Nothing was remembered, nothing forgotten. When we awoke, wagons were passing on the warm summer pavements, The window-sills were wet from rain in the night, Birds scattered and settled over chimneypots As among grotesque trees.
Nothing was accepted, nothing looked beyond. Slight-voiced bells separated hour from hour,
‘Oh! sister, he is so swift and tall, Though I want the ride, he will spoil it all, For, when he sets out, he will let me fall, And give me a bump, I know! Mamma, what was it I heard you say, About the world’s hobbies, the other day, How some would get on and gallop away, To end with an overthrow?’
‘I said, little prattler, the world was a race, That many would mount with a smile on the face, And ride to their ruin, or fall in disgrace: That him, who was deaf to fear, And did not look our for a rein or a guide, His courser might cast on the highway side,
The seas has made a wall for its defence of falling water. Those whose impertinence leads them to its moving ledges it rejects. Those who surrender it will with the next wave drag under.
Sand is the beginning and the end of our dominion.
Barely tolerated, living on the margin In our technological society, we were always having to be rescued On the brink of destruction, like heroines in Orlando Furioso Before it was time to start all over again. There would be thunder in the bushes, a rustling of coils, And Angelica, in the Ingres painting, was considering The colorful but small monster near her toe, as though wondering whether forgetting The whole thing might not, in the end, be the only solution.
You are Jehovah, and I am a wanderer. Who should have mercy on a wanderer if not Jehovah? You create and I decay. Who should have mercy on the decayed if not the creator? You are the Judge and I the guilty Who should have mercy on the guilty if not the Judge? You are All and I am a particle. Who should have mercy
I had eight birds hatcht in one nest, Four Cocks were there, and Hens the rest. I nurst them up with pain and care, No cost nor labour did I spare Till at the last they felt their wing, Mounted the Trees and learned to sing. Chief of the Brood then took his flight To Regions far and left me quite. My mournful chirps I after send Till he return, or I do end. Leave not thy nest, thy Dame and Sire, Fly back and sing amidst this Quire. My second bird did take her flight And with her mate flew out of sight. Southward they both their course did bend,
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