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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Beowulf

                        ... no weapons, therefore,

for either this night: unarmed he shall face me

if face me he dares. And may the Divine Lord

in His wisdom grant the Glory of Victory

to whichever side He sees fit.






From "Beowulf", (Lines  683 - 687)
W. W. Norton & Company, Inc
Beowulf
Translation  Seamus Heaney  (1939 - 2013)

Clave de Sol

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