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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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