m1


Dawn came softly, with gray indefinite clouds and warm moist air. Rain had fallen during the night, and the path down the hill had become a small river, with the deer bouncing away in every direction, as if on springs. Then they couldn’t resist looking back: who is this strange creature with only two legs? How much more satisfying to be able to bounce along on four. At the bottom of the hill, the creek had become a lake, and the boards for crossing it were now washed away. If Celine were to come and haul down the kayak, she could cross to the other side.

s26


The Tent


Creamy light shines strongly sideways on the tent,

glowing white in the evening sun.

A muted blue shadow stretches from the tent along dark grass,

and off into the trees.

Inside the tent, sitting peacefully in lavender-blue shade,

two figures.

No need to speak.

r3


Our revels now are ended.
These our actors, as I foretold you,
were all spirits
and are melted into air, into thin air:
and, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
the cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
the solemn temples, the great globe itself,
yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve and,
like this insubstantial pageant faded,
leave not a rack behind.
We are such stuff as dreams are made on,
and our little life is rounded with a sleep.


W. Shakespeare

ja17

Der Schwan by RM Rilke

Diese Muhsal, durch noch Ungetanes
schwer und wir bebunden hinzugehn,
gleicht dem ungeschaffnen Gang des Schwanes.

Und das Sterben, dieses Nichtmehrfassen
jenes Grunds, auf dem wir taglich stehn,
seinem angstlichen Sich-Niederlassen---:

in die Wasser, die ihn sanft empfangen
und die sich, wie glucklich und vergangen,
unter ihm zuruckziehn, Flut um flut,
wahrend er unendlich still und sicher
immer mundiger und koniglicher
und gelassener zu ziehn geruht.

The Swan

This drudgery of trudging through tasks
yet undone, heavily, as if bound,
is like the swan's not fully created walking.

And dying, this no longer being able
to hold to the ground we stand on every day,
like the swan's anxious letting himself down--:

into the waters, which gently accept him
and, as if happy and already in the past,
draw away under him, ripple upon ripple,
while he, now utterly quiet and sure
and ever more mature and regal
and composed, is pleased to glide.

L11





Be near me when my light is low,
When the blood creeps, and the nerves prick
And tingle; and the heart is sick,
And all the wheels of Being slow.

Be near me when the sensuous frame
Is racked with pangs that conquer trust;
And Time, a maniac scattering dust,
And Life, a Fury slinging flame.

Be near me when I fade away,
To point the term of human strife,
And on the low dark verge of life
The twilight of eternal day.



A. Tennyson

r4



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 on a sail,
That brings our friends up from the underworld,
Sad as the last which reddens over one
That sinks with all we love below the verge;
So sad, so fresh, the days that are no more.

Dear as remember’d kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feign’d
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in Life, the days that are no more.



A.Tennyson