William Shakespeare (1564-1616) : "Sonnet LXXII"

O, lest the world should task you to recite

What merit lived in me that you should love,

After my death, dear love, forget me quite,

For you in me can nothing worthy prove;

Unless you would devise some virtuous lie,

To do more for me than mine own desert,

And hang more praise upon deceased I

Than niggard truth would willingly impart.

O, lest your true love may seem false in this,

That you for love speak well of me untrue,

My name be buried where my body is,

And live no more to shame nor me nor you.

      For I am shamed by that which I bring forth,

      And so should you, to love things nothing worth.



Sonnets
Shakespeare's Sonnets

Glowing Dusk

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William Shakespeare (1564-1616) : "Sonnet LXXIII"

That time of year thou mayst in me behold

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang

Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,

Bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang. 

In me thou see'st the twilight of such day

As after sunset fadeth in the west,

Which by and by black night doth take away, 

Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.

In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire

That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,

As the death-bed whereon it must expire,

Consumed with that which it was nourished by.

      This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more

            strong,

      To love that well which thou must leave ere long. 

  

From "Sonnets"
Shakespeare's Sonnets

A Sky Away

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This Morning

High in the sky

you found me this morning

seeking your eyes

gave a kiss to the creek


Wet to the knees

I walked the horizon

paving the way

with stony love songs

             

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Tallis: Spem In Alium

Love Notes

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Sandor Weores (1913 - 1989): "Rain"

The rain's pounding away

         at the rusty eaves.

Twirling, sliding bubbling foam -

         well, that's rain.


You too, and I should walk now

         as free as that

on cloud, on air, the meadow

         and the vapor roads.


Move around up there and here below

        like this liquid thing,

flowing into human life on rooftops

       and on shoes.




From: Czeslaw Milosz - A Book of Luminous Things
           An International Anthology of Poetry

Translated from the Hungarian by J. Kessler 
Harcourt Brace & Company, 1996

Amado Nervo (1870 - 1919) : ¿Cómo es?

Es Dios personal?

¿Es impersonal?

¿Tiene forma?

¿No tiene forma?

¿Es esencia?

¿Es substancia?

¿Es uno?

¿Es múltiple?

¿Es la conciencia del Universo?

¿Es Voluntad sin conciencia y sin fin?

¿Es todo lo que existe?

¿Es distinto de todo lo que existe?

¿Es como el alma de la naturaleza?

¿Es una LEY?

¿Es simplemente la harmonía de las fuerzas?

¿Está en nosotros mismos?

¿Es nosotros mismos?

¿Está fuera de nosotros?

Alma mía, hace tiempo que tú ya no te preguntas estas cosas.

Tiempo ha que estas cosas ya no te interesan.

Lo único que tú sabes es que Le amas.



Poema del libro "Plenitud"
Editorial Calomino, La Plata Argentina, 1946

Charles Baudelaire (1821 - 1867): Tristesses de La Lune

Ce soir, la lune rêve avec plus de paresse;

Ainsi qu'une beauté, sur des nombreux coussins,

Qui d'une main distraite et légère caress

Avant de s'endormir le contour de ses seins,



Sur le dos satiné des molles avalanches,

Mourante, elle se livre aux longues pâmoisons,

Et promène ses yeux sur les visions blanchesur

Qui montent dans l'azur comme des floraisons.



Quand parfois sur ce globe, en sa langueur oisive,

Elle laisse filer une larme furtive,

Un poète pieux, ennemi du sommeil,




Dans le creux de sa main prend cette larme pâlide,

Aux reflets irisés comme un fragment d'opale,

Et la met dans son coeur loin des yeux du soleil.






From "Les Fleurs Du Mal"
Translation by Richard Howard
David R. Godin Publisher Boston
Twelfth Softcover Printing 2013
First Edition 1982

Les Fleurs du Mal

The Poet's Flowers

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W. S. Merwin (1927- ) : "Rain Light"

All day the stars watch from long ago

my mother said I am going now

when you are alone you will be all right

whether or not you know you will know

look at the old house in the dawn rain

all the flowers are forms of water

the sun reminds them through a white cloud

touches the patchwork spread on the hill

the washed colors of the afterlife

that lived there long before you were born

see how they wake without a question

even though the whole world is burning



From "The Shadow of Sirius"
Copper Canyon Press 2009
The Shadow of Sirius

Holding The Sun

For Moms



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Christopher Marlowe (1564 - 1593) : from "The Passionate Shepherd To His Love"

Come live with me and be my love,

And we will all the pleasures prove

That hills and valleys, dale and field,

And all the craggy mountains yield.


There we will sit upon the rocks,

And see the shepherds feed their flocks,

By shallow rivers to whose falls

Melodious birds sing madrigals.


There I will make thee beds of roses

And a thousand fragrant posies,

A cap of flowers, and a kirtle

Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle;


A gown made of the finest wool

Which from our pretty lambs we pull;

Fair lined slippers for the cold,

With buckles of the purest gold;


The shepherd swains shall dance and sing

For thy delight each May-morning:

If these delights thy mind may move,

Then live with me and be my love.





From  A Victorian Flower Dictionary by Mandy Kirkby
Published by Ballentine Books, 2011

With The Poet

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Sweet Pearls Find

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Rolf Jacobsen (1907 - 1994) : "Cobalt"

Colors are words' little sisters. They can't become soldiers.

I've loved them secretly for a long time.

They have to stay home and hang up the sheer curtains

in our ordinary bedroom, kitchen and alcove.


I'm very close to young Crimson, and brown Sienna

but even closer to thoughtful Cobalt with her distant eyes and

         untrampled spirit.

She walk in dew.

The night sky and the southern oceans

are her possessions

and a tear-shaped pendant on her forehead:

the pearls of Cassiopeia.

We walk in dew on late nights.


But the others.

Meet them on a June morning at four o'clock

when they come rushing toward you,

on your way to a morning swim in the green cove's spray.

When you can sunbathe with them on the smooth rocks.

              -Which one will you make yours?






From: Czeslaw Milosz - A Book of Luminous Things
           An International Anthology of Poetry

Translated from the Norwegian by Roger Greenwald
Harcourt Brace & Company, 1996

Fallen Stars

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World News

                                        Highlight of The Day




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Francis Thompson (1857 - 1907): The Singer Saith Of His Song

The touches of man's modern speech

   Perplex her unacquainted tongue;

There seems through all her songs a sound

   Of falling tears. She is not young.



Within her eyes' profound arcane

   Resides the glory of her dreams;

Behind her secret cloud of hair,

   She sees the Is beyond the Seems.



Her heart sole-towered in her steep spirit,

   Somewhat sweet is she , somewhat wan;

And she sings the songs of Sion

   By the streams of Babylon.




From "Complete Poems Of Francis Thompson"
The Modern Library, New York, 1913

Piliers

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Ben Jonson (1572 - 1637): "Song: To Celia"

Drink to me only with thine eyes,

   And I will pledge with mine;

Or leave a kiss but in the cup,

   And I will not look for wine.

The thirst that from the soul doth rise

  Doth ask a drink divine:

But might I of Jove's nectar sup,

   I would not change for thine.

I sent thee, late, a rosy wreath,

   Not so much honouring thee,

As giving it a hope that there

   It could not withered be.

But thou thereon didst only breathe

   And sent'st back to me,

Since when it grows, and smells, I swear

   Not of itself, but thee.





From "Love Poetry Out Loud"
Edited by Robert Alden Rubin
Published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2007
Love Poetry Out Loud

Robert Bridges (1844 - 1930) : From "The Testament of Beauty"

Mortal Prudence, handmaid of Divine Providence,

hath inscrutable reckoning with Fate and Fortune:

We sail a changeful sea through halcyon days and storm,

and when the ship laboureth, our steadfast purpose

trembles like as the compass in a binnacle.

Our stability is but balance, and wisdom lies

in masterful administration of the unforeseen.



. . .




From "The Testament of Beauty"
A Poem in Four Books
Oxford University Press, New York, 1930

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807 - 1882) : "Giotto's Tower"

How many lives, made beautiful and sweet 

    By self-devotion and by self-restraint,

    Whose pleasure is to run without complaint

    On unknown errands of the Paraclete,

Wanting the reverence of unshodden feet,

    Fail of the nimbus which the artists paint

   Around the shining forehead of the saint,

   And are in their completeness incomplete!

In the old Tuscan town stands Giotto's tower,

   The lily of Florence blossoming in stone, -

   A vision, a delight, and a desire, -

The builder's perfect and centennial flower,

    That in the night of ages bloomed alone,

    But wanting still the glory of the spire.

From "Flower - De - Luce"

Ticknor and Fields,  1867

Flower De Luce

Love

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Zi Ye (6th - 3rd c. B.C.E.)

All night I could  not sleep

because of the moonlight on my  bed.

I kept on hearing a voice calling:

Out of Nowhere, Nothing answered "yes".

From "Women in Praise of the Sacred"

Edited by Jane Hirshfield

Harper Perennial (Harper Collins Publishers) 1995

Women in Praise of the Sacred

Translation by Arthur Waley

Thomas Traherne ( 1636 - 1674 ) : From "Christian Ethicks"

For man to act as if his soul did see

The very brightness of eternity;

For man to act as if his love did burn

Above the spheres, even while it's in its urn;

For man to act even in the wilderness

As if he did those sovereign joys possess

Which do at once confirm, stir up, inflame

And perfect angels - having not the same!

It doth increase the value of his deeds;

In this a man a Seraphim exceeds.

. . .

From "Flowers of Heaven" - One Thousand Years of Christian Verse

Compiled by Joseph Pearce

Ignatius Press, 1999

Flowers of Heaven

Omar Khayyám (1048-1131) : "Rubáiyát"

                            IV


Now the New Year reviving all Desires,

The thoughtful Soul to Solitude retires,

   Where the WHITE HAND OF MOSES on the Bough

Puts out , and Jesus from the Ground suspires.

Omar Khayyám, "Rubáiyát"

Translation Edward Fitzgerald (First Version)

Drawings by Edmund J. Sullivan

Avon pocket-size Books, New York

Omar Khayyám (1048-1131) : "Rubáiyát"

                  I


Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night

Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:

   And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught

The Sultán's Turret in a Noose of Light.

Omar Khayyám, "Rubáiyát"

Translation Edward Fitzgerald (First Version)

Drawings by Edmund J. Sullivan

Avon pocket-size Books, New York

God's kiss

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