We present this work in honor of Colombian Independence Day.
Jorge Gaitán Durán Colombian 1924 – 1962
Death could not beat me. I battled and lived. The restless body against the soul, to the white flight of the day.
In the ruins of Troy I wrote: “Everything is death or love” and since then I had no rest. I said in Rome:
“There are no gods, just time” and since then I had no redemption. I silenced myself in Spain, since the voice of rage defied forgetfulness with my marrow, my humors, my blood; and since then the fire has not stopped.
May the foreign land serve as a resting place for the hero. May fresh grass sing like a bee of the dust by his eyelids. I do not surrender: I want to live in war every day, as if it were the last one.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 130th birthday.
Vladimir Mayakovsky Russian 1893 – 1930
The moon is emerging. It going to be here soon. Now, it hangs in the air, full and stark. That is probably God, with a divine silver spoon, groping in the fish-soup of stars.
Not so much silence as voices, hushed. Not so much voices as emptied sound. Not so much sound as pulsing in dark. Not so much pulsing as stillness, alive. Not so much dark as starlight, waiting.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 100th birthday.
Anilda Leão Brazilian 1923 – 2012
I try to hear in the voice of the wind the lost echo of my childhood. And in the light-hearted laughter of little children I glimpse my former cheerfulness.
I seek in the deserted and silent streets, the joyful song of dance music and my forays of times past. Within that paved avenue,
where luxury cars roll by, I search for my ugly and poor little street. I try to see in the dolls today, so beautiful, with silky braids,
the small rag doll I rocked in my arms. I try to find in the face of first communicants traces of my innocence and of that first emotion that remained in time.
Desperate, I try to discover, in the face of innocent children my lost purity.
I search in vain, for I will never find vestiges of my happy childhood, that the years have concealed in its abyss.
We present this work in honor of the poet’s 280th birthday.
Gavriil Derzhavin Russian 1743 – 1816
I was sleeping on a high hill, nightingale, I heard you calling, my soul itself could hear it, in the very depths of sleep: now sounding, now re-sounding, now sorrowing, now laughing, floating, from the distance, to my ear: while I lay there with Callisto, songs, sighs, cries, and trilling, thrilled me in the very depths of sleep.
If, after death, I lie there in a sleep that’s dull, unending, and, ah, these songs no longer travel to my ear: if I cannot hear the sound then of that happiness or laughter, of dancing, or of glory, or of joy — then it’s life on earth I’ll cling to, kiss my darling one, and kiss her, as I listen to the distant nightingale.
We present this work in honor of The Twelfth (Battle of the Boyne).
Thomas d’Arcy McGee Irish 1825 – 1868
Child of Loch Ramor, gently seaward stealing, In thy placid depths hast thou no feeling Of the stormy gusts of other days? Does thy heart, O gentle, nun-faced river, Passing Schomberg’s obelisk, not quiver, While the shadow on thy bosom weighs?
Thou hast heard the sounds of martial clangor, Seen fraternal forces clash in anger, In thy Sabbath valley, River Boyne! Here have ancient Ulster’s hardy forces Dressed their ranks and fed their travelled horses, Tara’s hosting as they rode to join.
Forgettest thou that silent summer morning When William’s bugles sounded sudden warning And James’s answered chivalrously clear? When rank to rank gave the death-signal duly, And volley answered volley quick and truly, And shouted mandates met the eager ear?
The thrush and linnet fled beyond the mountains, The fish in Inver Colpa sought their fountains, The unchased deer scampered through Tredagh’s gates, St. Mary’s bells in their high places trembled, And made a mournful music which resembled A hopeless prayer to the unpitying Fates.
Ah! well for Ireland had the battle ended When James forsook what William well defended, Crown, friends, and kingly cause; Well, if the peace thy bosom bid recover Had breathed its benediction broadly over Our race and rites and laws.
Not in thy depths, not in thy fount, Loch Ramor! Were brewed the bitter strife and cruel clamor Our wisest long have mourned; Foul faction falsely made thy gentle current To Christian ears a stream and name abhorrent, And all thy waters into poison turned.
But, as of old God’s prophet sweetened Mara, Even so, blue bound of Ulster and of Tara, Thy waters to our exodus gave life; Thrice holy hands thy lineal foes have wedded, And healing olives in thy breast embedded, And banished far the littleness of strife.
Before thee we have made a solemn foedus, And for chief witness called on Him who made us, Quenching before his eyes the brands of hate; Our pact is made, for brotherhood and union, For equal laws to class and to communion, — Our wounds to stanch, our land to liberate.
Our trust is not in musket or in sabre, Our faith is in the fruitfulness of labor, The soul-stirred, willing soil; In homes and granaries by justice guarded, In fields from blighting winds and agents warded, In franchised skill and manumitted toil.
Grant us, O God, the soil and sun and seasons! Avert despair, the worst of moral treasons, Make vaunting words be vile. Grant us, we pray, but wisdom, peace, and patience, And we will yet relift among the nations Our fair and fallen, but unforsaken Isle!
Poets Corner 