Saturday, October 21, 2006
Edmund Waller (1606-1687)
On a Girdle
That which her slender waist confin’d,
Shall now my joyful temples bind;
No monarch but would give his crown,
His arms might do what this has done.
It was my heaven’s extremest sphere,
The pale which held that lovely deer,
My joy, my grief, my hope, my love,
Did all within this circle move.
A narrow compass, and yet [...]
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Ode to the West Wind
by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)
I
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark [...]
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Thursday, October 19, 2006
Sapphics
by Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909)
All the night sleep came not upon my eyelids,
Shed not dew, nor shook nor unclosed a feather,
Yet with lips shut close and with eyes of iron
Stood and beheld me.
Then to me so lying awake a vision
Came without sleep over the seas and touched me,
Softly touched mine eyelids and [...]
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Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Heraclitus (translated from the Greek of Callimachus)
by William Johnson Cory (1823-1892)
They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead,
They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed.
I wept, as I remembered, how often you and I
Had tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky.
And now that thou art [...]
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Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Autumn Thoughts
by Robert Huntington (1958-)
The autumn leaves sparkle, every hue
Glistening, orange, gold and scarlet red;
What would I say? “They’re wrinkled, dry and dead”
If I looked up without thinking of you.
Majestic storm clouds thrill while peeking through
Behind them brilliant flaming flecks appear
As the sun sets. “Oppressive, dark and drear”
I’d call it if I didn’t think of [...]
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To Lucy, Countess of Bedford, with John Donne’s Satires
by Ben Jonson (1572-1637)
Lucy, you brightness of our sphere, who are
Life of the Muses’ day, their morning star!
If works, not th’ author’s, their own grace should look,
Whose poems would not wish to be your book?
But these, desir’d by you, the maker’s ends
Crown with their own. Rare poems [...]
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Two Epigrams, One Sublime and One Obscene
by Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749-1832)
Das ist die wahre Liebe, die immer und immer sich gleichbleibt
Wenn man ihr alles gew
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Saturday, October 14, 2006
How They Brought the Good News From Ghent to Aix
by Robert Browning (1812-1889)
I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he;
I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three;
“Good speed!” cried the watch, as the gate-bolts undrew;
“Speed!” echoed the wall to us galloping through;
Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest,
And into the midnight we [...]
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Art Thou Poor?
by Thomas Dekker (1572?-1632)
Art thou poor, yet hast thou golden slumbers?
O sweet content!
Art thou rich, yet is thy mind perplexed?
O punishment!
Dost thou laugh to see how fools are vexed
To add to golden numbers, golden numbers?
O sweet content! O sweet, O sweet [...]
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Thursday, October 12, 2006
A Dream Within a Dream
by Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)
Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow–
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All [...]
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