/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.11379371]

Post a poem that has genuinely moved you.

[Anonymous No.11379375]

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round;
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
And mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean;
And ’mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight ’twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

[Anonymous No.11379389]

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees
– Those dying generations – at their song,
The salmon‐falls, the mackerel‐crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing‐masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

[Anonymous No.11379401]

Furu ike ya
kawazu tobikomu
mizu no oto

[Anonymous No.11379409]

I had a Donkey, that was all right,
But he always wanted to fly my Kite;
Every time I let him, the String would bust.
Your Donkey is better behaved, I trust.

[Anonymous No.11379412]

Whether we write or speak or do but look
We are ever unapparent. What we are
Cannot be transfused into word or book.
Our soul from us is infinitely far.
However much we give our thoughts the will
To be our soul and gesture it abroad,
Our hearts are incommunicable still.
In what we show ourselves we are ignored.
The abyss from soul to soul cannot be bridged
By any skill of thought or trick of seeming.
Unto our very selves we are abridged
When we would utter to our thought our being.
We are our dreams of ourselves, souls by gleams,
And each to each other dreams of others’ dreams.

[Anonymous No.11379546]

Lear's The Jumblies.

[Anonymous No.11379586]

I have cast the world
And think me as nothing.
Yet I feel cold on snow-falling day
And happy on flower-day.

-Noguchi

[Anonymous No.11379592]

yes
YES

[Anonymous No.11379593]

INTO my heart on air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.

[Anonymous No.11379751]

>>11379371
The palm at the end of the mind,
Beyond the last thought, rises
In the bronze decor,

A gold-feathered bird
Sings in the palm, without human meaning,
Without human feeling, a foreign song.

You know then that it is not the reason
That makes us happy or unhappy.
The bird sings. Its feathers shine.

The palm stands on the edge of space.
The wind moves slowly in the branches.
The bird's fire-fangled feathers dangle down.

[Anonymous No.11379760]

>>11379371
>inb4 Rupi Kauauaur MSpaint posting

[Anonymous No.11379781]

The lady fair, our love is told
With hair as fine as soft-spun gold
Lips as red as a sun drenched dawn
Skin as soft as a newborn fawn
Eyes as blue as a cerulean sea...
Uhh... What?
...My heart... Can't breathe... Help... me
HARGH!

[Anonymous No.11379787]

>>11379593
Oof

[Anonymous No.11379832]

>>11379787
based

[Anonymous No.11379892]

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art--
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors--
No--yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel forever its soft fall and swell,
Awake forever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever--or else swoon to death.
>such a quiet poem

[Anonymous No.11380247]

Oh destino el de Borges,
haber navegado por los diversos mares del mundo
o por el único y solitario mar de nombres diversos,
haber sido una parte de Edimburgo, de Zurich, de las dos Córdobas,
de Colombia y de Texas,
haber regresado, al cabo de cambiantes generaciones,
a las antiguas tierras de su estirpe,
a Andalucía, a Portugal y a aquellos condados
donde el sajón guerreó con el danés y mezclaron sus sangres,
haber errado por el rojo y tranquilo laberinto de Londres,
haber envejecido en tantos espejos,
haber buscado en vano la mirada de mármol de las estatuas,
haber examinado litografías, enciclopedias, atlas,
haber visto las cosas que ven los hombres,
la muerte, el torpe amanecer, la llanura
y las delicadas estrellas,
y no haber visto nada o casi nada
sino el rostro de una muchacha de Buenos Aires,
un rostro que no quiere que lo recuerde.
Oh destino de Borges,
tal vez no más extraño que el tuyo.

Oh destiny of Borges
to have sailed across the diverse seas of the world
or across that single and solitary sea of diverse names,
to have been a part of Edinburgh, of Zurich, of the two Cordobas,
of Colombia and of Texas,
to have returned at the end of changing generations
to the ancient lands of his forebears,
to Andalucia, to Portugal and to those counties
where the Saxon warred with the Dane and they mixed their blood,
to have wandered through the red and tranquil labyrinth of London,
to have grown old in so many mirrors,
to have sought in vain the marble gaze of the statues,
to have questioned lithographs, encyclopedias, atlases,
to have seen the things that men see,
death, the sluggish dawn, the plains,
and the delicate stars,
and to have seen nothing, or almost nothing
except the face of a girl from Buenos Aires
a face that does not want you to remember it.
Oh destiny of Borges,
perhaps no stranger than your own.

[Anonymous No.11380370]

Quand le ciel bas et lourd pèse comme un couvercle
Sur l'esprit gémissant en proie aux longs ennuis,
Et que de l'horizon embrassant tout le cercle
Il nous verse un jour noir plus triste que les nuits;

Quand la terre est changée en un cachot humide,
Où l'Espérance, comme une chauve-souris,
S'en va battant les murs de son aile timide
Et se cognant la tête à des plafonds pourris;

Quand la pluie étalant ses immenses traînées
D'une vaste prison imite les barreaux,
Et qu'un peuple muet d'infâmes araignées
Vient tendre ses filets au fond de nos cerveaux,

Des cloches tout à coup sautent avec furie
Et lancent vers le ciel un affreux hurlement,
Ainsi que des esprits errants et sans patrie
Qui se mettent à geindre opiniâtrement.

--Et de longs corbillards, sans tambours ni musique,
Défilent lentement dans mon âme; l'Espoir,
Vaincu, pleure, et l'Angoisse atroce, despotique,
Sur mon crâne incliné plante son drapeau noir.

:ccccc

[Anonymous No.11380415]

>>11379375
One of Rush's few good songs.

>>11379371
>Post a poem that has genuinely moved you.
Tomlinson by Kipling, but it's far too long to post.

[Anonymous No.11380450]

>>11379375
Holy shit, I haven’t read this poem for a while. It’s so fucking good. It feels almost exactly like when you have a dream and really interesting and fantastical stuff is happening, and scenes flow and merge into different situations but you don’t really notice the huge change, you’re caught up in every new event. And there’s even the fact that it’s cut short, just like it sometimes feels like your dream gets cut off right before the most interesting part.

It’s also extremely similar to the daydream/reverie of the opiate nod (from personal experience). he somehow managed to write brilliant and coherent poetry, to bring back to the world of waking consciousness the beautiful and mysterious world of the unconscious mind. This simple short poem is almost supernatural to me, so mysterious and evocative.

[Anonymous No.11380607]

Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our own will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.
~Aeschylus

[Anonymous No.11380626]

My mother bore me in the southern wild,
And I am black, but O! my soul is white;
White as an angel is the English child:
But I am black as if bereav'd of light.

My mother taught me underneath a tree
And sitting down before the heat of day,
She took me on her lap and kissed me,
And pointing to the east began to say.

Look on the rising sun: there God does live
And gives his light, and gives his heat away.
And flowers and trees and beasts and men receive
Comfort in morning joy in the noonday.

And we are put on earth a little space,
That we may learn to bear the beams of love,
And these black bodies and this sun-burnt face
Is but a cloud, and like a shady grove.

For when our souls have learn'd the heat to bear
The cloud will vanish we shall hear his voice.
Saying: come out from the grove my love & care,
And round my golden tent like lambs rejoice.

Thus did my mother say and kissed me,
And thus I say to little English boy.
When I from black and he from white cloud free,
And round the tent of God like lambs we joy:

I'll shade him from the heat till he can bear,
To lean in joy upon our fathers knee.
And then I'll stand and stroke his silver hair,
And be like him and he will then love me.

[Anonymous No.11380628]

HERE I SIT BROKEN HEARTED TRIED TO POOP AND ONLY FARTED

[Anonymous No.11380639]

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruin'd choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire,
Consum'd with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.

Shakes, Sonnet 73

[Anonymous No.11380640]

We make our meek adjustments,
Contented with such random consolations
As the wind deposits
In slithered and too ample pockets.

For we can still love the world, who find
A famished kitten on the step, and know
Recesses for it from the fury of the street,
Or warm torn elbow coverts.

We will sidestep, and to the final smirk
Dally the doom of that inevitable thumb
That slowly chafes its puckered index toward us,
Facing the dull squint with what innocence
And what surprise!

And yet these fine collapses are not lies
More than the pirouettes of any pliant cane;
Our obsequies are, in a way, no enterprise.
We can evade you, and all else but the heart:
What blame to us if the heart live on.

The game enforces smirks; but we have seen
The moon in lonely alleys make
A grail of laughter of an empty ash can,
And through all sound of gaiety and quest
Have heard a kitten in the wilderness.

[Anonymous No.11380662]

>>11380640
i just lost the game

[Anonymous No.11380673]

It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.

This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,—
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.

There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me—
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;

[Anonymous No.11380678]

>>11380673
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

[Anonymous No.11380760]

i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite new a thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones,and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the,shocking fuzz
of your electric furr,and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh….And eyes big love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you so quite new

>ee cummings

[Anonymous No.11380802]

>>11379371
The Odyssey

[Anonymous No.11380976]

>>11379389

Yeats?

[Anonymous No.11380978]

As you set out for Ithaka
hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them:
you’ll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope the voyage is a long one.
May there be many a summer morning when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you come into harbors seen for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind—
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you are old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

[Anonymous No.11380983]

>>11380976
Sam Taylor Frostypeak

[Anonymous No.11381002]

>>11379371

[Anonymous No.11381164]

Some guy once threw a copy of The Divine Comedy at my head so I guess that moved me into ER.

[Anonymous No.11381178]

>>11381164
Sensible_chuckle.gif

[Anonymous No.11381227]

>>11379371
I love A.E. Housman

The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.

Today, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay,
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears.

Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.

So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.

And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl’s.

[Anonymous No.11381265]

>>11380628
Fuck, I'd forgotten this

[Anonymous No.11381373]

As my English teacher prophesied; and with which I fully agree; the greatest poem in the language:

As virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say
The breath goes now, and some say, No:

So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move;
'Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears,
Men reckon what it did, and meant;
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love
(Whose soul is sense) cannot admit
Absence, because it doth remove
Those things which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined,
That our selves know not what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips, and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to airy thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two;
Thy soul, the fixed foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if the other do.

And though it in the center sit,
Yet when the other far doth roam,
It leans and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like th' other foot, obliquely run;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.

- John Donne

[Anonymous No.11381378]

Methought I saw my late espoused saint
Brought to me, like Alcestis, from the grave,
Whom Jove's great song to her glad husband gave,
Rescu'd from death by force, though pale and faint.
Mine, as whom wash'd from spot of child-bed taint
Purification in the old Law did save,
And such as yet once more I trust to have
Full sight of her in Heaven without restraint,
Came vested all in white, pure as her mind;
Love, sweetness, goodness, in her person shin'd
So clear as in no face with more delight.
But Oh! as to embrace me she inclin'd,
I wak'd, she fled, and day brought back my night.

[Anonymous No.11381382]

>>11381378
O might those sighs and tears return again
Into my breast and eyes, which I have spent,
That I might in this holy discontent
Mourn with some fruit, as I have mourned in vain;
In mine Idolatry what showers of rain
Mine eyes did waste! what griefs my heart did rent!
That sufferance was my sin; now I repent;
‘Cause I did suffer I must suffer pain.
Th' hydropic drunkard, and night-scouting thief,
The itchy lecher, and self-tickling proud
Have the remembrance of past joys for relief
Of comming ills. To (poor) me is allowed
No ease; for long, yet vehement grief hath been
Th' effect and cause, the punishment and sin.

[Anonymous No.11381386]

>>11381378
Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold,
Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old,
When all our fathers worshiped stocks and stones;
Forget not: in thy book record their groans
Who were thy sheep and in their ancient fold
Slain by the bloody Piedmontese that rolled
Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans
The vales redoubled to the hills, and they
To Heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow
O'er all th' Italian fields where still doth sway
The triple tyrant; that from these may grow
A hundredfold, who having learnt thy way
Early may fly the Babylonian woe.

[Anonymous No.11381391]

An Irish Airman foresees his Death
By William Butler Yeats
I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

-

Modernist poetry in general just destroys me

[Anonymous No.11381409]

She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes;
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress,
Or softly lightens o’er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express,
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!

[Anonymous No.11381675]

Light flows our war of mocking words, and yet,
Behold, with tears mine eyes are wet!
I feel a nameless sadness o'er me roll.
Yes, yes, we know that we can jest,
We know, we know that we can smile!
But there's a something in this breast,
To which thy light words bring no rest,
And thy gay smiles no anodyne.
Give me thy hand, and hush awhile,
And turn those limpid eyes on mine,
And let me read there, love! thy inmost soul.

Alas! is even love too weak
To unlock the heart, and let it speak?
Are even lovers powerless to reveal
To one another what indeed they feel?
I knew the mass of men conceal'd
Their thoughts, for fear that if reveal'd
They would by other men be met
With blank indifference, or with blame reproved;
I knew they lived and moved
Trick'd in disguises, alien to the rest
Of men, and alien to themselves—and yet
The same heart beats in every human breast!

But we, my love!—doth a like spell benumb
Our hearts, our voices?—must we too be dumb?

Ah! well for us, if even we,
Even for a moment, can get free
Our heart, and have our lips unchain'd;
For that which seals them hath been deep-ordain'd!

Fate, which foresaw
How frivolous a baby man would be—
By what distractions he would be possess'd,
How he would pour himself in every strife,
And well-nigh change his own identity—
That it might keep from his capricious play
His genuine self, and force him to obey
Even in his own despite his being's law,
Bade through the deep recesses of our breast
The unregarded river of our life
Pursue with indiscernible flow its way;
And that we should not see
The buried stream, and seem to be
Eddying at large in blind uncertainty,
Though driving on with it eternally.


But often, in the world's most crowded streets,
But often, in the din of strife,
There rises an unspeakable desire
After the knowledge of our buried life;
A thirst to spend our fire and restless force
In tracking out our true, original course;
A longing to inquire

[Anonymous No.11381678]

>>11381675
Into the mystery of this heart which beats
So wild, so deep in us—to know
Whence our lives come and where they go.
And many a man in his own breast then delves,
But deep enough, alas! none ever mines.
And we have been on many thousand lines,
And we have shown, on each, spirit and power;
But hardly have we, for one little hour,
Been on our own line, have we been ourselves—
Hardly had skill to utter one of all
The nameless feelings that course through our breast,
But they course on for ever unexpress'd.
And long we try in vain to speak and act
Our hidden self, and what we say and do
Is eloquent, is well—but 't is not true!
And then we will no more be rack'd
With inward striving, and demand
Of all the thousand nothings of the hour
Their stupefying power;
Ah yes, and they benumb us at our call!
Yet still, from time to time, vague and forlorn,
From the soul's subterranean depth upborne
As from an infinitely distant land,
Come airs, and floating echoes, and convey
A melancholy into all our day.
Only—but this is rare—
When a belovèd hand is laid in ours,
When, jaded with the rush and glare
Of the interminable hours,
Our eyes can in another's eyes read clear,
When our world-deafen'd ear
Is by the tones of a loved voice caress'd—
A bolt is shot back somewhere in our breast,
And a lost pulse of feeling stirs again.
The eye sinks inward, and the heart lies plain,
And what we mean, we say, and what we would, we know.
A man becomes aware of his life's flow,
And hears its winding murmur; and he sees
The meadows where it glides, the sun, the breeze.

And there arrives a lull in the hot race
Wherein he doth for ever chase
That flying and elusive shadow, rest.
An air of coolness plays upon his face,
And an unwonted calm pervades his breast.
And then he thinks he knows
The hills where his life rose,
And the sea where it goes.

[Anonymous No.11381705]

Dulce et Decorum Est


Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

[Anonymous No.11381721]

>>11381391
Thats good, thanks for sharing.

[Anonymous No.11381734]

>>11379371

I have read many poets from all over the world. My favorite is Shakespeare.

However,the only time I remember crying by reading poetry was with this poem, by João Cabral de Mello Neto:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morte_e_Vida_Severina

It's a pitty that this is one of that sort of poems that depends so much of the sound that the translation cannot do it justice.

Here are some good excerpts in English:

https://www.revistas.usp.br/clt/article/viewFile/49312/53395

[Anonymous No.11381745]

>>11381705
Haunting poem that brings back equally haunting high school memories, though reading this again makes me want to revisit and seriously consider his work.
Here's my contribution >>11379371


The expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjur’d, murderous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust;
Enjoy’d no sooner but despised straight;
Past reason hunted; and no sooner had,
Past reason hated, as a swallow’d bait,
On purpose laid to make the taker mad:
Mad in pursuit, and in possession so;
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof, and prov’d, a very woe;
Before, a joy propos’d; behind, a dream.
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.

[Anonymous No.11381797]

Morte e Vida Severina begins describing Severino, a retirante from Pernambuco wandering to Recife, the state's capital. Severino’s name comes from the Portuguese word for “severe", severo and means, roughly, something which is severe. However, while the character attempts to identify himself, he is not capable of discerning himself from any other inhabitant of those lands. Suffering from the same misery and following the same destiny, they all are severinos. Thus, the character does not represent a person, but the very idea of a retirante, and by describing the life and death of Severino, the poem is actually portraying the severin life and death that applies to the existence of thousand of people:

"we are many Severinos, equal in everything and in their evil/ (...) And being us all Severinos/ equal in everything in life/ we shall die of equal death/ the same severin death:/ the death that one dies/ of old-age before the thirties/ of ambushes before the twenties/ of famine a bit a day" (freely-translated from Portuguese).

Later, Melo Neto, describing the burial of another Severino, criticizes the latifundial style of the economy, which take from man his strength, youth and labor,

>>11381734

He sees the burial of a farm worker and listens to what his friends who take him to the cemetery say.

– The grave you’re in
Is measured by hand,
The best bargain you got
In all the land.

– You fit it well,
Not too long or deep,
The part of the latifundio
Which you will keep.

– The grave’s not too big,
Nor is it too wide,
It’s the land you wanted
To see them divide.

– It’s a big grave
For a body so spare,
But you’ll be more at ease
Than you ever were.

– You’re a skinny corpse
For such a big tomb,
But at least down there
You’ll have plenty of room.

– The grave is big
For your skin and bone,
But when land is given,
You can hardly moan.

[Anonymous No.11381806]

>>11379593

I came here to post this, but you've beaten me to it so I'll go for:

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

[Anonymous No.11381808]

>>11381797

I also tried to maintain the rhymes, with varying success in the following section:

– You’ll live here for ever
In the land you have got,
And you’ll have your own plot.

– Growing your own ants,
Free from the sun and rain,
Here you’ll always remain.

– Now you’ll work for yourself,
You won’t give up your right arm
Working on the boss’s farm.

Lord, labourer and tractor,
You’ll work the soil
And get all the spoils.

– Working this land,
You’ll get no rest,
You’ll be seed, fertilizer and harvest.

– You’ll work on a land
That will clothe you and give you peace
In the cloth of the Northeast.

– You’ll dress as never before.
And your last shirt
Will be made of dirt.

– It’ll be of dirt
And your last shirt.
It’ll clothe you and no one will envy you.

– For the first time in your life
You’ll have a suit
Of soil and a pair of boots.

– And as you’re a man,
You’ll get a hat for a male.
If you were a woman, a shawl or veil.

– Your best clothes
Will be of earth and not of cloth.
They won’t tear and will never rot.

– In your best clothes
You’ll look a man of leisure
With clothes made to measure.

[Anonymous No.11381826]

>>11381808

The following lament, which includes maçaroca banguela,tested all my resources in the semantic fields of corn and corn seeds, with terms like mainva (shoot), rebolo de cana (sugar cane sprout), espiga debulhada
(threshed husk), espiga no sabugo (chewed up shuck), soca (second harvest),
semente maninha (barren seed). The most difficult expression to
translate in all the poem was maçaroca banguela. Banguela, “with no
front teeth”, was reaatively straightforward, but maçaroca was tougher.
After questioning some of top experts on Brazilian literature and the Portuguese
language, I discovered maçaroca was a very poor kind of soup,
into which all the leftovers of corn were put. Thus banguela as all the
teeth of corn have already been eaten, and there are just the bare shucks
left. My first attempt was toothless stew, but a stew normally contains
meat, and can be very tasty. So stew was downgraded to swill; pigs normally
eat swill, a mixture a just about anything, any left overs, and so
toothless stew became toothless swill.

– This land you know well,
It drank the sweat you sold.

– This land you know well,
It sapped up your spirit of youth.

– This land you know well,
It shrank your manliness.

– This land knows you well,
Through friends and relations.

– This land knows you well,
You’ll live with your wife and children.

– This land knows you well,
It’s been waiting since you were born.

– You have no force left,
Let yourself be sown lengthways.

– You have no live seed,
Your body is its own shoot.

– You have no sugar cane sprout.
You are the sprout but not of cane.

– You have no seed in your hand;
You are the grain.

– You have no strength in your leg;
Let yourself be sown in the grave.

– You have no strength in your hand;
Let yourself be sown in the furrows.

– In the hammock nothing coming,
Only your threshed husk.

– In the hammock a lot coming,
Only your chewed up shuck.

– In the hammock something scarce,
Toothless swill.

– In the hammock very little,
Your life with no second harvest.

– In your right hand a rosary,
Black dried corn.

– In your right hand only
The rosary, dry seed.

– In the right hand, the rosary
Of ash, barren seed.

– In the right hand the rosary,
Inert and lifeless seed.

– Naked you came in the coffin,
Naked also the grain is buried.

– Poverty unclothed you so much,
That the wind left your chest.

– You took off so many things in life,
That the cool breeze left your chest.

– And now the ground opens to shelter you,
The sheet you never had in your life.

– The ground opens and covers you,
It gives you blanket and bed.

– The ground opens and wraps you
Like a woman to sleep with.

[Anonymous No.11381911]

I've never seen a purple cow.
I never hope to see one.
I can tell you anyhow;
I would rather see then be one.

[Anonymous No.11381941]

"Light comes from the East, strength comes from the East!"
And, ready to reign,
The king of Persia drove his herds of slaves
To Thermopylae.

But the heavenly gift of Prometheus
Wasn't given to Hellas in vain.
Paling, the crowds of slaves retreated
Before a handful of valiant men.

And who has traveled the glorious path
To the Indus and the Ganges?
The Macedonian phalanx,
The sovereign eagle of Rome.

And by the strength of reason and law -
Truths undenied by any man -
An empire of the West arose,
And Rome unified the world.

What more was needed?
Why was the whole world again in blood?
The soul of the universe craved
The spirit of faith and love!

And the prophetic word was not false,
And a light from the East shone,
Heralding and promising
What had been impossible.

And, spilling wide,
Full of portent and strength,
That light from the East
Made peace between East and West.

O Rus'! In lofty premonition
You ponder a proud idea;
Which East do you want to be:
The East of Xerxes or of Christ?"

[Anonymous No.11381946]

The tiger
He destroyed his cage
Yes
YES
The tiger is out

[Anonymous No.11381968]

How shall I hold back my soul
from touching yours?
How shall I raise it
over you to other things?

Oh, how I yearn to hide it in some
corner in the dark
in some forsaken place that would be still
while your depths light that fiery spark.

And yet, all things that touch us, you and me,
bind us together like a violin bow
drawing but one sound from two strings.
On which instrument though are we both strung?
And what violinist holds us in the hand?

Oh, sweet, sweet song.

[Anonymous No.11381973]

>>11381826
Nice. Good work.

[Anonymous No.11382218]

>>11380976
lol

[Anonymous No.11382224]

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell
To toll me back from thee to my sole self!
Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well
As she is senpai'd to do, deceiving elf.
Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades
Past the near meadows, over the still stream,
Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep
In the next valley-glades:
Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?
If this
Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft—
In darkness and amid the many shapes
Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,
Have hung upon the beatings of my heart—
How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee,
O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro' the woods,
How often has my spirit turned to thee!

[Anonymous No.11382231]

J’ai cueilli ce brin de bruyère
L’automne est morte souviens-t’en
Nous ne nous verrons plus sur terre
Odeur du temps brin de bruyère
Et souviens-toi que je t’attends

Apollinaire

[Anonymous No.11382299]

>>11382231
>L’automne est morte souviens-t’en
Ce vers...

[Anonymous No.11382384]

am peripheral movement
I am a figure without form
I am a person seem from a distance
Rebirth to a new life transcribed in wires
From a new life
Growing to hate decisive moments
The only thing within a breath of real
So now I fall to my knees and beg in earnest
To what powers may govern the sky
Just let me sleep one night without these dreams
These dreams that always haunt me
Nothing
Life gets longer the day I realize
I can't breathe deeply enough to fill me
With every disappointment
Nothing Happens
And the man I might have been
Nothing Ever Happens
And all the great things that I will never do
Growing to hate decisive lows
All I can do is watch it pass
I resonate at the pitch of discontent
I am peripheral movement
Life gets longer today I realize
I can't breathe deeply enough to fill me
With every disappointment
And break my heart the way it deserves
Nothing Happens
And the man I might have been
Nothing Ever Happens
And all the great things that I will never do

[Anonymous No.11382474]

>>11379592
whats this meme? ive seen it before

[Anonymous No.11382643]

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies.
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp!

When the stars threw down their spears
And water'd heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

[Anonymous No.11382764]

>>11380978
kavafy a great one

[Anonymous No.11382776]

When silence drowns the screams.

[Anonymous No.11382787]

DH Lawrence: "Deeper Than Love"
There is love, and it is a deep thing
but there are deeper things than love.

First and last, man is alone.
He is born alone, and alone he dies
and alone he is while he lives, in his deepest self.

Love, like the flowers, is life, growing.
But underneath are the deep rocks, the living rock that lives alone
and deeper still the unknown fire, unknown and heavy, heavy
and alone.

Love is a thing of twoness.
But underneath any twoness, man is alone.

And underneath the great turbulent emotions of love, the violent herbage,
lies the living rock of a single creature's pride,
the dark, naif pride.
And deeper even than the bedrock of pride
lies the ponderous fire of naked life
with its strange primordial consciousness of justice
and its primordial consciousness of connection,
connection with still deeper, still more terrible life-fire
and the old, old final life-truth.

Love is of twoness, and is lovely
like the living life on the earth
but below all roots of love lies the bedrock of naked pride, subterranean,
and deeper than the bedrock of pride is the primordial fire of the middle
which rests in connection with the further forever unknowable fire of all things
and which rocks with a sense of connection, religion
and trembles with a sense of truth, primordial consciousness
and is silent with a sense of justice, the fiery primordial imperative.

All this is deeper than love
deeper than love.

[Anonymous No.11382798]

>>11381946
This but you forgot to post the author part.

[Anonymous No.11382815]

>>11382787
for my son

If—

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

[Anonymous No.11382888]

>>11380370
"Un grand sommeil noir

Tombe sur ma vie :

Dormez, tout espoir,

Dormez, toute envie !
Je ne vois plus rien,

Je perds la mémoire

Du mal et du bien…

O la triste histoire !
Je suis un berceau

Qu’une main balance

Au creux d’un caveau :

Silence, silence !
[...]
Le ciel est, par-dessus le toit,

Si bleu, si calme !

Un arbre, par-dessus le toit,

Berce sa palme.
La cloche dans le ciel qu’on voit

Doucement tinte.

Un oiseau sur l’arbre qu’on voit

Chante sa plainte.
Mon Dieu, mon Dieu, la vie est là,

Simple et tranquille.

Cette paisible rumeur-là

Vient de la ville.
- Qu’as tu fait, ô toi que voilà,

Pleurant sans cesse,

Dis, qu’as-tu fait, toi que voilà,

De ta jeunesse ?"


Verlaine about schizophrenia and guilt/regret

[Anonymous No.11383088]

>>11379371
I'm reading Paradise Lost now and I almost teared up near the end of the first book, don't know why.

[Anonymous No.11384167]

The Peace of Wild Things
BY WENDELL BERRY,


When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

[Anonymous No.11384201]

>>11379371
Ozymandias

[Anonymous No.11384251]

Groping back to bed after a piss
I part thick curtains, and am startled by
The rapid clouds, the moon’s cleanliness.

Four o’clock: wedge-shadowed gardens lie
Under a cavernous, a wind-picked sky.
There’s something laughable about this,

The way the moon dashes through clouds that blow
Loosely as cannon-smoke to stand apart
(Stone-coloured light sharpening the roofs below)

High and preposterous and separate—
Lozenge of love! Medallion of art!
O wolves of memory! Immensements! No,

One shivers slightly, looking up there.
The hardness and the brightness and the plain
Far-reaching singleness of that wide stare

Is a reminder of the strength and pain
Of being young; that it can’t come again,
But is for others undiminished somewhere.

[Anonymous No.11385033]

little fly thy summers' play
my thoughtless hand has brushed away
am i not a fly like thee?
or art thou not a man like me?

for i dance and drink and sing
til some blind hand shall brush my wing
if thought is life and strength and breath
and the want of thought is death
then am i a happy fly
if i live or if i die

[Anonymous No.11385057]

>>11379401
What about it moved you?

[Anonymous No.11385060]

東海の小島の磯の白砂に
我泣き濡れて
蟹と戯る

[Anonymous No.11385180]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-D7oJoqDi0

[Anonymous No.11385867]

>>11380978
Great poem though I still don't understand why he put the last 3 lines. They add nothing whatsoever

[Anonymous No.11385903]

Catullus 101
>Carried through many nations and over many seas,
>I arrive, brother, for these wretched funeral rites
>so that I might present you with the last tribute of death
>and speak in vain to silent ash,
>since Fortune has carried you, yourself, away from me.
>Alas, poor brother, unfairly taken away from me,
>now in the meantime, nevertheless, these things which in the ancient custom of ancestors
>are handed over as a sad tribute to the rites
>receive, dripping much with brotherly weeping.
>And forever, brother, hail and farewell.

i remember having to translate this in highschool
a few years later i went to the funeral of a friends brother where he recited it in Latin
i didn't recognize it until the last line, which made the impact all the harder
>atque in perpetuum Frater, ave atque vale.

still gets me

[Anonymous No.11385935]

In desperate hope I go and search for her in all the corners of my room; I find her not.

My house is small and what once has gone from it can never be regained.

But infinite is thy mansion, my lord, and seeking her I have come to thy door.

I stand under the golden canopy of thine evening sky and I lift my eager eyes to thy face.

I have come to the brink of eternity from which nothing can vanish—no hope, no happiness, no vision of a face seen through tears.

Oh, dip my emptied life into that ocean, plunge it into the deepest fullness. Let me for once feel that lost sweet touch in the allness of the universe.

[Anonymous No.11385946]

I never saw a wild thing
sorry for itself.
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
without ever having felt sorry for itself.

[Anonymous No.11385980]

>>11381373>>11381227
>>11379593
>>11381391
>>11381705
>>11382815


damn

[Anonymous No.11385985]

>>11379751
the best

[Anonymous No.11385987]

>>11380640
wow, thanks for posting this one

[Anonymous No.11385989]

>>11380673
a classic, so fucking good holy shit

"That which we are, we are"

[Anonymous No.11385997]

Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once,
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.

[Anonymous No.11386001]

>>11382815
>We are
This is all a young boy needs to make it in life

[Anonymous No.11386006]

When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer
BY WALT WHITMAN

When I heard the learn’d astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

[Anonymous No.11386012]

>>11379371
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

[Anonymous No.11386026]

Ya no es mágico el mundo. Te han dejado.
Ya no compartirás la clara luna
ni los lentos jardines. Ya no hay una
luna que no sea espejo del pasado,

cristal de soledad, sol de agonías.
Adiós las mutuas manos y las sienes
que acercaba el amor. Hoy sólo tienes
la fiel memoria y los desiertos días.

Nadie pierde (repites vanamente)
sino lo que no tiene y no ha tenido
nunca, pero no basta ser valiente

para aprender el arte del olvido.
Un símbolo, una rosa, te desgarra
y te puede matar una guitarra.

II

Ya no seré feliz. Tal vez no importa.
Hay tantas otras cosas en el mundo;
un instante cualquiera es más profundo
y diverso que el mar. La vida es corta

y aunque las horas son tan largas, una
oscura maravilla nos acecha,
la muerte, ese otro mar, esa otra flecha
que nos libra del sol y de la luna

y del amor. La dicha que me diste
y me quitaste debe ser borrada;
lo que era todo tiene que ser nada.

Sólo que me queda el goce de estar triste,
esa vana costumbre que me inclina
al Sur, a cierta puerta, a cierta esquina.

[Anonymous No.11386215]

>>11385903
I've always loved this one

[Anonymous No.11386271]

>>11380640
Chaplinesque is a good one anon.

[Anonymous No.11386295]

This segment in Fernando Pessoa's 'Tabacaria' when he talks about all the aspirations people have in their mind but that are never realized. Posting in English so everyone can bask at Pessoa's glory:

What do I know of what I shall be, I who do not know what I am?
Be what I think I am? But I think of so many things!
And there are so many who think to be the same thing- there can’t be that many!
Genius? At this moment
A hundred thousand minds dream themselves geniuses like I do,
And history will not register, who knows? not even one,
Nor will it remain but manure from so many future conquests.

No, I do not believe in myself.
In every mental asylum there are mad deranged people with so many certainties!
I, who do not have any certainties, am more or less right?
No, not even in myself…
In how many garrets and non-garrets of the world
Are not there geniuses dreaming unto themselves?
How many aspirations high and noble and lucid-
- yes, truly high, noble and lucid-
And, who knows, maybe accomplishable,
Will never see the light of the real sun, nor be heard by human ears?

The world is for those born to conquer it
And not for those who dream they can conquer it, even though they may be right.
I have dreamt more than Napoleon accomplished;
I have clasped to my hypothetical breast more humanity than Christ;
I contrived philosophies in secret that no Kant ever wrote.
But I am, and maybe I shall always be, the one in the garret,
Even if I don’t live in one;
I shall always be the one who was not born for that;
I shall always be only the one who had (good) qualities;
I shall always be the one who waited for the door to be opened by a doorless wall,
And sang the song of the Infinite in a chicken-house,
And heard the voice of God inside a plugged well.

[Anonymous No.11386355]

Thanatopsis William Bryant
To him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart;—
Go forth, under the open sky, and list
To Nature’s teachings, while from all around—
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air—
Comes a still voice—

the whole poem is too long. the rest is in a reply

[Anonymous No.11386358]

>>11386355
Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix for ever with the elements,
To be a brother to the insensible rock
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.
Yet not to thine eternal resting-place
Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world—with kings,
The powerful of the earth—the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun,—the vales
Stretching in pensive quietness between;
The venerable woods—rivers that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks
That make the meadows green; and, poured round all,
Old Ocean’s gray and melancholy waste,—
Are but the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom.—Take the wings
Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound,
Save his own dashings—yet the dead are there:
And millions in those solitudes, since first
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep—the dead reign there alone.
So shalt thou rest, and what if thou withdraw
In silence from the living, and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one as before will chase
His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glide away, the sons of men,
The youth in life’s green spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron and maid,
The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man—

[Anonymous No.11386359]

>>11386358
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side,
By those, who in their turn shall follow them.
So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan, which moves
To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams

[Anonymous No.11386361]

Love again: wanking at ten past three
(Surely he’s taken her home by now?),
The bedroom hot as a bakery,
The drink gone dead, without showing how
To meet tomorrow, and afterwards,
And the usual pain, like dysentery.

Someone else feeling her breasts and cunt,
Someone else drowned in that lash-wide stare,
And me supposed to be ignorant,
Or find it funny, or not to care,
Even ... but why put it into words?
Isolate rather this element

That spreads through other lives like a tree
And sways them on in a sort of sense
And say why it never worked for me.
Something to do with violence
A long way back, and wrong rewards,
And arrogant eternity.

[Anonymous No.11386364]

Although I shelter from the rain
Under a broken tree
My chair was nearest to the fire
In every company
That talked of love or politics,
Ere Time transfigured me.

Though lads are making pikes again
For some conspiracy,
And crazy rascals rage their fill
At human tyranny,
My contemplations are of Time
That has transfigured me.

There's not a woman turns her face
Upon a broken tree,
And yet the beauties that I loved
Are in my memory;
I spit into the face of Time
That has transfigured me.

[Anonymous No.11386367]

The world was young, the mountains green,
No stain yet on the Moon was seen,
No words were laid on stream or stone,
When Durin woke and walked alone.
He named the nameless hills and dells;
He drank from yet untasted wells;
He stooped and looked in Mirrormere,
And saw a crown of stars appear,
As gems upon a silver thread,
Above the shadow of his head.

The world was fair, the mountains tall,
In Elder Days before the fall
Of mighty Kings in Nargothrond
And Gondolin, who now beyond
The Western Seas have passed away:
The world was fair in Durin's Day.

A king he was on carven throne
In many-pillared halls of stone
With golden roof and silver floor,
And runes of power upon the door.
The light of sun and star and moon
In shining lamps of crystal hewn
Undimmed by cloud or shade of night
There shone forever fair and bright.

There hammer on the anvil smote,
There chisel clove, and graver wrote;
There blade was forged and bound the hilt;
The delver mined, the mason built.
There beryl, pearl, and opal pale
And metal wrought like fishes' mail,
Buckler and corslet, axe and sword,
And shining spears were laid in horde.

Unwearied then were Durin's folk;
Beneath the mountains music woke:
The harpers harped, the minstrels sang,
And at the gates the trumpets rang.

The world is grey, the mountains old,
The forge's fire is ashen-cold;
No harp is wrung, no hammer falls:
The darkness dwells in Durin's halls;
The shadow lies upon his tomb
In Moria, in Khazad-dûm.
But still the sunken stars appear
In dark and windless Mirrormere;
There lies his crown in water deep,
Till Durin wakes again from sleep.

[WOW GOAT No.11386441]

Trying hard and squinting harder,
The hair-palmed manchild leans ahead
To blinking, cryptic holy words
Set down by wiser, older men,
And hopes so blindly for a tear
Or some stirring in his thick heart
So far set in his cavity.
But feeling none, he aches and pines
And looks away with cold, dry eyes.
He balls his fist and groans aloud,
His low-brow drooping as it does.
The wail rings low and hollowly,
The unkempt boy will never know
That his cords quiver just the same
As his long gone ancestors' did,
When they glimpsed the dusky omens
Over their Neanderthal tribe,
Casting them to forgotten-ness,
As the wiser, meaner race comes
Nearer, larger over the hills
To pillage, slaughter, and enslave.
The boy withdraws and closes out,
Knowing some things may stay unknown
And some things just come natural,
Reaching out, he grabs a tissue
And stares hard at flat, false idols.

[Anonymous No.11387657]

"Come, my friends,
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

Tennyson is beautiful.

[Anonymous No.11387961]

As I sit looking out of a window of the building
I wish I did not have to write the instruction manual on the uses of a new metal.
I look down into the street and see people, each walking with an inner peace,
And envy them—they are so far away from me!
Not one of them has to worry about getting out this manual on schedule.
And, as my way is, I begin to dream, resting my elbows on the desk and leaning out of the window a little,
Of dim Guadalajara! City of rose-colored flowers!
City I wanted most to see, and most did not see, in Mexico!
But I fancy I see, under the press of having to write the instruction manual,
Your public square, city, with its elaborate little bandstand!
The band is playing Scheherazade by Rimsky-Korsakov.
Around stand the flower girls, handing out rose- and lemon-colored flowers,
Each attractive in her rose-and-blue striped dress (Oh! such shades of rose and blue),
And nearby is the little white booth where women in green serve you green and yellow fruit.
The couples are parading; everyone is in a holiday mood.
First, leading the parade, is a dapper fellow
Clothed in deep blue. On his head sits a white hat
And he wears a mustache, which has been trimmed for the occasion.
His dear one, his wife, is young and pretty; her shawl is rose, pink, and white.
Her slippers are patent leather, in the American fashion,
And she carries a fan, for she is modest, and does not want the crowd to see her face too often.
But everybody is so busy with his wife or loved one
I doubt they would notice the mustachioed man’s wife.
Here come the boys! They are skipping and throwing little things on the sidewalk
Which is made of gray tile. One of them, a little older, has a toothpick in his teeth.
He is silenter than the rest, and affects not to notice the pretty young girls in white.
But his friends notice them, and shout their jeers at the laughing girls.
Yet soon all this will cease, with the deepening of their years,
And love bring each to the parade grounds for another reason.
But I have lost sight of the young fellow with the toothpick.
Wait—there he is—on the other side of the bandstand,
Secluded from his friends, in earnest talk with a young girl
Of fourteen or fifteen. I try to hear what they are saying
But it seems they are just mumbling something—shy words of love, probably.
She is slightly taller than he, and looks quietly down into his sincere eyes.
She is wearing white. The breeze ruffles her long fine black hair against her olive cheek.
Obviously she is in love. The boy, the young boy with the toothpick, he is in love too;
His eyes show it. Turning from this couple,
I see there is an intermission in the concert.
The paraders are resting and sipping drinks through straws
(The drinks are dispensed from a large glass crock by a lady in dark blue),
And the musicians mingle among them, in their creamy white uniforms, and talk
About the weather, perhaps, or how their kids are doing at school.

[Anonymous No.11387972]

>>11387961

Let us take this opportunity to tiptoe into one of the side streets.
Here you may see one of those white houses with green trim
That are so popular here. Look—I told you!
It is cool and dim inside, but the patio is sunny.
An old woman in gray sits there, fanning herself with a palm leaf fan.
She welcomes us to her patio, and offers us a cooling drink.
“My son is in Mexico City,” she says. “He would welcome you too
If he were here. But his job is with a bank there.
Look, here is a photograph of him.”
And a dark-skinned lad with pearly teeth grins out at us from the worn leather frame.
We thank her for her hospitality, for it is getting late
And we must catch a view of the city, before we leave, from a good high place.
That church tower will do—the faded pink one, there against the fierce blue of the sky. Slowly we enter.
The caretaker, an old man dressed in brown and gray, asks us how long we have been in the city, and how we like it here.
His daughter is scrubbing the steps—she nods to us as we pass into the tower.
Soon we have reached the top, and the whole network of the city extends before us.
There is the rich quarter, with its houses of pink and white, and its crumbling, leafy terraces.
There is the poorer quarter, its homes a deep blue.
There is the market, where men are selling hats and swatting flies
And there is the public library, painted several shades of pale green and beige.
Look! There is the square we just came from, with the promenaders.
There are fewer of them, now that the heat of the day has increased,
But the young boy and girl still lurk in the shadows of the bandstand.
And there is the home of the little old lady—
She is still sitting in the patio, fanning herself.
How limited, but how complete withal, has been our experience of Guadalajara!
We have seen young love, married love, and the love of an aged mother for her son.
We have heard the music, tasted the drinks, and looked at colored houses.
What more is there to do, except stay? And that we cannot do.
And as a last breeze freshens the top of the weathered old tower, I turn my
gaze
Back to the instruction manual which has made me dream of Guadalajara.

[Anonymous No.11387985]

lock up the door
Put the pony on all fours
Crack down the whip
Make the pony bite the bit
Spit on my face
Put the pony in his place
I am your toy
Just a little ponyboy

[Anonymous No.11388004]

>>11386361
Who dis?

[Anonymous No.11388018]

>>11379371

George Gordon Byron, 1788 - 1824

Near this Spot
are deposited the Remains of one
who possessed Beauty without Vanity,
Strength without Insolence,
Courage without Ferosity,
and all the virtues of Man without his Vices.
This praise, which would be unmeaning Flattery
if inscribed over human Ashes,
is but a just tribute to the Memory of
BOATSWAIN, a DOG,
who was born in Newfoundland May 1803
and died at Newstead Nov. 18th, 1808.

When some proud Son of Man returns to Earth,
Unknown to Glory but upheld by Birth,
The sculptor's art exhausts the pomp of woe,
And storied urns record who rests below:
When all is done, upon the Tomb is seen
Not what he was, but what he should have been.
But the poor Dog, in life the firmest friend,
The first to welcome, foremost to defend,
Whose honest heart is still his Master's own,
Who labours, fights, lives, breathes for him alone,
Unhonour'd falls, unnotic'd all his worth,
Deny'd in heaven the Soul he held on earth:
While man, vain insect! hopes to be forgiven,
And claims himself a sole exclusive heaven.
Oh man! thou feeble tenant of an hour,
Debas'd by slavery, or corrupt by power,
Who knows thee well, must quit thee with disgust,
Degraded mass of animated dust!
Thy love is lust, thy friendship all a cheat,
Thy tongue hypocrisy, thy heart deceit!
By nature vile, ennobled but by name,
Each kindred brute might bid thee blush for shame.
Ye! who behold perchance this simple urn,
Pass on, it honors none you wish to mourn.
To mark a friend's remains these stones arise;
I never knew but one—and here he lies

[Anonymous No.11388445]

Count Eberhard Rustle-Beard,
From Württemberg's fair land,
On holy errand steer'd
To Palestina's strand.

The while he slowly rode
Along a woodland way;
He cut from the hawthorn bush
A little fresh green spray.

Then in his iron helm
The little sprig he plac'd;
And bore it in the wars,
And over the ocean waste.

And when he reach'd his home;
He plac'd it in the earth;
Where little leaves and buds
The gentle Spring call'd forth.

He went each year to it,
The Count so brave and true;
And overjoy'd was he
To witness how it grew.

The Count was worn with age
The sprig became a tree;
'Neath which the old man oft
Would sit in reverie.

The branching arch so high,
Whose whisper is so bland,
Reminds him of the past
And Palestina's strand.

[Anonymous No.11388537]

Yea, Uh huh, you know what it is
Black and yellow
Black and yellow
Black and yellow
Black and yellow
Yea, Uh huh, you know what it is
Black and yellow
Black and yellow
Black and yellow
Black and yellow
Yeah, uh huh, you know what it is
Everything I do, I do it big
Yeah, uh huh, screaming that's nothing
What I pulled off the lot, that's stunting
Repping my town when you see me you know everything
Black and yellow
Black and yellow
Black and yellow
Black and yellow
I put it down from the whip to my diamonds, I'm in
Black and yellow
Black and yellow
Black and yellow
Black and yellow