We present this work in honor of the poet’s 200th birthday.
Hermogenes Irisarri Chilean 1819 – 1886
Fair maid! believe me, love is like a lake,
Whose crystal depths reflect thy brow of snow;
The roses on thy cheek that come and go,
When in thy azure eyes the smiles awake.
No passing winds the liquid mirror wake,
The cool refreshing airs so softly blow.
But hidden currents in the depths below
The angry surface in an instant shake.
Gaze then in safety from the emerald shore;
Nor launch thy shallop on the treacherous wave.
Even the gentle touch of thy light oar
May rouse the slumbering peril from its grave.
Thy fragile bark is on rough waters tossed;
The picture fades, thou sinkest, and art lost.
In honor of Ugadi, we present this work by one of the great 19th century Indian poets.
Michael Madhususdan Dutt Indian 1824 – 1873
I am not rich, nay, nor the future heir
To sparkling gold or silver heaped on store;
There is no marble blushing on my floor
With thousand varied dies:—no gilded chair,
No cushions, carpets that by riches are
Brought from the Persian land, or Turkish shore;
There is no menial waiting at my door
Attentive to the knell: and all things rare,
Born in remotest regions, that shine in
And grace the rich-man’s hall, are wanting here.
These are not things that by blind Fate have been
Allotted ever to the poor man’s share:
These are not things, these eyes have ever seen,
Tho’ their proud names have sounded in this ear!
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 175th birthday.
Paul Verlaine French 1844 – 1896
Their long skirts and high heels battled away:
Depending on the ground’s and breezes’ whim,
At times some stocking shone, low on the limb—
Too soon concealed!—tickling our naïveté.
At times, as well, an envious bug would bite
Our lovelies’ necks beneath the boughs, and we
Would glimpse a flash—white flash, ah! ecstasy!—
And glut our mad young eyes on sheer delight.
Evening would fall, the autumn day would draw
To its uncertain close: our belles would cling
Dreamingly to us, cooing, whispering
Lies that still set our souls trembling with awe.
I love you, and I want it known
O disinherited, o mocked,
You whom the fickle public scorns,
You whom they like to call the failed.
For in this hour I throw myself
Into the fight – to strike and break
My lance, perhaps, and others too,
And be struck wickedly in turn.
For now desire within me burns,
My rivals I must face head-on,
Though I do not know who I am,
And though still less know I the score,
And though perhaps I am unfit
To mingle with the likes of you,
Or tread the battlefield today
Where I’ll pour out my twenty years.
I think of you, the dearly failed
With whom I may soon share a meal
In misery tonight. If so
I hope you’ll save a place for me.
From far away I ponder you;
To test myself, to know my heart,
I weigh my courage on the scale
Of sadnesses that you have borne.
If moved I was by japes they heaped
I feel I could move back, deny,
And make my way back home.
I’m sure I’d have an easy walk.
But no, I want the fight; I find
Your lot does not disgust, does not
Repel. I shrink not from your fate,
For it’s the one that I prefer.
The Philistines, I hear, have joys
That do outrun your own. But I
Will take the meager rations of
Your dreams, and not their splendid feasts.
A fall may come; it did for you,
But if the saddle throws me out
Well then, I land with you and take
A place among beloved friends.
To you the mocked, the booed, the heaped
With scorn, the countless outcast mob,
The would have beens, the never weres,
The throngs whom no one understands.
The ghost called Perfect haunted you,
The specter of the master-stroke
Until for want of pleasing him,
At last you pleased no one at all.
To you who carried in your head
Ideals too lovely to be wrought;
To you the poets of the verse
That never will be written down.
To you who filled your idle days
With projects proud and never done;
To you who chased ambitions grand,
In matters that were grander still.
To you whose sweeping thoughts could not
Abide within a narrow mold
Or fit a frame or take a shape
Without a break or overflow.
To you the painters in despair
Who found before a play of light
That colors always fled your grasp,
Who hurled your brushes in dismay.
To you composers who grew pale
At harmonies within your soul
And who for want of notes on page
Filled up your eyes with tears instead.
To you, whose art could not bring out
The subtleties you felt within
And chose therefore not to create,
O delicate, exquisite wastes!
To you, the egotists of sloth
Who keep your works within yourselves
To you, the true, the great, the grand
To you, the ruined; you, the fools.
To you who do not hear the scorn
Who triumph in the shabby nights
Who wave your madness on the streets
And hope to catch indifferent eyes.
You acrobatic characters;
You ugly, scruffy, grimacing,
You grotesque Don Quixotes, yes,
Are those who win my heart still more,
For Dulcinea is your muse
You errant knights of artistry
Whom chance alone perhaps denied
A moment in the sun of fame.
I am your brother and your friend,
A dreamer and a scatterbrain,
And I may know your misery
Before today is done, and so –
I dedicate these lines to you
The first that I have ever made,
O shock troops of Bohemia,
My friends, the lost; my friends, the failed!
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;
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.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 160th birthday.
A.E. Housman English 1859 – 1936
Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrists?
And what has he been after that they groan and shake their fists?
And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience-stricken air?
Oh they’re taking him to prison for the colour of his hair.
‘Tis a shame to human nature, such a head of hair as his;
In the good old time ‘twas hanging for the colour that it is;
Though hanging isn’t bad enough and flaying would be fair
For the nameless and abominable colour of his hair.
Oh a deal of pains he’s taken and a pretty price he’s paid
To hide his poll or dye it of a mentionable shade;
But they’ve pulled the beggar’s hat off for the world to see and stare,
And they’re hauling him to justice for the colour of his hair.
Now ‘tis oakum for his fingers and the treadmill for his feet
And the quarry-gang on Portland in the cold and in the heat,
And between his spells of labour in the time he has to spare
He can curse the God that made him for the colour of his hair.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 205th birthday.
La Avellaneda Cuban 1814 – 1873
There are no ties to bind us now; all ties are broken:
I asked that Heaven make it so; thanks be to God!
A bitter cup once filled with pleasure, is now empty;
My soul, at last, can find repose; it desires nothing.
I loved you once, I do not love you now; ponder on that, at least.
If I erred it was because I could not face that truth.
Let all these many years of bitterness and strife
Be swallowed in memory’s void; and let my heart breathe free.
You have battered and destroyed it without pity;
And madly trampled, once and again, my pride …
Yet never from these lips will you hear a murmur
To condemn the tyranny you wielded over me.
Terrible avenger of great wrongs, how meekly
You fulfilled your mission. Are you unaware of it?
It was not your irresistible power that caused me
To lay at your feet my unconquerable strength.
God willed it so; and so it was. Blessed be his name!
All’s over now; and I at last recover my own self.
All-avenging angel, you are now a man! …
And I behold you and feel nor love nor fear.
Your sceptre is shattered and your sword is broken …
And, oh, what melancholy freedom do I breathe!
I made a world of you; that world is gone;
In vast and profound loneliness, I dwell.
I wish you happiness; and if some day you chance
To read this, my eternal farewell, know even then
There will always be in my heart for you,
Generous pardon and tender affection.
Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We daren’t go a-hunting
For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
And white owl’s feather!
Down along the rocky shore
Some make their home,
They live on crispy pancakes
Of yellow tide-foam;
Some in the reeds
Of the black mountain lake,
With frogs for their watch-dogs,
All night awake.
High on the hill-top
The old King sits;
He is now so old and gray
He’s nigh lost his wits.
With a bridge of white mist
Columbkill he crosses,
On his stately journeys
From Slieveleague to Rosses;
Or going up with music
On cold starry nights
To sup with the Queen
Of the gay Northern Lights.
They stole little Bridget
For seven years long;
When she came down again
Her friends were all gone.
They took her lightly back,
Between the night and morrow,
They thought that she was fast asleep,
But she was dead with sorrow.
They have kept her ever since
Deep within the lake,
On a bed of flag-leaves,
Watching till she wake.
By the craggy hill-side,
Through the mosses bare,
They have planted thorn-trees
For pleasure here and there.
If any man so daring
As dig them up in spite,
He shall find their sharpest thorns
In his bed at night.
Up the airy mountain,
Down the rushy glen,
We daren’t go a-hunting
For fear of little men;
Wee folk, good folk,
Trooping all together;
Green jacket, red cap,
And white owl’s feather!
The breeze fair aft, all sails on high,
Ten guns on each side mounted seen,
She does not cut the sea, but fly,
A swiftly sailing brigantine;
A pirate bark, the “Dreaded” name,
For her surpassing boldness famed,
On every sea well-known and shore,
From side to side their boundaries o’er.
The moon in streaks the waves illumes
Hoarse groans the wind the rigging through;
In gentle motion raised assumes
The sea a silvery shade with blue;
Whilst singing gaily on the poop
The pirate Captain, in a group,
Sees Europe here, there Asia lies,
And Stamboul in the front arise.
“Sail on, my swift one! nothing fear;
Nor calm, nor storm, nor foeman’s force,
Shall make thee yield in thy career
Or turn thee from thy course.
Despite the English cruisers fleet
We have full twenty prizes made;
And see their flags beneath my feet
A hundred nations laid. My treasure is my gallant bark, My only God is liberty; My law is might, the wind my mark, My country is the sea.
“There blindly kings fierce wars maintain,
For palms of land, when here I hold
As mine, whose power no laws restrain,
Whate’er the seas infold.
Nor is there shore around whate’er,
Or banner proud, but of my might
Is taught the valorous proofs to bear,
And made to feel my right. My treasure is my gallant bark, My only God is liberty; My law is might, the wind my mark, My country is the sea.
“Look when a ship our signals ring,
Full sail to fly how quick she’s veered!
For of the sea I am the king,
My fury’s to be feared;
But equally with all I share
Whate’er the wealth we take supplies;
I only seek the matchless fair,
My portion of the prize. My treasure is my gallant bark, My only God is liberty; My law is might, the wind my mark, My country is the sea.
“I am condemned to die! — I laugh;
For, if my fates are kindly sped,
My doomer from his own ship’s staff
Perhaps I’ll hang instead.
And if I fall, why what is life?
For lost I gave it then as due,
When from slavery’s yoke in strife
A rover! I withdrew. My treasure is my gallant bark, My only God is liberty; My law is might, the wind my mark, My country is the sea.
“My music is the Northwind’s roar;
The noise when round the cable runs,
The bellowings of the Black Sea’s shore,
And rolling of my guns.
And as the thunders loudly sound,
And furious the tempests rave,
I calmly rest in sleep profound,
So rocked upon the wave. My treasure is my gallant bark, My only God is liberty; My law is might, the wind my mark, My country is the sea.
Poets Corner 