یکشنبه ۰۸ مهر ۰۳ | ۲۱:۱۷ ۱۲ بازديد
by Walt Whitman
When I heard the learn'd astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide,
and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with
much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.
* * *
O Captain! My Captain!
by Walt Whitman
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, The ship has weather'd every rack,
the prize we sought is won, The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up- for you the flag is flung- for
you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths- for you the shores
a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck,
You've fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
by Mark Twain
It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in
every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy
pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and sputtering; on every hand and far down the
receding and fading spreads of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the
sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new
uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices
choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened,
panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts and which they
interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the
while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country and invoked the God of
Battles, beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpouring of fervid eloquence which moved
every listener.
It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to
disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and
angry warning that for their personal safety's sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended
no more in that way.
Sunday morning came - next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled;
the volunteers were there, their faces alight with material dreams - visions of a stern advance, the
gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the
enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! - then home from the war, bronzed heros,
welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones,
proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth
to the field of honor, there to win for the flag or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The
service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it
was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose,
with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation -- "God the all-
terrible! Thou who ordainest, Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!"
Then came the "long" prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and
moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was that an ever-merciful and
benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers and aid, comfort, and
encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in His mighty hand, make them
strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and
to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory --
An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes
fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his
white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale
even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without
pausing, he ascended to the preacher's side and stood there, waiting.
With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued his moving prayer, and at
last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal,"Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O
Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!"
The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside - which the startled minister did - and
took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes in
which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said
"I come from the Throne - bearing a message from Almighty God!" The words smote the
house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. "He has heard the prayer of
His servant your shepherd and grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall
have explained to you its import - that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the
prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of - except he pause and
think.
"God's servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one
prayer? No, it is two - one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of His Who heareth
all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this - keep it in mind. If you beseech a
same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are
possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor's crop which may not need rain and can be
injured by it.
"You have heard your servant's prayer - the uttered part of it. I am commissioned by God to put
into words the other part of it - that part which the pastor, and also you in your hearts, fervently
prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these
words: 'Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!' That is sufficient. The whole of the uttered prayer
is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed
for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory - must follow it,
cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God the Father fell also the unspoken part of
the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words.
Listen!
"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle –
be Thou near them! With them, in spirit, we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved
firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God,
help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells;
help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead;
help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain;
help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire;
help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief;
help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their
desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds
of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and
denied it -
for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord,
blast their hopes,
blight their lives,
protract their bitter pilgrimage,
make heavy their steps,
water their way with their tears,
stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet!
We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is ever - faithful
refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts.
Amen."
(After a pause)
"Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits."
It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.
by A. B. "Banjo" Patterson
I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better
Knowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlan, years ago,
He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him,
Just on spec, addressed as follows, "Clancy, of The Overflow"
And an answer came directed in a writing unexpected,
(And I think the same was written with a thumb-nail dipped in tar)
Twas his shearing mate who wrote it, and verbatim I will quote it:
"Clancy's gone to Queensland droving, and we don't know where he are."
* * * * * * * * *
In my wild erratic fancy visions come to me of Clancy
Gone a-droving "down the Cooper" where the Western drovers go;
As the stock are slowly stringing, Clancy rides behind them singing,
For the drover's life has pleasures that the townsfolk never know.
And the bush hath friends to meet him, and their kindly voices greet him
In the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars,
And he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended,
And at night the wond'rous glory of the everlasting stars.
* * * * * * * * *
I am sitting in my dingy little office, where a stingy
Ray of sunlight struggles feebly down between the houses tall,
And the foetid air and gritty of the dusty, dirty city
Through the open window floating, spreads its foulness over all
And in place of lowing cattle, I can hear the fiendish rattle
Of the tramways and the buses making hurry down the street,
And the language uninviting of the gutter children fighting,
Comes fitfully and faintly through the ceaseless tramp of feet.
And the hurrying people daunt me, and their pallid faces haunt me
As they shoulder one another in their rush and nervous haste,
With their eager eyes and greedy, and their stunted forms and weedy,
For townsfolk have no time to grow, they have no time to waste.
And I somehow rather fancy that I'd like to change with Clancy,
Like to take a turn at droving where the seasons come and go,
While he faced the round eternal of the cash-book and the journal --
But I doubt he'd suit the office, Clancy, of The Overflow.
by A. B. "Banjo" Paterson
Now the stock have started dying, for the Lord has sent a drought;
But we're sick of prayers and Providence -- we're going to do without;
With the derricks up above us and the solid earth below,
We are waiting at the lever for the word to let her go.
Sinking down, deeper down,
Oh, we'll sink it deeper down:
As the drill is plugging downward at a thousand feet of level,
If the Lord won't send us water, oh, we'll get it from the devil;
Yes, we'll get it from the devil deeper down.
Now, our engine's built in Glasgow by a very canny Scot,
And he marked it twenty horse-power, but he don't know what is what:
When Canadian Bill is firing with the sun-dried gidgee logs,
She can equal thirty horses and a score or so of dogs.
Sinking down, deeper down,
Oh, we're going deeper down:
If we fail to get the water, then it's ruin to the squatter,
For the drought is on the station and the weather's growing hotter,
But we're bound to get the water deeper down.
But the shaft has started caving and the sinking's very slow,
And the yellow rods are bending in the water down below,
And the tubes are always jamming, and they can't be made to shift
Till we nearly burst the engine with a forty horse-power lift.
Sinking down, deeper down,
Oh, we're going deeper down:
Though the shaft is always caving, and the tubes are always jamming,
Yet we'll fight our way to water while the stubborn drill is ramming --
While the stubborn drill is ramming deeper down.
But there's no artesian water, though we've passed three thousand feet,
And the contract price is growing, and the boss is nearly beat.
But it must be down beneath us, and it's down we've got to go,
Though she's bumping on the solid rock four thousand feet below.
Sinking down, deeper down,
Oh, we're going deeper down:
And it's time they heard us knocking on the roof of Satan's dwellin';
But we'll get artesian water if we cave the roof of hell in --
Oh! we'll get artesian water deeper down.
But it's hark! the whistle's blowing with a wild, exultant blast,
And the boys are madly cheering, for they've struck the flow at last;
And it's rushing up the tubing from four thousand feet below,
Till it spouts above the casing in a million-gallon flow.
And it's down, deeper down --
Oh, it comes from deeper down;
It is flowing, ever flowing, in a free, unstinted measure
From the silent hidden places where the old earth hides her treasure --
Where the old earth hides her treasures deeper down.
And it's clear away the timber, and it's let the water run:
How it glimmers in the shadow, how it flashes in the sun!
By the silent bells of timber, by the miles of blazing plain
It is bringing hope and comfort to the thirsty land again.
Flowing down, further down;
It is flowing deeper down
To the tortured thirsty cattle, bringing gladness in its going;
Through the droughty days of summer it is flowing, ever flowing --
It is flowing, ever flowing, further down.
by Robert Frost
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
"Fire and Ice"
by Robert Frost
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favour fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
into different clans and tribes,
and belong to countries and towns.
But I find myself a stranger
to all communites
and belong to no settlement.
The universe is my country
and the human family
is my tribe.
-- from _A_Tear_&_A_Smile_
by Kahlil Gibran
by Gwendolyn Brooks
The Pool Players
Seven at the Golden Shovel
We real cool. We
Left School. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon.
The Bean Eaters
by Gwendolyn Brooks
They eat beans mostly, this old yellow pair,
Dinner is a casual
by Walt Whitman
When I heard the learn'd astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide,
and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with
much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.
* * *
O Captain! My Captain!
by Walt Whitman
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, The ship has weather'd every rack,
the prize we sought is won, The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up- for you the flag is flung- for
you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths- for you the shores
a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck,
You've fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
by Mark Twain
It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in
every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy
pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and sputtering; on every hand and far down the
receding and fading spreads of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the
sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new
uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices
choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened,
panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts and which they
interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the
while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country and invoked the God of
Battles, beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpouring of fervid eloquence which moved
every listener.
It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to
disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and
angry warning that for their personal safety's sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended
no more in that way.
Sunday morning came - next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled;
the volunteers were there, their faces alight with material dreams - visions of a stern advance, the
gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the
enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! - then home from the war, bronzed heros,
welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones,
proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth
to the field of honor, there to win for the flag or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The
service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it
was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose,
with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation -- "God the all-
terrible! Thou who ordainest, Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!"
Then came the "long" prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and
moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was that an ever-merciful and
benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers and aid, comfort, and
encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in His mighty hand, make them
strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and
to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory --
An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes
fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his
white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale
even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without
pausing, he ascended to the preacher's side and stood there, waiting.
With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued his moving prayer, and at
last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal,"Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O
Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!"
The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside - which the startled minister did - and
took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes in
which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said
"I come from the Throne - bearing a message from Almighty God!" The words smote the
house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. "He has heard the prayer of
His servant your shepherd and grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall
have explained to you its import - that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the
prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of - except he pause and
think.
"God's servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one
prayer? No, it is two - one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of His Who heareth
all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this - keep it in mind. If you beseech a
same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are
possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor's crop which may not need rain and can be
injured by it.
"You have heard your servant's prayer - the uttered part of it. I am commissioned by God to put
into words the other part of it - that part which the pastor, and also you in your hearts, fervently
prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these
words: 'Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!' That is sufficient. The whole of the uttered prayer
is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed
for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory - must follow it,
cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God the Father fell also the unspoken part of
the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words.
Listen!
"O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle –
be Thou near them! With them, in spirit, we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved
firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God,
help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells;
help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead;
help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain;
help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire;
help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief;
help us to turn them out roofless with their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their
desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds
of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and
denied it -
for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord,
blast their hopes,
blight their lives,
protract their bitter pilgrimage,
make heavy their steps,
water their way with their tears,
stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet!
We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is ever - faithful
refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts.
Amen."
(After a pause)
"Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits."
It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.
by A. B. "Banjo" Patterson
I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better
Knowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlan, years ago,
He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him,
Just on spec, addressed as follows, "Clancy, of The Overflow"
And an answer came directed in a writing unexpected,
(And I think the same was written with a thumb-nail dipped in tar)
Twas his shearing mate who wrote it, and verbatim I will quote it:
"Clancy's gone to Queensland droving, and we don't know where he are."
* * * * * * * * *
In my wild erratic fancy visions come to me of Clancy
Gone a-droving "down the Cooper" where the Western drovers go;
As the stock are slowly stringing, Clancy rides behind them singing,
For the drover's life has pleasures that the townsfolk never know.
And the bush hath friends to meet him, and their kindly voices greet him
In the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars,
And he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended,
And at night the wond'rous glory of the everlasting stars.
* * * * * * * * *
I am sitting in my dingy little office, where a stingy
Ray of sunlight struggles feebly down between the houses tall,
And the foetid air and gritty of the dusty, dirty city
Through the open window floating, spreads its foulness over all
And in place of lowing cattle, I can hear the fiendish rattle
Of the tramways and the buses making hurry down the street,
And the language uninviting of the gutter children fighting,
Comes fitfully and faintly through the ceaseless tramp of feet.
And the hurrying people daunt me, and their pallid faces haunt me
As they shoulder one another in their rush and nervous haste,
With their eager eyes and greedy, and their stunted forms and weedy,
For townsfolk have no time to grow, they have no time to waste.
And I somehow rather fancy that I'd like to change with Clancy,
Like to take a turn at droving where the seasons come and go,
While he faced the round eternal of the cash-book and the journal --
But I doubt he'd suit the office, Clancy, of The Overflow.
by A. B. "Banjo" Paterson
Now the stock have started dying, for the Lord has sent a drought;
But we're sick of prayers and Providence -- we're going to do without;
With the derricks up above us and the solid earth below,
We are waiting at the lever for the word to let her go.
Sinking down, deeper down,
Oh, we'll sink it deeper down:
As the drill is plugging downward at a thousand feet of level,
If the Lord won't send us water, oh, we'll get it from the devil;
Yes, we'll get it from the devil deeper down.
Now, our engine's built in Glasgow by a very canny Scot,
And he marked it twenty horse-power, but he don't know what is what:
When Canadian Bill is firing with the sun-dried gidgee logs,
She can equal thirty horses and a score or so of dogs.
Sinking down, deeper down,
Oh, we're going deeper down:
If we fail to get the water, then it's ruin to the squatter,
For the drought is on the station and the weather's growing hotter,
But we're bound to get the water deeper down.
But the shaft has started caving and the sinking's very slow,
And the yellow rods are bending in the water down below,
And the tubes are always jamming, and they can't be made to shift
Till we nearly burst the engine with a forty horse-power lift.
Sinking down, deeper down,
Oh, we're going deeper down:
Though the shaft is always caving, and the tubes are always jamming,
Yet we'll fight our way to water while the stubborn drill is ramming --
While the stubborn drill is ramming deeper down.
But there's no artesian water, though we've passed three thousand feet,
And the contract price is growing, and the boss is nearly beat.
But it must be down beneath us, and it's down we've got to go,
Though she's bumping on the solid rock four thousand feet below.
Sinking down, deeper down,
Oh, we're going deeper down:
And it's time they heard us knocking on the roof of Satan's dwellin';
But we'll get artesian water if we cave the roof of hell in --
Oh! we'll get artesian water deeper down.
But it's hark! the whistle's blowing with a wild, exultant blast,
And the boys are madly cheering, for they've struck the flow at last;
And it's rushing up the tubing from four thousand feet below,
Till it spouts above the casing in a million-gallon flow.
And it's down, deeper down --
Oh, it comes from deeper down;
It is flowing, ever flowing, in a free, unstinted measure
From the silent hidden places where the old earth hides her treasure --
Where the old earth hides her treasures deeper down.
And it's clear away the timber, and it's let the water run:
How it glimmers in the shadow, how it flashes in the sun!
By the silent bells of timber, by the miles of blazing plain
It is bringing hope and comfort to the thirsty land again.
Flowing down, further down;
It is flowing deeper down
To the tortured thirsty cattle, bringing gladness in its going;
Through the droughty days of summer it is flowing, ever flowing --
It is flowing, ever flowing, further down.
by Robert Frost
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
"Fire and Ice"
by Robert Frost
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favour fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
into different clans and tribes,
and belong to countries and towns.
But I find myself a stranger
to all communites
and belong to no settlement.
The universe is my country
and the human family
is my tribe.
-- from _A_Tear_&_A_Smile_
by Kahlil Gibran
by Gwendolyn Brooks
The Pool Players
Seven at the Golden Shovel
We real cool. We
Left School. We
Lurk late. We
Strike straight. We
Sing sin. We
Thin gin. We
Jazz June. We
Die soon.
The Bean Eaters
by Gwendolyn Brooks
They eat beans mostly, this old yellow pair,
Dinner is a casual affair.
Plain chipware on a plain and creaking wood,
Tin flatware.
Two who are Mostly Good.
Two who have lived their day,
But keep on putting on their clothes
And putting things away.
And remembering...
Remembering, with twinklings and twinges,
As they lean over the beans in their rented back room
that is full of beads and receipts and dolls and
cloths, tobacco crumbs, vases and fringes.
Plain chipware on a plain and creaking wood,
Tin flatware.
Two who are Mostly Good.
Two who have lived their day,
But keep on putting on their clothes
And putting things away.
And remembering...
Remembering, with twinklings and twinges,
As they lean over the beans in their rented back room
that is full of beads and receipts and dolls and
cloths, tobacco crumbs, vases and fringes.
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