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Fox Sleep
© William Stanley Merwin
On a road through the mountains with a friend many years ago
I came to a curve on a slope where a clear stream
My skeleton, my rival
© David Ignatow
Interesting that I have to live with my skeleton.
It stands, prepared to emerge, and I carry it
with me—this other thing I will become at death,
and yet it keeps me erect and limber in my walk,
my rival.
Ode Read At The One Hundreth Anniversary Of The Fight At Concord Bridge
© James Russell Lowell
I
Who cometh over the hills,
Coole Park 1929
© William Butler Yeats
I MEDITATE upon a swallow's flight,
Upon a aged woman and her house,
A Summer Garden
© Louise Gluck
1
Several weeks ago I discovered a photograph of my mother
sitting in the sun, her face flushed as with achievement or triumph.
The sun was shining. The dogs
were sleeping at her feet where time was also sleeping,
calm and unmoving as in all photographs.
from The Vanity of Human Wishes
© Henry James Pye
Yet still one genral cry the skies assails,
And gain and grandeur load the tainted gales,
Few know the toiling statesmans fear or care,
Th insidious rival and the gaping heir.
from The Bridge: The Tunnel
© Hart Crane
Or can’t you quite make up your mind to ride;
A walk is better underneath the L a brisk
Ten blocks or so before? But you find yourself
Preparing penguin flexions of the arms,—
As usual you will meet the scuttle yawn:
The subway yawns the quickest promise home.
The Bounty
© Derek Walcott
Between the vision of the Tourist Board and the true
Paradise lies the desert where Isaiah’s elations
force a rose from the sand. The thirty-third canto
from Fanny
© Fitz-Greene Halleck
Dear to the exile is his native land,
In memory’s twilight beauty seen afar:
Dear to the broker is a note of hand,
Collaterally secured—the polar star
Is dear at midnight to the sailor’s eyes,
And dear are Bristed’s volumes at “half price;”
A Sentiment Offered At The Dinner To H. I. H. The Prince Napoleon
© Oliver Wendell Holmes
AT THE REVERE HOUSE,
SEPTEMBER 25,1861
Mephistopheles Perverted
© Kenneth Slessor
(Or Goethe for the Times)
ONCE long ago lived a Flea
Who kept such a fine, fat King,
Not that he held with royalty,
Prince Athanase
© Percy Bysshe Shelley
There was a youth, who, as with toil and travel,
Had grown quite weak and gray before his time;
Nor any could the restless griefs unravel
from The Botanic Garden, “The Economy of Vegetation”: Canto I
© Erasmus Darwin
Argument
The Genius of the place invites the Goddess of Botany, 1. She descends, is received by Spring, and the Elements, 59. Addresses the Nymphs of Fire. Star-light Night seen in the Camera Obscura, 81. I. Love created the Universe. Chaos explodes. All the Stars revolve. God, 97. II. Shooting Stars. Lightning. Rainbow. Colours of the Morning and Evening Skies. Exterior Atmosphere of inflammable Air. Twilight. Fire-balls. Aurora Borealis. Planets. Comets. Fixed Stars. Sun’s Orb, 115. III. 1. Fires of the Earth’s Centre. Animal Incubation, 137. 2. Volcanic Mountains. Venus visits the Cyclops, 149. IV. Heat confined on the Earth by the Air. Phosphoric lights in the Evening. Bolognian Stone. Calcined Shells. Memnon’s Harp, 173. Ignis fatuus. Luminous Flowers. Glow-worm. Fire-fly. Luminous Sea-insects. Electric Eel. Eagle armed with Lightning, 189. V. 1. Discovery of Fire. Medusa, 209. 2. The chemical Properties of Fire. Phosphorus. Lady in Love, 223. 3. Gunpowder, 237. VI. Steam-engine applied to Pumps, Bellows, Water-engines, Corn-mills, Coining, Barges, Waggons, Flying-chariots, 253. Labours of Hercules. Abyla and Calpe, 297. VII. 1. Electric Machine. Hesperian Dragon. Electric Kiss. Halo round the heads of Saints. Electric Shock. Fairy-rings, 335. 2. Death of Professor Richman, 371. 3. Franklin draws Lightning from the Clouds. Cupid snatches the Thunderbolt from Jupiter, 383. VIII. Phosphoric Acid and Vital Heat produced in the Blood. The great Egg of Night, 399. IX. Western Wind unfettered. Naiad released. Frost assailed. Whale attacked, 421. X. Buds and Flowers expanded by Warmth, Electricity, and Light. Drawings with colourless sympathetic Inks; which appear when warmed by the Fire, 457. XI. Sirius. Jupiter and Semele. Nothern Constellations. Ice-Islands navigated into the Tropic Seas. Rainy Monsoons, 497. XII. Points erected to procure Rain. Elijah on Mount Carmel, 549. Departure of the Nymphs of Fire like Sparks from artificial Fireworks, 587.
The Poets
© Archibald Lampman
Half brutish, half divine, but all of earth,
Half-way 'twixt hell and heaven, near to man,
The whole world's tangle gathered in one span,
Full of this human torture and this mirth:
Life with its hope and error, toil and bliss,
Earth-born, earth-reared, ye know it as it is.
Jerusalem Delivered - Book 05 - part 04
© Torquato Tasso
XLIX
"If then you scorn to be in prison pent,
The Emigration to New Zealand
© Henry Lawson
Ive just received a letter from a chum in Maoriland,
Hes working down in Auckland where he days hes doing grand,
The climates cooler there, but hearts are warmer, says my chum,
He sends the passage money, and he says Id better come.
(Id like to see his face again, Id like to grip his hand),
He says hes sure that Ill get on first-rate in Maoriland.
“Actuarial File”
© Jean Valentine
Orange peels, burned letters, the car lights shining on the grass,
everything goes somewhere—and everything we do—nothing
ever disappears. But changes. The roar of the sun in photographs.
Inching shorelines. Ice lines. The cells of our skin; our meetings,
our solitudes. Our eyes.
Memorandum
© William Stanley Merwin
Save these words for a while because
of something they remind you of
although you cannot remember
what that is a sense that is part
dust and part the light of morning
A Prayer for the Past: Now far from my old northern land,
© George MacDonald
Now far from my old northern land,
I live where gentle winters pass;
Where green seas lave a wealthy strand,
And unsown is the grass;
