​

XLI

 

När det flyger fåglar i luften

får himlens ögon vila

 

Dagarna blir längre

repets trådar kortare

 

Jag går dit mitt huvud bär mig

 

Pentti Saarikoski, September 15, 2023

 

 

 

THE BEAUTY OF THINGS 

 
To feel and speak the astonishing beauty of things — earth, stone and water, 
Beast, man and woman, sun, moon and stars — 
The blood-shot beauty of human nature, its thoughts, frenzies and passions, 
And unhuman nature its towering reality — 
For man's half dream; man, you might say, is nature dreaming, but rock 
And water and sky are constant — to feel 
Greatly, and understand greatly, and express greatly, the natural 
Beauty, is the sole business of poetry. 
The rest's diversion: those holy or noble sentiments, the intricate ideas, 
The love, lust, longing: reasons, but not the reason. 

 

Robinson Jeffers, September 11, 2023

 

​

​

GHOST

                     

“Good afternoon!”

 

“Good afternoon!” she responded curtly. She was our next-door neighbor. Literally, next door. The only neighbor in our building with whom one could always exchange greetings and make small talk. The rest were the kind of neighbors who might greet you, but also might not.  She moved in a year ago. Retired, always pleasant and kind.

 

Today we came across each other in front of the entrance to our building. We walked to the elevator together and stand in front of it silently. I thought: Something is not right! She kept frowning. Only when we entered the elevator did she look at me.

 

“Which floor?”

 

“Four,” I managed to utter, dumbfounded.

 

We left the elevator.

 

“Goodbye,” she said, unlocked her door and disappeared inside. I couldn’t believe my eyes – like we’ve never met!

 

“You wouldn’t believe what just happened,” I told my wife everything as soon as I entered our apartment, concluding:

 

“She’s lost it!”

 

“No,” said my wife calmly and confidently.

 

“What happened then?”

 

“It wasn’t our neighbor!”

 

“No!? What was it I saw, a ghost?”

 

“A ghost, really!”

 

“So who was it?”

 

“Her twin sister.”

 

“Oh, and I thought…”

 

“…that there was a problem there!” she finished the sentence for me. “You only see the problems and miracles everywhere.”

​

Adin Ljuca (Translated by Esma Hadžiselimović), September 8, 2023

 

 

 

SUMMER OF 1993

​

                           Dedicated to Marko Vešović

                                             

For years I've been thinking about the temptation

of memories - about you, no one's bird in the besieged

city, your willingness to share the suffering, and my own

choice of exile. I remembered the place at last: a wintry

olive grove in the Žanjic resort, a small café under

a grapevine, where words chatter like glasses on trays

and where one's soul is indiscernible in the arrangement

of crickets. I'd like us to go there sometime, perhaps getting

off the same boat at the appointed time, sizing each other up

with squinting eyes. There I wish we'd recognize each other

at last, at a secret table.

 

Like you, a bird belonging to no one in the besieged day,

I also am alone in my city, lowered from somewhere

in space into an anthill of squares like into a postage stamp.

Under the watchful eyes of mannequins in shop windows

I walk the world - I kiss little children. But even such

as we are we serve the universal darkness. And it doesn't

matter where you go or where you stay - I see no escape

for anyone. Like grains in an hourglass, we pour ourselves

from one madness into the next.

                                                                                                                                                           In Sweden, summer of 1997

 

Milorad Pejić (Translated by Omer Hadžiselimović), September 4, 2023

 

 

 

DARLING, YOUR FACE IS TURNING WHITE

 

Darling, your face is turning white
becoming featureless an untracked field of snow
Your eyes which once burned like blue sky
are flattening out memory fails us both
I curse my failing memory try to catch it
it disappears around a bend another another
The exact timbre of your voice the gesture
that moved me so the way your laughter began
deep in your chest in your chest
three pieces of shrapnel were buried
three years ago

 

Adrian Oktenerg (Translated by Omer Hadžiselimović), September 1, 2023

 

 

 

SBÍRAL JSEM Z TRÁVY PADAVČATA

​

Ivaně Motýlové

​

Sbíral jsem z trávy padavčata, hledal ve strouze ořechy, rozdělal u silnice ohýnek a hřál si nad ním dlaně, pak mě kus cesty svezly cikáni, a kdybych se nezdržel s člověkem, který ztratil čepici, a potom ještě s někým, kdo chtěl vědět, jak se hraje na tahací harmoniku, přišel bych do školy právě včas.

​

Z píšťaly tryskala pára, loď se právě utrhla od břehu. Ještě jsem stačil vyběhnout na palubu a zeptate se kapitána, zda již je obsazeno místo černého pasažéra. Zaujmi své místo, řekl, ani se na mne nepodíval.

 

Ivan Wernisch, August 28, 2023

 

 

 

WHERE I WOULD TAKE JESUS

 

Gentle Jesus, at a late hour, when
your poor ones are still wide awake,
I’ll take you to a humble tailor
To make a plain suit for you.

​

Then to a lowly cobbler, too, who all
night hammers sharp nails into a hard sole,
While shoe Factories hum crankily.
A million pairs they put together in an hour.

​

Then on to the man who makes hats,
with rims sunk low, to conceal the pain.
One will snuggle onto your head.
Roomy enough to receive your aureole.

​

We’ll then go to the inn near town,
Resembling an old, beached ship.
Where brothers at table, in deep sorrow
Throw glasses and hats on the floor.

​

The first crow of the rooster will be a sharp arrow
from which your heart will bleed.
The second will be the gloom of your brow.
You will recognize neither people nor things.

​

And when the roosters crow the third time,
oh Jesus, you will stagger with pain.
Your hat will fall from your head.
Your hat and your aureole.

 

Nikola Šop (Translated by Omer Hadžiselimović), August 25, 2023

 

 

 

BEFORE DEATH

 

The agony is like golden dust aswirled,
Above me a yellow flower’s aflutter.
Never before was there such fragrance
In my little room — my great world.

​

My weak hand reached for the yellow flower,
Trying to grasp it, so yellow and so sweet,
But in vain was my effort, the flower kept fleeing,
And fell at last upon my chest and suit.

​

And drunk so with its scent —
The figure of Virgin Mary from
The golden dust I saw appear... 

​

Musa Ćazim Ćatić (Translated by Omer Hadžiselimović), August 21, 2023

 

 

 

PRAYER IN MILANO

 

Make me die
This moment, God.
Only leave
My eyes
Behind.
So they can watch
– on Piazza Duomo –
the women going by.

 

Abdulah Sidra (Translated by Omer Hadžiselimović and Ann C. Bigelow), August 18, 2023

 

 

 

AVGUST

 

-— And do not be indiscreet or unconventional. Play it safe. —

 

Listen here. I've never played it safe

in spite of what the critics say.

Ask my imaginary brother, that waif,

that childhood best friend who comes to play

dress-up and stick-up and jacks and Pick-Up-Sticks,

bike downtown, stick out tongues at the Catholics.

​

Or form a Piss Club where we all go

in the bushes and peek at each other's sex.

Pop-gunning the street lights like crows.

Not knowing what to do with funny Kotex

so wearing it in our school shoes. Friend, friend,

spooking my lonely hours you were there, but pretend.

 

Anne Sexton, August 14, 2023

 

 

 

HISTORY OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, 1913

 

1913. Peace is wearing thin
in the Balkans. Great powers try their pristine
routine of talks, but only soil white gloves:
Turkey and the whole bunch of Slavs
slash one another as if there is no tomorrow.
The States think there is; and being thorough
introduce the federal income tax.
Still, what really spells the Pax
Americana is the assembly line
Ford installs in Michigan. Some decline
of capitalism! No libertine or Marxist
could foresee this development in the darkest
possible dream. Speaking of such a dream,
California hears the first natal scream
of Richard Nixon. However, the most
loaded sounds are those uttered by Robert Frost
whose A Boy's Will and North of Boston
are printed in England and nearly lost on
his compatriots eyeing in sentimental
rapture the newly-built Grand Central
Station where they later would
act as though hired by Hollywood.
In the meantime, M.Proust lets his stylus saunter
the Swann's Way, H.Geyger designs his counter;
probing nothing perilous or perdu,
Stravinsky produces Le Sacre du
Printemps, a ballet, in Paris, France.
But the fox-trot is what people really dance.
And as Schweitzer cures lepers and subs dive deeper,
the hottest news is the modest zipper.
Think of the preliminaries it skips
timing your lips with you fingertips!

The man of the year is, I fear, Niels Bohr.
He comes from the same place as danishes.
He builds what one feels like when one can't score
or what one looks like when one vanishes.

(Niels Bohr)

Atoms are small. Atoms are nice. Until you split one, of course.
Then they get large enough to play dice with your whole universe.
A model of an atom is what I've built! Something both small and big!
Inside, it resembles the sense of guilt. Outside, the lunar dig.

​

Joseph Brodsky, August 11, 2023

 

​

​

PORTRAIT OF A LADY

 

Your thighs are appletrees
whose blossoms touch the sky.
Which sky? The sky
where Watteau hung a lady's
slipper. Your knees
are a southern breeze-or
a gust of snow. Agh! what
sort of man was Fragonard?
-as if that answered
anything. Ah, yes-below
the knees, since the tune
drops that way, it is
one of those white summer days,
the tall grass of your ankles
flickers upon the shore-
Which shore?-
the sand clings to my lips-
Which shore?
Agh, petals maybe. How
should I know?
Which shore? Which shore?
I said petals from an appletree.

 

William Carlos Williams, August 7, 2023

 

 

 

WINTER NOCTURNE

 

Mantled in grey, the dusk steals slowly in,

Crossing the dead, dull fields with footsteps cold.

The rain drips drearily; night's fingers spin

A web of drifting mist o'er wood and wold,

As quiet as death. The sky is silent too,

Hard as granite and as fixed as fate.

The pale pond stands; ringed round with rushes few

And draped with leaning trees, it seems to wait

But for the coming of the winter night

Of deep December; blowing o'er the graves

Of faded summers, swift the wind in flight

Ripples its silent face with lapping waves.

The rain falls still: bowing, the woods bemoan;

Dark night creeps in, and leaves the world alone.

 

Philip Larkin, August 4, 2023

 

 

 

DOORS, DOORS, DOORS

​

Old Man

 

Old man, it's four flights up and for what?

Your room is hardly bigger than your bed.

Puffing as you climb, you are a brown woodcut

stooped over the thin tail and the wornout tread.

 

The room will do. All that's left of the old life

is jampacked on shelves from floor to ceiling

like a supermarket: your books, your dead wife

generously fat in her polished frame, the congealing

bowl of cornflakes sagging in their instant milk,

your hot plate and your one luxury, a telephone.

You leave your door open, lounging in maroon silk

and smiling at the other roomers who live alone.

Well, almost alone. Through the old-fashioned wall

the fellow next door has a girl who comes to call.

 

Twice a week at noon during their lunch hour

they pause by your door to peer into your world.

They speak sadly as if the wine they carry would sour

or as if the mattress would not keep them curled

together, extravagantly young in their tight lock.

Old man, you are their father holding court

in the dingy hall until their alarm clock

rings and unwinds them. You unstopper the quart

of brandy you've saved, examining the small print

in the telephone book. The phone in your lap is all

that's left of your family name. Like a Romanoff prince

you stay the same in your small alcove off the hall.

Castaway, your time is a flat sea that doesn't stop,

with no new land to make for and no new stories to swap.

 

Anne Sexton, July 31, 2023

 

 

 

XLII

 

Man kommer och säger åt mig

hur en dikt borde vara

till mig som till och med kan konsten

att smida en hästsko åt kons klöv

 

Pentti Saarikoski, July 28, 2023

 

 

 

HUNGERFIELD

 
If time is only another dimension, then all that dies 
Remains alive; not annulled, but removed 
Out of our sight. Una is still alive. 
A few years back we are making love, greedy as hawks, 
A boy and a married girl.  A few years back 
We are still young, strong-shouldered, joyfully laboring 
To make our house.  Then she, in the wide sea-window,

Endlessly enduring but not very patient,

Teaches our sons to read.  She is still there,

Her beautiful pale face, heavy hair, great eyes

Bent to the book.  And a few years back

We sit with our grown sons in the pitching motor-boat

Off Horn Head in Donegal, watching the sea-parrots

Tumble like clowns along the thousand-foot cliff, and the gannets like

        falling stars

Hawk at the sea: her great blue eyes are brimmed

With the wild beauty.  Or we walk in Orkney,

Under the mystery of huge stones that stand there,

Raised high in the world’s dawn by unknown men to forgotten gods,

And see dimly through the deep northern dusk

A great skein of wild swans drop from the cloud

To the gray lake.  She weeps a little for joy of beauty.  Only the

  home-coming

To our loved rock over the gray and ageless Pacific

Makes her such joy.

 

It is possible that all these conditions of us

Are fixed points on the returning orbit of time and exist eternally , , ,

It is no good. Una has died, and I

Am left waiting for death, like a leafless tree

Waiting for the roots to rot and the trunk to fall.

 

I never thought you would leave me, dear love,

I knew you would die sometime, I should die first —

But you have died.  It is quite natural:

Because you loved life you must die first, and I

Who never cared much live on.  Life is cheap, these days;

We have to compete with Asia, we are cheap as dust,

And death is cheap, but not hers.  It is a common thing:

We die, we cease to exist, and our dear lovers

Fulfill themselves with sorrow and drunkenness, the quart at midnight

And the cups in the morning — or they go seeking

A second love: but you and I are at least

Not ridiculous.

 

September again.  The gray grass, the gray sea,

The ink-black trees with white-bellied night-herons in them,

Brawling on the boughs at dusk, barking like dogs —

And the awful loss.  It is a year.  She has died: and I

Have lived for a long year on soft rotten emotions,

Vain longing and drunken pity, grief and gray ashes —

Oh child of God!

 

It is not that I am lonely for you.  I am lonely:

I am mutilated, for you were part of me:

But men endure that.  I am growing old and my love is gone:

No doubt I can live without you, bitterly and well. 

That’s not the cry.  My torment is memory.

My grief to have seen the banner and beauty of your brave life

Dragged in the dust down the dim road to death.  To have seen you

    defeated,

You who never despaired, passing through weakness

And pain —

                       to nothing.  It is usual I believe.  I stood by; I believe

I never failed you.  The contemptible thought, —

Whether I failed or not! I am not the one. 

I was not dying.  Is death bitter my dearest?  It is nothing.

It is a silence.  But dying can be bitter. 

                                                                   In this black year

I have thought often of Hungerfield, the man at Horse Creek,

Who fought with Death — bodily, said the witnesses, throat for throat,

Fury against fury in the dark —

And conquered him.  If I had had the courage and the hope —

Or the pure rage —

I should be now Death’s captive no doubt, not conqueror.

I should be with my dearest, in the hollow darkness

Where nothing hurts. 

                                        I should not remember

Your silver-backed hand-mirror you asked me for,

And sat up in bed to gaze in it, to see your face

A little changed.  You were still beautiful,

But not — as you’d been — a falcon.  You said nothing; you sighed and laid

       down the glass; and I

Made a dog smile over a tearing heart,

Saying that you looked well. 

 

        The lies — the faithless hopeless unbelieved

    lies

While you lay dying. 

          For these reasons

I wish to make verses again, to drug memory,

To make it sleep for a moment.  Never fear: I shall not forget

          You —

Until I am with you.  The dead indeed forget all things.  

And when I speak to you it is only play-acting

And self-indulgence you cannot hear me, you do not exist,

         Dearest . . .

                                          -   -   -

        Here is the poem, dearest; you will never read it

nor hear it.  You were more beautiful                                                 

Than a hawk flying; you were faithful and a lion heart [. . .]

But the ashes have fallen

And the flame has gone up; nothing human remains.  You are

       earth and air; you are in the beauty of the ocean

And the great streaming triumphs of sundown; you are alive

      and well in the tender young grass rejoicing

When soft rain falls all night, and little rosy-fleeced clouds float

     on the dawn. — I shall be with you presently.

​

Robinson Jeffers, July 24, 2023

 

 

 

SVATEBNÍ STROJ 

​

Jako zběsilí letěli koně. Ječení a pískot hudebního parostroje sílily. Vzdálenost mezi Klotyldou a jejími pronásledovateli se zkracovala. Zachvácena hrůzou odhodila dívka bičík i těžkou bambitku a oběma rukama se nyní držela hřívy svého zvířete.

 

Mně neunikneš, jsi moje! křičel Theopidus a již již vztahoval ruku, aby Klotyldu strhl ze sedla.

​

Je moje! zvolal Habernatus. Uhni, Theopide!

​

Ne, ne a ne! vřeštěl Pišišvili, Neboj se, Klotyldo, já tě ochráním před těmi šašky! Jsme na území Spokojených států amerických, ti dva zde nad tebou nemají moci!

​

Teď se probudím někde daleko odtud, pomyslela si Klotylda a zavřela oči. Mám pevnou vůli, pevnou vůli, mám pevnou vůli. To, co se nyní stane, zachrání můj život i moji čest. Raz, dva, tři, teď!

​

Hudební stroj v tu ránu ztichl. Rozsvítily se červené, zelené a modré žárovky. Tři divocí jezdci ochabli v sedlech a svěsili hlavy. Kolotoč se zastavil.

​

Kolotoč? Klotylda seskočila s koně, spatřila bambitku a bičík ležící u svých nohou a rozesmála se. Kolotoč? A já myslela, že je to svatební stroj!

​

Náhle pozbyla vědomí a probudila se daleko, daleko odtud.

 

Ivan Wernisch, July 21, 2023

 

 

 

OBCHOD VE FRANKFURTU

 

Ataka beznaděje ji zkroutila v obchodním

centru.

Musela se celou vahou zapřít o regál,

ruce zabořit do špaget,

začaly se vějířovitě sypat do všech světových stran.

Setrvávala,

aniž to dávalo smysl.

Tělo přestalo zapírat

úplnou opuštěnost.

Náhrdelník se prověsil v prázdné nádheře.

Vylezly roky,

jako žebra,

v dokonalém obchodním nasvícení,

které nevrhá stín.

Zřízenec přicházel doplnit humry.

Stála vysoká,

nedobytná,

pod sebou divokou hvězdu

rozsypaných špaget.

 

Petr Hruška, July 17, 2023

 

 

 

FUNERAL BLUES

 

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message 'He is Dead'.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

 

Wystan Hugh Auden, July 14, 2023

 

 

 

AN INVITATION TO DEAR JESUS

 

I’d be so happy if, oh Jesus,
you would enter my dwelling deign.
Where things quite common hang on the walls.
Where day drops off early on the window pane.

​

I would tell you of lighting
A dim lamp to lengthen the short day.
Of my very small life, serving
rancorously with my brothers away.

​

I would tell you of the house of men.
Of panes which are sometimes blue.
Of doors you have to stoop to enter.
Of locks shutting tightly and true.

​

I would tell you, while smoking
a common cigarette, of all men and of their names.
Some old clothes always wearing,
Others wearing new ones all the same.

​

And how there are seven days full of worry
Oh Jesus, and each one as the one before.
And when your wound starts being sore
you pull your hat down more and more.

​

I would tell you things for a long time, till we hear
dew dropping down the window pane.
Then quite dumbly I would say to you:
You are tired, Jesus, you should dream again.

​

Oh lie down and sleep on this bed
which man redeems every day.
I will bind with solace your sad forehead
Sleep, and on the bench I’ll stay.

 

Nikola Šop (Translated by Zvonimir Radeljković, Omer Hadžiselimović and Keith Doubt), July 10, 2023

 

 

 

IN SARAJEVO I WAS HAPPY

 

In Sarajevo I was happy there
cafés theater nightlife twenty minutes to the mountains
three hours to the sea
a good job a cosmopolitan life
but when the war started I felt unsafe
so I came to Belgrade to live among my own
I thought a better life no shelling here
there is water electricity that works
neighbors are not suspicious except in the usual ways
but Belgrade is flat flat neither mountains nor sea
life is flat cut off from friends
you cannot even telephone Sarajevo from here
the train no longer runs
and the people brother and sister Serbs
treat us like strangers
as if we are riffraff scum

 

Adrian Oktenerg, July 7, 2023

 

 

 

HIŽA OF MILE

 

Hiža of our fathers was founded here to fix virtue more strongly in the hearts of men
May it ever be open wide for welcome visitors and for the great of heart
For guests for elders and other believers
For all good people for all good Bosnians
For all warriors in the war that is waged against war
And various other small and mighty harms and evils
For all who flee from their flaming homes
For those fleeing the blazing circle of pyres and fleeing the hangman’s noose
For all who are burnt for ever aspiring to the sun far and great
For all who have uttered the right word in the right hour
Who had their hands cut off for a single word on the bloody path seeking an outcome
For the word that bread is bread that wine is wine and that water is water
For those whose living flesh was burned and cheeks marked with a burning brand
By those who ever appeal to the laws of God’s mercy and to canon law
For those whose tongues were torn from their throat for not betraying the word they gave
For those condemned to die on horses’ tails
between two horsemen
May the hiža of our fathers be open wide
For those damned by the heaviest curse
From the consecrated altars of Provence, Lombardy, Zara, Arcady, and Rascia
In the stupor of incense in the militant press of crosses and swords in that bitter choir
For those thrice damned for they were not yet
Butchered and slaughtered on their own doorstep before women and children
May the great hiža of our fathers be always open wide
For those who pay no heed to ancient and new tzars
For true kings and false for bans and barons for boyars
For their ample treasure, for many ducats, gold dinars, for that evil money
For men who never miss paying taxes but never bribe the collectors blaming and cursing them
openly
May the doors of the house of our fathers be open wide
For those who in meetings speak words mild and pure not only to their kin and kind
For those who live without envy yet life always beats them, only mocks and laughs at them
May it be open for the unknown comrade for the unknown brother
For all that pine in the darkness of their body’s confinement
Yearning that that word be for all men that they become brothers with that word
May the hiža of our fathers be open wide all night and always
For the one who left long ago and now treads in darkness toiling from afar
But knows that he will arrive awake where someone awaits him
May the house of our fathers be open wide
But if someone in love of himself shuts that door of virtue
May the house of our fathers crumble to its foundations in my soul
Into a heap may it be crushed may it turn into bare soot and black ashes
May hot scorpions and snakes breed in it as in the den of Satan
(Forgive you who are condemned and cursed in this slander of the slanderer
But the house of our fathers without the welcome traveler and the dear guest
The house of our fathers it is not)

 

Mak Dizdar (Translated by Omer Hadžiselimović), July 3, 2023

 

 

 

INFINITIVE

​

To Ulf Linde

​

Dear savages, though I’ve never mastered your tongue, free of pronouns and gerunds, I’ve learned to bake mackerel wrapped in palm leaves and favor raw turtle legs,with their flavor of slowness. Gastronomically, I must admit, these yearssince I was washed ashore here have been a non-stop journey,and in the end I don’t know where I am. After all, one keeps carving notches onlyso long as nobody apes one. While you started aping me even before I spotted you. Look what you’ve done to the trees! Though it’s flattering to be regardedeven by you as a god, I, in turn, aped you somewhat, especially with your maidens — in part to obscure the past, with its ill-fated ship, but also to cloud the future,devoid of a pregnant sail. Islands are cruel enemiesof tenses, except for the present one. And shipwrecks are but flights from grammarinto pure causality. Look what life without mirrors doesto pronouns, not to mention one’s features! Perhaps your ancestors alsoended up on this wonderful beach in a fashion similarto mine. Hence, your attitude toward me.  In your eyes, I am at the very least an island within an island. And anyhow, watching my every step, you know that I am not longing for the past participle or the past continuous — well, not any more than for that future perfect of yours deep in some humid cave, decked out in dry kelp and feathers. I write this with my index finger on the wet, glassy sand at sunset, being inspired perhaps by the view of the palm-tree tops splayed against the platinum sky like some Chinese characters. Though I’ve never studied the language. Besides,the breezetousles them all too fast for one to make out the message.

 

Joseph Brodsky, June 30, 2023

 

 

 

XXV

 

Jag spanar långväga

ser Eurpas ytterkant

vidare mot världens synrand

Jag hade nog en vacker slant

men ser ingen avliden

under vars tunga jag kunde lägga den

 

Pentti Saarikoski, June 26, 2023

 

 

 

LINES COMPOSED A FEW MILES ABOVE TINTERN ABBEY, ON REVISITING THE BANKS OF THE WYE DURING A TOUR. JULY 13, 1798

 

Five years have past; five summers, with the length

Of five long winters! and again I hear

These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs

With a soft inland murmur.—Once again

Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,

That on a wild secluded scene impress

Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect

The landscape with the quiet of the sky.

The day is come when I again repose

Here, under this dark sycamore, and view

These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,

Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,

Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves

'Mid groves and copses. Once again I see

These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines

Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms,

Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke

Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!

With some uncertain notice, as might seem

Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,

Or of some Hermit's cave, where by his fire

The Hermit sits alone. These beauteous forms,

Through a long absence, have not been to me

As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:

But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din

Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,

In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,

Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;

And passing even into my purer mind

With tranquil restoration:—feelings too

Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,

As have no slight or trivial influence

On that best portion of a good man's life,

His little, nameless, unremembered, acts

Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,

To them I may have owed another gift,

Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,

In which the burthen of the mystery,

In which the heavy and the weary weight

Of all this unintelligible world,

Is lightened:—that serene and blessed mood,

In which the affections gently lead us on,—

Until, the breath of this corporeal frame

And even the motion of our human blood

Almost suspended, we are laid asleep

In body, and become a living soul:

While with an eye made quiet by the power

Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,

We see into the life of things. If this

Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft—

In darkness and amid the many shapes

Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir

Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,

Have hung upon the beatings of my heart—

How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee,

O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro' the woods,

How often has my spirit turned to thee!

And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought,

With many recognitions dim and faint,

And somewhat of a sad perplexity,

The picture of the mind revives again:

While here I stand, not only with the sense

Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts

That in this moment there is life and food

For future years. And so I dare to hope,

Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first

I came among these hills; when like a roe

I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides

Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,

Wherever nature led: more like a man

Flying from something that he dreads, than one

Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then

(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days

And their glad animal movements all gone by)

To me was all in all.—I cannot paint

What then I was. The sounding cataract

Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,

The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,

Their colours and their forms, were then to me

An appetite; a feeling and a love,

That had no need of a remoter charm,

By thought supplied, nor any interest

Unborrowed from the eye.—That time is past,

And all its aching joys are now no more,

And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this

Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other gifts

Have followed; for such loss, I would believe,

Abundant recompense. For I have learned

To look on nature, not as in the hour

Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes

The still sad music of humanity,

Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power

To chasten and subdue.—And I have felt

A presence that disturbs me with the joy

Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime

Of something far more deeply interfused,

Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,

And the round ocean and the living air,

And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:

A motion and a spirit, that impels

All thinking things, all objects of all thought,

And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still

A lover of the meadows and the woods

And mountains; and of all that we behold

From this green earth; of all the mighty world

Of eye, and ear,—both what they half create,

And what perceive; well pleased to recognise

In nature and the language of the sense

The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,

The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul

Of all my moral being. Nor perchance,

If I were not thus taught, should I the more

Suffer my genial spirits to decay:

For thou art with me here upon the banks

Of this fair river; thou my dearest Friend,

My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch

The language of my former heart, and read

My former pleasures in the shooting lights

Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while

May I behold in thee what I was once,

My dear, dear Sister! and this prayer I make,

Knowing that Nature never did betray

The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,

Through all the years of this our life, to lead

From joy to joy: for she can so inform

The mind that is within us, so impress

With quietness and beauty, and so feed

With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,

Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,

Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all

The dreary intercourse of daily life,

Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb

Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold

Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon

Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;

And let the misty mountain-winds be free

To blow against thee: and, in after years,

When these wild ecstasies shall be matured

Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind

Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,

Thy memory be as a dwelling-place

For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then,

If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,

Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts

Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,

And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance—

If I should be where I no more can hear

Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams

Of past existence—wilt thou then forget

That on the banks of this delightful stream

We stood together; and that I, so long

A worshipper of Nature, hither came

Unwearied in that service: rather say

With warmer love—oh! with far deeper zeal

Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget,

That after many wanderings, many years

Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs,

And this green pastoral landscape, were to me

More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake!

 

William Wordsworth, June 23, 2023

 

 

 

THE DARKLING THRUSH

 

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.

 

Thomas Hardy, June 19, 2023

 

 

 

NO NEED

 

to balance one’s accounts, friend, for every grain in
the hourglass falls in its place anyhow. What used to hurt
is now foreign: it had gone by like a movie on the screen while
we, munching on pumpkin seeds, sat comfortably reclined in our
dreams. But when the lights came back on after the show, a heavy
feeling would remain: days empty like hulls, and jumbled together.
We never needed anything beyond what we’d frittered away while
holding on to our higher principles. Today there exists only what
we’ve rejected; everything else we don’t have.

​

Adin Ljuca (Translated by Omer Hadžiselimović), June 16, 2023

 

 

 

596

When I was small, a Woman died—
Today—her Only Boy
Went up from the Potomac—
His face all Victory

To look at her—How slowly
The Seasons must have turned
Till Bullets clipt an Angle
And He passed quickly round—

If pride shall be in Paradise—
Ourself cannot decide—
Of their imperial Conduct—
No person testified—

But, proud in Apparition—
That Woman and her Boy
Pass back and forth, before my Brain
As even in the sky—

I'm confident that Bravoes—
Perpetual break abroad
For Braveries, remote as this
In Scarlet Maryland—

 

Emily Dickinson, June 12, 2023

 

 

 

LET HISTORY BE MY JUDGE

 

We made all possible preparations,

Drew up a list of firms,

Constantly revised our calculations

And allotted the farms,

 

Issued all the orders expedient

In this kind of case:

Most, as was expected, were obedient,

Though there were murmurs, of course;

 

Chiefly against our exercising

Our old right to abuse:

Even some sort of attempt at rising,

But these were mere boys.

 

For never serious misgiving

Occurred to anyone,

Since there could be no question of living

If we did not win.

 

The generally accepted view teaches

That there was no excuse,

Though in the light of recent researches

Many would find the cause

 

In a not uncommon form of terror;

Others, still more astute,

Point to possibilities of error

At the very start.

 

As for ourselves there is left remaining

Our honour at least,

And a reasonable chance of retaining

Our faculties to the last.

 

Wystan Hugh Auden, June 9, 2023

 

 

 

THE CARD-PLAYERS

 

Jan van Hogspeuw staggers to the door  

And pisses at the dark. Outside, the rain 

Courses in cart-ruts down the deep mud lane. 

Inside, Dirk Dogstoerd pours himself some more, 

And holds a cinder to his clay with tongs, 

Belching out smoke. Old Prijck snores with the gale,

His skull face firelit; someone behind drinks ale, 

And opens mussels, and croaks scraps of songs 

Towards the ham-hung rafters about love. 

Dirk deals the cards. Wet century-wide trees 

Clash in surrounding starlessness above

This lamplit cave, where Jan turns back and farts,

Gobs at the grate, and hits the queen of hearts. 

 

Rain, wind and fire! The secret, bestial peace!

 

Philip Larkin, June 5, 2023

 

 

 

LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE

 

Like everything else our language is particular to us
Outsiders cannot learn it it’s gibberish to them
Yesterday I heard a woman say “This war has destroyed my life”
Why do we always say “this war”?
To acknowledge the wars that came before?
To remember future wars?
To say this war is to acknowledge that one
the last one and the one yet to come
When we say “this war” we already envision another
But which war is the last war? Will there ever be one?
That woman who spoke she was a Serb caught outside Banja Luka
in a Croatian artillery barrage her ten-year-old killed
she and her nineteen-year-old seriously wounded
Severed arteries in her leg and arm If she recovers
what will she recover for? This war
begets another and another
an old testament book
The new testament
love and charity and forgiveness the lilies of the fields
that one hasn’t been written

 

Adrian Oktenerg, June 2, 2023

 

 

 

DESPAIR

 

Who is he?

A railroad track toward hell?

Breaking like a stick of furniture?

The hope that suddenly overflows the cesspool?

The love that goes down the drain like spit?

The love that said forever, forever

and then runs you over like a truck?

Are you a prayer that floats into a radio advertisement?

Despair,

I don't like you very well.

You don't suit my clothes or my cigarettes.

Why do you locate here

as large as a tank,

aiming at one half of a lifetime?

Couldn't you just go float into a tree

instead of locating here at my roots,

forcing me out of the life I've led

when it's been my belly so long?

 

All right!

I'll take you along on the trip

where for so many years

my arms have been speechless.

 

Anne Sexton, May 29, 2023

 

 

 

I WANDERED LONELY AS A CLOUD

 

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 golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

 

Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the milky way,

They stretched in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:

Ten thousand saw I at a glance,

Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

 

The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:

A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund 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.

​

William Wordsworth, May 26, 2023

 

 

 

SPELA UPP TILL DANS 

 

III

 

Ni trodde att mina hus

var av guld och silver

 

de är av sten och trä

 

så som min kropp är av ben och kött

​

Pentti Saarikoski, May 22, 2023

 

 

 

THE CONVERGENCE OF THE TWAIN

(Lines on the loss of the "Titanic")

​

I

In a solitude of the sea

Deep from human vanity,

And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she.

 

II

Steel chambers, late the pyres

Of her salamandrine fires,

Cold currents thrid, and turn to rhythmic tidal lyres.

 

III

Over the mirrors meant

To glass the opulent

The sea-worm crawls — grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent.

 

IV

Jewels in joy designed

To ravish the sensuous mind

Lie lightless, all their sparkles bleared and black and blind.

 

V

Dim moon-eyed fishes near

Gaze at the gilded gear

And query: "What does this vaingloriousness down here?" ...

 

VI

Well: while was fashioning

This creature of cleaving wing,

The Immanent Will that stirs and urges everything

 

VII

Prepared a sinister mate

For her — so gaily great —

A Shape of Ice, for the time far and dissociate.

 

VIII

And as the smart ship grew

In stature, grace, and hue,

In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.

 

IX

Alien they seemed to be;

No mortal eye could see

The intimate welding of their later history,

 

X

Or sign that they were bent

By paths coincident

On being anon twin halves of one august event,

 

XI

Till the Spinner of the Years

Said "Now!" And each one hears,

And consummation comes, and jars two hemispheres.

 

Thomas Hardy, May 19, 2023

 

 

 

HISTORY OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY, 1912

 

1912. Captain Robert Scott
reaches the South Pole also. Except he got
there later than Amundsen. He stares at ice,
thinks of his family, prays, and dies.
Ice, however, is not through yet.
S.S. Titanic hits an iceberg at
full speed and goes down. The bell grimly tolls
at Lloyd's in London. Fifteen hundred souls
are lost, if not more. Therefore, let's turn
to Romania where Eugene Ionesco's born
or to Turkey and her Balkan neighbors: each
one of them feels an itch to reach
for the gun; on reflection, though, they abandon
the idea. It's peace everywhere. In London
by now there are five hundred movie theaters
which makes an issue of baby-sitters.
At home, after having less done than said;
Woodrow Wilson becomes the Prez. Dead-set
to pocket the dizzy with flipping coin
New Mexico and Arizona join
the Union. For all its steel mills and farms
the Union keeps currently under arms
only one hundred thousand men. That's barmy
considering five million in the Russian Army,
or four million in Germany, or the French
who, too, have as many to fill a trench.
This sounds to some like a lack of caution.
But then there is the Atlantic Ocean
between the Continent and the U.S.,
and it's only 1912, God bless,
and the hemispheres luckily seem unable
to play the now popular Cain and Abel.

The man of the year is both short and tall.
He's nameless, and well he should
stay nameless: for spoiling for us free fall
by using a parachute.

(Captain Albert Berry)

"Leaving home with umbrella? Take a parachute!
When it rains from below, that is when they shoot
down a plane and its pilot objects to die,
when you wand to grab Holland or drop a spy
behind enemy lines, you need parachutes.
O, they'll be more popular than a pair of shoes.
In their soft descent they suggest a dove.
Aye! it's not only love that comes from above!"

 

Joseph Brodsky, May 15, 2023

 

 

 

TIME OF DISTURBANCE
 
The best is, in war or faction or ordinary vindictive 
life, not to take sides. 
Leave it for children, and the emotional rabble of the 
streets, to back their horse or support a brawler. 
 
But if you are forced into it: remember that good and 
evil are as common as air, and like air shared 
By the panting belligerents; the moral indignation that 
hoarsens orators is mostly a fool. 
 
Hold your nose and compromise; keep a cold mind. Fight, 
if needs must; hate no one. Do as God does, 
Or the tragic poets: they crush their man without hating 
him, their Lear or Hitler, and often save without 
love. 
 
As for these quarrels, they are like the moon, recurrent 
and fantastic. They have their beauty but night's is better. 
It is better to be silent than make a noise. It is better 
to strike dead than strike often. It is better not 
to strike.

 

Robinson Jeffers, May 12, 2023

 

 

 

VEDEMA

 

Ever since doubt has invaded the cities, there is no

place to park on the weekends at either the south

or the north entrance to the primeval Vedema forest.

A great many sunglasses flutter before the map board

unable to decide between the blue, yellow or green.

I don’t see any difference, but we won’t meet them

again as you and I always take the red-dotted path.

It’s a demanding terrain for walking, filled with both

risk and disappointment, but on a long summer day

you’re rewarded with giant anthills (billions of

believers yet no religion), skinny dipping in the

Naked Lake, blackthorn buckshots…

 

On the red trail that everyone avoids, only a park

officer may show up: a fairy in white, who, wearing

a crown on his head like a customs cap, reconciles

lists at intersections, or a student intern, carrying

a can of paint in one hand, slapping the brushwood

and stamping the trunks with the brush in the other.

I, too, want a job in the forest: to, like an oak tree or

a pine, claim and wear a bloody dot on my chest,

like a medal. And to emerge from twilight in front of

wandering hikers who, on blue, yellow or green,

have lost all hope. Or, if I don’t see the difference,

not to emerge at all. Perish, world!

​

Milorad Pejić (translated by Esma Hadžiselimović), May 8, 2023

 

​

 

THE LISTENERS

 

‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,   

   Knocking on the moonlit door;

And his horse in the silence champed the grasses   

   Of the forest’s ferny floor:

And a bird flew up out of the turret,   

   Above the Traveller’s head:

And he smote upon the door again a second time;   

   ‘Is there anybody there?’ he said.

But no one descended to the Traveller;   

   No head from the leaf-fringed sill

Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,   

   Where he stood perplexed and still.

But only a host of phantom listeners   

   That dwelt in the lone house then

Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight   

   To that voice from the world of men:

Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,   

   That goes down to the empty hall,

Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken   

   By the lonely Traveller’s call.

And he felt in his heart their strangeness,   

   Their stillness answering his cry,

While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,   

   ’Neath the starred and leafy sky;

For he suddenly smote on the door, even   

   Louder, and lifted his head:—

‘Tell them I came, and no one answered,   

   That I kept my word,’ he said.

Never the least stir made the listeners,   

   Though every word he spake

Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house   

   From the one man left awake:

Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,   

   And the sound of iron on stone,

And how the silence surged softly backward,   

   When the plunging hoofs were gone.

 

Walter de la Mare, May 5, 2023

 

 

 

COMPOSED UPON WESTMINSTER BRIDGE

 

Earth has not any thing to show more fair:

Dull would he be of soul who could pass by

A sight so touching in its majesty:

This City now doth, like a garment, wear

​

The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,

Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie

Open unto the fields, and to the sky;

All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.

​

Never did sun more beautifully steep

In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;

Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!

​

The river glideth at his own sweet will:

Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;

And all that mighty heart is lying still!

 

Villiam Wordsworth, May 1, 2023

 

 

 

DRKOTÁ VŮZ PO KAMENÍ

 

Minula noc, mine sen

Objeví se za úsvitu

Dávné sídlo v dávné mlze

Drkotá vůz po kamení

Za křovím se leskne řeka

Strom do vody střásá listí

Luňák letí za kořistí

 

Ivan Wernisch, April 28, 2023

 

 

 

DANSGOLVET PÅ BERGET

 

XXVI

 

S:t Stefans dag

sitter jag i människornas kök

dricker öl och lyssnar till språket

som består av deras ärenden, deras minnen

och jag blir hjälplös, sägen något

men det ramlar

ur min mun och ner på golvet som en hästsko

 

Pentti Saarikoski, April 24, 2023

 

 

 

KIOSK

                     

       “Any news about Elvir?,” Refka asked me as I entered the kiosk.

        I shook my head. I could not bring myself to squeeze out such a brief word as “No!”.

        Refka sells all kinds of small items, anything she can get a hold of that can sell in these times of war. I sat next to her quietly. Didn’t feel like talking. I came here just so I wouldn’t be alone. She didn’t know what to say either, so she too kept silent. Then a passerby showed up and stuck his head through the little window.

       “Wanna buy a cigarette?” he asked Refka.

       “How much?”

       “Two marks.”

       “No.”

        The smuggler walked away. Refka looked at me, thought for a moment, then yelled through the window.

        “Hey! Come back.”

        When the guy returned, she bought two cigarettes for four marks.

        The marks were German. The cigarettes were Croatian.  The kiosk belonged to Refka. Elvir is my younger brother. He is nineteen. He is in a concentration camp.

        We sat silently in the kiosk, smoking.

 

Adin Ljuca (translated by Esma Hadžiselimović), April 21, 2023

 

 

 

THE SHIP OF DEATH

 

I

 

Now it is autumn and the falling fruit

and the long journey towards oblivion.

 

The apples falling like great drops of dew

to bruise themselves an exit from themselves.

 

And it is time to go, to bid farewell

to one’s own self, and find an exit

from the fallen self.

 

II

 

Have you built your ship of death, O have you?

O build your ship of death, for you will need it.

 

The grim frost is at hand, when the apples will fall

thick, almost thundrous, on the hardened earth.

 

And death is on the air like a smell of ashes!

Ah! can’t you smell it?

 

And in the bruised body, the frightened soul

finds itself shrinking, wincing from the cold

that blows upon it through the orifices.

 

III

 

And can a man his own quietus make

with a bare bodkin?

 

With daggers, bodkins, bullets, man can make

a bruise or break of exit for his life;

but is that a quietus, O tell me, is it quietus?

 

Surely not so! for how could murder, even self-murder

ever a quietus make?

 

IV

 

O let us talk of quiet that we know,

that we can know, the deep and lovely quiet

of a strong heart at peace!

 

How can we this, our own quietus, make?

 

V

 

Build then the ship of death, for you must take

the longest journey, to oblivion.

 

And die the death, the long and painful death

that lies between the old self and the new.

 

Already our bodies are fallen, bruised, badly bruised,

already our souls are oozing through the exit

of the cruel bruise.

 

Already the dark and endless ocean of the end

is washing in through the breaches of our wounds,

already the flood is upon us.

 

Oh build your ship of death, your little ark

and furnish it with food, with little cakes, and wine

for the dark flight down oblivion.

 

VI

 

Piecemeal the body dies, and the timid soul

has her footing washed away, as the dark flood rises.

 

We are dying, we are dying, we are all of us dying

and nothing will stay the death-flood rising within us

and soon it will rise on the world, on the outside world.

 

We are dying, we are dying, piecemeal our bodies are dying

and our strength leaves us,

and our soul cowers naked in the dark rain over the flood,

cowering in the last branches of the tree of our life.

 

VII

 

We are dying, we are dying, so all we can do

is now to be willing to die, and to build the ship

of death to carry the soul on the longest journey.

 

A little ship, with oars and food

and little dishes, and all accoutrements

fitting and ready for the departing soul.

 

Now launch the small ship, now as the body dies

and life departs, launch out, the fragile soul

in the fragile ship of courage, the ark of faith

with its store of food and little cooking pans

and change of clothes,

upon the flood’s black waste

upon the waters of the end

upon the sea of death, where still we sail

darkly, for we cannot steer, and have no port.

 

There is no port, there is nowhere to go

only the deepening black darkening still

blacker upon the soundless, ungurgling flood

darkness at one with darkness, up and down

and sideways utterly dark, so there is no direction any more

and the little ship is there; yet she is gone.

She is not seen, for there is nothing to see her by.

She is gone! gone! and yet

somewhere she is there.

Nowhere!

 

VIII

 

And everything is gone, the body is gone

completely under, gone, entirely gone.

The upper darkness is heavy as the lower,

between them the little ship

is gone

she is gone.

 

It is the end, it is oblivion.

 

IX

 

And yet out of eternity a thread

separates itself on the blackness,

a horizontal thread

that fumes a little with pallor upon the dark.

 

Is it illusion? or does the pallor fume

A little higher?

Ah wait, wait, for there’s the dawn,

the cruel dawn of coming back to life

out of oblivion.

 

Wait, wait, the little ship

drifting, beneath the deathly ashy grey

of a flood-dawn.

 

Wait, wait! even so, a flush of yellow

and strangely, O chilled wan soul, a flush of rose.

 

A flush of rose, and the whole thing starts again.

 

X

 

The flood subsides, and the body, like a worn sea-shell

emerges strange and lovely.

And the little ship wings home, faltering and lapsing

on the pink flood,

and the frail soul steps out, into the house again

filling the heart with peace.

 

Swings the heart renewed with peace

even of oblivion.

 

Oh build your ship of death, oh build it!

for you will need it.

For the voyage of oblivion awaits you.

 

David Herbert Lawrence, April 17, 2023

 

​

​

YOUR LAST DRIVE

 

Here by the moorway you returned,

And saw the borough lights ahead

That lit your face – all undiscerned

To be in a week the face of the dead,

And you told of the charm of that haloed view

That never again would beam on you.

 

And on your left you passed the spot

Where eight days later you were to lie,

And be spoken of as one who was not;

Beholding it with a heedless eye

As alien from you, though under its tree

You soon would halt everlastingly.

 

I drove not with you... Yet had I sat

At your side that eve I should not have seen

That the countenance I was glancing at

Had a last-time look in the flickering sheen,

Nor have read the writing upon your face,

"I go hence soon to my resting-place;

 

"You may miss me then. But I shall not know

How many times you visit me there,

Or what your thoughts are, or if you go

There never at all.  And I shall not care.

Should you censure me I shall take no heed

And even your praises no more shall need."

 

True:  never you'll know. And you will not mind.

But shall I then slight you because of such?

Dear ghost, in the past did you ever find

The thought "What profit", move me much?

Yet abides the fact, indeed, the same, – 

You are past love, praise, indifference, blame.

 

Thomas Hardy,  April 14, 2023

 

 

 

LINES INSCRIBED UPON A CUP FORMED FROM A SKULL 

 

Start not–nor deem my spirit fled:
In me behold the only skull
From which, unlike a living head,
Whatever flows is never dull.

I lived, I loved, I quaffed like thee;
I died: let earth my bones resign:
Fill up–thou canst not injure me;
The worm hath fouler lips than thine.

Better to hold the sparkling grape
Than nurse the earthworm's slimy brood,
And circle in the goblet's shape
The drink of gods than reptile's food.

Where once my wit, perchance, hath shone,
In aid of others' let me shine;
And when, alas! our brains are gone,
What nobler substitute than wine?

Quaff while thou canst; another race,
When thou and thine like me are sped,
May rescue thee from earth's embrace,
And rhyme and revel with the dead.

Why not--since through life's little day
Our heads such sad effects produce?
Redeemed from worms and wasting clay,
This chance is theirs to be of use.

 

George Gordon, Lord Byron, April 10, 2023

 

 

 

ROSE AYLMER

​

Ah what avails the sceptred race,

Ah what the form divine!

What every virtue, every grace!

Rose Aylmer, all were thine.

​

Rose Aylmer, whom these wakeful eyes

May weep, but never see,

A night of memories and of sighs

I consecrate to thee.

 

Walter Savage Landor, April 7, 2023

 

 

 

THE GARDEN OF LOVE

 

I went to the Garden of Love,

And saw what I never had seen:

A Chapel was built in the midst,

Where I used to play on the green.

 

And the gates of this Chapel were shut,

And 'Thou shalt not' writ over the door;

So I turn'd to the Garden of Love,

That so many sweet flowers bore. 

 

And I saw it was filled with graves,

And tomb-stones where flowers should be:

And Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds,

And binding with briars, my joys & desires.

 

William Blake, April 3, 2023

 

 

 

LONDON, 1802

 

Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour:

England hath need of thee: she is a fen

Of stagnant waters: altar, sword, and pen,

Fireside, the heroic wealth of hall and bower,

​

Have forfeited their ancient English dower

Of inward happiness. We are selfish men;

Oh! raise us up, return to us again;

And give us manners, virtue, freedom, power.

​

Thy soul was like a Star, and dwelt apart:

Thou hadst a voice whose sound was like the sea:

Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free,

​

So didst thou travel on life's common way,

In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart

The lowliest duties on herself did lay.

Villiam Wordsworth, March 31, 2023