Written by
Victor Hugo |
("Tandis que l'étoile inodore.")
{XXXII.}
While bright but scentless azure stars
Be-gem the golden corn,
And spangle with their skyey tint
The furrows not yet shorn;
While still the pure white tufts of May
Ape each a snowy ball,—
Away, ye merry maids, and haste
To gather ere they fall!
Nowhere the sun of Spain outshines
Upon a fairer town
Than Peñafiel, or endows
More richly farming clown;
Nowhere a broader square reflects
Such brilliant mansions, tall,—
Away, ye merry maids, etc.
Nowhere a statelier abbey rears
Dome huger o'er a shrine,
Though seek ye from old Rome itself
To even Seville fine.
Here countless pilgrims come to pray
And promenade the Mall,—
Away, ye merry maids, etc.
Where glide the girls more joyfully
Than ours who dance at dusk,
With roses white upon their brows,
With waists that scorn the busk?
Mantillas elsewhere hide dull eyes—
Compared with these, how small!
Away, ye merry maids, etc.
A blossom in a city lane,
Alizia was our pride,
And oft the blundering bee, deceived,
Came buzzing to her side—
But, oh! for one that felt the sting,
And found, 'neath honey, gall—
Away, ye merry maids, etc.
Young, haughty, from still hotter lands,
A stranger hither came—
Was he a Moor or African,
Or Murcian known to fame?
None knew—least, she—or false or true,
The name by which to call.
Away, ye merry maids, etc.
Alizia asked not his degree,
She saw him but as Love,
And through Xarama's vale they strayed,
And tarried in the grove,—
Oh! curses on that fatal eve,
And on that leafy hall!
Away, ye merry maids, etc.
The darkened city breathed no more;
The moon was mantled long,
Till towers thrust the cloudy cloak
Upon the steeples' throng;
The crossway Christ, in ivy draped,
Shrank, grieving, 'neath the pall,—
Away, ye merry maids, etc.
But while, alone, they kept the shade,
The other dark-eyed dears
Were murmuring on the stifling air
Their jealous threats and fears;
Alizia was so blamed, that time,
Unheeded rang the call:
Away, ye merry maids, etc.
Although, above, the hawk describes
The circle round the lark,
It sleeps, unconscious, and our lass
Had eyes but for her spark—
A spark?—a sun! 'Twas Juan, King!
Who wears our coronal,—
Away, ye merry maids, etc.
A love so far above one's state
Ends sadly. Came a black
And guarded palanquin to bear
The girl that ne'er comes back;
By royal writ, some nunnery
Still shields her from us all
Away, ye merry maids, and haste
To gather ere they fall!
H. L. WILLIAMS
|
Written by
Joyce Kilmer |
Serene he stands, with mist serenely crowned,
And draws a cloak of trees about his breast.
The thunder roars but cannot break his rest
And from his rugged face the tempests bound.
He does not heed the angry lightning's wound,
The raging blizzard is his harmless guest,
And human life is but a passing jest
To him who sees Time spin the years around.
But fragile souls, in skyey reaches find
High vantage-points and view him from afar.
How low he seems to the ascended mind,
How brief he seems where all things endless are;
This little playmate of the mighty wind
This young companion of an ancient star.
|
Written by
Arthur Hugh Clough |
Away, haunt thou me not,
Thou vain Philosophy!
Little hast thou bestead,
Save to perplex the head,
And leave the spirit dead.
Unto thy broken cisterns wherefore go,
While from the secret treasure-depths below,
Fed by the skyey shower,
And clouds that sink and rest on hilltops high,
Wisdom at once, and Power,
Are welling, bubbling forth, unseen, incessantly?
Why labor at the dull mechanic oar,
When the fresh breeze is blowing,
And the strong current flowing,
Right onward to the Eternal Shore?
|
Written by
Robert Louis Stevenson |
MEN are Heaven's piers; they evermore
Unwearying bear the skyey floor;
Man's theatre they bear with ease,
Unfrowning cariatides!
I, for my wife, the sun uphold,
Or, dozing, strike the seasons cold.
She, on her side, in fairy-wise
Deals in diviner mysteries,
By spells to make the fuel burn
And keep the parlour warm, to turn
Water to wine, and stones to bread,
By her unconquered hero-head.
A naked Adam, naked Eve,
Alone the primal bower we weave;
Sequestered in the seas of life,
A Crusoe couple, man and wife,
With all our good, with all our will,
Our unfrequented isle we fill;
And victor in day's petty wars,
Each for the other lights the stars.
Come then, my Eve, and to and fro
Let us about our garden go;
And, grateful-hearted, hand in hand
Revisit all our tillage land,
And marvel at our strange estate,
For hooded ruin at the gate
Sits watchful, and the angels fear
To see us tread so boldly here.
Meanwhile, my Eve, with flower and grass
Our perishable days we pass;
Far more the thorn observe - and see
How our enormous sins go free -
Nor less admire, beside the rose,
How far a little virtue goes.
|
Written by
Robert William Service |
Said a monkey unto me:
"How I'm glad I am not you!
See, I swing from tree to tree,
Something that you cannot do.
In gay greenery I drown;
Swift to skyey hights I scale:
As you watch me hang head down
Don't you wish you had a tail?
"Don't you wish that you could wear
In the place of stuffy clothes,
Just a silky coat of hair,
Never shoes to cramp your toes?
Never need to toil for bread,
Round you nuts and fruit and spice;
And with palm tuft for a bed
Happily to crack your lice?"
Said I: "You are right, maybe:
Witting naught of wordly woe,
Gloriously you are free,
And of death you nothing know.
Envying your monkey mind,
Innocent of blight and bale,
As I touch my bald behind
How I wish I had a tail!"
So in toils of trouble caught,
Oft I wonder with a sigh
If that blue-bummed ape is not
Happier than I?
|
Written by
Robert William Service |
When I am dead I will not care
How future generations fare,
For I will be so unaware.
Though fields their slain has carpeted,
And seas be salt with tears they shed,
Not one I'll waste, for I'll be dead.
Though atom bombs in ashes lay
Their skyey cities of to-day,
With carrion lips I cannot pray.
Though ruin reigns and madness raves,
And cowering men creep back in caves,
I cannot help to dig their graves.
Though fools for knowledge delve too deep,
And wake dark demons from their sleep,
I will not have the eyes to weep.
I will not care, I cannot care,
For I will be no longer there
To share their sorrow and despair.
And nevermore my heart will bleed
When on my brain the blind-worms feed,
For I'll be dead, dead, DEAD indeed.
And when I rot and cease to be,
It matters not a jot to me
What may be man's dark destiny.
Ah! there you have the hell of it,
As in the face of Fate I spit
I know she doesn't mind a bit.
A thousand millions clot this earth,
And billions more await their birth -
For what? .
.
.
Ye gods, enjoy your mirth!
|
Written by
Robert William Service |
Grimy men with picks and shovels
Who in darkness sweat unseen,
Climb from out your lousy hovels,
Build a palace for the Queen;
Praise the powers that be for giving
You a chance to make a living.
Yet it would be better far
Could you build with cosy lure
Skyey tenements where are
Rabbit-warrens of the poor;
With a hope bright as a gem
Some day you might live in them.
Could the Queen just say: 'A score
Of rich palaces have I.
Do not make me any more,--
Raise a hostel heaven-high;
House the hundreds who have need,
To their misery give heed.
'
Could she make this gesture fine
To the pit where labour grovels,
Mother hearts would cease to pine,
Weary men would wave their shovels.
All would cry with hope serene:
'Little children, bless the Queen!'
|
Written by
Omar Khayyam |
O skyey wheel, all base men you supply
With baths, mills, and canals that run not dry,
While good men have to pawn their goods for bread:
Pray, who would give a fig for such a sky?
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