kept.
Wide farms went by, short-shadowed cattle, and
Canals with floatings of industrial froth;
A hothouse flashed uniquely: hedges dipped
And rose: and now and then a smell of grass
Displaced the reek of buttoned carriage-cloth
Until the next town, new and nondescript,
Approached with acres of dismantled cars.
At first, I didn't notice what a noise
The weddings made
Each station that we stopped at: sun destroys
The interest of what's happening in the shade,
And down the long cool platforms whoops and skirls
I took for porters larking with the mails,
And went on reading. Once we started, though,
We passed them, grinning and pomaded, girls
In parodies of fashion, heels and veils,
All posed irresolutely, watching us go.
As if out on the end of an event
Waving goodbye
To something that survived it. Struck, I leant
More promptly out next time, more curiously,
And saw it all again in different terms:
The fathers with broad belts under their suits
And seamy foreheads; mothers loud and fat;
An uncle shouting smut; and then the perms,
The nylon gloves and jewelry-substitutes,
The lemons, mauves, and olive-ochers that
Marked off the girls unreally from the rest.
Yes, from cafes
And banquet-halls up yards, and bunting-dressed
Coach-party annexes, the wedding-days
Were coming to an end. All down the line
Fresh couples climbed aboard: the rest stood round;
The last confetti and advice were thrown,
And, as we moved, each face seemed to define
Just what it saw departing: children frowned
At something dull; fathers had never known
Success so huge and wholly farcical;
The women shared
The secret like a happy funeral;
While girls, gripping their handbags tighter, stared
At a religious wounding. Free at last,
And loaded with the sum of all they saw,
We hurried towards London, shuffling gouts of steam.
Now fields were building-plots, and poplars cast
Long shadows over major roads, and for
Some fifty minutes, that in time would seem
Just long enough to settle hats and say
I nearly died,
A dozen marriages got under way.
They watched the landscape, sitting side by side
--An Odeon went past, a cooling tower,
And someone running up to bowl--and none
Thought of the others they would never meet
Or how their lives would all contain this hour.
I thought of London spread out in the sun,
Its postal districts packed like squares of wheat:
There we were aimed. And as we raced across
Bright knots of rail
Past standing Pullmans, walls of blackened moss
Came close, and it was nearly done, this frail
Traveling coincidence; and what it held
Stood ready to be loosed with all the power
That being changed can give. We slowed again,
And as the tightened brakes took hold, there swelled
A sense of falling, like an arrow-shower
Sent out of sight, somewhere becoming rain.
Found on a display at a fort on the Sagres peninsula, south-west Portugal. By Portugal's "national poet", Fernando Pessoa. The title is "Horizonte" (Horizon), although this didn't actually appear on the display. No translator is credited, and it's not much like any other Pessoa I've read (in fact, I found myself thinking "Louis MacNeice"). Anyway, here it is:
Oh ocean preceding us, your fears
Had coral and beaches and forests to them.
Were the night and fog unveiled,
The past's storms and mystery,
The Afar would blossom, and the starlit South
Shine resplendent on the ship of initiation.
Austere line of the distant coast -
Upon the ship's approach, the slope of the land rises
In trees with nothing Far about them;
Closer by, the earth opens up in sounds and colours:
And upon landing, there are birds and flowers
Where from afar there was only an abstract line.
The dream is to see the invisible forms
Of imprecise distances, and, with sensitive
Movements of hope and will,
To seek out in the cold line of the horizon
The tree, the beach, the flower, the bird, the fountain -
The much-deserved caresses of Truth.
The original has an aabccb rhyme-scheme, but otherwise I thought it worked quite well as a translation.
Bumping this thread based on the following recommendation by Jeffrey [Vandermolen]
The Darkling Thrush
[BY THOMAS HARDY]
I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-grey,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.
The land's sharp features seemed to be
The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.
At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.
So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.
In an episode of the Lewis TV series DI Lewis and DS Hathaway recite. together three verses which instantly caught my attention and piqued my interest. Google helped me to quickly identify the poem and its author. Here it is this gem (the three verses which got me into it are highlighted).
The Castaway
By William Cowper
Obscurest night involv'd the sky,
Th' Atlantic billows roar'd,
When such a destin'd wretch as I,
Wash'd headlong from on board,
Of friends, of hope, of all bereft,
His floating home for ever left.
No braver chief could Albion boast
Than he with whom he went,
Nor ever ship left Albion's coast,
With warmer wishes sent.
He lov'd them both, but both in vain,
Nor him beheld, nor her again.
Not long beneath the whelming brine,
Expert to swim, he lay;
Nor soon he felt his strength decline,
Or courage die away;
But wag'd with death a lasting strife,
Supported by despair of life.
He shouted: nor his friends had fail'd
To check the vessel's course,
But so the furious blast prevail'd,
That, pitiless perforce,
They left their outcast mate behind,
And scudded still before the wind.
Some succour yet they could afford;
And, such as storms allow,
The cask, the coop, the floated cord,
Delay'd not to bestow.
But he (they knew) nor ship, nor shore,
Whate'er they gave, should visit more.
Nor, cruel as it seem'd, could he
Their haste himself condemn,
Aware that flight, in such a sea,
Alone could rescue them;
Yet bitter felt it still to die
Deserted, and his friends so nigh.
He long survives, who lives an hour
In ocean, self-upheld;
And so long he, with unspent pow'r,
His destiny repell'd;
And ever, as the minutes flew,
Entreated help, or cried—Adieu!
At length, his transient respite past,
His comrades, who before
Had heard his voice in ev'ry blast,
Could catch the sound no more.
For then, by toil subdued, he drank
The stifling wave, and then he sank.
No poet wept him: but the page
Of narrative sincere;
That tells his name, his worth, his age,
Is wet with Anson's tear.
And tears by bards or heroes shed
Alike immortalize the dead.
I therefore purpose not, or dream,
Descanting on his fate,
To give the melancholy theme
A more enduring date:
But misery still delights to trace
Its semblance in another's case.
No voice divine the storm allay'd,
No light propitious shone;
When, snatch'd from all effectual aid,
We perish'd, each alone:
But I beneath a rougher sea,
And whelm'd in deeper gulfs than he.
Quote from: Florestan on August 30, 2024, 01:08:32 AMIn an episode of the Lewis TV series DI Lewis and DS Hathaway recite. together three verses which instantly caught my attention and piqued my interest. Google helped me to quickly identify the poem and its author. Here it is this gem (the three verses which got me into it are highlighted).
The Castaway
By William Cowper
Obscurest night involv'd the sky,
Th' Atlantic billows roar'd,
When such a destin'd wretch as I,
Wash'd headlong from on board,
Of friends, of hope, of all bereft,
His floating home for ever left.
No braver chief could Albion boast
Than he with whom he went,
Nor ever ship left Albion's coast,
With warmer wishes sent.
He lov'd them both, but both in vain,
Nor him beheld, nor her again.
Not long beneath the whelming brine,
Expert to swim, he lay;
Nor soon he felt his strength decline,
Or courage die away;
But wag'd with death a lasting strife,
Supported by despair of life.
He shouted: nor his friends had fail'd
To check the vessel's course,
But so the furious blast prevail'd,
That, pitiless perforce,
They left their outcast mate behind,
And scudded still before the wind.
Some succour yet they could afford;
And, such as storms allow,
The cask, the coop, the floated cord,
Delay'd not to bestow.
But he (they knew) nor ship, nor shore,
Whate'er they gave, should visit more.
Nor, cruel as it seem'd, could he
Their haste himself condemn,
Aware that flight, in such a sea,
Alone could rescue them;
Yet bitter felt it still to die
Deserted, and his friends so nigh.
He long survives, who lives an hour
In ocean, self-upheld;
And so long he, with unspent pow'r,
His destiny repell'd;
And ever, as the minutes flew,
Entreated help, or cried—Adieu!
At length, his transient respite past,
His comrades, who before
Had heard his voice in ev'ry blast,
Could catch the sound no more.
For then, by toil subdued, he drank
The stifling wave, and then he sank.
No poet wept him: but the page
Of narrative sincere;
That tells his name, his worth, his age,
Is wet with Anson's tear.
And tears by bards or heroes shed
Alike immortalize the dead.
I therefore purpose not, or dream,
Descanting on his fate,
To give the melancholy theme
A more enduring date:
But misery still delights to trace
Its semblance in another's case.
No voice divine the storm allay'd,
No light propitious shone;
When, snatch'd from all effectual aid,
We perish'd, each alone:
But I beneath a rougher sea,
And whelm'd in deeper gulfs than he.
Ah, great thread. Haven't seen this.