At the next vacancy for God, if I am elected,
I shall forgive last the delicately wounded
who, having been slugged no harder than anyone else,
never got up again, neither to fight back,
nor to finger their jaws in painful admiration.
They who are wholly broken, and they in whom
mercy is understanding, I shall embrace at once
and lead to pillows in heaven. But they who are
the meek by trade, baiting the best of their betters
with the extortions of a mock-helplessness
I shall take last to love, and never wholly.
Let them all into Heaven—I abolish Hell—
but let it be read over them as they enter:
“Beware the calculations of the meek, who gambled nothing,
gave nothing, and could never receive enough.”
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 155th birthday.
Banjo Paterson Australian 1864 – 1941
I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better
Knowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlan, years ago,
He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him,
Just ‘on spec’, addressed as follows, ‘Clancy, of The Overflow’.
And an answer came directed in a writing unexpected,
(And I think the same was written with a thumb-nail dipped in tar)
‘Twas his shearing mate who wrote it, and verbatim I will quote it:
‘Clancy’s gone to Queensland droving, and we don’t know where he are.’
In my wild erratic fancy visions come to me of Clancy
Gone a-droving ‘down the Cooper’ where the Western drovers go;
As the stock are slowly stringing, Clancy rides behind them singing,
For the drover’s life has pleasures that the townsfolk never know.
And the bush hath friends to meet him, and their kindly voices greet him
In the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars,
And he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended,
And at night the wond’rous glory of the everlasting stars.
I am sitting in my dingy little office, where a stingy
Ray of sunlight struggles feebly down between the houses tall,
And the foetid air and gritty of the dusty, dirty city
Through the open window floating, spreads its foulness over all
And in place of lowing cattle, I can hear the fiendish rattle
Of the tramways and the ‘buses making hurry down the street,
And the language uninviting of the gutter children fighting,
Comes fitfully and faintly through the ceaseless tramp of feet.
And the hurrying people daunt me, and their pallid faces haunt me
As they shoulder one another in their rush and nervous haste,
With their eager eyes and greedy, and their stunted forms and weedy,
For townsfolk have no time to grow, they have no time to waste.
And I somehow rather fancy that I’d like to change with Clancy,
Like to take a turn at droving where the seasons come and go,
While he faced the round eternal of the cash-book and the journal–
But I doubt he’d suit the office, Clancy, of ‘The Overflow’.
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
In honor of Valentine’s Day, we present one of the most widely loved celebrations of erotic romance in poetic history.
Pablo Neruda Chilean 1904 – 1973
Naked, you are simple as one of your hands,
Smooth, earthy, small, transparent, round:
You have moonlines, applepathways:
Naked, you are slender as a naked grain of wheat.
Naked, you are blue as the night in Cuba;
You have vines and stars in your hair;
Naked, you are spacious and yellow
As summer in a golden church.
Naked, you are tiny as one of your nails,
Curved, subtle, rosy, till the day is born
And you withdraw to the underground world,
as if down a long tunnel of clothing and of chores:
Your clear light dims, gets dressed, drops its leaves,
And becomes a naked hand again.
Since you wish it, Sir, I will tell you frankly
that you are the laughing-stock of everybody;
that they taunt us everywhere by a thousand
jokes on your account, and that nothing
delights people more than to make sport of
you, and to tell stories without end about
your stinginess. One says that you have
special almanacs printed, where you double
the ember days and vigils, so that you may
profit by the fasts to which you bind all your
house; another, that you always have a ready-
made quarrel for your servants at Christmas
time or when they leave you, so that you may
give them nothing. One tells a story how not
long since you prosecuted a neighbor’s cat
because it had eaten up the remainder of a leg
of mutton; another says that one night you
were caught stealing your horses’ oats, and
that your coachman–that is the man who was
before me–gave you, in the dark, a good
sound drubbing, of which you said nothing.
In short, what is the use of going on? We can
go nowhere but we are sure to hear you
pulled to pieces. You are the butt and jest and
byword of everybody; and never does anyone
mention you but under the names of miser,
stingy, mean fellow and userer.
Kei Khosro sat in a garden bright
With all the beauties of balmy Spring:
And many a warrior armor-dight
With a stout kamand and an arm of might
Supported Persia’s King
With trembling mien and a pallid cheek,
A breathless hind to the presence ran;
And on bended knee, in posture meek,
With faltering tongue that scarce could speak
His story thus begun:
“Alackaday! for the news I bear
Will like to follies of Fancy sound:
Thy steeds were stabled and stalled with care,
When a Wild Ass sprang from its forest lair
With a swift resistless bound,”
“A monster fell, of a dusky hue,
And eyes that flashed with hellish glow;
Many it maimed and some it slew,
The back to the forest again it flew,
As an arrow leaves the bow.”
Kei Khosro’s rage was a sight to see:
“Now curses light on the foul fiend’s head!
Full rich and rare will his guerdon be
Whose stalwart arm will bring to me
Monster, alive or dead!”
But the mail-clad warriors kept their ground,
And their bronzed cheeks were blanched with fear;
With scorn Shah on the cowards frowned,-
“One champion bold may yet be found
While Rostam wields a spear!”
No tarrying made son of Zal,
Small reck had he of the fiercest fray;
But promptly came at the monarch’s call,
And swore that monster fiend would fall
Ere closed the coming day.
Swift Raksh’s sides he spurred,
And speedily gained the darksome wood;
Nor was trial for long deferred,-
But soon a hideous roar was heard,
Had chilled a baser blood.
Then darting out like a flashing flame,
Traverse his path the Wild Ass fled;
And the hero then with unerring aim
Hurled his stout kamand, but as erst it came,
Unscathed monster fled.
Then darting out like a flashing flame,
Traverse his path the Wild Ass fled;
And the hero then with unerring aim
Hurled his stout kamand, but as erst it came,
Unscathed monster fled.
“Now God in heaven!” bold Rostam cried,-
“Thy chosen champion deign to save!
Not all in vain will my steel be tried,
Though he who my powers has thus defied
By none but Akvan Div.”
Then steadily chasing his fiendish foe,
He thrust with hanger, he smote with brand:
But ever avoiding the deadly blow
It vanished away like the scenes that show
On Balkh’s delusive sand.
For full three wearisome nights and days
Stoutly he battled with warlike skill;
But Demon such magical shifts essays
That leaving his courser at large to graze,
He rests him on a hill.
But scare can slumber his eyelids close,
Ere Akvan Div from afar espies;
And never disturbing his foe’s repose
The earth from under the mound hr throws,
And off with the summits flies.
“Now, daring mortal!” Demon cried,-
“Whither wouldst have me catty thee?
Will I cast thee forth on mountain side,
Where lions roar and reptiles glide,
Or hurl thee into the sea?”
“O bear me off to the mountain side,
Where lions roar and serpents creep!
For I fear not the creatures that spring or glide;
But where is the arm that can stem the tide,
Or still the raging deep?”
Loud laughed the fiend as his load he threw
Far plunging into the roaring flood:
And louder laughed Rostam as out he flew,
For he fain had chosen the sea, but knew
The fiend’s malignant mood.
Soon all the monsters that float or swim,
With ravening jaws down on him bore:
But he hewed and hacked them limb from limb,
And the wave pellucid grew thick and dim
With streaks of crimson gore.
With thankful bosom he gains the strand,
And seeketh his courser near and far,
Till he hears him neigh, and he sees him stand
Among the herds of a Tatar band,
The steeds of Isfandiar.
But Rostam’s name was a sound of dread,
And the Tatar heard it has caused to quake;
The herd was there, but the hinds had fled,-
So all the horses he captive led
For good Kei Khosro’s sake.
Then loud again through the forest rings
The fiendish laugh and the taunting cry:
But his kamand quickly the hero flings,
And around Demon it coils and clings,
As a cobweb wraps a fly.
Kei Khosro sat in his garden fair,
Mourning his Champion lost and dead,
When a shout of victory rent the air,
And Rostam placed before his chair
A Demon Giant’s head.
One very rough day on the Pride of the Fray
In the scuppers a poor little cabin-boy lay,
When the Bosun drew nigh with wrath in his eye
And gave him a kick to remember him by,
As he cried with a sneer: “What good are you here?
Go home to your mammy, my bold buccaneer.”
Now the Captain beheld, and his pity upwelled:
With a plug in the peeper the Bosun he felled.
With humility grand he extended his hand
And helped the poor lad, who was weeping, to stand,
As he cried: “Have no fear; I’m the manager here.
Take heart, and you’ll yet be a bold buccaneer.”
But how he did flare when the lad then and there
Doffed his cap and shook down a gold banner of hair.
Though his movements were shy, he’d a laugh in his eye,
And he sank on the Captain’s broad breast with a sigh,
As he cried: “Is it queer that I’ve followed you here?
I’m your sweetheart from Bristol, my bold buccaneer.”
On an isle in the west, by the breezes caressed,
The bold buccaneer has a warm little nest,
And he sits there in state amid pieces of eight
And tackles his rum with a manner elate,
As he cries: “O my dear little cabin-boy, here
Is a toast to the babe of the bold buccaneer!”
His Grace! impossible! what, dead!
Of old age too, and in his bed!
And could that mighty warrior fall,
And so inglorious, after all?
Well, since he’s gone, no matter how,
The last loud trump must wake him now;
And, trust me, as the noise grows stronger,
He’d wish to sleep a little longer.
And could he be indeed so old
As by the newspapers we’re told?
Threescore, I think, is pretty high;
‘Twas time in conscience he should die!
This world he cumber’d long enough;
He burnt his candle to the snuff;
And that’s the reason, some folks think,
He left behind so great a stink.
Behold his funeral appears,
Nor widows’ sighs, nor orphans’ tears,
Wont at such times each heart to pierce,
Attend the progress of his hearse.
But what of that? his friends may say,
He had those honours in his day.
True to his profit and his pride,
He made them weep before he died
Come hither, all ye empty things!
Ye bubbles rais’d by breath of kings!
Who float upon the tide of state;
Come hither, and behold your fate!
Let pride be taught by this rebuke,
How very mean a thing’s a duke;
From all his ill-got honours flung,
Turn’d to that dirt from whence he sprung
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.
Poets Corner 