| I'm sorry |
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| 10:25pm 26/04/2003 |
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I am out of time for this at the moment. I may get back to it in a few months, or may not.
Thank you for reading. I'm sorry I've flaked out!
--  a_poem_a_day |
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| Po Chü-I: After Collecting the Autumn Taxes |
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| 10:12pm 20/04/2003 |
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After Collecting the Autumn Taxes
Po Chü-I
Translated from the Chinese by Arthur Waley
From these high walls I look at the town below
Where the natives of Pa cluster like a swarm of flies.
How can I govern these people and lead them aright?
I cannot even understand what they say.
But at least I am glad, now that the taxes are in,
To learn that in my province there is no discontent.
I fear its prosperity is not due to me
And was only caused by the year's abundant crops.
The papers I have to deal with are simple and few;
My arbour by the lake is leisurely and still.
In the autumn rain the berries fall from the eaves;
At the evening bell the birds return to the wood.
A broken sunlight quavers over the southern porch
Where I lie on my couch abandoned to idleness. |
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| Sydney Carter, Friday Morning |
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| 08:59am 18/04/2003 |
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Friday Morning
Sydney Carter
It was on a Friday morning
That they took me from the cell,
And I saw they had a carpenter
To crucify as well.
You can blame it on to Pilate
You can blame it on the Jews
You can blame it on the Devil,
It's God I accuse.
It's God they ought to crucify
Instead of you and me.
I said to the carpenter
A-hanging on the tree.
You can blame it on to Adam
You can blame it on to Eve
You can blame it on the Apple,
But that I can't believe.
It was God who made the Devil
And the Woman and the Man,
And there wouldn't be an Apple
If it wasn't in the plan.
It's God they ought to crucify
Instead of you and me.
I said to the carpenter
A-hanging on the tree.
Now Barabbas was a killer
And they let Barabbas go.
But you are being crucified
For nothing that I know.
And your God is in his heaven
And he doesn't do a thing
With a million angels watching,
And they never move a wing.
It's God they ought to crucify
Instead of you and me.
I said to the carpenter
A-hanging on the tree.
To hell with Jehovah
To the carpenter I said,
I wish that a carpenter
Had made the world instead.
Goodbye and good luck to you
And if our ways divide
Remember me tomorrow
The man you hung beside.
It's God they ought to crucify
Instead of you and me.
I said to the carpenter
A-hanging on the tree.
[Ed. note: Sydney Carter is not "Traditional," but he's been called that for a few of his songs, such as "Lord of the Dance." This is from 1981.] |
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| Alan Dugan, Love Song: Thou and I |
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| 10:54pm 17/04/2003 |
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Love Song: Thou and I
Alan Dugan
Nothing is plumb, level or square:
the studs are bowed, the joists
are shaky by nature, no piece fits
any other piece without a gap
or pinch, and bent nails
dance all over the surfacing
like maggots. By Christ
I am no carpenter. I built
the roof for myself, the walls
for myself, and got
hung up in it myself. I
danced with a purple thumb
at this house-warming, drunk
with my prime whiskey: rage.
Oh I spat rage’s nails
into the frame-up of my work:
it held. It settled plumb,
level, solid, square and true
for that great moment. Then
it screamed and went on through,
skewing as wrong the other way.
God damned it. This is hell,
but I planned it, I sawed it,
I nailed it, and I
will live in it until it kills me.
I can nail my left palm
to the left-hand cross-piece but
I can’t do everything myself.
I need a hand to nail the right,
a help, a love, a you, a wife. |
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| Shakespeare, Sonnet VII |
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| 10:49pm 17/04/2003 |
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Sonnet VII
William Shakespeare
Lo, in the orient when the gracious light
Lifts up his burning head, each under eye
Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,
Serving with looks his sacred majesty;
And having climbed the steep-up heavenly hill,
Resembling strong youth in his middle age,
Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,
Attending on his golden pilgrimage;
But when from highmost pitch, with weary car,
Like feeble age, he reeleth from the day,
The eyes, 'fore duteous, now converted are
From his low tract and look another way.
So thou, thyself outgoing in thy noon,
Unlooked on diest, unless thou get a son. |
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| John Keats: On Seeing the Elgin Marbles for the First Time |
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| 06:25am 16/04/2003 |
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On Seeing the Elgin Marbles for the First Time
John Keats
My spirit is too weak; mortality
Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep,
And each imagined pinnacle and steep
Of godlike hardship tells me I must die
Like a sick eagle looking at the sky.
Yet 'tis a gentle luxury to weep,
That I have not the cloudy winds to keep
Fresh for the opening of the morning's eye.
Such dim-conceived glories of the brain
Bring round the heart an indescribable feud;
So do these wonders a most dizzy pain,
That mingles Grecian grandeur with the rude
Wasting of old Time -- with a billowy main,
A sun, a shadow of a magnitude. |
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| Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Epilogue to the Tragedy of Cato |
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| 10:14pm 15/04/2003 |
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Epilogue to the Tragedy of Cato
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
You see in ancient Rome what folly reign'd;
A folly British men would have disdain'd.
Here's none so weak to pity Cato's case,
Who might have liv'd, and had a handsome place;
But rashly vain, and insolently great,
He perish'd by his fault--and not his fate.
Thank Heav'n! our patriots better ends pursue,
With something more than glory in their view.
Poets write morals--priests for martyrs preach--
Neither such fools to practice what they teach.
Though your dear country much you wish to serve,
For bonny Britons 'tis too hard to starve;
Or what's all one, to any generous mind,
From girls, champagne, and gaming, be confin'd;
Portius might well obey his sire's command,
Returning to his small paternal land;
A low estate was ample to support
His private life, far distant from the court!
Far from the crowd of emulating beaux,
Where Martia never wanted birthday clothes.
For you, who live in these more polish'd days,
To spend your money, lo! ten thousand ways;
Dice may run ill, or duns demand their due,
And ways to get (God knows) are very few;
In times so differing, who shall harshly blame
Our modern heroes, not to act the same? |
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| Deor |
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| 01:18am 13/04/2003 |
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Deor
Translated by Bella Millet
Weland for his skill suffered exile,
the strong-willed hero had hardships to bear,
had as his companions pain and sorrow,
winter-cold exile, and endless griefs,
from the time that Nithhad tied him in fetters,
breaking the hamstrings of a better man.
That passed over; and so may this.
Beaduhild grieved less for her brothers' deaths
than she grieved in her heart for her own hard fate,
when it became clear she was carrying a child;
she could not foresee the uncertain future
or tell if her troubles would turn out well.
That passed over; and so may this.
We have heard of the misery that Maethhild felt
who was wife to Geat, how it grew yet deeper
When her sleep was stolen by sorrowful love.
That passed over; and so may this.
Theodoric ruled for thirty years
the Maerings’ stronghold; many knew that.
That passed over; and so may this.
We have heard too of the wolvish temper
Ermanaric had, who mastered the lands
of the Gothic kingdom; he was a cruel lord.
Wrapped in sorrow and sad at heart,
Many an armed man often wanted
Ermanaric's kingdom to come to grief.
That passed over; and so may this.
A man sits restless, bereaved of joys,
feels sick at heart, secretly thinks
that his share of hardships is over-large.
He may then reflect that through this world
God in his wisdom goes on his way;
a gift of grace he gives to many,
assurance of glory, but grief to some.
I will tell you something true of myself:
the Heodenings employed me as poet for a time,
I was dear to my lord, and Deor was my name.
For many years I held a high-ranking post,
acknowledged by my master, but now Heorrenda,
a man skilled in song, is assigned the lands
the protector of fighters gave first to me.
That passed over; and so may this.
[Other translations can be found here and here.] |
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| Traditional, Nottamun Town |
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| 08:35pm 11/04/2003 |
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Nottamun Town
In fair Nottamun Town not a soul would look up
Not a soul would look up, not a soul would look down
Not a soul would look up, not a soul would look down
To show me the way to fair Nottamun Town
I rode a grey horse, that they called a grey mare
Grey mane and grey tail, a green stripe down her back
Grey mane and grey tail, a green stripe down her back
And not a hair on her that wasn't coal black
She stood so still, she threw me to the dirt
She tore my hide and bruised my shirt
From saddle to stirrup I mounted again
And on my ten toes I rode over the plain.
Met the King and the Queen, and a company more
A-riding behind and a-marching before
Come a stark naked drummer a-beating the drum
With his heels in his bosom come a-marching along
They laughed and they smiled, not a soul did look gay
They talked all the while, not a word did they say
I bought me a quart to drive gladness away
And to stifle the dust, for it rained the whole day.
Sat down on a hard, hot cold frozen stone,
Ten thousand stood 'round me, yet I was alone
Took my hat in my hands for to keep my head warm,
Ten thousand got drownded that never was born. |
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| Naomi Shihab Nye, My Father and the Fig Tree |
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| 06:37pm 10/04/2003 |
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My Father and the Fig Tree
Naomi Shihab Nye
For other fruits, my father was indifferent.
He'd point at the cherry trees and say,
"See those? I wish they were figs."
In the evening he sat by my beds
weaving folktales like vivid little scarves.
They always involved a figtree.
Even when it didn't fit, he'd stick it in.
Once Joha was walking down the road and he saw a fig tree.
Or, he tied his camel to a fig tree and went to sleep.
Or, later when they caught and arrested him, his pockets were full of figs.
At age six I ate a dried fig and shrugged.
"That's not what I'm talking about! he said,
"I'm talking about a fig straight from the earth Ñ
gift of Allah! Ñ on a branch so heavy it touches the ground.
I'm talking about picking the largest, fattest,
sweetest fig
in the world and putting it in my mouth."
(Here he'd stop and close his eyes.)
Years passed, we lived in many houses,
none had figtrees.
We had lima beans, zucchini, parsley, beets.
"Plant one!" my mother said.
but my father never did.
He tended garden half-heartedly, forgot to water,
let the okra get too big.
"What a dreamer he is. Look how many things he starts and doesn't finish."
The last time he moved, I got a phone call,
My father, in Arabic, chanting a song
I'd never heard. "What's that?"
He took me out back to the new yard.
There, in the middle of Dallas, Texas,
a tree with the largest, fattest,
sweetest fig in the world.
"It's a fig tree song!" he said,
plucking his fruits like ripe tokens,
emblems, assurance
of a world that was always his own. |
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| Shakespeare, Sonnet VI |
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| 09:27pm 09/04/2003 |
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Sonnet VI
William Shakespeare
Then let not winter's ragged hand deface,
In thee thy summer ere thou be distilled:
Make sweet some vial; treasure thou some place,
With beauty's treasure ere it be self-killed:
That use is not forbidden usury,
Which happies those that pay the willing loan;
That's for thy self to breed another thee,
Or ten times happier be it ten for one,
Ten times thy self were happier than thou art,
If ten of thine ten times refigured thee:
Then what could death do if thou shouldst depart,
Leaving thee living in posterity?
Be not self-willed for thou art much too fair,
To be death's conquest and make worms thine heir. |
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| Oliver Wendell Holmes, Ballad of the Oysterman |
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| 10:41pm 08/04/2003 |
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Ballad of the Oysterman
Oliver Wendell Holmes
It was a tall young oysterman lived by the river-side,
His shop was just upon the bank, his boat was on the tide;
The daughter of a fisherman, that was so straight and slim,
Lived over on the other bank, right opposite to him.
It was the pensive oysterman that saw a lovely maid,
Upon a moonlight evening, a-sitting in the shade;
He saw her wave her handkerchief, as much as if to say,
"I'm wide awake, young oysterman, and all the folks away."
Then up arose the oysterman, and to himself said he,
"I guess I'll leave the skiff at home, for fear that folks should see;
I read it in a story-book, that, for to kiss his dear,
Leander swam the Hellespont,--and I will swim this here."
And he has leaped into the waves, and crossed the shining stream,
And he has clambered up the bank, all in the moonlight gleam;
Oh there were kisses sweet as dew, and words as soft as rain,--
But they have heard her father's step, and in he leaps again!
Out spoke the ancient fisherman,--"Oh, what was that, my daughter?"
"'T was nothing but a pebble, sir, I threw into the water."
"And what is that, pray tell me, love, that paddles off so fast?"
"It's nothing but a porpoise, sir, that's been a-swimming past."
Out spoke the ancient fisherman,--"Now bring me my harpoon!
I'll get into my fishing-boat, and fix that fellow soon."
Down fell the pretty innocent, as falls a snow-white lamb,
Her hair drooped round her pallid cheeks, like seaweed on a clam.
Alas for those two loving ones! she waked not from her swound,
And he was taken with the cramp, and in the waves was drowned;
But Fate has metamorphosed them, in pity of their woe,
And now they keep an oyster-shop for mermaids down below. |
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| Thomas Carew, To My Mistress |
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| 10:21pm 08/04/2003 |
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To My Mistress; I Burning in Love
by Thomas Carew
I burn; and cruel you, in vain
Hope to quench me with disdain;
If from your eyes those sparkles came
That have kindled all this flame,
What boots it me, though now you shroud
Those fierce comets in a cloud?
Since all the flames that I have felt
Could your snow yet never melt;
Nor can your snow, though you should take
Alps into your bosom, slake
The heat of my enamoured heart.
But, with wonder, learn Love's art:
No seas of ice can cool desire,
Equal flames must quench Love's fire.
Then, think not that my heat can die,
Till you burn as well as I. |
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| Song of Songs, Chapter 3 |
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| 10:42pm 05/04/2003 |
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Song of Songs
Chapter 3
King James Translation
3:1 By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.
3:2 I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.
3:3 The watchmen that go about the city found me: to whom I said, Saw ye him whom my soul loveth?
3:4 It was but a little that I passed from them, but I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go, until I had brought him into my mother's house, and into the chamber of her that conceived me.
3:5 I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love, till he please.
3:6 Who is this that cometh out of the wilderness like pillars of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all powders of the merchant?
3:7 Behold his bed, which is Solomon's; threescore valiant men are about it, of the valiant of Israel.
3:8 They all hold swords, being expert in war: every man hath his sword upon his thigh because of fear in the night.
3:9</a> King Solomon made himself a chariot of the wood of Lebanon.
3:10</a> He made the pillars thereof of silver, the bottom thereof of gold, the covering of it of purple, the midst thereof being paved with love, for the daughters of Jerusalem.
3:11</a> Go forth, O ye daughters of Zion, and behold king Solomon with the crown wherewith his mother crowned him in the day of his espousals, and in the day of the gladness of his heart. |
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| Dowland, In Darkness Let Me Dwell |
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| 10:04pm 04/04/2003 |
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In Darkness Let Me Dwell
John Dowland
In darkness let me dwell; the ground shall sorrow be,
The roof despair, to bar all cheerful light from me;
The walls of marble black, that moist'ned still shall weep;
My music, hellish jarring sounds, to banish friendly sleep.
Thus, wedded to my woes, and bedded in my tomb,
O let me dying live, till death doth come, till death doth come.
My dainties grief shall be, and tears my poison'd wine,
My sighs the air, through which my panting heart shall pine:
My robes my mind shall suit exceeding blackest night,
My study shall be tragic thoughts, sad fancy to delight.
Pale ghosts and frightful shades shall my acquaintance be:
O thus, my hapless joy, I haste to thee, I haste to thee. |
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| Alan Dugan, Love Song: I and Thou |
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| 08:48pm 04/04/2003 |
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Love Song: I and Thou
Alan Dugan
Nothing is plumb, level or square:
the studs are bowed, the joists
are shaky by nature, no piece fits
any other piece without a gap
or pinch, and bent nails
dance all over the surfacing
like maggots. By Christ
I am no carpenter. I built
the roof for myself, the walls
for myself, the floors
for myself, and got
hung up in it myself. I
danced with a purple thumb
at this house-warming, drunk
with my prime whiskey: rage.
Oh I spat rage's nails
into the frame-up of my work:
It held. It settled plumb.
level, solid, square and true
for that one great moment. Then
it screamed and went on through,
skewing as wrong the other way.
God damned it. This is hell,
but I planned it I sawed it
I nailed it and I
will live in it until it kills me.
I can nail my left palm
to the left-hand cross-piece but
I can't do everything myself.
I need a hand to nail the right,
a help, a love, a you, a wife. |
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| Shakespeare, Sonnet V |
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| 09:51pm 02/04/2003 |
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Sonnet V
William Shakespeare
Those hours that with gentle work did frame
The lovely gaze where every eye doth dwell
Will play the tyrants to the very same,
And that unfair which fairly doth excel:
For never-resting time leads summer on
To hideous winter and confounds him there,
Sap checked with frost and lusty leaves quite gone,
Beauty o'er-snowed and bareness every where:
Then were not summer's distillation left
A liquid prisoner pent in walls of glass,
Beauty's effect with beauty were bereft,
Nor it nor no remembrance what it was.
But flowers distilled though they with winter meet,
Leese but their show, their substance still lives sweet. |
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