CLASSIC POETRY

A son livre

    A son livre Mon livre (et je ne suis sur ton aise envieux),Tu t’en iras sans moi voir la Cour de mon Prince.Hé, chétif que je suis, combien en gré je prinsseQu’un heur pareil au tien fût permis à mes yeux ? Là si quelqu’un vers toi se montre gracieux,Souhaite-lui qu’il vive...Read More »

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The Art of Poetry

                               The Art of Poetry To gaze at a river made of time and waterAnd remember Time is another river.To know we stray like a riverand our faces vanish like water.To feel that waking is another dreamthat dreams of not dreaming and that the deathwe fear in our bones is the deaththat...Read More »

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Good Bye

                  Good-bye Good-bye, proud world! I’m going home: Thou art not my friend, and I’m not thine. Long through thy weary crowds I roam; A river-ark on the ocean brine, Long I’ve been tossed like the driven foam; But now, proud world! I’m going home.   Good-bye to Flattery’s fawning face; To Grandeur with his wise grimace; To upstart Wealth’s averted...Read More »

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Somewhere I Have Never Traveled

                        Somewhere I Have Never Traveled somewhere I have never traveled, gladly beyond any experience, your eyes have their silence: in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me, or which I cannot touch because they are too near your slightest look easily will unclose me though I have closed myself as...Read More »

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Colour

                Colour The lovely things that I have watched unthinking, Unknowing, day by day, That their soft dyes have steeped my soul in colour That will not pass away – Great saffron sunset clouds, and larkspur mountains, And fenceless miles of plain, And hillsides golden-green in...Read More »

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The Vampire

                      The Vampire A fool there was and he made his prayer(Even as you or I!)To a rag and a bone and a hank of hair,(We called her the woman who did not care),But the fool he called her his lady fair–(Even as you or I!) Oh, the years we waste and...Read More »

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Menu

                    Menu For breakfast a thin buttered sliceOf life.With it we take water which rises incessantly(Last night it covered three-quarters of the globe}And boil it sterile of microbes. For lunch we eat well and substantiallyThree courses of earth:Black earth, loess and clay. We don’t usually have a cooked dinner.We takeEither a star...Read More »

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Fresco

                Fresco When the wickedAre processed in hellNothing goes to waste. By means of tweezersThe women’s heads are emptied ofCombs, grips, pins, rings,Soft goods and bed linen.Then they are thrownInto bubbling cauldronsTo see that the brimstoneDoesn’t boil over. Afterwards someAre changed into SaucepansAnd carry to retired devils’ homesHot sins. The males too are made use...Read More »

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Rondeau (Mort, j'appelle de ta rigueur)

                  Rondeau (Mort, j’appelle de ta rigueur) Mort, j’appelle de ta rigueur,Qui m’as ma maîtresse ravie,Et n’es pas encore assouvieSi tu ne me tiens en langueur : Onc puis n’eus force ni vigueur ;Mais que te nuisoit-elle en vie,Mort ? Deux étions et n’avions qu’un coeur ;S’il est mort, force est que dévie,Voire, ou...Read More »

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Glance and flash

                  Glance and flash That when he (man) wished to feed the thick white comb renounced the pinkbird. Now she rolls the windows wet in wooden cloths! Not to the distant but the crooked. Discharged the chapel – oh! ah! Half-rounded sheercircles press down hard on chessboards and! iron books! Nuremberg wants...Read More »

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