Li-Young Lee

" Love, what is the night ?

Is a man thinking in the night

the night?

Is fruit ripening in the night

the night? " ...





From "The Winged Seed"
Simon & Schuster 1995

Easter Tide

Saint Rev. Father Robert Southwell (1561 - 1595) : "The Virgin Mary To Christ On The Cross"

What mist hath dimm'd that glorious face?

What seas of grief my sun doth toss?

The golden rays of heavenly grace

Lies now eclipsed on the cross.



Jesus, my love, my Son, my God,

Behold Thy mother wash'ed in tears:

Thy bloody wounds be made a rod

To chasten these my later years.



You cruel Jews, come work your ire 

Upon this  worthless flesh of mine,

And kindle not eternal fire

By wounding Him who is divine.



Thou messenger that didst impart 

His first descent into my womb,

Come help me now to cleave my heart,

That there I may my Son entomb.



You angels, all that present were

To show His birth with harmony,

Why are you not now ready here,

To make a mourning symphony?



The cause I know you wail alone,

And shed your tears in secrecy,

Lest I should moved be to moan,

By force of heavy company.



But wail, my soul, thy comfort dies,

My woful womb, lament thy fruit;

My heart give tears unto mine eyes,

Let sorrow string my heavy lute.




Fr. Robert Southwell's poems - LUMINARIUM 
Saint Rev. Fr. Robert Southwell  Forty Martyrs of England and Wales

the messenger

Gordon Lightfoot (1938) : If You Could Read My Mind

If you could read my mind, love

What a tale my thoughts could tell

Just like an old time movie

'Bout a ghost from a wishing well

In a castle dark or a fortress strong

With chains upon my feet

You know that ghost is me

And I will never be set free

As long as I'm a ghost that you can't see.



If I could read your mind, love

What a tale your thoughts could tell

Just like a paperback novel

The kind the drugstores sell

Then you reach the part where the heartaches come

The hero would be me

But heroes often fail

And you won't read that book again 

Because the ending's just too hard to take!




I'd walk away like a movie star

Who gets burned in a three way script

Enter number two:

A movie queen to play the scene

Of bringing all the good things out in me



. . .





"If You Could Read My Mind" by Gordon Lightfoot   
written 1969 - recorded 1970

Nevertheless, as much as I, within

my mind, could treasure of the holy kingdom

shall now become the matter of my song.

From "The Divine Comedy"

Paradiso, Canto I

Everyman's Library

The Divine Comedy

Translation Allen Mandelbaum (1926 - 2011)

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) : from "The Masque of Pandora"

Let us go forth from this mysterious place.

The garden walks are pleasant at this hour;

The nightingales among the sheltering boughs

Of populous and many-nested trees

Shall teach me how to woo thee, and shall tell me

By what resistless charms or incantations

They won their mates.




To a Nightingale
Poems from Sappho to Borges
Edited by Edward Hirsch
George Braziller Inc. 2007



H. W. Longfellow  The Masque of Pandora 
1875