When the first time, from my land I left the nights of loving charm, My sweet lover sighing My eyes damp with tears.
A romance sang goodbye, But longing dulled the song! Tears wiped her beautiful eyes… And she gave me the handkerchief that dipped her tears.
How many years have passed yet! Do not forget but love so holy! I still keep it in a perfumed safe Her handkerchief that wet the tears…
I never met her again in my life. I, however, my God, loved her so much! Oh! when I die spread on my face The handkerchief that I also bathed in tears!
In honor of the Korean holiday, Teacher’s Day, we present this work by a Korean poet and teacher.
Oh Sae-young Korean b. 1942
A person suffering from love even once should visit a winter field. There is fullness of an empty space, pleasure of a person giving freely. A few fallen grains on a rice paddy after the harvest.
A person mourning separation even once should visit a winter field. There is comfort in the heaven that eternalizes these encounters on earth. The eyes of a pond looking up at faraway stars.
A person afflicted with longing even once should visit a winter field. There is awareness that to watch you is to watch me, to be alone is to be with others. The scarecrow watching the empty field alone.
We present this work in honor of the 25th anniversary of the poet’s death.
Shel Silverstein American 1930 – 1999
“I cannot go to school today,” Said little Peggy Ann McKay. “I have the measles and the mumps, A gash, a rash and purple bumps. My mouth is wet, my throat is dry, I’m going blind in my right eye. My tonsils are as big as rocks, I’ve counted sixteen chicken pox And there’s one more—that’s seventeen, And don’t you think my face looks green? My leg is cut—my eyes are blue— It might be instamatic flu. I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke, I’m sure that my left leg is broke— My hip hurts when I move my chin, My belly button’s caving in, My back is wrenched, my ankle’s sprained, My ‘pendix pains each time it rains. My nose is cold, my toes are numb. I have a sliver in my thumb. My neck is stiff, my voice is weak, I hardly whisper when I speak. My tongue is filling up my mouth, I think my hair is falling out. My elbow’s bent, my spine ain’t straight, My temperature is one-o-eight. My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear, There is a hole inside my ear. I have a hangnail, and my heart is—what? What’s that? What’s that you say? You say today is. . .Saturday? G’bye, I’m going out to play!”
We present this work in honor of the Russian holiday, Victory Day.
David Samoilov Russian 1920 – 1990
The forties, fateful, warring, frontline, with funeral notices, clattering trains. The hum of the rails. All is cold, high and barren. Their houses have burned — they’re heading east. That’s me at the station in my scruffy wool cap. The star’s not standard issue — it’s cut from a can. Yes, here I am in the world, skinny, happy, carefree. I’ve got tobacco in my pouch — I have a stash of rolling papers. I joke with the girls, and limp a little overmuch. I break my rationed bread in half, and I know everything on earth. Imagine! What coincidence — war, horror, dreams and youth! And all of it sank deep inside me… and only later did it wake. The forties, fateful, lead and gun smoke… War wanders through the land. And we are all so young!
We present this work in honor of the 185th anniversary of the poet’s death.
José María Heredia y Heredia Cuban 1803 – 1839
Lord of the winds! I feel thee nigh; I know thy breath in the burning sky! And I wait with a thrill in every vein, For the coming of the hurricane! And lo! On the wings of the heavy gales, Through the boundless arch of heaven he sails; Silent and slow and terribly strong, The mighty shadow is borne along, Like the dark eternity to come; While the world below, dismayed and dumb, Through the calm of the thick hot atmosphere Looks up at its gloomy folds with fear.
They darken fast—, and the golden blaze Of the sun is quenched in the lurid haze, And he sends through the shade a funeral ray, A glare that is neither night nor day, A beam that touches, with hues of death, The clouds above and the earth beneath. To its covert glides the silent bird, While the hurricane’s distant voice is heard Uplifted among the mountains round, And the forests hear and answer the sound.
He is come! he is come! do ye not behold His ample robes on the wind unrolled? Giant of air! We bid thee hail. How his gray skirts toss in the whirling gale; How his huge and writhing arms are bent To clasp the zone of firmament, And fold, at length, in their dark embrace From mountain to mountain the visible space.
Darker—still darker! The whirlwinds bear The dust of the plains to the middle air; And hark to the crashing, long and loud, Of the chariot of God in the thunder cloud! You may trace its path by the flashes that start From the rapid wheels where’er they dart. And the fire-bolts leap to the world below, And flood the skies with a lurid glow.
What roar is that? ’tis the rain that breaks In torrents away from the airy lakes, Heavily poured on the shuddering ground, And shedding a nameless horror around. Ah! Well known woods and mountains and skies, With the very clouds! Ye are lost to my eyes. I seek you vainly and see in your place The shadowy tempest that sweeps through space, A whirling ocean that fills the wall Of the crystal heavens, and buries all. And I, cut off from the world, remain Alone with the terrible hurricane.
We present this work in honor of National Nurses’ Day.
Sydney Dobell English 1824 – 1874
How must the soldier’s tearful heart expand, Who from a long and obscure dream of pain,— His foemen’s frown imprinted in his brain,— Wakes to thy healing face and dewy hand! When this great noise has rolled from off the land, When all those fallen Englishmen of ours Have bloomed and faded in Crimean flowers, Thy perfect charity unsoiled shall stand. Some pitying student of a nobler age, Lingering o’er this year’s half-forgotten page, Shall see its beauty smiling ever there! Surprised to tears his beating heart he stills, Like one who finds among Athenian hills A temple like a lily white and fair.
In honor of El Cinco de Mayo, we present this work by a master Mexican poet and statesman.
Juan de Dios Peza Mexican 1852 – 1910
I have a sovereign at home, the only one whom my soul venerates; His gray hair is his crown, honor is his law and virtue is his guide.
In slow hours of misery and mourning, full of firm and manly constancy, keep the faith with which he spoke to me about heaven in the first hours of my childhood.
The bitter ban and sadness They opened an incurable wound in his soul; He is an old man, and he carries in his head the dust of the path of life.
See the fierce storms of the world, of luck the unfortunate hours, and passes, like Christ the Tiberias, standing on the curled waves.
Dry their tears, silence their pains, and only on duty his eyes fixed, collects thorns and spreads flowers on the path he laid out for his children.
He told me: “To him who is good, bitterness He never wets his cheeks with tears: in the world the flower of fortune At the slightest breath it falls off.
“Do good without fear of sacrifice, The man must fight serene and strong, and find who hates evil and vice a bed of roses in death.
“If you are poor, be content and be good; If you are rich, protect the unfortunate, and the same in your home as in someone else’s Save your honor to live honestly.
“Love freedom, free is man and its most severe judge is conscience; as much as your honor guards your name, for my name and my honor form your inheritance.”
This august code, in my soul could Since I heard it, it has been recorded; In all the storms he was my shield, He has saved me from all the storms.
My father has in his serene gaze faithful reflection of your honest conscience; so much loving and good advice I surprise you in the brilliance of your gaze!
The nobility of the soul is its nobility; the glory of duty forms his glory; He is poor, but he contains his poverty the biggest page in its history.
Being the worship of my soul your affection, As luck would have it, by honoring his name, was the love that inspired me as a child the most sacred inspiration of man.
May heaven grant that the song that inspires me His eyes always see him with love, and of all the verses of my lyre These are the ones worthy of his name.
Poets Corner 