Poems of Inspiration, Conspiration & Perspiration

Magdalen

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Well, I had something about being sick to death of my own thread topic and then I posted some gore from Roland:


XCIII

Marsile's nephew, his name is Aelroth,
First of them all canters before the host,


1190 Says of our Franks these ill words as he goes:
"Felons of France, so here on us you close!
Betrayed you has he that to guard you ought;
Mad is the King who left you in this post.
So shall the fame of France the Douce be lost,


1195 And the right arm from Charles body torn."
When Rollant hears, what rage he has, by God!
His steed he spurs, gallops with great effort;
He goes, that count, to strike with all his force,
The shield he breaks, the hauberk's seam unsews,


1200 Slices the heart, and shatters up the bones,
All of the spine he severs with that blow,
And with his spear the soul from body throws
So well he's pinned, he shakes in the air that corse,
On his spear's hilt he's flung it from the horse:


1205 So in two halves Aeroth's neck he broke,
Nor left him yet, they say, but rather spoke:
"Avaunt, culvert! A madman Charles is not,
No treachery was ever in his thought.
Proudly he did, who left us in this post;


1210 The fame of France the Douce shall not be lost.
Strike on, the Franks! Ours are the foremost blows.
For we are right, but these gluttons are wrong."
AOI.


and from later in the poem

CLXVII

The count Rollant sees the Archbishop lie dead,
Sees the bowels out of his body shed,
And sees the brains that surge from his forehead;
Between his two arm-pits, upon his breast,


2250 Crossways he folds those hands so white and fair.
Then mourns aloud, as was the custom there:
"Thee, gentle sir, chevalier nobly bred,
To the Glorious Celestial I commend;
Neer shall man be, that will Him serve so well;


2255 Since the Apostles was never such prophet,
To hold the laws and draw the hearts of men.
Now may your soul no pain nor sorrow ken,
Finding the gates of Paradise open!"


http://omacl.org/Roland/
 

Magdalen

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[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Rather long, but definitely worth the read. I consider this poem extremely inspiring since I almost always end up writing something after I've read it. Enjoy![/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]by Walt Whitman[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif](1819-1892)[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Out of the cradle endlessly rocking,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Out of the mocking-bird's throat, the musical shuttle,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Out of the Ninth-month midnight,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Over the sterile sands and the fields beyond, where the child[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]leaving his bed wander'd alone, bareheaded, barefoot,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Down from the shower'd halo,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Up from the mystic play of shadows twining and twisting as if they[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]were alive,[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Out from the patches of briers and blackberries,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]From the memories of the bird that chanted to me,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]From your memories sad brother, from the fitful risings and fallings I heard,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]From under that yellow half-moon late-risen and swollen as if with tears,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]From those beginning notes of yearning and love there in the mist,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]From the thousand responses of my heart never to cease,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]From the myriad thence-arous'd words,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]From the word stronger and more delicious than any,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]From such as now they start the scene revisiting,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]As a flock, twittering, rising, or overhead passing,[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Borne hither, ere all eludes me, hurriedly,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]A man, yet by these tears a little boy again,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Taking all hints to use them, but swiftly leaping beyond them,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]A reminiscence sing.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Once Paumanok,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]When the lilac-scent was in the air and Fifth-month grass was growing,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Up this seashore in some briers,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Two feather'd guests from Alabama, two together,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]And their nest, and four light-green eggs spotted with brown,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]And every day the he-bird to and fro near at hand,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]And every day the she-bird crouch'd on her nest, silent, with bright eyes,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]And every day I, a curious boy, never too close, never disturbing[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]them,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Cautiously peering, absorbing, translating.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Shine! shine! shine![/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Pour down your warmth, great sun.'[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]While we bask, we two together.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Two together![/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Winds blow south, or winds blow north,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Day come white, or night come black,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Home, or rivers and mountains from home,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Singing all time, minding no time,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]While we two keep together.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Till of a sudden,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]May-be kill'd, unknown to her mate,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]One forenoon the she-bird crouch'd not on the nest,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Nor return'd that afternoon, nor the next,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Nor ever appear'd again.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]And thenceforward all summer in the sound of the sea,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]And at night under the full of the moon in calmer weather,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Over the hoarse surging of the sea,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Or flitting from brier to brier by day,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]I saw, I heard at intervals the remaining one, the he-bird,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The solitary guest from Alabama.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Blow! blow! blow![/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Blow up sea-winds along Paumanok's shore;[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]I wait and I wait till you blow my mate to me.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Yes, when the stars glisten'd,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]All night long on the prong of a moss-scallop'd stake,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Down almost amid the slapping waves,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Sat the lone singer wonderful causing tears.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]He call'd on his mate,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]He pour'd forth the meanings which I of all men know.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Yes my brother I know,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The rest might not, but I have treasur'd every note,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]For more than once dimly down to the beach gliding,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Silent, avoiding the moonbeams, blending myself with the shadows,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Recalling now the obscure shapes, the echoes, the sounds and sights[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]after their sorts,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The white arms out in the breakers tirelessly tossing,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]I, with bare feet, a child, the wind wafting my hair,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Listen'd long and long.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Listen'd to keep, to sing, now translating the notes,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Following you my brother.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Soothe! soothe! soothe![/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Close on its wave soothes the wave behind,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]And again another behind embracing and lapping, every one close,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]But my love soothes not me, not me.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Low hangs the moon, it rose late,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]It is lagging--O I think it is heavy with love, with love.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]O madly the sea pushes upon the land,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]With love, with love.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]O night! do I not see my love fluttering out among the breakers?[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]What is that little black thing I see there in the white?[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Loud! loud! loud![/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Loud I call to you, my love![/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]High and clear I shoot my voice over the waves,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Surely you must know who is here, is here,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]You must know who I am, my love.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Low-hanging moon![/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]What is that dusky spot in your brown yellow?[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]O it is the shape, the shape of my mate.'[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]O moon do not keep her from me any longer.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Land! land! O land![/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Whichever way I turn, O I think you could give me my mate back again[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]if you only would,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]For I am almost sure I see her dimly whichever way I look.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]O rising stars![/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Perhaps the one I want so much will rise, will rise with some of you.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]O throat! O trembling throat![/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Sound clearer through the atmosphere![/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Pierce the woods, the earth,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Somewhere listening to catch you must be the one I want.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Shake out carols![/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Solitary here, the night's carols![/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Carols of lonesome love! death's carols![/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Carols under that lagging, yellow, waning moon![/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]O under that moon where she droops almost down into the sea![/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]O reckless despairing carols.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]But soft! sink low![/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Soft! let me just murmur,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]And do you wait a moment you husky-nois'd sea,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]For somewhere I believe I heard my mate responding to me,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]So faint, I must be still, be still to listen,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]But not altogether still, for then she might not come immediately to me.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Hither my love![/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Here I am! here![/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]With this just-sustain'd note I announce myself to you,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]This gentle call is for you my love, for you.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Do not be decoy'd elsewhere,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]That is the whistle of the wind, it is not my voice,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]That is the fluttering, the fluttering of the spray,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Those are the shadows of leaves.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]O darkness! O in vain![/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]O I am very sick and sorrowful[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]O brown halo in the sky near the moon, drooping upon the sea![/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]O troubled reflection in the sea![/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]O throat! O throbbing heart![/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]And I singing uselessly, uselessly all the night.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]O past! O happy life! O songs of joy![/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]In the air, in the woods, over fields,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Loved! loved! loved! loved! loved![/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]But my mate no more, no more with me![/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]We two together no more.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The aria sinking,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]All else continuing, the stars shining,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The winds blowing, the notes of the bird continuous echoing,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]With angry moans the fierce old mother incessantly moaning,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]On the sands of Paumanok's shore gray and rustling,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The yellow half-moon enlarged, sagging down, drooping, the face of[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]the sea almost touching,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The boy ecstatic, with his bare feet the waves, with his hair the[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]atmosphere dallying,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The love in the heart long pent, now loose, now at last tumultuously[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]bursting,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The aria's meaning, the ears, the soul, swiftly depositing,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The strange tears down the cheeks coursing,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The colloquy there, the trio, each uttering,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The undertone, the savage old mother incessantly crying,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]To the boy's soul's questions sullenly timing, some drown'd secret hissing,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]To the outsetting bard.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Demon or bird! (said the boy's soul,)[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Is it indeed toward your mate you sing? or is it really to me?[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]For I, that was a child, my tongue's use sleeping, now I have heard you,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Now in a moment I know what I am for, I awake,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]And already a thousand singers, a thousand songs, clearer, louder[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]and more sorrowful than yours,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]A thousand warbling echoes have started to life within me, never to die.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]O you singer solitary, singing by yourself, projecting me,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]O solitary me listening, never more shall I cease perpetuating you,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Never more shall I escape, never more the reverberations,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Never more the cries of unsatisfied love be absent from me,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Never again leave me to be the peaceful child I was before what[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]there in the night,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]By the sea under the yellow and sagging moon,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The messenger there arous'd, the fire, the sweet hell within,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The unknown want, the destiny of me.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]O give me the clue! (it lurks in the night here somewhere,)[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]O if I am to have so much, let me have more![/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]A word then, (for I will conquer it,)[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The word final, superior to all,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Subtle, sent up--what is it?--I listen;[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Are you whispering it, and have been all the time, you sea-waves?[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Is that it from your liquid rims and wet sands?[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Whereto answering, the sea,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Delaying not, hurrying not,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Whisper'd me through the night, and very plainly before daybreak,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Lisp'd to me the low and delicious word death,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]And again death, death, death, death[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Hissing melodious, neither like the bird nor like my arous'd child's heart,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]But edging near as privately for me rustling at my feet,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Creeping thence steadily up to my ears and laving me softly all over,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Death, death, death, death, death.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Which I do not forget.[/FONT]​

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]But fuse the song of my dusky demon and brother,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]That he sang to me in the moonlight on Paumanok's gray beach,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]With the thousand responsive songs at random,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]My own songs awaked from that hour,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]And with them the key, the word up from the waves,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The word of the sweetest song and all songs,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]That strong and delicious word which, creeping to my feet,[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif](Or like some old crone rocking the cradle, swathed in sweet[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]garments, bending aside,)[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The sea whisper'd me.[/FONT]
 

Magdalen

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Looking into the eyes of the very young (after they learn to focus) can sometimes feel like finding the reflection of very important imformation. There's also very keen stuff to gather from the color/shape/depth of eyes, generally speaking. But I'm a sucker for babies, babes and eyes being mirrors to the souls *(that travel to the underworld and return with tales of other dimensions and worlds) so a little Baudelaire (really if you try the "french" isn't that hard!) before the laurels of my laureate wither:

Les Yeux de Berthe

Vous pouvez mépriser les yeux les plus célèbres,
Beaux yeux de mon enfant, par où filtre et s'enfuit
Je ne sais quoi de bon, de doux comme la Nuit!
Beaux yeux, versez sur moi vos charmantes ténèbres!


Grands yeux de mon enfant, arcanes adorés,
Vous ressemblez beaucoup à ces grottes magiques
Où, derrière l'amas des ombres léthargiques,
Scintillent vaguement des trésors ignorés!


Mon enfant a des yeux obscurs, profonds et vastes,
Comme toi, Nuit immense, éclairés comme toi!
Leurs feux sont ces pensers d'Amour, mêlés de Foi,
Qui pétillent au fond, voluptueux ou chastes.

Charles Baudelaire


The Eyes of My Child

You can despise the most celebrated eyes,
O eyes of my lovely child, through which filter and flee
The goodness and softness of Night immeasurably!
Beautiful eyes, pour on me your charming darkness!

Great eyes of my child, adorable mysteries,
You look so like those magical grottos
Where, from heaps of lethargic shadows,
Dimly sparkle unknown treasures!

My child has dark, deep eyes and wide,
Illuminated like you, like you, enormous night!
Their fires are dreams of Love and Faith
Scintillating in the very heart, voluptuous or chaste.


— Geoffrey Wagner, Selected Poems of Charles Baudelaire (NY: Grove Press, 1974)


http://fleursdumal.org/poem/313

ETA: This translation sucks, now that I've read it a few times. Here's another, if a bit overdone with the punctuation:



Bertha's Eyes
(Les Yeux de Berthe)

by Charles Baudelaire, translated by Cyril Scott (1909).


[FONT=Garamond, Times New Roman][SIZE=+2]THE loveliest eyes you can scorn with your wondrous glow: [/FONT][/SIZE]
[FONT=Garamond, Times New Roman]O! beautiful childish eyes there abounds in your light, [/FONT]
[FONT=Garamond, Times New Roman]A something unspeakably tender and good as the night: [/FONT]
[FONT=Garamond, Times New Roman]O! eyes! over me your enchanting darkness let flow. [/FONT]

[FONT=Garamond, Times New Roman]Large eyes of my child! O Arcana profoundly adored! [/FONT]
[FONT=Garamond, Times New Roman]Ye resemble so closely those caves in the magical creek; [/FONT]
[FONT=Garamond, Times New Roman]Where within the deep slumbering shade of some petrified peak, [/FONT]
[FONT=Garamond, Times New Roman]There shines, undiscovered, the gems of a dazzling hoard. [/FONT]

[FONT=Garamond, Times New Roman]My child has got eyes so profound and so dark and so vast, [/FONT]
[FONT=Garamond, Times New Roman]Like thee! oh unending Night, and thy mystical shine: [/FONT]
[FONT=Garamond, Times New Roman]Their flames are those thoughts that with Love and with Faith combine, [/FONT]
[FONT=Garamond, Times New Roman]And sparkle deep down in the depths so alluring or chaste. [/FONT]






[FONT=Garamond, Times New Roman][FONT=Garamond, Times New Roman]How to cite this webpage:[/FONT]
[FONT=Garamond, Times New Roman]Author: Scott, Cyril.[/FONT]
[FONT=Garamond, Times New Roman]Title of webpage: "La Nouvelle Décadence - Baudelaire - Bertha's Eyes (Les Yeux de Berthe)".[/FONT]
[FONT=Garamond, Times New Roman]Title of website: La Nouvelle Décadence.[/FONT]
[FONT=Garamond, Times New Roman]Publisher: Lannie Brockstein.[/FONT]
[FONT=Garamond, Times New Roman]Last Updated: March 21st, 2008.[/FONT]
[FONT=Garamond, Times New Roman]URL:www.geocities.com/thedecadents2005/baudelairetrlesepberth.html.[/FONT]
[/FONT]




* Berthe's Eyes as an inspired work of ink & colored pencil is lost to me, apologies to Terry W.
.
.
.
 
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Manditw84

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This is my personal story of faith. Just wrote it this morning. I feel this is why I am supposed to write.

My reason as to "Why?"
I woke up this morning with a really clear view.
My answer as to “Why?” I hope you see it too.
Several years ago, I had a two pound baby boy
12 weeks premature… I felt anything but joy.
He wasn’t doing well, his life was hanging by a thread
Not knowing why this happened, my heart was filled with dread.
The doctors said he may not walk, his brain was full of blood
He wouldn’t learn, he may not talk, none of this was good.
I sat and wrote that very day, an email to my friends
Asking all of them to pray and then to please hit send.
Within a week, to my surprise, I had an inbox full of letters
Strangers sending hope our way, praying he’d get better.
They sent him home after 73 days but again, with not much hope
We had no clue of what may happen on this scary uphill slope.
On this day, he’s five years old and no one would never know.
He’s doing great, he’s really smart. He’s anything but slow.
As I said before, I woke today with an answer as to “why?”
I came to my desk to try and type and then began to cry.
My child was saved so I’d spread the word of what Jesus did for me.
I feel that’s why I rhyme so well. I want all the world to see.
Something big will come of this, I can feel it in my heart.
For now I’ll spread to my home town, but I know it’s just a start.
 

Magdalen

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Thank you Mandi, for sharing that personal inspiration. I do hope you take an hour or so and actually read the posts in this thread.

Moving on, but not really. From a list of 1-10th Century (AD or CE) Poets, there's always this compilation (rubai describe a Persian quatrain.The plural form of the word, rubāʿiyāt (رباعیات—often anglicised rubaiyat), is used to describe a collection of such quatrains.) to consider -- if formulaic and obvious none-the-less insightful and of some comfort for those who seek resolution of the human condition. . . beyond death: The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Omar was too honest of Heart as well of Head for this.
Having failed (however mistakenly) of finding any Providence
but Destiny, and any World but This, he set about making
the most of it; preferring rather to soothe the Soul through
the Senses into Acquiescence with Things as he saw them,
than to perplex it with vain disquietude after what they might
be. It has been seen, however, that his Worldly Ambition was
not exorbitant; and he very likely takes a humorous or perverse
pleasure in exalting the gratification of Sense above that
of the Intellect, in which he must have taken great delight,
although it failed to answer the Questions in which he, in

common with all men, was most vitally interested.


However, as there is some traditional presumption, and certainly
the opinion of some learned men, in favour of Omar’s
being a Sufi—and even something of a Saint—those who
please may so interpret his Wine and Cup-bearer. On the
other hand, as there is far more historical certainty of his being
a Philosopher, of scientific Insight and Ability far beyond
that of the Age and Country he lived in; of such moderate
worldly Ambition as becomes a Philosopher, and such moderate
wants as rarely satisfy a Debauchee; other readers may be
content to believe with me that, while the Wine Omar celebrates
is simply the Juice of the Grape, he bragg’d more than
he drank of it, in very defiance perhaps of that Spiritual Wine
which left its Votaries sunk in Hypocrisy or Disgust.


Edward J. Fitzgerald


The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

I.
Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:
And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught
The Sultan’s Turret in a Noose of Light.


II.

Dreaming when Dawn’s Left Hand was in the Sky
I heard a Voice within the Tavern cry,
“Awake, my Little ones, and fill the Cup
Before Life’s Liquor in its Cup be dry.”


LXI.​

Then said another—”Surely not in vain
My substance from the common Earth was ta’en,
That He who subtly wrought me into Shape
Should stamp me back to common Earth again.”



LXII.

Another said—”Why, ne’er a peevish Boy
Would break the Bowl from which he drank in Joy;
Shall He that made the Vessel in pure Love
And Fansy, in an after Rage destroy!”

. . .​


XXXI.

Up from Earth’s Centre through the seventh Gate
I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate,
And many Knots unravel’d by the Road;
But not the Knot of Human Death and Fate.

XXXII.

There was a Door to which I found no Key:
There was a Veil past which I could not see:
Some little Talk awhile of me and thee

There seemed—and then no more of
thee and me.


XXXIII.



Then to the rolling Heav’n itself I cried,
Asking, “What Lamp had Destiny to guide

Her little Children stumbling in the Dark?
And—”A blind understanding!” Heav’n replied.

and this


LI.


The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.




 
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Magdalen

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Excerpts from Seamus Heaney on Beowulf. . . for educational purposes and the occasional poetic transcendence. I've browsed and stolen moments with the newest translation of this epic poem, but I haven't read the whole of it, yet. The underlined parts are of great interest to me.


BEOWULF

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]The poem was written in England but the events it describes are set in Scandinavia, in a ‘once upon a time’ that is partly historical. Its hero, Beowulf, is the biggest presence among the warriors in the land of the Geats, a territory situated in what is now southern Sweden, and early in the poem Beowulf crosses the sea to the land of the Danes in order to rid their country of a man-eating monster called Grendel. [/FONT]


[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]later. . . [/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]the poet conjures up a work as remote as Shield’s funeral boat borne towards the horizon, as commanding as the horn-pronged gables of King Hrothgar’s hall, as solid and dazzling as Beowulf’s funeral pyre that is set ablaze at the end. These opening and closing scenes retain a haunting presence in the mind; they are set pieces but they have the life-marking power of certain dreams. They are like the pillars of the gate of horn, through which the wise dreams of true art can still be said to pass. [/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif][FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]What happens in between is what W.B. Yeats would have called a phantasmagoria. Three agons – three struggles in which the preternatural force-for-evil of the hero’s enemies comes springing at him in demonic shapes; three encounters with what the critical literature and the textbook glossaries call ‘the monsters’ – in three archetypal sites of fear; the barricaded night-house, the infested underwater current and the reptile-haunted rocks of a wilderness. [/FONT]

still more:

The poem abounds in passages that will leave an unprepared audience bewildered. Just when the narrative seems ready to take another step ahead, it sidesteps. For a moment it is as if we have been channel-surfed into another poem, and at two points in this translation I indicate that we are in fact participating in a poem-within-our-poem not only by the use of italics, but by a slight quickening of pace and shortening of metrical rein. The passages comprise lines 883–914 and 1070–158, and on each occasion a minstrel has begun to chant a poem as part of the celebration of Beowulf’s achievements. In the former case, the minstrel expresses his praise by telling the story of Sigemund’s victory over a dragon, which both parallels Beowulf’s triumph over Grendel and prefigures his fatal encounter with the wyrm in his old age.

Grendel and his mother enter Beowulf’s life from the outside, accidentally, challenges which in other circumstances he might not have taken up, enemies from whom he might have been distracted or deflected. The dragon, on the other hand, is a given of his home ground, abiding in his under-earth as in his understanding, waiting for the meeting, the watcher at the ford, the questioner who sits so sly, the ‘lion-limb’, as Gerard Manley Hopkins might have called him, against whom Beowulf’s body and soul must measure themselves. Dragon equals shadow-line, the psalmist’s valley of the shadow of death, the embodiment of a knowledge deeply ingrained in the species – the knowledge, that is, of the price to be paid for physical and spiritual survival.
[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]It has often been observed that all the scriptural references in Beowulf are to the Old Testament. The poet is more in sympathy with the tragic, waiting, unredeemed phase of things than with any transcendental promise. Beowulf’s mood as he gets ready to fight the dragon – who could be read as a projection of Beowulf’s own chthonic wisdom refined in the crucible of experience – recalls the mood of other tragic heroes: Oedipus at Colonus, Lear at his ‘ripeness is all’ extremity, Hamlet in the last illuminations of his ‘prophetic soul’:[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]No easy bargain[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Would be made in that place by any man.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]The veteran king sat down on the cliff-top.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]He wished good luck to the Geats who had shared[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]His hearth and his gold. He was sad at heart, [/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Unsettled yet ready, sensing his death.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]His fate hovered near, unknowable but certain.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Here the poet attains a level of insight that approaches the visionary. The subjective and the inevitable are in perfect balance, what is solidly established is bathed in an element that is completely sixth-sensed, and indeed the whole, slow-motion, constantly self-deferring approach to the hero’s death and funeral continues to be like this. Beowulf’s soul may not yet have fled ‘to its destined place among the steadfast ones’, but there is already a beyond-the-grave aspect to him, a revenant quality about his resoluteness. This is not just metrical narrative full of anthropological interest and typical heroic-age motifs; it is poetry of a high order, in which passages of great lyric intensity – such as the ‘Lay of the Last Survivor’ (lines 2247-66) and, even more remarkably, the so-called ‘Father’s Lament’ (2444-62) – rise like emanations from some fissure in the bedrock of the human capacity to endure:[/FONT]


It was like the misery endured by an old man
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Who has lived to see his son’s body[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Swing on the gallows. He begins to keen[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]And weep for his boy, watching the raven[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Gloat where he hangs; he can be of no help.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]The wisdom of age is worthless to him.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Morning after morning, he wakes to remember[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]That his child is gone; he has no interest[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]In living on until another heir[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Is born in the hall…[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]Alone with his longing, he lies down on his bed[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]And sings a lament; everything seems too large,[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, Times, serif]The steadings and the fields.[/FONT]

http://www.wwnorton.com/college/english/nael/beowulf/introbeowulf.htm
.
.
.
.
.
 
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Brandt

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Just to say thanks Mag for your work here.
 

Magdalen

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You're Welcome, Brandt. I've hopes there'll come a point where I reach some sort of conclusion on the death/finality issue.

What the Hell? More Dante? This selection is from near the end of the "Inferno" as they "perforce depart from so much evil." and take a short-cut through Purgatory

(Wherein the human spirit doth purge itself,
And to ascend to heaven becometh worthy.

But let dead Poesy here rise again,
O holy Muses, since that I am yours,
And here Calliope somewhat ascend)




Inferno: Canto XXXIV

"'Vexilla Regis prodeunt Inferni'
Towards us; therefore look in front of thee,"
My Master said, "if thou discernest him."

As, when there breathes a heavy fog, or when
Our hemisphere is darkening into night,
Appears far off a mill the wind is turning,

Methought that such a building then I saw;
And, for the wind, I drew myself behind
My Guide, because there was no other shelter.

Now was I, and with fear in verse I put it,
There where the shades were wholly covered up,
And glimmered through like unto straws in glass.

Some prone are lying, others stand erect,
This with the head, and that one with the soles;
Another, bow-like, face to feet inverts.

When in advance so far we had proceeded,
That it my Master pleased to show to me
The creature who once had the beauteous semblance,

He from before me moved and made me stop,
Saying: "Behold Dis, and behold the place
Where thou with fortitude must arm thyself."

How frozen I became and powerless then,
Ask it not, Reader, for I write it not,
Because all language would be insufficient.

I did not die, and I alive remained not;
Think for thyself now, hast thou aught of wit,
What I became, being of both deprived.

The Emperor of the kingdom dolorous
From his mid-breast forth issued from the ice;
And better with a giant I compare

Than do the giants with those arms of his;
Consider now how great must be that whole,
Which unto such a part conforms itself.

Were he as fair once, as he now is foul,
And lifted up his brow against his Maker,
Well may proceed from him all tribulation.

O, what a marvel it appeared to me,
When I beheld three faces on his head!
The one in front, and that vermilion was;

Two were the others, that were joined with this
Above the middle part of either shoulder,
And they were joined together at the crest;

And the right-hand one seemed 'twixt white and yellow;
The left was such to look upon as those
Who come from where the Nile falls valley-ward.

Underneath each came forth two mighty wings,
Such as befitting were so great a bird;
Sails of the sea I never saw so large.

No feathers had they, but as of a bat
Their fashion was; and he was waving them,
So that three winds proceeded forth therefrom.

Thereby Cocytus wholly was congealed.
With six eyes did he weep, and down three chins
Trickled the tear-drops and the bloody drivel.

At every mouth he with his teeth was crunching
A sinner, in the manner of a brake,
So that he three of them tormented thus.

To him in front the biting was as naught
Unto the clawing, for sometimes the spine
Utterly stripped of all the skin remained.

"That soul up there which has the greatest pain,"
The Master said, "is Judas Iscariot;
With head inside, he plies his legs without.

Of the two others, who head downward are,
The one who hangs from the black jowl is Brutus;
See how he writhes himself, and speaks no word.

And the other, who so stalwart seems, is Cassius.
But night is reascending, and 'tis time
That we depart, for we have seen the whole."

As seemed him good, I clasped him round the neck,
And he the vantage seized of time and place,
And when the wings were opened wide apart,

He laid fast hold upon the shaggy sides;
From fell to fell descended downward then
Between the thick hair and the frozen crust.

When we were come to where the thigh revolves
Exactly on the thickness of the haunch,
The Guide, with labour and with hard-drawn breath,

Turned round his head where he had had his legs,
And grappled to the hair, as one who mounts,
So that to Hell I thought we were returning.

"Keep fast thy hold, for by such stairs as these,"
The Master said, panting as one fatigued,
"Must we perforce depart from so much evil."

Then through the opening of a rock he issued,
And down upon the margin seated me;
Then tow'rds me he outstretched his wary step.

I lifted up mine eyes and thought to see
Lucifer in the same way I had left him;
And I beheld him upward hold his legs.

And if I then became disquieted,
Let stolid people think who do not see
What the point is beyond which I had passed.

"Rise up," the Master said, "upon thy feet;
The way is long, and difficult the road,
And now the sun to middle-tierce returns."

It was not any palace corridor
There where we were, but dungeon natural,
With floor uneven and unease of light.

"Ere from the abyss I tear myself away,
My Master," said I when I had arisen,
"To draw me from an error speak a little;

Where is the ice? and how is this one fixed
Thus upside down? and how in such short time
From eve to morn has the sun made his transit?"

And he to me: "Thou still imaginest
Thou art beyond the centre, where I grasped
The hair of the fell worm, who mines the world.

That side thou wast, so long as I descended;
When round I turned me, thou didst pass the point
To which things heavy draw from every side,

And now beneath the hemisphere art come
Opposite that which overhangs the vast
Dry-land, and 'neath whose cope was put to death

The Man who without sin was born and lived.
Thou hast thy feet upon the little sphere
Which makes the other face of the Judecca.

Here it is morn when it is evening there;
And he who with his hair a stairway made us
Still fixed remaineth as he was before.

Upon this side he fell down out of heaven;
And all the land, that whilom here emerged,
For fear of him made of the sea a veil,

And came to our hemisphere; and peradventure
To flee from him, what on this side appears
Left the place vacant here, and back recoiled."

A place there is below, from Beelzebub
As far receding as the tomb extends,
Which not by sight is known, but by the sound

Of a small rivulet, that there descendeth
Through chasm within the stone, which it has gnawed
With course that winds about and slightly falls.

The Guide and I into that hidden road
Now entered, to return to the bright world;
And without care of having any rest

We mounted up, he first and I the second,
Till I beheld through a round aperture
Some of the beauteous things that Heaven doth bear;

Thence we came forth to rebehold the stars.

http://www.everypoet.com/archive/poetry/dante/dante_i_34.htm


maybe it's better in Latin but I kinda lol'd when I read these lines

Turned round his head where he had had his legs,
And grappled to the hair, as one who mounts,
So that to Hell I thought we were returning.

"Keep fast thy hold, for by such stairs as these,"

as I pictured them falling down to "where the thigh revolves" then climbing up or across ? the beastly back of Satan (trapped in ice) to a "crack" in the underworld that leads back to RL earth. The "steps" you gotta take to get out of Hell!!


ETA: " Nunc tuum retinere ieiunium,
. . . . . talibus enim his gradibus,"

??
 
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Magdalen

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This one's hands-down conspiracy all the way. This actually's a bit of the bard that I've somewhat seriously studied. Enjoy!



LUCIUS

Sir, 'tis your brother Cassius at the door,
Who doth desire to see you.

BRUTUS

Is he alone?

LUCIUS

No, sir, there are more with him.

BRUTUS

Do you know them?

LUCIUS

No, sir; their hats are pluck'd about their ears,
And half their faces buried in their cloaks,
That by no means I may discover them
By any mark of favour.

BRUTUS

Let 'em enter.

Exit LUCIUS
They are the faction. O conspiracy,
Shamest thou to show thy dangerous brow by night,
When evils are most free? O, then by day
Where wilt thou find a cavern dark enough
To mask thy monstrous visage? Seek none, conspiracy;
Hide it in smiles and affability:
For if thou path, thy native semblance on,
Not Erebus itself were dim enough
To hide thee from prevention.

Enter the conspirators, CASSIUS, CASCA, DECIUS BRUTUS, CINNA, METELLUS CIMBER, and TREBONIUS


later

CASSIUS

Decius, well urged: I think it is not meet,
Mark Antony, so well beloved of Caesar,
Should outlive Caesar: we shall find of him
A shrewd contriver; and, you know, his means,
If he improve them, may well stretch so far
As to annoy us all: which to prevent,
Let Antony and Caesar fall together.

BRUTUS

Our course will seem too bloody, Caius Cassius,
To cut the head off and then hack the limbs,
Like wrath in death and envy afterwards;
For Antony is but a limb of Caesar:
Let us be sacrificers, but not butchers, Caius.
We all stand up against the spirit of Caesar;
And in the spirit of men there is no blood:
O, that we then could come by Caesar's spirit,
And not dismember Caesar! But, alas,
Caesar must bleed for it! And, gentle friends,
Let's kill him boldly, but not wrathfully;
Let's carve him as a dish fit for the gods,
Not hew him as a carcass fit for hounds:
And let our hearts, as subtle masters do,
Stir up their servants to an act of rage,
And after seem to chide 'em. This shall make
Our purpose necessary and not envious:
Which so appearing to the common eyes,
We shall be call'd purgers, not murderers.
And for Mark Antony, think not of him;
For he can do no more than Caesar's arm
When Caesar's head is off.

CASSIUS

Yet I fear him;
For in the ingrafted love he bears to Caesar--

BRUTUS

Alas, good Cassius, do not think of him:
If he love Caesar, all that he can do
Is to himself, take thought and die for Caesar:
And that were much he should; for he is given
To sports, to wildness and much company.

TREBONIUS

There is no fear in him; let him not die;
For he will live, and laugh at this hereafter.

Clock strikes*

BRUTUS

Peace! count the clock.

CASSIUS

The clock hath stricken three.

TREBONIUS

'Tis time to part.

http://www.shakespeare-literature.com/Julius_Caesar/4.html

*often asserted as anachronistic, but I think time's passage may have been marked by sound as a convenience rather early on, from what I know of morning people that is.
 
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Magdalen

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I really should've posted this earlier, but I'd forgotten it! Not surpisingly, this theme for deities wreathed with serpents whose eyes dripped blood, has a great beat and is easy to dance to.



[SIZE=+1][SIZE=+1]SONG OF THE FURIES*[/SIZE][SIZE=-1] (from "The Eumenides")[/SIZE]




[SIZE=-1]by: Aeschylus[/SIZE]
  • [SIZE=+2]
    u_pic.gif
    [/SIZE]P and lead the dance of Fate!
  • Lift the song that mortals hate!
  • Tell what rights are ours on earth,
  • Over all of human birth.
  • Swift of foot to avenge are we!
  • He whose hands are clean and pure,
  • Naught our wrath to dread hath he;
  • Calm his cloudless days endure.
  • But the man that seeks to hide
  • Like him [1], his gore-bedewèd hands,
  • Witnesses to them that died,
  • The blood avengers at his side,
  • The Furies' troop forever stands.
  • O'er our victim come begin!
  • Come, the incantation sing,
  • Frantic all and maddening,
  • To the heart a brand of fire,
  • The Furies' hymn,
  • That which claims the senses dim,
  • Tuneless to the gentle lyre,
  • Withering the soul within.
  • The pride of all of human birth,
  • All glorious in the eye of day,
  • Dishonored slowly melts away,
  • Trod down and trampled to the earth,
  • Whene'er our dark-stoled troop advances,
  • Whene'er our feet lead on the dismal dances.
  • For light our footsteps are,
  • And perfect is our might,
  • Awful remembrances of guilt and crime,
  • Implacable to mortal prayer,
  • Far from the gods, unhonored, and heaven's light,
  • We hold our voiceless dwellings dread,
  • All unapproached by living or by dead.
  • What mortal feels not awe,
  • Nor trembles at our name,
  • Hearing our fate-appointed power sublime,
  • Fixed by the eternal law.
  • For old our office, and our fame,
  • Might never yet of its due honors fail,
  • Though 'neath the earth our realm in unsunned regions pale.
[SIZE=-1]1 Orestes[/SIZE]









[SIZE=-1]This English translation, by Henry Hart Milman, of 'Song of the Furies' is reprinted from Greek Poets in English Verse. Ed. William Hyde Appleton. Cambridge: The Riverside Press, 1893.[/SIZE]


* female chthonic deities of vengeance, or supernatural personifications of the anger of the dead. A formulaic oath in the Iliad invokes them as "those who beneath the earth punish whosoever has sworn a false oath".




[1] Burkert suggests they are "an embodiment of the act of self-cursing contained in the oath".[2]

When the Titan Cronus castrated his father Uranus and threw his genitalia into the sea, the Erinyes emerged from the drops of blood, while Aphrodite was born from the crests of seafoam. According to variant accounts,[3][4][5] [6] they emerged from an even more primordial level—from Nyx, "Night".
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Magdalen

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SORROW OF DEPARTURE

Red lotus incense fades on
The jeweled curtain. Autumn
Comes again. Gently I open
My silk dress and float alone
On the orchid boat. Who can
Take a letter beyond the clouds?​

Only the wild geese come back
And write their ideograms
On the sky under the full
Moon that floods the West Chamber.​

Flowers, after their kind, flutter
And scatter. Water after
Its nature, when spilt, at last
Gathers again in one place.​

Creatures of the same species
Long for each other. But we
Are far apart and I have
Grown learned in sorrow.​

Nothing can make it dissolve
And go away. One moment,
It is on my eyebrows.
The next, it weighs on my heart.​

LI CH’ING-CHAO (1084-1151)​




This was very intense to me, so I didn't want to post my "intro" comments -- but I'd love to read comments on how this hit (YOU) as a poem.

As for me, if double-entendre and subtle sub-texts can be trusted !?!?@) But who knows ? maybe death is merely a minor departure, a phase of the moon? (translations of far eastern languages are more than Greek to me) And the Harvest Moon is out tonight, full and rising!!
 
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Magdalen

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From the middle of a Drunken Boat by Arthur Rimbaud (definitely check out the intro poem!!). Make of it what you will, it was very moderne for its time, and still a great read!

Common Nocturne

A breath opens operatic breaches in the walls,-- blurs the pivoting
of crumbling roofs,-- disperses the boundaries of hearths,--
eclipses the windows.

Along the vine, having rested my foot on a waterspout, I climbed
down into this coach, its period indicated clearly enough by the
convex panes of glass, the bulging panels, the contorted sofas.
Isolated hearse of my sleep, shepherd's house of my insanity, the
vehicle veers on the grass of the obliterated highway: and in the defect
at the top of the right-hand windowpane revolve pale lunar
figures, leaves, and breasts.

--A very deep green and blue invade the picture. Unhitching near a
spot of gravel.

--Here will they whistle for the storm, and the Sodoms and
Solymas, and the wild beasts and the armies,

(Postilion and animals of dream, will they begin again in the stifling
forests to plunge me up to my eyes in the silken spring?)

And, whipped through the splashing of waters and spilled drinks,
send us rolling on the barking of bulldogs...

--A breath disperses the boundaries of the hearth.

-- 1873

http://www.angelfire.com/ny/gaybooks/rimbaud.html#boat
 
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Peregrine

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The Morning Glory

THE morning glory climbs above my head,
Pale flowers of white and purple, blue and red.
I am disquieted.

Down in the withered grasses something stirred;
I thought it was his footfall that I heard.
Then a grasshopper chirred.

I climbed the hill just as the new moon showed,
I saw him coming on the southern road.
My heart lays down its load.

From, THE SHI KING, OR BOOK OF ODES - compiled by Confucius c. 500 B.C.
 

Magdalen

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Lovely and most appropriate choice, Peregrine! Thanks for posting.
 

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Luke Havergal

Go to the western gate, Luke Havergal,
There where the vines cling crimson on the wall,
And in the twilight wait for what will come.
The leaves will whisper there of her, and some,
Like flying words, will strike you as they fall;
But go, and if you listen she will call.
Go to the western gate, Luke Havergal—
Luke Havergal.

No, there is not a dawn in eastern skies
To rift the fiery night that's in your eyes;
But there, where western glooms are gathering,
The dark will end the dark, if anything:
God slays Himself with every leaf that flies,
And hell is more than half of paradise.
No, there is not a dawn in eastern skies—
In eastern skies.

Out of a grave I come to tell you this,
Out of a grave I come to quench the kiss
That flames upon your forehead with a glow
That blinds you to the way that you must go.
Yes, there is yet one way to where she is,
Bitter, but one that faith may never miss.
Out of a grave I come to tell you this—
To tell you this.

There is the western gate, Luke Havergal,
There are the crimson leaves upon the wall.
Go, for the winds are tearing them away,—
Nor think to riddle the dead words they say,
Nor any more to feel them as they fall;
But go, and if you trust her she will call.
There is the western gate, Luke Havergal—
Luke Havergal.

Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935)​
 

Perscribo

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Ooh. Love that one. Your link notes Mr. Robinson as the "poet laureate of unhappiness." Really? I've never read any critical reviews of his work, but I never got the impression he was constantly gloomy. In any case, how horrible an epitaph is that?

DEAR FRIENDS


DEAR friends reproach me not for what I do,
Nor counsel me, nor pity me; nor say
That I am wearing half my life away
For bubble-work that only fools pursue.
And if my bubbles be too small for you,
Blow bigger then your own:—the games we play
To fill the frittered minutes of a day,
Good glasses are to read the spirit through

And whoso reads may get him some shrewd skill;
And some unprofitable scorn resign,
To praise the very thing that he deplores:—
So friends (dear friends), remember, if you will,
The shame I win for singing is all mine,
The gold I miss for dreaming is all yours.


—E.A. Robinson 1896
 

Magdalen

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Here's one about a sweaty fellow.


The Village Blacksmith

Under a spreading chestnut tree
The village smithy stands;
The smith, a mighty man is he,
With large and sinewy hands;
And the muscles of his brawny arms
Are strong as iron bands.

His hair is crisp, and black, and long,
His face is like the tan:
His brow is wet with honest sweat,
He earns whate'er he can,
And looks the whole world in the face,
For he owes not any man.

Week in, week out, from morn till night,
You can hear his bellows blow;
You can hear him swing his heavy sledge,
With measured beat and slow,
Like a sexton ringing the village bell,
When the evening sun is low.

And children coming home from school
Look in at the open door;
They love to see the flaming forge,
And hear the bellows roar,
And catch the burning sparks that fly
Like chaff from a threshing floor.

He goes on Sunday to the church,
And sits among his boys;
He hear the parson pray and preach,
He hears his daughter's voice,
Singing in the village choir,
And it makes his heart rejoice.

It sounds to him like her mother's voice,
Singing in Paradise!
He needs must think of her once more,
How in the grave she lies;
And with his hard, rough hand he wipes
A tear out of his eyes.

Toiling,--rejoicing,--sorrowing,
Onwards through life he goes;
Each morning sees some task begin,
Each evening sees it close;
Something attempted, something done,
Has earned a night's repose.

Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,
For the lesson thou hast taught!
Thus at the flaming forge of life
Our fortunes must be wrought;
Thus on its sounding anvil shaped
Each burning deed and thought!

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.