Do not allow me to sink, I said To a top floating ribbon of kelp. As I was lifted on each wave And made to slide into the vale I wanted not to drown. I wanted To make it all right with my dear, To tell my cat I’ll be away, To have them all destroyed, the poems
Nous devrions pourtant lui porter quelques fleurs; Les morts, les pauvres morts, ont de grandes douleurs, Et quand Octobre souffle, émondeur des vieux arbres, Son vent mélancolique àl'entour de leurs marbres, Certe, ils doivent trouver les vivants bien ingrats.
Les Fleurs du Mal. I Shall I strew on thee rose or rue or laurel, Brother, on this that was the veil of thee? Or quiet sea-flower moulded by the sea,
"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.
Hence loathed Melancholy, Of Cerberus, and blackest Midnight born, In Stygian cave forlorn, 'Mongst horrid shapes, and shrieks, and sights unholy; Find out some uncouth cell, Where brooding Darkness spreads his jealous wings, And the night-raven sings; There under ebon shades, and low-brow'd rocks, As ragged as thy locks, In dark Cimmerian desert ever dwell. But come thou goddess fair and free, In heav'n yclep'd Euphrosyne, And by men, heart-easing Mirth, Whom lovely Venus at a birth With two sister Graces more
With focus sharp as Flemish-painted face In film of varnish brightly fixed And through a polished hand-lens deeply seen, Sunday at noon through hyaline thin air Sees down the street, And in the camera of my eye depicts Row-houses and row-lives: Glass after glass, door after door the same,
We who must act as handmaidens To our own goddess, turn too fast, Trip on our hems, to glimpse the muse Gliding below her lake or sea, Are left, long-staring after her, Narcissists by necessity;
Or water-carriers of our young Till waters burst, and white streams flow
I We thrill too strangely at the master's touch; We shrink too sadly from the larger self Which for its own completeness agitates And undetermines us; we do not feel— We dare not feel it yet—the splendid shame Of uncreated failure; we forget, The while we groan, that God's accomplishment
The woods decay, the woods decay and fall, The vapours weep their burthen to the ground, Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath, And after many a summer dies the swan. Me only cruel immortality Consumes: I wither slowly in thine arms, Here at the quiet limit of the world, A white-hair'd shadow roaming like a dream The ever-silent spaces of the East, Far-folded mists, and gleaming halls of morn.
Alas! for this gray shadow, once a man— So glorious in his beauty and thy choice, Who madest him thy chosen, that he seem'd To his great heart none other than a God!
What may the woman labour to confess? There is about her mouth a nervous twitch. 'Tis something to be told, or hidden:—which? I get a glimpse of hell in this mild guess. She has desires of touch, as if to feel That all the household things are things she knew. She stops before the glass. What sight in view? A face that seems the latest to reveal!
Forth from Calais, at dawn of night, when sunset summer on autumn shone, Fared the steamer alert and loud through seas whence only the sun was gone: Soft and sweet as the sky they smiled, and bade man welcome: a dim sweet hour Gleamed and whispered in wind and sea, and heaven was fair as a field in flower, Stars fulfilled the desire of the darkling world as with music: the star-bright air Made the face of the sea, if aught may make the face of the sea, more fair. Whence came change? Was the sweet night weary of rest? What anguish awoke in the dark? Sudden, sublime, the strong storm spake: we heard the thunders as hounds that bark. Lovelier if aught may be lovelier than stars, we saw the lightnings exalt the sky, Living and lustrous and rapturous as love that is born but to quicken and lighten and die. Heaven's own heart at its highest of delight found utterance in music and semblance in fire: Thunder on thunder exulted, rejoicing to live and to satiate the night's desire.
And the night was alive and anhungered of life as a tiger from toils cast free: And a rapture of rage made joyous the spirit and strength of the soul of the sea.
1 In late winter I sometimes glimpse bits of steam coming up from some fault in the old snow and bend close and see it is lung-colored and put down my nose
There’s a barrel-organ carolling across a golden street In the City as the sun sinks low; And the music's not immortal; but the world has made it sweet And fulfilled it with the sunset glow; And it pulses through the pleasures of the City and the pain That surround the singing organ like a large eternal light; And they’ve given it a glory and a part to play again In the Symphony that rules the day and night.
Rapt with the rage of mine own ravish'd thought, Through contemplation of those goodly sights, And glorious images in heaven wrought, Whose wondrous beauty, breathing sweet delights Do kindle love in high-conceited sprights; I fain to tell the things that I behold, But feel my wits to fail, and tongue to fold.
It is a place whither I’ve often gone For peace, and found it, secret, hushed, and cool, A beautiful recess in neighboring woods. Trees of the soberest hues, thick-leaved and tall, Arch it o’erhead and column it around, Framing a covert, natural and wild, Domelike and dim; though nowhere so enclosed But that the gentlest breezes reach the spot
Between pond and sheepbarn, by maples and watery birches, Rebecca paces a double line of rust in a sandy trench, striding on black creosoted eight-by-eights. In nineteen-forty-three, wartrains skidded tanks, airframes, dynamos, searchlights, and troops to Montreal. She counted cars
Running off with the boy at the gas station, yellow-haired, clear-eyed, with a pair of hands nothing, you understand, would prove too much for, is, it seems, a simple enough solution.
Consequences never enter your thinking at the start. Whatever the implications of the act, of the speed with which you act, all one knows, and all one chooses to know,
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