classic poetry

The Burden

POSTED IN classic poetry November 29, 2013

The Art of Poetry

POSTED IN classic poetry November 14, 2013

The Art of Poetry

To gaze at a river made of time and water
And remember Time is another river.
To know we stray like a river
and our faces vanish like water.
To feel that waking is another dream
that dreams of not dreaming and that the death
we fear in our bones is the death
that every night we call a dream.
To see in every day and year a symbol
of all the days of man and his years,
and convert the outrage of the years
into a music, a sound, and a symbol.
To see in death a dream, in the sunset
a golden sadness–such is poetry,
humble and immortal, poetry,
returning, like dawn and the sunset.
Sometimes at evening there’s a face
that sees us from the deeps of a mirror.
Art must be that sort of mirror,
disclosing to each of us his face.
They say Ulysses, wearied of wonders,
wept with love on seeing Ithaca,
humble and green. Art is that Ithaca,
a green eternity, not wonders.
Art is endless like a river flowing,
passing, yet remaining, a mirror to the same
inconstant Heraclitus, who is the same
and yet another, like the river flowing.

 

 

 

Jorge Luis Borges

Canzone a ballo

POSTED IN classic poetry October 15, 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Canzone a ballo

Chi non è innamorato
esca di questo ballo,
che saria fallo a stare in sì bel lato.
   Se alcuno è qui che non conosca amore,
parta di questo loco;
perch’ esser non potria mai gentil core
chi non sente quel foco;
se alcun ne sente poco,
sì le sue fiamme accenda
che ognun lo intenda, e non sarà scacciato.
   Amore in mezzo a questo ballo stia,
e chi gli è servo intorno.
E se alcuno ha sospetto o gelosia,
non faccia qui soggiorno;
se non, farebbe storno.
Ognun ci s’ innamori,
o esca fuor del loco tanto ornato.
   Se alcuna per vergogna si ritiene
di non s’ innamorare,
vergognerassi, s’ ella pensa bene
108 più tosto a non lo fare;
non è vergogna amara
chi di servire agogna;
saria vergogna a chi gli fusse ingrato.
   Se alcuna ce ne fussi tanto vile,
che lassi per paura;
pensi bene, che un core alto e gentile
queste cose non cura:
non ha dato natura
tanta bellezza a voi
acciò che poi sia il tempo mal usato.

 

 

 

 

 

Lorenzo de Medicis

Why?

POSTED IN classic poetry October 15, 2013

 

Why?

Why may I not go down to the grave with thee?

Would that my fire might warm this frigid ice,

And turn with tears, this dust to living flesh,

And give to thee anew the joy of life!

Then would I boldly, ardently confront

The man who snapped our dearest bond, and cry

“O cruel monster!  See what love can do!”

 

 

 

 

 

Barbara Torelli

Forget Not Yet

POSTED IN classic poetry October 12, 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Forget Not Yet

Forget not yet the tried intent
Of such a truth as I have meant
My great travail so gladly spent
Forget not yet.

Forget not yet when first began
The weary life ye knew, since when
The suit, the service, none tell can,
Forget not yet.

Forget not yet the great assays,
The cruel wrongs, the scornful ways,
The painful patience in denays
Forget not yet.

Forget not yet, forget not this,
How long ago hath been, and is,
The mind that never means amiss;
Forget not yet.

Forget not yet thine own approved,
The which so long hath thee so loved,
Whose steadfast faith yet never moved,
Forget not this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sir Thomas Wyatt

A son livre

POSTED IN classic poetry October 12, 2013

 

 

A son livre

Mon livre (et je ne suis sur ton aise envieux),
Tu t’en iras sans moi voir la Cour de mon Prince.
Hé, chétif que je suis, combien en gré je prinsse
Qu’un heur pareil au tien fût permis à mes yeux ?

Là si quelqu’un vers toi se montre gracieux,
Souhaite-lui qu’il vive heureux en sa province :
Mais si quelque malin obliquement te pince,
Souhaite-lui tes pleurs et mon mal ennuyeux.

Souhaite-lui encor qu’il fasse un long voyage,
Et bien qu’il ait de vue éloigné son ménage,
Que son coeur, où qu’il voise, y soit toujours présent :

Souhaite qu’il vieillisse en longue servitude,
Qu’il n’éprouve à la fin que toute ingratitude,
Et qu’on mange son bien pendant qu’il est absent.

 

 

 

 

 

Joachim du Bellay

The Art of Poetry

POSTED IN classic poetry September 29, 2013

Good Bye

POSTED IN classic poetry September 5, 2013

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Good-bye

Good-bye, proud world! I’m going home:

Thou art not my friend, and I’m not thine.

Long through thy weary crowds I roam;

A river-ark on the ocean brine,

Long I’ve been tossed like the driven foam;

But now, proud world! I’m going home.

 

Good-bye to Flattery’s fawning face;

To Grandeur with his wise grimace;

To upstart Wealth’s averted eye;

To supple Office, low and high;

To crowded halls, to court and street;

To frozen hearts and hasting feet;

To those who go, and those who come;

Good-bye, proud world! I’m going home.

 

I am going to my own hearth-stone,

Bosomed in yon green hills alone, —

A secret nook in a pleasant land,

Whose groves the frolic fairies planned;

Where arches green, the livelong day,

Echo the blackbird’s roundelay,

And vulgar feet have never trod

A spot that is sacred to thought and God.

 

O, when I am safe in my sylvan home,

I tread on the pride of Greece and Rome;

And when I am stretched beneath the pines,

Where the evening star so holy shines,

I laugh at the lore and the pride of man,

At the sophist schools, and the learned clan;

For what are they all, in their high conceit,

When man in the bush with God may meet?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ralph Waldo Emerson