m9




A noiseless patient spider,
I marked where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Marked how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launched forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself.
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you, O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to connect them.
Till the bridge you will need be formed, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.


W.Whitman

a6


Echo

Come to me in the silence of the night;
Come in the speaking silence of a dream;
Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright
As sunlight on a stream;
Come back in tears,
O memory, hope, love of finished years.

O dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet,
Whose wakening should have been in Paradise,
Where souls brimfull of love abide and meet;
Where thirsty longing eyes
Watch the slow door
That opening, letting in, lets out no more.

Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live
My very life again though cold in death;
Come back to me in dreams, that I may give
Pulse for pulse, breath for breath:
Speak low, lean low,
As long ago, my love, how long ago!

C. Rossetti

b13



Into Neutral

The scene has lost weight.
Just glance at the pond, the famous pond
Where mallards float around memory.

Hockey boys on ice
Scared kids on double runners.
One girl fell in up to her waist.
The crop of algae every June
Greened into August.
Dad forbade more talk about it
And built a swan boat for our mother.
Bullfrogs woke us dogs shook
Fields flooded again one rainy spring
And the sixty-foot sycamore bloomed.

On this last day look out the window.
In afternoon’s early dark
Black ice reflects the sunset.
Don’t slam the door.



JWB Rogers

e11



What is precious is never to forget
The essential delight of the blood drawn from ageless springs
Breaking through rocks in worlds before our earth.
Never to deny its pleasure in the morning simple light
Nor its grave evening demand for love.
Never to allow gradually the traffic to smother
With noise and fog the flowering of the spirit.

Near the snow, near the sun, in the highest fields
See how these names are feted by the waving grass
And by the streamers of white cloud
And whispers of wind in the listening sky.
The names of those who in their lives fought for life
Who wore at their hearts the fire’s centre.
Born of the sun they travelled a short while towards the sun,
And left the vivid air signed with their honour.


Stephen Spender

c8



Holy Fragments

Silver water, still or pouring

A whole wide world in each head

A ribbon of sparrows rising

No reason for a skunk’s white stripe

Our dog weeps in his dreams

How the earth sounded before there were ears

The wind.



JWB Rogers

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

y2

c27




On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.
And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets in to you,
may a flock of colors,
indigo, red, green,
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.


John O’Donahue

f21


When lilacs last in the dooryard bloomed,
And the great star early drooped in the western sky in the night,
I mourned, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.

Ever-returning spring, trinity sure to me you bring,
Lilac blooming perennial and drooping star in the west,
And thoughts of him I love.

O powerful western fallen star!
O shades of night—O moody, tearful night!
O great star disappeared—O the black murk that hides the star!
O cruel hands that hold me powerless—O helpless soul of me!
O harsh surrounding cloud that will not free my soul.

Comrades mine and I in the midst, and their memory ever to keep, for the dead I loved so well,
For the sweetest, wisest soul of all my days and lands—and this for his dear sake,
Lilac and star and bird twined with the chant of my soul,
There in the fragrant pines and the cedars dusk and dim.


W. Whitman

L6


Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is;

What if my leaves are falling like its own!

The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,

Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, spirit fierce,

My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe

Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!

And, by the incantation of this verse,

Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth

Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!

Be through my lips to unawakened earth

The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,

If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?



from Ode to the West Wind, by PBShelley

j56


Hand-Me-Downs, by Grace Paley


My love rests on the couch
in the sweater and bones of old age

I have stopped reading to look at him I take
his hand I am shawled in my own somewhat
wrinkled still serviceable skin

No one knows what to do with these
hand-me-downs Love them I suppose

weren’t they worn in and out of
dignity by our mothers and
fathers even our children in
the grip of merciless genes will
wear these garments

may their old lovers greet and
touch them then in the bare light
of that last beauty

d5



Could have.................. by W. Szymborska


It could have happened.

It had to happen.

It happened earlier. Later.

Nearer. Farther off.

It happened, but not to you.


You were saved because you were the first.

You were saved because you were the last.

Alone. With others.

On the right. The left.

Because it was raining. Because of the shade.

Because the day was sunny.



You were in luck--there was a forest.

You were in luck--there were no trees.

You were in luck--a rake, a hook, a beam, a brake,

a jamb, a turn, a quarter inch, an instant.

You were in luck--just then a straw went floating by.


As a result, because, although, despite.

What would have happened if a hand, a foot,

within an inch, a hairsbreadth from

an unfortunate coincidence.


So you're here? Still dizzy from another dodge,

close shave, reprieve?

One hole in the net and you slipped through?

I couldn't be more shocked and speechless.

Listen,

how your heart pounds inside me.

D30


After great pain a formal feeling comes—
The nerves sit ceremonious like tombs;
The still Heart questions—was it He that bore?
And yesterday—or centuries before?

The feet mechanical
Go round a wooden way
Of ground or air or aught, regardless grown,
A quartz contentment like a stone.

This is the hour of lead
Remembered if outlived,
As freezing persons recollect the snow—
First chill, then stupor, then the letting go.


E. Dickinson

F13


Ein Gleiches by JWvGoethe


Uber allen Gipfeln
Ist Ruh,
In allen Wipfeln
Spurest du
Kaum einen Hauch;
Die Vogelein schweigen im Walde.
Warte nur, balde
Ruhest du auch.


A Similarity translated by JCWarren

Above all the hilltops
Is calm,
In all the treetops you sense
Scarcely a breath;
The birds are quiet in the forest.
Just wait, soon
You too will rest.

C28




Thinking about the Past

Certain moments will never change nor stop being—
My mother’s face all smiles, all wrinkles soon;
The rock wall building, built, collapsed then, fallen;
Our upright loosening downward slowly out of tune—
All fixed into place now, all rhyming with each other.
That red-hired girl with wide mouth—Eleanor—
Forgotten thirty years--her freckled shoulders, hands.
The breast of Mary Something, freed from a white swimsuit,
Damp, sandy, warm; or Margery’s, a small, caught bird—
Darkness they rise from, darkness they sink back toward.
And Kenny in wartime whites, crisp, cocky,
Time a bow bent with his certain failure.
Dusks, dawns; waves; the ends of songs…


Donald Justice