(from Macbeth, spoken by Macbeth)
Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight? or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
In the greenest of our valleys By good angels tenanted, Once a fair and stately palace— Radiant palace—reared its head. In the monarch Thought’s dominion, It stood there! Never seraph spread a pinion Over fabric half so fair!
O zummer clote! when the brook’s a-glidèn So slow an’ smooth down his zedgy bed, Upon thy broad leaves so seäfe a-ridèn The water’s top wi’ thy yollow head, By alder sheädes, O, An’ bulrush beds, O, Thou then dost float, goolden zummer clote!
The grey-bough’d withy’s a leänèn lowly Above the water thy leaves do hide; The bènden bulrush, a-swaÿèn slowly, Do skirt in zummer thy river’s zide; An’ perch in shoals, O, Do vill the holes, O, Where thou dost float, goolden zummer clote!
217 Ambition was my idol, which was broken Before the shrines of Sorrow and of Pleasure; And the two last have left me many a token O'er which reflection may be made at leisure: Now, like Friar Bacon's brazen head, I've spoken, 'Time is, Time was, Time's past', a chymic treasure Is glittering youth, which I have spent betimes— My heart in passion, and my head on rhymes.
Above the fresh ruffles of the surf Bright striped urchins flay each other with sand. They have contrived a conquest for shell shucks, And their fingers crumble fragments of baked weed Gaily digging and scattering.
And in answer to their treble interjections The sun beats lightning on the waves,
Gliding o'er all, through all, Through Nature, Time, and Space, As a ship on the waters advancing, The voyage of the soul—not life alone, Death, many deaths I'll sing.
While that my soul repairs to her devotion, Here I intomb my flesh, that it betimes May take acquaintance of this heap of dust; To which the blast of death's incessant motion, Fed with the exhalation of our crimes, Drives all at last. Therefore I gladly trust
My body to this school, that it may learn To spell his elements, and find his birth Written in dusty heraldry and lines ; Which dissolution sure doth best discern, Comparing dust with dust, and earth with earth. These laugh at jet, and marble put for signs,
See, Winter comes to rule the varied year, Sullen and sad, with all his rising train— Vapours, and clouds, and storms. Be these my theme, These, that exalt the soul to solemn thought And heavenly musing. Welcome, kindred glooms! Congenial horrors, hail! With frequent foot, Pleas’d have I, in my cheerful morn of life, When nurs’d by careless solitude I liv’d And sung of Nature with unceasing joy, Pleas’d have I wander’d through your rough domain; Trod the pure virgin-snows, myself as pure; Heard the winds roar, and the big torrent burst; Or seen the deep-fermenting tempest brew’d In the grim evening-sky. Thus pass’d the time, Till through the lucid chambers of the south
If Heaven has into being deigned to call Thy light, O Liberty! to shine on all; Bright intellectual Sun! why does thy ray To earth distribute only partial day? Since no resisting cause from spirit flows Thy universal presence to oppose; No obstacles by Nature’s hand impressed, Thy subtle and ethereal beams arrest;
The history of my stupidity would fill many volumes.
Some would be devoted to acting against consciousness, Like the flight of a moth which, had it known, Would have tended nevertheless toward the candle’s flame.
Others would deal with ways to silence anxiety, The little whisper which, though it is a warning, is ignored.
I would deal separately with satisfaction and pride, The time when I was among their adherents
My dog has died. I buried him in the garden next to a rusted old machine.
Some day I'll join him right there, but now he's gone with his shaggy coat, his bad manners and his cold nose, and I, the materialist, who never believed in any promised heaven in the sky
America I’ve given you all and now I’m nothing. America two dollars and twentyseven cents January 17, 1956. I can’t stand my own mind. America when will we end the human war? Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb. I don’t feel good don’t bother me. I won’t write my poem till I’m in my right mind. America when will you be angelic?
THE Angel ended, and in Adams Eare So Charming left his voice, that he a while Thought him still speaking, still stood fixt to hear; Then as new wak't thus gratefully repli'd. What thanks sufficient, or what recompence Equal have I to render thee, Divine Hystorian, who thus largely hast allayd The thirst I had of knowledge, and voutsaf't This friendly condescention to relate Things else by me unsearchable, now heard With wonder, but delight, and, as is due, With glorie attributed to the high Creator; something yet of doubt remaines, Which onely thy solution can resolve. When I behold this goodly Frame, this World
(from As You Like It, spoken by Jaques)
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms; And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
Dear Charles XII, the Poltava battle
Has been fortunately lost. To quote Lenin’s burring rattle,
“Time will show you Kuzka’s mother”, ruins along the waste,
Bones of post-mortem bliss with a Ukrainian aftertaste.
It’s not the green flag , eaten by the isotope ,
It’s the yellow-and-blue flying over Konotop ,
Made out of canvas – must be a gift from Toronto –
Alas, it bears no cross, but the Khokhly don’t want to.
Oh, rushnyks and roubles, sunflowers in summer season!
"Just the place for a Snark!" the Bellman cried, As he landed his crew with care; Supporting each man on the top of the tide By a finger entwined in his hair.
"Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice: That alone should encourage the crew.
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