All Things Human

Tears, Idle Tears
by Alfred Lord Tennyson (1809-1892)
Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy autumn fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.
Fresh as the first beam glittering [...]

Sonnet 75 from Amoretti
by Edmund Spenser (1552-1599)
One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and wash

Poetry
by Marianne Moore (1887-1992)
I, too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all this fiddle.
Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers in
it after all, a place for the genuine.
Hands that can grasp, eyes
[...]

Windy Nights
by Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)
Whenever the moon and stars are set,
Whenever the wind is high,
All night long in the dark and wet,
A man goes riding by.
Late in the night when the fires are out,
Why does he gallop and gallop about?
Whenever the trees are crying [...]

I have often remarked that “chess is like boxing, only not quite as clean.” Aside from the existence of multiple world champions, I was referring to the corruption that infects both pursuits. Other than that, they really are quite different. Chess appeals to those who like their violence sublimated (or who are either too puny [...]