Bee

A thing of beauty is a joy forever. Its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness ... ―John Keats Bread and Music by  by  Wallace Stevens She hears, upon that water without sound, A voice that cries, "The tomb in Palestine Is not the porch of spirits lingering. It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay." We live in an old chaos of the sun, Or old despondency of day and night, Or island solitude, unsponsored, free, Of that wide water, inescapable. Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quail Whistle about us their spontaneous cries; Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness; And, in the isolation of the sky, At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make Ambiguous undulations as they sink, Downward to darkness, on extended wings. Song for the Last Act by  Louise Bogan Now that I have your face by heart, I look Less at its features than its darkening frame Where quince and melon, yellow as young flame, Lie with quilled dahlias and the shepher...

  Once out on the lake and Dubuque A girl took a sale with a duque     He remarked, "I am sure     You are honest and pure'- And then leaned far over to puque. There was a young lady of Florence Who for kissing professed great abhorrence;     But when she'd been kissed     And found what she'd missed, She cried till the tears came in torrents. Concerning the bees and the flowers In the fields and the gardens and bowers,     You will note at a glace     That their ways of romance Haven't any resemblance to ours. A reckless young man from Fort Blainy Made love to a spinster named Janie.     When his friends said, 'Oh, dear,     She's so old and so queer,' He replied, 'But the day was  so  rainy!' A publisher once when to France In search of a tale of romance;     A Parisian lady     Told a story so shady That the publisher made an advance. There was a you...

Rain by Tu Fu  Roads not yet glistening, rain slight, Broken clouds darken after thinning away. Where they drift, purple cliffs blacken. And beyond -- white birds blaze in flight. Sounds of cold-river rain grown familiar, Autumn sun casts moist shadows. Below Our brushwood gate, out to dry at the village Mill: hulled rice, half-wet and fragrant

____________________ Why was Cupid a boy, And why a boy was he? He should have been a girl, For aught that I can see. For he shoots with his bow, And the girl shoots with her eye, And they both are merry and glad, And laugh when we do cry. And to make Cupid a boy Was the Cupid girl's mocking plan; For a boy can't interpret the thing Till he is become a man. And then he's so pierc'd with cares, And wounded with arrowy smarts, That the whole business of his life Is to pick out the heads of the darts. 'Twas the Greeks' love of war Turn'd Love into a boy, And woman into a statue of stone-- And away fled every joy. ----------William Blake