Bee

LET Observation with extensive View, Survey Mankind, from China to Peru; Remark each anxious Toil, each eager Strife, And watch the busy Scenes of crowded Life; Then say how Hope and Fear, Desire and Hate, O'erspread with Snares the clouded Maze of Fate, Where wav'ring Man, betray'd by vent'rous Pride, To tread the dreary Paths without a Guide; As treach'rous Phantoms in the Mist delude, Shuns fancied Ills, or chases airy Good. How rarely Reason guides the stubborn Choice, Rules the bold Hand, or prompts the suppliant Voice, How Nations sink, by darling Schemes oppress'd, When Vengeance listens to the Fool's Request. Fate wings with ev'ry Wish th'afflictive Dart, Each Gift of Nature, and each Grace of Art, With fatal Heat impetuous Courage glows, With fatal Sweetness Elocution flows, Impeachment stops the Speaker's pow'rful Breath, And restless Fire precipitates on Death. But scarce observ'd the knowing and the Bold, Fall in the gen...

n acquaintance of mine once told me the following story. When I was a student at Moscow I happened to live alongside one of those ladies whose repute is questionable. She was a Pole, and they called her Teresa. She was a tallish, powerfully-built brunette, with black, bushy eyebrows and a large coarse face as if carved out by a hatchet--the bestial gleam of her dark eyes, her thick bass voice, her cabman-like gait and her immense muscular vigour, worthy of a fishwife, inspired me with horror. I lived on the top flight and her garret was opposite to mine. I never left my door open when I knew her to be at home. But this, after all, was a very rare occurrence. Sometimes I chanced to meet her on the staircase or in the yard, and she would smile upon me with a smile which seemed to me to be sly and cynical. Occasionally, I saw her drunk, with bleary eyes, tousled hair, and a particularly hideous grin. On such occasions she would speak to me. "How d'ye do, Mr. Student!" and he...

Pay heed to the grievances of the reed Of what divisive separations breed From the reedbed cut away just like a weed My music people curse, warn and heed Sliced to pieces my bosom and heart bleed While I tell this tale of desire and need. Whoever who fell away from the source Will seek and toil until returned to course Of grievances I sang to every crowd Befriended both the humble and the proud Each formed conjecture in their own mind As though to my secrets they were blind My secrets are buried within my grief Yet to the eye and ear, that’s no relief Body and soul both unveiled in trust Yet sight of soul for body is not a must. The flowing air in this reed is fire Extinct, if with passion won’t inspire Fire of love is set upon the reed Passion of love this wine will gladly feed Reed is match for he who love denied Our secrets unveiled, betrayed, defied. Who has borne deadly opium like the reed? Or lovingly to betterment guide and lead? Of the bloody path, will tell many a tale Of Love...

Some things that fly there be, -- Birds, hours, the bumble-bee: Of these no elegy. Some things that stay there be, -- Grief, hills, eternity: Nor this behooveth me. There are, that resting, rise. Can I expound the skies? How still the riddle lies! Emily Dickinson

I’ll put up a boat And I set it free off the shore I’ll let it take me away from this eerie land, where nobody calls up the sleeping heroes from the midst of their long, lonely trance. I’ll put up a boat, and I set it free off the shore; a boat with no net, with no seine, and with my heart cleansed of wish for pearl. I’ll sail away on the tides I’ll sing all along the ride. Neither the blues of the deeps, Nor the mermaids, natives of the seas will captivate me from my solitary glide I’ll move on with pride. I’ll sail away on the tides, I’ll sing all along the ride: “I’ll leave this eerie land behind; its men failed to recall the tales of their legends, its women were not as luscious as clusters of grape, its mirrors evaded from celebration of the shapes. I did not see a torch, I did not see a loch.” I shall sail away, I am tired of the reign of opaque panes Now it’s time for the verse of the glass. I’ll sail away on the tides I’ll sing all along the ride: “Beyond the seas, There is ano...

I want you to know one thing. You know how this is: if I look at the crystal moon, at the red branch of the slow autumn at my window, if I touch near the fire the impalpable ash or the wrinkled body of the log, everything carries me to you, as if everything that exists, aromas, light, metals, were little boats that sail toward those isles of yours that wait for me. Well, now, if little by little you stop loving me I shall stop loving you little by little. If suddenly you forget me do not look for me, for I shall already have forgotten you. If you think it long and mad, the wind of banners that passes through my life, and you decide to leave me at the shore of the heart where I have roots, remember that on that day, at that hour, I shall lift my arms and my roots will set off to seek another land. But if each day, each hour, you feel that you are destined for me with implacable sweetness, if each day a flower climbs up to your lips to seek me, ah my love, ah my own, in me all that fire ...

THROUGH Alpine meadows soft-suffused With rain, where thick the crocus blows, Past the dark forges long disused, The mule-track from Saint Laurent goes. The bridge is cross’d, and slow we ride, Through forest, up the mountain-side. The autumnal evening darkens round, The wind is up, and drives the rain; While hark! far down, with strangled sound Doth the Dead Guiers’ stream complain, Where that wet smoke among the woods Over his boiling cauldron broods. Swift rush the spectral vapours white Past limestone scars with ragged pines, Showing—then blotting from our sight. Halt! through the cloud-drift something shines! High in the valley, wet and drear, The huts of Courrerie appear. Strike leftward! cries our guide; and higher Mounts up the stony forest-way. At last the encircling trees retire; Look! through the showery twilight grey What pointed roofs are these advance? A palace of the Kings of France? Approach, for what we seek is here. Alight and sparely sup and wait For rest in this out...